A/N: Thanks for checking out my fic! This "first" chapter is a prologue, and is quite irrelevant to the rest of the story, as it mostly lays a foundation for post-ME3 headcanon. If you want to get an idea about where I am going with this, read the prologue, if not go ahead and skip to chapter 2 and enjoy Eris Shepard's backstory :)
Copyright EA/BioWare
Prologue
2278 – Port Hanshan – Noveria
A crisp but hazy night sky reflected the cool glow of city lights into her room, the walls were illuminated by the orange glow of her omni-tool, but it was the intermittent buzz of an awaiting message that had been drawing her from unconsciousness. Over the last 72 hours, Jani had been patiently awaiting a massive amount of encrypted data to be deciphered, and she had avoided sleep in anticipation of unlocking this key piece of time-sensitive-intelligence—but sleep had claimed her target in the early morning lull.
She jolted awake, unsure exactly how long the message had been alerting, and scoffed at herself for having dozed off. When she flipped her wrist, the glowing virtual-interface of her omni-tool revealed a smile that had pulled at the corners of her lips. She closed the message, pushed off the plush chair that had coerced her slumber, and dashed down the hallway to the bedroom where she grabbed her well-worn luggage bag. Jani never entirely unpacked anywhere she went, in her line of work she had to be ready to jump from one system to another within a moment's notice—not that she minded, the fast-paced lifestyle was as rewarding as completing the objectives themselves.
With her belongings packed to the brim, she securely strapped the bag to her back and jogged down the stairs at the rear of the hotel building, to the helos port where her vehicle was docked. It was a small personal shuttle, and to the naked eye as well as most scanners, it seemed like a standard personal spacecraft, but it was outfitted with paramilitary tech that would be considered illegal by all intergalactic treaty standards. To Jani, cohesion with the law was of little concern, she was protected from most of the red tape due to her alliances with powerful dignitaries—these networking connections were a necessity of her job, and often mutually beneficial.
Her vehicle's bioscanners initiated their protocols and upon completion, released the hatch allowing her to enter the vehicle. Out of habit, she tossed her bag to the side of the pilot's seat and proceeded secure herself in for as she flipped the switches that allowed the Betty Blue hum to life. She interfaced with the helm's navigation system by linking her omni-tool to upload the coordinates and permissions codes for her journey. She waited briefly in the queue for her pre-secured authorizations to be accepted by traffic control—it was never a long wait on Noveria, given their high flux of interstellar business travel, but on this occasion the queue seemed to be moving at a laggard pace, and she was eager to be on her way.
With clearance to depart, the ship's pulse thrusters carried her into orbit, where she engaged the FTL drive and plotted the course toward the system's relay. On her approach, she input commands that would propel her toward Rosetta Nebula, and hopefully the target that she had been tracking. The relay reacted with her signals as blue surges of energy swirled and engulfed her ship with the mass effect reaction reaching the terminal velocity, and with inconceivable force launched Jani toward her destination. 'Relay jump successful. ETA 14 hours 31 minutes to the Tenebris Relay' spoke a crisp synthetic voice belonging to the ship's AI over the comms.
Jani let a breathy sigh as she rested back in her seat "Thank you, Betty Blue," she said softly, watching the stars blur past her, knowing that tomorrow she would be closer than she has ever been to unlocking the greatest mystery of her career, which until now had been eluding her at every corner.
Jani set out on uncovering this mystery 20 years ago, while serving as a Public Relations Liaison to the Asari Republics for the Asari Councilor, where she was privileged to policy-making and decisions of the highest authority on the Citadel. It was her first real job after college internships, and for the 70 year old asari, she was on target to have a promising career through this position's connectivity to the powerful and distinguished. She was thankful that her mother's political influence garnered this favor for her, but it was not without warrant, her ability to influence perspectives with information that would persuade others was a skill that had caught the attention of plenty powerful entities on Thessia and throughout the Republics.
