AN: So it's been a long time. I read this the other day and was inspired to write more. I can't promise that I'll finish it, but maybe - hopefully. Let me address a few things. I started writing this before ME3 came out; some of the plot of my story conflicts with the plot of ME3. So consider this sort of an AU then, I guess. Also I understand BioWare apparently went into some more detail about the Protheans; nothing was known about them when I started writing this. From what I gather, nothing in my story conflicts too heavily with the new cannon but if it does, again, just consider this my interpretation of the Protheans. I like mine better anyway

So here we go!

"Absolutely not!"

"Come now my friend," Ashdod persisted, his gnarled hands stretched out to his sides in exasperation, "be reasonable!"

"I already went along with your stupid plan," Tadosh half-whined, half-shouted, "what more do you want from me?"

"The information we extracted from the Emperor's person," Ashdod explained calmly, "are just fragments, which only make sense if we have-"

Tadosh rounded on his friend in a huff, clapping his palm to his chest in indignation. "I have been more than reasonable," he seethed, his voice torn between spiteful anger and pure frustration, "I told you I would give you what help I could, but this is too much!"

Ashdod gawked as if his friend were descending into madness. "This is hardly an extraordinary request-"

"You want me," Tadosh rumbled in low, dangerous tones, "to sneak into the Emperor's private quarters-"

"He's hosting an imperial gala at the palace tomorrow, it will be trivial to-"

"-hack into his private computer-"

"Calpurnius has already written the code – it will take only minutes to-"

"-steal his personal files-"

"We'll plant garbage copies of the originals – he'll never notice the dif-"

"Oh, give me a fucking break!" Tadosh roared, pounding the crystalline glass of the coffee table with his fist. He blushed a little at his shameful loss of composure but still he pressed on. "You make it sound like such a simple matter – this is high treason we're talking about!" He leaned forward, eyes wide, pointing his finger emphatically at himself, "you know, I'm the one who will get caught if things go wrong – not you."

Ashdod snorted his defiance at his colleague – at this amateur who thought to try and give him advice. "Do you really think it would not take the Inquisitors but hours to trace the entire operation back to me – back to us!?" He gestured to the longue where their three co-conspirators had sprawled themselves in thuggish fashion. "These men have a history, Tadosh – I, have a history. It is not a history that will reflect well upon me in the eyes of the law."

"You're missing the point!" Tadosh snarled, throwing his head back in ire. Just as quickly he buried it in his hands, sighing with exhaustion and revulsion at the insane plot he had allowed himself to become ensnared in. He let his arms droop back to his sides, revealing the tenuous impassive visage he had managed to plaster over his face. "How would I even get inside the party," he demanded flatly, his frustration still simmering just beneath the surface. "I'm not on the Emperor's list – certainly not after that disaster of a conversation we had yesterday.

"Oh, you're on the list alright…"

The two men turned to the couches where the others had settled themselves; Calpurnius was on his feet now, sauntering over with a confidence that did not quite match his young and gangly appearance. "I've had access to the Chancellery's main database for months now," he explained, with a nonchalance that fooled nobody. "I put your name on the guest list last night – had to replace some Exarch from the Outer Rim, but I'm sure he'll live."

"Being invited to one of the Emperor's festivities is a big deal," Ashdod observed with an intolerable display of simpering. "He keeps close track of his guests. As I understand it's considered very unwise to ignore his invitation."

Tadosh shook his head; he wanted to be furious but he could feel nothing, except perhaps the helpless despair of defeat. "This is not what I signed up for," he protested quietly. He closed his eyes and sighed, still shaking his head. "By my ancestors – what will Darria say…"

Ashdod watched his friend with growing perplexity, as if he could not really believe the pathetic spectacle unfolding before his eyes. "Come now Tadosh," he chided, a little more reprovingly than even he may have intended, "what sort of attitude is this? Our master plan has not even begun and already you are dwelling on defeat?" He stood with the aid of his cane and laid his free hand on his friend's shoulder, locking his fiery eyes with Tadosh's forlorn gaze. "I am not in the business of being defeated, my friend. Do you think I would put you to this task if I had not already conceived of every contingency – if I were not confident that my scheme is as perfect and foolproof as can be? Do you know nothing of me after all these years!" He gave his friend a playful shake, teasing a reluctant smile from his sagging face. "There is nothing to be afraid of; we have the upper hand! The Emperor suspects nothing. He thinks you are a critic – so what!?" he cried, gesturing wildly around his apartment as if daring the luxurious furniture to retort. "He is surrounded by critics, day in and day out. He is no more wary of you than he is wary of his favorite concubine." Tadosh could not resist a grudging snicker.

