TRAS
BESTAT, BAREK SYSTEM
SKYLLIAN VERGE
BATARIAN HEGEMONY
MAY 7, 2014
Bestat was one of the Batarian Hegemony's newest colonies, settled barely three years ago in the Hegemony's drive to secure the Skyllian Verge against possible human expansion. Ideally located near the nexus of several primary and secondary relays, the colony not only secured a large portion of the Verge for the batarians, it was already one its busiest trade ports.
The majority of the world's population were batarians, and only they enjoyed the full privileges of true citizenship under local law. But like any colony world with a prosperous economy, there was always a steady influx of visitors and immigrants from every recognized species across Citadel space.
This had worked to Dublo Flemin's advantage when he had arrived at the spaceport at the colony's primary city, Tras. It had teemed with a densely packed crowd of mostly non-batarians with which the salarian had easily blended in. Unfortunately, it also meant that they – and he – were subject to heightened security procedures.
The batarians were paranoid as a people, their authoritarian government even more so. Dublo could have easily used his Spectre status to clear his way through the screening process with little trouble, but that would have raised alarms throughout the colony that would have made his recon more difficult. Besides that, it went against the grain of his experience with the salarian Special Tasks Group; better not to let anyone know you were ever there.
Batarian paranoia is most vexing. Likely due to Khar'shan still being divided into nation-states, Dublo deduced inwardly. A frown as he continued to hack the lock on the door he was trying to bypass. No, likely cultural as well. Council races possess decentralized governments. Centralized batarians, drakensis and humans quite paranoid. Hmm. Volus, elcor and hanar less so. Perhaps a biological aspect as well-
Those thoughts ran through his mind in very little time; the salarian high metabolism that contributed to their short lifespan also allowed their minds and bodies to work faster than most sapient races. He was stirred from his contemplation as the light on the lock turned green and clicked open. He quickly stepped through, frowning at the noise the door made as it slid closed behind him. Requires more maintenance.
Dublo crept quietly but swiftly through the darkened corridors of Tras' colonial administration building. He had taken the precaution of obtaining the security layout for the structure beforehand, but security patrol routes were randomly changed. He had no real reason to be here in particular, he was simply trawling for information; his people took the phrase 'knowledge is power' as an almost holy writ. No, not completely true, he thought. The batarians are aggressive, more so since the drakensis and humans emerged. A batarian fleet had bombarded the salarian colony on Mannovai over 200 years ago, and the Hegemony had annexed the independent asari colony of Esan – now known as Lorek – just over 100 years ago. Ever since the humans had started consolidating a hold on a large swath of the Attican Traverse and some fringe systems of the Skyllian Verge, and especially since they and the drakensis had started practicing 'joint military exercises' and 'cultural exchanges', the batarians had been even more belligerent than usual, rather than keeping to their more usual opportunistic aggression. Keeping an eye on the quadocular race was a necessity for a Council Spectre, whose duty was to preserve and protect galactic stability.
Do wish I didn't have to pay for my own equipment, however. The salarian STG was fully funded by the Salarian Union, while a Spectre had to provide his own means. An honor to be chosen, but not a career for the economically ambitious, he thought with mild amusement. The Council said the Spectres were the embodiment of courage, determination and self-reliance; he occasionally wondered if they took their speeches a little too literally.
On the other hand, Spectres are disavowable resource, he reasoned as he stopped short of a corner and pressed himself against a wall, hearing footsteps in the hallway beyond; too close to try and backtrack, he'd be seen before he got to sufficient cover. We carry out our missions in secrecy with no direct backing because we must do whatever is necessary to allow Citadel Space to rest easy during sleeping cycles. Nobody really wants to know what we have to do, the horrors we keep at bay.
Two batarian guards stepped into view from the adjoining corridor. Dublo waited, wondering if they were going to continue past. When they paused and their heads began to turn to look down the adjoining halls, the salarian pulled the stunner from his belt and sprang forward even as he fired it at the one looking in his direction. The batarian stiffened as the electrical current coursed through his body, letting out barely a squeak before he dropped to the floor, unconscious. He dropped the stunner in the next instant; it would be useless until it recharged, which would take far too long for this confrontation. The other guard began to turn at the noise his partner had made, then began to raise his assault rifle as he caught the motions of his falling comrade and the oncoming salarian out of the corners of his eyes.
