"You said one of your squads is missing?" she had asked Wrex, following up with him after he had asked her to talk privately.

The clan leader nodded, looking shiftily at the primarch who stood at the other end of the war room out of earshot. "They were scouting out the rachni relay. We've heard rumours of trouble in the area."

"Rachni?"

"Thought that might get your attention. I have a favour to ask. It's big."

She squinted slightly, putting two and two together. "...Don't tell me they're back."

"All I know for sure is our scouts went silent as soon as they arrived. I've got Aralakh Company, my best unit, on standby. You give the word, and they'll meet you there on Utukku."

"I'll see what I can do."

Now Shepard was in the hangar bay, gearing up and awaiting Garrus and Arius to accompany her. While strapping on her armour, she noticed James Vega oddly approach her. It was painfully obvious that he wanted to talk to her about something, and he was trying too hard to feign his indifference.

"Commander. Hey, uh, I had a chat with Arius…" he began telling her, but he failed to continue, instead looking at her in further puzzlement, unable to properly articulate what he wanted to say.

"Okay?"

"He… introduced himself. Uh, properly."

"Oh. So you guys had the 'chat' huh?"

"I guess so? He told me he was older than he looked, like, Prothean old. Is it some part of a weird psychological prank? Cause I don't get the punchline."

"There's no punchline, Vega. He is very old. Honestly, I usually forget until he brings it up."

"And he's not human either? I mean, I was wondering why his teeth looked that way, and his eyes, and his–"

"Yes, James."

"Dios mio." The Alliance marine gave a large, drawn-out exhale. "...and it's true that he can… heal people just by being close to them? Brujo… I saw him getting touchy with people's injuries, but I thought he was just, I dunno," he shrugged, "really spiritual or something."

"Yes, it's true. Make sure you go to Chakwas first if you injure yourself seriously. Once she gives you an okay, then try Arius. If you've broken anything, you must have it set properly first, or it'll heal incorrectly."

"Yeah, sure, sure…. Do you think… that he can heal muscle fatigue between training sets?"

It wasn't what Shepard expected to be asked, but it didn't surprise her from the marine. "I wouldn't waste his time with frivolities."

"Right…. Yeah, of course…"

But when he walked away, Shepard noticed Vega staring intently at his carefully stacked hand weights, the cogs in his brain turning.

.

"Any updates, Shepard?" Garrus asked as they bumped along in the shuttle.

"Our backup is waiting for us at the drop point. Aralakh Company. Krogan commandos."

EDI's voice chimed in overhead. "That's correct, Shepard. They are an accomplished unit. Their decisive action in liberating a colony from batarian pirates made them famous."

"Good to hear. Other than that," she reported to them, "there's been no word from a team of krogan scouts since they went through the rachni relay."

"The rachni… I never thought I'd hear about them again." Arius was leaning forward onto his knees where he sat, hands joined in contemplation. "Full disclosure, I have a long-standing interest in the rachni. I once pushed the Protheans to study them - how they communicate with their brood, their 'singing'; it's extraordinary. Instead, the Protheans exploited them, breeding them for war as living weapons, to my later regret."

"Weapons?"

"When we found them, they were still primitive and without technology," he explained "In short, they were the krogan of the Prothean cycle. They were uplifted, used as weapons, then revolted. The Prothean empire ended up torching two-hundred worlds to stop them."

It was a nugget of lost history Shepard had not known before, and she did her best to digest it quickly. "We don't know much, but no rachni activity has been reported."

"It doesn't make sense," Garrus insisted. "We let that last rachni queen live on the condition she disappear forever. She wouldn't risk everything to start a war."

"Just be ready for anything."

The shuttle touched down moments later in a rocky canyon near a prefab outpost. A small group of the krogan company was stationed outside waiting for them. When they approached the group, a familiar-sounding voice reached their ears coming from inside one of the small buildings.

"- yeah, shuttle just arrived. You better get moving, Team Two. See anything, let me know," ordered the commanding krogan as he descended a short ramp to where the others were awaiting their arrival.

Shepard recognized the voice and almost had to double-take. "Grunt?"

Grunt, unexpectedly hearing a familiar voice call his name, snapped his head toward her. "Shepard?" Overjoyed, he immediately ran over to them, shoving the krogan soldiers around him out of his way. "Heh! Shepard!" He bounded toward her, giving her a few playful-yet-still-rough knocks and jabs. "Heh-ha-ha-ha-ha!"

