Mass Effect How the fate plays us

by Sandbox47

This is a full story of ME, ME2 and ME3 that starts at 2177 and ends with the death of the Reapers. It is NOT centered around Shepard but around Min, though the characters you know and love will be in it.

11. Chapter 9

Chapter 9: Madalgry

An angel. People shouting at me. Screams of the innocent. But I have to hurry because there is so much to do. The screams force me to look away for a second but I cannot spare them any time yet. There is a future to lay, I cannot dwell on the past. But the screams do not stop. I pray for some silence. But that is an illusion. Noise is everywhere, even if you are deaf. Noise. The screams mean nothing to me now. And I cannot spare them any time nor thought if I want the future to be built. I cannot allow my heart to weep for the past. For I am God.

I was reading up on quarian ship design and manufacture for something relaxing to do. I'd spent every waking minute with the box, writing the the symbols in sequences to see if any made sense. None had. What we did discover was that an ancient asari script resembles the scrip we are now working with. It was just possible that the primitive asari initially used some form of prothean writing. And through that we quickly found matches for most of the symbols.

The protheans had apparently used the same writing theory as the turians did. Instead of using one letter exclusively they used one sound. But in their case it was reversed. While the turians used sounds like "na, ta, da, ka, ni, mi" and "shi" the protheans used sounds like "an, at, ad, ak, in, im" and "ish".

And we found this all out thanks to Aria's ancestry. Her mother had been one of those asari "memories" that Liara had mentioned a few days back.

Basically what the box said was: "Arma itana omenmei."- side one. "Arma unokliee iherie."- side two. "Imeni uherai ocaram."- side three. "Edeateh is arai."- side four. Side five was just a drawing and side six had that mysterious spot with no pyramid on. But it did have a script saying: "Op- uro- Ai-."

I was put on translation duty, working on trying to decipher the language. And I had to admit that a linguist was probably the right person for this kind of a task and not me. I knew nothing about languages or grammar. Well, I knew articulation. But I didn't actually know any grammatical rules. I couldn't even remember what a verb was supposed to be. I assumed that it had something to do with speaking but then again, everything did.

'Alright. If my assumption is correct then this first part means something along the lines of "Gates which I see" or maybe "Eyes are the gates".' said Liara, looking up from her omni tool.

She was sitting on the bed and was surrounded by notes on different languages, words, expression and protheans.

I frowned at her.

'How do you know? Is it about side one?'

'Yes. Here, the text recovered from the temple of the Nocruua goddess in the northern part of Mormeria, the nation is today called Sinlad. Anyway, these texts predate the extinction of the protheans, being around fifty two thousand years old.'

'Wow. Fifty two? Really? That is a very long time.' I whistled. 'I mean, scripts written two thousand years ago on Earth, I mean Tellus, are almost all gone.'

'Back then asari wrote important things down on golden plates. Here...' she showed me an image of a large, round plate with rune-like markings on it. I even recognized some of them. '... and most of them are still in a very good shape. I found a reference to "merged meanings" which I think means and proves that the protheans had taken contact with the asari before they had died out and that they had brought their language to Thessia. Or maybe that we gave them our language, I cannot tell yet, though admittedly that seems unlikely.'

That was a lot to take in. The asari had survived where the protheans had failed. Actually, fifty thousand years ago mankind also existed, albeit in a very primitive and pointless form. So what the hell happened to the protheans? It didn't make sense for them to be gone. By normal, logical reasoning they should still be out and about. Or at least more ruins should be left behind. What. The. Hell.

But I knew that I wouldn't figure it out through logic. Because there was no logic. They were the dominant species. They shouldn't have vanished.

'Girls, we're here.' said the com excitedly. It was the voice of our new pilot. His name, or nickname, was Sinus. He had offered a very vague explanation about why he wanted to be called that, and as he didn't offer any other name I had no choice but to call him Sinus.

The ship went out of FTL and I could see the planet Madalgry. I'd found out that it was a batarian planet but a peaceful one. Humans were tolerated there, if not exactly welcome, so there passed by a few Alliance trading ships now and again. The crew would get off and board the next Alliance ship that passes this planet.

'Come, come. I want to get out and have some fresh air.' I said, pulling Liara out by her arm.

'Me too.' she gasped. 'And we need to buy more things. How Ocean can travel with no extra clothes stocked just in case I have no idea.'

'You are getting spoiled.' I laughed. 'A month back you only had two extra sets of clothing with you.'

'Well at least I had some extra sets of clothing. He has, let's count them, none.' she shook her head in mock sorrow.

While we were walking I tried to come up with a way to find out what Liara would like for her birthday.

'Do you like jewelry?' I asked casually. 'I prefer silver to gold, you know. But I guess that gold is chemically stronger.'

'Jewelry? It is... nice sometimes to feel beautiful.' she nodded, thinking. 'And personally, I think that gold is nice. I have a necklace of gold in my pack. I've never worn it but maybe I should soon. It is really pretty with a dark-red gem, or crystal hanging from it.'

'That sounds pretty expensive. I take it that it was a gift?'

'Yes. From a friend who hoped to be something more a few years back. I had only just begun my archeological profession. She helped me for a few months until duty called her away.' seeing my questioning glance she added; 'She is an Eclipse mercenary.'

