Disclaimer: I do not own Mass Effect. This fictional story is not making me any money (unless BioWare takes note and decides to pay me).

A Hundred Memories for the Journey Home

Day Eight
(Week 2, Day 1)

"Major Alenko," Admiral Hackett's hologram greeted Kaidan. "It's been a week since we reestablished contact with the Normandy. I know it probably hasn't been easy for you to take command with Commander Shepard gone."

"The crew is handling it pretty well, sir, all things considered," Kaidan responded. "We're keeping busy, which helps. So does the end of the reapers."

"Well, the reapers have been dealt with, but Cerberus is another story," Hackett said. "Our intelligence teams have scattered reports of still-active cells. We don't have any clear idea of what they're really up to."

"Do you think there's a power vacuum created by the death of the Illusive Man, sir?" Kaidan asked. "Will someone try to assume control of the organization?"

Hackett's image shifted as the admiral rubbed his chin in thought. "Unknown, Major. We've got the Illusive Man's body, recovered from the Conduit, along with Admiral Anderson. There's a bit of a political argument going on as to what to do with it. Some scientists want to do an autopsy, whereas others—particularly Miranda Lawson—want to incinerate it. She seems to think that if given half a chance, sleeper agents will try to take the body and do to the Illusive Man what she did to Commander Shepard on Project Lazarus."

Kaidan stared at Hackett in mute shock. Yet he wouldn't put such an action past the Illusive Man; he was a megalomaniacal genius who would stop at nothing to ensure his goals. Surely there had to be a plan in place in the event of his untimely death.

"From what Miss Lawson says, in order to recreate the exact persona of the Illusive Man, Cerberus would need to get ahold of his brain; everything else can be recreated or enhanced by synthetic and cybernetic means."

The major found himself nodding before he spoke up. "She's right, sir. We've found out the hard way that Cerberus has no moral objections to doing whatever it takes to follow orders. If my recommendation means anything, listen to Miranda. She cut her ties with Cerberus and was nearly killed by Kai Leng; she has a better idea than anyone about what that organization can do."

Hackett nodded. "I'll take your opinion under advisement, Major. I'm also going to pass a couple of assignments on to you, since you'll be one of the only stealth units available once you reach the Pylos Nebula. At one time, Cerberus had an interest in one of the planets out there, when geth activity was at its peak. I'll send the full report to you; intel suggests its worth checking out."

"Yes sir," Kaidan said with a salute.

"Hackett out."

Kaidan switched off the comm panel and stood staring at the dark space where the admiral's holo image had been. And so it begins,he thought with some anticipation. Not that he minded helping the crew move large bins of ore around, squeezing as much of it as possible into every possible nook and cranny of the Normandy. It was an interesting change to just do manual work alongside the rest of the crew. Of course, he'd also felt like he'd pulled something in every part of his body when he'd woken up the next morning, but that came with the job.

He was expecting to spend another half day at the mining platform, before the A Team from Aysith showed up to start loading ore on their ships. The Normandy was already packed to the pylons, so now the techs were assisting in relocating one of the platforms to a newer, richer pocket of palladium that the Normandy had prospected while waiting for the C Team to depart two days ago.

Kaidan had received a brief update from Tali late last night; text-only. She seemed to think that with a minimum amount of patching using the next two shipments of ore, it would be safe to restart the mass effect field at the relay. Of course, they were going to have to get the ore refined and fabricated first, and they couldn't afford to cut corners.

I guess we're all learning new things, Kaidan thought to himself, turning and walking through the War Room. He paused at the security checkpoint, where Private Campbell greeted him and waved him through. The CIC seemed empty with all the techs hard at work elsewhere; Traynor was the only person in sight.

"You've received messages from Admiral Hackett on the private terminal, Major," Traynor said, glancing over her shoulder. "Also, Joker wanted me to tell you that he'd like to speak with you in the AI core."

