New chapter is up! As always, please review - it's my candy :). A huge thank you to icyfreezerpop for getting through the edits on this one so quickly! 3 her like whoa!
The entire ship was in a state of shock. Shepard had informed the rest of the crew about why there was a communications blackout. He also gave a simplified version of the events over the past few weeks.
John was lucky that his crew was just that: his crew. While some were understandably upset over being left in the dark, they all understood the Captain's desire for secrecy in regards to the situation.
What really shocked and appalled the crew was learning that Tali'Zorah vas Normandy had been the one to betray not only Aeryn, but Shepard as well.
The overall feeling was one of anger, betrayal and sadness. Tali had been well-liked amongst the crew and to learn that she could do this to their leader was an ill-sitting revelation.
Much of the crew could even understand the situation from Tali's angle. She and Garrus were dating when Aeryn resurfaced and it was hard to watch someone you loved leave. But even though the crew was used to seeing Tali and Garrus as a couple it didn't mean they liked it or were comfortable with it.
Too many who had witnessed the relationship from an outsiders' perspective could tell that Garrus' heart wasn't in the relationship, but he was giving it a good go. Donnely and Daniels had commented a few times that he seemed to be simply going through the motions.
However, while the idea of Tali and Garrus as a couple was unsettling to many at first, they had grown to be the second most recognizable couple on the Normandy.
During Aeryn's time on the Normandy much of the crew had grown accustomed to her and Garrus being a couple. A good couple. Almost the couple as they were more public with their romance than Shepard and Liara had been.
Tali's actions had not won her any sympathy.
No one had visited her.
She had been pestering EDI for hours trying to get some sort of access to something, anything.
She had threatened war with the quarians because she was being treated as a criminal. She knew it was a bluff, but she was desperate.
Garrus had said she was dead to him, but that couldn't be right. He had to have just been saying that to save face in front of Shepard.
Cortez and Vega had been less than gentle while depositing her in her holding cell and they had almost ripped her envirosuit while removing her omni-tool. She was going to file a complaint – if someone would just answer her damned calls!
Finally a figure appeared in the dark. She initially couldn't make out the shape of the person, but assumed it was Garrus.
Who else would want to visit her?
"Garrus! You came!"
She stood and immediate moved to the protective glass shielding and placed her hands on it.
"Say something!"
Out of the darkness the figure moved in to the light.
Not Garrus. It was James. Tali couldn't help the defeated posture that quickly overtook her. James stood a good foot away from the glass and crossed his arms while silently staring at the prisoner.
Tali started to fidget under his steady gaze and found herself getting irritated. Everyone on this ship was against her!
Sure, she'd tried to get the Captain's sister killed – but she wanted her goddamn turian! He was hers! She had spent her entire life in service of others and she has one, ONE, thing she coveted and she was going to have it!
No one could understand her. She was always expected to be perfect. Once, just once, she wanted to be selfish.
She stepped haughtily over to the bench in her cell and sat down regally. She wouldn't let this human judge her. He was just another Aeryn apologist.
James just stood and stared for a long time before clearing his throat. His tone was no longer kind or filled with humor like Tali had grown accustomed.
"After you're free of this ship know that you will be hunted by all that are friends of the Shepard family. You will have no safe haven in counsel space – nor on Omega. I may have let it leak to the bitch that you had a hand in this. Just a warning, amongst old friends."
He didn't wait to hear her response and simply turned and left. She wondered what all that pompous talk was about. No safe haven? She was an admiral of the quarian flotilla! She could go where she wanted.
Besides, John Shepard wouldn't kill her, even for this.
It started with a tingle in the back of her head. She wasn't sure she was really feeling it at first.
After a few nights, she found that she could move her fingers as she wanted. She kept that fact to herself and even endured hours of lecture, poking and prodding from the scientists.
All the while she twitched her finger. It was silly to be so excited over such a little thing, but every victory – however small, was still a victory.
Hector, the merc that was like her shadowy stalker, stayed in the room during her sessions. He was outside the door after she was washed and dressed. His room was adjacent to hers.
She hated his face. It wasn't a particularly bad face, but she was so tired of looking at it that she felt like carving his skin off with a butter knife.
She felt her lip twitch at the thought and quickly corrected herself. If the nanites were wearing out she didn't want to give any indication of it to the scientists.
Aeryn caught Hector staring at her, not that it was an unusual occurrence the way he was staring at her was abnormal.
