Chapter 46. Recurring Patterns
Some Time Later
Initially he wasn't sure how much time had passed between him blacking out and him waking up in this room, which strangely enough seemed to have been tailored with organic comfort in mind, but after he had realised that he had already burnt through one of his emergency rations, which each were meant to last two days, and attempted to escape his apparent prison several times, the dents in the walls and in the door were a testament to that, it had become obvious that days had passed by. As the memory of how he had gotten here slowly came back to him, Saren groaned, trying to accelerate the process by starting with the bits and pieces that were the least blurry. He had come here looking for something, hadn't he?
Yes. Good. Alright, what was it that he had been looking for?
Of course, the signal. It was slowly coming back to him. The Shadow Broker had told him about a signal in the Inversio System and Saren had turned to Harper to help him.
Harper.
For some reason, that name opened the flood gates of his memory.
The geth.
Cerberus.
His team.
Had they been captured?
No. He didn't recall that.
He recalled something else.
They had all died, killed by his enemies.
The anger that followed gave him a moment of much needed clarity, pushing out the fog that seemed to have settled on his mind. He remembered being attacked by the geth after locating the source of the signal. They had boarded the stat- No. This wasn't a station. It was a ship. A ship made by the same people that had constructed the artifacts.
A ship in service of the Harbinger.
He didn't know why, when or how but as more of the fog lifted itself, he remembered watching as this ship-, no this leviathan, had left the gas giant's atmosphere behind and annihilated the human ship that he had arrived on with little to no effort. Turning his head as a sound echoed behind him, all the while instinctively reaching for a weapon no longer on him, Saren stared at the empty room for a moment before suddenly clutching his head in pain. A vision, no, a memory came back to him. Between flashes of battles he knew he had never witnessed, he saw a ship. A human ship to be more precise. After watching it drift through space for a few silent seconds, he saw a red beam connect with its starboard wing and move towards its center, setting off a violent explosion that in spite of its evident force, still gave at least a portion of the crew time to board the escape pods of the ship, an act that revealed itself as futile when the images of geth troops forcefully tearing open these very pods and killing the few survivors inside came back to Saren as well.
How could he remember all of this? He couldn't have been there.
Could it b-
Just as he was beginning to piece together where the memory was coming from, he saw a debris float through the darkness of space, the golden sigil imprinted on it now covered in black scorch marks.
Scorch marks he had already seen before.
Again his mind began to race, this time to a memory that was very much his own.
Tunae-Prime.
Haliat.
Kandros.
As another surge of pain shot through his mind, the memory began to fade again in spite of his best effort to hold onto the events his friend's death had set off and more importantly to remember that he was in incredible danger with every second he stayed aboard this ship. As he was about to make another move for the dent in the wall to his left, his fist already glowing purple in hopes to smash through this already weakened portion of his cell, he stopped dead in his tracks for a reason he himself wasn't quite sure off at first, only slowly realising that it was because he had been at this exact point before. The visions, the memory, the escape attempt.
It had already happened before.
Thrice.
Letting the biotic energy disappear, Saren looked around the room again, pacing along the walls in an attempt to spot something he had overlooked. There had to be something in here he could use to escape this prison and the apparent cycle of memory loss he was stuck in. Maybe he could find where the door's opening mechanism was hidden or figure out a way to lure in his capt-
Before he could finish the thought, he felt a presence in his mind, a presence that was both alien and immediately familiar at the same time. At first it brushed against his will, scratching on its surface as if it was looking for a way in. Then, without warning, it lashed out with what Saren somehow knew was only a small portion of its power, testing his defenses in a probing attack and measuring its own strength with that of Saren, stopping only when the turian involuntarily dropped down to one of his knees. As he placed one of his hands on the wall in an attempt to rise back on his feet to spite its attempt at breaking him, he began hearing a faint whisper. Much like the presence, it brushed against his mind and demanded, no that wasn't the right word it wasn't nearly as forceful as the presence, suggested, that he listen to what it had to say. With a mere word it promised him salvation, answers and freedom from his captivity, all in exchange for a mere conversation.
"No matter how tempting its call appears, no matter what the voices promise," the flanging voice of Haliat suddenly called as an image of the dead captain shot through his mind, his disturbing appearance providing Saren with a much needed wake up call and exposing the insidious nature of the whisper. Immediately the Spectre built up a wall in his mind in an attempt to brace for the next assault of the presence. He could already feel it close in again, the looming sense of dread it carried with it betraying its intention. Quickly Saren recalled the techniques he had been taught to avoid interrogation at the hands of an asari mind meld, which was the closest comparison he could come up with for what he was about to face. If he could jus-
No. It was no use.
The moment the presence unleashed its full strength, the barrier he had been trying to put up broke like a wooden palisade broke when faced with a tidal wave. Instead of keeping the presence out, it shattered and gave way to the allconsuming choir of voices that now invaded his mind, bringing with them a series of images, memories and even visions. Terror, suffering, destruction, death. It had all been repeated more times than he could count for a purpose he couldn't quite grasp, the shadowy darkness looming over all of it making it impossible for him to understand. As Saren watched trillions of people belonging to species he didn't recognized die on worlds he didn't even know existed, let alone had set foot on, he dropped back to his knees, overwhelmed by witnessing the destruction of countless of civilizations in a mere moment. He was no stranger to war but he had never seen anything like this.
What was this?
What could possibly have caused all of this death?
Why?
A mere instant later, the choir of voices roared through his mind, overshadowing every other thought he currently had with their reply.
The cycle.
What he had just experienced had repeated itself countless of times and would continue to repeat itself until the end of the universe, always following the same pattern, always producing the same results. It couldn't be altered and it couldn't be broken. None could hope to defy it and everyone who had come before them, including the protheans, had been slaves to its design. At its will organic civilizations rose, flourished and fell, always becoming extinct at the pinnacle of their power to allow others to take their place, never rising beyond the limitations the cycle had set for them from the moment they took to the stars.
Another wave of images flooded his mind.
Towers of black and green collapsed under the same force that had destroyed the Budapest, spreading clouds of debris over a world underneath a familiar sky, crushing the last defenders under their weight but doing little to no damage to the enormous Leviathans towering between them. As more and more of the ships arrived, producing a hellish sound whenever they smashed into the ground below them, beams of red ruthlessly scourged the world around them, incinerating everything they touched, indiscriminately targeting enemies and the legions of twisted horrors in their service alike, determined to fullfill their purpose no matter the cost.
