Chapter 31: Sins of the Father
As they flew over the 800 block Shepard spotted their mark. Joram Talid looked not so dissimilar to many of the other turians who lived on the Citadel. A crisp off white business suit, no doubt tailor made. She didn't spot any noticeable face markings that spoke of clan. She knew from her talks with Garrus that ever since the Unification War in turian society it was a stain of character for a turian not to display the facial markings of their colony. To be barefaced referred to one who is beguiling or not to be trusted. It is also a slang term for politicians. Apparently Talid was barefaced both literally and colloquially.
Talid wasn't alone; he was shadowed closely by a hulking krogan in Blood Pack armor. That was unusual for the Citadel. Common enough for places like Omega or even in the hidden corners of Illium. But not here. C-Sec tended to get agitated when they saw krogan sporting the colors of a merc guild, especially one as bloodthirsty, hard and with as deadly as reputation as the Blood Pack.
It was for show. Had to be or why have the armor when any krogan bodyguard would do? It was half expected for someone like Jaram Talid to have krogan muscle. But it was a clear statement just what sort of power he held if he had the Blood Pack at his beck and call. And this was the man who said he was going to clean up the organized crime within the Ward? There was a bit of irony in there. Organized crime cleaned up by making sure they bow to you. What could be more organized than that?
"There he is." Shepard nodded towards their mark. "How do you want to play this?"
"Follow Talid on the maintenance catwalk." Thane pointed to the metal gantry far above their heads, generally a place only the Keepers patrolled. "Tell me what he's doing. The krogan bodyguard will make him easy to follow."
She parked in an innocuous locale near the rapid transport hub where a patrol car would not earn a second look. "Where will you be?"
"In the darkest corner with the best view." he said as he crawled out of the car. He didn't linger long in the parking lot, nor look behind him as Shepard slipped behind the maintenance door to scale the ladder to the catwalks. She would have no trouble for trespassing in a secured location generally granted to authorized personnel only. Her Spectre status allowed her access to areas she never thought of going: which now apparently included the maintenance catwalks of the Citadel.
Thane on the other hand had used a more mundane approach for tailing their mark. Before he ventured forward however the assassin bowed his head and folded his hands penitently. "Amonkira Lord of Hunters, grant that my hands be steady, my aim be true and my feet swift. And should the worse come to pass grant me forgiveness." the prayer spoken, he vanished from view. He had activated a personal cloaking shield, though for a moment any outside eye would have said the shadows had swallowed him whole.
Tracking the turian through the 800 block proved little challenge, Shepard watched as he shook down voters, threatened shopkeepers He was gaining votes to become Zakera Wards Intendent the old fashioned way: brute force and intimidation. If it hadn't been for Thane's son attempting to carry out the assassination the Spectre was half tempted to allow it to happen. 'Take back your Wards', indeed. It wasn't to take it from the criminal elements as much as was to take it back from the perceived dominance of the upstart human populace. Bailey was right; his message was garbled up in race politics.
Talid was extremely anti-human and in contrast to his anti-crime stance, he shook down human-run businesses for money. Shepard heard him make claims that the human C-Sec officers are corrupt and charging them with turning a blind eye to the increase of in crime, allegedly perpetrated by humans. It was because of humans that asari were on no fly lists because they just might be geth infiltrators.
Humans weren't ready for the Council. They weren't even ready for the Spectres! If the human Spectre that put down Saren had been faster in carrying out her duties like a real Spectre like Tala Vasir then the attack may never have happened. But she was too busy scanning planets for rare ores and minerals to fund her operation than to battle Saren and his geth horde. Shepard wondered for a brief moment how in the hell did he know she had to fund her own team by doing those scans in the first place?
Talid railed against the quick establishment of the human embassy on the Citadel whereas other races have waited for hundreds, if not thousands of years. He roared against the human-sympathetic members of the Citadel Council and the very fact that humanity was on the Council after the Battle of the Citadel in 2183, whereas the turians had to win the Krogan Rebellions to do so.
From her position on the catwalks, Shepard heard his comments on humanity's rapid advancement and their regard for anything a few years old as obsolete, thus questioning humanity's ability to contribute to a 2000 year old Council. She heard him make promises that he would not rest "until the humans have been removed from power."
Starting with the human Spectre didn't even know what it meant to be a true Spectre. She waged war on the merc clans and the Terminus Systems allying herself with Cerberus rather than carry out her duties given to her by the Council. How was she any different than Saren? Was she not a traitor as well?
