Episode VI
Screams in the Mind
Garrus' group walked down the last path through the sewers that they hadn't taken yet; Alenko on point with Williams bringing up the rear while he and Ahsoka were in the middle. While everyone wasn't as on edge expecting a fight like they had before, the atmosphere between them was still somewhat tense. Williams was still annoyed at Ahsoka for charging in the way she had and also at Garrus for taking that shot while Garrus was annoyed at Williams for shouting unnecessarily at his friend. Alenko was annoyed by how unprofessional everyone was being and Ahsoka, for her part, was completely unbothered by everything and seemed to not even notice (although Garrus knew for a fact that she did).
"How old are you, anyway?" Williams asked suddenly, looking at Ahsoka.
Ashoka looked back over her shoulder, a confused look on her face. "Huh?"
"How old are you?" Williams repeated.
Ahsoka blinked at Williams for a moment, clearly caught off guard by the random question. "Um… Going by Earth years, I think I'm… seventeen."
Garrus heard Williams' breath hitch and noticed that Alenko was actively paying attention. "How long do togruta live?" Williams asked.
"About ninety-four years. Why do you ask?"
"You're a child‽" Williams shouted in surprise, bringing the entire procession to a halt. Alenko turned to face Ahsoka with a look of mild curiosity while Garrus side-eyed her.
"I'm not a child," Ahsoka said tersely, a scowl on her lips. "I'll have you know that I'm considered a young adult and I'll be a full adult when I turn eighteen."
"You went to war when you were fourteen‽" Williams asked in stunned disbelief.
"Still a young adult," Ahsoka replied, her scowl deepening.
Garrus didn't need to be Force sensitive to sense his friend's growing ire. "Well, you're definitely the most badass seventeen-year-old that I know," he said, giving his friend a pat on the shoulder.
Ahsoka gave him a small smile but still asked, "How many seventeen-year-olds do you even know?" Garrus refused to answer that question, knowing that he'd just be digging his own grave if he did.
Ahsoka chuckled slightly at Garrus' lack of response but her smile faded when she turned back toward Williams. "Is there a problem?" she asked pointedly.
Williams shook her head as she sighed. "I just don't understand you aliens."
While Ahsoka didn't say anything, Garrus had a good idea as to what she was thinking and silently agreed. While Williams meant well, she was easily one of the most xenophobic people on the Normandy. With the conversation clearly over, the group started walking again in silence. It wasn't long until another question popped into Garrus' head, though.
"Hey, when's your birthday?" he asked.
"In a date you're familiar with? I have no idea," came Ahsoka's reply.
"We'll have to puzzle that out once we get back to the Normandy."
"If you want to."
Alenko's squad fell into silence once more as they continued on their way. It wasn't long before they came across another side room like before that was filled with yet more geth. Despite the earlier tensions, the squad took them out with the same ease as the first wave.
"And that's the last of them," Alenko said as he activated the last water main. The sound of rushing water could be heard from the pipes. "We should head back."
As the others turned to leave, Ahsoka remained still and looked in the other direction, squinting her eyes. "I sense someone nearby." Williams and Alenko shared a look but Garrus didn't react at all, already being used to Ahsoka pulling out weird powers.
"If it's another colonist, they probably need our help," Alenko said. "Let's go check it out."
Ahsoka's powers were, naturally, correct as they found a human man wearing the same outfit as the rest of the colonists. Garrus gave Alenko and Williams a smug smile due to their earlier disbelief and patted his friend on the shoulder.
"What are you doing down here? Are you okay?" Alenko asked as he approached the man.
"Oh, I'm very much not okay. I'm doing nothing I should be and anything I shouldn't." With that statement, the colonist suddenly doubled over and screamed in pain, vaguely reaching for his head.
"Is there anything we can do to help?" Alenko asked, one hand partially raised as he was torn between reaching out and wanting to keep his distance.
"No. No. You don't need to help," the colonist said as he straightened up. "That was a good one. Very intense."
The squad shared a very concerned look before Alenko continued. "What was that?"
"Just invoking the Master's whip, is all. It helps me know I'm alive. You're here for the geth, aren't you? You're not the only one."
