Chapter 31 - Meeting the Terrorists

'I will destroy you!' - Every enemy in Mass Effect. Every. One. EVERY GODDAMNED ONE! Even the geth, husks and rachni, though you can't understand them.

Joannis stared at the hologram of the second most hated human in the galaxy. He led a known terrorist group that espoused assassinations, sabotage, kidnappings; anything and everything was acceptable as long as it advanced humans to the pinnacle of the galaxy. She had to be careful in her handling of the situation, as she was standing in a base filled with fanatics outfitted with the most advanced technology she had ever encountered, including handheld laser weapons. The base contained at least ten soldiers so genetically modified she was fairly certain they didn't actually count as humans anymore and only one of them had been needed to take her squad apart back on Binthu. And the leader had just revealed enough about himself that getting out with the information was her primary concern; so she was concerned about keeping him from deciding her and her twin were better off dead, instead of clearly trying to get something from them.

"That hat is the most fucking stupid and retarded thing I have had to deal with this week. And I had to deal with a spat between an eldar and an asari."

Joannis couldn't quite stop herself from rolling her eyes as she shot her twin a look, conveying her lack of amusement at her twin's flippant response to their situation. Thankfully, the Inquisitive Man only gave Jaclyn a raised eyebrow and a tolerant smile. "And again, the Eldar fail as an ally."

Joannis kept herself from reacting, but she could feel her twin failing. The hologram simply gave another small smile, before nodding. "He has not told you any more than he has to to get you to react as he wants. Otherwise, you would have had a much more… informed reaction. Sadly, we lack the time to fully educate you. You have other things you need to be doing."

Jaclyn sneered. "Take the word of an arrogant alien who openly admits to looking down on us or a human supremacist who wants me to sell out my squad. Huh, hard choice there, how long do I get to consider it?"

"As long as you need. I need to talk to your twin, not you."

The hologram turned its eyes from her offended twin, and met hers. "Lieutenant Commander Joannis Shepard, Spectre. I will not bother listing the rest of your titles, as those two are the ones you let define you."

She nodded slightly to the hologram, conceding his point, as her rank and Spectre status were the two she was most proud of. "And yet you have me at a disadvantage, unless you name is Inquisitive."

He hummed at her sally, before shaking his head. "It is not advantageous for me to reveal too much about myself just yet. However, I believe we could come to a mutually beneficial understanding. In spite of what you have heard about my organization, we are not your enemy."

"You took a pot shot at the Defense Minister of the Systems Alliance. You certainly are not an ally of mine."

He smiled, before shaking his head. "No, but there is a difference between an accomplice, an affiliate, and an adversary."

She interrupted him. "Nice alliteration. Did you plan that line or come up with off the cuff?"

"Bit of both, I figured you would appreciate it. As I was saying, Cerberus need not be your enemy. I doubt I can convince you of the sanctity of our ideology in the time I have, as you have been indoctrinated by your Alliance for far too long, but perhaps we can come to an agreement?"

Jaclyn sneered at the hologram. "You tried to shoot the Minister of Defense. I agree to not execute you on the spot if you surrender right now."

Joannis glared at her twin. "Jaclyn, outside. Now."

She ignored her twin's shock, waiting for her to leave before speaking again. "What agreement did you have in mind?"

"Nothing formal; I am not so foolish as to expect that. An exchange of information, on the other hand?. Captain Anderson is a fine officer, and as cunning a defender of mankind as one can ask for, but he is NOT an investigator, nor is he as skilled in information analysis. My organization, however, is more than fully capable of providing the needed tools."

"And you are, of course, doing this out the goodness of your heart and purely altruistic motives, no doubt."

"Of course. I am trying to protect the most precious resource in the galaxy, just like you. Our race. I am simply willing to go further than you."

"To the point where everyone thinks we are monsters. You do more damage to us than almost any other organization in the galaxy, including those Terra Firma party dumbasses. They don't go around shooting random aliens."

"Surely you do not think we go around attacking random xeno vessels, or schools, or gatherings? The actions we perform are against those trying to harm humanity through more clandestine means that we currently have little defense against. The meeting between the Defense Minister and the Salarians was to allow the Salarians to put another listening program in our systems, and the deal was simply their way of getting inside to do it. I have no desire to see Minister Kreiggeory replaced, in spite of his willingness to work with xenos. While his current successor has a far more appropriate attitude toward xenos, he lacks the foresight to properly control his actions, and more importantly, the reactions of others."

Joannis shook her head at him. "And yet you tried to shoot the Defense Minister. Your words and actions are not lining up."

