Mass Effect 1

Burnt for Beacons

Chapter 17 - Binthu

"Commander Marama Shepard, this is Rear Admiral Kahoku. You did some work for me. We met on the Citadel."

"I remember it well, Sir."

"Commander, are we on a secure channel?"

"Not yet, Sir. I will have the call patched through to our comms room if you don't mind holding."

"That would be for the best."

Shepard stepped away from the star map and walked down the ramp without looking at any of her crew.

Most of the marines and planning division were together in the comms room, where there was no natural warmth. It was a place lacking in soft furnishings and clutter, full of off-grey panels and bolted down seats. There wasn't even a table, so presentations had to be planned in such a way that information could be imparted via omni-tools and screens. An environment like that didn't lend itself to creativity, or off-the-cuff thinking. For all that, it was one of the very rare times when they could all be together and Ashley appreciated the homey feel of being surrounded by family.

It was a briefing that summarised much of the work they had been doing and helped prepare them for the work ahead. Kaidan was presenting; Shepard and XO Pressley stood at the back together, she with her arms folded, and he occasionally leaning in to mutter darkly to her.

"In summary," he said, "Saren is using technology that has never been seen before to turn people into husks, a sort of mechanized zombie that he seems able to control. Saren also raised the geth to act as an advance army. They construct the technology that in turn creates the husks. Not only are husks difficult to take down, but it is an excellent strategy for undermining the existing forces who hate the idea of firing on zombies who were once friends. We think Saren wants that army to help him find something called the conduit. We think the conduit has something to do with the reapers, an ancient advanced technology that was responsible for wiping out the Protheans. The fear is that he aims to destroy all advanced civilisations with their help." He coughed. "We have almost no intel as to where Saren is now, or where the conduit might be. We believe," he looked to Liara with a gentle half-smile, "that it may be in one of the systems linked to the Mu relay."

He continued, more firmly. "Our secondary objective has been to discover what the link is between Saren and Cerberus, a human-survivalist paramilitary group. Our analysts believe that Saren and Cerberus are not allied, rather, that Cerberus is trying to gather as much intel as it can on the tech with the aim of studying it, and possibly controlling it themselves." This would be a lot of information to take in but for the fact that most people in the room had heard parts of it before. "Cerberus has commissioned ExoGeni, Binary Helix, and a number of other corporations to research the viability of weaponizing husks, rachni, geth, thorian creepers, and thresher maws." Kaidan looked to Shepard, and she returned his look with blithe unconcern, only scratching her shoulder lightly. He continued. "There is some evidence to suggest that Cerberus planted dragon's teeth near colonies, knowing that the tech would convert colonists into husks. We saw that on Chasca. Instances where we have encountered husks, thorian creepers, rachni and geth will have to be re-examined. The presence of thresher maws is less conclusive."

He paused, swiping across his datapad before continuing. "Some papers suggest that thresher spores can lie dormant for millennia, they survive deep space and atmospheric re-entry. If anyone would like the extra readings on that, I'll be happy to send them through. The upshot is that thresher maw activity may be unrelated to Cerberus. Finally, we have had word from Rear Admiral Kahoku. He has been looking into Cerberus and, particularly, their research into thresher maws. His marines were lured into a trap and killed on Edolus. We picked up a transmitter there, that appeared to have been placed for the sole purpose of luring soldiers towards a thresher maw nest. He believes he has discovered proof that it was set up deliberately to study the thresher maws and attempt to control them in combat situations. He also believes he has evidence tying Cerberus to the Akuze incident of 2177. Cerberus made the link between a coming of age ceremony," he looked to Wrex, and Ashley was very interested to see the krogan shake his head. Kaidan nodded and continued, "where the local people use vibrations to lure threshers to designated feeding grounds." Ashley looked back at Wrex but he was staring ahead, benignly. "It seems they were hoping to utilise that same technology to control threshers in combat. They repeated their experiment on Edolus, killing Kahoku's marines."

"Why haven't they been stopped before now?" Addison Chase interrupted, the frustration was clear in her high-pitched emphasis of the vowels. She immediately looked embarrassed, but many there nodded in sympathy.

"The group claims any wrong doing is due to rogue elements within the organisation. Individuals have been successfully brought to justice but there has never been enough evidence to put Cerberus as an entity on trial. We are about to change that." Kaidan paused to look down at his notes. Ashley found herself leaning forward. "We will be working with Rear Admiral Kahoku. He has managed to identify two of Cerberus' bases. This operation will be purely reconnaissance. He's hoping to get enough evidence of what Cerberus are doing so that our various government agencies will be forced to move against them. His intel suggests that it won't take much effort on our part, however, there is a concern that their military division will make pre-emptive moves to stop him, and us, from gathering the evidence to expose them. We will be preparing to face heavily armed, extremely well-resourced and organised human combatants."

