Ripples in the Stream

A D&D / Shadowrun / Mass Effect crossover by Vyrexuviel

Disclaimer: The author of this story does not, in any way, derive any profit from the story. D&D, Shadowrun and Mass Effect are the property of their respective copyright holders. Jorukaia and other unfamiliar characters in this story, however, are mine.

Aethyta'd been kicking around the galaxy for quite some time. She spent a couple decades dancing on stages both elegant and seedy, saved up enough with her friends to buy an old quarian scout-ship and went gallivanting around the galaxy, hunting out that ever-illusive golden glory jackpot, a mineral find that would make them all rich. They never found it, but they managed to make a profit on more runs than they made losses, so eventually they all retired from exploring asteroid fields and drifted apart. Shevanna was one of the few that Aethyta kept in touch with, her old engineer having gone into aftermarket ship modifications, and the two of them kept their old ship in running condition.

One thing lead to another and before she had realized it, she'd become a matron, and the urge to settle down and raise kids came over her. She had the usual few of them, twice with a krogan, once with a turian, but she and her daughters never really connected the way other asari bonded with their children.

Now, sliding into matriarch, she'd been around the galaxy for a very long time, made one fortune, lost it and built up another. She met a wonderful woman, one with a heart that blazed, and damn her for a fool, but she would have wed Benezia T'soni, had not political considerations kept them apart She'd seen sights both wondrous and bizarre, breathtaking and horrific. But none of that prepared her for the act of stepping through a door that should not be there, and into another world.

The air was crisp, cool but not cold, and while the small box canyon at the edge of the cliff was fairly well-lit with two ancient-style free-standing lamp-posts, the sky overhead had the same breathtaking clarity Aethyta remembered from countless uninhabited worlds. Clear, cold and brilliant, the stars overhead wove a tapestry of diamonds embedded in jet. The canyon floor had three main walkways, two along the squared-off edges that ran out to the edge of the cliff, and between them was a wide expanse of garden. Low plants and just two carefully-shaped bonsai trees gave way to what looked similar to a human-style zen rock garden, with carefully-tended swirls and stones placed just so. Between the trees, she could just make out what looked like a raised meditation platform suspended off the edge of the cliff. She turned, noting the worn walls and the fact that the far end of the canyon seemed to have been worked, widened and flattened into a stone wall with a single door in its center.

But what really held her attention was the free-standing arch, a good 3m tall and maybe half that wide, made of a stone so black it seemed to eat the light that touched it. Faint lines of every color of the rainbow seemed to weave through it, just below the surface, and vanished when one looked closely, but the archway was still full of a view of the tiny, cramped little apartment that Jona Siberys had rented, showing an angle that should have been from a bare, blank wall.

She turned back to the tall, silent, dark figure, "Alright, what the flaming FUCK is this?!"

Joru just adored seeing the expression of shock and amazement. It was one of her few pleasures that didn't invoke the beast, and she gave a quiet snicker. "Welcome to my Refuge, Matriarch Aethyta."

"Refuge? From what? Just where in the galaxy are we?"

Joru grinned unrepentantly and prepared to blow Aethyta's mind again. "We aren't."

"Aren't what?"

"In your galaxy."

The kitchen was surprisingly rustic. Wooden tables, stone counters and a small metal basin next to a larger sink. An ancient-looking iron stove, with only a hint of rust at one corner, served as both oven and stove-top, and on which a kettle was just beginning to boil. The tall, sleekly scaled woman was humming something tunelessly under her breath as her tail swayed behind her, shifting the teakettle from the stove to the tray beside it, turning back to her guest and adding a few fragrant leaves to each of the eggshell-thin cups before pouring boiling water over both and letting them steep.

Jona, 'no, her name is Jorukaia', gave a gentle smile as she set one cup and saucer before her guest. The flight to the Refuge proper had been both terrifying and exhilarating, clinging to this strange woman's back as twin wings had burst into existence, just after she had dived off the cliff. Aethyta's nerves had calmed almost at once, but it was never going to be her favorite method of travel, and she absolutely would not let Jona 'Joru, dammit!' carry her bridal-style.

The cup rattled in the saucer a bit as Aethyta picked it up, and took a tiny sip of the still-steaming tea. She pursed her lips in appreciation, for while it was hardly one of the Khevish-root teas from Thessia, it was still quite good.

"So let me get this straight, you're not from my universe?"

"Pretty much." Joru gave a faint smile, sipping her own tea and giving her guest a glance with those eerie gold-in-red eyes. "I didn't exactly have much choice in the matter. It was this or oblivion."

"Yeah, and about that, just what was it that gave you that choice?"

Joru shrugged slightly, "I might have called it Ao, once. The Overgod, the Lord of Deities, take your pick. You might have called it Athame, or the unified consciousness of all possible realities. All I know is that it was an intelligence so vast and different from my own that it had to step itself down several layers of understanding to be able to express a concept in a way that would not shatter my mind."

The asari gave a shiver at that. "And just what did it say to you?"

"It wasn't in words, nor even precisely in images, but raw concepts." The taller woman's tail shifted restlessly as she took another sip of tea. "I was... an anomaly. Something that should not exist where I was. I belonged to a timestream, but my home one was... distant, for lack of a better term."

"I thought you said you were outside spacetime? Doesn't that mean that everything was equally distant?"

"Not precisely. I think it was more in terms of energy expenditure to put me back where I was. In any event, I was not supposed to be where I was, so it was going to remove me."

"That sounds rather painful."

The darastrix gave another shrug. "I don't know. But something stopped it. One of the tapestries 'near' us flickered and changed. That caught its attention, even more than the curiosity of a finite mortal existing in the infinite non-existence where we were."

"What did it do?" The tea was a bit odd, but starting to grow on her. Aethyta took another sip.

"It examined it, then offered me a choice." Joru shifted, glancing meaningfully at her guest, "A thread had been pulled. A strand of destiny had been unraveled and ended before its time. I was offered the chance to take its place, step into a dead-woman's shoes. Or I could be extinguished."

"Doesn't sound like much of a choice."

"No, it wasn't. Still. Once I had seen what had been changed, I couldn't turn aside, even if I could have instantly gone back to my homeworld."

"What had been changed that made you so eager to dive into a different universe?"

The taller woman sighed, rolling her fragile teacup back and forth in hands that could tear steel. "Death. Destruction, and damnation. And above it all, shapes. I couldn't quite make them out, but they were...pleased."

She gave a soft sigh and continued, "I actually saw that timestream twice. The first time, it was as it should have been. Time is slippery to grasp at the best of times, but in a place where it is literally just another direction you can look, I saw a huge swath of the timestream, though not in quite enough detail to make out precisely what events caused such a huge disturbance in the Tapestry."

