Chapter 98. The Journey Across The Mind


15. April 2417 AD, Sahrabarik System, HSASV Normandy, CIC

Shepard looked at the enlarged hologram of the glowing-red Omega-Four Relay and narrowed her eyes. She felt like the Collectors that were hiding just beyond this impassable gate were taunting her. They were ravaging their way across the colonial frontier of the HSA and she was powerless to do anything about it until Cerberus figured out how the Normandy could cross the threshold of the relay without suffering the same fatal fate as the countless other explorers who had dared to jump through the red-glowing structure. While she'd been collecting her team, she'd been able to ignore the frustration caused by her inaction. But now that she was back to where they had started and waiting for General Arterius to show up to their rendezvous, Shepard felt it clawing at her insides. She'd never been one to sit around comfortably while bad things happened. That just wasn't who she was.

"You know that staring at it won't magically explode the relay, right?" she heard Leng say from behind her. While she'd promised Callius to talk to Leng about what had happened on Illium, Emily hadn't actually found the time to do so yet – or at least that's what she'd been telling herself for the last three days. If she was honest with herself, her hesitation was probably rooted in the fact that her talking to Leng about his 'outbursts' would mean that she'd admit to herself that the man had changed in the last two years. Although the idea of her friends becoming different, arguably worse people was already bad enough, her acknowledging that Leng had changed also required her to acknowledge that she really had spent two years being dead, something that she'd briefly registered and then subsequently buried and ignored ever since waking up on Cronos Station.

"Can't fault a girl for trying," Emily retorted before spinning around to face the other N7. He was wearing the standard black-grey digital camo trousers and an onyx-black shirt that clearly displayed his membership to the Naval Special Operations Command and smiled the same friendly smile he always carried around with him. On the surface that made him immediately approachable and likeable. But with Callius' narration of the events at Dantius Towers and her own recollection of what she'd seen Leng do ever since waking up, it started to seem somewhat more sinister. She briefly met the marine's dark eyes and told herself that it really was just his temper acting out. Then a voice in the back of her head told her that the Leng she used to know wouldn't be cheerful and upbeat after losing control and that 'having a temper' hadn't him mistreat prisoners of war back before she'd left for the Normandy.

"You know we'll get them eventually, right? Cerberus' is gonna find a way," he offered confidently.

"I'm not worried that they won't find a way, I'm worried that by the time they do, it'll be too late," she sighed before looking to the armory and taking heart. She couldn't run away from this forever. "Kai, can we talk for a minute?"

"Sure. But isn't that what we're doing right now anyways?" She looked around at various crew members and then nudged her head to the armory, the lab or the conference room – whichever happened to be free. He clearly got her intention. "Oh. Okay. I get it. The private kind of talk," he stated. "Sure, lead the way."

Since the lab was occupied by Mordin - who was busy perfecting the countermeasure and walking the line between genius and madman – and the armory, Leng's usual spot, had gotten claimed by Callius for 'maintenance' of her gear – which looked strangely like she was trying to build her own ammo mods - the two N7 had found their way into the conference room that Shepard usually only used for briefings or chats with Harper.

"This is about what happened at the towers, isn't it?" Leng opened the conversation in the exact second that the doors had closed behind him.

"Yes," she nodded. "How'd you know?"

"Callius is a stickler for rules, there's no way she wouldn't tell you about our little clash. And once you hear about something that's bothering you -" the N7 trailed off before plopping down in a chair and leaning back. "Before you say anything, I just want to clarify one thing. I wasn't going to kill them. This was just about disarming the threat and making sure they don't shoot us in the back, nothing more, nothing less," he reasoned and she wanted to believe him immediately. But with the way Callius had described things, namely that Leng had snapped and acted out of pure impulse, she couldn't do that, at least not in good conscience.

"Let me just get one thing straight, I can see why you'd want to take the guards out of the equation," she did. At least kind of. Since Leng was her friend, she was walking a thin line herself right about now. "But that still doesn't explain the way you did it. The way Callius tells it, you just sort of exploded back at the towers. Losing control like that is dangerous. You know that," she retorted.

"I didn't explode or snap," Leng replied. "I just figured we were running out of time and decided to take them by surprise. That's all that was. Me seizing initiative," he deflected casually before raising his arms defensively. "I obviously get why she'd think I snapped. It definitely looked impulsive to anyone who wasn't me," he went on convincingly. "But I positively did not snap. You have my word on that, Em."

She wanted to say 'okay' and break this off. Case close, old friend unchanged. It would be a pleasant way to end this conversation.

But then something else rolled of her tongue.

"Okay. Explain the merc then."

"The what now?"

"The salarian back on Korlus."

Leng raised an eyebrow.

"I'm not sure I get what you're saying."

She sighed and helped him to get up to speed.

"The one who's leg you were about to break before I stopped you. You know, the one the Suns straight up shot the second I handed him over."

For what might have been the first time in their careers, Leng seemed to take offense at what she'd said.

"One, I didn't do anything to him you didn't tell me to," that wasn't true. She hadn't ordered him to do anything to the salarian, "and two, you didn't seem to have a problem a problem with giving him a little convincing pain before. As I recall, you only told me to stop when it started to look ugly."

"That was different," she responded without thinking in an attempt to justify how long she'd tolerated Leng mistreating a POW in front of her – something that would've made her an accomplice in any HSA court. She regretted it immediately, because much like Leng's first statement, that also wasn't true. He picked up on her slip-up immediately. She couldn't offer an answer and they both knew it.

"We both know it wasn't," he pointed out before pinching his nose. "Where is this even coming from, Em? You never had a problem with how I did things before you left for the Normandy. What changed?"

"Everything," she muttered in a low voice before meeting his eyes. "You. Me. Everyone," she repeated before it suddenly burst out of her. "Two years ago, I knew where you'd draw the line. I could rely on that. But then I died and came back and woke up to a world that's really fucking different than the one from two years ago and the people I used to know all changed drastically," Leng, Wrex and Garrus were clear examples and what little she had seen from Liara and heard about Alenko also suggested that the asari and the biotic hadn't exactly stagnated either. "That's what changed."

Leng's features softened and he mumbled something to himself before getting up from his chair.

"I was starting to wonder when you'd finally admit that it's eating you up," he said before shrugging. "I'd say I get what you're going through, but that'd be a big, fat lie. I never died and came back and honestly? I don't plan on doing it anytime soon either," he went on. "But just because I never pulled off a miracle-maneuver before," - that statement felt like a huge discredit to all the people she figured had worked day and night to put her back together – "doesn't meant that I don't understand why you're worried that the world's moved on without you. You died, missed two years and then you got thrown right back into the shit. That's a lot for any one person to deal with and honestly, I'm amazing it took you this long to admit to anyone that it's messing with your head," he reasoned, somehow managing to maneuver his way out of the whole 'I am worried you turned into an impulsive war criminal while I was dead' – discussion that they had just had. If it wasn't working so good, she might have been impressed by how smooth that turn-around had been before calling him out for it.

"Em, what's going through your head right now is human. But I'm still same-old me and if I'm acting any different to before, then it's because we're literally trying to stop the apocalypse right now. That's bound to blur the lines for anyone, no matter how much they like to think they've got a code," he said with a sigh that led her to believe that there was more to his statement.

"That sounded personal," she pointed out.

"It is. I've had to make a lot of compromises after you left."

"Like?" she asked curiously.

"That's a story for another time," he deflected again before looking to the ceiling. "You've got a shit-ton of stuff on your plate already and I definitely don't want to add you worrying about me snapping to that list. What happened with the merc on Korlus and the guards at the Towers won't repeat itself, you've got my word on that," he said before stuffing one hand in his pocket and putting the other on her shoulder. "I'm still same-old-me," he repeated. "And that means that you can talk to me if there's something that's eating you up the way this whole Lazarus business is," he stared at her emerald green eyes and while she was certain that the gesture was meant to be reassuring; it didn't.

With the way that he held the gaze though, she wasn't so sure if Leng noticed it. At first she figured that the uncomfortable feeling was stemming from Leng's arguments hitting home for her and ribbing off the band aid she'd put over her own death, near-death, or whatever it truly had been.

