Chapter 113. The Problem With Heroes
Two Hours Later, 2158 CE, HSASV Normandy
"Lieutenant," Shepard greeted. She seemed somewhat surprised as the turian walked up to the tech-lab where Mordin and Tali were looming over a clearly damaged Legion, but Callius couldn't blame her because: "Doctor Chakwas said you have a concussion. Should you be up right now?" … of that.
"Probably not," the cabal shrugged. She looked at the hole inside the geth's chest and the exposed power core and cables it revealed. That had happened protecting her and by extension the rest of the team. "But Chakwas mentioned that you were having an operation up here. And since Legion took that hit for me, I figured I should be here when you fix him," since Legion – who lacked any sense of pain – was clearly awake,Callius looked at the geth. "Thank you, by the way. You risked a lot helping me and you didn't have to. I appreciate that," that was one sentence she never saw herself saying to a geth of all things. Or people. She still wasn't quite sure.
Legion lifted his glowing, one-eyed flashlight-head and looked towards Callius at the mention of the name she'd given him. The circular light rotated to the left and then back to the right a bit. Simultaneously, the flaps around it pried themselves apart in a mockery of a quarian facial expression.
"Appreciation for our action is not required. Due to a redundancy of critical systems, this platform vastly outperforms any organic in regards to survivability," his eye clicked right. "Considering the less durable nature of your platform, our risk was calculated and logical.".
"Calculated or not. Thank you for what you did, Legion," she nodded before glancing at the hole and Mordin and Tali's thinking postures. She didn't want to interrupt, hence she directed her question at Shepard.
"What are they doing?" she whispered. "Is he broken badly?" she added before realizing that her whispering probably wouldn't make a difference to Legion.
"Despite appearances, damage to our platform is negligible at best. Our armor took the brunt of the biotic blow and reduced its force to non-critical levels," Legion responded.
"They're trying to figure out what to use to cover up the damage," the N7 added. "Turns out we don't actually have anything on the Normandy that's as durable as the alloy Legion's body is made from, so whatever they pick, it'll leave a structural weakness next to his main processing unit."
"And that'll be bad."
"Yes."
Callius thought a second about what Shepard had said and then knocked her hand exposed against Legion's still intact side. The material was neither cold nor hot to the touch, unreflective to light and – strangely enough – seemed to muffle the sound of the knocking.
'Huh. Almost like those stealth suits used by TNI,' she thought. Meanwhile, her gesture drew Mordin's and Tali's attention. "So you need something really durable?" she asked them.
"Yes, but unless we want to touch the spare parts for the Normandy's shuttles or take a piece off the exterior hull, everything we add will come short compared to the materials used by the Kaziel facilities. And if we do use those… weight will become an issue and Legion's maneuverability will suffer for it," the quarian – Tali – responded.
"Why not just recreate the material?" she figured.
Now Legion spoke up again.
"The advanced method of metallurgy used during Project Kaziel was lost during the conflict with the creators," the accented voice of the geth explained. "Additionally, the facilities to produce the materials used in the construction of this platform no longer exist and all remaining stocks of the alloy that were found on Haestrom were used to create this platform and its companion pieces," the geth went on. "And despite the prolonged study of the forge ruins and samples taken from the stockpile, we were not able to recreate the exact composition or process used by the creators."
"Just one of many quarian secrets lost thanks to the geth," Tali muttered quietly. Legion clearly heard her, but didn't comment. Truth be told, Callius was surprised to see her help a geth to begin with. Then again, she had pretty much thrown her life into Shepard's hands so she probably wouldn't refuse when the N7 asked for her help.
"I see…" she said before suddenly getting an idea. "Whatever you do," she began, "don't put anything on there until I'm back from the armory."
"Thinking about adding infantry armor?" Mordin guessed. "Don't bother. Have already looked at official inventory of Normandy. Nothing remotely close to geth material."
"Who said I was getting something from the Normandy's official inventory?" Callius responded before walking through the door. Legion had saved her and Vakarian. Giving up a spare piece of her armor was the least she could do. "I'll be back right away."
Twenty-Five Minutes Later, 30. April 2417 AD, HSASV Normandy, Main Battery
"You gave Legion a piece of Blackwatch armor?" Garrus asked cautiously just as Shepard walked into the main battery.
"Don't need two chest plates anyway," Callius nodded, she'd beaten her down her because of a brief conversation with Joker regarding EDI's… recent interaction with the geth over Haestrom.
"Until you get hit the way Legion did."
"I don't plan on that happening," Callius responded before greeting Shepard. "Commander," after her little inclusion into Legion's surgery, she'd sent the Blackwatch officer to fetch Garrus and set up a meeting point. They had something to talk about. "You sound surprised I gave up a bit of my armor. And a bit irritated," the lieutenant noted as well. "You wouldn't happen to be jealous? Given the importance of our mission, I'm sure I could get the general to lend you one of our armors."
"Please don't. Vakarians who put on that kind of armor usually don't last to retirement age," the former C-SEC detective muttered. "If you don't mind, I'll pass up on becoming part of that particular family curse," he went on before looking at her. "Shepard."
"Garrus," she greeted. "Lieutenant," she went on. "Considering what just happened on the Alarei, I think you can both guess why I think we need to talk."
Callius looked at the closed door behind her and then suspiciously eyed a camera in the corner of the room.
"Don't worry, you can speak freely. I had EDI turn on the privacy modus for the next twenty minutes," she assured the turian. "Before that clock runs out, she's not coming on in here, no matter what we do."
"With all due respect to your people, Commander," the former cabal began. "This ship and EDI were built by the HSA. I doubt its AI has such a thing as privacy modus."
… she couldn't actually argue with that.
"You want to know if we made any progress regarding the mole, don't you?" Garrus said before turning away from the calibration terminal in front of the maingun's targeting unit. With little else to do, his interactions with the maingun had seemed to become the turian's favorite past-time.
She nodded. "I made the call to go to the Normandy four days ago. As far as traveling in space goes, that's a pretty narrow timeframe and from what the admirals told me, the Alarei dropped out of formation just after we were boots on the ground on Haestrom. The same day I made the call," she stressed. "Considering how she had to gain Rael's trust first to set up a meeting, Morinth had to have this ambush ready way before we ever got to Haestrom. There's no way she got to the fleet, gained the admiral's trust and set all of this up without someone telling her about our move the moment we knew it ourselves," she trailed off a second thinking about how the asari had torn the Alarei apart and how she'd be a spaced corpse (again) if it weren't for Jack and Samara (the latter of whom she really should speak to soon). This thing could've ended badly and it was just luck and some pretty good timing on Callius' part that they were still around. Maybe she shouldn't have agreed to the quarians terms after all.
"What are you implying?" Callius asked.
"All of this is far too close to home for me to keep ruling out people who've been on the Normandy," she finished. Even if she'd said that she didn't think it was someone from the crew before, the events of the last day had made her think. There was just no way someone unremarkable on the fringe of their operation could give intel that accurate inside of the timeframe necessary for Morinth to pull off what she'd pulled off.
"I see," Callius muttered. "And you told no one else where we were going?"
"Other than Harper? No. No one," Shepard replied
"And you don't think –" the lieutenant began. She didn't need to be a genius to figure out where she'd take that question.
"No," she shook her head. "You know I don't think too highly of the director," she really didn't, "but there's no way in hell that Harper is the one who leaked the information to Morinth. He and Cerberus spent the better part of two years trying to fix the Collector's attempt at killing me. It wouldn't make any sense for him to suddenly try and kill me."
"I guess you're right, that doesn't make any sense," Callius went on before leaning on the railing. "That just leaves the crew, doesn't it?"
"Yes. Unless of course Harper needs to maintain his image as a loyal servant of the HSA," Garrus pointed out. Both women looked at him and he raised his arms defensively. "Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying its him. I'm only saying that it's not impossible that it's him. He's pretty shady."
"Only pretty shady?" Callius asked.
"Okay, very much so."
"It's not Harper," Shepard repeated. She disliked the man and was the first to suspect that he had ulterior motives … but if there was one thing she was sure of it was that Cerberus' director wasn't the one sending asari assassins after her. And for more than reasons than his involvement in her resurrection. "If it were Harper, we'd already be dead without knowing whatever hit us," she figured. "That guy has been running the HSA's top-secret black-op division for thirty years and before he got put in charge of Cerberus, he was the one doing the high-stakes assassinations. Whoever's out to get us is far sloppier and far less experienced than him in this sort of thing. Or anyone in HSAIS that I can think of."
"Fair enough," Garrus shrugged. "So if it's not Harper, who is it? You have to have someone in mind, don't you?"
Shepard thought back for a moment and as a matter of fact, she did. Sort of at least. It conflicted with her earlier assessment of it having to be someone who was part of the crewbut it still made as much as sense. (Or maybe she was just telling herself as a last-ditch effort to avoid suspecting the people she'd spent practically every minute since waking back up with.)
"Back before I picked either of you up, I had a pair of navy techs on board. They had to finish installing EDI to the Normandy," she recalled. "There wasn't a whole lot of oversight on what they were doing, mostly because no one had any idea what they were doing," she went on. "They could've put all sorts of tech into her core without us knowing."
