CHAPTER NINETEEN
Diplomacy

"This is a really bad idea, Kara," Tali stated moodily, her arms folded across her chest as she leaned back in her chair. "You can't make peace with genocidal robots. It's crazy. The Council won't go along with it."

Kara had her doubts, but so did Tali, if the quarian's tone was any indication. "You're people never gave them a chance, Tali," she pointed out. "The Flotilla's shoot-on-sight policy has been in place since your exile. How do you get past that? Why risk war when mutual avoidance worked for so long? The Heretics have put that policy at risk, so they reassessed; it shouldn't be a surprise that they reached out."

"They committed genocide."

"The same thing your ancestors tried to do," Kara sighed. It wasn't an excuse. The fleeing quarians claimed to have left no survivors on Rannoch. If that were true, then the geth were guilty of massacring civilians, many of whom had never taken up arms. Then again, the reports of the vanquished were not always more reliable than those of the victors, and the geth had never told their side. "We don't actually know what happened on Rannoch, Tali. Your history of the war itself is incomplete. Shouldn't we give them a chance?"

Tali shifted uncomfortably in her chair. "You are such a pain," she grumbled, her glowing eyes narrowed in an uncertain glare.

Kara suppressed a grin. She had been called worse than that, and with more feeling. "I can handle the Council, Tali. I'm more worried about the Alliance. They need to be included in these talks. If it looks like the Council is making peace with their enemies, things will get worse."

Almost instantly, Tali was on her feet, laying a comforting hand on Kara's shoulder. "The Alliance failed in its responsibilities to the Council," she insisted. "You aren't to blame for the consequences."

"I wish that were true, Tali," Kara sighed, putting her hand on the quarian's. "On his own, Udina might have argued for granting me command of the Normandy, for the duration of the mission. He would've hated the deal, but he's just pragmatic enough to see it as necessary. I deliberately pushed him into arguing against it, because I didn't want the Alliance to hold me up as a bloody icon, like they did after Elysium."

She let her hand fall away, and gave another, bitter sigh. "Time to deal with the consequences."

Tali straightened, a confused look in her eyes, but a call from the bridge interrupted her response. "Cap'n Kara, the Council's on the line."

"Thanks, Fiona. Put them on."

The young quarian returned to her chair, as the holoprojectors flared to life. Kara rose to meet the Councillors, checking her list of arguments in her mind. "Councillors. I apologize for sending you so little information in my last report, but I felt the details would be better received in a more interactive setting."

"'The geth situation requires immediate attention' is not little information, Shepard," Sparatus noted, his expression as close to a frown as a turian could manage. "It is a judgement, and it was not yours to make."

"Councillor, you considered this an urgent enough matter to assign a spectre to investigate," Kara replied, "and I'm ready to provide you with my full report. You'll find it worth your time."

"Proceed, Kara," Adar told her, before the turian could reply. He leaned back in his chair, and nodded shortly.

Kara began with their investigation of the sensor array on Casbin, describing how Tali had managed to locate the geth base in the Grissom system, and how they infiltrated it. The Councillors reacted with some confusion, until she played Garrus' suit recording of their conversation with the geth platform.

"You were not authorized to undertake negotiations with the geth, Shepard," Sparatus declared immediately, after the vid cut out, his mandibles flaring as he spoke. "You certainly had no right to offer an embassy to a genocidal AI."

Valern shook his head. "She did no such thing, Varrus. However, the geth's story is suspicious. This could be an attempt to put us off guard before they invade. Our assessments of their capabilities, physical and mental, are three hundred years old."

"I do understand your suspicions, Councillor Valern," Kara said, "but if we aren't even willing to trust enough to talk with the geth, then war is inevitable. Saren's meddling has provided us a chance to change that, and it would be irresponsible of us not to take it."

"I agree," Adar said, nodding in Kara's direction. "If we consider the geth hostile for failing to communicate, how should they react when we do the same?"

Sparatus shook his head. "What about the information they gave you. Have you looked through it?"

"Yes. Sovereign didn't tell them anything, but they have detailed dimensions. They also claim to know where Saren found it."

"We could send someone to investigate," the turian said. "If only to be sure they're telling the truth. Do you believe they held anything back?"

