The Effect of Liberation: Book 1

by ecarden

The Liberator and her crew (well, some of them) escape the dystopia of Blake's 7 for the somewhat better universe of Mass Effect. Here's hoping things go better this time around.

3. Chapter 2

All the usual disclaimers apply. I'm very aware that vanguards in Mass Effect 1 couldn't charge. I'm choosing to treat that as a gameplay limitation, not some sort of technical development that occurred in the interim. In other words, vanguards could always charge. Similarly, biotic and tech explosions always existed.

On a similar theory, biotic powers require significant energy, leaving biotics with a very high metabolism and unable to spam powers the way characters could in the game. I believe everything else is canon compliant, if not, please drop me a line in a review or PM and I'll correct it.

Also, for whatever reason, the scene break didn't come through. That's been fixed. Sorry about that.

2176 CE, Elysium

1st Lieutenant Ashley Shepard did not scream her frustration as the low caste Batarian raced towards their sole remaining anti-aircraft battery. His rail thin body was weighted down with shield generators and high explosives and the battery was well back from the front lines, which was why it had survived so long. There was time to intercept him, especially if she'd had support. Unfortunately, the first suicide run had taken Commander McCauley's troops by surprise, blowing apart the barricade they'd built and killing the commander and his best troops.

Some part of her couldn't blame the commander, suicide bombing wasn't a tactic pirates generally used. She'd seen it before though. Batarian state troops used it. A low caste soldier who successfully carried out such an assault would gain a full jump in caste status for their family. She'd seen that on Mindoir. This attack must include Batarian regulars. She sneered. Not that the Alliance would believe that, any more than they'd believed it about Mindoir.

After what seemed like an eternity of moving through broken buildings, her movements and the Batarian's desperate sprint put them in line with each other and she charged forward. The heavy shielding meant that his slight frame was only staggered, but that was enough to knock the sprinting soldier to the ground. She leaned over, stomping hard on his hand, pinning his desperate attempt to release the dead man's switch. A hand extended and the Kessler pistol passed through his shield and pressed into his upper right eye, his rising scream was cut off by the shredder round destroying his skull.

Shepard pried open the Batarian's broken fingers, maintaining pressure on the dead man's switch and pulled his corpse into a fireman's carry and began to jog towards the gap in the barricade which the slaver scum were still streaming through, trying to reach the civilians clustered in the colony's heart. A charge had her in amongst them. They were only staggered, but their surprise was enough to let her drop the body and charge away. The wires connecting the bombs to the dead man's switch ripped as she raced away and the explosion vaporized the enemy vanguard.

The pirates had lost a great many of their most disciplined troops in the initial assault. Fires in the distance spoke of pirates and slavers who'd broken off and were looting the outbuildings of the colony rather than attempting to shatter the remaining defenses. Shepard's smile at the sight of the dead Batarians was an ugly thing on her usually pretty face, white teeth flashing against black skin.

The few marines still alive and mobile were slowly gathering, trying to move back up to the remnants of the barricade as the enemy reordered themselves. Her smile vanished when she saw the marines moving out. Though her eyes remained firm, there were signs of the exhaustion that was creeping up on her. Fighting her way to her fellow marines had been difficult enough and now she was, as far as she knew, the ranking officer on the planet. Fortunately, her full helmet blocked her exhaustion and nervousness from view, as completely as it had blocked her cruel smile. "Marines, fall back to the next cross street and cover the intersection."

They glanced back at her, none of them were ranked higher than corporal. There were eight of them. Eight out of almost a hundred…The single corporal waved the troops back and signaled with his hands to send half the survivors to one building, the other half to another building which would let them set up a crossfire, then he trudged over to her and saluted sharply. She winced at that, saluting was as good as calling up a sniper and telling him there was someone worth shooting. For a moment she wondered if it was deliberate, but these weren't N qualified troops. They were barely more than militia.

"Any non-walking wounded?" She asked, moving them both under cover.

"Yes sir, I have three of my people getting them back to the hospital."

She nodded shortly. "Add them to the defenses when they return. I'm going hunting corporal."

"We'll hold the line, sir."

"No, you won't, corporal. You'll bleed them here, mine your positions, then fall back, blow the mines. If you can find enough explosives do it again and again until you run out of explosives, or out of room to fall back. Then you'll hold the line."

"Aye, aye, sir and you'll be?" He asked.

"Like I said corporal, I'm going hunting. I'll see if I can't scout them out and distract them. Radio in when you have contact, no talking. Three clicks for enemy contact, two if you've had to fall back, one if you've been overrun." She didn't know how they'd known to target the commander's position, but comm intercepts were a good guess.

"Aye, aye, sir," the corporal saluted again and dashed across the street to join his fellows. She ripped open the last of her ration packs, bit open the water tube, sucked a mouthful of the energy and vitamin infused drink to swallow the first set of pills then forced herself to swallow the flavorless, but nutrient rich paste that would give her the energy to keep using her biotics. At least for a while longer. She ran her omni-tool over her pistol and activated the illegal high explosive ammunition mod on her pistol. The heat produced by the modification wouldn't be a problem as she wouldn't be firing more than once before fleeing. The larger problem would be avoiding the Batarian bits the mod would create.

