The Omega Chronicles -19- Sometimes they come back
"Damn, Shepard!" The huge Krogan's booming laugh was filling the small space of the Mako. "Had I known that cavorting around with you was so much fun, I would have offered my services much sooner!"
He aimed the turret gun towards another Geth Armor and blasted it out of existence.
"Glad I can provide you with quality entertainment." The Commander was keeping an eye on the map as Garrus was driving towards their destination, skidding along the shallow, warm waters that seemed to be covering most of Virmire.
Relan's voice came through the comm, getting her attention. "Commander, I'm about to set the Inanna down at the landing coordinates I sent you a few minutes ago. Thanks for taking those AA guns down!"
"Good. We'll be there as soon as possible."
"Wait... what the Hell is that? Oh, no. There might be... a slight complication." The pilot sounded positively puzzled.
"What's going on?" Shepard had had just enough of all the Geth troops they were facing along the way, and was not looking forward to more trouble, of any kind.
"Remember the Normandy?"
"Yes. The Systems Alliance frigate you and Liselle observed over Eden Prime, the one that looks like the Inanna. What about it?"
"It's here. Right on the spot where I'm supposed to land."
"Well, then find a different spot. I'll deal with it when I get there." She cursed under her breath. She was not expecting the Alliance to be here, and she was not happy about this development. She knew they could be stubborn and territorial, and she realised this whole thing had just gotten way more complicated than she cared for.
She got out of the Mako and from a distance she spotted two Alliance officers talking to a Salarian that looked definitely like a member of their STG, they were all standing on a dry sand bank, a row of military tents behind them, definitely not belonging to the human Forces.
Shepard got herself ready for anything. She waited for Garrus and Wrex to exit the vehicle and join her before making her way to where the conversation was taking place. She shot a look at her ship, her black hull shining against the dark clouds on the horizon, then at the Normandy, just a few hundred yards away. "Uncanny."
As she got closer, the Salarian noticed her and stopped talking, he nodded his greeting. "Good day. I am Captain Kirrahe, 3rd Infiltration Regiment, Special Tasks Group. And you are?"
"You can call me Shepard. My Chief Engineer traced a Geth comm back to this planet, I'm here to see if by any chance I can be invited to Saren's party."
Both the human officers turned around to look at her. The woman's mouth opened in surprise. "Shepard! Now this is weird..." She gave the Commander a big smile.
"Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams. I'm sure glad to see you managed not to get yourself killed between Eden Prime and now."
They shook hands like old acquaintances before the Chief introduced her team mate. "This is Lieutenant Alenko. We're here on the Council's request. We got an SOS message from Captain Kirrahe's team. We were just being briefed about the whole predicament here."
The Lieutenant scanned Shepard from head to toe, a curious look on his face. His voice was husky and pleasant. "You're wearing an N7 armour. I sure hope you did not steal it."
The Commander grinned and casually looked down at her N7 badge. "No. I did not."
The young man squinted as he was trying to place her face. "So you are, or at least used to be Alliance as well. You do look familiar..."
Tali's voice caught their attention as she was making her way quickly from the Inanna to where they were all standing. "Commander! I need you to see all these messages I've hacked from the facility comm towers, if my decryption is correct what is going on in there has the potential to change history!"
Alenko's eyes went wide. "Commander... Shepard... oh my god. You are..."
Williams caught on in an instant of sudden clarity and finished his sentence in one breath. "... The butcher of Torfan! That's why I was so sure I had seen your face before!"
There was a long moment of silence, the two officers staring at Shepard, awestruck, both uncertain about what to do next. The Commander commented in a sarcastic tone. "I guess I'll never be able to outrun my notoriety."
"Yes, yes, this is all great and exciting and whatnot. You're going to have to wait and form an orderly line for your autographs. Shepard! I really need you to look at this, now." The young Quarian took everyone back to the here and now.
The Commander took a few seconds to read the information displayed on the padd. Her eyes never showed any sign of emotion as she handed it to Kirrahe. "Is this true?"