I nodded. Gold was expensive. So were rubies. I wanted to ask about books and music as well, to be certain of what she liked. She'd told me that she liked mysteries and detective novels where the hero would look for clues. And that she liked classical music, steam punk and, what asari called wind music, but what actually would be folk music on Earth. I'd never have guessed that, but it did sound alright, the stuff she listened to. It surprised me that she had so many human bands as favourites. Of course, most were asari, but still. Nice to know that we are appreciated for some arts at least.

But I couldn't ask Liara about that to confirm because that would alert her. After all, she was very well aware that her birthday was coming up in a less than a fortnight.

As we walked I saw crew members packing and getting ready to leave, chatting casually between themselves.

'Is he really going to steal the ship?' and 'I wonder what he's planning next.' were popular topics.

'You need us!' I heard a female voice shouting.

'Yer' not going anywhere without engineers.' added a familiar male voice.

It seemed that Elisabeth and Martin both wanted to stay on. As we approached the scene I saw Ocean standing very alarmed at the shouting and not really sure what to do with himself.

'I told you that I cannot have you guys. You compromise me. Or my ship. Or my crew. I don't remember which one was the important one at the moment. Drinking does that. But I said that... Well I did.' he finished with a flourish.

'Then it's settled. Martin and I are staying.' said Elisabeth in a tone of finality.

'It's settled.' agreed Ocean. Then he realized what she said. 'No, wait! Unsettled! Bothered! Or distressed, but not settled!'

'Look, capn'...' said Martin firmly. '... Someone has to keep an eye on the ship. And who better than us?'

Ocean mold that over for a few moments.

'Alright. You are fired.' he nodded.

'I'm... sorry?' frowned Elisabeth.

'Well, I mean that you are hired... by me. But fired by Alliance.' he said vaguely, rolling his hands in the air.

'Oh. Oh thank you captain.' beamed Elisabeth. 'Hi Min. Liara.' she nodded as they went past us, to the mess.

Ocean was frowning worriedly in their direction.

'You don't trust them?' I asked.

'No, no. It's not that. I'm just worried that they will stop trusting me.' he raised his eyebrows for effect. 'I mean... you two have no choice in the matter. And Sinus is crazy. But those two...'

I could see what he meant. If they stopped trusting Ocean's judgement they'd be a liability. But then again I was certain that they wouldn't turn on him, no matter his decision. I didn't know why, I just knew it. Was it foolish to trust like that? Yeah. Ah well.

'Don't worry.' I shrugged. 'We'll all keep in line.'

'What line? Where?'

'I mean, we're all behind you.' I rolled my hands around in the air in a kinda-sorta way.

He turned to looked around and then grinned.

'No you're not. I have no time for your games, I have duty to be busy with.' he clapped me on the shoulder and strode away in a very significant manner that told me quite plainly that he didn't know what to do now. 'Oh hey!' he exclaimed, turning around. 'I was looking for you two. Come on. We're going to meet some guys.'

We both followed him.

'Whom?' I asked.

'What?'

'Whom do you want us to meet? And how much have you been drinking?'

'Yes to the first and around nine, ten bottles to the second question... es.' he shrugged.

We left the ship and entered a very well air conditioned dock with modern and smooth advertisements, screens and seats to wait for ships that come and go. It was so very out of character for how I was feeling that I stared at everything around me. Liara had to nudge me so that I wouldn't dawdle.

Ocean walked in a very odd fashion, hastily turning from time to time and hiding behind passing elcor who were more than happy to be as big as possible to make it easier for Ocean. Liara and I simply strode along.

'What are you doing?' asked Liara perplexed.

'Nothing.' Ocean said, looking around corner as if making sure that no one was on the other side. As we turned the corner a long line of people were standing outside an ID registry, waiting to get boarding permission for whatever ship they planned to take.

'You're not doing a good job of sneaking.' I pointed out.

'No he does not.' said a voice from behind me.

I jumped, my fists at the ready, and swirled around to face the voice. I blinked when all I saw were two suits standing before me. Then the suits moved and it hit me that they were quarian. Blushing, I lowered my fists and thanked the god that no one could read my very slow mind.

'Ah..!' exclaimed Ocean with an air of doubtful joy in his voice. 'It's you..!' he frowned at the suit. 'Which one are you? I don't recognize the new suit.'

'It's us, Adii and Teishi!' said the other suit, laughing and hugging Ocean.

'Ah, I couldn't with the... you know, the suits.' Ocean shrugged awkwardly and seemed much less drunk all of a sudden. 'It looks nice.'

'Thanks.' said the male, Teishi I assumed that his name was, shaking Ocean's hand.

'I am Liara.' said Liara, shaking hands with the quarians.

'I'm Numine.' I said, shaking hands as well. 'But you can call me Min. I like Min.'

'I am Adii.' said the girl quarian and I could hear the excited smile on her voice. 'And this is mr. Boring.' she gestured towards Teishi.

'I am Teishi.' he said simply.

'Oh, ah, oh yeah.' said Ocean, snapping with his fingers. 'That's why I brought you two along.' he said to Liara. 'These two,' said Ocean, gesturing towards me and Liara, ' they are... well, they're with me. You remember Ilium?' asked Ocean. The quarians nodded. 'Well, it's like that only bigger.'