"Oh...thanks," he said, pausing on his way to the terminal. Joker had had a much more positive outlook since the journey home had officially begun. Kaidan put a lot of that down to Liara's influence; the asari seemed to have decided that, among her other duties as Shadow Broker, she needed to keep track of Joker as well. He knew that the pilot was interested in reactivating EDI, if such a thing could be done, and with last day or so being stuck docked to the mining platform, Joker had been absent from the helmsman's chair.

What've you been doing down there? Kaidan wondered. He looked from the private terminal, with its blinking indicator light, to the elevator. First things first, he decided, pulling up the messages from Hackett. He briefly glanced through the two assignments before transferring the necessary data to his omnitool for further review. There were also additional messages, some personal, others from the Alliance, which Kaidan skimmed through. He'd get to them later. But then the last one caught his attention: Councilor Sparatus. The text read:

Spectre Alenko:

The Council requests that you look into a potential situation for us. A turian Spectre named Vitrian Corbus, accompanied by a Cabal was sent to investigate crucial economic holdings in the Kalabsha system just before the end of the war. It's been long enough that we fear his mission is incomplete at best, and compromised at worst.

In lieu of you having Spectre Shepard's ship at your disposal, as well as her team, we request that you take over Vitrian's assignment and report back your findings.

Councilor Sparatus

Kaidan reread the message and transferred the attached data packet to his omnitool before turning off the terminal and going up to the galaxy map's platform. Traynor had updated the display to indicate which relays were functioning presently, as well as the most recent traffic reports between systems.

The Kalabsha system was out in the Nubian Expanse, precisely where the Normandy wasn't planning to go. But it made sense to send a Spectre; that far out into the Attican Traverse, the Council was right to be concerned about starting an incident with whatever remained of the pirate and merc forces out in the Terminus Systems.

He could respect the Council's tactical decision, but that didn't mean he had to like the fact that it was going to tack extra days onto the Normandy's journey back to the local cluster.

Before his mind wandered too far, Kaidan headed to the elevator. He selected the third deck and, while he waited, pulled up one of the assignments from Hackett. The first was on a planet called Canalus, in the Dirada system. The available information from the Alliance suggested that Cerberus had previously had some interest in a particular site that had been controlled by the geth.

The elevator doors parted, interrupting Kaidan's reading. He closed the report and made his way to the AI core, greeting Dr. Chakwas in passing. When he activated the doors, they opened to reveal both Joker and Engineer Adams.

"Kaidan. Wow, that was fast," Joker said from where he was sitting gingerly in a chair, a portable terminal open on his lap. "I only talked to Traynor a few minutes ago." Then he apparently glanced at his watch. "Oh. I mean...an hour ago."

"She said you were up to something down here," Kaidan replied. His gaze strayed to where the immobile robot body was laid out on a workbench on the back wall. "What is it?"

Joker's face broke into a grin. "Liara hired Kasumi to steal the Cerberus plans for EDI."

Kaidan wasn't sure he had heard correctly; he blinked. "Run that by me again?"

"Uh, okay. The Prothean Expert hired the Master Thief to steal the Bad-Guy Cerberus plans for my super-hot disability mech," Joker tried.

"Kasumi worked with Shepard when you were with Cerberus," Kaidan put together. "And Liara is paying her to-"

"To steal stuff from Cerberus. Yeah. Turns out, Kasumi was making a regular tour of known Cerberus stations and pilfering whatever she thought would be useful for the Crucible. Since Liara knows everything, she asked Kasumi to do a job for her." Joker pointed to the screen. "I'm running an analysis of the code that's in EDI's blue box, versus what Cerberus had on record. There's some gaps, obviously, but it's a start."

Adams was monitoring his own portable terminal, hooked directly into one of the core's consoles. "We still haven't had our request for the original Titan VI code granted yet, which may help with some of the missing code strings," he said.

"If you promise to be careful and not activate anything without telling me first, then I'll make a special Spectre request for it," Kaidan said after a moment of thought. "We've already got a couple of assignments to do, and it would be a whole lot easier to do them if the Normandy had her weapons and electronics specialist back."

