Massive Disaster 5-19 (Patreon)

“So…” 

Zedd was once again thankful that he could control the polarization on his aviators, eyes rolling hard enough that it was a blessing they didn’t clatter out of his skull. It wasn’t his fault, really.

He just couldn’t help it.

Every time a certain Gunnery Chief opened her mouth, it was always something designed to get on someone’s nerves. Occasionally, that someone happened to be him.

“Just supposed to ignore it, then.” The briefing room of the SSV Normandy pressed in on them all, strong recyclers squeezing the air clean until the only scent left to pick up — even from a nose like his — was that of stale oxygen along with a faint undertone of recycled sweat.

All the ambient cortisol was still thick in the room, unresolved tension rolling off metal walls as they all gathered for another debrief. “That one’s mother…”Liara T’Soni sat on the opposite side of Ashley, firmly in between Jane and John both, the Lt Commander and Commander Shepards flanking her. To her credit, the Asari didn’t flinch when Williams jabbed an index finger in her direction. “Is Saren’s right hand.”

Granted, that was mostly because her shoulders were already hunched, blue hands wringing together as she wore a faint but noticeable look that rang of nerves. The young Asari researcher had traded the sulfur and volcanic dust of Therum for the sterile interior of an Alliance frigate but she somehow seemed more off-balance here than the planet itself.

More than that, she looked like easy prey.

And for a hammerhead like Ashley Williams, that was a target she had to jump on.

The Gunnery Chief leaned back in her chair, arms crossed as hardsuit plates ground together with a squeal that was guaranteed to drive Zedd up the wall after long enough. “Her mother is literally funding and coordinating that psycho Turian’s geth death squads. We’re just gonna skip past that?”I’m not gonna skip past the fact you could have just said ‘geath’ squads instead. Zedd raised both eyebrows high. Could have saved yourself a whole syllable there, Williams.

“Last I spoke to her, my mother was nothing but a conventional Asari in every way.” Liara didn’t seem to care about Ashley’s sloppy rhyme unfortunately, far too focused on something else. The blueface snapped her chin up, voice barely trembling after nearly a full day of rest and recovery. “A Matriarch of peace even.”

“Peace is…” Kaidan frowned from where he sat next to Ashley. “Definitely a way to describe what’s going on. Not an accurate one, though.”Ashley scoffed. “When was the last time you even talked to your mother to know what she’s like?”“I…” A pair of green and blue eyes adjacent to Liara turned her way, both Shepards clearly waiting for that answer. “If I must be honest, it’s been a… a few years.”“So, in Asari terms, about a month.” Kira clicked her tongue in Zedd’s ear, her chin resting on Zedd’s shoulder from where she stood draped over him. “No~ooot the best argument for knowing your mother, Doctor.”

“To… to even assume this is to vastly misunderstand who my mother is.” Liara tried again with another defense, hands loosening in front of her on the table. “The disagreement I had with her that led to our estrangement was… was about my not choosing a conventional Asari path in politics or diplomacy. I was the rebellious one.”Politics or diplomacy. Zedd tilted his head to the side, lips pursed. Is that a nice way to say ‘fighting or fucking?’

“I know what you’re thinking.” His own ‘bluey’ whispered in his ear, her own study of Asari culture over the last year or so coming in handy. “And yeah, probably. Just a bit more prestige-coded, instead of low-class.”Zedd grunted confirmation under his breath. Good to know.“My mother, for all her faults, is the very model of a modern matriarch Asari of class and culture.” The blue doctor shook her head slowly, eyes trying to reach everyone in the room. “A voice of reason on Thessia. I… I’m astonished to even discover she was working with him because it makes no sense.”“How so?” John Shepard spoke up, the Commander’s low voice pulling attention his way.

“Saren Arterius and his goals, even before anything with the Geth, stood against everything she believed in.” She turned to face John, eyes and voice pleading. “She cannot be aiding him of her own free will.” 

