*~~*~~*
CITADEL- THE WARDS
FLUX
*~~*~~*
Flux had emptied down to the last few patrons. Derby and Wrex sat quietly together at a table, away from the bar. They had moved around the time Wrex had begun talking about Tali, as Derby had begun to sway from intoxication.
Two asari diplomats were on the dance floor, holding each other and swaying softly, even though the music had died about a half hour ago.
Upstairs, the Quasar machines were equally silent.
The blond, grizzled bartender appeared by the krogan's side. He wiped down the table they were at even though it was already clean. The human eyed the elcor, who was now resting on all fours, his head laying on the tabletop.
The bartender glanced at the krogan nervously. "You've got to get him out of here."
"I know that," Wrex replied gruffly.
"We close in fifteen minutes… last call was almost an hour ago."
Wrex turned to him. "Have you ever seen a man's arms ripped from their sockets?"
The blond man stopped wiping imaginary crumbs from the table.
Wrex held his gaze. "You seem interested to know what that looks like."
The barkeep withdrew his hand from the table quickly, leaving the white rag.
"Just take him away," the human said as he stalked off.
Wrex huffed and turned back to the elcor.
Derby's eyes rolled open.
"People just aren't as afraid as they used to be," Wrex told him glumly. "Damned genophage."
Derby's mouth worked slowly underneath his tired, inebriated features. "Com…compassionately; I am sorry, Urdoot. Your people deserve more fear and respect."
Wrex chuckled deeply. "I appreciate that, elcor. I think I'm going to have to take you away from here now."
The krogan rose from his seat, taking the rag from off the table and stooping down to place his hands on Derby's large abdomen.
"Inappropriate, uncontrollable amusement; Did-did I just called you 'Urdoot'?"
"Yeah, kid, you did."
"Awkward hilarity; I amused myself."
*~~*~~*
CITADEL
RESIDENTIAL SECTION
*~~*~~*
Wrex walked alongside the stumbling elcor, helping him to his four feet when he needed it.
Despite the late hour, the alleyways and corridors of the residential sector were brightly lit, almost cheerful in their sun-dappled appearance. The streets that had been reduced to rubble in the attack had been cordoned off with neon-colored cones and concrete barriers, makeshift canvas walls surrounding the worst of the damage. It was as though they were not only unsafe, but that the simple eyesore that resulted from their shattered appearance would've been such a hit to the morale of the Citadel population that the Council had decided to hide the destruction from plain view.
Every so often, Wrex caught glances of figures and shapes moving behind drawn shades and curtains, wary residents peeking out from the subjective safety of their homes to watch the krogan and the elcor slowly, determinedly make their way towards Derby's apartment.
Had he, in taking part of Shepard's crusade against Saren, helped save these people's lives?
As if reading his thoughts, Derby said slowly, "Amicably; I do not care…about the petty angst your compatriots might now wallow in, Urdnot. Nor does it matter, ultimately, if the turian attempts to harm the C-Sec officer, if he is as corrupt as you suggest. What matters is that, as a unit who did not always see eye to eye, you took it upon yourselves to save the future of countless lives."
Wrex couldn't think of anything to say to that.
For a while, the only sounds were that of the their feet on the pavement, Urdnot's heavy footfalls and Derby's ambling scrapes, and the ambience of the Citadel; transit cars whipping through the air far above them, the distant echo of rushing water, the automated weather system softly brushing wind through the planted trees that lined the streets and the occasional open apartment window, drapes fluttering and the unintelligible squawking of a vid-screen.
Then Derby said, "You are my hero, Urdnot Wrex."
A sudden rush of anger filled the krogan, a heavy menacing growl stuck in the back of his throat. His body tensed, his clawed hands in fists, talons digging into the soft, unprotected flesh of his palms.
The elcor was too drunk to notice.
"No," Wrex said, his wide lips drawing back in a grimace.
Derby shifted in his awkward shuffle to look the krogan in the face. "Bewilderment; what is wrong?"
Wrex stared straight ahead. "I don't think my point's struck home, Derby, but it's all right. We still have time for me to explain."
*~~*~~*
ALLIANCE ORBITAL MEDICAL STATION
34-B17
*~~*~~*
"We stole breaths of air before we were ever alive. First born on a battlefield, in a skirmish, on the streets of our homes, but first born with the taking of another life. Some of us came to it sooner than others, but ultimately we were all together, living because we killed. Living from the blood on our hands."
