All the Stars

by BlueWay

When the Long Night of Solace is evaporated over Reach via the weaponized usage of a Slipspace Drive, it ferries with it in its swallowed sections the Covenant Empire and, more horrifyingly, the desperate measures that the UNSC used to fight them. When they are found in a universe on the precipice of their own history, the meaning of the term "Mass Effect" will change forever.

35. 1-28: Underworlds

A/N: Yeah sure JD hears the ODST soundtrack in his head at some point during this chapter.

Just a quick response here with my intentions with Cash: He is a background character, sorta. His role as an AI plays background, much like Cortana, albeit due to his need to act like a VI, obviously not as active. He'll matter soon enough. As for why he doesn't do JD and Mai's job for them in terms of combing through info, he can't be that obvious, that easy of an asset.

---

1-28

Underworlds

---

It's the night later on the Normandy; they're in Shepard's quarters collectively reporting on what's been done and found and ignoring the fact that they have become Shepard's defacto team. It was a long process, one formed over away missions and late-night chats.

But those in Shepard's room are those she goes to for matters outside of the strict military organization and mission, even up to being sleuths about Geth and Saren-related activity.

All evidence points to Peak 15, currently maintained by Binary Helix.

"It's a genetic engineering and biotechnology firm," Liara reports. She's familiar with the name more than anyone else. "They don't necessarily have a good reputation; however, the work they do is foundational in many more legitimate areas."

Garrus, his mandibles twitch for a moment, remembering Dr. Heart. His pain went down to the bone, but even then, his murders never mangled the DNA so wholly. "Most cases that fall beneath gene modding and tailoring on the Citadel often got pushed off to the Spectres. It's some heavy stuff."

Shepard nods. "That's without the connection to Saren and Benezia. Right." Most of the room can see Liara wince at the sound of her mother's name, Shepard the most cognizant. She doesn't mean to make Liara uncomfortable, but it'll be impossible not to do while they're on that planet. Far from it. Though it's the reality of their mission that this fact had to be confronted at some point. The air of Liara's question might be, in the end, siding with her mother, with Saren, falls flat the second the pain, and the shame, is seen on her face.

For their grating against Mai for being Mai, even Hitman could not bring themselves to ill upon Liara.

"A lot of written-off packages signed with Benezia's name were sent off to Peak 15." Garrus reminds.

Shepard affirms with a nod, looking at security footage which confirms everyone's fear: That Benezia is there. It's not some grainy photo or clip from a security device. It's clear and crystal, bright as day: Benezia arriving with her entourage and cargo, passing through Port Hanshan with a special escort from Asari commandos and local security. "Which she can do because she is an executive in Binary Helix."

"Which was a position she got because both she and Saren were "angel" investors in Binary Helix." Garrus is comfortable, falling into part of explaining the cross-section of a crime and people's relations with it. He, too, is a cop, and here he can flex some of his more investigative muscles. "Honestly, it's not the most astounding thing. Anyone who's living here comfortably related to Peak 15 is probably an investor, however Peak 15's investor list got slowly and slowly bought out by Saren and Benezia in the last financial year."

Tali, sitting on Shepard's bed, back to it and staring at her ceiling, is only minimally embarrassed when the more Quarian part of her speaks out, rising to a sit. "You think any of his assets are here?"

"Assets?" Shepard asks, eyebrow raised, a glance at her console and her current financial statement glowering. She's never had so much money in her life, and she's never had so much debt in her life: the cost of always providing top-of-the-line ammo, armor, kinetic barriers, and general combat supplies to a top-of-the-line ship.

She barely held a net-positive, and even then, that changes from away mission to away mission in a way that is embarrassingly stressful to her, a combat veteran.

"Credits, mostly."

Saren's directly linked assets to the Citadel were frozen, but most of the Spectres which have come to contact her following her own embarking on this mission had seen that is a minimal gesture at best.

"It's sorta tradition that every single Spectre has about a dozen accounts, offshore from the Citadel. We'll try to track them down for you, Commander Shepard, but this is Saren we're talking about." A Salarian Spectre on Illium tells her reasonably early on, and their concern rang true: barely anything was dug up about Saren's financials.

"If I were going to hide money from a galactic entity, I'd tie it up in stocks and investments around here." Tali knows her point is made as she collapses back down on the bed, Liara joining her by sitting next to her legs and patting her knee.

It's all so very domestic a scene, with Garrus leaning against the wall by Shepard, JD propped up at the bed's base sitting on the floor, and the two resident giants standing by the door on guard.

Wrex had his contributions already put forward: Security shifts that just so happen to line up with supply shipments to the "Closed" off Peak 15 were operated entirely by Krogan. Those with looser lips or the ability to recognize Wrex and his strength clarified it very much was for the reason of slipping those supplies through.

"As for what, who knows. All I hear is that they past weapons inspections, and trust me, it's not that hard to ship weapons past corporation security like these amateurs." Wrex imbues him with knowledge gifted by centuries of fighting, and, oddly enough, Mai is comfortable enough near him to at least nod along.

To Mai, it's all, roughly, dead ends ignoring a brutally blunt and upfront option for her: "My officially recommendation, Commander, is to simply just raid Peak 15. You can deploy me forward and I will secure a route of ingress."

Peak 15 is locked down, whatever that means. It means clearance is needed, and the weather is much too troubling, even for Makos and Spartans apparently, but no one buys it.

However, the rules on Noveria insist them to find their way through, through backroom deals and inquisition.

It is perhaps a testament to their several-day investigation thus far, as Shepard again glances at her console and the numerous messages telling her that her subpoenas and inquiries for information are being "processed," that Shepard entertains the idea. "That might be it." She says, hand dragging down freckles on her face. "Honestly if this goes on for another week, I'll just get Joker to bomb the hell out of Peak 15 and see if that's our clearance."

It's been a few days since she's been in combat since she's felt effective at doing anything. With the bags beneath her eyes and the coffee cup of her desk, it reeks of her being tired.

The double-edged sword that is her memories, the collection of pictures above her desks beckoning her to remember past travels and future journeys, is not a kind one.

Her eyes settle on another snowy locale: She had just left India and figured she might as well try to climb the Himalayas. Not Everest, unfortunately, given how much of a tourist hot spot it had become, but rather just the range itself. Snowy crags and wordless Sherpas guided her through the oldest mountains on Earth, and there's a scar on her hand, just beneath her right hand's middle finger, where she sliced herself upon ice itself.

She has many scars, and each tells stories to her that distract her while she works.

In one move, she raises her hand to her kept bun, and in a surprising move, it cascades down to the back.

She has beautiful hair, truly. Whereas Mai's hair is thin and silky, albeit rough and not taken care of, Shepard's strands are full, flowing like waves as she lets her hair down.

It's enough to knock JD out of his daze as he tries to decide whether or not to tell Shepard about a possible lead.

The captivation which Shepard draws by such a small moment like this is something to be said. Garrus can't stop staring as her fingers part the red sea, and Liara ghosts her hand over her tendrils, imagining.

"I have hair, you know." It's Tali, still staring up at the ceiling after glancing down at Shepard. "Barely, like most of my species, but it's there. Part of the typical Quarian nutrient cocktail is a hair growth suppressant."

"Oh, sorry," Shepard huffs, chuckling at herself as she gathers her red locks again in her hand, bringing some in front of her shoulder. "Was I showing off?"

JD doesn't quite prefer redheads, but Shepard, as she usually does, effortlessly makes the case.

"Nah, I was just- Just thinking. Is all."

It's the suit that keeps her back. The suit that all Quarians wear that they have been locked into, sacrificing such little facts of life-like hair, the feel of the air on their skin, an everyday life where they do not fear the germs and viral infections of the Galaxy.

"Apparently," Shepard drops her hair from her fingers, hands gesturing about herself and form. "Apparently I'm pretty good looking."

She has dressed down during her time on Noveria due to her relegation to desk duty and form fillings. She is dressed down enough to not tuck her shirt in. In her vague gesturing, her shirt rides up, and from JD's lower position on the floor, he catches something, even in the dim lighting that Shepard keeps in her room. It is what brings him to fully coherent, away from the insides of his mind. Maybe he was seeing things.

"By Asari standards, I could agree." The way that it bursts forth from Liara, it garners the silent chuckling of a few there. Unprompted, but appreciated nonetheless as Shepard settles.

"Maybe it's my "European" features," She air quotes very liberally, remembering words told to her by many a suitor. "-maybe it's because I might fill out a uniform pretty well, but I think that some people are a little more inclined to give me information for certain, aesthetic reasons."

"I haven't had any problems." Wrex grunts.

"Well yeah it's because you're a number as well, Wrex." The wink she sends at him lands about as effectively as a pistol round against the Destiny Ascension, but before she gets too carried away: "Maybe I really should be out there. Work my charms. If I know anything about these kind of business places it's never trust a pretty woman. But what if I'm that pretty woman, huh?"

She's saying it like she half-believes it, and it's half a joke. She's saying it like she's stir crazy about not being able to do anything even when she's trying to stop the apocalypse.

It's not a particular fault of his own that JD, upon evoking the words of pretty women, thinks back to that woman with her pink dress. It was a very particular piece, one with diamond cutouts over her navel and just beneath her breasts. He thinks to the way she walks away, and, perhaps, she is the reason why he has hesitated so much about bringing the lead he and Mai found up.

It seems a little selfish.

That being said, he decides it would be selfish not to mention.

"There is something, Shepard." Even Mai has been a little more talkative than him that night, describing locations as if she was a forward scout and that all of Port Hanshan was about to become a battlefield. Valuable information for the worst reasons, but information altogether.

Shepard, she's very transparent with JD, interested in anything he says. The trepidation, the (she tells herself) truth of him that he is an ex-Cerberus, falls away as quickly as JD does finding Garrus in the mess to sit next to when Mai is not there.

She knows Command has held outright truths from her, and they are obligated to do so, given a personal mission that ended up in "innocent" dead. But if Command told a lie, it is a lie in duo, and it is a lie that walks in front of her every day on the Normandy.

"Do tell." She nods at JD as he stands, arms crossed, a little uncomfortable.

"Me and Mai got, well, invited," it's his turn to use air quotes, "to an end of quarter party of some of the firms. They're owed favors by Binary Helix and they're sending over people to partake, mostly Asari it sounds like, in the party for formalities. The manager said we could bring as many as we wanted."

"You and Mai?" Shepard uses words that ask unseen questions, like: Did you beat them for it? Did you interrogate for it?

Mai nodded for JD. "JD, he shared a cigarette with the Turian."

Every day that "truth" of JD and Mai being ex-Cerberus crumbles just a little more, and Shepard is peering past that wall.

Another trouble for another day.

Garrus is almost offended as he chuffs, head rocking. "Oh well he never does that with me."

JD's never quite sure if Garrus's sarcasm is more baked in truth or in simply trying to get a rise out of him, but he responds with a technical fact that he ignores every time he lights a stick: "Smoking's bad, Garrus."

"But just like that huh?" Shepard prods further, leaning in, hair swaying.

"It's… it's more about image than anything. If we look like we belong there, no one will throw us out, I think. I dunno, I'm not used to this."

"Haven't been to any balls or of the like?" JD shakes his head adamantly. He was never one to have medals or commendations, always forward deployed. There was no time for ceremonies for the dead or the living that required him to wear a suit. The very last time he wore his dress whites was for the funeral of his mother. "Oh that's a shame. People are always asking me to the Officer's Ball at Elysium… Maybe it'll be nice to go to a function where everyone doesn't know who I am."

It's a fanciful thought, but by no means what would happen.

"A good amount of Noveria already knows who we are, unfortunately." Garrus knows by the way people he's never seen before call his first name walking into establishments, and then the way the sales representatives at the unending stores there just seem to know what he has an inkling of desire about.

"Sure, but they won't know we're coming." JD offers again, arms spread to the entire group.

Shepard chuckles lightly, squaring her eyes on JD. He's an agreeable young man, that much she can tell herself, though any function of imagining him in a suit and being her date to a function is overridden by… something. It tugs at her temples, the way JD forms in her vision in the dark, as if his entire form is sharpened, cutting into her eyes.

The pain, it's there again, and her hands try to smoothly grab for some of Mordin's pills and a cup of coffee to down it.

"It's an inspired idea, JD. Trying to abuse my privileges?" He shakes his head as Shepard shakily, almost urgently, downs something in her hands and a gulp of coffee. "I ain't made of money."

The way he responds surprises him, how natural it comes: "I can pay for my own suit. Go alone, get Garrus to draft up credentials for Mai to be my bodyguard instead of my date."

Mai, in the dark, blinks at the notion, and it remains in her.

The thought is immediately repulsing Shepard out of her jest, shaking off the spike of distress in her head that came with looking at JD. "Nuh-uh. On the Normandy's tab. Rush order everything, get up to speed, ear to the ground. Oorah?"

"Oorah."

"Keep the receipts, and, take me out when you prepare. I'll be going as well."

There's just a bit more confidence imbued with that: Shepard at the head again.

---

They're back at Hellacon Designs, and JD is cashing in on tailoring. He and every specialist from the Normandy and Shepard finally allow herself to walk Port Hanshan.

It's a little awkward at first, as everyone assumes their "Shepard walking formation," or at least attempts. It creates a rather odd V-wing'd posse that Shepard is at the lead of, and before it gets too embarrassing, they walk more together naturally than following an officer on a mission.

Only a few photos are taken of them, and Shepard smiles and waves at all of them.

She is a celebrity in most senses of the word, regardless if she agrees with the designation or not.