Had he seen her lip twitch? Was he going to point out her lip twitch to the scientists?!
Panic quickly overcame her and in her movement-restricted predicament, her insides heaved in response.
She was careful not to allow any sort of sign pass that she was regaining marginal control of herself throughout the duration of the sessions.
She obediently moved to her sleeping quarters and laid down. She spent all of her alone time simply lying down since that is where the nanites were programed for her to be. She was like a goddamn video character – moved around the playable area until the player got tired and put them to "sleep" until they were ready to play again.
Mainly because the only time the nanites did something she wanted was when she had to go to the bathroom. Only. Freaking. Time.
Out of the corner of her eye, Aeryn caught the movement of something in the shadows. She was as helpless as a baby as she lay there on the bed, unable to move except to twitch her lips and fingers.
The tingling was getting stronger but she still didn't have any real functionality over herself.
The figure moved to tower above her and even in her dilapidated state she could tell that it was Hector.
He leaned over her, placing a hand above her head and the other on her stomach.
Thank god she was clothed!
He brought his lips to her cheek and slowly licked down to her neck.
"I saw your lip move in there… You have some control… Too bad it won't be enough to save you."
He dipped his hand on her lower, caressing her thigh. She wanted to puke.
She felt the tingling feeling heighten and it quickly turned into a soft buzzing. She was about to attempt a swing at Hector before the door opened again, alerting the two of them to an additional visitor.
Dr. Tolorin. The doctor looked none-to-pleased with the situation he found his project and her jailor in and quickly announced his displeasure.
"Mr. Morison, I have provided you with access to the asari and human whores you requested, I even found a turian whore for you to partake in. If I ever see you touching Project Alpha in such a manner again, without permission, I promise you that I will allow her to tear you limb from limb. Are we clear?"
Hector left her side with a grunt and grumble, letting his hand slide up her crotch before he moved away. He winked at her and simply walked out.
Dr. Tolorin didn't say anything else either before turning and leaving. She caught the lock on her door chime from green to red – at least he locked her in and others out.
Aeryn felt tears burning her eyes and eventually the tears dropped down her cheeks. She felt dirty and all he did was touch and insinuate.
She wanted to go home, to the Normandy.
The next day was a solo assignment. She shouldn't have been as pleased about it as she was, but she was away from Hector the Molester. She was a little over-proud of that nickname. She was deflecting with humor, as was her style.
Whoever she was going after was some salarian doctor. A rival to Tolorin. From what she over-heard, the galaxy wasn't losing some great humanitarian here but his work was valuable.
She hoped his assistant was as scientifically gifted.
She let her mind wander as she was let around via remote control towards her target. Apparently whoever was pulling her strings had a good map for the facility because she hadn't needed to really pay attention to shit since she had stepped off the shuttle.
She found her mind wandering to days long past. Towards passion and bed sheets. She let herself be enveloped by memories of her time on the Normandy during the war, to memories of moments and touches both in battle and outside.
A sound permeated her revelries, a simpering whiny noise. She found her focus returning to the world around her. She was holding a salarian by the neck with one hand and holding a pistol to his forehead with the other.
The diagnostic readings flashing across her helmet visor was showing that the salarian was highly distressed… Well she was about to kill him.
A shot and the sound of liquid echoed through the empty office. Ok, she wasn't about to kill him - she just had.
She felt her body start to move back towards the shuttle. She wondered if this is what drell assassins felt like. The body is the weapon of the hirer.
Garrus was anxious. Liara's plan was good and it had merit, but he was done with false hope and brief moments of happiness. He wanted his damned fiancé back!
Liara said that they had to knock Aeryn unconscious and get her back on the Normandy. Liara had some treatment that involved dialysis and some form of radio wave treatment that was above his head. The gist of it was that it would get the nanites to release from her muscles and move in to her bloodstream so that they could be filtered out.
He just hoped it would work.
He wasn't too keen on the idea of having to knock Aeryn out. Judging from their last encounter, they may accidentally kill her while trying to save her. The force required to knock her out would be massive.
He had found himself pacing his room and holding a set of her dog tags that she had given him before the final push towards the beam in London. He had put them away after her death, when he had decided to move on. Now he found himself clinging to them as a reminder that she was alive.
He had been dreaming about Aeryn non-stop since their last encounter. In every dream she died. In every dream he heard her heart-stopping cry as her ship was attacked.
