Thessia

Now why the hell did I ever think it's a good idea?

Pressing her fingers at her temple, Shepard tried to ease the throbbing. It was almost as bad as the hangover after a wild night out with a few friends. That was on the last day of a two week leave after graduation. She had dived recklessly into the gravy of freedom. Unfortunately, careless consumption of too many varieties of alcohol plastered her flat the next morning with a stabbing headache and nausea. The worst possible thing to happen when she was to report in and ship out that day. Luckily, a squad mate had swung by early to pick her up as arranged. He did his best to purge and clean her up. Though the gunny she reported to made no remark, she was certain her less than sharp comportment did not go unnoticed.

Soft footsteps halted beside her. Her nose twitched at the fragrant aroma that drifted towards her. She opened her eyes to find Telienos holding out a steaming mug to her. "Here, this tea will help."

"Thanks." She blew and took a cautious sip. The faintly sweet slightly acrid liquid was ambrosia in a mouth gone dry. The ache in her head eased slightly. "I really need that," she sighed as Telienos sat down beside her on the couch, her own mug in hand. "When you said melding is the fastest way, I never thought...how long were we at it?"

"Almost four hours."

Shepard stared at her in amazement. "No wonder I feel so wrung out."

"You are not used to melding. Your body and your mind are taxed to their limits and-," Telienos added disapprovingly, "you insisted on carrying on when I suggested breaking it up into smaller sessions."

"I just want to get it over with." Shepard shrugged. "Don't tell me you do this every day," she added as the matriarch slowly drained her mug, seeming without taking time to breathe. The meld had clearly taken its toll on her as well though she did not look as exhausted as she felt. How many times had she done this?

Depositing her empty mug on the coffee table, Telienos sank back into the cushions. "I don't handle cases personally any more."

"But you're handling mine?" Taking a bigger gulp, Shepard felt her stomach settled down instead of threatening to heave.

Telienos smiled tiredly. "Let's just say I couldn't say no to a certain bartender. Additionally, as one of the prime movers in the Reaper War, you are a person of interest. I will admit to having a great deal of curiosity about you."

"Oh, secret admirer." Shepard drew back in mock alarm. "I'm not about to get stalked, am I?"

Propping her head against a raised arm resting on the back of the couch, Telienos eyed her curiously. "Do you think you've much to fear from me?"

Thinking back to the meld, Shepard shook her head. "Not really, no. But as an adept, you can easily hide whatever you want."

"That is true," Telienos nodded. "What else have you grasped?"

"The meld's different..like-," Shepard searched for words to describe it, "like bonding and yet it's not. You have complete control and yet I sensed a distance. It could have been one way but it was not."

"For those who specialised in this discipline, we cannot take without giving. Healing will not take place when there is no trust. The initial stages is not easy. We tend to lose something of ourselves during practical application. It takes centuries before the essential experience in minimizing the protracted effect is gained," Telienos said solemnly. "Cases like yours are rare and extremely difficult for those who have not achieved their mastery. As such, attempts are not encouraged at all."

"Because they would not be able to maintain control of individual persona?"

Telienos nodded. "Merging has to be rather deep, more than the usual surface meld any asari would perform, to encourage suppressed memories to the fore. It's almost close to bonding as you have observed. That is why total control is mandatory."

"It's also risky isn't it? If control should slip for some reason or another," Shepard said aloud as she examined what she learned in the meld. "I'm sorry," she said hurriedly when she saw the pain in Telienos's eyes. "I didn't mean to." She stopped when Telienos gestured to her to let it go. "He was right at least on getting in touch with myself."

"Yes, there are failures," Telienos admitted steadily. "You saw mine and the results that stemmed from arrogance and careless assumption. To name a few from a list of shortcomings."

"That was then," Shepard corrected. "But I understand your reluctance. You did a great job with Javik too."

"Javik's case is more difficult," Telienos said. "His perspective is unyielding because he comes from a different era of uncompromising prescripts. If he is not actively reaching out, there is nothing I can do."

"Well he has mellowed a lot." Finishing her tea, Shepard put her mug on the coffee table. "I never thought he would." She looked slyly at the asari. "Your work."

