Chapter 1: Illium Prelude

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'Now I have become Death.

The Destroyer of Worlds'

-Bhagavad Gita

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I was happy. The last week alone with Tali, gently nursing her back to health after the vicious battle on the Shadow Broker's vessel, was the closest thing to a vacation since the Galaxy had decided to appoint me its personal Savior three years ago and when the brutal insanity of my current life began. The small miracle of Liara finding Tali and I a hotel on Illium with a sterile suite of rooms for us to stay while she recovered from the near-fatal anaphylais caused by her suit rupture on the Brokers ship had given me a chance to experience her beauty for more than a few short hours at a time. In a space between never ending battles we were given the chance to spend precious days together unhurried by war and the rumor of war. For the first time since this all began, since the vision of the End of Days was forced into my mind on Eden Prime, I wanted nothing more than to walk away, from all the blood and the violence and the politics, to find some quiet remote corner of the Galaxy and spend whatever time was left looking into her shining laughing blue eyes. Sovereign, The Collectors, what right had the Galaxy to ask any more of me than I had already given? More than anything I wanted to believe the politicians on the Council and the Admirals in the Alliance that the Reapers were nothing more than the delusions of an old soldier brought back from the dead who had seen and done too much.

She healed quickly in the beautiful surroundings of our temporary Illium penthouse, the ugly new scars on her smooth grey skin from the Brokers tech-grenade, knitting and fading although they would always be there to remind me of the consequences of my stupid lapse of judgement in kissing Liara. Such was the diabolical skill of the Broker that he had even managed to convince Tali that I had betrayed her. He hadn't counted on her love for me though, still refusing to betray me and giving him her own shield codes rather than mine knowing it would result in her death. It was a deception I made sure he lived to regret, tearing out his throat with my bare hands as he begged for his life. Even now, I cant bring myself to feel the slightest remorse or guilt after seeing Talis crumpled and broken body, her visor smashed and her precious face exposed to what was for her a toxic atmosphere. At least I had been lucky enough to have been able to make it up to her, in generous seductively soft kisses and the five-finger strokes that gave my young three-fingered quarian so much pleasure and no little amusement. Nothing I have ever experienced compared to the happiness I felt just sitting next to her, her leaning against my shoulder, silver hair reflecting the golden light of the sun setting behind the crystal spires of Illium and whispering into her curiously alien ear that this was our unofficial 'Honeymoon' and then explaining to her enthusiastic delight just what a 'Honeymoon' was.

But after a week of enforced idleness that damn overwhelming sense of duty and obligation her late Admiral father Rael drilled into her began to eat into her happiness as it always did when she thought of herself in any way for too long and so we left our ostentatious clean room, me in my service shirt and pants and Tali in her sensual curvaceous prison of an exosuit and returned to the ship. A quick affectionate hug and my Chief Engineer ran off, leaving me in my Cabin with a stack of datapads that all seemingly needed my urgent attention. Sighing, I reluctantly picked up the first one - routine crew manifests from my XO Miranda - but I was almost immediately interrupted by the Normandy's A.I.

"Excuse me Shepard but there is an urgent private message for you from Admiral Hackett" EDI murmured in her smooth monotone.

A/N This is pretty much where Tairis Deamhan left his superb Razors Edge: Dark Witness. In his next novelization Razors Edge: Requiem, the tragic events in the Bahak System, which will now be described, have already taken place with terrible consequences for Shepard and those he loves.

A/N Thanks for your reviews and comments