Yes, I know I jump from past to present tense. I try to keep it consistent between viewpoints: Aleks is always in past tense, Jason, Kevin and Sandra are all present tense. I'm still experimenting with Shepard.

I was actually worried about having enough content for this chapter, but it worked out to actually the longest chapter so far.

7: Instigating Saren 33 1/3
Aleks

"Aleks, run!" Jason shouted at me. He was already at the door.

I couldn't move. It's not a physical thing, though it certainly felt like it. There was a krogan coming toward me and he was going to rip me to very small pieces but I couldn't move. It shouldn't have been more terrifying, but some part of my brain decided that the spot behind the table was a safer place to be.

"Damn it, Aleks, you need to move now or you're dead!"

I would say that my life flashed before my eyes, that I didn't want to die, that I had so much to live for and my family would miss me dearly. And it did, for a brief moment. For a brief moment I was terrified and horribly sad that I was about to be killed.

"Aleks, toss me the gun! Toss me the goddamn gun!"

I wanted to. I really wanted to throw the pistol over to Jason. That would give us a fighting chance. But I couldn't do it. The pistol fell from my hands and clattered to the floor.

"Fuck!"

I heard a deafening roar, quite clearly that of a krogan, and I closed my eyes. There were sounds of struggle, a loud impact, maybe a smashed table, then a single shotgun blast.

I opened my eyes and looked down. Surprisingly, my chest was not blown out. I feel a bit wet down below, and I'm actually relieved when I find out what it is. Not blood. I'm not dead.

Wordlessly, I stumbled over to the bar and searched for a non-broken bottle. The first one I grab is this fancy curvy thing with alien letters all over it. I opened the cap and guzzled it back. The drink burned, but I barely felt it. It was sweet, but I didn't taste it.

I tried to ignore the man I shot dead three metres away on the bar.

Jason

"Is he going to be alright?" Shepard asks, motioning to Aleks.

"It's the first time. It's hard," I reply, and she nods agreement. "Do what you've got to do. I'll talk to him."

Shepard takes her team to do their thing, and I sit down beside Aleks. He's staring straight ahead, still trying to drink from an empty bottle. I've seen that look before. "Aleks. Hey, Aleks!"

"I was shot at. I killed a man. I almost died," he replies, matter-of-factly but voice trembling.

"That's what combat is like," I reply. "Someone's trying to kill you. It's him or you. You've got to act, you've got to kill or be killed."

"I..." he trails off.

"Look, this isn't the time, Aleks," I say as gently as possible... which is not very. "We're not done yet. We've got a quarian to save. You need to get up, pick up that gun and move."

"Wha..."

"Aleks, I've been there. I didn't have the luxury of sitting down, having a drink right then and there. I had to keep moving and I had to deal with it later. And I kept moving, and I kept going, and I dealt with it later."

"What, you want me to just forget?" He turns to look at me, rage burning in his eyes. I think.

"No, you don't just forget," I reply, choosing my words carefully. "You push it to the back of your mind, save it for later. Right now you don't have time to ponder. You've got to push on and keep going."

He doesn't reply, so I add, "Aleks, whatever you think, you did good. Now you've got to keep doing good until this is over. Then you can ponder. Not now. Later."

"Later?"

I nod. "Yeah. Right now, we go save that quarian. Later, you can talk it out with me, talk it out with a shrink, get an asari hooker, get hammered, whatever the fuck you want. Right now, we go save that quarian."

"Save that quarian?"

I hand him the pistol, grip first. "You can do this."

"I can do this," he replies, taking it.

"Hey, we're not done back here!" Shepard shouts from the back room. Three very scared men run out of the room, then the sound of gunfire erupts from the room.

Aleks starts moving toward the back, but I stop him. "Shepard's got it covered."

Kevin's already picked up a pistol. I ask him, "Do you know how to use that?"

"In theory," he replies. He's keeping it pointed at the floor and his finger's off the trigger, so I leave him alone.

I pick up a pistol from one of the dead thugs and offer it to Sandra.

"I don't like guns," she says, pushing it away.

"You gonna fight with your fists?" I ask her.

