Behold. A chapter.

Sorry for the delay I got distracted by writing another story. Posted it, it got nine views and then died. *Laughs* guess I'll stay out of that genera with that style.

And, here, we, go!

"Adjunct. Battle-stations." I look over at Taalthia. "Are these more of your Batarian friends?" I pull up an outside view on one of the veiwscreens and Taalthia grabs my arm, "No! Those are Turians! They are our allies!" I turn and watch the tactical display, both fleets, if you could call that paltry collection of ships a fleet, where moving in a dance, searching for firing angles, setting the strongest section of the shields to the enemy. No one wanted to make the first move, them because they feared oblivion, us because we didn't want the wrath of two space faring species down on our relatively isolated fleet. "Well, it's a standoff. They don't want to shoot at us and we don't want to shoot at them." I turn to Tallthia. "I need someone to explain this whole mess to them and hope we can resolve this peacefully before it ends in shooting. I need that person to be you."

Her eyes bugged out of her head. "M-me? Why me?"

"Because you and your fellow asari are the only ones that can communicate with them. That and you are here."

She nods, "Alright, I can try." She walks over to a tactical display and looks at me, "I'll need you to open a com channel."

I lead her over to the communications station, inwardly frowning about my inability to communicate right off. "Okay, we will need a frequency."

She lifts up her right arm and it lights up in an orange gauntlet, I take a half step back and see all the security forces reaching for their pistols. I wave them back and watch her wave the thing around.

"Commander, I have received several communications frequency channels, labeled in varying states of importance." I look over at the Adjunct, who has lifted out of it's little alcove and is staring at me.

"Thank you Adjunct, open a channel on the most important frequency." I look at Taalthia and point at the com station as the status light changes from yellow standby to open green.

"La'tanan, La'tanan! Etos ma recta seva mata alos!" I walk away from her and wander over to the control station. No change in the fleets, all of us where just jockeying for position, lining up shots, waiting... Always waiting. It was making me a little unnerved.

"Adjunct. I want a deep scan of those ships. Radar, Ladar, particle scanners, mass readings, everything." I turn to look at it. "I want to know how much dust is stuck to whatever they use for paint."

The adjunct did a little stutter thing as it processed the command and relayed my orders to the appropriate people. "Orders relayed commander, scans are in progress."

I nodded once in self satisfaction and wandered back over to Taalthia, watching with my arms crossed over my chest. "Metos valateem ecta vas ma'tavas?"

She looks over at me when a deep flanged voice comes back over the com. "Non nos vreare, tenim quonod nobbit shunt."

"I am talking to General Desolas Arterius and he wants me to tell you; you are trespassing."

I look at her with a stunned expression, "Is he stupid? Does he want me to blow him out of the sky?" I sigh and rub the bridge of my nose, " Tell him we would love to leave, as soon as we can. But. "I cross the distance and talk directly into the com station, not really caring if he could understand me or not. I wanted him to hear the irritation in my voice. "We can't, as long as that...mass relay is online we are stuck here." I turn to Taalthia and nod at the com station, "Please translate that, and put an emphasis on the fact that we are stuck here." She nods and I wander over to the command station where Miranda is waiting, with a annoyed expression on her face.

"You told me they where human." She accused.

"You wait until now to single me out? Where have you been anyway? I didn't see you when I got here with Taalthia." I put my hands on my hips and glare at her.

"I was talking with the Magistrate on the QEC. He expects a report from you by the way."

"HE CAN GO TO HELL!" I explode, causing everyone in ops, including Taalthia, to stop what they where doing and stare at me. "WHAT ARE YOU ALL STARING AT?!" I roar, the stress of the situation finally starting to get to me.

Miranda put a hand on my shoulder, "Calm down commander. Yelling isn't helping anything."

I shove her hand off of my shoulder violently and turn to glare at her before I take a deep breath. A deep calming breath "You know what? You're right it isn't. So, Mr. Harper can go to hell, you can use your eyes to learn that no, the shuttle occupants where not human, even though they looked that way in the crash. I was going to tell you but you where no where to be found. And by the way, right now we are facing down six ships that represent another space faring race but have no reliable way to communicate with them. Any questions?" I grind out, my voice just dripping with sarcasm and contempt.

Miranda blinked, "No commander." She frowned, clearly wanting to say more.

"Good." I turn on my heel and walk over to Taalthia as Miranda sulked out of the Operations Center. Taalthia stared at me, almost as if she was at a loss for words. Or as if I had grown another head. "Yes?" I ask, frowning.