"You aren't talking about the two engineers who you dropped off on Cyrene, are you?" Callius retorted. "The ones who used turian ships to get back to HSA space?"
"As a matter of fact, I am," Shepard responded with a nod.
"Unless I'm terribly mistaking, I think that's very unlikely," Callius countered. "You see, before you picked me up, I organized their transport back to Cronos Station. They weren't just some technicians."
"What makes you say that?"
"I saw their personal files. Or copies of it at least. There was a lot of blank space in them. With your people, that's always a good sign for what they were doing previously," Callius replied. "Your navy also literally asked us to protect them at any cost and, failing that, ensure that they don't fall into enemy hands," Shepard let that order sink in for a second… "Considering those measures, I don't think they just installed EDI. I think they made her."
She knew it wasn't what she should focus on, but she couldn't help it.
"… the navy told you to kill their geeks if you couldn't protect them?"
"Yes," Callius nodded, "it was a surprisingly salarian request may I add. Certainly not a call I had expected from your navy's Research and Development department. HSAIS maybe… but not the common military."
… that was new information.
And it certainly ruined her suspicion.
"Not them either then," she sighed.
"I really don't want to derail the conversation you have going on right now, but do either of you mind explaining to the ignorant C-SEC officer how exactly that rules them out?" Garrus asked.
"Someone important enough to develop something like EDI for the navy is bound to be under so much supervision that they couldn't possibly work for anyone but the HSA," Shepard sighed. "Back before N7 I used to know a guy who worked for the navy's RnD out of Cronos Station. He practically had to explain every step he wanted to make outside of his lab. Twenty-four hour surveillance of all electronical devices whether personal or work-related, travel restrictions to certain parts of the Fringe, a personally assigned intelligence officer who regularly checked up on him to make sure he wasn't up to any funny stuff… and he was only working on a new generation of torpedo. Unlike EDI, that's not a state-secret that needs to jump through loopholes in Council Law."
"That seems… excessive, even by your people's standards," Callius noted.
"I'm blowing it a bit out proportion but trust me, someone who develops something that's essentially an AI won't work for anyone outside of the HSA without having a sudden accident. HSAN get uncomfortable when it comes to keeping secrets. Not as bad as HSAIS but nearly the same,"
"So not Harper and not the technicians," the turian murmured. "That just leaves the crew then. This is worrisome. Very worrisome. We need to move quickly before the leak causes any more damage… or gets bold and puts a gun to your head during lunch."
… what a lovely image.
Garrus let out a sigh.
"Before we go on pointing fingers and jeopardize the crew's cohesion before continuing with our next little suicide mission, we might want to consider if it's a lucky coincidence on Morinth's part," Garrus offered in return.
"I thought detectives didn't believe in coincidences, Vakarian," Callius offered.
"Only the stupid ones, Lieutenant," Garrus countered. "Think about what actually happened for a second. No interpretations, just facts," he suggested. "First fact: Tali's dossier has been floating around the Normandy for some time now. We wanted to pick her up as far back as the Okeer mission," he remembered. "It just so happened that something always got in the way before we could actually get to her," he explained before turning to Shepard herself. "Second fact: Unless you wanted to recruit her to the crew, the only logical place you'd bring Tali to after picking her up from a place like Haestrom was her father on the Flotilla," he paused for a second as if to make sure everyone was still following him. "Third fact: This group wants you dead bad enough to stick an Ardat-Yakshi on you. They also didn't care a lot about stirring up trouble in Nos Astra, which in itself is a genuinely stupid idea if you want to live long. Illium's after all just Omega with nice shoes," he figured. "Someone who's ready and able to mess with you on an asari colony probably won't have any problem with preparing most of this little trick as far back as the Illium op. If they laid the groundwork back then, all they needed was word that the Normandy started heading into the general direction of the Migrant Fleet… and there you have it. A perfect ambush without the need for a mole in the internal circle."
"You really want it to be someone from the logistical staff, don't you?" Callius pointed out.
"I've been fighting and bleeding with these people for weeks now. Of course I don't want one of them stabbing me in the back," Garrus admitted. "Besides. If both of you argue one point, I need to argue the other. Otherwise we'll be blind to that possibility and that's never a good thing. Basic investigation tactics; never rule someone out at the start and don't zero in on someone too early either. It'll only hurt your effort in the long run."
"What do you suggest we do then? From an investigative point of view I mean," Shepard asked. She wanted a solution, not more questions.
"Look at the evidence. Look at our surroundings," Garrus offered. "We could start with reviewing the footage of your encounters with Morinth. Maybe she said something that could clue us off," he went on. "It's really a shame that we don't have her body though. We could've searched it for clues as well."
"Samara would've smeared us over the walls," Shepard suggested.
"We could've at least thought of grabbed her omni though. Can't believe I forgot about that, my bad," Garrus muttered.
"Yeah we could've. Except she didn't carry one," Shepard remembered off-mindedly and from memory.
"She definitely did," Garrus protested suddenly.
"No?" Shepard countered again. She and Leng had seen the body. There hadn't been one.
"Yes. Yes, she did," Garrus responded before bringing up his omni-tool and opening a scope-cam, a tool commonly used by C-SEC and other law enforcement agencies in the case of an on-duty shooting. "I know because I saw it when shot her in the back," he turned his omni-tool to show images taken by his Mantis. Sure enough, there was an omni-tool clipped to the armor of Morinth's, right above her waistline to be precise.
"That wasn't there when we looked at her corpse," Shepard stated quickly. Then Garrus, Callius and her all looked at each until she said what was on all of their minds. "Unless that thing got spaced during the decompression, someone from the boarding-team took it," the N7 muttered. "And whoever did hasn't spoke up yet because…"
"… they know that it'd show their hand," Garrus finished. "Damn. It's one of the crew after all."
"Damn indeed," Callius repeated. "Who had direct contact to Morinth? Who could've taken it."
"You," Garrus said while looking at the lieutenant. Realizing how accusing he sounded, he quickly moved on. "And me. And Legion, Thane, Nader, Samara, Leng and you too, Shepard. Basically anyone but Mordin and Tali."
"Well I didn't take it," Shepard said, pointing out the obvious. "Neither did you," she said while looking at Garrus. "Neither did Thane. He'd be fast enough, but he was way too busy trying not to die to grab Morinth's omni."
"Legion or I didn't take it either," Callius added. "Ignoring the fact that neither of us got close enough to Morinth in a situation where we could do something like unclip an omni, both of you would've seen us do it," she added. "I don't think Samara or Jack pried it off of her either. They seemed a bit too… destructive to think of something like that. That just leaves whoever checked Morinth's body first, doesn't it?"
"Well that was Samara," Shepard said before correcting herself. "No wait," she got a bad feeling in her stomach and her previous words echoed back to her. As did Callius' warning about people changing and all the other little things that have happened since… "Kai did."
"Right after he shot her mid-sentence," Garrus added before smashing his hand against the railing Callius was leaning on. "Dammit, how could we be so stupid?" he went on before turning away from them and unfolding his Carnifex into a safe direction to check its heatsink and ammo-mods. "I think it's time we have a lengthy conversation with Leng. And review his helmet footage while we're at it," Garrus seemed angry. As angry as when she'd first picked him up from Omega. Callius only stood passively by the railing, carefully eyeing the gun in Garrus' hands.
Shepard however stepped closer. Worried about what the turian might do next, she put a hand on the top of the gun and counted on her ability to calm Garrus' vigilante side down. It had worked in the past.
"- let's not get ahead of ourselves, Garrus. We don't even know if she still had it with her by the time Kai checked the body. Like I said, it could've gotten spaced. Or destroyed in the part of the fight we didn't see."
"Right before she died, she was going to tell us what was going on, Shepard. That's when he put a bullet straight through her head. Not before. Only then," the detective stated.
"That's true, but I know Kai. He would never-" suddenly she found herself stopping, uncertain of whether or not she was going to speak the truth. "If we go ahead and accuse him of this and we're wrong…"
"It's just reviewing his helmet footage," Garrus offered. "Besides. His name will be cleared if the footage's clear. He'll understand, I'm sure."
"No, n,o he won't," Shepard countered. "You don't know him like I do, Garrus…" she began.
"And that's the problem," Callius offered before pushing herself off the railing and walking out of the door of the main battery. "You're too close to him to see things rationally. Too much history between you to see an obvious change."
"Where are you going, Lieutenant?" Shepard asked.
"To talk to Leng," the cabal responded "I need ten minutes. And for you to trust me."
"If we're right, talking to Leng on your own is a stupid idea," Garrus muttered.
"And if we're wrong, he'll only hate me instead of all of us. Like you said, we need to think about team-cohesion," the Blackwatch officer responded. "He's a normal human. I'm a biotic turian. If things go bad, I can handle him."
"He's N7," Shepard found herself pointing out.
"With all due respect, Commander, I can also handle an N7," the turian biotic countered. "Ten minutes, then you can come charging in guns blazing if you want to."
