NEW CHAPTER!
47 Days ASR (insanely early in the AM Omega time)
The YMIR's alarm built from intermittent beeps to a solid wail as the mech careened toward detonation. Crap, he'd taken it down too quickly. Nihlus grabbed hold of Sol's wrist and ran, dragging her behind him. "Thane! Samara!" He hollered into his radio. "Heavy cover and breather helmets! Now!" Nihlus tossed Sol behind a dividing wall and over a stack of crates, then leaped after her, landing a hand's width from her head. She yelped, but he merely threw himself over her as the beeping alarm sped to a steady tone. Then a half heartbeat of silence. Then ...
… the last four YMIR mechs exploded in a blast that rocked the building and, judging by the sheer cacophony, launched the contents and occupants of the warehouse, missiles fired in every direction. When the din of falling debris ended, Nihlus glanced out from under his arm. Despite a few crates lying over his legs, their shelter held. The breath that he'd been holding escaped, replaced with a lungful of dust and smoke that set him choking. Despite warning the others to put on their breathers, he hadn't had time.
A pointy elbow jabbed him in the gut. "Get off my head!" Sol jabbed him another half dozen times and landed a few decent kicks before he managed to push the crates off and roll to one side. Gasping and flailing, she clambered out from under him. "What part of making me the bottom portion of that pile seemed like a good idea?" she muttered, flopping onto her side, lungs heaving.
"Put your helmet on," he said, ignoring her protest. "The place is filled with smoke." He stood, and reached down, pulling her to her feet when she grabbed it.
"Thane? Samara? You two come through okay?" he asked, shouting over the roar of fires and the answering suppression systems. He clambered over the crates with far less grace than he'd shown going the other way, then stepped around the wall to utter destruction. At least the ventilation system was making quick work of the smoke, sucking it away as dry foam smothered the flames.
The mechs had blown a massive hole through the floor and ceiling. Very little of them remained, chunks of arms and other parts had torn holes through everything and embedded themselves in the walls.
"We're alive," Thane responded. "Samara just charged off with murderous intent."
"Yeah, I see her," Nihlus answered as the asari justicar pulled a biotic hurdle over a pile of jumbled up crates and machinery. She moved with murderous intent indeed, storming over to where Jona Sederis had taken refuge behind a large, metal desk. Glancing at Sol, he nodded toward the asari. "If we want to find out what Sederis was doing with Saren's money, we'd better get in there."
Sol chuckled, the sound hollow through her helmet speakers. "I want to be an asari when I grow up." She took a couple of steps, then turned back. "You going to put your helmet on, senux?"
Nihlus shook his head despite coughing into his forearm. "No, the fire suppression system has it handled." He pressed a hand to his temple, pushing in against a dull but insistent pressure. The thought of looking out through that black faceplate, having the HUD flashing so close to his face sent shivers down his spine.
"Note to self," he muttered under his breath, "don't blow up four YMIR's using headshots on two."
"Yeah, remember that one," Sol muttered. "I think you broke my lungs and the left side of my right kidney." She stretched, cracking her back a little as she limped past. "Also, next time we take a quick trip to pick up a few of your belongings, let's bring a platoon of Martin's frame armour infantry and at least a half dozen tanks." She pulled her right arm across her chest, sighing as it cracked and settled back into place. "And maybe a gunship."
Thane appeared in the doorway at the far end of the warehouse. "I could use a hand getting the test subjects and prisoners free from their cells."
"Sol?" Nihlus nodded toward the ruins of twisted metal and crumbling concrete. "Help Thane check for survivors." When she acknowledged his order, he began to pick his way across the weakened floor toward the figure writhing in Samara's grip.
"Samara?" Nihlus could see the justicar's mouth moving, but couldn't hear anything she said. "Don't kill her. I need to question her." He stopped to check the pulse on a young female turian, but found nothing. The moment his team breached the doorway, a wave of unarmed, psychotic civilians had charged at them. Choking back his rage, Nihlus straightened and looked toward the lunatic responsible for all it. He and the others had no choice but to cut down all those innocents, something he felt certain Samara was discussing with Sederis.
Sederis dropped, hitting the floor in a heap as Samara stepped away to search the desk. "She is yours to interrogate," the justicar said, her voice colder than Nihlus had heard it. "Unless, I don't find the information I require."
Sederis let out a short, but horrific string of curses. "Top drawer, just like I told you, bitch." She laughed, the sound high and shrill with madness. "Do you really think that you'll catch her? You've been chasing her four centuries, and she slips from your grip every time because your code doesn't allow you to harm innocents."
