"I'm sure Liara will agree," Ashley said for the third time, watching Sihra closely as they entered the Aswa's airlock. The storm cloud of irritation and concern surrounding the rakir was palpable.

"What if this is out of her hands?" Sihra asked, one corner of her mouth wrinkled unconsciously, a display of her mood. "They barely granted permission to uplift my people and cure the Affliction. Now it is their worlds in danger. If I do not return home soon the renegade Houses will overcome the Ubuut and there will be war. But if she delays in order to return me to Nakira, Osco may not be stopped in time. Her loyalty is with them, not me or the rakir. My people are an unimportant footnote in their thoughts-"

Something about the way the rakir was speaking was strange, but Ashley could not quite put her finger on it. She sounded rougher, somehow more guttural, with oddly thick consonants and growling r's.

"Liara isn't them, Sihra. She and Del and Miranda want you and your people to live. If there's any way possible, she'll get you home to stop the war. This isn't necessarily an either-or situation. The captain-"

"The captain's home world is one of those at risk, according to that report you received!" the rakir said. "She's not going to sacrifice them for us!"

"If she has to send you home on a shuttle so you can do what you need to do, then that's what will happen! She-"

She broke off as she saw her cousin headed their way, Miranda and Deefa on her heels. "Oh- Sam. Is Liara back?"

"I need to speak to her right now," Sihra said, before the other N7 had a chance to answer.

"She's not back yet but she's on her way," Feris replied, frowning. "You all right, Sihra? You sound like you have a cold."

"I haven't got a cold anything-"

Miranda's eyes widened and she stepped forward. "Sihra! My God…when did the translator break?"

"What? The translator?" Ashley blinked, staring as Miranda moved forward and removed the collar from around Sihra's neck, realization dawning. Sihra had sounded strange because it was not the flat, pleasant voice of the translator speaking at all. Ashley had gotten used to the guttural growls and thick sounds preceding the Galactic translation of the collar. Now those sounds and the voice from the collar were gone. "You mean, the reason she sounds like that is because it's her talking? Sihra, you're speaking Galactic!"

Sihra was visibly irate, the fur on her neck standing stiff. "You say that as if it is difficult or of any import! That stupid Voice stopped working earlier today. It was a distraction at best, and is pointless now. We were discussing my people!"

"She learned Galactic that quickly?" Sam asked, still astounded as Miranda looked over the collar.

"It's not unheard of. The salarians and the krogan can learn languages incredibly quickly, provided they are fully immersed. Sihra's heard nothing but Galactic and the Rakhiri translation since she was taken off her world-"

Sihra growled, frustrated with the pointless fascination they had with her speaking their tongue and ignoring the more important issue. "You are all useless detrak! I will find the captain myself!"

She turned to head back toward the airlock, Ashley immediately turning after her. "You can't go off board without an escort-"

"Do we have a problem?" Liara asked, rounding the corner from the airlock and taking in the scene with an uplifted brow.

"I need to return to Nakira," Sihra said angrily. "I have been gone too long, the Houses may already be moving against the Ubuut."

"Yes, I am aware, Sihra. We will not allow that to happen, I assure you- are you feeling well?"

"She's fine," Miranda said. "She's speaking Galactic. Seems she's got a bit of an accent."

"Galactic?" Liara blinked, looking at the collar in Miranda's hand. "How is that possible?"

"Rakir apparently pick up languages fast. When the collar malfunctioned she merely started speaking Galactic in its place."

Ignoring the exchange, Sihra fixed Liara with a look. "You will take me home? What about Osco?"

"We are departing immediately," Liara said. "Ash, is everyone on board?"

"Dr. Shepard still hasn't returned, but everyone else is accounted for."

Liara immediately activated her omni-tool. "Dr. Shepard, what is your location?"

{I'm on my way back to the ship. Just entering the docking ring now. I should be there in two minutes. Is everything all right?}

"We need to depart immediately. I will explain when you are back aboard. Liara out." She switched the tool off, looking over at the helm. "Jura, I want us in the black the moment her boot leather is on my deck."

"Powering up now, Captain," the pilot replied. Liara then looked to the others.

"The Council has granted a fleet. A combined force of a hundred turian and alliance ships will be heading to Permiatic within the next solar day. Osco will not reach her destination for another four if she continues at her current speed- two if she jumps to FTL but that seems unlikely. She seems to be low on power and is continuously diverting to solar orbits in order to charge her systems. If we depart immediately, we will be at Nakira within six hours at FTL speeds. Sam, I want you to touch base with the research station, make sure they know we are heading there immediately to return the Prilekk. Matriarch Vasta is arranging the support we need and they should already be notified the uplifting will commence. The moment we are done there we are heading to Permiatic ourselves."

