Uncaemanus Bellicartibus - A turian martial art as old as recorded history. The combatants are called Uncaelatum or Clawed Hands. It is an open-handed, bare-taloned fighting form requiring a high degree of skill, agility, and athleticism.

EM Micro-trips - Molecule sized EM emitters encased in a fragile shell. When stepped on, they stop transmitting, allowing even cloaked people to be tracked. Since it is a passive emission, the trips don't show unless specifically scanned for on their frequency.

The Illusive Man chuckled, a warm sound that coated Garrus's bones in ice. After taking another drink, the human set the glass down. "You've built a remarkable force, General Vakarian. Shepard would be proud." Sucking in a deep breath through his nose, he nodded. "A fleet of ninety-seven vessels, including eight of the most impressive dreadnoughts I've ever seen, and fifty-four stealth frigates larger than the Normandy. The geth have really been upgrading your weapons systems, as well. Most impressive." A smile twisted one corner of his mouth. "Must be hard finding crews for all of them, particularly with the gangs having enacted a policy of not being taken alive." He shrugged as if he'd seen and bypassed such shortages many times. "It doesn't matter, of course. As soon as the Reapers show up, the recruits will flock to your door seeking shelter for their families in turn for service."

Garrus stayed silent, glad to see at least the Illusive Man's numbers were out of date. It meant a more convoluted path from his office to Cerberus than he feared. He ignored what the man said, mining beneath for information about what he wasn't saying. According to Ash, the Illusive Man was building himself an armada, as well. She was mid-level command in charge of the construction of a ship that she wasn't even allowed to see. She'd told him last communication that she'd found well over six billion credits being funnelled into three projects. The ship amounted to the second-most expensive. Dropping his impatience into the ice water running off his bones, he forced himself to stay completely cool. Given time, the operations chief would find out what the other projects were.

The Illusive Man stood and walked over to a massive bank of monitors. "I'm glad to see someone else is looking into these missing colonies. The Alliance and Council don't seem to believe there's a problem. The galaxy needs people who aren't afraid to look the truth in the eye and do something about it." A calculated turn spun him back to meet Garrus's stare. "It's good that you're a visionary. Your race does not have a reputation for such."

Instead of feeling like praise, the compliments landed like handfuls of sludge, gelid and viscous as they slithered beneath Garrus's armour. He drew himself up, rumbling a warning through his subvocals that he wouldn't be patted on the head and spoken to like a child running in the door with a positive academic report.

The man in the suit nodded as if he understood Garrus's intent if not the actual message and took a couple of steps forward. "You're investigating Trident and Caleston, but we know of two much smaller colonies that have vanished over the last two months. Practice runs, no doubt. I suspect the Reapers are behind it, as do you and Spectre Kryik." His eyes narrowed. "This idea that they use other life forms to construct new Reapers … it would explain the people having been taken while everything else remained." He cocked his head a little, his body language giving Garrus no clues about the man at all. "I'd be very interested in the information Spectre Kryik possesses."

Garrus laughed, a harsh, derisive cough. "I'm sure you would be, but we don't work for Cerberus or with Cerberus." He bristled, his posture all corners and spines. "Which leads me to wonder how you're aware of the conversation between Spectre Kryik and myself." Cocking a hip, he crossed his arms over his keel, throwing up a hasty defensive barrier. "Not to mention contacting me on my own QEC."

The Illusive Man's lips quirked a little. "I have loyal agents everywhere, General. If a few of the techs installing your QECs work for me, well … " He returned to his chair and sat, crossing his legs. "… efficient communication is going to be vital in the months to come."

Not to mention the intimidation factor. Garrus let that go, but held onto the word 'few'. Too many. Cerberus would never risk such heavy coverage … so that meant one tech inside Archangel. Garrus choked back the first three or four responses that leaped into his mind and clenched his jaw. "In the interest of efficient communication, did you order the hit on Shepard, because she wouldn't dance to your tune?"