Nihlus bent over Sederis, hooked a hand under the asari merc's arm, and pulled her to her feet. For her part, she just ignored Nihlus completely, lunging at the justicar and spitting a gob of violet in Samara's face. "You're pathetic and weak. She's a monster, one whose power is beyond your ability to fathom."
Nihlus shook Sederis hard enough to break through her diatribe. "Shut up. You're under arrest; Spectre authority. Who are you? And what happened to all these people?" he demanded. She lunged at him, teeth gnashing. "Sweet spirits, what's wrong with you?" He held her at arm's length, leaning back to keep his face out of biting range.
Sederis laughed. "You know who I am. Don't be obtuse." She flared her biotics, breaking free of his grip as she threw him back. Keeping her eyes on him despite averting her face, she circled the desk. The crazy behind that sideways stare burrowed beneath his plates, virulent and vicious like a nest of netichiks. She laughed, high and shrill. "Do you honestly believe that I didn't realize that the transmission was a trap, laden as it was with oh-so-tempting banking information for one of the richest Spectres to ever take a bribe?" Glancing back, she shrugged and rolled her eyes. "Give me a little credit. Please."
The casual nature of that shrug forced Nihlus's last two meal bars up into the back of his throat. Sharp, jagged claws dragged up his spine to bury themselves in the base of his skull. Damn. The heel of his hand migrated back to his temple as the pain ramped up from a seven to a ten on the Shepard scale.
Sederis reversed direction before she got too close to Samara, still keeping part of the desk between herself and Nihlus. "Although, I admit I didn't expect you to team up with the justicar bitch. Losing an entire base full of people is inconvenient." She let out a low, feral growl as her fingers trailed through the dust along the edge of the desktop. "We were just starting to get some decent data from this batch."
A dramatic sigh heaved through her nostrils and she shrugged again, lifting her fingers to rub them together. "Oh well, they will start again somewhere else, and you're fooling yourself if you believe we were the only ones carrying on their good and necessary work." She turned her back to him and wandered toward a wall of crates that had managed to withstand the explosion.
Nihlus's teeth ground together as he forced his hand back to his rifle. Why did the crazy ones always have to monologue? "Inconvenient?" He stalked after her, keeping his rifle aimed at her back. "Losing two hundred and fifty people under your command is inconvenient?" Actually, that wasn't even the question. The real question was: why was he surprised? She was a madwoman in command of a band of mercenaries, with all the apparent and implied consequences.
"Under my command?" She looked over her shoulder, her brow knitted tight above her eyes, as if his statement truly perplexed her. "Oh, you mean the sisters and initiates?" She shrugged and resumed her course. "Easily replaced. No, the true loss is the subjects. It's taken us a great deal of time to get any real results from the experiments." Sederis pushed the single crate at the end of the wall aside, and stepped out of sight. Nihlus leaped after her. He'd be damned if he'd fought through hundreds of her people and mechs ... getting electrocuted by a pack of fake fucking dogs … just for her to disappear.
"Senux!" Sol called from the other side of the space. He heard her shoving her way between crates and rubble. "Where …? Wait up, dammit." Her boots rang on the tile as she ran after him.
Stepping around the crate, Nihlus saw Sederis standing in the center of a half circle of black orbs. Her head lolled back, her eyes closed, arms held out as she swayed. A smile of pure bliss beamed across her face, upping the creepy factor to a factor of infinity. His boots sliding on the floor, Nihlus struggled to stop, backpedaling as his eyes followed the line, his brain counting them as if it mattered. Eight. Eight of the orbs. No wonder his head had been aching, the restless talons scraping along his spine and digging into the base of his skull.
Spirits … no wonder Sederis was—
Darkness fell, a guillotine of tar-coated ice. His gun fell from numb talons as he reached up, groping at blind eyes and deafened aural canals. Terror, colder than a midwinter night on Noveria, stabbed shards of that impossible black through his heart and lungs, driving them in deep. Unable to breathe, he collapsed into a pile of armour and limp, frozen flesh.
A strangled mewl of pain rattled out between clenched teeth as one hand cracked against the floor, his wrist letting out a snap he felt rather than heard. The floor ... . Blinking against the pale, watery darkness, he realized that he could see again. He tipped forward onto all fours, lungs straining against a vacuum, his vision darkening around the edges once more.