"What are you doing here?"

"I could ask you the same question," the krogan responded. "Didn't those idiots lock you up?"

"They did. Put me in lockdown to keep the batarians off me. Didn't want problems with the Council while they were preparing for war. But the situation changed."

"Yeah, they got bigger problems, all right. It's why I'm out here running Aralakh Company." He turned to regard them, each company member fully decked out in matching heavy gunmetal-coloured armour and formidable weaponry. "They're tough, think they're invincible. Reckless, but effective."

"Sounds familiar, Grunt. How did you go from being new and unproven to your own command?"

"Wasn't easy. When Wrex put Aralakh Company together, he needed a leader who represented the future of our species. Thanks to you, I completed my Rite of Passage on Tuchanka and became part of Clan Urdnot. I was an equal. And being the strongest, I was chosen to lead this honoured company."

"I bet some didn't like a tank-bred krogan being in charge."

"I collected a few scars earning my place here. These krogan respect me."

Shepard almost shed a tear. Her adolescent tank-bred boy had grown up. "You were a pain in the ass, Grunt, but if your krogan are half the soldier you are, we might make it out of here."

"Heh. Glad you're here to crack some heads, Shepard." He turned. "Hard to believe this might be rachni. Seems crazy. The rachni! A chance to face the old enemy? Impossible to resist!"

"We shouldn't be too anxious to face the rachni," Arius warned. "They have always been a formidable species."

"Arius. Hm. You bring me any food?"

"Not today, I'm afraid. Come find me the next time you're aboard the Normandy."

Shepard steered the conversation back to the pressing topic. "Look, we don't know if the rachni had anything to do with this. We're here to find the scouts. I didn't see any signs of activity during our approach."

"Agreed. But this place smells wrong. Like a bad wound." Grunt sniffed the air. "Our scans show the tunnels down there lead to a large central point. If we're lucky, it's a nest."

Garrus hoisted his gun. "Sounds like fun. Just like old times, Grunt."

"Heh." Grunt turned to his men. "Aralakh Company–move out!" He turned back to Shepard. "Grab what you need, Shepard. Meet me at the scout camp ahead."

"Sounds good."

Shepard motioned to the squad. "Take what you need and move out."

Arius reached up to touch the sword's grip on his back with the tip of his fingers. He heard nothing, and withdrew them.

.

"Grunt, got a body of a scout here. Been dead a few days."

"Yeah? If he still has his weapon, grab it. He won't need it anymore."

It was a bit callous, but when she kicked the weapon slightly to dislodge it from the stiff hands of the corpse, she found it to be an M-451 Firestorm - a handheld flamethrower perfect for clearing the dense webs that clung across the rocky tunnels they were moving through. After checking the clip capacity and finding it full, she depressed the trigger to send a sizable burst of flame through the thick webbings, eating through them with ease.

Arius picked up some residual webbings and tested them under his fingers. A scan from his omni-tool beeped moments later. "This material is reminiscent of rachni webbing but is shared by other insects. Not definitive."

What lay beyond the webbing was a pitch-dark cave. The team switched on their personal light sources, and Garrus cranked the luminosity as the darkness seemed to swallow them up. "This darkness is going to make it a little harder, Shepard."

"Agreed. Everybody be ready."

It was just on the other side of the cavern that they noticed spore pods affixed to the cave floor. If it was any proof of the rachni, this was it. Shepard was about to torch them when Arius motioned to her to halt. He stooped next to one of the bulbous, white pods and shined his light closer to inspect the texture of the pod's surfaces.

"One moment. These resemble rachni pods, but the colours are wrong… and the pod texture looks like they've been…" He made a scan and read the results. "Oh no." He jumped to his feet. "Burn them all, Shepard. Quickly."

"What's wrong?"

"They are rachni pods, but they're not natural. Judging by their characteristics, they look to be corrupted by Reaper technology."

"Great." In a wave of flame, they melted and popped into goo.

"Expect more. Many more. We need to burn them all."

And they did. As they advanced down the tunnels, clusters of pods lay waiting, and Shepard torched them all the same. While burning webbing from a cave wall, they noticed a metallic gleam and faint light emanating from the cave's dark.

"Those cords, Shepard. Reaper technology."

They looked to the floor. Cables snaked around the rocks, leading further into the tunnels. They found more of the scout bodies, some with Firestorm refills, which Shepard had no qualms about taking.

