"You do realize that you're paranoid."

Commander Decin Numerius glanced up from her data pad and over at her second, unimpressed. He met her gaze in return, equally unimpressed. "It's my job to be paranoid," she pointed out, "and at the risk of stating the obvious... just because I'm paranoid, it doesn't meant they're not out to get me." She turned back to the data pad.

"Or in this case that there isn't a massive conspiracy by person or persons unknown to do something of an illegal, violent, or otherwise inconvenient nature to either the Caduceus Group in specific or the facility in general."

She didn't bother looking up. "I can't decide if you're mocking my paranoia, Lieutenant," she said, "or the fact that I don't yet have a crystallized version of what exactly I'm worried about."

"Both, Commander," he said. "If you're feeling adventurous, I could also remind you that this entire thing was precipitated by one human child having nightmares."

That one was worthy of a glare and she gave it to him. She reminded herself to throw him into the wall a few times during their next training session then thrust the data pad at him, clasping her hands behind her back and continuing down the corridor. "Handful of transmissions received in the last week," she said without preamble. "Originating source unknown, last hop in the series variable. Ostensibly, it looks like the transmissions are completely unrelated to one another but look at the second and fourth. Does the handling of the metadata look familiar to you?"

Aulus Artorian gave her a sidelong look as he accepted the data pad then spent a moment looking it over. "No," he said after a moment. He looked distinctly uncomfortable as if he knew she was seeing something he was not. "I take it it looks familiar to you?"

"Yes," she said succinctly. "Or rather, a piece of it does. I can't place it and it looks like the entire thing is some kind of conglomerate of a bunch of different..." She waved a hand, unable to articulate in words what she was seeing. Neither she nor Artorian were techs. "There's a chance it's a coincidence, that the second and fourth just happened go through a similar encryption hop and are otherwise completely unrelated to one another."

"But you don't think so," Artorian finished for her.

"I do not," she confirmed. "I think that someone out there" - and she pointed a claw to indicate the glistening starfield visible through the corridor's long windows - "is talking to someone in here and for whatever reason isn't interested in going through the normal channels to do it... which is grounds enough for us to be interested."

"And you're certain they're not just planning a surprise birthday party for you, Commander?"

"If they were," she said archly, "they would have had the decency to do it in a way I could easily and conveniently overhear." She shook her head slightly. "No, it's something else. Maybe something entirely innocent. Maybe something entirely the opposite. But definitely something." She let out a slow breath, muttering, "Definitely something."

A few moments passed in companionable and thoughtful silence as they trekked through the corridor, then Artorian asked, "Do you have any idea what that something might be?"

She snorted. "I've no idea whatsoever," she said. "I'm not sure if you've noticed, Lieutenant, but this isn't exactly a high-risk assignment." She gestured to the clean, antiseptic walls... waved at the luxuriously wide windows... even gestured to their own rather small arsenals, a limited set of small arms they were permitted to carry. "As exciting as the Caduceus Group might make it out to be, as exciting as they might make it look with all their endless doomsday simulations... we're here with a bunch of scientists who are essentially charting asteroid movement in the galaxy in the off chance that one of them is going to hit a mass relay... and our job is the equally glamorous one of making sure our people and the humans don't kill each other in the process."

"I kind of like all the doomsday simulations," Artorian said. "They're all so... doomy."

Numerius chuckled slightly before plucking the data pad out of her second's hands. "You remind me of an old friend sometimes, Lieutenant," she said.

"Good to know, Commander," said Artorian. He paused. "But you should still watch the one they did where the humans over-mine Praxis which promptly blows up, altering the gravitational landscape of the system... which would, once the second star of that system degrades to a white dwarf, allow said white dwarf to potentially start accreting matter from its companion which should result in the formation of a type la supernova. And the effects of that, when combined with the collapse of the Amargosa star, modifies the path of the Septimus Comet just enough to hit and destroy Relay 207 on its next round."

Numerius considered that. "So... if the humans manage to accidentally blow up a planet," she said slowly, "then one of the two stars in that system might be able to accrete matter from its sibling if it happens to become a white dwarf... which might create a supernova of some specific kind... which when combined with the completely unrelated and heretofore unknown desire of a perfectly nice star like Amargosa to decide to go dark..." Her mandibles flexed. "If all that's true, then the path of a specific comet might be altered such that it could run directly into Relay 207."

"Uh." Artorian cleared his throat. "Yes. Yes, that's about right."

"Even if the humans blow up Praxis tonight," Numerius said, "and Cinderella's fairy godmother turns that second star into a white dwarf for the ball... and Amargosa decides it can't live without the prince and throws itself back into the ocean to become sea foam..."

"What's a fairy godmother?" Artorian asked.

Numerius waved a hand impatiently. "Assuming all of that happens tonight and not at the grand chronological scale of the universe," she said, "I feel the need to point out that the Septimus Comet passed our colonies around Relay 207 a few years ago. So we're looking at the potential complete obliteration of three of our largest colonies in... five hundred years or so?"

Artorian cleared his throat. "About four hundred and fifty," he replied. "Assuming the humans over-mine Praxis, the second star becomes a white dwarf and then goes supernova, and somehow the Amargosa star goes dark. And the..." His mandibles flexed. "And the fairy godmother bit."

"Right," said Numerius. She tapped her claws against her body armor for a moment before glancing over at him, asking archly, "And I'm the paranoid one?"

