Chapter 121. Ripple Effect


Six Hours Later, 7. May 2417 AD, HSASV Normandy, CO Quarters

'Someone's in the maintenance tunnels. Find a way to flush 'em out!'

A sudden movement.

Then two sharp, loud sounds.

Gunshots.

'Why would you do that? Why the fuck would you do that!?', it echoed through Shepard's room before the N7 hit the pause button and stared at the assailant before he executed the doctor. She'd watched that part too often already anyways, no need to see it again.

Grey body armor, a dark-blue visor, round about one-point-eighty meters, definitely on the athletic side… probably a man considering his built (then again with full-body armor and a voice modulator one could never be too sure)… and an old SIS-8 pistol that he'd fired with an instinctual accuracy and his lighting fast reaction to Chakwas' attack…

She had burned those details into her mind in the last couple of hours and after dozens of incredibly nauseating re-watches, she was certain that she'd picked up on every detail that could help her understand this new foe.

The type of movement with which he'd avoided Chakwas' sudden movement, the absolute coldness with which he'd executed her and Gardner, the fact that he'd somehow slipped through the mixture of MPs and C-SEC officers guarding this dock not once but twice (in and out)…

Whoever this guy was, he'd been trained extensively in combat and infiltration, probably by people who had a deep understanding of HSA security protocols and a brutal knack for wet work.

She narrowed her eyes and reversed the video to the point where the man stared straight at the security camera, wondering what sort of face hid behind the dark-blue visor and hoping that she'd get to see it before he died…

Then she sighed, slouched forward on the chair she'd been sitting on and cupped her face in her hands.

Chakwas was dead.

So was Gardner.

And while she knew that being the commander meant that she should probably check up on the crew in this hour of need, especially Joker, Emily had to admit that she wasn't in the right state of mind for that conversation right now.

She was far too pissed to be an emotional crutch to anyone.

Two of her crew were dead and while this wasn't the first time she'd lost people under her command, it still felt different. Worse even.

Ignoring Nagato's role in all of this, which was already very hard because the concept of an HSAN officer actively trying to kill his comrades made her feel disgusted to the bone, the fact that Chakwas and Gardner hadn't died on the battlefield made her stomach churn.

They'd been murdered, or rather executed, in a place where they should've been safe because of people looking to hurt her, not them.

That made it personal.

And therefor, Shepard was boiling with anger and feeling positively revenge-hungry; a rather rare emotional state for her if she was being honest.

So instead of dealing with the crew in that sort of state and accidentally doing even more damage, the N7 had simply delegated her duties to Lieutenant Callius (who was apparently much better at keeping a lid on her emotions than her) and instead opted to try and wrap her head around why Nagato would betray them and what his ally had wanted with EDI...

Speaking of EDI.

Thanks to a restart of the AI core, their resident AI was once again operational and had been able to give them a detailed account of how she'd been shut down.

Nagato, who as it turned out had used his brief stint as the Normandy's XO to install a little back door for himself (showing that his attempt on her life had probably been planned a pretty long time ago), had slipped a virus into her system that triggered the built-in emergency shutdowns meant to be used only in the event that she turned rogue, thus disabling EDI until someone with a higher security clearance (Shepard herself or Chakwas) reactivated her.

Although it was reassuring to know that those shutdowns worked, Shepard had to admit that she really wished they hadn't because then EDI could've just opened the airlock for the security teams and none of this would've-

The red-haired marine sighed again as she realized what she was doing.

What ifs and would haves weren't going to change reality.

She looked at the terminal in front of her and the three notifications about missed calls from Director Harper and decided that right about now was probably the time to go and answer those.

So she did.

"Shepard," the hologram of the man greeted before lighting up a cigarette. "Since I know that it's about the last thing you want to hear right now, I'll spare you the condolences for your fallen crew members," the director stated briefly. "All I'll say in that regard is that we'll figure out why Nagato did what he did and that I'll personally ensure that the people who sent him to do it will be stopped."

She nodded and got right to the chase.

"What did you need? I would've picked up earlier but…" she stated, about to excuse her unreachability before deciding that it didn't need to be excused. She'd just survived a hit, lost two crew members to a professional hitman with a sense of Fringe Wars nostalgia and then been forced to wait out a five-hour MP investigation.

"I understand," Harper nodded. "I haven't received the official reports on the Normandy's status yet, presumably because your helmsman is preoccupied with … more personal concerns… however my technicians on the ground tell me that the ship is still fully operational. Is that correct?"

Shepard glanced at the terminal laying on her desk.

"We aren't done sweeping the vessel for sabotage yet, but as far as we can tell, the Normandy's still space worthy. Yes."

"Good, good," Harper murmured before flicking on a cigarette. "Insider attack or not, our schedule and your objective have to remain unchanged. You need to get the Normandy ready to head through the Omega-Four relay next week," the Cerberus director went on.

Shepard glanced up.

"Going through the relay right after an incident like that doesn't seem smart to me. Even if we assume that Nagato was working alone and didn't have any more allies on the Normandy," which she really hoped, "you can't seriously expect the crew to go through with something like the Omega-Four mission without having some time to process what's happened. Joker's definitely going to need some time to be back on his a-game. And since we don't know what's waiting for us on the other side, I think its better if we give him some time to process what happened."

Harper puffed out a cloud of smoke.

"Are you talking about your helmsman or yourself?" the director retorted somewhat coldly.

"I'm fine. But Joker-"

"Doesn't take well to loss. Yes. Our psychological profile suggested as much," Harper stated before waving his hand. "In the event that Lieutenant Moreau feels unsuited to go through with the operation once the refits are done, EDI can always replace him. We made sure of that when we designed the SR-2. And if some of your teammates also happen to feel unsuited for the operation, I'd have no problem with lending you members from Cerberus' strike teams to stand in for them. They might not share the… unique personalities and skills of your current team but they'll do their job well."

Yup. As always. A cold bastard through and through.

"… is all of this seriously this easy for you?" she asked with a rare snarl. "You just spent months helping me put together a team to complete this mission and now you're offering to replace all of them with Cerberus operatives just because we hit a bit of a bump?"

Harper, in a rare expression of emotion, frowned in return.

"I wish things were different, Shepard, but some very recent, very severe developments are forcing my hand. We can't delay the mission, no matter what happens."

The N7 looked at the director with her green eyes.

"What developments?" she inquired.

Harper put down his cigarette and narrowed his eyes.

"I know this is very poor timing on my part … but our schedule has experienced an unexpected shift. Or rather an expected shift I was hoping wouldn't catch up with us just yet," he explained before his hologram was suddenly replaced with a star map that was highlighting a system at the most southern egress of the galaxy, right at the border of the Hegemony. She recognized it. It was the Viper Nebula. The batarian frontier. "While you were occupied with the refits, Task Force Aurora has gathered conclusive evidence of an imminent Reaper incursion. A large number of contacts, more than we can accurately count with the data currently available, has been spotted approaching the Viper Nebula from outside of the galactic rim," Shepard swallowed as the projection of a mass relay manifested in front of her.

Ever since understanding the vision she'd gotten back on Eden Prime, she'd dreaded this very moment.

They were coming.

… and the galaxy wasn't ready for it.

Not. One. Bit.

Despite nearly getting assassinated and losing two loyal crew members in the last couple of hours, the events of the last couple of days seemed very tame in comparison.

This was it, the end of the world as they knew it heading their way at several times the speed of light.

"How long?" was the only question on her mind. Everything else was secondary.

"As we're speaking, we've got nineteen days left before they hit the Bahak System and use the Alpha Relay to spread out over the galaxy. That is if they don't start accelerating all of the sudden…" Harper pulled from his cigarette again. "Before you ask, there's already a plan in motion to stop their incursion, one that doesn't require you, for now at least."

"I-" she was about to protest.

"I know," Harper said sharply. "Trust me. I understand that you want to be there. Believe it or not, I was a field agent once too and I'd feel exactly the way you do right now if our roles were switched," he reaffirmed, revealing a little of his background to the commander, maybe intentionally, maybe by accident. "But no matter how much you feel the need to be there to make sure it works, we need you focused on the Collectors for now," he inhaled more smoke and exhaled it almost immediately again to continue speaking. She'd rarely seen Harper smoke in a rush, never actually now that she thought about it, but the clock was literally ticking down to the apocalypse, so he'd be excused for behaving oddly, "I realise what I'm asking of you and even though I've got the impression that you assume that I'm not working in your best interest, I need you to trust me when I say that the Alpha Relay operation is in good hands and that your focus needs to be the Collectors for now."

She was about to protest again but then she realized that it was just her anger about Chakwas and Gardner flaring up and that Harper was probably right.

"Who's going in?" she asked briefly.

"Admiral Hackett's personal favorite is leading the mission," Harper offered vaguely.

"You say that like it should mean something to me."

"It does. Your paths crossed briefly on Virmire. I believe the two of you fell into a hole together, actually…"

Shepard thought back and remembered the blonde army captain who'd stopped her from getting cut apart by a wall of glass curtesy of Sovereign blowing up a turian frigate with his blatant disregard for his own personal safety.

"Ah. Him," she remembered. "Remind me of his name?" she asked, feeling somewhat guilty that she'd forgotten the name of one of the few people who could claim to have rescued her life. Without sounding arrogant, it usually went the other way around.

"Captain Tore Haugen. Third ASOC Battalion," Harper stated. "He'll be leading the ground team and if he succeeds at the task he's been given, we should delay the Reapers by at least three more months, not counting the time they'll take to overwhelm whatever little resistance the batarians might offer before they keel over and get destroyed," it was a cold assessment and while the director was talking about the species that had been a thorn in humanity's side since First Contact, Shepard thought that perhaps it was a little too cold.

"So late August, early September then?" she asked after a quick calculation in her head.

"Yes. With their current speed, the first week of September is the earliest they can reach another relay. Unless they accelerate, of course," Harper stressed again before extinguishing his smoke. He was really worried about that detail and she got why. The end times were coming…

After Harper had finished, Shepard was silent for a minute or so.

September.

If things went smoothly, they had little more than three months left to prepare for the force that had utterly and completely erased the protheans from the galaxy.