The tunnel led them to a wide subterranean chamber that filtered light through cracks in the ceiling. While they surveyed their surroundings, something dropped into the cave with them from a rocky outcropping. It was a large insectoid creature with several pairs of legs and bulging, grotesque sacks growing from it. Unmistakably, white-blue metal looked like it had been grafted onto its organic parts.

Garrus looked down his scope. "Along the far wall, is that rachni?"

Arius tapped his helmet, adjusting the zoom. "Yes. Corrupted rachni, no doubt about it."

"Grunt, we got company!" Shepard yelled, and from the other side, she heard, "Light 'em up, Shepard."

Husks began to swarm toward them, human and batarian ones, while the Reaperfied rachni fired twin cannons at them from a distance. It had more health than Shepard had been accustomed to, and when the bulging sacks that clung to it burst open from gunfire, smaller rachni swarmers streamed out. It was nightmare fuel, but combined fire and the fortuitous flamethrower silenced them quickly.

"Grunt, rachni presence confirmed. Modified and very dangerous."

"Finally, something to kill! Nothing here yet. Lost a krogan to a sinkhole. Bad way to go."

Once again, Arius reached up to touch the artifact on his back with his fingers and listened, but the attempt was again fruitless. "Breeding ground must be close. They're protecting something here. They wouldn't have withheld these forces from the general war otherwise."

The cavern was wide, and below them, even deeper ran a water stream into the cave's deep cracks. Jutting from the jagged walls were huge, double-story constructs of Reaper tech. What their purpose was was anyone's guess. They all seemed to face the same direction but in the wrong way.

Garrus stood on the subterranean cliff and motioned to the constructs. "Look at this! No question Reapers have been here."

"Agreed. Let's find out why."

.

"Shepard, I know what happened to the scouts."

"What did you find?"

"They got hit hard. The leader ordered them to carry weapons deep into the caves. He knew the next team would help."

"They died making sure we could make it to the central chamber. Loot any resources you can. There's no end to these."

They were clearing another cave of pods and webs when Shepard ordered them to halt.

"Hold on, I see the body of another krogan scout. This one has a beacon still running." Shepard crouched down to the corpse, which had curled up in a rocky corner in the lonely dark to die, and picked up the electronic tag.

"Looks like a last message. He's asked that it be delivered to an asari named Ereba on the Citadel…. Wait… Ereba?" Shepard repeated the name, jogging her memory. "That can't be the same asari from…. Oh, Christ." She swore under her breath. "I know this krogan."

"Eh?"

Shepard turned to Garrus. "Remember Charr and his 'rose of Illium'? This is him."

Garrus' mandibles flared in realization. Charr was hard to forget. "Oh," then, under his breath, muttered, "damn."

"I know where his mate works on the Citadel," she explained to Arius. "A while ago, I came across this lovestruck krogan reciting poetry to this asari merchant after they had hit a rough patch. The asari he was wooing asked me for advice. I convinced her to give him another shot; Last I remember hearing, they had just moved back from Tuchanka. I think I saw her not too long ago on the Citadel." She shook her head mournfully. "Jesus, what a small galaxy. I'll get this to her. Let's continue."

.

The bugs and the pods they emerged from did not let up, in fact, they seemed to only grow more numerous. Shepard continued to blaze their way deeper into the ground, and they were constantly beset by swarmers and the pops of exploding pods around them in the seemingly endless dark. It was enough to drive anyone mad.

"The rachni usually dwell on toxic planets, given their hardy physiology. This is different," Arius pointed out.

Garrus replaced his heat sink, looking down and a member of their recently deceased quarry. "The Reapers must have changed them. 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."

A flame burst lit the dark for a moment before blanketing them again. "I agree. And they're throwing everything they've got at us, so we don't reach the nest."

They heard bursts of fire at one point and climbed into another outcropping facing a deep chasm. Grunt and his squad were fully engaged with the enemy on the other side of the chasm.

"Shepard, we're blocked! And getting overrun!"

"Hang on Grunt, we're coming!"

"Move it, Shepard!"

A particularly large Ravager scurried with speed toward Grunt's squad, and she saw Grunt charge it with all his krogan fury, knock it back, grab it with both hands and hoist the massive, horrid thing above his head. "I… am… krogan!" he roared, and in a powerful throw, he hurled the thing down into the chasm.

