Chapter 19 - Recovery and Rewards

A/N - Alright time for Arlas to learn the meaning of friendship, trust, understanding, and camaraderie with the people you fight besides. Even if he would rather fling half of them out an airlock. And the other half out the hangar. And anyone he missed on the first sweep goes out through the hull. Except Wrex. And Tali, maybe Liara too. Oh, and the Twins, they take care of and direct the ship. And… There is probably something wrong with me, I get WAY too much enjoyment out of Arlas' misery.

Also, a couple milestones for the story, 51k+ views, 330+ follows, 215+ favs, and 135+ reviews. Thanks everyone for reading this mental exercise, and even more so for enjoying it. Also, the next chapter will be when the current poll closes, but I will not be posting the results. Mostly because spoilers. Once that one is down, I will post the next poll, which will be based on things that happened in this chapter.

'Whoz dat? Whyz youz giving me ordez?' - Orb meganob, Dawn of War

Arlas woke up with a flinch due to the painfully bright light over his head, and sighed at the feeling of having done this before.

"If you don't want to wake up in the medical bay, Pathfinder, may I suggest dodging next time?"

He didn't reply, simply reaching up to bat the light away from his eyes. Once his vision had returned, he did a quick check to ensure everything was still attached, before rolling off of the bed. "How long?"

"About two days, you respond remarkably well to the cloned tissue and surgery techniques, though your broken bones are likely to take longer. All and all, you are doing remarkably well for someone that came into my bay with a three centimeter hole in his chest plugged with rubble.

"The Commanders want a debrief with you, but before that, do you have any idea what is wrong with Liara? She was brought in unconscious from the mission, but I can find nothing wrong with her. And the Commanders said that you knew something about her condition."

He stared at the older human, before glancing at the bed where Liara lay. He suddenly understood why his own rest had been uneasy, as she was still trapped in the coma from the Fiends, and had sensed her warp induced nightmares. "Did they not tell you what I told them? For her, induce vomiting to cleanse the internal corruption, and then clean her face, neck, and shoulders. If you get all the contaminates off her, she will awaken on her own. Though she will likely need true rest first, not the induced nightmares of the coma."

Doctor Chakwas frowned, before shaking her head and tapping something on her omnitool. "Why would that help?"

"The creatures we fought administer a poison through their saliva, rendering their prey as you see. They can then take their time feeding on the emanations from the prey, fear and pain mostly, while slowly dissecting and devouring them."

The human doctor turned and stared at him, before incredulously asking, "Are you trying to tell me whatever attacked you and the others were… emotion eaters?"

Arlas briefly debated trying to teach her the eldar word for what those creatures were, before deciding it wouldn't be necessary. "Yes."

"... And you expect me to believe that?"

He gave the doctor a brief smile. "Healer, am I the one that knows more about these creatures than any other on this vessel?"

The older human blinked, before nodding her head, and Arlas continued. "So when I say the cure is to induce vomiting and then clean the areas affected, then that is the answer. The other way is to wait for the poisons to naturally degrade, which will likely take a week."

He was saved from further debate with the healer as Jaclyn entered the medical bay. "Doctor, here to pick up our eldar. Is he free to go?"

The older female frowned, before shaking her head slightly. "For missions, no, those broken rib bones need to heal, though he is the most knowledgeable in how long it will take for that to heal. To leave the medical bay, yes. We were just discussing how his people deal with whatever is wrong with Liara. I will be attempting it as soon as I finish getting my things ready."

Jaclyn nodded, before turning to Arlas. "We need to debrief you. Would you rather meet in the communication room or the Captain's Cabin? You will be the only one being debriefed."

He considered it for a moment, before sending his decision. *Captain's Cabin. Things we should discuss about it out of sight and hearing of the others.*

Jaclyn nodded. "Alright, meet us there in ten minutes. Give you time to get everything squared away and something to wear."

Arlas nodded and grabbed his chest plate off the shelving above the bed he had been on, idly noting the two holes in it, the entry hole in the side and the exit in the front, before shaking his head and leaving. He ignored the stares from the female humans as he stalked to the elevator, his bodysuit clad form apparently something they couldn't stop watching. A short ride down, and then he was entering the transport, pausing long enough to grab the rest of his scattered armor, and carry the pieces to their stand in the armory. He put them on the armory table, before checking the two stasis pods that had been put in the corner of the room. *Yol'Pvera, how are the two in the pods?*

He glanced over and then headed to the Wraithguard, removing Kap'Eiyl from the walker, and attaching him to the console in the bridge of the lander, while Yol'Pvera replied. *Both pod's occupants are in acceptable condition. The first is doing fine though I am concerned about her physical condition after being in the pod for nearly three millennia. The other occupant, however, I can not comment on without it being, at best, an educated guess.*

