Hello! Hope you liked the last chapter, I know you guys want Ridley and Shepard to have some kind of romance going on by now, but I hope I satisfied your fanfiction-crazed minds. Not that that's a bad thing, I wouldn't be here without you guys. So thanks, and please review. They are love! Seriously! This chapter is longer, as requested. And without further ado, chapter 8 (apologies in advance, I had writer's block)!

Shepard POV

Noveria is the perfect example of what the ice age on Earth must have looked like. It was just so cold! Even in the big, toasty building, I thought we were going to freeze. Making our way through the Noverian port, I realized how corrupted this place was.

First there was the hanar who asked me to smuggle some stuff in for him, then there was the guy in charge of it all, his receptionist, who I found out later was an internal affairs agent, and then finally came getting the treatment of a hired gun.

Needless to say, I was not a fan of the icy planet. At all. I was more than relieved to finally be able to get out of that base and to Peak 15 like we'd been wanting to do all along. After making it past that nightmare of a captain, my squad and I stepped into the cargo bay.

"Something's wrong," said Ridley, "this doesn't feel right."

"It's too quiet," Liara agreed.

All of the sudden, a geth stalker beeped from it's position on the wall.

"What the hell was that?!" the captain yelled, panicked.

"A geth." I answered, unsurprised, "Matriarch Benezia wouldn't come here without them."

"Shepard!" Ridley shouted, her eyes trained on a group of geth not far away.

My squad and I burst into action. Ridley tried to take down the four stalkers I could see, and Liara and I were focusing our energies on trying to take down the geth ground troopers.

As Liara and I finished off the last geth trooper with a biotic pull on my part, we turned in sync to see Ridley with her sniper rifle brandished, aiming for the illusive last geth stalker. With expert precision, she shot down the stalker mid-jump.

"That was a lucky shot," I said, coming up from behind her and moving towards the captain.

"That wasn't luck. It was practice." Ridley stated with a smug smirk, holstering her rifle.

As we approached the captain, she looked like she was on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

"What- what were those things?" she stuttered out, her words shaky and unsure, completely different from five minutes ago.

"Geth." I said evenly, enjoying her horrified look a little more than I should have, "Your 'esteemed' resident matriarch brought them with her. She's working for Saren, and he's got her in his thrall."

"But…" she trailed off, her eyes vacant. Then, she spoke again, her voice more sure, "We have top of the line security. No way they could get past it."

"They're machines. Your security would seem them as nothing more than harmless hardware." I said with a hard look. The captain looked almost sheepish, but also guilty. Serves her right, I thought with a grumble, tacking on a less appropriate word at the end of my metal rant, "Are you going to let me go to Peak 15 now? So I can fix the mess you made?"

The captain looked to be at a loss for words, "I… I suppose so." she said, her eyes still seemingly vacant, "Move out, people," she said with a wave of her hand to her entourage.

I had turned away with my squad and we had made our way to the Mako when I heard the captain called out once more, her shock having obviously worn off, "Commander!"

"Yes?"

"Don't make me regret this," she said with a defiant yet almost trusting look on her face.

"`We'll take care of it captain, don't worry," I replied with a look much like her own. She gave me a brief nod and then proceeded down the staircase.

"Let's go," I said, and we hopped into the Mako, not sure of what we would run into.

Damn, it is cold here, I thought with a shiver.

Even in the Peak 15 facility, you could still feel the affects of the never-ending Noverian winter. Just focus, I told myself as we moved through the apparently abandoned site.

After first encountering those insect-things, we had learned to be more cautious. Now we were in the middle of trying to fix the AIs systems so this mission could be over and done with.

Of course, the giant insects- excuse me, rachni as Ridley had called them (how is she an expert in everything?)- were not helping. They were more accurately described as a major pain in the ass. Speaking of which…

"Arghhh!" I yelled, trying to get the oversized bug off me. Luckily, three shots rang through the air and the rachni slumped against me, dead. I pushed it off me, and looked around to see the rachni had retreated to wherever they go.

"Are you okay, Shepard?" Ridley asked me, putting a hand on my back at the same time.

"Yeah, yeah. Let's get downstairs." I replied. The sooner this mission was over the better.

When we got down to the level with the AI, it began to recite (essentially) 'I am operational' in a message. Which was annoying.

"Let's go," I said to the squad, and we fought our way down to the tram, and later, the hot labs.