Unless something drastic happened, like for example the wild goose chase Liara, Kaiden and General Arterius had gone on after their mindmeld actually turning up some sort of anti-reaper wonder-weapon, … they were screwed beyond the limits of imagination. Sovereign had cleaved through the CDF like it was nothing and it had just been one Reaper. Against a whole armada, there was no way they could win conventionally. It'd be a slaughter, not a war.

"Commander," Harper called. No reaction. "Shepard," he tried again with a nearly sympathetic tone she didn't think him capable of. When he had her attention, the older man went on. "I need you to tell me that I didn't just make a grave mistake by telling you this before the Collectors are taken care of. Can you do that?"

"Knowing that they're here is a lot to take in," the N7 offered. "But yes. You won't have to worry about the Collectors," she offered. "But after I'm done with them…"

"I'll point you right where you want to be pointed at. Don't worry, you won't miss out on stopping the Reapers," he extinguished his cigarette. "No one's going to get to sit this one out."

"Damn right."

Harper rubbed his brow with the back of his hand, seemingly lost in thought for a second.

"There's one more thing. And for a change it might actually be … good news for a change," he said with a hint of hesitation that peaked her attention. "I spoke to General Arterius… and he tells me that Doctor T'Soni found something significant, something that may very well help with her search."

She raised an eyebrow, hopeful and curious.

"The weapon from the vision?" she guessed.

Harper picked up a new cigarette, making Shepard wonder how much HSAIS was paying to keep his lungs working.

"No. Not exactly," Harper replied. "Doctor T'Soni found a prothean survivor willing to lend us a hand in the search for their weapon," he muttered with the cigarette in his mouth, delivering the news far too casually considering its significance.

"A what?" the N7 asked with disbelief. She would've asked if this was a joke meant to improve her spirits, if this wasn't Director Harper she was talking to that is.

"He calls himself Javik," the man continued to mumble while lighting up his cigarette. "And from what T'Soni tells me, he wants the Reapers dead even more so that you do," he finished with a clear voice after having lit the cigarette and subsequently having removed it from his mouth to take a sip from a bourbon glass. "Considering that they dug him up on Eden Prime, I would've preferred to find him two years ago… but you know what they say. Better late-"

"- than never."

"Exactly," he pointed his cigarette at Shepard. "I'll leave you to it for now, Commander. You'll hear from me again once the refits are done," Harper puffed out a final cloud of smoke. "In the meantime, I suggest that you and your crew take care of any unfinished business. Given the simulations and experiments we ran, I'm not expecting a failure of the IFF. But we never know what you might run into on the other side. So if there are any distractions or loose ends, you should see to it that they are tied up. For your own sake."

Shepard nodded and swore she could see a hint of a sympathetic smile on Harper's lips as he uttered his final words to her before closing the line.

"Take care, Commander."


Meanwhile, 2158 CE, HSASV Normandy, Crew Deck

After the human military police had left, Garrus had found himself lingering around the mess hall where it had happened. He'd called Gardner out for his cooking of turian food and had a chat with Chackwas on his way to the main gun only yesterday.

Now both of them were dead.

From what they could tell up to now, the intruder that had murdered both had slipped out of the Normandy in the confusion of Legion's attempted (and failed) intervention via the use of human-style optical camouflage. A so-called 'Chameleon-cloak'. Where he'd gone after stepping off the hangar ramp was anyone's guess. As was his identity, his actual motive and how he'd managed to penetrate the six layers of security required to reach the Normandy's dock.

To do what he did, he had to get to the Citadel, past C-SEC costumes, into the HSA's restricted military dock, through the security / border station dividing the station from the military yards, to the Normandy's docking clamp and then inside the frigate without getting noticed.

… to use the words of the human MP officer he'd spoken to, completing that sort of infiltration was 'one hell of a magic trick'. Even if he'd gotten Nagato's help, he should've failed at some point.

Yet he hadn't.

And that went a long way in showcasing how dangerous the infiltrator actually was.

As did the fact that he'd eluded an experimental geth war-platform actively looking to kill him and the entirety of the aforementioned security measures on his way back out again.

Truth be told, Garrus was uncharacteristically worried about this guy. Far more so than about Morinth.

The Ardat-Yakshi had been extraordinarily dangerous, yes, but she'd been a straight-up fighter.

This guy wasn't.

Even if he seemed perfectly capable of violence, at least judging by the fact that he'd effortlessly defended himself from Chakwas' sudden close-up attack, he'd abandoned his mission at the first sight of real opposition.

There was a lot to be learned from that, starting with the fact that in addition to being a masterful infiltrator and well-trained combatant, he also knew how to pick his battles and when to avoid confrontation.

In a day and age where most militaries only ever dared to engage when they had overwhelming force on their side and the odds stacked tremendously in their favor, that was an increasingly rare skill that made him all the more dangerous.

He knew himself and the limits of his abilities. And he clearly also knew his enemies and what they were capable of.

That would make him incredibly hard to kill and very, very dangerous to anyone trying to do so.

The turian plunged his fork into the warmed-up human-made dextro field ration he was currently forcing himself to eat, briefly wondered how Gardner had managed to make these things somewhat edible and then went on from pondering about the killers' skills to pondering about his motives.

While it was easy to guess that he was working together with the people who'd tried to kill Shepard, Garrus was enough of a cynic to realise that Shepard had made more than one enemy with a vested interested to have her assassinated and that there was a small chance that these were two completely different enemies who just happened to respectively try and kill Shepard and take over EDI at the same opportune time.

Criminal syndicates, mercenary outfits, bounty hunters, human separatists, whoever Nagato had been working for… the list of people who could want Shepard dead was long.

He'd keep that a private thought for now though, lest he invite even more uncertainty into the ship.

With the perceived security of the Normandy destroyed and the fact that all their names could end up being listed in the same sentence as Chakwas' and Gardner' the moment they passed through the relay, the crew already had enough on their mind as things were.

The last thing they needed was for Garrus to give them yet another enemy to worry about.

"We'll get him eventually, you know," the voice of Leng suddenly echoed from across the mess hall, just as Garrus had found himself staring at the residue of blood drying up in the cracks of the floor panels that the crime scene cleaners seemed to have either forgotten or not cared enough about to remove. The turian removed his blue eyes from the stains and looked at the dark-haired human leaning against the kitchen counter. Like Garrus, Leng was clad in combat armor, presumably because he (much like Garrus) wasn't going to let his guard down until the Normandy was off the Citadel. The intruder was after all still unaccounted for.

"Oh, I have no doubt of that," Garrus replied before watching as the N7 inspected the cooking utensils left on the table. He ducked down behind the counter and judging by the sound of banging metal started to rummage inside the cupboards.

"How you figure she's taking it?"

"Come again?" Garrus asked while prodding his meal with the awkwardly small fork.

"Em. How do you figure she's taking all of this?"

"No commander likes having their crew murdered while narrowly avoiding an attempt on their own life orchestrated by a senior officer of their crew."

"True. But that doesn't answer the question how you think she's handling it."

Garrus sighed.

"What are you getting at, Leng?"

The human male rose from behind the kitchen and produced a piece of frozen meat still vacuum-packed in the transparent foils that humans liked to store their rations in. He slit the piece of plastic open with a combat knife and tossed the meat into a pan, clearly intending to fill up Gardner's roll the same way Garrus had just tried.

As he watched the human cook, he was about to ask if that wasn't the same knife he'd used out in the field and if he really wanted that blade to touch his food… but then he remembered who he was talking to.

"What's it look like? I'm freaking hungry, man," Leng stated dryly before flipping the pan.

"You know that's not what I meant."

The N7 only shrugged in return.

"Here's the deal, Vakarian. Em likes to pretend like she's this untouchable slate of granite that's just gonna stay unaffected by everything that happens around her so that people know they can lean on her… but I think we both know that that's not how this works," the pan the N7 was wielding was starting to sizzle. "As long as I've known her, she's felt obligated to give a shit about everyone around her and make herself responsible for what happens to them. And now two of those people are dead. So someone's gotta talk to her," he sat down the pan and looked at the turian, who had to admit that he'd made the same observations about Shepard since having met her. She really did care, at times maybe even too much... "And I don't think it should be me," he finished before sticking his knife into the slab of meat and turning it around like a true master chef.

The former C-SEC detective narrowed his eyes.

"Ignoring that I'm not sure what ever gave you the idea that I'm qualified to give someone emotional comfort when my go-to reaction to losing team members seems to be to slip into a stim-fueled revenge killing spree… you know her much longer than I do. Far better too. If anyone should talk to her, it's you."

Leng snorted in return.

"I like how you imply that I'm even remotely less fucked up than you," the N7 chuckled before glancing at the medbay. "Chakwas was exactly who Em would need right now. A reasonable person who could actually talk sense into her instead of you know… guys like us who solve their problems by popping rounds into the heads of the guys who caused all of this in the hopes that more death's somehow gonna make the world a less shitty place," the N7 mumbled with a rare hint of melancholy before waving his knife through the air. As he was doing that, Garrus couldn't help but admit that Leng had described both of them perfectly just now … and casually opened Garrus' eyes to the fact that they had more in common than just being loyal to Shepard…

"Yes. They were close… or at least I think they were," Garrus replied, following the N7s gaze at the medbay. "It's a bit unfair, isn't it?"

"What is?"

"That the first to go were Gardner and Chakwas of all people," the turian mused. "Shepard filled this ship with top-tier shooters, assassins, spies and biotics, who all live incredibly high-risk lifestyles… and the first to get killed are the cook and the physician. Outside of combat, nonetheless."

"Yeah…" Leng muttered. "I know its morbid to say, especially now, but I actually figured the first to go would either be you or well… me."

The plates above Garrus' eyes shifted upwards.

"Why us?"

"Because we're fucking ordinary ass people doing absolutely insanely dangerous shit all the time, Vakarian," the N7 stated before flipping his meal again with his knife. "And unlike the rest of the team, we've got no once-in-a-generation biotics, no fancy tech programs, no STG or drell assassin training, no geth-synth muscle and no cybernetics from a back-from-the-dead program. We're just guys with guns. Run-of-the-mill grunts compared to the rest of the team," he paused, somewhat underselling both of them in Garrus' opinion. "And when shit hits the fan, the grunts always go first. That's a basic rule of war."

"Normally I'd agree… but clearly the rules don't apply here," Garrus retorted as Leng tried a piece of his meal and grimaced the instant he started chewing. He turned around to look at the spice-shelf, studying the various cannisters. "You want to know what the last day taught me?"

