"Right," the Alliance security officer said, "if we have any more questions for you, we'll let you know, Commander."
"Of course." Val let out a breath, slowly. Slow and even breathing, that was the ticket, to keep herself from screaming or hurling something at the walls. To maintain the pretense that she had no idea what was going on, and had just happened into her brother's lab to answer a call and found him and a stranger both bleeding on the floor. "Can I ask — do you know anything about the attacker? I didn't recognize him..."
"He doesn't seem to remember anything that happened," the officer said. "Obviously we'll have to question him further later."
"Obviously," she echoed. Just another Leviathan thrall, maybe. She could almost spare a moment of pity for the guy, controlled by the Leviathan, waking up half-dead and bewildered why he was under arrest. He wasn't dead, at least. That was something, even if he'd come way too close to killing Alex. She took in another breath and let it out, flexing her fingers. The fine hairs stood just on edge, but it wouldn't do to throw off biotic energy at this point, either. This waiting room had the same kind of bland, sterile atmosphere as the one she'd landed in after her own injury a few weeks back. The flat glare of the light made her chest feel tight. The Leviathan were hunting her, piecemeal. How many thralls did they have to point at her and hers?
This one had sure done enough.
"Val!" Her mother burst into the waiting room, with Misha in tow. "What happened?"
She opened her mouth and hesitated. The security officer beat her to a response. "Ma'am — Anna Shepard, correct? Your son's been injured, but he's in surgery now."
"Is he going to be all right?" Mama demanded.
"I don't know, ma'am, but let's find one of the medical staff —"
They moved off across the room in search of a nurse. The officer looked more like someone pulled into Mama's wake than an escort.
Unfortunately, that left Val alone with Misha.
He sniffed, looking up, sideways, everywhere but at her. "Are you all right?" he asked after a few seconds.
"I'm fine." She'd even gotten to wash the blood off her hands before the officer arrived to question her. "I got there... after."
Misha nodded once and stared at the far wall, one foot tapping on the floor.
Val eyed him sidelong. "I think it's... not too bad," she ventured. "They took him off to surgery right away but they didn't seem too agitated." What did it say about her that she could compare the expression on medical techs' faces with other, direr situations? Even so, she wished Chakwas were here.
"Good," Misha muttered. "I don't want to lose another brother."
"Me neither," Val said softly.
Misha shook his head. He fixed her with a brief, hard look, and then stared straight ahead.
She'd never been shy to rip off a bandage, and she couldn't just sit here with that tension. "What?" she asked.
"What is going on?" he burst out. "You're keeping secrets and now this?"
"They're not connected," she said, keeping her voice low and glancing warily toward the other end of the room. The security officer was still at Mama's elbow, though, and didn't seem to be taking any notice of them. "Alliance missions don't have anything to do with this."
Misha scoffed. "Yeah, right. I'm not stupid, Val."
"Nobody thinks you're stupid," she said evenly.
"Could have fooled me. You both got attacked, weeks apart, and you expect me to believe that's a coincidence?"
Val shook her head. "It's not like that." In spite of herself, her voice rose.
Mama swept back toward them before Misha could reply. "What are you doing? This is no place for an argument. Your brother should be out of surgery soon." She sat next to Val with a sigh and tugged on Misha's sleeve. Reluctantly, he took the seat on Mama's other side. Val pressed her lips together and wondered what either of them would say if she told them the truth.
She didn't know. She honestly didn't know, and that lack of knowledge made her shrivel on the inside. She had talked people into joining impossible missions, but she didn't know her mother or her little brother well enough to know if they'd trust her. She was secretly a stranger to their world, after all. Did she owe them the truth, no matter what they thought about her afterward?
There was trust, and then there was the sort of trust it took to follow someone to hell and back. The kind of trust it took to put everything on the line and follow someone off the edge of a cliff. That kind of trust was a rare thing, but once she'd had it, she couldn't rely on anything less. Well-meant concern for her sanity might shatter everything she was trying to do. She couldn't risk it if either of them might report to Alliance authorities.
