Chapter 14: Unknown Kin

Author's Note: Well, it's been a while, but some more story comes forth from my brain…

Also, I've updated all the earlier chapters with typo/formatting corrections. As always, let me know if I've missed anything.

Shepard's brain hurt. He knew that was impossible. There were no nerves in his brain to hurt. That knowledge did not do anything about the fact that he was beginning to feel like almost like that traitorous psionic whose brains had, he heard, melted out his ears.

The Council and the ambassador had come up with twenty-seven people of every known species (except Vorcha) who they could both classify as Prothean experts and trusted, for a limited meaning of both. Tali wasn't even tired, despite prying the memories out of his head and shoving them into other peoples' more than two dozen times. Honestly, he almost wished that Tali had just held onto whatever it was, despite his standard overprotectiveness.

At least they were done now and he was free to sit still without anyone prodding his body, or brain. His squad was stood down and they were inside the ambassador's perimeter, eating, sleeping, or flirting with the ambassador's staff, or, in the case of Maale, attempting to do all three at once, which really shouldn't have been possible.

This wasn't important, except insofar as it meant that he was free to relax, as best he could. Head back against the wall, eyes closed, he didn't notice Miranda's approach until she was less than ten meters away. Embarrassing, that, but a thought set one of his implants releasing enough of the right chemicals in his brain to block out the pain helping him recover enough to be able to speak as she sat down next to him, though he didn't bother opening his eyes, but was grateful he'd remembered to cancel their breakfast. "Miri, what can I do for you?"

"I changed my perfume. Are my footsteps really that distinctive?"

"Yes."

"You know, I'm going to have to have the software in my implants checked just to figure that out."

"I wish you wouldn't, it's nice."

Miranda stared at him. "What?"

Shepard shrugged awkwardly, trying to put in words, "It's part of what I associate with you. I'm not real big on change."

"Then you're in the wrong line of work, commander."

"Maybe," he admitted tiredly.

"I'm surprised you'd admit it."

Shepard forced himself to sit up and open his eyes. Miranda was as lovely as ever, in yet another razor-edged suit, with a (presumably, but not definitively) different pair of Lawson Industries' guards lurking in the background. "I'm surprised you're here. Don't you have a company to run?"

"It mostly runs itself. Perks of being CEO."

"I know exactly how much you work Miri, and you definitely don't have time to come sit with me just because I've got a headache."

Miranda tilted her head in judicious admission of a point being made, "Eventually someone remembered that I'd been inside your head, just like all these other poor fools and started to worry I might have seen something classified. So they're bribing me to stick around until this whole mess leaks out."

"Bribing you?" Shepard tried to inject a note of curiosity or warning into his voice, but his sheer exhaustion made it a mostly futile effort.

"My lawyers tell me that I'm not allowed to bribe foreign officials, there's apparently nothing in the law preventing me from being bribed by foreign officials."

"That doesn't seem right."

"The Combine's concerned about corrupting foreign governments, not corrupt foreign governments corrupting corporations."

"That doesn't seem right," Shepard repeated.

"And they aren't paying me to do anything illegal, just stick around."

"Ah, that might help," Shepard admitted, then his brain finally worked, "Wait, what are they paying you?"

"The Salarian Union is giving Lawson Industries permission to set up a research station on Jartar."

Codex: Jartar, Unlocked.

"Jartar?"

"World the Hegemony stole the Leviathan of Dis from," Miranda glossed.

"Ah, the Area 51 of Citadel Space," John said.

"Are 51?"

"The Jartar of old Earth," he glossed, in turn, leaning forward with a smirk.

She laughed. "Can I ask a question?"

"You've asked plenty of them, Miri, why the hesitation now?"

"Because this one comes from poking around in your head, again."

"Yeah, not so pissed about it this time," Shepard said, deliberately keeping himself from stiffening at the reminder of her previous actions. "Ask away."

"After everything was over, I asked and you said no. I thought it was because you were pissed about the whole attempted mind scan thing. But well, your memory was real clear about what weren't the reasons you said no, but not why you did say no."

Shepard leaned back in his seat, surprised by the direction she'd taken the conversation. "After…everything was finished," his hands twitched, "I was surprised you asked given how things ended."

"I was impressed, not horrified, by your abilities," she interrupted, remembering what he'd thought she was feeling. "If that's what you thought."

