Chapter One: Jaunt

Sol resisted the urge to reach down and scratch his quad. There were three layers of armor obstructing his reach anyway, but the itch was damned persistent. With his mother and all six of his sisters staring him down, the very last thing he wanted to do was commit some unforgivably male sin (of which scratching would undoubtedly be one). Even shifting uncomfortably in place might give him away, so he stood still while he waited for the other boot to drop.

"So. Tell us exactly what you want to do. I'm sure I didn't hear you clearly the first time."

It had been a long time since Bakara intimidated her son. Always rather large for his age, Urdnot Solus had grown taller than his mother early on in his life. The woman had presence, of course, but she almost never used it on her son. She did so now. Sol wasn't sure how it was possible for a woman a full head shorter than him to loom, but Bakara managed it.

"Zaal finally bought that ship he's been raving about for years," Sol explained patiently. "We're going to take it up into that sky and fly back to the human home world."

One of his sisters laughed. Sol thought it was the eldest of them—Brell always did have a strange sense of humor—but it was impossible to tell with the women in his family clustered together like so many seeds on a prak. Whoever the laugher was, Bakara silenced her with a hard stare. Then she turned her attention back to her eldest son.

"You know I don't like that skinny little quarian, but I don't choose your friends for you." She tilted her head to one side in a way that made Sol's innards squirm. "You never did tell me why Zaal wants to go to Earth so badly. If you plan on haring off to the ends of the galaxy without even a day's notice, I think you owe us all an explanation. Wrex wants you to settle down with that Quash girl he's had his eye on."

Sol grimaced. Quash Pralti was a superior specimen of her kind; Sol would have mated with her in a second if he thought he had a chance. He didn't. The woman hated biotics of any kind, and Sol had them in spades. Pralti would make some krogan grossly happy someday, but that krogan wouldn't be Sol.

"You're always telling us stories about this Commander Shepard, like he was some kind of savior to our people…" Sol began. Bakara rapped him hard across his plates, interrupting him.

"Shepard was a hero, and I won't hear a word against him. Without his sacrifice, you wouldn't even be standing here today. Try again. I suggest you think carefully about what you say. Right now I'm the only thing standing between you and your father beating you bloody."

Sol wanted to tell her that he'd already gotten a decent fight in with Grunt earlier that day, but he thought better of it just before the words made their way out of his mouth. If Bakara found out that Grunt knew about Sol's plan and meant to let him go through with it, it wouldn't go well for him. "Fine. Shepard was packing a steel quad, I get it. Zaal wants to go out and find him."

This time he was sure it was Brell laughing. He peered blandly over at her, hoping that his frown made it clear that she wasn't going to get a rise out of him.

"So the little idiot really is crazy," Bakara muttered. "Shepard died fending off the Reapers and that's the end of it. You could go out and scrape all the stars in the Sol system and you'd still never find any trace of the Citadel."

"Dr. T'soni doesn't think so," Sol returned. "She helped Zaal get his ship. Might even come with us, if I can talk her into it."

His youngest sisters had been hiding behind their larger siblings until then. As soon as he mentioned the asari, both of them burst away from the group and ran up to tug at his arms, one on each side.

"You're friends with Liara?" asked Ramira. She was slightly taller than her sister, though they were from the same clutch.

"Is she really pretty?" Teth wanted to know. The runt of Bakara's litter, she sometimes seemed to pack more life into her small body than the rest of her brothers and sisters combined. Sol scooped them both up easily and goosed them on the head with his plates.

"She really is."

"As pretty as Mama?"

Sol couldn't help smiling. "No one's as pretty as Mama."

"Good answer," Bakara snapped, but the words had no real bite to them. Sol could tell his mother was wavering, so he decided to press his advantage while he still had it.

"It's not like I'm going away forever. Dad spent years out in space, and look at him; he's a legend and he's not even dead yet. Maybe I won't be uniting the clans and saving our people like he did, but if I can help Zaal find any trace of the Citadel, think how important that discovery could be."

