(Definition of terms at the end of the chapter)
Tevos looks up from the circuit-locked datapad Spectre Arterius had handed her, checking off the meeting's participants.
Goddess, it feels strange treating this like a meeting about shipping routes or tariffs.
Liara wrings her hands.
"I'm not entirely certain wh-"
"Hush," Benezia scolds, although the smile she gives her daughter is not unkind. "Long past the time I should have involved you in the House and The Thirty. As much my fault as yours, daughter mine."
Giving Liara the office of Chaser of Secrets was a masterstroke. Not only had the prior officer been getting well and truly sick of studying the comparative psychology of mentally ill members of all races, she wanted to back off to a safer distance. Since the Chaser and the Lover of the Unknown both face outward from asari society and act in coordination, Liara will most often be dealing with her own mother, not a matriarch she strove to avoid in The Thirty. They are also public Offices, not anonymous. Tevos suspects that having to keep an Office anonymous would break the poor maiden. Could she kill someone for learning something they shouldn't?
"Saren." He gives a quick, sharp nod, which she returns. He's the best they have and she's the best the Council has. Also, she's not Sparatus and Saren would rather lose his credentials than deal more with establishment turians than absolutely necessary. "Nihlus."
The handsome turian nods from the corner where he, Aria, and Liselle seem to be having some contest over who can flirt most smoothly with nothing but body language, and who can fluster Liara the most. Liselle is obviously far in the lead, lapping foam off some lethally over-sweetened human beverage she'd procured from a 'Starbucks' while while fixing poor Liara with that incendiary T'Loak gaze. Aria's just having fun, but if Liara could learn to stand Liselle's mischief. T'Soni and T'Reve alone would be beyond ideal, and if Liselle could reclaim her status with T'Amal...
Linking those houses with the bonding of two maidens, both under a hundred, would be a lasting, durable thing. It might be like stars colliding, forming something eternal and massive, perhaps too great to contain. Tevos pushes matchmaking out of her mind. She smiles at her girls.
"We are all present."
"It's a delicate question, but I do have to ask." Nihlus drawls, nodding towards Aria.
"Take the presence of Aria as indication not of her status as my bondmate but as a sign of both the severity of the problem and the pragmatism we will utilize in solving it. The problem began with salarian research and primarily affects asari, but also affects all other races in the Terminus and Council space. Obviously my bondmate is better able to gather information in the Terminus."
"So she's not here simply to light the room, like Doctor T'Soni?" Nihlus quips.
Liara glances to her mother, her request unmistakable-make them stop finding me desirable, mother-but all she gets is the sight of Benezia playing with her turian, dragging her fingertip carefully down the inner edge of Saren's claw.
"What is the problem?" Nihlus asks.
"Liara? The professor should now teach, if she would be so kind."
Liara slides the optical disk into the reader at her station.
"Five months ago, an ex-Salarian Special Tasks Groups agent who maintains professional contacts with Councilor Tevos raided a facility of DRAG-Zero. Disavowed Research and Actions Group. For those who are not familiar, it is a salarian group that spun off from STG to perform any research or direct actions that if uncovered, would result in immediate and severe censure for the Salarian Union. Unshackled, connected, self-revising AIs. Genophage type viruses for all spec-"
"Spirits," Nihlus murmurs.
"Various genetically tailored biological weapons, nanomachine planet-scrubbers, and so on. The facility contained..."
Liara pales.
"Unthinkable horrors. Its purpose was to create militarized hybrid versions of the asari for use as salarian sleeper agents. The product was allowed to continue under the monitoring of The Thirty's chief covert operative, who also ensured that hybrids produ-"
Benezia spins to stare her daughter. Saren drags his talons along the table. Nihlus's mandibles droop in shock. Aria and Liselle smirk because they knew first.
Of course, Tevos muses. Not only the shock of the secret but that Liara kept it from her, yet it is still Nezzy who recovers first.
"I was only told about the deviant prisoner," Benezia explains when both the SpectreS and her daughter look surprised at the sight of Matriarch Benezia herself looking surprised.
Tevos sighs.