Aethyta held her breath. This hadn't been what she had expected.

After a moment, her hostess continued, gazing into her dark tea. "A woman's life had been ended prematurely, before her thread could entwine and change the course of thousands, if not billions of other threads. The vast majority of threads do not touch more than a few, possibly as many as a dozen in their lifetimes. But certain individuals have a greater Destiny, granted either by choice or fate, call it what you will. This woman would have touched the entire galaxy, given time."

The darastrix gave a sigh, sipped her tea and went on. "In the original timeline, the ripples of her actions continued far past the point where her thread ended. I think she did more than merely touch people, she inspired them so that her deeds and actions altered their decisions long after she was dead. I am still not certain exactly what she did, but I like to think she gave hope to a people in the grip of a terror so total that death was preferable to facing it."

Something about that made Aethyta grow cold, "What sort of thing could be that bad?"

A shake of the horned head, "I have no idea. But I did see what happened when her thread was removed prematurely. The tapestry shifted as I passed closer, showing me war on a scale I could not fathom." She turned those flaming eyes on her guest, her words cold and harsh now, "Families ripped apart, fighting themselves. Sister turned on sister, mother against child. Entire worlds burned, Aethyta. Thessia was a barren rock."

Hardened as she was, the asari gave a faint gasp at that.

"And then came the Harvest."

"Harvest, what harvest?"

Another shake of the head, "I would rather not speak of it. It's all just images in my head now. Hopefully, that future will never come to pass."

There was a moment of silence after that, neither of them having the stomach for more tea just at present. Eventually, Aethyta broke it. "So, what do you plan to do?"

"What I can." Joru straightened a bit, "I was allowed to see certain faces, certain places. I'm certain they're important, but I don't know how or why. Certain events played themselves out before my eyes as I was drawn into the Tapestry, some in what I believe is the future, others in the past."

Those flaming eyes turned to Aethyta, "Your face was one of them. A minor player, but an important one."

Aethyta's eyes widened at that, "Me? What did I do to be singled out like that?"

A faint chuckle rumbled from her hostess, "Not what you did, what you're going to do." She gave a sigh, "But already what I know is starting to fray and become unusable. Liara was a vastly more important person, and she was not meant to be captured. That's why I tried to get to her as quickly as I could. She was in danger, but in the first timeline, she was rescued before Saren's Geth got to her."

The asari shivered, and after some internal debate, Aethyta reached out to pat the scaled hand, "I'm certain you did your best, with what you had."

The violence with which her hand was thrown off startled her. "I could have done more! If I hadn't been thrice-blasted stupid, I could have used the computers on board the Normandy to find out where Liara was and gone directly to her! If I had bothered to shift myself back into Shepard's shape when I woke, none of this would be happening, I'd still be on the Normandy."

She subsided and heaved a heavy sigh, "Hells, I might have been a Spectre already. My power certainly would not have hurt in that regard."

Aethyta blinked, "Wait, what, Spectre? They were considering this, Shepard for Spectre candidacy?"

A nod, and a faint grin, "Technically, it was me they were considering. Shepard has been dead for the past 13 years. I'm the one who did what they considered remarkable enough to consider for Special Tactics and Recon. Still. That wasn't really me either."

Joru glanced over at the asari again, "You see, when I arrived, I was shifted to look exactly like Shepard, and my abilities put under a lock. I was forced to think of myself as Shepard, unaware of who and what I truly was, I believed to the core of my being that not only was I human, but that my name was Jordan Shepard, and I had just killed every last batarian who had massacred my family on Mindoir."

The matriarch winced, "Ouch."

That drew a slight smile from Joru, "Yeah. Ouch. Still, better than what happened to Shepard."

"What did happen to her? I think you said that her... thread was cut prematurely?"

Another nod, "Yes. I don't know the precise specifics of how her fate was changed, but I got a very good look at her last moments, as I arrived to fill her place. She had just killed the last batarian slaver. Her parents were dead, her uncle and aunt were dead, her grandmother was dead, her cousins were dead, her sister was dead, her brother-in-law was dead, her niece was dead. Everyone she knew was dead."

"Post-combat shock?"

"Perhaps. Or perhaps the urge came from outside. Whatever its origin, she laughed. It was a...broken sound."

Aethyta shivered, she could just imagine it.

"Then she took the gun she had torn from a cooling batarian corpse, that she had used to kill her family's murderers, put it to her head, and pulled the trigger. She was smiling."

The asari winced and looked into her tea. It had gotten cold, but she took a sip anyway.

"That was when I arrived."

She needed to shift the subject, this was getting too dark. "Yeah, and about that, this wasn't your first time hopping between dimensions, right?"

A faint chuckle from the taller woman, "No. The first was completely by accident. I had found myself in an untenable position, fighting a foe far beyond my abilities, and did what I could to try to escape. A combination of different magics, converging at the right point at the right time caused a rupture that directed itself to another universe, similar to how lighting builds up and up until it grounds itself in the earth."

"Yeah, and that's how you wound up on Earth?"

"Mmhmmm. I spent more than six decades there, from the start of their Awakening in 2012, through to the year 2075."

"Damn, and you're a time-traveler too?"

Joru just gave a laugh, grinning a little as Aethyta struggled to suppress a yawn. "Not precisely, but I think that we should perhaps retire."

She stood, setting her cup down and offering a hand with claw-tipped fingers to her guest, "You may use my bed this night. I shall meditate, I think. I have missed this place sorely, and had thought it lost forever when I awoke to myself."

Aethyta grimaced, but nodded, knocking back the last of the tea and rising, "I suppose I should sleep." She poked Joru's arm, with a faint, wry smile, "But I'm going to ask more questions in the morning."

The dragoness merely smiled.

"Get that hose out, come on, come on!" The fire chief was frantic. The call had come in more than an hour ago, but no one had realized how bad it was until the second hover-truck arrived, to find the first one an incinerated mess, and most of the crew suffering from third-degree burns. An explosion nearby had caused part of the decking to collapse, pinning the truck and trapping most of the crew. It took them several long, precious minutes to get clear enough to get a good signal back to the firehouse.

"Move it, you sparkly blue bitches! COME ON!" Vectis hadn't been fire marshal back when the Tarelli Tower had gone up, but he'd heard the stories, they all had. One of the most prestigious and oldest towers in Nos Astra, it had been brought down when one of the gang-wars in its underside had gotten out of hand, and both sides' munitions stockpiles had been detonated. Minor cave-ins were to be expected, but too many of the main support pillars had been cut at once, weakened by the raging firestorms that had destroyed much of the underlevel, and then the damned explosives had gone off...

