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The Rachni Queen	By : Hyperion Category: +M through R > Mass Effect Views: 49568 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 2
Disclaimer: Mass Effect and all related characters are property of Bioware and EA Games. I do not profit from this in any way.

Chapter List
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When last she saw the Citadel, it had been about two months after Saren’s attack, and the wards were only just beginning to rebuild. One of the few upsides of the attack was that C-Sec’s human and turian officers, usually always at loggerheads, had started to get used to working together; a mutual affinity forged by an outsider’s assault against them all. The idea that the geth would so brazenly attack the heart of the Galactic Council spurred a flood of recruitment applications from almost every Council race, and for the first time in many decades, C-Sec found itself staring at the possibility of actually being overstaffed rather than under.

Not that they didn’t need all the help they could get --- pieces of Sovereign, the giant Reaper ship that had masterminded the invasion, had come crashing down all over the wards, and it required a herculean effort to locate all the pieces and try removing them. Additional complications abounded when the Spectres showed up and demanded every piece of Sovereign be sealed and handed over to the Council for study, creating more red tape in their wake that only C-Sec would have to deal with.

But amidst the chaos and fear mongering, life went on, and the inhabitants of the Citadel slowly slid back into their daily routines. It was as if they didn’t know what else to do.

It all seemed familiar to Rose as the shuttle pulled into the Citadel --- the glimmering lights of the wards, the Council warships hovering strategically in place (more of them now, which was to be expected) and the automated docking announcements were all things she’d seen and heard countless times before. The first indication that anything was different was a jarring one, when she stepped out of the shuttle and suddenly realized she had no idea where she was. For years she’d docked at Bay D-24, the private bay reserved for Alliance use. Cerberus had no private bays. Now she was in a different, unfamiliar docking space that Cerberus had rented for the duration of the Normandy’s stay, and if she didn’t have business with the Council, she suspected Cerberus wouldn’t have even been allowed near the Citadel.

She and Garrus were the first ones out, and an official skycar was already waiting to take them into the heart of the Citadel. Doubtless the Council had been watching the Normandy closely since its arrival. They were soon off to the wards, with Garrus expressing some disappointment that they didn’t need to take one of those accursed elevator rides.

“So what’s been bothering you?”

Garrus’s question shook her out of her reverie, and her thoughts shifted from that final confrontation with Miranda to the shuttle she was in.

“Aside from the usual, I mean,” Garrus continued. “Galaxy in danger, Council not helping, unknown threats from all sides; I know you can handle all that because I was there the first time you did. And I’ve seen that look on your face. It’s the same look you had when we were headed to Ilos, because we had no idea what was waiting for us there. So what problem could be so bad you’ve got the look again?”

The sniper’s eye had a knack for detail, but this wasn’t something Shepard was willing to share with Garrus. There was no one she’d rather have covering her back in a firefight, but the turian was notoriously bad when it came to personal advice. “I feel like I’m headed to Ilos again. I’ve got no idea how this Council meeting is going to go.”

“That’s all it is?”

Rose shifted in her seat. “What else would it be?”

“Come on, Shepard,” Garrus replied. “You don’t give a damn about the Council. You’re worried meeting with Anderson won’t end well.”

He was wrong; it wasn’t what she’d been pondering since she’d left the Normandy, but it was only after he said it that she realized how much it did worry her. Yes, she could handle the Council, and even if that went poorly, she didn’t really care what the Council thought. If they weren’t going to respect her after she’d saved all their lives two years ago, then there was no point trying to impress them. But if she walked away from a reunion with Anderson knowing that her mentor, and the rest of the Alliance, didn’t consider her trustworthy anymore, she knew it would hurt more than any Councilor’s barbs.

“Well, working with Cerberus won’t do me any favors,” she replied slowly, “I’m just glad they kept my old uniform in storage.”

“Any sane person would have thrown us in a rubber room if we tried feeding them that story about Sovereign, but Anderson believed us without even a single question,” Garrus observed, “Not sure what that says about him, but it might bode well for you.”

Rose laughed. Hours ago, she might have believed she would never laugh again. Garrus was one of only two people onboard the Normandy she still trusted, and it felt good to be in someone’s company without having to constantly second-guess their intentions.

“We’ll see. So where are you headed? Gonna check out what C-Sec’s like now?”

“Oh, I know what it’s like. The same as it’s always been, swamped with red tape and bent over backwards to kiss the latest in a long line of dignified asses. I left for a reason, you know. No, I’m headed further down to see Dr. Michel.”

“What?”

“Chloe Michel? The doctor in the wards?”

“I know who she is,” Rose said, shifting forward in her curiosity. “Why are you headed there? To see if she can help with your face?”

“I might ask about that. Someone’s always setting off a fire in the lower wards, so she’s got some experience with burns,” Garrus replied, “But I was actually going down there as a courtesy call. She had a box of chocolates sent to me when the Normandy docked last night. Thought I’d pop in and thank her.”

Shepard raised her eyebrows. “She sent you a box of chocolates?”

“Yeah, and they were dextro chocolates too, so I didn’t have to share them. Pretty sure Gardner would have stolen half of them otherwise…….wait, why are you laughing?”

Rose leaned against the skycar’s window, struggling to stifle an uncharacteristic giggling fit. She’d always known Garrus was bad at deciphering interpersonal relationships, but it never failed to provide some amusement. She managed to compose as straight a face as she could manage before replying. “Why do turians give each other chocolates?”

“To eat?” Garrus’s face was bewildered now, panicking as he was over the realization that the chocolates might actually signify one of the many subtle social interactions he was unfamiliar with. “What are the chocolates supposed to mean?”

The skycar stopped near the Council Tower, and Rose stepped out of the vehicle as her straight face cracked and a wide grin took its place. “Come on! You can’t leave me hanging like that. What do the chocolates mean?”

