Mass Effect: The Iron Heart of Man

by Apollonir

[AU] The Illusive Man said that salvation comes with a cost. When corruption seeps into the galaxy, when centuries of status quo suddenly breaks in a mere decade, when blood's spilled among the stars like never before, when extinction looms over civilization, when morality is merely a shade... salvation can only come with sacrifice. [AU First Contact War & Reaper War; GRAPHIC]

25. Startle the Heavens II

NOTE1: Hello, folks! Welcome to another chapter! I was so looking forward to writing this. And I'm looking forward to hear your feedback on it :D especially to Averescu's scenes.

NOTE2: You can visualize what I originally envisioned the Alliance M7 Lancer assault rifle looks like in this video on YouTube (although this is an AK contemporary derivate, it is closer to my idea than the XM8, but you can imagine it however you wish): /watch?v=aE_i3P21SfY&feature=share (or Google BSDA 2018: Prototipul armei de asalt Stimpex PA-Ro Mod. 2018)

NOTE3: The titles given to the characters who are quoted commenting on events showcased in the current chapter are the titles they have in the future when they made those comments. Just to clear it out if there were folks who misunderstood things there.

NOTE4: IMPORTANT! Operation ILLIUM FREEDOM will come in chapter 26 as I will dedicate it to that particular piece of action. I still haven't fleshed it out completely and decided to leave it out of the current one and give it its own chapter which should take me less time to write. It will happen between the part where we focus on Garrus' substory and the start of the political part of the chapter.

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Chapter 25: Startle the Heavens II

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Archangel Rising

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Citadel, Zakera Ward

Lower Zakera levels, Vantage point

She calibrated her sniper rifle, listening to the gunfire in the background, tens of meters below her and some 300 meters away. This was her first assignment on the Citadel. She rotated the screws that fixed the scope on her sniper rifle, adjusting the sights. The black suit helped her blend in the darkness of the railing.

She looked down at the scene down below. The grunts were closing in with the two targets. They had blown up the skycar they used to deliver the explosives. This phantom had already shot up a group of Salarians and blew up one of the other tunnels they were using. Bright orange and yellow flames scorched the metal walls.

She listened to the surveillance on her radio as she loaded a magazine into her sniper rifle. A grenade's faint explosion filled the air.

"Press them! The boss wants them dead!"

"Grenade! Get b-" and the Salarian was dead.

Her sniper rifle was nothing like the regular weapons that utilize mass effect fields to chop grain sized pieces from the ammo block and propel them. No, hers was special. It received ammunition very much similar to the bullets used by the Humans. The magazine carried 20 rounds like that. But they were simple slugs with no propellant. The bullets themselves were small, with a diameter of around 2.5 millimeters and a length of 10 millimeters. They were launched at smaller velocities so they ignore any personal shields her targets may carry. After all, she wouldn't be in this line of work if she was not a professional. And one of the best at it. The slug itself was coated in toxins that were lethal in a short time if not handled with protective gloves.

A smoke screen had been seemingly deployed, another grenade thrown that caused damage. 'Dumb, incompetent morons,' she concluded about the grunts. If they were unable to kill even one opponent this long into a firefight that favored them… she didn't raise her hopes.

She spotted one of her targets making a break and retreating into an alleyway that she had no vision on. She did not take any chances and walked along the tall balcony until she had eyes on the exit of the alley on the other side. She shouldered her sniper rifle and took aim. Two skycars, one of a van type and the other a regular skycar, came to a quick and abrupt halt in the span of two seconds on the same alley. She wasn't informed of any backup, so it must be either law enforcement or backup for her targets.

Nevertheless, she stood ready to engage her targets. The two out here were her primary targets. The others would be casualties if they interfered. If her employer wants them too dead, then it must pay her extra. The Turian that entered the alley previously came out. She set her sights on the Turian. The fact that he came to an abrupt stop helped her. He aimed his weapon at the newly arrived individuals and stood still.

'Big mistake,' she mused as she pulled the trigger. The bullet hit the Turian square on. She watched him fall and then shifted her sights at the group. The time it took her to confirm the critical hit on her target and change targets, the new group had already pinpointed her location if the fact that they were aiming up at her was any hint. What were they? Batarians? Humans? Drell? Must be one of the three if one is judging based on body shape. Mass effect weapons cracked to life as her position was saturated with fire, a biotic barrier being her saving grace.

She did not stick around to test how long she can keep the barrier up. Tristana retreated and made herself one with the shadows. She still has at least one target to eliminate before she can claim the rest of her money.

---

Citadel, Zakera Ward

Lower Zakera levels

"Shit!" Garrus cursed while ducking to avoid incoming fire.

"What did you say, kid? Like a walk on the Presidium?" Casius asked as he fired an M-9 Tempest burst. A wave of grain sized slugs peppered his position. "SHIT!"

"How the hell did they know we'd come here?" Garrus inquired. He pulled a concussive grenade from his belt, armed it and threw it over his head. The grenade detonated in the air close enough to a Salarian that the shock wave crushed his head from above. His body fell at an unnatural angle, green blood flowing through his nostrils and eyes due to the crushed brain. His comrades began pushing Garrus' and Casius' position. They were a mix of Salarians and Turians, 7 of them left alive.

"C-SEC has been alerted to the situation. One patrol is two minutes away and reinforcements are being dispatched from HQ," Metiana informed them.

"The mission's a bust! We must leave!" Casius pointed out.

"I know!" Garrus shouted back over the sound of gunfire. "Metiana, stall them!"

"Trying! I've just picked up two other skycars on surveillance cameras, headed your way, not of C-SEC. Possible hostile reinforcements."

"Old man, go! I'm covering you!" Garrus shouted. He prepared the last concussive grenade he had on his person and the sole smoke grenade.

"No way, kid! If we lose you we're all busted!" he returned.

"Get the hell out of here! It's an order! I have an idea!"

Casius looked over at Garrus for a second and saw the resolve in his eyes. He nodded once to him before retreating in a crouched position to the corridor on his left, firing randomly with his SMG raised over his head. Garrus threw his last concussive grenade followed up by the smoke. The detonation was followed by cries of pain. When the smoke filled his immediate vicinity, he engaged his tactical cloak.

"Where are they!?" one of the attacking Turians inquired.

"After the one to the right!" and off they went after Casius. Garrus took advantage of the situation and aimed his M-11 at the backs of the pursuers and fired. The heavy mass effect slugs tore holes in their backs and began to fall down lifeless. Then, a loud boom echoed through the lower levels. Garrus recognized the sound as similar to a sniper rifle. Then, rapid firing rifles.

"Old man, are you alright!?" he asked in the radio as he disengaged his tactical cloak. No response. "Old man!" he walked into the same alleyway Casius went into previously. He couldn't see much from the smoke that was spreading. Voices could be heard.

"Sniper's gone!"

"MediGel! Right now!"

"Four, cover us! Two, help me get him in the car!"

"Copy!"

Garrus cleared the smoke and saw two Humans lifting him, a third with a sniper rifle aiming somewhere above them and a fourth suddenly turning to aim his weapon at him.

"Drop it!" the fourth shouted. "Drop the gun!"

Garrus aimed at him and was just a breath from pulling the trigger when the sniper turned and aimed the rifle at him. The sniper was a woman if her body shape was any hint. They were all geared in black armor, not at all similar to the ones he had on Alliance soldiers, Marines or Shepard the year prior.

"Drop it! Not gonna' say it a third time!"

"Who are you?" Garrus inquired.

"Hold it! He's friendly!" the one that looked to be in charge instructed. Garrus turned to aim at him. He was with Casius. Then his eyes fell on Casius. If Turian eyes could grow larger, Garrus's eyes would be the size of saucers.

"Stop gawking and get in the fucking skycar," the leader told him. There were two skycars, one larger than the other, much like a van. They were loading Casius into the one with most space in it. "We have 30 seconds before C-SEC makes it here. I'll explain." He looked at his friends. "You two, in the cars! We're leaving."

The other Humans lowered their weapons and conformed with order. They got in the other skycar and closed the doors. Garrus activated the tracking beacon Metiana gave him. He jumped in the same vehicle as Casius. He checked his condition and saw he was shot in the back with a powerful weapon.

"Noblesse, get us moving," the guy with heavy accent said.

"Affirmative," a synthetic voice replied and the skycar was accelerating.

"Sniper rifle to the back. His life signs are dropping. Don't think he's gonna make it."

"Who shot him?" Garrus demanded, anger visible in his voice.

"We don't know who she is," the leader answered. "We only knew she was here. We were too late."

"She!? You knew!?" Garrus half asked, half demanded. "Then why are we not going after her?"

"Calm down, tough guy," the one with the heavy accident advised. "We let her lead us to the den and we smoke them all out after we learn where they hide."

"Who the hell are you!?" Garrus asked with his pistol pointed at the leader.

"You must be Archangel," the leader stated as he took his helmet off, revealing his face. Garrus had never seen him before. "Lieutenant Logan Thorgin, codename Viper One, Alliance Intelligence."

"What is Alliance Intelligence doing on the Citadel?"

"We-"

"Kid…" Casius interrupted them, a pool of blood under him. At least the MediGel helped close the wound and he wasn't bleeding much anymore. "Spirits cursed bastards…" he spoke between sporadic breaths. "Get them, kid…"

Garrus put a hand on Casius's chest. "Hold on, old man!"

"Ahah… Mh…" Casius groaned, severe pain ravaging his body. "Kid…" he seemed to grow weaker and weaker, "kid… I'm afraid…" he confessed to Garrus.

"Casius…"

Casius Dardatis, analyst and infiltrator, field agent of Hierarchy Intelligence, has fallen in the line of duty on February 18th 2181 - the first official victim of the struggle for the galaxy. Garrus bared his jaws, his sharp teeth grinding against each other.

"What is going there!? Casius' life signs just went flat!" Metiana demanded on the radio.

Garrus looked at Thorgin. He had a grim look on his face. Garrus activated his microphone. "Casius is dead. Shot by a sniper in the ambush."

"What!? What is your status?"

"Some friends extracted us. Alliance Intelligence they say."

"Noblesse, to Snake's Den. Mission is a bust," Thorgin said.

"Archangel, you must break free and rendezvous with allies!" Metiana instructed him.

"Negative. With all the mess that we just went through… we'll lay low until the waters calm down. C-SEC will have this sector under complete lockdown," Garrus said. "I'll get back to you as soon as I can. Go dark until then. Assume we've been compromised."

"Understood."

"He's dead," Thorgin stated.

"Well, that was a complete pizdec [2]," First Sergeant Igor said. "They'll take samples of your buddy's blood from that platform and it will not be helpful. At all."

"I think you owe me some explanations," Garrus turned his attention to them.

Thorgin sat down on the van's floor. "Fireteam Viper – that is us – was supposed to make contact with Archangel and SPECTRE Kryik to collect information, maybe even assist with the purge of the indoctrinated on the Citadel."

"Indoctrinated?" Garrus inquired.

"People who have been fatally compromised without even knowing it, thinking that whatever they are doing is for the best of the galaxy. In reality, they're puppets to masters in the shadows," Thorgin explained. "The Systems Alliance has had problems with them prior to first contact. We believe that there is an alien threat out there that's been slowly and steadily infiltrating galactic society, literally brainwashing the people."

"What for?"

"Can't be anything good if brainwashing and infiltration is involved," Igor commented. Garrus looked at him, expecting more than that for an answer. "What?"

"That answer was not good enough," Garrus said.

"We must get to safety and lay low until we can move. I will explain everything when we are in the clear," Thorgin said. "And you are going to help us contact Nihlus Kryik."

---

Citadel, Presidium

Hierarchy Embassy, Ambassador Quentius' office

Nihlus found himself face to face with the ambassador of the Hierarchy to the galaxy. He had no idea why he called him here. He was only told that it was urgent and it was on behalf of the Hierarchy, a direct order from Primarch Fedorian. As a SPECTRE, he was not obligated to answer the call. As a Turian, he was obligated.

"SPECTRE Kryik, I apologize for the short time window and the secrecy. I thank you for being here," Quentius said. "The Primarch has a task for you."

'Straight to the point,' Nihlus mused. "What is the task that needs my attention?" he inquired.

"This is not a Council sanctioned task, it is on behalf of the Turian Hierarchy. Understand that you will have to use your SPECTRE status to see this mission to the end," Quentius informed him.

"This would go against the rules established for the Office of Special Tactics and Reconnaissance, Ambassador," Nihlus pointed out. "SPECTREs act under Council jurisdiction, with the Council's blessing. To do otherwise is to commit abuse of my status."

Quentius dismissed it immediately. "We are aware, SPECTRE. But, before anything else, you have a duty to your people. Your people need you to do this. We are aware of the implications. The Hierarchy will offer you its unhindered support when you will be called to answer for you abusing your status."

Nihlus looked at Quentius for two seconds. This was a given that he'll be discovered, sooner or later. "Answer to who? Who should not learn of this?"

"The three councilors," Quentius was again swift to answer.

"If this is related to the political animosity and tensions that have been growing in the Hierarchy's high echelons… I want nothing to do with it," Nihlus stated. "Tell me now if the task the Primarch wants fulfilled is of this kind. And I will walk away and pretend we've never had this discussion."

Quentius fixed Nihlus with a stony gaze, the one that only a hard leader would possess. Quentius was one of the few people in the Hierarchy with natural charisma, with vast knowledge in politics and military affairs, that Fedorian trusted implicitly. "SPECTRE, this is for the safety of the galaxy. I would do it myself, would I know I can get through C-SEC without compromising the mission."

"Alright," Nihlus conceded. "What is the mission?"

Quentius parted his mandibles in satisfaction to the answer. "You will pick up a prisoner from a pre established location on the Citadel and deliver him to the Hierarchy cruiser Avista that's docked at Naval Base Arx, here on the Citadel. There you will hand him over to Hierarchy Intelligence agents. Your task will be to make sure the transport is swift, that the prisoner does not get away, and that C-SEC does not hold you back."

"When?"

"You will proceed as soon as you leave this office," Quentius clarified. "You will get your weapon and whatever you find necessary to see this through. At any cost, you must not let C-SEC or other people except the Hierarchy Intelligence agents that will assume custody of the prisoner."

Nihlus nodded once. "And now, why?" he asked.