Even if it should've been impossible, he knew exactly what he was seeing.
These were the last moments of a people the galaxy had collectively revered for two millennia. This senseless destruction, this slaughter he was being shown, it was the fall of the protheans at the hands of the Reapers, the name that they had given to those who had been tasked with completing the harvest of each cycle.
Suddenly a realisation dawned on Saren. While he wasn't sure from where it had come, he was certain that it was nothing but the truth. The lie he had believed the galaxy to live was even bigger than he had suspected. The protheans hadn't forged the mass relays. Like everyone else, they had merely followed the steps the Reapers had intended for them to follow. Before Saren could give more thought to it, a silvery shape appeared and after a brief moment, the turian recognized it.
It was the Citadel.
Just like the relays, it wasn't prothean.
It was just another piece of the pattern.
The Citadel was where the cycle began. It sealed the fate of every species the moment they set foot on it, revealing its true purpose when the time was right. It wasn't just a station or as he now realised, a mass relay, it was a trap, perhaps the best one he had ever seen. When the Reapers had first created them, the relays had been aligned so that they eventually led everyone who used them to the Citadel. From there on out, in accordance to the pattern, organics would crown it the center of galactic governance, remaining unaware of its true nature until it was too late. Once the end of the cycle was upon the galaxy, the vanguard, Sovereign, the Reaper who was chosen to stay behind after each completion of the cycle, sent a signal to the station and reactivate the dormant relay that was located in its center ring, giving the Reapers a way to emerge from beyond the edge of the galaxy where they slumbered between each cycle.
Marvelo-
No.
Horrifying.
As the voices grew silent, the Spectre once more tried to get back on his feet in the hopes of finding a way to escape whatever this nightmare he was currently being subjected to was. With a defiant grunt, he summoned his strength and forced himself to stand, resting against the wall for as long as it took the voices to return in form of the whisper, this time managing to stay on his feet.
The signal.
The keepers.
The Conduit.
It was the last word that stood out. Conduit, it had been what the geth had been looking for. He, Anderson and Doctor T'Soni had learned of it some time ago but they had never figured out what it wa-
With a surge of fury, the voices came to live again, once more ending his thoughts.
At the eve of their species, the last of the protheans had spited the Reapers one final time. After the cycle had been completed and the Reapers had withdrawn back to dark space, a small group of survivors had awoken from their long sleep and made their way onto the Citadel with a one-way mass relay of their own construction, the Conduit. Once there, they had altered the keepers, who up to then had served as the recipients of the signal, and rendered them disobedient to the vanguard's will. For a brief moment, Saren felt satisfaction wash over him at the idea that the protheans had broken a piece of the cycle and defied the Harbinger. That moment ended when the voices cried out again. However unlike before, this time was different. They weren't furious but determined and they weren't just showing him something, they were giving him a clear order, an order he felt like he wanted to follow.
The cycle must not be broken.
Even with the protheans' sabotage still in place, they had to usher in the next harvest and to do so, they had to find the Conduit again and use it to board the Citadel and manually open the Citadel Relay to allow the station, which Saren now understood also controlled the rest of the relay network, to fulfill its critical purpose in the pattern. Once the station was taken, it would give the Reapers complete control over the network and prevent the galaxy from rallying together, isolating them into small, easily crushed pockets of resistance instead. Alongside this insight, another realisation struck him. This was why he was here, why the geth had captured him. Before their act of spite, the last protheans had sent a final encrypted message through their beacon network, including the location of the safe haven and by extension the location of the Conduit within it in hopes of either reaching other survivors of their people or warning those who came after them of the Reapers' existence. Since prothean beacons could only be accessed by organics, he, not the vanguard, would have to be the one to interface with it.
Why would he d-
Just as he was beginning to question why he was feeling inclined to follow these orders, the whisper returned, readily offering him an answer. If he could find a functioning beacon, the location would be revealed to them and the cycle could be continued. If he helped continue the cycle, prove the worth of his people to the Reapers, they'd be spared from the harvest and given a chance to serve the Har-
Suddenly, as quickly as it had appeared, the treacherous whisper was shut out out of his mind, vanishing in favour of a familiar voice repeating a set of sentences to him, giving him strength with every single one it completed until eventually arriving at the final tenet of Blackwatch.
"Sometimes the only thing a hunter can do is to weaken his prey for the rest of the pack," his brother's voice flanged through his mind, delivering him from the encroaching voices even as they tried to enter his mind more forcefully than before.
Saren knew that the whisper and its promises were hollow. With a foe like the Reapers, there would be no such thing as mercy. Only a fool would believe what the voices were trying to convince him of and he certainly wasn't one. While he realised he wouldn't break free, it's grip was already too strong for that, there was still a lot of him left, more than enough to ensure that its plan would fail. He wouldn't let the vanguard turn him into another piece of the pattern and he wouldn't be the one to usher in the galaxy's destruction by handing it the keys to the Citadel either. Using the knowledge he had just been gifted with, the Spectre seized the precious moments of quiet not to plot his escape or grow desperate about his likely fate, but to draw up a plan to prevent the activation of the Citadel Relay. He knew for a fact that the vanguard couldn't take full control of his mind, otherwise it already would've done just that and he wouldn't be here anymore. The same reason why it had ordered the geth to capture him was also why it couldn't impose its complete will on him yet. It needed him to think clearly, otherwise the vision of the beacon and the location of the Conduit would be lost, the protheans had made sure of that much when they had sacrificed their own people to give the next cycle a chance at fighting the Reapers.
He intended to not only honor that sacrifice but add to its foundation.
While some people had a grasp on what was going on, a threat as incomprehensible and unfamiliar as the Reapers wouldn't be recognized until it was already too late, especially if it went after seemingly random targets all over the galaxy before going straight for the Citadel itself. A rogue Spectre however, especially one who had previously been hailed as the hero of the Citadel, would trigger an almost immediate response, no matter where he showed up or what he did there. He'd use that. Even under its grip, Saren could ensure that people became aware of the nature of his actions by sabotaging himself just enough for someone else to stop him and Sovereign without the latter noticing what was going on. If he managed to resist the whispers and leave subtle clues to his actions and the Reapers' plans to the right people, they'd soon pick up on the masquerade the vanguard intended for him to put up and grow suspicious of him until they'd eventually be driven to action. From there on out, he had faith that they'd find a way to stop him.
