After reuniting with their squad, the first thing Shepard had done was find Lizbeth Baynham and demand to know why she had lied to them about the Thorian. Garrus didn't feel much pity for the scientist at first, citing typical reasons of cowardice and fright, but it seemed she had been trying to act as a whistleblower, and had stayed behind in an attempt to secure the data so that others could know what ExoGeni had done to its colonists.
Shepard was angry with her, but agreed to transport her back to the other surviving ExoGeni staff. Now that they knew about the Thorian, they might be able to press the rest of the staff for more information. Whatever was happening, it was having a profound effect on the colonists. Garrus was almost scared of what they might find.
The Skyway was at least mercifully absent of geth on the way back toward the bunker where the ExoGeni staff were hiding out. Otherwise, it was as much of a nightmare as it had been before, worse with the addition of another warm body. Lizbeth wound up crammed between Liara and Wrex, clearly nervous around the krogan.
"Uh, commander…this is a really…diverse crew you have here," she said.
"I'm like the goddamn pied piper," Shepard replied.
"In our defense," Garrus told her, "You invited us onto your crew."
"I'd regret it if we weren't always saving each other's asses."
"Please, if you had stuck with humans only, you'd be dead already, Shepard," Tali said.
"She thinks she's the one carrying all the weight," Wrex snorted.
"Well, I did carry you, Wrex."
"Touché, Shepard. Touché."
"You never get used to it," Ash whispered, at the look of confusion and uncertainty on Lizbeth's face. "You just learn to go with the flow. And kick a little alien ass when they get on your nerves."
"You wish you could kick my ass," Wrex said, puffing his chest out.
Liara sighed and rubbed her forehead. "I never want to ride in this miserable thing again."
When they reached the bunker, they piled out and down into the tunnel. Raised voices were echoing against the walls, and Shepard pulled Lizbeth with her into cover, motioning for the rest of the squad to approach carefully.
Garrus positioned himself on the other side of Shepard and peered around the corner to see what the commotion was.
"You can't do this, Jeong. These are innocent people!" Juliana Baynham was shouting.
"Shut up! Let me think!" Jeong growled, gun in hand. "Someone restrain her!"
Two ExoGeni security guards stepped forward and grabbed Juliana. Before Shepard could stop her, Lizbeth was on her feet, rushing forward.
"Let her go, you son of a bitch!"
Jeong trained his gun her. "L-lizbeth? Where did you come from? Who's with you? Come out where I can see you."
Shepard gave Garrus a look of annoyance as the squad came filing out from their cover, hands raised.
Jeong's face was full of hatred. "Shepard," he sneered. "I knew it was too much to hope the geth had killed you."
Shepard shrugged. "Sorry to disappoint."
He pointed his gun at her. "There's no reason for this to get bloody."
"You're the one pointing the gun at us," Garrus noted.
Shepard held up a hand. "Drop your weapon and let these people go. Violence is senseless at this point. There are bigger issues here on Feros."
"You don't understand!" Jeong said, a crazed look in his eyes. "Communications came back up. ExoGeni wants this place purged. They're washing their hands of it."
"You can't just purge a colony full of innocent people!" Lizbeth yelled.
"A few colonists don't mean anything! There are far more valuable assets here that need to be protected," Jeong said.
Shepard folded her arms across her chest. "No point in being cryptic, Jeong. We know about the Thorian."
"The what?" Juliana asked. Garrus didn't think she was feigning ignorance, but he was surprised that her daughter would have known about the Thorian and not her.
"It's…a telepathic life-form that lives under Zhu's Hope. It's controlling the colonists," Lizbeth explained.
"And that asset is worth far more than the lives of a few nobodies on this backwater planet!" Jeong shouted.
Shepard drew her gun quickly and two of the guards behind Jeong drew theirs in return. Garrus held off, waiting to see what would happen. After the whole situation with the krogan and the grenade, he didn't think Shepard would need his help on this one.
"Stand down, Jeong. I'm not letting you get through to ExoGeni and carry out this order. These people don't deserve to die because of your mistake," Shepard said.