Reluctantly, she takes it. Then she sweeps me and Kevin with her finger on the trigger.

I grab her arm and point it to the floor. "Hey, point it in a safe direction. Finger off the trigger until you're ready to shoot."

"I'm sorry," she replies sheepishly. "This is why I shouldn't have guns."

"You're fine. Just remember those two rules and you'll be okay."

I'm about to grab the least bloody pistol left on the floor when I spot something better. I pick up the shotgun and rack it. Action seems to be okay, though I have no idea if it's anything like a normal shotgun.

"We're still not done yet!" Shepard shouts from the back room. There's a single shotgun blast, and she corrects herself. "Now we're done."

"Hey, aren't there supposed to be more thugs right about now?" Kevin mentions.

I glare at him. "Don't jinx it."

Shepard steps out of the back room, the rest of her squad behind her. I notice that Wrex has more than a little bit of blood on him. Shepard nods at us. "Let's get that quarian."

Shepard

"I count two salarians, a turian... and our quarian," Garrus reported.

I nodded and ordered, "Move to cover. Quick and quiet."

Then I turned to the civvies. "You four just stay out of the way."

"But-" the girl began to complain.

"We'll watch her six... their six. Just in case there's more thugs," the big guy assuaged. Works for me.

I turned my attention back to the scene in front of us. Drawing my rifle, I crept up and took cover behind a crate. Garrus was behind us, Wrex on my left, and Williams and Alenko behind a crate ahead of me. The quarian was maybe ten metres away, and surrounded by two salarians and a turian. All were fully armoured and carried either a pistol or an assault rifle.

I brought up my omni-tool and activated the audio booster.

"Did you bring it?" the turian asked.

"Where's the Shadow Broker?" the quarian asked, suspicious. Maybe she's smarter than I thought. "Where's Fist?"

"They'll be here," the turian assured her, feeling her up. "Where's the evidence?"

The quarian slapped his hand away. "No way. The deal's off."

The turian motioned to the salarians. Before they could do anything, the quarian dove to the side and one of the salarian's pistols exploded. Sabotage? Tech mine?

Combat is loud. Really loud. I quickly deactivated the audio booster and shouldered my rifle. I managed to get three shots off at one of the salarians before the battle was over. Garrus put a round straight through his fellow turian's head, Williams shredded the defenseless salarian and Wrex tore apart the other one. Alenko didn't get to do anything at all.

"Well, that was remarkably anticlimactic," the big guy commented from behind us. "Area clear?"

"Area clear!" I reply, and the four appear over the top of the staircase.

"Fist set me up!" the quarian shouted angrily. Okay, definitely a she, unless quarians are way different than us. Those exaggerated curves, that unplacably accented voice... no, no mind wandering. "I knew I couldn't trust him!"

"Were you hurt in the fight?"

"I know how to look after myself," she reassured us. "Not that I don't appreciate the help. Who are you?"

"My name's Shepard. I'm looking for evidence-"

"-to prove Shepard's a traitor," the nerdy kid finished.

The quarian looked at us oddly before continuing, "Then I have a chance-"

"-to repay you for saving my life," the nerdy kid finished again.

She glared at him. "But not here. I need to go-"

"-to the bathroom," the nerdy kid finished. Seeing our odd looks, he answered, "What? She was going to say "to somewhere safe", I mean, that's obvious even if you don't know the lines. Super cliched. I was just making things a little more entertaining."

"Please don't," I told him.

"The ambassador's office!" Alenko suggested. "It's safe-"

"Alenko, shut up!" I shouted.

Sandra

We ended up at the ambassador's office anyway. Oh, and in the long elevator ride Shepard gave us these weird little earpiece things turned out to be translators. She explained how to use them, which is pretty simple actually. You basically just have conversations like normal and everything is automatic and natural. Even the lip sync, somehow.

"You're not making my life easier, Shepard," Udina whines. "Firefights in the wards, an all out assault on Chora's Den, do you know how many calls I'm going to have to make?"

"She also found evidence," I mention. He doesn't care, because he's Ambassador Udina: number one jerk and pain in the you know where in the whole series.

