THE ARCHOS
CITADEL
WIDOW SYSTEM
SERPENT NEBULA
MAY 5, 2014
The Archos had once been nothing more than a neighborhood bar in one section of the Wards. People had come there to eat, drink, and relax; everyday people who lived and worked in the Wards. The common folk, if you could call such an interesting menagerie of aliens common.
That was before the Domination of the Draka had emerged onto the galactic stage and the drakensis had arrived on the Citadel. Some said it was the name of the place, so similar to the name of their chief elected official, that had first attracted the Draka to this otherwise unremarkable bar. There were plenty of more popular clubs in the Wards where people could go to be seen... or to be part of the scene.
But the drakensis, uncomfortable in loud and cramped surroundings, had found the quieter Archos more to their liking and had invaded and conquered the place as surely as India or Europe. The locals had been intimidated out by the throngs of Draka in War Directorate black and the silk, linen and velvet suits of Citizens visiting the Citadel on the business of their State or the Combines.
Janet Lefarge stood just around a corner in the back of the place, her pale blue eyes scanning back and forth across the crowd, her eyes never lingering on one individual for long. Long experience had taught her that many people could feel it when people watched them, and she certainly didn't want to attract too much attention to herself in this place. She had, in fact, arrived hours ago when there had been hardly anyone in the Archos to avoid any extraneous contact with drakensis.
Nothing yet, ran through her mind amidst a tinge of annoyance. Her contact was late, but according to the psych eval on her dossier that was unsurprising. Still annoying though. Letting a breath sigh out through her nostrils, Janet turned her attention back to the stage in the center of the bar.
Sitting at one side of the stage were one of the aspects of Draka entertainment the owner of the bar had taken advantage of to cater to its newest regulars: a live band of four female servus with the ivory-skin, straight black hair and slanted eyes of East Asia. They each wore a silk qipao, a form-fitting dress, of different colors with embroidered Chinese dragons. They were playing classical Chinese music with a liuqin mandolin, an erhu fiddle, a yangqin hammered dulcimer, and a guzheng plucked zither – a traditional teahouse ensemble.
Accompanying the Earth-based music were the electronic beats and pulses that seemed to dominate the clubs of the greater galaxy. They made an incongruous combination, but the mix of the two actually seemed to work. Similarly, the qipao-clad asari dancers – whose dresses possessed designs and cuts far more provocative than those of the servus musicians – who swayed and moved languorously with the music seemed to complement both it and the band.
Janet frowned slightly. Slavery was technically illegal on the Citadel, but the Archos had gotten around that by establishing contracts with Draka slave traders for their creche trained live entertainment performers to go on musical 'tours' to the Citadel. Annoyingly, it seemed to skirt the regulations enough that C-Sec was turning a blind eye, while the Chinese ensemble had been preceded by a group of East European Gypsies and another performing Indian Carnatic music.
Her eyes went to the orange number tattoo below the left ear of one of the servus musicians, then to the placid expression on her face. She felt a chill run along her spine and swallowed convulsively as she averted her gaze, feeling slightly nauseous. God, those servus creep me out, she thought. They were all perfectly content to be slaves, happily doing whatever their masters wished. They've been reduced to domestic animals, playthings, and they've gene-engineered them into liking it.
Her eyes came to rest on a group of drakensis sitting at, and standing around, a table, drinking hanar liquors and watching the dancers up on the stage intently. One of them said something that made the others smile and one or two to chuckle. Janet's lips compressed into a tight line. It was bad enough that the Council was looking the other way when it came to both them and the batarians. But for them to be doing so damn well! she thought with a rush of anger. They were the latest darlings of galactic high culture, and provoked a sort of sick fascination among many across Citadel Space.
Publicly they were as courteous with the other races as they were among their own Race, though they had become infamous for getting into fights and duels whenever they felt they had been insulted, or whenever their innate drakensis competitiveness got the better of them. But a decade of running ops for the SSI had shown Janet that it was all a veneer, that below the diplomatically 'correct' facade they put up the Domination's Krypteia people were as busy now – busier – as they had been during the Protracted Struggle.
But nothing concrete yet, she thought unhappily. She wanted nothing better than to find some piece of incontrovertible proof for the human ambassador to present to the Council, something that would spur them to send the Council Fleet – with the Samothracian Naval Forces at their head – through the Charon mass relay to turn Archona and the rest of the Domination into a series of smoking craters.
