Keep

From May Sarton's Autumn Sonnets Number 2

If I can take the dark with open eyes
And ... stand unmoved before the change,
Lose what I lose to keep what I can keep
The strange root still alive under the snow,
Love will endure—if I can let you go.

Councilor David Anderson liked the feel of the heavy glass in his hand, solid and real. He leaned on the balcony railing with red-rimmed eyes. Shepard, gone—he couldn't grasp that. After all she had survived, all she had accomplished, nothing remained? No trace? He had sent her, and she would never be coming back. Had he saved her all those years ago, only to send her to her death?

His companion's voice droned on at its most nasal, like Anderson's memory of a mosquito. "Anderson, don't be unreasonable. Even Spectres die; it's a dangerous job. That's why it's only entrusted to our best." Donnel Udina helped himself to Anderson's liquor as he spoke. It only caused him a little pain to praise Shepard, and the alcohol would ease that sting. He could afford to praise her now. "For all her lack of political acumen, she was a great success. She paved the way to humanity's place on the council. That's a worthy legacy. Our top priority must be to shore up our position, and we can't do that by holding on to her memory at the expense of progress. Help me appoint others. " It galled him that her death had such a negative effect on their newly acquired office. It seemed one final insult from the impossible woman, and just when they'd been making such gains.

Anderson turned and glowered at him. "Based on Joker's testimony, she may have survived until the Shanghai gave up and flew off, leaving her to die. The matter must be investigated!" Anderson's lowered brows made his anger clear. "She deserved better! So did her crew!" He pointed at Udina menacingly. "Did you have anything to do with that farce the Alliance put them through?" He was shouting. "They were not the ones that needed to be questioned! Why weren't the Captain and the crew of the Shanghai?" He had thrown and broken one of his best glasses against the wall while watching the vids. "If I had known…!"

"Your temper, Councilor," Udina did not hide his sarcasm when using the title, "cannot serve you as well in your new role as it did on the battlefield. Listen to someone who knows the subtler ways of politics. Your Alliance did us a favor. Shepard had made powerful friends and enemies. Unless her crew was kept confused, discredited and divided, given new tasks, they could instigate a rebellion, change balances of power. It could have cost us our seat on the Council! If you follow my guidance, you may still manage to salvage our office's authority. Think! What could we possibly gain by proving the Alliance at fault? We'd shoot ourselves in the foot and make powerful enemies. Give up this pernicious train of thought…"

"Give up, Udina?" Anderson stayed where he was, clenching his jaw, turning away from Udina again. "Get out of my sight! It's not our office, it's mine."

"Yes, that's what Shepard wanted, remember?" Udina wrinkled his nose, catching the unmistakable scent of stale elasa and the cheroots sold at Chora's Den on Anderson's clothes. "Clearly you are not prepared to be rational today, or to do any real work. Please don't see anyone in your official capacity until you've cleaned yourself up." With satisfaction at having had the last word, he left.

Alone with his thoughts, Anderson remembered when he'd first met Shepard, that brutal night on Mindoir.

"Lieutenant, what's the hold up? Report!" The XO's voice, even at a whisper, carried across the water. Assault rifles drawn, they had been advancing up the stream that ran to the colony's landing pad. They had planned to take the batarians by surprise, and to cut off their escape route.

Out of the dark, something had drifted into his legs. He had shipped his rifle onto his pack and had reached down, then splashed back a step as he realized that what had bumped into his legs was the slender body of an adolescent girl. Even though he had already seen many horrors in his career, some of them earlier that night, he had never grown accustomed to seeing young people dead. It disturbed him, reminding him of his own son, left back home. Reverently he had picked the body up, dismayed to recognize the darker stains and jagged blast holes on the girl's torso. It had surprised him to find her staring at him with wide eyes. They blinked. "Alive," he'd whispered. "She alive!"

He had insisted on taking her back immediately to the Einstein. After a short hissed battle of wills, the XO had let him with the promise that he'd rally another squad and lead them to support the action at the landing pad. The air chilled him once he'd sloshed out of the stream and started running back to their ship and staging area. A Mako rolled down the ramp as he jogged past, weaving among the lights and cots. Generators thrummed, but not loudly enough to cover the moans and shrieks of the few mutilated and bloody adults being tended in the medical tent, some of whom were badly burned. So far, mostly what they had found were bodies and body parts. Looking down at his light burden, he could tell that she was paler, turning gray. She was bleeding out. The proof soaked his hands, arms, and chest. Urgently he sought the doctor he had served with during the Battle of Shanxi. She was the best. He located her, a trim woman with a short brown bob, directing care in the midst of burn victims, and his jog turned into a run. "Doctor!"

