Author's note: This chapter was long overdue for a re-write My goal in writing this fiction isn't to cover again every bit of gunplay in the game. So where I've left things unchanged, I've jumped around a bit, referencing the events that happened.
Shepard watched the silent planet below from behind Joker's chair. Feros, the dead planet-city spread out before the Normandy, running silent.
"There's definitely Geth ships down there." Flight Lieutenant Moreau's eyes never left his interface as the Normandy smoothly banked into geosynchronous orbit over the Zhu's Hope corporate colony. "Sensors are picking up both small arms and shipboard fire around the colony."
"They've been here for three days. I'm surprised the colony has managed to hold out his long." Something tugged at Shepard's operational intuition. While he'd been on the wrong side of long odds before and come out on top, there wasn't any discernible reason a civilian-corporate colony on a world they knew little about would be able to hold out against the relentless networked assault of the Geth.
"Yeah, yeah, endurance of the human spirit, shining exemplars, credit to our race yada yada." Joker said
Shepard frowned "All that applied to Eden Prime. Urban combat aside, there's no reason for them to have done better here. Is the landing dock at Zhu's Hope clear?"
"No. For us? Maybe." Joker said, smoothly maneuvering the Normandy towards Atmo.
"Take us in, Joker."
Shepard gave orders for the marine contingent to suit up, and motioned to his auxiliaries – Kaidan, Ashley, Wrex, Garrus, and Tali – to suit up as well. He'd had time to start drilling them to work as at team. This would be their first time working as a team, not an ad-hoc collection on the Citadel. Shepard told them as much, and that he expected they would follow his lead. Garrus nodded seriously. Wrex stared him down. Shepard didn't blink until Wrex shrugged and looked away.
The landing was smooth, despite Joker's ambivalence. The marine continent deployed first, rolling off of the ship and setting up on the dock. Shepard and his squad carefully walked off next, weapons up in the cracked and overgrown ship dock.
A single colonist, I dirt-stained clothes and a smudged face of desperate gratitude, ran down the hallway. "Thank goodness you're here-" He coughed as a spray of bullets lit up his back, and then fell still.
Shepard's forces responded with lethal skill. The Geth moved with reckless abandon, sending three waves at them. The platforms did not stick to cover, but marched right up the crossfire the Normandy's Marines and Shepard's Auxiliaries constructed. Only the strange, hopping platforms that stuck to the ceilings attempted any form of tactics, and those Kaidan and Shepard pulled from their perches.
Finally, things went quiet. Ashley closed in to blast the last Geth Destroyer in the head. Still dripping white fluid, and it keeled over. Tali stood over the shattered remains of another of the platforms, rocking backward and forward on her toes. An expression of Quarian thoughtfulness, according to Eraj Enola, a salarian xeno-behaviorist and one of Bau's assigned readings.
"These Geth attacked the colony without much tactical thought." Tali noted. She looked down at the platform in front of her, then back up to the squad. "Part of what makes them deadly is their utter relentlessness combined with instantaneous communication between members of ground squads. It's... unlike them to throw platforms away like this."
"It would explain how the colony's held out this long." Shepard said grimly, slinging his assault rifle over his shoulder as he motioned his squad to move out. He had the marine contingent hold the docking bay for the moment. They scrambled to fortify their position with the detritus that remained from the crumbling ruins of the green-tinged and overgrown city.
Half an hour's investigation later and Shepard still didn't have the answers he wanted. Fai Dan, despite his eerie popularity, only took pains to hide his truculence. Attuned as Shepard was to body language and nonverbals, the presentation of Fai Dan and Arcelia thoroughly confused him. They both appeared to be nonverbally pleading and hostile, uncertain and rigid.
Shepard was pleased with the way his team had worked together to break the next wave of Geth attacking the colony. After he forced the Geth juggernaut to slip off the top of the tower, get perforated by bullets on the way down, and smash into pieces at the bottom, he paused his team.
"I think before we head on to ExoGeni HQ we need some answers. We're going to the sewers."
"Sewers on a Prothean colony. Bad old smells and bad new smells." Ashley shook her head. "You certainly take us to exotic places commander."
Wrex turned slowly to look at the Commander. "How will they learn to survive if they need you for such tasks?" His words were deliberate, charged, but he kept his body language intentionally non-hostile.
Shepard walked to the moss-covered railing, made of the same grey composite that the still-standing prothean structures were. "Their survival is no metric to their strength, now. Survival only sorts the weak from the strong in a closed system. Now? Our lack of intervention will only tell us who can hide the best."
Shepard looked at the krogan once more, and was surprised to find a deep consideration in the red eyes. Wrex tightened his grip on his shotgun, twisting his hands on the grip slightly, but said nothing more, and fell in behind Shepard as his team descended the staircases towards the sewers below.
