"Shepard," Samara said, not turning from where she stood by the window, chin held high, posture proud and straight. She was a woman whose simple presence had a calming effect on most situations she found herself in. Her kinfolk, the asari, treated her, one of their oldest warriors, with awed reverence, and members of most other races regarded her with craven fawning crossed with abject fear. Both reactions dovetailed into a sort of personal bubble that surrounded her, filled with gentle, undisturbed quiet. It helped she was also incredibly beautiful—she had the body of a dancer, smooth blue skin and and piercing eyes—but even her physical charms took a back seat to the air of command that rolled off of her like a perfume, constant, always influencing those around her.
Jane continued into the room, closed the door.
"I was told you wanted to speak to me," Shepard said, keeping Samara's space intact, not moving closer until asked. There had always been a deep, abiding mutual respect between the two; they gave each other a wide berth, not out of dislike, but immense understanding. Understanding of responsibility to those you were sworn to protect, of conducting oneself with the honesty necessary to keep the job from driving you crazy, and when the safekeeping was that of an entire galaxy, the preciousness of time alone to reflect on the gravity of your choices.
Outside, the hazy pink and ash grey of a far-off, swirling nebula piqued the Justicar's interest. She turned her head slightly to watch it go by.
"I swore an oath, when I pledged my sword-arm to your cause," Samara started, voice gentle. "That your code would be my code; your morals, my morals; your decisions, my decisions."
Shepard nodded, though Samara could not see. She knew where this was going, but was intent on letting Samara get there on her own—no need to rush. "Yes, I remember. It was a great honor."
Samara took a deep breath in. "Only as my quarry can you declare when the cause no longer requires my assistance," she continued. "When you do so, I will be released from your command, and free to continue my journey." Samara turned, regarding Shepard with a breed of patient contemplation. "I will stay if you further require my presence, Shepard."
But if not, I'd like to be released. Shepard gathered from the intones; her mouth curled down in a slight frown.
"Understood." She paused a moment, not quite sure how to proceed; Shepard had the definite impression she was meddling in something much older and much more sacred than anything she'd known, and was near certain any attempt to show it the respect it deserved would be tantamount to religious blasphemy, but Samara made no move to interrupt. "Ceremony isn't exactly my strong suit, but I'll try."
Shepard closed the space between she and Samara, and Samara took a few steps forward, expression attentive and impassive all at once.
"Does it bother you if I kneel, Shepard?" Samara asked. She was sharp, and most likely picked up on the fact that when she joined the team, she'd knelt to Shepard, in public, head bowed like a deferent servant and it made Shepard uneasy. To Samara this meant nothing further than the deepest of respects, but to Shepard—a human, a species fiercely and sometimes illogically bent on its own supposed independence—it had surprising, embarrassing undertones, especially coming from one as respected, and feared, as Samara.
Shepard swallowed. "It's your choice, Samara." Samara nodded again, silently gliding into a low kneel at Shepard's feet, head tucked down.
"You've been a invaluable member of our crew," Shepard started, and considered reaching down to touch Samara's shoulder for lack of something to do with her hands rather than have them dangle aimlessly, but it seemed too intimate, so she didn't. "You've served as a guide for those with less patience or experience, a counsel for those unsure or in pain, and above all, you've acted swiftly and righteously, routing evil and injustice. We couldn't have asked more of you, Samara. You're free of your bonds to me, and free to return to us any time you like."
Samara's body began to crackle a brilliant, ebbing blue, vital azure energy seeping from her pores, flooding over her skin, lighting the room. As soon as it came, the flash of biotic viscera was gone, reabsorbed into her.
Samara returned to her feet, then took a step forward and pulled Shepard towards her. Shepard's mind immediately went to the warning Samara had issued before officially joining the squad: Samara would be obligated to do as Shepard ordered while under her command, but as soon as she was released, if she had taken any issue with Shepard's moral choices or personal code, Samara would be forced to kill her. Shepard tensed, her life not having a chance to flash before her eyes, before she realized it was a brief, firm hug she'd been pulled into, not a headlock or a blood choke. Still at a loss for words, Shepard returned it. Samara pulled away first.
"This, for the patience and sacrifice in helping me lay my daughter at rest." Morinth, Samara's daughter, who had turned out to be a mass-murderer, was finally dispatched only with Shepard's help, at great personal risk and cost. This much was true. "As a woman and a mother, not as a Justicar, you have my most humble thanks and eternal gratitude."
"You're one of my people, Samara, no thanks are needed." Shepard replied, feeling a faint blush starting to creep up from her neck. "You'd do the same for any of us."
Samara nodded. Then, at length, "I would like some time to reflect on what has just transpired," she said, "please alert me when we are close to dock at Omega, and I will join you."
"Of course." Then, "You'll be missed, Samara."
Samara thought on this, and gave Shepard a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes. They never did.
She sat down and crossed her legs, knees pointed out, in a traditional meditation pose.
