Spectres 1
Shepard was alone in the cargo hold when the shuttle arrived. She'd lined up a row of targets against one wall, and now - standing sixty feet away on the other side of the hold - she knocked them down again, one by one. Blue light flickered in the cargo hold as her fingers flexed through familiar mnemonic patterns. When all the targets were down, she walked back over, picked them back up, and started again.
They'd been far out in the Traverse when they'd picked up the message, sent straight from the Citadel only a few hours earlier. Encrypted tight-beam communication, highest priority, direct to the Captain's terminal. Corinthus had ordered the ship to change course as soon as he'd read it. At the start of her shift, Shepard had been preparing to lead a raid on a company of smugglers with ties to the Terminus Systems. Instead she stood alone in the cargo hold, she knocked down targets, she picked them back up, and started again.
All Shepard had been told at first was that the Resolute would be intercepting an elcor ship that had left the Citadel days earlier. The Wisdom of the Ancients was a merchant vessel, heading back to Dekuuna. It was only shortly before they reached her that Captain Corinthus explained they'd be picking up a Council agent who'd hitched a ride on that ship.
Alone in the cargo hold, Shepard frowned at the memory, and the next target fell back a little further than the others.
It was that Council agent's shuttle that had just arrived. Even now, the agent was heading to Corinthus's quarters to speak to him in person. No doubt he would have more orders as well.
Shepard had a feeling the Captain wasn't happy about his orders, but he was a good turian. Obeying orders was what he did, and he wouldn't complain - not to his superiors, and not to his subordinates - if he thought those orders were wrong. Shepard wasn't any sort of turian, but she was trying to be good. If the Hierarchy thought playing escort for a Council bigwig was more important than cracking down on a smuggling ring, then who was she to disagree? Who was she, if she couldn't follow orders?
A finger twitched out of turn and one of the targets fell to the floor in pieces. She wouldn't be picking that one up again.
I am my thoughts, she recited to herself. When I think clearly, I act on the world. When my thoughts are unclear, the world acts on me. It had been one of her first instructor's favourite mantras. The same instructor had also told her repeatedly that talent without practice was talent wasted. And so, when she wanted to focus her thoughts and improve her understanding of the world, she practised.
Her biotic amp was a warm presence on the back of her skull. As her fingers twitched and neurons fired, the amp picked up the signals in her brain and strengthened them, until the invisible strands of dark energy that spanned space began to vibrate in sympathy. And as the dark energy swirled around her, blue sparks flew through the air and targets fell, one by one. She walked across the cargo hold again, picked up the remaining targets, lined them up against the wall, and started again.
A human scientist on Horizon had tried to explain to her that that wasn't how biotics actually worked, once. He'd used phrases like 'quantum tunnelling', 'primordial isocurvature' and 'boson exchange symmetry'. She'd barely pretended to pay attention. He hadn't been a biotic himself, he didn't understand. He couldn't. This wasn't mathematics or physics, this was something real. It was something she could do well.
(She walked over to the opposite wall. She picked up targets, lined them up in place. She started again.)
Relationships between the turians and the other Council races had grown tense in the twenty-odd years since the remnants of humanity had become a protectorate member of the Hierarchy. She'd even heard mutterings about reviewing the Treaty of Farixen, of potentially restarting a military arms race that had ended when her people had still been sceptical of heavier-than-air flight. Perhaps, she reasoned, the Primarchs felt that doing the Council a few favours, rebuilding bridges with the asari and the salarians, was worth the price of a few more shiploads of red sand crossing the borders into Hierarchy space. And if she thought about it that way for a while, perhaps she'd agree that they were right.
That wasn't how a turian would have thought. A good turian didn't need to reason themselves into following orders. But it was the best she could do.
She flexed her fingers. She knocked down targets. She picked them back up … and she realised that she'd been doing this for the best part of an hour. Her head ached and her stomach growled angrily. Even the thought of the inevitably dreary levo-rations wasn't enough to quell her appetite.
Probably time to call it a day, she thought to herself. She looked back at the targets, lined up against the cargo wall. But then again...
A message flashed up on her omni-tool - the Captain wanted to speak to her. The targets forgotten, Shepard pulled on her uniform jacket, combed her fingers through her hair, and headed to the elevator.
"What can you tell me about Eden Prime?"
Shepard blinked, slowly. The question had come from a young-looking turian she'd never seen on the ship before, just seconds after she walked into the Captain's offices. She looked past him, towards the Captain himself, and raised an eyebrow inquisitively.