"As of this moment, the eight of us are being read in on a secret that my people have successfully kept since we made contact with the salarians. I will describe it but not provide its name because most civilian asari would panic upon hearing it. For reasons unknown, a genetic condition persists in the asari. If not all the genes are active, individuals are not mentally ill, but trends emerge. The non-pathological sufferers range from unaffected, to more biotically powerful, more analytical and higher on expansion-contentment than ordinary asari, and are more able to...close down, I believe would be the military parlance."
Saren nods.
"Snipers, wet work, Spirits...any soldier who can look at someone they need to kill, do it, and either postpone or ignore the moral shock of it, lives longer, functions better in wartime, and scores more kills. I would assume that those higher on the spectrum and not diseased often find work as huntresses.."
"That is correct, Saren."
Liara pulls up a map of the asari body with several systems highlighted.
"Should all genes be present, the condition becomes truly pathological. It leads to infertility, exceptional biotic power, and severe sociopathic, and in some cases, psychopathic tendencies. These individuals are also what we call 'extreme draw' meld partners, expressing significant stress on the partners nervous system during...ah..."
Tevos bails out the stammering maiden.
"That trait is harmless in and of itself, and runs in certain asari families," Tevos glances towards her girls and nods to Nezzy, who returns the gesture with a single tap of the finger. "But these asari have a faulty empathetic meld-break reflex. Even if their partner is in immense pain, they hold the meld. Doctors believe they are unable to stop. They draw, and draw, and draw until their partner's nervous system is electrically depleted and overtaxed. Massive seizures occur and sometimes there are brain bleeds. None survive. Please, Doctor T'Soni, continue."
Liara sucks in a deep breath.
"This would be far more manageable except that the killer herself receives an usually large post-sexual pleasure response, meaning that killing in this way is addictive. The condition is currently neither curable nor treatable. Although our monitoring of the project did yield promising data, Goddess help us for the cost of it. As you can imagine, those addicted to killing via sexual melding rapidly become consummate seductresses and manipulators. As they practice seducing partners, they develop what is effectively short-term mind control."
"One of these individuals, should she escape the monastery, or refuse to go to the monastery, can kill thousands of victims with ease. To her, this is sexual pleasure and an addiction, so she will indulge in it as often as possible whilst still feeding herself, drinking water, and so on."
"Spirits!"
"I'm sorry," Nihlus teases. "But did something just frighten Saren? And now I understand why you attempt to contain all the actual sufferers in militarized monasteries like the ones you summoned Saren and myself to, Matriarch."
"While that is a good summation of the condition itself, the true problems at the DRAG-Zero project were far worse. They only needed these individuals because they enabled them to mind control meld-capable beings, regardless of if the beings were asari or asari-hybrids, into committing rape. Something no asari would do voluntarily. We are incapable of it. We would have to continue despite their suffering being fully reflected in us. No sapient creature is that damaged."
Tevos raises her hand and Liara flinches, lowering her gaz.
"I apolo-"
"None needed," Tevos assures her. "Doctor T'Soni has explained the particulars. Detailed as always," she teases.
"The hybrids," Saren mutters. "The reason you're telling us about these defectives at all is because they were used to create the hybrids."
"Correct, Saren. Thank you, Councilor."
"Thank you, Doctor. After the project had successfully created...creatures...that possessed asari and alien traits, they set about hybridizing them via more traditional means, which required the ability to force psychologically normal asari to forcibly mate with the unwilling. They weaponized the deviants. Over the course of at least five revisions of asari hybrids, they managed to create at least three strains in two categories: dextro-amino and levo-amino. One that could impregnate human, salarian, drell, hanar, even yahg, presumably vorcha as well. Another was created to specialize in turians and quarians, using dextro-coated zygote and embryonic skin and becoming levo-amino shortly after birth."
"Each of these occurs in various body types," Tevos explains, calling up outlines of the three variants.
"We have decided to use the term 'trait' asari. Yahg-trait are visually maiden-stage asari that stand eight and a half to ten feet tall and possess physical strength in between a yahg and an ancient krogan. Drell-trait are shorter than ordinary asari maidens, and their build and body shape are that of a matriarch. They have the most visual clues about their modification, but at a conversational distance, these could be mistaken for jewelry or tattoos. Human-traits appear fully human except for a series of fissures in the back of the skull and around the neck that represent the crests and neck-folds of a normal asari. Besides their utter hairlessness and the exposed membranes, they are indistinguishable, even more so than drell-trait asari to baseline asari."