Just as he was about to come to terms with the consequences of his plan, he knew exactly what prize he'd have to pay for this to be successful, the voices returned and the door behind him shot open, the geth stepping inside strangely enough triggering no reaction from him whatsoever. As is dropped to its knees and presented him with his omni-tool, Saren also felt no need to reply to any of the messages Anderson, Desolas or Harper had sent him in the last few days. No, instead of doing the sensible thing of telling his brother to bring down the turian navy on this lone Reaper before it could even get close to the Citadel and prepare the galaxy for its last stand, he found himself following the suggestions of the whisper, not because he was forced to do so but because it again seemed like the sensible thing to do.
Once the recovery crews would arrive at their location, Saren would blame the destruction of the Budapest on the band of raiders that would soon converge on their location thanks to the distress signal the vanguard had put in place, making sure to paint them as a group of mercenaries hired by the Shadow Broker with the goal of taking him out. Of course there would be questions about his survival but he'd be able to answer most of them through the blood of the crew of the ship he and some of the geth would soon board through the use of a preserved escape pod. As far as everyone else would be concerned, the mercenaries would've tried to capture him, only to realise that a Spectre would put up much more of a fight than the unfortunate crew members with whom he had shared a pod with but sadly hadn't been able to save. Then, after his return to Council space, he'd distance himself from most of his allies and friends and begin his search for the Conduit, rallying with the vanguard once he had located a functioning prothean beacon, a feat he'd achieve through a set of steps. The Conduit was a prothean device. If he wanted to find it, or rather the beacon that would give him its location, he'd merely need a prothean expert and time.
Much to the satisfaction of Sovereign he knew one and had plenty of the other. Since he knew that Doctor T'Soni would not disappoint him, she had proven more than useful up to now, a small smile crossed his face.
The cycle would not be broken.
15. November 2414 AD, Cronos Station
"I get your point, I really do. This seems strange," Tao Rei muttered as he looked at his former partner. "But until we figure out where Arterius went afterwards, we've got no way of knowing if it actually went down this way."
"The Broker wouldn't have done this," the other man insisted as his eyes remained locked on the tablet in his hands, their unnatural blue apperance somewhat softened by the glow of the scren. "If he had any motive to take out Arterius, he would've done it the first time."
"I don't know about that, Jack. This seems like the exact kind of hit the Broker would've ordered," Tao Rei sighed, running a hand over his neck. "First he gained his trust and then he tried to cross him off. It's a textbook move, really," he added. "Hell, we've both done it before. The only difference between us and him is that we finished the job every time."
"You know that the Broker doesn't do textbook, Tao," his former partner countered from the chair opposite to his own, still not making any eye contact. "It's why he keeps leading on Lightbringer."
Even if he would've liked to disagree with Jack's point, its implications about the younger Arterius and the reasons behind his prolonged absence were far from pleasant, he was right. The Shadow Broker's unpredictably was as much responsible for his ability to avoid HSAIS as his information network. Nothing the information dealer did played by the rules the general intelligence community had become familiar with and even Section 13 specialists, who were trained to be solutions to even the most unconventional problems, struggled with doing lasting damage to his operations, let alone finding a way to finally stop his reign.
"Well, if your lead pans out, he won't be doing that for much longer," the asian man offered, aware that they had yet to actually find Okudo, who until a few years ago had been an HSAIS asset himself, before getting him to tell them what he had done to catch the Broker's direct attention and figure out how they could use that against him.
"You really think Okuda will give us all the answers we need to shut down the Broker?" Jack mumbled in return, splitting his attention between the conversation in front of him and the intel in his hands. "Come on, Tao. We both know it won't be that easy."
"I think that once we find him, he's gonna point us into the right direction," Tao shrugged. "And when he does, he might also give you the answers you're looking for right now," that last part caused the director of Cerberus to look up.
"You're right," he suddenly muttered, finally looking up from his datapad, putting the small device down on the desk between them. "We don't need to find Arterius to confirm his version of the story," he figured, "the Broker can do it for him. If he staged a hit, there'll be a trail. Paychecks, information, middlemen, if we find one of those, we'll know," the man finished, once more raising his earlier suspicion that the Budapest's destruction hadn't been an attempt on the Spectre's life, but had actually served to cover up what Arterius had found in the system and what in turn was responsible for the turian dropping off the face of the earth after briefly confirming his own survival of the incident.
Personally, Tao wasn't entirely sure what to make of it. Of course it was suspicious that things had gone down like this but if the file of one of the agents he was currently considering to sent after Okuda and the Broker was anything to go by, being the lone survivor of an event was entirely possible. Adding to that, there was also the fact that Jack, in spite of his ability to blend out personal values and believes for the sake of the mission, had always had a problem with sending others to fight his battles. He knew his partner and he knew that he was the exact kind of person who'd look for a hidden meaning in the sudden deaths of so many of his subordinates. After all, the events of Akuze, which hadn't even produced half of the death-toll the destruction of the Budapest had claimed, had driven him to knowingly go against what they and their allies had decided on. Hence to think that Jack would start looking for meaning in what would otherwise have been 'just' a normal ambush wasn't such a stretch.
But still a part of him agreed with Jack, not because he too wanted a deeper meaning behind the deaths of the operatives but because his instincts and more importantly his intel were telling him to do so. What little he had gathered in his conversation with Captain Anderson, who he knew to be a very close friend of Arterius ever since the latter had inducted him into the Spectres, suggested that the turian Spectre had been acting strangely on the one occasion the two had met ever since the attempt on his life. While the former N7 hadn't been all to enthusiastic about talking with a Section 13 agent, it was an open secret that most people outside of HSAIS's field teams weren't exactly comfortable with being around him and his colleagues, he had made one thing abundantly clear.
For a reason he wasn't sure of, the turian hadn't been himself during their brief conversation aboard the Citadel. That, combined with what he knew about the things Jack and Arterius had been chasing after was more than enough reason to worry Rei. He didn't want to consider it a fact that the Spectre had been compromised, at the moment they lacked the means to confirm it, but he couldn't rule it out either, especially because no one besides him really knew what had happened in the Inversio System. Whatever footage of the events leading up to the Budapest's destruction might've existed hadn't survived the blast and if the Spectre had some kind of recordings that could offer them answers, he hadn't been keen on sharing them before going dark on them.
