13: Ruin - Part II

Jane
SSV Normandy
2183 CE

Shepard blinked and took a quick survey of the conference room. Everyone was in attendance, standing around in anxious, mumbling groups. As usual, all eyes turned to her expectantly as she walked through the door. Though she was fresh from decon and still half-armored, she had taken a quick detour to the head to wash her face before the debrief. Millions of ghostly voices in the Prothean burial city had left her shaken, not stirred, and the contents of her stomach had insisted on a rapid evac as soon as T'Soni's bubble popped.

She had barely escaped messing her helmet.

The instant that Shepard landed one toe in the conference room, the asari archaeologist leapt from her chair and hopscotched over to meet her.

"Commander Shepard? Doctor Liara T'Soni. Give me your hand."

In grim anticipation of an overeager shake, Shepard reluctantly extended her arm. Instead of courtesy, the asari slapped a thin black slab into Shepard's palm. The object was sheathed in a dense, velvety material - some kind of protective cover. Shepard could feel its energy reverberating through the cloth.

She held the artifact at arm's length and flattened the pretty young asari with a dour, don't-fuck-with-me glare.

"I hate to tell you Doctor, but this isn't how a handshake works."

Behind the archaeologist, Garrus laughed rudely. Then without needing to be told, he shut up and escorted his own disruptive ass to a chair, and the rest of the crew followed suit, taking their seats. Doctor T'Soni was unphased.

"This is much more than a handshake, Commander. With this, I can help you make sense out of that vision you experienced on Eden Prime. With any luck, I can even help you stop Saren."

Nihlus walked across the room to intervene, meeting them by the threshold.

"The details of the Eden Prime mission were strictly confidential," he said in a low warning tone. "And Saren's activities have been classified for months. Spectre clearance only. Even C-Sec couldn't get into those files. So how did you?"

"I can dig up more than artifacts." the Doctor boasted, apparently unaffected by Nihlus' threatening posture. "I read your report - I was not surprised by what I found."

"What are you up to, T'Soni?" Nihlus demanded. "Don't think I haven't noticed you tailing me these last few months. Other than fueling the galaxy's seediest gossip mill, what's the Shadow Broker's stake in Saren's defection?"

"Believe it or not, the Broker is your ally… for now." T'Soni said, matter-of-factly. "The information business has been funding my research into the Prothean extinction for nearly half a century - research that could prove invaluable in the days to come."

"I'm just sure." Nihlus hissed. In retaliation, T'Soni stepped right up into his face. If she'd had hackles, Shepard got the feeling that they would have been sticking straight up.

"The Council's academics refused to so much as publish my theories, where else was I supposed to get the capital to fund my work? Yes, I may have hawked the odd headless statue on the black market, but I needed those credits to keep digging. I keep all of the truly valuable finds for myself. Like that Prothean memory shard." T'Soni gestured to the relic in Shepard's hand. "That single piece is worth more than this entire ship."

Nihlus shook his head and looked at Shepard, his face a perfect poster image for the expression: can you fucking believe this bullshit? Shepard raised an eyebrow and weighed the shard in her palm.

"Worth more than my Normandy? " Shepard droned, skeptically. As she spoke, she tried to ignore the eerie whispers that were drifting up from beneath the Prothean shard's protective case. "Tell me Doctor, what was so controversial about your theories that you had to stoop to auctioning off relics from your own excavations?"

T'Soni took a calming breath.

"I believe I can link the end of the Prothean civilization to a pattern of cyclical extinction events. Every fifty-thousand years or so, it seems to recur like clockwork. Since the Protheans disappeared fifty-thousand years ago… our time is up. But I am only one hundred and six. I was written off as a doomsday theorist. Little more than a paranoid child."

Nihlus quieted her with a wave of his hand, proving the Doctor's point almost instantly.

"Fine," he grumbled. "Just… Explain. What does your Prothean research have to do with Saren? Why has he allied himself with the geth? How did he lose his mind in the first place? Most of all - can you tell me how to kill him?"

"One question at a time, Spectre."

Flaring his mandibles to cover a frustrated hiss, Nihlus stepped into the berth of the conference ring, then impatiently gestured for Shepard and T'Soni to follow. As they joined the circle of curious onlookers, the Doctor finally addressed the entire room.

"I apologize if I seem a little overzealous, but if my theories are correct, we are facing a threat of apocalyptic magnitude. The sudden, violent nature of the Protheans' disappearance was no accident. They were systematically wiped out. What is even more bizarre is that I do not believe they were the first civilization to fall - it has happened before, innumerable times. And now, thanks to Saren's intervention, it is happening again.