'How so?' asked Adii.

'Well... replace the two justicars with Alliance and Aria with me and that's what's going on.' said Ocean apprehensively. I could almost see the frowns on the quarians' faces. And how their jaws dropped.

'What? No way.' exclaimed Adii.

'Yes way. I've even got the ship like on Ilium.' Ocean grinned.

The quarians backed away without realizing what they were doing.

'Look, Ocean...' Teishi said, raising his hands in objection. 'You did us a favour. A great one. I don't think a non-quarian has ever done something like that for us before. But... It was hell at the time. The number of times we almost but not quite died topped the amount of birthdays between the two of us.' he indicated himself and Ocean.

'And it was exciting, wasn't it? That thrill of almost dying, fighting the odds! Join me crew again and live a life that might not be particularly long, but very full! Or stay with the Flotilla and die of some bug that crawls into your suit. I'll bet that the bug will be the most exotic thing you'll ever see.' he added the last part as an afterthought.

Everything seemed to quiet down as he stopped talking in a shocked silence. Then, to everyone's surprise, Liara slapped Ocean in the back of his head.

'Ouch! What did you do that for?' he complained.

'You insulted these two people who are clearly your friends!' she said in a tone of voice close to outrage. 'Not only that, but insulted their whole people as well!'

'I did?' Ocean asked perplexed.

'No... ' said Adii, stopped to think for a second and then added; 'No, no, no. It's not like that. He just knows us.' she looked back at Teishi and it looked to me as if they had a telepathic conversation between themselves. When Teishi finally nodded Ocean sighed in relief.

'I knew that you'd agree.' he said confidently.

'Well we can't let you loose on the galaxy with no one to hold you back from doing some of the dippier things.' Adii joked.

'Adii...' Teishi shook his head.

'Right, I know.' Adii nodded. 'So what did you do?' asked Adii as we began making our way back to the ship.

'Me?' asked Liara in confusion.

'Yes. Why is the Alliance after you?'

'It's not after Liara.' I said calmly. 'It's after Cerberus's agents. One of them in particular.'

'You're... with Cerberus? Ocean, what's going on?' asked Teishi, giving off the image of a worried frown.

'Can't we talk later about this?' growled Ocean. 'This really isn't the place and I hate to repeat myself.'

'Repeat? You'd think that we would remember it all the first time.' laughed Adii.

'Not to you. To Rael.'

'What! You want to board the Flotilla?' asked Adii, incredulous.

'Not the Flotilla.' Ocean shook his head. 'Just the Rayya.'

'You, you can't... I don't think-...'

'We do not forbid people to visit us. Especially not such a good friend to us.' said Teishi as if thinking out loud.

'But... Ocean? I mean...' Adii searched for words. 'Things blow up around him.'

'Only when he intends to blow something up.' said Teishi calmly.

It was odd, seeing him so calm after his first reaction to what Ocean had asked from them.

I tried to make out what they had been involved in. What could possibly resemble my situation. But I failed. It was hard to tell what exactly the two quarians thought of Ocean and even harder to tell what Ocean thought of them. I could, in spite of it all, feel the familiarity between them. I guessed that they hadn't started out as friends.

'So we're going to visit a quarian ship?' I asked, not quite able to mask my excitement. 'Did you know that some of the ships are as old as three hundred years? That's incredible, isn't it? I mean, that's hardy craftsmanship.'

'True. But everything is constantly being patched and repaired. You have to dig quite deep to find the three hundred years old scrap metal. You'll like the Rayya though. She is one of the strongest and fastest ships in the fleet.' said Teishi.

We were still walking towards the Khan and I could see the Alliance employees leaving it with suitcases, chatting unconcernedly with each other. I wondered how high up the career list this posting was, given that no one looked too put off about being dismissed. Or maybe they already had been posted somewhere else.

'So this is your Israa?' asked Teishi, scrutinizing the Khan.

'Yeah. She's bigger and stronger than that tin can we got last time.'

'I can see that.' nodded Adii admiringly. 'She is pretty impressive. Though black isn't the most sought-after colour nowadays.'

'The Fleet can keep it when I get back my old Khan.' said Ocean as we boarded the ship. 'There is no point in keeping a rock when you have a diamond.'

'You are planing-... To take back the Khan?' Teishi sounded again as if he was thinking out loud. 'Even though it was confiscated by the Alliance?'

'It wasn't.' Ocean shook his head. 'My old pirating buddies have it. That's where we are going. Incara.'

Adii moaned.

'Incara? That's where-...' she cut off with, what I assumed was, a glance at me. 'How much do they know?'

'Just tell them.' Ocean sighed.

'This was a long time ago. I was on my Pilgrimage then, along with Teishi. We got into some debts, hoping to win the "interstellar lottery" so to speak.' upon seeing my blank look she added; 'We were thieves.' I nodded, giving her the benefit of the doubt. 'The local thugs didn't like that quarians were taking shares of what they thought was theirs. Trouble is, Athellia is very quarian-friendly. One of the two planets where quarians are still welcome because we basically built them up from the ground. So picking on us was dangerous for the thugs. But not for the pirates. We got caught by Ocean here who held us captive long enough to realize that he didn't really like keeping people captive. At the time, Ocean was hunted by some justicar who was out to get him. And we had, by accident, stolen from another justicar's daughter. What's more, Ocean's fellow pirate ship that accompanied him had strayed for some "easy loot" and accidentally attacked a ship that transported a justicar.'

