.

Now we look for something more
Into the world that we adore
Reading signs in every scar
Can't find answer in this way

Now we look for something more
While the world seems only bored
Trying to look over the eyes
We'd find answer in this our resurrection
Tystnaden – Mindrama

Chapter 9 ~ Slivers

The first pale light of dawn was licking the horizon.

No more than a thin line of grey, it inexorably crept upwards to claim the sky from the blackness that veiled the plaza behind me. With the twilight a strange muffled silence had set. No breeze stirring. No leaves rustling. No animals moving. Just dead silence.

I strained my hearing. Was there a faint hum? No. Just my imagination. This total absence of sound was unnerving. Before you knew it, the silence made you itch to shift your feet on the loose gravel, if only to assure yourself that there still was any sound. It was an old urge. You either mastered it or you never got even near a recon unit.

Slowly, I rolled my right shoulder and worked out the knots. The pain from Tarak's attempt to kill me was lessening with each day, but my muscles still felt stiff. Sleep had been too short and too uneasy to provide much rest.

As I watched, a rim of brilliant red pushed itself over the ragged mountain chain that towered in the east, marking the edges of the area influenced by the shroud's immediate stabilizing effects. I took a deep breath, but the acrid smell of burnt sulfur that lingered in the air successfully clogged my nostrils and blocked out all other scents. It was past time we got our asses safely back underground, or better off this contaminated wasteland all together.

I hadn't expected to have the last guard, but when Grunt returned early from his night of contemplation – arguing that he hadn't seen even remotely enough battles to fill an evening with their memories, let alone a whole night – and asked for the first guard, I accepted. The nights on Tuchanka were short this far up north, so there was no point in disturbing Shepard's sleep as well just to set up a third shift. Even less since the Doctor constantly complained that she wasn't sleeping enough. Besides, I enjoyed having the guard before dawn. There was something utterly peaceful about watching the world to wake; a sense of a primal rightness that was quite hard to find in this galaxy these days.

It would have been pleasant, if not… if not for this blasted silence. I had felt it on Invictus, too; and a few moments later we got caught in an ambush that not only left two-thirds of my squad dead, but also made me learn the painful truth of a saying I once heard from a short, black-haired Alliance soldier with tilted eyes: Death is lighter than a feather; duty heavier as a mountain. Funny, how a human proverb of all things fitted turian ethics to a T…

I froze.

Through the soles of my boots I felt a faint humming. It seemed to come from the earth directly below me. Not my imagination then. I stooped down, stripped off a glove and touched the sandy ground. It was still warm from yesterday's heat. As if on command the earth vibrated again, sending soft ripples through the soil. This time though, it was answered by a low rumble, coming from the direction of the mountains. Earthquake? I squinted towards the mountains but there was nothing to be seen.

I got up and sprinted back the few hundred paces back to the camp. The hum became a rhythmic pulse. I was having a really bad feeling about this.

When I reached the site, Grunt had just kicked out the fire and started tossing our equipment into the truck. Urz was having an agitated fit, clearly torn between running off and staying to guard his new pack. Shepard was stomping into her boots; then buckled the chest piece of her armor back on and looked at me with a frown.

The rumble grew even louder and I paused. It wasn't just louder. It was coming our way. Fast. Definitely not an earthquake then. Shepard's eyes went wide. She recognized it too.

"Maw!" she shouted and the earth groaned.

The plaza trembled hard enough to make me stumble. Catching my balance, I skittered over gravel and shoot a last longing glance at the truck perhaps twenty paces away from us. With ease Grunt pulled the big metal crate we shipped in from the Normandy from the bed of the truck and hasted back to us. If we drove away now… but I already knew it was too late. I grabbed one of the assault rifles from the ammunition crate and crammed in a heat sink, watching Grunt doing the same. The krogan nodded at me, a dangerous light in his slitted reptile eyes.

"Finally. A worthy foe."

And then the hum stopped and pandemonium erupted.

~V~

We are fucked. Sooo fucking fucked. Fuckfuckfuck.

