Author's Note: I may sound like a broken record, but please review.


Chapter 6: Aggressive Negotiations (Part 2)

"Saepe ne utile quidem est scire quid futurum sit..."

("Often it is not even advantageous to know what will be...")

~Marcus Tullius Cicero

Liara T'Soni had much to worry about. She was locked in a small room, outside of which at least eight heavily armed men waited, assault rifles and shotguns at the ready, for an opportunity to break their way in. That room just so happened to be in the lower level of the club owned by the local despot, Aria T'Loak. And, for good measure, Shepard had managed to murder one of her guards on the way in.

She could not, however, dwell on those facts. And the reason for that stood directly in front of her, his hands clutching a large grenade launcher. Liara never liked to see an angry krogan, and the heavily armored battlemaster that stood in front of her only furthered that bias. Simply put, Urdnot Wrex was in a foul mood.

"I thought you were dead." Shepard stated simply. Wrex had never been one for beating around the bush, and the Commander's numerous attempts to crack that veneer of indifference during the hunt for Saren had subsequently colored any relations they had.

"Well, you did shoot me on Virmire. Thanks for that, by the-" Wrex's sarcastic retort was interrupted by Shepard moving quickly to draw his assault rifle. Quickly leveling the grenade launcher towards the Commander's chest, the krogan succeeded in persuading Shepard that finishing such a movement would end in a most unfortunate manner. It seemed Wrex hadn't lost his edge.

"Now, Shepard, we don't need any surprises. My plan was to invite you here, talk a bit, kill you, and leave. But now you attracted all that attention, and brought Liara." He pointed to the asari with the barrel of the weapon.

Shepard moved between the two, spreading his arms. "Your grudge is with me, Wrex. You will not take it out on her." At first, Liara was happy to have another layer of armor between herself and Wrex's weapon, but her indignation flared as she realized what the Commander was doing. She spoke up.

"I don't need you to look after me, Shepard. I learned a lot those two years you were gone." In an effort to punctuate that statement, Liara allowed her biotics to flare to life, enveloping her in a swirling aura of dark energy.

Wrex laughed. "Calm down, Liara. You could rip out one of my hearts, and I would still win the fight. How many times did we go over that during the long elevator rides on Illos? And Shepard is right, my feud is not with you."

Unbelieving, but without another course of action, Liara slowly stepped out from behind Shepard, allowing her biotics to draw down. Seeing this, Shepard lowered his arms before responding. "You know it wasn't me, Wrex. I tried to talk you down, to show you that Saren was just using the krogan. Ashley fired the shot."

"No, Shepard." Wrex started, "Ashley may have fired the shot, but you killed me that day. The discharge of Ashley's rifle came about as a result of your actions, of allowing the gentle genocide of the salarians to continue. I barely escaped the nuke you set off. Hell, after having your bitch shoot me, and then damning my race, I must admit that I was pissed. But during my recovery, I began to think that you just might have been correct, that perhaps there was other ways in which to help my people. So I returned to Tuchanka, to try and reunite my people. But when they saw me," He paused, turning to show Shepard the left side of his body. The armor he wore did little to hide the damage that multiple assault rifle rounds had done. "...they rejected me, Shepard. I spoke of breaking traditions, and they accused me of wanting to only weaken the krogan. Perhaps if I had been strong, I could have forced my demands, but your betrayal prevented that. Because of you, the krogan will never rise through the means we have conventionally used."

As Wrex spoke, the pounding on the door had stopped, as if the guards outside were attempting a different strategy. Liara was the only one to have noticed this, but she was reluctant to reveal it to either Shepard or Wrex. She was afraid one of the two would use her distraction to attack the other.

Shepard meanwhile, continued the argument. "So, what Wrex? You lured me here, posing as one of Liara's contacts, just so you could kill me?"

Wrex shook his head, a considerable movement considering its size. "No, Shepard. I brought you here to show you this." Keeping the launcher pointed at the Commander, Wrex pulled a small canister from one of the myriad of pockets his armor sported. "Then I will kill you."

Liara openly gasped, her focus switching from the door back to their conversation. She could not stop herself from asking before Shepard managed to. "I-Is that batch 666? You really do have it?"

Smiling, Wrex held the canister to the light, its opaque glass hiding the liquid inside. "Yes. I heard that Tali had died, that you loved her, Shepard." He seemed to find that idea funny. "And I knew you were looking for a way to bring her back. Rezkruban 666 was the only option open to you. Well, I sure as hell found it funny that I happened to have it in my possession. Payback can be a sneaky little bitch."

