Mass Effect 1. Jobs

_**Author's Note:** For _Iunctio_ readers, this bookends the events of "Killer"._

* * *

**Jobs**

Urdnot Wrex absently popped another snail into his mouth as he regarded the weather-beaten datapad in his hand. The marinated, hard-shelled morsel made a satisfyingly loud crunch as he deliberately crushed it between his broad teeth, a noise that made the salarian patrons of the restaurant falter in their concerted attempts to ignore the brutish intruder in their midst.

With the broad field of view that was a trait of his species, Wrex could easily watch the assemblage of reed-thin aliens around him, quietly amused by their obvious discomfort. The krogan mercenary had made a long-standing habit of continually reading the moves and reactions of those near him at all times, a tendency to which he attributed his continued existence.

The restaurant's owner fluttered about behind the bar, the only salarian unperturbed by Wrex's presence. Since he'd developed a taste for a certain hard-shelled delicacy from the salarian homeworld, Wrex had made a point of visiting the unassuming eatery nestled in the Citadel's Fifth Ward whenever he was in need of laid-back entertainment. Not that the visits were cheap, but a considerable tip ensured the owner was always happy to see him and decorously overlooked the fact that one wasn't supposed to eat the multicolored shells.

Wrex resumed scowling at his datapad, flipping between display panes representing the various accounts he had scattered liberally about the sprawling financial maze of the Citadel economy. Given the dubious legality of the sources of Wrex's money, he'd learned early in his life that it paid to spread one's self out. Thus, sudden account freezes or the necessity to quickly vacate a system never left him far from a source of cash.

Wrex didn't live extravagantly - visits to salarian restaurants notwithstanding - but mercenary work could hardly be counted upon for a steady income. He flipped the small display back to the message he had received an hour ago and read it through again, digesting the fact that the job offer it contained had to be seriously considered.

He didn't like taking jobs on the Citadel. Guard work was usually painfully boring, and anything else risked a run-in with Citadel Security. C-Sec agents were a nosy and persistent lot, and expensive to bribe, if you could at all. Wrex considered himself a pragmatist, one who disliked needless complications.

He turned off the datapad and tapped it lightly against the table as he savored the last crunchy snail. He knew full well that aside from the money, being a hire in good standing with the Shadow Broker wasn't something to be dismissed lightly. To his knowledge, it was a rare event when the Broker went so far as to put a hit out on someone, and it aroused a certain amount of curiosity.

More than money, Wrex needed relief from boredom. It had been too long since he'd faced a serious challenge, and this job was potentially interesting. It was time to get into the city and start asking pointed questions. He quickly transferred the amount of his tab to the restaurant and headed for the door. A ripple of relief from the salarians preceded him as he exited into the crowded lower Ward.

"Fist, huh?" he said to no one in particular as he ambled into the crowded street. "Stupid name..."

* * *

Wrex surveyed the patrons of Chora's Den with narrow eyes. His entrance had already attracted attention, but he opted to ignore the curious stares in favor of sizing up potential threats. He knew most of the patrons could safely be counted on to hide or flee at the outbreak of violence, but there could always be that upstart who decided to try and be heroic. Usually a fatally stupid decision.

The biggest potential unknown remained the asari entertainers. With their long lives and indeterminate age, there was a significant chance some of them had combat training or were skilled biotics. Still, it seemed unlikely to Wrex that any of them held any particular loyalty to Fist, and they would probably simply melt away into the Wards at any sign of trouble.

That left the one obvious challenge to this contract standing on the far side of the room near the door to the offices- the bouncer. Wrex was careful to keep the other krogan in his field of view as he ambled through the crowded room, and knew his opponent must surely be doing the same to him.

Wrex could tell immediately the other krogan was relatively young; his black and blue crest smooth and lacking the deep lines and grooves that accentuated with age. The dark blue was the color of the Gorgoth clan, one of the largest and most populous of the first stage colonies that still clung to life out rimward of Tuchanka. But the jet-black peak indicated mixed blood, and Wrex pondered its implications. The bouncer's armor was heavy-looking but old and worn, likely scavenged and rebuilt to look more impressive than it really was.

No doubt the blue-crested krogan cut an impressive figure to the other aliens, but by the time Wrex changed course and walked purposefully toward the offices, he already had a good idea of what he was dealing with. A young warrior, probably down and out with his clan, picking up whatever job he could while trying to make a name for himself, enough that he could start securing good mercenary work. In the meantime, he was window dressing; hired to look intimidating and stop fights before they started with the promise of swift and brutal reprimand.

Few things rankled Wrex anymore, but seeing one of his own people being used for such an obviously menial job penetrated the usual broad sense of ambivalence that permeated his life.

"I'm here to see Fist," Wrex announced bluntly as he stopped in front of the bouncer, calculating his distance from the other krogan as just close enough to get into the bouncer's space, a subtle but unmissable challenge among the deeply territorial krogan.

"Fist is busy," the Gorgoth growled, bristling at the intrusion.

"Yeah, I bet. Having his pole polished by one of the blues?" Wrex smirked. "Or maybe finding whole new bad choices to make in life. Step aside, or better yet, find a new job."

The bouncer fidgeted but stood resolute.

"What's a Gorgoth mutt like you doing waiting on a humpless human, anyway?" Wrex said with calculated disdain. "Does pushing around drunk salarians pay well?"

The young warrior's expression didn't change, but Wrex caught the telltale widening of his slitted irises, an involuntary reaction that usually presaged an attack. It told Wrex not only that his guess as to the younger krogan's heritage had been more or less on the mark, but also that the young warrior still valued his clan ties enough to be nettled by Wrex's barbs.

It was a risky move. Wrex normally approached his targets in a pragmatic manner, and provoking a brawl in a crowded bar wasn't really the most efficient way of seeing the contract through. But he was in a bad mood, and deep down he craved action, a real challenge. He distantly hoped some of the asari would get involved, just to make things interesting.

But seconds passed, and the Gorgoth krogan didn't take the bait.

"Get out of here, Wrex," the bouncer finally growled. "Fist isn't coming out." His hand dropped meaningfully onto the grip of the pistol clipped to his waist as he shifted his weight into a ready posture, defiantly inviting the older mercenary to start something.

Wrex had to admire the younger warrior's bluster, even if it was misplaced. The pup might even make for a decent fight. Wrex was weighing possibilities in his head when he caught the subtle shift in the mood of the crowd around the bar. In the outer edge of his field of view, three armored figures were making their way between the tables, causing a stir among the patrons.

"I'll be back soon enough," Wrex said bluntly.

He turned and stumped away from the bristling bouncer, shouldering negligently past the new arrivals to cover a quick but careful appraisal of them. They weren't C-Sec as he'd expected, but rather human Alliance Military, wearing slate-gray hardsuits and all armed. The lead human, a female, simply ignored him, while the other two eyed him warily as he passed.

C-Sec or no, the sudden arrival of the human soldiers didn't provide him any new advantage, so Wrex made his way toward the exit. As he passed through into the gangway overlooking a grav-car highway, he wondered idly if anyone in the bar realized how close they'd come to having front-row seats to a show few got to see these days- a krogan battlemaster in action.

