Deep Space: An Epic Sci-Fi Romance

by Joan Jett

  Once we survived the first furious moments of the attack, things became easier. We waited for our shields to recover, and then began our well-practiced tactical routine. Tali sabotaged enemy weapons and shields, and delivered the occasional deadly blast with her shotgun. I disrupted the enemy line with telekinetic pulls and throws. Each time an enemy was exposed for a moment, Shepard calmly scored a hit with his sniper rifle.

  Captain Ventralis and his ERCS troops proved to be a minor threat. On the other hand, the asari among them nearly managed to kill me. For the third time that day.

  She made her appearance just as the ERCS fire was beginning to slacken, a graceful figure in pitch-black armor, emerging from behind her cover in a great biotics-assisted leap. Shepard fired at her the moment she appeared, but she was much too fast, and for once he missed. Then she reached out with her biotics and yanked away the heavy crates I had been using for cover, leaving me exposed.

  She aimed her shotgun at me, hoping to bring down my shields and kill me with one blast.

  I flash-stepped to the side.

  I certainly did not do it deliberately, that first time. I knew of the technique, but I had never done it or seen it done before. Somehow I recognized the threat on an instinctive level, reached out with my mind, and twisted the space beside me so I was repositioned about a meter and a half to the right, all within a small fraction of a second. The shotgun blast passed harmlessly to my left. I returned fire with my sidearm, striking the commando from a position she had not expected. Then, as Shepard adjusted his aim, I jumped behind another obstruction before the remaining ERCS guards could focus their fire on me.

  Shepard's sniper rifle boomed. This time he didn't miss. The commando fell, mortally wounded.

  Soon enough the fighting was over, Captain Ventralis and his men down, none of us seriously hurt. We gathered in the center of the common area, looking down at the commando’s body.

  "I recognize her," I said after a moment. I placed a hand to the side of my head, nursing a sudden sharp pain. "Alestia Iallis, one of my mother's acolytes."

  "We must be getting close," Shepard observed. "That was a neat trick you played out there."

  "I'm not even sure how I did it. If it always hurts this much, I don't think I'm going to do it again."

  "You've been using your biotics almost constantly for over twenty-four hours. That has to be a strain all by itself."

  "Hmm. When we return to the Normandy I am going to have the steward make me an enormous plate of spaghetti."

  Exhausted as he was, he gave me a brave grin. "My treat."

  We found Captain Ventralis, dead of a head-shot from Shepard's sniper rifle. "Damn," said Shepard. "He was a good soldier. I wish we hadn't had to do this."

  I bent down and searched the captain's body, specifically checking the hip pocket from which he had drawn the pass-card for the emergency lift to the hot labs. Sure enough, I found more pass-cards, including one prominently labeled SECURE BIO LAB. I held this one out to Shepard. "Didn't Tartakovsky say they had moved the rachni queen back to Rift Station from the hot labs?"

  "That sounds right," he agreed.

  "This seems to be a likely place."

  We moved back through the Main Research facility, into a warren of small laboratory spaces and maintenance tunnels. Soon enough we saw signs pointing to SECURE BIO LAB, and began following them.

  Captain Ventralis's pass-card opened a locked door. Behind it we found a vast space, a great square-section cavern hewn from the mountain rock, extending far above and below our level. As we stepped out into the cavern, we stood on a large platform in one corner of the space. Wide catwalks led off to our left and right, leading to other platforms in the adjacent corners, each stacked high with scientific equipment and electronic instrumentation.

  The largest platform of all hung suspended in the center of the cavern, high above the distant floor, connected to the outer catwalk by a long ramp. There we saw more equipment, more instruments, all clustered around an enormous cylindrical tank. In the tank lurked a bulky shape, all claws and tentacles, a rachni much larger and heavier than any we had seen thus far.

  The queen.

  Before the tank, apparently contemplating the rachni queen, there stood a tall, elegant figure. She wore a long gown. An elaborate headdress concealed her fringe and framed her face. In all that vast space we saw no one else.