Jane Shepard pushed off the table, the Spectre rising to her feet with a grunt. Several eyes in the room traced her path as her boots carved a slow circle around the edge of the table. “Right.”The word somehow came out stretched and tight at the same time, sharp green eyes seemingly stripping the Asari layer by layer. “So you’re telling us that this is a matter of mind control.”“N-no, I…” Liara’s mouth opened and closed again, the Asari searching for words that seemed to vanish under the glare of humanity’s sole Spectre. “That’s not wh-”“So, coercion, then?” An eyebrow went up, silencing the doctor. “I wonder what sort of dirt he could have on her to turn a respected Matriarch into a galactic war criminal.”Liara stared back, mouth a flat line as her eyes tried to do the arguing for her.

“It could just be that your mother got tired of playing the patient politician, Doctor. Maybe she decided that the Turian had a better retirement plan. She is getting up there, isn’t she?”“Commander…” Alenko didn’t raise his voice, the biotic’s hands flat on the table as he spoke again. “We don’t really have the data here to be making claims like that.”Those sharp eyes lanced into Kaidan. “Your point, Alenko?”“I think his point is pretty clear, Jane.” Calm blues landed on his sister as John Shepard spoke up. “We can’t argue coercion and we don’t have it in us to prove willing defection either. We’re working with nothing but blanks here and our best character witness is right in front of us.”“I don’t need evidence.” Jane Shepard clicked her tongue. “I’m a Spectre.”“...uh-huh.” John’s attention slid back to Liara. “Doctor, we just want to get to the truth and we’d like you to work with us on this team to uncover it. Billions of lives could be at stake.”“Working with a target on our backs and a possible enemy in our ranks.” Ashley’s arms folded tighter again, suit still creaking. “Don’t like that one bit.”Zedd rolled his eyes. Nobody asked, Ashley.

“You humans…” Wrex grumbled out, the Krogan taking up an entire corner of the room like the mountain of red plate and armor he was. “Two options with the blue one; put her down or put her to work. The rest is just noise.”“Down?!” Liara’s eyes widened further, sitting up straight in her seat. “I…”

“Wrex, enough.” John’s voice rolled over the table, dense enough to nearly match the krogan’s rumble on his own. The Krogan grunted back, rolling his eyes without cover.

“And Jane…” Blue eyes met green, John’s mouth in a flat line. “You’ve had the title for thirty-six hours. Watch yourself on my ship.”His sister’s jaw locked, a muscle jumping violently beneath her cheek. “You’ve had the ship for thirty-five.”“And I’m handling it with more responsibility than you are your new title.” He leveled his stare at her. “Why do you think that is?”