The Salarian took a good look and nodded. "I'm afraid so. This is the same kind of information we have gathered about this facility. It looks like this Spectre, this Saren, has been hard at work, and has finally found a cure for the genophage."
Shepard could imagine the expression on Wrex's face even without having to turn around to look at him. His voice was almost cracking. "What?! What did you just say?!" The Krogan took a few steps, put his hands on the Captain's arms and lifted him from the ground, effortlessly, their faces now just an inch apart.
Williams got her assault rifle out and pointed it at the Battlemaster, Garrus got his assault rifle out and pointed it at Williams, Alenko's hands started glowing in blue swirls, Tali deployed an attack Drone and got her shotgun out for good measure.
The Commander was next to the Krogan in a swift move, she put her hand on his forearm, getting his attention, her other hand coming up in a stopping sign towards the others to silently tell them to give her the chance to defuse the situation.
She spoke in a low, serious tone."Wrex. Whatever is going on here is not Captain Kirrahe's fault. We need to find out more details about all this before taking any sort of action. Please, put him down."
There were flames in the old Battlemaster's eyes, his hands lightly shaking, his mouth quivering in anger. For a second Shepard thought all Hell would break lose. Then he slowly put the Salarian down, in a gesture that seemed to take an immense toll on him. He almost planted Kirrahe's boots in the sand, the face of the STG an unreadable mask. Without saying a word, the Krogan turned and started walking away, he stopped about fifty yards from them and seemed to be staring out into nothingness, his head certainly in a storm of thoughts, memories, possibilities.
As everybody was calming down and stepping back from the nigh disastrous situation, Shepard motioned to the group to enter a nearby tent, where they proceeded to reveal and discuss all available information on the facility and on the kind of research that had been going on in there.
"Shall we address not one, but both the elephants in the room?" The Commander's voice really didn't allow for a negative reply, her face as hard as stone as she looked around her.
Obviously only the humans could understand what she meant, a look of confusion on the faces of the other aliens. She sighed and explained. "There are a couple of obvious issues that we need to talk about, no matter how much we would like to ignore them. First: the Normandy and the Inanna." She looked at Williams and Alenko and waited for them to tell her what she wanted to know.
The two officers exchanged a look of agreement. Alenko was the one who spoke. "The Normandy was built by a collaboration between the Alliance and the Turian Hierarchy. It's supposed to be the first of its kind, but I guess we should reconsider that. It's a scout frigate, equipped with an experimental stealth drive. It is at the moment under the command of Captain David Anderson."
The Commander nodded her thanks and offered what information she felt comfortable disclosing about her own ship. "The Inanna, I am guessing, must have been the prototype upon which the Normandy was finally built. We acquired it from a Turian General a few months back. Just like your ship, it can count on a stealth drive, which is what allowed us to spot you over Eden Prime, -and- to leave that system without you noticing us at all."
She intentionally avoided talking about their Thanix cannon, which she had noticed was missing from the Normandy, their Silaris armour, that Aria had spent a small fortune equipping the frigate with, and their EMP weapon, which was an addendum that Shepard had personally requested and that Tali had designed. There was no need to reveal just every little detail of the Inanna's superiority. For now.
"Well, now that we have sort of worked out why we have twin ships parked outside, let's talk about a much more dangerous problem. What about the Krogan, Shepard?" Williams sounded sincerely concerned about the presence and the potentially aggressive behaviour of the Battlemaster, a deep frown was set between her eyebrows as she waited for a reply.
Shepard mulled it over for a second. "I can see why he would be so upset. Think about it. Wouldn't you? The genophage has brought his people to the brink of extinction after all. Whereas I can see why it was developed and deployed by the Salarians and Turians back in the day, we need to seriously consider the possibility of allowing the Krogan to be their whole self again."
Captain Kirrahe interjected. "The genophage was, and in my opinion still is, a necessary evil, Commander. The Krogan cannot be set loose upon the galaxy once more, we barely came up with a working solution in order to stop them the first time around, I'm not sure we could pull something like that off again. They are an unstoppable force of destruction and if they start their wars of expansion anew, there is no telling the final outcome."
