Encounter at Rashomon Valley (A Star to Sail Her B

Kelly stepped into the med bay, reverently silent. Garrus sat on a chair next to a long clear resin tub, face buried in his hands. She could see the commander, floating in a blue solution in the tank with a respirator on her face. Her breath caught. He looked up. The scales on his face were damp, face paint smudged. He ran a self-conscious hand over his face and rose to meet her.



“She's asleep,” he said softly. “Mordin has counteracted the poison. She's still running a fever, so they're keeping her in the cooling tank for now. They say there shouldn't be any lasting damage.” His eyes never fully left the tank.



“We could talk later...”



“No.” His eyes met hers. “Now is fine.” He gave a final glance towards the tank, then gestured to the door. “I'll meet you in the mess in a moment.”



She stepped out the door and watched him through the window as he stepped to the back of the med bay and said a few words to Dr. Chakwas.



--



“I don't know how much you know about what we were doing on Nagori, Kelly.”



Kelly shook her head. “I know that you were retrieving a piece of Reaper technology from an abandoned human colony. Beyond that, I don't know the details.”



Garrus took a deep breath, then began:

--



Samara contacted Shepard a week ago. From what she told me, she captured a Batarian pirate who was attempting to smuggle some stolen asari weapons technology out to Omega.



He knew what she was, and started singing immediately. Apparently, he was bringing the tech to his partners, based out of a planet deep in the Traverse. Former human colony, abandoned, discovered by pirates and repurposed to reverse engineer stolen technology. Weapons systems, bioweapons, drugs, you name it. More importantly, he told her about a find they were very excited about... a section of Sovereign, recovered days after the attack on the Citadel.



Samara still killed him, but she got the coordinates first.



Obviously, Shepard was keen to recover the piece, Mordin even more so. While we were en route, I know Mordin looked into the history of the colony. I didn't hear much about it directly, but according to what he found, it was an agricultural colony, focused on bioengineered crops. Strangely, he didn't find anything on why it was abandoned. Neither did Miranda.



That should have been a clue. It really should have.



His eyes roamed back to the med bay window. He shook his head.



Can't think about that now.



So, we got to the system yesterday and immediately started planning our approach. There wasn't a lot of traffic in the area, so we opted to bring the shuttle down to the surface a good distance away from the settled area... about 8 hours' walk. The terrain wasn't bad-- rocky, lots of low shrubbery and dense underbrush, but passable. The atmosphere was thin, so we had our environmental suits activated. Didn't want to wind up short of breath in a fight.



As we got a little closer to Rashomon Valley, we hit what must have been the crop fields. Towering plants, all covered in blue flowers. It looked like it was snowing, there was so much pollen in the air. The pollen was weird, grey, like ash. Shepard had us all check our filters, to make sure they weren't getting clogged.



The plants were dense enough to cover our approach. They'd gone feral, throwing out tangles of branches and vines. We stayed close to the ground to avoid getting too bound up.



Miranda had found us a map of the colony. From what we could tell, Rashomon Valley was the main settlement, the last to be evacuated, so the infrastructure was probably still largely intact. From the ground, we could see storefronts converted to chop shops, homes full of batarian pirates, and the hospital with lights on every floor. We all figured that was the most likely place they'd be keeping the segment.



Tali managed to patch into the comm chatter nearest us. We got lucky. Someone mentioned having to guard 'the beast in the basement' again, that they didn't even have scientists smart enough to figure out what part it was much less what it did. Mordin said it was probably the hospital's morgue, which would be refrigerated. Made us all wonder what we'd find once we got there. What did Jack say...something about 'Was Sovereign squishy?'



Anyway, we figured out the best approach, an alleyway that led from the outskirts of town straight up to the back of the hospital. Shepard wanted someone to cover our exit and make sure no one slipped up behind us to pin us inside. She asked me to do it. Said she always knew she could count on me to watch her ass. Heh. Jack started to, er, hypothesize about the subject, but Shepard cut her off before she got too... colorful.



At any rate, I found a good vantage point on a nearby garage roof. Found a vehicle for us to use in case we needed a fast retreat, too, still in good condition, still fueled. I watched them slip in behind the dumpsters, through a service entrance. I heard some distant thumping and saw a couple batarians fall out the doors, limp. Shepard gave the all clear, and they started in.



The rest, I only heard over the comms in fragments. Some skirmishes in the halls, quiet as possible. A couple close calls with patrols. They were breaking up. The walls in the hospital must have been reinforced with something that killed our signal. I let Shepard know I was in the dark. She acknowledged. I wasn't happy about the situation, but Shepard was determined to get in there.