Shaking his head, the Illusive Man actually looked as though he felt genuine regret about Shepard's death. "No, General, I did not. An argument could be made that Shepard was insane, but she was also our best chance to be prepared for the Reapers when they find a way back from dark space." He paused to light a cigarette and took a long drag, the end painting the planes and hollows of the man's face with a macabre dance of shadows as it glowed orange.

A slight tilt of the head accompanied his next words. "I've been unable to collect any intel on who contracted that killer." Index and middle fingers still gripping the cigarette between them, he lifted the glass and drained it of liquor. "As much as I'm loathe to believe it, the evidence points toward a random act carried out by a single, maniacal individual, perhaps an indoctrinated agent of the Reapers." He made a show of setting down the glass and butting out his cigarette, his eyes focused on his tasks. As hard as he appeared to be trying to conceal any emotion, Garrus saw the Illusive Man's jaw clench. "My assets are vast on that front. I'm not accustomed to coming up empty."

A sarcastic, half-formed thought about how the Illusive Man's assets might stack up to the Shadow Broker's whispered through the back of Garrus's head. Some twitch of pleasure must have tweaked a muscle somewhere, because the Illusive Man's lip twisted a little.

"Don't trust your good friend, the Shadow Broker, General. Yes, he's afraid of the Reapers, but believe me when I say that while what Shepard started is one of his contingencies, it is only one. And it's lost Shepard. Don't be surprised if those teeth turn and you find them at your neck." He lifted a hand to hover over the controls on the arm of his chair. "I'll send you what we have on the other missing colonies in the interest of efficient communication, General. We'll be in touch."

Garrus cocked a brow plate at his dismissal and stared at the empty space where the hologram had been the second before. How the hell did Cerberus get an entangled particle into his damned QEC? He spun around, pulling his shoulders in defensively, aware of the ridiculousness of the gesture even as he did it. Turning away from the offending spyware wouldn't actually stop anyone from hearing him. Still, it made him feel better to have his back to the wall, so to speak.

"Vortash, I need my office and the senior staff briefing room swept for bugs." He paced to the locked door and back. "Grab Erash. Just the two of you. Go over every millimetre then the comm rooms. Once my office is clear, have Monteague and Krul meet me in there. We have some serious security breaches to patch."

"Yes, sir. We'll have them swept before the briefing," the batarian replied, his rumbling voice reassuringly professional. Anyone else would have peppered him with questions. Reason number two he'd chosen Vortash.

The QEC signalled an incoming message. After a moment's hesitation, Garrus turned to answer it. In the months since they'd completed his comm room, The Illusive Man must have overheard twenty-five hundred conversations. What was one more? He hit the control, Tali appearing in front of him.

"General Vakarian!" She cocked a hip and crossed her arms with enough attitude to do Shepard proud. "Is this what your people call getting right back to me?"

Garrus smiled, the expression dropping away when he saw how badly she wrung her hands. "Tali." He shook his head. "Sorry about that, it's been a really busy, strange morning so far."

"Better late than never, I suppose," she replied, trying to sound cheerful, but his ear had been trained to hear what slipped beneath the teasing. Something had Tali rattled. Very rattled.

He leaned in, fists braced against the console again. "What's going on, Tali?" His brow plates raised toward his fringe as she paced back and forth across the QEC pad, wringing her hands so hard that he worried she'd break her own fingers.

"I know you're scheduled to head for Tuchanka first, but something's come up here." She glanced behind her as if afraid of being spied on. "We're … I need your help, Garrus." Stopping and spinning around to face him, she let out a long breath, her shoulders rising and falling in a helpless sort of shrug.

Garrus cut the air with a hand. "No details. Communications here aren't secure at the moment. Cerberus has me bugged. Just … ." One mandible twitched. "… on the Shepard scale of insane pain range, how bad does it hurt?"

Tali's shoulders bowed, telling him even before she spoke. ""Eleven. The axe wound has gone septic." She craned her head, looking behind him. "Is Nihlus able to come as well?"

Septic indeed, if she wanted Nihlus along. Whatever had her worried, Tali's entire demeanor set off a bomb in his guts. "Okay. I'll contact Wrex, clear everything through him, and then get back to you." He pushed away from the console. "It'll just be me and Martin, though. Entire human colonies have started disappearing. Nihlus is out in the Traverse with the Normandy trying to figure out what's happening."

