At first, the war was everywhere. In the Nubian Expanse, a group of turian supply ships had been destroyed in a raid, leaving a debris field that was hurling starward. They jettisoned their stores of torpedoes there, and moved on to find dozens of ships, some barely spaceworthy, were lined up at the relay in the Maroon Sea, ready to leave for safety. And in the Shadow Sea, a salarian battlegroup was forming up. Vance's captor, the asari named Liara T'Soni, had disabled their transponder in the hopes they could slip by unnoticed, and in fact, they passed directly through the body of the fleet as it waited its turn. Listening to the few unencrypted transmissions, it sounded as though they were on their way to Taetrus, where the turians had sustained heavy losses in a battle that had lasted for three days.

"No one wants the turians to come out on top," Liara said. "It only makes sense. The Hierarchy has the numbers." She had crawled out of her seat, and in a crouch, with her arm braced on the overhead console and her feet on the pilot's armrest, she leaned in to study Vance's expression. For the first time in a long while, after years of thinking the asari weren't so different from humans, Vance understood that she was looking at an alien, someone who was quite different from her, both in body and in understanding.

"What's wrong?" Liara asked.

Vance shook her head. Liara leaned forward and cut Vance free of the straps that held her. From the holster on her hip, she took the pistol and handed it over, grip-first. "Here she said."

"What are you doing?" Vance stared at the pistol like it were a venomous spider.

"You're in the intelligence game, aren't you?" Liara said. "Here. Take it."

Vance shook her head, but slowly reached out and took the pistol. She wondered if Liara had forgot she'd already handed over the ammunition block a few hours earlier. Liara turned her back, and almost looked as though she were about to sit down, but Vance had put the gun back together, and was holding it out, pointing it at Liara's head.

Liara turned, carefully. In the microgravity, she pushed herself back and landed softly against the back of the pilot's seat. "I see you're thinking about making a choice," she said. "Kill me. Take me captive. Turn me over to—whom do you think would pay the most for me right now?"

"I have a duty to fulfill," Vance said. "I'm not thinking about money."

"You should be," Liara said. They had reached the secondary relay by then, and she turned to the controls. "I suppose you should try to stop me from making the jump to Attican Beta, she said. But then, if you kill me, here you are deep in salarian territory, in an Alliance vessel, without armament." After a pause, she added, "Apart from that pistol."

Vance kept the weapon trained on Liara's head. Her captor appeared not to care.

"So killing me isn't an option." She punched in a code, and the relay began to turn faster. Just like that the threat board lit up, but by then, it was too late. Their ship was in the grasp of the relay now, and in an instant they were somewhere else. "We're deep in the Terminus now," Liara said. "Fat lot of good that will do you. There's nothing but turian and volus colonies nearby." She unbuckled herself again, and said, "Or you could turn the weapon the other way. In a sense it may be your best option." She crouched again on the center console, and again, her body, folded and coiled looking strange and alien, and a thousand times more dangerous than when she was in the pilot's chair. "What's your intelligence training," her captor said, her face changing instantly from open menace to curiosity.

"What do you mean?"

"Did you train to work in the field?"

"I did," Vance said. She didn't realize it, but she had lowered the pistol, and her captor had placed her oddly warm hand over her own. "But I've been an analyst for nearly ten years now."

"Then you're forgetting your training," Liara said. Gently she took the weapon, and disappeared below, to the crew area. After a moment Vance heard the waste chute cycle. Her captor returned empty handed. "There, she said. Much better."

"What did you do?" Vance asked.

"I spaced the pistol, same as I jettisoned the torpedoes."

"It doesn't seem very wise," Vance said, "going into the Traverse unarmed."

"You're forgetting the first rule of field work. Well, some say it's the second rule. Never carry a weapon. It will only encourage the people you encounter to kill you."

Vance nodded. She had heard something like that, not in those words, but the same sentiment. "What's the first rule?"

"Your body is the only weapon no one can take away from you. Master it."

Vance nodded again. She suddenly felt very ill at ease. She'd seen her captor fight. "Right," she said.

Liara patted her on the shoulder. "Get some rest," she said. "I think we'll both sleep easier now, don't you?"

Vance wasn't sure, but she said, "Yes," and went below.