But the more she thought she put into that, the more she became convinced that there was something else to it. The way he'd reacted to this whole ordeal and how he'd smoothed over what were essentially two cases of war crimes were making her uneasy and despite his claims about being the 'same-old-him', Emily was beginning to think that the compromises he talked about ensured that he wasn't the same Leng she'd left alongside the rest of her unit.

She wouldn't say that out loud though. At least not yet. With the whole Lazarus-worries bursting out of her, now hardly was the time to address the notion that one of her oldest friends had gone through an unknown but radical shift.

Leng held his gaze a second longer and then patted her shoulder and turned to the door.

"Ever since I've known you, you always carried the weight of the world on your shoulders. It's admirable and it makes people want to follow you to the gates of hell," he said. "But you never knew when to stop carrying and start sharing in time. You only ever asked for help when it's crashing down on you and I don't think dying changed that," he went on. "Like I said, I don't want you to have to worry about me. All I need from you is that you know that I'll be there when you're ready for help."

And just like that, the N7 petty officer walked out of the room after turning their discussion about his behavior into an analysis of her own fears.

Damn.

When the hell had Leng become such a smooth talker?

And since when was she one to get verbally outmatched?

She shook her head clear of the outburst and decided that she needed some serious sorting-out before she'd go for round two of the war crime discussion.

But before she could settle for a time to do that, EDI's voice came through the intercom.

"Commander, the THS Parnack has just entered the system and proposed docking coordinates. How would you like to respond?"

She sighed.

"Acknowledge and go ahead with the procedure."


Twenty-One Minutes Later, 15. April 2417 AD, HSASV Normandy

"It's definitely bigger than the old one," Alenko whistled as he, Liara, General Arterius and the general's remaining honorguard stepped through the co-joined airlocks. Bau had chosen to remain behind, only offering a hasty and vague 'need to work on something else' excuse to explain his absence. Knowing the salarian, he simply didn't want to partake in a formal meeting, especially not if it involved a turian general, two human officers, an asari doctor and whoever else with a rank worth mentioning might attend. Despite being a Spectre for years, Bau had apparently never managed to move past his status as an STG corporal and as such, he seemed to hate hanging around in the company of anyone higher than the NCO paygrade.

Despite the absence of his mentor, Alenko smiled at Liara walking next to him. It was good to be back on the Normandy. Even if it wasn't technically the same ship, the nostalgia had certainly kicked in for him. "I like the mater paintjob and the frosted alloys, it's more nuanced than the Normandy I, don't you agree."

"I'm afraid that as long as your people refuse to use bluer shades of light, I'll find every human ship to be offensively bright."

"Actually, the turian engineers picked the shade of light," he pointed out.

"Why would you torture yourself like this?" Liara said towards Arterius.

"The brighter the light, the less likely it is that the crew members get tired during their shifts," General Arterius reasoned before all three of them came to a halt in front of Lieutenant Callius, someone Kaidan only vaguely remembered from their mission two years ago. From what he understood, the former cabal was now the liaison officer aboard Shepard's craft and also her XO. Quite a climb on the trust scale for a stranger. Then again, she'd probably earned it.

"General, Doctor, Captain, Sergeants," she greeted with a salute, first looking at Arterius, then Liara, then him and then Galviat and Veltax.

"Lieutenant," General Arterius returned with a salute of his own.

"The commander's waiting in the conference room," she said before looking at the two turians walking behind them. "It's good to see that you managed to keep them in one piece."

Alenko couldn't be sure if he imagined the smirk that crossed Arterius' plated jaw or if the general really had just offered the first actual emotional reaction outside of fury and determination ever since the two had reunited on New Canton.

"You know me, Lieutenant, I don't break things I borrowed," he replied before glancing at Galviat. "Even if those things try their hardest to break themselves."

"What did you do, Sergeant?" Callius sighed.

"A bad drop from the Parnack here, a sonic attack there. The usual," the tall turian shrugged.

"And some more," Arterius added. "I distinctively remember you nearly falling to your death when we climbed out of the Collector ship."

"As far as I'm concerned, that never happened. I just took a little stumble to test my reflexes," Galviat responded before all four seemed to remember that they were out in the public and that Arterius was a general, at least on paper. "Uhm, as I was saying, it never happened, Sir," Galviat added quickly as if to hide the strictly informal relationship from the human crewmembers. It only produced another smirk from Arterius.

"Keep telling that to yourself and it might eventually become true."

While he'd already suspected that General Arterius' relationship to his honor guard wasn't exactly what one would expect from a general and his 'low-ranking' grunts, the last couple of days had made Kaidan certain that Arterius and the three soldiers shared something more than the strictly professional relationship between a legion commander and his soldiers. Considering that they all seemed to be around the same age, the newly minted Spectre chose to believe that they had once been a Blackwatch team of their own before Arterius had risen through the ranks and dragged them along for the ride.

They crossed the few meters between where Callius had met them and where the conference room was and came to halt in front of an opened door labeled 'conference room'. He was about to step through, but then Liara stopped him just before he could see into the room. This also caused Arterius and his guard to stop, albeit only out of curtesy.

"This will be the first time you see the commander since Virmire, correct?" the asari asked.

He hadn't actually thought about that.

"Yeah, I think so. Why?" Alenko retorted.

"I just want to prepare you for the fact that what happened left an impact on her. Lazarus brought her back, but no one returns from the dead without some scars on them. Not even her," the asari archeologist sighed. "Be ready for that."

"I am."

Liara nodded and then the three stepped into the crowded room.

He had expected to find Shepard, but instead of immediately spotting the red-haired N7 – who seemed absent from the room- Alenko was treated to the sight of a tall, red-orange skinned salarian, a brunette woman in BAR armor, an Asian man he recognized as Shepard's long-time friend and comrade Petty officer Leng, a light-blue asari in dark-red armor that could barely be described as such, a light-green drell with a dark longcoat and a turian who looked like he had kissed a missile with his face and immediately reminded him of-

"I'll be damned. Garrus Vakarian," the turian peaked up at the mention of his name and his small eyes lit up as he looked at Alenko.

"Is that you, Alenko?" He jumped to his feet and crossed the conference room with a few hasty steps as if he needed to get closer and check from up-close if it really was him.

"Damn right it," he said before the two shook hands, the whole mess with Alenko believing Garrus to spy on Shepard for the Council – and being right about it – long since having turned into water under the bridge. "Christ. It's been how long? Two years?" he chuckled. "The last time I saw you, I was bleeding out in Saren's base on Virmire," he subconsciously touched his torso where one of the related injuries had scared over.

"And the last time I saw you, I was sure I'd have to attend another funeral," he noted before glancing at the Spectre insignia on Alenko's armor and the captain bars next to it. "I don't usually say this, but spirits am I glad to have been wrong about that one. You moved up in life. Congratulations, Captain," Garrus said before spinning his head towards Liara. "Sorry for showering Alenko with all the attention, Doctor, it's just that the last time I saw you, you weren't dying."

"Not to worry, I understand that the reunion with Kaidan would be the one you'd be more excited about," Liara responded, using his first name. It was something she'd started doing the moment after their mindmeld – which was the reason they were here to begin with - had been finished. It had been the same back when she'd done this with Shepard, so Kaidan simply figured that it was something she did unintentionally - not that he minded though.

"Still, kind of rude to pass you over," Garrus said before scratching his injured face. Unlike Kaidan, who had the social competence required to realise that asking about an injury like that wasn't exactly acceptable, the asari scientist simply blurted out what was on her mind.

"No offense taken," she said with a kind smile. That was the acceptable part of her reply. "Forgive me if I intrude on a personal matter, Detective, but what exactly happened to your face? The last time we met, you hadn't been injured like this and while I'm no expert, it looks recent," she pointed out, prompting everyone in the room to look at her and Garrus. For a second it was silent enough to hear a pin drop.

Then the turian let out a chuckle.

"That's a long story. And it actually isn't Detective anymore," he began before smashing his palm against Alenko's shoulder pauldron and presumably forgetting that his armor was motion-amped. The hit stung. "Let's just say that I couldn't help myself but go along with the scar-trend Shepard, Wrex and Alenko set. I like to think of it as matching tattoos to remind me of all the fun we had together," he ran his finger along the surgical graft that covered the worst of the injury.

"Does that mean I also need to get a scar?" Liara retorted jokingly, prompting Garrus to shrug.

"Only if you want to," he offered. "In all seriousness though, I took a gunship round to the face while playing vigilante on Omega. Looking back on it, it was quite a stupid way to get half my face blown off."

