Aggressor: Rise of Man

Chapter 8

Triangulation

"When we first found the Citadel, closed, like a flower not yet ready to bloom, we thought we had found the greatest treasure of the galaxy. If we had known how literal that simile had been, we may never have cracked it open. But we did. We sent the signal, we walked these empty, half formed streets, saw the long dead bones of the Inusannon, and found that we had inherited our first vigil over a lost race. If only it were the Goddess' will that it were the last."

The transmission looped again. The serial code identifying the transmitter as an SRPA device. The battle language hash that marked it as an EDEN transmission. Then the bizarre combination of buzzes and rattles that seemed to be some alien form of encoding that Shepard just couldn't puzzle out. Never the less, it repeated on a constant thirty second loop, clearly enough that the source had to be fairly close. Shepard sat, elbows on knees and chin in hands, staring at the little Batarian radio as it spat out the strange transmission, as if he could make its presence make sense by mere pressure of his attention. Shepard knew that he was the only human on the Citadel. Colonel Vanek had told him as much. No backup if things go sour, no operative to hold his hand or wipe his nose, he had said. And if X-Ray Division didn't have operatives here, no other EDE organization would. And X-Ray didn't play nice with aliens, at least, not nice enough to share their codes. And yet, here was a transmission, made by an SRPA radio, encoded to get the attention of the Odysseus, specifically.

Did X-Ray Division have spies on the citadel? Perhaps some alien double agents? Indecision gripped at Shepard's mind. He already had his mission. He was to wait here until Balak came back from the Council session, hopefully with some actionable intelligence. But, on the other hand, his part in that meeting was essentially over. He'd said his piece and been summarily dismissed. Now there was this transmission to the Odysseus, a transmission that was nowhere near powerful enough to reach out past the interference of the station's body and the nebula beyond. If its source had more information, something useful he could bring back with him to Colonel Vanek, maybe the mission wouldn't be such a colossal failure. Maybe they wouldn't drag him across the coals and leave him out to dry as a scapegoat. And, after all, was he not rated as an Operations Specialist? Transferring calls was essentially his whole job. Shepard jumped up; his mind decided. Now all he had to do was find the source of the transmission. The smile that had arced across his face like lightning slowly fell. All he had to do was find the source of a low power transmission, on an alien space station where he had no net access, no tools, and just his dress uniform and a handful of untested translator modules to rely on should things go sideways. Shepard sat back down again, slumping into the chair with a slow, nervous breath out.

Come on, Shepard, think. It'll be just like back in A School. Disassemble the problem. Take stock of resources. Assemble solutions. He rubbed his temples. The problem. He needed to find the source of the transmission. He couldn't do any independent research, nor could he exactly ask for directions. Which meant he had to track the source directly. There was also the problem that as a guest citizen from a technically hostile state, he had no technical right to go wandering around, though there was little he could do about that short of stealing a suit of helmeted Batarian armor. He dismissed that. Being caught poking his nose where it wasn't supposed to be would be bad enough, but being caught doing so in the uniform of another state? Shepard didn't know how the Citadel dealt with espionage, but he imagined it wasn't very much fun for the spy. No, he'd have to rely on a lost tourist act and the admittedly modest braid on his dress uniform. Which still left the question of finding his way there.

Shepard looked around the room. As far as resources went, it was fairly sparse. A couple of potted plants, the chairs, the radio itself. He patted down his dress uniform, checking his pockets. He turned up a handful of small mints, A ticket stub to the Academy ball. Shepard wondered aloud how they'd managed to drag his personal effects out of that locker they called his berth down on New Eden and continued his way down. His hand slipped out of the lower jacket pockets wrapped around the thin metal hoop of the multitool his father had pressed into his hand as a graduation present. He turned it over between his fingers. It was a rudimentary little thing, not much more than a screwdriver and a small blade, with a few, less useful functions set into one edge. Once it had been part of a cleaning kit for the absolutely archaic rifle his father had used to keep wolves away from the chickens. That day at graduation, Shepard remembered having been very unimpressed by the small loop of stamped steel. Now, lightyears away, it might just be a lifeline. "Thanks, Dad." he whispered, placing the tool carefully on the table alongside the flexible powerpack and wiring of the recording device that had been galling him since stepping out into the Odysseus' hanger bay. He stared hard at the assembled jumble of parts, trying to assemble them into something in his mind that would bridge the gap between him and the still looping transmission.