He had vowed, as all of them had, to give their lives rather than let something like that happen again. Thankfully, his crew was one of the most disciplined in the business, and damn territorial disputes or not, he brought his best to make good and spirits-blasted sure this wasn't going to be a disaster.

The fifth and sixth trucks had arrived by now, and the heavily-armored asari rescue troopers were jumping off before it had even slowed down. Some of his best-trained girls, they were highly useful in finding survivors. The four of them used the momentum to charge into the flames and begin their urgent search. In a way, they were his shock-troops, his elite, in this very different kind of war. They hunted for survivors, for anything that could be a danger, for things that could turn a bad situation worse, and make sure that he wouldn't be sacrificing more lives trying to win an unwinnable battle.

First reports had been chilling. A controlled fire in the central-lower nexus of one of the older towers. He and his station chiefs had heard the stories, and some of the older asari had actually been around when the tower fell. He'd scrambled his units, but only Liriana's group was close enough to respond immediately. When he hadn't heard back from them in a while, he sent the second truck to make sure they were just having comm problems. When he heard from them, he scrambled everything.

"It's no good, chief, that fire's too hot for water, and our chemical suppressors aren't doing a damn bit of difference!" Liriana and her group had been pulled from the wreck and sent with medical evac to the nearest hospital for emergency treatment.

"Cover everything you can and at least try to stop it from spreading! We have to preserve the pillars at all costs!" He'd fought many kinds of fires in the past, simple office fires, chemical fires, even a fire in an explosives plant, luckily with no actual explosives on-site, but that was a harrowing experience.

"We've tried, sir, and it seems to be working, but the damned heat is making it impossible-" His second-in-command broke off at a shout from the doorway. The fire was intense, even a dozen meters away. The heavily-armored figure that emerged was wreathed smoke and stained with soot, but the figure it had over its shoulder was nothing good.

Krogan, and a big one. He would have towered over Vectis, had he been whole. Mostly, he was just charred at this point. Krogan suffered burns much the same as everyone else, even the vaunted Krogan regeneration didn't do shit to burns, and this one was covered in 3rd and 4th degree burns, despite his armor.

"Spirits-blast them." He made his way over to the figure, one of his elite, and shouted to be heard over the roar of the inferno behind them. "Where'd you find him!?"

"Three doors in!" The asari's voice was amplified by her suit, but she still had to shout over the hungry bellowing of the fire. "He was trapped under a fallen wall! Had to use three of us to get him out! Veris and Takir are still searching!"

"Get back inside and check for others!" He nearly jumped out of his suit when the krogan grasped weakly at his chest.

"Please..." The wheeze was barely audible, "Have... Have to get away... The eyes... She watches..." The krogan's chest hitched and he gave a horrendous cough, spraying soot into the air.

Vectis and his elite shared a look, "I've got him. Get back and check for more."

The elite didn't bother replying, merely turned and charged once more into the flames.

The roar of the flames seemed to do more than bellow at them, there was a resonance to it that he hadn't heard before. It didn't just seem to be the usual roar of fire, but an actual, twisted shriek that send shivers up his spine despite the infernal heat. "Spirits help us."

The matriarch woke to the sound of singing. It took her a moment to place her surroundings, so very different to her own bedchambers in her spire-level apartment. Wood-paneled walls and a soft, thick carpet over what felt like a smooth stone floor as she got to her feet brought back memories of the conversation with that... individual she had met last night. Well, technically she had met Joru back on Therum, but she didn't know that at the time.

The bedroom was tastefully furnished, elegant hardwood furniture in a minimalistic style that somehow clashed with the boisterous energy she sensed beneath the surface of her calm host. The bed itself was quite modern, a huge expanse of mattress, both in length as well as breadth, to accommodate the long tail as well as the tall frame of her host. Absently, Aethyta straightened the bedsheets, wondering how often Jorukaia had to replace them. The woman's claws weren't exactly retractable.

The rest of the bedroom held two free-standing cabinets and a walk-in closet. The cabinets, glass-fronted, held various knick-knacks, including one medium-sized sculpture with soft, flowing curves in some sort of gleaming metal. As much as she wanted to, Aethyta restrained the urge to rummage through her hostess's things. She dressed in her old clothes, which had apparently been cleaned, laundered and folded overnight.

The singing was coming from outside, and after some hesitation, Aethyta stepped out onto the stone balcony projecting out from the cliff-face. The entire complex was built into the cliff-side, hollowed out by magic, according to Joru, including this natural-looking outcrop that ran along the length of the main section of the Refuge. It ran from the bedroom area, on the left as one looked at the cliff, over to the library complex on the right, passing the kitchen and study in the process. The bath was over left of the bedroom, but Aethyta had more pressing concerns.

There was no way to get out of the Refuge save by flying, and her host was nowhere to be seen.

She walked the length of the 'porch', trying to localize the singing. Joru had a pretty nice voice, feminine, though deeper than most asari ever got. The song was wordless, just a soft tone that seemed to resonate, provoking soft stirs of emotion. Aethyta had just figured out that the singing was coming from the area they had arrived in, the box-canyon entryway to the Refuge-dimension, when the singing ceased. She sat in one of the wickerwork chairs and waited.

She didn't have to wait long, Joru came into view around the thick vertical bulge in the rock face that separated the Refuge Proper from the Entryway, silent on black wings, and touched down with easy grace. "I hope I did not disturb you, it's not often I feel the urge to sing in the mornings."

"Nah, it's fine." Aethyta shrugged one shoulder, indicating one of the other chairs, "I was about done with sleeping for the night anyway. Besides, you have a nice voice."

Joru smiled and bowed her head slightly at the compliment, and Aethyta shifted a bit. "We kinda talked the night away, but I still think you're holding back. Most of the things we talked about were why you're here and how you got here, but I still don't really know where you came from. Just who are you, Joru? What sort of childhood made you what you are?"

The dragoness stilled and for a moment Aethyta braced herself for an explosion of violence before a faint smile touched the taller woman's lips. "I suppose you have a right to be curious, though my past is hardly a happy one."

"I'd still like to hear."

The ebon-scaled woman gave a faint sigh, "Alright. I'll tell you some more of my tale, but I think we could both use some breakfast first."

The years hadn't been kind to Detective Anaya's sense of outrage, nor her naivete. She'd seen quite a few scenes that were worse than this one, chemical factory disasters, even some murders were more violent.

The problem was one of scale.

