.

(2)

Arcturus

Whatever or where-ever 'Arcturus' even was, Ilena Thanoptis wasn't sure, exactly but that was the name of the place. She hadn't gotten any sort of good look at it on the flight over, so who knew if it was a space station or a ground-base or a settlement or what. They had pretty much marched her right off the ship and into a holding cell they called a room. Annoyingly, Daro'Xen, better known as 'Buckethead,' had also been escorted away… to a private meeting. Well, that was fine. Who needed private meetings anyway!

Anyway, Arcturus.

As far as Ilena could tell, it was mostly one big lab.

One exceedingly huge lab.

Basically, it was like her sister Rana's paradise or something. Escorted over, she had seen her first humans walking around bereft of their armor. They were, just as expected, pretty darn asari-like. Moreso than any other species Ilena could recall seeing or hearing about. It reminded her of the crazy old stories about horny Green-Skinned Space Hunks from Piares. Back when Asari hadn't even discovered that Piares was just a lifeless desert planet, many asari had believed that there were aliens living there with extraordinary powers and that they had visited Thessia in ancient times… mostly to get laid, but also to build the occasional pyramid. Actually, why not have both?

Humans reminded her of that. Except they were mostly peach, and a few sorta brown, and one was really dark black. So no green! It was so weird.

"Am I done, yet?" she asked, lowering her arm after another biotic push. She was also without her old mercenary hardsuit. Like her omnitool, it had been confiscated. That left only her biotic amp, which, it turns out; the humans had wanted to run tests on.

"Yes, I believe that is sufficient. Come on out."

The humans spoke with a strange accent, but she was one of the humans in charge of the sprawling lab facility. Not like you could easily tell just by looking at her. There were no tattoos or facial paint to mark her rank. She wore the same white and drab-green coat as every other human working here. Among krogan, probably even bookish learny-types of krogan, the big ones were usually the oldest and the ones in charge. This human was probably one of the shortest Ilena had seen, so size clearly wasn't much of a factor. On the other hand, she had some very pretty short brown hair.

"Hey, look who's here!" Ilena caught sight of another familiar face. Or at least she thought it was a familiar face. It was more like a familiar mask. She bolted over to the quarian. "Buckethead!"

"Don't even think about it." Daro held up a three-fingered hand to block the attempted hug. "And don't call me Buckethead, Idiot."

"I will if you stop calling me an Idiot. Buckethead."

Daro'Xen sniffed disdainfully. "A vorcha by another other name would still smell as bad."

"Like you know what anything smells like in there." Ilena finger-flicked the quarian's visor. Grinning at the fuming quarian woman – once a captive, but now free of her cuffs and restraints – Ilena faced the human woman standing a short distance away. She had a sort-of omnitool of her own and was tapping away at it. The result was a detailed series of scans projected into the air around the woman.

"Did you get what you wanted?" Ilena asked her.

"Ah, yes. These results are quite extraordinary." The brown-haired human declared with the sort of introverted glee to make a salarian geneticist proud. "Not only is it pleasure to have a cooperative biotic specimen, for once, but one with existing training! This exactly what we were looking for."

"Doctor Vahlen," Daro'Xen said, also taking in the data floating through the air in holo-form. "Those are scans of eezo nodules, aren't they? But the resolution is incredible…"

"We have 'experience' in mapping out and constructing micro-structures," Vahlen replied, her eyes never leaving the data stream. "Your biotic abilities are intriguing, and while the underlying mechanism for their use is well characterized, so far every biotic we have studied has had a structurally different node-network. Not just different across species, but different even in otherwise identical subjects. Traditional exposure in-utero to induce biotics is both undesirable and inefficient. In order to be reproducible, we need a template E-Zero node-network that can be produced reliably via MELD."

Ilena crossed her arms and nodded slowly. "I see. Yes."

"Did you understand even half of that?" Daro growled.

"Three-fourths," Ilena answered with a shrug.

Daro'Xen shook her head and brushed past her fellow alien. "So that's what they had you doing…"

"What about you?" Ilena asked. It had been a little while since they were last together, back on the human ship. "I guess you found out what they want you for?"