Then he notices Tali. "Who's this? A Quarian?"

"Racist," I mutter.

"Racist, but no unusually so," Kevin whispers. "Everyone hates the Quarians."

"Everyone hates the people that lost their homeworld?"

"Yeah, but it's easier to dismiss them than to deal with them. Welcome to realpolitik." Ugh. Politics. I don't even want to think about it.

"Shepard, why are these civilians still here?" Udina asks. Of course that jerk is going to try to cut us out.

"These civilians were instrumental in the investigation," Shepard winks at us. I know she's just doing this to spite Udina, but it feels all warm and fuzzy the same. "They were an invaluable addition to my team."

"Shepard, what the hell were you doing?" Udina exclaims.

"You wanted evidence, this is it." Shepard motions for Tali to begin.

"You'd better start at the beginning, miss..."

"My name is Zorah. Tali'Zorah. Tali'Zorah nar Rayya. Tali'Zorah vas Normandy vas Neema nar Rayya. Tali'Zorah vas Normandy vas Neema nar Rayya sar Rael'Zorah vas Rayya nar Salyut sel Veya'Jarva vas Rayya nar Ilasi dal Hatar Khela ver Sar'ley Quaria."

Everyone's favorite Quarian! Except maybe for Kal'Reegar. He's so awesome.

"We don't see many Quarians here," Udina interrupts. "Why did you leave the flotilla?"

"For my pilgrimage?" Tali replies questioningly. "You know, the one all Quarians do? How do you not know these things? You are representative of humanity to the galaxy!"

"Tali, I think this is exposition," Shepard tells her. "Just explain it."

"The pilgrimage is the Quarian rite of passage into adulthood. When we reach maturity, we leave the ships of our parents and our people behind. Alone, or sometimes with other Quarians on their pilgrimage, we search the stars, only returning to the flotilla once we have discovered something of value. In this way, we prove ourselves worthy of adulthood. The-"

Shepard stops her. "Okay, that's enough backstory for now. What kind of evidence did you find? How did you get it?"

Tali replies, "During my travels, I began hearing reports of Geth. As you know, since they drove my people out of exile, the Geth have never ventured outside the veil. I was curious."

"Go on."

"I tracked a patrol of Geth to an uncharted world. I waited for one to become separated from its unit. Then I disabled it and removed its memory core."

"Wait, when did you do this?" Ash interrupts. Stupid racist. "Because it's been maybe a day or two since we left Eden Prime. So you must have made it from there to here, got shot, went to the clinic, set up the deal, and been ambushed in the space of about twenty-four hours."

Tali glares at her through her mask for a moment before she continues. "Most of the core was wiped clean, but I salvaged something from its audio banks."

"Baby, baby..." Ew, it's Justin Bieber. Everyone around me cringes in discust, horror, and pain.

Tali quickly shuts it off. "Oh, wait, that's my music collection. Sorry, I'm kind of disorganized right now. I have two drives installed and I'm still moving everything over. Ah, here it is."

"Eden Prime was a major victory!" Saren's voice proclaims. "The beacon has brought us one step closer to finding the Conduit."

"That's Saren's voice!" Captain Anderson practically shouts. "This circumstantial, inconclusive, and easily forged evidence proves irrefutably that he was working with the Geth!"

"There's more, if you're willing to be patient," Tali chides before resuming the recording.

"And one step closer to the return of the Reapers." And that's Matriarch Benezia!

"I don't recognize that other voice, the one talking about Reapers," Udina says. Of course you don't, you're a jerk and an idiot and you know nothing!

"I do!" Kevin exclaims. "It's Marina Sirtis!"

The alien future people give him odd looks, so he quickly explains, "You know, Deanna Troi from TNG? She did other roles, too, like Matriarch Benezia in Mass Effect and the new Mossad Director on NCIS."

"Reapers," Shepard mutters, ignoring Kevin. "I feel like I've heard that name before."

Tali explains, "According to the memory core, Reapers were a hyper-advanced machine race that existed fifty thousand years ago. The Reapers hunted the Protheans to total extinction and then they vanished! At least, that's what the Geth believe."

