Spread across the deck are six gleaming tubes of silver metal streaked with indigo.
Each holds a dead soldier.
As ever, the Normandy's scarcity shows through: Coffins from the casings of the torn-down missiles, burned clean with omnitools and 'painted' with servo grease mixed with paintball round pigments. It's all so cheap. How is one to take death seriously, with such hurried funerals?
Liara doesn't only note the absence of sound in the gathered crew, she feels it as grimness encircles her. It's quiet and unhappy and cold on the deck; like they've all fallen into a snowbank.
Humans are so short-lived, so fragile, and so willing to fling themselves at death. How can a race function with death so ever-present? Are the few years they can live not as precious to them as the centuries to come are to Liara?
Is this hollow ceremony, or is there truth to the grief? If they grieve what's lost, then why do they risk?
Liara wants to scream these questions at Chakwas or Kaidan, but even her social skills are sharp enough to warn her away from that blunder. She does not understand how humans ever spend a single moment happy when pain, sickness, and violence are their constant companions and their minds frame questions they will not live to see answered. For a human, 'a good life' with love, children, and meaningful work can be over and done before an asari would feel the Maiden's Madness and leave her mother's home.
A whistle pierces the silence, snagging her wandering mind and grabbing her focus.
Shepard steps out of the elevator in her dress blues, the blue-and-green enamel and platinum of her Star of Terra glinting on her left breast above two rows of smaller pins.
Liara wants when it comes to Kate Shepard. Wants in so many ways. but right now she wants to get closer. Wants to memorize every medal so she can look up their meanings later. Wants to read the chronicles of Shepard's courage like glyphs raised on the stone of a fortress.
What miracles has she wrought, and would she tell me the stories?
"ATTEN-SHUN!" Pressly bellows. "Officer on deck."
Dozens of pairs of boots scrape as technicians, marines, and mechanics snap into place, their bodies straight as spears, and all aimed heavenwards.
She's never seen anything like it. Huntresses don't stand like this. They don't move like this. Not on the prowl, and not in parades. For them, a formal salute is a palm held over the breast where rank markings or the Mark of Kurinth reside. Respect to a commander is silence and attentive eyes, and ritual is far placed behind stealth, grace, and efficiency of motion.
Shepard's head is high, eyes sharp, jaw set hard. Her coppery curls do not dance just above her shoulders in that way that so captivates Liara. Even they are somber, pulled against her skull in a bun so tight Liara wonders if it hurts. It can't possibly, can it? They cut their hair, after all. An officer's cap is tucked under her arm and a bladed weapon-ceremonial, no doubt-rests on her hip.
Wait. Perhaps not so ceremonial. She fires a pistol with her left, and the blade is on her right hip, to be drawn by the dominant hand. The pommel is dense-cored with tungsten, perhaps-the mass calling out to Liara. It shines under the lights and when she focuses her senses, a thin band of eezo flickers in her vision like smoke, with a larger deposit hidden somewhere within the scabbard.
Not ceremonial, or perhaps, both ceremonial and lethal.
Enhancing her dress uniform's ornamentation to make a warp sword, however simplistic: Clever, resourceful, and somewhat irreverent. So perfectly like Kate.
All around her, the humans move like motes of dust and sound stretches like a drop of tree sap. I must have slipped into the Huntress' Trance. That is not how humans move.
She exhales sharply and digs her fingernails into her palms to force herself out of the trance and experience this like they do.
Navigator Pressley salutes Kate, and she returns it. There's a difference in the fingers used, angle and duration, rich with coded meaning. Perhaps indicating she is the superior, or her service in the Marine branch of the Alliance rather than the Navy. Liara has no idea what to look for but suspects that high-speed cameras and VI analysis would find Kate flawless down to the millimeter.
A meager breakfast sizzles unhappily in her stomach. Something tense crawls along her arms, her shoulders, and stiffens her crests. It's old and fearful and comes from ancient asari; some instinctive fear that protected her foremothers from sharks and leviathans and eezo drakes and snakes: The Predator. Even through the glow of her no doubt doomed infatuation-after last night, perhaps it's not so shallow and Goddess help her, not so doomed-she cannot help but see those traits in Shepard.
The transformation is uncanny.
This is not the woman cut to the bones by the loss of 'her' marines who swore Liara to silence before she tucked her chapped, tear-dampened cheek against her neck and shook apart with ragged breaths and silent sobs and slept in her arms, her body so still it frightened Liara.