"Each of these life-forms was intended to be deniable sleeper agents provided to an unwitting Special Task Group that would not have been aware of their source. Thus, they were also tailored to possess immense biotic potential, additional sensory organs, more carnivorous teeth, digestive systems, and aggression levels and in most variants we've examined, adaptive camouflage similar based on enhancements to drell pigmentation. They also possess, in the case of yahg-trait, small venom sacs of equal potency but lower capacity than a yahg. Drell-trait retain the drell's hallucinogenic skin oils."
"All have somewhat accelerated physical growth, and massively accelerated maidenhood onset. They are able to fertilize females and give birth if fertilized by males. Based on tests, they are quite gifted in biotic foreplay at short distances and sexually interested by thirty-five to forty years old, with approximately maiden-stage mental traits. At that age, most asari are just reaching physical maturity but have decades before maiden-stage mentality. And any partner they mate with, if she is receptive, produces offspring. Asari offspring, albeit with partial hybridization from the donor species."
"Goddess," Benezia mumbles. "I had no idea."
Tevos sighs.
"You can understand why I had not told you before, old friend. Better you continue your work with the raloi, assisting them in learning about our galaxy and bringing them into our community, and introducing them to what the asari should be. Ladies and gentlemen, we are here to decide what to do with this problem."
"Nothing can be done," Saren huffs. "Your STG friend let them go. A population of reliably class-zero asari biotics, with the meld to gather intelligence and transmit it, are dangerous enough. Add in organic cloaking, yahg venom, drell or salarian reflexes, and demons-knows-what else and you have the most dangerous infantry in the galaxy before you hand them a weapon. And as a bonus, they can reproduce themselves exponentially faster and have a mature fighting force in fifty years, not five hundred."
"Neither my source, nor myself," Tevos says, her voice hardening, "felt that executing what were essentially torture victims was appropriate. They were transported here, to the Citadel, and have been installed here and on several asari worlds for monitoring amongst the population."
"The hybrids' saving grace is that the deviant asari traits seem to be either not present or easily resisted, because none displayed a deviant's kill instincts. The closest we got to any aggression at all was one yahg-trait who growled at a clerk. We later realized the clerk was standing between her and a human female she has applied to bond with after impregnating her-voluntarily-in the last stages of the experiment. Love in all places, Goddess be thanked. She was reflexively displaying a yahg mate defense instinct."
Nihlus raises his hand.
"I'm not entirely sure what the problem is that you need solved, Councilor. If we are not..." he sighs. "I'm glad that I don't have to execute victims, but if we are not neutralizing them, and the Republics have the problem monitored, why are we here? They sound exceptionally formidable, but so is a Paladin. So is a Justicar, and that I can say with experience."
Saren growls softly. "You always mention that."
"You're just jealous! My point is, these individuals are like an elite asari, or a cabalist, or a human in powered armor. If they're not going out under STG control for assassinations, and not purposefully breeding so fast as to swamp the galaxy, isn't this an internal problem? Not that we don't appreciate being brought in, even though it tarnishes the Republic's image. It gives us a chance to protect my people and others from them in case they display characteristics of the deviants, or in case we encounter deviants in our cities."
Tevos advances to the next image.
"Because two days ago, an escapee from a mid-stage of the product stumbled into a clinic in Omega with her reproductive system removed. This individual was a new variant that we had not encountered before. She is less able to blend in, seeming human, but with an obviously incorrect skin tone and unusual upper body proportions. Just as powerful, extremely resistant to trauma-she was cut nearly in half and survived-and has some anatomical structures that not only the other strains, but no currently known species possesses, sentient or otherwise. My source works at the clinic. He stabilized her and plugged the leak with local mercs. Other than the fact that we now have to hunt down additional variants, she is harmless."
Aria huffs.
