Shepard and his team returned to Ventralis' post and found it deserted. That was more than just a little odd. They had just fought off waves of rachni in the hotlabs, after Ventralis had told them that Benezia had gone down there. However, according to the only survivor there, there never had been an asari entering the labs. Ventralis must have lied. And now he was not on his post anymore.
The squad consulted on what to do. The whole thing smelled rotten. There was no way that Ventralis could have erred, he must have deliberately lied. Still, they could not blindly chase after him, or write off the whole episode and make straight for Benezia. They did not even know where exactly in the facility the Matriarch was. Thus consensus was that they needed more information, and hence the squad decided the only sensible thing to do was to look for more survivors.
They set out to explore the facility. As it turned out, they did not need to search for long. At the end of one corridor they explored a door opened - and there Ventralis was, standing in an open room even more spacious than the one in the hotlabs, accompanied by several corporate guards. They all had their weapons in hand.
"I'm sorry about that," Ventralis said, "We got orders from Benezia." He turned towards his men. "Open fire!"
"Disperse!" Shepard ordered his squad, shouting at the same time as Ventralis. Standing immobile in the door frame, they made too good targets.
A battle ensued, which the squad successfully managed to draw out over the entire length of the room. With clutter everywhere - tables, equipment, crates - it was easy to find cover. This compensated very well for the numerical superiority of the Binary Helix guards. Despite Shepard's suspicions, Ventralis' attack had come as a surprise - but after just having faced the rachni hordes of hell itself, nothing could shake the squad anymore. Everybody retained discipline and acted fully professionally.
"Wrex, watch your flank!"
"Ash, on your left!"
"I need support!"
"Liara, let me handle this!"
"Grenade!"
Despite being wearied down, the squad had little problem in dealing with Ventralis and his henchmen. Shepard wondered what Benezia had even hoped to achieve. Then he saw the first corpse - the corpse of a massive elcor, lying in the centre of the room. He realized it was not the only one - there also were several human corpses, and one salarian corpse. And they all had bullet wounds.
A cover-up operation! Like Feros, just actually executed!
A dark anger built up inside him, and he clad himself in dark energy. Defeating the guards had now become more than just a necessity. Now it was his desire to punish them. He came charging out of his cover, blue sparkles emitting from him, fully intent to make them pay for what they had apparently done.
He ran at the guard nearest to him and knocked her out with two well-placed fist hits. He raised one guard in the air with his biotic powers, and opened fire on a group of three nearby. Seeing this, the rest of the squad also came out of their cover, and went into the offensive.
Binary Helix' guards reacted surprised and uncoordinated. Resistance came only slowly - but it came. Shepard noticed how his shields faltered. Cursing, he jumped over a crate to get cover, but a bullet pierced his armour in the back. Thus hit, he fell to the ground ungracefully and painfully. Slowly, he picked himself up again. Ashley, too, lay on the ground as he saw, clutching her side. She was without cover. Wrex stood over her like an immovable rock, trying best as he could to draw enemy fire and protect her.
The guards were going down, too, one by one, but it showed that the squad had already just been in combat right before this battle, and thus had little reserves to draw on. Shepard provided fire support for the squad members still standing and hoped for the best.
Somebody touched his shoulder. In an instant he whirled around - but recognized Liara before he could fire. "Never do that again," he said strictly and breathed out.
"It is over, Jonathan," Liara announced, "I think we got them all."
For a long while, Shepard did not respond. He just sat leaned against 'his' crate, applied medi-gel (he knew that dangerously high concentrations were already building up in his body, but it was not like he had any other choice), and tried to catch breath again. His mind felt completely empty.
"How's... how's Ash?" he finally asked.
Wrex, who still stood next to her, heard the question. "Good enough," he just said.
That seemed almost like cynism. The Gunnery Chief had gotten up to a sitting position again, but she was still holding her left flank. Her facial expressions betrayed in how much pain she was. Slowly Shepard got up and walked to her.
"The medi-gel seems to be working," she said, "But might take some time. Ah, fuck, this hurts like hell."
"See?" Wrex said, "Fine."
