The true beginning of our end.
William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream
Wrex was pissed. No, he was more than pissed. He was well on his way into a full krogan battlerage Everything on this pitiful planet smelled of betrayal, and it was little wonder; not only was it pockmarked with salarians, but Saren was here as well. Normally, that would've been enough to foul even a planet made of flowers, but now he had to add Shepard to the mix.
She didn't understand. Humans were like mewling babes, newly come to the galaxy. They'd never seen the krogan at their glory. Technically speaking, neither had Wrex, but he'd seen the fallout from the genophage – the fighting, the grudges, the low keening in the night when the female clans lost yet another clutch of unborn, unformed children.
His shotgun blasts rang like thunder through the hollows of the rock formation that surrounded them. The mercenary part of him said that he was being a fool, that surely such noise could only draw attention to himself, but the krogan part screamed for that part to shut up, because if he didn't shoot the crabs scuttling along the bottom of the tide pools, he was going to turn his shotgun on the salarians and everyone else, and, well, as much as it pained him to say it, he wasn't sure he could take them all.
Part of him didn't care.
Shepard was huddled up with Williams and Alenko, both of whom were casting him dubious looks – like he was the one being unreasonable here! The Commander turned and looked at him too, her face unreadable. She started towards him, waving off the protests of her fellow humans and striding forward with single minded purpose. Wrex pretended not to notice, instead shooting the shell off another crab.
"Wrex," she said, and it was infuriating at how calm she was.
"Don't," he warned, rounding on her. "You can't expect me to go along with this slaughter, Shepard. They're free of the genophage! This is the best hope for my people."
"If you help these krogan, if you help Saren, if you help Sovereign, it won't matter," she said, obviously trying her best to be reasonable.
There was a reason why krogan were often excluded from diplomatic meetings. They had next to no patience. The fact that Shepard still had her head was a testament not only to Wrex's superior self-discipline, but also to the fact that Shepard was his friend, at least until today. "It's worth the risk to find out!"
"No," Shepard roared back, catching him by surprise. She took a step forward. "It's not! If the Reapers pour into the galaxy with ground troops already at their disposal, do you understand how ugly that's going to get?"
Now he did point his shotgun at her, because he'd never seen her like this. She was near snarling with anger, her breath coming in huge gasps that heaved her shoulders. Her retinas glowed blue with biotics, but she made no move to get her own firearm.
"I've considered you a friend," said Wrex, "but this is the future of my people we're talking about!"
"It's the future of all of us," snapped Shepard, taking yet another step forward. Wrex's finger twitched on his trigger, though it stilled as Shepard took the barrel of his gun and placed it flush with her armor right below her heart. Her anger faded suddenly, like a windstorm that disappears as soon as it's reached its apex, but there was still defiance in those eyes. "Do you know what Reapers do with their ground troops?" She didn't wait for Wrex to answer, but clambered into her tirade. "They change them. Those husks we keep finding? The ones that used to be human? Just you wait. What sort of monstrosities do you think they could cook up with krogan regenerative abilities? You want to save your people? This won't do it. This will just give them an art farm to test on before they move their experiments to Tuchanka."
"You're lying," said Wrex, butting her with his shotgun. "How would you even know that?"
"Do it," said Shepard, gesturing to the gun with her chin. Wrex tried not to let his surprise show on his face. "What are you waiting for, Wrex? I'm a liar and a betrayer, clearly. Why haven't you shot me yet?"
That was a good question, and one didn't have an easy answer for. "What game are you playing, Shepard?"
"A simple one," said Shepard, "with only one rule: we beat the Reapers or we die. The galaxy is what's at stake here. If you're willing to bet your people, and mine, and all the trillions of lives in the galaxy on this – on the chance that the krogan can, maybe, elude the Reapers long enough to regain some of their glory, on the chance that these krogan of Saren's, maybe, aren't indoctrinated like Benezia, on the chance that I'm full of shit – then shoot me." When he did nothing, she jut out her chin. "Do it. I might even thank you."
Shepard had always been ballsy. She'd stared down guns and biotics and aliens of all shapes and sizes. She'd talked her way out of a hell of a lot… But he'd never seen her look so, so hard. Wrex couldn't even tell if she was just that confident that he wouldn't shoot, or if she didn't care – such was the flat, defiant look on her face. His trigger finger twitched again. He had all the power in this situation. He could shoot her, and without her, he'd have a better chance of taking down the others. But he hadn't claimed it, hadn't earned it – he'd been given it by Shepard.
And somehow he realized what her gesture really meant. She was putting everything she had on the line, trusting him with the most important thing she had. It wasn't her life – Shepard, like him, knew that death could come at any time, and hell, it might beat the alternative if what she was saying about the Reapers and the Protheans were true. What she was risking (at least in her mind) was her people. She was trusting him with her people, with all of their peoples. If he pulled the trigger right now, what would happen? He might make it off this planet, he might re-establish the krogan, but then there would be nobody to stop Saren, to stop Sovereign.
If she was telling the truth. If.
He lowered his gun, and though the echo of his rage still rumbled lowly in his belly, he holstered it. "I'm going to trust you on this Shepard," he said. "But when we find Saren, I want his head."