She touched the armor plate that covered the tiny vial of soil collected from Mindoir. Once her ritual before combat had included lowering her head to her chest and closing her eyes but that hadn't survived N-School when taking her eyes off the field had gotten the instructor to yell so loud she'd been worried his larynx would burst. And then she'd been worried she'd bust his nose if he kept at it. She hadn't of course, but she'd wanted to. "I will not forget. I will not forgive. Mindoir."

XXXXX

A shadow slid through the alleys and hallways of the colony, as close to invisible as an N6 could manage. Evening was coming on. The time on her heads-up display was 21:23. The assault had begun at 14:36, right after her ship had landed. The leave had been ordered by Captain Chang, who believed in treating her people well. Whether they wanted it, or not. An amused grin crossed Shepard's dark features at what the Captain would think when this report reached her.

The grin turned feral as she saw a group of Batarians spread out around the door to a colonial apartment building. Their gaze at the empty streets was desultory and they occasionally looked towards the open door and the smashing sounds as their superiors looted and destroyed. She cocked her head and listened carefully. There was some laughter, but neither screams, nor whimpers. There were no hostages to worry about. The building wasn't designed for a siege. She circled it and smashed a window. That destruction was indistinguishable from that the invaders were wreaking and so it was not noticed. The hard-suit meant that going through the window was no trouble, not like before when she'd left skin and blood behind with every window.

The room was a nursery. Almost against her will she checked the crib. There was neither body nor blood. She relaxed ever so slightly. The magnetic point on her pistol clicked against her armor as it locked into place. Her hand slid under the heavy central plate of her hard-suit and pulled out an old kitchen knife, its blade honed to a razor's edge. There wasn't even a whisper as the blade slid free from its sheath against her stomach. A knife was not a great weapon to use against someone in full body armor. There were always vulnerabilities, mostly at the joints, but they were hard to hit and it was easy to lose a knife in the body of your first target, even if you managed to hit it, and if you missed, then you might well break your own knife.

That was part of what made it so nice that Batarians traditionally left their helmets off. She moved slowly and listened carefully, going towards the noise. The door was open. She knelt and looked into the room from about a foot above the ground. The Batarian was ripping apart some young man's wardrobe, searching for something worth stealing. He failed and pulled out his weapon, firing an incendiary round into the pile of clothes and giggled as it caught fire. He backed off, swearing as whatever gave the young man's wardrobe its odd sheen proved to react explosively to fire. Shepard caught him as he came out the door, one hand lifting a jaw, exposing a throat, the other drove the blade in at the correct angle. Unlike Humans, Batarian veins in the neck were on either side of the spine, none were near the windpipe. In order to cut both airway and artery, you needed to go in at an angle and then rip out, just a slash was unlikely to sever the vein. It was a tricky thing to learn, but if the Alliance had an expert in killing Batarians, it was Lieutenant Shepard.

Arterial blood spurted, fountaining out of the wound in a manner that always surprised her and seemed vaguely comic, vaguely artificial, a feeling only enhanced by the detachment lent to her by her armor. She neither felt the heat of the blood, nor smelled the shit as the Batarian voided himself.

A quick pat down of the corpse gave her three grenades, and a comms array. She slid it into her armor and listened in on the enemy. She discovered that they were collecting the captives they'd taken during the first surge of their landing, before the local garrison had responded. They'd taken most of the colony while she'd still been digging her armor and weapons out of storage on the shuttle she'd ridden in on and praising the Alliance's cheapness in combining her shore leave with a reassignment, so her gear was nearby, if in a code-locked box for which she'd lacked the code. The lock was strong, but she was able to break the box itself with a sufficient application of muscle and biotics. Then with her gear she'd fought her way across the colony, gathering survivors and teaching criminals who thought themselves assault troops what vanguards, true assault troops, could do. It had taken an embarrassingly long time to cross the four miles between the port and the barricade, but she'd saved many lives. And killed many Batarians, and other raiders. And now there were more pirates to kill.

Three clicks came in over the radio and she swore silently. The plan to pick off the raiders slowly was no longer feasible. The knife vanished. She grabbed the Batarian's shotgun. It was shit, but at least she could fire it at close range without blowing herself up. The sound of destruction brought her towards the next floor and she paused by the still guarded entrance, setting the grenades to trigger on movement. Then, taking the stairs two at a time she raced as silently as sixty kilos of woman and fifteen kilos of gear could, which wasn't very. The first Batarian had stuck his head out to see who was coming and shrieked as his shields took the blast that would have shredded his face. The assault rifle came over his shoulder in a smooth motion that was disrupted by her shoulder rush, sending the man staggering back. A trio of shots broke shields and skull alike. His fellow got off a burst that rapidly drained her shields, but he was not expecting a charge from a Human and the shotgun had a sturdy enough base to dent his skull, though even with her gene mods it took another two blows before he stopped moving and screaming.