Sensing it before Shepard actually acted, Liara attempted to grab hold of him, to keep him from doing anything rash, but the human was too strong for her. He pointed a finger at the krogan, face contorting into rage. "Give it to me, Wrex. I will not leave without it, and I can promise you that it is not something to die over."

"Nothing to die over?!" The incredulity in Wrex's voice was tangible. "This small canister is the last chance the krogan have. Like I said, the krogan will never again rise utilizing the means we have before. Luckily, I had a contingency plan, steeped in science." Wrex seemed to find the idea of any plan containing science a most unlaudable prospect.

"When I started funding that salarians project, I never thought anything would come of it. But Kalran, the crazy bastard, came through, nearly twenty years ago. When I recovered his work the Council was searching hard for it. Setting up a lab to replicate this would have been far too noticeable, so I hid it. Now, with the galaxy afraid of the geth, of collectors?" He shrugged. "I could set up that lab in the middle of the Presidium, and the Council wouldn't notice."

Shepard, his hand slowly drifting towards his sidearm, attempted to keep Wrex talking. "And what now Wrex? You going to shoot me, dash Tali's chances of resurrection? We both know you aren't that much of a monster."

To Shepard's surprise and Liara's horror, Wrex plastered a smirk upon his face. "You've been gone over two years, Shepard. You have no idea what I am." Setting the vial back into his pocket, the krogan carefully aimed his grenade launcher. His smirk never wavering, Wrex made a final pronouncement. "You may want to stand back, Liara. Hate to get blood over your shiny armor." Without any further hesitation, he pulled the trigger.

As if ordained from some higher power, several events coincided with that pull, their results apparent simultaneously. The firing of Wrex's weapon was accompanied by a terrific explosion from the door, as the series of charges placed on it detonated. Liara, acting on instinct, had thrown a biotic barrier around herself and Shepard, protecting them from both blasts.

Her barrier did not, however, stop the smoke and sound from disorientating her. Coughing, Liara found herself being pulled along by Shepard, who had drawn his pistol. He was firing at Wrex, who had been thrown against the private room's back wall. Each shot punched a fresh hole through the chest plate of his armor, causing orange blood to pool on the floor.

Passing through the charred remains of the doorway, Liara and Shepard found themselves again on the main floor of Afterlife. It seemed that Aria had emptied the club in preparation for breaching the door, and had set an ambush for when they emerged. Their plan, however, had failed to materialize when Wrex's grenade had missed Shepard in the chaos, instead finding the group of soldiers lying in wait just outside the door.

Wading through the destruction, Shepard quickly neared the door to the entrance hallway. Liara finally regained her senses and tried to pull him to a stop. "Wait," she shouted, "We need to get that canister from Wrex!" She was not about to let this excursion have been in vain.

Shepard paused, reaching into a pocket. His hand withdrew a small canister. "Grabbed it in the confusion. Now lets g-" Shepard's words were cut off by a massive hand grabbing his arm, while another one reached for his pistol.

Urdnot Wrex was bleeding from multiple chest wounds, and his grenade launcher was no where to be seen, but that did little to dissuade the sudden stab of fear that struck Liara. The battlemaster was swearing, his eyes showing the tell tale marks of that which no krogan enemy wants to see. Bloodrage.

"Shepard!" was the only thing Wrex managed to work in between profanities, his voice betraying an anger that seemed to be fueling his ability to retain consciousness.

With a twist of a wrist, Wrex quickly broke Shepard's grasp on his pistol, allowing it to drop to the ground. Now equally unarmed, the two began to wrestle in a turbulent bid to gain an upper hand. It became quite apparent that Shepard was faster, with his strikes falling all across Wrex's face. But, to Liara's horror, the krogan's strength was winning the fight. As the fight slowly turned, Shepard's back became bent at an uncomfortable angle. Exemplifying krogan combat, Wrex was trying to literally snap the Commander in half. Liara breathed in deeply, her biotics coming online.

Like a wraith falling upon a beleaguered traveler, Liara unleashed everything she had upon the krogan. Her attack caused Wrex to throw the Commander away, through the doors, into the entrance hallway. He then attempted to raised his own biotics, building a shimmering blue shield between himself and her biotic assault. Normally, a krogan battlemaster is a match for any ten ordinary soldiers, but the surprising ferocity of her attack took him aback, and he retreated towards the center of the room, barely preventing her from landing a killing blow.

