Chapter 21. Background Radiation


5. May 2390 AD, Elysium

The dark-orange sky, black smoke still setting over New Illyria, was slowly growing into a dark blue as the sound of battle was started dying down, their comrades being silenced one after another.

It wouldn't be in vain. There was a purpose behind their sacrifice.

Coming to a hold some 100 meters in front of the outpost's gate, he began his headcount. One on each of the towers, three in the gate area and at least five more green armoured figures visible in the vicinity of the storage bunker located near one of the towers, away from the barracks. Electrified fences, motion sensors, machine gun emplacements and two armored vehicles left behind in the vehicle pool were clearly visible inside the outpost.

This was most certainly the place, the home of an armored battalion currently deployed inside the city.

The HSA, as part of their continued occupation of the Fringe Worlds, had built dozens of these camps on the worlds that had dared to free themselves from its clutches. Their purpose ranging from simply providing shelter to their so called 'Colonial Watch' to storing gear which would only be required in the event of a planetary scale invasion force descending on a planet.

This site, while not nearly the size of the HSA's main garrison on Elysium, was such a place. A storage facility that held the object the Surgeon needed them to seize, a device that would help their cause in more ways than any of the men currently dying in New Illyria possibly could have. The lack of most guards and the abandoned barracks implying that the distraction had worked, he nodded towards his fellow separatist.

"If they trigger the alarm, reinforcements will be here in less then five minutes," his companion reminded him as she rose from their cover, one of the alien's weapons clutched in her hands as she aligned the scope with one of the guards on the tower.

"All the more reason to keep a low profile," he argued through the thin mask of the suit that would disguise him from most if not all sensors.

Shifting her aim to the other towers, she lingered for a moment before lowering the sniper rifle as the engines of an HSA shuttles howled above them, green crafts with red highlights shooting above their heads as they headed for New Illyria.

Waiting for a few moments, the couple of IFS assassins began to advance towards the main gate once they were sure the crafts were well out of reach. They moved silent but swift and soon they were mere meters away from the three HSA guards standing at the camp's entrance.

Every muscle in his body called for him to end them, to avenge some of the people who had already given their life for the cause but he ignored them. The HSA couldn't find out about their presence here until it was too late, dead guards would most certainly cause an investigation.

The assassins waited for the moment when one of the guards would turn just enough for them to slip by and when it came, they did just that. Appearing to the guard as mere shadows at the edge of his vision, the man turned just as they had passed through the small gap in the HSA's security and doubled back, shaking his head in the belief that he had simply imagined the two shadowy figures slipping past the barricade.

The two assassins entered one of the abandoned buildings, a mess hall by the looks of it, and began to sneak through the darkness, using it to stay invisible.

The HUD within his mask informed him that their target was coming ever close now, matching the picture of the map he had carved into his memory through hours of study. Only a few more meters through the mess hall, across the vehicle pool and towards the storage facility.

"Movement," his partner suddenly spoke as he readied the mass accelerator pistol in his hand while rolling under one of the tables.

The two soldiers were most certainly talking, their body language indicating that much, but their sealed helmets with the black visors that had earned them the nickname of faceless goons prevented the outside from listening in on their conversation unless they allowed them to. The couple moved through the cafeteria, assault rifles gripped in their hands and coming ever closer to the table he was hiding underneath, only his nerves preventing him from panicking as they passed by him, the heavy footsteps caused by their modular armor vibrating through the ground towards him.

Turning his head ever so slightly to track them he caught a glimpse of his companion creeping forward, heading for the door they had just entered the mess hall through. He decided to mirror her movements as the door the assassins had entered through was opened by the mute soldiers, leaving them alone once more and allowing him to roll out of his hiding place. The man pushed himself of the ground without making even the slightest sound before walking towards the door and slowly opening it.

"The storage is up ahead," he whispered through the thin yet resilient material that made up the mask he was wearing, "We get in, grab it and get out," he reminded his companion who nodded at his words and slipped through the door before him. After following her, he closed it behind himself so that it wouldn't raise any questioned and noticed three guards standing in front of the storage, jumping behind the same vehicle his fellow assassin had already used to hide from both the guards in front of them and the one on the tower who had turned into their direction just now.

"Front entrance won't work like this," she whispered back. "I'll draw them off, you sneak in."

"Don't get spotted, sound distraction only, are we clear?"

"Yes."

The woman next to him rolled underneath the armored vehicle and crawled away just outside the field of vision of the guards at the front entrance as he waited, observing the guard on the tower and the guards in front of the storage bunker in the process. Then the very audible sound of metal hitting on metal echoed through the outpost, causing the guards to raise their rifles before two of the walked away, the tower guard now even more focused on the lone soldier guarding the entrance.

He had to give it to the HSA, the IFS militias could certainly learn something from them in regards of perimeter security. They covered each other exemplary.

However exemplary wasn't good enough to keep him out. Once more drawing inspiration from his companion, he first rolled underneath the car and crawled through the blind spot of the guard standing in the watchtower, sneaking as close to the entrance as he could without being spotted.

Then he pulled one of the oldest tricks in the book, picking up a pieces of the gravel the outpost was standing on and throwing them towards the guard, causing him to turn towards the sound for just a few moments before deciding to investigate. Long enough for him to slip by as the tower guard most likely shifted his attention towards the same spot the entrance guard had walked towards.

The storage bunker was secured through a door that required a code to enter, an action that would be logged by the VI of this outpost. For this reason he brought up yet another alien tool, its normal orange glow turned dark red to reduce its visibility at night as he forced the door open through the use of a program that would hide its tracks while occupying the VI with another, more mundane task.

The aliens might be out for humanity's blood but they sure as hell were a good help for now.

The program, procured from the mercenaries that had aided them some years ago, wiped its own traces as the door opened up, the normal buzzing that would sound as a result being suppressed by it as well.