Jealousy was a wonderful weapon when you bent it to your will and corrupted those around you with it. Doubt, threats and general frustration added to the mental and emotional arsenal of the turian politician to wield against his human opposition on the polls. Shepard could almost see why Kelham wanted this swit silenced. Of course it made her wonder how many others shared his sentiments?
The fate of Kolyat was on the line and that was something Shepard wasn't going allow to be tarnished just to get satisfaction in shutting Talid up. Maybe all he needed was a good scare, something he was keen on doing to others. If Shepard had her way she'd lock both Talid and Kelham in a room and let them have a go at each other in a caged grudge match.
She continued to trail him, watched and listened making sure Thane had frequent updates on the turian's progress through the neighbourhood. Just as she was about to lose sight of him she was stopped by a supposed maintenance worker, more like he was in place by Kolyat to waylay anyone following him. Having no time to waste on a more benign solution, Shepard lashed out with her biotics and 'sucker punched' the guy in the gut with a slam and sprinted past him as he fell to the metal grating with a cry of pain.
Below she saw her target. Kolyat was lingering casually by a planter near the entrance of an apartment complex watching silently as Talid and his hired muscle passed by. The thug and politician never gave the young drell a second glance as they entered Talid's private apartments. It was exactly what the young man wanted: with a cry he pushed past a human going into the complex, pulled his pistol and took aim.
"KOYLAT!" Shepard shouted at the top of her lungs alerting Talid, the krogan and the would-be assassin to her presence. Talid broke for the apartment; the krogan withdrew his shotgun and fired wide, missing Kolyat.
The drell kid was faster—more accurate; he fired two rounds in the krogan's hand and another two in brute's knees. Without looking behind him he darted after Talid, leaving the krogan alive on the ground and bleeding out.
Shepard leapt down from her the catwalk, slid across a wall to the ground. "Thane!" she said as she noticed her crew member dash up to her.
"I saw." was all he said both running for the complex.
"He's heading for Talid's apartment."
They had to hurry. Following the progress inside wasn't difficult. Knocked over planters and chairs and other detritus revealed the path taken to the top floor to the politician's apartment. When Shepard and Thane burst through the doors, Kolyat had Talid on the floor on his knees with his hands clasped together behind his head.
Fortunately for the couple, the kid's earlier bravado was wavering now that he had his mark in front of him. Shepard took a stance, ready to fire with a new thermo clip in place. She wouldn't kill the kid but if she had to she'd incapacitate him. Her body glowed in the blue of her biotics. Slamming Kolyat against the wall with a warp-stasis field should do the trick if she had too. For the moment she stayed her hand, now it was all up to Thane to reach his son.
"Kolyat..." the elder man said gently as he took one then two steps closer.
Kolyat didn't even look up. He kept his eyes fixed on the trembling turian on his knees. "Th...this is a joke." he scoffed incredulously. Belligerence and loathing filtered thickly in his words "Now? Now you show up?"
"Help me drell! I'll do what ever you want!" Talid pleaded completely ignoring the armed human to his left.
Shepard turned her head slightly looking behind her at the sound of apartment's door being opened. She spotted Bailey and three of his uniforms file into the apartment. She could hear the hum of a gunship hovering outside the window. A quarter of second later its flashing red and blue lights flickered through the large bay window giving the dimly lit room and the situation a near film noir-esque essence to it
The only reason Shepard could think of how Bailey had gotten here so quickly was the human Kolyat shoved past must have called it in. Either that or the good Captain had placed a tail on them during their hunt for young Krios. He was after all planning on assassinating a politician. It was something any cop dirty, dirty-handed or clean couldn't allow: not without some serious repercussions.
"C-Sec." Bailey marched forward flanked by Sergeant Haron. "Put the gun down son."
Thane and Shepard both knew that even as they were speaking C-Sec had sharpshooters already training on Kolyat's bio-signatures. One word from Bailey and it was over.
"Get out of my way!" Kolyat demanded in what he assumed was a firm voice. "I'm walking out. He's coming with me." he came off sounding more like a gunman in a spy-thriller vid than a hardened assassin. How many had he watched to get the 'right' attitude in place before he made his move to the Citadel for a job?
"They will have snipers outside." Thane shook his head.
"I don't need your hel..."
Suddenly the lamp beside him burst and shattered by a gunshot taken by the Spectre.