"The bravery and piety of your crew will go with me for the remainder of my days," she said, her skin lighting in that eerie, crackling blue energy, throwing a blue highlight over the room, the window, Shepard. "You have given me a great gift, one I intend to keep close to my heart. Thank you, Shepard."
"This doesn't sit right." Garrus stated, plainly, the porous metal plating on his face—in his own society a marking of good health and an upper ceiling of the proper age for mating—reflecting the dull cherry glow of the Normandy's bulkhead control. He was happiest here; the cool, dry air, the smell of metal and lubricant oil, the gentle, throbbing pulse of automated calipers, almost like a gun's heartbeat. Heaven. But today, his mind was uneasy, no matter how comfortable his surroundings.
"There's more to the story. I think she's telling the truth. Racial tensions in this system have been on the rise for decades... these are the perfect spawning conditions for unrest, considering what happened to the Council and C-Sec, all in just a few years. Even Saren turned out to be a fraud, exposed by a human... faith is low. People are scared. And when they're scared, they make their own enemies."
"But racial tensions do not attacks make," Tali replied. She was standing by the plastic crates to his right, commonly used as makeshift stools while he carefully and reverently cleaned his guns. Most of her weight was supported by her arms, and she leaned over the railing overlooking the massive metal hulks of the Normandy's heavy artillery. "But, I agree. And objectively, the timing is a bit suspect. In just a few years, most... 'aliens' on the Citadel have lost their footholds. They have no real visible power except for Joram Talid, now. It would be scary, were you a fundamentalist."
"Talid. Of course that racist bastard has to be a turian."
"We all have our zealots. I don't think it is necessarily a bad thing by itself that there is a pro-alien politician," Tali said. "Humans have Cerberus. Turians need some sort of representation, too."
"Joram isn't a representative, he's a god damned riot master, replete with angry mob and bullhorn. And he's not pro-alien, he's anti-human. There's a difference." Garrus muttered, and the creases between his facial plates lost their glow as he looked down, away from the light. "He's no good. He's using people's fear for his own gain. This 'we and them' crap is the what you use when you're trying to psych up a squad for war, not when you're describing people they have to live with. Nothing good comes of it, ever."
"But you hate politicians anyway," Tali pointed out. "Besides, this isn't something new. This is how the game is played, vihat, dirty as it is. Especially with elections looming. Any platform that scares up votes is a good platform."
"Valid point, but it doesn't change the fact that he's a lunatic. Or the fact his 'game' is hurting people."
Tali turned to Garrus and tilted her head, contemplatively. Garrus peered at her; with her face permanently obscured behind the synthetic fog of her mask and no expressions to gauge her emotions by before she articulated them, he was at a constant disadvantage during their conversations.
"You are awfully angry about this." She said.
"Of course I'm angry," Garrus grumbled, eyes staring faraway, hands on the panel that held his calibration tools. "This is injustice. Injustice, even for an alien, is injustice for everyone. People are being raped and dying in alleyways because this son of a bitch is allowed to spread his racist garbage under the flag of 'racial parity'. You, and I, and Shepard--"
"Shepard, again." Tali mumbled, voice pitched low, shaking her head.
"--listen to me, Tali, I'm not finished. All of us have put our lives on the line... repeatedly, in our case... to save this galaxy from evil. Actual evil, not just shady politicians. But what Talid is doing transcends politics. This man's evil—and that's what it is—is allowed to fester like a sore on a krogan's ass because of legal red tape, because he screams it from behind guys that are bigger and stronger than the guys he's preaching against. He's exactly the kind of idiot that we would have gone after on Omega."
They finished the sentence together, and Garrus immediately felt foolish.
"Sometimes I wonder," Tali said, quietly, the emotion in her voice hard to place, "if this interest in human vindication is because you think it's right, or because of something else."
Garrus' mandibles twitched, agitated, making a barely audible creaking noise like the legs of very tiny crickets.
"Of course it's because it's right," Garrus protested, immediately defensive, and he looked back out over the bulkhead. He felt his temper starting to churn, heavy and thick and hot in his chest like spiny vomit, ready to spew forth in the form of sharp words and sarcastic backhands as a means of shielding himself and his intentions, his morals.
"Keela, I wish you would quit lying to yourself," Tali spat, gesturing angrily with a hand. "Exactly how long are you going to torture yourself like this? You are living in the past, Garrus. 'Going after idiots on Omega' nearly got you killed. Now you're talking about assassinating a politician, which is MUCH bigger fish! There are laws on the Citadel, penalties!"
Garrus shook his head. "Not assassinating. If assassinating was what I had in mind, then I wouldn't have stopped Thane's boy from killing him when I had the chance." He looked at her. "My whole life has been dedicated to stopping men like Joram Talid, Tali, despite the apathy of people who allow evil to flourish by their own indifference. Sometimes they have to be stopped within the confines of the law, sometimes outside of it. He opposes people for what DNA they were born with, not the content of their character, and what he's doing is causing people—real people, not metaphorical examples—to be hurt. Now. As we speak. Tell me that's not wrong. Tell me I'm wrong for opposing the proliferation of that sort of hate ANYWHERE in Alliance space."
