08: Blazing Trail
Hannah
Shanxi
2157 CE
Albacus held out his hand expectantly, his silver eyes glinting sharp as damascus steel. With a wrenching twist of the intestine, Hannah realized something between them had changed. The look on his face was rock hard.
"Surrender the weapon, human."
Translator or no, the flanging subvocals in his voice sounded more alien than ever.
She knew this was a strategic move, a means of reassuring his own jumpy troops that he was in control. Still, she felt betrayed. It made no difference that they had been on unequal footing since the beginning, for a moment, she'd let herself believe they had been in this fight together.
Her fingers twitched on the rifle, every bodily instinct screaming to hold onto the gun for dear life. With each second that she delayed, his eyes grew brighter and more dangerous, and she felt more like an insignificant burrowing rodent who had ventured too far from her hole.
A dark rumble rose from the cavernous well of his armored chest, his fingers gestured to the gun insistently, and she knew this was no time to assert herself. Not if she ever wanted to see Jane again.
She handed over the rifle.
Forceful and well-practiced, he stripped out the heatsink, disassembled the body of the gun with a twist of his powerful hands, then threw the weapon to the ground in several inoperative chunks.
"Ilmek!" the Captain snapped, cutting his razor-sharp eyes across the town square. The familiar sub-lieutenant picked his way through the silent human onlookers, keeping his own pistol at high ready.
"Drag Arterius to the doctor. Send a dispatch to the General: his brother is injured, but he will live. I will answer for his discipline when I return."
As Albacus spoke, Hannah realized exactly what she had done.
The ground spun beneath her feet, and she could see Jane: tiny, sick, and defenseless, being devoured by her mother's terrible mistake. Hannah hadn't thought. Even though she'd heard Albacus shouting the biotic turian's name, even though she should have put the pieces together, she'd acted purely out of instinct instead of using her goddamn brain...
Arterius. The turian General's own flesh and blood, seriously injured by a human captive. Albacus hadn't intentionally slipped Hannah much intel about his General, but she'd overheard enough to fill in the details herself. Arterius was cruel, ambitious, and unlikely to show any kind of mercy to the human who had ripped a bullet hole through his younger brother. She had just ignorantly forfeited her own life.
And Jane's, she realized with a bursting arrow to the heart.
By the time Albacus returned his eyes to Hannah's face, she could see him doing the calculus on her behalf. No matter how terrifying he looked, no matter how cold and extraterrestrial he appeared in this moment, he wouldn't abandon her to Arterius.
She couldn't explain it - he didn't owe her this mercy. Nonetheless, it took less than ten seconds for him to give the orders that would save her life. He barked it all out in one go over the heads of the gathered crowd. He was livid, determined, and unquestionably in command.
"No more failures! I will require some of your own people as insurance - I advise the strongest among you to volunteer. General Williams is needed to keep the peace, so I will need another translator.
"Shepard, you will accompany and ensure there are no more delays."
What he didn't say out loud was: and if you want to live, you will never come back.
"We deploy as soon as the vehicles are refreshed." His eyes slid over her with meaningful pause before he moved into the crowd to coordinate the convoy.
That gaze whispered to her, silvery and distant as the moon.
Hannah blinked, startled to find there were tears burning across her eyes for the second time that night. Considering what little she had left, with the unknown dangers of the remote northern supply outpost looming in front of her, she had no idea what to pack. Other than Jane and a fool's hope, what was there to bring?
She staggered dumbly toward home, and nearly screamed when someone grabbed her elbow. Instead she bit her tongue, tasting her own blood.
It was General Williams.
"Shepard, come with me," he insisted, dragging her by the arm into the lobby of a small apartment complex. Inside, a triage center had been improvised to deal with the outbreak of dysentery. The smell alone was enough to send her reeling.
Set in the middle of a low line of emergency cots was the man named Harper. A doctor had propped him up and was injecting a dose of medi-gel straight into the bloody pools where his eyes had once been.
As Hannah stared, Williams spoke urgently into her ear.
"The Alliance needs you. You're our best chance."
She almost didn't hear him - she could barely think. Instead, she listened to the sound of Harper's wordless, tortured groans and watched rivulets of pearlescent bloody mucus leak down his cheeks. It took every buried memory of her field-dressing experience just to hold down the vomit.
"Shepard," the General prompted again, rattling her arm. "Listen to me, Soldier. I need you to finish what we started up north."
She crashed back to earth.
"And just what is that?" she snarled, her entire body going tense in the General's insistent grip.
The sudden, ferocious show of disloyalty startled even her. She had been trained to obey orders, to trust men like Williams with her life, but her maternal instincts had won out over patriotism long ago. This was the uncrossable border.
"My little girl is as good as dead! You just blew up the only turians willing to bring her food and medicine! Why?!"
Williams softened his hold on Hannah's arm, dropping his eyes guiltily to the blood-stained floor. The haggard, starved lines of his face described a man who was functionally broken, ready to collapse under his own weight. But true to his station, the General refused to bend. He was still standing, and now he was holding Shepard up too.
