Arashu's Gift

Chapter 12

Thane tangled his fork in the pasta with the help of the spoon, as he saw Shepard doing, and took it to his mouth. He had to admit to himself that it had an interesting flavor and texture – a mixture of subtle sour and sweet with a pinch of salt. He understood why Shepard ate hers with gusto, seated at the head of the big table.

They were on the way to Omega. They were going to make a technical stop and, for that same reason, they'd all have a shore leave of ten hours. The trip from the Krogan DMZ to the mining station in the Terminus Systems would take about seven hours.

"I'd have given everything for your guys' help two years ago," Shepard said suddenly. "Those of us who fought Saren's forces know we'd have greatly appreciated having had you in the team, especially after having lost Kaidan on Virmire ..."

Vakarian and Tali'Zorah looked at Shepard at the same time. She pressed her lips, exchanging looks with her comrades. No, they were her friends, Thane thought.

"Anyway ..." the Commander continued, "it's just that Wrex, Garrus, Ashley, Tali, Liara and I were barely enough."

"How's Liara, Shepard?" Tali'Zorah asked, and immediately after she drank a dark liquid through a straw connected to her helmet.

Thane noticed Shepard's expression hardening. Until that point, her gaze had been open and relaxed, but at the mention of Liara, a frown darkened her demeanor.

"We briefly saw her on Nos Astra before recruiting Thane and Samara," Shepard said. "Let's just say she's had a career change." Shepard made a pause as if she was remembering something unpleasant. "EDI, ask Chambers to remind me to contact Liara T'Soni on our next visit to Illium."

"Right away, Shepard," EDI's voice said through the loudspeaker.

"The little we could talk with her that day reminded me of her mother, which is worrying," Vakarian said mysteriously. "She's an ex-comrade and a friend of the Normandy," he said, looking at Thane. "By the way, speaking of embracing eternity, our Commander knows enough about it thanks to Liara."

"It was the only way to make sense of the horrifying and senseless jumble that was the Prothean beacon of Eden Prime," Shepard said.

"I tried it once," Jack said. "At the beginning it's a bit strange, as if they're squeezing your brain, but soon after it feels nice, like mental sex. At least they don't kill you."

Unless it's an Ardat-Yakshi.

Thane watched Samara leaving the mess. For a moment he supposed the topic of conversation had offended her, but he immediately discarded the idea. He had heard the asari justicar was close to a millennium in age. With that amount of accumulated experience and wisdom, very few things would have the power to affect her.

Tali'Zorah and Vakarian began to reminisce about their asari former teammate and mentioned the times she had almost lost consciousness after melding her mind with Shepard's. Thane noticed the Commander purposely staying out of that conversation, pretending to focus on her plate of spaghetti and on a datapad in her hand.

Slowly the group began to disperse. Vakarian argued he had to catch up with some calibrations on the forward battery, while Tali'Zorah said she had to assist Donnelly and Daniels in Engineering. Massani, Jack and Grunt went back to the fourth deck with her. Thane hadn't felt Miss Goto's sparkling cloak shield by his side for long enough to assume she too had retired. With special interest, he realized how Doctor Solus had watched him and Shepard, as if he noticed something the others couldn't see. Officer Lawson had served herself a portion of cornflakes, chopped fruit and milk and left for her office. At Shepard's order, Sargent Gardner had prepared a teapot for the both of them and, right after, he had begun to clean and tidy up behind the kitchen's cupboard. Shepard was still sitting at the head of her table.