Jani typically sat in on the meetings with Asari Republics representatives, especially those of Thessia since it reflected favorably upon Tevos to promote her relationships with the homeworld. When Tevos arrived, Matriarch Nirava initiated the meeting with customary greetings, then without provocation, her expression gave way to a scowling grimace, and she repugnantly uttered, "Directive...twenty-one…eighty-six". Tevos' indigo features paled and she simply nodded, then keyed some commands into her omni-tool, and joined with the matriarch in the oath-affirming Taserii Meld. Such a noble gesture was highly unusual for a business meeting, but especially with regard to the Councilor of the Asari. Among her people, she was heralded as their hero after the Reaper War, whom with the power of Athame, wielded Shepard as her sword and shield. As such, in the aftermath she no longer answered to the Conclave of Matriarchs, or any one entity for that matter.
Afterward, Tevos ordered that any record of the meeting was to be destroyed, and then she asked Jani to prepare a press release, with arrangement of personal condolences to the families of the Serrice Commando forces, who while on a patrol mission, their ship malfunctioned in the gravitational pull of a quasar, and all crew were presumed dead. It was not typical for a representative of Thessia to report to the Councilor on military affairs, and certainly not regarding common accidents. While reconstruction was an on-going process, likely to last hundreds more years, and the military played a large part in it, this was under the command of matriarchs, not the Councilor—she simply had nothing to do with such matters.
The meeting was brief yet its impact on Jani was so very profound. Things weren't adding up, there was more to this story than meets the eye, and her curiosity was piqued, 'There was no talk of a military operation, but maybe it was exchanged in the meld. Or maybe they are having an affair, and if so, that means that powerful interests were being consolidated between two asari—something almost forbidden in the aftermath of the war. But perhaps it's something else, a concept more sinister. Whatever it was that Matriarch Nirava spoke of, it elicited a strong response from Tevos…could it have something to do with the Reapers?'
Jani's relationship with Tevos was a culturally routine asari/subordinate, and as such, Tevos was very helpful in providing guidance, wisdom, and she would often speak casually with Jani. The questions that she longed the answers for were off limits to her matriarchal superior, it would be very unbecoming for a maiden to ask such personal questions—especially where scandal was involved, given the implied disrespect to even suspect this of a superior. Jani resolved to research through all of the records she could access, from across every known Citadel race. For five years she investigated the Citadel's archives, but there was no evidence to be found which would clarify any of her suspicions—though, common sense insisted that it was something from the Reaper War given the 2186 identifier.
Jani realized that the time had come for her to resign from her position, when she grew dissatisfied with the mundane keeping of appearances, with little substance for actual journalism. In her duties, she had gained insight into herself, and found that she preferred to discover the unseen and expose their truths, believing that the galaxy is only as safe as its worst kept secrets. The Citadel was not a safe place for someone who refused to play by conventional rules, even if the goal was to promote the greater good.
Tevos was understanding and supportive of her maiden protégé wanting the opportunity to follow her ambition and drive wherever it leads—an asari may take many paths to arrive at her destination, and may experience many motivations until she reaches the dawn of her next age—such were the siari teachings, which reminded all asari that it was necessary to move on at the natural end of an experience to gain the wisdom for her long-view.
Jani had made many powerful connections during her time on the Citadel, and among them was Matriarch Biriani, owner of several major media and information brokering organizations throughout Citadel space. Jani suspected that Tevos had pulled strings for Biriani to not only hire her, but to take her under her wing as a mentor, which was among the highest honors that a maiden can hope to establish with a matriarch in her career field. Her mentorship ensured that she would have the resources necessary to accomplish her ambitious goals. While the relationship between maiden and mentor was of course sexual, it was not a romantic-type—it just goes with the territory, sometimes seduction is necessary for survival. In fact, asari are naturally liberal with their bodies, and physical expression is merely an added benefit that most species do not understand, since mating is not necessary for asari reproduction.