"I know - this... Things went FUBAR. I'm sorry that we failed you."
His hand dropped from her shoulder to rake through his hair in a familiar tic.
"We're operating in the dark - the turians have scrambled all long-range comms. My men were supposed to be well out of the northern outpost by the time the turians arrived, but something went wrong."
Harper pushed the doctor away and spoke in Hannah's direction, loud enough to rile up the entire room. His voice was startling in its clarity.
"Their General was never going to let those supplies get back to Shanxi. The turians never planned to bring anything back, they just wanted to keep us calm and complacent. When they showed up, they tried to scorch the place. My team abandoned our mission and managed to save the supplies.
"I was the last man standing, and you witnessed exactly how merciful they are."
He stared straight into her with his empty, seeping eyes.
Hannah wanted to believe that Regidonis would never have allowed his men to destroy those supplies, even if the order had come all the way down from General Arterius. She wanted to believe that the diplomacy she'd witnessed in the Captain was the genuine face of his people. Wanted to believe that everything he'd said to her was true. Wanted to believe that there was more to the turians than cold, calculating strategy and rows of sharpened fangs.
She saw now exactly how stupid those hopes had been; how naive and preposterous.
Still… What reason would Albacus have to deceive her? She wasn't important enough to his cause. Why would his eyes soften for Jane - why would he act as though the thought of killing a child would bruise his soul?
No one could be that good a performer. He couldn't have done this…
No matter what she wanted to believe, he wasn't human, was he?
Williams stepped closer, as if he could smell her doubt.
"Captain Regidonis trusts you. You can slide this right under his nose without any more innocents having to pay the price. You can save your girl."
Slowly, brain thick with disbelief, she shook her head at Williams in confusion.
"What are you asking me to do?"
The General closed in, lowering his voice for her alone.
"We almost cracked it - we should be able to punch through the turian blockade and send out a message to Admiral Drescher and the Second Fleet. I just need someone to hit the button."
David
Kithoi Ward, Citadel
2183 CE
Anderson swept his arm across the table, clearing the picked-over bones of last night's buffet into an incinerator bag. All things considered, his apartment could have looked far worse after a late night with a fresh squad.
It had taken several hours and a half-dozen inches of booze from his best bottles to get Shepard's new group to adequately loosen up - Kryik certainly hadn't made it easy. Shepard's ploy to get Chief Williams and the Spectre-shaped ice sculpture to bang foreheads had been the nuclear option, but hell, it had worked.
Anderson had never known a turian to blush, especially one with a cloaca as tightly clenched as Kryik's. First time for everything.
If this joint command between Shepard and Kryik was going to stand any chance of success, Shepard was going to have to keep up the improvisation. No denying: it would be rough. She should have gotten a few more missions in the kiddie pool with Kryik, all under Anderson's close supervision. Originally the plan had been to give the Commander a six month combat trial as Kryik's apprentice before she was officially made a Spectre and awarded the Normandy.
The best laid plans of mice and men. Saren had shot everything straight to hell when he'd attacked Eden Prime with an elder god.
Now Kryik needed Normandy's stealth system to slide into the Terminus undetected. Saren posed the greatest risk to humanity's interests in the lawless systems beyond the Alliance's purview. The rogue Spectre had to be stopped before he attacked another colony, and Kryik couldn't afford to have an Alliance Captain getting in the way, bogging him down with procedures or due process.
The mission was under Council jurisdiction now, and Anderson's role in Shepard's rise had been suddenly and unceremoniously hacked off like gangrene.
In less than twenty-four hours, Kryik and Udina had strong-armed the Council behind closed doors and pushed Shepard's induction up by half a year. No warning, no sympathy. The first human Spectre had been decided overnight.
He looked at the time. 1800 hours. Good. It would be starting soon.
As soon as he'd gotten the broadcast details, he had programmed the large vid screen in the living room to record Shepard's Spectre Investiture across a wide band of channels. Just because he'd been there in person didn't mean he didn't also want a backup copy. Or several.
Besides personal sentiment, it was a matter of galactic history. And politics - of course - politics… Udina would be only to happy to remind Anderson tomorrow morning that cleaning up after Shepard's media scandals was his only job now.
"Here we go, kid…"
He dropped all pretense of cleaning and sat down abruptly on the sofa.
"What are they going to make of you this time?"
Cautiously triggering the remote on his omni-tool, he tuned to the first feed.
NewsNet with Emily Wong - a good place to start. Wong was non-partisan, no ideological grandstanding. For her report, she had chosen to stand at the base of the Citadel Tower stairs. A classy backdrop: she was bathed in the inspiring golden light that always filtered through the station's incongruous trees.
"Earlier today in an austere ceremony at the top of these very steps, Commander Jane Shepard of the Systems Alliance Navy was named the first ever human Spectre.
"Some have called Shepard's induction a triumph for galactic unity, citing the Council's decades-long campaign to promote turian-human cooperation in the long shadow of the Relay 314 Incident. Detractors claim that this is just the latest in a series of escalating attempts to further human interests on the Citadel…"
He clicked over to Westerland News.