A precisely aimed punch to the neck immobilized his vocal cords, followed by a punch to the flat nose between both sets of eyes. He brought a fist crashing down into the assault rifle, knocking it from a grip loosened by pain and disorientation, then brought an arm forward over the neck, swiftly moving behind his opponent for more leverage as he brought a steady pressure down onto the arteries pumping oxygenated blood to his brain.
The batarian struggled against the pressure, scrabbling at the arm around his neck, then tried to bring a hand down to grab the pistol clipped to his armor at the hip. Dublo wrenched the batarian sideways, throwing him off-balance and causing his hand to flail away from the weapon for precious moments as he instinctively tried to keep his balance. Before he could make another try, he noticeably weakened and then slumped in the salarian Spectre's arms. A few moments more to make sure, then he quickly dragged him into the other hall and laid him against the wall. More precious seconds to grab the second guard and also drag him into the adjoining hall; theirs had been a set path for patrols, and having them just out of sight would buy him crucial seconds before the next patrol discovered them.
Dublo hurried down the hallway, scooping his stunner up along the way and clipping it back onto his belt. The scuffle with the two guards hadn't taken too long, and hadn't produced much noise, but experience had taught him not to take any chances. At least they are still alive. Spectre or no, the batarians would kill him on sight if their comrades were found dead, giving him no chance to present his credentials.
He continued through the administration building until he came near another patrol. This time he had enough distance from them to carefully work his way around them, using his omni-tool to disrupt the camera feeds long enough for him to move past them. To those monitoring the screens in the security room they would appear as brief spurts of static. Can't afford to do that too often. Guards may get suspicious. He wished there were some way to hack the system to substitute, say, footage of empty corridors rather than utilizing simple distortion, but such a sophisticated program was beyond current omni-tool technology. A shame this turn on my wheel of life has to be in such a primitive time.
Finally he reached the door to the data archives and was unsurprised to see that it required a keycard, access code and biological identification confirmed via voice and retinal scans. Paranoid, he thought again as he set to work. A little bit later the corners of his mouth turned down in disapproval. Primitive, he thought with a slight sniff. At least three years out of date. The Hegemony usually had better security, but their usual iron-fisted approach had grown somewhat lax with the uncharacteristic speed of their expansion through the Verge, strongly encouraged by their drakensis friends.
A chime sounded and the wall panel next to the door switched from red to green as the door slid open. Dublo pulled the stunner from his belt and slipped in, looking around quickly. No one was inside; the room was dark, lit only by the glow of the illuminated power button on the computer terminal and the green glow of the inside wall panel indicating that the door was unlocked. It wasn't much, but it would do.
After locking the door behind himself to turn it back to a less suspicious red, he quickly went to the terminal and set the stunner down next to it so he could reach it more easily if he were to be happened upon by a guard or a late working clerk. He quickly set to work, his long fingers blurring over the interface in the precise taps of long experience, keeping an auditory membrane perked for sounds from the corridor outside.
After he had hacked through the system's layers of security, his interest was soon piqued as he scanned through the various directories. Hmm, as I thought. Lots of exploration missions based here – not all of them batarian! He opened one of the more suspicious pathways at random and scanned through the accompanying figures and notes. It was never explicitly said but it was strongly suggestive that many of the exploring ships were drakensis in origin, possibly even military vessels from their Aerospace Command.
Not very likely to be turian or human, he considered wryly. The Batarian Hegemony had cool relations with the Turian Hierarchy due to their ships patrolling human space, and they were angry with the United Systems of Samothrace over their seizure of unofficial batarian colonies throughout the Attican Traverse, the element zero-rich moon of Caleston chief among them. The asari mostly stay closer to their own space. It could be salarian researchers, but I would have heard of any of those. The other races of Citadel Space ranged into ever further degrees of improbability.
Intriguing. This is worth further study. Dublo synced his omni-tool to the terminal and began compressing the information to a more manageable size before downloading it onto his omni-tool. The download was about three quarters of the way complete when the facility went into high alert.
There were no blaring alarms, no flashing lights. The download onto his omni-tool's data storage suddenly ceased as the terminal's screen went back its default setting abruptly. He tapped a few keys experimentally and was unsurprised to see that the interface had been frozen. High alert indeed. Nobody would be able to do anything with the facility's terminals until security canceled the alert. Must have discovered the guards. Time to depart.