Bakara shook her head ruefully. "You've been spending too much time with the asari You're even starting to sound a bit like her. It's hard to believe you're your father's son." She grinned. "That's a compliment, by the way."

"I know."

Sol endured the attentions of his sisters for a little while longer. Still very young, they quickly lost interest and clamored to be let down. Watching them run off into the green chaos of hanging vines and flowers that was the females' garden, Sol knew he was going to miss them. He might even miss Brell if he was out in space long enough.

"At least tell him you're going," Bakara told him with some resignation. "I'll never hear the end of it if I let you disappear without a proper thrashing."

"Yeah, I'll get right on that."

Sol had known as soon as he'd started plotting this little trip that he wasn't going to say anything about it to Wrex until he had something to show for his trouble. His father might be a master manipulator and a devious statesman, but like any krogan, he only respected results. Sol had never been comfortable around him anyway. For his younger brothers it was different; they were still children and anyway they'd known their fathers. Sol was already a full adult when Wrex arrived home from Earth. He was the old grouch's only blood son, but no amount of shamanic mysticism could restore all the years they'd spent not knowing each other. Part of Sol wanted to stay and get to know Wrex, but only a small part.

The space port was as busy as it had ever been. Few of the other space-faring races cared to visit Tuchanka even now, but Sol saw plenty of asari here as well as a few salarians who were capitalizing on the good will his namesake had earned. The krogan were still acclimating to the idea that they could have their own ships to come and go in as they pleased. Even Sol remembered how uncharacteristically tentative his people had been about their new attempts at space travel. With a little help from their asari and salarian allies, krogan engineers found their way to a uniquely Tuchankan ship design. Apparently the original plan included more guns than the ship's propulsion system could support, but eventually the designers reached a compromise between firepower and maneuverability. It was really too bad that Sol was going to be traveling on a quarian ship. There was something really appealing about the idea of owning one of the first krogan battle cruisers.

Taking a few moments to pause and soak up his last helping of Tuchankan sunlight, he noticed a flurry of movement at the corner of his vision. At first he ignored it; it was just some asari snack vendor waving her arms around while she argued with a krogan female twice her size. Standard haggling procedure on Tuchanka. Then he saw that the little blue woman had come out from behind her stall and was slowly pressing her prospective customer across the floor in Sol's direction. He was impressed. There weren't many asari who could push a krogan around, but this woman seemed to be doing it merely by force of personality.

"Do you have any idea how much it costs to transport kulu nuts this far across the galaxy? Do you? Because let me tell you; it ain't cheap."

"I…I didn't know."

"Obviously! I didn't fly all this way just to have some backwater misfit pinch credits while my business goes under. You pay my prices, or you requisition a ship to take you to Thessia yourself!"

"Yes, of course. I'll pay. Just—stop shouting at me. Please."

Sol grinned privately. It was fairly obvious that the lady krogan had the hots for the asari. Probably she had only provoked the confrontation to get the other woman's attention. Satisfied that his plates were warm enough to last him at least through takeoff, Sol steered clear of the pair and started off down the terminal.

"Did you really think I came to this old rock just to sell nuts? Pft. Asshole."

The whisper was completely unexpected, as was the thin blade that slid into a crack in his armor to pierce the outermost layer of his skin. Somehow the asari had broken free of her hopeful paramour and made her way around behind Sol's back without him seeing her. Instinct born of long practice made him pull up his barrier. It wouldn't do anything about the knife protruding from his side, but at least it might keep him from taking any more damage. Whirling on the spot, Sol fired a bright biotic blast at the spot where he anticipated his attacker would be.

She was gone. The blue sphere of Sol's biotics launched through the air at the krogan female. She looked at him like she had no idea what in all the hells he thought he was doing. Sol managed to keep his biotics from hitting her, but it was close. His mind reeled from the punishment of reabsorbing the singularity.

The asari didn't give him any time to recover. She fell on him from above, trying to maneuver a small pistol into place so she could blast through his plates. Sol felt her arm wrap around his neck. He felt the cold metal of the gun touch his skin.