"...Many feel Shepard's meteoric rise to the Spectres is unjustified, alleging that the Council did not appropriately vet the Commander before giving her nearly limitless access to Citadel resources. Many citizens wonder if Shepard is the best choice for the Alliance, questioning if she has humanity's best interests at heart."
Khalisah Bint Sinan Al-Jilani had a mouthful of mud to sling, as usual. No big surprise there - Al-Jilani had been the one to run the first exposé on Shepard's turian upbringing, and she was always trying to one-up herself. She was doing a man on the street piece, surrounded by a mixed group of civilians, mostly human.
The report cut between a number of talking heads.
One man accused: "How do we know she's not working for the Hierarchy? She may look human, but she's probably just a puppet for the turians!"
Another claimed: "I don't think we ever got the full story on the Blitz. How could one woman have pushed back the batarians? The Alliance is covering something up."
A third opinion, even more unhinged: "What I want to know is, why did all this happen so suddenly? Does the Council even care anymore? Or do they just want to keep all of us talking around in circles and avoiding the real issues?"
Whatever the real issues might have been, Anderson had no idea. The man did not elaborate. He rolled his eyes and changed the station.
Next: Palaven Dispatch. This would be a shitshow.
"...Shepard is no stranger to controversy. The Commander became a household name after the Skyllian Blitz, when the galactic community was stunned to learn that the Hero of Elysium had been raised in the Terminus by one of Palaven's most infamous expatriates. Albacus Regidonis was excommunicated for treason after evidence suggested he may have had a hand in orchestrating the Alliance's Second Fleet Liberation Wave, a surprise attack which claimed the lives of over thirteen-hundred of his own troops…"
That was going to go on for a while.
He flipped to Eternal Truth, where an asari matriarch was delivering a calmer overview of the cultural implications.
"...Commander Shepard was nominated by one of the Council's most prestigious turian agents: ten-year Spectre veteran Nihlus Kryik. Kryik stood as Shepard's advocate and sponsor during the traditional ceremony, accompanied by the interplanetary crew of the SSV Normandy. In the spirit of collaboration, Kryik and Shepard will undertake an unprecedented tandem Spectre command of the experimental vessel, which is itself a feat of combined turian-human engineering..."
She went on in some detail about the Council's diplomatic investment in the Normandy, narrating a brief virtual tour of the ship. Most of the structural details were classified for obvious reasons. Still, she was able to fill in a few pedestrian details. The ship's complement, a CIC built to turian rather than human standard, and the shared quarters.
Anderson wished he could see the look on Shepard's face when she learned that the captain's quarters were designed to be hot racked - another turian carryover. Sharing a room with Nihlus. Damn.
Anderson let out a small laugh and flipped to the Alliance News Network.
Finally. The ANN was running an artfully cut-together montage of the Investiture. No frills. Just the ceremony.
It began with a bit of speechifying from the Councilors: all of it rehearsed and highly formalized. Anderson remembered watching Kryik and Shepard walking through it a few times before the Councilors had arrived.
What an unreal privilege that had been, to see the two of them rehearsing history before they made it.
Valern started, hurrying right along in typical salarian fashion.
"Spectres are not trained, but chosen. Individuals forged in the fire of service and battle; those whose actions elevate them above the rank and file."
Tevos continued: "Spectres are an ideal, a symbol. The embodiment of courage, determination, and self-reliance. They are the right hand of the Council, instruments of our will."
Sparatus finished: "Spectres bear a great burden. They are protectors of galactic peace, both our first and last line of defense. The safety of the galaxy is theirs to uphold."
All together, the Councilors petitioned: "Who among you can name such an individual?"
Kryik and Shepard stood shoulder to shoulder on the dais atop Citadel Tower, both of them stiff as iron spikes.
"I name Jane Shepard," Kryik declared.
Appropriately enough, it was Sparatus who challenged Kryik's nomination. Any of the Councilors were free to sling the formalized rebuff, but it was hard to argue that the turian had the most cause to doubt Shepard's worth.
"Spectre Nihlus Kryik, by what authority do you advocate for this individual?" Sparatus asked, resoundingly skeptical.
Kryik assumed the choreographed position, taking up a powerful stance at Shepard's back. He set his hands on her shoulders and pressed her forward for consideration.
"I advocate as her comrade in arms."
The Councilors presented the three tests: experience, service, and fortitude.
Valern posed the first: "How was she forged?"
"Shepard fought and won the highest proficiency in the Systems Alliance Special Forces. As an interplanetary combative, she has studied under masters on Earth, Thessia, Sur'Kesh, and Palaven."
Tevos posed the second test: "How does she serve?"
"Shepard is the hero of Elysium, upon her heart rests the Star of Terra. At my side, she commands the Normandy, living in service to her crew."
The Normandy's full complement of fifty hands were in attendance, fifty-four including Nihlus and the new recruits. Crammed onto the steps behind the dais, Vakarian, Zorah, and Moreau with his Vrolik's Syndrome had been strategically placed behind the Commander to look good and diverse for television.