Kara hesitated, briefly. "No. They may not trust us, but they know Sovereign isn't just their enemy. It wouldn't tell them anything."

Valern and the turian shared a look. "I'm wary," the salarian said, "but I see some sense in proceeding. At the very least, this is an opportunity to gain an insight into how the geth have evolved."

"Agreed," Sparatus sighed. "Shepard, go ahead and establish contact protocol. One ship. We'll leave the details in your hands. We don't want Saren hearing of this, and sending his Geth instead of yours."

"Of course," Kara nodded. "There is something else I want to raise. My crew has brought the recent increase in raids on Alliance colonies to my attention."

The Council had, from their troubled expressions, heard the same reports, and probably faced an irate Donnel Udina demanding action. It was Adar who spoke up first; "We're aware of the situation, Kara, but our current relationship with the Alliance limits our response."

"A state of affairs for which you are directly responsible, Shepard," Sparatus added bluntly. Adar frowned in his direction. "Just like the younger races, always looking for someone else to clean up their mistakes."

"Oh, because turians never make mistakes," Tali interjected, before Kara could reply. "Like an unprovoked attack on an unknown alien race, just for opening a relay?"

The turian councillor stared at the young quarian, as though just noticing her presence. "Why was she even included in this discussion?"

"I'm here to ask that my people be invited to participate in your talks with the geth," Tali stated, her dimly glowing eyes focused on Sparatus. "We have more to gain from this peace than anyone."

"It would be premature to raise the issue of resettling Rannoch, Tali'Zorah," Adar stated.

"Yes," Valern agreed. "Involving the quarians in the initial talks would be a mistake. It is more sensible to establish peace first, and then raise more difficult issues."

"Councillors, we are at peace with the geth," Kara said. "We've never been at war with them. The quarians have, and they're the ones who need to see it end. Why not give them that chance?"

"We'll think about it, Shepard," Sparatus said flatly. "Now, what did you want to say about the Alliance?"

"The colony attacked by the heretic geth was human. They—"

Adar held up her hand, halting Kara mid-sentence. "Excluding the Alliance would only strain relations between us further, Kara. You do not need to argue their case."

Kara sighed in relief. "Thank you." She had hopes that it would slow the pirate raids, but not for another two or three weeks, when the geth platform arrived on the Citadel, and it met with the Council. The Alliance could keep up with the raids for a month or two, depending on casualty rates, and then they would need to begin evacuating colonies.

"Are you done now, Shepard?" Sparatus asked, frowning at her again.

"I'm done," she told him, smiling faintly. There were several Alliance officers, of varying ranks, who could attest to how frustrating a subordinate she could be. However comfortable she became in her role as Spectre, she hoped that wouldn't change.

Two hours later, the Normandy received a transmission from Admiral Kahoku, marked urgent. The geth had yet to arrive, and Kara had it routed to her cabin, rather than the comm room.

"Shepard, at last," he sighed, the greying man's face appearing on the display.

At last? The Normandy had remained next to the Armstrong relay for the last six hours, its position logged at several major communications hubs en route to the Citadel. A request from an Alliance admiral should have established a link in minutes at most. Any delay would be the result of him trying to hide his position, either shunting his transmission through a proxy, using civilian priority, or both. "You have information on Cerberus?"

"Alliance brass stonewalled my investigation. My sources dried up, and I was forced to deal with an agent of the Shadow Broker."

Kara leaned back in her chair, brushing her hand through her hair. It had been two months at least since she last had it cut, and it was getting longer than she liked. Nothing was more irritating than having to claw hair out of one's eyes in combat. "Who in the Alliance?"

"I don't know—what does it matter?" the admiral frowned. "The Alliance Intelligence Institute, maybe even the Defense Committee."

"Cerberus represents the worst aspects of humanity, and—" Kara cut herself off with a sigh. If he didn't understand already, then no amount of words from her would make much difference. Her own first encountered with Cerberus had been less than a year ago, before she transferred to the Normandy. They had tracked a group of slavers—or so she thought—back to their base, only to find an outpost of the underground human-supremacist group. The Defense Committee had issued emergency orders for her to withdraw. She considered it proof that the three-member body, the Alliance's supreme military authority, had ties to Cerberus, providing them cover and possibly support. "Just get on with it."

