Chapter 63. The Trojan Horse
21. January 2415 AD, Cronos Station
Reapers.
As he listened to his fellow conspirators, Jack Harper couldn't help but feel like the protheans couldn't have picked a less cliched, less creative name for the race that had murdered them to the last.
"I'm afraid that if the Council gives her the all-clear, Shepard will tell them everything, no matter what the HSA orders her to do. After you talked to her, General, she made it clear how she felt about our approach," the commander's predecessor said while Harper himself continued to read the finalized, incredibly long version of Shepard's mission report.
"Will they?" the until recently bed-ridden General Arterius replied, addressing the councilor among them.
"Agent Anderson's concern justified. Irissa and Sparatus have already decided," the salarian councilor and STG operative replied.
"So only a salarian veto could stop them now," he muttered.
"A veto wouldn't just burn Valern cover, it'd raise questions we don't want people to ask," Tao offered, producing a nod form the salarian hologram. "I can't believe I'm saying this but at this point, having Shepard tell the galaxy might be our best move."
"That is if she doesn't include the bits and pieces about Cerberus and Valern," Jack Harper injected half-mindedly while lighting up a cigarette and taking in the heavily dimmed light of the sun Cronos Station was orbiting.
"She doesn't know about Valern," General Arterius injected.
"She said you told her everything," Anderson replied.
"Everything she needed to know to complete her mission," the turian clarified. "The fact that a council member is secretly a STG operative wasn't included in that."
"So we don't actually stand to lose anything from her going public?" Anderson wondered.
"Not much more than we would've lost if we had ever decided to do it ourselves," Arterius replied.
"So I take it I don't have to tell the commander that the HSA is ordering her to stay quiet?"
"No, you don't," the Blackwatch officer said.
"Setting aside the fear of a mass panic for a moment," Harper finally said after having taken a deep breath of smoke, "what's our actual plan from here on out?"
"The same as it's always been. Find a way to win," the turian replied.
"That would be our objective," the Cerberus director pointed out while reading over the autopsy report of one of the husks secured on Eden Prime. Although the process used to create these mindless, expendable shock troops was horrific, it was in equal parts fascinating. At least for someone looking to find a way to turn their strengths against them. With that many implants stuffed in their body, there was bound to be a weakspot they could exploit. "I am asking how we plan on getting there. Other than simply hoping that the combined forces of the Council will be enough to achieve a conventional victory against the race that annihilated the protheans, we don't actually have a strategy."
"This again?" Anderson wondered, prompting Harper to put down the tablet and glance back at the holograms.
"Yes, this again." he replied. "What is it your people say, Valern? Knowledge can fell even the most powerful enemy?"
"Most powerful empire," the salarian corrected.
"Either way," he said, dipping the cigarette into its ashtray, "The reapers are the most powerful enemy we'll ever face. They conquered the most powerful empire in galactic history and didn't leave a single survivor when they were done. Our only way of stopping them is finding out what gave them the ability to do so. Otherwise we'll just end up like the protheans, ruins for those who come after us."
"Tell me, how many men did Cerberus lose while trying to understand reapers, Director? The scientists on Akuze, the entire crew of the Budapest? How many more will it take for you to stop this?" the turian general inquired, causing Harper to start scrolling through the tablet lying on the armrest of his chair.
When he had found what he was looking for and the associated hologram had finished constructing itself a few moments later, he extinguished the cigarette, picked up the tablet, stood up and looked at the holographic depiction of the Leviathan-class ship that had assaulted Eden Prime as seen from the perspective of one of the thousands of soldiers that had died in its wake.
"I sacrificed hundreds of lives to find a way to stop the Harbinger," he retorted. "But compared to how many will die when the first one of theses descends onto Palaven and our only plan of attack is the hope that your guns are actually going to be able to hurt them, that number is minuscule," after he selected another hologram, this one depicting the enormous, scorching crater one of the Leviathan's weapon blasts had caused, Harper went on. "Now you tell me this. How many cities do you think it'll take before you realise that I was right? Cipritine? Elapri?"
"Jack-" Tao began.
"Or maybe Singapure?" he knew that it was a low-blow. It was meant to be one. He was done playing pretend. He had to make his point, no matter how much he alienated everyone else in the process. "What do you figure the death toll has to be before you understand that we can't win against something we don't know how to fight?"
"Jack-" he tried again.
"I'm not done yet," he said, shutting down his former partner, again. "By now you've faced the reapers longer than any of us have, General. But you still cling to the delusion that they're just another enemy you can beat with conventional means. Why? Are you really that stubborn?" after he was finished, Harper waited, looking at the turian officer and trying to read his scarred face. He had little success.
"I am cautious about your methods because the cost of trying to understand the reapers will forever be etched into my bloodline, Director," the general replied in an icy tone. "I admit that my solution is not likely to succeed. It will be a hard fight and most people taking part in it are going to die, " when Arterius took a short pause, his mandibles pressed themselves against his jaw, the one that by the looks of it had been injured a long time ago doing so slightly less than ideal. After he was done with the gesture, he continued. "But make no mistake, the biggest delusion in this room is that this war can be won without having to fill every mausoleum in the galaxy with the ashes of its heroes. There is no easy way out, no clean, quick victory and no hidden superweapon that'll defeat our enemy for us. The only way this ends is with the total annihilation of either them or us. And if that's a prize you're not willing to pay, you've already lost." With that, his hologram vanished, leaving the emergency summit without its technical leader. A moment later, the salarian councilor also cut his connection without a word.
"Goddammit," he heard the first human Spectre mumble before Captain Anderson terminated his hologram as well, leaving just the empty seat of his partner to keep him company. As soon as he figured out where Tao had gone, the door of his office came flying open and the man himself stormed inside.
"What the hell are you doing?" he demanded to know while marching through his own hologram, the sudden disruption causing the blue projection to be distorted. "We've been over this already," he pointed out while the projectors tried and failed to reassemble the image.
