Absolute Magnitude
-Chapter Three-
Fever Dreams
Shepard had an intimate history with nightmares, but nowadays it was only when she was very ill that they were as vivid as the vision that snatched her, dug its tendrils in deep, and spread through her with the force of a tsunami. Fragmented images coalesced and shattered with enough speed and violence to make her feel physically ill, a hypervelocity slideshow of devastation. Ruined landscapes, illuminated by the light of scorched ruddy skies, the sense of figures fleeing synthetics and...something, something terrible, and cast behind each image of destruction was that something.
What was left of herself said insect, but those innumerable voices screaming at her in an indistinct cacophony drowned that thought.
Her sense of direction, her sense of her own body-all of it was shorted out as surely as she'd overloaded the geth shields. The outside world intruded on her little microcosm of misery with needle-like sharpness, brief as pinpricks. Voices she recognized, suddenly as alien as the ones in her head. Strange arms, her forehead impacting against an armored carapace.
Even that tenuous grasp on reality slipped away, the images flickering faster and faster, the screaming building to a crescendo. And then her world went dark and silent.
[Mass Effect]
It wasn't a seizure, exactly-those manifested with similar symptoms across most species, but what it was Nihlus couldn't say. All he knew was that his Spectre candidate was unresponsive and the beacon they'd been sent to retrieve was a smoking ruin.
As a Spectre, Nihlus was used to being the last resort, the one who stepped in when conventional methods failed. This, however, was enough to shock even him. He'd known Saren for a long time and though Spectres didn't usually work together, Saren had been the agent who'd mentored him at the start of his career. Though he'd known the older turian hated humans, he'd never imagined it would come to something like this.
And to think, only days ago his most pressing mystery had been the human Spectre candidate now breathing shallowly in his arms.
Service records and psych evals hadn't really prepared him for Commander Shepard, which he'd expected. Raw data wasn't the same as in-person observation, even had his reports been more thorough. He'd known she was highly intelligent, but he hadn't predicted it would manifest in being very well-read. In any military, there was that old 'hurry up and wait' adage, but Shepard filled both her off-duty hours and those inescapable wait periods with datapads.
So much of her time was spent on them he'd requested a record of her searches and downloads. They'd leaned heavily on biology, anthropology, history. Somehow, that had surprised him. The Butcher of Torfan had the intellectual curiosity of an asari undergrad.
She even worked with some measure of the calculated social grace that he expected when dealing with any asari over five hundred. Human hearing might be able to pick up sounds at greater distances, but they had nothing on turians for tonal differentiation. He could hear politeness and calculation when they heard only sincerity. And Commander Shepard was very polite.
She was also slightly unnerving. Her eyes-gunmetal grey-never seemed to flinch, which was impressive, or warm, which made him worry about sociopathic tendencies. They already had enough salarians to meet that particular quota.
His evaluation had been favorable. Even now, with the beacon destroyed, that hadn't changed. But now they had much larger problems than whether or not a human should be inducted into the Spectres. Now they were looking at an invasion, led by one of their own, one of their best.
And he couldn't help but think that Saren knew them all well enough he'd make sure there wasn't a damn thing they could do until it was too late to stop him. For all that C-Sec complained that the Spectres weren't much better than criminals themselves, every Spectre knew who held their leash.
It was a long leash, sure, but sometimes that collar was tight enough to choke.
[Mass Effect]
There was a noise.
It was the first thing she noted, because her head felt like someone had shoved a quarter-pound of gravel inside her skull and given it a good shake. The noise made it feel like someone was still shaking it.
She was halfway off the table, intending to make it stop right now, when she realized what she was hearing was a turian vocalization. Her head hurt too much to try to interpret it, but Shepard slumped back to the table in recognition that it wasn't a threat.
It took a few seconds longer to recall that it was Nihlus, still more to remember why she was in the medbay.
By that time, Dr. Chakwas had rounded the table. "You had us worried there, Shepard," she said lightly. "How are you feeling?"
Shepard considered the question. "Like I've discovered what it's like to be a biotic with a badly synced amp," she decided aloud. "Some muscle stiffness, but primarily a migraine. Light and sound sensitivity, but only limited nausea."
She looked up to find Chakwas smiling at her. "I see someone has trained you well," she remarked. "Usually I find resistance to even the idea that soldiers aren't invincible. Or at least don't regenerate like krogan."