Shepard nodded and let out a deep breath, all defiance gone, replaced with relief and something else. She moved forward and clasped his arm. "I promise," she whispered, so low he almost couldn't hear her, "that I will find a way to cure the genophage for you, Wrex. You have my word."
And with that, she turned on her heel and marched back towards the salarian captain. Alenko and Williams ran up to her, but she shrugged them off and wandered off alone, her body tense.
0-0-0
Kirrahe was huddled around his omni-tool when she came to find him. He glanced up and immediately shut off his tool, probably as a result of STG training. Shepard chose not to take it personally. This was, after all, the man who had offered to defy his superiors to help her with the Reapers. And although she knew him – perhaps not well, but enough to gauge his moral fibre (which was, at this point, doing somewhat better than her own) – he didn't know her. As far as she knew, he hadn't communicated with the Council since her… appearance, but she couldn't be sure.
"Commander," he greeted. "I was just finalizing the last components of the plan."
Shepard found herself at a loss for the words for the first time in what felt like forever. Part of her – a large part – wanted to just blurt out the truth, to bully him into listening to her and have him take it up with the Council later. That small centre that control reason, however, was working hard to counter that. This is a delicate mission, it said, and you need to earn your trust with Kirrahe. He's not the sort to blindly follow.
"Good," she said, and it sounded faint even to her ears. There was a stool to her right and she plunked down on it with a deep breath. "Tell it to me."
The plan was exactly as she remembered, and as she closed her eyes to listen, all the details of that day three years ago came rushing back. She remembered how her lips had gotten chapped and salt-licked from running through the Virmire surf. She remembered that anvil of fear that had settled in the bottom of her gut as she realized that Sovereign was a Reaper. She remembered slamming her fists in despair and frustration when having to choose between Kaidan and Ash, and the numb that followed. She remembered the sensors picking up the massive explosion and the tears in her bunk that night.
Things were rapidly moving outside her control, and she didn't like it. Through most of her military career, she'd been an optimist, surging forward with purpose and confidence. What had Ash said to her once? Cynical is what an optimist calls a realist. She'd scoffed it off at the time, but now… now she was getting to see that perhaps Ash had been right all along.
That didn't mean she was willing to give up on today.
"Commander?" interrupted Kirrahe. "Are you all right?"
"Fine," she said, and it was a lie. She licked her lips and offered him a grim smile. "So we split into teams. I'll be infiltration – an irony, considering it's what your people are trained for, and I'm more like a bull in a china shop – and everyone else will handle the frontal assault under your command. We place the bomb, board the Normandy, and get the hell out of dodge."
Kirrahe blinked at her. "I wouldn't have put it so colourfully, but yes, that is the plan."
"May I make one alteration?"
He didn't look like he wanted to agree, which is why he said, "And what would that be?"
Shepard had tried hard over the past forty-eight hours to figure out some way to save not only Kaidan and Ash (if she could) but also to prove that the Reapers were real and a threat. Seemed like a lot to pack into one mission, and it was, but somehow it still paled in comparison to the hours proceeding virtually any op during the Reaper war. Didn't make it easy, but it meant that she wouldn't be a blubbering mess on the field either. Hopefully.
"I need you to be part of my infiltration squad," she said.
The words hovered in the air like smoke. The shock of them drifted away after a few seconds of silence. "I'm afraid I don't understand," said Kirrahe. "You're asking me to abandon my command to come with you, because…?"
Here it was. Double or nothing. "Have you ever heard of the Reapers, Captain?"
He frowned. "Some Prothean myth or the like?"
Standing, Shepard started to pace. "They're not a myth. They're real. I encountered a damaged beacon on Eden Prime that showed me the Prothean extinction. They didn't vanish, Captain – they were wiped out."
"Even were that true," said Kirrahe, and Shepard noted his careful lack of opinion, "I hardly see why that necessitates my placement in your squad."
"Because Saren is working with the Reapers," said Shepard, fully aware of how ridiculous this would sound. For years, she'd been saying the same thing, and for years, she'd gotten the same disbelieving look. Even on the SR-2, many of the squad she'd assembled to combat the Collectors hadn't quite believed her ramblings about ancient sentient machines… until they saw the Collector base.
Sometimes, words weren't enough. Sometimes, you needed to see a thing with your own eyes.
"Why?" asked Kirrahe, and it was such an unexpected question that Shepard struggled to answer quickly.
"He thinks that by helping them, he will save us," said Shepard, scourging her brain to find Saren's exact words on this day three years ago, and failing. She ran her hands down her face. "Listen, I know how absurd this sounds, trust me. I sound like a lunatic, but it's true, and if you come with me today, I can prove it to you."
"You're asking me to risk the lives of my men in order to indulge an unlikely fantasy?" asked Kirrahe.
"I'm asking you to risk the lives of your men on the off-chance that I've stumbled onto something that threatens the survival of us all," said Shepard, and though she was doing her best to stay calm, heat cracked her voice. "If I were really that crazy, do you think the Council would let me out here? I've told them everything I've told you and more."
They'd reached a fork in the road. If he declined to come with her, well, there was nothing she could do about that. But she prayed he wouldn't. Even if… Even if someone ended up dying today, even if it hurt like hell, if she could just manage to get the rest of the galaxy to listen, then maybe she could live with it for a second time. Maybe it would seem the sacrifice seem worthwhile.