He waited for his words to sink in before continuing. "Even now this is a growing issue. Saren is using the success of his research to breed an army of Krogan." He paused, rather dramatically. "In short, you do need to deal with that Wrex guy out there. If he is a menace to this whole operation, I expect you to stop him, Shepard. Or I will."
The Commander was pensive for a few moments. Then she made for the exit of the tent. "Yeah. I'll give it my best shot."
As she approached the old Battlemaster he stopped shooting his shotgun at the sand on the beach and faced her.
"A cure." He shook his big head slowly. "Shepard, do you have any idea of how long my people have been waiting for this? How long we have been denied a normal existence?"
She tried to be as tactful as possible. She tried. "Wrex. When your people had what you call a normal existence, your only goal was to wipe out every other sentient species from this galaxy." She stared at him, right in the eyes. "This said. What was done to you was wrong. I'm sure there must have been other, less permanent ways of resolving the situation. But I wasn't there, I didn't see it, I didn't live through it, so I will refrain from any patronising crap."
He got defensive. "Is this your way of telling me you're going in there to -destroy- the cure?"
"I'm trying to tell you it's a very real possibility."
He raised his shotgun, quick as lightning. Shepard had no choice but to mirror his move and immediately her Carnifex was aimed at his face. His tone was pure anger. "I'm not sure I will let you do that, human. You have no fucking right."
A familiar, sure, commanding voice rang in the humid air, behind the Krogan. "Back off, Wrex. Don't force me to do today what I should have done three hundred years ago." The Queen was standing tall on the sand, one hand enshrouded by her biotics, one pointing a heavy pistol at the Battlemaster's head.
Shepard smirked as she took in the view of Aria's stance, cocky and dangerous. "I was beginning to wonder what it would take to drag you out of the Inanna, my Queen."
The huge Krogan had a look of pure shock on his face. He slowly turned his head to face the Asari, his mouth gaping. His usually booming voice was reduced to little more than a whisper as he tried to speak.
"Aleena...?"
The Queen grinned. "That's a name I haven't heard in a long time." Her gun was still aimed at him, unfaltering, as she answered his unspoken question. "Not anymore. Never again."
The Commander took advantage of his stupor and tried to talk some sense into him. "Alright. I don't know what is going on between the two of you, and right now I'm not interested. Wrex, you need to listen to me. Those Krogan that Saren has in there, they are not your people. They are Saren's slaves. He will use them to fulfil his own goals and then abandon them. They are no more than puppets. Is that what you want your entire race to be? You are better than that. You deserve better than that."
The Battlemaster was still staring at Aria, stupefied. He shook himself out of it enough to consider Shepard's words. His reply was half stuttered as realisation dawned on him regarding Saren's plans. "No. Of course that is not what I want. We were puppets for the Council once. We won't be used again. By anyone." He let his shotgun fall in the shallow water by his feet.
In the distance, Garrus finally lowered his sniper rifle and exhaled the breath he had been holding.
Williams witnessed the full scene, standing next to him, not sure of what her part in all this should be, but instinctively siding with the Commander. "Wow. Is the life of you guys always this exciting?"
The Turian looked at her with a spark in his eyes. "No. Tuesdays and Fridays are where the real fun is at."
The Chief looked back at him and couldn't help a smile. She smacked his arm in a friendly gesture, obviously amused by his wit. "You're just a regular riot, aren't you?"
Garrus pretended to be hurt, both physically and emotionally. He blurted out in a playful tone. "Ow."
"Care to bring me up to speed about your past adventures with our Krogan friend? And please, spare me the more... shall we say 'lewd' details, if there are any. I'm certainly not in the mood to hear about that. Not after having his shotgun right in my face and his finger nervously trembling on the trigger."
Shepard was hastily walking into an empty tent, a few scattered boxes of ammunition were piled up in a corner and nothing more. Aria was right on her heels, a half amused, half annoyed look on her beautiful face. The Commander stopped and turned around to look at her bondmate, her arms crossed on her chest, she waited for an answer.
