"What do you mean the Citadel's been destroyed?!" Farla demanded as the Rainier exited the mass relay into the turian homeworld's cluster. In the space around them Farla could see several fleeing warships enter FTL, presumably to get to Palaven in the nearby system.
"Sir, I was looking straight at the aft video feed as we entered the relay," Observations Officer Lieutenant O'Leary replied, "and I saw a very bright flash just as we passed through."
"How can you be certain the Citadel was destroyed? How do you know that it wasn't just a weapon discharge from one of those dreadnaughts?" Farla responded, incapable of grasping how the Council's great fortress, their relic from the Protheans, the center of all the relays could have been destroyed by the invaders.
"I took a second look at the footage in the archive and looked at it frame by frame," O'Leary answered. He brought up the video file on his terminal screen and beckoned for Farla to approach for a closer look.
At this point the entire bridge of the Rainier had one ear open for the conversation, many sneaking glances over between operations coordinating the approach to the rest of the fleet. As Farla left his place at the Galaxy map and took position behind O'Leary's chair, O'Leary played the footage.
As O'Leary had said there was a bright flash right as the Rainier finished its approach on the Relay. "Alright, so now we'll rewind and play it at one frame per second," O'Leary said. His hand reached out and twisted the holographic playback-speed dial until the video was playing at the desired speed. Farla watched the Relay slowly come into view on the right hand side of the screen. As it began to dominate the screen, he focused on the Citadel in the center.
He watched as the enemy ships seemed to retreat from the blue Wards and then, just as the light from the Relay began to wash out everything else, he saw it; a bright blue-white flash from within the Wards themselves that engulfed several of the enemy ships. O'Leary paused the video deftly on this image to give Farla the chance to see it clearly.
As much as Farla wanted to deny what he saw, their high resolution aft camera had captured the scene completely. With a heavy heart at the lives lost and not a small amount of dread in his stomach at the chaos this would cause, Farla said, "I concur with your assessment Lieutenant, good work. Forward this image to my console, I'll need to alert the Council."
Farla walked away as O'Leary's hands flew across his console. He approached his own console and quickly transferred the image to his omnitool to present it to the Council. They weren't going to like this, and he still didn't know how he was going to convince them that Shepard was an ally in this new war.
Especially now that he had destroyed the Citadel. Farla knew instinctively that he had done it, and he quickly deduced that it had been the geth Farla had allowed to board the Citadel that had initiated the explosion.
The small knot of dread in his stomach grew significantly at this realization. Knowing the Council Farla could expect severe sanctions against all of humanity precisely when they needed to work together to fight off this new threat. The Council had proven before to be too mired in its own self-interest to work toward the good of the galaxy. If not for Shepard's defiance of their self-defeating policies the Council would be dead and the Citadel already taken by Saren.
I need to look at all of Shepard's reports, Farla thought. "Hassan, get Captain Chang up and tell him he's in charge for the next few hours." Without waiting for a reply Farla retreated to his personal cabin to begin his search.
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Halfway across the galaxy, Risha was forced into an interrogation room. A metal table and a pair of metal chairs sat in the center of the brightly lit room. Embedded in one wall was a one-way mirror and surveillance cameras rested in all the top corners of the four-walled room. The geth led her into the room and forced her into one of the chairs. They quickly connected her shackles to the chair and the floor.
Though this provided her with a perfect opportunity to strike, she didn't bother. She knew that Lt. Vakarian could easily subdue her and even if she did manage to escape, she knew too little about the true situation to be of any use.
She needed to know what was going on, and she had a sneaking suspicion that Lt. Vakarian would happily oblige. So she sat still until the geth finished.
From the doorway Lt. Vakarian walked over to the other chair and sat down. To Risha's surprise, the two geth left the room, leaving her alone with her fellow turian. "You do realize I could escape from these shackles and kill you before your geth friends have a chance to stop me right?" Risha asked tauntingly, hoping to goad Lt. Vakarian into revealing the level of surveillance she was under and the level of reinforcement that the base had.
"I think you deserve the opportunity to try," Lt. Vakarian replied, never quite looking her in the face. His response utterly baffled her, as did his demeanor. She had been their captive successfully for months, no small feat considering she had escaped from every known containment system in the galaxy as part of her personal training, and yet her captor couldn't even look her in the eye.
