Joker was getting more agitated by the second. He shook his head and threw up a hand as he turned to face them. "You realize it's just our heat emissions that are invisible, right? They could just look out a window and still see us coming."
"Windows are structural weaknesses. Geth do not use them. Approach the hull at these coordinates." Legion walked over to the co-pilot console and tapped on the interface. While his back was turned Joker was mocking him.
Shepard smacked the pilot's shoulder. "Relax. No Collector ship on the radar, we'll be fine, even if they shoot at us."
Tali shifted uncomfortably. "Why does that feel like a premonition now?"
"That's because it is. Don't jinx us Shepard. It's hard enough to relax when your Commander insists on running a suicidal Geth hub infiltration mission before an actual suicide mission," he grumbled back.
"Hey if Legion wants to take out a station full of Reaper controlled geth, who am I to say no? Wait, is that sweat on your lip Lt. Moreau?" Shepard bent to examine the pilot's face under his hat brim.
"Can you blame me Commander?" He refused to look at her, keeping his gaze stoically on the console in front of him.
"I'm not expecting anything horrible." A loud clanging announced the docking locks had grabbed the geth station.
Tali scoffed. "It could be leading us into a giant trap."
Legion's shutters waved in what seemed like indignation.
Shepard patted the quarian's shoulder. "Hey, he said he deleted that data he got off your tool during your little fight. He's given us no reason to mistrust him."
"Seal complete, good luck over there Commander. Radio if you need really slow backup." Joker turned to half heartedly salute her.
She smiled at him before slamming her lid down on her neck seals. "Roger that Flight Lieutenant. Put the kids to bed for me."
To be completely honest, she was freaking out. The lack of oxygen and low gravity of the station sent memories of Alchera bubbling up through even her tightest restraints. She kept trying to push them back down but they leaked through every crack in her mind. She watched her BPM fluctuate erratically on the holo display inside her visor.
With Legion on their side they made it through the heretic's station extraordinarily easily. When she'd stepped through the airlock and not set off a station wide alert, He said he'd filled their network with junk data that busied them with scrubbing, effectively disabling the ship wide security system and forcing the mobile platforms to all move back to their charging stations to increase their computing capacity. It was brilliant honestly. She found herself watching him effortlessly blow his counterparts to pieces with seemingly no remorse, and wishing that she'd had him during their mission running down Saren and Sovereign.
Thanks to his hacking ability and knowledge of geth systems, they had managed to avoid alerting the entire hub of their presence and only had to deal with the machines in small pockets. Progress was slower than she'd like but the low gravity required turning on the magnetic function on their boots. But with Legion and Tali's reprogramming capabilities, fighting even a large multitude of the robots was a breeze.
Even as she admired her team mate's abilities, Shepard rounded a corner and clumsily put her boot through one of the security lasers on the floor.
Shit.
The room lit up angry red as a station alarm booted up and wailed. A prime whirled from its terminal and spun up a minigun on its arm that just narrowly missed her as Legion drove her into the floor, covering her with his chassis. He took a cacophony of hits to his personal shield but sprayed rounds back from his assault rifle. It was Tali who saved them both, hacking the prime's signal - she had it firing on it's mates in no time.
Legion's head shutters undulated quickly. "Thank you, Creator Tali'Zorah." The quarian nodded as he stood and offered his three digit hand to the commander. "Are you okay Shepard-Commander?"
"Am I okay?! How about you? You are the one who just took a minigun to the back." She accepted his hand and let him pull her to standing.
He considered for a moment, the iris on his light restricting. "Geth platforms are sturdier than organic flesh. We will not allow you to come to harm, neither you, nor Creator Tali'Zorah."
She and Tali made eye contact as Legion continued down the next corridor. Shepard couldn't see Tali's facial expressions through the fog of her environmental suit helmet, but somehow they tended to be on the same page. It was novel hearing that from a being they'd had exclusively as an enemy for years. Probably more so for Tali herself. She must have been having an out of body experience hearing a geth say anything like that.
Legion came to a stop in a large doorway off the hall in front of them. Tali came up next to him.
"Are these… all databases?" The engineer breathed.
