Interstitium Chapter 23, Doppelganger, Samara, a mass effect fanfic

Doppelganger – Samara and Morinth

And the justicar are Athame's justice enfleshed, neither above nor below Her teachings.
And the justicar are the Code enfleshed, and neither command nor obey.
And the justicar are the slow crawl of order enfleshed, and fall upon the unjust and the wicked.

And the justicar are empty of what they once were, and act without ego, thought, or hesitation.
And the justicar are empty of vengeance but also of pity.
And the justicar are empty of forgiveness and see weight only in justice.

And the justicar are not moved.
And the justicar see no change but for death.
And the unjust and the wicked and all who would defend them are ended at her hands.

–

Samara's hands ran across the enamel of the desk, tracing a line through the oily residue that clung like lichen to the room's every surface. It came off as a dust, making the air shimmer in a halo around her fingertip. She watched the narrow plume twist and fade from behind the safety of her mask.

Her mind was full of dark thoughts.

"Cohexisol," Mordin said, holding a pinch of the residue up to his eyes. Samara could see the scowl behind his own mask. "Effective on most sentient species," he said after a moment, brushing the dust away. He looked at her, eyes expectant. "Mostly safe for turians, repeat exposure potentially fatal in most other species. Including asari."

"I am fine, Mordin," Samara repeated, turning away. The doctor had made it clear how little he approved of her entering Miranda's quarters before he'd cleaned them. She'd already been poisoned once. Still, as soon as the ventilation systems had come back online he'd kept his word and called on her to join him.

Now they stood amongst the remains of a battlefield aboard their own ship. It had been three days since the XO's had fought, and Miranda's quarters had stood untouched. The gas had settled out but otherwise it looked like Garrus and Miranda had only just left. Upended furniture and datapads were strewn in all directions, many broken, pummeled by biotic fields. Blue blood and red alike speckled the floor.

And cohexisol still blanketed every square inch. Motes of paralytic dust swam in the air as the newly-restored ventilation systems circulated the room's atmosphere through the filtration in life support, but left to themselves it would be days before the room was safe. Mordin had been disgusted at the very idea of a biohazard being left to simmer (abysmal lab etiquette, he'd said, clucking his tongue), and with Tali busy on the ship's repairs and his own lab out of commission, he'd volunteered to do a proper cleanup. (Samara suspected he had designs on the empty room being a second laboratory, once they'd restocked all the gear he'd lost in the hangar's power failure).

Now the salarian looked positively cheerful as he adjusted the settings on the pressure cleaner he'd borrowed from Gardner, humming to himself and tapping his feet in the middle of the ruined room.

Any other time, Samara would have smiled at the doctor's unflappability. But she had Justicar business on the mind today, and there was no room for anything else.

The room was chaos, but Samara's trained eyes cut through the noise to the patterns underneath. Her head played the scenarios as she pieced each clue together. A turian soldier, coldly angry, armored. No guns, just gas grenades and his own bulk to protect him. The human woman, a biotic of rare power. Fragile but sleek, swift. Deadly.

And unarmed. An innocent. A noncombatant. A civilian.

Samara stooped to examine a smear of red-black blood.

She'd felt the effects of Garrus' cohexisol first-hand a few days ago when the turian had come bolting out of Miranda's quarters amidst a billowing fog. She'd barely had time to turn her head before the gas hit her like a drop-pod, filling her eyes and mouth with fire. One breath and the numbness had reached her lungs. She'd hit the floor before Garrus had made it two steps. If Sergeant Gardner had not come to her rescue and closed the door, trapping most of the gas behind it, she would have been out for hours.

As it was, however, she'd woken up minutes later in the crew quarters, a dozen worried humans at her side. She'd tossed aside their offers of help and, head still swimming, had rushed down to the hangar in time to see the Kodiak leave with Garrus and Miranda on it.

It was a bitter memory already.

Behind her, Mordin sniffed. Samara could feel his eyes on her back. "Repeat exposure compounds risk," he said again. "Please report any feelings of numbness, loss of balance, nausea, pain, lack of b-"

"I feel fine," she insisted again, forcing a smile over her shoulder. In truth she did stillfeel a bit woozy, even days later, but the unease had mostly gone.

Mordin stared at her, face dubious.

"I must be here, Mordin," she insisted. "A Justicar cannot abandon her duty lightly. It is in my Code." She breathed deeply. "And the justicar gives of herself until nothing remains," she said, and it was not her saying the words but the Vocicar singers who'd whispered the Code to her until it came alive in her head. "And fears no journey, no exertion, no death." She looked expectantly at Mordin.

Mordin smiled and rubbed at the chin of his mask. "Sutra ten," he said, nodding. "Yes. True." He nodded again. "But also Sutra four eight one." He cleared his throat. "And the justicar are justice enfleshed, but her flesh is her own, and she will not wither or die but for the Code," he recited.

Samara did not bother hiding her amazement. "You know the Code…" she said, impressed. As strange as it was hearing an alien say words normally reserved for asari temples, she couldn't help but adore the salarian for his worldliness. Mordin really was wonderful.

Mordin waggled his brows. "Read it before," he said. "Interesting document. Few better for insight into asari culture. Would also recommend 'Matricar Commentary on the Doctrine of Athame' by Matriarch Alaniera and 'Advent of Siari Principles in Interplanetary Computationally Codified Democratic Societies' by Matriarch Coloi. Fascinating reading." He sniffed, nodding to himself for a moment. "But no further digression. Sutra four eight one. Must keep self healthy. Code demands it. Rest." He stared at her expectantly.

Samara bit back a grin. "Soon," she promised. She turned back to the mess. She needed to know what had happened. EDI's cameras had been down, Miranda was still missing, and Garrus... well... he wasn't going to tell her the truth.

Behind her, Mordin sniffed again. Concern swam in his enormous, watery eyes. "If breathing problems ari-"

"I am not familiar with cohexisol," Samara interrupted, changing the subject.

It had its intended effect, and Mordin's face brightened. "Ahh! Uncommon in asari space, yes?" Mordin dove down his new tangent. "Compound discovered by volus terraformers in 2141. As I said, effective against most sentients, but low affinity of oxy-cohexisol adducts for turian receptors made it non-lethal weapon of choice for Hierarchy forces. Lowers breathing efficiency by slowing oxygen off-rate from molecular carriers." He frowned, shaking his head. "Terrible compound. Unethical."

"It can kill," Samara finished for him. Her eyes traced another bloodstain, a shattered gasmask, her mind constructing the scenario around it. An armored turian fist hitting the human woman's nose, or neck, or chin. A misplaced biotic field tearing a vessel in the mouth or nose. Too little blood for talons to have been involved, but it sprayed far and wide - it had been violent.

"Hmm?" Mordin looked up from the hose he was adjusting, confusion in his eyes. "Ahh, yes. As I said. Lethal with sufficient exposure. Mr. Krios in especial danger. Have warned him to remain on lower decks until cleanup operations concluded. Would hate to see his condition exacerbated. But no. Unethical for patent reasons. Cohexisol invented by Vol-Paraphan Biopharmaceutics, patented under Citadel law. Patent should have expired twenty years ago, chemical made available for widespread use, but Paraphan adds methyl group and convinces patent board to extend original patent instead of reapplying!" Mordin tsked in disbelief. "Unethical of Mr. Vakarian to support company with so little regard for intellectual property laws," he said, shaking his head. "Hope he will make more informed choice next time, buy from more reputable source."

Samara wanted to smile at that.

"Little reason for worry," Mordin added, smiling himself. "Forwarded catalogs of responsible resellers to Mr. Vakarian's omni-tool. Extracted promise he would look at them."

"Then you have had more success with him than I have," Samara said, rising to her feet. Her attempts to speak with the turian about what he'd done to Miranda had not been fruitful. He had hardly left the battery since Shepard's showdown with Cerberus, and even when she caught him out, he always managed to find a reason to excuse himself. Samara was no expert on turians, but even she could see that there was a new hollowness in Garrus' eyes. A horror in his gut. A wound to nurse.

The turian had said he hadn't intended to return. Samara could see that he had meant it. He would not speak with her.

"Not one to spread rumors," Mordin said, now busying himself scraping some of the gas residue into a tiny vial, "but little else to do with lab out of commission." He tossed Samara a conspiratorial wink. "Am told Mr. Vakarian compelled into an inconvenient mercy. May be upset at Shepard."

"Mercy on Ms. Lawson?" Samara asked.

Mordin shook his head. "No. Personal issue. Suspect he is quite over difficulties with Ms. Lawson. Turians very direct. Very pragmatic. Have difficulty, arrive at solution, carry it out. Little regret later." He tapped at a piece of the wreckage that Garrus had left of the room. "Proactive. Decisive." he said, nodding his head. "Worthy of respect."

Samara stared at Mordin. "He killed an innocent woman," she reminded him.

Mordin looked at her, brows raised. "Killed? Proof of that?" He gestured around the room. "See none myself. Too little blood. Cohexisol dosage within safe levels for healthy human female, providing exposure was brief. Possible killed afterwards but without surveillance footage," he sniffed, satisfied, "must assume Miranda alive - simply unconscious - when removed from ship. Only reasonable conclusion."

"Garrus is decisive," Samara said calmly. She was not used to being disagreed with over matters of crime scenes. "He feared Ms. Lawson, and so he killed her. He would not leave her alive."

Mordin shrugged. "Assumption," he said, returning to his work. "Killing Miranda would alienate important benefactors. Shepard. Illusive Man. Removing her sufficient for his purposes, avoids worst of reprisals."

Samara said nothing.

And the unjust and the wicked and all who would defend them are ended at her hands.

Mordin seemed to read the meaning in her silence. He turned, face drawn behind his mask. His enormous eyes searched hers for a moment, and she could feel the strength of his thoughts. Realization came to him quickly. "Youplan a reprisal," he said. It was not a question.

"Garrus is wicked," she said. She would not deny it.

Mordin stared at her, his face unreadable. To her surprise, he did not disagree with her. "Unwise," he said instead. "Mr. Vakarian close to Shepard. An important ally. A friend."

"I have sworn an oath of subsumation to Shepard," Samara said. "I will not act against him so long as it lasts."

Mordin stared at her for a long moment, reading the words between her words. "So long as it lasts," he repeated, letting the words hang in the quiet. Samara stared back, waiting for his response. There was a reason Justicars avoided friendships. Sooner or later they would have to do something that a friend would not - could not accept. It would not be the first time Samara had lost friends to the Code's demands.

She'd killed good men and women. Maidens less than a century old that knew no better and Matriarchs that did. Loving mothers and fathers, asari and aliens, beggars and governors and slaves and mercs and soldiers and everything in between. She'd killed commandos and STG agents and once almost slew a Spectre.

And she'd killed friends, back before she'd learned to avoid them.

Those moments always hurt. She was a Justicar. She was justice enfleshed. She had to hold the Code above all personal relationships. It did not matter that she had grown to like the eccentric doctor. Nor the turian Garrus, nor Shepard. It did not matter that she agreed Miranda had been a threat to the mission. It did not matter that the Normandy was the first place that had felt like a home to her in centuries. She admired what Garrus had done as Archangel. She admired Shepard's mercy, his trust, his gentleness.

And yet it did not matter. There was only the Code. She had to be willing to follow it, no matter what. She had to. There could be no exceptions, not ever. Otherwise...