She looked over her shoulder as she headed toward the Tower entrance, smirking at the turian still in the skycar. “Don’t worry. I’m sure Chloe will tell you.”

And just like that, a day that had started off terribly had found a single shining spot she could draw some strength from. Laughing in such dignified quarters would have been bad form, and so she buried the sounds in her throat; though it proved particularly hard as the skycar began floating away to the lower wards and Garrus yelled out one final plea for help from the open window.

“WHAT DO CHOCOLATES MEAN?”

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Elsewhere on the Citadel, another resident of the Normandy didn’t quite share her Commander’s good cheer. Gabby Daniels stumbled into the closest women’s restroom on Zakera Ward, and her staggered motion and sweaty pallor quickly cleared her a path as everyone around her stepped to the sides, anxious to avoid contact with someone they clearly thought drunk at 10 in the morning.

She’d been fine when she left the Normandy, fine on the skycar ride in, and it was only once she’d started climbing the stairs along the sides of the ward passages that she noticed her shortness of breath and temperature flushes. At first she’d thought she was just out of shape --- there were no stairs on the Normandy --- but it had persisted long after she’d ascended to the top, and as she continued to walk she could feel her knees growing week as her body began to rebel against her wishes.

Her limbs trembled like a live current was rattling her bones, and her head felt so heavy it would be a mercy if she could just fall to the floor and let it rest there, but the most intense of the sensations came from her stomach; her belly felt like a hurricane had hatched inside.

“You better not throw up on my shoes, lady!”

Daniels desperately slammed her palm against the nearest stall door, and it flew open as she stumbled inside, automatically closing behind her. The faint beep of the privacy lock went unheard as she collapsed to the floor, the thumping in her head growing louder as the hot flushes surged up and down her body.

Her last coherent thought was to try and fish out her omni-phone and call for help, but the thought died quickly as sharp arcs of pain and pleasure began to alternate in her brain. She gasped wildly as the pleasure made her toes curl and her back arch up from the floor, right before the pain brought her crashing down again. A cold sweat seeped down from through her hair to join the sweat puddling around her chest, and it clung tight to her top, making the cotton garment press itself against her skin in a hideously uncomfortable manner. Gabby tilted her head up from the ground to see if there was something in the stall she could use to dry off her sweat, and immediately wished she’d stayed down.

Her belly was unrecognizable from what it had been mere minutes past; now swollen and round with the unmistakable look of pregnancy. The cycles of pain and pleasure darted to the background of Gabby’s panicked thoughts. How was this possible? She’d been on the pill for as long as she’d been with Jack, even though she’d assumed her lover was sterile…..but even if this pregnancy was Jack’s doing, how could it possibly have popped up this fast? Yesterday she could have run a marathon; today she looked fit to burst.

The hurricane rumbling in her belly moved to overdrive and that was the last Gabby could ponder about her unusual circumstance; now all she could do was lie back against the floor and moan for relief as whatever was inside her began to make its way out. Surely someone outside could hear the noises she was making. Perhaps she was now alone in the restroom. Or perhaps they dismissed the noises as those of a drunkard puking her guts out. Either way, no one bothered to check if Engineer Gabriella Daniels needed help, but some small mercies ruled the day as the shock eventually overwhelmed her. Just as she passed out on the bathroom floor, her cervix began to dilate.

Her pants were slowly shredded at the crotch as the newborn rachni making its way out of her womb slashed at the fabric on her way out, screeching shrilly as it pulled its abdomen out of its mother. It took many minutes until it was completely out, by which time there was nothing left of Gabby’s pants save for the parts below her knees. The creature shook wildly, sending afterbirth fluids flying all over the confines of the stall, before darting down the commode for the refuge of the Citadel plumbing system.And Gabby stayed on the floor, her heart rate slowly returning to normal as her belly settled back to its regular state.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Her flimsy disguise, consisting of a pair of dark sunglasses, proved unnecessary as Shepard walked through the hustle and bustle of the Financial District on her way to the Council Hall. The heavy movers of the galaxy came here to play, and their idea of fun was slapping down a billion credits at breakfast and watching it turn into three billion by lunch. A salarian to her left urged a hanar to invest in iridium deposits from the unmined soils of Hagalaz. Two asari strode past her, laughing at the folly of a third who had apparently made a disastrous investment on Noveria’s cybernetics labs. A human man screamed his lungs out at his broker on the other end of the phone. On the other side of the district, a long line formed in front of Barla Von’s offices, and one by one they tried to convince the cunning vol broker that their idea possessed more potential than the ideas of the other poor saps, all waiting and wondering like Oliver Twist with his empty bowl of gruel. It was high-stakes-high-reward galactic trading, more cutthroat and competitive than anywhere else in the galaxy, and the people speedwalking past Rose without a second glance clearly found the pursuit of riches to hold monumentally more interest than the return of a dead Spectre.

Inside the Council Tower, power spoke louder than money, and people walked with a touch more self-assurance, their necks tilted up by a fraction just high enough to let you know they thought themselves better than you. The desk to the right of the main elevator was manned by a bored asari aimlessly surfing the extranet, and the only way to get into the elevator --- and thus to the Council’s floor --- was through her.

In as loud and clear and official a voice as possible, Rose announced her presence. “I’m here to see the Council.”

The asari did not bother looking up, instead jabbing her finger in the direction of another desk down the hall. “Fill out form Q-189 and they’ll see you when they see you.”

One of the perks of being a Spectre had been that she didn’t have to trouble herself with red tape, and even though she wasn’t, technically, a Spectre anymore (that title having lapsed into retirement with her death), Shepard wasn’t keen on going back to the early days of her military career, when she’d had to fill out three forms before doing anything worthwhile. Leaning over the desk, she smiled sweetly at the asari and spoke again, with a sharper edge to her voice. “They’ll see me now.”