Liara's eyes were wide in amazement.

'And you are still alive?' she asked in a voice that really questioned their existence.

'Hear me out.' Adii raised her palms, waiting for attention. We were in the cockpit now, sitting in all the seats meant for piloting. Sinus was absent, probably out to get some fresh air. I had the co-pilot's seat. 'So we ran as fast as we'd ever run in our lives. The Khan did a good job on that. The whole story is too long but in summary, we trashed Nos Astra, Omega, Ipiros and Incara. Incara has the very ill-kept secret that it's a pirate base. There are more pirate organizations there than anywhere else. The only reason the justicars don't go there is because of some loophole in their oath, whatever it may be. And then we come, the Khan all but crashing into the landing bay with some of the fastest asari cruisers on our heels. The ships were useless after that chase, no ship can maintain Khan's speed for long without breaking down. But the justicars were on Incara. Three of them.'

'So what?' I interrupted. 'All you had to do was to lock them away somewhere.' I said. I didn't really get the justicars. I've seen a few vids about them, with their kung fu fighting styles and their abnormally powerful biotics and genuine magical abilities. I doubted that half of it was true, thought it did make for good vid material.

'Lock up a justicar?' said Liara quietly. 'That's like trying to stop an avalanche by trying to melt all the snow with a candle.'

'They are too strong and strategically proficient for even one of them to be caught, much less three. Whatever the stories say about the justicars working alone, these three could tag-team you with equal skill.' added Teishi.

'Essentially what happened was that we brought the justicars down on all the pirate gangs who put up a hell of a fight, gunships, explosives and mechs, all fighting the justicars. They brought one of the justicars down, but it didn't really seem to make a difference. And then, while we were running, because the justicars had found us again, the building exploded, the floor collapsed, the walls fell on us.'

Adii finished her story casually and lounged carelessly in her seat.

'Wait. What happened to the justicars.' I asked, thoroughly confused now.

'Oh one of them is still running about. The other one died of old age last year. We were at her funeral.' said Teishi.

'She died?' asked Ocean, surprised. 'I didn't know. I liked her. Even her eyelids were flappy.'

Adii grunted, Teishi and I snorted and Liara got stuck somewhere between amusement and disgruntlement.

'But what happened... you know...' I tried to set it right in my head. 'How did you not die?'

'Oh. We were almost dead. And the justicars never found our bodies. There are more secret tunnels under under Incara than there are actual buildings on top of it. They found me,' added Adii as an afterthought, 'but assumed that I was dead. Maybe I was for a time, I don't know.'

'Huh.' I said, feeling a bit put off the by the casual ending of what had been a very thrilling story. 'And... what? Wait, what does this have to do with anything?'

'You did ask us what happened, did you not?' Adii said in a flat voice.

'Oh, oh yeah!' I blushed crimson. I'd forgotten that I was the one fishing for stories.

Just then Sinus arrived. Everyone looked around to face him.

'Sinus?' asked the quarians at the same time as Sinus said 'Adii? Teishi?'

'Hey, Sinus!' Adii and Teishi exclaimed simultaneously.

'Hey, you guys!' exclaimed Sinus.

Then they froze with their arms in the air as if they had suddenly remembered that they were facing a venomous viper.

'Oh. Sinus.' growled Adii.

'Oh. It's you two.' growled Sinus. 'Why are they here, captain? Didn't we kick these two traitors out last time?' he didn't sound angry, just slightly annoyed.

'I can't believe that you let this idiot fly again.' said Teishi in flat disbelief. 'He steers the ship like a drunk walks a straight line.'

'Nose down in the pavement.' added Adii.

'Yeah, because you did sooo much better at fixing the ship when we were ready to bust our way off Ilium, did you?' said Sinus, gesticulating sarcastically.

'Says the man who crashed into the tail end of a comet!' spat Adii.

'We never crashed!' Sinus replied, shaking his head. 'It pulled at us as it went by, that's all!'

'That's all, is it? Losing all power for two weeks is nothing at all really, is it!'

'Not all, just... most of it! And what the hell took you two so long to bring it back? From what I remember you two spent hours just sitting in the mess or sleeping!'

'That's what you after two days of work and no rest! Unlike you who just strolled around all the time, complaining!'

I noticed that Ocean wasn't really paying attention to their argument and gathered that he had already heard this before. He was biting his nails thoughtfully.

'Shut up.' I said suddenly, as if a thought had struck me. I even raised a finger in anticipation. They looked at me patiently. 'Who wants coffee for the reunion?'

Though I couldn't tell I was sure that the quarians stared while they processed this new idea. Sinus seemed to roll the thought around in his head. But before any of them could reply Ocean stood.

'I think that that's a great idea. Let's go to the Rayya.' he said as if this had been an idea he'd been working on for days and now was happy to present it.

'Now?' asked Adii.