"Commander, let me be the first to say that the paparazzi here on Noveria ain't worth shit. If I didn't know any better it looks like you enjoy being photographed." Joker is in their communal comm channel as they all bounce between display pieces for suits and dresses as one by one, each of them is measured out. Shepard is the odd-woman out. She has her measurements handy, and, with as strong of a force she can put into pleasantries, all the requests of Hellacon are to follow through with them. The tailors are baffled but acquiesce. Between an Asari, a Krogan, and Turian, and a Human, they have their rush order work cut out for them. "I would be all up in your business."

There is laughter between them as they each take turns being measured out and asked their preferences.

"Your clan colors, would you like them complimented in your suit, Mister Vakarian?" Every so often, in the presence of other Turians, the crew of the Normandy is reminded of the angled strip of blue, which creates a certain symmetry on Garrus's face, making a point at his nose plate before sloping down in both directions. He is often caught applying that paint back on after Mako maintenance sessions or away missions, and he is as bashful as anyone when it comes to "applying makeup" in front of Marines.

With an uncharacteristically careful nod, Garrus affirms, talons brushing his face.

Before returning to who she's on the call with, Shepard makes a note of that across the store as she overhears. Something to ask Garrus about later. "Joker, sometimes not causing a scene is how you get them to back off."

"I'll be more than willing to take some of that stardom."

"I'll keep that in mind, flight lieutenant." And Joker is disconnected, leaving Shepard to stand next to Mai before that same silver dress they came across the day before. "This one's nice."

All Mai can do is stare into the glass and see her reflection. "Is it?"

Shepard glances at the plaque below the case only to justify the several zeros behind it. She could buy an entire colony's worth of Mattocks at that price. "Yeah. I guess. Breaks up your form just enough to give people ideas, but not so much that people don't know what you're packing. Christ, can't even imagine the scope glare on this thing if I was aiming at it."

"Hm."

There is a way JD looks at Mai; next to her, Shepard has noticed. It is in the same way that children look up at her, or in the way that people look upon monuments and old-world markers that have survived, and will survive further, for hundreds of years. It is the same way people look at the wonders of life, and for JD, he has that trusting, content look upon his face. The fact that he has anything is a testament to how comfortable he is standing next to a terrifying woman, a factor that Shepard is fighting now.

"…Did you want to dress up for this, Mai? You been staring at this thing an awful while."

Already out of her armor, she is at a disadvantage; or rather, she is at a level where she is not at her operational best. MJOLNIR sits in its crate, untouched for perhaps its longest time, and here she stands among enemies. She is a Spartan; she is coming to tell herself that more and more as the days go by in this Galaxy. It's the most minor reminder that buzzes at her mind: that she is a Spartan, and therefore her suit of armor must be used by her at all times while on a mission. Yet here she is in a clothing boutique, with only one weapon on her and a standard kinetic barrier, the only thing standing between her and one well-placed shot placed right between her eyes.

Any Elite worth their sword knows when the shields go down, and the easy point and shoot of catching a Spartan with their head presented.

Perhaps that's the buzz now in her head.

Mai knows the routine that far in. She knows the questions and inquiries that Shepard pokes at her men and women, almost daily, getting to them and how they tick. It doesn't work on her then, in the Normandy, but it works on her now, and she damns herself when she realizes. The words come out, and she can't go back.

"Not… necessarily. I am just curious."

"'Bout what?"

"…" Mai doesn't need to answer for Shepard to know.

She wants to know how'd she look in this, but it is a curiosity that even she cannot allow herself.

Mai is a genetic experiment, raised and made to kill aliens in both the truth and the lie. Something as civilian and domestic as putting on a dress is, perhaps, tragically beyond her now. It writes on her face by her furrowed brow and her nose as it scrunches, just a little. In that Shepard knows.

Maybe it's not quite a feminine battle, not quite the dichotomy between being a soldier and being a woman. Still, those are the words that she chooses to define herself along as she explains to Mai the finer points of clothing and her philosophy. "Ain't nothing wrong with those kinda thoughts, you know. Not gonna say it's "natural," but there are times where even I see some underwear pass my spam folder, and I think to myself, "would my butt look good in that?"

"Underwear?" Mai tilts her head, and now her hair betrays her by its growth. She has yet to cut it, and her ponytail and bangs are growing, bit by bit, day by day to lengths unseen by a woman so military. Her eyes are blank, honest in their question.

"…Yeah, Chief Gul. Underwear. You know? Lingerie? Sexy stuff?" In this conversation, Shepard has realized she has learned far too much about Mai, dangerously so. She doesn't know what lingerie is, for her face betrays her with her ignorance. For all her own personals sleuthing, coming to know her people, this might've been a step too far. She reaches out, touching Mai's elbow before leaving her to muse on different lives and different looks. "For what it's worth, Mai, I think it'd look good on you."

Pity. Pity is in her throat, and before Mai recognizes it, Shepard is gone.

Even if she wanted it, she could not be in a dress because being a bodyguard was a better play for her. More natural. Yet again, another role is told to be played by her, and she does it for the sake of the mission. Even then, however, her hands betray her as one traces along the line where the dress would part on her, running up her thigh through combat pants.

---

Even on Noveria, there are other Quarians, and even Tali can dress herself up.

In their information gathering thus far, the Normandy has discovered one of a handful of Quarian-specific or adjacent businesses on Noveria, and for that, Tali goes alone. The Quarian behind the counter of the quiet, fairly slim shop is surprised to see another of her kind. For a moment, she feels like it's back on the Citadel, nursing a gunshot wound and bouncing between strangers amid galactic commerce that doesn't give a damn about her, though nothing as dramatic breaks out this time as she recognizes the way her suit's internal sensors adjust to the insides of that store.

It's lowly lit and even a tiny bit dryer than usual, which was noteworthy because it is the same sort of conditions kept onboard the Migrant Fleet.

"Oh. I didn't think…." She's an older woman than Tali, maybe two decades her senior. Her suit design is undoubtedly a few generations back: more tubes, more fabric to cover the less than ergonomic design. "Have you found yourself in need of help?"

There's no such thing as Pilgrimage anymore, and here Tali must imagine she looks like she's on one. She's so young, the standard-issue utility poncho of her mother over her shoulders.

Instead of suits as one might think of display, the store has but instead rolls of fabrics and cloth on display, veils, and capes, decorative glass meant for visors and belts in leather from a dozen different worlds.

Of all those on Pilgrimage, some became investors, money moguls, or business advocates for the sake of the Flotilla. That meant that they needed to look as lovely as their environmental suits would allow, which was where she came in.

"No, no. Just for your services, ma'am."

A breath of disbelief is pushed out of the older woman's mouth. She's shorter than Tali, at her waist, what best Tali can describe as a silken skirt is presented, giving her the impression that she simply floats instead of walks. "And here I was thinking that our people were recalled fully."

That is the question on Tali's mind as the older Quarian gestures her in with quiet beckoning, presenting her walls of fabric squares and cloth with designs that could only be described as stardust and magic. They are quite beautiful, even to Tali and her engineering discipline.

"I have to say, I was very surprised to see that this place was open. "

"Mm. Lucky for you, no?"

"Guess so."

"What brings you here?"

"I have a… party? A ball? I think? To go to. A formal occasion. It's tonight, if that's an issue."

"Before you came in I was simply reading my stories, young one. I will have it done by tonight… Miss?" Everywhere where Human capital and society has reached, the language is brought down, and even when there is no need for translators between them, she can still imagine what the output would be.

"Tali'Zorah nar Rayya."

"Zorah? You are Rael's daughter, are you not?"

It's not surprising she's recognized. "…Yes." She answers, not with any more pride or shame than one can wield being recognized by their father.

"Oh I'm so sorry." She says as if knowing the joke, "My father was a medical officer in his section of the flotilla, if the stories about him are true, well… Sorry if I presume too much, but I can only imagine how he treated his children."

Which was with a certain streak of nationalist, eccentric, singularly focused toward reclaiming the homeworld and all the martial imbuing that he sought to imbue in all Quarians.

Not the best, for short.

Even this far away from the Flotilla, common ground is found in calling her Dad an ass. The chuckling that overtakes Tali comforts her warmly on that cold planet.

"Yeah. The only way I could ever be with Dad is if he tried to tell me about the "importance of us being strong against the galaxy's harshness and cruelty."" The imitation is far closer than she is comfortable with, but in the end, she is her father's daughter, and his lessons, his want for her, became true: She is becoming a soldier meant for this Galaxy. "May I have your name?"

"Merska'Rozel. Now come, come, no time to chit-chat." No ship name follows, and it sticks out like a cut-off breath. For a second, Tali thinks to herself that this woman is still on her Pilgrimage after all this time, but that's not true, not when she has the capital to open a shop like this and stock it with luxurious wares. Resources that could've probably been turned into something worthy of the fleet. But even if that were true, it was one of the first lessons taught to Quarian children and beat into them: Quarians are known by their homes, ships included.

Merska is perfectly comfortable, it seems, as she speaks to Tali. She can pick up bits and pieces, Merska walking her through what exactly she provides and what she can do for Tali and her newer generation suit, promising to make her look good enough to make even a Batarian blush. Tali just nods along, and she is measured out in a stall in the back, five reflections of herself looking at her as she is put on a pedestal and measured out.

"It's the Quarian in me still that wants me to still use physical tools." A tape measurer is drawn as Tali tries her best not to divine her secrets by just looking at Merska. She is perfectly happy, and as an engineer at work, she just starts going through the motions. "Do you prefer this? Or this?"

Hard gold, or the shimmer of a pearl. Ribbon is brought to her face in each of Merska's hands, and each example is wonderfully luscious.

She chooses pearl, and she doesn't quite know what happens next as Merska is a blur of measurement taking and note-making.

It doesn't help that Merska is becoming a little like Mai. She's been through the whirlwind of battle, and even then, Tali can barely keep up as Merska has whisked her away into tailoring her into… something. Not in being a beast of a living thing or being scary, but rather, an enigma that Tali can't explain.

Merska mutters to herself measurements aloud, distant thoughts. Tali squeaks when she suddenly grabs her hips to tighten the tape measurer. "Oh yeah, you're definitely young."

"Huh?"

"Nothing. Nothing." And she disappears behind the mirrors, a flurry of tools and paper being ripped heard behind it.

Quarians are very good at the roles they give themselves. The hyperfocus comes with being a part of a living, breathing, mechanical Flotilla that necessitates everyone's assigned jobs to be done supremely. It is not a factor of experience, per se, for their niches know even those who have yet to go on their Pilgrimage, but rather it is that of the culture and society. There are no jacks-of-all-trades on the Flotilla.

She has rolls of that same pearly fabric in her hand when she returns, set down at Tali's feet.

"Can I take this off?" She looks up at Tali, hands reaching up to her poncho.

"Uh, let me do it." The reason why is apparent the second the buckle keeping it together is unclipped. Grenades. A lot of them. There are utility tools and other miscellaneous items she finds useful out on away missions, but it is mostly the grenades that are her concern. "I'm a soldier." She tells Merska, and each time she says that to someone, whether it be Hitman, Wrex, JD, Garrus, or even Shepard, she believes it a little more.

"Not the first time come through these doors. Even Turians come through. Apparently the more aesthetically minded of them appreciate Quarian fabric styling to adorn their war banners. Not that they'd ever admit it to themselves." Gingerly, Tali's poncho is in Merska's hands and set down carefully. "Do you know almost all of our suit designs, the accents like this," she points at Tali's flowery, swirly fabric sections already on her suit, "are designed by Quarians on their Pilgrimage? Aie yie. No time on the Flotilla for the nicer things such as that."

Was that why she didn't return to the Flotilla? Tailoring and being a seamstress wasn't worth it to the Flotilla? To the cause?

It's a hazy blur of a half-hour. Still, eventually, Merska is done with Tali with a satisfied and dignified nod, arms held akimbo at her hips, a utility belt there that Tali doesn't quite remember being on her form. Her legs yearn to move after modeling, more or less, for that long. She yearns for something else as well.

"I'll have your outfit done in a few hours, and it'll be very easy to put on." Tali does thank her, money transferred as she finally returns to the counter and immediately starts working, cutting up fabric and ribbon as needed in front of her, but she cannot turn away. There is so much satisfaction in her voice it makes her sound as young as Tali.

For that, Tali finally has to ask, and she understands why Shepard asks the questions she does finally. "Why haven't you returned the Flotilla, if I can ask? The Admirals have called all of us back."

Merska has no words for Tali when the question comes, scissors cutting across the fabric and cloth-like lasers through steel. When she gets to the end of her traced line, she finally has one. It's smooth and undercut with that sound of fabric being sliced through.

Tali doesn't mean it, but it comes out like an accusation.

"I… We…" In a way only Quarians can notice, Tali notices the older woman licking her lips behind her visor, fully knowing that she is the accused. "There is more to this life than Rannoch."

There is defeat in her voice, admitting it, dripping like wet snow across glass.

It takes far too long for Tali to respond, but she can in the only way she can: in the truths of who they are. "But… you're Quarian."

"Yes. Yes. I am. But still." This shop is decorated, if only by way of holding so many exquisite materials. Each one of those rolls of cloth has stories and tales of business deals and inspiration, and they are, in the end, in the ownership of Merska. "I am also Merska."

"…How do you mean?"

She's distant, fully engrossed in her work, tracing curves with her scissors like shooting stars. It's clean work, dignified work. Her voice is removed from her work, her body, her hands.

"For ten years, I have lived a life where I didn't have to worry about the Flotilla, about this… far off mandate of a liberation war where so many of us would die to achieve. It was nice. I felt free, Tali'Zorah. My name is my own, and not to that of a ship."

"And what of the people that had already died for that ship, what honor do you have for them?"

"I do more honor for them living a life at peace than dying in war."