"What the hell?" the kid cried out shocked by the exploding glass and brass.
His question as answered by a swift hard punch to his jaw by Shepard. Another explosion- this one of pain. Seeing stars he stumbled back clutching the side of his face looking more like a little boy that just got his face slapped for mouthing off than the killer he pretended to be. "Talid get the hell out of here." she ordered the crooked politician.
The man didn't need to be told twice; he scrambled up off his knees and stumbled towards the exit. "Yeah, yeah I will." he was far more humble than he had been when pushing around the population of the neighbourhood only five minutes earlier.
"Take the boy into custody." Bailey ordered his men talking advantage of the lull in the action.
Kolyat looked to his father, the hate still seething deep within him. "You son of a bitch!"
"Your father doesn't have much time, left Kolyat." Shepard said trying to calm the kid down. "He's trying to make up for his mistakes."
"Pft?" the boy scoffed. "So you come begging for my forgiveness?" he waved his father off with a flick of his hand. "So you can die in peace or something?" he resentment was heady and thick.
A small fraction of Shepard understood. She didn't know what the hell to make of her own father issues. John and Hackett...If Hackett came to her wanting to make amends for never being there, for the lies and cover-up she doubted her voice wouldn't be as resentful and sceptical as Kolyat's was now. It was one of the reason she didn't want to go anywhere near the subject with him.
Silently she watched father and son: this was not going to be an easy fix.
Thane's voice was as gentle as ever, sounding more as a monk than an assassin. "I came to grant you peace." he paused looking down, perhaps for the words that needed to be said. "You're angry because I wasn't there when your mother died."
Kolyat snapped back. "You weren't there when she was alive! Why would you be there when she died?" his arms folded over his chest, half defiant, half protective.
The moment between accusation and answer stretched on, lengthening between the heartbeats. Then finally. "Your mother..." Thane started, "they killed her to get to me."
"Wh...what?" the younger male unfolded his arms and took a step a hesitant stop forward towards his father. This admission was clearly not something he had not anticipated.
"After her body was given to The Deep, I went to find them. The trigger men, the ring leaders, I hurt them. Eventually killed them. When I went back to see you, you were- older." Thane's voice got softer, repentant. "I should have stayed with you."
Kolyat's anger was still strong, still petulant. "I guess its too bad for me you wanted waited so long. Huh?" He wanted to be angry, to hate. He was clinging to all the dark emotions almost desperately.
Silence and heartbeats.
Then: "Kolyat, I've taken many bad things out of the world. You're the only good thing I ever added to it."
Kolyat's resolute anger quavered—just a little. Tears leaked from the corners of his eyes.
More silence. It was Bailey that broke it this time. "This isn't a conversation you should be having in front of strangers. Boys, take Kolyat and his father back to the precinct. Give then a room and as much time as they need."
Shepard watched the drell being escorted out of the apartment before she turned to hard-nosed cop. "I'm surprised you're letting them do that."
Bailey looked away. "You think he's the only man that ever screwed up raising a son?"
'Or daughter' Shepard's mind added thinking of Hackett and John Sheppard.
"Come on I have to get back to the precinct. I'll give you a lift." Bailey gestured with a tilt to his head as she started for the door of the apartment.
The ride back was swift, neither Bailey nor Shepard offered a trade of words. Instead the Spectre watched the cityscape below her, the people coming and going out of buildings, the hum of life continuing on. How many more stories were like Thane's and Kolyat's or her own, Miranda and her father and sister or Liara's were playing out now down there the Wards or in the spiral arms of the galaxy? How many families were torn apart only to clash together to make some sort of tentative peace if peace could be found between them?
The rambling thoughts of the Spectre dimmed once Bailey landed the car.
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Thane sat across from his son: silent for a moment. There was so much to say, so much for his son to understand, for him to understand.
Perfect memory recall could tell much but without context it could be hollow for another to hear what which was in the memory fade. Context. That was what was needed most. for both of them.
"Your mother..." Thane started. "She was my awakening. Conscience and guilt are never factors in the assignments I take. In the moment before my kills my hands become the instruments of my employer. Nothing more. There are no judgements, no right or wrong.
"You knew my training began at six. As per our species compact. My parents...your grandparents gave me over to the hanar. It was a great honor. Though at the time, concepts like honor and free will met little to me. I was reshaped into what they needed me to be."