"Look at you, big war hero," Jeong cried. "You save a few people a few times and you think you're hot shit. Well if you're such a good person, Shepard, then you'll spare me, won't you? Because that's the kind of person you are. Well I'm not you. You want to fight, Shepard, come on!" He pointed his gun at her.
Without hesitation, Shepard fired a single shot that pierced through his chest. It was a good, clean shot. Jeong slumped forward and fell to the ground dead. The two security guards behind him looked like they might try to rush Shepard, but Garrus stepped forward, and saw that Ash and Liara had also moved beside her. The guards backed down, not wanting to wind up like Jeong.
"As if there aren't enough problems. Now we're killing each other," Juliana frowned, tears welling in her eyes.
"It was him or all of us. I made a call for the greater good." Shepard wouldn't apologize.
"Commander Shepard," Lizbeth stepped forward. "This is my fault. I want to help if I can. The colonists will try to attack you when you enter Zhu's Hope, but I think there's a way to get through without killing them. We use this nerve agent in the gro-labs…it could temporarily paralyze them if you had a way to disperse it…grenades maybe."
"Dispersing nerve gas seems like a good way to paralyze ourselves," Garrus pointed out. He wasn't keen on needlessly slaughtering colonists who had no control over their minds, but he also wasn't keen on being torn apart by them either.
Lizbeth shook her head. "It only works if your immune system's already weakened. Under the Thorian's control, the colonists have become sick. It should affect them without hurting you."
"I guess I better hope my filter's functioning properly," Tali muttered.
"If this is our only option, I'll take it," Shepard said. "It's better than nothing. If we can avoid killing as many colonists as possible, we've done the right thing."
Lizbeth led Shepard over to a table of remnant supplies to load the grenades with the nerve agent. Once it was loaded, they returned, and Lizbeth addressed the whole squad.
"The entrance to the Thorian's chamber is blocked off by a concrete block on the east side of Zhu's Hope. ExoGeni wanted to keep the colonists from finding out what was down there. You'll need to use the crane inside the compound to move the block aside."
"I can handle that," Tali said.
"Good luck, commander." Lizbeth shook Shepard's hand. "I'm sorry there isn't more I can do."
"You might have saved a lot of lives with this nerve gas, Lizbeth. That's enough in my eyes. Stay here until you get word that it's safe over the comm link. We'll handle it from here."
"Thank you, commander."
Garrus noticed that Shepard seemed to leave a lot of thank you's in her wake. It was a trait he really admired about her. She always seemed to go out of her way to help people even in the midst of a crisis; it was never too much to make sure innocent lives were spared. He thought maybe she had picked that particular trait up from Captain Anderson.
No one was happy to climb back into the mako, but the trip along the Skyway at least went smoothly.
"This is the plan," Shepard told them as she drove. "I'll take the lead with Wrex. We'll have the grenades ready to launch at any of the colonists that turn hostile. Once we knock them out, you head in behind us. There could potentially be geth at the colony, we don't know what the situation is there. If the nerve gas fails to work on any of the colonists and they continue to be hostile…we'll have to fire. Save as many lives as we can, but don't risk our own. Understood?"
"Commander!" Ash and Kaidan said.
"I don't remember volunteering to take the lead," Wrex said at the same time.
"I thought you liked being at the front and center of a battle," Shepard cocked her head.
"All right, you got me."
Shepard brought the mako to a halt at the entrance to Zhu's Hope. The door to the compound's small car port was closed, so the squad fanned out on either side of it while Shepard and Wrex moved to the gate mechanism.
The door drew up slowly, revealing something unsettling within. Garrus zoomed in with his visor. He had taken a position further back in order to snipe if necessary. What he saw made his heart drop into his stomach.
Horrible husks of human beings sat in the fetal position, dozens of them spread across the car port, covered in some horrendous green fluid. When the door finished rising, the first of the creatures rose, its eyes hollow and black. Whoever it had been, it wasn't human anymore.
Shepard didn't hesitate to open fire. She had quickly realized that whatever the creatures were, they were beyond saving. She gave an order for the rest of the squad to take aim. Liara hesitated, simultaneously revolted and fascinated by the strange creatures. One of them rushed her and Garrus shot it dead just in time. Its insides splattered out onto her chest in a wave of green liquid before it fell to the ground in front of her. This seemed to jar her into action.