"Your mind belongs to us," a deep voice said, the sound reminiscent of boulders rolling around inside a cloth sack filled with pudding. "Breathe."
Nihlus sucked in a long, gasping breath, collapsing onto his hip as chill, damp air burned its way into his aching lungs. His vision began to clear, sending his survival instinct into overdrive as he scrambled up out of the ... . It looked like water. He'd thought himself about to drown. He slapped a hand against the surface: it looked as though he knelt on water … but that was impossible.
Anyway … . He shook his head. It didn't matter. Where was he? That mattered. Along with how he'd gotten there. Pressing both palms into the floor, he dragged his knees back under him, every cell in his body keening a mallupean in high, shrill voices.
Spirits, he hurt … his entire body screamed in pain.
Shoving himself up, he made it onto all fours, feet under him, palms still pressed to the floor. He took another deep breath and straightened. Arms held out, stiff and awkward, he managed to stand despite feeling as though he stood on the deck of a rolling ship. Stumbling in the near dark, he struggled to find and keep his balance, ending up splay-legged, but still upright. Where in the name of the good spirits was he?
The foggy veil surrounding him parted, a figure stepping through it to walk toward him, its identity betrayed by the short, red hair—vivid even in the dark—and the cocky swing to its gait.
"Shepard?" He looked around, nothing but shifting caustics and dim, watery grey visible in every direction. "What's happening? How did you get here? How did I get here?" He took a step toward her, his booted talons scraping to a halt when he looked into Shepard's eyes, his gut freezing solid. It wasn't Jane, but the tar-slick darkness wearing her face, just as it had worn the faces of his mari and pari above Haestrom.
"What are you?" he asked, backing away a couple of steps, feet dragging. Oily, the gloom flowed from those blank eyes, long tentacles of malevolent nothingness writhing across the soupy grey to wrap around his head, blinding him.
Stop, dear spirits, just stop! Just tell me what you want.
Sharp knives stabbed into both eyes, the force behind them twisting, driving the blades in deeper and deeper. He clapped one hand over his eye, knees buckling as his stomach heaved. Rusted iron filled his sinuses, dripping from his nostrils.
He fell forward, landing on his hands and knees, his vision returning as the dry heaves tried to turn him inside out. He pressed down into that impossibly solid water, talons splayed and focused on breathing through the agony. Drips of bright cobalt splashed, breaking through the surface to twine with the water in lazy swirls. He let it drip. Why not? Let the blood flow ... let them see the evidence of their indoctrination turning his brain to pudding. What good would he be to them then?
The pain eased up enough that he could pull his talons from where he'd embedded them in the floor. They'd punched holes through the tips of his gloves. "What are you?" he repeated. "Or who?" He pushed himself up until he was sitting on his lower legs, the heels of his hands braced against his thighs.
"You were never meant to breach the darkness," the monster said, the sound of that voice coming from those lips painting a stark, ugly face on whatever possessed Shepard. "It is not yet our time."
"What is that supposed to mean?" He shimmied back a metre, trying to keep some distance between them. His heart hammered between his lungs, all three organs straining as if he'd run ten klicks. The dizziness still churning inside his skull and nausea sucker-punching him in the guts drove home the alien nature of wherever the hell he was. "For fuck's sake, stop torturing me and just talk to me. What are you?"
Shepard crouched just out of his reach. "The echoes have discovered what they need," that horrible grinding boulder voice said through her mouth. "They cannot be allowed to complete the Catalyst." She shuffled toward him … or it shuffled toward him, still crouched. "They build it! Millions dying. Screaming as their bodies are reduced then reformed, still screaming."
"What catalyst?" The daggers piercing Nihlus's brain exploded into a cloud of sticky-tar spiders, their writhing bodies and tiny, scratching legs scraping along the inside of his skull. The drip from his nose sped up as he fought to understand … but more, to break free. Shepard had been able to break free, but—
Something stabbed him in the neck twice … then a third time. The spiders began to evaporate into black smoke and drift away. Indoctrination serum. Sol had injected him with a half litre of the stuff judging by the throbbing in his neck.
An explosion went off next to his head. Damn, excellent timing: getting his hearing back just to have it reduced to shrill ringing. Another explosion … no, not an explosion, a hand cannon firing. He sagged a little, relaxing as the noise echoed in his skull, each one another orb blown to bits. Six more times the gun pounded at his brain. He sagged onto the floor as his dim, watery surroundings vanished.
