Nevermore
"Who are you and what are you doing on my ship?" Admiral Daro'Xen started. "Guards!"
The two armed quarians started to raise their rifles, but froze as the rachni moved. Suddenly, the quarians had no shot at Ilia and all the rachni had appendages out and ready to do...whatever they did. Jak didn't think those claws would tickle. But if Illia was half the biotic he thought she was, none of the quarians present had a chance. Most biotics that Jak had known were fairly laid back and didn't go for ostentatious displays of power. Illia had seemed the same way. So if the swirling blue field of energy that surrounded her was simply a minor leakage past her control? Oh dear. She incredibly powerful and pissed. No armor, no weapons, but she was likely the most dangerous being in the hall. Maybe on the ship.
"They move, they die." Illia said in a silky soft tone. "You have started a war, Daro'Xen. One you will lose."
"I have two hundred marines on this ship!" Daro'Xen blustered.
"So?" Illia smiled but there was no humor in it. "Maybe I should send half of my friends home or they might get bored." She raised a hand and one of the marines who had been surreptitiously raising his rifle froze in place, surrounded by blue energy. "You people don't learn, do you? No wonder they asked me to come. I at least know how to practice a little restraint when idiots point guns at me. Jak? You coherent?"
"They hurt Lara." Jak said weakly. Elan'Shiya had frozen at his side. When had she come back?
"I know." Illia did not take her eyes off the other quarians who hadn't moved. "We all felt it. The queen is angry. Everyone is. I have got a team recovering her. They will try not to kill anyone. I don't imagine that these fools will let it happen though. The breakage is on them, not you or us."
"Do you know who I am?" Daro'Xen blustered.
"Yes." Illia shrugged. "Ask me if I care." Daro'Xen inhaled as if to retort, but the other admiral had heard enough.
"Xen, shut up!" Shala'Raan said savagely. "She is in the middle of your ship! None of your vaunted technology warned us she was here. Do you really want to start a fight here and now, surrounded by your people and your toys? Just looking at her, she is asari and not young. If she is half the biotic I think she is, she can take all of us here by herself, not even counting her allies." Jak quirked a brow at that, she was mimicking his thoughts from earlier. Maybe she had a working brain. "Shut up. You have done enough!" Daro'Xen started to speak and the lighter suited Admiral actually hit her. The crack of the armored glove against the visor was loud in the confined space. "Are you a complete idiot? Shut it before I have you muted!"
"Apparently she does want a fight." Illia said quietly. "That doesn't say great things for her level of intelligence, Admiral Shala'Raan. The question is, what do you want?"
"You have me, us, at a disadvantage." Shala'Raan said slowly.
"More than you know." Illia replied evenly. "We were infiltrating quietly before she hurt Jak and Lara. The idea was to sneak in, get them and get out. No one hurt, no traces. Her hurting Lara changed that. We are not sneaking anymore. This ship's coms are shut down. Internal and external. Sensors too. The crew on this ship are isolated from each other and will be easy prey. You have already given us reason. Why shouldn't we simply slaughter every last one of you quarians aboard?"
"You don't want to." Shala'Raan said slowly. "Or you would have already." Illia inclined her head slightly to the admiral and Shala'Raan nodded." What do you want?"
"We are taking Jak and Lara." Illia said quietly. "You are not going to stop us."
"No!" Daro'Xen rose, her hand going to her pistol. Then she was floating in midair, surrounded by blue energy.
"You kidnapped these two humans." Illia had her hand up, her fingers outspread. "Cerberus did the same thing. Funny thing… Cerberus didn't hurt them nearly as badly as you just did, Admiral Daro'Xen. So I really do not care what you want or think." She nodded and two of the rachni started forward.
The marine who was free and Shala'Raan both shied away as the aliens walked between them, ignoring the frozen quarians to stand by Jak. Elan'Shiya held him and they looked at her.
"Moving him may hurt him." The quarian said quietly. "We have done enough to him."
"We are not leaving him or Lara here." Illia might have been discussing the weather now. "Not a chance."