'Now. Why wait. No, hang on. You do have coffee on your ships, don't you?' asked Ocean suspiciously.

'Yes. It's a different kind of, ah, "bean" if you will, than the ones from Tellus or Tessia, but it's still roughly what you're used to.' replied Adii.

'Good. Come on, I'm not waiting for anyone.' said Ocean as if he was about to leave without the ship if it didn't hurry up. 'Min, a word.' he motioned for me to follow.

'What's up?' I asked as he led me away from the rest. The ship was empty now, with no other people on board aside from us here up at the cockpit and the engineers.

'You are a, what's it called... You're a talking person.' he frowned as if that would make more sense.

'I... do occasionally talk, yes.' I nodded.

'Great! That's good. That's just what we need. There's the other thing we need as well.' he looked at me to see if I understood what he wanted from me.

'Which is?' I prompted.

'We need a pall to come with us to Incara and help us out a bit. And it would be a good deal more help to our cause if this pall had some kind of... ship. Like the Rayya. Or maybe the Risa.'

'You want me to teal a ship from the quarians?' I raised one eyebrow.

'No! No, no, no! I want you to convince my good friend Rael to give an impression of "numbers" when we arrive on Incara, that's all.'

This really made no sense to me. At least, it didn't make sense that he asked me to do this.

'Why me? Liara's the asai, Teishi and Adii are quarians and you seem to know this Rael already. One of you should do it.'

'No. You should do it because... Well, you have that look about you.' he fidgeted uncomfortably.

'What look?'

'That look. You've been that way since the Grim. Like you're a puppy who's about to bite a lion.' he shrugged.

I had to think about this before replying. Had I looked different? Liara hadn't. She takes everything in stride. And so do I. Then why does Ocean say that I look different? I didn't know.

'Is it a good different?' I asked, frowning.

'It is the different that makes us Khan plus one.' Ocean nodded.

'Huh.'

I wondered about why I liked the word "huh" so much. It seemed to convey a lot more than it appears to do from the start. A kind of secret word that can unlock doors in people's heads.

'This is a stupid idea.' I said after a moment of silence.

'There's no way in hell that they'll come if I ask them to.' said Ocean.

'I thought that you were friendly with quarians?'

'I am. But they don't like it when their ships go "boom". They don't have enough resources for that.'

'Wait. I won't help you blow up a quarian ship.' I said in an almost threatening voice.

'That's why it's only accompanying us. It won't actually do anything.' he sighed.

'Oh.' I bit my lip. I really didn't want to do it. The thought of speaking to more people didn't appeal to me much. Talking is overrated. Communication is overrated. 'Fine.' I sighed. 'I'll try.'

'What are you whispering about?' asked Liara. 'We're in view of the Flotilla, they're going through the Relay. Did you know that it takes over a week for all the ships to go through. Apparently – the Rayya goes last most of the time to make sure that everyone are through before moving on.'

'A week? That can't be.' I frowned. 'How many ships do they have?'

'Thousands. Fifty thousand I think.' replied Ocean. 'And there's a limit to how much a relay can take in one go, so there are pauses here and there. And you can't go too many at once or you'll get stuck somewhere a million light years away from any planet or relay. And only two ships in history have ever returned from such an accident. Derelicts, but nice to know that they can come back.'

'Huh.'

I decided to use "huh" as a catchphrase. Liara has her "embrace eternity" after all.

'Well come on! I know you want to see this, Min!' said Liara, dragging me along to the cockpit.

The Flotilla was enormous. Fifty thousand space ships sounds like a lot of ships. But if you're close enough in space to actually see them they appear to be ten times more numerous.

'Wow. That's... big.' I said vaguely, not sure whom I was addressing.

'It's barely enough though.' sighed Teishi. 'We're only little more than seventeen million quarians. One ship more or less makes a huge difference.'

'Wait. Seventeen million for just fifty thousand ships!' I asked, surprised. That seemed like too much. I had the image of qurians crawling on top of one another, no room or food left to give.

'Yeah. Every ship used as residential ship can handle about a good eight hundred qurians. Then you have the patrol ships with twenty to thirty crew, the engineer ships with fifteen to twenty crew, the medical centres with a good three or four hundred quarians, the "parks" with around four hundred quarians there.' Teishi counted mentally for a moment. I already had the figures. 'So it makes, in average, around three hundred and ninety qurians per ship, give or take. But the heavily occupied ones are big ones like the Mecara or the Douna with eight hundred qurians living there. And no ship carries skeleton crews either.'

I nodded. This did seem a bit easier, though the Khan had had a crew of fifty men and women before Ocean dropped them off and it had seemed like a big crew. Though, come to think of it, a good two hundred would fit on the Khan before the life support became hard to manage. The only issues would be toilets and beds. And food and water, of course.

'Is that that Rio?' I asked, pointing at the ship which we seemed to have a course towards.

'Rayya.' corrected Adii. 'I was born there. It's not a medical centre, but most ships have sterile rooms for giving birth.'

My head began to hurt. The quarians were so radically different from humans that I had a hard time believing in them, in spite of the two quarians standing next to me.

'Sterile rooms for giving birth?'

'Yes. We are born with poor immune systems, so we have to keep away from anything that could possibly be contagious.' explained Adii.