The squad moved quickly, but so did the creatures, rushing anyone that let them get too close. Garrus was a little afraid of what might happen if one of them were to bite a member of the squad, but they didn't get the chance.
When all of the creatures had been killed, they left a trail of green innards and liquid in their wake. Everyone's armor was coated with the stuff except Garrus, who had been able to keep his position near the mako the entire time.
"What were those things?" he asked as he rejoined the squad.
Ash shook her head. "On Eden Prime we saw something like them. The geth had…created them out of corpses. Husks of a human…but these were different."
"Whatever they are, I'm sure the Thorian had a hand in it. We stick with the plan. But if any of these things come at us, take them out. There's no saving them. Let's just hope there are any colonists left to save," Shepard said.
They hurried around the corner and into the compound. To Garrus' relief, they were met with gunfire. It wasn't normally something that inspired hope in him, but gunfire meant some of the colonists could still be saved. Though they shouted unintelligibly and seemed delirious, their aim was impeccable. Shepard and Wrex bowled through them, launching grenades on the colonists who could still be helped, and shooting down those that couldn't. Garrus tried to snipe a few of the Thorian husks that lay ahead of Shepard and Wrex, and succeeded in taking down a few before the rest of the squad swept forward to clean up what was left behind them.
As always, Garrus was pleased with the efficiency with which they all worked together. Whenever Shepard had a plan, things always seemed to pull through. How one person could bring such a strange and diverse squad together and manage to make something decent out of it, he still couldn't fully understand.
On the east side of the compound, they saw the crane controls, guarded by one of the crazed colonists. Shepard launched a grenade and Kaidan ran Tali to the controls, holding up a barrier while she got the crane moving. The block of concrete Lizbeth had told them about seemed conspicuous in retrospect, but if he hadn't known about it, he never would have given it a second thought. It was probably even less apparent to the colonists, who were being infected by the Thorian the entire time.
Tali struggled with the crane controls while the rest of the squad held off attack, but she managed to move the concrete block far enough out of the way to allow them entrance. As soon as it was clear, she stepped back from the interface and Kaidan's barrier went down. He wiped a bit of blood from his nose.
"Let's move. We have to get to the Thorian. Now!" Shepard urged them forward.
Grenades were flying left and right, dispersing a thick cloud of nerve gas that successfully knocked the colonists to the ground. They took down a few more of the Thorian husks and then rushed into the space Tali had opened for them and down into the Thorian's lair.
The vault beneath Zhu's Hope that housed the Thorian was built deeper into the ground than Shepard had expected. It took them several minutes to reach the bottom of the long set of stairs that had been exposed by the crane.
"How big do you think the Thorian is?" Ash asked. "Will we even be able to find it in this dungeon?"
As if in answer to her question, they reached an opening at the bottom of the stairs, leading into a large room with several tiers wrapping up around a cylindrical center. Directly in the center of those tiered platforms, lay a creature unlike any Shepard had ever seen. Its body seemed smooth and muscular, round with a strange opening at the bottom that was leaking the same green fluid the Thorian husks had been covered in. Extending from its center, tentacles branched out in every direction, growing into the walls and tearing the concrete apart around them. The appendages allowed a strong hold for the creature, so that it seemed to be hovering over the pool of filth beneath it. Its body was so massive that it extended up to the top of the room.
"That is a plant?" Liara asked.
"I almost wish we were just fighting more geth," Shepard sighed.
The Thorian made a terrible squelching noise as more fluid dripped from its opening. Quite suddenly, an asari with green skin fell, fully-clothed, from the Thorian's opening. She rose to her feet, her eyes flashing as she turned to them.
"Invaders!" She cried. "Your every step is a transgression. A thousand feelers appraise you as meat, good only to dig or decompose. I speak for the Old Growth, as I did for Saren. You are within and before the Thorian. It commands that you be in awe!"
"Saren?" Shepard asked, cautiously. She and her squad stayed glued to their spots, unsure of what could or might happen next if they made a wrong move. "What did he want from you?"