Fifteen bodies at least in the first room they had managed to get into and that number was tentative, and likely a lot higher once they got the bloodwork back from the lab. There'd been a lot of Tuchankan blood spilled in here, and not just spilled but splashed about as if someone had been playing water-bomb with blood bags. And then there was the smell...

Charred meat, burnt bone, and an undefinable stink that made even her experienced nose scrunch up in distaste. She wasn't sure what it was, and she didn't want to find out if she could help it. The lab techs were more suited to that sort of thing than she was.

"Detective." She turned at the call from one of her techs, "We've got someone out here who wants in..."

"Yes, well? Who is it?"

"Um, Spectre Vasir, Ma'am."

Anaya's spirits sank. If there was a Spectre involved in this, things were going to escalate hard and pretty damned fast. "You got confirmation on that?"

"Yes, ma'am, she checks out."

'Damn,' she thought, "Well, send her in, don't keep a Spectre waiting."

The asari who sauntered in was clad in dark-blue armor with small white panels, something of a trademark of hers. Tela Vasir was older than Anaya, but not by much, and she'd been made a Spectre only last century. She was an oddball, but that wasn't saying much, most Spectres were odd in their own ways. Vasir's eccentricity was that she usually stayed on Illium, where her spreading connections cradled most of the border-world. She was one of the few Spectres to make her status blatant, open and public. Most Spectres preferred to be off-the-books, at least publicly. It made infiltration jobs a lot easier if your face wasn't plastered all over the Extranet.

She moved with the sort of easy grace that belied the weight of the armor suit she wore, glancing about and giving a low whistle. That made Anaya smile faintly, getting a bit of praise from a Spectre, even if only on the messiness of a crime-scene in her precinct. "How can I help you, Spectre?"

Vasir didn't turn to face her immediately, examining the carnage instead, "Actually, I was thinking I could help you out a bit." She turned, giving Anaya a look and a quirk of the lips in a slight smile, "To be frank Detective, I'm kinda bored right now. I cleared up the last of that sapient trafficking ring three months ago, and I've been up to my scalp in nothing but busywork since. I need something I can sink my teeth into, so I canvassed the I-Sec system, and this came up."

A surprisingly frank answer from someone reputed to be aloof and distant. "I, well. I suppose if you really want in on this investigation, I can't stop you, Spectre, though I think we've got things well enough in hand."

Vasir merely nodded a bit, glancing at the pile of vorcha bodies off to one side. "Mind giving me the rundown on what you know so far? It looks like a lot happened in here."

Anaya gave a faint nod, turning back towards the open door. "We think that happened first."

"The door?" Vasir's brow quirked at that, "What about it?"

"It was forced open."

Both brows rose that time. "Really. That would have taken some heavy equipment."

The detective savored the moment, before continuing. "It was done by hand. The imprint of a palm and fingers is quite visible."

Vasir hesitated for a moment, then gave a slight grin. "I just knew I would find something interesting down here. What else?"

"The vorcha weren't killed first. We think there was a krogan in here too, but the lab is still working on that."

"No corpse? He walked off?"

"No. See the flaked patches on the wall? Blood splatter. And there's a bunch of chunks of meat scattered around, most of them have been removed."

"He got torn apart?" Vasir's brows rose again at that. "Must've been some crazy bastard to do that. I've seen krogan rip off limbs in blood-rage, but never seen one ripped entirely apart."

Anaya shrugged one shoulder, stepping carefully through the splatters on the floor and leading the Spectre towards the next doorway, nodding towards a third. "That way lead to the secondary hanger. Not much happened in there that we can tell. We think there was another gunship in there, maybe a troop transport, but it's not there now. Some survivors at any rate."

Vasir merely cocked her head, following along behind the detective. Her omnitool was out and scanning, no doubt more effective than the cops doing the official scanning, even at the greater range. Spectres got all the best toys.

Anaya had to duck under a hanging support beam to get through the corridor. "Someone ran through here. Two krogan at least, to judge by the chemical traces and blood spoor. Something else too, though we aren't sure what. Whatever it was didn't leave a chemical trace, but we did get some blood splatter."

"Some thing? And wait, the krogan were running away from it?"

"Yeah. We aren't sure what it was, and it didn't leave tracks. We only confirmed its presence due to the camera footage adn some annomylous blood samples. We'll forward it to your office." The detective pointed to a couple spots on the wall, "We think the krogan shot at whatever it was. Note that the blood splatter is fairly consistent with an unarmored and unshielded target."

Vasir took a closer look, her omnitool's scanning beam rapidly cycling over the blood drops. "Hmm... moving pretty fast to judge by the blood spoor, and I think there might be at least two different wounds."

"We thought so too." The detective moved slowly along the corridor, pointing out the various small blood drops. "We figure that whatever it was, we think it was bipedal, had a stride of nearly three meters, and was running flat out."

"Pretty damned tall too, no doubt, with that kind of stride." The spectre's omnitool rapidly scanned over and over the droplets from various directions. "Hmm... hemoglobin, so iron-based blood, but very thick and viscous."

"It's not in our database yet, so whatever was bleeding was possibly a new species. We're thinking it might have been some sort of pet that got loose right now, but that's subject to further evidence."

Anaya turned down a cross-corridor and paused at the doorway at its center until the Spectre caught up. "We think the main server room was through there. Only one body, charred bones and ash, and the servers are slag. Not a hope in hell of recovering the data now."

"What sort of fire was it, have your techs figured it out yet?"

The detective shook her head, "Whatever it was, it burned hot enough to soften steel, but not hot enough to quite melt anything."

Vasir nodded and glanced into the room before motioning the detective onward, "Go on, Anaya, consider me intrigued."

The younger asari gave a faint smirk and lead the way along the corridor and up the stairs at the end into what had evidently been the main meeting hall / hanger bay. "Since you're no doubt itching to get to the really impressive bits..."

The low whistle the spectre gave this time wasn't feigned at all. The walls were scorched black to the height of the ceiling, five meters overhead. Some plates were buckled under extreme heat and the entire place still choking with the cloying smell of burned meat. Vasir gave a cough as she stepped in, her nose wrinkling, "Can't you air this place out?"

"Air vents were clogged up. We can't get them unstuck yet. And the clogs might be more evidence." She gestured first to the main pile of body-bags, tossed haphazardly in one corner. "Twenty-three semi-intact vorcha, six krogan. There's probably more, once we get the vents unclogged."

Vasir gave her a stare at that, "It got that bad in here?" She shook her head at the Detective's nod, looking around, then pointing over to the main feature in the room that really stood out.

One wall held a ragged hole, its edges puckered and smooth. "That's interesting... Rather a neat hole, someone must have been a pretty dab hand at a blowtorch."

"We thought so too, but we've not found a single trace of the removed section."