Hoping the data he had managed to download would be sufficient, the salarian Spectre shut off his omni-tool's holographic interface, grabbed his stunner, and hurried back to the door. A frown as he took a moment to prepare himself. As soon as the door opened, security would be alerted to the activity and the guards would zero in on the data archives. Taking a firmer grip on the stunner and checking the assault rifle clipped to his armor, he unlocked the door and quickly slipped into the hallway as it slid open.
As he made his way quickly through the hallways, he initiated the disruption program on his omni-tool to jam as many of the security cameras within his vicinity as possible. Should widen the area they'll have to search. Anything that gave him even a slight advantage was needful to get out of the government facility. The batarians will likely kill me or make me... disappear if I'm captured in here. Outside, in a more public area, he'd be safe; the death of a Spectre at the hands of the batarian military with civilian witnesses was too chancy for the Hegemony, not if they didn't want to risk retribution from the Council.
Heavy running steps. Dublo quickly sidestepped to the side of the corridor and fell to one knee, unclipping his assault rifle and extending it to its full length before setting it on the floor in front of him. An instant later two batarian guards rounded the corner blindly at a trot, assault rifles in their hands. The first one caught the blast from the stunner and stiffened with a croak. Before he began to slump to the ground, Dublo had dropped his stunner, scooped up the assault rifle and rolled sideways as the other guard let loose a wild burst from his rifle in the general direction of where he had been. The salarian came back up to one knee in the middle of the corridor and squeezed the trigger of his assault rifle, letting the steady stream of bullets deplete his shields, shred his armor and rip through his flesh of his legs.
The batarian fell to the ground with a scream that changed pitch in the next instant as the salarian ran forward and stomped a foot down onto one of the hands holding the assault rifle. He quickly reversed his own rifle and slammed the stock between the center of the guard's upper set of eyes. After waiting an instant to make sure as he lost consciousness, Dublo hurried back and frowned as he saw that his stunner had been hit by one of the stray bullets, rendering it useless. Unfortunate. Newest model straight from Sur'Kesh. A regretful sigh. Have to order another.
Leaving the broken stunner behind he continued to make his way out of the building, avoiding the guards when he could, disabling those he couldn't, and killing those that proved especially troublesome. He sniffed as he reached the door he had entered the building through and began hacking through the security lockdown that had seized the lock. Their dedication to duty is commendable. A shame it isn't directed toward better ends.
Several long seconds later the door slid open and the Spectre hurried out of the building and quickly made his way through a warren of alleys towards the public streets of Tras. He stopped long enough to collapse his rifle and clip it back to his armor before stepping out of the alley and making his way towards the spaceport. If anyone found the sight of a fully armed and armored salarian walking the streets odd, they kept it to themselves; he made it to the spaceport undisturbed.
As he approached one of the security stations within the terminal, Dublo could tell that the alert had been spread towards the spaceports. There's was a long line of non-batarians waiting to depart, which was unsurprising. Batarians looked down on the other, binocular races of the galaxy – they thought those with two eyes lacked intellect and sophistication – and many would take any opportunity to hold a moment of superiority over them, even these petty officials. The drakensis had largely gotten around that prejudice by being the only other race to practive slavery and possess castes as parts of their society, though the latter were more unofficial in some respects in the Domination.
What was surprising were all the actual batarians waiting in line. Normally citizens of the Hegemony had priority access through security and customs checkpoints over everyone else, skipping ahead of aliens waiting for hours. Fast reaction time. Maybe security is not as lackadaisical as I had thought. A slight frown. Unfortunate. This will compromise the data I seized. No helping it.
The batarian guards bristled as they saw him start walking past the line waiting to get past the checkpoint, then reached for their weapons when they got a better view of how he was accoutered. "Stop right there, salarian," one of them growled as he approached, leveling an assault rifle at his chest. "You have a death wish? Put your hands up, or I'll-"
Dublo snapped his identification out of a storage port in his armor and held it facing the guard before he could react. The guard's lip curled in a snarl at the sudden movement and he began to say something as two of his eyes flicked towards the document. The words visibly died as he took in the import of the document. The rifle was lowered quickly and the guard straightened as he tilted his head in deference.
"I apologize, sir. I didn't know you were a Spectre." His voice was loud enough to carry to the other guards, who hurriedly lowered their weapons as well.
