All the Stars

by BlueWay

When the Long Night of Solace is evaporated over Reach via the weaponized usage of a Slipspace Drive, it ferries with it in its swallowed sections the Covenant Empire and, more horrifyingly, the desperate measures that the UNSC used to fight them. When they are found in a universe on the precipice of their own history, the meaning of the term "Mass Effect" will change forever.

14. 1-7: War, Internal - Once a Rookie

A/N: After this chapter we should be off to the galaxy and shorter chapters. Thank you for all the reviews! Really helped me do this chapter a bit with Usze and what and what I should put in the story, going forward!

Read and enjoy and, next chapter, expect a longer Author's Note! So if you have any questions you'd like answered, place 'em in a review or come to me about it!

---

Section 1-7

War, Internal - Once a Rookie

---

A lull in the discussions with Udina and other Citadel diplomats, leaving the Covenant in that meeting room in silence and by themselves. Today had been a very special day on the Citadel: it marked the return of the Quarian envoys after three centuries. When lopped into the procession with the Covenant, no one had wanted to outright say no. Not when the common public had first been exposed to the Jiralhanae, the Sangheili, and the Hunters and seen a coalition of peoples who had known nothing but to wage war. The Sangheili stood tall: the Jiralhanae, taller still, were dwarfed by the forms of the Lekgolo. The physique of the warrior races of the Covenant were not to be understated, at least two feet taller than the average Turian, matched only by the Elcor. They were imposing yes, but it helped that, for the first time in years, those that came aboard the Citadel representing the Covenant wore the garb of their ancient people's envoys, hastily put together by an engineering and production department on the Solace already overworked. It was fine though, to Shipmistress Karonee. Her rank as a Fleet Master afforded her armor and garb befit for this situation anyway, her cloak resting over half her body as she slouched in her padded seat alongside the other chosen envoys.

The Brute Mercaius had crossed his arms, his chair barely fitting him as they awaited the return of Destiny and the Quarian Envoy the Migrant Fleet had sent for them. They had gone off alone for refreshment: to stretch the legs.

The gravity of what the rest of them were doing however had stayed the rest of their feet.

"Shipmistress." Mercaius had asked for her attention, the empty chair of Destiny between them. He hadn't turned his head, and neither did Karonee when she responded.

"Yes, Brute?"

"No less than several meters from us, lie a Demon and an Imp." A fact that all of them there had been wearily aware of. The Unggoy representative had been quivering in his seat just being reminded of that fact, but many lesser people would. Even the Jackal had sniffed the air, just to confirm they had been there. "And we do nothing?"

"We serve at the pleasure of the Hierarch, Mercaius."

"So you agree with his decision?"

Karonee had looked at him finally, as did he. Her eyes showed the answer she didn't dare vocalize.

To let them live, when they could've been killed so easily, it went against everything she had known about killing Humans. The Demons were a source of endless pain and injury to the Covenant, to her men, and, undoubtedly, Mercaius's clan as well. She remembered something of his clan, then and there.

"Mercaius, your father, he was the War Chieftan onboard the Long Night of Solace, was he not?"

Mercaius's one nod was filled with heavy reverence. "He is lost to me now. Left behind on Reach."

"You have my sympathies."

He seemed unbothered. He knew he wouldn't be dead. "He would want me to kill Demons. Just as he did."

The elder Brute of the Clan Blood Moon had been a Chieftain who had survived and thrived since Harvest. It was why his entire clan, nearly a million individuals which in itself had clans within itself, had been given the prestigious honor of going on the Covenant's crusade on the super carrier that was the Solace. Of his many accomplishments, he could name the death of Demons among them.

"That would be the only way to prove yourself as new Chieftain, then?"

Mercaius shuffled uncomfortably, his hammer hanging by a sling on the back of the chair. "I will hold no secret from you, Shipmistress. Talk from the clans across the Covenant speak of you kindly. You do not hold your species's usual… disposition, toward the Brutes."

She respected them.

Perhaps it was consequence of being the only female Fleetmaster of the Covenant that made her sympathize, or maybe, just maybe, it had been because she found council in a Brute Chieftain long ago, but in any case, she held no real ill-will against his people.

She gruffed, affirming.

"So I will tell you that on your ship, the Brutes demand a leader who was on the measure of my father. They need to see me fight. To prove myself."

To fight. That idea had been on Karonee's mind recently. That's all she was supposed to do, and yet, here she had been, playing politics in a galaxy not her own. All her life she had wanted to achieve the greatness found only in the crusade of the Great Journey, but without it, what remained?

"Greatness can be achieved in others, young Brute."

"But none recognized by my people." He spoke back, coldly.

True perhaps. Karonee's fingers traced her cape, the designs embraided by her after every battle of her fleet. What would replace that glory? It certainly wasn't drifting from conference room to conference room, officializing their existence among the galaxy.

"They deserve to die, anyway." He went on. "Do they not?'

The sword on her hip burned. Her heart burned for a Demon's blood. But she knew better than to question the decision of a Hierarch. "We are not judges. Only executors."

Only.

The Jackal representative's whiskers were scratched as he shrugged against his chair. "I'm missing a payout, ignoring them." Shrewdly said. "Prophets pay a hefty bounty for Spartans."

Karonee chuckled. Were it so easy to think like a Jackal.

---

Her first impressions of the Covenant had been colorful, peaceful enough, at best. However, at the back of her mind there had been a worst-case situation that played out. It hadn't been hers. It had been Udina's, and Anderson's, and, most pressingly, Chief Gul's and Chief Durante's. Secrets belied her purpose, and lies made her blood curdle, sour. She lived for the truth, and nothing less. She hadn't killed for less in her life and that was the promise in her own blood.

Though immersed in the peaceful visage of the Presidium, there was nothing there that could take her mind off the fact that Anderson had taken two soldiers of hers from her, after they responded so viscerally to an alliance of aliens. In the shadow of the Krogan monument, Shepard had bided her time. It was all she could do after waiting a good hour outside of the Citadel tower elevator and not being able to hail Anderson or Udina.

She was liable to get side tracked.

The Asari Consort, Sha'ira, had been spoken of in rumors as far as her ear would listen in to the crowds, and her office had just been right across the way. It had been her luck that the supposed long waits for her presence had been cut off for her because of who she was.

"I don't make any promises, but I'll see what I can do."

That, among other words that graced her own lips, should've been her catch phrase in her life at this point along with her penchant need to announce that she was going every time she bowed out of a conversation, power move as it was.

What it meant however was that she knew what it was like to chase favors for people. She didn't get that far in life sticking to her own problems alone; to help people was to help herself.

"Really going to do some Asari's dirty laundry Commander?" Ashley had tilted her head at Shepard as they left her office.

Shepard had breathed out tiredly. "You act like we're preoccupied with anything else."

Ashley had opened her mouth to respond, but had no answer, shrugging instead. The elder woman knew her concern though. "Trust me Williams, in this galaxy I'd rather make friends than lose them. And to be frank, anything I do reflects well upon humanity."

"Well that's always been the case with you, Commander." Kaiden had more than reminded Shepard of who she was.

So, they had done the Consort's favor, resolved a rather petty relationship issue, and was given a trinket because of it. She was a fan of souvenirs and, at the very least, found a bar she could go to after the Council was done grilling her for doing her best.

"Do you think that a human woman has any chance in that bar? I mean, come on." Ashley and Kaiden had been waxing eloquent about both her casual racism and strippers on the railing. "I mean, you'll catch me dead if you find me in a skirt, but I like to think the Asari aren't all that swell."

Kaiden crossed his arms as he glanced at Shepard, sitting on a bench below the Krogan and obviously lost in her own thoughts. Nothing to worry about, hopefully, but if anyone needed peace and quiet in that galaxy, it had been Shepard. "I'm not saying I'm into this sort of stuff Williams, but you think I have an opinion on Asari strippers?"

Ashley pouted. "I mean you must be interested in women, and they look enough like one."

Shepard heard Kaiden gruff. She might've had an opinion to interject, but she was too much lost in her own thoughts, arms behind her head as she stared up at the passing sky cars backlit by the artificial heavenly light.

Something was wrong with Chief Gul. She wasn't qualified to clinically diagnose, but she had seen enough war to see what it did to those who could never escape the battlefield in their minds. She was one of those people, if anything. She had her nightmares, her memories, of people that lived only in her past. Things she could've done better, done differently, to save them, haunted her. That is why she saw the same sort of edge in Mai. The way she fought, the way she reacted to threats, it was absolute, without mercy. She was rage incarnate, a pressurized gasket about to blow, held in only by that armor. That armor did not protect her, no, it protected the world from her. That's what Shepard thought based on how quickly she went for her gun in Udina's office with the Covenant, and how much it seemed to hurt her that she was not able to do anything.

It was like watching a cosmic entity rip into a black hole, or a sky car hit a building.

She had history with the Covenant, and yet they had only been there for a few weeks. Even her Spec Ops deployments took months of preparation. The Alliance, save for the initial incursion onto Altis, had no reason or ability to go to war with the Covenant. And yet Mai identified them as a threat.

Were they a threat? Why were they a threat?

Who were they? Chief Gul, and Chief Durante.

Idly, she opened up her omni-tool. There hadn't been more than a 100 N7s in Alliance history, and no more than thirty or so alive or active at the same time. She was one of the more recent additions, young, if anything. Young meant that those that graduated and were awarded that grade with her had good interest in keeping in touch with each other, despite Op Sec. Whoever were their commanders probably wouldn't be happy that they had done this, but there had been a private messaging channel set up and used by Shepard and her fellow N7s.

She looked into the barebones messaging system and saw the last three messages from about a week ago.

N7-66: Sangheili, warrior race? I'd like to see what they do against a Turian.

N7-72: The Old Man's squad was on Altis, saw a few get roughed up. I'll dig for footage.

N7-66: Aight.

They were talking about the Covenant, unsurprisingly, and any N7 worth their metal had harbored some interest in seeing how they fought. That wasn't her curiosity today however as she typed in her message:

N7-58: Durante, Gul, do those names ring anything to anyone?

Moments passed after she sent it, looking to Ashley and Kaiden go on about whether or not a Turian stripper would've turned Kaiden on. "Yeah I like men too, so what?"

"It's a very masculine race, even the female Turians look the same!"

Ashley's racism had been endearing to Shepard. She just hadn't known the galaxy yet. Pressly had been the same sort, but he knew better to know that what he was saying was wrong, inherently. If anything Ashley's prejudices could be somewhat justified, given who she was, who her grandfather had been in relation to the galaxy.

Her omni-tool rang.

N7-51: Negatory 58.

A string of responses carried on within the next minute, all giving her the negative.

N7-66: Who?

N7-58: New crew. Project MJOLNIR-equipped. Armor system.

N7-66: Never heard of it.

N7-58: Me neither. And they usually use us for prototyping stuff like that too.

N7-51: You mean those of us who kiss enough ass to actually get our gear paid for by the Alliance.

Shepard chuckled at 51 as an asides. The Alliance issued gear, yes, but the good stuff was bought off the counter anyway they could find. It was as if it was World War 1 all over again and they had to outfit themselves. Her chuckled cut though, a chill through her spine as another message came up.

N7-06: Ask Anderson, Shepard.

They didn't use names in the chat, usually. Op Sec and all. However, there was a man there that had already gone over enough lines, crossed enough people, that he paid no heed to it. He didn't care.

N7-58: He won't tell me, Old Man.

She knew who he was. Everyone did, and the messaging went silent, it felt like, save for her and for him.

N7-06: Because it's a rabbit hole, Shepard. Go down it, and you might not come back.

N7-58: I can take it.

N7-06: I couldn't.

"Shepard." Shepard jerked in her seat looking up, omni away, spooked. "Sorry I kept you waiting, talks with the Covenant went on longer than we expected."