"Commander Shepard," the Captain said in greeting from behind his desk. "This is-"
"Vakarian," the younger turian interrupted. "Garrus Vakarian." She'd seen a number of impulsive young turians in her time as an auxiliary, but she'd not seen many look apologetic before. Perhaps it was just her imagination.
"He's a Spectre," the Captain explained.
A Spectre - one of the Council's elite agents. I guess I'm supposed to be impressed, she thought. Most people in Citadel space would go their whole lives without seeing a Spectre in person, rather than on a vid. Most people, but not her.
Besides, Spectres were trouble. She didn't like the thought of having him on board for any longer than necessary.
"Welcome aboard, sir" she said, saluting sharply. She gave the Spectre a second look as she did so, gathering her thoughts.
He was slightly above average height for a male turian, which meant that he towered over her by at least a foot. The visor he wore over one eye suggested he was a marksman. Or at least he wants people to think he's one, she thought. She thought she recognised his dark green armour, too - Armax, maybe. Nothing she'd ever been able to afford. No surprise that the Council kits their agents out with the best, she thought. He looked awfully young for a Spectre, though. The splash of blue on his face made it clear he came from Palaven; she wasn't quite sure how to interpret the rest of it. Something about mourning the passing of an elder relative, perhaps.
"Eden Prime is …" she paused. A relic, she didn't say. An embarrassment.
"You probably know that Eden Prime is one of our oldest colonies," she said instead. "Founded before I was born. It's still one of the most populated worlds in human space."
"The people who live on Eden Prime are -" idiots, she thought, "- traditionalists. They're mostly farmers, agricultural workers. They don't really mix that much with humans on other worlds.
"After First Contact, Eden Prime voted to join the Hierarchy but … it was close." It had in fact been very close. Only an eleventh hour intervention by General Williams, the hero of the Shadow Sea himself, travelling to tour Eden Prime just days before polls closed, had been sufficient to swing it. Or so the experts said, anyway. The General had gone on to become President of the Systems Alliance, only retiring last year. And Eden Prime had gone back to fearing the galaxy and hating its children, she thought bitterly.
She paused, gathering her thoughts. "Sir, what precisely was it that you wanted to know?"
"Just trying to get a sense of the place," answered Vakarian. "We're heading there now."
"Sir," she said, as neutrally as she could. A Spectre could order any ship in Council space to travel wherever they wanted.
"Vakarian can fill you in on the details of his mission," said Corinthus. He nodded to Vakarian, as he stood up from his desk. "Expect to arrive at Eden Prime in three hours. I'll meet you at the shuttle bay when you've put a landing team together."
He walked out of the office, leaving her alone with the Spectre.
"What can you tell me about the ship?" he asked, curiously. "I've heard this is an experimental craft, but I didn't see anything unusual when my shuttle approached."
She nodded. She'd had questions like this from severa visiting turian officers in the past. The words came easier with repetition.
"The Resolute is an experiment, sir, but mostly in terms of personnel. We've got a roughly fifty-fifty split of humans and turians on the crew. The human crew are a mix of pilots, marines, tech specialists and biotics. Like me." She'd found it best to get that out of the way as soon as possible. Though probably a Spectre wouldn't have any problem with biotics. Better safe than sorry, she thought.
"The rest of the crew don't have any objections to serving with biotics?" he asked, curiously.
This was another common question. Traditionally, biotics in the Hierarchy military didn't work side by side with non-biotic units, but in specialist units: Cabals. She'd been a member of one Cabal or another herself between leaving the training camps and before her assignment to this ship.
"The turian crew were all given the option on serving elsewhere if humans or biotics bothered them," she answered. "They've mostly served on other ships before, and they've encountered biotics of other species, mainly asari. None of them have a problem with biotics."
"What about the human crew?" he wondered.
"Human attitudes to biotics are complicated," she admitted. "You probably know there's no real record of biotic abilities among humans before we came into space. Some people, well …"
She trailed off. Probably not very diplomatic to remind the young Spectre that a large section of human society thought biotics were some sort of turian plot to turn her species into obedient space mutants.
"Humans who don't approve of biotics aren't likely to volunteer to be auxiliaries, sir." she said, after a slightly too long pause. And if we're going to Eden Prime you'll meet a few of them soon enough.
He looked thoughtful..
"You know," he said, "There are rumours that the Hierarchy plans to let the Systems Alliance take over planetary defence of the colony worlds. This is a step towards that, isn't it?"
"Could be, sir." she said, cautiously. "I try to leave that sort of thing to the politicians." And I definitely try not to discuss politics with strange turians I've only just met, she pointedly didn't add.
"Anyway," he said, changing the subject. "Eden Prime. You didn't mention anything about the Prothean ruins."
