Vir: Male chosen by the Prothean Genetic Authority to sire a female's children. Only during the last of a Prothean female's three fertile cycles was she allowed to choose the father. The government stepped in and enacted laws during the last half of the war due to the dwindling genetic base of the prothean race, and the need for genetically superior stock.
Regulikar: The Prothean central government.
Netichik: Insect analogues native to Palaven that have been exported to many colony worlds. About two centimetres long, they live in colonies burrowed into trees. Meat eaters, they drop out of trees in large masses onto the backs of animals passing beneath their nests.
20 Days ASR
"Garrus?" A low growl of frustration rumbling through his second larynx, Nihlus leaned closer to the comm panel, as if that would help his voice carry through whatever interference had cut his fratrin off mid sentence. "Repeat last. Blue Suns?" He tilted his head and squeezed his eyes closed, straining to hear anything further, but got nothing. Too much interference. He slammed the heel of his hand down on the console, choking down worry with a burning swallow of disappointment.
As if he didn't have enough to worry about, already. Any second Anderson would arrive and want to know how he knew the colony on Freedom's Progress had come under attack. How in the name of buratrum was he going to explain that? Could he explain it? He laughed, low and bitter. No. Not a hope. Anderson would just glance at Nihlus's hip flask and then stand the Normandy down. If he actually wanted to get to the colony while they had a faint hope of finding out who and how, he needed to pull some 'Spectre channels', 'can't reveal my source' bullshit.
Shoving that aside, he focused on his current communication issue. Setting the recording back to the beginning, he filtered and cleaned it up the best he could, then ran it again, slightly slower.
The door to the comm room opened. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw it was Anderson and turned his full attention back to his fratrin's message.
"Nihlus! Tuchanka was a set up." Nihlus squeezed his eyes closed again, struggling to pick Garrus's voice out of the static. "Wha … ?" he muttered. "Blue Suns." Letting out another rumble of annoyance, he rewound the last bit again.
"Blue Suns boarded the Passch," Anderson supplied. "Something about the bomb and Archangel." He stepped up beside Nihlus, his head tilting as well. "Rewind it again."
"He said that the Suns tried to set Archangel up for the bomb on Tuchanka," a smooth, accented voice said from the back corner of the room.
"Thank you, Miss Goto," Nihlus replied without turning. He'd thought he felt the brush of her cloak as he entered the room. Spirits, he hoped he didn't ramble out loud at any point. He looked over at Anderson and cocked a brow plate. "Tried to set Archangel up for the bomb?" His hand ticked back toward his hip. No. He needed to keep moving, keep everything locked down. Pivoting on his talons, he paced to the door and back, his mind spinning through the possibilities. "How?"
"If he escaped or retook the Passch, maybe some of the crew survived," Anderson offered. He walked over to the closest seat and lowered himself onto the edge, a mask of concentration set over his stern, stoic face. "Maybe they can shed some light on what he's talking about."
The Spectre hadn't worked with many humans other than Shepard, but if he knew one thing, he knew that David Anderson would have been a fellow Spectre had it been Nihlus overseeing his evaluation. Anderson possessed intelligence and … more … a wisdom that tended to see the best way through situations. The captain had become Nihlus's tough-as-nails, unflagging bulwark and advisor since Hackett assigned the Normandy to liaise with Archangel.
However, that just made it harder to see the man struggling under the weight of the past nineteen months. Right then, Anderson looked so beaten down and exhausted that Nihlus nearly offered him a drink. Nihlus chuffed and pulled his hand away from his flask … again, slamming a door on the brandy's siren song. Of course, the captain never would have accepted the offer. He considered Nihlus's drinking to be a compromising weakness. Not that Nihlus disagreed, he just didn't have the time to stop and deal. That door closed hard as well, sealing two cycles worth of betrayal and loss away before the ghosts reached through to stab him with their frozen daggers. If the ghosts escaped, the other door would open as well, and he'd be excusing himself to visit the head while Anderson watched him with that knowing, disappointed stare.
He couldn't afford to give in to the yearning, not yet.
