2000 Hours AST, April 13, 2183

Medical Bay, SSV Normandy SR1

Interstellar Space, en route to The Citadel, Widow System, Serpent Nebula

The images flashed before his eyes in a seemingly endless loop. A broken record of horror.

Smoke.

Ash.

Fire and blood.

War, the fighting dissolving into rank butchery almost as quickly as it had begun.

He couldn't begin to say how long he lay there, watching the nightmare repeat itself again and again in a series of discordant flashes.

Burning stars. Burning planets. Burning nations. Burning people.

Synthetics, ruthlessly hunting organics.

Circuitry and wiring invading flesh, molding, tearing, changing.

At some point- he couldn't say when, it might have been after thirty seconds or thirty days or thirty years- the images began to slowly fade, still endlessly repeating themselves. In their wake they left a series of feelings that were nearly as discordant and confused as the images themselves. Regret. Rage. Grief. And underlying them all, warning.

Even when those too faded away, and he gradually became aware that he was lying on a bed of some sort, he remained still for some time more, staring at the inside of his eyelids and trying to impose some order on it all.

It didn't work. Eventually, he surrendered to the inevitable: no matter how much time had passed, no matter where the bed he was lying in was located, he was going to have to get up out of it and rejoin the real world. To that end, he tensed the muscles in his abdomen and back, preparing to sit up, and immediately regretted it. He was sore all over, and a groan escaped his lips. If only rejoining the real world didn't hurt so much.

"Doctor? Doctor Chakwas? I think he's waking up!" The voice of a young woman, vaguely familiar. Shepard's eyes fluttered open, and after a moment he recognized the Normandy's medical bay. He forced himself into a sitting position, ignoring the pain, and leaned back against the headboard of the sickbed.

The sound of a creaking chair turned his head to his left. The Normandy's medical officer, Doctor Karin Chakwas, rose from her desk and walked over to him. A woman of average height with iron gray hair, a kindly face, and an Oxford accent, Dr. Chakwas had been serving the Systems Alliance Navy in various medical capacities for more than thirty years. She had helped treat the first waves of casualties coming into the orbiting hospital ships during the liberation of Shanxi, and now peered down into his face with an expression of some concern. "You had us quite worried for a while there, Commander. You were out for nearly thirteen hours. How are you feeling?"

"Like I was run over by a herd of rhinoceros." And possibly one of those shatha from turian space. "Give it to me straight, Doc. What's the damage?"

"In truth? Nothing major. You have minor bruises and contusions all over from the approximately five hours of combat operations you engaged in on Eden Prime, which will account for any soreness you're feeling, as well as a lightly sprained left ankle from when the beacon dropped you to the ground, which I would advise you to go lightly on for the next day or so. Physically, there is no need for you to remain in this medbay."

"I find that… somewhat hard to believe," Shepard said, wincing at the ache in his side.

"Nevertheless, it is the truth. There is no permanent damage, and you should feel back to normal within the next 48 hours at most." Chakwas peered into his face again, the concerned look still on her face. "But it is not your body that concerns me. I detected highly abnormal beta waves in your cerebral cortex in a pattern normally associated with intense dreaming. There's no telling what information that beacon jammed into your head, and given what happened to it, it may have been defective. What did you see?"

The beacon. The whole point of the op. If something had happened to it, if Jenkins and Nihlus had died in vain… "What do you mean, 'given what happened to the beacon'? Where is it?" Shepard asked, dodging her question for the time being.

"It disintegrated." The terrible words, delivered in the vaguely familiar voice he had heard upon waking up, came from his right. Shepard turned his head and saw the young female Marine from Eden Prime standing there with her eyes downcast. Ashley Williams. She had taken off her pink-and-white medic armor and now wore a set of ill-fitting dark blue casual duty Navy fatigues. "It's my fault. I must've triggered something when I approached it, and you ended up taking the hit." Williams raised her eyes to his, and Shepard saw something uncomfortably close to hero worship in them. "You rescued me. Again."

"No, it's not your fault," Shepard firmly contradicted her. "You had no possible way of knowing that would happen." A faint blush rose in her cheeks. Oh, great.

He was spared the necessity of continuing the conversation by the hiss of the med bay doors opening and Captain Anderson striding in. "Glad to see you're up, Shepard. How're you feeling?" Not giving him a chance to answer, Anderson turned to Dr. Chakwas. "I'm terribly sorry to kick you out of your own medbay, Doctor, but I need to speak with my XO in private. I'll try not to take too long."