Building a transmitter of his own was out of the question, at least until he knew more about the Batarian language and how they'd set up their electronics. With internal modifications knocked out of the running, that left external changes available to him. His eyes fell on the radio's stubby little antenna, then the long loop of wire that connected the hated microphone to its recorder and powerpack, and pieces started to click together. A smile crept across his face. It was a crazy idea, a primitive idea. But then again, if the aliens of the Citadel were going to treat him like a cave man, why not bring a cave man solution. He rolled up the sleeves of his uniform, cleared a little space on the small table, and got to work.

Shepard felt rather silly stepping out into the bright, artificial sunshine of the Presidium ring. In his hands, the ad hoc construction of bare wires extending from the embassy radio spun in place. He looked around, surreptitiously looking for more of the armored guards he'd dodged on the way out. With a sigh of relief, he saw only the alien at the gate, and they were deeply engrossed in something on one of their wrist-mounted computers. Shepard ran, bent near double, across the small courtyard that stood before the embassy building. He slipped in beside the gatehouse, breathing heavily. No one called out, or barked an order to stop. In fact, the only sound outside of his own breath was the crash of the distant waterfall and a strange, echoing sound, like a choir of ghosts. So far, so good, he thought to himself as he turned the corner and slipped out onto Embassy row. Now all he'd have to do was switch on his device and...

"Hey, you there! What do you think you're doing lurking about, Batarian?" a flanged voice called out. Shepard swore viciously. He'd been so focused on dodging his Batarian minder that he'd forgotten that they shared the small complex with the Turians. He froze, caught between the urge to bolt and the fear that doing so would get him shot. In the end, his feet made his choice for him, stumbling forward in the way they would have to avoid trouble back in the city, a steady, head down shuffle meant to be easy to ignore. Unfortunately for him, this was no hab block mugger or Academy bully. "I said stop!"

Hard talons gripped him by the shoulder and spun him around, until he was face to face with the metallic scales of one of humanities greatest foes. The Turian looked at him through cold, reptilian eyes while its head bobbed, bird-like, to the side. Its lower mandibles fluttered beneath skull-like face paint. "Hey, you're no Batarian!"

"Good spot," Shepard said, weakly. He quailed slightly as the Turian raised his other hand, but it was not to strike, only bring the small bead of a microphone attached to the cloth at his wrist.

"Just one more word, Human," the Turian said, thrusting its face at Shepard's. His breath was dry, acrid to Shepard's nose. "Say one more word, and C-Sec will be down here to haul you off to a little box in one of the dark zones to have a chat about what you were doing spying on our embassy. If me and my men leave enough of you left to question, that is." The guard leered, mandibles sweeping out into what Shepard desperately hoped was not a display of hunger.

"Excuse the rudeness, constable, but This one wonders if the Human has committed some kind of crime?" Came a voice from over the embassy guard's shoulder. It was hollow sounding, almost synthesized, and accompanied by more of the choir-like echoing.

"Stay out of this, Hanar," the Turian spat, "this has nothing to do with you."

"Oh, This One would beg to differ," the other voice continued. Shepard leaned slightly to the left, peering around the alien that still had him clutched in his sharpened claws. He nearly dropped the radio. Floating just over the Turian's own shoulder was one of the Portuguese Man O' Wars, although up close it looked more like an undulating sack of jelly topped with a pulsating rill and dangling long, prehensile tentacles. Its insides were filled with little motes of light that flickered and shifted in time to the echoing voice. "This One asks again if this human has been witnessed committing a crime? As the Turian likely knows, without a reasonable belief of lawbreaking, it would be quite unlawful for This Turian to detain the Human."