The purpose of the Quarian Pilgrimage was adulthood, a test taken by every generation as a rite of passage. It was a means of evolution, the closest thing to societal progression that the Flotilla could do. The stagnation of the Quarian people: their punishment for creating a machine menace imposed, was purposeful. The prolonged starvation over the martial sentence that no one cared to do themselves. On that Pilgrimage, Quarians go out into the Galaxy, go into cultures unburdened by their sins, and learn what they cannot on their own. Overtly, it was for the Flotilla to mature its workforce into something worthy of Rannoch. However, there was the micro battle; the one that was taken on by every Quarian who saw what lives could be without their struggle; what their lives could've been without an eternal battle.

Those that chose a third option: to live among the Galaxy are officially noted as disgraced by the Flotilla.

Tali hasn't known this woman long, however disgraced is not the word she would use to describe her. "I don't know where my home will truly be, one day, but I think it'll be a home of my choosing, my creating." With a self-satisfied noise, at least some part of Tali's accommodations is done. An old Human tale comes to mind: of a father and son, and waxwings. "How is that?"

Wings like stardust.

"It's wonderful. Thank you very much." Tali's hands fold onto themselves, seeing the pearl-colored fabric and its veil-like quality. She's not quite sure what she'll look like when it all comes together, but she trusts this woman at least to do her craft.

A thought flashes by Tali and her private moments, alone on the Normandy as the only Quarian. "Do you have anyone? Back on the Flotilla? I could deliver a message."

There was a saying for Quarians like this, if not exiled: Lost. She is lost in her eyes, but her heart is whole as her hands hold each other to her chest and those glowing eyes close.

"No." She says softly, head shaking. "But all my love to the children." Her hands are open again, spread out as if offering, and Tali can do nothing but feel her hand close as if catching it at her side.

---

Shepard pulls and holds at the same time, tightening around JD's neck. "You're very old fashioned, you know that JD?"

His mindset is that of a man nearly four hundred years into the future than them, and yet he's older still.

The bear that Shepard has turned into a rug looks at them all with that same gaping look that most of the crew has as those slated to go to the party is getting ready by the mess table.

Even Joker has come down to whistle. "I'm still open if someone needs a date."

Shepard smoothens out JD's suit as she finishes his tie. A luxurious purple above a light blue shirt, a black suit defining his form. His hair has been combed over, made presentable, beard as well. Now he looks like any number of retro, coke'd out executives he's seen in the old movies from before the UNSC, before the UEG, and any of that business. It's nice enough for him, though, nicer than he's looked in years.

"Take the Chief out, I'm sure he would appreciate it." It's the most uncharismatic wink that JD can give, but he flashes it Joker's way to play along with Shepard. It's an easy thing to play to Shepard's ebb, and even someone who has prided themselves on social isolation has been drawn out.

"Ain't my game, Shep." Joker uneasily counters back. She stands over them both, and, now, here, she wears her BDU, JD's gifted visor over her head. It's less perhaps a sexual orientation thing with Joker than the more obvious blocker to any closer connection to JD if he ever desired Mai. It is pragmatics that she doesn't think about how this is a Turian gift to JD.

An SMG is slung by her side, her form imposing, playing the part of bodyguard.

Everyone here is playing parts and looks it all the same.

JD has his suit, and Garrus, uncomfortably, is in a blue Turian formal wear as well, maroon and blue rings by his collar spalling out. He looks dignified, older. Even the unacquainted can tell by how the suit keeps his back straight and his shoulders squared.

Liara is the type to look good in anything, and especially in the silvery dress that cloaks her entire form down to her feet. A hint of makeup is over her face, and distantly the more inquisitive wonder if being the daughter of a Matriarch required a certain amount of training in how to put on grace. She stands off to the side, still unsure, still uneasy with her station, her needs as asked of her that night.

Scars of the battlefield. For Shepard, her dress is conservative, black and shiny with its surface, hiding everything but showing what it could be as her arms are bared out alone, the collar of it going up to her neck, enveloping. On her arms, filled out, strong, are scars. Her hair is tied up in its same bun, two pairs of sticks put through them like accessories.

The last due to the party is Wrex, and he has no change. He needs none.

Shepard, whipping her gaze on all of them, is very impressed with how they come together and makes a note that if they were all to rob some sort of financial establishment one day, this is how she'd want it to look.

"Cash, have you got our time table down?" She asks aloud, and his voice comes in through the PA.

"Commander Shepard, I will distribute mission files as requested." In his rigid cowboy tones, Cash does precisely that. Courtesy of Tali, the Hotel Menagerie, one of many highly regarded residences and home-away-from-home for those that come to Noveria for business, has been cracked open. At least as far as schematics and security systems go. They could come in handy if it came down to espionage a little less overt than what they were doing, just strolling in; however, everyone had their part to play.

Even those not special.

Plain-clothed, Kaiden, and Emerson sit side by side with a full contingent of Hitman. "Still not sure about this, Commander." Kaiden is meek, even as the new XO, and still going out on some away missions, there is still doubt in him. Though Shepard can't blame his anxiousness, his arms crossed as he sits on one of the room dividers, fighting a battle in his head. "It just doesn't feel right."

"Not right is what happened on Eden Prime, lieutenant." Ashley is as blunt as they come as she sits in her jacket, holding a pistol in her pocket. "This takes us a little closer to avenging it."

Emerson, and Hitman proper, are less bothered by anything, for they understand what Shepard has tasked them to do.

Emerson knows better as he speaks. "Chin up, Lieutenant Alenko. Consider this a look on the wild side of Alliance Force Recon. Oorah."

"Oorah." Rings out amongst men and women plain clothed. Jackets, casual-formal wear. Just baggy enough to hide guns, but not out of place on Noveria.

What Shepard will have them do is not clean, not exactly sanctioned by the Alliance, but as they are under Shepard, they have their orders and their privileges that come with being assigned to the Spectre. Just like Noveria, the rules, and the loopholes, are designed conveniences: the appearance of law and order until it becomes a barrier toward progress.

Shepard tightens her omni-tool, masquerading as a dress watch. "Kaiden, it's just questioning. They're accomplices of Saren and are under the scrutiny thereof. This is more courteous than what my mentor would do."

And Hitman as a whole perks up, nodding, remembering that fact: Commander Ryder trained Shepard, and in her place if Ryder were here, the Menagerie would've been invaded like fortified position.

"Is this standard for a Human tour of duty?" His booming voice is the skeptical that everyone needs between the glitz and glamour of soldiers in suits.

"Wrex?" Shepard poised to ask. Even Wrex had his diplomatic skills to be helpful.

He nods. "Some of the Krogan guards have a back room of a porno shop that is used for more messier deals. We can have that same sort of fun tonight."

What Wrex offers and what Kaiden is in charge of it's intertwined.

Said once, it's out in the open by Shepard affirming that is what they are doing. "Tag them and we send them back."

Like a ghost, Chakwas emerges out of the Medbay, packages passed off to those dressed up for the party proper. Slim, like business card cases of yesteryear, before paper went out of style and omnis and the cloud dominated. Each of them passes them into their own pockets nonchalantly. Only Shepard fully takes in her hand in those steel cases, feeling the cold pass her fingertips where there are no callouses. The case makes a clink in her handbag. It's the only item in there asides from lipstick that is already applied: her lips as red as her hair.

Piece by piece, the plan comes together without even going over it again. It stuck the first time.

"Asides from the clandestine work. We just mingle, talk, get leads. Can we all do that?"

"Yes ma'am."

"Mm."

"Right."

Shepard looks over to Liara as Wrex takes his place by her side. Just as Mai is a bodyguard, so too is Wrex playing escort. "Liara, you'll take position on the second floor balcony above the main area. Call them out as you see them."

From Tali, from JD asking more people about who exactly is due to go to this little function, Liara has been given this task: Identify any VIPs, Asari who work beneath Benezia.

She can. Those Asari which her mother has in her inner circle hardly change, for they require centuries of trust beforehand to be brought into her inner circle. Liara knows faces, knows names, for, in the house of Benezia, they came and went around her.

"Liara?"

The Asari is looking down the ground to the hem of her dress, lost in thought. Shepard brings her out of it. "Uhm-! Oh. Yes. I will do that."

"JD? Garrus? You're on point for tagging and dragging." There's a reason to it as Shepard turns to them. They understand.

There is something deliberate, darkly, to what they're tasked to do. It's darker than, say, the actual killing, actually opening fire into a distant tree line and taking lives. However, that is the appearance of it as JD feels the weight of his given case in his suit pocket.

"Tali?" And the final woman. The room had been silent when she first emerged from the well deck, wearing what she does now. Her environmental suit remains, but it is bathed and strung, in starlit fabric, rolled between joints. When she holds her hands in front of herself, they cover her like an aura, and, as she all so proudly shows, when her arms go wide, she is given wings. Silken wings. It evokes the idea of middle eastern dancers, ancient empires, and oriental trades to JD and Shepard. To Tali, however, it is that of a star angel. Tali tips her head up, ready to receive her orders. "You keep looking good."

She smiles behind her visor. "Of course, Shepard."

Shepard catches it and puts on one of her own before she hardens up, and Commander Shepard returns. "Alright, ladies and gentlemen. This might look like we're living it up, but it's anything but. We have confirmed collaborators with Saren and Benezia present. As far as they're aware due to the fact they're stuck on Peak 15, they don't know we're here. We take the advantage, and claw our way to Saren from what happens tonight. Oorah?"

"Oorah."

Only Mai does not give out that chant, and Shepard locks eyes with the woman. She knows that this isn't what Mai signed up for, and maybe there is a hint of resentment in there. However, orders are orders, and of all the mysteries about Mai, one of the truths about her is that she follows orders. The Spartan nods and the Commander knows that she will perform to the best of her abilities. Like she always does. Without fail.

"Alright then." The coil is brought back; people are standing. She says the words: "We should go."

---

They leave the Normandy staggered. A few groups at a time, so it's not a crowd of over two dozen people walking down toward the Menagerie.

JD, Garrus, Mai, and Tali go on their own together.

Shepard, she has her duties. "I have a fat stack of documents to deliver to Anoleis before I show up. Gain some ground, put out the red carpet for me." She winks at them all, and she is gone to do her many errands in a dress far more Noveria than Torfan in nature.

Nighttime falls on Noveria, but the lights above do not dim like the Normandy's. It is burning white, bearing down on them in an unfriendly glare that keeps their heads down, or, if not that, talking and gesturing to each other.

"I wonder what my father would think, seeing me all dressed up to fit in in some cushy executive party." Garrus poses, walking past other dressed-up Turians, other dressed-up executives going to their balls. Tonight was a busy night for Port Hanshan between all of the businesses and the ending fourth quarter.

"Wonder what mine would…." JD is quiet as he says, and only Mai picks it up.

In the dark of the Normandy in their corner, Mai sees JD mourn his parents without the knowledge that her presence calms him. She sees him miss them, every time he thinks, every time he mentions them. There is a pull to her to do more, but she cannot understand how. There is nothing in the UNSC manual about emotional reconciliation.

Two elbows come to poke at JD and Garrus in their sides, Tali squeezing in between them. Nothing needs to be said as she intertwines her arms with both of them, walking in step with them as she is amused with herself.

"You look quite nice, Tali. Can't imagine it was easy to find something like this on short notice."

"Quarians always find a way." There is pride there in her voice, and, to her efforts, she has born the fruits of it.

There's always one detail in most military planning that gets overlooked. Sometimes it's the weather; sometimes it's how deep the mud is; sometimes it's local wildlife. Today it is what the Menagerie looks like. It's not a particularly mission-critical detail that is overlooked. Still, it stands, built into the wall of the prefab, as a glass building, refractions of glass chandeliers and art deco installations inside cracking reality itself to those that look into the square section it carves out of the world, digging deeper into the mountain that Port Hanshan finds itself in. It's a crystal palace by any other name, and there is a crowd out front, very quietly making their way in. Alien languages across banners roll out, and hardly any are translated out. Rising up and out of Port Hanshan, windows carved into rock make a design not unlike children's first approximation of towers are in cities.

"Yep. This is the place." Garrus confirms, at the very least, reading what the rest cannot. "You know I'm very surprised I don't see too many Volus around here… Too cold, maybe."

There is no front concierge, no front guard, just people being there because they know they have to be.

Wrex and Liara were the first to go. Given the glassy exterior, the impossible-to-miss shape and color of Wrex in a smeared blur is seen upon the second-floor balcony already, with Liara looking down inward.

There are other bodyguards of the like there, more Krogan, some Turian, some Asari with guns across their front, doing their best to look inconspicuous. However, that is the normal that is expected of them. Everyone has their shadow, and Mai serves as one well.

The crowd raises in density the closer they get, and the bright light bouncing off those glass walls beams back at them. Like a white dwarf, they are covered by it. With elbow room to spare, they wade through the crowd out front. Most are chatting amongst each other, getting air, or getting ready to enter the festivities fully, as revealed the second they get closer. Glances are thrown their way, but nothing too lingering, nothing that wasn't warranted given who they were.

The party thrown in the Presidium after Shepard was made Spectre, there is no such pleasant energy here. Here it is, whispers and being impressed with one's self.

The hotel lobby has been converted over to a large ballroom, with a stage on one end for prominent speakers and the like. Giant, large like any banquet hall should be, but it's all standing room. The concierge desks and the lobby check-ins have been replaced by a stock bar, and if it was made for that dual purpose, it works as people shuffle in and out and get their elixir of choice.