He entered the dark room and looked at the shelves as he passed by gear that would go a long way to help their cause. But none of the grenades, anti-tank or anti-air missile launchers, breaching charges or anti-material rifles were of any interest to him. The IFS already possessed more than enough of those in hidden caches created at the end of the Fringe Wars. He was here for something more important, something Elysium's cells hadn't been able to get their hands in the past due to the regulations placed on the item.

He looked at the shelf with replacement parts for vehicles, the small, grey coloured boxes within his reach, ten of them neatly stacked side by side.

He just needed two.

Retrieving the fake ones from the pack on his back, he placed them on the shelf to keep their number equal in case someone bothered to count after grabbing two of the real ones. After making sure that they fit into the neat row, he stepped back from the shelf.

"I've got the package," he whispered through the radio, a short buzzing being the only acknowledgement he received from his companion.

This particular part couldn't be salvaged from other vehicles without being flagged as 'stolen' or 'destroyed in combat' in HSA records, the Kodiak pilot that had sacrificed himself earlier proving that much. The oppressors were as possessive of their gear as they were of the Fringe Worlds. It was something they had learned the hard way, the main reason for the implementation of the flagging system being the fact that stolen vessels had been the separatist's ticket onto the space ports back in 2376.

However a factory new device, like the ones currently in his hands, could be used to replace the one inside a vehicle that had already been flagged, giving it a new set of identification codes, a set that wasn't flagged and would theoretically allow them entrance to any military installation if they could avoid other security measures as well.

Therefore this would go a long way for the next step of their plan. Obtaining a ship was much easier than obtaining a new military IFF. Ships could always be bought from the company producing them and be repainted to match an HSA craft or one could simply try to retrieve and repair a damaged vessel from the time of the Fringe Wars, just like they had done with the Kodiak that had set of the distraction, if they had the resources. The IFFs however were hard to come by.

"I need you to draw away the guards at the entrance," he spoke as he came to a halt in front of the door.

Then he waited, the identification devices now stored in the backpack strapped to his black armor, the alien pistol ready in his hands. Some minutes passed and then his radio came to life.

"They are gone, chasing my shadow."

"Acknowledged."

Putting his faith in the fact that his allies information was true, he once more ran the program that allowed him to open the storage facility'S door without triggering an alarm or the entry being logged on official records and found his faith to be rewarded as nothing but an empty door and the sight of the tower guard looking away.

The Surgeon would be pleased.

"Rally at the exit," he ordered as he moved along the wall of a building, using the mess hall as cover and hoping that the tower guards wouldn't spot him.

Then he froze in place as a green figure became visible once it turned the corner.

The assassin pressed himself against the wall of the mess hall as a soldier walked towards him, his head turned towards the other side of the fence, watching the outside of the camp. He came closer to him with every step, the SR-7 in his hand loaded but its safety still locked, small scratches on his armor visible as the assassin started to hold his breath to avoid making even the slightest sound as the faceless goon passed by him, almost touching him with the stock of his rifle, only a few centimeters and the fact that he was looking away keeping the assassin from being spotted.

The guard kept walking and the man allowed himself to breath again, swiftly moving away from the foe unaware of his presence. The gravel underneath his feet created a small sound every time he took a step a little to fast but he couldn't dwell on that detail for now, the exit already in sight, his companion waiting for him in the shadows.

The two linked up and turned towards the last obstacle on their journey, the three guards they had already passed by but something was off, a small vibration in his feet telling him that a convoy was closing in.

They couldn't already have killed all of their comrades, could they?

The sight of an armored convoy, the headlights of the first vehicle shining towards him as he took a peak answered that question all by itself.

"Damn," his companion cursed. "We're screwed."

"Follow my lead," he simply replied as he dropped to the ground and began to crawl, coming to a stop only as a figure stepped through the gravel in front of them.

He spotted the guard actually talking to the driver, different squad intercoms forcing them to converse in a more conventional manner.

"How's the situation in New Illyria?" the guard, apparently the officer in charge of the checkpoint, asked as he and his companion rolled into the blind spot of the vehicle, crawling underneath it with only a few centimeters of room above them.

"Bad," a deeper voice replied. "Most of the Iffys are dead by now but some pockets are still holding out, shooting anything that moves."

"Civilian casualties?"

"Still counting," the voice grew more distant as they crawled underneath another armored vehicle.

"Damn," the guard officer said as the two assassins barely avoided being spotted, racing against the inspection of each vehicle while trying to remains silent. Normally the officer should've caught up with them by now. Their crawl was slower than his pace but they were saved by their comrades for one final time.

"Corporal, your ride took a serious hit," the man ordered as he stopped after noticing the damage and knocking on the back of the armored personal carrier they had just left behind them. "Anti-material round went straight through your engine block. How the hell are you still driving?"

"The Hammerhead's a resilient bastard, Sir."

"More like a lucky bastard, check it out once you're inside. I'm no mechanic but I think you're driving on borrowed time."

"Yes, Sir."

Ignoring the rest of the conversation, the assassins passed the final vehicle and quickly made for the forest they had come from, their intention to reach the courier.

"Tell the Surgeon we got the IFFs," he spoke through the radio as the outpost vanished behind them. "He's got his way in."


8. May 2390 AD, Arcturus Station

Sitting down in his office chair, he drew a long, calming breath before his shoulders slumped down, the rest of his energy leaving his body after finishing yet another press conference.

6219.

That was the number of people who had met their demise at the hands of the IFS on Unification Day and it would've been an even bigger number if the attacks hadn't been limited to Elysium.

"I didn't expect you to come here in person," he said as he noticed the woman standing in the corner of his office, lurking in the darkness. "You didn't show in 2387 either."

"Back then was different," the woman replied as Noé lit up a cigarette. " This is different. For me, this is personal."

"I thought your type is supposed to be detached from these things? Let nothing get to you and all that spy stuff." Noé muttered as a small orange dot glowing between his fingers illuminated the otherwise dark office.

