The closer we got, the quicker I went. Until I was full-on sprinting, the others lagging behind, trying to catch up.

And then, I reached the room. And laid eyes on the queen, Benezia standing there in front of her, but I paid her no mind at first, just as she did me.

Humming low, I matched the song, the rachni queen turning to look at me. Her song shifted, becoming urgent. She was in danger.

The others reached me just as Benezia began speaking. It was a struggle to tear myself away from the queen and focus on the asari.

"You do not know the privilege of being a mother. There is power in creation. To shape a life. Turn it toward happiness or despair." She pressed a hand on the glass encasing the queen. "Her children were to be ours. Raised to hunt and slay Saren's enemies."

She moved away, coming toward us until she reached the stairs, stopping. Her eyes flicked to Liara.

"I won't be moved by sympathy. No matter who you bring into this confrontation."

"Yeah, because I convinced her to go against you." I said sarcastically, venom slipping into my words. "She's here because she wants to be."

"Indeed?" Her head tilted. "What have you told her about me, Liara?"

My friend shook her head, throwing her arms out. "What could I say, mother? That you're insane? Evil? Should I explain how to kill you? What could I say?"

"Have you ever faced an asari commando unit before? Few humans have."

"I have, actually. It was brutal. But I enjoyed the fight."

That gave her pause, an assessing gleam entering her eyes before they narrowed.

Kaidan frowned. "I can't believe you'd kill your own daughter."

"I now realize I should have been stricter with her."

She froze us with her biotics, while commandos spilled in from all of the other doors.

What a bitch.

With a shout, I broke free from the hold, throwing a little magic my team's way and doing the same for them.

Benezia's eyes widened, and she retreated to the center of her dais.

I spoke quietly over the radio when the gunfire started. "Take your time. Don't rush them."

Geth began running in through the doors, as well.

Overall, the firefight lasted well over twenty minutes. Maybe even a full half hour. But it did wrap up, with us and Benezia the only ones left standing.

"This is not over." The matriarch was already speaking before we reached her, cornering her against the glass cage. "Saren is unstoppable. My mind is filled with his light. Everything in clear."

"The rachni want nothing to do with you. Why should I?"

I itched to move her aside, so I could try to speak to the queen, and it was taking every ounce of self-control I had to not do that.

"I will not betray him. You will- You..." She seemed to be having an internal fight, and it snapped my attention back to her. Her head snapped up, eyes clear. "You must listen. Saren still whispers in my mind. I can fight his compulsions. Briefly. But the indoctrination is strong."

"How?"

I'd thought the indoctrination was absolute, once it started.

"I sealed a part of my mind away from the indoctrination." Oh, was that all? "Saving it for a moment when I could help destroy him. It will not last long."

"What do the rachni know that he needs?"

"The location of the Mu Relay. It's position was lost thousands of years ago."

"How do you lose a relay?" Ashley muttered in disbelief.

"Four thousand years ago, a star nearby went supernova. The shockwave propelled the relay out of its system, but did not damage it. It's precise vector and speed are impossible to determine. As millennia passed, the nebula created by the nova enveloped the relay. It is difficult to find any cold object in interstellar space. Particularly something swathed in hot dust and radiation."

"And the rachni... You think they know the location of it." I filled in.

"The rachni can share memories across generations." Like us. Huh. "Queens inherit the knowledge of their mothers. I took the location of the relay from the queen's mind. I... was not gentle."

"And Saren needs this relay for... what?"

"He believes it will lead him to the Conduit. I would tell you more if I could, but Saren did not share his counsel with me. I was merely a servant to his cause."

"We need that information." I held out a hand. "I'm assuming you put it on an OSD or something."

"I did." She walked forward, placing a disk in my hand. "Take it. Please."

Liara spoke up, frowning. "Knowing the relay's coordinates is not enough. Do you know where he planned to go from there?"

"Saren wouldn't tell me his destination." She shook her head. "But you must find out quickly. I transmitted the coordinates to him before you arrived." A hand went to her head. "You have to stop- me. I can't-" Both hands, now. "His teeth are at my ear. Fingers on my spine. You should- Ugh, you should-" She walked away from us, back to us.

"I- Don't leave!" Liara sounded like she was on the verge of tears. "Fight him!"

Benezia turned slightly, a sad smile on her face. "You've always made me proud, Liara."

A second later, her expression shifted. Hatred.

"Die!" She threw her biotics at us, the rest of my team getting flung off the dais.

I held my ground, gritting my teeth against the power behind it.

Throwing out blue-tinted magic that resembled biotics, I physically restrained her. She fought for all she was worth, but I was pouring an immense amount of energy into it. She had no hope of breaking free.

