Chapter 32

Reunion

Councilor Raine stumbled through the halls, muttering under her breath as she moved through the ship. She didn't know why everything started shaking, but she guessed that Mkrobi was behind it. Mkrobi and his little friends. The very thought of Mkrobi working with Finn and his group of miscreants rankled in her breast, fueling the fire of her hatred.

She tried contacting her commandos, but got no response. She couldn't even raise Captain Greni. Probably for the best, she reasoned. If the commandos weren't responding, they must be working with Mkrobi as well. It explained everything; why they disappeared, how the leader of the Saints and that human girl were walking free. It was happening again; Mkrobi was turning everyone against her, trying to drive her away.

"Mkrobi!" She screamed, no longer caring about giving away her position. "No more running! Come out and face me!"

There was no response. Of course there was no response; he was too tricky to just approach her like that. He'd set a trap somewhere, but she was ready. She knew his tricks. Finn had been a trap; thank the Goddess she'd figured it out before falling for that one.

She wandered into room after room, looking for any sign of the salarian to no avail. It didn't matter; she found his sanctuary. It was only a matter of time.

The sound of approaching footsteps made her freeze; someone was coming. She checked the heat sink of her rifle; still mostly full. Good.

Ducking into another gallery, she stood and watched as the elcor, the robot dog, and the scrap she had left at the secret door approached with two quarians and a turian. They were armed, but didn't look like they were paying much attention. Her rifle was a brand new Zuen-tech repeater, capable of firing off fifty shots in five seconds. With good aim, it would be more than enough to wipe out most of the group, and her aim was good.

As she prepared to ambush the group, however, someone behind her let out a polite cough.

She spun about and immediately let out a gasp. Geral Mkrobi stood before her. "Hello, Amalthea Raine. I believe you are looking for me?"

"You." She said, the word a culmination of accusation and hatred. "So you are still alive."

Mkrobi smiled at her and promptly vanished. Her eyes wide, Raine spun about, looking for the hated figure.

"No, no, no!" She whispered frantically. "You can't get away, not this time!"

Then she spotted him out in the hallway. He beckoned her to follow before walking out of view.

She hurried after him, prepared to open fire as soon as she turned. There he was, far down the corridor, still beckoning her.

Fury raging through her, she ran toward him, ignoring the shouts from the group she previously thought to ambush. Turning the same corner as Mkrobi, she was confused to see him again a surprising distance down the hall. Again and again he beckoned her through the hallways, always tottering out of sight while leaning heavily on his walking stick.

It was a trap, but she didn't care. She would prove herself better than him if it took ever last breath from her lungs.

Seeing the aged salarian stroll into a chamber, Councilor Raine let out a cry of victory. Finally, she had him trapped! She ran into the room and stopped dead in her tracks. The room only contained a single thing; a large pod of sorts attached to an incredible mess of machinery, cables, and consoles. Inside lay the shriveled body of a salarian.

She frowned. It couldn't be Mkrobi; he had appeared as she remembered, old for a salarian but certainly not as old as the salarian in the pod.

Squinting at the figure within the pod, Raine noticed the scarred eyelid. It was hard to spot amidst the spots covering the wrinkled old skin, but she was sure she spotted a tattoo once used by the Salarian Special Tasks Group.

"It's you." She breathed, her hand running over the clear pod cover in an almost tender way. "After all this time, after everything it took to get here … Geral Mkrobi, the leader of the League of One. I found you. I won."

He didn't respond. His breath was a barely audible rasp, barely even parting his lips. A look at the console showed her the truth; he was only barely hanging on to life.

She set her rifle against the pod and worked at the console. She could kill him without bringing him out of stasis of course, but she wanted him to see. She wanted him to know it was her, to stare at her with those ancient milky-white eyes and realize his mistake.

With a final press of the button, the pod cover cracked open, releasing a burst of steam before sliding open.

She approached the ancient salarian and put a hand gently to his withered cheek. "Geral." She said, her voice a whisper.

His eyes fluttered open. He stared at her for a moment, making the breath catch in her throat. Everything she wanted to tell him, everything she planned to say slipped from her mind as he stared back at her, somehow seeing and not seeing.

The edges of his mouth turned up slightly. With his final smile, his eyes closed and his last breath gently left his mouth.

She stared at him for a long moment, her hand still caressing the ancient cheek. She did it. She succeeded.

"He knew you'd come here, y'know."

Raine spun about to see Glenda Adams leaning against the now-closed door.

"You!" She whispered, disbelief cutting through the anger flaring through here at the interruption of such a critical, solemn moment. "But how? How could you still be alive?"

"Diet and exercise." Glen said, allowing herself a small grin. "This isn't about me; it's about him and you. He told me, you know."