"Pardon?"

"What is the context?"

Quentius did not hesitate to answer. "It will take us one step closer to building a more efficient defense against whatever you faced off in the Terminus all those years ago, SPECTRE." He sensed Nihlus was about to start asking a million questions and was swift to halt him. "I can't tell you the details for I don't know them. But I promise you, you will be involved. Start by getting him to our ship."

"And it took you this long to finally do something about it?" Nihlus inquired. "Is it by any chance related to the shootings that have happened in Zakera Ward? The ones we barely hear about from C-SEC?"

"Calm down, SPECTRE," Quentius advised. "The Hierarchy is working with what it has. I can't tell you details that I don't know either. Know that your help will be instrumental."

"I want an active role in taking down the Collector bastards and anyone related to them. Not just bodyguard tasks because of my status," he demanded. "I've lost my friends, my comrades, to those monsters! And nobody believed me back then, writing me off as crazy."

"And you've joined the SPECTREs under Saren Arterius' tutelage to do your part. I know your motivation was to investigate the Collectors, to collect information on them and your status as a SPECTRE accelerated that process. But you produced nothing conclusive. Now… we might be onto something big," Quentius reasoned with him. "Listen Nihlus," he called him by his personal name, "do this for the Hierarchy and the galaxy and you will have contributed much more than cumulating anything you did in the past two decades."

Nihlus clicked his mandibles and stood up. He extended his arm to Quentius, omnitool active. "Send me the relevant information. And have backup trail me from a discreet distance in case I run into trouble before delivering the prisoner."

---

Realpolitik

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Citadel, Presidium

Alliance – Quarian Embassy

"What safety can our children have?" Alec watched Sparatus address the Turian people on news networks, a reaction to Operation ILLIUM FREEDOM. "Primarch Fedorian has not only refused to coordinate with our long standing allies – the Citadel Council – but he's strengthening ties with the Krogans and Humans – the very ones who've bombed our colonies and killed our people in droves! He does not listen to counsel. He is bought or he's no longer the Primarch we set out with. With the very risk of undermining the Hierarchy, I feel like I have no choice left but to question the orders received from the Primarch… and I hope that he sees reason, that he listens to wise counsel, and that he steers the Hierarchy back on the right path, the path t-"

Alec Ryder pushed the laptop's screen down as Flavian entered Goyle's office. The ambassador was kind enough to let him have her office for the duration of the meeting. It was, after all, a meeting Fedorian asked for. And not with political figures.

"Ah, mister Vakarian. Good to see you've made it well," he said as he approached the Turian. He was just a bit shorter than Flavian.

"General Alec Ryder, a pleasure to meet you," Flavian returned the formality.

"Please, sit down. Special chair for Turian physiology," Alec invited him.

"Thank you. The extra effort is appreciated. Though I can't say the same about Illium," Flavian said as he sat down. He did not carry anything other than the clothes on him and personal belongings with him.

"I will not argue about how that reflects on us," Alec put it out, not really willing to debate the topic.

"The Asari and the Salarians will not let you get away with it anytime soon."

"I wonder if they are the only ones willing to do so."

"Heh!" Flavian exhaled air in an amused way. "I would guess so." The Hierarchy under Fedorian wasn't going to jump the wagon as well. They had other interests.

"We should all be so lucky," Alec said. "How's family? I heard about your son before the mess began."

"They are doing well, thanks for asking. Garrus recovered fully from his wound. He's busy with work nowadays. I barely get in touch with him," Flavian stated.

"Must be mighty dangerous business, getting involved in firefights in the wards," Alec divulged, much to Flavian's surprise. "Heard he found himself in a pinch. Good thing friends were nearby to bail him."

Flavian's piercing blue eyes stared Alec down, his mind busy trying to figure out how he knew. "You... what do you know, General?" He thought they'd secured their systems against hacking. He'll have to remind Palaven Command that the Humans still found ways to infiltrate Citadel and Hierarchy systems.

"He is in good hands, you can rest assured on that one. One of our special operations teams got to him. Though I've heard that one of his colleagues, Casius, was not that lucky."

Flavian cursed under his breath. "How?"

"Sharpshooter,"Alec said. "Bullet traversed his torso and messed up his lungs, stomach and liver. His body will be delivered to Hierarchy Intelligence through your son. I'm sorry. We could not save his life."

Flavian nodded. "That will be appreciated. But… it begs the question - what do you know? What are you after?" he asked. He could not walk away from this meeting without details.

Alec looked Flavian straight in the eyes. "I am authorized to give you the details, but they will come on a secured portable drive. I hope you still know how to interface with Quarian only designed data storage banks. But I'll give you the brief rundown right now." Flavian listened intently. "We've become aware of it shortly after the conclusion of the Insurrection on Kharak and Eternium. We've lost hundreds of people to them. We've had to purge entire Intelligence cells, entire fireteams, offices and chase down those turned against us for 15 years."

"Who is them?" Flavian asked.

"An enemy that is still eluding us. One that has been operating from the shadows for who knows how many years. At first, we thought it was you - the Council. We've met before in the Attican Traverse, these past ten years, but you did not see us and we did not stick around. Our scouts retreated immediately. After Jartar... "

"You were behind Jartar?" Flavian inquired. Even if the higher ups covered it up, behind closed doors they acknowledged the reality.

"Blew it to Kingdom Come," Alec confirmed. Flavian did not feel assured at all when the Human in front of him admitted so nonchalantly to the fact that they had the means to destroy the surface of a planet like that if the crater on Jartar was any clue. A weapon based on nuclear technology. And that was years ago! They had years to perfect that weapon.

"As I was saying," Alec resumed, "this threat is looming not only over Humanity, but it does over the whole galaxy. We believe that their modus operandi is to infiltrate a society by brainwashing key people, but not only leaders. They are doing it to whoever they can and turn them into dormant agents. We've found tons of evidence in excavation sites. For what end goal? We can only guess. But if the cycle of extinction every 50,000 years is anything to go by... "

"Cycle of extinction?" Flavian asked.

"Before us were the Protheans and Oravores. Before them, 100,000 years ago, were the Inusannon and Thoi'Han. And other species barely documented by the Protheans came before the Thoi'Han and Inusannon," Alec said.

"And it seems like the alarm is about to go off again," Flavian noted, his gaze distant. "How do you know all this?"

"What, are you going to tell me you did not notice it?" Alec inquired.

"We do have some… groups who came forward with similar claims like yours. But they've been laughed at and ridiculed by the galaxy," Flavian admitted.

"And what do you think?"

"I think that we need more evidence."

Alec nodded. "It will come. That's the whole point of the proposed joint archaeological venture our embassy came forward with."

Flavian shifted his posture on the chair. "Nothing you do is ever by chance, is it? It serves an ulterior motive, other than what you say to the world. How do you know I am not already brainwashed?"

Alec smiled. "You've said it, nothing left to chance. When you enter this office you are automatically scanned by scanners in the walls. You are clean. General Desolas and some of his staff were not."

"Desolas Arterius?" the Turian inquired. "You mean to say!"

"We had to know. But he is long dead now," Alec admitted.

"And the ceremony on Shanxi? Where Primarch Fedorian was invited and was present for? Did you scan him too?"

"During the transfer to the surface. He is clean. We had to know. If we could not bring the scanner to him, we brought him to the scanner. But we still can't be 100% sure."

Flavian shook his head. "You are as shrewd as an Asari, did you know that?"

Alec smiled. "Why has one of Primarch Fedorian's personal advisors come to parley with the Human military attaché to the Citadel?" he asked bluntly, ignoring Flavian's question.

Flavian moved his mandibles sideways before clenching them close in resolve. "Let us both continue to speak truthfully to each other. Too much is at risk, too many lives hang in the balance to play petty politics that serve only personal goals than of the group. We have enough of that with the galaxy," Flavian proposed.

"Alright," Alec agreed.

"What are you doing in the Skyllian Verge? What is your goal there?" Flavian asked. "We have a fleet in the area, but intervention and escalation is the last thing on the Primarch's mind."

"You know what we want," Alec told him. "Ambassador Goyle has been on it the whole time. So was the communiqué forwarded to your representatives on Arcturus Station. No backstabbing tricks, no dreams of conquest. The Alliance only wants to secure the borders."

Flavian seemed to think it over. "Ambassador Quentius will approach Jath'Amon and offer him a deal. The Batarian has no better option than what the Primarch will give him. And it will secure peace and stability in the region. He will obviously still try to push for more, but if your ambassador does not flinch… he will settle. Ambassador Goyle will receive a message on the topic. It is the cleanest solution we can find that will keep the Asari matriarchs and dalatrass influence away from that region of space."

"And you are helping us both because..?" Alec inquired.

"Because the Hierarchy has more important issues to deal with than dance to the tune played by the Asari," Flavian replied. Alec's silence pressed him to say more. "You know it. We know it. The Batarian Hegemony had too many problems to solve before even preparing to pull that maneuver off. Meanwhile, General Balak goes missing from the Terminus and Anhur falls to Asari sponsored rebels. Our Intelligence discovered that the whole Batarian External Forces hierarchy crumbled and lines of communications simply ceased to exist while Batarian deniable assets leave the Nemean Abyss to the Traverse to suicide against a well organized naval force. The ones the Hegemony used in the past to put pressure on the Republics are now gone. Anhur, the metaphoric thorn in the side, now in Asari hands. Now, add to that the slander against both the Alliance and the Hierarchy pursued by the Asari big media coverages. How does it look?"

Alec did not say anything. While he knew of the politicking in Council space, he – and by extension the Alliance – did not know about the situation in the Terminus. They were still building up an espionage network of their own through Cerberus. Alliance Intelligence presence in the Terminus was minimal.

Flavian used the silence to push his argument. "I will not hide the fact that the Council attempted to overthrow the Hegemony multiple times in the past. The current situation is just the latest attempt. We were on it too in the past, but times have changed. And the Asari, likely with Salarian help, are using you to cut down the Hegemony's numbers."

"While trying to put you in a bad spot for who knows what purpose…"

"Exactly. There has always been an end goal to everything they matriarchs have done, one that was only in their interests. The Primarch is being pressured by high ranking military personnel to reconsider reconciliation with the Council and to nullify the standing treaties we have with the Alliance, including the Tuchanka relief and peacekeeping efforts," Flavian clarified. "The fact that Councilor Sparatus is leading this opposing faction and that we suspect him of conspiring against the standing government has us busy. And you surely know that something else, more obscure is going on behind our backs."

"My enemy's enemy is my friend," Alec said.

"It's a way of putting it," Flavian agreed. "So, we will give you everything we have on Torfan, on the situation, if you play this by the rules and don't give more reasons to those who want to throw more gas on the fire to actually do it."

In other words, Flavian was saying that they will help the Alliance because it is in both their interest to do so. If the Alliance does not pull off any more brazen tricks and maneuvers. At least not now.

---

Citadel, Presidium

Council Public Conference Chambers

"We demand immediate explanations!" an Asari shouted over the voices of other dignitaries present in the large conference room.

It was set up in such a way that the Council was the head of the room and the other species were on their left and right sides. It was like a semicircular table where the officials sat down and debated, with aides in the background and reporters or a small public watching from the sidelines. The Council's seats were also elevated a bit in contrast to the rest, and the Citadel client races were also sitting at a bit higher elevation compared to representatives of non-Citadel polities and entities. On the left of the Council sat the outsiders, on the right the Citadel clients.

"We shall settle that issue soon enough, Delegate Ranora," Tevos calmed down the representative from Illium. "The next item on the list is the Human Systems Alliance's violation of the Hegemony's borders within the Skyllian Verge in the immediate aftermath of the supposed attack on the Human colony of Mindoir," Tevos spoke. "Ambassador Jath'Amon, please present your case."

For Tevos, things were going so well right now. The whole plan went well so far. They had hijacked Balak's network in the Terminus, used it to issue fake orders and move Hegemony's loyal pirates from the Nemean Abyss to Torfan and attack the Humans. Supposedly, some 60% of them died at Mindoir, crammed by the thousands in the ships that went there. There were also those left at Torfan. She did not know why they didn't go in with full numbers, but she and her accomplices will take whatever they can take. They had effectively crippled the Hegemony's long arm in the Terminus.

The colony of Anhur has slipped from their control. Thousands of mercenaries paid by the Republics have landed on Anhur to support the freedom fighters. Even more 'volunteers' from Asari space have taken up arms and traveled there to do their part. Tevos and the Armali Council now had more loyal boots on the ground than the Batarians and Aria combined. She had promised Aria the planet, but she was not going to go through with their agreement. The Council gave her the agreed sum of money, but Anhur will come under Asari Republics control. And she had everything set up for it. She will briefly hand it over to Aria's lackey leadership, before 'leaking' it to the population who they were actually working for and installing the Armali Council's own lackeys in power. Some monetary compensation to rebuild the destruction will only sweeten the deal for the populace.

The attack on Mindoir also opened a hole in the Alliance's flank. This could be exploited and offered the Citadel more options to work with in case of war. The Turians were already present in the Kogrom System from where the attack was launched to Mindoir, but they were not doing anything against the Humans. While Kogrom lied in Batarian claimed space, it was far from any of their colonies or space stations. It was just that – a claimed system, a no man's land in reality. She and Sparatus had used this inaction of the Turians to slander Fedorian a bit more on him not upholding his duties before the Citadel. The move also proved to the galaxy that the Alliance was not so good at safeguarding the secrecy of their colonies' location.

Jath'Amon briefly adjusted his microphone before speaking, a holographic projection appearing in the middle of the oval conference table. "After the regrettable attack suffered by the Systems Alliance, attack might I say we have had no hand in as some openly accuse us of, contrary to what Ambassador Goyle stated, they have immediately invaded portions of space on the Hegemony's side of the border. A border, might I insist, that both parties agreed on with the signing of the Verge Treaty mere months ago."

As he spoke, the regional map popped up and sectors were highlighted. "All these are systems containing Mass Relays, but even then, they are still within our borders. Protests at the Human Embassy have yielded no results. The Turian Seventh Fleet that made a presence in the area has done nothing but sit around, staring at the Alliance vessels. The Hegemony has dispatched its own naval forces to the Skyllian Verge, but we are afraid the situation might escalate severely. I am making a call to the Turian Hierarchy for a more proactive attitude in conserving the integrity of the Citadel's borders in the Skyllian Verge since diplomacy is rather useless in face of… blatant aggression," and he finished.