"And I didn't change my mind since then."
"Tell me you didn't do anything stupid," Tao demanded.
"Stupid as in?" Harper had an idea but he still wanted to hear him say it.
"Stupid as in getting even more people indoctrinated while telling us you were keeping your feet still. Stupid as in risking everything we've worked for since the beginning because you're loosing your edge a bit more every day," he listed angrily.
"Do you really think I'd be that careless?" the slightly taller man asked.
"Honestly? At this point I don't know what to think about you anymore. You've changed."
"I've changed?" he repeated. "All I said was what you're apparently to scared to admit to yourself by now. His way won't work and he'll get everyone killed just because he refuses to accept that this isn't just another war he can win his way. The Tao I know would've seen that coming years ago."
"And the Jack I know would be too smart to think that he can actually get information on the reapers without becoming indoctrinated."
"Only if we don't try and find a way to get around it."
"A work-around for indoctrination? You can't be serious."
"Given the odds General Arterius just outlined, I think we have to consider every solution, no matter how big the danger involved in it is or how impossible it seems."
"What you're talking about will destroy the little chance we have at winning."
"Or save every living being in the galaxy from having to take part in a stereotypically turian grand last stand."
"You're playing with fire, Jack," the man said, pointing his finger at Jack's chest.
"Taking risks is part of our job."
"Of my job," he corrected with insistence. Maybe he did hold it against him that he had left Section 13 after all? "Cerberus isn't meant to take risks. It's meant to eliminate them. You're supposed to be humanity's shield, not the ones who drag it into extinction."
"Just like a shield can't protect you if it doesn't get into harm's way, Cerberus won't be able to protect humanity if it insists on staying safe. I'm not trying to drag us into extinction, Tao, I'm trying to save us," Harper reasoned in return.
"You know that I can't tell you to stand down. Noé made sure of that when he created Cerberus," Tao admitted before looking straight into his eyes. "But think this through. You're not lucky enough to get zapped by reaper tech and walk away twice in one lifetime." After the last part of what his former colleague had just said caught the Cerberus director off-guard long enough for Tao to just walk out on him, effectively giving the Section 13 director the last word, Jack Harper frowned, returned to his chair, lit another cigarette and continued to look at the star that was slowly fading away in front of his eyes.
Despite having every reason to be angry or frustrated at his colleagues and their stubborn refusal to see the truth, there was only really one thing the man wondered about in this moment. Would the day when he no longer had to compromize and place humanity's safety over everything else ever come? Or would he spent the rest of his life looking at this dying star, holding out hope for something that was never going to happen and getting his hands even dirtier along the way? Rubbing his brow with the back of his hand and puffing out a small cloud of smoke, he desperately hoped that it would be the former. After all, it'd be a damn shame if he didn't get to see and enjoy the peace he had been fighting for his entire life.
21. January 2415 AD, Citadel, Presidium, Chambers of the Citadel Council
Looking back to when she had last been here, the N7 was sure that she had preferred the chambers as empty as they had been back then. With easily a hundred officials, political and military alike, observing her from the several levels above the actual chamber and the three councilors staring her down from their elevated podium, Emily justifiably felt like the attention of the entire galaxy was focused on her.
"Agent Shepard," the Councilor Irissa said, silencing everyone else in the large room. "After processing the reports and data you collected during your mission to rescue the now deceased Councilor T'Soni, this Council has called upon you to make a statement on your findings."
"Given the circumstances of her death, this Council has furthermore decided that you be relieved of any restrictions regarding the classified information surrounding this operation," Sparatus added, addressing her just as much as the other officials and making it clear that he wanted them to hear the full story. "Do you understand?"
"I do."
This was it. The scenario Anderson, Harper and everyone else that had taken part in their decade-long conspiracy to keep what they knew about the reapers and the Harbinger a secret had been afraid of. The moment their secret became public. Or at least known to some people other than them.
Since she honestly had no idea what the officials observing her had been instructed to do with what they were about to be told, she wasn't ready to call this a galactic revelation just yet.
"Please start from the beginning then," the salarian councilor responded, evidently taking care to speak slower than he usually would.
Although the three councilor's already knew everything there was to know, she did as she was told.
Starting with how the beacon had messed with her head and given her a vision, Emily moved on to how she had gone to Therum to save the daughter of the now deceased Councilor T'Soni from being captured by geth and then followed a signal of the rogue Spectre to Feros where she had encountered the Thorian and received the prothean cipher. Then she explained how the aforementioned daughter had helped bring her back from a coma and made sense of the vision the cipher had tried to decipher, which had allowed her to understand that the reapers Saren Arterius was trying to bring back really had been responsible for the extinction of the protheans. After that was done, she went on to how they had gone to Noveria to retrieve a pair of human operatives and then followed up on turian intelligence indicating that Councilor T'Soni was on the world, something that had proven correct when they had arrived at the rachni-infested Peak 15 and battled against krogan clones. After answering a dozen questions in regards to said rachni infestation and krogan clone army and omitting the fact that she had let the queen go prior to the neutron purge because she was sure that the Council would sent someone to correct her decision the instant they heard of it, rendering it pointless in the process, Emily moved on to how they had found the indoctrinated Councilor T'Soni. She then explained the process of indoctrination as she had understood it and went on to describe how her team and their turian allies had been forced to take the matriarch down.
Finally she told them how in her dying moments, Councilor T'Soni had passed the information of where Saren was going on to her daughter, who up to now had remained catatonic as the result of the traumatic mindmeld. While she wasn't sure how long it had taken her, she felt slightly out of breath by the end of what had basically been a retelling of her finalized mission report.
"Thank you for this very detailed statement, Agent Shepard," Councilor Irissa said, silencing the collection of whispers from the people observing the meeting. "That will be all. You are dismissed."
Wait.
What?
That was it? They weren't sending her to take care of anything she had just told?