Vasir gave the detective a curious look, "What, it's gone? Did it up and walk out or something?"

Anaya gave a faint shrug and gestured to the edges, where there were several slight bulges along the fairly smooth, angled surface. "See these? We aren't quite sure yet, but we think the center disc was removed all at once, not cut out around its edge."

The Spectre cocked her head, examining the edge more closely. She ran an armored hand along the edge, peering at the angle and clicking her tongue. She strode across to the other side of the opening, a few meters away, stepping over the small pile of slag at ankle-high at the bottom of the hole. "Huh. I haven't seen something like that before."

Detective Anaya straightened, her expression growing intent, "What is it, Spectre?"

"The metal at the edges shows severe signs of extreme heat damage, recrystallization of its molecular structure, but there's only a remarkably small zone damaged by that heat. There's a similarity of angles here too..." She stepped across, running her omnitool along the edge of the hole, from one side, across the bottom and up as far as she could reach, then moved back from it, almost four meters away and nodding at her display.

"Whatever hit it, hit it fast, and was most likely hot enough to vaporize the metal. The angles all converge on a point-source, or near enough." The Spectre gave the suddenly pale detective a quick smile, "This just got a hell of a lot more interesting..."

"My mother was the third daughter of House Dorscua, fifth Minor House of Menzobarranzan." Powerful fingertips, claws gleaming slightly with oil, drew the brush along the slow curve with surprising delicacy.

"Her name was Jhaelithra." A slow, sweeping curve complete, reversing course into a different, slightly tighter curve.

"What was she like?"

The fingers paused only momentarily, before finishing the curve and lifting the brush from the piece of curved metal. "Cold, harsh. Not quite as brutal as others, but distant. More than is normal among the dherrow."

"Because of your father?"

"Partially. I've told you some of what their society is like, but you don't really understand the depth to which the instinct for betrayal had sunk. Their culture was steeped in assassination and bloodshed for longer than the Asari have had technology." The brush-tip was carefully dipped into the small, shallow bowl of clear oil, then carefully applied to the metal once more. "She had been discovered as part of a plot of the First Daughter, a pawn but an important one. First Daughter was punished with her life, but my mother had been unaware of her sister's motivations for her seemingly-benign requests. That saved her life."

"Wait, your grandmother punished your eldest aunt with death for a failed plot?!"

"I told you, backstabbing, intrigue and treason were as air to the drow. They eat it, drink it, revel in it. The more poignant and bitter the betrayal, the greater their pleasure." Another sweeping curve, finishing the design, and the piece of metal was set back into its place. One more piece was left, this one a long cylinder, and would require different materials to properly prepare.

"The plot involved the deaths of a great number of the Household, including my grandmother. There is an old saying, at least among humans. 'Hold your friends close, and your enemies closer.' Drow hold their immediate family closest of all for that very reason." The oil was carefully tipped back into its bottle, the stopper carefully replaced. The bowl was set atop the small tower of similar bowls whose contents were finished with, and another small bowl was filled with the last contents of a small vial.

"You advance by assassination, then?"

"They do, yes. My mother may have been drow, but I am not." The glittering white powder, edged with violet hues was set to one side. A small, silver knife was raised, its edge sharp and clean.

"Do you really have to do that?"

"It is part of the enchantment's requirements, yes." Black liquid slowly filled another of the small bowls, drop by thick, viscous drop.

"What of your father then?"

"An obsidian dragon. Bound by my grandmother when she was young and daring. She had used him for many things over the years, mostly for his blood and bile." A long-handled brush, slender and tipped with only a small cluster of exquisitely-fine hairs that were dipped first into the black liquid, then rolled very carefully through the very surface of the gossamer-fine powder.

"My mother was given a choice. Death as a co-conspirator, or to bear the childe of my father." The long shaft of the brush was slid through the long cylinder of dark metal, the brush-tip fitted very carefully to one of the long, fine grooves that slowly spiraled along the inside of the metal.

"So, forced to bear a half-breed, or die. Not much of a choice. I don't envy her."

"Nor do I." The brush was drawn slowly through the cylinder, leaving a trail of glistening darkness along the long groove. "Still, I am here, now, so I must be grateful to some degree that she chose to spread her legs like some common whore and allow a beast to plough her, rather than to keep her pride and die."

"Not...exactly how I would have phrased that."

"It was the union of a monster and a beast." The brush-tip was wetted once more, and more powder gathered upon it. "She birthed me with much pain, for I was much larger than the typical drow child."

"I bet."

"Her pain does not matter. No doubt she is long dead now." Once more was the brush drawn through the long cylinder. "But she did gift me with knowledge, and for that, more than for bearing me, I can thank her."

"What knowledge?"

"Of my father. My grandmother never bothered telling me what manner of monster spawned me. I had overheard such horribly fanciful tales from other children, I was half-convinced I was demonspawn." Another dip, another roll in the powder, another long, slow drag through the cylinder. "As it is, being a dragon's child is not exactly the best of fates."

"Just what is a dragon, anyway?"

"Power. Pride. Many things, both terrible and awe-inspiring. Some civilizations have worshiped them as gods, others fled from them as demons. They are an ancient people, older than your own civilization by half again, Aethyta." The brush dipped, rolled and was drawn through the metal once more. More black liquid dripped into the small bowl, from a gash in the scaled wrist. "Dragons, or Darastrix in our tongue, are elemental and primal creatures, so steeped in magic that it is difficult to know where the biology ends and the sorcery begins."

"...I can't really object to you calling it magic, now can I?"

A faint chuckle, "No, not now, I think."

"So, what did your father look like? Like you?"

"Hah, no. Far from humanoid. Four-legged, with vast wings adorning his shoulders, a long, sinuous neck, and longer tail. You can look up images of them in my copy of the Draconomicon in the library later, once I'm finished with this." The brush was dipped, carefully swirling to saturate the fibers with the glistening-black blood before it was carefully rolled across the top layer only of the fine powder in the other bowl. "As a half-blooded dragon, my physical form is more humanoid, but the draconic blood has gifted me with my scales, horns, teeth and claws, and my tail. As well as, I believe, my longevity."

"What? How long do drow usually live then?"

"They can last several centuries, easily, as can all descendants of elven blood. Some can even reach a millennium, if they are magically powerful. Dragons, however, live far longer."

"How much longer?"

"The lesser-lived dragons, those of chromatic hue, can live two, possibly three millennial with ease. The metallic dragons, four or five before the Twilight takes them." Another long stroke, the brush-tip carefully following one of the precise grooves in the long cylinder. "I, as an obsidian dragon, would normally tend towards the chromatic end of the spectrum, but as I have rejected certain tenants of my father's bloodline, I seem to have been granted a far longer lifespan than he would have enjoyed."