The trio rushed into the adjacent room, where waiting in the center was a block of Reaper tech connected to doors which blocked the cavern accesses. They unloaded into it, smashing it beyond function, and the doors blocking the tunnels dropped. Grunt and the remnants of his squad fell in, moments from being overrun. Now that they had cover and an advantageous position, they cleared the attacking enemy.

"Thanks, Shepard. That wasn't webbing stopping us. That was Reaper tech."

"We ran into it too."

"The rachni have backed off for now, but they can smell our wounds. Any worthy enemy would regroup and finish us. Soon."

"We're close, Grunt. Those barriers were protecting whatever's down that passage."

"We'll dig in here, kill anything that moves, buy you some time."

"Good luck."

"I don't need luck," he yelled back to her as he rejoined his squad, "I have ammo."

While Shepard conversed with Grunt, Arius looked at the Reaper tech they had busted, then to the doors it had powered. It was now completely non-functional, and all tunnels were clear of the Reaper obstructions. He reached up again to the artifact on his back for the third time, and when his fingers made contact with the blade's blackened handle, he finally heard what he had been searching for. Of course! he thought to himself; the reason for the Reaper tech jammed into the walls and tunnels of the caverns made total sense. The arrangement of the doors and the control machinery that powered them seemed strange because they looked like they were facing the wrong direction. It wasn't designed to keep something out, It was designed to keep something in.

Arius excitedly took the artifact sword from his back and stabbed it into the rock at his feet. It sunk into the solid surface with ease. He clasped his hand around the long grip, paused, then with stirred words called Shepard.

"Shepard. The Reaper tech is here to keep something in, not out. Come. Listen. Heed her song."

"I don't follow."

"Please, Shepard, I can't explain it better than this. Touch the artifact and listen."

With some wariness from Arius' vague instructions, Shepard grasped at the sword, too, joining his own. She thought that after her contact with the Prothean beacons and Javik, she would have gotten used to the sensation of raw uptake by now, but she was dead wrong.

A tremor chased up her spine and shuddered across her shoulders. A mournful song filled her and seemed to warble behind her eyes. But it wasn't a cry in the traditional sense - it was a melody. Its low tones sounded so ancient that they sparked memories she didn't have, shapeless echoes of a time before she was born. She could vaguely sense their meanings, but they seemed cloudy, too difficult to separate one concept from another, just flashes of light and sound.

"What…. What am I hearing right now? Whose song is this? The queen's?"

"It is indeed," Arius answered, his translation punctuated by small pauses. "She's close…. she's restricted… she mourns for her children..."

She turned to him, nonplussed. "You can understand this? How?"

"Experience." Arius pulled the sword out of the rock effortlessly and returned it to his back. "We're close. Let us proceed carefully."

.

The proceeding area was highly unpleasant. The Reapers had left traps designed to block their way with powered barriers and then corner them with many husks. They waded through dark pools of running water while gunfire and explosions rained down from the many nooks and crannies the rocky caverns afforded. The enemy was relentless, but at least, the last barrier fell away with a crash, and the squad came face to face, literally, with the captive rachni queen in the central chamber. She was huge, several stories tall, much larger than Shepard had remembered from their encounter in Noveria, and her multifaceted insectoid jaws wailed when she saw them. Spikes from the Reaper tech dug into the creature, and she could not move.

The corpse of a krogan at Shepard's feet twitched, and she trained her weapon on it, startled.

"Si….lence…." The corpse spoke like words had been forced through it.

Garrus jumped. "What the…?"

More words tumbled out like a puppeteer had strings attached to the stiff flesh and sinew of the corpse. "The… maddening sour note has ceased."

"What are you?" Shepard asked it, but she already knew. Back on Noveria, the rachni queen had explained their kind sung through touchings of thought. She 'plucked the strings, and the others understood', which meant bodies not completely devoid of life could be nudged with their imperceptible methods of communication.

More corpses rose from the cold cave floor, empty-eyed and slack, dead muscles straining from the force, now all speaking as one. The echos of their collective groaning led a chill up her spine.

"The last queen. We listen for the children… they are silent, hollow. The machines come and take them to war. They die alone, silent, far away."

"The Reapers did this to you?"

"Yes. The sour note of the machines is everywhere."

Arius stood to one side, hands firmly on his sword. Arius' main attractor to the rachni had been their method of communication. Unlike all other races, it was based upon a synesthetic perception of both sound and colour and could span incredible distances instantaneously, like an organic quantum entanglement communicator. Their speech and thoughts were forms of music, and as he stood there, artifact in hand, he could hear the queen's song sung in his head. When she described the sour note of the machines, he could hear the colour-sound that she described - it was a sour, yellow note as if both colour and sound could be one.