"Well it's a good thing that this particular Turian does have probable cause, you overgrown tentaculat," the Turian groused, though his eyes flicked back towards the embassy building, "I have reason to believe that this Human was attempting to spy on the embassy. Even the Hanar recognize the illegality of espionage." The word made Shepard shake. All his fears were being made manifest before his eyes.

"Is it espionage to stand outside the security perimeter of the Turian Embassy now?" the floating alien asked, the colors shifting again. "Is This One to be detained by this Turian as well? After all, this one is also loitering before this Turian's gates." The Turian backed away from the floater, dragging Shepard with him. The alien floated closer to match, and as Shepard watched, two more of them drifted along as if drawn on a current towards the altercation. The guard eyed them with a sharp look.

"You know very well that that isn't the case, Hanar" he barked. His taloned claw dropped from his mouth to the butt of the handgun at his waist. "He has some kind of recording device."

"That," the alien, the Hanar, retorted in its hollow, echoing voice. The two drifters moved close enough to flank it, with more seemingly floating in behind them. "Is an etherwave radio. Does the Turian embassy transmit its secrets on an open, commercial channel? This One does not believe so."

"This One knows injustice when This one sees it," another of the Hanar said, flashing an angry, red light, "This Turian is clearly prejudiced against This Human."

"How dare you," the Turian guard bit back, though his eyes flitted back to the Embassy again. For the first time, Shepard saw something that might be nervousness on the guard's face. His talons clicked on the gun as more of the floating Hanar joined the crowd. They were all flashing in sink now, their hollow voices joining together to chant in a language that his translator had trouble keeping up with as words overlapped.

"This one thinks that if the Human has not committed a crime, this Turian can not continue to legally detain them. If This One were this Human, This One would ask this Turian if this Human is free to go." The Hanar bobbed slightly on a non-existent breeze. Its fellows swarming behind it buzzed with the intensity of a disturbed hive. They edged closer, as if waiting on the response of the Turian guard. The guard, for his part, had none of the surety with which he had originally accosted the lone human on the Citadel. His hand gripped his handgun, though his finger remained off the trigger. He looked from Shepard to the Hanar, and back again. And Shepard saw something curious in his beady eyes. He saw fear.

"Am I? Free to go?" he asked, cautiously. The guard no longer had his talons caught in Shepard's jacket. The navy rating took a slow step to the side, slipping away from the outraged officer.

The guard stood there, caught between bristling at the undermining of his authority and the fear of the crowd. Shepard could almost hear the gears turning behind the metallic bony plates of his face. He seemed to come to a conclusion, because he pulled his hands away from his gun and took a step backwards.

"Very well, you are free to go. So go. Don't let me catch you loitering here again, Human, or I will cite you for trespassing and hand you over to C-Sec. There're some old hands there that lost grandparents to your kind back before we let you slink off behind the DMZ. I'm sure they'd be happy to prepare a warm welcome for you." He gave one last leering look and made a dismissive gesture. "You too, Hanar. Go on, be off with you." And then he walked off, muttering into his wrist mounted computer. Shepard watched him go. His eyes fell on the guard's Batarian counterpart. The other alien was looking right at him, eyes dancing with barely contained laughter. The guard returned to his holoprojection, leaving Shepard with the unsettling feeling of just having been hung out to dry. He turned to the Hanar floating before him.

"Law Enforcement," the alien creature said, somehow turning the synthesized words into a note of scorn. The lights flickering within pulsed an angry red. "This One hopes that this Human was not overly injured by the Turian's unwarranted assault."

"Huh, no, not at all, actually," Shepard replied, shaking himself out of his daze, "Thank you for getting me out of that scrape. I thought I was about to be black bagged for sure."

