Of Aliens and Men
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?
Thane let his eyes dart around the room, let them search and confirm what he already knew. There were no places to hide. If she were here, he would have seen her immediately. He staggered backward until his back hit the corridor wall and slid down until his head hit his strengthless knees. She was gone.
His long and successful career had been built on knowing what to do next, how to react in any situation and to react instantly without any doubts. They never schooled him on how to go on with only doubt whispering sibilantly his ear.
His head jerked up. Doubt couldn't produce actual sounds. Someone was trying to reach him through his earpiece.
"Thane?"
"Shepard?" Even as he called her name, he knew the voice was not hers. Disappointment filled him for a moment, but was rapidly replaced with incredulity as he voiced the name of the person on his com line. "Kasumi!"
"It's about time," came Kasumi's reply. "I've been trying to get through for ages. I think I know how to find Shepard!"
Questions fired through his mind like pistol shots-how had Kasumi found him? How did she know Shepard was missing? Why was she even here-but at those words, they were all pushed aside into a single demand. "Where is she?"
"She's close. I can walk you through it, but there are a lot of forces between you." For once, Kasumi sounded serious. Where normally she would toss in a joke or remark meant to puncture holes in her subject's ego, she now only had a deadly edge in her careful voice. "These guys play for keeps, Thane. You'd better be ready to do what it takes to get her back."
Thane kept his eyes closed. If there was anything he feared, it was the loss of self he had felt when he let his body's actions roam free from his conscious mind. It didn't matter. She needed him and he couldn't let her down.
"Guide me," he whispered to the guiding voice. "Show me where she is."
He stalked through the endless hallways. He could feel his impatience building in his chest, a burning that rivaled his lungs for pain.
"You're almost there. Just around the corner."
A crash sounded from ahead. he felt his frill expand to better gather the sound to his ear canals-
Fingers danced like the kisses of raindrops along his neck. Wide laughing eyes reflected from shining glass. I didn't realize they moved!
Velvet and silk-lips-pressed to a lobe.
He pushed the memory away and took a step around a corner an instant before his instincts screamed at him.
Thane threw himself back and felt something burn across the top of his head. He looked around to see a black metal strut embedded and quivering several inches into the wall behind him.
"Thane, what's going on?"
"There appears to be an altercation in the vicinity."
He peered around the corner again, allowing himself only an instant to memorize the scene before he ducked back into shelter. He evaluated the image in his memory.
The corridor terminated in what would-on an ordinary day-be another blank, unremarkable door. Today...
The black bud of a security camera lay broken and sparking against the left wall. One of the panels of the door was askew and prevented it from closing completely. Char marks covered the floor in streaks and blisters.
"What's going on over there? It sounds like a war zone!"
"I'll inform you as soon as I discover it for myself, Kasumi."
He prepared himself for a moment, feeling his muscles tense, ready to spring.
Kalihira, let me find whom I seek...
He let go of the tension all at once, and sprang around the corner. He took two running steps, then leaped into the air with his right leg extended.
He hit the broken door square on and felt it give way beneath his foot. He twisted, changing the trajectory of his momentum and planted his left foot solidly on the floor. His right foot followed, then the rest of his body, and he sprinted into cover behind a waist-high solid guardrail.
His view was of pure chaos.
Several bodies were flung every way around the chamber. Some were sprawled across the floor. One lay draped over the metal girders situated near the ceiling. In the center of the sphere of destruction stood Shepard. Her uniform was torn, armor was missing in several places, her pale skin showed streaks of blood and her face was smudged with soot and burns. But she was standing strongly and from her fingers flew bursts of power aimed at the two asari commandos that stood between him and her.
One held up a biotic shield that deflected Shepard's shots, sending them off to explode in all directions. The other, sheltered behind the first, took advantage of every pause in fire to send her own warp fields toward Shepard.
It was a testament to Shepard's strength that the asari's return blasts merely splashed harmlessly off of Shepard's shielding, but still, there were two of them and only one of her; they would eventually wear her down.
