Keelah Se'lai
Prologue
/Request Access: Declassified Council Records/
/Access Granted: Specify File/
/Request Access: Zhanna'Zorah Spectre Ceremony/
/Access Granted: Initiating Playback/
"Captain Zhanna'Zorah. Step forward." a voice said, echoing in the large council chamber.
A young Quarian girl walked up to the podium, looking up at the Human, Turian, Asari, and Salarian Councillors as they stood on their balcony.
It was the Human Councillor, famous Alliance Admiral Stephen Hackett that spoke first. "Zhanna'Zorah, it is the decision of the Council that you be granted all the rights and privileges of the Special Tactics and Reconnaissance Branch of the Citadel."
The Turian Councillor was next: "Spectres are not trained, but chosen. Individuals forged in the fire of service and battle; those whose actions lift them above the rank and file."
Next, the Asari: "Spectres are an ideal, a symbol, the embodiment of courage, determination, and self-reliance. They are the right hand of the Council, instruments of our will."
Last, the Salarian: "Spectres bear a great burden. Both our first and last line of defense, the safety of the galaxy is theirs to uphold. Do you accept this burden?"
Zhanna looked over her shoulder to see the group of Quarians that joined her, the female in front gave her a small nod. She stood up proud and looked up at the Councillors. "It is my honor to accept this." she said with a bold voice. "I swear to live up to this burden and prove myself worthy of bearing it."
Councillor Hackett spoke up again. "Congratulations to you Zhanna'Zorah, you are the first Quarian given the title of Spectre. We know you will do well."
Councillor Tevos, the Asari, spoke next. "We regret we cannot give you more time to celebrate, but we are already in need of you. We are sending you into the Terminus systems to investigate the disappearance of a freighter convoy bound for the Turian Colony of Triginta Petra."
"Are there any leads?" Zhanna asked.
Councillor Sparatus responded now. "None, we only know they disappeared within Sigurd's Cradle between the Decoris and Lenal systems."
"Understood."
"Report to the Spectre office in the Embassies, you'll be outfitted and given your briefing. I understand you have your own ship?" The new Salarian Councillor, Bisar, asked.
"Yes Councillor." Zhanna replied.
"Good, the Spectre office VI can update your ship's registration and link to your ship's computer to the Spectre terminal." Bisar replied.
"Thank you Councillors. I'll leave as soon as I am equipped."
"Godspeed to you Zhanna'Zorah" Hackett said and filed out behind the rest of the council.
/End Playback/
/Logging Out/
Chapter 1
Docking bay E27, Spectre drydocks. Moored there was a Quarian designed frigate that was similar in size to the SR1 Normandy. The Rinna, while as old as the Quarian escape from their homeworld, was one of the more reliable ships in the Flotilla and underwent extensive retrofitting to allow it to operate with as little a crew as one, making it the perfect ship for the operations of a Spectre. One such upgrade was a server for Geth AI allowing the ship's automated systems to operate under intelligent supervision as well has hardware interfaces containing a trio of mobile trooper platforms and a single Prime platform for the Geth.
Outside the gangway, Tali and Zhanna approached the hatch which opened immediately when it scanned Zhanna's omni-tool.
"Promise me you'll be careful out there. I've fought in the Terminus systems. There are species there that will try and kill you without even a second thought." Tali said, her voice dripping with worry despite the metallic tone given to it by her helmet's vocoder.
"Don't worry about me mother. I can take care of myself." Zhanna replies, smiling at how her tough admiral of a mother who stared down a reaper without a second thought worried about a few pirates in the Terminus.
"I-I know Nehya, I know. But it's only because I care." Tali said softly, hugging her daughter. "Worrying comes with being a mother."
Zhanna embraced her mother. "I promise, I'll finish this and come back home as quick as I can."
"He's not even your father and you're just like him." Tali replied wistfully. "Be safe, and come home soon. Keelah Se'lai."
Zhanna took a final look at her mother, admiring that Tali still wore the suit she had during that fateful day on earth. The damage that her suit sustained was patched in a way that allowed its battle scars to show without losing its functionality. "Keelah Se'lai mother." Zhanna says, sparing a final wave as she walks up the gangway to her ship.
She approached the pilot's seat of the Rinna and began the preparations for takeoff. The large reactor ring that was the staple of Quarian designed ships began it's slow rotation as the engines fired up.