"What about the Antennae?" Ashley asked.

"We are putting evacuation efforts into effect on both Thessia and Earth, and are attempting to reach the geth on Rannoch to inform them of the situation. Even so, operating at full capacity it would take six months or longer to completely evacuate both planets. Osco must be stopped before the Antenna on Ilos reaches full power or billions will perish."

Just at that moment, Shepard jogged onto the ship and around the corner. "Are we going? What's happening?"

"Jura!"

"Disengaging airlock now and putting in a course, ma'am."

"Get to your duties," Liara said to the others. "Miranda, I want you to go over the plan with Sihra- I want to make sure our arrival on Nakira goes as safely and smoothly as possible. I expect a full briefing in three hours. Shepard, come with me and I will fill you in on the situation- we also have a call to make."


Liara repeated what she'd told the others as they headed to her quarters. Shepard still looked a bit pale, but whether that was a result of the encounter with Pio or with what news Liara had just delivered, it was unclear. The asari wanted to tell her to go and rest, but there was far too much still to be done in a short amount of time. They were about to set foot on a planet populated by apex predators who had not yet even managed to discover their world was a sphere and not a plane. Even with the Prilekk along, things could go incredibly badly- and that was just the tip of the iceberg.

As they reached her room, Liara went to her console, Del watching her warily. "And who is it that we are calling?"

"The commander of the turian ships shadowing the dreadnought," Liara told her, setting up the signal. "They have a prisoner on board that I wish to speak to."

"Prisoner? Who?"

"Ruth Wyatt. She departed the dreadnought in a pod not too long ago, and the turians picked her up. I do not know if she left with or without Osco's knowledge."

"She never would have made it off the ship if Osco didn't allow it. She may not have told her to go but she at least didn't prevent it when she noticed she was leaving. Wyatt couldn't have snuck off, not with Osco's level of integration. It'd be like your finger breaking from your hand without you knowing about it."

"All the more reason to speak to her, find out what is going on," Liara said, touching one last command.

{Captain T'Soni, we are receiving you.}

"Holographic interface if you please, Commander. I would like to speak to the prisoner."

{Activating now.}

Del and Liara both stepped toward the middle of the room as the holographic generators kicked online. The turian commander appeared, a female turian standing close by. As he came into view, he nodded respectfully. "Captain, Doctor. I am Commander Effeg. This is my XO, Lt. Shale."

"What is Wyatt's condition?"

"Physically, she's fine. Some old damage to her leg and hip but no new wounds or ailments. She is in some emotional distress…waffles between hostility and misery. She's refused to answer our questions so far- perhaps you'll have more luck."

"We shall certainly try. Put her on."

As he directed Shale to get Ruth, Del leaned over and murmured to Liara. "Remember, she abandoned her husband for Osco- not to mention the atrocities she's had a hand in because of her feelings for that woman. Imagine what it would take for her to leave Osco now, especially if it was not at Gellian's direction."

Liara nodded, straightening as Shale reappeared, Ruth gripped tightly by the arm. The human woman was limping heavily, and even in holographic form, her misery and anger seemed palpable. As she drew to a halt, she yanked her arm away from the turian woman with a glower, then looked at Liara and Del.

"I'd ask how you are alive when I saw you die, T'Soni, but there's not much that surprises me anymore. Not when it comes to that godforsaken black tech."

"Ruth, we need to know if you left Osco of your own volition or if you escaped."

"Left her? You think I left her?" the woman asked furiously. "I would go to the end of the fucking galaxy for Gellian Osco, so fuck you if you think I just left her! Jelly is dead. She's dead."

Liara was surprised. "She is dead? Then why-"

She broke off as Del touched her arm, speaking to Ruth herself. "It must have been difficult and painful for you, Ruth- to watch that thing take her over. To see her lose every bit of herself inside of it."

Ruth sobbed tightly, pressing a hand over her face a moment before struggling back under control. "It was my fault," she said thickly. "I made her that goddamn promise. I should have just let her go. I should have let her go, but it was my goddamn selfishness-"

"It was her Petit Wahler's, wasn't it?"

Ruth nodded. "She was dying. I should have just let her go. I hated that goddamn black ship. It made my nerves crawl, but she had made me promise. I thought it worked. I really did…but whoever it was that woke up on that ship wasn't my Gellian anymore. She died on that table. The thing that woke up later was a fucking mockery of her. Nothing even remotely human remains of her now. She's a disgusting, horrific thing that thinks it's still a person, but every trace of my Gellian is gone, do you understand? Whatever it is that is controlling that goddamn ship is not Gellian Osco! And I won't help it. Not anymore."