Meanwhile, Aria T'Loak had been trying to rally her guards, although this was proving difficult. To make a point, she placed her pistol against the helmet of an injured batarian, and finished the job Wrex's grenade launcher had started. This galvanized her remaining men, some of which headed towards Shepard, who was just now getting back onto his feet.

Wrex's retreat soon reached the bar, where he found himself unable to retreat any farther. Liara continued her attack, throwing up singularities to his left and right, preventing escape. Wrex, however, had no intention of remaining on the defensive. With a roar, he suddenly pressed onto the attack, knocking aside her barrage, and breaching her protective barrier in a single lunge. Liara was stunned, her ineffectual final attacks being blocked by the krogan with ease. Finally coming within reach, Wrex grabbed Liara by the throat, lifting her off her feet.

Even though her doctorate was in archeology, Liara had enough knowledge of anatomy to know what was happening. As Wrex squeezed, she found herself unable to breath in any more oxygen, a result of her trachealis muscle compressing beyond its intended limit. Any more pressure, and her trachea would collapse, and what would follow would be a most unpleasant death by asphyxiation.

In desperation, Liara looked towards where Shepard had fallen, her instincts recalling an expectation that had developed during her interactions with him during the hunt for Saren: a strong conviction that the Commander could save her from anything. And it is true that precedent pointed towards that conclusion. She had seen Shepard shrug off the attacks of a half dozen asari commandos. She had seen him walk away from a direct hit from a thresher maw. She had seen him storm the citadel tower, seen him kill Saren. To her, there was nothing the Commander was incapable of.

But this was not the same man. It was only now, her addled thought processes slowly shutting down, that she realized what should have been blatantly obvious. The Shepard she had accompanied here was not the one placed upon Alliance recruitment posters; he was not the man who had lived by the motto 'No one gets left behind.' No. This was the Shepard that suffered ever more frequent periods of rage. This was the Shepard that had all but abandoned the mission to stop the collectors. This was the Shepard who had brutally murdered a batarian guard without a hint of regret. Had she been physically possible, Liara would have cried at the conclusion she finally came to. The Shepard she had known had died in a dark alley onboard this very station, kneeling in a red pool of blood that was not his own.

That realization forced a new clarity through her thoughts, a clarity that did not waver when she finally caught sight of Shepard, for once, running away. And running he was; slipping through the exterior doors, pursued by two of Aria's guards, the small canister in his hand. 'He abandoned me', her oxygen deprived mind whispered. 'I saved him, and he left me!'

Had the misperceptions she had held until moments ago persisted, perhaps she could have found the strength to break Wrex's hold, to free herself. But the drive to live, the drive to succeed, had all but left her. Liara's head slumped as her mind shut down everything in an attempt to focus on simply keeping her alive. Soon after, the krogan battlemaster dropped her body, moving towards the door.


Weighing in at 39 kilograms, the Widow Anti-Material Rifle had been specifically developed for sniper teams in assault missions against armored vehicles. While the newest kinetic barriers offer effective protection on said vehicles, the kind generated by conventional hard suit field generators are far too weak against such a weapon.

The first of Aria's guards pursuing Shepard learned of this fact first hand. The round that emerged from the Widow literally ripped the man in two, his torso separating from his legs.

Working the thermal clip's ejection lever, Garrus smiled to himself. A weapon such as this would have taken days to cool down with the old manual heat sinks. The turian, left to his own devices when Liara and Shepard had entered the club, had began rummaging around in the weapons bay. He had known Shepard found some rather interesting armaments while exploring the galaxy, but the Widow had been a surprise.

By now, Shepard had cleared Afterlife's entrance hallway, his long strides bringing him closer to the shuttle. Shaking his arm a bit, Garrus found himself thankful that he had decided to use the Widow's bipod. Firing any other way would have broken his arm.

The other pursuant guard took this small window that Garrus had presented to fire off a quick burst of fire towards the retreating form of Shepard. The Commander's shields held up, although the force of impact knocked him off his feet.

Returning to the scope, Garrus spotted where that guard had taken cover, a massive stone pillar, impervious to any conventional attack. Moving the cross hairs to where he believed the guard would appear next, Garrus reflected on his previous thought. That stone pillar was impervious to any conventional attack, but the Widow was anything but conventional. With a small shrug, the turian restored the pillar to the middle of his sight. In an effort to combat the spike in air pressure that accompanied firing the rifle, Garrus started to exhale, before he pulled the trigger.

The sound of the Widow firing was impressive, although the weapon's target never heard what had killed him. The Widow's bullet traveled the thirty-five meters to its target in less than a quarter of a second. The stone pillar was immediately pulverized, with the bullet emerging on the opposite side, striking the guard directly on the spine. He did not die. He did not "expire". The force of that shot was so strong, the man simply disappeared in a red mist.