Drinking wiped the hard drive clean, at least for a while, and he needed to think … to reason the situation through. He closed his eyes, taking a second to steel himself against the need and all the reasons it burned through his bones. Later. When he got back from Freedom's Progress.
He heard the slight, electrical crackle as Kasumi materialized on her way across the comm room. At the console, she tapped away at the interface. "So, the Passchendaele was boarded by Blue Suns." She glanced back at Nihlus, her eyes flashing, just reflections under her hood. "Who knows the Suns best?"
Nihlus grinned despite himself and reached up to his radio. "Massani, get your ass over to the Normandy and up to the comm room."
"Yeah. Yeah. Unclench your scaly arse-cheeks, Kryik," the old merc grumbled. "Goddammit, I'm supposed to be semi-retired. And what am I bloody doing? Am I fishing? Drinking beer on a dock somewhere? No, I'm asking how fucking high every time some stick-up-his-arse says jump." He out a phlegmy cough before going back to a muttered diatribe of abuse and cursing, but Nihlus could hear his boots on the deck plating.
Asking how high? That would be the day. More like complaining about aching knees and a bad back, then asking for a cigarette and a boost.
Nihlus closed the channel without rising to Zaeed's bait and leaned over Kasumi's shoulder to see what she was doing. Hmm. Trying to isolate the Suns' jamming signal. Not a bad idea. If they could get through to the Passch, they could find out what the hell was going on.
He shook his head when he saw where she was headed. "No, that algorithm might work if we were trying to break through Alliance or Hierarchy jamming, but mercs … ." A heavy scowl settled over his face even as he pushed in beside her. Something moved through the data … something that pricked at his memory. "Wait." He held his hands over the console, talons spread as if trying to frame the numbers, or maybe even feel the rhythms and undercurrents that lie beneath what he saw. "Look at this jamming signal."
His pulse thumped hard and fast at the top of his keel where the artery slipped over the bone, and his entire body hummed, as if charged. He knew that signal, dedicated half a lifetime to studying it … trying to understand it.
The thief stopped her work, then shrugged. "That's not a jamming signal. That's just background radiation … space noise."
He cocked a brow plate at her. "Space noise?"
She grinned and shrugged. "What else are you going to call it?" Another careless shrug changed the subject. "Anyway, that can't be the interference. It's spread over too large an area to be some sort of jamming."
Nihlus shook his head. "No, it's the reason we can't get through. I've seen it before." His turn to shrug and he tilted his head a little. That wasn't exactly true. "It was one of the biggest hurdles to Prothean communications once the war started. It blacked out whole systems, and they never found a way around it because it's a naturally occurring resonance."
Allowing Merol's memories to lead, he isolated the problem. "It doesn't behave like a normal jamming signal. It doesn't eat up bandwidth or override other signals. It cancels the signal using targeted destructive interference."
He sent a test signal toward the Passchendaele. "Watch." The foreign signal modulated along the same band, cancelling out the communication. "It's unbelievably elegant … acts intelligently."
"Wait," Anderson said. "If that signal blanks out whole systems, how did you get the message through to Garrus in the first place?" He stood and walked over, watching over Nihlus's arm. "Anyway, as fascinating as this is, it doesn't change the fact that Garrus walked into a trap."
"And the general thinks we are too," Kasumi agreed. "He warned you to take backup."
Nihlus nodded and turned away from the tempting mystery, Merol fighting him the whole way. "Miss Goto, head up to the bridge. Keep trying to get a message through to the Passch. We might luck out again." If his message getting through had been luck. Something whispered in the back of his head that it had been deliberate. Merol kept hammering away at there being an intelligence behind the signal.
Pushing that aside as well, and without waiting for Kasumi to reply, he set back to pacing, mind worrying through Garrus's message. Nihlus had brought along the Banquan and Aesarus, the frigates newly returned from batarian space. Archangel standard procedure required no fewer than three vessels to investigate a potentially hostile situation.
"He knew we'd have three ships," he mused out loud. "Still thought we'd need back up."
"The Suns boarded the Passch," Anderson added. "There's only one way L'Tsai lets a ship get that close."
