Emiya exhaled, raising the bottle of water and nearly emptying it to sate his thirst.

His heart was still beating rapidly, the need for bursts of speed combined with the constant running to keep up with the biotics of the other players making for a rather taxing game of biotiball.

"Good game!"

"You sure can run!"

He looked up, nodding at the asari around him as they grinned at him. He hadn't done much better than last time, but at least he got a workout from it. As expected, it's difficult to catch the ball without biotics. And they're just Maidens... At least this is good practice for getting a read for their body language under stress.

"Thanks for letting me join again," he said, standing up straight and looking at the team's captain who had snuck up behind him.

"No prob, no prob." Tyra grinned.

"Yeah, you were on fire! I've never seen anyone kick the ball before!"

"Didn't land anywhere I wanted it to, though. No way to control the spin." He shrugged, tossing over the bottle he had been drinking from to the asari who grinned and grabbed it out of the air. She poured it over herself, letting the water roll down her head and shoulders.

"That kicking thing really works! I looked it up, you really weren't pulling my leg!" Tyra began talking excitedly at him, snickering at her pun before continuing. "I couldn't find much footage on the local hubs, though... I had to put in an order for some to be sent in through the relays, but if they're as good as you are, then I think I've hit jackpot!"

He nodded. "I'm not all that good at football, but if you can find it, there should be some real artists on Earth. You can probably find good reference material there."

"Heh, oh hey! Show me again how you did that thing you did yesterday! With kicking up the ball. I tried it, but couldn't get it to work at all."

He blinked, before realizing what she meant.

Looking around, he found the biotiball on the ground a few meters away. "Right, so you put your foot on top of the ball like this."

"Yeah?"

"And then you roll it back towards yourself, stick your toes underneath it and just kick it up like this," he explained, catching the ball with his hand as it became airborne.

"Oh, neat. I had to cheat with biotics to get it to work. You got any other tricks?"

He huffed, dropping the ball and catching it with his knee. He bounced it once, twice, getting it high enough that he could use his head and sprung up beneath the ball to make it really fly up. Judging the distance behind him to the scoring zone, he threw himself backward and pulled a bicycle kick, hitting the ball perfectly and then fell down in his half-backflip.

"Saiga?!" Tyra shouted as he landed on his back, his arms spreading out the area of impact and his chin tucked to his chest to keep himself from getting hurt.

Rolling over his shoulders, he got up and looked at the biotiball. "Eh, I missed."

It had flown off a bit wide, no doubt due to the spin again.

"What was that!?" she asked running over to him as he dusted off his shoulders.

"You trying to break your neck, Saiga?" one of Tyra's teammates asked, shouting at him from the side of the playing field.

"Just something I'd seen in football games. Never done it before, thought I'd give it a try." He shrugged, turning to go and fetch the ball back. "Don't know how useful it would be in a biotiball match, however. Your mobility is much higher and it takes too long to set up. In the time it takes the ball to fall, someone would have grabbed it already with their biotics."

"Well... Yeah, maybe," Tyra replied, following after him. She looked up after a few seconds with a wide grin on her face. "Though I'd love to do that as the game-winning goal. It would look awesome on the replays."

"Hey captain, pull one of those off and I'll buy you drinks for the whole season!"

Tyra grinned at the teammate who shouted that. "I'll hold you to that!"

Walking back, he remembered something.

"Everything turn out okay with your roommate?"

"Huh?" Tyra looked at him, before turning sullen. "Yeah, more or less."

"...I remember she said something about Dretirop. Was she on the excavation to the Prothean ruins - the one that left several years ago?" he asked.

"Uh...? Yeah, that's the one. How'd you know about that?"

"I was hoping to apply for a course by one of the professors returning from that expedition. But she hasn't returned yet. Do you mind if I come over and ask your roommate about it?" he continued.

She grimaced, finally shrugging.

"She's been holed up in her room since, finishing up her thesis or whatever. But yeah, I guess it's fine. We never did get anything to eat, huh?"

"Hmm? You want me to grab something along the way to cook?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Huh? You cook? Like, actual food? Not just the pre-made stuff?" She looked at him askance, tilting her head back.

He scrunched his nose at that, not even deigning the suggestion of eating the stuff sold in asari stores as 'ready-meals' with a reply. The divide he had found between asari high culture and the average consumer goods was somewhat baffling to him at times in ways like that.

"I'll take a round trip and swing by the store. I'll see you back at your place?"

"Sure!" She grinned, giving him a thumbs-up as she hastened to get her stuff packed up.

;

Emiya looked around the kitchen, setting aside the pot and putting the finishing touches to the food he had prepared.

He had noted how sparsely equipped it was the first time he had been here, yesterday. But he had come prepared, buying only simple ingredients and relying only on what little he remembered being available, the habit of analyzing, judging, and cataloging kitchens an old habit by now.

Then again, as a rule, a lot of the tools that humanity used for cooking, asari simply had never developed. Or had been seemingly entirely forgotten in the current age, with how ubiquitous biotics were. Asari without any talent were rare since amps had been developed hundreds of years ago that allowed most if not all of the Thessian population to use their powers freely.

Putting aside the packaging materials, he looked at what he had made.

It was something like a poached egg salad garnished with fish roe. Though since the local wildlife was so vastly different from Earth, the only thing about that description that was accurate was that it was a salad. One of the things he had to pay attention to in cooking, was the ever-present—though minute—amounts of eezo in everything.

It could change the way ingredients tasted rather unpredictably at times, being a field of cooking all of its own.

"Whoa... I guess you really can cook," Tyra wondered, staring at him like he had grown another head.

"Is it that surprising?"

"Well... Yeah!" She nodded emphatically.

He blinked at that, not knowing what to say so he looked away as he grabbed the trays. Changing the subject, he looked at her. "So what did she say?"

Tyra's expression soured. "She told me she was too busy with her thesis. She's had that thing ready for almost a decade already, but she keeps re-working it. I mean, they already accepted the first draft unofficially—from what I heard, anyhow—but she thinks she should still re-write it again before she graduates, or something."

He frowned, understanding having high standards...

But there came a point where getting hung up would only hinder your growth. There would be other chances in the future and getting too obsessed would only blind and tie you down.

She shrugged. "Well, I'll go ask her one more time. Or do you want to try?"

Thinking about it for a second, he nodded.

"I'm the one who wants to talk to her."

Walking over, he knocked on the door. There was a moment of silence and then he heard the shuffle of feet on the floor.

The door opened, revealing Liara. "What is it, Tyra? I already—Oh! Ah, umm..."

"Sorry, we weren't introduced the last time we met. Saiga Fujimura," he said, smiling using asari body language for her benefit.

It was nowhere near the level of asari imitating humans, but it was passable.

"Liara T'Soni," she answered, more as a reaction than anything else, her mouth closing shut with a click of her teeth.

"I was wondering if we could talk. I'd like to apologize for yesterday, it must have been very awkward. I made some drejh sur, I thought we might be able to talk over lunch."

"Oh, that is... I really couldn't. I must really be working on my thesis, you see, it's..."

"About Protheans, right? I was hoping to ask you about that, in fact. I had been hoping to take a course with Professor Henell, but..." he trailed off, inviting her to continue, hoping that she might know something.

Liara blinked, surprise apparent, taking the bait.

"You are interested in the Protheans?"

"Yes, I was hoping to learn more about them, you see," he continued, changing reel, noting that she did not seem to have reacted at all at the mention of Nirida Henell.

"Oh, well..." Liara considered, before sighing. "I suppose I have time enough for lunch. Let me put away some of my things and... I will be right there."

He nodded and she closed the door.

She arrived at the dinner table a minute later and they dug in without any further ceremony.

Though initially, the mood had been the very definition of awkward, the moment they dug in, the two sitting opposite of him simply seemed to forget any of their previous issues.

Emiya smirked to himself, taking a bite of his own food, satisfied.

"This is really good!" Tyra enthusiastically opined.

"I must concur, it is exquisite. I have not eaten drejh sur this good in decades. Where did you learn to cook? I know asari chefs to be jealously possessive of their recipes," Liara agreed without hesitation.

"It's just a matter of knowing how to handle each ingredient, nothing more," he said, nodding at them as he ate.

Whether or not they believed him they did not say, as all simply ate for the next ten minutes while discussing relatively mundane topics. The most interesting thing about the whole affair Emiya noted was, that Liara seemed to be paying unconscious attention to Tyra the whole time as they talked.

Slowly but surely, the taciturn asari seemed to pick up on more of human body language. A raise of the brow to mimic a human showing interest here, a demure smile—still with no teeth, he noted—to show slight amusement there.

It was actually rather fascinating to follow along, he thought.

Most asari had already had some level of exposure to human mannerisms, but Liara had been sequestered away on a far-off planet for years.

Finally, when the last plate had been polished off, did Emiya ask the question he had been nursing for a while now. "So you were with Professor Henell on Dretirop?"

"Oh, yes. I was lucky enough to be sponsored by the University to be able to join the expedition. It was a wonderful opportunity to take a hands-on look at a Prothean site dating back all the way to the second age; their earliest days of expansion into space!" she explained, managing already to fluently signal both her interest in human and asari body language already.

I wonder if it is a purely subconscious ability, or whether they have some level of control over it, he mused as he listened.

For him, it had been mostly conscious analysis and repetition.

"In fact, I believe Professor Henell has planned to bring up those findings as the basis for her most recent course in the University of Serrice. It is quite exciting; I had a chance to leaf through most of her notes and she had made several breakthroughs in recent years."

Emiya perked up at that.

"You mean, you haven't heard?"

She tilted her head at that. "Have not heard what?"

"The class has been canceled since Professor Henell hasn't returned yet."

She blinked at that, looking at him oddly for several seconds before realizing that he was serious.

"Oh...! But... That is certainly most unusual," Liara said, frowning. "Professor Henell did choose to stay behind for the last starship to leave, wishing to make certain that nothing was left behind. But for her to not have returned yet is peculiar. She was most excited to return to Serrice, as I remember it."

"When did you leave Dretirop?" he asked.

"On the second ship. It should not have been more than six hours before the last ship left. We all wished to return to Thessia with utmost haste. There was so much to do, afterward; everyone was excited to return and get to work. I have not spoken to any one of the expedition crew since arriving on Thessia, since I have been far too busy incorporating so many of the new things we have learned from those dig sites into my thesis. Originally, I had thought my subject of first encounter protocols to be a very hypothetical subject, but much of the crew could extrapolate so much from the findings that—" She was beginning to ramble, he realized.

To the side, he could see Tyra was obviously showing zero interest in the topic, leaning her face onto a hand with her elbow on the table.