Mordin rubbed his chin and thought, silent.

She looked at the salarian and steeled herself, waiting for his response. Suddenly she felt like a child again, waiting for her parents to pass judgment on her for some act of disobedience or another. Knowing she had disappointed them. She prepared for the look of hurt, of betrayal she had come to expect from those who got too close to her and forgot what she was.

It didn't come. There was no judgment in Mordin's eyes, no fear. Only calm understanding.

"Rest," he said finally.

Samara's eyes widened. She had not been expecting that. She'd been expecting Mordin to tell her her code was archaic, primitive. Maybe he'd try to find a loophole. Maybe he'd tell her about all the good things Garrus had done. She hadn't expected him to say... nothing. "Rest does not change what G-"

Mordin's hands were still. "Cannot force personal morality on you," he said. "Cannot tell you right from wrong. Against my principles. But believe Mr. Vakarian's honor sufficient cause to reconsider before swearing to kill him." His eyes narrowed. "Rest. Think afterwards. Perhaps will reconsider. Perhaps will not. Owe Mr. Vakarian that much."

Samara frowned at him. She had no intention of changing her mind, and surely the doctor knew it.

A vile thought occurred. Mordin was planning something. He'd wait until she went to her room and then he'd go to Shepard. They'd ambush her, or lock her in, or Shepard would try to force new oaths out of her. Something. The salarian was up to something.

But one look at Mordin and that thought fled as quickly as it had appeared. Mordin was not up to anything. He cared. About her. About the mission. About the Code, even.

"Rest," Mordin repeated.

"No," she said. "Shepard's will is my own. And only Shepard's."

Mordin frowned at her for about half a second before calling up his omni-tool. He tapped a command into its interface. "Shepard? Need assistance."

Shepard's voice crackled from his wrist. He sounded weary. "Kindof busy with Jack. What is it?"

"Will only take a moment. Repeat the following: Patient Samara displaying symptoms of disrupted balance, impaired eye focus, restricted blood flow to extremities, irritability, headache, nausea consistent with repeat exposure to weaponized cohexisol aerosols. Attempting to conceal symptoms to no avail. Recommend rest, fluid intake, at least two standard days. Repeat."

There was a long pause. "...Mordin..."

Mordin sighed, exasperated. "Repeat: Samara, rest."

That Shepard could do. "Samara, rest."

Mordin nodded. "Thank you." He closed his omni-tool and stared at Samara, face unapologetic. "Sutra four nine eight zero," he reminded her. "Third Oath of Subsumation. Must obey."

There was no arguing with the Code. Samara turned to go without a word.

"Shepard will need Vakarian," Mordin said, stopping her at the threshold. "Not just for this mission. In future as well. Will respect your decision, but please. Rest. Consider all angles before acting." He smiled at her. "For Shepard's sake."

Samara stared back at him for a long moment and felt terrible. Mordin was trying to be her friend. The first she'd had in many, many years. The kindness in the doctor's face, his concern… she didn't deserve it. Justicars should not have friends. They never kept them long. But even after what she'd told him, Mordin still tried. He didn't hate her. As smart as he was, he still didn't understand how deep it went.

Samara took a tremulous breath. "Sutra nine," she recited, voice quiet. "And the unjust and the wicked and all who would defend them are ended at her hands."

Mordin stared after her as she left the room.

–

Samara could not sleep, but Shepard hadn't said 'sleep'. He'd said to rest.

She could read and rest at the same time.

She clicked the display to the next page. The datapad was smaller and slower than she was used to - she'd borrowed it from Hawthorne to occupy her while she stood guard outside Miranda's quarters - but it suited her purposes well enough.

The next report, this one from Atar colony, filled the screen. Arlia T'sena, age 511, found dead in her home,it said. Samara read without expression. The girl's death was blamed on a brain hemorrhage, a freak accident of bad genes and worse luck. Arlia's smiling face looked up at her from the screen, just above a few sentences about her family. A note about an award she'd won a century past. Funeral details. The article said little about who Arlia had been, whether she'd been quiet or reckless, affable or reserved. Whether she might have had an asari lover.

Samara knew better than to try to predict her daughter's tastes. Maybe Arlia had that spark, that… whatever-it-was that drew Morinth to her victims like blood in the water. Or maybe she really had died of a brain hemorrhage. There was no way to know. It was just one event in thousands, one moment in time, now immortalized on the extranet.

Samara flipped to the next report.

It wasn't any one report that mattered. It was patterns Samara sought, patterns that were invisible to short-lived species. Samara had spent hundreds of years reading the pulse of news across the asari Republics. She'd learned to follow Morinth's wake. No matter how quiet, how stealthy her daughter managed to be, she was an Ardat-Yakshi. A wicked, evil thing. And she left ripples of unease wherever she went. She tinged the places she visited with fear. And Samara had learned where to look. A new neighborhood watch, a new law passed against drug-runners, a drop in ticket sales to horror vids. Anything could be a footprint in the clay.

But ever since Morinth had dragged her to Illium the footprints were getting harder and harder to follow. The aliens were unlike anything Samara had seen before. She'd read about many – even seen some turians and salarians in her youth – but to see them by the thousands was almost unreal. They made tracking Morinth difficult. The reports on Illium were different, harder to interpret. Asari communities were stable – it was easy to tell when something was wrong. But when aliens became involved it got more complicated. Aliens were passionate, brutal, short-lived. Uninterpretable. They added noise to the signal. Morinth could have hidden on Illium for decades before Samara could root her out – it was only by luck that Morinth had not decided to stay.

Samara had counted her blessings at that good fortune. Her saving grace was that Morinth would be just as out of place, just as eager to return to familiar ground as she was. Morinth enjoyed a diet of asari. She always had. Illium was as alien as their chase would get, and the next news would come from one of the worlds in the Republics. Then the hunt would resume.

Samara had time. It was why she'd felt comfortable oathing herself to Shepard.

Now she regretted it.

Morinth had left on the AML Demeter, a legitimate freighter with all the proper registration codes, and the Nos Astra spaceport controllers had gladly handed over its flight records when she'd asked. The records had confirmed Shepard's story – the Demeter belonged to the Eclipse sisters and had escaped through the Noa Key Relay shortly before Samara's arrival on Illium.

That had changed everything, and Samara had asked the controllers to recheck the data, just to be sure.

They were sure. The Demeter had not taken Delta Tau back to asari space, back to Morinth's old prowling grounds. It had taken Noa Key.

Into Citadel space. Into alien space. Into the galaxy at large.

Morinth could be anywhere by now.

Samara had pursued her daughter for more than four hundred years, and yet never before had their chase led them out of asari space. For the first time in their long lives, Morinth was taking them to new territory, to new creatures and planets and cultures. Out of their comfort zones. Somehow even looking out at the stars had felt alien and different to Samara. It was new ground for someone who'd been static a long, long time.

And yet... Even Samara could not deny the appeal some aliens had. Turians were violent but so gallant. Elcor huge and unreadable and yet deep and genuine souls. Humans, so passionate and fiery but so alive.

Maybe humans tasted even better than asari.

It was a chilling thought, but she could not ignore the possibility that Morinth would thrive outside of asari space. There were a thousand worlds Morinth could have chosen, and none of them would put much thought into a lone asari traveler, even one with so shining a personality as her daughter. None of them would send ripples Samara could recognize.

Samara did not know where to start.

And so she went back to the beginning and read and read and read. There was little else to do on her journeys - her fight against the Eclipse sisters on Illium had been the first time she'd struck a foe in almost a decade. She caught up on current affairs. Read about all the new species. The geth, the humans. She delved into their histories, read up on their planets, their customs, their art and beliefs. She learned about the galaxy's crime hotspots. She read about advances in security technology, about mercenary groups, about underworld trade. Everything she could find.

By the time she'd joined Shepard, she could name more than nine thousand cities on one hundred thirty inhabited planets, along with many dozens of orbital communities.

And every one could be a hiding place. It would take many years to find the right one.

But Samara was nothing if not patient.

Morinth would be smart enough not to go anywhere that would report the Demeter's arrival, but eventually she would be compelled to feed. She'd tire of running and she'd find someplace safe to rest, someplace with the luxuries to keep her entertained and the prey to keep her sated, and she'd wait for her mother to run her out and they'd start over again. It was the same dance they'd danced many, many times before. Samara knew it would repeat again.

It might take decades, but somebody would start to notice the disappearances. The ripples would come.

Samara flitted through the next report.

427 years ago…

–

Mirala's nerves sang as she embraced eternity. It was hard to describe the feeling. In a way it was just sex, a knot of pleasure that clenched at her core. But it was more, the way her mind seemed to sink, and all the fear and guilt and pain melted away under a calm sea of thought and feeling and unending bliss. She felt the warmth of a far off world, the smell of dust and blood and raw power.

The feeling lingered, the glow spreading from her stomach to her frills to the tips of her fingers and toes.

And then, ever so slowly, reality started to slip back. She felt the coolness of the air on her naked skin, heard her own panting breaths. The blur above her sharpened back into the ceiling and she remembered where she was. Qadach's bunk. She felt good. Better than she'd felt in years, and for a while she was still, just bathing in the afterglow.

The getraflies were still dancing in her stomach when she finally rolled over. "Qadach?" The krogan was silent, resting on his side, his armored back towards her. She tapped his shoulder, feeling the thick scales there. "Qadach?"

No answer. She tried to roll him over to no avail before giving up and climbing over his bulk.

"Qad-" She stopped.

Qadach's eyes were open, but there was nothing in them. Previously gold and yellow, now they were dim, and stared out blankly.

He was dead.

Mirala shrieked and stumbled back so quickly she smacked her head against the ship's wall. Memories rushed back to her in a torrent. He wasn't supposed to die.

"Qadach!" She reached out a hand to shake him.

His eyes stared at her.

Her hand pulled back.

Qadach was dead. Just like Ayla. Just like Balirri.

"Oh no… oh no no no…" Her mind reeled. This wasn't supposed to happen, not again. She'd only been aboard the Cynosure for a few months but she had already seen the ship's krogan crewmember survive incredible things. She'd seen him shrug off enough gunfire to down a war caternar. Seen him tear a pirate's head from her shoulders. He was the toughest creature she'd ever seen.

That's why she'd chosen him. That's why when the gnawing at the pit of her belly had grown too loud to ignore and she could hold it in no longer she'd gone to him over anyone else on the ship. He'dbe strong enough to survive her.

But Qadach was dead. She'd killed him. Just like Ayla. Just like Balirri.

Mirala took one last glance at the krogan's body and lost her hold. She retched onto the floor.

She got dressed as quickly as she could and ran for it, hellbent on putting as much of the ship as she could between herself and the corpse.

Qadach's empty eyes stared after her.

Presently…

–

Pragia's rain drummed down in an endless roar. It shredded foliage, it warped vision, it pounded off of the roofs that still stood like thunder. It pooled waist-deep in parts of the facility.

