Mass Vexations

by Herr Wozzeck

Vexations. Music of Erik Satie. Somehow, it transported me to the Mass Effect universe. Might as well make the best of it, and by that I mean help the crew stop Saren and the Geth, all without telling my real origins. Self-insert. Kaidan/Shepard

5. Chapter 4

A/N: Okay, so the plot thickens. We decide to get ourselves killed at Virmire. And that should be that, since Virmire isn't as far away as we'd like.

But it wouldn't be fun if it was that simple, would it? I'll say it now: the Virmire chapter will be massive. And it will be crazy! You'll see when we get to that part, but for now, let's just say that things are going to be rather odd.

And in other news, it seems that Vexations doesn't appear in the Mass Effect universe. Makes me wonder: what other not-exactly-major-composers are non-existant in that universe?

You shall see soon. For now it's time to start the chapter of Noveria. As for this one, it's the longest chapter I've written in a LOOOOOOOOOOONG time. It feels wierd writing chapters that are longer than 10,000 words again, but hey that's life for you. Plus, three firefights, and if you know me well action scenes are not my strong suit. Still, I'll do my best.

Also, bonus points to anybody who figures out how much dialogue is transcribed from the game itself.

---

"Despite all the lunacy of the last century, all the absurdity of war and genocide, we believe that humans being are rational and are made to seek the truth."

-Timothy Radcliffe

---

Chapter 4: Noveria

Okay, so Shepard took a ground team of four other people with her today. They are Garrus, Wrex, Ash, and myself. This is gonna be fun. True, Ash might ruin it for me, but hey, I have to live with that, right?

Ah, well. I'm just suiting up right now. We've landed at Noveria, and everything here seems to be going as smootly as it can with a bitchy ground team.

As soon as I suit up in my quarters, I give myself a nice, long look in the mirror. I'm in my new armor that I purchased at a recent trip to the Citadel that we made before going to Noveria. I've got gray standard-issue armor that's had a paint scheme customized courtesy of the Normandy's crew. I painted in a few orange floral designs with Ashley's help. Or, rather, I told her what I had in mind and she helped hold things in place while I brought a spray can to it. Because god damn it, I can't draw! Anyway, I've also added a few more things to my armor, including a few designs in the style of one of the Dragon Age tatoos that is in the character customization for that, painted in black along my arms. It's a pretty light-weight armor, but it allows me to run pretty quickly.

I give myself one last look before running a hand through my hair and making sure it stays back. The last thing I need is to see some shades of brown in my face during a firefight. The crew's insisted I get a crew cut, but I absolutely won't allow it. I like my hair the length it is, although if you ask me I might get a haircut soon anyway as I can actually bite the tips off of a few strands of hair if I play with it long enough.

Ah, well, I'll worry about that another time. For now, there's the issue of Noveria. I turn around to make sure my pistol and my assault rifle are on my back where I can get them before I nod, smiling.

All right, here goes nothing.

I step outside and head to the air lock. On my way there, I bump into Tali.

"Oh, hey Tali," I say as I stop where I am.

She gives me a look over before smiling. "Hello, Art," she says. "You don't look too bad in your new armor."

Oh, dear... Actually, I rather like the way this armor looks on me. Grey very much suits me well. "Thanks," I say a little sheepishly. "It's nice to know I'm not the only one who likes how it looks on me."

"Really?" she asks.

"Yeah," I reply. "Ash thinks the orange is out of place. I dunno. I like the orange there: I think it's a nice counterbalance to the grey. Plus, it's my favorite color, so..."

The quarian shakes her head as she crosses her arms. "You're a little silly sometimes," she says, and I can sense she's trying to fight down a chuckle. "But still, it's good to know that you're... optimistic. Especially if the color says anything."

I shrug. "You know what they say," I say. "Always look on the bright side of life." And here, I start whistling the tune. "Always look on the light side of life." I whistle the tune again.

Her expression is hard to read under the mask, but I imagine she's giving me an inquisitive stare. "Old Earth object, I take it?" she asks.

"Vid," I reply. "It's called Monty Python and the Life of Brian. It's really funny, and I plan to bring it to our first vid night." Yep, Shepard approved of the vid nights. So as soon as we leave Noveria, I'm bringing the first movie of it all. It's a great thing, too, because Monty Python thankfully exists in the ME universe. Even if I do say Jehova.

"Huh," she says. "Any information on what it's about?"

"You need a basic understanding of Earth's religions to understand it well," I reply, shrugging. "I'll explain it when we watch it."

She nods, looking at me. "I'm looking forward to it," she says.

I smile and then change the subject. "It's too bad you're sitting out of this mission," I say. "I would've liked to see how you handle this mission.

Tali shrugs. "Well, you sat out of the last one, so I think it's only fair," she says.

I shrug. "Yeah, gun training's been a little tough on my mind," I say, gesturing with my arms. "But, well, here I am, about to go on a mission with Shepard!"

"Indeed," she says. "I hope you have something interesting to say when you get back about your first military mission ever."

I roll my eyes and shake my head. "Doubt it," I reply. "I'll probably come out more shellshocked than not. Either way, this will be pretty hard to get used to."

"We'll see," she says. "Be careful out there."

I nod in reply, giving her a thumbs up. "I'll do my best," I tell her, smiling.

And with that, we part for a time, walking away from each other as I head to the airlock where the rest of the crew is probably waiting right now.

---

Wrex gave me a glance as I showed up in the airlock, giving me a glance. Shepard was the only other person there, and he gave me a once over.

"So I see you like to show up to everything early," he says, indicating my person.

I have to stifle laughter. "Trust me, it's to the point where I think it's a problem," I say. "I once showed up an hour early to a viola lesson. I waited an hour for a one hour lesson..."

"Well, timeliness is always a good thing," says Shepard as we talk softly.

"I dunno," I say, rubbing my arms softly. "It always makes me paranoid about deadlines. If I miss a deadline, I tend to freak out. Just so you know."

Wrex simply grunts in reply. "At least we won't have to worry about leaving you behind," he says.

I give him a cold glance as soon as these words leave his mouth. I'm about to leave a sarcastic comment when I see Garrus and Ash walk into the airlock. We pause where we are as the two of them enter. Ash nods to me.

"I see you got your new armor," she says.

I nod, smiling softly. "Feels much better than Kaidan's, I can tell you that much," I say, crossing my arms and drumming my fingers on my elbows.

"And it doesn't look too bad either," adds Garrus as he nods to me. "Just, be careful out there, rookie."

I nod. "I plan to be, Garrus," I reply. "Almost to the point where I think it could be a problem."

And we stand in the airlock, waiting for the pressure to equalize between the two locations.

---

My first impressions of Noveria are inherently terrible.

First impression: it's fucking cold here! Like, it's worse than Boston here! It's shocking how much heat my armor is able to contain, but damn me if I'm not shivering my ass off here! I never thought I'd have to deal with this kind of weather. Honestly, it's a little annoying. But it'll be all right eventually, seeing as how, well, we'll be indoors most of the time. But still, I fear having to get that garage pass, seeing how bloody cold it is.

Second impression: the people are really fucking hostile. And it's not like Miami where most people are just negligently hostile. No, it's where everybody is openly hostile. Seriously. It's like He-who-must-not-be-named that's not from Harry Potter had a thousand babies with a lady who's just as shocking and unbelievable as he is. Not a good image, as I can't see a racist, homophobic, and self-loathing 22-year old high school drop-out in a suburb of Seattle who works at Target getting laid with anyone, but still. I wish I could have just punched some of these people. That would have made me happy already.

Hm... speaking of him, I wonder what he's doing right now. Undoubtedly he's trying to get famous again only to fall flat on his face. Fucker will never realize that maybe he should have been nice to people instead of trying to antagonize them, especially for a stupid little reason like a pairing. Also, that being a hypocrite who hates on furries while trying to write in the Camp Lazlo or Land Before Time fandoms (of all things) doesn't serve anyone, especially when your fanfics are pretentious pieces of shit with horrendously uneven pacing, uninteresting characterizations, and language use that makes you seem like Edward Bulwer-Lytton if he spelled every twentieth word wrong. I'll still never get over that incident at all, and especially not what I thought when I tried to read his stuff.

And now I'm getting off track. Where was I?

Oh yeah.

Third impression: given how much of a slimeball Anoleis will undoubtedly be, dealing with the politicians will not be fun. It'll be even worse than dealing with the whole change of scenery bit. At least the Council won't openly brush us off until after Virmire, and by that point I likely won't be here anyway, so I won't have to deal with it. This, I will have to deal with, and it makes me mad having to find ways to sit back and watch talks with a guy who takes bribes without wanting to punch the son of a bitch so hard he'll vomit last week's lunch.

Combined impression: I fucking hate Noveria.

