Ymek Uzum - A carnivorous vine native to Tuchanka. It grows in pits and depressions, subduing its prey with hallucinogens. The prey feels little to no pain, trapped in a hallucinogenic haze, as the plant digests it alive.

Gikgah - Ancient, ziggurat-like temple structures.

Qadin: (pronounced kah-dihn) Female after undergoing the rite of passage (female version)

Qansiz: (pronounced kan-sihz) Unblooded … innocent. Stage of a warrior's ascent between the Rites of Passage and Birinc Qan.

1863 CE, Citadel (Six weeks later)

The salarian councillor bristled but leaned back on one hip, arms locked down across his chest, his attitude one of such disdain that Wrex couldn't help but smirk: a slow, dangerous rictus. "And how do we know that this new krogan society isn't arming itself through the black market? Your clan now controls more wealth than all the clans combined going back a thousand cycles." The salarian's condescension cut, cold and sharp, but he might as well not have bothered, the blades just bounced off Wrex's armour, the layers thick after a lifetime and a half.

Until that moment, Wrex never understood how Shepard put up with it. She always said that barking dogs were too busy to bite, but he'd never understood what she meant. While understanding wiped out his fear, it upped his unease. They were scared. They saw what the krogan could evolve into, what they could have evolved into without salarian intervention, and the glory and power of that terrified them.

"Urdnot has conformed to the conditions of the surrender," Wrex replied. "Search our territory. You'll find only handheld weapons; ancient, deactivated ground defense turrets; and vehicles with no mounted weapons. Our credits have been spent on recycling and construction equipment as well as constructing water and soil reclamation plants."

"I have filed all of Clan Urdnot's purchase requests with my reports," Commander Quarn said, stepping up next to Wrex. The turian looked even more ready to punch a fist straight through the salarian than Wrex felt. "My people have inspected all the crates coming in and being shipped out. The manifests for all shipments have conformed exactly to CDEM conditions and regulations."

He stepped out ahead of Wrex. "Look, you know as well as I do that Urdnot Wrex is trying to build his people a safe, habitable home, and you're terrified by the fact that the krogan might be pulling themselves out of the scattered, mercenary role we've all become accustomed to. The rebellions nearly destroyed us all, including the krogan." Rolling his shoulders in a tight shrug, Quarn continued, "Can we allow for the fact that the krogan have learned from the mistakes of their fore-bearers … the mistakes created by salarian intervention?"

Wrex chuckled under his breath, the strangeness of a turian arguing for Urdnot making him feel as though he'd fallen head first into a pit of ymek uzum. He reached out, closing his fingers on the turian commander's shoulder, trying to ease him back before they both ended up censured by the council.

Instead of backing down, Quarn glanced over at Wrex and shook his head before turning back to the council. "My predecessor told me that my job was to watch Urdnot for the slightest excuse to unleash hell. I went into the job thinking that I was dealing with a loose cannon spoiling for war ... that Urdnot Wrex was trying to build the krogan into a galactic threat."

Quarn paced a few steps back and forth, then seemed to come to a decision of some kind and activated him omnitool. "The file I'm sending you is all of the updates, reports, requisitions, and applications for approval that Wrex and Urdnot Mellir sent to my predecessor. More than forty cycles of them. Some of them are as basic as requests for food for the pups during a varren plague. All remained unsent."

Wrex watched the council, as surprised as they were at the contents of the file that appeared on his tool. He thought it had all been forwarded to the council and rejected. The sludge-thick anger simmering in his gut began to boil. They hadn't even been sent on. No wonder the council suspected him of sneaking around behind their back.

"As you can see," Quarn continued, "my predecessor set Wrex up. Commander Vinnitus was determined to provoke a conflict that would end in a krogan extinction."

"We will review this evidence at a later date," the turian councillor said, waving his talons as if dismissing its importance. Of course he was.

Wrex took a long breath and cracked his neck, tightening his grip on his temper. While he appreciated Quarn presenting the evidence of his forthright intentions, they hadn't come before the council to deal with that. They stood there to confront the council regarding the STG attack, and he didn't intend to leave without getting what he came for.