It didn't hurt to have General Williams' granddaughter there either. The ANN crawl at the bottom of the screen helpfully pointed out that the descendents of Shanxi's foremost players were teaming up to fight evil.
Even if it hadn't gone strictly according to plan, the Council had certainly gotten their publicity stunt.
The Normandy's crew called out in booming unison:
"OORAH!"
Anderson rubbed the goosebumps from his arms and watched Councilor Sparatus step up to give the final test. Even he seemed impressed by the Normandy crew's show of unanimity.
"How will she endure?"
"Shepard bears her scars with pride. She will lay down her own life in defense of justice, sacrificing herself to protect those who unite in peace under the rule of the Citadel."
Ordinarily, Tevos would have been the one to deliver the final Spectre Investiture, but everyone had agreed that Sparatus was the better choice for Shepard. The turian stiffened, locking his hands behind his back.
"Commander, kneel."
She did. Kryik's hands finally dropped from her shoulders, and he retreated a single step, presenting her to the Councilor alone and unsupported.
"Do you accept the tutelage of Spectre Nihlus Kryik and the will of the Council?"
"I accept. I will disappear into my duty."
"It is the decision of the Council that you be granted all the powers and privileges of the Special Tactics and Reconnaissance branch of the Citadel.
"Spectre Jane Shepard, rise and vanish."
Hannah
Northern District, Shanxi Borderlands
2157 CE
The road was invisible. Hannah blinked furiously, willing the night to fade into dawn, a sliver of moon, anything to break up this pitch black monotony. The sun had long since disappeared, leaving only the dim ring of headlights in front of the windscreen while the road stretched on forever, swelling up out of the night like a restless spirit.
As she guided the convoy through miles of uninterrupted farmland, the steering wheel of Hannah's oldest truck spasmed and jumped beneath her hands. She grimaced - after sixteen hours on the road, the constant stuttering of the engine was making her joints ache. The drivetrain was shot, it would need serious overhauling. Not that it mattered, she supposed. How many more runs would this faithful old rig ever make?
The rough ride had one advantage: it provided a few momentary lapses from the anxiety that had been steadily creeping up her spine since the convoy had set out at first light. Her empty stomach snarled miserably and she bit her lip to distract herself, staring intently out into the bleak and never-ending road.
There was no going back now.
No matter what the convoy found out here, Hannah wouldn't be making the return journey. She would be on her own again, starting from nothing. At least she'd been in this position before. Moreover, she had Jane with her now, but in a situation this dire that was little relief. Bringing a feverish three-year-old to the abandoned northern outpost - with only Hannah's survival grit and an old soldier's instincts to guide them - was a massive risk. When she factored in Williams's plot to contact the Admiral, and Regidonis' scheme to hide her from Arterius, the statistics shrank even further out of their favor.
With so little to be grateful for, Hannah was at least glad to have a real job to do. If she couldn't hold a gun, at least she could hold a steering wheel - rickety though it might have been. If she couldn't fire another shot, at least she could push a button, summoning a fleet six thousand strong with a single finger.
Hannah had decided from the outset to do the driving herself, resigning Regidonis to passenger and lookout. The only thing worse than being starved and terrified would be uselessness. After all, this was her territory now. Her convoy, her route, her supplies. Her button to push.
Her daughter's fate, like it or not.
Hannah rolled her shoulders and stretched her seizing neck from side to side. Letting out a deep gust of breath, she tried once again to suppress the gnawing ache that had permanently settled in her guts. When she turned to consider her silent turian passenger, she was startled to find that he was already looking at her.
Just under a week surrounded by turians had rendered their alien expressions a bit less inscrutable, but she was still unnerved by the Captain's mercury-bright eyes. His stare was as gleaming and intense as ever.
"We've got to be getting close," Hannah announced stiffly, turning away from his x-ray gaze and squinting into dark.
Did he know what Williams had asked her to do? Would he try to stop her?
Most terrifying of all - did she want to be stopped?
If she called down the Admiral's fleet, Albacus was already dead. Tulubri too. Surely there were hundreds, maybe thousands of others in his fleet who shared his ethics and ideals - honorable soldiers who didn't deserve to die a meaningless death.
Hannah cringed at her own treachery. What had the colonists of Shanxi deserved? What about the countless marines who had been slaughtered in the bombardment? Hadn't their deaths been meaningless, worthy of avenging? Where did her loyalties lie? She owed justice to the fallen.
Hannah felt her teeth grinding together with indecision, and she had never hated herself more.
Try though she might to keep him at a distance, Albacus continued to find new ways to terrify and impress her, usually all at once. Once the convoy had set out from the colony main, the Captain had been a diligent sentinel at her side, his earlier fearsomeness carefully stowed away. For hours he had done little besides maintaining his careful watch on the horizon. The only thing that seemed capable of breaking his concentration was Jane, who was sleepily tucked against his side.
Jane's condition hadn't worsened, but neither had she shown any sign of improvement. The girl was stretched out to Hannah's right, with her head propped on a blanket that Albacus had wadded considerately against his thigh. Hannah looked her over once again, wishing she could see any real change.