And I'm hating it more with each step I take. Talking to Gianna was nice enough, but then we're beginning to really hate Administrator Anoleis. Gods, I'm getting annoyed. And I can see the rest of the squad is too, as we're going somewhere else to see if we can find a garage pass. And as we walk along, I groan as we walk along.

"These guys are beginning to get on my nerves," I complain, shaking my head. "First they're hostile, then they're meddling, and now they're denying us stuff that we need, even to a Spectre!"

Wrex chuckles at this. "Nice to know someone else feels the same way," he says.

Garrus shakes his head. "You're not the only two," says Garrus. "I'm beginning to get sick of all this myself."

"Make that four of us," adds Ash, shrugging. "Five if Shepard counts?"

"They're wasting our time," she says. "We have to find out what the Conduit is before Saren does, and their meddling isn't helping us at all. So this isn't all that great."

"Nice to know we're all on the same page here," says Garrus with a gesture. "Reminds me too much of C-Sec..."

I raise my eyebrow at this. I'm beginning to see the rise of Archangel here! Even this early he resents C-Sec? Hm. Shepard might have a hard time convincing him back to C-Sec later. Hm....

Whatever. "Too many regulations is a bad thing," I say. And I would know it too well, if the fact that my parents, my uncles, and my grandparents bicker about it too much says anything. Can't say I blame them, though; they did narrowly escape the Castro regime after all. Shame; he was the popular guy in the University of Havana if what my grandmother says is anything to go by.

Garrus can only shrug at this. "Maybe," he says, shrugging. "Either way, something didn't seem right about him."

"I got that feeling too," adds Shepard. "As if he was trying to hide something..."

I shrug as we move along. "Maybe there's something else we don't know?" I ask. "Like, maybe there's something Gianna has in mind?"

"Doubt it," replies Garrus. "I just hope we don't take too long to get to Peak 15. Who knows what Benezia is up to in there?"

Turn your head a little to the right and you'll know who knows that information, Garrus.

"Whatever it is, we're not gonna solve it by standing here," says Shepard behind us. "Come on, let's get moving."

"If it means talking to another annoying politician, can we punch him if he gives us a hard time?" I ask as we move along to meet up with Gianna again.

This is met with a glare from Shepard, Wrex nearly pausing as he find this question quite amusing. But seriously, I've had enough of these kinds of politicians. And I'm pretty sure everybody else has.

But I'm sure we won't need to be punching any more politicians. Next stop: garage pass. I hope. It all depends on how well we do with proving that Anoleis is corrupt.

---

And, it's apparent that we've got a Paragon Shepard here.

And this makes itself apparent as we see Anoleis get dragged off by the police. Arrested for corruption indeed. I felt a coy smile crawl up my lips as I see him get dragged away, with Shepard standing in front of us with her arms crossed.

"Well, he had it comin'," I comment off-handedly. "He only had himself to blame."

"Couldn't put it better myself," adds Ash, shaking her head.

"And to think, he was the corrupt one," says Garrus, crossing his arms.

Well, you never know, Garrus. There was that one CSI New York episode where the lawyer was the one that killed everyone and called the city out on all of the deaths. And there is the fact that actual serial killers do keep tabs on the police. So, there is that bit in there.

"Sometimes people like to divert the blame," I say, crossing my arms. "But, he got his due, and he won't be annoying us with his stuck up regulations any more. Good thing, too. I was about ready to punch the son of a bitch in the face."

"So was I," says Wrex, chuckling softly at this. "Shepard, have we got that garage pass yet?"

"We do," she says. "And with this, we can finally go to Matriach Benezia."

I nod, crossing my arms. "All right, what are we waiting for?" I ask. "Let's get ourselves over to Peak 15 and get this over with!"

Shepard nods, and then we all move out to the garage of Noveria. This is gonna be pretty fucked up, especially with the Geth army that's waiting for us. Shit, I wish I could say something about that. But, my cover needs to stay put, so yeah. And that is rather fragile.

We move about the compound, heading down to the garage where we know we will be able to head to Peak 15. When we finally get there, we see a bunch of boxes scattered about. I'm a little wary as everything seem odd about these arrangements. Especially how the boxes are suspiciously placed. Yeah, cover systems would be a little crazy, I should think...

Before we get a chance to move forward, though, someone takes a shot at us. It doesn't hit, but it alerts us enough. I literally dive behind cover, Shepard and the others grabbing their weapons as they gravitate to the cover. Before Ash can take her place next to me, I pull out my assault rifle, checking the heatsink before glancing up.

"You could have drawn your weapon first," she says.

I give her a glance, and then I pop out of my cover. Sure enough, there are geth coming on us now. I take a few shots at one of them, and it goes down as I feel my shields slowly deplete. I dive back behind cover and shrug to the woman standing next to me.

"I'd rather be safe than sorry, if you'll pardon the expression," I say. "Anyway, I'm more useful to you alive than dead, and I'd rather make sure I can stay alive first, if you know what I mean."

She raises her eyebrows, rising up out of cover and firing a few shots before ducking back down as I reload my gun.

"As you say," she says, shrugging.

I take it as "do whatever you want". Well, I'm not planning on pulling a Rambo any time soon, so...

I come back out of my cover and fire at a geth that Garrus had gotten a few shots on. I fire briefly, and am satisfied when it blows to bits. Yay! I killed my first geth!

And my shields are depleting. Get back behind the cover.

I do so, and I scan the area as I wait for my shields to regenerate.

If the entire garage is going to be like this, it's gonna be a long fight. And indeed, it seems that way as Shepard is already beginning to advance a little bit through the boxes. Might be a good idea to follow close behind.

I leap out of my cover and dash to a nearby set of crates, taking a few shots at a geth that had aimed its gun at me before ducking behind cover again. I'm behind the crates before it can shoot, and so I quickly glance up and fire a few more shots at the advancing army. The geth slowly come down, and I look to my side briefly to see Garrus and Wrex firing away with Shepard ducking under the cover. I duck back down myself, Ash rising up to shoot at the geth.

As I reload, I can't help but think about how surreal this all is. I never thought I'd ever get into a firefight in my life, and yet here I am shooting at sentient robotics.

Huh. Life is quite funny like that. No time to dwell on it.

I rise up and fire my gun at more geth troopers. This time, I manage to deplete shields, and the geth is destroyed with a shotgun to the face from Wrex. Fun times indeed.

We continue like this for quite some time. Yep, my worst fears are definitely realized. I am the worst squadmate of the bunch. I do tend to get things, but I'm the one least confident about escaping my cover and also the least confident about staying out of cover. It's not unfounded, as I lose my shields quite often. And the Rambo approach won't exactly work, but stilll. At least my aim is only getting better. That's a good thing, I guess.

But I'm still the one with the fewest shots, though some of them have been to good effect as I raise my assault rifle and fire at more geth troopers. We advance ever so slowly in the garage to Peak 15, and I'm afraid of what will happen next. We advance, though, and eventually we see the geth's advance start to slow down. And eventually, the geth stop coming all together.

Huh. I guess that comes with there being no spawn points in real life. Ah, well.

We stand up and holster our weapons. I nod to Shepard as she moves forward.

"We're part of the way there," she says. "If we keep going, we'll be at Peak 15 soon enough."

We all nod, and without another word we move after the commander, keeping quiet as we approach Peak 15. I share an apprehensive glance at the crew, and they all nod at me as we prepare for the worst.

---

When we get to Peak 15, we see that the power has been turned off and that it looks for the most part abandoned. Oh, dear, here come the Doom 3 comparisons...

"The facility's power is off..." says Shepard. "That can't exactly be a good sign."

Thank you, Captain Obvious. "Something must have happened here," says Garrus. "Something... not very good."

"In that case, we better keep our guard up," says Ash. "We never know what we can find in here..."

Can't argue with that logic. Even if I already know.

... And I just lost the game. Again. Fuck my life. Sooner or later, I need to introduce the game to these guys so I can start frustrating them into hilarious shenanigans. I just hope Joker doesn't find out about it, 'cause that'll lead to some pretty bad things.

A shot is fired at us, and then we suddenly retreat behind cover, Wrex, Garrus, and Shepard on one side and Ash and myself on the other. We look out, and we see the forms of geth troopers in the dim lighting.

"Oh, God damn it, there are more of these things here?" I ask as I draw my pistol and edge towards the cover.

"Looks like we're going to have to deal with it," says Shepard. I couldn't agree more.

We have a firefight with geth troopers as they start to come up. Damn things are annoying to fight, especially since Wrex is our only biotic here. That gets annoying when they put up their holographic shields or whatever. And in this narrow hallway, we have to get creative.