#

Discovered by the turians while humans were still burning coal for power, Tortuga was an earth analogue, though covered in a global ocean nearly a hundred kilometers deep. Apart from those depths, and the vast wastes of saltwater, were two small continents, both the result of supervolcanoes that had hurled themselves upward higher than Olympus Mons on Mars. The larger of these had risen from the ocean and produced a small archipelago of atolls, the rims of its ancient caldera that had been eroded and partially drowned. The other landmass was a similar structure, only here the rim of the caldera had thus far remained intact, a protected little hole in the ocean, a circular range of mountains stood two thousand meters above the ocean, with the bottom of its caldera some four kilometers four kilometers below sea level. For now it was dry land, an inverted island. One day the sea would break through the circular wall that protected it, but for now, a city had sprung up around a freshwater lake in the haven formed by the vertical walls of the ancient volcanic mouth, and its hundred kilometer-wide valley floor.

Tamaconda, the city was called, and it was a beautiful place, and dangerous. One couldn't land there. There was too much traffic, and with no one to organize it, the risk of crashing in or near the city, where it might spill its toxic contents into the streets or the adjacent farmland was too great. Ships calling at Tamaconda had to land in the shallows of the volcano's southeastern flank, where the seafloor was less than three hundred meters deep. From there, one traveled first by submersible, then maglev into the city.

Situated at the far rim of the galaxy, nearly eighty thousand light years from the Citadel and its government, it was an ideal haven for pirates and outlaws.

#

The craft that glommed onto their airlock, and bid them board did not inspire confidence. Liara crawled through the opening first, water leaking into the interior of their ship, as she went, and Vance followed. There she met two grim-faced batarians, yellow eyed, green skinned, who stood staring at her, blinking one set of eyes, then the other.

"That one yours?" one of them said to Liara, who said, forcefully, As much as she belongs to anyone. Inside, the floor of the sub was damp, its floor panels and walls covered in rust, and stains. On entering, Vance saw rows of seats, where about a dozen people, asari, batarian, human, sat in two long rows of seats facing each other, each one held in place by a heavy metal bar that came down over the shoulders and locked in place between the passenger's legs. The two batarians grabbed Liara and Vance and shoved them into seats, facing each other, and clamped them down, too.

Vance fought, realizing that the others on board were likely all slaves, and she shouted that she didn't belong to anyone. The batarian who had clamped her into her seat growled, "Stop fighting, human. Rules are rules."

When they had gone, and the sub rumbled to life, Liara said to her in a low voice, "These bars keep them from trying to kill the crew."

Vance shut her eyes, and tried not to think about it. The slaves were quiet and didn't fight against the restraint, but for a young woman at the far end of Vance's row who sobbed, now loud, now quiet, as the sub's hull groaned and creaked. One of the others shouted, likely not for the first time, for her to shut up.

#

The trip lasted hours. Vance forced herself to sleep, and woke to the interior of the sub smelling like shit and piss. The hull was pitching and rolling, meaning they likely were on the surface. The human was still sobbing. Worse now. Liara seemed to be in a trance, her eyes open and calm. Soon vomit was added to the symphony of odors that filled the cramped space.

The sub lurched, and there was a terrible noise, and in an instant there was an alarm blaring that the hatch had come open. Water poured in, spill from around the seal, Vance realized, but it kept coming so that a pond began to form underneath the hatch entrance. The batarian sailors had, after picking up Liara and Vance, locked themselves behind an armored door. A loophole opened, and then a second, big enough for Vance to see the barrels of a two assault rifles poking through. One of them shouted, "Master on deck! Restraints are coming off!"

And just like that the metal bar that had kept her down released and folded up into the space behind her.

The batarian sailors shouted, "On your feet!" and everyone rose as a unit. The other passengers looked to be in terrible shape. Each was dressed in the same kind of tattered uniform, baggy gray cloth that looked to have been used over and over again. Most were filthy, and had been before they came aboard. Their condition had only been made worse by the trip underwater. Vance looked at the woman she thought she'd heard sobbing, and began to speak, but the batarians shouted, "Shut up! No talking." After a moment, the other said, "First word gets you a hot round in the knee. Now get out!"

Liara went up the ladder first, and Vance followed. They were out in the open, and it was pouring rain. The submersible they'd been in was tied up with two-dozen similar vessels, all of them in poor enough condition that Vance would have declined to board, had she first had the chance to see any of them from the outside. The one they'd been riding in was painted a flat green, and bore the symbol of a scorpion holding a diminutive human in each claw.

The next sub down was red, either from rust or a shabby coat of paint, and bore the symbol of a skull biting a fist. "Different pirate clans," Liara said. "This one's the Fortune's Fools, that one is the Devil's Hand. They're the only way in or out of Tamaconda, unfortunately."

Along the center of the pier, crates were stacked in uneven rows. About half of the crates were open metal cages, some empty, others holding four or five captives, exposed to the elements. Automated loaders, themselves in poor condition, hovered up and down the pier, picking up crates and cages and shuttling them here and there.