"Since I'll be standing here for another minute or two while figuring out how Gardner made this shit edible… sure. Why not."

"That we aren't fighting the sort of battle we figured we'd be fighting. And we aren't going up against the enemy we pictured either," he glanced at the blood residue. "This isn't a straight-up gunfight to stop the Collectors. It's a shadow-war, Leng. Knives and coats, I believe you humans say," he remembered. "Normal soldiers like us don't have a place in that kind of battle," then he pushed himself up from the table with a decision forming in his mind.

"It's Cloak and daggers, actually, but yeah. I get what you're saying," Leng corrected while looking at him. "Sucks to be useless, doesn't it?" he added with a dark chuckle.

"… yes," Garrus grimaced. If he couldn't be useful as a soldier, maybe he could be useful as something else. "Now… about Shepard."

"… we could always send up Callius," the N7 offered off-mindedly.

Garrus thought about the Blackwatch lieutenant for a second and pictured how she'd drill several of her legion's tents into Shepard's head in an attempt to keep her distracted.

"… I don't think that's a good idea," he said before he started walking towards the elevator.

"Where you going?"

He turned his head towards Leng.

"To talk to Shepard."

"And say what?"

"Something helpful… Hopefully."


Meanwhile, 2158 CE, Normandy, Conference Room

"All things considered, we got off easy. Nonetheless, the crew will feel this for some time," Callius finished before looking General Arterius in the eye. After the human hastati had finished their work the Blackwatch officer had decided to report to her own superiors and in return receive some new information from them too, some of which she'd rather not have known…

First and foremost, there'd been some very bad news she'd pushed in the back of her mind for the time being. At least until after the Collectors were dealt with.

The probes the Hierarchy had sent into dark space two years ago had made contact with something.

Before being rendered non-operational, they had detected a massive collection of objections moving towards the galaxy from a southern heading. If their course didn't change, they'd reach the galactic rim at the Viper Nebula before the month was over.

While there was no official confirmation and the information had yet to leave the absolute highest level of classification imaginable, the Hierarchy was positive that these objects were either the full Reaper invasion fleet, or if they were very unlucky, just it's advanced spearhead.

Since the fleet was headed for the Viper Nebula, TNI assumed that the Reapers planned on using the Alpha Relay, the farthest-out mass relay in the known galaxy, to jumpstart their invasion and spread out across the galaxy through the use of the primary relays before moving on to a systemic purge using the secondary network. Hence, the fulcrum of their plan was finding the Alpha-Relay in an operation state.

Arterius had been scarce on the details, mostly because Blackwatch was surprisingly not involved in a direct-action capacity as of this moment, but he'd assured Callius that there was an operation being planned right now to buy the galaxy some much needed time. Its aim was simple, destroy the Alpha Relay and give the galaxy a couple of months by forcing the Reapers to move to the next closest relay, all the while essentially abandoning the batarians to their fate.

In the best case, this would buy the galaxy a couple of months.

But in the worst case it'd mean war with the Hegemony right until what was left of them got annihilated by the Reapers.

Either way, it was happening.

Needless to say, she was still trying to wrap her head around that.

Moving on from world shattering news, Arterius had told Callius that the Hierarchy would soon announce a partial mobilization of the most recent combat-arms reservists, that included everyone who had left service in the last two years, or in the case of combat arms, four years.

Officially, this was to test the battle-readiness of the reserve.

In truth however, these soldiers were going to be ordered into a permanent standby in anticipation of the invasion and were just the first batch of troops to be mobilized. As part of the same plan, the standing military would also be placed in a state of anticipation, officially due to the fear of 'batarian aggression in the Verge', an excuse that the general said the humans also intended to use… if they could convince their parliament that is.

Those were the downsides of the less authoritarian nature of their allies.

The will of a few primarchs could shift all of turian society for the better.

Humans however always needed to convince the majority of their various assemblies to make even the smallest of changes.

… sometimes Callius genuinely wondered if the HSA wouldn't be better of adopting the turian model of governance. It'd remove the indecision that seemed to plague their leadership ever since the last chancellor had abdicated.

Either way.

In addition to telling her that the Reapers were coming and that at least the Hierarchy was getting ready to show them that they'd picked the wrong galaxy to attack, Arterius had also reported something that might actually work out in their favor for a change.

If she hadn't seen the likes of the Reapers in her lifetime, Callius might've been surprised to hear that Doctor T'soni had apparently led the Blackwatch unit on an expedition to Eden Prime that had led to the discovery of a prothean survivor who'd spent the last 50.000 years in cryostasis.

According to Arterius, this 'Javik' was a virulently xenophobic, arrogant piece of work (not the exact wording the general had used) but he was proving to be helpful in the way that in between insulting them all as honor-obsessed primitives, he was helping T'Soni with her search for the prothean weapon that the asari was betting their collective survival on, the one the beacon on a Collector ship had imprinted into Alenko's head in a seeming stroke of luck.

Privately, Callius wasn't holding out too much hope for what might have been an intentional misdirection on the Collectors' part … but since not pursuing it would be blatantly irresponsible given the chance that it might be real, she wasn't going to voice that opinion out loud.

According to Arterius, Harper had given the same news she'd just gotten from him to Shepard. In the same sentence as he'd told her that, the general had also encouraged Callius to make sure that Harper really had told Shepard everything.

It was strange suggestion considering Arterius had always trusted the director of Cerberus but given what Leng had told her about Harper's fears regarding Shepard… it felt warranted.

"The type of mission you're on was always going to lead to casualties," the elaprian general offered with a shrug. "Still, I'd ask for you to extend my condolences to Shepard. Losing soldiers on the battlefield is one thing. Losing crewmates to assassins in what should've been a safe port is another," his white mandibles pressed against his jaw. "Now, I believe there was something else you wanted to catch me up on?"

Callius nodded.

Before the attempt on Shepard's life had occurred the only reason she'd scheduled a call with her general had been to inform him of the chat she'd had with Ractus, her long-time friend working for the Taetrus division of TNI.

"You remember Ractus Xzander, right?"

The general's eyes narrowed.

"He's hard to forget," he hissed.

"So you know that he's working on Taetrus these days?"

"Yes," the answer was brief and lacked the admission that Arterius had requested Ractus to be sent to his own homeworld.

"Before everything that happened just now, I was speaking to Ractus," she could see the 'why would you do that' forming on Arterius' mouth, so she explained right away. "One of the Talons I encountered on Omega turned out to be a convicted taetrian separatist and since its news to me that Facinus acts outside of Taetrus, I wanted to know what he was doing all the way in the Terminus. I figured we can't have them looking for allies without us knowing about it," she briefly explained, even if she assumed that Arterius was the last person she needed to convince that anything related to Facinus was bad news. The general had been right there with her back during the last insurgency. "Anyway. Ractus did his research and as it turns out, the Talon we ran into on Omega wasn't just any old ex-convict… he was part of Tanus' security detail," Tanus was Judicator Kihilix Tanus, Facinus' de-facto leader. When she was done with the first part of her explanation, she tried reading Arterius' expression for a moment. The mention of Ractus had done something to him, but now his face was like stone again. Unreadable. Stoic. That was probably good for the next part.

Probably.

"But since you know that Ractus rarely stops once he's got a thread to pull on, that wasn't all he did," she went on before folding her arms behind his back. "He got someone inside Facinus inner circle and the information he procured from there suggests that they aren't just planning a rebellion this time around. They're gearing themselves up for an apocalypse. A kind of Primarch-of-the-ruins type of scenario," she sighed. "Ractus says they're considering everything in the book as long as it kills plenty of loyalists and since TNI gave him access to the Sovereign files, he's worried that their newly discovered genocidal side may not be their own idea," she finished, omitting the fact that she didn't actually know how Ractus had gotten his hands on the Sovereign files.

"Indoctrination?"

"Exactly," Callius nodded. "And not just Facinus either. He suspects the primarch too…" she said before trailing off to give the general the time to react to the news.

"Considering that Xzander's always been paranoid even by TNI standards of that word's definition, it's hardly a surprise he'd jump to that conclusion," Arterius retorted. It was the kind of remark that she had expected given their history, hence she'd saved that last part for after.

"He only got the idea after Primarch Valen dismissed the evidence that Facinus is planning a cataclysm for Taetrus," she stated seriously. "Since he's been demoted to lieutenant, he knows he can't go over the head of a Primarch," at this point she sort of expected Arterius to make a remark about how Ractus knowing his place would be a first … but it never came. In retrospective she clearly should've known better than to underestimate the self-control of Desolas Arterius, acting commander of the Blackwatch. "So he wants to speak to you and make his case," she added. Arterius remained silent in return, suggesting to Callius that contrary to Ractus' expectations of him (which had been rather high all things considered) he needed some convincing. "Sir, I know that you dislike Ractus …"

"I do. But that hardly matters if he's right," the hologram of the turian responded before nodding. "Give me his new comm-ID. I'll hear him out."

Callius nodded and brought up her omni to send the ID his way. Then she prepared to end the call.

"There's actually one more thing, Lieutenant."

"Yes?"

Arterius glanced over his shoulder and then his features softened noticeably.

"If the relay doesn't disintegrate you and you somehow take the fight to the Collectors…. make damn sure that you remember to duck. When the Reapers hit us, we'll need you back here. So whatever happens, you make sure you come back from this. General's orders."

She nodded, offered a smile and a salute and then turned off the hologram.


Five Minutes Later, 7. May 2417 AD, HSASV Normandy, CO Quarters

Just as Shepard was about to leave the quarters to let Callius know that she was ready to get back in action, the bell of her door was rung. After opening it, she found herself looking at Garrus.

They hadn't talked much about what had happened since the turian had come to find her in wake of Nagato's attack, not at all actually. There hadn't been any time in between their hurry back to the SR-2 and the subsequent boarding.

Last she'd seen him, he'd checked Chakwas for a pulse, despite the very obviously lethal injuries the doctor had sustained. 'Force of habit', he'd muttered back then before going ahead and pulling Joker from the service ducts.

She'd gotten better at reading turians in the last couple of months, mostly thanks to her XO now being one and the several hour-long conversations they'd had about the daily running of the ship sort of giving her ample time to study their facial reactions.

As such Shepard could tell that the grey-plated detective seemed uncomfortable and lost in thought.

