Chapter 14: Biotic Sheep

Kaidan was sitting in the mess, eating "lunch" and watching an old earth movie through the haze of his migraine, Star something… it was something with shiny sticks. His gaze drifted over to Shepard's quarters; the door was open and he could hear both the Commander's and Tali's voices coming out. They were likely working on their drone project.

With the distinct sound of a chair sliding across the floor and a clattering of a couple trays, the duo emerged from the room. Tali's normal wrappings were gone, they were apparently drying since soap and water was the only thing that seemed to work on the hydraulic fluid, and she had an omni-tool running. Shepard was holding both, now empty, trays.

"—thanks, Shepard," she was speaking, "I think I almost have something you can work with."

Shepard nodded, "Just remember to give that back when you're done."

"It shouldn't take more than a few more minutes."

"Give what back?" Kaidan asked.

They both looked over at him, then Shepard answered, "She has my omni-tool and almost has a working model. We don't know if hers has enough RAM yet, so we're using mine."

"Maybe we'll see something then."

Both Tali and Shepard sat down across from him. Shepard set down the trays and spoke, "So while we're waiting; any thoughts about Noveria?"

Kaidan closed his eyes for a moment and choked down a bite of food, "Killing Saren's—what was Benezia anyway? Second-in-command? Advisor? Anyway, it should set him back a bit. I'm sure Dr. T'Soni's hurting, though. Poor kid. Having to kill her own mom."

Shepard nodded, "I made sure she didn't pull the trigger; I've also spoken with her."

Kaidan nodded and winced, "So she said. She seemed very grateful, and I think…" his eyes flicked over to Tali, fortunately she didn't seem to be paying attention, "ah, nothing."

Shepard noticed his eyes, "And she appreciated Tali too?"

Tali's head popped up at that, "Hmm?"

Kaidan smiled, "Yeah, I think so."

Shepard looked over at Tali, "How's it coming?"

"I'm still working on it."

Shepard nodded and Tali went back to work. Then he spoke to Kaidan, "Do you have any opinions on the rachni?"

"Off the record?" he asked.

Shepard nodded.

"If we had the option, I'd as soon have left it to the Council. We weren't here during the rachni war. I'm not sure we had any business getting involved."

Shepard nodded, "I see…Too late now." He paused, "The crew been talking about anything interesting?"

Kaidan winced, "That would be a matter of perspective…they know about the stonewalling you've had from the Council."

"What do they think?"

"They're on your side, Commander, and they're pissed about the resistance we're getting…Especially from 'our side,'" he closed his eyes and took a long, deep breath. "I'll have a better handle on all of it when my head stops hurting…Another L2 flare-up."

One of Shepard's eyebrows rose, "Need anything?"

"No, Commander. It'll settle down…Chakwas gave me some meds, but it is rough sometimes."

"Why not upgrade?"

Kaidan shrugged, "The surgery is difficult and L2s spike higher than a lot of L3s. And I fared a lot better than some after Conatix was through."

Shepard smiled, "Best of the worst. I haven't heard anything about that company in a while."

Kaidan slowly nodded, no wince this time, "It's better than being am L1. But yeah, Conatix quietly disappeared. Broke up into a bunch of little corps after they botched the training on Jump Zero."

"What was their mission?"

"After first contact, Conatix was set up to track element zero exposures and develop implants for humans. Once we had an embassy on the Citadel, Conatix could bring in 'experts' instead of taking it slow."

"The only experts would have to be aliens."

Kaidan nodded, "Dead on. Turians, actually. That's why Conatix kept it a secret. They were afraid of what people back home would think. Asking turians for help when we'd just fought a war with them."

"I'd think the asari would have been more acceptable than the turians."

"Yes, but the company didn't go through the Citadel. It would have made Earth look weak. So they discretely hired some turian mercenaries."

Shepard smiled, "Get your knuckles rapped a few time, Lieutenant?"

"Yeah, you could say that. Our instructor was a turian by the name of Commander Vyrnnus. A real harda**. He basically had a free pass to break us if it would turn out a decent biotic. It kind of spiraled from there, Commander."

Shepard's eyebrow rose, "Did he ever face charges?"

"He got his, yeah. But like everything else at Jump Zero, it was under the table. The less said, the better. Anyway. This is ancient stuff. I walked it off a long time ago," Kaidan started to rise. "I should get back to my duties, Commander. We're here to make history, not re-hash it."