Shepard ignored him. "Better go see Dr Chakwas once we're on the ship again. Seems like this will require some medical treatment more extensive than medi-gel. But for now it will do. Take it slow; we all need a rest, anyway."
He looked around, and found Tali. She seemed completely unhurt. Shepard breathed out and smiled relieved. He did not even try to hide his emotions. He just sat down again and tried to catch his breath.
The squad, or at least those members who still could comfortably walk and did not need a major rest, spread out to explore the facility. They found exactly two survivors. Wrex and Liara soon returned with them - one volus who walked behind him, and one human male security guard carelessly carried by Wrex. When they had reached Shepard, Wrex more or less threw the guard to Shepard's feet.
"He was wounded in the firefight. Begged for medi-gel when I saw him," the krogan explained. "I gave him just enough that he would remain cooperative."
"And this," Liara continued, pointing to the volus behind her, "is Han Olar."
"The hotlabs survivor?" Shepard asked. His interest was piqued.
"Yes," Han Olar responded. His speech was accompanied by hissing sounds of his envirosuit. "But it would have been better had I not survived."
"An asari threatened him," Wrex said, "We killed her."
"That was Alestia Iallis." Han Olar explained. "A scientist, or she said. She was assigned to here only shortly ago. On Saren's personal order."
"A plant," Shepard concluded. "Well, one thing after the other." His eyes switched back and forth between the volus and the guard."What happened here?"
"Those people," Han Olar answered, "they simply began to shoot down everybody. We had known too much."
"It was Captain Ventralis!" the guard exclaimed. His voice was a most grating combination of self-righteous pleading, self-pity and whining. "He ordered this! Said the order came directly from Lady Benezia! She's here as Saren's executor, we have to follow her orders!"
"More cases for Nuremberg," Shepard muttered darkly. "I'll ask you for more detailed descriptions later. For now - Han Olar, what happened at the hotlabs?"
"I killed her," the volus answered, as if that would explain everything. The squad looked nonplussed about that answer. Finally, Han Olar continued in more detail: "We were going to lunch when the alarm clocks went off. I ran into the tram. And I closed the doors. She banged on the window once. Then they sliced her to pieces. Her head came apart like a melon. She was Doctor Zhonmua, and I killed her. I closed the door, I killed her."
"Sounds to me like you could only save yourself," Shepard said. "It was Binary Helix who unleashed the beasts. They killed her."
"I was part of unleashing them," Han Olar reminded him.
Shepard groaned. Then maybe you should have died. The thought came unbidden, and Shepard was kind of shocked by it. It was not like he actually knew what the volus has done. He would have to reign in his temperament more; it begun to scare himself. He shook the thought off and asked instead:"And Benezia? Was she there?"
"No," Han Olar answered, "Why should she take up the risk herself? I know what I saw. Rachni. I'm not crazy. I know. It were rachni."
"We know," Shepard just answered.
"Oh," Han Olar voiced. "Well then... rachni have a queen. But I only saw common rachni. Find the queen. That is where Benezia will surely be. She was not down there."
"It was a trap!" the guard shouted. "Everything Ventralis said to you was rehearsed before. Benezia ordered this. She knew MIRA would trap you down there. The hope was that the rachni would kill you, or the neutron purge. And if not, well, that's why we waited for you."
Shepard breathed out to calm his thoughts. This man in front of him had participated in a massacre, without any thought of himself, simply because he had been ordered to. As far as the Spectre was concerned, the guard could whimper in pain for some more hours, to keep him 'cooperative'.
"All right," he told his squad, "you know the drill. Continue to look through the facility, see if you can find any evidence to be used, record everything and download all files that you can." Might as well use the break productively. Binary Helix will be the next corp to go down. He himself would ask the guard and Han Olar in more detail.
"Hacking into the systems sounds like my part," Tali answered, "With Garrus not here and Kaidan... very far from here."
"Yeah," Shepard confirmed quietly. He wondered about Tali's formulation. They had never spoken about each other's religious views so far. But far more then that, it was a sad reminder how Kaidan was and would also further be missed, not only as a friend but also as a squadmate.
The most unsettling thing the squad found were dozens more human corpses. The guards' purge of he station truly had been a massacre. Vids were recorded of all corpses, from all angles, with a special focus on their wounds - bullet entries, all of them. And Shepard's interrogation of Han Olar and the guard brought forth even more details.