"Fuck this," he muttered. Taking hold of the asari's slender wrist, he flung her across the terminal with all the muscle and biotic power he could muster. She smashed into a wall opposite him with a satisfying crunch. The wall dented outward a bit, and Sol wondered vaguely if he might have overdone it. He thought he heard a man scream, and he sensed several people running away in various directions. It was difficult to tell as the world narrowed to the battle haze that colored his vision and sent him charging after the tiny blue brat who'd tried to kill him.

Zaal worried anxiously at his lower lip as he waited. Even a week after cobbling together the funds to buy this ship, he was still so giddy he wanted to jump up from the helm and go run laps around the cargo bay. Where the hell was Sol anyway? He should have been aboard the Treno hours ago.

"An anomaly in your heart rate monitor suggests that you are experiencing a high degree of stress, Captain. Would you like me to play some calming music for you? The salarian jazz band Viridian has just released a new album. The melody of the first track is most compelling."

"Thanks for the thought, Quelb, but you know I hate jazz."

"Like fine wine, jazz can only be properly appreciated upon repeated exposure. I believe you will come to enjoy the medium if you give it a chance."

There was a haughty note in the synthesized voice that came in over the loudspeaker. Zaal resisted the urge to snap back. Prior experience had taught him that Quelb could easily out-sass him. Maybe it was all the extra processing power.

"I gave it a chance," he insisted, "and I still don't like it. You listen to whatever you want in that tin box you call quarters. Just leave me out of it."

"As you wish. By your tone, I infer that you suspect I have not allocated enough space for my living arrangements. While I appreciate your concern Captain, I assure you that I am perfectly happy in my place by the engine room. My organic components are few, so in my physical form and habits I resemble my geth predecessors. Thus, I require less room than the other members of the crew."

"That's a little more information than I needed," Zaal told his varn navigator. He grinned a bit, knowing Quelb could see. The varn could be strange sometimes, but he was good company when he wasn't trying to foist jazz or hanar limericks on his captain.

"Any word from Sol yet?"

Zaal worried that he might never get used to the way that Tana seemed to pop out of nowhere. Rationally he knew the raloi girl was simply capable of great feats of stealth. Knowing the avian could move silently and actually comprehending it were two different things though.

"I've asked you I don't know how many times not to sneak up on me," Zaal said pleadingly. He swung his chair around so he could look up at his friend. Tana looked completely unrepentant.

"You know I don't mean to frighten you Zaal," she hooted in her high, scratchy voice. "Not my fault you're as jumpy as a hatchling. Now answer my question, or you'll be eating pasta for a week. No sauce."

Zaal blanched. He had a weakness for turian cuisine, and Tana was the only one onboard who knew how to prepare it. She also knew how to grow the ingredients in the ship's biosphere, which was just another reason to bring her along, even if she did have a penchant for scaring Zaal out of his envirosuit.

"Anything but that! No, I haven't heard from Sol. I'm starting to get a little worried."

"Urdnot Solus remains within the confines of the temple gardens," Quelb put in. "It is unlikely that he will come to harm while he is visiting with his family."

Zaal chuckled ruefully. "You don't know the clan chief's wife very well, do you?"

"That is correct, Captain. I have not yet had the pleasure of meeting Urdnot Bakara. It is my hope that this lack will be ameliorated upon the completion of our expedition."

"Maybe Sol decided he can't handle eating grass for weeks on end," Tana mused. She fluffed out the gray feathers on her wings and gave Zaal a disturbing raptor's grin. When her beak tilted up like that, it was easy to think she was preparing to use it on him. He dropped his head into his hands.

"Are we really going to have this argument again? If I could have gotten us a bigger ship, I would have."

"A larger vessel would require an expanded crew, Doctor Habaq. Recruitment of the necessary personnel would constitute an unacceptable delay to our departure."

"Thanks Quelb." Zaal was glad to have a bit of support for once. He glared over at Tana. The effect was somewhat diminished because she couldn't really see his eyes through his mask, but he thought the point was clear. "Do you have any idea how much a real liveship costs? Even if I found the right one, I'd have to get a loan from Father to pay for it. I don't think any of us want that."