The hooded figure shook in her arms, unable to speak. Alice gripped the rubber medical tubing tighter. She had wrapped it around the intruder's neck, twisted it to cut off the air it tried to breathe.
The Spectre stood in the middle of the medroom, naked from the waist down, holding the smaller figure close to her, one arm around the waist, the other below the neck, between the intruder's breasts, a vice-like grip on the rubber.
Her face was cold, expressionless.
The female hidden amongst the brown garbs and shawl dropped the sharp object she'd been holding in her hand when she'd entered the room. It clattered to the floor, but Shepard didn't bother to glance at what it was.
The intruder's hands began to claw desperately at her own; soft, blue hands, with polished black nails that drew blood down her arms.
Shepard brushed her head against the brown hood the asari intruder wore and spoke softly; "I'm going to loosen my grip now, and you're going to be able to breathe again. You'll want to suck in as much air as you possibly can as fast as you can, but don't do that. The oxygen will all go rushing back to your head, you'll become feint and you'll pass out. And I need you to stay awake. So just…", the hands at her arms were beginning to lose their strength, "calmly and deeply," the figure started slump into her arms, "breathe."
She let go.
The asari crumpled to the floor, shaking, hands reflexively going to her throat. As she struggled to breathe on the floor, her hood fell back, revealing a face Shepard did not recognize, caught in a silent scream.
Eventually the asari began to cough, which was quickly followed by tortured, ragged breaths and more functional movement.
Shepard eyed her cautiously, as the strength returning to her body made her a viable threat once more. "There, that's good. Just keep breathing slowly."
The asari glared up at her through reddened eyes, her lips quivering with rage. "You…tried to kill me."
Shepard let out a sigh of relief and knelt on the floor next to her. "Well, from your righteous indignation I gather you weren't trying to kill me."
The asari continued to clutch her throat with one hand, just breathing through her nose now, nostrils flaring. She let out a forceful, "No."
"To be fair, I was strangling you. You probably would've passed out before you died, and I don't make a habit of killing people when they're unconscious."
"That doesn't make me feel any safer, Spectre."
Alice frowned. "I'm not trying to make you feel safe. I've been admitted here to securely recuperate, hidden amongst thousands of similar med stations with no special treatment, such as an armed guard that would naturally give away my location to anyone that might want to take me out in my weakened state."
"You don't seem that weak to me."
"Tell that to Councilor Anderson and the doctors. I sure as hell haven't been able to convince them. Are you good to stand up?"
The asari thought for a moment, glancing around the room from her position on the floor, then nodded.
Alice took her by the arm and lifted her up, attempting to keep her stable. "Anyway, I doubt you were granted access to this hall by the med station attendants, which means you must've snuck in. And that means you've got something to hide."
"Only a warning," the asari said, a hint of anger still in her voice. She bent down and snatched the object she'd been holding earlier from the floor.
Alice's brow furrowed. "Who are you, and who sent you?"
"My name is Thania Nuriah, and I have been sent by my teacher, Sha'ira, the asari con-"
"We've met," Alice stated simply, her eyes on the partially obscured object the asari held, "is that for me?"
"Yes," she said, presenting it to the Spectre. It was a model of some sort, wrapped in a dirty brown cloth that covered it except for its circular top. It was constructed of a metal that reflected the medroom's light in a green and bluish hue.
Alice took the model, unraveling the cloth as soon as she held it in her palm.
"Sha'ira would like to explain to you that she does not understand its significance, only that it means grave danger for many people."
The cloth removed, Alice stared at what she held in her hand; it was a model of a ship.
"What do you mean, 'she doesn't understand its significance?"
Thania tugged at her cloak and shawl, dragging the hood over her head and obscuring her face again. "She had a vision, Shepard. Of you and that ship, and of the millions dead in between."
Alice shook her head, confused. She turned the model over and over in her hands. "The build is unique, but the body type is definitely Alliance. I've never seen…no, this ship doesn't exist."
"Sha'ira must've built it wrong." She looked up at Thania.
Only she wasn't there. Shepard whirled around, turning a full three hundred and sixty degrees. She was alone.
Well, I'll give her that much, Shepard thought, her exit was better than her entrance.