"Can I help you, Garrus?" she asked before leaning against the side of the door and intentionally moving in the way of his gaze. When she did so, she could see his blue eyes re-focus.

"…Yes. I came up to see how you were doing with everything that's happened today," the turian admitted glancing at the clock behind her. "Or rather yesterday," he added awkwardly. "But now that I'm here, I'm realizing that I haven't actually come up with what I was going to say. yet So I guess I'll just start and see where I end up," he sighed before inhaling. "Leng's worried about you, Shepard. Says you'll put the blame for Chakwas and Gardner on your shoulders the way you put everything else there too and that it'll destroy you eventually… and considering how things went two years ago when Williams and Anderson died… I can't fully disagree with what he's saying," his mandibles twitched outward and Shepard folded her arms in response and opened her mouth to ask what he was getting at.

"I'm not done yet," he added quickly and with raised hands. "And I guess I should maybe start differently too… Like I said. I don't exactly have a script…" he sighed again and narrowed his eyes, looking straight at her. "You're one of the most strong-willed people I've ever met, Shepard, and you're hands down one of the best soldiers there's ever been. Ever since I've known you, the galaxy has tossed one impossible task after another in your face and despite its best effort to change that, you're still here, still fighting, way past the point where most everyone else would've given up already," the turian started before pointing at the cabin, asking to be let in. She got out of his way and Garrus walked in. "I know I don't make a point of showing it, but I admire that about you, Shepard. I really do. You've done more good for this galaxy in a couple of years than entire species have done since they discovered the mass effect."

Shepard couldn't help but snort in response.

"I appreciate the notion but aren't you being a little dramatic here, Garrus?" she asked while following him into the cabin and watching as he stared at the two model-ships she'd assembled in the last couple of months. Her original collection, the one she'd built with her dad, had obviously been disintegrated alongside the rest of the Normandy and its emotional value was never going to be replaced no matter what she did… but her quarters had felt empty, so what was she supposed to do? Hang up some pictures? As far as interior decoration went there wasn't anything more boring than pictures…

"No, I'm not," the turian responded almost instantly before turning back to face her. "In the same month that I met you, you stopped the literal end of the world with little to no prep-time and every conceivable disadvantage on your side. That's not just damn impressive, it's a miracle."

"I didn't do that alone, Garrus. And we weren't really the underdog either with the whole galaxy being on our side and what not," she corrected.

"The only reason they were there was because you convinced them to, Shepard. None of that would've happened if it wasn't for you," he countered quickly. "And that's what I admire most about you. You've got a way of making people follow you despite their differences. I mean just look at what you did with Wrex and me. You managed to make a krogan mercenary befriend a turian C-SEC detective. That's almost more impressive than the whole Reaper-stopping, actually," Garrus offered dryly before looking at the terminal on her desk. "I've thought long and hard about how you manage to do it. Especially after I thought you were dead," he offered. "And the only answer I could come up with is that it's because people know that you genuinely care about what happens to them. And I don't mean the regular, you're-under-my-command-so-you're-my-responsibility kind of caring," he stated. "You actually care for them on a personal level, so much in fact that you let them have a little spark of that fire in your heart… and because of that, they start caring about you too and before they know it," he made a snapping gesture with his fingers that failed thanks to the armor he was wearing, "they're fiercely loyal to you. It's like an infection," he finished before taking a step closer to her. "You impact everyone you meet in a way no one else I've ever met does and to top it all of you, you make yourself responsible for every single one of them too," he closed his eyes. "That's a damn heavy weight to carry and I genuinely don't know how you manage to do that. Also, I'd be lying if I said that I didn't used to envy you for it," he looked around the quarters.

"Used to?" Shepard inquired.

Garrus gestured at the cabin.

"Before I joined C-SEC, this is where I saw myself eventually. My own crew. My own command," he turned towards the model ship. "But then life happened, and I realized that it was always just going to be a dream. I'm not like you. I don't have the heart for this. Or the charisma," he stated. "And truth be told, I'm starting to be damn glad about that."

Shepard raised an eyebrow, once again about to say something.

"Please just listen for now. I- I need to finish his line of thought before I lose it," he asked and she obliged.

"I envy your way with people… but I'm starting to be glad that I don't have it because I can see the downside clearly now. I didn't fully get until now, probably because I was too busy blaming myself for things I had no control over to see that you were struggling with the way things went down… but by giving a piece of yourself to everyone you meet, you die a little with everyone that doesn't make it, don't you?" he asked before continuing way before she could think about the question and answer it. "That's why you're so hard on yourself whenever we lose someone in this fight. Every time someone goes, so does a part of you," Garrus narrowed his eyes. "And since you're … well … you, you don't want to burden others with that weight … so you just keep it to yourself… letting it weigh on you so it doesn't weigh on anyone else," the turian paused. "I guess what I came up here to say is actually pretty simple," he hesitantly put up his hand and after several seconds of just letting it hover in the air, he put it on her arm. The cold alloy of the armor sent a chill through her body. "Let your friends care about you the way you care about them, Shepard. Not all of us can give up pieces of ourselves the way you do … and we definitely won't infect you with the kind of spark you've infected us with … but we can be there for you when you need us… if you let us. So please. Let us." the turian offered while looking straight at her and exhaling. "Okay. Now I'm done."

The redhaired N7 put a hand on his and squeezed it and even though Garrus probably couldn't feel it through the armor, his facial plates seemed to relax at the touch. She thought about their conversation on the Citadel, what Garrus had said about her changing him for the better and both of them aggreging that settling down wasn't in the cards for either of them and that saving the galaxy was going to be their calling in life. Then she briefly considered throwing a funny quip his way, something along the lines of 'you're sure you didn't write this down' (because damn if that hadn't been a hell of a speech) but then decided to go for something simple instead.

"Thank you, Garrus," she whispered before giving the turian a sudden hug. In that moment she decided to forget all about what Harper had just told her, even if was just for a few minutes. The turian seemed paralyzed and unsure of how to act, so Shepard let go and gestured for the table next to the door where two cushioned seats had been placed by Cerberus' interior designers. "I know it's late… but would you maybe want to talk about Chakwas for some time?" she asked quietly. "Losing her… hasn't been easy. And like you said, talking might help."

Garrus blinked.

"I'd love to."


Ten Hours Later, 2158 CE, HSASV Normandy, Laboratory

"And you're confident that it will work as intended, Doctor? From what I understand, this weapon is after all based on their own virus," the human director asked while Mordin looked at the results depicted on his various terminals, relieved that the infiltration of the Normandy hadn't damaged his work on the anti-Collector weapon he'd been tasked with creating.

"Yes. Was able to restructure protein chains based on sample retrieved by your strike team. Increased lethality, virulence and ensured that missile-born delivery is viable option," the salarian responded before putting a hand over his mouth. "Depending on scale of Collector home, population density and present infrastructure, I predict full spread around fourteen days after deployment. Complete eradication after seventeen. Full dissolution of all virus traces should be achieved by day twenty."

"A three-week genocide. Very impressive," Director Harper replied with a disturbing enthusiasm. "We can begin production of the warheads as soon as you sent us the blueprint," he went on while Mordin considered his creation. Cerberus had approached him some time ago about finding a permanent solution for the Collectors, a task he could clear with his conscience since it was perfectly clear that the Collectors were little more than indoctrinated bio-mechanical weapons themselves, far beyond saving or salvaging.

"Will forward blueprints momentarily," the salarian stated before considering if he should show his hand now or view this as a test of Harper's intentions for later possible collaborations.

Although he had agreed to help Cerberus with creating a weapon that could take care of a possible Collector home world (or worse, several home worlds), he was under no illusion that the human black ops division was any different from STG in the way that it would treat a weapon like this.

Today it would be the Collectors.

But tomorrow it might just be the batarians or any other sapient species that got in the way and for that reason, he needed to be careful

Ever since his final meeting with Maelon, Mordin had become somewhat skeptical of some of his past decisions, in particular the ones related to biological weapons like the Genophage.

While he wouldn't say that he outright regretted what he'd done to the krogan, he was ready to admit that he might have acted … prematurely and without enough data on the matter, especially given the scale of the impact his work had had.

If he was being dramatic, he could go as far as saying that he had robbed future krogan of the chance to be different based on the failures of their predecessors; a concept that he found inherently wrong. The sins of ones forerunners should never be held against one.

Looking back… his choice on the matter felt wrong.

And while the Collectors were certainly different from the krogan in the fact that they were a mockery of organic life, created by the Reapers to exploit the protheans one final time (something the krogan weren't), he did not want his work to be used to destroy the future of others ever again.

As such he had built in a failsafe this time around, one that ensured that any manipulation to the weapon that could alter the intended target, the Collectors, would lead to the lethal apocalypse-virus he'd just created turning itself into a useless chain of molecules that did nothing at all to anyone except for maybe the few unlucky ones hit by parts of the delivery missiles.

While some would call that treason against his own allies, Mordin simply considered it insurance.

He'd never been the trusting type, especially not when it came to people who were capable of thinking like him, something that was very much true in regard to Director Harper.

"Blueprint are forwarding now," he stated before typing away at his terminals and removing all traces of the secret modifications he'd made, including the self-destruction mechanism built into the virus, and then sending the blueprints Harper's way. "Trust that my involvement in this will be kept confidential?"

"Naturally," Harper stated with a shrug. "I'd have been more surprised if you'd ask me to make it known far and wide," the older human went on before taking a sip from his beverage. As the data transfer finished, he loosened the glass from his lips. "Given how helpful you've been, Doctor Solus, I feel like it's time that I be genuine with you," he began. "The Collectors aren't the only kind of reaper-tech infused organics that Cerberus has been looking to find a way to destroy permanently," he typed away at a hologram and Mordin's terminal buzzed and a phrase appeared on-screen. "I trust that you're familiar with the nature of husks?" Harper asked while Mordin read the phrase:

'Project Leukocyte'.

"Cybernetically altered corpses of living beings revived by mixture of nanite solutions and implants. Less sophisticated and independent than Collectors. Far more mechanical," the salarian mumbled before swiping past the name and looking at the information on his screen. Cerberus seemed to have been looking into a way to develop a type of chemical agent that could destroy the compound that kept husks functioning without killing organic troops in the vicinity… interesting. "Chemical weapons represent direct violation of Citadel Conventions," the salarian observed off mindedly while reading how Cerberus was seemingly succeeding at the 'killing husks' part of the simulations but doing rather poorly with the whole 'without hurting our soldiers'-factor. Their weapon was simply killing everything indiscriminately by violently dissolving whatever it touched.