'How poor exactly? I mean, if I sneezed-...' I began.

'Then I could die from it.' said Adii. Her voice was serious.

'That bad?' my heart had sunk into my stomach. How horribly terrifying it must be. To be trapped in a suit for your entire life, the only other option being death... It occurred to me that, this is how the volus must feel as well. But they can at least go back to their homeworld and be themselves there. The quarians... Oh god, the quarians didn't have the resources to go back to their homeworld. I felt an irrational panic at the thought that the galaxy was so extremely careless to the point of a severe, sadistic pleasure at seeing the quarians being forced to live like this. The Council didn't understand that they weren't saving the lives of their fleets and soldiers by not killing all the Geth on the quarina homeworld. They were dooming the quarians to a life that is as bad as captivity.

Only a second had passed while I was having my epiphany.

'Well, I might simply get a very nasty cough and headache or infection of some sort. You never really know for sure until you try it out.' replied Adii in her usual easy voice.

I wanted to shake her and make her see what was going on.

'But why hasn't anyone helped to reclaim your world?' I asked in a kind of horrified whisper.

'I don't know.' shrugged Teishi. 'If you ever find out, give me a call. I'd love to know why we're constantly too close to losing one of the ships and hundreds of lives with it.'

'It is a big risk...' said Adii, laying her hand soothingly on Teishi's shoulder. 'The Council cannot just send ships to their deaths for this.'

'Of course they can!' I growled. 'They do it all the time. Only not to help anything in particular.'

Liara looked at me wonderingly but I didn't say anything. I felt... betrayed. As if I was one of the quarians. No. I felt as if my idea of the Council being a civilized group of aliens who made and upheld the law and order of the galactic community was gone. Now, all I saw was people who were too greedy and frightened to see the bigger picture. Who forgot that the laws are there to make life simpler for common people, not for their own gain nor to complicate actions people take.

My head began throbbing terribly. The plan I had made to get rid of my "terrorist" status was altering in my head without me really giving it any actual motivation or thought. It was like an instinct.

'Oh.' I had to sit down.

'Are you well?' asked Liara immediately. 'Min?'

'I'm fine. We've been too engrossed in the black box for too long. My head hurts.' I smiled calmly. It didn't seem to lessen Liara's agitation.

'You look very pale. More than usual.' she said, looking very worried.

'Look, I'm fine! Don't worry.' I even stood up to demonstrate that I was fine.

Then a message sounded through the speakers.

'We have you flagged Alliance, vehicle class doesn't show up. Please identify yourselves.'

'The anveer and the laska dance the dance of fire and ice which ends in death. The People are dancing the dance again.' replied Adii.

'Welcome, Adii M'rean nar Rayya and Teishi M'rean vas Rayya. You didn't forget to buy the hard disc, did you? Because we can't run vids with no space, now can we kids?'

The voice, which had started off very formally, ended with a casual and joking tone.

'Keep your mind on your job, Henor.' said Teishi simply.

'Fine. A cleaning team will meet you guys.' Henor replied grumpily.

Only now did I notice the shopping bags that the quarians carried. One contained things like food oil and seasoning while the other contained machine oil and plastic bits that might be the hard discs.

'We didn't realize you'd ask us to go with you.' said Teishi, noticing where I was looking.

'Yeah. Usually we send a shuttle down to get things, but Maldagry doesn't allow quarian ships to dock. Or shuttles for that matter.' Adii said sourly.

'Then how did you get here?' I asked, perplexed.

'Maldagry transportation services. A taxi.'

This did nothing to make me feel better. I had to bite my tongue in order not to tell them that I'd do all in my power to change the fate of the quarians. It was a stupid thought and a stupid feeling. I couldn't change anything even if I tried.

'How can you live like this?' I asked instead, again in a whisper that only Teishi heard.

'What else can we do?' he said, turning away and following Ocean.

The Rayya was a very nice ship indeed, with potted plants in every corner, paintings on the walls for decoration and quarian music playing on the speakers. Had I not known better I'd have assumed that this ship was no older than one, maybe two service years old. All the humans and the asari were wearing enviro suits as well, Teishi insisting that he wasn't sure we would survive without them. So now I had to wear a suit that made me look like some sewer diver. Damn.

We were greeted by a team of quarians, with weapons at their holsters. No one seemed remotely ready to fire though.

Teishi and Adii simply walked on into the ship.

'Rael will come and speak with you soon enough.' said Teishi before they left out of sight.

'You wish to speak with Rael?' asked one of the quarians levelly.

'Yes.' I nodded, as Ocean nudged me in the small of my back. 'We want to ask a favour of him.'

'Huh. So who are three, anyways?'

'I am captain Becket and this is my crew.' said Ocean as if announcing the arrival of God himself. Or herself, depending on your belief.

'Sinus.' said Sinus, glaring at Ocean.

'I am Elisabeth and this is Martin. We are engineers aboard the Khan.' smiled Elisabeth through her breathing mask.

They had insisted on coming along to see the quarian ship with their own eyes and according to Teishi, numbers of people wouldn't matter once they were inside.

'Well, you can step on in. I'm not here to detain you.' laughed the guard. 'We're just here to keep an eye on the seals.' he pointed at the door to the passage between the Khan and the Rayya.