Shepard nodded and decided to trust her XO. She hadn't made a wrong call yet.
"Ten minutes."
Two Minutes Later, 2158 CE, HSASV Normandy, Armory
When Callius walked through the door, she found Leng standing at a desk, whistling happily while he looked at his disassembled assault rifle. By his feet, the container that contained his armor was resting, still opened. Someone with an aptitude for slight-of-hand might've been able to make something off that… but she'd always been more of the direct type so stealing the memory card wasn't what she'd do.
Vakarian was right. Confronting a potential traitor outside of armor and on her own was probably a stupid move… but the biotic power coursing through her body still seemed like a strong argument in her favor.
"Leng, we need to talk," she said, locking the door behind her and dropping all kinds of formalities and rank. A turian would've already been tipped off by this but since Leng wasn't one for formalities, he thought nothing of it. He merely glanced at the orange hologram. As she approached, she scanned him and his environment for weapons… and since this was the armory, there were plenty within hand-reach. This really was an exceptionally stupid idea, wasn't it?
"What about, LT?" the N7 asked while inspecting the ammo-block of his mass accelerator rifle. He didn't comment on the locked door.
"Something's come up. I need to see your helmet-camera recording."
He paused his cleaning and seemed to tense up ever so slightly.
"Uhm. What for?"
She used the lie she'd thought off on the way up here.
"To analyze our combat efficiency," she explained, "figure out what we can do better next time around we fight someone like Morinth."
"Hold up. You think we're gonna run into another walking biotic WMD like Morinth? Didn't Samara say there were only like three of her kind alive right now?" … if the justicar had said that, Callius hadn't been around to hear it. Then again, Leng could have easily been talking to the crew on the sideline to further his own goals. Come to think of it, that was probably exactly what he had been doing; talking to the crew. She'd seen him speak Nader, with Mordin, Thane… Samara too obviously…spirits, he even socialized with the cook…
"There's plenty of powerful biotics who aren't like Morinth and given our luck, we might just run into them," Callius countered.
"And you need mine for that specifically?" he asked again. His deflection made Callius suspicious.
"Yes," she said sternly. "Will that be a problem?"
"Yeah. Sort off…" Leng said before casually leaning under the desk and into his locker. She braced herself for an attack until he pulled out his helmet, removed a small data-storage device from a socket at the back and tossed the disk to her. "It doesn't record anything."
"Why not?" she asked while catching the card … this pretty much confirmed their worries, didn't it? "You keep your helmet-camera off?"
"Promise not to take my head off if I explain?" If Leng was noticing that she had just positioned herself in a favorable spot while accessing the card, he wasn't saying it.
"That depends on the explanation," she said cautiously.
"You've fought plenty of four-eyes over the years, haven't you?" Leng said before returning to the task in front of him. "Saw what they do to people and how they always seem to get away with it."
"I'm not sure I'm following," Callius went on while realizing that the card was showing a 'data corrupted' error message… Additionally, she noticed that someone had tinkered with its locking mechanism in a very intentional way... "How does fighting batarians explain you turning off your helmet camera?"
"Because unlike you turians, we don't have a standing order to smoke those fuckers without a trial," he said casually. For a change, she knew what the human idiom meant. "If we do the right thing and go all turian on them and get caught, it's a war crime. Justice for their victims, maybe, but still game-over for us," he put down the part he had been cleaning and picked up the next item on the table… a knife.
"I'm still not seeing the connection," Callius countered while eyeing the weapon.
"Because I'm not finished explaining yet," he pointed the knife at her. The gesture nearly made her nervous… but only nearly.
"Then go on."
"You know I didn't actually do a lot of N7 work after I transferred to Em's unit."
"What do you mean by that?" she'd read Shepard's pre-Spectre service record. The commander was a very experienced soldier, even by the standards of a special-operations officer and especially for someone her age. As far as she was concerned, everything Shepard had done since becoming an N7 had been 'N7-work'.
"You know how NSOC's split into different teams assigned to different fleets? Red Team, Blue Team, Green Team, First Fleet, Third Fleet, Fifth Fleet etcetera?"
Callius nodded. The style of organization was even visible on their armor with the different units having different markings on the right arms of their armor. She'd mostly run into members of Red Team, even before meeting Shepard, but there were times she could recall where Blackwatch had worked in concord with N7s from Green Team.
"Well. Every other team was rotating in and out of the Traverse every six months to hit batarian targets and running sabotage, kill-or-capture or recon ops. But Red Team? Em's unit? We were always getting the fancy high-stakes ops and the other feel-good shit like hostage rescue or raids on military-only targets," he explained. "I always figured our ops were just some lazy admiral always picking First Fleet whenever something with a priority came up because that's who happened to be on top of the list … but then Em left for the Normandy and all of the sudden, Red Team was back in the Traverse blowing up batarian bases and putting pirate kings and their crews six feet under. Turns out top-brass was just looking to keep Em's vest squeaky clean and presentable so that they could sell her as a Spectre-candidate without telling the galaxy that we're still fighting one hell of a dirty proxy-war with the Hegemony," the marine muttered.
"Your relations with the batarians are hardly a secret," Callius retorted..
"Maybe not to you, LT," Leng countered. "But not everyone's a soldier like us. Ask some random guy on the Presidium or Arcturus if he knows what the navy's up to at the batarian border and he'll say peacetime patrols. No way in hell is he gonna know that there's batarian hijacking asteroids to throw at human colonies or Hegemony troops setting up staging points right on our door-step" he shook his head. "You know I have to give it to Em. Thanks to her, I nearly forgot just how many batarians are looking to settle a score with us and how much I hate those motherfuckers for what they do to us day in and out," he shrugged. "Slavers and pirates backed by the Hegemony, religious extremists thinking humanity's a plight sent to bring down those stupid pillars of theirs, actual EF troops operating with an official mandate the HSA choses to ignore because it'd mean war with the Hegemony…" he trailed off. "I got re-introduced to all of that shit after Em left and trust me, you learn to hate those bastards and the shit they're up to again real quick once the war-hero shit dies down," he twisted the blade in his hand and felt the weight. "That's the bad side of being the good guy all the time, you forget what it's like to get your hands real dirty."
"You don't strike me like the type who'd mind the bloodshed," she observed.
"Fighting's not the part that got to me," Leng replied. "It's what we saw after the smoke settled. First deployment was fine. Second one was where it got really bad though. After a couple of weeks in the Traverse, me and my team ran a bunch of ops with some ASOC teams from Second Battalion. We started out supporting their assignments. Distractions, extractions, rear-security, overwatch, all that boring stuff you join spec-ops to avoid doing," he chuckled. "Soon enough we were kicking doors with them though and started to see what the army's up to these days. We were hitting the hardened targets, they were scuttling slaver barges, assassinating slaver-band leaders and hitting the targets too hard to hit with brunt-force," he summarized. "Bodach and Prizrak. Stupid names but stone-cold killers, every last one of them," he went on.
ASOC.
That was humanity's other prominent Spec-Ops outfit, more specifically the unit with which Blackwatch had a regular exchange with.
Like the N7s, they had made quite a name for themselves since the first conflicts the HSA had fought on the galactic plane… but unlike their naval counterparts, Callius had heard certain rumors in regard to them.
Back when the exchange programs had started, elite soldiers who had fought in the human Fringe Wars and the (back the more recent) Mercenary Intervention had joined the ranks of Blackwatch trainees. Unlike the turian soldiers with whom they had trained, the humans already been fully-fledged, battle-tested special forces operatives at that point. The choice to send fully trained operatives in had been surprising, but understandable. Humanity hadn't wanted to embarrass itself by sending in rookies into a training regime unanimously viewed as the hardest array of tests you could legally subject a sentient being to within CounciL Space.
While that decision had paid off in the way of all ASOC soldiers who had attended the program also meeting the training standards, there had been something the HSA hadn't considered:
The curiosity and tenacity of young turian soldiers when it came to hearing war stories.
After spending months at a time working with each other, the ASOC veterans had told their new Blackwatch comrades stories from the wars, the unfiltered versions of what ASOC got up to when Arcturus loosened their rules of engagements.
Callius and the rest of Arterius' honorguard hadn't been part of the training staff, but she had gotten word of the stories. To briefly summarize, ASOC did everything that Blackwatch did… and all the things Blackwatch was falsely accused of doing by those who sought to stain its honor out of misplaced jealousy.
In short; they were the soldiers you wanted on the job if the mission needed to get done no questions asked, but they were not the kind of people you'd want to model your morals after. One of the training staff had told her the following analogy. If you asked a Blackwatch operative to destroy a city, they'd ask why and inquire if the population had been given ample chance to evacuate. If you asked an ASOC operative to do the say, they'd ask which one and inquire where to get the necessary blast-yield.
"Don't get me wrong, I'm N7 all the way. But I always liked those misguided, sneaky dirt-kickers. You can't put them on an objective and tell them to hold it until the last mag runs dry like you can do with us, but they definitely figured out how to fight batarians the proper way. Including that little memory-card rewire," he lifted his knife again. "It's really easy, actually. You just need a mono-molecular blade and a steady hand. Then you just put a couple of scratches into the locking mechanism and whenever someone checks your card in the debriefing, it looks like it just had a malfunction and they gotta trust your word and your report."