A minute on the planet and Samara was already soaked to the bone. The water pummeled her without mercy, each raindrop as heavy as a roofing nail, until her frills stung and her shoulders ached like she'd been carrying a great weight. Behind her, Jacob and Shepard had it even worse, clad head to toe in heavy armor and hefting a munitions crate between them – their every step became mired in mud, their pace slowing to a crawl. Jack was as naked and vulnerable as usual – she'd already stopped trying to dash the rain aside with her biotics, and even through the murk and the endless field of falling water Samara could see her inked skin reddening under the pounding. Even the vorcha that fired at them from their moldy hiding spots looked miserable in the endless torrent, their flesh pale and swollen with rot.

Samara and Jack made short work of them. Coronae shone in the darkness as the two biotics tore their way through Aresh's mercenaries. In the dark, Teltin facility was a maze of decomposing hallways and inky shadows and vorcha hid in every crevasse, but it didn't matter. Jack drove straight through the walls like they weren't even there, caving them down in vast sprays of mud and water that drove the vorcha scurrying out into the open.

Samara followed behind, cleaning up the stragglers.

She swung an arm and one terrified vorcha crumpled with a little squeal, the pickaxe he'd been wielding spiraling into the mud. His blood floated in the remnants of her field for seconds, mingling with caught raindrops in a midair constellation of red and black before spattering to the ground all at once. Samara pressed forward, stepping over the creature's remains without a thought. The assault rifle Shepard had given her chattered in her hands. Not so accurate as the asari-made work of art she'd lost on Resisti, but it served her purposes. Two more vorcha fell, their throats split by neat shots. She passed them too, unloading a few shots into each of their skulls as she went by so there was no chance of regeneration.

Jacob and Shepard followed the biotics' bloody swathe, and the rain fell and fell and fell, sweeping away the blood of the fresh battle below.

–

"Whoever Aresh is, he'll be in here."

Samara stood in silence, staring up at the pitted surface of a heavy steel door. The mercenaries had fallen back into the interior of the facility, where the ceilings still stood and the great roar of rain quieted to a rumble, but even with the help of a trio of krogan it had not availed them, and now the sounds of rain and battle alike were muted.

Samara let her gaze trace over the door. Even indoors, vines and mildew had claimed much of the building, but she could still see the words 'subject holding facilities' etched in a placard beside the door frame. Not to mention a rusted locking mechanism as thick as her arm. The door was unlocked now, the hallway it opened into dark and foreboding. It seemed to moan with the souls of all those who had suffered there.

Beside her, Jack was still suffering. The woman stared up at the door with none of her previous fury. Blood from the krogan merc leader still dripped from her fists. She radiated might – the woman's biotics were so enormously powerful that Samara could feel the gravity flicker around her even when she wasn't trying. And yet at that moment Jack looked very small and afraid. She had just torn apart half a platoon of mercs with her bare hands, and yet a simple door had paralyzed her at its threshold.

Samara said nothing.

She turned at the sound of panting behind her as Shepard and Jacob lugged the heavy steel case containing one of the Normandy's antiproton bombs between them. The case was a mess – more than once it had gotten lodged in the mud and needed Samara and Jack's help to extricate – but it had stayed sealed. The men let the case down with a shudder.

Shepard sat on the case's lid and peeled his helmet from his head. He flicked a hand up at the door. "I take it," he panted, "that's the place, huh?"

Jack's whispered agreement was barely audible over the sound of the rain on the roof.

The four of them were silent for a time, just staring at Jack, staring at the door. The woman gave no signs of moving, and Samara wondered if she would turn back after all this. Behind that door was Jack's Morinth. It would not take a weak person to turn away.

But Jack just stood and stared, her little shoulders shaking.

The minutes slipped by.

"I'm fuckin' fine, Shepard," Jack said finally, as if he'd asked. She turned to frown at him. "Let's just get this over with."

Shepard nodded, hopping back to his feet. He and Jacob unlatched the case, revealing a warhead neatly cradled in the dry foam padding within. Shepard shed his gloves and dried his rain-slicked hands on the foam before carefully hefting the bomb from its home, cradling it against his stomach like a baby. He held it out to Jack.

Jack bit her lip, eyes flicking from person to person. "You… you can bring it," she said. "You can come." She swallowed heavily. "But not them." She gave a nasty look to Jacob and Samara. "They're staying the fuck out here."

Samara looked to Shepard, who just nodded his agreement. He adjusted the bomb in his grip and trudged through the open door, disappearing into the darkness behind it. Jack stared after him for a pregnant moment then, finally, followed.

–

Samara and Jacob stood guard, listening to the sounds of the rain.

The facility looked the part of a tomb. It was a strange dichotomy, being inside a building that looked almost indistinguishable from the jungle around it. The room wherein they stood had long since succumbed to the planet's hyper-aggressive plant growth. The ceiling had lifted out, pushed aside by the implacable wreath of green that pierced it from below. Moss filled every crevasse, blackened every tile. Medical machines laid upended in puddles, their buttons dark and rotten. Animal trails criss-crossed floors where operations were once performed. It was easy to imagine corpses – or skeletons, at least – strapped to the operating tables at the far end of the room, but any remains had long since rotted away, smothered under the dampness. To be fair, some of the growth was quite beautiful – clusters of purple-white flowers huddled beneath leafy umbrellas, great tapestries of translucent tendrils, tiny orange, comma-shaped fruits hanging in bunches beneath the remains of rotted desks.

Still, even in a place so brimming with life, the feeling of death clung to every pull of air.

Samara was not done adding to it. Her hands rested at her sides but she listened, membranous ears straining for the sounds of surviving mercs.

The facility looked the part of a tomb, but it was not. Not yet, anyway.

"They will attack again soon," Samara said. "You should prepare yourself." She turned to regard Jacob, who was seated on the empty warhead case, trying to press the water out of his suit.

"Yeah, I know," he said, not looking up. "Can hear 'em gathering. Mostly only vorcha left. Probably behind that big wall there." He pointed, unconcerned, across the room to a rotted wall that had once obscured some kind of equipment closet.

Indeed, when she tilted her head, Samara could just hear the skittering whispers of vorcha behind it, the priming of guns, light footsteps in the mud and rain. Her fingers curled to make fists. "Tell me when you are ready," she said. The vorcha were planning an ambush, but with their krogan taskmasters dead, they would be easy pickings, disorganized and fearful. She would send them to the Goddess with the rest of their kin.

Jacob shrugged. "In a minute," he grunted, shaking the water off of his gun.

Samara found herself watching him. He was beautiful, in his own way. Like all humans, he looked almost asari, no missing digits, just the right size. None of the big, slanted ribcage and knobby fists of a batarian, nor the unnerving eyes that made the drell look so permanently in bonding, nor the sharp edges and lifeless, rigid frills of a turian. Soft features, like an asari, and yet boxier, squarer. Just different enough to be intriguing.

Samara imagined her younger self would have been all-too-fond of humans like Jacob, and for a fleeting moment missed her mercenary days. If only she were still Morinth's age, she'd –

Her mind caught up. No doubt Morinth had had humans. No doubt they'd died horribly.

She shook that thought from her head.

"Ready when you are," Jacob said, priming his shotgun. He stood – helmeted once again – and nodded at Samara. Inviting her to lead the way.

Their eyes met, and for a moment Samara couldn't help but wonder if the man would fall for Morinth's games. Jacob wasn't suave or confident – far from it, even – but he was a good man. Miranda's disappearance had hit him hard, not least of which because now half the ship expected him to lead the Cerberus crew to rebellion. And yet even after they'd spent a week on the Citadel without hearing from the former XO, even after Garrus had been brought back aboard with open arms, even surrounded on all sides by suspicion, Jacob had conducted himself with nothing but respect.

Shepard had obviously asked Samara to come to Pragia to keep an eye on Jack, but the fact that he hadn't left Jacob on the ship was not lost on her. Even Shepard didn't trust him yet, not so soon after what had happened to Miranda. And yet Jacob still served. He was a good man.

Morinth would eat him alive.

"I believe you have been mistreated, Mr. Taylor," she found herself saying.

Jacob looked at her, confused.

She hesitated, not entirely sure what she intended to accomplish. "I… think you are an honorable man," she clarified. She'd been good at this sort of thing once, long ago, but now… she was out of practice. She forced a smile, trying to put him at ease. "I think you do not deserve the mistrust you have been given."

Jacob frowned. "Yeah, well. Miranda didn't deserve it either, and look what happened to her."

"Her death was a great injustice."

Jacob's face twisted into an angry snarl and Samara knew she had made a mistake. "She's not dead," Jacob growled, jabbing at her with one armored finger.

Samara felt her cheeks purple in embarrassment. "I… am sorry, Mr. Taylor," she said. "I did not mean to…" She trailed off, at a loss. She did think Miranda was dead. The woman was not the sort to take an insult lying down, and yet even after a week docked on the Citadel she hadn't found her way back to the ship. Even the Illusive Man had been silent on her whereabouts.

What did Jacob thinkhad happened to her?

He wasn't saying. "Forget about it," he grunted instead. He gestured to the supply room where the vorcha were hiding, face grim behind his helmet.

Samara fell silent. So much for trying to cheer him up. She sighed and raised her rifle. "I will flush them out," she said, and left Jacob.

She took a few steps towards the rotting wall, gun clenched in her hands, listening hard for any movement inside. The whispers had quieted – the vorcha must have seen her coming. Still, as she approached she felt more and more sure of their hiding place. Vorcha were pungent creatures, and even in the dense perfume of mold and chlorophyll she could smell their stink wafting from across the room. She stopped a few meters from her target.

Then she tore the wall down.

It came apart easily, like damp bread, and half of the room came with it, sliding down into the mud and water with a wet rumble. There were screeches of surprise and anger as the vorcha scattered like insects under a disturbed log, springing in all directions to escape the collapsing ceiling. Samara opened fire, carefully gunning the fleeing aliens through their skulls. They popped and fell. Others scrambled for cover, diving into holes in the rotting scaffolding, but Samara pulled these out and ended them as well. Jacob joined in, his shotgun booming, shredding his targets.

It was only seconds and all the vorcha were dead. Samara holstered her weapon.

Jacob shook his head. "You could have warned me you were going to-"

"Mercy!"

The voice was barely audible over the rain, but Jacob and Samara froze in their tracks, weapons at the ready. Their eyes met for a moment.

Samara took a cautious step towards the rubble where the supply room had been. Fallen steel beams and jagged pieces of moss-tinted concrete lied about in piles, soaking under the new torrents of water seeping in from the hole she'd torn in the ceiling. Samara stepped over the debris, eyes scanning for any survivors.

"Mercy!"

The voice was quiet, weak. And not a vorcha voice.

"Mercy, please!" it called again, and Samara and Jacob followed it, climbing into the collapsed supply room to find a human woman in cheap gray armor, pinned under a fallen beam. Crimson blood mixed with rainwater in a puddle around her as she stared up at them with terrified eyes. "Mercy!" she squealed.

Samara looked down with no pity. "What is a human doing with the Blood Pack?" she asked. The woman had been too slow to escape the falling ceiling, but Samara couldn't see any gunshots on her. She wasn't a prisoner.

"Probably not with them," Jacob said, leaning down to shift the beam off of the woman's legs. "There are settlements on Pragia. She's probably just a worker hired there, brought over to help salvage this place."

The woman nodded frantically. She was shaking. Her skin was pale and spongy, like she'd been in the rain for weeks (which, of course, she probably had).