"What do you mean I'm dismissed?" she repeated as politely as possible after some consideration.
"Your statement was all that we required," the asari explained, somewhat perplexed. She probably had expected Emily to do as she was told and leave. And if it hadn't been for the last couple of weeks, she probably would've done just that. "We see no reason to keep you occupied any longer. You may return to your embassy and wait until we call on you again."
"So you want me to sit around?" If it wasn't for the heat of the moment, she probably would've realised that this wasn't the place to argue with her direct superiors. A lot of people were watching them.
"We want you to remain on standby for when we know how to continue. For the time being, this Council will have to decide on the measures it will take to ensure the continued safety of all of its members. Your presence is not required during this process," the salarian councilor explained, the way he seemed to cut into what the asari had been about to say not going unnoticed by the N7.
"Is that understood?" the turian member finally inquired, his tone far more authoritarian.
"Yes, of course."
And just like that, Emily left the Council meeting. She had held a lot of expectations and none of them had been met. Instead of being told to continue her hunt for Saren and try and stop the reapers, she would now be stuck waiting just like her predecessor, who by the looks of it had already been expecting her in front of the chambers.
"You do realise that this isn't how Spectres are supposed to behave, right?" Captain Anderson asked before turning the way she was going and following her to the C-SEC shuttle waiting for them. "When the Council tells you something, you just smile, nod and do it."
"They want me to sit and wait while Saren goes after the Conduit, Sir. How am I supposed to do that?"
"They want you to wait while they try to find the source of the krogan clone army," the older man corrected as they sat down in the craft. "And about Saren? You said it yourself, finding the Conduit won't happen as long as Doctor T'Soni stays quiet. At this point the only thing we can hope for is that the therapist you brought her to is a miracle worker and gives us some fast results."
"And if she doesn't?" Emily asked right before the shuttle took off and began the short way back to the embassy.
"Then we'll have to figure out something else entirely," he replied, speaking louder to be heard over the sound of the engines. "But we'll cross that bridge when we get there. For now I suggest you get ready for Udina. I'm sure he'll have something to say about what just happened."
"And he can tell me all about after I've finished up some business in the embassy," the younger N7 replied.
"What kind of business?"
"I want to check in on Tali," she replied, leaving out the fact that she and Alenko still had to confront to Garrus about the reports he had sent to C-SEC. "How is she anyway?"
"Better than expected," the other N7 retorted while the C-SEC craft closed in on the embassy. "You don't feel responsible for what happened to her, do you?" Anderson questioned when they began to land.
"If it wasn't for her, we never would've gotten this far in the first place, Sir. The least I can do is thank her for getting us that recording."
"I see," he nodded. "Listen, Shepard. I might be benched for now but if there's anything I can do to help, just let me know. I know what it's like to be a Spectre. Trying to carry all that weight by yourself isn't healthy in the long run."
"Appreciate it, Sir."
Ten Minutes Later, 21. January 2415 AD, Citadel, HSA Embassy, Infirmary
Normally she would've said that it was a good thing that she was about to get two birds with one stone. Anything that saved some time was always welcome.
"If you don't want to do it in here, we could always wait for him to leave," Alenko offered a few moments after she had stopped to think about whether or not this was the right time.
"No, no, I put this off long enough as it is," the N7 replied. "No matter how helpful he's been, fact is that he sent those messages you found to someone. It's about time we figured out who."
"Alright," the lieutenant nodded before asking a question she hadn't actually paid all that much thought to. "Do you think he's dangerous? I mean if it's not C-SEC he's talking to," the biotic went on while she looked at him rest on the chair next to the quarian just like the first time they had talked. Did he still not trust Anderson? Even after everything he knew by now? Talk about paranoid.
"No. I don't think so," she said, going with what her gut was telling her, namely that he was reporting back to C-SEC precisely because he and his superiors didn't trust Spectres, no matter who they were. Besides, if his intentions were hostile, it would've shown by now. He had had ample opportunity to harm them.
"Okay," the man replied before the two of them walked in, the sound of the doors opening instantly drawing the turian's attention.
"Commander, Lieutenant," Garrus greeted before looking at Alenko's face and rising to his feet. "I'm not going to like this, am I?"
Deciding that she wasn't going to talk around the issue and figuring that the lieutenant would give her the lead on this one just like she had asked him, Emily shook her head.
"No," she said. "We know about the reports you've been sending, Garrus. What we don't know is why you're doing it and who put you up to it."
"Hold up. That's it?" the detective asked, slightly perplexed. "With those grim expressions you just had, I figured you were about to tell me that we'd all be court-martialed for killing a councilor."
"What do you mean 'that's it'?" the biotic replied in disbelief, formulating Emily's thoughts perfectly. "You spied on us. That's a huge breach of trust."
"First of all, I didn't spy on you. I did my job," the turian shrugged casually. "Just like your superiors give you orders I don't know about, Executor Pallin gives me orders that don't concern you. Secondly, I know what it is. I volunteered for the mission."
"So C-SEC put you up to it," Alenko figured.
"Yes. That's what I just said."
"Why not just tell us, Garrus?" she inquired a moment later. "We're on the same side."
"You see, the whole point of my assignment was to determine that last part."
"Sorry?"
"Don't get me wrong. I liked working with you and your crew. They're good people," the detective began. "But personal feelings don't change the fact that you were hand-picked for this mission by the only Spectre Saren Arterius ever supervised before going rogue. That's suspicious."
"So you kept tracks on what I did because you thought I was working with Saren?"
"I made sure that you didn't," he insisted. "And if you did, I would've made sure that people knew and that you would be stopped as well."
"Which meant you weren't just spying on us, you were also ready to take us out if you had to," Alenko repeated.
