Cenotaph II: The Monolith

by Rob Sears

The year is 2214. A weary galaxy festers. Military privatization has become the norm in a new economic depression. A malicious plan, decades in the making, has finally been set into motion. The only one who can stop it? Roahn'Shepard and a team of some of the most extraordinary individuals the galaxy has ever seen. Fear. Agony. Hatred. Roahn's lethal nightmare begins!

16. Chapter 16: Too Many Disclosures!

"Fuel now costs credits in this game. Why? While being part of a rogue paramilitary group has its benefits, unfortunately its infrastructure is not robust enough to allocate a limitless fuel budget for the Normandy. Gas now comes out of your pocket. Better get used to hypermiling."

The Mass Effect 2 Manual (2010)

---

Menhir
Cargo Bay

The portable table, light enough to be carted with a single hand, unfolded with a quick series of clicks and snaps, and Roahn placed it smack dab in the middle aisle of the cargo bay, just a few meters in front of the elevator door. Upon it she spread several boxes of thermal clips, a couple cleaning cloths, some fine-toothed brushes, and an assortment of several pistols to choose from. The weapons ranged in both the hues of the materials that made up their construction and both their origin, for they spanned nearly every quadrant of the galaxy in their own unique design. Some were utilitarian and boxy. Others were curved and looked like they were molded out of smooth and polished polymer.

To Korridon, who had been silently watching Roahn set up, she now turned and gestured towards the table where the handguns rested. "Take your pick. Any that match your comforts?"

A hand on his chin, the turian looked at the displayed weapons in such a disoriented manner that it almost seemed like Roahn had laid out an ancient tome written in old Khelish for him to decipher. "I was never afforded with the privilege of preference," he admitted. "I always just took what the armory was handing out. What do you usually prefer?"

"Me? Well, I prefer the Paladin, myself." Roahn selected a cloud-white model from the bench and performed a quick weapons check on it by racking the slide back halfway to check if a thermal clip was locked in the barrel, which it was not. "But this is probably not the weapon for you to retrain yourself."

"Why not?"

"For starters," Roahn explained as she momentarily set the weapon down, "it's not the best pistol for turian hands. I like the Paladin because it fits my contours a little better, but the biggest reason is that it has quite a bit of recoil with every shot. It'll put a huge strain on your wrists if you're not used to shooting. But, if you just want to focus on the fundamentals, why not try a Predator?"

Roahn slid over a rugged looking pistol, its design quite angular and no-nonsense. This was a gun not meant to draw stares. It was meant to do its job of levelling shot after shot and to do it faithfully. Korridon took the pistol after Roahn performed the same weapons check on it that she had just done on the Paladin.

While Korridon weighed the feel of the gun in his hands, Roahn kept rattling off bits of trivia. "Turian-designed, probably the most reliable pistol made today. A hefty clip size and it's lightweight. Perfect for experts and beginners."

"Your word as a professional?" Korridon asked as he lightly thumbed the slide, getting his reflexes back in check.

"A diversified one, at least," Roahn shrugged.

The quarian then touched a control on her omni-tool and, all the way across the bay, a singular round and ringed target, made entirely up of blue light, materialized from thin air. The target hovered over the ground at chest height, impassive of the laws of gravity.

Roahn made sure to take furtive glances towards the sides of the bay before she made any new moves. She had made sure to reserve this block of time when the action down in the cargo bay was at its lowest. There were no crewmembers down here to disturb them. The shuttle that sat off to their right quietly waited, its engines dark while growling red glimmers of lighting from the exposed piping furrowed in like the glow from a wildfire. Crates of supplies, weapons equipment, and other crew materials were positioned patiently to their left. The steady hum of spaceflight gave the deck the slightest vibration, merely discernable if one was to flex their mind and open it up to the barest perception.

After stepping over an industrial light cable, white illumination being thrown up under her chin, Roahn then gestured for Korridon to take his place at the center of the table.

"The guns are loaded with practice rounds," she assured the turian. "Don't worry about damaging the ship."

"It's my pride I'm more worried about," Korridon dryly chuckled. He then squared his stance and slowly brought his pistol to eye level. That was a start, at least.

Roahn made sure to give Korridon a wide berth during his shooting period. She remained quiet, her hands politely folded in front of her (producing a faint stimuli in her head as her remaining limb touched the fingers of her prosthesis) while she waited for the turian to proceed. It was crucial that she not provide any distractions for the man—it would only worsen his performance and would undoubtedly skew the results.

Then again, perhaps it might not have mattered if the two had kept up a conversation throughout the exercise, because once Korridon finally fired his pistol (a well-prepared Roahn not even jumping from the explosiveness of the gun's report), the quarian had to squint hard to find the yellowed icon that would have indicated a hit upon the target. But, to her bemusement, she could not see anything upon the hologram from her position. Unless her vision was going by the wayside, it seemed that Korridon had not been exaggerating when he had proclaimed his own shooting as abysmal, but to miss an entire target from this distance? This defied any definition.

Roahn had to resist the urge from making a hushed comment of disappointment.

Chewing the inside of her cheek, Roahn grimly made a few notes as she watched Korridon slowly whittle down his clip with each trigger pull. As each blossom of fire and noise protruded from the pistol's barrel, the turian's arms would shoot up as though he had just been whipped. Roahn did not have the strength of a krogan but she knew that it did not require the strength of a krogan to handle the recoil of a Predator, especially when she could handle something as powerful as a Paladin with comfort.

A few yellow dots occasionally ticked their way upon the hologram as Korridon's shots miraculously found it. Minor victories, at least. The placement of the shots was scattered, random, and not at all lined up on target. Every once in a while, Korridon would make a mark on one of the rings closest to the center, but he had to have known that such occurrences were more the product of luck rather than skill.

By the time the slide finally clicked open on the Predator, Roahn was bursting at the seams with enough comments to fill a novel. At least Korridon had the sense to realize the sort of job he just did, as his bashful expression was certainly telling.

"I did say that I was going to be a little rusty," he defended.

"'Little' being the operative word," Roahn nodded as she observed the hastily pockmarked target at the other end of the bay. "How did you ever survive boot camp?"

"Hey," Korridon pointed out, matching Roahn's wryness beat for beat, "I actually didn't do that bad during those days." He then appraised the ceiling as he thought some more. "Okay, so my marksman scores were still pretty crap back then. I always had the lowest shooting scores and I think that it was my acumen for other areas that kept me in, otherwise I'm pretty sure that I would have been kicked out in my first week."

"I guess we now have an idea of where to go with you from here," Roahn said. "I will say that you got some of the fundamentals right. Squared stance, eye lined up with the sight, good weapon discipline. It's a lot better than training someone who's never held a gun before in their life."

"I'm sensing a 'but' incoming very soon," Korridon sighed.

Roahn let out a small chuckle. "But there are many things that we need to work on. Your grip, for instance. You're holding your gun too lightly—I can see you're not tensing your forearms—and that's causing the pistol to spring up like that every time you pull the trigger."

"Like this?" Korridon raised his arms to replicate what Roahn was telling him.

The quarian tried to push down on the turian's arms and found quite a bit more resistance this time around. "Better. It will certainly help to line you up for the next shot, though I did notice that you're succumbing to a few common mistakes in the process of firing the gun."

"Can't say I'm all that surprised."

"Don't beat yourself up. Everyone makes this mistake as a self-proclaimed novice. What you're doing is using too much of your finger on the trigger. See what I'm doing?" Roahn wiggled her finger upon where it lightly rested against the trigger of her Paladin. "The tip of your finger is all you need. Any more than that and your pull exerts a sideways direction upon the gun."

Korridon nodded, his slit eyes attentive. "I understand."

"I'll take a few shots now to demonstrate." Roahn stepped up behind the table, where Korridon had been standing, and reset the target so that a fresh one now hovered in place. She swiftly lined up a shot and made a light pull upon the trigger, causing a reaction in which the circuitry inside the gun sent an electronic pulse to the mass effect drivers, igniting the microscopic amount of primer and propelling a grain-sized projectile from the gun with the cacophonic fanfare akin to a roaring tidal wave. Her first shot was within the innermost sections of the target (Korridon made a small noise of surprise and admiration behind Roahn, which coaxed out a grin from under her visor). She rapidly emptied the clip and surveyed her handiwork after ejecting the spent heat sink. A cluster of yellow, a new sun, made a fist-sized partition in the middle of the target.