"Anderson?" She frowned as she hurried over to inspect his burden. "A teen? We've not seen any young yet." With a gesture that indicated he should follow, she led the way to an empty cot.

He set the girl carefully down on it. Under the bright lights, the blood covering her showed up clearly. She regarded him with great intensity. Her hand held his sleeve.

"You're safe now," the doctor said. "I'm going to cut off your shirt so that I can see your injury and help. What's your name?"

The girl didn't take her eyes off Anderson, let go, or speak, even when the doctor spoke to her. The expression in her eyes seemed at once ancient and flat. He had seen it many times before, on the faces of widows, orphans and young soldiers in war zones. It filled him with sympathy, and with a desire to protect. "You're going to be alright," he told her and prayed to every deity he could think of to please, please let it be so.

The doctor pulled cloth out of the wounds on the girl's shoulder; the girl had been shot at close range with a rifle. She called for her surgical kit from one of the assistants, and looked at him. "I think you'd better stay. You might be all that's keeping her here."

He'd nodded and took the delicate hand on his sleeve into both of his own, stroking the back of it. That's when he'd found the cut on the soft flesh between her thumb and forefinger, and knew what it was, the bite of a gun on an inexperienced shooter. Looking in the girl's eyes, he smiled. "You've been very brave, haven't you?" He gently squeezed her hand. "Keep it up, soldier."

"Numbing her now." The Doctor finished prepping swiftly with the nerve block, and picked up her scalpel. "We'll get you patched up in no time, my dear. Stay with us."

"You can punch me if it hurts," he'd told the girl. He had kept returning her gaze as he spoke to the Doctor. "This one will make it, Doctor. She's a fighter."

She'd always been a fighter. The whole nightmare of Mindoir and she was the only kid they'd managed to rescue, who'd walked away from it, made something of herself. It had taken a week before the girl had finally spoken, and he had learned her name was Rachel Shepard. Just six years later, the whole Alliance and everyone in the Terminus Systems would come to know that name, and hail her as the hero of Elysium. And since then, the whole galaxy had heard of her when she became a Spectre and then the Savior of the Citadel. He had never been so proud. It had made it all, the whole damn show and all the failures, worth it.

He finished his drink and stared at the empty glass. For all its glory, it had been too short a life, and that was on him, as much as on anybody. His glass thudded onto the top of his desk as he set it down and headed back to Chora's.

"Wrex, you already have more of an arsenal collected here than you could carry. All I'm saying is put the cannon back." Kaidan had spent the morning trying to ease tensions between the Shanghai's quartermaster and his krogan teammate, and his head ached from the shouting and stubbornness. For the umpteenth time, he missed Shepard more than ever. "What are you preparing for?"

"That's none of your concern," Wrex growled. He strapped some weapons to his legs, some to his pack. He'd carry the two-handed cannon he'd liberated from the armory. The human might be right about not being able to take it all, but he wasn't giving up yet. He certainly wasn't surrendering the cannon.

"I think I've earned the right to ask." Kaidan crossed his arms over his chest. "You've got the ship's watch making reports to Command that you're planning to take over the Citadel."

With a deep, throaty chuckle, Wrex finally paid full attention to Kaidan. "Wouldn't tell you if I was." He pointed to the bandolier of cyrogrenades. "Hand me that belt."

Kaidan complied. "Come on Wrex, what's all this for?" The krogan positively bristled with weapons.

"You can ask." Wrex tugged the belt tight and fastened the cinch, then he checked to see if there was anywhere else he could ship any of the remaining weapons. "It doesn't mean I'll answer." It looked like he'd have to leave behind the second pair of pistols, and the second and third shotguns. "This hardly begins to replace what Shepard had given me, or to cover what's owed me for pulling everyone's asses out of the fire all the time."

"The quartermaster can't access Spectre gear. You know that." Kaidan sighed. He ignored the already-familiar sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. "Wrex, I miss her too." None of his training had covered how to try to comfort grieving krogans, if that's what this was. "Why don't you disarm, we'll go to Chora's and tie one on."