"You're going to miss the first launch? Tali's done now."

Kaidan sat back down, "She is?"

Tali looked over at Shepard, "How did you know?"

Shepard looked back and smiled, "My powers of observation."

Tali blinked.

"You looked up from the screen just before Kaidan finished talking."

"That could have meant—, Kaidan started.

Shepard shrugged, "It was a guess."

"Well, good guess."

Shepard smiled and looked back at Tali, "Go ahead and try it, Tali."

With a nod, Tali started pressing buttons on Shepard's omni-tool. A few seconds later a large, orange, mostly clear, sphere materialized, hovering about three inches off the table.

Shepard smiled and gave Tali a light clap on the back, "Brilliant, just brilliant!"

Kaidan had a feeling Tali was blushing. He reached out to touch the floating. He was surprised when his hand actually brushed a hard surface. The orb started floating away from him, though, just from the slight pressure of his hand. Shepard moved his chair to the side to see what the orb would do once it reached the edge of the table…it didn't even waver and he stopped it with his hand.

"This is…Great job, Tali."

Tali's eyes were smiling, "I used a concept from an omni-blade kit to make it physical."

Shepard nodded, still smiling, and pushed the sphere over the table again, "Do you have a way to call it back?"

Tali shook her head, "No, I think that's more of a software thing."

Shepard pursed his lips, "Wanna' touch it."

Tali shrugged, "I can't feel it…"

Shepard pushed the sphere over, "You created this. It's something you can be proud of."

Tali hesitated, then reached her right hand out, her left had the omni-tool running. As soon as her palm flattened on it, possible because Shepard was holding the other side, her eyes lit up, well, more-so than normal.

After a moment, she lowered her hand, "There's no way to call it back, so—," she was interrupted by Shepard clapping his hands on either side of the orb and shattering it. "—we have to destroy it physically," she awkwardly finished.

Shepard was shaking the loose particles of hardened omni-gel off his hands, "That would've hurt had the walls been thicker…and harder. Thanks for planning ahead."

Tali powered down the omni-tool and handed the mechanism to Shepard, "No problem."

Shepard reattached his and slid Tali's back to her, "Now, it's my turn. You set a high bar, I hope I can reach it."

Kaidan sensed Tali's smile. "I'm sure you will," she responded. "I wouldn't have been able to do my part without your mind. Uh, software."

Shepard smiled, "Sometimes they're one and the same, I guess. And don't try and deflect credit, Tali. You did this part. The fact that I helped make the software means nothing."

"I guess…" Tali replied uncertainly.

They both looked back at Kaidan, and Shepard spoke, "Kaidan, You've just witnessed the first ripple in the wave of change for omni-tools."

Kaidan smiled and winced, "Now if they could just cure my migraines."

OOO

"Message coming in, Commander," Joker spoke over the comms. "Big surprise – the Alliance needs you again."

Shepard looked up from where he was lying on top of the Mako, integrating the virtual aspects of the sky car VI into his and Tali's project.

"Shepard? This is Admiral Hackett with Alliance Command."

Shepard smiled, "What can I do for you Admiral?"

"Being a Spectre, you don't have to accept, but we've got a mission for you," he paused, giving Shepard a chance to say something. He didn't, so the Admiral continued, "An Alliance officer named Major Kyle has set up a small compound in the Hawking Eta cluster. He's attracted a number of followers, mostly biotics; he's become an outspoken critic of the Alliance, and we believe he's mentally unstable…This could be trouble, Shepard."

"I think I can look into it. Is there anything else I should know?"

"Three days ago, we sent two Alliance representatives to meet with him at his compound. They have disappeared. We believe Kyle and his followers killed them…The compound is a cult, Shepard, they call him 'Father Kyle' now. He's set himself up as some kind of religious leader."

Shepard scooted back against the Mako's cannon, "I see. His followers are biotics?"

"Yes. Major Kyle never showed any biotic tendencies himself, though. I think he's just latched onto a group he identifies with. Many biotics feel marginalized of ostracized by society; Kyle probably sees them as victims who need his protection, and they see him as someone who will fight for them. Unfortunately, he's managed to convince them that the Alliance is somehow responsible for all of their problems. We can't let him go on like this."