Roahn was all business as she set the Paladin down upon the bench. Korridon's mouth was still ajar, no doubt a bit dismayed at the gulf between their skillsets.

"In my defense," Roahn stated, leaning back as she touched her upper chest, near her collarbone, "I've been firing pistols since I was nine."

Korridon glimpsed the thoroughly defeated target a final time before answering. "I can certainly believe it. Something your father taught you?"

"I had to yank his arm a few times for him to even let me hold a gun," Roahn recalled, unable to help but remember the catalytic moment in which the two of them had been at loggerheads when she was a child, shouting at her dad for supposedly stifling her from her interests in an apparently exorbitant excess of caution. She would eventually come to terms with his point of view over his fiercely protective stance—every time she thought about the far-away memory was painful because she truly regretted at how much anguish she caused her father in that moment. "But he relented in the end. I guess I got what I wished for, for better or worse."

"I know it might sound strange," the turian said, "but I never really had an interest in shooting. Boot camp was the first time I had ever held a gun before."

Roahn thought back to Korridon's hopelessly plugged target and quickly surmised that his excuse had merit.

"You'll notice that I'm not attempting to argue with you there," she pointed out, making sure to let the wryness in her voice noticeably linger.

"I won't deny that I was an anomaly in the service. When service to the state is compulsory for the entire population, it is certainly rare that you'd come across a recruit with no prior weapons history. And yet, despite all that…" Korridon mustered a sheepish shrug.

The quarian tilted her head. "I think I heard somewhere that, for turians, personal interactions during the service, when it comes to bettering one's abilities, are encouraged. I mean, for a species with a great emphasis on personal accountability, as well as the supposed 'strong desire' to better the group along with the individual, that sort of fosters a culture in which one's peers train each other just as much as their superiors do."

"In a sense, you are correct. Whenever someone in the cadre struggles with a particular task, it is the implicit reaction for others to assist in order to bring the outlier into line. If someone was having trouble with their navigation calculations in their studies, for example, the individuals who did the best with those tasks would step in without being asked and try to provide guidance. Of course, guidance tends to come in many forms. Depending on the task, comrades will try to mentor one another through intense information-sharing sessions. Other times, if it's a physical issue or an emotional imbalance, recruits are encouraged to engage in calisthenics. Sparring is the favored coping exercise for the cadets. Well… the second-most favored exercise, I should say."

"Ah, say no more," Roahn said, fully understanding where the turian was going. To distract herself a little bit from that conversation, she returned to the workbench whereupon she proceeded to dismantle the Paladin pistol so she could start cleaning it. "Seeing as you've already professed your… lagging in your marksman skills, I have to wonder, what did your comrades do to help you?"

"Me?" Korridon jostled slightly, as if he could not have expected the conversation to be directed so personally. "I… uh… I did get some tutelage from my cadets, yes. Many of them thought my… er, problem was because of nerves. Many of my female peers did extend offers to help me with that, considering that particular line of thinking."

Roahn hid a chortle in the form of a small bump of her shoulders. The mental image of Korridon being swarmed by turian women was an interesting thing to perceive, the debauchery and other implications aside. Still, it was amusing to give Korridon the moniker of a bone fide ladies' man when he seemed quite the opposite of that label in real life.

"And?" Roahn pressed for her own curiosity as she now slid a brush into the barrel of the Paladin, scouring some of the grit off from the inside. "Did you take any of them up on that offer?" She was not going to press the turian if he did not want to answer, she had already decided. This was starting to get rather personal so she would understand if Korridon did not want to delve too deeply into his life if he was uncomfortable with it.

The turian's fingers fiddled together as he appraised the floor for a few long seconds. "Only one," he softly admitted, as though he was embarrassed to say such a thing.

Roahn nearly threw a muscle in her neck from nearly whirling around and, at the last minute, stifling such a reaction. She did not want to give the man the impression that his behavior was abnormal, but at the same time the restraint on his end was quite a thing to hear about. Although it seemed almost stereotypical to portray boot camp as being a place where young and impressionable cadets were allowed to run wild with their emotions, the truth was that such a portrayal actually had a basis in real life. Roahn's stint in the Defenders was filled with moments like these—cadets hooking up with one another was a practice that was rampant, although technically not encouraged as the very act was against the rules, though it was uncommon that anyone got caught. But with turians, physical relationships, no matter how brief, were practically egged on as a coping device as their constitutions and ingrained devotion to the state were usually strong enough to overcome other inhibitions that would otherwise prove to be a distraction.

"Just one?" Roahn echoed, trying not to sound too incredulous, keeping her tone as conversational as possible.

"Ah, it didn't work out for a variety of reasons," Korridon offered wistfully. "We both misread the situation. I thought she wanted a longer-term thing, but she was only interested in the short-term. We weren't all that compatible in terms of our personalities either, but… I didn't notice that at the time. I was an impressionable kid back then, practically. Any relationship I had then was destined to fail. Would've been nice to have known that at the time. That way I could have gotten a grip on my flaws."

The turian looked like he was about to go on but then he noticed that Roahn had been staring at him attentively for the past half-minute. Something in his face darkened and he turned away, aware that he had been rambling about his personal life in front of his commander.

The quarian then stepped forward and placed a reassuring hand upon the turian's shoulder. Roahn was shorter than Korridon and her knowing eyes kept the man firmly in her view, mirrored upon her translucent prison. "Take it from me, Korridon, there are some flaws that you shouldn't have to fix just to make a relationship work. If someone expects perfection from you, then they're guaranteed to be disappointed."

"You make a fair point," Korridon conceded. "It's just… things are a lot less clearer when you have that kind of tunnel vision placed upon you. You try so hard to please someone yet anything you do is doomed to failure."

"Don't I know it," Roahn groused.

"Why? Which flaws did you have that you thought needed correcting?"

"Apart from the obvious?" Roahn raised her left arm and gave a tiny smile as she saw the turian's expression blanch. It was just too easy to get a reaction out of the man. "There are always little things that need adjustments. The trick is figuring out which ones to leave alone—which are the flaws that define us and which that are more detrimental." Making a conscious effort to lift her hand away from Korridon's shoulder, she reached back over the table and plucked the Predator pistol from where it had been resting. She flipped the gun, offering it grip-first to the turian. "Give it another try."

Korridon glanced at the weapon and beheld it for a time before taking it from Roahn's hand. The quarian stepped away to give him some space. The turian rolled his neck to iron out the kinks as he simultaneously squared his stance. Calmly, he inserted a thermal clip into the gun and slowly brought it up to bear at the newly materialized target.

"Tense those forearms," Roahn reminded him. "Use as light of a force as possible on the trigger. Let it surprise you."

Taking a deep breath, Korridon steadied himself as he brought the sights of the gun in line with his right eye. Tenderly, he tapped his long finger against the rigid trigger, testing the pull and removing all play in the action by pulling on it by fractions of a pound of force. Behind him, Roahn tried to time her breaths to Korridon's, wanting to insert herself into his headspace, to try and emphasize with his own nervousness, to find understanding.

Go, she wanted to say, but as soon as the ghost of the word appeared on her lips, she was surprised for the first time today when Korridon finally pulled the trigger.

Roahn did not view the results of the blast. She merely watched as the turian proceeded to handle the recoil of the pistol, watching his fingers to ensure they did not slip further upon the trigger. She only watched his body and mentally jotted down all the improvements she saw to his form.

To her pleasant surprise, there were many.

When Korridon finally set the pistol down after it had ejected the spent slide, Roahn gazed upon the target for the first time and her smile crept wider. Many more yellow hit icons now adorned the sizzling blue face—the grouping was still rather wide and none of the shots had hit all that close to the center, but the fact that the turian had been able to hit the target more than he had in the beginning was undeniable proof that progress had been made. Indeed, this was a start.