"If that's the way you want to see it, yes, those were my orders." Garrus admitted before sitting down again. "And before you ask," he added. "I won't apologize for following them. Either of you would've done the same thing." Although she had been tempted to disagree, Emily actually couldn't. If they had switched places, she probably would've done the same thing. Judging by his silence, Alenko was thinking the same. "So. Was there anything else?" Garrus finally asked, sounding surprisingly unoffended by what had just transpired. Maybe it was because to him it really had just been about following orders?
"Not from me," Alenko offered after sharing a look with Emily. "If you need me, I'll be around the embassy."
"Got it," she nodded before watching him leave. "How is she?" she asked the turian when the doors had closed.
"Asleep as far as I can tell," he replied dryly before looking at the quarian. "Your doctor said she wasn't going to knock on the pearly gates anytime soon. I'm not sure what that means or if it's good or bad. Human idioms aren't exactly my specialty."
"It means she's stable," the N7 explained.
"So why not just say that instead of talking about gates?"
"Do you want an answer to that?"
"No. I think I'd prefer not to. It keeps up the illusion that the translator issues aren't just happening because Citadel bureaucrats are slow when it comes to keeping C-SEC up-to-date but rather the fault of your weird human languages. Makes work nicer, you know?"
"What do you mean slow?"
"Do you want me to shatter your image of C-SEC?"
"Well, I know they've got all kinds of dirt on me now. It wouldn't hurt to have something in store myself," that produced a chuckle out of the turian.
"Fair point," he admitted. "It's all fine here in the Presidium where people speak the common languages but once you get to the lower wards and your crowd gets more diverse, you'll run into languages or a dialects our translators can barely make sense of."
"That sounds really problematic."
"You have no idea. Half the time you're patrolling down there, you will talk to someone and know that they understand you perfectly but most of what they're saying just turns into nonsense on your end. I remember this one time, we were trying to book in a krogan just after I transferred to Zakera," as Emily listened to the turian recount his story, she wasn't sure why she was engaging in this kind of small-talk.
Was it because she was glad that the turian didn't seem like he'd carry a grudge over what had just happened? Or was it because she was glad for any reason not to head to Udina right away?
Either way, she'd probably stay a while.
2156 CE, Kepler Verge, Salarian Stealth Cruiser 'Mirage of Halegeuse'
"That's it. All drives are offline," the gunner reported before sitting up straight in his chair, breaking the focus and the instinctual leaning forward it had taken for him to accurately use the cruiser's anti-missile lasers to cripple the much smaller, more vulnerable cargo ship without the risk of killing the crew.
"Signs of exterior defensive capabilities?" Captain Kirrahe inquired while looking at the large, orange projection of their objective. It was an old volus freighter at least five decades past its prime. But the STG officer was less concerned with the vessel itself and more with what it was likely carrying, mass-produced weapons and, more importantly, armor meant for krogan wearers.
"Negative. I'm not detecting any weapons or smaller craft leaving the ship. It's drifting. Your team can board."
While it didn't rule out the chance of meeting resistance inside the ship, that's all he needed to hear. With a press of a button on the gauntlet of his dark-grey and orange STG armor, he sent a prepared message to the eleven STG operatives he had handpicked for this exact mission from the entirety of the infiltration company he had been entrusted with.
After being tasked to find a facility producing krogan clones at the behest of the rogue Spectre Saren Arterius, who evidently hadn't learned from his people's conflict with the korgan if he believed himself capable of commanding an entire army of them by himself, the stealth cruiser he was for now still standing in, had been sent deep into the Traverse. Here they, the ships of the Union's Third Fleet which consisted of nothing but vessels equipped with state of the art stealth technology that didn't even exist as far as the rest of the galaxy was concerned, had taken up position, waiting for the rest of STG and TNI to tell them what they were looking for while keeping meticulous track of the ship traffic around them.
When word had finally come that a shipping company based around Talis Fia had received funding from a client on Illium, who in turn had been paid by a corporation on Noveria until a couple of days ago when the payments had mysteriously been seized, it hadn't taken the Mirage's captain long to decide that the lone volus transport closing in on their position would be stopped and boarded. And when it had failed to follow the Mirage's instructions, leading to the recent use of force, it hadn't taken Kirrahe long to insist that the STG operatives the Mirage were carrying would be the ones doing the boarding.
After all, why run if you didn't have something to hide?
As the docking tubes connected with each other, the STG operative walked right by the squad of naval infantry guarding their end of the newly created corridor. While the shortest way, they weren't going to use the way their enemy expected. So instead of walking into a possible ambush and being gunned down, he continued to the airlock next to it, stopping only to put on his helmet and check that all of his omni-tool's combat programs were running as they should be.
"Ready?" he asked as he entered the actual airlock and looked at the eleven other operatives while the heavy blast doors shut behind him and the air started to be vented. Between their shotguns, their short range carbines and submachine guns all based around the same modular weapon platform that had produced guns such as the Venom and Scorpion, there shouldn't be anything on board of the freighter that they couldn't face. "Will take lack of objection as a yes," Kirrahe nodded before addressing the salarian closest to the door after making sure his tether was attached properly. "Lieutenant Imnes, whenever you're ready."
Silently complying with Kirrahe's orders, the STG operative wiped his hand over the manual locking mechanism of the airlock and opened the team's way into space. Then, after taking a few instinctual but given the lack of gravity unnecessary, steps back, the point man jumped the gap between the cruiser and the dark-green freighter, the magnetic boots and gloves of his armor allowing him to effortlessly stick to the exterior of the volus ship. After a few moments of cautious waiting and repressing the worry that some kind of exterior defense would be activated after all and gruesomely kill his subordinate, it had regrettably happened before, Kirrahe and the rest of the team followed. Using the time it took him to float between the cruiser and the freighter to check the camera feed being projected on the wide HUD of his helmet, the STG captain noted that the squad of naval infantry had detained a lone volus half-way inside the airlock without the hint of resistance. But he wasn't going to let his guard down just because of something as simple as that. For all he knew, the volus was yet another distraction, or worse, a suicide bomber waiting to be brought into the salarian vessel before detonating his lethal payload and crippling the ship in the process.