The sewer's echoed with gunfire, as the Normandy's multi-species irregular fireteam swept down the ancient tunnels. In truth, it was difficult to tell if sewers had been their primary function. Certain features aligned: working water pipes dripped into dirty, verdant pools of long-stagnant water, strange smells, both alien and familiar wafted over them at unexpected times. But they also passed what looked to be a long-abandoned shift office, and at the switchboards, Tali was able to easily re-route the water back towards Zhu's Hope.
More geth came around the corner. More gunplay, and the Normandy team stormed forward, leaping ancient trash and newer detritus. Shepard motioned, and Kaidan flanked while Wrex leaped ahead. Their biotic attacks all connected in a knot of geth, rending gravity and pulling apart the Geth, hoppers, juggernauts and all, before they could properly deploy.
Not that they used tactics here. There was something very wrong with this world if the Geth – a networked intelligence, didn't use that network to its advantage.
A transmitter tower stood in the corner of the room they had cleared, clearly of Geth origin but strangely patchwork in its outermost layers. Shepard motioned to Tali and Kaidan, who pulled out their omni-tools to examine it while Garrus, Ashley, Wrex and himself covered the entrances.
"Fascinating. Shepard, the geth are taking orders. Look!" Tali showed her interface to Kaidan, who looked perplexed. There's even a spot here for data entry into the consensus – where someone could actually interface with the Geth and send them orders."
"Is that why they're acting like battle mechs?" Shepard asked, taking a moment to look at his combat engineers.
"Shepard, the Geth are a software consensus of individual programs. They're a true AI. They made the choice to do this. Here, this input panel?" Tali waved vaguely at the console.
"It doesn't connect to Geth server, where all their programs are backed up. This comm tower just sends simple signals - data that could be ignored by the consensus. But it isn't being ignored." Tali bounced forward on her toes, thoughtful.
"Then who's giving the orders?" Kaidan asked, waving his omni-tool over the odd-looking device.
"Saren?" Garrus asked, giving the scene a sweeping look, as if searching for clues. Given his decidedly non-standard issue visor, Shepard thought he might actually have been.
"Contact!" Ashley yelled, and the team dived for cover. Two Krogan roared and marched slowly in, back to back, shotguns firing at the team. Kaidan spun out from behind the transmitter and launched a tech mine in their direction, as Ashley and Garrus put a sniper round each in the pair of Krogan. They roared, orange blood gouting from the faceplate of one, and the shoulder of the other. Tali made a motion with her omni-tool, and the servos on their armor whined and then froze, making their smooth forward motion into a jerky marionette-march. Wrex roared back, and flared blue and charged. He zigged and zagged, dodging shotgun blasts, then slammed a fist into each Krogan's face. There was a grisly crunch and two enormous thuds as they landed on their backs, ruined faces up to the air. He put three shotgun blasts in each, one for each heart.
"They don't smell right." He rumbled. Shepard always found Wrex hard to read, but he thought he caught a glimpse of seething rage beneath the surface.
"Why let the Krogan give commands?" Garrus asked, shipping his sniper and pulling out his assault rifle.
Tali looked back at the transmitter but didn't answer.
Finally, Shepard asked ""Can you use it Tali?" he motioned to the tower. The quarian shook her head.
"It's interesting, but not noteworthy enough to be worth saving."
Shepard nodded, attached a grenade to the machine, and they exited the room.
They exited the sewers after a conversation with one Ian Newstead. More than half-crazed, but Shepard felt his conversation made the most sense of any he'd had with a Zhu's Hope resident. The team was largely silent as the emerged from the sewers, carrying varren carcasses and having successfully restored utilities to the colony.
Kaidan raised his voice just as they were nearing the last stairwell. "Shepard, I took some scans of Newstead as he was talking." He shook his head. "That rasping he was doing – well, it's more a miracle he could breathe at all. My omnitool said he had almost totally occluded bronchioles." Kaidan looked up from his scans. "Shepard, he shouldn't have been able to breathe at all."
Shepard's thoughts raced. "Everyone assume hazard level 5, switch to breathers." There came an audible series of clicks and hisses as the team's helmets hermetically sealed.
"No telling if his breathing issues came from something in the air or from a specific source. We stay sealed until we know more. Kaidan, task the hardsuit computers to run medical diagnostics to see if we've been infected."
Silence reigned in the tunnel as the squad waited. "No more than trace amounts." Kaidan said. "Decontamination should deal with any infections."
"Still. Makes you wonder – the "Master's whip" – these are organic particles, Shepard."
"You think they might be exerting some sort of influence over Mr. Newstead?" Garrus asked, putting the pieces together.
"Hard to say." Kaidan said. "Seems crazy. Possible it's pain-induced psychosis too."
Shepard grunted. "Whatever it is, stay frosty everyone."
Ashely audibly cycled her shotgun. "Yes sir."
The colonists showed the barest gratitude, and answered no questions. Nor did they ask why the team now had their equipment sealed. Leaving the humid and hostile town center behind, Shepard radioed the marine contingent and had them seal up their suits as well. Shepard turned the problem of the colony over and over in his mind, as the team climbed into the colonists' Mako, which had been garishly covered in ExoGeni's corporate branding. The system's check revealed the colonists had kept the vehicle in reasonably good condition.