"Finger foods are over there." Mai snaps back as fast as she can the second she hears that Turian flange. It's the Turian that pointed them there in the first place. In this brighter light, his skin is redder than Garrus's grey. His finger is pointed out toward one end of the floor, servants handing out little plates or offering delights to keep people satiated for the long night ahead. "If it wasn't for your height, you almost would've fit in."

Mai does her visual scan but can't make anything too dangerous out of him, going back to continue to scan the room as JD takes over. He waves off Garrus and Tali, but they can't help but look on.

"No regrets? Asking us to come through?" JD raises his eyebrow.

There's a little cake in his hand, but it looks more like meat than anything, crystals along the top that has already been bitten at. He finishes it up, handkerchief wiping away talons. People move around them as they stand at the entrance, continuing on and out to whatever they do at these functions.

He shakes his head. "I hate everyone in this room… Well, almost everyone. Present company excluded."

"…Just like that eh? Think we'll do something drastic?"

"Galaxy's changing. Might as well grease the wheels if you're the catalyst." He shrugs, unbothered.

"May I have your name?"

"Not in my interest, Human. I'll be seeing you."

In every galaxy, in every Milky Way where there is life and civilization, there are individuals who find themselves slipping in and out of people's lives with nary a word or a name to attach to their faces. They come and go, and for JD, he knows many of them. He sees them in hazy dreams, memories of battles past. He sees them in blurs, dropping off needed supplies or volunteering to take corners or doorways first before Brute spikes cut them down. He remembers them wading through explosions trying to open up a frontline and in base camps, tiredly handing off what little pleasures they can to those that need it. He sees them as they wordlessly hand him a cigarette, and he gives them back the silent company to smoke with. This Turian, tired with his life, perhaps is the same type.

He slips away, out of the party, almost as soon as it has begun.

"Friend of yours?" Garrus tugs at him verbally.

"No." Mai answers. JD and Mai look at his back as he disappears into Noveria.

As they finally make their way in, walking that walk, they are initiated. A Salarian servant, clad in midnight blacks, as all of them are identified, gives them a simple, welcoming nod as many of his type greet other parties coming into the ball. "If you need anything, just come see one of us. Welcome to the Gala."

Gala. It was a very classy word for a relatively simple event: where people stand amongst themselves and their riches and talk of their greater fortunes and what they did to get here. They all hear it on the air, interspaced with a language they know, but cannot fully understand between dividends and calls and options and stocks and terminology that makes even the whiskey-echoes of military dogma pale.

Perhaps the most out of place there is Tali as people do a double-take. Not for her dress, but rather, the fact she is a Quarian.

Whispers, heard between boasts, and it is very much confirmed: "What's that suit rat doing here?"

Of all the accessories that Tali has right now, what remains is the knife in her boot.

JD holds onto her arm, however. "Not worth it." He breaths. She opens her mouth to protest, but all of her misgivings are crushed by what he says so rightly; she knows it is a fact of JD's life. "We're on a mission."

That they are, and she nods. As she does, she only catches Liara and Garrus staring down on them in that sea of people. Liara, her hand is up, letting them known that they are seen.

"Well. If we're on a mission," Garrus starts, eyeing up all those in crystalline dresses and expensive fabrics. In the far distance, however, another color: pink. It's there and gone, but he knows he saw it. A slight distraction as he goes on: "Let's get started, shall we?"

"Mm. Mai?"

She knows what JD is asking before she even utters his name. She nods, and as Tali splits off with Garrus, they disappear into a different battlefield.

Wrex had, in his centuries-long life, had spent more than he would admit just standing around being scary. Fair to him, he was just naturally dangerous, standing, but the times when he had been offered Cash to look menacing on someone's time, often standing over their shoulder exuding the presence of a threat, they were among his first jobs. He's only gotten more threatening; every scar that gets put on his face and every iota of a battle he carries in him gives him his swagger.

"We'll be here for a few hours." Wrex knows best, coming to stand besides Liara. "Hope you're comfortable there."

Where she is just standing by the balcony, champagne glass in her hand barely sipped at. It's hour one of a six-hour affair, and she's pulling sentry duty, uniquely. She is the spotter for Benezia's envoys here.

"I'll have to be." She slumps her shoulders, even as her free hand white knuckles the metal railing.

From her vantage point, she can see Garrus and Tali intermingle with other Turians, Tali on Garrus's arms playing the partner's part. Even if the primary goal tonight is the envoys, more information, more corroboration is always helpful. For Garrus and Tali they walk in comfortably, talk in comfortably. Every Turian has their own war stories to share, and Garrus has his own to meld into even the highest executors, it seems. All while Tali listens on, making her notes, looking pretty. Mai and JD are not as comfortable; even Liara can tell.

"Chief Gul and Chief Durante, they are quite interesting, are they not?" Liara muses to Shepard one night, after Altis. Shepard chuckles as she sips her coffee that late night as they go over notes from an Asari university about civilizations surviving supposed extinction events. Very relevant with the Reapers apparently on the horizon.

"That they are." The Commander brushes some of her hair behind her ear as she stares up at the ceiling of the Normandy. "That they are."

"Forgive me for assuming this of your soldiers, Shepard, but… them two, they're not quite…." She falters for words, and all too easily, Shepard finds her own.

"Not what they seem? Yeah."

They stand together by the outer edge of the main conglomeration. There are circular couches in the middle of the floor that people gather by, take over as each clique is formed and made. Laughter, amusement, all muted down. She wishes she could've borrowed Garrus's scope to be able to look ahead, to read JD's lips as he speaks to Mai, who resumes simply standing at ready.

There are many there who are doing as such.

Wrex included.

"It must be good to be here, after all that digging in Prothean ruins." It's Wrex's attempt at small talk, seeing the way she reeks of regret, of pain, of anxiety. Each moment she is fulfilling her duties is a betrayal of some sort. Wrex does not doubt her, for he knows she's not seriously considering a betrayal here. Still, it is an intrinsic betrayal that goes into gut feelings and instincts: the idea of betraying one's mother is one of the ghastliest.

Liara's hands are unique. Amongst Asari, Wrex has known them to be squishy, pampered, soft, and underserved by those who do not live a life, even after centuries. However, Liara's hands have micro-scars, scabs, blunted pads, and skin that has seen the angles of crags and the sharp punctures of ancient geometry. They run over the steel rim of the railing, distracting her as she answers back.

"No. Cities and stations were always my mother's area of comfort. I actually enjoy the solitude of dig sites." Momentarily she imagines herself back on a Prothean dig site, her body digging away as her mind is back into ancient times, trying to trace out what the ground she walks on must've been millennia ago.

There is a genuine amusement in Wrex's voice. "I'm surprised. I've never met an Asari who didn't prefer clean clothes and a hot bath."

To be fair to him, she longs for one right now to wash away what she feels.

A question, though: "Considering the diminished numbers of the Krogan, Wrex, I'm surprised that you are willing to fight and kill them."

Wrex sniffs once. It is a thought and a fair question. One that he has an answer to immediately, his claws coming onto the railing. "Anyone who fights us is either stupid or on Saren's payroll. Killing the latter is business. Killing the former is a favor to the universe."

A net positive, then.

A handful of Krogan are amongst that several hundred crowd, none there for the festivities.

Mai sizes one up as he passes, ghosting his designated VIP in the shadow of an art installation of glass; they find themselves perfectly comfortably standing there as people make their chat around them. Tapping her elbow, he figures he can make their small talk as well:

She attends to him immediately, eyes brought to bear, waiting.

Bringing his hands inward and then slowly flowing them up and out toward her, his right hand then points with his index.

ARE YOU OKAY?

The consideration she does takes longer than it usually does. Physically, yes, she is condition green, but with so many aliens around her mentally, she's losing it.

The curve to the side of her mouth says everything it needs to as she finally shakes her head.

"Hey, Chief," It rings in her ear softly, a reminder that with Garrus's visor, she has a direct comm link to Cash. It's not quite the neural interface, but it helps. "If you just stand there I can pick up chatter around you. Filter it in and out, process it, and then give it over to you and JD. No need to let Shepard know I can do it." She nods, and Cash picks that up. "Give me over to JD for a sec."

Swiftly, she unhooks it from her ear as JD raises an eyebrow at her, only before she rubs her fingers together again. It is strange that, technically, a sign name has been made for Cash before giving her his own, or even made one for her. Putting it on Cash is already halfway in his ear.

"Go ahead."

"Go live a little, Jonny Boy. The Little Lady can just stand there and I can comb through the audio. Go make conversation. Be normal for chrissake'."

JD doesn't mean to grumble, but he does as he gives his visor back. "I'm perfectly normal."

It's weird how their communication has come together now: JD raising his hand flat over his head and then gesturing toward the crowd. It's military dictation for COVER ME. Military hand signals, Spartan Signs, and then ASL all have combined and smushed together, and vaguely Mai has an idea about how something like this was the advent of the original Spartan Signs in the first place. JD leaves her standing where she is, wading in through the crowd. Tracking his head is all she can do as she is left alone.

She's used to sensory overload. It's a part of being a Spartan. What is also a part of being a Spartan is being able to filter through it. She can point out Jackal snipers between a dozen Wraith mortars easily. But here? With people chatting idly about concepts far beyond her, it is a racket that she has to block out and center on the only familiars she can identify at the moment: the weight of her gun off to her side, and the man she has found a life with here.

It's an odd life, a confusing one. But she's on the verge of realizing that it is the one she has to accept.

At some point, JD has gathered up a champagne glass of his own from a tray of one of the many wandering servants and sipping at it; the bubbles in his mouth give him another sense of weakness as he struggles to not think about how expensive said champagne was. For all the time that he's spent thinking about those lost, the thought drags him to, just tonight as he stands in a suit he will probably never wear again, what they must think of him, looking down from the beyond.

He must look ridiculous.

Though no one minds him as he wades through people, not sure of what exactly he's doing, because after a few painful moments of floating, the first speaker of the night arrives on the stage.

A Turian in a suit that is far nicer than any he's seen yet gets up to the stage, and the lights are on him, and he hardly needs to garner attention as people turn over to look at him. His voice is booming, echoing around that glass.

"We thank you for joining us, Havuthun Industries, in celebrating yet another successful year here on Noveria, and Port Hanshan. May the Spirits, Goddesses, and however many deities you Humans believe in show us grace tonight." That gets a chuckle out of people.

As rudimentary and crude of a way to bring it up, Mai goes back to the idea of god and religion she knew as a child as she stands off to the sides, other private protection details gathering near her. She has set the standard, apparently, and anything that gets her mind off that more and more aliens with guns are surrounding her is welcome. The wheel, resting on her skin, burns. Allah, Buddha, Jesus Christ, Vishnu, names that were cast asides for her, only to be replaced by the UNSC.

She has no god now.

"Now we wouldn't be here without the help of the Telesto Corporation and the local Board, so let's give them a round of applause, shall we?" And soft applause does ring out as executives from said entities give their best acting at being humble.

It's the frank man inside JD that makes him say aloud as he settles right next to another Human man:

"I don't even know who any of these people are."

A very silent laugh rings out next to him as a man, a thick, tonal accent in his voice, rings out. "Yeah, you and me bud. I'm just here because my manager is."

Managers and advisors and professional blue-collar executives. It's all that he bumps shoulders with as the Salarian upfront continues in an optimistic speech that peters out as yet another starts, the Salarian moving down into the crowd proper as he starts giving handshakes.

"Ladies and gentlemen! Ladies and gentlemen! I want to thank you all for making this the greatest year of the Hooruma and Partners Incorporated! On behalf of the Board of Directors and the Options Group we thank you one and all!"

"So what do you do?" JD sips as he finally takes a look at his shoulder partner, wading in deep in that group of people.

"Speculation." He proclaims proudly. JD still has no idea what that is. "How about you, bud? You got that look about you."

Maybe it was the beard.

The man on his shoulder had all the makings of any straight-to-tv male protagonists who would discover the meaning of family, the holidays, or something other than work—groomed sharply, tanned fiercely, eyes like that of any strung-out junkie.

"Security." JD answered back.

Speculation had nodded. "Yeah, I thought so bud. You here on your own?"

"My date left me." He was honestly impressed with how smooth the lie came out of him. "So I'm strung out to dry."

"Ah that's a shame, come hang with me, bud. I'll down a few drinks and I'll tell you about a few secrets brewing up that you can cash in on. Get something out of tonight."

---

About two hours later and people were still speaking on that stage. From every alien race, there was a speaker and, apparently, from every related industry. A falling domino effect of higher executives congratulating the people in the room and the people in the room feeling congratulated enough to feel at hazard to worry about their greater fortunes.

About two hours later, and Shepard had arrived.

Tali had been in the middle of explaining to a Turian executive throuple that specialized in "environmental" weapons that the Migrant Fleet was, upon the reclamation of Rannoch, mainly due to being scrapped and converted into the first infrastructure for the planet again, and that unfortunately, a specific brand of Batarian warships that could only be found nowadays in the Flotilla was off-limits due to their solar power arrays built into their paneling. For as graceful as she had looked tonight, the pragmatic language of her engineering broke through, captivating for those, especially, who had never worked as she did.

"I should've hired more Quarians." One of them grumbled.

"Maybe." She said with pride before turning over.

Liara had been the one to ping everyone's omni, declaring that Shepard had found herself there. One detachment from Hitman would be on standby from the expected point of entry for anyone coming from Peak 15, pinging the rest that the Asari were inbound, and if something had been up, that is if they had been tipped off.

It had been a miracle that Peak 15 had been that out of the way that information that Commander Shepard and the Normandy had been there was still not transmitted, according to intel on the ground. All of it had been preamble and set up for black ops work.