"The Hegemony refused Turian patrols along its borders long ago, Ambassador," Quentius said from his seat. He did not want to let Jath'Amon play the same old card. He cut him short. Neither did he want to upset the Alliance by siding with the Batarians – or the Council that allowed this situation to develop. Sparatus looked at him with distrust.

"Ambassador Quentius, please! Ambassador Goyle," Tevos put the spotlight on her, "how are you responding to this? I understand you've been attacked, but what the Systems Alliance is doing can very well lead to an unfortunate war. Your attitude is so aggressive it is unsettling."

Goyle looked at Rael who sat beside her. He gave her a supporting nod. She then turned towards the Citadel dignitaries, stealing a look at Ambassador Quentius. He looked calm enough. She had to raise her head even further to be able to look Tevos directly in the eyes, the arrangement of the conference room trying to drive a message home that they were all below the Council.

She decided to speak. "You've just said it yourself, Councilor. Humanity was attacked. Kogrom System is no man's land effectively, not recognized by the Verge Treaty as Batarian territory. And, more so, there was a dormant Mass Relay. If I remember correctly, it was supposed to be patrolled by the Hegemony naval forces. Those forces were absent in that area, thus allowing the pirates to commit to an unwarranted and deliberate strike against one of our colony worlds," she tried to formulate it in such a way that it will mitigate part of the damage in relations with other states.

A third of politics was fancy words, sugar coating offers. The second third was having the means to achieve your own goals, be it having people at your fingertips to do your bidding (or else!) or other means to maneuver as you please. And the last third of politics is actually following on your intentions, actually acting on it.

"It is in our best interests to secure our borders by blockading the Mass Relays suspected to lead in Alliance space if the Citadel powers are not up to the task," she jabbed.

"What you are doing is illegal!" Jath'Amon protested. "We have a treaty in place!"

"And we are open to renegotiate the treaty in light of recent events," Goyle said. "It is absolutely clear to everybody here that we can't trust the Hegemony on the matter. You did nothing to prevent the incursion in our space, which might I say originated from Torfan."

"Torfan is not under the Hegemony's jurisdiction, Ambassador," Jath'Amon argued.

"The Batarian official is right. What is your argument here?" Tevos pushed on. She was happy to see the two at each other's throats, even if she was not showing it. She was, though, curious how the Humans immediately tracked them to Torfan. Quentius being spotted visiting the Human Embassy multiple times might be the answer.

"Oh, please!" Goyle dismissed them with a mocking voice. "Let's call things by their names, shall we? Torfan has been sitting on the very border of Batarian official space for centuries! If you were truly upholding the laws you would have eradicated the lawlessness there. No, the Hegemony was contempt to rent it to mercenary outfits and pirate factions who operated in the Traverse and the Verge for centuries! Your argument holds no water!" she returned, hoping the blunt and fair response would further incite the Hierarchy to side with the Alliance.

"Nevertheless, this sets a dangerous precedence," Councilor Valern chimed in. "It is in clear violation of a Citadel affiliated race's sovereignty."

"The Citadel Council will not stand for it, Ambassador Goyle!" Sparatus warned.

Rael stood up at this. "You accuse the Systems Alliance of infringing on the sovereignty of the Hegemony when this Council has attempted to overthrow the High Hegemon on numerous occasions throughout history?"

"The Council did not attempt-" Tevos tried to take the lead, but was cut off by Rael as he continued.

"Your hypocrisy has no limits, Councilors, has it? If you want justice, let there be equal justice for everybody!"

"Sadly; some are more equal than others," Ambassador Talin of the Courts of Dekuuna spoke in his monotone voice. Lines were being drawn here and sides were being taken.

"What is that supposed to mean, Ambassador Talin?" Sparatus demanded.

"It means exactly what he said, Councilor," Quentius joined in again. He was Fedorian's voice here. "The Turian Hierarchy is built upon virtues such as honor, courage, truth. And any Turian with virtue will not deny the truth. Recent history has seen the Citadel Council forget the initial scope at its foundation. We have… strong opinions on the matter at hand."

Tevos was appalled by the division that was forming in the Council. Her façade faltered at Quentius' words. Talin was already in the Human camp, with the Quarians. Through Primarch Fedorian, the Turians are gravitating in that direction. The only missing in this whole mess was a representative from the Krogans. She was convinced that had Wrex not been busy with rebuilding and reforming his society, turning Tuchanka into a stable political entity, he would also be here, bad mouthing the Council. He proved to be huge trouble at the peace conference in the aftermath of the Terran Blitz. He had effectively turned the tide completely in the favor of the Humans when it came to the topic of Tuchanka. And the public was agreeing with him on certain points. She did not believe a Krogan could be that skilled in the arts of diplomacy.

The most unlikely person came to her rescue and diverted attention away from this particular debate. Jath'Amon, frustrated, stood up. "Back to the matter at hand!" he shouted and everyone calmed down, silence taking hold of the conference. The reporters were recording everything and the small public was watching intently. He turned in Goyle's direction. "We are open to proposals. What are you suggesting?"

Jath'Amon knew he was treading a fine line here. On one hand, the Hegemony will have to lose if the Humans stay in their space, blockading the dormant relays. First of all, it would be a loss of prestige. Secondly, it hindered their options in the geopolitical scene.

"If you are not going to agree with the current situation, which we too find it unpleasant, then Council peacekeeping forces can be stationed to prevent activation of relays from your end. Of course, there will be Alliance oversight over the operation," Goyle answered.

Her request caused murmurs among the present people. "You are asking for a lot, don't you think, Ambassador Goyle?" Delegate Ranora asked. "Not even Illium has as-" she began to speak, but Goyle immediately knew she was simply kissing ass here, trying to downplay her and say a few sweet words about the Council.

"The Systems Alliance is not Illium," she blocked Ranora. "We are levels above a corporate sponsored world where slavery is not only tolerated, but defended by the local legislature. For an Asari majority world, you should be ashamed! Levels of hypocrisy this high disgust me!"

"Upstart barbarians!" Ranora insulted Goyle, "both you and the Quarians! You have raided Illium! You are invading Citadel space! You are upsetting a good working balance that was in place for 1200 years! You should know your place in this galaxy!"

"ENOUGH!" Jath'Amon shouted. "Sit the hell down, Delegate! Illium's case is after the Hegemony's. Sit down and shut up!" he commanded. The display seemed to put the Asari in her place. "I accept your proposition, Ambassador Goyle. Only if that oversight comes on a civilian ship. And I don't want to involve the whole Council," he looked at the big three whose seats were at the highest elevation. "Batarian Hegemony naval forces will take up the blockade. We accept only a very minor Turian presence as a third party to overview the enforcement of the blockade on our part."

With this, the Batarians effectively dislodged significant naval presence from their main fleets and spread them on blockade duty. It stripped the Hegemony of some of their naval power and tied it down. It would also put it dangerously close to invading Alliance space if they felt brave – or dumb – enough. Or, if history was offering any clue, the Hegemony will allocate only token forces just to shut them up.

Goyle looked at Rael after a moment of thought. She retreated from the microphone so they'd have a bit of privacy. "What do you say?"

Rael leaned closer to her. "The Turians are your best option right now. The Hegemony will be malleable for the time being, but in the future they might consider… bold moves. Old habits die hard. And Fedorian is your safest option. Go with what they're handing out."

Goyle nodded and turned to the table. "I accept. The proposition will be forwarded to the Alliance President and Parliament."

"Additionally, all Human ships will leave Batarian space in 24 standard hours," Jath'Amon said.

"I accept. Only after your ships have secured the relays and a Turian ship is there to oversee the enforcement of the agreement."

"As does the Turian Hierarchy," Quentius stated.

"The Hegemony is satisfied with the answer. Further negotiations will continue if the Humans continue on the proposed path," Jath'Amon said. "Now, Delegate Ranora, you can speak," and he sat down.

"Delegate Ranora, representing the Illium Corporate Consortium, you have the word," Valern stated. Now they were getting to the most pressing matter.

"Thank you, esteemed Council," Ranora said as she had the floor. She was going to play the Council coin as much as possible. "We all know the importance of Illium. It is the entrepot between the Terminus Systems and the Asari Republics, among the richest planets in the galaxy. Its economic prowess has had only positive effects on galactic economy, the Citadel experiencing a significant increase in every sector, bar agriculture, since its rise to prominence. I believe there is no person here who has not used, to varying extent, products developed on Illium. Illium is also the greatest chokepoint, standing guard against the Terminus incursions into Asari, Drell and Elcor space."

Goyle and Rael had to give it to her. She knew how to use words to make her employers be the good guys here. She was an Asari and it was almost natural to many of them.

"However all that prosperity stands under the black wings of the Humans and Quarians. They accuse pirates of deliberately attacking them, but what were they when they raided Illium two days ago? They caused damage in the billions and the deaths of over 2,000 citizens. Their cybernetic attack crashed everything while they came in and kidnaped Quarian workers from their living quarters. They even threatened to use nuclear weapons to deter the few warships of allied Republics. Normally, Illium would not ask the Council for help, but we acknowledge the threat posed by the Humans. They tried to use underhanded methods, bribery most often, and vague threats. The day before yesterday they came after us for not bowing to their whims, as if they are above us all. Tomorrow… they might come for you. As the entity that brought an era of peace to the galaxy, we ask the Citadel Council to take measures to safeguard the peace from the barbarians who threaten to break it. They are already breaking it, as we are seeing the uneasy situation developing in the Attican Traverse and the Skyllian Verge."

Everybody's attention shifted to the Council. "Indeed, the raid on Illium is a matter of great concern," Valern started to speak. "Though we'd like to hear it from the two ambassadors what they will say before the galaxy in regards to their actions."

Rael leaned into the microphone. "First of all, let me clear and bring the information you've purposefully left out, Delegate Ranora. You call the Quarian Republic and the Systems Alliance barbarians, but you did not look past the asses you were kissing," he said, causing Goyle to visibly suppress herself from laughing. Others struggled to do the same.

"Please keep a civil vocabulary during this meeting, Ambassador Zorah," Tevos advised him.

"No, no. Let us be frank here. What is Illium infamous for?" he asked the Asari who stood silent. "Your corporate world has extremely abusive labor practices and there is legalization for everything except murder! Illium is producing weapons and pharmaceuticals that would be illegal to produce anywhere else, save perhaps for the Terminus. You have legalized slavery, simply calling it indentured servitude! There were 5,000 Quarians slaves, being worked 10 hours a day in barely tolerable conditions, some of them even operating high risk machinery in the factories!"

"That does not an-"

"I am not finished!" Rael cut her. "And when we tried to negotiate the immediate termination of their contracts for monetary compensation… your corporate bosses immediately changed company policy. After interviewing a handful of the liberated Quarians we've confirmed that they were actually forced to sign the addendums to their contracts without even knowing what they were signing for! The people you're representing in this conference have effectively, within Illium's legal bounds – which are extremely vast, enslaved their employees forever!"

He let that linger on for a moment before Tevos finally broke the silence. "The matter is that during this raid, above all else, thousands have been wounded or killed during accidents as a result of your shutdown of the planet's power supply, car accidents being the most prevalent."

"The casualties are unfortunate and we will reimburse the affected families once we have full, unaltered, accurate details," Goyle swiftly shut it.

"Are innocent lives worth only money to you?" Tevos asked.

"Bold question, Councilor," Goyle cautioned. "You are not the one in position to ask this question when the very polity you represent has attempted to kill millions with money alone. The difference between us is the cause, the goal we strive for. We did it to liberate enslaved citizens of an allied government."

"So should we expect you to attack the Hegemony next time?" Sparatus asked. "Mayhaps a raid today, a second one tomorrow? Then a third one the next week? Free them city by city?" His question attracted concerned looks from the Batarian official.

"They haven't kidnapped any Humans to force into slavery," Goyle answered.

"And if they did?" Valern pushed.

Goyle looked at Jath'Amon who, in turn, was fixed on her. After a second of considering the consequences of what she will say, she gives a simple and to the point answer. "Gold in peace, steel in war."

"War? Perhaps you are quick to jump to conclusions," Tevos wanted to paint them in an even worse light.

"What do you call it when another faction deliberately attacks citizens of yours and forces them into slavery?" Goyle asked, leaving her to answer her own question. "Unlike the leading governments of the Citadel, we will defend our citizens and rescue them from captivity."

"Still, the matter of the fact is that you have committed aggressive acts in an illegal context. There was no declaration of hostilities between Illium, Humanity and the Quarian Republic," Tevos spoke.

"This whole case has been built from the premises that we attacked Illium as a whole. We just descended on the holdings of a number of companies," Goyle clarified. "Oh, and Delegate Ranora?" she looked at the Illium spokeswoman. "One more correction about one of your lies that went unaddressed. Alliance Navy ships did not use nuclear weapons at Illium, they simply exposed small containers of highly radioactive isotopes to the void. I believe they've left one behind so that you cannot claim later otherwise. Obviously, the one who wrote the speech for you must have forgotten this little fact." Ranora looked as if she was ready to kill. Goyle's posture and facial expression only taunted her.

"Sanctions must be imposed against both the Systems Alliance and the Quarian Republic," Tevos continued. "As a reminder that we will not tolerate such behavior. They will be severe and we expect every government with common sense to follow the Citadel's example."

"Additionally, the Illium Corporate Consortium demands, as reparations, a working FTL drive designed by the Systems Alliance," Ranora said. Her demand incited the people to murmurs.

Goyle did not betray the amusement she felt. "We accept."

Rael put a hand on her shoulder to get her attention. "You can't possibly truly accept that?"

"Why not?" Goyle asked. "They want an FTL drive, we'll give them one."

---

Citadel, Kithoi Ward docks

Turian Naval Base Arx, SSV Schrodinger

Liara walked through the pristine corridors of the Alliance science ship SSV Schrodinger. The ship had been denied access to the Presidium's docks following the raid on Illium and the Council's response. The Hierarchy, however, was quick to offer the ship access to the docks they operated here. Her presence was met with mixed reactions from the crew, though not unexpected. Some looked at her with interest, some with neutral looks, and a few with what could pass as mildly xenophobic attitude. The security detail on the ship composed of Alliance Marines was making sure nobody committed to any act of violence.