"Citadel control, this is Spectre Zhanna'Zorah vas Rinna requesting permission to disembark."
"Rinna, your cleared to disembark. Safe travels." the voice on the other end of the com replied.
"Enigma, seal all external hatches and plot a course for Sigurd's cradle."
"Yes Creator-Zorah. Plotting course." a metallic and very digital voice replied as a miniaturized holographic image of a Geth trooper platform appeared next to her.
Zhanna preferred to take the controls for the first jump, loving the vibrations of the old ship's controls as it's Eezo drive was charged by the mass relay and the ship suddenly accelerated at faster-than-light speeds. It was a feeling unlike any other.
Enigma's hologram chirped. "Jump successful Creator-Zorah. Approximate travel time, 18 hours 12 minutes."
"Thank you Enigma, Take over the controls and let me know when we arrive."
"Yes, Creator-Zorah."
Zhanna let go of the controls and stepped towards her quarters. She glanced over to the large footlocker that was delivered from Spectre requisitions and opened it, seeing that it contained a set of armor plating and an armored Realk that is attached to her life support suit. Under the armor was a bright red case labeled: "KASSA FABRICATIONS" She pulled it out, grunting some at the weight and set it on her bunk. Upon opening it, a black rifle that was in its folded configuration with "Black Widow" stenciled on its side. She couldn't help but smile as this beast of a weapon was a massive improvement over the M-98 she was used to using.
She made quick work of attaching the armor plating to her suit and examined herself in the mirror to see how it all fit. Satisfied, she made her way to her bunk and after setting her rifle on the floor she sprawled out on it, letting out a small sigh as she drifted off to sleep.
The chime from the ship's intercom system jolted her awake in time for Enigma's announcement.
"Creator-Zorah, we have arrived at the Sigurd's Cradle relay. Location: Skepsis system."
"Thank you, Enigma. I'll be up there shortly."
She rolled out of bed and attached the folded up Black Widow to the mount on her suit, the built in support skeleton supporting the weight effortlessly. She exited her quarters and sat in the pilot's seat again, taking the controls and flying towards the fuel relay. Since the reaper invasion, fuel relays switched from being stationary automated systems to massive starships capable of moving out of danger if need be and required a crew to operate it efficiently. As she approached, the sensor suite in her ship began to light up, letting her know that her ship was being scanned. Moments later, her communication's array chimed.
"Quarian ship, state your intentions." said a bassy and guttural voice that she guessed was Batarian.
"I'm here on Spectre business. I need fueling."
There was a silence on the other end that felt like an eternity. "We don't recognize council or Spectre authority here." the voice said, obviously unnerved by her presence.
"Understood, I am am merely passing through, I simply wish to buy some fuel and be on my way." she said as she tried to keep the aggravation out of her voice.
There was another silence that lasted several moments and she began to get nervous, wondering if she should be ready for a fight. Before she could do anything though, the voice spoke again. "Spectre. You have permission to dock and fuel. Bay six."
"Thank you. Locking in approach now." she says and turns off the intercom. Once she was sure nobody was listening, she muttered under her breath: "Usl'sa yze tabb…"
"Creator-Zorah, I fail to understand how their not having the desire to cooperate makes them the cognitively impaired offspring of inbreeding." Enigma chimed, making her roll her eyes.
"It's just an insult Enigma. It's how organics express frustration. Ready the ship to dock and prepare to refuel"
"Yes, Creator-Zorah. Initiating docking procedures."
She leaned back in her chair and watched out the viewport as the massive retrofitted Batarian cruiser filled it. She never liked Batarian ships, they were so blocky in comparison to other races, this one in itself looking like a flying brick with an antenna sticking out of it.
It took well over an hour to fuel up her ships 3000 unit tank, one of the many modifications made in its flotilla days, and she found herself eyeing over the modified Batarian cruiser's very hastily constructed upgrades. She found herself wondering how the thing was still even in service based on how many times it has been patched over from the various scars it's endured..
She was snapped out of her daydream by the Batarian's voice on her comm "That'll be five thousand-six hundred credits."
She went wide eyed, that was nearly double the current rate of exchange. "That's absurd, why so much?" she yells.