The next figure rushing through was Human, probably, she was either Human, or Asari, the hard-suit helmet made it hard to tell. Either way she wasn't friendly given that she screamed and opened up with the sub-machine gun. The inaccurate weapon was useful against civilians, but without a lot more skill than the pirate was displaying, it was no threat to Shepard. Nevertheless, she rolled behind a heavy metal table which had been upset during their looting and let her shields recharge. A helmet meant she couldn't see if the woman had had a control chip implanted. Was she slave, or ally?

Two clicks came over the radio. There was no time to find an answer to that question. When her shields hit full again, she popped out and gunned the woman down. The blood was the red of Humans and Batarians, not the purple of Asari. It made little difference to her. The distinction which mattered was between Batarians and the rest of the galaxy. The distinctions amongst the rest of the galaxy didn't matter.

Shepard grabbed a pair of grenades from the woman's body as she heard one of the Batarians announcing that they'd found the enemy and would keep her penned up until the others could join them. A moment later an explosion came from below as the guards triggered her trap. The shockwave dislodged the pair of Batarians waiting to ambush her as she exited the room. One was actually on the ground, though he'd held onto his weapon and was covering the door like a proper soldier. The other, larger one had kept his feet, but turned around to face the sound of the explosion.

Shepard cleared the room and used the one facing the wrong way as a shield from his comrade, dropping the shotgun and firing a single high-explosive round into the prone Batarian. Bone and armor shrapnel impacted her living shield, who screamed and spun, throwing a wild haymaker that she ducked and backed away from. He bull-rushed her, having triggered an adrenaline rush to keep himself functional through the pain. There was no time to get the knife and her pistol was still overheated, so she used the only weapon she had. A swift lunge planted the white-hot barrel of the pistol against the Batarian's exposed face. It slid through skin and bone alike, melting them. The adrenaline rush and the Batarian died at the same time. For a moment Shepard stared at the damage she had wrought. Her only thought was to be impressed by the design of a weapon that let the barrel by hot enough to melt bone, but left the handle cool enough to hold comfortably, of course, the heat sink was in the middle there.

She went out a second story window, hanging and dropping easily and moved back towards where she'd left the marines. Nothing got in her way, except for debris and body parts. Shrpard arrived just in time to watch the explosions from the mines her troops had left behind after being forced to withdraw. Of the squad that had breached the first firebase, only a vanguard survived, charging out of the way while his shields held. The squad approaching the other abandoned firebase stopped, withdrew and consolidated in a tight group. A third squad had been hanging back behind a heavy cargo crate to cover the other two squads as they advanced.

Shepard charged into the back of the third squad. Her sudden arrival did little more than surprise them as their shields were still active. She ducked around the edge of the cargo container and charged into the second squad. The pursuing third squad rounded the corner and didn't notice the grenade she'd dropped until it went off, shattering shields. The second grenade dropped from fingers going dangerously numb the moment it was primed and she charged back into the third squad. Their shields destroyed by the grenade, her sudden arrival sent them flying. Two of the five were clearly dead and the remainder were stunned. The second squad tried to scatter, but the grenade she'd dropped had been on a one second fuse. Only her charge had let her get clear. The Kessler rose and spat its single shot before beeping plaintively at her as the heat sink tried desperately to vent the heat of turning a miniscule fragment of metal into a miniature grenade. Most of the second squad went down. The vanguard who'd so narrowly escaped the fate of the rest of his squad finally turned his attention on Shepard. She dropped her useless pistol and her hand moved even as the blue energy flared around his body to propel himself towards her at speeds faster than any eye could see.

Her knife cleared its sheath and was braced against her breastplate just in time. It skittered up along the curve of the vanguard's body armor and carved a ragged line across his cheek and eye socket, but it didn't hit the eye itself. The force of his charge drove its handle back into her armor hard enough to knock her backwards. His shotgun tried to line up a shot, and Shepard tried to kick it away. She would never know if she'd have made the kick because the marines had advanced and all of them were firing on the vanguard's back. His shields were shredded in an instant and his body armor was so perforated it could have done double duty as a colander.

The marines moved up quickly, putting short, controlled bursts into each of the downed Batarians. The corporal approached her as she lay still for just a moment, trying to breathe despite what the sudden impacts had done to her ribs. She'd gained a new appreciation for the people who tried to stop her.

She sheathed the blade slowly. Her fingers didn't want to release the wood of the handle. It might have been biotic shock from using her abilities too frequently, or it might have been regular shock. Either way it took her three tries to get the blade back into its sheath. The corporal extended a hand to her and pulled her to her feet with a grunt. Shepard was not a small woman, even without her armor and gear. One of the other soldiers retrieved her pistol and offered it to her almost reverentially. "Back into cover boys and girls," the corporal snapped and they stopped gawking and moved back. "Bloody hell, sir, that was fucking amazing," he said, a trace of a British accent coming through his helmet's speakers.