Staring down at the woman, Samara found herself remembering the slaves she'd found her merc group moving, so many centuries ago. They'd been in bad shape, sullenly silent, abused, emaciated. They'd been mostly turians – even asari criminals rarely touched their own kind – but that had not stopped Samara. Perhaps even as a maiden she'd had a touch of Justicar in her, even before she'd sought them out. Perhaps she had always been just.

It was a pleasant thought.

"She has a gun," Samara observed. It was caught under a fallen tile a few feet away, but unmistakably built for a human hand, smaller than a vorcha's weapon, but with more room for fingers.

"Yeah, but-"

"Find peace," Samara said quietly, and brought a warping field down on the woman's head. There was a wet thunk and the merc's skull crumpled in a plume of red. She was dead.

Jacob dropped the beam in surprise, falling over backwards with a shout.

Samara scanned for any others trapped in the fallen rubble. She found an unconscious vorcha peeking out from beneath one slab of stone – she pulverized its head too, pulping the one part of its body that couldn't grow back.

Jacob's voice cracked behind her. "What the hell was that!?"

"Justice," Samara said, calmly stepping off the rubble pile to check the next hall over. "And please do not point your gun at me. I was instructed to treat any Cerberus personnel who did so as enemies and deal with them accordingly." She looked down the hall. It was silent.

"But… she'd surrendered," Jacob said, voice quiet. Samara turned to look at him. He stared at the human woman's corpse with a dazed expression, his gun pointed squarely at the ground.

Samara smiled sadly. "She was wicked," she explained. "She was with those who would restore this place," she said, gesturing around her. "With those who would see more meet Jack's fate. She deserved death." Samara had no great love for Jack, but what Cerberus had done to the girl was abominable. She was only too happy to help blow this facility off the surface of the planet.

And kill everyone she found here.

Jacob looked at her. "What gives you the right?"

"The Code," Samara answered instantly. "Passed down by the Goddess Athame to those who followed."

"And you just expect everyone in the galaxy to follow your code?"

Samara could have pointed out that Athame's doctrines made no specific reference to asari at all. She considered other species' innocents under her protection, why should she not consider other species' criminals as her responsibility to destroy? She was willing to die to save innocent humans from the Collectors, why shouldn't she be willing to kill wicked humans?

But she stayed silent. Jacob would not understand, but it did not matter. She was a force for good. Even if it was hard, sometimes, to see that.

"No," Samara said finally. She pointed to the dead human. "But Ifollow it, and it demanded she die. Do you deny she was wicked?"

Jacob shook his head. "N…no. But you didn't have to kill her. We could have taken her to the Alliance, or the Citadel, or…" he trailed off. "Shepard wouldn't have…"

Samara knew he was right. Shepard wouldn't have. But who was Shepard against the Code?

Samara set a gentle hand on Jacob's shoulder. He was a good man. Naïve, but honorable and good. She felt for him. "The Code does not always call for death," she said, voice quiet. "But she was armed. She was with the vorcha. Had we not attacked her, she would have attacked us. Death was the only justice for her."

Jacob looked at her, his dark eyes meeting her pale. He did not shrug away from her touch, but she could see the iron in his gaze. "Don't do that again," he said.

Samara tried to find some warmth, some forgiveness in Jacob's eyes, but there was none to be had. She had been a Justicar far too long for that to bother her anymore. She did not flinch. "Shepard's will is my own," she said. "And only Shepard's."

She was silent as she returned to her post next to the big steel door, satisfied there were no more mercs hiding from her wrath.

Teltin was a tomb again.

–

The next person out of the door was not Shepard or Jack, and accordingly didn't make it three steps before Samara hit him with a biotic field so hard he went careening into the wall. Dislodged tiles shattered and he bounced, coming to a stop against a rotting workdesk with a moan.

Samara descended on him. "You must be Aresh," she said, lifting the man like a ragdoll. He weighed almost nothing, thin and broken, worse off even than the woman had been, but Samara did not falter. "Find peace in the embrace of the Goddess." She pulled back her arm.

"Bitch!"

The world lifted out from under Samara in a rush. Gravity upended itself and she found herself hurtling backwards, Aresh tumbling from her grip. She was flying.

It had been a long time since she'd fought a biotic strong enough to send her flying.

But she was a Justicar. Almost on instinct, she sliced her arm down, sending her own field cutting through the one that had thrown her. The coronae flashed blue-white as they slammed into one another hard enough to rattle instruments on the walls forty feet away. The fields fizzled and died and Samara slid out of their grip, landing neatly on her feet as gravity returned to normal.

Jack's second attack struck her, but this time she was ready, and deflected the woman's immense push with an elegant flick of her forearm. The coronae crashed again, exploding as they cancelled each other out and sending Jack flying into the far wall of the room with a crash.

Samara advanced, new fields dancing at her fingertips. Aresh stared up at her in abject fear.

Shepard came out of the hallway shouting, his assault rifle at the ready. "Samara! Stand down!"

Samara froze, her fields dispersing away to nothing. She stared at Shepard, at the gun barrel pointed at her cheek, with a cold evenness.

"What the hell is going on?" Shepard demanded, stepping between Samara and her prey. In armor he was a large enough barrier, though Samara could toss him aside with a gesture.

She stayed her hand, instead pointing past Shepard to Aresh, retching onto the ground while Jacob tried to steady him on one broad shoulder.

"Bitch tried to kill Aresh," Jack snarled, dragging herself out of the tangle of vines into which Samara had tossed her. She limped forward, joining Shepard in blocking Samara's path. Her hands filled with blue light that warped with furious strength. Her eyes filled with fire.

Shepard shook his head. "Why?"

"He is wicked. A foe. The leader of these mercenaries," Samara answered, voice calm. "Like them, he is condemned."

"Fuck that," Jack insisted, face red with fury. "If I don't get to kill him, she sure as shit doesn't."

Shepard did not lower his gun. "I'll explain later," he said. "He's surrendered."

"Surrendered or not, he is forfeit to the Code. Killing him is the only justice. The Code demands it."

Samara caught a flicker of hesitation on Shepard's face, as if he was only now realizing what he'd done, accepting a Justicar's oath. The indecision, the fear was only there for the briefest moment before it was gone, buried under his usual resolve. "I think mercy is a justice," he said.

"It is not," Samara insisted. Her fingers bloomed with blue energy again and she took a short step towards Aresh. The humans tensed and blocked her path.

"You promised my morals were yours, not the other way around," Shepard reminded her. Samara stepped again and again Shepard moved into her path.

"I do not expect you to enforce my Code," Samara explained coolly, taking another step, and another, circling her prey with an implacable patience. Shepard and Jack kept pace. "But I do expect you to stand aside while I do. Do not defend him, Shepard."

Shepard narrowed his eyes. "I am defending him, Samara. Stand down."

Samara stopped circling and met Shepard's gaze. "And the unjust and the wicked and all who would defend them are ended at her hands," she said. Aresh led the forces that had been shooting at them. Aresh was wicked. Aresh had to die. The Code demanded it. And if someone protected him…

Some part of Samara quietly prayed that Shepard would see reason, that he would step aside.

Of course he didn't. "No, Samara."

So be it.

Samara nodded and extinguished the fields on her hands. "As you command."

427 years ago…

–

"Look at it, Mirala."

Mirala did not, staring away until she felt the navigator's hands push her gaze towards the window. Ampili was below them, a great blue-grey orb. The planet's famous satellites drew glistening lines across the planet's surface in their endless orbits.

"I see it," Mirala insisted, turning away again.

"And you still pretend you don't want to go ashore with me?" Navigator Avina (named, as made sure to explain to everyone she met, after the famous explorer, not the computer) gave her a skeptical look, one of her painted eyebrows rising on her head. "Ampili is famous for its cuisine, its opera houses, its nightlife," she counted out on her fingers.

"I'm sure it's great," Mirala huffed, avoiding Avina's gaze. She'd heard of Ampili, back before everything had happened.

"And you haven't left the ship for months!"

"I don't want to leave the ship."

That was a lie. Mirala dearly wanted to get off of the Cynosure. It was a nice ship, clean and well-run, but it was a turian design. Every inch of it was cramped and utilitarian and so, so boring, no vid hall or bathing pools or any of the luxuries asari vessels usually carried. The crew had done the best they could with it, painting the iron walls in rich hues of blue and purple, but its past life as a warship always shone through. Every day it seemed more like a prison.

Or more like the monastery where she'd nearly spent her entire life.

And that was a thought that absolutely chilled her.

But no matter how she might want to, Mirala couldn't leave – and especially not with Avina. She had been Mirala's only friend since her escape from Thessia. Mirala had been practically catatonic with grief when Avina had found her, and even though she was armed and bloodied, the navigator had taken her in. She'd invited Mirala onto their ship, had gone out of her way to keep her comfortable, had even dried her guilty tears, and she had done it all without asking questions. Mirala knew she owed Avina immensely.

But even as young as she was, she knew Avina wanted more than friendship from her. They were subtle cues – lingering stares, tiny hints in her body language – and yet Mirala read them as easily as if the navigator had had it written on her forehead. Mirala was only forty, but she knew what lust looked like. She had been told she was uncommonly beautiful in ways that even the great Consorts would envy, in ways deeper than mere physical appearance, and she had already grown guarded against it.

So as much as she felt that little thrill at Avina's adoration, she knew she couldn't allow it. She would not let what happened to Qadach happen to anyone else. Her itch had consumed and destroyed him. None of the crew had spared much thought for the krogan's death beyond dropping him off on Nansassa to be cremated and forgotten, but weeks later and Mirala still could not get the great reptile out of her mind. She still said little prayers to the Goddess for him, swearing every day on his memory that no matter how she ached she would never hurt anyone like that again.

She didn't care whatMatriarch Gallae and the rest of the wardens on Lessus said. It was possible to control herself. She was nota monster.

She had killed Alya, her first love, and she would regret that for the rest of her life. But how could she have known? How could they blame her for having a disease she had never heard of? How could she have fought the ache in her stomach before it had even appeared? She was not a monster.

She had killed Balirri, her mother's friend, and she would regret that for the rest of her life. But that had been different. Accidental. With a gun. She'd been on the run, she'd been terrified, it had happened so fast. The ache had had nothing to do with it. At worst she was a regular, completely conventional murderess, and as disturbing as it was to take comfort in that, it was still true. She was not a monster.

She had killed Qadach, an unkillable beast, and she would regret that for the rest of her life. Her ache had risen up and eaten him, scales and all. But now she knew. She was not a monster.

She was not.

She would show them.

And yet the ache was already back and growing louder. Her stomach twisted with its unbearable hunger and whispered to her, guiding her gaze back to the planet out the window. The fix she needed was there, down there in one of Ampili's cities, and all she had to do was-

"I can't go ashore," she said again, tearing her eyes away to look at the navigator. Her next words tried to die on her tongue but she forced them out anyway. "I did kill somebody…"

(Three somebodies, now…)

Avina's face twisted in pity, just like it had when Mirala had first confessed her awful story. There was never any blame, never any malice in her voice at all, and Mirala almost missed her mother's tougher love. She needed someone to be mad at her, to yell at her, to punish her. But Avina was not that someone.

The navigator kneeled next to Mirala and ran a hand down her cheek. "It was an accident," she said, voice soothing, blameless. "You were scared. She tried to lock you up for something you didn't do." Avina said it so certainly Mirala almost believed it.