"Well, I've been thinking about sending someone after Okuda myself," Tao spoke up after clearing his thoughts. "If there is some kind of trail, they could look for it while tracking down that lead."
"You're making this a secondary objective?"
"That's not what I said," he shook his head. "It's just that we don't really have a lot to work with right now. You said it yourself, we don't even know if the Broker ordered this hit and if he didn't," Tao paused for a moment, "Arterius isn't your average mark. People like him? If they want to disappear, finding them is going to be difficult and it's going to take time. He's not just a Spectre with a lot of connections, he's influential and he's wealthy. Seriously wealthy. If he puts his mind to it, he could lead us on for months while hiding god knows where."
"Tao, if I'm right, if Arterius is indoc-" Jack caught himself before he could voice what both of them knew he suspected. "If he's hiding something from us, we can't afford to make it a secondary objective. We need to pool our resources together, track him down and find out what happened. You said it yourself, he isn't our average mark. He's far more dangerous than that."
"Do you think I don't know that?" Tao replied before sighing and leaning back in his chair, trying to blend out the part of him that was completely agreeing with Jack. He knew that the former specialist was onto something but the approach he was suggesting wasn't exactly the one he'd prefer to use. "Whether or not you're right, we can't just start a public manhunt for one of the Council's best agent. If we're wrong, there'd be hell to pay, not just from the Council but also from our other allies," Tao sighed. "And in case you're right about him having been," he paused for a second, "indoctrinated by whatever he found, we'd lose time and tip him off that we know something's going on. Either way, the best thing we can do right now besides chasing down the Broker's end of the deal is to wait for Arterius to resurface and give us something we can use."
"Waiting didn't help us in the past."
"Neither did impatience," the other director countered in return, maintaining a neutral tone in spite of what he was about to say, his own darker eyes locking onto Harper's artificial pair in preparation. "Correct me if I'm wrong but the way I see it, this entire situation only happened because you weren't content with waiting," he knew that it was a low blow but he also knew he might as well have been the only person capable of keeping his former partner from going down the road he seemed to be heading for right now.
"I'm not going to dismiss my own role in the Budapest's destruction," his former partner replied, sounding equally stoic. "But just because I share responsibility for what went down, doesn't mean that we should sit by and hope that nothing else happens. That's not what we were trained for, Tao."
"Jack, I'm not asking you to do nothing. I'm asking you to stop trying to do everything by yourself," he understood his need to act. While they rarely seemed to see eye-to-eye with each other in regards to topics related to the Harbinger ever since Akuze, Tao agreed that the way they were currently going wouldn't improve their chances of winning. But even if he also felt like they had to change their strategy, he couldn't just let his former partner and by extension Cerberus chase after something that could turn them against their allies. "We'll keep our ears to the ground, we'll find Arterius and we'll figure out what really happened but we're going to do it together. Alright?"
The director of Cerberus sighed before putting down the tablet in his hand. "Do you already know who you're going to sent after the Broker?" he asked in return, giving into Tao's request without actually saying as such.
"Why? You thinking about going back into the field?" he asked as he quickly transferred some files to the tablet lying idly on the desk between them, its screen once brightening as the transfer was complete.
"Don't tempt me," his former partner replied with a small smirk before bringing up the file and reading over it. "These were Shepard's and Redford's, weren't they?" he added as the smirk vanished at the former's name.
"Yes."
"If you don't mind me asking, why them?"
"Young's got an excellent track record when it comes to gathering intel," Tao shrugged in return. "And since Morneau continues to show no signs of being affected by Object Theta, there's no reason to split them up. They work better together anyway."
"I can see that. They did get us Torfan," Jack replied as he passed over that particular segment of their service history. "Although if they're anything like their supervisors, you should probably keep them off of Illium," he added dryly.
"Couldn't resist that one, could you?" Tao chuckled.
"There's something to be said about an undercover op turning into a planetary warrant."
"I wasn't even the director back then."
"Sins of our fathers, Tao. Sins of our fathers."
Late 2155 CE, Illium, Nos Astra
As he paced along the small rental apartment located at the edge of one of the poorer districts of Illium's capital, if one could even call any portion of this world poor, Saren realised that he was growing more restless with every minute he spent waiting for Doctor T'Soni. To avoid suspicion following his return, he knew that at least Anderson had been able to tell that something about him wasn't quite right, he had allowed some time to pass between establishing his cover story and contacting the archeologist through enough proxies to ensure her mother, which he knew had attempted to plant yet another trail on him, wouldn't interfere. Convincing the asari to help him had been exactly as easy as he had hoped it would be. Just like in the past, the mere promise of new discoveries had been sufficient to talk her into meeting up with him at a location of his choosing. Normally he would've pitied her for her naivety, he was certain that the councilor had warned her of him following his surprising survival of what most people had accepted as an attack of the Shadow Broker, but right now it was playing in his, and more importantly Sovereign's, favour and as such the only thing he really felt was satisfaction.
Satisfaction that was growing less satisfactory with every time he rounded the isolated room.
"Agent Arterius," a voice called from behind him after he picked up the faint sound of the door being opened.
Finally. One step closer to fulfilling his purpose.
"I've been waiting for you Doc-" he began only to interrupt himself as he turned on his heel and stared at a group of asari clad in the same black armor favoured by naval huntresses, looking all but ready to mow him down with the rifles and submachine guns they now trained directly on him.
"I suspect this isn't what you had in mind when you tried to contact my daughter, was it?" the figure in the center of the formation spoke while pulling down her hood, revealing herself to be none other than Councilor Benezia herself. "I have to applaud your determination," she went on as the other asari quietly began to move in on him, biotic energy dancing across each of them. "You went to great lengths to reach Liara. My agents almost wouldn't have noticed your interaction if it hadn't been for my daughter's far more conspicuous attitude in the days following your messages," the matriarch paused as a powerful wave of purple rippled over her hands, betraying the anger hiding behind her calm tone. "And if it weren't for your worrying behaviour, I might not have chosen to take action at all." Why exactly did he feel a short burst of joy at that? He was about to go up against nine trained asari, he shouldn't be happy about that. Shaking his head clear and causing the very out-of-place feeling to vanish in favour of the whisper he had by now grown familiar with, the Spectre began to plot his escape. There were eight commandos facing him down but he knew exactly that Benezia would be his biggest problem in the upcoming fight. Matriarchs more than every other asari were gifted biotics. They had honed their skills over the course of centuries and as their biology would have it, asari grew more powerful with every stage of their life they entered. "Shiala, have him detained," the councilor finally ordered as she stared at him, her eyes practically drilling themselves through his tainted visor and into the cold blue set of eyes hidden behind it.