"Quite alright," Dublo replied in the typically quick speech of his species. "I'm going to be departing now."
"Yes, sir. Of course, sir." The batarian stepped back and to one side, head still tilted submissively. The salarian strode past him and through the checkpoint, the guards and people near the head of the line staring after him.
Word of a Spectre departing so soon after the intrusion at the colonial administration building would undoubtedly raise flags. Have to analyze the data for any actionable intel and utitilize it as quickly as possible before any opportunities are lost.
An hour later he was safely ensconced in his personal ship and set on a course for the nearest mass relay. Dublo set the controls for autopilot and synced his omni-tool to the ship's computer, downloading the data and uncompressing it. After that was done, he began running some complex algorithms and custom-designed search engines he had obtained from a crooked – or more than usual – information broker to sort through the data.
While he waited for them to complete, he meticulously examined and cleaned his weapons and armor before setting them in their appropriate containers. That done, he logged onto the extranet and pulled up some catalogues, looking through the selection of military-grade stunners. He found the model he had lost on Bestat but was surprised to discover it was being sold at a significant discount. "Ah, a new model!" He perked up as he saw that the new one had a power source that had been refined with aspects obtained from the superconductors utilized by the Draka and Samothracians, reducing its recharge time by .08 percent.
Pleased, he placed the order to be delivered to one of his drops on the Citadel. He could have obtained the model similar to his old one at a much lower rate, but once he'd seen that the newer model had increased performance – no matter how minute – the thought had never crossed his mind, a reaction common among the technophilic salarian people.
Dublo was debating over which sort of ration pack to open for a meal – Plenty of burgat from Bestat, but it doesn't go well with tupari juice – when the computer chimed to let him know that the sorting had been completed. Putting the decision aside for the moment, he grabbed a pouch of the juice and went back to the pilot's seat. He punched up the results as he sipped at his drink, eyes flicking back and forth across the screen.
Surprise made him blink both sets of eyelids. There was a lone file that had been mostly downloaded before the alert had prohibited access to the data archives, and whose security had been scrambled by the sudden cut off. "Strange," he murmured to himself. It was by itself on a level of access that listed only directories, and he hadn't seen it during his previous examination at Tras' colonial administration; his photographic memory was sure of that. His fingers tapped away as he set algorithms to analyze the security surrounding the file while he read through the incomplete lines of code. He was more curious as to why he hadn't seen this file before instead of its actual contents.
"Ah," he exclaimed a long while later. "A cloaked file. Clever." Unlike the other files he had downloaded, this one had been hidden using a binary layer of OS software. The other files were perfectly visible using the one layer of the operating system that was prevalent in the data archives, however the other file could only be seen when someone using a device utilizing the second layer of OS software – an omni-tool, say, or a perscomp – hooked it into the network and used it to scan through the archives. It was otherwise completely invisible to anyone else without the additional software. He had lucked out in that the partial download had scrambled the security layer's code enough that the junk data had allowed it to become visible.
"Curious. Very curious." What was so important in this one file that it required this level of security? After another drink from his juice, Dublo set the pouch aside and began unscrambling the file to find out.
GALLATIN TERRITORY
SAMOTHRACE
INVICTUS SYSTEM, EXODUS CLUSTER
UNITED SYSTEMS OF SAMOTHRACE
MAY 8, 2014
There was a slight chill in the air in the high hills of the territory of Gallatin, situated on the northern edge of the belt of settlement that was continuing its spread outward from the Samothracian capital of Jefferson. Janet Lefarge was wearing a light jacket as she watched a group of children play in the yard in front of her parents' ranch house, a low sprawling stabilized-adobe structure. Dark mountains loomed large on the northern horizon, and young Ponderosa pine trees brought to maturity from the New America's seeds lined the outer edge of the grounds, with one planted in the middle of the field for future climbing, tire swings and tree forts when it got taller.
She was smiling as one young boy ran for one end of the yard, a foam football clenched under one arm as he was pursued by a crowd of screaming, yelling boys and a few girls. He grabbed the football and held it aloft in victory as he went past the edge of the picnic table that marked the endzone, a bright grin on his face and sandy brown hair plastered to his forehead with sweat. A group of other boys fell on him with cheers, slaps on the back and high fives.