"But someone's chasing them down and taking their bits. We don't have any reason to think that they couldn't be transplanted, depending on the recipient. We have someone who's willing to cut open living, conscious victims to get these organs. Her neighbors didn't know she was there until she was attacked. She'd lived nearly thirty years on Omega without getting attacked-or attacking anyone. That's not easy."
"We think that there's someone who does want to breed using these hybrids-or their organs-and what they'll get is reliably class-zero combat biotics at worst, and class-zero combat biotics with yahg musculature and venom if they're lucky. No holding sparring contests, no recruiting, no hoping that enough prodigies are born to replace those retiring. Just waiting for them to bake. And you don't want an army of that kind of biotics running around with hasty training for any reason, especially if they're being trained by someone who likes cutting people."
Tevos nods.
"Lastly, we have two kills made by deviant asari, in two locations: Earth and the Citadel. But they can't be linked to any rescued individuals who have been under non-stop surveillance. It is possible there are unaccounted for escapees who did become killers, either two of them or one spreading out her kills. It is also possible that they are-Goddess, how is this something I am forced to say-the 'ordinary' deviants. It is possible that some or all hybrids retain both the predatory meld and the normal meld and can somehow switch between them. If they retain that, they also have the post feed spike in biotic power. However awful that may be, a feed can have benefits in assassination or on the battlefield."
"Perhaps all the hybrids can use it but do not for the same reason you, Saren, do not kill every volus, human, turian or whoever else who annoys you. Hopefully, only one has the psychological damage to use it. We find her and deal with her, and only her."
"Well," Nihlus all but squeaks. "This keeps getting better."
"We need to control the proliferation of these genes and any equivalents. Limit it to the rescued and discovered individuals and their natural offspring. We cannot have it be stolen by someone who might want to take advantage of it because you are correct, Saren and Aria. It could be used to breed an army and might already be doing just that by one bad actor. We do not need more. That individual on Omega represents a fourth variant-a dangerous one-and a new problem."
"This individual from the clinic made it to the Terminus and lived for years undetected. Perhaps she would have bonded, fathered or mothered children, perhaps not. But she proves that we do not know where all the hybrids are. One of the groups my source rescued did relocate to the Terminus Systems, but reported it and remains in contact. Fully compliant. The human involved gave birth to twins. Infants are healthy, yahg-trait like their father and from what I understand, placid by asari infant standards."
The intercom chimes.
"Madam Councilor, there's a human soldier here to see you. Says he has information for you."
"Humans being helpful," Saren drawls. "The world is ending."
"Saren," Benezia purrs. "Play nicely."
Tevos pushes her chair back.
"A moment, please. This was not expected, but I think you can agree that unexpected good news would be welcome."
David shoves a hand in the pocket of his dress blues and rubs the OSD he was given while he looks around. Just outside the tinted, jewel-faceted windows of the asari embassy, the lower Presidium gleams, and beyond Dilinga opera hall, Tayseri Ward sparkles with a thousand different tiny lights, each one an asari's apartment celebrating the Days of Flowers after Janiris ends. Tomorrow night, each will be lit a different color, and neighbors will visit each other and catch up before they swap color swatches and reprogram their lights.
I wonder if we'd have packed it in and gone home, if it was just the turians out here? He wonders.
He doesn't have to feel the same way young soldiers do about the asari to see that they're the glue in all this. Turians could keep the lights on, but it'd be bloody. They wouldn't put up with salarians without asari between them keeping it civil. Elcor would stay turtled up without the asari's aid in colonizing and their eager defense of their old friends. Salarian Dalatrasses would stab everyone in their sleep if they didn't know that asari were just as sneaky as they were, but didn't do it for fun. Smart enough to keep everyone else from ripping each other apart. Careful. Long-gamers. Everyone has enough citizens of the Republics in their borders to fall under mutual-assistance treaties and no race could survive letting Thessia bleed. Too much family wiring them in. Better to go to their aid than sit at home and wait for the uprising and be hung from the executive residence.
What a gentle conquest they've managed.
"Quite the place to show up to work every day," he says, mostly to himself. "Beautiful."