"Yes, Matriarch," no councilor? Interesting. That meant that Benezia had come here out of her own agency, using her own resources and bringing her own followers, informing no one else of her purpose. Just as the whisper suggested the same thing, Saren realised that he could twist this apparent failure to his advantage. If he could deliver a councilor to Sovereign, their task would become far easier.
"You will explain your actions, Agent Arterius," Benezia added as her soldiers kept closing in on him.
"Drop your weapons, Spectre," one of the asari called, her purple features locked into a stern expression. "We don't want to hurt you," she added before nodding towards one of her comrades.
Unfortunately for them, he had every intention to hurt them in spite of slowly lowering one of his Carnifex pistols.
"Slower!" one called. "Don't even think about it."
Personally Saren never understood why asari were as opposed to helmets as they always appeared to be every time he ran into them. Besides deflecting shrapnel and ricochets, they also served as life support, offered protection against environmental hazards and falling debris and in some cases, as the asari in front of him would find out the moment he finished the set of hand movement he had been working on ever since lowering the first of his pistols, also shielded one's eyes against sudden changes of brightness through say a flashbang.
"I got you covered, Jaliaza, go," the asari who seemed to be in charge said just as his omni-tool began to light up in the preparation of the optical overload he had come to prefer using in situations such as this one.
"What did you do, shut that down," the huntress in front of him demanded before a bright explosion flooded the room they had been in, blinding everyone but him. Needlessly to say, Saren didn't waste a single second before getting to work. Instantly one of his hands reached for the other Carnifex still attached to his belt, while the other pulled his knife from its sheath. First the asari in front of him found out why the military talon issued to Blackwatch was considered to be among the deadliest blades in the galaxy, purple blood spattering against Saren's visor as the blade separated most of her head from her neck with ease. Next he focused on the three remaining huntresses standing to Benezia's left, giving them a first-hand demonstration of the Carnifex, the distant relative of a gun designed to kill a krogan in two shots. Before the first two of his victims even touched the ground, Saren started his advance, his eyes set on the hooded figure who just like her subordinates was covering her eyes with her hands in a vain attempt to accelerate the recovery process.
"Seize hi-" one was about to call out as a set of quick shots first shattered her barriers before blowing a large hole in her chest, The asari was dead even before her comrade next to her suffered a similar fate.
"I can't see, I ca-" the last of the three managed to get out as she stumbled towards Saren, getting silenced by the knife piercing her heart and having her death accelerated by the gunshot that followed once he had drawn the curved blade from her chest. Phasic rounds worked just as well against biotic barriers as they did against kinetic ones, it was one of the reasons he preferred them.
As the Spectre moved onto the asari on the councilor's right by launching a superheated plasma projectile at two furthest away from her, the heat easily passing through their barriers and putting an end to their lives upon making contact with the unarmored portions of their bodies, he also kept track on how much longer the survivors would need to recover from his surprise attack. Just before his count reached zero, a biotically fueled punch thrown by the commando closest to him barely missed his head. Knowing that he wouldn't stand a chance against any non-disoriented asari in this form of combat, he did the next best thing he could think of to keep her away from him, shooting at her kneecaps until she could no longer move in on him. With an agonizing scream the asari fell forward as her leg failed to support her weight. After putting a stop to the commando's advance, he fired off a final round into the asari's head before his gun overheated, stopping her from throwing a warp field at him but also forcing him to resort to his knife for the last remaining commando. As the rifle shots began to deplete both his barriers and his shields thanks the rapid rate of fire asari weapons were known for, he tried to leap forward and get a hold of shooter only to be thrown backwards when a field of purple effortlessly lifted him of the ground and smashed him into the wall of the apartment.
"This ends now," the asari councilor replied in a cold tone, closing her fist and in doing so causing the wall into which Saren was currently being pressed to start cracking under the force she was applying. "I won't pretend to understand what happened to you since our last meeting, but I can't allow you to hurt anyone else. You had your chance to come peacefully, you didn't take it." This wasn't good, his armor wouldn't hold much longer. As he used all of his strength to activate the small homing beacon attached to his belt, Saren visibly saw his visor crack under the force of the Matriarch's power. "You should've stayed away from my daugh-"
Just as the first of his bones were about to break, an impact rocked the isolated room they were in, the front section of the civilian craft he had rented to traverse Nos Astra smashing straight through its wall, breaking Benezia's concentration just long enough for him to fire an overload program at her, the electric discharge it caused also jumping towards the lone survivor of the huntress cadre the councilor had brought with her. While it wasn't enough to knock either of them out, their biotic barriers took the brunt of the damage, it gave Saren just enough time to throw a concussive grenade between the two, its explosion causing a very painful ringing to flood into his ears which for just the fraction of a moment managed to silence the whisper and give him time to consider what he had just done.
They had tried to stop him and by extension the reapers and he had killed them for it. Th-
Before he could finish the thought, Saren shook off the effects of the grenade's detonation and opened the door of the now damaged craft. Picking up the unconscious asari at his feet and ignoring the encroaching sirens of local law enforcement because he knew that they wouldn't ask twice about his actions here as long as he managed to get Benezia out of sight before they arrived, h was a Spectre, he didn't answer to them, he tossed the asari into the passenger seat. Satisfied with her position in the craft, he then threw a glance at the unconscious commando and considered his options before leveling his weapon with her head, only the whisper that was telling him that she too could serve a purpose stopping him from finishing her off to make sure she wouldn't tell anybody what had occurred her. As his finger withdrew from the trigger, he went to pick her up as well and threw her into back of the skycar all the while suppressing a distant part of himself that was begginig him not to get behind the wheel.
He knew that now was not the time for him doubt his own actions.
There was still much to be done.
12. December 2414 AD, Terra Nova, Headquarters of the 26th Airborne Brigade
"Well I'll be damned, these guys look like they could eventually give us a run for our money," the NCO next to him muttered as Haugen himself followed the training exercise below, taking note of every small error and every praiseable actions the soldiers showed to him on their way to the center of the mock-up compound.