Tali put her hands on her hips. "Vihat," she started—the quarian term of endearment, usually for a lover, but which also doubled as usage for particularly close family members, "I know this case, with the human girl—it has upset you. It upsets me. I know you mean well. You are not a bad person. But for someone as insightful as you are, you let yourself get... tangled up in that anger and lose view of the big picture, which stands to get more people hurt than would have been in the first place. What has been done cannot be undone... say Talid gets knocked off. Right now. What do you think would happen with the anger he's provoked?"
"...It would kick around," Garrus said, at length, as if admitting a great defeat. "Find another outlet."
Tali nodded. "Scientific principle. Energy never disappears, it simply takes another form. Everything goes somewhere." It was Garrus' turn to help Tali complete a sentence; she paused, and nervously adjusted her hood. "I'm sorry. I see how annoying that is."
"Knock off one piece of garbage and another takes its place." He muttered, grim, not immediately acknowledging her apology.
"I hate it," Tali said, tenderly, and placed a gentle hand on the side of his face in an affectionate gesture. "And I know you hate it, vihat. But we cannot save the humans from the ramifications of their actions, especially when they were in their own interests. All races go through these growing pains, ugly as they are. The best we can do is continue to be good people, and stop injustice where we see it. Micro scale. We will support them, but we cannot save them. No matter how much we want to."
Garrus was quiet, observing the soft glow of her eyes from inside her mask.
"You're right," he said, finally, righteous anger gone from him in a great whoosh. "You're right."
"For now, we will watch. If the violence gets out of hand..." she shrugged, "we will do what Big Stupid Heroes do, poke our noses when they are not wanted, and go. Okay?"
Garrus nodded.
Tali bobbed on the balls of her feet and bonked her mask against his forehead, metal plating and foggy purple plasteel meeting together with a comical "whongggg" noise. The wordless turian salute reserved for one's mate, much as a human couple would kiss and make up.
"You should get ready. And I am sorry for yelling." Tali said. "You just... piss me off, sometimes."
"Hey... I like it when you're pissed off." Garrus replied, finding his conversational feet once more by the employ of teasing sarcasm. He leaned over, rubbed his forehead back and forth along the top of her mask. "And you know I love your nasty nerd talk."
She giggled, an innocent, tittering and girlish noise, her hand held in front of the blinking light of her mask's vocal projector. "Thermodynamics," she said, testing the waters, and Garrus pretended to quiver. "Triglyceride?" He gripped the panel with one hand, and put the other against her shoulder.
"I think I'm getting the vapors. I may need a cold shower..."
"I'll remember that for next time," she added, and walked to the door, wide feet thumping against the metal lattice grating under them. Garrus took this opportunity to examine the thick trunks of her thighs, the graceful swell of her hips, her impossibly slim waist. Oh, that waist.
She turned as the door opened.
"But for now, remember—only watching, okay?"
Garrus grinned, sharp and toothy, and leaned back against his panel, arms crossed.
"Believe me. I'm okay with watching."
Bossk. His name was Bossk.
"Sorry about the inconvenience, ma'am." His name was Bossk and his tone was always the same—abashed, apologetic. Shepard stood with her arms out, staring at the pinstriped, frosted window of C-Sec proper's main entrance door, patiently allowing for the full-body scan. This marked the tenth time, easily.
"Would it help if I told you the rumors of my death had been greatly exaggerated?" She quipped, and he smiled—gave her a little chuckle, in fact.
"No doubt. Can't rightly figure out why your I.D. hasn't been taking—we got Captain Bailey himself to enter it in under his print, but no dice."
"Doesn't like you," Jacob said, crossing his arms. "Maybe it knows trouble when it sees it."
"Flattery will get you everywhere, Mister Taylor, except for promoted."
"Damn. And here I was, doing so well with my log books."
"You all are a trip," Bossk laughed, shaking his head, typing industriously on his computer panel with studious attention to the holographic monitor projection before him.
"You should see them after they've had a bit of the drinky-drinky," Garrus lamented, his voice laced with mock-solemnity. "A pack of savages, let me tell you. Wild as the winds."
"I believe it." Ding! "Ah, there we go. Magic fingers. You're free to go in, Shepard."
"Thanks for your help, Bossk." The door shunted open with incredible speed, and Shepard walked through. As Jacob approached the scanning station, it shut again.
Where most people stood to greet her, maybe even reached to shake her hand, Bailey never so much as left his seat. He seemed constantly buried by work, and unless you stood directly in front of his planner, monitor or file folder, you might as well be a piece of furniture. Shepard strode to stand in front of him, and sure enough, he met her eyes immediately.
The door opened behind her, and Jacob walked through to stand at her flank.
"Thanks for comin' on such short notice, Shepard. I took a look at that case you and your drell witnessed. I figured you'd be interested in something that happened this morning." He wasn't exactly a handsome man, pockmarked, with uneven skin and the burst blood vessels of a professional drinker, as well as a wholly uncomplimentary haircut. But his eyes were beautiful—or may have been, before a lifetime of smoking three packs a day. Bailey had a clipped, vaguely folksy accent—north of Ohio, maybe Old Michigan or even the Unified Canadian Front, if he was an Earthborn.