It was a precaution whose reasoning became abundantly clear as the all-terrain vehicle roared from the garage onto the skyways of Feros. The setting sun splashed a dull, angry light across the pitted and faded, but still strong material of the Prothean skyways.
They had all of three minutes to enjoy the view before Shepard found himself scrambling for every ounce of territory on the skyway and putting the Corporate export-version Mako through its paces. He found himself really missing the extra armor plating and shield cycling that came standard on Alliance-issue.
"ARMATURE" Garrus roared from the gun turret. A breathless moment as Shepard gunned the mass effect thrusters, leaving the skyway behind as the phasic cannon shot of the Armature's turret screamed beneath them. The Mako rocked backwards as Garrus placed a critical shot as the tank landed, shearing the armature's support struts from its body, and sending the whole thing tumbling over the edge of the crowded skyway.
"Nice shot." Wrex reluctantly admitted.
"I was aiming for its head. Need to get this thing calibrated." Garrus muttered.
"Tell me what I need to know or I'll blast your virtual ass into actual dust!"
"There is a queue forming behind you."
"Huh?"
Shepard and company lit the Krogan up. Impressively, the geth-armored hulk managed to charge to within a handsbreadth of Shepard, who placed a warp in one of his eyes, before he fell to the ground, head and chest caved in by the onslaught of the Normandy fireteam.
"Welcome Researcher Lizbeth Baynham."
Shepard motioned to Tali, who opened her omni-tool and began using handshake packet the VI sent to re-state the log-in credentials to attempt to gain access to the larger internal network.
"Tell me about Zhu's Hope."
The squad listened in growing horror as the VI blandly explained about Species 37 – a plant-like life-form which fed on the protheans as they lived and took over Feros, which had now begun to wake and take over the colonists of Zhu's hope, through tiny aerosolized particulates which somehow maintained connection to the central nervous system of the species. Shepard grimly remembered Ian Newstead.
"I'm in Shepard." Tali's voice lacked the usual triumphant lilt it carried after a successful infiltration.
"ExoGeni root access granted." The VI's pleasant human exterior dissolved into a menu screen, and Tali quickly took over, hands blurring over the haptic interface.
"Shepard, ExoGeni knew about the Thorian before they began colonization adverts. They've also sent samples of "macro-scale creepers" offworld for future study, and have partnered with a "Cerberus Group" to actualize the findings. They are interested in the apparently instant communication between the centralized processing and its thralls."
Shepard saw Garrus in particular look disturbed. Shepard opened his own omni-tool and held it out to Tali, who transferred the files and root access to him.
"How is Saren connected?"
"It looks like his investment group bought a voting share of ExoGeni around 6 months ago. That was at the time of the discovery of the Eden Prime Beacon."
"Contact!" Wrex grunted as he discharged his shotgun, shredding the geth juggernaut who took point on the squad presumably sent to investigate the intrusion into ExoGeni's networks.
Shepard and his team moved through the building – already crumbling from 50,000 years of neglect, now under assault from the Geth, both physically and internally. The drop ship's insect-like claws sheared through the resilient material the Protheans left behind, while the wires and organic-looking interface matrices the geth set up seemed to convert the space to some sort of hive. Thick black smoke clung to the ceilings and walls as chemical fires burned from the clash of the geth and the buildings former inhabitants. Shepard was glad he'd had the foresight to insist on fully-sealed hardsuits for the ground team.
Carefully fighting their way through the building, they grabbed what scraps the could – Gavin Hossle's OSD, scraps of locally-save data from terminals along the way, and images of the curious shrine the Geth had set up in the shadow of one of the drop-ships' claws.
Removing the ship, and its associated power conduits, took a little more effort. Tali was the first to recognize the unique opportunity to climb aboard a Geth drop-ship to work the controls from the inside. Because the Geth still had a modicum of individuality, Tali was convinced there would be a terminal they could interface with – evidenced by the workstations set up just beneath the claws. Secured by a length of thin auxiliary cords, Shepard and Tali climbed inside the ship, body cameras on. The experience was utterly eerie, ast he walls and ceilings of the ship twisted and turned at odd angles, not made with organics in mind. The dropship, while large enough to carry a company and a half of geth soldiers, did not have the size to be labyrinthine. Tali and Shepard found their way to the pilot interface quickly. Tali hesitated at the interface.
"I don't think there's any way to save the ship." She said.
Shepard half-laughed, impressed with the quarian's ability to maintain her ambition in the midst of a war-zone. "I'll be satisfied if we can get it to disconnect and fall. But yes, it would be quite the pilgrimage gift.
"If only there was time!" She paced, then shook her head. "I have to focus on the mission." Her omni-tool flared, and she began moving quickly through the motions.
"There's so much to study here." She half-growled in frustration. "Shepard, unless I'm mistaken, their interface is the exact same set-up as 300 years ago."