Thankfully Anderson hadn't been in said messaging chat, so Shepard shook herself straight and coughed. "Sorry-" She didn't know why she was apologizing. "I toured around a bit, met a few locals, during the wait." Standing up from the bench she squared herself, arms behind her back.

Anderson nodded dismissively. "That's fine, Commander."

The two of their eyes drew to the monument behind them, casting its shadow: a Krogan triumphant. "Think Chief Gul could take one on?" She asked Anderson, probing his pitted face with her eyes as he answered. It took a few long moments, but he did answer cautiously.

"More than one. She's special, no doubt you've learned now."

"She not an N7?"

Anderson shook his head. "Her and Chief Durante, they were… one off deals. Prototypes for a training regimen. They were extra tough on them, but it just wasn't efficient to continue on with it."

Shepard flashed with shock on her face. She saw Gul scalp a Geth Destroyer. "Seemed worth it to me."

"Not at the cost we've-" Anderson stopped for a moment. "Not at the cost they've paid."

Shepard wiggled the arm with her omni. "I got their dossiers, a lot of black ink."

"For me too, Commander, what you know I know about them."

Lies. Shepard detested them as fire detests water. The way she fought back was then to burn hotter, burn brighter. It was in her eyes and Anderson knew she was being lied to. No glare, no mean face, nothing like that. It was just the intrinsic knowledge that Shepard had a truth to look for. And where it led her, she would tear it open.

"What's our play for the Council?"

Anderson motioned to Kaiden and Ashley to bring it in. "We we tell the truth. We saw that what happened to us was out of our control and the lack of any precaution from the Citadel on Prothean technology caused us to fail in its containment. Udina has most of that front covered."

"What about that Turian?" Ashley spoke of Nihlus.

"Is Nihlus okay?" Kaiden asked sincerely. Anderson nodded.

"He's at Huerta Memorial right now. Stable now, at least, but still in a coma."

Even Ashley could be impressed. "Tough son of a bitch."

"What about that other one he mentioned? Saren." All they had was a radio transmission, his name spoken before it all cut out, Shepard burned that name into her memory. "If he was present, it meant the Council knew more about the mission than they let on."

"I would have an idea why he would be there, Commander, but if that was his reason, then the Normandy's mission was compromised before it even began."

"So that's our goal then? Just convince the Council they never intended for us to succeed here?" Shepard wasn't exactly comfortable with this sort of politicking. It didn't seem… clean. Her gaze drifted over to the statue in front of the Council tower, she and Kaiden heard it both: that low hum, drawl, present only whenever a biotic was using Eezo. She chose the Krogan instead of that to wait for Anderson at. Its dark lines and machine-like construction was perhaps an art piece, put together by some biotic individual by their powers, which might've explained the residual energy she felt from it. But no matter the case it seemed… familiar. Perhaps it in itself was some Prothean beacon the Council had long known its secrets of, shaped like a Relay.

"I don't like it either, but we know it this way: There's nothing we could've done."

And those words had injured Shepard then and a thousand times before. There's nothing she could've done to stop this.

---

Bad elevator music was something in every culture. Shepard preferred stairs, but here, she didn't have a choice. "Where are the Chiefs anyway?" Passing the time on the ride up the tower.

"Standing by at the Embassy." Anderson said simply, nothing more, nothing less, as the doors of the elevator opened to a long hallway, leading down to the chambers that had been the center of the center of the Galaxy.

The grand high ceilings which offered a view into space was fitting for the seat of galactic power. Gardens below glass floors gave nature its place here and ambassadors and other politicians made themselves busy in the tiered floorplan that had been the Council Chambers. Right ahead of the human group:

Executor Pallin and a group of C-Sec officers, all confronting one Turian more:

Blue had denoted this one, from the markings of his face to the Turian standard C-Sec armor. He was of a younger sort, Shepard could tell, the way his voice sounded over their translators led credence to that as he pleaded with Pallin. Over his left eye had been some sort of combat interface glass. She'd seen the like before. In that new day and age with Mass Effect based weaponry, the gun was often more accurate than the person. The tech helped bridge that gap.

"I'm telling you, Executor, it's too soon to call this case, especially since Turian remains came up on Eden Prime that were not part of Nihlus!"

The Turian was fighting for a case done right, but Pallin saw it differently as he stepped into the Turian's space. "This case is cut and dry, Vakarian. You will go up there during the hearing, and present only the concise truth of this all. Facts only. No conjecture. You are not to judge." The four humans approached the group and the C-Sec officers all quieted.

"Executor." Anderson reached out a hand, and Pallin had shaken it.

"Captain."

"Who's this?" Anderson tipped his head at the almost dejected Turian that had been being mouthed to in the deep tones of Pallin. Pallin saw it at least honorable the Turian introduce himself, tipping his head at him.

With a small twitch of his mandibles, coughing some phlegm in his throat, he began. "Garrus Vakarian. I'm in charge of the Citadel's investigation into the assault of Nihlus and the Prothean beacon's destruction."

"…And the Geth, Eden Prime?"

Garrus seemed hurt to even say this. "I'm sorry, those are matters of Systems Alliance policy, not Council."

"So you just don't care?" Shepard knew her words, said them well and in the right places. She used words like weapon and all C-Sec in the area had cringed. Garrus Vakarian cared. Of course, he did, his eyes open as his mandibles clamped down into a lock almost. He wanted to say something, desperately, personally, but his boss had been to his side with half of the department while the Councilors themselves were to his back figuratively.

"It's not that, it's just not my jurisdiction." He stammered.

Shepard's face was one of her best assets. She liked to think her face was aesthetically pleasing when she did spare any thought on it, but truly she appreciated on how in its idle state, her face was a judgmental one. Judgmental in the way an owl looks down on the forest floor in midnight light. Soft, yet knowing, mature, but eyes wide open like that of child who dreamed of stars. To be looked at by her was like to be vulnerable; her smolder expected much of the world and those who fell into it, highlighted by matte, almost lipstick colored hair.

Garrus and Pallin fell into it. "One of my men. Richard Jenkins- That planet was his home. He risked insubordination in order to stay there and tend to the dead. Way he saw it, if no one cared, he would care alone. Is he alone? Has he been wronged by this galaxy? Officer Vakarian? Executor Pallin?"

"Shepard…" Garrus let her name fall out of his mouth. She was entrancing. Almost unnatural as she seemed to recede back into Anderson's shadow.

"How are proceedings going to go?" Captain Anderson just wanted this all done with.

Pallin kicked himself out of Shepard's trance, answering Anderson. "As we said, C-Sec conducted an investigation into the events on Eden Prime. This hearing is focused on whether or not humanity is at fault for the failure of securing that Prothean artifact, and subsequently, Commander Shepard's ability to act as a Spectre."

Garrus looked away, and Shepard looked at him again. "Something we should know, Officer Vakarian?"

Garrus had given a glance at Pallin, and before he could stop him, he spoke up. "Any investigation related to the Spectres, things get murky. Real murky. That's why we can't confirm whether or not there was more than one Spectre on the ground."

Pallin scoffed with a hand wave. "It's all conjecture, Vakarian. You say that and your investigation gets thrown out."

"I know, sir." Garrus grounded out.

"But what if there were more Spectres on the ground?" Shepard pressed. "We couldn't have acted to our best ability if we didn't know who or what was in the area."

Pallin had looked to the rest of the cadre of men. "Get ready." The group moved off, leaving him with Garrus and Anderson's group. Waiting for them to get out of earshot, he spoke, a huff out of his nose. "Any group that doesn't answer or abide by a common rule of law, who relies on its members to make judgement which puts lives at stake, well- I just don't agree with it fundamentally. So I'd love to take them down a peg."

For once he and Vakarian were in agreement. "I'm certain someone else was there. The remains of a Turian arm was left behind."

"Garrus." Pallin almost snapped at the younger Turian.

Shepard had remembered taking a knee with JD over Nihlus. Both of his arms, although badly mutilated and burned, had still been on. "What?"

Garrus blinked, now or never. "There was a Turian arm, an arm, left behind near where Nihlus was attacked. Nihlus arrived to the Citadel with all his appendages, so it means that whoever did that to him probably didn't get away untouched."

"Shouldn't that be it then?!" Ashley spoke up, almost dumb founded.

Pallin sighed tiredly as Garrus leaked their investigation to the people that absolutely needed that information kept from them, but yet, he spoke. This bothered him as much as anything. "The arm was burnt down to the bone, little DNA remains but we can keep looking. However the fact Ambassador Udina insists that Saren Arterius was there, and therefore, this might be his arm, it doesn't make the Council exactly fond of the idea."

"Saren's their top agent." Anderson said with a certain amount of dread and scorn.

"No one would believe that he'd be responsible for attacking Nihlus. He taught him, of all things." Garrus breathed, annoyed as he looked to his feet. "But I'm sure I can prove something. I just need more time."

"The hearing is now, Garrus. You don't get more time."

Shepard furrowed her brow, looking up to the Councilors busying themselves as they awaited the hearing to commence. "Can't we just call Saren? If he's missing an arm, then we can just verify it by, well, looking at him."

Garrus seemed to want to shake in his feet, a punching bag hadn't been close enough. "Spectres get to go off-grid whenever they feel for the sake of their classified ops. He's not answering any of our hails."

"To be honest, this investigation seems a bit stacked against us." Shepard leveled a hand on her cheek. Pallin saw through it however. He knew what she was insinuating and couldn't be more wrong.

"I'll make it clear to you, Captain Anderson, Commander Shepard, the nature of this investigation is not to back the Council claims or yours. Just to verify what happened. I may not approve of the Council even giving you this light of day, but generally in a pissing match between the Spectres and Humanity, I'll back you, this time. So I ensure you, when we tell what was found here, it is not for the sake of kicking you down."

A ceremonial bell rung throughout that hall. It was time, the Council was convening for a hearing.

"Answer your questions truthfully. That's all you should do." Pallin shot a look at both Garrus and Shepard, but Anderson seemed a little more comfortable. This wasn't his first time answering for a failed Spectre membership.

Walking up those steps, the ambassadors and the emissaries from the races of the Council accrued on the sidelines. Shepard knew what limelight was, but this had been on a different level. Walking in the shadows of old gods, of the Protheans, just to be under the judgement of the Council.

They all stood there, waiting, at their terminals, C-Sec personnel pertinent to the investigation waiting on platforms surrounding the main addressing pathway: There was no direct connection to the Council, the closest was a walkway, a divide and a drop between them and there.

Time and time again, she would hope that she would do this with her life: Bring truth to power.

Here, at the center of the galaxy, she hoped so.

"Your name and duty, for the records, please." Councilor Tevos, representing the Asari, spoke to Shepard. She was the one on trial here. For she needed to be vindicated, to be innocent.

"My name is Commander Jane Kennedy Shepard of the Systems Alliance, N7. Posted on the SSV Normandy."

Sparatus, the Turian councilor, had already seemed decided in his verdict, and Valern's face read of disinterest. Humanity had been the galactic fuckups, and that was that.

"The purpose of this hearing today is to clarify your mission and effect on Eden Prime amidst the Geth Attacks and the recovery of a Prothean Beacon turned up during colonization efforts there." Tevos went on, officially. "The Citadel Council officially empathizes with humanity suffering a deadly attack from the Geth, and for that, we would offer you assistance in preparing for more Geth attacks, however the nature of your mission on Eden Prime did not arise from the Geth raid."

She stood at attention, as straight and squared as she could as her soldiers followed suit.

"This hearing will decide whether or not humanity, or you, are culpable for the loss of the Prothean Beacon."

---

They were. Long story short. Humanity had ownership of the beacon. Humanity was not able to secure their own colony leading to the circumstances which lead the Beacon to be recovered by the Geth. Shepard and her men should not have tried to approach the Beacon without further guidance and, perhaps more emotionally, had not been there for Nihlus when he went down.