"So are biological ones, yet you were happy to help me make one," Harper replied casually before lighting up a cigarette. "I know chemistry isn't your exact area of expertise, Doctor. But if you could help us better understand the biology of the husks, we might just finish Leukocyte before we find out that a couple billion rifleman don't stand a chance against several trillion bio-mechanical nightmares made from our own population centers," he offered. "They are coming, Doctor and while I realise that you're already pushing the usual life expectancy of a salarian, I'm confident that you'll be around by the time they get here. We need that weapon ready when they get here. And half a dozen others too."

Mordin looked at the screen and then at Harper.

"Requesting more than my assistance," he deduced.

"Yes. This is a job offer, Doctor," Harper retorted.

Mordin closed his eyes and exhaled.

"Retired from STG for a reason," he stated. "Won't exchange one black-op for another, no matter how imminent and clear danger of Reaper incursion appears to be," then he opened his eyes and started to type on the screen where the information about Leukocyte was currently being depicted.

… he didn't need to give them unrestricted access to his knowledge.

But he could help a little.

If only in the interest of his retirement plans and the overall fate of the galaxy.

"Principle approach seems to be wrong already," he observed while skimming over the information and before Harper could answer to his rejection. "Will look at data and report back to you as soon as I am ready," then he looked away from the screen. "Husk samples… could be useful."

"… I'll send whatever recent samples we have your way."

Mordin nodded and neither of them asked where Cerberus had gotten such information before terminating the transmission. Then the salarian immersed himself in his work right until his omni-tool's alert reminded him that he should be eating right now. While some might find it strange that he set an alarm to remember to eat, Mordin simply considered it resourceful.

He knew curiosity could make him get carried away, so he worked to prevent it.

As he swiped the alarm off and readied himself to head to the mess, Mordin remembered that their mess sergeant had in fact been killed yesterday alongside Doctor Chakwas. Both had been regrettable losses that were weighing heavily on most of the crew.

Not him personally though.

Mordin realized that it made him sound like a cold, heartless creature, but the ripple-effect of what had occurred that was currently shaking up the crew hadn't had much of an effect on him.

Decades in STG had hardened him to the concept of losing comrades and the uncountable number of lives that his personal actions had caused to end (or in the case of his Genophage modifications caused never to exist to begin with) meant that he was long past the point of asking 'why' whenever someone was violently ripped from life.

These things simply happened.

They were a part of the universe the same way orbital periods, gravity and time were a part of it and unless someone discovered the ability to travel back in time, there was nothing he could do to change the outcome they were now being presented with.

As such he wouldn't waste any more thought on it and if that made him cold and heartless in the eyes of some, well, then he'd live with that the same way he lived with everything else people had called him in the past.

Once you determined the faith of an entire species through spinning some protein chains and had to find a way to justify their development from that point forward with your own conscience… you stopped caring about what people thought of you.

After the brief existential tangent, Mordin felt his stomach growl and decided to fulfill his bodies craving for nutrients, even in the absence of a talented cook.

On his way to the mess, he crossed paths with the asari justicar of all people.

They locked eyes and just as he hadn't asked Director Harper where he'd gotten such detailed research on husks, he also wouldn't ask Samara why he'd found her hanging around a Presidium bar talking to an asari bartender that looked far too matriarchal and far too militaristic to be serving drinks on the Citadel.

"Doctor," the asari greeted with a nod.

"Justicar," he responded respectfully before both entered the elevator.

He needn't ask what Samara had been doing there, mind you.

Justicars were members of a religious military order and were deeply tied to the Athame Doctrine, the dominant, quasi-state-religion of the asari that worshipped the goddess Athame, a semi-mysthical, semi-historical figure that shaped the history of early asari.

In the eyes of most people they were religious zealots who answered to no one but their code and the goddess… but if his time in STG had told him anything it was that justicars were, first and foremost, paramilitary executioners of the Republics who reported back to the matriarchs that funded their order the same way he used to report to STG way back when he'd been a mission specialist sent on only the most sensitive assignments the Inner Cabinet could come up with.

As the doors closed and he threw a sideward glance at the asari, Mordin hid a smirk.

It was good to know that the Republics were taking an interest in the developments regarding the Reapers and the Collectors.

Their knowledge, wealth and – most importantly – their connections would be needed when the Reapers arrived.

"How have you been these past few days, Doctor?" the asari asked as the elevator went down. It was strange for her to strike up a conversation.

"Fine," Mordin replied, simple and quick. "Unaffected by emotional turmoil," he elaborated. "You?"

"I'm a Justicar, Doctor. Keeping my emotions in check is second nature to me," the asari replied. "You saw me not waiver after slaying my own daughter, did you not?"

"Yes."

"Then you can assume that I'm handling the attack on the Normandy with the same ease, yes?"

"Stands to reason," he said before the elevator pinged open and he made a move to step out. It was prevented when the justicar extended a hand in front of his chest. She didn't touch him but it was clear to the salarian that he couldn't just walk out either.

"You were with the Special Task Groups for thirty years, were you not, Doctort?" Mordin nodded. "Then I trust that you understand that some events are better left unmentioned?"

Mordin looked the asari in the eye.

"Referring to-" he started, if only to toy a little with the asari.

"Yes. That," she said firmly.

"Ah. Yes. Naturally. Lips are sealed. Have no interest in meddling with personal affairs," he offered before gesturing towards the mess hall. "May I?"

The asari lowered her arm ever so slightly.

"I appreciate your trust, Doctor. Don't make me regret it."

There it was. The underlying threat and the revelation it entailed: the people Shepard had been collecting were unlikely allies only held together by their mission's purpose and the commander's will. When those things were removed, some of them would once again stand on opposing sides. And when that happened, everything was possible, even with the Reapers in sight.

"Won't," he replied, not mentioning how he had detailed, battle-tested plans for taking down powerful asari biotics.

If she sought to try, Samara wouldn't be the first matriarchal-aged asari who'd find out that a nimble salarian scientist could be far more dangerous than they'd ever anticipated, even if he only lived for a blink of an eye in comparison to them.

In a similar vein, he also wouldn't mention that he had been working on several … fail safes … which were to be used in the event that any other members of the Normandy's crew attempted to jeopardize their mission of stopping the Collectors and by extension the Reapers.

It made him sound paranoid, yes.

But like he'd said…

He'd never been the trusting kind.

Especially not when the stakes were the faith of the galaxy.

"Enjoy your meal, Doctor," the asari offered before lowering her hand fully and 'letting' him leave.


One Hour Later, 2158 CE, HSASV Normandy, Life Support Unit

Thane exhaled and gently and slowly brushed his hand over the flame of the lone candle he'd lit with EDI's permission. According to the AI, any larger source of open fire would trigger the fire-repellent system. Or at least what was left of its filling. Legion had apparently exhausted plenty of the mixture, which was yet another reason they were still docked to the Citadel. The other was the ongoing search for sabotage.

As he started feeling the heat, Thane got lost in thought.

Ever since finding out about the path that his son had taken, the drell assassin had mediated a lot, mostly to reflect upon the errors he'd made but also to try and determine why his son, who had vanished as quickly as he'd appeared, would've chosen to follow in his step.

His life wasn't one that was worth striving for.

So why would anyone actively seek it out?

As the heat became uncomfortable and he smelled the scent of burnt scales, which distracted him from the sting of the freshly operated gunshot wound next to his left shoulder, Thane snapped his hand shut and extinguished the flame he'd been hovering over, filling the room with darkness.

Kolyat had made his decision.

That was all a father could want for their son.

… yet why did it have to be this path?

Was this the gods' way to ridicule him for his mistakes?

One final mockery before Kepral erased him from this plain?

He inhaled deeply, let go of the rush of anger and in his focus, took notice of the sound of footsteps outside of the door. Before the knock ever came, he was on his feet and the lights had turned on.

He'd expected a lot of people to come and face him in the wake of what had occurred. Shepard, Lieutenant Callius, possibly even the turian detective. Everyone had reasons to come and question him about Kolyat and his sudden appearance and equally sudden disappearance.

He was surprised when the door opened and he was looking at the young quarian who'd joined their crew most recently. The quarian – barely an adult – stood in front of the assassin and looked at him through her mask. Her muscles were tense and her stance was enclosed in itself, a natural defensive posture betraying her nervousness.

He wouldn't fault her. His reputation proceeded him and unlike the rest of Shepard's crew, Tali'Zorah was no trained killer who could claim to have a similar history as him.

"Yes?" he asked, looking at the nervous quarian.

"… I need to take a look at the life support systems," she explained, pointing behind the drell. "To check for sabotage."

The drell blinked.

"The human techs already did that," they'd disturbed his peace earlier and been similarly nervous about it as the quarian.

"Two pairs of eyes can't hurt when it's about your lifeline."

"Don't you mean ours?" the drell corrected.

The quarian pointed at the mask of her environmental suit, which would ensure that she stayed safe from exterior influences.

"No. Yours. Unless they put something corrosive in there, I'd be fine. And even if they did, I could probably still get out in time," the quarian pointed correctly. "May I?"

The drell stepped sideways quickly, the movement once again making him aware of his stinging shoulder. "Of course," he offered, watching the young quarian move towards the console next to his makeshift bed. It hummed and beeped throughout the night. Most would be bothered by this disturbance, but Thane liked the noise of company and the hidden rhythm. It helped him sleep and provided a pleasant distraction to the rattling of his lungs. As he watched the quarian work, he observed the slight tremble in her fingers and unsteadiness of her feet. "Is everything alright?" he asked quietly, referring to the working station and the status of their life support systems.

"Keelah, of course it isn't," the quarian stated, promoting Thane to suspiciously glance at the air vent above him. Had they been poisoned after all? "Chakwas and Gardner are dead. And Shepard and you nearly died as well… during shore leave of all times…" she said while going about her work. "I thought I knew what I signed up for, but I clearly didn't," Tali went on, making the drell realized that she'd assumed he was asking about her, not the Normandy. Her shoulders slumped visibly and she paused her work to turn towards him. "How do you do it?"