Janet was stirred from her reverie when a figure approached the group of drakensis. An asari, dressed in a mostly Draka Classical-style gown of fine materials imported from Thessia itself – a purple burgundy ensemble that left one blue shoulder bare and had a cut over the midriff to reveal a flat toned stomach and an unmistakable navel. She bowed her head slightly to the drakensis, respectfully but not at all subservient, and made apparently pleasant small-talk with them.
The SSI agent took a moment to run the alien's features through her mind, then nodded to herself fractionally as the name came to her. That was the proprietor of the Archos, an asari matriarch named Besirea. She had first opened the bar around the time the French and Indian War was being fought on Earth and had been running it ever since. She had taken the influx of drakensis into her establishment in stride and transformed it from a local bar into a higher-class lounge catering to her mostly drakensis clientele, though there were minority amounts of batarians and asari and the odd members of the other races – with the notable exception of humans, of course. No Samothracian would normally step willingly into a Snake pit.
Janet stepped back from the corner as the asari bowed her head to the group again, then started making her way towards the back. The human backed along the wall until she was ensconced in a dark corner with a view of the door leading to the back office, then leaned back until her shoulders were resting against the wall and stuffed her hands into her jacket's pockets. She waited silently as Besirea walked past, now with two armored turian bodyguards in touched the glowing green panel next to the door to open it, and went through. The turians stepped to either side of the doorway and took up positions, grabbing a compact rectangle from a locking holster on their armor and hitting a button that caused a handle, stock and barrel to unfold from it. Now armed with assault rifles, they held them at the ready in their arms and visibly settled themselves for a long wait, their avian eyes alert.
A couple of silent minutes more. Finally, she pushed off from the wall with a flexing of her back to her shoulders and walked casually towards the two turians, her hands still in her pockets. The turians stiffened as she approached from out of the darkness, starting to bring their rifles to bear on her, then visibly paused as they looked her over.
Janet felt a flash of annoyance as she stood there and let them. She knew that aliens had a difficult time telling humans and drakensis apart, and objectively she could even understand it. Both races had roughly similar appearances and were far closer genetically than, say, an asari and a turian; they didn't even have the same basic amino acids. It's still annoying.
But she was wearing a light jacket over a tank top, blue denim pants and utilitarian boots – a far plainer outfit than any a drakensis would be caught dead wearing. But, more basically, her black hair was also longer than the Draka norm in a bob cut, and her shoulders were thinner and musculature less pronounced. Humans were a far rarer sight on the Citadel – most stayed in Samothracian space out of an instilled sense of civic duty – but the other species had largely learned what cues to look for to tell the difference.
After she felt the tension leak out of the situation, Janet pulled her hands out of her pockets and let them hang at her sides, palms facing the guards and fingers spread. "I have an appointment," she remarked. "I believe I'm expected?"
The two bodyguards exchanged a quick look, then one brought a three-fingered hand to an earpiece. "Tell her there's a human here. Says she has an appointment." Silence, then a nod. "Alright." He turned his attention back to the visitor and said, "Go on in."
Janet nodded in reply and walked through as the door's halves slid open. Her footsteps sounded clearly as she walked made her way through a storage room filled with lockers and crates, and she noted a couple of salarian workers off to one side chatting in their rapid-fire way. They watched curiously as the human walked past, then their conversation resumed again behind her.
A pair of doors at the back separated by a short corridor slid open as she approached. She walked through and paused briefly at what met her eyes before continuing. She was in an office appointed in such luxury that none of the drakensis outside in the Archos' main room would have been ashamed to call it their own.
There were three levels to the office, each with a few steps leading up to the next one, that drew the eye inevitably the desk at the back and the person seated behind it. Janet was on the lowest one; the second, which dominated the room, was taken up by small lounging area made up of a table and surrounding couches. The table itself was crystal on brass filigree stands that looked vaguely Arab, while the couches were upholstered in leather from some animal of non-Terran origin. The walls had silk hangings patterned with Draka style murals of African landscapes and hunting scenes, as well as paintings of asari origin that showed spacescapes of nebulae and the surfaces of exotic planets. The uppermost level at the back of the room was mostly taken up with a large desk of some unfamiliar glossy-russet wood whose surface was occupied by a perscomp, several datapads and a crystal goblet whose stem was inlaid with gold, filled with a pale green liquid.