"...Four or five thousand years?!"

"I am not deaf, you do not need to speak at such volume." Another careful gathering of blood, another roll through the dust, another drag through the cylinder. Eight of the sixteen grooves done, and eight more to do. "I told you that it is difficult to separate magic and biology where dragons are concerned. We evolved on such a magically-charged world that our biology uses magic on a cellular level. It is why I can bask in the heat of molten lava, even bathe in it, if I were so inclined. My scales absorb the heat, and my flesh is impervious to flame."

"Sorry. It's... well, just a lot to take in."

"Mmmm. I understand." Another long stroke, dexterous fingers not varying the speed of the brush, not losing contact with the side of the cylinder. "But as to my past..."

"Yeah, sorry, got sidetracked. Um, what was your childhood like?"

"In a word? Brutal. I was a slave, unwanted by my mother, and thought of more as a potential asset than a person by everyone around me. I was barely taught to speak, and only learned to read with difficulty much later in life." Lips faintly dappled with nearly-invisible scales quirked faintly to one side. "I was trained from as young as I can remember in the arts of war and bloodshed. I was immersed in a bathful of blood in a ritual to enhance my combat prowess. I think I was three at the time."

"...Goddess above."

"My first kill was at the age of six. He was a young slave-boy who had displeased his mistress. He was given a knife, I had nothing. He was terrified." The fingers paused momentarily, gathering up another load of blood on the fine hairs. "I had been starved for nearly three weeks. I was feral with hunger."

"Oh, goddess..."

"It was the first meat I had had in so long, I didn't realize until several hours later just what I ate." Another long, slow, smooth stroke. "Afterwards, they trained me to use weapons, even when I was half-mad with rage and hunger. I was...quite good at slaying those they targeted."

"...I could imagine..."

"If you must calm your stomach, there is a basin over there for such things." Another stroke, another dip, another roll. "I was quite amusing to them. They trained me for gladiatorial games. That much was truthful, in the half-lie I told you when we met. But I was also trained for assassination. I was a weapon to my grandmother, nothing more, nothing less. But she kept me honed, like a good knife is cleaned before it is sheathed, and kept sharp."

Soft retching sounds emanated from the corner with the basin. After some time, the asari spoke once more, "How could you stand it?"

"I knew no other life. I had no basis for comparison. The culture I was born into was so steeped in betrayal and suspicion, it was as natural as breathing. I learned very quickly to be wary, and I have kept the habit. I am very difficult to take by surprise, now, mostly due to that early training." Another long stroke through the cylinder of dark metal, leaving a faint trail of glistening dust along one of the grooves. "As I grew, my scales came in, and my horns grew through as my hair darkened. Though I was born with my tail, I only learned to use it as a weapon as I reached puberty. By that time I was head and shoulders taller than the vast majority of drow, and physically much stronger than they. My grandmother took to parading me along on a leash, to further emphasize her control over me. Of course, it was mostly for show, the leash could break free if I needed to act quickly to defend her from some attack or other."

"So your... your own grandmother kept you as a slave. Trained you as an assassin and bodyguard, and... and basically brutalized you to the point where you thought it was normal?"

"Somewhat simplistic, but accurate as far as it goes. She had been brutalized in a similar fashion herself, after all, the entire society had. It was accepted social norm that the most dangerous threats, both bodily and political, were one's own family, and one must be watchful and on guard. Both to prevent showing weakness, and to find weaknesses in one's opponents."

"Sounds like a pretty fucked up society."

"In many ways it was. They were twisted by their goddess into a reflection of her madness. She demanded sacrifice, newborn males especially, and all males were at best second-class citizens. Useful tools, to be kept sharp and ready, but not in the same class of importance as the females. Most were slaves of their mothers or sisters." Another long, slow, clean stroke left another line of glistening dust. "I was somewhat lucky. A favored slave, if you will. Life was harsh, but if I performed well, I was given rich food to slake my hunger, and foes worthy of a battle to fight in the arena."

"Blood-sports." Aethyta's tone was both horrified and disgusted.

"But of course. It was what I was bred for, after all. I was to be my mistress's bloody tool, her blade, wielded as a scalpel, to remove her enemies from her path to victory." The scaled woman gave a faint chuckle as she drew the brush through the long cylinder once more. "Unfortunately for her, I was learning something that she would have rather I never learned."

"What was that?"

"How to differentiate between Right and Wrong." One last slow, methodical stroke, and the brush was carefully set down. "One of my teachers in the arts of bloodshed was a slave, a captured surfacer. Human."

"Wait, you had humans?"

"Yes, though originally they were not native to my planet. Neither were the drow, originally, but that is a discussion for another time." Quick, sure motions were slowly assembling the various pieces, some now anointed with special oils, others marked with carefully-inscribed lines, both embossed and engraved. Some, like the cylinder, had had special substances painted into the engraved lines, some of which gleamed, others which seemed to absorb the light. "She taught me good from evil, that compassion was not a sin punishable by death, that caring for others was not something to be guilty and ashamed of, a flaw that must be hidden at all costs. She taught me how to be myself, and gave me freedom long before my body was free."

"She sounds like a good person."

"Like so many slaves of the drow, she did not last long. She was executed some years after my training was begun under her, for failing live up to her new owner's expectations." A smooth oiled click as the assembly was worked, to make sure that everything fitted together. "Still, I shall remember Evelyn to my dying day, as the one who opened my eyes to see the world beyond the darkness. It was because of her teachings, both in the arts of war and in morals, that I eventually broke my chains and fled."

"What happened?"

"I was called to my grandmother's birthing chambers. She had had a long pregnancy, and it was clear it was twins. I only learned later that she had divined that it was twin boys." Joru stood, cradling the reassembled weapon in one hand and stepping over to the ritual circle, inscribed in the floor. She set the weapon in the center and stepped back, carefully letting a single drop of blood fall at each of the seven points of the seven-sided star. "I will need silence for this next part, please refrain from speaking until I've finished."

The asari stepped out of the way as the taller woman knelt on the bare stone of the laboratory. Joru leaned over, thumbs and forefingers carefully touching certain spots on the ritual circle. She took a breath and concentrated, as this would be the most difficult part. Intoning softly under her breath, her long tail perfectly still behind her, her eyes closed and her breath coming in slow, even cadence, she forced her magic to obey, to flow down through her arms, and into the ritual circle. It had been modified slightly for this particular enchantment, and some expensive powders and oils used to design the specific runes used to define how the magic would twist.