"Incidental," Telienos said. "Attempting to understand his abilities has some unforeseen consequences but it led me to see what it is he kept within. I took steps to help, however I can."

Shepard frowned. "You allowed me to see some of his pain."

"A comparable reflection to your own."

Interlacing her fingers, Shepard closed her eyes. "I know. I-," she halted.

"Yes?" Telienos waited patiently when she remained silent.

"When you brought me back to those days-," began Shepard hesitatingly. "I never realised how far I've come, how much I've seem to have forgotten. I didn't realise how different it was then.."

"You felt your present self disconnected from your past."

"Yes. When I think about it now, I felt as if I was running like a automation in the last five years." She frowned when she realised what she said. It felt right. "I was, wasn't I?"

"Tell me what you're thinking now."

"The passage of time and events." Bringing up her interlaced fingers in a pose of contemplation, Shepard opened her eyes. "All I care back then about was getting away from the drab itinerary, the confinement. I wanted to look for adventures out there. I enlisted because that was expected of me."

"Is it only that?"

"No. I was also looking to be with my mother." Shepard chuckled shortly. "I didn't realise how high a mountain I was aiming for. In boot camp, I didn't have to answer the oft asked question; why did you enlist? Everyone knew about me and assumed I was following the tradition. I was the ideal model to some," she snorted. "They never knew how wrong they were. I graduated with honors, all shiny brass and naive optimism. Not really thinking about what I was doing. I was enjoying myself to think overmuch. The Skyllian Blitz changed all that. What I experienced made me want to be more than just another baton in the rank and file."

"So you applied for the Interplanetary Combatives Training course."

"I wanted to go out there and do the best I can to keep bad stuff away, to make the world a safer place for people to live in. To do that, I've to learn from the best. The colony on Elysium survived because one marine, lieutenant Harrington, held it all together when our COs were killed. Her tactics, her determination and convictions was a light in the dark to the colonists, the marines. To me. She was-," she shook her head in wonder, "inspiring. I realised I enlisted for all the wrong reasons. That I never understood what I should be doing, what I was fighting for. I saw some of the slaves that were liberated from crippled pirate ships." Her knuckles whitened for a moment. "I heard stories of what slavers do but it's a different thing when you see it with your own eyes. I knew I have the ability to do something good and that I must not squander it."

"Was Lieutenant Harrington part of special forces?"

"Yes, she was. I never saw her again until a year later, onboard a cruiser. The Alliance had gathered enough intelligence to pinpoint the slavers' base of operations. We were part of the offensive to curtail their raids on human colonies," Shepard smiled as she recalled that meeting when she went down to the officers wardroom the moment she heard Harrington was on the same cruiser. That hundred and eighty-eight meter tall slim frame was hard to miss. She was gratified to find that Harrington remembered her.

"Was this Torfan?" Telienos said, reluctant to break Shepard out of that happy dreamy recollection she could see in her eyes.

The question wiped the smile from Shepard's face.

"Yeah, it was Torfan," she said quietly. "It was a brutal engagement. The batarians were firmly entrenched, prepared for any incursions. They planted a murderous garden in their backyards, made use of their slaves as shields to threaten us. Used them as living bombs. It took hours to make any headway into their bases. We lost many marines down there." Her eyes turned bleak.

"Including Harrington. We kept pressing them. What I learned from the ICT courses helped but even so, there was no way to force those batarians to surrender. No way to save all the slaves. Some of the batarians managed to escape in several ships with their slaves, leaving behind a force a quarter of their strength. They were too stubborn to submit. We stuck it out for 72 hours down on the ground before they finally gave in." She rubbed her face as ghostly images, screams and shouts floated before her.

"Get down on your knees! Now! Down! Fuck you ..." The sharp crack of a rifle butt swung full force against a helmeted batarian sounded like a shot. It fell him to the bloody floor. The rifle was raised again.

"Hold!"

"By then, not many of us were in any mood to accept their white flag. I had to make an effort to order my squad to secure prisoners instead of hosing them down. After all the shit we received and the horrors we encountered in there, those scum had no right to breathe."

