A/N: Time for Shepard to demonstrate the worst example of leadership in her whole career up to this moment. The good point in all this is that things will go uphill from here. Just because they couldn't possibly get any worse. :)
As always thank you for reading and reviewing!
Chapter 18 - Drifting Through Dark Spaces
"Can we trust, Niket? Oh, absolutely! He's my only real friend, Shepard. Gods... for someone genetically engineered to be perfect that woman can be so dense," Morgan Shepard rambles, reaching out for another glass of unidentified alcoholic substance, the asari bartender wordlessly refilling her drink. "Still, I guess she really cared for her little sister. I can respect that. For crying out loud, am I starting to like that ice cold bitch? Gods, I hope not..." she stops, only to stare at the asari on the other side of the bar. "You don't really care about this one way or another, do you?"
"Uh-huh," the bartender shrugs. "At least you managed to get rid of that annoying human, before I had to beat him over the head with his own spine. For doing that babe, you can ramble to me all evening."
"Oh yeah... Conrad," Shepard groans, remembering her most persistent fan. "Sorry about that whole thing."
The asari bartender passes her a bowl of peanuts and opens another bottle of liquor, this time pouring some for herself. "Anything else I can get for you babe?" she asks. "Sorry, no sex. I just cleaned the bar."
Shepard blinks. "I don't think embracing eternity usually gets that messy," she says without thinking.
The asari laughs throatily. "Well, then you're not doing it right," she remarks. Shepard is about to vehemently disagree, when the other woman cuts her off. "She must be something special to get you moping like this," the bartender says.
"How do you know it's a 'she'?" Shepard stares at her with drunken suspicion. The asari merely grins knowingly. "But yeah, you're right. She is something special, alright."
"Nos Astra can provide many ways to forget about someone," the bartender suggests mysteriously. Shepard isn't sure about her tone, whether it is testing or suggestive.
"You're... not coming on to me, are you?" she finally asks.
"Goddess, no, that would be very awkward," the asari laughs. Shepard gives her a narrow-eyed glare. "I mean, I'm really not fond of humans that way. Sorry, babe. Besides, I'm no longer at the stage where I feel the need to drag everyone remotely interesting between the sheets."
"You know, you're a... pretty damn odd bartender," Shepard finally remarks, finishing yet another glass.
"Name's Aethyta. Matriarch Aethyta," the asari says, making Shepard's eyes widen in surprise.
"A matriarch? In a bar? Serving drinks?" she blinks.
"And dispensing matriarchal wisdom," Aethyta winks at her. "So, why not? Besides, the other matriarchs laughed my blue ass off Thessia, just for having some radical thoughts. What's so damn funny about using our supposedly superior asari knowledge to construct mass relays of our own?"
"You have the tech to do that?" Shepard asks, surprised. Aethyta nods. "Well, in that case, I don't see why not. Your fellow matriarchs are probably too stuck in the old ways of thinking."
"You said it, babe," Aethyta agrees. "Or they go and join up with some crazy turian Spectre with delusions of grandeur and get themselves killed."
"Benezia," Shepard feels her mouth going dry. "You are talking about Benezia," she repeats.
The matriarch gives her another one of those enigmatic smiles. "Perhaps I am at that," she says, before reaching out and slapping Shepard's hand with surprising force. "Don't eat that," Aethyta admonishes her. "I've told you several times already, the nuts in the red bowls are for turians and quarians. If you want to get yourself killed, poisoning is slow and messy and generally not recommended."
Shepard guiltily nurses her slapped arm. "Geez, you whacked me good, like a krogan," she complains.
Aethyta laughs. "Can't help it. Dad was a krogan. Can you tell?"
"Boy, can I," Morgan chuckles, slowly beginning to feel a little woozy from the last glass of the frighteningly pink concoction. "You know, I think I'm... getting a little inebrit-... inebe-... drunk."
The asari rolls her eyes in reply. "Good thing you humans have secondary and tertiary organs. All that booze is probably playing merry havoc with your liver right now."
"Yeah, thank god for that... hey, wait!" Morgan blinks, giving Aethyta an incredulous stare. "That's krogan! Humans don't have that!"