As if sensing her mother's gaze, Jane shifted clumsily in her sleep, sliding down across the seat until her heavy breath caught in her chest. Before Hannah could react, Albacus slipped his left forearm around Jane's chest and pulled her upright against his side. The little girl looked as tiny and raggedy in his grip as Lionel did in hers. Jane's constant dinosaur companion was clutched in an eternal stranglehold, his single button eye gazing out pathetically from between her fingers.
As Albacus settled the child into a better position, Jane moaned with frustration and feebly grappled with one of his long, gloved fingers. Once she got hold, she latched onto him with all of her strength and refused to let go.
Hannah noticed one of his facial plates twitch - was that a flinch of pain?
"Crazy little pyjak…" he muttered, sounding amused, impressed, and annoyed all at once. He struggled a moment longer, trying to pry his hand out of her grip, then finally abandoned his finger as a lost cause. He turned his eyes back to Hannah and sighed with good humor.
"No illness is taking this one."
His words were light, but she knew his faith in Jane was deadly serious. A smile attempted to cross her face but was muddled along the way by the stubborn, constant paranoia that had followed her out of the colony.
She felt Albacus watching her for a moment longer, then he turned back towards the window and resumed his silent lookout. As soon has he'd looked away, he shifted forward in his seat.
"Do you see that?" he asked, voice deliberately narrowed to a point.
She tried to follow his gaze, but saw only the featureless dark.
Her stomach rolled as if the truck had started tumbling end over end. She clenched the steering wheel until her knuckles cracked.
"What is it?"
"Smoke."
She looked again. Nothing. Everything about turian physiology screamed alpha predator - his night vision probably outstripped her own by several thousand evolutionary degrees.
"Are you sure?"
He looked into her eyes, tightened his hold on Jane, and nodded.
Finally, as the truck came up over a low rise, Hannah could make out the pale glow of a long line of smouldering ashes and dying flame flickering about a half mile down the road. It had to be the northern outpost. Williams had told her that things could still be on fire, even this long after the attack. The hopeless sight of the burning outpost was hardly tempered by the General's forewarning.
Hannah eased onto the brake and signaled for a full-stop across the short-range CB radios that were chained along the convoy. Once the ten-ton truck had finally slowed to a standstill in the middle of the abandoned roadway, she stepped outside and smelled the smoke - it was acrid enough to make her eyes water.
BANG.
She nearly jumped out of her skin, but it was only Albacus slamming his hand into the chassis of the truck. He was as angry as she'd ever seen him.
Perversely, it was the unbridled fury on his face that gave her any hope at all. There was no way in hell he had authorized this firefight. Judging by the look on his face, the sight of the smoldering outpost had offended him to the core.
They had that in common.
Garrus
SSV Normandy
2183 CE
Garrus slid into one of the stiff, high-backed chairs in the circular conference room at the heart of the SSV Normandy and tried to look casual when he realized that his unworthy ass was the first one to ever warm this seat. He wasn't sure how he had managed to slip into this parallel universe, but he'd stay here as long as he could.
Red was a Spectre, the Normandy was the most advanced ship in the fleet, and Garrus had been personally invited by Nihlus Kryik to help stop Saren Arterius. It had to be a hallucination - any moment he'd wake up alone in his apartment, staring at the wall and wishing he'd gone a little easier on the after-hours recreation.
To combat the deep sense of disorientation, he focused on his physical senses - tactile, auditory, olfactory. Reality, Vakarian. Try to stick with it.
The whole ship smelled like clean parts precisely assembled, with plastic moldings so fresh from the manufacturing yard that they were probably still degassing and filling the enviro-con with sweet industrial fumes. No wonder he felt high out of his mind. The engines vibrated through the hull in steady, regular pulses, and every once in awhile the internal emission sink would vent into space with a sound like the tide going out.
As he tried to rationalize his own presence aboard, the others senior officers and mission consultants filed in one-by-one, each looking uneasier than the last. Looked as if he wasn't the only crewmember who was fumbling for solid purchase; that was a mild comfort.
Tali'Zorah nar Rayya, Staff Lieutenant Alenko, Gunnery Chief Williams. These few he had met, and they looked nervous but secure in their duty - good. The others - Navigator Pressly, Flight Lieutenant Moreau, Engineer Adams, Doctor Chakwas - were complete strangers to him. Garrus rattled the unfamiliar human names through his head on a loop, trying to sort them all out.
There hadn't been enough prep-time for anyone to shake hands or get friendly. One minute Garrus had been composing a report for Pallin, and then he had handed in his badge to traipse into the wilderness behind not one but two Council Spectres. Thanks to the spontaneity of this assignment, Garrus knew that at this very moment somewhere on the Citadel, Petros Vakarian was having a full-on conniption.
Garrus hadn't even summoned the common decency to deliver the news of his resignation to his own father, but he knew it must have trickled down through C-Sec by now.
He made a mental note not to check his personal messages for a while.