"My 'type' is also supposed to keep the people save, in that I failed."

"Please tell me this isn't turning into a 'I'm resigning' speech, we can hardly afford that one right about now," Noé said as the brunette woman sat down opposite to him.

"That would be running away and I don't run from my mistakes. I fix them."

"Can't bring the dead now, can you?" he argued as he exhaled a small cloud of smoke.

"I can avenge them."

"Most of the Iffys died in the crossfire and since Kamarov's still off the gri-"

"Kamarov made a mistake."

"Come again?"

"The smug bastard decided to star in one of the transmissions, meaning that someone received a file to broadcast in the first place," the director explained, "and in turn meaning that some IFS media genius was in contact with him or someone who's close to him."

"Well that limits our search perimeters to what? The whole Fringe?"

"Not exactly," the director said as she pressed a button on a remote, turning on the screen in front of the chancellor.

"This is not the way of our cause," a man with black hair said as he hung his head in apparent sadness, a red banner waving behind him as he once more looked up at the camera. "The IFS promised you to protect us from those who seek to harm us, those who seek our destruction as a people."

"They sure love their little clips, don't they?" Noé chuckled.

"And we won't let murderous thugs sully that promise," the spokesman went on. "The cells on Elysium, led by a misguided madman, have strayed too far from our path, they acted on their own behalf and without the knowledge of our leaders."

"They're doing damage control. Intel suggests that Elysium wasn't sanctioned by the other cells. Our informants on Shanxi had no idea this was happening and apparently one of Amaterasu's 'big shots'," she airquoted in a sarcastic manner, since Amaterasu had been one of the worlds on which the IFS had lost almost its entire footing in the wake of its defeat in 2381, "threw a fit the moment the attacks started. He's been questioning people ever since, believing that something is going on without him. If we get lucky the moron calls in on of our guys and we can finally get a fix on him."

"The IFS denounces each and everyone who would raise his weapons against an innocent human. We do not rule through terror, those who were fortune enough to live on the worlds we liberated from HSA's oppression are well aware of that," a series of pictures dated during the Fringe Wars, obvious propaganda pieces, replaced the spokes person. The shots displayed IFS militias meddling with the population of Shanxi, smiling faces and nice gestures meant to improve the separatists' image. An image now stained by the blood of the people of the Fringe they vouched to protect, blood spilled by a person they had been trying to paint in a better light for years.

"The IFS urges everyone who seeks to join our cause to do so outside of Elysium and urges all of the members of Elysium's resistance that didn't participate in this massacre to flee the planet. Your place is next to us, not to Kamarov."

"Kamarov did more damage to the IFS's reputation in one day than we managed in nine years," Noé commented darkly. "If I didn't want him dead so badly, I may even consider giving the guy a medal."

"Can't argue with that."

"So I take it that you showed me this to clarify that Kamarov's media guy is from one of Elysium's cells?"

"Yes."

"So we just have to find the propaganda guy of Elysium?"

"We already did. We know where he's recording."

"Come again?" the chancellor shot up, almost losing the cigarette between his lips in the process. "Explain. Now."

"Besides Kamarov's smug statement about how he'll destroy everyone who doesn't join him, they've been creating other propaganda pieces, the last one was just uploaded five hours ago," she began. "All of the videos were slideshows of pictures with a voiceover, so the creator would stay anonymous. But they all shared a small yet defining detail one analyst noticed when she decided to take a closer look at the broadcasting signal," the director explained. "While they managed to hide the actual place they are sending these videos from through their usual methods of scrambling and disguising, they made a rather crucial mistake," she explained. "They are broadcasting from a frequency no longer in use on Elysium, an old colonial frequency."

"I take it you got a location?"

"Unless the guy dragged all the stuff he needed to record into the the ruins of Illyria's museum, the only other place he could've had access to an antenna using this old frequency, he has to be on Peak Tavka," the director said as she pressed another button on the remote, the screen now displaying the installation on top of a mountain, an orange glowing generator connected to wires leading into the observatory visible through the thick cloud of snow typical for Elysium's higher, more alpine regions thanks to thermal vision. "This is an old observatory built on one of Elysium's more accessible mountain peaks during the early days of its colonialisation. It was abandoned when the retrofit turned out to be too expensive compared to simply building a new installation somewhere else. This picture was taken two hours ago by a reconnaissance drone, ASOC is already on its way, on my authority."

"You couldn't have saved me from a press conference?" Noé asked with a chuckle.

"It could have raised suspicion," the director replied. "Besides, it was you who gave Section 13 this power in the first place."

"It was a very long press conference," the chancellor sighed as he pressed a button on his computer that would summon the most important members of the government, they would soon be needed.


Meanwhile, Elysium, Peak Tavka

"Right under our noses," Icer spoke as he pushed a magazine into the SR-8 before chambering a round. "Kind of embarrassing, really."

"They'll regret that move soon enough," Basilisk replied.

"Ninety seconds!" a voice from the pilots seat shouted. "Get ready."

"Bit chilly. Feeling at home yet, Icer?" Cosmo chuckled as he opened the Kodiak's doors, revealing another shuttle and their gunship escort in form of two A-83 Vultures flying left of them, white snow collecting on their front as the aircraft flew through the rough weather conditions, a large mountain caked in white, powdery snow visible beyond them.

Mass effect fields really made a lot of things easier, aviation among them.

"Nope, the altitude didn't help your attitude at all, Cosmo," Basilisk replied causing the other two members of Ghost Squad to snort.

"Look who decided to get a sense of humor," Cosmo muttered as he leaned out of the door, snow flakes collecting on his helmet and torso .

"One minute!"

"Well someone has to be the funny one, sure as hell isn't you," the ASOC soldier countered as he walked up to the doorway as well, preparing to fulfill his role as pointman.

"Forty seconds!"

"Non-lethal shots only, we don't know what the important guy looks like," Predator reminded the unit as the shuttle began to slow down.