"I let you go back on Noveria. You promised not to interfere anymore. The rachni were supposed to disappear."

"We remember. We kept our promise, retreated back through the relay. We started a new home. Beautiful children. Harmony."

Garrus poked one of the animated corpses, unable to wrap his head around the otherworldly phenomenon.

"But.. the machines came. They heard our song. Their shriek of sour notes drowned us out."

"They can't hurt you anymore."

"Yes, we… understand."

"Can you still feel the Reapers? Can they influence you?"

"We hear the machines, but they cannot control us. Remove this last shackle and we are free."

Something moved above them on the planet's surface. Something big enough shook the entire cavern, and rocks began falling from the ceiling.

The rachni queen peered upwards, sensing something above. "What? The children return. They will destroy us all. Release us!"

The comm in Shepard's ear buzzed. "We're getting movement here. A lot of movement…"

"Copy that, Grunt."

"Are you capable of fighting the Reapers?" she asked the queen.

"We hate the machines. We will fight for our unborn children. Release us!"

Arius joined her. "Shepard. The queen is wounded. She would need time to escape."

Grunt's voice buzzed in her ear again. "Shepard, we're out of time! We stay here, Aralakh Company dies? Is that clear?"

There it was - the universe giving serving up her daily dose of heart-wrenching dilemma. She had seconds to make a decision, as usual.

"Arius. In 10 seconds or less, why should I let the queen live?"

"The crucible can benefit from her workers - they are highly intelligent creatures and excel at coordinating large-scale engineering tasks."

"Cons?"

"You'll be sacrificing Aralakh company. A personal blow to Grunt and his reputation, perhaps even his life."

She made her decision. There were no half-measures. She went all the way.

"We'll buy you some time," she yelled at the queen.

"Listen up!" she relayed over the comm. "Aralakh Company holds off the rachni while the queen escapes. Grunt, fall back to our position and lead us out!"

"Damn you, Shepard! I'm leaving my team. On my way!"

"Shepard, you sure about this?" Garrus asked. The cavern shook again, and the sounds of falling rocks grew louder.

"That's an order! She's too valuable an asset to lose!" She lifted her weapon and fired into the remaining Reaper restraint, which exploded in a shower of rock. The queen was free. It screeched incomprehensibly, but Arius froze, paused for a moment, and looked at her. "She... thanks you.. and is once again in your debt."

"Now get us outta here!"

The blast of a powerful shotgun, Grunt's M-300 Claymore, boomed through the air, shattering the rocky partition that led to them. The krogan jumped down into the pool of shallow water they were running through and joined them at the lead.

The four of them booked it through the tunnels while the screeches and cries of husks gained on them, tunnels also beginning to collapse. In front of them was a horde of Ravagers. They didn't have time to fight them all off.

"The shuttle's down that path! I'll hold them off!" Grunt yelled to her, making the decision for her.

But she still froze, not wanting to leave him to his death.

"Get outta here, Shepard!" he yelled to her face. There was no time to think or to say anything, and the moment arrived quickly and she wasn't ready for it. But they were all going to die very soon if they didn't move. Sparing the most she could under the circumstance, she reached out, rested her hand on Grunt for a moment, nodded to him, and then ordered the trio to run. Fading farther and farther behind them, they heard Grunt's battle cry and repeated roars of his shotgun.

They ran nonstop through the twisting tunnels, tripping over falling debris, pod remnants and webbing, legs burning from the constant incline. A shaft of light appeared before them like a beacon and a moment later they burst out of the dark tunnels into the blinding light of the outdoors.

Ahead of them, the shuttle was waiting. "Cortez, we're the last ones out."

"Copy that, Commander. Shuttle is waiting."

They collectively gathered their breath, looking back at the entrance of the cave, waiting, hoping to be proven wrong, but none emerged.

After time had passed with no change, the shuttle door opened, and Arius and Garrus despondently entered, hearts still beating strongly, still coming to terms with what had just happened. Shepard, heaviness weighing on her and the last to board, looked back one last time.

A form staggered from the cave entrance, completely covered head-to-toe in blood, and limping badly. It was Grunt, and he was alive.

She ran toward him. "Grunt!"

"Anybody… got something to eat?" the krogan managed to sputter before his legs buckled out from under him, and he collapsed into her arms.