The Inquisitive Man gave her a tight smile. "My ally placed her shot exactly where she was ordered to. I needed to get your attention. After all, who do you think tipped off the Alliance to the Binthu outpost's location? And who let your quarian ally through long enough to get this outpost's location? You were directed here, for this conversation."

She stared at him, unable to refute his claims without sounding petulant or childish, so she simply nodded. "You mentioned an agreement?"

He took a pull from his cigarette, before answering. "As much as the influence of xenos on humanity is concerning, a new threat is looming. We, humanity, need information, as much and as fast as possible. My agreement is information exchanging concerning the Reapers. Regardless of our thoughts about each other, extinction is enough of a threat to mandate bringing every resource to bear to ensure our survival. If that means allying with the xenos, so be it. I will not let pride kill my race."

He reached off screen to pull into view a glass of something, likely alcohol considering how he only took small sips and seemed to savor each one, letting her consider his offer. After a moment, she finally spoke. "And what do you get out of this? All I am seeing is questionable worth for negative results. You get to promote that you have been endorsed by the first human Spectres, getting legitimacy and validation of your views, which I do not agree with, and you don't actually have to produce anything."

He stared at her for a moment, before replying. "While I normally approve of such prudence, I do wish you would turn it to those that would, for all intents and purposes, enslave us. How about this, if we find anything related to the Reapers that you can deal with, we will send it to you."

"And how do you plan to get that information to me? I doubt SIA would take kindly to me getting emails from Cerberus saying the Salarians have found a Reaper, go blow it up."

The Inquisitive Man's mouth twitched in what might have been amusement. "That probably would cause more problems than it would solve, yes."

He took another sip from his glass, before continuing. "Emails from Hislop Corporation. They will mention a Tim, in all capital letters, requesting you get the information, before giving you the information about the Reapers. Is that acceptable?"

She frowned as the name seemed to be familiar to her, before slowly nodding. She could figure it out later. "Fine, not like I can exactly refuse."

He gave her a patronizing smile that made her want to hunt him down and gut him as her sister suggested, but she kept her thoughts to herself. "Care to share where you are heading next? I suggest Terra Nova."

As she opened her mouth to respond, he interrupted her, glancing at something out of range of the hologram again. "With haste. And stealth. Consider the tip a gesture of good will. Also, my forces have already evacuated, so you may leave on your own time. Pleasure meeting you, Commander Shepard. I do hope our next meeting is less confrontational."

The hologram dispersed before she could reply, leaving her to make her way back to the entrance of the empty base.

Four days later, the Normandy was quietly loitering in the Asgard system of the Exodus cluster, listening to the local communications. They had arrived in the system two days after leaving the Cerberus base, and so far nothing had happened. Jaclyn had been less than pleased about the forced wait, but with a third of the their ground team either in or having recently left the medical bay, hunting Saren was being put on hold for the moment. The lack of leads had also enforced Joannis' decision to wait.

The Spectre was reviewing Doctor Chakwas' latest report on the injured, Vasir already released after a quick check, the Cerberus laser weapon failing to penetrate her armor, though it had done significant damage to the chest plate. Joannis was dreading the Council review of that mission, especially if the 'tip' turned out to be a bust. The sudden up-spike in batarian raids in the nearby systems was a good indication that something could be planned, however. As of three hours earlier, they were the only SA ship in the system, the only other ships either being freighters or merchants, or the two local police cutters lingering around Terra Nova.

Shaking her head, she turned her attention back to the report. Wrex was responding well to the surgery and cloned tissue, and was staying in the medbay only because of Doctor Chakwas' threats, though he should get released in a day or so if only to keep him from breaking something; the legendary krogan regeneration reacting well when enhanced by modern medicine. Liara had regained consciousness, but suffered from headaches, vertigo, and double vision, and was going to stay in the medbay until the concussion had passed. Icivia had been released earlier that day, the weapon used by the Astartes had been deflected by her shields and armor, but only barely, and her injuries had been mostly light shrapnel and superficial cuts to her shoulder and chest.

Done reviewing the wounded, she turned her attention to a report from Vasir on Benezia. Joannis rolled her eyes as she parsed out the insults directed at Arlas, who refused to file reports. After a moment, she put the 'report' down and looked at Lieutenant Pressley. "Pressly, I am heading down to talk to Arlas. You have deck until I get back."

She nodded absently at Pressly's response as she headed down to elevator. A minute later, she stepped out of the elevator, pausing as she saw Tali getting up off the floor, Arlas standing nearby holding two holoblades. "And that is why you must always be in control of yourself."