"Who else is here for the geth?"
"Not here for; wanting to get rid of. They're a thorn in the side of the—" the man was cut off as he screamed in pain again, reaching for his head. "Trying to get to the—" He tried to talk through the pain but it apparently intensified as he went back to screaming before throwing his head back and laughing insanely.
Ahsoka squinted her eyes at the man and tilted her head, a sign that Garrus was beginning to understand meant that she sensed something strange. "Keep him talking," she said quietly to him before taking a few steps back and setting down the power cell that she was still carrying before sitting down herself in the lotus pose, her hands on her knees and her eyes closed.
"I think we should go. We can't help him and I don't think he wants help," Williams said, clearly not having heard Ahsoka.
"Yeah, I think that's a good idea," Alenko agreed and turned to leave only for Garrus to step forward.
"You looking to die or something?" he asked casually.
"Yeah. I'd rather… die… fighting," the man said through the pain, swaying slightly to one side.
"Rather die fighting, eh? I can relate to that. We turians make a pretty big deal about the whole thing. Dying with honor and all that. So, what are you fighting?"
"It's not… that kind… of a fight. It's like running through a thorn bush. The more you struggle, the worse it gets."
"Now that's something I can't relate to. Even if I wasn't wearing armor pretty much all the time, my scales protect me from things like that. You never said what you were fighting."
"I'm fighting… the Master." The man screamed out in pain once more, clutching at his head this time. Garrus was starting to suspect, somewhat belatedly, that this human was one of those people who got a kick from feeling pain. That was something that he absolutely did not understand.
"The Master, huh? Must be a hell of a fight. Think you can win?"
The man let out another maniacal laugh at that. "Win? Against the Master?" The man screamed out in pain again but pushed through it to keep speaking. "No… No one… can. Still… fight—" The man doubled over again, clutching at his head so hard that his knuckles turned white while his screams of pain were so intense that it was starting to make even Garrus feel uncomfortable. When he finally stopped and straightened back up, he was breathing heavily and looked somewhere between exhausted and aroused.
Garrus opened his mouth to speak again when he felt Ahsoka's hand tug on his shoulder. She reached out and waved her other hand at the man while saying, "Sleep." Just like that, the man collapsed in a boneless heap on the ground and was snoring away.
"What was that?" Williams asked, looking a little ill.
"I managed to locate whatever it is that's doing all this; it's somewhere quite a ways beneath Zhu's Hope. Since that guy's connection was kinda weak, I managed to sever it and command him instead," Ahsoka answered.
Alenko's omni-tool flared to life as he inputted a few commands before holding his hand up to his earpiece. "Alenko to Shepard, come in," he said. "I repeat, Alenko to Shepard, come in. … He's not answering. Wherever he is, his comms must be jammed."
"You don't think he's…" Ashley didn't finish that statement, clearly not wanting to even entertain the idea more than she already was.
Ahsoka shook her head. "No, Tali's still alive. I can sense her."
"You can do that from this distance? Neat. Can you sense Shepard and Wrex, too?" Garrus asked.
"No," she said somewhat sadly. "I can only sense Tali because she's strong with the Force."
"Well, if she's still alive then the others should be, too. Come on. We should get back to the colony and turn all this stuff in. Then we can investigate the place and maybe find a way down there."
With everyone agreeing, Ahsoka picked the power cell back up and they swiftly made their way out.
OoOoOoO
Tali and the others had quickly made their way back to the Mako and had been pleasantly surprised to see Lizbeth already waiting for them. They then quickly loaded up and started making their way back as fast as they could. That turned out to be not as quickly as they would have liked, however, as it seemed that more geth reinforcements had arrived to harass them.
Unlike last time, however, Tali actually found herself with something to do. Lizbeth had obviously never seen any serious combat before and she flinched every time the main cannon of the Mako fired and held her seat in a death grip. Tali knew well just how unpleasant trips in the Mako could be, especially since Shepard seemed to go out of his way to hit every single bump that he could. Sympathizing with her, Tali reached out with the Force to try and project some calmness to her while also reaching out with her hand to place it gently on the other woman's while talking to her in low tones.