And so I come out of cover and fire a few pistol shots at the feet. Not quite a good spot, but with their odd hexagonal shields up it's the only option we really have right now. We keep on this peripheral firing pattern, making sure the geth can't really get at us. I'm still using my pistol, and since Ash is on the wall I used for cover we both silently agreed to alternate. While I reloaded, she fired shots. And while she reloaded, I got in a few shots. My aim is still pretty bad, but more often than not I'm hitting something. That's a good sign, I guess. Especially since I'm getting much better with my headshots now. It helps that the geth heads are rather long from where I'm standing.

I duck back in once, thinking again about all this. I reload quickly as Ash gets a few shots, and then I join her in firing to create a near seamless fluidity in motion as the other team reloads. I sense that and decide to stay out of cover a little longer. I feel my shields deplete as Ash then comes out of her own cover and fires. When I retreat, she nods to me, smiling softly. Okay, I got more approval from her.

I look across briefly as I reload, and I see that the others aren't having as tough a time as we are with reloading. Wrex of course is out over there, firing his shotgun at any enemies that get to close. Garrus prepares a sniper rifle, and coming out he fires one shot before retreating back behind the cover again. Shepard is smart, and uses her biotics instead of her guns in this case to get at the robotic beings that are flying at us. Huh, I guess we've got ourselves in good hands. This shouldn't be too hard.

And it isn't. The geth that come assault us aren't too high in numbers. I count around twelve, thirteen geth troopers, and it took a few shots from everyone and we were all right. They went down rather easily once we had gotten past the whole shield bit, and even then it wasn't that annoying as I found another way to get at them even then. And after the ten geth troopers were down, there was silence as Shepard peered out.

"All right, that's all of them," she says, all of us coming out of our cover. "I get the feeling these won't be the last hostiles we come across."

I shake my head at this, crossing my arms. "Probably not," I say.

I feel Ash give me a glance to the back of my head. Okay, that's my cue to shut the hell up. Apparently, I talk too much. It's my specialty, though, and somehow I never realize when I'm doing it.

We go about the small place, keeping our weapons at the ready in case we get assaulted by something. We're walking along when suddenly we notice the two security turrets mounted on the walls. They don't fire at us, but they're also pointing in. At this, I raise an eyebrow and very narrowly fight down the urge to comment on it. It wouldn't exactly be good form, after all.

We see another turret on the wall, and then we see it's also pointed in. I grab my assault rifle from behind, and look at the turrets.

"Why would they point the turrets in?" asks Wrex as we move along.

"That... does seem to go against all logic," adds Garrus.

"Maybe it's intended to keep something in there..." says Ash. Well, she's not too far from the truth.

Shepard looks up at them before bringing up her arm, a blue aura surrounding her arm. She looks up, and then she points her arm at one of the turrets. Very quickly, I see the turret smoke as it most likely overheats. Huh. Interesting solution there, Shepard. She turns her arm to the other turret and does the same thing, the turret overheating with a slight hissing sound in opposition to what it did earlier. Okay, so the turrets are overheated now. Fun times abound, I guess.

She nods to us. "Keep your eyes open," she tells us. "We don't know what's in these labs, and we should be careful."

We all nod, and we keep our weapons ready. I take out my assault rifle because I'm sure it'll be the best thing to use against a rachni once we find them in there. So we move into the door, and we slowly advance. We find ourselves in a bunch of passages that would be a nightmare for anyone who's fan of the Alien movies. And it's the kind of place I would expect anything to go wrong in, really. I grip my pistol, knowing we might come up to something first.

We find that the area around the lab is mostly empty. We do encounter a few geth units a few times, but those are taken down with relative ease. Ah, mooks. Always nice to see an entire race of them. Although those juggernauts are a bit much to handle. But eh, what can you do?

We are constantly reminded that we have to manually turn everything on again, thanks to that annoying voice that won't shut up. We commented on it the first time we heardit, but as we travel along, we find that we're just a little annoyed at it. It's starting to remind me of the fire alarms back in my apartment building. Gah, the damn things were so fucking loud it was annoying. Especially when they would have fire drills at 3 in the morning...

My thoughts are interrupted by something I hear. It sounds like something crawling along the vent with very thin legs. Hearing this, I dart around, my pistol slightly elevated as I try to listen for it again.

"Serviceman?" asked Ash.

I turned to her to see her looking at me with a puzzled look on her face. I turned to her, keeping my weapon level.

"I thought I heard something," I said. "It sounded like something that was crawling... in the walls."

"I heard it too," said Garrus before Ash could reply. "Good to know I wasn't the only one who heard that."

"And if I know anything from sci-fi vids, it's that sounds coming from the walls are never a good sign," I say, keeping my weapon level. "I'd be just a little wary if I were the rest of you."

Shepard seems to acknowledge this. "Keep your firearm out at all times," she says. "If what Art and Garrus are saying is true, we'll need to stay on constant alert."

The only sign of protest we get from anyone is a slight grumble from Ash, but she shrugs and pulls out her pistol. We continue advancing through the labs, and we wander around trying to figure out what will happen next.

And then, I hear the sound again. This time, I hear it get a little closer and it is a little louder, I raise my weapon up. My head is darting around trying to figure out the source of the sound.

"I heard it too," says Ash, looking up at the ceiling above.

"It's likely coming from the venthillation shaft," says Wrex, cocking his shotgun as he pointed it up at the roof. "And if it's what I think it is, there will be hell to pay..."

As soon as he says this, we suddenly hear the sound again. I raise my weapon, looking up at the venthillation shaft. I bite down the urge to point out the painfully obvious there and as the sounds build in intensity, all of our guns are aimed at the shafts.

And then, something bursts from the shafts just in front of me. It looks like a cross between a large spider and a shrimp. No, I'm not kidding. It sees me and starts to rush forward.

"Holy shit!" I scream out, and I fire at the thing in my astonishment. The first shot I fire misses, but the second one manages to hit it. It explodes at this, and then we all turn towards the shaft that it came out of. Wrex stays with his back to us, however, and suddenly we find a whole legion of these things come running at us from the vents. Some of them fire acid at us, and I dodge this as well as I am able to. Some gets on my armor, and while it does eat away at the metal it doesn't burn through like in the alien movies.

And then we start moving back as Ash, Garrus, Shepard and I fire into the crowd of things behind us. Shit, the rachni are more versatile than I think. I caused a few workers to blow up, but I was so shocked by the sudden appearance that they were slowly gaining distance on us.

I remember stumbling so that I fell on my ass. I ended up crawling back quickly, firing my gun into the crowd as frantically as I could manage while crawling on my hands and feet. It was a bit hard as to move faster I had to use my arms. It almost got to the point where I was crawling away. Thankfully, Garrus found a break in the crowd and I felt a talon hoist me up onto my feet. I nodded, taking my pistol and aiming into the crowd, firing a few more shots.

"Thanks!" I say when I reload.

And we continue to fire at the swarm of rachni. Some of them explode, some of them shoot acid at us. One of them explodes right in my face, and I feel the acid that was stored inside the worker getting all over me. And... ow, it burns! It burns!

In panic, I nearly drop my pistol, and my movements start to get more frantic. With the dry side of my armor, I try my best to get the acid off of my face. Thankfully, I'm able to get most of it off before it can do any real damage, and so I continue firing into the legion.

And finally, the workers start to diminish. We're rather far along inside of the labs by that time. I'm breathing in and out heavily, with Ash, Garrus, and Shepard all looking at the ridiculous concentration of acid that was eating away at the floor behind us. We're sitting there in awe for a few seconds at what we've just seen, myself at how sudden it was, and I can only assume the others are the same at what these things are.

And finally, when Shepard shoots the last one, we stare at the damage left behind. In some places, the acid is so concentrated it's burned through the floor. It's eating away at everything else, too. And god, that smell... What the fuck is that? It's disgusting! Oh, dear, I wish we had done more experiments with acid in Chemistry. That would certainly explain what the hell all this shit is with the awful, awful smell...

Wrex turned to us, shaking his head. "I want to pop off a few turian heads right now," he says. "I thought we had exterminated those things."

I turned to Wrex, gesturing to them. "Forget the turians!" I say, exasperated. It's part true, because I'm startled, but since I need to play along... "What the fuck were those things?"

"The rachni," he tells me. "We killed all of them. Looks like they decided to get revenge. They're a little late for that..."

Oh. Right. The Rachni Wars. Uh... wow, shit, I just realized how angry you must feel about this. Especially at the turians. Yeah, this isn't going to gel well with Wrex, I just realized. Yep, not at all...

Garrus shrugs listlessly. "There's still reason for the Krogan Monument to be in the Citadel, though," he says, checking his gun briefly. "They were a threat..."

"And then you turned on us when we liberated the galaxy of them," points out Wrex with a small scowl in his tone. "I still resent that. But I resent their presence here even more."

"Well, now, that's hardly fair to us," replies Garrus as Ash, Shepard, and I watch the conversation unfold. "Especially not when there were so many krogans out there after the wars. You almost became as big a problem as they did."