That too had regrettably also happened before.
Shaking off the memory just in time to gracefully stick to the exterior of the freighter himself, Kirrahe looked at the lieutenant to see if the next step of their plan was already in the process of being accomplished.
"Override complete, Captain," the STG operative confirmed over the radio, following the reply up with a nod and the disappearance of his omni-tool display.
"First team, make entry," Kirrahe ordered in return, causing his squad to split up. This was the next critical part of their mission. A lot could happen to the four STG operatives that had been tasked with entering the vessel first. In addition to all the traps that could possibly have been planted for them, which was the reason behind Kirrahe ordering a split-up in the first place, there was a myriad of other ways these first four salarians, and also his entire boarding party, could be killed.
The crew of the freighter could overpower them with a surprise attack.
Their cruiser could be forced to leave them behind because the other ship had entered a self-destruct sequence in an attempt to take out their enemies.
An airlock malfunction could main them before they even had the chance to understand what was going.
There could be yet another suicide bomber waiting for them.
Furthermore a freak Element Zero discharge could warp the entire vessel and everything around it into an utterly unrecognizable mes-
"Second squad has made entry, third squad you're clear to follow," the voice of the second-in-command of the boarding, Lieutenant Jenzin, came over the radio, prompting Kirrahe to shake off the escalating series of scenarios and go through with the next step of the plan after effortlessly climbing through the zero-g environment and into the opened airlock before going through the same pressurization process as the two teams prior to him.
"Situation?" he asked the other two STG officers while looking to his left where three merchants clad in the environmental suits typical to their species had been detained and surrounded by a pair of STG operatives. Volus traders rarely indulged in the small comfort of making spaceships habitable to themselves. While it would help them, it just complicated things for all of their clients.
"Compliant," Imnes told him. "Offered no resistance. Sent Private Avot to retrieve their nav-charts and cargo manifest."
"Understood. Will interrogate them personally. Jenzin, secure engine room and shut off drive. Imnes, search vessel for additional crew, cargo and potential hostiles."
"Understood," the two salarians replied in unison before they and their respective squads moved out.
"Cargo manifest?" the STG captain asked the younger operative leaning over the awkwardly small console table.
"Uploaded to your omni," the salarian spoke, dragging out the last syllable for as long as it took Kirrahe to get the transmission, "now."
As he skimmed over the detailed inventory of the ship, he knowingly ignored the volus staring at him.
"Sur'Kesh-Clan, why are you," the merchant spoke before his breathing apparatus interrupted him, "detaining us?"
"Carrying food?" Kirrahe questioned before effortlessly recalling the detailed layout of the ship and their official legal explanation from his memory. "On cargo freighter without refrigeration system or pest-control VI? Clear violation of Citadel Agri Accord 192-21."
"We're not in Council Space," the volus began, clearly full of himself. "And you're not a Citadel patrol. You have no jurisdic-" as the flash-forged tip of an omni-blade was pointed at one of the softer spots of his pressurized suit, the only thing keeping the volus alive in this environment, he stopped listing the reasons why the salarians couldn't be doing what they were doing and listened instead.
"Correct. No Citadel patrol, no Council space, no jurisdiction. Just salarian boarding party and merchants no one will miss," Kirrahe assured him dryly. "Already know you're transporting equipment for rogue Spectre. Will be punished either way. Question now is, do you cooperate, give up location and get sentenced accordingly by Citadel court of law or do you stay quiet, fall victim to pirate raid and are never heard of again?" No one at STG would ask twice if the latter happened. After all, it was his organisation's policy of giving free reign to its operatives that had spawned the principle of Spectres being above the law.
"Rogue Spectre? Pirate raid? I don't know what you're-"
"We cooperate!" another one of the merchants, this one evidently smarter and more sensible than the imbecile in front of him shouted quickly. "The food containers are actually drop pods. We throw the food out, put the armor in them and jettison them at the location our client gives us. It's a gas giant at the the edge of the system the relay connects to. They float in the atmosphere until they're picked up."
"Stop talking already, he'll kill us!" the first merchant shrieked.
"No," the other detained volus countered before taking a long breath and looking at Kirrahe,"he'll kill us."
"Not necessarily," the STG captain replied before making the omni-blade disappear. "Who hired you? Who picks up containers?"
"We don't know. We leave before they show up. We thought about having a look before but the ships that stick around never reappear." He was inclined to believe the volus. It sounded like something the turian would make his geth do to avoid discovery. It'd also act in the merchants' favour in front of a court if they made it that far and didn't end up in a Union black site after STG was done with them.
"Coordinates of gas giant saved in ship computer?" Kirrahe inquired next, a plan forming in his mind.
"Yes!"
"Know how to access them?"
"Of course!"
"Release this one, Corporal," he instructed the salarian standing guard behind the merchant before pointing to the terminal. "Enter the coordinates," he ordered. "But consider that deception will have consequences," the threat didn't need to be elaborated any further. "Lieutenant Imnes, status."
"Status Four. Cargo located. No further crew or hostiles onboard."
"Rig all containers with long range trackers and return to the bridge. Don't interfere with the cargo."
"Understood."
"Mirage for boarding party."
"Come in."
"Prepare to separate docking tube. Will take freighter on brief trip through relay."
"Duration?" that caused the salarian to look at the volus.
"How long does procedure take from this point?"
"Ten hours," the typing merchant spoke.
"Duration will be twelve hours," better to give themselves some breathing room.
"Understood. Initiate silence protocol until your return."
Silence Protocol. It was standard procedure. If the unit separated itself from the stealh ship completely like his plan required them to, they did so in a way that ensured no one could track their steps back to their cruiser. No communication would exist between them until the freighter came back through the relay and broadcasted Kirrahe's unique set of STG identification codes, which he had been trained to never give up, no matter what was being done to him.