It wasn't long before they came within range of the comms that the bunker had set up.
"Is there anybody— Is there anyone picking this up?" they heard Juliana say.
"Get away from that radio!" another voice, this one masculine, shouted.
"That's my mom!" Lizbeth shouted.
"This is Juliana Baynham of Feros colony. Please help us—" The comms went dead before Juliana could say anything more.
"Stop the rover!" Lizbeth said as they came to the entrance of the bunker. Shepard had barely brought the Mako to a stop before Lizbeth practically tore the door open and rushed down the ramp that led to the bunker.
Tali and the others also quickly disembarked and followed after her only to find her crouched behind one of the flood lights. As the group approached, they saw a scene unfolding that was equal parts confusing and disconcerting.
"You can't do this, Jeong!" Juliana said forcefully to Ethan Jeong who appeared to be in the middle of a panic attack. Everyone in the bunker was looking on at the scene warrily.
"Everyone, shut up! Just let me think!" Ethan shouted, his breaths coming in rapid bursts as his eyes looked frantically around the room and his hands went to his head. One of them was holding a pistol.
"You won't get away with this!" Juliana replied, a dangerous edge to her voice.
"Someone get her out of here!" At Ethan's command, one of ExoGeni's guards came up to restrain Julliana.
"Get your hands off my mother, you son of a bitch!" Lizbeth shouted as she burst from behind cover and dashed into the room. Shepard tried to reach out and stop her but he was far too slow to actually accomplish anything.
"Lizbeth!" Julliana managed to break free of the guard's hold and rush to her daughter, pulling her into a firm embrace.
"Dammit! Come out where I can see you! All of you!" Ethan pointed to the place where the others were hiding. Shepard shared a glance with his squad before shrugging and rising, casually walking into the room.
Ethan's eyes took on a mad quality as the trio approached him. "Of course. Of course! Guess it was a bit much to think that some geth could take you out, huh?"
Tali frowned behind her mask. Even without her connection to the Force, she could feel Ethan steadily becoming unraveled. While she wasn't entirely sure as to what the cause of all this was, she had a fair guess and, if she was right, then the fact that the man was considering the option at all made him despicable. That being said, the decision was also clearly eating away at him so that meant that he wasn't totally lost. Still, she had a bad feeling about this.
"Found some interesting records on you in ExoGeni's database, ya know?" Ethan continued. "Learned about what you did during the Blitz. We don't need your heroics here"
"We can talk this out," Shepard said calmly, moving his hands in a placating gesture. "Nobody needs to get hurt."
"You don't understand!" Ethan said before taking a few deep breaths to try and calm down. Tali decided to reach out through the Force and project some peace onto him to help him out. While it wasn't completely effective, it was definitely better than if she had done nothing. "Communications are back up. ExoGeni wants this place purged."
"What‽" Lizbeth shouted and was about to march right up to Ethan's face before her mom stopped her. "This is a human colony, Jeong! You can't repurpose us!"
For her part, Tali watched the situation unfold with a growing sense of foreboding. The situation was exactly what she thought it was. While she didn't know much about ExoGeni, it became painfully obvious from what they learned about the Thorian that this was one of the companies that prioritized profit above all else. Not for the first time, Tali couldn't help but wonder how certain people could ever think that way. While they didn't have a monopoly on it, it was also mostly a human thing and they were still very new to the interstellar stage so maybe that had something to do with it.
"It's not about you!" Ethan fired back, some of the mania returning to his voice. Tali tried to calm him once more but her efforts were futile. "There's something far more valuable here than a bunch of human lives!"
"He's talking about the Thorian," Shepard supplied. "The one unique thing that Feros has. It's a telepathic lifeform that exists under Zhu's Hope. ExoGeni have been using the colonists there as guinea pigs for their experiments."
"It's taking control of them," Lizbeth added.
Fire flashed behind Juliana's eyes as she rounded on Ethan. "You won't get away with this, Jeong!"
"You can say that all you want but no one's going to miss a few colonists on a random planet in the ass-end of the galaxy!" Ethan was unmoved.
