She had been here on this damn station for what felt like centuries but in reality it was only a couple of days. Damn Nihlus for asking her to come first so she could keep a eye on the newest spectre candidate. Well maybe if the turians hadn't been so trigger happy when the humans were messing around with a relay they wouldn't have such a mistrust of them. Then Council, in their infinite wisdom, decided to label it as a incident. Incident. Such a nice word. A much cleaner word then unprovoked slaughter of innocent human scientist curiously wondering where that relay went.
You may be asking yourself why she was treated with respect instead of mistrust and hatred from the humans on Arcturus Station, and the answer just may surprise you. You see there was a asari fleet that just so happened to come along and saw the turians being.. naughty. So the Admiral fired off a quick message to the Council before ordering her ships after the turians. She sent a total of three messages to the leader of the turian fleet, all of which were ignored.
She then decided that if the turian leader was going to act like a wild varren she'd put him down like one. She started handing out orders, she wanted twenty-five percent of her fleet to head towards the nearby planet which was assumed to be a colony. Ground troops would be deployed after sending several first contact messages to the humans digging in on the planet. She knew that the Turians would most likely respond with a even bigger fleet if her message was not brought to the Council's attention but she was prepared to stand by the this new race.
Who was this Asari? Well it was her mother, Matriarch Zexye T'veyne. Her mother had ordered the five-oh-first legion and two-one-two attack battalion ground side to help the new race. The humans had been shocked, one can only imagine how the turians felt, when asari soldiers landed and started hitting turian ground forces immediately. With rifle fire and biotic strikes. The human in command of the forces on Shanxi, General Thomas Williams, had recieved the Asari first contact package only seconds before the surprising reinforcements. After a tense few minutes the humans welcomed the Asari with opened arms and the leader of the five-oh-first legion and two-one-two attack battalion, a Captain Niranye V'lami and Commander Jenassa Atruze had immediately ordered several squads into the city to look for survivors and supplies since they didn't know at the time if humans could eat asari rations.
General Williams had ordered what remained of his garrison to send at least one soldier with each asari squad so any humans remaining in the city didn't try anything stupid. He had then led the two asari into the 'war room' so they could discuss what was going on and why was the race that the asari called turians were attacking them for seemingly no reason what so ever.
I'm sure you can guess what happened after that. The turians had managed to send another fleet before the Council could attempt a diplomatic mission. The Asari fleet were in defensive position around the human colony and were in the middle of a space battle with the Turian fleet when reinforcements from the System Alliance showed up.
Long story short the Council was able to show up and stop anymore fighting but poor Councilor Tevos had not been ready for Matriarch Zexye to demand that the turians pay for there idiotic action of attacking a new space flight species without even trying to tell them what they were doing was wrong. When asked what happened to the turian admiral who had ordered the attack on the humans, Matriarch Zexye had responded with 'what do you when a wild varren attacks?'
This unexpected help from the asari had made relations between the two races great. Matriarch Zexye was key behind the talks between the Asari Republic and System Alliance. Relations between the two species were lightyears better then what humanity had with any other species in the known galaxy.
Now at one point in time the Asari were fine with the status quo and didn't even try to change anything. Leaving protection to the turians and science advancements to the salarians while thousands if not millions of young asari went out to strip and join merc bands for a couple of hundred years, literally wasting time and not doing any productive at all.
No standing army, at best they had city states with there own militas that may or may not had proper training and equipment. Sure the asari had a fleet with very powerful dreadnoughts but it was overall unimpressive. They had propped the turians up as galactic policemen and it had caused one asari to become so disgusted she decided to do something about it. The Asari were the longest space fairing species and what did they have to show for it? Technology advancements were usually made by salarians and military might was handed off to the turians. This proved to cost them during the Krogan Rebellions as it also had done during the Rachni Wars before that. The asari had needed saving because there usual tactics had not worked.
"The asari are the finest warriors in the galaxy. Fortunately, there are not many of them." Was a famous quote from a turian general of long ago. One Asari took this statement and ran with it. She gathered a following of young asari, matrons, and even more then one matriarch behind her as she gave passionate speeches about how Asari colonies were attacked by warlords and slavers all the time and where was the so called mighty Turian Hierarchy? Why was it that the asari people had always needed saving, whether it was saving done by the turians or the krogan. She talked about how she hated seeing asari slaughtered or put in chains and sold into slavery. Enough was enough and the time for action was now. The asari needed to stand on there own to feet and fight there own battles. Asari flocked to her movement by the thousands.
When she entered her matriarch stage of life she used her massive resources to create what she called a 'Grand Army of the Republic.' She was the spearhead behind the comission of over two thousand new frigates, three thousand new cruisers, and four new dreadnoughts. The asari's name was Selesso T'veyne. She had claimed that seperated the Asari Republics could not stand on there own any longer and they must unite as one republic. Only then could they stand ready to face the horrors of the galaxy. With a massive fleet and well trained soldiers they would make slavers and warlords think twice before attacking any of Thessia's colonies again.
All of this was in her two hour long public statement to Thessia and all of her colonies. A tear jerking speech that people in modern day, still inspires whole new generations of scientist, doctors, engineers, and soldiers.
Selesso had asked at the end of her speech for one hundred thousand volunteers for the soldiers in the new army. She openly wept when she came out on the balcony that over looked the training field at the new military based and found over one million asari wanting to sign up.