He sent a feeling of confusion and curiosity, as he entered his room, and pulled on his warlock tabard. *Why not? Are they not eldar?*

*Their vitals and mental emanations are stable, as near as I can tell, but they are a Gyrinx. You know how they react to their bond partner dying.*

He paused, before rubbing his forehead. *Khaine dammit it all. Don't shut off the Gyrinx's pod, but begin waking the other one. Do a normal waking, two weeks will give me enough time to think of a plan and start it. Maybe we can rebond the Gyrinx to one of us.*

Kap'Eiyl joined the conversation. *It is likely bonded to her. The two pods were in the same room. Or what was left of one. I can't think of another reason for two pods in a single room. Even bonded couples got their own separate rooms.*

Arlas paused, and glanced about the armory, noticing several new stands along one side, making the room even more crowded than from just the two pods. After a second, he nodded. *Alright, start waking both, but keep the Gyrinx's pod behind the other one by a couple days. If we are wrong, we will have to figure out how to deal with the distraught psyker then.*

Arlas would catalogue everything they had recovered from the destroyed section of the Guided Wrath after the debriefing, and after he did some healing. First, though, he had the debriefing, and he was probably going to be late for that.

A few minutes later, he stepped into the office, and nodded to the Twins seated behind the desk. He strode forward and took a seat, preemptively answering the searing glare from the Lynx and the confused one from the Lioness. "There was a chair. Therefore, I sat. If I was not meant to sit, there would be no chair."

He concluded Anderson had not told them specifics about his debriefing of Arlas about Eden Prime, as both simply gave a shrug. A minute later, Lioness finished whatever she was doing, and closed the glowing orange computer in front of her. "Right, that report is done. Jaclyn will finish hers, and add anything she thinks we need to discuss about the last mission. First, and most importantly, what was that fight at the last part of the ship?"

Arlas wasted a couple seconds wrestling with his naturally sarcastic reply, before answering seriously. "Minor daemonic infestation of a section of an eldar troop ship."

Jaclyn looked up from her computer, and gave him an incredulous stare. "That was minor?"

"Correct. Moderate would have been open war between the wraith forms and the daemons holding a small section of the ship, significant would have been us trying to remove the few survivors and pieces of equipment before destroying the site in whatever fashion was required, and a critical infestation would have resulted in my suggestion of immediate and repeated nuclear cleansing of the site from orbit. Daemons are a significant threat even in small numbers, you simply had the good fortune to fight them in a long, open hall when they lacked the intelligence to plan ambushes and you had an experienced advisor in the group."

Jaclyn opened and closed her mouth a few times, as Joannis dove to save her twin. "Then it is a good thing we don't carry nuclear weapons on board. Next-"

Arlas turned to stare at Joannis, before he cut her off with a single disbelieving word. "What?"

Both Twins paused, confused at his question, and after a moment of silence from both humans he continued. "Humans not using nuclear weapons is like black holes that don't have massive gravity wells. If they aren't nuclear, what are those missiles on the weapons deck?"

Joannis replied. "Javelin mark two missiles. They deliver warp fields that rip ships in half. No one uses nukes anymore, the Council would come down on whoever did like the wrath of an elder god. Besides, missiles are slow, unwieldy, and have to be used at close range. Outside of being right beside your target, they are practically useless."

Arlas stared at her like she had grown a second head, before reaching out to Yol'Pvera. *Yol, take a note, humans think missiles are useless, and don't use nukes in standard combat. The Craftworld Fleets will need to adjust their tactics accordingly to take advantage of that oversight.*

Yol'Pvera and Kap'Eiyl both sent back their surprise at his announcement, before Yol'Pvera sent her agreement, and Arlas returned to his surroundings as Jaclyn spoke. "Next question, who is this Slaanesh, among many other titles, that the demon held in such respect?"

He stared at her for several minutes, completely still, deliberately attempting to make them uncomfortable. "A daemon god. More I will not say, other than that you would do very well to forget that name, and never mention it again to anyone. My people have had bad encounters with followers of that creature and similar ones, and will assume anyone that knows their name is a follower of one."

The twins shared a look, before nodding. "Alright, I assume that was the reason you wanted all the omnitool recordings destroyed."

He blinked, before cursing himself in his head. "If omnitool recordings were all there were, then yes. I meant all recordings, and know you two are smart enough to figure that out. So if you found a way around it, fix it, if you can. If not…"

He paused, before standing up. "Then I will follow all your future orders to the letter. Good day, Commanders."

Joannis spoke before he could leave. "One more question. Well, two actually. How common are demons, and are cryo rounds the best way to fight them?"

He paused at the door. "It is daemons, not demons. Demons are something else entirely, and infinitely better than demons. And they live in the immaterium, and why it is so dangerous. They don't normally appear in the materium. And yes, cryo rounds would be best, though avoid using biotics on larger forms if they are enraged. You made that fight far more difficult than it needed to be."