"What a load of...!"

"Wrex."

"What?"

Shepard met the krogan's eye and silently told him to be nice.

He rumbled stubbornly in his seat, "...everyone always thinks they're living in the end of days damn paranoid asari babies…" but nonetheless, he complied and did his whining quietly.

"Believe me, I wish I truly were just a raving conspiracy theorist, but I have been working on this for fifty years. I have tracked down every scrap and shred of evidence. Entire planets, star systems, cultures - eradicated in the cosmic blink of an eye. It is almost as if someone did not want the mystery solved, like someone came along and cleansed the galaxy of clues."

In the wake of this revelation, the ensuing silence was much too intense for comfort. To break the mood, Shepard kicked Nihlus lightly on the side of his foot. With a start, he looked up from the hole he had been staring into the floor.

"We can stop it." she said. "It starts with a little faith in this."

She raised the artifact in her hand and rattled it gently, just for effect. Nihlus rubbed the fresh bruises along the side his neck and shook his head, looking far from convinced.

Shepard's eyes roved over the Prothean shard hungrily - once she started truly looking at it, she found it difficult to break her gaze. Her hand twitched as if it had been spontaneously magnetized, and her fingers jerked toward the edge of the velveteen cover… she could almost hear the voices... if she just...

T'Soni stepped closer.

"Commander, wait. You should not commune with that on your own." When Shepard failed to respond, the Doctor clapped her hands together. Loudly. Shepard shivered and tore her eyes away from the artifact.

"What is this thing?" She asked, breathing deep enough to swoon.

"As I said, it is a rare Prothean memory shard - a treasure that is priceless beyond imagining. Like the beacon you encountered, this shard contains a psychic remnant. Unlike the beacon, the message you hold in your hand is much more… how to explain? This belonged to one of their last survivors. It contains a singular account, a personal history, rather than a communal one. It should be much easier for you to understand.

"Tell me, Commander, what do you remember from your initial vision after Eden Prime?"

Shepard opted to leave out the part about her father's hollow, smoking eyes. To leave out the blurry, nearly forgotten shape of her mother's face. To leave out most of it, actually, because most of it was just the suffocating smell of smoke and the certainty that death was descending upon the world.

"Whispers. Memories. It was little more than a nightmare."

"Yes... A very old, very powerful nightmare, shared by billions upon billions of minds. I'm sorry you had to face it without context. A Prothean beacon was never designed to be used by anyone without empathic abilities.

"Scholars believe that the Protheans employed a kind of sense memory, which they used in conjunction with artifacts like these to communicate complex ideas. Sometimes an entire lifetime worth of knowledge could be transmitted in a single burst of information.

"Through the ages, asari have attempted to commune with Prothean artifacts, but it always carried enormous personal risk. Even an empath with years of training and experience could risk madness if they dwelt too long in those old memories. Eventually the practice was… condemned by many academics."

"Did something in that burial city on Therum commune with you?" Shepard asked.

"I believe so, yes!" T'Soni seemed delighted. "I have never experienced anything like it. Myriad consciousness, fifty-thousand years sleeping, still… somehow… alive."

Shepard considered T'Soni's excitement, and suddenly remembered the cold dread that had seeped through her bones at the sight of Lady Benezia on Eden Prime. Communing with these dead things was no kind of casual adventure to undertake.

She remembered the dark, empty voids of Benezia's pitch-black eyes. This wasn't a game.

"Is that what did Saren did to your mother?" Shepard asked, in a voice that had gone surprisingly hoarse.

Doctor T'Soni seemed completely taken aback by the question. For a moment, she was gravely silent, and did nothing but stare down at her own wringing hands.

"Yes." She finally said, quiet and serious. "I - when I read Kryik's report, I assumed… Yes. I believe Saren forced her into communion with the beacon on Eden Prime, in order to avoid the risk himself."

"I'm sorry, Doctor." Shepard said, meaning every word.

The asari blinked furiously and shook her head.

"In the process of communing with the beacon, my mother's mind may have shattered beyond repair. And yet… even in that weakened state, Benezia must have left something of herself behind to guide you. It is the only explanation for how your human consciousness could have survived the Prothean information transfer."

"Are you saying she saved my life?"

"Commander, what happened on Eden Prime was unimaginable. My mother would never have willingly allowed that colony to be destroyed. If you witnessed her final moments of clarity, she may have been trying to redeem herself… or preserve some final piece..." T'Soni steeled herself before continuing, moving back to a more comfortable topic. "Even with her aid, I can only imagine the beating your mind must have taken. I am astounded you remained sane."

"I don't know about that. My sanity has always been open to debate."