A vicious smile greeted that thought, the picture starting to form. "That's what they're doing with our ships." The rest fell into place. "They took over the Passch rather than destroying it. They wanted General Vakarian to become a war criminal. That's what Garrus meant about them setting Archangel up. They were going to use our ships, attack the krogan, set off the bomb." He stopped pacing and turned to the captain, and raised his hand back to his radio. "Massani, don't bother coming over to the Normandy. The Banquan is going to need you."
"Bloody hell. I was just about to … ." The merc cursed again. "Fine. Massani returning to the Banquan. Fucking hell."
Anderson hit the intercom. "Alenko, all hands to general quarters." The captain lead the way from the comm room, striding quickly past the galaxy map. "It's brilliant. They set the general up for Tuchanka, and set us up for Freedom's Progress. Forget that Archangel couldn't possibly subdue a thousand people without them sending out a distress call let alone nine hundred and eighty thousand."
Nihlus jogged up the ramp a stride behind. "People are scared. They don't need a reason to grab hold of a villain, any villain." A grim, bitter chuckle rattled between his teeth. "I've never known reason to interfere with a good panic."
Anderson scoffed and glanced over his shoulder. "Or a good lynching. Archangel will be strung up and dangling before anyone even wonders how we managed to abduct millions of people."
Nihlus smiled at the 'we' in that sentence, the captain's allegiance to his dead daughter's cause warming the Spectre through. His hand drifted back to the outside of his thigh, patting the pouch attached to his armour. If it wasn't for the whole 'too pathetic to live with himself' factor, he'd just carrying a water bottle or thermos. At least then he could pretend that everyone's glares and pitying glances were unfounded. His chuckle came out both a lot louder and a lot more bitter than he liked.
"Not to mention what the heck we're doing with them all," Joker called from his chair. "What? Are they thinking we have them stacked out back like cordwood?"
"That's what I do with my victims," Kasumi quipped. She glanced over her shoulder as Nihlus stepped up behind the co-pilot's chair and rested his hands on the back. "The Aralakh system isn't jammed any more," she continued, "but there's an insane amount of EM interference. Looks like you were cut off by the bomb detonating. I still can't reach the Passch. Looks like the Suns took out their comms when they boarded."
Nihlus acknowledged the thief with a quick nod. Garrus hadn't been caught in the explosion. He knew that with complete certainty. His fratrin possessed a great many admirable traits, intelligence and caution numbering amongst them. Well, and he'd consider getting Weaver killed the ultimate betrayal of Shepard's memory.
"I hope Garrus found Wrex before he had to bug out," Kaidan said. The lieutenant commander strode into the cockpit. "The Normandy is secure at general quarters, Captain." He greeted Nihlus with a nod. "There's a message for you at the QEC, Nihlus. It's Ash. She contacted me directly, says that it's an emergency. She tried to get through to Garrus, but … ." He shrugged.
Nihlus looked out the starboard port. "How long to the relay?" he asked, barely able to see the device's glow as a pinprick in the distance. Just another star amidst the millions. Despite the the fifty people sharing the Normandy, he suddenly felt very alone and chilled through. He turned up the heater in his armour as he turned to head back to the comm room.
"An hour. Two hours to the secondary relay, then four hours to Freedom's Progress," Joker reported. "You've got time to take a shower, nap, chow down on some dextro-getti ... polish the stick up your ass."
Nihlus walked away as Anderson whacked the pilot in the back of the head and ordered Alenko to spell out the crew every two hours. His hand wandered back to his thigh, the heel resting on the pouch flap. Why would Ashley be calling him? Since she joined the scout flotilla, he hadn't heard a word. He knew Garrus spoke to her at regular intervals, but using message drops, never directly. It proved too dangerous to her cover.
He strode straight down to the QEC pad and opened the connection. Where was she calling from to have access to a QEC on the Archangel network? That question set off every alarm he possessed. Damn Garrus for being out of contact. He didn't know what to tell the soldier if she was in trouble. He didn't have access to her extraction details.
"Spectre Kryik," the Chief Operations Officer greeted him formally, saluting. "Sorry for bringing this to you, but I had to report in before my group gets their shit together." She shifted a little from foot to foot and glanced behind her as if she expected to be walked in on.