Liara reached the door, escorted by one Marine, she was supposed to pass through. The Marine stayed behind, by the door's side. The door opened and Liara stepped in. Only to be jumped by a creature with black hair and who kept screeching. It could fit in her arms, like a toddler or a baby would.

Liara was startled by the creature and took a step back. A small surprised, scared shout escaped her lips. The creature kept its distance after the initial ambush, jumping on the desk that held a bunch of papers, a mug and a computer. It was almost territorial. And it reminded her of a Human to some degree. The Marine by the door must have heard her scream and stormed the room, rifle at the ready.

"Darwin! Get back here!" a man's baritone voice commanded from an adjacent room to the current one.

The Marine relaxed and put the safety on to his rifle and laughed under his helmet. "It's just Darwin. Sorry, ma'am. Forgot to tell you about the little guy," he said before retreating to his post.

Liara noticed that the creature was staring expectantly at somebody and she saw a man appear from where the voice originated. An aging Human, past his mid years and well into his 50s, emerged from the room, a man in black and white clothes typical to Human researchers working under the Alliance. He held what she guessed to be apples in his hands.

"Darwin! Don't scare my guests," he addressed the small creature that seemed happy he was being fed, holding his arms open. The man handed the apples to it and held him in his arms. "Doctor T'Soni, please excuse my little friend here. He can be very territorial when meeting somebody totally unknown."

"It's alright. Though I have to ask, what is it?"

"This little guy is called Darwin. He's my species' closest living relative - a chimpanzee. Darwin is a proud representative of the Pan genus, a great ape, a little hominid," the man replied as he watched the little chimp slowly consume the apple. Liara noticed how relaxed it was now. "He's smarter than he lets on, you know?"

"I see," Liara stated, quite interested in Darwin of a sudden.

"Oh, but where are my manners?" he turned his attention at her. "Doctor Garret Bryson," he introduced himself. "I am the person you'll be answering to during the expedition on Vestige."

"A pleasure to meet you, doctor," Liara stated. "I was very surprised when I was told that you've personally chosen me to lead the Citadel team of researchers. Why?"

Bryson invited her to sit down with a hand gesture as he put Darwin on his lap, he too sitting. "Because, doctor T'Soni, you're a very resourceful person and you strike me as the most open minded one of all the ones who've applied with their dossiers for this project. And I don't want people who are not open to new possibilities, to new evolutions and discoveries that could challenge their comfort zones. I want people who don't dismiss other theories just because there are not proof in its favor. And neither proof against it."

"You're saying that as if whatever this project will find on Vestige will change well established conceptions in the wider galaxy," Liara said.

Bryson smiled at Liara's observation. Darwin sat his ass down right by Bryson's left hand. He placed his palm on the chimp's head and carressed him. "Did you know that the chimpanzees are the second most intelligent species on Earth, doctor T'Soni?" he tried to dodge her question. "One day they will be as smart as their cousins - Homo Sapiens Sapiens. It is quite fascinating, to watch them live and learn just like us. Perhaps one day we will stand side by side, us and chimpanzees."

"That is certainly a thought for the very long term," she stated.

"Indeed… a shame I won't live to see that day," Bryson added. "Doctor T'Soni, I want to nominate you as the lead Citadel researcher on the project and you'll be the one to oversee the Citadel teams. Unofficially, I already did it. I just need to put it in documents. I expect of you to efficiently organize your subordinates, to follow established rules and not stray from them, to make sure your teams are aware of Alliance legislature, even if you will benefit from a special status, and that you keep order. Can you do that?" he asked.

Liara thought a moment about it. There was fairly a large number of young Asari researchers who have stepped forward. Turians, Salarians and other races sent adults to this expedition. Those would be of little issue. Turians are disciplined and the Salarians are used to taking orders from females. The Drell are very reasonable, placing utility over pride. The Elcor are no problem either. What she has reservations about is the older researchers of the Asari team – the matrons. The most renowned matriarchs were staying away from this project because they thought it was a waste of time, that the project is just a trivial maneuver to save face between the polities involved. They also reasoned that whatever the Alliance was doing, they will never show the Citadel teams something worthwhile.

"I will do my best in that sense," she replied. "Though you must also understand that my reputation is not the best among the academic society. My only authority comes from the name T'Soni."

"I am aware of your family, doctor," Bryson said. "But you didn't tie yourself that much to it when you strived. I've read your public records and I want to see if my confidence is shared by you as well."

"I will do my best. That I promise and I will follow through with," she stated, eager to learn what Bryson wishes to show her and the galaxy with this project.

He smiled and offered her a pen with papers that he kept in one of the desk's chambers. "Then I will ask you to read this contract and sign both copies if you agree with all the details within it. One is in English, the other in Standard Thessian, Ruavan dialect."

Liara took the papers from Bryson, not used to seeing paper still in use. Today, the galaxy is using datapads. Paper was outdated and easy to damage. She carefully read the document that was written in the Ruavan dialect. After 15 minutes, she signed the papers with a bit of assistance from Bryson as she was not used to writing by hand with a pen on paper. But it had to be this way if she wanted to participate. Liara T'Soni just made one of the biggest moves in galactic history, one that will lead her on the road she never sought.

---

Earth, Brussels

Systems Alliance Parliament

"Thank you for having me and for accepting the invitation for the public debate, mister president, Chairman Udina," the reporter said as the live transmission began.

The debate was taking place in a small room of the Parliament. Well, as small as a room in such a large building could be. They were all seated in comfortable armchairs. They were arranged in a triangle, the two politicians facing the reporter. The reporter from Alliance News Network sat on the left side of the screen.

"Pleasure to be here," Montgomery said.

"For everybody following us from home, on TV or on the Internet, the long awaited debate is about to begin. President Kevin Montgomery is face to face with Donnel Udina, Chairman of Terra Firma. Humanity was subjected twice to terrorist attacks in the past weeks from Batarian… extremists. With the war still fresh in peoples' minds, public call for closed borders became more and obvious. You could say that xenophobia is at its highest in decades. And, in light of it all, President Montgomery does not share the same opinion. The Alliance has maintained relatively open borders with increased security and the open approach policy has not changed," the reporter introduced the situation. "Gentlemen, may we begin?"

"Of course, though if I may make a correction," Udina said. "You've said that the terror attacks at Shanxi and Mindoir have been perpetrated by Batarian extremists. Let me correct you on that. The Batarians have a history of such actions and it is common practice of the Hegemony to strike fear into the hearts of the populace. They did it in what is called the Fourth Terminus Insurgency and they pulled it again against us."

Montgomery laughed at Udina. The latter was not pleased by his rival's reaction. "Does the truth amuse you?"

"No, of course not," Montgomery admitted. "Is just that I know that Terra Firma will set back Humanity by decades, if not centuries, on the galactic scene. And you're just using recent events to put a xenophobic agenda between Humanity and the other races."

"So, we all know what happened recently," the reporter wanted to initiate the dialogue. "And the millions of protesters on every Alliance colony are now calling for a… new policy, some of them even a new president. How do you respond to their demands, mister president?"

"As I've said in the aftermath of the unfortunate conflict with the Turians and the Council," he became serious as he spoke. "We cannot isolate ourselves from the rest of the galaxy. If Humanity wants to grow significantly and actually stand a chance of significantly shaping the future of this galaxy, then we must make friends and establish a strong presence in the political, military and economic sectors in a short time. The Council and the other races? They have over two thousand years over us. The Quarians are the second latest arrivals, with a head start in excess of 7 centuries. We must seize the opportunity now, while the galaxy is malleable."

"So, in a few words, your goal is to put the Alliance on the same level with the Council races?" the reporter asked.

"Even surpass them," Montgomery stated.

"What is your opinion, mister Udina?"

"Well, it's obvious the president is trying to hide between half truths. Militarily, we have already surpassed the Council as a whole. I believe the Shanxi Campaign and the… Terran Blitz have been well documented from the front lines. Our brave brothers and sisters under arms have demonstrated what Humanity is capable of," Udina exposed his first objection. "Economically… yes, they have a stronger economy than us as a whole, but individually? The Turians are not looking too well, and the Salarians are not impossibly much ahead of us. The Asari are the ones we can truly call them the economic colossus. And politically? We have a working relationship with the Quarians. We are secure against invasion for the next few decades if you ask me."

"And where did you pull that number from?" Montgomery asked.

"We are independent from the mass relays and they don't know where our planets are. It will take them years to even scout a single lane of approach, let alone gather intelligence through passive aggressive means."

Montgomery dismissed him. "No, it's not true. We have the upper hand now because of the Hackett-Anderson Protocol being enforced and because the Quarians shared their star charts with us. I repeat, this is what offers us the strategic initiative and it eroding away by the day. If you think the other races are standing idle you are mistaken."

"Yet, when you say you want to approach the galactic community in a friendly manner, you also approve of the raid of Illium," the reporter continued. "I believe it was dubbed Operation ILLIUM FREEDOM?"

"Yes," Montgomery confirmed.

"How… how do you explain this? Many of us don't really understand here."

"There were 5,000 Quarians in indentured servitude on Illium, effectively working as slaves for various corporate entities. When Admiral Han'Gerrel and Representative Koris approached me to ask for support… I could not stand by knowing that five thousand innocent people have had their liberty stolen. We tried to negotiate their release, but the Illium Corporate Consortium resorted to underhanded methods to keep them under their thumbs. In the end, if you want to come to simple legal actions, it was per the articles of the Arcturus Federation. Citizens of a member state were kept captive by foreign organizations. Every paper and recording of the negotiations between us and Illium have been published on the Federal Monitor for everybody to see."

The Federal Monitor is the Alliance's official announcement website. All laws and official communiques, all procedures and administrative information can be found on the website. Everything going on within the Parliament and Government can be followed there. Everything that's not classified due to the sensitive nature of the information.

"The Quarian Conclave has passed a law that makes every Quarian in the galaxy a citizen. And that includes even the few they exiled for various rules broken!" Udina objected. "And if you look when it was passed, it was just before the negotiations with Illium. Of course it was just the justification the Federalists were looking for."

"Mister Udina?" the reporter looked at him.

"It was a foolish move that could have triggered war with the aliens. I am confident that Humanity has the strength to take them on. But such a maneuver was uncalled for. We did not have any obligation to partake in it and risk the lives of our Marines and sailors."

"We do have an obligation to help the Quarians per the treaty articles, and as they've helped us with both military support and knowledge sharing," Montgomery said.

"We've helped them more than they will ever help us. You are simply placing an alien race's interests above your own. Plus, we don't want to become the United States or Russia of this galaxy."

"What do you mean, mister Udina?" the reporter asked.

"Simple history," he began his answer. "Both countries have a rich history of meddling in the affairs of other countries and causing more issues than they solved. Look at the Middle East episode – NATO toppled down Libya, Iraq… they tried to do it with Syria. Always false flag operations to topple regimes that were causing them headaches. They created terrorism. Or the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the US armed the mujahedeen and it turned against them. Or the Chechnya episode. Or the East Ukraine episode. Or did you forget the Yugoslav Wars too? Perhaps the War in Transnistria, 1992? Or the attempted proxy in the Philippines in 2019? We are starting to repeat the mistakes of the 20th and 21st century on a much larger scale and it will be a disaster! We should not mess around in other people's yard."

"You're just using fear to gather popular support, Udina. We are not repeating mistakes of the past, we are doing the right thing for Humanity in the galaxy."

"The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Did you know that, mister president?" Udina was quick to point out. "What if the Asari warships fired on our ships? What if the Illium Defense Force ships fired? Our servicemen would have died."

"Sometimes…" Montgomery tried to recall a valuable piece of advice, "as a Navy officer told me back in the day, sometimes you have to roll a hard six."

"And we have all seen how that hard six worked in favor of the Alliance's current policy," Udina returned. "Sanctions upon sanctions and boycotts."

"How will the sanctions affect us, mister president?" the reporter asked.

"Our most lucrative trade deals are with the Elcor and the Turians," Montgomery started to explain the situation. "The Asari Councilor, with the backing of the top Republics of course, was the first to come up with the sanctions. The Hanar and Salarians joined them, but the Elcor and the Turians did not."

"Why did they not comply with the Councilor?"

"We are the lifeline of the Elcor economy right now. You have undoubtedly learned about the incident revolving around a recently discovered Eezo deposit that lead to a Citadel wide embargo on the largest source of income for the Elcor – the metallurgical industry and mining. Now it's us who's buying the metals for Eezo and they're selling the Eezo on Citadel markets to supplement their income. They truly could not afford to shut trade with us. It was a deal they could not refuse."

"And the Turian Hierarchy? Why did they not stop trade?"

"Primarch Fedorian has had unpleasant experiences with the Council's decisions throughout his administration, culminating with the extremely poor choices and lack of good communication that was the war with the Council. The Hierarchy's leadership has encouraged cordial relations with the Alliance and has already engaged in commerce."

"What are we trading?"

"Mostly entertainment and services, with a growing collaboration and penetration in applied computer sciences. Helium-3 exports have also risen since our own Eezo-based starships use significantly less fuel than our production capability."

"And the Batarians?" Udina chimed in.

"We don't have anything noteworthy with them going on," Montgomery answered.

"But we do have something," the reporter pressed.

"Only a few private deals with absolutely no endorsement from the state and completely on their own."

"So not only are you letting the aliens kill our people, you are also masquerading you financing them as rogue deals?" Udina asked. Montgomery leveled an upset look in his direction. "Everything is backfiring on you and it is Humanity who's paying the price of failure."

"How do you feel about the joint Human – Quarian – Citadel archaeological project on Vestige the Alliance agreed to under Federalist party majority? This is another major cause of concern for the citizens, feeling like we are literally importing terrorists and, as one young Elysian put it, ticking time bombs?" the reported asked.

"We should not have adhered to that project," Udina said. "Vestige, even though it holds a great number of Prothean and other precursor civilization relics, is a Human colony with a population of nearly 50 million. To expose them to the threats Shanxi has experienced by allowing passage to alien groups is inconceivable to me. Who knows what they can discover or do there? Anything they put their hands on, according to the agreement, will be a joint research and the fruits of that research will be shared with the same aliens that are vying for Humanity's subjugation."