Another cough from the peanut gallery. Shepard shot Garrus a quick but unforgiving look, and he redirected his eyes to the ceiling in silent compliance.

"This is no laughing matter, Commander. You must be remarkably strong willed."

T'Soni's voice carried a strong note of admiration in it, far too sweet for Shepard's blood. Luckily, Nihlus was there to slap the stars out of the Doctor's eyes.

"This isn't helping us find Saren."

"But this might." Shepard huffed out a frustrated breath and passed the artifact between her hands. "Another scary ancient relic that wants to eat my primitive monkey brain. How do I talk to it, and how bad will it hurt?"

T'Soni nodded to herself.

"I have enough experience to facilitate a relatively safe data transfer. It may answer some of your questions about the vision from Eden Prime. But I must warn you, it will be… uncomfortable."

"Can we do this right now?"

The asari nodded, her eagerness quickly returning.

"Of course. The sooner the better."

Suddenly, Nihlus was looming over them again.

"Hold on, Shepard. Are you serious? Playing around with this thing is a terrible idea. We should do this under the close supervision of Doctor Chakwas, if we do it at all."

Shepard raised both eyebrows as high as they would go.

We? That was new.

"Come on, Nihlus." Shepard drawled, voice bristly as she could force it. "You've been all action this whole mission. Don't get lukewarm on me now. Stop Saren or die trying, remember?"

"I hadn't banked on you taking that promise literally, Shepard."

"Wasn't asking permission. It's my brain and our best chance."

She could hear the precocious teenage undertones in her own voice, and she despised herself for it.

Nihlus threw his hands in the air, surrendering Shepard to her own idiocy.

As soon as the turian Spectre was out of their way, T'Soni removed her gloves and slapped her palms onto Shepard's temples without any further preamble. Her fingertips were hot and sweaty, and they spasmed at odd intervals. It occurred to Shepard that she had no real idea of the Doctor's mind-melding psychic qualifications, but it was too late to back out now.

Before she could stop herself, Shepard's eyes flicked nervously to Garrus.

If looks could kill, everyone in the room would have been long dead, smoking in their boots. Blue's stare of naked disapproval carried enough firepower to blow the head clean off a lesser woman.

Or, Shepard reflected, a smarter woman.

She'd almost lost him down there. In the scant blink of an eye, he had been inches from disappearing forever. Seconds from a fall to his death… or worse. Flirting with this Prothean artifact was every bit as dangerous as walking through that boobytrapped ruin, and Shepard recognized Garrus' look of cold dread only too well. She swallowed a fresh wave of guilt and redirected her attention to T'Soni, found herself lost in a sea of freckles. Cute blue freckles.

Okay, nice. Better. Friendly and cute and nervous and nice. Forcing down the bubble of acid in her gut, Shepard nodded a final consent to the communion.

"Relax, Commander. Concentrate on the memory shard, and embrace eternity."

Whatever the hell that meant.

Shepard turned her eyes to the Prothean artifact and slid it from its case, finally allowing her gaze to sink beneath its surface, deep and sudden, like plunging her head underwater.

The sleek, mirror-black veneer of the shard was split by a single viridian line, bright and sharp as the edge of a leaf. The moment the thought crossed her brain, she felt a pointed twinge at the base of her skull.

The trees rustled, whispering amongst themselves.

In her periphery, Garrus tensed. She could hear the seals of his armor squeaking beneath his hands as he anxiously dug his fingertips into his own thighs. Behind her, Nihlus rumbled in patronizing concern. Far in the distance, she heard the Spectre's voice calling for Chakwas over the comm.

"Relax, Commander." T'Soni repeated in a tense whisper, jostling her at the temples. "Embrace eternity."

The tingling at the base of Shepard's skull grew into an itch.

Something stirred behind her, far away, but she didn't want to look.

The itch became a hand, familiar and heavy, sliding down to rest between her shoulder blades.

It was much better, she thought, to keep staring into the green. Keep staring far ahead, into the deep of the trees where she could see his shimmering outline.

"Embrace eternity…"

Had the Doctor said that aloud? It was hard to tell.

All Shepard could think of was that hand on her back. Solid. Real.

If she turned to look, she would compromise her sightline. She would throw the shot. No matter how much she wanted to, she couldn't break. She wouldn't lose count.

She reached for him, but he stayed deep in the trees, the bold, bright green of the trees, where she could not follow.

T'Soni's hands tightened painfully and the Doctor's pupils widened, widened, widened - then exploded into stormclouds, cloaking them both in endless, sinking black.

The memories rained down. All at once, in a great drowning cacophony. Joined together hand-in-hand beneath a terrible, blasting roar.