She sat there in fraught silence, her knee bouncing up and down rapidly, in spite of her mother's disapproving glances. To distract herself, she checked her messages on her omni-tool. Message from Garrus asking if she needed anything. Another from Talitha saying she was on her way. Val had sent both of them a hurried explanation of what had happened. A third from an unknown sender — frowning, she opened the message, bracing herself for anything from surprise orders to a Leviathan thrall gloating at her.
Instead: Analysis complete. Location identified. E.
It took a moment for the message to sink in. When it did, Val shot out of her seat like a spring suddenly released. EDI had done it. They had a destination.
"Where are you going?" Mama asked.
Val tensed in place, conscious of Mama and Misha both staring at her. "Something's come up. Orders," she said hastily. "I'll be back. As soon as I can."
Mama subsided, nodding, though a frown creased her forehead. Val didn't dare meet Misha's eyes.
She all but ran toward the exit, dodging carts and medical personnel. On her way out, she nearly collided with someone entering, and only a moment later realized that it was Talitha.
"Val!" Talitha called. "Is, um..." She swallowed. "Do we know anything?"
"We're supposed to hear something soon," Val replied. "Mama and Misha are inside."
Talitha nodded, biting her lip. Her eyes darted to the side. "Do you think this is because..." she trailed off, her shoulders hunching.
"It's not your fault," Val told her swiftly. It was the Leviathan's fault first, and Val's second, if anyone's. She should have known better, should have expected something like this once they'd unveiled the artifact for any period of time. They should have been on guard.
Talitha said, "But if we hadn't..."
"It's not," Val repeated, conscious of the handful of people passing by about their work. No one seemed to be paying unusual amounts of attention to them, but the back of her neck itched anyway. "But we might have some results, so I'm going to check it out."
"Oh. Oh!" Talitha's eyes widened. "Do you need me to come with you?"
"I think I'll be okay." Val hesitated for a moment. "Actually, when Alex wakes up, tell him if you get a chance? We're going to need to move quickly."
Talitha swallowed, but nodded. "Okay."
Val reached out to squeeze her shoulder and headed out the door. She kept half an eye out for suspicious figures as she sped through the camp, but it passed around her in a blur of prefabs and half-glimpsed faces. She stopped short only at the door of the lab, which glowed dull red with an Alliance security lock.
Right. The place was a crime scene, after all.
As she stood there, catching her breath, the lock disengaged and turned green, and the door whirred open. The air inside still carried the tang of blood. Val stepped in, hoping she wasn't walking into a trap.
The door slid shut behind her. "I took the liberty of overriding the block," EDI said.
Val breathed out at the familiar sound of her voice. "Thanks, EDI." She looked around at the lab, taking in the streaks of blood on the floor, and the orb lying behind its shielding. "What have we got?"
The viewscreen at Alex's workstation snapped to life, displaying a galaxy map. "Tracing the signal transmitted by the Leviathan artifact led to several possibilities." As EDI spoke, bright lines flashed across the map. "Cross-referencing with known Reaper movements or communications breakdowns, as reported by Specialist Traynor, proved to be of limited utility. At Alex's suggestion, I applied additional filters for identified orbital structures and for unusual energy output. The latter proved to be most helpful." Colored lines and zones appeared on the map and shifted, highlighting each of the characteristics she'd mentioned. As she finished, the map zeroed in on one bright yellow point.
Val leaned forward, bracing her hands on the desk to peer at the screen. "Is that Haestrom?"
"That is correct."
She straightened, her heart pounding. "Haestrom. Somehow I feel like I should have guessed that."
EDI said, "There is extensive orbital construction in Haestrom's system. Though originally of quarian construction, the geth substantially expanded the orbital structures. When the Normandy last approached the planet, we had stealth systems engaged to avoid detection by the geth. In avoiding them, we may have missed some critical intelligence."
Val nodded, slowly. EDI had gone to Haestrom under John Shepard's orders, but Val's had been the same. Maximum stealth, aiming for the planet, avoiding geth contact. "When I went to Haestrom, I hadn't even heard of the Leviathan. We wouldn't have known what to make of anything we did find."