Tali grumbled something as she finished standing, glaring at the eldar. "Then slow down! I can barely follow your movements."

Arlas turned off one of the blades, before offering the hilt to the quarian. "An enemy isn't going to slow down because you asked. You wanted my assistance in learning to use a blade, so you will learn as an eldar does. We train as we fight."

"Learning, yes. Getting beaten without actually teaching anything, no."

Arlas sighed, before shaking his head. "If you put half the effort into your blade you do into complaining, you would be an expert. Lioness."

Tali tiled her head in confusion, but Joannis was ready and waiting for an opening. "Arlas, I got Vasir's report about your progress on Benezia, and was hoping you could elaborate. Specifically on her progress, not Vasir's ability to curse at you."

Arlas' mouth twitched upwards for a brief moment, before shaking his head. "I doubt your language has the words I need."

Joannis crossed her arms, not amused by his attitude. "Try."

He stared before singing at her for a moment. After a moment, Joannis sighed. "In english, please."

He stared at her for a moment. "Her mind is coated in something by an ancient robot, which enforces its control of her. This leaves out a significant amount of detail and subtly of the situation, but it conveys the basics. I have made some progress, but there is much to do yet."

"So, any idea how much longer you will require?"

"Could be a week, could be years."

His sword suddenly swung around, blocking Tali's strike at his back, before cutting at her arm, then reforming the holoblade and stabbing her in the faceplate. "Back attacks work only if the target is distracted or unaware. Good thought though."

He turned back to Joannis as Tali fell backwards, ignoring the quarian cursing in her own language at him. "What does it matter how long I take?"

Joannis walked around him to help Tali stand up. "I was wondering when you would be ready for ground duties again?"

He raised an eyebrow, before deactivating his holoblade and collecting Tali's dropped one. "I suppose I can help with a mission, if you so desperately need the help. What do you require?"

Joannis sighed, before running a hand through her hair. "Nothing yet, but we might…"

Her omnitool buzzed, interrupting her as Pressley contacted her. "Ma'am, three large shuttles were just detected in the system, outside the normal areas for traffic. I doubt the locals have seen them, they appear to be heavily armed, armored and have some method to reduce their heat signatures. They are about a light minutes out from and burning for asteroid X57."

She stared at her omnitool for a moment, before nodding. "Arlas, get ready. I want your lander for this one. Pressley, did they jump in? If not, why didn't we see them earlier?"

"Ma'am we didn't detect a FTL flare on the sensors. They must have been drifting cold, likely jumped in earlier and we detected their engines heating up."

She made it to the elevator, and started up. "How long until we get to the asteroid?"

"About an hour ma'am. They have a half hour lead on us, unless we want to do an in system FTL jump."

She killed her omnitool as she entered the CiC of the Normandy, glancing at the plot. She replaced Pressley on the command stand, staring at the indicator for the shuttles. "Joker, head to asteroid X57, max speed while stealthed."

Joker was carefully leveraging himself in the chair, having been off duty when Pressley had called him back to the pilot station. "Aye ma'am, let the cripple get back in his chair."

A few sotto curses could be heard before Joker spoke again. "Alright, in the chair, breaking our orbit of one of Borr's infinite dwarf moons. Time to target is twenty five minutes at max speed under stealth."

"Good, Joker. Pressley, you have the deck."

She activated her omnitool, linking to the ship paging system. "All ground team specialists cleared for combat, arm and armor up, then meet in the hangar."

Jaclyn sat in the gunner seat of the Mako, and did her best to ignore her twin in the driver seat. The 'briefing' had been worse than useless, they didn't know anything, but Jo had still mobilized everyone capable of fighting. Hell, she was even having the Normandy stay nearby, ready to land the reinforced marine compliment if they called. They didn't even know something was wrong, SAI hadn't had any indications something was going to happen when queried. All they had to go on was some terrorist's vague suggestion and a slight up-swing of possible raiding vessels moving through the relays, and now they had three large shuttles in the area. Whoop-dee-doo.

Her sister finished talking, and turned her attention back to the Mako, causing the front third of the landing craft to descend into brooding silence. Then her sister opened a comm line between them. "You are still angry."

Jaclyn cut the comm line with a practiced twist of her wrist, not wanting to talk to her twin. Unfortunately, her sister had always been better at electronics than her, and the line comm line quickly reopened. "Yep, and still childish too. Let's get this out of the way before we get into combat, and you charge some krogan again out of pure anger."

Jaclyn snarled something unrepeatable and unintelligible into her microphone, before crossing her arms. "He was a fucking terrorist, and you believed every word he said? Damn right I am pissed at you, especially since you sent me out of the room."