*~~*~~*
THE FRIGATE 'BRISCO COUNTY'
*~~*~~*
"For some, it wasn't from a sense of duty or the thrill of peril or the need to feel the quickening of a heartbeat slip away beneath their fingers. It was just a means to an end. And when the end came, it was none too soon. It meant an open window of retreat, where the body could rest and the mind could mend the heart with hollow promises that one day, the pain of the memories of what they'd done would fade to black. And be nothing."
Tali laid amongst the rumpled cotton sheets in her quarters, her head propped up with one arm, her elbow digging into the springs beneath the surface of the uncomfortable human mattress the crew had supplied her with.
Her room was small and rectangular, containing no luxuries save the portable vid-screen on the desk across from her bed. The walls to either side of her ran the length of the bed and about three feet beyond, with just enough space between the edge of the bed and the door to set her bag.
Currently she had gripped a fold in the top-most sheet between her pointer finger and thumb, and was idly rubbing it back and forth, trying to come up with a way to recreate the sound of the Normandy's engine so that she could fall asleep.
She missed the Normandy, sure. It captivated her, every square inch of it, up until the moment she'd left. A part of her felt as though she needed the Normandy and its subtleties, it's narrow halls and softly blinking lights to feel complete.
But to have stayed would've meant that eventually, she'd be called again by Shepard to pick up a gun and point it at someone and pull the trigger if they tried pulling theirs. Staying would've meant the prospect of another battle, another war, another dead-.
Tali shook her head, and thought of the Flotilla. Of border hopping across the Verge and arguing with her cousins and friends over the worth of scrapped cargo left stranded in space by careless travelers, and months of endless required maintenance on engines and motors that purred sweet nothings to her as she graced the smallest parts of them with her delicate touch.
She wanted that life back.
She wanted to see her father, and to hear the sound of his voice again. She wanted to breathe clean air without the suit, keelah, she wanted out of the blasted suit!
To sleep in her own bed and eat things that made sense to her, to work on destroying the geth from a safe environment for once, to get Urdnot and Shepard and Garrus out of her head!
"Tali?"
"Garrus?" She sat up quickly, her voice curious and hopeful.
It was not Garrus. It was the second-in-command of the Brisco County, a human with a sandwich currently stuck in his mouth. He was standing in the doorway, staring at her, puzzled.
"No," he said finally, taking the sandwich in his hand and chewing on the part he'd bitten off. "It's Errikson…I'm jus' checkin' up on you, sweetness. You doin' okay?"
"Yes, thank you. I am fine."
Errikson wiped his mouth, his eyes wide and centered on her lower body. " Getting settled in alright?"
"I am, thank you." She pulled the top sheet over her legs.
"…you need anything?" He persisted.
"No, I am fine. Right now I am just thinking about home."
"Well, alright then. They did tell you it was going to be awhile, right? We ain't gonna be using the relays right now, princess, not while the Alliance is checking 'em out for any more possible fuck-ups."
"I am aware, Errikson. Right now I just wish to be with my thoughts, okay?"
He nodded congenially. "Sure-oh, one more thing. Captain wanted me to tell you to turn on the vids, 'parently something big is going down and he thought you might want to know."
Tali thanked him for the news. She did not turn on the vid-screen. When he'd gone, and the door had whistled shut, Tali laid back down on the bed, curled herself into a ball, and began to hum.
She hoped eventually it would start to seem like an engine.
Wrex lumbered faster now. Derby's house was just at the end of this street. The young researcher was tired and on the brink of passing out, his large body aching with drunken exhaustion, and even though Wrex knew what the elcor wanted to hear, he wasn't about to lie to him, to let this go.
Not after what Derby had said.
"You talk about 'heroes' because you're kind and weak and grateful to be alive, and you're looking for someone to thank and admire. Well here's the truth, kid; there are no heroes."
"Shepard's a good woman, and a better fighter, but she's just as messed up as the rest of us. She may not kill you to save herself, but she'd let you die to save ten people standing behind you. That's not being a hero, it's just basic economics. The more that survive, the more that rebuild and do better the next time. And she'll take any comfort she can get in the arms of that asari doctor, but eventually, she'll find a 'noble' reason to lose her too."
Shepard ran through the halls of the med station, dressed in sweats and a plain gray t-shirt, a look of barely controlled panic in her eyes. Liara had never come back, the nurses and doctors had all left their stations, and she was running out of places to look on the small, three story station.