No matter their desires or Kate's promises, her body was spent from her exertions in combat and her crew was hurting. She could only spare a few moments for Liara last night. But in those moments, she drew comfort from her. She may have been a civilian, but Liara was someone Kate could trust, and a place she could be weak without shame. Not an ordinary 'first date' as the human saying goes, but intimate and raw, so it was perfect. It was with Kate, and there was no one else, so she could relax. The only human in the room wouldn't judge, or mutter, or laugh at her. Nothing else mattered.
Kate Shepard was bothered by death last night, but today Commander Shepard cannot be. No officer can be. Liara remembers her mother's Archon telling her that a moment's hesitation ordering one Huntress into danger-or to her death-risks the loss of all.
Today she is a leader, a presence, an avatar of war made of unbreakable, immaterial stuff no enemy could ever destroy: Will, courage, and pride.
She is wearing her mythos as a skin. Twenty thousand slavers and rapers landed in the fields of Ilyria, too many for the armies guarding it. But when they laid dead, the Lioness still lived, snarling, pacing a keen watch in the breach.
At the cost of the people in the photos in Shepard's cabin, Liara suspects. The little row of photos that begins with her father. Surely it's a memorial, somehow? The man in the photo from front of the bar might be a relative-he has red hair common to the genetics of Irish, Scots and others, like the Shepards-but the child in the next photo is not. Her face and garb speak to roots in Central Asia and to the observations of the religion humans call Islam. Perhaps an account of Elysium that detailed Shepherd's involvement would mention them? Something to research.
Shepard taps on her omni-tool's controls and it powers down with a soft warble, drawing Liara's attention back to the real world rather than her over-complicated yearnings.
She lays her palm on Grecio's casket, murmurs something in a language Liara's translator labels as Latin, then steps back and salutes the featureless steel.
"You're relieved, soldier. Godspeed."
Every soul aboard joins her in salute, even Joker, wobbling on his damaged legs but straight-backed all the same.
She turns in place, marches a single pace to the next casket, turns to face it, and repeats the ritual. Grecio. Chase. Dubyanksi. Lowe. Tanaka. Until she stands before Fredrick's casket.
"Commander, if I may?"
Fifty pairs of eyes lock onto her, the alien interloper who dares to interrupt this painful moment. Garrus' mandibles flick-shock, or surprise, perhaps. Wrex huffs, his lips curling up into a smile as wide as her ribcage. Tali's stiff posture-all quarians might as well be navy-slackens and she tilts her helmeted and silk-wrapped head.
Shepard's eyes linger-Is she angry?-and she nods.
Liara steps up to the casket, bows her head, and digs deep for memories of her mother presiding over rituals at the Temple of Athame in Armali and what few Siarist services she's been a part of during University-unseemly for a T'Soni, the creators of the Justicar Order-trying to boil it down to something humans can tolerate.
Siarist rites. Because they will not want to hear 'the Goddess'.
"All that lives, loves. All that loves, burns with light. All that gives light is sacred. May the Light take you back to those you love. "
She draws in a breath, hard and fast, between her teeth. "I'm sorry, Cameron."
Shepard cocks her head-slightly, human vision might not catch it-and she repeats the words in Armalic and Serraci. She nods to Pressley, who wheels to face the crew.
"DIS-MISSED!"
Just like that, formality, ritual and strength dissolve. Something raw replaces them.
August 30th, 2183
SSV Normandy SR-1 | On-Station at Systems Alliance Navy Depot 03 Lieutenant Commander (Lt. Cmdr.) Katherine Shepard | Systems Alliance Marine Corps, Covert Operations Command, N7 Rating Biotics/Assault (primary) and Infiltration/Demolitions/Wetwork (secondary) Acting commander of the SSV Normandy | Member of the Citadel Council's Special Tactics and Reconnaissance (Spectre)
Shepard slurps the foam off the top of the not-quite-human-coffee, not-quite-asari-tea concoction that Liara's been calling 'liar's kaffe' and passing out to all the biotics aboard...including Wrex. She ought to mass-market this stuff. If you can get a krogan battlemaster to drink something other than ryncol with breakfast, you can do anything.
She presses her thumb to the reader on her datapad.
Four messages.
Docking clearance for SSV Normandy (FR-87-X) denied, per INTELCOMM. Foreign operatives present aboard, including Hierarchy irregulars and anti-Republic terrorists. The ship is not clear. Crew to be detained and debriefed aboard SSV Vigilance with charges to be determined after investigation. Breach of Cesium-Storm level. FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY. CRYPTOGRAPHY CONFIRMED. SENDER CONFIRMED. (Rear Adm. P. Kasparov, Systems Alliance Naval Intelligence)"Motherfucker," she whispers.
Anti-Republic terrorists? Someone should let the asari government know that The Thirty are evil, then duck.
