CHAPTER FOUR
Resignation

Kara had returned to her quarters, staring again out the window into the expanse of the nebula. Elleztere é Svesséa still hung where she could see it, a virtual city in space. The logistics necessary to support its crew of four thousand would be crippling, if it were not a virtual self-contained ecosystem, with hydroponic farms and recycling centers, able to provide nearly everything its crew needed, and spare parts as well. Humanity was at least a thousand years from even designing anything of the kind.

After the fight in the warehouse, Garrus and Kaidan had dragged the defeated mercenaries back to CSec, where they were locked up on charges of conspiracy to commit murder. Tali turned over a geth data core, the source of the recording of Saren, over to CSec's science division for analysis. In exchange, Kara put the quarian up in quarters next to her own, safely within the Alliance embassy.

With the investigation complete, Kara had retreated to her quarters, where she sat sipping tea and staring into space as she considered what Saren had said;

Eden Prime was a major victory. The beacon has brought us one step closer to finding the conduit.

Then the unidentified asari; And one step closer to the return of the Reapers.

The beacon was the prothean artifact, which had transmitted its message into her brain. She had no idea what the conduit was, but she assumed it was also some sort of Prothean device. The Reapers, then, could they be the threat the message warned against?

Everything else she came up with only added more questions. If the Reapers destroyed the galaxy-spanning civilization of the Protheans, why wouldn't they do the same to the diverse civilizations that thrived now? Why would Saren want that? Why did the Geth follow him?

The answers would only be found in close pursuit of Saren. She wondered who the task would go to; it was traditional to send a Spectre. If the Council offered her the job, and she expected them to, she had decided to decline. Her resignation from the Alliance was also filled out and ready to send.

The door chime interrupted her before she could start meditating on what to do with the rest of her life. She padded barefoot across the room, and keyed the door open.

"Hey, Commander," Tali said. The environmental suit she wore constantly made reading her expression impossible, so Kara paid close attention to the tone of her voice. She sounded nervous, lonely, and a bit tired.

"Kara, Tali. Come in."

"You're much more friendly than the other humans here." Relief, as though she had expected to be brushed aside, now that she no longer had anything that Kara needed. She walked straight to the couch and sat down. "One of them accused me of being a thief! She even called security on me."

Kara sighed, and sat beside her. "I'm sorry. That kind of behavior is inexcusable. Just give me her name, and I'll straighten her out."

"No, Kara, that's—it's not necessary."

She almost insisted. The quarians had engaged in some dubious practices, following the loss of their homeworld, but nothing ever excused bigotry against an individual, and it was important that such attitudes be confronted. Her small reprimand would make little difference, though, against the weight of official policy.

"I didn't come for that anyway. I just wanted to say thank you."

"You don't need to," Kara said. "I know what it's like, to be on the wrong end of someone's preconceptions."

"I do, because I—I want to go with you when you stop Saren."

"Me?" Kara wasn't certain if she'd said it aloud or not. "No. I won't. I'm not going after Saren, and even if I were, I wouldn't take you. Tracking him down will a long and bloody business."

"You're being silly, Kara," Tali said, though she sounded more resolute than amused. "Of course you are. 'It's what I do,' remember?"

"That was-that was me being silly," Kara insisted. She wasn't interested in white-knighting her way around the galaxy; she had only ever done what was necessary.

"Then there's the beacon. Lieutenant Alenko told me what happened on Eden Prime. Whatever it showed you, Saren needed it. That means you know more about what he's after than anyone else."

"I'm sure that won't make much difference," Kara muttered. She was beginning to feel outmaneuvered. All the evidence suggested he'd been after the beacon, which had stopped working after her encounter with it. It has been transferred to a team of Council scientists, who were attempting to figure out what had gone wrong, so there wasn't much chance of giving one of the current Spectres the same vision.

"Besides, what will it say about you, if you turn your back on this?"