"Listen to me," he continued, recapturing his air of gravitas, "great men are the men who make history. Great men are the men who do what must be done – even when it is hard – even when it is dangerous. And no man was ever great, who was also a coward." He turned and held out his hand to the ceiling, inviting his friend to share his loft vision. "Tomorrow, you will do this task for me – this one simple, trivial task that will bring down an entire web of corruption and intrigue. And in doing so," he promised, "you will become one of the great men of history."

Tadosh kept his eyes trained at the ground, thinking hard to himself. Some part of him – his more rational part no doubt – yearned for nothing more than to leave this unfamiliar new world he had stumbled into, to go back to a life of blissful ignorance far away from this talk of intrigue and treason and making history. But he thought back to his conversation with the Emperor. He remembered how coldly he had been treated, how quickly his concerns had been dismissed as if his voice mattered nothing at all. It was not just that the Emperor had become aloof or that he was conspiring with unknown enemies – it was that he treated his subjects like inferiors, barely worthy of speaking to him. Didn't that go against every value the Empire cherished? Had the Protheans not ascended to greatness because they were as one, working together – uplifting each other?

The heroes of Prothean history were the men who stood up and did extraordinary things for the common good; men like Zanator, the Unbroken, who charged his ship into a Metacon siege gun and prevented the glassing of Fehl Prime; men like Valtherion, who held off an entire army on the plains of Taycharia so that his brothers in arms could escape to bring word of the enemy invasion. They did not do these things because they yearned for glory, but because they knew it was the right thing to do. What would they say about Tadosh V'tun, if they knew he had the chance to help save the Empire from decay but was too cowardly to act?

Tadosh sighed and felt himself nod. "Okay," he relented, still barely believing his own recklessness. "I'll do it."

"Excellent!" Ashdod cried, clasping his hands together. "Then let us not waste any time."

"I can't stand this damn robe," Tadosh grumbled, tearing angrily at the frilly collar which engulfed his throat.

"That's Thessian silk you're wearing," Ashdod's voice shot back inside his ear, "it's worth more than your entire estate and everything in it."

This factoid did not seem to be of particular help; Tadosh squirmed anxiously in the back seat of the shuttle, fighting the claustrophobic garment as if it were an assailant smothering him. "Well I can barely breathe in it," he snapped. "Couldn't I have done without all these layers?"

"Not unless you want security to see all the hardware you've got on you," Calpurnius enjoined with underwhelming sympathy, filling the earpiece with the sound typing fingers. "The faster you get the files the faster you can take it off."

"And all the faster you can put me up to some other scheme, I'm sure," Tadosh grumbled, but he did not continue this line of thought as just then the shuttle door hissed open, revealing an excitable crowd of party-goers traveling in a lazy trickle up the red-carpeted steps of the palace. Much like Tadosh, they were all dressed in extravagant and ostentatious finery that would have made their ancestors weep – and much unlike Tadosh, they all seemed absolutely thrilled to be in attendance.

Tadosh exited his shuttle and began making his way towards the entrance, trying to behave as if he belonged. The heavy folds of his robe constricted his legs and the bulky machinery strapped to his body weighed down upon him like a suit of armor. Several times he very nearly lost his balance, but at last he arrived at the towering doors of the lobby, his disguise intact even as his confidence steadily withered.

"Hello sir," the greeter smiled not-so-genuinely; he looked at Tadosh's outfit with a connoisseur's distaste that might have been offensive if it were not completely unintelligible to the uninformed. "Your name please?"

"Tadosh V'tun," he declared; then uncertainly, "I am the Governor of Fhaldric."

The greeter nodded blankly, his smile straining a little. "Ah. Indeed. Let me see here." He typed quickly upon the screen mounted before him; when he returned his gaze to his guest, an air of suspicion had come upon him. "I'm sorry, but you don't seem to be on the list…"

Tadosh felt the blood rush to his face. Inside his ear, he heard the voice of Calpurnius chime in. "Just give it a few moments – the code is still executing!"

"Ah, well…" Tadosh countered, viscerally feeling the impatient stares of those behind him, "perhaps you could check it again?"

The greeter's eyes narrowed. "And what would that do?"

"May-maybe my name hasn't been put on the list yet," Tadosh offered helplessly.

The greeter cocked his head to the side, his pleasant demeanor vanished entirely now. "And why would that be the case?"

Tadosh opened his mouth dumbly, desperately searching his mind for some response even as he felt the proverbial noose drawn around his throat like the fluffy collar of his robe.

"There he is!"