Shepard grinned. "Got any rations?" she asked.

He froze for a moment than remembered some of the things folks said about biotics. They didn't actually kill people when they got hungry, they just got cranky like most folks, it just happened more frequently since biotics needed a lot more food to counterbalance the increased energy expenditure of lifting people through the air with their mind, or hurtling towards the enemy at the speed of thought, depending on their skills. The usual MRE* had enough calories to keep a soldier operating for a day. It was slower to eat than the biotic rations, but it was better than nothing. She carried it over to a covered position and cracked her helmet.

*Meal Ready to Eat

The marine didn't comment on her appearance, probably because he was too busy being impressed by her ability to inhale the food, seemingly without chewing. Not that MREs were worth lingering over. "We're falling back to the next position, but we're out of explosives."

"You got an engineer or a tech? Anyone with explosives experience?"

"Yes, sir, but we don't have any explo—"

"Take their grenades. Booby trap two of the bodies, then use the rest to fortify your next fall back position. Not the one you're going to now, but the next one. Let them think you're out of explosives and we'll catch 'em with their hard-suits down again."

"Aye, aye, sir!"

"I assume whatever you used over there can't be re-used?"

"No, sir, we set the anti-tamper circuit."

"Got a remote detonator?"

No, sir," the marine admitted, embarrassment tinging his voice.

Shepard frowned as she swallowed the energy drink that came with the MRE.

"No excuse, sir."

She shrugged. "After they start to hit the position you're going to now, radio on our previous channel as if you've got support coming into the previous firebase. With any luck, they're listening and we can divert them."

"Sir, aren't you coming with us now?" She could hear the desperation in his voice, despite the distortion the helmet added to his voice.

Shepard sighed and licked the inside the MRE's casing, then tossed it into a nearby public trash can, which promptly thanked her for not littering. The sheer incongruity of that made both marines stare at it for a moment before shaking off the second of normalcy to return to the situation they were dealing with. The helmet rose and slid over her face, leaving a featureless, pitiless stretch of black and grey armored plate, caked with the blood of her enemies and the dust of Elysium.

"Wish I could corporal, but they're loading their first set of prisoners up at the port. The fleet's coming. All we have to do is keep them from getting our people off this planet and they lose.

"And you're going to do that alone?" He asked. Her glare could be felt even though he couldn't see her eyes. "Sir," he added.

She unbent slightly. "We have two objectives, Corporal. I'm a vanguard, trained for assault operations. It only makes sense for me to take the objective that includes assaulting an enemy position."

"With all due respect, sir, we have one objective, protect the colonists. The ships they brought couldn't carry more than fifty thousand people even if you loaded them so heavily everyone would suffocate before making it to the relay. There's nearly a million people back there," he waved his hand vaguely in the direction of the town center, square and original colony ship which the population of the city had retreated to when the Batarians had dropped out of the sky.

"Corporal, I'll make you a deal. I'm not going to give you the speech about every life being important if you don't give me the speech about the importance of looking at the big picture, okay?"

"Yes, sir," she could hear the smile in his face, but she could see the resentment in his body language, even through the armor.

"Corporal?"

"Yes, sir?"

"I've seen what the Batarians do to their prisoners. To their slaves. I will not permit them to take any of my people." Her voice was low and menacing, hand resting just above the seam in her armor that concealed her blade. It wasn't intended as a threat. That blade had never tasted the blood of anyone except Batarians, nor would it. It was just a nervous tic. If the corporal didn't see sense, she'd just go about her mission and leave him to carry out his. There was no way he was stupid enough to try to force her to do things his way.

The corporal just saluted. "Yes, sir."

"Good man." He turned away. "Oh and corporal," he turned back.

"Yes, sir?"

"You and yours are my people too."

His body language relaxed slightly into something more respectful and more confident at the reminder of what they were. Soldiers. "Thank you, sir." He retreated and Shepard moved out. Her energy was nearly depleted, she had no explosives and now she was going to launch a one-woman attack on an unknown number of slavers, with an equally unknown number of hostages.

Well, at least it wasn't raining.

2176 CE Nasurn

Maelon Heplorn was drunk. He was not, however, drunk enough. He knew this, because he was still vertical. Admittedly, the help of a stool and a bar was needed to keep him so, but he wouldn't be drunk enough until he needed the help of the floor to remain horizontal. The bar was empty, except for him and the serving robot. It had tried to stop serving him, once, but though his technical skills would never match his medical ones, he'd learned much from Mordin.

His lip curled at that thought. Indeed, he had learned everything from Mordin. Everything except what truly mattered. The deaths on Tuchanka, everything on Tuchanka would haunt him for the rest of his life, as well it should. Let others drink to forget, Maelon did not deserve to forget.