Aethyta shrugs. "Well, tough." She then winks at Morgan. "You want me to radio your ship and tell them to send someone to pick you up? I would not recommend attempting to walk all the way back. We lose too many customers that way... drunkenness, extreme heights and low railings is a hilarious combination."
"Nonsense, I can do it," Shepard protests, jumping off the seat at the bar to illustrate her point. Immediately, the collective strength of several bottles of hard liquor punch her in the face and send her sprawling on the floor. "I'm Commander Morgan Shepard and this is my favorite bar on Ilium," she mutters before promptly passing out.
When Shepard finally wakes up, she finds herself back in the captain's quarters of the Normandy. The walls are still slowly spinning but eventually stop, her surroundings becoming crisp and focused again, letting her groggily get out of the bed. Is this what Tim meant by saying I should find closure to my past relationships? Sure didn't feel like the kind of closure that made me strong, committed and now willing to get myself killed for the greater galactic good.
She stands at the mirror naked save for underwear, observing the sad mess before her, hair miserably tangled and giving her a particularly pathetic appearance, and the dark circles under her eyes do not make for an inspiring image. "Fuck you, Tim! Fuck you!" she exclaims angrily at the mirror. "Shows what you know, dickhead! I'm not fucking ready, I'm not... I'm not..." Gods, I need to get a grip. I need to get a grip on myself, or this will quickly spiral out of control. Need to... do something.
The others, they still need me. They count on me to be strong, to lead them. They don't deserve to be sent to their deaths just because I'm falling to pieces here, she finally remembers, reaching out for something to anchor herself to. Garrus. Tali. Joker, Chakwas and the rest of them. Need to be strong for them. The remaining dossiers, need to tackle them.
In the mess hall, she faces a lot of worried looks, but she puts on a flippant, confident smile and soon everything returns back to normal. They discuss tactics, coordinate strategies and decide on the new plans. It makes sense to split their forces in two groups, one to go after Thane Krios, the other to follow Samara. Thane, the mysterious drell assassin, is supposedly after an old acquaintance of Shepard's, a scheming and backstabbing asari named Nassana Dantius who managed to successfully manipulate Morgan into killing Nassana's own sister for her. Shepard promotes Miranda to lead the group going after Thane and allows her to pick a squad.
Miranda deems Jacob to be in need of further recovery and selects a crew of Garrus, Zaeed and Mordin, leaving Shepard with Tali, Jack and Grunt. They follow Liara's intel to quickly track Samara down at the commercial spaceport, finding their target busy mercilessly slaughtering asari commandos belonging to the mercenary group of Eclipse. Samara is a powerful biotic and a member of an ancient order of justicars, a group respected and rightfully feared for their extremely black and white views and subsequently uncompromising modus operandi. Anyone standing between Samara and her target is considered to be obstructing the righteous justice, and as such, the justicar code demands them to be eliminated. This extreme rigidity forces Samara to apply her code even to the local asari police officers who attempt to prevent her from running amok and killing everyone left and right in their district.
In the end, Shepard manages to strike a deal with both Samara and the local police detective Anaya. Samara will allow herself to be taken into custody for a day, during which Shepard promises to track down the culprit she is after. Once the day has expired, Samara grimly promises to break free from her detainment, killing Anaya and every other police officer foolish enough trying to intervene. "I wish I could understand why your people greatly respect these justicars," Shepard tells a very uncomfortable looking Anaya before leaving. "I would like to hope that if such remnant of the Middle Ages ever reared its ugly head back on Earth, they would be quickly thrown in prison where they belong."
"Well, for a monastic order, given up on all worldly pleasures, she certainly shows off a lot of her... skin," Tali comments. "That does not strike me as overly professional. And what about those high heels, how does one even walk around with those?"
"Having flippers like yours probably doesn't help there, duck-girl," Jack laughs at Tali, annoyed that the quarian doesn't understand the insult.
Samara tells them of her target, another asari who has been in contact with the Eclipse, seeking her way off Ilium. Shepard decides to ask the Eclipse, hoping that they would be smart enough and helpfully hand over the justicar's prey or at least disclose the name of the ship that Samara's target left on. Predictably and violently, the Eclipse decides not to cooperate.