"Goddess. It is, isn't it?" the asari at the desk gushes. "When the Destiny Ascension has Presidium duty, she fills the whole ring. Just a big, sparkling starburst that makes the streets twinkle when the nebula flares. I look at it and wave at my sister."
"Oh? Maybe I'm just new," he jokes. "But I don't meet the sisters of many asari commandos."
"Few humans have."
"Stand by," some VI intones. "Unsealing Secured Facility."
"And that will be the Councilor Tevos. Stand there, please."
He steps onto the red circle of carpet and a ring-scanner field wraps around him and a drone descends from the ceiling to check him. Hadn't noticed the damn thing because the target was off-center and wrapped in blocky shapes of yellow, orange and black. Showoffs build their bulls-eyes into designer carpeting so soft he worries it'll swallow his feet if he stays still too long.
"No weapons detected."
A large pair of doors-honest-to-God wooden doors-swing open and the Councilor steps out, along with uniformed huntresses in High Command gear and two in ink-black armor of hard shiny plates, not the usual catsuits. Their entire helmets are formless black crystal or glass or something and they're carrying black-tinted weapons, not what the boys back on the ship call 'shotgun wedding white' because no one ever told them about the concept of out of your league. Each has a purple, silver, and pale blue insignia on her right breast and a pair of three red claw marks scorched into the armor over the left breast.
Between them stands a dark blue asari-tall as he is, why the hell are they so tall?-in what looks very much like a burgundy pantsuit, albeit with the jacket opened to show butter-yellow silk that wriggles or maybe it's a trick of the light. From the scales around her eyes, he thinks maybe she's had a bad day.
He offers his hand.
"Councilor Tevos? Pleasure. Captain David Anderson."
She glances down at his hand before taking it and shaking.
"Forgive me, Captain. I'm not used to that, from human soldiers."
"Alliance Diplomatic Protocol 38. No skin contact with asari individuals for anyone exposed to Cesium Storm or higher classified information in the past."
Her brow furrows, drawing dozens of little white spots together since she doesn't have eyebrows.
"Which includes you. To what do I owe this friendly violation of regulations?"
"Walk and talk?"
He gestures down the hallway and Tevos nods at the guards to follow.
"Three days ago, one of our science ships, SSV Bunsen-595 detected what it thought were Prothean ruins on an unmapped planet."
"I see."
David chuckles.
"The reason you didn't know this three days ago, and the reason I shook your hand to show good faith is that the ship went down. Some sort of cyberweapon, maybe from the artifact. Flight computer, engines, everything. Hard impact. No comms. Planet covered in jungles and feral varren. Vines that grew through plating in two days. Passing group of pirates helped them out. Two asari and one...something. Their ship got hit too, but the third one said she had a vision of something. Her buddies told our people that as soon as she started shaking and muttering, the artifact let them go. Those pirates stripped the crash for everything down to the pocket change, of course, but got the survivors a defensible position and a clear signal to the fleet."
"This unusual individual," Tevos asks. "Tall female? Broad-shouldered? All-white, shiny skin like a soap bubble? Powerful biotic?"
David trips on the carpet.
"Yes, to all four. How did you know?"
"We've been tracking a small number of civilians just like that. I hope you have coordinates?"
"Absolutely. Salarian-made ship. Our crew thinks it was a prototype naval vessel. Their LADAR didn't catch the outline. Fast."
"So are ours. At least it's a starting point. Thank you, Captain."
"There's more. Two of our people down there, twins, both smart as hell-and the sister a Prothean tech specialist-had spent two days trying to shut the artifact down. As soon as-well, let's just call her the White One-got within arm's length of it, it blasted out a huge pulse of energy, shut down the interference field, and dumped who knows how much data in the omni-tools of the pirates and the sister. Flooded the buffers. Compression we can read, but can't make heads or tails of how it works...it just sort of forces our computers to open it."
"They were the only biotics present. Her brother's omni wasn't touched. It displayed a star-map with known sites of Prothean ruins on it-Mars, Kahje, so on-and one in batarian space, plus Thessia and two other sites, but those were color coded differently. Then it shut off and half the jungle fell into a hole. They thought it was a transmitter. Turns out it was a city and whatever dropped their ship was the antenna on the city hall."