Shepard leaned in, fascinated. "Perhaps it's a relic of no longer needing to allow organic pilots, newly revived with respect to the krogan - same as with the transmitter tower in the sewers?" He asked.
"Maybe. But this link doesn't interface with the collective in the same way. It's just, available." Tali shook her head – a sign of deep perturbance in quarrian culture, if Shepard recalled his studies correctly. "That means the operation to power down the ship completely should be… Here!"
The screen flashed white three times, then the ship interior went completely dark, the dim glow from internal plasma power source disappearing. There came an ominous creaking, and the sound of the claws violently detaching from the side of the building. Shepard felt the cords begin to tighten, but too slowly. Moving without thinking, he physically picked Tali up and used his biotics to throw themselves forward, towards the open hatch as floor shifted beneath them and the ship began to tilt outward, gravity reasserting itself on the dropship. Seeing the light begin to shift, and calculating the angle, Shepard physically tossed Tali, and lightly pushed her, the arc of the throw making her land hard, but safely, on the floor of the building. Shepard leaped out of the hatch himself, but the angle was now too steep. A frozen moment in the air, before gravity reasserted itself – and Shepard and Garrus locked eyes, Garrus holding Shepard's makeshift rope in his hands, before Shepard began falling. The rope went taut, and Shepard's hardsuit slammed into the building.
"Got you, Commander." He heard Garrus say, as he felt the cords begin hauling himself back up.
The team took a breather, standing over the grim tableau at Zhu's Hope. Acid and splattered plant matter coated the walls of the pre-fabs and work areas. Unconscious, but still breathing, colonists lay scattered about amidst their erstwhile green allies. All save Fai Dan. Shepard had charmed Ken Jeong into doubling down on Feros after returning Lizbeth to her mother; but for the first time Shepard was glad of the man's mile-wide cowardly streak that kept from getting close to Species 37.
Kaidan moved his omni-tool a fractional degree, inspecting a bad tear in Ashley's suit. One of the creepers had slashed her, managing to slice right where a colonist's bullet had broken through the Chief's shields. Shepard had ordered the squad not to fire on the mind-controlled civilians. Creeping guilt worked its way up his neck as he stared at the wound.
"How are you feeling Chief?" he asked softly, wanting to give the stubborn woman a chance to respond without the whole team listening.
"Suit will self-seal in under a minute sir." She said tightly. "I'll be right as rain."
"The wound's not deep sir." Kaidan closed his omni-tool.
"The nanites won't create a thick layer." Shepard said. He looked intensely at Ashley. "You're a hell of a soldier, Williams. I need your professional assessment, no ego. Will you be able to avoid further breaches in the lair and source of mind-controlling pollen particulates?"
Ashley closed her eyes and leaned back, hand instinctively covering the thin layer where her suit had patched the scrape.
"There may be some particulates in your bloodstream already from the laceration." Kaidan said, equally quietly.
Ashley's shoulders slumped. "No sir. Can't guarantee it'll hold in all the CQC coming." She sighed. "Let me stand rearguard at least."
Shepard nodded, recognizing how hard the decision had been for her. "Granted, Gunnery Chief."
He motioned to the squad. "Lieutenant Alenko and the Chief will watch our backs here. Let's move people."
Damp pervaded the place. Even the prothean-grey walls glistened with a strange yellow-black sheen, as plant life took over more and more of the hallway. It wasn't long before the squad was forced to step on the inky-red growths that coated the ground, the walls, and the ceilings.
They traveled downward for some time, the lights on their weapons piercing the warm gloom. The squad was silent the eerie atmosphere, feeling of stepping inside of a beast, and omni-present aerosolized danger weighing on everyone's nerves.
Finally they stepped into an atrium, where sunlight peeked through the roof, and beheld the Thorian at the center of its might.
"We're gonna need a bigger gun."
"The Old Growth sees the air you push as lies! It will listen no more!" The green asari, only recently born of the slavering maw of the Thorian, glowed with a biotic light as it both confirmed Saren's successful interest and attempted to end ours.
"Then the cold ones come and attempt to destroy me. I am done bargaining with my prey." The green asari lunges forward, a biotic field forming in her hands. Wrex and Shepard hit her at the same time with a push. The fields interacted and doubled, tearing the clone in half and sending the two separate pieces to opposite ends of the column-chamber in which the Thorian hung.
"We're doing this the hard way, then." Shepard said. This day might just never end. Creaks and moans came from the floors, covered in the creeping tendrils of the Thorian's growths. Human-like forms stood, sharp claws and bleak, blank faces giving a concerted effort at horrific sound as they attempted to enact the great plant-life's anger. Shepards squad tightened, and moved slowly. Shepard and Wrex focused on crowd control, their biotics limiting the hordes, while Garrus and Tali blasted all who got close. They backed their way up the stairs. On instinct, and in anger, Shepard threw a shearing warp at a particularly fleshy buttress of Thorian-matter that clung to the wall above them. He was rewarded by a roar from the life-form and the writhing of the individual vines that coated the space. Several slapped ineffectually at Shepard's hardsuit.
