Chapter Twelve
Calm Before the Storm
"Dust fills my eyes
Clouds roll by and I roll with them
Centuries cry
Orders fly and I fall again.
This world is spinning inside me
The whole world is spinning inside me
Every day sends future to past
Every step brings me closer to my last"
Dream Theater: "Pull Me Under"
SSV Normandy did not depart Feros right away.
Though their mission was complete - they had repelled the geth attack and discovered Saren's interest in the small seemingly unimportant colony - they had received a priority request from Alliance Command to remain on station until a relief vessel arrived.
The on-site assessor for Exo-Geni, Steven Jeong had not been wrong, a burst transmission from Dr. Elizabrth Baynham had been received by Colonial Affairs, detailing the highly illegal examination of the Thorian and the use of human beings as unwilling test subjects. It was only a matter of time before an ExoGeni team arrived to "purge" the planet. Her duties had included securing the ExoGeni building and locking out its system so Jeong couldn't purge the evidence it contained.
When the ExoGeni transport ship arrived, it was met at the beacon by the Alliance Cruiser Hyperion Bay, ordered to heave to and prepare to be boarded. The ExoGeni assessor on board was taken into custody and the ExoGeni Corporation was informed formally by the Citadel Council that their actions on the colony would be closely examined, as such there would be no purge.
In order to save face and prevent their dirty laundry from being aired in public, the corporation's board of directors pledged to fully fund the Feros colony as well as pay full restitution to the infected colonists, including the family of Fai Dan who had made the ultimate sacrifice to protect his people.
After Hyperion Bay escorted the ExoGeni vessel into orbit over Feros and took up station, the Normandy was cleared to depart.
Castle seemed distinctly uncomfortable while Lanie ran her battery of tests after the ground team had passed through full decontamination. Though spores from the Thorian had been detected in all four of them, since it's death they had been rendered inert and seemed to be responding to each of their immune systems - Especially Wrex's - who also grumbled the loudest.
Castle's examination was the most extensive by far, however, especially a brainwave and central nervous system battery under Captain Beckett's direct orders.
"Well?" Kate asked, when she stepped into Lanie's office after her tests were complete.
"He'll live," Lanie replied, giving Castle a warm smile and a flick on the cheek.
"What, no brain damage?" Kate asked with a mischievous smile more for Castle's benefit. In fact she had been greatly distressed, given how pale, dizzy and nauseous he had been after Shiala had given him the cipher.
"If he has some, it happened way before before last night and was probably self-inflicted," Lanie quipped, giving him a slight wink so he knew she wasn't making light of the toll the beacon and this new brain probe had taken on him. She tried to maintain a light bedside manner.
"Ahh, good times," Castle deadpanned. He knew Beckett was more worried about him than she let on, so he did what he always did, tried to bury his discomfort with humor. Both his and Lanie's attempts at it seemed to be receiving mixed results.
"How about your other patients, Lanie?" Kate asked. "How soon can I have my sensor specialist back at her post?"
"Officially?" Lanie replied, "I'm keeping her for observation for another twenty-four hours. Barring any unforeseen complications I will certify Chief Hastings as fit for duty after that."
Lanie nodded out the observation window to the bio bed where Tali lay, with Hastings seated next to her, quietly reading aloud from the most recent Richard Rodgers novel, Storm Fall.
"Off the record," Lanie noted almost solemnly, "I think she needs to be here when Tali wakes up - which should happen any time in the next few hours if my current medical scans are any indication. I don't think she'd be able to concentrate on her duties otherwise."
Shortly afterward, the meeting was called in the comm room again to discuss their findings, though nothing seemed remarkable about their encounter on Feros other than the cipher.
"You still look rather... pale, Mr. Castle, even for your species," Liara stated. "Are you suffering any ill effects from your merging with Shiala?"
"Receiving the Cipher shook me up a little, yeah," Castle replied.
"The joining can be... difficult for a being to handle the first time, and my mother's chief acolyte was not always the most gentle. I might be able to help you," she offered, noting Beckett's raised eyebrow, but plowing ahead nonetheless, "I am an expert on the Protheans, if I join my consciousness to yours, perhaps I can help you make some sense of it."
It was clear to everyone present after he paled a little more, that Castle wasn't terribly keen on the idea of another go-round of having his brain probed so soon after his experience with Shiala. Kate began to open her mouth to intervene, but he beat her to it.