"Protheans, sir?" she asked, confused. Fifty thousand years ago, the Prothean civilisation had filled the galaxy. Though long since vanished, the ruins they'd left behind - the mass relay gates, the space station known as the Citadel, artefacts on Mars and on Menae and on Bira and dozens of other worlds - had been the seeds from which all the galaxy's current space-faring species had grown. But she'd never heard of any Prothean ruins on Eden Prime.
Vakarian seemed to sense her confusion.
"An archaeological team has been working on Eden Prime for some months," he began to explain. "Mostly volus and turian, but also some salarians, a couple of asari. A few days ago the Council lost all contact with them. I've been asked to investigate."
That something might have happened to an archeological team wasn't too surprising. Meddling with the ruins of ancient civilisations could be a dangerous game. The salarians and asari had learned that lesson two thousand years ago, when they'd incautiously opened up a relay directly to worlds controlled by the insectoid armies of the rachni, starting one of the darkest and bloodiest chapters of Council history. But all species had similar cautionary tales, even if not on the same scale. The galaxy was not a safe place, and the relics of dead species were not to be trusted. Some species are dead for a good reason.
"What's the Council's interest in all this?" she asked, puzzled.
"The dig team was sponsored by Kumun Shol," he said. Clearly he expected the name to mean something, but it didn't.
"He's the volus who claims a god told him to begin preparing the galaxy for the arrival of a race of machine -" he began, only to fall silent as she looked back at him blankly.
Shepard had never heard anything about a Kumun Shol before, though she supposed the volus were allowed to have lunatics and troublemakers as much as the next species. Maybe we should have stuck to human politics, she thought wryly. Reluctant as she was to discuss President Petrovsky's policies, at least they'd both heard of the man.
"Kumun Shol is the largest single shareholder in a trading company worth over ten billion credits," the Spectre tried again.
"Ah." she said slowly. Yes, that would do.
"Now," he continued, "From what I've heard of Eden Prime, I figured it would be sensible to bring a human or two along with me. Humans familiar with the planet, if possible, who can take care of themselves if things get messy. Anybody on your crew meet that description?"
She nodded, slowly, trying to hide her unease. "Yes, sir," she said.
"Oh, and …" Now he looked slightly uncomfortable himself. "By the way, Commander, you don't need to keep calling me 'sir'. Vakarian is fine."
"Well then, Vakarian", she said, "Let's go for a walk."
"Oh, come on Jenkins." Samantha Traynor's voice could be heard clearly from the other side of the mess hall. "I know you were here four hours ago, people saw you. We know Nicollier has to eat extra levo-rations because she's a biotic. But what's your excuse? You can't possibly …"
If Jenkins replied, Shepard couldn't hear it. She nodded to Vakarian as they both walked up towards a table in the mess hall where four humans were sitting together. Like most of the human crew they'd chosen to keep their hair cropped short, the better to cope with the high temperatures of a ship designed for to optimise turian comfort. This meant that Shepard's own shoulder-length hair made her stand out almost as much as it had on Palaven. Which was part of the point of growing it, of course.
"... oh, you do!" she heard Samantha laugh. "You actually like them!"
As usual, Traynor was doing most of the talking. According to her records, Sam Traynor had been assigned the role of Communications Specialist on the basis of her outstanding scores in electronics and data analysis, as well as her less than stellar scores in physical training. Privately though, Shepard sometimes suspected that whoever suggested her for the role had simply had a sense of irony.
Right now the target of Traynor's communication skills was Richard Jenkins, originally of Eden Prime. Eden Prime being a traditionalist world, neither he nor Jennifer Nicollier, the biotic sitting next to him, had any colonial face markings. Not that Nicollier would go out of her way to advertise her links to Eden Prime anyway, she thought. Rounding up the group was Talitha Komarov, still wearing the ornate triangular patterns that marked her as a child of Mindoir.
As usual, Komarov was slightly more on edge than the others and the first to notice her commanding officer arrive. She snapped out a salute, and the other three were quick to join her.
"At ease," Shepard said, waving them to sit down again. She could tell that the presence of Vakarian at her side confused them slightly, but none of them wanted to be the first to ask.
"This is Vakarian." she said simply. "He's a Spectre."
"A Spectre!" exclaimed Jenkins. He turned to the young woman sitting next to him. Once again Shepard marvelled at the fact that the two Eden Prime natives seemed to have so little in common. Nicollier was quiet and reserved where Jenkins was loud and excitable, short and slim where he was tall and muscled. She was one of the most powerful biotics Shepard had ever met, the only one on the ship she thought it was worth her time sparring with. And she was also, Shepard was reasonably sure, the actual reason Jenkins kept finding excuses to make multiple trips to the mess hall every day.