The two men turned in shared surprise as a woman with long-tentacled hair came rushing over to the checkpoint, her long, elegant dress whipping airily about her feet as she went. She locked eyes with Tadosh for a moment but her face betrayed nothing.

"Ithelia!?" he blurted, completely and utterly confused now beyond all hope of recovery.

"I've been looking for you all over!" she exclaimed, "where did you go?"

"What?" Tadosh began, then seeing her pointed glare suddenly and miraculously took the hint. "Oh, I uh…I just stepped out for a moment, I…needed some air," he finished lamely, looking sheepishly at the greeter.

"You should have told me – you had me worried sick!" The lady turned to the greeter and smiled apologetically. "I'm sorry, he's with me – he has a habit of wandering off."

The greeter's eyes narrowed again. "You are Ithelia Y'vus?"

She fluttered her eyelids and smiled. "Yes that's correct."

He pointed. "This man is your husband?"

She hesitated for the slightest moment; they both looked at each other. "Mhm."

He glared at Tadosh. "You told me your name was Tadosh V'tun."

Tadosh stared back blankly, shaking his head with a grimace. "I really needed some air."

The greeter rolled his eyes and cast his hand impatiently into the air. "Fine, just get out of here!" he snapped, angrily tapping at his console. "Next!"

Ithelia grabbed his hand, and next thing he knew he was led inside the palace, the quiet of the Citadel grounds falling away as the beat of music and the hum of conversation rose up in its place. Prothean architecture favored simple geometry and plain construction, and all of these were present in the mathematically precise layout of the Emperor's palace. He showed his opulence through what the rooms contained; mainly expensive furnishings and glittering golden festoonery. With practiced grace, Ithelia led him through the labyrinth of rooms and the teeming mass of people to a tiny clearing beside the sumptuous offerings of a refreshment table. Her mouth moved at a dizzying pace, made all the quicker by the massive strobe light which roared to life overhead.

"What!?"

"I said what are you doing here!?" she repeated, leaning in closer.

"Oh…I'm here to see the Emperor!" he replied.

She drew back, giving him a distinctly contemptuous stare. "No shit; I mean why are you here!?"

Tadosh shook his head and opened his mouth dumbly, buying time. "Just, you know, to talk to him, maybe talk about politics or something!"

She shook her head and rolled her eyes, turning away from him. "You're such a liar Tadosh."

"I'm not a liar!" he insisted, but she was already disappearing into the mob, her half-finished drink still resting in her hand. Tadosh sighed, but before he could do anything else his earpiece crackled alive again.

"Good, you lost her," Ashdod reported cheerfully. "Now we just need to get you inside the Emperor's private quarters and you should be able to access his computer from there."

"Yeah well I can't exactly just walk upstairs or anything," Tadosh snapped; he snatched a drink off the table and quickly downed it, scanning the room. The cadre of muscular guards blocking the staircase conveniently reinforced his point.

"No, you can't – that's why you need to head to the bathroom – it's right behind you, last door at the end of the hallway."

"How the hell is this going to work?" he grumbled even as he was already making his way there.

"There's an air duct in the bathroom ceiling," Ashdod explained calmly. "If you can get inside, eventually it'll lead to another duct the Emperor's bedchamber."

Tadosh shook his head, his anger brewing inside of him. "And how exactly am I going to crawl up into the ceiling without anybody noticing?" he demanded.

Ashdod's raspy voice chuckled inside his ear. "That's your problem my friend."

He entered the bathroom, following close behind one of his fellow partygoers. In typical Prothean style, the restroom was tasteful and elegant whilst remaining Spartan and plain; the cool colors of the marble countertops and tile floor upheld an air of dignity even as the smell of unpleasant business wafted over the dividers of the stalls. At the other end of the room, hovering above the row of sinks, the entrance to the air duct waited in plain sight; Tadosh stared and helplessly pondered what he should do, feeling awkward and out of place as guests moved crisply in and out of the room while he stood motionless.

"Tadosh?" Calpurnius buzzed into his ear, "we have a little problem…"

He turned to face the wall and pressed a finger to his ear, very conscious of how strange he must look muttering to himself. "What do you mean?"

"Imperial Cybersecurity discovered us trying to put your name on the guest list," Calpurnius explained tensely, "they know somebody's trying to tamper with their files – they're trying to trace our signal as we speak."

"What!?" Tadosh exclaimed; he turned suddenly around, looking in wide-eyed alarm at the confused faces staring back at him. Hastily, head down, he ducked his way into an adjacent stall and seated himself on the commode, trying with relatively little success to control his voice. "What do you mean they're tracing us?"

"They're triangulating this signal to try and locate us – if they succeed, they'll be able to trace us back to our current location."