"I wasn—I was, wasn't I?" he asked, realizing why she'd jumped to that thought

"Yes."

"That's…thank you. I hadn't realized how much that bugged me."

"You're welcome," she leaned slightly against him, offering support if he wanted to take it, but not pushing.

He didn't lean into her. "But you asked a question. You asked why I said no. This is going to sound like a line, but it's not, just listen to me all the way to the end, okay." He did lean into her then, just a little.

"Okay," Miranda was a little worried about that.

"It wasn't about you. It was about me. As the Corps' shrinks have told me at every mandated session I've ever had, I have control issues. I constructed my personality in defiance of the narrative I'd constructed for why the other Shepards had followed Wrex into treason. They let emotions motivate them to break their oaths and betray their nation. I therefore will not permit emotion to dictate my reactions."

"Okay, but you—"

"-are not done. You saw me completely lose control. I've never done that before or since and I didn't know how to deal with it. Still don't, really. So I…well, I guess if I was being honest, I'd say I ran. It was a cowardly thing to do and I'm sorry about it."

He stared straight ahead at the wall opposite them, which contained absolutely nothing which could be considered interesting.

"Well, shit," Miranda muttered.

"I—"

"My turn to talk," she interrupted him. "You planning to run again?"

He didn't make a joke about whether or not it was his turn to talk, or about the fact that he didn't think he could run at this moment. It wasn't the time and though usually he liked to break the tension in this moment he didn't want to change the mood. "My schedule isn't mine to control, but to the extent it is, no."

"Good answer. Bring us some food," she ordered one of her guards and waved the other to bring over a table.

"I'm not even sure I can stand up at this point," Shepard said, but he was smiling.

"That's why I'm having them bring over the food and a table. No need to get up."

"You'll spoil me."

She smirked back at him, "Then you'll just have to return the favor."

"When I can stand up again."

"It's a date."

XXXXX

Saren was beginning to lose his mind. It wasn't so much that he hated the other races as it was that he hated having anyone around who wasn't under his direct command. And the dozens of new people who were pouring onto the Ghost, while nominally under his command, were obviously loyal to other groups and only barely even pretending to loyalty to him. Even the other Turians had their own agendas. Infuriating.

At least the X-Com representative admitted he had no interest in obeying Saren and was happily maintaining his own powerbase by keeping his own ship attached to the Ghost. Of somewhat more interest was that C-Sec surveillance had seen a woman slip off the X-Com vessel before it launched from the Citadel to rejoin the Ghost. It was always good to identify people affiliated with X-Com. Unfortunately, the surveillance didn't get much more than a shadowed figure that was probably female and Human, or Asari.

Irritating, but probably not relevant to his current mission which was to sneak into the Terminus, visit a massive fleet made up of Batarians, Geth and Collectors (allegedly) and find out what the fuck they were up to. He'd never even wanted to refuse an assignment before, but this one came close. Which was why he'd decided to let the X-Com agent come along as he definitely wanted more firepower and that ship had stealth systems he wanted to use (and learn the secrets of).

He'd retired to the captain's quarters and was examining the files of his new, irritating officers. Though, he still had nothing at all on the X-Com agent, he did have complete files on everyone else. Most of the Combine personnel were naval crew, with only a pair of marines assigned. As he had his own crew and most of the Combine folks weren't assigned for this mission, but had been on the shipbuilding project (and he wasn't letting any Geth onboard), he only had those two new problems to worry about.

It was moderately irritating that his complete files on Staff Lieutenant Alenko didn't contain more information than the fact that he was biotic, a member of the Sentinel Corps and formerly part of the ambassador's guard on the Citadel. Still, from talking to him, Saren was fairly sure that Kaidan Alenko was appointed because he was steady, tough, loyal and already on the Citadel. He was Udina's man, through and through.

His fellow marine, Lieutenant James Vega was more worrisome. Vanguard Corps, on leave on the Citadel, this was the first time he'd ever left the Combine, which obviously made him some sort of internal security. A dangerous sort, as he was Vanguard Corps. And he just coincidentally happened to be on the Citadel when all this occurred. It stretched credulity. But, as the Hierarchy had provided a dozen marines under the command of a Lieutenant Tarquin Victus, he wasn't too worried about direct combat with the Combine soldiers and a Victus ought to able to keep up with one or two Human.