A sound came from behind him, a sharp cough. His senses were so doused in alcohol, he didn't hear it, or feel the hand on his shoulder, pulling him around. Vision swimming, he made out three figures, a robed and shrouded central one and a pair of guards. For a moment, heart pounding, he believed that the STG had come to kill him at last. After Tuchanka, he'd been loud about his disagreement with their actions. The killers in the STG—he stopped, there were only killers in the STG.

The military members of their team had wanted to silence him. They hadn't said as much of course, but though he was naïve, he wasn't stupid, he knew what those looks meant and he knew that if Kirrahe had been less impressed with Mordin, or Mordin less loyal to his student, then he would never have made it off the Veshok-16 alive.

And now they had come for him…

Sense swam in the liquor pickling his brain, stopping the hand that sought to activate the combat protocols of his omni-tool. If they were STG and wanted him dead, they wouldn't have bothered turning him to face them. Maelon would simply have dropped dead, or disappeared, depending on their goals. His eyes focused, as, without the constant intake of alcohol, his Salarian metabolism would burn through the alcohol far too quickly.

The definitely weren't STG, lacking the cold certainty of those professionals, but the guards were at least military grade. It was the figure in the middle that was most interesting. He recognized her. "Dalatrass Heplorn," he whispered and tried to rise and greet his grandmother.

Tripping over his own feet was embarrassing, but the guards caught him and dragged him to stand before her like a naughty schoolboy. That was also embarrassing. Unlike his brothers, he had never been brought before their mother for misbehaving. Indeed, his life had been one long string of successes, educational and theoretical, culminating in being recognized by the great Mordin Solus and taken on as his protégé and then brought into a mission for the STG. Of course, his family didn't know about that, but every family had some connections to the Special Task Groups and when those most respected of males had started treating him as an equal, if a junior equal, everyone else had known. But that was gone now, and it was not his mother standing before him, but his grandmother, the Dalatrass Heplorn, ruler of the entire planet.

In some ways that was easier, he had imprinted on his mother, the worst the Dalatrass could do was torture him to death, his mother could have been disappointed in him.

The alcohol had not slowed his tongue, as it had his brain, nor rendered it clumsy as it had his body. "What do you want, Dalatrass?"

"You are Maelon Heplorn?" she asked, doubt clear in her modulated, politician's voice.

"Yes."

"The student of Mordin Solus?"

"Yes."

"Modifier of the genophage?"

Yes. He didn't answer that question aloud, letting his head fall to his chest. Guilty though he was, he didn't have to confess. In fact, he'd sworn not to. The silence stretched uncomfortably. The Dalatrass stepped forward and the guards moved, turning their supporting hands into pinning grips which would keep him from moving, or attacking. He considered trying some of the things he'd learned from the STG boys, but even sober, that wouldn't have worked. The guards may have lacked STG polish, but they were tough enough for this.

The Dalatrass lifted his chin in a surprisingly strong hand and he met her eyes. She was old. It wouldn't be long before this turn of the wheel of lives ended for her. To his surprise, she smiled. "Good lad, you know how to keep your mouth shut."

"Y—" Maelon grinned and shut his mouth with a snap of teeth and a smirk.

"I should not be surprised you are clever. The building is surrounded and all communications and bugs are jammed. You are an expert in Krogan genetics and the genophage."

"I am a geneticist," Maelon answered simply, but he nodded slightly.

"Good. I want you to work for me."

"Doing what?"

"Helping our people gain their rightful place in the galaxy."

Maelon's eyes narrowed. Whatever he'd been expecting, and he honestly wasn't sure what it was, it wasn't that. "What?"

"Didn't it ever strike you as unfair, that we, the smartest species also have the shortest lives?" the Dalatrass asked.

"I didn't bother to think about it much." Which was true, old age wasn't really a concern when you were busy drinking yourself to death.

"So it doesn't bother you that the arrogant Asari get a thousand years?"

Maelon considered a thousand years to endure the pain his actions had brought upon himself and shrugged.

"That the beastly Krogan get as long as they can keep from murdering one another?"

Maelon flinched at the mention of the Krogan. The Dalatrass misinterpreted the flinch and smiled, "Even these silly humans get to live four times as long as our geniuses. It's ridiculous. A joke. One I want you to fix."

"If it could be done, it would have been done."

"Oh, it was."

Maelon's eyes focused, interest and intellect burning off alcohol. "WHAT?"

"Where did you think the Lystheni came from? The first experiments attempted to mimic the Asari longevity. Unfortunately, that's all tied into their biotics and their ridiculous reproductive structure. We could not reliably copy it. Instead only a few in each clutch would inherit either biotics, or their absurd method of reproduction, less than one in a thousand would get both permitting the longevity to activate as well. And even then, they had to be female to pass it down," the Dalatrass preened, "and we all know how uncommon that is."

Maelon nodded.