"Tie what on? A dancer?" Wrex shook his head. "Humans." He picked up the cannon and headed for the door.

"You're just leaving?" Kaidan's voice rose a few notes higher than usual at the end. For all that he knew it was a bad idea, he blocked passage out of the room anyway. "What about the others? What about Liara? She's not back yet."

"If she was coming back, she'd be here already. Get out of my way. The last payment of my wages went through this morning. It's time for me to go. I have things to do." When Kaidan didn't move, Wrex pointed the cannon at him. "Don't make me test this."

Never sure if the krogan was bluffing, Kaidan stepped aside. "If she does come back, where do I tell her you've gone? What do I tell the others?"

"Tell her I've gone home." Wrex brushed past him. "Tell them goodbye." Crew members veered out of Wrex's way as he strode down the hall to the elevator for the hangar.

Kaidan stood in the doorway, lost in thought, until someone cleared her throat behind him, and he turned.

Hackett's aide greeted him with a salute. "Staff Lieutenant, Admiral Hackett requires your presence."

"I'm under orders to leave for my new assignment at 1100 hours," Kaidan cautioned. It never seemed a good thing to be called to an Admiral's office the day after being examined in an inquest.

"The Admiral is well aware," she replied and started down the hall.

Tali and Garrus were waiting on the dock near the ramp to the Shanghai when Chakwas returned, alone.

"I thought you were coming back with Liara." Tali twisted the fingers of her hands nervously. She had been feeling more and more out of place and friends disappearing discomfited her completely. Wrex had stomped off, armed to the teeth, only 15 minutes ago.

Chakwas shook her head. She looked tired and worried.

"Didn't Chloe, ahrem," Garrus coughed and cleared his throat. "I mean Doctor Michel, say she'd gone to the clinic?" He placed a comforting hand on the quarian's shoulder. "What happened?"

"I really couldn't say. She chose not to return with me." Chakwas wished again that she'd been able to find Liara, especially since she was in no state to wander anywhere alone. Chakwas had chased after her without another word to Dr. Lethe or switching off the terminal, but by the time she'd reached the door, Liara was not in sight. Running would have drawn attention, as would have calling her name, so she'd made her way back to the ship slowly, hoping Liara would appear along the way. Witnessing behavior so out of keeping with the asari's usual manner troubled Chakwas, as did Dr. Lethe's words. If only she knew what it meant, what Liara was thinking, or of someone who could help her.

"What do we do with Liara's things if she's not back by the time the Shanghai leaves this afternoon?" Tali had already packed, and had her gear stowed beside her. She wanted to say goodbye to her friends, and to make arrangements to stay in touch. "It feels like everything is falling apart, and the Commander's only been gone a week."

"I know, Tali," Chakwas said wearily. Early that morning, she had received her orders to report to Mars Station in two days time. The transport would arrive at 1500 hours. "We've not had time to come to terms individually, and it doesn't seem like we'll get the chance to do so together." She wondered if she'd ever see Liara again, and it added to the burden of grief she already carried. Caring for Liara and Joker and the other survivors of the Normandy had been helping her deal with the loss of Commander Shepard and the indignities and injustice of the inquest. "I'll have Liara's effects sent to Admiral Hackett."

"Okay, goodbye then, Doctor Chakwas." Tali wasn't sure of what humans did in these situations. Did they shake hands or hug? She looked at Garrus, in case he knew. He might have guessed what she was thinking because he shrugged. "Thank you for taking such good care of me."

"Where will you go, Tali?" Chakwas asked.

"Back to the Fleet. Shepard gave me something to use as my pilgrimage gift. My people will want to study it." Tali shifted from one foot to another uncomfortably.

"Take care of yourself, Tali. It was an honor and a pleasure serving with you." Chakwas extended her hand.

With a sense of relief, Tali shook the doctor's hand. "Goodbye, Doctor." When they'd stopped, she looked at the tall turian beside her. "Goodbye, Garrus." With one hand, she hefted her pack on her shoulder and walked away, looking back and giving a little wave before getting in the elevator.

Garrus escorted the Doctor into the decontamination chamber. He still had to pack. "Did Liara say where she was going?"

"No." Chakwas closed her eyes as the scanner's glare swept over them and back.

"Is she okay? Are you?" Garrus asked. "You're looking tired, Doctor."