Wrex says nothing as he crosses his arms, but the angry glint in his eyes tells all. "Young, foolish, and paranoid. As all of your kind are." With this deadpan, the tension in the air is palpable. If Garrus has anything to say to that, he doesn't bring it to light.

I shake my head, sighing softly as I check my ammunition on my gun. Huh, it's running low. I guess it's from not reloading throughout all that. "Today's just not your day, Wrex, especially not if what I know of the Rachni Wars is true," I comment, reloading my pistol. "Sorry, Garrus, but I've gotta agree with Wrex here. Losing your ability to reproduce after ridding the galaxy of a virulent spieces that it turns out wasn't totally killed off anyway would be enough to ruin my day too." Although in all honesty I probably would've said 'stubborn' in place of 'paranoid'. Especially when it comes to their politicians. I do not want to have to deal with the turian councillor anytime soon...

I holster my pistol and take out my assault rifle as soon as I finish, clicking it against my armor for the humor to sink in. Wrex chuckles wryly at this, and he shrugs.

"Good to see someone who agrees with my side of things," he says, holstering his shotgun.

"This isn't the time to talk about turian-krogan relations," says Shepard, crossing her arms. "I've got a feeling Benezia is involved with the Rachni."

I nod at this, everybody else in the squad agreeing. "Definitely seems like it," says Ash.

Shepard looks down the hallway that we're going down. "We should get the main power," she says. "And while we're at it, we should see what else is going on. See if there are any survivors."

"Can't say no to that," I say, shrugging.

And with that, we move on, keeping our ears open in case the Rachni decide to attack again.

---

Well, we've come to a tech room. It's a very small thing where there are multiple consoles around. We're looking to reset Mira, that's for sure. It's a rather small room, and if memory serves me correctly the floor is kind of like the stretching room in the Haunted Mansion. No matter; that shouldn't make things too hard. Shepard nods to us as she enters the small room.

"All right, I'll try to get this thing back up and running to see what we need to do," she says. "You four, stay out here, and keep your eyes out for the rachni and the geth."

"Yes, ma'am!" I say, the others mirroring with their own ways of confirming they hear it.

Shepard nods and turns to the pad that allows her to enter the core. The floor below her drops rather quickly, and it leaves us standing there watching as she descends down there. We look to each other and nod.

"So we wait," I say.

"That we do," says Garrus.

"If anything, it's going to be pretty long," says Ash with a shrug. "I didn't think she was all that tech-saavy."

"Well, you'd be surprised at what people can do," I point out, beginning to pace around. "It's... surprising. Sometimes shocking. Other times, you come to expect it after a while. I dunno. Life is a little wierd like that."

Ash raises an eyebrow. "You really like saying your mind, don't you?" she asks.

I give her a rather cold glance as I cross my arms. "If I told you everything on my mind, you'd recoil a bit in shock," I replied, pacing around in front of them. "You could always take the shotgun off the wall and fire two warning shots into my head."

The gunnery chief shakes her head. "No, I don't want a court martial," she says. "Besides, where would that leave us? We need all the help we can get."

"Assuming that he'll still stay at the Citadel after all this is done, of course," replies Garrus. "I've got a feeling you'll be heading back to Earth once we've caught or killed Saren."

Killed, for your information. "Well, you never can tell with these things," I reply. "I might change my mind. I might like the Citadel. I might move there after all this is done. You never know." Or, I could be back home before the whole Saren business is dealt with. You don't need to know that.

"Well, if you're going to stay, I hope you consider staying in the Alliance military," says Garrus. "You're not too bad a soldier."

I shake my head, my pacing coming to a stop. "Wouldn't dream of it," I reply. "Music is my life, and I honestly can't imagine myself doing anything else at this point."

Wrex gives me an odd look. "Figures," he says. "Your days as a soldier didn't last long."

Again, Wrex, you never know. "Well, it's just that I've never seen myself shooting people for the rest of my life," I reply. "As long as I can remember music has always been a constant companion. Hearing it, it's a companion. Playing it, it's a companion. I've always been drawn in by music. That's never changed. And I don't think it will."

Ash shrugs at this. "Suits me," she says. "That's one less prson I have to order around."

It's the sound of my voice, isn't it? I suppose the dubbing of 'cartoon voice-over guy' I got at NYSMF last year sort of attests to that. Either way, it leads me to want to kill people if they mock me for it. Ah, well, at least she isn't explicitly mentioning--

"Especially not with your whiny voice."

... Ash, you bi--!

My thoughts are interrupted as we suddenly hear the elevator Shepard's on rise to us. We see her finally, and I cross my arms.

"Told you it wouldn't take too long," I say, smirking smugly at Ash.

And before she can retort, we see a holographic woman appear in front of Shepard. It stands there for a brief second before speaking.

"It looks like you're trying to restore this facility," says the voice. "Would you like help?"

I glance at Garrus briefly before Shepard replies. "Help would be great," she says. "Who are you."

"This system is monitored to respond to the name 'Mira'," she says. "May I ask your name?"

Oh, dear, can I just skip this?

"Commander Shepard," replies Shepard. "I work for the Citadel Special Forces and Reconnoisance."

Well, shit. Looks like I can't skip this part. Ah, well, time to let Shepard work her magic and see how we can correct all of this crap here...

---

Well, Mira helped us a lot. So now, we've more or less restored all of the landlines to the condition they were in before as well as getting the main reactor back online. And now, we're riding the tram to the Rift Station where there is supposed to be staff still alive. I check my weapons one last time before nodding to Shepard.

"Well, let's hope those guys are still alive," I say.

We all nod at this. "Hopefully, they won't be hostile," says Shepard. "Keep quiet, and let me do the talking."

We all nod at this as the tram comes to a stop. We move out through security, and sure enough, we see a human there. Slightly darker skin, too. All right, I think we know what's going on. He and two other people are standing behind crates with their guns pointed at us. When we get close, he tells his fellow guards to stand down.

We approach, and as per the plan we allow Shepard to come forward.

"Sorry," says the man. "We couldn't be sure what was on the tram."

Shepard shrugs. "I'd only be upset if they'd fired."

"Even hopped up on stims, they know the rule," he says. "Two legs; good. Four legs; bad. Look, you're human, and that's good enough that I won't shoot. I'd like to know who you are."

"My name's Shepard," replies our commander. "I'm a Spectre."

The captain says something I don't quite understand, but I let it slide seeing as how I don't really have any other option. When I am able to understand him...

"The aliens overran the hot labs last week," he continues. "Only Han Olar got out, and he ain't all there anymore." To be fair, unless your name is Ellen Ripley I greatly doubt you could survive this kind of infestation with your sanity intact. "Next thing we knew they were crawling into my command post. We had a lot more staff then."

Shepard gives them a nod. "We've never seen anything like them," she says. "What do you know?"

"I'm not a xenobiologist," the captain replies. "They move fast, there are a lot of them. An asari was sent to take care of them, and she went into the hot labs yesterday. We haven't heard from her since."

Hm... my dishonesty meter is pinging a bit... "Benezia..." says Shepard. "Is she still over there?"

The captain shrugs. "I dunno," he replies. "I don't see what one person could do."

I shrug at this as Garrus speaks. "She's a Matriarch," he adds. "If she's survived for this long, I wouldn't be too surprised."

"There's an emergency elevator out by the trams," says the captain, handing something to Shepard. "This card will allow you to activate it. It can take you down to the hot labs. If you need any first aid, you can talk to Dr. Cohen in the med bay."

"Just a second, sir," I add in quickly. "You mentioned the staff. Is there... anything we could be able to help them with?"

At this, the captain shrugs. "Dr. Cohen is attempting to cure some kind of biotoxin," he replies. "He could use a little help with that, I take it... You will have to be screened for presence of the biotoxin, though, but that shouldn't be a problem."

I look to Shepard who had given me a small glare. She nods at this, and looks to the captain. "All right," says Shepard. "We'll go talk to Dr. Cohen, and we'll see what we need to do."

He nods. "Good luck with finding the Matriarch," he says.

Yeah, right. I just remembered you betray us, you son of a bitch.

As we walk away, Ash turns to us and we turn to each other to see what is up.

"Wait, do we have any injuries?" she asks.

I shake my head. "I picked up an arm injury, but some medigel took care of that," I say.

"And the rest of us are fine," says Garrus, looking at all of us briefly. "I say we split up and do our respective duties. It will make things faster, and it will help the scientists out a little."

Shepard nods at this suggestion and looks to the service elevator. "All right then," she says. "Wrex, Ash, you two are coming with me to the hot labs. Garrus, Art, you two will go down to Dr. Cohen and see what he needs."

"Sounds like a plan," says Wrex. "Good thing I got put on the interesting stuff." Yeah, especially since you'll be seeing a ton of rachni. And Garrus and I get to research a cure. I wasn't always a science mind, but hey.