"You were listening through my helm the whole time once you were out."

"I should have been in there!"

"You were deliberately antagonizing an unknown, who commanded at a minimum almost a dozen super soldiers, one of which was caught out of his armor and yet still beat us. There were ten in the base, including the three that escorted us."

"He wasn't going to do anything to hurt us, he went through too much effort to talk to us."

"And he was a human supremacist, and we had two non-humans in the base with us. Assuming he didn't decide to just take out the others. You never think of the consequences of your actions."

"Because you always allow the potential consequences to paralyze you! He is a terrorist, and we do not need his help."

"The Reapers are going to kill everyone, we need all the help we can get. Pride won't stop an extinction, Jac."

"Better than being slaves. We saw that on Mindior."

Their argument was interrupted by Pressley contacting both of them, and they linked him to both groups. "Ma'am, the shuttles just landed. Enhanced scans show at least fifty individuals, not counting the quadrupeds."

Jaclyn cut him off. "Clarify, quadrupeds?"

"Probably varren in sealed armor, ma'am, these are NOT some security force or extra engineers. They have split into five groups, a group of eight and four quadrupeds moving to the fusion torches two and three each, two groups of four heading off to isolated buildings, and the remaining twenty six and twelve quadrupeds are heading for the building that functions as a headquarters for the whole place, as well as controlling fusion torch one. They are carrying several large objects with them, but without an active scan, I can't tell you more about whatever those cases are."

Jaclyn was grateful her twin didn't tend toward gloating, otherwise she would seriously consider heading to the eldar's lander. "Right, Joker get us in close and drop the mako near torch three, then land the marines near torch two. Arlas, you are going after the two small groups, then meeting to take out the group for torch one. Oh, and actually land, don't just strafe them, I need prisoners. Pressley, get in contact with the people on the asteroid, advise them about the raiders and to stay calm, seal the buildings and seek cover. ETA?"

"Ten minutes out ma'am, one of the groups will get to fusion torch three and the big group will get to the headquarters before we can land. We should catch the others out in the open."

Jaclyn didn't speak, letting her twin handle this. "Good. Once the marines deal with their group, leave a squad to secure that torch, then have the Normandy relocate the other two squads to the shuttles. I want them captured intact if possible."

Arlas cut in. "Or you could have me, the lander, and the wraithguard secure them. We aren't going to show up on their sensors, and you can use them still having an apparent exit as a negotiation point if needed."

Jaclyn glanced at her twin's back, but her twin wasn't paying attention to her. "Arlas, send your passengers over to the Mako, they will help us. You can just annihilate the groups going for the isolated buildings, but don't use the big guns. They will detect the explosions. Pressley, have the marines send a squad to hold the second torch once we clear it. Alright people, lets do this."

Arlas finished setting up, before relaxing and checking everyone. Yol'Pvera had landed, resting on the other side of a nearby hill, and Kap'Eiyl was waiting with the shuriken cannon in the center of the three shuttles. He was on different hill, where he could see the most direct path between the shuttles and the first engine.

The mission had been delightfully dull and boring. He had taken out the two small patrols in a single pass, using the scatter laser turret, not even bothering to slow down. He knew they hadn't gotten a warning off about his vessel. Over the next quarter hour, he had listened to the mon-keigh hit the other locations. Both of the battles for the second and third engines had gone acceptably, the marines overwhelming the small attacker squad, outnumbering them nearly three to one, and yet had still taken several wounds from the animals accompanying them. Shepard's team had done better, despite actually being outnumbered slightly, but had pushed through the enemy force without injuries.

Then Shepard's team had moved to the first engine on this asteroid, and things had gone sideways. In spite of the warning, the attackers had managed to get into the attached building, and had captured a handful of locals. The others had gotten inside before things had gone too badly, but the leader had, after a brief firefight, threatened to blow up the building if his demands weren't met. The humans and attackers, identified as batarians, had then gotten into an argument about what the Twins would and wouldn't allow. It was all very rousing, and inspirational, and completely predictable.

After listening to the bombastic performances of the two sets of mon-keigh, eventually one of the Shepards contacted him directly. "Arlas, they are leaving. We have prisoners already, and the locals are safe."

He smirked, before shouldering his rifle. *Kap'Eiyl, Yol'Pvera, the targets are coming. No survivors needed. All Asuryani, advance to contact.*

He checked the melta packs on the shuttles, nestled between the engines, and meant to detonate if the engines activated, before following the wraithguard up the path. Yol'Pvera looped off to side, to flank the batarian raiders. They weren't going to be subtle, there wasn't a need for it.