"So no one has seen Professor Henell since they left Dretirop? Have you talked to anyone else who should have gone on the last ship? Or the second to last ship to leave?" Emiya cut in, causing her to fluster at his interruption.

"Oh, no... As I said, I have not talked to anyone since then."

She admitted readily that it was strange, but did not seem at all perturbed.

He inhaled, frowning as he stared at her. "Isn't that weird?"

"Well, it is unusual... But if there was trouble, the distress signal beacon would have been activated," Liara said, not at all sharing his concerns.

"Distress signal?"

"Yes. The dig sites are quite remote, after all. Many things can go wrong and often do - dangerous local fauna, pirates and looters, technical difficulties... There are always unforeseen dangers on such distant planets." She listed things offhandedly, her eyes wandering as if she was re-living events by memory. "All dig sites have multiple beacons and signal carriers that can be triggered in case of an emergency, informing Thessia of their distress."

Emiya nodded as she explained.

"But those are for exceptional cases. The expedition crews are highly talented individuals; many of the doctors were former huntresses, and everyone who stayed behind was armed and an expert biotic besides. I believe Professor Henell must have been delayed or otherwise distracted, nothing more. While it is unfortunate that the course was canceled, I do not believe there is cause for worry." She smiled reassuringly.

"Hmm..." Emiya mused.

"I'm afraid you will simply have to wait until the next course. It won't be long; Professor Henell will be most excited to begin sharing her findings, of that you can be sure. She will be back soon enough." Liara tried to comfort him.

The only problem was, that there was no telling how many years it would take for that next course to begin. The next semester wouldn't even have a slot for it, meaning he was looking at a minimum of three years of more waiting.

He sighed, considering things.

"Liara..." Tyra whispered at her, causing the two asari to share a moment as they stared at each other.

Liara blinked, before realizing what Tyra was trying to gesture at. "Oh! I am sorry, I did not realize—Well, that does put you in a rather awkward position."

Emiya grunted, causing the two asari to blink.

Huh, not a part of the body language they understand, and too simplistic for the translators to pick up as a human mannerism. Been speaking Thessian Common, anyhow...

"Well, there should be other courses, though I am afraid they are nowhere near as comprehensive. Professor T'renia of Usaru is quite good, for example. Or perhaps Doctor Joshawn, if she decides to reapply for a professorate..." Liara immediately suggested.

"Well, I'll have to think about it." That did bear consideration. It was probably better than nothing, at least. But for now, there was something that she had said that had caught his attention. "You said you were writing your thesis about Prothean first contact protocols?"

"Hmm? Oh, yes! It is a rather challenging subject, requiring that I collect and organize a vast number of sources to extrapolate how the Protheans approached other races when they made first contact."

Emiya nodded.

That sounded exactly like what he was trying to do; gathering pieces of information to understand a whole. It was like a puzzle, where the point was not to just complete the connecting of each individual piece until it was whole once more, but to try and understand what the picture it showed meant as well.

Given how he had been struggling with this subject for five years now, waiting for Professor Henell to return to Thessia, and having in essence given up on independent study... Perhaps it would not be remiss to ask Liara about it?

"How do you go about something like that? It should be very difficult, right?"

She nodded, obviously pleased that he understood just how challenging such a subject could be. Though, he doubted she knew just how well he understood the difficulty.

"Yes, of course." Liara nodded. "For centuries now, among the exo-archeologist community, the hope had been that sooner or later an intact data cache would be discovered and that it might contain their protocols. It might seem like a rather obscure piece of Prothean culture to obsess over, but the reality is that understanding how they approached other races would allow us to build a much more complete picture of their civilization. Since we know they ran into countless other races during their expansion from the second age onward, spreading their knowledge and technology without reserve... With that knowledge, puzzling together how events transpired and building a timeline of their growth, from the second to fourth ages would be much, much simpler," she explained, more than happy to explain in-depth about the subject.

It seemed to him almost like she was starved for attention.

"Right. If you understand why, then filling in the gaps where information is lacking is much easier," he agreed, nodding and filing away something she had said as rather peculiar. Something to ask about in a moment.

"Exactly!" she excitedly concurred.

Off to the side, Tyra looked at the two, her head bouncing back and forth between them as it was clear she did not at all understand what they were talking about again.

"But, if you don't have any direct records or data caches that spell it out, how are you doing it? What is your angle, if you're trying to do something more than just pure speculation and guesswork?" Emiya asked, pointing out the obvious problem; the very one he had been wrestling with.

Without a very large source that showed their everyday life, it was very difficult to build up a proper understanding of the beliefs and goals that guided an individual, much less an entire civilization.

"I am glad that you asked since I have been working very hard on just that; making something more than mere supposition out of the subject," Liara answered, smiling confidently as she nodded. "On numerous planets—Dretirop included—we have been able to find remains of the other races that the Protheans came into contact with. The most recent example is the zeioph, on the planet Armeni, found mere years ago."

"The gravesites that the Council forbade anyone from investigating due to grave-site sanctity laws?"

"The very one. It is doubtful that we will be able to find more information about them, but the timelines appear to match with the Prothean expansion of the fourth age." Liara nodded before she continued explaining. "Well, of those races, a lot of their artwork and relics depicting the Protheans remain, than of the Prothean culture depicting itself."

Emiya nodded, furrowing his brows. "So you're using them as a form of mirror, seeing how they viewed the Protheans."

"Yes, exactly right," Liara agreed again, clearly over the moon that he understood what she was talking about. "It has been a rather formidable task, requiring me to compile and look through countless sources and archives, but I believe I have been able to get a rather coherent picture."

He nodded.

"And what have you found, if you don't mind my asking?"

"No, I do not mind at all. This is the work of two decades, I am more than happy to discuss it. What I have found is an overwhelming amount of evidence for lavish adoration—bordering on worship, even!—from nearly all of the races of whom artwork still remains. Arguably, the best example of this can be found among the hanar, who still to this day consider the Protheans—the Enkindlers, as they call them—as gods who traveled from system to system."

Emiya frowned as Liara continued talking.

"The Mass Relay system which makes it possible for us to have our galactic civilization; the Citadel; the Mass Relay system; the countless races they uplifted and taught all they knew to. Their legacy still affects the galaxy to this day." As she spoke, to Emiya it almost seemed like her excitement was bordering a mania. "It really is enthralling to be able to work in uncovering the steps of such a noble and wise race."

Emiya glanced at Tyra, noting that she did not seem to find anything odd with Liara's behavior at that moment. Somehow, he found himself feeling queasy.

"I think you're idolizing the Protheans a little bit too much."

Liara blinked, looking at him as if she had suddenly been slapped. Confusion was apparent on her features, as she furrowed her 'brows' at him.

"What do you mean?"

"I've looked into some of those artworks myself - the most famous examples, anyhow. And to me, it doesn't seem all that obvious that the Protheans were such a wise and kind race, at all," he said, leaning back in his chair.

For a moment, both of the asari simply stared at him. The silence stretched on and Emiya sighed, continuing with his point.

"I mean, from what I've been able to piece together, it doesn't make much sense to think that they were uplifting and educating other races. Their rate of expansion is much too quick after the third age. Compare it to the early asari space exploration: even with your overwhelming stores of eezo, it took you much longer to spread out. And you have to consider that they should have lacked the mass relay system, too." Emiya shrugged then. "Now, it could just be a matter of difference in culture or technology, but I still don't see much evidence for the belief that the Protheans were very altruistic and kind."

Liara stared at him, growing incredulity apparent on her face. "Then what do you think they were?"

"Well, the closest model to their rate of expansion would be the rachni and krogan, back when they were spreading at their most aggressive—"

"I can't believe you! To even suggest that...that!" Liara interrupted him, standing up so abruptly the chair behind her fell over.

"—which I would take to mean that the Protheans were expanding their territories as quickly as they could, and hoarding resources and workforce to fuel that expansion." Emiya finished, unbothered by Liara's outburst.

"You are—you are making them sound like some, some—"

"Imperialistic expansionists, yes." He shrugged again. "The artwork looks more like lavish praise and adoration by a cowering and subservient race, desperately trying to appease their capricious masters, than anything else. Really, I think that the zeioph or Armani are the perfect example. It doesn't look like a graveyard formed over the centuries and millennia it would take to create such a site."

Liara's eyes widened as she took a step back from the table. "You're suggesting—"

"That it's a mass grave by a race the Protheans genocided, yes. But since Council having decreed it off-limits, I haven't bothered to look into it, yet."

He sighed, thinking back, having seen quite a few mass graves in his time.

Though the Citadel Council had forbidden excavation attempts, a few probes had still been made, using non-invasive scans. The results were uniform, everywhere, both in contents and in the estimated dates of creation. Each tomb was elaborate, yet due to the shallowness of each and the thin atmosphere, all of the bodies would be decomposed in a matter of years. If the zeioph wanted to preserve their dead, it would only make sense to bury their dead deeper into the ground.

Perhaps he was simply mistaken in assuming that the zeioph had wished to preserve their dead...

But something about the site simply did not seem right, given how well preserved it was while nothing else of their culture seemed to remain. It was as if their lives were meaningless, but as if their deaths were being made an eternal monument for all to see.

That was simply the impression he had gotten.

It was one of the main reasons he wanted to talk with Henell; to be able to freely discuss his thoughts with someone who could cut the bullshit at the stem with an understanding of the big picture. For all he knew, he had been looking in all the wrong places and his conclusions were completely off.

"The timeline of their meeting in the fourth age is too abrupt, otherwise. I suspect the zeioph resisted the Protheans and were simply made an example out of for other races."

Liara sniffed, glaring at him now.

She inhaled slowly as she swallowed her indignation, before turning around. "Thank you for the meal, it was quite good. But I really must get back to my work now."

And with that, she walked away.

Emiya blinked, slightly nonplussed by her reaction. He glanced at Tyra who merely shrugged, as if saying 'what can you do?'. Frowning and with a shake of his head, he got up as well and began to clear away the plates and utensils while Tyra sat by, watching him in silence.

It wasn't like he was a hundred percent certain over his theory, but so far he simply felt that a lot of the asari were too idealistic and idolizing of the Protheans. Perhaps it had been his visit to the Mars Ruin's lower levels that had colored his perceptions so, or perhaps it was simply his own experiences in seeing so much carnage and death that made it the only conclusion he could draw on his own.

That was partly the reason he needed an expert's help to understand the Protheans; his own experiences still clouded his judgment so heavily, even as he tried to be objective.

"So what are you going to do?" she finally asked as he finished clearing the table.

Unfortunately, lacking running water, he would have to leave the washing to Tyra and Liara, a fact which made him feel somewhat uneasy. Washing the dishes in a sense was a part of preparing a meal, thus leaving it out made him feel strange and almost unfulfilled, somehow.