  It had been many years, but I knew her.

  "Mother," I whispered.

  As if she heard me, the Matriarch turned away from the object of her meditation. She descended the ramp and walked toward us with slow, confident steps.

  We stood and waited until she stopped just above us on the catwalk. Her eyes rested on each of us in turn, hollow eyes without light in them. I trembled to see how much she had changed. She who had once worn bright colors was now swathed in funereal black. I saw nothing of the gentle, wise woman who had raised me from childhood. All that remained was a hieratic figure, a priestess or avatar of Death.

  "You do not know the privilege of being a mother," she said calmly. "The power to create a life, to shape it, to turn it toward happiness or despair. Her children were to be mine, raised to hunt and slay Saren's enemies. They still can be."

  Her voice . . . it’s still the same, but so cold.

  Shepard stepped forward, keeping his hands away from his weapons. "Matriarch Benezia?"

  "I won't be moved by artful words or sympathy, Commander Shepard. No matter what you say, no matter whom you bring into this confrontation. Saren's cause is paramount. Nothing and no one can be permitted to interfere."

  "That's not why Liara is here, Matriarch. She came of her own free will."

  "Indeed? What have you told him about me, Liara?"

  I shook my head in weary revulsion. "What could I tell him, mother? How could I explain what has happened to you, what insanity or evil has overcome you?" My voice escaped my control, rising to a half-scream of betrayal. "What could I possibly say to justify all of this?"

  "Nothing at all, Liara. It is not your place to justify me, even if you could." She turned back to Shepard. "Have you faced an asari commando unit before? Few humans have. Even fewer have survived."

  "I can't believe you'd kill your own daughter," he objected.

  "If she stands against Saren, she has chosen her own fate!"

  Benezia flung out a hand, her biotic power surging forward with no warning at all.

  The world vanished in a haze of blue light, which came and departed in an instant. I sensed a discontinuity, as if time had suddenly leaped forward by several moments without our noticing it.

  Benezia had moved back to her place by the rachni queen, her back to us as if she had no concern for our fate. In her place stood a fire-team of commandos, grim-faced asari wearing black armor and pitiless expressions.

  My mother had enveloped us in a stasis field, giving her commandos time to get into an optimal position.

  Had Shepard hesitated for even a moment, we would have been lost. The instant he regained control of his senses, he saw the peril we were in and barked the order that saved our lives.

  "Follow me!"

  He turned and sprinted to the right, crossing the catwalk to the next platform. He moved faster than I had ever seen him move, faster than anyone his size should have been able to move in heavy armor.

  Shepard's voice of command entirely bypassed my conscious mind. Out of sheer reflex I slammed down a biotic barrier and ran after him. Tali followed no more than a step behind me, unslinging her shotgun and twisting to fire blindly behind us.

  It worked. The commandos hesitated for a moment, not expecting their prey to bolt so quickly. By the time they recovered, we were out of range of the shotguns they carried. We found more than enough cover on the new platform, behind all the equipment that had been set up to monitor the rachni queen from a distance. Now the enemy had to charge us along the open catwalk we had just used.

  They tried, sending spheres and streamers of b
iotic force after us, then dodging and weaving as they crossed the open ground. One fell, then a second, as Shepard and I scored hits. The third leaped at Shepard with a fierce battle cry on her lips and a vicious monowire blade in her hand. He ducked under her swing, blocked her back-handed stab, and kicked her savagely in the belly with one armored boot. While she reeled off-balance, Tali blew her head off with a shotgun blast at point-blank range.

  Blue light. Discontinuity.

  Benezia had thrown a stasis field again, covering all three of us at once, from her position in the center of the cavern. I was awestruck at the power needed to perform such a feat once, much less twice.

  I wonder if I could do it too. The thought flashed through my mind as I frantically looked around for the next threat. Power does run in the blood. Just because I've never tried . . .

  Then a squad of geth charged down on us, and I had no more time to speculate.