Minute by minute, hour by hour, the second they got the SOS from Ashley's squad all the way to Shepard waking back up on the Normandy. Anderson was right, the story needed not to be told to him, but to the Council. Some of Garrus's men also on the investigation brought up points, about the Geth's tactics, how it very much looked like their objective was the extraction of the Beacon.

All the calls Shepard made were understandable, but they hadn't been the perfect expected of her.

Their only rebuttal? One name, one word, spoken by Nihlus before comms had been cut by him: Saren. The implication that the Council knew more than what they let on, intentionally withholding information from Anderson and Shepard.

But the path that led down was one Anderson was down before. If he was already on the Council's shitlist, he might as well had just outright said it: "Nihlus was attacked by Saren in order to make humanity look bad! To bring us to where we are right now!"

Saren was a name many of them knew: the finest Spectre of the Council. Its most ruthless. Only he could've solved the hostage crisis on Thessia ten years ago by claiming to back the hostage takers, only to shoot them in the back afterwards.

On the sidelines Pallin had shot a look at Garrus, drilling through him, daring him to say anything that would make Anderson not be the only one spouting that nonsense off. But it was true: Saren had a known distaste for humanity.

Saren trained his fair share of Spectres. All Turian, naturally, but some had come to be at least somewhat welcome in Human space. As was why Avitus Rix had been assigned to Altis by the Council as their hands on with the Covenant for the moment. As a character witness though, he was more willing than most to come forward and talk about his mentor:

Holographically displayed, on the holo pedestal to the Council's right, he spoke. "The Saren I know is ruthless, yes, but not crazy. He loved each of us as if we were his own, and to think of him doing… doing that? To Nihlus? It's my final word that I think it's unthinkable."

"Did Nihlus have any enemies then?" Anderson spoke. "Surely he must've gotten some in his service to the Council."

Avitus seemed distracted for a moment, the chitter chatter of Unggoy in the background. He was posted on the ground on Altis, keeping an eye on the Covenant, but, because of that, he had been quickly becoming one of the Galaxy's most acquainted with them. He heard the question however, answering true, if not somewhat cockily. "We all have enemies, Captain Anderson, it comes with the job, and I've done it for 15 year."

With nothing more to say, Councilor Tevos had looked to Avitus. "We have nothing more to ask you, Avitus, we hope your duties have been proceeding peacefully."

Avitus crossed his arms, looking off projector. "That's my hope, Councilor." The line went dead, and the character case of Saren had been shut and dry. Even if Saren was capable, he had no motive, no drive to put a bullet in the head of someone who had been raised by him.

"If Saren wanted Humanity to look bad, he should've just done nothing, because look where we are now." Sparatus spat poison at Shepard and Anderson.

Turians hated the humans, Salarians couldn't care any less, and the Asari tried to mediate. Galactic politics in a nut shell and they had been rounding the same point for the last few hours. All Shepard could do was tell her story as the gravity of what had happened to her kept her shoulders stiff.

Still, Sparatus saw that grit in her. "Commander Shepard, the purpose of this hearing is also, admittedly, still a part of your Spectre trial. To see whether or not you are fit to act as an instrument of the Council. I understand that the Spectre selection process is cruel and hard, however our choosing of you as a candidate was not without worth."

Anderson spoke, Garrus had spoken, the ground team had given their account of the attack. It was Shepard's words that carried the most weight their however as the woman of the hour.

"We understand your current position as an N7 in the Systems Alliance Marines gives you freedom that may be mirrored in the Spectres, and, we very much know what you've done with that power."

Shepard had been front and center, with the rest of the crew slunk away by the limelight. She was used to it, for they knew exactly what the Councilors were speak of. Rumors of a massacre perpetrated by her were made known to the Council when her record came by their desks.

Akuze had been the reason. Some had thought that her losses at Elysium had turned her into the Butcher of Torfan, however they were wrong at that. What had turned her into the Butcher of Torfan had been what had been done to her at Akuze: an entire unit, her unit, wiped out by what she could only dredge up as a science experiment by a human supremacist group named Cerberus. That agony of being the lone survivor she had turned to grief, and then, to rage.

Just after Akuze, on a planet far from Earth. It had been her a fireteam of N7s, led by her, waving down a civilian Mako with their shuttle.

All of them: Cerberus personnel. A fact only outright confirmed after the fact. It was a gamble, a risk, and the judgement that had passed onto them had been…

"Out of the car! Now!" Shepard had screamed at the thirteen scientists inside of the Mako, forcing them out the back as the Mako was disabled, on the outskirts of the human colony.

Men and women, employed for a black work that went beyond the Alliance. She didn't care for it, only that it had done her wrong. She had seen her entire unit wiped out, and the legend of the Butcher of Torfan came upon her again, this time against humankind.

She didn't know why they had done it, where they were going, or what would happen to her. The N7s that came with her on that mission knew that pain well, and to see Shepard act on it was a cathartic release.

The thirteen scientists had come out of the car, horded into one group at the back.

They were terrorists.

Shepard alone had gunned them down with one sweeping burst from her rifle. The bodies she buried that day painted the path forward to where she stood now in the galaxy. Maybe another Shepard wouldn't have done that, maybe another Shepard would've dealt with Cerberus later on, when she wasn't filled with grief over the loss of her unit. But she was a different Shepard. She was the Shepard who had lived a life before Eden Prime. She was the one who ran away from home as a child to wander Earth, who took to the stars and defended Elysium when no one else could, suffered Thresher Maws from Akuze and brought humanity upon a small moon full of pirates where, even now, the moon dust was tinted red from soldiers lost there.

She was reprimanded for it, surely, but not on the aspect of murder. She was reprimanded for not seeking official support for it, and because of it, had been given an extended leave. One that gave her time to hunt elk and bears in Alaska.

"The innocent, Council, the innocent, is who I did that for. And I would do it again for Nihlus, for all those on Eden Prime. Someone always pays, and I can tell you, sure as I can, what happened here is not mine to pay for."

Sparatus scoffed, folding his arms. "You sound like a Spectre, like Saren, admittedly."

She raised her eyebrow at him.

"Do you think I'm the person who would not save if I could?

The question hung over the halls like a curse. For everyone there knew what Shepard would do to save a life. Ends, justified by means, one might thing. But no, Shepard went deeper then that. Moral absolutism. Even without Saren implied to have messed everything up, his name drew again across the minds of the Council. If Saren, ruthless as he was, had a counterpart, it would be Shepard then.

That's what their whispers spoke to themselves sounded of.

"You cannot explain the failures of this mission if you cannot explain the details of why there was Turian remains found, there."

Pallin seemed to want to murder Garrus for even saying that on the sidelines, but the Councilors looked to him, nodding that that detail was correct. "I've gotten no updates on any bio trace with it. It was burnt to the bone… though we did find trace cybernetics on it."

Sparatus flared his nostrils as he looked back to Shepard. "The remains of a Turian arm are indeed intriguing but are no less indicative of Saren than they are of any other Turian that would be on Eden Prime, a developing colony. It is no question that some of my people have fallen into the type of life that would render them liable to stick around on human colonies for profit."

"There was indeed an arms market caught up in the dock where Nihlus and the remains were found," Pallin confirmed. This was news to Shepard.

Anderson spoke up. "When did you know this?"

"Internal investigations in gun running unrelated-"

"And the Alliance did not know this? What are you hiding from us? How could we have operated when information pertinent to this investigation and mission are held from us?" Shepard grated her teeth, her right hand balling to a fist before hitting the palm of her left. "Where was Saren then? At least tell us that."

"The Council and its Intelligence Services hold no further details on what happened on Eden Prime, Captain Anderson, Commander Shepard. The whereabouts of Saren provide no excuse as to your actions."

"But please then, tell me where is he? Where is his alibi?"

"Classified."

"Classified or you don't know?"

"Does it matter?"

"When it's his culpability is on the line."

"Which we have no basis to even pursue."

"Wouldn't it then, be so easy, to disprove any idea that Saren was not involved with Eden Prime if you yourselves knew where he was? To present that evidence that would render all of this moot and call me just incompetent?" She should've been a lawyer or a politician in another life.

It felt like they had gone over that point, time and time again from different angles. But that was the magic of Council hearings. Circularity was constant. "The nature of Spectre operations demand his radio silence. Even from us." Sparatus bit at her.

She bit back. "I may not be fit to be a Spectre, but I am fit enough to know that my blame lies not with what's been done to me and Eden Prime. The Geth, the perpetrators are still out there!" Her voice rang through halls not used to yelling, known only to reach heights by Krogan. "Render me guilty, or responsible, whatever- Just let me get out there, give me the prerogative, to go out there and make sure this doesn't happen to anyone else."

There was pleading in her voice, to go help those that needed help. While she was there, she wasn't doing her job.

Councilor Valern had taken his long finger to his chin, her words… odd. Tevos seemed equally intrigued as much as Sparatus viewed this as an outburst. The Turian couldn't open his mouth however as the Asari made a decision.

"This hearing is in break. Half an hour." Tevos had announced. "There is much to go over, and when we return, Commander Shepard's personal culpability shall be determined."

Ashley and Kaiden had played their part as witnesses, but asides from that there hadn't been much fanfare. Even the Turians seemed to detest another Williams had been before their step based on how Sparatus talked to her. The Councilors themselves had slunk back from their stands into their personal chambers, leaving those present in the Tower to take that much needed break. C-Sec personnel groaned as even Pallin slouched on his platform's chair among the stands, Garrus having been on his feet the entire time.

His impartiality was present, truly, but the bias toward the Saren idea had been noted.

Anderson dragged his worn hands across his face as the murmur of idle chatter took place throughout the chamber, Shepard still standing straight and defiant as her men behind her approached. "I don't know what they want, Shepard. Out of you, that is." He said to her, barely turning his way as, all it once it seemed, at the lip of her own walkway before the Council, breathed heavily in one exhale.

"I've fought Batarians, Captain, I can do hearings." Was all she said, Ashley, out of the corner of her eye, giving two taps of her fist over her heart, standing in solidarity, prideful of another Marine.

Kaiden had seen the blue-tattooed Garrus Vakarian approach the humans, but he stepped in his way, not out of malice, but of a question. "I thought you were going to be a pain in the ass."

Garrus only barely chuckled. "To you? Probably not. To everyone who wants this hearing done cleanly though? Well, if the Spectres are being dirty, I can be too." The Turian officer did everything short of filibuster with his report, highlighting Geth strength, Alliance procedure with Prothean artifacts, the nature of Spectres showing up unannounced on missions and Council accountability, along with prior human attempts to join the ranks of the Spectres. It was impressive, and quite frankly, to Shepard at least, worthy of at least-

"Hey, Vakarian right?" She reached out her hand. Garrus knew the human movement of a handshake. Not many human C-Sec officers, but enough to recognize a handshake. He nodded as he clasped her hand.

"Garrus Vakarian." He huffed, not too happy about himself apparently. "This is the shortest turn around I've ever had on a case, and I've worked some pretty hot ones."

Shepard had given the Turian a smile. "Appreciate what you do. Can't imagine it's easy."

He shrugged. "I'm not about to let the Spectres get off on this one, especially if Saren was there."

"Have a history?" Shepard tilted her head.

"Nah," He shook his own. "I just know what he's done. Ain't a Turian to be proud of, that's for sure." With one finger wipe, he beckoned them all to follow. "C-Sec has a table with refreshments, I think you're entitled to it."

Ashley seemed uncomfortable, but no one else seemed to mind.

"Sir, do you know how the Alliance fleet is responding to the attack on Eden Prime?" Shepard's point was her belief. She still worried about human space after that attack.

Anderson nodded in understanding as they walked. "1st and 3rd fleet and moving toward forward stations among the colonies. Marine QRF forces are making patrols as planetary militias gear up."