Ashley let the rest of Kaidan's words fade into the background, and instead leaned in and spoke softly to Garrus. "We take down Cerberus." He nodded. When she held out her fist, he bumped it with his.

"We take down Cerberus," he replied just as quietly.

The mission had not gone well. Few things had, recently.

The Normandy was docked at the Citadel and most of the crew was on shore leave while Shepard gave her report to the Alliance brass. Ashley was having a drink.

Kaidan had left to find Marie Durand hours ago; Tali and Garrus had disappeared almost as soon as the Normandy had docked; Jamin Bakari and Addison Chase were getting cosy in one of the booths; and Liara had gone to meet up with some intellectual university types to discuss Prothean pyramidal architecture. Ashley had only been half listening. It sounded impossibly nerdy; all this to say Ashley was alone at the bar keeping an eye on a group of young marines. For a lot of them, it was their first time seeing action like that, the first time they'd killed someone.

It had been just as difficult as Kaidan had warned them it would be. The Alliance had lost all contact with Kahoku almost as soon as he had sent his coordinates through to the Normandy, so they were flying blind and when their relatively large squad hit the first base, they arrived just in time to take down what appeared to be a military grade clean-up crew. Shepard had chosen a large team, but it wasn't big enough to take the hostiles out cleanly. The all too familiar orange and brown underground prefabs had been overly crowded and everything had felt more chaotic. Private Gladstone had managed to shoot one of the troopers in the neck, when they'd popped out of cover to take a shot at Shepard. Private Rahman had patiently and methodically shot at the same person with her sniper rifle until their shielding had finally failed, but the Cerberus fighters were obviously under orders not to be captured alive, because while most were killed during the fire fight, two of their people took L-pills rather than be taken prisoner. That had been hard on some of their marines, it's not something anyone can really prepare you for. That wasn't the worst of it of course. There were rachni soldiers in a large mass effect field holding cell in the centre of the complex. Kaidan and Liara hustled the young marines out of danger, Shepard and Tali made quick work of the fields, which left the experienced soldiers (Wrex, Garrus, and Ashley) to take down the juvenile bugs.

The marines were on to tequila shots. It was probably too late to have the talk with them. Probably better to let them get mindlessly drunk and then wait for the remorse, anger, and guilt to kick in and try to work on it then.

"Whoo!" Harvey Gladstone was on his third. He was a huge guy. His tattooed sleeve almost disappeared into the deep brown of his skin. They worked out together sometimes. She figured he'd be able to handle the quantity he was throwing back. Hector Emmerson, the ginger haired, light framed engineer beside him pursed his lips and hissed as he followed up his shot by biting into a lemon slice.

He shook his head as if to clear it. "That was some fight, huh Chief? Not sure my mumma would'a let me sign up if she knew rachni'd be bought back from the dead'n my watch." He smiled at her. The hazy smile of the drunk and shell shocked. Ashley thought back to the first time she'd killed. A batarian raider. It was easier then; she hadn't seen batarians as people, and she'd still spent the following day spewing her guts out.

"Yeah, you guys did great," she smiled over at him, unsure if he could hear her over the pulse of the song that was playing.

They had sped to the second base as quickly as possible, and caught Cerberus workers there as well. The battle began in the same way, but this time Tali was hit with a biotic throw and slammed into a tower of crates. Ashley and Wrex were left to defend a corridor and provide covering fire while Garrus and Shepard extracted their quarian squad mate. Even though she didn't look injured, Garrus and Shepard spent a long time talking to her. Long enough for Ashley to take down a sniper and for Wrex to take down two research technicians who apparently doubled as biotic fighters.

"New plan," Shepard said. "Ash, I want you to head in and set yourself up behind that storage unit. I want you providing covering fire across that quadrant. Wrex, I want you over there." She pointed to the opposite side of the room. "You are to make sure no one gets past that point. Garrus and Tali, you'll be at the console. Tali will be on the controls, but you're to keep that shotgun handy. Garrus, switch. I want you with your assault rifle in case something goes wrong."

"Commander?" Kaidan asked.

"Tali wants to sick that rachni on them."