That's right. Jesar's descended from some very badass people, which means she still has some very big shoes to fill. Youngest asari spectre ever? That was just the tip of the iceberg if she ever hoped to be in striking distance of her grandmother's place in Asari history.
But back to the reason why Jesar was here, Nihlus had come to her about a human that was perfect for the Spectre's. Once he had told her the name of the candidate she had agreed almost immediately. Why did she agree so quickly just on the name alone? Because she had been visiting the planet known as Elysium during the Blitz. In fact her feet had just hit the ground when all of a sudden pirates entered the atmosphere.
What a fight that had been.
Luck seemed to have smiled upon Jesar because she noticed the famous human herself, Athena Shepard, enter the cafeteria typing away on her omni-tool.
The asari got to her feet and sauntered over to Athena with a confident smile on her face, stormy grey eyes lifted from the omni-tool to see who was aproaching only to widen in shock at seeing the asari.
"Small galaxy eh Shepard?" Jesar spoke first, Athena closed her omni-tool not even sending the message to her mother, that will get her a ear full later.
"Jesar? What are you doing here at Arcturus?" Athena questioned, folding her arms over her chest. She hadn't seen the asari since the Blitz, now her curiousity was demanding the answer to what a asari spectre was doing here on the station.
"I couldn't be here just to see a old friend?" Jesar responded trying to sound offended and even played it up by placing her hand on her chest as if she was physically wounded by the suspicious tone the human had taken with her.
"Old friend? You practically vanished after the Alliance arrived with back up! I haven't seen you in seven years!" Athena exclaimed, throwing her hands up which caused a amused grin to make its way onto the asari's face.
"I'm sure we will be seeing a lot more of each other Shepard." Jesar stated it as if it was fact which caused Athena's eyes to narrow, the asari spectre saw Captain Anderson enter the cafeteria which she took as a sign for her to make a escape, "See you later Thena." She finished with a teasing smile as she walked past the Commander and out of the cafeteria, ignoring the look Anderson had sent her.
Her omni-tool flashed which caused her to bring it up immediately, her smile dropping into a frown while she read the message. Her contacts were telling her something was wrong with Saren Arterius and that he had not reported to the Council in several weeks, seemingly vanished off the face of the galaxy. While it wasn't unsual for a spectre to go sometime without reporting in, it was usually when they were on long term missions.
Saren Arterius wasn't on a mission the last time she checked. She never liked that bastard, he was the type of guy to murder a entire building full of people if it meant getting the job done. She never liked how the Council defended or supported him. What a great way to paint yourself to the public! "The Spectres can shoot you in between the eyes if they want too and there is not a damn thing the police can do about it." Another brilliant move by the Council, Saren was obviously mentally unstable. Had been for sometime. Oh well... One day he would slip up and she'd be the one with the smoking gun while standing over his dead body.
One can dream am I right?
Jesar eyed a cute looking engineer that was on arguing with her boyfriend as she walked down the hall. The asari's thoughts quickly shifted to having some fun while waiting for Nihlus, cocky smirk in place as she made her way to the engineer with a predatory look in her eyes.
-break-
Athena was staring at Captain Anderson after the man had told her the reason Jesar was here. The lie was so bad that the man might as well have told her that Jesar was here to give a speech on why Batarian slavers deserved fair trials.
Something funny was going on here and she would either get to the bottom of it or she would be told eventually. Athena was thinking on what the asari could be here for while entering the newly made SSV Normandy SR1 prototype stealth ship. It was a beautiful ship she thought privately and hid a smirk behind her hand at the pilot who was asleep at the helm. Good thing the ship was still in dry dock.
She went over and tapped the pilot on the shoulder causing him to jump a little before groaning, only to stare in shock at who had caught him sleeping.
"Commander." Joker said after finally finding his voice, he saluted her meekly. Hoping beyond hope she didn't report him or anything.
"At ease." Was all Athena said, tossing the pilot a smirk as she headed in the direction to the CIC, she was told by Anderson that the leader of the marines was a L2 biotic and was most likely getting checked over by the Normandy's doctor, whose name could be formed into hacksaw, which Athena found utterly hilarious.
She finally got down to the medbay and the door slid open revealing Staff Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko was sitting on the edge of one examining tables with a hand at his head while Dr. Chakwas was looking through her cabinets for pain medicine most likely.
"Don't get up Lieutenant. I can come back at a later time." Athena said as she saw Kaidan wince as he tried to move to fast to get back to his feet and salute.
"Commander." Kaidan nodded thankfully. "I'm sure I'll be fine once the doc gives me some pain medicine. Did you want a tour of the ship?"
Athena smiled slightly at Kaidan's offer before shaking her head, "No thanks Lieutenant, I'm going to tour by myself and see what I can fine. Dr. Chakwas." She waved at the older woman before leaving the medbay.
The Commander then made her way to the elevator, she had heard there was a Mako on board and she wanted to check it out. She loved driving those things even though her squads in the past had always complained about her shitty driving. Which she had always cheerfully patted them on the back just a little to hard and told them to buck up.
She decided to do a quick check in with Engineer Adams before sending that message to her mother that she was supposed to send hours ago, then she'd call it a day and find some place to sleep.