"Where are you calling from, Williams? Are you secure?" The alarms in his head shrieked and his hand twitched. He pulled it away from its obsession to lean on the console.
"You could say that. I'm at Archangel home base. I brought a group of evacuees to Mordin's hospital." She shook her head and raised her hands to stall his questions. "I don't have much time. As soon as my people are treated, I need to get them on transports to Cerberus's main station." She took a deep breath and shook her head a little. "I was assigned to a research station in the Terminus. My project was a prototype ship design, but there were hundreds of projects based out of the station. I've never seen security as paranoid as that place. I ran the security for a project so classified that I never laid eyes on it."
Nihlus's brow plates and mandibles dropped. Cerberus developing prototype ships didn't mean anything good. They might currently be aimed at the Reapers, but what about afterward? He shook that off and focused back on the chief. She wouldn't have called about that.
"Several hours ago … ." She looked at her omnitool, then shook her head. "Hell, I don't even know exactly how long ago it was. Anyway, the base was attacked. We were already evacuating … something to do with another project that had gone off the reservation … but then everything went to hell. The whole comm network went dark, and we didn't even get out a distress call before swarms of biomechanical insect analogues about the size of my hand flooded the station." She held up her hand, cupped as if holding one of the swarm. "They overrode our security without even pausing and flooded the place in seconds."
"They froze their victims … immobilized them?" Nihlus said, the picture appearing in his head. His stomach rolled over and slipped down to tangle in his guts as Merol's memory unfurled. He straightened and squared his shoulders. "Did the Collectors board?"
Deep wrinkles creased the woman's brow and one eyebrow cocked in a scowl that answered his question. She'd remember a Collector if she'd seen one. "Collectors, sir? I thought they were just myths." An impatient shake of her head dismissed it as unimportant.
Nihlus would have laughed if he hadn't been choking on the urge to vomit. Not much was more important. "They're all too real, but go ahead."
"While we were evacuating in the chaos, I swear … ." She hesitated again and blushed, as if she was embarrassed or had thought better of bringing whatever it was to his attention. "Well, I swear I saw Captain Shepard, sir."
Nihlus's heart leaped for a moment before reality crashed down on it. Staggering a little, he leaned into the console a little heavier. He'd watched Shepard die. "This was a research base?"
She nodded and stepped forward. "Yes, sir. It set off all my alarms, too. I wouldn't put an infiltration project past this group. Scuttlebutt says the Illusive Man has shut himself in his private floor of the main base. He doesn't meet with anyone in person any more. They say that his paranoia about the Reapers has him conducting all sorts of really horrible and questionable projects." She shuddered, then let out a weak chuckle. "I don't like to listen to rumours most of the time, sir, but this place." She glanced around, then relaxed a little as if realizing that she was no longer a fly tangled in a web. "Well, that place made the rumors all too plausible."
Ashley rolled her shoulders and set her jaw, buttoning herself down. "It could be a clone or someone made over to look like her. The likeness was remarkable. Right height and build ... ." She shrugged again, looking decidedly uncomfortable. "And … um … sir, Dr. T'Soni and a turian were with the group. I thought the general might want to look into it. It's weird as hell to see an alien anywhere near Cerberus." To give her credit, her expression twisted, as if she'd rather do just about anything other than report on Liara. "For it to be someone close to Archangel makes me nervous, especially if she's involved with this fake Shepard."
Nihlus nodded, agreeing completely. As far as he'd heard, Liara was on Thessia. She would need a hell of an explanation for being involved with some Cerberus cloning project. "And you saw a turian? Any ID there?"
Williams shook her head. "He wore a heavy cloak. I could tell he was turian by his general build, but that was all I saw. I was busy trying to get two hundred people into a lifeboat." She glanced behind her. "I've got to go, sir. If I can dig up any information on whatever nightmares Cerberus is cooking up, I'll send it on. Maybe now we're headed to Cerberus headquarters I won't be so isolated." She saluted. "Be careful, sir. I don't know what all this means, but … ."