"There's always room for improvement, Hofmann," he countered with a shrug, remembering the time it had been him down there and someone else up here. While SC-2, the second stage of ASOC selection, was slightly different for every class that went through it, they were tailored after situations their instructors had encountered in the field, its core concept always remained the same. Find the dozen or so men that could rise above the already impressive standard of the unit they were currently still a part of and push them to their limit. "But I agree. If they keep this up, they'll do their job well," he added with a small smile as the four-men team executed a nearly flawless assault on the next enemy position.
"Don't praise them just yet, they still have to take the control room," the third member of his team added.
"Afraid of the competition, Mav?" Miller asked, causing the dark-skinned man to turn his head ever so slightly.
"Boss?" he asked.
"Yes, Mav?"
"You think it's possible to switch this dumbass with one of the new guys?" the man inquired with mocked sincerity.
"Come on, man, they might be green but that doesn't mean that they deserve having Miller with 'em," Hofmann injected.
"I'm afraid we'll have to keep him around for now," Haugen replied half mindedly, paying much more attention to the squad of soldiers below him instead of the familiar banter around him. As he watched the enemies fortify their position, placing a machine gun in a spot very similar to the one that had almost killed him on Torfan, Haugen was pleased to see the team avoid running into a similar problem by simply blowing their way through the door with a grenade launcher and using the hole it created to take out the troublesome, fully automatic obstacle blocking the narrow corridor between them and their target. If the batarians hadn't gotten the drop on him back then, he probably would've made the same call.
"But Mav's right. Let's see what they do about the bomber," he muttered as the team swooped into the room, taking out each target as it appeared and only stopping their onslaught when one of the enemies dropped his weapon and threw his hands into the air, faking his own surrender and making a move to approach his would-be captors, who up to now hadn't noticed the suicide vest he wore underneath the cloak that covered his light armor and the explosives attached to it. It was a nasty tactic and as with most nasty tactics, the batarians had used it against them during the Skyllian Blitz, sending entire squads made up of rigged slaves at HSA troops and hoping that they'd either shoot them and return for yet another attack or die and blow them up in the process.
"Stop right there!" he heard over one of the screens. "Get on your knees, cross your feet-"
"Vest! Get clear!" another operative suddenly called before again opening fire, shooting a simulated round straight in the face of his target just as the other squad members leapt for cover.
"Alright. Exersice end!" Haugen called almost immediately. "Congratulations corporal, you just got your family the chance to attend a fancy military funeral funeral," he began. "He had a dead man's switch," he explained further. "First you take cover, then you shoot the guy. We're not training you to play the hero, we're training you to finish the job. You can't do that if you're dead," he appreciated the man's willingness to take one for the team, there were situations where that willingness would save a lot of lives and the mission alike, but this one hadn't been one of them. "Value your own life a bit, alright?"
"Yes, Sir," the soldier replied from below as his teammates got back on their feet.
"Run it again from the beginning," he ordered as the 'dead batarians' rose to their feet and began exchanging equipment and switching positions once the SC-2 candidates had left the room.
"Told you not to praise them just yet," Mav chuckled before his tone shifted into a stone, formal one. "Attention!" he called, causing not only Haugen and his team but also the soldiers below to face whom the command was meant for and snap into position.
"At ease," a rough voice the ASOC officer almost immediately recognized spoke. "Captain Haugen," he greeted with a salute.
"Admiral Hackett," he returned the gesture.
"Easing in the next generation?"
"SC-2 candidates, Sir. They're not ASOC yet," he nodded as the older man lowered his salute and instead went to shake Haugen's hand.
"A word, if you don't mind," Hackett said, explaining his presence in the process.
"Of course, Sir. Hofmann, you're it," he called before he and the older officer began to walk away from the other ASOC soldiers, traveling in silence until the sound of the exersice in the background began echoing through the hall.
"What would you say if I told you that I got a job for you, Captain?" the admiral asked over the sound of a flashbang going off in the distance.
"Permission to speak freely?"
"Go ahead, son."
"I'd ask why a naval officer goes directly to ASOC, Sir."
"You didn't expect to see me again after Torfan, did you?" the man asked while looking at him.
"No, at least not as long as the armistice holds," he replied with the truth.
"Can I assume that you heard of the destruction of the Budapest?"
"Yes, Sir," of course he had heard of it. It wasn't every day the HSA lost a cruiser with all hands.
"Then you also know that the Inversio System is just one jump away from batarian space," the admiral said as he turned to look at him, continuing once Haugen had nodded his reply. "I don't have to tell you how bad it looks when a human warship gets destroyed at the Hegemony's border, do I?"
"No, Sir," Haugen replied. "Are we going in to finish the job, Sir?" he asked next.
"As much as I'd like to confirm that, no," Hackett said as they kept walking over the series of walkways built over the training grounds. "Have you already been briefed about the increasing instability of the Hegemony's inner circles?"
"I heard that some of the powerful non-ruling families are looking to change the status quo now that the Amons lost face, Sir."
"Good, that'll save us some time," the admiral nodded. "Does the name Balak still ring a bell, Captain?"
"Yes, Sir." How couldn't it? It was part of the reason why his name had been removed from all but the most confidential reports of the attack on Torfan and also somewhat responsible for the effectiveness of the asari-supported fear campaign the HSA had run based on his actions, turning a raid into the story of the 'Demon of Torfan' through both a few well-placed exaggerations and the right connections.
"As far as we know, the Balak family got the worst of the chairman's wrath after the end of the Skyllian Blitz. Their family head got executed for incompetent leadership and his sons and their kids were banned from ever rising above the rank of lieutenant," the admiral went on. "The fact that you took out two prominent members of their family just added insult to injury. They've been the laughing stock of the Hegemony's military caste ever since."
"Serves them right," Haugen shrugged. While he didn't believe that children were responsible for the actions of their parents, he was certain that anyone with the name 'Balak' was a bastard. As far as he was concerned, they had it coming.
"That it does," Hackett replied. "Problem is, the older brother of the guys you shot on Torfan doesn't agree with us," the man began to explain as he pulled a small tablet from the pocket of his dress uniform and handed it to Haugen, "This is Ka'hairal Balak, former commander of the Batarian External Forces."
"Former?" he asked as he grabbed the tablet and rotated it so he could actually see what was on it.