She wasn't sure that she cared. "Tali, when I first joined the Alliance I wanted to be a heroine. Then the Blitz happened, and I became one, and for the first time I knew what it meant. It isn't clean, and it isn't fun. It's death. Blood and bodies, the injured and the dying screaming in pain. When I dream of what I did on Elysium, I wake up wishing I'd died there. I couldn't bear to expose you to that, and it's past time I stopped as well. The people who make heroes are the ones who bleat loudest for respect they haven't earned, only to demand protection when things go wrong. To hell with them. I just want to be a person."

Silence fell. Kara contemplated shattered illusions. Her perception of the world had undergone several radical shifts, of which Elysium was not the first. She had, with the aid of a biased military education system, grown into a confused and bigoted teen. It was just her luck that her personal first-contact came in the shapely form of a beautiful, and 'promiscuous', asari, and that her semi-repressed lesbian brain had found the possibilities impossible to resist. She had used poor judgement, but the ignorance she had learned from her teachers enabled her as much as youth and hormones.

There was always so much to know, to learn. Schools, she realized, were not simply places of learning, but of indoctrination and—aside from a few outliers—human xeno-sociologists produced views of alien cultures distorted by pro-human ideology. That revelation had prompted her to leave Alliance space, stowed away on a freighter to the Citadel. She had immersed herself in alien cultures for four years, travelled the stars, and learned to make judgements for herself. The difference between what she was taught and what she experienced was subtle, but instructive. She had come so close to another life entirely, before she finally resolved to join the military, a decision which she found difficult to understand, but ten years and Elysium stood between her and her younger self.

Tali stood, pacing halfway across the room before turning. "You are a person. A good person, who would risk her life to save a quarian she didn't even know. Forgive me, Kara, but I don't believe you."

"Tali, the Council has other Spectres. I'm sure one of them could track down Saren. There was no one else to stop those mercenaries." She wondered if the young quarian could read her well enough to see how conflicted she actually felt. If anyone had asked her to fight a war, she would have walked away without question; she refused to kill for the benefit of an elite few. Would stopping Saren be any different? She had only hints of his agenda, most of them drawn from a hazy, half-remembered vision, the rest asserted by Anderson, distorted by bitterness towards the rogue Spectre. "Someone else can play the hero this time."

"You're really going to walk away? Let the galaxy burn, so you can feel all righteous?" Irritation, or anger? Her dimly glowing eyes were narrowed and glaring.

"It's not that simple," Kara sighed. Not than anything ever was. "It's about principals, and when to make a stand. We'll never run out of crises to be solved, each more dire than the last, each new enemy more irredeemably evil. I've seen it happen before, and know what it can justify. No, I'm going to walk away. I've every faith the galaxy will manage without me."

"You're really willing to risk being wrong?"

And letting the Galaxy burn? Kara sighed again. Tali was right, and even if it failed to make her indispensable, she had to accept that the vision might be more important than she liked to admit. It was so easy for a person to see what they wanted, and to disregard the rest. It made sense to send her after Saren, and she did not want to acknowledge it, but she refused to shy away from uncomfortable truths. "I'll take the mission, Tali, if the Council asks me to, but you're still not coming along."

"I lost a friend to that bosh'tet turian already, Kara," the quarian snapped, "or did you forget? He didn't deserve to die like that."

Keenah'Breizh, the other pilgrim, whom CSec had found dead in the wards. Tali had already informed CSec that he was dead, after walking into a trap she had set in one of the station's many recycling centers. That had been self defense, an unfortunate necessity, and not something she would be prosecuted for. Chasing Saren was an act of revenge, both harmful to the individual and counterproductive on a larger scale, and Kara had no intention of facilitating the young quarian in hers.

"You can't ask me to let this go, Kara," Tali continued, possibly with a triumphant, though invisible, smile. "I'm supposed to be out here proving my worth, remember?"

Kara sighed. It wasn't that she doubted Tali's value, both as a technician and a soldier, or that she had any cause to question the quarian's motive. She saw a little of her own coming of age in the pilgrimage tradition, and hoped, futilely she knew, that her words might make a different path more appealing. She also remembered the willfulness of youth, and in the end, Tale had the right to make that choice herself. "Very well."

