Encounter at Rashomon Valley (A Star to Sail Her B

Kelly tried to stifle the butterflies in her stomach. This is serious. Professional. Not a social call. She raised her hand to knock, then let it drop. Dammit. She swallowed hard, then knocked.

The door slid open. Thane sat at his desk, palms together, eyes closed. As she stepped inside, he gestured towards a second chair nearby. "Please, come in."

"I'm sorry...were you meditating?" she asked shyly.

"Praying. I've finished. Please, have a seat."

She did.

Business. Just business.

"You're here to discuss what happened on Nagori, I assume."

"Yes."

"Then I shall tell you."

--

Samara contacted Shepard about information she acquired from a captured batarian pilot. Doubtless, the others have told you. A section of Sovereign, recovered after the attack on the Citadel, now being kept in a defunct human colony on Nagori 49-7, in a place called Rashomon Valley.

The details about the colony were slim. Formerly inhabited by humans engaging in agriculture, growing medicinal plants deep in the Traverse. Abandoned nearly ten years ago, reinhabited by batarians within the last five. It was a perfect location for a batarian pirate retreat: deep in the Traverse, an atmosphere that most sentient life would find undesirable, already established and equipped. They just needed to restart the generators and dust off the furniture.

We landed some distance away from the colony, outside of the perimeter of farmland around Rashomon Valley. The heavy crop cover made perfect cover for our approach.

Blue canopy above us. Pollen like snow brushes my vision. Green stalks tangled in silver armor. A laugh like a slap to the face.

I'm sorry. Most of us moved through the plant cover easily. Grunt had some problems getting through. His armor kept getting snagged on vines. Frustrating for him, amusing for Jack. I lent him a knife to cut his way through. I hoped we would not have to make a quick retreat through these fields, though I don't doubt that Grunt could have easily charged through if required.

We reached the south end of the colony. Garrus and I advanced ahead of the group to look for the best approach. We found an abandoned area with an alley that led straight to the rear entrance of the hospital.

Distant laughter. Black smoke in distance, sounds of tools on metal. Corpses of weapons, vehicles.

Tali tuned into the comm frequencies and heard a pirate discussing his guard duty for the evening. 'The beast in the basement.' Mentioned a lack of qualified scientists to study it. It made sense. The basement would have the most limited access points. Mordin mentioned it was likely the morgue, so the walls would be even more reinforced than the rest of the hospital.

Garrus took rear guard and positioned himself in a good vantage point. Shepard and I stepped in through the hospital doors. Two guards waited there, surprised by our entry.

Playing cards fall silently. Blood mars the ace of spades, the queen of hearts.

They died quietly. We pushed the bodies outside and the team headed in.

I was able to move slightly ahead of the team, neutralizing the paired guards as we went. None managed to get a shot off or reach their comms. Also took out a few scientists, and some custodians who saw me kill a guard. Careless of me. Would feel guilty, but they drew their weapons first.

Garrus reported that our communications were breaking up. Shepard acknowledged, wasn't happy about it, but decided to press on.

Tali heard a shift change notification just in time. We heard voices down the hall.

Kazzik, there's a varren fight tonight. No, I'm staying in. Got Siizah coming over. Lucky bastard. Bizo, you got my money?

Too many of them to take out quietly. We chose to avoid them by moving into a darkened lab area, figuring it to be unoccupied. We were incorrect. Inside the lab, there was a pen, containing seven humans. Three women, four men. They were pale, gaunt, clad in rags. They bore fresh scars on their chests, sutures still visible. They did not cry out when they saw us. They looked hopeful, like their salvation might finally be at hand.

When the guards had passed, Shepard approached the pen and spoke to them gently. They were unsure as to how long they had been held captive, but knew that the batarians were implanting something in their chest cavities. They had witnessed each other's surgeries. The table was in easy view. One of the men, Stephen, thought it might be drugs.

Mordin and Tali were examining the equipment. They came to the conclusion that the implants were actually explosives. The humans were walking bombs. When they heard Mordin say this, their demeanor shifted from hopeful to horrified.

One tears at his chest. Sutures snap. Golden haired woman vomits in corner. Weeping, shivering. Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god.

Shepard attempted to calm them, to tell them that we would get them out of there. She began to open the cage, but Tali stopped her. She'd seen the type of detonators being used, and didn't want to risk one of them panicking and running away. They were proximity-based, and she didn't know the range. She chose to stay behind to try and figure out a way to safely get them out of the hospital and to someplace where Mordin could remove the explosives. I offered to remain behind, to protect her from patrols. Mordin offered to stay in my stead, in case Tali needed surgical assistance. Mordin is also quite skilled in a fight. I relented.

We left them behind to work on that problem, and moved onward.

We ran into a couple more patrols, neutralized them. Followed the signs to the basement.

There were several guards stationed here. The fight was unavoidable. I entered the ventilation ducts to position myself above the guard station. Grunt and Shepard flanked left. Jack flanked right. The guards had no escape, and were neutralized quickly. Jack's biotic charge threw a batarian at Shepard. Grunt batted him out of the air, like a cat swatting a fly.