The Salarian team was led by a Doctor Gotum Eou, an expert in ship design and construction, with a dozen other experts in potentially relevant fields filling out their ranks. The doctor seemed relatively harmless, but Saren was certain that at least some of his subordinates were STG and his second in command, Kirrahe didn't even bother to pretend that he didn't think the Salarians (and by extension, he himself) should be in charge of this 'research' mission.

At least the Asari, led by Matriarch Benezia were easy to deal with, but he knew better than to let himself relax around them. They'd be trying to manipulate the situation to their advantage and that meant manipulating him. Dealing with matriarchs was always tricky as both their perspective and their experience made them difficult to predict and handle. At least her guards were the usual collection of maiden commandos, not particularly dangerous for anyone trained to handle biotics, as all Victus's troops were.

The Ghost had gone from almost empty to rather too full, but Saren's quarters remained off limits, partly because he was acting as the ship's captain, but mostly because the handful of Turians who'd worked with him before made sure he had a place to be alone and think, because they knew better than to deny him his alone space anywhere but the field.

Even worse, the trip was not going to be short, as the Batarians, or whomever manned their fleet, had chosen an out of the way system in the Terminus as their rally point. The fact that the system was populated mostly by Batarians, independent of both the Hegemony and the Combine made him rather dubious of the Combine's claims of Batarian extinction. Still, he'd find out soon enough. Well, actually, no, he'd find out eventually, whether it would be either 'soon enough' or 'too late' was up in the air.

Regardless, he needed to weld all the disparate pieces together into a single unit and he only knew one way to do that without resorting to calling in a giant team of Watchers from the Hierarchy and having them mind control everyone into getting along. That was to torture everyone with an endless parade of drills until they (1) learned to work together and (2) were united in their hatred of him. Unfortunately, he didn't have that long and he needed everyone to arrive in good shape and not to shoot him in the back, which meant that this was going to be a tricky balancing act and not a whole lot of fun for anyone.

Codex: Watchers, Unlocked.

XXXXX

"You think that's bad? Last time I was on security detail for V—a senior Salarian, I ended up having to play blocker between him and his mother. Do you know how loud a Salarian can shout? I didn't until I was being yelled at by a senior Dalatrass of the Salarian Union," Garrus said, leaning against the doorjam.

"Pshaw, that's nothing," Shepard countered, leaning against the other side of the large doorjam.

"By the end, she was speaking so fast that the computer translator couldn't keep up! It literally sounded like a series of chirps and clicks mixed in with the occasional successfully translated profanity!"

Though they were right next to one another, they didn't look at one another, instead they kept their eyes focused on the corridor. Shalira and a C-Sec officer were further out, keeping out civilians and acting as outer perimeter. The other members of their squad were inside the large lab which was stuffed with the archaeologists and historians Tali had stuffed his memories into.

"Please. Getting sworn at by the mother is nothing! I had a protectee who was sixteen years old. I don't even want to tell you some of the things I saw. If I never have to keep a crying ex away from a protectee ever again, it will still be too soon. I swear, kids have some sort of magic limpness which makes them impossible to move when they don't want to. Carrying a weeping football player off the protectee's lawn was bad enough, but when prom came around, I discovered she'd arranged to go with eight separate people as, she informed me and all of them, when they showed up, a protest about the pressures to be monogamous in Batarian society. Freaking teenagers. I thought there was going to be a riot right there at the school."

"You win. I've never had to protect anyone who wasn't an adult. Though some of them didn't act like it. That's how I acquired my working knowledge of the Citadel's seedier clubs."

"Now, see, you're lucky you said that to me. If you'd said that to Ash, you'd be giving her a tour of those clubs the moment you were off duty."

Garrus shrugged, flicking a glance over his shoulder at the other Human and he shuddered delicately. "Thanks for the warning."

"Don't like Humans?" Shepard asked, tone bleak, face a cold mask.

"No, no, no, that's not what I meant, I was just-" Garrus's hands waving desperately as he tried to find to pull his foot out of his mouth and back away at the same time without resorting to an awkward hop.

Shepard's mask cracked and he smirked at the Turian, "Too easy, Vakarian."

Garrus relaxed, slowly as he realized what had happened. "You're just messing with me?"