"Of course, Captain." Chakwas turned and strode briskly out of the med bay, Williams following on her heels. The door slid shut behind them, and an uncomfortable silence descended over the med bay. Shepard looked around, seeing for the first time the body bags occupying two of the bay's five other beds. One of the bags was clearly stuffed nearly to its breaking point with a non-human form. Jenkins and Nihlus. They recovered the bodies, then.

"Sir," Shepard began, unable to bear the tension, "the beacon-,"

"I caught what you said to Williams as I came in, Shepard. The same applies to you. You had no way of knowing what would happen, and acted to save a fellow soldier in danger. You're a hero as far as I'm concerned, and the beacon's destruction was a terrible accident that couldn't have been foreseen or prevented."

He should have known better than to think Anderson would judge him harshly. The man had been friends with Shepard's parents since before Shepard was born, and had served as a surrogate father to him in his youth after his birth father had died defending Shanxi. When Shepard had joined the Navy himself and entered the Special Operations division, Anderson had mentored him through the brutal training. The man had always looked out for him.

"What matters now, though, is where we go from here." Anderson continued. "I know you're clean of any wrongdoing or incompetence here, Shepard, but we can't count on the Council to see it that way. From their perspective, this mission was an utter catastrophe." Can't say I disagree with that. "The beacon was destroyed, and whatever information it contained almost entirely lost for good. Spectre Nihlus Kryik, one of their best operatives, is dead. And there's the recording you had Lieutenant Alenko take concerning the manner of Nihlus' death."

"He was shot in the back by another turian. Someone named Saren." Shepard remembered.

"Saren Arterius is the most decorated and valuable Spectre currently active. Nihlus was elite, but Saren is as good as it gets. He's the one the Council turns to when the situation is life or death, and we are proposing to accuse him of treason and terrorism. It will be vastly easier and more convenient for the Council to simply blame the incompetent human and let Saren get away with mass murder." A shadow crossed Anderson's face as he said that. "I am telling you this to make sure you are on your guard. We will be docking at the Citadel within the next three hours, and you are undoubtedly going to have to face the Council in person to give your account. Expect a hostile audience."

Shepard nodded soberly. A thought struck him, something to do with a peculiar turn of phrase Anderson had used earlier. "Sir, you said the information within the beacon was almost entirely lost?"

"That's the other main reason for this private interview. I saw Dr. Chakwas' readouts. That beacon downloaded something into your brain before it disintegrated. And I am certain that whatever you saw, Saren saw too, and almost certainly in a more complete form. I need to know, Shepard: what did you see?"

He struggled to find the proper words to summarize the images. "I saw… I'm honestly not sure how to describe it. I saw synthetics slaughtering people, butchering them. War and destruction. It wasn't any miracle technological blueprint like the scientists were probably hoping for, it felt more like… a warning."

"Hmmm." Anderson considered that for a moment, then stood. "Those are the important points we needed to get out of the way here, Shepard. The rest can wait until we get to the Citadel and meet Ambassador Udina. As I said, there's still a few more hours before we make it to the Citadel. Unpleasant as it might be, I advise getting started on the mountain of paperwork that was waiting for you from the moment you became executive officer, and has only become more extensive in the time since. Invading robots or no, Naval bureaucracy will have its due." Anderson moved to leave, but Shepard called after him.

"Sir, I have one more question of my own." Anderson turned to look at him with his eyebrow raised. "Gunnery Sergeant Williams isn't part of the Normandy's crew. What is she doing onboard?"

"She is now, Shepard. She performed to a very high standard on Eden Prime, and we had a vacancy in the Marine detachment with the death of Jenkins. I included my request for her in the mission report to Arcturus Command. Was able to skip the usual red tape that way."

"But-," Shepard searched for an excuse. All of that is true, but I don't need another admirer. "Gunnery Sergeant Williams already has a unit," he offered, fully aware of how lame it was.

Anderson frowned. "The 212th CDR, for all intents and purposes, has ceased to exist, Shepard. I've included the preliminary figures in your inbox, but suffice it to say that Williams' old unit was savaged to the point that it would not have been considered worth reconstituting. She would have been reassigned in any case, and it was both convenient and fitting to take her here." Anderson turned back towards the door of the med bay. "We both have a lot to do and a short time to do it in. I'll see you when we arrive at the Citadel." With that, he strode back out of the door.