"He's gonna look like a geek," Cosmo said. "They always do."

"Just look for the one Iffy who can't shoot straight," Basilisk added. "That's the tech guy. Tech guys can't shoot for shit."

"Twenty seconds!"

The unit lapsed into silence as they prepared themselves for an air assault, a rather risky move given that any separatist with a rocket launcher and decent aim could take the Kodiak down once it appeared from the heavy snowfall but the reward was most certainly worth it. While capable of climbing to the top of the peak, the process would've consumed time they may not have. After all, the propaganda detachment stationed on Peak Tavka may decide to pack up and leave at any time, evading capture in the process.

"Reaching LZ!" the pilot said as the Kodiak stopped in front of the observatory, a small metal platform meant for supply shuttles underneath them.

The ASOC soldiers jumped out of the Kodiak as the gunships began to circle the compound like their namesake, vultures. With the other team, Raider Squad, close on their heels, Basilisk was the first to reach the hinged door.

Usually explosive entrances weren't their style but this operation was hardly usual and the A-83s had thrown their stealth out of the window anyway.

Basilisk placed a small breaching charge on the door and waited for the man behind him, Predator, to give the signal. It came in form of two taps to the shoulder.

Pressing down the detonator, time began to slow as he broke through the frame, the surprised face of a separatist the first thing he spotted when entering.

His sights moved to the hand holding a gun and a squeeze of the trigger unleashed a round that found its mark in the separatist's hand, blood erupting from it as he dropped the gun but still stood in their way. Aiming lower, he fired a round through the man's knee, causing him to drop while the second man through the door dispatched another Iffy standing behind a console with a quick shot through each of his shoulders.

The eight soldiers pressed on, clearing the entry area to avoid being pinned down, just as the first IFS members rallied to return fire, mass accelerator rounds punching into Basilisk's shields as he dove behind a console, the sound of a round punching through metal drawing his attention. Peaking around, he saw an IFS separatist drop a smoking mass accelerator, a well placed shot originating from Icer disabled the weapon before another round tore through the man's left arm which had previously held the gun, putting him out of the fight for good.

"On your left," a member of Raider shouted as Basilisk turned, an insurgent making a move to flank him now in his sights. He squeezed the trigger, a round drilling straight through the man's hip not a second later. He collapsed, clutching the bleeding wound while screaming in pain.

A few more shots were fired around him and soon enough only anguished screams filled the observatory's main room.

"Clear," one called as he walked out of a room adjacent to the one Basilisk was in.

"Stop the Iffys from bleeding out and round them up for the shuttles," Predator ordered.

"Cosmo, you're with me," the captain went on as a separatist with a reddish beard, small white snowflakes still visible between the hair from a recent trip outside, glared at him while medigel was applied to his wounded arm. "Bag this one."

"With pleasure, boss."

"I think we just found our media-guy," he commented as the ASOC soldier restrained him, "Command, we got them. No casualties on either side. Over and out."


2132 CE, Citadel, Chambers of the Citadel Council

The meeting had originally been called to prepare a unified strategy for the upcoming discussion regarding the Treaty of Farixen, the law that dictated the number of dreadnoughts a species' navy could field, a topic which had been avoided the last few years due to a turian veto on the matter. In less than one standard month, the human representative, Ambassador Anita Goyle, would stand in front of this council and pick up the issue where it had been left five years ago, during a much different time.

However they had drifted away from the original topic some time ago, Ioventus and Benezia disagreeing on a crucial matter, whether the council should consider to making an exception in face of the obvious difference between the human government and the other civilizations that had signed the treaty in the past. The two had been stuck in a skirmish of words regarding the treaty itself for a quite some time.

In Ioventus's opinion, as with every turian councilor since the Geth War, the Treaty of Farixen was a risk to galactic security because it limited dreadnought production as a whole, the remnant of a more optimistic galactic society.

While the turians were allowed to construct the most vessels, they were just as bound by the number of ships the Salarian Union and the Asari Republics were willing to construct as the associates. The treaty, in an attempt to balance the power of the galaxy, allowed the Hierarchy to construct five vessels for every three dreadnoughts built by both the asari and the salarians while restricting associates to one dreadnought for every three built by them.

The treaty had been a point of conflict within the militaristic society of the turians, nationalistic elements such as Palavani Prima calling it a way to 'blunted the talons of the Hierarchy'. These groups had been largely ignored by the Council of Primarchs until billions of quarians had perished at the hands of an untold number of geth who would in no way be obliged to limit themselves in such a way. This had caused the Hierarchy to adopt a critical stance against the Treaty of Farixen but not for the reasons groups like Palavani Prima had hoped. The Turian Hierarchy had time and again tried, and failed, to adapt the Treaty of Farixen in face of what they called an 'existential threat to galactic society as a whole'.

Benezia however argued that the geth had stayed passive for over two centuries and that the Citadel Conventions had upheld galactic peace ever since the Krogan Rebellions, a fact which when one ignored the tension between the Turian Hierarchy and the Batarian Hegemony or the later's occupation of sovereign worlds, mostly true. It was hard to consider something an existential threat if it rarely appeared outside its own territory after all. Especially for the asari who, thanks to their long life spans, still remembered the geth as something besides the murderers of billions of quarians.

Going from there, they had come to discuss if the HSA was important enough to be granted the unique privilage of maintaining their sizeable fleet of vessels. A point supported by the turian for rather obvious political and ideological reasons and opposed by Benezia out of the concern what other associates, who conformed to the Citadel Conventions for centuries, would think of it.

Cozek sighed. If he could make them aware of the information he had received some time ago, he would. But as things were, he had been sworn to secrecy for now. A promise he would fulfill, there was simply to much at stake if Arterius was right.