"What my peer here forgot to say is that the Citadel teams have been handpicked by Alliance personnel," came Montgomery's turn. "Doctor Garret Bryson is the lead researcher of the project and he's distinguished himself as a competent leader. He's the leading personality in Alliance xenoarchaeology. Secondly, every member of the Citadel delegation will undergo extensive checks and they must pass multiple security protocols all the way from the Citadel to Vestige. And, once on Vestige, they will be under the watchful eyes of the 212th Marine Regiment that's garrisoned near the archaeological site. The scope of the project is not that of giving away whatever we find, or whatever shady conspiracy theory people are concocting. No, we aim to build trust between our societies on the individual level and it has to start somewhere. The Citadel is always keen to study precursor technology. We are curious and eager to learn new things as well. In exchange, our own scientists will take part in a similar project in Citadel space."

"We are running a bit short on time until the brief break. I have two questions for each of you that I'd like you to answer before the break. After it, we will move forward and discuss on the internal development plans," the reporter said. "First, president Montgomery, chairman Udina, how will you continue to shape Humanity's foreign policy if you are in position of President of the Systems Alliance? Mister Udina?" and he looked at Udina.

"If I was to hold the presidential office, I'd immediately steer the Alliance towards a more isolationist stance. We have lost too many lives due to aliens in a year. Alien immigration will be prohibited and Terra Firma wants to push for a policy that will deny them residence in Alliance space. And the travel permits that we are currently handing out like warm bread via the embassy on the Citadel will be cut down to smaller numbers. And we will solve the recently arisen separatist sentiment on Eternium peacefully, not by cracking down on people. We will be prioritizing Humanity above all else. As our name suggests, Terra Firma."

The reporter nodded and looked at Montgomery. "Mister president?"

"I've said it before. The Federalist Party will push for warmer relations with friendly alien polities and seek to elevate Humanity on the galactic stage. Isolationism will do us no good. Now, we will not blindly go forward. Our peoples' safety comes first and we will secure it. Some of the more reasonable revisions to our current laws proposed by Terra Firma's members in the Parliament will be voted and most likely accepted and implemented. We will severely tighten the leash on border security and we will support the military in hunting down those who've attacked us. We will not hide behind fears of what might be, we will bravely go where no other man has gone before… and we'll tackle every challenge the galaxy will throw at us."

"Last question, mister president. Millions have demanded your resignation in the protests and Terra Firma has started the procedure for a referendum to suspend you from office and replace you with an interim president. Will the Federal Party support the steps for that referendum to take place?" the reporter asked.

Montgomery smiled at him. "What do you want me to say? Of course the Federal Party will not hinder constitutional liberties. The referendum has gathered the required number of signatures, it will go ahead. And we will let the people decide if they want me to continue my second term… or not."

---

Operation PAYBACK

---

"Operation PAYBACK can be seen… if you want, the beginning of the Alliance asserting its influence and control in what is the wild west of the galaxy. With Torfan and, if the declassified dossiers are to be trusted, the major Eclipse base of operations in that region of space gone, the Attican Traverse literally turned into a real estate business. Everybody tried to claim as much of it, as soon as possible. The Alliance was the quickest to seize the chance, followed by the Batarians, Salarians and Turians.

It was the liquidation of Torfan that also set the stage that will see the Alliance and Hierarchy fight the Collectors and their allies. The message was subtle at first, but it was there: 'the Humans are coming'. The Humans did something no other power dared - they faced the Citadel, they forced an important Citadel affiliated power to back off, they lodged themselves in this status quo everybody enjoyed and dislodged it. The galaxy was afraid of change to a large extent. When fear and dreams of conquest and glory began to dictate actions, when push came to shove, the Alliance held its ground at Nova America, at New Canton, at Ferris Fields and further on. [...]

That day… no, a monster did not emerge. He just had the spotlight placed upon him. But is it really right to call him a monster? His methods were harsh, but he produced results every time. He never discriminated and he always said upfront what he thought of you. In a galaxy filled with lies having an honest man around can be invigorating. Leonard Averescu was, and still is, a national hero. No, a galactic hero! He should be up there with Shepard, with Vakarian, with Victus, Coronati and Hackett! Even if there are many groups trying to discredit him and smear his image, the truth cannot be changed."

(Diana Allers, field reporter for ANN's Battlespace, public speaker, contemporary military historian and author of the book The Iron Fist: Leonard Averescu on which the 2229 movie with the same name is based on)

---

Interstellar space, FTL transit

SSV Spirit of Fire, Captain's quarters

Commander Natalia Novitska, XO of Spirit of Fire, approached the admiral's quarters while the ship was still in FTL transit. They were hours away from hitting Torfan and the men and women were getting some rest. Or what could pass as rest. Nobody could sleep knowing that in six hours they would be dropping out of FTL transit into a battle. She had trouble sleeping, continuously thinking about the tactics the rear admiral and FLEETCOM came up with. It was more like FLEETCOM agreeing with Averescu's proposed strategy, only a handful of corrections and observations here and there.

She reached her commanding officer's door, the bulkhead that served as door on warships. Natalia knew her CO all too well. Or what he let her know of him. The man that was Leonard Averescu was a hard shell with few cracks you could gaze into. He was reserved. She was aware to a certain degree of his past, of his life and the loss of his loved ones. And she knew his policy. She knocked on the bulkhead, resorting to the classic methods rather than contacting him some other way.

"Come in!" she heard from the other end. She pushed the bulkhead and entered the room. Music was playing at low volume from his personal laptop, right now singing what sounded like an acoustic guitar. "Commander, why are you up at this late an hour?" he asked from his place. He sat comfortably in an armchair, pieces of metal that she recognized as a disassembled M11 pistol were laid down on the table by his side. "Is it that you can't sleep either and want to kill some time or are you here for last minute attempts at what you people call morality?" he inquired calmly.

Seeing him in his off duty fatigues always took her by surprise. She didn't have many chances to see him in anything other than the uniform. His uniform tended to fit his form better, showing the build that he maintained by exercising. The off duty clothes were larger on him, making him look like he lost weight. She was in her off duty clothes provided by the Navy - a larger t-shirt, dark blue jeans and boots.

"What are you doing?" she asked, her eyes on the cleaning kit the man was opening. The song's lyrics sang accompanied by the guitar.

All my memories, gather round her

Modest lady, stranger to blue water

Dark and dusty, painted on the sky

Misty taste of moonshine, teardrop in my eye

"Making sure my weapon is ready for today," he replied as he began to clean the parts of dust. She sighed unwillingly, like it was reflex. "So it is the latter you wanted to discuss," Averescu concluded, his eyes never leaving the slide barrel as the handkerchief cleaned it of dust.

"Yes… do you really have to go that far?" she asked.

"It's not that I have to. I must," he simply said as the song continued. "Stop this useless waste of time. Nobody can change my mind."

Country roads, take me home

To the place I belong

West Virginia

Mountain mamma, take me home

Country roads

"Talking about it never hurts," she reasoned.

"Talking is a waste of time, Commander," he shut that path off. "Talking is just that - talking. Few listen. And those who are listening are the ones who shouldn't be listening in the first place, the ones who didn't stir the hornet's nest."

Natalia sighed as she sat down in the second armchair. Her eyes spotted a whiskey on one of the showcase's shelves. "You can have some if you want to. Grab me a glass too," he invited her, briefly looking up at her from the weapon parts.

She got up and walked up to the wooden showcase. She opened the door and reached for the opened bottle. With her other hand she grabbed two glasses from the same shelf. Hidden by the dim light that hit the showcase was a set of framed pictures. The commander paused a second as she looked at them. She didn't recognize Averescu in any of them. Only a family of four. A man with short hair and moustache past his 40s, a blonde woman that must be his wife, the daughter tall as her father's leg, and a toddler caressed by the mother. Natalia felt her CO's eyes on her. She cursed for staring at the picture for a second too long. For all his friendly attitude with the crew, she still felt intimidated by him sometimes. This was one of those moments. It was as if those hard eyes, made of stone, judged her.

"That's me there, in my mother's arms," he told her. "The picture was taken when I was two years old."

"Your family?" she asked. She put the two glasses on the table and slowly poured the whiskey into them.

"Yeah…" his voice was distant, focusing on the song.

I hear her voice in the morning hour she calls me

Radio reminds me of my home far away

Driving down the road I get a feeling

That I should have been home yesterday, yesterday

Natalia slowly passed one of the glasses to his half of the table while she grabbed the other one. She sipped and enjoyed the taste of the drink in her mouth, dropping the topic as the man wasn't keen on talking about his family.

Country roads, take me home

To the place I belong

West Virginia

Mountain mamma, take me home

Country roads

"This song makes me homesick," she noted. [3]

"You missing the calm and beauty of Atmos?" he asked as he cleaned the recoil spring.

"Yes. I was born there. My parents migrated from Poland in 2138, a year after they got married," she said.

"Where were they from?" Averescu asked.

"Katowice."

His eyes perked up from his pistol parts and looked at her sip another mouth of whiskey. "Katowice? Why would they want to move out? I hear it's a beautiful, historical city."

"They wanted to start anew and living on Earth is more and more expensive. They were too adventurous and too short on money. So, what did they do? Use the Alliance funds for colonial population growth and move to Atmos. They settled at the capital's periphery, in Terra Atmosia."

"Beautiful place. Visited once when posted on the Horatio Nelson in a tour, in 2162."

"Yeah, the landscape is very beautiful. You can see the Pegasus Mountain Range and the Shimmering Sea from the top of Skyreach Tower," she said, eyes distant and recalling images of home. "Now that I think of it, you're from London, are you not?"

"Yes, I was born in London."

"So…" she gesticulated with her hand at the laptop, the song changing to another one, "why listen to a song about West Virginia? That's in the United States."

Even though she was born and raised on one of Earth's colonies, Natalia was very knowledgeable in Earth geography. One of the courses introduced in geography classes Alliance wide is about Earth, with generalities on the other more important colonies. It was reasoned that every Human, no matter where it finds itself, must know about its species' home, about Mother Earth.

"I know. But it reminds me of home. Of Earth," he answered.

"Not London?" she inquired, to which he shook his head. "Why not?"

Averescu sighed and put down the weapon parts. He grabbed the glass instead. "I don't feel tied to people or places in particular," he began. "I don't see London as my home, but Earth. But… if I am to be honest with you, I would choose to live my old age on the shores of Lake Baikal."

This elicited a reaction from the XO. "How so?"

"Our parents took us on a three week vacation to Russia when I was 12. They spent two months worth of salary for that vacation," he recalled, the images flashing through his mind. "And we took the train from Moscow to Irkutsk, there was this company that offered tourism services on the Trans-Siberian Railway and we traveled with them. Have you ever seen the countryside of Russia, beyond the Ural Mountains?" he asked her.

"Only place I've visited in Russia was Saint Petersburg and the surroundings. Some Moscow too. And that was with the Navy. I had to follow through with officer courses at the St. Petersburg Naval Institute," she said. Averescu glanced at her with a questioning look. "Not the old, seafaring navy. It was the space navy department," she clarified.

While it was the year 2181 and Humanity had been a spacefaring race in the truest sense of the word for nearly a century, 91 years to be precise, and had a space based naval force, the old seafaring navies of Earth were still in service with their countries under the greater jurisdiction of the Systems Alliance Armed Forces. If Earth ever comes under attack, these navies are expected to contribute to the defense of the planet. They've been equipped with potent weapon systems capable of firing into space, especially the surface to orbit missiles launched by submarines. And, because of their vulnerability to orbital bombardment, their wartime bases have been built to resist heavy bombardment.

Alas, the surface ships are expendable and are operated by skeleton crews and artificial intelligences. The most potent and long term fighting force are the submarines that can lurk for centuries under the surface of the oceans and fire missiles against orbital targets and land forces that are invading. All submarines have small Human crews, but their advantage is that they're run by smart AIs. If needed, they can go dark and resurface after decades. The crew would be dead, but the machine would still be capable of fighting.

The United States, Russian Federation, United Kingdom, France, Italy, Japan, China, India, Iran, Finland, Sweden, Indonesia, Australia, South Korea, Norway, Turkey, Greece, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Denmark, Canada, Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Chile, South Africa, Nigeria and Algeria all contributed from early years, ever since the discovery of evidence of advanced alien life on Mars, to the development of a global network of submerged submarine bases solely for the defense of Earth. Once the Alliance took hold of everything, it only expanded the network and built deeper bases, into the sides of undersea mountain ranges, and introduced the AIs into the picture.

"Ah, I see," Averescu returned. "I recommend you see it. It's so serene and beautiful, nature in its beauty. It takes your mind off everything, you know?" he said and looked at her. "It was a magnificent journey. So, we arrived in Irkutsk and from there by car to Lake Baikal. We've camped two nights on its shores, traveling on its shore and mountainous northern side. It was two days where… I literally disconnected completely from everything. It was just me… and the beauty of the scenery. And my family. I felt like I was connecting to something else, something greater than me, than us. That… humbling and exhilarating feeling you get from time to time. That's how I felt. I would return to that peaceful place and live my remaining time there."

"Must have been a mighty beautiful place to leave such an impression on you," she mused.

He smiled. "A local legend has it that whoever visits Baikal leaves their souls behind."

"A legend that claimed at least one victim," she joked and stirred a giggle. "And… about the people? Why not the people?"

"I never liked people in particular, with a few exceptions. I never felt tied to people other than my family and Katerina. You can say that… I love Humanity, but not so much its people en masse," he admitted.

"You- what?" she asked.

"Let me tell you a little story, commander," he said, sipping from his own drink. "This is when I was 16, 10th grade in high school." Natalia was paying attention. "My parents migrated from Romania to UK in the wave of the 2120. Many people moved from Eastern Europe to countries like Germany, France, Denmark…"

"Why?" she inquired.

"The locals were going colonizing other planets and jobs were left vacant. So, an opportunity arose. I'm not saying other countries from the Balkans or Eastern Europe did not go to the colonies, hell, it was a frenzy. But my parents liked it home and they saw an opportunity for higher salaries in the UK when they moved there to work and settled down. They settled in one of the suburbs of London whose locals mostly moved to the colonies. Many came there - Czechs, Serbs, Croats, Romanians, Polish, Russian. And that suburb turned into a melting pot of peoples and cultures. Arabs, Africans, Indians, Chinese…" he told, recalling everything with such a calm voice it was almost surreal. "It's where I met Katerina. She came from a Serb background.