'Oh. We'll... we'll enter then.'

'This is a nice ship.' said Sinus appreciatively. 'Quarians know what they're doing, I'll give them that.'

'Thank you.' replied a dry voice from the far end of the hall.

Two quarians stood there, looking at us in what was almost appraisal. I was certain that it had to be the captain of this ship.

'It is nice to meet a friend of the quarians.' the quarian added, approaching Ocean and shaking his hand. 'Teishi tells me that you want to speak to me of some matter. I am Rael Zorah vas Rayya.'

Ocean nudged me painfully in the ribs to speak.

I cleared my throat hastily.

'Will out host not ask us to make ourselves comfortable?' I asked in what I hoped was amusement rather than fear.

'Ah, where are my manners!' Rael laughed. 'And I forgot to introduce my daughter as well.'

'I am Tali.' she said, shaking Ocean's hand firmly, but not looking to either direction.

Clearly, she was well practiced in speaking to people though she didn't seem to like doing so outright before knowing their intent. Ocean must have caught that too, because he glanced at Liara for a second and shook his head.

'Come, let's sit in the commons. There's plenty of comfort there.'

Rael led us into the ship towards what could almost be an arcade hall, only there were no arcade games. Instead, there were panels and monitors that displayed all parts of the ship's components. But they were all neatly fastened to the walls and left a lot of room for the dozen or so tables and a buffet table. I noticed that none of the foods seemed to be solid and my heart sank.

We sat at one of the tables, speaking pleasantries in the age-old banter rules that had to be satisfied before we could start talking business. We complemented the quarian ship and they complemented Ocean's bravery, whatever it had been, and joked that, if the justicars gave up on him, he must have been a dreadful pirate.

'Now then.' Rael said finally. 'What is that you came here for?'

Before Ocean could nudge me again I cleared my throat for attention.

'We are in a bit of a predicament here.' I began, cursing myself for not having come up with a good speech beforehand. 'Liara and I. And we need to go somewhere that's almost-but-not-quite safe for a lone Alliance ship to travel. And then, when we arrive, you guys can get this ship while we leave in another one. The catch is that we need a good dozen or so ships with us.'

'You wish to take a dozen quarian ships with you?' asked Rael in mixed surprise and disgruntlement.

'Only to Incara and back. They won't have to actually do anything. Just fly there, hover for an hour or so, take the Khan, this Khan...' I gestured vaguely towards the Alliance ship. '... and go back to the Flotilla.'

Rael look at me shrewdly.

'Is that so? That simple?' he said, frowning. Or I thought that he frowned. I wasn't even sure whether he had eyebrows. 'Why?'

'Why what?'

'Why would you simply give this ship to us for a trip there and back. There has to be more to it.'

'We won't need this ship after we reach Incara.' I said, soothingly, before he could become any more suspicious. 'The Khan we're after is too fast for this one to be of any genuine use.'

There was a silence as Rael pondered this.

'What do you think?' he addressed Tali after a while.

'About what? I can't see them stealing the dozen ships. And if they leave then we lose a ship we never expected to have anyway.' Tali shrugged.

Rael nodded slowly.

'There is a certain reputation to captain here.' he inclined his head towards Ocean. 'That whenever he asks for help, things go very wrong. And there is no guarantee that a dozen ships will be enough to scare pirates away.' he added with a sharp glance at... one of us. 'I know very well who's hiding under Incara's surface.'

'Last I checked, about three months ago, they had less than a dozen ships themselves. Even if they managed to get twenty or thirty of them, they won't look for a fight against a dozen quarian ships led by an Alliance one.' intervened Ocean. 'And from what I've seen of your ships, any one of them is as good as two or three of theirs. Plus, you have the knowledge of ships that the pirates lack!'

'So you admit that there is a chance for a fight then? A real one? One to which you've already formulated a strategy?' Rael said sharply. 'No, I am sorry, but I cannot help you. I truly cannot.' he added sincerely.

'The quarians have a debt to Ocean. Will you ignore this one bond of honour?' I asked in what seemed to be an awfully disgusted voice. I hadn't meant to sound like that.

'Father... I really don't think that anything will happen. He is right. If we send some of our battle-ready ships there is no danger to us nor them. And we will get a new ship in return.' urged Tali.

'Very well. I... don't like this. But I see the wisdom of your words.' agreed Rael. 'A fifteen ship company will follow you to Incara. There you will take what you came for and leave Incara.' he rubbed his temples as if in pain. 'And Ocean... do your very utmost not to provoke a confrontation.'

'Don't fret, Rael. I can play nice when I need to.'

Rael almost groaned.

'Ah, father?' Tali nudged Rael as if to remind him of something.

'Yes?'

'Can I come with-...'

'No! You are too young. You don't leave for your Pilgrimage for three years yet. I'd rather that you didn't leave the Flotilla until then.' Rael cut in sharply.

'Yes father.' Tali put as much false meekness as she possibly could into the words much like the mockery of a slave's' behaviour.

'Good.' nodded Rael, not really caring about the tone as long as she agreed. 'Will you depart now or..?'