She nodded and stepped up to the controls. "I'll be waiting to hear from you." Sighing, she slumped a little. "Thanks, General."

"Talk to you in a few minutes." Garrus disconnected and opened a channel to Wrex's camp.

The krogan who answered the call stared at Garrus with an expression of malign indifference. "What do you want?" he asked, looking away at some other work, prickly and belligerent as always.

Garrus hid a grin. He loved the game with the krogan, and affected his own belligerence, but backed it with steel girders of command. "Urdnot Wrex. Now."

The krogan looked up and narrowed his violet eyes. Hunkering down, he bulked up his shoulder width, massive and unmovable. "The clan leader is busy."

Garrus laughed, sharpening the edge of it. "Now." He stared down the messenger until the krogan rolled his eyes and growled something that might have been asking Garrus to wait or telling the general to kiss his sizable, krogan backside. Garrus didn't really care as long as Wrex came to the damned communicator.

"Vakarian!" the chief bellowed a moment later. "Aren't you supposed to be blessing us with your presence in two days?" Wrex crossed his arms and cracked his neck. A crooked grin ticked at one corner of the clan chief's mouth. "Admit it, you couldn't wait to see my handsome mug." A harsh, slow chuckle rolled out. "Or something's gone wrong."

Garrus chuffed, hiding a grin. "The longer I go without seeing that thresher maw's backside, the better." He shoved aside regret. He'd been looking forward to seeing Wrex again, and spending some time on Tuchanka shooting things, living rough … doing guy stuff. Now, who knew how long he'd spend playing diplomat to solve whatever perceived insult had the quarians and geth at one another again. "I just hung up with Tali. She's got a crisis of some sort going on, and asked me to come there first."

Wrex let out a roar of sound that sounded like half-cough, half-curse. "I've got problems of my own here, Vakarian. If you're not coming, you need to tell someone to call off their attack dogs. We've had flyovers here almost every day. Those bastards in the orbital stations are looking too closely at the thresher maze and the processing plant. I wouldn't put it past them to start dropping bombs on them." The chief bristled. "I didn't fight my own people as hard as I did to get this stuff built just to have turians blow it to Aralakh."

Garrus slammed his arms down across his keel and cursed. "Damn it, Wrex, what did I tell you? Camouflage the maze with rubble and get the processing facility underground. I'll run interference on Palaven, but if the turians attack, you're on your own." He shook his head, letting his fury bleed through. He'd warned Wrex that building too fast would attract the wrong sort of notice. But oh no, Wrex just had to go big and flip off everyone keeping an eye on the Krogan DMZ … twenty-four hundred of them from orbital battle stations around the damned planet.

Wrex let out an indignant roar. "Watch the way you talk to me, Garrus. I'm not some whelp you can take a strap to." He leaned in, his holo looming huge and furious. "We're putting krogan necks on the line for your war."

Garrus met fury with fury. "Bullshit. You're putting krogan necks on the line for a chance to become part of the galactic community. And if I have to take a strap to that land mover of a backside to preserve the peace, I will. We're supposed to be building our strength for war with the Reapers, Wrex, not war with the Council. Swallow that damned krogan pride, and do what I told you to start with." He paced for a second. His father could probably arrange some breathing room for Wrex. A couple of the younger generals and admirals had started to come around. Focusing back on the krogan, Garrus straightened, standing down what Martin called his 'general shoulders'. "I'll get there as soon as I can, but in the meantime if you see or hear anything else, contact me right away."

"Remind me why I haven't killed you yet." Wrex glared at him for long seconds, then let out a deep, appreciative chuckle. "Vakarian, you've got a quad." Wrex boosted his armour up his shoulders again. "Tell the pyjak that he'd better be ready to get some blood on that fancy new armour of his." Grinning, the chief took a step forward. "When you going to make that armour for krogan, Garrus?"