Alenko remember a classified Spectre report he'd read some time ago. It had been about Blue Suns activity on Omega.

"Hold up," he muttered. "You're Archangel?"

"Yes, but don't say that so loud out here," the turian said before making a gesture he only could've picked up from being around humans, then he glanced over his shoulders. "We're just a few hundred thousand kilometers away from Omega. Aria T'Loak might hear you."

"Actually, sound can't travel through space-" Liara began before a pair of footsteps stopped behind them.

"Oh, great. You're all here," a familiar voice declared. It was quieter and lower than Alenko remember, but still, there was no doubt about it.

He turned on his heel and faced his old CO.

"Shepard," he said with a stunned, surprised tone before being reminded of Liara's words.

Back when they'd been chasing after Saren, he had looked at Shepard– a lot, to be precise. The long auburn hair, emerald green eyes, pretty, freckled face, perfectly athletic figure and her all-round charisma and heroic nature had assured that she was the perfect package of everything he found attractive. He'd always liked her and if Virmire hadn't taken him out of commission – and if she hadn't been his CO – he might've even tried his luck. Might. Because of that prolonged observation, Alenko immediately noticed what Liara was talking about.

He took one look at Shepard and noticed everything that had changed. Her hair was longer and looked like it had lost some of its red color and her face was pale and lined with faint-glowing, orange surgical scars that overshadowed her freckles. Additionally, her frame seemed to have become simultaneously more slender and bulkier, as if someone had replaced her muscles with steel. And finally, most noticeably, her emerald eyes had dimmed. Other than that, she looked like she hadn't aged a day since he'd gotten shot to a pulp by Arterius.

While telling a woman who was going towards thirty that they didn't look a day past 26 would've been a compliment for most people, considering that Shepard had practically died and had in fact missed out on two birthdays and only barely been revived in time for the third one, Alenko knew that in her case it was nothing but another painful reminder to what had happened.

"It's good to see you, Alenko," the N7 said with a smile that looked both relieved and somewhat broken. "You too, Liara."

Huh. People really were making a trend out of passing Liara over in favor of him, weren't they?

"And you too, General Arterius."

Or the turian.

Then again, Shepard had actually met both of them, hadn't she?

"Likewise," Liara responded in unison with Arterius' acknowledging nod.

"I know I'm starting to sound like I broken record at this point," Shepard said into the room and towards him in particular, "but while I'd love to do nothing but catch up, that's not why we're here," she quickly introduced the crew she had collected to the three of them – in Alenko's mind the assassin she had picked up was the most questionable choice – and then explained to Arterius that she had brought all of them here because she figure that the people she had collected to stop the Collectors would also be able to help them with whatever weakness they might have discovered regarding the Reapers. Much to Alenko's surprise, Arterius simply accepted that an assassin, a vigilante and an asari justicar would be part of this discussion and left the stage for Liara to explain.

As he'd expected from the asari, her explanation of everything that had transpired since Arterius had arrived on New Canton – Arterius' run-in with the Harbinger, Alenko's run-in with the beacon and her own run-in with the message in Alenko's head – escalated itself into a three and a half hour long monologue and crash-course on the Reaper history that was helped along with an incredibly detailed holo-slideshow she had apparently made 'to productively pass the time of the flight from Menae after finishing her work for SLD early'. After everything was concluded, a single word written in several galactic languages hang in the air in the middle of the conference room. To Alenko it was familiar. But to the rest of the crew –

"What the hell's a Crucible?" the young, brunette Biotic Assault Regiment officer, Jack, asked out loud.

- it didn't mean anything.

"Excellent question," Liara clapped her hands, as if she was back in a university holding a class, instead of briefing them on how to stop the galactic apocalypse. "Given the context of the message, I believe that this Crucible the being spoke of is some kind of weapon or maybe even an synthetic entity similar to the artificial intelligences of the Reapers that possesses the means and the will to help us fight them."

"Yeah but didn't that funky oil guy also say that it was scattered all over the galaxy?" the BAR officer asked again. "If it's so important, why would it be scattered?"

'Funky oil guy'.

The longer he thought about it, the more he realized that that was actually a very accurate description of what he'd talked to.

"If you look at it from the prothean perspective, it makes sense, don't you think?" Garrus suddenly injected. "I mean if I were to build an all-powerful weapon and put all my money on it being the way to win my Reaper-War, I wouldn't put all my hard-shelled children in one location either," he paused and looked at Shepard while every human in the room cringed. "That's how the human saying, goes, right?"

The pale N7 smiled while the Kaidan and Nader bit their lips and Leng snorted.

"Not at all, but we get what you're trying to say," she responded before biting her lip. "The way I understand it, the protheans didn't exactly get the chance to put this Crucible thing together, right? They were missing their catalyst and this kaleidoscope thing."

Liara nodded.

Alenko could see that there was something on Shepard's mind. As previously established, he'd observed her closely enough to get a feeling for what was going through her head. Or at least he liked to think that he did.

"If there's something on your mind, Commander, you should just say it," he offered formally. She met his eyes and nodded.

"I'm still trying to make sense of that riddle you said the prothean gave to you," the N7 explained. "Begin where it all started," she repeated. "Begin where what started? What's he talking about? The protheans themselves? Their war? Ours? Or just your beacon encounter," she listed. "I don't know what protheans considered funny, but hiding the weapon that can stop the Reapers behind a stupid riddle just seems plain wrong to me. Suspicious even."

"What are you implying?" the raspy voice of the drell assassin injected. It was the first words he'd spoken besides 'greetings' when Shepard had introduced him.

"I really hate to be the one to bring this up, but you did get this out of a Collector beacon," she folded her hands and the cautious way she said the word 'Collector' already told Alenko where this was going. "Have any of you considered that this might be a part of the Harbinger's plan? That he's using the Collectors to send us on a wild goose chase for something that doesn't even exist?"

"The thought had crossed my mind prior to the meld," Liara replied. "But as soon as I made the connection and felt the familiarity between the message Captain Alenko received from the Collector Beacon and the one you received back on Eden Prime, I became convinced that it was in fact sincere."

The drell blinked at him, his eyelids moving horizontally.

"Didn't Saren Arterius access the beacon prior to you?" he asked Shepard.

"He did," Shepard confirmed.

Again, the drell blinked.

"Has the possibility of sabotage ever been brough up?" he asked calmly.

"What do you mean?" Arterius retorted.

"From what I understand, these Reapers have the capacity to manipulate minds and the ability to formulate well thought-out, extremely long-term-oriented plans," there was a hint of admiration in his voice, wasn't there? "So what's to say they didn't use your brother to plant another false lead in the beacon in anticipation of us having this very discussion?" he looked at the General, who's icy blue eyes seemed to drill their way through the drell's skull. But other than his stare, he didn't seem to react to the statement in any way. Kaidan honestly couldn't say if he'd been this calm if he were in Arterius' shoes.

"Reapers display incredibly high level of intelligence," the salarian, Mordin Solus," suddenly injected. "But can't predict future. Inherent trait of future is that it does not exist yet. Assumptions abouts its course made possible by analysis of data, yes. But accurate prediction of actions taken by individual organics with own agency and capacity for higher thinking? Impossible to achieve for anyone. Even them."

"Yet they somehow annihilated every other species that came before our own," Samara, the justicar, retorted. "Maybe thinking of them as an entity that follows the same rules as we do is a faulty assumption?"

"Implying supernatural element to their existence?" the salarian scientist asked quickly.

"I cannot think of a clearer definition of a supernatural being than the Reapers. They seem to defy everything we know," the older asari argued. "And they did annihilate the galaxy successfully more times than any of us can count."

"Inaccurate assessment based on lack of perspective and intel. Brute force, superior technology and refined tactics are only factors required for successful repetition of cycle. Granting them a supernatural status for achieving perfectly reasonable goals only gives them more power over us. Suggest that you refrain from calling them anything but what they are; refined machines of war created by advanced technology."

"You sound very confident in your assessment of something neither of us fully understand, Doctor Solus," the asari pointed out.