Down the walkway, a portal cycled open and a pair of turians and a human stepped through, wearing the ubiquitous dark blue of Citadel Security. Wrex sighed inwardly as they headed in his direction, the turians fingering their blocky Haliat rifles. The mercenary tried to ignore them, but the human stepped boldly into his path.

"Urdnot Wrex?" the man asked, his voice betraying a hint of nervousness.

Wrex stopped, looming deliberately over the human and fixing him with one eye. "Yeah?"

"We'd like to have a word with you," the human announced, squaring his shoulders, "down at the garrison."

Wrex glowered at the little man. The krogan had little doubt he could overpower the three of them, but he would have to kill them, and killing C-Sec agents never ended well. Still, the human was obviously not oblivious to the fact that his life hung in the balance of that instant, so Wrex let him stew in that knowledge for a few long moments.

"Well, lead the way," Wrex rumbled finally.

Wrex ignored the flanking C-Sec agents as he planned his next move. He wondered how much money Fist had to have been promised to do what he did, to volunteer to live the rest of his short life looking over his shoulder. The fact that the crooked human had so quickly resorted to actually calling for C-Sec's help told Wrex the man was probably already regretting his decision. The human mobster's much-vaunted power didn't amount to much when the Shadow Broker decided his actions were an insult...

Once at the C-Sec garrison, the agents made Wrex wait for a while. This was standard, and for anyone else might have served to make them nervous and frustrated, but the mercenary's experiences had granted him a streak of patience that most would consider uncharacteristic of his kind, and he simply waited out the time unperturbed.

By the time the agents returned to question him, Wrex was fairly sure they'd let him go. While the Citadel did have a set of laws, the profusion of races and traditions on the station made it hard to enforce all but the most basic laws of property and safety. As usual, the more money and politics that were involved, the more likely someone would be prosecuted, but Wrex doubted Fist could boast such influence.

The krogan was only half-listening to the human agent's half-hearted threats of incarceration when he spotted three familiar figures standing across the room, watching him- the Alliance humans from Chora's Den.

"Are you done?" he asked the C-Sec agent bluntly.

"Stay away from Fist, Wrex," the human declared.

Wrex ignored him and turned to stump across the room, straight up to the human soldiers, stopping abruptly in front of the leader. She folded her arms and regarded him steadily, showing no sign of worry at his looming presence. Her dark gray armor was slashed down the front by a red stripe, broken by an angular symbol on her chest. Wrex guessed it was a rank insignia.

By and large, Wrex had trouble taking humans seriously. Scrawny, soft-skinned and short-lived, they were a flighty bunch, most of their population not even combat trained. They also had an unsettling tendency to show their teeth as an expression of happiness, a habit that Wrex didn't doubt had cost a few of them their lives when dealing with the more backwater krogan. To natives of Tuchanka's unforgiving food chain, showing your teeth categorically said 'I'm going to eat you'.

"Do I know you, human?" Wrex growled irritably.

The other two soldiers watched him warily, the female's hand resting on her pistol. Wrex had to wonder what the male was doing subservient to a female warlord. Perhaps he was simply weak or deficient, but the way the leader carried herself suggested something more. As it was, Wrex always had to remind himself that humans organized themselves in a rather more convoluted manner than he was used to among his own kind.

"My name's Shepard," the leader declared. "I'm trying to bring down Saren. Barla Von said to talk to you."

Wrex controlled his surprise, unused to such blunt declarations of intent from other species. Shepard... he'd heard the name before. Just how much did the human know, and why did she care about Saren? Pleased to skip the usual prevarication, he quickly decided this situation could be turned to his advantage and changed his tactics.

"Von is a wise man," he said casually. "We share a common goal."

"Enlighten me."

"I've been hired to kill the owner of Chora's Den, a man named Fist. He did something very foolish."

The human's eyes narrowed. "He betrayed the Shadow Broker."

Wrex nodded. "Someone went to Fist with information to trade- a quarian. He promised to arrange a meeting between her and the Shadow Broker... Instead, he contacted Saren."

Shepard seemed to consider this for a moment before speaking again. "What does Saren have to do with this?"

_What indeed? _"The quarian has information that Saren doesn't want to become public," Wrex answered. "Fist was paid a small fortune to get her."

The male soldier stepped forward. "This might be what proves Saren's a traitor!" he said quickly, addressing Shepard. "The Council will have to listen to us."

She glanced briefly at her subordinate, then back to Wrex. "Where's the quarian now?"

"Last I heard, Fist still had her inside his club," Wrex said in a predatory tone. "You help me kill Fist, she's all yours."

Shepard didn't hesitate. "Let's move."

* * *

Wrex watched as the door to Chora's Den cycled closed behind Shepard's group as they hurried away to find the quarian. He surveyed the damaged bar, littered here and there with the bodies of Fist's unfortunate bodyguards. Mostly unarmored, Wrex guessed they hadn't had time to properly prepare for Commander Shepard's abrupt assault.

The battle had been quick and brutal. The Alliance humans had fought well, displaying efficiently capable teamwork. But he had been particularly intrigued when Shepard and the one called Alenko both displayed biotic abilities of not inconsequential strength. He knew human biotics exsisted, but he'd apparently mistakenly assumed their powers would be as weak as their thin bodies.

For a moment, right after he'd fulfilled his contract and ended Fist, it seemed like Alenko and the Williams female might challenge him then and there. But Shepard had called them off and the humans had left quickly in search of the quarian whom Fist had indicated was in danger. Wrex was mildly disappointed, but respected Shepard's end of the agreement and stayed out of their way.

In the corner of the bar, movement suddenly caught Wrex's eye. One of the haphazardly strewn tables shifted, revealing the Gorgoth bouncer as the young krogan rolled over and suddenly spotted Wrex. The mercenary ambled towards the bouncer, watching with amusement as he fumbled for his pistol and brought it to bear. Orange blood streaked his heavy armor from a vicious-looking wound in his abdomen.

"I'm not here to kill you, pup," Wrex said. "My job's done."

The gun stayed poised; the wounded krogan scowling up at Wrex along its sights. The Gorgoth would probably live- his regenerative tissues were already staunching the flow of blood.

Wrex chuckled. "If you're gonna shoot me, you better use something stronger than that cheap piece of junk." He edged a toe under one of the rifles on the ground, its former owner no longer among the living, and flipped it towards the Gorgoth warrior.

He caught the rifle neatly in his left hand, eyes flicking uncertainly between it and Wrex.

"A well-timed attack," Wrex commented dryly. "Probably would have worked, too, if your target hadn't been biotic."

Wrex had seen it coming, when the blue-crested bouncer had charged straight for Shepard, but did nothing out of curiosity. He had to admire the way she'd popped the surprised krogan off of his feet with a biotic burst, then neatly shotgunned him in the chest as he went flying overhead to crash unceremoniously into the tables along the far wall, trailing orange blood. Not many people could boast a cool head when faced with a headlong krogan charge.

"How was I supposed to know she had the heartfire?" The Gorgoth snapped, using an archaic krogan term for biotics.

Wrex snorted. "Stupid to assume she didn't! The humans are learning, pup."

"Don't call me that!" the young krogan fumed. "I earned my name! Gorgoth Naq!"

"Yeah?" Wrex taunted. "Gonna get up and do something about it?"