"Ignoring the political fallout this would create," Benezia spoke, "don't recent events give cause to question if they are ready for such a responsibility? This level of violent infighting within the society of an upcoming associate is worrying to say the least," the asari councilor spoke in the tone of grace common for people of her standing, empathy and political interest audible at the same time.

"The Hierarchy has dealt with separatism time and again since the Unification Wars," Ioventus replied. "No one ever questioned if we were ready for maintaining the biggest military in the galaxy."

"The Unification Wars didn't happen a mere decade before a decision of such magnitude was made."

This was one of the issues caused by the vast difference in the life spans of salarians, turians and asari. An event that for the short-lived salarians or somewhat more enduring turians had long since passed was seen as having occurred mere decades ago from the perspective of the asari. The impact it had on galactic politics was enourmous in Cozek's opinion. It reinforced a sense of stagnation within the Council that shouldn't be there in the first place given its role.

"Separatism is still an issue in our society," the turian reasoned. "Yet I don't see any concerns about the stability of the Hierarchy."

"You're awfully quiet about all of this, Idril," Benezia spoke as the STG agent and acting councilor of the Salarian Union was torn from his thoughts. "We are three of a piece, all of us should speak our mind regarding this."

Once more the conversation with Desolas Arterius came to his mind. He'd have to explain this decision to the Dalatrasses, while they had given him more leeway than any other salarian councilor in the past, he was, STG or not, still accountable for the consequences of his actions. He would find away, that's what STG agents did.

"I believe that the treaty was drafted under the faulty expectation that the galaxy wouldn't change in the future, that the Council would never encounter someone who would be developed enough to go beyond its limitations without our help in the first place. The Treaty of Farixen was never meant to force the deconstruction of dreadnoughts, it was meant to limit their construction. I believe a rework is overdue, the circumstances during which the treaty was signed are no longer the ones we find ourselves in today," he drew in a long breath. Even by salarian standards, that had been a long sentence.

Both councilors looked at him with a rather surprised expression, having expected him to say the opposite. It was a justified surprise, the politicians of the Salarian Union had always believed in maintaining the Treaty of Farixen after witnessing the destruction of the Krogan Rebellions and the danger another war of such a scale could pose to salarian territories. The Salarian Union simply didn't trust most races to maintain a large number of dreadnoughts.

However Cozek wasn't a politician, he was a soldier. A soldier with knowledge that he couldn't share yet but gave him enough of a reason to give parts of the galaxy the benefit of doubt either way. Mistrust couldn't catapult wolfram slugs across the void of space at a fraction of the speed of light, human dreadnoughts could.

"This was unexpected," Benezia replied. "Considering recent events, the Council can ill afford to appear divided. Now more than ever we need to be unified."

"Are you suggesting what I presume?" Ioventus asked as he turned to look at the asari.

"I propose that we come to a unanimous vote regarding his topic."

"A smart decision," Cozek offered. "Tevos's actions have created the sense that we are more divided than before. Showing the galaxy a united Citadel Council would help bridge the gap that some see between us," the salarian spoke, still recalling the mess Vaelan had made alongside the former asari councilor. "I propose that we hear out the ambassador and offer the HSA an exception on grounds of a unique situation should they be willing to cooperate with us."

"Cohesion is the foundation of every good unit," Ioventus spoke, most certainly quoting a turian field manual in the process. "I agree with both of your proposals."

"This meeting is concluded then?," Benezia asked, who no doubt had other things to attend to as well.

"Agreed," both the turian councilor and himself said in unison.

With that the three members of the galaxy's most powerful executive board returned to their own offices.


2132 CE, Kruljaven

"On your right, Arterius," Aditas, one of his fellow trainees spoke, as Saren spun around before flinging a biotic throw at the metal frame of his enemy, tearing of its head in the process and stopping it from firing again.

"Two targets up ahead," another trainee spoke as a Phaeston unleashed its bite next to him, mass accelerator rounds tearing through the air of the jungle, demolishing circuits and spilling mechanical fluids in the process.

Their objective had been rather simple, infiltrate the 'batarian' slaver camp and leave nothing and no one standing. Standard turian doctrine in regards to this unfortunate part of the galactic society. This objective had been made complicated when whoever was controlling the protocols of the mechs had decided to alert another three companies of 'slavers' to the sixteen turians trying to advance on them in the cover of the night.

"Machine gunner setting up at that tree," another turian remarked, causing Saren to throw a biotic field at him that catapulted the mech into the air before the fall destroyed it, keeping it from suppressing the unit.

Whoever had to put these back together would be rather busy in the future.

The point behind suddenly facing insurmountable odds was clear to Saren. Blackwatch operatives were expected to lead the charge against suicidal odds and deliver a victory for the Turian Hierarchy. Even if it would result in their own death. Such a task required them to thrive in the chaos of combat, something his group was doing at this very moment, the results of nearly two years of rigorous training displayed in a glorious display of biotics, gunfire, melee combat and tech programs.

But it wouldn't be enough, not in the long run. They couldn't hold against them indefinitely.

As Saren downed three more mechs, the mocking representation of a batarian face making for a rather good target, he heard the sound of metal being demolished right next to him. One of his fellow trainees, Tacitus, holding a mech by its damaged head and using it to shield himself from the stun-rounds that were fired at them all the while delivering headshot after headshot with his Carnifex. "We can't just sit here," he called as he dropped the mech and slid back into the muddy ditch they were hunkered down in, white, damaged metal frames already stacking around them. "We'll be overwhelmed soon."

"Our orders are to kill all the slavers," Felios, the engineer of his unit, said as he fried a mech with an overload program, something that had turned into an invaluable asset during their weeks on Kruljaven, "but we can't do that if we stay here and drown in their stupid spare parts!" as if he was trying to reinforce his statement, he fired of a burst that trashed yet another mech, a head with four red eyes and eight nostrils painted on it rolling next to their feet, four holes punched straight through its center.

"Then we don't," Saren said as his biotics flared up. "We get out of this ditch and make a break for the camp, use the prefabs as better cover."