The Queen looked at her for a moment through half closed eyelids, she grinned and shook her head in a mocking gesture. "Tsk, tsk. And I am the supposedly jealous one, mh?"
Shepard was perfectly aware that her lover had had centuries to live before she was even born, and of course realised how stupid it was to be jealous of events that had taken place centuries prior, but still. In some deep, intimate part of herself she couldn't stop being profoundly jealous, irrational as it was. It was her Achille's heel, and as much in check as she usually kept it, she could feel it exacting a toll right now. And it was embarrassingly plain on her face, apparently. She gave the Asari plenty of time to reply.
Aria tried to have a dismissive tone to her tale. "Long story short. We met during my mercenary days, we hit it off right away, and we decided to work together. About a half century later I started realising that he was developing feelings for me. I wasn't in the right frame of mind and did not reciprocate, but his work ethic was spotless and he was a powerhouse of a warrior. And yes, I'll be big enough to admit that by then I considered him to be a friend. A good one, at that. Furthermore, I was not ready to lose such a useful ally. But destiny always has a way of working things out. We got caught in a very bad deal, I'll spare you the inconsequential details. As a result I ended up facing a choice. I could have killed him, or I could have disappeared. I obviously chose the latter. And here we are. Three hundred years later."
With the Commander's gaze still on hers, The Asari closed the short distance between them. She put an arm around the human's neck, drawing her near in a loose embrace. Her soft hand came up to caress Shepard's face. Her voice turned sultry. "You look adorable when you're jealous, Commander."
The human all but scowled. "Bah. I know it's stupid. I can't help it." Her arms still crossed, she thought that it would be a cold day in Hell before she apologised for something like this.
Aria laughed, low in her throat, and moved to whisper in her ear. "I'll tell you a little secret. It's the bond. No matter how hard you try, you can't avoid being jealous." There was an almost diabolical smile on her face as she shifted in order to see the reaction of her lover to the new piece of knowledge about the deepest nature of their relationship.
Shepard's pupils dilated, her eyebrows drew dangerously close together, her nostrils flared and her jaw clenched. Her hands suddenly caught Aria's face and she commented on her blue lips. "Aren't you just full of surprises."
The Queen added in a low breath, their foreheads touching, almost pushing against each other. "To your consolation, I am as much the victim of it. Have you considered that, Commander?"
The fire in the human's eyes could have burned the room. "Oh. You poor, poor thing."
They finally met in a painfully slow kiss, their mouths opening hungrily to let their tongues exchange long strokes, their teeth closing on each other's lips, tugging, biting, their hot, deep breaths coming in roughly and exhaling in coarse moans, stopping for infinite seconds only to start all over again. Shepard couldn't stand having an inch of her body separated from Aria, her arms travelled down her back, one moved to encircle her waist while her other hand grabbed the Asari's thigh and brought it up to rest on her hip, their bodies rubbing together in anticipation.
In an almost impossible moment of lucidity, the Queen suddenly stopped, her breathing hard, a storm of lust playing on her face. "We're getting carried away. We have more important things to do."
Shepard smirked and commented in an ironic tone. "You can't possibly believe there can be anything more important than this."
Aria returned the grin as she slowly disentangled herself from the human. She turned to walk out of the tent, she stood by the exit and looked back for a moment, a dark flame in her eyes. "There isn't." She pushed open the flaps of heavy fabric and disappeared into the light outside.
As Shepard came out of the tent herself, she found Tali waiting for her. With the usual speed in her speech, she brought the Commander up to date on a disturbing development. "I don't like this. At all. I overheard the Alliance people talking about a nuclear device they want to plant and use to blow up the entire complex. You need to look into this. I don't want us to find ourselves in a very risky position here, and I'm not sure they would have shared that bit of information with us at all."
The Commander frowned. "Go back to the Inanna, be ready to leave the planet at any given moment. Send Jack out, I can sure use more muscle."
The young Quarian nodded and headed for their ship. Shepard decided to wait for Jack to join her before reaching the sand bank where she could see Williams and Alenko deep in conversation with Kirrahe.