The turian blinked, surprised at his own prowess. "I don't think I've ever done that well before," he noted out loud.

Roahn now came up alongside him, chin held high in admiration. "Who's to say this is your limit? I guess now we both have to find out just how far you can go."

"Thank you, commander," Korridon said with a fair bit of humility.

"Turns out it was all in your head, eh? That's enough for today, soldier. We'll pick this back up in a couple days or so. No need to rush things. Go ahead and get some rack. You did well."

Korridon, caught between his instinct to snap a salute to his superior and Roahn's request to keep things informal, stuttered a somewhat crisp nod of his head and he mumbled a goodbye as he headed towards the elevator. Roahn stayed behind to clean up but she noticed, as the turian was departing, that someone else was stepping out from the elevator. Someone whom she figured would not have come over to her presence quite so soon.

Skye and Korridon shared respectful looks as their paths crossed. The human, without breaking stride, made her way over to where Roahn was organizing the procured pistols and cleaning up the spent heat sinks. She leaned against a nearby pillar as she watched the quarian work, who was undoubtedly aware that she had a set of eyes watching her every move.

After Roahn put all of the charred heat sinks into the chute for recyclable materials did she finally lock eyes with the human, fixating her with a baleful stare. "Glad to see you're up and about," she began mildly, her eyes never leaving the human's.

Skye broke the stare first as she gave a careless shrug. "Doc finally released me from his care last night. I told you it was just a flesh wound."

"All the same," Roahn emphasized, "I'm glad you're okay."

"Yeah," Skye muttered dryly. "You and me both."

Roahn kept her mouth shut, unsure of where this was going to go. After their last conversation together, she would have understood if Skye had wanted to put some distance between them. After all, the quarian had barely minced words in that encounter. The words needed to be said, like it or not, and though she might have temporarily felt bad about being so blunt, she knew that in the long term that she would come to peace with her choice, if she had not already.

The human edged her hand near one of the pistols that Roahn had yet to put away. "Doing a little early target practice?" she attempted to kick-start the conversation back up.

"I can't see what else this would look like," Roahn said, honestly not knowing if she was being too sarcastic.

"How'd the engineer do? You get him on the ranged weapons yet? I bet that I could probably run circles around him, if you catch my drift."

Roahn felt her eyes nearly roll out of their sockets. Being wounded and then told off had apparently done nothing for Skye's braggadocio.

"Skye…" she sighed, unable to find the words.

"What?" Skye shrugged lamely. "I'm just saying. What's wrong with me wondering out loud just how much of a better shot I am?"

The quarian would not be baited so easily. Her unamused gaze provided all the answers that Skye could possibly glean. Roahn kept herself still as she bequeathed her unblinking attention unto the human, narrowing her eyes so that Skye could visibly see the displeasure evident in her posture. What little body language Roahn was conveying was universal enough to be interpreted.

But before Skye could respond, Roahn turned away and went back to cleaning up the cargo bay, her previous chore before the human had barged on in. Skye made a noise of surprise as it seemed like Roahn was ignoring her and her expression visibly fell—Roahn was able to see this out of the corner of her eye. Good. About time that someone wiped that cocky attitude away, in her opinion.

"Roahn…" the human tried, but the quarian continued to disregard her, unwilling to meet her eye as she carried on in her duties. The quarian replaced the boxes of ammo upon the shelves from where she had initially placed them on the table, pushing them in to form a smooth front. Roahn travelled between the workbench and the various stations around the cargo bay, keeping the human at a fair distance.

"Roahn, I just want to…" Skye made another attempt, but Roahn brusquely brushed by her with nary a flicker of recognition.

As much as Roahn could see that her behavior was causing Skye actual hurt, it hardly bothered her one iota. In her mind, Skye had reached the absolute limits of her patience—she could not talk to this woman lest she lose her head like what had happened yesterday. She now picked up the pistols from the bench and walked over to the weapons rack, Skye at her heels. The inserts upon the decorated wall were backlit by an entire panel that exuded a window of white phosphorous light. The shelves carved sections from the light that created a cell effect upon Roahn's visor as she reset the pistols back to their original positions. Behind her, Skye waved an arm in despair.

"Dammit, Roahn," she nearly cried out, "I'm trying to apologize!"

Roahn froze, her fingers still lightly brushing the side of a particular firearm as she slowly trailed them away, continuing to have the array of weapons reflected in her view. She could not see the woman's face from where she was standing, but based on how husky her voice was getting, Roahn had a very good mental image.

"You're right to be angry at me," Skye continued to speak to the quarian's back. "For everything that has happened between us. I get it. I don't blame you at all for how you feel. I used to think that I always had a good handle on my behavior but… for some reason… I've just realized that I've always had a hard time reading you. But that isn't your fault—it's mine." She took a needed gulp of breath. "I've been selfish. I've been disrespectful—to you—and to the rest of the crew. I don't want you to see me like that, Roahn. Despite everything that's happened, the last thing I want is for you to look at me and to see only regret. That's why… I've come down here to apologize. I'm sorry, Roahn. This isn't what I want for us."

Roahn did not turn around just yet. She wanted to vividly imagine the contriteness on Skye's face lest she turn around and find it all to be an illusion. Such a combination of words had never tumbled from the human's mouth before. At least not in Roahn's presence. She dipped her eyes as she painstakingly halted her turn, only performing the move once the urge to look upon the woman weighed so great that it became painful.

"I was not going to ask you to apologize," she said, her own voice strangely quiet. "I wouldn't have pressured you to do something you weren't comfortable with."

The human mustered a sheepish look. "We change with age. Maybe you just don't know what I'm comfortable with anymore."

"Evidentially. Even had I known, it still would have felt like I was twisting the knife."

"At least I can now say that I pleasantly surprised you in some capacity."

There was some truth to that. Roahn was actually quite flattered that Skye had managed to find some humility in her situation. The human, from when she had known her, would have taken pride in being the last to admit fault for any transgression. She was headstrong, perhaps too much for her own good. The fact that she had adopted a milder guise did bring a modicum of hope for her, even though it was miniscule.

"In some capacity…" Roahn admitted. She now turned to face Skye directly, a hand tugging at the edge of her sehni while her prosthesis flexed each individual finger painstakingly, exercising her range of motion as a way to cope with the stress. Humbly, she granted her stare unto the human. "I should probably also apologize to you."

Skye blinked. "Whatever for?"

"For being so… curt with you the other day. I piled a lot onto you, when you were in a position where you could not easily resist. I didn't lose my head completely, but… I do feel that I went too far. My anger went beyond appropriateness. For that, I need to say sorry to you."

The human surprised Roahn again by giving a blasé wave of a hand and managing a don't-worry-about-it expression. "Ah, you were just fed up with me, Roahn. Believe me, I understand better than you think. I mean, for all the time I've been here, all I've done was continuously drop obvious hints to you about how I felt when, all along, I've been misreading your intent the entire time. I admit, I was… blinded by how I felt about you and I had the misplaced hope that such sentiments were requited. And… shit… well, now you see just how much I've fucked things up, huh?"

There was a bench near the cargo crates. Both women headed over to it and sat down without voicing their intent, each one sharing the same wavelength. They resided in silence for a few moments, taking in the emptiness of the bay, hearing the distant hum of FTL travel ripple across the hold.

"I won't lie to you and say that I haven't also thought about going back to the way things were," Roahn admitted. "Despite everything I've said… it is enticing."

It was enticing. There was no doubt about that. Even now, Roahn had been struggling with the very notion that, in spite of all that she had said to the human, there would always be a part of her that would not stop caring for Skye. It was impossible not to. Especially when Roahn would be routinely subjected to her own drudged up memories of the two during boot camp—when they were nearly attached to the hip as they protected each other's backs during zero-grav training sessions, as they laughed at their own inside jokes during meals, and when they tumbled this way and that underneath bed covers with their clothes tangled in a combined heap upon the floor—the fight to suppress her own internal wishes was a battle that she could not win.

Skye smiled sadly as she leaned over, her hands clutched in front of her. "But you won't," she guessed. "At least, not yet. I know you, Roahn. You have too much self-respect to betray your values like that."

