Enter the Reaper
He was the unseen, the silent blade. She was the protector, the shining lance.
Together, they will fight.
Right and wrong are more often shades of gray than black and white.
Can they change the fate of the galaxy?
Can they save each other?
It's morning on Kahje. Sunlight reaches to touch the spires of the Great Temple. It spreads, edging down the copper tiers like scintillating waterfalls. Sheets of sparkling rain surround and define the shell of energy circling the city. The music of the Encompassing thrums through the house.
No matter the number of years spent on other planets, on ships and stations, he still found himself waking when dawn came to the domed city on Kahje. It was his heart once. He did not think his body would draw breath long enough for him to see it again with living eyes. Perhaps his soul would return to the house where he and Irikah had dwelt once his body was given to the deeps. Her presence was almost tangible when his memories took him home.
Irikah?
Forgive yourself, Thane. I have returned to the sea.
I will never.
Do you wish to be alone all the days of your life?
If Kalihira is merciful, we will be together again soon.
No, my love. You will live, and find joy. It has already begun.
How can I...siha is not you.
One can love more than once in a lifetime, my darling. You must awaken again.
He sat up, blankets falling around him, confusion spinning through his mind. Since drell had perfect memories, they did not need the dream process to correlate information perceived by the senses. And although he prayed and meditated daily, he did not believe that the gods reached out to answer their followers in a direct fashion. Amonkira would quicken his feet; Arashu would defend the innocent; and Kalihira would take him when it was his time. They wouldn't bring him Irikah's spirit for a night's chat. It wasn't a dream, and couldn't be a vision. So from where had the exchange come? The question circled through his thoughts until he heard the first stirrings of the crew through the walls of his room.
His omnitool beeped with a shipwide announcement. Shepard was requesting the crew's presence in the Briefing Room. He dressed hurriedly, trying to bring his lurking unease under control. He wondered if he would get a chance to talk to Shepard about the...apparition, for lack of a better word. She often had insights that fascinated him and brought him comfort.
Deserted hallways and empty rooms. Bootsteps rang hollowly in the echoed gloom. Cold dead air pressed down on Thane's chest. "It's too quiet here." He glanced around at the great ship. "There should be movement, speech. There's only silence."
"Exploring an abandoned area, expecting something mechanical and nasty to jump out at any moment. Just like old times." Garrus quipped, trying to relieve some of the stifling tension.
Shepard rubbed her neck uneasily. "I can almost hear creepy music playing in the background."
"Me too." Garrus checked his shields in an unconscious signal of his anxiety. "I can practically taste the ambush."
"It is remarkably ambushlike, isn't it?," Shepard noted with forced casualness as she led the way into the research vessel.
An urgent message from The Illusive Man himself had sent them hurrying to the shell of an abandoned Reaper. They needed the Reaper IFF to trigger the Omega 4 relay, but more importantly, the research team investigating the derelict had stopped communicating, and true to form, Shepard had immediately set course for the derelict ship. They had boarded without trouble, advancing through the research stations until they reached the access hatch separating the personnel quarters from the physical Reaper. His instincts did not warn him in time to prevent Shepard from punching in the access code. The ship rumbled and buckled, throwing the three of them into each other. They had been expecting a trap, but the actual event was disquieting.
"So, ambush." Shepard hit the comm button on her helmet to patch her through to the Normandy. "Joker?"
"Sorry Commander. The Reaper put up some crazy kinetic barriers. I don't think we can get through from our side, even with our upgrades," came Joker's reply.
"Of course not. That would've been far too easy. We'll have to take down the barrier generators from in here, then. Any idea where they are?"
"At the moment of activation, I detected a heat spike in what is likely the wreck's mass effect core. Sending the coordinates now." EDI's schematics appeared above Shepard's omnitool. "Be advised," EDI continued, "This core is also maintaining the Reaper's altitude."
Thane examined the map carefully, taking note of the different routes to the generator. There were several blind corners that would require caution, but catwalks that the research team had built would give him a better field of view. If he could reach the walkways in time during an attack, it would give them a tactical advantage.
"So when we take the barriers down to escape, the wreck falls into the planet?" Shepard's question brought his attention back to focus on her.
"And then everyone dies, yeah I got it."
"If any helmsman can pull us off this thing before it reaches crush depth, it's you. We'll make a sweep for survivors and recover what data we can. Stand by."
"Aye Aye... Good hunting."