Shepard sat on the edge of the bed for a few moments longer, then sighed, painfully got up, and left the med bay as well, passing Dr. Chakwas as she moved back in. He's not wrong. There's a lot that I need to do, quite a bit that I hadn't managed to get done before we entered the Utopia system. He directed his steps to the wardroom.

The Normandy was much too small a warship to have individual quarters for anyone but the commanding officer. The forty naval crewmen shared one set of crew quarters with twenty bunks, the ten officers shared another with five, and the ten Marines had five cots in the staging area. In each case, off-duty crewmen would sleep in the bunk or cot assigned to them and a partner, then hop out when the shifts changed, a practice known as "hot bunking." For office space, the officers had a communal wardroom, which on the Normandy was approximately the size of a walk-in closet. Or just a broom closet, Shepard thought as he entered it.

He sighed again, activated his personal computer, and pulled up the Eden Prime reports. Anderson had, if anything, understated the carnage. Gunnery Sergeant Ashley Madeline Williams had not, as she had feared, been the only survivor of the three thousand Marine 212th Colonial Defense Regiment. She had been one of five, and the only one not either critically injured or found babbling in a hole. The barracks of the 212th had been razed to the ground in the initial geth assault, and with them all of Williams' personal possessions other than her armor, rifle, and field kit. That explains the two sizes too large Navy fatigues. The other two constituent formations of the Fourth Marine Garrison Division had made out better. The 213th, to the northeast of Constant, had taken heavy casualties as well, but enough Marines remained (over 50%) that its ranks would be replenished in due course. The 109th had been on exercise on the other side of the planet and had gone completely unscathed. Civilian casualties in and around Constant, the planet's capital and largest city, were still being tallied, but the final toll was expected to be well north of a hundred thousand.

Shepard drummed his fingers on the edge of the painfully small wardroom table. He was acting unfairly. Williams had indeed fought brilliantly on Eden Prime, there was a vacancy in the Normandy's Marine detachment, and if he was going to be brutally honest, she would be a straight upgrade over Jenkins. She had more than earned a fleet posting. He could not, in fairness, be upset at her for a bit of hero worship either. He'd seen the look on her face when he first introduced himself, and had known exactly why it was there. Elysium. It always comes back to Elysium. Alenko had been awed as well when he realized who the XO was. But Alenko's not going to try to get in my pants.

That was the crux of the matter. To cover up their own failure in allowing the Skyllian Blitz to happen, the brass of the Systems Alliance Navy deflected all of the attention onto him. Humanity's highest honor, the Star of Terra, had been placed around his neck in the central plaza of Illyria, Elysium's capital city, newly renamed in his honor. He had become an instant celebrity. And like all celebrities, he gained admirers. There were women throwing their panties on the stage at the decoration ceremony. Another man might've thought he'd died and gone to heaven; Shepard had been equal parts embarrassed and insulted. He was not the sort of man to take advantage of star-struck fangirls, infatuated with the image the media had created. The Lion of Elysium. The Hero of the Blitz. Accepting employment as a journalist ought to be a capital crime. It had gotten to the point where he deliberately took as little shore leave as possible, the better to avoid the legions of admirers. It might've worked, except the Alliance spread his heroic portrayal within its own ranks as well. To hide their own failures, they had ended up hiding his as well. Everyone knows about Elysium. No one gives a damn about Akuze.

He shook his head. Williams would deal with her crush on him, as well as the issues she had to be suffering from the annihilation of her unit, or she would not. If she could move past the baggage, he had zero doubt she'd be an excellent member of the crew. If not…

He dismissed the Eden Prime report and reluctantly got to work on the mountain of forms awaiting him.

2300 Hours AST, April 13, 2183

Wardroom, SSV Normandy SR1

Citadel Approach, Widow System, Serpent Nebula

The next two and a half hours were tedious in the extreme, but nevertheless productive: Shepard managed to make a fair dent in the various requisition forms, personnel transfer authorizations, and pay packets that had piled up in his inbox in the past 72 hours. It was a relief when Shepard felt the slight lurch in his stomach that always came with transition through a mass relay, and heard Captain Anderson's voice come over the intercom. "We have entered the Widow system and are on course to dock with the Citadel in half an hour. All on duty personnel make ready for docking procedures."