But they had biotics, making the chore very easy for them.

"I'll have to wait and see. Maybe check out Usaru, as she suggested," he said. "Might have to think about leaving Thessia, to be honest."

"Oh..." She nodded, looking away.

"But I should be going now, anyhow. Thank you for having me over," Emiya said, getting up and with no more than a nod and wave, left the apartment. He didn't notice Tyra staring at his back, or Liara glancing his way as he walked past her room's window, too focused on his own thoughts already.

I need to look into those distress beacons.

;

…

_Start of transmission

[ Report #51-a (AIA Deep Cover Field Operative DCFP-A341CJS) ]

SSV Tokyo assigned to a pursuit & investigation run near octant six of the operative theater. Mission headed by Captain David Edward Anderson [POI#14] and Staff Lieutenant Jane Shepard[POI#0]. Crew excited for possibility of combat, morale is high. Rapport between Commanding, Executive Officer and other supporting staff remain outstanding. Primary objectives remain aligned with cover role, no expected or outstanding problems detected. Secondary objectives underway, no expected or outstanding problems detected. Successfully bugged all omnitools and computers of operative crew on SSV Tokyo; will continue monitoring and logging activity; no expected or outstanding problems detected.

End of transmission_

…

;

The skycar continued flying over the Serrinan sea as he returned to Serrice.

Emiya sighed, closing the extranet tabs he had been eyeing through while flying. He had been looking into asari communications technology in space as he had been flying. Mass Relay buoys. Tightbeam communications. Wide-spectrum signal carriers. A lot of it was related to the distress signals. Technically, the technology was military spec, since it was used to call in the asari military in times of need.

However, it was very old. A half-millennia old.

Which meant that there were nuggets of information that could be found and pieced together from various sources until finally, they painted a whole that was coherent enough to be called a basic dossier on the system. Really, it wasn't even difficult. For a race as powerful and strong as the asari, he was beginning to find it strange how patchy their society seemed.

When it came to specialization, they were the best.

Simply by virtue of their age and wide knowledge base, it was only a matter of course for a variety of experts and specialists to appear with time.

But between those clear forerunners, it really seemed like nothing but a gaping void existed. Like a tree that branched out only at specific distances, forming unnatural and sparse forests.

The military mastermind and matriarch behind the distress beacon system had died several hundred years ago and since then, no one on her level had appeared. She had been a veteran of the Krogan Rebellions, from a generation that had been taught by the survivors of the Rachni Wars, with experience and a mindset for conflict that simply did not exist anymore in the galaxy of today.

The hole created by her passing had yet to be filled, and for all intents and purposes, it seemed like it might never be filled again unless a major war occurred.

Asari military focused on small teams of highly talented individuals, commonly referred to as either commandos or huntresses, rather than a properly organized and structured military. They were bands of volunteer warriors, rather than soldiers. In small-scale conflicts—such as the many battles between city-states and small republics, that had shaped Thessia over the dozens of millennia—they were some of the best in the galaxy.

But when it came to maintaining and patrolling territory they nominally controlled, they had none of the necessary structures.

And it showed, both in the ideology behind the distress beacon system and in how the security on the Dretirop expedition had been handled by former huntresses who were a part of the expedition crew themselves. Their navy certainly had the largest and most powerful dreadnoughts thanks to their abundant supply of element zero, but they did not have the sheer numbers of the turian or human navies, for example.

It was at times like this that Emiya understood how the Citadel Council could function.

And also perhaps why humanity seemed to come into such conflict with the Council at every turn. The turians, salarians, and asari all could do a few things and do them well, leaving gaps here and there in the other areas where they simply did not excel in the same way as another race did, which allowed them to nearly seamlessly fit into one whole as a new galactic society.

Humanity, on the other hand, tried to do everything, managing somewhat well in all it did, compensating for sheer competence and specialization with vigor, enthusiasm, and numbers.

That toes would be stepped on and lines would be crossed seemed rather inevitable, when looked from that angle.

But none of that had anything to do with his findings.

Simply put, he had figured out how to subvert the asari distress beacon technology with a mere half-hour of investigation on the extranet. And if he could do it with his jack-of-all-trades approach to technology, then he was certain that anyone else who actually specialized in the field could do it as well. He checked again, for the third time in the last hour, but he could not find any updates on the Henell situation.

The more he looked into the whole matter, the more he felt like everyone was ignoring it. With the dearth of information, it really seemed like the only option that remained was...

"Flying to Dretirop myself, huh."

He looked at his schedule, finding it rather empty as he knew it would be.

Even trying to find a substitute course for the one that had been canceled, he would not have anything of real interest for a good two weeks. Even then, it would just be a continuation of a course on asari philosophy in relation to religion, which he could just as well learn from a book.

He had been looking into Siari for a few months now, finding it somewhat interesting even if it did not matter, really.

Emiya exhaled, pulling to a stop.

Setting the skycar on air-park, leaving it to hover in place above the sea, he unstrapped himself and reached over to the backseat. Pulling out a case, he took out the environment suit he had stored there. He would have to put it on since he had a destination out of the atmosphere in mind now. The skycar was one with roughly similar specs as the one he had flown on Mars if a bit faster and smaller.

Which meant that it could not fly to Dretirop, by any stretch of the imagination.

But it could get off of Thessia just fine.

Finding the insides of the skycar too tight, he grabbed the case as he opened the side door. Reaching out, he grabbed the hood and swung out to stand on top of the hovering skycar. The view was actually rather nice up here on the roof, he noted. The golden sun above in the clear blue sky, the sparkling emerald sea below.

He could see out for nearly a hundred kilometers in all directions with how high up he was.

The air was a touch thin, but that gave it a refreshing edge.

Leisurely putting on the environment suit he looked out at the sea below, noticing motion in passing. He could see fish and other oceanic creatures, swimming just below the surface. Creatures he hadn't seen in nearly a year. Suddenly, he felt like going fishing.

If I attach a reel to my bow, I could go bow fishing. Catch a giant squid or something. Hmm, might have to look into how legal it is, first.

It could be interesting to try his hand at cooking a giant sea monster if he could find one, he figured.

Getting the suit on top of his clothes and sealing it, he jumped back into the skycar and closed the door. Checking his coordinates and running a trace for its location in orbit, he punched in new coordinates. The skycar began to tilt upwards and change heading.

Should probably call first...

The comm line went through and the other end picking up immediately.

"Hosin'Reegar's Orbital Hangar Stop, how may I help you?"

"Hey, it's Saiga; I'm coming by, you mind?"

"No, man, come on over! You looking to buy some scrap again?"

"Sure, but let's talk when I'm there," he said and after the confirmation from the other end, closed the comm-line.

As he continued to ascend, flying at a sixty-degree angle, the blue skies above began to disappear as the atmosphere thinned out. Finally, all that was left was the clear darkness of the ocean of stars beyond, as he approached low Thessia orbit.

Thessia was a rather unique planet in the galaxy, in that its orbit was nearly completely clean of dangerous debris. Due to the high amount of element zero on the planet itself along with the asari's rapid development of advanced hovercraft technology, they had not had to struggle with conventional non-eezo rockets to get off of Thessia. Humanity was a rather extreme example of the opposite direction, in that they had been 'littering' their orbits rather vigorously in their attempts to explore space, having to get to Mars before they got their hands on any eezo.

As a result, there were many orbital stations in a stable orbit around Thessia, with tens of thousands of asari living off-world permanently.

One such station was KX-0331, colloquially known as 'Hosin's Hangar'.

The place he had contacted and was approaching right now, slowing down as he let the VI-pilot handle the docking protocols.

Shaped like a sphere with a radius of fifty meters, it was one of the mid-sized orbital stations flying around Thessia, housing anywhere between sixty and a hundred at any one time. Dating back five hundred years from when it was first put into orbit, it had been one of the service stations used for a long time, retro-fitted time and time again until it had fallen into Hosin's possession when finally no one else was willing to buy it.

It was one among thousands of others, constantly falling around Thessia. The planet itself had a population of 5.5 billion living on the planet itself, but since it was the economic heart of the galaxy, many sought to live there. But due to the strict immigration policies—which he had hacked right through when he had first arrived here—few were ever allowed to step foot on Thessia's soil, much less be granted permanent residency.

Which lead to the 33,000 people living on orbital stations around Thessia. It was one of those legal loopholes that had never been addressed, as it did allow for many profitable ventures to be realized without actually letting anyone set foot on Thessia.

Most of those people were asari, but there were still many like Hosin.

At a distance, it looked like a shining ball of steel and glass, but as you approached it you could see how it was a patchwork of countless pieces of material. Almost none of the original 'KX-0331' remained beyond the core and some of the solid frame, as pieces had to be constantly replaced and repaired in a modern-day rendition of Theseus' ship.

It was nothing compared to some of the massive behemoths that existed around the galaxy, such as around Sur'Kesh or Palaven, but it was an impressive structure nonetheless.

A pearl in space, gleaming and sparkling as it slowly spun around itself.

As his skycar began to near, a hangar door began to open, sliding sideways to let him inside. There were two hangars, taking up most of the internal space on the space station, set on opposite sides of the sphere. There was the commercial hangar hall, where customers with starships could fly right in, and then there was the smaller hangar that he was approaching right now.

Inside, he could see several starships in various states of disrepair.

The large towing ship was currently out, leading Emiya to believe that there must have been a call just now. Hosin'Reegar was not an asari, but rather someone who had at one point or another settled in Thessia's orbit and now owned this space station.

This was where all the things that Hosin hadn't managed to get flying yet were put, out of the customer's eyes. Most customers, anyhow. The crafty machinist had long since figured out that Emiya was always more interested in buying broken things than something that already worked without issues, a type of transaction that suited the crafty quarian just fine, allowing him to off-load some of the more 'hopeless' pieces that had ended up in his shop.

Simply put, it was a repair shop and ship rental.

Or if you wanted to be honest; a vehicle chop shop.

If you had problems with your starship, you could comm Hosin and hire his services. He could send in one of his engineers on a smaller starship, or he could send out his towing ship and have the entire starship brought back into the commercial hangar for repairs, depending on the depth of your need and credit chit.

Of course, as much as Hosin insisted he was a legitimate repairman, Emiya knew most of the man's money came from 'salvage operations' and repairing of wrecked vessels to sell again, occupying a very gray area legally. He filled a niche of cheap starships, that was very difficult to fill normally on a planet that had such a strong economy, due to most simply buying everything new. The various starships Emiya could see now, all around him as the skycar began to land down, were abandoned vessels that Hosin had hauled in or bought off of someone.

