Absolute Magnitude

-Chapter Seven-

Sentinel Against Disaster (Part I)

The decision of the Council still echoed in her ears hours after the trial had finished, even after she'd reported back to Udina's office after a biometrics assay thorough enough that she was certain that the Citadel could replicate her down to her brain patterns. At least she'd been able to shed her dress uniform for something more comfortable.

The fact that she was the first human Spectre had lost a bit of its prestige and mystery after she'd spent so much time being prodded by asari and salarians, but it had been no clean appointment to begin with. After they'd declared Saren rogue, they'd wanted Nihlus to pursue and apprehend him aboard the Normandy. Udina had protested that handing over the Alliance's extremely expensive frigate for an undetermined length of time went well beyond "reasonable accommodation". She could still hear the tinge of smug self-satisfaction when he'd went on to point out that they would, however, be pleased to entrust her to a human Spectre.

She didn't doubt that they would be made to answer for that particular victory, because not one of the Councilors had looked pleased by being forced to concede a Spectre appointment. Their most immediate retaliation had been to assign Nihlus to accompany her. Supervise her, subvert her command, see her permanently lost before Saren was apprehended were among the likely private instructions he was receiving, but as entertaining as those thoughts were, she'd left them behind as she crossed the ambassador's threshold.

Udina was seated at his desk and merely glanced up as she entered, but Anderson turned from where he'd been enjoying the view from the balcony. "Welcome back, Shepard," he said.

"Sit down," Udina said much more brusquely. "Commander, Anderson will be turning his command of the Normandy over to you."

Shepard's brows furrowed and Anderson answered the question she hadn't yet asked. "If we're really facing a full-scale geth invasion, the Alliance has better uses for me than playing taxi driver for your investigation," he told her not unkindly.

"Once the shakedown cruise was finished and we saw you on your Spectre appointment," Udina said, "Alliance Command always intended to make the Normandy the base of a recon team. That's off the table for the moment. But you're going to need personnel. There's no getting around that."

"Alliance Command contacted one of the Marine companies being deployed into the disputed areas of the Traverse," Anderson continued when Udina fell silent. "They're going to send you a squad, along with the NCOs you'll need to manage the extra personnel. They should arrive within two days, which should give you enough time to requisition any supplies you need."

"Alliance Command has already authorized operational funds for this mission," Udina interjected. "I forwarded you the details on your omnitool."

"Who'll replace me as XO?" Shepard asked as she called up the missive in question, scanning it quickly.

"Command is still debating that," Anderson admitted, "but they'll come to a decision by tonight. Hopefully your XO will arrive before you leave the Citadel. If they don't, other arrangements will be made so that they can rendezvous with the Normandy. I've already declared shore leave for the Normandy's crew before I resigned my command-it might be the last one they get for a while."

"Hopefully we can hunt down Saren quickly," Shepard replied, "but it might be harder to stop whatever he's set in motion with the geth."

"Very true," Anderson conceded, "but I think everyone will sleep a little easier without Saren loose in the galaxy."

After another thirty minutes spent verifying the details of the mission and discussing what little intelligence there was about Saren's movements, Shepard left Udina's office and made her way out of the embassies. Her thoughts were focused inward, but she was too good a soldier to not notice the turian who unfolded himself from where he'd been leaning against the wall.

"Officer Vakarian," she greeted him with some surprise.

"Spectre Shepard," he replied, mandibles set in an expression she hadn't learned yet. Before she could hazard a guess, he blurted, "I'd like to join you. Hunting Saren, I mean."

Shepard blinked at him, for a moment too puzzled to reply. As an officer of the Alliance Navy, she didn't have the requisite authority to invite unsanctioned individuals aboard a prototype ship like the Normandy. At least if she wasn't intending to turn them over for interrogation at a detention facility afterwards. She doubted-or rather, knew-that turian ships weren't unalike the Alliance in that regard. As a Spectre, she likely did, but it remained a fact that while her ground team was lacking at the moment and Vakarian was both disciplined and skilled, he also belonged to C-Sec.