"Don't supposed I missed anything else?"

"They vectored in from the Terminus Systems. So, it gives Turian patrol fleets an excuse to widen their formations, but asides from that we're the only ones in place to get affected by the Geth."

"How about the Quarians? I know they've been busy."

Shepard hadn't read too much into the Quarians, she knew of their plight, their relationship with the Geth, but hadn't even seen one. Anderson had nothing to say in particular. "They've been busy with the Covenant, ever since the Sangheili found out-" He chose his words well. The nature of the Covenant's displacement wasn't entirely public yet. "Ever since they found out about their common heritage."

"Strange thing," Shepard agreed. "Displacement by an FTL test. They extragalactic?"

"They're familiar with our stars, last I checked. I haven't been briefed." Shepard really had to have been worried with her own people lying to her, on that day of days, but she didn't notice as they approached the hastily put up refreshment table. Donuts, the Turian equivalent of donuts, coffee, and the Turian equivalent of coffee along with a smattering of other foods.

She was liable to have a sweet tooth. Sweet and salt had been her tastely preferences. It was why she had wolfed down a donut while immediately following it with a salami sandwich. "Hell of an appetite." Kaiden made the snide remark.

She shrugged. "You don't be me without being hungry a lot." She knew hunger, of both the stomach and of the heart. Both were being tested there today.

Anderson glanced down at his omni, and that had given him reason to leave. He of all people had been at the foot of the console for far too long in his life, and had nothing to show for it. "I have to call the Ambassador, tell him how we're doing."

"He wasn't watching?" Ashley seemed disappointed.

The Captain shook his head. "He was busy delegating with the Covenant. Besides, he's already done what he needed to do: get us this hearing in the first place. If you can excuse me."

When Anderson walked off, Garrus had walked back into the circle Shepard had made with her Marines, sipping on their coffee. It'd been a long day, understandably.

"I had to read up a lot on you, Commander Shepard. C-Sec says this ain't the first time you've been under this kind of pressure."

The paper cup Shepard was sipping coffee from strained beneath her gloves. They were all still geared up, despite the fact this has been a civilian station. There was probably cause to look like how they were: the dirt and synthetic oil from Eden Prime still was spotted on them. "I ain't never had a hearing where I regret what I did, Officer Vakarian."

It was unkind what she said and she knew it. She didn't regret a damn thing, even if it felt like murder at the time.

Garrus raised his hands defensively, feeling the pressure of Shepard put upon him and not the coffee cup. "Oh, I wasn't implying anything negative, Commander. I was just gonna say what you did to those Cerberus Scientists might be the reason why the Council is still considering you for Spectre work. It's… right up your alley supposedly."

Shepard chuckled, letting the dark drink pass by her lips again. "Am I easy to paint like that?"

Garrus's mandibles twitched before he answered. "Humanity is very prideful of you."

She smiled at that. "The version of me the Alliance lets out, of course."

Garrus was going to say something to the contrary: to have a human take a stand against a Spectre that might've not been there, but was known to antagonize mankind, it was a move. But he didn't then, not when his omni-tool rang and he had a call to take.

"Hello?"

"Garrus, I- I don't know. But-" The voice seemed unsure of itself as soon as the line picked up, but Garrus recognized her.

"What is it Doctor Michel?"

"I remember our last chat, during lunch, about the case you're working on now, and a patient of mine seemed to be related. She came in a few days ago, and I just didn't know if it was right to tell you." The woman's voice was thick with a French accent.

"What?!" If there was a roof and Garrus had been a few hundred feet taller the way he sprung up would've put his head through it.

"Tali Zorah, that was her name, a Quarian with a purple visor and a whitish, lavender environmental suit. She came to me speaking about a Turian- Spectre, in fact, about the attack on Eden Prime. She'd been shot and… she wouldn't tell me who did it. She was scared, on the run, she asked me about the Shadow Broker-" Those words had caused Garrus to tense up, cutting her off. It certainly made Shepard lean in.

"Where are you right now, Dr. Michel?" Garrus vibrated where he stood.

"In my clinic, why?"

"I'd like to talk to you in person, stay in place. I'm gonna have someone pick you up."

"Okay- come soon." The line was cut.

"We heard all of that." Shepard noted as Garrus seemed more on edge, even Ashley and Kaiden were interested. It was vindicating. "Not something I think you want to leak out."

"No it's fine, I think this would be something you'd want to hear anyway… Say, you think you'd be down to prove your innocence? Good half-an-hour hustle to clear your name and vindicate yourself?" For someone reason the Turian seemed more comfortable, more willing to do this as this certainly seemed to be played outside of the C-Sec playbook.

Shepard could only smirk. It was too perfect. "Worth a shot… I have a lead you know, on that Quarian."

Again Garrus seemed to spring himself up frantically. "Please, tell me what you know."

"I saw her back by the Embassies, wanted to speak to I think Ambassador Udina about wanting to give information."

"Did she speak to anyone?"

"No one but the Sangheili guard, the red one."

"Got it. Hey, there's a bar nearby lower markets in the wards. Chora-"

"Chora's Den?"

Garrus seemed impressed she knew. "Yeah, a local lackey of the Shadow Broker owns the place, Fist. We brought in a Krogan who was gonna carry through with a hit on him recently, so it seems that he might be out of the Shadow Broker's favor. See if you can't get to him and ask if this Quarian had already made contact."

"What're you gonna do?"

"Get this Quarian."

"You'll need help then." Before Garrus could decline, she sent off the message. "Hitman-1 Actual, 1-3, 1-4, please respond."

Mai had responded without pause. "1-4. Go ahead 1-Actual."

"1-Actual. There was a Quarian spotted outside of the embassy, purple visor, off-white and lavender body suit. Her name is Tali'Zorah nar Rayya, was trying to barge into the place. Can you find her and rendezvous at Citadel Tower?"

Not even a hesitation. "1-4. Copy all. We're moving. Out."

"Who was-?"

"You'll recognize them when you see 'em. Just head to our embassy."

With one two fingered salute Garrus had ran off, leaving Shepard and her two Marines in his dust.

"These aren't usually the op orders I get, Commander." Ashley seemed skeptical, then again, who wouldn't be? "I'm more used to mud and battlefields than this."

Human sized targets instead of concepts, arbitrations and accusations, Ashley meant truly. Shepard could do nothing but shake her head in gentle disagreement. "A battle isn't where you are, Chief, it's who you are. Conflict will follows us anywhere and everywhere. Now come, let's go before Anderson notices."

"Might be a bit dangerous, ma'am?" Kaiden had been the steady voice of measured reason for the time Shepard had known him. There always had to be one.

But then again, there always had to be someone like her to teach him better. "We're already in the shits. So why not?"

---

It was rather strategic, how they carried on on Tali'Zorah's trail. It was as if Garrus had been a school teacher and he was leading his children in single file. It was odd, yes, but that was the only way Mai would tolerate being this close to a Sangheili without gutting them. Especially one that she had unfinished business with.

Her scar left on his face diagonally marked him as hers.

Garrus led, oddly enough, in the vague direction Usze had said that Tali had gone, as JD stood next to him in pace, Mai behind them all.

"I am not worried by you, Imp. I do not even regard you." The Elite drawled out, barely above a whisper into JD's ears as they walked through the ward. Busy enough for them not to be entirely singled out, but they still drew eyes. The way that the Elites spoke English, JD noticed, it felt mystical, regal almost. That was the natural deepness of his words and the way he formed sentences.

He said nothing in response, tilting his head back to the Elite. By all means, don't worry about me, he communicated. It was the Spartan behind them that he had to regard.

They were in the wards now, in a Lower Marketplace where galactic commerce came to be traded and exchanged. Even armor and weapons surprisingly. To think of military arms being sold to civilians in a large population center! It made JD worry about what exactly law looked like in this world. Stalls had been set up, dozens deep, each selling some sort of different trinket from worlds not even Garrus had known of. Bumping shoulders with the crowd, they only, barely, noticed the upped alerted C-Sec officers doing their beats.

"Have you seen a Quarian? Have you? You? Yeah, Lavender body suit… no? Okay thanks." Even as Garrus moved throughout the crowds in the markets he asked his questions as those three that came with him looked over. Usze had the height, as did Mai, but no Quarian was recognized. Perhaps more dangerously no supposed "C-Sec Officers" as had been chasing her was seen.

Still, despite his proximity to an Covenant warrior of death, JD, oddly, felt at ease. Perhaps Mai had that effect on him and her grating aura around her that threatened to shatter and rip said Elite's throat from his neck, but it was being in the presence of Garrus that was probably the more apparent. He was a cop, and he found family among law enforcement.

"Should clear out." He croaked up to Garrus, the Turian turning around as more and more passerbys ignored him. "Being in the thick of it ain't safe."

Garrus agreed, coaxing the group out and to the left. To the balconies of that marketplace, looking out forward to the arms of the Citadel.

"Like High Charity." Those words had left Usze's voice without his permission, as was the awe he had in actually seeing it from that angle: as a city, not as a space station.

All but one of them had taken the time to look out at that sight, on the railing. The one that hadn't had been more focused, laser focused, on the Elite. She would tolerate this only under the condition that he was a second away from death, and that Garrus would not know.

Still it left Usze, JD, and Garrus to look out to the Galactic wonder that had been the Citadel. The blues and steel of the nebula they were in combined with the coldness of space, it was, oddly, soothing. Cold in vision, but not sharp, welcoming that, even that far away from dirt and stone, a home could be made. To JD, it reminded him of home, staring out at a horizon of skyscrapers, dots of lights and people and technology painting everything.

"First time?" Garrus said hurriedly. JD nodded along with Usze. "Yeah. A thousand different cultures and peoples, and it's up to some sorry son of a bitch like me to keep it in order." This town meant something different to Vakarian now. If this looked like home, Garrus sounded like JD's father. Or, perhaps, any cop, beyond his wits desperately fighting a losing battle with modern society with the rule of law, made by men who could not imagine where that society would go.

"How many people call this home, Officer Vakarian?" Usze spoke with regard.

"13 million, give or take the season."

Usze had known that number well. "Our ship holds similar numbers."

Garrus seemed shocked as he did the equivalent of an eyebrow raise. He had known the Solace had been large, but, that large? "Spirits."

JD and Mai had been glad that their helmets had been on. Their faces were in silent shock as they also turned to Usze. For JD, it was a number uncountable. For Mai, there was pride in it. She hoped she took that much of a chunk from them.

Usze nodded reflectively in his helmet. His Carbine had been on his back, no need for it now, even, his sword on his hip. "In many ways, it is like the Quarian ships in their fleet. The Solace was a ship that we had only a dozen of her type, and in it, it carried the Covenant at its whole."

"Quite a lot of people. Were your homeworlds lost to you beforehand?" Garrus asked, still scanning the crowd, turning away from the Citadel's view. Usze continued to look out however.

Sanghelios was lost to them now, and yet not.

"The Covenant was an Empire, befit its size, it is only natural that its greatest ships carried its greatest peoples." With habitat domes, cryostasis pods for the majority, hunting grounds and areas of repose for the permanent crew, any CSO-class ship was a world unto itself, unmatched save for its own kind. In their honeycomb like arrangement, millions upon millions had been safely sheltered away awaiting either the Great Journey or their scheduled living shifts out of cryo in order to avoid muscle atrophy and general long-term cryogenic defects. The CSO was one of the only ships in the Covenant to entertain the idea of living quarters for the crew. For they were warships first, not places of habitat.

For Usze, and all those like him, his true home was the battlefield.

Still, Garrus didn't have a clear idea of the majority of the Solace's population. Those numbers were padded mostly by Grunts and Drones. The Hunters weren't even counted, traditionally, and otherwise the Elites held the majority over the Brute clans presents, several Sangheili houses with a healthy population present. His own brood hadn't been present, but still, he could lose track the number of cousins he had in its complement.