"We should get going," I say. "We don't know how long until Benezia does stuff..."

Ash nods at this. "Yeah," she says.

"Then let's get moving. Art, Garrus, we'll meet up back here when we're done," says Shepard. "Move out."

We nod, and then Garrus and I head for the med bay as Shepard, Ash, and Wrex go completely seperate ways. I cross my arms as I head over there.

"So, who should do the talking?" I ask.

"It depends, but try not to say too much," replies Garrus. "I hear enough of your voice as it is... Hearing you ask all those questions..."

Oh, dear, him too? Dear lord... "If you start making up names about it, I'll deliver your head to the turian councillor on a silver platter," I threaten without missing a beat, pointing a finger in his face.

Instead of intimidating him, he laughs softly at this. "Right..." he says, a tinge of sarcasm in his voice. "I'll remember that when you get something you can actually cut my head off with."

Oh, god damn it! Foiled with my own threat! Well, there are worse things. I guess he could actually have called me something. But he didn't, so I have faith he won't actually do it on his own. Good thing, too: only I know how many times I've wanted to kill people over calling me 'cartoon voice-over guy' or 'Mickey Mouse' or some fucked-up bullshit like that. Ironically enough, the most injurious slander came from someone who didn't even hear my voice, so that makes it a bit wierd. Still, though, if anyone makes fun of my voice, I'm taking my pistol and shooting them.

Right. To the med bay!

---

Garrus and I both saunter down to the med labs, and we both see Dr. Cohen standing there tending to a patient. Looks like a pretty bad acid burn we've got there... Yep, this guy definitely has his hands full. Well, at least we get to do something fun. We had talked to that bitch Alestia Iallis before, and she kept on brushing us off every time we asked something. So, we went to Dr. Cohen instead. When we approach, he looks at us nervously.

"What? What do you want?" he asks, a little intimidated.

I raise my eyebrows. "Relax," I say, crossing my arms. "Captain Ventralis told us you could use a little help."

"Oh... the captain... of course..." says the doctor as he works away. "What did he tell you?"

"Well, he told us you needed help with some cure for a biotoxin," replies Garrus. "He didn't tell us any details, so I'm guessing you can tell us what to do with that?"

Zev nods and he gestures to the patients. "These patients are all ill with that biotoxin," he says. "There was... an accident. I have a non-disclosure agreement; I can't tell to anybody outside of the company."

Garrus gives me a brief glance. I shrug my shoulders. "Well, we could help you," I say, deciding to let him off the hook. "The details of the accident probably aren't too important at this time, but... we would like to help you out a bit."

Well, that, and because corporations can be full of scumbags. Clearly, the person running this lab was a scumbag, seeing as how they allowed for the rachni to come back and go all Alien on us. Damn, that was freaky. Of course, it'll also be fun, because then I get more ways to say 'corporations are evil'. People tend to think governments are corrupt and that corporations are the answer. And honestly, they forget that corporations are capable of the same corruption as governments. We are only human... er, sentient, after all...

Where was I? Oh yeah. Talking to Dr. Cohen.

"All right," he says. "We were working on a bioweapon. One that could affect a species. But there's no profit, so we were forced to adapt it so it could affect multiple species. And then Mira lost connection, and the quarantine failed..."

"So you didn't get a cure first?" asked Garrus, crossing his arms.

"No," replies Dr. Cohen. "We were in the final stages of synthesizing an antidote when the quarantine failed. We had to make sure it worked first."

I shrug at this, looking at the doctor as I spoke. "Well, I guess the details really aren't important," I say. "Since you were working on a cure, though, I wonder what happened to it?"

Dr. Cohen shakes his head. "I can't access the data for the cure," he says. "The data is in the quarantine labs. They were left there after the breach. And I can't access the quarantine labs right now."

I raise my eyebrows before Garrus speaks. "So, you would want us to enter the labs and get your data?" he asks.

"Something like that," replies Dr. Cohen. "Unless you have some degree in biochemistry?"

I shake my head. "No, I don't have that kind of expertise," I say.

"That said, though, there is more than one way to do that," adds Garrus. "If we kept communications up, then maybe we could let you know how your notes came up?"

The doctor looks around this work space, trying to find something that we could communicate with. When he comes up, he's holding a pair of (what are obviously vintage) communications devices at us. "Very well, then," he says. "I think the notes will be clear enough, but if that doesn't work I can always try to help you out with this."

"A vintage walkie-talkie, huh?" I ask as he hands me one of the devices. "I remember that one of my friends back on Earth used to have one of these. Fun times came about."

"I see," he says. "You'll need clearance afterwards, but since you seemed to have just arrived you should be fine."

"Okay," I say. "We'll do our best to help."

Dr. Cohen nods at us and smiles. "Good luck, and let me know when you are in the labs."

With this, I nod, and Garrus and I leave. As we go away, Garrus seems to look down at me.

"You like to talk a lot, don't you?" he asks.

I shrug. "More than I care to admit, I guess..." I reply. "Sometimes I run my mouth longer. You know how useless tangents are..."

Garrus in turn simply walks on. "Useless tangents, huh?" he asks.

"With a dash of absurdism thrown in," I reply. "You know how things are when people just run on and on in circles waiting for their turn to talk."

This confuses the turian, and he blinks uncertainly. "No I don't, apparently," he says. "Because I don't know what you're talking about."

Yep. "That's kind of the point," I reply.

This just confuses the turian more, such that he promptly decides to not bring that up again. We continue down, and we head over to the maintenance area from the med bay.

---

Well, that turian guard was a bit bitchy. Garrus complained about it when we went to the terminal. I looked to the desk where the notes laid, and I saw a few things scattered here and there. Huh. I was expecting paper for some reason. But then again, this is the future. I look down to the terminal, and check out the notes. Taking out the walkie-talkie, I press the button on it.

"All right, Dr. Cohen, we're here," I say. "You know, for there having been a problem where you had to leave it behind, it sure looks tidy."

There is a brief silence on the other end before the doctor replies back. "I see..." he says. "Have you found the notes?"

I look around, seeing some equations written in on a computer terminal. "Yeah, I have," I say. "Hm..." Well, I did enough chemistry out of high school anyway. So... yeah. We'll have to see what happens here. "Well, I don't have a biochemistry degree, but I do have knowledge of the elements, so... What compounds should I look out for?"

"Anything with nitrogen compounds should be fine," replies Dr. Cohen. "Keep an eye out for those notes. I would check out Phelps' notes most of all. I have a feeling he was on the right track with that."

"Phelps, got it," I say, and Garrus and I stand hunched over the terminal.

And then the two of us placed the walkie talkie on the table and worked through notes of biochemistry. It was neither of our strong suits, but Zev was super helpful. And eventually, we began to burn through the notes on the way to creating a cure. Garrus and I seemed to get more enlivened as we went on, and while the information was beginning to make my head hurt after a bit I can't say it wasn't fascinating. The turian did seem to have some insights, and there wer no major squabbles. There was a small disagreement, but... somehow, I managed to keep my temper in check. I can always do stuff later anyway. Especially when I get something I can cut through turian flesh with... Okay, that was dark. Garrus doesn't deserve that. And he can't, given that he survives a missile to the face...

And then, finally, we seem to have come to a solution. I do a couple more things on the terminal and I smile, proud of the results.

"I think we've got a match," says Garrus as we look at the terminal proudly.

"Excellent!" says Dr. Cohen "I can cure these patients... Thank you!"

"Save it for when we actually give you the cure," I reply with a shrug. "Glad we could help."

With this, I grab the walkie talkie, and turn around.

"Your mission ends here."

And there's Alesia, with about four geth. What are we but two guys, one of them who is inexperienced?

"Holy shit!" I say, quickly grabbing my assault rifle from where it stands on my armor. Garrus doesn't waste any time either, and he mimics the action almost to a T.

"You're a sleeper agent for Benezia, aren't you?" he asks, holding his assault rifle in front of him.

"Yes," she replies. "I was ordered to kill Shepard's team when I had the chance. That seems to have been made a little easier since she split her group up. And now, here you two are, in a lab very few people can get to."

With this, a biotic flare wraps around her body, and I suddenly feel myself get lifted off the floor. Oh, shit. No no no no no...

As I float in the air, Garrus helps and leaps behind cover. He takes fire at some of the geth, a few taking fire at my position. Fuck, shields depleting... The world's going upside down... Fuck...

Stay focused, Art. Just aim your assault rifle and--

Ow, fuck, my leg! Okay, my shields are dead. I'm fucked. Shit... Well, at least I won't have to wait until--

And I'm falling. I dodge a few bullets unintentionally at this, and then I fall on my stomach, my hands still hanging on to the assault rifle. Fuck, get up, get up!