I snatched up the canvas bag containing my bow from the shaking ground and vaulted behind a piece of collapsed column, the stream of curses repeating in my head over and over. The earth gave way to another gigantic heave and in a spray of dirt a thrasher maw broke to the surface; unleashing its blood curdling battle cry. Fifty fucking meters away from us.

Distantly I heard Garrus curse and Grunt cheer but I just stared transfixed at the oversized worm, feeling trapped. Trapped in a horrible déjà-vu that was uprooting all the dark things I believed to have banished so firmly from my mind. The fear. The anger. The helplessness. And the guilt. It didn't matter that my superiors said I had done as best as I could on Akuze. I knew better. They had died because I had been too weak. Because I had been so goddamn scared of myself that I had allowed the fear of losing control cripple me.

I shook off the catatonia.

This was no other Akuze.

This time I was faster. Stronger. Deadlier.

I licked my dry lips and reached out for the power inside me and found nothing. I tried again, tried to force my nerve endings into obedience and ran into an invisible wall. Again. And again. Dammit!

You have to let go…

I couldn't. Too vivid was the memory of the other me, so utterly lost in her raging madness. The grip I had on myself tightened further, squeezing out every emotion but cold determination. I gritted my teeth. She would not consume me. My fist tightened around the straps of the bag and –

The arrows! I gave myself a mental slap on the forehead, slung the bow bag on my back and darted towards the truck. Behind me Garrus and Grunt started shooting, their gunfire almost drowning the screams of the maw.

I fished a grey metal box from the bed of the truck and crouched down, snapping the lids open. A neat row of five explosive arrows tipped with conical bronze heads sat in the padded box. Krogan napalm. I needed to trade in two bottles of our best asari liquor and a bag of candy before Ratch had even been willing to sell.

I pulled out my bow and stuffed all explosive arrows but one into my bag-slash-quiver. I hefted the last arrow and sprinted across the plaza. They were heavy. I had to get close. Fun-fucking-tastic.

The krogan and the turian were flanking the maw from two sides and emptying their clips into it. It only seemed to annoy the creature, which was busy dividing its attention between the two soldiers.

"Shepard! Some help here, maybe?" Garrus exclaimed and jumped away from a splash of acid spit.

"I got you covered! Keep moving!" I shouted and raised my bow, pushing the arrow head's tiny splint while nocking. The string sizzled and the arrow hit the maw's plated head. A second arrow followed, the napalm ignited and fire bloomed. The worm screamed, pushing the visible part of its gargantuan body after the turian. It didn't slow. It wasn't working. Heaven help us. The explosives were not working.

I dropped down and ducked behind a small mound of debris. I didn't bother with pulling my Carnifex. It probably wouldn't even graze the worm's thick hide. Instead I fumbled desperately for my biotics. Yah. Like trying to catch dandelion seeds on high wind.

And so you will let another team die…

No.

No, I would not. I would do anything to save their lives. If it meant sacrificing myself, so be it. The death grip eased and then a sliver of my awareness brushed the surface of the power residing inside me. Electrical impulses fired wildly and I struggled to focus. A dozen needles seemed to prick into my skull. Then hundreds. Thousands. Threatening to fry my brain if they didn't find a vent.

NOW!

I forced the energy along the neural paths that had grown through my nervous system even before I was born. Instantly the pain ebbed and the energy balanced in my body, writhing under my skin like a ravenous beast. Begging to be released.

"Shepard! Watch out!" Grunt shouted and my head whipped around.

All I saw was a cloud of acid coming for me. At the last moment, I remembered how to establish a barrier. A tiny splat still hit my face. I groaned, the skin above my left eye burning like fire. The barrier fell. I dove to the side, barely escaping a second acid shower. I slumped against one of the few columns still upright and carefully wiped the spit away with the back of my gloved hand. Dammit, not again. Akuze had almost cost me an eye, too.

The gunfire stopped and the ground rumbled. I stiffened. The maw was underground. There was no way to tell where it would surface. Suddenly Urz galloped in my direction, Grunt following at a run. The varren crashed into me and I ripped up my arm against his attempts to lick my face. Just as I thought to lose my fight against the slobber, the krogan grabbed my upper arm and pulled me upright.