Despite his entrance, Shepard's attacks were loud and furious enough that he thus far remained undetected.
Placing each foot down with such care that not a single whisper of sound escaped, bent double to repeat the process with his hands, Thane inched his way closer to the asari commandos standing between him and his siha.
When he was close enough, he snapped his hands up and grasped the head of the crouched asari. The dull, muffled snap of her neck vibrated through his arms, but he had grown so used to the sensation that he disregarded it immediately. Before the shielding asari could turn more than an inch, his elbow had crushed her windpipe and she collapsed in a gurgle of purple-tinted blood.
When he turned toward his siha, Shepard had fallen to one knee but the blue glow of her shield remained bright. She had her eyes closed and her mouth had fallen slack; she did not seem to realize that her enemies were lying dead at her feet.
As he approached her, Shepard's eyes snapped open and focused directly on him. Her gaze locked on his and he felt her gaze both amazed at his presence and absolving him of the deaths he had just caused.
"Thane? You found me." Her voice was soft but strong, and she did not seem surprised to see him before her.
He smiled at her, touched by her confidence in him. "I will always find you, siha, no matter where you go. But you shouldn't force one of my condition to conduct such searches."
She rubbed her red-shot eyes and her hand trembled faintly. "I promise to do my best. But how did you find me?"
He brought up his omnitool in answer, and Kasumi's voice piped up. "Oh, finally remembered I was here? I was about to play some violin music!"
"Kasumi? What are you doing here?"
"You guys need to come up with a better 'Hello, thanks for saving me.' I'm playing matchmaker! Aren't you feeling romantic right about now? Seriously, though, you didn't think I'd drop a juicy chunk of information on you and not go along for the ride? I've been monitoring you since you landed."
"I guess I didn't think of that. Glad to hear your voice. Can you pinpoint our location?"
"How do you think I led Thane there? You're about twenty stories up at the top of a tower at the edge of the compound."
"Are there any other tall buildings nearby? Would the Normandy be able to do a pickup?" As Shepard shot off her questions, she approached the partially open door. Only one of the panels was still properly attached to its control circuits. The other, that he had slammed aside to enter the room, jutted out from its slot at a sharp angle with only a corner still attached to its slot. Too little remained unbent for them to pull it shut and there were no sufficiently sturdy crates to block the opening.
Kasumi's voice came back, sharp but puzzled. "There are four towers stationed around the perimeter. You're at the one farthest to planetary south. The others are positioned at the other compass points. There's plenty of room but where would she land?"
"Leave that to me. Can you patch me through?" Shepard turned away from the door and motioned for him to stand back as well.
"I think so. If I make an outgoing transmission and link it up...there!"
"Shepard to Normandy!"
"Commander? Is that you? Where have you been?" Joker's exclamation contained equal parts joy and frustration at her long silence.
"Sorry to worry you Joker, but I don't have time for explanations right now. Do you have a fix on my position?"
"Er...actually yeah. You just popped up on my screen, Commander. Thanks to Tali, we're close by. The whole squad's ready to extract you!"
"That might not be necessary. Do you remember when you wanted to level a hilltop with the Normandy's weapons to save yourself a drop?"
"Hey, it would have saved at least five minutes!"
"Right... Do you think you could manage that on something less geological?"
"Well...EDI and I will have to refine the targeting sensors...give me a minute."
Very faint in the distance, Thane detected the sounds of running boots and the babble of of comchatter. He held up three fingers to indicate his estimate of their remaining time.
"We're, uh, a little short on minutes here, Joker!"
"You can't rush genius, Commander! I'm coming in south-south-west. Watch your heads."
In front of them, a thirty foot section of ceiling-and-wall lit up with a brilliant flare of agonized metal. The flash rapidly faded to a precise line of light around the circumference of the distorted circle and a terrible groan rumbled through the room.
The entire superheated wedge of room trembled and slowly, vibrating in agony, slid off the rest of the building, exposing them to the open pearlescent sky.