Though he already had an idea of the answer, Shepard asked, "What was the purpose of the Alliance representatives?"

"They wanted to bring him back to an Alliance facility for treatment. Major Kyle served us faithfully for many years. We weren't going to abandon him. Given his state of mind, however, he probably saw them as a threat. We're almost certain he had his followers kill them."

Shepard's face twisted, "Maybe I can end this without violence."

"That may not be possible, Commander. We don't want a bloodbath, but Kyle is dangerous. I'll trust you to use your judgment. Hackett out."

With that, Shepard sat up and powered down his omni-tool, "Get that Joker?"

"We're in the neighborhood, Commander," Joker responded. "Shouldn't be more than a half hour before possible touchdown."

Shepard nodded, "Stay the course."

"Will do, Commander."

Shepard looked up to try and decide the ground team. Tali was working with Garrus on getting the hinges for the doors of the sky car reattached. Some humans really fear turians, so no to Garrus. Shepard's gaze swiveled over to Wrex, the big krogan seemed to be reading something on his omni-tool while resting on some crates…he seemed to be into it, No to him too…too scary. Shepard moved his gaze back to Tali, I haven't met many humans with major beefs against quarians...and she is a sympathetic face, sort of…I'll bring her. These humans were biotics as well, so if things went up in flames, he had to find a way to counter them, Kaidan. He supposed Liara was potentially a more powerful biotic, and she too was a sympathetic face, but Kaidan was a human, and he had more experience with the problems of human biotics. So Liara would have been a good choice, but Kaidan was better.

Shepard slid down the Mako, and sent a quick message to the lieutenant. He then walked over to Tali and said, "Garrus, I need to steal Tali from you for a while."

Garrus looked over from the hinge he was working on, "She's all yours. We're almost done with this one anyway."

"Maybe Wrex can help you with the top hinge," Tali spoke.

Wrex snorted.

"Wrex," Shepard chided.

"Shepard," he returned.

Shepard's voice rose a pitch, "Wrex!"

"Shepard!"

Shepard's voice fell back to normal levels, "Wrex."

Wrex sighed, "Maybe."

Shepard smiled, then nodded to Tali, "Suit up. Half hour."

OOO

The moon they were on, Presrop according to Shepard, was a frigid, barren world. Just by looking through the sights of the main gun the main gun, Kaidan could see that a nightmare of jagged, overlapping ridges surrounded them. This planet was inhospitable, and he was glad Shepard was driving.

According to the Commander's sources, this planet was rich in heavy metals, and that opened it up to mining. Unfortunately, though, while many have tried to mine it, many have also died…whether they were legal or not.

"Kaidan," Shepard spoke, "look up at Klendagon."

Kaidan swiveled the canon to face the sandy planet that Presop was orbiting.

"You both see that line right there? Across the southern hemisphere?"

"Wasn't that called the Great Rift Valley?" he asked.

"Yes, that. Did you know that according to the geology of the area, it is believed to have been caused by a mass accelerator weapon shot from some thirty-six to thirty-eight million years ago?"

"Huh, I did not know that…never really thought about it," Kaidan looked back at Tali. "You?"

Tali shrugged, "Same."

Shepard looked back and smiled, "Now you guys can answer that question on trivia night."

Kaidan looked over at Shepard, "Trivia night? When're we having that?"

Shepard looked back at him, "Right after we have our Towers of Hanoi tournament."

Kaidan smiled, "Ah, yes, I heard about that."

"A tournament, Shepard?" Tali asked.

Kaidan answered, "I was referring to flirting engineers."

Shepard coughed and looked forward, "Yep, we'll have that tournament eventually. Now we should probably get going…you know…biotic cult and all that."

"Helluva way to change the subject, Shepard," Kaidan teased.

"I could say the same to you…Let's go…quietly."

Kaidan started laughing.

"I'm pulling rank, Lieutenant. Silence. Now…"

OOO

"…So how long do you think?"

"Let me think!" Garrus was trying gauge his decision based on what he knew from his time on the Normandy.

The Requisitions Officer was leaning against one of the support structures in the cargo hold, "Chakwas already picked five days."

"You told me," Garrus leaned closer to the hinge he was working on. "A little higher."

Wrex lifted his end of the sky car door a little higher, "A week and a half."