"What about the big picture?" Shepard asked. "Sure, you may be right, but what do you think happens when word gets out about this?"
"Do you think ExoGeni cares? Do you think I care‽ I'm going to do what needs to be done and no one can stop me!"
Tali's eyes widened as she saw Ethan start to raise his pistol to point it at Shepard. For his part, Shepard looked shocked but was still going for his pistol while Wrex was going for his shotgun.
Thinking logically, Tali knew that there was no threat here. Ethan's model of pistol wasn't a particularly powerful one and didn't seem to have any after-market adjustments. He would, at best, be able to get off one shot before Shepard or Wrex put him down and that shot wouldn't be able to get past Shepard's shields.
Thinking emotionally, however, Tali knew that she needed to stop this. Not so much for Shepard's safety but for something else. She could sense how conflicted the man was, how his mind teetered on the edge of madness. She didn't know what sort of sway ExoGeni had on him but he clearly didn't actually want to wipe out an entire colony of innocent people.
As such, acting without even a shred of thought, Tali threw one hand out toward Ethan as she reached out with the Force and forced her will onto him. "You don't want to do this!"
Ethan's movements stopped as his eyes glazed over. Shepard and Wrex had their weapons drawn but held their fire as they watched Tali closely.
"I don't want to do this," Ethan repeated, his voice distant.
Tali waved her hand. "You want to drop your weapon."
"I'm dropping my weapon." Ethan did so, letting the pistol clatter to the ground.
Another wave. "You want to help everyone work through this."
"I want to help everyone work through this." Ethan shook his head and sighed before looking around the room, an apologetic smile on his face. "Sorry, everyone. I don't know what came over me."
The room was dead silent as everyone sans Ethan stared at Tali in a mixture of awe and confusion. "What was that?" Lizbeth asked.
"Just a little something that Tali can do. Don't worry about it," Shepard replied.
"I think I can make this work," Ethan said, either ignoring or somehow not noticing the others. "I can spin this as saving the colony from an alien invasion. That should do the trick. …Yeah, I can add that to my resume."
"What a hero," Juliana said wryly.
"Those infected colonists need to go, however. They'll just get in the way," Ethan said, this time blatantly ignoring Juliana.
"We're not killing those colonists, Jeong," Juliana said, some heat creeping back into her voice.
"Maybe…" Lizbeth began, her eyes scanning her thoughts. "Maybe, if we kill the Thorian, the infected colonists will be freed."
"That's not a bad idea but I'm not sure if we can get to wherever the Thorian is hiding without having to take out some of them," Shepard pointed out.
"What about that quarian girl?" Juliana asked, gesturing toward Tali. "Can't she just do that thing with her hand again?"
"What thing with her hand?" Ethan asked.
"Don't worry about it," came Shepard's response as he turned to look at Tali.
In theory, it was a good idea. Even if Tali had no training in it and honestly still didn't understand how she did it, using the Force to get the infected colonists to just stop what they were doing would make things significantly easier. However, in practice, Tali was pretty sure it was impossible. Even setting aside her own lack of ability, not even Ahsoka could sway Fai Dan without the Thorian interfering. If her mentor couldn't do it…
"I'm afraid that's impossible," Tali said apologetically. "The Thorian has too strong of a hold on them."
"Well, there goes that idea… but I think I have another. Follow me." Juliana gestured for Tali and her team to follow and led them to a table off to one side. Quite a few tools littered the table with several more on crates and even the ground off to the side. Along with them were several vials of unknown fluids and numerous machines in various states of assembly or maybe disassembly. Tali honestly wasn't quite sure.
"If I modify some grenades to release a nerve gas, you'll be able to neutralize the colonists," Juliana said as she picked up a number of things and got to work. Tali had no idea why they already had several grenades on hand.
"Won't we get caught in it, too?" Shepard asked as he watched the woman work with mild interest.
"You might but you'll be fine. I have some samples we got from the Thorian and data on how it affected the colonists' brains so I can synthesize a neurotoxin that will only work on them."
"Bah. Sounds like a lot of work for a whole bunch of nothing. I saw we just kill any that get in our way and be done with it," Wrex complained.