But there always existed those who did not have all that much fluid credits to spend, even when they had a need for a starship. Thus, this market had been cornered by a quarian who knew how to keep costs down, remaining competitive even in the face of megacorps and massive interplanetary companies.

As long as it could be made to fly again and could pass the safety inspections, Hosin could rake in a tidy profit for the vessels. It was how the quarian had managed to get his hands on his space station in the first place, too.

Emiya jumped out of his skycar, noting that the magnetic seals now held it in place. With the artificial gravity, it wasn't strictly necessary, but it was good practice nonetheless. Especially in a workshop so filled to the brim with starships in all states of disrepair imaginable.

"Saiga, my man. How are you?!" a slightly off-sounding voice shouted out and Emiya turned to face Hosin.

Taking off his environment suit's helmet, he smirked at the quarian who appeared from between a mountain of metal rubble and a mark fourteen turian speedster with its engine missing.

"Not too bad. Haven't crashed and burned yet, anyhow," Emiya shot back, patting his skycar's roof with one hand.

"I'm actually more surprised about that than you are, still! I sold you that piece of junk for a pittance since the drive core was just about to burn out!"

Emiya huffed. "I remember you just saying that it was a 'bit worn out, nothing more.'"

"Which wasn't untrue, per se. I thought that you'd be coming back for my hide once you figured out how much it'd cost to replace that thing. I even had my lawyer ready in the back, when you said you were coming for a visit the next day! I almost had a heart attack when you flew the thing right back, I haven't heard an engine purr like that in years!" Hosin laughed, the shaded dome of his helmet visor still showing the mirth on his face.

Quarians were a rather strange race, Emiya had found.

With an affinity for technology that put most others to shame, they were still often forced to live in squalor and poverty due to a disastrous war that cost them everything in the distant past, usually congregating in a collection of ships known as the 'migrant fleet,' or the 'flotilla.'

They were the gypsies and vagrant scavengers of the space age.

Additionally, though they breathed air just like the humans and asari did, they were forced to wear protective suits at all times to seal themselves off from others, due to their unique physiology and immune system, which left them very vulnerable to airborne pathogens and irritants.

"It was just a bit of spit and polish to fix—I don't get what people pay you for even," Emiya snarked and the quarian shook his head. "And what do you mean you had your lawyer ready in the back? With how often you get sued, she's always in the back. As I recall, you went and married her because you were spending so much time fleecing people together already."

"Haha, can't deny that. And keep talking like that and the missus might come and have a word with you again; we run an honorable business here, it's all in the print!" Hosin grinned, mostly visible from the pin-pricks of light that were his eyes behind a tinted visor. "But you know, with how you keep taking the trash off of my hands and selling it back in working order, one of these days I might just have to believe you when you say you can fix anything. Almost makes a man worried about his job."

"Oh, don't be. I could never have your keen sense for business, nor could I compete with your complete lack of scruples or morals. You'd have me out of business in a day."

The quarian barked a laugh. "Flattery will get you everywhere. Come on in, come on in. I've got some good distillation going. The last batch of hooch turned out real nice when I followed your advice - you really have a sense for good industrial strength gut-burner, Saiga."

Emiya shook his head at that; he didn't have the time right now to sit down with the machinist.

He was certain to start complaining about the flotilla and the quarian race's choices, past and present, or about how much better things could have been had the events on Rannoch 300 years ago gone a just little differently, once a few shots had been downed with the fellow non-asari.

Maybe another time, he thought.

"Sure, sure. I'm certain it tastes amazing to you, but for me, it's like drinking battery acid and vinegar. Plus the hangover made me want to drown myself. The once was more than enough."

Hosin looked thoughtful hearing that. "Vinegar, eh? I'll have to check if I can digest that, since it sounds delicious, the way you put it."

Emiya had to shake his head with a grin at that, making Hosin laugh again.

They walked out from the hangar and arrived at a slightly neater office-like area, where he motioned for Emiya to sit down by a recliner. Near the other hangar, where ships were towed in, the reception was much neater and cleaner. But between friends, a certain level of casual laziness was a sign of closeness, thus neither bothered to walk all the way over there.

In between the two hangars and around the sphere where free space remained, Hosin had built his living quarters, since he had never been given permission to settle on Thessia.

It was mostly the result of his race, the quarians, being kicked out of the Citadel following the disastrous Geth War; even with his filling all the legal conditions for immigration, as the quarians lacked an embassy on the Citadel, he simply could not petition properly for a right to settle on the surface.

Though the man was rather closed about his past, Emiya had been able to piece together bits from conversations over the years.

A young quarian on his pilgrimage had set out to try his luck on Thessia, only to be stopped by immigration control on suspicions of eezo smuggling. Having spent all of his credits, he was forced to work as a shop hand on various orbital repair shops for a pittance. After a year of exhausting work and attempts to either immigrate to Thessia proper or leave the system altogether, he had finally had enough and decided to play hardball.

Years later, the quarian had managed to buy his own, bigger, space station and was living in relative luxury. But somewhere along the way, he had lost all interest in returning to the rest of his people, simply deciding to stay and live his life here.

Not that Emiya could blame him; it was doubtful that his wife would wish to move to the flotilla, all things considered.

"So, what brings you here?" Hosin asked, sitting down on his own recliner, kicking away some papers on the table between him and propping up his feet. At the same time, he manipulated his omnitool with one hand and a drone appeared around the corner. "You want something to drink? I got some good chilled giur if you want?"

"Sure, why not." Emiya nodded and the drone ejected a can of the carbonated drink, levitating it onto the table in front of Emiya. A thin manipulator extended, opening the can for him, too. Checking that it was levo, he took a sip. "Thanks. I was actually hoping to make a larger transaction this time."

At that, Hosin sat up a little bit straighter.

The fact of the matter was that despite having several million credits, it was not like Emiya could use it directly. The problem was that essentially all credits and transactions could be traced. There was no such thing as 'non-sequential bills' as old movies from his time had touted when a robber or hostage-taker demanded money.

All credit transactions were logged and could be checked and traced to an extent.

Which meant that to use it, he needed to launder it first. To run it through some other parties who did not particularly care about where he had gotten his money and who had no interest in ratting him out while at the same time muddying his tracks enough that a passive trace could not be followed back to him.

And in that effort, the quarians were supremely helpful.

For a fixed rate, he could exchange money that would be going to the flotilla. He would give them a thousand dirty credits and in return, he would get somewhere between eight and nine hundred clean credits back. Certainly, the Citadel might give them trouble for overusing dirty money, but they were treated like garbage anyhow.

In fact, a lot of the time, the quarians seemed to derive some pleasure out of screwing others over, just as they so often were.

So it had worked out quite nicely as far as arrangements went; everyone profited.

Of course, that property of being dirty had also been rather useful over the years. If he wanted to sic the Special Tasks Group onto something, he could simply send them some money in a way that implicated the target. He had been slowly paying that one million he had figured he owed, doing just that. Though he doubted doctor Solus saw much of the money or appreciated his efforts, it was the thought that counted, no?

"I need to get to a planet called Dretirop. Have you heard of it?"

Hosin shook his head, crossing his arms on his lap as he frowned. "Not any place I remember hearing about. Don't remember seeing it on any star logs either, must be a backwater."

Emiya nodded. "Pretty much. It was the site of a Prothean dig sponsored by a bunch of Thessian universities. It's on the edges of the Terminus systems."

Hosin raised his eyebrows, nodding slowly. Among the myriad aliens, it was actually the quarians that Emiya found the most human-like in behavior, strangely enough. As long as you saw past the shaded visors they preferred, reading them was quite easy.

"That is pretty much the definition of a backwater. I don't think any commercial liners would be going that far out. Hell, even getting a merchant vessel to go that way would be a hassle." The quarian nodded again. "Right, so you need a starship, then. Buying or renting?"

"Renting," Emiya answered immediately and Hosin made a sound of annoyance.

He would try to sell me a piece of junk that would take days to repair if I wanted to buy one. Better to rent something he knows I have to fly back if he doesn't want to lose on the costs.

"You sure? You've done real good with the skycar, I could get you a starship for real cheap if you wanted to buy one right now."

"Maybe another time," Emiya replied. "Don't have the time for a complete job right now."

Hosin smiled, realizing they had been thinking the exact same thing. "Alright, I've got a re-purposed volus corvette. It's fast and sleek. Cheapest I got."

"And I'll have to crawl inside of it, right? Have you even re-worked the life support systems yet, or will I have to wear an environment suit the whole trip?" Emiya asked with a raised eyebrow.

Hosin pretended to not hear that, moving on as if nothing had happened. "Something bigger, then? That'll cost more, of course."

"Of course." Emiya rolled his eyes, though he couldn't fault him. The game of negotiation was one that grew addicting quickly once you grew good at it. He himself was no exception; bartering and haggling alike were simply fun, like that.

"How about an asari Tristar? It's really a shuttle, but the engine was specialized for interplanetary hauling. It'll be able to make that journey just fine in terms of fuel capacity," Hosin suggested, pulling up a display.

"How fast is it? Those things aren't usually meant to used for long distances."

"It's been stripped down, so it's much lighter and a lot more nimble. I've had it fitted with a larger drive core already, so it's kind of muscled up. Was a real cheap job, really, just material costs."

"Which still means someone will have to calibrate the mass effect fields, if it's to be worth anything," Emiya concluded.

Hosin grinned, shrugging. "Heeey, I just remembered... You were really good at that sort of thing, right? It'd be a real cinch for you, eh?"

"How much?"

"Eighty grand for three months; standard quarter-year lease," Hosin shot back immediately.

"Three grand, and I'll bring it back by the end of the month," Emiya answered without pause.

"Ahhh, but you know that the minimum contract is a quarter-year for a rental. The asari and their long age, you know. They don't even have overdue charges at libraries since it's a given everyone will miss it by a year or two, anyhow. Seventy."

"So make it a pre-purchase test drive contract. I'm just taking it out for a spin, to see if I want to buy it, really. Your wife should be able to handle that much bureaucratic bending. Three." Emiya didn't budge.

"You're killing me here, I can't do something like that, not even for a friend. See, I have to live with her and she gets cranky when I make her do extra work. The lowest I can go is fifty, by the way." Hosin shook his head.

"I'll talk to her about it for you; she'll see my way. You don't have the facilities for a free-form calibration of a mass effect field here, anyhow. Something like the Tristars wouldn't be popular on the customization scene; I bet no one's even bothered to try and get something working, meaning you have no blueprints to work off of. You'd have to start from scratch to get it running, which is why you're trying to push it on me to get it done." Emiya crossed his arms. "Three grand. Take it or leave it."

"...Ten, fuel and power cell charge included."

Emiya smirked, extending a hand. "Deal."