Any other day Balirri would have torn Mirala apart with half a thought, but she'd been caught off guard. It had only been bad luck that had brought them together as Mirala had tried to flee Thessia in her mother's clothes. Balirri had seen through the girl's disguise and in a moment of panic Mirala had fired, not realizing the woman's shields were off. She'd known Balirri her whole life, and she'd watched her stumble, fountaining violet blood.

And she'd run.

Mirala almost wretched to remember all the blood, how it had stuck to her hands and how no amount of scrubbing had seemed like enough to clean it off. She shuddered as she felt a heavy tear trace down her cheek. "She was my friend."

Avina wiped her eyes, leaving Mirala's skin tingling and causing the knot in her groin to tighten. "And she wouldn't want you to spend your life miserable. She would understand."

Mirala stared at her. In the starlight, Avina was quite beautiful. Mirala had never seen the glowing avatar that was the Citadel's Avina program, but the way the navigator's purple skin seemed to light up the room seemed like enough.

The ache in Mirala's belly intensified. Avina was strong, right?

"Besides, nobody's going to recognize you on Ampili," Avina said, gesturing out the window. "We're ten thousand light years out from Thessia. We throw some paint on you, make up a fake name, and you're invisible."

Mirala looked out the window again. The planet twinkled at her. She knew she shouldn't. It was a bad idea. And yet Ampili twinkled so invitingly.

"You really think so? Commandos would see th-"

"They don't send commandos searching for little girls on the run." She flashed Mirala a grin, elbowed her in the side. "Come on. Give me an alias. Who do you want to be today?"

Mirala couldn't help but grin back. She felt her inhibitions crumbling. It had been weekssince the whole thing with Qadach. She'd been good for weeks. She deserved a little relaxation. What was the worst that could happen?

A name hopped to her mind in an instant.

"Samara."

–

Mirala walked the streets of Ampili in her mother's skin and wondered what she had been so scared of. The real sun had set long ago but the blue-white lamp orbs that shone down from atop every starscraper still gleamed, bathing the great sky-pavilions of clubs and bars in an intoxicating electric glow. The air was thick with the perfume of fruity drinks and the primordial thump of the bass howranga-flutes, and every corner glimmered with holographic signage that flashed and animated to the beat.

Mirala and Avina pushed their way through the throngs, and even though the feel of the navigator's fingers laced through her own made Mirala's body throb, the alcohol and the music dulled the feeling and she allowed it.

Samara's ephemeral presence did even more. Mirala found her mother's mannerisms a surprisingly natural fit. It had started as a game – she had long amused her sisters with her gleefully evil impression of their mother's even voice – but now she found the identity easy to embrace. Mirala was a little shorter than her mother, but standing on her toes seemed to bring everything into focus, from the steady pace of the walk to the cool, rigid calmness that seemed to cushion the real Samara everywhere she went.

Even as hard as it was to imagine her mother ever going to a bar or walking down the street with another asari's hand snaking down her back, nonetheless she felt like Samara.

And she didn't know if it was the feel of the alcohol in her stomach or Avina's gentle perfume, but somehow that thought didn't depress her near as much as she might have expected.

–

They partied all night and into the early morning, until they had visited so many bars and tried so many 'galaxy-famous' drinks that they had all started to blend together. Mirala had always held her alcohol well, and by the time the real sun had risen and they got the call from the captain to come back to the landing pad, she had to practically carry Avina every step of the way. The navigator was giggling drunk and unabashedly feely as the two of them stumbled past the security guards to where the rest of the crew (many of them little better off than Avina) were loading supplies into the Cynosure's hold.

The captain watched Mirala with barely-concealed amusement as she helped Avina sit on the bumper of a transport skytruck and finally disentagled herself from the other asari's limbs.

"I tol' you," Avina slurred, slumping down. "That it would be fun."

"Yes, you told me," Mirala agreed. "Sit still or you'll fall off." She helped the navigator prop herself up against one wall of the truck.

"You need to let loose more, 'Mara."

"No, I don't."

Avina had a fuzzy look on her face, drunk and satisfied as she finally settled into a comfortable position that she wouldn't roll out of. She stared up at Mirala, face a furious dark blue blush. "I'd kiss you," she whispered. "If I knew which one of you was the real one."

Mirala arched a brow. "What does that mean?"

Avina just giggled and pointed behind her.

Mirala turned to see her own face staring back at her.

She sobered in an instant.

"…mother?"

Presently…

–

Samara did not often make use of the couches in the observation deck that had become her unofficial quarters. They looked comfortable, but she'd left comfort behind on Thessia a long, long time ago. For centuries she'd been meditating on cold steel floors in hangars or bunched up in refugee ships. A Justicar's life was hard, and her tailbone was harder.

But her visitor had no such qualms.

"Sup?"

Jack was sprawled out along one of the couches when Samara entered, her bare feet kneading at the couch upholstery and still speckled with dried mud from Pragia. She smelled like the jungle. Her presence made the gravity flicker but she was clearly in no shape to fight, her skin pale and covered with a sheen of cold sweat, her muscles twitching.

Samara stopped to stare down at the invader. "Are you well, Jacqueline?" she asked, trying to sound soothing. She decided a motherly hand on the shoulder was overkill – she did not know how a human would interpret it, least of all this human.

"Fuck no," Jack mumbled, turning over on the couch to bury her face. "Fuckin' laid out." Her tattooed back continued to spasm.

"Do you require a doctor?"

Jack turned to glare at Samara. Her eyes were bloodshot. "Fuck. No," she said. "Just came from the fuckin' doctor's. Just need a couch." She dropped down again.

Samara said nothing, calmly taking her customary seat on the floor. She had no qualms sharing her space – someone should get use out of the couches. Samara dropped into the familiar embrace of her meditations, forcing Jack's presence out of her head and replacing it with blissful silence. The stars were her only company as she called up the extranet news feeds once again. Perhaps it was force of habit that she started with reports from asari space.

Three Cyoni Citizens Dead After Hallex-Fueled Party, she read. A stretch, but possible.

"These fuckin' pills," Jack grunted, breaking the blissful silence.

Samara resisted the urge to snap.

"Took the whole bottle and still barely feel shit," Jack continued, her voice slurring. "Told that fucker doctor they were too weak. Won't give me more."

Samara sighed. "I am sure Dr. Solus is simply looking out for your health," she said.

"If he wanted to help he'd give me something to take away these fuckin' aches," Jack snarled. "Instead , he gave me some water. Made me watch a video about the fuckin' evils of drugs. Swear to God I'm gonna have that fuckin' song stuck in my head for weeks." She trailed off, muttering something into the couch cushions before falling silent.

Samara went back to her reading. In what police are calling the worst drug-related death in Cyone's history, three asari were found dead on-

"What're you doin' anyway?"

Samara looked up to see Jack reading over her shoulder, her chin propped up on her tattooed hands like a gargoyle.

"Reading," she said, doing her best to keep the edge of frustration out of her voice. "Looking for a fugitive."

"Huh," Jack grunted, uninterested. She rolled over to dangle her legs over the back of the couch. For a moment she fell silent again.

Samara did not resume reading. It was obvious Jack wanted something. It was perhaps not surprising – Teltin was gone, and with it the only place Jack had to misplace all her extra hate. The human woman had spent her life dreaming of seeing the facility destroyed. Now it was gone, and she was left to figure out what else to do. Samara did not miss the similarities to her own situation, and smiled bitterly to herself. Perhaps Jack would follow in her footsteps and give up everything that made her who she was. Perhaps Jack would spend the rest of her life roaming the galaxy.

Or perhaps Jack would just spend her time pestering the rest of the crew.

It was hardly seconds before Jack interrupted again. "You fucked up that krogan down there," she said, sniffing. "What kind of amp you use?"

Samara turned to stare at her.

Jack just shrugged upside-down shoulders. "Fuck am I gonna do?" she asked, gesturing to the back of her head. "Mine's off again. Apparently Shepard thinks I'm going to cause some kind of trouble with Cerberus." She grinned wickedly. "For some reason."

Samara's eyes narrowed suspiciously, but Jack's expression gave away nothing of her intent. Samara relaxed. Very well. She would be polite. Samara reached behind her head to pull her amp from where it rested amongst her frills. She handed it to Jack, who held it up to the light. Samara's amp was wireless and elegant, constructed of the same polished red steel as the rest of her armor, with none of the obtrusive wires or components common to human biotics. Asari had long ago done away with the need for surgical biotic augmentation – their amps didn't need jacks drilled into their skulls. They were clean, safe, and sophisticated.

Jack snorted, unimpressed, and held the amp up to the back of her own head. "Weirdest amp I ever seen," she said, tossing it on the couch beside her. "How'd you do that thing you did to me?" She stared at Samara, trying to look nonchalant. "Where you fucked out my field," she clarified. Her eyes bored into Samara's, intense with curiosity.

Samara resisted the urge to smile. After all Jack had been through, she was dwelling on whether or not Samara had upstaged her biotics?

"It was an interference maneuver," Samara explained, reclaiming her amp and settling it back amongst her frills. It settled in easily. "Biotic fields compete with one another. Those equally yoked can strengthen one another, but in opposition, even a very strong field can be collapsed by a well aimed competitor."

"So you're sayin' my field was weak?"

Samara frowned. "No. Only vulnerable. There is more to biotics than brute force." She turned back to her datapad.

Then gravity shifted and it flew out of her grip to clatter across the room. She found herself tumbling forward, very nearly smashing her head into the window before she managed to catch herself.

Her biotics erupted around her as she whirled around in fury.

Jack was grinning. "I did that without an amp," she gloated. "How's that for brute fuckin' force?"

Samara did not hold back. Her first field hit Jack on the chin and dragged her into the air a few feet before her next field took hold and smashed downwards, crashing the human woman into the floor with a pained oof. Samara flipped Jack over onto her back with a gesture and pressed a heel down into her neck, just over the weakest part of her spine. She stared down at Jack with cold fury.

"Fuck, get off me!"

"Do not do that again," Samara warned, pressing her foot down a little lower. "It is only by my pledge to Shepard that you are still alive." She stepped off, staring down.

"Fuck!" Jack snarled, rubbing at her throat as she sat up. "This is bullshit. Why do you get to toss people around but every time I do it I get my fuckin' amp turned off and some bitch ends up standing on me or setting me on fire or something!?" She indicated the back of her neck, still blistered from the quarian's attack days earlier.

"Because I only bully the unjust. You bully anyone you can beat, and many you cannot. Unfortunately for you I am the latter."

"Fuck you, I could take you."

"When Shepard's mission ends, you will have a chance to find out," Samara promised, returning to her seat. She picked up her datapad. "You may escort yourself out, Jacqueline."

Jack just snorted and hopped back onto the couch, defiant. "Fuck your 'Jacqueline'. Nobody calls me that."

"It is meant as a gesture of respect."

"Well it's fuckin' great that you respect me so much while you're curb stomping me. You're fucking crazy."

Samara sighed. "You attacked me," she said, voice quiet. "My Code requires that I retaliate against those who would attack me, no matter their reasons. It is not a matter of disrespect or dislike."

Jack snickered. "Right. You and me, we're best pals."

"I forgive your anger, Jack. I wish you no ill will."

Jack just shook her head, massaging her neck where Samara had stepped on her.

