10

Shepard sat at his desk in his quarters, reviewing intelligence files. Ashley was seeing to her duties down in the hold while he went over all the intel they'd gathered since first contact with the gahn. He knew they had powerful weapons. He knew they had strong armor. He knew they took no prisoners. He knew their bodies had advanced healing properties. But now he also knew that they weren't necessarily fighting this conflict on purpose. Given that the gahn were under false pretenses that the Council races had destroyed a number of Prothean ruins, the only conclusion was that someone within the gahn infrastructure was falsifying the information and using it as cause to go to war. Shepard leaned an elbow on his desk as he read the report on the screen. He scratched his head with his free hand as he repeatedly asked himself the question that was bugging him right now. Why? What was the point of falsifying information just to go to war? Shepard was familiar with races that fought just for the sake of fighting. One of his own crew was a krogan, a race known for its warmongering attitude. But this didn't strike him as that. There was a reason behind this, but what was that reason?

The chime on the door sounded and Shepard turned around, "Enter." The door opened with Tali standing behind it.

The quarian took a step in and looked at the commander, "Shepard, do you have a moment?"

He turned his seat around and pulled another over, "Sure, Tali. What's up?"

Tali sat down carefully, looking somewhat nervous. She took a deep breath before speaking again, "I…I wanted to apologize for my behavior down in the hold several days ago. I shouldn't have threatened the gahn the way I did." She hung her head, "I could have hurt someone, badly."

Shepard shook his head, "No need to apologize, Tali. I understand. You weren't thinking clearly at the time. You've been under a lot of stress since the…"

"What goes on inside my mind does not excuse my actions, Shepard." She shook her head, "I should have exercised more control. That's why I can't be part of the crew anymore."

Shepard's head jerked backward in surprise, "What? Who said you can't be part of the crew because of that little mishap?"

She looked him in the eye, "I did. If I'm going to be this distraught over Garak's death, then it's obvious that I'm going to be more of a detriment than an asset to your mission. I can't stay with you all if it's going to be this bad."

The human Spectre shook his head again, "Tali, it was a one-time occurrence. You can't judge yourself based on one incident that was the result of a lot of stress and emotions coming to a boil. One incident, I will remind you, in which no one was injured."

Tali shook her head, "But what if someone had been injured, Shepard? What if I had pulled that trigger? The gahn would be dead, and you'd have lost a lot of progress on this mission; all because of me. Would you be so easy on me if that had happened?"

Shepard's face hardened with his resolve, "I'd like to think I would be."

Tali shook her head again, "Whatever you may think, Shepard, I can't stay in the crew if I'm going to be acting like this." She stood from her seat, "This is my decision, and I'm…"

The commander never let her finish her sentence. He stood from his chair and grabbed her shoulder, pushing her back down in to her seat. He towered over her and pointed at her as he spoke.

"No, this is my decision. This is my ship. I make the rules. I decide who gets kicked off my ship. You've done nothing to merit being removed, so as far as I'm concerned, you're still a very valuable part of this crew. So I'll not have any more of this talk of leaving just because you're a little stressed out. Do you understand me?"

Shepard could see through Tali's visor that her eyes were wide with surprise. Clearly, she hadn't expected this reaction from him.

Tali glanced around briefly, "But, what about…"

"No 'buts'." He cut her off with a wave of his hand, "Do you understand me?"

She nodded slowly, "Yes, I think so."

"Good." Shepard gave a firm nod as he fell back down heavily into his own seat, "Now that I've had my own little stress attack." He took a deep breath to calm his nerves before continuing, "Tali, you can 'what if' yourself right into a psycho ward if you're not careful. 'What if someone was hurt?' 'What if the gahn was killed?' Who cares? It didn't happen, and that's the important part." He pointed at her again as he went on, "Whether you see it or not, you exercised more than enough restraint in that situation when you lowered your shotgun instead of pulling the trigger. You had the perfect opportunity to blast Shaiak's head right off his shoulders; I'd like to see him heal up from that. You had the opportunity to avenge Garak, a life for a life." He leaned forward in his chair, "He put himself at your mercy, for heaven's sake! You could have made him swallow a live nuke if you wanted him to. But the point of it all is that you didn't. You had the power to snuff him out where he stood, but you didn't. You knew what you were doing was wrong, and you made yourself stop. That's what counts in the end." He sat back in his chair and waited for a moment before going on, "Now are you just going to sit there staring at me, or are you going to see to your duties in the hold?"