  Ironically, we had much less trouble with the geth. We moved to the right again to reach a good vantage point on the next platform. This gave Tali a few moments to remotely hack the synthetics’ shields and targeting protocols. We had to be cautious of snipers, but even these fought at a disadvantage as the catwalks channeled their approach. We stayed under cover, keeping our heads down whenever a laser targeting beam came too close, and helped Shepard to pick them off one by one.

  Blue light. Discontinuity.

  She had done it again.

  More geth. This time we still had adequate cover, and no need to shift to another platform. Shepard shook his head in momentary confusion, but then he went back to his steady rhythm, finding and destroying targets.

  I glanced across to the central platform, and saw Benezia no longer standing tall and dignified. She had slumped to the floor, almost to her hands and knees, and appeared to be in the midst of a terrible struggle.

  "Shepard, she's exhausted!" I shouted. "She may not be able to keep this up any longer."

  "All right, be ready," he ordered. "I'm going to finish off the geth on the platform to the right. As soon as the last one is down, you two get over there and see if you can shut her down."

  I felt a sudden flash of anger. "Shut her down? Do you mean kill her?"

  "No. Not if you don't have to." He fired again, and a geth fell back over the guard rail to plummet to the floor of the cavern far below. "Now go!"

  Tali and I ran.

  By the time we arrived at the central platform the fight had ended, the last echoes of gunfire fading away against the cavern’s distant roof. In the distance we could see Shepard rising out of cover, returning his sniper rifle to its hardpoint on his back. He began to walk around the catwalk toward us.

  Benezia crouched by a workbench, her back turned to us, her fists bunched. I rushed toward her, put my hands on her shoulders. "Mother?"

  She turned toward me. I gasped at the sight of her face, contorted with a rage so intense that it verged on madness. Her pupils dilated so widely that she was probably blind. She raised her fists as if to strike me. "This is not over," she gasped. "Saren is unstoppable. My mind is filled with his light. Everything is clear. Everything!"

  I was struck by a sudden insight. I seized her wrists with both hands, held her close. "Mother, listen to me. Fight this, whatever it is. Fight it!"

  "I will not betray him!" she screamed, her body convulsing in my grip. "You will . . . you . . ."

  "Fight it," I called to her again, desperate to see my mother instead of this mad stranger.

  All at once, every muscle in her body relaxed and she pitched forward into my embrace like a rag doll. I caught her, taking the unexpected weight in my arms, and lowered her gently to the floor.

  "What's happening?" asked Shepard, approaching us.

  "I don't know." I put my hand on her forehead, felt abnormal heat as if a fever gripped her. "She's behaving as if she is in the process of a psychotic break. Her mind is not under her own control."

  Benezia opened her eyes, struggling weakly against my embrace. She got her feet under her, slowly rose to a standing position with my help.

  "Commander Shepard," she said weakly. "You must listen. Saren still whispers in my mind. I have kept a small portion of myself free of him. I can fight him briefly . . . but the indoctrination is terribly strong."

  "So you could turn on us again?" he asked.

  "Yes, but it would not be my will. People are not themselves around Saren. His allies and followers come to idolize him, worship him. We would do anything for him. Betray an ally. Steal from a friend." She glanced at me, dreadful pain in her face. "Even kill a beloved child."

  Tears welled up in my eyes, to hear her say such a thing after so many years of silence.

  "How does he do it?" Shepard demanded. "Is it a telepathic effect? Some kind of alien technology?"

  "I am not sure. I think the key is Sovereign, his flagship."

  "The ship we saw at Eden Prime?"

  "The same. It is not a geth ship. I do not know who built it. Its technology is far more advanced than that of any known civilization." She shuddered, as if remembering an extreme pain, or an extreme pleasure. "The longer you stay aboard, the more Saren's will becomes yours. You sit at his feet and smile as his words pour into you. I thought I was strong enough to resist, but before long I was his willing tool, eager to serve. Beware of this, Commander."

  "I understand."

  "He sent me here to save the rachni for his use, but also to find a critical piece of information: the location of the Mu Relay."