"Call it a courtesy fee for being cooperative. Now pay up and get out." he replied and cut the comms before she could protest.
"Bosh'tet…" She said with a sigh and pressed the command to approve the automated payment. Once the payment went through, the magnetic couplers that restrained her ship disengaged with a loud thump and she activated the engines. "Enigma, disembark and set a course for the convoy's last known location."
"Yes Creator-Zorah. Setting course for Mil." Enigma replied as the ship's engines rumbled to life and the frigate made its way to the edge of the system. Little did she know, though, that she was being watched.
At the edge of the Skepsis system, an aged Turian freighter that should've been retired centuries ago sat out of sensor range of the Quarian craft. It looked like any other deep space hauler except for the large cannon that sat on its dorsal ridge.
Sitting in the captain's chair was Epronis, originally a small time thief on Omega, he quickly rose to prominence after the Reaper Wars when most of the Batarian race was annihilated and very few gang leaders remained to challenge him. As of right now, he was eyeing the Quarian ship as it approached the fuel ship. Shortly after, his comm chirped and the hologram of a nervous Batarian came into view. "Sir. She's saying she's a Spectre...what do I do?"
"So the rumors are true…" Epronis said, stroking his chin. "Let her dock and treat her like any other customer. She's mine."
"Y-yes sir." the hologram said and faded out.
Epronis chuckled and took a long drag off of a Krogan made cigar, letting the acrid smoke hang in the air. "This is going to be an interesting hunt." he said to himself, watching the Spectre's ship pull towards the tanker and dock.
"Enigma, have the high pulse scans found anything yet?" Zhannah asked, admittedly bored as they had spent the last several hours scanning the system and finding no evidence.
"Negative, Creator-Zorah. Their engine signatures end in this system but we cannot find any sign of debris or signs of battle."
She sighed and lightly slammed her fist on her chair's armrest. "Any theories?"
A moment of silence hung in the air before Enigma chirped again. "There is only one logical reason we can compute: based on the lack of debris or engine signatures, the missing ships would of been towed somewhere out of system or somewhere that is shielded from our sensors."
She mulled this over for a few minutes, drumming her fingers on the arm of the chair. "Enigma, let's say for a moment that the convoy ships were shut down and towed. Wouldn't the ships that got them leave a signature?"
"Logically? Yes, but there are none within the system. The aggressors would either need stealth drives or…"
Before Enigma could finish the statement, her ship was rocked by a weapon's impact. Various alarms went off as she quickly scrambled for the controls and set the ship into motion.
"Enigma!"
"Minimal Damage, Kinetic barriers holding. Powering weapons."
"Try and get a visual." she shouts, her ship rumbling as the engines pushed the ship to speed to try and shake their attacker.
When her ship came about, she was face to face with an old freighter with a large railgun on its back. She took aim and fired her medium cannons first, the 120mm assault cannons firing rapidly at the craft. Something was off though, the rounds seemed to bounce off the ship.
"Enigma, scan that ship."
"Victus class freighter. 300 years old. Scans indicate heavy modifications including Silaris armor, a Sparatus drive core, unknown caliber Vorcha railgun, advanced VI controlled tactical suite. Scans are showing Batarian life-signs aboard."
"These must be our pirates. Ready the Thanix cannons, we'll broadside them!"
"Charging Thanix cannons...Cannons ready to fire."
Zhanna gunned the engines on her ship and it lurched forwards. The two Thanix batteries sat at the front and back of her ship gave a high pitch whine as they rotated to lock onto the target and charged the mass driver accelerators. Once her ship was lined up for a broadside attack, she depressed the firing triggers and a rumble reverberated through the ship as four bright, white-hot beams launched towards the enemy ship.
"Got you." she says with a self satisfied smile, watching while the beams of light careen towards the target and detonate.
Her celebration was short lived when Enigma's metallic voice chimed. "Negative hit."
She snapped her head to the holographic projection of a Geth trooper. "What?!"
"The Thanix rounds detonated just short of impact. I am reading a strange energy signature that I can only describe as a powerful biotic field though it seems to oscillate in a strange energy pattern."
"How did it stop the Thanix guns?"
"Unknown Creator-Zorah."
"Keelah...Making evasive maneuvers" she says, her voice shaking as she guns the throttle in hopes of being able to engage the mass effect core of her ship. Before she could, however, the ship lurched again with a much louder groan from the superstructure.