At her disposal were vast networks of information that she could not have authorization to access on the Citadel, and she used them to facilitate her investigations into nefarious people across the galaxy, gathering information ranging from the petty scandals of celebrities, to the lewd and corrupt actions of the most powerful business and political leaders. This side of business kept Biriani's affiliates appeased that she was making herself useful, while expending company resources in pursuing her personal objectives.
Biriani could not shed any light into the matter that Jani was interested in, but her guidance was encouraging nonetheless, because to the older asari, the long view was more important than immediate gratification, something that often takes centuries for asari to fully understand. In the matriarch's experience, when the powerful bend, there must be a large force behind it, and something of that magnitude has influence all around, but with seemingly invisible gravity. Only when one stops to observe that which cannot be seen, does it naturally reveal itself, because the questioner is no longer forcing something impossible, but rather sensing the reality that simply exists as it should. There was truth behind the wisdom, and what she found through investigating the deeds of those in power, there were small ancillary pieces of her puzzle, which served both the immediate need for information, as well as the long-view on her primary objective.
Information gathering was an innate skill to Jani, and over the years as the intel she had been acquiring began to form a clear picture, she saw trends that were all pointing in one direction. Large quantities of resources had been trafficking to and from an unknown system with the trails blocked by scrambled transmissions through black holes. All tech advancements, unsurprisingly, came from the dissection of Reaper tech, and that warranted tight scrutiny which required it to come through the Citadel, as per the post-war treaties—any black markets or undocumented tech manufacturing were inconspicuously handled with the utmost severity. Most concerting however, was that there had been galactic peace in spite of this arc of Citadel control, due to a shadow force that assassinated government leaders, corporate bosses, crime lords, and anyone who threatened to offset the balance of the galaxy—indeed, the very same individuals that she had been investigating and reporting on.
Ultimately she came to the conclusion that Directive 2186 had nothing to do with the asari, rather it came about through unknown but pivotal circumstances in the aftermath of the Reaper War. None of its details are recorded in any official capacity, but their implications exceed any regulation created by the Treaty of Galactic Amity in the aftermath. In fact, based on the information she gathered, it was a mandate that the highest levels of government kept hidden, abided by with utmost respect, and held onto with bitter resentment and fear. Jani came to determine, that resulting from Commander Shepard's actions in the events that led up to the Reaper Invasion, the retribution for her victory in spite of impediment was the formation of an elite branch of Spectres, who wielded greater authority than The Council themselves. These were elusive operatives who did not function within the confines of any established norms or regulations, and if that was the case, she needed evidence...this would be the story that marked her career in journalism, or information brokering, whichever she chose.
Getting caught trying to intercept concrete materials to expose this organization would mean her life, but that didn't sway her determination to take on the risk, she was in too deep to turn back at any rate. Tracking things through The Citadel and scrambled signals was all but futile, and so her best hope for capturing evidence was through their agents. The assassins of those she had been investigating were always several steps ahead of her, and she never knew for certain when or for whom they would come, but there were patterns, and some actions always guaranteed an untimely death. For several years she tried to get closer to them, to figure out who might be their next target, and who was just a pawn in a greater scheme, but for all of her efforts, her hard work never paid off.
It wasn't until luck turned in her favor that she was contacted by a source who led her to a businessman, who had been dealing in Reaper tech behind the scenes of a legitimate enterprise, and she knew it wouldn't be long before they came for him—illegal technology was bulls-eye to the 'guardians of the galaxy'. She arranged a meeting with the human businessman on Noveria, under the façade of writing an article on his recent success within the bioquantum market. Jani took some tracking spores from her pocket and blew them around his desk and his office. She had acquired from the black market, and intended to use them on a recently deceased political syndicate, who she was investigating for xenophobic political leanings, but never had the opportunity to use before their untimely demise. He looked like every other human to Jani, smarmy, arrogant, short-lived and short-sighted, and she conducted a superficial interview while her spores attached themselves to him and anyone who should come into contact with him over the next several days.