She needed to find Liara desperately, and for the first time the pains and bruises on her body were starting to talk to her, to tell her stop, slow down, lie down, cease moving and let them rest.
But she couldn't stop.
She called out, "Liara?"
And silence answered.
Silence followed by a collective burst of angry, scared voices above her. On the third floor.
"Tali wanted to make her father proud and earn a place amongst her people, so she did something stupid, got in over her head and wound up with us, scared and struggling to survive, and if the galaxy got saved, well that was just great, as long as she was still in one piece to see it."
Tali finally slept, but in fits, tossing and turning. Images of explosions and gunfire, of torn, shattered corpses filled her mind's eye.
There were no dreams of home, of her father and friends, of engines and ships and sterile air.
There were only violent winter storms on barren planets with thresher maws swimming through the rocks beneath the surface, shaking the interior to the Mako, geth swarms firing at her from every corner, a crew of psychopaths with crazy eyes spinning in their heads, wide bloody smiles that wouldn't break, firearms chattering endlessly in their hands while Tali screamed and screamed for the noise to stop.
That night there were only the sounds of destruction for TaliZorah nar Rayya.
"Garrus? Shepard might've instilled some fancy notions of honor in his head, but he came along for the same reason I did. Cause he's a cold bastard, and seeing Saren dead was little more than a dream of pinning a flag on the peak of a mountain, a mountain built of the bodies of every single living, breathing son-of-a-bitch that got in our way. And now that the dream has become a reality and it's all over, Garrus is just waiting, biding his time until the next idiot steps out of line with an army at his back and says, 'Me first'."
Garrus walked out into the street, a fresh cigarette clipped in his left mandible. His feet clicked on the pavement as he turned and looked both ways.
Just two large, lone figures walking slowly at the far end of the street.
Garrus smiled grimly to himself and started to walk in the opposite direction. He retrieved a sodden hand towel from a back pocket in his suit and proceeded to wipe his hands of any remaining fluids.
By the time he reached the end of the path, Garrus spotted a transit cab sitting idly by an Avina kiosk. He stuffed the red-stained towel back into the pocket, careful to push the Palaven lighter to the side first, and sauntered towards the cab.
*~~*~~*
ARKHAM SPACE STATION
TRANSIT SYSTEM
*~~*~~*
"And Kaidan. Poor, ruined biotic with a broken heart and a big, fat chip on his shoulder. If there was one of us who was in it for the glory, the emotional spoils of it all, it was Kaidan. After seeing Shepard in action on Eden Prime, Kaidan must've dreamt of a hundred different happy endings he and his commander could've shared. You could see it in his face every time he looked at her. But in the end, Kaidan left empty handed, and Shepard thinks he just ran home to lick his wounded pride whole again."
Kaidan Alenko sat alone in a subway car, a brown paper bag filled with groceries beside him. It would be another twenty-five minutes until he got back to the temporary residence the Alliance had set up for him in the lower sector of the undermanned station.
The lights in the car flickered.
He sighed and rubbed at his temple, an expression of complete, absolute misery sweeping across his face.
"Please, not again."
Whatever he'd pleaded to didn't listen. The lights flickered again. This time, one of them popped in a shower of sparks at the far end of the cab.
"No, no, no…"
A sound, above him. Something was dribbling in the bulbs. The fluid was racing down the length of the fluorescent lights, and the color of the car he sat in began to change from a dull gray to a dark red.
"Truth is, Kaidan's deeper than that. And if the commander wasn't so short-sighted sometimes she'd see this, and she'd allow what he told the councilor to sink in. See, there's one member of the crew we haven't talked about. Cause when she sacrificed herself to save the rest of us, getting blown to bits while standing knee-deep in a tropical glade firing shots at every enemy in sight, she came the closest any of us probably ever will to becoming what you would call a hero. A brave, selfless act that could only end one way. And I just don't like to think about that. But Kaidan? He'll wallow in her violent end until there's nothing left of him."
Blood had begun to rain in the car as it rumbled down the circular track of the space station. It fell on his head, soaking his hair, staining his arms and legs red as he sat, trying to wish the sight away.
One of the windows at the far end cracked with such ferocity that Kaidan jumped out of his seat.
"This isn't real!" He shouted.
To his left, the grocery bag carrying the items he'd picked up at the station market began to float into the air. The bottom half of the bag was soaked through, and blood was pouring out of the bottom.