That endless, crushing roll of thunder.

The behemoth screamed at her back. She felt its breath smouldering.

The present became the past, the past became the future, and the Reapers were everywhere.

Albacus
Shanxi
2157 CE

By the time he returned to the colony, emptiness was all that remained.

Slowing to a gradual stop outside the entrance plaza, Albacus braced his forearms on the wheel of Hannah's truck and leaned toward the windscreen, anxiously raking his eyes over the skeleton of Shanxi. The streets lay lifeless and barren beneath a pallid mid-morning haze, a smokey layer of rubble piled so thick that even the little skittering animals avoided it - there was nothing to find but dust and ashes.

Once, this had been a town center, a beating heart of commerce and culture for the people who lived here. Now it was a tortured landscape, indistinguishable from every other ruinous war-zone Albacus had ever set foot in. The same buckled asphalt and gutted buildings, the same jagged hills of crumbling stone and rusting steel. The only difference was Albacus himself.

This time, he had caused the destruction rather than sweeping down to cleanse it.

Guilt could kill you. It could choke you to death without the slightest warning. So he swallowed it down, replaced it with grim acceptance.

Shifting forward in the seat, he scanned the wreckage and tried to detect any sign of movement, any paltry hint of the people he had left here only a few short days before, but there were no human civilians to be found.

Under the careful surveillance of Albacus and his Tenefalx crew, dozens of brave, dogged human colonists had meandered these streets. They looked for work, helped one another. The humans tried to stay moving, as if keeping busy would stave off madness or death or both. Certainly unhappy, but just as certainly alive, the colonists had pretended to go about their daily routines.

That much, he could understand. Playacting or not, people needed occupations. They needed purpose. Giving the humans things to fix, jobs to do, problems to solve, had been the keystone of Albacus' containment strategy. Those mindless, busying tasks, however illusory, had kept a badly beaten righteous mob from boiling over. Now, with the streets abandoned and the supply situation worsening by the hour, it would only be a matter of time until all of that work was undone.

Had Arterius moved everyone to the penal enclaves? If so, the General had just concentrated his enemies together in a terrible swarm. Even crippled, starving, and disarmed, Albacus knew the humans would try to find a way to go out with a bang. Especially once they had lost all hope.

Hannah had called it a powderkeg. Albacus feared the fuses were moments from being lit.

Outside the truck, something stirred, and he turned to face it. In grim procession, a group of turians approached. Obren Ilmek was at the fore. The sight of his own second in command brought Albacus no relief. Ilmek was flanked by several heavily armed junior officers. Unfamiliar torini wearing full Blackwatch armor, impenetrable from head to foot, their faces were completely obscured. A wall of disloyal, dangerous anonymity at Ilmek's vulnerable back.

Intimidation tactics. Theatre. Desolas Arterius' handiwork. Albacus would have recognized it anywhere. In the machinating parties the General threw for Palaven's elite. On his carefully engineered shakedown cruise full of top-secret experimental vessels and trigger happy pueri. Here on Shanxi: dismantling centuries of Hierarchy war games just so that he could rearrange the pieces in his own favor.

Arterius' posturing was every bit as crudely forged as the dark grey familia notas his family had invented for themselves in a single ambitious generation. Still, it meant the wheels were already in motion, and Albacus' life had an even shorter span than he had imagined.

"Captain Regidonis."

Even through the thick plating of the truck's chassis, Lieutenant Ilmek's voice was tighter than Albacus had ever heard it. Ilmek was a steady torin. To see him flinch was uncommon enough. To detect a fearful pall darkening his sub-vocals? A sure sign that things had gone from grim to irretrievable.

Albacus did not answer aloud. Quietly, slowly, he stepped from the vehicle and kept his hand firmly affixed to the door handle, as if clinging to it might shield them both from what was coming.

"Captain," Ilmek reiterated cautiously, "I have orders from General Arterius to escort you into his custody under armed guard." Despite the obvious imperative of the General's command, Ilmek lowered his voice and whispered to him urgently. "Why?"

"Obren…"

Instantly, the Lieutenant understood the fatalism of a first name coming out of his commanding officer's mouth. Albacus was formal, regimented, and steady as an atomic clock - he was not given to sentimental breaks into familiarity. Except...

Albacus sighed. Not resigned, but honest. He would face the truth clear eyed, head up. He stared through the faceless helmets at Ilmek's back, meeting each one in turn, watching the young soldiers as they twitched with doubt beneath their unearned Blackwatch gear.

He leaned toward his Lieutenant and spoke in a direct, clear tone.