He wasn't sleeping well.
They were getting close to the base and he had taken to wearing his armor on the ship, just to be ready.
They had switched bases after their first encounter, but EDI had been actively tracking their signal. She had managed to latch on during the last fight and was proactively leading them to Aeryn.
According to EDI, she had a good lead on Aeryn and said that she could guarantee that she would get the ship to their quarry.
He wasn't sure how, but he wasn't about to question it.
The one-hour call came over the com speaker and he made his way down to the shuttle bay. It was time to get Aeryn back.
He steeled himself against what he was probably going to have to do.
John was surprised to find so much of the crew ready to accompany this mission. Javik was there, uncalled, as was Kaiden, James, Garrus and Liara. He wished he still had Grunt or Wrex on his crew – but they were still busy repopulating the krogan home worlds.
EDI had said that she could not go on this mission due to some hardware maintenance with her portable body.
He didn't ask, EDI wouldn't tip the scales in the physical fight.
They all silently stepped on to the shuttle and sat in silence as they descended to the uninhabitable planet below.
A mass effect field was surrounding the base, allowing the inhabitants to survive despite the fact that the planet was a hot box. Outside the field the air was a solid 600 degrees.
The shuttle seamlessly went through the field.
It was too easy but John was prepared for the ease this time. They were going to bring out their big guns soon enough.
The shuttle landed and Aeryn stood shoulder to shoulder with Hector and the security team. They had been alerted the moment the Normandy started to orbit the planet.
She was beside herself with stress over this whole thing. She wanted to go back, needed to go back, but she didn't want to hurt any of her family. The Normandy was her family and everyone stepping off of the damned shuttle was someone that even if she didn't get along with them, were her family.
She didn't want to kill any of them.
She felt her breath hitch and it nearly stopped her in her tracks. She was controlling her own breathing? Since when?
The tingling was back, in force. She took an aggressive step forward, her muscles fighting the nanites by trying to hold her stock still while the nanites forced her muscles into submission.
She felt like crying out at the effort it took her to even slow her movement by a half of second, but she couldn't. The slight break in the nanite control wasn't enough, she wasn't stopping herself, and she was going to kill her family!
The tingling was quickly becoming a buzzing sound in her ears as she fought tooth and nail to stop herself.
Finally the buzzing was overriding all the other sounds in the room. At some point during her struggles the security force and Hector had started attacking the Normandy team. She had hardly noticed over the roaring noise taking over her senses.
The abruptly, it stopped. She had stopped.
To prove to herself that she had control, she lifted her hand in front of her face. It moved as she willed.
She found herself looking around to try and figure out what was going on. Was it a trick?
A curse-filled cry brought her back to the fight. She zeroed in on the source – Kaiden had been hit. Damnit, didn't the man know how to duck!?
Without a second thought she ran into the fray.
The security force and Hector were completely unprepared for the attack from behind and she managed to render them useless within a few minutes.
Hector; she left alive for a while longer.
She stood over him as he groaned and cowed, sliding away from her on the ground, his bullet addled legs unable to hold his weight.
She followed him slowly, never taking off her helmet. She may feel great satisfaction from this – but he didn't need to see it. This was her win, not his. He was merely a tool.
Once he was backed against a wall, she crouched down and ran her hand over his head, parting his hair. He said something, but she wasn't hearing him. This was her moment of revenge.
She gripped his forehead and thrust his skull into the metal wall with one quick, hard movement. She felt the bones crack under the force. This was her revenge.
She let go the moment she heard the last breath leave his body and she abruptly stood. Without a look to John and his crew she moved back down the hall. Back to the science facility.
John yelled something but all she could hear was the blood rushing through her veins. She was in control and there was no way she was going to let Tolorin leave alive.
John was busy trying to coordinate Kaiden to cover and keep an eye on Aeryn. She had somehow helped them, or Tolorin was cleaning house.
The way she had crushed the one man's skull was definitely not an Aeryn thing to do… Well, unless he had done something to her… John felt himself glaring at the corpse against the wall as he ordered Javik back with Kaiden and instructed his team to follow, at a distance, Aeryn through the facility.
Moving down the hallway, they all heard the screams of terror and pain as she progressed through the facility.
How had she gotten control back!?
He was feeling a bit underutilized.