Callius folded her arms and discarded the card. "There's something obviously wrong with that card. Shouldn't someone notice eventually? Your commanders check these, don't they?"
"Only if they have to and when its dead four-eyes, no one's gonna be bothered by a little equipment malfunction," Leng retorted. "We didn't take any more prisoners after we learned that trick. Came up with some new ways to kill batarians too. Some I think even you haven't come up with yet," he added calmly.
"That's not hard. We usually just shoot them. No need to drag things out," Callius retorted – knowing full and well that there were legions who very much enjoyed dragging things out. The Hierarchy kept Altakirilians away from anti-slaver operations for a reason and it wasn't just to avoid exhausting their limited supply of arctic-warfare specialists unless absolutely necessary. Being a colony on the fringe of turian space right at the batarian had entailed certain… problems for the first couple of centuries – problems that had ceased when the blinded and frostbitten corpses of stripped and frozen slavers had been returned to a neighboring frontier colony of the Hegemony.
"After the third time I walked through a slaver barge filled with human bodies, I figured that that's too quick for those fuckers," the other soldier retorted. "You're pissed about the cam, aren't you?" Leng guessed correctly, albeit for the wrong reasons. "Listen. I'm sorry if my little habit messed up your analysis. But I'm sure you get how it helped with dishing out justice without some suit going around blaming us for going through shit he'd never get," his voice was cold, detached. He pricked the tip of his knife with his finger. It drew blood and Leng licked his finger. Then he placed the blade back down on the table and looked at her, grossly misinterpreting why she was staring. "Come on, don't give me that look. You're Blackwatch. There's a lot more blood on your hands than there'll ever been on mine," he looked at his finger and she wasn't so sure about his comment. "Well, figuratively at least…"
None of this had gone like she had expected. She should've just pulled back and regrouped with the knowledge that Shepard's best friend was a prolific war-criminal. Sadly, the turian in her broke through.
"Justice is never worth sacrificing your honor," she said sternly. It was one of the tenets of turian law – and of turian society. Someone despicable like a slaver deserved death – yes – but there was no need to sink to their level. A clean shot through the head or a quick stroke of a blade was acceptable… whatever Leng and his companions (and the population of Altakiril) were doing (or in the case of the Altakirilians used to do) wasn't.
"Honor's overrated. Especially when it gets in the way of getting the job done and giving monsters what they deserve."
"Overrated? Honor is the only thing separating you from becoming like them. If you don't stick to a code, you're just as much of a monster as the batarians you're fighting."
"Hah. Funny coming from the cabal who likes to watch vorcha burn," Leng countered. "I'Ve been meaning to ask about it since Omega. Who'd they take from you? Had to be someone important for you to sully your honor over."
Her mandibles pressed themselves against her jaw and a long-suppressed memory from a time before Blackwatch resurfaced. For a second she was young again and back in a dark space-station overrun by feral vorcha. She could feel warm blue blood spraying over her face, smell the stench and hear the screams and the sound of teeth ripping flesh all over again. Fear, death, loss … and the moment she'd realized she was a biotic… it all came back ever so briefly.
She locked the memory down immediately.
"No one you deserve to know about," Callius responded sharply.
That part of her was long-gone. She needed to focus on the here and now.
This version of Leng she was meeting right now; someone with a lot of social intelligence and perception and the right kind of loose morals; certainly seemed capable of what she was suspecting him of. But her personal feelings couldn't be the decisive factor here. She thought about what Vakarian had said; they needed to look at the evidence and at the facts; nothing in between. "I hear you shot Morinth."
"That was a quick change of topic," Leng observed.
"Well, I didn't exactly come here to argue morals with you," she deflected, somewhat truthfully.
"Yet you did."
"Yet I did."
"Why?"
"Just answer the question. You shot Morinth, right?"
"Right," Leng nodded. "One ear-hole in, one ear-hole out. Clean headshot," the N7 explained before making an explosion-like gesture with his hand next to his own ear. "Spattered her stupid murder brain all over the floor. If Em hadn't been there, Samara would've probably spattered mine too, though."
"I heard," she nodded. "I also heard that Morinth was about to tell us how she found Shepard before you killed her."
Leng dropped what he was doing and looked at her with a bit of a shocked expression.
"The entire ship was going off around me. I had my helmet muted to anything but radio. I had no idea what she was saying let alone that she was talking…," he paused before suddenly placing the palm of his hand in front of his face. "God fucking dammit. You think I'm the freaking mole, don't you?" he said without possibly being able to know about Shepard's suspicion. Callius remained silent but failed to hide her surprise. How could he know? "Holy shit you do," he repeated before stepping closer to her, an action that prompted her to flash with a burst of biotics. "Easy, I can explain," he said, raising his hands. "Harper told me about what's going on with the Normandy. Quite some time ago, actually."
Her biotic flares didn't disappear and she raised a valid point.
"He never even said something that direct to Shepard, why would he tell you of all people?"
"Because unlike all of you, I am with Cerberus and the only person he knows definitely won't hurt Em," the N7 explained. Or maybe he lied … she still wasn't sure if this wasn't some eloquent distraction maneuver. It certainly was news to her that Leng was with Cerberus instead of just being another recruit to the ground team. He still wore his N7 uniform and the way Shepard talked about Leng certainly didn't give of the impression that he'd ever join Harper's organization. Her perspective may not be neutral though.
Scratch that. It most certainly was not.
"You can claim a lot."
"That I can."
"Explain."
"That I can too," he kept his hands raised. "The director shipped me to Cronos just before they woke her up. He told me what was going on and pointed out the… safety concerns Cerberus had in regard to bringing her back."
"Safety concerns? What safety concerns?"
"Other than the fact that Em spent two days in Collector and Reaper hands before some Section 13 dip-shit busted her out of a shady cellar in Omega after nearly blowing both of them up like some poor excuse of a knight-in-shining armor?" Leng said, sounding resentful. "Two days in which they could've done just about anything to her and turned her into Saren 2.0?" Leng asked harshly.
Was he maybe blaming himself for not being the one to rescue Shepard? Or was he just angry that it had taken so long for Section 13 to retrieve Shepard (if he was, he was being unreasonable… two days seemed impossibly quick to Callius; but then again, the specialists she'd met seemed to have a knack for doing the impossible.) Either way, she could only suspect why Leng was resentful and she'd probably never know for sure – even if she asked.
"Yes, other than that," the turian nodded, if only to keep Leng talking.
"Have you noticed that Em doesn't sleep a lot? Or that she's got trouble remembering shit from before the attack? That Harper had to literally guide her from one step to the next one for the first couple of weeks and that she's only now starting to act like half the officer she used to be? Or what about the fact that she still locks up a bit every time someone points out that she's been gone two years? I mean she can't even talk to her mom about it and if you knew Em, you'd know what that means," Callius stayed silent for a moment and that was all Leng needed to make up his mind. "Yeah. I didn't think so."
"I hardly know the Commander, so I can't really judge any of these things," the Blackwatch lieutenant pointed out. Unlike Leng, she wasn't going to get emotional… again.
"There!" he exclaimed, weirdly satisfied. "What you just said is exactly the reason why I need to be here. You don't really know her. None of you do," Leng went on. "There's something you need to hear. Something Cerberus probably should've told all of you before you signed up on this suicide run thinking Em was all there," Leng tapped the side of his head and began. "Project Lazarus wasn't just two years off continuously operating on her dead body. It was two years of putting her in and out of stasis and slowly bringing her dying body back to the point where we could take her out of stasis."
"… I already figured that much."
"But you probably didn't figure that half of that time was spent without anyone considering that she might not be fully gone, did you?" the Petty Officer walked to the window of the armory and looked out at the blue shift of their vessel. "Don't worry, the medical staff didn't figure it out at first either." He folded his hands behind his back. "The first time they tried waking her up, they fucked up bad. Very bad. They weren't even sure if she could be salvaged, and some off the Lazarus staff even suggested euthanasia. Called it the only humane solution left after what happened," the man gripped on to the railing. "I wasn't there, luckily. And they sent her friend T'Soni off too before actually cracking open the bubble. It was just the Lazarus project leads. Some chick called Lawson, a couple of medics and the chief medical officer," Leng explained, his voice growing quieter.
"What happened? What kind of mistake are you talking about? What should we know?"
"The real bad kind that really shouldn't have happened to a bunch of geniuses," he responded. "From what Harper said… Em was screaming and flailing the second the field went down. Her body was fine… but her head? Her head was FUBAR. She felt exactly like someone would feel after the last agonizing seconds of their life was dragged out for several months. All that pain, all that trauma… Em was feeling all of it in slow-mo because despite what she and everyone else keeps saying, she never actually died. Her brain was this close to shutting down," he made a gesture with his fingers representing a tiny space. "But it wasn't quite dead yet. The Collectors managed to lock her in time just before the lights went out for good. A couple seconds longer and she wouldn't have felt anything anymore but… nerves and neurons… a couple of seconds is pretty long for them. So they kept firing. At the exact same rate that the stasis field slowed the rest of her body to," Leng now leaned on the railing. "You ever been choked while someone was prying apart your muscles with a knife all the while you knew you were dying?"