"Spirits," one trainee sighed. "You know what? It's not like I've got anything better to do."

"What are you thinking? Barriers, shockwave, grenades, overloads and then Phaestons?" Darius, the leader of another group and sole biotic besides Saren himself, asked as his own fists were engulfed in purple.

"As good of a plan as any," the third leader replied as he destroyed two more mechs that dropped into their cover with his omni-tool, causing the white bodies to be stained by the wet earthy as they slid down into the ditch.

"If we're getting tranqued anyway, we might as well make it memorable," the fourth leader chuckled as she lifted her Phaeston and dispatched another mech that had closed in on them. "After you, Arterius."

Nodding towards Darius, the two Blackwatch operatives rose in unison after reinforcing their barriers. Not wasting anymore time, they channeled their biotics into a wave, Saren's being noticeably stronger than Darius's, and let loose, purple ripples impacted with the mechs that had closed in on them during their discussion and sending them flying through the air.

"Grenades!" Saren called as small, grey cylinders were thrown from the ditch, exploding in a mix of shrapnel and pressure between the ranks of the mechs headed for them, tearing them apart piece by piece.

"With me!" Saren called as he rushed towards the slaver's camp, rounds hitting his barriers as fourteen black clad armored figures rose behind the two former cabals, Phaestons, omni-tool programs, explosions and the rare biotic display of Darius or himself lighting their way.

Things were going good, the unit was quickly closing in on the slaver camp.

Until they weren't.

Kinetic barriers started to fail under the constant fire of the mechs and tranquilizer rounds started to deliver electric discharges strong enough to knock out any turian after a few hits.

The first to go was Aditas, his Phaeston fire simply coming to a stop as he dropped to the ground, unconscious, sliding through the mud for a few seconds before coming to a stop. He was soon followed by the leader of the fourth squad who had jumped in front of one of her subordinates to shield him from a mech carrying a shotgun which had jumped from one of the bushes surrounding the slaver camp. Soon more turians followed, collapsing on the way towards the prefab's entrance after they had destroyed mech after mech, a large number of white bodies stained by mud already lining their path.

Some of the Blackwatch operatives decided to buy their comrades more time, the conscious knowledge that this was merely an exercise long since gone. They turned on their heel in an attempt to stop the enemy from shooting their allies, suppressing them for a few suppressing seconds before falling victim to the electric rounds.

They would make fantastic Blackwatch operatives one day but Saren couldn't listen to the voice telling him to do the same now. This wasn't his place, he was too far ahead to turn around now. The prefabs would enable him to return fire from a position that wouldn't leave him on the floor after a few seconds.

The trainees' numbers were dwindling with every second, now only six of the original sixteen still charging for the prefab, another of his own team 'flat-lining' on Saren's HUD yet they pressed on until there were only two. Darius and Saren kept running, their own biotic barriers giving them more protection than the rest. They jumped into the prefab and got into position at the windows, a seemingly endless stream of mechs appearing from the ditch they had just abandoned. Had they held their position, the situation wouldn't have been any different.

He started to dispatch mech after mech until his Phaeston overheated, causing him to grab the Carnifex on his waist as a backup weapon, Darius running into similar problems soon as the two turians tried to hold the mechs at bay. However with each mech they destroyed, another one closed in and soon they were right on top of them.

As Saren's barriers shattered, he could already feel the sting of the tranquilizer rounds but when a mech with a shotgun fired at him from point blank distance, the rounds didn't knock him out as he expected. Instead they shattered on a purple field. He downed the mech with a round of his Carnifex and turned towards Darius, his unconscious form laying on the ground of the prefab, a hand still stretched towards Saren.

Looking back up, he dispatched another mech but a sting in his side informed him that his barriers and kinetic shielding had once more failed, a tranquilizer round smashing into his sides and hitting roughly the same spot where an unknown sniper had previously injured him two years ago.

The feeling wasn't pleasant and it certainly served to make this feel less like the exercise it was supposed to be.

He dropped to the ground and fired a Carnifex round straight through the mech's head, the gun overheating after the head exploded in a mix of sparks and parts, only for another two to burst through the door. Saren unleashed his biotic potential once more and pulled one of the mechs towards him before throwing it at its companion, destroying both of them but he couldn't react to the one which had climbed to the window, a stinging feeling in his neck being the one thing that he felt before blackness filled his vision.

And then he found himself woken up by a turian clad in the same armor but not wearing a helmet, greenish plates with blue markings making him out to be born on Palaven.

"Easy there," he said. "You took quite the hit."

Saren shook his head in an attempt to clear it, causing the soldier to chuckle while the younger turian undid the locks of his helmet, the humid air of Kruljaven helping to fully wake him up.

"Rally outside, the commander wants to speak to you."

"Yes, Sergeant," he said before shooting up and jogging outside, the rest of his unit already standing two neat rows, mud on their armor and weapons and helmets in hand , a spot in the front row apparently reserved for him. He fell in line and waited as Commander Xarus began to adress them.

"Today you may feel like you failed," the Blackwatch veteran said as he noticed the defeated looks of his comrades, "but this exercise was never meant to result in anything but a defeat. No, the purpose of this exercise isn't to see you victorious, it's to teach you the last tenet of the Blackwatch."

The faces of his comrades shifted from disappointed to confused, a look Saren shared with them. All of them had been led to believe that they had already been taught all of the Blackwatch's saying.

"Sometimes the only thing a hunter can do is to weaken his prey for the rest of the pack," for some reason the sentence instantly drilled itself into his head, no rigorous physical training or stress situations were required for it to be memorable. This might have been the clearest lesson he had received up to now.

"Today you did exactly that. 383 destroyed mechs or as you were told, dead slavers. That is impressive," the Commander said as his mandibles flicked into a serious expression. "While you didn't complete your assignment, any force sent after you would have eliminated the remnants thanks to your deeds. You injured the prey, laying the groundwork for a future hunt."