They shook hands, both satisfied with the outcome. Before signing any paperwork, he had to convince Hosin's wife, though.

The quarian led him away, going through several sections without artificial eezo-generated gravity, as they made it to the other side of the space station sphere. Hosin's wife was currently working, being the busy lawyer she was. Nonetheless, she always had time for a negotiation with a client in person, as electronic work could always wait compared to a customer who had flown in.

It only took five minutes of negotiation from Emiya to get her go-ahead, during which time Hosin was absent. He had gone off to prepare the ship for Emiya's inspection, thinking that it would take at least an hour on Emiya's part to get a deal hammered out. Returning to inform Emiya that the Tristar was ready for a look-see, Hosin's eyes actually boggled upon seeing them shaking hands already.

"How'd you do that? I can't get her to decide where we should have lunch in five minutes!" Hosin exclaimed, only to cringe away at the glare his asari wife sent him.

"Ah, well. Trade secret." Emiya shrugged.

Really, all he had done was explain how his pagoda worked and she had jumped in immediately. Given how busy she was, the prospect of nearly instant 'biotic cooking' was just not something she could pass up on.

In actuality, the four minutes that followed his explanation were just her hammering out a contract for maintenance and for him to make a comprehensive list of what could be cooked and prepared using the pagoda's various programs, as she realized the sheer potential of what he was offering.

As a busy career woman, there was nothing she appreciated more than efficiency and precision, after all.

"I expect delivery within thirty-six hours, along with the agreed-upon instructions in writing."

Emiya nodded at her serious tone. "Of course."

She smiled lightly, then, before giving her husband a go-ahead with her eyes.

Hosin and Emiya left her office, moving out along to the public side of the space station. They passed by dozens of asari and even a few quarians, all working for Hosin on various parts of the orbital station. Arriving at the public hanger, on the opposite side to where he had arrived in his skycar, Emiya laid eyes on the Tristar.

"Well. That sure is one ugly ship."

Hosin nodded. "You wanted cheap."

It was practically just a shipping container with an engine strapped onto it, a window on one side, and a set of mechanical claws with which containers and crates could be grabbed. It was just something designed to pick standard industrial containers up and fly them relatively short distances, lacking advanced life support systems that were usually necessary for long-distance voyages. That meant it had air and gravity, but the oxygen supply had to be periodically changed. That meant it didn't have a toilet or washing facilities, or a sleeping pod.

It didn't even have a water tank.

But it was cheap and there were literally thousands of them on the market. With the powerful engine, large fuel cell capacity, and effective radiator panels on all sides, it was a rather interesting starship.

On paper, anyhow.

Usually, when people bought used starships for personal use, they wanted something a little bit more... visually pleasing, and comfortable. The re-fitting and customization scene for used starships was a rather big business, and most models had some kind of forum for it on the extranet.

But the Tristar was all utility and economic design for production and transportation, only seeing use among shipping companies.

Plus, it handled about as well as you would expect a flying brick to.

In effect, no one wanted one, unless they were looking for something really cheap and were out of alternatives due to budgetary reasons.

"Does it fly?" Emiya asked, turning to look at Hosin.

"Sure, but slow as hell right now, since I just had the bigger drive core installed. No mass effect field calibration work done yet."

"Right. Let me borrow your tools for half an hour and I'll get it out of here."

Hosin's eyes sharpened at that. "You think you can get it done in half an hour?"

Emiya shook his head. "Of course not. But I'll check that I can fly it down to Thessia first, especially since you haven't even tried to fly this hunk of junk yet. I want to know it won't blow up in re-entry to atmosphere. I'll handle the rest on my own there, where I have my own tools and workspace."

"Right. Sure, makes sense. I'll have Serri come with a toolkit. She's not good for much other than running errands yet." Hosin nodded. "Right, before I forget. Here."

Emiya turned to look at the proffered credit chit.

He accepted it with a nod, pocketing it as he mentally checked his credit accounts and wired another private transfer to Hosin. With how the quarian flotilla did business everywhere and nowhere, it would effectively disperse his trail.

That Hosin knew he had dirty money wasn't that big of a problem, since Emiya knew Hosin had an eezo smuggling deal going on with some asari on Thessia. It was what allowed him to upgrade ships and refit them at a profitable cost. If Emiya was burned, then Hosin and his whole family was burned, it was that simple.

Mutually assured destruction was the alternative name for peace of mind in these circles.

"I'll send another fifty grand tomorrow, you can take your credits from that."

The quarian grinned. "I'll have the rest of your money ready by the time you come back. The flotilla appreciates your business."

Emiya nodded at that. Though the rate at which they exchanged him money was fairly steep, it was also quick and practically untraceable due to who and what the quarians were.

That, and they needed all the credits they could get.

If he wanted to, he could simply find some criminal operations that laundered money and insert his own currency there, fudging the numbers and then subtracting his own money at the end. Or he could simply take from those he deemed to be criminals.

But he hadn't ever been much of a Robin Hood, thus he didn't bother.

Really, the advantages of forging connections to the flotilla like this, and helping them out without pitying or humiliating them were more than enough for him to accept the cost of Hosin's laundering service.

Emiya inhaled, looking at the quarian. "You're not planning to ever go back to the flotilla, are you?"

The other paused, a scowl appearing on his face a second later, barely visible through the visor.

"If those bosh'teti won't do things the smart way, then let them rot on those ships they love so much."

Emiya said nothing, noting that it was still a rather sensitive subject for the quarian. From all he had gathered, Hosin had long since decided to part ways with the flotilla as a whole, only working together with individuals whom he deemed agreeable and far enough removed from the quarian leadership.

"Well, nothing to it but getting my hands dirty, then," Emiya said, changing the subject as he began to take off his environment suit and rolling up his sleeves.

"Good attitude. I'll have Serri right along, need to be getting back to business myself." Hosin grinned and they parted.

Well, time to see if I can make something out of this flying coffin.

;

Well, it seems to be mostly functional. I could fly with it to Dretirop already, but it would take several weeks as is, Emiya noted, finishing with a set of diagnostics on the PLC node governing the interior artificial gravity.

He was lying on the floor, having removed a panel by the wall and half-crawled inside of it. Only his legs were visible on the outside.

Stretching out a hand, he called out "Hand me the D-pliers."

"Ah, uh... I don't think there are any here..." A voice answered, and he pulled his head out of the circuitry panel to look at the young asari who had come to assist him.

How do you forget a D-plier? he thought with exasperation.

She flushed at his gaze, turning purple as she stood up.

"I-I, I'll go and get it right now!" she shouted and turned to run out.

He frowned, wondering how long the obviously young asari had been working here, this wasn't the first mistake she had made either.

Shaking his head, he returned into the guts of the opened node.

The basic theory for mass effect fields was, that as long as you had some element zero, a circuit board, and a power source, you could make a hovercraft.

Technically, that applied to starships as well. But in practice, it was always a matter of detail. Simply put, if you just ran a current through a lump of element zero, there was no telling what shape the mass effect field would have. Eddy currents within the eezo, heat warp from the flow of electricity, the variable density of the grain, and many, many other things all came together to affect the way the field was generated.

It was similar to how 'down' on a planet was not always towards the exact center of the planet, as it changed depending on where you stood. Pockets of massive rock at different depths, water, mountains, the moving molten insides... all affected the center of gravity such that it was not always the same as the geometrical center of a planet.

Assume that you had a perfectly spherical planet, with no wind and which did not rotate. Its insides will not in all likelihood be perfectly uniform in density, as it has pockets of denser materials here and there and the molten core that moves inside of it. Suppose you then added a layer of water on top of that perfectly spherical planet; a mere single meter uniformly around it.

That liquid would not be perfectly spherical.

In fact, near very large dense volumes of the planet, the water might even be pulled back so far away as to reveal the spherical solid surface beneath it. When one factored in the rotation of a planet to this shape the water would take, one is given the 'geoid' of that planet.

For mass effect fields, it was no different. In fact, early tests in trying to determine the shape of a mass effect field from a specific core used to use a ball of suspended water that filled the whole volume of the field, so that the shape could be visually observed.

That was the reason why highly processed eezo with a uniform grain was such a valuable commodity. A poor eezo core would be noticeably less efficient than a uniform and even one, due to its geoid field variance. But since it was rather expensive to work and manufacture high-quality eezo cores, oftentimes starships simply ran with a poorer core to save money. Compared to the cost of simply having a more powerful generator to increase the size of the field, it simply did not make economical sense to try and fit every craft with the best possible eezo core.

That did not mean that it was not possible to modify the mass effect fields without modifying the shape of the eezo core. Quite to the contrary, it could be argued, as nearly the entire field of eezo engineering was all about how to modify the shape and properties of the mass effect field without physically changing the shape of the eezo core.

So, while you could stick a high-quality core in and measure just how much electricity was necessary to make a large enough field and pay through the nose for it, you could also stick in a poorer core and throw in a programmable logic controller that controlled the current, voltage and even frequency of the electricity, allowing you to shape the actual mass effect field to suit your ship.

S'raran's First Law; the physical shape of the eezo core decrees its field's shape.

S'raran's Second Law; the different properties of the electrical charge passing through the eezo core can cause divergence from the mass effect field's basic shape decreed by the First Law.

Or, amusingly enough, as humans put it; Tokuyasu's Second and First Laws.

As humanity first found only highly processed and uniform eezo cores on Mars, their first experience was that it was electricity that affected the field, rather than the physical shape, leaving them with a reversed order on those laws. The salarians were similar in that regard, making them two outliers in how the laws regarding eezo's properties were formulated into laws.

Generally, for this kind of work, you first had to run the core at a uniform current to measure what kind of field it naturally generated and then work from there. Special and expensive equipment, that could precisely sense and chart out mass effect fields was also necessary. Of course, one could also walk around with a scale and try to work it out manually, which was essentially what Hosin would have had to do if he wished to calibrate the field.

But that could take weeks, even for a craft this small.

More if he wanted it done well.

For Emiya it wasn't quite that difficult. The same sense of the veil around him, which had allowed him to sense bounded fields that warped the fabric of the world as a youth, now also allowed him to sense mass effect fields. Simply put, he could simply close his eyes and get a feel for the field, where others needed expensive equipment or days of time for manual testing.

That and Structural Analysis, which simply let him read out and even correct the internal grain and structure of the eezo core.

As usual, he cheated and he cheated hard, to get the results he wanted.

The Tristar's current mass effect field was essentially in the rough shape of an egg, where it extended below itself to where the claws would grab onto a container. After all, what was the point of creating a lighter starship if the container it was trying to get off the ground still weighed the same? Thus, the field had to affect both to be able to fly.