Kara arrived at the base of the Presidium Tower a comfortable few minutes before the Council had scheduled their meeting. Tali, also summoned, had come with her, looking around with more than a little awe. The necessities of quarian existence did not grant them much space, or much access to luxury, and the Presidium had both in abundance.

"You remember our agreement, right?" Tali asked, softly, as the lift carried them inward.

"Of course," Kara stated. She remembered, and regretted it.

"Hey, where's your ambassador, um, Udina?"

That was actually an astute question. Normal protocol would be for the Council to contact the ambassador, and for him to notify her, but that was potentially negated if they were still considering her for Spectre. It suggested he wouldn't even be present at this meeting, which she considered a relief. "I don't know."

"Aren't you nervous? I can't imagine why they want to talk to me. It isn't like I know anything more."

Kara shook her head. She rarely got nervous, not anymore, and what apprehension she felt had more to do with wanting to avoid Spectre status than anything else. "They may want to thank you." She also had to consider the possibility that Tali's evidence was falsified.

"Oh. Uh, that didn't help. Has anyone ever told you that you're not very talkative?"

"Frequently," she smiled. "I'm sorry, Tali. I'm a little distracted, but if it'll help, we can talk about whatever you'd like."

This, as the lift came to a halt. It had taken them five kilometers from the ring of Presidium to the tower, at the center of the ring, and from began moving towards its pinnacle, where the Tower Court located. The door slid open on a dimly lit hall, half a kilometer in length. "I want to know more about you. I mean, I saw your public record, how is it you know so much about my people?"

Because she'd met another pilgrim, years ago, and they'd been close for a time. Before she moved on. "There's plenty of information on your people in the Citadel public database," Kara said. "Pre- and post-exile. Studying alien cultures is a hobby of mine."

"Oh," Tali said, sounding disappointed.

"You were expecting excitement and adventure?" Kara replied, smiling softly. The truth was neither.

"Yes. I guess," the Qurian shrugged. "You feel like someone with stories to tell."

The lift came to a rapid halt, the door opening onto the wide Tower Court, which climbed by park-like terraces, up to the Petitioner's Terrace, at the top. Unlike the wards, the tower didn't rotate, its gravity generated by mass effect fields and not centrifugal force.

"Hey, there's Garrus," the Quarian said, pointing out a turian in a CSec uniform, who had just turned towards them. He was standing next to a round fountain, pale beams of light emerging from the pool, and converging at the peak of the column of water. "Garrus!"

"Miss Tali'Zorah," he said, nodding politely. "Commander Shepard. The lab report came in a couple of hours ago, confirming that the recordings are authentic. Now it's just a question of what the Council will do about it."

Actually, the solution was obvious. Granting her Spectre status and sending her after Saren would do much to appease the Alliance. If she succeeded, her victory would bring publicity, and reflect well on her species. If she didn't, they could always send someone else. Kara did not intend to allow herself to be used in such a matter, though she wasn't sure how she could stop it.

"Make Kara a Spectre, and send her after Saren," Tali said confidently.

"Wait, so that's what you meant when you said they were testing you?" Garrus asked, shaking his head at the realization. "I take it they don't know about you and krogan-tossing?"

Kara shrugged. She had been careful to conceal the extent of her biotic abilities from the Alliance, to protect the reason for the change, but that was no business of his. "We shouldn't keep the Council waiting."

"Yeah," Garrus agreed. "This way."

Of course, the Council held its audiences on the highest terrace, after three levels, broken into secluded areas by red-leaved trees from the asari homeworld of Thessia. The turian led them upward, and finally out over the Petitioner's Bridge, lit from below by dim light that filtered up through the branches of more red trees in an isolated arboretum.

On a balcony overlooking them, the Council waited. The gap between the bridge and their position, the elevation, all served to stress the importance of the councillors. Contrary to that impression, they had limited power to rule on the internal affairs of its member species, their domain being primarily interspecies relations.

"Commander Shepard," began Sparatus, his face held high as he spoke. Looking down his nose at her, it seemed. "The evidence supplied by the Quarian Tali'Zorah has been verified by our best forensic experts. It cannot be refuted. Saren has been stripped of his Spectre status, and all efforts will be made to bring him in to answer for his crimes."