Liara looked vaguely sick, but any protest she had been going to make was drowned out by Wrex's booming laugh. A sniper came too close, and it was time to move. The plan played out perfectly. While their squad moved back into cover down the corridor the loose rachni made short work of the enemy fighters. Once the muffled cries and thuds stilled into silence, Shepard signaled for her heavy hitters to finish off the rachni. Wrex lifted it off the ground with his biotics and while it spun slowly in the air looking confused, Garrus drilled it between the eyes. Ash hadn't even needed to lift her rifle.

"Chief?" Gladstone looked at her, his eyes were not focusing and already looked bloodshot.

"I'mma get us another round." Emmerson interrupted before sliding unsteadily of his stool. He slapped Gladstone on the shoulder before using the same act to steady himself, then walking with the too-careful gait of someone trying hard not to appear drunk. Her eyes wandered across to the dance floor, where the rest of the night's crew were exuberantly swaying, leaves in a storm.

"Chief." Gladstone addressed her again, steeling himself. He was drawing pictures on the cheap table top using his finger and a ring of slopped beverage. It looked like a cartoon dog, or perhaps a flower. "I killed someone."

The bar was too loud. Too crowded. The lights were too dim for this kind of conversation. She needed to take her guys somewhere quiet, a park maybe, and let them feel the hurt.

"Yeah." She moved closer to him, looked him in the eyes and waited.

"Does it get easier?" His finger was still drawing, the yellowy table top gleamed wetly. His drawing glowed blood red as it picked up the neon lighting from above the bar. It was a dog.

"It can," she nodded. "You've got to know why you did it. Why you had to do it. You have to check there was no better way, and if there was, you have to learn from it." She tapped his wrist to make sure he was listening. "Harvey, there was no better way this time."

"What if," he frowned down at the empty glasses and mess of lemon slices, salt shakers and snack bowls. He looked down at his drawing, and wiped his hand on his jeans. "But what if one of those people was going to figure out the cure for cancer, or something."

"And what if they were going to go on a killing spree and murder a bunch of colonists? Those questions aren't helpful. Based on our intel, those guys needed to be brought in for questioning, eventual trial. They had no interest in dealing with us peacefully, they refused to negotiate, they refused to surrender. If we had sat back peacefully they would have killed all of us, they certainly tried to. I have looked at the angles. We did not have a choice. More lives would have been lost if we'd waited. It's Garrus' calculus of war. Those guys weren't civilians waving kitchen knives, they were military, ready to die and ready to kill." She took a swig of beer. "Life is always precious. These questions you have are really important."

She paused not sure where to go with her argument, she looked again at the ridges and valleys of glasses and was momentarily tempted to quote Tennyson: theirs not to reason why; theirs but to do and die, but she dismissed it as childish sentimentalism. Harvey did not need her to reference a doomed, historic military action that had a forty percent casualty rate, even if it was a neat reminder that a soldier's job is to shut up and do what they're told. Instead she asked, "Why did you join the Alliance?"

"To help people," he replied. His answer quick and rehearsed.

"All people?" she probed, and it felt like pushing down on a bruise. Together they looked down at his now deformed dog puddle. "Or some people?"

"Never thought about it."

"It's important. You can't help everyone, you can only try. And when there's a conflict between two sides that you'd ordinarily defend—"

Handles of beer arrived, and sloshed heavily on to the table with clinks and bangs, and finally obliterating the dog.

"'S important you aren't on th' side of the space Nazis!" Emmerson crowed triumphantly. Ashley was left to wonder how much he'd heard. Didn't matter. His sentiments were on point and she returned the wet high-five he offered her.

"Come on," she said, officiously. "I'll cover my round next time. Pack your things. It's time to get you home. I'm taking you running in the morning, and if we start walking now, we'll be in bed by three."

The two men looked at her dumb struck.

"Back in a mo'." She left them, still looking slack jawed down at their beer glasses as if they would act as a lifeline. She was practicing her commanding voice, wanted to see if it would fool these grown men into following her away from all but inevitable hangovers and towards sobriety and healing sleep. It appeared to be working. She said her farewells to the others, before weaving her way slowly back through the dark and crowded space, squeezing between sweaty bodies and flailing limbs to collect her two charges. They had emptied their glasses (and hers, in what she could only assume was an act of petty rebellion), but she was pleased to find that they still followed her, meekly as lambs.

If only everything was that easy.

Rear Admiral Kahoku was dead.

