CHAPTER 41: You Ain't Goin' Nowhere
2185 CE
'Kasumi, you're leaving, right?' I ask the seemingly empty room.
'No need to stick around. Shepard already dragged me on one suicide mission, I don't wanna get dragged into another.' Kasumi's voice came from the area near the bar.
'I need your help with a heist. Are you open to commissions?' I asked.
'Depends what you want me to steal, and how you're paying for it.' Kasumi decided after a long pause.
'The details are on this data chip.' I admitted.
Kasumi whistled as she loaded it into her omni-tool and reviewed it.
'Well, you certainly don't lack for ambition. How the hell am I supposed to pull this off?' Kasumi asked, stunned.
'You're the master thief, aren't you? I don't want to tell you how to do your job.' I admitted.
'And what could you possibly pay that would be worth this? This may not be a suicide mission, but it's damn close.' Kasumi asked.
'A secret.' I admitted.
'You know a lot of secrets. You're going to have to narrow it down, Professor.' Kasumi teased.
'This is a much better secret than any of those. I've never told anyone this secret; not even my family.' I admitted.
Kasumi stared. 'Is this one of those secrets you know that keeps driving Salarians insane?'
I frown. 'I think technically not knowing this secret is probably what's driving them insane.'
'Yeah, I think I'll pass on that one. I tell you what. How about I do this for you, and you'll owe me a favor. Something equal in scope.' Kasumi decided.
'Equal in scope to saving the galaxy?' I asked.
'Is that why you need it stolen?' Kasumi blinked.
'More or less.' I nodded.
'Well, if that's the size of the favor you're asking for, I'll need something just as large in return. That's fair, isn't it?' Kasumi decided.
'You sure you don't want a galaxy shattering secret, instead?' I asked, hopefully.
'No. I think I prefer my galaxy unshattered. It's where I keep my stuff.' Kasumi admitted.
'Sure then. You get me what I need, and I'll do you your favor in return.' I agree.
Kasumi vanished with a giggle.
'This is going to be so much fun!'
2185 CE
'Grunt.'
'Krell.'
'You heading back to Tuchanka to get the navy ready?' I asked.
Grunt nodded. 'I am. We need it in time for the Reapers.'
'Keep in touch. I have some stuff you'll want. And a good ship mechanic as well.' I admit.
'Any private ship designs?' Grunt asked.
'Private? Just the one. You can't can't build in time though. I'll give you my notes on all my ship building specs though. They're over a millennia behind the times, but they could be useful.' I admit.
'We can design for better engines shields, armor and weapons. Having the base of a navy designed for and by Krogan... That's important.' Grunt countered.
I nodded, and after fiddling a bit with my Omnitool I sent him my shipbuilding notes. 'Ignore the tractor beam stuff. It's not useful outside specialized designs you probably can't get away with making on Tuchanka without the Turians attacking you.' I advised.
'We'd beat them.' Grunt asserted confidently.
'That's not the point. Fighting them at all is our loss. We need them fighting the Reapers, not us.' I explained.
'Understood.' Grunt nodded.
'And... good luck. We're all gonna need it.' I decided.
2185 CE
'Alright kid, ready to go home?' I asked Kaidan as we coasted towards Omega. I'd said the rest of my goodbyes, and now it was just me, Kaidan, and Miranda getting off at Omega this time. Shepard was going to let Tali off with Legion at the Migrant Fleet, then swing by the Citadel for the rest of the crew, other than Grunt, who she was planning to let off on Tuchanka, and the ones she was planning to take with her to Aratoht.
'I can't believe it's actually over.' Kaidan admitted as the airlocks locked in.
'That's cause it's not. We have a bit more than six months before the Reapers get here. This is just a working vacation.' I stated.
'Weren't we just on one of those?' Kaidan replied.
'Huh. Look at you. All grown up and thinking of suicide missions as vacations! We'll make a proper Krogan out of you yet.' I grinned.
'Hands off, Professor. I won't have you stealing my partner away on another one of your wild adventures.' Miranda warned.
'Miranda, this whole thing was your wild adventure. You revived Shepard from the dead. That's what started this.' Kaidan pointed out.
'My wild adventures ended with all my problems with my family solved and a pretty new beau. Krell's wild adventures end up with you getting caught on a live vid feed executing prominent Batarian politicians.' Miranda unfairly blamed me.