Zorah approached and nervously sat to his right, settling her magic case onto her lap. After a moment, the Normandy's disabled pilot parked his wheelchair nearby, easing forward to gesture curiously at Zorah's payload.
"Is that the…?"
He stiffened his limbs and did a ludicrously inaccurate impression of a geth mobile platform.
Zorah nodded, then shifted the box in her lap as if it might try to fly away.
"You're the pilot, aren't you?" She asked, sounding more than a little starstruck. "What's it like to fly the Normandy? This ship is incredible."
"She really is something else - ain't she a beauty? I've only known her a few days, but things between us are already pretty serious."
"I've never set foot on a ship this advanced. There's nothing like the Tantalus Drive Core anywhere in the flotilla. I'd love to see her engines."
Moreau pulled on the neck of his Alliance blues as if suddenly flustered.
"Woah girl. Don't make me jealous."
She laughed politely, and Garrus shook his head, feeling as if he were stuck in an unusually imaginative dream. Everything about this mission was unreal. For instance: a sterile-suited quarian machinist exchanging flirtatious pleasantries with a handicapped Alliance pilot. Garrus had never heard of a soldier who couldn't walk unassisted, but Moreau seemed undeterred by his physical limitations. A flight lieutenant didn't need to run around, Garrus supposed, but still. What if he was forced to evacuate the cockpit in an emergency, or put out an oxygen fire, or…
Garrus caught himself staring. Moreau had noticed too, and Garrus realized with a twinge of shame that he was probably used to being gawked at. The pilot defensively knocked the brim of his casual SR1 cap down across his forehead and stared right back.
"I guess we've got three turians aboard now, huh?" Moreau said, voice sharpened dangerously.
Garrus sat up a bit straighter before saying: "Pardon?"
Williams eased into the chair to Garrus' left, knocking him playfully with her elbow and trying to diffuse the sudden tension.
"Yeah. There's you, Kryik, and the Commander," she said simply, as if this were explanation enough.
Garrus twitched involuntarily. Red?
Before he could arrange the words more tactfully, he demanded, "What the hell does that mean?"
Moreau gestured as if he were literally spelling it out.
"You know, because Shepard's dad was a turian…"
Garrus stopped breathing for a moment.
Yes. That settled things. This was unquestionably a parallel dimension, and everyone here was stark raving mad.
When Garrus failed to react, the pilot muttered sidelong to Zorah, "Wow, tough crowd."
After taking a moment to gather his composure, Garrus turned to Williams to demand a real explanation, but never got the chance. Without fanfare, the Spectres walked in, and excepting the chair-bound Moreau, everyone stood to salute.
Shepard was still encased head-to-toe in formal Alliance whites, looking as stiff and pale as a sunbleached bone.
"At ease," she said, sounding far older than she looked.
To Garrus' eye she appeared totally hollowed out and ready to collapse, but standing in front of the Normandy's senior staff, he could see that she hid her exhaustion with practiced skill. If she was tired it was no wonder - other than her short nap yesterday on the public transport to Zakera, Garrus had no idea when she could have had a chance to sleep. The gathering at Captain Anderson's had gone late into the night, and Shepard had stayed long after Garrus had returned home to spontaneously bundle up his life.
He had no idea what Anderson, Shepard, and Kryik had done after Garrus had left Tiberius Towers, but judging by the improvisational way the Council had inducted Shepard into the Spectres earlier today, he assumed her evening hadn't involved much rest. Shepard had been dusted up with a heavy layer of makeup for the dozens of news cameras, but Garrus had not failed to notice the way Kryik had kept the Commander propped up like a plasticine cut-out during the Spectre ceremony.
What had Anderson quipped to Williams? "If you don't mind a C.O. who never sleeps." Garrus filed that away, alongside a dozen more mysterious Shepard factoids that had yet to be explained. The pilot's bizarre joke about an impossible turian father had just taken the top spot on the list, which seemed to grow longer by the minute.
Kryik and Shepard exchanged a meaningful look, and then to Garrus' great surprise, the turian Spectre took a gracious step back and allowed Shepard to assume the lead.
"Welcome aboard the SSV Normandy," she said, half of her face quirking into a spontaneous grin.
A round of quiet but enthusiastic applause erupted. Shepard allowed it to continue for a moment, then held up a firm, quieting hand.
"I realize that for many of you, your assignments have taken a sudden and unexpected turn toward the extraterrestrial. Let me assure you that while this vessel is under my command, I will continue to adhere to the tenets of the Alliance Navy. I am honored to accept a position among the Spectres, but I have not forgotten my duty to humanity. Nor to all of you."
Garrus noticed Navigator Pressly's hairless head nodding up and down tentatively - apparently this met with some form of approval.
Shepard drove onward.
"Kryik and I will assume joint command of the Normandy for the duration of this mission. I expect you to honor any order he may give you. There is to be no distinction between his authority and my own - this crew will operate as one cohesive unit, regardless of species. If at any point you find yourself unable to work under Kryik or myself, you're welcome to try and find a more distinguished or historical assignment than this."
She chuckled, apparently at her own expense.