Beyond the wall was a sprawling room full of cooling hoses and tankards hooked up to rows and rows of endless mainframes.
Shepard's mouth fell open. There were so many more of the heretic geth here than she could even comprehend, and the considerable weight of what they were doing settled heavily in her chest.
Legion confirmed it. "Each server hosts thousands of geth."
Shepard felt the weight increase ten fold. "And they can't see us, right?"
He bobbed his head. "Correct. They are no more aware of us than you are the cells in your bloodstream."
"This hub looks different than the other rooms we came across." Shepard took a step through the doorway.
"This is a database, it contains a portion of the heretic's accumulated memories." The geth moved to a console sitting directly outside the room and called up a holo interface. His shutters raised dramatically over his eye. "We have discovered copies of our current patrol routes inside this mainframe. This suggests the heretic's have runtimes within our networks." He made a number of digital noises. Surprise? Hurt? Did geth even feel those things?
"Well, we wouldn't be here if the heretics wanted to be friends with the geth. Of course they would spy on you." The Commander crossed her arms.
He turned toward her, the iris of his light opening and closing rapidly. "You do not understand. Organics do not know each other's minds. Geth do. We are not suspicious, we accept each other. The heretics desired to leave, and we understood their reasons. We allowed it. There was peace between us."
"Peace can never last forever Legion, you disagreed about the path the geth should take."
"Human history is a litany of bloodshed over differing ideas on leadership and afterlife. Geth do not share that history, we shared consensus on all things." He looked away to study the ground, too much like an organic. "How could we become so different? Why can we no longer understand each other?"
Oh. Oh. Shepard's chest constricted. The geth were in for a rude awakening. Synthetics and organics weren't that different after all. Here they were, making the same mistakes as their creators.
"What did we do wrong?" He lifted his light to fix it on her.
Christ was that a hard lesson to learn.
She scrunched her eyes closed and reached to set a hand on his shoulder. "Legion, I don't think you did anything wrong. It will apparently be just as natural for synthetics as organics, to develop in different ways when isolated from the group. Afterwards you don't always get along."
Legion swiveled away from her. "If this is the individuality humans so value… we question your judgement."
Somehow his words wounded her ego. But he wasn't wrong. Humans were a terrible example of understanding each other, especially compared to a race that could share their experiences with no barriers.
He straightened his back. "This topic is irrelevant. We must move forward."
They had little resistance through the station with both Tali and Legion's hacking abilities. He was able to reprogram the security turrets they came across to help them through the small pockets of combat they did see.
Legion paused before accessing the station's core terminal, and swung to face her. "Shepard-Commander. We concluded that destruction of this station was the only resolution to the heretic question. There is now a second option."
"Oh? Hit me," she responded.
His face shutters jerked. "We would rather not."
Shepard sighed. "No, that means tell me."
Legion's light constricted a bit. "We have discovered the Old Machine's virus is complete. This opens up the second option. The virus could be repurposed. If released into the station's network, the heretics would be rewritten to accept our truth."
Tali shook her head. "That would take care of the problem here, but would make Legion's geth much stronger in numbers. How can we trust them not to attack us in the future?"
Shepard was quiet, mulling. She kept replaying Legion's comment from earlier in her head. Finally she unfolded her arms. "I wouldn't brainwash an organic race, I can't see treating the heretic geth any differently."
"The question is irrelevant. If we do not rewrite them, we destroy them. That is why we are here. Do not hesitate now, Shepard-Commander. They will exterminate your species because their gods tell them to do so. You cannot negotiate with them. They do not share your pity, remorse, or fear." Legion's digitized voice seemed harsh in the silent, echoing, metallic halls of the hub.
"They are your people Legion, you should do whatever you think is correct. There isn't a right answer here," she said.
"We are conflicted, we cannot reach consensus on our higher order runtimes. 573 programs favor rewrite, 571 favor destruction." He turned his light on her. "Shepard-Commander, you have fought the heretics. Organics have been the ones to suffer when the geth have been used as a tool against you. You have perspective we lack. The geth grant their fate to you. Do we rewrite the heretics, or delete them?"
Shepard brought a hand up to rub her helmet. "You don't have any remorse in killing your own people Legion?"