"Worse still, it limited their reproduction to only a handful of children over their lives, with no guarantee it would breed true. No, no, it was too unreliable and too destabilizing as jealousy and hatred tore clutches apart. Not that the Lystheni would listen. And that's without getting into the political problems we had when the Asari discovered what we'd been doing and the Asari subjects who'd been necessary to do it. Only exiling the Lystheni and blaming them for everything brought an end to it. Whereas capturing Krogan will just be doing the galaxy a favor."

"But the Krogan have no such limitations on their immortality, or reproduction" Maelon noted, drawn into the story despite himself. "Indeed, they reproduce much like we do, even if they do attach more emotional resonance to the act…"

The Dalatrass shuddered delicately at the comparison of her own people to the thuggish, murderous Krogan. "When they can reproduce at all, which is why I've come to you. I have no intention of trading a short life for infertility."

"You want me to figure out how to copy the Krogan's ability to regenerate, without also copying the genophage…"

"Precisely. Can you do it?"

Maelon carefully hid the joy behind doubt. "Maybe. I can certainly try."

"Goo—"

"But I'll have to begin with the genophage. You may not be willing to exchange infertility for immortality, but I doubt that many of your fellows can say the same. I will not be responsible for the collapse of the Salarian Union." As I am for Tuchanka's continued failure.

"Agreed." She'd agreed too easily. It wouldn't occur to him for almost a month that she could hire other geneticists to handle the other side of the problem. Maelon was only irreplaceable on the question of the genophage, given how tightly information on that topic was controlled.

The Dalatrass turned her attention to the guards. "Take him to the ship, get him sobered up and anything he needs. Your subjects have already been collected. A dozen healthy male and female Krogan."

He winced at the mention of female Krogan, remembering their corpses littering the ground after the disastrous mission on Tuchanka. She mistook his wince once again and she patted his shoulder in a deliberately motherly fashion. "Do not be concerned. They will be restrained and my guards are more than capable of handling the brutes. Just focus on your work."

He nodded. His grandmother turned and walked away, he spoke when she'd reached the door. "I assume the Krogan are expendable?"

"Of course," she said without even bothering to turn around. The door opened at her touch and two replacement guards appeared as if they'd dropped out of cloak, flanking her and escorting her away.

"Of course," Maelon agreed, his whisper low and full of hatred as the guards dragged him away. If they believed that the hatred was directed at the Krogan rather than the Dalatrass, well, that was their error.

2176 CE, Transport Vessel 1711, Batalla System

The transport vessel was a blocky ship, with the engines, crew quarters and bridge in a module at the front. Four lengthy cargo arms trailed behind the ship like limbs on an Elcor. Large cargo pods were locked onto each of the cargo arms. The ship was still more than an hour out from the relay, in perfect position for the ambush which was currently occurring.

*With great concern* "The pirates are ordering us to halt," Colti said ponderously, the Elcor captain of the massive mineral transport which would carry the minerals extracted from the surface of the Elcor colony of Thunawanuro to the Von Industries facilities on Daleon, was very, very unhappy to be involved in Spectre business, as his translator had made clear when the operation was first proposed.

Nihlus kept his irritation under control. "Then do so," he turned on his heel and marched away.

*Hopefully* "Everything will be all right?" Colti's eyes flickered, muscles tensing in the pre-arranged pattern to have the V.I. stop the ship.

"We'll see," Nihlus said. The Elcor wasn't one of those who had hacked his translator to permit him to prevent it from announcing his mood to everyone he spoke to, and the Spectre had only ever met one Elcor who could control his pheromones enough to trick his translator regarding what he was feeling. The pheromones were honest. Like the Elcor themselves. Almost always. As a Spectre, he naturally dealt with the exceptions more often than most. Better to scare the captain so that when he communicated with the pirates, he would be scared, then to provide him reassurance which might concern them enough to blow the ship out of the sky, rather than board it.

*Indignantly* "The Elders of the Courts of Dekuuna were promised—"

"That these pirates would be dealt with. And they will," Nihlus left the ship's bridge. He did not mutter to himself. There was no need for anyone else to know how irritated he was to be used as proof of the Council's commitment to the Volus and the Elcor by dealing with a cluster of pirates which any of the mercenary companies of the area could have dealt with as efficiently. More so, in fact, as they wouldn't have been prevented from bringing in a few heavily armed ships to level the playing field. If he'd been allowed to handle this quietly he could have brought in a frigate flotilla, probably the 79th, and wiped the pirates out without anyone else even knowing he'd been involved. But this had to be seen to be the action of a Spectre, without the provocation of sending Citadel military vessels into the Terminus systems. He despised politics.

Most of his troops were hidden in amongst the mineral containers, which should prevent any detection of their presence. He'd requested a few Elcor troops who would ensure that the pirates wouldn't penetrate into the crew quarters and work areas of the ship. He'd seen what Elcor troops could do in a confined space. They were kitted out with kinetic barriers that any other species would have put on a tank and were wearing heavy weapons capable of tearing through a Turian's shields in seconds.