"Good luck - but I know that won't be necessary. You are the finest men and women the Alliance has ever produced, and you have been trained to protect your brothers and sisters in arms, no matter how far away they were born."
Garrus felt his pulse stirring in his chest. Smooth move, Shepard. Appealing to personal pride and moral decency all at once.
Who wouldn't want to prove her right?
Hannah
Northern District, Shanxi Borderlands
2157 CE
Hannah waited.
She was bunkered low against the seat, settled motionless inside the dark, soundless cabin of the truck. There was little to do except listen to the clink-clink-clink of the engine cooling, the cree-cree-cree of the summer insects outside, and wait for Albacus and his reconnaissance party to return.
Jane was resting against Hannah's chest, uninjured but still far too warm for comfort. As the girl quieted into a deeper phase of sleep, Hannah tried to match her breath for breath. Calm. Quiet.
She waited.
Albacus and his men would be looking for mines, explosives, traps. Not radio equipment. Hannah had no justifiable excuse to enter the outpost until he gave the all clear - trying to sneak in any earlier would raise his suspicion for sure. She just had to pray he wouldn't catch on, wouldn't try to stop her…
She waited.
It had only been half an hour. Reasonable time for a perimeter sweep. Albacus would be back any minute, and then the crew could start loading supplies. After that, the real test of her strength: Williams' message.
She knew exactly where the comm station was - she knew the footprint of this installation as well as a childhood bedroom. She had personally overseen the construction of this outpost two years ago, when demand had outstripped the capacity of her central depot.
The northern outpost was a haphazard network of storehouses - food, lumber, steel - linked to a rudimentary comm station engineered for placing off-world orders in a pinch. Nothing fancy, but Williams and Harper's team had managed to jerry-rig her low-budget communications tech and set up a backdoor channel that could somehow bounce through the system relay to Drescher. Hannah was no engineer, but she believed the General at his word.
Push the button, he'd said.
Yes sir, she'd said.
How hard could it be? Just one simple task. Yes or no. Save the colony.
If it was a matter of simple binary heroics, why did the thought of calling Drescher's rescuing fleet fill Hannah with terror?
She swallowed her nausea and ducked her head into Jane's hair. Do it for her, she thought. Only for her, if no one else.
Hannah breathed in the scent of her baby's hair, and waited a few minutes more.
At long last, the passenger door wrenched open.
There he was, the rogue element. The complication.
She tried to meet Albacus' stare with a blank look of exhaustion, though she knew the subterfuge was useless. God knows, he could probably smell her fear a mile away; obvious as a drop of blood in a shark tank.
"Follow me," he said; quiet, low. Careful. Hannah's gut plummeted - his voice was tight enough to walk on.
She clutched Jane tighter against her torso, gathered up the small backpack of clothes and emergency supplies she'd prepared, then slid out of the truck behind him.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw armed turians guiding groups of human workers to the storehouses at the bottom of the hill. The work was underway, then. Albacus took advantage of the distraction to lead her in the opposite direction, into almost total darkness, toward the comm station.
He knew.
Her foot collided with something, and she faltered, her pace slowing. The moment her stride broke, his head turned. He was listening for her footfalls, but none came.
She didn't need to see in the dark to know she had stumbled over a body. Human or turian, it was impossible to know, the night was too pitch-black for her to make out even basic anatomy. She froze, clinging to Jane for dear life.
Don't look, baby. Don't look.
"Keep moving," Albacus whispered, dropping back to urge Hannah along. "Time is short."
Her head ached, her stomach heaved, but she picked up one foot, then the other, and followed him obediently.
"What's going to happen?"
The feeble shakiness of her own voice came as a complete surprise.
He didn't answer immediately. Instead, his hand unexpectedly found the small of her back, and his touch was gentle. Her breath caught, and she desperately wished she could feel anything other than fear.
"Keep moving," he repeated, his many-layered voice fluttering along her neck.
After a few minutes of brisk walking, they reached the comm station. A tower stretched overhead, blessedly uninjured by the crossfire. He heaved open the weighty bunkered door and motioned her inside. She knew that the small communications array was buried underground, just a short walk down those stairs.
This was it. No turning back.
She lifted Jane against her hip and tried to keep breathing.
"Albacus…" she said, startling herself again.
What do I do?
Are you about to kill me?
Am I about to kill you?
He stood by the open door. The gatekeeper, silent and terrible.
She shook her head, her eyes hot and blurry. Was she crying? Again? What the hell was wrong with her?
"Hannah. Please. We have so little time."
She took one deep breath, and then descended into the bunker.
Albacus quickly swept the external perimeter, then bolted the door at their backs and followed her down the narrow stairwell. Once they reached the bottom landing and were bathed in the dim light of the communications office, his hand reached out for her once more, settling on that vulnerable hollow at the base of her spine.
"I know about the communication sabotage," he said in a low voice. "So does General Arterius. Desolas has landed, he sent me a communiqué moments ago. He wants your head."
Hannah grabbed a fistful of Jane's hair and tried not to make a sound.