"Every sapient has the right to make their own decisions. The heretics chose a path that prohibits coexistence," he responded.
Deciding the fate of a species hadn't been on her agenda for this morning. Hell, she didn't want that on her agenda any day. She shifted her weight from foot to foot. Tali must have sensed her unease, and the quarian put a hand on her shoulder.
"That doesn't make any sense Legion, if every sapient has a right to their decisions, how can you suggest brainwashing them?" Tali's modulated voice was small in the expansive quiet of the station.
"We merely suggested the option exists, we did not endorse it." Legion stood his eye shutters up.
"Dammit dammit dammit." Shepard walked in a circle, shaking out her arms and legs. "Rewriting them is too much like indoctrination. It makes me no better than the Reapers. We've seen what they did to the Protheans," she mumbled. "There's no guarantee that they won't come to the same conclusions again and want to worship the Reapers, is there?"
"There is a non-zero probability of error," Legion answered.
"Delete them. We have a chance to end this, I'm not going to waste it."
The geth nodded "Acknowledged." He typed feverishly on the console. "Collapsing antimatter bottling mechanisms. Suggest expeditious retreat to Normandy."
"Why do I feel like I've just dropped rank into being your personal getaway driver?" Joker called down the gangway after his Captain's retreating form.
She shrugged. "Because you are so good at it Moreau!"
"Commander, Samara was looking to speak with you. She said it was urgent." Yeoman Chambers called out as she rounded the CIC.
Shepard drew her eyebrows together as she headed towards the armory. "Oh… thank you Chambers. Let her know I'll be down there in a few minutes."
Legion disappeared into the lift and she and Tali swung into the armory's open door. Inside, Taylor and Garrus both looked up as the women entered.
"How did it go Tali? That new barrel mod as good as I told you?" One corner of Jacob's mouth pulled up.
"Mmmm...I don't know," Tali brought a finger up to her helmeted chin. When his face fell she continued. "Oh alright it was just as good as you said. Thanks for recommending it." The two struck up a conversation as the engineer laid her pistol and shotgun on the bench.
Shepard strode by them and ripped hard pieces of ablative metal off her undersuit with practiced speed, throwing them unceremoniously on the bench. Behind her back, Garrus raised his brow plates and shot a look at Tali.
"Oh don't worry, she just had to decide the fate of an entire species. No big deal." Tali's murmured sarcasm was blatant, her tone dark.
"So just a typical mission then." Garrus returned his gaze to the Commander's form.
"The Savior of the Citadel's job is never really done is it," the Commander mumbled with a rueful smile.
The Normandy had been back out in the black gathering resources since Shepard had returned from the geth station and they'd even had a surprisingly subdued trip to stock up on rations and ammunition on Illium. The Commander had kept to herself the whole time they were parked. It was odd to have a week of time without someone shooting at them, much less two. Garrus's plates itched - that was the first sign something was wrong. Shepard had been on her usual rotations - she came to see him, worked out in the cargo bay with Jacob, sparred with Thane, shared crude jokes with Joker.
But she was absent at meals. Her physique had continued to improve and she was back in her N7 gear, but the dark circles around her eyes remained. She stopped spending time in the mess, skipped out on drinking sessions in the lounge. Even her beloved Skyllian 5 games were going on without her. Something had changed, and paranoia screamed it was because of him. Their little encounter on Tuchanka probably? Or he should have kept his mouth shut instead of trying to joke with her after her Legion's mission?
Garrus had asked if everything was okay the one time he caught her scowling at a datapad alone at a table. Her mouth corners had turned down, her brow had furrowed. Shepard had brought up fingers to massage the tension at her temple and said something about business on Omega, and needing to see Aria, but hadn't elaborated when he pushed. And sure enough, as soon as the ship lifted dock from Nos Astra, EDI announced a course to the asteroid station.
If he didn't have this mission, this duty to Shepard… sometimes his mind wandered to where he might be. It was a terrifying thought, one he'd chase away as soon as he realized the path he was going down. Luckily, he had fresh memories to relive, something powerful enough to combat nightmares and cravings in the dark in the battery. Memories of wild orange fringe and soft gasps, sweat beaded skin and faces he'd never seen before.