"You made your first kill at twelve." Kolyat said. "So what. Is that why you stopped me from doing Talid? Afraid I was going to be as clumsy and sloppy as your first?"
Thane didn't look at his son. "No. That was not what I feared. It is not why I stopped you, Kolyat. Killing became easy for me after that first death. I don't want that life for you. It is not living. I became proficient; I gave myself over to the role completely. It was if my soul had gone to sleep while my body carried on. I do not want you to ever fall into that sleep—to become disconnected. It took your mother to shake me from that sleep."
"I know the story. She stopped you from killing an old salarian. Some sort of war criminal who went into hiding. But you didn't care about what his crimes were, he was just a contract. Just like Talid was supposed to be."
"Yes. The families of his victims hired me to deliver justice he escaped for so long. Kolyat, I had no care in soul for those that hired me, for what he did. Nothing but the kill. ...Sunset colored eyes defiant in the scope...her body trembles. Not fear. Indignation. Her mouth moves. 'How dare you' her intervention defied logic.
"I woke up. Unfamiliar emotions surged through me. Guilt, Shame. Regret. I was lost. For days I wandered without purpose. Who was this woman that would step between a stranger and a bullet? I had know more about her. I had to understand. I shadowed her. Learned her routines, waiting until she was isolated, tracking her as though she were prey. It was all I knew how to do."
Kolyat knew this part of his parents meeting as well. His mother was a medical researcher looking into a vaccine for a rare hanar disease. Goons hired by those who had strong moral objection to what she was doing were sent to shut down her lap and put an end to her. They had smashed up her lab, sending a message once before, but she continued. This time they meant to kill her. She was defiant even in the facing in of what surely would be her own demise. Thane had made swift work of neutralizing any threat they posed.
When Irikah found out who Thane truly was, the assassin in the park she had called him a murdering bastard and wanted him out of her lab, despite the fact he had just saved her life. She had called the Biolab Security but he would not go. Instead he bowed his head and fell upon his knees before her. Asking her to save one more life. His.
"She was contemptuous, sceptical but she showed me compassion. Eventually she forgave me. Until that moment I didn't realize how deeply into battle sleep I'd sunk or for how long I'd been there. For the first time I felt alive. Her presence natured mine. Mine protected her. She introduced me to the world outside my work I began to imagine the impossible."
Kolyat was unable to meet his father's eyes. The love in his father's voice when speaking of his mother was more than painful. He wanted to hang onto the hate he had for the man, but it was slipping away, bit by bit.
"She said once that you weren't given the choice." Kolyat said placing his anger away for a moment.
"Yes... 'She sits across from me, the din of the restaurant fades to nothing, There is only Irikah, looking at me sunset colored eyes filled with compassion. 'Where you ever given the choice? That's all I'm saying. Have you ever truly lived your life?' words as defiant as her eyes that day in the park. I tell her it's not that simple. She will not accept the answer. 'Isn't it? Where in the compact does it say you're not free to decide your own future?' Her words make me imagine a future together." Thane slipped out of the memory fade.
Thane tells his son of a penitent man on his hands and knees before the Hanar Illuminari asking for freedom, to be released from their service to have a life with Irikah. The hanar would not yield. They had told him that all must walk the paths they are given, not all are destined for happiness. When the assassin counted that how did they not know this was the path he was to take, that this was the way he was meant to grow? He was willing to take the chance. He was released from the compact albeit reluctantly.
"I couldn't return to her fast enough. Finally free to pursue our feelings we held northing back. Or relationship bloomed. We married. I was in bliss. For the first time my future lay wide open before me. I expected that would be freeing. But what I felt instead was a mixture of elation and uncertainty.
"We started a family. You Kolyat- a gift form Arashru." he looked down at his folded hands. "I wish your childhood had been easier. I didn't know how to be a father. I barely knew my own."
Kolyat recalled those early days perfectly well. How their family struggled to make ends meet. Without any civilian experience his father had to take unskilled labor work. Menial jobs. He expected that asshole krogan foreman had known Thane could have killed him with a finger he might not have mistreated him so.
It was about that time when Thane had decided to freelance again. What else could he do? "Your mother supported me, she knew my soul."
"I was there that night, hiding in the behind the door in the kitchen and living room when you decided to that." Kolyat said. "Mother crying as if you were already given to The Deep. You were always 'away on business.' Even when you were home you weren't there." it was a growled accusation, one Thane could not deny.