"How many survived?" The first words from Mai, to her enemy. A tactical question.

Usze turned around, chest to chest with her, the backdrop to him a city among the stars, bustling with metal and steel and skycars befit a future that, maybe, maybe, might've looked like the one if they didn't have a great war, a Great Journey, to embark on. It was said, by a classical Human author, that if the stars should appear only one night, every thousand years, men and women would forget what the city of God looked like.

The Citadel had been that city.

"Do not test me, Demon."

In another life Mai would've charged and thrown Usze over the ledge, and, further, in another life he would've held onto her and brought them both to their doom.

"Officer Vakarian. Please respond." This was a world where interruptions had been saving graces.

Garrus went to his omni as it rung from C-Sec dispatch. "Go ahead station."

"Officer Barro reports he spotted two unbadged C-Sec officers in these directions." Waypoints popped up on his omni-tool. "We have officers dispatched covering all exits to the markets."

"Roger station." He looked to Mai and Usze, oblivious to their tension. "Come on, let's go." JD would've followed, to move was to avoid all this, but he had been singled out. "Hey, there's a clinic here, run by a Dr. Michel, do you mind checking up and staying with her?"

He had no reason to say no, but he looked to Mai first, and then the Elite that towered over him. Not enough time to speak words, and it wouldn't be right.

His dominant hand went to his chin in a cup, before forming into a fist, thumb out, his remaining hand being palm up flat as his fist went into it, gestured to Usze.

Take care of him.

The ambiguity of some signs, especially when combined with Spartan Signs, made Mai think. He wanted her to take care of this Elite. But how?

He repeated the sign, his movements speeding up as Garrus was somewhat bewildered, JD's head jerking in a tilt. He needed a response from her. To know that she wasn't going to do something they would both regret.

He got a nod of her head, slow, methodical, but repeated.

A gloved hand went palm flat, almost covering his mouth before motioning down toward her.

Thank you.

"Where?" Was the single word he allowed to Garrus. JD's omni flashed as he was sent the beacon.

"Thanks." Was all Garrus could say as he went off with Mai and Usze in tow.

Before he himself went off though, he took one last look to the Citadel, to the town below, maybe, just maybe, when he got out whatever service he had with the Alliance…

He didn't think about his future much. That was a luxury he was afforded now, and he didn't ask for much in it. The only thing he had figured would be constant was a woman he worried for then and now.

The only time Mai had taken her eyes off Usze chasing with Vakarian had been now. She hadn't left his side yet and after a few choice moments of peace, JD noticed.

"…?"

Her dominant hand went to motion a cup at her chin before motioning toward him with it. She paused after it, mulling over thoughts in her mind on how, exactly, to say (both in word and in signs):

"Take care of yourself".

---

There was no running from C-Sec that close to the Presidium. Not with a circle of C-Sec cops circling the ward as the day by day activities progressed and, eventually, boiled to one of the back-alley corridors that dipped down between markets for maintenance. Or, at least, the entrance of one.

"C-Sec! Hands where I can see them!" Garrus had rounded the corner and faced two supposed C-Sec officers and a door leading further down into the Corridor. His gun had been out facing their back.

"Woah, woah there officer, same side-" One human tried to turn, arms raised.

"Oh you don't fool me, there's only a dozen human C-Sec officers and none of them are blacks."

Perhaps the subtleties of human discrimination hadn't been properly explained by the translators to Garrus's Turian tongue, but there were indeed no blacks on the C-Sec roster. Humans were hardly trusted to matters of Citadel security, let alone Spectrehood. But that was no matter now as the passive and almost easing faces of those two C-Sec officers turned sour.

"What you gonna believe this- this…? Split-mouth alien over me officer?"

Close enough for Mai to do a double take as she approached the men. Split-jaw was the term for the cockier Marines to use, but it was no matter: they had no word for her as she approached them. No amount of gunfire they could put up would be able to stop her. Objects were larger when viewed up close. It only meant that when Garrus locked the door behind them. By the time they both went for their guns Mai had her hands around both of their necks, backs slammed against the door.

Man handling the Turian had been interesting as their two bodies rose higher and higher, backs against the steel and glass of a door that did not give way.

Usze crossed his arms expectantly, coming next to Garrus as the man holstered his pistol. "Are these the two?" The C-Sec officer asked. Usze nodded. To see Spartans handling peoples other than Covenant was a pleasure, he secretly admitted. "Impersonating C-Sec officers is a rather harsh offense, gentlemen. What's up?"

"I like the free snacks from vendors- ack!" The Turian grunted out as Mai squeezed his throat harder, feet still off the ground. They both were struggling to breath and Mai had hardly broke a sweat as she turned, dropping them on the floor and on their ass.

"What are you doing?" Mai ground out as they looked up at her, ready to take her boot and put their faces into steel.

"Jesus Christ it's a woman."

Usze was amused by the comment, enough to see Mai flick a glance at him.

"You were chasing a Quarian, our friend here says, and unless you tell me why I'm gonna have my friend here beat you into a pulp, because, far as I know, his people haven't signed any of the Citadel treaties. He doesn't know any better."

Intimidating welp had been far below Usze, but, just once, on this day of days where he was forced to work with a Demon, he could. He moved closer to them, groin almost in their faces and then actually as his plates forced them against the steel wall. Hands at his hips, the Turian got the most grotesque treatment, his head unable to even look up at Usze as the human was trapped against thigh and wall. In a snap, his right leg went up and down, the sound of his boot against steel unkind, like a crack.

"What're you gonna do, huh?" The Turian grated, his jaw rubbing against the very masculinity of the Elite.

It wasn't stoicness in Usze's voice. It was a promise. "I have seen humans die in as many ways as there are stars in this galaxy. I will be more than willing to use you to understand which of those work with your species." His two main claws had reached down to hold the cheek of the Turian, before gracing their own mandibles. How odd, they felt, and how easy, how easy-

"RwaaaAA-!"

How easy it was for him to pull away from his face. Like tearing human teeth, it looked like to Mai. The human imposter was not neglected, not as Usze's hoof had found the man's leg and pressed down. The agony that erupted was not kind, but to the Demon, it was familiar to her.

Garrus had been quick to not let it go on too long, going to Usze's shoulder and squeezing as the Elite relented and stepped back.

Good cop, bad cop. Garrus kneeled down, his piercing eyes cutting through any thought that he wouldn't keep the words that came out of his mouth. "I can leave this alleyway for five minutes, or you can walk out of here into safe custody, depending on whether or not you tell us what you know about the Quarian and why you're tailing her."

"Officer Vakarian, please update-" The comm connection to C-Sec headquarters was cut, and it only helped his point. If Spectres could play gray, so could he. And he had a feeling that maybe, maybe, one was involved.

The Turian was barely coherent as some of his Mandible seemed dislocated, loose, the man, even as he cramped his leg with the imprint of a Sangheili boot on it, answered back. "Oh fuck you, bird brain, you ain't getting nothing out of-"

It was Mai's turn. She had made people talk before as she approached like a whisper. For being so big she knew how to control her gait into silence, pulling Garrus asides as in one motion, balled her fist.

The metal of the Citadel had all been sourced from whatever the Mass Relays had been, but, regardless, there had been lesser grades of it that the unseen workers of the Citadel had used to build up shops and buildings. The Keepers knew something was up when a clanging metal sound rang through the markets, and they had proceeded at such a pace that was so unlike them when they came to that alley where the trio had found the C-Sec officers.

With enough momentum, at the right angle, Mai could flip Scorpions and Warthogs.

Here: she could punch right through the wall, right next to the man's head: coaxing silence from all as she gave him enough time to look at what she had done. It was barely a second after that she had flattened out her palm, almost as if into a point, and put it right center of the man's chest, aiming.

No threatening, no pretenses, not a word from her. Just the sudden balling of her first followed by the shrieking gasp of the man who had thought, for a second that went on for too long in his mind, that this steel abomination of a woman was about to punch through his heart.

She pulled her fist back and at the end of his shriek. "Okay okay!"

She went through with the punch, but Spartan Time kicked in, pulling her fist back but still throwing it, just barely, barely, touching his chest like a kiss from the wind. That fist only went to his neck though, grabbing it again and throwing him to the other side of the alley.

The man crumpled in his form as Usze stood over the Turian, Garrus and Mai dealing with the man. In his lungs though, Garrus felt the first punch too. Almost as if he had been the one who was hit; anyone with that kind of strength was stronger than a Krogan!

A pair of Keepers, insectoid, had gone through the alley uncaring of what was happening in it. To both Mai and Usze, the Drones of the Covenant came to mind, but thought nothing of them back as they looked into the hole Mai had made expressionless from their blackened eyes.

"Next words out of your mouth better help us out, or those Keepers will have to be mopping up blood." Garrus kneeled down next to him, spitting almost. Mai, vaguely, wondered if JD would've said anything about this type of law enforcement, but again, these weren't common crooks. They were special: their purpose was far more insidious than fraud.

With the breath in his lungs, thankful that he still had lungs, he only sputtered out: "Someone hired Fist to hire us, some plausible deniability bullshit if I ever seen it. Wanted us to nab the Quarian, but if we couldn't, keep tabs on her for some of Fist's men to ambush her."

"Who hired Fist?"

"We don't know!"

Garrus seemed a bit disappointed, but this kind of police work was never easy. "Where is she then?"

The man weakly thumbed to the doors at the end of the alley. "Just doing some preplanning, locked up those doors so she had no way out."

"She in there now?"

The man shook his head, hurt. "Nah. She thinks she's meeting the Shadow Broker in a bit there after we ran her off."

The sound of a leg against a Turian's stomach had resounded as Usze had given the Turian another kick to keep him down. Beating thugs in an alleyway wasn't something the two outsiders thought they'd do, but here they were.

Garrus nodded within himself as he took in this info. "Well, can't use C-Sec to contact her. She'll probably abandon plans and lose her again." He looked up to Mai to confirm his thoughts, but she had no input to give. "So I think our best bet might be just to wait here and get that door unlocked. When whatever meeting happens we jump in and get her."

"Can you get through those doors?" Mai tipped her head at them.

"Yeah. But we'll have to stay behind it to hide unfortunately, going the long way around might tip out any spotters." Garrus's hands went to his belt, two cuffs coming out. "You have the right to remain silent under the Citadel Common Law as established by the Council. Anything you say can and will be used against you underneath a criminal trial." Garrus had read the two thugs their rights as Usze dragged the Turian over for him to be cuffed, Garrus turning back on his comms to HQ, alerting them of two perps.

"Do I have to remain here?" The growling words of Usze had made Garrus look at him, off of his comms.

He considered for a moment. "We need you to confirm the Quarian is this Tali'Zorah."

He didn't seem to pleased with his answer as far as his body language went, his helmet-clad head shifting over to Mai. "So be it."

For the first time, Garrus had given his two party members a once over. Their armor hadn't been like anything he'd ever seen and he'd be remised if he didn't ask something of them. "Any tricks in that gear of yours?"

His eyes didn't play tricks on them when, at the same time, the two of them had gone invisible.

Mai had been a test bed for many MJOLNIR projects. The direct integration of a Sangheili active camo module had been one of them. One that surprised Usze greatly as, seconds later, they decloaked.

"Heretic." Scornfully left his mouth, quiet enough for Garrus not to har, but Mai to. To use their own technology against them was nothing but heretical.

Garrus had spoke to himself too, but aloud. "I guess you see something new every day Garrus…" Before he forgot however, he rung up someone else. "Commander Shepard, say status?"

Gunfire erupted on the other line. "Busy."

Before the C-Sec officer could look up Mai was gone, off to find Shepard.