"Obviously," Shepard felt surprisingly comfortable around the Turian. Perhaps it was simply that the other man had seen him at a horrible low point, with a psionic attempting to rip his mind apart, or maybe they just worked together, it was hard to say. Which was why he'd pushed that easy camaraderie just a little bit away and also why he wanted it back, having done so.

"I'll remember that."

"Do."

"Hmmph."

They stood in silence for a moment. "Any news on the investigation into the gentleman who tried to screw with my head?"

"He really is who he appeared to be, not a surgical or Meld created duplicate, nor does he show any of the indicators of being a force grown clone."

"Besides a clone wouldn't be likely to have the needed psionic abilities."

"Depends how many you make. You hear rumors about what X-Com's up to."

"There's always rumors, but if he doesn't show signs of enhanced growth, there's no way a clone would be old enough to pass. Besides, that still leaves the question of what happened to the original and why anyone would go to all that effort."

"To get ahold of whatever was in your head that's worth all this, obviously," Garrus said, waving a hand back at the massive lab area they were guarding.

"Yeah, but I didn't know that this was coming. I don't see how anyone else could either. Activating a long-term agent, or maybe corrupting a soldier in the time between us getting the info and our arrival here is just barely possible. Anything else, not so much."

"It's always possible some other operation was diverted, but you're right, that suggests that however he was compromised was quite a while back. After he was going to be assigned to the Citadel is the obvious time to target him."

"Unless whoever he was working for had the power to get him assigned here," Shepard put in, more to contribute than because he expected a massive conspiracy.

"That's the Combine's problem. I'm more interested in the whole, brain-melting, thing. That's much more unique than some compromised soldier."

"Well, it wasn't the result of the traps the Sentinel Corps put in my head, those don't do that," Shepard offered.

"And I don't see how it could be whatever's in your head that causes brain-melting disease, seeing as Ms. Zorah was able to pull it out of your head and Ms. Lawson was able to dig around in your head without frying."

"Which leaves us with the obvious."

"Some sort of defense mechanism to prevent interrogation. Lends support to the long-term agent and conspiracy theory," Garrus agreed.

"Yeah. Still with one data point, any speculation would be pretty pointless," Shepard said.

"I don't know, their tactics and abilities tell us something. They've got some significant scientific and/or psionic capability. And their people are loyal enough to be willing to let them put a suicide switch in their head."

"Assuming it's voluntary and that they know what's going on," Shepard countered.

"Force has its risks. Hard to believe any sort of serious conspiracy could survive like that. All it takes is one person following procedure and reporting it to bring the whole thing down. And it's way too risky to try to lie to any sort of competent agent like that. Sooner or later the fail-safe would get triggered and anyone who saw would know what had really been put in their head."

"Assuming they know Mr. Melty was a member of their group."

"Fair p—" Garrus stopped talking as the news that the Krogan team had arrived at the outer perimeter, requesting admittance. That news reached Shepard at the exact same time. The Council had issued very specific orders on how this situation was to be handled.

A sharp command from Shepard had Tali falling back into a safe-room off the main lab area and activating broad-spectrum anti-psionic jammers in the main area. The heavy doors behind them that protected the safe-room would keep the jamming signal from touching anyone outside.

Garrus confirmed the Krogan were allowed inside to his outer perimeter. Shalira escorted the quartet to the main door, where Garrus and Shepard were standing, no longer leaning on the doorjam, but instead at a rigid attention which nevertheless left their hands quite close to their weapons.

Urdnot Wren led the way, flanked and guarded by his Krantt. Wren stopped and the older Krogan, Nakmor Drack stepped forward, to loom menacingly over Garrus. The other Shepard stood opposite John, with the Vorcha watching their back, though he was dwarfed by Shalira who'd followed them in. "Urdnot Wren demands entrance to this lab, in accordance with the agreement made with the Council."

"You may enter, if you wish. However, no one will be permitted to leave until the Council gives permission," Garrus said.

"That was not in the agreement," Wren snapped, sliding forward.

"The Council does not break its agreements. You are demanding access before we've confirmed the accuracy of your information. Permission to leave will be forthcoming either when the mystery is resolved, or after your information is confirmed, whichever comes first. This is a courtesy the Council has chosen to extend to you in order to permit you to evaluate the information beginning now, rather than when your information is confirmed."