Shepard made the mistake of chuckling, then had to clutch at her head. "Ah-hah," she said when she caught her breath again. "Way, way back, had a doctor that said we could pull the, ah, "macho bullshit" routine with everything except possible internal bleeding of any kind. Then you really might feel fine and slump over dead an hour later."
"Very true," Chakwas replied. "However, despite being in a coma for fifteen hours, my state-of-the-art medbay says there's nothing wrong with you."
"Nothing?" Nihlus rumbled.
Chakwas stepped back and shifted so that her back wasn't to the turian. "Nothing. No swelling or bleeding to explain the loss of consciousness, but the scans did pick of heightened neural activity."
"Dreaming?" Shepard asked.
Chakwas shook her head. "Not quite. It was more similar to scans taken during asari neural entanglement. Something happened down there, with the beacon."
"I think we-or rather Kaiden-must have activated it. And it tried to broadcast its message, which may or may not have worked out better with a biotic."
Nihlus regarded her curiously, head titled to one side. "You think it activated because he was a biotic?"
"It remained dormant while the researchers were studying it and when it was removed from the site, so it obviously wasn't a proximity trigger," Shepard pointed out. "And while human biotics aren't telepathic, their brain read-outs are similar to asari, who can share memories." And then it was her turn to tilt her head thoughtfully.
"What is it?" Nihlus asked, mandibles flaring slightly.
"That scientist, the one who was talking about the end of the age of humanity. Dr. Manuel. The woman said they'd thought he had a stroke, that he'd always been unstable. What if he wasn't? What if he was the first to interact with the beacon? He could have been a biotic. It's possible that the beacon's message might have been clearer for him."
"It's possible," Nihlus conceded, leaning back against the wall. "But we won't have an opportunity to replicate the experiment. After you collapsed, the beacon exploded. I can have someone locate him and question him, if you think it would help."
Shepard was still caught on 'the beacon exploded.' "The retrieval mission was a failure, then," she said tonelessly.
"We brought the fragments aboard, but it's unlikely that they'll be able to restore functionality," Nihlus said, but he sounded more frustrated than upset.
Which was fine. She'd felt her expression shut down as anger boiled beneath the seamless facade. All those lives destroyed and for what? An objective they hadn't even obtained. It was one thing to spend and gain, because that was what war was, another to waste.
"So, what was the message?" Nihlus asked her and she met his eyes, green very vivid against the black of his sclera.
"It's a warning. Or at least it seems to be. Think of it as uploading to an incompatible device. I think the data was corrupted during the transfer. Either that, or the Protheans could comprehend at speeds a human mind can't. So all I come away with are images of destruction, caused by an unidentifiable synthetic race, and an impression of an enemy terrible enough to put the fear of God into a race that built the Citadel and the mass relays. But I can't imagine why that would be important enough to draw the geth from behind the Veil. Or why it would inspire a Spectre to cooperate with them. What do you know about the end of the Prothean empire?"
Nihlus shook his head. "Not enough to give you a good answer. To me, Protheans were always more of a curiosity than anything else. There are more pressing problems for a Spectre than the mysteries of a race that lived 50,000 years ago. Usually illegal trade in their artifacts," he said with a touch of his usual humor. But that quickly turned black. "As for Saren...," his subharmonics rumbled ominously. "I haven't tried to raise him. We'll save that for the Council."
Shepard heard the doors hiss open and she turned to see Anderson come in the door.
"Sir," she said, coming to attention and not covering her wince very well.
"Sit down, Shepard. I'm glad to see you're up, but no need to press our luck."
Shepard sunk obediently back down to the table.
"Dr. Chakwas, I hate to kick you out of your own medbay, but I need to speak to these two in private."
"No need to apologize, Captain. It will give me a good opportunity to go assure Kaidan and our new Gunnery Chief that the Commander has come to no lasting harm."
When the doors had slid shut behind the doctor, Anderson turned back to them. "Well, I'm not going to lie. It could have been much worse. But the fact that I'm expecting the geth invasion to overshadow the destruction of the beacon isn't a good thing. And the Council will want answers for all of it. Including Saren."