---

No one wanted to stop an over seven-foot-tall, armored woman who looked like she had somewhere to be, so Mai had gotten to the waypoint denoting Shepard's location faster than she would admit. Bumping shoulders with the blur of alien population had been a stressful experience, but she kept her goals at the front of her mind.

Normally the Alliance software for finding squadmates on their omni-tool had been less than accurate, but she followed the sound of gunfire and that worked well enough.

The Shadow Broker Mai had never heard of, but Shepard had been more familiar as she hung on the corner of the door's frame and held her angle with her assault rifle, the body of the bar tender bleeding out on the floor as the rest of the bar's would be workers had picked up a gun and, she just had the hunch, awaited her arrival with gunfire.

For all the mystery behind the Shadow Broker, their name had been rather self-explanatory. In a place where lips were loose and so were most sexual escapes, Fist had been a rather noted contact and employee of them that made sense for the Shadow Broker to employ.

Shepard could guess though, with what little she knew of Fist and the fact he had been employed by the Broker, that enough shit came down the line that Fist sought to go out on his own.

A gunshot grazed the doorway on the end Ashley was holding down, she backing off and away as she prepped another grenade.

"Don't." Shepard warned her. "Might be civilians in there still."

She put the explosive disc away only to let another suppressive burst through, obviously not hitting anything. "Not like we're making any progress Shepard!"

Running out of ammo hadn't been an issue since Mass Effect based weaponry came to light, at least, as far as basic arms went. To wait it out on ammo alone hadn't been a prospect that anyone was willing to entertain.

"We need people in that bar, now!" Any cover Shepard could've pulled toward her with her biotics was too far away or too large, and any back entrance would've split up her already meek fireteam already.

She'd call C-Sec, but the saying went when crooks were at your door the police were minutes and miles away.

She got something better than C-Sec however as the now familiar shadow that had been Chief Gul approached her from the walkway to the rear.

"Ma'am." Mai answered calmly, taking a kneel and relieving Shepard of the angle she was holding.

"I thought you were with Officer Vakarian, Chief Gul." Shepard asked, readjusting the stock on her rifle.

"The safety of Alliance personnel takes paramount." Her tone was dull, to the point.

Shepard shook her head once. "Fair enough."

"What's the situation?"

"Dozen contacts according to motion sensors? Most human, one Krogan. Maybe civilians in the mix.

Mai did the tactical planning in her mind. This situation wasn't anything she hadn't done before.

"Permission to move in, Commander?"

"What?!" Shepard looked at Mai as if she was crazy.

Perhaps Mai was, but not incapable.

"Not the first establishment I've had to take down."

Seeing was believing with Mai, and her tone did not betray her. Her confidence sounded like an eagle, trying to convince her that could fly. It was foolish to doubt.

"Fuck, okay then. Krogan's on rear position while we've got people behind all the overturned tables. Few shooters on top of the island in the center of the bar. Past that, nothing. We'll come in on my go."

With one nod, Mai affirmed, handing off her rifle to Shepard as, for the first time, Shepard saw the capabilities of the MJOLNIR armor system truly in action. She had turned invisible, and Kaiden and Williams had stopped holding their angles to check their eyes, unbelieving that Mai had disappeared. Active camouflage tech was still in its infancy they thought.

Mai existed, quieter than a shadow, light itself coming through her as the bare shimmer of light that belied her presence disappeared from behind Shepard and went into Chora's Den. This wasn't her first bar fight. This would be, however, judging by who had filled out this bar, her first kills of these people. No idea who she was fighting, no idea where she was, but she knew she could kill as silently, she rounded the covers and tables, accounting for fighters and fighting positions. Men had aimed their rifles at the doors, sweat beading down their foreheads if they were human. Asari dancers had picked up the gun and held down the same angles, threatening to take down Shepard if she poked her head. They knew why she was there. An Alliance soldier with the gait she had, walking toward them, even when the bar was closed… Fist knew what was to come.

He didn't anticipate who would be there however. Not as the Krogan bouncer, arms confidently crossed against each other had led the defense, barking out his orders, his taunts. Seeing a Krogan this close, she didn't make any note of them. Smaller than a Hunter, about the same as Brute. Probably stronger. She knew what to do though, and whatever whiff of her that the Krogan got as he sniffed the air and saw the shimmer in front of him, it had been too late as a shape of a woman, cloaked in armor, manifested in front of him.

When Hell broke loose, it came with the breaking of bone.

The way the skull of a living being caves is like glass. Not at all, and then all at once. A fact that Shepard and the rest of them there had to observe as Mai had kicked the Krogan's leg inward, making them fall onto their back and be victim to her boot and every single pound of force behind it. The beat of the continuing dingy music had done nothing to hide that sound, that awful sound, of the Krogan's face being caved inward into its neck, into its body, as in one fell swoop one ton of force was pushed through its head. Not a fight was able to be given. Not with her, doing the deed.

It would've been a cruelty if it took longer than a second, but that was how fast her boot went through its body turning it inside out almost. She was a force of nature, her lower body sprayed with the brownish green blood of an alien.

Without even waiting for the screams of the Krogan's windpipes to pass she had stepped out, going to the overhead above the bar where two gunmen had been set up, only with her weight break it, sending the entire affair down in steel and glass into her arms, only to be thrown against the wall. The sound of one human's back breaking had been cut out by a pistol shot from her into the other's skull, she turning back around to the slope she had just made and climbing it, peering over the top to the other side of the room where their cover would do them no good from above.

Any who tried to draw bead on her on top of that fallen structure were unable to follow up, not as she jumped down, her armor and shields bouncing off any fire, only to land next to one of the guards and force him against the overturned table with her first. His skull had already been broken by the punch. His spine came next as she had kicked the table through him, sending it flying to the other end of the den just above Shepard and the team as they began to press in, Mai providing more than just an ample distraction.

Watching her, it had been like seeing a metal storm rip through the living.

She did it silently, without a breath, and in turn she stunned the rest of the team into silence as the gunfire stopped after all the screaming and breaking.

Under her breath, Shepard could do nothing but see something she couldn't recognize as human as she remerged from behind the circular bar, dragging a man, bloodied and barely alive, by his neck, desperately trying to keep his hands up. He was pacified, but not before Mai had gotten to him.

It was like seeing the Grim Reaper walk toward them: Mai, dragging a body that left broken glass and blood in its wake across the floor. She threw him at his feet. "Tie him up." She said.

"He looks better off dead!" Kaiden could hardly believe he just said that, but he did, part of man's shoulder exposed, his neck bent, every breath seeming like he was sucking in blood. That was what did him in as his body crumpled on the floor. No time to think however.

"Move!" Shepard signaled with her hands, coming into Mai's wake as she existed a breath's length from the enemy. All those that came outside? Cut down from Shepard and her team, passing over bodies as gunshots from Marines who were trained for this made short work of any thugs there. The way men and women were cut down, regardless of species, was something everyone there had been well-acquainted with. No two-bit thug had a chance as Shepard rush up front, not wanting to fall behind Mai, the Spartan funneling resistance down the back halls of the bar toward locked doors that would not open.

"Gul!" To hear her last name shouted was a new sensation to her, emptying her pistol's thermal capacity as it burned in her hand. She twisted around, only to see her rifle fly at her from Shepard's grip, she cradling it into an aim at the remaining resistance.

Shepard could vaguely imagine what shitshow this would be, paperwork wise, but she went for broke on Garrus's lead, and when people shot at her, she tended to not take too kindly to it.

"Let us in dammit! Let us in!"

The gunmen had pounded on the door leading to the private areas of the club, but no give.

"Guns on the ground, hands up!" Shepard had taken command and Mai had put on the brakes as they stood in that hallway, guns aimed at the perps. The rag tag group had twitched toward them with no intention at all, shotguns and pistols moved to aim up.

They didn't get that far as the shooting gallery began in blasting burst that didn't last more than five seconds.

Kaiden had damned them for making him do that as the last gunman fell to his knees, dead, joining the rest in that hallway and all those that came before him. "God dammit."

"They made their choice." Williams had been more than willing to answer as Shepard furrowed her brow, a bark coming out of her. Not an order, or even a word, but it was just her very being needing to make a noise. Like a wild dog she air came out of her mouth like a bark, only to turn into a snarl.

"Go." Was the word she finally said, two fingers forward to the door they were trying to get into."

Stepping over bodies Mai had been on point, only to encounter the problem these gunmen had. "Locked." The Spartan said in observance.

"Can we get through?" Shepard motioned to Kaiden for omni-gel or breaching charges.

Mai had a simpler idea as her hands glided over the glass, feeling for pressure, or rather, a lack thereof. Doors were easy, especially those that slid open from recessed places. The easiest places to break had been their lips as she found them. It was trivial when half of it was glass.

She had forgotten when she had become familiar with her strength. Maybe she never had been, and instead it was injected into her as consequence of being a CAT-II Spartan-III, but that far into her life she was blunt with herself about what exactly she could do when her fist needed to be balled or her legs needed to kick either a door in or someone's lights out.

Like lightning she drew her leg up, and when she pressed out the door hadn't been there anymore, broken and twisted and giving a hole for her to again, take her arms, and shear the remaining pieces off.

"Jesus Christ." She hadn't been, but Williams felt compelled to say His name as Mai ripped her way through metal with her bare hands. Shepard could at least do the nice thing and hold up who had been on the otherside, locking them out.

"S-stop right there!" Seeing a woman tear through a door stammered them. "Don't come any closer."

The rest of the team had them pegged the second they saw how shakily they held their guns. On the other side of the door:

"Warehouse workers." Kaiden had said, quickly holstering his own weapon. "All the real guards must be dead."

The last of the door had been torn asides and they entered the back warehouse of Chora's Den, at gun point between two male humans in utility outfits. Not the sort they just blew through with hardly a wasted breath. Quietly, Shepard considered, looking at Mai's handiwork, if she had a division of men and women like her, humanity's problems in the galaxy might've been over very quickly.

"Stay back or we'll shoot!" Shepard holstered her own weapon, but still approached the men.

"We just merc'd the entire bar just to get here, do you really think this is the type of job environment you want?" Shepard had put on that voice. Her confident voice, the one she used when she wanted to put on that image of hero. Cocksure, but charming. With an eyebrow raised the point hit the two men rather hard.

"I mean- Well, Fist don't pay us well enough to deal with…" One of the men's words trailed off.

"Find a new job while you can." Shepard advised.

"Yeah, you're probably right." Pistols dropped to the floor as the two men scattered out behind them.

Mai had been intrigued. Been a long time since she'd seen someone talked out of their own death. Her ONI handlers often tried to if they were less experienced with the Insurrection. They often ended up dead and she often had to clean up after them. She supposed two men in the wrong place wouldn't be an egregious oversight. It wasn't up to her anyway.

"You do have a way with words, Commander." Ashley was impressed. "Wished that worked with the Council."

Kaiden had remarked, turning around and holding down the door frame behind them making sure no one came up on their six. "Well, unlike the Council the Commander has an option of shooting them."

Shepard rolled her head in some agreement. She didn't wear her helmet on shore here, so her red hair had still been, somehow, in its bun. "Williams, Alenko, hold down this angle out. Me and Gul will go say hi to Fist."

"Aye ma'am."

"Roger."

"Gul with me." Shepard tapped the larger woman's shoulder. "Need him alive, so none of what I just saw, aight?"

"Yes ma'am." Gul knew how to follow orders. She was good at it.

"Tell me, someone like you who can do all those things," Shepard found another door in the warehouse, clearly marked to Fist's office. Mai had tipped her head at her commander to apply pressure again but Shepard had shaken her head as she kneeled before its control panel and took a tube of omni-gel out of her kit. "How do I not hear of you?"

Mai had taken the seconds Shepard was tinkering with the control panel to choose her words. "Classified, ma'am."