Who likely frowned on their officers haring off across space to hunt rogue Spectres.

"Have you discussed this with the Executor?" she asked him to avoid making a direct answer.

He broke eye-contact, which was answer enough. "It doesn't feel right, to leave it like this," he said after the silence had grown awkward. "To just hand him over to you and wish you luck. And it-," he hesitated, searching for words, "it looks bad. To let humans take care of the barefaced traitor, to pretend he isn't our problem just because you've been assigned to take care of it." He glanced up at her then, eyes glacial blue against deepest black.

Shepard frowned at him for another long moment as she weighed the vast quantities of paperwork and command skepticism that even attempting to bring him aboard might cause against the skills he'd displayed during their one day of acquaintanceship. Then she sighed, because while it might be inconvenient to arrange to second him to her ship, she had no doubt that this would not only earn her his gratitude, but also bear tangible benefits in the way of setting a precedent for cooperation between their species and gaining her a grateful contact in C-Sec.

She was too good a soldier for the emotional appeal alone to sway her, especially as she'd his passion translate directly into recklessness already.

"I haven't eaten yet," Shepard told him, realizing abruptly as she did that it was true and that her last meal had been many hours ago. "Recommend a restaurant. I'll rendezvous with you there in about an hour and a half. You get to treat me to dinner regardless of whether you're allowed to come aboard the Normandy," she told him wryly, "because I can almost guarantee that Udina will not be happy about this. It would be easier if you were a civilian," Shepard continued frankly, "because it will be more difficult to bring you aboard as a member of a foreign military, even if you're acting in the role of a contractor. For now, I'll go speak with Executor Pallin, to see if he'd be willing to grant you an extended leave of absence. I assume you weren't intending to just leave, were you?"

Another sheepish flex of his mandibles. Shepard mastered the urge to pinch the bridge of her nose and resolved to ask Pallin's opinion of bringing Vakarian along before she reached out to any of her contacts. He suggested a restaurant and gave her directions, then they parted ways. The walk to the Executor's office was brief and she found him alone again as the doors hissed open.

He must have seen her eyes sweeping over the empty workstations. "The officers based out of this office are the ones in charge of investigating crime on the Presidium. And most of them are too important to come to us. We go to them instead," he told her. "I received the email. Congratulations, Spectre. Now, what can I do for you?"

"Thank you, Executor. It's about Officer Vakarian."

The executor seemed to settle more resignedly into his chair. "You have some complaint to make?"

"Not at all, sir. Officer Vakarian was essential to the swift resolution of our case against Saren. However, Officer Vakarian has expressed the desire to accompany me on my pursuit of Saren and I'm somewhat at a loss for how to answer him."

Pallin's subharmonics rumbled in a deep sigh. "I'd offer you a chair, but I think they encourage loitering in my office," he said by way of opening. "I can't say I am entirely surprised. When you first came to my office, I told you that Garrus Vakarian was unorthodox. I didn't tell you that he was also young and rash, but if you hadn't figured it out before, you know it now. Do you know the term adjudas?"

"Adjudas, to set oneself aside," Shepard responded, though without the rich subvocal context on the turian term. "It's the core principle of turian society. The welfare of Palavan and all turians as a whole are to come before self-advancement, material gain, or even the physical comfort of an individual."

Pallin nodded, his features betraying no surprise at her response. While the term itself hadn't been used until she'd been in N-school, even basic training covered the aspect of turian mentality that had made them almost as difficult to combat as their overwhelming forces.