"You got it, Major," Joker said with a salute. He sobered, however, as Kaidan turned to leave. "Hey, Kaidan?"

"Yeah?"

"Are you going to tell the Alliance we're putting an AI back into the ship? Seems to me the rules about that haven't changed." Joker's eyes narrowed. "Especially after finding out the reapers were one huge artificial intelligence, according to Leviathan."

Kaidan paused in the doorway. He sighed. "This is one of those things where it might be better to ask forgiveness instead of permission." He thought some more, then finally shook his head. "I don't know yet, Joker. Until we know it's actually possible to bring EDI back, it's not a question we have to answer. Keep me updated. And...let me know your thoughts."

"Can do." Joker and Adams got back to work.

. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .

"Hey, chica nueva! Did ya miss me?" James hollered into his helmet mic as the Normandy shuttle settled onto the mining platform with only three moderate thumps. He stood together with the last of the crewmen that had been sent over, bone-weary and in need of a shower. If James could have found a way to sleep in the shower, he'd have it made.

"Stand clear of the hatch," was Holloway's only reply before she popped the latch and pushed the door up.

"All right team, let's move!" James said, motioning for Copeland to get aboard. "There's a nice soft bunk up there with my name on it!" He closed the hatch behind him and muscled his way to the copilot's seat. Holloway's steely gaze was fastened on her screens, and she lifted off as soon as she had clearance.

"Anything to report?" James asked Holloway in a more serious tone.

"Nothing official, sir," she said. "We've just been moving the ore, packing it into whatever crates we have."

"And what's the scuttlebutt?" he asked her.

She guided the shuttle into a climbing arc, bringing the nose around as the Normandy descended into view on the forward video screens. "Scuttlebutt is that Major Alenko's got some new assignments, but they'll have to wait until the relay's fixed."

James sat back and looked at her with a grin. Holloway must have sensed him looking and shot him a glare. "I'm impressed, chica. I didn't know if you'd pay attention to that stuff. Not being a crewman, and all."

Her eyes widened in a brief betrayal of shock, but then narrowed just as quickly. "Well, then I won't listen next time, sir."

"Holloway."

"Yes, sir."

"It's a joke."

"Whatever you say, sir."

. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .

Garrus paced back and forth restlessly in the main battery; eight paces in each direction. He hummed a little under his breath, testing his subtones to make sure he could achieve the correct note of sincerity.

The last two days had been a blur; when he wasn't making room in the battery for various crates packed full of all the little supplies that had been cleared from the cargo bays, or handling different requests from the Hierarchy in his unending list of messages and reports, he'd been trying to compose an intelligent and well-worded answer to Hannah Shepard's vid message. He'd thought about asking for help, but had no idea who to go to. Of the remaining squadmates on the ship, only Kaidan had an intact relationship with his mother, and Garrus wasn't sure, especially after reliving the bar incident, that he wanted to go to the major with anything having to do with his and Shepard's relationship.

He also hadn't had time to do all the research he wanted, and the generalized human social interaction vids on the extranet only helped so much. Shepard herself had demonstrated that humans valued spontaneity and genuine communication of feelings. It was truly a shame, and Garrus hadn't thought it for the first time, that the structures inside the human ear could not distinguish between turian vocal tones enough to interpret subtone flanging.

That was one of the things that made him awkward around Shepard to begin with. It wasn't like speaking with a female turian (which truth be told, also wasn't a skill he possessed) who would be able to pick up his feelings and intentions from his very first sentence. No, humans evaluated many things, such as eye movement, posture, and most difficult for turians: facial expression. Garrus found that he had to try much harder to communicate on the romantic front when he was physically standing in front of his girlfriend. Sure, he'd had plenty of normal conversations with dozens of humans, so that sort of thing was second nature. But the next level? Or did humans call them bases? It left him stuttering like a hanar who'd had too much mindfish.