Naq growled a curse and began climbing to his feet, dropping the pistol and rifle and pulling a carbon-steel knife out of the sheath along his back.

Wrex let his corona boil up around his body, marshaling the eddies of dark energy into a concerted force that pitched the local gravity field away from him, slamming the young warrior into the back wall. Naq snarled in frustration as he struggled against the tidal pull.

Disappointment gnawed at Wrex. The Gorgoth youth seemed endemic to the krogan race as a whole these past years- wrapped up in their own little world, thinking only in terms of their own pride and where the next fight would take place.

"Maybe you shouldn't have dropped your gun," Wrex said bluntly as he scowled at the squirming warrior.

Part of him sincerely hoped Naq would learn something from the day's battle, but cynical experience said otherwise. Wrex turned and stalked out the bar's main door, feeling the biotic field weaken and give out as he did. He didn't normally like leaving witnesses, but he had no stomach for killing Naq, arrogant and stupid as he was acting.

Not that one more krogan mattered much in the scheme of things, anyway.

* * *

Three days later, Wrex turned off the news vid and sat back in his broad seat, staring at the now vacant space where moments before a prim-looking human had been blathering excitedly about the Citadel Council's surprise announcement of the appointment of the first human Spectre.

He went over the facts in his head, putting pieces of hearsay and rumor together into what he suspected must be the larger picture. Out of the politics and maneuvering, two things were clear- Saren Arterius, Council Spectre, had broken rank and gone rogue. This alone was a stunning bit of news, but the interesting twist was that a human had been assigned to find him.

Wrex left the bar and walked purposefully through the crowded streets of the Citadel Wards towards the inner ring. Whatever backroom political game had led to this outcome didn't interest Wrex overmuch; instead he focused on the opportunity suddenly presented to him. An opportunity that sang its imperative straight into his blood. Others might have taken a longer time to come to such a decision, but for Wrex, there wasn't any hesitation.

He made his way towards the Ward's C-Sec hub, which also conveniently happened to be the gateway for the human Alliance's ship docks. Sooner or later, all Alliance military personnel passed through this place, and so Wrex installed himself in a conspicuous location and waited patiently.

A few hours later, he was rewarded. Across the broad plaza, Wrex spotted the trio of Alliance humans headed in his direction, accompanied by a blue-clad turian. While he wore the colors of C-Sec, Wrex noted the absence of any rank insignia on the turian's shoulder. This was getting more interesting by the hour.

Wrex found it easier to respect turians as compared to other Citadel races. At least they sported a crest and something that could vaguely pass for a proper hump, they were all combat-trained, stolid, and generally reliable, if a little inflexible. Their reputation for directness appealed to Wrex, but he had learned that a turian who intended to be deceptive only went to more elaborate lengths. Perhaps it was what made Saren all the more dangerous.

Wrex knew how much he stood out, and so didn't bother flagging down the human Spectre as she approached. True to his appraisal of her, she seemed to sense his intent and stopped, regarding the krogan with that same air of pointed scrutiny, the gaze of a warrior squaring off against an opponent. Wrex knew it well.

"What do you want?" Shepard asked evenly.

"You're going after Saren," Wrex said. There was no point in asking the question.

"And?"

"I want in."

She regarded him steadily for a few seconds. "I'm not paying a mercenary."

Wrex had expected this, though he was somewhat surprised at himself at how little he cared. "Just give me a space to sleep in and a pick of the salvage," he said with a shrug.

"Why exactly would I need someone like you?" Shepard asked. Wrex casually admired the way she carefully pitched her tone to be direct instead of insulting.

"Because you know Saren won't play by your Alliance rules," he answered bluntly. He let the various implications hang in the air, unsaid. There wasn't any point in belaboring his skills- Shepard had already witnessed them firsthand.

She seemed to digest his statement for a long moment, then stepped forward and dropped her voice. "If you're on my ship, you're under my orders. One step out of line and you take a long walk out a short airlock. Do we understand each other?"

Wrex smirked. "Perfectly."

"Good." She stepped away. "We're leaving tomorrow at oh-six-hundred. I'll send your dock authorizations an hour before."

Wrex watched with faint amusement as the expressions of her two human subordinates shifted into incredulous surprise. The turian, for his part, merely raised an eyebrow.

"Commander, you can't seriously-" the one called Williams started, but shut her mouth with a snap when Shepard turned a level stare on her.

Wrex turned and walked away, satisfied, leaving the Commander to deal with her squad.

Saren. Not only a Spectre but one of the very best, with an army of geth at his beck and call. And Shepard... Wrex had seen just enough to be genuinely intrigued by the fierce little human biotic. She too would be an interesting opponent.

_Finally, a real challenge._


	2. Ghost

_**Author's Note: **For _Iunctio_ readers, this takes place between 'Rise' and 'Win'._

* * *

**Ghost**

Wrex stood stock still, gaze trained on the oblong cylinder lying on the rocky ground as Alenko and Vakarian frantically worked on it, pulling off panels and barking quick commands to each other. It had been a long time since the mercenary had sincerely looked death in the face, and he could honestly say that he never expected it might come via a point-blank nuclear detonation.

There was something oddly amusing about that. Regardless, he was still relieved when the two succeeded at disarming the device before time ran out, as he was rather attached to his life, such as it was. As a fellow krogan from years past had been fond of pointing out, 'There's still money to be made'.

Wrex hadn't been privy to the details behind this particular mission, but he knew from experience that nuclear weapons were tightly controlled among Citadel member species, which would make this one's mere existence a potential source of embarrassment for the human government. Notwithstanding its theft and use as a trap by a turian thug who styled himself as some kind of pirate king, claiming responsibility for the Skyllian Blitz.

"Okay... now what?" Williams asked the room at large.

"Now we get out of here," Shepard said in a businesslike tone. "Someone out there needs my boot up his ass." She turned and walked purposefully towards the opening at the far end of the room.

Her confidence was admirable, given the explosion that had sounded only moments ago from behind them, followed by the heavy rumble of falling rock. Haliat had closed the trap on them, presumably sealing the entrance of the defunct mine. But Shepard was a shrewd warlord and no doubt knew that any hint of worry at this point was detrimental to the team as a whole.

A distant rumble echoed through the cavern as they crested the top of the tunnel.

"Gosh, _that's _comforting," Williams said irritably.

"The cave-in is settling," Alenko answered.

"That doesn't help," the chief muttered.

"Claustrophobic?"

"No," she answered with a sniff. "But I think a desire to not starve to death in a forgotten shit-hole is perfectly justified."

"Look on the bright side," the lieutenant said with forced cheerfulness, "when I keel over you can just eat _me_."

Wrex supposed he was referring to the advanced metabolism inherent to biotics. Wrex himself needed to eat more than the average krogan, though of all the species assembled in this mine, his hump gave him a decided advantage in the race for survival without sustenance.

Williams wrinkled her nose. "Yech, no thanks."

"Biotics aren't contagious, you know," Alenko said mildly.

"Yeah, but computer geek might be," she quipped.

"Everyone fan out and have a look around, but stay in comms range," Shepard ordered crisply.