Saren felt a sense of fulfillment inside of him.

"And sometimes, when faced with impossible odds, laying the groundwork so someone else can win another day is the only thing we can do. Get some food into you and clean your gear. Tomorrow will be a new day. Dismissed."


11. May 2390 AD, Elysium, Colonial Watch Headquarters

After having seized the observatory, HSAIS had kept up the transmissions, using already present material they had retrieved on site with the intention of keeping up the impression that the station was in fact still in IFS hands.

Meanwhile she had personally flown to Elysium to take this interrogation into her own hands.

Opening the door that would lead to the interrogation room holding the man responsible for the broadcasts, she came face to face with a red-haired, bearded man wearing prison fatigues complementing his hair colour.

They had done their research. Gilroy Hughes, 35 years old, no living relatives, widowed during the attack on New Canton. The man had worked as a correspondent for a local news station until 'disappearing' in 2387, shortly after the mercenary attacks on Fehl Prime, Ferris Fields and New Canton, employing his talents for Elysium's IFS cells ever since.

A classical story for a fourth-wave IFS recruits, someone who had been drawn in after the attacks on the three colonies in 2387. The time and reason of his joining clearly set him apart from either first-wave recruits, the original militias that had joined prior to the Fringe Wars or the second-wave, the people who joined the IFS during the Fringe Wars. Neither did he fit the profile of those who had joined the separatists shorty after the IFS had already been defeated, their motivation being a clear hatred of the HSA.

Gilroy Hughes hadn't joined out of his hatred for the HSA, she knew that for a fact because she knew his type. He had joined because he saw it as the only way to prevent the thing that had happened to him from happening to someone else. He was a man who's grief the IFS had used to twist him into something they could exploit, far from someone who actually supported their ideology.

"Hello Gilroy," she said in a soothing voice. "I'm here because I'd like to ask you a few questions."

"Ask all you want," the man spat back as he glared at her. "I'm not going to answer."

"I hear you haven't eaten anything since you got here?" she asked, changing the topic to get his guard down.

"I don't know with what you lace the food over here," she had to smile a bit at that. Why did they always assume that it was the food which was drugged? While she had the truth serum people like Lal Qila favoured for their interrogations of mercenaries with her, she'd rather try and make him talk willingly. Drugging, while certainly efficient in the cases some of her subordinates employed it, wouldn't be the way here. Someone who talked because he wanted to was a better long-term source of intel than someone who had done so against his own free will.

"You used to be a news correspondent, correct?"

Silence was his only reply.

"Well, I know that it's correct so you don't need to answer," she joked as she sat down and began to observe him. It was plain obvious that the man wasn't used to being interrogated, the nervousness was evident on his face.

"Never did anything wrong, not even a parking ticket, yet here you are, what happen Gilroy?" she knew exactly what had happened.

Once more the man remained silent.

"You lost your wife, Molly, during the attack on New Canton," the director began. Usually these things opened people up. "What were you doing there? It says right here that you worked on Elysium all your life and that Molly was equally busy with her job at New Illyria's Medical Center. Why go to New Canton?"

"We were visiting family," he sighed, a crack appearing in his shell. "Molly's cousin moved there, he was always one to buy all that 'pioneer spirit' stuff you feed people to get them to leave their homes," he chuckled. "He'd go on and on about living on the 'frontier of human destiny' while working on that god damn field. Invited us to come visit so we decided to go for it, get out of our little corner, you know?"

"He was a farmer?"

"Yes," that explained a lot of things. The attack on New Canton had been the most devastating of the three assaults, some 15.000 people dying out in the countryside as they lived too far away from the shelters and too many Blood Pakc forces had landed between them and the army units.

"It takes guts to just pack up and decide to be part of a colonialisation effort," she replied.

"Yeah, his 'guts' got Molly killed."

"No, an act of terror got her killed."

"Does it matter? She's dead now and its all becaue you people are completely incapable of doing the one thing you built your entire government on. 'Ensuring the survival of the human race'," he mocked. "Your goons did a great job at that on New Canton, now did you?"

"New Canton's garrison lost over seventy percent of its manpower in an attempt to stop the attacks. Some units fought to the last man to protect the shelters while others were decimated trying to stop the Blood Pack from massacring everyone in the countryside, being cut down one after another in an attempt to reach you," the director said, placing a special emphasis on the 'you' at the end of her statement. "You can blame our government, you can blame me, you should blame the Blood Pack, Eclipse and everyone involved in causing the events that led up to the attacks but you can't possibly blame the soldiers that laid down their lives while fighting ti save your own. Tell me, do you remember how you survived? Who rescued you?"

She knew. A reinforced platoon had fought its way through hordes of Blood Pack mercenaries with the help of gunship support, sustaining 33 fatalities until they reached the farmhouse in which he had been found, in shock and surrounded by the members of his family that had been killed by a stray rocket fired by an injured vorcha.

He once more grew silent, the reminder serving its purpose.

"Do you know how many the IFS killed in their attempt of 'protecting' you? Over six thousand people," she pressed on. "You helped them inflict this kind of pain that caused you to join the IFS in the first place on six thousand people," now she closed in for the kill. "Do you think this is what Molly would have wanted you to do? Help a madman with his crusade against innocent people?"

The reaction he displayed was the one she had least hoped for, the sound of his head smashing against the metal desk causing the guards outside to jump in, believing him to be out of control. She raised a hand at them, causing them to stop as he smashed his head against the table again.

"Stop it, Gilroy. Harming yourself won't change a thing," she ordered.

"I should've died on New Canton!" he screamed at her. "I should've died on New Canton," he repeated as the blood ran down his forehead, his voice now a mere whisper compared to before.

"No you shouldn't have," she said returning to the soothing voice of before. "I won't lie to you, you will have to face the punishment for your actions," she sighed, "but you can still help us honor Molly's memory by helping us put an end to all of this."