"Sounds a little far-fetched," Udina dismisses.

At that moment, I lose it. "Of course it sounds far-fetched to you, because it means more calls and paperwork and it eats up your worthless time! Maybe if you listened to important things instead of worrying about how to look good or whatever it is you do here the galaxy wouldn't end horribly and we could actually win and stuff. So take that you, uh, you, uh, you jerk!"

"Stand down, Williams!" Shepard snaps.

"That's not me, Commander," the Chief says, annoyed. "Why do you always blame me?"

"Can we please just continue?" Garrus... pleads? That sounds like a pleading tone. Garrus pleading, now that just doesn't seem right for some reason. But maybe it's just my translator.

"The Geth are working with Saren to bring back the Reapers, who wiped out the Protheans fifty thousand years ago, because they believe they're some kind of machine god, and we need to find this Conduit so we don't all die," I summarize.

"We need to present this to the Council right away!" Udina exclaims.

"Oh, of course now you want to present it!"

"Sandra!" What?

To her credit, Ash owns up right away. "That one actually was me."

"So, is Tali joining us?" I ask.

Shepard shrugs. "It depends. What about your pilgrimage?"

"The pilgrimage demonstrates that we are able to put the greater good ahead of ourselves. What kind of Quarian would I be if I turned down the opportunity to save the galaxy and be part of the main cast of all three games?"

"Welcome aboard, Miss Zorah. Now, let's go present that evidence."

"Wait! Anderson and I have to make preparations!" Udina protests.

"What, do you plug in the projector?" me and Ash quip at the same time. I high-five her and immediately regret it. She's a lot stronger than I am, and my hand hurts even though I'm wearing armored gloves.

Kevin

This place is nice. I mean, really nice. I'm actually not sure how this structure is oriented in relation to the rest of the Citadel. The windows give a good view of the stars, but you can't see any part of the station. The ceiling is extremely high, and there are plenty of balconies and terraces overlooking the main chamber. I think there's a level below us, too, but I'm not sure.

In addition to being a total deathtrap in the event of attack, this place must have been insanely expensive to build. I mean, live plants, in space. You want to generate oxygen, you don't use trees. That's what algae and grasses are for. I would say "bleed it out of the peasants", but I know that this entire place was built as a trap by an ancient race of genocidal machines and maintained by a different race of effective automatons. So in this rare case, it's actually not true.

"Come on, Kevin, it's starting!" Sandra exclaims. "Don't just stand there!"

Right, the important cutscene. As I climb up the steps, I slide my phone out of my pocket.

"The fuck you doing with that?" Jason asks.

I explain my logic. "History's about to be made. I'm recording it for posterity."

"You know everyone's recording it with technology that isn't centuries out of date, right?"

Damn it! Embarrassed, I slide the phone back into my pocket. "Fuck you."

"You wanted proof, there it is!" Udina says to the Council, jabbing a finger into the air.

"This evidence is irrefutable, Ambassador," the turian councillor confirms.

That's something that always bothered me. How is this evidence so decisive? Funnelling money into nowhere is circumstantial, but it's clear evidence. It's pretty hard to fake something like that. On the other hand, a voice recording with an unknown audit trail? Five minutes in the futuristic version of Audacity and you're good to go.

If the software is that good, however, it might be designed to leave some kind of aural watermark to prevent this from happening. Some colour laser printers actually mark pages with tiny yellow dots as an anti-counterfeit measure. Not like you could print anything you could pass off as currency these days, especially with the new polymer bills around. Perhaps future-Audacity might have something like that, but I bet there's either a competitor from the Terminus or a cracked version somewhere without the protection.

But for the sake of argument, let's assume that the evidence is real. Saren actually said those words and we can confirm that Saren actually said what he did. I'll admit that his wording isn't exactly vague, but maybe he's just fooling around with the microphone. It has happened- Reagan declaring the Soviet Union illegal for example. Saren is not the joking type, but he might be able to pass it off as some kind of undercover operation. Given the Council's former faith in Saren, they might believe him too.