"The Code demands it," Samara continued. She didn't know why she felt the need to explain herself to someone like Jack, but it came forth all the same. "It is a pitiless, inexorable thing that cares nothing for my wants," she admitted, turning to meet Jack's eyes. "It is a cruel master, my Code."

Samara quieted.

"I am a mother, Jack," she said after a moment, voice quiet. "What was done to you… It was the height of injustice. Were the men who did it here, I would destroy them utterly. I would fight – I would die – to right that wrong, to punish them for what they made you." Samara had long ago run out of tears to shed but all the same her eyes burnt. "What you went through… was not your fault."

Jack had nothing to say to that.

Samara looked up. "But what you have done since cannot be ignored," Samara said, voice hardening. "The Code demands vengeance for you, but for your victims as well. Even if I forgave you, the Code would not. You must die for what you have done. It is not about what I want," she said. "But I must obey the Code. When my oath ends – when the mission ends – I must kill the wicked among this crew. You, the turian, the mercenary, the thief, Jacob... And Shepard."

Jack's eyes widened in surprise, and for a moment Samara thought the woman would attack her again.

Instead, Jack threw her head back and laughed. "Shepard? You're gonna kill Shepard!?" She dissolved into giggles.

"It is no laughing matter."

"Holy shit, Samara!" Jack said, face brightened. "That is fucking hilarious. This whole time everybody thought me or the krogan would be the one to do us all in when all along the most dangerous fuckin' psycho on the ship is you!?" She laughed again. "That… that is fuckin' poetry."

"The fact that you are so impressed does you no credit, Jack," Samara said, frowning.

Jack just leaned back on the couch, still chuckling. "Nah, that's fuckin' perfect." She set her feet up on one of the couch's arms, toes wiggling contentedly. "I changed my mind. I do like you. You make me look saner."

"I am not insane," Samara insisted.

"But you can't even forgive a fuckin' boyscout like Shepardfor… what did he do?"

"The Code cannot forgive him," Samara insisted. "Shepard protects the wicked around him from my Justice. He orders me to spare those I should destroy, orders me to allow evil to exist when I have the power to stop it. They will claim new victims because of his leniency."

Jack snickered. "Yup. He sounds like a real renegade. Here I thought I knew criminals. But a mastermind like Shepard's been here all along and I didn't even know!" She put her hands to her cheeks in mock astonishment.

Samara bristled at the mockery. "I am a Justicar. I gave him my oath, but he has abused my purpose. I am justice enfleshed and he has made me powerless without cause. He has-"

"Oh yeah, you're a real badass alright," Jack said, voice dripping with sarcasm. She reached and snatched the datapad from Samara's hands before she could yank it away. She read the headline, unaware or uninterested in the spark of anger that kindled in Samara's stomach. "Lookin' for a fuckin' galactic fugitive on Cyone." She laughed. "What kind of shit're they gonna get up to there? Fuckin' insider trading?"

Samara grabbed the datapad back. "Two hundred million asari live on Cyone," she said. "More than enough for a thriving underworld. More than enough places for someone to hide."

Jack rolled her eyes. "Maybe if you wanted to die of boredom before the Justicar bitch caught you. Listen, a criminal isn't gonna retire to a fuckin' industrial complex. That ain't why you become a criminal. You're gonna go someplace with something to do. Omega. Invictus. Caleston. Even fuckin' Cenderes is better than Cyone."

"I have been watching each of these places."

"What, through crime reports? Half of those places don't even have cops. You think the fuckin' Suns take the time to write down every crime that happens on Omega?"

"Security cameras-"

"Might as well go straight to the Broker, who doesn't share what he can use. Maybe this stupid shit works back on bimbo planet, but trust me, it doesn't work here. You can't hunt on Omega unless you're on Omega. That's why people run there." She stared at Samara. "Don't believe me, ask Massani. They always run to Omega."

Samara said nothing.

"'swhat I'd do."

–

Jack left her after that, but Samara did not return to her work.

She sat in silence, a biotic field set quietly between her fingers, and tried to meditate over the rumble of her own thoughts. Balancing the fields so they evened each other out was no simple task. Every ripple of movement, every shimmer in the gravity had to be counteracted.

Balanced. Evened. Quieted.

Selsaya, the Justicar who had trained her, had been a hard master. Unforgiving and brutal, forcing Samara to practice until she could meditate anywhere, through anything. It had taken time, but Samara had mastered it. She could balance the orb seated in the pounding surf on Thessia's roughest shoreline, where the rock and broken shells tore at her skin and waves threatened to drown her. She could balance with biotic fields being tossed at her from every direction. She could balance hearing every horrible insult and memory of her old life paraded in front of her.

And yet now the orb wobbled and fought her as her mind refused to quiet.

Jack was wicked. As wicked as people came. An unrepentant murderer. An addict. A monster. Jack was nothing. Dispensible. Ignorable. Below regard. Everything Samara had been trained to oppose.

And Jack said Morinth would head to Omega. Not back to asari space. Not to the familiar, the safe, the old. But to the new and exciting and dangerous.

Jack was not an asari, and she certainly wasn't a Justicar. Samara had been tracking her daughter for hundreds of years - nobody knew Morinth's mind better.

And yet there was a reason she'd been tracking her daughter for hundreds of years... She hadn't caught her daughter in hundreds of years. She'd been close more than once, had almost tasted victory again and again, and yet somehow Morinth always managed to slither away. It always took decades to find her again.

Jack was everything Samara had been trained to oppose.

But Jack was Morinth, in a fashion.

Samara stared at the datapad in her hand. Was it possible for a Justicar to accept wisdom from someone like Jack?

–

It was late that night, after hours upon hours of reading every scrap of information she could find on Omega (no easy task, half of it being mercenary propaganda and the other half in some obscure alien language or another) that she found it.

Justicar Samara visits Afterlife Nightclub,the headline said. It was dated less than a week ago.

The Justicar Samara was seen Sunday entering Afterlife Nightclub, marking the first Justicar visit to Omega in more than three centuries. Samara declined to explain what her intentions were in the area, but assured reporters that her visit would be brief.

Samara's eyes traced the words, barely comprehending. It was the picture accompanying the article that drew her eyes, the picture of her own face looking back at her.

The picture of her daughter's face looking back at her.

427 years previously...

–

"…mother?" Mirala's eyes widened.

"That's your mom?" Avina asked.

Mirala couldn't answer, couldn't pull her gaze away. She had never expected to see her mother again and yet here she was, waiting on the first planet she'd stopped on. Her mouth hung open in shock.

The real Samara showed no such confusion. She said nothing as she drew back a hand, blue light peaking at her fingertips.

The blow hit Mirala like a cannon and she felt the landing pad leap out from under her feet. For a moment she was flying, then she tumbled through a stack of shipping crates and hit the tarmac hard, the taste of blood filling her mouth. Her vision swam with spots as she stared up to see her mother approach.

The landing pad had exploded into shouts of surprise and alarm but Mirala had ears for none of it. She didn't hear Avina's shriek as the truck shuddered and nearly fell under the force of Samara's strike, didn't hear the grind of metal against the ceramic floor, didn't hear the captain ordering her crew away.

But she heard every gentle click of Samara's boots against the ground, heard the basso warble of the biotic fields that thrashed around her hands. Even heard her breathing – slow and measured, like she was deep in meditation, even as she stepped forward, face full of dark purpose.

"Mother?" Mirala managed again.

Samara said nothing, simply reared back for another strike. Mirala closed her eyes.

A shadow fell between them and the attack did not come. Mirala creaked one eye open to see the captain standing above her, shielding her from harm. "What's going on?" the captain demanded, her own biotics flaring at her fingertips even as Samara's dimmed.

"I am a Justicar of the order," Samara explained coolly. "By the Code, stand aside." Mirala's mind reeled with surprise – her mother a Justicar? –but Samara said it emptily, with no malice, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

The captain stayed where she was. "What are you going to do to her?"

Samara stared at the captain with her iron eyes. Everyone there knew what Samara was about to do. There was a pregnant pause. The captain seemed to deflate. She stepped aside like a whipped oorepup, head bowed in apology.

Samara struck again.

Crates crashed and tumbled around Mirala as she fell sideways across the landing pad in a current of blue energy. She came to a stop thirty or forty feet later, her breath coming in shallow gasps. Behind her, she could still hear her mother's calm footsteps. There was no hurry, no passion at all. Samara was a glacier, slow and unstoppable, pitiless as she crushed everything before her.

Mirala stumbled to her feet. Her body throbbed in agony, but worse was the guilt that welled up inside of her. She started to cry. "I'm sorry, Mother," she managed.

Samara said nothing, simply sent another field that knocked Mirala back to the ground. She continued to advance.

"I'm sorry about Balirri, it was an accident!" Mirala shouted. Bitter tears clouded her vision and yet even through them she could still see the grim emptiness of her mother's face. "I didn't mean to hurt her, I panicked! I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry!"

Samara hit her again, pushing her towards the edge of the platform. Mirala felt her arm break as she caught herself against the ground. She howled in pain as the realization hit her.

Her mother was going to kill her.

She'd lived with fears that someone would hunt her down ever since she'd gone on the run, but never in her wildest nightmares had she imagined it would be her own mother. Samara had always been a powerful biotic but she'd left the life of fighting behind her long ago. She was a mother now, not a warrior.

And yet it was a warrior who now bore down on Mirala, pulling her to her feet with another biotic field. Samara grabbed at her daughter's throat and pressed, hard, closing her windpipe. Mirala kicked out, her feet striking harmlessly off of her mother's shining red armor. She saw spots.

Mirala cried and gasped and sobbed as she felt the life ebb out of her, but Samara's face was an emotionless mask. Her eyes were dead. She was dead, replaced by the Justicar's righteous, passionless purpose. Mirala hardly recognized her.

Maybe it was adrenaline and the lack of oxygen. Maybe it was some part of her brain, buried deep in her past that demanded she survive no matter what the cost. Maybe it was the emptiness in her mother's eyes that made her desperately want to claw it out, to replace it with love, hatred, anything. But Mirala finally fought back.

She slammed a biotic fist into her mother's face.

Both Samaras fell to the ground. Mirala felt delicious oxygen fill her lungs and drank it in big, greedy gasps. "What's wrong with you!?" she demanded, retching. "Why won't you say anything? I'm your daughter."

Gravity shifted again and Mirala found herself instantly overpowered, slammed against a nearby bulkhead hard enough that she almost blacked out.

"You are not my daughter," Samara snarled. Her nose was broken, the sheet of purple blood that covered her chin gave her a deranged look, but her eyes were still empty, still stared at Mirala as if she were lower than nothing, not worth even hatred.

"You are an Ardat-Yakshi," Samara said. "A monster. I will hunt you to the ends of the galaxy and I will destroy you."

Presently…

–

It was hard to focus on Aria's words.

Samara found herself staring down at Afterlife's lower levels, to the crowds of aliens carousing below. It was a mélange of sounds and sights, pounding bass and shouted conversation and the clink of glasses, heavy armor and dust-stained uniforms and skintight leather that left little to the imagination, Lysenthi bloom-smoke and the powerful scent of honeymead. It was an ocean of sweat and life and chaos.

And Morinth swum within. Somewhere.