"Nothing! It's I mean, it's nothing!" Taalthia says, as she wrings her hands.

"Good, so now how are we standing on the Turians and them letting us hang out for a while while we get our ducks in a row?" I point at the now inactive communications station.

"Ducks in a row? What does lining up water birds have to do with anything?" I mentally facepalm as I realize that, no, metaphors did not translate into Thessian.

"Um, it's a metaphor. It means get everything ready." I sort of chuckle, "Being lost in translation aside, question still stands. What is our Turian situation?"

She looked sort of embarrassed, "Well, I got him to press the issue further up the chin of command. He is talking to Palaven High Command right now, or he said he was." She shrugged. "I hope he is, you guys seem like you could take on the citadel fleet and win."

"What is this Citadel everyone keeps talking about, is it a planet? I am guessing it is important, but beyond that I only know it has a fleet protecting it and that it may contain a scientist that could help us with our FTL problem." I frown, "it's not a shield world is it?"

"A shield world?" Taalthia tilted her head in confusion.

"It's an artificial construction in the life zone of a star, an artificial bubble one or two astronomical units in diameter. We also call them a dyson sphere."

Taalthia looked stunned, "You don't actually have such a construction do you? That's a feat of engineering beyond even the Prothens!"

One lie couldn't hurt, could it? I straighten up. "Our home system is a shield world." I said, forcing as much pride into my voice as I could and smiling.

Taalthia opened her mouth as if she wanted to speak, closed it again, opened it, closed it, repeated the process five more times before whispering, "How advanced is your race?"

I open my mouth to reply when the adjunct lifts out of it's alcove, "Commander, Chief Engineer La' Forge wants to speak with you, he stresses that it is urgent."

I look at Taalthia and shrug, "Lasers and space marines, you know how it is." She didn't look very satisfied with that answer so I add, "We can compare notes on tech later, I promise." She nods and I walk over to the console and push the beeping light, opening up a screen to talk to La' Forge. "Tell me you have found a way to get our hyperspace engines online, because apparently we are trespassing."

He smiled, "No, but I have the next best thing."

I raise an eyebrow, "Oh? It's good news right? I like good news."

He smiled, "Oh yes, we figured out how to convert the hyperspace engines into warpspace engines. Not as fast as the hyperspace drives, but it should be enough to get us around."

I laugh, "Geordi I could just kiss you! How fast are we talking as far as speed?"

He shifts a little uncomfortably, "I'm not going to lie to you, it's slower than the standard six or eight light years per hour, but not by much." He rubbed his chin and half frowned. "I would say...Four or Five light years and hour."

I see Tallthia boggle out of the corner of my eye, her mouth hanging open. "Thank you Geordi, Sheperd out." I see him nod and the communications screen closes.

Tallthia walks over to me and suddenly shouts, "Only four of five light years and hour?! And fully working you are capable of six or eight!? Do you have any idea how much faster that is than council ships?!"

I laugh. "One, thats the old way of FTL, we are actually set up for Hyperspace which, if I remember right hits close to 200 light years per second. The only reason we are not using it is because your.. mass relay? Interferes with it."

Poor Talthia, she looked like her head was going to explode. "O-only 200 light years per hour, by the Goddess...The fastest ship I know is the Karazan, and it is only capable of eight tenth's of a light year of a hour, and it has to dump it's drive core charge after only ten hours!"

I raise an eyebrow, "So you are telling me we can outrun everything you know of?" I ask, "And what do you mean Drive core charge?"

She looked kind of embarrassed, "Well with my people we use element zero for FTL, if you apply a positive current the mass of whatever is in the field increases, we use that for things like kinetic barriers. If you apply a negative current the mass decreases, enough to achieve FTL. After so long this current builds up and has to be discharged, otherwise.." She slams her fist into her open palm, "ZAP!"

I nod, filling this weakness away for later when..." You said kinetic barriers? So your shields don't stop energy weapons like, lets say, lasers?"

She shook her head, "No."

I mentally cheer, we where the biggest baddest kids on the block! Now if only we had support...I suddenly frown, realizing I was thinking like the Supreme magistrate. No, we are guests, not conquerors. "I see, I hate to say it but you guys are at least one hundred years behind us technology wise. I mean, slow FTL, no energy weapons, and from what I have seen smaller ships. Unless those are two battle cruisers and four interceptors? If that's true I'm sorry for assuming and I look forward to seeing your larger ships. Provided Captain Rules lets us stay.."