"Ain't what I'm asking Chief Gul." She was good with circuitry. Hacking doors and locks had been cleaner than charges and Masterkeys, and cleanliness was next to godliness. On her more thoughtful leaves, she did attend church. Church, Temple, Mosques, whatever. She was world weary and yet world wanting at the same time. "I'm asking why I ain't heard a whiff of you from anyone."

She knew something. That much Mai could tell, but she had nothing to say. "Alliance spooks must be doing their jobs."

Shepard had taken point the second the door had opened, not even caring Mai had been there, a door beyond that being opened as Fist's office was approached. It was an odd arrangement, but the office was repurposed from some byway storage, the shadow of a man casting by light on the wall opposite of Shepard and Mai had let them raise their guns. "Fist! We need to talk!"

Shepard had taken cover before the opening of his office, peering in to see only a man thumbing the safety off his pistol, in full armor already. Square head, a good enough target if it came to it.

"God dammit, do I have to do everything myself around here!" The owner of Chora's Den was about who anyone expected him to be: a man with two rapid fire turrets popping out of cabinets. Maybe overkill for gang warfare, but for two Special Operators, it had been trivial as Mai dashed the space between cover and planted herself opposite of Shepard, a burst of gunfire in Mai's wake missing.

"Turrets." Shepard said once, the blue flame in her hands denoting abilities beyond Mai's understanding forming. Ever since Mai had been manhandled by Kaiden with Biotics, she had kept it in the back of her mind like a scratch. She needed to know how to fight Biotics if it came down to it, but to have one on her side, it gave her time to observe as Shepard holstered her rifle, only to take a knee and momentarily expose herself, both hands reaching out to the turrets. WIth one hand each, extending an invisible grasp, it had been like she reached out and grabbed both turrets by their necks and held them up. "Mai!"

"I don't think-! AARG-"

Fist had tried to pop up behind his desk, using it as cover, to put a round into Shepard. She was open and vulnerable doing what she was doing, but she had Mai. Her Kinetic Barrier would've tanked a few hit, but Mai didn't chance it, snapping out of cover and putting one slug into Fist's own shield. The force of it surprised him, putting him on his ass as Mai snapped her aim to the two turrets, pumping a dozen rounds into each of them as fast as her trigger finger would allow.

She did not treat these new guns kind, it visibly smoking as the turrets broke apart and blew apart, deemed no factor as she let the rifle fall onto her sling and aimed, one handed, with her pistol toward the fallen Fist.

Shepard took in a breath, letting her biotics go, reshouldering her rifle as they approached the bar owner. "You make one move and it'll be your last punk."

One-liners. Mai had known what they were. For background noise during their more involved readings, JD had put on any number of action movies to catch up on Alliance culture and history. At least this humanity still prescribed to the archetypes of baddasses and heroes, bloody justice and awesome power by gun. It seemed trivial to her, when she did watch those films in their hotel room, but she saw, once, that there had been a film made by the UNSC that had a Spartan as a main character. It was running at one of the theaters that one of the larger ships she had been posted on and had caught some scenes of it during her jogging rounds. The Spartan had been one to drop such one-liners as Shepard did right now.

She had to wonder, approaching a man on his back and liable to be killed by them any second, what version of Shepard she was to know. The one crafted by her government? The one she owed to herself? Or the one molded by battle?

Maybe the sum of them all had been who she was, truly, but here, as she kicked away the man's pistol, a dark look in her eyes, this Shepard had been the one that the Council needed.

Fist's cut had given him flat hair to go along with his flat jaw, scars on his face from bottles smashed across his face likely. He looked unimpressive.

"Wait don't kill me! I surrender."

Surrender. A word foreign to Mai.

Insurrectionist at least had the balls to fight her to death, and the Covenant had no such word in their dictionary.

"You treat all your guests like this?! We were just here a few hours ago and now this?!" Shepard had yelled down at the man. "What's your deal Fist?!"

"When a group of Alliance Marines, fresh from talking to that damn Turian cop, come running straight for me, what do you think?!" He yelled back, avoiding looking at her.

"That he has something to hide." Shepard called his bluff. "You know anything about this Quarian?" He had to.

"What you talking about the kid? The one asking about the Shadow Broker?"

"Who else?!" Shepard's voice rose along with Fist as Shepard dragged him up with strength that made Mai raise her eyebrow.

"Okay okay!" Being held up by a woman who could kill him often shrunk a man. Let alone a man who sent thugs to try and kill them. Mai's presence didn't help.

"She came to me this morning! Wanted to talk to the Shadow Broker, but I told the damn suit rat, the Shadow Broker talks to no one." In his cowering tones he told the truth, but still it wasn't enough.

"You and me both know that the Shadow Broker works through agents, you one of them?!" Shepard spit on his face through her teeth.

"No! No! But she didn't know that!"

She leaned in to him more. "Who were those men chasing her then, yours?"

"Yeah, if she had information to give to the Shadow Broker, someone didn't want it given."

"Who?!" The golden question.

"Saren Arterius."

---

Leaving Fist cuffed and escorted with Ashley and Kaiden to the Embassies had been the only logical course of action: the man verifying Saren was involved in, at the very least, conspiracy to murder a Quarian for information pertinent to Eden Prime. Shepard would've felt vindication if she hadn't been running with Mai, again, into the wards after blasting a few of the rear-guard Thugs that showed up late to the bar.

"Roger that Shepard, we've got the rear covered, and waiting for the meeting to take place."

"Copy all, Vakarian, we're running to you now."

Courtesy of C-Sec, Garrus had a few tricks up his sleeve. He was a cop after all on the Citadel, a fiber optic wire with a camera slid through the door and out the other side. A Turian and a few armored up Salarians had been waiting, patiently, having arrived a few minutes ago. The rest of C-Sec presence had been called off, and the two perps from before hauled away. All that was left was to wait.

"Sangheili, right?" Small talk was the best Garrus could offer as his duty pistol awaited in his hand.

Usze had been, oddly to Garrus, at ease, his rifle not even off his back. Usze nodded, observing the hilt in his hand that denoted him surely as an Elite.

"You a soldier?"

It was natural that the Turian asked that. Every Turian at some point had been. Usze nodded again. "A warrior."

Garrus clicked his mandibles at Usze, also looking at the Sangheili's own. "Been a part of ambushes before?" Another nod. "You take point then after I yell out the warning, you seem to be more comfortable."

Youth. Usze smelled youth on Garrus Vakarian. Like a kit who had not seen battle before, or known the thrill of a hunt, the hunger that it brewed within the uninitiated to be followed, upon success, the greatest high. He did not know what a battlefield looked like and he wanted to, so badly.

"Very well."

That's when she appeared, just as Usze remembered her, staring over Garrus's shoulder at his omni-screen. She seemed like such a delicate creature to him, in the color of dying flowers on his homeworld. Her voice was high and sweet, a rascal perhaps if he were to use un-regal language. She seemed human in many ways, but so had many others in that galaxy. She was alien in the sense that she did not fear the sight of an Elite such as he.

She came down the stairs of that alley way, the Salarians taking cover as the Turian in a traveler's garb had walked out to meet her in that dimly red-lit hallway of stygian disposition.

Utility belts had been over her suit, the helmet that had been her mask hiding her face save for glowing eyes that reminded Usze of the Engineers bio-luminesce. He wondered if, in Sanghelios's past, those eyes had been common in those ancestors that they had shared supposedly. It was a flip of a coin, after all, a matter of coincidences and butterfly effects, that had made them rulers of their planet as opposed to the other.

"Gun." Garrus pointed out on the Quarian, hanging at her hip loosely by a holster that didn't fit.

The Turian approached her. "Did you bring it?" She stopped a comfortable distance away from him at the bottom of the stairs but the Turian didn't care, moving forward, a hand out and gracing the silk of her hood before, more crassly, pressuring through her suit to glide over her form invasively.

"Where's the Shadow Broker, where's Fist?'

"They'll be here. Where's the evidence?"

She slapped his hand away with a smack. She knew better. The last few days had matured her more than any Pilgrimage had any right to.

The Turian had his fun, there really was no need to even entertain her with what he was there to do, looking his shoulder, a hand signal motioning for the hidden Salarians behind her, emerging from crates.

Go-time, Shepard not there.

The door on Usze's and Garrus's side had been thrown open, and Usze had disappeared in plain sight as he rolled forward ahead of Garrus, cloaked in active camouflage.

"C-Sec! Nobody move you're all under arrest!" Garrus yelled out hoarsely, pistol out.

In the dark light and in the sudden appearance of Garrus, no one had seen the Quarian go for her belt, for both her gun and a cylindrical object, only for that object to be thrown at Garrus. Perhaps it wasn't the best idea to be revealed as C-Sec when officers had been chasing her earlier: the hastily made concussion grenade going off behind Garrus in a botched throw as the Quarian, with one hand shot rounds in the direction of the Turian that had her.

He had shields, bouncing off but forcing him into cover as she dove for it herself. She wasn't a Marine of her Flotilla, only, when tossing herself, smacking her head against the crate of cover.

It dazed her enough as she rolled over to a sit, cradling her stolen pistol close to herself as she saw double vision. Double a Salarian that came over and had their own guns pointed at her. She didn't have time to say a prayer, only to be silent as the sounds of an unfamiliar weapon activating made the cacophony of gunfire and grenades go mute.

Garrus had gotten off his ass, the ringing in his ear subsiding as he saw something that only the most gruesome of murders had shown: a Salarian getting cut in two in one swipe.

Usze's Energy Sword had been recovered from Altis and the island that he had fought the Demon from, its hilt scuffed and damaged from her knife, but still, distinctly, his. It had tasted blood a hundred times over and he christened it in this galaxy here as the red lighting above hid the blood that came from the horizontal slice he bisected the Salarian with.

The Turian hitman had his training take over, charging Usze as he stood there, over two halves of a Salarian and a dazed Quarian, disappearing as the Turian saw nothing and felt nothing but air, trying to dive onto Usze.

When he looked up from the ground all he saw had been two women. One bigger than the other, both guns aimed at him. Saren would kill him, so he'd rather go out like-

He raised his pistol at them, trying to scoot on his back, but a bullet from Shepard broke first through his shields, than his head, the wet slam on the floor sobering Tali as she tried to post up on cover. "Stay down!" She was yelled at however by Commander Shepard herself, the woman taking herself upon the Quarian to hold her shoulders behind cover.

The remaining Salarian had opened fire at Mai as she pressed forward, her gunfire forcing them into cover. For what big eyes a Salarian had however, they could never have seen Usze appear behind his back. He only saw the bright blue tips of the sword burn through his chest.

The way an Energy Sword burned through someone, it was a burn that represented hunger. The weapon demanded blood, and, for now, it sucked it through the heart of the Salarian as their life went with it, Usze taking his hand and taking the being off of his blade as if a piece of a kebab.

When the body crumpled on the floor it was the only thing between him and a Demon that never stopped pushing up to that crate the Salarian used as cover. Her gun had been aimed at him, right between his eyes. If this was another world he knew what would've happened. He might've been able to fight, to avoid death, but here, now, it wasn't clear. All he knew was a Demon down the barrel and she had every right to fire.

"Do you really want to finish this fight, Demon?"

That was what she always did. But here, now? Spartans killed Elites, that's how it would always be, she imagined, knew almost as fact in her bones.

"Do you want to kill me?" She spoke to him, gun not moving an inch as Garrus found his bearings and moved past them,e unaware of what had been transpiring. He was busier with the fact that the person they were trying to save had thrown a grenade at him.

"Yes."

Sangheili spoke nothing but truths, as true as the sharpness in their blades and the fire in their hearts for battle. His sword burned the very air around it as Mai took a glance down at it. How many had been dead on it? The blood from the Salarian burned on its energy and, in the back of her mind, she wondered it was like to be killed by one.