He'd even rehearsed a speech, just a little bit so that he wouldn't stumble over the words too much. But then Garrus had sighed rather irritably with himself. You can't practice being natural...humans can just tell. Not that it ever bothered Shepard, but... His right mandible twitched in annoyance. I'm not about to try and fool Hannah...the admiral.

In the end, Garrus knew he had to just go for it. He would just pretend he was...talking to Samara; someone he knew as an acquaintance and a matriarchal figure, as well as knowing her professionally. Right, he thought. This is going to go great.

When he got to the observation lounge where the drone usually resided, he was surprised to see Javik. The Prothean turned when he heard the door open; Garrus' browplates lifted slightly. He might not see eye-to-eye with Javik on everything, or even want to spend much time in his company (Shepard had once, after a brief spat with the Prothean, compared him to a militant form of some creature called an 'Eeyore' from Earth folklore) but at the moment Javik looked puzzled.

"Vakarian," Javik greeted. It made Garrus a little wary; only lately had Javik taken to calling everyone by their given names. He'd started with Liara, shortly after Thessia had been destroyed, and gradually changed his manner of speech to address the Normandy crew appropriately.

"Javik. What brings you over here?" Garrus noted that the Prothean was back in his armor, which appeared to have been freshly cleaned. "Were you...using the camera drone?"

"No. I can't," Javik stated, folding his hands behind his back and looking out the window. "The doctor called Chakwas has said that it is to be only good memories. I do not think that anything in my experience is right for that. I am but a relic from a time of war that has finally ended. What could the avatar of vengeance say when his thirst for blood is sated?"

Garrus thought about it. "I don't know. What does vengeance say to victory?" he mused.

Javik turned to look over his shoulder at the turian. "At one time, victory could not stop vengeance. The need for revenge runs deep, driving the desire to keep killing, keep avenging—" he cut himself off. "But that was my cycle. This cycle belongs to the new races."

"Not the 'primitive' races?" Garrus said with a slight teasing subtone.

"Your races have already been given more time than mine," Javik said. "However primitive they seem to me, they will not remain that way. You have a chance to exceed any evolution that came before you, because the reapers will no longer harvest. Prothean knowledge will itself become primitive in this new order."

"I think that was almost a compliment," Garrus said with some surprise. "So...vengeance yields to victory."

Javik went back to looking out the window. "It appears so."

"There must be something in your experiences that wasn't all about war," Garrus said, taking a seat by the drone. He tapped into the recording logs; they appeared to have been recently cleared by Allers in order to make room in the drone's memory banks. "What about when Shepard took apart your particle beam and put 'primitive' mods in it? Or on Utukku when we fell in that blue glowing mire trying to save the rachni queen?"

"I did not find either of those things to be amusing," Javik said flatly.

"At the time, probably not. I know I didn't enjoy cleaning my armor after that mission with all those ravagers exploding everywhere. But you have to think about the big picture here," Garrus said. "The two of us hauling ourselves up Shepard to get out? Pretty crazy."

"We injured her shoulder," Javik said, clearly not understanding how the situation could be portrayed as humorous.

"A bit, but Chakwas patched her up," Garrus said. He tapped the camera drone for emphasis. "Now you're just stalling, Javik. Tell you what: I'll help you out this once."

The Prothean turned and stared inscrutably at the turian for a long moment. "Fine."

. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .

"Shepard, I'm sending you my armor cleaning bill for this mess," Garrus groused.

"If I'd known you were going to be this whiny about a couple clingy cobwebs I'd've brought James," the commander replied in a tone that was probably meant to tease, but ended up just sounding preoccupied. She hefted the Firestorm she'd appropriated at Grunt's suggestion and incinerated another curtain of webbing before switching on the tactical light at the end of her weapon. The only other illumination in the room ahead came from some sort of crevice to the right. A glance below revealed their first look at some sort of blue viscous goo, which had the additional property of providing faint light.

Garrus and Javik tightened their hold on their respective weapons as the sudden skittering of small, insectoid feet seemed to cross in front of the group. Shepard jumped back, and her light dipped as she searched in front of her for the source.