"I will be working here." The quarian swept her hand towards the lab complex that stretched out before them. It was just one level of several devoted to research, but just this one was already sizeable. It was a long rectangular bay, three stories tall and wide-open in the center. The other floors were built around the central square and branched off into different wings.

"They have a research division working on arc throwers to combat the geth," Daro explained. "Once we finish with that, I think I can also find some fascinating work being done in cyberwarfare and cybernetics. Though I think these humans also want to groom me to be their way into opening relations with the Migrant Fleet..."

"The Migrant Fleet?" Ilena asked. "Why, though? Like you said, they don't use mass effect stuff. Why bother?"

"Idiot," Daro hissed. "I said, or I meant, that they don't rely on mass effect technology. 'Rely.' I believe they still plan to make use of it, and maybe even the relay network, but only once they feel it is safe."

As an asari, Ilena felt she had to stand up for the system her species had spearheaded. "It's perfectly safe!"

"Safe to use, yes, but crawling – infested even – with other races…" Daro'Xen chuckled. "We quarians were also rather cautious about contacting aliens, did you know that? But we ultimately had no choice. There was no alternative to mass effect technology. So, despite our reservations, we used it and ended up meeting your people… and the turians and the salarians. We thought we had found friends and allies. I doubt many quarians then knew you would abandon us to extinction at the hands of the geth. I doubt many quarians then knew you would turn us into outcasts and pariahs, without a home of our own."

Ilena wasn't sure what to say to the angry young quarian.

"Yeah, our bad," she muttered, shrugging.

Daro'Xen did not seem amused.

"Yes, your bad," she agreed, after a second or two, but even her annoyance quickly ebbed away as she considered the future. "The humans don't want to reveal themselves just yet. I can understand their caution. Better yet, I can use it… the quarian people can use it! With the gifts the humans can give me – give us, us I mean – the possibilities are endless! No quarian will ever return from a pilgrimage with a greater gift then I will. Maybe even a seat on the Board itself won't be out of the question!"

She said it softly and tapped her fingertips together, "Admiral Xen… yes, I like the sound of that."

"I think you're over-reacting," Ilena said, her eyes drawn to the brown-haired human's holograms and the outlined network of eezo nodes that made Ilena the awesome biotic commando she was. "Things aren't close to that bad. What do the humans have to hide from everyone else?"

Her eyes were definitely not also drawn to the human's rear, as nice as that also was.

"Over-reacting, really?" Daro asked, and even through the opaque helmet, it seemed she was rolling her eyes. "These humans have technology the likes of which no one has seen in Citadel Space. How many hours do you think will pass between first contact – when everyone else learns what they suddenly don't have but always wanted – and when the salarians get it into their heads to start plotting to send STG teams to steal as much as they can get away with? How long before your turian friends see the threat of a new potential enemy and start throwing their weight around? That isn't even getting into what they can do with their minds and the fear that will cause, especially among your people, asari. Do you really think these humans, more advanced than we are in many fields, will accept being a junior member of your Citadel without representation on the Council?"

Daro'Xen was ticking off her arguments on her fingers.

"From what you've seen of their secretive nature, do you think they'll let Spectres stomp around their space and on their ships? And how long before your former friends among the raiders and slavers start pouring in from the Terminus Systems? You can't expect them to want to throw themselves into the mess you Citadel species made without testing the waters first. Like it or not, there are some real pros to never opening that proverbial airlock."

"Yeah… alright, maybe… but you have to admit you have a pretty biased way of looking at it," Ilena argued, pointing at the young quarian engineer.

"My account may be a little colored by quarian history and experiences, I'll admit," Daro'Xen replied, unashamed of that fact. "But just like we were ostracized and ultimately abandoned due to our research into the geth, and our way of life, how do you think the Council will react to a species that has violated those same taboos? A species that has even genetically engineered and re-invented itself?"

Before Ilena could ask what she meant, Daro pointed to Doctor Vahlen.

"That human there," she said, lowering her voice a little. "She doesn't look it, but she's two hundred years old."

"So?"

"Most species aren't like you… or the krogan," Daro'Xen reminded her. "We don't live hundreds of years, and certainly not without some physical sign of aging. Look at that human over there, and that one." She pointed to a few other busy humans around the lab. "They all look around the same age, provided humans have the same signs of age that most species, even asari, do. That's just the obvious change they've made to themselves. Who knows what else has been done under the surface?"