Wrex stumped away down the side of the cavern, circling the accumulation of ankle-deep water in the middle. His helmet-mounted light was the only illumination he had, casting stark, dancing shadows around the room as he swept it across the walls. Rusting machinery, too big and expensive to bother removing from the mine, loomed at the entrance of another tunnel. Wrex moved past it, peering down a shaft that seemed to lead further down into the mine complex. Rivulets of water flowed around his feet, patiently carving channels around the thick rails set into the rocky floor.

"Yeah, the entrance is definitely a no-go," Alenko said over the comms.

Wrex absently wondered what the turians had been mining here as he skirted the machinery and continued down the wall. Several minutes passed, but Wrex found nothing else save more rock, rust and water.

"I've got a sealed door here," Vakarian reported. "I can't be exactly sure, but it looks like it might be an exterior airlock."

"Regroup," Shepard said. "We'll check it out."

Wrex ambled around some moldering piles of discarded slag, catching sight of the team's helmet lamps as they flashed around the room, scattering reflections off the murky water onto the ceiling. The door came into view as he approached, and he noted the heavy tracks bolted into the ceiling leading out from it, probably for cargo.

Garrus poked the dark door panel experimentally, and predictably, nothing happened. "No power," he pronounced.

"This mine has been decommissioned for ten years," Alenko said. "There's probably water seepage into the mechanism."

Wrex scowled at the human and turian for a moment, rolling his eyes under his helmet. "Stand aside," he said finally, shouldering past the two up to the offending door.

The portal was round to fit the mine's corrugated corridors, parting in the middle. Wrex planted his palms against the reinforcing braces and leaned into it, grinding his toes into the rocky ground for purchase. Doggedly, he increased the pressure until the seal broke with a crack, and air hissed through with a puff of silicate dust.

Wrex quickly wedged his fingers into the opening and set his shoulder against the door, pushing harder. Metal squealed as rust and debris rained down from the top of the door frame. Both Alenko and Vakarian moved in, adding their weight where they could. An appalling shriek of metal pierced the air as the recalcitrant door ground open, fighting every inch.

After a few minutes of shoving, they were forced to stop. The door seemed to have wedged itself stuck, the gap between barely over a foot wide. Wrex could feel the heat of the planet's surface wafting through, and the pressure in the chamber was beginning to change.

"Well... this is open to the sky _somewhere_," Alenko said, breathing hard from pushing.

"Thanks, Lieutenant Obvious," Williams quipped.

"All right, enough," Shepard chided. "Everyone seal up. Think you can squeeze through there, Chief?"

"Sure can," Williams responded, cycling her visor closed and unclipping her long guns from her back, obviously eager to try anything.

Wrex stepped back to the door and shoved, forcing an inch or two more out of it as Williams crouched down and crammed herself against the gap, trying to work her shoulders and the wide part of the armor's power plant through. Wrex listened to her grunt and strain for a few seconds, then planted his wide foot on her lower back and shoved her bodily through the gap with a loud scrape.

"Godammit Wrex!" Williams fumed from the other side as she picked herself up.

Wrex shrugged. "You're through, aren't ya?"

Shepard stepped around him and peered into the space. "Go recon, but be careful. The whole place is unstable."

"Aye aye," the chief said, then her footsteps sloshed away into the gloom.

"We're fighting the interlock," Alenko mused, looking up at the door frame. "It's still engaged."

"We may not have enough to power the door itself, but what if we just got enough in to disengage it?" Garrus suggested. "Then we can push it the rest of the way."

"Yeah, it could work."

"Those lights near the entrance were connected to a portable battery stack."

"You're right," Alenko said. "Hey Wrex, you think you could go get it?"

Wrex shifted his weight, scowling at the lieutenant's back as the human turned back to the door panel. The gap in the door was probably wide enough for the humans, and maybe the turian too with a bit of effort, but not nearly enough for a krogan. And now they asked him to walk away from the door, down to another level.

In Wrex's experience, betrayal came in all shapes and sizes. It could be something as simple and practical as expediency, or as layered as the presence of a sensitive bit of information that a mercenary like himself shouldn't really know about. Wrex had lost count of the number of employers who had made the mistake of trying to get rid of him, and this instinctively struck him as an opportunity Shepard might take.

"I'll get it," Shepard announced, turning on her heel and splashing away toward the tunnel to the previous chamber.

Wrex watched her go, curious. Did she understand his hesitation, or was it merely a delaying tactic? He turned back and contemplated Alenko and Vakarian as the two melted the seal on the wide door panel and pulled it off the wall. If things went bad, which would make a good hostage? He quickly decided on Alenko- Shepard would probably put more stake in a fellow human's life than the turian's, even if it meant risking a confrontation with his biotics.

The krogan absently listened to the two bicker as they pulled cables out of the panel. After several minutes, Shepard reappeared, the heavy battery stack balanced on her shoulder. Garrus stood to help maneuver the block down to the ground next to the panel.

The comms clicked on. "Good news, Commander," Williams said brightly, her voice crackling with interference.

"What did you find?"

"The upper tunnel's all busted up, but there's a gap in the ceiling," the chief answered. "I'm betting some grenades can make it bigger."

"Okay. You have enough ordinance?"

"A couple of concussions ought to do it if I tune the dispersal way down," she said.

"It's mostly sedimentary sandstone out there," Alenko commented. "Aim for the softer rock and it should crack really well."

"I'm on it!"

The chief's confidence seemed restored now that an exit was in sight. Wrex, still on the other side of the door, didn't share it just yet as he watched the trio in the room with him hawkishly. Alenko and Vakarian fussed with the panel cabling, their omni-tools lit. At length, grinding sounds emanated from behind the wall, along with a seesawing hum.

"Try it now!" Alenko said, gingerly holding two cables together.

"C'mon, Wrex!" Shepard said, gripping one side of the door and planting a foot on the opposite one.

Wrex once again gripped the door and threw his considerable weight into a push. Metal squealed, and the portal relented and slowly began to give ground. Suddenly there was a buzz of sparks.

"You're going to burn it out..." Vakarian said warningly.

"Well, then you do it," Alenko said, handing the leads to the turian and standing up.

Wrex felt himself being pushed, and craned his neck around to see that Alenko had shouldered up behind him and was pushing him bodily through the gap. The mercenary set his teeth and resisted the urge to reach around and snap the human's neck for flagrantly intruding into his space unasked.

There was a sudden release of pressure as Wrex heard his rifle mount disengage, sending him stumbling through. He caught himself on the wall as the human lurched in after him, bouncing off the krogan's back before regaining his balance. A new wash of territorial anger thrilled through Wrex's body, making the air around him distort with a flicker of dark energy. He quelled the feeling with a steadying breath- he was through.

From the other side, Wrex could hear the commander as she herded Vakarian through against his protests that he had to maintain the battery connection. The turian dodged through at last, long guns in hand as the shrieking sound resumed and the door rocked back on its tracks. Shepard came through on Vakarian's heels as the door ground slowly closed, finally squealing to a stop at the one foot gap.

"Everyone in one piece?" Shepard asked as she tossed Wrex his rifle.

"I hope I never have to hear a sound like that again," Vakarian commented, wagging his head as he returned his weapons to their mounts.

"Agreed," she nodded. "Chief, what's your status?"