"Movement!" Garrus clipped out, trying to keep his voice quiet. "Did anybody else catch that?" He was starting to get a creeping feeling on the back of his neck, but he pushed it away.

"Confirmed," Javik said from beside him. The Prothean strained to see ahead of him with all four of his eyes, expecting the worst at any moment. The edge of Shepard's beam of light hit upon something gray and bulbous; a whole lot of somethings as she took a closer look.

"Careful," Garrus warned, but too late; the closest pod burst against Shepard's shield, and she jumped away from the rest before she could trigger any more.

"We need to be cautious," Javik said. He could sense the moving life in these walls, scurrying everywhere, but he did not know if they were reapers, rachni, or merely indigenous life. Shepard shot him a look over her shoulder, which he interpreted as one of the many forms of human sarcasm.

Without hesitation, the commander turned her weapon upon the strange pods, ensuring that nobody got as close as she had. The further down the path they went, the more Javik was sure...a glint of metal on the floor caught his eyes. Flexible metal piping wound through the egg sacs, and he raised his particle beam a little further. "Those cords, Shepard. Reaper technology."

"Maybe," Shepard said uneasily, taking care to illuminate where they were walking so no one tripped. Further ahead was a puddle of the eerily-glowing liquid they'd seen before; the commander took the lead as she stepped cautiously through it, coming to a larger subterranean chamber with many stalagmites and rocky ledges.

The trio hadn't advanced more than five steps into the cave, when...something appeared on a rocky outcropping across the room. Javik had a clear view of it; Garrus used the scope on his sniper rifle just to make sure. It was a bloated, rachni-turned-reaper with an optical array framed by twin cannons on either side, and Javik's lip curled to reveal his teeth as he watched a swarm of smaller mechanical insects scurry over the far ledge, presumably already on their way to engage them.

All this the two of them took in in less than two seconds; Shepard was scanning the perimeter, and Garrus called out the target. "Along the far wall, Shepard. Is that rachni?"

Her head turned and she brought up her omnitool. "Good eye," Shepard said over her shoulder. She tapped her comm and got ahold of Grunt, explaining the situation in short bursts between shooting an overload pulse at a barrier engine. She bit off an epithet as a husk seized that moment to close on her; she pinned the creature against a rock and used the butt of her weapon to take it out, just as Javik fired the final shot into the rachni ravager across the room. A new army of swarmers burst from the oozing, toxic corpse and came blindly at the squad.

Garrus picked them off with precision before they could get too close. "I hardly recognize them," he muttered. "The reapers made some modifications."

Once Shepard was satisfied the room was clear, she waved them forward and updated Grunt at the same time.

"Nothing here yet," Grunt reported. "Lost a krogan to a sinkhole. Bad way to go."

"These caverns are not as stable as they appear," Javik said to the others. "I can sense movement in many tunnels; like a hive." Garrus nodded and filed that observation away as Shepard knelt beside another krogan scout on the left side of the room. Pressing on, they discovered more reaper technology in the form of metal barriers linked to some manner of node. It didn't take long for Shepard to disable it, but the moment they advanced, there was a warning rumble overhead.

In the split second before the world began to crumble, Javik thrust his hand out, pushing aside the first of the falling debris with his biotic power as the three of them rolled in a mad scramble to avoid the mass of rocky debris descending upon them.

"Shepard!" Garrus shouted, briefly losing sight of the commander as dust clogged the air. Gradually, the sound of falling rocks subsided, dwindling to only the occasional loose pebble bouncing away down the landslide that was now behind them.

Javik got to his feet and studied the obstacle. There was no way to clear it in a rush, and he told Shepard so. She passed that on Grunt, who had heard and felt the cave-in from his position. Javik's trust in the stability of the cave system decreased even further.