Thane nodded. "I allowed the battle sleep to come again. It was too easy. It was what I was trained for. It is the only thing I could ever be. Can ever be. I tried to be careful, not rushing into it. I wanted to stay close to you, to your mother. The jobs became inevitably more complicated, harder to reach, further and further out. I didn't want them to touch you or your mother. I wanted to keep as much distance between the jobs and my soul.
"It was not enough. The batarian slavers praying upon hanar colonies had to be stopped. eliminating them saved a lot of lives. But doing so destroyed my own." Thane's dark green eyes filled with tears. "They came for her, for you because of me. They paid the Shadow Broker a lot of credits for my name. Then they waited until I was far from home..."
Kolyat blinked back burning tears. His own memory fade slipping over him. "Noises outside. In the garden past the thunder and rain. Mother at the sink. Hears the sound. Panic in her eyes. She grabs me. Places me in cubby-hole beneath the sink. Finger lies to lips. 'Stay very quiet, okay?' she tells me. Voice filled with fear but protective. 'Don't come out until I say so.'
"Darkness envelopes me. The sound of a knife picked up. A cry of defiance, one of the siha in our home. Mother is siha. Battle, chairs over turned, the table, glass breaking, struggles, blade to flesh like cutting a stake. Screams. Male, then mother's. Silences. Laughter. They say your name. She whimpers it, they chant it. They take her from me...'
Kolyat weeps openly, he does not flinch when he feels his father's arms around him, he does not stiffen or push him away. He allowed the tears to flood his eyes
"You can be so much more. Your path is not set Kolyat. When the battle sleep came to me again your mother lost a husband. Her memory need not lose a son too."
Kolyat shoves his father away from him. It is too much for now. He doesn't want platitudes; he wants...he doesn't know what he wants. A tiny tiny part of him wants the father he used to dance crazy with. The man his mother loved, another part wants to strike his father so hard he wakes up in the next spiral arm of the galaxy.
"That human woman." he starts. "The one they call Shepard, says you're dying." He settled for a change of topic.
"Kepral's Syndrome." Thane said knowing his son need no further explication on the issue. It was the leading cause of death of all drell on the hanar home world, one in five died from it. On the outside the solution was simple. Don't live on Kahje, but the compact made such things near impossible. The hanar all but owned the drell. They might be sly enough to call it indentured servitude but it was by any means it was slavery. Without the hanar the drell would be extinct, and the jellies made sure their reptilian refugees knew this day in and day out.
"How long?"
"Within the year." Thane said stiffly. "But that is not all. You may have heard on the extranet or news feeds about human colonies being hit."
"People say its batarian slavers. You going to stop them?" There was a hint of contempt in the younger man's voice as if to ask you hit them who will they kill in retaliation because of it?
"It's not batarians. In fact it isn't slavers at all. It's the Collectors. Once we have the resources and the means Shepard is leading a team through the Omega mass relay."
Kolyat shook his head. "That's crazy. Even for a Spectre."
"If it can be done, it will be she that does it. She is siha."
Siha- the name of a warrior-angel of the goddess Arashu who is fierce in wrath and a tenacious protector. The way his father said it about Shepard was almost an endearment.
"What is she to you?" resentment tinged on the edge of the young man's voice. He did not wish to hear his mother had been replaced by an alien however capable she was.
"A friend" Thane reassured his son. "A good one, but that is all." he knew what his son was asking. "She is married to an asari maiden. I believe they are expecting a child. She wished only to help me connect with mine. To see he did not travel down his father's path but that of his mother's." he looked down "I prefer to spend my nights alone in the perfect memory of your mother. I always have."
Another inch of hate and resentment melted from Kolyat's eyes.
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It was a good two hours and still there was no sign of stirring from the interview room Thane and his son had been given. Shepard began to pace.
Looking at closed door the Spectre kept thinking about Hackett, her mother and the operatic fiasco they made of their early lives, with her life—their relationship. Regulations aside it would have been so much cleaner, easier had Hackett and her mother been more open about their relationship instead of hiding behind a false marriage and the charade of John being her father when he wanted to be anything but a father to a biotic girl who turned out to be a lesbian freak. Three strikes against her in John Sheppard's book.
Right now the relationship between the Commander true father and her was professional. Safe. He continued to be an Admiral and she continued to be a subordinate. She doubted she'd ever call the man Father and he was never Dad. Liara had come to terms with her fracked up parentage; she called Aethyta, Adar -may well as be dad. As for Sha'ira's contribution...well she was acknowledged in as much as Shepard acknowledged John's contribution to her life. Aethyta had it right. Family: what a kick in the quads.