Shepard glanced at the time. 2230 hours. Right on schedule. Space around the Citadel was much too congested to allow for point FTL jumps, so the trip in from the relay would be entirely at sub-light speeds. This would allow him some badly needed time in the shower.

He emerged fifteen minutes later, dripping wet, and changed into a set of fresh fatigues. He then proceeded up the stairs from the crew deck and headed towards the bridge. The various docking clearances would be handled by the captain, and the actual docking by the pilot, so there was nothing for him to have done even if he was actually on duty. This left him free to look out the window and behold one of the most breathtaking sights in the galaxy.

Shepard could see the luminous pink glow through the open doors of the bridge even before he stepped through them, and knew from the excited voices that Williams and Alenko were already there.

"Look at the size of that ship! It must be four times the tonnage of the Aconcagua!"

"Yeah, well, size isn't everything."

"Ooh, why so touchy, Flight Lieutenant?"

The ship in question, the Destiny Ascension, slowly floated past the viewports. The Citadel Defense Fleet was composed of contingents from each of the three Council species, divided equally by tonnage. The Ascension, a superdreadnought bigger by far than any other warship in the galaxy, made up two thirds of the asari contingent by itself. A dozen turian cruisers trailed along after the flagship as it continued its patrol around the mighty space station that now opened up beneath them, backlit by the white glow of the star Widow and the pink mists of the Serpent Nebula.

Shepard knew from a glance at Williams' and Alenko's stunned faces that this was the first time either of them had ever actually been to the Citadel. He himself had been here twice before, but the sight still took his own breath away. I think this is one of those views that never gets old no matter how many times you see it.

Supposedly constructed by the ancient Protheans who had ruled the galaxy fifty thousand years ago, the same species that had built the mass relays and the beacons and whose technology informed all modern progress, the Citadel was simply enormous. Consisting of five massive arms, called the Wards, each of which measured 43.6 kilometers long and 6.2 kilometers wide, all joined at equal intervals along the great ring of the Presidium, 7.2 kilometers in diameter, the station rotated at a deceptively slow speed, enough to provide the glittering cityscape that coated the interior surface of each Ward arm with near Earth standard gravity and hold a breathable atmosphere. The total surface area of the interior surface of the Wards was roughly equivalent to New York City on Earth; including the Presidium, the residence of the station's wealthiest and most important, the station's total population was just over 13 million, of which 2.5 million were human. And the most important people on this station are the most important people anywhere. For over two thousand years, ever since the asari and salarians had first formed the Citadel Council, this station had been the capital of the galaxy.

The Normandy soared into the embrace of the Citadel, decelerating rapidly, heading for the Presidium, where the official spaceports of all races officially under the Council's authority were located. Shepard watched as the Wards slid past above, beneath, and alongside the ship. Each of them had their own name. Tayseri Ward, Zakera Ward, Kithoi Ward, Bachjret Ward, and… agh, I can't remember the last one. They each had their own city council as well, overseeing the mundane rules and regulations that governed the day to day lives of the millions of beings that had the money to call a Ward arm home. The cost of living on this deep-space station, where all food and most manufactured goods had to be imported from another star system, was astronomical. Heh. "Astronomical".

The Normandy slowly entered its assigned docking bay, and came to a stop as magnetic clamps attached to its engines and hull. A click of polished dress shoes announced the arrival of Captain Anderson on the bridge. "Commander Shepard. Lieutenant Alenko. Gunnery Sergeant Williams. Good to see you're all in one place, it'll save me the trouble of chasing you each down individually. I'm going to need you three to come with me to Ambassador Udina's office, where we'll wait for the Council to hear our accounts of Eden Prime. Corporal Chase is already waiting for us in the airlock. Come, it's best to be punctual with this sort of thing."

Once out of the ship, a simple wave of ID was enough to clear them through the security checkpoint of the Systems Alliance's private docks, guarded by a pair of very bored-looking Marines. The five of them then entered an elevator for the short trip to the interior of the Presidium.

Unlike the Wards, where anyone who looked out a window was greeted with a view of a cityscape silhouetted against the glory of the Serpent Nebula, the business tycoons and government functionaries who dwelt on the inner surface of the Presidium ring lived in a carefully maintained setting of artificial parkland with a holographically-projected blue sky covering the space that would otherwise look out across to the other side of the ring. Where the Wards existed in a state of constant bustle and activity, the artificial sky and more controlled environment allowed for a day/night cycle in the Presidium. Currently, it was "nighttime", but events of galactic importance such as the one that Ambassador Udina was arranging an emergency session of the Council to discuss did not wait for such petty things as sleep schedules. At least it means reduced traffic, Shepard mused as the five of them piled into an Alliance-owned skycar and took off towards the human embassy.