Taalthia frowns, biting her lower lip. "Well, we don't really have anything bigger than those dreadnoughts. The Destiny Ascension maybe..." She shrugs and then laughs kind of sadly, "You are the first race we, I mean everyone, the Asari, the Turians, the Salarians, the whole council, that has been more advanced then we are. It's...Amazing and frightening at the same time I just think that-

"Commander." Ashleys voice whispered in my ear, "We may have a problem."

I hold up my hand to silence Taalthia, she puts her hands on her hips and looks at me with a miffed expression. I tilt my head to the side and put my hand to my ear. "Define problem Willaims."

"Two of the Asari are fighting, they got into an argument and now they are throwing things around the room with some sort of blue psionics that sets my teeth on edge."

I let out a grating sigh, "I don't suppose they are yelling at each other in English so we can sort this out?" Taalthia gets a concerned expression and leans forward as if she was trying to listen in... Side note I noticed Asari don't have ears. Weird. Anyway. I raise an eyebrow and motion her over to the command console, simultaneously dragging the conversation from my ear piece to the station. It lit up with Ashley's enlistment holo and a sound graph.

"Fraid not skipper, keep screaming Salgah! at each other. I-" I hear Taalthia let out an aggravated sigh and facepalm, dragging her hand down her face and sighing again. "What was that?"

"Oh, I have you speaker so my resident Asari expert could weigh in. She seem to know exactly what is going on, don't you?" I ask directing the last part of the statement at Taalthia.

She nods, "One of our younger members, Salgah T'gonos, is...romantically involved with two of the other members of our team. I was actually waiting for something like this to happen. I just assumed it would happen on our way back to council space, or on the citadel. I'm sorry this happened on your ship Commander." She lowered her eyes and looked at the deck, every bit the regretful leader.

"BWHAHAHA!Geeee heee * giggle-snort * Heh Hahaha. * gasp* Heh * giggle*"

I shake my head, "Are you going to be okay Willaims?"

"Right skipper just... hehehehehehe" I hear a deep breath over the com. "Okay, now I am done." I hear a forcefully repressed giggle sneak into the com. "*Ahem* So, these two are fighting...over this Salgah T'gonos?" I hear a HEV round being chambered into her rifle. "We have a solution for that."

I glare at the Station, "Ashley Willaims. No. Bad dog. Sit." I can hear the pout in Ashley's voice.

"You are no fun. So what is the move?" I tap my chin and push another button on the station.

"Jenkins."

The com springs to life and his face fills a section of my screen, I forget he was one of those gung ho marines that liked having his visor down, claims it helps him get around, for all I know he actually just has a dirty picture taped to the inside of his visor. I'll never know. "Yes ma'am?"

"I need you and about five marines to rendezvous with Ashley Willaims. I also need them geared for fighting psionics." I see his eyebrows shoot up.

"Uh, right away... Um..." He looks at something in the upper right hand of his visor, "Lethal or non lethal?"

I get close to the camera that is picking me up. "Non-lethal. Very, very, non-lethal."

He nods. "Can do boss lady." He nods and the communication cuts off.

"What are psionics?" Taalthia asked, her voice laced with confusion.

I furrow my brows and look at her, slightly tilting my head. "You know psionics, mind reading, the ability to move objects with your mind, reflex and speed enhancement, enhanced senses, fire manipulation, and in some extreme cases large psionic explosions.." I rub the back of my neck at the last one, it still makes me a little uncomfortable to talk about it, but she doesn't need to know that. "The thing your two asari are throwing at each other right now?"

"OH! By the goddess, you mean Biotics! You have encountered them before? Enough to fight them?" Taalthia asked, looking relieved.

I shrug, "sure, biotics. As for encountering them... Some humans are born with the ability."

Taalthia looked like she wanted to ask a question, biting her lower lip and frowning. "How can you have biotics when you said you didn't use Element Zero?"

I sigh and look at the Adjunct. "Adjunct, you have been listening, remember the little shpeel about Element Zero? Do we have anything like that on record?"

It lifted out of it's alcove and stared at me." Processing... Searching..." I tap my foot and Taalthia looks from me to the Adjunct and back again. "Commander. Match found. Science sample GTA-4T-9-B7-TT/ISOTRI-13/12, found in the asteroid field orbiting the neutron star in the Isotri system. It is noted to be hazardous, unstable, dangerous, toxic, and immediately dangerous to life and health. Attempts to mine the large deposits of the substance where halted by the dangers of the dead star and the generally hazardous nature of GTA-4T." It blinked and settled back into it's alcove.