Tali in the meanwhile worked her magic with the station's electronic system. She was not able to access all systems, as she could not use brute-force tactics against the entire might of the station's computer network as coordinated by MIRA. And there did not seem to be a notice about the kill order anywhere. Benezia must have given the orders orally only.
However, Tali found enough. Apparently, besides the rachni, the other project Binary Helix had worked on in Rift Station was a toxin on a biological base - a non-infective bio-weapon. That, creating bio-weapons, was a clear violation of the most basic Citadel laws. The Citadel Convention about warfare was basically the most fundamental document at the centre of the entire political framework of the Citadel. Admittedly, Shepard had already broken it once, when he had ordered orbital strikes against ground targets on Virmire, a garden world. But this was different - both Virmire and Noveria were outside Citadel jurisdiction, but unlike bombardments bioweapons could always cross borders.
In short, it definitely was something the Council would be interested in. That, and of course the rachni. And for the human public, the shocker would be the brutal purge of the station by Binary Helix' own security forces. Shepard grinned darkly. Binary Helix will go the way of ExoGeni.
Tali also managed to get a detailed map of the facility, including notes. It soon became clear there was only one place in the station that could house a rachni queen - and Han Olar had a point, that would most likely be where Benezia was. Reluctantly, Shepard got up again. They still had a job to do.
…...
The squad had left Han Olar and the security guard behind in the secured parts of Rift Station, the former with a weapon and the latter tied up, and set out to get Benezia. Using the access cards they had taken from the fallen guards it was no problem at all anymore to move freely throughout the facility, and with the annotated map Tali had downloaded they also knew perfectly well where they had to go.
There was no delaying it anymore - they'd confront Benezia now.
"Are you all right?" Shepard asked Liara.
"I am holding up," the asari answered vaguely. "I know what we must do. And maybe we can break through Benezia's indoctrination. It's a small chance, but the only one we have to end this peacefully, so I have to be present."
There really was not much more to say. Shepard breathed out and opened the final door to the room they suspected Benezia and the rachni queen to be in. It turned out be the largest they had found in the station so far, full of equipment and different gangway.
"You do not know the privilege of being a mother." a voice surprised the squad from their left side. They swung around and faced Benezia. She stood in comfortable distance, up a small case of stairs on an elevated platform.
Wrex and Ashley immediately raised their weapons to open fire, but Shepard stopped them with a decisive hand gesture. "She's more valuable as a prisoner," he told them and then turned to the asari Matriarch. "What do you mean, Benezia?
"There's power in creation, human," Liara's mother explained. "To shape a life. Turn it toward happiness or despair. Her children were to be ours. Raised to hunt and slay Saren's enemies."
"That didn't work out," Shepard pointed out. "You're at an end, Benezia. Come with us peacefully. Do not force us to initiate violence. You wouldn't... " survivehe had wanted to say, but after a quick look to Liara changed it into: "...win the confrontation."
"I won't surrender," Benezia declared, "And I won't be moved to sympathy, either, no matter who you bring into this confrontation."
"I came here out of my own free will," Liara disagreed. "I came here to... to appeal to my mother. To her mercy, her warmth, her logic." She looked down. "But apparently I have come too late."
That much seemed to be true. The way Benezia was talking there was no doubt in her, nothing to appeal to. She either had become a fervent believer in Saren or, more likely, was fully indoctrinated.
"My path is clear," Benezia answered her daughter, confirming Shepard's thoughts. "I won't..."
"Sorry, Liara," Shepard whispered - and opened fire.
However, the matriarch proved to have the quicker reflexes - in fractions of a second she raised a biotic barrier protecting her. Going by the blue flickering in the air it was a stronger barrier than Shepard had ever seen before.
"Not enough, human," Benezia said. "Tell me, have you ever faced an asari commando before? Few of your race have." She waved her hand again and a pulse of dark energy hit Shepard. He did not know what biotic skill it was, but it rendered him completely immobilized.
"Watch out!" Wrex shouted.