"Second inaccurate assessment. All of us perfectly capable of understanding Reapers. Simply lack source material needed to do so. Nothing defies science. Reapers grounded to same rules as us. Example. Did not understand quantum calculus until I was nearly seven, yet never believed it to be supernatural. Only beyond my temporary understanding. You're making mistake of considering lack of knowledge for lack of explanation. Dangerous misconception- "

"While I'd love to continue the philosophical discussion on the nature of our enemy," General Arterius interrupted, "I have to admit that Shepard and Krios raise a valid point. How likely is it that this is deceptive warfare?" he looked at Liara, who was standing at the head of the table.

"While I agree with Doctor Solus in the fact that I don't think that the Reapers are capable of predicting the future, I cannot scientifically rule out the possibility of this not being a ruse. Like you said, Mister Krios and Commander Shepard are right. There is a possibility of sabotage and it is very convenient that we'd find something like this on a Collector ship of all places," Kaidan saw Liara curl up her fists and somehow he could tell what she was about to say. "But since I melted with my mother to learn the location of the Mu-Relay and have thus gathered some experience in getting a taste of what indoctrination and the Reaper's interference feel like," what a beautifully strange way to phrase what had happened on Noveria, "I can confidently say that I believe this message to be sincere in nature. It was a final act of defiance against the Reapers and their attempt at interrupting and suppressing it proves that they did not want us to learn what the beacon passed on to Captain Alenko."

Liara seemed to let the words sink in. When no more interruptions occurred, she got a nod from Arterius and continued. "Even if we can rule out a deception, we still have to find the Crucible and to that end, we have to crack the riddle," the asari looked into the vague direction of Shepard. "To that end, I was hoping for your help."

"Me?" the red-haired N7 responded after realizing that Liara was definitely not talking about Leng or Garrus. "Don't get me wrong, Liara, I'll do whatever you need me to," she explained. "I'm just not sure what it is that I can actually do."

"I think you are the best guess we have to find out where exactly it started. Or rather, the Cipher in your head is," the asari quickly explained. "I was hoping that if I were to pass the message I received from Captain Alenko up to you, it might make more sense or unlock its true contents."

Kaidan raised an eyebrow.

This was the first time he was hearing about this plan and judging from Arterius' look, the same could be said about the general.

"Does that even work?" Shepard responded.

"Our kind has passed on knowledge this way ever since the first generations," Samara offered, skeptically eyeing Liara in a way that was not unlike a mother reacting to her child telling her that it could fly. "What you propose is an option, but I am not sure if you're experienced or skilled enough to successfully act as a relay for a memory transfer."

"I studied the process. I believe I am ready," Liara spoke confidently.

"And if you are wrong, you might accidentally blur the boundaries of what you're looking for. You could co-join their emotions to your own or permanently damage both their memories and their minds," the justicar looked at Shepard. "I mean no offense to your friend, Shepard, but I still request that you let me act as the relay. The dangers of an unexperienced asari attempting what the doctor proposes are," she glanced at Liara with the same skeptical look from earlier, "unreasonably high."

"Liara," Shepard responded, prompting the younger asari to peak up. "Will it work if you're not the one doing it?"

"Yes, but if I am not the one executing the transfer, I won't be able to directly supervise it or personally look for what we need. We might miss something crucial that way," her shoulders dropped visibly. "But the Justicar still has a point. Unlike her, I can't promise you a completely safe transfer. Every experience I have on that matter is theoretical and the location of a Reaper-ending weapon isn't exactly the place to start experimenting," she let out a sigh and then looked at Samara. "You are right, Justicar. You should do it."

"A wise decision well beyond someone of your age," the justicar nodded respectfully. "Yet it is not I that has to make it," then she looked at Shepard and Kaidan and allowed the room to drift into contemplative silence.

It remained that way before a turian cough interrupted it.

"I know I'm not involved in all this reaper-mind melding stuff, but I think it's better to miss a thing or two than to have both of you end up in a vegetative state," Garrus injected. "But that's just my healthy sense of self-preservations peaking. Feel free to ignore it," he said, not receiving a response. "Okay. Back to contemplative silence. Sorry."

Shepard met his eyes from across the room. Like him, she'd probably been considering if she trusted Liara enough to manage the meld or if she wanted to play it safe.

Unlike him she was smart enough to not just consider her own perspective.

"How do you want to do it?" she asked cautiously, probably already having made up her mind.

"Garrus does sort of have a point, I like not being vegetative," Kaidan said with a shrug but then turned towards Liara. "But I trust Liara. She fixed you when the Cipher messed you up and she sorted me out after New Canton."

"Good, so we're on the same page then," Shepard nodded before looking at Liara. "Are you comfortable with doing this?" again, the N7 didn't seem to be as concerned about her own well-being as she was about that of other people. Death might've changed her outward appearance, but it certainly hadn't made her a different person. That was a huge relief. Back when he'd been asked to become a Spectre in case Shepard didn't come back, Cerberus had also presented the argument that even if she did make it through Lazarus, she could come back wrong.

"Like I said, everything I read on the matter is highly theoretical and I've never actually done it in practice before. So the justicar raises a valid point when she says I lack the practical experience to assure you that nothing will happen-"

"Liara, there's a first time for everything," Shepard began.

"But the location of the Crucible-"

"Is so important to find out that the risk of you frying either of our brains is acceptable," Kaidan finished. "Just think about it for a second. Even if Samara misses just one seemingly insignificant thing, which I think is very likely, no offense," the older asari only nodded politely," then that could already be it. It could be the one thing that you need to find the Crucible and you'll never know about it." From the look on Liara's face alone he could tell that she was regaining the earlier confidence into her plan. Good. She wouldn't have had it if she'd actually believed that there was a chance she'd hurt either of them. "We need to risk this and I wouldn't want anyone else to sort out my Collector-induced visions," he finished.

"He's right. You're the only one who can do this, Liara," Shepard added reassuringly.

The asari nodded, prompting Arterius to speak up.

"It's decided then. We'll try it your way," his voice flanged through the room, prompting Garrus to sigh and stand up.

"Fantastic. I'll warn Doctor Chakwas that we're back to experimental mind games."

"Chakwas is here too?" Kaidan wondered out loud.

"Yes. And she's about to have a pretty bad deja-vu," the turian exhaled before walking over to the intercom where a small blue orb popped up. "EDI?"

"I have already briefed Doctor Chakwas," an artificial voice replied.

Interesting.

He'd ask about that later.


Ten Minutes Later, 2158 CE, HSASV Normandy, Med-Bay

"Ready?" Liara asked cautiously towards the two humans with which she'd formed a three-person circle surrounded by Leng, Garrus and the other four turians. They'd catch them, if they inevitably ended up passing out again.

"Whenever you are," Emily responded. Then both of them looked towards Kaidan.

"Yeah."

The young asari pulled in a breath, remembered every little detail of the paper she had read, sent an electric pulse through her body and-

- opened her darkened eyes.

"Embrace eternity."

Her previous mind melds had felt tranquil and send her to a white, calm void and she had expected this one to feel the same.

It didn't.

As soon as she'd send the impulse, it felt like she was thrown into freezing, raging waters. The minds of three people were crashing down on her and for a second, she felt like she was drowning in a mixture of the two humans' personalities, memories and emotions. It was like someone had loaded a shotgun with everything that made a person themselves and blasted it right at her. A complete overload of information.

In between the flickers of feelings, images and thoughts that were crashing down on her, she remembered the part of the paper that told her to get past this first phase of initial chaos and suddenly found herself standing in a field of snow outside of a very familiar building.

Peak 15.

While the place in her mind wasn't nearly as cold as Noveria, her breath still crystallized in front of her.

Why did she keep coming back to here?

And where were the two humans?

She took a step forward and felt the snow solidify underneath her feet as if it were the most real thing in the universe and not just a product of her own imagination. She took a look around to the various peaks of Noveria and noted the white storm approaching from the west. With nothing else to focus on and no other shelter inside, Liara simply set out towards the research complex.

It had to be there for a reason, no?

She walked through the snow for goddess knew how long- it certainly felt like hours- yet the only thing she got closer to was the storm. Peak 15 remained in the distance, no matter what she did.

When the frustration finally caught up with her, she exhaled a puff of air and looked around her. Only when she finished one spin around herself then did she notice that her foggy breath was now a shade of purple.

'But others heard our song. Vile and colorless beings with no song of their own', a distant and unfamiliar voice echoed across the snowy plane. 'The time of his coming is nigh, and his choir follows his every tune. Those shackled to his power will bring our silence.'