"Okay..." he muttered gamely, sounding less than enthusiastic about it, but he had to know if what was in his head was going to be helpful, considering that Saren had too much of a head start already. "If you really think it will help."
Liara stood up and approached him, beckoning for him to stand as well. Kate gripped the arms of her chair till her knuckles began to turn white. She'd seen what Shiala's melding had done to him and was still quite wierded out at what the older asari had said to her immediately after.
"Relax, Rick," Liara whispered soothingly, her fingers caressing his face just before her biotics flared and her eyes went black. "Embrace eternity!"
Once again the vision snapped into frame in his mind, the same images, the same horrors, the same sense of dread and despair, but he understood what most of the voices were saying this time, giving him crucial context on what he saw that he'd lacked without the cipher.
Unlike the blinding overload when Shiala had slammed the cipher into his brain, the brush of Liara's mind merging with his was like a gentle caress. The light, soothing touch of her presence acted as a guide, bringing order and symmetry to the raging chaotic flood of information from the beacon.
He could feel from the voices in the vision that it was not just a warning about the reapers, but a cry in the dark seeking others of their kind, a notice that they were going to use the conduit to effect the outcome of "this cycle or the next." Telling them to come to... come to... something.
Something was missing. There was more to the message, they were certain, but the last part of it was just... gone. The information simply stopped like a comm message cut from the source. He could hear himself – or was it Liara? - swear in a language that was not his own.
Just after that thought floated up through their joined consciousnesses, Liara cut the connection. Her own mind overwhelmed by the flood of information from the beacon and it's sudden disjointed end, breaking the connection to spare her psyche – and Castle's – from further damage.
"That was... incredible!" Liara spluttered, clearly overwhelmed herself by the experience, "All this time... all my research... I'd never dreamed... I'm sorry. The images were just so vivid. I never imagined the experience would be so... intense!"
Kate was not exactly enthused by Liara's reaction to being merged with Castle's mind, which sounded more like the sort of things one would say after really good sex - 'or what a cosplaying fangirl at a Nebula 9 convention might say' her own traitorous mind supplied - which did nothing to soothe the rising torrent of jealousy raging through her, which she did her best to suppress as she waited for Liara to get to the fucking point already.
'God I hope I didn't say that out loud,' Kate thought to herself. She was almost relieved when Liara returned her attention to Castle... almost.
"You are remarkably strong willed, Chief Castle," Liara stated, which caught Kate's jealous bone once again. The young, introverted asari really had no clue how to interpret human social cues or she might have chosen her words more carefully, "what you have been through would have destroyed a lesser mind."
"Did you find anything?" Kate snapped - a little more testily than she would have liked - which brought Liara up short. She composed herself carefully before turning to face the captain's chair.
"The beacon on Eden Prime must have been badly damaged," Liara replied warily, after taking a moment to compose herself - sounding more like the professional archaeologist she was as opposed to the gushing fangirl she'd sounded like a moment before. "The data transferred into Chief Castle's mind is incomplete."
"Are you sure you didn't find some sort of clue or hint?" Castle asked, sounding so much like a lost little boy in his desperation for the vision to be worth the heavy price he'd paid for it that it tugged at Kate's heartstrings. "Any sort of chain of events to make the vision make sense?"
"Everything I saw, you already know," Liara replied, wishing she had more for him, but hoping to reassure him, nonetheless. "You were right about the Reapers - the Protheans were destroyed by a race of sentient machines they referred to by that name. That you were able to deduce even that much before receiving the cipher was nothing short of amazing. From what was there, it is clear that the Reapers, the Prothean extinction and the Conduit are connected somehow, but I was unable to see anything to help us find it."
"Where does that leave us?" Kate asked, still unsure if this line of inquiry would get them any closer to finding Saren and completing her mission.
"Saren must have access to the missing data," Liara added. "Perhaps he found another beacon, or it was damaged after he accessed it. If we can find the the missing data, I can..."
Liara was suddenly cut off by a wave of dizziness. She nearly swooned, but stayed on her feet with difficulty.
"I... I am sorry," Liara stuttered. The joining is... exhausting. I should go to my quarters... and lie down."
"Should I have Dr. Parrish look in on you?" Kate asked, genuinely concerned.
"That... shouldn't be necessary," Liara replied, "I just need some rest. I haven't joined minds with anyone in a very long time and never under such circumstances."
Kate nodded and Liara slipped quietly from the room, Esposito, trailing behind the young asari at a shake of Kate's head, to make sure she made it to her quarters safely.