"Oh, no need to thank This One," the Hanar said. It waggled slightly, giving Shepard the impression of an overeager dog that was very pleased with itself, "after all, it is This One's honor to come to the assistance of an actual Human."

"An... actual human?" Shepard asked, "you're a fan?"

"Oh, yes! This One is a great admirer. How can one not be, after all. Your people, those most recently touched by the Holy Venom of the Great Scourge. Tell me, Human, do you bear the Scourge within your cells? No, This One supposes not. Your eyes are your own. They do not bear its holy radiance. Still, it is no matter. You are the scion of those who have been brushed by its embrace, and therefore must be cherished." The crowd bobbed along with the talking jellyfish as if in agreement, but Shepard's stomach turned. A holy radiance in his eyes? They couldn't mean...

"You like humans because we were once infected by the Chimera Virus?" he asked, trying and failing to keep the incredulity from his voice. The nearest Hanar seemed to ripple.

"That is the... vulgar name that the unenlightened use for the Scourge that brought its holy venom to the galaxy," the Hanar said, suddenly less strident in its proclamations, "We Hanar do not use such terms, of course. At least, not those among These Ones which have seen the light."

"I... see..." Shepard was starting to feel the pressure of the crowd in much the same way he imagined the Turian guard had mere moments ago. Their attention pressed down on him. It was not a particularly comfortable feeling. "Look, fellas, I really appreciate you helping me out. I'm afraid I don't carry your... holy venom. At least, not more than was in the Hale vaccine..."

A sound not unlike the first curls of wind through a winter forest moved through the crowd and Shepard was suddenly struck by the feeling that he had said the exact wrong thing. He took a step back, clutching the etherwave radio before him in both hands as if it were a shield. Not that it would do him much good if apparently pro-Chimera zealots clustered around him decided that trying to ward against the virus was high blasphemy. What he didn't expect was for the creatures floating before him to wobble and dip towards the ground in what almost had to be a clumsy imitation of a bow.

"Oh, joyous day! This One does stand in the presence of one touched by the Scourge! Tell This One, please, what can be done to aid This Human?" The excited buzzing was back again. Shepard's heart hammered as if he was trying to diffuse a bomb while walking a tightrope. He spoke his next words slowly, picking them carefully.

"You have already done more than I could ask for. But now I must go. The ones who carry the Scourge, uh, whose eyes carry its holt radiance, they have a very important job for me. I must complete it unobserved. Can you distract the embassy guards long enough for me to slip away?"

"Yes, yes, These Ones can do that! We will sing the hymn to the Great Scourge until it is all that the unenlightened of the Presidium will remember of this day!"

Shepard doubted that, what with the revelations of a giant Dreadnaught attacking human space within sight of Embassy Row, but he couldn't say that the Hanar lacked for enthusiasm.

"Sure, okay, you do that. And you never saw me here?"

"You ask a mighty price asking This One not to share the joy of having met a real human in the flesh, but This One is gladly willing to pay it!" the Hanar assured him. That would have to do, at least for now.

Shepard gave him a firm nod and made to leave. Behind him, the cloud of brightly colored aliens began to flash rapidly and their hollow voices began to sound loudly, as if they were intentionally amplifying it. Shepard didn't stay long enough to find out what the 'Hymn of the Great Scourge' entailed. Instead, he beelined it away from the spreading crowd of evangelists and into the cover of the nearest alleyway. He could already hear the shouts of alarm as the security of a half dozen species started moving to quell the sudden speaking in tongues as he flicked on the radio clutched in his white-knuckled hands and spun up the hoop antenna.

The art of radio direction finding was an old, old science. Its discovery predated the rise of the Chimera from beyond the Red Curtain. In fact, it was the primitive 'huff duff' sets of the former United Kingdom that first isolated the sources of the bizarre transmissions that heralded the coming of the Chimera to mainland Europe. From there, the SRPA had made huge advancements in the field, to the point that the latest sets could pinpoint a handheld radio transmission with enough precision to drop an artillery shell at the user's feet. But Shepard didn't have one of those sets. He didn't even have anything so advanced as those old Intelligence units. But what he did have was a radio and at least half the A school courses required to become an EDEN Cryptologic Technician before that particular aspiration had been yanked out from under him after his last name crossed the wrong admiral's desk.