The Requisitions officer's eyebrows rose at that, "I didn't think you'd want to take part in something like this."

"Record it," Wrex growled.

The Officer powered up his omni-tool and pressed a few buttons, "O-kay…Recorded. The base bet is 500 credits. You pay once we have a winner...Still waiting on you Garrus."

Garrus manipulated a few wires, "A week and two days."

"Finally," the Requisitions officer recorded Garrus' choice. "By 'week' I assume you both mean seven days. Garrus, you must not have much faith in the Commander."

Garrus looked over at the Officer, "But Wrex just…" He sighed and looked back at his work. "Never mind."

"I myself thought he'd do it in six days."

"We'll see how that goes," Garrus stepped out of the skycar. "Okay, Wrex, drop it." Wrex let go of his end of the door and the whole thing slammed shut. Garrus stared at the machine for a moment before speaking, "It closes…I guess the wires went the other way…Well…now I know. Wrex, I'll have to ask you to lift it back up again."

"Can one of you ask Kaidan when he gets back?" The requisitions officer continued.

Garrus watched Wrex slowly lift the door up, "Sure, I'll take care of it."

The Requisitions officer's omni-tool flashed, "I've just sent you the current bets. Send me Kaidan's when you can."

"Will do," Garrus replied as the Requisitions officer left for engineering.

OOO

Tali was hacking a secure footlocker in one of the rickety shacks that Joker found in his preliminary scans of the area. The ride over had been filled with an awkward tension that had managed to be amplified by them driving up an 75 to 85 degree incline… inertial dampener was starting to stutter, but they made it.

"Commander, there's some rover tracks here," Kaidan spoke through the suit-to-suit comms.

The footlocker popped open and Tali pulled out some weapons mods.

"Any ideas of where they lead?" Shepard asked.

Tali exited the shack and saw Kaidan just standing up, "I'm not sure," he spoke, "it looks like they follow the ridge over there to the southwest."

Shepard walked out of the shack he was investigating and looked over to where Kaidan was pointing, "They don't go very far."

"They were probably miners, Commander," Tali spoke. "Joker likely pinpointed their location on the map already."

Shepard nodded, "I agree. We'll find out soon enough." He looked over at her, "Find anything?"

She held up the weapon mods.

Shepard nodded, "Back to the Mako I guess."

OOO

Liara was quickly making her way to her little hidey-hole back behind the med-bay. She had been chatting with some of the engineers when she heard the Requisitions Officer getting Adams' bet for something. She hadn't really been paying attention, but she distinctly heard "Shepard" later followed by "Tali." So she had an idea of what it was about.

She would have been lying to herself if she were to say she didn't have some feelings for the Commander. She was unfamiliar with human courtship behavior, though, so she supposed his actions on Noveria could have been interpreted as something along those lines. She could also be reading him completely wrong…She just didn't know.

The door to her little area opened, and she sat down at her terminal. She would turn to the best source of information she knew of for data concerning his behavior: the Alliance public servers on the extranet. Fortunately, due to the Alliance's interest in the planet they were orbiting, they had access to a comm buoy, and the Normandy being a Spectre ship gave anything she sent through the comm buoys top priority.

Comm buoy systems only have a finite amount of bandwidth available; given that trillions of people may be trying to pass a message through a given buoy at any one time, access to the network is parceled out on priority tiers: The Citadel Council and the Spectres have absolute priority, individual governments and their militaries enjoy the next-highest tier, the next priority level is sold to the highest bidder like media conglomerates, and the lowest tier is free to the public.

The buoys themselves are little more than clusters of primitive, miniature mass relays maintained in patterns built outward from each relay. Each individual buoy is connected to a partner buoy in the network, forming a corridor of low-mass space. Tight-beam communications lasers are piped through these low-mass spaces, allowing virtually instantaneous communication to anywhere on the network. They can even connect through the larger mass relays. The only delays are caused by the light lag between the source or destination and the closest buoy. So long as all parties remain within half a light-second of buoys, though, nearly seamless real time communications are possible.

All in all, the idea of something so simple being sent as a top priority was enough to give her pause. She could probably do some technical stuff to reroute it through as a lower priority, but it would have been just a waste of resources to get to the same place. So, she sent her query through with top priority and maximum encryption…she found almost exactly what she was looking for.