Relaxing, the need for posturing over, Garrus laughed and put his fingers over the control. "You don't need it. You come with your own." All humour melting from his face, the general levelled a serious, commanding stare at the krogan. "I mean it, Wrex. Anyone makes a move, contact me. Don't try to deal with it yourself. We don't need anyone thinking we have a krogan rebellion in the works."

Wrex grunted. "What can they do to us that they haven't done already, Vakarian?" Still his posture relaxed, answering Garrus's demand even when his words didn't.

"Let's not find out." Garrus stepped back. "Okay, I have a massive security breach to deal with, so I'll contact you from the Passchendaele once I know how long I'm going to be on Rannoch. Talk to you in a few days, Wrex."

The behemoth nodded, a quick jerk of his head. "Vakarian."

Garrus hung up and called Tali right back. The relief coming off the young quarian when he told her that he'd be there the day after next just tied his guts in more knots. He was just as glad not to let the Illusive Man know about the chinks in Archangel's armour, but damn, he hated walking blind into whatever was going on.

Unlocking the door, Garrus strode into his office, throwing himself into the chair behind his desk. "Martin, I need to see you in my office." Swinging his chair around, he brought the miniature galaxy map and its two red dots into view. After lunch, there'd be four. Maybe then he'd be able to start seeing a pattern to it all. Of course, maybe the only pattern was humanity itself.

"General," Vortash called through on the speaker, an indecent grin snarling beneath his words, "Mierin and Mordin just called in a Medical 1145e."

1145e. Unintentional discharge of heavy munitions resulting in significant injury or death. Again. Damn. The news filled him with frustrated annoyance until the part Vortash hadn't spoken whispered through his ire, setting his heart pounding. "Likelihood of fatality?" He held his breath. Not another one. He'd kill Mierin.

"No. Mordin has started dermal regeneration." The batarian almost sounded sad about the lack of bloody, burning death.

"Did I tell Mierin that maiming another student would lead to his ass being tied to twenty pounds of explosives and blown to hell? Or was it killing another one?" As broad a talent for destruction as the salarian explosives expert possessed, Garrus would send him packing if he couldn't manage his classes so that people didn't keep getting hurt. Only lucky stroke came in that every single heavy munitions student in the buildings had been painted by the same brush. Utterly mad, every, single one.

"Had to be a death. Sorry, General. Weaver's here."

"Send me the incident reports when they come in." Garrus wrenched the chair a little further around, facing the door as it opened. In his second childish tantrum of the day, he stayed slumped and sort of crumpled in his chair. "Has this room been swept yet?" he yelled over Martin's shoulder through the open portal.

"Do I look like I'm sweeping for bugs?" Vortash hollered back.

"No, which could turn into a career-ending oversight on your part." Garrus shoved himself up in his chair hard enough he almost flipped it backwards. Nodding to Martin, he grumbled, "Come in, let the door shut, and set up a jammer."

Martin's frown made some eloquent points about Garrus's general state of grouchiness, but the kid just opened his omnitool. "Wow, you really got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning. You could jam the room faster than I can."

"Which is why you're doing it." Garrus glowered at him until he finished. "Is it secure?" He watched Martin run the test subroutines from the back side of the omniscreen. "Okay," he said the moment Martin finished. "We've got some serious holes to plug in this facility before we leave. I want you to head out to the dead zone in one of the cars. See if Sidonis will go with you, so I'm not breaking my own two-person-team rule. I need you to send a list of encoded questions out to Tali. Tell her to use the Theta Zhu Shepard Scale return code and to send it right to my omnitool. Then send this packet of information to Nihlus." He transferred the file the Illusive Man sent him. "Tell him to maintain radio silence except for emergencies until he can contact us on the Passchendaele."

Garrus opened his own omnitool and started keying in the list of questions for Tali. "When you get back here, hit the computer, and find me the technician who put Cerberus's particle in our communicator. Whomever it is has probably already been replaced, but I want him or her out nonetheless. Anything else will give the Illusive Man too much wiggle room." A lightning-quick glance cut up to make sure Martin kept up before he turned back to his questions. "Then have three of the geth go through the Passchendaele's QEC and make sure it's clean. Understood?"