Tali nodded slowly as she absorbed all that Shepard had just said. Even though he couldn't see her mouth, he could tell by her voice that she was smiling, "Yes, commander. I'll get back to my duties." She stood up, "Thank you, Shepard. I'm sorry to have disturbed you."

The commander rubbed his eyes with one hand as the quarian left his quarters, "Don't worry about that, Tali. I'm already disturbed. There's nothing you can do to make it any worse." He swung his seat back around to face his desk, muttering under his breath, "I'd have to be disturbed to do this job." He went back to reviewing intel reports, idly wondering if every Spectre had to deal with this sort of thing.

The next few days en route to the Styx Theta Cluster were relatively uneventful. Joker had to pull a few fancy maneuvers to avoid detection by both a pirate raider and a gahn patrol ship at the same time. By drawing enough attention to get the two ships to start fighting each other, the Normandy escaped without a trace. This incident also allowed Garrus to get a rather detailed scan of one of their ships. With Shaiak's help to decipher some of the alien writing, he determined that the gahn were not as well off as they initially thought. The gahn ships had strong armor and powerful weapons, but they also had relatively weak power systems and little to no kinetic barrier protection. This meant the situation wasn't quite as bad as they thought at first, but they'd already seen what their weapons and armor could do, so it wasn't much of a consolation to anyone.

Shepard stepped off the lift into the hold and found a rather welcome sight. The Mako was completely repaired from the beating it took on Virmire, Tali and Garrus were hard at work studying the gahn armor, and Shaiak was talking with several crew members near the quartermaster's table. The crew had seemed to accept Shaiak's presence a lot more readily than Shepard expected. He thought they would be harboring feelings against him for his people destroying the colonies. The incident with Tali several days ago may have had a lot to do with why they accepted him. They saw that he was sincere about helping them, not out to play them from within. Even Tali had come to an understanding with the big alien.

The commander walked up between Garrus and Tali for a status report, "How're things going here?" He watched one of their consoles as they ran a simulation of a weapon being fired at the armor and exploding with little effect against it.

Garrus typed something into the console and ran the simulation again, "We've been running down several leads about the armor. Liara mentioned that it reacted rather adversely when she used her warp against it. Since disruptor torpedoes are similar, we decided to run some tests to see if that would work." The simulation failed again and Garrus shook his head, "But the results we keep getting are minimal at best."

Tali froze the simulation midstream and gestured to the screen as she spoke, "From what we can tell, impact disperses the effect of the torpedo too much to be of use. Right now, we're trying different ways of realigning the mass effect projectors to focus the effect in a more controlled area."

Shepard watched the simulation run and fail again before an idea came to mind, "Try this one just for laughs. Reset the torpedo's detonation range to a proximity burst about a half a dozen meters from target. See what that gets you."

The turian Spectre shrugged as he input the changes, "With how many times the sim has failed, I'll try just about anything right now." He set the changes and ran the sim. As programmed, the torpedo on the screen detonated about six meters away from the target. This time, the disrupting effect of the torpedo splashed against the gahn armor with full force in a focused area, causing a fair amount of damage.

Garrus looked at the screen in surprise, his mandibles opening and closing once, "Interesting. The proximity burst reduces the dispersion of the warp effect."

Tali nodded, "It did more damage than impact would. The amplified disruptor effect must interfere with the armor's molecular reinforcement."

"Hmm. I didn't think that'd actually work." Shepard pointed at the screen, "Fiddle with this technique some. Figure out the best range for the proxy burst, then start looking for ways to focus the torpedo's detonation a little more."

Garrus nodded and immediately went to work on his console, "That's a lot more than what we had before. Thanks, commander."

He moved on to the next table, where Liara and Ashley were looking over one of the gahn dark energy cannons and Shaiak's rifle. Shepard leaned on Ashley's shoulder when he walked up to see how they were doing.

He nodded toward the weapons on the table, "Any progress?"