And it was not very pleasant, you know? Growing up there. The local Englishmen saw us as intrusive and the kids ganged up. The whole neighborhood turned into a pot of racism and violence waiting to happen. The adults were throwing insults at us and other nationalities still had a bone to pick with each other over some stupid reason. Violence was on the rise and the authorities were of little help. Nobody gave a damn that break ins were on the rise, that street fights were the norm, that racism was a thing. That's what I grew up with."

"And the Alliance did nothing?" Natalia asked, bewildered at hearing such thing was going on on Earth, in Europe of all.

"There are laws, but almost nobody was willing to do anything about it. The Alliance has laws in place, but Earth's countries still maintain a high level of autonomy. Politically, Earth has a privileged status in contrast to the colonies. Secession was the more important issue on the minds of the authorities, some petty crime that didn't get anybody killed in the suburbs of London was far from it.

There were a few police men and women willing to take up the slack, but they were outmatched. And I've asked one why they were doing nothing - why the police department didn't invest more resources in us, I used to call him Old Edward. Do you know what he told me? In all honesty, kid, they don't care. And I asked him why they don't put down the agitators. Why only arrest them? They are released after a while for good behavior and they return to the old ways. It's the right thing, he told me. That violence only breeds violence. And that if we want to turn our community around, we must be better than them.

I was 10 when the street violence started. And it came to a head when I was 16. Most of us went to the same high school, High School 143. It never got to blows in the school, it would attract too much attention. That was the unwritten rule. So it was this passive hostility. Sir Edward had the initiative to come talk to the boys and girls, to the adults, tell them that what they are doing is not alright on many occasions.

It happened after school, on a February evening after we finished classes and were returning home. I was with Katerina, seeing her home. It started at noon when a dumb bitch got into an argument during lunch break with Kat over the topic of the Insurrection. This was back in 2149 when the Insurrectionist movement was in full swing. I'm telling you," he held his index finger up. "It was the dumbest and most cliche dumb thing you'd see. It made me believe that what you see in movies is very well funded in reality. Textbook thug situation. That's how dumb people were around me, in my high school. They lowered themselves to that level of idiocy I stopped seeing them as Humans. For me they were only privileged animals from that moment on."

"What did they do?" she asked.

"That dumb bitch started a scene and got into an argument with Katerina. She did not back out either, she had her own pride. That's when that dumb cunt's muscle wanted to get involved and try to intimidate Kat. I got up and threatened to start a fight in the school."

"Frankly, you stooped down to his level if you didn't just ignore him," she noted.

"It's this attitude that makes them think that they can do and say whatever they want - that nobody bats an eye and they get scot free out of it and think they're untouchable. They get this sudden satisfaction that they can denigrate a fellow Human and that they feel superior, the alpha." Averescu was quick to point out. "So the bastard called it quits at that moment. After classes, they jumped us on our way home. We always walked home. Bunch of thugs. There were three of them and the bitch. They taunted us and we ignored them. I tried to be this better man," he retold, the memory still fresh in his mind. "Then they thought it was a good idea to gang up on us. From insults it escalated to pushing around and the first fist was thrown. We got our asses handed to us. I believe I was more furious on the fact that they'd do this to us out of no reasonable… reason, more furious than seeing Kat with a black eye," he confessed.

"What did you do?" Natalia asked with a low voice, kind of already guessing the response.

"It was right then that I realized… as I sat down, looking at Katerina getting up from the ground… that I was dealing with animals. I knew, I got irrefutable proof that being the better man was never going to solve any problem in this world. When somebody is hurting you, the worst thing you can do is just sit there and take it because violence causes more violence and you want to break this…" he trailed off. "So I did what was required. That evening I called my friends, those I knew that actually had the guts to join me. And we set out to pay them back."

"Pay them back!?"

"Next evening, after we finished classes and we were out, Katerina's brother picked us up. We drove home, left her home, and drove away. We ganged up. It was five of us: I, Katerina's brother - Savic, Arthur, Ollie and Radek. It was our small group of trustworthy friends. We knew we can count on each other to help. And we always helped each other. And that evening we went hunting. First, we found the dumb idiots who beat me and Katerina. Savic borrowed me a wooden bat. We surrounded them and beat them up so bad they walked weird two days. I broke the bat on one of them. The guy was with his girlfriend, the same one that started the whole thing. I made sure to give her two black eyes. And I kept telling them that I'll kill them the next time they even look weird at us. Of course, I wasn't going to go through with the threat, but the idea was to drive a point across," he recounted. "Do you know what the result was?" he asked, looking her directly in the eye. "Nobody ever bothered us again after that. The animal required a good beating, to be reminded that he is not the strongest one around, that he cannot always do as he pleases, that there are consequences for everything. And that someone, at some point, will draw a line in the sand and say 'enough is enough'."

She was silent for a moment. He drank from his glass. "You beat a girl?"

He blinked twice in reaction to the question. "I've just told you I beat a bunch of people and this is the first thing you ask me? This is the most disturbing to you?"

"No, but-"

"Yes, I did beat her," he cut her off. "I'm a strong believer in equality between genders. She strike us first, I repaid her. She had it coming from a mile away."

"And the police had nothing to say for it?"

"Of course they had. Everybody's parent was up in arms for what we just did. And we all ended up at the police. If we hadn't been beaten first we would have been so in trouble. But we were also a step ahead. Ollie stayed back and recorded it. I taunted them to throw the first fist and it turned into self defense. Theoretically, the police had proof that we were the first ones to be attacked."

"You couldn't have gotten away scot free!" she protested.

"Everybody was fined a hefty sum and I was just a step away from going to juvenile rehabilitation," he said. "You have to be smart about it, Commander. I came up with a plan and I acted upon it. And it was for the better. We've put them in their place and they didn't pick up on people as they did before. A few of us did a service to our community. Word spread out and it was just enough to scare the other gangs of bastards. They were all bark and no bite, it seems. Just like I will show everybody about the Batarians today."

---

Track 1: Freedom Fighters OST – March of the Empire. Play?

---

Interstellar space, FTL transit

SSV Spirit of Fire

Averescu walked the length of the corridor to the ship's hangar bay. The men and women were at their action stations. Marines were standing guard by the entrance to various rooms on the ship – living quarters, armories, munitions magazines, etcetera. He was wearing the additional light body armor over his service uniform. The service cap with one star, that of a Rear Admiral lower half, sat firmly atop his head.

Evelyn, ship's AI, was by his side in her holographic form. She was using an autonomous holographic projector. It was basically a hovering computer encased in a box that had small mass effect fields move it. Her holographic image complemented Averescu as she was clad in uniform as well.

"ETA?" he asked.

"Ten minutes until the Thunderbolt bombers drop out of FTL and engage. Fifteen until we drop out of FTL," she answered.

"Any unexpected development?"

"Negative."

"Everything according to schedule?" he asked as he entered the hangar bay. He was on an elevated walkway that overlooked the crowded hangar bay.

"Yes, sir."

Averescu looked over the railing. Hundreds of Marines were checking their equipment, making ready to embark on the shuttles that will bring them to the surface. Lieutenants were talking to their platoons, pilots and mechanics were making sure the birds were ready to fly, Paladin mechs were being attached to the shuttles' external magnetic clamps. Spirit of Fire carried the 1st Battalion of the 47th Marine Shock Infantry Regiment, 9th Marine Shock Division, for immediate deployment from low orbit. The ship could take the hits from any surface based orbital defense artillery while deploying the first wave of troops.

"Patch me in, Evelyn," he ordered to which the AI complied and opened the public announcement system for the ship.

"You're live, sir."

"Fellow Marines! Servicemen of the Alliance!" he shouted to get everyone's attention in the hangar especially. The men geared for battle turned to look at him. They held their helmets under their arms as they gazed upwards at the elevated walkway.

"It's good to see you all here today! And it will be even better to see you soon storming that moon!" he said with enthusiasm. The Marines cheered from below. "Then we'll teach those alien dogs how to fight!" he slammed his fist into the railing he was leaning on. The men cheered again. "Shanxi was not enough of a lesson to them. The Terran Blitz, as they call it, was not enough! They still wanted our planets! Our people! What did they did they think then?" he asked. "They thought they could bully us into submission! They thought we'd give way and fold!" he said, much to the soldiers' amusement. "But today! Today we'll show them that Humanity bows to no one! TODAY, WE'LL SHOW THEM THE MIGHT OF THE SYSTEMS ALLIANCE!"

"Yeah!"

"Oorah!"

"Get to your shuttles, boys!" Averescu instructed them. "We go to battle!"

His voice carried levels of enthusiasm dangerously high, Evelyn noted. Last time she's seen him this fired up was during the war.

---

Torfan, Primary underground complex

Main corridor, Four hours later

Miranda walked along the large corridor designed to fit vehicles. Up ahead, some two kilometers or so, Alliance Marines were still fighting their way into the last enemy stronghold within the old pirate – military complex. A few Cerberus guards followed her. Hundreds of Batarian, Turian, Salarian and even a few Asari pirate prisoners were lined along the right wall. Tens of Marines kept them under armed guard with orders to shoot anyone who even thought of making a wrong move. This was just one group of many, but it was the largest group. Miranda had reports that the Marines had taken groups in the tens of prisoners in other parts of the complex.

She could hear the main battle tank blasting away at the defenders further down the corridor, blasting holes in walls and the defenders. Paladin mechs were taking part in the assault with the armor, supported by infantrymen of the Corps. Casualties were moderate so far and projections put them near 1,000 total deaths and injured. The harder fight was with boots on the ground.

In space, Averescu blasted the pirate ships before they knew what was going on. He was put in charge of the operation and he came up with a decent plan in the brief time window he had at his disposal. His Heavy Recon Fleet, with some support from Fourth Fleet, made extreme short work of the enemy naval presence. Thunderbolt bombers dropped from FTL in the system, one hundred thousand kilometers from Torfan, and launched Chimera missiles at the ships in orbit. The element of surprise was absolute. Minutes after, while the missiles were wreaking havoc among the pirate fleet, Averescu jumped in with his fleet and attacked immediately. A few destroyers and cruisers detached to hunt down stragglers or those trying to run away. Enemy losses were 99% in space.

Then, Averescu gave the clear for the 9th Marine Shock Division contingent to assault the primary complex. Several battalions were rerouted to capture secondary installations that were severely undermanned. The whole pirate force, those who did not try to go for Mindoir, were holed up in the main complex. It was almost as if they planned this whole thing in such a way that they present a single, unitary, huge target. The fleet was clustered up, the ground force was all holed up in the same place.

"Ma'am, we've just received confirmation that the Rear Admiral has touched down with a Kodiak shuttle. He's on his way here, mere minutes behind us," one of her guards told her.

"Well, we'll take what we can," she mused. She came to a stop before a man in an AIC battle dress uniform. "Report!" she ordered.

"Ma'am! These guys," he pointed at a group of prisoners, five Batarians and an Asari, "are the most promising sources of intel."

"They the big shots of this sorry bunch?" she inquired.

"It looks so, ma'am."

Miranda gestured to her guards with her right hand, the left hand on her hip. "Get these six losers aboard the Equinox ASAP. I want them out of here before yesterday. We'll interrogate them on our way back."

The guards complied and proceeded to handcuff the prisoners. "Put a biotic inhibitor on the blue bitch's neck," Miranda ordered. She did not want to take any chances. She looked the dangerous Asari commando type and leaving her be wasn't a sound idea.

"We don't have one on station, ma'am."

"Then bloody get one! Look in the rearguard, I've brought some just in case," she instructed. "You!" she turned to two Marines watching the lined up prisoners. "Help them escort the Asari. She even flinches the wrong way, you put her down."

"Yes, ma'am!" they complied. The Asari grunted and tried to resist as she was taken away, winning her the unenvied prize of kicks and buttstocks in the face from the soldiers.

"Go ahead, see if there are more prisoners who know things. I want as many prisoners as we can get our hands on. No grunts, I want big shots," she ordered the AIC agent. He nodded and went ahead in a HMV to sort the VIPs from the grunts from within pirate prisoners.

Just as he left, Miranda heard her guards drive away with the interrogation material. And, not a moment later, another HMV arrived at the head of the line of prisoners.

"Halt!" a commanding voice ordered. Miranda looked at the man and immediately recognized him. If the one star on his service cap and each shoulder and the blue Navy uniform with light bulletproof protection were not enough, his face definitely was the giveaway. "What's going on here, Marine?" he asked the closest soldier, ignoring Miranda and her lackeys. She was not offended by it, merely shrugging it off. The AIC knew that the infamous naval commander despised the AIC to a great degree, for reasons dating back to 2157. He held the AIC responsible for everything that happened on that infamous day, holding a grudge like no one else.

"Admiral, sir! We're guarding the prisoners," the man said.

Averescu looked around as if he was with nobody else but the Alliance personnel. "What prisoners, Marine?" he asked.

The man wanted to smile in return to the question. It felt incredulous. He simply gestured with his rifle at the line of aliens lined up by the wall, disarmed and with their hands up.

"I see no prisoners, Marine. The Anti-Piracy Law, according to the 2144 revision, pirates and slavers will be shot on sight. We are not arresting pirates anymore," he clarified. "Form up in firing squads!" he ordered. The few Marines looked at each other, waiting for somebody to say something. They kept their rifles trained at the row of alien pirates, considering the order. The aliens, among them pirates who mostly lacked translation software, stared unknowingly and with uncertainty.

The Admiral looked at the Marine's rank chevrons. "Sergeant!" he called out him by rank. "I gave you an order! Form up firing squads!"

The sergeant took one step back. He looked behind him. "Alvarez, Jacko, Santieri, Earl, Morrigan! On me!" he ordered to privates in his platoon.

"You can't do this!" a Turian shouted from the line. "We've surrendered! You can't shoot us like rabid varren!" His words got through to the other prisoners who were becoming more and more agitated with each passing second.