The hoop antenna jury-rigged to his newly purloined etherwave radio spun on its spindle, causing the sound of the looping SRPA transmission to warble in and out. The kludged construction lacked the short dipole sense antenna that would determine whether the signal was coming from in front of him or behind him, but that was a matter that could be solved with a little bit of triangulation. On the Presidium Ring, where every avenue was conspicuously watched by blue-armored C-Sec agents or little camera drones, this process was more complicated to pull off than it had been in his field exercises back on Titan. Shepard slipped into another of the numerous dead ends and alleyways that seemed to dot the avenues of the Presidium and silenced the humming radio. After a few minutes, a Turian patrolman wandered past the open mouth of the passage. Shepard pressed himself back against the smooth metal walls of the cul de sac, trying to ignore the acrid stink of the ankle-deep drift of garbage that coated the floor of the overwise empty passage to nowhere. The Turian continued on his patrol, not even casting a cursory glance into the narrow space. Shepard slowly let out the breath he had been holding. He stifled a cough at the smell of a dozen species' cast offs for fear of alerting his unwitting hunters. He was getting closer to the source, the difference in angles between each reading was steadily getting smaller. He was also getting further and further away from the bright lights and clean paths of Embassy Row. Here, there were fewer of the environment suited janitors, and the police that roved around in tight little backs carried rifles instead of sidearms.

It was also darker. The ring itself might exist under an eternal, artificial sunshine, but Shepard's search had taken him far off its brightly lit center and towards the rim, where its steep sides and the platforms that studded them cast long shadows over the streets below. The architecture was darker too, no longer the gleaming white and shining metal of the galactic center of power. The buildings here were squat, grey, ugly, though whether their coloration was merely the bare construction materials or a layer of crusted grime, Shepard could not tell. The local area looked like it had once contained warehouses, though many of them now looked unused. It reminded Shepard of his brief visit to the Grey Zone around the Great Lakes. The area had once been a bustling water port, and its warehouses had carried the lifeblood of the old United States. But now they were abandoned to decay. It was much the same here, and, as Shepard's eyes followed a pair of massive scaffold-like structures that climbed the metal canyon walls to an immense, flat platform that overhung the side, he realized that perhaps the simile was more of a direct comparison. He shook his head. There was a time for appreciating the similarities between the Citadel and Earth, but it was not while he was on the hunt for a strange signal across the alien capital.

Shepard unfolded the improvised hoop antenna once again and flicked on the radio. It hissed as he set the aerial spinning, the buzz-rattle of the encoded message waxing and waning again. The direction-finding set was pointing him directly across the street from his position, barely having moved from the reading he'd taken further up the road. Whatever was putting out that signal, it was hiding either in or behind the squat warehouse standing desolately empty on the other side of the street. Or... The warbling sound changed subtly, the point in its spin where the gain peaked shifting slowly. The transmitter was moving. Shepard's breath came in short, excited bursts. If he didn't act fast, whoever was sending that signal would get away. Though if he bolted after it now, he was just as likely to run into an ambush as he was to come face to face with unexpected friends.