"About to blow it, Commander. Fire in the hole!" A sharp crack echoed down the corridor, followed by a rumble.

Shepard waited a few seconds for the sound to subside before starting up the sloping corridor. Wrex stumped along after the aliens as they made their way along the cylindrical passage, which meandered through a switchback before they encountered a wall of dust rolling its way down and past them. Fifty feet past that, light began to illuminate the murky air. Williams stood triumphantly on a pile of rock, bathed in a shaft of sunlight from the sun above streaming through a hole in the ceiling.

"Come give me a boost, LT," she said brightly.

The lieutenant obliged, knotting his fingers together and hefting the chief far enough up to get a grip on the fragmented metal supports. After a moment, she clambered through and disappeared.

Wrex peered up at the hole, through the near-constant rain of dust and pebbles that bounced off his helmet. Krogans weren't known for their climbing skills, but this close to the exit, he wasn't inclined to leave anything to chance. He stumped up to the top of the pile and planted his feet solidly.

Alenko looked him up and down. "Uh..."

"Biotics," Wrex growled.

"Right," the human responded after a momentary hesitation. He stepped back and gestured, and the air around him distorted.

The krogan had to consciously resist the instinctual urge to counteract the dark energy field rising up around him, instead focusing on trying to maintain his balance as gravity neutralized and then inverted. There were very few things in the world that Wrex hated more than zero gee and the complete vulnerability it entailed. He gritted his teeth and reached out, grabbing the twisted metal support as soon as it came within reach and quickly heaving himself up through the crumbling stone into the light.

As the rest of the team negotiated the tricky climb, Wrex stepped away from the hole and concentrated on stilling the heat of aggression humming in his nerves. At least the human had succeeded in lifting him; Wrex hadn't been sure if he could. The mercenary had a hard time gauging Alenko's power- while the commander always hit hard, the lieutenant often seemed to hold back.

Wrex cocked his head and watched them. Could it be that Shepard had never had any intention of leaving him behind, regardless? He pondered the question curiously. These humans were an odd lot, and the commander had a way of surprising him. The ghost of an old feeling hovered at the edges of his mind- kinship among warriors.

"I think we have to go back, Shepard," he announced suddenly.

The commander turned to him, her helmeted head cocked at a surprised angle. "What? Did you leave something down there?"

"Yeah," Wrex rumbled, "my dignity."

Chief Williams barked a loud laugh. "Well, I'm sure some of those pirate rejects will volunteer to let you break their faces. Maybe it'll make you feel better."

Wrex smirked under his helmet. It seemed like an absurdity to feel kinship to a bunch of weedy, humpless aliens... Ghosts, after all, were only echoes of things long dead.


	3. Threat

_Author's Note: For_ Iunctio _readers, this chapter takes place between the events of "Ruin" and "Whirlwind"._

* * *

**Threat**

Geth were strange and different foes. Even the way they moved was different. It wasn't exactly graceful, but then after seeing an asari commando in action, it was hard to call anything else graceful. Who could compete with a killing blow practiced and refined over three hundred cycles? Still, the way the geth moved belied a smoothness in measured step or whip-fast spring that imperfect protein muscle-fibers could never match.

They were never messy in the way organic creatures could be, either. They never fled, never raged, never begged or bargained. The geth went about their business with singular purpose, moving with sinewy steps as they executed their inscrutable task. Only when their numbers were badly depleted did they start to falter. In Wrex's experience, lone warriors were often the most dangerous, the most desperate and creatively unpredictable. But as the geth died, their shared neural network diminished in capacity, and with it the remaining geths' competence.

On his flank, Chief Williams seemed no more perturbed by the seemingly endless machines than Wrex himself. Around the corner, a new geth appeared, towering over the smaller drones. As it advanced, Wrex immediately picked out the yellow stripes along its tall shoulder vanes. The humans designated this configuration 'destroyer', though whether it lived up to such a name was another matter.

The krogan swiveled on the ball of his foot, rolling behind the cover of an upthrust wall. On cue, a shattering blast tore through the air as the destroyer unleashed its shotgun blast. The geth could think, that much was certain, but they were even more lacking in creativity than turians. Wrex also knew the destroyer's internal power systems could only manage such an explosive shot at extended intervals. He stepped out of cover.

Firing carefully, Wrex dispatched the drone immediately beside the destroyer. As the larger geth's lamp-eye swung around to face him, the krogan negligently gunned down another of its subordinates. Tactically, he should have focused on the destroyer- it was the larger threat, as well as a larger hub of their neural net... But Wrex was getting bored. Despite the fact the Armstrong Cluster was crawling with the machines, they rarely managed to do anything interesting.

Even if the destroyer wasn't versed in the protocol of a challenge, no one with a vestige of intelligence could mistake Wrex's message as he blew the knees out from under a third drone.

The giant geth charged. Its long legs devoured the distance between them as it dropped a sculpted shoulder vane, its lamp-eye a bright gleam of deadly intent. A quick bubble of dark energy would have easily kept the destroyer at bay, or flipped it head over heels into the wall, but Wrex wanted to taste _threat_.

The destroyer was fast for its size. Its body twisted unnaturally at the waist as it threw all of its weight into the blow. Wrex was a lot of things, but fast wasn't one of them. He tried to swivel out of the way, but the destroyer's plated forearm crashed into Wrex's shoulder and helmet. The thick plates of his armor and the corded muscles of his neck took the worst of the impact, but the world still wheeled precariously.

Then the stupid machine wasted its follow-up strike on his hump. Had no one taught the geth that you can't kill a krogan from behind? Even a _volus_ knew that. Wrex planted his feet and threw his considerable weight back and to the side, letting his assault rifle drop to the floor. Robbed of its swing, the geth's third blow skipped uselessly off Wrex's helmet. The mercenary snatched one of the flailing limbs and, bracing it against his forearm, bent the shoulder joint back until it snapped with a loud pop.

As he pulled the machine down and around, Wrex saw the smooth muzzle of the pulse rifle coming up. He kicked the geth in the knee. The destroyer lurched, and the sound suppression of Wrex's helmet deadened the worst of the crackling explosion that went off beside his head, taking a chunk of his shoulder plate with it. The krogan grabbed the muzzle of the waving rifle, then pulled the pistol off his belt with his free hand.

"Kagh!" Wrex growled. _ Six!_

_Two for your eyes, that you never see your ancestors. Two for your stomachs, that you never sit at their table. Two for your hearts, that your fire is ended for all time._

The geth had only one eye, and who knows what else in its composite metal and plastic torso, but six rounds nonetheless silenced it. It was a small measure of satisfaction to go with his ringing head and aching shoulder. He rolled his neck experimentally as the geth slumped to the ground with a dying, mechanical whine. The mercenary grunted with satisfaction- the pain would pass quickly, and the dreaded charge of the destroyer geth... not such a dire threat after all.

As he bent to retrieve his assault rifle. Williams appeared, looking him over with a quick, sweeping gaze that lingered briefly on his smoking shoulder-plate. Wrex tried to decide if she appeared disappointed in his survival as she spoke into her comms, engaged with Shepard in their quick military banter.