Truth be told, she doubted it, but it was the only quasi-comforting thought she had right now.
Just when she was about to give up, Kirrahe nodded once. "I will come with you, Commander," he said, "but I'm going to have to make a request as well."
In three years, Shepard had seen countless people die. She'd lost friends. She'd watched Earth burn and the fleets of every race in the galaxy explode and fall like stars. But now, on this spit of a planet in the middle of nowhere, at the beginning of a war people couldn't yet see, Shepard was dwarfed by her own sense of helplessness in the face of something that seemed unshakeably immutable.
0-0-0
Shepard had been on edge all morning. Kaidan tried not to link it back to their conversation hours previous, but it was hard – her words still jangled around in his head. A few days ago, he'd been praying that she'd survive, not only because a galaxy without Shepard would be left increasingly vulnerable, but because he wanted a chance to figure out this thing between them, whatever it ended up being. Now, though, it seemed like she was pulling away and he couldn't figure out why.
It was partly Saren, he knew, but there was something more. Something deeper. He saw it in her eyes as he and Wrex loaded into the mako with her: fear.
So when she'd taken Wrex's gun and pointed it at herself, Kaidan had felt his fingers tingle and felt the eezo sludge through his nervous system. Beside him, Ash readied her rifle and they both waited. The only reason he wasn't running towards them was because Shepard had given them an order to stand their ground, to not interfere. After Wrex had finally stood down, she'd stalked past them, dismissing them with the wave of her hand before disappearing to talk to the salarian captain.
Damn it, this wasn't like her. Sure, she did tend to wade into deeper waters than she was expecting, but she was always smart about it. Now… Now Kaidan got the feeling that there was something more than just stopping Saren behind her actions, more than just stopping the Reapers. Not for the first time, he wondered what the hell was on that beacon.
"Okay, I'm starting to get a little worried," said Ash from beside him. She had her arms crossed, and a frown was tugging at the edges of her face. "Yeah, yeah, Shepards's under stress, but that stint with Wrex… I don't know, LT. Whatever's coming must be bad for her to take stupid risks like that."
"She trusts Wrex," said Kaidan, though his words were more confident than he felt. "She knew he wouldn't do anything."
"Maybe the Commander needs to be a little less trusting," said Ash, eyes dropping on various alien figures in turn.
"I know you don't totally trust aliens Ash, and I get it," said Kaidan, "but they're just people, like you and me. They don't have some ulterior motive here. We all just want to want to stop Saren."
Ash made a noncommittal sound. "That's the claim." She ran a hand over her hair. "Listen, Kaidan, I heard something that…"
She broke off when Shepard strode out of the makeshift shelter and onto the beach, holding up her hand to block the sunlight and squinting in their direction. Captain Kirrahe came right after her, and though Kaidan hadn't been in the company of many salarians, he noticed that the man appeared troubled. Shepard moved towards them, the Captain on her heels.
"Here's the plan," she said without preamble. "The Captain and his men can rig a bomb. Saren's labs are too well fortified to drop it from atmo, so three salarian teams are going to draw enemy fire while I take a fourth team to infiltrate and clear out the facility. We'll all meet at this rendezvous site." Her omni-tool flared as she sent the information to both he and Ash. She hesitated only briefly. "The Captain also has a request."
"Your Commander has requested that I be part of her infiltration team," said Kirrahe, sounding less than pleased at the prospect. "As such, I'm going to need one of you to coordinate the assault teams."
"I volunteer," said Kaidan immediately. He hadn't planned on blurting it out, and he looked to Shepard. She wasn't looking at anyone though. She was hugging herself, eyes pasted to the ground.
"Whoa, whoa, hang on LT," said Ash. "You're better equipped to arm that bomb. I'll head out with the salarians."
Normally, he and Ash got on fine, but for whatever reason, her attitude rankled right now. Maybe it was the fact that Shepard wasn't looking at anyone, maybe it was her standoff with Wrex, or maybe it was that fear he saw earlier, but Kaidan was determined to prove that he was fully capable of handling himself no matter the situation – and, by extension, helping Shepard with whatever was coming.
"With all due respect, Chief," he said, "that's not your call."
"Why is it that whenever someone says, with all due respect, what they really mean is, kiss my ass?" wondered Ash, raising an eyebrow in his direction.
Kaidan opened his mouth to bark back a reply but Shepard beat him to it. "Enough," she snapped. "Ash, you're with the assault teams. Kaidan, you're on the nuke." Biting down his frustration, Kaidan nodded.
"Well, now that that's settled, I must see to my men. Be ready to move out," said Kirrahe. He inclined his head towards Shepard and was gone, and Kaidan couldn't shake the feeling that he was running away.
"This is it, then," said Ash, and despite the fact that only moments before she'd been lobbying to go, she now sounded hesitant. Kadian felt his annoyance slip.
"Ash," said Shepard, voice low and urgent as she clasped the other woman's arm. "You stay off the AA towers, you hear me? There's only one way up and one way down. Don't get caught chasing the enemy. Try and circle around the rendezvous, and choose easily defensible positions on the ground. When my team gets close – and you'll be able to tell, trust me – you beeline it for pickup. Leave the AA guns to me. I'll disable them from elsewhere."