Ashley and Kaiden looked on. They had been the closest to the Menagerie, a line of Hitmen at various points from there to the Adult Entertainment venue Wrex had appropriated set up. Beneath Kaiden's jacket, a full rifle. Clearances and a necessary understanding of what would happen tonight courtesy of Garrus's charms with the local security.

For the first time on Noveria, Ashley felt cold. Moving her mouth kept her warm. "This is some spooky foreplay, Ell Tee." Kaiden could say nothing as they waited, and waited, for what was to come. He could nod, though, looking out those windows at the night and unending storm. "What did the Skipper have to do anyway before we came out? Something with Anoleis?"

Shepard wiped some fluid off of her knuckles before she was fully recognized. It was the tiny realization, the gradual realization, that Shepard had arrived at the party that came rolling in waves. Quiet waves, not thundering rollers like her native California and the Pacific North West. There was no grand announcement that she arrived to those not associated with her, just whispers that carried as people turned to her as she walked in and started to intermingle far more naturally than any of her crew that came ahead. It gave them space to breathe.

"You're Commander Shepard?" An Asari executive whispers to her as she walks past to immerse herself in the party, seeing where everything is, admiring the glitz and glamour of glass.

"Oh I didn't know." She says as fancifully back as she can. "For all I hear about the people here in Noveria, I was just wondering what they looked like at their best."

"Your crew has been awfully curious around the port, it's all the gossip. If what any of the rumors are true, can you please just hurry up and arrest my boss?" The Asari had been almost relieved to say it.

"Unless your Boss is Saren, it's not my problem."

Shepard drifts from conversation to conversation on fibers of words and draws. Some comment on how amazing she looks, some speak to her asking if her many accolades are true, and some, in typical fashion, ask her for help. She abides by all as she naturally draws a crowd to her, drifting through the hotel. One by one, she makes visual contact with her people. JD is in the middle of talking about weapon shipments with Speculations when Shepard locks an eye with him. Speculations was hedging his bets on this new type of thermal clip, which could be, in an incredible reversal of firearm theory, could be reloaded. (Why would you want to go back to finite ammo? JD thinks to himself.)

"Jesus Christ, she looks better in real life." Speculations is in awe, halfway through a sip of his champagne as both he and JD look on. "I thought I knew my guns but look at hers, woo-wee." Bare arms do Shepard good in showing off that she is still a fighter, despite what her dress would make her look like.

JD wouldn't be as a prude to not admit that Shepard hadn't been a beautiful woman in her way. Still, it seemed almost too dramatic that the highs and lows of her had been virtually back-to-back: Here was the woman who he had seen crumpled out in her vomit, stomach blasted by a grenade, drifting around a social function as if she had lived this high life for years.

"But yeah, I'm telling you bud, thermal clips? There's going to be a war soon, and I'll be hedging a lot of bets that it will go hot."

"Well, tell me this then," JD resumes the conversations, drinking his champagne. "Who's fighting who?"

"Who cares?" Speculation shrugged. "The Covenant? The Krogan? The Geth? It's all going to pop off eventually."

Shepard is used to bouncing around in functions like this. Whether it be public or military affairs as addressed to her as an officer. On Elysium, there was a remembrance ball that she was asked to attend every year. She'd miss this one given the current state of the Galaxy, but it was there that well-to-do Elysium doners to charity funds of the dead gathered and thanked Shepard, again, on what she had done that day when the Batarians and pirates came.

Her face is a smile, welcoming, understanding because that's what she is as a person: understanding and willing to listen. In a world where everyone wants to be listened to, no one does in kind except for Shepard apparently, at least that is what she read of it as she finds herself with another group in charge of alternative supplement nutrition.

"Never thought of settling down? If what I hear about you is true, you'd be quite a fetch, darling." Wedding rings are on the two people from that nutrient company she finds herself talking to.

"I wouldn't know what to do with myself." Shepard admits freely, a shrug to her, hands passing in front of her as she tilts her head and allows herself to dreamily think, at least for a moment, about what the domestic life was like. She never had one after she became a teen, and her childhood seemed so far away. She forgets precisely what San Francisco was like, a spaceport in its own right, with a connection to the stars. If she were a more thoughtful person, she would've started her vagabond days by hitchhiking out into the stars; instead, she stayed earthbound in her travels.

"Have kids." The woman laughed as she grabbed her husband's arm. "It's what we're planning after another year out here."

Of all the kids in the universe, Shepard knows too many have no parents. Memories of the orphanage on Altis come back, memories of children left behind on colonies she had been on the QRF for are there in her mind's eye, and the tragedy that even kids can be lost amongst the stars.

It is JD, looking to Shepard as she speaks from afar, that finds her face.

"Look at you, darling," the older man says to Shepard as if giving her meaningful advice. "Quit the military, make a name for yourself other than being a gun for the Alliance."

In the trillion-to-one (and then some) chances they had of reappearing in a universe where Humanity was the same as it always was, JD is thankful that pain is the same feeling across the faces of those who bear it. It's in the way that Shepard tries to cover it up with a laugh, her nose scrunching, wanting to entertain the older man with the friendly advice he gives. She cannot, though. She has made a career of bringing truth to light, and yet even Shepard hides her secrets. That's the impression JD has.

"You must be in the know around here?" Shepard responses with her arms touching both their shoulders. "You think anyone here is interested in adoption?"

JD lets Speculations talk on, speak on about the weapons trade in that Galaxy. Something radically new to him. There was no weapons trade in the UNSC save for the production line, which put MA5s in the hands of a UNSC grunt. "Peak 15 ordered a helluva lot of chemical solvent. If I know anything about ordnance, they sure as hell ain't the type to use it for bathroom cleaning."

Chemicals. The word stuck out to JD. "I see… Well. Thanks for the chat."

"Anytime bud, if you're ever by Illum-way, swing by the stock exchange and ask for a DI Shmitt. You're a great listener you know that?" A hearty slap in the back had sent JD on his way as Speculations continued on his spiel to someone else. Thankfully Garrus had been there on the rebound.

Spacing away from Speculations, for the first time in a bit, JD could breathe as the speakers on the stage had, at some point, been changed over to a holographic band. They glowed like Avina, or rather, like Cash. Simulacrums of life playing away at instruments perfectly. A slow, synthetic, bell-like melody was ringing out. Turian music. JD's favorite Turian had to ask: "You're making friends."

The champagne in his glass was gone, and he had forgotten how much he had been sipping away at it as Speculations spoke his work to him. "Apparently I'm great to talk to."

"Really?"

"…So, you hear anything interesting?"

"Peak 15 might be doing something with chemical solvents. Whatever that means."

"Chemical solvents… Heh. That's what C-Sec called acid." A case where a murderer had been melting down his victims to hide the evidence. These victims had been too large to throw into the Keeper nutrition vats, so another, the more brutal method had to be involved. "Don't see what that has to do with the Geth, or the Reapers, or anything."

"Maybe it's just a fun fact."

"Right…Tali?" Tali had remerged from her socializing, and she an answer before the question was even asked, approaching the two men as they stood below a glass sculpture; an abstract mockup of Athane, light gleaming through it.

"A lot of colonies are asking for military grade prefabs nowadays." She shrugged through it, gossamer wings pulsing as if they had been fluttering. "But nothing too suspicious. Nothing they'd tell me anyway."

Liara sees Shepard's designs for something as innocent as them showing up to a ball. All eyes eventually gravitate toward her. She is the lure; people wanting to get a look at the illustrious Commander Shepard. She's been practicing from her post on the balcony above, looking at Asari below, seeing their faces, knowing none of them. Showtime isn't yet.

However, there is a show going on at the stage as the holographic projections shift their shapes, going through the visages of famous musicians of histories past. Turian operas, Salarian numbers, Asari ballads, and Human classics. Songs, six minutes at a time that gives every species there a taste of culture.

Green fields and rolling hills

Room enough to do what we will

Sweet dreams of yestertime

Are running through my mind

Of a place I left behind

Eventually, as if people there knew what to do naturally, a square section of the floor center is cleared as those who wish to dance, arm to arm, in an embrace, is made. Graceful dancing for the classy party on marble floors.

Been so long, I can't remember when

I've been to Canaan

And I want to go back again

"They look like they're squirming." A Krogan next to Mai snorts, holding his light machine gun more like a walking stick than a weapon. Referring to the dancing, Mai admits to herself that she thinks like a Krogan more and more. Ball dancing was the same in every culture, it seemed as people of all races and species took to the floor with their partners, going with the soft music as presented. Tali, Garrus, and JD had been in the middle of it, pushing themselves off to the side of the dance floor before they would be swept up.

Unfortunately for one of them, they wanted to be.

Tali had touched JD's elbow, just as she had seen Mai do so many times. "Join me?"

JD had to wonder where that woman from yesterday had been, promising fulfilled wants and needs, not that he had any idea what those were outside his current objectives.

It seemed like an impropriety to go out there and dance for the sake of it, the shock trooper looking to Garrus for permission, it seemed, but the Turian shrugged. "No harm done."

No harm done indeed.

He nods at Tali, and they have whisked away into the dozen whirlpool congregation that is people slow dancing.

Mai's heart spikes, watching on from a distance, and even Cash doesn't need his sensor readout that he gets plugged into her head to know it.

JD's quite a bit taller than Tali, or, at least, he is taller than her, the same amount of height Mai is taller than him. It's natural that way, he feels, as he is caught in a slow dance for the first time in a long time. She doesn't quite have the same hands: three-pronged appendages that remind him too much of Elites now that his own hands are closer to hers, but he lets her thread her long fingers through the gaps of his as they find their spinning rhythm. JD doesn't question why. It was a nice, whimsical thing they were doing. One act that relieves them of military weight.

The last time he did this, it was quite the same. It was him and Dawn, dancing beneath moonlight on Cascade.

Though I'm content with myself

Sometimes I long to be somewhere else

I try to do what I can

But with our day-to-day demands

We all need a promised land

"Hitman 1-9. Eyes on a vehicle coming in from Port 15. Stand by for confirmation." For Shepard, her earrings are bone conduction earpieces: wiring her into Hitman's comms. Soon, very soon. Pieces coming into play, special tactics and recon fulfilled. She looked up to Liara and Wrex, making sure that she was still on station. She was, and she was as ready as she was ever going to be.

"Forgive my footwork. I'm not really used to this." JD had said, half focused on his black shoes, making sure he didn't step on Tali's toes. Her knife was still there in its holster, and he focused on it, unable to look her in the eye.

"Same."

She was too much, dressed like some star angel, and in the glassy glittering, she only shined more in front of JD.

"1-9. ID on 3 Asari in formal dress from the Peak 15 bay. Red dress with midriff. Silver with generous cleavage. Blue, almost matching skin tone. Passing off to 1-5 and 1-6. 1-9 section moving to rally point bravo."

"There's a backroom to this place, you know? A private bar." The audio was enhanced, filtered out by Cash, brought to Mai's attention as the song and dance continued. "Hush hush, like bootleggers back on Earth, you know? What's the word for it?"

"Speakeasy." Cash answers only to Mai.

She's not listening much as she's focused on JD, dancing with Tali. Going through light and fluttery tunes; time is lost as pieces from other races come and go. Only when he hears Human language again in its purest form does JD find himself again. Piano notes, like footsteps against the night sky, start it off.

Some folks like to getaway

Take a holiday from the neighborhood

Hop a flight to Miami Beach

Or to Hollywood

But I'm taking a Greyhound

On the Hudson River Line

It's a fluke that every city out in the lunar colonies had a piece of a town that was famous as a place of movie scenes, where the noise was always loud, and there were sirens all around, and the streets were mean.

JD was a city boy at heart, and, he more than most of those who had been Human, off Earth, a "spacenoid" as some liked to say before the Covenant came, had identified with the original endless city of dreams, hearing a song written for it, centuries ago.

I'm in a New York state of mind

In their slow dancing, they whisked around the edge by Shepard, still very much garnering a small crowd and spouting the benefits of adopting and sponsoring orphanages. For people with the money, she would speak on behalf of the needy. There was no urgency with her as she knew Liara and Wrex above would call the shots. Seeing Tali and JD intertwined together, she only offers a slight roll of her eyes and a shake of her head before she leads those who are enthralled by her and their souls about charity organizations that support orphans in the Galaxy.

I've seen all the movie stars

In their fancy cars and their limousines

Been high in the Rockies under the evergreens

But I know what I'm needing

And I don't want to waste more time

"Oh my hubby, when are we going to think about kids, hmm?" Tali is still just a young sweetheart despite her aspirations for the call to arms. It pokes out, and that alone is enough to make JD smile as they dance together and she whispers an act.

"Maybe when I get that raise next quarter." He says, jokes back to her as if he has a job to consider such. She giggles back, and they keep their ball dancing.

It was so easy living day by day

Out of touch with the rhythm and blues

But now I need a little give and take

"This is quite nice." Eventually, there is a weight on JD's shoulder, as Tali rests the side of her head on it as they continue to sway slowly. Her voice is sweet, and she is earnest, coming out of the act. She is close enough that her voice modulator didn't need to kick in, and that digital reverb that designates most of her words is gone, left to JD's ear, is a Tali untouched by her circumstances.

Even as his hand that held her shoulder instead wraps around to touch the broad of her back, his palm pressing down and feeling her body through her suit, he says this: "Don't get any ideas, Tali." It comes out colder than he intended, but she is hardly fazed, her shoulders drooping in comfort. She's seen him hurt, kill, before. He wouldn't do anything to her.

It comes down to reality

And it's fine with me 'cause I've let it slide

Don't care if it's Chinatown or on Riverside

I don't have any reasons

I've left them all behind

"Mm." She hums, still unmoving, her glowing eyes closed. "I know you're taken. Let me just enjoy myself a little."