"I still wonder how it is possible to have such an extensive Code that would cover every possible scenario, explaining them what course of action is just and which isn't?" Tali wonders as they are busy clearing the Eclipse base from the desperate defenders.
"I don't think that's possible," Jack says, lazily throwing a shockwave that knocks three LOKI mechs off a small walkway, sending them tumbling to explosive demise five stories below. "Which means she might one day run into some situation that her Code doesn't cover and her brain might blow up from having to think for herself. Ah... a good mental image to keep in mind!"
Shepard can't keep herself from chuckling. "She did say she sleeps well at night with the choices she makes. My sleep is all messed up, maybe becoming an unthinking zealot is the answer? Something to consider, eh? At least she said she's drawn to impossible causes, stopping the Collectors should be right up her alley."
"Less chatter, more focus on the important things," Grunt shouts impatiently, getting annoyed by their banter.
"And that would be?" Tali asks.
"Kill more squishy asari!" the krogan roars, charging the next hapless group of mercs trying to stop them from reaching the headquarters of someone called Captain Wasea.
"I'm a bit worried about this asari that Samara is chasing," Morgan remarks, following Grunt into the fray, his violent enthusiasm downright contagious. "Something out of the asari mythology? Ardat-Yakshi? Demon of the night winds? Doesn't sound very nice."
"It must have been something serious like that for Samara to leave the asari space and come all the way here," Tali agrees with a nod.
The Eclipse continue to throw themselves to slaughter with increasing desperation, and the pointless, stupid loss of asari life is starting to get to Shepard. They have to know they can't stop us, she thinks. What do they hope to gain from this pointless sacrifice? Is the name of this one ship worth twenty, thirty lives? Do they truly fear this Ardat-Yakshi so much that they would rather die than betray her?
She feels relieved when they finally reach the heart of the base, where the leader of this Eclipse cell, Captain Wasea, stands waiting for them, surrounded by at least dozen of her Eclipse sisters. There will be ranting, cursing and threats made, before they attack us again, Shepard already knows the depressing pattern. And then they will die, all down to the very last. Hundred years, two hundred years, three or more, all spent pointlessly and with nothing to show for it, just a bullet-ridden corpse for cremation, contents for a jar with not even a label on it.
Do their parents ever find out what happens to these asari maidens who choose to waste their young lives with these scummy mercenary gangs, or drown themselves in red sand while stripping in some seedy bar? Aethyta was right when she said the asari need to rethink their own way of life. At least Liara isn't like this. Liara isn't like this. Liara... Liara...
"Shepard!" Tali's voice alerts her, shocked and panicking. She is suddenly aware of spiking pain in her side and as she stares down, Shepard sees her Kestrel armor being riddled by bullet holes, kinetic barriers long gone and dark red stains of blood slowly spreading and flowing downwards. Heavily, she throws herself into cover, daring to take a short breath that still makes her cry out from pain. She seeks to quickly apply some medi-gel, before she has bled out on the floor, wondering what just happened. Fuck! I was right there, how did I miss it when they started shooting?
The medi-gel quickly takes effect and seeing that the others are still being hard pressed by the Eclipse, with bloodied hands she readies her sniper rifle, hoping to pick off some of the Eclipse rocket troopers that are making Tali and Jack's life miserable. Even wounded, her aim is still true, both the heavy troopers collapse moments later, two clean headshots. Garrus would be proud, she thinks, momentarily forgetting to observe the rest of the battlefield.
Wasea's biotic powers lift a fuel canister and the asari commando quickly throws it into her direction. Shepard notices it in the last moment and rolls out of her cover, avoiding the point of impact as the explosion leaves a charred hole in the spot she had occupied moments ago.
Morgan quickly gets back up to her feet, about to reach a new spot for cover to her left. It is only a few yards, but she is slowed by her injuries. And Wasea is fast, too fast for her.
The SMG barrage hits her right in the midriff. The kinetic barriers shatter, pop, pop, pop, the shields go out. One, two, three bullets enter her abdomen as she throws her arms in the air and falls, Tali's shouts of rage and despair accompanying her descent into darkness.