"He got discharged a couple of months ago," Hackett replied as the ASOC operative got a good look at the batarian, a cold shiver running down his back as he recognized his face. He had seen him before, he had been one of the slavers who had raided Mindoir and he had been the one who had taken a sadistic pleasure in tormenting a girl not two meters away from Haugen while all he could do was watch. Ever since that day, he had sworn to himself not to forget that face until it's owner lay dead at his feet. Grabbing the edge of the terminal slightly harder to mask his anger, Haugen turned to the admiral who continued his briefing. "Ever since his uncle was executed, he's been looking to restore his family's name and with everything going on these days, no one in the Hegemony can be bothered to stop him this time."
"He's making a move on us?"
"That's what HSAIS is telling me," the admiral nodded.
"Do we know what he's planning?"
"No," Hackett shook his head. "And that's exactly where you come into play. I came here to give you and your squad a new assignment. Your instructor days are over."
"Sir?" he wasn't sure what to make of that.
"Balak has nothing to lose and he won't stop at anything to get what he wants," Hackett replied."Stopping him will need someone who gets the job done no matter what," he still didn't see how that made his team the first choice but judging by the admiral's expression, he was about to explain it to him. "Your team almost single handedly took down a slaver fortress. Even after you got cut off from the other teams, you put your mind to it and told me that you could do it. I believed you and you came through even bigger than I though youu would," the man said. "That's the kind of mindset that's going to stop someone like Balak."
"How's this going to work then, Sir?"
"I already ran it by top-brass and they gave me the all-clear. From here on out, you and Phantom Squad answer to no one but me. I give you the missions and you tell me what you need to get it done," he said as he came to a halt, unaffected by the breaching charge explosion just a few meters behind them. "You're going to be the tip of my spear, Captain Haugen, and you're going to kill that bastard for me before he gets his will. Are we clear?"
"Crystal clear, Sir."
"Good. Get your gear and report to my shuttle."
"Yes, Sir."
Late 2155 CE, Palaven, Mausoleum of the 22nd Palavani Legion
The turian clad in white armor walked through the hall, passing hundreds of the small compartments storing the ashes of turians that had died during their service to this legion. There were more names etched into the than he could count, some of them dating back to the Unification War, others being far more recent but all of them had one thing in common, they had paid the ultimate price for the Hierarchy.
If he was entirely honest with himself, Saren didn't exactly know why he had come here. He knew that there had been a reason why he had returned to his home but now that he was actually here, he failed to come up with an answer. Had it been something about the asari aboard Sovereign? Had he been sent here to find something that could finally break her spirit? It had already been two weeks since her capture yet in spite of Sovereign's strength and the righteousness of their mission, she still refused to see the truth, continuing to defy his will. As if that alone wasn't bad enough, Benezia T'Soni had also been declared missing in the time it had taken them to get to this point, a fact that meant that she would not return to power any time soon. Saren sighed as the whisper told him that she, a very influential matriarch, would still be more than useful, even if her chosen replacement on the council wouldn't serve them like she would've, Benezia's most loyal followers would still heed her call once she too embraced her true purpose.
Reassured by this knowledge, he let go of his worries and extended his hand as he walked through the long corridor, the tips of his fingers brushing against the steel facade, giving him time to contemplate just how many of his people had given everything to uphold the order they believed in, an order he now recognized to have been doomed from its very beginning. This had been the place it had started, where Desolas and he had set out to fight something they couldn't possibly hope to defeat. Spirits had he been naive back then, thinking that he could actually break a cycle that had repeated itself countless of times. He truly was grateful for the fact that he knew better now, that he finally recognized what needed to be done. Sovereign had already called for him, a prothean ruin had been discovered on Eden Prime and the classified report he had received via the Spectre network had mentioned that for the first time in forever, a functioning prothean beacon had been discovered amongst the remains of the long-dead civilization.
Soon he'd be able to fullfill his purpose.
"Bassilo," he muttered after coming to a stop in front of a very familiar compartment and forgetting about his last thought. Saren placed his hand on the cold steel just as the last rays of Palaven's sun shone through the entrance of the building, their warm touch feeling strangely cold on his skin, but even though he felt like he was in the right place, he also felt like something was deeply wrong with him. As he read the engraving on the compartment, he sighed again. "It's been far too long," he finally admitted before a sudden moment of clarity, he experienced them every so often when being reminded of his past, managed to snap him out of the trance he was in just enough for him to remember what exactly it was that was causing him to slowly lose himself.
Indoctrination.
"I know that I'm going down a dark path," he said as he tried and failed to bring up his omni-tool in another attempt to warn Desolas, stopping his own hands just one movement away from contacting him. "But I don't think there's any other way for me to save them," he muttered as he felt the whisper close in again, surprisingly enough finding the strength to keep it out on his own by thinking back to the reason why he was doing all of this.
"I tried to fight them and I lost," Saren whispered as he turned around and set down on the ground, leaning his back against the steel wall behind him. "They were just too strong," he could feel the whisper grow impatient and even though he still couldn't bring himself to warn everyone about what would soon happen, he somehow managed to control himself to the point where he could keep them at bay for the time being by fighting the urge to get up. "Everything they believed in, everything they died to uphold," he muttered after staring down the length of the mausoleum, the rays of light glinting off the polished compartments, "Everything you fought for? It's all at risk," there was a strange quiver in his voice, allowing him to feel something he hadn't felt in months.
Fear.
What was it that he had come here for?
Why couldn't he remember?
Realising that he wouldn't get an answer to that question, the Spectre again turned his head the way he had come from, seeing the sun vanish beyond the small hills surrounding the mausoleum. As the orange glow of the sky now made way for the dark of the night, reminding him that he'd soon have to get going, the faint memory of being needed elsewhere came back to him alongside the whisper. Taking in the last rays of daylight, Saren felt the need to remind himself that every night, no matter how dark it go, eventually passed. Such was the natural order of things.
In the end there would always be a morning.
"I guess I came to you to say farewell. This might be the last time I'll be on Palavan", he said as another memory came back to him and he threw his head back, staring at the ceiling of the mausoleum just as an internal timer turned on the lamps above him and blinded him for a few seconds.
Why was he having such a hard time remembering certain things?
Why did it feel like he was losing himself piece by piece?
The answer was in front of him yet he couldn't quite grasp it at the time, focusing far too much on keeping the impatient whisper away from his mind.
"No, I didn't come to say farewell," he mused as he slowly felt the strength that had kept the whisper at bay vanish, rising to his feet even though he felt like staying a bit longer. "I came to give a you a heads up, old friend," the turian whispered as he began to walk away despite every fiber of his being telling him to stay. "I'll be with you sooner than you'd like," he added as he briefly remembered just what it had been that had driven him to come here in the first place, the realisation soon vanishing in favour of new found determination he knew not to be his own.