"Target the nodes!"
The ancient being proved a slog of a fight. Thick waves of creepers, vomiting acid and moaning in mockery of life rushed them, attempting to tear at them through their sealed hardsuits, as they systematically destroyed its major supports on the wall.
By the time they reached the top and the last node, all are scratched, bleeding and burned (from changing out near-ignited heat-sinks).
Tali tiredly panted,"I never thought I would hate a plant this much."
Garrus laughs. Wrex fired his shotgun, obliterating a creeper that had snuck up behind the panting group. He laughed, a note of exhilaration in the sound. "Reminds me of Tuchanka!"
"Tuchankan plants fight back?" Garrus asked, incredulous.
He set a mine, blowing a hole in the approaching thorian group as the team retreated up the stairway.
"Just the good ones!" Wrex roared and then broke ranks to charge into the advancing crowd, pushing 5 creepers into the massive thorian.
Shepard, already tired beyond the fey levity of the non-humans, looked over his shoulder, and noted the last neural node attached to the wall ahead of them.
Firing angrily into the node, he advanced slowly, power growing around his fist. A thorian creeper rushed him, he turned the gun on the creeper, stitching a line of bullets in one side and out the other of its pulpy skull. Another green asari dropped behind him, he dodged a mal-formed warp and shot the copy's knees out from under it. Wrex stepped on its head as it crawled forward to send another biotic blast at Shepard.
Shepard's implant gave a throb as he held the power for longer in his fist, shaping the gravitic forces at his command. He flared his hand, and the warp elongated and sped towards the already-straining node. There was a gruesome rending sound, and the blue energy sheared clean through the strut. The carpet of plant-life that coated all around them writhed with desperate strength, knocking the squad to the ground, where slick vines slapped and buffeted them. There came a tremendous inhuman screech, and a deafening sound, like the creak of a thousand trees straining against a cyclonic wind.
The Thorian swayed, suspended by smaller appendages for one small instant, then smaller cracks echoed up the cylindrical space, and the Thorian began its long fall.
Picking their battered selves from the ground, the team watched in tired silence as the ancient plant descended. There was an ignominious splat as it landed, and its own weight caused it to implode, spraying green matter everywhere. There was an echoing scream that seemed to bypass auditory senses, then silence.
"Well." Shepard swayed. "That's done." He laughed, the high edge of hysteria coloring it.
Garrus kicked one of the creepers that had fallen near him. There was a slight squishing noise, but no response. A creaking came from behind them, and a wet splat as one of the pods attached to the wall burst.
Wrex moved up, pointing his gun at the pus-drenched, but properly-colored asari that had just fallen out of a pod near them.
"I-" the asari coughs. "I surrender." She leaned against the wall wearily.
After the fall of the Thorian, Ashley and Kaidan called to explain how they'd rigged a flame thrower and handily torched the creepers that, made feral by the sudden death of their master, attempted to escape and attack the colonists. After securing the area, they'd made their way into the first floor of the Thorian's lair, where they joined the rest of the crew and Shiala, who'd asked to rest at the bottom of all the stairs.
Shiala had much to tell. About indoctrination, how Matriarch Benezia had good intentions originally, but soon fell under the sway of Sovereign. They asked how that's possible, and Shiala asks them to relate their experiences fighting amidst the swarms of creepers, the spores thick in the air.
"But what about the Cipher – the Thorian said something about a trade?" Shepard asked.
Shiala paused, before explaining."The Thorian absorbs the essence of everyone on which it feeds. Their memories, their identity, their thinking. That is the Cipher, the hundreds of thousands of Protheans it absorbed over the centuries, before it fell dormant. It stored the info, it ends up using only about .05% of all it collected - for better hunting, for making the simulacra you fought. 50000+ years ago, they would have looked like Protheans." She said grimly.
She tilted her head slightly, thoughtful. "The thorian is, was a giant carnivorous computer, often asleep, and using only one process despite all the data stored within it. The Cipher is the collected memories of the Protheans, from 1st person. It is what it is to be a prothean, their values, dissonances, thoughts. It is... formidable to experience - so vast that it becomes a part of you in the processing of it."
She bowed her head, whether from shame or exhaustion was not clear. "Saren needed it to translate the vision from the beacons. He did not wish for his hunters," Shiala nodded at the squad assembled in front of her sitting form, "To have the same key. So he sent the Geth to destroy an ancient being." She leaned her head against the lichen and thorian-covered wall, carefully resting her scalp-crests against the surface. "I will give it to you, Shepard, to aid in your pursuit." She closed her eyes. "And as the first step in atoning for my actions."
Shepard nodded.
"What?! Commander, you're going to join yourself to her? She was with Saren! Left here, maybe for us to find!" Ashley said, fatigue making her temper shorter than usual.
"She was indoctrinated." Kaidan said doubtfully. "Will this pass it on to you?"
"Relax, Chief. It is not as complete as a, ah, full melding. It will pass the information, memories. Only a bit of the self."