Nicollier looked at Vakarian with a serious, thoughtful expression as Jenkins treated her to a slightly lurid overview of the history and purpose of the Council's Special Tactics and Reconnaissance branch.
"Spectres don't answer to anyone!" he announced firmly. "They can do whatever they want, kill anyone who gets in their way…"
"We also get a five percent discount at selected retailers across the galaxy" added Vakarian, drily.
"You watch too many spy vids, Jenkins," sighed Traynor.
Jenkins paused in his exposition, considering. "Wait," he said hopefully. "Commander, are you being considered for the Spectres?"
Shepard blinked. "I'm pretty sure I'll be an old woman before the Council starts looking for human Spectres," she said gently. "You won't be getting rid of me that easily."
She knew Jenkins meant well, but the idea was absurd. Asari, turians and salarians became Spectres. Members of species that the Council wanted to keep close. Not species with a total population in the millions, no organised military of their own and not even a home world anybody could find on a map.
"Well," said Jenkins seriously, turning to address Vakarian. "You should consider the Commander. She's a biotic, a good one, and she's a war hero too. Ask anyone. And did she tell you about the time she took down a thresher maw, on foot? "
Oh, Spirits, thought Shepard, Now this is embarrassing. It was especially mortifying to see the normally sensible Nicollier nodding along. She hoped Traynor and Komarov weren't doing the same thing.
"I've read the Commander's service files," said Vakarian simply.
You have? thought Shepard, puzzled. When did you find the time to do that? She hadn't let him out of her sight since they'd met in the Captain's offices. She filed that away as a mystery for another day.
"Vakarian's just here looking for somebody to show him around Eden Prime," she insisted firmly. "Jenkins, since you're from Eden Prime yourself I thought that you'd be the right man for the job."
As she'd expected, Jenkins' face practically lit up at the suggestion.
"Now," she said, turning to the others. "I-" Her stomach, rumbling loudly, chose that moment to remind her that the energy she'd expended in the cargo hold earlier would have to be paid back somehow.
"Um." Komarov cleared her throat nervously. "With all due respect, ma'am, have you eaten today?"
Oh, she thought. She hadn't, of course - she'd been meaning before the Captain's message, but she'd been distracted.
"You told us to remind you if you forgot." the shuttle pilot said reprovingly. "And you did forget, didn't you?"
"I did indeed," said Shepard, slightly abashed. In truth, she'd mostly asked Komarov to remind her in an attempt to get the shuttle pilot to relax a bit more around her. Shepard knew what some people on Mindoir thought about her, about her actions on Torfan four years ago. Knowing where she was from, she'd not been surprised that Komarov had been so awkward when they first met.
But it was true that she'd forgotten, and she did need to eat something soon. She was toying with the idea of just asking the Spectre to wait with her in the mess hall while she ate when, surprisingly, Private Jenkins came to her rescue.
"I volunteer to show Vakarian around the ship, ma'am!" he said, clearly trying his best his to stifle his excitement at getting to talk to a real, flesh and blood Spectre.
"I … well," she turned to Vakarian. "If you don't mind?"
He shook his head slowly. "Honestly, I could do with a bit of sniper practice," he said. "Not much chance of doing that on an eclor ship, but I'd hoped that here…"
"Jennifer and I can show him to the shooting range," said Jenkins, eagerly. Ah, so it's 'Jennifer' now, I see, she noted to herself.
"Well, then." Shepard said. "We'll be making planetfall in two and half hours. Vakarain, I'll come and find you once the shuttle's ready."
Jenkins saluted and practically bolted out of his chair. He and Vakarian headed towards the shooting range, Jenkins breathlessly asking questions about his rifle - a Mantis, apparently - his training regime, and whether he'd ever been to see the Council at the top of the Citadel Tower. Nicollier hung back for a moment, looking towards Shepard with a worried look on her face.
Komarov turned to say something to Traynor, who laughed softly and whispered something back to her in turn. Shepard excused herself and went over to speak to Nicollier.
"Don't worry," the Commander said softly, "I think you can sit this one out."
Nicollier looked relieved, for a moment, but then she looked back over her shoulder at the departing Jenkins.
"He'll be okay," said Shepard, confidently. "We'll be back before you know it."
Nicollier followed Jenkins and the Spectre out of the mess hall, and Shepard turned back to look at Komarov and Traynor.
"Now," she said, "I do need to grab something to eat, but when I'm done let's see if we can get a shuttle kitted out."
"Trust me," she heard, as she walked up to the shooting range two hours later. "If you could shoot half as well as me, I'd have heard of you."