Shepard motioned them forward, and soon they were bogged down in more of the blue goo, shooting husks, cannibals, and swarmers. Javik quickly surmised the reapers' tactics; use the advantage a large cavern gave them to flank the squad and hope that they could divide the trio's attention enough to make an impact. Garrus, however, was much too accurate with his sniper rifle to allow it. Shepard's preferred method of taking cover behind a central large rock allowed her to pick off husks one at a time. Javik was briefly impressed with their efficiency, but that moment of inattention cost him as a ravager across the room fired a volley that punched through his shield, then his armor, scoring his side and forcing him to his knees.

"Shepard...!" Garrus shouted without breaking concentration, using concussive shot on a cannibal that got a little too close. "Javik's down!"

Lowering her Firestorm, the commander pulled a medi-gel packet from her hip pocket and tore a corner off with her teeth. She tossed it up to the turian, who was beside Javik on the ledge before deploying her combat drone to support her while she kept the rest of the reaper forces at bay. She blasted incinerate after incinerate at the ravager, which finally fell just as Javik got back up.

"No lying down on the job," Shepard said with a humorless grin. "Dr. Chakwas is finally going to have something to do."

"More of your human sarcasm," Javik said as the medi-gel numbed the graze to his ribs. The team splashed through more puddles of the blue stuff, and as they pressed towards where the central chamber had to be, Shepard pointed out an increase in the size of the spore pods. When she raised her Firestorm to incinerate a group, swarmers burst out of them, eliciting a surprised yelp from the commander and a kill-on-sight reaction from Javik with his particle beam.

"Watch the bugs, Shepard," Garrus advised calmly. She shot him a look before finishing off the stand of pods.

"The rachni usually dwell on toxic planets," Javik observed. "This is different."

"The reapers must have changed them," Garrus said. "They definitely look different. I bet they're breeding an army down here. Breeding like flies... and this place is well hidden. I mean, it adds up."

"I agree." Shepard nodded as she picked her way up the path, passing a waterfall that plunged into a deep pit many feet beneath. Gunfire echoed off the walls; ahead were red flashes of light as the Aralakh company fought below. They were trapped, and it became a race against the determined ravagers to get the krogan company out of the direct line of fire before there were no krogan left. Shepard got them past another of the metal reaper tech walls, but it was only a temporary reprieve. It was decided that the krogan would be the rearguard while Shepard's team made the final push into the central chamber, but they didn't make it twenty meters before pods blocked their way. Garrus' warning was unnecessary; Shepard fired the flamethrower without a second thought. Javik's rifle snapped out beams with an alien-sounding twang, as more swarmers rushed to escape their burning pods.

Thus dealt with, the commander moved forward, only to have her progress barred by a narrow passage. She bent down to peer in before crawling inside on her belly. The other two followed; first Garrus and then Javik, who wasn't all that certain that the structural integrity of the tunnel would hold. The passage let out on a wide ledge, and as they straightened up, Garrus' gaze fastened on a huge reaper structure overhead. "What is that?"

"The only thing it could be. This is it," Shepard replied. She commed Grunt to fill him in, walking forward as she talked. Without warning,the same kind metal walls that had hindered them earlier forced their way from the ground, attempting to cut off the team. Shepard darted first one way, then another. "Move it!" she yelled, but the walls sealed the team in. Luck was with them, however; Shepard located a node to overload, and the wall on her right dropped. The screaming of husks massing on the other side was deafening.

Javik's four eyes widened, but he lost no time dropping into a defensive stance. "Heavy resistance!"

"This is it, people!" Shepard ducked into cover. The squad fought competently, but a couple of the husks got way too close for comfort. Garrus charged one, defeating it in hand-to-hand, while Shepard incinerated one that went for Javik. The Prothean made quick work of all the swarmers coming at them, swimming through the goo flooding the area between them and the far side of the cavern. Shepard's combat drone took out the final cannibal, and Garrus made his way across the shallow pond.