'That whole adventure was his idea though. I was rescuing a small child while he was deciding to do that.' I corrected.
'And if you had been watching him properly, you would have stopped him.' Miranda pronounced, 100% incorrectly.
Of course, there was no way for me to say that I wouldn't have stopped Kaidan in a way that wouldn't have ended up even worse for me so; better to let that statement be.
The airlock doors opened with a hiss and I had to blink, several times, just to assure myself I wasn't actually dreaming.
'Krell!' "Krell?' 'Is that Lord Krell?' 'Blessed one!'
There were Hanar and Drell everywhere. The usual scum of Omega was... I wasn't sure where they were. There were other species here, Vorcha, Krogan, Batarians, Humans and such; but they were all... clean.
'What the hell happened here?' Kaidan wondered.
The walls were all repainted. Red, black, green, and gold in varying patterns and amounts.
'Did Shepard drop us on the wrong space station?' I ask Kaidan.
'Aren't you supposed to know what's happening?' Miranda asked.
'Kid, I've seen a lot of shit, but this? Whatever it is, it's new.' I admit.
'Grandfather!' came a joyful cry from the end of the hall as a familiar green Asari approached us.
'Shiala? What's going on here?' I asked, extremely confused.
'The Vengeance of the Enkindlers came to Omega!' she joyfully informed us, clarifying nothing.
'The Vengeance of the Enkindlers?' Kaidan asked.
I felt a sinking sensation in the pit of my primary stomach.
'He has requested that I take you to him! He wishes to see you again!' Shiala beamed.
The feeling got even worse.
What the hell was going on here? Where was Aria? Where did all those Hanar come from?
'Lead the way.' I grinned. Maybe if I looked like I knew what the fuck was going on people would believe that I had something resembling a clue.
Shiala led us through the clean streets of Omega to a building that definitely used to be Aria's club. It still had the neon signs with the dancing Asari. It still had the sign, with flames proclaiming it to be Afterlife. But now it had a gorgeous stamped metal tryptich just above the sign featuring angry giant Protheans triumphing over Reapers with the help of swarms of smaller Hanar and Drell, with the occasional other alien thrown in. The first panel of the tryptich depicted something different than the second and third. It had a Krogan on it, helping a Prothean out of a very distinct shape. A cryopod.
'Krell, why are you on the entrance to afterlife?' Kaidan asked, his mind, clearly addled by the stress.
'That could be any Krogan rescuing a Prothean from their Cryopod.' I asserted with no factual basis in reality.
'That's a Prothean?' Kaidan asked, shocked.
'An enkindler. And you shouldn't be so modest Grandfather! It's obviously you.' Shiala corrected.
'It's really good work, actually. Looks just like you, even has that star shaped scar on your chin.' Miranda agreed.
'That's a bullet hole, kid.' I explain.
'Where the hell did you find a bullet to get shot with?' Kaidan boggled.
'Not important. Straighten up kid. You're about to live Liara's wildest dream.'
'A threesome with Shepard and an identical clone?' Kaidan asked with an alacrity that honestly troubled me on a number of levels; Miranda too, from the look she was giving him.
'Nah, kid. You're about to meet a real live Prothean.'
Author's Notes: Welcome to the end of ME2. Thus begins a hiatus for me to write up the interregnum and ME3. It's all planned out, although as I actually write it my plans have been changing, because of that I wants something more complete and polished before I start posting because there's very little in terms of stations of the canon to rely on left, fr reasons which I think have probably become obvious with the final portion of this chapter.
The song here is a Bob Dylan song, and I'm actually split as to whether the version covered by The Byrds or the version covered by Brett Dennen (they have different lyrics) is more appropriate to this chapter. Both versions are good and I'd recommend listening to them.
With regards to cliffhangers, I live by a simple rule. The cliffhanger must be earned. You can't leave things half-finished. If you want to end on a cliffhanger, you need to earn it by resolving the main plot arcs of the story first. If you don't cliffhangers are just painful instead of anticipatory. I wanted this cliffhanger to feel fun and teasing rather than painful. Hopefully, I accomplished that.
The hiatus will continue for at least a week, probably less than a month, but writing time isn't exactly something you can predict when you don't know how much you're going to end up actually writing.