Focus. Breathe in, breathe out. Shooting rachni and taking down asari commandoes was a lot harder than it looked. Okay, maybe it was as hard as it looked, but that doesn't change anything, it still sucked. Submachine gun brandished, biotics in overdrive, and well into the zone where you forget about everything except your next opponent, I was decimating Matriarch Benezia's forces, however deadly she made them out to be.

Ridley and I had quickly created a rhythm between the two of us. I threw a biotic punch, she fired some shots, and I finished off the foe. We would switch places occasionally, she being the one to deliver the final blow sometimes.

As I finished my submachine gun rampage on the rachni, Ridley came out from behind me and with the might of her biotic power behind her, threw a punch that killed the humongous deadly alien.

As soon as we had finished, Matriarch Benezia let out a groan, "Help me. I can't resist..."

Liara ran to her mother, her concern shining through, "Mother?" she asked, almost meekly.

"My daughter," Benezia said, her head wobbling as if she was woozy, "I can fight it for only so long,"

"Fight what?" I asked.

"Saren's control. It's so strong. It's like a voice in the night that whispers and whispers until it infiltrates your thoughts and tells you what to think." she said, closing her eyes and wincing.

"How is Saren controlling you? Maybe we can help." Ridley said.

"There is no hope for me now… but, but Saren, I can tell you how he does it!" she said, her face filled with a kind of joy you can only find in someone gone insane, "It's not Saren himself, it's his flagship Sovereign. As soon as you board it, his thoughts speak softly against your own, and they start to seem true. And soon enough, they are your own. I thought I could control it… I thought I could protect myself… but I have become his slave."

"Mother…" Liara reached out a hand, extending it to her mother.

"It's too late for me my daughter. Even now, I feel him in my head. But I won't take orders anymore. I will resist… so tired, so tired." Benezia said, walking backwards into the wall.

"Mother!" Liara yelled, moving forward.

"I'm too weak, my sweet, too weak. You were such a wonderful child." Benezia said, her head lolling back and forth.

"Benezia…" Ridley said, her eyes full of sorrow.

"Where is the light? They always said there would be a light…"

As Benezia spoke her last words, I felt something shift within me. Sacrifices had been made. People had died. Liara's mother now as well. Saren wasn't just a rogue spectre who had been coerced into betraying his own kind anymore. He was a murderer. He was an enemy. And I was going to take him down.

Once I had finished my mental promise to avenge all the deaths Saren had caused, I felt a hand on my shoulder. Ridley's nimble fingers grasped my shoulder comfortingly and my hand searched out her other palm. We stood there for what seemed to be ages, watching Liara hold her mothers dead body and weep.

I was so caught up in the moment that I didn't even notice a dead asari commando get up and start to speak.

"We…" the body said, obviously close to death.

After my initial shock, I drew my submachine gun and aimed at the literal zombie, "Who are you?"

"We… are sad. We listen for the children, but they are silent."

"What children?"

"The ones that were taken!" the asari replied, yelling the last note. I realized that it wasn't the asari speaking, it was the rachni queen in the glass cage behind her.

"Let the commando go." I said slowly.

"This one is singing a bittersweet song. She is strong, but her song will be lost soon. Her song will fade before long. We use her only as a vessel." I guess I'm okay with that.

"Okay…"

"We… wish to leave. To sing a new song."

"A new song?"

"We do not know what you call it. We do not have your… words. We… wish to… start again."

"Make a new life?"

"Yes… yes. We will go away. Find a new home, a new song. Please, release us."

I looked at the release controls. Could I really condemn an entire race for past sins? She said they wanted to start over, make a new song. She and her kind just needed a leap of faith. And I was ready to take that leap.

Ridley leaned over, "What are you thinking, Shepard?"

"I can't just let an entire species die," I replied, and I turned around to see her beautiful eyes full of understanding, "I have a conscience. I can't do that to them."

"I understand, Shepard. In you place I'd do the same thing." Ridley flashed a warm but short-lived smile and then turned her attention back to the possessed commando.

"Okay, I'll let you go. But you have to promise to not make the mistakes of the rachni from before." I said, walking past the commando.

"We will not. Our song will be pure." the queen replied as I released her from her cage.

Once she was freed, she spoke one last time, "Thank… you." I gave her a nod, and she scurried out.

Ridley came up behind me, and I said, "Let's get out of here."

"Agreed," Ridley said, and we made our way out of the Peak 15 complex.