Ash blinked a few times, absorbing the information. "Aye aye, ma'am," she said slowly.
Shepard held onto Ash's arm for a few seconds too long, and if both women hadn't been wearing armour, Ash probably would've had bruises in a couple hours. "You'll make me proud, I know it," said Shepard, dropping her hands to her sides. She jerked her head. "Now get going and kick some ass."
"Thank you, skipper," said Ash, "I will." With one last tight look at Kaidan, she jogged off to meet with the salaraians.
Shepard watched her go and said nothing. After a deep breath, she turned to Kaidan. "Let's get this makeshift bomb onto the Normandy, shall we?"
It took the two of them to carry it, and even then it was a strain – or at least it was for Kaidan. It was a good thing that Shepard's strength – of character, as well as of body – was what had drawn him to her in the first place, or he might've felt a tad emasculated. She carried her half like it was the lightest thing the world, whereas he struggled to maintain an even breath, casting glances in her direction. Even when they finally set it down in the cargo bay, she merely stood with her hands on her hips and looked out onto the sandy beaches of Virmire.
"This is where the war starts, you know," she said, and there it was again, under that careful, casual veneer – there was the fear.
"You worried, ma'am?" he asked.
She made a noncommittal sound, running her tongue over her teeth. "This is part of being a soldier," she said. "Knowing the risks and having to do the job anyways. It's what I signed up for all those years ago."
A memory pinged in Kaidan's brain. He came to stand next to her, staring out at Virmire even though he'd rather be staring at her. "You said," he started, hesitant, "back in the hospital… I guess you wouldn't remember, though."
"What did I say?" she asked, sparing him a fleeting glance.
"You said that you hadn't always wanted to be a soldier," he said, and from the way her eyes widened and her breathing stopped, he figured he'd really done it this time. Normally, this would be standard chatter for getting to know someone you were interested in. Of course, normally you wouldn't be trying to get closer to your CO, and normally your CO wouldn't have bogeymen that would render most normal people into weeping wrecks.
Some internal debate waged in her brain. Finally, she said, "I'm sorry I don't have that memory. For me to tell you… I've only ever told one other person that."
"Who?" said Kaidan, before his brain could catch up to his mouth. Catching himself, he hurried to add, "You don't have to answer that, ma'am."
"It was a man I loved," said Shepard, with such wistfulness and such regret that every word was cracked and blackened. Her eyes trailed Garrus as he walked towards Tali, and rested on the two aliens. "A teacher. I wanted to be a teacher."
A strong wind would've blown Kaidan away at that instant. He turned to look at her – to really look at her, from her shaved head, to her weary eyes, to the confident set of her shoulders. Her eyes never left the beach. How many times had they discussed how perfect a soldier Shepard was? How she seemed to thrive on the battlefield? To think that in a different life, those hands that were so adept at killing would've been gently guiding children, holding their hands, correcting their mistakes… Of course, this dream came before she found out she was biotic. Hard to say whether it would've been viable, what with the stigma against human biotics. But somehow, that didn't matter.
It was like Kaidan was peering back in time, back to a sixteen year old Shepard who had no idea what was awaiting her. And it broke his heart.
"I think you would've been good at it," he confessed.
Shepard snorted softly, but moved closer to him. She studied his face intently, as she'd done after Noveria, her hands cupping the contours of his jaw. Then, before he could process what was happening, her lips were on his, gently but firmly. He'd just gotten his bearings and was moving to embrace her when she pulled away, eyes first on the ground and then once again out the hangar door.
"I'm sorry, Kaidan. That was unfair," she said. "Nothing's changed. I just… I'll see you at the rendezvous site. Make sure the bomb is prepped."
Kaidan wanted to call out to her, really, he did, but he couldn't imagine what would happen after that. It was highly unlikely that they'd fall into each other's arms – they just weren't the type, either of them. And she'd said nothing had changed, but she'd said this right after kissing him. He should've felt giddy, ecstactic, something, but instead all he could feel was apprehensive. Instead of those drunken butterflies of new love, he was inhabited by a low thrum of anxiety.
He waited for her to look back, but she never did.
0-0-0
Garrus wasn't entirely certain why Shepard chose him to come along on this mission. Wrex had near exploded when she told him to wait on the ship, mollified only when the salarians said that there'd been no confirmation of Saren's presence and when Shepard backed them. It was an amazing thing, to see a human woman stop an angry krogan, and it reminded Garrus of the reason he wanted to join Shepard to begin with: she always managed the impossible.
The influx of guilt gnawed on his insides as he took notes on her behavior. Should he tell the Councillor about the incident with Wrex? Should he mention how Shepard had teetered on the edge of death, and that she did so voluntarily? More voluntarily than usual? It certainly didn't speak to pro-human zealotry, but then, maybe it just went over his head.
They – he, Shepard and Kirrahe – managed to infiltrate the base with virtually no trouble except once on a platform leading to the main facility. Shepar was forced to duck into cover as three more came into the fray. She glowed blue with biotics but the fire on her was constant. Kirrahe opened fire while Garrus struggled to get in position to sabotage the lot of them. Rolling from one cover to the other, he peeked around and found he couldn't get a clear shot at the any geth's chest cavity.