Throwing two nods sharp enough to slice someone in half, Martin replied, "Yes, sir. We're not delaying our departure?"

Vortash's voice broke through. "Senior staff briefing room is swept, General. Nice variety of hardware in there."

Garrus held up a finger to Martin then braced both hands against the arm of the chair. "Destroy them and get me a tight active laser scan grid in there. This is ridiculous. Same in here, then get your asses to my meeting. After lunch, you and Erash can go over my ship from stem to stern and then lock it down." Catapulting himself out of his chair, he vaulted his desk, nearly crowing at the glorious release of even a second's worth of unrestrained aggression. He strode out the door without pausing.

"No, this does not put back our schedule, Martin. We leave tomorrow, so be packed." He cursed, not having packed his own kit. "We've got a hell of a lot to get done before bedtime, kid."

"No kidding." Martin finished typing and closed his omnitool. "So, senior staff briefing?"

Garrus nodded and led the way, feeling very much like an uncaelatum facing a new opponent every second. Fighting and clawing through endless adversaries, he kept his eyes up, searching for an end to the line of new combatants, but one never arrived.

After the senior staff briefing, Garrus hurried from the elevator to his quarters. He needed to pack, eat, and then get back to shoring up the base's security.

"Bloody, arrogant bastard," Butler grumbled from the dining room. "If I catch the tech who bugged this place, I'll introduce him to his own damned kidneys." He threw himself down in a chair, the legs screeching across the floor. Butler could never just sit, he needed to rearrange the furniture.

"I'm pretty sure he already knows his kidneys," Martin shot back.

Garrus shook his head, able to see the kid's cheeky grin even with the blinds down. Hurrying to his closet, he pulled out both of his footlockers and threw them on the bed.

"Not like that … I bloody mean … ." Butler stopped, and grumbled. "Shut up, Weaver, or I'll introduce you to your kidneys."

"And I already know my kidneys. See? Hello kidneys, it's me, Martin, the awesome guy who lets you live inside his body and strain impurities from his blood. Thanks for that, by the way."

As Garrus strode into his bathroom, the rest of the conversation blessedly becoming too muffled to hear as it continued to devolve. A brilliant, talented, loyal group of people had rallied to see Archangel become a reality, but sometimes it took every ounce of his control to restrain himself from knocking heads. Anderson claimed the constant teasing and bickering meant they had formed a strong, cohesive unit. Garrus suspected most of them just needed to grow up a few years.

A few minutes later, Garrus's stomach growled, coaxing him away from packing clothing for every possible contingency from the heat of Tuchanka's salt flats to the heart-freezing chill of Alchera and its eezo mine.

Garrus thumped down the stairs, hard and fast. Just like in the elevator, an electric tingle brushed his left hip. He stopped and looked toward Zaeed's painting rather than the direction of the electricity. The faint EM field might not have been picked up by any of the races used to heavier fields, but to a turian, it felt like a signal flare. Once, he could pass off as his imagination or a freak static charge from the elevator. But twice? No, twice meant trouble.

He continued on, pretending to ignore the close encounter, and strode into the kitchen. Acting casual and secure when he felt eyes watching him from everywhere felt like dancing along the edge of a blade. He sidled in next to Marcie. "Hi."

She looked him up and down, one eyebrow arched. "You hitting on me, General?" She planted a plump fist on a cocked hip and turned the raised eyebrow up to a glare.

Nodding, he leaned down. "Maybe." Getting even closer, he whispered, "That older lady from the fifteenth floor … has she ever shown any interest in Zaeed's painting?"

Marcie shook her head. "Not that I know of."

His turn to raise his brow. "Not even when Zaeed and Melanis are fighting over it like a couple of rabid varren?"

"I don't think so. She might have said it was pretty once. Mostly, she's too busy hauling herself up the stairs." She pulled back. "What's this about, General?"

He shrugged, a cold surety taking root in his gut. "How many times a day does she come down?" he asked instead of answering.