He stepped out of the cabin, pausing long enough in the mess hall, whose name still confused him as the humans kept it almost obsessively clean, to get several servings of food before making his way back to the lander. He had much to do, and needed it done as quickly as possible. First was starting his healing, then repairing the two large holes in his armor and undersuit, fix the damage to the fusion gun, and then he could catalogue everything from the Guided Wrath.

Jaclyn Shepard stood in the communication room, waiting for the call to go through. She had swept the room for bugs, and activated every privacy, anti-tapping, and security program and trick she had. The eldar had just returned to his ship, so now was the best time to send in the report. Even Joannis didn't know what she had, which would make it easier to hide it from the eldar. It had been sheer dumb luck that had given her what she was waiting on.

The daemon's hoof had crushed the long rifle, destroying the grip, rifle butt, and rear of the eldar's main weapon, but the forward part had been intact. And after the battle, she had been sweeping the room for useable equipment, and spotted it, half hidden under a piece of rubble the daemon had kicked over it. A quick scan had revealed that all the defenses were off, and she had gotten a very good, detailed scan of the front half. Not of the power source, sadly, but that was likely why her omnitool had managed to get a decent scan for once, before she had used some scrap to push the rifle into a bag to return it. For someone that acted so arrogantly knowledgeable, Arlas was remarkably easy to work around sometimes. It made putting one over him so much more satisfying.

She shook her head slightly as the communication line finally connected, the Quantum Entanglement Communicator finally connecting with its twin in Admiral Hackett's office. She punched in a code, sending the security protocol needed to open the channel, and after a moment Admiral Hackett's body appeared. "Priority two, full security engaged. Jaclyn Shepard, this is a surprise."

Jaclyn saluted the Admiral, which he returned with a small flicker of amusement. "At ease, Commander. I doubt this is a social call."

"Correct sir. Is your office secure?"

Admiral Hackett blinked, before pushing a few buttons out of the QEC's view, before nodding. "It is now. What is this about, Commander?"

She allowed herself a tiny smirk, before tapping her omnitool. "During our last mission, we entered a crashed eldar ship on the third planet in the Plutus system of the Hades Gamma cluster. Most of the interior was trashed, but we encountered a pair of lifeforms that Arlas called daemons. He ordered the destruction of all records of them, muttering something about corruption. Sadly, we haven't had time to figure out what he was talking about, but I am sending the report in now so you can at least review it. Only three pictures, no videos.

"However, the real catch is the scan attached to the report. During the fight with the second daemon, the one with wings, Arlas was disabled and dropped his long rifle and sword. Both were then badly damaged by the daemon. The sword was a total loss, but I managed to get a scan of the intact portions of his long rifle, and found nothing unusual about it, other than the material used to make it."

Admiral Hackett frowned at the N7, before opening the files, and recoiling from the pictures. "Those… Where did those creatures come from? Were they with the eldar?"

She shook her head. "No sir, they were immediately hostile to the eldar, murdered two of them in cryo stasis, attempted to murder a third, and definitely tried to murder Arlas. He was in the medical bay for two days, and lost two of his three main weapons. His third main weapon, the fusion gun, was also heavily damaged, but our Quarian did handle that weapon for a few minutes, and even discharge it. I will check with her later to see if she got a scan of it, and if so, get a copy. However, the scan of a formerly working laser weapon, as well as lifeforms he was familiar with, were deemed…"

She stopped as she saw Admiral Hackett shaking his head. "No need to justify it to me, Shepard. I fully agree these are important enough to send immediately. I will get that weapon scan to the appropriate people. With any luck, we can accelerate our own laser weapon program. Either way, good job. Anything else?"

She shook her head. "No sir."

Admiral Hackett nodded. "Hackett out."

Jaclyn simply saluted the fading image, before allowing herself to relax. A few taps on her omnitool, and the records of the call were deleted, and all her security and privacy technologies deactivated. She then sat down in one of the chairs, and waited a few more minutes, before finally standing up and leaving. As she did, she smirked at the thought of having put another one over the eldar. It was surprisingly simple, just wind him up a bit, and his rage made him miss things. Though she did admit to herself she needed to be more careful in the future, as he had nearly been pushed to the point of attacking her.

Two days later, Arlas was finally finished with most of the tasks he had assigned himself. He was well on his way to being healed, though the ribs would still require another week or so if he kept up his healing meditations, but he should be healed in time for the Swordsmanship tournament. He had repaired his body suit, the fusion gun was fully repaired and ready for use, and the armor was mostly repaired as best he could without an armory singer, though he could do a few more things to strengthen the plating. He had catalogued everything from the Guided Wrath, and made a few pleasant discoveries, though he hadn't found a good replacement for his witchblade or his long rifle.