He took a breath of the moisture laden jungle air. His relief at seeing the outside world again counterbalanced the pain that the wave of humidity caused him.
In the distance but rapidly approaching, the Normandy shone like a beacon in the gray sunlight. A few more seconds and as the sound of approaching guards grew closer, the Normandy reached the opening in the tower and hovered a few feet away. The portside airlock slid open and Tali stood beckoning to them.
Thane felt a surge of relief that she had managed to escape imprisonment. He would not have wished his latest few hours on anyone else. He reached out his hand and Shepard grasped it in her strong grip. Together, they ran for the airlock and hit the ramp just as additional mercenaries burst into their former prison.
The Normandy's hatch closed and he allowed himself to fall against the side of the airlock and take deep, full breaths of the Normandy's filtered air; a comfort after the sticky humidity of Invictus.
"Keelah, you're safe!" Tali said. "I should never have left you down there."
Shepard grasped Tali's hand in hers. "Tali, it's okay. You were obeying my orders, and I needed you to get away. The Normandy might have been too late if you hadn't warned them. And we couldn't risk the data." She released Tali's hand and rubbed her bad shoulder. The remnants of her armor creaked. "Listen, can you debrief me later? I'd like to get cleaned up."
"I...of course, Commander. We'll talk later." Tali strode off, but Thane could sense her confusion and concern. He hoped Shepard would have time to talk to Tali. From his observations, the near future held little chance for long conversations.
They proceeded to the Normandy's elevator together, but she sent him down to Life Support rather than having him accompany her to her quarters. She was planning to take a shower, and didn't want to subject his lungs to any more humidity.
The ride to her cabin was silent; they were both too weary to engage in conversation. But she rested her forehead on his shoulder and he cradled her head in his hand and knew that they did not need speech to communicate.
He missed her company on the short distance to his old quarters but he understood the need for periods of privacy. After sloughing off his soiled leathers, he wrapped a robe around himself and headed for the sonic cleaner in the male crew showers.
A short time later, he was clean, warmed and in the Conference room, listening to Shepard detail her side of their imprisonment.
"...and then Thane charged in and saved the day," Shepard finished up.
"I don't believe you are correct in that matter, siha. You had done most of the work before I arrived. And I would never have found you if Kasumi hadn't assisted." Thane gestured to the newly arrived thief who was leaning against the far wall with her arms crossed."
"Oh I think my memories are correct enough, Thane. But we're drifting off the subject here." She shook her head wryly. "So Tali, EDI...Kasumi," she paused her to shoot Kasumi an odd look, "What did we find down on that planet?"
After a nod from Kasumi and an affirmative blink from EDI, Tali began, "Actually, Commander, we managed to get quite a bit of data. Enough to tell us where to go next on this hunt of yours." Tali gestured with the datapad she held.
"Well, don't keep me in suspense." Shepard looked eager, and Thane felt himself lean forward. Would the tablet contain the long-hoped-for salvation for his species? Or would it be another dead end, like so many others had found before him?
"I think you'd better read it for yourself, Shepard. It's...well, here." Tali handed the datapad over to Shepard. Thane moved around the table so that they could both read what it contained.
Thane felt himself grow cold and still as the words scrolled by. He fought the dread that seeped up from his belly and threatened to curdle in his throat. Beside him, he could hear Shepard's faint, nearly-inaudible intake of breath and see her hands clench into white fists at her sides. If what he was reading was accurate, then that meant...
Shepard looked up at him with the same dread mirrored in her eyes.
"The Shadow Broker?"
A/N: So yeah... Been a while, hasn't it? Now that ME3 is about to be released, it seems to have gotten my creative juices going again! Hopefully, the next few chapters won't be so long delayed :D
Thanks to kiwibliss for proofreading, PirateRose for inspiring me and everyone for being so patient and tolerant!
I'd suggest going back to Chapter 20 and re-reading it for the context. It's been long enough that I sure wouldn't blame anyone for forgetting where we are!
3/18-Sorry I changed the title of the chapter in the listing, but not in the actual chapter text.