After several minutes, during which the others picked themselves up and joined me, she finally stopped struggling.

"I cannot go on. You will have to stop him, Shepard."

"Mother..."

The two of them stared at each other for a few moments. I let the magic slacken.

"Goodnight, Little Wing. I will see you again with the dawn."

It was too much, I realized, when she raised a hand and used her biotics on her head. In my surprise, the magic dropped altogether, and she collapsed on the floor.

"No light? They always said there would be..."

She didn't say anything more. She couldn't.

Liara reached out and touched her face, tears silently falling down her face.

I left her to grieve, walking over to the glass cage, humming the song.

The rachni lifted her song high, a calmness and relaxation to it.

Movement behind me, I thought it was just one of the others, not having realized it was only me and Liara left on the dais. The others having given space to the asari.

Speaking of asari, the movement turned out to be one of the dead commandos. She walked around to stand next to me.

"This one. Serves as our voice. You hear our song. Even though your musics are colorless, you hear ours."

"She's dead." I raised an eyebrow. "You can control the dead?"

"This vessel is at the edge. Yet she struggles. You cannot see her magnificence. We are breathing on the embers."

"Shepard!" Several voices reached me, I waved them off.

"It's okay. She's just communicating in the only way she knows how, without using her songs."

"That's what she was hearing?" Ashley whispered.

"I can't believe it." Kaidan.

"This is... I've never heard of the rachni being able to do this." Tali breathed in awe.

"Let's just kill it and get this over with." Wrex, of course.

"We always seem to come across the strangest things with her." I could practically hear Garrus shaking his head.

Liara stood and approached us. "Is it safe, to be talking to her?"

"She's, well, not harmless, but you get what I mean."

"I do not understand. How is she communicating through her?"

"Our kind sing through touchings of thought. We pluck the strings, and the other understands. She is weak to urging."

My friend gave me a worried glance. "Thoughts? Are her thoughts in your head, Viridian?"

That... was a good question. Then again, they shared memories the same way we did. Conversed seemingly the same way we did.

"Give me a moment. I want to try something."

I reached out mentally, brushing against her consciousness. Can you hear me?

She physically reared back, before pressing against the glass. I can.

Hers came across as singsong. Different, yet the same, as the song I was still hearing.

You are different from others.

I'm not human. I'm not even from this galaxy, honestly. You communicate the same way, minus it coming across as a song, as my people. Tell me, if I let you go, what would you do? Where would you go?

You would give us the chance to compose anew?

I would.

We would seek a hidden place to teach our children harmony. If they understand, perhaps we would return.

I'm letting you go. There's no way I could condemn such a beautiful race to extinction.

We will remember. We will sing of your forgiveness to our children.

I pressed a few buttons on the terminal, watching as the cage rose up beyond the ceiling. The screen told me the queen had been released.

"What the hell are you doing, Shepard?" Wrex was furious.

I turned toward him. "It'll be alright. Trust me."

Ashley made a comment, quietly to herself, but my ears still picked up on it, about how easily he always calmed down whenever I told him to trust me.

It was about time I spent some quality time with her. Maybe, if she proved trustworthy enough, fill her in.

Wait.

When did I start seeking reasons for me to tell people about me? That was new.

We walked silently through to the other side of building, ending up at the trams.

"Let's get out of here." I sighed.

"What are we doing next?" Ashley spoke up once on the tram. "Head for the Mu Relay?"

I shook my head. "We don't know where it could lead. Could be dozens of systems. We need to figure out where exactly Saren's going."

"Or we'd just be wasting our time, got you."

...

I rolled my shoulders after the transmission with the Council ended.

The more we found out, the more I had to censor what I put in the reports. What I said to the Council themselves. They clearly didn't believe in Reapers, so that was out. The Conduit, either, so I tried to reference it as little as possible.

And, of course, I'd left out the most important part. Releasing the rachni queen. There was no way in hell I was telling the Council that. Not with what happened because of the rachni wars.

"Everything okay, Shepard?"

Speaking of spending time with Ashley.

"Yeah. Don't worry about me." I gestured for her to sit, taking a seat myself. "I've actually got a question for you, if you don't mind. It's a bit... rude."

She raised an eyebrow, sitting. Leaning forward on her elbows. "Okay."

"Do you have a problem with aliens being allies?"

"I'm not sure I'd call the Council races allies." She frowned, eyes narrowed. "We- humanity, I mean- have to learn to rely on ourselves."

"Does that mean standing alone, though?"