Shepard had an opportunity to hear what an incredulous snort sounded like coming from a turian. It involved a good deal more vibration than its human counterpart, but it was recognizable. "All we know now is that Saren was on-planet and, unless he has gotten very careless, he staged an ambush for us using geth forces. There's nothing like turian honesty, but I doubt Saren will confess simply because the Council asks."
"What about his motive?" Anderson asked. "Anything about the beacon indicate why Saren might want it?"
"It might have been the geth who wanted it," Shepard pointed out. "Just because Saren was there isn't enough reason to assume that he was leading the geth. He could just be cooperating with their goals to achieve his own. What I don't understand is why they left the beacon behind at all. Saren obviously reached it first and unless turians have suddenly developed an unprecedented ability to manipulate gravity, he left that port by more conventional means. Even if he managed to activate the beacon, why leave it behind?"
"He might have assumed that it would kill any human that tried to use it," Nihlus said thoughtfully. "Or maybe when he tried retrieving the message all he got was garbled data, just like you did."
"What's this about data?" Anderson asked, looking thoroughly unconvinced by her argument that there was no reason to assume the Saren was in a position to command the geth.
"The reason I collapsed. The Prothean beacon transferred a message. Unfortunately, I don't think it was designed for human brains. Red skies, destruction, fleeing that destruction. A lot of screaming, synthetics slaughtering an organic race." Shepard shook her head, "It's not very useful. Nothing I would stage an invasion for."
Anderson made a thoughtful sound. "No. But we have no guarantee that was the only information stored on the beacon. Lost Prothean technology? Blueprints for some ancient weapon of mass destruction? It's possible that Saren took whatever it was and left only the warning, because he thought he didn't need it."
Shepard and Nihlus exchanged a glance. "Possible," the turian conceded.
"Probable," Captain Anderson countered. "I know Saren. I know his reputation, his politics. He believes humans are a blight on the galaxy. This attack was an act of war! He has the secrets from the beacon. He has an army of geth at his command. And he won't stop until he's wiped humanity from the face of the galaxy."
"I don't know if I'd go that far, but I do agree that Saren needs to be stopped. Which will be difficult. We'll need Council support to do it," Nihlus said.
"Which will be difficult," Shepard echoed. "Our evidence is mostly circumstantial."
"Still, we have to try," Captain Anderson said firmly. "I'll contact the ambassador and see if he can get us an audience with the Council. He'll want to see us as soon as we reach the Citadel. We should be getting close, report to the bridge as soon as you can."
When Anderson had left, Shepard glanced over at Nihlus, who had his mandibles flared aggressively. "I don't think your Alliance really understands what Spectre status means to the rest of the galaxy," he said when he caught her looking. "Spectres are invested with enough autonomy that even holding one requires a unanimous decision from the Council. The vetting process that your ambassador has been complaining about is as long as it is because of how difficult it is to get all three Counselors to agree to declare someone rogue. Saren's been a Spectre a long time. Not only is his service record against us, but he's also got resources: ships, money, and connections. Hunting him will be very difficult."
"I don't disagree. But those are Captain Anderson's orders. And we have limited options."
"Every Spectre has a C-Sec liaison. I'll contact mine, see if they can't unearth something incriminating. Unfortunately, there's a lot of legal leeway for a Spectre and Saren isn't careless enough to leave behind flashing neon signs that say, 'Planning geth invasion of human colony, galactic domination to follow.'"
"We're alive, aren't we?" Shepard asked, sliding from the table. "That's careless enough for me."
[Mass Effect]
She spent the brief period before docking touching base with what was left of the ground team. Kaidan had gotten a confirmation that the Alliance follow-up had retrieved Jenkin's body and Williams had gotten the news that there had been survivors from her garrison further from the geth drop-site. It was better than a complete slaughter, but not by much. So the Marine was grateful to have been brought aboard by Anderson, to have an enemy to that, however difficult, could be beaten. Not like those left planetside, who would have to confront the reality of their comrade's deaths in the empty racks, the silent rooms, and the smoldering ruins.
"Just in time," Joker said as she drew abreast of his station. "I was just about to bring us in to the Citadel. See that taxpayer money at work."