"Five or so. Just grabs a cup of coffee, says hi, and off she goes. Is there a problem?" The matron scrubbed her hands on her apron, starting to look nervous.

Garrus chuckled and shook his head. "No problem. I'm just getting old and paranoid. Thanks, Marcie." He stepped over to the line and picked up a tray. "Fill it up. I'll eat upstairs." He thanked her when she passed it back full.

Pivoting on his talons, he headed for the stairs, calling back, "Martin!" He didn't wait for a reply, just started up. "Butler, Vortash, Sidonis, Melanis, and Massani. My quarters. Now!" He heard their chairs sliding across the floor before he finished speaking, and their footsteps thundering up behind him before he reached the door.

Standing in the center of the doorway, he forced them to squeeze past him into the room before he followed them in. Once the door shut, he nodded toward the washroom door and whispered, "Keep going." He dropped his tray on the table and pushed in on them again as they entered, earning a couple of strange looks.

He followed them in, as sure as he could be that the invisible set of eyes hadn't stalked them. "Okay, we don't just have one fairly serious security breach going on," he continued to whisper. "The first—Cerberus—is being dealt with, but I want the second nullified before I leave as well." He met Zaeed's confused stare. "I'm fairly certain someone believes your painting is real, and plans to relieve you of it."

Zaeed cursed and pushed forward, causing a tidal waves through the closely packed space. "What do you mean? Who is it? I'll rip their bloody head off."

"No head ripping will be necessary, and I think we might end up with some excellent resources if we play our tiles right." Garrus leaned against the shower stall. "From what I've seen, it appears to be a two person team. Susan, the little old lady who visits the main floor for coffee five times a day when it supposedly hurts her to climb the stairs … she's the visible face. Insinuates herself, sweet, innocuous … no one gives an old lady from accounting a second glance while she watches our every move, figures out when the painting is most vulnerable."

Zaeed shoved again. "How do you know they're after my painting?"

"Is there anything else on the main floor worth stealing? Take out a nice oven or holo-screen?" Brow plates peaked, he stared at the merc until he backed down. "The partner is cloaked, and it's a damned good one. Even when I knew where he or she was, I couldn't see it. I've just felt the brush of its EM field. I think when I started asking questions about Susan, I warranted closer watching, so he or she's been following me. Otherwise, I might never have known anyone was there."

"So what do we do?" Zaeed demanded. "They're not getting my painting."

"Good riddance," Melanis grumbled.

Garrus didn't even look at her. "Zaeed, you're going to go on a tear. Let it be known, without overacting it, that with Cerberus breaking through our security, you're not convinced the painting is safe. Say that you're arranging to have it moved to the Archangel main vault at the Shadow Broker's base. I'll make the arrangements with Barla Von to have a massive security detail to move it."

He held Zaeed's stare until the merc nodded before he continued, "Tonight, we'll go about the evening routine as usual. Get the cadets into bed, settle the base down, and then take positions along the second floor. I want EM micro-trips all over the main room and stairs as soon as everyone is in bed. I want to know the second anyone steps into that room." He crossed his arms, dropping them into place like gates.

"EM micro-trips?" Vortash grumbled. "You want to blanket the main floor so we can track our cloaked friend's movements?" The batarian winced. "Pricey way to do it, General. Laser grid would be faster and cheaper."

Garrus nodded. "And very efficiently tip off a couple of pros that we're onto them. Pricey or not, I want subtle. I'm not sure we can catch them, but if we can, maybe they can be convinced to use their skills for the good guys. They've infiltrated our base for weeks without detection." One of his brow plates leapt toward his fringe. "How many days have you watched a supposedly infirm old woman hobble up those stairs without giving her a second glance? Archangel could use that sort of infiltration talent."

Melanis pushed past Martin. "So we tuck our departments into bed and sneak back down here to pounce when they try to take the painting? That's the whole plan? Against professionals?"

He straightened, towering over her belligerence. "Sometimes simple is best. Now, you all know what to do, get the hell out of my head." He herded them out and then flopped down on the couch, sprawled along the length. Melanis had the right of it. The weakness of the plan formed a certainty, not a question. The only question that remained was how had he missed these people infiltrating his base? All of them. Okay, Cerberus he expected, at least to some extent. He didn't anticipate the Illusive Man being as interested in the organization as he was, but still, he'd expected some level of spying from them.