Slowly Roahn turned, the positioning of her eyes maudlin behind icy glass. "It's true. I don't know if I can trust you."

"I understand and I don't blame you," Skye nodded. "I haven't given you much reason to come to my defense, let alone to try and start things anew. I probably shouldn't expect to be given a chance at what we had, in all honesty. What I can do, though, is to abide by your wishes: to be a professional. You don't need to prove anything to me, but it's evident that I have a lot to prove to you. I'll try to stop being an obnoxious bitch and will respect your stance, no matter what it might turn out to be. If I can at least have that chance, that will be enough for me."

The contriteness that Skye was demonstrating was profound and, admittedly, poignant to Roahn. While it had been the woman's initial confidence that had attracted her to the human, there was something inherently satisfying in realizing that Skye had the ability to perform a little self-introspection. It also occurred to Roahn that the last time she had seen the woman in such a somber state, she had been in the process of declaring their relationship, short-lived as it was, to be finished. Both situations were emotionally trying, though now the women were in much more secure headspaces than before. They were older now, weathered from their experiences.

As Skye raised her hand, a silent offer, to Roahn for her to take, the quarian merely stared at the limb weighing her options in her head. Eventually, Roahn's shoulders minutely bumped in a sigh as she raised her head, her eyes even and calm. "What this is… this promise… it's not enough."

The human's face fell drastically, as did her arm, but before both could droop completely down, Roahn reached out with her prosthesis and clenched Skye's hand gently. Touch-sensitive panels on her palm relayed the heat and barest touches that Skye's hand was emitting, transmitted as neural signals for Roahn's brain to interpret. It felt to her like her arm was a shadow, yet that shadow had a tangible mass and could manipulate the world around it. There was resistance between her fingertips. She held something living there.

Alone in the cargo bay, the maimed quarian held the hand of a human upon that bench, subservient to the cavernous and industrial vista that emitted its eerie silence.

"It's not enough," she repeated to the human before she dipped her chin comfortingly. "But it's a start."

---

Thessia
One year after the Reaper War

Cirae, replete in her Lieutenant's armor, stepped through the door of the bar to find a dimly seething rabble coagulated within. The cyCurve steel structure erected to provide such creature comforts like drinking and dancing helped in creating a conducive environment for anyone looking to partake in such activities. Speakers from above projected a thumping anthem, wet with bass and light on lyricism. A clutch of young maidens swirled and throbbed in a mass upon a glowing portion of the floor, drink slithering in their systems, lost to the music.

The asari, uninterested in the allure of the dance, made her way through the crowd, past the bar where a host of bartenders were rapidly pouring drinks of human whisky—a cheap and useful tool for getting intoxicated. Assistants working behind them fetched crates of bottles and smiling hostesses were on standby with ice.

One of the bartenders noticed Cirae and called to ask for her choice of drink. Cirae was about to refuse the offer, but relented at the last minute and shouldered her way through to the front, her medium-sized armor of onyx and basalt hues enabling her to cut a wide berth. She saw the swill that was the drink of choice for the evening and wrinkled her nose at its stench of ethanol. She pointed to one of the more expensive whiskies that the bar had on the rear shelves and paid for just the one drink with her credit chit. A healthy dram was poured for her—liquid amber concealing a campfire within. Cirae downed the glass in two swallows, which was perhaps a mistake because the drink itself was made to be savored, but Cirae was in a hurry so she only got to experience the blast of smoke, citrus fruit, and brine for only a few seconds. Earthy peat and charred ash lingered on her tongue in a warming blast. She blew out an invisible cloud and upturned the glass, her business at the bar concluded.

It took another half-minute to reach the far side of the establishment, whereupon her expected contact awaited in a booth over in a shadowed corner. Like Cirae, they were armored, though their outfit was a little more elaborate—salmon scales and golden inlays—not to mention lower cut around the chest. The age did not show around her face, though Cirae knew this was deceptive—the asari she now sat across was almost five times as old as she was.

"You lingered for a drink," the elder asari stated plainly, no emotion currently present on their face. "I assumed you would be more bound to the urgency you demonstrated in your message to me."

"You think that what I'm doing is easy?" Cirae defended as she took her place at the other side of the booth. "If anyone recognizes me in here with you, I'm done, do you understand? Asari command has promised to charge me with treason if I even so much as hint about this to anyone. I could genuinely be executed for this."

The other asari did not move a muscle, stone-faced. "Clearly you've thought the consequences through. Breaking a vow is no easy task, lieutenant. Some of us are eternally bound to abide by such boundaries. There's still time for you to walk away."

"I can't walk away," Cirae emphasized. "I have to speak to someone about it. If I can't do it publicly, I can at least do it here. Under the table."

"Has command made any threat upon your life?"

"Only implied. As much… as much as it is painful to say… they managed to buy my silence."

"Until now," was the elder asari's dry observation.

Sighing agonizingly, Cirae craned her head out towards the motley assemblage that were the bar's patrons. She observed the shadowy and demonic outlines as they jerked spasmodically to the beat of the music, harsh creases of lights strobing their forms in endless and distorted caricatures upon the walls.

"We should have gone somewhere more private," Cirae said.

In the corner of her peripheral vision, the other asari shrugged. "We are just as much invisible here as we would be in your apartment, lieutenant."

"Searching for a face in the crowd is that hard, huh?"

"More difficult than you would imagine, yes."

Cirae, skeptical, now placed a forearm upon the table that separated them, her streaked purple facepaint accentuating the apprehension that now graced her features. She leaned slightly forward, trying to gauge the true emotions brimming within her companion but found only a cool and reserved exterior.

"May I ask you a question?" the elder asari spoke up. After Cirae shrugged, she continued, "In spite of all the forces lined against you, you have still managed to find the courage to do what you think is right. But I would like to know why you felt that I was the first person you needed to talk to about this?"

"This is an asari problem," Cirae said. "Our problem. If I could go to anyone else, I would. But I need to keep this in-house, otherwise suspicion for this leak will no doubt make it back to me."

"I won't betray you."

"I know you won't," Cirae reassured. "Besides, if you can't trust a justicar, who can you trust?"

The other asari stilled before she moved her head partially into the light exuded by the low-hanging overhead lamp. The glint of ruby-colored jewelry pressed upon scaly skin the color of saltwater caught Cirae's eyes immediately. She blinked her own eyes slowly, to indicate to the justicar, Samara, that she was not a threat.

"You were once part of the Normandy crew," Cirae stated. "I know that you know the details of the Athame beacon cover-up."

"Only the broad strokes," Samara admitted. "I was not present for the revelation at the temple. But I was disturbed when I found out from a professional acquaintance that our people had been hiding Prothean technology for so long."

Cirae's brow furrowed in anger. "It was a disgrace," she hissed. "I am ashamed of what our people did. Everyone should be. I am almost envious when I stare out at this crowd—knowing they all remain blissfully ignorant—while I have to live with the knowledge that we kept a beacon from the galaxy, betraying the very laws that we ourselves wrote!"

"And I am not arguing with you. I too am also disheartened from the hypocrisy that our government has demonstrated."

"But you also see my point of view, don't you? You know of the beacon because of your contacts on the Normandy. I know of the beacon because my squad was the first to step inside the temple after the war. But we can't talk about it to anyone because we are still tied by the fear that doing so will destroy our people. We might cause irreparable damage not just to our government, but to our civilians who want nothing more than to rebuild their lives. After all that has happened to them, to our world, we can't upend their lives again."

Samara nodded. "It would not be prudent to take action that rash. But for these transgressions, a desire for vengeance burns."

Without another word, Cirae reached inside a pocket and withdrew a data disc and placed it upon the table. She slid it over to Samara, who surreptitiously pocketed it without as much as a glance.

"I made a deposition of my experiences with the Athame cover-up," Cirae explained. "You'll find a list of names in it. They're all the people that I could determine that had a part in concealing the beacon. Near the top of the list is my old commanding officer: Colonel Eneris. She was a major last year and she was promoted for her assistance in making the cover-up possible. She's not the architect of the whole design, but she was responsible for its action. She's being groomed for the legislature, so I hear."