Callius naturally shook her head.
"Now imagine your entire fucking existence consisting of nothing but that feeling for over a year. Every moment of consciousness," he shook his head. "They kept her like that for the first thirteen months, right until they figured she was back in shape," the N7 bit his lip. "The last second of your life. A couple moments of agonizing pain dragged out into thirteen fucking months… I can't imagine what that feels like," he shook his head. "I don't know about you, but if it's even half as bad as I picture, I'd take a bullet to the head before going through that for even couple of days every single time," Leng muttered, punctuating the last three words with a finger beat against the railing. "Since you're still glowing, I'm assuming you still don't buy my story," he observed casually.
"I still don't get your role in all of this."
"Fair enough. I'll keep going then," he added with a shrug. "Like I said, physically Em was fine by the first time the woke her up a year ago… but since they fucked up the way they did, she just wasn't there anymore when they shut the device off. A part of her came back with her body but it was… wrong. And dangerous…" he paused. "I didn't watch the footage. I could've. Harper offered. But I just couldn't see her like that, not if I was gonna work with her," he murmured.
"What did she do?"
"What do you think happens when you get snapped out of what's essentially thirteen months of continuous torture? Pure panic. Fight or flight taken to the extreme," Leng countered. She had no idea, truth be told. "Harper said she had a full psychotic breakdown and that's about the worst thing that can happen to a trained soldier. She fucked up a couple of the medics to the point where that Lawson-chick had to step in and slam her back into the stasis field so that she didn't kill them. She wasn't gentle either, threw the project back by three months, actually. Had too though, otherwise Em probably would've killed her too," Leng sighed again. "Anyway. After that happened they spent the rest of those two years trying to unfuck Em's mind to the point where they could actually give her a rifle again. Neuro-surgery, shock-therapy, HSAIS' entire arsenal of drugs… I don't know everything they tried on her, don't want to either… but I know one thing. The Em I knew? The one you fought alongside two years ago? She's gone. She was dying a slow, agonizing death in some prothean stasis field and when Cerberus noticed their fuck-up, they razed the hard-drive clean and gave her the fucking coup-de-grace because whatever was left of her at that point would've needed a century of therapy or more before ever coming close to being useful again. And since the Reapers are right on our doorstep and humans don't live that long, they rightfully figured that they don't have that century. So they just sort of… rebuild her the way she was."
"From what?"
"Brain scans, neural patters, hell I don't fucking know. Point is, Em's not really herself right now. Maybe never will be. And it's not just because she missed two years like everyone else and their mother keep saying," Leng explained. "You asked why Harper picked me and the answer's pretty straight forward. I got picked because unlike all of you, I've known her long enough to see when she's slipping. We go way back."
"All the way to the Blitz," Callius recalled a conversation on the Citadel..
"Yeah. And because of that, I've got more references than a couple of intense weeks of her hunting Saren at her absolute best. There's a clear picture of how Emily Shepard should be acting on any given day engraved up here," he tapped his head and let out another sad laugh. "Everyone on this ship treats her like an idol these days. Like she's larger than life and perfect and never makes a bad call. All they see is the hero she's supposed to be so that's what they all expect her to be. And that's the fucking problem with fucking heroes. They'll all follow her into hell without a second of hesitation because they admire her. They don't think she can make mistakes, even if she's clearly losing grip," he turned back to Callius. "Vakarian, Nader, Joker, the rest of the team, hell just about everyone she runs into. None of them can see past Shepard the Glorious Hero and see Em the traumatized woman and because of that, they don't see when she starts messing up…" he paused for a moment. "I figure you might notice. You've been at this longer than anyone else on the Normandy. The asari who melded with her too, but only because she made herself a copy of Em at her absolute best. Captain Alenko could maybe see it too. They were close as well, I think. But he's a hard maybe because I think he's got a whole other problem when it comes to seeing Em for who she is instead of for who he wants her to be …" he trailed off. "Point is, just about everyone's blind to the idea of Em making a mistake and if shit goes really sideways that could cost us a whole lot more than just our lives."
Callius remembered an exchange in Flux. She'd read something else into Leng's intentions back then but now with this context… a different picture was appearing in front of her mind. He hadn't sought her out for his interest… he'd sought her out to…
"You tried to warn me, you said this might happen," she realized. Leng didn't say anything in return. "Back at Flux," she added. "She's good at seeming like she's doing fine, even when she's falling apart. That's what you said to me and now I get it."
The N7 sighed. He pushed himself off the railing and sat down on it instead. "Back then I was still holding out hope that Harper was wrong and that my job would end up being pointless. Hell, I even crossed a couple of lines on a bunch of assholes just to test the waters and she seemed solid for most of it," another truth be told, she had no idea if Leng was lying right now or not. "But these last couple of weeks I've been noticing things. With the pressure building and more colonies going missing, Em's starting to come undone... She's becoming reckless. Just look at how she went off to play revenge with Vakarian on Illium or how she agreed to send the three of us to the Alarei without any back-up knowing that there were geth there… or hell, how about taking a live-geth to the Normandy?"
"You had the quarians," Callius pointed out.
"Who lasted all of one minute when the bullets started flying," Leng countered.
"And taking Legion with us worked out in our favor as well. If it weren't for him, Morinth would've killed me."
"And I'm glad she didn't," Leng retorted. "Still, it's sheer fucking luck that Legion didn't blow a hole into the Normandy the moment she let him board the ship. Just because her calls are paying off doesn't mean that they're good calls."
"The commander is fine," she said, genuinely believing it.
Leng snorted and inspected the boots of his grey-black uniform.
"If Em was all there… do you really think they'd keep Captain Alenko away from her?" he asked. "Or put him on the track he's on now?" he went on. "Those two made a hell of a team back in the day and if Cerberus figured that she was still herself, they wouldn't have needed to make Alenko into a back-up Shepard, let alone send him halfway across the galaxy so their paths don't cross. They'd just let her take the reins and let her do what she does best. But instead of giving her full operational freedom, they're just using her for her status. She's a symbol to them, not a soldier. The woman who killed a Reaper, the hero of the Citadel," he said mockingly. "Good to get allies for your cause, not good for accomplishing the actual mission-"
The door pulled open behind Callius and Shepard and Vakarian stepped inside.
Apparently her ten minutes were up.
In response, Leng raised his hands.
"Ah. I've been wondering if you'd show up," he greeted. "Now. I don't know how you got the idea that I'd ever do something to hurt you, Em, but I'm not Morinth's snitch," the male N7 commented before eying the gun in Vakarian's hands. "Although I'd really like to know how you got the idea. Other than that I apparently shot the bitch at a pretty inconvenient moment, I mean. I already heard that part."
Shepard herself was silent.
Vakarian however tightened the grip around his Carnifex and lifted it.
She had expected Shepard to put a hand on it and lower it. It wouldn't be the first time the N7 calmed her fellow turian down. But this time she didn't.
"Nice try, Leng. Now where's the omni?"
The human looked perplexed.
"What about my omni?"
"Don't play dumb. Morinth's omni. Where is it?"
… she had been meaning to get to that point before the interruption.
Callius watched as the Petty Officer's face was plastered with a small smirk.
"That's what this is all about?"
"Kai, if you know anything…" Shepard began.
"Oh, I know plenty," the other N7 shrugged. "Last I saw, it was dangling from Samara's belt while she was putting a gun in my face just like he is right now," he looked at Vakarian. "Can't blame the detective for not seeing it," then he turned to Shepard. "But you definitely should've caught it."
For a moment, everyone in the room was silent.
Then Shepard brought up her own omni-tool.
"Samara," she asked.
"Yes, Commander?" the disembodied voice of the asari responded.
"You wouldn't happen to have taken Morinth's omni-tool, would you?"
The asari was silent for a moment.
"I ...retrieved Morinth's omni-tool in an attempt to understand who set her on her last path, yes. Do you require it?"
"Drop it off with Mordin whenever you're done."
"You gonna put that down now, C-SEC?" Leng said, clearly satisfied with himself.
"I-" Vakarian began before folding the gun. "Yes. Sorry."
"Don't. I get it," Leng muttered before throwing Callius a look that screamed 'I told you so'. His reaction wasn't what Shepard had predicted… and that lend credence to his earlier argument. "You know who to ask if you want to see if my story checks out. I'll keep the helmet-cam on from now on if you insist. Gonna need a new memory card though."
"What story is he talking about, Lieutenant?" Shepard asked. Callius considered her next words carefully and then made a decision. She'd check with Harper at a later point – even if she didn't think there was a necessity anymore.