"We don't kill innocents even if it inconveniences us," Shepard replied in a tone that would brook no argument.
"You're the commander," was all Wrex said in response.
"How long will it take you to synthesize this neurotoxin?" Shepard asked as he returned his attention to Juliana.
"Not long. A couple minutes, maybe."
"Alright. Let's hope that Ahsoka and the others are okay and don't do anything drastic."
"Should we contact them?" Tali asked. She could feel her mentor's presence so, at the very least, she was still alive.
"That's not a bad idea." With that, Shepard entered a few commands in his omni-tool before holding his hand up to the side of his helmet.
OoOoOoO
After completing their assigned tasks, Ahsoka and her squad returned to Zhu's Hope to inform those who needed to know about their success as well as hand over the power cell (something that Ahsoka was very grateful for since it had started to hurt her hand). With everything more-or-less under control on their end, they moved off to a side area to take a break.
"What's our next move?" Ahsoka asked as she hopped up onto a container to sit down. Garrus leaned against it next to her while Ashley leaned against the nearby railing and Kaiden sat on a different container.
"Well, we know where it is but not how to get to it," Alenko said. "It might be best for us to wait for the Commander and the others before we do anything else."
"Actually, I think I just might know exactly how to get to it," Garrus chimed in.
"You do? How?" Ashley asked in confusion.
Instead of answering verbally, Garrus just pointed at one of the modules that made up the main "building" of the colony. What made it so special was that there was a cable attached to it that led to a nearby crane. It was clear that this segment was ready to be moved at a moment's notice.
"'Protect the heart of the colony,'" Ahsoka quoted. "That's what Fai Dan said when the geth attacked." Indeed, the module— along with the rest of the Borealis— was roughly in the center of the colony.
"Aside from the crane, I'm also seeing signs where it's been moved more often than the others," Garrus added.
"I know that turians have better eyesight than humans but how are you seeing that? Your eyesight's not that good," Kaiden said as he squinted and leaned a bit closer toward the module.
Ahsoka answered for Garrus by reaching up and tapping on his earpiece of his visor. "I don't wear this thing just because it makes me look cool," Garrus said.
"But it does make him look cool," Ahsoka added. "See? I told you that it'd come in handy."
Garrus shrugged, a smile tugging at his lips. "I guess that teaches me to doubt you."
"We still need to wait for the Commander," Kaiden said. "It's his call to make and I don't think that us raising it now is going to do us any favors with the colonists."
"We should probably head back to the Normandy. No point in us hanging around here," Ashley said as she pushed off the railing and stretched.
Ahsoka's eyes narrowed, her body becoming tense as she hopped off of the container and stared at the ground. At once, the others also tensed and stood ready for anything.
"What is it, Ahsoka? What do you sense?" Garrus asked, his hand drifting toward his pistol.
"I… don't know," Ahsoka said slowly. "It's like it's… calling something. Something… something…" Ahsoka's eyes widened as she looked off to one side past Garrus. "There!"
The others whipped around, their weapons drawn, to see a number of bizarre creatures running toward them. They were humanoid in appearance but had been twisted by something that gave them gray, leathery skin that seemed to almost have rotted away at places. They also, somewhat distressingly, possessed long claws and didn't seem to have any eyes.
While Garrus, Kaiden, and Ashley started to unload on them, Ahsoka stayed nearby and waited, her deactivated lightsaber in hand. Given the fact that these creatures also fought in melee, Ahsoka didn't want to risk getting in the way of the gunfire.
"What the hell are these things‽" Kaiden asked as the group started to slowly retreat. These things were fast.
"They look like what Wrex and Liara reported seeing!" Ashley answered as she unloaded another burst into the head of one of them. When that didn't stop it, she scowled and aimed at its chest before unleashing a longer burst. That finally put it down.
"They're connected to that creature!" Ahsoka revealed as she eyed two of them that were getting a little too close for comfort. When Garrus focused fire on one of them, Ahsoka reached out with the Force to pull the other toward her while igniting her lightsaber before cleanly slicing it half horizontally.