Six batarians, each armed with shock sticks and sidearms stood waiting with a series of empty cages behind them. They pointed at Liara and Vance, growling when he saw she had no collar. "Too bad," he said with what looked like the batarian version of a smile. "Blue meat fetches the best price." Seeing Vance, he added, I'd even throw in the one-eared human for an extra ten."

Liara whispered, "Let it go. If you touch him, he'll put you in a cage and sell you like the rest. We have to be careful here. Offend one of the clans, and even a freeman can end up in there."

Vance zipped her uniform up to her throat, and hurried after Liara. "The other passengers," she said. "Where do they come from?"

"Here and there," Liara said. "The Devil's Hand likes to take their captives in interstellar space. Fortune's Fools prefer to raid colony worlds. Take your pick."

"What's going to happen to them?" Vance said.

"The new slave market is on the plateau up there," Liara said. "Try not to think about it. The maglev is this way."

#

The train was no cleaner or more pleasant than the sub. It groaned and creaked under the strain of climbing the rim of the caldera, and then descending again. From on high, the sea stretched out in every direction, and the rain that had been falling on the pier had long since moved out over the water, where the waves churned and swirled. Light broke through the clouds and fell in thick shafts on the blue water, and then looking down from the rim of the caldera into the crater, down the vertical wall onto the fields and farmland, and the little city by the lake, it seemed like a beautiful place.

Even in the old slave market, where the train deposited them an hour later, was warm and pleasant, with palm trees swaying in a gentle breeze, and old sail boats tacking against the wind.

The Old Market would have been quaint, an old square, cobbled, and surrounded by low wooden and stucco buildings painted a variety of colors, it looked like something from long ago on Earth. In a sense it was modeled after warm climate settlements that had once existed there. But even here, the calm was pierced by shouting, cries for help, and occasionally the sound of distant gunfire.

"Who keeps the peace here?" Vance asked.

"Nobody. The clans don't officially fight each other here, for what it's worth. All grudges on Tortuga are personal." Liara was moving toward one of the streets that led out of the square. "Be careful," she said. "One of my friends was taken here." They hurried away from a trio of krogan, who had been shoving everyone out of their way as they crossed in the opposite direction. Here the street led up, toward the top of a low hill, and then bent again, into a shabby neighborhood of low buildings, some old prefab, some newer and made of stone. From there, half dozen or more alleyways led off into the shadows. Liara led the way down and then stopped at the mouth of an alley and looked in. "It happened right here, in fact."

"What happened?"

"She was taken," Liara said. "I looked for her for ten years, but never got close. She might have ended up like those people on the docks." After a pause, she added, "I prefer to assume she was murdered. No body, but still, better than a life of captivity, especially for someone as pretty as she was."

"When was this?"

"Before your time," Liara said. "Eighty-three years ago, in fact. Have you ever heard of Miranda Lawson?"

"I know the name," Vance said. "She was Cerberus, wasn't she?"

"For a time," Liara said. "I never quite trusted her, but during the war I saw a different side of her."

"Do you think Cerberus came after her?"

"It was never clear who," Liara said. "The conventional wisdom was that Cerberus was effectively destroyed during the Reaper Invasion. Some survived, though. Not their command structure, but the idea they embodied." Liara was examining a spot on the wall, about waist high on the moss-crusted wall. "Whoever did it, wanted me to think it was one of the clans. But they had no reason, apart from money, and no one ever asked for a ransom."

"Why here?"

"Miranda had contacts here in Tamaconda, and in Port Verdant to the east. But this time she said she had something for me."

"What was it?"

"I don't know. I was on my way here when she disappeared." Liara was scraping at something on the wall. "From what I understand, she found out she was being followed, ducked in here, and then was taken—" she pointed down the alley "—about a dozen meters that way. Women like Miranda, like me, probably like you, we shouldn't expect to die peacefully in our sleep." Liara ran her hand over another section of the wall. What she might have been looking for, Vance couldn't tell, but she began looking, too, just for something to do. All of a sudden, Liara whispered, "There!" and bent down. She scraped away some of the moss, where a series of lines had been scratched into the soft stone.

Vance bent down to look. "That looks like a map."

"That's because it is," Liara said. "Whatever she left for me, it's not far from here." Liara turned and moved out of the alley. Where the passageway met the street, she stopped and looked out for a moment before retreating immediately back into the shadows. "It appears that we have picked up some friends." She made a fist and it glowed blue. "It's time I showed you about the second rule of field work."