"Elan, don't be stupid." Shala'Raan said slowly and carefully, not moving. "They have us at a serious disadvantage. Whatever these things are..." She broke off as Illia cleared her throat.
"They are rachni, not things." Illia snapped. At that, the tension in the room seemed to climb out of sight. "And those two humans are friends of the hive. Friends your people just tortured."
"Keala." Shala'Raan stammered.
Anyone who had any inkling about galactic history remembered the rachni wars. It had taken the krogan coming into the wars before anyone had even had a chance against the swarms of bugs that had overrun world after world. Of course, that had caused its own problems, but rachni were not a lightweight threat.
"What were they doing on a geth ship?" Elan'Shiya asked and then shook herself. "Never mind. Not our business, I bet you won't answer." Illia just looked at her. "Moving Lara may kill her. Moving Jak will likely hurt him." She made a noise of consternation. "I can't let you hurt him. Not after what we did."
"You tried to help." Illia said softly. "We felt you through Jak. Thank you for that. But we cannot trust you. Move." Elan'Shiya did not and one of the rachni shoved her aside easily, sliding both whip like appendages underneath Jak and lifting him.
Something seemed to plunge directly into his right ear and the last thing Jak heard before passing out was his own scream off pain.
"No! Don't move him!" Elan'Shiya's voice was tense and angry as Jak roused to something touching his skull. He was on the floor again, held there. He tried to bat whatever was holding him away, but he couldn't move. "You saw what happened. The feedback through his cochlea is too much. It will hurt him worse if you try again."
"And if we leave him here, your noble admiral hurts him again." Illia's tone was pure frost. "Not a chance."
"No, she won't." Shala'Raan was calm, but it was a brittle calm. "If I have my way, she won't be an admiral for very long either."
"Come off it, admiral Shala'Raan." Illia snapped right back. "If she had found a miracle weapon against the geth in Lara's head, you would be shooting at us right now."
How long had Jak been out? He was so weak. Nothing hurt, but he was so weak.
"Maybe, but she didn't." The quarian admiral replied. "Instead, she provoked a diplomatic incident with your people and possibly the Alliance as well."
"We are not leaving him here. End of story." Illia said flatly. Jak could feel things under him again, lifting. He braced himself but hands touched him, holding him to the floor.
"His inner ears are all messed up from the energy that flowed through them." Elan'Shiya said fervently. "Moving him may hurt or kill him. Is that what you want? Yes, we messed up, but I can help!"
"Elan'Shiya, no!" Shala'Raan said quickly, but the other female quarian was speaking again.
"We cannot trust you." Illia said flatly. "Move. Now."
"Would you trust someone else?" Elan'Shiya asked. "Someone neutral?"
"I don't see anyone neutral here." Illia replied evenly. "Daro'Xen and her people are hardly neutral. You and Shala'Raan may be, but I cannot know that and every moment I am here, my friends are at risk. Yes, I know your fleet will be trying to break the coms blackout. I know they will be sending ships filled with marines any minute. At which point, this turns into a blood bath."
"Which none of us want!" Shala'Raan said savagely. "Elan'Shiya… Let him go!"
"Admiral..." A gentle hand touched Jak's forehead and stroked it. "They know what happened to Zumin." An inhalation sounded and there was utter silence. "I… We need to know."
"You cannot go, Elan!" Shala'Raan said slowly. "You have many patients that need you. Veetor and others. We need you."
Jak managed to open his eyes. He lay on the floor of his cell, a small pile of bloody vomit beside his head. Elan'Shiya knelt beside him, two rachni around her. Daro'Xen still floated in midair, held there by biotics, but both marines stood by one wall with Shala'Raan, their weapons down. Illia stood by the door, two rachni flanking her. Where were the other two?
"Back with us, Jak?" Illia asked. Jak tried to nod, but Elan'Shiya held his head down.
"Do not move." The quarian warned. "I don't have complete files on humans, but what I have is clear. Whatever happened to you hurt the inside of your head. I cannot detect any brain damage, but your inner ears are a mess. Your sense of balance is all messed up. That should heal, given time, but you will have problems until then."