Janet turned her head as her twin sister, Iris, approached, also smiling at the scene. Unlike Janet, her hair was in a pony tail that swept down to the middle of her back and she wore a simple cotton print dress. "Little Frederick is shooting up like a weed," Janet remarked as the distance closed between the two.
"With energy to match," Iris agreed with a weary smile. She looked at her sister. "I wish you could be around to visit more, Jannie. God knows Nate and I don't mind, and little Fred loves to see you."
Before Janet could answer, a high voice piped out, "Aunt Janet!" The next thing she knew, a solid weight had run full tilt into her and wrapped little arms around her waist.
"Oof! Hi there, sprout." She smiled down into the beaming face, staring up at her with pale blue eyes much like her and her sister's. His face, still round with puppy fat, was a mix of her sister and the long and bony looks of her husband Nate Stoddard, Jr. He was over by the grill that was the centerpiece of this gathering of family and family friends, a glass of beer in his hand as he kept a critical eye on the grilling hamburgers and hot dogs while he chatted with the other men. He glanced over and gave Janet a smile and nod, a smile that broadened at the sight of his son with her.
"I got my Galactic Scouts uniform!" The boy said enthusiastically; the universal youth movement had taken on the importance that the National Scouts had had back in the old USA.
"Hey, that's great!" Janet ruffled her nephew's hair, which caused him to retreat from his clinch and allowed her to breath slightly easier. Phew! He's going to be a strong one, she thought as Fred pushed his hair back out of his eyes, laughing.
She looked up from Fred and spotted a drell boy sitting by himself at one of the picnic tables, wearing a heavier coat than the human children and watching the playing group with pupilless black eyes. Surprised, she looked around and saw a drell man talking with her father, Frederick Kustaa Lefarge – little Frederick's namesake – where he sat in a lawn chair. Her father looked very much like his age though he still had a full head of hair, completely gray as it was.
He's 66 now, Janet realized with a shock. How did that happen? She had seen him off and on during the past decade, most of her time taken up with her work in the Institute. Now he was retired after the establishment of the Samothracian civilian government, and was wrongly blamed by a large minority of people for the Fall while some felt he had overstepped his bounds in bringing the drell to Samothrace.
Janet herself was mixed about the reptile-like race her people had rescued from their doomed homeworld. They weren't as alien as many of the other species in the galaxy – they were humanoid and possessed human-like appearances – and their rescue had been the most symbolic reason for humanity's being granted an embassy on the Citadel, but they were still sufficiently different enough to rile a latent xenophobia in many humans. Due to that, they largely stayed in their original settlements in the equatorial band of desert, though there were minorities in more cosmopolitan Jefferson and distant Akatsuki in the southern hemisphere. By all accounts the drell and ethnic Japanese of the latter city got along just fine, with the uniquely Japanese perspective championed by Patricia Hayato largely allowing for their acceptance in day-to-day life.
Maybe it will help when the first drell start going through their terms of National Service, she decided, so wrapped up in her thoughts that she didn't notice when little Fred followed her gaze and walked away to talk to the drell boy. Up until now they had been busy establishing themselves in the land they had been granted. She was finally stirred from her reverie when her father caught her eye and waved her over.
"Janet," Frederick Lefarge greeted her as she approached. "I'm glad you could make it. I wasn't sure the invite would reach you out there." He gestured toward the sky.
"No, I got it, Dad," she replied, bending down to where her father sat and giving her father a warm but gentle hug; he felt startlingly fragile in her arms. "I had some free time. It's good to see you too. How's Mom doing?"
"As well as she can be with those terrors tearing up the landscape," Frederick replied with a smile. He glanced over towards where her mother was setting out drinks and other food that had already been prepared on the buffet-style table. Cindy Guzman Lefarge had Anglo-Mayan looks, olive skin and greenish hazel eyes, though her hair had turned gray from the dark red it had been in her youth. She looked over and smiled at them, then turned her attention to the two twin boys that had run over from the football game, wiping dirt from their faces and sending them inside to wash before grabbing any of the food.
Janet shook her head. It still seemed a bit unnatural how her parents had managed to give her and Iris a much younger pair of brothers – the family seemed to run to twins – and little Frederick a pair of uncles around the same age he was. But medical technology from Citadel Space and a sense of duty in bolstering the number of humans had allowed it to happen.