"What the hell are you doing, Garrus?" bellowed Shepard. "Stop trying to be a damned technician and do what you're good at – shoot them in the goddamned flashlights!"
Pride stung, Garrus reached for his rifle instead only to see Shepard leap out of cover, throw a singularity between the geth, hoisting them all up in the air. With a wave of her arm, a cascade of electricity careened towards the geth, sending them spiralling outwards in explosive chunks.
"Impressive, Commander," said Kirrahe.
Shepard said nothing. She looked at Garrus like she was about to say something, and for one horrifying moment he thought he was about to get a lecture, but she simply turned and carried on. From then on, something changed. He hadn't even realized Shepard had been providing him with openings, had been carefully keeping out of his way until she stopped. It was unnerving to know, and he was engulfed by some emotion he couldn't quite name at the thought that he'd somehow let her down. This was, after all, his first mission with Shepard after her stint in the hospital.
And he could see what Williams had been going on about. With that slight shift, Shepard became a one woman powerhouse, using biotics and weapons in turn. When a krogan charged her, she detonated her barrier, sending the alien staggering backwards, before pulling the hostile into the air and riddling him with bullets until his organs floated around him, like some bloody undersea creature caught in a mass effect field of its own.
Shepard had always been efficient, but this… What had Williams said? Almost ruthless? Well, from where Garrus was standing, that seemed as good an assessment as any.
They cleared their way through the base, and while Garrus lost track of where they were through the dizzying maze of corridors and rooms, Shepard had an uncanny sense of direction. Kirrahe followed her with a thoughtful expression, obviously gathering data to report back to the Council on the newest Spectre. Garrus was almost annoyed at the thought, but allowed that that would make him a damned hypocrite.
They came to a set of containment cells, and Shepard started to walk past them without a second glance. It was Kirrahe who stopped short, jogging forward and saying, "What have they done to them?"
It was then that Garrus looked, really looked, at the men contained within. They were staring blankly at the walls, or pacing. One, secluded on his own, kept screaming at them to let him out, but he was fidgeting, his eyes blinking out of sync. Kirrahe went to open the lock, but Shepard grabbed his arm and pulled him roughly away.
"Don't," she said.
Kirrahe frowned. "These are my men, Commander. If I can give them medical attention, it might improve our odds."
Shepard shook her head. "They're a lost cause, Captain. They've been indoctrinated. There's nothing you can do. You set them free now, and you might as well put a bullet in your head."
Indoctrinated? Garrus carefully took in the shifty behavior of the salarians. Had Benezia been like this? Suddenly, he was extremely thankful Liara wasn't here to see this. The thought of your family turning into this… It wasn't something he'd wish on anyone.
"Indoctrinated?" echoed Kirrahe, giving voice to Garrus' question. He glanced back at his men.
"It's hard to explain, but please believe me when I say that you can't help them," said Shepard, her voice soft over a steel underlay. "We need to finish the mission, agreed?"
Kirrahe sighed. "Agreed."
Garrus had served with the turian military for years. He knew what it was to leave a soldier behind, but it never got any easier. Despite the fact that these salarians were clearly out of their minds, he couldn't help but take one last look at them before they left the room. As the door closed behind him, he could still hear one of them screaming. If this bothered Kirrahe, he didn't let it show.
They travelled a few more corridors, taking out geth along the way, before they ended up in another cell block. This time, one of the salarians rushed up to the glass, his hands splayed flat. "Captain!" he said, his relief like a wave.
"Imness!" said Kirrahe, striding forward. There was a wariness that hadn't been there before. "Status report?"
"Got captured by Saren's forces, sir," said Imness. "They've been doing experiments on us, testing out indoctrination. I was left alone as a control subject. I still have my senses, though I wish I didn't. I watched our men get reduced to mindless husks. Others… others died during the experiments."
"You did well, Lieutenant," said Kirrahe. "We're about to destroy this base. Are you fit for battle?"
"Give me a weapon, sir," said Imness, "and I will do what's necessary."
"No," said Shepard, coming to stand in front of the lock to the door. "I'm sorry, Captain, but you don't know whether or not he's been compromised."
"Shepard," said Garrus, "he seems fine."
The Commander didn't waver even for a second. He'd never seen her face so… hard, so devoid of feeling. It was the face of a much older soldier. Garrus could remember old Cos – veterans of dozens, maybe hundreds of battles – with the same expression. It didn't seem to belong on Shepard's face.
"So did Benezia," said Shepard tightly, "and so does Saren. That's how they trick you. They indoctrinate sleeper agents, make them seem like themselves, then put them in positions of power where they can learn all your secrets. If this man is indoctrinated, and he goes back to STG and becomes someone of importance, what do you think is going to happen when the Reapers come through? He won't be the soldier you know any more." She took a deep breath.
"I'm not indoctrinated!" protested Imness.
"That's the thing," whispered Shepard, "people don't realize it until it's too late. Then you're left fighting the enemy within as well as the enemy without."
"Shepard, my people know how to contain potentially problematic agents," said Kirrahe.
"And if he turns on us during the fight?" demanded Shepard.
"I won't!" said Imness.
The salarian captain wavered, then sighed. "I'm sorry, Lieutenant. The mission must take priority."
"Sir," said the salarian, "please…! Don't leave me here!"