"Nothing concerning our problem," the turian responded truthfully before handing her the memory card. "The Petty Officer's helmet camera had a malfunction. Still, I suggest we include him in any future attempts at uncovering whoever's aiding the group that hired Morinth. His innocence seems to be proven," she wasn't sure why she lied for Leng – and to Shepard of all people. She just silently walked away to get conformation from Harper -which she did receive after explaining the situation – and then eventually found herself sitting in the observation deck, yearning for a time when she hadn't needed to worry about the abilities people she fought with.
She missed her team.
Badly.
1. May 2417 AD, Arcadia, Engram-City
'Very nice show you put up on Terra Nova.'
'When's the campaign starting?'
'AQILA INVICTA MISTER LAWSON 4 CHANCELLOR'
While the representative from Colonial Administration went through the obligatory yearly talk about extremism prevention at the work place and all that other stupid, pointless shit HSA law required him and the other CEOs of 'companies dealing with sensitive military-related matters' to listen to on a yearly basis because some fucking colonials from the bumfuck-nowhere in the Fringe had decided to launch a civil war a couple of decades ago, Henry Lawson subtly scrolled through the various messages on his omni congratulating him on his appearance in the talk show. While doing so, he did his best to hide the fact that he was extremely pissed. He was hiding the scrolling (and the anger) as good as he could – which was pretty good – but even if he got caught… he practically owned Engram-City. No one would call him out on this behavior – partially because everyone signed an NDA before entering the room and partially because he'd probably paid for half the furniture in this room with the taxes the HSA took off Lawson-Future-Tech every year.
Useless.
Utterly.
Fucking.
Useless.
The asari had one job.
One. Fucking. Job.
And now she was dead.
And worse, the credits he'd paid her in advance were locked away forever.
There was nothing he hated as much as a wasted investment – spilled scotch maybe … and people crawling on the fast lane … but a wasted investment was still way up there..
"To conclude this yearly briefing on extremism prevention, I'd just like to remind you all of the motto of Arcadia's Colonial Administration's Anti-Extremism initiative. The best way to stop an extremist is to prevent the extremist from ever becoming one," the man declared with a bright smile. He received applause, from Lawson and from a whole bunch of other company owners who'd forced themselves to this meeting.
The funny part about all of this was that at least one of these guys was on the fringier end of the spectrum (his father had backed the IFS – until the HSA had seized the entire company and literally dragged him to court in shackles) and another representative who'd gladly stab said fringier CEO with a bayonet if there was no such thing as murder in the HSA's criminal law. In his case Lawson was pretty sure that he'd actually fought in the Fringe Wars… albeit he wasn't sure if it had been to the degree he liked to pretend. The guy definitely didn't look like he'd seen the worst part of fighting like claimed … but a little padding to one's resume helped with the costumers, especially if you were in the business of selling 'veteran-designed survival clothing' to the winner of aforementioned civil-war.
Hypocrisy of this entire gig sat aside, Lawson walked out of the office and greeted one of the officers of his personal security detail. He was one of Lawson's (and by extension Insight's) more valued employees– a L1 biotic and former BAR marine by the name of Jacob Taylor who'd been in his employ for little over a year.
Taylor was a special one.
As far as Lawson knew, the dark-skinned man was one of the only military-trained biotic from the first-generation of Grissom Graduates – the L1s- to leave military service after his obligatory twelve-year service period.
All but a few L1s were either still in service – just like you'd expect from a bunch of fanatically devoted soldiers who'd been indoctrinated in a military school since the age twelve – or had been killed in action in various displays of valor ranging from being vaporized inside a shuttle on some Verge World during the Blitz all the way to heroic, last-ditch defenses during the battle of Eden Prime. He didn't have an exact number, the number of military-grade biotics was listed as a matter of national security on-par with the composition of Kilimanjaro-Class armor, but from what Taylor had told him, only five or six of the still remaining two-hundred something L1s had left the armed forces and moved on to greener, credit-heavier pastures.
Speaking of credit-heavy pastures.
While he was swimming in money now as well, credits hadn't been Taylor's primary motivation.
The marine's last posting had been on a dreadnought – the Makalu if he remembered right. How Taylor had ended up on that ship after spending nine years leading a BAR platoon was beyond Lawson. All he knew (and cared about) was that the ship had been part of the battle against Sovereign and that something pretty demoralizing had happened prior to it. Taylor hadn't named any specifics, partially because he was worried HSAIS would make him disappear if he did, but one thing was clear. What had gone down had been bad enough for Taylor to throw in the towel and swear off the HSA for good. From there on out, it hadn't taken long for the former marine to find his way into Lawson's employ.
He liked having Taylor around, not just because he could throw people around like ragdolls but because employing him was a giant fuck-you to the HSA and its horrendous and incompetent handling of human biotics. Even if one looked past the fact that they gave every human biotic the choice to serve in the military instead of making it obligatory, Grissom Academy was still inherently flawed and soft. No life-fire exercises until age 17, nearly no training-related fatalities, only risk-free surgeries, no gene-modding… it was like they were trying to raise the pampered future elite of the HSA instead of making the kind of super-soldiers human biotics had the potential to become.
Pathetic; just like the rest of the would-be government.
Maybe this was just another reason to go into politics; like his old-man had said: you had to be the change you wanted to see.
"The shuttles waiting outside, Sir," Taylor informed him while opening the door. He'd told him to call him Henry a hundred times already. It hadn't worked.
"Thank you, Jacob," Lawson responded with a polite nod. Just because he considered the man a prized possession didn't mean he couldn't be polite about it. He and the rest of his security detail walked through the Colonial Administration building, well aware that every step they took was being monitored. They passed civilian admin personal and soldiers in army uniforms and as they went about their way, Lawson couldn't help but feel like they were busier than usual. He wasn't an expert at that sort of thing but by the time they passed a large group of broad-shouldered, tattooed NCOs in green-brown army BDUs who were pulling heavy-looking footlockers and following the trail of a hasty HSAIS officer into the direction of the space port, even he knew that something was going on.
"Sir, I think we should go back to the company building immediately," Taylor observed. "Those guys were definitely part of Arcadia's ASOC detachment. Something's up."
Lawson raised an eyebrow. When trouble was stirred up, he usually was the first to hear about it. He was about to open his omni-tool and check the news when they reached the lobby of the admin building and found a crowd gathered in front of a large holo-screen. They were captivated by the images the news were currently running. It took him a second to register what he was looking at, mostly because the birds-eye few of a burning colonial prefabs and rapid shots of a brown, unidentifiable mass hovering over the colony weren't a lot to go by as far as identification went.
"Another dark day in the history of human expansion through the galaxy," one of the pair of female news anchors muttered. "For all those only joining us now, here's what you missed. Forty minutes ago, reports of an ongoing attack on the frontier colony Sundar Paridrshy have reached us. According to Frontier-Command, the branch of the military responsible for security in the eastern Traverse, the unknown assailants suspected to be an alien race called 'Collectors' have yet again-"
One Hour Later, 1. May 2417 AD, Terra Nova, Maguires
"-yet again attacked a human colony," the news anchor finished. "Following the recent attacks on New Canton, Vuori and two other minor settlements in the Verge, this marks the fifth attack on a human colony this month. While the navy has not officially confirmed these rumors, reports from Arcturus suggest that a counter-attack to liberate Sundar Paridrshy has already been mounted."
"Bloody disgrace that we're just watching this go down," his red-haired target muttered before downing his drink, an action Morneau mirrored from his seat on the other end of the bar. The man hadn't noticed him yet, which wasn't all that surprising considering the empty whisky bottles stacking on his table. Sixteen really was into substance abuse, wasn't he? Someone else might've been skeptical about approaching someone like that for aid – it was a recipe for disaster - but considering why he was here, certain risks had to be taken.
(It also wasn't the least safe thing that he'd done in his life up to now, so yeah…)
After leaving Cronos Station and 'going on the run from HSAIS' (if Moravek and the rest of Section 10 actually wanted to find him, he'd never made it to Terra Nova in the first place) he'd headed straight for TN-Hardline heartland.
The Terra-Novan city of Maguires.
Located just some fifty kilometers away from the same basalt-desert that housed Grissom Academy, Maguires was Terra Nova's sixth-largest settlement and mostly made up of two kinds of people: those on active duty and those who had already finished their term of service. Because of this rather homogenous population, Maguires was the perfect recruitment pool for the Hardline and – if the brown-haired woman by the bar with a not-so-subtle sun tattoo on the shaved side of her head was anything to go by – the Blue Suns as well.
He sat down his glass, ran a hand over the freshly shaved linear pattern on the sides of his hair -a hairstyle he hadn't had since Grissom- and rolled up the sleeves of the basalt-black military-style button-up shirt he'd liberated to fit into with the rest of Maguires population (just like the haircut mind you). Then he walked over to Kyle Mitchell – previously known as Sixteen -, and hoped that the intel he'd been given was accurate and that this sorry drunk really was deep enough inside the Hardline to be interesting for PGI.
The drunken airborne didn't notice him until he sat down opposite to him.
"How's the nose, Kyle?" Morneau asked smugly before snatching the pill bottle out of the soldier's hands. The action drew the desired level of attention and clarity.
"Motherfucker," his former merc colleague began before reaching for something tugged under his shirt. He stopped when Morneau poked his knee with the muzzle of his own handgun. He'd come prepared.