Looks like our Spectre is winning hearts and minds already, she thought. She recognised the voice of the turian who started protesting as well. Sometimes young male turians were very predictable.
Having a shooting range on board a ship, with only a few thin sheets of metal protecting them from the vacuum of space, had always seemed like a bad idea to her. But the ship-generated mass effect fields meant that no bullets would actually leave the range, any stray shots being instantly frozen in place as they crossed an invisible barrier. Still, she'd never spent much time in here herself. It wasn't her skill with a pistol that the Hierarchy valued.
"Sidonis, I see you've met our guest," she said as she entered the range.
She waved him to ease as the ship's gunnery officer turned to give a startled salute. Nicollier and Jenkins were both still there as well, she was relieved to see. We wouldn't want the Spectre walking around entirely without an escort.
"I think Li wanted a word, if you've got a minute," she lied, smoothly. Lilihierax, the ship's chief engineer, would find something for the younger officer to do once Sidonis arrived. And it gave her an excuse to break things up here without drawing attention to what she was doing.
"Making friends already, Vakarian?" she asked archly once Sidonis and the other two crew members had left. Not for the first time, he seemed embarrassed, mandibles working silently. Some turians are lucky they don't blush, she thought to herself.
"I think we're ready to go," she said. "The landing team will be you, me and Privates Jenkins and Komarov."
"Komarov," he said, clearly trying to match the name to one of the people he'd met earlier. "Is she another biotic?"
"Shuttle pilot," she explained, shaking her head. "Nicollier won't be coming with us."
"Oh, I thought .." he sounded uncertain. "Maybe two biotics would be more useful?"
"Why?" Shepard asked lightly, trying to deflect. "I thought this was a simple reconnaissance mission. Expecting trouble?"
"I always expect trouble," he replied, almost instantly. She tried her best not to roll her eyes. I'm pretty sure he's practiced that line to himself in a mirror, she thought. Probably more than once. Once again, she found herself wondering just how young he was.
"Do you have any family, Vakarian?" she asked instead.
"I …" he paused, and she remembered trying to interpret his face markings earlier in the day. "Yes. A sister. Younger than me."
"And you'd do whatever it took to protect her, right?" she demanded, not waiting for an answer.
"My family - my birth family, I mean - all died when I was young," she continued "I couldn't protect them. But this crew … I can protect them. And I will. Not from everything - we're soldiers, and sometimes soldiers die. But I can protect them from themselves. I know what their limits are, how hard I can push them. If somebody ordered Nicollier down to Eden Prime, she'd go. But that wouldn't be a good idea."
She paused, drew a breath.
"Like I said earlier, on Eden Prime people are traditionalists. On most human worlds, when parents realise that their children have biotics they're sensible about it. They might not be happy, they might start talking about eezo exposure, corporate malpractice, lawsuits… but they're sensible. And the sensible thing to do to help a young biotic is to send them to a turian training camp, so they can learn to use their abilities safely, without hurting themselves or the people they care about. Most auxiliary biotics start out that way, in fact.
"On Eden Prime, they don't send biotics to turian-run training camps. Not if they can help it. They don't send them to training camps at all. Officially, they've signed treaties saying that they will. Officially, the number of biotic children born on Eden Prime is just unusually low. But unofficially…"
She shook her head.
"Jennifer was thirteen years old when her family decided she needed to be fixed. She spent six months in an illegal treatment centre out in the backwoods somewhere. Six months and three days, to be precise. That's how long it took her to break out and sneak on board a ship heading out to Horizon. She still doesn't talk about that time, but she's gotten better. When she first arrived on Horizon she didn't talk at all. She didn't use her biotics without crying until she was fifteen. Didn't sleep with the lights off, either." Shepard hadn't known Nicollier then, hadn't been on Horizon when she arrived. She'd only read the reports later.
"So, Vakarian" she said flatly, trying to sound as final as possible. "If I say she's not going back to Eden Prime, she's not going."
She'd said a lot more than she'd intended to. She hadn't realised how long it had been since she had somebody to talk to who wasn't in her chain of command. Maybe those counselling sessions the Systems Alliance used to organise weren't such a bad idea after all, she mused. It might have just been bad luck that the counsellor she'd been assigned was an idiot.
She hoped Vakarian wouldn't try to assert his authority as a Spectre here. Technically, of course, if he wanted Nicollier to come to Eden Prime, then that was what would happen. They were in Council space, after all, and this was a ship of the Hierarchy. But she hoped he wouldn't.
"Understood, Commander." he said quietly, after a few moments. She wanted to say something in reply - to thank him, maybe - but she couldn't put it into words.
They walked down to the shuttle bay in silence.