"I am so sorry," Del said gently. "But enough of her must remain, enough of her that still cares about you, if she let you leave instead of killing you or keeping you trapped. Some part of her feelings for you must still linger."

"Echoes, maybe. Faint shreds. Or maybe I was just that unimportant to it," Ruth replied. "It doesn't matter. If any part of Gellian is in there it's just a nuance, a ghost that is as trapped as I was. You saw her, Captain T'Soni- before she throttled you with those appendages. You saw her, and that was eons more human than what she is now."

"If you want to help us stop her, then we need to know everything, Ruth. Everything it may have told you about what it is planning, what its condition is. Any flaws or weaknesses, no matter how small they might be. We need to destroy that ship and halt its mission if you want Osco to have any kind of rest, or if you want any level of atonement for what you helped her to do."

"I told you, it wasn't her!" Ruth said furiously. "It was that thing-!"

Liara glared right back. "That thing did not create and release the PMD. That thing did not drive an entire species to extinction levels because it had some delusional, narcissistic idea of godhood!"

"Ruth," Del said, "Osco was sick, even before she integrated into that ship-"

"No! I-I mean, yes, she was…she was sick but she wasn't- Jesus fuck, get off your high horses for one goddamn second and fucking listen! Gellian had her problems, she did. I won't argue that, but you do not know the whole story! Before those half-conscious, raving stragglers stumbled into her lab complex and lead her through a Fold and onto that ship, Gellian was merely pursuing her genetics research to help all species…the same research she was working on when you were part of her team, Shepard. She was extreme but she wasn't goddamn homicidal! She didn't want to kill anyone, she wanted to cure disease, strengthen the genetic code. Hell, she was even trying to find a way to reverse the salarians goddamn genophage so that the krogan could be free of it! Then she set foot on that thrice-damned ship! The PMD was never supposed to kill! It was supposed to be benign, merely correct the flaws in the genetic code of those injected with it. Then that ship got into her head and she began to change. She started having nightmares, started losing her mind. The drugs that helped keep her Petit Wahler's in check lost their effectiveness! Something dark got into her on that ship and she started to lose herself, and damn it, I let it. I was willfully blind. I kept telling myself that she was fine, that she had good reasons-"

"That ship was a troop transport that was used by a rebel faction to stop the brasa's plan of galactic conquest," Del said angrily.

"Just because those rebels may not have wanted to enslave an entire galaxy like the brasa does not mean they had our idea of values and morals!" Ruth shot back, then pointed. "I can see the interference on your hologram from here, doctor! That thing on your wrist- Jelly got one the third time she entered that ship in the hopes she could find the cure for the galaxy's ailments. It wasn't until that appeared that she started to change, to become obsessed with not only ridding the universe of genetic disease but also its carriers! That thing that changed her is inside you now! That was a brasa ship before the rebels took it over, on a brasa mission! Scraps of that mission lingered in its interfaces, and some of those interfaces got within Gellian and turned her into their puppet, just as the Enforcers were their puppets!"

Del felt cold, her fingers unconsciously pressing against the metal starburst. "You're talking about the Pio."

"Yes! Half a billion tiny synthetic minds crawling all through that tech- minds designed to interface between brasa and gavoom. You don't look like a brasa, you don't act like a brasa, you don't share the physical neurology of a brasa, and you sure as fuck don't think like a brasa. What do you think happens when a program interfaces with a computer it was never designed for?"

"It produces an error, or crashes the system," Liara said softly.

"Exactly! The only difference is, we're organic, bioelectric computers instead of synthetic ones. Gellian's brain couldn't take the errors in programming and in the end, that's what happened…it crashed. It crashed, and the Pio reconstructed it into a brain they could use. That's what's going to happen to you too, doctor. It may take longer- you don't have Petit Wahler's after all…but it will happen, and when it does, you're going to be no better than whatever that monstrosity is that is heading for Permiatic."

"W-we need weaknesses, Ruth. We need everything you know, any way we can stop it before it can activate the Web," Del said, dropping her hands and straightening.

Ruth swiped at her eyes, gave a shaky sigh. "She's low on power, but she's recharging. You probably already figured that out. You injured her when she left Tuchanka but you probably already know that as well."

"So tell us something we do not already know," Liara said heatedly.

"All right, here's something that's rather important," Ruth said, glaring sharply at the asari. "When the rebels fled the Holy Waters for the Milky Way, they were outrunning a weapon so powerful that it was capable of destroying an entire galaxy. I'm sure you've questioned to yourselves if the Holy Waters or the brasa even still exist."