"The other voice belongs to matriach Benezia T'Soni," Tevos added, her calm voice not entirely hiding her concern. "She was a strong and influential voice within the Republic, until she disappeared over a year ago, along with many of her supporters. We are making efforts to understand her motives, but she left very little behind."

"Commander, your report from Eden Prime states that you received a vision from the prothean beacon you retrieved," said Valern. "The geth module contained scraps of information about these 'Reapers'. Did the beacon provide you with any insight?"

"No," Kara shook her head, brushing her fingers through her hair as she did. Her memory had fully returned, but the gaps in the vision remained. "There's too much missing. The best way to find out more would be to go after Saren; if these Reapers are real, he's working for them."

"Commander," Tevos inquired, sounding almost amused, "are you volunteering?"

"No!" Sparatus' angry statement mirrored Kara's thoughts. He turned towards Tevos. "We've discussed this. Humanity is not ready for the responsibilities that come with joining the Spectres."

"Councillor," Kara said irritably, interrupting Tevos' response. "I am not humanity. If you wish to dismiss me, do so for my own flaws, not those of my species."

Behind her, Tali whispered to Garrus; "Didn't I tell you?"

On the balcony, Tevos turned to Valern, who nodded at her. "It is our judgement, Varrus," she said, turning back to the turian, "That Kara Shepard is prepared for the rights and responsibilities of the Spectres."

His mandibles flaring irritably, Sparatus nodded his ascent.

"Commander Shepard," Tevos said. "Step forward."

Kara was uncertain what to do. Difficult decisions were a part of any officer's life, but this one had consequences beyond anything she had faced before. She was a Spectre now, and had taken an oath before the Council to enforce their judgement, and to protect galactic stability. It was a vague job description, consistent with the role of an independent agent. Outside the law, and out of sight.

She paused in her walk, leaning against a railing that overlooked a small plaza. Below, a trio of musicians stood with their backs against a small flower garden, two salarians and an asari, playing a tune that seamed to interweave elements of both worlds' musical traditions. Closed her eyes, and just listened, allowing the tune to clear her thoughts.

The question was, what did being a Spectre mean to Kara Shepard? Where did she go from here? To catch Saren, she would need resources; intelligence, which the Council had agreed to provide through the Salarian Union's Special Tasks Group. A ship and crew, for which she had her eye on the Normandy. Its stealth capabilities would be invaluable, given the dangers of the mission, and she knew the Alliance could be persuaded to turn it over. So long as she cooperated.

That would probably mean agreeing to accept orders through the chain of command, even though she was now legally outside of it, and allowing the Naval Recruiting Office to use her in its advertisements. Granted that, once she was away, censuring her would be difficult, but the principal of it mattered. She didn't like making promises that she didn't intend to keep, and she had no intention of abusing her newfound authority to benefit a corrupt and expansionist human government.

The proper thing to do would be to resign her commission. Udina might still be persuaded to allow her use of the Normandy, if she were polite about it, though it would still be conditional. That was not an improvement; her issue was with whose orders she followed, not whether she wore the uniform. She needed something more drastic, that couldn't be ignored or explained away as a formality. Something that would unquestionably divorce her from eight years as a marine, and all the assumptions that created about a person.

Sighing, she returned her attention to the music. The piece was nearing its end, point and counterpoint seeming to deconstruct each other. Picking apart the instances that had bound them together, until the whole thing collapsed into a lingering silence. It had been well-performed, so she checked her omnitool, searching for an electronic tip-jar.

It was easy enough to find, and she passed a hundred credits into the account. Her officer's income of eighty-three thousand five hundred credits a year had just been supplemented by a two hundred and forty-five thousand a year paid to Spectres, along with a generous expense account. It was a more than comfortable income, certainly more than she needed, but she wondered if it would stretch to fit her third option; commandeering the Normandy.

It had occurred to her on the Petitioner's Bridge, even as she spoke her oath, but she had dismissed it at the time. Like any good idea, though, she found that it grew on her. It wouldn't be easy, either to talk the crew into joining her, or to pursue her mission. She would have far fewer resources at her disposal, though the Defense Committee would probably agree not to send ship after her.