Liara looked up and nodded, "With Shaiak'Row's aid, I have learned much about the gahn's dark energy weapons. The weapon consists of a firing core, focusing chamber, and barrel assembly. The core is a sample of radioactive dark matter and a mass effect projector. When the weapon fires, the projector creates a potent positive mass effect field focused around the dark matter. The sudden increase in mass causes the sample to radiate dark energy in excess. The dark energy is then transferred to the next chamber, where it is condensed and focused before being ejecting through the barrel."

Shepard nodded as he listened, "What about jamming it? Have you made any progress along that line?"

The asari scientist shook her head, "I have been unable to find any way of jamming the weapon. I have tried various biotic abilities and several technological devices, but nothing seems to work. It would seem that the design is naturally very resistant to external tampering."

Ashley looked at her husband, "It's helped me come up with a few ideas for some weapon mods, though. I need to do some tinkering to see if they'll work."

Shepard shrugged, "As long as my rifle doesn't explode when I pull the trigger, I'm game to try it."

At that moment, Joker came over the intercom, "Commander, we're two minutes out from the Styx Theta relay. We'll be making the jump soon."

"I'll be right there, Joker." He turned his head and kissed Ashley's cheek, "Gotta go, hon. See you later."

Shepard took the lift back up to the CIC deck and took his usual place at the command platform. He punched a few buttons on the rail that zoomed the galactic map hologram in on the Styx Theta cluster. He now had to try to find which planet the gahn were camping out on, a task which brought the phrase "needle in a haystack" to mind. He leaned forward on the rail and shook his head. The problem was that he didn't even know where to start looking.

"There." Shepard turned his head when he heard Shaiak's voice behind him to find the big alien pointing at something on the map.

He looked at where the gahn was pointing and shrugged, "What's there?"

Shaiak stepped up onto the platform and pointed again, "There. You can't see it?"

The commander looked at where the gahn was pointing. He was pointing to a vacant area of space near the Erebus System. There was nothing there, no stars, planets, anything.

He furrowed his brow, "See what? There's nothing there."

Shaiak pressed several buttons on the rail controls that enlarged the area he was pointing to, then started looking around on the consoles, "How do you adjust the sensory input for ultraviolet?" Shepard pointed out the controls and the gahn made several adjustments. After a moment, the image screened through a sensory filter that revealed a large gahn rune with a number of words scrolling next to it.

Shaiak stepped back and gestured to the view, "That's what I was referring to."

Shepard's eyes widened when he realized it. He couldn't see what Shaiak was pointing out because it was in a wavelength of light he couldn't see.

He looked back at Shaiak, "You can see UV?"

The big alien shrugged, his brow scales rising with the gesture, "It surprises me more that you cannot."

The commander shrugged, "Humans can do a lot of things, but that is not one of them." He looked at the image for a moment, "So now that I can see it, what is it?"

"It's a fleet beacon. It's standard procedure to drop one near a large fleet deployment. It serves as a waypoint and displays all of the information about the fleet to friendly vessels."

Shepard nodded, "So what information is this one displaying?"

The big gahn leaned forward and read the information for a moment before speaking, "Cruiser Flotillas 'Sharp Saber', 'High Justice', and 'Mighty Blade'. Sixty squadrons. Five warrior legions. Planet: Nepmos."

The commander nodded as he listened, "Nepmos, is it? Sounds like they have a lot deployed there."

"That's an understatement." Shaiak nodded toward the map, "The deployments I just listed cover approximately forty warships and almost ten thousand soldiers."

Shepard's eyes widened, "Wow. You guys don't believe in second rate efforts, do you." He looked at the galactic map and enlarged the Erebus system, the planet Nepmos in particular, "Nepmos. The Alliance has a listening post on that planet. We can get in touch with them to get a sitrep."

Ashley nodded as she spoke up from her station, "If you mean the one that was under siege by a hive of rachni last time we were here, then yes, we do have a dirtside LP."

Shaiak shook his head slowly, "If you have an outpost on this world, then it's doubtful it's still there. Our forces would have destroyed it before establishing the base."

The commander chuckled and shook his head, "Then you obviously don't understand our military's way of thinking. We use low-profile covert intelligence posts to gather information on our enemies. If the LP staff did their jobs right, then your forces never even knew they were there."