It didn't take 12 hours for her to receive reports about being found lifeless in his apartment, having died unexpectedly of a likely heart attack. This was it, if they had come within range of him, then they were also exposed to her spores, and she would need to filter through the data and see where the spores had traveled. The tracking code for the nanoparticles was exceptionally difficult to interpret, given the number of them and the encryption level, this required specially designed deciphering equipment, and would require several days to provide a conclusive read-out for the feedback for the innumerable spores.
In the early morning, the buzz of her omni-tool awoke her to reveal that 99.996% of the spores were still on the surface of Noveria, but .004% had jumped the relay and were transmitting from within the Rosetta Nebula. That was her next destination, what awaited her there was no way of knowing, but her instinct and possibly a degree of wanting told her it held the answer she was looking for.
With her course charted, she didn't know what to expect, but she was prepared to infiltrate the galaxy's most elusive, advanced, and deadly system, if it in fact held what she believed.
Over the course of the flight, she reviewed all of the intelligence she had gathered over the years with her AI, to ensure she had not missed anything of key importance. Her dossier on Directive 2186 was a grim reminder of the force she was up against, tainted by the stories she heard about the Spectres before and during the Reaper War, but also based on personal experiences with them through her job with Counselor Tevos, she knew they were generally not the star-spangled heroes that Commander Shepard was, but rather they were ruthless and calculated murderers who would exterminate thousands without conscience, just to accomplish their objective. This prompted Jani to prepare a message to send to her mother, a farewell, just in case.
She equipped her Kepler light armor suit, reinforced with cutting-edge stealth enhancements such as: X-R-A corneal capture, Psy6 biotic weave, Gro-Ur homeostatic regeneration system, and Astral VX phantasm atomizing projector. ETA 5 minutes to Tenebris Relay, the AI alerted Jani, a reminder to return to the helm, to ensure that upon approach the coordinates and settings were not awry, and to be prepared for any necessary manual inputs.
With a heavy sigh she clipped the weapons belt around her waist and buckled into position in the pilot's seat, written upon her face were the expressions that revealed the anxious unyielding tightening in her chest that was dedicated to uncovering the truth.
Growing in the distance was the relay, and the impending fruits of her labor. The systems check for the reception codes lit up the display as her shuttle dropped out of warp-speed upon its arrival. This relay didn't appear to be any different than any other she had encountered, the exception was that this relay had been completely unused by Citadel races given its remote location and lack of obtainable resources.
With manual controls activated, the AI plotted a course for Jani to Alpha Draconis to an Alliance/Asari-founded planet dubbed Aeia, which was deemed to be the most hospitable to organic life in this sector.
All stealth systems were engaged as she trail blazed through Rosetta Nebula. Her scanners had not picked up any indication that there were any Spectres in the vicinity, or for that matter, any other intelligent life. She hadn't let her guard down, but at this point she was beginning to wonder if this would lead to yet another dead end.
Upon arrival into the Alpha Draconis system, her ship's navigation system began to glitch, her ship's power fluctuating, and her AI unresponsive. Either she had just flown through an electromagnetic field that was causing malfunctioning, or she just triggered a trap that the Spectres had set up to keep people out.
"Dammit…" she muttered, as she attempted to reengage the navigation system independently of the AI. To stay on course she switched the controls to auto, and knelt down to pry open the panel underneath the helm. Just as she revealed the inner workings of her ship, the lights went out and her ship immediately powered down, the only sounds she could hear in the pitch abyss were the air-flow regulator, which was now running on emergency backup, and her own racing heart. If this was a malfunction, it couldn't have come at a worse time, but if it was something else...
Jani reached up to secure her helmet and engaged her suit's defense system, preparing herself for the worst case scenario. Carefully, she flipped her wrist to activate her omni-tool in effort to communicate with the AI and the ship. A quick scan revealed that her ship's disabling had been engineered rather than circumstantial, and further, that there was a program interfering with her ship's functions.