"Come on, they probably just age slowly, like us." Ilena grinned and placed her hands on her hips. "Or they have weird bodies, like the krogan. See? Simple explanations! No need for crazy conspiracies about-"

"We don't age anymore," Doctor Vahlen interrupted, despite still being busy interacting with her new research.

"Wha?"

"Or, to be more exact, our projected lifespans are in the thousands of cycles," she brown-haired researcher continued, engrossed in her work but not so much that she couldn't overhear the conversation the aliens had had. "And, yes, this is due to genetic engineering. Miss Xen and I have already discussed using our expertise to alleviate the suffering of her people. I already have a team looking into what a larger research effort would require."

"There you go," Daro chimed in.

"Thousands of cycles?" Ilena asked, cupping her right ear with her hand. "Did I hear that right?"

"Thousands of your cycles, yes," Vahlen repeated. Using her finger, she called up the holographic projection of another human. "You'll have to excuse us. Miss Xen? I'd like to introduce you to a colleague of mine."

"Of course," Daro'Xen complied, sounding rather quite chipper with her new circumstances.

Someone's pilgrimage had certainly taken an unexpected turn.

"Try not to do anything stupid and get killed, Idiot," Daro said in passing as she walked away.

"Try not to marry your omnitool, Buckethead!" Ilena called back to her.

Another familiar looking human, meanwhile, had entered the lab and started walking over, wearing a white and gray uniform with a definite and distinct military trim.

"Anna," Doctor Vahlen said as she passed the other woman.

"Doctor," Annabel Shepard replied, politely, dipping her head as she passed Vahlen, her hands in her pants pockets. She walked up to Ilena and held out her hand.

"Err." Ilena stared at the hand for a second, before sticking out her own. "Hand-shake! See? I have been paying attention."

"That you have," Shepard agreed, shaking the asari's hand gently. "I trust my grandmother wasn't too hard on you? She used to do interrogations back in the day."

"Nah! She was as sweet as a salarian polliwog. Wait! Grand…?" Ilena gaped for a second, craning her neck to catch one last parting look at Vahlen and Daro'Xen as they left. Mostly at the former, and to be more exact, mostly the former's cute butt. "You meant that literally? Aww! I was ogling your grandmother! Aww!" Ilena gagged. "That's like checking out someone's Matriarch!"

"As in a Matriarch I'd Like to F-"

"Like that," Ilena cut her off with a shudder. "Wait!" She poked the human in the chest, at the collar. "You aren't some old grandmother, too, are you?"

Annabel Shepard raised an inquisitive eyebrow at her. "Maybe."

"You are!" the former commando exclaimed, shaking her head. "I've changed my mind. You humans are more like krogan than asari. Why were you so interested in my biotics, anyway? I remember back on that ice planet-"

"That wasn't biotics," Shepard interrupted her. "I don't have any eezo in my body."

"So you did that without eezo?" Ilena asked, now even more confused than normal. "Without biotics? I mean, I guess I never heard of anyone doing… what you did to Commander Sederis… but I'd just assumed… I thought you were an asari at the time, so maybe it was some sort of mind meld, but you have to touch someone for that, so… what was it?"

Ilena narrowed her eyes at the human as one terrible possibility presented itself. "Are you a wizard?"

"We call it psionics," the Lieutenant answered, deadpan. "Another reason for our exploration of Citadel Space is to identify if any other races have the same psionic potential we do."

"Well look no further!" Ilena declared, pointing proudly at herself with her thumb. "Your long search has ended! I can meld with you! Sure! Just light some candles, buy me dinner, put on some mood music…"

"Let's not." Lieutenant Shepard motioned for her to follow. "Anyway, we can talk more about psionics later. For now, take a walk with me."

"Are we headed for an airlock?"

"No."

"You're not going to dump me out in space now that you don't need me?"

"No."

"…is this a date?"

"NO."

"Batarians?" Ilena asked, staring up at the holo-map.

It showed known relay routes near Terminus Space and the Batarian Hegemony. Notably, it did not show where human space was, but it didn't take a genius to guess it had to be close by. Which only left a billion or so possible stars where she could currently be… provided Arcturus was even in human space. It could just as easily be in the middle of space or around a rogue planet or in the middle of a gas giant or underwater on an ice moon. Lots of people built secret bases on ice moons.