Calmly and slowly, Benezia walked back some steps, to make way for several asari commandos appearing from behind her. Immediately, Shepard's remaining three squadmates formed a barrier in front of him - but to no avail. The united biotic powers of half a dozen asari commandos hit the squad, who were tossed around all over the room.
Shepard landed unsoftly in one corner - but finally he could move again. And now he, Liara and Wrex countered the Commandos in much the same way. Dark energy filled up the room. Both sides raised equipment, chairs and tables as shield against kinetic attacks.
"I feel somewhat left out here," Shepard could hear Tali mutter. However, even without biotic skills the quarian did what she could. One of the enemy commandos was downed by her with a well aimed shotgun hit to the head.
It was a fierce and intensive fight - but even the famed asari commandos were no match for Shepard's squad anymore, not after his team had defeated geth, husks, Creepers, mercenaries and several more enemies during the mission.
"Breach a way through to Benezia!" Shepard ordered his people. He himself stormed forwards and began shooting - only to notice that the Matriarch's biotic barrier was still standing. It seemed to cost her, though. He could see her slightly trembling. She seemed to get exhausted.
She waved a hand, and one of the doors to the room opened.
"Geth!" Ashley hissed. After Eden Prime she, like Tali, cherished every chance to kill as many of them as possible.
The two remaining asari commandos were reinforced by several light bipedal geth platforms. Snipers, mostly, as Shepard soon found out. The team dug in and waited for Tali, who had already begun working on her omni-tool. Soon, the geth turned inwards, against one of their own - a platformed hacked by the quarian.
This was the signal. The squad rushed forwards and attacked the confused geth. The synthetics were completely overran. Some units tried to fall back on the gangway, but they were pursued and put down. And during that pursue Shepard saw a glass front behind Benezia, and also what was behind it - a giant version of a rachni. The queen. As they had expected.
It also allowed Shepard to get a good look on Benezia herself. The Matriarch was folding down, sliding towards the ground and leaned against her desk. She seemed to have totally over-exhausted herself. However, before Shepard could react to that, she waved her hand and a further door opened - and krogan mercenaries stormed in.
"Oh quit being so fucking dramatic," Shepard muttered, as if speaking to Benezia. The entrances of her forces seemed ridiculously theatrical to him.
It was Wrex who stood nearest to his racemates. The krogan battlemaster knew he could not stand against so much superior firepower from such short distance. So instead, he unleashed a biotic attack on one krogan, used him as a meat shield, tackled another one and then entered physical combat with a third one. However, the surprise effect he achieved only held so long - soon the enemies ganged up on him.
The rest of the squad rushed to Wrex' defence. A ferocious close quarter battle erupted. In the end, six krogan lay on the ground - including Wrex. He was the only one of them still living.
"Wrex!" Shepard shouted, and kneeled besides the krogan "Hang in there!"
"Don't... worry," Wrex answered. He breathed heavily. "Krogan... regeneration will take care of it. Might take some time, though. This looks bad." He was bleeding profoundly from the chest, so much that Shepard took his comment to be an understatement. "Go... deal with Benezia."
Shepard nodded gravely and stood up. "We have to." He looked to Liara, who nodded as well, but stayed silent.
Slowly, Shepard, Ashley, Liara and Tali walked up Benezia's platform. The Matriarch kneeled cowered down in front of her desk. Slowly, her back to the squad, she stood up.
"This is not over," she said. "Saren is unstoppable. My mind is filled with his light. Everything is clear."
"Indoctrination," Shepard concluded sadly. He was afraid nothing could be done here anymore. However, he had to try, if only for Liara's sake. "Benezia T'Soni, under the power invested into me by the Citadel Council as part of their Special Tactics and Reconnaissance arm I hereby arrest you."
"I will not betray him!" Benezia answered. Her hands rested on the table, supporting her whole body. "You will... you...ah..." Suddenly but slowly, Benezia rose again and turned around. Slowly, she walked towards Shepard.
"You must listen," she said. "Saren still whispers in my mind. I can fight his compulsions briefly. But the indoctrination is too strong."
"We learned more than we cared to about indoctrination on Virmire," Shepard told her. "You say you have just shaken it off?"