The asari finally looked up, and her eyes widened like saucers when she realized who was standing in front of her. Her eyes frantically darted from Shepard to her screen to the schedule on her desk as her brain tried to figure out what she was supposed to do, and after a hurried phone conversation with someone on a higher floor, she meekly allowed Shepard to pass.

Another immaculately dressed asari met her once the doors opened on the right floor, and escorted her to the start of the staircase that led to the highest echelons of administration in the Council Tower, where the three councilors --- four, she reminded herself --- were waiting.

“Commander Shepard! Commander, the people of the Alliance have questions!”

She froze in place, letting the Council wait a while longer as she searched for the source of the voice. To her instant displeasure, her eyes found Khalisa Bint Sinan al-Jilani, armed with her microphone and video drone, dressed in one of the many neck-to-ankle dresses she wore for the viewers of Westerlund News. They’d met once before, two years ago, when Khalisa had ambushed Rose at C-Sec Academy just as she was returning from Feros. She’d given interviews to human news organizations before, but it quickly became apparent that al-Jilani was not like the other reporters. Specifically, it became apparent when Khalisa cut her off in the middle of her response to the question “What’s it like to be the first human Spectre?” to accuse Rose of being a Council shill who’d sell out her own ship and species when her new masters beckoned. Feros had been a long and harrowing experience, and Rose was in a bad enough mood to begin with. For weeks on end, Westerlund News replayed the footage of Shepard punching their reporter in the face, accompanied by indignant headlines that called for official Alliance reprimands, but no one in the Alliance actually cared. Hackett had expressed his disapproval in a private communiqué, but publicly he had bigger concerns than Khalisa’s wounded ego.

“Khalisa,” she began cautiously, before deciding to hell with caution. “How’s the eye?”

Khalisa’s grin quickly faded, giving way to a spiteful glare, but she composed herself quickly enough as she swung around to face her video drone. “You saw it first here, on Westerlund News! The deceased Commander Shepard, rumored for months now to be alive and active on the seedier side of the galaxy, caught on tape in the Council Tower!” She swung around to face her old nemesis, a question already bursting from her lips. “Commander, we’ve heard disturbing rumors about your activities----“ Her voice trailed away as she realized she was speaking to the air; Shepard had already left, and all Khalisa could see was her back as she headed up the stairs to the Council.

“You can’t run forever, Shepard! The people have a right to know the truth!”

Tall, imposing turian guards stood in position outside every door on the Council’s floor, and one of them signaled for Rose’s attention as she drew nearer, directing her to the right door. She could hear the faint sounds of discussion even before she entered the human embassy.

“……calm down? Even the humans call them terrorists!”

“She must have her reasons….”

“And what reasons would those be? Tell us, Councilor Anderson. What reasons do you think your protégé has for abandoning your Alliance and joining a terrorist organization?”

“You can ask her yourself,” Rose said, making her presence known. Anderson was the only one physically in the room, and he offered her a warm smile. It helped greatly. The other Councilors were present, but communicating via holograms from their respective embassy offices. Sparatus, the turian councilor who’d been questioning her motives, stiffened and scowled. Tevos regarded Rose with a mixture of curiosity and wariness. Valern did not seem to care either way. Perhaps he thought the proceedings too trivial. Or perhaps he could not keep up. He was 43 years old, and Rose knew that was exceptionally old for a salarian. This particular salarian looked ready to drop dead at a moment’s notice, but it was seldom wise to underestimate a salarian’s wits, no matter their age.

“We intend to,” Sparatus began, pointing an accusatory finger at Shepard. Tevos frowned at the gesture. “We have been informed that you are currently in the employ of an organization blacklisted by both this Council and your human Alliance. Do you deny this?”

“I do not,” Shepard replied. “Your spies are right. I’m working with Cerberus.”

A brief pause ensued as Sparatus searched for a response. Doubtless he’d expected her to deny the accusation, so that he could shove some mountain of carefully compiled evidence in her face. The wizened Valern spoke up, his crisp voice breaking the silence. “Your Councilor insists you have legitimate reasons for that decision, Shepard. No doubt you will share them with us.”

Rose looked at Anderson, who nodded an encouragement to explain herself. “I’m sure you’ve seen the reports of human colonies under attack,” she began, “they’re true. I’ve been to the colonies myself. Entire populations have disappeared like they never existed. Cerberus asked for my help, and in the interests of protecting civilian lives, I agreed to help. The Alliance doesn’t have the kind of information on the Terminus Systems that Cerberus does, nor can they divert many resources to fight the Collectors.”

The three aliens broke into murmurs of disapproval at the C-word.

“The Collectors are a scarce sight even in the Terminus,” Tevos said, feigning confidence in her words, “It’s far more likely these are slaver attacks. Humanity was warned about setting up colonies in such an unstable area---“

“It’s not slavers,” Anderson interjected, “We’ve had our own people on the ground as well, and they’ve seen the Collectors.”

“There’s more,” Rose said, and all eyes sought her out. “The Collectors were using husks as ground troops. The geth got the husk technology from Sovereign. Whatever the Collectors are planning, the Reapers are involved somehow.”

Sparatus finally found his voice again. "Ah, yes. Reapers!" he mocked, his hooked fingers slashing quotation marks through the air. "The army of sentient spaceships waiting in the reaches of dark space to return and destroy us all?" The turian’s gravely Palaven accent dripped sarcasm in the most obnoxious manner possible, and it was all Rose could do to resist the urge to flip him the finger, storm out, find Khalisa and punch her in the face again. "We have decided they do not exist."

"You’ve decided--- have you completely lost your mind?"

"Please calm down, Commander," Tevos said, in a pleasant tone that nonetheless made it clear she was not asking. "We only mean to say that the evidence for that theory is somewhat lacking."

The embassy had a splendid view of the Presidium, and Rose waved her hand at that view as if the Councilors were all blind to it. "C-Sec's still picking up pieces of Sovereign from all over the Citadel, and you've decided Reapers don't exist?"