"The STG doesn't make a move without orders from the council or the dalatrasses," Wrex said, stepping up to the edge of the platform. "So someone sent them to kill our females and pups." Narrowing his eyes, he leaned toward them. A heady, feral sort of satisfaction met their subtle shift backwards. Good, they could feel the fine edge cutting into the soles of their feet. "We're moving the clan to the Gikgah of Niraxahk. We installed a water reclamation and purification plant a decade ago, and are reclaiming the soil. It's ready for us to start rebuilding." He gave them a crooked, sneering sort of grin. "And we're going to do it with council support."

"What are your plans for the krogan, Urdnot Wrex?" the asari councillor asked, her hands drifting up as if she meant to cross her arms, but then they settled to her console. "Where do you see your people in another two hundred or a thousand cycles?"

"In two hundred cycles, I see half the population of Tuchanka united under Clan Urdnot. I see an embassy on the Citadel, krogan soldiers protecting the galaxy alongside the turians, asari, and hu—." He clamped his jaw shut on the last word. "And the salarians." Giving them a big, grimace of a smile, he shrugged. "I see colonies everywhere owing the krogan their peace of mind because we kill the monsters." His laugh rolled out slow and heavy, a boulder sliding down a mountainside. "In three or four hundred cycles, I see a krogan councillor standing up there beside you."

He stepped to the very edge of the platform and lifted one huge finger to jab at each of them in turn. "And I see you helping me make all that happen, because otherwise we go public with our evidence that the salarians' committed war crimes against Clan Urdnot." Before they could start squawking about blackmail, he nodded to Quarn, who activated his omnitool, sending the recorded footage to the large holo-screen behind the council.

"Wrex called us immediately after returning to the clan holding," Quarn stated. "All but two of the STG personnel were held captive, awaiting my arrival." He started the vid, showing the unharmed salarians.

"And what of the other two?" the salarian council demanded.

Wrex scowled, surprised for what he swore would be the last time. When faced with documented evidence of the STG's war crimes, the councillor cared about two dead agents? The universe truly was a madder place than he'd appreciated as a merc. He almost chuckled. Took becoming a politician to see the true face of madness.

Samara stepped forward, the justicar's presence owning the chamber the moment she moved. "I killed them while defending the females and pups." Her words flowed like the waters of the stream in the temple ruins: clear, cool, and musical in its temerity. "They left me little choice."

The asari councillor shifted a little. "What required a justicar's presence on Tuchanka?" A heavy ice flow crept over the entire chamber, a glacier that left Wrex certain that both asari knew exactly why Samara had been watching Urdnot. It also left him certain he'd be asking Samara if she suspected her fugitive had been assisted in arriving on his planet.

"I believe my quarry hiding in the wastelands outside Urdnot territory. I keep watch for krogan sneaking off to follow the rumours of her miraculous healing powers." Samara nodded to Quarn, who had halted the recording. When it continued, she said, "I maintain a careful watch over the female compound within the camp, for it is the females who are most susceptible. I witnessed the STG planting their devices."

She stiffened, fury radiating through her forced calm and regal manner. "The agents did not plant the explosives in the armoury, the garage, or any other part of the compound with the slightest military application. They planted the bombs specifically to kill Urdnot's females and pups, and waited until the males were all away working or hunting to do so." Impossibly, she drew herself taller and more rigid, her body glowing with a slight aura that Wrex assumed constituted some sort of threat.

The asari councillor's reaction confirmed his belief.

Unfazed, Samara continued, "I could not stand by and allow such a blatant war crime to be committed against innocents." Releasing a breath that sounded like a pressure relief valve purging, she let the biotic aura dissipate, but her manner didn't thaw a millimetre. "With the help of the handful of males in the camp and a few of the infertile females, I subdued the STG agents and evacuated the clan to a safe location." She lifted a long, slender arm to point out the bodies of the three dead females. "These three sacrificed themselves to ensure the rest escaped. They stood bravely in the face of a most cowardly attack."

Quarn gestured toward the huge holo-screen. "The evidence supports the justicar's testimony, as you can see." Activating a laser pointer, Quarn launched into an analysis of the destruction. When he completed his dissection of the vid, he brought up an image of the female camp prior to the bombing. "If we conclude that the STG acted to quell a threat, this is it, Councillors: comfortable dwellings, running water, quality sanitation, reliable power, heat, and even small vegetable gardens growing under gold halide lights." He stepped back, leaving the image of females working and pups playing up there until he took his position behind Wrex.