The sigh that comes out of his mouth is one of guilt. To her, this type of casual, physical connection, it's rare, and to know it is a privilege she deserves and so much more. His fingers trace the designs of her suit into her shoulders, and she simply coos along as they slowly dance still.

He is taken even if he doesn't admit it to himself.

Taken by a war left behind, by a different life, by ODST squadmates lost and people he could've saved. All this, and more, summed up, and held in part, to the Spartan that watches him from the sidelines.

In Mai, her mouth is dry as he looks at JD hold onto Tali as she presses up against him. A feeling she cannot articulate in her chest rises as the air becomes a little clearer, the cold a little sharper. Cash doesn't need to be slotted into Mai right now to know the words that she cannot summon herself, or admit. For an AI such as him, looking through the glass, seeing the result of the project his former life worked for, it fascinates him so much.

Mai was a pinnacle of the Spartan Program, and yet, something is terribly wrong with her.

Mai is so focused on JD and Tali that she fails to see Garrus creep up besides her and see the same thing. Inaction isn't in Garrus's forte, however. "Uh. Chief Gul, would you mind a dan-"

"No."

He didn't quite know what to expect, hand rubbing the back of his ridged neck. "You know there are a bunch of Turians who specialize in Human dancing. Apparently dancing in the Human context is filled with so much more emotional connotation than back in the Hierarchy. With us it's more social; as in, can you do the steps in the right order and… Well, I didn't really take to it and-… Sorry. I'm rambling."

"Hm."

I don't have any reasons

I've left them all behind

I'm in a New York state of mind

"1-11. HVTs halfway to the Menagerie."

"Chief," Cash announces in Mai's ear. "HVTs on the way." She slinks into the shadows even more as she tips her head toward the entrance of the Menagerie. Always a crowd there, standing room only. "ETA five minutes."

The same alert is clandestinely sent to the omnis of those inside, and each takes a look up at Liara. It's on her to identify. There are dozens and dozens of other Asari in there, and to those who aren't, they blend together.

"You ready?" She isn't. Still, Tali and JD dance. All of the light aura that surrounded Tali that night up to that point drains out of her.

She lies. "I am."

Poison sits in a case on each of them. They only need three, one per.

"Don't miss." Wrex turns away from Liara, covering her back, a bubble around her on the balcony now giving her space to work, to concentrate. All those years in a Thessian university, all those months spent combing over the lines of ancient work and notes from other archeologists could not have prepared her for the simple act of pointing people out in the crowd. She was a good archeologist, anthropologist, historian, and everything beneath that umbrella of Prothean researcher. Her memory had been picture perfect down to the point of shades of colors and angles of markings on burnt up paneling of Prothean buildings. She had everything within her to do the simple thing of confirming the HVTs and whether or not they were worth it to grab; if they were Matriarch Benezia's cohort.

"1-11. They don't seem tipped off. Mission is go."

"1-2. Standing by with escorts." That was Kaiden by the closest establishment to the Menagerie: appropriately enough a coffee place for Salarians, or, at least, what counted for coffee for Salarians.

There is a shadow for modern warfighters that drapes itself on top of those on a mission. A combination of anxiety, training, or routine and danger merges into a violent profession where their names drop from their minds and assume codenames and tactical nomenclature meant all to smoothen over the wrinkles of natural Human language and behavior. It strips them of who they are and turns them into units, assets, soldiers. It is as much of a shield as a veil, a barrier, a comfortable distance between who they are and what they do. It is as dark as the dress Shepard finds herself in, and it flows over her as her comms go alight with affirmatives and operation go's.

This was how this type of work was supposed to be done, in any case. She's had the experience.

"And now, a ballad composed from Surkeshian composer, Riyaj Cire. Remotely composing over quantum link from Surkesh itself."

The lights dim above, and a flash of worry comes over those on that mission. What light there is reflects in the glass-like stars, and Tali shines even brighter. They have no choice; however, the conditions of the mission change, and this is like any away mission on distant worlds. No one falters as a ghostly apparition of the stage that was once catering to famous musicians past instead comes to a full, alien orchestra. None of the Normandy crew know what any of the instruments are; some are multi-manned affairs, others are hardly perceptible by the eye. A twenty-man orchestra of Salarians stands tiered in stands, wherever they are planets away, all before a single, olden, hunched back Salarian. His cranial protrusions, "horns," are long and curl at their length. He does not even face the crowd, all he does is raise his hands, a sword in his hand, and the orchestra readies.

The crowd by the entrance thickens as people from outside come in; this was a headlining event, and the dance floor with its dancers shrinks, but remains, Tali and JD still caught among them.

"1-11. They're about to enter. I've lost them. Standing by with retrieval teams."

Shepard takes in a breath, and she excuses herself from the present company. "I should go, but remember, consider it a personal favor to me if you act on anything I've said tonight." A favor to Shepard is a favored owed, and those who have listened to her talk about caring for the children are enticed further. A price well paid, she thinks, as she slips into the dark.

The first notes that come out of the Surkeshian orchestra sound like horns establishing a beat; the sound of this orchestra and why it was brought is immediately apparent. The glass around them harmonizes. It sings like angels as it makes the room shimmer.

Garrus slips into the dark with Mai, out into a corner to people's backs as they are engrossed with this spectacle. "How is that visor? If you like it, I could order one for you as well." He's nervous, breathing a little too fast, trying to be more alert than he can healthily be. "JD seems to like it well enough."

"It is not needed."

"…Right. Of course. Not with you."

A compliment, Mai realizes, even in this strange moment.

Above, Liara takes the sniper analogy from Wrex seriously, for she leans in forward, eyes squinting at the entrance, her hearing going as her mind focuses on sight and sight alone.

Silver. Red. Blue. That was the intel from the forward scouts.

It was decided to pull this off here instead of in transit: better to hide in plain sight, just like how any business on this planet was done.

In the dark, a flash of red, toward the entrance.

Her eyes snap to it like in the dozens of firefights she's already been in and, somehow, survived. More than that, firefights she had contributed to in meaningful ways: like nailing the target, killing them.

She can only see red because of the vibrancy, as she stands taller than the rest; however, the bobs of heads, the brief glimpses, it's enough for Liara to affirm positive ID. It leaves her speechless, but before she can keep it rolling, they split off after some words to each other, each going their way into the gala to enjoy the festivities of what they were brought out here to do: Eventually, it was the be an excellent looking arm piece for some executive, however, for now, they would have to find them.

She looks for blue first as she splits off, hardest shots first.

A name comes rushing back to her.

Suryia D'Kanti.

A junior Commando who was of being Benezia's chauffeur in the early days of Liara's life. She was smaller than most Asari and thus chosen to stand next to Benezia, giving the Matriarch an appearance and grandness every time she arrived in a function like this.

Liara's hands moved on their own eventually, remembering her mission before her mind could.

Typing, into her omni.

They're Benezia's. Blue dress. Suryia D'Kanti. Moving toward Y-shaped art piece and some refreshments.

It's closest to Mai and Garrus. They're first up.

Mai makes her acknowledgment as she finds Liara across the room at her perch and nods. Whether or not Liara can tell is no matter as Mai is the first to move. The other security guards still there barely notice how quietly she slips away, Garrus following.

"Chief Gul. I'll cut her off behind the art piece."

The rest is left unsaid as Garrus puts a little pep in his step, moving through people a little more roughly. As he does so, weaving, bobbing, sliding by, again in his vision, this time fully: A pink dress in his peripheral. There's not enough time for him to fully take it in, but he makes sure to find the face, and he does. It watches back at him and is gone as he intercepts Suryria.

The big Y is an art piece, a Human interpretation of Prothean fossilized trees as found in another quadrant of the Galaxy. Not many people are there in its corner of the room as Suryia goes along the edge, distracted by it. Where she was going in this party left waiting as a Turian came in front of her.

Straight and to the point. Matriarch Benezia allowed her this night to enjoy herself before the final moves began. She picked herself the best-looking Turian of the business executive roster and arranged the date. Indulging herself, it only tempted the two others to join in under a little more "dignified" auspices.

"Hello, miss? Can I talk to you?"

"Hm? Are you Rax?" Suryia asked curiously; in the dimmer light, the greyer Turian was a blur in her adjusting eyes. "Sorry I was late… The Matriarch had some… business with us before we left for the night."

Even before Garrus focused in her view, she reached out, soft hand touching his waist gently in intimate greeting. He had a few lies in his mind: a half-recognized face or maybe wanting to know what brand was her clothing. Nothing came out of him but an elongated vibrato in his throat, a hum, a pause.

"Benezia told us we could, in fact, be away from Peak 15 for a bit longer. A few days, maybe? It would be awful nice to spend it with you Rax."

A cute woman wanted to be held in his arms, and Garrus could do nothing as finally, his face focused for her. Embarrassment rose to her cheeks. "Oh! I'm so sorry!"

He was too.

Fast as lightning, the Lone Wolf pounced from the dark, blue eyes burning. To Garrus, seeing Mai stand over this Asari, still touching his waist so gently, looking down on her like meat, it is an image forever burned into her mind as one of Mai's arms wraps around her neck in a chokehold. With her grip strength alone, she has broken the neck of an Asari before. The force she puts on this Asari barely, by a margin as thin as paper, doesn't snap her spine and her neck. What happens instead as within the quarter second of the grip being held, the syringe is out of its case and jammed dead center into her back, along her spine. Before the Asari's breath can even be lost, the solution that invades her nervous system shocks her over, and she loses the feeling of her biotics first before she goes numb into the dark.

He had seen his fair share of darkness in the Galaxy. His service in the Turian Navy introduced him, and then C-Sec angered him. Here, with Shepard, he was complicit in it.

He had heard how kidnappings on the Citadel were; victims taken to the sex trafficking circuit or even pressed into slavery, all in the shadow of the galactic capital. C-Sec and the Spectres often had intelligence of where these operations happened, and evidence pointed to certain people; however, the law was the law, and it was innocent until proven guilty. Evil people walked in broad daylight—evil people who did what he was doing now.

Suryia spasmed, her touch leaving his shirt as Garrus stepped back, eyes rolling into the back of her head until, all at once, as Mai squeezed her chokehold a little tighter, she went limp.

He was a cop, and seeing this before him; he had fought his everything in his being not to do something for Suryia.

Instead, he turned around, and half a dozen people were watching, their eyes glowing in the dim dark. He did the only thing he could: He raised his arm, flashed his omni, stepping in front of Mai, blocking her from immediate sight to those that had seen out of the corner of her eyes what had just happened. On his omni, the sigil of the Spectres. His other hand had gone to lay across his stomach, down toward his waistband. Everyone there eventually knew what it was implying: he was a threat.

With that threat backing him, his arm that flashed the omni deactivated, instead raising one talon to his lips.

They understood.

"Garrus." It was Mai, holding the Asari's form in her arms. Mai was easily over three times her body mass and could hide in her frame alone. "Move out."

He felt blood in his throat, revulsion wanting to eject.

For all his late-night bellyaching to Shepard and JD about the red tape of C-Sec, for all that he already gone beyond it with Heart and those that stood opposed to the Normandy, this was truly beyond the bounds of what he had ever done, knowing what was to come.

Initially, Garrus's backside up against Mai was awkward, but she walked in lockstep with him with Suryia in the center. Those who looked on could not confirm what had been happening as they exited the Menagerie, quickly to rally point alpha with Kaiden and Ashley.

The same moral conflict in Garrus's head had been long on Kaiden's face as the first was delivered to them. In-between the Salarian coffee shop and another kiosk for one-use omni modules was a service hallway, another duo of Hitmen peering out and ready to take her in: a railroad, all the way to the final destination of a red light shop. Any bystanders, passersby, getting the message that this was above their head.

"1-2. First HVT ascertained." As quickly as Garrus and Mai had arrived with the Asari, they had left, the two Hitmen in the shadows emerging as Kaiden and Ashley handed the body over.

Before they returned, Garrus couldn't hold it. "Chief Gul, go ahead without me." Mai tilted her head at Garrus, but no clarification came as he ran off, out to a corner, to a trashcan she didn't see for him to purge his guts of nerves.

---

Silka Mari. Silver. Moving through the dance floor now.

Tali and JD were up.

The orchestra went on, raising in its volume, the stars shaking in its sound. Gradually, still dancing, JD pulled them ahead and forward. Craning his neck over his shoulder, they found their mark. Whoever Silka had been here to meet, she saw them past the dance floor. Asari Commando that she was, she always took the direct route.

She was Matriarch Benezia's personal courier, delivering confidential messages and packages across the Galaxy. She was entrusted with that cargo because she would die for it, and in that, Benezia saw her fit to, sometimes, have that cargo be Liara herself. Of all the faces there, Liara would not forget Silka, a constant face for her growing up, shuttled from planet to planet as they followed her mother.

It was JD who let go of Tali's hand first, "Get ready." He told her, entrusting her his life. They've been in firefights together, and here and now, that same urgency was held beneath the boiler cap that was in the middle of the dance floor.

"Silka Mari?" JD said her name aloud, and even in the quiet, even above the orchestra going on, she heard her name as a man several people deep put himself in front of her.

"You're not my partner tonight." She said astutely. "How do you know my name?"

He's always been upfront about life, the shock trooper that he is. "I believe you know Matriarch Benezia." He is the only man looking away from the stage, facing the opposite direction toward this Asari, which exudes threat, annoying looking at him dead on, a sneer in her eye.

"If you want to talk to the Matriarch you're going to have to-" Silka stopped her words mid-sentence, fully seeing this man. He wore a Human suit that was not the galactic standard, far more fur on his head than she preferred, but recognition came to her like the beat of a drum from the stage. The very fact that, maybe, maybe, she recognized who this was was- "Are you…?"