For some of the crew, it was their first sight of the Citadel and Shepard heard them behind her, clustering at the viewports. It was a compelling sight, like a flower unfolding out of the light of the Serpent Nebula, but it was one she'd seen. And even if she hadn't, it was below her dignity as an officer to gawk. Even at the Destiny Ascension, which was massive but wholly lacking in the sleek, raptorial lines of turian or human ships. Some things were flattered by the gracious, gentle curves of asari architecture. Starships were not one of them.
When they'd docked, Nihlus had been summoned to give a report to the Council in person, leaving Shepard, Anderson, and the rest of the ground team from Eden Prime to Udina.
Shepard understood intellectually why Udina had been chosen as humanity's ambassador. Aside from his willingness to live and work among aliens, he was a gifted linguist-universal translators were the product of the asari and therefore not considered wholly trustworthy in high-stakes politics-and had a sound grasp of macroeconomics. It had also been felt that his tenacity and aggression would present a very clear picture of humanity's strength and make it clear to other species that humanity was not a race to be trifled with.
Which was sound enough in theory, but in practice Udina was grating and did not help the impression that humanity was a bit of a bully.
Her expression betrayed none of this as she watched the ambassador's interview with the Council, because whatever her personal feelings about him, he'd forced the Council to hold a hearing concerning their top agent in the brief period between Captain Anderson's contact and their arrival at the Presidium. Gracious he was not, but his effectiveness was why he remained ambassador.
She held on tight to that thought as Udina turned his frustration from the unproductive meeting on them.
"The mission on Eden Prime was a chance to prove you could get the job done, Commander. Don't make the mistake of thinking that other candidates weren't considered for the opportunity to become humanity's first Spectre, many of whom active Spectres agreed to sponsor if we decided on them. Almost all of them had less controversy surrounding their career. All of them presented less of a political risk. But we settled on you because you possessed what intel judged to be the most important commonality between the Council agents we are aware of-the ability to get things done. And the one time the whole galaxy has its eyes fixed on you, you fail."
Shepard didn't think even she could apologize for not anticipating a geth invasion without sounding sarcastic, so she kept a diplomatic silence.
Nihlus had been right to say that the Systems Alliance didn't understand what being a Spectre meant to the rest of the galaxy. There were more rumors about the agents of the Council than verifiable fact and no one had seen fit to issue humanity a statement detailing how they were selected, how their missions were assigned, or even how many of them were active in Council space. Most of what they knew about them came from diligent efforts to separate fact from fable on the part of Alliance intel and the clauses that dealt with them in the treaty that had made humanity a Council race.
Their final analysis had landed somewhere in the midst of peacekeeper, spec-ops operative, and spook, so Shepard didn't doubt they'd had trouble finding someone to fill the role.
"That was Saren's fault, not hers," Captain Anderson said, coming to her defense when it was clear she wasn't going to do it herself.
"Then we better hope, " Udina replied sharply, "that the C-Sec investigation turns up evidence to support our accusations. Otherwise the Council might use this excuse to not only deny you entrance into the Spectres, but also to delay having anyhuman Spectres." His eyes lingered strangely on Anderson as he said it. "Come with me, Captain. I want to go over a few things before the hearing. Shepard-you and the others can meet us at the Citadel Tower. Top level. I'll make sure you have clearance to get in."
Shepard nodded sharply, then checked the time. Several hours before the hearing began. "Williams, Kaidan, we have some time. If you'd like to do the tourist thing, we'll rendezvous at the base of the Tower a half hour before the hearing is scheduled to open. I'd advise you to take the chance-casual tourists aren't allowed on the Presidium and the Commons are stunning."
"What about you, Commander?" Williams asked.
"Something similar. Dismissed."
Not that she didn't appreciate the view from the Presidium's balconies-there was something breathtaking about the sharp contrast between the sleek white curves, all modern efficiency, against the tranquil lakes and softly rustling foliage of trees carefully chosen from the far reaches of the inhabited galaxy. But admiring the landscape fell below assessing her battlefield on her list of priorities. And, happily enough, it was only a short walk to the Executor's office.
She didn't expect to be able to secure an audience with the Executor easily, as he was a being in charge of a force of two hundred thousand officers, not what passed for law enforcement on a rim world, but such offices were generally staffed with underlings who could at least point her in the right direction for an update on the investigation into Saren.
She was therefore very surprised to discover only one turian in the expansive office, the other workstations empty, their holographic interfaces dormant.