"Why didn't you?"

"I wanted to kill every last one of them but I couldn't pull the trigger," Shepard said softly, recalling how her finger had begun to press down on the trigger of her assault rifle as she aimed it at the kneeling batarians. She felt the raging tempers of the surviving members of her platoon beating in concord with the white blinding haze of fury that swamped her. The eyes of the lead batarian, filled with contempt instead of fear, mocked her. She wanted to put them out, forever. Payback for the helpless terrorised tortured slaves, no more than animals in their masters' eyes. Vengeance for the lost of friends and marines.

"Something held me back."

A few protested loudly when she gave her order but the gunny stomped them down. The batarian began to taunt her when he realised she was not going to kill them. She ignored him though the temptation to swing the butt of her rifle into his face was strong. The gunny did it for her when she turned and limped away; a boot tip straight up between the batarian's legs before putting him out for the count with a wallop between his blinkers. Considering what she heard of the actions taken by other squads later, it was no more than a love tap.

Shepard looked out of the windows. "I'm no executioner but at that moment, I was so close to losing control. I yearned to smash that ugly face into a bloody pulp. When I thought about it weeks later, I was glad I didn't. There's something infinitely wrong to let the passions of a very trying mission assume control, no matter the provocation. It's self-gratification, which ever way you look at it." She heaved a sigh, pushing away memories of the funeral for Harrington and the marines who died. "After Torfan, I was promoted to N6."

"Is it so surprising?"

Shepard shrugged. "Not really. I was transferred after the Blitz, then promoted to first lieutenant after Akuze. I completed the last ICT ( Interplanetary Combatives Training) course and got bumped up to senior lieutenant. Getting dropped into the cauldron so often put me on the fast track."

"What was the final training like?" Telienos asked, opting to skip past Akuze; she had already gone through the records the asari counselor had taken from previous sessions with Shepard and seen the event in Shepard's memories.

"Like being put through the meat grinder."

Shepard leaned back in the cushions and stretched out her legs. Her stomach rumbled. She wondered how long the session was going to take, she felt rather empty inside. "There were thirty of us of varying ranks. They stripped us of that the moment we threw our duffel on the bunks." She rubbed her arms as she recalled how the captain had marched in, ordered everyone out on the parade ground and informed them of their new status.

"We were all back to square one with all the privileges of being a recruit again. Everyone was shocked, sort of, but we should have expected it." She grinned when she recalled the reactions of her fellow officers. "It wasn't so bad at first. For four weeks, they ran us through the basic navy courses."

The lessons and insults whipped out by their instructors as they ran the landlubbers through basic navy courses were edifying. "Ship nomenclature, operations, fleet maneuvers, tactics. They put the pressure on us with practical and academic tests every day and week. A flunk at any one one of them reduced the chance of graduation. After a month, we were promoted to the advance tactical course."

"Were there many who didn't make it?"

"Numbers began to drop in the middle of the second module." Shepard's lips thinned. "Only that, we didn't know we had graduated to the second module. They dropped it on us out of the blue. We were out on maneuvers when we were suddenly under attack and taken prisoner by what we thought were pirates. There was confusion at first. Some thought it was part of an exercise we weren't told about. When we were thrown into cells and dragged out to be interrogated in the days that followed, it sank in that perhaps we were in deep trouble. Still, we were certain the Alliance would soon find us and thought it would be over soon." She snorted at that assumption.

"The interrogation went on for days and days. They didn't go for the extreme. The intention was to let us experience the 'gentle' side of it but it was bad enough. You know, when they tried to prepare you to withstand interrogations in the event of capture by enemy forces, you run it all in your head, imagine how it would be like but-," she shook her head at the memory, "it just didn't match up." A shiver coursed through her when she remembered the torment inflicted on her when she refused to cooperate.

"At the end of that module, most of us were ready to call it. Half did. The other half hated the guts of the team that ran us through three weeks of hell. We were seething hot beds of anger, fear and hatred. They knew how we felt and made a point to visit us while we were recuperating from the ordeal. It was the only time we fraternized that closely with them. We realised that that itself was an object lesson."

"How did you feel after that?"