"And should they claim we lied, they'll say they've got the right to keep us here forever," Drack said, rumbling into Garrus's face, despite the fact that he was talking to Wren.

"Should you breach our agreement, yes, we would have every right to prevent you from absconding with what you had stolen," Garrus agreed, without flinching back.

Drack's head snapped forward in a head-butt, which the Turian mostly dodged. Even the glancing impact might have knocked him backwards, but for the barrier which snapped up around him, courtesy of Shepard.

Jane started forward towards John, only to be waved back by Wren. "Sorry about that, officer. A cultural misunderstanding. The head-butt is merely emphatic, not assault for a Krogan. Drack sometimes forgets this in dealing with outsiders."

Given Jane's almost-attack and Drack's age, that was an obvious lie and an attempt to cast himself as the reasonable one in the group.

"Interesting," Shepard said as Garrus recovered. "Because it's culturally appropriate for a Sentinel to use his biotics—"

"Or her tail," Shalira hissed from behind them, looming threateningly over the diminutive Vorcha who was keeping her from Wren's back. The Vorcha twitched back slightly from Shalira, keeping his hands spread away from his sides and the weapons holstered there, though as there was clearly a flamer built into his gauntlet, that was less disarming than usual.

"Or her tail," Shepard agreed, "to rip off the head of anyone who attempts to attack his—or her—protectee. Isn't it interesting to learn about other cultures?"

"Aggressive. I like it!" Drack said with a smirk.

"No can rip off head with biotics," the Vorcha stated dismissively, then suddenly afflicted with self-doubt, "right, Wren?"

Wren's eyes flickered over the stoic Sentinel and the looming Viper, grateful for the wide-spread of his eyes. "No comment, but I think she could probably rip your head off. Not mine, or Drack's though."

"Shall we test that theory?" Shalira hissed, clawed hands flexing, empty of any weapon but those nature had given her, but not thereby less threatening.

"No, I don't think we shall," Wren answered, when Shepard declined to slap down his own subordinate.

"What is your decision? Come in, or wait?" Garrus asked, rather eager to get this matter resolved, before the Combine, or the Krogan could do something stupid.

"I'll come in. They'll come with me," Wren said with the calm certainty of a man stating an obvious fact, not one volunteering a trio of his independent fellows for an unknown period of detention. Wren, at least, was absolutely certain of their loyalty. As they didn't flinch, or hesitate in response to that statement, his trust was not misplaced.

"Then come, and be welcome," Garrus said, signaling for the door to be opened. Shepard shifted position slightly, ostensibly to clear the door, actually to ensure he had a clear line of sight as the jamming signal filling the lab spilled out into the hallway, to see which of the Krogan's allies flinched and revealed themselves as the psionic, or psionics of the group.

His attention was split amongst the four of them, as despite his earlier exposure to the Vorcha and its lack of a Mind Shield, he had a hard time believing that there could even be psionic Vorcha. It was, therefore, lucky that the Vorcha's reaction was so powerful, Shepard might have missed a flinch. As he instead huddled over, gagging, but not vomiting (Vorcha did not generally vomit, instead adapting to thrive on contaminated food).

Wren spun to see his comrade's distress and bellowed an order that the jammer be shut off, as the source of the Vorcha's distress was obvious. Weapons appeared in Drack's hands and Jane's, the massive Krogan closing and the Human slipping backwards, interposing herself between Wren, the injured Vorcha and Shalira, who was retreating just enough to not trigger violent instincts.

Shepard gave the order and the doors slid shut again, cutting off the jamming signal. "Oh, dear. I wish we'd known one of you was a psionic, we'd have warned you about the psionic defenses," he said with utterly insincere sympathy. Fortunately, they were too distracted to point out that they'd said the transfer would need to be overseen by their own psionic.

"A Vorcha psionic?" Garrus asked, stunned at the very idea, Vorcha not exactly being famed for their mental prowess. It took him a moment to recover while the Alliance warriors formed a living wall around their rapidly-recovering psionic, then the detective's brain began to combine a few things and his mandibles drooped for a moment, shocked by a thought which should have occurred to him, should have occurred to someone besides the Krogan it had obviously occurred to.