He straightened and nodded. "Take care, Williams, and thanks for the heads up." He closed down the QEC, then opened a channel to Thessia. He needed to discover Liara's location and what she was up to.
Shiala answered the call. "Nihlus. Hello."
A quick nod answered her greeting. "Shiala. I need to speak with Liara." He narrowed his eyes, the deep, churning ache in his gut deepening as the asari blanched. "Where is she?"
"She headed out on her own about a week ago." Shiala wriggled a little, her cheeks colouring. She'd make a terrible infiltrator ... or poker player. "She's kept in touch via comms, but the channels are always too heavily encrypted to trace back."
The fact that she'd tried said a great deal about the circumstances of Liara's departure. "Can you reach her?" When she indicated that she could, he continued, "Send me the frequency." He signaled its arrival with a curt nod. "Thank you, Shiala. Kryik out."
He changed frequencies, opening a channel to Liara. Mysterious didn't get a chance to fester into betrayal. Not with everything blowing up around Garrus lately.
"Nihlus." Liara's whispered voice came through with no image. "Ah … hello. What can I do for you?"
Mysterious? Bullshit. She'd just sprinted all the way to suspicious.
"Liara. Where are you? Shiala says you took off a week ago, wouldn't say where you were going." He laced enough menace through his subvocals to drive home that he wouldn't tolerate any subterfuge.
"An old friend needed me. I'm hoping we'll be on our way to you soon. There's a lot to explain, but it really needs to be done in person." She went silent for a second, her voice barely audible when she spoke again. "Nihlus, I'm not exactly in friendly territory at the moment. Can you just trust me for a little while? It's nothing that is going to hurt Garrus or you or Archangel. I promise that."
Garrus? Or him? Personally? He wasn't Archangel hierarchy. "Ashley Williams saw you on a Cerberus base with someone she said looked exactly like Jane Shepard. What are they up to, Liara?" He leaned into the interface as if looming over her, even by proxy, would help impress his serious intent on her. He gave her thirty seconds to reply, then called, "Liara? Who is the look alike?"
"I really can't explain like this, Nihlus," the whisper came back. "I've got to go. She's waking up. I promise you, I'll get back to Archangel within a week, and bring all the answers with me." A voice called in the background … sounded like someone searching for the asari. "I've got to go. See you soon."
The channel went dead.
Nihlus's shoulders slumped, taking his breath with it. His flask cleared his pouch and poured a long draught into his mouth before he even realized he'd reached for it. Damn. He replaced the cap and slid it back into the pouch. Alcohol breath was all he needed when Anderson came at him with the inevitable questions.
The door chimed. Well, at least Anderson trusted him enough to ring rather than bursting in with demands.
Nihlus turned to face the door. "Come in."
The portal slid open to reveal the captain. A sardonic half-grin and a cocked eyebrow announced Anderson's opinion about having to ask permission to enter his own comm room. "Is Chief Williams all right?" he asked, walking in to take his usual seat. He leaned back and crossed an ankle over the opposite knee, his hands held relaxed in his lap.
Nihlus nodded and let out a long breath. No, not the compassionate discussion position. Shit. He perched on the edge of the closest chair. "Yeah, seems so. She came into some urgent intel. I followed up on it. We should have the answers on Omega in a week." He chuffed deep in his chest. "So, Captain, have we reached the 'explain yourself, Spectre' portion of the mission?"
Anderson mashed a shrug into a shake of his head. "You're a Spectre, you don't have to explain anything to anyone, but I would like to know what I'm flying my people into." He dropped his foot to the floor and leaned forward, forearms on his knees, fingers steepled. "I hope by now you know that I'm your ally, Nihlus. I won't betray your confidence."
Yeah, Nihlus knew that. Still, he didn't know if Anderson's crazy-tolerance levels could take the weird shit going on inside his head. Of course, the man had endured more than a decade of Shepard. How much weirder could a couple of dead Protheans, a rachni queen, and dreams of snow calling for help be, anyway? Okay, the last … way too crazy ... for anyone.
Anderson raised his eyebrows, obviously expecting an answer, but didn't speak, leaving the pressure on.