The shrieking around them intensified, reverberating ear-piercingly off of the walls. They turned; more rachni-turned-reapers had moved in behind them, obstructing their previous entrance. Shepard knelt in the goo, taking cover again as she set her combat drone on a cannibal across the room and targeted yet another ravager. In between shots, Garrus briefly saw her eyes widen and she turned sharply right as half a dozen swarmers paddled their way over to Javik, who had taken shelter behind another boulder to her right. She turned the Firestorm on them just as the Prothean jumped out of the way. By the time the last enemy fell and they got back to the other side of the room, another barrier engine energized in a further cul-de-sac on the left side of the large chamber.

Javik wiped some of the blue liquid from his weapon. "The enemy is as relentless as they were in our cycle," he said, eyes narrowing as the newest wave charged. The enemy had them pinned down; a small army of husks had Shepard cornered as a ravager focused all its attention on her. Her shield went down as she incinerated the first husk, just in time for a cannibal to get a lucky shot under the plating on her right shoulder. Javik saw her repeat the same field medicine technique to herself; she tore open a packet of medi-gel with her teeth and smeared it on the gash. Javik picked off the surviving couple of swarmers, and they advanced, disabling another reaper node. The shrieking peaked in intensity, and they whirled, looking for the source.

"There are more than I imagined!" Javik shouted over the discordant din, as more of the reapers charged from behind, forcing them all into cover again. Shepard tried to shout encouragement over the noise, but there was no silence until the last of the reapers had fallen. Garrus kicked a husk out of his way as they rounded yet another corner in the labyrinthine caverns...and came face to face with the rachni queen.

Javik froze, momentarily taken back in time to an era where the rachni were nothing more than violent weapons to be turned at the Protheans' enemies. A krogan corpse at Shepard's feet suddenly jerked, and began to speak as the rachni queen used his voice. The commander was not afraid; she approached and spoke with the queen directly, inquiring about the reapers, the queen's loyalty, and whether or not she would help them fight the reapers. Javik found he could not help himself; he walked over to one of the many krogan bodies lining the walls of the chamber, speaking as one of the queens many voices, and touched it.

The images he received were confusing at first; the primitive identity of the krogan still lingered, but melded with it was a strange sort of...melody. It was haunting, and incomplete. It sang of sorrow for children betrayed and lost to the queen, and then the melody crescendoed in anger; fury towards the abominations that had soured her song and turned what had once been harmonious into discord—he pulled away.

Shepard was now arguing with Grunt over the comms about saving the queen; the tank-bred swore at her and then came barreling through the cave toward them.

"Commander—" Javik started to say, but she cut him off.

"She's too valuable an asset to lose," Shepard insisted. "We're getting her out of here." She overloaded the final node, and the queen was free. "Lead the way, Grunt." The krogan didn't wait for a second invitation; he turned tail and led the charge.

The horrible shrieking of dozens of ravagers shrilled off the walls around them; Javik wondered at the stone's ability to hold out against such frequencies as they pelted headlong down a path only Grunt seemed to know. Suddenly the krogan pulled them up short; a half dozen ravagers clogged the tunnel ahead. Grunt said a quiet word to Shepard, who touched him on the shoulder. She threw a glance back at Garrus and Javik.

"Let's go," she said simply, tossing her final Firestorm to the ground. And with that, the krogan took off down the tunnel, and Shepard bolted into a side passage as the angry cries of the reapers rose to a fever pitch, answered by Grunt's gunfire. They splashed through more blue puddles, clawed their way up inclines, and negotiated multiple rocky ledges. Garrus could just make out what looked like natural light in the distance as Shepard vaulted a crevice in the floor and tried to keep on going. The instant her boots hit the far side, there was a dangerous crack and she stumbled but managed to keep her footing. Garrus and Javik were already hurtling through the air; the turian managed to cushion his own fall by using his spring-like legs to lessen the impact, but Javik was not so fortunate.

With a heart-stopping rumble, the floor dropped away beneath the three of them. Amidst a chorus of half-formed yells and curses, Shepard grabbed madly for purchase at the new edge of the crevice and managed to hang on. Garrus and Javik, however, landed up to their torsos in a mire of the glowing blue liquid and disintegrating rock particles. Garrus looked around for handholds or outcroppings; any way to climb back out.