I get up, ignoring the protest of my injured leg. Before Alesia can use biotics again, I've rushed at her and whacked her with the butt of my assault rifle. Stupidest move I could possibly do given how I have no shields at this point, but Garrus has taken down one of the geth by this time and there isn't really a very good place to find cover since the geth started moving around the room and hiding behind something won't matter. They're all concentrating on Garrus anyway, so I hope he has a plan to get out of that.

Me? Fuck the underlings. I'm going for the leader.

When she reels back, I grab my gun and fire at a very close range. She seems to be distracted as her shields go down, and this is enough. I take a brief moment to attempt to kick her, but before I'm able too I feel biotic force get applied. And then, I'm sent flying back, onto the desk on which Garrus, the doctor, and I developed the cure. I feel myself collide with something on the desk before I crash straight into something hard and metallic.

Huh, there was a geth right behind me. I'll take care of that. I lost a hold of my assault rifle somewhere along the line, so I grab the pistol and fire a few rounds into its mechanical head at near point blank range. Oh, boy... Ow, the terminal is hurting me...

I'm gonna be feeling that for a while, won't I? Shit...

I fire the rounds into the geth beneath me, and I hear it go through its automated self-deletion process before the light in its single eye dies.

I look back at Garrus, and I see that he wiped out the remaining two geth in the room. He's now trading fire with Alesia, and I decide that would be as good a time as any to try to get something on her.

That doesn't go too well. Ow, fuck. Ow ow ow ow ow...

She sees this, but this interrupts her fire with Garrus. He takes advantage of this and runs up to her, smashing her on the face with the assault rifle. He stands over her and fires a few more shots, and suddenly all is quiet in the laboratory. I can hear the sound of my own panting as the silence reigns out. Shit, how long did that firefight take? I don't know. But I'm definitely smarting from it.

A silence hangs in the air, and then Garrus turns to me. He walks over and bends down.

"Are you all right?" he asks.

"No." My reply is quick and abrupt. "Ah..." I stand up and put a hand to my back. "Oh, dear, I'm gonna be feeling that for a week."

"Bloody asari commandos," adds Garrus. "They can be dangerous, even for an experienced soldier. Luck is really on your side: lots of people die, and very few get out without scars when they encounter one of those things."

"I gather," I reply, activating my omni tool and applying medigel to myself. "Is the cure okay?"

Oh, that feels much better. I'm alive at last, and... I'm full of joy? Wait, why the... Swing your razor wide, Sweeney! Hold it to the skies! Freely flows the blood of those who moralize!

... Okay, my train of thought is really wierd. Back to my conversation with Garrus.

"Yeah, it's fine," he says.

Oh, that's much better. Hooray to medigel! I grab the walkie-talkie, feeling a little better. I press the button.

"Hey, Dr. Cohen," I ask. "Uh... About Alesia... did you notice anything odd about her?"

There is a silence before he replies. "Not that I would think..." he says. "Why?"

I glance at Garrus, and he simply nods. "She just tried to kill us," replies the turian. "She was a sleeper agent for Benezia."

"What...?" he asks. "But that... No... She was... No way... That can't be..."

I raise my eyebrow at this. "You're as surprised as we are, I see," I say.

"Yes," he replies. "She was stationed here a month ago by request of a donor to the labs."

I blink, not amused. "Let me guess," says Garrus, also clearly not amused. "Saren, the Specter."

"I think that was it," replies Dr. Cohen. "I don't really pay attention to that kind of thing, but... I remember the donor's name being something like that."

I shake my head. "Yeah," I say. "The cure's fine, though. We'll meet up in the med bay and give you the cure."

"Yes, of course," says Dr. Cohen. And with this, we stop the conversation as Garrus and I stand there.

I look at the turian, going down and picking up my assault rifle where it clattered when I lost my grip on it. "I dunno about you, but I've got a really bad feeling Shepard ran into the same kind of problem we did."

"I know the feeling," he says. "Let's just get back to Dr. Cohen and hope that Shepard is still alive."

I shake my head. "She's got Wrex and Ash," I say. "She'll still be ambushed, but she'll live." Besides, she isn't supposed to die until after Sovereign attacks the Citadel. And we've still got a long way to go before then.

"If you say so," says Garrus. "Come on. Let's get that cure to Dr. Cohen."

And without further ado, we leave the lab, taking note of the dead turian laying on the ground as we move through the lab with the cure.

---

When we head back to the tram station to meet up with Shepard, we're surprised by the sight of Captain Ventralis laying on the ground dead. I jump slightly at this, and then I see, Shepard, Wrex, and Ash all standing there with their weapons raised. As soon as they see us, though, they put the weapons down, and we both point to the captain.

"What happened?" I ask, gesturing. "I wouldn't think killing the only guy keeping these people safe would be warranted..."

"Bastard led us into a trap," replies Ash, shaking her head. "The hot labs were infested with rachni. I hope you guys had better luck."

Garrus and I look at each other, and I shrug. "The asari from the labs tried to kill us when we developed the cure," replies Garrus. "At least with that, we can be sure that Dr. Zev wasn't in with Benezia, as he was as surprised as we were."

"Yeah, bitch was an asari commando stationed here by Saren," I say, rubbing my back where I had collided into the terminal. "I'm gonna be feeling that damage for quite some time..."

"At least you're still alive," replies Wrex. "Do you guys have any idea where Benezia would be?"

I lift up the pass to the maintenance area that Dr. Cohen had given us. "Well, Dr. Cohen told us that the maintenance area would be the only place in the Rift Station where people could stay if they weren't anywhere else here," I say. "Maybe Benezia will be waiting for us there."

"I hope so," says Shepard. "I've had enough of searching this station for her."

I shake my head. It's apparent we all share this sentiment, and I hand her the device. She takes it, and nods.

"Come on," she says. "Let's go have a chat with Benezia."

And with this, we don't need anything more told us as we move into the maintenance area of the station.

---

We move through the maintenance corridors when we catch sight of something large. When we edge closer to it, we can see that it is a huge rachni in a tank. I tense at first, but seeing that it's trapped somewhere sets my mind at ease a little bit.

We move along, and then we see a woman at a control panel with an odd hat and a long black dress. The blue skin is kind of unmistakeable, even in this lighting. There she is! All right, we've found Benezia. Now it's time for the confrontation to occur!

"You do not know the privelege of being a mother," begins the matriarch without turning to face us. "There is power in creation. To shape a life. Turn it toward happiness or despair." She faces us, and I see the matriarch in... her glory, I guess. "Her children were to be ours. Raised to hunt, and slay Saren's enemies."

With this, she turns to us and advances. My grip steadies itself on my assault rifle, but even then I can't help the chill that runs down my spine. Wow, I never knew a woman with a ridiculous hat could be so damn intimidating. But then again, she is a matriarch, so she kind of does command a certain amount of respect. Shit...

"Have you faced an asari commando unit before?" she asks. Oh, fuck, I got my ass handed to me by one commando, I am not gonna look forward to an entire unit of these! "Few humans have."

Shepard shakes her head. "We don't have to fight," she says. "You can return to the Citadel with us."

Her reply is short, simple, and very to the point. "I think not."

Organ cluster much? Okay, either way that isn't a good thing. Her body lights up in a blue organic flare, and Shepard suddenly freezes in place. I grab my gun and run for cover very quickly next to Wrex. Ash and Garrus do the same as we both see an asari commando unit run out to greet us.

Oh, no, I'm not getting fucked over by you again! I come out of cover as soon as I see the commandos run out, and I fire away at the thing as Benezia walks back to her post. The commando takes aim at Shepard, but my bullets seem to surprise her as they deplete her shields. I see another commando rush towards us, her body flaring out.

And then I felt something nearly shove me away as our cover was blown away. I'm glad I'm extremely flexible, otherwise I'm sure my back would've snapped in half from the way it was bent over. Wrex took this time to fire at the commando I had surprised with a shotgun, tearing down what shields she had left. His attention turned to the othe commando as Garrus and Ash both loosed their fire on it. and I saw Shepard finally come out of her Benezi-induced freeze and she fires at the other commando.

As the first commando died, I turned my head and saw a third commando approach us. Taking my assault rifle, I fired at it briefly before I felt something like a punch to the stomach. Ow, fuck... I fall to the floor like a rag doll, and I know it's a biotic ability. Wrex thankfully is able to see this, and so he takes his attention to the commando as the second one falls thanks to Shepard. A few rounds of his shotgun are seen penetrating her shields, and then Garrus turns his attention to it one the commando that was on the bridge that Benezia was on and shoots at it. As it goes down, I feel well enough to stand back up, and I trade out my assault rifle for my pistol as we hear the doors open again.