As they progressed through the ship, it became clear that the emanations from even an inert Reaper were enough to slowly twist a person's consciousness; indoctrinating them and corrupting them until they became no more than the mindless husks now loping toward them. Shepard had climbed onto a stack of crates out of immediate reach of the moaning creatures, and was slowing picking them off with her biotics. Garrus was standing with his back to the railing. His superior height and strength allowed him to knock back multiple husks at once, either breaking their necks instantly or giving him enough space to bring a volley of bullets to bear.
That left the scion to Thane.
He had to keep the creature's attention on himself. If it focused on the two trapped behind him, it would disrupt their defenses, make them easy prey. He would need to stay close to the creature, then. Fortunately, the scion was slow and clumsy, he was able to sidestep its shockwave with well-timed footwork. Each time it struck out, he took advantage of its recovery time to Warp down its armor. As he circled, he spotted a small gap in its upper carapace, where the head met the body. A weak point. Gathering his balance, he leaped onto the scion's back, shoved his gun into the crevice, and fired.
He released his hold on the scion as it collapsed, wiping the resulting slime off his leathers as well as he could. He checked on Shepard and Garrus to see that they had their situations well in hand. Garrus had just broken the neck of the last husk with the butt of his rifle; Shepard was crouched on her perch of crates, still limned in crackling indigo. It faded as he watched; when she noticed his glance, she thrust her thumbs high in the air. A victory gesture perhaps, Thane smiled to himself as he helped her climb down from the boxes. Her levity certainly brought him heart and encouragement, helping to counter the fatigue that was creeping through his limbs.
"Are you alright, Thane? That scion couldn't have been easy to take on alone."
"No worse than ever, siha. The beast may be sapient, but they are not intelligent. We should continue. This ship is an unpleasant place to linger." He mentally matched their position to the memory-map of the ship. "There is a large open area to our left. There may be survivors or terminals containing information. The most direct route to the Reaper core, however, is forward."
"Then we go left, of course."
Thane inclined his head. He had expected no less of her.
As they made their way to the left, Thane halted, thrusting out an arm to prevent Shepard and Garrus from continuing. Sour, sharp, primal, the scent was unmistakable. "There's been violence here. Death and darkness. We should proceed with caution."
A few steps more and the ship opened up before them. They were standing on a bridge that extended less than a third of the way over the chasm. Dozens of dull leaden spikes stretched toward the ceiling high above. The remains of several bodies were impaled on the razor edges, staining the tips with a matted brown, features twisted in agony.
"My god..." came Shepard's horrified whisper.
"We've seen these before, Shepard." Garrus reminded her. "Dragon's teeth your people called them. The geth used them on Eden Prime."
"There are tales of such things among my people. Devices buried on distant worlds that turned the finders into abominations. Stories that frightened children and dismayed adults."
Shepard visibly steeled herself to examine the cavern. "See how the room's arranged, they treated this thing like some kind of altar."
"It does look like that. But why would they want this to happen?" Garrus asked her.
"You heard the logs. They were seeing things, hearing things. They were being indoctrinated. We can't help these people now, but we won't let the machines use their corpses like this."
"Agreed. Let's get the IFF and get out of here."
"Behind you, Shepard!" Garrus' warning came out of nowhere as several husks pulled themselves up from the ground bare inches from their feet. Thane's instincts took over; his body interposed itself between Shepard and the nearest monstrosity, his fist already clenched, the knuckle extended. Bone cracked, and he shifted to the next target, only to see Shepard and Garrus staring behind him, the husks dead at their feet.
"Shepard-Commander."
That was not a voice that could come from any organic being. He followed Garrus and Shepard's line of sight to see tall mechanical shape. Where its head should be, a single lantern-like oblong was attached. Its arms and legs were formed of metal cords wrapped around a solid gleaming skeleton. Disconcertingly, its right shoulder and chest were covered with armor that matched what Shepard herself wore, down to the N7 sigils stamped across them. A large ragged chunk was missing from the chestpiece, showing the synthetic coils that formed its torso.
"A geth? A geth just saved us? And spoke to us?" Shepard's voice rang with shock.
"The geth was the sniper." That would explain the geth ship docked alongside the Reaper shell, Thane thought. But, "I thought geth didn't speak..."
"Since when do geth operate alone? They get smarter the more of them there are." Garrus sounded just as puzzled.
"I've killed hundreds of those things. I've never had one speak before. It went that way," Shepard gestured at the murky walkway. "What do you want to bet the IFF is in the same place?"
"No takers there, Shepard."
"The question we should be asking is whether it is friend, or foe."
"I guess we'll find out soon enough."
Finally, they had found the IFF. The discovery was almost anticlimactic. The device lay on a console in an abbreviated airlock, as if one of the scientists had been transporting it and had been overcome by an irresistible call. Some slight drag marks trailed from the console to the far set of doors.
