The Batarian Hegemony had dissolved into a state of open warfare. Fringe worlds like Erzsbat and Aratoht had fallen to the rebels very quickly, now being used as bases from which the rebel faction, now renamed the Free Batarian Army, were training their slaves into urban commandoes and sending them to the savagely contested planets of Camala and Lorek. Only on Khar'Shan had the Hegemony retained control, destroying any nascent rebellion with extreme prejudice.
To say the Asari were not happy with the state of affairs would be a monumental understatement. A side effect of a thousand year lifespan is that the Asari were slow to adapt to change, unwilling to accept any shift in the status quo. And although the Asari weren't particularly sad to see the Batarians obliterated the ruthless efficiency with which their empire was deconstructed caused a massive plummet in Earth/Asari relations.
Councillor Luceius was swiftly becoming annoyed by Tevos and Murtok. The Asari was barely bothering to conceal her anti-Earthism and the Salarian was simply sitting there agreeing with everything she said. Not for the first time, Luceius found himself cursing whatever spirit had possessed him to go into politics.
###
"So ... what are you wearing?"
Lizzie looked self-consciously down at her attire. She was, in fact, wearing a skintight anti-radiation bodysuit with a hood and a harness over her torso containing a radiation shield.
"Uh ... radiation suit."
"Okay. Umm ... looks good."
"Right."
The door opened and Carissa stepped in, towels rolled up under her arms.
"You ready to go?"
Beaches on Palaven were quite different to beaches on Earth. The shallow tropical seas were glassy smooth, the rock ground down into fine white sand by the action of the vicious wind storms that often whipped across Palaven's surface. The beach sloped incredibly shallow, the sea still only waist deep up to half a kilometre away from the shore, and most importantly the water was fresh.
Carissa set up the umbrella and her deck chair as Garrus and Lizzie made a beeline for the gaggle of Turian youths at the water's edge. Both male and female Turians wore nothing but baggy shorts when on the beach, most in the bright primary colours of Turian fashion, interspersed with Salarian fractal designs, Asari vapour art or Human floral patterns. In her anti-radiation bodysuit Lizzie stuck out like a sore thumb.
Garrus exchanged wrist grips with the other Turian kids before introducing them to Lizzie.
"Hey everyone, this is Lizzie. Lizzie, this is Taranius, Linnael, Melanis, Valadria and Amirah."
Lizzie looked at the four Turian youths. Taranius towered over everyone else, his plates a rich earthy colour under his white colony markings, a long stripe from the centre of his upper lip right along to the tip of his central fringe and two more stripes along his mandibles. Linnael was slightly smaller than Garrus and surprisingly thin for a Turian, his plates a sandy beige colour laid over with deep ochre triangular markings along his upper jaw and dull red eyes. Melanis and Valadria were near identical, looking to Lizzie like twin sisters, steel grey plates and electric blue eyes with the same markings as Garrus. Amirah looked downright scary. She had a two tone body, the left side bearing bone white plates while the right side bore midnight black. Lizzie couldn't tell which colour was natural and which one was her clan markings. From within her face two bright yellow eyes burned like miniature suns.
Garrus's friends crowded around her, all seeming to enjoy the curiosity of a Human in their midst. Lizzie, to her credit, handled the situation admirably.
"Hey, anyone want to go for a swim?"
Garrus and Lizzie waded out until the water was deep enough for Lizzie to dive in, the other Turians watching with interest as she slid through the water.
It turned out that Humans and Turians had very different ideas of what constituted a day at the beach. Lizzie engaged in several rounds of wrestling in the ankle deep water with Garrus and his friends and then engaged in a spot of target shooting with practice rifles, in return drawing a crowd of around forty amazed Turians when she started skipping stones.
###
The megalopolis of Vancouver was a very dangerous place for those who ventured to the lower levels. The city was structured very similar to most major Human settlements: a lattice of foundation rigs with prefabs haphazardly shoehorned into the gaps supporting the cluster of arcology towers that were the city proper. The foundations of the city though, that hundred metre gap between the dusty lifeless ground and the baseplate of the city - they were the slums.