But that meant that for simply traveling with the Tristar, it was a highly inefficient shape for the mass effect field. Even the economy travel mode simply turned the egg-shaped mass effect field around by rotating the core and minimizing the field size. Optimally, the field would be the exact shape of the starship, but since one had to include the debris-repelling kinetic barriers as well, it was not always that easy.

It shouldn't take me more than a day to get it up and running up to par, after which I could leave, Emiya noted. He blinked, hearing approaching footsteps again.

"Did you find it?"

Extending a hand outwards, he felt a D-plier set into his palm. Thanking her, he set about in getting the last bits fixed before he looked at the pliers in his hand.

He blinked, noting that they were actually very small. The nozzle bit was self-adjusting to the standard sizes, which meant it wasn't really a problem. But the handle was still tiny. He felt like he was holding a teaspoon when he had asked for a ladle.

Also, the handle wrapping was pink.

Pushing himself out again, he blinked as he looked at the young asari standing there and looking at him with wide, unblinking blue eyes. Serri was fairly short, but this asari would have barely come up to his waist.

And who's this?

Mentally shrugging, he didn't bother to get worked up about it. "Thanks. Hand me the bolt driver and I can close up this panel."

The little asari, who could not have been more than a meter tall, nodded back at him as she handed him the panel bolt driver, while she continued to stare at him lying down on the floor.

Closing up the side, he dusted his hands and sat up. Even sitting down, cross-legged, she was barely taller than him.

"Hmm. I suppose you're the new head machinist, then."

The little asari blinked at him, tilting her head. Then, with a sly smile, she nodded imperiously. Pointing at the next node block, she sniffed with narrowed eyes.

He chuckled. "Yes, ma'am, I'll get right to it, ma'am."

Scooting over, he checked it over. A minute later his 'assistant' Serri showed up, having finally found the D-pliers.

"Mister Fujimura, sir, I found the—Oh, Hoana!"

Looking out from where he had jammed himself into, he could see Serri standing over by the doorway blinking at the little asari sitting by the dashboard above him, swinging her legs while quietly watching by.

"Hello," she finally spoke, waving at the older asari.

"Did your online lessons already end? Are you here alone?" Serri asked, frowning as she looked around for something. Or someone.

The asari child nodded as she continued humming and sitting on the dashboard. Emiya looked up at the little asari, blinking once before shrugging again and going back to getting everything in running order.

The young assistant, Serri, turned to face him. "I'm so sorry, mister Fujimura, sir, I'll..."

"It's fine. She's pretty handy. T-clip," Emiya cut her off. There was a flare of biotics as a small bundle of plastic bands floated into Emiya's outstretched hand. "Thank you."

"Ah, well... Then..." Serri hesitated, not certain how to deal with this situation. Emiya had already figured out that Hoana was probably Hosin's offspring, given that he and his wife were the only ones living here on a permanent basis.

The asari child was no doubt curious about everyone who visited, but a human was doubly noteworthy—especially since they hadn't ever met before, even with how he visited relatively often.

He knew that like many things on Thessia, public education was to a large degree possible to achieve through online courses on the extranet. He wasn't sure quite how necessary it was to get a young asari child used to socialization—compared to human children for whom it was vital—but to him, she seemed somewhat bored and lonely.

Then again, she might have spent most of her time on Thessia, actually.

"Just about done here. You might as well go fetch me the access card," Emiya said, pulling himself out again and setting the panel back in place. Extending his hand, the driver was automatically there.

Dusting off his gloves, he looked around. There were tools spread out here and there, but it wouldn't take long to clean up.

"Ah, yes of course. Shall I get Hosin as well?" Serri asked.

"No need, I'm leaving anyhow," Emiya said, picking up and packing away the tools. He looked up at Hoana, raising an eyebrow. "You still have them?"

She nodded, raising a clear plastic bag filled with small electronic pieces he had picked up while doing his check-up.

"Good. Be sure to give them to your father for me." He smirked.

No need to leave Hosin's cameras in the Tristar, even if the quarian was curious about his methods. Taking off the gloves he had been using, he took some hand sanitizer and wiped his hands clean, and then dried them with a clean towel.

"Thanks for the help." Turning to look at the little asari who hopped down from the dashboard, he gave her a half-smile as he patted her on the head, causing her to look at him curiously.

Ah, maybe that's a little bit much.

He removed the hand from her head, the large blue eyes following it with an unblinking focus.

Then again, it doesn't seem like she minded. Oh well.

Walking out of the Tristar, Hosin was there to greet him. Emiya nodded at the quarian, as Hoana came walking out behind him.

"Oh, there you are, papa was looking for you," Hosin said, crouching down as the little asari ran up to him. As he was expecting a hug, he seemed utterly nonplussed as she extended her hand to show the clear plastic bag she was holding instead.

Emiya almost barked a laugh at the two blinking dots of light behind that visor; the flabbergasted expression clearly visible even through the visor.

Instead, he simply said: "Oh, I found these bugs and cameras everywhere. Weird thing, that. I took the time to remove them all. Who knows where they came from."

He gave a knowing smirk at the quarian who accepted the bag with one hand, the other wrapping around the waist of the asari child and picking her up as he stood up straight.

"Well, that was quite kind of you," Hosin replied, barely able to keep a straight face. "Here is your access card. I assume everything else was in proper order?"

"Yeah. Within the bounds of the fine print, anyhow." Emiya gave an amused huff. He would have to do some maintenance while he was adjusting the Tristar's mass effect fields, but it was mostly minor work. He was getting this ship for dirt cheap, so he couldn't really complain. He nodded at the little asari in the quarian's arms, "She was a big help, too."

Even through the helmet, Emiya could see Hosin grin at that. "Sure is. Brightest girl I've ever seen. Her mother thinks she will be a lawyer or a doctor... But we know better, don't we?"

Emiya smiled at the two, before inhaling slowly. He had been sticking around long enough already. If he wanted to investigate the disappearance of Professor Henell, then time was of the essence.

"Right, well, if that's all. Then I'll get going now. Mind opening the hangar doors on the other side? I'll have the skycar fly down on autopilot."

Hosin looked up. "You sure? I can keep it there, no problem. You'd have to fly it back up anyhow once you bring back the Tristar. Much easier to just bring back the Tristar and fly back with the skycar when you've returned, yeah?"

Emiya merely raised an eyebrow at the suggestion. Onboard a space station, space was always at a premium. Even a small skycar would be expensive in the long run to keep around like that. "What are you plotting?"

"Oh, nothing." Hosin grinned. "It's just that I can take some after pictures of it for adverts. You know, since it technically is the same skycar, I am legally allowed to use it for 'before & after' comparative shots. Even if I didn't sell it in that condition. Good promotional material."

Emiya chortled at that. "It wasn't really that impressive a job..."

"The fact that you keep saying that never stops making me want to throw you out an airlock. Only the knowledge that you keep giving me the opportunities to make loads of money stay my hand, Saiga."

Emiya shook his head at that. "Fine, fine. Keep it, then. I'll just fetch some of my things before I take off."

Hosin gave him a thumbs-up; a gesture the quarian had picked up from him a few years earlier. "Thanks for your patronage, come again!"

In his arms, the asari child mimed the gesture, forcing Emiya to smile as he returned the gesture.

Cute kid, I can scarcely believe they're related.

;

Emiya exhaled as he walked out of the shower.

He shook his head as he grabbed a towel. Getting all the grime and oil off of him after a day of hard work always felt incredibly refreshing. It was like peeling off a layer of dirt and sweat not only made him feel clean, but it also refreshed the mind and the senses somehow.

Mentally flicking on the newsvids, he went into the kitchen as he got about making more food. While he had been fixing the Tristar into flying order, he had also been preparing stuff he would need for the flight. While it would not be a very long journey, the starship was still not really equipped for such distances as he had noted before.

Cataloging his needs, he had set about getting all in order.

He would have to pack everything he would need and keep it with him in the flight cabin, including the dried foods, the water, and the various containers he would need. Given that the Tristar did not have any sleeping quarters or washing facilities, he had to himself bring a sleeping bag and a set of towels he could moisten and use as necessary. As it even lacked a toilet, it meant he would have to bring in all of the necessary 'replacements' himself.

He was no stranger to the sealed bucket, though he might simply choose to airlock it and the projected containers if it came down to it.

Projection magecraft was ridiculously useful when it came to sundries, he had long since noted.

Yet, it didn't feel like he was preparing to go on another harebrained trip in a rickety skycar as he had before. Rather, this felt like a voyage he should have set out on a long time ago already. A small part of him even felt somewhat excited about the prospect of this 'road trip', as he had come to mentally call it.

I'd never thought I would be getting cabin fever from staying on a planet for too long...

Checking the pagoda, he noted that the dried meat that he was making for his last batch of modified pemmican made out of Thessian ingredients was nearly done. It was local lean meat, thinly sliced and dried out in his pagoda—which allowed him to cut down on the preparation time drastically—after which it would be ground up into an almost powder-like state and spiced up properly, and then mixed up with a 1-to-1 ratio of animal fat that had been heated up into a liquid state. As it cooled down, it would solidify into what had been commonly known as pemmican in his time.

He also included some berries, ground-up nuts, and fruit juice in the mix, to add in some vitamins and other essential nutrients. It would bring down the shelf-life, but he wasn't planning on being away that long. Supposedly the stuff could last well over a decade if prepared and stored properly, but he had never had any last him so long.

Rolling up the mixture into small balls, the result was a dense but tasty food that would keep him going through thick and turbulent, just as it had so long ago back when he had been alive the first time. Making several kilograms of the stuff, his credit chit certainly felt the expenditure from all the meat and fat he had purchased. It almost felt nostalgic, making some survival food again in preparation for an expedition. It could be boiled, fried, or even eaten 'raw', making for a rather versatile base for rations.

Of course, he did not make all of it from the same mix and spices, rather making sure to make a good variety. While it wasn't a problem for him, he had long ago noted that morale was much easier to maintain with proper rations. And well, old habits die hard.

Besides, he had to make good use of the pagoda while he still had it, since he would have to take it to Hosin's wife soon enough. It wasn't that it was unique, but it would take him a few hours to build another one which wasn't possible right now, given his timetable.

Maybe I should bring along parts in the Tristar and build another one along the way?

Putting on pants, he began to finish up the last batch, rolling up the balls with speed and precision that would have betrayed his experience to anyone who had seen him. Really, he considered it to be the same as making rice balls, thus arguably he had been making food like this for as long as he could remember living.

He listened to the news off-hand as he worked, before closing the reel.

The Thessian and Citadel newsreels had a tendency to focus on celebrities, gossip, and the other forms of media more than anything that really interested him. Partly it was simply a result of how large the galaxy was, and partly it was simply the result of advertising and viewer interests in the area he lived. Given how peaceful Thessia was, few had any interest in the distant wars and suffering taking place across the galaxy.

