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—
Noveria
Peak 15
Leaving the Rachni corpse aside with many questions on their minds, the team moved to find and activate the generator, get a situation report from the VI, and find out what the hell happened here.
They came across one more Rachni soldier on the path to the generator room, as well as several of the smaller bugs inside the room itself, which were dispatched quickly.
"Shepard, that is a backup power system for the station mainframe." Liara nodded at the power junctions, with Ashley assured Shepard could fix it.
But the VI needed to be booted up manually.
An easy job for Shepard.
It was like solving a puzzle, and within a minute, the VI was reactivated, offering to help in restoring the power to the station, asking for his credentials, and informing him that queries regarding corporate secrets required privileged access.
Which he had after hacking the VI.
"What was Binary Helix's task on this complex?" Nothing felt quite like stealing corporate secrets.
"The main task on this complex is the weaponization of the Rachni." The VI's answer shocked Ashley and Liara, because with how close the Rachni had come to overrun the Citadel space, Binary Helix's success meant a whole new level of threat to their mission and to the galaxy.
"Explain."
"Binary Helix discovered an egg of a Rachni Queen on a derelict spaceship. The queen hatched and began to lay eggs once she had matured. Benezia T'soni, official executor of Saren Arterius, a major shareholder, led the attempts to assert control over the Rachni drones."
First the Geth, then all those mercs, and now the Rachni. Saren was gathering quite the diverse army, composed of the galaxy's boogeymen.
"Did they succeed?" The Rachni they came across so far led him to believe they, in fact, failed spectacularly, but Shepard did not operate on assumptions.
"No, all attempts to control the Rachni have failed to this date."
"Weaponizing the Rachni? Oh, Mother, what have you done?" Liara backed away unsteadily, sounding horrified. The Rachni might have been the enemy of the Citadel, but they were also sapients, at least the queens were, and to know her mother was basically enslaving them?
It was too much.
"Where is the Rachni Queen? Is she loose or secure?"
"I cannot access the security footage, but no reports have been filed regarding the Rachni Queen's escape." Shepard nodded to himself. He would think Benezia wasn't stupid enough to let the Queen escape, but then again, she was working with Saren, who had attacked a human colony and tried to destroy it, so he couldn't be entirely sure.
Before he left the VI, Shepard checked all the personnel files to get an idea of the opposition he would face.
Getting the station back online by opening the valves of deuterium lines and restoring landlines to access the tram system, all the while killing more rabid Rachni, Shepard, followed by Ashley and Liara, headed to the Rift Station to find Matriarch Benezia.
—
Rift Station
"Now arriving at Rift Station, Binary Helix research facility." An automated response informed them, and the team left the tram. There were two doors ahead, but the one on the left was an emergency exit, so they took the right door and entered the elevator.
Guards were taking cover behind crates they had stacked up and tensed at seeing someone come out of the elevator but relaxed at seeing it wasn't the Rachni.
"Commander Shepard, it's an honor, sir. What brings you here?"
"I am here to find Matriarch Benezia and shut down this whole research on weaponizing the Rachni. Who are you?"
"Captain Ventralis, sir." The man introduced himself, launching into an explanation about how the Rachni escaped from the hot labs and the last couple of days they spent fighting them, Benezia, and a Volus named Han Olar, as well as offering his card to activate the elevator.
"You look like a smart guy, Ventralis, so I am going to give it to you straight. If Benezia or anyone else ordered or paid you to attack me, I suggest you forget about it."
"Don't worry, Commander. There isn't a single force in this galaxy that could convince me to point a gun at you."
Shepard nodded and headed to the place where Ventralis said the scientists were to get further information.
Inside was filled with civilians, but one of them he recognized, having seen her file at the top of the list when he hacked the VI.
"You seem less upset about this situation than the others." He commented to get a reaction from the Asari.
She had a cold look on her face, and her voice was equally cold as she spoke, "That is one of the virtues of the meditation you interrupted."
"Did you learn it from Benezia or another matriarch?" The Asari froze, not expecting Shepard to know, as they had gone to great trouble to keep everything secret, but it wasn't enough to stop Shepard.
"Yes, I have been appointed by Matriarch Benezia to my position."
"Uh-huh." Shepard pulled his pistol and put the barrel right under her chin lightning fast. "I could kill you right now and be done with it, but you will most likely come with reinforcements next time, so I am going to let you live, for now."
The remaining civilians gasped at the threat, backing away to shield themselves from any possible violence, but Shepard just holstered his pistol and left the Asari alone.
Another interesting individual was Dr. Cohen, whose staff was exposed to a toxin they were deriving from a sample acquired in the frontier and requested his help in synthesizing a cure.
"Doctor, if a government, no matter which one, dares to use bioweapons like this, what I did to the Hegemony will look tame in comparison." He warned the scientist, tired from his attempts at justifying this kind of research.