In the end, he only really had one choice. Cautiously, he stepped out into the street once again. C-Sec's goons were long gone, leaving the Navy rating utterly alone on the quiet street. This side of the warehouse block was a smooth and unbroken edifice. If it had a street level door, he would have to circle the block to get to it. There was nothing for it. Shepard broke into a light jog, once again regretting the relaxed PT schedule that had come with his transfer down to New Eden. His eyes remained glued to the spin of the little hoop, watching the point that denoted the location of his prey slowly move out in front of him. He broke into a straight run as he spotted a side passage that would hopefully take him through to the street that ran parallel to his own. Towards the transmitter. He turned the corner with a burst of speed that set his shiny dress boots squeaking and slipping on the metal grating that served as a road. He kept his footing, barely, and threw himself around side of the block. It occurred to him at this point that if this wasn't some friendly informant or long-range X-Ray expedition, he was about to run straight into it. And if it was unfriendly, things could get messy real fast. Shepard almost went falling ass over teakettle as his feet put on the breaks before his brain caught up with them. He caught himself on some kind of street sign, grabbing ahold of the smooth metal pillar with one hand while his other clutched at the radio to prevent it from flying from his grasp.

He skated to a stop and nearly bent over double, the short sprint catching up with him all at once. For a second, all he could hear was the hammering of his heart, the ragged rushing sound as he slowly caught his breath. He resisted the sudden, strong urge to hack and cough up a lung. He leaned heavily against the sign post and desperately struggled to regain his composure. He lifted his eyes, still huffing and puffing, and that's when he saw them.

There were two of them, the strange, bipedal robots with the bright lights where a humanoid's head might be. They had sinuous, curved bodies that seemed at odds with their mechanical nature and their skin had a metallic, purplish sheen to it. Between them they carried a black painted crate of stamped metal. On its side was then tan stencil of the chevron and roundel that marked it as the property of the Special Research Projects Administration. But these robots weren't Black Ops troopers. And the crate... Shepard's blood ran cold. Even from this distance, he could see the words stenciled on the side of the box. Research Station GARDEN. The crate had been taken during the attack, spirited away. Which, following that unpleasant thread of logic, meant that Nihlus' agents were operating on the Citadel even now. But he hadn't seen any of these robots back on New Eden. Where these new enemies? Not for the first time, Shepard felt lost and alone, blind and underequipped.

Across the way, the two mechs were slinking towards a downwards ramp with their stolen prize. Their heads swiveled, perfectly in sync to sweep the street. Shepard pushed himself back into the shadows. The darkness suddenly felt like a wholly insufficient cloak against those bright lights the mechs had for faces. Who knew what kind of sensor package they carried. And if they were networked as he suspected, if one spotted him, it wouldn't be long before any lurking friends they may have brought with them were moving to flush him out. His hands shook slightly, the case of his radio suddenly slick in his clammy grip. He knew in his heart that he shouldn't be here. Were he a sane man, he should have turned around and returned to the Batarian Embassy as soon as he saw the SRPA tagged crate. Hell, he should have turned around as soon as he was challenged by the turian guard at the gate. But he had pushed past that guard. And he had seen the crate. And at this point, he was so far off mission that he wasn't sure that going home and checking in would net him a medal or a court martial. But if he had more intel in hand, perhaps something that would prove Nihlus' involvement...

Shepard risked another peek around the corner and found the street empty. The mechs had taken their ill-gotten gains down below, disappearing into whatever warren crisscrossed the space below the Citadel's street level. Shepard leaned back against the cold wall behind him, caught in the tidal forces of indecision. The longer he waited, the more time those mechs had to disappear, forever beyond his reach. But he also didn't like his chances if he chased after them too soon and ran right into their backs, unarmed and alone. The seconds ticked away as he wavered on the edge of just throwing down his stolen radio and trying to find his way home before he was missed. But then he remembered the screams that the comms. network back on New Eden had spat out. The cruel laughter that had followed it. Shepard screwed up his courage and stepped out into the street.