"Understood. Boarding party going silent," and just like that, Kirrahe was left to his own devices, which incidentally was exactly the way he and every other STG operative thrived.
Sixteen Hours Later, 22. January 2415 AD, Cronos Station
Although actually hauling the heavy footlocker that contained his damaged armor all the way from the part of Cronos Station that was dedicated to the Bureau of Field Work to the larger, general HSAIS and Naval R and D part of the station had taken him the better part of twenty minutes, Morneau didn't mind the extra effort. While he had already worked out earlier while making sure that the next time he had use his biotics to the extent they had been needed on Noveria, it wouldn't knock him out again, this was as good of a cool down as any.
As the automated doors up ahead recognized his intention of going through them and opened after a brief scan confirmed his identity and security clearance, he switched the arm that had been dragging the footlocker for a final time and put the last few meters behind him, aware of the glances he caught by the mixture of navy officers, HSAIS techs and rare civilian researchers. He knew what they were thinking. People like him usually didn't come here, it was against the unspoken natural order of Cronos Station for a field agent to bother them all the way up here.
"Really? Again?" a disembodied voice called as he entered the shared lab he had been looking for and looking around. It was exactly as busy as usual. "I just told you. We won't be done with your schematics until after lunch. So why don't you go back to your cyber defense intelligence project or whatever you call it now and bother the people there-" as the woman looked around the corner she had been working behind and spotted him, the first thing she did after stopping her annoyed reply was to raise an eyebrow. "What's in the case?"
"It's great to see you too, Robin," he replied before hefting the footlocker up and placing it on one of the few empty tables in the room, opening it up just in time for the engineer to look inside.
"Christ. What did you do this time?" the dark-blonde woman asked as she picked up the heavily damaged gauntlet and began studying the purple and black burns on what little was left of its armor plating, quickly abducting it and several other small pieces to a spot in the room with better lighting.
"Can you fix it or not?" he asked, about to wipe the sweat of his face with his t-shirt before realising that it wouldn't do much good and just following her the way he was.
"If I put the right materials into requisition, yes, I can fix it," she replied before returning to what she had been doing before his surprised arrival. Not that he knew what that was mind you, all he saw where numbers, a hologram and a machine that looked expensive enough to get close to what the HSA had paid to train him and his colleagues. "Why not just get a new one though? I think this is the third time you asked me to patch the entire thing up."
"I already have a new one," he replied before picking up the damaged chest piece and looking at it. In fact he already had several new sets of armor. "But its just not the same, you know? Me and this guy, we've been through a lot together."
"Do you know how happy your strange attachment to inanimate objects would make a psychologist?" Robin offered. "They'd jump at a chance to study you."
"Can't say I ever thought about it," he replied while putting the piece back into the footlocker and leaning against a table, taking care not to touch anything. There was an order to this chaos that he wasn't going to disturb. "Besides, no shrinks for Section 13. Says so in the small print."
"Does it really?" she replied while pausing for a moment.
"No idea. I never read the small print. Or the contract. I just signed a transfer and ended up here," he shrugged.
"I can't say I'm surprised," the dark-blonde chuckled before sounding a bit more serious. "For real though, what happened to you Daniel? Just going by the armor, it looks like you had a pretty close call."
"Walked through an annihilation field," he offered briefly. It was part of the agreement. Robin fixed his gear, he told her what had damaged it so she could in turn study the damage and start working on a solution that assured other people didn't die to the stuff that nearly killed him. While he wasn't sure how much of a difference it really made in the long run, the fact that Director Rei knew about this deal and hadn't cracked down on him after two years of him doing it told him that at least some good came out of it.
"That's biotics?" she guessed.
"Yeah. Imagine a warp field, just with bigger range and less power," he explained.
"Then it's old news. Can't really do a lot more against biotics on the armor level," she mumbled while looking at the blue hologram.
"So I'll try getting shot by a plasma rifle next time, got it."
"The scientific community of the HSA thanks you for your courageous effort, Specialist Morneau," Robin offered with a mock salute aimed at the hologram.
"I'm sure they do," he smirked before turning to the door just in time for the other occupant of the lab to walk in.
"Oh great. Your spy lad's here. Again," the man in an unmarked naval uniform, which was in turn covered by a lab coat, muttered, his thick accent leaking through every one of his ironic words. Although it didn't mean much to people born in the colonies, the earthborn biotic recognized a scot when he heard one. "What shot him this time?" he asked into the room towards his lab partner, his eyes narrowing. "Did it hurt?" he added more quietly, this time directed at the specialist.
Aidan Ardrey.
Also known as the lab partner, who despite having known Robin Wigmore ever since attending the Arcadian University of Military Technology with her, definitely had gotten the entirely wrong idea as to what was going on between the two of them.
"Aidan, please," the other engineer frowned after turning away from her hologram.
"Don't worry about it, I'm on my way out anyway," Morneau offered before smiling at the man. While he had no intention of getting between the two of them, even if they themselves might not get that there was a two of them just yet, he was still human and did enjoy having a jab or two at a thing bothering the guy every now and then. "After all, the world's not gonna save itself, am I right, Abby?"
"It's Ardrey-" the man insisted while slowly pronouncing his name before the door to the lab closed and Morneau decided to had back to the parts of Cronos Station where Section 13 and Cerberus were situated to shower in time for the briefing.
Sure, he seemed like a decent guy, but calling him 'Abby' and watching him snap back at him the same way over and over again really never did get old.
He might even include that in the wedding speech.
If there ever was a wedding.
And if he ever was invited.
And asked to give a speech.
Yeah, come to think of it, there probably were more likely scenarios.
"Where you at Morneau?" his partner's voice came through the earpiece.
"On my way to a shower. Trust me, you don't want me near you right now," he replied cautiously, the moment it took her to reply already telling him the likelihood of him getting there.
"Skip the shower and hurry up. We've got a threat assessment in the situation room. Something about the IFS and a dreadnought."
No rest for the wicked, eh?