"Janet." She turned her attention back to her father as he gestured to the drell man standing nearby she had seen him talking to earlier. "This is Lodan, governor of New Rakhana down south. Lodan, allow me to introduce my daughter, Janet."
"A pleasure to meet you, Janet," the drell said with the signature drell reverb quality to his voice, inclining his head politely and extending a hand. His coloring was a bluish-orange, though he was wearing a startlingly human outfit of a button-down shirt and slacks.
"And you," Janet replied as she shook the offered hand. It was an odd feeling with the two fused middle digits on the hand, effectively giving him four fingers.
"I was just speaking to your father about the possibility of his support in pushing for my people to serve in the Naval Forces and Marines," the drell said. "We're eternally grateful for Samothrace's assistance to us in our time of need, and we want to repay the debt we feel we owe our benefactors."
Janet blinked at the fulsome sincerity in his voice, a bit taken aback. She glanced aside at her father to see him smiling, not just in pleasure but in seeing the choice he had made vindicated, at least on the drells' side. Still, it faded slightly as he began to speak. "I'd love to, Lodan, but you know I'm not popular in certain quarters in Jefferson these days. I can talk to some people, but-"
At that point Janet stopped listening, because she caught sight of the official reason she had attended the gathering waving to her near the back door to the ranch house. Frederick noticed her distraction and followed her gaze to see his old friend Johnathan Winters. When Janet turned back to excuse herself, her father merely smiled sadly and nodded before she could get a word out.
Janet felt herself flush slightly with embarrassment as she returned the nod and headed for the house, both for being caught out at still being on the job, and at how easily her father had seen through the ruse. She had never explicitly stated that she was doing work for the Strategic Studies Institute, but her parents – especially her father – hadn't taken long to put the pieces together. Her sister Iris, a more innocent soul, was still oblivious.
Winters chuckled when she mentioned her father's response as they made their way to the living room and sat across the low table from each other. "Can't sneak nothin' past an old OSS hound like him, lass," he remarked. He leaned back against the cushions of the couch and propped one leg up on the opposite knee, a sign that he was getting down to the business they were there for. "I've looked over that data ye gave me."
Janet nodded, leaning back in the armchair and leaning an elbow on the rest. The information she had gotten from Matriarch Besirea on the Citadel had gone straight to the Analysis Department of the Institute.
"Looks like ye'll be takin' another trip, Janet," Winters continued apologetically. "The SSI never sleeps." He held reached into an inside pocket of his suit jacket and pulled out a folded slip of paper before holding it out across the table. "Ye'll be havin' some company on this one."
Janet took the slip wordlessly, unfolding it and giving it a quick read through before sliding it into her own jacket's inner pocket. The advantage of paper was that it could be quickly destroyed if an agent's position was compromised, as opposed to the datapads and computers that the greater galaxy was so fond of. Location, date, and a team of SSI special operations agents. Sounds like fun, she thought sardonically. More information would be provided closer to the target, of course; she didn't need to know until then.
"Got it. Is that all, then, Uncle John?" At the Englishman's nod, she smiled wanly and stood. "Guess I'll go grab a beer and a hot dog then. Might as well get a semi-decent meal." They shared a rueful chuckle as she left with a small wave.
As she stepped back outside, she could see that plates of finished meats were being set on the table. Before she could head over, though, her father caught her eye. "Everything okay with Jock, Jannie?" he asked, his expression neutral.
Janet hesitated a moment, then nodded. "Yeah, everything's fine, Dad. Just going to be heading off-planet again soon."
Frederick gave his daughter a sad smile as he nodded in understanding, then looked over as he heard a bunch of children yelling. Janet looked over in time to see little Fred running alongside to drell boy, who was holding the football in both hands and sprinting for the endzone with long strides. Another boy closed in on the runner on an intercept course, but was tackled out of the way by her nephew before he could get near him.
The drell reached the endzone and grinned as his team mates cheered. Little Freddie got up from the ground and ran over, wrapping an arm around the alien child's shoulders and cheering loudly.
Janet and her father each caught the other's eye and exchanged a smile. "Maybe there's hope for us yet," Frederick Lefarge remarked.
Janet placed a hand on her dad's arm and looked back at the two boys of different races celebrating together. "I hope so, Dad." And it's my job to make sure they have a future.
Mass Effect Notes: Bestat is Elysium