"One of our ongoing operations in Citadel Space is to deal with the Batarian Hegemony," Anna Shepard explained, taking a seat at the long table that dominated the conference room. "We'd rather not have a hostile power in this region of space, and as something of a rogue nation, the Hegemony also makes for a useful foothold into the rest of the galaxy. Let's see… this is the star, right here."

She pointed in the rough direction of the star chart, and one highlighted in yellow.

"This is the Indris System. We've done some work supporting a local insurgency that has recently taken over the planet and the eezo mines and refineries there. I've been told they're poised to take over the entire star system. We want this to be the beginning of the end for the Hegemony, the Batarian caste system, and their slave markets."

"What does this have to do with me?" Ilena asked, feeling a little out of her element. This wasn't the hot date she'd sort of been hoping for... if only to feed her ego.

"You've noticed that we try and impersonate asari when we go out into the field," Shepard reminded her.

Ilena nodded. "You do look at lot like us with a suit on."

"We're reaching the limits of what we can do with just disguised operatives and… other things," Annabel admitted to her, though it also sounded a bit rehearsed. Maybe she was just giving the pitch for someone else? And there it was. "Central wants to see if you can be used to be the front-woman for a group we've considered forming. Since we can't show our faces publicly, that's what you'll be for. All it takes is one of us actually being an asari for the rest of us to pass off as them. We can fool bioscanners more easily than the mark-one eyeball."

"So basically I just pretend I'm in charge so you can work in the background?" Ilena asked, sitting down as well as the holomap floated overhead.

"Basically," Shepard answered, and then added, almost as an after-thought, "You'll be wealthy and powerful."

"Hmmm. I like wealthy," Ilena replied, holding out her hands, palm up, as if testing the weight of something. "Oh. And I like powerful, too. In fact, wait! Those are two of my favorite things! Throw in some more of that 'schnitzel with noodles' I had the other day and I'm your girl!"

The lieutenant smirked. "I had a feeling you'd be receptive."

"That and I'd rather not dwell on what you'd do with me if I didn't make myself useful," Ilena pointed out. "So: what's this front you want me to pretend to be in charge of?"

"A Private Security Group about to make their mark on the soon-to-be batarian civil war," Shepard answered. "We're thinking of calling it Eclipse."

"These are lies of course. Simply lies. I blame the ones on the extranet who speculate without knowing – without having any real intelligence or information – they are deceptive. I will say this one more time, so it is clear to all. We continue to hold the spaceport. We have Ujon and we have restored order to all but an insignificant part of the city. There are NO rebels there. There are NO rebels in the Hegemony! What we have heard of is merely the work of a small number of malcontents, pirates and terrorists."

The news vid of the Hegemony's Department of Information Control's Vice-Minister smoothly skipped forward. Just like before, the gold-skinned batarian seemed both unflappably arrogant and perpetually angry, scowling at the camera and the handful of Citadel journalists who had the rare honor of being invited into the Hegemony to ask about 'pressing affairs' within the secretive state. This time, his well-dressed ire was directed at yet another member of the audience.

One that wasn't a "reporter" for the Department of Information Control.

"What have I told you?" the vice-minister barked, angrily pounding his podium, maybe wishing it was actually the head of some nosy foreign journalist. "The rebels do not hold the Ujon Spaceport! They do not hold any part of Camala! We slaughtered them in the spaceport. They are out of Ujon International Spaceport. The force that was in the airport, this force was destroyed. Their casualties and bodies were many."

"So there was a major force overrunning the spaceport?" a voice, probably asari, called out.

"Do not repeat the lies of liars. Do not become like them," the vice-minister admonished the unseen reporter, wagging his finger at her. "Once again, I blame troublemakers on the extranet for spreading falsehoods before anyone can ascertain what has taken place. Please, make sure of what you say and do not play such a role."

Another time-skip forward and the vice-minister was now looming over the podium like a simmering volcano, his hands clutching the sides of the platform as if to strangle it. There were little beads of sweat trickling down the ridges over his upper pair of eyes.