"Ah, Christ!"
Something outside of the subway car screamed, an unearthly howl like Kaidan had never heard before.
A vacuum-sealed bag of green beans floated out of the paper bag. It tore at the sides, and the contents exploded out onto the floor of the car, mixing in with the red water.
"Kaidan," a rasping voice to the right and behind him, "that's not our mess."
He whipped around.
Saren Arterius stood in the red glow of the middle of the shaking, bleeding car, and leered at him through a broken skull. "You're panicking, ruining perfectly good food."
A hand came down hard on his shoulder, and a feminine voice said, "You should really clean that up."
Kaidan shut his eyes and bit his lip hard enough to draw blood.
"Ashley."
"It's all bullshit, kid. We're all part of what's called the moral stasis. Good things happen, bad things happen. Time moves on, but really, there is no time. And maybe something really bad happens, and a lot of good, weak people like you get hurt. Maybe nobody saves you. Maybe we all die. But eventually, in this universe without the limits of something as trivial and pointless as time, life will begin again, and killers like me will breathe again, and in their lust for blood they'll wind up doing something good by killing something really, truly bad, because that's the best challenge there is. That's the best fight in the world, facing something you know is stronger than you are, and beating the shit out of it. And eventually, it'll all start over again.
"Cause there are no heroes, Derby. There are just weak, simple-minded people like you, and killers like me. And I just want to fight something that'll fight back, okay?"
They were at his apartment. On the steps. Wrex gave Derby a long, hard look, trying to see inside the elcor's head, to see if what he'd said had made any sense.
Derby raised one of his massive legs and rubbed it on the surface of the door. It beeped and clicked and beeped again. Then it opened in a rush of stale air.
Derby turned back to Wrex.
It was a moment before he said anything. "Deeply saddened; I comprehend your message to me, Urdnot Wrex. You truly believe what you say. And that is a great tragedy. With hope; you have a long road yet to travel in your life, as do I. Perhaps one day, you will come to understand why I hold you and the other crew members of the Normandy, alive and in death, in the highest regards. And, mildly irritated; I am weak in body and strength, Urdnot, but not in spirit. And despite your deeply rooted conviction to the contrary, neither are you. You are a hero. One day you will see that."
Derby entered his apartment slowly, and it shut behind him.
Wrex ground his teeth together, taking the rag from Flux out of his suit and throwing it in disgust onto Derby's front steps.
"If I'm such a hero, how did I know where you lived, you idiot."
He walked down the steps and started back in the direction he came from. Wrex slipped out a data pad and checked the time. "A complete waste."
A few minutes later, when Wrex had finally spotted a transit cab two blocks down, a mild explosion shook the ground beneath him. The planted trees lining the quaint, beautiful street suddenly showered him in leaves shaken loose from their branches.
He continued walking, even after the screams began.
The automated transit car was abysmally quiet on the ride back to the Tower.
She spotted Liara in the back of the crowded room, her hand over her mouth, her eyes glued to the vid-screen.
Alice shoved and pushed her way to the asari, placing a hand on her shoulder when she'd reached her.
Liara placed her own hand on Shepard's without looking back, interlocking their fingers.
"I couldn't find you any coffee." She said, dazed.
Alice stood next to her and finally caught a glimpse of what was on the screen. It took the breath out of her.
Every bruise and ache in her body disappeared. Sha'ira and her disciples were now a distant thought.
A female krogan's voice shouted through the vid-screen. "Our demands are simple. As are our methods."
Liara felt Alice's wet hand and glance back at her arms. "Goddess, Shepard. You're bleeding."
Shepard found her voice.
"We've got to get back to the Normandy. Now."
TBC
A/N Many thanks to Blackrain7557 for his reviews. They were very appreciated, and hopefully the longer chapters have been better. I've certainly enjoyed writing them more.
This is set to be a series of twelve episodes, this first being shorter in length than the ones to follow as I tested the waters of writing fanfic for the first time in a good long while.
Characters will not always get their own chapters as the storylines bleed together, and every character will probably not be featured in every episode, as following a static character with nothing to do for a while is a bit tedious for me as a writer, but each of the main characters does have an arch, and I hope people will enjoy following it as much as I dig writing it.
See you soon with Episode Two of Aconcagua Dawn.
themaninthealley sumter, sc december 01, 08