"No. It's still there. I can't fight it," Benezia admitted. "I only managed to seal a part of my mind away from it. Saving it for a moment when I could help destroy him. It will not last long."
"So you could turn on me again," Shepard concluded.
"Yes. But it would not be my will," Benezia answered.
"No!" Liara cried out. "There has to be a solution!" Shepard had never heard so much emotion in her voice. And all of it was despair.
"It is a terror to be trapped in your mind," Benezia said quietly. Her head hung low. "To beat upon the glass as your hands torture and murder. I was powerless, nothing but a tool for Saren. Sometimes there just are no answers, Little Wing, no solutions."
Little Wing... It was almost heart breaking to watch how Liara was losing all hope she still had.
Benezia looked up again, at Shepard. "We must do what we still can. We must stop Saren. Listen to me. He sent me here to find the location of the Mu Relay. Its position was lost thousands of years ago."
"What interest..." Ashley muttered, but then she realized: "Of course, that must be the way to Ilos!"
Makes sense. "But how could it have become lost?" Shepard asked. "I mean, a mass relay..."
"Your companion is correct. This is the direct way to Ilos. It was propelled out of its systems four thousand years ago, when a star nearby went supernova, but it was not damaged," Benezia explained. "However, its precise speed and vector are impossible to determine. As millennia passed the nebula created by the nova enveloped the relay. It is difficult to find any cold object in interstellar space. Particularly something swathed in hot dust and radiation."
"And yet somebody obviously did. Somebody on Noveria?" Shepard prompted.
"Two thousands years ago the Rachni inhabited that region of our galaxy," Benezia continued. "They discovered the relay. As an extremely territorial species, they were very diligent and patient in finding any possible way into their territory. Over generations they searched, and they found the relay."
"And this queen knows its location?" Shepard asked.
"Yes," Benezia confirmed. "The rachni can share memories across generations. Queens inherit the knowledge of their mothers. I took the location of the relay from the queen's mind. I was not gentle."
"You always have been when you have been you," Liara whispered. "Even if I did not always see it."
Shepard looked down, almost too afraid to say anything in the face of Liara despair. However, the mission had to come first. "We need to go through that relay," he finally said. "You can help to undo your mistake. Give me that location."
"Of course," Benezia agreed, "I transcribed the data on an OSD. Please, take it." She handed it over. "I transmitted the coordinates to Saren just before you arrived. He's there. You have to stop him. You..." Her voice broke. "You have to stop me! I can't... his teeth are at my ear. Fingers on my spine." She turned around again, walking agitated. "You should... uh... you should..."
"Mother!" Liara cried out. "I... don't leave! Fight him!" It sounded as if something was breaking inside her.
"You've always made me proud, Liara," Benezia said. "You should... You should..." The Matriarch turned around again. Dark energy pulsed around her in purple colours. Her voice was firm again - too firm. "Die!"
A massive biotic storm hit Ashley. She was thrown away several metres. Shepard growled and opened fire, followed by Tali. Liara was at their side, breathing heavily. Hesitantly she raised her pistol. She looked away as she began firing, too. Shepard could glance tears in her eyes.
Benezia came running forward, but it looked awkward, limping. She had already exhausted most of her energy. A biotic barrier was protecting her, but it was too weak - it faltered before she could reach her daughter, or Shepard. Bullets hit her. She fell down.
Shepard closed the remaining distance to her. She lay on the ground and breathed heavily, but did not move for a while. Finally, she awkwardly tried to rise again. "I cannot go on," she declared, obviously again temporarily freed from the indoctrination. "You will have to stop him, Shepard."
"Hold on!" Shepard shouted. He took the remaining medi-gel he still had. "We can still get you..."
Benezia waved off his efforts "No," she said, "he is still in my mind. I am not entirely myself. I never will be again." She fell down again to the ground.
"Mother!" Liara cried out.
"Good night, Little Wing," Benezia said softly. "I will see you again at dawn." She breathed out several times and her face became slack. "No light?" she asked weakly. "They always said there would be... ah..." Her limbs lost all tensions and her eyes closed.
"Mother!" Liare repeated. She ran towards her, and kneeled besides her. "Mother! No! You can't... you can't just leave us here. No..." She grabbed her mother's arms and started crying.