She looked around to see where, or rather from whom, this was coming from, but she couldn't see Emily or Kaidan.

'I helped you once, I can do it again,' this time it was clearly the N7's voice. Liara spun around and found that the snow underneath her feet had turned into pink mist as well. In the distance she could see Emily standing across from –

She rubbed her eyes at the sight.

- the rachni queen?

What was going on here?

'Find the instrument which those who only echoed in our time and those who sang to us through touch sought to construct and play it. Overshadow their sour tune. Stop the silent one. Stop their rhythm.'

An instrument?

Those who sang through touch?

Liara felt a jolt go through her body.

Was she talking about the-

'-the Crucible. They will be scattered over the galaxy just as they were during our cycle and during all those who walked before us,' it came from underneath her. Now the pink mist had turned into a pool of black liquid that was showing Kaidan and the four-eyed figure, or rather their reflection. Liara turned her head up and saw them standing on the ceiling, talking to one another alongside another version of herself. 'We never found the Kaleidoscope and never identified the Catalyst,' the words shook something awake in her and suddenly she was standing across from both humans and their conversation partners.

'You must find the harmony. It holds the answers you seek,' the rachni queen urged Shepard.

'Begin where it all started, only then you may find the end, the prothean ordered Alenko.

Then all four spun towards her and pierced her with their stares.

"You can avenge us. All of us," they said in unison. That part was old. "Return to the world that fell and unearth our vengeance. With it you will find the echoes that walked before."

Liara took a step forward and reached out to the redhaired N7. Just as she was about to reach her though, the black, shadowy prothean standing next to Alenko bled into the pool of liquid and then manifested again from the ground in front of her and stared at her with its four piercing eyes.

"Return!" it ordered with a shout that shook the bones in Liara's body with an insatiable anger.

She steadied herself.

"What are you talking about? Return to where?"

In response, the figure reached for her arm, grasped it and pulled hard enough to make it feel like he'd rip it straight off.

"Avenge us!" it yelled before exploding into sour tasting yellow smoke

Suddenly a large, imposing shadow that clearly resembled Sovereign appeared behind them and immediately made the rachni disappear into puffs of oily, black mist.

Sovereign.

The Reaper roared and flayed its tentacle-like appendages and then a blizzard of blood-red snow hit Liara. But just before everything turned red, she caught a glimpse of both Kaidan and Emily being captured by the now destroyed Eden Prime beacon. They were suspended in mid-air, caught in the same kind of shimmering field that had preserved the N7 after the destruction of the first Normandy. Before she could make sense of that, she was back in Peak 15 and observing an argument she had no memory of.

'She asked me to do it,' Emily's voice said while looking at a human in battered grey armor. He looked like he had picked a fight with both a biotic metal grinder and an incinerator plant and then subsequently won, albeit barely. Despite the exhaustion and pain that he was radiating just by standing, he seemed composed and determined. It was impressive-

'If you shoot her mom in front of her, there's a chance she won't give you the intel. We can't risk that.'

A chill ran through her blood and she took a step away from the man. Any thoughts of admiration she had had, had just vanished and been replaced with disdain. Much like Peak 15, it seemed like he too haunted her melds: a wraith in the shape of her mother's murderer.

'She'd never do that,' the N7 responded before a flash of another scene else crossed Liara's mind. It looked like she was observing a person through a golden filter that separated both of them. Again, she was looking at a human. His armor glinted with spots of amethyst and his palm was pressed against the barrier – the stasis field of the Collectors, she realized. Instinctively, she reached out as well, but after a second of the field turning hot to the touch, Liara impulsively pulled back her own hand. Then she felt an electric tingle and watched as field flashed red. The person on the other side got blown across the room and landed with his back against a destroyed eezo tank. Now she was staring at her own reflection as presented by the stasis field.

'You've known her for little more than a week. Care to bet the galaxy on those odds?' the man's voice echoed as he rolled off the force of the push he'd just received.

'She wouldn't,' Emily's replied.

The armored figure in front of her got up and cracked his neck, groaning something in a language she didn't speak.

'Merde.'

After a few seconds of consideration, he approached the field again as if he hadn't learned a thing from the experience. Again his voice froze her blood worse than Noveria ever could manage to do.

'How the fuck did you get in there- there- there,' it echoed.

She hadn't known the exact details of Shepard's rescue and if not for her own relation to the owner of the voice, she might have realized that the exact thing Samara had warned her about was happening right now. Their emotions were blurring together and mixing the memories of all of them.

She had to stop this. But as long as she was caught up in the moment, that wouldn't be possible.

The golden filter vanished and Liara once more switched locations. This time she was standing in a void of nothing. There was just no other way to describe her surroundings.

'Hold up. Doctor, I think she's coming back -back -back,' a weak voice informed.

'What? No! No! it's way too soon. If she wakes up now, she'd dead. Give me the sedative-, -tive, -tive,' a stronger one shouted before the floor under her feet gave way and Liara was dropped into an office and staring down a pair of blue, luminescent, husk-like eyes.

'If Shepard doesn't make it, we'll need someone to follow in her steps. Do you think you can do that, Lieutenant Alenko?' the eyes asked before smoke rose from underneath them. The echoing was gone now. But in its place, an eerie whistling had appeared.

'You make it sound like she's already dead.'

'As far as I'm concerned, she is. At least for the time being.'

'You're asking me to replace someone that's still around.'

'I'm asking you to prepare for the eventuality that she won't be much longer. Lazarus isn't a guarantee, it's our last Hail Mary. What's your answer?'

'I'll do what I'm ordered to.'

'I don't doubt you will. But is this something you want? This is not an assignment that I can force on someone, especially not if they aren't a part of Cerberus.'

'This isn't about what I want, Director. This about what needs to be done. We both know that. Where do I sign?'

'The papers are already finished. All I need is your verbal consent for the record.'

'You have it.'

'In that case, congratulations are in order. You just started your career as a Spectre, Agent Alenko.'

'I'm sure you understand when I say that I don't feel like celebrating.'

'Naturally.'

The office suddenly flashed blue and then turned blood red. Liara was now looking at two vaguely translucent, blood-covered figures kneeling next to a severely bleeding Kaidan Alenko.

'Ah shit. Medigel's not working and his vitals are dropping quicker than I can fix them,' a stranger spoke. 'I think that skullfaced-fucker hit him with lazed ammo. Miller, hit him with the injector. He needs adrenaline.'

'Hofmann, if we give him that, he'll bleed out quicker than we can get him to an evac shuttle,' a second stranger responded.

'If we don't get his system going again, all his organs are gonna stop working before we even get him out of the base. The bleeding's gonna kill him in five, his heart in one. Treat first what kills first. The injector, now!' the first ordered.

'Injecting adrenaline. Fuck, I hope this works,' the second human stated somberly before whispering. 'Do you think the captain survived the fall?'

'Miller, I need your head in the game here. Mav's taking care of Haugen. Right now we have to worry about this guy,' the first spoke. 'But yes, obviously I think he did. It's gonna take more than a little drop to kill Haugen- Oh crap. I think he just vomited blood. Help me turn him. We need to get that shit out of his lungs before he chokes on it-'

"Goddess," she muttered in shock. She hadn't been around when Alenko had gotten hit, so she had no idea how bad it actually been-

In an instinctual impulse, Liara slapped herself in the face.

She needed to stop this memory leakage before it overtook all of them. From what the paper had told her, that required her to anchor herself to something deeply personal rooted to no one but herself.

In the moment, she could only really think about one thing.

Unfortunately, that happened to be the most painful memory confined within her head.

While Kaidan was choking on his own blood in front of her, Liara closed her eyes and calmed her breath.

'No matter what I achieved in my life, you were my greatest gift to this world, Liara-'

A gunshot rang out and a wave of freezing water smashed into the asari. The sight of the injured soldier was gone and now she was looking at Emily, a healthy Kaidan and the annoyingly bright ceiling lights flooded her vision.

"Look who's up," Kaidan said first, allowing Liara to notice the throbbing pain in her head.

"Did it work?" she winced.

"You tell us. Did you find what you need?" Shepard asked before Liara realized what was now in her head and shot up.

"I need something to write!" she declared before realizing that a tablet was already being held out to her by General Arterius.

"This time, I came prepared," the turian assured her. "But you really ought to stop with the blacking out part of your experiments."