Green eyes rolled as Jane Shepard stopped pacing, arms crossed over her chest in perfect mimicry of the seated Ashley Williams.Wow, this is a great meeting all around. Zedd’s eyes slid shut as Kira snorted into the nape of his neck. We’re learning so much.“Listen…” John’s attention turned back to Liara, arm on the white-clad Asari’s shoulder as he offered her a steadying look. “We know you’re not your mother, Dr. T’Soni. The Geth were trying to kill you as much as they wanted to extract you. The question is why.”“If I may, Commander.”Zedd turned his head to the side, a shadow shifting near the door as Tali’Zorah made her way forward. “Audio recovered from the memory cores…” A three-fingered hand flew across the haptic surface of the omni-tool as the quarian’s suit-filtered voice piped up. “Saren specifically mentioned something called the Conduit. Only one reason he would be after one of the few living Prothean specialists whose mother he’s also working with.’“This Conduit must be Prothean and he wants a translator.” The Turian in the room answered Tali’s deduction, mandibles twitching as he nodded. “And if she didn’t want to cooperate, the execution squad was there to make sure there was one less loose end.”“But there’s one problem with that.” Liara shook her head as all the attention in the room turned back to her. “The Conduit? It’s barely theoretical; my knowledge of it, at least. A myth in scattered ruins. All I can even claim is that it’s arguably connected to the Prothean extinction and that’s merely a hypothesis.”“Fifty years in the dirt and all you have to show for it is a footnote?” Zedd tapped the side of his glasses, polarization easing up as the lenses shifted toward translucence — enough to show his eyes at least. “Terrible ROI, Doc. Maybe your mom was right about the career choice.”Liara ignored the insult, the Asari rising to her feet to walk over to the holographic map at the front of the room. “I found patterns, not simple footnotes.” Blue hands gestured at scattered clusters of stars, zooming into individual ones. “Half a century of research across dozens of worlds showed telltale signs; anomalies hinting at ancient secrets galactic in scale.” The alien frowned for a moment before she shook her head. “Unprovable by Citadel academic standards and a joke by Asari metrics, but I had a feeling…”Liara T’Soni turned to face them. “That the Protheans did not merely fade away. No, they were systematically wiped out. And I don’t believe this is the first time this has happened either.”“...a cycle.”Commander Shepard’s hands gripped the table, knuckles white as the man seemed to struggle to catch his breath.Jane’s gaze snapped over to her brother, annoyance replaced by a hyper-focused concern as she crossed the space between them in two strides. “Johnny!”“I-I’m fine.” The words came out a grunt as John stood up straight, eyes facing forward as color returned to his skin. “I’m fine, Jane.”“...if you say so.” Jane turned to the rest of the room, jaw tight but for another reason other than simple irritation. “My brother’s been having… visions since the beacon explosion on Eden Prime. Whatever it was that was in there, it scrambled his brain with all sorts of… of Prothean bullshit.” Shepard grit her teeth as she worked through the explanation for curious eyes and ears. “Death. Fire. Giant fuck-off machines like that dreadnought over the colony.”The meeting room was quiet for all of three seconds before Tali broke the silence with a filtered gasp. “The data logs!”She took a step forward, one hand up. “That ship’s not just a dreadnought. The Geth, they refer to it… to them… as the ‘Old Machines’.

“Reapers…” Zedd’s right leg bounced under the table, a syncopated tap-tap-tap that drew more eyes to him than the word he hissed under his breath,

Variables dropped one-by-one into a terrifyingly clean equation on an apocalyptical scale and he didn’t like the sum so far.

Back in the council chambers… That was the same term Saren used, the Turian sounding like he was halfway to his knees in front of an altar when that word slipped past his mandibles.

“What are you muttering about now, Victors?”“Thinking there’s more to this than you guys are aiming for, Grumpy Gunny.” He shot back at Ashley, the tapping easing up. “I don’t think the Turian’s building an army. Sounds more like he’s waking one up.”Liara’s gasp went unblocked by the hands that flew to her mouth, wide eyes on John like he was a walking ghost. “You… you saw it? The end of the Protheans? There is so little evidence of their existence. The only real assumption is that something deliberately scrubbed them from the galaxy itself but nobody… nobody ever gives that theory credit.”The young Asari took a sudden step toward the Commander, desperation and hunger clear in those wide eyes of hers.

So, she is horny. As much as his brain was still doing the math, Zedd allowed himself a small grin at Liara’s behavior. He’d wondered exactly where the Asari predilection for single minded pleasure-seeking — the all-too-common ‘Maiden Drive’ — had routed itself in this particular blueskirt since he met her.

But seeing her now, it was so obvious he felt stupid for not seeing it before.

Absolutely horny for her special interest.

Liara took another step closer, hands almost clasped over her chest as she stared at the tall Alliance hero in pure reverence. “Commander Shepard, no normal mind is built to process Prothean data storage without assistance. It’s simply too dense to unpack on its own. But the Asari nervous system… our abilities…” 

The doctor swallowed as she took another step. “I can help you.”Shepard blinked down. “...help me how?”