They sat in silence for several minutes while Risha carefully studied the man opposite her. She couldn't help but glare at him aggressively despite her relative helplessness. This man had personally killed her teammate, had helped kill the rest of her team, and had collaborated with a human to abduct the leaders of the civilized galaxy in an ultimately futile attempt to kill them. But she also knew that Shepard's geth had helped rescue the Council in the footage she just saw and she hadn't seen anything to indicate that it was falsified.
"Why, Lieutenant?" Risha finally said. He refused to respond, choosing instead to stare just over Risha's shoulder. She tried to force him to make eye contact but he evaded her gaze. "Tell me why you killed my team; tell me why you attacked the Citadel."
Lt. Vakarian looked down at the table and his mandibles flexed convulsively in frustration. Finally he said, "I know how you feel. About your team at least. When I was on Omega fighting the gangs there, one of my teammates betrayed us and as a result my entire team was killed." Lt. Vakarian paused, clearly remembering that team. Risha could easily see the agitation in his gaze as his eyes danced back and forth and his mandibles fluttered repeatedly. "I know what you think of me; that I'm a traitor to all turians for abducting the council and all the rest."
The clear sense of remorse in his voice briefly dispelled her anger. The fact that anyone involved in those atrocities could genuinely regret their actions was a new concept to Risha. Most of her targets over the years had been heartless killers, slavers, and warlords who felt no pangs of guilt for their actions.
"But I want you to know something." Lt. Vakarian continued. "You were supposed to die on Neidus, along with the rest of your team," He said. He paused while Risha tried to decide whether this was supposed to be a comfort or an insult.
"You dodged the fatal shot. Legion missed your head and hit your leg instead. But as soon as the airlock door of your ship closed Shepard decided there was no reason for you to die and he saved you," Lt. Vakarian looked nervously around the room before he said, "There was a plan Risha. We had a backup plan in case Shepard couldn't convince the Council to act. He saw how they acted with Saren, he knew what it might take. Shepard saved you because you being alive didn't affect the plan after that door closed."
Risha took a moment to absorb what he had said. She could see that a plan existed but she couldn't grasp what that plan might be. How could murdering her whole team along with thousands of servicemen and women coincide with sparing her life the moment the airlock door was shut? How could doing any of that be justified? Even for a Spectre, those were despicable actions.
"You still haven't told me why Lieutenant. Why did you kill all those people? How did that further your cause? What did you hope to gain? Why did you spare me?" Risha demanded. Her temper rising at the flood of memories rushing through her head, she tried to contain herself. She needed to hear the reasons; she needed to know whether her team's sacrifice was worthwhile or if it was simply the result of the actions of a self-righteous madman.
"We killed all those people because we needed to create an enemy the Council would recognize, one they would fear enough to prepare against," he responded, his voice gaining confidence as he spoke. "Every time we tried to convince them of the Reaper threat, they refused to take action. They dismissed Shepard's evidence as circumstantial or deluded.
"We had to show them a 'real' threat, one powerful enough to strike them in the place they felt safest. One that could cripple their fleets and defeat all their defenders," he continued, a hint of reproach in his voice at the memory. Still avoiding her gaze, Lt. Vakarian's fingers tapped restlessly on the surface of the table, beating out an uneven staccato on the steel.
"More than that we needed to show them that they, personally, were not safe. They were so stubborn and so closed-minded that we had to devise such drastic measures to convince them to do what we wanted," he pulled a datapad from his belt and laid it in front of Risha. On its screen was a news article. The headline read 'Council Commits to Total War to Combat Traitorous Hero'.
It was dated just a few weeks after her team had infiltrated Neidus. "Councilor Anderson was supposed to fly the ship out of the system having watched you and your team die. You couldn't be allowed to give a report on your mission." Vakarian said before she could react. "If you reported to the Council you would expose that things weren't as they seemed. Shepard didn't expect that you would turn to the Shadow Broker and that forced our time schedule up. We couldn't put all the pieces into place in time."
Risha's blood ran cold as he finished his sentence. He couldn't know that, she thought. There's no way he could know that. "Who said we went to the Shadow Broker?" she asked, trying her best not to betray the surprise she felt.