For the first time in her life however, she asked this for an answer, not from the propaganda, or from the common, basic thought that came with fighting unknowable aliens.

"Why?" She asked him. Him.

Usze's eyes burned through her through his helmet, and she likewise did the same back. Elites killed Demons, that's what they did. But that wasn't a why. On the battlefield it was an easy answer: it was either them or him, but here, in a different world, they were given the displeasure of having to answer that question each unto themselves.

Mai wasn't asking for him, Mai was asking for herself. She wanted to know an answer she could give to.

New blood, new battles, and yet, despite that, there was a conflict in every soldier's heart. Between the rational and the irrational. Between good and evil. Sometimes the lines were blurred and the greyness of life's morality and consequentiality fell apart. Sometimes it led to two soldiers, out of the war they had fought all their lives, meeting in the back alley again, a universe apart.

"I am not here For. You. Demon." To hear an Elite speak, it did something deadly to Mai. It made them human.

Demon. That word hung in the air. It burned her ears to hear herself called that. It meant history. History that she couldn't have. She did not create that name. Only Inherited it. Reclaimed it.

"Get away from me you Bosh'tet!" It was the Quarian. Tearing herself from Shepard's calming grasp she held her pistol again, at Garrus. "I'm not talking to anyone except for the Council! This is all a set up!"

Garrus had his hands up though, the ringing in his ear faintly there as he felt the tell-tale buzz of a concussion in the back of his skull. "Hey, we're here to help you!"

She held her pistol like an amateur, cupping the grip as she backed away from all of them, Shepard too.

"I have been through too much, and killed too many people to believe a word out of any of your mouths." She was scared.

In all of the galaxy, there were some things that were never supposed to happen to people. But for this Quarian? She had witnessed her friend burn alive in a trap, chased by another one of Saren's assassins, all because she had wanted to do her Flotilla proud. The story of how she got to where she was, starting her Pilgrimage on Illium, was a tale unto itself, but how it ended now made sense. She was hungry, injured, tired, and facing the oddest assortment of "saviors" she had seen yet. No one had wanted to help her coming to the Citadel, and so, surely no one would help her now.

"I'm with the Alliance, my name is Commander Shepard and-"

"Shut up!" Tali pointed her pistol at Shepard and she tensed. Mai had beat back the instinct to put a round through the Quarian, but Usze had a better idea. Only one of them there had talked to her before.

"What is your name, again, young one." Usze wasn't old himself but he was older because of where he had been now; because of the Solace and the Demon besides him, who only put down her own guard when he sheathed his sword.

The Quarian recognized his voice. If he had gone through the trouble of murdering and tracking her down, then perhaps things were looking up. "You know it." She answered back however, inching back, liable to run away at any second.

"You were annoying."

"You didn't listen to me."

"We're listening now."

"Hey, are you hurt?" Shepard had insisted, looking at the girl, seeing no obvious injuries. She still wanted to hear it from her.

"I know how to look after myself." The gun hadn't been lowered, she saying it through her teeth. The blood from the Salarian that had been cut in half had been staining the feet of the four responders and they moved away from the pool, leaving bloody footprints behind. "Who are you?!"

"I'm Commander Shepard with the Alliance." Shepard was finally able to say. "And these are just some friends. I'm looking for evidence that Saren interfered with a mission Eden Prime."

"Liar! How would you know that?!"

"Because I was there." Shepard had stepped forward and Tali immediately took a step back. "He was on a Human colony when it was attacked, an no one knows why. Please, help us."

Garrus stepped forward. "I'm an actual cop, I promise. Badge 2112. Call C-Sec they'll verify."

"Not good enough, you just want me to call C-Sec on myself."

Mai had nothing to interject. If she had her way she would've rushed the Quarian and take her by the neck until they proved they were safe.

Usze had a better option though. "Your name is Tali'Zorah Nar Rayya."

To hear her name calmed Tali. The panting she was doing only now realized by her as she took in a swallow of her own spit. "So you do remember the annoying suit rat, huh?"

Usze shook his head. "You're a Quarian. I have not been among these people long, but I see why you would harbor some… judgement of them."

"And you know why I'm pointing a gun at you now, right?" Usze nodded once.

"But I hope you understand that, in me leading them to you, I was ordered by my Hierarch to help them secure you. You shall be safe with them." Mai would never admit, but she was enthralled. This was the most she had ever seen an Elite talked, and the way the translators worked, he spoke like a wise mystic: a product of his culture.

"How do you know that?" Tali was skeptical, but Usze only gestured to the monster woman besides him.

"I have not died yet with them, and I pose far more of a threat to them than them to you."

It was certainly something to say. Shepard noticed at least.

"How can I trust you then?!"

Shepard had only gestured at the dead before them. It was a good point that even Tali conceded. Though Usze had to try something else. It was only right.

"I swear the Homeworld on it." Usze looked her dead in the eye. "Our Homeworld."

Maybe it was a little opportunisitic, maybe manipulative, but Usze would stand by that bet. He put his word as a Sangheili enough and, for Tali, it was enough as she broke the aim and let the pistol fall to her feet.

With a whimper: "It's been a long day."

Nothing to the Quarians had been more important than the Homeworld. Rannoch was their God, their Goal, their reason for existing. To hear it spoken from someone who knew it better than she, it spoke to her as a Quarian, perhaps her better judgement.

Shepard approached her first, "I bet… You wanted to go to the Embassy, right?"

Tali looked up, head in hands as best she could. "Yes. Yes please. I have to get there. To get someplace safe."

Shepard patted her shoulder reassuringly. "Of course."

Garrus had finally approached, leaving Mai and Usze saying nothing as the Elite simply nodded in concert with Shepard's agreement. In it, the Demon and the Elite had been bypassing the question, the idea, of peace between them. If they were to fight, it wouldn't be here. Not on their missions from their commanders. They reappeared within the whole group of them as, eventually, as if she was reaching through her hood, the Quarian looked up at the shadows cast before her when Mai approached.

"Keelah. I didn't think you humans got so big."

"Yeah, I didn't think so either, but here we are." Garrus meekly gestured to Mai. "You sure you okay? Pretty ballsy throwing grenades indoors."

Garrus had offered her a hand, but she wove off, strong enough. "I'm fine… also, uh, sorry." She offered awkwardly back.

The C-Sec officer had sucked in his cheeks as he backed off. "Well who am I to keep you down?" Like a heartbeat that drove her mad, she rose to the occasion. "How old are you?" he asked.

"Just turned 22." Young women thrown into circumstances bigger than them. That was the story of the Normandy crew it seemed. The Quarian thumbed her pistol's safety when she picked it up, her left boot holding a knife actually. She was prepared, somewhat. Never enough clearly.

"I remember when I was that old." Shepard could fondly account for, giving Tali a smile as, discreetly, she squeezed her fist and made a circle gesture with it. They formed a circle around Tali as they quickly left the scene. Only one more person to pick up before they headed back. "Hitman 1-4, I need a status."

---

Minutes earlier and JD, after some stumbling around the market, lost, had found himself in a situation as he entered the Clinic.

A hostage situation. Never had been in his training to take on, but he had heard the horror stories from his father: from other departments on different worlds who had to deal with Insurrectionists. Breaking down that clinic's door and facing off against three thugs with handguns and a hastily prepared meatshield that had been the Dr. Michel. The clinic had looked like a converted café, and because of that there had been a counter between JD and the other occupants.

"Who the hell are you?!" The man holding Dr Michel had demanded of JD. Guns were pointed all around.

He had about seven answers to that and most of them ended up with a firefight. He was glad that the software for his HUD had been able to transcribe the properties of that galaxy's firearms well enough, and, with enough firmware changes that he could do, hopefully, he might've been able to get it standardized. For now, however, using the Covenant Plasma Rifle as a base, he had been able to get the crosshair of his sidearm trained of the head of the man holding Dr Michel hostage.

Silence had been in the place of words; his only action was to keep aim as he slowly moved left. He could dive for cover, even with his pistol still trained on the hostage taker's head.

He told Mai he was good with his pistol. He had enough range time with his father to practice and prove. Enough Grunts had their heads bolted through by his SOCOM pistol to know that when he did aim, he aimed true.

There had been a former ODST in the police department. It had been where the idea of becoming one started within JD, and, because of it, he drew from his past for an old trick that didn't quite work with the Covenant, but for any Insurrectionist who dare put themselves in this situation, was fine enough. His left hand drifted to his belt as the hostage takers screamed at him to identify, for any word to come out of him at all as Dr. Michel sobbed and begged for her life. It was fine though as JD felt for the disk like object mounted in a pouch on his battle belt and the pin.

His helmet had been polarized for a reason, sucking in his breath as he tugged on the metal pin.

All hell broke loose when the bright flash of white rang out through the room, emanating from the flash grenade on JD's belt. He saw none of it though as his VISR kicked in, blocking out the bright light as the gunmen were stunned, their heads lined up through the ironsight of JD's M-11 offensive handgun. The loudest sound in that room would've been the flash grenade going off, for the suppressor on his pistol did its job as JD lined up the hostage taker's head and squeezed off a round.

The blood that flowed through the clinic that day came not from scalpel, but from a gun as the man dropped to the ground, eyes rolled back in his head as his rigid arms took Dr. Michel down to the ground with him.

One shot was all he needed, and could afford, for him.

Snapping left, two shots in the man's face and then throat, and then finally to the right, into the man's lungs and chin.

Before the ring of the flash grenade could stop ringing through that room, three men lie dead and JD had reminded himself in some small part how he had survived that long as an ODST. He wasn't done yet, as much as he felt the warmth of his pistol being shot five times that fast through his gloves, pushing forward to the dividing counter and hopping over to just above the dead men, peering further into the clinic for anyone else.

No one. Snapping back to the entrance, aiming at it, that situation had been started and finished in less than fifteen seconds.

He exhaled. Holstering his pistol, looking down at what he had done… Rigor mortis had kept Dr. Michel in the man's arms, JD crouching down and prying his dead man's grip off of her and dragging her away to one of her clinic beds. She was barely lucid, flashes going off in her eyes probably still from the grenade.

"Hitman 1-4, I need a status." His earpiece within the helmet rang of Shepard's voice.

"1-Actual. Responding."

"Send it."

If JD could snap with his gloves on, he would've in front of the woman's face, trying to draw her attention as she was still recovering from everything. Still, she was a medical professional, controlling her breathing as she still saw the stars in her eyes.

"Dr. Michel had visitors. All E-KIA. She's fine. A little dazed though."

"Copy all. Stay in position, Officer Vakarian will rendezvous with you and escort both of you back to the Embassies."

"Roger."

"Hitman 1-Actual out."

"Who- who are you?" Dr. Michel had finally found her words, and her vision, holding her head in her hands as the ringing still infected her ears. The shell of the grenade was still on his hip and smoking, but it wasn't anything he couldn't deal with.

"I'm one of Officer Vakarian's friends. Don't worry, you're safe now." He felt like his father now, taking a knee by her, checking her for any injuries. She was fine, if not a little roughed up.

"They were Fist's men. Wanted to shut me up before I sent off that message to Garrus." JD nodded in his helmet as she groggily recounted why she had gotten in this situation. "If I hadn't called Garrus, I- I just don't know what would-"

JD holstered his pistol on his hip, letting his two hands grab onto both of her shoulders. She was shivering, scared to death about death. She was fine now, and as JD gave both her shoulders a squeeze, she knew it was so.

Looking back to the dead bodies however, it stayed his breath.

"I'm surprised you were able to… save me, like that." He nodded at that, "You do things like this often?"

On the floor, with blood pooling and chunks of brain and skull, wrote the tale of JD's first kills of man. He smelled the puke in his nose before it came into his mouth. Unfortunately for him he swallowed it back down before he repeated the ODST rookie mistake of throwing up with his helmet on.