Shepard walked towards her. He lay a hand on her shoulder, and softly pulled her up. She fell into his arms, and Shepard hugged her. Liara continued crying at his shoulder. Tali also closed up and stroke Liara's arm. We're all here for you.
Shepard saw Ashely limping towards them, but the Gunnery Chief stayed at a respectful distance. Slowly, Liara calmed down somewhat, but she remained clung to Shepard. He did not mind. He knew she needed all the emotional support she could get right now.
A movement caught Shepard's attention. Without letting go of Liara he looked up - and saw Ashley drawing her rifle. He followed her look and saw one of the asari commandos they had killed standing up and moving towards them. Her movements were awkward, without any balance or coherence. Her body jerked wildly, and she seemed threatened to fall down at all times. Ashley obviously did not know what to make of it - she aimed at the Commando, but did not fire.
Shepard lifted one hand from Liara, drew his pistol and swung sideways, so as to put himself between Liara and the Commando. Tali, too, drew her weapon. Liara looked up surprised. When she saw through her tear drenched eyes what was happening she jerked away from Shepard and fumbled to get her weapon, too.
Shepard did not let the apparently undead Commando out of sight. "What the hell..." he muttered.
To everybody's surprise, the asari spoke up: "This one serves as our voice. We cannot sing. Not in these low spaces. Your musics are colourless." Her voice was obviously not her own. It was oddly distorted, and there was a resonance to it, an echo. Something was repeating her words. Or is that just in my mind?
Shepard felt very uneasy, and confused. " Musics? What?" he blurted out.
"Your way of communicating is strange, flat," the Commando answered, "It does not colour the air. When we speak, one moves all."
"This is going to be a fun conversation," a deep voice rumbled. Wrex was walking up to the platform and joined the the rest of the squad again. He still seemed to hurt, as he was obviously very careful with some of his limbs, but considering just what punishment he had just taken, it was amazing that he was up again at all.
However, that was not what Shepard focused on. He began to realize what happened here. "So, who are you?" he asked the Commando. "It's the rachni queen, isn't it?"
"We are the mother," the Commando confirmed - in a way. "We sing for those left behind. The children you thought silenced."
Shepard's first impulse had been to ask how she could speak through the Commando, but the Queen's last sentence reminded him of something else. The children... There really had been much death here on this day. "The children they took away from you," he added quietly. "I'm sorry. We had to kill them. They were attacking everything in sight."
"Those needle-men. They stole the eggs from us," the Queen said. "They sought to turn our children into beasts of war. Claws with no song of their own. Our elders are comfortable with silence. Children know only fear if no one sings to them. Fear shattered their mind. Their end is lamentable. But it had to be done. Our children would forever have been beyond our songs. They already were lost to silence."
Shepard reminded himself again that the rachni were no animals. They were sapient creatures, and that means the rachni they had fought - they had been isolated and maltreated as children, sapient children. It was like in one of the darkest wars in Africa from the last century - child soldiers whose entire life had been destroyed, whose entire mind had been twisted and torn. Realizing that made him sick.
"Lock away a child in a closet until she's sixteen, and she won't be sane," Ashley commented. "That much makes sense at least. But I don't trust this beast to be any better."
"Your companion sings a deep yellow note, but it is in accord with what you must decide," the Queen stated. "You are not in harmony with those who sought to control us. So what is the song you will sing? Will you release us? Are we to fade away once more?"
Shepard still felt uneasy about the whole thing. However, he realized that this decision had to be made now. He had fulfilled his mission, and the rachni queen was still alive. So he would have to decide what to do with her now. Not that it was much of a question for him. The rachni queen was an innocent, a victim even - and so far the Spectre had always been insistent on the protection of innocents and victims.
However, before he could answer, Wrex spoke up: "There are acid tanks rigged up on that thing. Set them off. Millions of of my ancestors died to put these things down. Don't let them come back." He sounded agitated and aggressive. As always when they talked about rachni, but of course this decision now was especially important to him.
And yet, he was utterly wrong, as far as Shepard was concerned. "She herself has done nothing wrong!" he protested.