When they arrived at the third base, they'd been attacked by more Cerberus agents, and then were forced to free three thorian creepers from their cell in order to put them down. That's when they'd found the body. It had been poorly staged to look like Kahoku had been at the wrong place, at the wrong time; the victim of an unfortunate accident, a nosy investigator who had stumbled into the wild animal cage. Kaidan ruled it murder with a cursory wave of his omni-tool.

Ashley remembered the way Shepard had hugged this man at the Presidium, the way they had smiled and shared breath. She had shooed everyone out to give Shepard time to grieve. It was probably Kaidan's job, but he had never seen the two of them together and besides, he was debriefing the debutantes. She had stood in the doorway, leaning against the wall, holding a silent vigil.

Shepard sat beside the body. She'd turned off her mic so Ash could not tell if she was talking or crying or sitting in cold silence. All three of them were bathed in shadow. Stray rounds had taken out a surprising number of the lights. Finally, Shepard stood and made the necessary calls to arrange for the investigation team. When she finished with the clinical administration tasks that inevitably came with a murder scene, she bowed her head and moved towards the doorway. And towards Ashley. She was hurting. It was clear in the way she held her shoulders, the way she refused eye contact while still standing close. And Ashley brave soldier that she was, clenched her jaw, and moved into parade rest. Ashley the stoic protector, battle hardened warrior, felt ridiculous. Ashley was too afraid to stretch out an arm and console a friend. But she'd seen them share breath and now Shepard needed her. Her body relaxed and reached out before she had even finished her thought. She suffered though a minute jolt of panic but Shepard had already curled in towards her. Their suits mashed together with plastic sounding clacks and scrapes, and the sides of their helmets collided with an audible thunk. They did not smile, there was no humour in a moment where people's breath was locked behind a mask; separated by military grade Perspex and a poisonous atmosphere of carbon dioxide, sulphur dioxide, and chlorine. Someone had destroyed the environmental controls. Tali and Garrus were working on it, Ashley knew. All the pair of them could do was hold each other. Ashley's HUD flickered as her baseline stats crept up into the next colour scale, not the sort of thing you'd notice in the heat of battle, but definitely something she'd noticed in the still and quiet. Shepard's icon had changed too. Elevated heart rate, elevated blood pressure, elevated breathing. The commander must have noticed at the same time. She released Ashley gently and took a measured step away. Ashley was beginning to feel heartily sick of allowing Shepard to take 'measured steps' away.

"Thanks for the hug, and," her CO frowned. "Jordan Riordan said you asked him to design a comm package." Ashley must have looked betrayed so Shepard rushed to reassure her. "He took the sign-off to Pressly. I probably wouldn't have been able to figure out who was behind it if the XO hadn't brought it to my attention. He was impressed. A lot of people will be impressed." Shepard's brown eyes were shining even through the visor and in the gloom. "Kahoku called me by my name and I was able to hear it."

"Riordan said it was easy." Ashley's arms hung awkwardly at her sides and she tried desperately not to fidget. "No big deal."

"Simplified ideas are almost always the best." The gleam in her eye, was still visible now, despite the distance and layers of perspex. Shepard normally waved her arms when she talked, but they barely moved and her voice through the coms sounded flat. "The trick is noticing a problem and finding people who are good at simplifying their solutions. You saw a problem and spotted the talent." Shepard smiled, "It's not nothing." Ashley felt the blood rush to her face and she eyed her HUD nervously.

"You could have built that program. Why didn't you?"

"Didn't occur to me." Shepard shrugged easily. "Leadership isn't finding every single problem and fixing it. It's getting good people around you, spotting the talent and making sure they have the confidence and the freedom to solve the problems themselves." Shepard snorted lightly, choosing to hide her grief and move into brevity. "Riordan's work was also really clever."

Artificial night blanketed the Citadel by the time the trio trudged up the docking bay ramp and into the warm safety of the SSV Normandy.

"You know Joker stole the ship?" At Ashley's incredulous look, Shepard nodded and continued. "He knew he was the best pilot on paper. The brass turned him down for the job, which he swears was due his brittle bones, and probably was. He snuck aboard, locked up the guy they hired, evaded fire, and ran her through the test course. They didn't know whether to court martial him or hire him. I guess they made their decision." Shepard looked at her with an inscrutable expression, she looked tired and sad. "I mean, maybe leadership is trusting your instincts and doing things other people might hold back from doing."

Ashley climbed into her bed, and smiled up at the bunk above hers.

"Skipper," she'd asked that sad, lonely woman in front of her. "Mind if I take you to lunch sometime?"