The drell folded his hands behind his back.

"Do what?"

"Go on like none of this just happened."

"Ah," Thane exclaimed before looking at the faint smoke trail of the candle that was now visible in the light. "Practice," he stated simply.

"Practice?"

"Practice," he repeated. "I've been around death all my life. It's become a part of everything I do. With an omnipresence like that, it's just a matter of time until it stops affecting you," ever since being shot, his voice and lungs felt even raspier than usual. His doctors had warned him to take things easy if he wanted to extend his remaining lifetime as much as possible.

He wasn't a doctor, but he doubted that being shot was encompassed in that definition.

"So you just never think about that you might not come back from this?"

"No. I've considered the outcome of our mission plenty of times. However every time I do, I realise that my fate makes little difference on the grand scale of things. My death is inevitable, so it's time is of no consequence," the drell responded earnestly. Then he realized how nihilistic that sounded and decided that this wasn't what a young quarian should be hearing. "What I am trying to say is that I'm in a unique position. With Kepral lingering over me, my life's nearing its end anyway. I will die. Sooner than later," he explained. "There's peace to be found in the certainty that knowledge brings." The quarian turned away and started to wave her omni over the console, clearly unsure of what to say. "I've disturbed you," Thane figured after another moment of silence.

"What? No, no," Tali responded with a shake of her head. "It's just… I don't know what to say to that. I've had some dark moments in the last months, times where I thought I probably wasn't going to make it back home unless some miracle. But it was never a complete certainty for me. There was always a shard of hope, something to hold on to when it got bad… you don't have that. And here I am, crying to you of all people."

Thane sat down at the table sitting in the center of the room.

"I understnad," he said before sitting down at the table of the room. "My fate being sealed doesn't fill me with regret, Tali'Zorah," he went on. "And it doesn't make your concerns any less valid."

"It certainly feels like it should, though," the quarian countered. "The console's fine, so you shouldn't suffocate."

"That's pleasant to know," Thane nodded, neglecting to mention that he would eventually suffocate on the fluids of his own lung. "I haven't resolved your problems, have I?"

Tali deactivated her omni.

"No. But if it's any consolation, I don't think anyone could do that in one conversation."

Thane tilted his head and tried to ignore the notion that he had once again failed to find the right words to council a young soul seeking answers.

"In all fairness, I don't think that I am the kind of person one should seek council from. Despite my experience, my advice … rarely benefits the people I give it to," he admitted, to which Tali shut off her omni. The quarian stared at him for a moment.

"I know we don't really know each other… but is there something you need to talk about?" she offered.

Thane looked at her and shook his head ever so slightly.

"I'm afraid my problems aren't the type you can solve with one conversation either."

"Your son?" the quarian guessed.

"Amongst others," the drell retorted. "I've lived a full life. There has been ample opportunity to collect regret," he explained, expecting Tali to walk away.

Then, much to his surprise, the quarian sat down opposite to him.

"What are you doing?" he asked, perplexed.

"What does it look like? You listened to me, it only seems fair that I'll lend you an ear too."

"I appreciate the notion, but I don't want to trouble you with problems long beyond solving. Especially not when they relate to Kolyat."

"Why would you say that?" the quarian asked.

"What?" Thane retorted.

"Both things, but mostly the part about your problems with your son no longer being solvable," Tali inquired.

"Because they aren't. We've grown too far apart. There was a point in time where we could have made amends and found one another again, but I fear we've both changed too much for that to happen now," Thane offered. Too much time had passed and the damage was done. He'd realized that when he'd looked Kolyat in the face yesterday and seen only a younger version of himself.

"My father and I weren't close either. We had our differences too. At best I was someone he considered useful for the future of the Fleet because his name happened to be attached to mine. At worst I was a reminder of my mother's death that was never going to live up to his expectations," the quarian admitted." But even knowing all that, there's one thing I can tell you. From the perspective of a child, it's never too late for a father to try and make things better," the quarian said before getting up from her chair again. "One conversation with me might not resolve your problems. But a talk with your son… that sounds like something I'd want to try before we hit the relay."

Thane looked at the quarian. He hadn't expected her to show up at his quarters and he certainly hadn't expected her to be the one to talk sense into him.

"I'll … consider it," he said hesitantly. "Thank you, Tali'Zorah."

The quarian nodded and then left his room.

Five minutes later Thane was looking for old contacts within the Primacy to try and reach his son.


One Hour Later, 7. May 2417 AD, HSASV Normandy, Machine Deck

'Steady, steady,' Jack told herself while slowly moving the narrow graphite pencil between her hands through the use of her biotics. It was harder than she remembered it being, but then again, it had been a while since she'd last practiced.

With the back-to-back missions, training and the recent assassination attempt on Shepard and boarding of the Normandy, there's been little to no time for her to practice her fine-contro-

As soon as she got lost in that line of thought, the pencil, expectingly, snapped in half.

"Fucking hell," the young biotic cursed before leaning back on the crate she was sitting on and staring at the ceiling.

How the hell were there biotics could accurately throw a shell-casing into someone's face across a thirty-meter range and then pull it back out through the hole, a feat widely considered to be the bench-mark of expert-level control for human biotics, and she couldn't even move a freaking pencil?

With a sigh, Jack sat up and pulled her legs to her chest to look around the dark-red room.

While she technically wasn't supposed to be in the cargo-hold of the machine deck, the lieutenant had found herself drawn to the quiet, people-less section of the Normandy in the wake of Gardner's and Chakwas' deaths. First off, the humming of the reactor and its eezo-field gave off a nice tingle that she felt all the way through her spine.

Secondly, it wasn't the crew deck where she was reminded of the dozens of times she'd teased the older mess sergeant for his cooking (or the fact that she wouldn't be doing so anymore from this point forward).

They hadn't deserved to die like that.

That was all Jack could think about while looking at the two halves of the pencil.

If they'd just gone on leave with them, none of this would've happened. Chakwas could still bug them about her about amp checkups and calorie intake and Gardner could still be making terrible food.

But they hadn't.

And now they were dead.

Fucking hell indeed.

In a way, she hoped the guy who'd done in would come back for round two, just so she could snap his limbs off one by one and make him pay for what he'd done… but on the other hand, she really wished he didn't.

She'd seen the surveillance footage. The guy was no joke and somehow she doubted that he was a one-trick-pony. He'd be back and when he did, he'd continue to chip away at their crew.

One by one until there was no one left or he was stopped.

When that happened, she needed to be ready.

Just as the biotic was about to pick up one half of the snapped pencil to continue her practice, barely audible metallic footsteps echoed down the stairs. Before she knew what to expect, Legion was standing opposite to her in the cargo hold.

She'd known that the geth had gotten 'roaming' privileges ever since saving their collective asses on the Alarai. But last she'd heard, he wasn't actually using them because he didn't want to unnerve the crew.

So what was he doing here?

"Greetings, Nader-Lieutenant. We have an inquiry. Have our footsteps been audible enough to not cause a sudden state of emotional distress?" the jet-black geth with a piece of Blackwatch armor stuck to its chest asked before its single eye scanned around the room.

"Hey… Legion… Yeah… I heard you… Barely though." Jack replied awkwardly, unsure of what to do or say now that her loneliness had been disturbed.

The geth had no problems keeping up a conversation though.

"Affirmative. Barely audible falls within the acceptable perimeters set by our consensus. We thank you for your feedback and apologize for the disturbance of your private activities," Legion stated while walking around the room and seemingly mapping it. "You will be left alone again momentarily."

"It's fine," Jack mumbled before deciding to adjust her ponytail. "What are you doing down here anyway?" she asked through gritted teeth while holding the hair tie with her teeth.

The geth spun his head towards her and only now did Jack notice that he was missing one of his facial flaps. Shepard had mentioned that the geth had gotten damaged in the fighting, but she had neglected to mention that he was trying to mimic Garrus' look.

"We are mapping the ship's interior layout to plan a more effective evacuation route in the event of a future boarding and uncover hidden weaknesses in its infiltration defense to prevent more attacks from occuring," the geth stated neutrally while going about this very specific task.

"Alright. Cool… but … can't you just like ask EDI for a map or something?" she asked casually before picking up the pencil and deliberating if she should be practicing biotics in front of a geth. It was one of the few advantages organics had over geth and while Legion was seemingly on their side, times changed and she really didn't want to be known as the woman who handed the geth their way to counter human biotics…

"While the acquisition of maps is possible, we cannot be certain that the blue-prints match the true proportions and conditions of the Normandy. Organic constructions are notoriously unreliable," ouch. "Therefore, we have reached the consensus that we need to personally measure every angle of the vessel before beginning with the planning stage. The safety of our organic allies will not be endangered by faulty measurements or false assumptions," it stated.

… was it just her or did that sound like Legion was blaming himself for what had happened?

Before she could ask, its scanner threads suddenly brushed over the shaved Grissom lines on the side of her head.

"Nader-Lieutenant. We have another inquiry."

"The hair?" she guessed.

"Affirmative. We've observed similar patterns on multiple human military personal. What do they represent?"

Jack pointed at the buzzed part of her haircut.

"It's the pattern of the military-school I went to. It's where I trained my biotics and basically grew up at," she explained while tracing the lines.

"Do they serve a functional purpose related to your abilities?"

"No…"

"Then what is their purpose?"

"Tradition, I suppose."

The geth's eye spun counterclockwise.

"So there is emotional value attached to them?"

"You could say that. It's a reminder of where I came from and what made me who I am," she offered before gently picking up one of the pencil pieces and pointing at the Blackwatch-made armor crafted to Legion's chest. "Sorta like Callius' armor is for you, I guess," she said, surprised that the geth glanced down at himself at the mention of the upgrade. It was a surprisingly human gesture for a robot, one that made her come back to her earlier line of thought. "Legion, I've got an inquiry too," she echoed.

"Yes?"

"Do you feel guilty about what happened with Gardner and Chakwas"

Now the platform's eye spun clockwise.

"Geth are incapable of feeling guilt as it is a societal construct that organics have created to allow for eased cohabitation," the geth replied coldly. "We do however recognize the impact their deactivations has on the crew. We intended to stop the assailant to prevent this loss from occurring. The fact that we've failed to do so has led us to reevaluate our operational procedures with the intended aim of preventing similar outcomes from occurring in the future," it finished, to which Nader flipped the halved pencil in her hand

"That's kind of what feeling guilty means, Legion," she commented.