Aeryn moved through the facility with calculated precision. She needed to kill Tolorin before he somehow fixed his bugs.
She wasn't even paying attention to the people she was killing, they all worked for him. No one was innocent here. Anyone who allowed this kind of depraved insanity to commence was not worthy of life.
She was feeling fairly fatalistic at this point.
She managed to get to the inner offices and the alarms blaring told her that Tolorin was aware that his pet had gotten lose.
She quickly assessed the situation. No way through the door. No other doors… Ventilation. Always the weakness.
She moved to an adjacent room and made quick work of the ventilation grate. She was going to kill this man even if she died in the process.
John had lost a visual on Aeryn. She was headed in to the center of the facility with a purpose he had never seen from her before.
They came to a hallway that branched in three directions, each ending at a door. The door in front had been permanently shut, the welds around the frame a dead giveaway.
She didn't go through there.
If this door was sealed like that, then this was more than likely the one Aeryn was going to. But how? He doubted that she was in there when it was sealed. Sealing a door like that would've taken some time and she wasn't through here even five minutes prior.
No, she would have gone another route.
He did not possess her skill at infiltration and decided his direct and loud approached was better.
He and his team placed chargers around the door to blow it. He just hoped no one important was close to the door when he set the detonator.
Well, anyone but Aeryn could be in front of it. Heck, it might knock her out and they could get her on the Normandy!
He and the remainder of his team moved to cover and he activated the detonator.
Aeryn didn't even flinch when the door went shooting across the room. She was currently choking Tolorin. She had read somewhere that choking was the most personal way to kill someone. This was a personal kill so it seemed an appropriate method.
Tolorin's face was quickly turning purple and she could feel his strength wan. He was gesticulating towards whoever had stepped through the door. Whoever? She knew who it was! It was her brother and his team.
She felt Tolorin's windpipe collapse and heard him gargle under her hands as blood started to pour down his throat.
She watched the life leave his bloodshot eyes before she dropped him to the ground, her breath coming in and out of her body in heaves.
She hadn't found the assistant yet, but a movement behind the desk caught her attention. John had moved closer to her, but she was a hunter zeroed in on her prey.
Behind the desk she found the little assistant aggressively working over a portable computer.
She was recalibrating… Aeryn. Damnit, the bitch was the string puller! Without thinking it through, Aeryn stomped on the computer.
The moment the computer died was the moment her body went tense then immediately limp. Her world went dark.
John was about to try and reign Aeryn in when she stomped on something behind the desk. Garrus cried out as Aeryn collapsed like a rag doll, rushing to her side. John was quick on Garrus' heels as was the rest of the team.
Behind the desk was a woman, clearly surprised to see John and a very worried turian.
Garrus was yelling at the woman, asking what happened. She mentioned something about activating a fail-safe and turning Aeryn "off".
Liara stepped in, suggesting that they take the woman and Aeryn back to the Normandy before any reinforcements showed up.
John grabbed the woman, recognizing her as being the other scientist in the warehouse during their first encounter with "project alpha". She could be useful in restoring Aeryn to her old self, if she wasn't already dead.
He passed the woman off to James and signaled for the team to move out, moving over to Garrus who was now cradling Aeryn to his body. He looked reverent and almost broken- it moved John.
He softly placed his hand on Garrus' shoulder to get his attention.
"Is she alive?"
God that was such a horrible question to have to ask! He wanted to throw up the moment the words left his lips.
Garrus nodded harshly and stood, still cradling her carefully.
"Yes, she seems to just be asleep... But there's blood coming from her nose and ears."
John wasn't a medical professional, but he knew that blood coming from the ears was not a good sign.
He and Garrus made eye contact and nodded in unison. Sometimes words were not needed and they needed to get Aeryn into the med bay as soon as possible.
Liara and Chakwas had been working diligently over Aeryn for three days. Aeryn hadn't shown any signs of waking up.
The captured doctor, Doctor Ephrat, had been invaluable in getting the nanites out of Aeryn's body. She had altered them from her original design so that they could be applied quickly; an unintended side effect of that was that they could be removed as quickly.
It still required a complete scrub of Aeryn's blood and that required time.
The coma that Aeryn found herself in was more of a mystery. Even Dr. Ephrat couldn't really explain it. The nanites were programed to put Aeryn to sleep should a certain signal be given out and Ephrat had been trying to send the signal prior to Aeryn's appearance in the office, unsuccessfully.