"I'm fine, Garrus, and you know all information on any crew member's health is strictly confidential." Chakwas strode through the opening doors and toward Joker's room. She wanted to check on him before she left. He'd been threatening to resign from the Alliance. Grief and guilt over the loss of the Commander and the ship, and his rage about their all being put on trial, had him not thinking clearly. Although she sympathized with him, she hoped to talk him out of it, nevertheless. Losing a way of life and his living on top of everything else she feared would be too much for him. And if he left, the Alliance might find him an all-too-convenient scapegoat.

"I know, but she took it pretty hard, and hasn't been herself. Now Wrex has left, and the whole team is splitting up. It's a lot to handle. Shepard would have wanted us to look out for one another." With his long legs, Garrus easily kept pace with Chakwas down the drab gunmetal corridors. "Can you at least give me a hint about where she went?"

Chakwas paused. "It's good of you to want to watch out for her. She needs friends around her right now, and like the rest of the Normandy's Alliance crew, I've been re-assigned." She placed a hand on Garrus' arm. "I don't know where she is, or where she'll go. If you find her, will you please ask her to be in touch with me?"

Garrus nodded, and watched the Doctor move away down the crowded corridor of the ship. After he'd packed, he'd look for Liara.

Once out of the clinic, Liara slipped into the crowd and around the corner, careful not to appear in haste. With commandos on the hunt for her, soon or already, she wanted to ensure that the doctor got away safely before she'd figure out her own escape. Karin emerged, looking for her in silence and concern, and Liara fought the urge to go to her and to explain, to say goodbye. They'd likely argue, she reasoned, and there wasn't time. The woman wanted to help her, but she couldn't, as they both knew. Karin would probably only accept that if she had no other choice. It was time for them to part. Liara would not allow herself to be a source of danger to one of her only friends. Years of practice in her mother's house, at school, and at her digs had allowed her to perfect the art of being invisible. She called on those skills now, staying in the shadows, watching Karin leave.

When she was gone, Liara made her way to the stairs and descended into the reaches of the lower wards. She'd need the darkness to hide her telltale neck marks while she figured out her next move. Hackett's offer came to mind, but she dismissed it, for now. If her own people hunted her, the Alliance couldn't help. As she neared where she'd wandered the night before, she began to feel uneasy as more and more C-Sec agents passed her in the corridors, mostly humans. She could swear some of them looked at her oddly. Could the commandos have enlisted C-Sec's help?

She ducked into a side passage. Ahead, at the far end, intensely bright light caught her attention. There'd been nothing like that anywhere she'd wandered the previous evening, and her curiosity got the better of her. She decided to check it out. Large metal canisters constricted the narrow passageway even further as she progressed, providing plenty of cover, and an offensive odor. Her nose wrinkled as the rancid smell of souring food waste reached her from the canister overflow. Liara picked her way around rusting scrap and discarded soiled food containers. Some more powerful ward probably had dumped their commercial and industrial refuse in this poorer one. Idly she wondered if her mother could see her now, what she would say. Liara laughed out loud at the thought. Nothing good, certainly, maybe that archaeology was cleaner and more honorable than skulking through filth. For a moment she couldn't stop laughing, the sound dry and hard as a cough. Perhaps her mother would understand only too well about reversals of fortune. Maybe she'd ask her, soon enough.

Gripping the edge of one of the canisters, Liara kept in cover as she leaned forward to glimpse what had required all the light. Half a dozen tall lamps had been set up around the corridor ahead, stiff and awkward on metal tripods too large for the area. Four C-Sec officers knelt or stood nearby taking notes and examining what seemed to be several bodies lying in congealed pools of green blood. The victims had been batarian then. The nearest Liara could make out. He lay, severely mangled, armor partially broken off him, weapon parts scattered beside him. A little further, a heap of organs and tissue suggested another had been torn apart from the inside. Her mostly empty stomach heaved at the gruesome sight. Who or what could possibly have done such a horrible thing to a sentient being? The light reflected off shards of glass scattered along the ground. Windows in the building behind the bodies had been blasted out. She had thought all glass had long been shatterproof. The Citadel was old though, so maybe not, or maybe this was the effect of some new kind of weapon? Liara shuddered at the thought. It was then an asari commando crouched over a third body with her back to Liara stood up.

Liara ducked back behind the canister, holding her breath as the asari approached the body nearest her. A C-Sec agent must have joined her, because a moment later, Liara heard two people speak.