Though at this point there was no reason to hide that they had, the fact that he seemed to know that they had gone to the Shadow Broker for information was extremely unsettling.
Lt. Vakarian finally looked her in the eye. His mandibles stilled, his fingers stopped their tapping, and he simply stared at her. Finally he spoke, "The Shadow Broker is under Shepard's control. We knew the moment you received your information where you were going."
Risha couldn't believe it. She couldn't fathom how a human could possibly force the galaxy's oldest and most secretive information broker to submit to his will. She couldn't understand how anyone could not only discover the Shadow Broker's identity but convince him or her to do what they wanted.
"That's not possible," she finally said. "There is no way Shepard could force the Shadow Broker to do what he wanted. He doesn't have that much influence." The tone of doubt in her voice was evident even to herself. She didn't want to believe that Shepard had that much power. Despite the fact that he had successfully tricked the Council into committing to total war she simply didn't want to accept that Shepard could undermine the supposedly sacrosanct secrecy of the Shadow Broker.
Lt. Vakarian's barked laughter was his reply. He looked at Risha in the eyes again and said, "If there is one thing an intelligent person should never do it's underestimate Shepard. He has a knack for proving you wrong."
He then tapped a button on his omnitool. The door to the room slid open and two geth walked in, rifles held idle in their hands.
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Farla sat at his desk in his personal chambers and quickly collected all of Shepard's Spectre reports, transcripts of conversations with the Counci, both on and off the record, and mission logs.
He found piece after piece buried in classified files that helped to explain Shepard's motivations. The visions brought on by the Prothean Beacons and the subsequent deciphering of them by this "Liara T'Soni", his description of Indoctrination, which went a long way toward explaining those inexplicable mutinies, and his detailed accounts of conversations with Saren.
If Shepard truly believed that the Reapers were coming and that their goal was to wipe out all life in the galaxy that would explain why he would take the actions he did, Farla thought. And it would be one hell of a coincidence if these new enemies weren't the Reapers he spoke of.
Finally, he found the piece of information he needed most in Shepard's account of his conversation with the Prothean VI on Ilos. How the hell did this get buried? How could the Council not check to see if the Citadel was a Relay that could control all other relays? How could they willingly ignore this?
Farla checked through all related documents and, not finding any reference to a Council investigation, branched out into the reports by the various Council species' investigative forces and the STG.
Despite the fact that the Rainier's mainframes contained every log from every organization that would have been involved in such an investigation, he found nothing in all the hours he searched. It baffled Farla that the Council would allow this critical information, information that could easily cost millions upon millions of lives, to go unverified.
What sort of idiot would actively ignore this gaping security hole? Farla wondered. He was still trying to find some sort of reason for this when his personal console beeped.
"Sir, we'll be entering Palaven's orbit in 10. You're needed on the bridge," Farla's XO said over the intercom.
"Alright, I'll be right there," Farla sighed in exasperation. He quickly transferred all the logs that contained the information he needed to his omnitool and then shut down his console and made his way out of his quarters. As he walked the busy halls of his ship, absentmindedly returning salute after salute, he tried to find a way to present these facts to his fellow military leaders and confront the council about them. Hundreds of thousands of humans had died on Terra Nova and Earth, people that might have lived had the Council properly prepared and simply listened to Shepard.
Farla activated the door to the bridge and walked into the room. As he passed his observations officer's terminal, O'Leary said, "Sir, I'm seeing a lot of anomalous resource usage here."
Before Farla could respond, his communications officer piped in from across the room, "Me too sir. It's nothing severe but it's almost like someone's downloading operation reports from every ship in the fleet. I'll try and nail down the cause."
"Is it possible those warships managed to get a virus into our systems?" Farla asked, growing concerned.
"Not likely sir, but I'll run it by the tech officer just in case," O'Leary said.
"Good. Keep me apprised gentlemen," Farla said as he walked toward his spot by the galaxy map. He stood and waited there, watching his crew work to bring the ship safely out of FTL in orbit around Palaven. Finally, the blue shifted light outside the port and starboard windows changed to the blackness of space dotted with stars.
"Receiving friend-or-foe challenge," Ensign Hassan said in surprise. "Sending response." A brief pause followed and then he said, "Response sent. They must be getting worried Captain."