The darkened white terraces of the Presidium's buildings and the glassy black surface of the lake that ran the entire inner surface of the ring flitted beneath them as their skycar flew towards its programmed destination. After about a ten minute drive, it decelerated, then came to a gentle stop at the front of the building that communally housed the embassies of humanity, the volus, and the elcor.

A man of slightly below average height with close cropped gray hair was waiting for them in the front of the building. "Anderson. I see you decided to bring half of your crew with you." Despite having been to the Citadel twice before, Shepard had never met humanity's ambassador, Donnel Udina. He took an instant dislike to the man, for reasons he could not quite put his finger on. I think it's the voice. Anyone who sounds like that is almost certainly an utter jackass. "I seem to recall messaging you that your presence and only yours would be required for now. The official hearing is not until tomorrow."

"This is the ground crew from Eden Prime," Anderson replied coolly. "I thought you might wish to hear each of their accounts in person. It will allow us to refine the argument we intend to present the Council and which pieces of evidence are most crucial."

Udina's eyes narrowed, considering Anderson's words. What kind of politician are you, if that hadn't already occurred to you? "Perhaps so. Follow me, then. We'll need to conduct these debriefings in my office." He turned and led them into the building, up two flights of stairs, and into an expansive office with an open wall looking out over the expanse of the darkened Presidium. Udina sat down behind the magnificent desk in the center of the room and looked them over. "You there, young lady," he said, indicating Chase, "We'll start with you. I'll want to hear everything that happened on Eden Prime, from the moment you landed there until the moment you left." Perhaps he thinks Chase can be more easily intimidated because she's the lowest ranking of us.

The debriefings lasted for two more hours, the ambassador taking precisely thirty minutes to grill each of them. By the end of it, Shepard felt his opinion of the man change somewhat from the distinctly negative first impression he had formed. He's still a jackass, but he was obviously a lawyer before he became our ambassador, and a good one at that. Udina had pressed them all for every scrap of detail they could remember, pouncing on any discrepancy between two given versions of the events of Eden Prime. He had been particularly intense with Williams, as she had been the only one present on the planet when it was first attacked and offered a unique perspective. The poor Marine was pale by the end of it, having relived the destruction of her unit and the deaths of her friends and comrades. Jackass? No, scratch that, he's a grade-A douchebag. But if this helps us prove Saren's guilt…

"Let me see if I have the essence of your stories, then," Udina said, leaning back in his armchair and steepling his fingers. "You," he indicated Williams, "and your company were guarding the excavation site where the beacon had been discovered, when you were suddenly attacked by hostile synthetics. Your unit attempted to signal for help, and were slowly cut to pieces over a period of some hours by these synthetics, which you tentatively identified as geth based on pictures from your high school history classes. Meanwhile you three," he nodded in the direction of Shepard, Alenko, and Chase, "landed some distance from the dig site in the company of a fourth Marine, who was killed within forty-five minutes of landing. You fought your way towards the dig site, joined up with Williams and from her learned the identity of the geth. You also learned from her the new location of the beacon. You encountered several impaled human corpses which had been somehow transformed into cyborg zombies, and saw a dreadnought of some kind from a distance that you guessed to mass at least half again the tonnage of the Destiny Ascension. You then proceeded to the transport station that would take you to the new location of the beacon, where you encountered the corpse of Nihlus and a single civilian who blamed Nihlus' death on Saren Arterius. You then proceeded to the spaceport, where you disarmed a nuclear device that was conveniently placed directly on the transport platform, and then found the beacon, which fell apart, but only after it beamed a message of some kind into your head." He nodded at Shepard again. "Is this accurate?"

Shepard's face felt hot, but he nodded anyway. It sounded so ridiculous when the ambassador phrased it like that, here in this serene, air-conditioned office. "It is." You wouldn't have that look of disdain on your face if you'd been there with us, Ambassador. There was a pregnant pause.