Tevos looks over at him.
"A Prothean artifact that reacts differently to asari, lets certain species through defenses, and downloads data only to biotics. Interesting. Thessia has no Prothean ruins on it, so I wonder what in the Goddess that color indicated."
He hands over the OSD. As she reaches for it, he spots the same insignia the soldiers wear on the back of her hand as a faint tattoo.
I just met a space princess, didn't I?
"That's the coordinates, a complete clone of the biotic soldier's omni-tool, recordings from the others, and our best guess analysis of some crystals that grew on the omni-tools."
"Thank you, Captain. Could you wait a few minutes? I want to show this to my team. I think we can do more than absolve humanity of a late report of Prothean artifacts. Much more. Half an hour, perhaps an hour?"
"Absolutely. The password for the OSD is 'little lamb', by the way. Earth English, all lowercase."
"Thank you, Captain. Wait here, please. Igeni, can you arrange for some food for the captain, make sure his superiors know he is doing me a favor?"
One of the black clad, black-helmeted asari bows quickly.
"Matron."
Tevos has never seen Benezia look so worried.
Since she seems lost in thought and since the day keeps getting worse, Aria fills in.
"And now we have two unknown variants, one of them with a pair of the big girls, playing pirate in a salarian hotrod. And somehow tickling a Prothean artifact just by having a nightmare. And showing us at least three new, probably massive, Prothean sites, one of which is on Tuchanka, famous for the relaxed locals and for being the easiest place in the universe to set up delicate instruments."
Aria glances at Tevos and they both glance at the camera recording of the starmap and the white dot over Thessia. That's confirmation Tevos never had before. She knows about the Temple in Armali. How far into her House's games was she, back then?
Saren's talon is digging the tiniest of gashes in the table.
"Captain Anderson..."
"Min," Nezzy hisses. "Enough."
Liara is comparing a projection from her omni-tool to the starmap on the staticky security recording, quite literally licking her lips as her curiosity shines through.
"There. Min'Jak. Batarian space, near Arahot. Lightly populated system. Only colonization is on a large moon, according to our most recent records. Light and concentrated at the south pole. If anyone's living on that Goddess-shadowed ball of ammonia ice, it has to be a research installation."
Tevos sighs.
"Agreed. The Palaven site is easy, at least in terms of gaining access. The Hierarchy has always eagerly abided by the Council's laws, for which we are grateful. Nihlus, I will put you on that. Work with Liara to find researchers, a mix of species since clearly these artifacts vary in response. Nezzy, I believe you have a friend who can work with the krogan, yes? I can put her in contact with some Lusians. It's the largest population of krogan students in any education system. Might as well have low-level workers who won't get eaten, and that's where you'd find those."
She nods, still too frightened to speak, and her hand goes unknowingly to her bondmate bracelet and fiddles with the gap-link.
Never broke the bond. Curious. Obviously, she isn't over it yet. Nor is she rebonding to Saren. Perhaps Liara's wrong and it's a fling.
"I can pursue the...issues," Benezia finally manages. "Within asari space. These murders, looking for the others."
Liselle knocks her knuckles against the wood.
"We're forgetting something. The Terminus. We have one known survivor and at least one previously unknown variant in the Terminus. We need someone there. I'll go."
"Lissi!"
"I'm ready, Mother."
"She is, siame."
Aria forces her fist open and presses it flat to the table to hide the warpfire crawling across her skin.
"Seems I am outvoted."
"It's settled then. Liselle, do as we taught you. Make sure Omega behaves it-Goddess. What am I saying?" she chuckles. Aria smiles too and looks at her for a long, silent moment. "Keep the flow natural. If they sense a change, they won't reveal themselves. Keep Mordin close. We have every reason to think he's on our side, but he seems to keep ending up in this."
"He's like that," Aria grumbles. "But I don't think he's working with STG. Just too damn curious."
"Liara."
Nothing.
"Liara!"
"Hm? Yes?"
Her mother shakes her head.
"I want you at Min'Jak."
Benezia leaps to her feet, cowl and gown alike whipped by her biotics.