Tana shook her head, ruffling the soft brown plumage piled just above her eyes. A stray feather fell down over her nose and she blew it up out of her face. "Definitely not. He'd expect us to spend all our time collecting samples along the way. I like slapping unfamiliar life forms under the microscope as much as the next girl, but right now we've got more important things to do."

"Well we won't be going anywhere until Sol gets here." Zaal turned back to the pilot's console. He could hook directly into the ship's systems if he wanted to, but he preferred to use the console when there wasn't an emergency. Like many of his people, he still wasn't comfortable with the synthetic parts that were the legacy of Commander Shepard's fight against the machines who had once been called Reapers.

A breathtaking vista stretched out just beyond the ship's view port. Tuchanka was still a wasteland—forty years of careful rehabilitation hadn't changed that—but pockets of green were beginning to show up amidst the orange and browns of the desert. Dust storms were growing less and less frequent as the krogan turned their attention away from killing each other (and everyone else) to more constructive pursuits like farming and forestry. Zaal was never going to love krogan architecture—too many self-indulgent statues and unnecessary spires—but he had to admit that the planet had a certain rugged appeal.

"Counselor Aral only wishes to see you succeed in whatever endeavors you choose to undertake, Zaal."

Zaal winced; Quelb hadn't called him by his birth name since they both had climbed aboard the Treno. Hearing it uttered in that grim mechanical voice almost sent him teetering back into his childhood, but he mastered his embarrassment. "He wants me to stay on the home world and grow crops for a living, you mean. Maybe that's enough for him and Mother, but they both grew up on ships. They love Rannoch. It's something new and interesting and beautiful to them. For me, it's just a big rock. Same as any other rock that orbits close enough to a star that it can support an atmosphere."

The varn didn't respond to that assertion, and the silence that followed made Zaal squirm worse than any verbal chastisement could have. It was several excruciatingly long minutes before Quelb spoke again.

"You may be pleased to know that Urdnot Solus has entered the space port."

All too happy to have a distraction from the awkward conversation, Zaal whooped gleefully and nearly toppled out of his chair.

"Don't get too excited," Tana said dryly, "knowing him, the big idiot probably stopped to admire the scenery."

Zaal waved that comment away with a sweep of his hand. "He wouldn't do that. When I talked to him over the extranet, he sounded just as excited to get going as we are."

"Hm." Tana clacked her beak noncommittally. "Maybe you're right. It's not like Tuchanka's much to look at, anyway."

"Easy for you to say," Zaal returned. "The Reapers never touched Turvess."

The raloi woman glared witheringly at him. "Aren't you the one who just got done saying he doesn't care what dust ball he grew up on? And we're calling them "Redeemed" now, by the way. So what if my people buried their heads in the sand when the war started? Neither of us was even born yet when the whole mess happened. If you want to keep your skinny neck intact, don't test me again. Captain."

She spat the word out like she'd bitten into some spoiled greens. Zaal wasn't really offended. He was still trying to get used to the idea of being responsible for other people, even if it was just his own circle of close friends. How could he be expected to care for the needs of an entire crew?

His eyes fell on the little projection of Sol's image that hovered somewhere near Zaal's elbow. "I don't believe it. He really is just standing there!"

He wasn't looking at Tana, but he was sure she was giving him an "I told you so" kind of look. Before Zaal could decide if he was going to wait and fume some more or go out and drag that lump of krogan muscle onto the ship, he saw Sol stagger back a step and hunch forward like he was in pain. Zaal knew what was happening even before the ship's alarms sounded. He leaped to his feet and brushed roughly past Tana. "He's being attacked! Quelb, quick, open the hatch so he can get inside!"

"As you say, Captain."

"If his fat ass will even fit," Tana muttered.

"I assure you, the Treno's cargo port has more than adequate clearance to accommodate the width of Solus's posterior, Doctor Habaq. You need not worry."

A cocktail of stress chemicals was flooding through his veins, but Zaal grinned behind his rebreather anyway. It was impossible to tell if Quelb was being sarcastic or not. He'd certainly taken Tana down a peg though.