Somehow, Imness' following silence was worse than the screaming from earlier. Kirrahe left the room first, then Garrus, then Shepard. Garrus leaned over to whisper, "Shepard, are you sure about this?"
She stared at him, swallowing and licking her lips. "The cold calculus of war, Garrus. A good friend of mine once taught me what that meant." She didn't elaborate further before pushing forward. Kirrahe and Garrus were left to follow, and Kirrahe was more determined than ever – a coping mechanism, probably.
They came into a room, some sort of office, and Shepard lowered her gun when she found it empty. If he didn't know any better, Garrus would've said she was… confused? She turned to Kirrahe, "Any chance you can slice a lock?"
Kirrahe nodded, holstering his pistol and striding forward. Within seconds, the lock was open, and Garrus made a mental note to never give an STG agent a reason to suspect him. Very little was said as they took the elevator upstairs, but Shepard thrummed with nervous energy, running her tongue over her lips. A fine sheen of sweat clung to her forehead, and Garrus didn't know whether it was the planet's humidity or her own physical exertion or what. He still found it weird that humans leaked to cool themselves off.
Garrus stopped short as he saw the beacon at the bottom, and even Shepard hesitated slightly before approaching it. She reached out a hand, then paused, glancing back at Kirrahe. "I would capture this all on vid, if I were you. Don't stop until we leave this room. I need the Council to see."
Omni-tool flaring to life, Kirrahe nodded, suspicious. For his part, Garrus was confused and alarmed.
Hand extended, Shepard's body was hoisted into the air and her face contorted into a grimace of pain. Was this what had happened on Eden Prime? Looking at Shepard, it was no wonder she'd wound up in the hospital. Then, as suddenly as it had started, she dropped, landing on all fours. Garrus moved to help her up, and she accepted his hand, swaying as she stood with one hand pushed to her forehead.
"I forgot how painful that was," she said.
"Are you going to be okay, Shepard?" asked Garrus. "The last time you encountered a Prothean beacon, it didn't end well."
"Ready to roll," she said by way of denial, though Garrus had no idea what rolling had to do with anything. She marked up the ramp, Garrus following, and Kirrahe behind, his omni-tool still alight.
That was when everything changed.
0-0-0
Ash was trying really hard to keep Shepard's orders in mind, but it was hard when there were damned flashlights shooting at her from every direction. She wasn't used to having command of this many soldiers, and although she'd volunteered for the job (and been given it by Shepard), under the adrenaline, under the steely determination, her heart fluttered like a butterfly caught in a jar.
Shepard had kept her word and disabled the AA guns, allowing Ash and to coordinate her teams around the rendezvous point. She hadn't ended up on the tower, but the tower with its one exit was looking pretty sweet right about now. One was one more than they had right now. The problem was, the geth were too many and they'd sabotaged the doors to either side; they couldn't close the one and couldn't open the other for escape.
They were caught in a kill zone – literally backed into a corner. They would've been fine – they'd taken out a large chunk of the geth forces on their way in, and a few of the salarians were nothing if not tech savvy – except that whatever the hell Shepard had done had triggered a large influx of geth. Geth that were inconveniently bearing down on their position, and the geth had locked out all hacking attempts. Since nobody on her team had a key card, Ash was going to die fifty meters from the rendezvous point, and it was making her grumpy.
Ash caught a spray of green blood on her helmet as the soldier next to her was riddled, and she ducked beneath cover to wipe it off. Well, if she had to die, at least she'd die knowing that Kaidan managed to get the stupid bomb in position.
"Ash," said Shepard over the comm, "talk to me."
"Can't talk now, ma'am," said Ash, leaning out to fire. "Working on staying alive."
"Where are you? Why aren't you at the rendezvous?"
"Doesn't matter," said Ash, "you just get that bomb prepped."
"Williams," started Shepard.
"Incoming!" yelled one of the salarians, and Ash raised her weapon towards the geth juggernaut that was flanking her. She fired, taking out the thing's shields, but still it rounded on her, sabotaging her gun so that it smoked in her hands. With a curse, Ash rolled out of the way of a missile, going for her pistol, but she didn't have the chance to use it. There was a flare of blue light, and the geth was sent careening into the wall.
An asari stood behind it, dressed in a lab coat and panting. When she saw Ash, her eyes welled up. "Oh, thank the goddess," she said, ambling forward. "We need to get out of here!"
"Get the hell down," hissed Ash, not lowering her weapon one inch.
"My name is Rana Thanoptis," said the asari, crouching in cover next to Ash, seemingly unfazed by the gun pointed in her direction. "Saren hired me months ago to work on neuropathology research. I never knew why, but then geth started showing up and – and…" The woman looked like she was about to pass out. "Please. You've got to help me."
"You picked a shitty boss," said Ash.
A geth hopper clung to the ceiling above them, the red light of its scope coming to rest on Rana's chest. Ash pushed her out of the way, a crate exploding behind them. The salarians shot the thing to the ground, and Ash picked herself off the asari, who was keening like a kid.
"Listen, you want me to help you?" asked Ash. "You've got to prove you're trustworthy. If you really work here, open that goddamned door behind us!"