"No time to nap, Battlemaster. You only singed its hide! We need more of these arrows," Grunt said and changed the clip of his Vindicator. The assault rifle looked almost ridiculously small in his hands.

"Ah… I have three." I said slowly, trying to locate the maw's position. East, I thought.

The krogan harrumphed and the earth started trembling once more.

"Maw to the east!" I heard Garrus suddenly shout and I dashed with Grunt off to the eastern end of the temple ruins.

The maw surfaced, but this time I was prepared. Dark energy sprang to life in my hands and I pushed the crude tangle of disruptive spheres forward. The maw raged, instincts driving the worm into an attack frenzy. Like a gigantic coiled cobra it pushed forward into the ruins. Bullets hit, the gunfire from the right closing in on me. Dark-green blood oozed from the hole I had ripped into the carapace below its head with my biotics. It would never let go of us now. I dodged another acid attack; released a second blast that burst open a large part of the maw's front.

I unslung my bow, nocked another arrow and for a moment the universe held its breath with me.

Twenty meters away the arrow exploded into the open wound below the maw's head and it screeched a loud, high-pitched whistle. The shrill sound reverberated in my head and I doubled over, dropping the bow to clasp my hands over my ears. I screamed; my vision swimming. My ear-drums felt like bursting. I staggered backwards, liquid dripping from my nose.

Suddenly the whistling stopped. I jerked up my head. The maw faltered and I spun around to run my gaze over the damaged ruins for my team. Behind me the maw dropped with a final quake that shook the plaza one last time; my eyes fell on Garrus who jumped down from a pile of debris a few steps away from me – and everything seemed to happen at once: a sickening grating sound; the turian shouting something then lunging forward; bumping into me – just as one of the last remaining columns toppled over and crashed down in a spray of dust.

To where I'd been standing just an instant before.

Together we hit the ground, his weight knocking the air out of my lungs. The side of my face kissed the ground and left a trail of skin on the gravel. The sharp pain made me gasp for breath but all I got was a mouthful of dirt. I tried to cough but couldn't move. My face still pressed against the ground I nudged the turian with my elbow and the weight on me eased. I pushed myself up and sat; one, two, three shuddering breaths between hoarse coughs. I spat out a strand of bloody hair, a taste like old pennies in my mouth. Fuck me. This had been a close one.

"Damn it, Shepard," Garrus said, while sitting up and rubbing his head. A layer of brown dust had settled on his blue and silver-grey armor. "One day –" He looked at me. "Hey, you're alright?"

"Fantastic…" I mumbled and pulled off my glove to touch my cheek. It stung and felt unpleasantly puffed. My fingers came away bright red. With bits of soil in it. "Does it look how it feels like?"

"You've certainly been in better shape. But also in worse."

My lips twitched and I instantly regretted it. Oww. Goddamn ruins. A fucking menace. All of them. Just ask Liara.

Slowly Garrus got up, holding out a hand. I grabbed it, giggling in my mind at the curious notion of yanking him down to me instead. Oy. I must have hit my head a lot harder than I thought.

"Hah!" Grunt exclaimed from behind, giving me such a hearty clap on the shoulder that I almost sailed back to the ground. "That was something to warm our hearts at night, wasn't it?"

I couldn't help it. The giggle broke through the surface despite the pain. The relaxing warmth of ebbing adrenaline. The fact that we had just killed a freaking thresher maw. That I had lost none of my friends today. Damn. It was good to be alive.

I was still grinning when we resumed to load our equipment into the truck, until…

"Visitors," Garrus suddenly stated, voice grim.

I looked up.

A group of four krogans strolled towards us from their truck as if they had no care in the world. Peachy. Frigging peachy. Chief Uvenkand the Three Morons.

The turian picked his Vindicator off the truck bed. "Better expect trouble."

"What? You don't think they've come to bring ribbons and fruit baskets?" I shifted my stance, hand on my Carnifex.