And this time, it's an asari commando and two geth units. Wrex immediately goes after the commando, with Ash for support. I help Shepard and Garrus out with the geth. The geth go down rather easily, though, as I can see that they were clearly geth meant for long-range battle. My pistol and Garrus' assault rifle fire make short work of the one, while Shepard is able to disable one with a biotic attack that sends it hovering in the air. When I see this, I redirect my fire there and shoot at the geth until it seems to... uh... die. Whatever a sentient robot does when you put enough bullets into it.

We hear the doors whoosh open yet again after this, and then we see three geth units run at us. These are taken care of just as easily as everything else, especially since we don't have to deal with the biotic abilities of an asari commando. Again, I fired a few pistol shots at the geth, and checked on Wrex and Ash. They seemed to be doing fine, so I shot the other gth as Shepard did the same. When all is said and done, Wrex and Ash rejoin us and we nod to each other.

Right. Time to confront Benezia again.

We move up to the platform where the matriarch is standing. She seems to be fighting something. Pretty hard. But still, we're wary of what is going to happen next.

"This is not over," says the matriarch as we face her. "Saren is unstoppable. My mind is filled with his light. Everything is clear."

We look at each other and shrug as Shepard answers her. "The rachni didn't agree with you," she says. "Why should I?"

Benezia seems to be fighting something. "I will not betray him," she says. "You will.... You--..."

She grips the control panel in front of her as she speaks. And then, after a brief period of time I see her arms tremble. With a pat on the arm I point it out to Ash, who squints and then sees what I see.

"You must listen," says the asari when she turns to us again. Now her face is softer. More... motherly, I guess. "Saren still whispers in my mind. I can fight his compulsions. Briefly. But the indoctrination is strong."

Shepard is skeptical at this. "Why should I believe you?" she asks, more out of curiosity than anything.

Benezia's gaze seems to linger on my briefly, and it's only when she turns her attention back to Shepard that I feel her gaze on me. Why...? "I sealed a part of my mind away from the indoctrination. Saving it for a moment when I could help destroy him. It will not last long."

"So you could turn on us," replies Shepard.

"Yes," says Benezia. "But it would not be my will, Shepard." With this, she advances to us. "People are not themselves around Saren. You come to idolize him. Worship him. You would do anything for him. The key is Sovereign, his flagship. It is a dreadnought of considerable size and its power is extraordinary."

Our commander nods. "Sovereign's not like other ships," she says. "Where'd it come from?"

Benezia hesitates briefly before continuing. "I cannot say," she says. "The geth did not build it. Its technology is far more advanced than that of any known species. The longer you stay aboard, the more Saren's will seems correct. You sit at his feet and smile as his words pour into you. It is subtle at first. I thought I was strong enough to resist. Instead, I became a willing tool, eager to serve." She gazes at Shepard, and I can see that she is beginning to lose the fight with herself. "He sent me here to find the location of the Mu Relay. Its position was lost thousands of years ago."

The commander nods at this. "Someone on Noveria had it?" she asks.

Benezia nods. "Two thousand years ago, the rachni inhabited that region of our galaxy," she continues. "They discovered the relay. The rachni can share memories across generations. Queens inherit the knowledge of their mothers. I took the location of the relay from the queen's mind. I was not gentle."

"Why does Saren need the Mu relay?" asks Shepard.

"He believes it will lead him to the Conduit," replies Benezia. "I would tell you more if I could, but Saren did not share his counsel with me. I was merely a servant to his cause."

"You can still make it right," says Shepard. "Give me the information."

Benezia nods, a little doubtful. "I was not myself, but... I should have been stronger," she says.

She then walks towards Shepard, her face contorting into worry. "I transcribed the data to an OSD," she says, presenting something small to Shepard. "Take it. Please."

The commander moves up and takes the OSD from Benezia, who gazes down on us.

It's only then that someone other than the commander speaks. "Knowing where the relay is isn't enough," says Garrus. "We need to know where to go from there."

"Saren wouldn't tell me his destination," replies the matriarch. "But you must find out quickly. I tranmitted the coordinates to him before you arrived." Well, shitfucker.

"You have to stop--" she says, and I can see that her control is beginning to slip away. She makes it apparent as she walks away from us with her hands on her head. "I can't... His teeth are at my ear. You should... Uh... You should..."

Oh, dear, she's about to lose control of herself. Oh, no, that won't be very good.

But right when she's supposed to give in, I see a subtle hand motion, and then all seems to go eerily still around me. I look around, and I see that nobody is even breathing.

"Shepard?" I ask, looking up. "Shit, Shepard!"

"I do not have much time left," says Benezia, turning to me. "There is something I found on Saren's flagship. Something I must give you."

I look at the matriarch as I gesture to my squad. "Wait, you're telling me you just froze time?" I ask. "Just so I could talk to you?

Benezia nods, producing something odd from her dress. "It is vitally important that you get this," she says. "I... I had a vision when I touched it to give it to a man not of this universe."

Wait, what? No fucking way! She can't know... No way... There's no concievable...

"W-what?" I ask, the shock clear in my voice. "How the fuck did you--?"

"This... object that I am about to give you..." she says. "It has helped me seal the part of my mind I used to break free of his indoctrination. It helped me to find you. It is a good thing you were found before Saren could find you. If you appear in front of him, he will kill you without hesitation."

Well, there goes fighting Saren at the Citadel. Ah, well, I think I'll go and save the Council then. "Right," I say. "What... what did the vision say? "

"The vision told me that someday a man not of this universe would need to use it at the Citadel," she replies." For what, it would not say."

"Oh, dear," I say. "So you're telling me I'm some kind of chosen one?"

"Possibly," she says, presenting the object. "You must not show this to anyone. Take it with you everywhere you go. I gleaned that from this vision. And do not break it!"

I nod at this, and then I bend and take the object. It is an odd orange contraption that looks like one of those weights my grandfather would handle. It seems to have an ethereal glow about it, and it is something that molds perfectly into my hand. I nod at this, and then I store it in a pocket of my armor where I know it should be all right. I don't think I'll stay here with it. I might leave it somewhere in my room with a note so that someone can find it. Maybe that will work. I mean, Benezia is able to handle it, so why is it that one who is not from the Mass Effect universe has to handle it? I'd think it would be fine if someone else could handle it, anyhow. They'd know what to do with it. Me? I'm a fucking music student washed up in some video game. What the fuck can I do?

Well, there's no reason why I shouldn't just trust her word for now...

"I'll guard it well," I say as I feel Benezia begin to lose her battle. "By the way... Liara... She's with us now. So..."

Benezia nods. "Tell her... that... that I..." she says as I suddenly find myself step back. "That I am proud of her."

And then, I'm back in the position I was in before my talk with Benezia. Suddenly, I see movement from Shepard, and that's when I know that we're back in real time. She turns to the group, and her face is a scowl.

"... Die!" she says, her body flaring blue from biotics.

Okay, peace time is over. Her hand waves, and the doors open. All right, now we face the matriarch herself, plus everybody else.

I'm not taking any chances. I'm going for the underlings.

And that's what I do. Shepard, Wrex, and Garrus all go for the Matriarch herself while Ash and I clear out the underlings. The three of them manage to overpower Benezia as we take care of the asari commandos and the geth units, though, and so we know that Benezia is dying. I look back, thinking about her as others flood in. I take down a geth quickly, and then I turn to where Commander Shepard is against her cover.

"Shepard, I'm going to go see about Benezia," I say.

"She's all yours, soldier," she says.

I nod and run out of cover back to where Benezia was. Once there, I see that she has dragged herself so she sits propped against a computer. I quickly rush to her, and she sees me, her face a little more calm.

"I cannot go on," she says. "You will have to go on with your team."

I look down at her, checking my omni tool briefly. "Hang in there," I say, going through my omni tool. "I've got some spare medi-gel. Maybe I could--"

I feel her hand clasp down on my wrist. She shakes her head, and then she slowly pulls it away from my omni tool. "No," she says. "I can still hear Saren's voice. I will never be myself again."

I shake my head at this as I hear the sounds of gunfire cease behind me. "There has to be some way to break the indoctrination, Matriarch," I say. "There--"

"There is no cure for something against a ship with technology far superior to our own," she replies, shaking her head. "Let it be, child."

I would have protested, but we're talking about someone who's a thousand years old here. In her eyes, I'm still an infant. And she's dying, so...

I nod, swallowing a lump in my throat I didn't even realize was there. "All right," I say. "Requiescat in pace."

She sits, looking at me blankly as I offer a weak smile of comfort. I hear her mutter something about there being no light, and then her head falls onto her chest.

By this time, Shepard and the rest of the crew are standing over me, and I feel them looking down at the Matriarch. I bite my lower lip softly before I stand up, letting out a sigh as I turn to them.

"Shame," I say. "I wish there was something we could've done..."

Ash shrugs. "Hey, you win some, you lose some," she says.