"I see," Samara said tonelessly as a splinter of a strobe light's luminescence flashed across the bridge of her nose. "So what is it you want for me to do?"

Cirae looked back and forth cautiously before leaning forward, her voice now deathly quiet. "In-house, remember? The truth needs to come out from the inside, from high up the chain. I need you to… to go to Eneris, to take care of the situation. If we destroy the lie from within the government, we can get a handle on the narrative. We can ease our people into the truth of what we've done before we reveal it to the galaxy."

"You want me to convince her to break ranks?" Samara arched what constituted for an eyebrow on her face. "I must warn you that such dialogue is not a tenet that is usually associated with the Code."

"'A justicar pledges, unto their dying breath, the defense of the innocent, the punishment of the guilty, and the defense of asari society'," Cirae recited from memory. "'A justicar exemplifies the justness of—'"

"I do not need for you to recite the Oaths of Subsumation to me," Samara interrupted, her voice having suddenly grown frigid. "And if you were as well versed in those oaths as I am, then you should be aware that the Code does not allow for me to overthrow those that belong to an existing government. If you are merely trying to manipulate me into performing dark deeds…"

Cirae would not be intimidated so easily and she kept her spine rigid as her eyes never left Samara's. "There is no middle ground when dealing with the Code, I realize that. But I know enough about your life, Samara, to see that you have always sought a just cause. I've now given you proof of our people's most heinous crime. You now know the people that are guilty of this injustice. Confront them with their crimes and they will yield to you, a justicar. There is no need for death."

"You are merely complicating matters and perturbing me with this information, lieutenant. For a justicar, curiosity is a liability."

"Samara," Cirae sighed, resisting the urge to rub her temples, "I didn't want this to be a calling in of favors but you leave me no choice. When you came to me a few years ago for information on your daughter, I combed every single record we had in the archives for even a scrap of data. And when an informant finally came to me about a possible sighting of your daughter on Illium, I wasted no time in relaying that information to you. Evidentially, the tip paid off. You met Shepard, you killed your daughter on Omega. You got what you wanted! I did not contact you today out of selfishness, justicar. I did it because I'm going to go mad if I stay silent any longer. I need to know that I told someone… no matter how small the impact might be."

The younger asari had been staring at the table, her head slipping further and further down as she let her trepidation surge away from her in powerful waves. She let her hands rest near dried and sticky puddles of spilled beer upon the metal face, fingers positioned amongst scattered sands of condiments and marred stains from greasy food. The music pounded against her head relentlessly and she closed her eyes to momentarily shut out the noise.

By the time she opened them, she had regained a semblance of courage and was about to address the justicar again, to continue to delve into the unenviable task of requesting Samara's help. Only when she finally raised her head did Cirae realize that Samara was no longer sitting at the booth across from her. Rather, the space was empty. She was only talking to shadows now.

Alarmed, Cirae stood from the booth and whirled this way and that, no doubt looking incredibly confused to any passing bystander. Her eyes rapidly scanned the array of heads churning within the establishment, unable to find the wayward justicar.

The bar was now packed to the brim with people, but never had Cirae felt so alone.

---

The Citadel
Governmental Quarters

Head tilted back, eyes slowly opening, Cirae took in a slow breath as she shook off the last vestiges of her rest. She was seated upright in her chair at her desk in her apartment, the lights off completely, with only the faint trickling outlines of the artificial sun crawling around the edges of her windows. An empty tumbler sat to the side of where her holographic keyboard would normally activate, its contents drained.

The data disc that Miranda had given Cirae ebbed a strong allure to the asari. Currently, it was safely locked away in her desk underneath a mound of official papers as Cirae could think of no other place to store it for the time being. All she had to do was look ever so slightly to the side and she could just visualize it in her mind where it was currently sitting. It weighed upon her consciousness, begging to be viewed.

"We all have targets on our back now and it won't be an easy endeavor to scour them away."

The dire warnings that Miranda had levelled upon Cirae had not been forgotten. It was precisely because of the human's worry that the asari had refrained from opening the disc's contents immediately once she had reached her apartment. She had taken a couple of days to think about the consequences of viewing the disc, taking Miranda's advice to heart. Cirae had been assured, after all, that simply viewing the disc would not necessarily make her public enemy number one, but that it contained something so shocking that it would compel her to walk down such a fateful path. It was both enticing and repelling at the same time. She had spent hours on end, pacing back and forth within her apartment, agonizing over whether to view the disc's contents or not. With the way the galaxy was currently going, it was hard not to be fraught with worry.

Cirae had heard rumors, or perhaps had seen too many vids, of these political thriller-type situations in which someone in a position of power (her) received information from an informant (Miranda) and was thus targeted for being part of whatever conspiracy that had been unfolding behind the scenes. At her core, Cirae knew this was total crap and that she had technically done nothing wrong to warrant such a violent response. PMCs were not lining up to break down her door and haul her away for enhanced interrogations right at this moment. People in this day and age did not just "disappear" and have their colleagues not question their absence.

But… what if?

Somewhat beyond her own accord, Cirae raised her wrists slightly, allowing the holographic keyboard to appear just below her hands. A vivid screen blinked into existence, automatically routing to her designated home page, awaiting a command.

"The hell with it," she murmured.

Smoothly, she unlatched the desk drawer and, after rummaging around inside it, withdrew the disc. Cirae slotted it into the razor-thin console and directed the cursor to the media playback app. Once inside, she was able to find the new media source and click upon it. No turning back now.

Intriguingly, whatever was on that disc did not start playing immediately but rather directed Cirae to a long menu of video files. So, this was not one single, large video to be played but made up of multiple smaller videos. Miranda had certainly been thorough—there was a lot of data that she had compiled. The asari wondered if the services of an information broker had been utilized to gather all this material. The titles of the files were given jumbled and codified names that meant nothing to Cirae. There was nothing to indicate a particular starting point, so Cirae just moved her cursor to the first file and began to play it.

To her surprise, the clip played immediately. There were no corporate logos or any asinine jingles heralding the introductions. It was straight to business. No fluff involved.

On the screen, a face now appeared. It was a perfectly normal looking face, for a human. No particular features that would make him otherwise stand out. He stared directly into the "camera" with a mixture of resignation and, strangely, a subdued hope. Cirae leaned forward in interest, her hands holding up her head at her chin.

"You may now provide your vocal signature," a voice off-camera said in a stiff and electronically-synthesized tone.

"Representative Jason Morris of Earth's 67th district, registering my support for bill C.A. 4453-R," the man said, his voice almost equally as toneless as the other user that requested his dictation.

The image jerked slightly for a fraction of a second—an annotation had appeared at the corner of the screen. Miranda's work again. Cirae clicked on the translucent box and was greeted with a small blurb.

C.A. 4453-R: enables private corporations access to war zones in both passive and active roles.

Below that, the annotation continued for one more line.

Jason Morris: 75,000 credit contribution via Fenno Supply Chain.

Concern crept upon Cirae's brow. This video message was implying that there was communication between a member of the Citadel government and a corporate lobbyist that was clearly advocating for legislature that benefitted private military companies. Cirae remembered that Fenno Supply Chain was one of those companies—a tiny firm based in the asteroid belt near Palaven.

There was something else momentarily threw Cirae for a loop. "How did Miranda know how much he was paid?" she wondered out loud. She had more reasons to be concerned. The threshold for government donations from both individuals and corporations was capped at 50,000 credits. Any more than that was breaking the law, which this video was insinuating.

Then she saw, in the corner of the screen, tiny white block letters tacked on down at the bottom. A timestamp.

Now Cirae realized how Miranda made her revelations. Anyone at any level of government was required to make disclosures on who gave their campaign donations for every quarter of every solar year. The individual amounts that were donated were not required information, so Cirae's theory of Miranda utilizing an information broker—a third party—to fill in the gaps was looking more and more plausible. All Miranda would have to do was match the timestamp in the file with the range of the donation disclosure and she could figure out which company made the contribution. PMCs used a variety of aliases to disguise their functions, but Miranda was probably one of the few people in the galaxy who had a knack for sniffing out the bullshit and cutting right to the heart of the perpetrators involved. If a PMC in any form was on one of those donation lists, Miranda would be able to hone in on it.