"Don't," he ordered before putting on a friendly smile. "I'm here to talk to you, not to ice you. So don't make me."
"Ah man… can't you just let me be?" the airborne muttered before slicking back his medium-length red hair and revealing the Zhang-Academy style pattern shaved into the left side of his hair. That hadn't been there the last time around, which was a good sign. After tactically turning his head, even the drunk soldier managed to pick up on the fact that he and Morneau shared something. "Huh. I didn't take you for a Grissomer."
"And I didn't take you for someone who went to school at all. But appearances can be deceiving," Morneau replied before removing his gun from the man's knee and shrugging at the news running behind Mitchell. "You're right you know. It is a fucking disgrace that we're letting this happen. Don't know about you, but I sure as hell didn't sign up just to watch the HSA do nothing at all when some creepy bugs start abducting our people."
The man looked at him for a second and then grabbed the half-empty glass of whiskey.
"You sure as hell didn't make the trip to TN just to have a chat about politics with me," the man slurred. "The fuck do you want, Spook?"
"Not a spook anymore, actually," he responded before leaning back in the booth. "HSAIS and I had a bit of a disagreement after the last time I ran into you."
"Didn't get the Broker, huh?"
"Oh no, I got him, alright. They just disagreed with my methods and I disagreed with them disagreeing with me and then there might've also been a bit of me knocking out a superior officer who thought he could tell me how to do my job," he explained casually. "Bottomline is, I'm done with their obstructive shit. They don't stand for what I stand for anymore and since my service was always somewhat conditional in that regard…"
"Ain't that something coming out of the mouth of a specialist," the soldier lulled, "Lemme ask you again. The fuck do you want from me, Spook?" he emphasized the last word – loudly. Luckily for Morneau no one else seemed to care about the ramblings of a drunk with several empty whisky bottles stacked on his table.
"Unless you rediscovered your affinity to our world and our people after what happened on Kosh and Bekenstein, I'm gonna assume you cut your hair to fit in with your new hardliner crowd," Morneau retorted, drawing inspiration from some TN-Hardline extranet page he'd read while letting the auto-pilot fly to Terra Nova. "What I want from you, Kyle, is that you introduce me."
"Why?"
"If the HSA won't let me to do what needs to be done, maybe the Hardline will."
"If this is you trying to get in to fuck us up from the inside like you did with the Wave, you're a shit spy."
"Again, not a spy anymore," Morneau pointed out.
"Spoooooooooooooook," Kyle responded before lifting his finger and trying to point at Morneau. Morneau smacked his hand sideways and grabbed it hard enough to make the man sober up for a second in reaction to the pain response.
"You're awfully loyal to the Hardline for someone who spent the last couple of years selling himself as a merc. Last we met, you were working with a gunrunner selling weapons that kill human soldiers and before that you were selling us out to the Shadow Broker. Why the sudden change of heart?" he asked, smiling a friendly into the direction of the barkeeper after letting go of the finger and patting Sixteen's hand.
"Never had a change of mind, I guess. Always been a Terra Novan at heart."
"Which is why you were ready to fight the HSA up until a couple of weeks ago?" this time Morneau spoke a bit louder. His wording drew the attention of the Blue Suns merc, who raised an eyebrow at them.
"What the- You wanna get our asses killed? Shut up, man."
Morneau looked around the bar and decided to fuel the stereotype of Section 13 he'd already planted in Sixteen's head the last time they'd run into each other. "Please. These people couldn't touch me if they tried," he let out a chuckle, cracked his knuckles, winked at the merc and nodded upwards ever so slightly. As expected, she turned away at this faked attempt at coming onto her.
Attention successfully lost.
"You maybe. But my ass is grass if you keep going. So just stop, alright?"
"I will, if you listen to what I'm telling you."
"Fine, fine. Go ahead. Make your case."
"Let's face it. You're a text-book opportunist, Kyle," the specialist explained. "You got disillusioned when you left the army and ever since, you keep changing sides whenever it suits you," the airborne remained silent. "Some might call you a spineless coward with no principles whatsoever," he looked angrier now, "but as far as I'm concerned, there's nothing wrong with being an opportunist as long as you're smart enough to realise when someone's offering you a good opportunity."
"What are you offering?"
Morneau reached into his shirt, pulled out a small, hand-sized device and pressed his thumb onto the unlocking mechanism. When he did that, his very own personal file (and the attached arrest warrant) appeared. The notice at the bottom was official … but it hadn't actually been distributed outside of a selected circle of operatives thanks to a remark at the bottom. 'Warning: Too dangerous to be apprehended by regular personal' – another one of Moravek's lies.
"Myself," Morneau retorted.
"Done with their shit my ass. You're on the damn run and desperate" the man muttered before trying to poke the hologram but only finding thin air. "… shit. You call me an opportunist, yet here you are, crawling to our door after you left."
"I just had a gun to your kneecap, Kyle and I know enough about HSAIS to bring it down from the inside just like that," he snapped his fingers to finish his overstatement. "I wouldn't call that crawling," Morneau countered. "Just think about it for a second. You could be the guy who gives the Hardline the best asset they've had in years. I know a lot of things the HSA doesn't want people knowing and I could teach you a whole lot of useful stuff as well. The days of you just being another small ultranationalist movement would be over the moment you let me in. Same for the days where we let shit like the colony abductions just happen and the days when I can't do what I was born to do because some fucker with a tie thinks it'll look bad now that we're on the Council. I could be your way to the top and all you need to do to get there is say yes," Morneau argued while Kyle looked at the projection and the information depicted on it. Every little bit of personal information he was currently showing the former merc was true, which would probably cause him to be in a world of trouble once this undercover-op was over.
Or maybe Kyle would start sending him a nice birthday present every time the 20th of July rolled around…
… yeah he somehow doubted that.
Truth be told, times like these Morneau was glad that he was all alone outside of Cronos. There was no one they could come after, no one they could hurt to get to him…
What was it that Moravek had called him?
A damaged specialist with no social-life to speak of?
As Sixteen read over his file, Morneau was happy to say that he fit that description perfectly.
"I don't get it," Kyle muttered after a few moments.
"It's a simple offer and you aren't that wasted. Quid pro quo, man, plain and simple," he really liked that concept as a basis for negotiation.
"That ain't what I meant," the red-haired man whispered. Then he leaned forward. "You're a freakin' specialist. The lot of you are supposed to be loyal to the death. Jesus, from what I heard, they put a chip in your head just to make sure you don't snitch-"
"- they don't-"
"- either way, why the fuck would you give all of that up? What the fuck could make someone like you turn on the HSA? Wasn't just a disagreement and assaulting a superior, was it?"
Morneau closed the file and closed his eyes.
"I sacrificed everything for them and all they ever did in return was ask for me to do it again with even more restrictions," he sounded incredibly sincere… which surprised him because he didn't mean any of this. The HSA had given him far more than it had ever taken and nothing he could ever do was going to repay what the HSA had done for him or – to a much larger extend - humanity. "Thirteen years of putting my life on the line for Arcturus and spending every waking second doing everything in my power for the HSA and I never even got a fucking thank-you. Only 'you can do better than that' and 'I'm sorry, our reasons are beyond your clearance'," he spat. "There's only so many times you can hear shit like that before you realize that you're working for a bunch of ungrateful assholes who'd never lose a second of sleep over you dying on some far-off world far away from home and understand that they'd replace you the second your last breath's out of your lungs."
"Yeah. Probably should've thought of that before you became fucking spy, eh?"
"Fuck you too, Kyle," Morneau responded. "Now. What's it gonna be. Are you gonna help me make a difference or are you just gonna sit here and curse the news until you OD on cheap whiskey and placebo pills?"
"What do you mean placebo?"
"Maybe read the fucking inscription next time and you'll know what I mean, dipshit," he had done so after planning the soldier's OD in the wake of the Kosh op. Vitamin and sugar. That's all the soldier's 'medication' really was.
The drunken soldier looked at him and then threw some pills into his mouth from a smaller bottle he'd hidden in his jacket. Next he slid a half-filled bottle and an empty glass across the table.
"Ask me again when we're sober. And still alive."
Oldest trick in the book. Get him drunk to make him slip up.
Good thing he had some practice with pretending to daydrink…
He poured the glass in front of him full and waited for Kyle to do the same. In his intoxicated state, it wouldn't be hard to be fake-drunk.
"Alright, Daniel," he stressed the name and every syllable stung in Morneau's ears. "Bottom's up," then he moved the glass to Morneau's lip and chucked it down the specialists mouth.
… maybe not fake-drunk after all.
He'd survive.
Probably.
Meanwhile, 1. May 2417 AD, Meane, Installation 237
"A crucible is essentially nothing but a melting pot. And a catalyst is nothing more than a substance that is used to increase the rate of a chemical reaction," Liara figured … for the tenth time.
Since General Arterius was otherwise occupied and Bau had just told him to 'not bother me during crucial stage of investigation', Kaidan had gone to the one person where he figured he might be useful right now; the asari archeologist in a laboratory of the SLD base.