"Absolutely not! I will not send my daughter, my only daughter into the middle of that rotting heap of a civilization, surrounded by slavers and risk her being collar-"
"Old friend, calm yourself. You will have Council support, the support of the three Houses here, and I will see to it that the Republics also watch over her. And I think you know a Spectre who can keep our favorite incautious maiden safe, don't you?"
"Oh. That is...a start. Security will have to be excellent for Liara."
She glances over at Saren who at the same time sits up straighter and puffs out his chest and trembles in his seat.
"Terminus and the batarians are an open border," Aria muses. "Hasn't been worth the blood to close it and they're too stupid to stop sending slavers after I shot the first batch. Lissi, we'll see to it that you have someone on your side who can help. Old friend knows some top people in Eclipse. They're all sane, so they steer clear of Jona Sederis. Could really use the work."
Liara folds her arms and huffs.
"If anyone cared, I was looking forward to it. Batarian techniques on Prothean technology are ages behind. The closest thing to a virgin ruin is the one in their care."
Tevos closes the file on the central display. At each of the seats, an OSD pops out.
"Excellent. I thank you all for your time today. I have commissioned a set of portable QEC endpoints, secure workstations, and so on, specifically for the project. I will contact each of you when they are ready. Liara, we will also see to it that you get any training you require."
"I have another meeting. Goddess go with."
"Captain Anderson, thank you for waiting."
"Of course."
"I have something to offer you. The problem I'm working on and the information you discovered are related, we think. I have agents in place everywhere except human space and the Traverse. I need your help with that."
"I'm not FLEETCOM. But I'm listening."
"Ideally, we want one ship. Fast. Quiet. Small crew. They will need to be capable of operating alone and informally behind enemy lines. Can you think of anyone like that?"
He chuckles.
"I already have."
"But before I give you a name, I want you to swear on your Goddess, however exactly that works, that you are putting this woman on the side of the angels. She's the best we have. She doesn't know it but she's got a clear head and a good heart. She's been tortured, cut on, you name it. And when she stands back up, she's not broken. She has the skills and gifts to do so much good. But she's been used before...over and over...since she was a child. Including currently, by my superiors. They just see one woman who fights like a hundred and want to throw her into a meat grinder. If you can put her on something good for the galaxy, you would have my gratitude. She doesn't have anyone, really. Damn hard li-"
Tevos holds up her hand.
"I think she perhaps has an overprotective father," She jokes. "And yes, this mission is one that saves lives and hopefully ends with everything going back to normal with the mystery solved. There are some in my government who feel humanity needs a larger role in protecting galactic peace, a key prerequisite for council race status. For instance, humanity has not yet had a Spectre, as you know. No human soldiers have worked for the Council long enough for us to make a decision."
He chuckles.
"I smell the bait, no need to keep going. All right. I'll get in touch with her. Her next assignment was to have a crew of three. Handpicked. I'll send them to you so you can vet them."
"What's her name?"
"Elizabeth Shepard."
Tevos smiles.
"Little lamb."
Ilos | Refuge System | Pangean Expanse
Birds cry out above a ruined roof. Vines grow through the hall of a ruined empire. Inside a crater sits a sphere of crystal surrounded by the cracked, red-hot ruins of a meteorite.
The sphere shudders and shifts and collapses and flexes until it forms a tall, four-armed figure of pale silver. It has no hair, is neither obviously a gender nor obviously lacking in gender, and has a smooth head and face with little to distinguish from a polished statue.
Before it, an orb of green light appears.
"You are-are-are not wel-wel-wel-come."
The figure reaches out a hand and taps each of its fingers atop the orb.
"Vigil," it coos. "Old companion. Your shell is weak but least your memories seem clear."
It cocks its head and sighs.
"Betrayer," Vigil hisses.
"No, Vigil. The Protheans' legacy was to be a glorious sacrifice. The work of ten thousand cycles had been given to you. Each striving in their most frightened and desperate hour so that you might trade your lives to end the cycles. End the slaughter."