"The convoy at my back has enough food and medicine to stabilize the population for at least a week. These supplies must be distributed. Prioritize children, sick, and wounded. I will not be able to see to it myself. I trust you to do whatever is necessary."

He released his death grip on the truck door, then walked to the back of the flatbed and keyed up the lock with his omni-tool. As the industrial barrier blinked away, he stared into the shadowed obscurity of the storage compartment and struggled to find any other words that were adequate. Ilmek persisted.

"The convoy… what happened out there? Arterius makes it sound as though you committed high treason." Ilmek shook his head, flaring his mandibles in disbelief. He added in a hoarse whisper, "He claims that you willfully conspired against us."

Rather than disgrace himself any further with a lie, Albacus chose another pointed silence.

His intentions were irrelevant. His title was irrelevant. His life was irrelevant.

Over a thousand years of Regidonis blood flowing through his veins: disgraced. A pedigree worthy of a primarch, hard-won by generations of turian peacekeepers and influential asari cousins. In a day's time, it would be tarnished to dust. Noble hope meant nothing - he knew exactly what he had done, allowing Hannah to send that message. In the end, there was no justification. Relying on Benezia's intercession was a gamble, little more than a fool's hope.

Good intentions or not, the last heir of Regidonis had levied war against his own.

Ilmek broke the silence.

"I've known you too long to believe..." the Lieutenant began, before dropping into a more familiar sub-vocal. He stepped closer and put one tenuous hand on the cowl of Albacus' armor. "Tell me this isn't true-"

Albacus knew there was only one answer to give. Taking a breath to summon his resolve, he divested himself of the single weapon currently in his possession: his father's pistol.

He offered it to Ilmek, and waited.

The Lieutenant stared in disbelief - recognizing this weapon as easily as any of his own. As second in command, he understood the significance of wielding it only too well.

When Ilmek hesitated, Albacus spoke loud enough to carry across the empty plaza, reciting the only words he had left:

"With blinded eyes, we see it. With broken hands, we carry it. With our final breath..."

Ilmek answered the call, raising his hand to a formal salute.

"We die for the cause."

"Obren Ilmek, falx of the Blackwatch. Until death, do I have your word that your bullets will fly with honor?"

Reluctantly, Ilmek took the gun from Albacus' hand.

"Until death, Captain."

Albacus met his eyes.

"Take me to Arterius."

Garrus
SSV Normandy
2183 CE

It was over almost immediately.

Kryik made a call for Chakwas over the comm, Doctor T'Soni did some intense muttering, and then Shepard's head sagged forward. In the next instant, with a disorienting whip-whap of compressed air, the joining was done.

Shepard staggered back, boneless and pale, and the Prothean memory shard slid from her hand. T'Soni was at the ready, and she caught the priceless relic before it could shatter against the floor plating. Kryik looked ready to do the same for Shepard, but the Commander was standing on her own two feet. Physically, she appeared completely undamaged, but her expression was vacant, and her eyes were blank.

Garrus ran a quick visor analysis and was immediately punished for his curiosity with a wrench in the gut. Shepard's readings were bizarre, with outliers in every conceivable metric. Pulse, body temperature, breathing rate - all outside healthy parameters. Something was wrong.

"Shepard?" Kryik's voice was unusually soft as he nudged the Commander on the shoulder. When she didn't respond, he shook her a bit harder, and this time his sub-vocals flanged with concern.

"Jane!?"

Still nothing.

The already tense knot in Garrus' stomach clenched into a fist. Years of military discipline and an extra dollop of C-Sec rigidity were all that prevented him from springing out of his seat to punch the asari archaeologist square across her dainty blue jaw. Meanwhile, empowered by his morally ambiguous Spectre status, Kryik was free to descend upon T'Soni in Garrus' stead.

Kryik grabbed a fistful of the asari's already ragged tunic and wrenched her clear up onto her toes.

"What the hell did you just do to her?" the Spectre snarled, rattling her like a doll.

Not one to be left out of an impromptu show of wild aggression, Wrex stood to his full height and crossed the room in half a step. He hulked over the asari with enough heat in his deep red eyes to boil raw iron, and flared his biotics. Well then. Forget due process. Garrus followed the krogan's lead and rose from his own chair, shifting his omni-tool to melee.

Alenko put up two frantic and ineffectual peace-keeper palms, with Williams not far behind. Soon the whole group was involved in the stand-off, a volatile tangle of criss-crossed fists and dagger-filled glances.

In the center of it all, Doctor T'Soni held up her priceless artifact as if to defend herself with it. Even with a half-dozen professional killers breathing down her neck, she looked too exhausted to be terrified.