When the creatures that were attacking them had been wiped out, they were about to turn to start doing a sweep of the area when more gunfire rang out and Ashley's shields flashed. They spun around to see that the colonists now had their weapons drawn and were shooting at them; some behind cover and some just standing out in the open. Ahsoka and the others quickly dove behind some of the nearby containers to use as cover of their own.
"This is just great," Ashley said through gritted teeth. "Now what do we do‽ We can't fire on civilians!"
"Can you do something, Ahsoka?" Kaiden asked.
Ahsoka quickly popped out from behind her cover and thrust her hand toward one of the colonists standing out in the open, bringing her entire will to bear on them. "Sleep!" When the only thing that happened was a few rounds being deflected by her shields, she quickly dropped back down. "Nope!"
"Wonderful," Kaiden groaned as he carefully poked his head out from behind his cover to get a read on the situation. Some of the colonists were trying to get into a flanking position to shoot around their cover while the others continued to lay down suppressing fire. Then he watched in horror as the crane started up, lifting the module to reveal a passage leading underground where a distressing number of those creatures rushed out. "Oh, great! We've got more of those things incoming!"
Ahsoka ignited her lightsaber and stood up long enough to hurl it at the cable connected to the crane. She crouched down and closed her eyes, feeling her lightsaber and guiding it through the Force to cut through it. There was a mighty crash as the module fell back down and Ahsoka held out her hand long enough to catch her lightsaber.
"How are we supposed to get down there now‽" Ashley cried out as she peeked around her cover long enough to fire at one of the rapidly advancing creatures. She didn't have the time to take it out before the suppressing fire forced her back into her cover.
"I can take care of that later! One problem at a time, please!" Ahsoka replied. Her quick action had stopped more of those creatures from coming out and had even crushed a couple.
"I think the only option here is to subdue the colonists with melee strikes!" Garrus said as he fired on one of the creatures and took it down. They'd be on them in seconds.
"I can help with that!" Ahsoka said as she used the Force to fling a container into one of the creatures to knock it down before slamming it down on it. She wasn't entirely sure if she killed it. Ideally, to deal with them at range, she'd crush a part of them with the Force as she had that beacon but the colonists weren't really giving her the time.
"Good enough! Let's move!" As soon as Kaiden gave the order, one of the creatures appeared between Kaiden and Garrus. Garrus, Kaiden, and Ashley started to move away as they opened fire on it, very quickly tearing it to pieces, before dashing to the nearest cover that would get them in a better position.
While they were doing that, Ahsoka leaped high into the air, flipping and twisting in a graceful arc as she reached out one hand toward the colonists. With a strong pull, she ripped the pistols from the hands of all of them that she could see and flung them to some place behind her. When she landed, she made note of Kaiden talking to Joker over the comms before shifting her focus back to the threat at hand.
Igniting her lightsaber, Ahsoka charged forward in a burst of Speed, her blade neatly bisecting one of the creatures before she twirled away from the swing of another and took its arm off. She became a blur of movement, her lightsaber cutting white arcs through the air, as she engaged the creatures; severing limbs, removing heads, and cleaving them in twain. While the creatures ran fast, their attacks were slow so avoiding them was pretty easy even when they ganged up on her. One of them had tried to spit some green acid at her but that was easily avoided as well.
Since dealing with these creatures wasn't particularly challenging, Ahsoka decided to split her attention by helping out her teammates. If she ever saw one of the colonists with a gun or some kind of makeshift weapon, she'd use the Force to disarm them and if she saw one of the creatures starting to get close to one of the others, she'd either rush that one down or pull it to her.
While Ahsoka was doing this, the other three were systematically dealing with the colonists. Even with some telepathic entity controlling them, they were absolutely no match for three highly trained soldiers and went down with ease. Ahsoka noted with some mild interest the way that Ashley and Alenko's fighting style differed from Garrus' even based on the glimpses she got when she checked up on them.
It only took a couple minutes until the all clear was given.
"Well, that was less troublesome than I expected. Not that I'm complaining, of course," Garrus said as they regrouped.
"Yeah…" Ashley began, hesitating a moment before smiling appreciatively at Ahsoka. "Thanks, Ahsoka. You did good work."