Garrus, however, was disappointed. He rarely made anything but headshots. Shepard's arrival at the shuttle, however, quickly shifted his focus. Looking back to the club, Garrus asked the obvious question. "Where is Liara?"

The Commander would not meet his eyes, instead pointing towards the shuttle's cockpit. "Get us out of here."

Garrus had once decided that he made a bad turian, for a good turian never disobeyed a direct order. He found himself living up to that self-definition again. "We can't leave, Shepard. No one gets left behind."

With a growl, Shepard grabbed the Garrus by the ring of armor that circled his neck. His tone demanded no argument. "She is gone, dammit." He held up a small canister. "But I got it, Garrus. I can bring Tali back. Liara knew the risks."

The Commander let go, and Garrus moved slowly towards the waiting consoles that would activate the shuttle. He could not believe what he was hearing. Who was the man he had just left in the passenger compartment? Shepard never left someone behind. Hell, he had even managed to get both Kaiden and Ashley off of Virmire. Shepard's voice brought Garrus out of his thoughts. The human was gesturing towards the club. "We are about to have company. Come on, Garrus."

Spooling up the Kodiak's engines, Garrus lifted the shuttle off the ground as the rest of Aria's guards spilled out of her establishment. They were firing at the shuttle, but such small arms had no real chance of passing through it's shields. As the club passed from view, Garrus caught sight of a large being emerging from the front door. Hm, Garrus thought, I didn't think Aria employed Krogan.

The turian settled in for the ride back to the Normandy, expecting silence from his Commander. The sound of glass breaking, however, forced Garrus from his relaxed position. He glanced back, to where Shepard sat. The small canister lay broken at his feet. Garrus was alarmed, his mandibles spreading in surprise.

Shepard let out a weary laugh. "The son of a bitch. That goddamn motherfucker!" He lifted his gaze, to Garrus. "It was empty, Garrus. That canister? One hundred percent empty. That bastard was just playing with me." He laughed again, dropping his gaze once more to the floor. As the shuttle automatically tilted a bit, to stay perfectly level in relation to Omega's "ground", a piece of that canister slid up against the Widow sniper rifle. Had Garrus not returned to flying the shuttle, he would have seen Shepard's apparent despair transform into grim resolve. as a plan formed in his mind.

He soon felt a tap on his shoulder. Looking back into the rear compartment, Garrus observed Shepard ejecting the spent thermal clip from the Widow. As soon as they locked eyes, the Commander pointed towards where Aria's club had disappeared behind an especially tall building.

"Turn this thing around," Shepard announced. "That motherfucker is going to die for this."

Garrus did as he was told. Ignoring orders came naturally to him, but Shepard had never displayed intentions such as these.

The human was soon laying prone, the barrel of the Widow sticking out of the port side door as Afterlife came back into view. At least two dozen of Aria's men were outside, some of them stripping the two guards who had died of anything valuable, others simply standing around. None of them, though, went anywhere near the massive krogan leaning against the wall of the club. He was arguing with Aria, as orange blood continued to trickle down his chest.

Garrus put the shuttle into a hover, about hundred yards out from the club itself. This action, however, drew the attention of the krogan. Shoving an indignant Aria out of the way, he started marching towards the Kodiak. Garrus was shocked. What was Wrex doing here?

Shepard, it seemed, failed to share that shock. The tremendous sound of the Widow firing echoed within the confines of the shuttle, its target only furthering Garrus' confusion.

The bullet streaked towards Wrex, its trajectory perfect. The krogan, however, did not stop his advance. Instead, with a guttural roar, Wrex powered up his biotics, slamming his arms down in single, fluid moment. To everyone's surprise, the Widow's bullet mimicked his actions, resulting in the round slamming into the ground mere feet from Wrex.

"Shit." Both the turian and human mumbled simultaneously. Shepard worked quickly to chamber another thermal clip, but Wrex had already covered most of the ground between the club and the hovering shuttle.

With a second roar, the krogan once again unleashed his biotics. Garrus was fumbling, trying to reach Shepard, as Wrex enveloped him in a blue glow. There was nothing the turian could do to prevent the human from being lifted high into the air. The krogan bellowed a final insult.

"See, Shepard? You will get to meet Tali after all!"

With another sharp gesture, Shepard was hurtling towards the floor. He hit hard. Too hard.

Continues in Chapter 7: 23...Qg3


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