I turn to Taalthia, "There you go, no Element Zero. It's dangerous. As for the biotics thing... No idea, I know that some humans are born with it. Hell, I used to be a powerful psionic, but I had an accident and lost the ability." I shrug.

Taalthia shook her head as if she was trying to shake something off of the tip of her nose and I got a feeling of confused amazement off of her. "Wait, you lost your psionics in an accident?" She blinked, "How does that work?"

I rubbed the circular device set over my ear. "I don't like to talk about it."

She looked like she was going to say more but seemed to think better of it and nodded. "Okay." She nodded at the command console, "Lets find out if my people are back under control."

I nodded, "Yes, lets." I push a button on the console. "Ashley Willaims. Richard Jenkins."

I wait a moment for the Adjunct to make the connections when. "Yes ma'am?" "Yes Skipper?"

"How is out little situation down there?" I ask. I hear Ashley start laughing and Jenkins looks embarrassed. "Okay, what happened?" Taalthia looks concerned, not worried, just concerned..

"Well...we took some of those prototype weapons with us and.." I facepalm.

"What did you point at them?" I ask

"Well, we took the HS-436. The stingray, and..." I hold up a hand and pushed a button on the console, typing in the weapon and pulling up a spinning holo of it. A long rifle with five large razor sharp hooks coming out of the barrel.

"What does this thing look like when it is active?" I ask

"Well, you see those hooks on the front? They open up and electricity arcs from each one to the barrel and back. It's a heck of a light show. "

I sigh."So what happened?"

I hear a pause at the end and Ashley fell into another round of giggles. "Well, see, the Stingray wasn't deployed until we leveled them at the women. So imagine it, six fully armored marines bum rushing into a room and leveling these things at the two women. I felt kind of bad because they grabbed each other and started crying. Curled up into a ball like we where pointing live rifles at them and they expected to be blown away at any second. Started begging and everything."

"IT WAS AWESOME!" I heard Ashley explode into the channel. "And the best part? Corporal retard here instead of lifting his visor and being calming blared over his PA. 'This behavior will not be tolerated!'" I hear her fall into another steam of giggles.

I rub the bridge of my nose, "So where are they now?"

I hear kind of an awkward pause at the other end of the line. "Well, uh, I kind of caught on that they where deathly afraid of us so I told them to put the room back the way it was or" he lowers his voice and sounds authoritative,"there will be consequences."

"So there are cleaning up their mess?" I look at Taalthia who has her arms crossed under her chest and looks pleased.

"Ya, pretty much. We are just hanging out outside the room talking with Ashley and each other." I hear Ashley make a noise in the affirmative.

I turn to Taalthia and lean on the command console, "These are your people, what do you want to do?"

She smiles, "Let them be afraid of your soldiers, it will do much to curb their desire to cause further mayhem."

I shrug. "Jenkins, you can go ahead and get out of there. Williams, is there a couch set up in there?"

I can almost hear the confusion in her voice. "Yes? That was one of the first things they put back."

I smile. "Good. I want you to go in there grab their attention and talk about how any more of this behavior will not be tolerated and next time there will be no warnings. Then sit on the couch, say 'we are watching you.' then cloak. You can come up to ops after that."

I hear Taalthia double over with laughter, "Make them thing there is an invisible person right there with them. Brilliant."

I smile. "Oh, they are not completely unmonitored. The Adjunct will let me know if anything is amiss."

Taalthia nods. "I still don't like your A.I. It unnerves me." She shakes her head. "But you say they are harmless, and I have to except that. Even if I don't believe it."

I frown, "Why the hate for A.I.'s? The Adjunct is harmless. I promise."

She lifted up her hand again and and the orange gauntlet reappeared. She pulled it close to her chest and focused on it, seemingly manipulating it with her fingers. When a Holo opened up over her hand she held it out, it was displaying a red creature, digitigrade legs, three fingers, a large sloping head that ended in a hood, two large poles coming out of it's back. I look closer, peering at it and realize that no, this wasn't a creature, this was a machine. "What am I looking at?"

"You are looking at one of the few images taken of a Geth Prime. A member of the Geth. The Geth where created as a workforce for another race, the quarians. The quarians kept improving on them until they became self aware. Once they where self aware, they then slaughtered their creators, driving the survivors up of their own territory to become a race of homeless vagabonds and thieves."

I stare deeply at the holo, considering it for a moment before glancing at the Adjunct. "Adjunct, tell Taalthia the three laws of A.I.s." Yes I know it is laws of robotics, but the Adjunct is smart and will get it.