We couldn't be sure that they hadn't gotten a comm call out, so we had to move quickly. If nothing else, the noise was sure to attract attention. We moved to the basement. The door was locked, but Grunt took it down with a solid blow.

A soft hum fills the air. Monolithic, circuits and black metal. Tingle at the base of the skull.

The piece was roughly the size of Grunt, leaning up against a corner of the room. The walls were lined with square drawers, likely corpse storage units. I looked out the door. Reinforcements had arrived.

We alternated. Two at the door, two reloading. We wore down the supply of guards fairly quickly, but heard one of them say that reinforcements were on their way back. Jack heard them, too.

No fucking way. Savage wind tears through flesh, bone, concrete, steel. The world shudders, then silent. Then madness.

Jack let loose a biotic blast that cleared the stairs and tore out a chunk of wall, along with a piece of support beam. Grunt charged up the stairs, clearing the remaining guards. Two of them were hurled into the damaged support. Shepard and I grabbed the shard and we ran after them. Behind us, we heard metal rending. Parts of the ceiling collapsed in, sending up clouds of dust.

We ran for the exit. Tali and Mordin were already on their way, with the humans in tow. Tali had crafted a portable device to allow the humans to leave captivity, as long as they remained near the device. Garrus had pulled a vehicle to the door. One of the human women saw Garrus and became frightened. Unsure why. Perhaps a past trauma. She ran back into the building. Shepard pursued her, despite warnings from Tali.

Dust and fire. A hand flies past, red mist in the air. Shards of bone, flesh, and metal slam her into a wall. The flare of failing shield-power, the dull pelting of metal through armor.

I re-entered the building in time to see the woman blown apart, shards of metal and chunks of flesh slamming into Shepard's shields. The shields failed and allowed some shards to penetrate her armor. She was stunned, horrified. I ran to her aid and assisted her out of the building and into the vehicle. There was blood on her cheek. I was unsure if it was hers or the woman's. Her shields recovered as she got into the vehicle.

Freedom, exultation. Then coughing, wet and haggard. Flecks of blood. Skin on fire. Eyes wild. Three petals, not four.

We were on our way back to the shuttle. A few minutes in, the humans we rescued began coughing, complaining of fever. Mordin looked out the window and flinched, furious. "Three petals, not four." He realized that the plants were not what the colonists had claimed on their plans. They had substituted a biotoxin-producing flower that looked nearly identical. Probably made a lot more money from it. Explained why they abandoned the area...the pollen probably became too much for them. It was a toxin that only affected humans. Poor idea on their part, but greed does override common sense sometimes.

We realized this too late, of course. The humans were already poisoned, already dying. Within ten minutes, they were convulsing from the fever and dying. Only a few moments later, the engine died as well. We were clear of the field, but still had some distance to cover.

The door swings open. Sunlight blinds, washes away the death. She steps out. Ash like rain on her helmet.

There was a lot of pollen accumulated on the doors of the vehicle. Shepard was covered as she stepped out. A few profanities, but she was more annoyed than afraid. We all evacuated the vehicle, leaving behind the bodies. Tali rigged her device to power down after we reached a safe distance. Cremation of a sort.

Shortly after the explosion, Shepard began to cough. I looked at her. She tried to look unconcerned. I saw a shard of metal planted firmly in her air intake valve. Removing it would only make it worse. Mordin recommended that we move faster.

Her condition deteriorated quickly. Soon, she was feverish and disoriented. Garrus picked her up. Jack used her biotics to hold her up. The two began to sprint for the shuttle. Grunt hoisted the shard onto his back and charged after them. The rest of us ran to keep up. My own lungs were ready to burst by the time we reached the shuttle. The pollen may not have affected me, but my illness did.

Shepard was unconscious, limp. Mordin and Garrus worked to get her out of her armor.

Pinpricks bring crimson trails. Coughing brings more. Skin like fire. The whir and click of a silenced system. Ice crystals fill the air.

Tali disabled the temperature regulator on the shuttle. Jack was shivering hard. I offered her my coat. She told me to go fuck myself, then accepted it. The seals on the doors were crackling. Mordin contacted the Normandy, told Dr. Chakwas to have a cooling tank and antidote on standby.

We reached the Normandy and landed just in time. The force of the landing shattered the seals, sending the door flying open. Mordin engaged the decontamination systems and had to block Garrus from leaping out with Shepard. In his grief, Garrus momentarily forgot that most of the crew was human. He relented to the decontamination, and added a good solid dent on the door to the repair needs of the shuttle.

The moment the decontamination unit clicked green, he had her in his arms and dashed for the elevators. Mordin managed to keep pace but barely. The rest of us... that's the last we saw of her.

--

His head bowed, a humorless laugh slipping from his throat. "At times, the drell memory is a blessing; at others, a curse."

"I'm sorry. Is there anything I can do?" Kelly leaned forward. Without thinking, she reached out and put a hand on his arm.

He looked down at it, then up at her and smiled. "Not at the moment. Perhaps we can talk later."

Kelly blushed and removed her hand. "Of course. Any time."

"Thank you." He turned his face back to the window in front of him, palms pressed together once more.