The geth's scanner threads washed over her face, causing her to blink.

"We'll consider your input in our reevaluation," the geth replied. "Organic-interaction programs suggest that we are now expected to inquire about your personal feelings," Legion went on before looking around the room and scanning the crates. "However observations of social interaction among the crew, detailed analysis of your facial expressions and the current circumstances suggests that you do not which to communicate about this subject for the time being," his eye rotated and clicked the two remaining flaps outward. "We will depart now to inspect the rest of the ship. If you have further inquiries, we will be available for exchange later on," he stated before turning on his feet and quietly walking away, leaving Nader surprised that a quarian-made killer robot seemed to be the most socially-intelligent person on the Normandy at the moment.

"Huh," she mumbled in surprise before returning to her pencil practice.


8. May 2417 AD, Terra Nova, Northern Equatorial Desert

"Chief Petty Officer Alekszander Zilasoglu!" Major Philip Stone declared from atop of the flatbed of a dusty truck before the assembly of TN-Hardliners. They all stood in neat rows and answered in unison.

"Axios Chief Petty Officer Alekszander Zilasoglu!" they shouted before three sets of seven SR-7 shots snapped through the Terra Novan desert night, the muzzle flashes briefly illuminating the otherwise black surroundings.

Even if someone saw them illegally discharge military-grade weapons into the air, Morneau doubted they'd report them to the colonial authorities. And even if someone did, Morneau further doubted that it'd lead anywhere. The closer you got to the basalt-deserts of Terra Nova, the higher the number of Hardline-supports grew.

After the honorguard, who were all dressed in jet-black BDUs marked with a green-red armed forces flag patch, returned to their initial position, the procedure repeated itself several times.

"Petty Officer Cotyar Klein!"

"Axios Petty Officer Cotyar Klein!"

More shots.

"Corporal Ilona Amar!"

"Axios Corporal Ilona Amar!"

The group that Morneau had attached himself to was holding a wake. Or at least that's what Sixteen had called it when he'd come to collect the specialist earlier this morning and told him that Stone wanted him to attend the farewell party for a bunch of 'fallen comrades' who'd died off world yesterday. Then they'd proceeded to drive into the desert for four hours, a trip that Morneau had expected to end with a bullet in his head at any given point.

As the honor guard fired again, some of the attendants flinched. The specialist did not. He'd been smart enough to bring earplugs and was only glad that this time around the shots were flying through the air above him and not snapping past his head. He hated the whipping sound they made when they did that and the fact that the shots were flying away from him was a pretty welcome change, to be honest.

As the next gun salute finished, Morneau considered his current environment.

He'd been on more military-honors funerals than he would've liked to be on, especially after the Blitz. As such he could easily see the similarities Stone and his men were trying to evoke.

The red-white and gold HSA banner combined with the green-red armed forces flag that depicting a diving eagle where a straight rip-off of the real thing. So was the twenty-one-gun salute. There were no caskets or urns though, probably because they didn't actually have any corpses to put into either. The Hardline had also exchanged ironed military dress uniforms for a mixture of basalt-covered BDUs from the various uniformed services and the local black and tan fashion, which in his mind were far less good looking than the real deal.

The only thing that was really missing from this procedure were some guys from the colonial administration who went on about how Arcturus appreciated the sacrifice of the fallen and the faces of crying family members who certainly did not.

If the Hardline somehow managed to organize those two factors and could cut down on the forceful use of their own vocabulary and icons, this might as well be a real military honor service.

Speaking of vocabulary.

Axios.

'Being worthy of (something)'.

It wasn't an official part of any eulogy he'd heard before, but he still knew what it meant. It was hard to go to any military school in the HSA and not get blasted with the military history of the terrestrial Mediterranean. The HSA's armed forces practically worshipped that part of history and the languages it spawned and its obsession with it was only second to its adoration of the UNJDI Forces, its de-facto predecessor, even if it sometimes felt the other way around.

Despite being a child of the system, he'd never gotten why the HSA was so hellbent on worshipping ancient empires.

As far as he was concerned nothing besides maybe the legacy of the last incarnation of the UN and the JDI it had spawned (and which had then subsequently produced the HSA) was worth any celebration. All institutions who'd come before had been self-serving and done their fair share in dividing humanity. Hardly the thing the nation that rested upon the believe that all of mankind should head into the future and towards the stars united under one flag should strive for, no?

"Sergeant Stevie Rivera the Third!" Stone called, snapping Morneau from his little tangent.

"Axios Sergeant Stevie Rivera the Third!" he shouted as well, as to not draw attention to himself.

Zilasoglu, Klein, Amar, Rivera. He was etching these names in his mind for later possible use.

Whoever these people were, the Hardline was trying hard to portray them like active-duty HSA soldiers who'd died in the line of duty and the service of humanity when in reality they more likely than not had bought it on some merc job chasing money.

As more names were called, Morneau went through the same motions as those around him, right until a familiar rank was suddenly announced.

"SFA Dolton Kimathi!"

SFA.

Senior Field Agent.

While being part of Section 13 meant that he carried the designation 'Specialist', SFA was his own pay grade, which meant that there was a Bureau for Field Work Section-something operative gone hardliner.

"Axios SFA Dolton Kimathi!"

Kimathi… Kimathi… he thought long and hard, but he had to draw a blank.

The name didn't ring a bell, which was both good and bad news. Good because it meant there was no one around who Stone could've talked to about him before and bad because the death of someone he knew could be useful leverage within the Hardline.

"And finally… First Lieutenant Pete Regas!" Stone shouted at the top of his lungs.

"Axios First Lieutenant Pete Regas!" the assembled hardliners and Morneau repeated before the honorguard fired of their last shots and snapped to attention. When he was sure they weren't going to fire again, Morneau subtlety pulled out the ear plugs and stuffed them into the pockets of the washed-out green-brown army BDUs Sixteen had borrowed him for this event.

"Aquila!" someone from the crowd declared.

"Invicta!" the rest joined in.

"Aquila!"

"Invicta!"

"Aquila!"

"Invicta!"

"Here's to those who paid the prize!" Stone declared before raising a bottle, a motion mirrored by the other occupants of this patch of desert. The he faced the HSA and Armed Forces flags flying behind. "No man left behind!" he stated before downing his alcohol and then tossing the bottle to the ground. It shattered with a sharp sound and not a moment later, Stone snapped a sharp salute at the flags.

Again, Morneau and the crowd he was with mirrored the motion, minus the whole bottle-throwing thing that is.

Personally, the specialist was really glad that that the group-dynamics of the TN-Hardline were so heavily inspired by the armed forces as a whole. Considering the military had practically raised him since he'd been twelve and never really let go of him even after he'd decided to join military intelligence instead of the proper army, it made fitting in fairly easy.

After lowering his salute, Stone nodded towards a guy standing behind a terminal set up on the hood of a truck. The man returned the nod and with a press of a button, the expected music-genre started to play and the floodlights installed on the vehicles illuminated the assembled crowd, which was now dispersing from its neat formation to mingle among one another.

'Hear the call. Brothers all. Join me now, stand your ground. Face your fears, face our foes. For all mankind, for all of time-' it started to boom from the musical boxes installed on the trucks that had brought them this deep into the desert earlier.

"You takin' notes for your pals back on Cronos yet?" Sixteen asked after bumping him with his elbow. Even without his remark, it was clear to Morneau that Stone had asked the airborne sergeant to keep an eye on him and Sixteen, or Kyle Mitchell as he was known around here, wasn't exactly being subtle about the fact that he didn't trust him.

The specialist threw a sideward glance at the failed ASOC-aspirant and rolled his eyes as he watched him pull a pill container from the pockets of his own BDU pants. It was filled with the pills that he always seemed to be eating like candy whenever Morneau was around.

"Why? You wanna compare before you send yours to the Final Wave?" Morneau retorted before pointing his mostly-full bottle at the pills in Sixteen's hands. "Those are still placebos, by the way, just in case you forgot what I told you when you were hammered," he added, if only to fuck with his unwanted sidekick.

"The only kind of mail the Wave's getting from me at this stage is gonna be a mail bomb, spook," the red-haired soldier stated before holding one of the pills up into the flood lights. "And no, I didn't forget what you said. I just chose to ignore you back then the way I'm choosing to ignore you right now," he swallowed the pointless mixture of sugar and smiled. "Matter of fact, now that I know they aren't going to melt my insides eventually, I'm free to take as many of them as I want to, which just makes it even better. So I guess I should be thanking you, if anything."

"But you aren't gonna do that."

"Hell no. You're a fucking spook and probably a rat too… I ain't thanking you for shit. Ever," the soldier stated while the music blaring in the background continued.

'- jungle hell and artic terror, he never lost his fervor. Across the oceans, across the void, for all mankind, for all of time…'

"Not even for the two times I saved your life?" Morneau called over the sound of the song praising General Ezra Anaru, the near-mythical founding father of the HSA and quasi-messiah of the hardline.

"Whaddya mean two times?"

"Kosh and Bekenstein."

"Not shooting me doesn't qualify as saving my life, you goddamn psycho."

"As I recall, you asked me to knock you out so Hock didn't ice you after the fact… and that's what I did. So technically me beating your ass was me saving your life," Morneau looked at the unamused look on the airborne's face and decided to lay off. He wasn't shooting for actual animosity here. "Alright, alright. One time then," he said, deciding that he wasn't going to mention how he had opted for not murdering Sixteen with a faked OD back after the Kosh mission and how that technically made three.

"And I'm sure you only did that because you happened to be sitting in the same bird as us," the red-haired man offered before setting his empty bottle down on the basalt-floor.

"No, I actually did that because I wasn't about to let some psycho-merc kill my real brothers-in-arms, even if there was a decent chance it'd screw up my mission," Morneau admitted off-mindedly. Not only was it true, it also felt like something a true hardline believer would say. When he realized that he'd grabbed Sixteen's attention with his remark, he nipped on his drink to keep up the appearance that he was getting as wasted as them (which he actually wasn't) and played the far too personal remark he'd just let slip off as cool as possible. "But whatever helps you sleep at night."

"Must've been hard, eh?" the airborne mumbled in response. "Pretending you were with us while you were actually with them."

"You don't know the half of it," the specialist retorted.