"There is no evidence to suggest that the ship called Sovereign was anything more than a geth construction," Valern sniffed. "Impressive, granted, but certainly not the nebulous threat you think it represents."

"Sovereign was more advanced than anything the galaxy's ever seen," Shepard argued. "The geth don't have that kind of technology."

"The geth stayed hidden behind the Perseus Veil for three hundred years," Tevos reminded her. "Who knows what kind of technology they have at their disposal?"

"Then go back to Ilos," she said, "go back and find Vigil---"

Sparatus cut her off. "We have already done so. There was nothing to be found."

"The Prothean VI lost functionality shortly after you spoke to it," Anderson explained. "The data was too old and too degraded for recovery. You and Saren were the only ones to talk to it."

"And with Saren's demise, we only have your word to go by," Valern pointed out. "This Council appreciates your service, Shepard, but we cannot simply send the galaxy into a panic because one woman would have us believe a fairy tale about monsters in the dark."

“Easy for you to say when it’s not your colonies under attack,” Anderson barked, “We’re not asking for a whole fleet to ride out into the Terminus. The Alliance can handle the brunt of the work. We just need a supplementary force.”

“We cannot spare any of our ships,” Sparatus retorted. “They are busy dealing with the real threat --- standing guard at the Veil and making sure the damned synthetics never show their faces here again!”

Rose jumped in, returning Sparatus’ initial favor by jabbing a finger of her own at the Councilor. “And while you waste your time at the Veil, the Collectors will waltz in through the Omega Relay and finish what Sovereign started!”

“Councilors, Commander, please!” Tevos interrupted, ending the shouting match before tempers grew frayed beyond recall. The turian glared at the humans and the humans glared right back, while the asari sighed in exasperation and the salarian watched bemused to the side.

“Clearly we have no consensus on this issue,” Tevos continued, “and there is no point in continuing this discussion.” Rose opened her mouth to launch an angry retort, but Tevos cut her off. “This discussion has ended, Commander! We have another matter to consider; namely, you.”

“What about me?” she replied, crossing her arms and meeting the asari with an unflinching gaze.

“We are in a difficult position, Commander. You say your intentions are above the board, but Cerberus is an avowed enemy of the Council. Treason is a capital offense.”

“That’s too far!” Anderson protested. “Shepard is a hero, and as long as I’m on this Council, I’m not going to let this whitewash continue.”

“A compromise is possible,” Tevos hastily added. “We cannot provide public support to a member of Cerberus, but support of a more covert nature is a different matter.”

“What do you mean?” Rose asked.

Tevos and Valern looked to Sparatus, who evidently had deep reservations about whatever they had decided between themselves. But the turian finally acquiesced and laid out the Council’s offer. “If you restrict your Cerberus activities to the Terminus Systems, we are prepared to offer you reinstatement as a Spectre.”

“And what would that entail?” she said.

“You would not have access to the Council’s resources, but you would still have the authority and powers of a Spectre,” Valern said. “This is a show of good faith, Commander. We wish to prove to you that we are not unconcerned about the attacks on your colonies.”

If that was supposed to prove it, Rose wasn’t impressed; Spectres had the full power of the law behind them in Council space, and then some, but in the vast expanse of the lawless Terminus, the only power they had came from how much fear their presence invoked. Mercenaries and slaver crews would bend over for a Spectre. Someone like Aria T’Loak or anyone with real power in the Terminus would just ignore them. She looked to Anderson, whose brief nod encouraged her to take the offer. Something was better than nothing, after all.

“I accept your offer.”

Tevos looked relieved. “Then we have resolved all the issues at hand. We wish you luck with your investigation, Commander, and a swift conclusion to your involvement with Cerberus.”

The holograms blinked out of existence, and they were alone. She stared at the space on the wall where the Councilors had stood, only shaken out of her reverie by the sounds of Anderson pulling up two chairs at the table behind her.

“You know that offer’s just for show,” he started, pouring out a glass of blue liquid for his guest.

“I suspected as much,” she said, “but I’m not really in a position to burn bridges right now.”

“No,” Anderson agreed, and they clinked their glasses together. The Thessian mead was sweet and cool and Shepard resolved to drink little of it --- as refreshing as it was, it was also quite a potent brew, and her temples still throbbed from the drinking of the previous night.

Anderson looked much the same as the last time she’d seen him, save for a few more wrinkles on his face, a few more dabs of grey in his hair, and a bit more volume to his gut. The pressures of power, but he bore them well, and humanity sorely needed his measured approach to represent them on the galactic stage.

“I met Ashley on Horizon,” she told him, her brow creasing at the memory of that encounter. “She was decked out like she was on colony patrol again, and she tried very hard to give off the impression that was all she was there for. But that wasn’t all she was there for, was it?”

He nodded. “Williams was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel about a year ago, and she’s had a small command of her own out in the Terminus ever since the first reports came out about the vanishing colonists. Sorry about the deception, Shepard, but the Alliance still considered you an unknown commodity. They were……wary about revealing anything to you.”

“And what did you think?”

Anderson set his glass down and fixed her with his steely gaze. “I told them then what I told them two years ago, when you stole the Normandy and flew out to Ilos: if she’s doing this, she’s got a damned good reason.”

Rose smiled at her mentor, and in that moment she felt the same comfort and relief she’d felt in the skycar with Garrus; the relief that came from knowing you could trust the people around you with anything. In the Alliance, where everyone was bound by the uniform, that trust had come easily; in Cerberus, where she knew no one and everyone thought they knew her, she had missed that trust sorely.

“I imagine a lot of people didn’t share that view. How many offered to track me down and toss me in the nearest brig?”

“Plenty,” Anderson said, taking another drink from his glass. “Mostly young officers who think they’ll make a name for themselves by bringing down a rogue Commander and her Cerberus crew. Don’t worry about the jackals, Shepard. They can bark all they want, but Hackett’s in your corner, and he’s got the only opinion that matters.”