Wrex glanced back toward the destroyer. A challenge issued and met, head on, and ended with an ancestor's curse. The krogan chuckled softly at his own nostalgia. His grandfather would have beaten him soundly for wasting such a rite on a mere machine- certainly the rachni never merited such consideration. But ritual was for those who still had a culture to mean something. Now they were just empty words.

Williams signaled him with a wave of her hand, and Wrex fell into step behind the human as she hurried along a corridor. The geth installation had been blasted out of the rock of this world, then buttressed with prefabricated sections of their distinct, sweeping architecture. It was also pressurized with a moist, oxygen-rich atmosphere- a comfort that was surely not for the benefit of the geth themselves. Wrex opened the external vents of his helmet, then inhaled, letting the air flow across the scent glands in the roof of his mouth. It was faint, but sure- there was another krogan in this complex. His pulse quickened with anticipation.

"We're not done yet," Wrex rumbled warningly.

"Good," Williams murmured.

The krogan glanced at her sidelong. The chief hated the geth, there was little doubt of that. One machine at a time, she extracted the blood price for the lives of her fallen unit on Eden Prime, her eyes alight with battle-fury. Wrex had a hard time thinking of Williams, or any human for that matter, as female in anything other than an abstract sense- they were so small, weak and alien, nothing close to what he considered appealing. But still, fighting alongside the chief was an interesting experience.

Her shape made him want to think of her as asari, but Williams was nothing like most of the genderless blue aliens he'd known. The asari tended to flow like water around obstacles, patient and flexible. The human, on the other hand, rammed straight into her opposition with a raw immediacy. Wrex was forced to admit he liked the fiery little human. In a strange way, he could trust her more than many others he'd dealt with in his lifetime. Whatever she felt about him, she made no secret of it. There was no guile at work between them- only a common enemy. Warriors with a job to do.

"We wouldn't want the fun to be over too soon, now would we?" Wrex said quietly as they approached an open doorway.

Williams glanced back at him. "You have a strange definition of fun, you know that?"

"Do I? The smile you were wearing back there makes me think you share it."

"I'm nothing like you!" Williams flared indignantly.

"Huh, you doing this for free, then?"

Her smooth human face contorted into a grimace under the visor of her helmet. "_I'm_ fighting for a cause I believe in."

"So am I," Wrex smirked. "The best one I know of. Mine."

The chief rolled her eyes.

"I'm sure that clause in your contract that legalizes your use of lethal force on the battlefield is what makes _all _the difference," the mercenary went on. Needling the prickly human was something of an amusing game, and Williams was a far more entertaining player than the scholarly asari or the stolid Lieutenant.

Williams shot him a narrow glare. She opened her mouth to retort just as Wrex's proximity sensors lit up.

"Here they come," he said with satisfaction, raising his rifle.

The chief's mouth snapped shut and she dodged into the room, heading for a flanking position among the geth's mysterious architecture. Within seconds, Williams' assault rifle exploded to life. To their left, Wrex caught a flash of movement through the sweeping, stacked machinery. He took a few steps toward it, tracking with his gun.

Out of the stacks stepped his eagerly anticipated target- a grey-armored krogan. The warrior was a hulking mass of overdeveloped shoulders, with the segmented crest of a youth plating his unhelmeted head. A broad, challenging grin split the warrior's face as he stepped forward, planting his feet solidly.

Wrex knew that move, and knew what was coming even as the biotic corona boiled up around the other krogan. As gravity lurched violently around the mercenary, he was already summoning his own dark energy. The air coiled with blue-black distortion as the two fields crashed into each other, surging and pulsing as they fought for supremacy. Between the two krogans, a metal shelf distorted with a tortured shriek.

The fleeting question of where Saren got so many krogan biotics drifted through Wrex's head as he doggedly pushed forward against his rival's field. They were usually so rare the mercenary could easily go many cycles between sightings of another biotic, but since meeting Shepard, they seemed to be everywhere... and working for the renegade Spectre.

With a roar, the warrior shifted into another stance, and gravity heaved again, this time yanking Wrex forward. Suddenly overbalanced, he stumbled toward his opponent, who yanked a pistol off his belt. Wrex wished he had his shotgun in hand instead of a rifle. To compensate, he marshaled his forward momentum into a vicious swing with the butt of his gun, aiming for the warrior's exposed eye.

His opponent ducked his chin, letting the blow hit the armored crest on his head even as he fired wildly with his pistol. Bare inches away now, Wrex's kinetic barrier was useless. Shocks of impact traveled up his torso, but pain was distant, buried deep under the fiery adrenaline of battle.

Dimly, Wrex was aware of movement around him. He knew he needed to end this quickly. He batted the pistol away, then pointed his rifle at the krogan's hip and fired one-handed. The muzzle of the gun bucked, uncontrolled, but at point-blank range, several rounds still punched through the warrior's under-armor, into his hip joint and the nerve bundles buried beneath. The other krogan lurched sideways with a startled grunt. Wrex took a step back, and with a deep breath, summoned his biotics.

It was a dangerous move at such a close range. He risked pulling himself into the attack, or pummelling his own body with the shearing edge of the field, but Wrex's command of biotics had been honed over countless battles. Instead of an uncontrolled storm, the dark energy pulled in on itself as it slammed home into the warrior's chest, concentrating the force of the attack down into a narrow, bone-shattering crunch.

As the warrior crumpled to the ground, Wrex spun around and sprayed the space beside him with a wild burst from his rifle. The advancing geth troopers faltered just long enough for the krogan to duck behind cover. A numbing pain throbbed in his torso. As plasma fire rained around him, he quickly tapped a command into his armor interface. The medical system in his armor was crude, but effective- he didn't need the complicated diagnostic tools and onboard VI many other species favored. He grunted as the delivery system jabbed into his neck, feeding painkiller directly into his secondary neuroconductive system. He could feel the familiar wave of discomfort that signalled one of his internal organs shutting down. But after so many years, he trusted his body to take care of itself. It would compensate, shifting resources to secondary organs while the wounded ones healed. He would be grumpy and hungry for a few days, but he deemed the gunshots far from fatal.

The penetrating thud of an explosion sounded from around the corner, followed by the chatter of a human assault rifle. Wrex pushed himself out of cover and found the clump of geth that had pinned him down were now scattered by a grenade. The survivors, caught between himself and the advancing Chief Williams, had nowhere to go.

"Good grenade," Wrex commented as the roar of gunfire finally died.

"They were asking for it," she said offhandedly as she strode up. "Were you hit?"

"Still breathing." He shifted, glancing around the room. The floors were littered with white geth blood and broken machinery. Finally, a good fight- but he didn't feel the satisfaction of it.

"I dropped another krogan over there..." Even through the layers of armor, Williams seemed to sense his disquiet. "We won. What's eating _you_?" she inquired, resting her still-steaming rifle on her shoulder.

Wrex grunted irritably. "I'm not sure yet. Maybe I should ask."

He turned and stumped across the room to where the other krogan warrior, the one Williams had fought, lay face-down in a pool of orange blood.

"... He's dead," the chief said doubtfully as they approached.

Wrex wedged his toes under the body and rocked the recumbent form over on its back. The front of the warrior's torso was shredded, the armor torn and bent inwards by close-range assault rifle fire. Thin wisps of smoke trailed upward from the wound, dissipating slowly in the dead air, and his broad mouth hung slack.