I shrug simply, making no attempt to hide how I feel about Benezia. Damn, there's just something about experiencing everything in real life. In the game, I didn't really feel much for Benezia. She was only there for a few missions, she died, we saw her conversation with Saren, and... well, there's also the fact that her fight can be kind of disappointing if you bring a team full of biotics. But in real life... something about the whole thing was just much more moving. I guess it's because of the fact that I was the only company she had as she sat there dying and because she gave me... whatever the hell the thing she gave me is supposed to be. And also, because some things are just more damn depressing when you see them happen. I've never really seen a person die up close like that before. And then Benezia came along...

Shepard gives us a nod. "Come on," she says. "I've had enough of this place to last me three lifetimes."

I briefly notice an asari commando laying by the control panel that Benezia operated. I look at the devastation around me, and I feel a chill travel down my spine. Death is all around me... and it's kind of making me think again. I mean--

Wait, she's moving. Holy mother of fuck, she's moving.

Panicking, I point at the rising asari commando, and when the rest of the team turns around to look they look at the commander as she moves around. Shepard raises her weapon, her finger lightly gracing the trigger. When she stumbles around, we all suddenly hear a sound coming from the thing that is holding the Rachni Queen. We see something open in there, and then the commando stands in front of the tank after a bit of shuffling about. When she gets there, her eyes open, her pupils greatly dilated, and she's twitching all over the place.

Oh god. Zombie apocalypse, brought to you especially by a combination of the Rachni Queen and Ed Wood. It was unsettling enough in the game, but seeing it live... Shit... I don't have words to describe how fucking gross I feel...

"This one serves as our voice," says the asari slowly. I can swear I'm hearing it in whispers, too... Huh. "We cannot sing. Not in these low spaces. Your musics are colorless." Okay, this is very high octane nightmare fuel. She's twitching madly... it's so... gross! "Your way of communicating is strange. It does not color the air. When we speak, one moves all."

"This is going to be a fun conversation," says Wrex. I do a poor attempt to hide a snort at this, and I suddenly feel four pairs of eyes glare at me for maybe a split-second at the least before our attention is turned back to the... possessed zombie asari who's also a vegan by the looks of things.

"We are the mother," says the asari. "We sing for those left behind. The children you thought silenced."

Shepard walks forward so that he is behind the asari. She looks into the tank where the rachni queen is being held, and gazes at it. I cross my arms as I look at the zombie asari. And... oh God, it's still disgusting...

"We are rachni," she says as Shepard looks into the tank.

"How are you speaking through her?" asks Shepard to the rachni queen.

"Our kind sing through touchings of thought," replies the rachni queen. "We pluck the strings, and the other understands. She is weak to urging. She has colors we have no names for. But she is ending. Her music is bittersweet. It is beautiful."

"Yeah, uh... that tends to be a common trend with zombies, especially possessed ones," I point out.

The rachni queen ignores my comment and continues. "The children we birthed were stolen from us before they could learn to sing," it continues. "They are lost to silence." Here, her words started to seem more pleading to me. "End their suffering. They cannot be saved. They will only cause harm as they are."

Shepard comes back slowly as she turns to the asari. "I don't understand," she says. "Why are your children killing people?"

"These needlemen," replies the queen with a seeming trace of disdain somewhere in her voice. "They stole our eggs from us. They sought to turn our children into beasts of war. Claws with no songs of their own. Our elders are comfortable with silence. Children know only fear if no one sings to them. Fear has shattered their minds."

"That seems to make sense," says Garrus. "A baby left alone in a closet until he's sixteen won't be sane..."

"Especially big ones like those things," I add, shuddering visibly. Okay, really, I should shut up soon.

Shepard seems deep in thought for a few seconds, and then turns to the rachni queen. "If you are sure they can't be saved," she says.

"It is... lamentable," replies the rachni queen. "But necessary. Do what you must."

Bite on the lower lip, bite on the lower lip, bite on the lower lip... for porn!

"Before you deal with our children, we stand before you," says the queen, now becoming a little more imploring. "What will you sing? Will you release us? Are we to fade away once more?"

Oh, boy, that is a heavy question. Condemn it to genocide, or allow it to go free?

Wrex is the first one to speak. "There are acid tanks rigged on that thing," he says. "Set them off. Millions of my ancestors died to put these things down. Don't let them come back."

"I don't trust this thing," adds Ashley from behind me. "We know its kind are killers. I'm with Wrex on this one."

Garrus seems to disagree immediately. "If you kill her, you consign an entire race to death," he says. "We should let the Council decide her fate."

Fuck the Council; they'll just agree with Wrex and Ash. But whatever. I sit there, pondering what I'm going to add to all this.

"Well..." I begin. "It's not really my call to make, but we've consigned entire people to genocide plenty of times in our history. I've found it's always senseless no matter how you try to rationalize it. Let this one time be different, Shepard. Give them another chance."

All right, I think that'll work. It's true, first of all, and second of all it keeps the fact that we might need it all to sae ourselves from the Reapers a secret. And that is always a good thing. I'm getting pretty good at thinking of other ways to get stuff done.

The rachni queen speaks to us again. "Your companions hear the truth," she says. "You have the power to free us, or return our people to the silence of memory."

Shepard ponders her position breifly as she comes to stand in front of us again. After a minute or so, she comes with a question. "If I let you live, will you attack other races again?" she asks.

"No, we--" says the queen. Hm, is she uncertain of her wording? "I do not know what happened in the war. We only heard discordance, songs the color of oily shadows. We would seek a hidden place to teach our children harmony. If they understand, perhaps we would return."

Hm, that's a thought. We're left standing there in silence as Shepard ponders her next course of action. Finally, she begins to head over to the control panel, checking the interface to see what she could do.

"I won't destroy your entire race," he says. "You'll go free."

Aha, she saved the rachni! Now I don't feel like my voice is neglected! Yay!

"Are you stupid?" Wrex almost immediately intercuts. "Your people didn't fight these bastards, so maybe you don't get it!"

I shake my head. "We may not get it, but if we kill them off what does that make us?" I ask.

"Exactly," says Shepard. "I don't think we'll be any better if we simply let their entire race die."

Wrex seems put in a bitter mood by this. "Do what you want," he says. "My people will clean up this mess later, just like we did for the salarians."

The zombie asari stands there. "You will give us the chance to compose anew?" she asks. "We will remember. We will sing of your forgiveness to our children."

There is a slight silence before Wrex turns to us. "Great," he says simply. "Bugs are writing songs about you. Mark my words. You'll regret this."

I shrug at this. "I dunno, Wrex," I say. "In my experience, if you get a song written about you it's usually a really good thing."

Ash blinks at this before shaking her head. "You take things too literally."

Indeed I do. "Thanks," I say, smirking playfully. "It's one of my many specialties."

And then Shepard is at the control panel as the rachni queen's head darts around. She presses a few buttons on the interface, and then the tank gets lifted to a higher place. As the zombie asari finally drops dead and stops attempting to gross me out, we hear a door open. And then, the rachni queen disappears from our view slowly. I look at it with a smile on my face.

...

Damn it!

"You know what the worst part of all this is?" I ask.

"Not exactly," says Garrus. "What?"

"It's that there's no fucking incidental music for this!" I say, crossing my arms as I shake my head. "That would have made things so much more awesome!"

I hear Ash groan as Shepard shakes her head. "Maybe if something else happens," she says. "Right now, I'm concentrating on how we just did an entire race good."

"You'll regret this," repeats Wrex in a half-grumble.

"We'll see about that," I reply, crossing my arms. "Who knows? Maybe you won't have to clean up the mess at all. Only time will tell with that, I can tell you that much."

"That works the other way around too," replies Ash.

Garrus gives us all a look. "We'll see how things pan out," he says. "If anything, the Council will have the final word on this matter, so I'm content to wait around."

Shepard shrugs at this as she moves to leave. "Let's go," she says. "I've had enough of this place."

And this time, we leave the maintenance area, the tank empty and with me feeling pretty good about myself. We saved the rachni, so that's one more ally that we have against the Reapers. And since Shepard will likely be leading, that's an ensured alliance.

As we move along the corridors of Peak 15, I can't help but think about the object that Benezia gave me. What is it? Why is it that I can be the only one to handle it? Why must I carry it around at all times? Why was it specifically looking for people not of this universe? I've got a lot of questions about it right now. And I'm pretty sure I'll be out of here by the time some of them get answered.

Oh well. I probably shouldn't worry about it too much. Worrying won't really get me anywhere in this galaxy. I'll think about it if something incredibly odd happens. For now, I'm carrying it on me, but once Virmire comes around I'm leaving it on the Normandy for someone else to find. I mean, if Benezia could recieve visions from it, who is to say that nobody else can? I mean, they aren't matriarchs, so they wouldn't be able to tell what it means alone, but still, they should find it as useful as I do.

So that's what I'll do about that then. All right. It's time to leave this place behind.

It was inhospitable anyway.