His remark didn't register for was far too occupied with typing.

'The world that fell.'

'Unearth our vengeance.'

'Sovereign.'

'Eden Prime.'

'Rachni Queen.'

She glanced at Shepard, who was looking at what she was writing.

"I honestly did not remember that happening until just now," she explained cautiously. "And even if I had, I definitely wouldn't have thought that it was anything other than a bad dream."

"Can't really fault you for that," Kaidan offered. "Who knew the rachni queen could invade your mind like this?"

"Or that she had survived Noveria at all," Arterius added. If she weren't so focused on her typing, she might have noticed the tension in the room or questioned how exactly the rachni queen had survived the neutron purge. But since she was trying to recite everything word for word, Liara never even bothered with something as insignificant as the N7 having lied to everyone on the Normandy to save the rachni species. She figured that in face of their fate at the hands of the Collectors, that was an insignificant discussion to have.

Her mind paused as she tried to recall how she could know this but then continued on when she remembered that Shepard's memories were now Kaidan's and her own as well and that they had likely suffered the same leakage as her.

After all, she still had some typing and a lot researching to do.

She needed to find the Crucible before the missing pieces of Sovereign that both Shepard and Alenko knew about fulfilled whatever role the Harbinger wanted them to fulfill.

Now she lowered the tablet entirely and felt a chill go down her spine.

… there were missing pieces and besides a few selected individuals - which she now belonged to by accident – no one knew about.

Materials capable of indoctrinating everyone who came in direct content with them had been left loose on the galaxy and beside the Council, no one was any wiser about that threat.

She looked at General Arterius and opened her mouth before her brain caught up with her actions and prevented her from speaking. Something told her she shouldn't mention that out loud. His reaction to that news might not be as nuanced as to the rachni.


One Day Later, 2158 CE, Menae, Installation 237

While Doctor T'Soni had left in a hurry after Arterius' arrival, Nihlus couldn't claim that she had abandoned her project. She might not be around at the time, but that had not stopped her from delivering her finalized results on the operation on Jasintho and comparing them to the findings of the other two reconnaissance missions that had taken place since.

As he read over them, Nihlus felt his yellow-marked plates itch. In addition to the fact that this was the result of him having tattooed those markings himself despite not having the hint of a clue of how it was done correctly, the itching was a direct response to what he was reading and the stress that came with the implications the information held.

For starters, they had been right. The spires were signaling beacons. Together, they were acting as a guiding light directed at … a collection of somethings… outside of the galactic rim. Given the fact that the intensity of their signals seemed to shrink in a noticeable manner – even though the readings had only been taken days apart – it was obvious that those somethings were moving. But without knowing their starting point or having any idea of when exactly the spires had first started transmitting, the entire scientific compartment of the project had agreed on one thing: They could not tell him when the somethings would arrive.

The former auxiliary officer scratched his face where the old, self-made vertical stripe tattoos met his left mandible and turned his attention on the second discovery Doctor T'Soni had outlined. While she seemed to have considered it an afterthought compared to what their mission was trying to achieve, the SLD general had the distinct impression that this was just as, if not even more, important than confirming the fact that the spires were beacons.

The spires produced a constant spectrum of infra and ultra-frequency sounds and projected waves of electromagnetic radiation.

Doctor T'Soni might not have been told this, which in retrospective was certainly a mistake, but one of those things was what the final report of the Saren Arterius investigation pointed out as the likely sources of his indoctrination.

Although not a lot of the Spectre's body had survived the incident at the Citadel Tower, the corpse that the first-responding TNI squad stationed on the station had found and secured had quickly been transported back to Palaven for examination. Once there, a specialized team of medical specialists had examined ever single cell of the tissue they'd been handed and determined that in addition to Arterius' brain literally having melted inside the skull of his metallic skeleton in response to being ran through by Shepard's combat knife, the remaining soup had contained levels of EM residue that would've surely caused Arterius to die a couple of hours later anyways. Right now Nihlus would've loved to go back and have the body checked for signs of ultra- and infra-sound – even though he had no idea if that was even possible to determine – there was the slight issue of Arterius' body having been incinerated two years ago and his remains having been chucked into the star Trebia a fortnight after the autopsy. According to the report, it had been sealed inside a container usually used to transport biological weapons and all staff involved in the operation – yes, even the janitor who'd swept the halls of the military hospital where they'd cut Arterius open - had entered a two-month lockdown in the wake of the operation with their surveillance still being continued to this day: just to be sure his remains hadn't indoctrinated anyone else.

Personally, he considered these measures to be extreme. But ever since losing the most famous Spectre they'd ever produced, the Hierarchy was not going to take the hint of a risk when it came to indoctrination. They'd already nearly ushered in one galactic end times, they weren't going to risk another.

Nihlus looked at the tablet lying on his desk and the terminal standing next to it that held all these state secrets. For a second, he considered sending T'Soni all of this on the off chance that it might lead to the asari scientist working a miracle and giving them a way to fight indoctrination.

But before he could make up his mind on the matter and commit high treason against the Primarch of Palaven, which in addition to possibly ending the entirety of SLD would've certainly seen him stare down a firing squad of Cipritine Hastati, Nihlus was distracted by something else. A small message had popped up in the frame of his terminal, originating from none other than the head of their reconnaissance effort.

They had identified another spire, one under construction.

But unlike the others, this one wasn't in batarian space. It was being built on Terminus soil, dangerously close to the part of the Attican Traverse that the humans had claimed as their frontier.

Nihlus narrowed his eyes.

If they were to ever get a chance to find out how these things worked, this was it.

They had to act fast.


Three Hours Later, 16. April 2417 AD, Menae, Installation 237

On her quest to locate Captain Haugen's unit, Miranda walked into the fitness room that the ASOC unit seemed to have taken up permanent residence in. While the humans were not the only ones inside the gym right now, it seemed to have attracted all operational elements of the task force, they were clearly the ones who had taken ownership of the musical department. Hence, Miranda wasn't even through the door when she was assaulted by the painfully loud noise of what these soldiers seemed to consider relaxing music. Although she spoke most human languages that were still used at a large enough scale, the aggressive background noise and weird accent made it hard for her to precisely identify what language the 'singer' was screaming in or what he was trying to tell the people listening to him. She wanted to say it sounded Nordic or Slavic in origin, up until English words that were shouted in a colonial accent stood out to her. Her brain caught up with what it was hearing, realized that the singer was switching between several languages and translated the blended and accented speech into something she could make sense of.

'Through our sacrifice, the eagle will fly. Don't be afraid, our blood is the prize we pay. Aquila invicta! Patria aeterna! Death or victory; that is our way. None more valued in the fray!'

'Charming', Miranda thought sarcastically as she considered the lingual blend.

Unless she was mistaken, which she wasn't since it was painfully obvious, that was most definitely one of the countless of TN-hardliner bands that had popped up on Terra Nova prior, during and after the Fringe Wars. This genre was about as old as the current political trend on humanity's oldest colony - so roughly sixty years - and usually sang the praises for everything military and pro-HSA. It could definitely be placed in the same camp as the people who would've gladly kept up the occupation of the Fringe Worlds to this day or had called for going all the way to Khar'shan to put Chairman Kar'Amon's head on a pike – or preferably, an eagle-shaped standard with an HSA banner wrapped around it - no matter how many lives that would've costed on either side.

In the grand scale of things, it was just your everyday, run-of-the-mill ultranationalist movement with Terra Novan roots. Three hundred years down the road, that really was nothing new or groundbreaking. Ever since its founding day the colony had bled the red-and-white colors of the HSA and practically turned obsessed with the golden eagle that served as humanity's sigil animal to the point where thee consecutive planetary administration had thrice tried and thrice failed to introduce un-altered eagle varieties to their biosphere, which obviously hadn't worked since Terra Nova -despite its name- wasn't nearly earth-like enough to allow terrestrial animals to live there. Only Arcadia and Eden Prime could hold that claim.