The three councillors turned to face each of the others in turn, their silence screaming louder than any protest.

The asari clasped her hands behind her back and tilted her chin up. "What are you asking the council for, Urdnot Wrex?" Her tone rang with bitter resignation. If it took those pyjaks five minutes to begin plotting their revenge, he'd be a varren's chew toy. Let them. He wouldn't let them, their Spectres, or the STG catch him by surprise again.

He rolled his eyes, imagining the victorious gleam in Urdnot Bakara's eyes when he allowed female warriors.

A furious smile twisted Wrex's face as he focused back on the council. "The freedom to rebuild my planet and my people." Drawing himself up to match the asari's arrogance, he laced his words with a not-so-subtle roar. A warrior he remained, not some pleading supplicant. "I will conform to the terms of the krogan surrender until the time comes that a krogan stands here in my place, the representative of a renewed people. On that day, you will tear up that surrender and the krogan will stand side by side among the races, proud of who they are, apologizing to no one." He backed up a single step. "And you will be glad that we are."

1864 CE Gikgah of Niraxahk (18 months later)

Wrex strode out of the gikgah's upper west entrance and turned his face toward Aralakh, the late afternoon sun beating down with all of its usual merciless heat. He sucked in a deep breath, inflating his lungs with the smells of sand, flowing water, green ... life. A low roar rumbled beneath the exhale. Stretching his arms out to the side, he rolled his shoulders until they cracked, then back further, arching backwards until a series of crunching sounds popped along his spine.

A thick groan of pure pleasure rumbled from his throat as he settled his armour up his shoulders. Too many hours and days spent hunched over piles of rubble threatened to age him long before his time. Despite being born to bathe in the blood and chaos of war, he couldn't ask his people to follow where he refused to lead. So, he spent his days up to his shoulders in rubble and concrete, in clearing blocked tunnels and building waterways. He drew a line when it came to growing crops.

Damn crops. He left that to Mellir.

Hearing quick footsteps climbing toward him, Wrex shaded his eyes and glared down on the turian spy. "You here just to bust my quad again, Quarn?"

"Probably twice, since they regenerate." The commander grinned, his mandibles giving a single, hard flick. "But busting your balls is just a perk today. I'm here to make a delivery." He held his arm out toward the clan's new spaceport. "She's a beauty. Going to come and see her?"

Wrex nodded. "Finally found us a second transport?" He stepped up beside the turian, clapping him on the back hard enough to throw him down a couple of steps. "Took you long enough."

Quarn pinwheeled his arms for a second, managing to catch his balance even as Wrex reached out to grab him. The proud turian chuffed and straightened his armour. "Your budgetary constraints didn't make it easy, but luckily I know a volus ship dealer who enjoys games of chance a little too much for his own good." He arched his neck. "It helps that I possess a long, proud lineage of rogues and ne'er-do-wells."

Taking the lead down the long flight of steps to the gikgah's courtyard, Wrex just glanced at the torin and cocked a brow. "So you brought me change?"

"Hardly." Quarn scoffed. "I treated myself to a luxury stay at the premier spa on Palaven. You know, to release all the stress that builds up dealing with your charming self."

Wrex let out a rude belch-cough. "You remind me of a turian I knew in another life. He thought he was funny, too."

"Oh? I remind you of him?" Quarn asked, his neck arching a little, brow plate lifted, his expression sly. "So, he was exceptionally good looking and intelligent? A gifted and honourable leader? A turian's turian."

"No, he was wrong about being funny," Wrex deadpanned.

Quarn laughed. "So, the resemblance is minimal, then? Disappointing. I'd like to think I'm not the only exceptional specimen out there."

Wrex elbowed the turian, hard, stifling a chuckle with a low growl. "Exceptional? Ha!" He'd never expected to like another turian, feeling secure in his belief that Garrus amounted to a solitary exception to the rule. When Quarn stuck his neck out with the council, promising to oversee the krogan rebuilding personally, Wrex suspected a trap, but the commander had come through for them fifty times over.

When they reached the courtyard, the turian nodded toward a group of young krogan moving through the slow, precise movements of martial practice. At the head of their formation, the asari justicar coached and encouraged. "Samara still hasn't found her quarry?"