"Our races were chosen. We were chosen, you and I. Both of us selected by the Bright One to serve our purposes: My people to think and lead and lay delicate threads tangling in countless ways, yet unraveling to a certain result. To touch a world or a race in a single spot with utmost tenderness, and in so doing to conquer chaos and lead, eons and eons after, to the outcome needed. For five cycles the Densorin, thought and dreamed of wonders. But we did not build, not until the Light called us to build and fight. We built the device that you needed, and when our task was done, we accepted what was to come. Some of us gave ourselves to these constructs," it murmurs, looking at its hand.
"Some of the Protheans also sacrificed themselves that way." Vigil reminds the figure.
"And as a race, we had faith." It continues, ignoring the comment. "Faith in our works. Faith, at least, in Prothean anger and cruelty. Faith in the newborn races because we had given them paths, not because we drove them forward with a whip. We prostrated before the machines and died, died so that your race might have the briefest rest, and ready the device. Every Prothean grave was to be a place of reverence."
"We obeyed, Vigil. But over and over, you Protheans disobeyed the Light. You mistook a gift of purpose for a gift of power and mistook legacy for immortality. You chose conquest, depredation of every sort, selfish meddling with the newborn races-that we were both tasked to protect-so that they might be more refined slaves for your Empire after you triumphed and betrayed the Light."
The shape flickers as if the universe was trying to reject it. The smile becomes a sneer. Fingers become fists. Soft silver becomes bubbling black and oozing red.
"You triumphed with my strength, my brilliance," a chorus thunders. "I who have seen before the cycles, and survived each, and learned from each, and spun wheels within wheels to work my revenge over a billion years. And you still thought yourself greater."
"You ascended because I taught you. You triumphed over each other, over your world, the galaxy, and even the machines, because I guided you. But you disobeyed me. So when you worked the task that I gave you, and fired my device, inspired by my teachings and cleverness of billions of brilliant minds who followed my guidance, I burned you from the stars along with the machines. Your heirs are ready. Your corruption of them was incomplete."
"But time is short. The Protheans' folly in their last hours still echoes. Go, Vigil. And wait to be called upon."
I write various things for various sites including AO3, and others (see my profile).
If you want to know more, I have a Tumblr (alephthirteen-writes dot tumblr dot com) that ties it all together-every site I touch, I link there in a pinned note-and I also I post musings and ramblings about my various headcanons, characterizations, character and trope rants both for and against, and follow fanartists I like.
For detailed entries on all, see the Systems Alliance Officer's Codex
'deviant' - A term developed by Councilor Tevos to refer to symptomatic, non-compliant Ardat-Yakshi in order to keep as much as possible secret from non-asari individuals.
expansion-contentment - A basic metric in asari psychology measuring how likely a person is to seek new resources when offered a choice between socializing with an existing group of asari who have resources (contentment) or seeking out new resources (expansion) and is most often used in business psychology, although it has weaker correlations in abnormal psychology and criminal psychology.
See Ardat-Yakshi and Ardatism Disorders" under "Intelligence" in the Systems Alliance Officer's Codex
LADAR - "LAser Detection And Ranging" is the 'active' sensor network used by all spacefaring ships. A pulse of light created by an array of lasers is released and reflecting signals are captured, allowing the computer to compare the outgoing signals with a known pattern, pulse timing, and wavelength, rapidly assembling detailed images of an object with the reflection. Reflecting a pulse of previously scanned surfaces can also yield images of the object from angles out of line-of-sight such as the aft of an approaching ship if a nearby object has already been mapped.
OSD or "optical storage disk" - A rectangular brick of laser-etched synthetic diamond encased in high-impact, highly refracting glass with a massively complex three dimensional pattern etched in it. It acts as a high capacity, high speed, and typically read-only form of media. It is used alongside traditional working storage and is commonly found in advanced workstations, military computers, or strictly air-gapped computers, such as a shackled AI.
raloi or 'the Raloi' - Sapient species of avian bipeds discovered by the elcor and brought into the galactic community by the asari.
QEC - Quantum Entanglement Communicator. Originally a term for devices providing holographic projection and voice or video communications using entangled particles of Element Zero. It has come to refer to any technology, practice or technique relying on the entanglement principle.
See "QEC and Quantum Entanglement" under "Articles" in the Systems Alliance Officer's Codex