At this point the only thing Miranda was still surprised about when it came to Terra Nova was that the planet's populace managed to continuously produce borderline ideologies such as TN-hardliners while simultaneously being fanatically devoted to a system like the HSA's without seeing how those two value systems were at odds with one another. Additionally, it baffled her how a party like Terra Firma continued to fall flat on Terra Nova. On paper, they had all the talking points needed to mobilize humanity's most populated colony for their cause yet somehow they hadn't managed to dethrone the SAF from its continued dominance of the planet. In her mind that could only mean that the people in charge of Terra Firma were either ridiculously incompetent or that the majority of Terra Novans held the HSA in such a high regard that even the idea of ever voting for something other than the founding party of the Human Systems Alliance caused them physical pain.

'Dirt and mud will turn crimson and the eagle will soar! Always forward, always forth! Aquila invic-'

Miranda rolled her eyes and dialed down the music to zero before it could get to the part about crushing the IFS or 'murdering half of all four eyes to teach them not try another Blitz', or whatever other disproportionate form of retribution it was that this particular band wanted to advertise. With ultranationalists, one never knew what kind of radical and unrealistic demands you'd get. The only certainty was that it involved some flavor of call to drastic action; preferably of the violent kind.

Did these people even realize that the only thing separating them from their oh-so-hated 'four-eyes', Iffy-separatists or the Fringe Worlds-offshoots of the Terra Firma was the fact that they were challenging hate against the batarians, the IFS and only some aliens instead of the HSA and all aliens?

Sure, the big part of the movement had started to dial down on the 'weird space aliens' narrative after deciding that the turians were their new best friends. In fact, they'd even proposed that the HSA should really get itself a Vol Protectorate of their own, maybe in the shape and form of the elcor or the recently discovered avian Raloi species, which the asari were getting all cozy with. But despite that sudden burst of open-mindedness, the fact remained that TN-hardliners were considered hardliners for a reason. The underlying jingoism and authoritarian brush that their ideas held didn't just magically disappear. Neither did the fact that if it were up to them, Khar'shan would've probably been littered by millions upon millions of bodies of promising young human soldiers and billions of batarians for no reason other than permanently removing the Batarian Hegemony from the galactic plain.

Of course a group of young spec-ops operatives who'd gone through HSA boarding schools and basically been molded for soldiering since the day they turned twelve would listen to something like that without passing a thought on what it would mean if they were to actually go through with what TN-hardliners wanted.

"Yo, who you turn down the music?" one of the four humans inside the room, the dark-skinned Staff Sergeant Mavuto Oluwaseun Arendse – or Mav, asked before passing his weights on to the other soldier standing watch as he bench pressed, Staff Sergeant Jordan Miller. Miller, who had a much lighter complexion than his comrade, grabbed the weight bar, which Miranda probably wouldn't have been able to move without her biotics -then again physical limitations such as these were why her father had made her biotic in the first place - and stared at her, unsure what to say or if to even open his mouth. Given recent events, she'd assume it was his music that she had just interrupted. It'd certainly be a reasonable connection to make given the fact that he could pretty much be the posterchild of what these kinds of hardliner movements considered an 'ideal HSA citizen'. And yes, that ideal image did include the casual murder of a bunch of unarmed batarians that he may or may not have intentionally committed. Despite making sure that the incident was buried, she hadn't actually made up her mind regarding his reasoning that they batarians had been dead anyways.

Then again, that could probably be said for every member of Phantom Squad. All of them fit the bill of being Terra-Novan born military academy graduates who'd gotten fast-tracked through the Airborne Brigade and straight into Army Special Operations Command. If not for the forty-one percent of ASOC operatives who were in fact not the product of what was essentially the HSA's loophole abuse of martial education not being the same thing as child-soldiering, someone looking at those numbers might conclude that the people choosing the recruits for this unit had a specific type of person they were looking for.

Although statistically speaking, a majority of fifty-nine percent belonging to one group was already telling on what kind of soldier the people in charge of ASOC wanted within their units. She wouldn't blame them of course. The unit's successes spoke for the efficiency of its selection. She had these thoughts because they were observations worth making, not because she took issue with the methods employed.

Speaking of observations worth making.

The Cerberus operative maintained eye contact with Staff Sergeant Miller until his challenging silence cracked and he glanced at the ceiling with his dark-blue eyes.

"Can we help you, Ma'am?" the dark-haired, bearded man called across the room. If not for his questionable taste in music and what it likely revealed about his personality and views, he could certainly be considered an attractive member of their species. Hell, if she'd still live under her father's excessive controlling nature and been fifteen years younger, Miranda figured that the senior Lawson would've chosen someone like the sergeant to help her produce the next generation of his little eugenics-dynasty experiment. If not for the purely aesthetical match, then certainly for the fact that he'd always had a soft spot for questionable fringe elements of the political landscape; particularly the ultranationalist, Terra-Novan kind. Luckily Cerberus had made sure that Miranda had to no longer put up with his controlling nature or his interest into selectively breeding an industrial dynasty.

She might have just resorted to patricide had that happened.

"Where's your captain?" she simply replied with disinterest. While she knew that she could probably loop the soldier around her finger – if not by appearance then certainly by the fact that she had saved him from a court-martial – he was just a mere sergeant not worth having any control over.

"Treadmill," he called before receiving a nod from Mav and once more returning to what Miranda had found to be every soldier's favorite past-time activity: lifting heavy things repeatedly while grunting annoyingly. "And turn the music back up!" he added before Miranda spotted Captain Haugen in the left corner of the room where he was running on the spot next to an equally silent turian and his senior NCO Master Sergeant Miloslav Maksim Mikhail Marinka Hofmann. As soon as she'd read his full name in his file, she'd understood why she hadn't heard anyone call him anything other than 'Hofmann' since they'd gotten here. His name was an even worse tongue twister than Staff Sergeant Arendse's, which by comparison was only long and not complicated.

Given the fact that she didn't consider the noise the sergeants were listening to as music, Miranda left the music system without obliging with the sergeant's request. Judging by the looks some of the salarian, turian and asari in the gym were giving her, they appreciated her actions. If she were to guess, TN-hardliner bands were even harder to listen to when you didn't speak the languages they shouted in.

Miranda walked over to the treadmill and could not help but follow her first instinct of comparing herself to others.

She first looked at the numbers running on the holographic screen in front of Haugen. His pace wasn't anything that would break records, but still impressively consistent and surprisingly fast for someone who did not have what you'd describe as an ideal runner's build. Of course it wasn't as good as a time as she could manage. In accordance with his dreams of the perfect heir, her father had also tinkered with her genes in a way that assured she'd also deliver nothing but the peak physical performances. That was an advantage HSA soldiers just did not have. Embryo gene-modding wasn't something that the larger part of humanity had access to. And while possible, financial, moral and legal barriers prevented altering the genes of an adult unless there was a severe medical condition that required such a change.

Even the military or HSAIS didn't manage – or was willing to – cross those borders. Instead, they'd rather equal the odds by giving their personal the best gear and best tech they could provide, which in retrospective was smarter. Gear and tech didn't stay with their soldiers after they left service; gene mods on the other hand did. Considering how paranoid they were when it came to keeping track of biotics- people who had become dangerous by accident- , she didn't want to imagine what lengths the HSA would go through to track people they had intentionally gene-modded into weapons.

After reaffirming her engineered superiority over Haugen, she addressed the man. Unlike his squad members, Captain Tore Haugen was someone worth having control over. He was a decorated and experienced special forces officer whose name had crossed the table every time humanity's leadership talked about another Spectre candidate. Up to now, just about every mission he had touched had been a success. All the way from his first contact with slaver forces on Mindoir to capturing Balak and kicking this entire operation off, Haugen had always delivered - especially when it came to batarians. The only noticeable dent in that resume was the failed hit on Saren Arterius on Virmire, but then again, everyone deployed to Virmire had failed at stopping the turian rogue operative.

While they had gotten off on the wrong foot and Haugen exerted a level of resistance against her charms that she'd rarely seen in anyone else, Miranda assumed the fact that she had saved his soldier from a court-martial had made him more willing to cooperate. He struck her as the type of person who'd appreciate something like that.

"Captain Haugen, something has come up that requires your attention," she began, prompting the blonde man to break his focus on the wall and glance at her. Normally there should've been a projection of something in front of him, a forest, a track, anything to blend out his boring environments. But for one reason or another, he had clearly decided to deactivate that function and actively chosen to stare at the dull wall instead. From the way she read him, she assumed that it was to maintain the level of discipline and focus expected from someone in his function. A stupid test for himself, so to speak. He looked at her for a second and then dialed down the speed of his treadmill.