"Matriarchs are powerful asari who have entered the final stage of their lives," the asari councillor (how appropriate) explains. Whoa, I've zoned out. Okay, I don't think I've missed anything important. "Revered for their wisdom and experience, they serve as guides and mentors to my people."

I mutter, "Which I do. At this bar."

"What?" Aleks whispers. I guess he heard me.

"Matriarch Aethyta," I explain quietly.

"...will make a formidable ally for Saren," the asari councillor finishes. I'm tempted to call her Tevos, but I don't remember if this is Tevos or her predecessor.

"I'm more interested in the reapers," the salarian councillor says. "What do you know about them?"

That they make no sense. Blame EA for that one, rushing ME3 and giving us a colossal shitfuck of an ending that only raises more questions, among other screwups. From what we know, reapers are like some kind of twisted logic best explained in terms of Kanye West. Yo dawg, we herd u don't liek being killed by synthetics so we're gonna kill you by synthetics so you don't get killed by synthetics.

"The reapers were an ancient race of machines that wiped out the protheans," Anderson explains. "Then they vanished."

"The geth believe the reapers are gods," Shepard adds. Well, you're half right. "And Saren is the prophet for their return."

"We think the Conduit is the key to bringing them back," Anderson finishes. "Saren's searching for it. That's why he attacked Eden Prime."

"Do we even know what this Conduit is?" That's the salarian councillor again.

Thanks Bioware for naming him Valern even though basically everyone had assigned that name to the turian councillor. I mean, Sparatus is a badass name, but look how much doesn't work now! It's like you broke compatibility for no good reason!

And I just missed what Shepard said.

"Listen to what you're saying!" And there's the turian councillor which is maybe Sparatus, I can't remember. If that's Tevos, then that's Valern and Sparatus. If that's not Tevos, then I don't know. "Saren wants to bring back machines that wiped out all life in the galaxy? Impossible. It has to be. If they were real we'd have found something."

Actually, he has a point. Things don't just disappear. I've always maintained an argument against the ancient astronauts whackjobs which goes something like this: If they existed, we would have found evidence. An empty fuel tank. Radioisotopes from nuclear propulsion. Hell, a dropped candy wrapper. Even godlike aliens aren't perfect. Sooner or later they'll slip up and sooner or later we'll find something.

The counter-argument is that we have found evidence and mistook it for something else. This is a valid argument, and though we haven't seen anything conclusive on boring real Earth, that is most likely the case here. This is a prothean artifact. This is a geth creation. But in this case it's really forcing the evidence to fit the conclusions. Which is almost guaranteed to happen in certain contexts, but that's another story.

The other counter-argument is the needle in the proverbial haystack. But we've done a lot of excavation, and in sites that they're most likely to have visited. The same applies here, in the Mass Effect world.

And I zoned out again. I lean over to Sandra and whisper, "Hey, what did I miss?"

She replies, "Just Shepard arguing with those dumbos over the reapers."

"That is not good enough!" Udina yells, again pointing at the Council for some reason. "You know he's hiding somewhere in the Traverse, send your fleet in!"

Wow, I forgot how dramatic that guy can get. He's still an asshole, but he's putting on a pretty good show.

"A fleet cannot track down one man," the salarian councillor points out. If I remember correctly, he's ex-STG and knows his stuff.

"A Citadel fleet could secure the entire region, keep the geth from attacking any more of our colonies," Udina argues.

Which is kind of like, uh, asking NATO to keep Norks from attacking Japan. Eh, maybe not the best metaphor.

"Or it could trigger a war with the Terminus Systems," the turian councillor argues. "We won't be dragged into a galactic confrontation over a few dozen human colonies."

And again, despite how much everyone hates him, the turian councillor has a point. The Terminus Systems are a real threat, with a known capacity and known willingness for causing harm. The geth are an unknown, an isolated incident.

In one view, the geth should take priority because they are an unknown, but that's not how a politician thinks. The geth are inconsequential until they make themselves consequential which they have not done yet. Therefore, the geth threat can be ignored and pushed aside to focus on more important issues.