"You are unusually informed about the asari, Shepard." Shiala said.
"My mother was asari." He said. Everyone stared at him. Even Wrex turned from guarding their backs to look at him. Shepard coughed. "Adoptive mother."
There was a beat of silence, then Shiala defended herself. "I was indoctrinated. I heard the whispers, the force of will pushing me to obey. When I was given to the Thorian, that will was... replaced. The Thorian absorbed me, and made my will its own. Now that it is dead, I am free." She wiped her eyes. "Burdened with the guilt of my actions, but free." Shepard offered his hand, and Shiala looked up, surprised. Hesitantly, she took it, and he pulled her to her feet.
"Thank you Shiala. We may not be able to undo what was done, but we will stop Saren from perpetuating it.
"Relax, Shepard, Open your mind." She said, leaning her head close to his.
The squad watched in apprehension as Shiala and Shepard appear linked by an invisible force. Both opened their eyes at the same moment, and fell backwards, away from each other. There are two dull thuds as the asari and the Commander hit the ground. Neither move.
Kaidan rushed to his CO, checking the hardsuit computer for warning messages. Well, new and different warning messages. "He's just passed out from whatever Shiala gave him. Should be up and about soon enough."
He moved over to the asari, opening his omni-tool and doing the check manually. "Same with Shiala." The squad looks around as Kaidan administers what first aid he can. Fatigue had made the chain of command somewhat murky. Garrus stepped up.
"Wrex, grab Shepard. Kaidan, take Shiala. We'll bring them to Zhu's Hope's medical station - it's closest. Ashley and I will take rear-guard. Tali, send a message back to the Normandy. Let them know what happened." Garrus said. "Well, the abridged version." He amended.
Wrex gave the turian his trademark obstinate glare, then snorted when Garrus returned the stare. Whether it was in approval or irritation Garrus couldn't tell. The krogan picked up Shepard's limp form anyhow, and said nothing. The group made their awkward way out of the damp, musty chamber. There was nearly a collective sigh as they emerged out into Feros' harsh sunlight.
Shepard awoke lightly bouncing. He was balanced over Wrex's shoulder. The contact sent a rush of confusing information at him. He felt shame, impotent rage, and a quiet despair, all tempered by a ruthless pragmatism. He felt deep thoughts, churning beneath a brutish and short-sighted surface, a mask that was beginning to shape the face beneath.
The sudden input made his head spin, and the edges of his vision start to go black.
Focusing, he took several deep breaths, centering himself. Wrex laid him, not ungently, onto a medical cot. Shepard noted Shiala had been lain in a cot next to him, still unconscious. Kaidan checked his pulse, seeming oblivious to the commander's wakefulness beneath his helmet. The contact brought another jolt, another influx of information. Shepard felt a deep regret. Something that led to a very low self-worth, something that drove an all-encompassing drive to protect and defend. He felt the thin layer placed atop of this, a calm surface to swiftly moving currents
"Commander." Kaidan said, shining a light from his omni-tool into his eyes and removing his helmet.
"Wasn't your fault." Shepard hoarsely said, grabbing Kaidan's shoulder.
"Commander?" Kaidan asked, raising an eyebrow. Shepard let his hand fall, and moved it to his head, trying to clear his mind.
"How long?"
"No more than 10 minutes sir."
"Did it help your visions?" Ashley asked from across the room. Shepard called forth the blistering stream of imagery, and somehow divined meaning. Sort of. He grimaced.
"It's still... scrambled." He searched for an analogy. "It's like it was encrypted before - vital information mixed up and misplaced. Now I understand it, but there are pieces missing. Like reading a censored report. You get basics, but everything important is missing."
Ashley frowned, but said nothing. She leaned back, her assault rifle propped against the wall next to her.
Shepard levered himself up. He held a hand to his head as a sharp ache stabbed through it at the motion. Steadying himself, he looked toward his lieutenant.
"Alenko, gather everyone up, have them report to Chakwas and get cleared before beginning preparations to depart." Shepard looked about, and spotted the large shadow outside the small room's door. He raised his voice slightly. "That means you too Wrex. The galaxy definitely couldn't handle a Thorian krogan." There was a low rumbling laugh that echoed in the cramped hallway of the shelter.
Shiala chose that moment to sit bolt upright, breathing heavily. She looked at Shepard, her eyes still darker than normal, the blood that rushed there during a melding have not completely drained.
"You..." she said, then put a hand on her chest and took several deep breaths. Kaidan rushed over to check on her, but she held out an arm
"Thank you Lieutenant. But I am alright."
Ashley snickered, and Kaidan shot her an exasperated look. Shiala stood slowly, and started to walk over to where Shepard was standing. At that moment Tali came through the door, bearing a glass of water. "Commander! You're awake!"