"Are you here to kill me?" She made a grab for her rifle only to find it now missing.

Glen just shook her head. "Nah. I might have once, a long time ago, but killing people doesn't really solve anything. Well, not usually. Besides, we both know Mkrobi wasn't one for idle slaughter; outthink your enemies, that's what he always said."

Her cheeks flushed, but she said nothing. Glen approached Mkrobi's body. There was a definite hint of sadness on her face. "Old friends, he and I. One of the few people I've trusted with the truth. The League understood the importance of little things; small changes here and there resulting in big things that can change the whole course of history, sometimes even the entire universe."

Glen turned and looked at Raine. "Was it worth it? Kaalinor, Grym, Harris, Toben … hell, how many of your own people did you sacrifice just to get in here? How many would you have killed if Finn hadn't guessed correctly?"

"Over a thousand years." Raine said, rubbing her forehead as the euphoria of her success began to wear off, leaving a gnawing emptiness in the pit of her stomach. "I started this over a thousand years ago. After Kaalinor, there was no going back."

"But you must've realized why Geral did what he did." Glen said.

"It didn't matter."

"Didn't matter?" Glen asked incredulously. "Of course it mattered! They were going to be hunted across the galaxy."

"And I would've stayed by them every step of the way!" Raine shouted, tears in her eyes. "Five years, he trained me! Five years of learning how they shaped the universe, five years of him shaping me to be a full member of the League, the first non-salarian to join their order! Five years, and he threw me away like I was nothing!"

"He didn't throw you away." Glen said, "He set you free to find any path you want, without being subject to their fate! With the training the League gave you, you could've done anything! You could've joined the Specters, or started a League of your own, or used what you learned to continue their mission! Instead, you used what they taught you to hunt them down one by one, finally killing Geral himself at the cost of Creator knows how many of your own people, and now I want to know; was it worth it?"

The emptiness was spreading inside her, leaving her feeling numb. She leaned against the pod and slowly slid to the ground, tears in her eyes.

"No." She whispered, bowing her head. "It wasn't."

Glen stared at her for a long moment before letting out a sigh and sitting down beside her.

"You didn't really kill them, you know."

Raine stared at her, tears still running down her cheeks. "What?"

"Kaalinor's accident was just that; an accident. I saw your makeshift explosion, and disabled it. He was just reckless; he was always more in it for the thrill than the payoff. Grym didn't have a chance to take so much as a sip from the poisoned wine you sent him before he staggered off drunk to go for a swim and got his fool-self drowned. Your trap for Haaris was pretty clever, but it was the asari stripper he hired who killed him … for his credits, if you can believe it. As for Grym, well, I helped him fake his death so he could help me with a personal project. We didn't even realize you sniped his body double until we saw the coroner's report. He died of old age, of course, but not before single-handedly defeating a schra-" Glen grimaced and said, "Well, let's just say he took out a threat even I had trouble with. He died saving an entire planet, though, and there are definitely worse ways to go. He even left a legacy; the Gryms still work from the shadows to maintain peace, even now that their people have spread out into the nearby systems. The others did well hiding themselves; everytime you were close, I threw you off their trail."

"But why?" Raine asked.

"Because he asked me to." Glen looked to the dead body of Geral Mkrobi. "Being a member means sometimes ending a life, but he never wanted you to become a murderer."

"B-but the asari I sent to their deaths …"

"Oh, come on, Raine. You know Mkrobi hated needless killing. He had me rig up that transporter ages ago. I think the idea was to interrogate people who came here, but I think he usually just beamed them somewhere on the surface. Nice marvel of engineering, that … shame it turns the clothes to ash. Clothing aside, their patterns are all still in the teleporter, just waiting for the right signal to rematerialize them … which I'll be taking care of myself."

A flash of anger ran through her, but it faded in a matter of moments, overwhelmed by relief. She smiled for a moment, but her happiness soon faded. "It doesn't matter."

"Excuse me?" Glen said.

"It doesn't matter. Garel always taught me that intent means just as much as my actions. However they survived, I still thought I killed them. I betrayed everything Garel stood for."

"And that's something you'll still have to live with." Glen told her, but she wasn't listening. Horror filled her at the realization of the one death she was responsible for: Garel Mkrobi.

She rose and turned to the dead salarian and held a hand to his now cool cheek."Geral … I'm … I'm so sorry."

"He was ready." Glen told her gently. "A thousand years is a long time to be alive, believe me."

"He … he was like a father to me." She whispered. "He took me in … he trained me …"

"And when he was ready to pass to whatever lies beyond this crude existence, he trusted you to find your way here and release him. The last thing he saw was you. Tell me; how did he react?"

"He smiled." She said softly.

"Well then." Glen told her. "Maybe it was worth it after all."