"How?" he asked defeated. He had cracked, good.

"You broadcasted a file in which this man appeared," she said as she shoved a tablet displaying Andrej Kamarov's scarred face towards him. "I need to know how you received it."

"Someone sent it to me," Gilroy replied as he looked at they man with grey hair, light skin and dark eyes. "Told me not to alter anything."

"Do you have the address it was sent from?" she questioned. This was good. Kamarov was notorious for being a perfectionist, it was certainly logical to assume that he would order something like that.

"Yes," he answered as he handed the tablet back to her. "Whoever sent it did so from their personal computer."

"Can you give it to me?" she asked as she opened up a new file on the tablet before giving it back to him.

"Of course," he said as he began typing. "My god, what have I done?"

"You simply grieved," she offered. "Then the IFS took advantage of it and twisted your grief into something they could benefit from."

"I- I'm," he stuttered.

"We won't forget your cooperation," she said as she grabbed the tablet. "Give that man something to eat," she ordered one of the guards before leaving the room and heading for the command central.

The bastard had hidden right under their noses and if her memory served her right exactly where he could admire his work every day.

Good thing she had taken her gear with her.

It was time for some payback and the Widow Maker was in the mood to deliver it.


Thirty Minutes Later

The plan was simple. Get in, grab Kamarov and end this mess once and for all. The 212th Infantry Regiment would lock down the area and she would walk right up to his door and knock it down, four squads of ASOC on speed dial in case anything goes wrong. Meanwhile regulars would control and evacuate as many civilians as possible from the Kamarov, you never knew. Someone didn't earn the nickname 'Butcher of Elysium' by being careful about who he targeted.

She jumped out of the vehicle and walked over to the captain in charge of the army's elite special forces team.

"This complex has two entrances," she reminded him. "I want two squads starting on each of them and the moment I give the signal, you follow me up to the third floor and shoot anything that looks like its Kamarov, are we clear?" her signal would indicate that she was incapable of restraining Kamarov, the consequence being that he would have to be put down, "until I give that signal, I want you to get as many civilians out as possible without raising too much attention."

"Yes, Ma'am," he replied before he relayed the orders to the rest of the ASOC contingent, all of them complying simultaneously.

She walked through the now mostly deserted square, Illyria's abandoned skyline visible in the distance, and drew in a long breath before pushing open the door, the ASOC unit already knocking on the first door, a rather drunken looking man offering one of the soldiers a swig of his drink before being pulled out of the apartment.

She had waited for this day for nine years and 45 days, now it had finally come.

Taking the stairway to the third floor, she soon found herself standing in front of the source of the transmission. She pulled her pistol from its holster and unlocked the door to confront Kamarov.


Codex: Turian-Batarian Relations

Diplomatic relations between the Turian Hierarchy and the Batarian Hegemony are best described as a cold war. Even the deep seated resentment between the krogan and the turians doesn't compare to the state between the two as a sense of begrudging respect for each others martial ability is still present between the previous foes.

There are multiple reasons for this.

First off turian society, mostly as a result of its strict order of succession, presence of the military and sense of civic duty, never embraced the concept of slavery at any point of its cultural development. While some would suspect that these social tendencies would serve to push the Hierarchy into a position where slavery could be justified as a way to serve the collective, it does in fact do the opposite.

'In stripping a person of their freedom, you strip them of their personal responsibility and the potential they could dedicate to the good of others. It is therefore paramount to punish anyone who would dare to harm a people in such a fashion to the full extend of the law,' those are the words used to justify the treatment the Turian Hierarchy gives to any and all slavers they find, death.

However not only the social divide causes the relation of the two governments to be as bad as it is. Armed conflict and the repeated intervention of stopping a war the turian people have been preparing for since the end of the Krogan Rebellions play a role as well.

In 1785 CE a batarian fleet bombarded the salarian colony of Mannovai, only the appeasement of the Salarian Union, followed by the sudden and violent death of multiple high ranking batarian officials, managing to stop the Hierarchy from intervening.

In 1913 CE the Batarian Hegemony annexed Esan, an independent asari colony, before renaming it into Lorek and claiming both the planet itself and the hundreds of thousands of asari colonists as its rightful property. This time only an envoy sent by the Asari Republics managed to stop a turian fleet from reclaiming the planet, pleading them to allow Matriarch Siisra D'Kyos to negotiate the release of its population, an attempt which saw 70 percent of 'non-essential' slaves released to the turian fleet in orbit.

However in 2115 CE no one managed to stand in the way of the turians as batarian forces invaded a council colony on the edge of their space, Enael. Expecting another 'Esan', the batarians landed on the world only to find elements of the 26th Armiger Legion conducting land-based exercises on the planet. Edging for a fight int he making for over 300 years, the local commander rushed to defend the colony and began a series of skirmishes that would drag on for the better part of a month. Only the intervention of the Council itself and the promise of batarian reparations managed to stop four turian fleets from descending on Khar'shan itself.

Ever since 2115 CE the Hierarchy has completely broken off diplomatic contact with Khar'shan, ending their last formal exchange with the promise that even the Council won't stop them when the batarians try to claim another sovereign world.


A/N: God damn that's a long Codex Entry or chapter in general but yeah.

Saren's back after quite some chapters and if this seems rather random, rest assured his scene holds relevance for the rest of the story.

Going on, a bit of focus on Cozek because I think his pov is a rather interesting one. Certainly interesting.

And since I heard you enjoyed the cliffhanger of chapter 19 so much, I decided to put in another one! :D

I also found out that Semper Vigilo has been the point of discussion in at least two forums, that's neat. Glad to see people carry it out there. Keep doing that but know, I am watching. :)

Now for the records we're at 152 reviews, 333 favorites and 416 follows. Growth is happening once more. Good.

As always, let me know what you think about this chapter, that's what reviews are for after all. I enjoy knowing your thoughts.

See you around next time.