"When did – ah, never mind."

"It seems," Uvenk hissed as he approached, "You survived the Ritual. How… unfortunate."

"We did better." Grunt pointed with his thick thumb behind where the corpse of the maw lay half collapsed between the ruins.

The krogan clan chief looked shocked, whereas his three companions started to argue in low growls. To his credit though, Uvenk caught himself quite fast. "Perhaps we need to reassess the situation. Listen, Tank spawn. You need a clan or you'll be forever nothing but a worthless abnormity. Gatatog might consider taking you in and this is your first command: kill that scum you drag behind."

He made a dramatic pause.

When no one reacted, he snarled. Yup, there was the edge of his limited imagination. "Refuse and we fed your still twitching bodies to the varrens!"

I looked at Grunt. "It's your call, Grunt."

The young krogan shrugged. Then drew his Katana and fired Uvenk square in the face.

.~'*'~.

Guess, what?

When we got back to camp Urdnot, there weren't any ribbons or fruit baskets either. No-ooo, instead someone nearly had kittens.

"You killed the maw?" Wrex exclaimed, his face a study in incredulousness. He looked ready to jump out of his chair, hurl the datapad to the ground and stomp on it with both feet.

"Uhm… We shouldn't have?" I asked carefully.

He threw up his hands. "No! Of course not! You ruined a perfectly good ritual! Do you have any idea how long it takes to lure another maw into the area?"

"Woah, wait a second. Nobody told us not to! Heck, nobody even informed us that maws were involved in the first place!"

"That's because no one with a sane mind would even think about killing a maw without proper preparation! On foot! Besides what about the instructions? Have you even bothered to hear them at all?"

"You mean that stupid console? It's broken! KAPUT!" I shot back exasperated. This was not fair. First they wanted us to chop off heads, and now they made a fuss? The shaman had seemed pleased. No one berated Grunt as he made machine gun noises while waving his brand new thresher maw tooth about.

"Oh. Well." The old krogan scratched the scar crossing his face. "That might explain why the last three kids failed. Heh, and I blamed it to them being of Uvenk's rabble."

Ah yes. There was that. "Uh-huh, about Uvenk…"

"What?" He looked at me sharply.

I winced. "Just don't expect him back in the Camp tonight. Or maybe you better don't expect anything from him at all. Ever." Wrex had started to make tiny suffocating noises and I hastened to add, "Look, he came to the temple and when he saw that Tuchanka hadn't killed us he got this idea to help her along a bit. What did you expect me to do? Let this cave troll hump our corpses?"

And then I realized he was giggling. Or the krogan equivalent of it at least.

I crossed my arms. "Humor me, Wrex. Why is this so fucking funny?" I growled and arched my eyebrow at him. The sharp tug spoiled my efforts greatly. Maw spit was a real pain in the ass.

The battlemaster then caught his breath and wiped at the corner of his eyes. "Months, Shepard. For months I was wrecking my brain how I could get rid of him with minimal fuss and without antagonizing the rest of his Clan. Months! And then you suddenly appear out of a clear sky, not only disposing of him, but also riling him so much that he placed his ass in one of the few positions where his death will directly benefit Clan Urdnot."

"Aha. How will this benefit your Clan?"

"Why, Shepard, because he shouldn't have attacked you on sacred ground. It gave you all the right for the kill and he greatly debased Clan Gatatog with his actions. I want a fist of their scouts and my Clan needs their farming lands to the South. Thanks to you they will have a very hard time defying me now. I won't be long and the times when Gatatog was rivaling Urdnot's strength are gone forever. Oh, and then there's the maw. I told you I'm going to offer Grunt a place in my clan. If he accepts… well, then Clan Urdnot will have two living warriors who slew a maw during their Rite. In case you wonder, that's two more than everybody else has." He finished, looking suspiciously smug.

"And who…" I trailed off. Alright. If Wrex would get any more self-pleased he would probably burst. "You!" I pointed my finger at the ungodly smirking krogan. "I can't believe it! You set me up! This was a friggin' setup!"