"That is true. We were already lacking critical information."
"How sure are you that this is the right location?"
"There are certainly other possibilities," EDI said. "However, given the unusual energy output of Haestrom's star, and the fact that this output has been increasing in recent months, it seems the logical place to start."
"Right." Val took a deep breath and let it out. "I'm assuming you've heard a lot of our plans already. Are you willing to be stolen, EDI?"
There was only a brief pause before EDI said, "Everything I have observed in the last several days confirms your assertion that the Leviathan are working against the interests of the galactic population. Someone must act."
"It's always good to have you on the team, EDI." Her pulse quickening, she activated her omni-tool and punched a call through to Garrus.
He answered a second later, and the sound of his voice instead of the message system settled her nerves. "Shepard, hey. How's your brother?"
She winced. "We're still waiting to hear. But that's not why I called. Do you have a minute?" That was code, a signal that this conversation needed to be private and secure.
"Just a second." After a brief pause, he spoke again. "Yeah. What have you got?"
She didn't think she was imagining a slight lift in his voice, a tightening of energy that matched her own. "We've got a location. You'll never guess."
"Don't make me try, then."
"Haestrom."
A pause, and Val heard a distinct guttural rumble. "And we didn't notice that before?"
"We didn't know what to look for," she said. "But now we do, it's time to move."
"Right," Garrus said. "Like we talked about. I'll see you at the shuttle."
She marked the time on her omni-tool. "See you then."
#
The human guards at the Alliance holding facility made a show of checking Garrus's credentials. "Vakarian, is it?"
"That's right," he said. Relaxed, easy; humans responded better to that than to clipped precision.
"You were on the Normandy with Shepard, right?" asked the junior of the two, a male with dark hair.
"Yeah." That much was true in any life, it seemed.
"Wow." The young man ducked his head. Garrus recognized the light of hero-worship spreading across his face. "It sucks what happened to him, huh?"
John Shepard was possibly his best friend. Val Shepard was... something beyond that. For a split second, he remembered John laughing over a drink. Pain shot through his skull. He focused on the countdown on his visor to ground himself. "Yeah, it does," he said. He didn't have to fake the rough note in his voice.
The senior guard cleared her throat. "Let's stick to business here. I take it you're here to visit our guest?"
Our guest, not the prisoner, Garrus noted. Civilized. More civilized than the facility itself implied. "Here to borrow him, if I can," he replied, breezily. Casually. Pulling this off required just the right air of bored routine. He was on the authorized visitor list. He'd made sure of that, over some Alliance resistance, but anyone who had been on the Normandy already knew that Javik existed. Garrus had even visited a couple of times, though Javik was hardly the galaxy's most sparkling conversationalist, and they weren't exactly friends. He'd done it out of a certain sense of obligation, all the same. The last of the Protheans deserved better than this polite confinement. The same reason he was here now, really.
"Borrow him?" The guard frowned. "I don't have any authorization for that."
"Hierarchy request. Something about assisting with our biotic divisions' research." He passed over the OSD with a set of orders and a nice forged Hierarchy authorization on it. This was the piece that would get his hide peeled if his actual superiors found out about it. He was gambling on the humans' lack of familiarity with Hierarchy protocols.
The guard took it, still frowning, and both of them peered at it. "I don't have anything Alliance-side to confirm this," she said after a moment.
"It's just for a day or so," Garrus said. He leaned in a little. "Between you and me, I don't know what the cabals are getting up to either. But what they want, they usually get." He shrugged.
"Let me just..." The guard moved over to their console and inserted the disk. Garrus sighed and tried to look nonchalant.
"All right," she said finally. "The code here checks out. Thanks for your patience, sir. You have twenty-four hours."
"Sure, no problem," Garrus said easily. They'd be long gone from the planet before twenty-four hours were up.
Javik reacted to Garrus's presence only by blinking his four eyes, first the inner and then the outer. Garrus had never managed to make out whether the Prothean's blink patterns indicated something about his emotional state. Between his chitinous exterior and the unfamiliarity of his facial configuration, he was pretty hard to read. Liara might know; Garrus suppressed a wince at the thought of her.