Their glasses were empty now, and neither opted for a refill. Truthfully, it was a minor miracle neither had been driven to alcoholism from the paths they were now on, but duty was ill served by the drunk.

“How are you doing, Anderson?” she asked softly.

The former Admiral chuckled. “Good days and bad days, I suppose, same as anyone else. I never thought I’d wind up my career as a glorified desk jockey, but that’s life for you.”

“Do you think I should’ve gone with Udina for Councilor?”

“That would have been a singularly bad decision, if you ask me. I don’t like to speak ill of my colleagues, but……..Udina’s always been more concerned about what power can do for him than what he should do with power.”

“Oh, I know,” she grinned, “he’s never exactly been subtle about the scope of his ambition. Where is Udina, anyway?”

Anderson waved his arm dismissively. “One of those official functions. I hate going to that stuff, so I send him to represent me. It lets him feel important.”

With the pleasantries out of the way, all that remained were the elephants in the room.

“They’re scared, Rose,” Anderson said, leaning back in his chair and glancing out at the Presidium beyond them. “This place is supposed to be one of the most secure locations in the galaxy, and Sovereign tore through the Citadel Fleet like they were so much paper. Can you imagine what the galaxy will be like if the Reapers make their way here? An army of planet-killers just like Sovereign, obliterating our defenses and scattering us to the winds like helpless children? It’ll make the Krogan Rebellions look like a barroom brawl. Small wonder they’d rather ignore it.” He looked away from the Presidium and back to her. “And so it falls to you again.”

This she knew and had come to accept, but it was the second elephant that troubled her the most.

“Let’s say everything goes to plan,” she said, in a tone that suggested she knew it likely would not. “Let’s say I fly into the Omega Relay, kill every Collector in the galaxy, and then walk away from Cerberus, all just like they want me to. What’s waiting for me on the other end of that, Anderson?”

“You’ll have to turn yourself in,” he admitted. “Hackett’s vote counts for a lot, but it doesn’t count for everything. The Administrative Committee will have questions, and they’ll need answers for those questions. We’ll just have to cross that bridge when we get to it. Yes, we,” he said, assuring her she wouldn’t be facing her trial alone. “There’s a lot of people in the Alliance that have mixed feelings about you, Commander, but there are even more that still consider you a hero. Whatever happens, you will have support.”

She didn’t know how to feel about that. Regardless of how much support she had, her own military still wanted to bring her up on charges. Did it have to be this way? She had died, and so every organization she’d been a part of had cut her loose. Dead fingers pull no triggers. All obligations had ended when her burning corpse had crashed down on a forgotten planet somewhere. So what obliged her to be the slave of duty now? Was the galaxy even worth saving?

You already know the answer to that question, the nagging voice in her head spoke.She did, and she needed another drink.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------An hour later, Shepard and Anderson said their goodbyes, and one of the turian guards directed her out the way she’d come. On the floor immediately lower, she pulled out her sunglasses, whatever little good they did, and made her way past all the people assembled on the floor, sneaking into the restroom that was farthest and most inconveniently placed from the central lounge.

She looked at herself in the mirror, long and hard, and searched her thoughts to see if she felt better or worse now that she knew where she stood with the Council and the Alliance. The mirror stared back, but offered no answers.

Just forget about it, she told herself, just forget about the Council and the Alliance and focus on the Collectors and get your mind off it and enjoy the Citadel while you’re here because fuck knows what else is coming down the line---

Her train of thought was derailed by the sound of someone else entering the remote restroom. She did not look up to see who it was, nor did she have to; within minutes of speaking, the speaker had identified herself to Shepard.

“What happened at your meeting with the Council, Commander? Were your rumored connections to a declared terrorist organization brought up?”

Not now, she swore silently. Not her.

She finally looked up and saw that damned video drone hovering three feet away from her face, while Khalisa stood a bit behind it, her arms crossed and her face decorated by a smug grin. If the intention was to get her blood boiling, it had succeeded magnificently.

“Get that thing out of my face,” she said flatly.

Khalisa didn’t seem to hear her, and continued asking her stupid, snide questions; but Rose wasn’t hearing her either. All she could hear was the blood pounding in her head, and all that happened next seemed to happen by itself.

She saw her blue aura manipulating the restroom's lock, sealing it shut through sheer force of will. She saw herself raising her arm, saw her fingers ball into a fist, saw the unfortunate drone crumple as her biotics went to work. She heard, dimly, Khalisa's screech of outrage. And then sight and sound returned to normality, and she was inches away from Khalisa, forcing the reporter back against the wall, breathing heavily as Khalisa tried not to betray her terror.

“Hit me again and I’ll sue, bitch---“

“Kha-lee-sah,” Rose whispered slowly, brushing her lips against the reporter’s neck. Her body shook with an involuntary shudder. “Always so desperate for my attention…..why is that?”

It was rare for Khalisa al-Jilani to find herself speechless, but that did the trick. Rallying valiantly, she managed to blurt out, “What? I don’t know what you think---“

“Oh, but you do,” Shepard smirked, letting her eyes wander along Khalisa’s curves. “You always know where to find me, and you’re always where I can be found. Are you obsessed with me?” One of her arms stroked Khalisa’s hip, and was met with another shudder. “I won’t be mad if you are….”

“I….I don’t….”

Rose cut her off by pulling her in for a deep kiss, mashing their lips together as her tongue hungrily explored Khalisa’s mouth. The other woman resisted, trying to pull herself away, but Shepard was too strong, and the rachni pheromones in her saliva were rapidly breaking down her will to resist.

When Rose pulled away, Khalisa was once more lost for words, and the shock of what Rose was holding in her right hand didn’t help find those words.

“Oh, that?” Shepard grinned, stroking her rapidly stiffening erection in front of Khalisa’s eyes. “Well, you did want to know what was new with me.”