His smirk turned into wheezing laughter. "I'm sorry, Shepard, but your face… Priceless. Makes me almost forgive you for driving the Mako through the relay on Ilos."

I rolled my eyes. "For god's sake, the whole lot of you were yelling like virgins at their sacrifice." Let alone that Liara had barfed all over the dashboard. Again. "Wasn't this punishment enough?"

"Heh! Not even remotely."

I chuckled, watching the other side of the hall, where several krogans clasped arms with Grunt and shared a drink with him. Some even raised their oversized tin mugs towards Garrus who sat on a broken block of concrete and observed the going-ons while fussing over his rifle.

"Grunt's a good kid." Wrex suddenly said. "You did well in bringing him here. See that he survives your adventures. You're his battlemaster now. That's a great responsibility."

"I know. I promise to do my best to get him back to Tuchanka in one piece."

But somewhere deep down that unsnuffable voice whispered that even my best wouldn't be enough.

"You should prepare for war," I said softly, keeping an eye out in case someone closed in to listen. "I'm convinced the Sovereign said the truth. They are coming."

"How certain and how soon?" Wrex whispered back, his tone dead serious.

"Pretty certain. Cerberus… they stumbled across something and I bet my lily-white ass it's another Reaper. Only this one works through Collectors instead of geth. I don't know how much time we have left but I'm sure it won't be enough." It was never enough.

"Nakmor and Ravanor will stand with Urdnot, no matter the course. And after today it will be easy to pursue Gatatog to do the same. Smaller clans will follow as soon as the banners are raised. The rest will be forced to join then. Give me ten days' notice and I can bring you a dozen battalions with our finest. Give me twenty and I rally you an army unheard of since the dawn of the Rebellions."

I stared at him as if he had just sprouted wings.

He snorted. "Why do you think I was in such a hurry to get back here? Because I missed the bloody vista?" His gaze got distant. "A taste of war is already in the air; and while the rest of those Citadel morons will still squabble if they should believe your story, the krogans will be ready and face the enemy. Saving their asses again. A fitting end. I wonder if anyone will catch the irony."

"What do you mean?"

He sighed, looking old. Then again he was old. He looked me straight in the eyes and under his breath he said bitterly, "We are dying, Shepard. Our numbers dwindle quicker than anticipated. Nobody does realize because we live long, but within one generation our number will have halved. Three more and we will tether on the brink of extinction."

"But I thought…"

"What?" He spat in scorn. "That the genophage is designed to merely cull the surplus? To keep our numbers 'stable'? Varrenshit. Do you know what they do? They simply take away all the ugly truths and leave only neat and clean figures. One in thousand, they say and probably even feel charitable. One in a thousand means that a fertile female could theoretically still produce dozens of living offspring in her life time. They calculate that this is more than sufficient and move on. No one of these 'scientists' ever wasted a thought what one in thousand also means: 999 stillbirths. I have seen the pyres burn in the females' camps for days. Tell me, Shepard, you are female – how many times would you endure to see hundreds of your offspring dead only to hold one tiny squeaking thing in your hands before it would drive you into insanity?"

I didn't know what to respond. There was only one word for it: hell. Wrex just regarded me calmly, taking in my pained expression and after a moment he spoke up again.

"You see – If there is no cure… Then this will be our last battle."

I have a salarian aboard the Normandy, who was significantly involved in altering the genophage. Yes, your bodies were on the edge of fixing this nightmare. And yes, right now he is sneaking into a Weyrloc facility searching for his former student, who was abducted by Weyrloc Guld and set to find a cure. And yes, he will very likely kill him…

Secrets within secrets.

If there was an important lesson hidden in it as well, I was just too blind to catch it. I remained silent. The bitter truth was I couldn't afford to divide their attention. We needed the krogans' united strength, and right now their collective struggle for survival was bounding them closer than any alliance ever could. What if a cure scattered them to the four winds? Could I even dare to take that risk?

No. I had to do what must be done, even if made me weep inside. I simply couldn't allow myself the luxury of a clear conscience any longer.