And seated behind the desk was Besirea, lounging against the back of her office chair with casual relaxation as she watched the human take in the surroundings with a smile. Standing to either side of her were two more guards, these two massive krogan with labyrinths of scars disfiguring the faces and throats that were the only parts of them visible outside their armor. They each held large shotguns that looked as if they would have broken the arm of any human that tried to fire them.
Two more guards stepped up to either side of her, an asari and a salarian. The salarian began tapping on the holographic interface of his omni-tool as he scanned it over her over her. Janet brought her hands up to shoulder height and let him. "There's a pistol at the small of my back," she commented before the scan could get that far – better to get that out of the way and try to establish a mutual trust. An electric squeal from the omni-tool confirmed her statement a moment later, and the asari guard lifted the back of her jacket and pulled the pistol from the holster to the right of her spine. Besirea inclined her head in acknowledgment of the gesture and beckoned her forward.
Janet walked forward through the lounge area while the two guards behind her resumed their stations at their end of the office. Besirea noted the disapproving glance she shot the murals along the way and gave a light, melodic chuckle as she beckoned the SSI agent into the chair before her desk.
"I know your people have their... issues with the Draka," the asari matriarch began as her guest sat, "but surely their actions aren't the fault of these lovely tapestries?"
Janet's expression remained neutral as she watched the asari's face in silence for a long moment, then replied. "Your people never experienced the Draka at their worst. When you experience that level of ruthlessness, of... evil, anything of theirs is inevitably tainted."
Besirea considered the words, then gave a regretful sigh as she took the crystal goblet in one hand and held it idly. "A shame you see it that way." A smile as she took a sip and then watched the human over the edge of the glass. "Someone as lovely as you shouldn't spend so much of an unfortunately short span on such a fierce hatred."
Janet blinked in shock before she could stop herself, taken aback. Wha-? But she's a woman! her mind gibbered. She shifted in her seat as she recomposed herself, admonishing herself internally. Yes, she looks female, but the asari are a monogendered species, she reminded herself. Still, it had been a shock; same-sex relationships were, if not forbidden, frowned upon in Samothracian society, a reaction to the Drakas' loose sexuality from before the Fall, as well as humanity's low numbers that were in need of strengthening.
Besirea, with the experience her long centuries of life lent her, noticed the effect her comment had and smiled, taking a longer drink before setting the goblet back down and resting her hands on the desktop. "Let's get straight to business, shall we?" she said, cutting through the awkward moment to spare the human woman any further embarrassment. "Our mutual friends arranged this meeting because I have some information that may be of interest to you."
The human took a breath through her nose before nodding, partly in acknowledgment and partly in thanks for moving on to another subject. "Yes," she confirmed, then sat back in her chair and crossed her legs. "If you'll pardon me, though, I'm... surprised that you're offering." She spared a glance towards the silken murals for emphasis.
The asari followed her gaze, then spread her hands. "I admit that I admire them to some extent," she admitted. "Their patronage of my establishment has made me quite wealthy, and I find their arts sublime.
"However," she continued, "further investigation did reveal the rather... offputting underpinnings to their society. Or should I say Final Society?" A quirk of her mouth that could have been either a wry smile or a grimace of distaste. "Their art deserves its admiration for being merely what it is, and their species has made its own contributions to the galaxy. But their Domination should not be allowed to grow unchecked." A smile that reached her eyes this time. "That is where you come in, is it not?"
Janet sat in silence for a long moment as she studied the owner of the Archos, then nodded slowly and let herself smile. "So it is," she said. Her eyes followed the asari's hand as she opened one of the drawers on her side of the desk and pulled out a datapad, then held it out over the desk. She reached out and gripped the datapad to take it from her, but looked up, startled, when the matriarch held it firm.
Besirea's eyes held hers when they met. "We both work for the same cause, Miss Lefarge." At the SSI agent's unspoken question: "Civilization. To hold back anything that would extinguish it."
Janet found herself smiling again, and the asari matriarch released the datapad to be slid into an inner pocket of the human's jacket. She stood from her seat and, before turning away, said, "For civilization." With another nod, she turned and walked away, stopping to retrieve her pistol before walking out.