Nihlus let his mandible's stretch open slightly. At least this job would have one upside, for the pirates here were a Turian gang. He despised Turians who preyed on others. Born outside the Hierarchy and outside Council space, his family had not descended to such savagery. Those who chose to do so would receive no mercy from him, or from any of the soldiers of the 26th Armiger Legion he'd borrowed for this operation. Usually he preferred to work alone, but not when his hands were tied and he was forced to operate publically.

The pirate ship approached an open slot on one of the cargo arms. Previous raids by other groups had followed a set pattern of arriving, demanding the payment of a 'tax' and accepting one of the cargo pods attached to the long, spindly arms of the cargo ship in exchange for permitting them to go on their way unmolested. The expense had been less than bringing in mercenaries to clean out the pirates, so neither the Volus, nor the Elcor had done anything, until this new group calling itself the Ravagers had seen what a profit their rivals were making off the system and moved in. They didn't bother with pretense, merely docking and stealing the entire ship. Several attempts had been made to ransom the crews, but after the Blue Suns botched an attempt to snatch the prisoners rather than pay the ransom, the crews had simply been shot, then dumped out an airlock, as there was no market for Elcor slaves. With materials cut-off, Von Industries was furious, as were the various Elcor mining concerns which had lost people and ships.

Which was why a Spectre had been sent. To make an example of the Terminus rabble and prove the Council cared about the non-Council races, try to quiet them down, especially with the Humans making trouble and alliances among the other non-Council species. He sighed slightly, he wished the Humans would make up their mind as to a strategy to gain acceptance. Courting everyone, except the Batarians, made them look desperate, but it also meant that the Council had to be courting everyone as well. The last six months had consisted of running around, trying to convince people how much the Council cared about them. That wasn't why he'd become a Spectre. They should have sent an Asari for that. At least this mission would have some shooting in it.

He slid past a massive Elcor soldier whose harness bristled with machine-guns. It was Hatter, the sergeant in charge of the team. *Eager for battle* "These murderers won't know what hit them."

Nihlus smirked. "Oh, no, I'm sure they'll know that it was you who hit them, Sergeant, you make an impression in that outfit."

*Boisterously* "That's what the boys always say, when they see me coming on shore leave."

The Turian Spectre laughed, and tried very hard not to think about what exactly an Elcor's sex life might be like.

Nihlus made it into position as the ship lurched slightly when the pirate frigate locked onto the cargo ship. There were no indications as the pirates forced the airlock that his troops were moving across the void towards the enemy ship, hidden from view by advanced ECM, they maintained complete radio silence. The engineers—no, the 26th called them saboteurs—would open the pirate ship's other airlock and deal with the crew, the Elcor soldiers would keep the cargo ship's crew safe. It was his job to prevent the pirates from getting away, or firing on the cargo ship from the time they realized it was a trap until they were all dead. Which was why he was hiding behind a false panel by the airlock, watching a dozen Turian bordering party storm aboard.

He resisted the urge to drop a grenade at the back of their ragged formation. This was embarrassing, these fools were Turians? He hadn't known the galaxy made any of his people so sloppy.

Still, they did have enough sense to leave a pair of guards on the airlock. They didn't even have the sense to spread out, standing close together so they could talk about what they were going to do when they got back to Omega. Nihlus stepped out from behind them, pulling a pair of pistols off his hard-suit and, ensuring the muzzle was inside their shield, he cut off their pornographic description of their interest in some Asari dancer with two quick blasts. Holstering one of the pistols, he moved quickly through their ship. It was a standard design, with the bridge in the center of the ship, where it would take a crippling blow to damage it. But with a frigate, the center of the ship wasn't far away.

A skilled infiltrator, he made it through the enemy lines without any particular trouble, only have to use his cloak once to evade the notice of a particular dedicated engineer. It was almost a shame to shoot her in the back of head before continuing on, but he really didn't want to be hit from behind when he stormed the bridge.

Use of the tactical cloak let him slip onto the bridge without anyone noticing. A V.I. streamed footage from a security camera right outside where Sergeant Hatter and his troops were waiting at a choke-point. The Turians might be a disgrace to their species, but they knew enough to breach the choke-point between the cargo arms and the crew compartment as a group. It wouldn't be long now.

Nihlus glanced around the bridge. There were only three Turians there, one at the piloting console, a second at the weapons/scanning controls and the third, a woman, who was wearing elaborate armor, unlike her fellows who were wearing simple clothing, was at the comms console, giving orders to the boarding party. She had to be the pirate captain. They were all facing their consoles, so he had an opportunity. The combat knife dropped from its sheath into his hand. A hand grabbed the pilot's head fringe, jerked it up and to the side, exposing the Turian's unarmored jawline. The blade bit up, killing the pilot instantly. Unfortunately the blade caught and scraped loudly on the dead Turian's spine, drawing the curious attention of the Turian at the weapons console.