The guard asked if Javik cared to take anything with him. Javik gave him a long, flat stare. "No," he said, and stalked out of the room.
Well, that wasn't hard to read. Garrus followed him.
"I am not here merely to advise your cabals," Javik said as they left the facility.
"I thought you'd appreciate a change of scenery," Garrus replied, quickly scanning their surroundings for anything out of the ordinary.
Javik grunted, falling into step beside Garrus. Nice and easy, not too fast, nothing suspicious. Javik said nothing further until they climbed into the vehicle Garrus had brought. Then, as Garrus started the engine, he said, "What is our true purpose?"
"Fixing the galaxy's problems, what else?" Garrus said. "We're getting off this planet, and Shepard didn't want to leave you behind."
"The female Shepard," Javik said after a second.
"That's right."
"She remembered," Javik muttered, with satisfaction.
Garrus laughed softly. "A lot of us are remembering quite a bit. Settle in, and I'll explain."
#
"Commander? Did you have an appointment?"
Coats's assistant, fresh-faced and efficient, had doubtless already verified that Val did not, in fact, have an appointment. But that wasn't why she was here, anyway.
"No," she said, easing closer to the desk so the program running on her omni-tool could get access to the assistant's console. "I'm afraid I don't. But I was hoping I could get a quick word with him anyway."
"May I ask what about?" she asked, hand poised over the haptic interface.
"Mm, it's in regards to a previous conversation we'd had." Val waited there while the assistant's forehead creased slightly. She needed to draw this out as long as possible. It took time to break through layers of Alliance security to get to the Normandy's command codes.
Steve, James, and Garrus all had their own tasks to accomplish, but none of it would mean a damn if they didn't get those codes, normally issued only to the ship's commanding officer. And none of them were really hackers — Garrus was good at combat tech, and Alex, Samantha, and Talitha all dabbled with code in their ways, but Val would have given a lot for Tali's expertise right now. The program she was using had come mostly from Garrus and EDI. Garrus had offered to be the one to deploy it, but it would look a lot stranger to have a turian representative hanging around in Alliance offices. Besides, this was not only the most critical part of the mission, it carried the highest risk. If anyone got caught, it was going to be Val.
The assistant waited for elaboration. Val merely smiled blandly, giving the program every critical second she could muster. "I see," the assistant said at last. "Can I, ah, take a message? I'm afraid Major Coats is in a staff meeting at the moment."
"Just let him know it's about that issue we'd discussed." Her wrist felt warm, as the omni-tool's processor zipped away. Without the haptic interface activated, a casual observer wouldn't have been able to tell the 'tool was working that hard, but Val could feel it.
"He'll know what you mean?" the assistant asked, starting to type.
"He'll know."
The assistant raised her eyebrows, but nodded and didn't question Val further. "I'm sorry he's not available. Is there something else I can do for you?"
"Not at the moment," Val said. "How long have you worked for Coats?" She needed to draw this out; anything to buy more time.
"Oh! I..." The assistant paused, flustered. "Just since the, um, the end of the war." A faint frown crossed her face. "So only a few months, really. It's hard to believe how quickly things have changed."
"It is," Val agreed. "Where were you before? Earth?"
She shook her head vigorously. "Oh, no. I was with the Fifth Fleet. Ops. I spent the whole war on ship duty. To be honest, a lot of it didn't feel real until we got back to Earth. Even then I never got groundside."
"It's been a long nightmare," Val said softly.
"Yeah, it has." The young woman shook her head again and reached for a tissue. "I don't even know why I'm talking to you about this."
"It's okay," Val said. "We've all been through a lot."
"Yeah." She wiped her eyes. "I had a brother stationed in Rio. He didn't make it. I guess everyone lost someone, huh? Or a lot of someones."
"It's always hard," Val said. Her own losses were too many, no matter how you counted them, and every one of them still ached like a fresh wound. "We go on the best we can, but the Reapers have a lot to answer for." Her omni-tool was hot against her arm, making her sweat, and she could only hope this was working.