Ahsoka smiled back, glad that any issues seemed to have been moved past. "No problem!"
"What should we do with all the colonists?" Garrus asked. "I don't know about you guys but I don't want to go for a second round with them if I can help it."
"Um… I think I saw some rope over there that we could use to tie them up. Or maybe we could just throw them into one of the rooms and lock the door," Ahsoka suggested.
"I say we do both," Kaiden said. "I don't want to risk the thing that's controlling them making them do something drastic."
Just as they were about to get started on that, they were stopped by the sound of a voice coming through Kaiden's comms. "This is Shepard to Alenko, come in."
"This is Alenko. Is everything alright on your end, Commander?"
"Yeah, the situation here's under control. What about you guys? Joker mentioned something about you being attacked by the colonists."
"We've successfully managed to subdue the colonists and kill more of the creatures that Wrex and Liara reported seeing. We've also located where the thing that's behind all this is."
"That's good to hear. We've also managed to locate it. That thing is called the Thorian and ExoGeni was apparently using it to conduct experiments on the colonists."
"You've got to love the morals of those massive megacorporations."
"Indeed. I guess we won't need these gas grenades then. We'll be there shortly. Shepard out."
A/N: Sorry for the delay! I had a lot to take care of yesterday and completely forgot what day it was.
And here's part two of three of Feros. It was at the end of this chapter when I realized that I needed to split the Feros mission into three chapters. Like I said before, if I had left it all as one chapter, it'd be around 20k words. I wonder if any of the other missions will take more than one chapter. The final one no doubt will.
Don't really have anything to say about the contents of this chapter so, instead, I'll present you all with a conundrum I'm having. You see, my original plan was to have this series be in five parts: three for the games and two interludes set between them. However, this presents a problem in that I'll no doubt be losing readers if I make them separate stories like I had originally planned. Even if I posted the first chapter of the next part on the same day I posted the last chapter of the current part, not everyone reads these author's notes (much to my chagrin) so a loss of readers is inevitable. As such, it would be smarter if I did what I'm doing for Remnants of Fate and simply had it all as one big story.
The conundrum is this: If I do that, I won't be able to do "title crawls" for ME2 and 3. I mean, I could but it'd be incredibly awkward. The title crawls are really fun to write and who knows when I'll be able to write one again. So, I'm leaving the decision to you guys, my dear readers. Should I make the five parts separate stories anyway? Should I leave them all as one and just forgo the title crawls? Should I leave them all as one and include the title crawls anyway? Should I do something else?
Time for reviews! Since I only got two for the last chapter and there's nothing to respond to there, I'll be replying to new reviews from previous chapters.
Star (Chapter 1): That's pretty funny. I wonder what Star Wars: The Scott Pilgrim would look like. As for the other thing, As for the other thing, the Force is complicated. By all accounts, the whole "Rule of Two" thing that the Sith have going on is bullshit. Maybe it's true for the Dark Side but it's definitely not true for the totality of the Force. See: Obi-wan VS Darth Maul. Even if it was true, a feat like that is a bit beyond her right now but who knows what the future holds.
Star (Chapter 3): I refer you to Helljumper256's review to answer your first question. As for your second question, she does, she just says that it'd take a while. As she said, Jedi spend basically their entire life meditating on that subject.
I don't see why she should be curious. At least, no more curious than she is about everything else. The presence of humans in the Milky Way is just another thing to add to the pile.
'Cause it'd be fun. Tali's not a biotic and the Force can, obviously, do way more than biotics can. As for quarians being in melee, it's no more dangerous than them being in a fight at all. Hell, if anything, it might actually be safer since their suits should be fine if someone punches them. Simple day-to-day existence is dangerous for quarians since their suits can caught on something and potentially tear. This is doubly true for ones like Tali who spend a lot of time poking around in machines.
Star (Chapter 4): You got the answer to that question in this chapter. I'm not going to dignify the rest with a response.
Well, that's all from me. I don't know when the next chapter of this story will be out since I need to finish writing the next chapter of Remnants of Fate first. I've made good progress but I don't know when I'll be finished. Until next time!