Yes, given what we know, it's stupid. But given the choice between potentially igniting a very costly war and allowing a threat of unknown but probably little consequence to continue, avoiding the war probably seems like a much better option.

"I'm sick of this Council and its anti-human bull-"

The asari councillor cuts Udina off. "Ambassador! There is another solution. A way to stop Saren that does not require fleets or armies."

The turian councillor, of course, objects, and this time I don't agree with him. "No! It's too soon. Humanity is not ready for the responsibilities that come with joining the SpecTRes."

Humans are not a Council race. They -we- are an associate race. The SpecTRes we've seen are all members of a true Council race: the asari, turians, or salarians. Is a human SpecTRe unprecedented because no human has become a SpecTRe before or no member of an associate race has become a SpecTRe before? There is the fanon Blasto, but have their been actual volus, hanar, or elcor SpecTRes in the past? Maybe they haven't because they're not martial races for social and biological reasons, but what about pre-exile quarians?

"Commander Shepard, step forward," the asari councillor ordered. Okay, focus. Thinking to a minimum. This is history being made! Even if it is just history in a video game. Feels real enough, like a real Historica moment, when you're standing a few metres away.

She begins, "It is the decision of the Council that you be granted all the powers and priviliges of the Special Tactics and Reconnaissance branch of the Citadel."

I'm assuming Citadel in this context refers to the Citadel Council government, like the colloquial Washington or The Crown.

"Spectres are not trained, but chosen," the salarian councillor continues. "Individuals forged in the fire of service and and battle, those whose actions elevate them above the rank and file."

Then it goes back to the asari councillor. "SpecTRes are an ideal. A symbol. The embodiment of courage, determination, and self-reliance. They are the right hand of the Council, instruments of our will."

And by self-reliance, we mean you work for free. We don't even supply your equipment. Which strikes me as completely retarded, but that's cost-cutting for you.

The turian councillor picks it up next. "SpecTRes bear a great burden. They are protectors of galactic peace, both our first and last line of defence. The safety of the galaxy is theirs to uphold."

How does "first and last line of defence" work, anyway? You hear it everywhere, but it only makes sense if you don't have any other lines of defence.

"You are the first human SpecTRe, commander," the asari councillor finishes. "This is a great accomplishment for you and your entire species."

Shepard bows her head- is this an asari thing?- and replies, "I'm honoured, Councillor."

As soon as she finishes, a million thoughts start rushing through my head. See, I see stuff and I analyze it. I pick it apart and I try to figure out the background, the inner workings, all that stuff. I see someone, I try to figure out their story. I see a machine, I try to figure out what it does and how it does it. I see a structure, I try to figure out why it's designed that way and if it could be improved. Hell, I can't watch a movie without picking it apart and misquoting TVTropes.

Of course, most of the time my conclusions are somewhere between mostly wrong and batshit insane.

The thing that decides to stick in my head is the word SpecTRe. Number one, it sounds cool, and that's probably why Bioware picked it if we look at the meta-reasoning. Number two, it's presumably a forced contraction of SPECial Tactics and Reconnaissance. Number three, it makes no sense.

The double entendre only works for humans, and only anglophones at that. In galactic standard, it's not going to work out. In Asari or Turian or Salarian or Khelish or Klingon or Goa'uld it's not going to work out. In French or German or Hindi or Japanese it's not going to work out. Even in American English, it becomes an awkward misspelled NASA-style acronym (they use the spelling Specter for the ghost).

So how did the term SpecTRe come about? The only logical explanation is that the term was coined after the full name was translated. Since "Special Tactics and Reconnaissance" is not always contracted, there must be equivalent contractions in other languages without the double meaning that may sound better or worse. Someone came up with the fortuitously convenient Spectre Our translators are programmed to translate that contraction into our colloquial term for convenience.

Looking from the outside in, at the games from the real world, one potential avenue of exploration is foreign translations of the game. If they-

"Hey!" Shepard interrupts. Oh shit, act natural, act natural.

"Uh, congratulations, Commander," I reply.

"Thanks," she replies. She motions to the stairs. "Don't just stand there! We're headed to C-Sec Requisitions."

"Oh, yeah." I start walking.