Sol and Samara were down with the other passengers trying to calm everyone down. The trip to the edge of Geth space was thankfully uneventful. Garrus had stayed in the bridge and navigated to keep his mind off of how FUBAR his "family vacation" had turned out. Of all the human expressions he had learned from Shepard and his crews, FUBAR was by far his favorite.
What should have been a relaxing R&R with some much needed father-son bonding turned out to produce the opposite result. He now couldn't be in the same room with his father for fear of causing a problem and Samara's influence could only keep so much tension in check.
He occupied himself by sifting through the pirates' data. Most of it was communications between the small boarding craft and a larger vessel that had a name in Batarian that Garrus couldn't pronounce. There were occasional mentions of an attack using code words that made Garrus a little suspicious. They had just reached the edge of Geth space and the friendly warships were turning around when Garrus asked over the radio, "Legion, can you do a search for me?"
It took a moment for the ships to respond, "Of what?"
"I need to know what these terms are from, I think they're code words for an attack," Garrus replied.
"Relay the phrases," the geth replied. After Garrus had transmitted the batarian phrases it took a good four minutes for the warships to respond. "They are the names of Batarian victories during planet based wars. The battles referenced are of surprise attacks on fortresses from before the Batarians developed mass effect field based weaponry."
"What kind of fortresses?" Garrus asked. This didn't sound good.
"Fortresses where queens held dominion. The Batarian Caste system during the wars in question did not support female rulership," The geth responded.
"I want you to monitor galactic communications for these code words. If they pop up again let me know," Garrus said. "Vakarian out."
He sat wondering what this attack could be and who it would be against. He went over the messages again to see if he could glean any more information from them. It seemed to him that this attack would be fairly large scale, but the destination was never specified.
He pushed it out of his mind however as he calculated their FTL jump. He still didn't know how they had ended up in geth space in one jump but maybe some automated protocol initiated the procedures for a mass relay jump while in FTL and executed them just before the Mass Relay.
However it happened, he made sure it didn't happen again by checking and rechecking the coordinates for the nearest Relay. He then engaged the FTL drive and started checking the other systems. Legion's people had gotten comms back up and had rerouted all control of navigation to the newly jail broken captain's chair.
He sat back into the chair and relaxed into the soft blood soaked cushions. They weren't imported silk cushions, but they were enough for his exhausted body to fall asleep.
His dreams were tumultuous, with images of batarians with swords and the human's plate armor charging up a hill towards a stone castle. They shifted in and out until their violence roused him from sleep.
He needed to find out what this attack was. He looked at the astrogation chart to see where they were. After seeing that they were nearly to the Relay and within civilized space he pulled the ship out of FTL, gently this time.
He set up a link with the security codes Shepard had given him before he left. The note in the bank account had said simply "For intel" and Garrus had a feeling he knew what that meant. The line took a moment to resolve and the security systems to handshake before he heard the distorted voice of the Shadow Broker.
"What is it Archangel," Liara said, completely unrecognizable and with artificial toughness. He knew she was still getting used to being the Shadow Broker.
"I need information on these phrases," he said, uploading them through the secure channel. "Specifically I need to know all the patterns of conversations when these words are used. There's an attack planned and I need to know where."
He waited while Liara looked up the information. Knowing her she would have noticed the suspicious uses of these words and researched them. No messages can evade the Shadow Broker for long.
Finally she came back on the line and said in her synthesized voice, "There is a correlation between these phrases and mention of a queen. Several messages infer biological traits of the Asari. A gathering place in the Hourglass Nebula is briefly mentioned in a recent message. Given the nature of these reports and the proximity to the Omega Nebula I have come to the conclusion that these messages refer to Aria T'Loak, the Pirate Queen of Omega."
"Alright. I have orders from our mutual friend to keep an eye out for ways to help Aria and this may be it," Garrus said. "Thank you Shadow Broker, your funds will be transferred at my earliest convenience." He knew that despite all the precautions Liara had made to secure transmission there was only one way to protect against eavesdropping and that was to use quantum entanglement communicators like the Normandy was equipped with. The best way to protect against eavesdropping with the resources they had was to act.
He had two messages to send before they reached the Relay. If this was a large scale invasion of the Omega station then they would need a fleet to protect it. Aria needed to know at least to some degree what would happen to keep her from losing influence among her "subjects".
He composed a short text message that he sent to Aria. The entire contents were only two words: play along. He knew she would be smart enough to figure out the rest on her own and this kept things vague enough to avoid tipping off her enemy, whoever they were.
Given the nature of Omega, Garrus guessed that they were probably after the power of the place. It was the defacto capital of the Terminus systems and Aria had been in power a long time. But it was irrelevant in the end; he just needed to know how to stop it.
His second message was more detailed. It explained the situation in detail and gave instructions for the counter offensive. The Geth were to amass a small fleet of ships in the Perseus Veil and then proceed to the Omega Nebula where they would follow Aria's orders without question for the duration of the battle.
He had no personal love for Aria but he recognized her value as an ally in the fight against the Reapers. It was better to deal with a ruthless business woman like her than a reckless pirate. He sent his finished message through several proxy satellites to reduce the risk of detection and then prepared for the Relay jump that would take them to Illium.
Samara entered as they were approaching the Relay. "Anything of consequence?" she asked. He knew she was referring to the early exit from FTL.
"Not much," he said, confident that his maneuvers would work.