"Saren sought knowledge of those who are gone. The Old Growth listened to flesh for the first time in the Long Cycle. Trades were made," the asari replied. "Then cold ones began killing the flesh that would tend the next cycle. Flesh fairly given. The Old Growth sees the air you push as lies! It will listen no more!"
Before Shepard could move, the asari was on them, throwing Shepard into the wall with her biotics before pursuing the other members of the squad. Garrus was at Shepard's side almost instantaneously, pulling her to her feet.
"Let the others take care of the asari. We need to take out the Thorian," he said. "If we could cut off its appendages we might be able to drown it."
"Attack its tentacles, it's roots!" Shepard yelled to the squad. "Liara, Kaidan, you handle the asari."
Shepard ran with Garrus, up the stairs to the next tier of the tower-like room. They were greeted with a swarm of Thorian husks. Garrus pulled out his assault rifle and fired off a few rounds into the closest ones while Shepard grabbed her own gun. Like clockwork, their backs were against each other, moving in a circle against the Thorian husks just as they had against the rachni on Noveria. They moved so fluidly, Shepard almost felt like she could sense what he was going to do next and cover him accordingly.
One of the husks launched itself on her and Garrus whipped around, smashing it in the head with the butt of his gun. It fell to the ground where Shepard promptly blew its brains out.
No more husks in sight, they set to work on the pulsing Thorian tentacle that had grown into the wall in front of them. Shepard sliced at it with her omni-blade while Garrus fired off shredder rounds. The Thorian howled below as the appendage came loose and its grip from that position was lost.
The rest of the squad had dispersed around the tower, taking out any of the many appendages they encountered, but also running into Thorian husks along the way. Kaidan and Liara were about to join Shepard and Garrus on the next tier when the Thorian spit out another green asari and sent it after them.
Garrus and Shepard moved quickly along up the tower. They met another group of husks halfway up and moved into formation to take them out. Thinking they had cleared the area of them yet again, they moved to destroy another of the Thorian's appendages. Shepard was hacking away when she heard Garrus let out a yell.
She whipped around to find two Thorian husks had brought Garrus to the ground. He was struggling to get them off of him and failing at the task. Shepard shot one off of them and then grabbed the other, tossing it to the ground and stomping its head with her boot. Its skull gave way with an unpleasant crack. She wasted no time it dropping to Garrus' side.
"Are you all right?" she asked.
His face was coated in that horrible green fluid, but he seemed otherwise unscathed. He blinked at her unsurely and she wiped the fluid off of his face with the back of her hand. Despite the battle raging around them, the clear and present danger, he clapped his hand over hers while it still rested on his face, holding it there, pressing his mandible against her. The moment was fleeting, but tangible. As soon as he had done it, he dropped his hand and stood up, pretending it hadn't happened. They returned to work removing the Thorian's appendage without a word.
Kaidan and Liara were still down below, fighting a seemingly limitless supply of asari. Whenever they killed one, another took its place. Ash, Wrex, and Tali were making their way up the other side of the tower, on equal ground with Garrus and Shepard.
By the time they reached the top of the tower, they were covered nearly from head to toe in the green fluid of the Thorian husks. The rest of the squad met Garrus and Shepard in the middle and together they took down the last of the Thorian's appendages.
The creature let out a wailing shriek as it struggled to keep its hold on the tower. Its appendages were blunt and useless now, hacked off at the key contact points, but it still bludgeoned them against the concrete walls in a desperate attempt to maintain its position. Slowly, it fell into the pool of waste below it, unleashing a tidal wave of filth onto the first level. Luckily, Kaidan and Liara had already started their ascent to meet the squad up on the top floor.
For a moment, the parts of the Thorian that could still be seen above the water twitched with life, but finally they stopped moving and Shepard felt convinced that they had succeeded in killing the thing.
She turned to thank the squad when a noise like ripping fabric sounded from behind her.
"Shepard, watch out!" Garrus warned.
She spun around to find an asari falling from what looked to be an egg sac pulsating on the wall. Shepard and Garrus raised their guns, but something in Shepard's gut told her they were safe. This asari was not like the others. Her skin was a typical light blue, not unlike Liara's, not the strange green of those that had attacked them.