Then, they hit the first snag. They ducked into a lab, found some prisoners. Human. There was an argument about rescuing them. Something about the experiments. Not bioweapons, but something else. Something about collateral damage. Tali was going to work on freeing them. Someone stayed behind with her... someone had to, Shepard would never leave her alone somewhere. I couldn't tell who.



They moved in further. I lost signal from them altogether. Tali wasn't on the comm... whoever she was with was as quiet as she was as they worked on freeing the prisoners.



I stayed on that rooftop in the dead quiet for about a half hour. Batarians were going about their business on the road to the front of the hospital, but no one seemed interested in the side streets near it. Lucky for us, really. A couple batarians wound up under me for a few minutes, cutting some sort of side deal that was apparently shady even by their standards. Some sort of drug, from the sounds of it. Probably from one of the labs. Nothing I'd heard of. They left as quickly as they came, though.



Then, I heard a rumble from inside the hospital. It sounded like something collapsing. I knew it had to be them. My adrenaline kicked in. Were they blasting their way out? Was Sovereign hooked into something vital? No idea. I saw some heads turn out in front of the hospital and braced for incoming.



After what felt like forever, I saw the back doors pop open. Shepard, Tali, and Mordin stepped out. I saw a group of batarians pull out guns and start heading our way. I took care of them as they moved out of easy view of the main street, then hopped down and pulled the vehicle around. Jack and Grunt loaded the shard into the vehicle.



Tali and Mordin were ushering some humans out the door. The rumbling got louder. One split off, running back into the building when she saw the vehicle. Shepard bolted after her. We heard an explosion, saw it knock hunks of plaster and tile down the hall and back out the door. Thane ran in and grabbed Shepard. Her shields were down, and she had some shrapnel in her pads, but she was upright and running. Just in time, too... the rumble became a roar, and the whole damned building started to shake.



I floored it, and we took off into the fields.



Now, here's where I feel horrible. We'd forgotten about the pollen until we hit the fields and had it pouring down on our windshield. I turned on the vehicle's filtration units, but they must have been broken or damaged or something. The people we'd saved started coughing, started feeling feverish. Mordin tended to them as best he could, but within five minutes, they were delirious from the fever. Seven, they were vomiting blood, having seizures. By the time the vehicle broke down, 10 minutes later, they were all dead.



We were only a mile from the shuttle, so we decided to haul the segment on foot. As soon as Shepard opened the back gate to the vehicle, she got covered in pollen. She was annoyed by it, laughed it off. Mordin looked concerned, but she just gestured at her armor and said she'd be fine.



The armor with the shrapnel sticking out of it. The armor with the shrapnel in her primary and secondary environmental filters. Fuck.



And the worst of it...she was more worried about Jack. Thought she'd get sick from skin contact with it. Mordin assured us that it was only hazardous if inhaled. He was furious with himself, said he should have recognized the plants on the way in and known they were poisonous to humans. Pulmasomasomethingorother... plants bred to produce the pollen for bioweapons. Something about 'three petals, not four.' The plants must have gotten out of control, or the pollen count too high, or something. Batarians are immune to it, so they probably didn't even notice.



We started moving. We got maybe a quarter mile when Shepard sneezed a couple of times. Then, a little further, she started coughing. We all looked at her. She tried to look calm. She got that look that she gets when she's putting on her game face for us, the one most people buy into but all of us recognize in a second. Mordin declared that we needed to move a lot faster. We did.



We were getting close to the shuttle when Shepard started to...lose it. I asked her if she was ok. She just looked confused. Grunt took the shard. Jack and I took Shepard. We started running. I could feel her skin through my gloves. She was burning up. She...



His eyes closed, and he shook his head, covering his face with his hand.



I'm sorry. I...



It took him a moment to continue. It was hard not to reach out to comfort him.



We got her onto the shuttle, threw the shard in behind her, and took off. She was unconscious before we left the atmosphere. Mordin contacted Chakwas in advance, let her know what to prepare for the antidote.



He looked down at his armor. There were still splashes of red blood visible on his chestplate, obviously hers.



She threw up blood when I stepped off the elevator to the med bay.



I... I honestly thought I... that we were going to lose her. Again.



--



"You love her very much, don't you?" Kelly said softly.



Garrus sat up straight, surprise replacing the sorrow for a moment. The denial was almost reflexive. "I...She's..." Then, he slumped forward, arms resting on the table, too distraught to deny anything. "Yes. Yes I do."



"I'll let you get back to her side, then. And I'll let you know what the others say." Kelly rose. "And, if you need to talk... you know where I am."



"Thank you." The turian rose wearily, then headed back towards the med bay.



As she left, she saw him reach into the tank and tenderly run his hand along Shepard's face. Her chest felt heavy watching it. She made a mental note to come back to make sure he ate something at some point.