"Agreed. Get me a connection with Admiral Di'ala," Farla replied. He waited as Hassan tapped at his console.
"Fleet Admiral, thank the goddess you made it," Admiral Di'ala said as soon as the connection was complete.
"Of course, why wouldn't I?" Farla asked. He had a feeling he knew what his subordinate would say next.
"Several ships have returned in pieces, showing signs of internal detonations. Others simply arrive full of corpses, as if life support had failed somehow," Di'ala responded, obviously concerned. "One of my crewmembers attempted to assassinate me while we were in FTL, and Admiral Antelius was strangled to death by his helmsman.
"What the hell is going on sir?" she demanded. Though Farla couldn't see her face, he could hear the edge of fear in her voice. He could understand it perfectly. Facing combat was something every serviceman was trained for but these betrayals and mutinies were something else entirely. You learn to trust every member of your crew with your life because their ability to do their jobs is what keeps you alive in combat. To be betrayed by those people so fatally was something officers simply weren't trained for.
"I think I know why these things are happening Admiral but I want to bring it up with the Council first," Farla replied. "Relay my request for an audience."
"Yes sir," Di'ala responded. As Di'ala severed their communications line, Farla noted the fact that she hadn't questioned his order. She must be more disturbed by these events than she let on, he thought to himself before he began sifting through the evidence on his omnitool.
In the appropriated Hierarchy Capitol building's small conference room, the Council sat at the head of the room's table, a table made of what Farla assumed was the turian analogue to wood, while Farla and Di'ala took position at the other end of the table. A small holographic communication station stood in the corner of the lavishly decorated room.
"Fleet Admiral, I sincerely hope you can explain yourself," Councilor Valern began. "Shepard's forces have captured the Citadel because of your incompetence."
"Shepard's forces?" Farla asked, bewildered. He immediately turned to his subordinate and asked, "How much have you told them?"
Di'ala leaned toward Farla and whispered, "Nothing. The situation has been too chaotic to give a debrief, and you would be the one to do so anyway."
"Admiral, we would like an explanation," the salarian councilor said, oblivious to Di'ala's comment. "Why were you unable to defend the Citadel?"
Farla quickly regained his composure and replied, "Sirs, ma'am, The Citadel, Terra Nova, and Earth were all attacked by an unknown enemy fleet. Despite our numerical superiority in all cases, the attacking fleet was able to essentially ignore our attacks…"
Farla then proceeded to describe the events on Terra Nova and his fleet's complete inability to damage the incoming vessels. He described the situation, including the rash of mutinies and betrayals, in detail. Di'ala stiffened upon hearing of the mutinies over Terra Nova and she glanced at Farla as he spoke.
"Councilors, we were losing ship after ship with no gain whatsoever. Just when I believed that Terra Nova was lost, the geth jumped into the system," Farla said. "Naturally we moved to engage the geth, but they jumped past us and began attacking the "Old Machines" as they later called them."
Farla paid careful attention to the Council's reaction to this. Eyes widened in surprise and the turian councilor's mandibles twitched before he said, "That's impossible. Why would Shepard attack his own ships?"
"It's true councilors, the geth arrived in the Widow Nebula as well and began attacking the enemy warships," Di'ala interjected. "In fact, it was their involvement that allowed us to evacuate you at all."
"Impossible! The geth were the ones that abducted us! Why would they protect the Citadel?" the councilor Valern insisted.
"I wondered that myself councilor when I first saw the geth ships destroy one of the enemy vessels," Farla said, taking his time to reveal everything he knew. He wanted to gauge their knowledge piece by piece before he asked his own questions.
"They destroyed one? But I thought you said your ships couldn't do any damage to them," councilor Tevos asked.
"That's correct councilor, we couldn't. But the geth didn't use conventional methods. In fact they didn't use methods organics could emulate at all," Farla said. Both the Council and Di'ala paid careful attention as he described how they geth had quickly avoided the enemy warships fire while attacking with pinpoint accuracy using short range FTL jumps. He described how they had used dropships to board the enemy vessels and eventually how whatever was on those ships had destroyed the enemy from the inside.
Then Di'ala described the situation around the Citadel before and after the geth arrived in the system. She detailed their involvement in distracting the enemy long enough to seal the Citadel arms and how they had attempted to duplicate their success in destroying the enemy.