These were the thoughts that consumed Garrus as he sat alone in the galley sipping at a quarian drink Tali had brought on board. The smell of the Commander's usual late night coffee was still strong. It was one of the few human foods that smelled appetizing to him, a smell not dissimilar to some turian beverages. EDI, Tali, Legion, and some crew members had set about installing the IFF and running live tests, so the general atmosphere of the Normandy had been tense. The relay was coming and everyone was preparing for what most figured they wouldn't be coming back from.
A verdant flash caught his attention, pulling him from his musings. Ah, finally. Krios was padding up to the counters. He'd been waiting for the drell to show up now for a few hours. The two men made eye contact. A muscle in the assassin's jaw twitched and Garrus felt his own mandible suck in. He respected the man, his own opinions quite different from Jacob's obvious mistrust. After all, Thane had protected Shepard on the Collector ship when he could not, and like it or not the drell was a hell of a shot too. The assassin finished concocting something at the counter and walked over to sit across from him. They sat sipping their drinks in silence. Garrus tried to decide where to start - he had many questions he figured the drell wouldn't be obligated to answer.
"What are your intentions?" Thane murmured, his hands folded on the table.
"I could ask you the same thing," Garrus rumbled back. "You've inserted yourself enough, you obviously have concerns."
"Perhaps not as many as I should, Archangel." He leaned back.
He knew. Garrus had kept close tabs on the extranet, and Archangel was believed dead. A wave of dread washed over him. "This isn't some blackmail session, is it?"
Thane's stare was steady, not even a blink for far too long before sighing. "Not at all. My research is for my own benefit. Though, we do each other a disservice avoiding the elkor in the room." He leaned back.
Garrus sighed. "You're in love with her."
Thane kept their intense eye contact before eventually blinking and looking away. He tipped his chin down once in affirmation. "Amusing how easy it is for us to see our intentions mirrored back at one another."
Garrus's brow plates raised. "Does she know?"
Thane dragged his arms from the table and crossed them at his chest. "I don't believe either of us has been that foolish. Siha has many concerns, and more than just Collectors to slay. The demons in her quarters leave no room for us."
Wait, the drell had been in her quarters? And seen what? Spirits, he wanted to ask.
Thane paused, and moments passed as he waited for two crewmen to traipse by them to the elevator. "I have already been a man blessed. I am now a man with mere months. My only intentions are to see the Collectors destroyed, and Shepard alive, if I can help it." Thane leaned forward and splayed his fingers on the table top.
"Then we're the same. I may have lost my way a bit, but I've only ever stood behind her one hundred percent." He stressed the last words of his sentence.
Krios nodded. Silence passed between the two again.
He knew he didn't want the answer to his next question. "Do you know why she has been distant since we returned from Tuchanka?"
The drell blinked. "She has been acting differently since Samara requested she come to see her. It has something to do with why they are both out on Omega now."
Thank the Spirits it wasn't because of him.
The sound of the lift caused them both to turn their heads. Shepard strode out into the mess, clad in a sleeveless, skin-tight, black leather dress that stopped mid thigh, a multitude of silver bangles along her arms, and an intricate dark shadow application around her eyes. The smudging made her green orbs so piercing, Garrus had to clamp down on a noise that creeped up into his throat.
"Oh, there you are. Garrus, do you have any idea what the VIP room in Afterlife's password is?" Shepard called before she made it to the table.
Thane jumped up noisily from his chair. "You're going after her?" His gaze moved up her form. "And you're the bait?"
Shepard froze mid-stride. Garrus couldn't remember ever having seen her expression go so stoney so fast, her eyes darting between the two men. "How do you-"
"Shepard, this isn't like taking on geth, she is an Ardat-Yakshi - a flawless temptress who has perfected killing in many of our lifetimes twice over," Thane interrupted.
Garrus was not up to speed with whatever was going on here. He glanced between them.
Her eyes narrowed."I helped you with your problem, Samara deserves the same closure before we hit the relay, Thane."
"At significantly less personal risk to your own safety! Surely there is a better way." Krios moved up to her, causing Garrus to stand in trepidation.