"I see," Donnel Udina eventually said. He got up from his desk. "You'll need to excuse me. The five of you will need to attend the official hearing in twelve hours, and I'll need to make sure you have the necessary clearance to get in. The Council chambers are off-limits to anyone without proper credentials even under normal circumstances, and this will be a closed session. The embassy has quarters for certain of its staff. You may sleep there, or attempt to sample some of the Presidium's shops and cafes when the day cycle begins in another three hours. On no account are you to leave the Presidium. I will need you close by to collect you when the time comes." Without further ado, he left his office.

Williams let out a shaky breath. "And that's why I hate politicians."

"He's not a politician," Anderson said grimly. "He's a bureaucrat. Believe me, I know the difference." They all looked at him. Anderson gave a bleak smile. "Unlike the rest of you, I've been coming to the Citadel for… various reasons, since just a few years after First Contact, well before Udina was here. I worked with his predecessor, Anita Goyle. She was a politician. Subtle, charismatic when she so desired, a career diplomat. Udina has the subtlety of a tornado and the charisma of an unwashed hockey jersey. Humanity has a rather negative reputation among the greater galactic community for a variety of reasons, and Udina is one of them."

"Then why-," Alenko began incredulously.

"Why hasn't he been fired?" Anderson said, still wearing that bleak smile. "For the same reason he was hired. Goyle, being a diplomat, made friends in foreign governments. Udina, being a bureaucrat, made friends in his own government. He's on a first-name basis with every member of the current cabinet in the Alliance Parliament, and half of the representatives as well. He'd need to murder someone in broad daylight for a recall motion to even be considered, and even then it'd probably fail." Anderson shook his head. "To give the man his due, he's not entirely bad. You saw firsthand how perceptive and tenacious he can be when he puts his mind to something. He consistently works towards what he sees as humanity's best interests here. He just has a habit of stepping on toes to do so." There was another pause.

"Well," Shepard said, standing and stretching, "I appreciate the ambassador's offer of the embassy quarters, but I think I've spent more than enough time lying down in the last few hours. If we're going to be stuck on the Presidium for the next twelve hours, we might as well make the most of it. I'm going to look around, might grab something to eat when the cafes open up. Anyone else want to come along?" One by one, they shook their heads.

"Commander, you may have been unconscious for thirteen hours, but the rest of us were on duty for most of that time," Alenko pointed out. "We definitely need our beauty sleep if we have to face the Council later today. We might meet you for lunch, though."

Shepard shrugged. "Have it your way. Message my omnitool when you're ready to meet up. If nobody else is coming right now, then I guess I should go."

1300 Hours AST, April 14, 2183

Council Tower

The Citadel, Widow System, Serpent Nebula

It had been, Shepard decided as the elevator made the sharp turn that indicated they had finished moving out along the spar that held the Council Tower in the precise center of the Presidium ring and were now moving up along the Tower itself, a rather pleasant day for a change. He had spent the three hours immediately following the end of the meeting with Ambassador Udina wandering the lakefront along the Presidium, admiring the quiet beauty of the parkland and white terraces that curved up and out of sight in either direction. When the artificial sky had abruptly begun to lighten and life began to return to the Presidium, he began exploring. He visited shops. He returned to the embassy building and managed to get a few minutes conversation each with the volus and elcor ambassadors: the elcor had been polite and friendly, the volus decidedly not. He helped a Citadel Security officer convince an obstinate hanar that the sidewalk in front of a chic boutique offering only the latest Thessian fashions was not the proper place to be loudly preaching its religion. At 1100, he had met up with Alenko, Williams, and Chase, and they had grabbed lunch at an absurdly expensive café that was apparently one of the cheapest on the Presidium. At least, Shepard thought, the food had been worth the price tag. I still can't believe they managed to get real pulled pork here. And actual, Carolina mustard-based barbecue sauce! It was almost enough to compensate for costing him roughly two weeks salary.

But all good things had to come to an end, and now they had to face the Council. It was a good thing, Shepard decided as the elevator ticked closer to their meeting with the three most powerful people in the galaxy, that this was going to be a closed session. I don't know if I could handle the usual paparazzi that show up whenever I'm in a public forum, shoving their microphones in my face and asking why the Lion of Elysium is accusing Spectre Saren of treason. Instead, he'd only have to deal with the Councilors themselves. Udina had said something about Saren himself being present as well. They must have summoned him here when told of our accusations.