"Sounds interesting," Shepard replied, raising an eyebrow. "Are we sure this is legal?" As soon as she said it, her statement struck her as perhaps mildly insulting, suggesting she seemed more interested in legality than he, at least for the moment, and didn't press the issue.
"Hundred percent," Bailey said, pushing up from his desk.
"You remember the drell... your friend's boy."
"Kolyat," Shepard agreed, following him as he walked. Garrus intercepted their trajectory from the door, fell into step beside them.
The office of C-Sec, Citadel Security, was incredibly small, painted dark blue, with an everpresent force of turian and human officers busily working at the computer terminals lining the walls. "I remember him." She had to work to not sound worried, but instead passable concerned. "Is he in trouble again?"
"Not exactly, but you remember the politician he almost offed?" They cut down a hallway, and the pleasant, official blue color of the main office faded into an almost antiseptic gunmetal silver as they passed offices, holding cells.
"Joram Talid," Garrus supplied, voice grave, and was all at once sick of saying his name.
"That's him. Mister Talid is making trouble enough for all of us." Bailey opened the lock on an office door, hunt-and-pecking the entrance code with extended index fingers, and then stood aside for Shepard and her squadmates to file in. A small, circular device was situated on the main conference room table, almost the shape of a Christmas tree stand with a keyboard attached to the side, the space in the middle filled by a great glass lens. "I'll show you what I mean. This was recorded earlier today by our riot squad."
"--now I know that there will be people who say that our stance is too harsh, and that all races deserve an equal shot... and they're right," the turian said, gesturing widely with his hands. The crowd spread out as far as the recorder could see; there had to be at least two hundred. Maybe three, little neon people recreated by the jumping laser outline, spread over the table. "ALL races deserve a shot. And that means when one in particular decides that they're the authority for everybody else, well, that doesn't seem very equal to me. This wave of human totalitarianism has to end, friends; and it's up to us to end it, before this flawed, heavy-handed system can finish corrupting the Citadel that we love, so very much." There was cheering, and he took a moment to bask in it, cutting a stern profile before he waved it down to a hovering din so he could speak again.
"They've tried to hurt me, and by doing so, hurt you," he said, voice loud and clear as a bell, "they've sent assassins after me, killed my friends in order to bully me into silence. Well, I say no. I will not be silent! I stand up and say, 'no!' I say no to intimidation!" The wild cheering began again in earnest. "I say no to the denial of a great future for you and your children, simply based on the DNA you are born with! I say no to the corruption of our very laws that make us a great nation, that put us on the map as the diplomatic center of the known universe! And above all, I say no to a broken system that prevents people like you from exercising your right to stand up and say enough is is enough! They are afraid, afraid of the power in us, ALL of us, afraid of us taking BACK our beloved Citadel! Because they know that what they are doing is wrong. And they know that we. Are. Right."
The sentence became a chant: "we are right, we are right". It lasted for a solid twenty seconds, before...
"I've seen enough," Shepard hissed, gesturing at the monitor peevishly. Bailey clicked off the recorder, and the lights on the ceiling returned to their previous humming glow, dimly illuminating the room. "Human totalitarianism? This has to be illegal. He's lying about a case that's on the books and inciting violence, Bailey."
"That's the problem," Bailey said, rubbing his chin. "Kolyat's case isn't on the books. Had to stay off, given his lenient sentence, and I think Talid knows it. And as crap as it is, there's no law against racism—he didn't explicitly tell his people to kill anyone, so if they act the fool, he hasn't implicated himself to an extent we can prove in court."
"Right now, he's just a politician giving a speech," Jacob muttered, sneering. "Stoking the fires and letting other people get themselves burned."
"You got it," Bailey replied.
"Save his life, he gets off with shaking down human businesses... AND he gets to use it against us." Jacob shook his head. "We got gamed pretty hard."
"No good deed goes unpunished," Garrus added unpleasantly. "I'm sure we know someone who could set him straight, given enough credits, but at this point all it would do is make him a martyr."
"If at all possible I'd like to avoid assassinations," Bailey winced, "at least while I'm on duty."
"We can go talk to him," Shepard said, turning to Garrus. "Do you think he'd listen to you?"
"What, because I have four toes and a fringe? Doubt it. I'm probably just as human as you are, to that lunatic, what with the whole Cerberus thing."
Shepard covered her forehead with a hand. "This is probably what Udina wants to discuss. Not sure what I'm going to tell him..."
"Udina?" Bailey winced again. "Good luck with that one. Well, you didn't get this from me." He passed over a file folder, stacked two inches deep with paper, careful to make the switch before he hit the door controls and they filed out, back into the main office. "There's a collection of reports of all violent crimes committed against humans in the last three months, since the botched attempts on Talid's life. Happened to be right around the time his talking points went from typical jobs-and-freedom-take-back-your-ward shit to real fire and brimstone anti-human rhetoric, if the polls are any kind of indication."