Usually, only the most dramatic or important news from other parts of the galaxy trickled along the free channels.

If he wanted to read news from other parts of the galaxy, he had to put in a request for a buoy transfer from those parts over the extranet, just like everyone else.

It wasn't something he could really hack either since he couldn't go down the line of a comm buoy to force the other end to send the data packet or read it and falsifying a credit transfer was just a bother all around. It wasn't very expensive anyhow, so he simply shelled out the credits and requested for the news the normal way when he felt his curiosity rise. Even if he put in a request for everything that caught his attention, he wouldn't even be touching the tip of the iceberg; the galaxy was simply that massive.

Every day, trillions of lives played out, resulting in billions of newsworthy events. And of those only a fraction of a fraction ever reached his attention.

Thus, it wasn't unusual for things to completely go by him in human space. On Thessia, few really cared about humanity, after all.

But seeing a familiar name pop up still made him blink. Frowning, he traced down the news' story until he found the original, putting in a request based on solely the title. It seemed like just as he had been busy, so too had she been.

'Hero of the Skyllian Blitz Assaults Reporter on Camera!'

Emiya shook his head at the rather unflattering 'mugshot' that article title was being previewed with. She looked just about ready to headbutt a krogan, the silent growl on her face almost animated by the sheer anger she exuded.

While waiting for the related buoy request to be completed, he continued with his preparations as he read other articles. Dretirop was located in the zone between the Attican Traverse and the Terminus Systems, a lawless place even at the best of times. There seemed to always be something happening there, with pirates, smugglers, and various unscrupulous companies setting up shop there, away from the long reach of the Citadel.

But it seemed that with the large expedition having settled down in force, most of the usual troublemakers had simply opted to stay away from Dretirop for years now.

A heavily armed troupe of experienced asari simply wasn't worth the effort, most would reason.

But if someone had been keeping tabs on them, they might have been tempted by the last remnants of the expedition being left alone. With most of the asari gone, it could have presented a golden opportunity. He mentally listed through various reports and articles as he continued, running almost on autopilot in the real world as he scanned through them.

Noticing that his requested data packet had arrived, Emiya set aside the things he had been working on with a frown.

He eyed through the article, only noting several tidbits about it as worth reading. Attack on Elysium by a large force of unified pirate bands and slavers. Alliance starships massively outnumbered but fought back desperately as the battle raged on the planet's surface below. Shepard was on shore leave, mounting a resistance and catching the mastermind behind the attack after several hours of heated battle.

She managed to save countless people.

Smiling, he leafed through the pictures. Shepard standing around in civvies with a gun, leading several armed civilians in a heroic photo that someone must have taken without her noticing. Her standing atop a broken starship, wearing an ill-fitting armor she must have grabbed somewhere, pushing forward a bound human while countless cheered her on. Behind her, the city was scarred and smoking, yet still proudly standing.

Looking at the batch of articles, it was clear she had been the media's darling for all of a week before she went and punched a reporter, after which she was vilified and cast as a loose cannon that needed to be muzzled by the whole of the press.

'Mad Dog Shepard intentionally crashed several dozen pirate vessels into each other above city, caused millions in collateral damages from falling debris!'

She had led a team into a ship that had landed and led an attack to board a larger ship, repeating those tactics until she stumbled upon a central coordinator. Hacking that, she had managed to make dozens of ships fly into each other.

'Hero or War Criminal? Leaked military reports state Shepard threw out fifty pirates through the airlocks during the Skyllian Blitz!'

Outnumbered and outgunned on several ships, her team had taken to punch through into the life-support systems and then raising internal pressure in the core sections, then opening the airlocks and blowing everyone out as the gravity was turned off.

The lowest incident had been in a low atmosphere, but two had been up in low orbit. It had literally been raining dead men in her wake.

'Should the Systems Alliance really be celebrating the cold-blooded murders of hundreds of aliens on Elysium? A look into the insidious hidden racism in our military.'

To maintain morale, slogans and propaganda had been employed on the public comm-waves. Given the tension and deaths, the local population and Navy alike had grown rather violent even in the aftermath of the blitz.

This had obviously led to reprisals and chastisement from Arcturus Station, as those with calmer minds could only see the fury and anger that remained from the unprovoked attack. Shepard having been a central figure in the counterattack and having apprehended a pirate by the name of Elanos Halliat, the mastermind behind the attack.

"She sure kicked a hornet's nest, didn't she?" Emiya mused, huffing as he read on.

Finally, he found the video interview that had sparked the worst of her vilification.

'Here, live outside of the Royal Monastery of Saint Mary of Pedralbes in Barcelona, channel 14 news reporter Janice Pulberry. We have received breaking news that the Hero of the Skyllian Blitz, Jane Shepard herself, has been spotted. The recent N7—Oh, there she is!'

The woman and the cameraman began running towards a somber-looking Shepard, who was in full dress uniform. She was walking out alongside what seemed like a family of locals, most of them dressed in civilian blacks. Behind her an old woman with a sour expression stained by sadness came out slowly, holding a cane and being hovered by Shepard in case she needed help.

'Lieutenant Shepard! Janice Pulberry, channel 14 news! Please, may we have a moment of your time?'

Shepard looked obviously confused, staring at both the camera and at the reporter for several seconds before she began frowning. Emiya could note how she was clenching her teeth and fists, with her pupils growing sharp as she settled to glare at the reporter.

'This is a funeral, don't you have any respect?'

'Just a word, if you would, please! Can you tell us what you were thinking during the Skyllian Blitz? Are the rumors of your planning to write a biography regarding the events true? Who is going to be the publisher, and are the rumors that you have already signed a simulstim contract with Trinibline Studios true?'

Shepard reeled back at the questions, obviously too confused to process a word she was hearing. Behind them, more people were filing out of the church, and Shepard looked distinctly uncomfortable right then as they began to whisper and murmur behind her.

'You should leave, please contact the public relations of the Systems Alliance Navy for any questions you have, I am not authorized to answer any questions—'

The reporter immediately interrupted Shepard, pushing the microphone right in the redhead's face.

'Is it true that you were lovers with the deceased—'

But that was as far as she got. The camera was of high quality, but even with the high frame-per-second capture, it was barely possible to tell what happened next.

Emiya saw the immediate reaction in Shepard's eyes; the fire lighting up; the pure outrage and indignation that flicked the killer switch in her head. Her hand that was hanging by her side, clenched in a characteristic manner that spoke of someone reaching for a firearm on their hip. Finding nothing, her training obviously went into the second phase, as her shoulders set and she leaned forward.

The jab with which she closed the distance was so fast that the camera caught nothing but a blur. The next instant, the reporter's head had been blown back as she was falling over, completely unconscious by the limpness as she fell like a sack of potatoes. Emiya could just make out three chipped teeth flying through the air behind her.

In the next instant, Shepard had reeled around and roundhouse kicked the camera into bits and the footage cut. As the report cut back to the studio panel condemning her actions, Emiya lost interest in the footage and closed the vid.

Rolling through several months' worth of articles, he noted how she seemed to have been gone underground after that. Possibly literally, one of the last paparazzi shots had been of her entering a bunker.

Before that, she was well on her way to being propped up as the next great symbol of humanity. He did find some footage of her, some months later where she seemed mostly fine. Though it did appear that she had been pulled out of the public's eye after that incident as her appearances became incidental and scarce.

He shook his head.

Though he had been curious about her, it had nothing to do with him anymore; he had long since parted ways with Shepard.

Dismissing the news articles he connected again to the Serrice University intranet through the extranet, looking to see if anything had changed. But as expected, it was all still the same.

No, it's just me that's being impatient. The asari probably won't bother to start asking questions for another week.

Just as Liara had told him, another course was being scheduled due a month, but that still left him with a sizable hole in his schema. His mind was already made: he sent in a notice of absence through the extranet, before shutting off the connection.

Emiya looked up, glancing at a terminal. It showed an alarm that he had completely missed, noting that there was practice again today.

"Hmm, biotiball," he mused out loud, realizing he had forgotten about it entirely.

I guess I did work through the night again...

Well, it could wait until he returned from Dretirop since he was just about ready to leave already. Closing the alarm, any thoughts outside of his preparations completely disappeared from his mind.

;

Miranda closed the data file from the Cerberus handle on the Citadel.

After meeting Shirou Emiya in Serrice, she had high-tailed it back to the Citadel; there was only so long she could be off-grid without raising suspicion.

But it had been worth it, she had a solid lead to work with again.

She wanted nothing more than to dig through the Cerberus' dossiers and reports she had recently been granted access to, with her promotion to an officer, but for now, it would have to wait. With the Council acting out and tracking everything, communication protocols had to be altered to suit the changing times.

With slow, methodical, and practiced movements, she assembled her new omnitool. It was a high spec Aldrin Labs one, but she had taken the time to remove all hardware components pertaining to extranet connectivity from it. Cerberus had been aware of the STG's plans for a while now and had had countermeasures drawn up. Her old omnitool wouldn't have had trouble with the new cyber-bill, but for now, it wasn't usable anymore. She would not be getting her hands on another for several days, as the infrastructure for delivering the omnitools was still lacking, due to Cerberus' ability to act in Citadel space being very limited.

The setbacks from five years ago still held them back considerably.

Until she received another omnitool with a spoofed cover, she would just have to do with a 'dumb computer' for her work. At least she had had the good sense to back everything up before she had made contact with Shirou Emiya. It would still cut down her efficiency considerably, but it could not be helped. Her previous one had been completely and utterly totaled in Serrice, in that still unexplained blackout.

Well, unexplained by the public, anyhow.

She could understand a warning when it was given; she had threatened someone Emil cared for, even if she hadn't acted out on the threat. He had been watching and he had not been amused, it seemed.

But the scale of his 'chastisement' left her lost.

It simply was not like him to make such a large move. As she remembered him, there was always a methodical precision to him. He was deliberate, calculating, and meticulously obfuscating. And given that he was 'Redhax' by Emiya's admission, that meant that he had continued to be that way for years.

So why was this time so different?

That attack had been overwhelming, extravagant, and overbearing. Like the hammer of a god, smiting down.

Had Emil been that distraught over Shirou Emiya being discovered? The real-time spoofing of all security footage was unreal in scope, she had realized as she had looked into matters more closely. The assets and time that must have gone into that was mind-boggling; she hadn't been able to find any pictures of his face anywhere despite the nominal requirement on every database for such.

Even his various data profiles were blanks.