Miranda wrapped the sack tighter around herself and shivered in the cold air as it whistled past the wide beam she was curled up on. Three months ago she would have been utterly revolted by the conditions. Since her father's arrest being caked in grime and smelling like a sewer had been ingrained into her mind so much she didn't even notice anymore.
Hunger and exhaustion warred in her body for control. She was utterly wiped out after spending most of the day fleeing the Reds through the forest of beams and cables, but she hadn't eaten in three days. The Reds were the biggest gang down in the Foundation, the Jacks, Shadows and Sliders only able to oppose them on one of the rare instances they were able to co-operate.
Miranda huddled deeper into her sacking blanket, shivering in the biting breeze. This was not how her life was supposed to be.
###
Morinth walked like an automaton. It was almost funny how the Human claimed he was 'employing her as an escort'. The scars at the back of her neck and between her crests showed how false that claim was. She was nothing more than a walking weapon, a slave disguised as an assassin disguised as a pleasure girl for the rich Humans of Bekenstein. She would seduce her target, meld with them and destroy their nervous systems, then return to her masters like a good pet until the next time her unique skillset was needed.
She reached the designated meeting point and sat down on the floor, skimpy 'exotic' slutkini scuffing in the dirt. Any minute now.
A surge of pain blasted through her head, making her curl up on the ground and howl in agony. She felt rough hands on her arms yanking her up, then she was thrown into the back of a truck and roughly stripped before being forced into a skintight white bodysuit with metal bands around the upper arms. She finally managed to force her eyes open just in time to see the man with the hated orange split hexagon logo on his chest tapping something on his Omnitool.
"Nighty night Morinth."
Cables snaked round her body, plugging into the metal bands as cuffs snapped around her wrists, ankles and neck. She watched with mounting detachment as the violet blood was drained from her body through the left arm, replaced by cryo fluid through the right. Then her vision clouded and blanked.
###
Justicar Samara prided herself on her self-control. She had needed it many a time during her quest, to survive a tense negotiation, complete a heated interrogation or simply to avoid turning a lecherous Turian into the kind of slop they gave Quarians at the vagrant's shelter. So when she was close to tears something catastrophic must have occurred.
The once beautiful Ardat Yakshi monastery on Lessus had been reduced to scorched rubble by the commando attack. She had already gathered half a dozen accounts of what happened, each one varying wildly but for three key points.
1. The commandoes were all Human.
2. The commandoes used gas bombs to blind and disorient the residents of the monastery.
3. They stormed the building and captured several of the Ardat Yakshi, seemingly selected at random. Including Rila and Falere.
Justicar Phora came up behind her and rested a hand on her shoulder.
"I am sorry for your loss, Samara."
###
The red plated Krogan roared as Liara's pull-warp splashed against his biotic barrier, flinging his own blistering flurry of biotic attacks that she barely managed to avoid. Like their wielder the biotic attacks were brutish and inelegant yet fast and powerful. Over to one side, Grunt was engaged with one of the largest Seu'Seun she had ever seen, both wrestling for control of the insect's triple barrelled shotgun. The shotgun roared in their grasp, gouging three furrows in the floor and drawing Liara's attention. She didn't see the red armoured fist flying at her head until it was too late.
###
"Admiral Kerensky."
"Admiral Vargas. May I introduce Admiral Hackett of the US Navy, Admiral Bholien of the Union Armada and Admiral Farlu of the Emaris War Fleet."
The Turian nodded at his counterparts as they all sat at the conference table.
"Alan has completed his report on the Hierarchy's Gladian pattern AI and determined the fails age programming to be sufficient for your needs. Given the exceptionally positive state of diplomatic relations between our governments and the Turian Hierarchy, this Admiralty Board has decided in favour of offering the Hierarchy a signature on the Hyper-Relativistic Technology Pact."
Vargas couldn't quite believe it. The Earth bloc had approved their AI and permitted them to have access to HR motors and proton tech. He resisted the urge to jump for joy.
A/N: This chapter was very hard to hash out and I apologise for my writer's block.