Some Time Later, 2156 CE, Virmire
The first thing that woke up the Spectre was the throbbing pain in his head. Spirits, it felt like either a krogan had tried and at least partially succeeded in crushing his skull or like the time he and Anderson had included ryncol into their social drinking. Then he noticed that it wasn't just his head that was hurting but his entire body. Finally the bright light of a surgical lamp flooded into his eyes and assured him that he was in a spot far worse than a run-down Citadel motel. With that, the sound of a salarian singing some song to himself also became noticeable. Shaking his head and wondering just where the hell he was, Saren sat up and looked at the doctor, at least he hoped that he was a doctor, and noticed the blue-stained medical instruments he was cleaning. Considering that the rest of the room was a mess and that his blood had exactly the same shade of blue, he got the impression that whatever had happened hadn't gone down with his consent.
"Awake. Surprising," the brown-skinned amphibian observed as the sound of Saren trying to get up caught his attention. "Suggest you lay back down. Procedure was invasive and taxing. After effects might still occur."
"What procedure?" he muttered while rubbing the side of his head and taking a cautious step forward. "What did you do to-"
Before he could finish, the sound of what sounded like an old war horn amplified a thousand fold caused him to fall against the table, allowing him to see a part of his own reflection in the polished metal of the table. The cybernetic blue eyes he saw looking back at him mortified him, causing him to sit upwards and press his back against the surgical table for the short panicked moment it took him to realise that he was in a bad spot and needed to get out of here right now. Shooting up far faster than he would've thought possible, he crossed the room and grabbed the salarian by his head, smashing it into the sink before turning him around and lifting him up with his right hand.
Since when was he this strong?
Nevermind that now.
"What did you do to me? Where am I?" he demanded to know, noticing the fine blue lines running not just under the skin of the salarian's brown face but also his own hands all the way to his talons.
This was bad.
Why couldn't he remember how he got here or where he had been before?
Or when 'before' even was to begin with?
"Interesting," the doctor replied while acid green blood poured from the wound on his forehead. "Procedure seems to have temporarily disrupted link between you and Sovereign."
What Sovereign?
What link?
"I'll ask you this just once more," Saren said as he increased the pressure on the salarian's neck. "What did you do to me? Where am I?" he repeated
"Followed your instructions," the salarian said while gasping for air but being strangely calm in the process. What instructions? He was playing games with him, wasn't he? "Improved you just as reque-" as he felt something snap and give in to his grip after increasing the pressure just the slightest bit, the alien stopped talking and went limp in his hand.
Had he just snapped his neck?
How?
Turians weren't nearly strong enough to-
As the throbbing pain turned into a second-long roaring choir of voices before quieting down to a familiar whisper, the rogue Spectre fell to his knees, the memories of the last months coming back to him in a flash all the way to the point where the news of Benezia's death had forced his masters to take more direct measures. They had been meant to ensure that he would yet be successful in his task. After the blood of an asari matriarch, a being the reapers had deemed far more powerful and far more evolved than him, had been spilled by a lowly human, a race Sovereign had deemed worthy of nothing but becoming cannon fodder to save the other races for the harvest, it had become evident that his normal form wouldn't suffice to complete his purpose on Ilos.
Thus he had been granted a gift.
Power meant to bring about the next cycle.
Flexing his hands and feeling a new found strength surge from his core to his finger tips, he produced a sudden burst of violent biotic energy that devastated the surgical theatre around him, throwing up a large case in the process and allowing him to notice something else entirely. There, lying in the corner of the surgical theatre, was his old armor. Its white top-layer and stylized Specte sigil had been torn off to reveal the bare, grey Juvax alloy below and its helmet had been cut open along the middle of his visor, effectively turning it into two pieces. The sight caused him to remember even more.
How foolish he had been to try and fight what had always been meant to happen in the moments leading up to the procedure where Sovereign had left his mind alone to attend another matter.
Leaving the surgical theatre and stepping over the mangled corpse of an asari technician and a dozen destroyed geth that had fallen victim to his foolish struggle, Saren began walking the halls of his base, no real aim in sight. He simply enjoyed every step that he took because with every moment he moved, the power now flowing through every fiber of his body became clearer.
So this was the fate the galaxy had to look forward to if he prevailed against his foes.
Ascension.
It truly was the greatest destiny one could hope for.
As he passed the communication central of the facility and the dead krogan guards in front of it, the turian was far too obsessed with himself to notice the looped broadcast silently running inside it or to pay attention to the slowly decreasing number of patrol activity in one particular sector of Virmire's jungles.
Three Days Later, 2156 CE, Oma Ker, Sarlik, Grand Mausoleum of Oma Ker
As she looked at the ancient weapon and the broken helmet placed beside it, the turian wondered if they'd see more of these where they were going and if yet more Oma Ker would be put to death with it. It was after all krogan that they were going to be fighting.
"The Sixth has finished boarding the assault crafts. Your commanders await your orders, General Quanos."
"Then I shall not keep them waiting," she replied, rising from the kneeling position and looking at the soldier behind her. Like all Oma Ker, a set of vertical yellow stripes marked both his face and the full-face helmet he was carrying in his hands and while his plates weren't the same pale green as hers, a trait inherited from the original settlers of the world, their brown colour did well to contrast his tattoos and green eyes. "What is the word on our warships?"
"Our escorts will arrive in six hours. The rest of our fleets will meet us at the relay a day ahead of schedule. The crews at Aephus volunteered to run extra shifts so that the initial delay could be reduced."
"Excellent," she nodded as she walked through the long hall and looked at the countless small compartments built into the wall. "What about the other Council forces?" This wasn't just a turian operation. Asari, salarians, humans, everyone was throwing their troops into the fire to attack the cloning facility STG had located.
"They're being pulled from all over the galaxy but they should arrive in time."
"Meaning our strike won't be delayed."
"Yes, General."