Another shot let him know that Sederis wouldn't escape to cause any more pain and suffering. Thank the spirits. He slid down onto his side, hiding his face beneath his arm as the bright lights of the warehouse burned like brands inside his head. Drawing in a long breath, he gagged: the air stunk of crap and urine, burned plastic, and spent heatsinks.
"Senux?" Strong talons gripped the back of his neck. "Are you with me?"
Dear spirits, so loud! Did she have to yell right in his face?
Nihlus took a deep breath, clenched his teeth against the ebbing agony in his skull, and nodded. "Yeah, I'm here," he said, forcing the words out through a clenched jaw. "Just give me a second." After what felt like a half hour, but probably amounted to five minutes, he pushed himself up off the floor. When he made it to one knee, he paused to look up at the shattered orbs. Sederis sprawled at their center, her blank eyes staring straight at him.
Lifting a hand to press over one, ringing aural canal, he glared at the tarin crouched in front of him. "Good work," he said, his voice slurred. "Next time, don't shoot them all right next to my head."
She shrugged, a quick dip of her head toward one shoulder. "Yeah, sorry about all the bells ringing inside your skull." She grinned, her mandibles fluttering far too gleefully to be decent. "Well, maybe not all that sorry. I was saving your feeble backside, after all, and your cowl made an excellent support." She hung her pistol from her hip, then dug into her belt pouch. "Now, hold still," she said, lifting a cloth to wipe the blood from his face. "There's a good little torin."
She cackled, but then looked past him toward the sound of boots on tile. "Did you find what you were looking for, Samara?"
"I did," the justicar replied. "The Eclipse smuggled Morinth out on the HML Demeter. It is bound for Omega." Despite the dark circles under her eyes that betrayed her exhaustion, she held herself proudly, strong and determined. Again, Nihlus didn't know whether to admire Samara's focus or fear her single-mindedness.
Nihlus plucked the cloth from Sol and turned to face the justicar. "I guess we're headed home, then." He wiped his face, then tucked the rag into his belt. He held a hand out to Sol, who helped haul him up. Once he stood firmly on two feet, he wrapped an arm around her, and pulled her in to touch brows. "Thank you, inluvis."
"Back off, senux. You can just get me something really expensive and fancy for dinner." She shoved him, but not hard enough to break free. "Now, stop drooling on me, and let's get the cops here to clean up. I need to eat something."
An hour and a half later, they returned to the apartment, but instead of showering and then crashing into the glorious depth of his mattress like Nihlus's body insisted, the four of them ended up rushing through packing everything he wanted to take to Omega. The next ship to Omega left in three hours, and Samara had booked them cabins, insisting that they could eat and sleep once on board.
"I think I'm actually too tired to eat," Sol groaned as they stood at the threshold of the ship's galley. She craned her head to look at the tray of a turian business torin as he passed by. Her stomach roared with all the fury of a enraged ungentira. "Spirits, is that seared panflel?" Without waiting for anyone to answer, she bolted across to the serving line, and began filling a tray.
Thane's low, kind laughter rumbled from Nihlus's right side. "Apparently, she discovered a second wind." He followed at a much slower pace, limping a little. A blood stain on his leather jacket betrayed where a piece of shrapnel had embedded itself in his lower back. Sol said it was just a flesh wound and would heal just fine in a couple of days.
Nihlus glanced around the galley, but didn't see Samara. She'd probably taken something back to her cabin. She'd expressed a desire to spend the time in transit meditating, and told them that she would meet up with them on Omega. The Spectre let out a long, weary breath and followed the other two. He needed food, he just hoped he didn't fall asleep face down in the seared panflel.
An hour later, after nearly falling asleep in the panflel:
"Well, look who it is." Shepard's smile betrayed her weariness,even as it warmed him through. He recognized the room behind her as the conference room aboard the Ypres, so she'd made it off Korlus intact. "Are you all right?" She leaned into the imager. "You look like you've been dragged halfway to hell and back."
Nihlus returned her smile. "I'm fine, just tired. We faced a few complications on Illium, but we're aboard a passenger liner on our way home." His fingers lifted to the image as if somehow, they could find a way to touch her. "I just wanted to check in before I hit the rack." A sweet ache spread through his chest when she lifted her fingers to meet his. "Are you two all right? Didn't take any damage?"
Shepard shook her head, then covered a yawn with her hand. "We're both going to sleep all the rest of the way back to Omega, but we only took a few nicks and cuts." Her fingers raked through her short, still-damp hair. "We lost a few people, and Wrex was badly burned, so we're racing him back to a proper hospital. Miranda, Jack, Woo, and a few others came out with more holes than they went in with, but we got out."