The sound of heavy weapons firing on full power filled the room through the comms console as the pirates ran straight into the vengeful fire of the Elcor heavies. The weapons officer saw him before he could reactivate his cloak. The pirate opened his mouth to scream and Nihlus rushed him leaving his knife in the dead pilot. The Turian managed to get out a squeaked warning before the heavily armored Spectre hit the cloth-wearing pirate like a tank, slamming him back into the console, his head sliding through the holographic controls and bouncing off the metal of the bulkhead underneath. Nihlus could feel the pirate's chest plate crumple under the impact of his armored shoulder and he used the rebound to spin himself to face the pirate captain, pistol coming up.

There was just time to see the blue glow swirling around her extended hand, think cabal and silently curse the lack of prep time and intel on this operation before the warp hit him full in the chest, eating away at his shield. He sprinted towards cover, firing as he went. Only a third of his shots hit her shield, a horrifying hit-rate for a Turian, even one sprinting and firing one handed. Especially when the target wasn't moving, but was rather gathering biotic energy. The throw that headed towards him detonated the warp that was crawling all over his shield.

The explosion sent him into the wall and left him stunned for a moment. Though his armor was holding, his shields were down. The Turian biotic reached out a hand, pulling him off his feet and dangling helplessly in the air. She pulled a heavy pistol off her armor and lined up a shot, only to be distracted by the sound of explosions as the Armiger Legion troops encountered the pirates and began to rip through them.

Nihlus triggered his cloak the moment she looked away. When she looked back, he'd disappeared. She spun, searching for the Spectre as he floated over her. The biotics failed before his tactical cloak ran out of power. Though he'd had zero-gee training and practiced with more than one biotic in the past, he wasn't able to land on his feet, instead he hit the deck hard, pistol jarred out of his hand. As he scrambled up onto all fours, she aimed her gun in the general direction of the sound and fired. He charged forward, get a hand around the wrist of her gun hand, forcing it up. The cloak failed as he brought an armored knee up against her equally armored stomach. The impact didn't do much damage, but it made her hunch over, he twisted her wrist high, forcing her to bend over further and he brought his knee up against her helmeted head. It was her turn to be stunned and he took advantage, forcing her face-down into the deck, arm elevated, his knee in the center of her back, leaving her helpless and pinned. The second pistol found its way into his hand and then against the base of her helmet, "It's time to have a little conversation, pirate," he whispered, right into the audio sensor on her armor, voice vibrating with menace clearly audible even through his helmet.

"Who the fuck do you think you are? My troops will—"

"Decompose. As for me, I am a Spectre of the Council."

A shudder went through the form of the pirate pinned beneath him. "Spirits…" She shuddered again.

Nihlus waited for her to begin to find her balance again, then knocked her off balance again, "Now, you can tell me about your little buddies, or I can bring in my Asari interrogator and she can rip the information from your mind, while my engineers are ripping the information from your computers." This was a lie, both because he did not have an Asari interrogator and because their melding didn't work that way. Some information could sometimes be gained, depending on the interrogator and the victim, but since there was no way to verify it and it required you to trust a rapist, Nihlus didn't use them, unlike some Spectres, exempt from the laws which usually would have barred such action.

"If I tell you will you let me go?" her voice vibrated with terror, believing his bluff.

"No, but I'll turn you over to the Courts of Dekuuna. They'll keep you in a comfortable cell, while they deliberate over your case for the next decade, and they don't have the death penalty."

"What do you want to know?"

"Everything," Nihlus's mandibles flexed in victory as the pirate began to spill her guts, just as the Turian Legionnaires entered the room. It was twenty minutes before she was drained and he had them drag her from the room, using full biotic control measures.

He rose to his feet and staggered slightly, feeling the familiar pain of a gunshot wound. Looking down he saw a hole in the armor plate over his stomach, leaking blood. "Well, shit," he said leaning on the wall and activating his medigel dispenser, injecting the newly modified dextro-medigel into the wound, stopping the bleeding and the pain alike. Humans had their good points and the investment of his own funds into the Sirta Foundation's effort to reengineer medigel to work on dextro physiology had paid off once again in a manner more than the merely monetary.

The lieutenant commanding his detachment of troops leapt forward to support him. "Sir, are you all right?"

"I'm well enough. Check the data we got from the pirate against whatever your engineers have pulled from their computer core." He could sense her preparing to speak and got there first. "I'll head down to the med bay and get checked out," Nihlus pulled away and walked easily towards the door.

"Thank you sir. Axen, Vappal, escort the Spectre to the med bay and make sure he's all right." His helmeted head turned back towards her like a turret tracking an enemy. "Sir, the ship isn't entirely secure yet."

"Very well," Nihlus agreed, accepting the help as he marched off, with the Legionnaires hovering around him. Being babied always made him crazy, but it probably wasn't avoidable at the moment, not if he wanted to be ready for action by the time they reached the pirate base.