Artorian paused. "It... was a really great explosion, Commander," he said.

She laughed at him in return, clapping him on the shoulder. She was sure it had been. "I'm not sure that's the best example of their work here, explosion or no," she said, "but I'll never argue against worst-case planning. Before Caduceus, we didn't even know what it would really take to destroy a relay and if there's one thing I despise, it's not knowing what I don't know... especially if that one thing happens to be what it would take to destroy something capable of devastating an entire solar system." She shrugged slightly. "And it's nice to see the humans finally taking a longer-term view of the universe around them."

"But we're still just charting the movement of celestial bodies around the galaxy and creating doomsday simulations," said Artorian.

"Right," said Numerius. "I'd normally be more concerned about the doomsday simulations in general but even the nearest-term sim is hundreds of thousands of years out; most are millions. If we have enemies somewhere who are planning that far ahead, I daresay they deserve to win." She shook her head. "No, Lieutenant, their work here is going to go into contingency plans for us and for the humans. What if the humans found out with only x amount of time left that the Charon Relay would be destroyed? What could they get off Earth? What could they save? What would they have to sacrifice? How would it destabilize the Alliance? If it were one of ours, what would we be able to get off Palaven? What would be the socioeconomic impacts of losing the seat of the Hierarchy? Worst case scenarios. Military plans. Political plans." She developed a headache just thinking about it and waved a hand again. "Those projects are going to be high-security and high-risk. This?" She glanced around. "Not so much. We're only classified a second-level risk group because it's a joint turian-human venture."

They rounded the corner toward the eating facility and she gestured for him to enter before her.

"And there haven't been any real problems there," Artorian said. "Which was ni-"

He got hit in the face with some kind of human food as soon as the doors opened. The smell was overpoweringly disgusting. He promptly started gagging.

Numerius probably wouldn't have gagged - she really did pride herself on most excellent discipline - but even if she faced the temptation, she was suitably distracted by a human body sailing overhead and hitting the far wall. It landed with a rather resonant thud and what would probably have been a groan if it hadn't been cut off by the force of the impact.

'Mulligan, Seamus A.,' Numerius's mind supplied helpfully with regards to the recently airborne body.

"I wish you wouldn't say things like that, Lieutenant," she said wearily, ducking as another container - this one containing some kind of turian beverage, if the completely unoffensive scent was any indicator - went flying past to splatter on the wall by them.

"Sorry, Commander," said Artorian. He sounded distinctly ill.

Numerius watched the chaos with a clinical eye. She was pleased to see that there was no significant amount of blood outside the appropriate vessels - her pleasure was only partly related to the fact that human blood was nauseating and she could never get the small out - and no weapons fire. If the room had been separated along racial lines - and it usually was during meal times - the physical boundaries had since been blurred; there were constantly-changing mini-groups of combatants scattered throughout the room, hurling racial epithets of various coarseness wildly alongside available containers of food.

She sighed.

She watched a human male perform a relatively well-executed body slam on one of the turian researchers... Korsikov, Alexey A. and Sibelian, Tonn respectively.

"Nice hit," said Artorian.

"Yup," said Numerius.

"I didn't do it, Commander Numerius," said a small human voice.

"I am inclined to believe you, Abigail Meshkov," Numerius said gravely, grasping the little girl's upper arm as hastily as she could without risking a tear to her delicate skin and pulling her out of the way of a flying tray. She caught the tray with her free hand and used it as a shield to block an incoming wad of oddly and she was fairly certain unnaturally orange human food. She couldn't quite remember the name of the food. It was a traditional blend of human foods, marconi and something, and she only remembered that much because one of the small human females - Rodgers, Elizabeth 'Lizzie' - wailed in that very enthusiastic and very shrill way she had of wailing anytime her caregivers attempted to feed her anything else. Numerius had started taking late lunches just in case.

"Please stay behind me until there are... fewer things flying, Abigail Meshkov," Numerius said.

"Okay, Commander," said the small, odd-smelling little human agreeably enough. She took her place behind Numerius though she did grace Artorian with a look of mild curiosity as she passed. Artorian reciprocated. Numerius wondered if her second had ever really associated with the humans. She would have to change that. Perhaps he could be in charge of all the small ones that wailed.

Of course, if he hadn't been associating with the humans very much, perhaps that approach would give him an unfairly biased view of said humans. The small, wailing ones were even more difficult to predict than the large ones... and, in moments of social breakdown, much, much louder. She still had no idea how Garrus had ever managed to spend so much time with -

She turned to Artorian. "I know where these messages came from," she said, holding up the data pad with one hand and using the tray in the other to absently block another splatter of food. "Or at least one of the hops they went through."

"Uh, Commander," said Artorian delicately, leaning slightly to the right to avoid a body - turian this time - that went sailing past. "Perhaps now isn't the time to -"

"Take care of this, Lieutenant," Numerius interrupted, gesturing to indicate the room at large. "I've got to make some calls."

Artorian looked horrified. "But, Commander, I -"

"Abigail Meshkov, this is Lieutenant Artorian," Numerius said. "He will take care of you."

"I will?" squeaked Artorian.

"He will?" asked the small human dubiously.

"Yes," said Numerius authoritatively. "Here." She handed her Artorian the tray. "Good luck." She marched out.