  I frowned. "Why is that important?"

  "Saren seeks the Conduit." A spasm crossed her face, like a shadow of deep struggle. "I do not know what that may be, but our research has determined it is located in a star cluster accessible only through the Mu Relay. Yet that relay was lost thousands of years ago, ejected from its original star system by a nearby supernova explosion. Our own civilization has no record of its location."

  "Did someone on Noveria find it?" Shepard suggested.

  Benezia dropped her gaze, clenched her fists hard at her sides, her hands shaking. "Two thousand years ago the rachni inhabited that region of the galaxy. They found the relay, drifting in interstellar space. The knowledge was passed down through ancestral memory, queens inheriting it from their mothers. I took the knowledge of the Mu Relay from this queen's mind. I was not gentle."

  "Oh, Mother," I breathed.

  "It was an abomination!" she abruptly shrieked, refusing to look at any of us, her fists rising to hammer at the sides of her head. "A negation of everything I once believed! I should have been stronger, should have abandoned Saren the moment I saw what was happening. Instead I have become a murderer, a violator of minds!"

  "You can still make it right." Shepard held out a hand in appeal. "Help us stop Saren. Give us the information too."

  "I . . . I . . ." She shook her head violently, and then turned to the workbench beside her to pick up a data disk, her hand trembling. "I will. I made a copy of the information on this OSD. Take it, quickly."

  I stepped forward and took the disk, tucked it into a pocket of my armor.

  Benezia recoiled abruptly, turning away from us, covering her face with both hands. "You have to stop him. You have to stop me. Oh, Goddess! He is upon me, inside me, tearing at me from the inside . . ."

  "Mother, don't leave us!"

  She turned to me, her arms stretched out in a futile attempt to touch me. Her voice was horribly strained, as if she had to force the words out against terrible resistance. "Liara . . . I have always been so proud of you . . ."

  Then something tore loose inside her mind. She screamed, a ghastly high-pitched thing. Biotic energy erupted, throwing all of us back with immense force. Shepard tumbled across the platform and nearly fell to the distant floor. I was slammed against a guard rail, a sudden tearing pain telling me of cracked or broken ribs.

  I saw Benezia flying through the air, ablaze with dark energy, on a trajectory that would end at the exact point where Shepard lay h
elpless on the edge of the platform. She threw her hands over her head, blue light gathering around them, bright as a sun. She had become a living weapon, a hammer that would crush the life out of him when it struck.

  Shepard rolled over, looked up in time to see Death descending upon him.

  I drew my sidearm, tried to aim and fire. It was useless. My hand was shaking too badly.

  Benezia made a triumphant shout . . .

  And Tali shot her.

  We had all forgotten the quarian, she had been so silent throughout our confrontation. Now she reared up from behind a discarded crate, swung her shotgun up, and discharged it into Benezia's body at point-blank range.

  The shotgun's roar cut off Benezia's shout. Her biotic energy discharged in all directions, crackling on exposed metal, tingling on our skin, doing no harm as it grounded out. Her body dropped to the platform, bloody and broken.

  Echoes of the shotgun blast rolled back from the distant stone walls, and then all was silence.

  I crawled over to Benezia, half-knelt beside her, and rolled her body into my arms. "Mother," I whispered.

  She still lived, barely. Her eyes wandered, tried to focus on my face. "Little Wing?"

  "I'm here, Mother."

  A sigh, almost too weak to be heard. "Good night, Little Wing. I will see you with the dawn."

  She was gone.

  Chapter 13 : Decisions

  15 March 2183, Rift Station/Noveria

  I could not move for what seemed to be a very long time.

  I sat huddled on the floor, my mother's body leaning against me, her blood staining my armor. Pain lanced through my side at every breath. Tears ran unheeded down my cheeks.

  At the edge of my awareness I knew that something was happening. I heard voices: Shepard, then Tali, then a strange voice I had never heard before. It occurred to me that I should possibly be paying attention.