'A firewall…' she realized. The worst case had become her reality, and it was evident that she had gotten trapped in a security net. She looked around at her remaining options, her distress beacon was her only hope of getting rescued, but that would defeat the purpose of entering the system under stealth. Waiting for the Spectres to arrive was her only option if she was going to make her death worthwhile. She needed to ensure that everything she records is backed up on a network that cannot be deleted or tampered with.
On her omni-tool was a copy of Betty Blue, but to keep it running constantly would utilize the capacity of her omni-tool's resources, and quite inconvenient as omni-tools have omnipotent uses, but it the only way to ensure that her death would have any meaning from this endeavor she had committed to. She modified the codes which previously uplinked to her bioscanners to transmit a farewell message to her mother upon her reading her death, allowing the AI to maintain constant connection with her private server all of her sensory readings and data feeds.
Just as she completed inputting the commands, she felt a buzzing in her ears, a burning behind her eyes, and her head began to feel heavy as if saturated in thick hot oil. She bent over in pain, both hands cradling her head… "What…what is this? Ahh!" she shrieked.
The searing pain was familiar, yet unlike anything she had ever experienced, at least not directly. A memory surfaced from a sharing-meld with an older asari in college who had fought on Thessia in the Reaper War, and immediately she realized exactly what was happening. "This is…indoctrination…oh no…NO…it…can't…" she gasped, tears welling at the corners of her eyes, the pain intensified. The shock of her realization and the vice strangling her mind, was too much for the young asari, and a numbing darkness embraced her.
'Ugh, my head…I…I am not dead…' she realized, regaining consciousness. Her senses were tuning in to her surroundings though apprehension and fear, and she slowly opened one eye to discover what hell she had gotten herself into. The lights were dim and she was lying on a military-style bunk in a grey room, 'A prison?' she pondered. She listened for a moment, looking around, taking in her situation, and when she was satisfied that she was in the room alone, she pushed herself up on the bed. Her helmet and the plate weave of her armor provided resistance and she flipped down her visor to see the interface's scan over her body. She saw that her weapons and equipment were still attached. 'Reapers don't care if you have your weapons…Reapers don't let you keep your mind and body either though…what in the name of the Goddess is going on here?'
She attempted to stand up, but a rush of pain to her head swiftly reminded her to slow down, whatever had happened aboard her ship was having lingering effects. She decided to do a brief meditation to regain her balance, and to establish mental clarity for reinforcement of her biotic barriers. No matter the leaps in technology, the mental fortitude of the asari was unmatched in terms of monitoring and focusing on the body once her meditation skills were mastered. She took off her helmet and assumed her meditation posture, and after a few moments of purposeful breathing techniques, she felt her body finding equilibrium between the physical pain and the introduction of relief.
A brief respite of mental clarity allowed her to detect the discrete scent of rainfall, and she pulled herself from the shallow meditation, 'I'm planet-side? Did they take me onto Aeia?' She opened her eyes and pushed herself up once more, the pain from her headache ever-so subtle. On her approach toward the exit, she tested her omni-tool to check if Betty Blue was still running in order to engage override protocols, but to her surprise, the door hummed open immediately upon her activation of the motion sensors. Things were suspiciously too easy, but if her AI was still streaming data, she was determined to push her luck as far as it would go.
Jani peeked out of her room, no one seen, but the sounds of voices chatting on an open platform at the right-end of the hallway meant she was not as alone as she had hoped. She turned left, and followed the sterile corridor to the end where she came upon an open stairwell, and with her tactical cloaking activated, she descended down eight flights of stairs. When she emerged from the facility she found herself on the lower end of a hillside, her armor protecting her from the elements while she paused to take in the magnitude of this 'Spectre facility', the darkness and rain doing little to mask the size of the complex that was stretched out before her.
She heard the sound of boots clacking on the stairwell behind her, and took that as her cue to continue. Across from her was a transportation tram, so she slipped inside and initiated the 'return' sequence, not knowing where it would take her, but hopefully somewhere important enough to require a tram. The vehicle lifted off, and she watched as the city sprawled beyond the horizon, seeming more like an enterprise of innovation and technology, on par with that of any metropolis in the galaxy, than a top-secret military installation. 'How could this possibly go unknown? Nothing like this has ever been reported from the Rosetta Nebula…is The Citadel behind all this?' she considered with disbelief.