Nihlus just stared, watching her lips as she spoke, then meeting her eyes as she fell into silence. Spirits, she looked good, and he wished that instead of trying to cram himself into the narrow, too short bunk in his cabin, he was climbing into bed next to her. Ah well, in under a day, he'd be back on Omega, and maybe they'd catch a night or two before the galaxy threw them back into hell.
"Hey, cikabeknai, you there?" She cocked her head, a slight knot between her brows.
Heat flushed beneath Nihlus's plates as he realized that he'd just been staring at her like an obluvis. He smiled and nodded. "Just admiring the view."
Pink blossomed across her nose and touched her cheeks. Spirits, sometimes her beauty just blindsided him. "When do you get in?" she asked. "We'll be home in eleven hours."
"Eighteen hours … well, more like seventeen and a half now," he replied. "You'll pick me up at the dock?" He flicked his mandibles at the mask of teasing denial that painted over her face.
"No, sorry, couldn't possibly do that." She shook her head and dropped her arms across her chest. "Sweet baby Jesus, you've just gone too far, now. I've got to hang up." She grinned and blew him a kiss. "See you in seventeen and a half hours."
Nihlus nodded, and grinned, mostly at himself for the ridiculous prickling in the corners of his eyes. He must be tired. "Until then, haksaya kubenar." He touched the backs of his talons to his brow. "I love you."
Her grinned widened, her eyes growing glassy. "And I love you, Nihlus. I've missed you. Well, we've both missed you something crazy. See you in a few hours." She stared into his eyes for a few more seconds before finally closing the channel.
After staring at the bunk for a few minutes, Nihlus sat on the side. He was never going to fit. Pulling his knees up to his chest, he managed to get his feet past the supports. The mattress definitely wasn't made for turians, so if he tried to lay on his back, he'd end up rocking back and forth on his cowl. He piled pillows under his head and neck, deciding to give it a shot, but he no sooner laid back and he began to roll.
"Tarc!" He rolled three quarters of the way onto his side and stretched out, groaning when the end of the bunk frame dug in just below his knee. Damned human transports! Resorting his pillows, he rolled over onto his side and tucked his knees into his stomach. His body parts immediately began lining up at the complaints department to file paperwork.
He swung his legs off the side of the bunk and stood. "I've got to sleep," he muttered, groaning a little at the thought of trying to sleep sitting up all the way back to Omega. His neck twinged, as if warning him the sort of pain he'd have to endure if he tried it. Sighing, he bent down and grabbed the mattress. Ships usually secured them to the bunks to prevent them flying around if the ship lost gravity.
A soft cry of victory greeted the thing lifting out of the frame. Sleeping with his feet hanging over onto the floor, he could handle. He threw it down, pulled back the blankets and flopped.
"Oh yes … so much better." Wriggling under the covers, he pulled them up around his mandibles and closed his eyes. His muscles all tightened as his body adjusted to the position, burning with a most wonderful pain as they relaxed, everything going heavy and soft. Blessed sleep. "Glory hallelujah and praise the blessed Enkindlers' light."
His door opened. "So, I've been thinking … " Sol's voice said. He heard her step over the threshold but didn't open his eyes. Maybe if he ignored her, she'd go back to her cabin and sleep.
The tarin flopped down on the mattress next to him and pushed in until she took up nearly half the width. She waited, not speaking for well over a minute, but he could feel her breath on his face. "I know you're not asleep, senux. You came in here fifteen minutes ago." She pressed in tighter, her nose butting against his. "You're not asleep. Stop pretending." Sighing, she pulled back a little and began to bounce around, sorting blankets by the feel of it.
When she stilled, Sol let out a long, soft breath, a gentle keen threading through her subvocals. "Look, senux, I'm really sorry that I didn't have your back the way I should have today." She sniffed and then a warm hand pressed against his mandible. "You're a good fratrin, and you deserved better than I gave."
Nihlus sighed, but didn't open his eyes, merely tilting his head to rest his brow against hers.
"Anyway, I wanted you to know, I won't let you down like that again." Her talons entwined with his, and she stilled, her breathing evening out even before he drifted off.
(A-N: Sorry for any confusion caused by my mistake of splitting this story up. I hope you enjoyed the end of the mission to Illium. It's high time to get these crazy kids back together.
Thanks so much for your support … as always. Always. *hugs and baskets of kittens*)