"I'm...hearing that creepy music again, Shepard," Garrus commented. "Is the core on the other side of those doors? And what are those prints on the floor?"
"I think we're about to find out. Ready?"
They nodded.
A blast of chilly air greeted them as the portals drew aside. The Reaper core was indeed facing them; below it, manipulating a panel of indecipherable diagrams, was the geth. The shifting of position triggered something; while they watched, more groaning shapes ground out of the shadows. The geth anticipated the attack. It fired several quick shots into the approaching abominations before turning back to its work. As they neared, the embodied AI turned to face them, but additional veined atrocities rose up around it. Before it could react, they overwhelmed it, attacking until the geth shape collapsed under the mass of bodies.
Garrus pulled out his assault rifle. "You win the bet, Shepard. They were in the same place."
"You can pay me later, Garrus!" Shepard glared. "Any ideas on how to get to that 'later?'"
"We can section the sides, thin their numbers. The remainder will be forced to come at us from the front. The longer path will make them easy targets." Thane pointed, seeing that the animated bodies seemed reluctant to get too close to the pulsing power source.
"Good idea. Garrus, you cover the front."
"No problem, Commander."
Thane and Shepard went back to back, each of them facing a different side of the core room. He had accompanied her on nearly every mission, and particularly since Tuchanka, they had grown even more familiar with each other. The slightest shift of her balance, the tiniest change of her position, he was able to instantly match. They circled and spun in place. She sent out the elemental forces at her command, locking the twisted humanoids into place until he came about to face them, killing them with a blow or bullet to the neck or the head. He went for the killing hits, holding nothing back. There was a rightness to this battle such as he had never felt. He felt whole despite the danger to his body. Even as he kicked in the leg of another husk, he felt the harmony of their dance. Fatigue was washed away as his mind gloried in the physical challenge.
When it was over, when no more monstrosities circled around them, he found that he was clutching her hand in his. The same unity he had felt was reflected in her eyes-and Garrus was speaking.
"...two should really get a room. Seriously. I'm here too, you know. And I'd really like to make it back to my room at some point, preferably in one piece?"
Thane cleared his throat, dropping her hand in order to adjust his collar. Shepard seemed completely unfazed.
"Garrus, you have absolutely no understanding of the word tact, do you?"
"Sure I do. It means Take Away the Core There."
"That's t-a-t-c-t, not tact."
"Details. Are you going to blow the thing up or not?"
"Patience is another word you need to learn." Shepard pulled the M-920 Cain off her back, pointing it in more-or-less the correct direction. "You two should duck."
Thane and Garrus shared a glance, then they both dove behind the nearest piece of cover - the guardwall on either side of the console. The increasing shrill of the charge-up hit its peak and a colossal boom tore through the chamber. Thane gave it a good twenty count before he lifted his head to see Shepard reholstering her weapon. "I like this. No aiming necessary."
"Isn't that cheating?" Garrus asked, grinning.
"It's Shepard, she's allowed to cheat," Thane replied, getting back to his feet.
"Laugh it up you two. How about we get out of here before we go down with the ship? I don't really want to die twice in one decade."
"One moment, Shepard." Thane motioned to the mechanical corpse lying on the catwalk. "That geth - I think we should bring it. Its behavior was...strange."
"Leave it. We have enough trouble," disagreed Garrus. "The last thing we need is our own little Eden Prime on the Normandy!"
"Tali said no one's ever captured a geth intact."
"You know the risk, that's all I'm going to say!"
"There's no time for a debate, move out." Shepard motioned for Thane to take one side as they hoisted the geth onto their shoulders. One-handed, Thane worked to keep the recoil under control as the three of them fought to retrace their steps to the Normandy. Glaring brightness alternating with penumbral darkness and artificial neutrality flickered across his vision. The ship was disintegrating around them as it fell into the planetary atmosphere. The three of them were staggering from more than just turbulence when the Normandy finally came within sight.
"Joker, open the portside airlock!" Shepard's voice yelled over the comm band. Wildly, she started to swing the geth back and forth. "Throw it!"
They flung the machine through the air to tumble into the airlock. Garrus vaulted after it, landing safely within. Before Shepard and Thane could follow, the gap between the ships widened into a yawning gulf. Only the fact that they were high above the planet's center of gravity gave them any chance of making the jump safely.
"Are you with me, Thane?"
"I have faith, siha."
Hand in hand, they leapt into space.
A/N: There just wouldn't be enough room here to list all of the people who helped develop this chapter (kiwi, Pirate Rose, and more) and left feedback for improvements. Thank you, thank you all - NSAS, you know who you are!
lyssalu, this is for you!