It was like no other male organ Khalisa had ever seen --- dark, almost completely black, yet distinctly inhuman, with a head at the top that better resembled a horse’s organ than a man’s. The long, thick pipe of flesh stood at attention, its tip repeatedly bobbing against a point on the blue uniform above where Shepard’s belly button would be.

“Popped up one morning,” Rose continued, “Don’t really know where it came from, or at least I can’t prove where it came from. But ever since it popped up? It’s been driving me crazy. I don’t know how men deal with it. Every time I see someone with a nice pair of tits now, this thing keeps telling me to fuck her until either she or I can’t stand. Not the kind of thing I can run around doing, you know? Did it once, with an old acquaintance on Korlus. Every other time, I just jack it off. You would not believe how much my bathroom’s drain system has had to deal with.”

“But the more I fuck,” she said, brandishing the word like a weapon, “the more I need to fuck……does that make any sense?”

Khalisa finally found her words again. “Why are you telling me this? Why are you showing me…..that?”

Rose looked at her oddly, as if unsure herself, and then shrugged. “Because no one will ever believe you.”

It was true, Khalisa realized, a realization that did nothing to abate her fears. She’d caught enough flak for the near-constant, overdrawn replays of her last encounter with Shepard ---- no one would believe her if she went around saying this about someone everyone knew she didn’t like.

“So here’s how I see things, Khalisa,” Rose said, drawing in close again. “You want an exclusive story with the most famous woman in the galaxy. I want to fuck your insolent brains out.” She winked. “ You think we can work out a deal?”

The pheromones might have loosened Khalisa up a little, but evidently not enough, for she made her outrage known. “Are you out of your mind? I would never---“

“Too bad,” Rose interjected, abruptly walking away. “Guess I’ll just have to set up a meeting with Emily Wong, then.”

Khalisa fell silent. “Emily Wong?” she said, her voice a tremor.

“You know her?” Rose asked, knowing full well that Emily Wong’s employer, the Future Content Corporation, was the single largest rival to Westerlund News. “She’s nice, and I bet she’d love a story like this. Plus we’re actually friends, so that meeting should be fairly simple.”

There was no way she was going to let that whore Wong steal the exclusive she’d prowled around the Council Tower for days to piece together. Not after her bosses had chewed her out for months of sub-par ratings, not to mention the embargo the Alliance had placed on interviews with Westerlund after her last encounter with Shepard.

“Wait,” she said hesitantly, not believing what she was about to do. “What kind of terms are we talking about?”

Rose’s grin could have put the Cheshire Cat to shame. “I fuck you, obviously,” she said, “right here, right now, in this restroom, and as a reward, you get to ask me three questions.”

“Three? But---“

“Should I call Emily?”

Khalisa kept her mouth shut at the sound of the dreaded E-word, and Rose continued, her smile ever so smug. “Three questions. That’s it. You can ask me anything you want, and I’ll answer, so choose your questions carefully.”

“OK….” Khalisa said, unsure of what came next. “So do I……what do I do now?”

Rose walked over to her at a slow but steady pace, letting her loosened cock bounce in the air before her, enjoying how Khalisa seemed captivated by its mesmerizing rhythm. When they were close, Rose clasped Khalisa’s cheek and whispered, “Now you earn your questions, Khalisa. You want your exclusive, don’t you?”

Khalisa nodded vigorously.

“And you know you’ll have to do a damned good job, or the deal’s off,” Shepard whispered softly. “Now…..”

The cock was fully erect now, waiting for Khalisa’s attention.

“Suck.”

Successfully incentivized, Khalisa quickly went to work, dropping to her knees and working the rock-hard shaft without the slightest hesitation. Her head bobbed up and down on the swollen purple tip, her hair shaken loose from its carefully combed rest, while her soft, manicured hands rubbed and massaged the length of Shepard’s twitching cock.

She really wants that exclusive.

Saliva dribbled down Khalisa’s mouth as her tongue massaged whatever she could fit down her throat. It was all quite undignified for a public persona, and that only thrilled Rose all the more; thrilled her to see the photogenic thorn in her side sweat and pant and humiliate herself so desperately for her favor.

But Khalisa had surprises in store for Rose, and just as quickly as she’d begun sucking Shepard’s meat, she changed tacks and leaned lower, suddenly scooping up the pair of balls beneath the cock as one hand gripped Rose’s thigh and the other stroked the cock from base to shaft, with furious tempo, while Khalisa’s silver tongue juggled Rose’s balls in her mouth, stopping every few seconds to let her lips suckle the orbs while her thumb teased the tip of the shaft. Then she would switch back to sucking the cock as her fingers worked the balls, deftly alternating between the two strategies to force her interviewee to climax quickly.

Clever girl.

When she tried to alternate again, Rose intervened, pushing away her hands and gripping the sides of Khalisa’s head. The reporter barely had enough time to widen her eyes in alarm before Rose began skullfucking her like a madwoman, ramming her cock down her throat at dizzying speeds. Khalisa’s hands gripped Shepard’s knees desperately as her makeup smeared down her cheeks and her gag reflex fought every attempt she made to suppress it. It drove Rose crazy to hear her bête noire gasp and choke as she tried to take her length, crazy enough that she had half a mind to pull Khalisa as close as she could and dump a load down her throat, but she had more in store, and so she pulled out as suddenly as she had jumped in, leaving Khalisa to cough violently as fresh air rushed into her lungs.

“Have your first question ready?” Rose smirked, as the cock throbbed and a thin strand of saliva dripped from the tip down to the floor.

Khalisa took a moment to regain her breath, her gaze all the while fixed by the hypnotic sway of Shepard’s massive organ, until she remembered why she there and asked.

“Are you working for Cerberus?”