Shepard lowered her gun and approached the asari cautiously. She was struggling to bring herself to her feet.
"I…I am free…" the asari said in disbelief. She seemed to suddenly notice Shepard and her squad. "I should thank you for freeing me."
"Are you…okay?" Shepard ventured to place a hand on the asari's shoulder. The asari placed a reciprocal hand on Shepard's shoulder to steady herself.
"Yes…I think I will be. My name is Shiala," she said.
"Shiala, how did you end up inside that…thing?" Shepard asked
"I served Matriarch Benezia," Shiala explained. "When she allied herself with Saren, so did I. Benezia was wise. She could see the influence Saren would have. Unfortunately, she could not see the influence he had on her. He was compelling…she lost her way. We all came to believe in Saren's cause. The strength of his influence was…troubling."
In her peripheral, Shepard saw Liara walk to the edge of the floor and lean against the railing, looking away from the squad. The wounds of her mother's death were still so fresh. It couldn't have been easy to hear any of this.
"We saw Benezia on Noveria," Shepard told Shiala. "She…broke free of Saren's control just before she died."
"Goddess be with her," Shiala said sadly.
"I didn't understand it on Noveria and I don't understand it now. Asari Matriarchs are some of the most powerful and intelligent beings in the galaxy. How did one turian manage to control her?" Shepard asked.
"It's not Saren," the asari told her. "He has a vessel…an enormous warship. It's unlike anything I've ever seen. He calls it Sovereign. That vessel…it can dominate the minds of Saren's followers. I don't know how it happens, but they become indoctrinated to Saren's will. The process can take days…or weeks, but in the end, the control is absolute.
"When Saren brought me here, I came as a willing slave, completely under his control. He needed my biotics to communicate with the Thorian. Then he offered me in trade to the creature to secure an alliance with it. After Saren got what he needed, he sent the geth to destroy the Thorian. He knows you're searching for him and for the conduit. He attacked the Thorian to prevent you from gaining the Cipher."
"The Cipher?" Shepard's head was spinning from all the information she'd just been presented.
"The beacon on Eden Prime gave you visions. But the visions are unclear and confusing, aren't they? They were meant for a Prothean mind," Shiala said. "To truly comprehend your visions, you must think like a Prothean: understand their culture, their history, their very existence. The Thorian was here long before the Protheans. When they were exterminated, it consumed them. They became part of it."
"So the Thorian taught Saren to think like a Prothean? To understand some key to the conduit?"
"Yes, but this knowledge of the Protheans, it isn't something that can be taught. I sensed the Cipher when I melded with the Thorian. It was through this melding that I was then able to transfer the knowledge to Saren. But you must stop him. I can meld my mind with yours, teach you as I taught Saren," Shiala explained.
Shepard had a fleeting thought that such a request could be a trap. After all, how did Shiala know so much about Shepard that she had never told her? Still, she would go with her gut as she always did.
"Okay, show me then."
Shiala stepped forward, speaking softly. "Try to relax, commander. Take slow, deep breaths. Let go of your physical shell and reach out to grasp the threads that bind us to one another." The asari pressed her forehead against Shepard's. "Embrace eternity!"
Shepard was suddenly flooded with visions of the Protheans, of a dying race, of the Reapers, of death and pain and life and love, a million images flashing through her mind in bright pulsating bursts. It was like seeing the vision from the beacon on Eden Prime all over again, but all laid out clearly before her: a road to walk along as she dissected the meaning of the images. One final image burst before her eyes: a Reaper, a ship, perhaps both? It was impossible to process what it was.
Suddenly, she found herself back on solid ground, Shiala standing in front of her and her squad behind her.
"What happened?" she asked, dazed.
"Are you all right, Shepard?" Garrus hovered by her side.
"I have given you the Cipher, just as I did Saren," Shiala said.
"I saw images, but…it still didn't make sense." Shepard shook her head.
Shiala smiled with a look of relief. "You have been given the experience of an entire people. It will take time to process this information."
"We should get you back to the ship, have Dr. Chakwas look at you," Garrus insisted.