"Spirits…you're making Vorcha psionics, aren't you? Manufacturing them the same way people manufactured fire, or biotic resistant Vorcha. Hit them with fire, they become resistant to fire, rip at their thoughts with a psionic and they become psionic? Can that really work? Someone else surely would have tried it by now if that was the case," his words ran ahead of his brain, as it finally occurred to him that maybe he should not actually have raised this possibility in front of a Combine representative, or the Krogan, if, perhaps, he'd been wrong. "Besides, shouldn't it just render them resistant to psionics, not psionic themselves?"

Wren laughed deep in his throat, "Of course not. That would only be if psionics were used as direct attacks. Repeated mindfrays will result in a Vorcha resistant to such attacks, but a Vorcha whose mind is just touched by psionics as a child, they will awaken. At least 39% of the time. It varies radically depending on the psionic who is working with them. It's not a matter of power, it almost seems to be a matter of personality. The most successful was—"

"Sir!" Jane Shepard snapped, her quieter warnings and unsubtle stomp on the Krogan's foot having not stopped the eager flow of words from a scientific mind triggered to discuss what was clearly its favorite topic.

Wren glanced around, "Oh, uh, right, okay. Yes, do disable the defenses and let's get in there and get to work."

"So that's what you've been doing? Raising Vorcha psionics?" John Shepard asked, somewhere between shocked at the banality of it and shocked at the potential impact of it. The critical shortages of Meld that had followed first contact had mostly passed and almost all genetic illnesses had been cured (except in the small populations of Refusers), but continual population expansion and discoveries of additional uses of Meld meant that the substance was more valuable gram-for-gram than element zero.

Codex: Refusers, Unlocked.

If the Krogan could actually create Vorcha psionics and those psionics could, like all other psionics be turned into Meld…

Vorcha only lived a couple of decades, tops.

The potential military implications were worrisome, both from the number of psionics the Alliance would be able to field and the alterations they could make to their more elite troops with essentially unlimited Meld. The potential economic effects were destabilizing, but not something Shepard had to worry about.

"Oh, yes, obviously. It's not like it's a secret. I'm quite sure most of your intelligence services know about it," Urdnot Wren. "I suppose they just haven't shared it with you."

"Well, the jammers are off now, if you still want to enter," Garrus put in as he considered whether Wren was telling the truth, mistaken, or messing with them.

"Of course, this should be fun," Wren said, with the cheerfulness of a scientist about to perform an interesting experiment.

This time the door opening involved no pain for anyone, though Shepard refused to turn his back on the Krogan, or his krantt. The Sentinel likewise declined to remain outside, leaving external security in Garrus's hands (with Shalira along to make sure the Combine's interests were seen to) and joined them inside the lab, where work was simultaneously proceeding and paused, depending on the sensitivities and focus of the researchers.

Liara, unsurprisingly was amongst those so focused on their work that she completely ignored the opening door, continuing to focus on reviewing every known Prothean artifact in a fruitless attempt to spark some sort of recognition, or reaction. She'd been at it since they started and didn't appear to be willing to give up until she'd examined every artifact from every recorded angle. In fact, she wasn't willing to give up even then, as she'd been attempting to get permission to actually handle the handful of Prothean artifacts on the Citadel. Shepard had started avoiding her after she began blaming him for the destruction of the other artifacts on Purasi, because 'clearly' the visions were the mental imprint of a Prothean who'd lived there and those artifacts would have triggered something.

Most of the other researchers were attempting to trigger things by other means. Several were sitting around, blindfolded, listening to endless streams of all known sounds in all known languages, hoping to stumble over something that would sound the same as some Prothean word and trigger a reaction, a cascade of memories, as most of them believed could be triggered. Others were trying views of Purasi, one was trying various scents. An Elcor was trying dozens of different foodstuffs. In a corner of the room a quartet of Asari and a Turian were sitting in various poses, meditating. The Turian psionic Benezia had coopted was sitting in the corner playing a game which flashed and beeped, as he did not care about Prothean bullshit and was just there because he had secrets in his head and because Benezia paid for his time. And everywhere, a bunch of people were staring with various degrees of confusion and hostility at the Krogan and his krantt.

In turn, the Alliance personnel turned on Shepard, "You've shared this vision widely, I see," Wren said.

"Many brains make light work," Shepard said with a smirk.

"How's it going?"

"You'd have to ask someone with clearance to do more than stand outside the door and make sure no one sneaks in."