The elevator slowed to a halt, and the doors slid open with a ding. Udina led the way as they stepped out into the Council chambers. There were three separate flights of stairs leading to the Petitioner's Stage, where ambassadors and others on the Council's schedule laid their various proposals and grievances before them. Along either wall, viewing galleries which normally contained the press and minor government functionaries stood empty.

There were only three other people besides themselves in the vast room. The Citadel Council stood behind their holographic podiums opposite the Petitioner's Stage, across a gap with a floor of thin glass. Shepard quickly recalled the terse briefing Udina had given them before they entered the elevator.

On the right stood Councilor Valern, the salarian representative. He was male, an unusual thing in a species where 90% of the population was male but the females held nearly all political power. For a male salarian to hold such an important position… he's either unusually brilliant even for a salarian, or an easily manipulated puppet. Shepard instinctually had trouble believing the second possibility. Surely the salarians wouldn't give their Council seat to a total nonentity. Valern's large, amphibian eyes stared at them from the depths of his hood.

In the center stood asari Councilor Tevos. When humanity had been introduced to the greater galactic community immediately following the First Contact War, it was the asari who aroused, in all senses of the word, the most interest. Asari, on first glance, were essentially human women with blue scaly skin and tentacle-like cartilaginous structures where human women had hair. They had five fingers, five toes, breasts, and nearly identical facial structures. Yet there were several key differences. Chief among them was the fact that asari routinely lived for a thousand years or more. Tevos had been the asari Councilor for the last eighty years, easily three times as long as the tenures of her two colleagues combined, and had been active in asari domestic politics for several centuries before that. Elegantly beautiful in a long, floor length red-and-white dress, Tevos's face was an unreadable mask underneath its elaborate array of white markings.

On the left stood Councilor Sparatus. Shepard had more experience dealing with turians than he did asari or salarians; despite the fact that humanity's first encounter with an alien species had been a brief but bloody war with the turians that left thousands on both sides dead, the two militaries had established strong informal ties in the more than two decades since. He prided himself on being able to distinguish the minute clues in the mostly immobile face of a turian that gave away their state of mind (the key was the mandibles), and what he saw on Sparatus's face now took him aback. In stark contrast to his poker-faced colleagues, the turian Councilor radiated hostility. Right mandible twitching rapidly, left one held rigid and relatively high along his jaw. Behind and to Sparatus's right, a hologram stood of another turian. Saren. Shepard would've been hard-pressed to say which turian looked angrier.

Tevos spoke first. "This hearing has been called to hear evidence on the charges of treason and terrorism leveled by the Systems Alliance, as represented by its ambassador, Donnel Udina, against Council Spectre Saren Arterius." She gazed at Udina, her face still serene and composed. "Since the Alliance first notified this Council of its accusations twenty-four standard hours ago, Citadel Security has been conducting an investigation into the recent activities of Spectre Saren. Their findings," she tapped a brief command into her console, and the omnitools of the six humans chimed in unison as they received the data, "are now available to you. Ambassador, do you have anything of relevance to add to these findings?"

Udina stepped forward, his chest thrust out. "I do, Councilors. As you are aware, given that it was mentioned in the original charges laid by the Alliance, our frigate the SSV Normandy was the first vessel to respond to the distress calls sent out by Eden Prime. I have here with me the ground team sent to the colony by the frigate, as well as the ship's commander. Having had a chance to debrief them myself prior to this hearing-,"

Councilor Sparatus interrupted. "You mean, Ambassador, that you had a chance to rehearse the lies you intended to use to blacken the reputation of one of this Council's best agents!"

Udina continued as if there had been no interruption. "I believe that this Council would benefit from hearing their accounts firsthand." He then turned and beckoned Shepard. The most high ranking first this time, to give the best first impression.

Shepard moved forward and began to give his account. The Council listened quietly for the majority of the tale, but when he got to the part where they found Nihlus's corpse, Valern spoke up. "The testimony of one traumatized dockworker is not ironclad proof, Commander."

"Ironclad?" Sparatus scoffed. "It isn't proof of any sort. The man may have seen another turian. He may have been struck on the head by an explosion or a collision during the massacre of his coworkers and begun to hallucinate. He may have murdered Nihlus himself and attempted to escape his guilt by cobbling together a convenient lie out of news reports of a famous Spectre's medal ceremonies: by his own admission, this dockworker was not a man of honor!"