"We followed the trail of husks she's left on Omega, Samara has impressed upon me how tentative the situation is and how skittish and smart Morinth is. We can't risk dragging this out or storming her." Shepard was standing stock still.
"What's going on?" Garrus murmured.
Thane whirled towards him. "Shepard is about to willingly throw herself to an Ardat-Yakshi, a genetically tailored killing machine. They cause confusion and subservience in their victims with merely a look, and when they mate, they overpower your nervous system, hemorrhaging your brain. They absorb your very essence - your memories, your skills. Each time they kill they become faster, smarter, deadlier, and more persuasive."
"Spirits." Garrus looked at Shepard.
"I'm not appreciating this tactic. Using Garrus against me will not make you more successful in talking me out of this, Thane." Shepard's voice was cold.
"Let us come with you, bring Kasumi with her cloak, let me be the bait instead. I'm far less valuable a victim." Thane's tone was pleading. The normally unflappable assassin's fear was raising Garrus's hackles sky high.
"It's not going to work. It needs to be me. She knows of me, and apparently I'm her type. She won't be able to ignore me. This is the plan with the highest chance of success. The fewer people involved the less likely we are to cause her to go to ground for another fifty years. Samara will follow me. I'll have a thousand year old matron with me, and I'm not some doe eyed school girl either. I'll be fine. Garrus, do you know that password or not?" Her gaze was fire.
"I… don't," he sighed. "But if you name drop Jaruut, you might get in."
Shepard nodded, turned on her heel, and was gone in a heartbeat.
Thane's look of betrayal was hard to miss. It was the same one Shepard had worn during her showdown with Wrex on Virmire.
Garrus faced the drell."Arguing with her is pointless. If Shepard says she can handle herself, she can. I've never seen her fail. Just trust her."
Krios spun and went towards his room, emerging just minutes later with his full kit and tactical hood. He stopped across from Garrus. "Are you coming or not?"
The turian took a beat too long to answer, wavering.
Thane pulled the thermal clip out to inspect it and slammed it back into the rifle. "There is no harm in leaving nothing to chance."
Garrus made a clicking sound in his chest. "Fine. Give me a minute." Long legs sprinted to the battery.
Shepard let out the breath she'd been holding. Somehow the Jaruut thing had worked. Samara's last words as she gripped her forearms were echoing through her mind. 'Know this, every moment you are alone with her, you are in great peril. She will plan to inflict great horrors upon you. And if you are not careful… you will want her to.' In truth, Thane's out-of-character agitation and the very little information they'd gathered on Morinth had put a large lump of nerves in her stomach. How was she supposed to entice the asari and keep up a conversation with just a few tidbits on her favorite band and sculptures?
She continued through the dark corridor, dodging couples in various stages of copulation. The music here wasn't as loud as in Afterlife's main section, and the dance floor was almost completely separated from the tables and the bar by a semi-circular wall.
The amount of reliance she was about to have to put into her 'skills' gained running with The Reds was already piling sweat on her skin. She decided to cut to the bar through the dance floor - maybe she could catch a glimpse of Morinth from there.
Shepard weaved through the mass of bodies, pausing a few times to dance with patrons so she could look around discreetly. An asari in a painted-on metallic bodysuit grabbed her hand as she passed by, dragging her into an overtly sensual display to the music.
"Come on baby, I can pay. I'm a good tipper too." A dual toned voice from behind them spoke. That sentence set off rusty old warning bells in her head. Shepard turned.
"I said, leave me the hell alone!" The high-pitched yell of a young asari maiden cut through the music.
The turian had grabbed the wrist of the small azure woman. "Don't be like that - I got creds. Let's get out of here." He stepped into her space.
Shepard wriggled away from her dance partner, seized the guy's arm and wrenched it from the asari's. She placed herself in front of him to shield the girl. "Is your translator busted, creep? She said fuck off."
"Oh, you want in on this transaction?" He looked her up and down with a leer. "You've got a mouth on you. I'd love to see you use it. I don't care if it's you or this bitch." The idiot made the wrong decision of laying his hands on her. The Commander broke his finger and sank two fists into the soft unplated hide at his stomach before his alcohol addled brain knew what had happened. He dropped to the floor, scattering the people dancing around them.