'I think that Min wants to see more of the ship.' said Liara to no one in particular. 'And I wouldn't mind staying either.'

'I can give you guys a tour.' said Teishi, entering the room from the door opposite to the one we entered through.

Though at first glance the ship had seemed very powerful and modern, now that I could have a look around the whole thing, I could see subtle signs of age. A bit of wiring that didn't match the rest, older versions of transmitters and boosters coupled with newer ones, transistors that were so hot that electromagnetic fields had been raised around them, or some that simply had to be used as tesla coils because no one dared to touch it with wires. But in spite of all this it was a very effective ship. The quarians could do some pretty amazing things with scrap metal. Or, Teishi insists that most of it is scrap metal and tries to point out to me all the things that are, to him, obviously old and scrappy. But I couldn't see it that way.
Also, I found out that most of the stuff on the extranet I've read was badly outdated. Things about mass effect integrated into internal propulsion systems for better "flock" handling was old news and newer drives had been installed that surpass the original ones. The flock handling system was, perhaps, unique in all the fleets on the whole galaxy. The theory behind them was that a whole flock of ships could easily navigate without constant updates from pilot to pilot about new routes to be taken. Instead, the cores of the ships worked in a unison, affecting mass from an external point but on an internal level. A good example of this would be something like a river. No matter how many boats you put on it, if there is a stream, they will follow it automatically. And if the river turns, so do all the boats. And seeing how the quarian Flotilla is humongous, that trick is particularly useful. The only time this is turned off is when going through a relay, in order for the ships to go though in one piece, rather than parts for the quarians to assemble, scattered through space and, as some quarians theorize, time.

'So what do you think?' asked Teishi as we finished the tour. 'Is it as horrible as you thought it would be?'

'It's as impressive as I thought it would be, yes.' I smiled. Then remembered that the helmet I wore didn't show my mouth. 'There's something I want to ask you though.'

'Yes?

'The drones – the holographic things that fly about...'

'Yes?'

'Where did you-... How do you do them? Is it a special program you need to get or... what?'

The drones were something I'd seen only once before, when a group of Alliance engineers had come to help us set up the turret towers. They had used holographic drones to help attach pieces of metal and the like with electric bursts. I'd been too young to be certain that what I had seen was in fact drones, but today my suspicions had been confirmed.

'Aha, the techie drones.' nodded Teishi. 'Yes, it's an omni tool upgrade. It's a weak kinda field that takes the form of-...' he pressed a button on his omni tool and a silver and red orb appeared before us. '... a kind of drone.'

'It's what we did to that shuttle after Ragdov.' I mused. I sensed Liara nodding from somewhere behind me.

'Sorry?' asked Teishi, looking from whatever he was doing to his omni tool.

'Oh nothing.' I shrugged.

'There.' Teishi exclaimed after a minute. 'Accept.' he added as my omni tool made a beeping noise, telling me that someone was transmitting me a file.

It was only a little of twenty gigabytes large.

'This is the drone?' I asked to make sure.

'Yes. The basic engine along with all the upgrades I've done for it myself over the years to make it more "life like"'

I stared at him.

'Not in an AI sort of way!' he raised his hands defensively, laughing. 'Just a touch of... vanity.'

As soon as Liara and I had gotten the program started I knew what he meant. The first thing the drone did was to ask me about how my day was. Every sound from my omni tool went to my ear piece, so only I could hear the conversation we had and the same went for Liara.

'You can customize the colour and it's power settings. The omni tool can sustain it for only so long. The best my omni tool can do is a little over two days straight. And it runs of the suit's battery. I'm guessing that you have about, say, a quarter of an hour until it needs to gather strength again.'

I quickly went over the settings, gave up and decided to give the drone a verbal command.

'Change colour.' instantly a window appeared on the drone's display. A variety of colours, ultraviolet and all it's shades were included for drell and hanar eyes, were displayed on it. 'Red.' I said.

It became red. Not the calm and soothing red of a fine wine or a dark-red rose, but the red of a sports shuttle.

'Darker.'

Now it had the right idea. A vague thought saying that it looked like a levitating drop of blood strolled through my mind, but I shushed it.

'I'll name you... Kami.' I decided. It seemed like a good name. What was the point of modesty after all?

'See, I knew that these upgrades would be usable.' laughed Teishi. 'I'm actually planing on going public with them. You know, earn some extra credits for the Flotilla.'

'These aren't publicly available yet?' Liara asked in surprise. 'Goddess knows I've seen a lot of them on Ilium.'

'I mean the speaking and the colour changing parts. It's not as easy as it looks to program a holographic interface to change it's appearance on the command of a word. I didn't sleep for months, writing this particular change. Whoever had made them didn't want anyone to change them.' Teishi sounded proud of his success. I wasn't really surprised that he had been the one to do it. Quarians were great engineers and just as good programmers to keep their ships in check. They had created the AI who had then taken over their world for crying out loud. And for a second, I did want to do just that. But I could see no way to help the quarians short of appealing to the Council.

Maybe I should just take my pride, stuff it somewhere and go to the Alliance? Maybe I should just quit while my luck is still working.

'Min. We're leaving now. You staying on the Rayya or coming with me?' asked Ocean.

Or maybe I should just hang onto this one life and see how it plays out.