"We heard some on this weapon, yes," Liara said. "You know more about it?"

"I do. I know that that weapon was not unique, nor was it singular. Instead, like the Web, it was made up of different components built on different worlds, designed to cause a chain reaction when activated that would be like dominoes falling. Supernova after supernova building up a chain reaction that would tear apart all matter over an entire galaxy, leaving only nebulous, atom-sized debris in its wake. Unlike the Web, however, this weapon wasn't seeded across just five worlds, but thousands of them."

"Thousands?" Del whispered.

"In order to create a chain reaction big enough to wipe out a galaxy, thousands are needed," Ruth said. "The brasa wanted no risk of failure in the galaxies they invaded. If the inhabitants proved too strong to conquer, the brasa merely retreat back through their Fold to safe space and hit the big red button. The ultimate 'if we can't have it, no one can' mentality."

"I-in order to do that, this 'weapon' would have to be built and seeded throughout the targeted galaxy right along with the Antennae," Shepard said, her voice sounding distant and flat, even to her own ears. "It would have to exist and be in place before the brasa even came through their Fold."

"Yes. That's what I'm telling you. That weapon is here, in the Milky Way, right now. The rebels shut it off just as they did the Antennae, but they didn't have the means or the time to dismantle it."

"Goddess…the Norvaya Tragedy," Liara said. Del looked at her in a daze.

"The what?"

"Remember? I told you about it on Phederaal, before we tried for the Omega Four relay. The archaeological team who discovered highly advanced alien tech buried deep on Deceptor, beneath runs of the si'vanan. Shortly after they discovered it, the Deceptor's young and healthy sun suddenly went supernova, destroying the entire system."

"They turned it on again, just that one piece of it, and the result was an entire system wiped out in seconds," Ruth said. "Imagine that to the scale of thousands. Imagine if their actions hadn't just activated that one charge, but all the rest. We wouldn't be here to have this conversation."

"Does Osco have access to this weapon? Can she activate it?" Del asked.

"Yes," Ruth admitted. "But she won't. Not yet, at any rate. She's nothing but her mission now, and her mission parameters are quite clear. Open the Web and let the brasa fleets in. That is what she'll do until those parameters change."

"What would cause them to change?" Liara asked.

"If there is a large and powerful enough show of hostility when the Web is opened to pose a threat to the brasa fleet, she will send out a signal telling them to retreat back through the Fold and activate the weapon. If she opens the Web and the brasa fleet is not there- which is the most likely scenario given the time span and the detonation of their own weapon in the Holy Waters- then she will activate the weapon."

"She will not activate it before hand, not even if we attack her?" Liara asked.

"The brasa didn't consider the loss of the dreadnought of great enough importance to put that into the mission parameters, as they knew the Pio would simply build another one. They didn't take into account the rebels shutting down the process and so didn't compensate for that. So long as that dreadnought is taken out before the Fold can be open, she will not activate the weapon. This is where I can help you. I can provide to you the locations of the weapon components and a means to safely dismantle them or at least prevent them from reacting to the signal from the dreadnought if it is given."

"You have this information?"

"I do."

"And you'll just…give it to us? What do you want in return? Amnesty? Protection?"

"A gun," Ruth said flatly. Del blinked as if struck.

"You want to die."

Ruth laughed. The sound was oddly wrenching, the sound of a dying beast stuck in a trap. "Of course! Wouldn't you? What can I look forward to by living? A lifetime in prison? Whether that prison is one made up of iron and barriers or if it's some distant colony world on the ass-end of this galaxy and a fake name, it doesn't matter. Everything I had worth living for died on that slab with Gellian. I'm as responsible as anyone for this monster that now sails toward Permiatic. I'm as responsible as she for the death of those people infected by her PMD. Honestly, I don't even fucking care if you give me a gun. Let me do it or do it yourself. Shoot me and call it an escape attempt, or deliver me to an executioner and call it justice, I don't care. You want this information, I get to die. That's the deal."

"How is it that you have this information, Ruth," Liara asked warily. "Where did you come by it? I doubt Osco simply told you- it would not serve her purposes to impart it to you, and it risked this very situation. How do you know the locations of these components or how they can be disabled?"

Ruth's grin was wry and utterly without even the ghost of mirth or joy. Silently, she reached up and grabbed the collar of her shirt, tugging it down and stretching it over her shoulder.

On a patch just beneath her collar bone, the holographic image was nothing but a circle of broken interference. Seeing it, Del's fingers shot back to the starburst on her own wrist.

"The answer is simple. The Pio told me, Captain. Just like they told your little pet doctor."