"Probably," Wrex pronounced.

"_Probably_?" Williams quipped as Wrex moved away toward the other krogan body. "I swear I put half a slug of incendiary rounds into him."

Wrex wondered idly how many krogans the chief had thought killed but in fact survived. Or any human, for that matter. Most aliens could not relate to the sheer survivability of the krogan body. Unless you pushed a krogan out into the vacuum of space naked, their bodies would try to repair themselves. When badly wounded, they could lapse into a coma-like state while their tissues regenerated, drawing sustenance from their massive hump over days and even weeks.

Certain very specific things could kill a krogan outright. Any warrior worth his weapons knew them, but Wrex was in no hurry to educate aliens who didn't take the time to do so themselves. He reached the grey-armored krogan and hoisted the warrior's massive body, shoving it against one of the geth's smooth-sided power generators.

For a long moment, Wrex considered the other krogan. There was something about his techniques that tugged at Wrex's instincts.

Wrex reached down and drew the long combat dagger from its sheath. Supporting the other krogan with one arm, the mercenary wedged the point under the other krogan's large shoulder guard. Working the blade back and forth, he finally forced the point through the woven undersuit, penetrating the fleshy gap between the hard, plated skin underneath. The point of the knife found the nerve cluster buried there, and the biotic warrior twitched. His large head rolled around as his body tried to fight off the doping effects of the regenerative fugue already spreading through his system.

Williams inhaled in surprise as the warrior's eyes fluttered and finally opened. His breathing was a labored wheeze. His internal organs were probably a pulpy mess mixed in with shattered bone.

"Who taught you?" Wrex growled, giving the warrior a shake.

The grey-armored krogan's head lolled to one side, fixing Wrex with an orange eye. His pupil dilated as he tried to focus on his tormentor.

"Biotics, varren turd!" the mercenary repeated. "The Fire! Who taught you?"

"...Ragnagaar," the biotic croaked.

Wrex narrowed his eyes at such an unbelievable, pompous declaration. He couldn't quite place the krogan's accent. It sounded like the staccato language once spoken commonly in the southern reaches of Tuchanka's largest continent, but mixed with something else. Like the edges had been worn down.

"Ragnagaar is coming... Urdnot..." The warrior bared his teeth in defiance of his impending death. "The glory days-"

Wrex yanked his dagger free and jammed the point into the other krogan's neck, severing his windpipe. He didn't want to hear it. Orange blood splashed over his hands as he shoved the warrior back to the floor with a snarl.

No matter how many blows the krogan people took, it seemed there was always some among them willing to buy into these pathetic declarations that the krogan empire would rise and conquer the galaxy once again. Perhaps the blindness and denial was easier than the sharp edge of reality, but Wrex had no patience for it. And to declare a Ragnagaar on top of it...

Williams arched a questioning eyebrow. "All that for who taught him? Was he that good?" Her expression was hard and unreadable.

"No," Wrex growled, "just the opposite." He cocked his head toward the human. "I've seen you practicing your hand-to-hand fighting, going through the forms. Do you take those forms to the battlefield?"

Williams frowned. "The forms are just that, practice, going through the motions to teach you to react without thinking... I don't stand around posing in a _real_ fight."

"Exactly. That krogan's forms were perfect. Like he was on the practice field, not the battlefield."

"Like he learned them from a vid?"

Wrex grunted assent, staring down at the warrior. He was probably really dead this time- the wonders of the krogan regenerative system still required oxygen to function. Still, it would take a while for his tissues to catch up to the situation.

"So he was a stupid kid, trying to be impressive and fight with the adults." The chief tossed her head. "Fatal, as mistakes go, but he's hardly the first to make it."

Wrex stayed silent. In his mind, it was more than that. But he wasn't interested in educating an ignorant alien about the rarity of krogan biotics, nor the long and storied history of the Battlemasters. A dying history. No krogan biotic ever just learned from a vid...

"What was that word he kept saying?" she asked, breaking his reverie. "The translator didn't pick it up. Rag... Ragna-something? That someone you know?"

Wrex bristled, but stilled himself. Small wonder the word wasn't in her database, no one had used it in a long time, since even before the Rebellions. "Ragnagaar," he corrected shortly. "Warlord... above all other warlords."

"Like a king or something?"

_Sovereign_.

Wrex gave a dark rumble. "Or something."


	4. Weakness

_Author's Note: For _Iunctio_ readers, this takes place right after the events of "Zero"._

* * *

**Weakness**

The gauntlet fit perfectly, of course.

The wrist swivel was partially jammed, the cuff caked with whitish corrosion. The technology was primitive but robust, a relic of the salarian uplift. Thick metal plates socketed into cunning joints over his fingers. At one time this armor would have sealed against radiation and pressure when necessary, and the surface was heavily enameled against acidic attacks. But centuries of neglect had worn away his grandfather's once-proud armor, and no _turian_ could restore it properly. The heavy battery plant had long since been stripped of reactive materials, and the feeds along the thick power-assist exoskeleton had rusted away to dust.

The joints creaked quietly as Wrex flexed his fingers. "The rachni are coming back, Grandfather."

Shepard had let the queen live, let the giant bug escape into the frozen wild of Noveria. For a human to make such a decision... a creature who would breathe her last in the merest blink of time's eye. Humans lumped their solar cycles into convenient bundles and gave them important-sounding names. They spoke of one hundred cycles in awed tones. Until their recent history, few of them ever lived that long. Small wonder they never seemed to see past their own meager lives.

"How long do you think we have?"

Wrex's thoughts drifted to the statue that stood in a place of honor in the Citadel's Presidium. He hated that statue. He wasn't alone; over the years there had been petitions to have it removed, a punishment for the Rebellions. Wrex couldn't help but think it might be just as well to take it away, the rank hypocrisy of it grated on him every time he laid eyes on it. Better the Council drag in the carcass of one of their gunships and set it on a pedestal- it would mean the same thing.

The gauntlet creaked. Behind closed doors, the turians already called the humans a sleeping giant. Perhaps they would be the Council's next sacrifice. They seemed naive, plentiful and eager. No doubt with some careful manipulation, their population could be roused and made to batter themselves to pieces against a threat. Perhaps the salarians were already hard at work, concocting a 'solution' for the humans, just in case they got out of hand. The Council would not make the same mistake twice.

Mistakes.

He wasn't at all surprised to hear Kirrahe speak of the krogan people that way, but in the spur of the moment, stunned by the news of Saren's facility, he had reacted.

The years should have inured him to all foolish hope. He'd heard every promise, every sales pitch, and learned to tune them out. But suddenly pieces began to fit together- the relative youth of the krogan warriors under Saren's command, the profusion of strangely trained biotics, the talk of new conquest...

And his own words came back to him, coolly delivered in one of the Citadel's humming elevators. _Killing them is a favor to the universe. _ At the time, his opinion assumed that those krogan warriors had _chosen_ to go over to Saren's side. The turian Spectre was obviously not wanting for credits, and there was no lack of mercenary krogans willing to hire themselves out.