"Kinetic fields down. Damage to the Mass Effect drive ring." Enigma's voice chimed.
"Fre'eg…" she mutters under her breath. "Fine, if it's a fight they want, then they can have it." she says, looping the ship around and firing all her weapons at once.
Vibrations reverberated through the ship as her cannons all unloaded at the enemy ship, however it didn't seem to have any effect. Rather, the projectiles either bounced off the ship's hull or redirected to miss it entirely. "Enigma?"
"It appears there is a heavy mass effect field around the ship that is rendering our volleys inert. Detecting power spike from enemy."
Before she could respond, the large railgun that sat on the dorsal ridge of the freighter fired and a large explosion rocked the Rinna. "Engines down, Creator-Zorah, sealing sections that are venting atmosphere." Enigma's voice was as monotone as ever.
The force of the explosion had knocked her out of her chair and she shakily got to her feet. "Do we have anything?" she asks, holding onto the chair to keep the room from spinning.
"Engines down, weapons down, shields down. Thrusters are online."
"Set a crash landing vector then upload to my suit's matrix. We're taking an escape pod."
"Vector set, Creator-Zorah, We advise jettisoning the pod once the ship hits the atmosphere so we appear as debris. Beginning upload to your suit's matrix."
As Enigma finished speaking, a groan sounded through the ship as it was caught in the planet's gravity well and a dull vibration began when the ship hit the upper atmosphere. She managed to grab a pistol from the weapons locker and attached it to her hip before hitting the escape pod and launching from the ship.
A loud ringing with a distant chiming could be heard as she awoke. The last thing she remembers is the ship breaking up in orbit, her pod jettisoning away only to smack into a rock face on the way down and sending it careening into a canyon while knocking her unconscious.
She slowly came too, following the alarm and blinking the fuzz from her eyes to realize it was a suit breach alarm and a dull hiss penetrating through the noise she was already hearing. On visual inspection, there was a cut in her side and the suit was venting a small cloud of pressurized gases from it.
She immediately sprung into action, all of her faculties waking immediately with a rush of adrenaline through her system. She began to hammer commands into her omni tool and she waved it over her leg, the tool dispensing omni gel to seal the breach. A green symbol flashed across the heads up display of her helmet and she breathed a small sigh of relief at this. This was short lived, however, when she accessed the suit's bio monitors and her heart dropped at what she read: "Breach confirmed, foreign contaminants. Sealing area." and to accent the point, O-rings inflated above and below the breach to prevent the spread of the contaminants, though with the wound there, she was infected.
She groaned and sat up, getting up on shaky legs and limping to her escape pod. She rummaged through it, finding the rifle and pistol she brought, but on a quick inspection, she realized her supply of thermal clips were dangerously low.
"NNn...five shots for the rifle...ten for the pistol...Det kazuat!" she curses and rummaged through the escape pod's wreckage to get the emergency first aid kit. She opened it and found some medi-gel and injected it into her suit's life-support system. The dose wasn't enough to remove the infection, but it should hold it off long enough to reach her ship and medical supplies.
"Enigma?" she speaks but gets no answer. "Enigma are you there?" she asks, her heart sinking.
She pulled up the geth functions and confirmed her fears. "Download incomplete, emergency standby initiated."
"Boshtet!" she shouts, kicking a piece of wreckage and panting softly. Her first mission and it's already gone to hell.
No, she was a Spectre. She's proved she can survive the worst the galaxy has to offer. For now though, she was alone and fighting the clock to reach her ship before the infection sets in.
With a sigh, she attaches her supplies to the various hardpoints on her suit and begins walking, aiming to find higher ground.
A series of shuttles began landing around the smouldering remains of the aged Quarian ship. Epronis stood in front of the wreckage while his men searched the ship and before long, his lieutenant, Rotin walked up.
"Sir, there's no sign of the Spectre's body and one of the escape pods has been used." he said.
Epronis smirked and took a long drag from the cigar he had. "So, our prey survived. This will be an interesting hunt indeed." he says and turns to Rotin. "Send out our men, she's crashed here and there's nobody here but us and her, find her."
"Sir!" the other Batarian replied and went off to organize teams while Epronis stood in front of the wreck. "An interesting hunt indeed."