It's embarrassing to be wearing the same uniform as whoever wrote this. Surely a group of rich, influential families with no legal role or veto power who have immense influence on a government are conspirators, not guides? Surely it all works just like the humans do because asari are just humans in body paint? Surely over 40,000 years of recorded history, the history of a different people on a different planet can be understood using 5,000 years of human history tops and slapping on some assumptions? Surely whoever writes this shit up doesn't also worry about the Communist Menace stealing his Precious Bodily Fluids...
Liara might get a laugh out of the implication. Besides, the crew needs a night of stupid. They need to recharge. Maybe a movie night.
She wouldn't want to tell Garrus or any turian he's 'irregular', not without ten kilometers between them and broken line-of-sight. It's true that Turians never muster out, and Garrus is on paper a reservist (he's a turian, and neither disabled or old) but that doesn't mean he's a threat. Turian universal service didn't stop the recently-retired Director of Systems Alliance Intelligence from getting photographed stuffed to the gills with turian cocks in a nightclub on Terra Nova. Kasparov knows that: It's how she got her job. Maybe Petra has some vices of her own? Bekenstein brat, if Shepard recalls. She could make some recommendations of local asari whose hourly rates are theft when you consider the quality of the merchandise. Or maybe she's more of a krogan kind of gal? Size queens and being greedy in one's career can go hand-in-hand...tab-in-slot. Wrex would do it just to see the horror on Shepard's face when he returned to the ship.
Shepard has caskets burning holes on her deck. She owes six families dead loved ones to bury and three more their still-breathing loved ones who won't be fit to fight for months, years, or ever again.
The right thing to do is get those marines to their families, but the low to mid-level brass wants to get their brownie points in for guarding allies of convenience doing it because it's right-Note to self, start paying Tali and Garrus a salary-and soft-spoken asari maidens too shy to sustain eye contact. Liara was raised around the sort of matriarchs who can wave a blue hand and send fleets and armies to bring the Goddess' wrath: Destruction from orbit and throats slit in the moonlight. Doesn't that make her support better to have?
No. Apparently not.
Can't have those sort of people backing Shepard up. Can't have Garrus and Liara putting in a good word to their governments. Can't have the first human Spectre be seen as a gesture of multi-species cooperation rather than human supremacy when the Spectres are a multi-species force by design.
Hopefully, that's all the stupid the databanks on this piece of junk can hold. She tabs to the next message.
Shepard, on my personal authority, the Normandy is to hold position until ordered otherwise. FLEETCOM is arranging resupply by wire-operated drones. No word yet on your KIAs, but MPs Ogoro and Reisman got clever. Sued demanding transfer of the crew's remains via diplomatic channels on the Citadel. The judge declared you're on a Council-flagged ship as a Spectre. It's our best shot.Suing an alien government to sanction our own government to piss off our military. Never underestimate a politician in an election year, Shepard.
Stand tall, Commander. Your marines will make their way home. Hackett out.
CRYPTOGRAPHY CONFIRMED. SENDER CONFIRMED. (Flt. Adm. Steven Hackett, Commander of SSV Everest (DN-08), Supreme Commander of Systems Alliance Navy, Commander of Fifth Fleet)
Better than the last message at least.
Kitty,I saw your report in the flow, and I'm sorry. The Einstein's group will be on exit lane watch at the Arcturus-Widow short relay for 68 more hours. I've cleared part of Deck Six to receive casualties. If you can get your losses there, I will see to them. We can store indefinitely, and see to it they get an all-hands ramp ceremony back home.
I got your letters. (The love letter is fine. Send it to her.) Delayed send from the muck? Only you, my daughter, could get bored while being hunted by killer robots, sleeping alone in a foxhole under acid rain. We'll talk when I see you again. And if she wants the same from you, I better see her there too, scales and all. Mothers out-rank on girlfriends.
Love as long as I breathe,
Mum.
PS-You owe me a radioman. Turns out he's a documentary vid nut and saw the associated-individuals tag when forwarding your letter. I've gotten forty-two download requests for scientific papers during his last three off-duty shifts.
SECURE TRANSMISSION. NON-CLASSIFIED INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION. CRYPTOGRAPHY IS CONFIRMED. SENDER CONFIRMED. (Cpt. Hannah Shepard, Commander, SSV Einstein (CA-03) Third Fleet)
Digging her teeth into her trembling lip, she blinks the tears out. Leave it to her mum.
Spectre, I was disappointed to hear about your troubles with Alliance facilities. To dishonor your fallen to satisfy egos and office politics is vile. I cannot override Alliance orders, but I notified Hackett. Hopefully, he can.I received a letter from Maiden T'Soni, written during your adventure on Maji. I've forwarded her ideas on Geth weaponry to one of our development groups in High Command. If they produce any concrete suggestions, you will be notified. No matter what happens in the weeks to come, know that on some day, on some world, your fellow Huntresses will owe you their lives, because you reported a problem we needed to be aware of.