"Ah, the joys of working for a big bloated bureaucracy," Jane put in with a smirk of her own.

John's eyes flicked over to her, then dismissed her without making any of the many, many responses which occurred to him. "Our psionic will be here in a moment, you're authorized to use yours to transfer the information from me. I recommend you accept it from one of the others, or let our psionic do it as the," he couldn't resist, "bloated bureaucracy mandates certain protections for my mind, which may give your psionic some problems."

"So long as my psionic can observe, it's fine," Wren said, in the determinedly calm tones of someone who was going to keep the peace, regardless of what provocations were tossed at him. Coming from a Krogan, to two Humans it was…unusual.

"Tali, whenever you're ready," Shepard said to the air. Before anyone could ask any questions, Tali slid into position. Like most psionics she did end up going hands on, one on the back of Shepard's neck, the other on Wren's cheek, just under his, still-soft bone plate. Then again, most psionics would have had to have their subjects remove their Mind Shields. She didn't.

A moment later, Wren was collapsing backwards towards the floor, his krantt watching with some concern and some amusement. None of them bothered to catch him. A fall from that height could not possibly injure a Krogan and none of them wanted to be restrained by hefting five hundred pounds of Krogan.

"That was supposed to happen, right?" Jane asked, while Drack was laughing at the fallen Krogan.

"Yes. You should have seen what happened with Kortin," Tali jerked her head towards the Elcor standing selecting from the various flavor palettes in front of him.

Jane nodded. Then her eyes flicked over to John. "So, you're a Shepard too? Any relation?"

"Assuming you are descended from one of the Shepards who betrayed the Combine to run off with Urdnot Wrex and be space pirates, yes," Shepard said, doing his best to keep his tone completely factual.

"Yep. Grandmama was a senior X-Com field officer," Jane said cheerfully.

John just stared right through her in response.

Jane stared right back, though at him, not through him.

Tension began to rise, but fortunately Wren began to wake up (a lot faster than any of the non-Krogan, non-Elcor had) with muttering groans and twitches which would have been amusing if anyone had been watching him rather than the pair of Shepards. Drack was in fact watching everything, the benefit of having such widely spread eyes and did indeed find it amusing; Wrecker wasn't watching anything except Tali and that was mostly in minor panic at the very idea of being ordered to attempt to oppose the other psionic.

Drack offered him a hand and yanked the smaller Krogan to his feet in a single smooth motion, which just coincidentally gave Wren a clear shot to pull loose Drack's assault rifle and open up on the throng, if he chose to.

He did not.

"Wrecker?" he asked when he could stand without assistance, even if it was a leaning, shuffle where the room was slowly revolving around him.

"I can't swear to it, but it appeared to be pulled out and dumped in without alteration. She is a lot more powerful than I am though. It would not be beyond her capabilities to deceive me."

There was a brief pause as everyone who wasn't a member of Wren's krantt took a moment to recover from that speech and recognize that this Vorcha was not going to speak in pidgin, even if his voice did have the same raspy growl of other Vorcha.

"But then again, with her power, she could just make you see whatever we want to see," Wren said, with half-a-glower at the Quarian.

Tali didn't wilt under the glare. "The usual response to that is that, if so, you would not even suspect it, so your suspicion is itself proof of my innocence. However the very popularity of that argument renders it self-defeating. As I obviously would leave you your suspicion, as any lack thereof would be inherently suspicious."

"Which is why we leave psionic stuff to the psionics—" John began.

"And Psionic Security," Tali interrupted with just a hint of bitterness at the mention of the force responsible for policing psionics.

Codex: Psionic Security, Unlocked.

"And get on with our business," Shepard concluded with an unsubtle shooing gesture at the Alliance team.

"We'll talk soon," Jane said with a smirk at the other human.

"I doubt it."

"Don't."

XXXXX

Codex: Jartar:

Jartar was a world bordering Hegemony space, which reportedly once contained the remains of a massive living starship known as the Leviathan of Dis. The Salarian team which discovered the ship were killed to the last by a Hegemony SIU strike team, which snatched up as much of the Leviathan as they could carry off. Though the theft was successful, the Salarian team sent word back to the Salarian Union, before they were killed. The political fallout from that incident was swallowed by the Combine-Hegemony conflict, though it may well have been a factor in the Union's decision not to object to the Combine's actions.