"Wha-well then hang up!" Tadosh cried, despairing at the chaos he should have known would unfold. "This plan is a disaster anyway!"

"It's too late – we've come too far already," Ashdod reasoned, "if they trace our current location we'll just have to relocate somewhere else – we can be evacuated by the time the Inquisition shows up."

Tadosh could not help but rise to his feet in rage. "Your current location is my apartment you jackass!"

A trio of knocks echoed off the door of the stall. "Is everything alright in there?"

Tadosh recoiled from the door, pulling his feet up to his chest. "Y-yes, everything's fine, no trouble!" He leaned away secretively, still curled up into a ball. "Listen to me – you cannot let them trace your location, do you understand?" The knocking returned. "I said I'm fine!"

"I'm delaying them – we still have another ten minutes before we need to go dark. Is that enough time?"

Tadosh rested his head on his palm, trying to think even though he had no idea where to even begin his thoughts. Ashdod, for all his other vices, was correct in this instance: it was too late to back out. Even if he just left now, they knew it was his name they had tried to put on the list. What would happen when the word got back to the Emperor? Would he suspect Tadosh's true motive? Despair prodded at him but he steeled himself, refocusing on the present and nodding to try and buoy his resolve. "Okay. Let's do it."

For a third time there was an insistent knock at his door; Tadosh flung it open, stepping out from the stall to stand before a small crowd of bewildered guests who had apparently been drawn to the spectacle. "Er…you all need to leave now," he declared abruptly, looking around at their dumfounded faces, "there's been uh…a radiation leak; really bad; very dangerous."

"What?"

His earpiece buzzed. "Show them your hacking module," Calpurnius hissed.

"Uh…oh yes – this!" Tadosh declared, reaching awkwardly beneath his robe. With a slight grunt he detached the bulky module and took it out for all to see. "This is my radiometer," he explained, flicking the power on. It conveniently began to squawk and churn quite loudly, "I'm afraid it's detected some serious levels of radiation in this area."

The guests began to murmur concernedly. "Is it safe?"

"Why yes – I mean no!" he corrected suddenly, "no, not at all, very dangerous – you should all leave at once! Tell everyone!"

They all departed in a panic, flooding out of the bathroom in a sea of terrified fluffy colors. Tadosh took a deep breath, savoring his brief moment of solitude. With a paranoid glance over his shoulder he vaulted himself up onto the countertop and yanked away the grate, finding himself face-to-face with a long tunnel of dusty blackness. "How am I supposed to climb up there?"

"We gave you some adhesive pads…"

So he found himself, inch by inch, rising up into the cramped confines of the air duct, his lungs and eyes burning from the dust and his body contorted like a ragdoll to make the journey possible. Just when he could take no more, and he was about to go off on his far more comfortable companions, his hands hit flat ground and he hoisted himself up onto a level plane at last.

"Now you just need to find the entrance to the Emperor's quarters," Calpurnius explained. "It should be just a little further down."

He was exhausted now, and more than a little fed-up, but still he crawled through the silent vacuum of the duct, listening in silent horror as the floor popped and groaned with every step. He looked down; he was above some exercise room, filled with fancy machines and endless racks of weights. He kept going and looked down again; he was above a study room, with long bookshelves and cozy carpeted floors. He crawled his way to the next vent. "I think I found it," he whispered as he collapsed into a round of coughing.

"The coordinates seem correct…" Calpurnius mused to himself. "Okay, go for it."

Tadosh brought his fist down hard, and suddenly the entire grate collapsed like a piece of rotten wood and he tumbled, arms flailing, down onto the hard mattress of the Emperor's bed. He jolted upright, looking around wildly, half-expecting to have dropped into the middle of some private meeting, but only the tasteful expanse of the Imperial bedchamber lay in front of him; he was all alone.

"Okay so the Emperor's private terminal should be somewhere in this room."

After a moment of scanning he found it, sitting casually on the hardwood desk as if it were just some terminal at an Imperial library. Hastily he seated himself and turned it on; the login menu popped-up, expectantly demanding a password. "I don't know the code," Tadosh whispered anxiously.

"That's what the hacking module is for…"

Carefully Tadosh retrieved his all-purpose hacking module and, after looking at it dumbly for a few moments, snapped it onto the front of the Emperor's computer. It set to work immediately, its gears whirring to life as the little screen in the center flickered on and began to report. Initializing sequence…assessing security countermeasures…

A minute passed and nothing changed. Another minute passed – still nothing. Tadosh began to feel uneasy; why was it taking so long? Had it not worked; what if an alarm had gone off – what if they were on their way to arrest him right now!? He was nearly about to voice these semi-rational concerns when the module abruptly beeped, and a massive list of files started scrolling across the screen at a dizzying pace.