Where to start? "You know that Shepard and I shared the beacon messages and the cipher?" Nihlus waited for the captain's nod before diving in. "Well, when the rachni queen helped us sort through some of the Prothean memories, she made herself a cozy little corner in the back of my head and moved in." He sighed and slumped in the chair, Joker's idea of a nap suddenly seeming very appealing. "Are you sure you want in on that mess?"
After meeting the captain's unflinching stare for twenty seconds, Nihlus relented. "All right. I received a message through a dream. I'm certain the rachni queen acted as its courier, but all I know about the source is Freedom's Progress." A lie, but close enough to the truth.
"Ashley's call clued me in to what we're dealing with out here … the colony disappearances, at least." He slipped in the change of subject, hoping Anderson just let it pass. "It's the Collectors. At least, that's what they're called now. They were Protheans. The Reapers saw utility in their biotics and the hardiness of their genetics, and so began a long process of subversion." He shuddered, remembering the first versions, still looking so much like lost friends and loved ones that people threw themselves into arms they thought would lead to reunion, but instead, led only to horror and death.
Nihlus cleared his throat and shifted in his seat, stretching his neck to ease the fist clamped around his windpipe. "Anyway, the command and control versions of these subverted Protheans deployed a weapon … swarms of insectile bio-machines that placed people into stasis." He closed his eyes, the image of Tashac and Merol's last evacuation vivid in his mind. He could still feel the tiny hands of Tashac's children clinging to him … the depth of his terror for them.
He shook it off. It wasn't him. It wasn't Nihlus who loved the children sired by that pompous, intractable idiot the Regulikar chose as Tashac's median vir. He never mourned those same children when they went to war and never returned. All of that was Merol. An ashen, wintery emptiness blew through, whispering to him how alone he remained.
Nihlus took a deep breath and forced himself back on track, the brandy settling in, easing that chill as it always did. A sigh of relief greeted the comforting burn that spread up his spine and along his bones. He looked up, meeting Anderson's stare. "The swarms were a weapon brought in near the end of the war. Fast and efficient, they allowed the engineered Prothean husks, of which there were millions by that point, to do a lot of the harvesting out in the more remote colonies."
Anderson straightened. "It makes sense. Take out the comms, send in the swarms to subdue the colony in minutes, then clean up. Quick, brutal, and over in hours, long before anyone can investigate let alone mount an offensive." He shoved himself up out of his chair. "You think this warning of yours will give us enough time to save this colony?"
The temptation to lie crawled over Nihlus's skin like a swarm of netichik. So many millions of humans just gone … would it hurt to allow for a little hope? He stood and followed Anderson to the door. Suddenly, he really needed a nap, maybe some food … and a drink.
Pausing at the threshold, Anderson turned back, waiting for Nihlus's answer.
The Spectre shook his head, the truth ugly … and heavy enough to splinter his bones beneath its weight. "No. Hopefully, we'll get there in time to collect evidence … something to help us fight them. The people are already lost."
(A-N: So, my little surprise! I thought of doing an April's Fool chapter where everyone died. The End. But nah, much more fun to get this chapter ready to post. So, is it a good thing, bringing him in? With all three of the main characters taking on missions without the other two, I feared poor old Nihlus would get lost for long periods of time without bringing him in. :D
I got several awesome ideas for things I could do to celebrate 100 chapters. I'll be doing a separately posted drabble collection. Other suggestions were Niftu Cal making an appearance, which was already planned, an eating contest between Sassy and Wrex ... very doable, and the most exciting thing ... Curious Canvas who did the cover image of Shepard's memorial is doing up some sketches from the scene I think we've all wanted to see for a long time. :D And that's all I have to say about that. ;)
Thanks as always to those who review. I really appreciate the support and encouragement. Alpenwolf, Zombie Pixel, Kira Kyuu, KrystylSky, MarauderSheildsNeverForget, CordovanLily, SilverBladeStar, Lady Velvet C. Peterson. Everyone who has Faved, Followed, and read. We're coming up on 175,000 views. That's crazy. And amazing. I'm so humbled and thrilled that people are enjoying the story. Thank you! Thanks so much. You're awesome!)