"Captain, I sent the Feros report," XO Pressly stated over the intercom, "They are requesting that I patch them through to you."
"Make it so, Mr. Pressly," Kate replied.
"Aye, Captain," Pressly reported, "setting up the link now."
A few seconds later, holographic representations of the three members of the Council appeared in the center of the room.
"Captain," Asari Councilor Tevos stated without preamble, "ExoGeni should have told us about the Thorian, it would have made your job on Feros much easier. We will be looking more closely into their colony development projects in the future and the disposition of any colonists on their existing ones."
"Perhaps if they had been more forthcoming," Salarian Councilor Valern added, "you might have been able to capture it for further study instead of destroying it."
"ExoGeni was trying to study it and look how that turned out," Kate snapped. "The ones who survived may have congenital health problems for the rest of their lives."
"Perhaps it's for the best then," Tevos added, trying to keep the peace as best she could, "at least the colony was saved."
"Of course it was saved," Turian Councilor Sparatus spat, "Captain Beckett would go to any lengths to save a human colony."
"I never jeopardized the mission!" Kate snapped at him, and Tevos gave Sparatus an arched eyebrow that stated 'you're not helping' before he slapped his console in a huff and his hologram disappeared.
"That's good, Captain," Valern consoled, "stopping Saren is your primary goal, everything else is secondary."
"The Feros report was not the only reason we needed to speak with you, Captain Beckett," Tevos added, "we've received information which may be critical to your mission to track down Saren."
"I'll take all the help I can get," Kate replied diplomatically.
"We've received an urgent message from one of our infiltration regiments in the traverse," Valern stated.
"I'm listening," Kate urged.
"The Salarian Union's Special Tasks Group currently has several infiltration regiments scattered across the border regions between the Terminus Systems and Citadel Space," Valern continued. "This unit in particular was recently re-tasked to gather information on Saren's movements."
"What did they find?" Kate asked - her patience wearing thin - secretly wondering why Valern was being so circumspect about something that was supposed to be urgent.
"Unfortunately, the message we received was little more than static," Valern explained. "The infiltration team must not be able to set up proper interstellar comms, or possibly jammed at the source. However, it was on a channel reserved for mission-critical information, whatever they were trying to tell us, we know it was important."
The aging salarian paused for a moment to let that sink in before he continued.
"Considering your interest in Saren, we thought you might want to investigate this situation yourself. Their transmission originated on a planet in the Terminus Systems named Virmire. I would consider it a personal favor if you would find and recover our infiltration team if you can."
"I'll look into it," Kate deadpanned, trying to hide her enthusiasm that she had another investigative avenue to run down. Too much stress had already been placed on Castle's ability to parse the data jammed into his head by the beacon for her liking.
"The council prefers not to become personally involved in the specifics of Spectre activities, Captain," Tevos added. "We simply want you to be aware of your options, including Virmire. Good luck, Captain Beckett, we will keep you apprised if we learn anything more."
With that, the channel was cut at the source, leaving Kate to ponder what they had been told quietly for a moment, before she keyed the intercom.
"Mr. Pressly, set course for the Terminus Systems if you please, destination: Virmire. Place the IES system on standby and go to silent running as soon as we cross the border."
Down in the med-bay, Gunnery Chief Hastings was still quietly reading out loud next to Tali's bed.
"She stood there in stunned disbelief as the light in his eyes dimmed. He reached out for her and she took his hand, squeezing it for the very last time. She felt her heart stop a beat and in that moment, she knew he was gone. Darkness fell across the face of the city and across her face as well. 'Good ,' she thought, as the wind gathered up her hair, 'no one will see my tears.' "
"Oh... keelah...," Tali groaned as she stirred, and Ann was shocked for a moment, a smile slowly blooming on her face as the realization struck her.
"Doctor!" she shouted, "Doctor Parrish, she's awake!"
Before Lanie could arrive, Tali grabbed Hastings' arm.
"How does wind gather up hair anyway?" she whispered and Hastings laughed, it was something she'd always wondered herself.
**Author's Note: If anything happened to Tali, I'm pretty sure my fellow Mass Effect fans would line up to have me drawn and quartered. Not that I was ever planning to do anythng drastic. This chapter was originally supposed to be attacched to chapter 11, but it had a satisfactory conclusion, told what needed to be told and I figured 11K might be pushing it. So enjoy!