A storm of conflict Wrex thought long dead dogged him through the labs of Virmire. Each step echoed with the aftershocks of Shepard's words. _Is this how you want your people to live?_ The banks of liquid-filled tubes mocked Wrex in silence- because this wasn't choice, it was slavery. That fact was only reinforced when bald evidence cast a harsh light on the insinuations of Sovereign's ability to control organic minds.

And yet, there they were, living, breathing krogan warriors. Was _anything_ better than the slow slide into oblivion? The Citadel had strong feelings about bioengineering of any kind, but given their role in the genophage, Wrex was disinclined to care about their opinion. It wasn't quite a cure, but it was a solution, well past theory and into execution beyond anything he could have imagined possible.

It was so _close_ that it rose like a foul bile in his throat.

The air in the cargo hold smelled stale. The ship was running hard for Citadel space, all of its systems bent to the single task of getting back to the mass relay as fast as possible. From within his makeshift den of cargo crates in the ship's hold, Wrex watched as Shepard appeared from the elevator and made her way to the crew's weapon lockers.

Wrex cocked his head, regarding the commander across the room. Her movements were brusque, shadowing the mood on board the ship. The humans went about their business is sullen, wounded silence, as if stunned by everything that had happened on the tropical planet. He couldn't argue with Shepard's choice to honor the fallen with action. Would their news actually rouse the reticent councilors? Wrex was skeptical, but then they'd certainly had their strong opinions about the rachni queen.

Shepard had made another choice. The salarians' drive core had seen to it that neither Saren nor anyone else would benefit from the massive cloning facility. At length, the human turned and walked toward him. She stopped just outside his space and regarded him with a pointed stare.

"Well?" she asked, crossing her arms. Her face was a thundercloud, at once flinty and alive with the storm raging beneath.

Wrex considered her. Her habit of talking to her crewmates in a notably direct fashion was something that had left Wrex both curious and suspicious. Employers normally didn't care a whit for the opinions of their hires, and those that seemed to were usually more concerned with displaying their own bravado. But he'd ended up telling her about Aleena, much to his own surprise.

"We hit Saren hard," Wrex rumbled. "Novaria was a maybe... an asset he could lose. But Virmire was _his_ territory."

Shepard nodded, her gaze suddenly distant. "He couldn't be allowed to keep that place..."

"You made your choice. You won't find absolution here."

"I'm not looking for it."

Wrex grunted. It was clear she wasn't thinking about cloning tanks and the genophage. It was the other choice that weighed on her- one human or another.

In the scurrying aftermath of their escape from the planet, Vakarian had offered something of an explanation involving the humans' system of ranks, but it was mostly meaningless to the mercenary. Trust the turian to fall back on hierarchy. That was an abstract thing, and Wrex had learned to look for more elemental tides beneath the surface of motivation. He decided to test a theory.

"You preserved a biotic warrior and a potentially worthy mate," he said with a shrug. "No one would argue-"

"I protected the_ bomb_," Shepard growled, eyes narrow.

Wrex fixed the commander with a calculating eye as some inscrutable expression played across her shadowed face. He was no master of human cultural signals, nor had he ever bothered to decipher their weak, alien pheromones, but he understood body language very well. It hadn't been hard for him to read the protectiveness Alenko exhibited toward Shepard, but her own motives hadn't been as clear... perhaps until that flicker of defensiveness cracked into her voice.

It seemed foolish for such a fragile species to risk getting attached to one another. Loyalty of any kind was dangerous, a knife that cut both ways. The krogan shifted his weight, placing both feet on the ground, but stayed sitting. He flexed his hand inside the gauntlet as he regarded the commander, pleased that his patience had won out. He finally had a weakness.

As if sensing his confrontation, Shepard stepped forward, boldly crossing the invisible line of territory he'd created for himself. Bristling, Wrex slowly pushed himself to his feet, baring a thin line of teeth. She was within arm's reach now, unarmored. Would she still be an easy kill? Perhaps not. She knew better than to let down her guard. Wrex relished the knife's edge as the challenge hung in the air.

"One way or the other, this is all coming to a head," she stated, "and I don't plan on hiding under a rock. Whatever the Council decides. I _will _stop Saren."

If he struck, the rest of the ship would turn on him. In a krogan warband, the death of a warlord sometimes meant the killer would be crowned in his place, if that killer was canny enough. But these were humans, bound by their own convoluted loyalties. He would kill many before finally, they overwhelmed him. Then again, most of them were asleep...

Perhaps it didn't matter any more. The final death-curse of the Urdnot clan; to break the _Normandy_ and pave Saren's way to the oblivion of all, to share in the doom of the krogan species.

Shepard lifted her chin. "And when Sovereign, the eternal Reaper of life, screams it's last into the stars, what names will it curse?"

Wrex felt his eyes widen slightly. Then he split the silence of the cargo hold with a roared laugh. In his gut, the moment of bloodlust peaked and waned, deflected to a much bigger target. He'd once thought of Saren as a worthy challenge, but a Reaper?

"Oh, that's good, Shepard," he rumbled, "did you practice that one?"

"In front of the mirror every night," Shepard said with a smirk, her weight shifting subtly out of the challenging stance. "Well, are you with us?"

An eons-old god-machine, with uncountable kills to its name...

"I am."

Shepard gave a curt nod, then turned on her heel and strode away toward the elevator.

Wrex chuckled softly to himself, settling back into his makeshift den. He marveled at how skillfully Shepard had defeated him at every turn. It wasn't just the moment she had stared him down over the sights of their respective weapons, and been the first to lower hers... There were countless other moments. With patient, subtle cuts, she had sliced away at his long-held distrust. Each time a moment ripe for betrayal had come, it had gone again and neither she nor Wrex had taken it up.

Now, finally, he'd been cornered into facing the truth, and as strange as it sounded to his ears- he _liked_ fighting with this human. For the first time in many cycles, he was fighting _with_ warriors, not _for_ them. And for what stakes? Instead of demanding that he follow her beliefs, Shepard had left it to him to decide for himself. He was under no obligation, either in the form of pay or ties of blood, but of all the opportunities he'd had to leave, doing so had never crossed his mind.

He flexed his fingers in his grandfather's gauntlet. The elder Urdnot's voice drifted back to him across the gulf of so many cycles.

_All warriors have Weakness, Wrex._

_The foolish ones deny it, and blind themselves with arrogance. And when their enemies discover their secret, they are destroyed._

_The great warriors know their weakness, and when you move against them, they turn it away from you._

_But the very greatest warlords, Wrex, know their weakness, and _use _it. They use it surely as the dagger by their sides. For when they seem to falter, it is only to draw you close... to strike._

What a krogan Shepard would have made.

Wrex removed the gauntlet and laid it back in the case with the rest of his grandfather's armor. He would avenge the death of the warrior Ashley Williams. He would kill Saren for the insult of using his people. And he would test himself against a being that made even the rachni pale and weak.

And he would do it alongside a warlord that did not demand it, but instead offered him a place, to be taken up at his own choice.

Perhaps that alone demanded it.

* * *

END

* * *

_Another Author's Note: When I first started writing, I promised myself I'd always finish what I started, and for this one, it took far too long to bear the promise out. So, my apologies._

_Thanks, as always, to my beta Lossefalme, who continues to put up with my requests._


End file.

Mass Effect, Sci-Fi