Wrex shook his head. "The 'healer' avoids trying to lure anyone away from Urdnot, so we're forced to search. We've narrowed it down to a couple hundred square klicks around the Pass of Rakikz." He led the way across to what could almost call itself a spaceport. "I believe she ran off-world after we met with the council, but Samara's stubborn enough to be a qadin. She insists this Morinth is still here."

They crossed a narrow bridge over what had once been a wasteland of sand and the remains of an ancient military installation. After laying a deep, maw-proof foundation of concrete and huge stone slabs, they'd spread a thick layer of reclaimed, rejuvenated soil and planted the gikgah's first fields. On the other side of the bridge, they entered the heart of the gikgah, the memorial field, an ancient version of the Hollows.

Circling the massive sunspire in the front, they walked into the shade of the memorial, then out the left side, back out into the sun. The complex started within two months of Wrex's return from the Citadel. They'd built a large platform built with a solid enough foundation to withstand thresher maws and enough area to land three large transports and the clan's few shuttles.

Quarn stopped as the spaceport opened in front of them. "This city is going to be the envy of every world spinning in a few hundred cycles," he said, letting out a low whistle of awe. "If I have a regret, it's that I won't see what the krogan have become by the time they lay your wrinkled, old body out here."

Wrex just let out a throaty snort, and buried his elbow in the turian's side.

The last cycle had seen a small market crop up just inside the gikgah walls at the port entrance. What started as one, brave volus willing to take a chance to open a new market had burgeoned into nearly a dozen coming and going on a rotating schedule. For the first half-cycle, only Urdnot and its allies made use of it, but a few months earlier, other clans, even rivals, began frequenting the stalls. Wrex encouraged his rivals to take advantage of the rich rewards of Urdnot's growing wealth and influence. He might not be able to meld all the clans into one—nor did he want to—but he could build a society where all the varied clans worked together.

"Is that Gatatog?" Quarn asked, pointing to a small cluster of warriors lurking outside one of the stalls as they stepped out onto the tarmac. He laughed, low and a little wicked. "Uvenk, no less." He made a clicking whistle. "Is he here to open serious talks, or do we play another game of find the assassin?"

Wrex let out three amused, vicious-sounding chuckles. "You never know with Uvenk. The maintenance garage is nearly finished and three more asari merchants and a volus trader added Urdnot to their routes." Wrex stabbed a finger at the bustling crowd around the market stalls. "Uvenk's a pyjak in a roasting pit: he doesn't know whether to take advantage of what Urdnot's building, or piss on himself because he fears our influence with the other clans."

"Pissing himself would be helpful in a roasting pit." Quarn's mandibles twitched, but Wrex just rumbled. The next second, the CDEM commander turned to look at the new maintenance bay and let out a long whistle. "You've been working like fiends on that thing. It's a beauty."

Wrex straightened, pride squaring his shoulders as he strode past the shell of the new garage/ship bay. He never believed he'd find himself in a position to be grateful to the STG for their attack, but stretching the council between what they'd done and what they wanted known had allowed him to jump start the krogan rebuilding.

Looking up, he shaded his eyes and squinted against Aralakh's rays reflecting off their new transport as he turned the conversation back around to Gatatog. "Uvenk showed up this morning and demanded a meeting." Wrex hawked and spat onto the sizzling tarmac. "Weyrloc and the other clans with Blood Pack ties are moving in, trying to force him into an alliance. Uvenk might be a traditionalist windbag, but he holds his honour tighter than his sphincter. He'd kill his entire clan himself before he threw in with the Blood Pack."

Quarn led the way up the ramp into the freighter. "If that's the case, and you pad the offer, you might just end up with a truly loyal ally." Twisting to look back, the commander shrugged. "Wouldn't that be a kick in the council's quad?"

Wrex took a breath to tell Quarn to mind his own damned business, but the commander changed the subject before he could wind up. "So, I plied my considerable charms and wrangled you a set of transparent aluminium cages installed for almost nothing. And the cargo bay is spray-coated so it's acid proof, and you can just hose the whole place down." He sighed. "I know, you're overwhelmed with gratitude." A wide grin met Wrex's low growl. "Don't worry about trying to hide it; I know you love me."

Their tour of the freighter turned into Wrex showing the commander around the complex, ending at the far end, where a third large courtyard had been turned into barracks and a training ground.