Everywhere. Somehow every flash of movement in Samara's eye turned into her daughter. On the dance floor. Pouncing on a turian at the counter. Bolting out the front door. Samara didn't even know what she would look like – would she still be wearing armor, disguised as a Justicar? Or were the skinny hammocks of cloth the asari strippers wore more to her liking?

"Samara?"

Samara turned to see Shepard and Aria staring at her. Aria had an impatient look on her face, but Shepard looked at her with pity. It took Samara a moment to remember what was asked. "Yes," she said, finding her tongue. "Morinth is very dangerous. She is best left to me."

"Good," Aria said, nodding. "I wasn't planning on sacrificing anybody anyway. I have eyes on her three days ago but she hasn't started anything so I'm leaving her alone."

Shepard bowed his head at Aria. "You've been more than helpful, as always," he said. "I'll go check out this," he gestured to the datapad he'd been typing Aria's news onto, "this 'Nef' situation, see if the mother has anything to help." He turned to Samara. "You want to join me, or…?"

Samara stared at him. "If this woman has lost a daughter to Morinth she will not want to see my face. It would be best if I stayed away." Despite everything, some part of her still doubted they'd find Morinth at all. It would not be the first time she'd been in striking distance only to have her daughter slink away at the last moment. At the very least, if she had killed Nef, she would have put some distance between them by now – Morinth hated dead bodies. "I will inquire at the shipyards for anyone who may have seen her leave Omega."

Shepard grimaced but nodded his agreement. "Alright. Good thinking." He gave Aria a last glance and turned to go, but stopped to put a hand on Samara's shoulder. "We'll find her, Samara." He squeezed reassuringly.

Samara felt overcome with guilt at that, but said nothing as he turned and made his way downstairs, pushing his way through Aria's phalanx of personal guards. Her eyes followed him all the way out of the bar. She hadn't wanted to involve him. A Justicar's life was one of solitude for more reason than one, and in any other situation she would have forged on alone. But she was bound by her oath not to leave Shepard's side until the Collectors were no more. She had to ask.

It hurt to ask help of a human her Code would have her kill. It hurt to know that she would never be able to repay him, and yet that someday she would be compelled to kill him or die trying. And it hurt all the more that Shepard had not balked at the request. He had looked on in respectful silence as she'd confessed her whole sad story. He hadn't even tried to comfort her when she'd admitted that Morinth was her own blood. His face had said it all, and he'd turned the Normandy towards Omega without delay.

Now he was off searching for Morinth's latest victim, putting himself in harm's way for a stranger. He made it difficult to focus on her duty sometimes.

Another hand closed around her shoulder, but this time there was no tenderness there. For a split second Samara was sure it was Morinth and she recoiled with hundreds of years of hard-earned instinct, very nearly tearing the entire suite apart with a biotic field before catching herself.

It was one of Aria's guards. The batarian. His thick-knuckled hand dug into the plate of her shoulder. "Aria's done with you," he growled, apparently unaware of how close to being pulverized he'd just come. "Beat it."

Aria laughed. "Oh please, Anto. She could destroy this whole club if she wanted to, and even I might have trouble stopping her." She shot her guard a toothy grin. "You wouldn't have a chance."

The batarian released Samara's shoulder.

Aria was not done. "In fact? Bow." She pointed to the floor.

All four of the batarian's brows rose. "Ma'am?"

"You heard me. This is a Justicar. A scion of justice for my people, to be afforded great respect. Bow to her," she repeated. She gestured around the room. "All of you."

The guards muttered their confusion but didn't argue, and one by one dropped to press their foreheads against the floor. Samara watched them passively, and was struck by unpleasant memories of when she'd caught her daughter being worshipped as a god by a whole village. She looked at Aria, who grinned back at her, clearly enormously proud of herself, bathing in her own power to be able to order around a platoon of merc guards. Samara supposed it was a clear enough symbol that Aria herself didn't bow, or even bother getting up off of her couch. She was in charge of her domain. She was the one the guards were really bowing to.

"She looks just like you," Aria said. Morinth.

Samara said nothing.

"Of course, I knew she was lying," Aria continued. "She had the armor, the voice, even the walk right. Anybody else would have never known the difference. But her eyes…" Aria tapped her temple. "They were not Justicar eyes. Much too much life in them."

Samara frowned. She knew they looked similar, of course. Morinth had used their uncanny resemblance to escape Thessia in the first place, all those years ago when she was still Mirala. Every few decades Samara would catch her doing it again. She'd even seen security footage of her daughter impersonating her and had to admit, it was a masterful mimicry.

And yet somehow she'd never bought it. She and Morinth looked the same, but they could not be more different. Morinth was a hedonist. A killer. A monster. Did what she did only for herself. While Samara… she had given up everything for duty.

Aria seemed to read her thoughts. "Even so," she said, pretending to inspect her fingernails. "I suppose only one of you is going to leave this station. It won't be easy knowing which, even for the boyscout." She gestured the way Shepard had gone.

"Shepard will know," Samara insisted. "He is a good man. He will see her wickedness."

Aria rolled her eyes. "I don't know… Anybody can act like they care about duty if it gets them what they want." She fixed Samara with a knowing glare that said she was not just talking about Morinth.

Samara frowned. "If you mean to imply something, I'd-"

"Not at all," Aria interrupted, returning her gaze to her nails. She let the silence drag on a few seconds before continuing. "They say to become a Justicar is to become justice enfleshed." She met Samara's eyes. "But they also say it's to trade one slavery for another. They can pretend it's about duty, but nobody gives up a life they haven't already lost."

Samara had to fight to maintain her calm. She felt tears threatening to burst forth at the jibe. It was astonishing how quickly the other asari could get under her skin. But she had not spent centuries meditating away unpleasantness for nothing. The anger and sorrow were quickly stifled. "I gave up my life for the duty I owe her victims," she said, voice quiet.

"Of course," Aria said. "And you don't feel anything besides that." She rolled her eyes again.

Samara had to avert her eyes. She stared at her toes in silence and felt the sorrow crash at her gates. Aria was… right.

"Did she look… well?" she asked, voice just a whisper.

Aria was not smiling anymore. "She did," she said. "She looked happy. Healthy."

Samara said nothing.

"Do you know what 'Omega' means, Justicar?" Aria asked. "It means the end. The finish. The last part. The final blow. Your search will end here. You are almost done."

Samara was shocked to feel another hand on her shoulder. She looked up to see Aria standing before her, a dark sympathy on her face. The Queen of Omega looked different on her feet, like a different person.

"It will be over soon," Aria promised. "The damn Code will be happy and you can rest."

"What is the Code to you?"

Aria shrugged. "Nothing. It's dead here, and that's the way I like it." She patted Samara's shoulder one last time. "But I do know what it is to be a mother."

Samara finally let her tears fall.

427 years previously…

–

A monster.

Mirala's heart broke.

After all that had happened, after the way the doctors pretended to want to help but would not touch her or her sisters without gloves, after Matriarch Gallae had calmly explained to them how none of them were capable of feeling any empathy at all, after she'd heard one of the guards call Rila – Rila, of all people – a witch, there had been one ray of light left to her. Mirala had believed, earnestly believed, that no matter what people called her, her family – her sisters and her mother – did not blame her. Of course they wanted her to submit to the monastery like a good little demon of the night winds, but they didn't really hold it against her that she tried to escape, even if she had accidentally killed someone to do it.

She was just trying to be free. She wasn't a monster.

She had had it all planned out. She could never return to Thessia, obviously, never see her family in person again. But she'd run until the galaxy forgot about her and her mother and sisters would move on. And then she'd send letters. Cryptic letters, never any clue as to where they were from, just reminders that she was still out there. That she still loved them, after all of it.

But a year away and her own mother had already moved on.

She'd moved on to calling her a monster.

The ache in Mirala's stomach roared at the injustice of it and she felt all her sorrow evaporate under the hunger as some new pocket of strength erupted inside of her.

Her eyes darkened and she met her mother's empty gaze.

–

Samara had never felt a pain so intense. In an instant, all of the training the Justicars had drilled into her head, all the meditating and oaths she had endured to erase the part of her that felt pain, the part of her that felt anything, simply vanished. She released her daughter like she'd been burnt, but it wasn't quick enough.

She blacked out before she hit the ground.

Presently…

–

Morinth was dead.

It hurt, how easy it had been. How easy the end had come.

Justicar Selsaya stood over her, her face hard and cold as iron. Samara's tears would not move her.

She had expected to hesitate. To balk at the last moment. How could she kill her daughter?She'd hunted her for hundreds of years, but when she finally caught up, when Morinth finally had nowhere to run, could she do it?

"You understand that we do not suffer oathbreakers to live," she said. It was not a question.

But it had been easy. There had been no hesitation. One strike, and Morinth's hunger ended forever.

"My life is ended. I am gone." Samara replied.

She had killed her daughter without even the decency of hesitation. She really was gone.

"The mind pledged in grief often regrets it in happier times. But a Justicar knows only duty."

The price had finally been paid.

"Only duty," she agreed. "I will be your loyal sister." She was still crying.

Almost five hundred years since she'd sold herself to the Justicars. For duty. Or so she'd told herself.

"No. You will be no one's sister. No one's mother. Lover. Daughter. You will be Justicar Samara, but it will be a flimsy name. Behind it, only the Code."

Five hundred years she could have spent keeping in touch with her other daughters. Five hundred years she could have painted or written or travelled. She could have become a Matriarch. She could have trained biotics. Been a pilot. Written her story, so those who came after could learn from it.

"Only the Code."

But she'd become a Justicar instead. Aria had been right about her. Not all Justicars joined to escape themselves, but she had. She'd given up everything. Her daughters, her name, her life. Everything. All in trade for the Code and its ironclad simplicity. Her life for moral certainty. That was the trade. It had given her the path she needed. And all she had to do was kill her daughter.

"Then speak the words and become justice enfleshed."

Behind her, she heard the door open, heard Shepard step into the room on soft feet.

"I am a Justicar."

She was still paying the price.

–

Shepard set the tray down on one of the couches. Samara could smell the meal. Some kind of hot soup, much more appetizing than the usual fare. Gardner was treating them today. Or perhaps it was his way of expressing sympathy.

It did not appeal.

"Brought you dinner," Shepard said. "Thought you'd prefer to eat in he-"

"I am going to have to kill you, Shepard," Samara interrupted, unable to bear hiding it any longer. She did not look at him, or at the meal, but stared out at the stars.

Shepard sighed. "Yeah... Jack told me."

"She wished to cause trouble."

"Nah, I think she actually meant to avoid some this time. We... we've been getting along better. Had a good talk down on Pragia. I think it won me some points with her." He paused. "Or maybe it was the whole antimatter warhead I gave her."

"You are changing the subject."

Shepard scratched at the back of his neck. "Yeah... well... Not every day one of my friends tells me she's going to kill me as soon as I get back from a suicide mission."

Friends. The man really was that simple. And he meant it. She had little doubt that he knew her plans by the time he agreed to help with Morinth. He had put himself in danger all the same. "I am sorry."

"Yeah, me too. I don't suppose there's any way you cou-"

"Do not ask me to forgive you, Shepard. Do not. You must understand what that would mean to me." She'd considered it. Considered pointing Shepard to a loophole in the Code, or perhaps extending her oath. Something to spare him.