One of Shaiak's brow scales rose, "Curious. I've never heard of that concept."

"Get used to it. We do it a lot." Shepard pushed the comm button on the handrail, "Joker, set course for Erebus Nepmos. Bring us in quickly, but quietly."

"You got it, commander."

He closed the comm and looked at Shaiak, "What kind of sensors do your ships normally have?"

The gahn mimicked a very human shrug, the metal of his armor clicking in protest with the motion, "IR, UV, motion, thermal, and visual sensors normally."

Shepard nodded as he looked at the map again, "Nothing that the Normandy can't hide from."

"Hide?" Shaiak looked around that the ship, "How can you hide ship in space? They emit too much heat and radiation."

The commander motioned to the ship around him, "The Normandy's equipped with state-of-the-art stealth systems. I can't go into the details with you, but I can say from experience that it's very effective."

Shaiak nodded slowly as he looked around the CIC, "I'm noticing that your military does a lot of hiding. Rather contrary to our way of fighting."

Shepard just shrugged, "Like I said. Get used to it. We do it a lot. It's worked for us so far, and if it ain't broke, don't fix it."

The big alien extended his right hand claws, which he used to scratch the side of his head, "It's clear I have much to learn about your culture and military."

Joker's voice came over the CIC speakers, "We've entered the Erebus system, commander. ETA to Nempos: seventeen minutes." He paused for a moment, "Uh, commander, Nempos is crawling with gahn ships. Are you sure that's where you wanted to go?"

Shepard nodded, "Positive, Joker. Bring us as close as you can to LP Alpha's coordinates and try to make contact. I'll be in the comms room for the next several minutes if you need me." He closed the comm and activated the ship's PA system, "All ground team specialists, report to the comms room for briefing in five minutes. I say again, all ground team specialists, comms room, five minutes." With that, Shepard shut off the PA and turned to follow his own order, with Ashley and Shaiak following him. What he referred to as the "ground team specialists" were his team: Ash, Garrus, Wrex, Liara, Tali, and also Shaiak for the time being. Shepard walked into the comms room and turned around to lean against one of the holo pedestals while the others took a seat. Over the course of the five minutes he specified, the rest of the team slowly drifted in. Once the last of them, Garrus, took a seat, Shepard stood up and called the meeting to order.

He crossed his arms and started slowly pacing in front of the holo pedestals, "Alright everyone, we're in the Erebus system, en route to Nepmos. Just a dirty little rock, hardly any atmosphere, good place to hide a base. Joker's bringing us in to make contact with LP Alpha on the surface. We're going to use the listening post as a waypoint. We're going to land there and figure out where the gahn base is before we proceed. Once we know where it is, myself, Garrus, Tali, and Shaiak will infiltrate the base, get what we can from their networks, and get out, hopefully before they know we're there. If we're spotted, we get what we can from the network, and make a hot dust off before they can blast us into tiny little pieces. Any questions?"

Ashley's hand went up, "Do you have a contingency plan if you can't get out of the base?"

Shepard shook his head, "Hopefully, it won't come to that, but if it does, we'll just have to fake it. One thing I do know is, if we do get spotted, we might have to evac the LP, which means the crew might be hot-bunking for a while." He looked at their gahn ally, "Shaiak, what kind of patrols can we expect once we're on the ground?"

The big alien shook his head, "It differs with the size of the base. With this one, we can expect no fewer than three sky platoons flying patrol around the perimeter. There will most likely be a platoon of tanks on standby if the patrols raise the alarm."

"So we get spotted by the air patrols and we'll have tanks breathing down our necks. The moral of this story is not to get spotted." Shepard looked around the room, "Anyone else?" No hands went up, so he nodded, "Alright. Let's get to it. Tali, Garrus, you two gear up and standby in the hold. Shaiak and I'll join you once we're setting down at the listening post. Dismissed."

Shepard led the way out of the comms room as the team dispersed to their assigned duties. He took his place on the command platform and activated the galactic map, switching the view to external visual sensors. They were in extreme high orbit over Nepmos, and with good reason considering all the gahn ships that were circling the planet like sharks. This was probably as close as Joker dare take them without getting spotted.