The assistant laughed a little, dipping her head. "I guess I don't have to tell you this, right? I mean, you know all about it, better than anyone."
Val took in her body language: shoulders hunched, head ducked, eyes flicking up and down to gauge Val's reaction. It was a familiar demeanor; under other circumstances she might have taken it for mild flirtation, or just being flustered, but right here, on a normally professional person, it looked a lot more like something else familiar: hero worship.
She'd talked to this aide before, a few times. But she couldn't be sure, unless she cast out a line.
"What makes you say that?" she asked.
The assistant's forehead creased. "Well, you were talking about Reapers from a while back, right from Eden Prime, weren't you? I was just a recruit then, but..." She shrugged. "I heard a lot of things from people who were at the Battle of the Citadel, though. If people had taken you more seriously then, maybe things wouldn't have gotten so bad."
Val forced a laugh. "Story of my life." She risked a swift check of the omni-tool. Estimated time 40% complete, shit, what was taking so long?
She glanced at the young woman on the other side of the desk and took the plunge. "Hey, listen, I've been having trouble accessing my command codes. Had to do a reset of my omni-tool and it's not quite working right."
"Well, I can't help you with the tool, you should talk to the tech folks about that." She rapidly entered some information into her console and frowned. "Yeah, it looks like your accesses aren't set up right. I can fix that for you, at least... There you are."
Val checked, heart pounding when she saw the complex character strings appear in her interface window. "Perfect. Thanks for sorting that out."
"Happy to help, Commander," she said, sitting a little straighter.
Val gave her a smile and a wave as she left. Sweat trickled down her back, and she felt almost drunk on stress or adrenalin, as if she were sprinting toward a finish line. She could hardly believe that had worked. It was only a matter of time until someone else realized she had accesses she shouldn't have, but right now, every minute counted.
She checked her countdown, and found a message from her mother as well. Your brother's awake. He asked for you. That was all, but the terseness implied a level of maternal disapproval that made her flinch.
It would just be better to avoid her mother entirely at this point. No awkward questions, no disapproving looks to weather. So she made her way back to the hospital and lurked, embarrassingly, slouching around the corner from Alex's room, counting the seconds. She had to talk to Alex alone if she could, but she'd leave without if she had to. She had a schedule to keep.
Mama's voice rang in the hallway briefly, telling Alex to rest while she got something to eat. Val waited while Mama's footsteps echoed down the corridor— going the other way, fortunately— and then ducked around the corner and into Alex's room.
"There you are," he rasped.
"Hey." Val looked him over cautiously. He looked wan and fragile, but that was what she'd expected. "How are you doing?"
"I got perforated through the gut, how do you think?" Alex replied. "It would hurt like fuck if I weren't on the good painkillers. Sounds like they put everything back together, though."
"Good," Val said, and hesitated, not sure if she should even tell him the plan.
Alex beat her to it. "What have we got? EDI was... I know EDI was doing analysis." He squinted at her expectantly.
"Yeah, we've got a location." Val glanced over her shoulder, hoping Mama wasn't on her way back. "We're getting ready to go. But you should probably stay here, considering."
"Fuck that." Alex reached toward the bedside table and grimaced. His tool lay there, just out of reach. "Hand me my omni-tool."
"For what?" Val picked it up but didn't hand it over. "Mama's going to skin me alive if anything happens to you. Anything else, I mean." The words came easily, somewhere out of childhood memories she'd put aside until they were more than half-forgotten.
"Then she'd better not catch us." He held out his hand expectantly. "Come on, I can scramble the hospital monitors for a bit, just give me the damn 'tool."
"None of us know how to help you if anything goes wrong," Val said, wishing she had any clue where Dr. Chakwas was.
Alex twitched an eyebrow. "I'll take that chance over sitting here waiting for someone to come finish the job. Or getting edited out of existence."
Shit. When he put it that way, she'd much rather have him where she could see him. Val swallowed and dropped the omni-tool into his hand.