"You need another door kicked down, Miss Lawson?"

She looked around the gym and nodded, ignoring how the turian to their left, a member of the Recon element attached to SLD, also seemed to have peaked up and gotten all excited at the mention of doors being kicked down.

No matter what species they belonged to, these spec-op types really were all the same, weren't they?

"Have your team meet me in the ops center in fifteen minutes," then she turned her head to the pale-blue plated turian and thought about their objective. It wasn't within Hegemony space, so they did not need to be secretive about this one, so why not make use of the fact that turian and human units had a history of producing decent results when put together.

"Yours too," she stated.

"Yes, Ma'am," the Recon soldier replied before hitting the stop button on his treadmill. "It'll be my honor," he added while addressing Haugen.

"Likewise."

Like she said.

All the same.


Meanwhile, 2158 CE, Edge of the Dholen System

"Recount," Reegar ordered stoically. They were standing on the bridge of their ship and starring down an armada of geth vessels that seemed to be occupied with guarding a construction project on the far side of the system. If they had spotted them already, they weren't showing it and if they hadn't, well, in that case they could only hope it would stay like this.

"Three hundred and sixty-two ships. Six dreadnought, fifty-one cruiser analogues and the rest are frigates, corvettes or other support ships," Prazza responded, once more cooling Tali's blood down to the freezing point. Ever since they'd entered the system, she'd been lost for words. They'd known Haestrom had a geth presence, yes, but they hadn't known that that geth presence could've probably picked a fight with the good part of the Heavy Fleet and won. The moment they had detected the fleet, they'd turned off every non-essential system and started praying to the ancestors that they'd seem like a drifting piece of space junk. It was all they could do. As soon as the geth spotted them, they were dead. They had one of the fastest ship in the Flotilla, yes, and there was also a limited capacity for stealth. But none of that would matter if the geth detected them and ran an in-depth scan of their ship. They'd be blown up quicker than they could think about turning back around.

"Ma'am, are you still with us?" Reegar asked while shaking her shoulder.

"Uhm- yes?" she responded, uncertainty seeping through every syllable. "What do you need?" she asked more steadily.

"I asked you if you want to continue with the mission of retrieving the Project Kaziel data," the marine lieutenant repeated. Now everyone currently present on the bridge – which was every member of her small team – looked at her to make a decision that could lead to their deaths.

How was she supposed to even answer that?

Her father counted on her to finish this mission, yes, but ancestors… they were facing down an armada and all they had was a single ship with questionable stealth abilities.

This was madness.

"I don't-" Tali stuttered before mentally slapping herself for her indecision. She'd resolved to being a more secure leader, hadn't she? It was time to start. "Is there any way we can tell what the Kaziel facilities look like? What condition they're in? How many geth there are in that region?"

"Can we, Prazza?" Reegar passed the question along.

"Well, if it's an old Conclave building, we could technically try to ping it through the colonial network. That is if the network's still around," Prazza responded. Tali had read about this in the few pieces of literature regarding quarian space-colonialism that had survived the war. Just like the geth had been connected with each other, the colonial infrastructure of quarian colonies had also been linked through planet-spanning control networks in the years leading up to the war. They had helped with keeping track of the geth, especially back when they'd still been 'dumb', by communicating with clusters of geth programs – a fact that had ensured that all quarian worlds outside of Rannoch had been cut off from each other the moment the synthetics had rebelled.

"Won't that expose our position?" she wondered out loud.

"Not if we get lucky or bugger off fast enough," Prazza responded.

She looked to Reegar.

"It's your call, Ma'am," was the only thing the lieutenant offered.

"And you're sure this will work?"

"Maybe. Probably. I mean I am betting my life on it, so make of that what you will," the marine in the pilot seat responded. He flicked a few switches in the dark-green cockpit of the ship and then swiped through a set of holograms. "What will it be?"

Tali closed her eyes behind her mask.

Her father had made it clear how important this was.

She didn't have a choice.

"Do it," she muttered, realizing that Prazza only acted when Reegar nodded as well. She glanced at the Lieutenant, who caught her.

"Roger, Ma'am. Doing it," he dialed something in on the holograms and tensed up when they flashed red. Then when they turned yellow again he mumbled to himself. "So, good news first, the geth don't seem to have noticed anything," Prazza said casually. "Well, either that or they just don't care enough about us to start moving."

"And the bad news?"

"The radiation of Haestrom's sun is seriously messing with our instruments, so what I just did was mostly pointless," he explained, "I got a ping back, so there is something down there," he turned around in his seat. "I just can't tell you if it's the Kaziel foundry, or any other building connected to the network. If we really want to go through with this, we'll need to land."

"We would've needed to do that anyways," Reegar responded before looking at Tali.

She got his intention and she was thankful for it.

"Begin the approach, Prazza," she said confidently and while looking at the marine.

"Beginning approach," this time he didn't wait for Reegar to confirm her order.

She only hoped that this wasn't a mistake.


Codex: Genetic Manipulation and Gene-Modding

Gene-Modding is the everyday term used to describe any procedure that alters the DNA of a sapient being (as classified by the Citadel Charta for the Rights of Sapient Beings) in any way. Although omni-present in the scientific history of every space-faring species, particularly the hanar, targeted genetic manipulation for the sake of improving the physical abilities of a sapient being – for example to create more robust muscles – has been restricted ever since the end of the Krogan Rebellions. Exceptions to this rule are necessary, life-saving medical procedures and other necessary life-improving alterations such as the adaptation to vastly different environments: for example in the case of hanar diplomats with a continuous residence on the Citadel.

Non-sapient but sentient species are not covered by these restrictions.

While not as heavily regulated, historically burdened and socially controversial as the topic of AI research, the Gene-Modding of sapient species still carries the stigma of reinforcing eugenic and identitarian movement that have also appeared within the history of every space-faring species.

Despite Gene-Modding having no historic catastrophes like the Geth War, which jumpstarted the AI ban, linked to it, various courts and ethics councils in Citadel Space, particularly of the asari and volus kind, have time and again ruled that the act of altering the genes of a sapient being is an intervention that cannot occur unless it is absolutely necessary to improve the life of the affected person. Additionally, they have also pointed out the danger Gene-Modding presents to social equality, citing that the idea of creating 'genetically-superior lifeforms' in a world that already has adapted and embraced various species with very different physical traits could very well lead to a social divide not seen in the history of any known species.

In addition to these fears, these same courts and ethic councils have also ruled for and enforced a ban of genetic manipulation on a military scale in all of Council Space, claiming the fact that the act of turning an individual into a weapon or a 'super-soldier' is the 'most unethical act any government can subject one of its citizens to'.

In response to conclusive findings suggesting widespread use of gene-mods in the Hegemony Military in the wake of the Skyllian Blitz, these institutions have also enforced an embargo on the sale of advanced medical and scientific equipment to any NGO or corporation with links to the Batarian Hegemony.

Meanwhile, allegations of similar practices in the Turian Auxiliary Corps, the Special Tasks Group and the Special Tactics and Reconnaissance Branch have been dismissed as empty rumors.


A/N:

So.

This chapter was sort of different than the usual. Half of it is basically Liara doing weird shit, but since every mindmeld I write becomes weirder... I think you were expecting that.

Other than that, this is again a chapter where not a lot happens. (Well, at least in terms of action. It obviously has MAJOR implications for the Crucible Plot everthing's leading towards and I finally fully named Hofmann, who's been around since chapter 30ish and hasn't gotten a firstname since then despite being in every scene Haugen's in. So yeaaaah. Maybe I gave him an overly long and silly name to mend the fact that I somehow skipped that part for the last three years.)

With that in mind, i don't have a lot to say other than give you a teaser.

On Christmas, you will be getting the first Anthology Entry written by someone who isn't me. AdmiralSakai, who I've mentioned a ton of times already before, was so kind to produce what's basically a SV-Crime story and since I already read it, let's just say... it's really something else in the most positive sense.

While I do plan on grinding out another chapter in time for the holidays, Idk if I can actually manage that.

But if I do, it'll probably be crossing off Haestrom and entering the last lap of the Shadow Broker plot.

So stay tuned for that (I feel like I've been saying that a LOT lately.)
Until then, review and let me know what you think ;)

For the record we're at 755 reviews, 1167 favorites and 1257 follows.

See you around next time.