"Lara?" Jak managed. Illia nodded to him.
"She is clear and safe, for now." Illia reassured the man. "She is comatose. Our healers have her. We do not know how badly this moron hurt her. Not yet." She growled at the floating quarian. "But she is alive and safe."
"I am not safe." Jak said quietly. Illia shook her head. "Knock me out?" He pleaded.
"We did. It didn't help. Any time we move you, you scream and vomit." Illia said bluntly. "We do not want to hurt you."
"Leaving me here is not an option, Illia." Jak said slowly." You know what they will do to me."
"Nothing." Elan'Shiya and Shala'Raan chorused. They looked at one another and then at Jak. Shala'Raan broke the silence. "Elan? What can we do? We need to do something to prove our need to fix this."
"Admiral, we cannot move him." Elan'Shiya sounded nearly in tears. "Just getting him onto a gurney would jar his inner ears badly. Anything else might cause terminal damage. We cannot let that happen after what Admiral Daro'Xen did.."
"No, we cannot." Shala'Raan said quietly. "Is there anything we can do?"
"We could try to isolate his head." Elan'Shiya sounded a bit dubious. "If we can encase his skull in a protective device, we may be able to keep his ears from feeling whatever is done. But Admiral, I don't have any of that available."
"Could you do that?" Shala'Raan was watching Illia who hadn't moved. The rachni with her hadn't either. "If you had the gear?"
"I could." Elan'Shiya said slowly. Then she perked up. "Korri could bring it."
"Elan." Shala'Raan shook her head. "The fewer people who know about this, the better. This will all be classified top secret and probably buried for the good of the fleet. As it stands, I have to censure Daro'Xen, take this to the other admirals and try to keep this from spilling over everything. The last thing we need right now is to have division in the fleet after the mess with Tali'Zorah."
"Korri deserves to know." Elan'Shiya said quietly.
"We cannot trust her." Shala'Raan sounded dubious.
"We can trust her to act in a way that hurts us." Elan'Shiya said with a growl worthy of an old Earth grizzly bear.
"Who is Korri?" Jak asked as he focused on breathing.
"Zumin's daughter." Elan'Shiya sounded in tears. Shala'Raan slumped as Jak hissed. Illia did not react.
"Daughter." Jak fought to control the surge of anger, of rage and sorrow that soared through him. A feeling of warmth came from the rachni touching him and he smiled his thanks. "What the hell did you do?"
"I wasn't an Admiral then." Shala'Raan said quietly, her tone a mix of sick and sad. "He was brought to the fleet, hurt sorely. The lone survivor of a horrible episode. We tried to help him. We failed. He ran away and we never heard anything more until now."
"You blinded him! What the hell did you expect him to do?" Jak demanded and then sank back with a groaned as his head spun.
"We did." Elan'Shiya's tone was calm, but underneath lay rage. Rage as deep as space itself. "And worse." Jak stared at her and she bowed her head. "My mother was there and to her dying day, she swore that she had tried to help. No one blamed him for being angry. No one."
"What happened?" Illia's tone was oddly gentle.
"I don't know why they were exiled." Elan'Shiya said slowly. "I don't think anyone knows. Or maybe it is secret or something. I don't know. Almost fifty years ago, the fleet found out about a group of quarian exiles who had formed a family, a homestead on a distant planet. We sent a delegation and it all went wrong. Our fault."
"Elan..." Shala'Raan shook her head.
"It was our fault, Admiral!" Elan'Shiya snapped. "I don't care what the official report said! Mom was there! What happened is on us!"
"It is." Shala'Raan bowed her head and retreated a step. "The official report was that that found Zumin lying among the remains of his family's homestead after a pirate attack. A lie."
"Sounds like the truth to me." Jak said flatly. Everyone looked at him and he shrugged. Then he winced as Elan'Shiya held his head down. "Bunch of pirates came and tried to steal their belongings. They fought back. Course, they couldn't win."
"From one point of view." Elan'Shiya said weakly. "Yeah. Mom was never the same according to her family. When I went into medicine, she told me the true story. She wanted me to understand the difference between facts and 'politically correct'."