Shepard smiled, but Tali continued, "I thought it would be a while longer. I read the reports on Eden Prime and Doctor Chakwas mentioned that you were out for several days and were dehydrated when you awoke so I thought you might like some water and -"
"You don't know how right you are. Thank you Tali." Shepard gratefully accepted the glass of water and drained half of it in one gulp. He looked sideways, and offered the rest to Shiala, who imitated the Commander in finishing the rest of it. She set the empty glass down on the bedside table. Shepard looked expectantly at Kaidan, who started a bit, then began giving orders for the squad to pack up and make it back to the ship. Tali gave him and Shiala a look that Shepard couldn't identify, then followed the rest of the squad out.
After they left, Shepard turned to Shiala. She looked down, and then back up to him.
"The thorian, before it died. It wasn't just screaming in rage. It was a call for help, on a frequency unknown to us." Shepard leaned forward, his brow creased in concern.
"There are more?" he asked. She nodded.
"In the far reaches of the galaxy, who knows what yet lies undiscovered?"
Shepard swore quietly, but nodded, making a note of it on his omni-tool, connecting the note to the one he'd made about Cerberus and ExoGeni's exports of creeper specimens.. There were several moments of silence as he worked, the quiet glow of the omni-tool seeming to share a warmth the med-bay lacked. When Shepard finished, he gave a long sigh, rubbed his eyes, and then fixed his piercing gaze on Shiala.
"What will you do now?" He asked quietly.
She looked down, weariness etching itself on the usually smooth face of the asari. Sorrow and frustration colored her voice."I will stay here and help the colonists rebuild. I owe them more, but this is what I can give."
Shepard nodded. "I will ask Exo-Geni to keep me updated on the state of the colony." Shiala nodded slowly, the implication not lost on her. Leave and I will know.
"Thank you commander. I have no right to expect such mercy." Shepard nodded again, and turned to go. Shiala grabbed his arm.
"In transfers such as ours, there is always an exchange. I saw…" She turned her head to the side, embarrassed. "You have suffered much, but you shine brighter than any I have ever encountered." Shiala bowed her head, maintaining the touch on his arm. "I will be here should you need me, Shepard."
Shepard examined her, somehow knowing intuitively her sincerity and admiration, colored with a pain in her past that drove her down the dark road to the Thorian. He nodded at her.
"Thank you Shiala. May you find peace in your labors here."
"Of course Shepard would do anything to help a human colony." Sparatus said disparagingly.
Tevos was a bit startled as Shepard's face relaxed from polite frustration to something that seemed completely devoid of emotion. While Shepard continued to answer their queries evenly, his face remained in that blank mask. His answers, while unfailingly polite, also became amazingly obtuse. By the end of the interview Sparatus was shaking in impotent rage.
"You should not provoke him, Sparatus. We may need him." Tevos said
"Provoke him? The man shows a dangerous lack of perspective on galactic issues!"
"Agent Shepard was not passive-aggressive until you accused him of speciesism." Valern said flatly. Sparatus swore and stormed out of the room. There came a sound of fists hitting a leather punching bag the councilor had had installed in his office. Valern looked at Tevos and bowed.
"I will inform the Dalatrasses of Saren's alarming control over the Geth, and update them on the Thorian. Good day."
Tevos nodded and sighed, looking over the mix of dark marble and greenery that decorated the council tower. There were few that could truly irritate her, but Lyvanis had always been successful on that front. Tevos smiled in dark amusement. It seemed Lyvanis had taught her adopted son well.
Needing someone to cheer him up after talking to the Council, Shepard wandered down to talk with Tali, who was nearly asleep at her console. The full content of the Cipher still buzzing in his head, he asked how she keeps all the information necessary for being an engineer straight. She laughed and said her social life suffers for it. Quarians are notorious about gossip, as they have to be a very social species. As a result of her study and dedication to the fleet, she was often lost during the mealtime conversations with her peers. They commiserated, both having too many people and too much information to worry about all at once.
Adams found them sometime later, leaned up against the wall of Engineering, sleeping deeply. Tali's head had drooped over onto Shepard's shoulder. Adams smiled and let them be.
Sometime later, Shepard awoke. He gave a quizzical glance at Adams, looking from him to the peacefully sleeping Quarian on his shoulder. Adams shrugged, and held out his hands, hiding a smile.
Shepard shook his head, and gathered Tali in his arms. He headed up the stairs. Passing through the garage, he noted that everyone except for Ashley was gone. Ashley looked dead on her feet, but was resolutely cleaning the guns set before her. She opened her mouth when she saw Shepard emerge from engineering. Shepard shushed her with a few frantic motions, indicating the sleeping quarian. Ashley nodded in understanding, smiling at the scene. The smile turned wicked when Tali chose that moment to mutter sleepily and hang her arms around Shepard's neck, nuzzling her head into his shoulder. There was a small snap as Ashley took a picture with her omni-tool. Shepard narrowed his eyes in mock-anger and Ashley mouthed "Blackmail" with that mischevious smile pasted on her face. Shepard shook his head and rolled his eyes.
After depositing Tali in her bunk a level up, Shepard backtracked down to the garage, where Ashley was packing up the last of the guns.
"You had a question Chief?"