He hit the intercom, "Joker, you make contact with the LP yet?"

"Well, yes and no, commander. I've got a fix on their position, but I've got no comm traffic from them whatsoever. It looks like they're running dark. It could have something to do with the enormous gahn base that's only one or two dozen clicks from the outpost perimeter."

The Spectre shrugged, "That'll have to do. Bring us in. We'll make contact once we get there."

"Aye, aye, commander."

Shepard watched as the view started to draw closer to the planet. As they closed the distance, the commander noticed one particularly large ship in the gahn fleet break formation and start on an outbound vector, appearing that it was leaving the system. What intrigued Shepard about this ship so much was that it was almost twice the size of the largest ships in the formation.

Shaiak looked at the view and his big eyes widened, the scales on his head flattening down, "What?" He looked at Shepard, "Commander, stop the ship immediately."

Shepard looked at the gahn and furrowed his brow, "What?"

The big alien grabbed the handrail in front of him and leaned forward, "Commander, you must stop the ship immediately!"

Hearing the urgency in Shaiak's voice, Shepard smacked the intercom button, "Joker, all stop, quick quiet!" Joker didn't bother responding as Shepard felt the ship decelerate very suddenly and a number of monitors throughout the CIC went dark, showing that they'd cut all external signals and emissions to reduce their signature. He looked at Shaiak, whose gaze was intently fixed on the holographic view.

Shepard stepped off the platform and approached the big alien, "What's wrong, Shaiak?"

He pointed to the big ship in the holo view, "The Kay'Rah'Dorn. It's the Shahk'Rah'Toh's personal flagship, the most powerful vessel in our fleet. It's a dreadnought that has hundreds of weapon emplacements and sensors strong enough to see through any stealth, including yours."

Shepard looked at the holographic view when he realized the threat, "Are we in range?"

"Pray to your gods that we're not." Shaiak finally looked at him, "If we are, then you'd best make peace with them quickly."

Every eye in the CIC was fixed on the holo map and Shepard held his breath as they watched the ship fly by. For a ship that size, the Normandy would be little more than target practice. Everyone had good reason to be scared. Several long and very quiet moments passed as they watched the enormous vessel near the location of the gahn fleet beacon. When it arrived, the dreadnought's engines flared brightly, accelerating them to FTL speeds. Everyone in the CIC breathed a sigh of relief, having had a close brush with danger and living to tell about it.

Shepard took a breath to calm his nerves, "They're gone."

Shaiak nodded slowly, "That was close." He looked at the holographic view of empty space the ship had just been in, "I had hoped before to some day be assigned to the Kay'Rah'Dorn. How little did I know that I would one day fear its great strength."

"It's funny how the tables can turn on you like that sometimes, and I say that from experience." Shepard turned to take the command platform again, "Alright, everyone, the threat's passed. Let's get back to it. Joker, bring systems online and resume course for the listening post." The CIC came to life again as the monitors activated and the crew returned to their duties. Shepard looked at the hologram in front of him briefly before something came to mind.

He looked as Shaiak, "This Shahk'Rah'Toh you keep referring to, he wouldn't happen to wear some kind of fancy armor, would he?"

The big alien nodded in affirmation, "His armor is ceremonial and ancient, but still as strong as any other warrior's armor. It's as practical as much as it is ornamental."

The commander nodded slowly, "So that's who I saw."

The gahn's brow scales furrowed, "You saw the Shahk'Rah'Toh?"

Shepard nodded, "On Virmire, I saw one of your people wearing an ornate suit of armor arriving at the base. Considering the fancy welcome they gave him, he looked like somebody important."

Shaiak nodded again, "That would be him. He personally oversees the activities of all deployed forces. No doubt, he was there to collect a status report from the commanding general."

Joker's voice came over the PA, "Commander, we're on approach for the listening post. We'll be going atmospheric in five."

Shepard nodded as he hit the intercom button, "I copy, Joker. Thank you." He looked at Shaiak, "We'll be landing shortly. Let's get down to the hold and get geared up." He turned to head down the stairs with the big alien following. Needless to say, this next mission was going to be a little risky. Low profile, high risk, with minimal support, but it was all in a day's work for a Spectre of the Citadel.