When she realized that her destination, a towering skyscraper, was rapidly approaching, she ducked down behind a seat. Within moments, the tram came to a stop inside a docking station. Guards clad in heavy armor with matching weapons were patrolling the entryways, and even with the best stealth she could muster, she knew that it would be impossible to sneak past them without being detected by the tech that came standard with that kind of heavy armor.
She filled her lungs through her nose and accepted that she would be required to utilize her atomizing projector and pray to the Goddess that nothing goes wrong. Particalized movement is dangerous, even in controlled laboratories, but it was for moments like this that she had procured this highly illegal and experimental tech anyway.
She entered the commands through her suit's port for the projector to initiate and begin scanning the environment for a destination to atomize. To ensure that she rematerialized in one piece, this required that her route must be without overt interference in order to prevent the obstruction of particles. Betty Blue's scans revealed that there was an air ventilation shaft underneath the platform that led to access of an entire floor in the building which was devoid of life signatures.
She reinitialized her cloaking system, which she knew could only deflect detection for a matter of seconds, and wisps of biotic energy swirled around her feet to quiet them as she crawled out the back of the vehicle in order to access the ventilation shaft. With the flick of her wrist, the projector's homing beacon ejected to scout ahead, and upon arrival would give her the go-ahead to atomize.
The heavy steps of a guard moving across the platform told Jani that they were suspicious. She bit her lip, anxiously awaiting the signal from her beacon, holding her breath in anticipation, her stomach clenched, seconds feeling like minutes, finally the indicator on her omni-tool flashed with the notification to begin atomization.
Without a moment's hesitation, she engaged the atomizing projector. A hot numbness flushed through her and before her sensory register could determine whether she was in pain or ecstasy, she rematerialized in the predetermined destination. Jani sunk to her knees and unknowable emotions flooded from her eyes, she wept, though it wasn't for happiness or grief, rather from something deeper, she was alive and her body had just been torn apart by the atomic structure and put back together in the same exact condition.
When she composed herself and brought her attention back to her reality, nothing could have prepared her for what she would see. Rather than revealing an office dedicated to a legion of covert operatives, laid out before her was evidence of the most legendary of them all, Shepard.
She found herself in a large room filled with memorabilia from the life of Commander Shepard, with photos, medals, model space ships, and unique artifacts lining the walls. The dark room was lit by the ethereal glow of a fish tank, and it illuminated a desk facing a massive window, overlooking the vast complex.
Jani rose to her feet, ignored the Commander Shepard shrine, and she rushed to the desk to plunder for anything that would explain the esoteric presence of this secret place in the reaches of the galaxy.
She took a seat in the desk's executive chair, and when she did, a holographic AI appeared. "You are not authorized to access this console. How can I help you?" the coarse electronic voice asked.
Somewhat startled, but not panicking yet, Jani replied, "I need you to tell me what this place is?"
The AI answered, "Your authorization credentials are prohibited from accessing that information. Please try another inquiry."
"What can you share with me?" she growled, beginning to consider that she may need to hack the console through her own AI.
"This console has permissions to provide non-classified information to unauthorized users." The AI explained.
Logic dictated that her presence wouldn't go undetected much longer, and she needed to obtain any shred of evidence that she could find, "Very well, show me a list of entries which I may access." she finally conceded.
The AI's virtual interface revealed a long list of entries, mostly small files, but as she scrolled, one stood out, it was a massive file named ' '. Her eyebrow arched, 'Maybe this will explain the Shepard museum, and what the hell is going on here.' She selected the file, and the AI manifested a hologram of Commander Shepard, arms crossed and leaning against the wall beside her. Jani was stricken with Shepard's god-like aura, even represented as an electronic copy, then Shepard began to speak.