Take care of Liara. Our families were in contact, often, when she was a taele and in fact, sometimes I raised her, after Nezzy's separation from her bondmate. I have not been graced with daughters, and I confess I borrow those of my friends and colleagues when my matronly urges for family overtake me.
Go with grace, Huntress Shepard. May the Goddess guide your step and your strike.
Councilor Tevos T'Reve, Councilor of the Asari Republics. Peer of the Society of the Peerless. One of The Thirty Students. Daughter of Alrik Resso T'Reve of House T'Reve. Protector of the Republic of Anerzesa.
Joker turns halfway in his chair.
"Mail-call, Commander?"
"Yeah."
"What's the situation?"
"Fucked," Shepard grumbles. "Docking is a no-go. Apparently we're to await pick-ups by the spooks on the Vigilance for 'processing'. So be sure you clear your extranet history, mister."
He grins.
"It gets better. We can top off, but only up to half fuel. Same as any civilian ship in distress. Ammo resupply of civilian grade blocks only, delivered by commercial shipping. I had to pay market rates! They're treating us like a plague ship."
Joker whistles.
"Some paper pushers and spooks need a grenade up the ass," she snarls.
"Copy that, ma'am." Joker tips his cap at her. "Before I break out the string and can and pull alongside that cruiser, what should I transmit? Commander Shepard recommends rectal explosive therapy?"
Shepard snorts. "Permission denied. But if you see a cruiser flying SAINT colors, go quiet and get out of the system. That is an order."
"Copy that."
August 30th, 2183
SSV Normandy SR-1 | On-Station at Systems Alliance Navy Depot 03 Navigator (Cmdr.) Charles Pressley | Systems Alliance Navy, Fifth Fleet, 63rd Scout Flotilla Acting second-in-command of the SSV Normandy
Pressley tugs his collar straight-this is the problem with still using wool for bridge blues-and tucks the razor back in his shaving kit.
Clipped to his duty datapad is an OSD marked 'Complete Idiot's Guide to Prothean Studies' from a friend at Grissom Academy. Doctor T'Soni isn't going anywhere, clearly. So know thy enemy. Or know thy translator. Or know thy civilian consultant. Or know thy Commander's paramour. Know thy something.
He can still see the frightened little jerk back she made, the downward turn of her mouth as she did whatever that was with her biotics to push his hand away. It was like the only place he could put his hand where she wanted it. He could ask Alenko how she did it, just to be sure, but he doubts an Alliance biotic knows that trick. Maybe Shepard does, if she learned it on Thessia. And Liara used it just so it wouldn't look like he was about to hit a woman...or a...well, what else would he call an asari?
Christ. What was I thinking?.
He knows better. He taught his boys better. Three hours of sleep the night before means fuck-all. Not an excuse. Not for this. He shouldn't have been there if he couldn't control his temper.
T'Soni didn't draw attention to it. She just sat down and worked on the problem. Unless she planned that quip of Williams' ahead of time, but he doesn't think it's likely.
"Four minutes to duty shift," the VI drones. "Please report to Commander Shepard in the Mess Hall."
"Thanks."
"Oh. Yes, of course."
The VI's reply was delayed by a hair, and the pitch was off. Nice touch, programming dumb-as-dirt VIs to mimic the actual surprise pre-Contact shipboard AIs felt when treated like people.
Makes the old men feel at home.
He falls in beside Shepard as her 'morning briefing' circles the CIC at a fast clip. From the flush on their throats, the open zippers of their bodysuits, and the darkening of the undershirts, looks like Ensigns Grenado and Chase fell in with the skipper during her morning run-marines like Shepard are goddamned children, can't sit still-and just slowed down to start their reports.
Waaberi is here too, and Thank God at least one person besides himself adhered to Navy custom for this briefing. Though, from the way her wool-wrapped hips sway as she follows the commander and the wandering eyes of the techs behind her, he suspects that Waaberi just didn't want the attention she would receive in PT gear.
Shepard did her morning run in full armor, with that lunatic pistol of hers strapped onto her and thigh dummy-weights for the rest of her weapons clipped to her suit. And the CIC techs are going about their work like that's normal. Because he's surrounded by goddamned Marines.
He snaps to attention. "Commander. Ensigns."
Shepard nods, flicking a momentary, half-hearted salute in reply to his. She digs an eezo-water tube out of her armor's pouches and guzzles it, saying nothing.