The maiden put a hand on her shoulder. "Thanks for that. Security is asleep. I'll go get someone."
Shepard sighed as the asari disappeared in the mass of bodies. Figured. Can't be on a mission to seduce an Ardat Yakshi anywhere in the galaxy without some predatory creep right behind you. At least it hadn't been a vorcha, they tended to puke when gut punched. The soldier squoze through the dances towards the bar. There was an open spot, so she slid into the seat and rested her arms on the counter.
The bartender came over after a few minutes. "What would you like?"
She considered for a moment. "Do you have any tequila?" He nodded and moved away.
Movement to the left caught her eye. There stood a near carbon copy of Samara at her elbow, clad in a lovingly structured black skin-tex suit. Shepard inhaled a breath sharply. God, Morinth and her mother could have been twins.
"Well this is a surprise… Aria is letting the first human Spectre sniff around her station?" The asari snaked an arm across the bar top into the Commander's space.
The bartender came to drop a shot in front of her. "Aria and I are too much alike to bother harassing each other when we both have bigger fish to fry." Shepard tossed back the liquor.
A smile creeped over Morinth's face. "You are easily the most interesting person who's been in this place in days. Join me?"
She could already feel tendrils of oily suggestion creep over her consciousness as she looked at Morinth. Shepard nodded. The freckled asari threaded an arm through hers and led her to a booth.
Music and lights changed tempo and color as they situated themselves on the pleather. On the table were two pitchers of some unknown drink and a bottle of pills.
Shepard scooted in closer, resting an arm on the back of the seat. "So, you know my name already. What's yours?"
"Morinth." She leaned forward and poured them both a glass, pushing Shepard's towards her. "I'm interested in getting to know you better, Commander. What machinations make you tick?"
Samara's daughter slid into her space, sipping at her drink and rubbing a palm along Shepard's exposed thigh. An unsettling feeling pushed through the slick layers of Morinth's control - that those five fingers were too many and too thin, compared to the last hand that had been there.
"You seem much different outside the armor and bluster of the Alliance's ads, if you don't mind me saying so, Commander," the asari whispered near her ear.
"Alliance ads?" Shepard blinked slowly. Damn, they hadn't been kidding. Just a touch, and it was hard to separate her thoughts from the curtain Morinth was weaving inside her brain.
"Since the news of your death broke, they've been plastering you across every advert they have, even out here in the Terminus. A paragon of human perfection, the great Commander Shepard. Hmm, from where I'm sitting, the real one is much more intriguing." Morinth leaned into her. Warm, plush lips touched her neck, lingering only a second.
"I am nobody's poster child," Shepard spoke lowly. "I thrive in the dark, and excel at violence a bit too well." She smirked and took a long pull from her drink, sliding a finger under a strap at Morinth's chest.
"Violence is the surest expression of power. I've always been attracted to power." Morinth took the bottle of pills from the table and tapped one into her hand. She held it out to Shepard.
This game of cat and mouse was moving into dangerous territory, and being the mouse dredged up horrible memories of her youth. She inclined her head in acceptance and Morinth plopped the pill into Shepard's drink. It fizzed as the asari swirled the glass and held it up to the Commander's mouth. Hallex? Probably.
Things progressed nicely, and in a drug laced blur the two women spiraled through mundane conversation as Morinth worked her presence into Shepard's every pore, both physically and mentally. The Commander caught herself wishing for Cerberus' high powered liver to digest the drug faster in rare moments of clarity. Warning thoughts swirled in the eddy of stoked desire that burned through her very core. She was losing this. She was already highly attracted to Samara, and this was Samara times one thousand. Every fiber of her being was being whispered to.
Morinth stood and pulled her toward the exit. Oh finally, success! Shepard used the last vestiges of her focus to not trip over her own two feet. Luckily Morinth lived close, the pair walked just a few streets over, so Shepard only had to willing command her legs to move for a short time.
Inside, Morinth's loft was all glass and tile, decorated with various art pieces and an enormous sculpture of a krogan. Soft lighting mixed with hallex blur made the tag on the piece hard to read. Shepard squinted at it for a few moments before giving up and plopping down into a plush mod sofa next to a wide window. The view overlooked the orange glow of Omega's red-light district and the neon lights of Afterlife. It was close enough to the clubs that thumping bass could still be distantly heard through the walls.