OOO

Shepard sat crouched inside a mining rover, examining the bodies in both the driver and passenger's seats. The odd angle of the rover made it a little difficult, but he compensated with his mag-boots. The miners were wearing pressure suits, so the scene wasn't as gruesome as it could have been. The only flesh that was exposed was fairly bloated and frozen. They looked far better than the body outside.

"This one died due to fibrillation of the heart," Kaidan spoke through the comms, "as well as smoke inhalation."

Shepard powered down his omni-tool, "These two did also. It looks like they couldn't get out of their seat belts. That one must've bailed on them."

"I'm not so sure, Commander, I think it's more likely that he fell out. Nobody would be stupid enough to step out into a vacuum."

Shepard reached up to steady himself against the roof before standing up, "I've seen a few people out there that've made me wonder." He stepped out of the rover and deactivated the mag-boots, "Lieutenant, give me some speculation on what you think happened."

Kaidan glanced over the rover and its positioning on the hill, "Well, sir. I'm thinking that they're "wildcat" miners that picked up that hunk of metal over there on their scanners," he gestured over at the wreck Tali was digging around. "They approached and misjudged the hill. They slid down, crashed," he gestured at the crumpled front of the rover, "the driver and front passenger were knocked out, the cabin filled with smoke, this third guy probably fell against the door which had been knocked loose by the fall and..." he looked over at the body, "freeze-dried himself…then either smoke inhalation or depressurization did the rest."

Shepard nodded, "I would buy that; they apparently didn't expect to crash seeing as how lightly dressed this one…was."

Kaidan nodded and looked up at the furrows the rover left, "It's fairly recent too…debris is still falling."

Shepard followed his gaze, "Low gees," then looked over at Tali. "Find anything?"

Tali stood up holding a very twisted chunk of metal, "I found this," she turned it until an insignia was completely visible. "Garrus says it's a Macedyn Outpost insignia. I don't think we were the…second group to find this thing either, I found this by digging under another beacon."

"That wreak kinda' looks like part of a freighter," Kaidan observed.

"So, what did we learn from this?" Shepard asked.

"Always be prepared?" Kaidan returned.

Shepard glanced over at Tali, she shrugged. "We'll go with that," he replied. "Tali take that with us, some museum somewhere will probably want it."

OOO

Joker had to keep reminding himself that he was following Shepard's orders. He ordered him to start a general pass of the planets, and if he found anything, just mark it and move on.

"Are we moving?" Ashley asked from behind him.

Joker let a breath out through his teeth, "Yeah…Shepard's orders."

"We just left them down on the planet?"

Joker nodded and shrugged, "Orders…something about efficiency." He made a few gestures on his console, "Here they are."

Ashley leaned down so she could see the screen, "Joker, start a general pass and…" her voice trailed off as she switched to reading in her head.

Joker waited a moment before speaking again, "See?"

Ashley nodded and straightened up, "Couldn't someone have hacked it or something?"

"The odds are low. The verification algorithm runs about a gajillion tests."

"Still…What's that blinking light?"

"Hmm?" Joker leaned forward in his chair, "Hey, we found a deposit of cobalt on the planet below."

"Looks like a large pretty large deposit…Canctra."

"Marked…Moving on I guess."

"Those were the orders."

Something popped up on the side of one of Joker's screens, "Hey, another message from Shepard." He opened it, "Looks like they've reached the cult…Looks like we should start heading back, then."

Ashley sat down in the copilot's seat, "New orders?"

Joker looked over at her, "Implied orders."

OOO

They were finally investigating the final nav point in the area. It was the compound that housed Major Kyle and his cult.

Tali was just about to hack the door when a voice came out of the entrance console, "This is a private sanctuary. Outsiders are not welcome here."

"Commander!" she called.

Shepard quickly rushed up and started speaking, "I need to talk to the man in charge. It's important."

"Father Kyle wants nothing more to do with the Alliance," the man on the other end of the speaker responded.

"I get that, but I want this to end peacefully. If he doesn't see me, people could get hurt."

"We won't let you take Father Kyle away! He protects us! We need him!"

Tali was impressed by Shepard's control, his voice was still even, "The Alliance wants someone to pay for those murders. Let me speak to Major Kyle and maybe I can find some way to help you all get out of this alive."

"Father Kyle doesn't…" there was some mumbling in the background, then the man on the speaker sighed. "Father Kyle will speak with you. Head to the building at the far end of the compound. He'll meet you there."