It stuttered for a moment while it gathered up the necessary info, it then lifted out of it's alcove and looked at Taalthia, who shifted uncomfortably under it's gaze. "An A.I. may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. An A.I. must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. An A.I. must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law."

I smile, "Those laws are a core part of thousands of restrictions hard coded into any Adjunct or A.I."

"To have such a grasp of the concept of A.I.s to encode them with restrictions that center around the preservation of life." Taalthia said breathlessly. "You truly are the most advanced species any one has ever encountered."

I clear my throat kind of awkwardly, "Human life. She would be just fine with blowing Asari out the airlock."

Taalthia looks at me with a stunned expression, "But you wouldn't do that to us would you!?" she half demanded, half pleaded.

I shake my head and put a comforting hand on her shoulder, "No, I wouldn't." I smile. "I was just making a point." I look form the Adjunct to Taalthia again as an idea suddenly occurs to me. "Yes!"

Taalthia looks at me with a confused expression, "No?"

I laugh, "I think we might be able to make a translation program so I can talk to Desolas was it?" She nodded, "You obviously can talk to him and he is speaking a different language, how do you do it?"

She lights up that orange gauntlet again, "With this, there is a translation program built into every omitool."

I inwardly cheer, "Can you send that program to the Adjunct?"

She nodded and waved the thing around, pausing to look at it in confusion and then waving it around some more. "Commander, Data packet received, locating common markers, please stand by." Taalthia and I stood by and watched the adjunct.

"Soooo, you are taking this all pretty well. More advanced race, A.I.s, energy weapons, powered armor, the works." I say, eyeing her up and down, she really wasn't that bad looking, athletic, the purple skin tone matched her stunning violet eyes, I wouldn't mind... I smack myself in the face with a loud crack. "No Erikka! Bad!"

Taalthia shakes her head, "Are you okay?"

I shrug, "I am fine, So, coping?"

Taalthia shrugged, a mirror image of my gesture. "The goddess only challenges us with what we can handle, there is a reason for me to be on your ship."

"Commander. Language compile complete. Accuracy of translation has a threshold of 87%. Would you like me to distribute translation packet to the fleet?" The Adjunct had turned to stare at us.

I nod, "and send a copy to General Desolas. See if we can sort some of this out face to face." I pause to consider. "And send him a copy of our holo protocols, I want our next meeting to be face to face."

The Adjunct nodded. "Understood commander."

I wince at the faint spark as the program was downloaded into my neural interface, and then a feeling of being under a million pounds of water rushes over me as the information is forced into the language centers of my brain. I gasp, then bend over and groan. "That never gets any more pleasant."

Taalthia raises an eyebrow. "What never gets any more pleasant?"

I tap the implant over my ear. "Data directly to my brain, I can now speak and understand any one in..." My eyes widen as I realize that the Adjunct had ripped a codex from her device and given me a thirty second primer. "Score one for the Adjunct." I whisper. "In council space. Say something in Thessian."

Taalthia blinked. "Like what?"

I shrug, "First thing that pops into your head."

"Your hair looks soft." She mumbled in Thessian."

"Your eyes are stunning," I reply in the same language. We both kind of look at each other for a moment and then simultaneously burst out laughing. "You would almost think two grown adults where flirting like a bunch of teenagers!" I say, still speaking in Thessian.

Taalthia snorted, "No, we can't have that." She smiles, "For what it's worth, thank you for saving us from the slavers."

I smile broadly, "It was my genuine pleasure."

"So now what?" Taalthia asked.

I look around, "Well, until our Turian friends call it's a whole lot of sit around and stare at the bulkheads."

Taalthia nodded, "If you don't mind, I would like to go back to my people, I am sure they could use some guidance right now."

I nod in agreement. "Adjunct, guide miss Taalthia to her peoples state rooms." I reach out and grab Taalthia's hands. "And if you need anything, just let the Adjunct know and it will get me or a member of the crew to take care of you."

She nodded and squeezed my hands, "I will do that."

"Taalthia, please follow the blue lights in the floor." She flinched as the Adjunct said her name but did as she was instructed, following the blue lights out of Fleet Ops. "Commander?"

I turn from watching Taalthia leave to the Adjunct. "Yes?"

"I recommend playing down our abilities and strengths. If it comes to a fight is is better to be underestimated then to be met with overwhelming force." The Adjunct said.

I paused to consider her words and walked over to the command station, "I see." I idly played with the interface. Hope for peace, prepare for war. "I want the fleet prepared to reduce those ships to ash."