"When I received Di'ala's request for my presence I immediately left Terra Nova for the Citadel," Farla said when Di'ala was finished.
Di'ala's support of Farla's claim that the geth were in fact on their side had temporarily placated the Council. Farla noted with disdain the human councilor's efforts to side perpetually with the rest of the Council in whatever position they took.
He hid his feelings and continued his debrief until he reached his deal with the geth. "You let geth board the Citadel?! What in the hell were you thinking Admiral?!" the turian councilor shouted.
"I was thinking about saving the lives of as many civilians as I could, you four included," he replied levelly, refusing to voice his angry indignation at the question. "I was out of options. Despite the geth's help we couldn't defeat the invaders. I had to evacuate as many people as I could, and to do that the enemy ships needed to be distracted. The geth were the only ones that could do that, and they had only one condition; that I allow a few of their dropships to board the Citadel after we had finished the evacuation."
"You let those geth onto the Citadel without knowing what they wanted?" Councilor Tevos asked.
"I know exactly what they wanted," Farla replied. "To destroy the Citadel."
"What?" the salarian councilor asked, eyes widening. For once the Councilor Valern sat speechless, mouth slightly open and eyes narrowing.
Before any of the other councilors could ask something else, Farla replied, "And they succeeded. Now why would Shepard want to destroy the Citadel when you four had already escaped? What could possibly be on that station that was a more valuable a target than you?
"I know for a fact that you know the answer to that question councilors," he continued, actively ignoring the human councilor and focusing entirely on the three aliens.
"It's irrelevant why he would want to destroy it! What matters is that you let him!" Councilor Valern finally said.
"Wrong councilor. You see, I did some digging," Farla responded coldly, finally letting an edge of anger into his voice. "I simply couldn't reconcile Shepard's past actions with his present ones. He was a hero and known for his kindness toward the helpless and yet he butchered thousands when he abducted you. Then, right when we are about to lose everything, his geth rode to the rescue.
"I simply couldn't see how those two facts could coincide," He continued, silencing the council with a stare. "Not until I remembered an ancient general from Earth and saw the similarities. Then I realized that he butchered all those people and abducted you to get you to prepare for the enemy ships we just faced. He did it to trick you into preparing for war."
The councilors sat rigid in their seats at this revelation. All sat quietly, with the human councilor glancing at his counterparts for direction.
"Now what could Shepard have possibly known about that would drive him to such drastic action? What could possibly motivate a galactic hero to make himself an enemy of the Council?" Farla asked.
"The Reapers are a myth," Councilor Valern stated flatly in reply. "There is simply no way that a race of sentient starships could escape notice for so long!" His fellow councilors seemed distinctly less convinced, with Councilor Tevos and her salarian counterpart sharing a worried glance.
"You were presented with verifiable evidence that you chose not to verify," Farla accused. "Shepard told you that the Citadel was a massive mass relay that could control all other relays in the network and you chose not to verify that claim.
"He told you about how Indoctrination was used to brainwash people to betray everything they stood for and you had the ability to verify that with the STG operatives he rescued on Virmire but you chose not to," he continued. "We have lost thousands of servicemen and women because of that Indoctrination!"
"You cannot honestly believe that any being could manipulate organic minds to act as they wish like Shepard claims," the salarian councilor said. "That ability is pure fantasy invented by the mind of a disturbed Spectre. I would much sooner believe that the poor training of your subordinates were the cause of those losses."
"I was nearly assassinated by my ship's mechanic and we have lost dozens of ships to mutinies and sabotage," Di'ala replied coldly as she glared at each of the councilors in turn. "I find the possibility of that capability explains a great deal. Like why hundreds of asari, turian, and salarian crew members would suddenly decide to murder their crewmates and captains."
"That has to be a coincidence," the asari councilor insisted. Farla could tell she was grasping at straws; that she simply didn't want to accept the possibility. He looked at all of the councilors and saw fear in all their faces. He saw how much they wanted to refuse to believe what he was saying.
He was focusing so much on their individual reactions that he didn't realize that the holographic communicator in the corner had begun to display Shepard in full body armor until Shepard spoke.
"Good evening Councilors, Admirals," Shepard said coolly. All of the people sitting at the table started in their seats and turned quickly to the source of the voice.