Reaching over without looking, he grabbed his tray of food from the table and balanced it on his stomach. He needed to arm himself with as much intel as he could find before trying to spring his trap. Sitting up, he shovelled in a couple of mouthfuls, then set the tray down and returned to packing.

"Your office is clear and the detection grid is up, General," Vortash's voice rumbled in Garrus's ear. "The geth are going through your QEC, the one in administration, and the one on your ship."

"Good work. How subtly do you think we can get tonight's countermeasure deployed?" He paused to eat as he waited for the answer.

"Very. I'll disperse the micro-trips in solution, give them to maintenance to spray when they do the floors. No one should be the wiser," the batarian answered.

"You're in my office as you're saying this?" Garrus flipped the lids of his footlockers closed and headed out, his half-eaten tray of food in his hand.

"I'm not even going to dignify that with an answer. Vortash out."

Garrus grinned. Poking the grouchy old varren never lost its appeal. Hauling his lunch with him, he headed back up to his office to gather as much intel as he could on thieving duos. Some idea of what they faced might help.

Sitting down behind his desk, he took the time to lock his computer out of the network, then started his search with current law enforcement bulletins. He struck gold right off the mark with a recent BOLO from a salarian Spectre named Jondum Bau. After leaving a message asking for more information on Kasumi Goto and Keiji Okuda, Garrus set about moving the rest of his pieces into place.

"Emily Wong." The young woman's face appeared on Garrus's omnitool after a brief delay, but broke into a wide, open smile when she saw him. "General Vakarian. How is my favourite rebel army leader today?"

"Been better." Still, he smiled. Emily Wong impressed him. For someone who came across as earnest and guileless as she did, she possessed a solid core of courage and attitude. "I need you to get together with Barla Von and do a report for me. We're going to be going into the big vault and taking out ten pieces for auction. We need to make room to move Winter Garden into secure storage. It doesn't need to be a huge report, just something about how due to concerns for the security of some of our publicly displayed work, including Winter Garden, we're going to be bringing in an appraiser to choose … blah blah blah. Von can give you the rest."

"Will there actually be a sale of these artifacts, General?" Emily asked, a teasing grin playing along her lips. "This smells of a set up."

He narrowed his eyes at her, one mandible ticking when she just glared back. "The items will be sold. Once advertised, we can't back out." He smiled, his head cocking a little. "And I think I'm about to create a new project." Leaning forward, he said, "It's one you might like to help with when you have time."

She laughed. "Fine, you can send me the details when you have them, but back off the General Vakarian charm thing. It's worrying. Makes me think you're going to start kissing babies and try to join the council." She alerted, cocking her head in the intergalactic sign for got a call on another line. "Here's Von now. I'll have the news out in a few hours, sir. Have a good trip. Pick me up something nice."

His mandibles flicked hard. "I'm going to Rannoch, Ilos, and Tuchanka."

She shrugged. "Then bring me back something that's not radioactive. Goodbye, General."

He no sooner hung up with the reporter when he received an incoming message from Jondum Bau. Opening the channel, he drew himself up, settling into his most official pose. "Jondum Bau?"

"I'm Bau," the salarian replied. His expression carried all the usual salarian attitude, as if their lives were too short to be bothered with most people, but it held a wariness and curiosity as well. "Why would the leader of a mercenary army be contacting me about the most infamous thief in the galaxy?"

A-N: Hey hey folks. So... sorry for the long delay. Long story short, germs (otherwise known as children) infected the family with a cold, last Monday burly men in EMT uniforms dragged me from my bed and threw me into an ICU for the better part of a week. Pneumonia. So yeah, there went writing for nearly two weeks. How dare this feeble, mortal form interfere with my writing? *shakes an angry fist* I am well on the way to breathing again, and am clearly back to writing. All is well. Thanks for sticking with me and Sassy. It is much appreciated. All the love. Kim