Rana nodded too quickly and scrambled back to the console. Ash gestured to her men to provide covering fire, and the sounds of gunfire drowned out everything else. The door behind them slid open, showing the awaiting Normandy in the distance.
"Go!" yelled Ash, ushering her men through before following at a sprint, jumping over a crate and ducking behind it as another missile came her way.
And suddenly, Shepard was beside her, face grim. Even though they were in the middle of a firefight, Shepard stared Ash down. "You make sure that no geth get near this bomb, you hear? You guard Kaidan, and you watch yourself. If anything happens to either of you, I swear to God, I will kill you both."
"Thought you didn't believe," said Ash, her brain three steps behind her mouth.
"I don't," said Shepard.
There was this palpable foreboding that descended between them. Ash mirrored Shepard's actions from earlier, grabbing the Commander's arm. "Shepard, what are you planning?"
"I've lost too many people," said Shepard, "I won't let it start here."
A million thoughts flew through Ash's head. She wanted to call Shepard crazy, she wanted to ask who she'd lost, what it was and how it was going to start here, but the Commander suddenly lit up like the Fourth of July. "You get everyone on board, Ash. I know you can do it."
And then, in a flash of blue, Shepard was gone. From beyond the cover, in the space Ash and her teams had just vacated, came the low thump of a collision. Ash peeked over her cover in time to see Shepard slam her hand into the ground, creating a crater that spiderwebbed outwards, her body exploding with blue energy that sent the geth flying, then crumbling to the ground. A prime approached from Shepard's left, and Ash made to cry out, but Shepard saw it and in a blur of blue, the prime was hurled to the ground. This time when Shepard slammed down her hand, it was in the middle of the thing's chest, and it exploded outwards into so many pieces.
"Holy shit," Ash whispered to herself, and then remembering her orders, turned to find Kaidan. A geth caught him from behind, ripping through his shields and the LT stumbled. Turning, he used his biotics to throw the few geth against the walls of the complex, before yelling, "The bomb is armed. Everybody on the ship. We've got two minutes!"
Jumping out of cover, Ash made a beeline for him, grabbing his arm and looping it over her shoulder. She started to drag him towards the ship. "Come on, LT, time to go," she said, taking note of the salarians jogging towards the ship.
"Wait," he said, pulling against her, "where's Shepard?"
Ash didn't know what to say, so she just thrust her chin in the direction they'd come from. A large biotic detonation sent crates flying, and from among them, Shepard ran out like some Valkyrie out of legend, whipping out her shotgun and shooting a geth's head off. Though meters away, she met their eyes and gestured towards the ship.
Then she was knocked backwards towards the bomb. On a floating platform, Saren descended like something out of science fiction, glowing with biotics of his own.
"I'm not leaving her," said Kaidan, and Ash had never heard him sound so determined. He wrenched his arm from her grasp and started forward, lurching from the severity of his wound.
"She ordered us on the ship!"
"And if she dies, where are we then?" he demanded, and, well, he had a point.
She nodded in assent, and they both started forward, only as Saren descended on Shepard, and they seemed to be having a little chat. Ash wanted to tell the Commander that this was hardly the time for a tea party with the enemy, but she was left trying to support Kaidan as he attempted to hobble his way over to the fight. Saren picked Shepard up by the throat, her fist burned blue and she blasted the turian backwards. Picking up her shotgun, she, well, rushed at them, covering the space in a few seconds and screaming, "I told you both to get on the fucking ship!"
All but pushing them aboard the ship, Shepard tapped her ear bud, "Get us out of here now, Joker!"
The door started to close, but not before Saren got up and let loose a biotic something or other in their direction. Kaidan surged forward, blocking Shepard with a wall of biotics and not for the first time, Ash made a mental note to get some sort of biotic dictionary so she could know what the hell to call all this superpower shit that was going on around her.
As the cargo bay door sealed shut, Shepard fell to her knees, eyes wide and watering. "I did it," she whispered. There was an expression on her face that scared Ash more than anything planetside had. "I changed it."
Kaidan crouched in front of her, putting his hands on Shepard's shoulders. "Hey – are you okay? I've never seen a human being use biotics like that. You must be totally burned out." One of his thumbs grazed the side of Shepard's neck, smoothing over the red lines that descended from the back of the Commander's skull. The other traced faint – were those cuts? why weren't they bleeding? – that were sprinkled across one of her cheeks. It was such an intimate gesture that Ash felt like a voyeur, except that the adoration painted on the LT's face was absent from Shepard's. She was looking beyond, into the cargo bay.
"Who's that?" she asked, and Ash turned to see the asari sitting on the ground, arms around her knees.
"Rana something," said Ash. "She helped us escape. Apparently she didn't read the contract carefully enough before she started. "
At once, Shepard was on her feet, moving into the shuttle bay. Ash followed, jogging to keep up, and when Rana caught sight of her, a hesitant smile crossed her face.
Or, at least, it did until her brains were all over the floor.
In any normal circumstances, there would be screaming. Yelling. Chaos. But the cargo bay was full of soldiers – soldiers who's just seen death up close and personal – and so instead there was silence as all eyes turned to Shepard. Whatever relief she'd shown had faded away, leaving a grim stoicism. She slowly lowered her weapon.
"Get a body bag," said the Commander. "We'll keep her in the medbay until we can pass her off to her people."