Kahoku leaned forward. "I don't know how, but Cerberus found out that I'm on to them. They snuck a hit squad onto Arcturus station. I managed to escape aboard the Isandlwana. We're on our way to their base now. I could sure as shit use some backup when I get there."

As much as she despised everything that Cerberus stood for, the sentient spaceship intent on destroying all of galactic civilization was clearly the more urgent threat. However, she still had no lead on Sovereign, and the longer she waited, the more likely the pro-human terrorist group would discover which bases Kahoku had compromised, and remove everything of value. "Send me everything you have on Cerberus, from the Shadow Broker and your own investigation," she told him, "and I'll take a look."

"I appreciate this, Shepard," he said, his grey eyes dropping to the holographic controls. After a few seconds, a data packet arrived. "I'm on my way to Binthu, in the Voyager Cluster. We're still five days out, and we don't have your high-tech stealth systems, so we won't be able to hang around undetected."

Kara dragged the comm window aside, and brought up the Normandy's galaxy map. The trip would take them through two secondary relays. "I should be there before you." Depending on how long it took the geth to arrive, of course.

"I'll see you there, Shepard. Kahoku out."

The comm window closed. Kara focused the map on the Yangtze system. It had five planets, the inner a small gas giant, and the rest rocky. Binthu was the second, with a high surface temperature and a toxic atmosphere, not the sort of place that someone put a base if they had any choice. Cerberus had learned to hide itself well, and for good reason; Saren's logs indicated that the considered them, or rather their leader, a major rival. The rogue spectre believed that organization's mysterious leader, the Illusive Man, was Jack Harper, a human mercenary who had encountered a reaper artifact in the First Contact war, and was responsible for the death of his brother, Desolas Arterius.

If that were true, then Harper might have undergone partial Indoctrination, much like Saren himself, and could be an equal threat in the long term. The question was, could she persuade the Alliance to clean up their own mess, or would it come down to her?

"Captain, there are times when I wonder why in hell I chose to follow you," Keyx told her, leaning against his post in the CIC. A geth frigate had just accelerated towards the next mass relay, on its way to Council space, through the Terminus Systems. "And then there are times like this. Peace with the geth. Damn."

"Hopefully, Keyx," Kara said. It would take weeks for the geth ship to reach the Citadel, passing through some hostile regions of space along the way. "I wish I could do more to help, rather than chasing after Cerberus."

"We've all got our duties," the man replied, a grin spreading across his face as he continued. "Are you sure you don't want to call them back, maybe take on a few geth engineers?"

She laughed softly. The idea had not occurred to her. "I think the Defense Committee would prefer that I hired a batarian."

"It'd be close," Keyx agreed, "but yeah. They're all new and scary."

More importantly, batarians were individuals. She could trust one, independently of her opinion of their government. The geth were a collective consciousness. The distinction between discrete program and Consensus was misleading at best.

"If you don't mind the question, ma'am," Keyx continued, "why did you send the contact protocols to Councillor Valern only, and not the entire Council?"

A good question. "Simple caution. Saren and Benezia were greatly respected by their people, and could still have contacts among the Council's staff. Valern's staff is the least likely to be a security risk."

"You really think Saren would try to sabotage peace?"

It was hard to give a decisive answer without knowing Sovereign's plans more precisely. A second geth faction, particularly if were the larger of the two, would be the reaper's natural enemy, just like the Council. A war would tie up resources on both sides, weakening both in the long term. In the immediate future, though, the mobilization would make it more difficult to act with impunity. "I don't mean to give him the chance," she stated.

"Then…" he began, hesitantly making eye contact, before turning back to his console. "Then why not escort them in ourselves? Why go chasing after Cerberus?"

Kara sighed. Aside from the two week journey back to the Citadel, he had a point. She could order a course laid to a free port somewhere, to rest and resupply, and wait for news. Instead, she had agreed to a proper distraction, unrelated to either Saren or Sovereign at all. Inevitably, her willingness to take up the mission came down to her animosity towards the terrorist organization. "What do you know about Cerberus?" she countered.

"Well, they're terrorists. They claim credit for blowing a freighter every year or two, mostly targeting turians. The conspiracy nuts say they're really bigger than that, with a whole network of bases out there doing experiments on people they buy on the slave market. That's some dark shit, with lots of money coming in from corporate sources, and even the government. Bullshit. We don't support terrorism."