The Treno wasn't a long ship, so it didn't take much time for Zaal to run from fore to aft. He made it to the opening hatch in time to see Sol pounding up the runway, assault rifle swinging back and forth as he moved. There was a tiny asari chasing after the big krogan. By the biotic glow around her body and the long, slender sword she carried, she meant business.

The absurdity of the size disparity wasn't lost on Zaal, but he didn't have time to contemplate it properly. He knelt at the edge of the hatch, unslung his Kurchali from its holster at his waist, and swung it up onto his shoulder. After a split second to aim the rifle, he fired a round across Sol's shoulder at the spot where he thought the assassin would be.

She was there, but she also wasn't. Zaal definitely saw a blue body appear within the path of his shot. When he started to relax, the air around the asari's body flickered and she seemed to vanish. Zaal's shot impacted the runway uselessly, leaving a huge burn mark while utterly failing to do any damage to Sol's assailant. Zaal's nearly dropped his gun; he'd never seen anything like what the asari had done.

"Step aside, neophyte."

Tana came up alongside Zaal and focused her sharp eyes on Sol and his pursuer. Sol was close to the ramp, but not close enough. Any moment the asari would catch up to him, and somehow Zaal didn't think krogan body armor would stand up to the edge of that sword blade.

"Shoot her if I miss," Tana murmured nonchalantly. Green energy suffused her feathers as she leaned forward and dropped out of the hatch. Unfurling her wings, she shot through the air and vanished. There was no haze like the one that had marked the asari's biotic display. Tana was simply in one place one moment, and in the next she was crouched on the runway with her claws embedded in the asari's skull. Before Zaal could call out to stop her, she slammed her victim's head down three times hard against the pavement.

Sol made it up the ramp and into the hatch. He paused there for few moments, panting. Then he turned around and inspected Tana's handiwork from afar.

"Damn. Woman can cook and she can kill. Should have been a krogan!"

Zaal slapped hand to his forehead and tried not to think about all the extra work a dead asari assassin was going to make for him in the days to come.

Codex

Urdnot Solus: The oldest son of clan chief Urdnot Wrex and the former female shaman, Bakara. The implants granted him by Synthesis have made him into the most powerful biotic in his clan, perhaps among all his people. His childhood was shaped primarily by his mother, as he did not meet his father until he was already almost forty years old. As a result, he appears unusually withdrawn and self-possessed for a male of his species. This has caused him some difficulty among his peers, but his powerful biotics and great skill with firearms have won him their respect. His friendship with the infamous krogan hero Urdnot Grunt goes a long way toward shielding him from censure.

In accordance with the Rule of Ten, Sol has exactly nine siblings: three brothers and six sisters. Most of these are only related to him through his mother, with the notable exception of his youngest sisters, Ramira and Teth, who were conceived after Wrex's long journey home from Earth.

Zaal'Zorah vas Treno: Formerly a resident of the city of Rayya on the quarian homeworld, Zaal has since emigrated to Tuchanka, where he uses his technological expertise to assist his good friend, Sol, in his endeavors. He dreams of one day locating the human hero Shepard and the wreckage of the Citadel. He is the middle child of three born to Tali'Zorah nar Rayya and Aral'Dar vas Qwib Qwib.

Tana Habaq: A young raloi woman with a doctorate in exohorticulture, Tana is the Treno's resident cook and biologist. An expert in growing crops of various types in unusual conditions, she has spent the last few years of her life exploring the special radiation-resistant gardens of Tuchanka.

Quelb: Once a Geth Prime unit, Quelb has spent the past forty years learning about quarian culture and helping to rebuild the civilization that once flourished on Rannoch. While assisting with a quarian construction project, he became acquainted with Tali'Zorah nar Rayya and befriended her son Zaal. Experienced and intelligent, Quelb agreed to accompany Zaal on the mission to the Sol system so he could keep an eye on the young quarian.

Kurchali: An unusual sniper rifle of quarian design, the Kurchali is significantly smaller than many of its Alliance counterparts while maintaining a similar level of firing power.