Aethyta's eyes widened as one by one the chalk-colored runes began to glow fiercely. As Joru's voice rose, never losing its cadence, Aethyta had to look away from the brightly-burning runes. There was a crack, like something finally stressed to the breaking point as Joru's incantation drew to its height, and within a few moments, the light had faded.

When she looked again, Joru had lifted the large handgun from the circle. The taller woman gave the asari an excited look, "Now, that was a fairly standard enchantment, but I had not attempted something like it before. if you would not mind, I'd like to test it."

"Sure, sure, just... well, I'll need your help to get down."

Joru laughed softly, a friendly sound, despite her somewhat imposing appearance, for all the worlds like a young maiden at that moment. It reminded Aethyta painfully of how excited Liara could get sometimes, when she was very young. "But of course, how silly of me." She stepped forward, "With your permission?"

"Sure." Aethyta didn't often find herself grasped by someone with the kind of strength Joru possessed, and it wasn't exactly the most comfortable feeling for her, but she endured it for the forty-meter drop down the shaft between the two laboratories to the main level of Joru's refuge. As her host had explained it, the reason for the separation was to prevent a magical accident or alchemical explosion from causing damage to the rest of the Refuge, but dropping what was effectively ten stories in what was essentially freefall was not her idea of fun, even if Joru did flare her wings to slow their descent at the bottom.

Setting her on the ground once more, Joru rapidly strode through the library, something that had fascinated Aethyta from the first moment she had gotten a look at it. The idea of paper books wasn't unknown to her, but to see so many such relics was somewhat surprising. Joru had explained that part of the enchantments laid on the library was to both prevent damage to the books and preserve them in pristine condition, but even so, Aethyta hadn't had the courage to try perusing more than one or two of them.

She caught up with Joru on the balcony outside the library, where her host was just finishing loading a shell into her weapon. She had removed an astonishing number of them from the short magazine before beginning disassembly and careful preparation, explaining that the weapon had begun life as a standard shotgun design, but had been heavily modified before any metal had been cut.

"This might be a bit loud." The dragoness gave her a friendly smile, working the action to chamber the shell and taking a breath as she aimed the weapon out over the illusory valley. Aethyta stepped away and covered her ears, wincing even before the thunderous crash of the weapon boomed into the clear, grey light of morning. Fire belched from the muzzle, which even with Joru's great strength containing it still shifted upwards slightly. The illusion cast on the dimensional wall of the Refuge shifted slightly, but did not waver or ripple as Aethyta had expected.

She almost missed Joru's shout of triumph in the echoing thunder of the gun's discharge, but she had seen the violet-white bolt blast through the fire and slam into the wall of the Refuge. She grinned as Joru almost danced a jig in delight, laughing at the taller woman's exuberance, then finding herself swept up in a tight hug. "I hadn't been certain that the enchantments would form correctly, but now the only test left is to see what it does to a shielded target."

The dragoness turned to her, her excitement dying down to a soul-searching stare. She stepped forward and took Aethyta's hand. "I want to assure you, Aethyta, I haven't lost sight of our task. I will do my best to ensure that we find Liara, and bring her home safely."

She lifted the gun, the muzzle rimmed with a series of tiny shimmering amethysts now. "This was just to ensure that I had a weapon capable of dealing with my... our foes. It was, somewhat sadly unable to penetrate shields at all, but this new enhancement will render them as protective as thin vapor."

The reminder of Liara sobered Aethyta instantly and she nodded, pulling away from her hostess. "Yeah... And I'd probably best get back and see what my contacts have figured out so far. Probably not too much, but I can always hope..."

"...And you need my assistance to exit the Refuge." Joru's lips quirked in a faint smile and she gave a nod. "Alright. Shall we go?"

The forensic techs had been very busy overnight, as Vasir discovered when she stopped off at the local precinct headquarters. They had been through that combat zone with fine-grain scrubbers, and the forensic labs of nearly every major biochem lab in the local area had been tapped to provide additional techs and lab-time. First reports were in from most of them, cataloging the various samples sent to them. A couple had notes asking for further details of the scene, to satisfy their professional curiosity.

Vasir glanced through them, sipping at her Khevish-root tea as she did so. So many different genetic traces from that splatter, this many from that one. It took her nearly fifteen minutes to do a full accounting, and she sat back and contemplated things.

Sixty-seven different vorcha, bodies and traces. Eighteen different krogan identified by dental differences, another three only as traces of ash.

'Someone had used a goddess-blasted lot of fire in there. Were they trying to hide the bodies? If so, they weren't very good at it.' She sighed and leaned back in her chair.

The most intriguing report so far was the one on the metallurgy of samples taken from the edge of the hole. She gave a faint smile as it confirmed her initial idea, that something had hit that chunk of metal, nearly 10 centimeters thick, with enough heat to boil it away in under a second. The edges of the hole were angled, showing the zone of heat had been more of a cone-shape than a more constrained stream. The edges of that hole had shown a remarkably sharp fall-off in heat, though. It was almost as if the heat had been confined somehow.

She'd heard of something that a few of the humans she had talked with called a 'plasma-flamethrower', something that used focused magnetic fields to confine a stream of star-hot plasma. Apparently, it was mostly designed as a vehicle-mounted device for clearing obstacles, but it was still in the theoretical stages.

On the other hand, a badly-manufactured prototype might be capable of doing this...

She looked up as the Detective she had worked with tapped on her door. She looked drawn, as if she had been up all night. "The computer techs got back to me. They managed to pry some data off a few of the more protected datacores."

Vasir sat up sharply, an eager smile playing at her lips, "And?"

"Not much, I'm afraid. We can use part of the financial data to put the squeeze on local Blood Pack activities for a while, but I doubt we found their major source of cash. On the other hand, one of the sub-sectors had a few interesting images."

The detective stepped around to plug the OSD into the desk's input socket, and Tela rapidly brought up a series of images hovering over the hologram emitters embedded in the desktop. Both of them flicked through the distorted, static-ridden still images, noting the krogan and vorcha, evidently fighting for their lives.

What caught Vasir's attention, though, was the figure that was in each of them. Evidently fairly tall, though the high-angle of the camera somewhat obscured that. The most distinctive feature was the long tail, held arched or used to assist with balance, apparently. One image showed the figure holding a krogan in its hands, balanced on one leg, and the tail sweeping behind, evidently caught in mid-throw.

"That our target? It's just one person, though."

"Here." The detective brought up another image, "This was one of the last ones."