Judging social hierarchy by the layout of a room was sometimes tricky once out of human-dominated space, but a necessary skill when bursting into rooms and prioritizing targets. In an Alliance office, the large desk that greeted the door would have housed the equivalent of the asari receptionist stationed outside the embassies. Someone to restrict access to the person in charge. But C-Sec was turian-dominated and turians were a high power distance culture in some ways, with every citizen acutely aware of their place in the social hierarchy; a turian who had no business seeing the Executor simply wouldn't and those that did would be sharply aware that they were imposing on his time.
Still, with the asari, volus, elcor, and humans on the Citadel, she would be surprised if they hadn't taken some measures. Unless doing so would be construed as a deliberate insult.
As interesting as she found these sorts of considerations, she was glad to stand far enough outside the realm of interplanetary politics to make observations and rest safe in the knowledge that in a few days she would return to the much simpler politics of shooting things.
He glanced up as the door hissed shut behind her. "Commander Shepard. I didn't expect to see you here. Did Ambassador Udina send you?"
"No, sir," she ventured. "I'm afraid you have the advantage."
"Venari Pallin, Executor for Citadel Security. If you're not here for Udina, what brings you to C-Sec?"
"To see if any progress had been made on the Saren investigation."
"Commander, I am not in the habit of releasing information about ongoing investigations," Pallin replied. His deep, growling voice and underlying subharmonics made it difficult to isolate tone, but she thought he sounded irritated. "If you make Spectre, I'll be obliged to answer your questions. Until then, you're not above the rules."
It actually hadn't occurred to Shepard that the information wouldn't be released to her. She'd been an N7 for a long time, which meant that provided she had a substantive reason, most files in Alliance Space opened for her. It was habit to expect answers from official sources, but this was actually a little mortifying. She hadn't meant to presume, but here she had. "I apologize, sir," she said stiffly. "I had no intentions of questioning your integrity."
Pallin regarded her levelly for a long, silent moment. He was a striking turian, his colony markings a powdery blue that spread across his face and crest like the markings on a moth's wings. Shepard reminded herself sternly that even thinking of her habit as 'birdwatching' was enough to start a fight-or a lawsuit-if she said it aloud. People-watching was stressful, but from the moment she'd stepped onto her first hub world, she'd found that watching turians, salarians, krogans-asari had too much in common with humans and hanar, elcor too little-was relaxing.
It was also shameless and self-indulgent, and if she was going to be spending more time working alongside them rather than shooting them, it needed to stop.
"I'm very sorry to have wasted your time, Executor," she said and turned to leave.
"The detective we have on it is very good," Pallin said. "Also a little unorthodox, which is probably for the best when it comes to dealing with a Spectre. Especially a Spectre like Saren, who doesn't even give his liaison a courtesy heads-up before he does things we have to clean up after. Or who drops in and takes one of our suspects into his own custody whenever he feels like it, without so much as an explanation. I've worked in C-Sec for thirty years and never had to break the law to do my job. Not once. Which is why I don't like the idea that there are people exempt from them. Accountability should exist on all levels, not just where it's convenient."
Shepard turned back to face Pallin, who was watching her carefully. Testing the waters, she thought, measuring her reply. "I don't think you're wrong," she said softly.
"Oh?"
"In a perfect galaxy, there would exist a law system that was capable of addressing any and every situation. One that was swift, efficient, and never incorrect in its judgment. But because we live in a galaxy that evolves more swiftly than the laws, because we have criminals who are capable of manipulating the system for their own ends, and because justice must be slow and meticulous for fear of being wrong, there will always be exceptional circumstances. And the Council must be capable of addressing those circumstances."
"Hence the Spectres?"
"Hence the Spectres as I understand them," Shepard replied. "Though 'necessary,' which I think they are, isn't the same as 'immune to corruption,' which I think they aren't."
"Even when we suspect corruption, it's very rare that we're allowed to investigate," Pallin remarked, locking his fingers beneath his jaw, spreading his elbows wider on his desk to make the position more comfortable.
"Do you really want to know exactly what your government condones while you aren't looking?" Shepard asking with a tight, slightly bitter smile. "People-turians, humans, asari-need their illusions. They need to believe in their government."
"You might have a point," Pallin conceded. "But I don't have to like it. It was...interesting, Commander," he said, straightening. "I hope you have a pleasant day."