The Union was still embarrassed and so, with Hegemony forces routed and the Combine forces overextended, despite their victory, the Salarian Union claimed the Dis System as a protected system and began an intensive research project studying the remaining pieces and seeking more information regarding the Leviathan.

The Union provided some evidence that the Leviathan was not Prothean technology and the rest of the Council backed off their demands that the remnants be turned over. Jartar has remained off limits to all civilian traffic and closed to all other militaries ever since. It has, therefore become the holy grail of conspiracy theorists and is a destination for kooks, cranks and spies from all over the known galaxy. Reportedly the Shadow Broker has lost more than twenty-six agents attempting to infiltrate Jartar in the last forty years and other efforts have reportedly been made.

The current official consensus of all non-Union governments is that there's nothing of interest to them on Jartar and anyone who thinks otherwise has been baited into wasting time, energy and money pursuing a difficult target which contains nothing of value. The truth is unknown.

Codex: Watchers:

The Watchers are the Hierarchy's main psionic force. Though Turians have a relatively low percentage of psionics, when compared to Humans, or even Quarians and lack the absurd power of most Quarian psionics, their large population means that they still possess the second largest total number of psionics. This is especially true as a surprisingly high percentage of Volus demonstrate some psionic ability. In fact, there are rather more Turian psionics than there are Turian biotics, resulting in a debate over whether psionics should be segregated in separate units like the biotic Cabals, or integrated into line regiments.

In the end, the Hierarchy chose to treat them like most other specialists, with the vast majority being attached to line regiments, with only the strongest and best being assigned to more dedicated psionic units. The equivalent of the 26th Armiger Legion's Havoc soldiers, or Ghost infiltrators, Watchers are generally deployed to counteract enemy psionics, in support of criminal investigations, or to assist in infiltration missions. Though most intelligence services snap up psionics, Turian Intelligence's low status puts it last in line for recruiting serious psionics, let alone those who'd qualify as Watchers.

Codex: Refusers:

The term Refusers originally referred to Quarians who refused the Meld treatments that would free them from their suits, mostly for political/religious reasons (as it was argued that such treatments reduced the need to reclaim Rannoch) and Humans who refused Meld treatments to treat genetic illnesses, mostly for religious/political reasons (either concern about the effect of altering the body on the soul, concern about injecting bits of corpses into themselves, or distrust of the source of Meld). These two groups worked together quite effectively on that one issue, ensuring that despite some pressure, especially regarding treatment of children, there was no legal problem with refusing Meld treatments, even for their children. This was helped along by how expensive and in-demand Meld was.

Since contact between the Citadel and the Combine was opened and Citadel scientists began studying Meld, there have been numerous groups who had scientific, religious, political, ethical, legal, or economic objections to Meld. These groups are colloquially known as Refusers, despite having no connection to the original group.

The original, political meaning of the name has mostly died out, following their legal victory inside the Combine. However several groups still proudly refer to themselves as Refusers. Indeed, at this point Refusers generally spend more time arguing amongst themselves about what is required to truly be a Refuser (Must all forms of Meld treatments be refused, or only those originating from Humans? Quarians? Humans and Quarians? Okay, then, must all genetic treatments be refused, or merely Meld treatments? What about other forms of medical intervention? Etc.) than dealing with those who do not bear that label.

Codex: Psionic Security:

Psionic Security is the branch of Combine Security charged with the regulation and protection of psionics. For the most part this is handled by low level administrative officers, who investigate claims of discrimination against psionics, or fraud by psionics. The main thing that makes them different from any other Combine Security officer is the requirement for anti-psionic conditioning and anti-control implants. The former, along with the Mind Shield results in most psionics not being able to interfere with them. The latter ensures that if a psionic does make it through those defenses, they Security officer will not be of any use, as they'll be too busy being unconscious.

The combination of the unpleasantness of the conditioning and the brain surgery required for the implants, along with the fact that Psionic Security isn't paid any more than non-Psionic Security makes recruiting a constant problem. However, in recent years, recruitment has increased following the creation of a holo-series about the work of an elite task force of Psionic Security officers (and the inevitable hot Asari biotic).

Author's Note: Reviews/comments are always welcome, if my prolonged absence hasn't chased everyone off.