"At ease, Pressley."
He had to stay at attention while she stood there sweating, grinning at him. Goddamned Marines.
She gestures to a stretch of wall behind the CIC's podium, the only place onboard where five people could stand and three could lean back and catch their breath without getting in the way or tangling in wires.
"Ex, you'll go last. We're not going anywhere just yet, so Navigation isn't a priority."
"Yes, ma'am."
"Grenado, you and your second will report to me in the cargo bay at 1515. Need someone with an eye for ballistics."
"Waaberi, I want you and Adams to look at the IES shunting, the channels around the main gun and the tiger stripes on the underside of the hull. Vakarian had a brainstorm about it and I want Ops and Engineering to look at before we pas-Something to say, Grenado?"
"That goddamned turian," she snarls. "Not that, ma'am," she adds, stepping back a half-pace at the look in Shepard's eyes. "It'd be the same if he's human. He's been fiddling with Snappy every moment he's not sleeping or on rotation. Muttering about 'calibrations'."
"Is he damaging the ship? Or the gun?"
"No, ma'am. Just re-tuning her...I think. Maybe using Turian methods? I don't recognize the tests. The gun was the turians' contribution to the Normandy, just like the IES was ours. I haven't simmed his tweaks yet. They might give us quicker round-to-round time, but the heat will be a bitch. More than usual."
Shepard hums, head tilted. Then a smile spreads on her face.
"If he wants to be a volunteer gunnery officer, give him the full experience. He's your scut monkey, now. Scut birdie. Whatever."
"Aye-aye."
"Waaberi, anything to report on the IES? With that monster dreadnought from Eden Prime out there, I want us running quiet in and out of every system, until we can establish it's not present. It's rated for thirteen hours of normal operations, right? Five hours of combat?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"I want sixteen normal, six combat. Whatever you can do to quiet our blueshift during exit from FTL and in-atmo infrared, do it."
"Ma'am, that's significantly past design specs."
"So was that maneuver Joker pulled on Maji to distract the cruiser, and it didn't even tickle the little red line. This ship can do it. Respect the iron, but I want creativity. No holds barred. Draw power from other systems, seal off non-essential compartments and let them cook. I'm forwarding you some texts on submarine warfare from the 20th. Lot of parallels with the Normandy: Small ship, cramped quarters, extended tours with no resupply, survival by stealth. Might give you some ideas."
Waaberi's eyes flick from her own pad to the commander and back.
"These...might help, ma'am. Thank you."
"I trust you to write up whatever procedures the crew needs to follow once we've run the math."
"Aye-aye."
"Ex, anything for me?"
Pressley shakes his head. "Not as of yet, ma'am. I've updated star-charts based on our last three runs."
She hands him a stack of OSD chips.
"Since we just had to pay for our ammo, I want independent funding. Those are contracts from charting and mining companies. Hefty kickbacks if we mark deposits for them. You're familiar with Alliance rules on strategic minerals. I don't want corpos to gobble up things the fleet needs, but there's a lot of rocks out there to go around. Take a look and give me a security and feasibility report by 0900 the day after tomorrow."
"Aye-aye."
Shepard salutes, then lifts her own datapad and starts flicking through it. They take that for the dismissal it is.
August 30th, 2183
Tayseri Ward | Citadel
Huntress Slaere K'Literis | Keeper of Third Watch in the Republican Guard of Sonalere | Sub-Archon of House T'Soni Guard First Huntress of the Protector-in-Waiting (Liara T'Soni)
Slaere's eyes snap open and she draws a sharp breath that makes her ribs shriek in protest. She's soaked, she's cold, and she's...she's...she's laying on the shore of an artificial pond on the Citadel, surrounded by broken glass. How did I get here? The hot throb of pain that fills her skull suggests that she won't be finding the answers in memory, not soon.
"It's alive!" cries a squeaky voice. She turns her head-at no small cost in pain-and finds herself face to face with a salarian child who can't be over six. He hasn't even reached half his adult height. No, she hasn't. Strange to see a future dalatrass wandering around with no minder.
"She, Velnue, not it. And better her than me," a smoky, multi-toned voice drawls. On the other side of her impromptu sickbed is a female turian balanced on that awkward blade's edge between adolescence and young adulthood. Well formed and curved talons adorn her hands, which seem half again too large even for her gangly limbs. She's all length and no bulk, though her chest is already rounder than the flat perfect-triangle of children or adult males, her waist thick and her hip-shelf quite broad-all the things she would need to carry a kit in her rigid body. In ages past, she might have been a mother already. She's at least thirteen. Won't be here much longer before she's sent to basic and then to her Tenth of Life. There is a pleasant crackle to the turian's presence-something that sings to Slaere-but if she is a biotic, it's rude to mention it. Pity how the turians treat theirs.