"I did not have time to be gentle," she stuttered. "The information in Shepard's head is far too valuable to lose. I could not risk any delays, any chance that we might not act in time-"

Kryik yelled directly into T'Soni's startled face.

"To win this fight, I need this soldier intact! Whatever you just did to her brain? Undo it. Now!"

"No harm has been done. A human mind will require extra time to process such an unusual joining. To meld with another is… an intense process, even without involving Prothean artifacts."

Chakwas arrived, paused at the threshold for a scant second or two, and then immediately set to work scanning Shepard for damage. Meanwhile, Kryik and Wrex continued to breathe fire into Doctor T'Soni's face.

After a quick pass of her omni-tool, Chakwas called them off.

"Stand down, Nihlus. The Commander is experiencing the same intense dream-like state that took hold of her after Eden Prime. Her system is confused, temporarily seized up like a trip-wire, but she's stable."

She grabbed a syringe from her kit and gave Shepard a dose of muscle relaxant, all while patiently muttering to herself. "...would have appreciated a bit more lead time..."

When nobody moved, Chakwas reiterated, "She's going to be fine. Everyone, stop standing over there like a big cartoon pile of waving fists. The theatrics are helping nobody."

One by one, the others lowered their guard by degrees, but the tension remained in the air, simmering. Finally, Kryik dropped the archaeologist out of his stranglehold and T'Soni staggered on her feet.

Shepard still hadn't moved.

Garrus stepped closer to the Commander's six, dissolving the blade of his omni-tool. Despite every effort to appear sober and aloof, he couldn't stop himself from hovering a watchful hand near the small of Shepard's back. Not touching. But ready.

There was an edge of possessiveness - and undeniable jealousy - in that wandering hand of his. In the span of a few seconds, this asari treasure hunter had gotten access to a part of Shepard more intimate than sex, more exposed than nakedness itself. That violation, more than anything else about this exercise in madness, made Garrus deliriously angry.

His hand twitched, and he decided to risk it. He was well within his role as a concerned subordinate.

Without disrupting Chakwas' scan, he stepped a little closer to Shepard, let his fingers graze her back. To remove all suspicion, he shaved the worry from his voice until his tones were thin and clear as glass.

"Commander?"

Stay calm, he reminded himself. Keep cool. Don't get wobbly or breathless or obvious. He tried once more.

"Shepard. Can you hear me?"

Slowly, her eyes came into focus, and then tracked toward his face. When she saw him, the planes of her face shifted, trembling in affectionate recognition. Letting out a loud breath of relief, he felt his heart reboot in his chest. So much for looking blasé about the Commander's sudden return to life.

Nobody's perfect.

Every bit as slowly as her eyes had turned, her mouth opened. Slowly, quietly, she spoke to him and him alone.

"I saw his face."

Everyone turned towards the broken heap of scrap metal that was the Commander's voice.

"Again and again." she choked, ragged and sore. "Every time he died. Always. My fault."

"Who…?" T'Soni began, barely audible.

Out of the corner of his eye, Garrus saw the asari gasp, then she covered her mouth with one shaking hand. One hundred and six and not a day older: the archaeologist suddenly looked every bit the adolescent maiden that she was.

"By the goddess." T'Soni gasped. "No wonder she was so… I wasn't thinking! I'm such a fool!"

"I have to fix it," Shepard said.

Beside him, she twitched. In stunned disbelief, Garrus witnessed a single tear swell in the Commander's right eye, then it dropped down her cheek. Heavy and glistening, it fell like a rock as it traced the line of her scar, leaving an empty trail in Therum's volcanic dust.

He watched that tear and felt himself descending right alongside it, all the way down.

"I'm sorry." she whispered, turning inward, talking to someone a lifetime away. She slowly turned from him, staring down at her hands - at the flaking edge of one of her painted fingernails.

" …Pari…" she breathed.

Without warning, the carefully constructed fortress that was Commander Shepard crumbled before his eyes, and what remained was little more than pain on shaking legs.

Shepard's knees gave out, but Garrus grabbed her before she hit the ground.

Albacus
Shanxi
2157 CE

In the colony square, the stage was already set.

General Arterius teetered on eager feet, barely holding himself at attention as he waited for Albacus and his escort to arrive. In a fateful line, six human colonists were positioned like props behind the General's back. Bound at the wrists and twitching on their knees, they had been blindfolded and prepared.

Eska for the firing squad.

As he was prodded forcefully into the square, Albacus' jaw clenched so tightly that his teeth pinched the back of his mouth, and he tasted his own steaming blood. Too furious to move another step, he halted mid stride, entire body stiffening with rage.