Instead, he was now in possession of a mostly intact suit of Shadow Spectre, Howling Banshee, Striking Scorpion, and Bone Singer armor. Arlas also had a working prism rifle, though the main focusing crystal of the weapon was shattered, a trio of shuriken pistols, a chain blade sword, and a power sword. While he couldn't go and salvage all of it, as the eldar in the stasis pod would need her own equipment instead of just the undersuit she had gone into stasis in, he could use the intact weapons to start making duplicates that he could make modifications to. He had an idea of combining a long rifle with a prism rifle, and seeing what he could make, as well as a couple more changes to his armor. He had certainly salvaged enough wraith seeds to make conserving them practically a non-issue, unless he started a war against the universe or something.

So he should have been in a pleasant mood, but instead found himself in a bleak mood and knew exactly why. He had voluntarily disabled the biolock on the fusion gun and then given it to a mon-keigh to use. While he did trust most of the non-eldar on board the vessel to not immediately stab or shoot him in the back whenever they got an opportunity, he was under orders to not let his technology fall into non-eldar hands. And while he could make dozens of counter arguments about the daemon, being near death and not able to finish it off himself, the fate of the ship and the remaining survivors, but that didn't change the fact that he had disobeyed a direct order from a senior Farseer. The fact alone was enough to get him permanently exiled from the Craftworld, and the nature of the order he had disobeyed was enough to get him shot on sight in spite of the circumstances.

He shook his head to dismiss that line of thought, and stood up, stretching for a moment before wincing and dropping the pose, the still mending ribs protesting the pressure being put on them. He figured he had another couple of days before they were healed enough to let him do serious training, and a few more after that for actual combat, a little less than a local week with the use of the healing rune. Which meant the first day of the tournament would likely be interesting, by which he meant painful.

Arlas cursed at himself as he realized his thoughts were trapped in a negative cycle, constantly moving from one unpleasant thought to another. Normally he broke it by going out and finding something new, but he was trapped on board a tiny mon-keigh vessel, and had already seen everything. With a sigh, he got into his Warp Spider tabard, mentally settled himself, and left the lander, heading for the mess hall due to lacking better options; he knew interacting with others would at least distract him. Besides, he had been working alone in his lander for the past few days, the others might be interested in knowing he was still alive.

He looked about the hangar bay, and realized the wheeled vehicle was missing, so he was probably missing a mission. After a moment, he stepped into the elevator, and went to the mess hall to get something to eat. Halfway through the meal, others began arriving. Gemling was first, pausing just long enough to glare at him before heading to the medical bay, and a few minutes later came out with Dusk in tow. They sat together at another table with their backs to him after getting their meals, and talked quietly enough that he couldn't hear them. A few minutes later, Kaidan came in, grabbing his meal and taking a seat at the same table as Arlas, on the opposite side a few seats down.

Arlas ate in silence for a few moments, before deciding to be sociable. "Kaidan, the twin keep mentioning you get… migraines. May I inquire as to what those are and their cause? You seem to be the only one that gets them."

Kaidan glanced over, surprised at being addressed, but answered. "Not a problem. It is an intense headache, in my case brought on by my implant that allows me to use my biotics."

"Then why does Dusk, Wrex, or the Twins not get migraines?"

Kaidan gave a small smile. "Liara is an asari, they don't need an implant to use their powers, and most consider it a point of pride. Wrex is a krogan and a mercenary, and uses what implant he wants, and if it did cause him problems he would eventually regenerate around it or get one that didn't. The Twins have a more modern implant than mine, and while it doesn't have as big a power peak, it also doesn't have the side effects."

"So why do you keep using it?"

The human male sighed, and rubbed his arm as he replied. "Because I was one of the first ones to get the implant, and it is surgically implanted into my brain. Anytime someone goes cutting in there, there's a chance of things going wrong, and despite the occasional pain, the extra power is worth it. Besides, a bit of pain every now and again from my L2 implant is nothing compared to what some of the other kids have to deal with."

Arlas nodded, remembering some of the humans back home with psyker powers that had cybernetics grafted onto their heads, and guessed these humans actually cared about aesthetics. "What other side effects were there?"

"Well, I just get sensitivity to light and loud noises occasionally. I know of other kids, who were implanted at the same time I was, who died from the implants being installed improperly. Or who suffer from permanent pain, a host of mental disabilities, permanent long or short term memory loss, things like that. So I really can't complain."

"So it is a problem with the mechanical parts and not the ability or user. I had been curious as to why you had to keep missing assignments. I doubted it was cowardice, you were too calm on the missions for that."

The human male snorted, before letting the conversation die down for a moment. Eventually, he looked back over at Arlas. "I have been wondering about this for a while, but why do you only use Wrex's name, but most everyone else on the specialist team have nicknames?"