The video of the representative had ceased playing, bringing Cirae back to the main menu. Now the seemingly endless list loomed large in her eyes. Were every one of these files—nearly a thousand—all portraying the same thing? With a lump in her throat, she clicked on the next file.

Another similar camera setup of an individual staring directly at the screen. This time, a salarian was front and center.

"You may now provide your vocal signature," the computerized voice spoke to the salarian.

"Heritage Sub-Valatrass Bromik Inoss. Registering my support for bill C.A. 4755-CR."

More annotations appeared on the screen.

C.A. 4755-CR: authorizes private militaries to circumnavigate civilian watchdog groups, placing them under official military jurisdiction.
Bromik Inoss: 63,500 credit contribution via X-V-I Industrie.

The file soon ended its playback. Breath firmly lodged in her throat, Cirae began clicking from video to video, her eyes becoming ever wider as the glow from the screen filled her world with light.

"Senator Julien Nazches, Iberian Legislature. Registering my support for bill C.A. 4794-VV."

"Inoch Delegate Delvian Avkaran, Palaven Commission. Registering my support for bill C.A. 4829-WE."

"Conclave Ambassador Taren'Rozas vas Rannoch. Registering my support for bill C.A. 4847-GQ."

The influx of information was not just contained to the verbal confirmation, in which the synthesized and hidden voice was ever-present in coaxing it out of the cast members. The annotations piled on ever more, now becoming a glossary that elucidated the widespread and rooted corruption that Cirae had now realized was more infectious than she had initially perceived.

C.A. 4794-VV: extends the operating radius of private militaries to sectors in defined Council space.
C.A. 4829-WE: places a financial cap on punitive damages garnered by private militaries if they are involved in official campaigns.
C.A. 4847-GQ: removes the non-compete clause between private militaries and any militaries under a provisional government. The number of restrictions from former military veterans has been reduced to allow them to pursue work as contractors for these organizations.

Julien Nazches: 86,000 credit contribution via Chimera Corporation
Delvian Avkaran: 102,000 credit contribution via Nestle/DuPont
Taren'Rozas: 51,000 credit contribution via Corv Data

All the bills echoed their blatant support for private military operations, not to mention that Miranda's data was showing that every single corporation that had made a contribution was either a PMC entirely or they owned one within a mighty conglomerate. There were still literally hundreds of these files that Cirae had to pore through, though she knew that she would feel sick to her stomach before getting through the first twenty. She had been resorted to a silent and aghast shape, slowly shaking her head as the weight of the galaxy made itself known to her.

Cirae then opened another tab as she connected to the extranet, struck by a particular idea. Of the files from all the delegates she had just watched, she grabbed their polling numbers and scoured through them all for the particular data points she sought. Very quickly, she found her answer.

The data from those specific five delegates portrayed an interesting picture. The demographics in their constituencies showcased that the majority of their voting blocs expressed a rather significant rejection of support for PMC operations. Some of these representatives were operating in districts that showed only a 35% portion of support for the PMCs. The closest that Cirae saw, out of her sample of five, was a 47% portion in favor of the lawmaker's stances, which was still a clear-cut minority of the vote.

So, if Cirae was to take this portion of the representatives and assume it was a viable representation of the complete set of data, it would be logical to determine that all of the delegates in this file were deliberately setting laws that were against the wishes of their constituents. All because they were swayed by the promise of extra cash. As if a congressional salary was not enough. This would indicate that reelection was not a priority for these people as they were getting paid enough to cover several years of their gross annual income. Cirae curled her lip in disgust. She felt that she was paid well, not handsomely, but she had enough income to live comfortably without wanting for anything.

There was one more file that she had queued. Cirae figured she might as well play it before she closed the application for the evening. At this point she was now a masochist for this kind of torture. With a lethargic resignation, she set the next video up to play.

An asari now appeared on the screen. This one was older than Cirae—her skin was a deeper shade of purple and delicate petal-like dollops of facepaint splotched her features. She looked lifelessly into the camera, a simmering chill radiating from her very eyes.

Cirae's hand dropped from her mouth in astonishment.

"Faction Leader Janae Irissa. Galactic Assembly," the asari said in a monotone. "Registering my support for bill C.A. 4901-OB."

There was a whispering beep on the other line. "Thank you for your support, Faction Leader," the artificial voice said before the video file ended.

The video returned to the main menu before being silently shut off by Cirae in a daze, the newfound silence seemed beat invisible pulses in her head, threatening to tear her apart. Now everything was starting to make sense. The politicking. The constant stonewalling.

Irissa had been paid off by the PMCs to push their legislation.

As Faction Leader, she was responsible for coordinating with all the asari representatives and she was the deciding voice on whether such legislation would be pushed to a vote or be pulled to die an ignominious death.

Which also meant that any pushes for oversight from the more progressive members of the Assembly—like Cirae—could be shot down at her leisure not just because she found a sick sense of fun in asserting her seniority, but she was sticking to a mandate as dictated to her by her corporate handlers.

In that instant, Cirae realized that what she was a part of, the whole interconnected web of governments, was completely rotten to the core. Held on by only fragile threads.

In a daze, she slumped in her chair, her expression frozen in horror as the hours of the evening slipped out of her grip, not that she had a qualified grip on anything to begin with.

---

RRV Sindra
En route to Charon Relay

There was a terrific bang that rippled throughout the hull and the blinding cerulean streaks that were characteristic of FTL travel warped and filed down to nothing, startling everyone in the cockpit practically out of their seats. The filling blackness of real-time space burst into view like a bubble threatening to pop. Starlight replaced the FTL contrails through the viewport, granting a dim glow that just barely penetrated the interior of the yacht.

"What happened?" Jack asked as she lumbered from her chair, aware that the stars outside the craft seemed to be drifting somewhat, tumbling in an unstable direction like a singularity was all pulling them downward.

James was already up and at the maintenance console. An outline of the Sindra popped into view, where a vivid red section near the aft thrusters was flashing in a rather nagging matter. The marine double-tapped on the area and a report log slid upward, citing various error codes in his face.

"There's a failure in the fuel transport pump," he said. "A leak from a bad seal, perhaps." He then turned to Phoria, who was still sitting in her seat. "I'm guessing you can't remember when this thing was last serviced?"

"Well…" Phoria stammered, "…no. I've never really had to—"

"Question answered," James muttered brusquely as he closed down the holographic report and edged his way past the quarian. "I'll grab an EVA suit and check the damage. Who knows, I might be able to fix this slag heap."

Jack stutter-stepped in James' direction. "Repair a ship? You, marine?"

The miffed look on James face would almost be humorous if the situation was not dire. "I got a few tips from the best engineer the Normandy ever had—I had to do something to kill all the down time I had on the old girl. Besides, I have a bike back home that I do tinker around with from time to time. How hard could it be? Unless you think you can fix this thing yourself?"

Now it was Jack's turn to fixate James with a flat stare. "You can just say that you don't want to watch Phoria and I'll believe you."

"I don't want to watch Phoria," James agreed (Phoria scoffed in the background). "But I also want to see if I can do something about the damage. As I'm betting that, between the two of us, there's only one who knows where to find a carburetor in a drive core power supply…"

"You're just making an assumption. Hundred credits says that I can find your stupid carburetor on this ship, given the chance."

James just smiled and turned towards the door, but not before he dispensed his final parting words. "A carburetor mixes air and fuel for internal combustion engines, Jack. They've never been used in spaceships. Ever."

As the marine left for the airlock, Jack simply mustered a crooked smile and shook her head after delivering a withering laugh. "You play dirty, Vega. I'll give you that."

The rail-thin woman returned to her seat, settling into the cappuccino-colored leather, expansive and plush. She brushed her long brown hair behind her head. The yacht had a center console that contained traditional knobs and switches for some of the tertiary systems and leisure activities—a deliberate throwback to centuries past. Many of these switches controlled aspects such as personalized air-conditioning, massaging seats, and viewing screens for vids. The center console slid down from the control panel and ran across the floor, terminating at the cockpit's halfway point, a failed bisection. The console, also coated with leather, acted as a barrier between the two women—Jack and Phoria—a fallen log that had dropped to serve as the protective shield.