Shepard took it, threw a cursory glance at the first page, and then handed the folder to Garrus.
"So you think the attacks are connected to his recent popularity?" Shepard asked Bailey, trailing behind him, back to his desk.
"I'd bet money on it. Whatever's behind this," Bailey grunted and sat back down, chair squeaking in protest. He swiveled back to his monitor. "He's doing something right, because his campaign office reported a huge spike in donations starting a month or so ago."
"Money," Garrus said. "Great reason."
"Don't know how things got this bad," Bailey said, "But what I do know, is if your adventures take you down to the Wards again, I'd be careful. Not real friendly down there for us squishes anymore."
"There's something I don't get about this, Bailey," Shepard said, crossing her arms. "Why are you giving this information to me? What am I supposed to do with it?"
Bailey clacked on his keyboard. "You run a tight operation, and you get shit finished. Not like here. I figure if there is something to be done with it," he said, "you're probably the person to do it."
"Politics isn't exactly my strong suit," she contended.
"Justice is, though," Bailey replied, "and... you didn't hear this from me... if it's gotta be outside the law, well, I'd rather see some get done than by the books and none at all.
"I'm not sure I like it," Shepard said abruptly. Both Jacob and Garrus looked at her; in the bright light of the elevator, chiming with what could barely be called music and maybe was closer to just sounds, her hair took on a color that was closer to auburn than its natural brown-black. "We're supposed to act outside the law to stop someone from acting outside the law."
"Seems like a vicious cycle," Jacob agreed.
"It's the only way anything gets done," Garrus objected, "otherwise it's just a dance of varren shit and advocates. Innocence these days comes down to who has the most money, not who's actually innocent."
"You have to wonder if Talid has a point," Jacob contended, "if C-Sec is that willing to bend their own rules just to get at him, he may have a reason to distrust at least humans... at least on the Citadel."
"Maybe if you tilt your head and squint." Shepard said.
"Even a stopped clock," Garrus added, with a shrug, sounding unconvinced. The doors to the elevator slid open.
Most people, upon entering the Presidium above the Citadel for the first time, insisted that it was probably close to what heaven looked like (krogan seemed exempt from this observation, rather keenly interested in the idea of whether or not the wide, glittering stream water below the floor actually held live fish). It was a skylit, manmade canyon of lush foliage, flowers, and twinkling sunlight; clean, wide, with friendly people. The council, diplomats all all stripes, and pretty much everybody who was anybody on this station took up residence in the Presidium. Shepard had heard of the term "ivory tower academic" before and had assumed that the residents of the Presidium—and idyllic place held aloft from the realities of life in the Wards below, where the laws and judgments made by the people here were seldom justifiable—was as close of an example as you were probably going to find.
Shepard strode, flanked by Jacob and Garrus, to the receptionist's desk. Behind it sat a sight of great rarity; a female turian, dressed in a robe of dusty rose, entering information into a PDA with her long talons. She had no visible tattoos, but possessed the typical swooping, tapered head fringe that separated the males from the females of their species. She looked at Shepard expectantly, mandibles trilling gently against the slightly rounded plates of her face. Her eyes weren't just piercing—they bored into you, such a light silver they were almost white.
"Commander Jane A. Shepard," Shepard offered, after a beat. "Ambassador Udina wanted to see me."
The receptionist turned to her computer, tapped a few keys. "I apologize," she replied, her voice magnified, pitched high and low simultaneously by two sets of vocal chords. "Your appointment is for three, ma'am. Please have a seat. The ambassador will see you shortly."
Shepard squinted at the clock. Two-forty-four. Jacob peered at Garrus, nudged him. He was staring. Garrus cleared his throat.
Shepard considered protest, but gave up as soon as she began. The three drifted away from the desk to lean against the railing of the platform they stood on, overlooking the Presidium grounds. At exactly three o'clock, the receptionist rose from her seat, and offered a long arm, gesturing down a hallway. "Right this way, ma'am."
When the three began forward, the turian shook her head. "The ambassador takes one visitor at a time, ma'am. I'm sorry—policy. Please, follow me."
Shepard split off from the group, following the woman down the hallway. The offices were lavishly decorated, the kind of indulgence that only those that had more money than purpose could really abide, she thought. The turian stopped, bowed, and gestured at a doorway.
"The ambassador will see you now."
Shepard nodded her thank you, pressed the green holographic on the door. She simply stood, shellshocked, as it slid open. An asari sat at Udina's desk, staring at Shepard over the sights of a pistol, mouth drawn down in a frown of concentration.
"What the hell?" In a flash, Shepard dropped her hand to the butt of her own pistol and drew it with lightning speed, firing a single shot from the hip. It was a shot of pure luck, guaranteed to not hit a Damn Thing, and definitely not how she was taught to shoot, but the situation left little room for the luxury of time, or finesse. The bolt struck the wall directly above the asari's shoulder, but wasn't enough to stop her from plugging Shepard with a well-aimed shot dead-center in her chest that bounced, sizzling and smoking, against the holographic shield projected by her armor in an attempt to save her from the overload of electricity. It sent Shepard stumbling back, bracing her heel against the floor to keep from losing her footing and falling over.