Arlas shrugged, before giving a partial answer. "Because some people have earned them, and others have not earned the right to be called by their names."

Kaidan stared for a moment before shaking his head. "Fair enough. Strange, though."

Further conversation was stopped by an announcement from the pilot. "All hands, brace for landing, we will be picking up the mako and ground team shortly."

Arlas frowned as he looked up at the speaker. "No comments from the pilot? Odd."

Kaidan just shrugged as he stood up and headed for the elevator. "Must have Lieutenant Pressly standing right behind him. Pleasure talking with you, Pathfinder, we should do it again some time."

Arlas stared at the human as he vanished behind the closing elevator doors, unsure if the human had been serious or subtly insulting him with the use of his title. He was still considering the situation fifteen minutes later when half the ground crew team exited the elevator. The first out were the three Spectres, followed quickly by Ashley. He watched them for a moment, but as all four vanished to their respective rooms, he decided to do the same. On his way to the elevator, he thought of something, and diverted to Tali. "Gemling, you said you can do anything if it uses circuitry and eezo, correct?"

The quarian jumped slightly as he spoke, before looking up and back at him. "Not quite anything, but I can do a lot more than most. Umm, when did I say that?"

"Lioness was talking to you in the hangar on the third day, en route to Therum from the Citadel. You claimed you could get a circuit board and eezo through a relay. I am not entirely sure what that would require, but I believe you can assist me in combining local shielding technology with one of my own armor sets. However, I suspect that will be after the Citadel sword tournament. Would you be willing to assist then?"

Tali stared at him for a moment, before slowly nodding. "If this isn't a prank, then yes. Though why not now?"

Arlas shrugged. "Because you have other duties, and I need the current time to ensure my blade work is up to my old standards. As the greater daemon proved, I am not."

"Escapee, he was twice your height, at least twice as strong as you were judging by his muscles when he fought you, and as I recall, took you out with a punch followed by a kick."

Both of them ignored Liara's shudder at the mention of the daemons, engaging in a staring contest. After a moment, Arlas spoke. "When I was a warrior of the Striking Scorpion shrine, I was assigned with my exarch and squad to assist in the clearing of a section of… our faster than light transportation devices that had become infested with daemons. My squad was wiped out, leaving only me when we were cut off and surrounded by three dozens daemons warping in. The rest of the purge group pulled back as the rest of the daemons tried to swarm them under, leaving me to fight the dozen surviving daemons on my own, and then spend an hour waiting for the purge team to destroy their group and return. I destroyed more daemons then than I care to consider using only a pistol and my sword. So yes, I am not acceptable, and will be returning to acceptable levels. I will let you know when I am ready for your help."

He turned and headed for the elevator, leaving Tali to turn back to Liara in huff. As he entered the elevator, he spoke again. "And Gemling."

He paused as she turned toward him, waiting for a second before nodding slightly. "My thanks."

The door closed before she could respond, and he relaxed slightly, having gotten the most difficult part of the rebuilding done with already, asking a mon-keigh for help. His relief lasted until the elevator got to the hangar bay, and opened to reveal Garrus stalking back and forth near the Mako, fuming aloud. "...goes and shoots himself! He doesn't get to shoot himself. Filthy, bare faced, traitorous scumbag. He should have gone back to answer for his crimes and face justice for the people he hurt and exploited."

Arlas strolled out of the elevator, nodded to the krogan at the weapon station, before addressing the turian. "Justice is a fancy word created by those in power to convince the powerless that they some protection from the powerful. The closest I have ever found to true justice was found at the end of my long rifle or blade. What happened?"

Tweaks whirled toward him, mandibles tight against his jaw, but after a second got himself back under control. "The bastard was Doctor Saleon, a salarian geneticist, a wanted fugitive. He killed himself rather than go back. I assume you want the summary?"

Arlas gave a shrug, before jumping up to sit on the edge of the wing of the lander, wincing as he landed from his ribs, looking down at the turian as he started his story. "Doctor Saleon was wanted for illegal cloning of organs on the citadel, along with a number of other, lesser violations. When he knew we were onto him, he grabbed some of his victims, he blew his lab with officers inside, and ran for the spaceport. By the time we realized he was still alive after the explosion, he was already boarded and hijacked a ship. We locked down the ship, but he managed to turn the GUARDIAN turret onto the clamps, blowing them out, before burning hard for the relays."

Garrus had finally calmed down, or at least gotten a hold on his rage to tell the story without cursing. "I called station control, advised them that the ship had a fugitive on board, and the security ships should either disable the vessel, or destroy it. The executor agreed with me. Unfortunately the civilian supervisor refused to pass the message onto the defense fleet, citing that the salarian had contacted control and threatened to disable the safeties on the FTL drive and then ram the station if any of the ships tried to divert toward him."