Han Olar did not speak kindly of Benezia, though considering the state of his mental health, that was to be expected.
Deciding to help the sick scientists first, Shepard went to the lab to finish the cure from the notes left there.
Lo and behold, Alesta Iallis came surrounded by Geth. "Your mission ends here, Shepard."
Either she was mad or stupid enough to think the Geth could kill him, but Shepard wasn't going to give her a fair fight and threw one of his laser beam grenades.
The Geth opened fire, uncaring of the grenade, while Shepard and his team leaped to cover. The grenade hovered in the air, unleashing its deadly beams as it spun around, slicing the Asari and the Geth to pieces.
"Told you."
—
Scientists were cured, and Cohen gave up his access card to the maintenance area, which led to the special labs below, though Rachni seemed to have reached there as well.
But finally, the team reached the labs, and they could see Matriarch Benezia from the door.
"You do not know the privilege of being a mother. There is power in creation. To shape a life. Turn it toward happiness or despair." Benezia began to monologue, and Shepard yawned, stretching his arms and legs. "Her children were to be ours. Raised to hunt and slay Saren's enemies." Seeing she was continuing, Shepard started a game on his omni-tool, ignoring the matriarch's evil monologue.
"I won't be moved by sympathy. No matter, are you even listening to me?" She finally noticed what Shepard was doing and screamed in indignation.
"Huh? Did you say something?"
"Argh!" Benezia screamed in frustration, her composure broken by Shepard's attitude, but he wasn't done yet. "Look, I get it, sex with me was the greatest thing you ever experienced, but you didn't have to become a terrorist to get my attention." He shook his head as if chiding a child, while his teammates and the Asari Matriarch were giving him stupefied looks. "I mean, you are just throwing a tantrum just because I didn't call you back. Sheesh, talk about crazy."
Benezia decided to forgo the rest of her monologue and tried to put them in a biotic stasis to give her commandos time to swarm the room.
Liara and Ashley were caught in it, but Shepard broke the stasis with his own biotics, pulled his pistols, and activated his anti-gravity field to fly, giving himself a clear shot at the Asari commandos.
He could have killed them easily with the microwave mode, but chances are, Liara knew some of these commandos, and killing them brutally like that would scar the young Asari.
Instead, he opted for headshots, taking out two commandos in an instant, their biotic barriers incapable of resisting laser fire.
The girls were out of the stasis as well and started firing at the commandos. Ashley shot one in the stomach and then in the head, while one of them managed to get close to Liara, only to be riddled with holes when she switched to scatter shot.
Seeing her commandos defeated so easily, Benezia tried to put them in stasis again while Geth reinforcements arrived along with more commandos.
Shepard launched his biotic halo at the entry point, reducing the Geth to scrap, while the Asari commandos died on impact, their corpses blasted away.
Benezia was getting weak now, having expended too much of her biotics in a short timeframe, and had run out of commandos, as only Geth arrived this time.
Floating towards them, Shepard switched his pistols to microwave and fired at both Geth groups at the same time, overloading their power cores and causing them to violently explode again.
Ashley and Liara weren't idle as well, shooting any Geth that escaped Shepard's onslaught.
The Asari Matriarch did not try anything this time, having run out of forces to throw away, and continued her monologue.
"This is not over. Saren is unstoppable. My mind is filled with his light. Everything is clear."
"Tell me where he is, and we'll see how bright his light is." Shepard offered, itching to put his boot up Saren's ass.
"I will not betray him; you will—you…" Benezia held her head with both hands, screaming as if in pain, and Shepard could see Liara wanted to run to her but did not. "You must listen. Saren still whispers in my mind. I can fight his compulsions. Briefly. But the indoctrination is strong."
"Are you telling me Saren can mind control people now?" That was not something Shepard expected to hear.
"No, not him, his ship. Saren calls it Sovereign. The longer you stay aboard, the more Saren's will seems correct. You sit at his feet as his words pour into you. It is subtle at first. I thought I was strong enough to resist. Instead, I became a willing tool, eager to serve." She turned to the Rachni Queen, "He sent me here to find the location of the Mu Relay. Its position was lost thousands of years ago."
"Do you have the coordinates?"
"Two thousand years ago, the Rachni inhabited that portion of our galaxy. They discovered the relay. The Rachni can share memories across generations. Queens inherit the knowledge of their mothers." Benezia stopped for a second, swallowing, "I took the location of the relay from the Queen's mind. I was not gentle." The proud Asari Matriarch looked ashamed of herself, having violated another sapient's mind, something that went against everything the Asari as a species stood for.
"Give me the coordinates, and I'll make him pay." Shepard promised. Benezia didn't deserve this, and someone was going to pay for it.