He hurried across the empty space in a hunched over sprint, ready to drop to the deck at the first sound of gunfire reaching out to touch him. No such attack made itself manifest. Nor were there any lookouts posted, ready to catch any would be interlopers. Shepard dropped to a crouch and slipped down the ramp down below the deck. The sloped passage led down into a grey-walled tunnel, lit only by a few flickering lighting strips that clung tenuously to the ceiling by stripped wires. If the street above was grimy, the tunnel below was an open midden. Shepard wrinkled his nose as he descended into the dim and dingy warren. He moved from corner to corner, sheltering behind the stacks of empty shipping pallets and stacked polymer bags of overflowing garbage as he picked his way forward. The tunnels were filled with an omnipresent hum of surrounding machinery. Filtration systems coughed and wheezed to push slightly less foul air through the soupy atmosphere of the Citadel's undercity. Strange, alien noises sounded in the distance, croaks and unknown gibbering that made his descent feel more like a trip out to the bayou than a walk through a space station. And above all, the steady clank of metal feet on deck plate that Shepard followed ever deeper into the dark.

Up ahead, the noise of mechanical footsteps stopped. Shepard drew up short, stepping into the shadow of some kind of wheeled fuel caddy. He slowly peered around the dingy yellow bulk of the mobile tank. The mechs were standing less than ten meters away. The two of them had placed the black crate on the ground and were now standing stock still, as if waiting for something. Shepard didn't get much time to ponder what that something might be, for within a minute an assorted mixture of footfalls came rolling up the corridor to the left of his position.

"Well look what we have here, boys. Looks like the delivery boys are here," said a voice that was deep and guttural, with all the smooth vocal timbre of an emptying drain. "The crate comes with us. Beat it." There was a rustle of noise as whoever was intercepting the mechs shook themselves out into formation.

"Negative," one of the mechs replied after a familiar buzz-rattle shot back and forth between the two, "this platform is authorized to represent the interests of Creator Weema'Taeram. You are not the one designated to receive this cargo. You will move along while we await the one designated to retrieve this cargo."

"It comes with us," the other voice reasserted, "the Grey Lady gave us orders special to take it from here and drop it off for her."

"Not possible, the Matriarch sent words to have this cargo taken directly to Creator Weema'Taeran."

"Change of plans, Geth," the other voice said. His tone was rapidly becoming agitated, and heavy footfalls started moving back and forth just out of Shepard's view, as if something huge was pacing back and forth. "Step away, before my boys take you apart and take out all your pretty lights."

Shepard leaned forward, trying to crane his neck to get a better look at the source of the pacing. He caught sight of a flash of red in the gloom before a new sound came from close behind him. He whipped his head around to see nothing beyond a slowly spinning tube that looked like it had once held some kind of food paste on the ground a few meters away, apparently having fallen and clattered to the ground from one of the rancid piles of garbage. Shepard let out a held breath and turned back to stare into the bright blue light of one of the mechs looking back at him.

"Alert, this meeting is being observed," the mech rattled, and all hell broke out.

Intel:

The Hanar Ascendency

The Hanar of Kahje remain one of the most alien societies that humanity has been exposed to since making first contact almost two hundred years ago. As an aquatic species that prefer their colonies at least 80% covered in ocean to match the environment of their homeworld, the Hanar have been somewhat of an outlier in the galactic community since their own first contact shortly after the conclusion of the Council-Chimera war. Although their differing preferences in colonial prospects did much to reduce frictions in the immediate postwar period, the discovery of certain Hanar religious practices delayed their official entry into council space by almost a century, with the first Hanar Embassy completing construction circa 732 C.E.

Government

The Hanar Ascendency is governed by a body that they call the "Illuminated Primacy," rendering it functional theocracy. Members of the Primacy are selected internally from the Hanar priesthood and maintain the mantle for life. Matters of policy are debated amongst the lower ranks of the Primacy before being passed up to the 'Illustrious Circle' for final ratification. This has caused Hanar politics to take on a somewhat erratic aspect appropriate to the deep waters of their homeworld. Policy can remain incredibly stable for long periods of time due to internal inertia, or shift suddenly like the tides as some faction or another rises within the ranks. Outwardly, however, the Hanar put significant effort into exuding an appearance of monolithic unity, it being far too rude to swim against the current and stir the waters, so to speak.