Wrex snorted in malicious mirth. "Come on, I bet even the eldar there knows that is shit. Those safeties are hard baked into the FTL drive. Tampering with one of the safeties completely disables the thing, and there are dozens. Even during the Rebellions when we krogan were ramming ships into planets, we still had to do a sublight run up to get up to speed. In all my years around the galaxy, I have never heard of anyone successfully disabling the safeties."

Garrus snorted, leaning against the Mako. "You are right, but the civilian panicked, and refused to pass on the order. By the time we managed to bypass her, Saleon had already burned past the defense ships, making interception impossible, and the only ship with a decent shot at him had several other ships behind him, making them unable to take a shot. Needless to say, he got away, the supervisor got fired with remarkable haste, and now there is a C-Sec supervisor to expedite comms to the defensive fleet. However, Dr. Saleon's ship transponder did get recorded, and I followed up on it, following him trading in vessels twice.

"Then we arrive in system, and what do we find but the last known transponder code for Dr. Saleon's ship, now going by Dr. Heart. I tell the Shepards about it, and they agree to swing by and have a looksee at the ship. So we get on board, and find that he had graduated from illegal cloned organs and terrorist threats to producing bio-monstrosities and slaving. He also had some weird tech on board, and the Twins said they wanted their engineers and Tali to go over and take a look at it before they turned it over to the SAI."

Garrus paused, before looking up at him speculatively. "I doubt it has anything similar to your own technology, but do you think you might want to take a look at it, since you are still recovering and can't go on the actual mission we came here for?"

Arlas frowned, before looking down. "Wait, we came here for something else, but did this extra part first?"

Wrex nodded, and rejoined the conversation. "Yeah, the Twins got a call from their leader, named… Admiral Hatchet, I think? Whatever, not important. Anyway, someone is knocking off former Alliance scientists, and the one on the planet below is the last one left of the group."

Garrus picked up the thread. "We got in system, and then called the colony, and found out the scientist was still there and alive. So the Twins had the local constables pick him up and take him into protective custody. I had done some checking, and found a ship transponder visiting the location of the other scientists, arriving and leaving within a day of the deaths, and the routes they took were as short as possible judging from the time between the attacks and the ship that is supposed to have that registration. Going by that, he should be here sometime tomorrow evening, ship time."

Arlas considered the request, before nodding. "I suppose I can take some time tomorrow to check out the salarian's ship. Though you never explained why you were ranting about justice."

Garrus coughed, before reaching up to scratch his neck, mandibles fluttering. "Well, once we fought past the two dozen or so mutated monstrosities he had created, we cornered him in the cockpit. With the frigate docked with him, he couldn't go anywhere, and our armor and lasers would easily beat his ship's own, so he didn't try blasting his way out again. Instead, he just sat in the pilot's seat like it was the Imperator's chair."

Arlas just tilted his head slightly, and raised an eyebrow as he looked down at Garrus. "Imperator?"

Garrus stared at him for a moment, before blinking in shock. "What? Oh, right. Uh, the Imperator is the highest position in the turian meritocracy. Anyway, he was just sitting there, trying to look up at us while at the same time clearly considering us well beneath him. I read him his rights, which was essentially that he had the right to remain silent or be beaten unconscious, and then he drew a pistol. We drew our weapons, and he just smirked, and asked if being shot would satisfy my sense of justice. I cocked my assault rifle, and told him it would be a close second."

Garrus paused, taking a deep, calming breath, before continuing. "He just gave me a small smile, and said 'so you probably will be less pleased about this then,' before putting the pistol to the bottom of his chin, and pulling the trigger before any of us could do something to stop him. Blew his head open like a rotten fruit hitting a wall. Needless to say, he was right, and that was what I was unhappy about. He was looking at several lifetimes in prison, and he took the easy way out."

Arlas jumped down from the wing, and landed lightly before speaking. "Death is never the easy way out. In fact, for many it is far worse than whatever is here."

Both of the aliens stared at him for a moment, before Wrex spoke up. "You speak like you know for a fact."

"Where do you think that daemon we fought came from? The same place souls go after their physical form perishes. Of course, that was back home, and your immaterium is far less vicious than mine, so perhaps it isn't so bad for your people. But for your justice, I believe he got it when he died. No god is going to protect that soul."

Wrex chuckled evilly as they ignored the turians' confused question about what daemon, before the krogan replied. "A pity most Salarians don't believe in things like daemons, gods, or souls."

Arlas gave an enigmatic smile. "Just because you don't believe in them doesn't mean they don't believe in you. And that is enough. Besides, there are things far older and fouler in the immaterium than 'mere' daemons."