"You were not involved." Jak said quietly.
"No." Elan'Shiya heaved a sigh. "But mom's dishonor haunted us all. She never spoke of it except to me. Because I was going to be working for the Admiralty Board and she wanted me ready for the lies." Shala'Raan winced, but did not comment.
"Sounds like a hell of woman, your mom." Jak quipped. Elan'Shiya stared at him and then she chuckled.
"She was." She caressed Jak's head gently. "Thing was, Zumin was a mess. His hate for us, his totally justified hate for us, was deep seated. We tried everything to help him, to get him past it. To let him heal. The only person who ever got through to him was a female quarian he thought was a nurse named Visha. What he did not know was that she was a security guard, not a nurse."
"Elan!" Shala'Raan said quickly, only to freeze as the rachni with Illia moved, just a little.
"What we did to him was wrong, Admiral." Elan'Shiya said savagely. "What we did to his family was bad, but that?" She shook her head.
"You have to keep track of people who may betray you." Jak said quietly. "Of course, when you betray them first it is okay." He made a face when her hands wouldn't let him shake his head. "I assume she forced intimacy."
"I don't know if it was forced or not." The quarian holding him replied. "What I know is that he vanished one day right off the ship. A shuttle that had been brought from that homestead vanished as well. He had apparently found it and gotten it working despite his handicap. Security was extremely unhappy. Four months later, Visha was admitted to the psychiatric ward my mother helped run on the Rayya. She was pregnant."
"And Korri?" Jak asked.
"Visha did not survive the pregnancy." Elan'Shiya said quietly. "We would have taken Korri in, my family. We owed her father a debt we can never repay. We were denied." This last was hard as she glared at Shala'Raan who winced.
"There were reasons." Shala'Raan said weakly.
"Yeah." Elan'Shiya snapped. "Why give a little girl to people who might love her and raise her right when you can give her to people who treat her like vorcha shit?" Jak stared at the medic and Elan'Shiya sighed. "Oh, their loyalty was sure. Their parenting? Not so much. Small wonder she rebelled. Call me a traitor every day for the first ten years of my life and I might believe it too. Might act out just to show the people who treat me that way how right they are."
"Ouch." Jak said weakly. "Yeah, I can see that. So, you know her?"
"She is one of my patients." Elan'Shiya said quietly. "I have been treating her and she has been improving. She is a wonder, but so hurt. She has been studying mind healing with me. She is smart. She a good person, she was just… warped from what was done to her."
"I can understand that." Jak looked at Illia who hadn't moved at all. "Illia? Can Lara survive if I… If…" He swallowed as she shook her head.
"No." Illia hadn't moved at all and that was frankly scarier than the rachni beside her. "The link between you will kill her too if you pass. As of now, she is unconscious so we do not know the full extent of the damage. We fear she may not sing again." She bowed her head as Jak inhaled in fear and worry. "That is what angers the rachni the most. Such beautiful songs. Maybe silenced forever and for what?"
"If you move me, it may kill me and that will kill Lara." Jak said slowly. "If you leave me here, even if the admiral doesn't hurt me again, it leaves a massive political hot potato in the quarian's lap. Not to mention it won't be very easy to hide your involvement." He stared at the rachni and winced.
"Easier than you might think." Illia shrugged. "But points taken."
"So, we cannot trust them and they cannot let us go." Jak said slowly. He slumped. "Illia..."
"Wait." Shala'Raan said quickly. "What if… it wasn't us? If someone else, someone truly neutral brought a way to get you off the ship? What then?"
"I don't know who that might be." Jak said weakly as fought back nausea.
"I need to make a call." Shala'Raan said quickly. "I don't think they have left yet. I can get them here, they will act as neutral. She will ensure it." Illia stared at the quarian and then her eyes went wide. "Yes, Tali was here. It was a mess, but it worked out."
"Make your call." Illia moved to stand just inside the door. "My friends will vanish, but they will be around. Betray us and this will get very messy, very quickly."
"I know better than to betray anyone around Commander Shepard." Was Raan chuckling?
"She has a very loud voice."