"I will not give you to him. As far as the General is concerned, your life is at an end. Right here, right now. Starting this moment, you are gone from this world."
His hand lifted from her back and found the vulnerable plane above Hannah's heart, next to Jane's sleeping face.
He brought his right fist down upon her collarbone in one single, slow advance, as if sinking a phantom knife into her chest.
Perhaps it was her imagination, but her ribs ached, and her heart spasmed crazily, beating out of control. Imaginary or not, she felt that blade twisting inside her, and her breath caught.
Oh God, this hurt. Why did it have to hurt like this?
"You know what I have to do," she breathed.
"Yes."
"Are you going to stop me?"
"No."
His hand was so heavy. She struggled to fill her lungs beneath it.
"I'm going to help you," he whispered.
"Why?"
"Because we will send more than one message tonight. Spirits willing, Benezia will arrive first."
Albacus kept his right hand pressed over her heart, but raised his left forearm and triggered his omni-tool. Hers glowed in response. That was it, then: his message, his plea, literally in her hands.
He trusted her with this, trusted her with their mutual deliverance. She swallowed hard, and felt as if her insides were liquefying.
"Who is Benezia?" she asked, heartbeat thundering in her ears.
"A great and noble lady. Our best chance of a peaceful ceasefire."
"What happens if my fleet breaks through instead?"
He didn't answer. She pressed again.
"Albacus. What happens if my fleet breaks through? What happens - what happens when you go back to Arterius?"
"I have always been prepared to die."
She shook her head, refusing to accept that surrender. Not from him. His fist tightened over her heart as if he could see the emotions welling up from within her and was trying to tamp them back down.
"You don't have to do this," she said, wishing the tears would just fucking stop, just leave her alone, let her get back to normal again, if there had ever been such a thing.
"Albacus, you're a good man. Stay with us."
"I'm not a man at all," he said, suddenly lowering his forehead to hers.
She lifted her gaze, looked into his eyes, and lost the will to speak.
"Take care of her," he said, his breath stuttering through Jane's hair.
Those were his last words.
Albacus stepped away, turned on his heel, and marched up the stairs and back into the night, leaving Hannah alone to make the choice.
[FROM]: Encrypted Sender
[TO]: Benezia T'Soni
Reverend Matriarch,
I pray this message finds you.
According to my immediate superior, we are beyond communicable range. If that is true, and my plea spirals unheard among the empty stars, then hope is already lost.
/CORRUPTED/-we are in desperate need of the Council's intercession.
If the Hierarchy declares me a traitor to the cause, I am willing to surrender my commission, my ship, my life. /CORRUPTED/ bigger things at stake.
Smaller things, too. I have the blood of children on my hands.
On 13th Dacrescent, my fleet made first contact with an alien species at Relay 314. Just after 0900 Orhans, an unknown species emerged fr-/CORRUPTED/-ed humanity. In accordance with the Maskim Xul Treatise, we pursued the human vessels back through the activated relay. Despite my formal objection, General Arterius gave the order to commence orbital bombardment procedures.
/CORRUPTED/-archy Blackwatch, under the supervision of General Desolas Arterius, the frigates Tenefalx, Miriton, and Bexitani chaperoning a fleet of experimental cruisers.
These cruisers were commissioned without Council knowledge or approval, as part of an undisclosed black-ops trade agreement between the Hierarchy and the Vol Protectorate. This -/CORRUPTED/-iated by General Arterius in the hopes of striking a profitable long-term military contract with the volus.
I believe the General is using this conflict as a means to justify his family's ambitious military investments and position himself as champion of a profitable war.
There is no honor here.
/CORRUPTED/-civilian lives lost. Whatever happens, I will not massacre families and children.
The true strength of humanity's military has yet to emerge. Should they summon a full naval force, I fear we are staged for mutual annihilation. The humans are civilized but too terrified /CORRUPTED/ reasonable. Their civilians are wasting from starvation and disease - they are no natural threat to the Hierarchy or the Citadel Conventions. However, if we do not fall back, I have good reason to believe that their real fleet will arrive soon to strike a mighty blow.
I must believe the Hierarchy has higher ideals than a rampaging thirst for blood.
This region is uncharted, but my chief science officer ha-/CORRUPTED/ provided some details. We are desperate for language engineers, universal communicators, levo-amino rations and medical supplies - enough to stabilize a colony of thousands. Without immediate relief, it may already be too late to save the colony.
Approximate coordinates, supply estimates, and relief plans are included with this dispatch.
My lady, our best chance rests with you.
Spirits guide us all.
Albacus Regidonis
Blackwatch Captain of the First Rank
PFS Tenefalx
[MESSAGE STATUS]: Received
Original words and phrases:
- Falx/Falxi (plural): Blade/Scythe. The term is generally applied to the Hierarchy's military professionals - those who continue to serve long after the requisite service requirements have been met.
Words and phrases courtesy of MizDirected's turian dictionary:
- Dacrescent - one of the months in the turian season of Letum (death cycle)
- Orhan: hour-type unit (each measuring 46 earth minutes)