"They've been in there a while." Shepard said at long last trying to redirect her miscreant mind from delving into subject matters she didn't want to deal with. Deny the daddy issues and maybe they'd just go the fuck away.
Bailey nodded. "Yeah. The kid's been through a lot. I did some checking in the C-Sec archives. About ten years back a bunch of real bad people were killed. Like someone was cleaning house."
Shepard gave a look to the door of the interview room. She knew that rage Thane must have felt back then. Inconsolable, boiling and yet as frozen as dry ice. Rage that demanded blood. He hunted, captured tortured and finally killed those that had taken his wife. Shepard had declared war on the merc bands that had tried to kill Liara-that had succeeded in killing Secura. She had raged venomously. She had no judgment in her soul for what Thane had done a decade ago. She didn't have the right. She had lost objectivity for time; she had indeed fallen into the battle sleep. And it had taken an asari assassin to wake her, reminder her that if Shepard continued down that path she would not have only lost a daughter but she was losing Liara was well. And Shepard woke.
"The prime suspect was a drell. We never caught him." Bailey continued. He was fishing for a resolution, it was obvious. And it was a resolution that only a Spectre could grant him.
Shepard turned to him. "Ten years is a long time. Whoever was responsible for that probably doesn't exist anymore." her message was crystal clear: Let it go.
It was what Bailey needed and wanted to hear. "Yeah...I guess you're right about that." Besides who was going to mourn the death of sadistic slavers in Citadel Space? It was just another one of those unsolved cases gone cold.
Just then the door to the interview room opened to Thane. In measured steps he walked up to the humans. It was Shepard that greeted him. "How'd it go?"
"Our problems...aren't something I can fix with a few words." he admitted slowly. He gave a slight helpless shrug to his shoulders. "We'll keep talking and see what happens."
It was a start.
"Your boy shot some people." Bailey said looking up to the other man. "No one I feel sympathy for, but there it is."
Some days it was good to be a Spectre. "I watched those guys shaking down businesses and threatening humans." Shepard leaned forward on the man's desk, placing her weight on balled fists.
Bailey wasn't going to argue. Hell he was on their side. "But he can't just get away with it."
Shepard continued to lean forward. "The kid wants to make a difference. Give him community service."
Bailey shook his head and looked up to the father of their 'felon' "Community service for attempted murder?" he shook his greying brown head once more. "What jury would agree to that?"
Shepard stood back up. "None that I've seen. This will need to stay out of the judiciary. Strictly within C-Sec." she winked at her fellow law enforcer.
Bailey stood up from behind his desk and shook Thane's hand. "Interesting. I'll think about it."
Thane shook the hand offered to him. "Thank you, Captain."
"Spectre." Bailey shook Shepard's hand as well. "A pleasure meeting you." he smirked. "And unlike a precinct on Illium I heard about mine was happily void of explosions."
Her face scrunched in a mocking expression. "Oh you're so funny Bailey. Really you should take it on the road." she shook his hand regardless of the jest at her expense. "You know Garrus was right, you are good people." she nodded, let go of his hand.
"Thanks. So are you, Spectre Shepard." his tone now professional.
By the time Shepard returned to the taxi ramp, Thane was already there, his eyes closed, his head tilted back. To the Spectre it appeared as if the drell were in prayer, offering some kind of thanksgiving for the relative peaceful resolution he had with is son, so she remained mute until he opened his eyes and addressed her.
"If you will excuse me Commander, I would like to return to the ship to meditate. I find myself in need of a center. I know you desired for the team to..."
Shepard held up a hand forestalling the assassin. "It's okay Thane, take the time you need. You and your son have a lot to process. You made contact with Kolyat, reaching out to him, that's a good thing." she put a hand on the man's leather clad shoulder. "You need anything else just let me know."
He bowed. "Thank you Siha. Giving me this opportunity with my son is more than I had ever thought possible."
There was that name again. But now wasn't the time to ask about its meaning, besides she could look it up on the extranet Shepard told herself. "Anytime, Thane." She watched silently her friend commission a taxi to head back to Normandy's docking bay, leaving Shepard with nought to do. That was strange in itself.
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Thane's past taken largely from Mass Effect Foundations issue 12: A Prayer for the Wicked