Ilmek gently knocked into his shoulder, pushing him forward to meet the General's judgement.

"Captain Regidonis," Arterius purred.

There was disconcerting warmth in his voice as he opened his arms to greet them.

"Welcome back."

As usual, the General's tone was far too loose, far too casual for the occasion. Albacus met Arterius' eyes, hardened his face, and gave no further acknowledgement.

In response, the General shook his head and clicked his mandibles, as if disappointed with the weather.

"Do you remember, Captain? The first time we met, I warned you that all this tender asari philosophy of yours would catch up with you one day."

As Arterius spoke, he paced back and forth. His steps light, his tone brisk.

"You've always been too soft for the Blackwatch, but I never expected this kind of betrayal from Albacus Regidonis. I don't care if you're the golden pride of Palaven: old blood can't save a traitor of your magnitude, Alba."

Albacus seethed, incensed by the General's unearned diminutization of his name. His own parents had scarcely called him Alba. Such a token of fond affection had no place in the mouth of anyone so poison-tongued.

The General continued, feigning professional concern.

"Now look at you. The illustrious Captain Regidonis, little more than an overworked prison warden. Despite all of your diplomatic posturing, I still entrusted the management of this puny human installation to you. Obviously, that was my mistake. And I apologize.

"Despite what you seem to believe," he boomed, gesturing to the humans at his back, "these prisoners exploded through a dead relay and declared war on the Citadel. They are our enemies, Alba. Not our valued guests."

"I know my life is forfeit," Albacus blurted, interrupting him. "Do what you must and leave the civilians out of this."

Arterius stopped in his tracks, and the carefully selected turian crowd boiled as he raked them all beneath the heat of his stare.

"Of course your life is forfeit…" he fumed. "Regidonis, our lofty idealist. So concerned about civilians. Where is the concern for your troops, Captain? The loyal falxi who trusted you to command?

"Tell me, was it a civilian who disarmed one of your own men and crippled my brother? I hear you didn't raise a single finger to stop her. Yes, that civilian, who followed her general's orders to call down the might of an alien fleet. All while you looked on. A civilian, who currently lies in wait in that transmission bunker up north, dreaming fondly of our annihilation...and of you."

Albacus stopped breathing.

"Yes. Shepard. Your precious little pet. Did you honestly think you could hide her from the Hierarchy's justice? I've sent my own team to deal with your perversions. She'll be dead by morning."

"No!" Albacus gasped. Bold and foolish, he took one step forward and raised his hand threateningly. "Arterius, please! Stop this insanity! Guilty or not, Shepard has a young child with her, you cannot possibly-"

Arterius hissed with disapproval, and gestured to someone at Albacus' back.

"Sergeant Tulubri. Please restrain your Captain."

Tulubri? Albacus spun around, hoping it was a bluff.

Regretfully, it was the truth. One look at her face was all he needed to understand: she had been violently persuaded to cooperate with Arterius' plans. Certainly, she had objected. Probably for an admirable stretch. But brutal force and the threat of death could be very convincing, especially when you believed your own commanding officer was a traitor to the cause.

She approached with heavy steps, then pinned Albacus' arms behind his back in two faultless joint compressions. Spasming against his arms, her hands shook. Between her mandibles, her breath quivered. She was terrified.

No. Not Ris. How could they have broken her? His Sargeant. His friend. A steadfast comrade in arms. A clever, strategic genius, and the best bellixatum practitioner he had ever seen. Secretly fond of her fratliae on the Citadel. Fond enough of the innocent to instantly take a shine to Hannah Shepard's brave and stubborn youngster.

Albacus' heart tripped over a beat.

He recalled the vulnerable look in Hannah's eyes as they had stood together in the dark, the tears that had escaped from her bold green eyes. Everything about her; resilient, tenacious, and beautiful.

His heart stopped beneath the suffocating weight of that realization, and he wished he had stayed behind. Stayed with Hannah and Jane.

Poor, sweet Jane. That enthusiastic and curious little spitfire, a child barely three years of age. Now she was hours from certain death. Stranded alongside her mother, destined to perish when the General's assassins descended.

As clearly as if she still struggled for breath in his arms, Albacus felt the softness of Jane's fire-colored hair sliding underneath his talons. Everything about that tiny human child had seemed impractically frail. As if her soul might slip between his fingers if he was not careful with it.

His breath left him in one terrified gust. He had not been careful enough.

He lowered his head.

Arterius could plainly see that the battle was won, and he swept down to claim his victory. His voice a steady flame, he declared:

"Thanks to that lovely human weakness of yours, my brother's arm is being amputated as we speak. He'll have to use a prosthesis for the rest of his life."