Arlas entered the lander's troop bay with that cheerful thought, before heading back to the armory. Once there, he frowned, before deciding to fix the flamer pistol, as it was still dumping excess heat into the grip, followed by the runic armor. After that, he would see about combining what he had learned from the prism rifle into his next long rifle, and see what he got. That would last him the rest of the day at least, and then he would be focused exclusively on learning the two blades he had to use now. He couldn't rebuilt the witchblade, as he had no idea how to build the power field on the blade. Only the armory workers knew the secrets of the blades well enough to build them, and even repairs tended to require returning them to the armory.

Arlas walked quickly over to the airlock, conscious of the fact he was late. He had been trying to finish repairing his rune armor, and instead he managed to completely disrupt the inlay with an incautious thought, ruining the protective runes on it. All of his efforts since his talk with Garrus and Wrex a day before had been trying to repair the damage, and at this point he was forced to admit the armor's psy-shield was ruined.

He shook off his thoughts of his own incompetencies, which were coming more and more frequently of late, and greeted Tali and Kaidan at the airlock. "Apologies for the delay."

Kaidan simply nodded, but Gemling was less willing to let it go. "You are late. And… that is not your normal armor."

He rolled his eyes behind his helmet, unable to resist being sarcastic. "Your eyes function properly, congratulations. And correct, the damage was more extensive than I thought, and will require significant time and repairs."

Arlas was wearing his old carapace chest plate along with the rest of the armor from the rune armor, and carrying his pistol and fusion gun, but was not wearing his cloak. Not that he expected to have to use his weapons, but he was no fool, despite his nickname from the craftworld. Kaidan spoke up, heading into the airlock. "Come on, Liara and Chakwas are already across, helping the surviving test subjects Saleon had. I will be helping them, you two will be checking his ship logs and everything else. Hopefully we will be done before the ground team finishes down on the planet."

Shepard had deployed with the rest of the ground team in the mako an hour earlier, heading down to wait for the scientist killer to show up at the scientists' combined residence and workplace. The scientist himself was being held at the local arbitrators' headquarter building, having been quietly picked up the night before. As far as the settlement knew, the scientist was still in his building, unaware anything was wrong.

Arlas and the other two stepped through the airlock as it finished cycling, and he looked around, modestly curious at the second local ship he had been on. The transport was uninspiring, four small square storage pods attached to the main portion of the ship, a simple long block with engines on one end and a cockpit on the other. The airlock was between two of the storage areas, and as unimpressive as the exterior of the ship, a small, simple room with doors on both ends of it. The room connected to the long hallway that made up the center of the ship, with crates randomly strewn throughout it, though a cleared aisle from the front to the back of the vessel had been made.

Kaidan pointed to one end. "That way is the cockpit, and Saleon's personal workstation is on the right. Tech storage and several person pods are in the room on the left. If you run into problems, Liara, the Doc and myself will be down there, helping the people that survived his experiments or he didn't get to yet. Security is on the Normandy, ready to sally if needed."

Tali headed down the corridor filled with crates, and after a moment Arlas followed. He still wasn't sure what he was here for, other than they thought that he might be able to help with the 'odd technology' they had found. As if using eldar technology somehow made him an expert on unusual technology. He stepped into the cockpit behind the quarian, and watch Tali take a seat at the main computer. After a moment, she turned toward him. "Are you going to just stand there and watch?"

"Do you trust me to wander around unknown technology?"

She started to reply, before stopping and tilting her head slightly. "Considering what you can do with only an omnitool, no. Just stay there and try to not break the ship in half or open all the airlocks or something."

Arlas regretted wearing his helmet, as she couldn't see the flat glare he gave her, but after a moment simply leaned against the wall, and settled in to wait. After a few moments, he turned his attention to the only thing of even slight interest in the room, and watched Tali as she tapped away at the computer, and just let his mind wander. His eyes wandered over Tali's form, idly curious as to what she looked like under that suit, and debated the merits of finding a different quarian so he could kill them and strip the body. After a moment, he decided against it, his own curiosity wasn't worth the negative reactions the others would have. Though if they found a pirate or slaver quarian, or one that someone else had killed, he would be able to indulge his curiosity without too much concern for the consequences.

He watched her for a half hour, observing how she bypassed the electronic systems with an ease and expertise that would have likely been of exarch competency if there was an eldar warrior shrine dedicated to it, before frowning at that thought. If his people were coming here, they would need someone to interface with the local species' systems, to learn what they were planning as so to protect the Craftworld, as well as hinder their enemies. As he had already found out a couple times, just passing knowledge of their systems wouldn't be enough, as he had nearly been killed twice due to not knowing what local systems could do. He spent some time trying to imagine what such an aspect warrior's armor would look like, light enough to get to their point quickly. But also heavy enough to survive whatever was thrown at them while they tried to get into the system and it couldn't restrict their arms at all, judging by the amount of precise manipulation it required.