Shepard stayed calm. "Honored Councilor, there is a world of difference between being a lazy worker and being a murderer, and I would hope that you have enough faith in the ability of one of your best agents to know that he could not be overcome by a single dockworker with no combat training." He paused, then continued. "Ordinarily, I would agree that the testimony of one eyewitness is not convincing proof. However, the state of Nihlus's body adds considerable weight to it. He was clearly shot in the back of the head execution-style, at a range close enough that his kinetic barriers would not activate. The profile of the wound matches that of a modified heavy pistol, and bears no resemblance to the weapons the geth were using. In addition, the man managed to give a reasonably accurate physical description of Saren," Shepard indicated the glowing image of Saren standing in the corner, which had to this point remained still and silent, "despite there being no evidence that he had ever seen him before. Lieutenant Alenko recorded the entire conversation if the Council wishes to hear it."

Sparatus remained obstinate. "I still see nothing but circumstantial evidence, and that is being generous."

Now Anderson stepped forward to stand beside Shepard. "Circumstantial, Councilor? Answer me this, where was Saren during these circumstances? Spectres report directly to the Council, if he was engaged elsewhere he would have told you!"

For the first time, the glowing image of Saren Arterius spoke. "Ah, Captain Anderson." His voice was a sibilant hiss. "I should have suspected as much. You always seem to be involved when human kind brings false charges against me." His translucent image turned to regard Shepard. "And this must be your protégé, Commander Shepard. The one given the mission to recover a priceless Prothean artifact and who managed to smash it into a thousand pieces instead. I must say I'm not impressed."

Shepard's eyes narrowed. "The mission to Eden Prime was top secret. I wasn't even informed about it until less than an hour before hand. How exactly did you learn about the beacon?"

"With Nihlus dead, access to his files passed to me. I learned of his proposed mission with you to recover the beacon."

"Stop lying!" Anderson said, his voice raised to the point where he was almost shouting. Shepard stared at him in amazement; the man was nearly shaking with rage. "Before we landed on Eden Prime, Nihlus told me he hadn't heard from you in years. You expect me to believe he trusted you enough to turn over all his documents in case of his death?"

The image of Saren leaned forward, mandibles lifted and angled in a turian snarl. "I don't care what you believe, human. Nihlus was a friend. Nihlus was a fellow Spectre. I don't expect you to understand what either of those things mean, human. Your species is arrogant, and it needs to learn its place. You aren't ready to join the Council. You aren't even ready to join the Spectres!"

Anderson, Udina, and Chase all made outraged noises and tried to speak, but it was Councilor Tevos, of all people, who made herself heard. "Petty insults do not help your case, Spectre Saren. And Commander Shepard's admission or lack thereof into the Office of Special Tactics and Reconnaissance is not the purpose of this hearing." He could feel the surprise emanating from behind him, and a muffled gasp from Williams; he had never told anyone that he was being considered for the Spectres. Truth be told, with all that had happened since that briefing in the Normandy's conference room, he had nearly forgotten it himself.

"This hearing has no purpose, Councilor! The humans are wasting your time, and mine!"

Councilor Tevos turned her head slowly to look at the image of Saren in the corner, and in profile Shepard could see real emotion for the first time break through her mask as she looked at the Spectre: contempt. Her voice was frigid. "Do not presume to instruct this Council on what is or is not a worthy use of its time, Saren Arterius." She turned back to face the front and briefly glanced at Valern, who silently nodded. "Ambassador, this Council does not find that you have presented sufficient evidence to convict Spectre Saren Arterius of the charges of treason and terrorism."

A stunned air pervaded the human delegation. Saren's image leaned back, oozing smug satisfaction. Councilor Sparatus looked much the same. "I'm glad to see justice was served."

Councilor Tevos looked at him again, disgust now clearly evident on her face, then glanced at Valern again. Once more, the salarian nodded. "However, this Council does find that the weight of evidence presented is sufficient to not dismiss said charges at this time." The expressions of Saren and Sparatus abruptly changed; Sparatus attempted to say something, but Tevos talked over him. "This hearing is adjourned for three days' time. Upon its resumption, any new proof of Spectre Saren's guilt or innocence will be taken into due consideration." With that, she gathered up the hem of her dress and gracefully walked out of the door at the rear of the Council's platform. After a moment, Valern and a clearly seething Sparatus followed her, while Saren's image in the corner flickered out.

The humans looked at each other, still stunned, but now in a much different manner. Alenko spoke first. "Well. I guess we all heard the lady."