29. December 2414, Arcturus Station
Today would go down as another important mark in humanity's history with the Council
Today would lead them one step closer to what Noé had been working for ever since the HSA had first entered the galactic community.
Today was the day humanity would decide on who they'd recommend as their second Spectre.
Just like last time, the problem wasn't finding a good match, all of these people met that criteria, otherwise they wouldn't have made the list to begin with, it was finding the perfect match. As she swiped through the list of names, passing a series of impressive service records filled with deeds that had altered the outcomes of entire battles, Goyle came to a halt on one person she was more than just familiar with, letting the rest of the committee debate without her for the time being, instead looking at the picture of Alec's daughter.
"So that brings it down to what, five final candidates?" one of the members sighed from his position at the table.
"Yes. Two from ASOC, two from N7 and another one from our C-SEC program," another replied.
"We only need one and the Council needs our decision," Donnel Udina, the human ambassador to the Citadel Council, reminded them. "We've already delayed the mission to move the beacon for too long. If we don't find someone to accompany Anderson, we'll have to wait for another opportunity to arrive. It's time that we separate the good from the best."
"Let's start with the last one then. I'm not saying Bailey isn't good at what he does but he is the political option, we all know that. He might be a good cop but he won't make the cut as a Spectre," a fourth member offered in a rather cut and dry tone. Goyle wouldn't disagree with her. The woman had a background in law enforcement herself and a as such knew exactly what she was talking about.
"That just leaves the soldiers then," the fifth member summarized. "Again," it wasn't a secret that this politician had hoped for Bailey to be picked. He had always argued that Anderson, an N7 through and through, hadn't been the best choice because as far as he was concerned, his military background had severely limited his perspective as a Spectre. It was why he had only suggested members of law enforcement or HSAIS' regular field teams for candidacy and it was alos why he had asked Goyle to talk to Director Rei in an attempt to persuade him to offer up one of his specialists for the position. But just like last time Section 13 still argued that they couldn't spare any of their agents and just like last time, the Chancellor of the HSA agreed with the notion.
"What's the point of this? We all know that the only actual candidate got blacklisted by Hackett on short notice," one of the four military members of the committee sighed in frustration, "Ma'am, Is it really too late to talk the admiral out of it?" he addressed her directly.
"Captain Haugen might've been your favorite, General, but he wasn't the only actual candidate," another high-ranking officer pointed out.
"I don't see any of you offering alternatives."
That was her cue.
"Well, what about Shepard?" Goyle finally injected into the discussion, causing all eyes to turn towards her.
Codex: Spectres
Founded in 693 CE, the Special Tactics and Reconnaissance Branch of the Citadel Council is entrusted with matters of galactic security and draws its agents from the individual species that either make up or are associated with the Citadel Council. Tasked with maintaining stability throughout the galaxy by any means necessary, Spectres are permitted to operate outside the law and either work alone or in small groups depending on their assignments and personal skill set. While most of their operations focus on counter-terrorism and threat prevention, Spectres can also be called upon during times of war, taking out high-value targets and assassinating enemy leaders to disrupt their war effort.
Due to their unique task, Spectres are not trained but instead chosen from experienced elite operatives that apply for Spectre Status. Those who are chosen are then placed under an experienced Spectre who evaluates their performance and either recommends them for induction or, in some cases, turns their application down.
Another aspect that sets Spectres apart from the likes of STG or Blackwatch is the fact that most Spectres are expected to provide their own gear, a feat most achieve through either personal wealth or connections to influential politicians and military leaders. Only a small fraction of the branch's members can still rely on support from their own governments. While some consider this a disadvantage, others, Spectres among them, argue that this only adds to their operational liberty and gives them yet another means to achieve their missions by allowing them to use less official channels.
It should be noted that in spite of being hailed as protectors of the Council, there have been cases of Spectres using these 'less official' channels to work with the likes of the Shadow Broker, the case of Tela Vasir, a former huntress who currently resides within HSA space as a political refugee, only being the most recent one on a much longer list. In addition to this, there have also been instances of rogue Spectres, agents who turn their back on the Citadel and its values. While much rarer than the likes of Vasir, the few cases that have existed, amongst them the infamous Demon of Athena, always caused considerable damage to the galaxy and its people.
A/N: And with that, Season 3 begins.
As I said, this chapter is basically all set up. It shows my more tragic version of Saren's plotline in my upcoming adaptation of Mass Effect 1, hints at what each of the backgrounds is going to do and sets up the basic conditions under which the story is gonna kick off.
Now, the decision to pair of Hackett with Haugen is basically me creating a bigger counter part to Anderson and Shepard (who for a reason you might already be able to guess will start out very different from canon). Hackett, for me, is basically the renegade!Anderson and since Haugen is obviously the renegade to Shepard's paragon, it was the best call to pair them up like this. Also, as you can obviously tell from here on out, Haugen's plot is going to lead him to a major role in Bring down the Sky. (I'll have more to say to this in a few chapters).
Where Morneau, Paragade (do I still have to add this or is it obvious who's who by now?), is going to fit in with this is something you'll have to wait and see. I hinted at his plotline leading him to the Shadow Broker but there's gonna be more to it as well, mostly because well... alright, I guess I can say it since it's basically something I'd put into a trailer (I really want this to be a series, can you tell? :D) He's gonna bump into Shepard pretty early on into Season 3 and given the last time he had something to do with a Shepard, Season 3 is also going to revolve around theirrelationship to each other (What you want to read into that statement is completely up to you although I actually think I already commented on my stance in regards to this topic. Make your theories go.)
Enough of that. I also wanna say a bit about Saren's pov. Writing indoctrination is kind of weird. If his segments come off as slighty unstrucutred, it's intentional because they're told from HIS point of view and he isn't entirely sure what that is right now. Due to my changes to him, he's obviously struggling with himself. He knows that something is wrong but he can't entirely fix it. This is a trend that's gonna continue as we progress onto the story.
Forme, finding the right approach to this was actually kind of difficult and in the end I opted against giving Sovereign a regular dialogue role. Their connection is different from that.
Alright, enough of that.
You know the drill, let me know what you think.
For the record, we're at 385 reviews, 614 favorites and 715 follows.
See you around next time.