"Less desire to blow their brains out. It took a long time for those feelings to dispel. The one who gave me the most difficult time turned out to be a nice man." Shepard shrugged at the contradictory observation but it was the truth. "He was a retired officer, with a family. We were his third group of trainees. He told me he wasn't going to take on a fourth. It was then I realised volunteering to teach that module was no cakewalk to him. The instructors were stringently assessed and rotated for every batch of recruits, otherwise they might just turn into the monsters they were pretending to be. Even so, he confessed he couldn't trust himself or take the pressure any more."

"Did you keep in contact with him?"

"On and off. He didn't survive the war," Shepard said regretfully. "After that, we thought it couldn't get any worse. Until we found out what the final module was. They packed us up, fifteen of us, and dropped us on some forsaken planet in our work rags and a knife. No rations, no water, no omni-tool. Each of us was dropped off at different locations, given a map and told to get to the PUP (pick up point) within twelve days. Alone. The terrain was unfriendly. The local fauna hostile and hungry."

A soft bleep sounded from Telienos's omni-tool but she ignored it. "I have the impression you didn't take that long."

"Eleven days because I really pushed it. I took the shortest route. It meant cutting through bad territory. A knife was a good weapon to start with but the moment I came across the first predator, I knew it was not enough. The survival training module the Alliance provided listed weapons that could be made with basic materials. I thought of making hunting tools but that meant wasting time collecting the materials I needed. With the schedule and the distance I had to cover, I knew it was futile. I kept my eyes open and picked up a make-do staff off a broken branch."

Shepard glanced at Telienos, wondering that she didn't stop her narrative. She found the matriarch listening attentively.

"It didn't put food in my mouth but it kept my feet on solid ground and a good enough shield to ward off attacks." Her stomach was rumbling madly, just like it used to on that trek. "The planet was desert like. Sparse vegetation, hot days, cold nights."

With no knowledge of the local fauna and flora, she stayed away from them. Even water creatures that looked like fish in the tiny streams. After observing animals browsing among a crop of muddy looking pods, she decided to investigate. The pain of hunger had subsided but she knew she was exhausted and could not continue without food. She sliced open one of the darkest looking pod with her knife.

"The flesh was creamy. It looked delicious and it smelled fine," she grimaced. "It was tempting but hell too risky. I threw it away and moved on. Without food, every step taken was an effort. I was so tired I didn't realise I was being stalked. The predator looked like a cat with long double fangs and rather odd looking prehensile paws, probably sensed a weak prey. I was almost to the PUP when I discovered its presence."

Making a trap was out of the question. She was near the end of her strength so she tried to traverse through terrain she could use to advantage. "It attacked when I stumbled and fell."

The sound of falling pebbles alerted her. She rolled before she was flattened by the weight of the pouncing cat. The attack was followed up by a catch-me-if-you-can struggle between them. Using biotics was out of the question in her weakened state. The cat grew frustrated and angry at its failure to snag its prey. It then did the unexpected; it turned away suddenly and its paws whirled in a digging motion. The next thing she knew, she was blinded by the soil and bits of rocks it threw up.

"I thought that was it. My number was up. I couldn't see. I knew the cat had moved."

The staff saved her from being gutted but the pain from the claws as they swipe down her legs was searing. She didn't scream. Neither did she waste time trying to clear the muck covering her eyes. Instead she whipped up her staff like a spear before her, banking on a gamble on the cat's next move. The next several minutes was a jumble of sounds and smells. The heavy impact against the staff. Fetid hot breath, pain on her shoulder, the cat's heavy weight on her when she lost her footing. A snarling roar of pain. A scream left her throat when sharp teeth came down on her right arm she had instinctively raised. A terrible wrenching on her arm. She reached for the knife stuck in her belt. Peering and straining her eyes to see, she could make out the cat lying on its side, the staff sticking out from its heaving middle.

The cat was still alive, though dying. It was going to bring her along with it. Wrecked with excruciating pain, she tried to work the knife between the teeth clamped to her arm. The jaws stubbornly refused to open. With all her strength, she drove the knife into its skull. Over and over again, the determination to survive behind every thrust. Between lost of blood, exhaustion and the heat of the moment, she did not hear the shuttle. It was only when hands reached out to grab her left arm did she realise help had arrived; they had been keeping eyes on her right from the start. In fact, on every member of the squad. That was when she blacked out and woke up to find herself in a medbay.