…

copying transponder_cipher

copying fleetrecord1

copying fleetrecord2

copying sovereign_summit7

copying ilos_project

…

And about a million others, all whizzing by much too quickly for Tadosh to even make an attempt at reading them. He paced back and forth impatiently, casting paranoid glances at the bedroom door. "Come on." He leaned over the desk and up to the module, looking at the faint image of his own reflection as endless lines of code poured across it. "How long is this thing supposed to take?"

He did not hear the answer, because at that moment the door to the bedchamber chimed and hissed open. Ithelia walked in, her cool expression abruptly lighting into shock as she stepped through the threshold. "Tadosh?"

The module beeped again. Operation complete. You may now remove the module from-

Tadosh read no further; he snatched the cumbersome box off of the computer and returned it to its resting place deep inside his stuffy mountain of clothing. "Er…" he began, feeling more helpless now than ever, "hello again."

She looked at him as if he perhaps had a third eyeball emerging from his forehead. "What are you doing?" she asked in pure stupefaction.

"Tadosh," his earpiece crackled, "they've almost traced us. We need to go dark."

An electric jolt of panic ran through him. "Wait!"

Ithelia recoiled in confusion. "What are you talking about, I'm right here!"

"Not you!" he snapped quickly at the only other person in the room.

"We need to shut down before they have a lock on us," Calpurnius explained hastily, "just meet us back at your apartment with the module and we can go over the data on a closed server."

"But how do I get out!?" he cried, clenching his fists in frustration.

"I don't even know how you got in!" Ithelia laughed in humorless exasperation.

"Dammit I'm not-" he began; his earpiece emitted three low beeps and went dead, leaving only faint static playing in his ear. He sighed and let his arms fall to his sides, turning his head away in a mixture of defeat and dejection. "-talking to you," he finished weakly.

Ithelia's eyes narrowed; she gaped and shook her head blankly, dumfounded by this display of insanity. She searched for words, but before she could find any a procession of people appeared in the doorway behind her, chatting and laughing with one another. In their midst, towering over the rest, was the unmistakable figure of the Emperor. Ithelia turned around in surprise, starting a little at the sight of her company. "Oh – your Majesty!"

His eyes fell immediately on the uninvited guest standing in the middle of his room. His typically aloof expression redoubled in coldness. "Why is he here?" he demanded plainly.

"He…wanted a tour of the upstairs, my Lord," Ithelia smiled pleasantly. "He wanted to see where your Grace lives – he is such an admirer…" She looked at Tadosh, quietly begging for assistance.

"Ah – yes!" he declared very abruptly. "Yes, I am much enamored of His Majesty the Emperor!"

The Emperor sniffed. "Indeed." He strode casually into his bedchamber with lazy strides. "You know, I just now received a message from one of my security officers; he told me that some delinquent had tried to put the name Tadosh V'tun on the guest list – and here you are! What a coincidence…"

The room grew deathly silent; the Emperor betrayed nothing, swiping at some errant specks of dust on his end table. Tadosh looked helplessly at Ithelia, who gave him a helpless gaze of her own. He cleared his throat, suddenly very, very conscious of the heavy weight of the hacking module strapped to his abdomen. "I…I just really wanted to see your bedchamber, your Highness," he tried meekly.

Ithelia buried her face in her palm; the Emperor, preoccupied with the picture frame on his wall, had no immediate response. "Guards?" he spoke at last, "kindly escort this pervert from my palace immediately."

The two soldiers among the entourage stepped forward; Tadosh suddenly realized with a sinking sensation that they would surely discover the machinery stowed away beneath his robes. He took a step back and put out his hands. "There's really no need – I'll just leave…"

"Better safe than sorry," the soldier shrugged; they took another step forward. "We don't want to find you skulking around his Majesty's bathtub later."

At long last, the weight of all the day's indignities tripped some switch deep in Tadosh's mind; he drew himself up to his full height, squaring his shoulders. "Do you know who I am – do you have no respect!?" He glared at them with all the contempt he could muster. "I am Tadosh V'tun," he rumbled, "son of Ravil, Lord of Chasca, Governor of Fhladric – and I can walk!"

Silence descended upon the room again; the guards froze in place uncertainly. The Emperor turned around, acknowledging his uninvited guest directly for the first time. His face was stony, but nothing could be read from it. "Then walk, governor."

And walk he did, striding from the chamber in a huff, his knees knocking painfully against the sharp chassis of the hacking module with his every step.