"Start shooting them, five by five!" Averescu ordered and detached from the Marines. He approached the line of prisoners, taking long steps toward the Turian. He pulled his sidearm as he came closer. "You have exactly three fucking seconds to give me something useful if you want to live!" he demanded. The Turian's gaze was defiant. "One!" he began counting. "Two! Three!" Seeing as he wasn't in the mood to talk, the Rear Admiral leveled the M11 pistol with the Turian's head and pulled the trigger. Blue blood and brain smeared the wall behind him, the bullet ricocheting off the metal wall. His body fell in such way that he seemed to be sitting on his ass.

"If you want to live you will talk!" he let them know as he turned his attention to the Batarian to his right. "What do you have to say, four-eyed cooker?" he asked and did not even wait for an answer, shooting the Batarian square in the head. Then he turned his attention to the next Batarian.

"Wait!" he quickly shouted. "I can give you something!" Averescu lifted an eyebrow, waiting for an answer. "There were three Humans with us here."

That had Averescu falter for a moment. "What were they doing here?"

"They dropped some Alliance weapons. That's all I know of them. I was with them when your men jumped us. They were shot and surrendered."

"Where are they now!?" Averescu shouted in his face.

"I don't know! Some guys came and picked them up!" the Batarian said.

"You're bullshitting me!" Averescu threatened.

"It's the truth! I swear! By the Pillars!"

The naval commander grabbed him by his clothes and pulled him out of the line. "He gets to live! He was useful!" he addressed the other lined up prisoners. "Be useful and you live! Same information is not accepted more than once! So be sure to be the first to help. The rest…" his eyes moved along the length of the line, "die."

He moved back to the sergeant, his voice a level above whisper. "Sort out the useful scum. We'll deal with them later. Shoot the rest."

"Yes, sir!" he conformed. Chaos, panic and fear settled among the pirates. Some came forward to spout all the intel they thought could be useful in an attempt to bargain information for their lives. Averescu then approached Miranda who watched it all from the sidelines.

"This is how you squeeze everything they have in a short time. You're welcome," he told her.

"You've turned them into animals, cornered, scared," Miranda remarked.

Averescu threw one more look at the pirates before looking into Miranda's eyes. "They never were anything else." And he brushed past her. "Deal with them, agent."

'Crazy bloke!' she thought to herself. She didn't need to ask where he was going. The firing squad fired the first bullets. Her attention was caught again by the ever increasing chaos. She activated her radio. "We need reinforcements on the main corridor, ASAP!"

---

Torfan, Primary underground complex

Makeshift Alliance hospital

A makeshift field hospital had been set up by the Alliance Marines to tend to those that have been wounded or killed during the assault on the underground complex. He appreciated the number of wounded in the few hundreds after a quick sweep of the large cargo room that served as field hospital now. There were a few rows of bodies that did not make a single move. They were the dead. One by one the wounded were carried away to be transported aboard the hospital ship in orbit, the SSV Song of the North.

"There they are, sir," one of his escorting Marines pointed to the right side. Averescu spotted an icon of Saint Mary with a few candles lit around it. What he guessed to be a priest was praying for one of the wounded. Maybe giving the last rites to the mortally wounded? There were spiritual leaders among the ranks of soldiers for centuries. He also spotted three men who were not in Alliance colors.

'There they are,' he thought as his legs took him closer to them. He approached the group. He noted that every single Alliance serviceman in his care was either dead or was not far from it. On the other hand, the three… traitors – for he could not find another title for them – were far from it. The priest in Marine Corps fatigues spotted him and his eyes went wide for a second. 'Ah! So this is what it is like…' he thought as anger filled him.

"Father…" Averescu said as he came to a halt a meter from him. "I see… you've set up a makeshift church here…"

"Admiral," the priest greeted him. Averescu looked at his uniform and saw that he carried the rank of Sergeant. "Some of the men wanted to be closer to God in their last moments. A church can rise anywhere where faith is."

Averescu glanced at the three wounded traitors. "Yeah, they look like they're about to see their God," he said as he slowly drew his M11 pistol from the holster.

If the Sergeant had any doubt left, he now knew that the ruse was discovered. He tried to save these men's lives, knowing what the Rear Admiral was up to the whole day. "We're in the holy church, Admiral!" he played his last card.

Averescu looked at him as he moved the safety pin to the firing position. "They should have come to the holy church before, not after!" he argued before aiming at the first rebel and firing two bullets into his chest. The whole field hospital was taken by surprise by the gunshots. A recording camera suddenly focused on the scene and approached to record, a Battlespace logo on its side. Averescu then aimed at the second rebel and put two 10mm bullets in his chest. Then, the third received two bullets in his chest. Pools of dark red blood from the newly created blood fountains started to form.

Everybody was silent. "You shalt not murder!" the Sergeant priest cited. "Love thy neighbor as you love yourself, lead his soul towards righteousness."

"We have to lead Humanity towards righteousness. Your Holiness should take care of the souls," Averescu answered as he put the safety on and holstered the pistol on his belt, his voice betraying no feeling.

"They fall into the hands of every shepherd."

"Every shepherd with his own pipe."

"Your pipe, Admiral… it sings pagan sounds," the priest remarked. This earned him an upset look.

"Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not murder," Averescu cited the commandments himself as he took half a step closer to the priest. "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house or anything that belongs to him. If you want life to be good to you and see many years on Earth. Do the holy commandments sound like this or not?" he demanded from the priest. Growing up in a rather traditional family who still found plenty of time for religion, he learned about religion.

"You have learned them, Admiral, but you didn't understand them," the priest tried to make him see what they were meant for.

"Have I ever done otherwise? Have I ever punished for a different reason other than the law? Or outside the constraints of the law? From your Holiness's pipe comes pagan sounds, when you want to protect the lawless," Averescu accused him. "Trădători de neam şi ţară," he cursed in his native language. [1]

"God does not wish for the sinner's death."

"But for his righteousness, I know. But if they are commandments, let them be commandments!" he argued with the priest. "In order to convert ten sinners into righteous men, one sinner should die. In order to convert a hundred, ten must perish. Perish serving as an example! In vain you ask the thief not to steal, the murderer not to kill. Asking does not accomplish anything," Averescu stated, the people around him suddenly seeing his point of view and silently agreeing with him. "It is not the love of God that brings people to the church, but fear of hell's agonies."

"And you want to embody them, Admiral?" the priest asked. "Do you want to embody hell's throes?"

"If you heed my orders, five of you will kill a hundred. A hundred will banish ten thousand and your enemies will fall by the sword before you. If you don't heed my orders…" he cited from the religious texts he learned in his youth, in the Orthodox church and during history of religions classes.

"I will come with rage and punish you seven times for your sins," the priest continued. "You will perish from within the ranks of nations, the land of your enemies will swallow you."

"Do you want me to wait for this punishment which will mean Humanity's death with my arms crossed!?" the fire in his voice dominating the debate. "Humanity's enemies are everywhere and they are very close. We're surrounded on all sides. We must confront them like an invincible steel sword. Swords are hardened through fire, not words."

"But not in hell's fire."

"I haven't another handy. Consider yourself lucky I am not court martialing you," Averescu said as he took a step back and turned around, leaving the scene. The room was both awestruck and dumbstruck by what just happened. And a camera had it all on tape.

---

Attican Traverse, Shadow Sea

Eclipse base of operations

"Put up barriers! Prepare to stand to the last one!" one of her colleagues instructed.

"Has the distress signal made it out!?" the highest ranking of their group asked. She held the proficiency of commando and rank of captain in the Eclipse organization. That made her one of the most experienced and dangerous employees of the organization.

"I've set the system on automatic broadcast!" Nieta replied from her hiding spot. "They could just as well been jamming us!"

"Too late now," the captain said. "Pyjaks!" she cursed as the sealed door to the command center of the base shuddered.

The day had started not so well. They just learned about the Humans attacking and utterly destroying Torfan a few days ago. Jona Sederis, founder and leader of Eclipse, had a big stake in Torfan. She wanted to use it as another base of operations. Now that the Humans entered the scene, the Skyllian Verge would become a good place for business. But she was losing her main base in the Traverse altogether.

It started with one of their ships seemingly returning from the Alliance border, saying that they need to dock immediately due to critical damage suffered by the ship. The ship passed all the labels for an official Eclipse starship and the codes were authentic, thus they were given permission to dock. Shortly after that, two Alliance destroyers jumped in system and attacked the Eclipse starships. Then, from the ship that just docked, Humans came pouring out, guns blazing. They fought their way from the docks to the command center and had taken control of all important sections of the base.

"Brace!" the captain shouted as the door came crashing down. "Fire!" she ordered

Nieta stood up with a shotgun in her hands. She didn't aim properly, she was just shooting in the general direction of the smoke. Mass accelerated grains peppered the door, a torrent of fire that received a response. Large, 7.62mm bullets came flying in. The fire was not accurate on either side, yet some bullets still found their targets by chance. The Asari that was to her right, an initiate just like Nieta, was hit by a lightning fast tracer bullet that seemed to go through her with explosive force. The bullet entered her chest and, due to the high velocity and force developed, her lungs and spine exploded through the back. She fell down with no cry of pain, a hole the size of a fist in her back and flesh and organs laid about.

Then, an abomination walked through. It resembled the mechs Eclipse utilized and she'd seen pictures of them, but none live. The Alliance made Paladin mech stormed through the hail of gunfire into the command center, followed by Humans in full body armor. Two of them fell face down, hit by multiple shots. The mech aimed its triple barreled rotating machinegun at the barricade that housed most of the surviving base personnel. What followed was complete slaughter. The three barrels were turning faster and faster until they began to spit armor piercing bullets. They ripped through the barricade and the biotic barriers with ease, hitting personal body armor and flesh. After a sustained fire of mere seconds, the result was a stew of blue limbs, heads, flesh, organs and blood.

Seeing it, the Eclipse captain put up her barrier and charge the mech. A couple of Nieta's colleagues followed her, each of them preparing biotic charges. The captain slammed her strongest punch into the mech, the biotic augmentation behind it forcing it down on its side with a terrific dent in the armor plate. She then turned her attention to the other Humans that were coming into hand to hand combat with the Asari. Having the biotics to back them up, they turned the tide against their foes for a moment.

But it was a losing battle due to the superior numbers the enemy brought to the scene. Nieta fired continuously, eventually having to throw her gun down due to the extreme heat it radiated. She pulled her pistol when she noticed something in the chaos of bullets, shouts and bodies. One Human figure that looked like an Asari, one of their females, in black armor with a skull painted on her helmet, was putting down her colleagues one by one with no great effort. Her captain spotted her. She was already injured, having been stabbed in the leg and left arm.

The captain made her way to the dangerous Human female. She, in turn, must have had formidable senses and situational awareness for noticing that she was being charged down. Nieta's captain activated her biotic abilities one more time, first clearing a path by lifting the Humans up, and one for a singularity. She threw the singularity at her target.

---

Jack – Humanity's most dangerous individual, designated by former AIC Director Bourne as hyper lethal vector – was leading the Corsairs and the extra Cerberus muscle in destroying the Eclipse base. She suddenly became the target of what she assumes is the number one threat in this room. If that Asari goes down, then this fight will be over.

Jack saw the singularity coming her way. Perhaps her opponent was growing tired and resumed to a singularity that required less focus and energy, and betting on a personal killing blow? She didn't care. Jack threw a biotic barrier that wrapped around the singularity and forced it to implode. The unusual maneuver had the Asari surprised. Jack aimed her pistol at her. The Eclipse captain put a quick barrier up. Jack pulled the trigger and fired the last two bullets she had left in the magazine. One was deflected by the barrier, the other one pushed through and broke it.

Cursing, she prepared her metallic bat and charged her target while the initiative belonged to her. Jack closed it and went for a killing blow to the head with full force. The commando recovered in the last moment and dodged the blow gracefully. She stepped low and sideways, using her weapon to hit Jack the leg. Jack lost her footing and fell flat on her back. She had lost the initiative. The commando was preparing a biotically charged punch. Quick by nature, she thought of a solution and it was the biotics that saved her. She concentrated and lifted the Asari off the ground before slamming her on the metal floor.

With a groan from the pain that permeated her entire body, the Asari captain was again on the back foot. And it was enough for Jack to finish her. She towered over the mercenary leader, her right foot hovering over her foe's face. The mercenary still had a fight in her, but Jack did not give her the chance. She brought her foot down on her face with full force, augmented by her biotic abilities. Everything went dark when Jack's metal boot made contact with the commando's face. The bones of the face caved in, the eyeballs popped from the pressure, the skull crumbled and the brain was squished. It looked like a truck passed over her head.

---

Kite's Nest, Harsa

Khar'Shan, Hegemon's Palace

High Hegemon Dorcador Dhothan looked down on the beaten form of Ka'hairal Balak, General in the Batarian External Forces. The Special Intervention Unit soldiers, or SIU for short, who brought him in had thrown him face down onto the floor.

"Stand up, Balak!" Dhothan ordered. Seeing that he had trouble standing up with his hands tied and legs beaten, he looked at his SIU bodyguards and a simple gesture of the head communicated the message. They pulled him by his arms and stood him up. "Explain yourself, you useless traitor!"

Balak was in pain. He looked at the High Hegemon. "High Hegemon, I have not authorized the redeployment of our loyal enforcers from the Nemean Abyss to Torfan," he managed to speak. "Neither did I order them to attack the Humans."

Dhothan stood up and came inches from Balak's face. "YOU LYING BASTARD! You were losing on Anhur and what did you think? Let's attack the Humans, maybe that will work!? Or did you send the enforcers to die in the Verge so I won't come hunting you down when you eventually lost Anhur!? Which one is it? EH!? SPEAK, WORM!" and he punched Balak in the guts.

After catching his breath, Balak was able to formulate an answer. "I was and always will be loyal to the Hegemony. By the Pillars, I have not authorized this! I just found out that half of my contacts throughout the Terminus have been killed! We have traitors in our ranks! Why would I deprave the Hegemony of its assets right on Illium's doorstep? By the Pillars, I am innocent!"

Dhothan pulled a pistol from one of the SIU troopers' belt and aimed it at Balak's face. "As if that was not enough, the idiots that attacked Shanxi and took hostages were also from External Forces! Under your direct command! And while all this is going on, we lose Anhur itself with no hope of regaining it! Human warships are lurking in our space and the Turians are doing nothing to evict them! WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO, BALAK!?"