Fear in his eyes, JD had wondered what Mai had felt being frozen in combat. He had no intent to discover it now. "Tali!" He grit through his teeth, volume kept low.

"Bosh'tet!" The syringe which Tali had in her hand ready, approaching behind Silka, fell to the floor, causing Silka to turn around, unsure of what was happening except that it should not have been. As she turned, however, JD sprung, his syringe already popped, and before Silka could utter a sound in the middle of the dance floor, a crescendo of the orchestra hit as the needly went through the dress down into her dress, left of her sternum. Tali, scrambling, stepping on her wings, picked up her syringe from the floor miraculously, bumping into several bystanders as they danced around them.

Silka's mouth and face were held in pain, the surge through her chest only being beat by the stab in her back as Tali's syringe found home, and arms were around her waist: the Human holding her up.

Never in his life had JD felt surrounded, doing this where he was doing with hundreds of people around him.

It didn't matter, however, not as Tali gathered her breath, almost biting through her tongue, hands shaking as she held onto the syringe even when it was stabbed.

This was a crowd on Noveria.

As Slika's knees buckled, she looked out between the limbs coming to hold her up and lock her down, and she sees the eyes of the guilty look at her and do nothing. A dozen eyes look to her and see her, and yet she cannot reach out back.

Even with dancers and audience members pushed and shoved and perturbed by the elbows of JD and Tali in their almost botched attempt, they do nothing but look on as the music goes on.

Everyone in that room is guilty of some sort of sin. Murder. Stealing. Impropriety and moral mistakes of degrees that go from unholy to millions. They are guilty of another: seeing her get drugged, taken, abducted. Each of them has stood before sin before and done nothing all the same. That was just business on Noveria. They do nothing now as the world goes black for Silka, and by the time her body has disappeared from the Menagerie, it is out of their minds and instead filled in by an orchestra.

---

The last one:

Shepard is the only one left to be actionable, as the rest are taken within a minute of each other.

Red dress.

She glances down at the name Liara types, having spotted her and where she is right now, about to hit the converted barn for a drink from the entrance.

Ayaine Kesane.

It's all she gets, but that's all Shepard needs.

Above her, Liara turns to Wrex. "Could you please… escort me out of this place." She looks unwell, and Wrex's battle-hardened steel softens. He nods, offering an arm, which she takes, leaving the Menagerie. Her job done, her betrayal made and actualized for the mission.

It is up to Shepard now.

The Commander keeps her head low, shielding her eyes from those always curious about her until, in her heels, she steps right up behind to the open back of Ayaine, almost there, ready to make an order at the bar.

She mistakes the hand at the middle of her back as someone trying to get past her, but it remains, and before she can turn to confront, she feels the breath in her ear that carries words. Shepard whispers as the string-like horn rises, and the glass reverberates in the room. "Ayaine. If you don't come with me, I'll pulverize your spine before you can call up your own biotics."

"Who-?" Ayaine tries to whisper back urgently; she cannot get it out before the whisper in her ear smothers her thoughts.

"I'll leave you paralyzed, and throw you outside, stuck in your own head as you freeze alive. Do you think you'll look pretty like that? Frozen dead in this pretty dress?"

She has a way with words, and more often than not, it speaks to the heart. There are times she goes renegade, however. Expediency is her goal, and she has met it as the Asari nods a nod that is barely a millimeter. With Shepard's hand at her back, the tingle of abiotic pulse ready to go and grind her skull into dust, she is lead out and away. Some look on, and to Ayaine's despair, none think anything of what this looks like: to them, it simply appears that Shepard is taking an Asari home.

In a way, she is. Kaiden's eyes bulge out as the last Asari arrives, walking with Shepard. On his commander's face is that of triumph, vindication, and gut feelings that have kept her alive even in the middle of history.

Kaiden, wetting his mouth from its dry surprise as Ashley bypasses him, going to Shepard's side providing more security, speaks into his omni. "1-2 to all elements. Last HVT captured. Begin phase II."

Affirmatives ring up over the comm, and the dead stare that Ayaine has is right. For the first time in centuries, she feels the fear of dying.

---

Every planet has a red-light district of sorts. Wherever there is intelligent life that produces sexually, the need for sexual activity is commodified, objectified, sold and bought, and desired. Skyllian Dreams is one such club.

A strip club by any other name.

"She's awake?" Corporal Loke is surprised at Shepard. She's the last Hitman in as the shop is closed from the front; two Hitmen left out to guard. Ayaine is as awake as she's ever been quiet, eyes wide and breathing fast. She feels the biotic power off of Shepard's hand and knows that anything she could do, Shepard could do faster, basically touching her skin the entire way. She has a free hand, however, and she hears it work behind her, the sound of plastic being broken and then-

Shepard's hand is greasy as it is smeared up the line of her spine on her back.

For all her years alive, she has not felt the cold like she does now as she feels a part of her become muted. She doesn't have time enough to realize that her biotic powers are gone before Shepard's heel is in her back, and she is kicked forward into the dark, red light facility.

Skyllian Dreams is a strip club with a veneer of dignity. Leather everywhere, the smell: mute, clean. Along seats and railings surrounding a central pole: armed men and women, all Human. In the red dark, they all become amorphous blobs, faces hidden as their guns hang ready. They all look at her as she collapses on the floor before them.

Shepard gestures to Loke, and she comes over, taking up Ayaine by the arm. "Her own room. I'll be there in a second."

Gold-studded wallpaper collides with crimson lighting, and in the blur of coldness, Ayaine is to her feet again with a piercing grip on her arm, the darker Human woman known as Loke dragging her as several armed individuals from the group looking down on her follow. Demons are around her, and she has found herself in Hell. Demons are around her, and she has found herself in Hell.

"What-… Why can't-." She tries to summon and feel anything at her fingertips, but Shepard hears her before she is dragged away, kicking her heels and replacing them with boots left here in advance.

"Omega-Enkaphalin." Shepard says once as if a dirty word. "A compound lifted from a Cerberus facility I raided, few years back. It mutes out biotic powers. It's not permanent if you get through the night. I'll see you in a second."

Only now, in between it all, listening to her full voice, does Ayaine know who she's with now.

"Benezia, if you need to raise an army, a genocide, to kill Shepard. Do it." Those were the last words she had heard from Saren Arterius himself, spoken to Benezia before they left Virmire and that giant black ship. So much venom for that Human. To herself, it seemed overblown. She was only Human. What possibly could she be capable of?

As she is dragged through that hall meant for women and men to show themselves bare for the sake of cash, for sensual desire and lust, the rug beneath her knees burns the flesh, and she tries to wrest herself free. All she gets for her efforts is to be slammed against the wall, padded, forehead smacking into the corner as she is dragged into her own personal accommodations.

As she dazes, the red lights above streak in vision, those who handle her utterly silent as she makes out words above doors: Private Rooms. If only she could stand, she could feel the vibrations in her feet coming from the screams in that hallway.

Silka and Suryia.

What was going on? A question she asked but knew the answer to. She was an Asari Commando, an operative beneath Matriarch Benezia, working with her and Saren. She knew what was happening very well as a door was bust open, just for her, and in the middle of a velvet room sat a single chair.

Wiping her hand down, Shepard had nodded over to Kaiden to keep the operation rolling, people getting off their ass, to the windows of the establishment and peering through the blinds at a Noveria that didn't know any better. Harris had been one out front, posing as a scary man to dissuade those from coming in.

"1-2 to all elements. Processing now, update as necessary." Kaiden had been on the comm constantly, on a table with a tactical console out, tracking everyone's current status. It kept him distracted from what was happening in the VIP hallway. Skyllian Dreams had been turned into a forward operating base that night, with the gear of the Normandy brought there and ready, the largest object of which not lost on how hard it was to transport through the back hallways of Hanshan: MJOLNIR itself sat in its case.

Those that carried it over had become the first to handle MJOLNIR that hadn't been the chiefs, and with the realization that Mai's armor had been that heavy, Mai's strength had been revealed still. Every small revelation that came, came a little bit of a time.

"Found this, in Chief Durante's locker when we were collecting his gear." Emerson rolls it out from its square. It was a dirty flag, a unit banner, blood-red beneath the lighting with golden stitching: Shepard hadn't paid too much attention to the "pods," as Durante referred to them when asked, that was attached to the Normandy's bottom now. No occasion for their use case had come up yet, and given their experimental nature; she was in no hurry to use it. A silhouette of one such pod, however, was on this flag. "It's old."

In the middle of that golden silhouette was a skull, flaming, all while a ribbon wrapped on the bottom of the pod wrote out four letters: ODST.

Above that was a unit, written out: 13th Shock Troops Battalion.

"Not a unit I know, Skipper." Ashley peered over as she held guard.

The banner was worn down from what might've once been its glossy sheen. Even now, as Emerson held it, dirt and grind came out of its fibers, and what was once presumed to be muted color splotches were remnants of stains. Stains from what, no one wants to guess at that moment.

"Man, Durante should be here instead, he seems REAL black ops if the Alliance has been running this drop pod nonsense without any of us knowing."

Perhaps, Shepard mused, but she wouldn't bring anyone here if she had the choice, given what was happening in the back. "Put it back, Emerson, not our prerogative tonight."

"Aye, ma'am. Just food for thought."

With a single hand movement, she twirls her index finger up toward the ceiling in a lassoing motion, her men and women forming a school circle around her. "Alright, we have a few hours before that party starts cooling down. We grab what we can from them and then we motion for Port Hanshan security to come seize the HVTs. Grab a seat, stand guard, if there's any actionable intel we'll be at Port Hanshan before tomorrow morning. Oorah?"

"Oorah."

"Good. Kaiden, you have command."

Human black ops had remained the same in the nearly two centuries since it had been created in a storm of modern history. Kabul and Berlin had turned into Torfan and Shanxi, and there was a need for men and women with plausible deniability to work still amongst the stars. Shepard didn't need to be a Spectre to do what she was doing here.

Kaiden had turned over, going back to his comm as he organized the Hitman elements out in Noveria, doing what they needed to do before someone that mattered noticed that the three Asari had indeed been captured and taken care of. Anoleis was dealt with, thanks to Parasini. That Shepard had personally attended to before arriving at the party. All that left Shepard to do was her one-on-one time. She trusted her team to handle the rest.

"Pull as hard as they push, break, as far as they allow themselves to be broken." Almost ten years ago, she was given this lesson by Alec Ryder as she goes through survival training for the N Program, her teeth feeling crooked, her skull about to split, and her nose running red. "This is how you make people torture themselves."

It was a lesson that she learned, tied to a plastic chair in the middle of the Brazilian jungle during her training, and, undoubtedly, a lesson that all of Hitman had known as well as they stood ready for any contingency, while those who were assigned the task of processing did just that with the two HVTs that had already arrived by the time Ayaine had gotten there.

Shepard was a good woman, according to the Galaxy. But even good people do bad things. She held no illusions that she was liable to do something gruesome minutes after speaking to people about adoption.

There was a quote from the twenty-first century, spoken by a special forces fighter that she, and all in the N program, were descended from:

"We are unique and we have a job and that job is perhaps not popular, but it is a human activity. It has been with us since the very beginning of time, and it will continue to be with us until we exist no more. There are guys that do like war and they're good at it; there's no such thing as a "utopia." There are evil people in the world and they need to be dealt with handily."

In a perfect world, the three HVTs that they captured would know their lot and tell Shepard all there was to know about Benezia, about Saren, about the Reapers.

However, if it were a perfect world, there would be no need for Spectres, for N7s, for Spartans.

She would do what she would have to do tonight, and in that establishment, the walls were soundproofed. Walking with brevity to Ayaine's door, the second she walked in, Ayaine had finally known that this was an interrogation.

---

Phase II. Every team out there from the Normandy had their directives.

Alpha Team was now rolling back to Shepard: a good half of Hitman dedicated to the HVTs and the processing. Bravo was the other half, moving to secure the bay where the HVTs entered and, eventually, access Peak 15. All that left were the VIPs still on the ground floor, left to extra information gathering, just in case.

It wasn't so easy to move past what they had just done, however. Garrus, he had his moment, looking down into a trash can seeing the bile that was his nerves and misgivings. Hadn't he wanted to work like a Spectre after all the barriers of C-Sec? This was what it looked like. For Tali, however, she had been shaking still, a wing of hers that was caught beneath her foot somewhat torn as the gala went on, regardless of anything that had happened. This was normal, or, at least, within the permissible bounds of what was allowed there on Noveria.

JD, Mai, Tali, and Garrus were all that were left at the function, Liara and Wrex going away from that cursed place, still celebrating their fortunes as speakers and music filled the air. If anyone had any misgivings about what had just happened, it was left for another time and day.

"Are you good, Tali?" Garrus asks, even if they know she isn't. She runs her fingers against each other, trying to settle down their shake. How intimate, how personal, it was to poison a woman, black her out and take her. She cannot let that feeling leave her mind, even if she supports the end of life as she knows it.

"This is… uh, yeah, I'm fine." It's not like fighting the Geth or pirates that have shot at her first. This was something far more domestic than warfare.

It's Garrus's military training that takes over as he assumes squad lead position. The Chiefs don't oppose. "Look, we'll keep mingling, wait for the call." It's simple and straightforward, however, JD amends Garrus's orders with his hand on Tali's shoulder as she continues to try to calm down

She nods once—just another day on the job.

For them all, it is just another day on the job after the nastiness of abduction. They were in charge of the hard part, and so they were left to their own devices for now.

Tali wavers still."I… I just need to go find some place to sit down." She wanders off toward empty sofas along the sides, their sympathies with her.