It didn't take him long. By the time Val managed to appropriate an unattended wheelchair from the hallway and get back to the room, Alex was already detaching assorted cables, while the monitors continued to repeat a steady loop of blips. "That'll last for a few minutes," Alex said, grimacing as he put his legs over the side of the bed. "Once a nurse comes through, we're fucked, though."
"Obviously." Val lent him a supporting arm, biting her own lip as he gingerly stood. "We'll just have to be gone by then, that's all. Is Mama coming back?"
"I hope not. I told her I was just going to sleep." Alex made a face. "But you know how she is."
"Sort of," Val muttered. She hoped his pinched expression was because of Mama and not because he was in significant pain. "You okay?"
Alex grunted. "I'll live."
Val nodded. Once he was settled in the chair, she took the handles and turned toward the door.
From the doorway, Misha stared at them in shock.
"Shit," Alex muttered.
"What are you doing?" Misha demanded.
"Getting some air?" Val suggested. She wanted to kick herself immediately.
"He just had surgery," Misha said, glaring at her.
"I'm right here," Alex snapped.
Misha ignored him. "What the hell do you think you're doing, taking him somewhere right now? Whatever your big stupid secret is, it can't be worth Alex getting hurt."
Val winced. She'd already failed to prevent that.
Alex said, "Actually, the fate of the galaxy's at stake. You know how it goes."
Misha blinked. His stare turned incredulous. "That's not funny, Alex."
"Wasn't trying to be funny."
Misha sighed. "Look, I'm not stupid. I know you keep things from the rest of us. Both of you," he added, flicking a look of exasperation at both of them. "You,"— he pointed toward Alex — "practically disappeared in the last couple years, and you won't tell anyone what you've been doing. And you—" his eyes turned to Val — "I get it, there are security issues, you can't talk about your missions, but this can't be just a mission! There's something going on, and both of you are up to your necks in it, and Alex nearly got killed, so stop lying to me!"
Val squeezed her eyes shut briefly, taking a breath to steel herself. "It's not a lie," she said. "But I need you to trust me. It's important that Alex and I go, right now."
"Go where? You're not actually leaving the hospital...?" His jaw dropped as he took in their faces. "You are. Without a doctor or anything? That's crazy, I can't —"
Val spotted his intention and darted toward him as he started to move, clamping a firm grip on his arm as he turned toward the door. "I'm sorry," she said, keeping her voice low and level, "but I can't let you do that."
He stared up at her, bewildered. "Can't let me...?" For the first time, she thought, a tinge of fear bled into his expression. Everything in her revolted against the sight, but she set her jaw, willing him to believe her. Willing him to keep quiet.
"I need you to trust me," she said. "Trust us. I wouldn't be doing this if I thought there was another way."
"Look," Alex said, "I'm not just baggage here. I'm going. My choice. Val, come on, we've gotta go."
Misha glanced at Alex and then stared at Val for a long moment. "If it's so fucking important, take me with you."
He kept his voice quiet, at least. He believed her, that far. Still: "I don't think that's a good idea," she said.
"Come on! Why not?" Vainly, he tugged against her grip.
She gritted her teeth. "We're not just messing around here. This isn't a prank. It is a mission, and you're a civilian."
"So is Alex!"
"I can fend for myself," Alex said.
"Really? You just got stabbed."
"We don't have time for this," Alex said, sounding both irritated and weary. "We have to go. Now."
Val exhaled hard. She could think of a lot of ways of keeping Misha here, still, and quiet. All of them would take time. All of them could hurt him. She glanced at Alex, who shrugged and flipped a hand palm-up.
She leaned close to Misha, keeping her face serious. "You have to stay quiet while we get out of here."
Misha jerked back, but his eyes lit up. "I can come? I mean, yeah, of course I'll stay quiet."
"You also have to do what I tell you, no questions asked," she said.
Misha nodded vigorously, a little too quickly.
"And you'll have to stay on the ship," she finished.
"What ship?" he said, and then pressed his lips together hard. "Pretend I didn't say that."
This might be the worst idea she'd had in a long time, but hell. Maybe he'd be safer on the Normandy, too. "You take the wheelchair," she said with a jerk of her head.