"I don't think we should turn down allies. I just think we shouldn't be everything on them staying allies. As noble as the Council members seem now, if their backs are against the wall, they'll abandon us."

Who had told her this, to shape her view on things?

"Awfully pessimistic." I mused.

"A pessimist is what an optimist calls a realist." She looked up for a moment, thinking, before focusing on me again. "Look. If you're fighting a bear, and the only way for you to survive is to sic your dog on it and run, you'll do it. As much as you love your dog, it isn't human."

Oh.

"It's not racism. Not really. Members of their species will always be more important to them than humans are."

"What... Did something influence you to think this way?" I tilted my head. "I'm just curious about what could've led to this, is all. I'm just trying to understand."

"My family's defended the Alliance since it was founded. My father, grandfather, great-grandmother- They all picked up a rifle and swore the Oath of Service." I knew she was legacy, but I hadn't looked that deep into it. "I guess we just tend to think of Earth's interests as our own."

"So... Even after everything our team has done together, you still really believe that?"

She hesitated, caught off-guard by the question.

I gave a small smile, changing the subject. Letting her think about that. "Is family important to you?"

"Yeah. We've always been close. Me and my sisters, especially. With Dad on duty so much, I had to help Mom raise them."

Everything about her changed, becoming more open. Relaxed. Happy.

"I've heard that siblings that are raised by other siblings tend not to get along. Because they always think of them in the parent role, instead of sibling or friend roles."

"Things were tense between Sarah and me for a while. Then we... bonded."

"I love a good story." A gentle prod, but not an order, by any means.

She leaned back in her chair. "Sarah got herself a boyfriend who wanted to go faster than she did. Mike. I didn't think he was a bad kid. Just pushy. Lynn would send me these worried vid-mails, and I'd tell her to relax."

"Were you very far from home?"

"I was on active duty, so I wasn't home, yeah. Sarah's graduating high school this year. It was only a couple years back. They were on Amaterasu. At the time, I was assigned to Czarnobog. Same cluster, but a dozen LY away. Close enough to talk regularly, too far to make it back in an emergency. I couldn't afford a fast-packet flight."

"I... Hmm... No means no, at the end of the day." I frowned.

"Yeah. 'Course, if he didn't ask at all, I'd wonder if he thought Sarah was ugly. Damned if you do, damned if you don't."

Maybe it was because of who I am, but I just didn't understand things like that, no matter how hard I tried. No means no. And just because no one asks for sex, it doesn't mean they didn't find their partner attractive.

"Mike thought they'd go for a romantic walk in the woods. 'cause he figured it was past time they did the deed." She leaned forward again. "She levered Mike face-first into a tree and left. Didn't have a scratch on her. Good thing Mom and Dad had us all learn some kind of self-defense. I took emergency leave and walked Sar to school for a few days."

What a kind sister she was.

"My last day out, Mike was waiting for us. Sar had told her friends, so everyone at school knew what he did. He wasn't happy. I wanted to snap him in half. But Sar gave me this look. This 'let me handle it, I need to do this alone' look. She kept her cool- God bless her- as he screamed in her face. She just let him vent. Then he tried to punch her. I swear, she just flowed around him. Like what I've seen you do. Next thing I know, he's face-down on the sidewalk, and there's blood everywhere."

Damn. Impressive.

"When he swung, she just- she wasn't there anymore. And he fell. She helped him stop the bleeding, and had me call an ambulance. She told the paramedics he fell. Before they took him to the hospital, Mike touched Sar's arm. I thought he was going to end up on the ground again. But he hung his head, whispered 'I'm sorry,' and started crying. And she hugged him." A shake of her head.

I liked this girl already, and I wanted to meet her one day.

"The Williams women are a decisive bunch, Shepard. We do things when we're ready. Not before, not after."

She went on to recite some poetry, while speaking about her dad. He'd passed a few years ago, and she visited his grave every time she went home.

"He's with God now." Her expression suddenly shifted, looking like I was about to berate her. "That's not a problem with you, is it? That I believe in God?"

"No? Should it?" I was confused. "Just because we don't share beliefs, it doesn't mean you can't believe what you want."

"I'm glad you're open-minded about it. I've met a few people who were really weirded out by my faith. Because I work in space, I can't believe in a higher power? Geez. It's like, hello? Have you people looked out the window? How can you look at this galaxy and not believe in something?"

I smiled, bemused. I could understand where she was coming from, having been exposed to people from the Aldmeri Dominion.

She stood. "I should get back to my duties. Didn't mean to take up so much of your time."

"We should chat again, Ashley. It was nice."

She studied me for a moment, before nodding. "I'd like that, Shepard."