JD's sympathies extend just a little bit more, looking up to Mai. His left hand cups his right, thumb up, pulsing toward Tali's back. She understands Mai following Tali into the crowd.

"No trouble?" Garrus wondered aloud at JD. For all they had done at that place, they still spoke in hushed toned. The crowd around them was unchanged.

JD shook his head, adjusting back his tie, disheveled just a bit from the nastiness. "She just fumbled a bit. We got there in the end."

"Mm… By the way, there's been someone in a dress out there that's been catching my eye. Human."

"Hm?" JD is half-listening as he makes sure he knows where Mai and Tali are in all of this.

"Pink." Garrus says. "I don't know how we didn't clock it earlier, but there's someone in pink around here, and, I dunno, it's a fairly deliberate color choice. Don't you think?"

A pink dress.

She was here.

"See you in a bit, Garrus." JD touches upon Garrus's arm as he disappears as well into that mass of people, off to do what he can with amorphous objectives and halfway hints. Shepard is better at these open-ended walks in the park, as they've all seen her walk among colonies and outposts and ask what needed to be done in their travels thus far. JD has a gut feeling about him in the shape of that woman yesterday, who promised him some sort of truth. However, the best positions are consistently elevated, so he climbs the stairs to where Liara once was.

Tali sits on one of the lobby's converted couches by herself, with Mai to thank for that. Her presence pushed people off and let Tali down on them, her eyes staring between her feet, bouncing up and down. "I almost messed that up, Mai."

Seconds pass. The orchestra has been done for a while, replaced with the general music again, and speakers still thanking foreign names for good business. "The HVT was still captured."

For Mai, the conditions of mission fulfillment were enough to smoothen out any wrinkles. The mission was paramount and thus, if satisfied, should be enough.

"It could've gotten bad though, in the middle of this."

"Correct."

It's not the girl-to-girl confidant conversation Tali was hoping for, but what else did she expect talking to the living equivalent of a brick wall? She has no malice for Mai, however. She's doing what she can: standing guard over her as the night goes on.

---

Someone touches his shoulder, half an hour standing there like Liara prior, looking for a flash of color among silvers and golds and glass. He finds none, but someone finds him. It's a man's hand. A Human male. Maybe it was Speculations, he thought, turning around to see.

It wasn't. Just another man he could pull out of any financial magazine, looking at him with a smile. "You look like the type of guy who needs a drink."

JD shakes his head, a noise out of his mouth that sounds like no, hopefully enough to wave him off. It doesn't, and JD wonders why he even bothered.

He thumbs in a direction toward the wall where the stage was on this floor. "Not talking about the regular stuff downstairs. Talking more about the special stuff. We've got a special selection in the back, if you're interested. I'm sure you'll find what you're looking for. Just gotta dig deep."

He's gone as someone else passes him, echoed words in his ears.

Out of his better judgment, it is an echo he follows; clues always were something that drew him out of his shell, following leads. His feet take him, past people, crowds thinning out, as he gets to the only door in that direction: stairwell access. The glitz and glamour are gone and replaced by concrete and steel. Only for his situational awareness, he looks down and then up.

Up makes sense to him but down doesn't. Brazen as he is, he looks down again from his second-floor access and sees levels far beyond one. It goes deeper than one would suspect, and it's the ODST in him that makes him want to go down.

So down he goes in a spiral, down into the mountain rock of Noveria.

There were always these types of establishments on Luna that went down to moonrock, unexposed to the surface world. Tunnel rats, making their way in looser terms than what JD's own family did. The mystique of an underworld itself was always one he tried to stay away from, even as a teen in the city with the draw to the dark places of the world.

For as hard as it was for him to die in the war, he always remembered sometimes curiosity killed cats. He was being fairly cat-like at the moment by the way he tried to minimize the noise of his steps on the off chance he was simply just finding his way into some restricted section of the hotel that some staff had to chase him out of.

It wasn't his first time doing something like this, however. Not when the Covenant laid siege to city centers and dug themselves deep. Stairways like this were always filled with the bugs, the Drones. It was one of the very few times he preferred an SMG, or better yet, a shotgun. Swarms needed such diligence.

Here he hadn't anything but himself and whatever he could summon on his omni, and he hadn't been as versed as Shepard withdrawing a blade from it as she had.

Jazz.

He always liked jazz. It echoed from below, and he followed it until he hit some sort of ground floor. This stairway served a dual purpose: one as a stairway, the other as a structural beam for the rest of the building, and, perhaps, Port Hanshan itself. At the very bottom of that shaft: an uncomplicated door.

Every time he popped his pod, he was greeted with a new world, so the déjà vu that came at him opening the one at the bottom, only to be met with a cave, sparkling blue above, crystalline entities providing light to illuminate the ghosts below.

Images of noir bars flooded his mind, and here he was, out from the cold. The floor had been smooth to a mirror sheen, almost like marble. That deep into Noveria, there was warmth.

Men and women sitting at round tables, with servants serving them meals or drinks, barely gave him any regards. Some gave him cheers; some had hardly cared at all. He felt comfortable enough, given all of them were Human, it looked like.

A secret club, perhaps? Seclusion is always made for attractive places to booze. He knew nothing of it, and the only person he recognized in that quietly murmuring establishment was a flash of pink, serving drinks at an empty bar on one end of the cavern, no more significant than the restaurant he worked at as a kid.

Servants leaned down, different than those from upstairs, whispering into the ears of some of the patrons, all of them looking hardly the dressed up as those upstairs. These people had nothing to prove.

JD passed them all, the quiet hum of the mountain itself underlining the slow jazz that emanated from hidden speakers, punctuated by the clink of silverware and the tings of glasses.

She looked at him, straight on, as he approached. Confidence in her eye. Standing room only at the counter.

"Sake?" Her first words to him. He nodded. Why not? His arm came to lean on it, doing another glance across where he had ended up. Maybe he had been numbed to danger, but there was a hint of mystery here that he had to know, culminating in this woman in pink.

She poured two shot glasses, one for him, one for herself. Tapping the two shot glasses together, she had said her cheers and downed it before JD had even picked it up.

Fragrant and fruity. As he downed it, he didn't need to say what he thought. It was good, and it showed on his face. The bottle of it had been white stone, surrounded by a covering of wood paneling, bamboo if he had to guess. "It's from a brewery, straddling the line between what was Russia and Japan: the Kuril Islands. It's sunken now, however. Rising sea levels did away with it." She observes the bottle, elegant fingers running it over before it disappears behind her with an assortment of other bottles, listing out years that are ancient history to both of them. "My Boss is very well versed in alcohol, and quite naturally I've picked some of that up. You seemed like a sake man to me."

He wouldn't disagree, passing the glass back to her. She's perhaps one of the most beautiful people he's ever seen, distractingly so. The way her skin glows like the moon, the way her body is curved in that dress that shows off far more skin than any of the Normandy's crew, it draws his attention, but not without precaution. She was more than skin and bones. She had intent.

Even JD could tell, looking past face value. "If I can ask," his breath is fresh, tasting like grapes. "What is this place?"

She is more than willing to answer in her imperial voice. "This place, it's a private bar, of course, for those who like their drinks chilled with diamonds and actual privacy from the rest of the vultures in this business."

And just like so many places on Noveria except the one place Shepard wants to go, all they needed to be here was to walk with the confidence of wanting to be here. It worked out for JD now.

"You called for me?" JD asked, "Had someone nudge me down here?"

She smiled; ink black eyebrow raised. "Perhaps, Mister Durante."

Names. Names were being used, and he knew hers: "Your name is Miranda, right?"

---

She tried not to worry about JD being out of her sight for more than a few minutes, but eventually, that faltered, and sooner rather than later, the tilt of her head scanning for possible threats had gone to search as Tali recomposed herself. It'd been a good thirty minutes since she'd last seen him, and the party had begun its final act. Already people had been shuffling out after a good night so far, standing amongst each other, talking over mood-setting music.

Perhaps that night, the three HVTs wouldn't be the only women taken off somewhere where they'd rather not be.

It was a fact of this business that Mai had figured out that the executives in the know and in the money had their trophies by their side, hugging themselves and framing them in excellence.

She didn't know how to fall in love or what it would be like to love. Still, she wondered if any of those trophy women that some of the executives had come with today to show off and boast at that function as they went from one group to another, weaved together by acquaintances recognized and well-wishes, had been in love.

How did that come about? Only people in love, enamored, could hold onto and be as close as they were to who they were bound to, right?

A conundrum, a question that she wasn't quite sure she'd know the answer to. It didn't warrant any discovery on her part. Not as JD was, momentarily, off on his own.

Mai spoke. "Where's Chief Durante?"

Tali had thought it a question to her, perking her head up, but instead, it was to the voice inside her head.

"Lemme ping his IFF chip." Cash had been on it as Garrus arrived. His suit had been a little looser; his collar let out.

"I was just getting grilled by a former office from the Navy. He runs his company like his ship. Great productivity, but terrible to work at." Mai ignores him. It's his turn to babysit.

"I'm going to go find Chief Durante." Garrus offers no resistance as unceremoniously she leaves the two of them, following a beacon Cash has placed for her.

He speaks up in his cowboy drawl. "Thankfully Tali's schematics came in handy. Follow this and we should get to Jonny-boy. Seems like he's a bit downward; hopefully not six-feet under if you catch my drift."

Following her HUD in one eye is a relatively new experience; however, in JD's tweaking of the unit she's borrowing, he had made it somewhat similar in format to the UNSC standard was there even across ODSTs to Spartans. Old habits die hard, and even if she is overreacting, which she suspects she might be, only she trusts herself to be a Lone Wolf. Anyone else pulling the act was foolhardy at best.

---

"Miranda Lawson." She clarifies, burns it into his ear. "It's not in my habits to dress like this, to be on this planet, but my Boss wanted to make contact. You followed me, didn't you?"

"Alliance?" JD asked. He did follow her, to be fair, hopefully not on the whim of more primal instincts. She didn't look military; however, the rumors and ghosts of ONI had influenced him here. Special agents running around in dresses; perhaps this was a friend of Sunglasses and Cleft-Lip.

"Not quite."

Saren's Geth and his mercenaries shot on sight, getting rid of all pretense of any political or societal barrier. Whether it was on the dunes of some planet in the Attican or in the Citadel itself, there was no pretext to an attack. Miranda had her pretexts.

"Mercenary group looking to hire?"

She shook her head. "Don't waste your breath guessing. I'm not trying to be coy. We're just waiting."

"For what?"

"For the other one."

He furrowed his eyebrows. "You looking for a fight?"

She pursed her lips, seriousness in it. "Hardly. I just want to make a case. In the end, I'm sure Shepard would appreciate it."

"Spectre?" JD guessed again. Her accent was of the Crown enough to remind him of James Bond. Maybe she was another spy.

She shook her head again. "Let's just say Shepard and who I represent are well acquainted."

Mai never fits in anywhere. She is a picture from a book of ancient heroes, cut out of the frame and pasted onto reality. When she walks into the room, she becomes the singularity. She barely fits in through the door, and she barely keeps herself from wielding the SMG on her side.

"The bait, the lure… and the catch." Miranda speaks to herself.

Hook, line, and sinker.

No one else in the room matters to Mai, vision dialing down on JD at the bar.

Slowly, as she had all night, she moves past people who shuffle out around her, the crowd thinning out, leaving only singular people at tables and in the shadows, the ghost of jazz fading out.

"What is this?" For once, Mai says what JD hasn't, and she returns to his side by the bar. Mai's voice is not loud, but it has volume enough as she stops halfway to JD, in the middle of the room. Around them, a circle closes, not of physical objects but focus. All eyes are on them, but only three people matter in that room.

"An offer." Miranda finally says, looking at Mai and seeing her in all of her war-born glory. How even in the dark, electric blue eyes cut deep.

"We should go." The first time Mai has said that she understands why Shepard uses it. It invokes power and command, and declaration. She doesn't care for what's happening here, but she knows something is wrong. This woman is dangerous in a way Mai cannot articulate.

"Master Chief Petty Officers, that's the rank they're now using for you two, isn't it?"

There's a frame of mind in which the two of them exist in. Two minds, two personas, very much alike, but different where it matters. This woman, JD had regarded her with the frame of mind that she was of the affairs of this Galaxy. Not anymore. Not when she said something like that, teasing him in the same way of how her dress knocked the masculine part of him.

Did she…?

He straightens his back, remembering who he was. Mai doesn't quite pick up on the implication, but she picks up on JD's density.

"What do you want? We're busy tonight." He asks, stone cold like the floor. It's not a tone that Mai hears from him often.

"I'll keep it brief then." She slides another glass of sake over after pouring it, and the liquid is not what spills. "You come from another Milky Way where you were engaged with a war against a fanatical empire of religious zealots." JD's brain goes clear. Gravity centers on his core as he backs into Mai. She stands steadfast. "An ODST, and a Spartan, serving the United Nations Space Command."

JD's voice is cold as it all returns to him: that someone has reminded him of who he is at heart. "…Who are you?" He knows her name, but not who she is.

Miranda stands straight, and her black hair frames her face, perfectly curved eyebrows looking down on them, even if she's smaller. Her perfect teeth cut the air as she talks between perfect lips.

"I represent the interests of Humanity and its advocates."

In the shadows, figures, armed men. Only Mai notices as she recenters her priorities, going back-to-back with JD as he stands before Miranda, getting a read of how many other people are in that room and if she could kill them all. She cannot, however, not when Miranda talks on and gives them an offer that they should've been given a long time ago:

"You're not being used to the best of your abilities, Private Durante, Lieutenant Gul. You know the real threats, where they lie, and what needs to be done. Cerberus can offer you something better."