"Mercenary ships have arrived there! They've unloaded thousands of Eclipse mercenaries! Thousands of 'volunteers' from the Asari Republics!"

Dhothan looked sideways to the right. Another Batarian that was awfully silent up until now finally moved from his statue pose. "He is right, High Hegemon," he spoke in Balak's favor. "Our network in the Terminus has been fatally compromised. By the Shadow Broker."

"That good for nothing varren shit!" Dhothan cursed as he dropped the pistol. He kicked Balak again. "It's all your fault, Balak!" Groans protested against the inflicted pain.

"According to our sources on the Citadel, the Humans are backtracking the initial message, the one that snowballed into what we are dealing with now, to the Shadow Broker. The bastard used Hegemony codes to start with. But even more dubious – the fact that thousands of Asari volunteers disembark on Anhur shortly after General Balak seemingly strips the region of space of important assets?"

Dhothan looked at his intelligence aide. "Those blue whores! Are you telling me they've set us up? AGAIN!? What the hell are you intelligence good at?"

"No concrete proof exists, High Hegemon," the intelligence guy defended himself. "But, unless it is an unusual string of coincidences like it was with the three recent armed rebellions, then this is another Council plot to overthrow the Hegemony. They just nullified everything we had in that part of the galaxy. Now, with our loyal pirates dead, Anhur lost, and Omega semi hostile to us, we're effectively barred from the Nemean Abyss and the Terminus. Only the handful of loyal mercenary outfits and warlords in the Pylos Nebula and Caleston Rift are left. And it is doubtful they'll remain so, with the balance shifting so heavily, so suddenly."

Silence ensued. Balak did not dare say anything for fear of Dhothan killing him. The guards were silent either way. And the intelligence aide was waiting for a reaction. "Recall the units from Anhur that are still salvageable and order the rest to go underground and continue an insurgency campaign against the overthrowers," he ordered. "We are abandoning Anhur."

"High Hegemon, most of our transports have been either destroyed or captured at Torfan by the Humans," Balak spoke. "We only have enough to ferry 75,000 men at any given time. We've also lost the orbital supremacy. It will be extremely difficult to evacuate surviving soldiers from Anhur."

Dhothan looked again at the intelligence aide who shook his head. "How many men do we have there? According to your last confirmed report, Balak."

"Over 300,000 External Forces soldiers, wounded or combat capable," Balak answered swiftly and to the point. "That was a month ago."

Dhothan finally sat down, feeling the weight of the strategic defeat the Hegemony just suffered. "The Council wins this time… It will take us another 20 years to recover from this. They've set back everything by 20 years at the very least!"

"Not the Council, actually, High Hegemon," intelligence guy spoke up. "If anything, the scandal that's raging between Fedorian and Sparatus hints at the fact that the Turians might not have been in this the last time. The SIU units and cyber warfare experts that have been dispatched to the Terminus have tracked down the first breach to Omega. After General Balak's contact on Omega was compromised, most of the network was compromised. Had they bid their time, everything would have been compromised."

"Fedorian was neither keen on honoring his obligations in the Citadel Charter," Dhothan pointed out.

"The Turians hate dealing with Omega in any shape or form," Balak's voice came alive again. "We've also had to deal with sabotage from STG most likely…"

"This was all a set up," intelligence concluded.

"High Hegemon," Balak spoke up again.

"What?"

"Why should we not send the Humans after Aria? The Council played them. We can do that too," Balak suggested. "Aria receiving help from the Republics is an open secret. She is not as smart as she thinks. Use the information we have been hoarding for so long."

Dhothan perked up his eyes at the idea. "You know, Balak? You might still be useful to the Hegemony alive."

---

Shanxi Theta System, Shanxi Anchorage

Blue Suns hijacked ship

The men of the AIC had hijacked the Blue Suns ship masterfully, ever since before it left the main spaceport of Eternium's capital city of Nargothrond with zero casualties. The fact that the AIC agent codenamed Condor infiltrated so well the organization allowed the Alliance to crack down on the key figures and cut down the separatist movement before it acted on its plans in force. It also allowed the AIC to efficiently keep up the ruse that the Blue Suns were acting on their own to the outside. Particularly now.

The ship was masquerading as a freighter shipping frozen foods from Eternium as export goods to the galaxy. Among the frozen foods was also a huge container that was the Blue Suns' payment that will get their alien supporters to support them in earnest so they separate from the Alliance. It was meant to be a salvaged destroyer's FTL drive, a ship that was destroyed in the 2150s and adrift in space since the engagement between the Navy and the Insurrectionists that saw it destroyed. In reality it was just a ruse. Harper and Cerberus had seen to that. They intercepted the FTL drive and modified it, taking out what made it work and filled it with megatons of surprise.

"This is it?" the Turian in charge of the transfer asked.

"Yes," the undercover AIC leader said.

"It's quite large," the Turian observed.

"This thing is used to send a 400 meter long warship through the galaxy," the AIC agent pointed out. "Take it."

The Turian nodded. "Get it moving. Move the fruits too," he ordered his subordinates. They began the slow transfer to the alien freighter that will take it to whoever was behind the Blue Suns' support. The papers looked good and the border inspection was also temporarily replaced with AIC agents to make sure the transfer would go smoothly.

This was not the FTL drive Goyle promised the Illium corporations. This was the FTL drive the Blue Suns promised the Council for aiding their separatist agenda.

Harper had seen a door open to a very dark room. A gloved hand reached out from that door and demanded something from the visitor. Harper thought how he could learn who's behind the door, in the dark room, with the least headache from his side. So he pulled a grenade from his pocket, armed it and then put it in the opened hand that was awaiting payment. The hand accepted the payment without knowing what it is and closed the door. Harper pulled a cigar and lit it. When the grenade will explode, everybody from that room will come out and he will see them.

---

CODEX UPDATE

OLYMPUS-CLASS AIRCRAFT CARRIERS

Olympus-subclass: 10 ships built between 2155 – 2165, the very first heavy carriers; built following the same philosophy employed for the Spirit-class of battleships. They succeeded the Europa-class of aircraft carriers in service with the Alliance Navy. The subclass is named after tall peaks in the Sol System, primarily on Earth. Underwent refit in 2178 – 2180.

Ships in the subclass:

SSV Olympus Mons (CVN-6) - Named for Olympus Mons on Mars, the tallest mountain in Sol System, standing at 21.9 km height

SSV Everest (CVN-7)

SSV Kilimanjaro (CVN-8)

SSV Mont Blanc (CVN-9)

SSV Rheasilvia (CVN-10) - Named for the Rheasilvia central peak (22 km height) on the minor planet 4 Vesta, one of the largest objects in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter

SSV Aconcagua (CVN-11)

SSV Kenya (CVN-12)

SSV Elbrus (CVN-13)

SSV Denali (CVN-14)

SSV Orizaba (CVN-15)

Albert Einstein-subclass: 18 ships built between 2164 – 2173, they are an improvement over the Olympus-subclass in terms of shields, armor plate configuration and AAA fire control. They are named after important scientists of Humanity. Underwent refit in 2182 – 2183.

Ships in the subclass:

SSV Albert Einstein (CVN-16)

SSV Stephen Hawking (CVN-17)

SSV Nikola Tesla (CVN-18)

SSV Isaac Newton (CVN-19)

SSV Elena Ambrosini Sirta (CVN-20) - Founder of Sirta Foundation, inventor of MediGel and biologist who made huge contributions to modern medicine. Effectively extended Human life expectancy by 30 years through her work

SSV Lord Kelvin (CVN-21)

SSV Galileo Galilei (CVN-22)

SSV Leonardo da Vinci (CVN-23)

SSV James Clerk Maxwell (CVN-24)

SSV Blaise Pascal (CVN-25)

SSV Michael Faraday (CVN-26)

SSV Dmitri Mendeleev (CVN-27)

SSV Carl Sagan (CVN-28)

SSV Louis Pasteur (CVN-29)

SSV Tobias Fleming Shaw (CVN-30) - One of the two lead scientists who developed hyperspace FTL mathematics

SSV Wallace Fujikawa (CVN-31) - One of the two lead scientists who developed hyperspace FTL mathematics

SSV Marie Curie (CVN-32)

SSV Neil deGrasse Tyson (CVN-33)

Sun Tzu-subclass: 12 ships built between 2168 – 2173, they sport improved propulsion systems, atmospheric warfare capabilities, new generation FTL drives and new generation ion cannon turrets over the Albert Einstein-subclass. They are named after military leaders, mostly naval leaders.

Ships in the subclass:

SSV Sun Tzu (CVN-34) - Chinese general, military strategist, writer and philosopher, author of "The Art of War"

SSV Yi Sun-Shin (CVN-35) - Arguably the greatest, most brilliant naval military commander of prespaceflight human history

SSV Chester William Nimitz (CVN-36) - US Fleet Admiral who played a key role in World War II naval history, Commander in Chief, Pacific Ocean Areas

SSV Zheng He (CVN-37) - Prominent Chinese naval commander, explorer and diplomat

SSV Jon Grissom (CVN-38) - Pioneer of space exploration, strategist and theorist of space combat, first Fleet Admiral of the Systems Alliance Navy

SSV Kuznetsov (CVN-39) - Named for Nikolay Kuznetsov, World War II Admiral of the fleet of the Soviet Union who averted destruction of the Soviet Navy

SSV Togo Heihachiro (CVN-40) - Gensui in the Imperial Japanese Navy, Commander in Chief of the Combined Fleet, winner at Tsushima over the Russians

SSV Horatio Nelson (CVN-41) - Famous Vice-Admiral of the Royal Navy who won decisive British naval victories, killed during the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805

SSV Themistocles (CVN-42) - Athenian general who fought at Marathon and, as the commander of the allied Greek navies, dealt the Persians their strategic defeats in the naval battles of Artemisium and Salamis

SSV Isoroku Yamamoto (CVN-43) - Gensui of the Imperial Japanese Navy, Commander in Chief of the Combined Fleet during World War II, brilliant naval commander

SSV Karl Donitz (CVN-44) - Großadmiral of the Kriegsmarine and a prominent naval commander who played a major role in naval history

SSV Michiel de Ruyter (CVN-45) - One of the most skilled admirals in history, most famous for his role in the Anglo-Dutch Wars of the 17th century

Mikhail Kutuzov-subclass: 15 ships built between 2172 – 2177, they could be literally surmised as the Sun Tzu-subclass on steroids in terms of protection and secondary armament, with top of the line technologies integrated. They are named after great generals and politicians in Human history.

Ships in the subclass:

SSV Mikhail Kutuzov (CVN-46) - Field Marshal of the Russian Empire. served as one of the finest military officers and diplomats of Russia

SSV Chiang Kai-shek (CVN-47) - Chinese Generalissimo and head of Republic of China

SSV Alexander the Great (CVN-48) - The most successful military commander in human history, King of Macedonia, Pharaoh of Egypt, King of Persia, Lord of Asia

SSV Hannibal Barca (CVN-49) - Carthaginian general considered one of the greatest military commanders in history

SSV Genghis Khan (CVN-50) - Founder of the Mongol Empire and conqueror of most Eurasia

SSV Gaius Julius Caesar (CVN-51) - One of Rome's greatest politicians and generals

SSV Georgy Zhukov (CVN-52) - Marshal of the Soviet Union and one of the greatest military commanders of World War II

SSV Otto von Bismarck (CVN-53) - Prussian statesman who dominated German and European affairs between 1860 - 1890, first Chancellor of the German Empire

SSV Paul von Hindenburg (CVN-54) - Generalfeldmarschall who commanded the German military in 1916 - 1918, President of the German Reich

SSV Tokugawa Ieyasu (CVN-55) - First Tokugawa shogun, great military commander and one of the three unifiers of Japan with Nobunaga and Hideyoshi

SSV Leonidas (CVN-56) - Warrior king of Sparta who led the allied Greek forces at the Battle of Thermopylae during the Second Persian War

SSV Frederick the Great (CVN-57) - King of Prussia and one of the most successful military commanders in history, winning multiple victories against great odds in the Seven Years War. Napoleon remarked to his officers when visiting his tomb in Potsdam, "Gentlemen, if this man were still alive I would not be here".

SSV Napoleon Bonaparte (CVN-58) - Emperor of France and a military genius hailed as one of the greatest military commanders in history

SSV Alexander Suvorov (CVN-59) - Last Generalissimo of the Russian Empire

SSV Erich von Manstein (CVN-60) - Generalfeldmarschall of the Wehrmacht during World War II, hailed as a military genius and, by some, as "the Allies' most formidable opponent"

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[1] What Averescu said translates as "traitors of nation and country" in Romanian. It is the most despicable act you could do around here. And we've had plenty of them throughout history.

[2] Pronounced [piz'deh'tz], curse word of Russian origin. Usually translates as fucked up. Look it up on urban dictionary if you want.

[3] Now I'm not a fan of Fallout and I know the stir it caused with the trailer, but it's coincidence here. I've been listening to John Denver's song for a good two years now.

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NOTE4: Well, we close on this note. Quite the developments if I might say so. From personal character development, to galaxy shattering events. Next time on TIHoM we get to see Operation ILLIUM FREEDOM. And I don't know when I will post it. I get 1h/day on average to sit down and write.

NOTE5: I am so looking forward to your feedback to this chapter!

NOTE6: I would like to thank you all for reading this story and for continuously letting me know how you feel about it – what is good and what is bad. The rewrite of chapter one is still stagnating. We started this journey almost two years ago on August 23rd 2016. And it might go for two more years if the rate of updates is of any clue. Let me know if you want me to focus on details more than I do now or less on non critical details. I try to build the world so that it feels alive and natural (as best a noob writer like me can get it). Now that I have my bachelor degree now, I expect to find some 1h 30m or 2h per day to write for the three ongoing stories. Though I've signed up for masters degree studies and the stories might get hindered again by studies and job. As of July 7th 2018, before this chapter went up, there are 1279 of you who've marked this story as a favorite, 1595 who are following it (quite a big community which I am humbled to have gathered around), featured on 11 different communities, with 414,733 views and 521 reviews (thank you all who let me know how you feel about the story and for helping me perfect myself by taking the constructive criticism). Never thought It would see this success, even if it comes nowhere close to the better stories out there. Here's to more!

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A STORY BROUGHT TO YOU BY Apollonir