"They put us on ice for weeks before debriefing us. Out of the remaining fifteen in the squad, fourteen survived. One was killed by a rock fall," she said tiredly, desiring to stop and rest. "Only five graduated. We were the closest to the PUP. The others either chose to abandon the attempt or failed to make the dateline."

Knowing she had reached her limit, Telienos only nodded when Shepard looked at her expectantly. Her omni-tool bleeped softly again. This time, she tapped an acknowledgement.

"I don't suppose I have to ask if you're ready for...what do you humans call it? Grub?" Telienos smiled at the light in Shepard's eyes.

"Ready? Wild horses can't keep me away from it," Shepard exclaimed, perking up at the thought of food and got up to follow Telienos.

Local Cluster
Earth, SSV Glasgow

The ship image on the display turned slowly. It had the vague shape of a diamond with odd protuberances on the hull and the suggestion of sleekness to it. Dorrin studied it carefully. At five hundred metres in length, it was too big to be a frigate, too small for a cruiser. There were no sign of any gun ports but that didn't mean there was none. Shifting his gaze to the larger display over the holo tank, he watched as the alien ships that emerged unannounced from the Charon Relay hours ago approached the Citadel in a wide even spread. Now that they were here, Command announced the operation would commence in a few minutes. Other than that, all ships were to stay on station until further notice. He wondered what was going to happen.

"Still no word from the top?" he queried as Canning came up beside him.

The XO shook his head. "The only thing they are letting drop is that they are Ardones, still zipped on origin."

"I'm not getting the whole picture. Are you?" Dorrin glanced at Canning who shrugged. Pulling at his lower lip in perplexity, he frowned. "I don't see how they could possibly shift the damn thing unless they're planning to use those ships as boosters. Who's calling the shots on station?"

"No joy on that one either, sir. It-," Canning broke off as his earpiece chattered. "Essen and Almada are in position." He nodded towards the holotank, showing the other two cruisers in synchronous orbit adjacent to the Glasgow, over the enclaves they were assigned to protect and shield. However, there were only so many ships to spare and not every enclave could be covered.

"Any anomaly on scans?" Dorrin sighed at Canning's negative reply. "How's the evacuation going down below?"

"Recent update put it at seventy percent."

That was good progress. The underground bunkers would shelter the civilians from the path of any assault. With the escort of the freighters handed over to the secondary elements in First Fleet, he had one less item on his plate. As if in reminder that he missed lunch, his stomach rumbled softly. He could do with a quick short break. So did the crew. Since the duty of watch dogging the Citadel was not theirs, they could really use the rest.

"I want all sections that have been at their posts for the past six hours switch out and take a two hour break for chow. I'll be in the briefing room. You have the watch, XO."

"Aye, sir. I have the watch," Canning said, coming to attention.

Casting an eye over the crew in CIC as he made for the hatch to the briefing room, Dorrin was pleased to see that the smothering tension of the past hours was replaced by watchful readiness. Still, there were signs of focus fatigue. A two hour breather should calm nerves and boost flagging efficiency. He wished he could do the same but a quick meal was all he had the luxury for.

The steward answered his call once he was in the briefing room. "Martin, get me the best MRE (meals ready to eat) you have to BR1 (briefing room 1)."

"Yes, sir."

The reply was militarily correct but he could also hear the disapproval beneath it. Grinning, he sat down at the conference table and pulled up a display of the alien ships. He whistled in amazement when he saw the speed of their deployment.

Citadel

"They're going to latch on?" Westir said in disbelief. "With what?" He craned his head to look at Malon's console, hoping Drake was too busy to catch his lapse to duty. He was supposed to monitor the power relays and compensators of a power junction in Foundations but Malon's covert taps on the new arrivals was too interesting to ignore.