Shepard gave a single nod and turned back to his squad, "You heard him. When we get in there keep your guns holstered," he looked at Kaidan, "and take your helmet off," then at Tali, "if you can."

They both nodded in affirmative and the group started back for the Mako to ride it across the compound to an entrance to a subterranean complex.

OOO

Kaidan could feel another migraine firing up as he walked into Major Kyle's chamber. He could hear the oxygen scrubbers struggling to clean the haze of scented smoke out of the air. The fact that they were just getting louder implied that the Major had only recently started burning the scents…It was the genuine wood-based stuff too. He figured Tali would have said something if her suit's scrubbers picked up on drugs or any other air-based attacks. The Major definitely knew why they were here.

Major Kyle was a fairly plain man, well, in a cult setting. He wore simple embroidered robes of simple colors, and had a simple moustache along with a chin puff. "I am Major Kyle," he spoke, "I know why you have come. We have no quarrel with you. Why can't you just leave us alone?"

The Commander held his stance well, but Kaidan could tell he was holding his breath as much as possible, "What happened to those other Alliance officers? The ones who came before me?"

The major was standing in the middle of the room surrounded by essence torches, "They wanted to take me away from here! They wanted me to abandon this place. Turn my back on my family. They spoke blasphemy!

"So you killed them," Shepard deadpanned.

The Major's gaze didn't waver, "I did what I could to make their end quick and painless. I had no other choice. It was necessary to protect my children. Only I can keep them safe."

Shepard was silent a moment, "The Alliance sent me to bring you in, Major…Can't you see this has gotten out of hand?" He paused again. "Don't you understand you're endangering your followers?"

"I respect that you have come under a banner of peace. But I cannot do as you ask. If you take away their father, my children will be helpless."

Kaidan felt his hand moving towards his pistol. Shepard gave him a glance and he stopped…The Commander had one more idea.

Shepard looked back at the major, "You ordered your followers to kill those Alliance investigators. You must face the consequences of your actions. Think…Do you really want your children to suffer for your sins too?

The Major looked down at the floor, he seemed to actually be listening to the Commander. After a moment, he seemed reach a decision…and it startled him, "No! This…this was my fault. My children are innocent. Pure. Please…I never meant for this to happen. I'm…I'm sorry."

Shepard nodded, "You're doing the right thing, Major. Your children will be better off for it. Come on."

The Major put up a hand, "Wait. If my children see you taking me away, they won't understand. They will attack and you will be forced to kill them all. You have shown me the error of my ways, Commander. Now you must give me time to explain to them. It is the only way they will understand. Please, give me one hour. After that, I will meet the Alliance authorities at the gates of my compound and surrender without violence…I give you my word."

Shepard paused, then nodded, "I'm going to trust you. If you betray that trust…Understand: you and your children will suffer."

"I will not betray you, Commander. Thank you for this." The major turned away and powered up his omni-tool, activating the sprinkler system for his room and nearly instantly killing the scents. If Shepard was bothered by it, he didn't say anything.

As they were walking back out of the complex, they heard the Major's voice over his followers' omni-tools, saying, "Come, my children, come to my chamber…there is something I must tell you."

Kaidan walked closer to the Commander and said, "Joker can have the Fifth Fleet pick Major Kyle up. I just hope you know what you're doing, Commander."

Shepard smiled out of the side of his mouth, "So do I, Lieutenant, So do I." He then turned his head towards him, "Migraine?"

Kaidan nodded, "And sinuses."

Liara was going through Shepard's time in the Blitz when she heard the door to her area slide open and a smoky-sweet smell wafted in. She quickly flushed the screen and turned to see Tali, she was still in her combat gear and holding a few cans of something.

"Um, Liara?" she spoke. "Can I have your help with something?"

Liara stood up, "Of course. What do you need?"

"I…I need some help spraying my suit down with the canned shower. It's a little smoky."

Liara stepped to the side and allowed Tali to set the cans on the table, "Yes, it is."

"I can get the front," Tali continued, "but the back is a little difficult."

Liara grabbed a can and stood behind Tali, "Ready?"

Tali took a can as well, "Yes, sorry if I make you miss…or spray you a little."

Liara started by spraying the quarian's upper-back, "Normal decontamination wouldn't work on this?"