A blow from behind her, striking her sound in the vulnerable nape under the swell of her skull caused Jane to fall this time, but forward, tumbling to a half-kneel on the floor. Her gun thumped to the plush carpet, bouncing out of sight. She struggled to climb to her hands and knees, trying to blink away the blinding pain, vision keening and popping with multicolored lights. Beneath her was a dark pool, shiny and smelling of copper, that kept her from finding purchase, her fingers and boot soles slipping from under her as she tried to stagger to her feet. She felt arms over her shoulders, then a thwip, and something closed around the base of her throat, immediately restricting the precious flow of oxygen and cutting into her skin. She was yanked back, almost off of her feet, and her hands instinctually flew to her neck, digging for the source, and finding nothing big enough to grab.
A garotte, her mind raced, and she tried to yell to alert her team, to do something, but found nothing but buzzing in her head, heat in her throat, and panic. Her lungs burned, trying to open and suck in air that was effectively blocked at the shoulder level. Her feet thrashed in the air.
They wheeled inside the room, now facing the door. The asari ran over, gun still brandished, and locked the door with a nimble flurry of blue fingers on the holographic control pad in its center.
"Goddess' tits, just hurry and do it," she said, voice panicked. "Did she bring anyone?" She watched the door, gun aimed, voice shaky, glancing back and forth from struggle to door to struggle to door.
They taught you how to use these and break them, Shepard, Jane forced her mind to calm, as much as she could at the moment, and stilled her lungs, pressing her mouth into a line. Training. She focused on the words, the motions. These amateurs don't know shit—YOU'RE the Spectre here.
Her feet swung into the air, one more time, to grab momentum.
"Yeah. Two squadmates detailed in the dossier. Vakarian and Tay--" the turian's words were cut short. Shepard's hands flew back, and groped to hold a single point at the shallow, nubby cowl around the assassin's neck. There wasn't much to grab, but the commander's grip was solid, and the turian was flung over the human's head in a tight arc, sent with a crash onto her back on the floor, Shepard kneeling above her. She tried to hold the choke-string but dropped it, feeling it snag her fingers and draw blood as it slid out of her grip. Shepard grabbed the garotte, a simple, shining thread that came mere seconds from cutting her illustrious career short once again, and shoved it into a pocket on her greaves for safekeeping. On her way back up, Shepard thumped a shallow panel on her chest with a fist.
When the asari turned back around at the sound of the crash, Shepard was gone.
"Ah--" she stuttered, stepping back to press her back against the wall and aiming her gun at random positions in the room. There was deafening silence; the turian groaned and held her head, attempting to shake the stars out of her eyes. Out of the corner of her vision the asari saw the plush carpeting underfoot compress two meters or so away, slightly to her right, in the shape of a footprint, then another.
"Think you're so smart," she laughed, "I've got you, you b--" Before she could say another word, the asari was driven into the wall, knocking a framed map of Old Earth from its bracketing to crash to the floor with a loud shattering of glass, two shots placed clean through her forehead. A splash of chunky purple viscera splattered onto the wall behind her, and her eyes rolled back in her head, falling to her knees and then flat onto her face. The turian rolled, wide-eyed to her feet, dove behind the desk.
The commander faded back into view, visage wobbly as the biotics wore off with her offensive stature. The asari's corpse thumped to the floor, twitching, and Shepard looked around, gun trained close.
"We can talk about this," Shepard warned, almost comically under the circumstances, "or you can end up like your friend. Getting shot tends to irk my nerves, so you might want to choose quickly."
Shepard took in the grisly scenery with flicking eyes, senses alert and sharp, adrenaline pumping. She crept sideways around the desk in an arc. The room—the walls, carpet, countless awards and ribbons which it contained—were all splashed with green, cleaned as well as possible and faded to a light lime color, though there was no body to be found nearby. Only one race bled green—salarians, who, if they were not scientific geniuses, tended to work as leystaff and cleaners. There was only the closet, and Shepard thought she saw the horizontal slats bending outwards, but couldn't get a good look. If she had to wager she'd say it was most likely the actual receptionist in there, but there was no time to investigate.
Shepard stepped around the desk, aiming her gun swiftly at the point where she'd seen the turian dive—it was empty. Shepard wondered momentarily if the attacker was also an infiltration tech—she'd had a garotte, but hadn't known how to use it, or maybe simply hadn't gotten a good grip. She was cut short by said attacker popping up across the desk from her, the broad cherry-oak tableau separating their bodies, and with a grunt of exertion the turian hurled a heavy glass bottle that had previously rested on the desk, at Shepard. Shepard juked and it shattered against the wall. When her attention was turned back to the turian, split-seconds later, they were both tumbling backwards, the assassin plowing bodily into her, knocking her gun once again from her hand.