"What surrenders? Where did this footage come from?" he asked, accusingly. "I have seen it. Yes. We have seen it. They are batarians, yes, but those are not Hegemony soldiers at all. Where did they bring them from? Where was this elaborate hoax filmed? We will find out. Next question."

He pointed down at the audience.

"Have the terrorists all been destroyed?" the question was asked by a distinctly batarian flavored accent. "Or did some flee?"

"They fled. The louts fled. Indeed, concerning the fighting waged by the heroes of the Internal Security Forces, one amazing thing really is the cowardice of the pirates and troublemakers. We had not anticipated this."

The vid froze as the vice-minister started to pick another reporter, no doubt one of the many there given their questions beforehand and in the employ of Information Control. He clearly looked to have had his fill of the foreigners intruding on his theater…

Pissing in his pool, as the salarian saying went.

"Suffice to say, I hardly need the STG to tell me this is a tightly-coiled load of drak."

Ambassador Soulon retracted his long, thin needle-utensil from the holovid's hepatic pause button. Nimbly twirling it through his fingers, the salarian councilor finally dipped it down into a shallow bowl. The sharpened tip pierced a white, squirming grub and then brought it up into the air. Still squirming, impaled on the needle, it was then dipped in a smaller, shallow bowl of spicy red sauce.

Soulon brought the grub to his lips and placed the whole thing in his mouth, savoring the flavor as he chewed.

"Khar'shan," he mused, but only after finishing his treat. "What a mud hole. I spent four cycles there as part of my service to creche and country. I suppose it wasn't as bad as volunteering to cater to some petty warlord in the Terminus, but it comes close."

Silence greeted his assessment of his galactic neighbor, and the esteemed councilor sighed.

"So," he continued, deftly spinning the ceramic needle between his fingers. "What does the STG have for me today? That I haven't heard on the vids already? Give me something juicy to surprise Tevos and Vitus."

"Councilor, the situation on Camala is much worse than the general population assumes," the response came from a stiff-necked (and for a salarian, a stiff neck was quite a feat) STG operative by the name of Dismet. He was Task Group born and bred, having served only a year in the military before being shuffled off to join the clandestine brotherhood of the STG. Unfortunately, he was still young and apparently incapable of accepting the command to be 'at ease.'

Or maybe his stuffy discomfort came from being in the same room as uncooked valla-worms? Most salarians who could stomach the ammonia-like flavor ate them boiled, or maybe fried and served on a bed of algae with gold sauce. That was how it was done on Sur'kesh, but not on Mannovai. On Mannovai they were eaten raw, and savored for all their aromatic glory. It was all quite heady. That they discomforted salarians from the homeworld was just a minor plus.

"I already know the entire planet has fallen, not just the spaceport," Soulon said, eyes closed as he speared another grub without even bothering to look. "I'm sure Tevos knows it as well. I want something juicy. Juicy. Something the asari don't know yet."

Captain Dismet almost cracked a smile.

"Are the asari aware of the defection of no less than two batarian cruisers?" the operative asked. "Do they have this?"

He held up a data pad, keyed a sequence, and footage of a space battle filled the air. Soulon didn't lean forward, but he did open his eyes and keep them fixed on the scene. The cruiser was a Hansa-class, one of the Hegemony's new modular cruisers. The name on the side read 'Hatre' if Soulon remembered his written batarian… and he did. It was named after one of Camala's cities.

The batarians were not exactly the galaxy's most esteemed shipwrights or sailors. Their fleet was mostly for policing the Hegemony and occasionally disciplining minor powers in the Terminus and Traverse. They had some old dreadnaughts, true, but the only new ships being built were all cruisers and frigates. It suited the Fleet's real mission profile, plus it was far cheaper and more economical for someone on the Hegemony's budget.

The Hansa's were the newest cruiser class, designed to have swappable sections so the same hull could be outfitted for different short or long-term missions. The design wasn't considered all that inspired, despite the premise, with three forward facing mass accelerators already outdated by salarian standards, and a haphazard GUARDIAN array due to the need to make sections of the ship swappable. Still, it made short work of the frigate that tried to engage it.

Soulon munched on another fat grub. "Tell me: the Captain of that ship is…?"