A hum emitted from Phoria's seat—she had just flipped on the massaging chairs. Her body was gently rocking back and forth as the muscles in her shoulders were being pulverized. Those twin motes through that visor of iced snow were as smug as they could be. Jack shot a growling look back at the quarian, disgusted.

"Your seat has this ability too," Phoria raised a swaying hand, utterly failing to read the room. "If you want to set the speed—"

"I'm fine," Jack said curtly. "I don't want a fucking massage."

"Suit yourself, though it looks like we're going to be here awhile. In the meantime, since we'll need to be as comfortable as possible…"

Jack watched the quarian's hands rise up to her helmet and she narrowed her eyes at the alien. "Don't even think about removing that visor just so you can show off again. You do that and I'll space the fucking thing out the airlock. Then we'll see how confident you are if all those medical implants were a good investment."

Phoria paused for a few moments before slowly dropping her hands back down to her sides.

The next minute carried on in an awkward silence. The only sounds that could be discerned were the subtle rumblings and vibrations that jittered through the craft, most likely from James fiddling away at the yacht's engines to the rear, having donned a protective suit and gone outside to check the damage. Jack leaned her seat back, her eyes closed as she tried to rest. Phoria kept sitting upright, the massage chair now pummeling her lower back, but her overall disposition was less secure, a little shaken up.

A steel nerve soon returned to the quarian and she now looked upon Jack with a newfound matronly quality. "You don't trust people all that easily, do you?"

"I trust people just fine," Jack murmured, eyes still shut. "It's just that I don't like most of them."

"That's plainly evident," Phoria said as she now leaned forward. "From that stiff demeanor that you constantly put up as an initial defense, to your aggressive style of outer wear, not to mention the fact that you can barely look at me, I'm willing to bet that you're a borderline sociopath, Jack."

The human breathed softly from her nose in a faint chortle. "You sound proud of what you're able to imagine."

"That's not a denial. And I doubt you would correct me if I were to infer that those scars on your wrists that you're trying to hide—the ones you've taken care to lavish those ornate tattoos upon—offer the true reason for your distrust of people." When Jack quickly rotated her head in the quarian's direction, cracking her eyes open, her face a mask of shock and anger, Phoria nodded once in her success. "You're not the only one who has a monopoly on suffering, Jack. You painted your body as a form of rebellion—to decry the lot in life that your handlers gave you. You've been used so many times that you find it hard to let your guard down, even after so long. Do you think that story is special? We've all been used, human. You, me, even your rather large friend. Some of us have found different methods of coping, that's all."

A muscle now twitched in the corner of Jack's jaw. She had to take a breath before she was able to speak evenly. There was just something about this quarian that rubbed the woman the wrong way. Phoria was just one of the most irksome people she had ever met, mostly because her attitude reflected a lifestyle where her superiority had lofted her ambitions miles above her head. There were many people in Jack's life that Phoria reminded her of. She also remembered that she had killed several of those people, come to think of it.

Jack said, "If you think that I have every intention of forgetting what happened to me, then you don't know me as well as you think you do. Every day I try to imagine what I could have done with a normal life. But there were others—stronger than I was at the time—who wanted to break my mind, my body. And they succeeded… for a time. Once I was the strongest, I broke them. I chose my path rather than it being handed to me on a silver fucking platter. I relieve everything from the life I had before because I want to remember just how far I've come. So, yes… the both of us may have been used, but if you had been in my place, you would have begged for our roles to be reversed. How hard did you have to work before your name had a business signed to it, Phoria?"

"Now you're overly generalizing," a flash of anger flickered across Phoria's eyes. "Before I was in the service of my last master, I had many owners who thought of me as property rather than a person. They called me trash, they beat me—"

"I was called trash. I was beat. Much worse than you ever were."

"I inherited an empire from nothing!"

"You only did so because you were the lucky chump of the day whose contract got bought after one of your masters tired with you. It could have been anyone in your position. You think that you had something special, Phoria, but no, you were just a nice, open face who happened to be in the right place at the right time."

The effect of Jack's words was electrifying. Phoria rapidly stood from her seat in a blind rage. Jack, slightly calmer, rose to meet her, her own fists clenched but no crackles of biotic energy spurted from between her tightly wrapped fingers.

The quarian took a step towards the center console. "Perhaps you're simply envious of the fact that I was given such an opportunity as a result of my skills while you have not taken advantage of your gifts for your own personal profit."

"Your mistake is not realizing that we're not in direct competition with one another, Phoria," Jack coolly remarked. "And if you take a step over the middle of this room, the both of us will find out just how advantageous my 'gifts' can be."

Now Jack opened herself up to the vibrant energy that the cosmos radiated. Her fists were soon surrounded by violent pulsating orbs that sizzled and snapped, the power within itching to be released. The glow from the biotic energy grew in Phoria's visor like a frigid lick of flame, overpowering the natural light exuded from her eyes.

Noticing the quarian's slight flinch, Jack pressed her advantage, her slightly scarred face hardening. "Another mistake you made is that I could somehow stand to see myself in your position. Leading a corporation? Casually organizing death squads for profit? No, what I've learned from people far better than you could ever dream is that I don't need to take stuff to find fulfillment. There are many other ways to do that."

"So you find teaching students at Grissom to be biotic combatants to be the most enlightening course you could choose?" Phoria retorted, which produced only a slow blink from Jack. "I say that not as a slight, but to make a point. You're so quick to characterize me as a warmonger when in fact you do the same thing. I don't fault you, this is who you were made to be as it is nearly everything you know, but you have found your calling, your true self, to train others in the skills that you know. You do it out of protection, so that your students will never have to face a broken life. But what separates what you do from what I do? I, in contrast, never have to throw myself into the work that the contractors perform. You, however, embroil yourself in tactics, methodology, and decisive destruction, bringing it all to the next generation. From where I am, Jack, you're already in my position. In some ways, you've surpassed me."

Deep down, Jack knew that Phoria's stubborn persistence would eventually lead to a catastrophic conclusion if this was allowed to continue. The problem was that the quarian was so eerily similar to the men and women who had control over her life when she had been back on Pragia. Those scientists playing god over a cadre of kidnapped children. The abuse, the torture. The killing, the pleasure. Jack remembered those cold smiles of intrigue upon the faces of those demons in white lab coats every time she emerged victorious from a bout in the ring with another child. She would be bloody, sometimes her arms would be limp against her sides, dislocated, and bruises would already have started to mar her face. It did not matter to them, so long as their experiments were producing the desired result: manifesting a perfected biotic killer.

To those confident assholes who wore the Cerberus insignia with pride, the lives of others were merely statistics to them. Jack had meant nothing to them as a person. Was that how Phoria was looking at her now? The thought introduced a cold spike of ice in her mind—a frigid geyser threatening to plume as it breached ground. To reassure herself, Jack thought back to her escape from the Pragia facility, how she had torn rooms, halls, and people apart just to reach the exit. The lead scientist responsible for the whole sorry affair had been the last one to block her way, armed with only a pistol. She could still hear the wet snap of his neck when she had pushed him into a wall with a biotic slam.

Did Phoria really know that Jack could kill her with a simple wave of the hand? She was playing a dangerous game, no matter what the answer might be.

"Something else just occurred to me," Phoria said in pretend realization, her visor a mere foot away from Jack's face.

"Do tell," Jack growled.

"Everyone's motivations for this whole sorry affair have been established already. Captain Vega, he's here because he thinks he's seen some part of the system that's broken, something that apparently no one else has noticed, and he thinks that he can fix it. The people trying to kill me, they're only doing so because they want to ensure that the system remains 'broken.' But you… you're still a mystery. What compels you to be here, of all places? Why are you here, Jack, instead of anywhere else?"

Jack turned away as she began rubbing at her eyes with the heels of her hands. From her pocket, she withdrew a tiny vial of pills. She popped one in her mouth and swallowed it dry. After gritting her teeth for a few seconds, she turned to the quarian, the ghost of a smile tugging at the corner of her lips.