It was a waste of a question, in her opinion; Westerlund News put their stock in perception rather than the reportage of facts. They didn’t need confirmation that Shepard was working with Cerberus. They could just insist that she was, whether they knew for sure or not, because it wasn’t like anyone held them up as a benchmark for credibility.

“Yes,” she answered, and Khalisa’s eyes widened in excitement. It was all worth it. For the exclusive.

“Why---“

“Ah-ah-ah,” Rose cut her off, waving her finger tauntingly in Khalisa’s face. “That’s another question.”

“What- what should I do now?” Khalisa asked, begging to know, as her sight shifted back to Shepard’s meat and her lips parted expectantly.

“Your clothes,” Rose said, “Take them off.”

She couldn’t read Khalisa’s mind, but the reporter’s thoughts must surely have run along the lines of “in for a penny, in for a pound”; barely a second after the words had left Rose’s lips, Khalisa was reaching behind her back to undo her dress. With practiced ease, it fell away, and Shepard’s eyes greedily drank in the sight of Khalisa’s toned form; round, ripe breasts accentuated by big dark nipples, leading down to a taut belly and legs that went on forever.

Khalisa’s hands sat on her hips, without the slightest hint of shame as she displayed her naked body for Rose’s pleasure. She waited patiently until Rose was done, until Rose looked away from her curves and signaled for her next question.

“Why are you working for Cerberus?”

“Now that’s a better question,” Rose said, reaching out and pulling Khalisa closer, letting her hand explore the reporter’s body, tightly squeezing a nipple between her fingers. “That’s the kind of question that’ll get you real ratings.” She spun Khalisa around and the other woman could feel that thick, hard cock press against her backside. Shepard’s head rested on Khalisa’s shoulder, whispering slowly into her ear. “Humans are disappearing from the Terminus colonies,” she murmured, and Khalisa’s instincts sniffed out a major revelation to come, “And the Council thinks slavers are doing it. But they’re wrong, and I know the truth. I’ve seen the truth.” She paused for what seemed like forever, letting Khalisa stew in the agony of not knowing, before letting her in on the galaxy’s best-kept secret. “The Collectors are coming for us, Khalisa,” she whispered, gently nibbling on an earlobe, “And if the Council can’t see that, then I’ll just have to find someone who can.”

“And that’s where Cerberus comes in?”

“Clever girl,” Rose replied, leaning away, “but not clever enough to see you’ve just used up your last question.”

Khalisa panicked as she realized what she’d done. “Wait, no! I didn’t---“

“Deal’s a deal, sweetcheeks,” Rose smirked, “Three questions is what you got.”

“Give me one more chance,” Khalisa begged, trying to suppress the horrible thought of Emily Wong on galactic television, breaking the story she’d worked so hard to get. “Just one more question. I’ll do anything you want. One question!”

Rose made a great show of thinking about Khalisa’s offer, as she stood there stark naked, mascara staining her cheeks, begging for another chance to debase herself. “I guess one more question can’t hurt.”

“Thank you!” Khalisa cried, relief flooding over her. “Thank you, thank you, thank you---“

“Yeah, I get the gist of it,” Shepard cut her off, squeezing a brown buttock in the palm of her hand. With a jerk of her head, she directed Khalisa to the wash basin counter, a long, wide marble surface in front of a mirror that spanned nearly the length of the room.

“Spread.”

Khalisa dutifully bent right over the marble counter, laying her belly flat against the cold surface as she spread her legs wide open, giving Rose an unobstructed view of her glistening pussy. Rose rubbed Khalisa’s folds gently. They were moist and soft, and the reporter gasped as two fingers dipped in for a taste.

“Naughty girl,” she snarled lowly, “Look how fucking wet you are.”

She pushed Khalisa’s legs even further apart, until they could be pushed no more, and began feeding her thick meatrod inside Khalisa’s waiting cunt. So thick was it that it filled her out completely, and Khalisa saw herself in the mirror, gasping in shock and slowly drawn out lust as Rose’s cock explored parts of her that had never been explored before. It was big, and thick, and it ignored the resistance of her flesh as it spread her pussy lips apart to accommodate itself. Somehow, miraculously, she managed to fit almost the entire length inside her, and it made her feel so stuffed it was as if her body was just an extension of the woman who was lodged so deep inside her.

And then the real fucking began.

Shepard retracted half her length and then slammed back in, over and over again, with unrelenting force, pounding Khalisa’s pussy, with each impact punctuated by a loud “FUCK!” from the brown girl’s lips. Rose was happy to oblige her request, gripping Khalisa’s buttocks in her hands, squeezing and pinching them as she rammed deeper and deeper, her balls slamming against Khalisa’s flesh every time.

She let one buttock free, using the spare hand to lift Khalisa’s head by the chin as she fucked her from behind, guiding her gaze to the wall mirror in front of her, where Khalisa could watch the Commander fuck her like a whore. It actually seemed to excite Khalisa, and Shepard could feel her tight pussy get even tighter. Khalisa’s eyes were almost glazed over; she could feel the cock slamming against her womb, and every time that it did, another expletive burst from her lips. The sight of Khalisa like this, humbled and debased, had nearly brought Rose to climax once while she was skullfucking her, but now she knew she was not going to be able to exercise that same restraint.

“I’m going to come,” Shepard growled through gritted teeth, trying to keep up with her own pace as her cock jackhammered the tight hole, “Ask your question before that happens.”

Khalisa could just about maintain her grip on sanity, strained as it was by lust and pheromones, but she managed to squeeze out her final question, praying that she was not wasting it.

“Does --- does --- oh fuck ---- does the galaxy need to be worried about the Collectors?”

The question actually slowed Rose down, eliciting moaned complaints from Khalisa. She took a second to think about it as she continued fucking her toy. “Listen to me, Khalisa,” she said gently, and the reporter weakly mumbled that she could hear her. “You have to tell them. Everyone. The Council won’t let them know it, but the Collectors are a threat to us all, and if we don’t stop them, the galaxy as we know it will cease to exist.” She propped up Khalisa’s chin again. “You have to tell them, do you hear me?”