Shepard bounced off the wall, her armor cracking a shallow crater in the plaster. The turian desperately swung a punch for the commander and hit flush; something in Shepard's face yielded under her fist with a dry, brittle snap. Her bandage, covering the new gash on her face, was half-ripped off, dangling stupidly like a piece of dead skin. The turian grabbed her, pushed Shepard back, slammed her into a nearby bookcase, causing all of the contents to jerk and jar, toppling to the floor. Turians were much stronger, typically much larger than humans—this woman wasn't much smaller than Garrus, who had at least three or four inches on Shepard herself. She groped for Shepard's throat, found it, closed her taloned hands around it with all her available strength, tried to force Shepard to her knees with a long, drawn out grunt.
Shepard felt the talons beginning to cut soft flesh already injured by the garotte wire, squeezing the air out of her once more. Shepard's hands flew to the turian's wrists out of pure instinct and tried to tug them off—after a moment or so of this, Shepard reached an arm up, brought it down hard in a bar across the turian's wrists, knocking them down, and then headbutted her with all her might. It was an instinctual decision Shepard immediately regretted, once again knocked staggered with stars in her eyes.
Outside, Jacob and Garrus were quiet, settling into a companionable silence. Garrus was reading documents from Bailey's file folder, Jacob was looking off into the distance, enjoying the sunlight.
"A female Turian, huh," Jacob finally said, "I've never seen one before."
"They don't tend to stray outside the fleet," Garrus responded, "they comprise most of our military. Tend to be better fighters than the men."
"She had quite the... what's the word? Crest?"
"Fringe," Garrus replied, turning a page. He tapped the armored cowl around his neck with a hand. "This is our crest."
"Was she..." Jacob gestured, mostly with his eyebrows. "You know? I can't tell."
Garrus looked at him. "Well... let's just say that's one appointment I wouldn't mind booking. Not at all."
Jacob nodded. Appreciable enough. Then, a thought occurred to him.
"The secretary—she's been gone for a while. Where did she go, anyway?"
Before Garrus could reply, the question hitting him in an odd, information-sleepy part of his brain, a great crash from somewhere behind them perked two sets of ears, widened two sets of eyes, staring in disbelief. Immediately they were off, running down the hall, folder of information forgotten on the bench outside.
Sensing her moment of opportunity, Shepard's aggressor was on her again, grabbing her by her by the hard lip of her breastplate, slamming a knee into her midsection. Shepard doubled over, a hard, hot rush of vomit threatening to be squeezed from her body from the sudden impact; the turian kneed her again, crushing her nose, a hot spurt of blood splashing her knees, the white carpet beneath her. Then Shepard was in the air again, flying back, and landed with a crash on a table full of glass decorations and framed, projected photos. The turian mounted her, the table creaking under their weight, and brought her arm down against Shepard's windpipe.
"You have extremely bad timing," the woman said. Outside, the hurried thumping of footfalls stopped just outside the door, and a heavy pounding shook the frame.
"Shepard?! Shepard, what's going on in there?!" Garrus. Then, "Stand back, I'm going to blow the lock."
The turian snapped her head to the side, grimacing, grin of triumph forgotten. Clamoring for anything her hand could touch, fully immersed in the ugly, struggling, graceless thrashes of pure survival instinct, Shepard searched around the table above her for anything of use, succeeding in knocking off more objects that she grabbed. Her hand finally closed, claw-like around something that felt like a statue or maybe a clock. The turian returned her attention to Shepard, and was immediately met by the kiss of a heavy brick of iron and hardwood, driven against her head. She cried out, wheeling back, and savagely slapped the idol from Shepard's grip, sending it tumbling to the ground with a series of muted thumps. She then grabbed Shepard's wrist and slammed it to the table, rearing back to bring her head down, metal plates presenting themselves as a weapon all of their own.
Sensing the end closing in, Shepard exercised her last possible option. As the turian brought her head down Shepard turned hers, allowing her battered cheek and ear to take the brunt of the hit, and craned her head up at a queer angle, dangerously close to being out of safe range of motion, and bit the turian's throat as hard as she could. Her teeth cut through leathery skin and the woman tried to shake her off but Shepard held on, squeezing, until she felt the hot bubble of blood. She ripped off a strip of skin that didn't fully detach, and the turian cried, her hand flying to her throat. The blood flooded over Shepard's lips and over her face: her skin immediately started to itch, throbbing, and she spit the blood out before she could swallow any of it. With her attacker distracted, Shepard punched out with all of her available force, knocking the turian upwards and off of her. The door beside them shuddered, slamming in its jamb, creaking in protest. Shepard sat up, which at this point was more of a rapid slump, and hit her again, and felt the plate anchored to the assassin's temple start to come loose; her rightmost mandible twisted and broke outwards, hanging on its hinge like a busted window frame. Shepard hit her again, and they tumbled off the table, the commander on top, thumping as dead weight to the floor.
The two muzzle flashes sizzled, lighting the hallway, leaving two scorch marks on the wall, but no perceptible difference in the integrity of the lock.