"Grisgo Tak," Dismet answered. "Graduated, Central Naval Academy 2702; part of the international Yahg Contact Expedition, 2705; awarded the Brass Chain for Merit. Executive Officer posting on the Borshak; participated in the capture of a pirate frigate, 2712… Ascended to Captaincy of the Zemeny, 2716; Zemeny decommissioned and sold to quarians, 2724. Oversaw final shakedown of the Hansa, then reassigned to the Hatre. Added a sword to his brass chain with stars. And now, in 2730, he turns his guns on the frigate Borta and joins the Camala rebels."

"Is he a Camala native?" Soulon asked, and just as quickly shook his head. "No. No, too obvious. Hegemony wouldn't post a captain with sympathies close to his home planet. Tak is the name... mountain caste?"

"Correct, sir." Dismet nodded. "Grisgo is part of the mountain caste."

It was the third highest caste in the tiered society of the Batarian Hegemony, below only cloud and heaven. Why would a sentient like that throw his lot in with a bunch of rebelling slaves and servants? Did he think to gain a position of power on Camala? Or had he simply been bought by someone with even greater influence? Hegemony politics were both convoluted and schizophrenic. Salarians as a rule loved deciphering complexity, but not so much when that complexity was driven by emotion and irrationality, two aspects that always seemed to flavor everything batarian.

"You mentioned two ships?"

"The other cruiser is the Idenna. We believe the captain, one Sorth'horo Varat, was killed by his subordinates, who then seized control of the ship. Communications intercepts were, unfortunately, impossible given our resources in-system at the time."

"A shame," Councilor Soulon stated, the tip of his spearing needle again hovering threateningly over his bowl of grubs. He watched again as the Hatre destroyed the Borta.

It was clear that the frigate was about to fire down at the planet's surface.

Had some madman actually ordered a bombardment of the city, even in the throes of rebellion as it was? Soulon found he couldn't exactly fault the Hatre or Captain Grisgo for reacting as they did. A frigate's guns were meager, as starships went, but they could rightly devastate an urban area. There were many ways to deal with riots and protestors, after all. Most didn't resort to orbital bombardment… at least not right away.

"Batarians," he cursed, spearing another grub and then slathering it on hot sauce. "What a mess they've made. So the rebels have the planet, plus two cruisers, plus the orbital infrastructure… which seems essentially intact. I'm starting to get the feeling in my stomach that this isn't something that will blow over. At least not altogether."

"Sir?" Captain Dismet asked.

"We will have to wait and see what the batarian ambassador has to say," Soulon concluded, nipping the head off the grub and spilling a bit of white juice mixed with hot sauce on his lower lip. "The question is if this caste rebellion on Camala will remain localized… or spread. But this information will do, for now. I'm quite certain that even Tevos will be at least a little surprised when I bring this to the table. Is the rest of the report routine, or is there more, Captain?"

"Sir," Dismet said, keying up a hologram of a large yellow-gold gas giant. "This is Hiba, the fourth planet in the Indris system." A cylindrical space station appeared in blue brackets, tiny against the gas giant. There was no zoom, and Soulon had to stare to get a good look at what he was supposed to see there. "What you are looking at is Kaver Station. It was the Hegemony's fortified position in the system. It was the nucleus if their defense of Indris. While Intel is sketchy, we believe there were at least four other ships holding around the station."

"And now?" Soulon prompted, motioning to STG man with his needle.

"Silence, sir." Dismet sounded… upset by that fact. "Total silence."

"Destroyed, then?"

"No, sir," the operative replied, shaking his head. "We believe the station to still be there. Maybe even the ships are there as well. But there have been no signals, no communication, no emissions or activity since the rebellion. There is a gap in our records… we didn't anticipate the Camala situation would explode so quickly and so suddenly… it could be Kaver and the ships there are waiting to see who comes out on top. At this time, we don't know, but it is an anomaly."

"So it is," Soulon admitted, balancing his needle-fork between his two index fingers. "Look into it, would you? Something about this situation on Camala seems… off. I believe someone in the Hegemony is making a power play, and stirring up a Caste War to achieve it. I can't say I dislike the idea, and there are some gains to be made, such as getting our hands on information about that mysterious 'Leviathan' the batarians secreted away, but that part of space is chaotic enough as it is already. As much of a mud hole Khar'shan is, it's our mud hole."