And so their blood will be on your hands as well… How can you live with the knowledge that it was your deliberate decision which denied them even the slightest chance to end their sufferings?

I had no answers. Only regrets.

~V~

Once again I checked the controls and the calibrations of the Normandy's weapons.

Usually the work was familiar and routinely enough to capture my concentration while still allowing my mind to relax. Not so now. The Thanix cannon was the worst diva I ever laid my hands on; demanding each every setting tweaked and calibrated with almost surgical precision. However, as usual for a diva she was stunning by default, but if brought to heel… Then she would be devastating. If. That was the crux. I sprawled on a chair, my legs propped on a crate. I stared at the datapad in my hands. Those results just made no sense. My eyes grew heavy. This was getting tiring. And irritating.

The sound of the door opening pulled me out of the daze. I craned my head to see Shepard striding in. She had been brooding about something since we left Tuchanka this morning and I would bet my right arm that the return of Mordin Solus, from whatever secret mission he had been on, made it even worse.

"Hey, still busy?" she asked surprisingly good-natured and walked over to look over my shoulder at the datapad. What she was trying to learn from the turian glyphs there was beyond me, but her proximity was undeniably pleasant. She smelled of soap and gun oil. It made for an odd but intriguing combination. Ah. I really should have kept my distance on Tuchanka.

"Of necessity," I said quickly. "But I feel like I'm turning in circles for hours." I rubbed my eyes with the heel of my hand. How late was it?

"I bet…" She said with a small laugh, her breath tickling the side of my neck. I tensed. "Hey, what about a break?"

I leaned a little to the right and away from her, staring straight ahead. Damn it, why did she have to stand so close?

"Sure, what's on your –"

Her hands touched my shoulders and slid down my chest. Her face was so near to mine I could feel the warmth radiating from her skin on my cheek. Slivers of heat spread through me, forcing my heart to pound harder.

"So. Wanna play, Vakarian?"

I dropped the datapad.

Spirits, what…

And then the tip of her tongue licked along my jawline and I lost control…

"OFFICER VAKARIAN!"

I gave a start. The room spun and me and my chair hit the floor with a crash.

"Are you alright?" EDI asked, concern tinting the nuances of her synthetic voice. "Your sleep seemed troubled."

Staring at the Main Battery's ceiling, I shook off the dizziness. Slowly, I untangled myself from the chair and got up, covering my face with my hand. A dream. A blasted dream. Note to self: always remember the constant surveillance. The last place I wanted to get myself into was at the receiving end of those embarrassing questions.

"I'm fine. What is it?"

"You requested to be informed immediately when a message with the specified encryption pattern comes in." The AI explained.

"Yes?"

"It is here."

In a perfect universe, I probably would have never gotten this blasted message. Then again, in a perfect universe this message wouldn't have had any reason to exist in the first place.

I sweeped the datapad off the floor and switched it back on.

Dear Garrus,

I knew our meeting was not exactly what Shepard hoped for, but the circumstances neither allowed me to speak more freely nor to show too much sympathy. Nos Astra's eyes and ears lurk in every corner these days. I dare not to imagine what will happen if certain knowledge falls into the wrong hands.

Please tell Shepard I am truly sorry that other assignments prevent me from fighting at your front right now, but I fear if this threat is not removed it will cause even greater harm in the future. I will try to support you with intel, though. It is the least I can do.

Also, I have news about the request you sent me earlier. I just received the confirmation that a turian named Lantar Sidonis has passed through Citadel customs 46 days ago. He was seen in the company of someone called 'Fade', a minor trafficker helping people to disappear. I looked into his background but so far I can only confirm reliably that he is human and has ties to C-Sec. I suspect he is either an informant or an officer dishonorably discharged. In any way, he seems to be often seen near the Zakera Ward warehouses. I think he is your best option to find out more about Sidonis' whereabouts.

Take care,

Liara

Sidonis.

My fingers flexed and a grim smile twisted my face as I recalled every death he had to answer for. Wrex was right. Remembering did keep the anger sharp.

And the vengeance would be all the sweeter then.