The end result in his head was basically the Howling Banshee's lighter armor, with some heavy local shielding added and maybe a few small wraith seeds to quickly improve the available cover near a terminal. He glanced over at Tali who was digging into one of the side terminals of the cockpit, softly cursing under her breath at the computer system, before he suddenly had an image of her in the tight, thin, form fitting armor of a Howling Banshee. He quickly banished the mental image, even as he admitted to himself that she would probably be both quite good at the shrine, and quite distracting. Desperate to get that mental image out of his head, he asked Tali a question. "Interested in learning bladework?"

Tali's head snapped around, her eyes wide as she stared at him. "What?"

Arlas cursed himself for being a fool and an idiot, but he had already spoken. "I asked if you were interested in learning bladework. You have the natural grace to be effective at it, and I still need to learn more about electronics. I think it would be a fair trade."

She stared at him for a few minutes, clearly considering the offer, as she rubbed her hands together, before slowly nodding. "I think it might be a good idea to learn, but if my suit gets damaged…"

He sent his understanding. "You can die from a suit breach, I know. We won't start until after we get to the Citadel. Hologram blades would be safest for you."

The mention of hologram blades made her relax, and she nodded with considerably more enthusiasm. "Then yes, I believe I would like to. We can do that after upgrading your armor though."

He nodded and stood up. "Then I will leave you to finish here, and go start looking at the other technology they wanted us to examine."

She turned back to the side computer with a bounce in her stride, humming quietly to herself and projecting a surprising amount of pleasure as he left the cockpit, before turning to the right to enter the technology storage room. Once inside, he let the door shut, before heading to the wall furthest from the cockpit, removing his helmet, and then bashing his head against it several times. Done punishing himself for being a Khaine smote idiot, he replaced his helmet, turned to the various technology in the room, and began looking each piece over.

A couple hours later, he had moved into Saleon's personal workspace, and was looking over the last piece of equipment, having finally found something that seemed… exotic. All of the rest of the technology in the two rooms had been built with the same general aesthetics in mind as the rest of the local technology, but this one was different. The others were blocky, and general a dull pastel or metallic color, but this was a dull brownish yellow irregularly shaped object, and had almost been dismissed as a rock until he had spotted a screen on one side of it.

Once he had gotten closer though, he had realized something was wrong with it, and it felt… unclean, even from a distance. The feeling vaguely reminded him of a warp taint, but not nearly as insidious or revolting, more like something that only lightly corrupted. He kept his hands behind him, and simply examined it from as close as he could without recoiling in revulsion. Before he could come to any conclusions about the object though, his omnitool suddenly chimed, before opening up a communication channel. "This is Commander Joannis Shepard to all hands, return to the ship immediately, on the double."

He frowned and tried to connect with his warp jump generator, before remembering that it wasn't attached to the armor he was wearing. With a sigh, he turned and sprinted back to the airlock, idly noting a couple humans in the System Alliance uniform he hadn't seen before heading down the hall toward the cockpit. He avoided them with ease, slid to a stop in front of the airlock, which was orange, and joined Kaidan in waiting. "What happened?"

The human male replied with a shrug, before the airlock opened, and both of them stepped inside. As the decontamination cycle began, Kaidan opened his comm channel. "Commander, me and Arlas are in the decon chamber now. No one else behind us."

"Good, report to the briefing room after you get in."

Kaidan gave Arlas a slightly confused look, before nodding. "Copy that."

Arlas shifted as the vessel suddenly accelerated, but he was used to the sensation of movement without actually moving, and no longer rocked when the ship went to FTL. A minute later, the inner airlock opened, and both of them headed down the walkway toward the CiC and comm room, and quickly entered, to find the rest of the crew seated, and the Twins radiating both vicious pleasure and some anger as Jaclyn spoke. "Alright, everyone is here. The SAI frigate arrived about a quarter hour ago, we just finished briefing the captain and transferring the prisoner and the witness over, so we are done here. But the reason I called everyone back is because we just got a call from our CO, Admiral Hackett. He sent us a message and a video capture that he thought we might be interested in."

The screen behind them flickered to life, showing a large vessel shaped like a jet black cuttlefish with arcs of red lightning flickering across its hull, surrounded by seven much smaller steel grey insectoid ships acting as an escort screen. "This image was recorded and attached to a distress call from Feros, right before all comms with the colony there was lost. The distress signal was initially received two hours ago. We are the closest combat vessel, six hours out from the relay system, plus a day and a half transit to the system, and one hundred sixty hours behind us the Seventh Fleet will be sending a full cruiser squadron with a double sized escort. Our mission is quite simple. Get into the system, see what Saren is doing, and if possible, kill the bastard."

A/N - And with that, we now return you to the main plot. I hope you all continue to read, review, favorite, follow, but most all, enjoy. Oh, and be gentle on the eldar, he isn't used to being in proximity to this many mon-keigh for this long.