"Damn right I don't. I was smart enough to not become a freakin' spook to begin with,", Sixteen paused. "And for the record, if we count not killing each other as saving, I also saved your ass when I didn't shoot you in the face back on Bekenstein. So I guess that makes us even, no?"

Morneau squinted.

"… well. No. If we count not killing, then we're back at a two-one score…" he argued before watching Sixteen facepalm.

"Jesus fuck man, are you always this anal? I was trying to make conversation and you go counting peas. Where'd they train you? Spy school or fucking debate club?"

"You'd be surprised at how much those two have in common," the specialist offered quickly before taking yet another tiny sip from his bottle and registering movement. Stone had jumped from the truck and was headed their way. Instantly, his eyes snapped away from the red-haired airborne next to him and towards the dishonorably discharged ASOC officer. After he made his way through the crowd, the pale, bold man with the tattooed on Anaru-Academy lines on his scalp came to a halt in front of the two of them. "Sergeant," he greeted Sixteen. "Specialist," he went on to look at Morneau. "I'm glad to see you came."

"Well, I can hardly go around saying I wanna make a difference in the movement and then not show up to honor the people who've already paid the ultimate prize for it," the spy said with a shrug before reflexively looking at Stone's left, cybernetic hand and then back in his dark eyes. Even if such a thing was illegal in HSA space, he wondered if the prosthetic had any hidden weapons. There had to be at least one cyberneticist in the Hardline, right? And Stone certainly seemed like the kind of guy who'd ask for a wrist-blade or a hidden gun the moment he got out of military jail.

Or was he just being paranoid again?

"True," Stone offered before looking at the pair of flags waving in the desert wind. "I've been wondering. You and the SFA… you didn't know each other personally, did you?"

"Kimathi? No, no," Morneau said while shaking his head. "The Bureau's pretty small on the grand scale of things but there's still thousands people working in the Sections," he lied, coming dangerously close to committing actual treason by revealing classified information about HSAIS' Bureau for Field Work instead of the fake-treason he had supposedly committed to get here in the first place. "I'm sure he was a great guy, though. Or at least smart enough to see through all the bullshit they feed you at Cronos. I know from personal experience that that can be a tough egg to crack," he added with an easy shrug.

"He certainly was," Stone mumbled. "Kimathi was one of a damn few number of Section-agents who ever made the jump to the Hardline, you know that?" Morneau shook his head. "Yeah, go figure they wouldn't go around advertising that," the former commando went on before lifting a bottle to his lip. "I guess independent thinking ain't exactly something they look for when picking you lot, eh?" he took a sip and playfully smacked his organic hand against Morneau's chest. Visible just below the sleeve of the black shirt he was wearing was the tattooed turian writing on his forearm that Morneau had noticed during their first meeting. 'From the shadows we preserve the light'. Blackwatch's motto, stenciled on Stone's skin to show everyone that he'd been one of the few commandos considered talented enough to be sent to Palaven to train with the Hierarchy's premier SOF outfit. In response to the smack and the remark, Morneau put on a stoic expression. It felt like the sort of thing he should feel insulted by if he'd actually joined the Hardline for real.

"I'm just messing with you," the commando officer said, giving the desired response. "I met a lot of Niners back in my ASOC days. Some Thirteens and Sixes too. You're all fucking weird. Every last one of you. But goddamn if HSAIS didn't turn you into some of the finest instruments of violence I've ever seen," he looked at Kyle. "Niners know how to dash out real justice and unlike with the regular military, their superiors don't ask stupid questions when a couple enemy combatants turn up dead," Stone explained. "Back during the Merc-Intervention when we were going up against the Blood Pack they'd go in and do clean-up ops alongside some other black-ops outfit," that would be Cerberus. "Vorcha. Krogan. The odd batarians… I don't think they ever took any prisoners," now he looked at Morneau. "They are the guys you sent when you want someone properly dead. Ain't that right?"

"They do their job well," the specialist responded. "HSAIS' best janitors for sure," he added, remembering something Section 13's head-trainer, Specialist Mohammed Abbas, had once told them during advanced field agent training. Mo, Codename Scarecrow, hadn't exactly been a big fan of Section Nine and he'd wasted no opportunity to show it. He'd never elaborated on his dislike, but Morneau suspected that it had something to do with the Fringe Wars.

There were certain rumors about Section Nine regarding that conflict. The types of stories you didn't want leaking into the public because they'd actually lend some credibility to certain uncomfortable Iffy claims…

"Doing the work so others don't have to. Damn fine men. Too bad they're too caught up in all that political bullshit to see where they should really be fighting," Stone stated, putting the cybernetic hand on Morneau's shoulder and guiding him away from the crowd, towards the edge of the desert's darkness. With the way the hand was angles, Morneau expected a hidden blade to shoot out of the prosthetic and separate his jugular with every step of the way. But somehow that didn't happen either. This whole wake really wasn't some elaborate hoax to murder him, was it? "Listen Specialist. With Kimathi gone, your already very high value has just increased tenfold," he looked back at the crowd. "My guys are soldiers. Door kickers. Pipe hitters. Good grunts," Stone listed. "They'll kick anyone's ass in a straight up fight."

'So why were they dead, exactly?' Morneau wondered.

"But most of them don't exactly have your perspective on things. Or the skillset you bring to the table," the man squeezed somewhat tighter. "Dolton's not gonna be replaced easily. Neither on the battlefield nor in my heart," Stone went on. "But if you prove your loyalty to me, his death means that you'll go very far, very quick. So. What do you say?" he offered his non-cybernetic hand.

Morneau considered the former commando's hand for a moment and took nothing he had just said at face value.

Stone didn't trust him.

Not by a long shot.

It was far too soon for that.

What he was offering right now was less of a solution to his sudden lack of a bureau agent and more of a test to see if Morneau was a mole who'd use this apparent opportunity to earn Stone's trust to quickly climb up the ladder into a more valuable position… or a true, ambitious believer who really wanted what was best for the Hardline.

"Tip of humanity's spear, Major. That's all I care about and I'll do whatever needs to be done to get us there. Whether I do that by replacing Kimathi or as another one of your door kickers makes no difference to me. At least not at this stage," he answered, echoing what he'd told Stone to be his aim for the TN-Hardline. Then he took his hand.

Stone gripped tightly.

Morneau gripped tighter.

'For all mankind, for all of time!' the music blared one final time when both men looked each other in the eye and nodded.

"Tip of the fucking spear," Stone repeated. "That's what I like to hear," then he gestured at the mostly full bottle in Morneau's hand. "You ought to catch up, Specialist. The music's way less obnoxious when you're wasted," he instructed quietly before patting Morneau on his shoulder and walking back to where Sixteen was staring at them.

Morneau thought about the remark and what it said about Stone for a second and then sighed ever so slightly, glancing up at the starry night sky of the desert as he did.

Whoever had killed those Hardliners had just done him a huge favor.

If Stone needed a spy guy, he was now his man and that would most certainly entail an opportunity to figure out how PGI was tied to the Hardline, which in turn would lead closer to his eventual return from this shitshow.

He looked at the crowd again and took a larger sip of the beer before deciding to mingle.

'Baby steps. Don't get ahead of yourself,' he reminded himself.


Codex: Department of Federal Investigation

The Department of Federal Investigation (DFI, or sometimes 'the Feds') is a sub-department of the Human Systems Alliance Ministry for Justice and the only prosecution service of the HSA whose jurisdiction is not limited to a single planetary system. While formally based on Arcturus, the actual headquarters of the DFI is located on the core world of Arcadia. This diversion from the rest of the usually centralized agencies of the Human Systems Alliance stems from the fact that the DFI is also responsible for investigating any wrong doings of said departments, thus requiring a necessary 'distance' from the mainstream of power.

While specialized in criminal cases that transcend the planetary jurisdiction of individual Colonial Police Departments such as trafficking of illegal arms and substances, money laundering and other related fields of organized crime, the DFI is sometimes also assigned to high-stakes cases that would usually fall within the jurisdiction of individual CPDs but have been determined to hold too high of a public interest to leave to local authorities. Additionally, acts of terrorism and separatism, particularly those related to the IFS movement, also fall within the jurisdiction of the DFI. In these cases, and due to the IFS' continued status as a hostile power and separatists as combatants instead of criminals, the Department is known to cooperate with HSAIS and the HSMAC Military Police.

True to its motto, 'Seek Justice', the Department of Federal Investigation is widely known for its extraordinarily high rate of success in the cases assigned to it. Thanks to a mixture of high funding, full and immediate access to all state-collections of personal data in human space, a meticulous investigative procedure and a distinctive lack of being assigned hollow cases without any leads whatsoever, the DFI clears around ninety percent of cases assigned to it, putting it far above the CPD case resolution average of sixty-six percent.

Despite its success, its connection to the HSA government ensures that the DFI is met with more distrust than local law enforcement agencies. Often viewed as the above mentioned 'Feds', the DFI is considered a Big-Brother type nuisance in nearly as many cases as it is considered a helpful partner by the public and CPDs alike. Due to this mindset, the DFI is rarely invited by the initiative of local authorities and rather dispatched by the Ministry for Justice or requested by local HSA administrators.

Ever since First Contact, the DFI, as the prime prosecutor of cross border crimes, has formed close ties with respective alien agencies such as the Turian Hastatim Corps, C-SEC and various asari and salarian law enforcement agencies as well as the Justice Corps of the CIP. These cooperations have been deemed diplomatic successes by both all sides.

At the same time, the DFI has also been the focus of a political scandal following the opening of an investigation against an asari justicar rumored to have been involved in the deaths of several HSA citizens within the Confederation of Independent Planets.


A/N:

So like I said, I spent summer away from writing :P

With september officially here, we're back and truth be told, it wasn't just summertime that made me take this long.

This chapter went through a LOT of incarnations, mostly related to which Normandy crew member gets paired with whom for the titular ripple effect. Now that we are done, I like to think that I managed to find the best combinations. (I'd lie if I said that the Jack / Legion part wasn't my favorite.)

With that said, I can only repeat myself.

My schedule is slowing down. I know.

But I hope that the narrative quality keeps up.

Nothing more I can add, really.

You know the usual procedure. Review and let me know what you think.

For the record we're at 898 reviews, 1462 favorites and 1546 follows.

See you around next time.