"Yes, we do," she said quietly. "Accurate information is hard to find, mixed in with hyperbole and outright fantasy. Most of their work is black projects, not terrorism—illegal genetic experimentation, development of species-specific biological weapons. Their goal is human dominance, through any means necessary."

"The Council would never allow that," Keyx muttered astutely. If left unchecked, it would mean war. That placed it firmly within the boundaries of a spectre's responsibility, and justified her decision legally. Even Sparatus was unlikely to object, so long as it did not interfere with her mission against Sovereign. "If it came to a war, what side would you fight on?"

"Neither," she stated flatly. It was not entirely true. Certainly she had no intention of dying for the Alliance, but she would attempt, using what influence she had with the Council, to limit the range of tactics available to the turians, and prevent a genophage-like finish. The only circumstance in which she could see herself fighting would be to prevent a total Alliance victory, but she said nothing. It would make her a traitor in Keyx's eyes, she imagined, and probably the rest of her crew as well. "Is the Normandy ready for another mission?"

"Yes, ma'am," he assured her. "The STG engineers are still learning their way around the ship's systems, but I guess they've been pulling double shifts. Major Kirrahe—" She had noticed the crew calling the salarian that before. In Alliance usage, a major was a marine officer of equal rank to a captain, though subject to the later's orders aboard ship, so the trade made sense— "says they aren't good at 'down time'. I guess with only forty years to live, they don't feel like they have time to waste."

True, in a sense. The average salarian needed an hour of sleep for every twenty hours of wakefulness, and their highly-active minds reacted poorly to inactivity. Their reputed hyperactivity was more of social phenomenon, though, coming at a cost to their creative side. 'All thought, little instinct,' was the stereotype, often compared to the krogan; 'All instinct, little thought.' "Try spending time on a planet full of them," Kara said, recalling the dense jungles and relentless humidity of the salarian homeworld. "It gets hard to keep up."

"What planet? When did you…?" he inquired, her brows raising in surprise as he stared at her.

She had spent nine months on Sur'Kesh, when she was eighteen, and gained a rare insight into culture in the process. "I thought I was notorious for taking my shore leave on alien worlds," Kara shrugged. "Ten days on Mannovai, in Seventy-Eight, while I was waiting to start N6 training." A more pleasant experience than the homeworld, in many respects, if not as educational. The two thousand year old colony had a much more agreeable climate.

"Damn. We figured they were just rumors. I thought us ambitious officer types weren't supposed to take leave."

"I was never ambitious," Kara smiled. Her career had managed on its own, aided more by her refusal to give up on anything than any concern for its direction.

His narrow brows drew together. "Really? I heard that IPC training is like getting dragged through hell during its off season. How do you survive that without ambition?"

"Alliance L2 implants drove people insane, Keyx," she frowned. Interplanetary combat training, which her N- designation stood for, was about endurance, not ambition. As she recalled, the most cocky or ambitious recruits had been among the first to drop out of the program. "Those of us who endured? We lived in hell."

"Besides, ambitious officers manage quite a few things," she added, turning her attention back to her navigation officer. "Families, for example."

"I'm not sure I have a family, ma'am," Keyx sighed. "I was supposed to have two weeks leave coming, enough to cover our anniversary and our daughter's birthday. I promised her I'd make it when I couldn't last year, but how can I?"

Although Sarah—his daughter—had a mother, it still reminded her of own childhood. Kara didn't even known if she had a father, or simply a donor, and had seen her mother twice a year, at most. "I don't know." Even if she sent him back with Kahoku, he would probably end up in a cell. "I'm sorry."

"Eh. If Sarah never knowing her father is the price I have to pay to keep her safe, I'll pay it, and pray that she forgives me."

"You'll see her again," Kara said, unhesitatingly and firm. He needed to believe it, and so did she.

He sighed, and turned back to his post. "The relay is realigned, ma'am. Shall I give the order to jump?"

"Yes."

Note: Minor editing only, for the most part. Tali's conversation fits better, now, and Keyx's actually flows. I know, it's been mostly QC for some time now, but most of the changes I had planned have already been made. Though I am looking for a reason to add more Garrus and Ashley.

Thanks to those of you who have left a review so far.