She was less certain about the Council. According to the overview she had studied, Spectres could request and expect to receive military assistance, including temporary use of a warship, at need—that is, without using formal diplomatic channels, with all the delays that represented. She did not expect them to be pleased, but they would agree that she had the right. If they gave her approval, it would drive a wedge between them and the Alliance. If they censured her, it would undercut her authority.

She sighed, and resumed her wandering. No matter how much she liked the idea, she knew it was not a decision to make lightly. The consequences could be far-reaching, potentially even splitting the Alliance from the Council altogether. She doubted that even Parliament would be that idiotic, however, as the navy would have to overextended itself in an attempt to secure now-friendly borders, leaving the already vulnerable colonies in the Attican Traverse open to full-scale assault, of the type that hadn't happened since the Skyllian Blitz.

Anyway, she could only be responsible for her own actions, and the lives of those who followed her. That was burden enough without trying to guess how the Alliance's ruling elite might respond to her. If she had less distaste for vigilanteism, she would have seriously considered bringing retribution down on some of them, for crimes they had committed, excused, or covered up.

No, she had already decided to limit her efforts to defeating Saren. She was not going to allow herself to become him.

Coming around a corner, Kara found herself facing a large, and heavily armored, krogan, aiming a pistol squarely at her head. She reacted instantly, using her biotics to drive a kick that sent his weapon spinning down the corridor. "What's this about?" she asked, as she settled into defensive stance. She knew she wasn't going to beat him with her bare fists, so she would have to go for the pistol.

Unsurprisingly, he didn't answer, but threw himself at her with a wild roar. She let him come, falling back when they connected, and using her biotics and his own momentum, managed to throw him a good few meters.

She ran at him, but he recovered quickly enough to block her first punch, though he took the second across the jaw. Even with biotic enhancement, it was little more than an annoyance, and she barely managed to duck his retaliatory strike. His biotic attack took her by surprise, sending her flying backwards, but she managed to free herself, and mute her impact with the floor, only to find the krogan rushing towards her with an enthusiastic roar.

She only just had time enough to dodge him, and he swung at her, slamming her against the wall without enough force to knock the breath from her lungs. She found herself gasping for air, and almost took a blow to the chest that might have crushed her. His fist hit the wall, instead, and she grabbed his arm, wrenching it up behind him.

Reducing his mass as much as she dared, Kara drove the krogan forward with all her strength. In the last instant, she reversed the field, slamming him into the wall with as much momentum as she could give him. As he staggered, dazed by the impact, she used her biotics to pull the discarded pistol into her hand, and aimed it at his head. The weapon was within his kinetic barriers, and was certainly powerful enough to rip through his brain. "Explain yourself," she demanded, as calmly as one could while still gasping for breath.

"Peace, Shepard," the krogan grunted. "No one sent me. I just wanted to see if you lived up to your reputation. You're pretty good for a puny human."

Kara raised a skeptical eyebrow, but, now that she had a chance to study him, she wondered if it might be true. He looked old, perhaps three or four hundred years, and sported several faded scars on his long face. He'd already had an opportunity to kill her, and let it pass. "Oh?"

"I was hired to kill Fist," he continued, "but I hear you got to him first."

"He's not dead," Kara noted. She hadn't actually hurt him at all, though Garrus had gone back later with a CSec team, and arrested him for conspiracy to commit murder.

"Dead, locked up," the krogan shrugged. "Whatever. Blasting him would have been more fun, but at least he's out of the way. My employer is satisfied, and since you did it, I figure you should get the reward."

She lowered the pistol, aiming a look of contempt at him instead. "Keep it."

"What, you don't like money?"

"No," she told him flatly, "and I don't like you."

The krogan laughed. "Well, I like you, Shepard. The name's Urdnot Wrex. Are you really going after Saren?"

Kara didn't answer. It wasn't really his business.

"I'd like to come along. A rogue Spectre is sure to put up a good fight."