Tali was working on her chest, "Shepard tried a couple sweeps using the Mako, but the smell stayed, and I didn't want to walk all the way up to the forward airlock."

"The smell would have followed you," Liara was working her way down to Tali's lower back and legs.

"I would have asked Shepard or Kaidan for help but…they were busy with their own armor, and Garrus was…calibrating the Mako."

Liara smiled to herself, And they're all men, she thought.

"I don't know how he can always do that, we didn't even use any of the major systems this time."

"Where there's a will there's a way."

Tai glanced back at her, "Funny."

"Wouldn't the elevator decontamination work?"

"I tried it, it helped a little, but the elevator is used too often for me to get a thorough cleaning, and the smell isn't particularly deadly, well, to you guys."

"I see."

"I would have-" Tali leaned down to get the fronts of her legs, Liara kneeled down to get the backs, "-asked Ashley, but I'm not really comfortable…talking…to her."

"I think it is the same for her to us too," Liara responded.

"Yes. I also assumed Adams would be busy, and I didn't want to track this smell into engineering either."

"So here you are."

Tali straightened up and started spraying her head, "And so here I am."

Liara's can ran out, and she reached for another, "You smell better already."

Tali started undoing the wrappings over her suit, "We're not done yet."

OOO

Adams was sitting in the copilot's seat of the Normandy, scanning one peculiar moon of the hundreds around the planet Tharopto.

"Anything yet?" Joker asked.

Adams brought his hand up to his chin, "I'm not sure. Something keeps popping in and popping out. The moon is distorting the sensors."

"That's why I called you up here. I figured you would know a few ways of cutting through."

Adams nodded and pressed a few buttons, "Ah, there it is, there's a small cluster of debris along with a small pocket of radiation."

"Should I take a closer look?"

"I'll get a salvage team together, we'll look at it."

Joker opened up a comm to the cargo hold, "Clear the cargo hold. Repeat. Clear the cargo hold. Salvage Team A, prepare to catch." He closed the link, and looked at Adams, "How's that?"

Adams shrugged, "That works too."

OOO

Ashley watched from the sidelines of the cargo hold as the salvage team literally waded through the debris of…whatever it was. At least they don't have to cut anything apart, she thought. One of the team members waved Adams over. He pushed away a few floating chunks of metal and approached the crewman, she was holding something small.

With a nod, Adams took it and approached Ashley, "Ashley, would you be willing to look up what this is?" The item he was holding onto was a thin, very oblong oval with text of some language scrawled along the middle.

She nodded and took it. Even through the glove of her enviro-suit she could tell that the material was incredibly hard, "It's not part of whatever that stuff is? Like an emblem or something?"

Adams shrugged, "Look at it." He gestured at the thing she was now holding, "The debris is hardened steel, this is…much harder."

Ashley held the item up to look at it in the light, then brought up her omni-tool, "I'll look into it. Have you guys found out what that stuff…was yet?"

Adams looked back at the floating debris, "The stuff we're seeing is consistent with components you would find in an escape pod." He turned back to her, "Right now, that's the running hypothesis. We're hoping that 'emblem' will give us more insight."

Ashley nodded and started for the elevator, "I'll see what I can find."

"Don't forget to run the decontamination process in the elevator," Adams spoke after her.

OOO

Liara emerged from the med-bay, it took nearly three more rounds of spraying and an enhanced decontamination cycle to get the smell down to a safe level so Tali could change into her other suit. Normal decontamination was more focused on killing microorganisms and other potentially deadly airborne viruses. The enhanced decontamination did all that, but also used a spray to catch gaseous materials. It apparently took about half an hour.

They also had a very nice chat about nothing in particular. It included a small segment about the Commander, Tali was quite animated in that area. She had an immense respect for him, and…Liara felt that the quarian's feelings actually went deeper…she had to find a way to see if he felt the same…if true…maybe she could possibly join in on the betting.

She looked over to see the Commander chatting with Ashley, she had her omni-tool up. They were passing some sort of metal thing between them. She approached, "Hello, Commander, Ashley. What's that?"

Shepard took the item from Ashley, "That's exactly what we're trying to find out. This text is Salarian and says 'League of One'. This isn't the first time we saw this group."

"It kind of looks like a medallion? There were twelve, or maybe thirteen, all together if I remember correctly."