Economy

The Hanar's unique biology and ecology sets them apart from the other Council races, and the same can be said for their economy. As a polity, the Hanar are incredibly insular, second only to the hermit kingdom of the Quarians. Life underwater has made most consumer goods ill-suited for their needs at best, not to mention that much of the galactic gross domestic product is designed with a roughly humanoid frame in mind. However, the Hanar have made allowances for the exchange of certain luxury goods, mainly trading through the ports of the nearby Drell Combine. Such goods include fine distilled spirits and the native psychoactive Mindfish. In return, the Hanar import a great deal of literature, poetry, and other media, seemingly elevating the written and especially the spoken word above all other products. Their domestic industry is reportedly heavily automated, with gaps not fillable by drones often filled with Drell guest workers and Batarian sourced labor stock.

Military

The Hanar's military is fairly unimpressive by Council standards. This should not be seen as a sign of pacifism though, for the Hanar guard their 'Starlit Pearls' jealously with heavily automated defense platforms. Rather, it is the difficulty inherent in assaulting a world that is almost entirely below the waves that informs the Hanar doctrine of limited engagement. Hanar military commanders are more comfortable abandoning their limited surface construction and retreating to the depths, where conventional arms are of limited use. While the Hanar do maintain a small and mobile fleet to deter pirates and smugglers at their borders, along with a surprisingly aggressive marine corp. that operates from within specially designed suits of powered armor, in the main their military might is almost entirely static.

Religion

Officially, the state religion of the Hanar Ascendency venerates the 'Enkindlers.' These Enkindlers are long-lost precursor race, the Inusannon, that the Hanar allege to have given them the gift of speech in ancient prehistory. As such, they are a perpetual thorn in the sides of the Council archeologists and researchers who would like nothing more than to take apart any precursor sites in search of lost mass effect technology. As with any religious body present on multiple stellar bodies, there are many factions and sects, of varying levels of radicalization. However, there is another, much darker undercurrent that moves beneath the surface collection of Enkindler worshipping denominations. Much to the chagrin of the galactic community as a whole, there is a persistant heresy amongst many of the Hanar that venerate the Chimera virus, in a similar vein to the so-called 'grey-head' sub culture on Earth. However, where the Greyheads are driven more by pubescent contrarianism than by ideological discipline, the Hanar Scourge Cults are committed. It is yet unknown from where this fervor arose, but one of its outgrowths is outspoken support amongst many Hanar citizens and even a few fringe politicians for pro-human policies.

X-RAY CLEARANCE DETECTED: UNLOCKING ADITTIONAL ANALYSIS

Hanar devotion to their Great Scourge seems deeply rooted in their history, specifically events during the Council-Chimera War. I suggest that X-Ray Division makes it a top priority to discover exactly where this cult came from. In the meantime, it makes a convenient wedge issue amongst the Hanar priests. All efforts should be made to encourage its spread, given the importance of getting a few aliens in our corner, no matter how uncomfortable their proclivities might make our more concerned citizens.

Author's Note:

I'd like to apologize for the lateness of this update. I was unfortunate enough to get to dance with the pale horse over the last couple of weeks, and let me tell you, COVID19 does not care about maintaining a writing schedule. I have since made a near full recovery and plan to return to our regularly scheduled weekly updates going forward. Stay safe out there, readers!

Primarch1, M'aiq the Liar: The Quarians are safely behind the Perseus Veil, there is no reason to worry. Ask any Geth Telepresence Assistance Unit, they'll tell you that the Quarians are absolutely fine. But please, for your safety and that of the Quarians, do not approach the Quarantine Zone.

RandomReader: Oh, don't worry, the Council has an explanation for everything. Whether or not that explanation will do our heroes any good remains to be seen.

ultimate idiot: Thank you! Not to disparage my fellow ME writers, but there are only so many ways to relitigate the First Contact War or visit Noveria, Therum, and Feros before hopping over to Virmire. Hopefully this entry remains fresh as it progresses.