"Fuck this." Garrus spat, holstering his pistol. "We're coming in!!" He called, then leaned back. "On three, again."
Jacob nodded, and crouched beside him, readying his shoulder. "One... two..."
The turian wheeled in mid-air, landing on her side, pinning her arm beneath her in a graceless heap, and Shepard came soon after, falling more than pushing off of the table on her own accord. Shattered glass was everywhere; underfoot, in her hair, probably some in her wounds.
The turian immediately scrambled to her hands and knees, sprawling for Shepard's fallen pistol; Shepard followed, loping almost drunkenly in fatigue, grabbed the woman by her shirt, dragged her back. She attempted to loop her arms around the larger woman's neck for some kind of choke hold, but the spiny fringe protruding from the back of her head clattered clumsily against the armor guarding Shepard's breasts, giving the turian enough room to snap her head to the side and break free.
Desperate for another option, Shepard spotted the fallen statue to her immediate right, and reached to grab it; at the same moment that the assassin lashed out with her free arm for Shepard's throat, instead carving a brutal arc across Shepard's injured nosebridge, missing her lower eyelid by fractions of an inch. Shepard cried; fell to the floor, hand gripping the statuette like a clumsy bowling ball, objective obtained but vision blurring, the loss of blood between her broken nose and her injured face throwing the world under a spinning, gauzy layer of haze and confusion.
The assassin pushed against her, trying to turn the tables and grab the commander in a choke of her own, but Shepard swung in a snapping arc, slamming the statue, once again against the woman's temple, splitting the plate from the assassin's head with a ripping noise and a visceral spurt of sapphire. She howled. Shepard dove sloppily on top of her, overpowering her, half-pinned her wriggling form to the ground, and hit her with the heavy decoration one more time.
"YOU HAVE ONE CHANCE!" Shepard screamed, deep, pinning the woman with all her might, who was bucking and pushing as if her life, literally, depended on it. "TELL ME WHO YOU ARE, AND WHY YOU'RE HERE!"
The door buckled again on the muffled cry of three, bending inwards somewhere just above the center, cracking along seams in the plasteel covered by paint and glass. The jamb was bent beyond repair. Shepard flung her face away, trying to clear her bloody hair from her eyes, and was finally bucked off, landing on her backside with an awkward thump, leg bending underneath her in a way that made her knee scream.
She turned back to the assassin who had gotten away, to the other side of the small room, and successfully and closed her hand around the fallen Predator pistol's muzzle. She rolled, pointed it at Shepard, and squeezed off two shots—one of which bounced, crackling against Shepard's shields which blinked and then collapsed in a brilliant blue cascade, and one shot that flew just wide under the commander's right armpit, demolishing the remains of the decorative table on which they'd scrambled. This was her final chance—the woman had a gun, Shepard had no shields, and she'd already given up her right to safe harbor by not surrendering when given the chance. It was act, or die.
Shepard ran, adrenaline-drunk towards the shots, and dove on top of her assailant one more time, knocking the wind from her in a choking whoosh. She reared back her arm, bringing it back down with all her might against the assassin's head, over and over until her arm was covered with dark, shining fluid to the elbow; until the only movement beneath her the flickering of eyelids and the mindless jawing of a dying nervous system, Shepard's face polka-dotted with the telltale deep blue of turian blood.
"THREE!" The door cracked inward, swung off its hinges from the outside. Jacob and Garrus flooded into the room, guns drawn, and Jacob juked, barely managing to avoid being tripped by the corpse in front of the door. The commander was sitting astride her fallen attacker, beside Udina's desk, bleeding, swollen, her face a broken, carved mask of what it was just ten minutes prior. Her hair was tangled with clots, sweat, and glass. The turian's neck was bent at a queer angle, throat partially torn open, half the plates on her face missing or pushed inwards, her fringe cracked and bent unnaturally so her head could lie where it had been forced on the floor, surrounded by a pool of deep blue.
Shepard stood up and over her, legs shaky, and dropped the metal-and-glass statuette with a thump, to the carpeted floor. She was breathing hard, but not panting; her eyes were bright and her face aware, hypersensitive to the stimuli around her.
"Holy shit—Shepard, are you alright? Commander!!" Jacob yelled, holstering his gun and running over, grabbing her by the shoulders and turning her. Garrus watched the door, pistol aimed down the hallway, holding the line.
"I'm fine," Shepard said, gingerly touching her injured nose, and pulling back her hand to stare disdainfully at the blood on her fingertips. She spit a bluish foam onto the carpet, then wiped her mouth with her her clean gauntlet. Jacob got extremely close, looked straight in her eyes—no shock, but close. Very close.
Honestly, a part of Shepard felt good about fucking up Udina's office with such a brazen and visceral scene of violence, but she didn't say as much—it was something she would admonish Jack for saying much less thinking, and it was an unbecoming quality in a commanding officer. But still
"Garrus, go get Bailey," she said, and put her hands on her hips. "And nobody touch anything. I think he'll want to see this."