"You don't like swimming?"
"I don't like drowning," the turian retorts, her mandibles flicking in half-annoyance, half-mirth.
"It's the same thing, for you."
"You do the swimming, I'll walk through the sun that would scorch your scales."
"Deal." Slaere reaches out. The turian wraps capped talons around her wrist bones and pulls her upright with ease.
"Thanks..."
"Raesa. Raesa Katisus. You?"
What name do I give her? What orders am I under? What was the last thing Shiala-
Eyes, dusk-blue, decorated by a filigree of age-lightened scales, shimmering with pure Art. Full of disdain.
Eyes, sunrise-golden, familiar, sharp and steady. Full of...pity?
Palm strike to the chest, a momentary surge of mind within mind. Surely not a forced meld? and a biotic throw out the window. It would explain the broken glass.
Her reflexes kept her alive when she went underwater.
Catch the Climber, Shiala had sent in the conversation meld-established and broken in mid-blow, impressive-before throwing her out a window for her insubordination. Insubordination not against her Lady or her Republic, but that turian who has warped Benezia.
Shiala could have killed her with half a dozen different blows before throwing her out the window. Shiala knows that she's deadlier, and she knows Slaere knows that. That too, is a message.
Even with the concussion making her vision hazy, she can tell that the west and south walls of the apartment must have faced concrete or sky-lanes. But Shy threw her out the east window, hard enough to be sure she'd clear the gardens and hit the water.
*'Catch the Climber'. The clim-"
The realization chills the blood in her crests. I used to call Liara the Little Climber. Oh, Goddess.
"Mina," she lies, giving the turian girl's hand a firm shake. "Mina Iluves."
"Talne Vint!" The salarian girl adds, bouncing foot-to-foot.
"Do you know where the nearest taxi terminal is?"
That hit squad was for her, but it wasn't Benezia who sent it. Three batarians and nine bare-face turians is not her Teacher's style, not at all. But a turian Spectre with no love lost for his government, who's always been willing to employ bare-faces?
Surely not...her Teacher wouldn't have allowed Saren...he wouldn't dare...and the Matriarch never would hurt her, no matter how disappointed she was in Slaere.
Slaere clutches her elbow tighter against her side, trading the pain from the bandages and the resulting alertness for the risk of leakage and with it, detection.
"Matron?" The taele beside her asks-whimpers, poor thing-silver eyes meeting Slaere's and keeping them. Making sure her displeasure is written on her face. Clever little thing.
She shouldn't let the child follow-she is a Paladin, sworn to protect-but she's short on options. And she owes it to her, at least to see her to the next safe place. Without the batarian heavy gunner being nailed in place with a spar of half molten, backwards-curved steel that just been a piece of safety railing, Slaere would be dead.
Seeing them turn their weapons on an innocent was...inspirational, if nothing else. Perhaps that was the point: The Athame sent the girl, when she was exhausted and despondent. Sent her as a reminder of Kurinth and Slaere's oaths. Something to push her bleeding body off the deck for. Something to strive against.
Biotic smithing isn't a skill often seen on the Citadel, and for a not-yet-maiden to have mastered it enough to use it in the heat of the moment? The child is a treasure. Smith, artist, teacher...whatever her path, she will flourish. And those animals would have blown her to pieces just to get to Slaere. What sort of monsters use a cluster grenade in a civilian area-worst of the Wards or not-and how did they get that sort of hardware onto this station?
She groans. "Goddess. Of course."
There is no other conclusion: They got it aboard with the help of someone who could clear it with the wave of a talon.
"What is it, uy'kura?"
"Nothing. Your accent, is it Ulee?"
Her charge shakes her red-scaled head and flicks a finger against something in her collar. A necklace. Handmade, with chunky, rough links of brass.
"Kessilli, then."
Explains how she did that trick with the railing.
"Yes."
"Help me to an info terminal, please."
A lift field wraps around her, lightening her so much that she only has to move her legs for disguise's sake. She needs to look like she's walking.
One concealed limp in microgravity at a time, she hobbles up to the podium and activates it.
"I am Avina. Welcome to the Citadel. How may I assist you?"
"It is not the place of a grain of sand to stand against the sea; for the grain has no patience. Sand must embrace sea."
The projected VI stutters, winks out, and is replaced by a more detailed, more opaque projection that moves far more smoothly. Haptics on the terminal sputter and spark as the AI opens backdoors built in by the first technicians to work on the Citadel-Asari techs-override the detritus installed in the centuries since.
Legend has it that one of the flagship's engineers had a bondmate named Avina.