"Well, what do you think? Could it have been asari?" A male turian voice.

"Lieutenant, what makes you think any of my people could be capable of this?" The asari's voice, though deep, sounded slightly familiar. Liara was tempted to risk a glimpse to identify it.

"Who besides the Eclipse could have had the numbers, motive and ability to do this to Kalgraff and his top boys on their own turf? Maybe they wanted in on his trade and took advantage of our lack of resources. I can't imagine any other group would have had sufficient numbers, or any interest in fighting over such a dump."

"Not even the Blue Suns? Such brutality and leaving all this evidence is hardly Eclipse's style."

"I'll take your word on that, but it seems more likely than batarian on batarian violence. The Suns usually keep to the Skyllian Verge. Even though things may be more slipshod since the geth attack, we aren't as bad as the Terminus Systems. Matriarch, look, I appreciate your volunteering to consult on this, but I will question your objectivity if you try to completely overlook how all this damage was done. There's no sign of weapons discharge. It must have been biotics. Only Eclipse could pull that off, or have developed new weapons we haven't heard of yet that could." The turian's clipped tones revealed his growing impatience.

"This Kalgraff got on the wrong side of someone very powerful." The asari sounded hesitant. "I can offer to bolster your forces with two squads while the Ascension is in dock if you need help maintaining security. We're only here for another fortnight though." That's why the voice sounded familiar, Liara realized. It must be Matriarch Lidanya. For a moment, Liara considered talking with her about her situation. No, it was too risky. For all she knew, the Matriarch was leading the hunt. With that thought, Liara felt the need to get far away.

"Would that be enough to stop a group powerful enough to do this?" The turian sounded skeptical.

"I have every confidence." Lidanya sounded it too. Liara's longing to flee grew, but she couldn't risk making a noise and drawing the Matriarch's attention. "What was Kalgraff's gang in to? That might help us track the killers."

"They traded mostly in children and red sand. Hey, could this be the work of a justicar?" At the mention of that word, Liara's blood ran cold.

"Justicars stay in asari space, Lieutenant, to avoid incidents like this." Lidanya sounded displeased, but whether it was because he knew of justicars at all or didn't know about that restriction was unclear to the flustered eavesdropper.

Nerves frayed, Liara was grateful to hear their voices recede. She peeked out to make sure they had gotten far enough away for her to thread her way back through the littered passage behind her. Her gaze fell momentarily on the face of the victim nearest her. Recognition broke over her in a flash. My boys and I would like that... Just one question? What are you doing with that child? She stumbled back over a corner of scrap, falling to the ground and making a clatter. The edge of her tunic caught her eye, and she looked down at the green spatter marking its white border. The green fabric had kept her from noticing the rest. She rolled over, racked by dry heaves. It had been her, dear Goddess! It had been her. Scrambling to her feet, she ran as fast as she could, mindless now of the racket she made, half blind with horror.

"What the hell was that?" The Lieutenant turned and noticed the Matriarch, fists glowing, already a distance away, staring into a dark corridor.

As she watched the figure fleeing, Lidanya answered, "Leave this to me. I'll check it out."

Liara ran as fast as she could, weaving through the debris and pushing past any people clogging the darkest tunnels and paths she could find. She ran until her lungs burned and her legs ached and the last corridor she turned down came to a dead end. Nervously she scanned the area. Wherever she'd arrived, it seemed deserted. It would do. She longed to lean against the wall and slide to the ground and rest, but her mind permitted her no ease. "No, I won't go on like this!" she rasped out loud to no one, her gasping turning to dry sobs, her hands on her shaking knees as she bent over. Her tears fell to the metal floor. Darkness swallowed up the sounds of her misery.

Spying a decrepit catwalk one ladder climb up, she pushed her wobbly legs to carry her there, up and out onto it. It creaked and shook under her weight. Perhaps before the attack, it had functioned as a maintenance walkway, but now it was broken, just like her. Liara could vaguely make out a narrow spire ahead in the feebly lit dark. Perhaps it was a communications tower, or had been. Its blinking little white light did not show enough of it for her to know. She edged a bit farther out, feeling the platform shake beneath her. She was too tired and upset to care. It was true, after all. What the doctor had said, on the consult. The stigma she had fought against so long and hard, the destiny she had feared. It was in her, inescapable at last.