"She's not wasting any time, is she?" Quarn said, as he stopped to watch Urdnot Bakara taking on a juvenile klixen in one of the practice compounds.

Wrex rumbled low in his throat but one of agreement that time. Between the influence of Mellir, Samara, and Bakara, the females of the united clans had overwhelmingly voted to not only work on rebuilding the gikgah into the grand complex it had been thousands of cycles before, they'd voted to train female warriors for both hunting and internal security. He wouldn't admit it, even under torture, but the qadin who came forward to train as warriors had taken to it like varren on a blood trail. Bakara most of all.

"She went out on the last hunt, brought down two on her own." Wrex grunted and stabbed his chin toward the knife in her hand. "Wait until you see her with a shotgun, instead of that little thing."

The qadin charged the klixen, feinted to miss its gouts of flame, then rolled past it to flip it on its back. Leaving it to right itself, she turned to the enclosure's gate and let herself out, tossing a leg of varren in before locking everything back up.

"And what did the shamans say?" Quarn asked, lifting a hand to return Bakara's wave.

"She took a krant of females into her Rite of Passage, including Mellir. Brought down the maw. First to have done it since my rite." He chuckled low, the sound broadcasting his affection and admiration for the two most troublesome females in his life. "The shamans didn't have much to say after that." A wide grin twisted his face, wry but proud. "Mellir ended that day with a handful of breeding requests, even as old as she is."

Quarn joined Wrex in his laughter. "The things I miss when I'm out being your errand puer." He sidled up to Wrex, making a face that Wrex supposed was meant to be beguiling, but looked mostly nauseated. "Put together a hunt. I've got three dozen soldiers up there spoiling to take on another thresher maw, and you do need to put the new transport through its paces."

"Clan leader!" Bakara called, striding over. She wore a set of flame red klixen shell armour, her uzluk replaced by a light scarf secured around her head. A quick nod and, "Commander," acknowledged Quarn before those gold eyes turned their predator's gaze on Wrex. "Clan leader, I wish your permission to approach the shamans and ask for them to prepare the Rite of Birinc Qan."

Wrex's scowl deepened. "Have you spoken to your battle master?" The intense, bright spark that blazed in her eyes at the question made Wrex regret allowing Barl to be her battle master, and not for the first time. "Fine, we'll gather the shamans, Mellir, and the other clan leaders. If everyone agrees, I'll approve it."

"Thank you," she said, her voice tight and solemn, but then she turned and practically bolted across the compound. As much as Wrex dreaded the backlash of initiating a female past the rank of qansiz, the hearts that thundered in her chest … none beat stronger or more gloriously krogan.

"Moving fast," Quarn said, his voice slanted toward warning.

"Krogan will sing songs of her one day," Wrex replied, nodding as if he hadn't heard that warning. "That day will be among the best and worst of my life."

"Krogan will sing songs of you one day—notably, the cenazek around your pire—if you don't take it easy with pushing through all this change." Quarn's mandibles dropped. "Give the qadin time to prove that they are able qansiz before you push to blood them against krogan." He shrugged and turned to watch Bakara hurry toward the bridge. "It won't take as long as you think before your people can't remember a time when females weren't shooting their way through enemy clans. She won't let it."

Wrex muttered and spun on his toes, striding back through the compound, shoulders hunched beneath a weight he hadn't felt the moment before. "Enemy clans." His changes to the krogan way of life meant less conflict between clans, fewer border skirmishes and wars. Somehow he still needed allow his people to remain true to their hearts, to fight, and animals would not satisfy them forever.

"So, about that hunt?" Quarn ran up beside him. "How soon can we head out to kill a really big worm?"

"I can't take you hunting again," Wrex grumbled. "You're reckless, and if you get killed, the council will replace you with a commander less … ." He just let the sentence die, unwilling to pay Quarn the compliment.

"Less charming?" Quarn's brow plates rose toward his fringe. "Less attractive? Less strong, with less honour?" He preened, his step lifting. "A less commanding leader with a smaller heart, less noble in his pursuit of justice for the krogan." He nodded. "I understand the risk."

"Come on, I'll arrange a hunt for this afternoon ... invite Uvenk along. Maybe you'll both get eaten."


(A-N: Sorry for the wait, had a lot going on. Next chapter Jack just might be moving too fast as well. Thanks for your support of this story in its infancy. I hope it continues to entertain. )