"And by patience, sand becomes rock, and rock becomes mountain," the projection replies. "Stand by... You are authenticated. Welcome, Paladin of the Republic of Sonalere. Long may you serve the Goddess, with the Huntress' blessing."
The taele's mouth drops open and Slaere grins at her. About time I surprise you for a change.
"I was right," the little one mumbles. "I was right!"
Slaere slides a scrambler circuit into Avina's reader.
"Connect me to Soneska City Administration. Geologic and Topographic Department, Fluctuation Analyst Myl Sayle. QEC relay with double-blind security. Maximum priority."
"Connecting."
The audio wave disappears, and a video projection replaces it. The elcor dame wears a red-trimmed shawl of thauvi wool over the gravity harness, and the folds on her face are draped in silver chains delicate as frost on pine needles.
"With confusion: Slaere?"
"You lied about your name," the taele whines.
"I'm..." Slaere chuckles, hissing at the pain that moving her ribs brings.
"Alarmed: You're injured."
"I'll survive, siame."
"Spousal exasperation: You always say that. Genuine query: Who is the child?"
"Inu B'Goyi...madam. Ma'am? Matron?"
"Amused: Close enough."
"Myl, I need you to check the underside of the flower vase. Take it to Vepei, across the hall."
"Irritation: You should not put secret documents in gifts."
Slaere groans, more from embarrassment than pain. "No," she admits. "I really shouldn't, my love."
The help that arrives is not what Slaere expected. Two full teams of commandos in powered hardsuits spill out of a C-Sec Political shuttle-and not off-the-shelf kit, either. Current revision Sundancers. By the angle of ascent as it leaves, she thinks the pilot wasn't asked if they could use the craft. No, she realizes. Not commandos. Huntresses. Their suits wear enameled claw-marks on the breastplates. They're armored from feet to crest-tips and armed with enough hardware to take apart a krogan platoon.
"Paladin?" The leader calls out.
"Yes."
So many armed asari in one courtyard in the not-exactly-VIP part of the station is already drawing attention. Six of the huntresses pair up and turn to face the crowd in a triangular warning. One hand stays on their pistols and one on what look like barrier batons: Solid steel and nickel, with a perfect sphere of eezo encapsulated at the tip.
The crowd shuffles back, deciding to gawk elsewhere.
The shortest of the squad steps forward and toggles her helmet transparency to reveal a white-scaled face and crests scattered with splashes of dark gray. A salt-crab, like Slaere herself. Unusually, she has all the muscle, but little of the height.
"Councilor Tevos sends her regards."
"House T'Soni sends its thanks."
"And House T'Reve offers you safe passage. Get inside our cordon. We'll arrange transit. You too, fast-fish."
Inu bows.
"Yes, uy'kura."
"The Protector is off-world. She is traveling with a Spectre. By definition, that is not safe. Not completely. The risk may be minor, but the line of succession is short. If we prepare only when Liara needs it, we prepare too late. I want her to have everything, though I hope she needs none of it."
"I want the entire team activated, and quietly. Security. Advisors. Investors. Ligitators. Pilots. If they are not ready, make ready the Fortune and the Patience."
Vepei's eyes widen and her brow tattoos—these post-human fads are bizarre—chase upwards to the root of her crests.
"The artifact ships? You can't be serious, Slaere."
"You have your orders, and I have mine."
"I...of course, Paladin."
Slaere disconnects before Vepei can catch her swallowing the sob trying to wriggle up her throat. If Benezia dies chasing this madness with Saren, I've failed her. And Liara. No maiden should have to bury their mother at a hundred and six.
She clicks the dagger flush into the Sundancer's thigh plating and sweeps her armored fingers over the mechanism to test it. On the other bench, Inu stares at the viewscreen in wonder. She hasn't said it, but it's in the joy and excitement flushing the scales all over her face: She's going back to the Motherworld. Whatever misfortune had her alone in the worst part of the Ward, she survived it.
"Thank you," she whispers.
"Do you have anyone, little one?"
Inu shakes her head.
"I know someone who would love to put you up."
She can hear the scolding from Myl already. "Affected anger: If you start seeing someone else, I should see her too."
Alliance Personnel Database | Corporal Javier Grecio, 1879-BN-3186
End of Service Instructions | Form SA-PMGT-D005.To be read by the commanding officer upon death of personnel.
Vigilamus aeternus. Per aspera ad astra.
-PERSONALIZED MESSAGE BEGINS-
Skipper,
If you're reading this, then you can't bring me up on mast for calling you that. I hope I went out swinging, and that it mattered. That's all any marine can ask for. It's all anyone can ask for.