"So I am the fucking muscle now? That's funny, considering that monster of a Krogan you brought along." Jack's irreverent tone was always music to the Commander's ears.
She greeted the biotic with a smile and a wink. "You should know it's never about the size..."
"Damn right. I've already been tempted a couple of times to just turn him inside out and use his skin for a new pair of boots. Arrogant fucking frog."
"Good to see you're making new friends." Shepard couldn't help a laugh.
Jack graced her with one of her very rare smiles. As they started on their way, she had to admit to herself that she was beginning to like the Commander. She certainly had treated her with more respect than anyone else in her life so far. She might be cold, she might be ruthless when it came to business and her role by the Queen's side, but Shepard was nothing but fair and she had never hidden her appreciation for a job well done. In fact Jack couldn't remember ever being thanked or praised more than she had been since she had started working on Omega. She hated to acknowledge that it felt good. Deep down inside she was afraid she would lose all this in a heartbeat, as she had lost so much through the years. Hope, especially. She didn't want to feel hope again. But hope was incessantly knocking at her conscience these days. It was so tempting.
The Commander could see that Jack was lost in thought. "Something on your mind?" Her voice was kind and genuinely interested.
The biotic put up her hardest mask. "Nothing that would interest you."
Shepard's head tilted slightly to the side as she gave Jack a small, friendly smile. "If it is about you, I'm always interested. But I will respect your privacy, of course. If you ever want to share, I'm here."
"You just left! You vanished. Into thin air! How could you do that to me? At the very least you owe me a fucking good explanation, Aleena!" Wrex was pacing up and down on the damp sand like a caged animal, his voice furious beyond belief.
Aria looked at him squarely, not impressed by his display of anger in the least. Her voice was even and cold. "I don't owe you anything, Wrex. Just like you don't owe -me- anything. That was the premise of our partnership, and it is still valid. And stop calling me that. I am -not- Aleena. Actually, I never was. It was a name I made up in the spur of the moment, like many others before -and- afterwards."
"Ha. You lied about everything, then. Why am I not surprised. All this time, and I have to reckon that my memory of you was nothing more than a fucking romantic construct of my naive mind. Great!" The Krogan was wearing his hurt feelings on his sleeve.
"What do you expect of me now? Why did you insist on talking to me? As you can see this is less than pleasant, and I am certainly not feeling convivial enough to have a lovely conversation with someone who was about to shoot the face of my bondmate off." Aria was quickly losing her patience. She was aware of the stab that her last statement must have inflicted on the Battlemaster. She felt a small pang of pleasure because of it, too.
Wrex abruptly stopped pacing and his eyes shot up at her. After a moment of silence he spoke, his voice suddenly lower and calmer than a second before. "Bondmate...? You... and the human... And here I thought it was just good old sex, as used to be your habit... even though never with me. I guess I should have known. It's not like you would get involved in trying to save just anyone's life, after all." His head bowed and he suddenly felt infinitely tired.
Aria's conscience prodded at her in the most exasperating way, and she found herself willing to throw him a bone, at least. "Funny you should say that. Because that is exactly the reason why I disappeared. It was either that, or taking your life. There, now you know. I hope it can bring you closure. Now I need to go, there are huge things at stake here and my presence is required on the Inanna. If you think you can't work with Shepard because of all this, tell me now. Otherwise, I expect you to be the impeccable professional that you always were."
She stood in front of him, allowing him a moment to make up his mind, her eyes as cold as ice and as hot as fire at the same time.
Wrex took a good look at her, then there was the equivalent of a grin on his face. "Damn, I've missed you. And your attitude. You left a hole in my life that was impossible to fill. But I have to face the simple truth that the past is in the past. I have survived, Hell, even thrived, in the past few centuries without you, and that won't change. Yes, I will help Shepard. Not for you, not for her, but for myself. I like to go to sleep at night with an immaculate conscience, you see."
"Good for you." Aria's tone couldn't have been more sarcastic. "I like to go to sleep at night with my conscience covered in the blood of my enemies." She turned around and walked away at a sure pace, never looking back.