This one was shot from a camera that was closer to the action. The figure's features were still indistinct, but this time mostly due to heat distortion. Fire cloaked her hands all the way up to the bicep, a stream of it wrapped around the vorcha she held by the throat. The tail was visible, as were a pair of horns that rose from the temples and swept back. It wasn't clear, given the distortion caused by both the fire and the damage to the servers, but Vasir thought that her mouth might have been open. The fire seemed to be flowing off the figure and wrapping around the vorcha, which was arched and trying to break her (to judge by the chest, the figure was female) grip on his throat. Several portions of it had already been burned to the bone.

Vasir gave a low whistle. "Well, that's certainly unusual." She studied the face, as much as she could make it out, "We'll have to keep an eye out for this one..."

She hadn't been expecting the call, but she picked it up between the first and second rings when the caller ID popped up Aethyta's name. Her breathless greeting mirrored her excitement, "Did you find-" Benezia broke off, seeing the condition her lover was in.

Aethyta's face was blotched an indigo so dark it was almost purple under the eyes, and pale everywhere else. her crest had actually started to droop slightly to the side her head was leaning, and the bottle of ice brandy (not Serrice, with that label) was just in the view of the pickup as Aethyta leaned on one elbow, toying with the glass with her other hand.

"Heyyy, Nezzie... Nuh, Dinn't fin' her, not yet."

Benezia's heart began to beat again. The towering drunkenness of her former mate might have indicated that she had found Liara, in a less than ideal state. "Goddess, above, you're drunk!"

"Nah'zz drunk as I should be." The asari in the picture managed to fumble the bottle over and pour a hefty swig into the glass, knocking it back like she and Benezia used to do shots at the bar. Back when they were a couple.

"Why, what's happened? You haven't found her yet?"

"Nah... Chehhk't Thhhrm, though. Waz there, but gone. Lotta Geth there. Damn, she moved fast."

"Liara?" Benezia puzzled over Aethyta's drunkenly slurred speech.

"Nah-nah. Othr girl. Young'un. lessn' Liara. Moved like... like... like a drink." She suited action to word, not bothering with the glass this time and taking a swig direct from the bottle. it was already half-gone, and knowing Aethyta, that hadn't've been her first bottle.

"Who? Why was she there?"

"Sai her name waz... Jona. Thazza lie, though. Said she waz thurr to ssee Liara. Hadda thing in her head, wann'd help gettin' it out."

Benezia blinked, trying to parse. "I don't suppose that would have made more sense if you were sober?"

Aethyta barked a laugh, "Heh, prolly not. I'm... quite sloshed right now." She did manage to get her tongue under control for a bit, her wandering gaze (which had dropped to Benezia's impressive bustline) wandering back to focus on her face. "Damn, you're even more beautiful than last time I saw you."

The elder matriarch fought down her blush, "That's neither here nor there, Aethyta. _Why_ are you drunk?"

"Heh. Spen'... Spent the night at her place. Gotta damn fine view. Kitchen an' everything." The slur was starting to come back as Aethyta's eyes unfocused.

"...You spent the night in the apartment of a girl younger than Liara?"

"Nah like that, Nezzie!" The hologram floating over Benezia's comm-console huffed at her, "She tol' me a lotta stuff, an' it waz late, an' I waz tired."

"Right, so...?"

"Sheh tol' me all kinza crazy stuff. Stuffa shoudn' say here." That caught Benezia's attention. "Shezza good kid, gotta lot on her shouldrzz."

"Right." Benezia was already mentally mapping her route. First, the bedroom closet, start packing, "I'm going to close down soon, Thyta. Get drunk if you have to, but for the goddess's sake, make sure you stay put, alright? We don't want a repeat of that one time-"

"Yah, yah, yah always gotta brin' that'un up, don'tcha?"

A faint smile touched Benezia's lips. After packing, call the shuttleport, get her yacht ready for departure. "Of course I do. I care about you, Thyta."

The drunken asari's features softened, and she gave a sappy smile. By this point, her elbow had slowly slid out so her chin was almost on the vidplate. "Thazza good girllll. Alwayz did loveya, Nezzie. Bestestest giirl I evah knew." A tear trickled from Aethyta's eye, "Damn them bitches, shoulda married yah when I hadda chance."

Benezia gave a wan smile. Old romances were sometimes the hardest, especially between asari. She had been an up-and-coming member of the Council of Matriarchs around the time of Liara's birth, part of the moderate party. Aethyta, however, had been a radical, calling for increased militarization and the training of commandos from a young age, instead of starting at the end of maidenhood like most of them did. Aethyt's views were not popular in the Council, and to preserve her political position, Benezia had been forced into severing ties with the father of her child, a decision she sometimes regretted.

"I'll see you again soon, Aethyta. Keep yourself well, and we'll talk more when I get there."

Aethyta gave her a soft smile, which blurred and vanished as Benezia cut the comm. She was already in motion as the hologram dissipated, grabbing up the handset as she all but ran into her bedroom. She dialed with her thumb as she threw open the closet and dragged out a week-long luggage case. "Yes, Serrice Shuttleport? I am Matriarch Benezia, please put me through to my private hanger?"

Executor Palin arrived in his office to find that he had had not nearly enough kava-juice this morning. On his console was gently spinning the SPECTRE seal, indicating a priority communication that had most likely bypassed his secretary entirely.

He sighed and rubbed his left mandible, where a graze in the line of duty more than a decade ago still twinged. 'Best to get this over with.'

Sitting, he activated the Comm, "Executor Palin here. This line is secure. What is it that you need, Spectre?"

A familiar asari face appeared over his vidplate, and he actually relaxed slightly. Tela Vasir wasn't bad, as Spectres went. She (usually) had time to fill out the proper paperwork, and (usually) didn't go overboard with abuse of her powers, though there still was that open file on the death of the hanar ambassador to the Volus Protectorate a few decades ago.

"Actually, if you'd care to send me the file on the prisoner who broke out of SuperMax a week or two ago, I might be able to do your job for you."

His brows furrowed at that, his mandibles tightening involuntarily, "We have that situation well under control, Spectre, we do not need-"

"I don't think you do." She always was one to be brutally honest, something Palin secretly approved of.

"And why do you think that?"

"Because, unless I'm much mistaken, she's turned up again. On Illium." the asari's eyes glittered as she gave a faint smile, "And I think this one is going to need all the help we can get to take down."

AN: Well, this one went a lot faster than the previous one and turned out almost the same size. Maybe I'm starting to finally figure out how to write these things in a semi-consistent fashion! Yay! ^^ I'd like to thank both EratusEnigma and Vipermagi for their assistance with this, and all you lovely readers who take the time to read my confused ramblings. ^^ Thank you again, and please, if you read it, please review it! I don't care if you liked it or thought it was shit, any bit of feedback helps me make these things better!