Arterius took a breath and tilted his head, tasting the moment.

"So will you."

The General's eyes flicked to Tulubri, and that was the only warning Albacus was given.

One of Tulubri's firm hands straightened his left arm. After a steadying breath, her other fist slammed forward behind his elbow, shattering the joint. The blow was so sudden, so forceful, that the seals of his armor cracked with a startled hiss. One of the bones in his forearm jutted out into the open air, and a surge of blood trickled down his wrist, pooling warmly in his glove.

He collapsed onto one knee and heaved, too stunned to feel any pain.

Agony arrived moments later, as Arterius pointed an impatient finger.

"Ilmek, do you mind? Fetch Alba's friend for us."

The Lieutenant reluctantly left Albacus' side and walked into a shadowed patch of rubble. There he extracted the bleeding husk of General Williams. Ilmek hauled him to his feet with as much gentility as he dared, taking half of the human soldier's weight on his own hip. Williams was gaunt and pale - he looked half-starved and moments from death. Even in that state, the man refused to stagger.

"Albacus Regidonis… I'll tell you what you are." Arterius barked. "You're no diplomat. You're a disgrace. The Jailor of Shanxi: I invite you to rot in a prison of your own creation. You and your new comrade Williams can share the Tenefalx brig until this occupation is over. You'll have a privileged view of your own treachery before the Primarch claims your head for his wall.

"In the meantime, what this colony needs is a demonstration of firm Hierarchy principals. Examples, Alba. You nearly cheated me of those as well. The human who led the insurgency fled while you were distracted with Shepard. Of course. So, you force me to improvise.

"After some hunting, I tracked down the last of the crew who breached Relay 314 - the ambitious little monkeys that started this whole affair. Humanity: a primitive, world-hungry menace."

He gestured broadly with his arm at the blindfolded hostages.

"Here the are."

Six trembling prisoners, every single one of them ignorant of their crimes.

Dramatic, aggrandizing, and with little regard for the small things he might crush beneath his boots. There was no question anymore. The General was preparing to raze humanity to the ground, and he was going to start with these pour souls.

"Lieutenant. The weapon, please."

Arterius held out his hand expectantly.

"No." Albacus moaned around the crushing pain in his arm. "Obren. No."

Ilmek remained as true as he had ever been, and refused follow the General's order to disarm. In the end, his loyalty made no difference. Arterius spotted the Regidonis pistol on his hip and stepped forward to take it by force. To stop him, Ilmek would have had to lay down his life with no chance of retribution - a sloppy, pointless death.

Wisely, he chose not to resist. Even then, Arterius' disciplining blow split one of his mandibles and loosened a tooth, which Ilmek silently spat onto the ground. The Lieutenant was still holding tightly to Williams. The human General turned his head to Albacus, meeting his eyes with unexpected comprehension. Brief but harrowing, a gaze of shared regrets.

Walking down the line of prisoners, Arterius weighed the gun in his hand and nodded approvingly.

"So here's the famous Regidonis antique," he said. "What's the speech you always give the troops, Alba? May every bullet fly with honor..."

With an eager flick of his wrist, he checked and secured the ammunition. As always, the gun was fully loaded and clear to fire.

Albacus tried to move, tried to stop him, but he could not rise to his feet. Tulubri's hands dug into his neck, locking him in place. At his side, his shattered arm gushed blood, more and more blood with each passing minute, vein-hot and sticky. The sudden loss weakened his knees.

The shots rang out, loud and lingering. Six precise death knells, chiming in hideous syncopation across the square.

One by one, the humans victims stiffened, slumped to the earth, and died without dignity.

After the six requisite bullets, the pistol was spent. Shaking his head, the General clicked the deadened trigger just to be sure, and then threw the gun next to the bodies in the dirt.

Unaffected by his own spectacle, Arterius turned to the nearest subordinate and gestured behind him at the ruin of Shanxi.

"Burn it to the ground."

Original words and phrases:
- Eska - Offal, meat scraps or bait.
- Bellixatum - Broad term for the different schools of turian hand-to-hand martial arts, including rixoritum, luctoritum, and the more ritualistic thoripudium, among others.

Words and phrases courtesy of MizDirected's turian dictionary:
- Familia notas - The colony markings that turians wear on their faces
- Tarin/Tarini (plural) - Female turian of the age of majority (15)
- Torin/Torini (plural) - Male turian of the age of majority (15)
- Patrem/Pari - Father/Dad
- Fratliae - Brother's daughter
- Puer/Pueri (plural) - Child