Khalisa moaned louder, and Shepard understood it to mean that Khalisa could hear her, and that she knew what she had to. “Good girl,” she whispered softly. It was time for her reward.

Her legs shook as Khalisa’s hungry cunt quenched its thirst, draining her balls as she blasted out torrents of cum into her depths. Her organ’s prodigious width sealed the reporter’s hole tightly shut, and not a drop was wasted as long as she was lodged inside; Khalisa could feel the warm pools of liquid seed splash their way inside her, and when Shepard was finally done, she pulled free with a gasp; her cock breaking free of Khalisa’s pussy made a squelching sound like an unplugged bathtub, and long, sticky strands of seed dripped out from her cunt, making a little pool on the floor below.

Rose stepped back to survey her handiwork, pursing her lips at the sexy brown beauty with her legs and ass spread wide across the counter of the bathroom sinks. Khalisa’s skin gleamed with the sweat of their exertions, the same ones that made her chest heave up and down as her heart pounded furiously, and she could feel her tenders clench and unclench almost involuntarily, letting any cum that wanted to work its way out pour out, savoring how it felt as it dribbled out of her, until the flow stopped and she slipped off the counter, lying spread-eagled on the floor, as naked as the day she was born.

“Hope you got everything you wanted, Khalisa…..”

The doors out of the restroom slid open as Rose left Khalisa as she was, naked and thoroughly fucked. The restroom’s infrequent activity meant Khalisa would probably have enough time to piece her orgasm-ravaged mind back together before someone walked in and found her. Probably.

“Good luck with that article.”

Shepard’s latest conquest watched with punch-drunk astonishment as the doors slid back shut and her conqueror disappeared from view. The restroom was now cold and hollow and empty, and she knew she was going to have to find her clothes and sneak back out before someone stepped in and found her dawdling on the floor with all that cum --- so much, she recalled, still amazed at the firepower Shepard was packing --- slowly pouring out of her packed pussy. But she had time. She could wait. Lazily rubbing her aching clit, she wondered fleetingly if she could sell her producers on the idea of a Cerberus exposé.

Much better than getting socked in the face again.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The sound of angry knuckles ramming against the stall door brought Gabby back to the waking world. It was hard to tell how long she’d been out. It felt like mere minutes, but the strange slumber she’d slipped into had been so absolute that she might have been lost there for days and she wouldn’t have noticed. The draft around her legs chilled her skin, and she was jolted back to full consciousness by the sight of her pants, torn to shreds like she’d gotten into a fight with a wild animal.

What the hell had happened to her?

There were voices outside her stall, bearing the lilting tones of the asari, but that quality was hard to detect now given how angry the voices were.

“Hey, you better not have dozed off in there! Some of us actually need to use the stall!”

“Probably some quarian. You know how they are with their million suit filters or whatever….”

Gabby quickly pulled her omni-phone out of her pocket --- thankfully, her pant pockets had outlived the carnage --- and hastily punched in the first number she could think of.

“Kelly,” Gabby hissed down the line, “where are you?”

“Gabby? Why are you whispering?”

“I’ll explain later,” she hurried, “I really need some pants.”

“What’s going on --- wait, pants?”

“Yes! Just get a pair, will you?”

“Are you okay?”

“I’ll explain when you get here! I’m in a bathroom stall next to the Dark Star. Hurry!”

"HEY!" Another, louder rap met the door, rattling it gently. "Are you huffing sand in there or something?

"Maybe we should call C-Sec," the other asari said, in a whisper loud enough for Gabby to hear, and probably meant for her ears. Empty threat or not, the idea of anyone, C-Sec or otherwise, gawking at her ruined pants was more embarrassment than Gabby cared for at the moment.

"I'm not huffing sand!" she yelled through the door, desperately trying to think of a plausible excuse for being locked in a restroom stall for however long it had been. She didn't even know what red sand looked like, though she suspected it was red and sand-like. "I'm, uh, I'm just having some bowel trouble!"

Those were words she'd never thought she would say out loud, and it made her cringe to hear them. The declaration was met by a loud snort from the other side of the door. "Human. Shocker."

She didn't even know what that was supposed to mean. Was there some sort of anti-human stereotype about bowel trouble?

"You've been in there a while now," the other voice said, kinder than her companion's. "I watched a vid at the cinemaplex downstairs and you were here before that started. Do you need some help?"
“No,” Daniels said miserably, her face burning a darker shade of scarlet with each passing second. “I can manage.”
“Suit yourself.”

After the two asari were gone, Gabby periodically creaked open the door to look for Kelly, but she was nowhere to be found. Others entered and exited, some of them tapping on Gabby’s door to see if the stall was empty, and it seemed like she had to squeak “Occupied!” a million times. But even eternity had an end, and 20 minutes after their call, Kelly walked into the restroom with a black carry bag on her arm.

“Gabby?” she called out hesitantly.

The relieved engineer poked her head out from behind the stall door. Thankfully, there was no one else around. “Over here!”

Kelly spotted her and moved toward the stall, opening up the bag as she walked to take out a pair of black pants, straight from Gabby’s locker onboard the Normandy. She held it out and Gabby snatched it the second it was within reach, and she waited nervously outside the stall as Gabby changed, hoping no one would walk in and stare at her like she was one of those deranged people who lurked around public restrooms listening to people relieve themselves.

Quicker than she expected, the door opened again and Gabby stepped out, wearing the new set of pants Kelly had brought.

“Did…..did you crap your pants or something….?”

Gabby seemed completely unembarrassed by the question, and the reason for that became apparent when she held out her previous set of pants.
Kelly’s eyes widened like saucers at the sight of the shredded garment.

“What the hell happened to you?”

“When I figure it out, I’ll let you know…..”
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The Rachni Queen