"It is our greatest strength," Pallin said, almost reaffirming her thoughts. "Humans are the most competitive sapient race to have achieved spaceflight on their own, which makes you powerfully innovative, but also limits you. Turians are by both nature and training more cooperative. If it had been humans fighting them, I doubt the Unification Wars would have ever ended. A human child is encouraged to become a powerful leader, a turian child is taught to find a good leader. We aren't unlike asari in this. Their Maidens flock to a Matriarch when they've spent the wildest years of their youth; turians look to others higher in the meritocracy for the same kind of guidance. For most, it's a need easily met within the bounds of the Hierarchy. Others, like Garrus Vakarian, find their leaders in unexpected places. And when they do, believing they serve some purpose greater than themselves, adjudas makes them quick to offer to set everything else aside to follow them."

Shepard would agree that the diverse nature of the Systems Alliance would never allow it to form as cohesive a body as the Hierarchy and that their expansion efforts had been uneven due to squabbling between the remnants of Earth nations who hadn't quite left their borders and certainly not their cultures behind. But given that she'd come from Mindoir and enjoyed the freedom that came from being tolerant of aberrant opinions, she couldn't think of it as a bad thing even if it meant Parliament couldn't even agree what shade of white was appropriate for the walls of Arcturus Station.

But she shoved that aside as irreconcilable cultural differences between two races who weren't even formed of the same base proteins and considered what he'd suggested about Vakarian. "Do you think it would be wise to bring him along, if the Alliance agrees to give him clearance?"

"So far as C-Sec is concerned, arrangements can be made for the open cases Vakarian had to put aside when the Saren investigation came down. Since the Normandy was a joint project, the matter of nondisclosure agreements should be less of an issue than it might be. You do know, of course, that you have authority as a Spectre to force the decision through."

"Theoretically," Shepard agreed and said no more on the subject.

"As to whether it would be wise to take Vakarian aboard, I will say that any complaints made about him center on his personality rather than his skills. To a turian, unorthodox is not a compliment."

Shepard nodded thoughtfully. If she was honest with herself, she was a little leery of bringing Vakarian aboard for that very reason. Independent action was to be applauded in its place, but not when badly timed heroics endangered a mission. And other than that dangerously badly-staged rescue of the Wards doctor, he hadn't given her any other reason to mistrust him. She would be bringing him in on something other than orders, however, so if he wasn't willing to abide by her rules he could be shipped back to the Citadel.

"In the event Vakarian is cleared, and even if he isn't, the Normandy isn't really equipped for turian comfort. I'd appreciate advice for provisioning as well as adapting human sleeping quarters to a turian. Spectre Kryik hasn't complained yet, but I doubt he'd say anything even if we asked him to sleep in a hammock like a quarian." Every turian bed she'd ever seen had looked like a huge, deeply padded nest, which made providing them private rooms more space efficient than you'd initially think.

She left the Executor's office with a suggestions for adapting human beds for turian bodies and the contact information for the turian who ran C-Sec Academy's cafeteria. When she explained her dilemma, she extracted a promise to forward meal suggestions to her culinary specialist aboard the Normandy and an offer, once she knew how many she'd need to feed, for an order placed through the same supplier they used. She'd first sent a preliminary communication regarding bringing Vakarian in on the hunt for Saren and by the time she'd cut the call, she had an urgent e-mail requesting a secure holocall. She had to backtrack to Udina's office to make it and by the time she'd finished the first round of defending her judgment she was ten minutes late to the restaurant.

She surveyed the interior with interest, curious to see what his choices said about his character as well. When she'd been on the Citadel before, which had been a stint measured in days, she'd taken her most of her meals with fellow officers in human-managed establishments. This was not the furthest thing from that, but it was still very different. It felt a little like she'd walked into the quintessential intergalactic diner. There was the murmur of conversation and it was full of beings of every race, a fact driven home when it was a hanar that offered to seat her and salarians she glimpsed in the kitchen.

The waitresses, of course, were asari.

Shepard had an opportunity to learn what relief looked like on a turian, the nervous young officer's mandibles relaxing from where they'd been held tight to his jaw.