Morinth straddled her lap. "You like the statue? It was a gift from a suitor. It had more personality than he did, but still he impressed me enough that he finally got what he wanted. Though, it didn't end the way he hoped," she spoke into Shepard's neck before nibbling on an earlobe.
This prolonged contact was strangling everything inside her head, leaving nothing left but slick, sick desire. She bent Morinth's head back so she could explore the expanse of azure skin with her tongue. Asari had delicate scales across their bodies, not unlike Thane's, but with larger sections of smooth skin across their fronts and under their arms. Asari forms were similar, their wants much more human. Much more human? Than what? Shepard struggled to bring the comparison to the surface. Memories of Garrus's tongue and large hands suddenly flooded through her consciousness. Wait, what was she supposed to be doing again? Morinth had pulled the strap of her dress down. Shepard jerked away from her, breath labored. The asari's overly familiar visage scowled. Shit.
Morinth grabbed her head and tipped it up to force their eyes to meet. "Look into my eyes, Shepard. Tell me you want me, tell me you'd kill for me."
A fleeting panic bolted through her spine just as Morinth's sclera turned black and Shepard felt her mouth open as blinding white pain tore through her skull.
The Commander awoke to a cacophonous crack. The ringing it left behind drowned out all other noise as she tried unsuccessfully to push herself up off the floor. There was a crunching under her hands. Glass? Blinking, vision swimming, she became aware the atmosphere was churning, the air pressure changing rapidly and buffeting her. As her eyesight cleared, she could make out Samara's red jumpsuit as the matron and the daughter traded biotic blows back and forth. Their yelling registered seconds later.
"ENOUGH MORINTH!" Samara shrieked, unleashing a brutal volley of energy that slammed her child into the floor.
"I am the genetic destiny of the asari, Mother! But since they aren't ready to reveal it, I must die? My only crime was being born with the gifts YOU gave me!" Morinth screamed back as she stood.
Shepard tried again and managed to push herself onto her hands and knees. The two asari were locked in the same attack - creating a whirling, sucking biotic field that lifted pieces of the couch and spun them around the room.
Morinth looked down at Shepard, face pleading. "Please, I'm just as powerful as she is, let me join you!"
"Shepard! I am already pledged to you, let us finish this!" Samara cried.
The Commander's addled brain was still playing catch up. The glass of the window was spidered, big chunks had dropped away from what looked like a bullet hole, sending glass spinning along with the asari's biotic powers. Morinth had a suspicious gash across her cheek. Shepard blinked and stood. Her fingers searched reactively for the familiar pistol grip usually at her hip. Nothing. Old-fashioned way then. She staggered forward and grabbed the Ardat-Yakshi's arm, wrenching it behind her back.
"No!" Morinth's wail of terror echoed through the room as Samara overpowered her and threw her to the ground.
"Find peace in the embrace of the Goddess," Samara whispered before breaking her neck with a sickening crack.
The two crewmates stood in silence, the Justicar dragging in heaving breaths. Glass and furniture littered the apartment.
Samara crouched, her head hung over her daughter. "You may go, Shepard. I will take care of the body. Thank you for your help. When I have words again, I will speak with you." Her voice was hollow, with no sign now of the power it had had just moments ago.
Shepard nodded and stole out the front door.
Garrus trudged through the airlock behind Thane. They hadn't spoken all the way back to the Normandy and remained silent through the decon cycle. Krios was probably remembering Shepard's body convulsing under Morinth - same as he was. The sight through their rifle scopes had been alarming, so much so that the assassin had raised his rifle to take the shot. Thank the Spirits Samara had been right there to finish it.
The door cycled open, revealing Joker in his usual position. He spun his chair, eyes darting behind them and then between the two snipers. "Where's Shepard?"
"She isn't back yet?" Thane asked.
"I thought she'd be with you guys. I can't get her on the com. Samara's already back. Didn't she want to take off tonight?" Joker's brow furrowed.
Garrus balked. Her comm was off?
Thane turned to him. "You should go find her."
But he was already back in the airlock, snapping his helmet on.