"You think I'm just along for the ride, is that it? Just some joy-seeker trying to stave off boredom?"

"From where I am there appears to be nothing tying you to me."

"Is that so?"

"If there is, then it isn't obvious to me."

Wordless, Jack raised her left arm as she activated her omni-tool. A menagerie of faces danced one-by-one across the scope of the tool's display. A slideshow that had already been set up for her guest's benefit. Her mouth was now a hard line, the humor vanished from its graces. Her eyes were steel. Her wiry arms were rigid, inflexible, the curvature of her tattoos creeping up the skin of her wrists as the sleeves of her jacket slid back a little.

Phoria eyed the array of faces—all human—as they scrolled on by. Men and women of all ages. She looked upon them all, but her eyes told Jack that she did not yet understand.

"Jason Prangley," Jack uttered tonelessly. "Moni Rodriguez. Ephraim D'Souza. Jacques Ferrara. Artyom Hanness. Joey Francis. Greywyn Davies."

"I do not know these people," Phoria shook her head.

"I have a list of thirty-seven names. I will say them all to you until you finally realize why I'm here."

"Then say them!" the quarian hissed. "Because it will make no difference whether you say one name, or ten, or a thousand. So go ahead and humor yourself. These people—I have no idea who they are."

For a moment, Jack was back in the darkness. Surrounded by the hateful glare of those people in their lab coats. Voices of the dead taunting her, filling her veins with agony.

"I knew of the deal that the Alliance was cutting with CytoSystems before it was ever announced," she said. "How might I have known that? Because those thirty-seven people, all students that I taught at Grissom, gave me updates on their current assignments. I check up with all of my students, Phoria. I know them all by name. And many of them mentioned to me that, on some of their campaigns, they were being mysteriously partnered with a large firm called CytoSystems as some part of a collaborative partnership. A trial run, if you will."

Phoria squinted her eyes, still not getting it.

"I know of at least three of these campaigns that occurred before the deal was made public," Jack continued. "The moons of Jupiter. Argos Rho. Horizon. A variety of campaigns on many worlds. Starting to see where I'm going, Phoria?"

"I know the places you mentioned," Phoria stated carefully. "And I will admit that my company had a presence there. But I still do not see the point you are trying to make."

"I'm getting to that. You might recall that for these missions, things never went smoothly. Reports of resistance from rival firms, armed attacks against Alliance members. Many of these missions were escort or defensive missions. None of them were completed without some form of violence being traded between both sides. Sound familiar?"

"It does," the quarian nodded. "It was indicative of the need for the Alliance to make a deal with us, as they were unable to protect their own troops for each of those missions. Our presence saved lives. The Alliance took notice of my company's performance and they went forward with the deal, as planned."

Jack's eyes momentarily flickered over to the window, where the cold embrace of space beckoned. The rumbling vibration from a fusion welder could be felt below her feet. James' handiwork.

"Those three missions," Jack said. "Those names I mentioned. Those thirty-seven names were the names of my students that were assigned to those campaigns. Thirty-seven men and women." The biotic took a breath. "Thirty-seven killed."

Phoria's gaze turned inward as a gripping and crushing sensation overcame her. She swayed on her feet, dazed. Jack took a step forward, toeing the median of the room.

"I had access to the after-action reports, Phoria. I had access to the body cameras. I know that all three missions were run by CytoSystems and not the Alliance. If they hadn't, there wouldn't have been any of the simple mistakes that cost so many lives back then. Bad positioning for cross-fire. Friendly fire in general. Poor troop coordination. Your careless management allowed those in positions of power to lead my students, many whom I knew since they were children, into death traps. They died following useless orders as they tried to be good soldiers. Is that point clear enough for you?!"

Jack enunciated her outburst with a ferocious swipe of her hand. A fan of solid blue light, intentional or not, spat from her fingertips, catching the edge of one of the media monitors and propelled it into the doorframe. It collided with a startling crash and spilled thick glass all over the carpeted floor. Phoria was so startled she jumped and stumbled backward into the copilot's chair. In a flash, Jack clambered over the center console and stood towering above her, an azure glow branching out from the pupils in her eyes.

"It's easy for you to sit a desk and to send others to their deaths with a flick of a stylus," Jack prodded a finger directly into Phoria's helmet, poking her against the seat's headrest. "You don't have to empathize with the people you employ. They fight under your banner and you hardly take notice. And when one person is responsible—directly or indirectly—for the people that I had to care for…"

The human shook with rage as she let the threat ring in the air hollowly. Phoria's eyes crossed as she beheld the point of Jack's finger, still perched precariously upon her visor.

"You…" she mumbled, "…you came all this way… to tell me that?"

Jack shook her head. "No. You remember that party in the Citadel, that pathetic display supposedly held in your honor? I was never officially invited to it. I crashed it because I wanted to see you in person. I wanted to meet the woman who could callously shrug at the deaths of my students, to see if the monsters that have always been with me had taken on another form." She glared with disgust upon the quarian, at this thing trembling in her enviro-suit. All pretenses of power had vanished from the alien once a superior strength had identified itself. Jack felt that she should be relishing this moment. Instead she felt unclean, angry for doing this in the first place.

"If I could say anything to you to make things right, I would," Phoria said. "But we both know those words don't exist."

Jack finally dropped her hand away with a lack of gravitas. "Even if they did, they would not have stopped me from doing what I originally sought out to do."

"Which was?"

"I thought this would be obvious as well," Jack shrugged. "I wanted to kill you, that's why."

The quarian seemed to dwindle in her chair, now finally staring up at the human with the proper amount of fear that she had been silently requesting, for the proper deference to be observed. The biotic wreath had still not departed from Jack's eyes, which surrounded her iris like a crown of thorns. The vibrations from James' repairs had ceased and now the women were able to pick up on the audible chime of an airlock's pressure equalizing from back down the hall. They were about to have company.

"So…" Phoria breathed. "What happens now?"

Jack took the next moment to step away, her face twisted in revulsion. "Now? You're not at all sharp as you make yourself out to be. Now, it's in my best interest to keep you alive until you're finally out of my hands, Phoria. Do I like this development? Not at all, but the marine I'm now paired with seems to believe that you have value for as long as you still have a heartbeat, and that's enough for me to keep control of my urges."

"On behalf of your students, Jack, I'm sorr—"

"Don't," the human hissed as she raised a finger again, causing the quarian to violently flinch in her seat. "You've already said that words won't work. Take this as your cue to follow your own advice." Jack now headed back over to her chair and sat down upon it, crossing a leg as she folded her arms in front of her chest. "Here's a warning for you, Phoria. There are some demons that can't be conquered. And I'm not known as the forgiving sort."

The room would become a silent abyss for the next few minutes with the two women uncomfortably staring at the other, at least until James would finally join them. Jack stared at Phoria with nothing less than a putrid hatred while the quarian's confidence dwindled as she faltered in meeting the stare from the biotic's eyes. Phoria, apparently, had never been in a situation where she had been trapped with someone else who legitimately hated every single fiber of her being and could not escape from all the misdeeds that had been accrued under her name. The focused and vile loathing had a withering effect and Phoria was a mere peon within the dominion of Jack.

Ignoring all the creature comforts the yacht offered, the leather seats and the plush carpeted floors, Jack stewed in her anger, fingers tightly gripping the armrests.

At least she had finally made her point.

---

A/N: I'm glad I was able to get out a chapter before the holidays are upon us. It's probably safe to assume that I won't have another one ready until after the New Year. Busy schedules and all that. Especially with my life being completely packed to the brim. In that case, consider this an early Christmas (or Hanukkah) present for you all. But don't fret! There's still a lot more story to go.

Playlist:

Shooting Range
"Bride of Deluxe"
Cliff Martinez
Drive (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)

A Start (Roahn and Phoria)
"Wide View"
Marco Beltrami and Buck Sanders
Ford v. Ferrari (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)

Dirty Senators
"The Manifesto"
Lorne Balfe
Mission Impossible: Fallout (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)

Phoria Cowers
"Bathroom Dance"
Hildur Guðnadóttir
Joker (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)