"Personal question sir. I've told you all about the Williams'. Thought I might ask a bit about you. Sorry if it's a breach in protocol. I'm not particularly good at it, and I'm exhausted."
Shepard smiled and leaned against the weapons lockers. "Shoot, Ash."
"I've already put the guns away sir." she said straight-faced.
Shepard raised an eyebrow and gave her a sardonic grin. "You can do better than that Chief. I'll let it slide because we're all tired, but next time I might have to put you on detail with Joker."
"Point taken skipper." She slapped a lazy salute, grinning. "anyway, You said you were raised by aliens?" Shepard nodded.
"Livy -" he stopped and shook his head, "Lyvanis Eloria and her daughter Nalanissa adopted me."
"Why?" Shepard sighed and looked up, the memories bright and clear from his nightly reruns.
"Lyvanis felt she owed my father. And after Mindoir..." Shepard shrugged. "Well, I needed it. Needed a family."
"I've heard a lot of rumors about you and Mindoir." Ashley said neutrally,
"I imagine." was all Shepard said in reply.
There was a beat, then Ashley asked, seeming to overcome some indecision, "How did an asari end up owing your father?"
"He saved her life on Mindoir." Ashley shook her head in confusion.
"Wait, what was an asari doing on Mindoir?" Shepard smiled and rubbed his neck.
"I should probably start at the beginning. I was actually conceived on Thessia. My father was a part of the group that would establish diplomatic ties with the Asari Republics. A technological attaché. Once he found out my mother was pregnant, he resigned his commission - he had been scheduled in the following months to quite a few postings, many in contested territories. Naturally, this caused an uproar back on Earth. Pundits began ranting about his dereliction of duty, abandoning the Alliance when they needed him most."
He made a circular motion with his hand. "you get the gist. Lyvanis, who had talked to my dad in his official capacity, seized on the controversy. Managed to swing my birth as 'an intimate moment' that would strengthen 'cultural understanding' as well as diplomatic ties. She got her faction to offer my parents a place to stay for the duration of my mother's pregnancy, as well as any medical help necessary." Shepard smiled slightly. "She became good friends with my parents, and would visit them, take them to see Thessia's sights with Nala. They stayed in contact after I was born and the hubbub died down. The Alliance grudgingly thanked my father for 'his bit of diplomatic serendipity' and offered him a place on Mindoir, free of charge."
Shepard laughed. "Mostly to keep him from causing more trouble, I was told." Shepard's smile faded, and he continued. "Livy and Nala were visiting when the batarians came. By that time I had manifested biotic potential, so Livy - now the chief asari diplomat on Earth - was coming by to see if they could get me trained outside of Alliance programs."
Shepard shrugged. "They tracked me down to the orphanage where the Alliance rescue teams had sent me and then adopted me."
Ashley shook her head and smiled. "As an infant you were already a celebrity." Shepard laughed, but shifted slightly.
"Not quite. My birth was famous, not me necessarily." He looked down and grinned. "But I'm told there were quite a few people on Thessia who were disappointed I wasn't going to be named Alyxis."
Ashley laughed. "How different was it, growing up with an asari for a parent?"
Shepard shrugged "It was all I really knew." He grinned crookedly at a memory. "But do you know how annoying it is to be a teenager and have your mother be so bloody patient?"
The pair shared a laugh, and Ashley turned her head a bit, and quoted, "Nothing but love this patience could produce; and I allow your rage that kind excuse."
Shepard smiled, his eyes seeing something far distant. "Aye. Dryden, right?"
Ashley raised her eyebrows in surprise. Shepard held out his hands, smiling.
"I studied languages in college. A lot of literature was involved." A comfortable silence passed between the two. Shepard ended it by motioning with his head towards the crew deck.
"Get some rest Ash." Ashley smiled tiredly at him.
"You got it, Skipper."
Author's note: [Original] As you might have noticed, I've messed with the Mass Effect timeline a bit. I've moved the First Contact War up about 10 years, happening in 2147 instead of 2157. This also means that the discovery on Mars happened in 2139, 9 years before canon. Shepard is still born in 2154, enough time for the galactic community's image of humanity to change, and make his birth story feasible.
Mindoir's date is also moved, happening 7 years earlier, (2163) and starting a chain of batarian attacks on human colonies, culminating in the Skyllian Blitz in 2176 (its canon time). Humanity, wary of inciting more council sanctions, responded indirectly to the increasingly bold attacks on their colonies. The Council, unwilling to commit a move that might incite the Terminus systems against them, bound up the requests for aid in bureaucracy.
Earth itself became divided, most of the planet-bound people wary of the political consequences of unilateral action. The colonists and space-faring factions were thoroughly furious at the continued inaction. As a result, Alliance military saw a much increased colonial and extra-Terran recruitment. It wasn't until 2175 that enough political momentum was gained to declare war against the batarian pirates and slavers (conveniently disavowed by the Hegemony) and send in more than the Council sanction garrison.
Alexander Shepard joined the Alliance in 2174 - however he did not enlist. There will be more on that later, however.