"He's right skipper," Ashley said. "I know how you feel about those things, but it's better to be safe than to let a dangerous race loose. Her kind are killers. We've seen that on several worlds now. They're just too dangerous."
To Shepard's utter surprise, even absolute shock, Tali seemed to agree. She spoke hesitantly and quietly, but her words were clear: "Binary Helix must have thought so, too. Those acid tanks are strong enough to kill everything, no matter the biology. They wouldn't have installed that if they hadn't feared the consequences of her getting loose."
"No!" Liara's voice cut through the room. Shepard was surprised by the sudden strength in it. A single tear still glistered in her eye, but she spoke passionately: "Has there not already been enough death here? The Council made a mistake when they let the krogan pursue the rachni. Must we repeat this mistake again? The queen has done nothing to us. Benezia... the real Benezia, my mother... taught that fear and hatred are the worst advisers. What if one day we depend on the good will of others?"
Shepard breathed out, and gathered his thoughts. "Yes, Binary Helix installed the acid tanks," he said. "And we've seen what they think a good clean-up is like. That can't be the solution!"
"True," Tali agreed. She spoke much more decisively now. "We wouldn't want to be like them. And she's the last of her kind. The last of an almost extinct race, only a step away from total death. I can... sympathize with her. Prevention of danger is important. But there is only so much it can justify."
However, there was no consensus. Ashley still argued: "Think about what if this had happened in Tokyo, or Armstrong or on the Citadel. The death toll would be..."
Shepard cut her off: "What happened here is not her fault! It's entirely Binary Helix' fault. And you know what? Binary Helix does have facilities in Tokyo, Armstrong and on the Citadel. They need to go down, not the rachni." He shook his head. "Besides, we humans can be just as savage as rachni. Look at what Binary Helix did here. Look at what ExoGeni and Conatix did, or Cerberus or even the Alliance government. Look at even only the last three hundred years of human history - the World Wars, the Holocaust, the Hunger Wars. Mao, Stalin, the Khmer Rogue, the West African warlords. We have no standing to judge the rachni. And I won't let blind fear lead me to commit a genocide. Genocide! That is what you demand here!"
"So?" Wrex... hissed. Shepard had never seen the krogan speak like that. His anger threatened to overwhelm him. "You people didn't fight those bastards, so maybe you just don't get it!"
Shepard turned to Wrex and spoke quietly, lowly, darkly - menacingly: "I get how dangerous they can be. And I also get how dangerous krogan can be. Yet I was willing to give the krogan a chance, wasn't I?" That made Wrex pause. Shepard pressed on: "Besides, think about it that way: If the rachni do become a problem again, the Council will have need of the krogan again. Of large, easily replenishable krogan armies."
"You're still robbing us of our biggest victory," Wrex stated, "But I'm in no position to contest you. Do what you want. We krogan will clean up the mistake. Again."
"It's your call, skipper," Ashley agreed, "You'd have to live with the blood on your hand, so I can't very well demand you do it. But please, think of the dangers."
Shepard stubbornly shook his head. "She herself has done nothing wrong. She's a victim, not an aggressor." And that is really everything that needs to be considered. He turned towards the asari puppet of the Queen: "You're free to go."
The Queen had stayed respectfully silent throughout the debate. Now it answered: "You would give us the chance to compose anew? We will remember. We will sing of your forgiveness to our children."
"Great. Bugs are writing songs about you," Wrex commented. "Mark my words: You'll regret this."
Shepard ignored him and shook his head. "It's not me who has something to forgive," he told the queen, "You never wronged anybody. I hope it's you who can forgive humanity for what has been done to you and your children."
"We do not perceive physical similarity as first distinguishing feature," the rachni queen "You're... 'human' yet you do not sing in accord with those whose unmelodic shrieks cut into us. Your tone is not complex, but strong and clear, compelling. It makes others fall in with your melody."
Shepard smiled slightly confused. Then he abruptly turned around and walked to the control terminal at Benezia's desk. Fortunately, all buttons on it were well labeled. Thus, Shepard could start the process of releasing the queen. Her asari puppet fell down, now dead for good, as the glass prison she herself was in was raised towards the planetary surface.
I hope I won't in fact regret that. Yet, either way, he had not had a choice, as far as he was concerned.