"Tell me, Major, how many of your ancestors rest here?" she wondered out loud as her footsteps echoed through the mausoleum.
"None, actually," he replied after some hesitation. "I'm not from here."
"Where are you from then?"
"Nowhere, Ma'am," the turian said.
"No one is from nowhere," she pointed out. "Tell me," it was as much a request as it was an order.
"I was born in the Terminus. Some run-down merc outpost outside of the Hierarchy," he sighed, visibly uncomfortable. "Like I said, nowhere."
"A bare-faced heritage, then," the general mused. It explained why his tattoos looked rough and uneven in the spots where the plates were thin and sensitive. They hadn't been made by a professional or a relative who knew what they were doing. He had done them himself, because he hadn't found anyone willing to do it for him. "Yet you choose to carry our marks and fight for our legions. Why?"
It told her a lot about him.
"Because Oma Ker's the only real home I've ever known. They were the ones who took us in when my mother had nowhere to go," the other turian offered. "Made it feel right to use these marks, even if I'm not really a born Oma Ker."
"No one is born an Oma Ker, Major," she explained as they stepped into the light of the distant sun responsible for the boreal climate of their planet. "Oma Ker are forged. War is our fire and battle our blacksmith." Although his rank would traditionally indicate that much, the times when every turian officer had fought in wars and earned his command with blood was long passed. And since he had only been transferred to her command from the auxiliaries a few weeks ago, she felt it necessary to ask. It would affect her strategy. "Have you battled yet?"
"Yes, Ma'am. I served in the Skyllian Blitz."
"A worthy campaign," she noted. "Where did you fight?" That was the most important questions. If he had just hidden behind the actual combat troops and never fired his weapon, he hadn't battled.
"I led a platoon of skirmishers, Ma'am. Salarians and batarians from the Terminus," so other outcasts like him. "We helped relieve Camelot. Ran interference on the batarian supply lines and helped take down some of their staging points. Lost some good men while we were at it."
That answer was enough to please her.
"Ignore the looks the younger officers will give you," she advised as they walked to the shuttle. "They might not know it but you and the men you led are more Oma Ker than most of them. It will be my honor to fight with you, Major Kryik."
"Thank you, General. The honor's all mine."
Codex: Turian Auxiliary Corps
Just like the other corps of the turian military, the auxiliaries are troops attached to but not actually part of a regular legion. Tasked with duties ranging from maintenance and logistics to reconnaissance and sabotage, the Turian Auxiliary Corps, despite its name, consists mostly of non-turians.
With only roughly twelve percent of non-Hierarchy born turians among its ranks, the majority of the TAC is made up by volus and Terminus-born salarians and batarians. Although asari recruits are accepted by the TAC, they and any other biotic auxiliaries are placed in specialized cabal teams and sent to the Turian Cabal Corps for further training and use. While not confirmed by any official sources and denied by most credible experts as outlandish, it is furthermore rumored that the TAC maintains a hanar task force consisting of several hundred religious exiles. These individuals are claimed to be trained for aquatic warfare in the same manner as depicted in the fictional film series 'Blasto'. (See Codex Entry 'Blasto')
Although the prospect of escaping certain parts of the galaxy is considered enough of a reason to join up with the TAC, the main pull for most auxiliaries is the fact that the end of the service whether by time, injury or death, earns them full Hierarchy Citizenship. Considering the difficulty of obtaining Council citizenship for Terminus natives and the rumored discrimination against certain species, enlistment with the TAC is considered the 'easiest' method of gaining entry into Citadel space for ones family.
It should be noted that upon the completion of service is not uncommon for the non-turian veterans of the corps to adopt a variation of turian facial tattoos.
While always having been a popular destination for batarians looking to escape their own government, the separation of diplomatic relations between the Council and the Batarian Hegemony and the destabilization of the latter following the Skyllian Blitz has caused a vastly increased number of batarians to flood into the ranks of the auxiliaries. With more of them finishing their terms and obtaining full citizenship every standard year, this combined with the already existing batarian communities on turian colonies has led to the creation of an entirely new subculture within the Hierarchy's colonies and cities. As masses of batarian children are born free of the tyranny their parents fled from, growing up alongside their turian peers and being raised in a strange blend of both cultures, the question of how they are to be included in the mandatory civic service has been raised.
While in the past most of these children choose to follow in their parents footsteps and join the auxiliary troops to make up for their lack of access to the traditional path of young turian adults, law givers all over the Hierarchy have began to point that from a pure legal perspective, this growing number of eligible and willing citizens have a right and a responsibility to be included in the mandatory thirteen-year service.
As of now, the exact outline of how this will be achieved has been moved to the Council of Law Givers on Palaven.
A/N:
In advance, let me apologize for the chapter title. I just had to, no matter how often its been done.
Nihlus arrived!
Better late than never, right?
So for some reasons I may or may not outline, his life went similar... but still very different from canon. Now obviously Anderson took his place as Saren's protege but as to why he ended up in the auxilaries and with a very different "home planet", that's a story for another time. Although I'm sure you can piece it together. Merc Camp. Terminus. SV-Timeline. You got this.
Other than that, we are taking big steps to the Battle of Virmire. I intentionally left it vague how many days pass after Kirrahe does his thing because well, I like vagueness.
Other than that that... not really a lot to say, there are a couple of words (and people) in this chapter that are building to ME 2 already. I feel like the EDI shoutout was obvious but what probably wasn't is that those two science guys are going to turn up again. But more on that when we get there.
Other than that that that, yeah. Garrus confrontation (check) Council Summit (Check), we're cleaning up the plot threads nicely.
Also I just had to mess with you by giving Saren that moment of clarity/amnesia. I couldn't resist it, sorry. (To this day I still regret what I had to do to him.. he was such a nice dude in SV.)
So yeah.
That's most of what I have to say.
Review and let me know what you think.
For the record we're at 543 reviews, 840 favorites, 936 follows.
See you around next time.