But she hadn't even spared her own daughter. Was Shepard more important to her? How could she give him mercy she hadn't given her own child?

She almost wanted to cry. Wanted to mourn. Wanted to believe there was something left. Some speck of the person she was.

Shepard said nothing for a long time. Maybe he was waiting to see her tears too. But they did not fall. They stayed on the cusp. Balanced.

Shepard sighed again. "It's okay, Samara. I understand." He paused. "Or maybe not," he admitted, "but you're my friend. And I trust you. I need you. So we'll just... cross that bridge when we come to it." He touched her shoulder, and his fingers were warm. "Can we still be friendly until you smash me into a pulp?"

Samara actually smiled. "I would like that."

427 years previously…

–

Mirala sat in her bunk, staring at the wall and imagining Ampili shrinking as they left it behind. She'd left her mother unconscious on the platform. For all her power – and Samara had been a formidable biotic even before the Justicars had gotten her – it had taken only the briefest effort for Mirala and the ache that lived in her belly to squash her. Even with her arm broken, her head swimming in an alcoholic haze, Mirala had swatted her like an insect.

Just like Qadach. No matter how strong they looked, they couldn't stand the feeling of Mirala's mind on theirs.

But somehow Mirala knew her mother was still alive.

The Cynosure would meet the relay in less than an hour and be on the other side of asari space before the end of the day. There were a dozen Ampilis to hide on without even leaving the Republics. Dozens more planets in alien hands, planets that had never heard of Ardat-Yakshi and never would. There was a whole galaxy to escape to.

And yet somehow Mirala did not think she could hide. There were no more games. No more delusions of a happy outcome. She was on the run from her people. From her mother. And they would never stop hunting her.

"Mirala?"

Mirala did not look up at Avina's voice. The quiet tremble in it told her all she needed to know. The navigator was afraid.

"Are you… alright?"

"I'm fine," Mirala lied, eyes not leaving the wall. Her broken arm throbbed in her lap.

"What happened back there?"

Mirala didn't answer. Didn't want to answer. Didn't know how to begin.

"Mirala?"

"I'm an Ardat-Yakshi," she admitted finally. She had never said the words aloud before, not even to herself. She'd always used euphemisms. She was sick. She had a condition. She had 'parasitic melding syndrome'. Her nerves displayed 'extreme dominance'. Lethal familial sexual dysfunction.

She was a demon of the night winds.

She was an Ardat-Yakshi.

They were ugly words. Didn't even sound like asari words, more like the aliens' ugly tongues, all sharp stops and glottal noises, not the smooth syllables asari used. Ardat-Yakshi.

Ugly words.

Ugly words, but true.

"I'm an Ardat-Yakshi," she repeated, louder this time. It was strangely liberating, finally saying it. She felt Avina's weight settle on the bed next to her, felt the other asari's head settle in the crook of her neck. The ache in her stomach rumbled anxiously.

Avina kissed her neck. "What's an Ardat-Yakshi?" she asked, breath tickling at Mirala's skin.

Mirala turned to meet Avina's eyes. She could read the desire there, stronger than ever. "A monster, I guess," she admitted. She had no strength left, no will left to struggle.

Avina kissed her again, this time on the lips. "You're not-," another kiss, "a monster," one more, "at all."

Mirala didn't resist her advances. The ache in her stomach demanded and she had no strength left to resist. She obeyed, leaning in to kiss back, tentative at first, then hungrier, pressing in until her lips bruised. She could taste Avina's need for her, feel the first ripples of the navigator's mind on her own.

"Yes I am," she whispered, and her eyes were already turning black.

Codex Entry: The Queenless War and the Oaths of Subsumation

Though historians debate the precise timing, most agree that the Justicar Order – in its nascent form – was established at least thirty five thousand years BCE, as part of the doctrine of the Goddess Athame. Justicars – whose name means 'Avatar of Justice' in the now-extinct Sathic tongue, were said to be descendant of Athame's bodyguards, and ultimately came to represent the military and judicial arm of the Athami Sects, just as the Vocicar ('Avatars of the Voice') and Matricar ('Avatars of the Mind') came to fill religious and leadership roles.

Though the Doctrine of Athame has few practitioners in modern times – having been largely replaced by Siaric philosophies since the fifty-first century BCE – it nevertheless continues to have a significant influence on asari cultures. References to the Goddess Athame and her Code are commonplace, and while the temples of Sathen largely stand empty, the Justicars continue their millennia old mission to enforce the Athami Code – a mission for which they are afforded an enormous amount of operational freedom by the Republics in deference to Athame.

The Code – originally four thousand, four hundred, forty-four sutras of moral commandments and courses of action – was modified seven times by the Athami Vocicar, but never so significantly as at the closing of the Queenless War in 19878 BCE, some seventeen thousand years before the asari developed STL space travel. Thessia at the time was undergoing an industrial revolution as the religious monarchies that had dominated the planet for millennia slowly crumbled to give way to the first city-states. Borders changed swiftly and small wars were common, but by and large peace was maintained – in part because of the stabilizing influence of the doctrine of Athame, which was practiced almost planet-wide. The sect's ruling Vocicar councils were based in a series of massive temples in the city-state of Sathen, and as such Sathen's largest city, Niara, was viewed by many as the unofficial capital of the world.

The Queenless War began in the monarchial city-state of Aksh when local Justicars discovered – through unknown means – that the region's popular ruler, Queen Matriarch Iilinala, was a minor Ardat-Yakshi. As per their Code, the local Justicars wasted no time in abducting the Queen from her palace and imprisoning her within Bailal temple, a remote monastery in Aksh's Aelic Mountain chain.

The abduction had swift repercussions on Aksh's political stability. The region had been host to long-standing strife between rival asari guilds, and Queen Iilinala's popularity was regarded as the only thing preventing a rebellion. With the queen indisposed, rebels jumped on the opportunity to attack several key fortresses, instigating a civil war that had been quietly brewing for many decades. Aksh loyalists made several entreaties to the Justicars to release their ruler, but were met by stony denial. The Code was clear – Ardat-Yakshi belonged in captivity, no matter who they were.

The political situation in Aksh rapidly collapsed. Accusations began to fly that the Justicars had acted on orders of Sathen's rulers in a bid to depose Aksh's monarchy, and loyalist forces began moving against their neighbors to the north. As the fighting began, Queen Iilinala's trusted General Alana led a contingent of the Aksh royal army to Bailal temple where the queen was being imprisoned, demanding her release. At the Justicars' refusal, General Alana ordered the attack. Justicar forces engaged the army and despite being outnumbered four times over, managed to hold off the advance for eighteen days before being defeated. The battle was bloody and cost many lives, including the Queen's and General Alana's along with Bailal's entire contingent of Justicars and Ardat-Yakshi prisoners.

The war that spread across most of the asari city-states. Aksh itself was effectively destroyed after the royal family was butchered – historians debate to this day whether the family was killed by Justicars or political rebels, and whether or not any of them were truly Ardat-Yakshi like the former Queen Iilinala. One persistent legend holds that one of the Aksh ruling family – Princess Taiasa, the Queen's cousin, may have escaped the slaughter, and went on to unite thousands of Ardat-Yakshi into a hidden death cult in retaliation for her family's death. To this day Taiasa is revered as a minor deity amongst downtrodden asari, and worship of her name goes on in secret among the Ardat-Yakshi interred in many Justicar monasteries.

The war waged for more than a decade, and later became known as the Queenless War due to the deaths of many high-ranking asari rulers. Queen Iilinala and her general were the first, but throughout the course of the war, Justicars assassinated at least nine monarchs after deeming their actions (usually anything perceived as in defense of Aksh or against Sathen) unjust. The loss of so many rulers led to significant power struggles throughout much of the world as smaller factions vied to fill in the holes. Amongst some of these new power structures were the beginnings of the asari democratic communes that would ultimately unite to form the Republics a few centuries later.

The Queenless War was ultimately brought to an end when, under pressure by Sathen's secular government, the Athami Vocicars recalled Justicars worldwide to the Sathen temples in Niaria, and convened in the Second Council of Niara. After eleven sessions of deliberation, a new dogmatic constitution was emplaced, altering and unifying the Athami doctrine worldwide.

Most significantly, the Council added an addendum to the Justicar Code, five hundred and fifty six sutras that outlined the three Oaths of Subsumation. These oaths were intended to provide a safeguard between the Justicars' actions and the increasingly powerful secular asari governments, in an attempt to prevent a repeat of the abduction of Queen Iilinala. The First Oath, taken by all Justicars upon joining the order, reaffirms fealty to the Doctrine of Athame and the Vocicars, along with the asari as a species. It prevents Justicars from following the Code at the expense of the sect, or of the asari as a whole. The Second Oath of Subsumation, taken by a Justicar upon entering a new city-state (or, later, planet) swears a degree of cooperation with local law enforcement, which includes non-interference with ongoing investigations along with obliging a single day's grace period of obedience in case of conflicts, giving authorities time to contact the Vocicar to mediate a compromise. The Third Oath of Subsumation is left to each Justicar's discretion, and allows a Justicar to swear total fealty to an individual of her choice – effectively disabling the Code for a predetermined period.

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A/N: I return! Again! I am gonna finish this damn story if it kills me.

So. I'm aware that this interpretation of Samara is somewhat radical, but I like it. I think it solves a lot of problems with her character as portrayed in the games. I think Samara resembles Miranda in a lot of respects in that she's a really great concept for a character who never meets her potential in the plot because the game has to treat the squadmates as more or less interchangeable. But how sweet would it have been if certain decisions made with Samara in the party would result in having to fight her at the end of the game? Sweet, methinks. In any case, I hope you enjoyed my somewhat darker but – I think – more consistent and interesting take on Samara.

Many thanks to my two betas, whose honesty is appreciated, even when they don't agree with me.

In other news, I have recently joined the team of the very cool Marauder Shields project run by koobismo. For those of you who might not be familiar with it, Marauder Shields is a comic series being written to provide an alternate, more satisfying ending to the Mass Effect franchise. The author, koobismo, is a sharp fellow and is doing good work, and if you haven't checked it out yet, you should. Look on DeviantArt.

Not convinced? Well what if I told you koobismo has put together a team to record audio-book versions of his comics, and that yours truly had won the audition to voice act Zaeed "Goddamn" Massani? Can you resist the chance to hear Assaultsloth's dulcet tones? I'm also doing some 3d art for the series (*cough* female turian, about time *cough*) and writing some various humor shorts and songs for the MS voice actors to perform (*cough* Tali gangsta rap, about time *cough*) which should air on the Marauder Shields website when it goes live this month. One might also consider following slothwithagun and/or koobismo on Twitter, if one was so inclined.

My point is, check it out. You'll probably enjoy it.

Okay. Done advertising.

Let's see. One last question. Out of curiosity, are any of my readers familiar with Photoshop, 3dsmax, Zbrush, or similar 3d and 2d digital art programs? I ask because I am considering starting a Mass Effect related project, and I'm curious if anybody would be interested in helping make it happen.

Chapter 24 was a colossal pain in the ass. As aforementioned, it is split between 5 characters, all of them new for Interstitium. The next three chapters after that, though, are all super exciting for me – 2 returning characters and one new. Fifty internet points for any who can predict the POV's for chapters 24-27.

Stay tuned!