"My apologies for being late," she said as she slid into the booth and tentacles shifted to offer her a menu. She absently thanked the hanar, whose bioluminescence brightened in reply.

"No, it's fine," Vakarian said. "Bureaucracy, right?"

"Right," she said, but while her tone conveyed amusement, his was shadowed by frustration. "I hope you aren't expecting all the rules to suddenly vanish simply because you're working with a Spectre."

"Vanish, no, but streamlining themselves would be nice," he quipped.

They weren't more than fifteen minutes into the meal, which Shepard was finding both enjoyable and enlightening, when Nihlus strode in. He didn't so much ask permission to join them as look expectantly at Vakarian, who nodded. Able tentacles deftly acquired a chair for him and pressed another menu into service-he ended up ordering some equivalent to deep-fried crickets. Or at least that was what they resembled when they were brought to the table. The turian diet wasn't a surprise to her-they didn't have staple grains, the way humans did, instead basing their diet on meat, tree nuts, insects, and fruit for a protein heavy diet-but it was the first time she'd been asked to sit at a table with someone eating crunchy bugs.

Survival training meant she'd done it herself, but that only made her even queasier, so she did her best not to watch.

"The quarian wants in and the krogan won't leave," he said brusquely and without preamble.

"The quarian?" Shepard asked.

"Says she's an engineer, so she can make herself useful."

Shepard stared at him incredulously, despite giving her a better view than she'd wanted of his eating habits. "A quarian engineer? Short of a batarian engineer, there's no one less likely to be allowed aboard the Normandy."

"It's your ship," Nihlus replied. "And use of it was promised in Council Chambers. They'll find that hard to take back, even if they don't like your decisions."

"Let's not burn my bridges before I know if I have to cross the river again," Shepard told him, giving in to the desire to pinch the bridge of her nose. "Do you want her brought aboard?"

"Our knowledge of the geth is limited," Nihlus pointed out. "This is the closest we'll be able to come to locating an expert without contacting the fleet itself."

"Do you think she'd cooperate?" Shepard asked doubtfully.

"Why wouldn't she?" Vakarian questioned. "We'll be taking care of their problem before it becomes a war with the geth."

The turians had never had a Sun Tzu, their military strength built on the backs of their soldiers, the superiority of their fleet, and their Machiavellian treatment of their enemies. "You don't think that they wouldn't see this as their best opportunity for reclaiming Rannoch? If this escalates into a war, we'll incur all the casualties and expenses while weakening the geth forces enough that the quarians can take the opportunity to cross the Veil and reclaim their homeworld."

Both of the turians regarded her without blinking for a long moment. "Human tactics," Vakarian muttered.

"Why fight a war you can manipulate someone into fighting for you?" Shepard pressed. "What the Fleet can't make itself, it can salvage, and their entire population is mobile."

"I think she'll be useful," Nihlus countered. "She's young, angry, and unlikely to be as ruthless as you are."

Poor Vakarian did his best to be an invisible turian as Shepard and Nihlus held an intense, quiet argument, both of them aware of the possibility of gaining an audience. Nihlus's subharmonics became a violent rumble while Shepard became bitingly polite as she leashed her temper. In the end, Shepard agreed to attempt to gain clearance for the quarian in the understanding that she would not only sign the nondisclosure agreements, but also be brought aboard in the understanding it was as a geth expert. She wouldn't be allowed in the drive core or any of the more sensitive areas of the ship, but the incoming XO would find her a noncritical support position once they had a better idea of her skills.

They came to no agreement about the krogan, but when Shepard sent off her next batch of e-mails, she included Wrex in her request. It came as no surprise to her that his contact came through within hours-the Alliance wasn't above using unaffiliated talent especially when it came so cheaply-but by the time she'd fallen into bed Udina had become involved and there was a vicious debate ongoing about whether a joint operation between races would win humans more galactic support or if it would undermine the success of her mission by laying the credit at the turians' feet.