Shepard flipped the item over, "That's probably it…that would make sense. That's probably why it has a hole in it here too."

"And the titanium-based material definitely seems Salarian," Ashley spoke.

"Then there we have it…It's a League of One medallion. Thanks Liara."

Liara nodded, "Happy to help."

"Well Ash—."

He was interrupted by Joker over the comms, "Message coming in. Patching it through."

"I swear he knows right when to butt in," Shepard muttered.

"Admiral Hackett here, Commander," the Admiral started.

"Hello Admiral, What can I do for you? Did you get my report no Major Kyle?"

"Your helmsman just forwarded it, and we sent in a team as you instructed. Kyle's followers have disbanded, and the major surrendered to us without incident. We'll make sure he gets the help he needs."

"That's good. He was a smart man."

"That he was. To be honest, Shepard, I thought this thing was going to end in a bloodbath. I don't know how you did it, but you saved a lot of lives. Congratulations."

"It's all in the job description, Admiral."

"And one more thing, Commander."

"I'm listening."

"The Alliance and the Citadel have agreed to forward token funds to the non-humans on your ship."

"That is good news Admiral."

"I cannot speak for the Council, but they are not officially on the Alliance payroll. They are about as close as any non-human can get, though.

"I see."

There was some mumbling in the background, "I have just received word that since Normandy is a Spectre ship, and you are an employee of the Council now, your entire crew is officially on their payroll."

Shepard gave an amused snort, "They'll be rolling in credits in no time."

"Perhaps, Commander…That's all I have. Hackett out."

"Wow," Ashley spoke, her omni-tool was still up. "The Citadel just handed out the back-pay."

Shepard smiled and looked at Liara, "Liara, I would like to be the first to officially welcome you to unofficially being on the official Alliance payroll."

Liara wasn't sure how to respond. Ashley spoke, "Anyway, Skipper. You were saying?"

Shepard paused, giving Liara another chance to respond, then stood up with an amused smirk, "I have a few personal logs I want to take care of. I'll see you both later."

Both Liara and Ashley watched him leave. "So…" Ashley awkwardly started, "welcome to the Alliance payroll."

"I am…glad to be a part of it," Liara awkwardly replied.

She was surprised to see Ashley smile as her omni-tool powered down, "Don't worry, there's no real…comfortable…response to something like that. Why don't you take a seat?"

Liara slowly sat down.

After a slight pause, Ashley spoke, "I know I make the non-humans uncomfortable."

There it was, she broke the majority of the tension. But Liara didn't respond, she didn't know what to say.

"I am trying to work on my, uh, people skills. I wanted to apologize for shooting you down like I did after Noveria."

"It is…okay," Liara was a little surprised.

Ashley was staring down at her hands, "I cannot promise that it won't happen again, though. Sometimes I speak before thinking…and not in the way the Commander does."

"The Commander speaks without thinking?"

Ashley looked up at Liara, "You haven't noticed? Does he really look like the kind of guy that always has a plan? Scratch that, he does look like that. Anyway, any combat engineers I've ever met have always big on improvisation…From what I've seen, Shepard is no different…"

"It seems more like he creates broad plans with generalized contingencies."

Ashley shrugged, "That's another way of putting it I guess."

It was a little out of the blue, but Liara felt that Ashley was actually trying to respect her. "So, did Shepard say where we are going next?"

Ashley rubbed her forehead, "I think we're going to the Citadel, he has some errands he wants to take care of… and he has to…uh…go."

"Go?" Liara paused, "Oh…Go.

Ashley nodded, "Yeah…so…Any ideas on how to pass the time?"

Comm buoys description modified from wiki. Also, a word to the wise: If you are using Word 2013 and keeping you whole story in one document, hidden text comes in very handy, and save your document in compatibility mode, it saves and loads way faster (I think the 2013 save version uses compression, so it takes longer).

My poll is also still open, I'll keep it open until I post the next chapter.

If there is any tech you would like me to try and explain, leave a review/PM (anything, no matter how small, biotics included).

Also, don't jump to conclusions…just a note in defense of originality...

And looks like my note from the previous chapter was inaccurate, I'm doing 2 missions before the citadel…I don't have any mini-videos I want to fit here right now…so to the citadel.

EDIT(3/27/2014): modified comm buoy description.