She already had Tali to worry about, and Garrus had someone inserted himself into the mission as well. Adding a bloodthirsty krogan mercenary to her crew hardly seemed like a good idea. To start with, she despised his profession. Killing for a cause was often dubious enough, but to kill for money only served to protect the power and prestige of those who were already rich. Even if she did need his help, she didn't want it. "No."

Wrex's red eyes stared at her, uncertainly. Whatever answer he had expected from her, that was not it, and it took him aback. "… that's it?"

She flipped the pistol over in her hand, and offered it to him grip-first. "Yes."

"You don't have to like me, Shepard," the krogan said, taking the weapon, "but I've been a battlemaster since before your species made it into space. I know violence. You need me."

Maybe. If she did commandeer the Normandy, she could find herself short most on crew and marines, and a krogan battlemaster was not something to be dismissed lightly. It was at least worth considering. "I think about it," she said flatly, and turned her back on him.

She would see how things went, over the next day or so, she decided, as she walked away. If necessary, she could contact him then.

"Commander Shepard, it was inappropriate of you to meet with the Council without my presence," Ambassador Udina insisted.

Kara shrugged. "If they had desired your presence, they certainly would have requested it. They did not. Since you do not represent me, and I do not represent humanity, I saw no reason to object."

"I represent human interests before the Council, Shepard. I decide if my presence is required. If you can't accept that, a transfer to a less demanding post could be arranged."

"Not by you," Kara answered flatly. She was an agent of the Council, now and did not answer to the likes of Donnel Udina.

"What's going on, Shepard?" Anderson asked.

"I'm resigning from the Alliance Navy," she said, turning her attention to him. "The Council accepted our evidence. Saren has been declared renegade, and I've been assigned to hunt him down."

Udina crossed his arms across his chest, scowling at her. "They made you a Spectre?"

He made it sound like an accusation, but he had been as much for it as anyone. Apparently, a human Spectre was only an achievement when they served the Alliance first. "Yes," Kara said, smiling at him. She turned her attention back to Anderson, who had yet to voice his objections. Them, at least, she could understand, even without hearing them. "I just took an oath to the Council. I believe my obligations as an officer in the Alliance conflict with it. I have to do this."

"How do you plan on going after Saren, Shepard? You'll need a ship and crew."

She met his gaze calmly, confidently. He was far more capable of resisting her than Udina, if it came down to it, and she felt it was him she needed to convince. "I'll take Normandy."

"That's completely unacceptable, Miss Shepard," Udina declared. "If you remained with the Alliance, you could-"

"Captain, you know this is necessary. It's the best ship for the job, it's available, and I'm already familiar with it." She didn't think it wise to imply that she'd consider taking it without consent. At least, not yet. "Besides, as a Spectre, I have a right to your cooperation."

Anderson didn't have the authority to give her the ship, as they both knew, but his chance of gaining Udina's support was much higher than hers. He nodded slightly. "Ambassador, Shepard is right. We need her, and not just to stop Saren. She's still the symbol we wanted, if not the one we expected."

She was already a heroine; now they wanted to turn her into a figurehead. The prospect was not appealing. Commandeering the Normandy would neatly derail that possibility.

"We can't just give her the Normandy. Most of its systems are still classified. If she were still an Alliance officer, then there wouldn't be a problem, but I can't turn her over to a civilian."

"She's not a civilian, she's a Spectre, and the Normandy is just what she needs."

"We should have locked her in the brig, not recommended her for Spectre. Have you read her file, Captain? Insubordination, mutiny—"

"She's also a good tactical thinker, and she doesn't give up. Whatever Saren's up to, she's our only hope—"

Kara stood abruptly. "Excuse me. I have a mission to prepare for." She's our only hope. Tali had basically said the same thing, but it was such a horrid thought, a cliché dragged out for cheap drama. The was always another solution, if one took the time to look. Still, she was committed to her path, now, and she quickly left the room, before the two men could object.

AN: I really didn't intend to do this again, but... another split chapter. After adding another fifteen hundred words, it seemed like the right thing to do. Wrex got a proper introduction out of it, and I really felt that the decision to commandeer the Normandy came out of nowhere before.

Anyway, I hope you've enjoyed the improvements. See you next time.