"Jesus," said Ash, "Commander, she was a civilian!"
"She was indoctrinated," said Shepard.
That's when the elevator door opened and Doctor Chakwas entered, at first quickly and then, seeing the body, more slowly. She glanced from the body to Shepard and her face became very serious. "What happened?"
"I had to kill her," said Shepard, and to the doctor it sounded almost like an apology.
Rather than asking any questions at all, Chakwas' mouth simply vanished and she offered a tight nod. She brushed passed Shepard and then over to Kaidan, who was still kneeling where he'd been left, but looking a little greyer. She crouched in front of him, and the two exchanged words. Kaidan shook his head, then said something and gestured at Shepard. When Chakwas stood, she said, "Somebody help me get Kaidan to the medbay."
Ash stepped forward, doing as she had done on Virmire and looping his arm around her. He smiled at her, and she smiled back, though she didn't much feel like it. As they wandered to the elevator, Shepard was still standing in the centre of the cargo bay, contemplating the corpse.
"You should come as well," said Chakwas. "I hear you let off a pretty impressive biotic display. We'll need to replenish your electrolytes."
"Not necessary," said Shepard, and somehow, it was a dismissal.
"Shepard," said Kaidan, "come on. We both know how important it is."
She turned and looked at the LT for the first time, and some resistance in her seemed to falter. Was that love? Ash didn't think so. She couldn't help but contrast Kaidan's complete concern for Shepard with Shepard's standoffish nature. What had changed? A few weeks ago, she could've sworn Shepard was already choosing baby names and the colour of the drapery.
Of course, a few weeks ago, Sovereign hadn't been a Reaper. Jesus.
"I'll be up in a bit," said Shepard. "I need to clean up and talk to Kirrahe first."
It sounded like the empty promise a parent would make a child, and that left Ash wondering exactly what sort of head space the Commander had entered. Looking down at the corpse of the asari, Ash was just sure she didn't want to be on the receiving end of it.
0-0-0
Saren sat with his head in his hands, seething with anger. He could feel the nanites of Reaper technology repairing the damage done to him by Shepard, but that did little to appease the gnawing in his gut. How had one organic being defeated the symbiosis between himself and the Reapers? It was unfathomable. If not for Shepard, his plan would be coming along without any interference. He'd never liked humans – he saw them for the backstabbing vermin they were back in the war – but he found himself loathing Shepard. She was threatening to ruin everything.
The part of him that was connected to Sovereign felt something else entirely. If Sovereign had been organic, Saren might even have called it curiosity, but that word was too evocative of innocence. No, Sovereign saw Shepard as an obstacle, yes, but the machine also wondered what miraculous things Shepard could do while under the control of the Reapers.
There's been some sort of interchange between Shepard and Sovereign on Virmire. The details had been kept from him, but Saren knew from the way that Sovereign had backpedalled that something massive had happened. For a moment, the machine had felt something almost like… alarm.
Of course, that was sheer stupidity. A machine could not be alarmed by one human woman. The Reapers were vast and infinite and entirely unknowable – that was the reason Saren had joined them in the first place. It would be a war against enemies that didn't get tired, that didn't get hungry, that didn't feel fear. The only way the galaxy would survive would be if he joined up with them. He knew that. Sovereign had shown him that.
But he couldn't forget what Shepard had said on Virmire. Though their confrontation had been short – and though Saren was displeased it hadn't ended with him wringing the life out of her scrawny body – she'd said some things that left him uneasy.
"Do not sacrifice everything for the sake of petty freedoms," he'd said, willing her to understand. "The Protheans tried to fight, and they were utterly destroyed."
"Is that what your master has been telling you?" retorted Shepard.
Sovereign's presence had become more than a lingering shadow in his mind, then, and there was a deep vibration from inside his brain as Sovereign made him say, "What do you mean?"
And, damn her, Shepard had smirked, "Sounds like there's trouble in paradise, Saren. Shouldn't be surprising. You're only Sovereign's puppet."
"Sovereign needs me!" snarled Saren. "If I find the Conduit, I've been promised a reprieve from the inevitable!"
"He's lying to you," shouted Shepard. "Manipulating your thoughts so that you believe what he wants you to believe. Can't you see that?"
No, whispered his mind, it's not true. But he wasn't sure if that was his own mind or Sovereign's influence. Damn Shepard! She was making him second guess himself when he was close, so close. He would not be swayed by the bluffs of one human who had no idea what she was talking about. What would she know of the Reapers, anyways? Everything she knew was cobbled together based on scraps. Saren knew the Reapers better, knew what they were capable of, and knew that working with them was their only hope.
Despite himself, however, he found himself pulling up every file he could dig up about Shepard. As he scanned the screen, Sovereign was there, like a possessive parent, reading over his shoulder.
A few notes:
1) I doubt I will ever fully love this chapter. I like it, it's okay, but I wouldn't date it or marry it. This chapter is securely in that awkward more-than-acquaintances-less-than-friends zone.
2) This chapter is dedicated to the vanguard class. I was replaying a few ME3 bits, and I remembered how much they kicked ass! Nova all the things!
3) Spot the movie parallel that was totally unintentional but once I saw it, I couldn't ignore it.
4) I'm working 6 day weeks. Updating might get a little dicey.