If I got spaced or burned up, the wife says to save the credits. She'll figure something out. But if there's a body, my kids will want to say goodbye. Josie volunteered to get the call. There's a letter attached to this packet that only Jo can decrypt. Please tell her I regret not getting to know my daughter as well as I should have.**
Buy the crew a round on me.
Greasy
Alliance Personnel Database | Specialist Cameron Fredricks, 8675-30-9D4N
End of Service Instructions | Form SA-PMGT-D005.To be read by the commanding officer upon death of personnel.
Vigilamus aeternus. Per aspera ad astra.
-PERSONALIZED MESSAGE BEGINS-
They say death is but the next great adventure, and if you're reading this, that's the adventure I'm on right now. I hope I was somewhere way, way out when it happened. Farther than I'd ever been before. Farther than anyone had ever been. Most of the kids I grew up with won't ever leave the dome, but I died under a foreign star. You can't get much better than that.
If you had the displeasure of serving with me for more than a few weeks, you realized I'm a lunatic for vids and songs from the 20th and 21st. I'd like a movie night in my honor. Some suggestions are attached.
You also noticed I'm a ginger. If it's Shepard reading this-gingers unite!-she knows the drill. Booze. Singing. Sad music. Pretty girls talking about what a great lover I was.
And do something you've never done, whoever is reading this. Go on an adventure, for me.
Oh, and if you heathens couldn't tell from my serial number, you need to play "867-5309 / Jenny" by Tommy Tutone at my wake.
August 31st, 2183
SSV Normandy SR-1 | On-Station at Systems Alliance Navy Depot 03
Lieutenant Commander (Lt. Cmdr.) Katherine Shepard | Systems Alliance Marine Corps, Covert Operations Command, N7 Rating Biotics/Assault (primary) and Infiltration/Demolitions/Wetwork (secondary)
Reading engineers' logs isn't usually this boring. And what she asked Waaberi for is cutting-edge research that only civilians with "Doctor" slapped in there somewhere get to do.
The acknowledge light on the door flashes red. Personnel not pre-authorized. Shepard taps her omnitool.
"Yes?"
"Commander?"
Speaking of doctors...
Shepard keys open the door and Liara ducks under the threshold—shy or not, she's still got the height of an asari maiden. Teal cheeks flush purple and Liara's lovely throat flexes as she swallows a nervous lump.
"I wondere-" Liara wrings her hands. Shepard's fingers twitch. I'd hold your hands, if it helped.
"I don't know how human funerary rituals affect cour-" Liara shakes her head, frowning at herself. If you're asking me out, you don't have to finish the sentence, Bluejay. Answer's yes.
Shepard tosses the datapad to the side and pushes herself off the bed.
"Liara," she begins, reaching out her hands. The maiden shivers-honestly shivers-at either her tone or the possibility of touch. "I want it, too. Maybe somewhere private, though. It's not forbidden, but some humans prefer that the mood be subdued, after a death."
"Oh! Of course, Command-"
Klaxons blare. Shepard curses an uncaring, clit-blocking universe and slams her hand on her omni-tool's comm controls.
"Explain, Joker."
"Chatter out of Moscow Stellaris. Not much. Not even a full message before it cut out. But it looks a lot like the last transmissions from Eden Prime before geth hit them."
She toggles channels and calls up her old Huntress' notes and pushing the metrics for a QEC compass's vibrations, radiation levels, and electrical charge in that region of the galaxy.
"Tali, what are the readings on the compasses? I need you to compare them to the following system."
"On it, Shepard." Khelish and Rannoashai mutterings so fast they blows past the universal translator follow.
"Is it a match, Tali?"
"On Bravo, yes. It's close, at least. Alpha is unchanged."
Fuck. There goes the element of surprise.
"Thanks."
She toggles back to Joker.
"Joker, hit the relay. I want us in the Chernobog system, yesterday. And push a mayday for that system to the Alliance battle-net. Anonymously."
"Aye-aye. ETA to relay, nineteen minutes. ETA to colony...shit. Nine hours, ma'am. Seven if I push it, and I will."
Joker's voice comes over MC1 before her comm link finishes the disconnect handshake.
"All hands secure for hard maneuvers. All departments, discharge excess and calculate transit mass. All stations, prepare for relay transit."
Shifting her stance for the dip in the deck she knows is coming, Shepard takes Liara's shaking hands in hers and brushes her thumbs across her palms. She stops shaking, instantly. When the plating tilts and the gravity slants for a split-second, Liara leans forward into her, wobbling on her feet. But she doesn't flinch. Shepard never felt like a magician before.
"We will get our chance, Liara. I swear we will."
A faint smile is her reward.
"I believe you."