It wasn't until Aeryn had stomped on the computer that the signal had gone through and that was relatively unexplainable.
She said that based on Aeryn's brainwave patterns that she should awake "when she's ready".
Liara thought it seemed kind of like bullshit, but she had no other ideas. Chakwas seemed to buy the explanation as well.
Aeryn was lying in the med bay, hooked up to monitoring machines, but she was breathing on her own.
Garrus had set up an ever-present vigil next to Aeryn and Liara, while thinking it was sweet, was getting tired of his constant questions over the poking and prodding of the one he was protecting.
Liara had given up for the evening and was going to meet with John to discuss what to do with their two prisoners.
Liara had to admit that she kind of liked his plan to simply drop them off on Omega and let Aria try and exact her own revenge. Darius was apparently itching to get a hand on either woman as well… Though it didn't seem exactly moralistic. Not that Liara found herself particularly moral these days, she did feel that, for Tali at least, some morality was necessary.
Dr. Ephrat was on her own, however.
Liara got to John's cabin only to find it empty. Well this was an unusual occurrence, he had messages waiting on his terminal!
"EDI, where is John?"
She might as well save herself the search and waited while the AI scanned the ship.
"It appears that Shepard, Vega, Cortez and Joker are in the war room discussing what to do with Ms. Zorah and Ms. Ephrat."
Liara was not about to miss out on participating in this conversation!
She rushed out of the cabin and back to the elevator.
These decisions were giving John a headache. He had told the Admiralty Board that he was going to be dropping Tali off on a planetary colony near Omega and they were planning on picking her up from there – with apologies for what she had done.
Well he wasn't feeling very pragmatic about the situation so their apologies felt hollow. He wasn't sure if he hoped they got there before Aria's people or not.
Dr. Ephrat was a different can of worms. He had called Hackett on that decision. They were going to hand her over to an Alliance prison transport. It seemed too good for her, but she did help get the nanites out of Aeryn – not that she had much of a choice.
Liara entered just as John was explaining to James and Cortez about the transfers.
"I want to make especially sure that Tali has no access to ship systems, even after she's off of the ship. We will not be returning her omni-tool, she can find a new one."
Liara nodded as she sat next to him, apparently pleased that they were not executing the quarian themselves.
"Dr. Ephrat is another situation. She is going to be with us while we jump to the Armstrong Nebula and meet a transport in the Vamshi system. There we will transfer her to Alliance control and they will… Do whatever they do with criminals of these types."
Both James and Cortez voiced their dissatisfaction with this plan, it didn't seem like justice to them. She would probably be given a pardon due to her scientific abilities.
John couldn't argue against their feelings, as they mimicked his own.
"I know, I know, but there's nothing we can really do about it. We are an Alliance vessel and subject to Alliance regulations. James, as you transfer her over, make sure to inform her that she is marked by us, 'case she gets free. I won't give her a second chance should she get the opportunity."
That seemed to placate them enough that they agreed. After the logistics were hashed out, he dismissed the meeting and found himself leaning in to Liara.
"I have my sister back, but I feel like I'm still fighting for her… Has she woken up yet?"
Liara shook her head, running her fingers through his hair.
"No, no changes, but Chakwas doesn't seem concerned. She said that there are signs that when the nanites put her to sleep that it was via an abrupt electrical shock. She said that it isn't uncommon for someone receiving a shock like that to be in a coma for a few days while their body 'resets'."
John nodded and kissed Liara's cheek. He was getting too old for this.
Taking her hand, he led her out of the war room and back up to their cabin.
Garrus had fallen asleep next to Aeryn's bed, his head resting on her mattress. He was still holding her hand.
In such a position it was difficult to actually fall fully in to sleep. The chairs were big, but made for their frames which were considerably smaller and compact. He was aware of the beep of the machines and the hum of the ship.
He realized he must be in a half dream, because he felt five fingers brushing over his forehead, fringe and cowl.
It was such a soothing movement that he felt himself relax more than he had in what felt like months.
Eventually the hand stopped and he found himself waking from the lack of contact. It took him a moment to realize that Aeryn was looking at him, a soft amused smile moving her lips.
He wanted to speak, but not for the first time in her presence he found himself speechless. Instead he pulled her into his lap and just held her. Her arms wrapped around his neck as she held him right back.
His heart finally felt like it could beat in a normal rhythm again.