She had thought Shepard had proven it all lies. Shepard had not been afraid of her touch. Shepard had told her it wasn't true. "I believed you!" she screamed into the dark, shaking the railing. It rattled beneath her hands. Bright blue biotics wisped up off her hands and arms, glowing enough to push back the dark. She lifted her hands and stared at them as if they weren't her own. How could something so familiar have betrayed her—her own hands, her own strength, her own self?! Is this what madness was like?

"Shepard, I need you," she whispered, falling to her knees. "Where are you?" She let her biotics die down and stared into the darkness. The rail now crossed the empty space over her head, and there was nothing between her and the vast chasm around her. It would be so easy to fall. They may never even find her body down here, wherever she was. In that final way she could thwart her destiny—to be a destroyer of souls. She stretched out her arms from her sides in a gesture of surrender. What would it feel like, to tumble through that space, not knowing when she'd land? Would it hurt? She thought maybe it would. It would be terrible if she didn't die at once. Whatever she'd done to those batarians, even if she couldn't remember, she still didn't want to suffer. She leaned forward, looked down, and could see nothing.

"You're one of the bravest people I know." Shepard's voice, so clear, and so her, rang in Liara's mind as the memory surfaced at her hesitation. Liara lowered her arms and closed her eyes. The woman had smiled at her as they sat in the dark, buried alive in the mine at Agebinium.

"How can you say that? I'm scared to death right now that we'll never get out of here." Liara had confessed with a sense of incredulity. "It's you who's brave enough for all of us." They had sat staring at the watch fire they had set up. Ashley and Tali slept below in the chamber where the Commander had defused the bomb. The Commander had taken the first watch, and Liara had gone to relieve her, but the Commander hadn't returned to the others, instead spending the watch with her. They had spoken softly, but the door to the lower chamber had been closed, so it probably hadn't mattered. The Commander had regarded Liara with her dark eyes, and Liara had felt again a powerful surge of desire flow through her, pushing away other thoughts. It had been confusing that this human had such an effect on her.

"That's not true, Liara." The Commander had leaned forward then and had brushed Liara's cheek with her thumb, cleaning off some smudge, she'd realize later. It had been all she could do to keep herself from leaning into that touch. Her stomach had contracted, and her longing to kiss those lips had been intense. "You kept a host of geth and a krogan warlord at bay by yourself on Therum before we even met. Since then, you've faced Thorian clones and creatures and the Thorian itself without one backward glance or running away." The Commander had laughed. "Hell, I even wanted to then. But you? You've taken on pirates and slavers and crazy biotics without freezing or failing to save someone in nearly every fight, and you're not even a soldier." Liara had detected honest admiration in the woman's eyes. Goddess, she was so beautiful by firelight. "You even had the courage to go into my messed up mind to help me make sense of the Prothean Cipher. I'd say there are few as brave as you."

Liara had ducked her head. If she didn't stop staring into the woman's eyes, as dark as a melding asari's, she was going to do something rash. There was still so much she didn't know about humans, or about this one in particular. There was still so much the Commander didn't know about her either. But all she had said was, "It was an honor, Commander." The sensation of how that powerful mind had pulsed around hers had haunted her. She knew she wanted more, to go deeper, to touch the woman's core, and more than anything else, that frightened her. "It takes no courage to follow someone like you," she had admitted, at last, shyly.

The fire had crackled for several minutes before the Commander had spoken again, and then it had been so softly that at first Liara wasn't certain if she was speaking to her or to herself. She'd said, "That's funny. For most of all that, I was afraid."

Startled, Liara had looked up at her again, to see her gazing into the fire. "You were? I don't believe you!"

Shepard had just shrugged. "I thought that was what courage was—being afraid but doing what needed to be done anyway. Like now, I don't like being trapped, but what matters is that we find our way out of here, not what I feel about it. Surrounded by so much courage and so much brain power," she'd grinned at Liara at that, so that the asari forgot to breathe, "I know we'll succeed, which is good, because Haliat needs to die with my boot crammed down his throat."

Liara's heart ached as the memory receded. She opened her eyes; she couldn't do this. If she died, all that was left of Shepard's essence in this world would die with her. The galaxy still needed that, and she needed to find Shepard's body, to lay it to rest. Both choices were the least she could do for the woman who meant so much to her.

Rising to her feet, she noticed an asari commando leaning against the wall below.