"I'm sorry if you have suffered," Shiala said. "There was no other way. You needed the Cipher to understand the beacon. In time, it may help you defeat Saren."
Shepard did feel weak. Almost weak enough to submit to Garrus' concern and head back to the ship. She stumbled and he caught her, allowing her to rest her weight on his arm.
"What about you? If you want transport off of this planet, we can offer it, but we're headed after Saren," Shepard said to Shiala.
"If they will allow it, I would like to stay here with the colonists. They have suffered greatly and I played a hand in that suffering. I hope that helping them might make amends," Shiala said sadly.
"I'm sure they'll take all the help they can get. Come on, we'll head back to the colony together."
Garrus helped Shepard out, too weak to support herself completely. They wound their way down the tower and back up the stairwell to Zhu's Hope. When they reached the surface, the colonists were still incapacitated, but Juliana and Lizbeth had arrived with the other ExoGeni staff, despite Shepard's insistence that they stay until she gave the all clear.
Lizbeth rushed to meet them when she saw them emerging from the vault below the colony.
"Commander Shepard! I'm so glad you're okay." She eyed the filthy green fluid coating Shepard's hair and armor unsurely. "What happened down there?"
"The Thorian won't be a problem for these people anymore," Shepard said. "This asari would like to stay and help the colony rebuild. She was being held prisoner by the Thorian."
Lizbeth shook Shiala's hand. "We'll take all the help we can get. We'll be sure to tell the people of Zhu's Hope what you did for them, commander. Is there anything we can do to help you or repay you? We don't have much to offer, but…"
Shepard shook her head. "Just keep them safe. And don't let something like this happen under your watch ever again."
"I promise," Lizbeth nodded.
"Shepard, you're weak. We need to get you back to the Normandy," Garrus interjected.
Lizbeth shook Shepard's hand. "I hope we'll meet again, commander."
"Me too," Shepard smiled.
She let the squad lead her for once, back to the docking bay where the Normandy still sat, relatively unscathed. A few of the Thorian husks lay dead around the airlock, and some of the green fluid had found its way onto the exterior of the ship, but it was otherwise unharmed.
Shepard's legs gave out when they stepped into the airlock, so Garrus lifted her into his arms and carried her inside.
Joker was waiting for them as soon as the airlock opened. "Commander, what took you so…whoa. What happened?" he stopped at the sight of Shepard, limp in Garrus' arms.
"She's fine," Garrus insisted. "It was a rough fight. I'm taking her down to the med bay."
As the squad filed in, Joker's face contorted with disgust. "What the hell is all over you guys? It reeks! God, go change your clothes and take a shower. Disgusting. Worse than the rachni blood."
"It's nice to see you too, Joker," Liara said bitingly.
Garrus carried Shepard down to the med bay, the others following in a line behind him. Dr. Chakwas was a bit surprised to see them all come piling through her door. She jumped up in alarm at the sight of them.
"What's going on?"
"Shepard melded minds with an asari," Liara explained. "It involved a large transfer of information. The experience left her very weak."
"Put her down here," Dr. Chakwas made space for her on one of the beds and Garrus set her gingerly down on top of it.
"I'm fine, really…" Shepard insisted. She was dizzy, and definitely too weak to stand, but otherwise just fine.
"I'll take a look at her. The rest of you get out of here and clean yourselves up. I don't need you contaminating my med bay with whatever filth you've tracked in. It's bad enough that Shepard's covered in it."
The squad filed out unsurely, all except Garrus, who hovered next to the doctor. She folded her arms across her chest. "That means you too, Vakarian."
Sulking, he left the med bay as well. Dr. Chakwas leaned over Shepard and handed her some pills. "Take these, commander. They'll make you sleep, but they'll restore some of your energy."
Shepard swallowed the pills, too weak to argue, and within minutes the world had faded away into darkness.
A/N: A little heavy on direct-from-game dialogue at the end there but I feel like Shiala's lines were important. I did alter a few of them. The next chapter is a pretty short one, and one I think everyone will enjoy, so I'll probably post it tomorrow. Thanks for reading and for all of the lovely reviews!