"I do not see a way up," Javik said tensely, performing the same search as the turian.

"No time!" Shepard yelled down over her shoulder. "Garrus, can you reach me?"

"If I jump," he said, trying to pull his legs out of the mire. He succeeded in freeing himself so that he could wade over and make a somewhat clumsy leap to grab on.

"Climb," Shepard gasped. "And hurry!"

Garrus opened his mouth, probably to protest, but he didn't. Wordlessly, he gripped first her belt, then the ridge on the back of her armor just below the collar, followed by the plating on her arm, and then he was able to get purchase on the ledge and haul himself up.

Javik didn't hesitate at all; if there was a choice between him being overwhelmed by altered rachni or using a primitive as a ladder, the solution was obvious. Garrus managed to grab the Prothean by the front of his armor just as the rock beneath Shepard's left hand crumbled.

She cried out briefly, but then Garrus was pulling her up and there was no time for anything else but running, running, running. Javik and Garrus could feel the goo drying between the plates of their armor, but they forced their limbs to move anyway, just as daylight finally washed over them. The shuttle sat up on a hill in the distance, and only then did the three of them slow for a breather. They trudged the last hundred meters to the Kodiak, and Cortez opened the hatch for them. Shepard held her right arm close to her body, and she turned slowly to survey the cave exit for one final moment...and then the gleam of sunshine off of krogan armor caught Garrus' eye.

Shepard had already seen; she moved faster than Garrus felt he could have and tried to grab the young krogan as his knees buckled. He was so covered in blood and other substances that Garrus was surprised he was still standing. Javik jumped down from the shuttle and went to assist the two walking wounded. Once they were all loaded in the shuttle, and Garrus had put medi-gel on the worst of Grunt's wounds, and Doctor Chakwas had been notified that three of the shuttle's passengers would be paying her a visit...those that could started peeling off their armor.

"Ugh. Ugh ugh ugh..." Shepard muttered over and over. "A shower. I need a shower. Two showers. Chakwas can have me after that." She shivered, her hair matted to her head where her teammates had doused her with the blue liquid during their climb.

"I hope you can recommend a good cleaning service for my armor," Garrus said dryly. "I'm going to dry in this position and will have to waddle off of the shuttle." He worked his boots off, not caring how indecorous it appeared. Even Javik, who had never been seen without his armor, looked sorely tempted to get it off before it solidified to his body.

By the time Cortez had maneuvered the Kodiak back into the Normandy's bay, there was a pile of human, turian, and krogan suit parts in the middle of the shuttle floor. And as Shepard, Grunt, Garrus, and Javik stumbled out into the shuttle bay, there were still pieces of it hitting the floor, all the way to the elevator. James Vega turned around from his workbench and just stared.

"This part...is not going in the report," Shepard said, pointing with her left hand at everyone present. "Understood?" She winced and went back to holding her right arm.

The elevator doors closed on Vega and Cortez's 'yes ma'ams'.

. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .

"And there you go," Garrus said, switching off the drone.

"We did not tell the commander anything she did not already know," Javik said somewhat pensively. "How is that helpful?"

"She gets to hear it from your point of view," Garrus replied, completing the entry and setting it up to transmit the next time Allers used the tightbeam. "Did you ever tell her what you heard from the rachni queen?"

"No," Javik said after a moment. "Sometimes I do forget that the commander is still just a human. She understand Prothean communication, but she will never have Prothean senses. It is good, then, that she will learn of that."

"And who knows?" Garrus said somewhat rhetorically. "How many other things like it could you share? Don't assume that Liara's the only one interested in what the last living Prothean has to say."

Javik looked out of the observation lounge's window thoughtfully, and behind him he heard the hiss of the doors as the turian departed.

. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .

Author's Note: Apologies for the delay. I hope to write Days Nine and Ten before Saturday, so stay tuned and send my muse happy thoughts. And yarn.