"Keep your voice down," Malon hissed, glancing over his shoulder but no one was paying attention to them. "See how they are positioned?" He transferred the diagram over to his colleague's work station. "It's a balanced diffusion on the structure. Look at this." He transferred over another image, wishing the data was more concise but there was some interference he could not clear up despite his using every trick he knew. "What do you think they are?"

Westir stared for a moment. "Docking ports? I don't remember seeing those on the hull, did we?"

"We were pulled off for fifty days to secure the wards, remember? The Keepers could have done it." Malon tried to suppress his excitement at the discovery.

"Wait, wait. What are you saying?" Westir said in bewilderment. ""They knew what was coming and arranged this? They made two hundred docking ports in fifty days?" He was incredulous.

"They may not be docking ports but grappling sites," Malon said, checking his console as more data flowed in. "It's all guess work. Incredible as it sounds, when you think about it, there's no one else who can pull it off. Look-," he pointed at the live feed, "those ships are moving fast, I wonder who's directing them. They're simultaneously aligning precisely to the ports ."

"Maybe they're controlled by an A.I," Westir muttered uneasily as the ships settled on the hull. What were they going to do? Were they going to just sit there? He frowned, trying to think. "Wait a minute, they're going to boost the station out of orbit!" Staggered by this discovery, he stared at the screen in disbelief. "That's crazy. With only two hundred ships, that's just going to tear up holes in the hull, we have to stop this!"

Malon grabbed him by the arm before he could move. "Wait. There's something we're not seeing yet."

"See what? See them break up this station and everyone down to the ground below? I'm not-," Westir began to shake off the restraining arm.

"Calm down. If there were as much danger as you think, there would be no official sanction for this." Malon nodded when Westir stared at him. The human's reaction was hardly surprising. The blanched face and watery red eyes shouted his night long dalliance with the bottle. A deficient weakness considering the tasks he had to attend to every day. If there wasn't an acute shortage in technicians and engineers, he was certain Drake would have fired the human long ago. "They knew, West. The Council, the Conclave."

"But-," Westir shook his head, trying to clear it. "Someone..."

"I'm still banking that the Keepers are behind it. They know more about the station than anyone else alive." Malon relaxed his gripe on the human's arm when he was certain he had calmed down.

"Have you tried talking to one? They don't even know we're here, how could they tell anyone what they are going to do?"

"Well, if they did talk-," Malon nodded towards the screen, "it's to whomever is piloting those ships. And I'm not-." He broke off as alarms wailed.

Warning messages began to appear on their consoles. Westir whirled to his station, eyes wide in horror as readings on the power output in the junction he was supposed to monitor began to rise. What was going on? It shouldn't be happening. Frantically, he tried to diagnose the problem while praying at the same time that his distraction wasn't the cause of it.

"The reactor core...the energy output is increasing," Malon exclaimed, eyes blinking rapidly. "I don't understand this, I'm getting anomalous readings along the structure of the hull."

"From the ships?" Westir tried to force his sweating hands to remain steady. Despite the alarming situation, none of his colleagues behind him were screaming to get out though he could hear Drake's voice rapping out orders.

"No, they seemed to be from unknown devices."

"Devices?! Where..whoa..." Westir grabbed hold of the edge of his work station as gravity pulled heavily at him. "What..," he gasped as the pull increased, his knees buckled. He dropped to the floor. Malon was having a better time at staying upright. He didn't try to stop the human's down slide, choosing instead to concentrate on the data streaming in.

As Westir struggled to get back up again, his omni-tool blipped. Ignoring it, he reared up and reached for his work station, intending to pull himself up. His wrist hit the edge, depressing the answer key on his omni-tool. He was startled when a young voice called anxiously.

"Hello? Hello? Mr Westir, can you hear me? We need help!"

SSV Glasgow

"What the..." Dorrin stared at his screen, the sandwich he was chomping down held midway between plate and himself. There was some sort of lightning flash across the hull of the Citadel, so fast he almost missed it. Now he fancied there was some sort of shimmer over it. A mass effect field? Dropping the half-eaten sandwich onto the plate at his elbow, he punched in a series of commands into the console, tying in to scans. Before he could finish, another development caught his attention.

The alien ships had fired their engines.