"And a Kaleidscope's a child's toy," Kaidan finished, also for the tenth time.
Liara was still stuck on the riddle the vision had given her and ever since dismissing her quest to look for the prothean homeworld, she'd started grasping for straws in the shape of breaking down each word of the exchange that she could remember. He'd already pointed out that it was likely that the prothean beacon as simply using words that somewhat translated to them twice and that the names might not be related to the weapon at all… but the asari wasn't having any of it. Her curiosity was peaked and insistence on the fact that the protheans would've left other clues was just that… an insistence.
"Yes, exactly," the asari said before walking into the middle of the circle of terminals she'd set up. Maps of the galaxy, holographic depictions of prothean artifacts … a news feed detailing the latest series of an organized pirate band who appeared to be taking every prothean artifact they could get their hands on… she was drawing inspiration from all sources. "Kaidan, I need you to do something for me. Can you do that?"
The biotic Spectre leaned back against the wall. "Depends on what you need," he responded.
"You remember what the prothean said about my people, don't you? About how we were supposed to inherit their legacy? And about how we'd be your cipher?"
"I do," as a matter of fact, he'd used that detail the last time around to point out that they maybe should be looking for something on Thessia. After all, if the asari were contingency for the protheans, the only place the protheans could put something where the asari would surely find it was Thessia. "What about it?"
"Would you -" Liara started before cutting herself of. "The message is still inside of you."
"You want us to meld again," he realized.
"Yes," Liara nodded. "With Emily's version of the cipher firmly in my head, I think I know what I need to look for now and I won't be overwhelmed by the input again. I just need to see the vision again, in its entirety."
"But it'll still be dangerous, just like last time, no?" he remembered the conversation. "Something about accessing the whole message overloading my nervous system?" he also distinctively remembered Garrus mentioning the possibility of all of them ending up in a vegetative state.
"Yes, which is why I really tried to make the scientific approach work," Liara fiddled with her hands. "I've exhausted every possibility. Words and riddles alone aren't going to show us where the Crucible is… but a full dive into the vision of the prothean just might."
Kaidan thought back to the last two melds.
The first one had ended when Liara had yanked them out of the meld out of a fear impulse at something within the meld and the second one with Shepard had been stopped promptly too because of a threat to Liara's life in the shape of a sensory overload induced shock. A full-dive as Liara was calling it sounded dangerous.
"Are you sure this is a good idea, Liara?"
"Kaidan, I," she took a step closer to him. "I don't know what else to do. The prothean only told us to begin where it started… that's no basis for searching for a weapon that could stop the Reapers. We had to have missed something. They never would've left such an unclear message."
"Can't really argue with that," the Spectre murmured while looking at the asari. "Alright-"
Before he could finish, the door of the lab opened and one of the turians from Arterius honorguard – Sergeant Galviat – stepped inside. He was a particularly large soldier, even more so when wearing armor. Black plates, white facial marks… all-round imposing demeanor… and possibly the friendliest turian Kaidan had ever met.
"Captain Alenko. I knew you'd be here," the sniper greeted cheerfully before looking at Liara and him. His mandibles twitched and he rubbed the back of his head. "… I'm not interrupting something private right now, am I? Because I can totally just pretend I didn't see anything and go back the way I came for five minutes. I'm very good at that sort of thing."
"No, Sergeant, please stay," Liara said quickly. "We were just discussing the possibility of another meld."
"Ah- ehm. Then I'll definitely be outside then –"
"To help with the search for the weapon," Kaidan clarified. "A meld to help decode the message further."
"Oh. I see. Sure. Scientific purposes only."
"Exactly," Kaidan nodded, all too aware what the turian had been thinking. "Since you were obviously looking for me, how can I help you?"
"The general sent me to fetch you," the sergeant responded. "And you too, Doctor," he went on. "He thinks he's got something for you regarding the prothean message you've been trying to make sense of. Or at the very least something that could use your expertise."
Immediately Liara was all over the turian sniper.
"What? Did he say anything specific?"
Galviat looked at her. "Your engineers found something on Eden Prime out in the burned swamps near Constant," just another permanent scar Sovereign had left on the planet. "It's an underground complex. Maybe a bunker complex. They aren't sure yet since the whole thing's covered in molten metal. It's definitely prothean though and its right around the spot where Sovereign came down two years ago," Galviat muttered. "He wants you to go back there. Personally, I'd rather stay away from the place where this entire mess with the beacons started, but I'm not the one calling the shots here so we're heading out with the Parnack as soon as you're ready," he added casually and without thinking too much about his phrasing.
"Goddess…" Liara muttered, definitely paying attention to his phrasing. "Of course the Reapers would look for the weapon as well."
Kaidan looked at her and thought back to their last conversation about Eden Prime.
"Maybe you were right after all."
The asari smiled for the first time since leaving the Normandy.
"Let's find out."
"The Parnack's ready whenever you are..." Galviat said before turning towards Kaidan. "Or do you need five minutes more of alone time to finish what you started?"
The biotic sighed.
"Like we said. Purely scientific."
"Sure thing, Captain. I'll be outside."
Codex: Altakiril
Located on the outer edge of turian space, Altakiril is one of the few turian planets to border the Terminus Space.
While most of turian space is isolated from the Terminus and the Traverse by a patchy belt of asari and salarian worlds - and more recently a line of cohesive human colonies, Altakiril is located in the Shrike Abyssal, near the northern part of the galaxy formerly claimed by the Quarian Conclave and far-away from most other turian colonies. This vast distance to turian core space is the product of the fact that Altakiril was only settled after the turian's first contact with the galactic community and the Xe-Cha Relay's status as a Primary Relay linking directly to the rest of the frontier of turian space and thus serving as a direct bridge between the western portions of the galaxy and its far-north.
Altakiril's average surface temperature lies at -24 Degrees Celsius, making it the coldest garden world with a sizeable turian surface population. While not particularly cold by human standards – settlements in Yakutia, a region on the human homeworld Earth with a similar size to cities on Altakiril report record lows of under – 60 Degrees Celsius – it has to be noted that human populations and their temperature tolerance are an outlier compared to the galactic average.
Whereas most space-faring species hail from tropical homes with an average surface-temperature of 30 Degrees Celsius and mild winters, Earth's average surface-temperature of 16 degrees Celsius is considered unpleasantly low for salarians, chilly for asari, downright arctic for batarians and turians and – after prolonged exposure – deadly to an unsuited quarian who's body temperature is used to Rannoch's 48 degree surface temperature.
In a similar vain, Earth's continent-spanning winters with regular snowfall around the globe and temperature drops below zero everywhere but around the equatorial belt are also unheard of on other homeworlds.
Due to its proximity to the Terminus Systems, Altakiril's initial phase of colonialization was not only troubled by the arctic climate of the world but also by slavers and pirates who considered the distance to turian homespace as an open invitation for their raids. Because of these early raids, Altakirilians – even more so than other turians – became experts at defending their homes.
In addition to gaining a fierce reputation among the warlords of the Terminus the 'practice' afforded by the regular raids against the early colony allowed Altakirilians to become experts at fighting in cold-weather conditions. As such the legions of Altakiril are the only regulars within the turian military capable of sustained arctic warfare – a task usually reserved for the Turian Auxiliary Corps or the specially-trained Extreme-Weather-Warfare detachments attached to selected legions.
Another side-effect of Atakiril's proximity to Terminus space is the design of its settlements. Although all turian cities are designed with defensibility in mind, Atakiril's settlements took this design-choice a step further. Every major settlement on the planet is not only made a fortress by its turian population but literally designed as one. Inside the capital of Atakiril, Estivus-Erax, anti-orbital-artillery is placed around bunkers serving as both civilian buildings and military installations. Additionally, vast networks of underground installations powered by geothermal energy and protected by strong kinetic barriers are spread out below the frozen surface.
Because of this, Altakiril – despite its low population of only 13.5 million turians – is often referred to as 'a fortress-world second only to Meane and Palaven'.
A/N:
This chapter's out a lot earlier than I figured it would be mostly because I've been itching to drop Leng's bit on your heads.
After the last chapter I knew I couldn't let you hanging with this reveal for too long.
Now, some of you may go "hey what a cop-out everythign was pointing towards Leng!" and I get that... but if you all actually go back now and look through his scenes (and especially the part where he outright tells Harper that he'll work for him which I'm sure everyone but me has forgotten because it's been fucking 40 chapters since) ... I hope that you understand that Leng was always the red-herring.
Again, I know that's a hated trope to use... but you gotta admit. Leng being the traitor would've been a bit... too obvious.
Okay, since I'm adressing complaints I haven't even had yet, I'll just move on.
What else do I have to say about this chapter?
Not a whole lot actually..
I do hope to get another one out in this year... and I still have hopes that I will manage a forth Anthology story in time for Christmas (it's sort of become a tradition for them to drop on Christmas but this time... I might not make it)
Other than that, the ususal stuff.
Review and let me know what you think.
For the record we're at 840 reviews, 1338 favorites and 1431 follows.
See you around next time.