She had looked into his flying license, where his picture had been noted as disqualified for being too old. A request for a renewed picture had been sent, that should have disabled his flying license as soon as a grace period ran out, except it had been exempted and put on probation until a matter with his student visa had been sorted out. Which in turn led to his bank accounts...

As she followed the bureaucratic tangle of nonsense, she had quickly realized that it was all orchestrated so as to confuse and distract anyone looking into it. She had considered sending in a request for the physical copies to be sent out but realized the trap there before she acted on it.

Those were stored in Serrice, not far from where Emiya himself lived.

All of it had been set up so that no one would be able to identify Shirou Emiya, not until they attempted to trace down the physical copies of various documents. But the moment those were called in, he would be notified, surely. It was an alarm system or a trap, of a sort, she realized.

At least she knew she had been the first one to find him, a fact which somehow made her feel prouder and more accomplished than she had felt in a long time.

Cerberus had been on the lookout for him for years, yet they had had no luck so far.

Of course, they had been looking in all the wrong places. Not even she would have imagined that he would head for Thessia of all places until her image recognition program had a hit. She had been shocked by how similar in appearance they were, their coloration being the only difference. She had read Burnsfeldt's theories about rapid aging, and now seeing it for herself did she finally begin to believe that perhaps it was possible.

But what does that mean for Emil? His skin was already dark... No, I shouldn't be making guesses.

She shook her head, there was no point in being lost in conjecture. She knew what Cerberus knew, giving her a headstart in everything, knowing all that she did. But they weren't the only ones on his trail, either; the Special Tasks Group had been chasing 'Redhax' for years now, as too was the Shadow Broker. Cerberus suspected that they also knew of the 'Outis' connection, but none so far seemed to have discovered that Shirou Emiya was alive.

She was the only one who had been able to find his trail.

Miranda realized then she had been lucky, in deciding to leave Shirou Emiya be. It had been nothing more than a flash of uncharacteristic sentimentality, in seeing sudden parallels to her own life, that had made her decide to simply leave him be.

No, that's wrong. I knew from the beginning it would end like this, didn't I? That's why I didn't tell anyone that I came here...

She wanted to catch him, not through trickery or underhanded means, but through her own wit and ability. Nothing less would satisfy her after all these years.

It seemed that the Citadel's cyber-security bill had rattled him quite a bit. Which meant that there was a chance for her. As long as she remained on the Citadel, she was bound to catch him sooner or later.

Looking at the time, she sighed and turned on the terminal. Though communication was limited due to the new bill, it was not impossible. She logged in, listening to the ambient music playing with cool disregard. It was overly bombastic, though given the title screen she supposed it fit.

Galaxy of Turmoil... was a salarian-made MMORPG; something she had never thought worth caring about.

The company behind it did not even have any STG connections that Cerberus could find. A completely average, if rather successful software company that specialized in making games.

Logging in, she skipped all the tutorial and introductory material, immediately heading for the marketplace. She sold off her starting equipment for a pittance and then let the Cerberus VI begin farming. It was too complicated a method, she felt, but given the current circumstances, it couldn't be helped. After ten minutes, she returned to the marketplace and let the VI sell off everything again. Then, it began to buy and sell, quickly adjusting for the in-game economy until she had enough materials for the outlined communication method.

She looked up the player that had been noted in the data file, sending a friend request. It was accepted immediately and she set up a trade request. As the screen opened up, she began to put in the specific amounts of the cheap trash items she had bought on the player market.

She waited for the other player to hit confirm on the trade and then removed everything from the trade screen. The other player stood by silent for several seconds, until they began to fill in their side of the trade screen. Immediately another random assorted mix of trash items appeared in front of her on the screen, the order and amounts seemingly random.

Miranda's eye narrowed as she deciphered the code, double-checking before she hit confirm on the trade; with the changed items his earlier confirm had been rescinded, thus the trade did not activate yet. The other player emptied their screen and she began to fill out another reply in her own trade screen, waiting for his trade confirmation to clear it again. She had never thought much of games like this, even finding the company's promise of lag-free high-speed connection over the extranet—by virtue of its parent company being a service provider, though it was noticeable in the monthly subscription fee of the game—being somewhat pointless.

"What a roundabout method..." she groused, waiting for the next reply.

At least it works. And it won't be for long, anyhow. With the Citadel putting pressure on him, he's likely to make a mistake soon.

And she would be the first on there, gun in hand and a smile to match, to repay him for that day five years ago.

;

Liara exhaled, tossing back her head as she palmed her face, covering her eyes with her fingers.

With another groan, she tried to sit up straight again and look at the words written out on the screen before her. She was almost done with her thesis; incorporating thousands of years of research and study, and the countless findings from the most recent excavation into a single coherent paper. It was a masterpiece, simply put. She only needed to finish the newest additions and give it one more layer of polish and she could put it forward with pride.

Except, what if it was all wrong?

However much she tried to focus, her thoughts always turned elsewhere without fail.

He's wrong! He has to be wrong... He has not attended a single course on Protheans, what could he possibly know?

And yet, her thoughts were turning towards the peculiarities she had noted herself before. During her time writing a comparative paper between Prothean technology and modern asari logic circuits, she had constantly stumbled into similarities in how things had developed.

The more that she looked at the past, the more she saw today. She had even made a silent prediction in her head, regarding a new innovation that would appear.

It hadn't been the next one, or even the one after that... But it had shown up, two years later. A method of compressing metals to form an alloy, that she had noted in Prothean ruins. The team of asari who had created the 'new' method hadn't had any contact with any exo-archaeologists that she knew of, either.

She exhaled again, closing her eyes as she rubbed her temples.

Something he had said about the Matriarchs and asari culture had struck her as dangerously odd, mirroring some of her own thoughts from when she had been finding such similarities herself. She had even once brought it up to her mother, having believed it a stupendous find...

But Matriarch Benezia had merely smiled at her, before pointing out how it was only a coincidence, nothing more.

'Have you not read before, that all is cyclical, little wing? Do not overly concern yourself with such troubles, for it is merely the natural course of history.'

Yet, the thought that so many of the technological developments of today seemed to be mirroring the ancient Protheans, did not leave her. Everywhere she looked, she could see signs of it. Dretirop had been a historical find, as it had been one of the oldest Prothean planets that had survived all the way to the sixth age, having only been abandoned according to their dating experiments around the time that the whole of the race had disappeared.

This had meant that there was a full spectrum of their culture to be found there, as long as they simply spread out and dug deep enough on the planet. And the more she had looked, the more the parallels had struck at her, how similar the asari were, how they seemed to be walking in the footsteps of ghosts.

She shook her head again.

I need to focus, not... waste time on this frivolous nonsense!

Of course, she had heard of such fringe theories before, but no one took those crackpots seriously. There was a very firm orthodoxy in place for a reason. Her mother had explained it quite aptly to her, proving herself the Matriarch and leader of asari that she truly was.

'Those who control the present, control the past, and those who control the past control the future.'

If she paid heed to every crackpot theory, she felt like the very ground beneath her feet would vanish. As if all of society were nothing more than a useful lie. It was vital to not pay heed to such things... After all, no one respectable did.

Closing her terminal she stood up. She could not work like this.

Walking out of her personal room, she made for the kitchen. She walked to the vacuum box, intending to draw some juice to slake her thirst, only to spot the box containing the rest of last night's dinner. She frowned, exhaling through her nose as she glared at the offending food.

Yet, she reached out for it nonetheless. It would be a waste to not eat it.

And it was delicious. Again.

Sitting down with it and her glass of juice, she sighed. Her thoughts had gone right back to that man, and what he had said. She was even sitting on the same spot she had, yesterday. She could almost see him, speaking those words of honeyed poison again.

Startled, she stood up, grinding her teeth.

Reaching out, she grabbed her glass and drank from it slowly, hoping the measured act would calm her down.

But it only reminded her of his damnable calm.

No, he's wrong!

She knew he was, even if she couldn't quite prove it. It wasn't like he could prove his assertions, either! But it still rankled her that somehow his theory seemed to fit the circumstantial evidence better.

The Protheans had spread extremely quickly in the galaxy. Far more quickly than even the asari had been able to, even with their ability to get along with nearly any race they encountered. Their spread did resemble the krogan expansions, both in pattern and speed.

Slamming down the glass, she stared at the food before her. She had eaten but three bites, but already her appetite was gone. Pushing away the plate, she stood up.

Opening her omnitool, she looked at the various resources and archives she had access to. She knew she could prove him wrong if only she knew what he was referring to on a case-by-case basis. Yes, if she had not grown so angry that she had walked away during dinner, she could have surely proved him wrong!

Standing up, she stalked to Tyra's door. Ringing the chime, she waited, crossing her arms as she nodded to herself.

Right, she had been in the wrong to simply walk away. Not only had it been cowardly, but it had also been intellectually rude to simply disregard his notions like that!

"Huh, what? Liara?" Tyra opened the door, looking confused by her sudden appearance.

"Call Saiga, I wish to talk to him right now."

Tyra blinked, obviously completely off-balance by the sudden order.

"I uh... I haven't asked for his number or mail, yet..."

Liara blinked, deflating. "O-oh."

They stood there for a silent moment, awkwardly staring at each other.

Tyra licked her lips as Liara tried to re-organize her thoughts. Should she get back to writing her thesis, after all?

Right, this was just a waste of tim—

"You know, he didn't come to practice today..." Tyra finally said, looking away. "I was getting kind of worried, and I was thinking..."

Liara blinked, realizing that Tyra was having some difficulty asking something. They had never gotten along all too well, merely living in the same apartment not meaning much in terms of them interacting or getting along.

Their worlds were simply too different. Liara could not understand Tyra's values and Tyra thought that she was merely 'slumming it' here in the student apartments, given her background.

"Yes?"

"Well, I kind of, like... found out where he lives," Tyra admitted, causing Liara to raise an eyebrow. Pretending she didn't see it, Tyra continued. "And you have a shuttle, so we could... like fly over there and see what's up."

Liara stared at Tyra for several seconds.

"Forget it, it was just a—"

"Let us go, then." Liara nodded.

"Eh...?" Tyra blinked.

Liara hesitated then. She didn't usually act like this, but...

She set her shoulders, looking at Tyra. "Well, are we going or not?"

"Uh, yeah, okay? Let me just grab my coat." Tyra responded, turning around.

She was feeling strangely proactive and confrontational, but she felt like if she did not talk this through properly now, then it would remain a shadow hanging over everything she did from now on.

'When faced with hardship, there is nothing to it but to face it head-on.' As her mother had taught her.

;

Thanks Yanslana & all fictions & Tactical Tunic for helping with proofreading.

Thanks PseudoSteak for a proper proofread. I'm always humbled by realizing how much I just manage to read over without thinking about it. So many errors ;_;