"I was not myself, but I should have been stronger. I transferred the data to an OSD; take it, please." She held out the disk, and Shepard took it with a nod.
"Knowing the relay's location is not enough. Do you know where he planned to go from there?" Liara sounded soft.
Benezia shook her head. "Saren wouldn't tell me his destination. But you must find out quickly. I transmitted the coordinates to him before you arrived." She held her head again, her body shaking. "You have to stop me. I can't— His teeth are at my ear. Finger on my spine. You should—" Benezia began to lose control, and Shepard did the only thing he could.
He held her head, looking at her eyes, and put his forehead against hers. Benezia, with her last remaining shred of control, decided to trust Shepard and initiated a meld.
"Human." A deep, baritone voice greeted him, and Shepard turned to find himself standing before Sovereign, Saren's ship.
"Overgrown cuttlefish." He retorted back, crossing his arms to show he was not impressed at all.
"You meddle with powers you do not understand, and now, you have brought yourself to me." Its eye—Shepard didn't know what to call it—began to glow red, and he felt something pressing against his mind.
"Fuck off." Shepard stomped his feet, and the two-kilometer-long ship reeled back, as if having been struck, and the presence disappeared.
"This is impossible. You cannot resist us." It struggled to stand straight, shocked as something like this had never happened before.
"Yeah, yeah, stop yapping and piss off." He launched a biotic attack, a mental representation of his desire to see the ship leave.
"Noooo!" Its scream of denial faded away, as did its body, and Shepard was violently ejected from the mental space and found himself back in the room.
Benezia was on her knees, looking at her hands, trying to grasp the situation. "Silence, at last." She fainted, and Liara rushed at her, screaming "Mother," and checked her state. She was alive but did not seem to respond to her.
"Commander, what did you do?" Ashley asked, ready to shoot Benezia at a moment's notice.
"Broke the mind control."
"Sure, what's one more bullshit from you?" Ashley grumbled to herself, more tired due to Shepard's antics than because of the fight.
Leaving the Matriarch to her daughter, Shepard approached the Rachni Queen locked inside the capsule, taking a good look at it.
It was big, far bigger than the ones he had killed so far, but did not seem rabid like they were. Shepard pulled his pistol and turned around only to see one of the Asari commandos they had killed slowly and awkwardly get up.
She did not attack but slowly walked to stand before the tank containing the Queen.
"I have a feeling that I'm not speaking to an Asari."
"You are correct. We are the mother. We sing for those left behind. The children you thought silenced. We are Rachni." The talking corpse, which, in retrospect, wasn't the weirdest thing he had seen so far, explained as Shepard continued to observe the Queen.
"You silenced the sour notes. How?" The speech was slow, as the Rachni Queen used a method of communication her species did not evolve for.
"Sour note? Do you mean whatever was controlling Benezia?" He would call it ugly rather than sour, but whatever floated her ship.
"Yes."
"I don't know, it wasn't that tough; I just told it to get lost." He had worse hangovers than Sovereign's pitiful attempt to control him.
"We see." Even with the awkward speech, it was easy to see she did, in fact, not see it.
"Onto other matters. Your children, I guess, killed a lot of people. Did you order them?"
"No. We were locked away here. The children are beyond our songs. They have been lost to the silence."
"Ah, I get it. You were separated from them and could not establish whatever means of control you were supposed to have over them, and they went rabid." Studies on Rachni Queens were nonexistent, as Krogan tended to nuke them to oblivion, though there were theories on their method of long-range communication.
"Yes. We ask you, Great One, to show them mercy and their suffering. They cannot be saved. They will only cause harm as they are."
"I understand."
"Before you deal with our children, we stand before you. What will you sing? Will you release us? Are we to fade away once more?" Shepard hummed at the Rachni Queen's question. Both choices had their ups and downs.
Releasing her, provided she is actually peaceful, could mean the revival of an extinct race, but if she was not, centuries later the Rachni wars could be reignited.
Killing her would eliminate the threat, but xenocide wasn't exactly something Shepard had in mind.
He had a better idea.
"Joker, get me the Council online ASAP." He ordered the pilot on comms. Since the Citadel Council was the ruling body of the galaxy, Shepard saw no issue hoisting this responsibility on them.
"Aye aye, Commander." A couple of minutes passed, and Joker finally called back, "Bad news, Commander, they are busy apparently."
Shepard took a deep breath to calm himself down. Tell them it's a matter of galactic importance."
Two minutes later, Joker told him the same thing again.
"Okay."
Shepard hit the release switch, opening the tank and allowing the Rachni to leave.
"If you start trouble, Krogan will be the last of your worries." He warned the queen, who stopped to look at him and nodded in understanding.
"We should leave." He hoisted Benezia on his shoulder, went to set off the neutron purge and kill the remaining Rachni, and left this frozen hellhole.
He had enough ridiculous situations for one day.