The Effect of Liberation: Book 1

by ecarden

The Liberator and her crew (well, some of them) escape the dystopia of Blake's 7 for the somewhat better universe of Mass Effect. Here's hoping things go better this time around.

16. Chapter 15

Chapter 15

Author's Note: I don't own either Mass Effect or Blake's 7. I didn't have a chance to proofread this chapter, so it'll be a bit rougher than usual, please let me know if you spot any issues.

2180 Porton, Sinora

Zaeed Massani was asleep. His interrogator was quite sure of that, based on her observation of the Human and the medical equipment that was attached to him in various uncomfortable ways that should have made sleeping impossible. The tall, scarred Asari considered waking him with a powerful backhanded blow, then remembered that the Matriarchs wanted answers, not a corpse and that she hadn't had the opportunity to take a Human apart before and wasn't sure how resilient they were. One of her colleagues had been assigned to interrogate a Drell and had accidentally killed the woman without extracting any information, as she'd overestimated the being's resiliency.

Ailyya Ledaios did not want to explain to the Matriarchs how she'd lost their only lead due to her impatience. Better to wait for the docs to give her a full report on his condition. Though, stripped of his yellow and white custom armor, he was an impressive specimen, having gathered more scars in his short life than Ailyya had in her centuries. Still, mayflies like Humanity could be so fragile, especially as they aged. And this one was older than the others, who'd fought to the last rather than surrender to the vastly superior, in both senses of the word,* forces which had finally arrived, overcoming bureaucratic inertia and suborned senior officers faster than expected, but still too slow to catch most of those who'd had the gall to make trouble in the heart of Coven territory.

*At least in Ailyya's mind. Though the casualty count on the final battle had been woefully one-sided. Of course, that happens when your fixed position is blown up and you're forced into open battle with a group which outnumbers you ten-to-one.

An example had to be made. And it wasn't going to be Ailyya. So she waited. Waiting was not something she was good at. Still, it wouldn't do to have him see her nervous, if he had bothered being awake, which he hadn't, leaving Ailyya with time on her hand. She decided to spend it examining his gear and then himself. That should creep him out, when he woke up, and, if he didn't bother, than it would give her some things to talk to him about when he finally did.

His gear was good quality military equipment, but an odd mismatch of cobbled together gear. Modified Asari gauntlets, a Turian scope on an old Alliance rifle, Salarian shield generators attached to a modified Batarian armor chassis. For a kludged together set, the scans her engineer had taken indicated a shockingly effective set of armor. If he did that himself, it indicated a high level of technical skill, which nothing in his records supported. More likely it was work for hire, which would require significant resources.

The files which were streaming in, ever so slowly, from the extranet were sent instantly to her omni-tool and identified him as Zaeed Massani, founder of the Blue Suns, cast out and betrayed, shot in the head, if her files were right, and seeing the damage to the right side of his face, she could believe it.

Finally* a doctor showed up to run a few scans and explain the limitations which needed to be placed on the interrogation. She was not one of the usual interrogation specialists, or an expert in Humans, but she was able to confirm that their usual techniques would be no more lethal on him than on their usual subjects and that he wasn't allergic to the standard interrogation drugs. Well, most of them.

*Though most of the forces had taken precautions to avoid civilian casualties, Zaeed and his associated had not and the running battle, combined with the orbital strike had resulted in all hospitals being overloaded and it had taken a long time for the Coven's internal security forces to find a doctor and pry her free, as getting between a doctor and her patients was a tricky task, even for the feared internal security forces. It was less that they lacked the will to deal with a centuries' old doctor and pry her away from patients (biotics be damned) and more that attempting to do so might well produce an unfortunate reaction from the biotically empowered families of those patients.

With that confirmation, Zaeed was awakened with an ungentle slap to the face. His eyes opened slowly and he gave the Asari a sleepy smile. His lips opened to speak and Ailyya decided to cut him off. With less experienced subjects, letting them blather was usually the right move, but given the history she'd been able to pry out about the Human, she doubted that would lead to anything except aggravation and confusion. Instead she decided on the direct approach, as he was a mercenary.

"Were you paid to keep quiet about who hired you?"

"Nope," the man admitted easily.

"Who hired you?"

"I'll happily tell you everything I know, in exchange for my freedom."

"And how much do you actually know?"

"No freebies. Sorry," Zaeed said calmly.

"I'm sure we can come to some sort of agreement," Ailyya purred, letting biotic energy flare over her eyes as she met the prisoner's gaze.

"Personally, I prefer the black eyes to the glowing blue ones."

Ailyya smiled, a cruel thing that made him think of the Varren the Blood Pack had used as watch animals three campaigns back. His smile broadened. The beasts had fallen easily enough to sniper fire. That left him plenty of time to sneak in, affix incendiary grenades to the doors of each of the barracks, scatter land mines throughout the courtyard and then pull the alarm. By the time the Krogan were done, there were no more explosives and no more tasks, except clean-up, which he'd left to whatever poor bastards tried to occupy the burned out shell of a colony that the Blood Pack left behind. "I don't," she purred, leaning in close so he could feel her breath on his face. "Think about what that says about me."

Zaeed wrinkled his nose, "Besides the fact that you need to brush your teeth after you eat?" Despite his studied nonchalance, some part of him was a bit worried about an Asari who felt that smashing stuff with her biotics was more fun than hooking up with someone. On the other hand, he considered how long it had been since his last fire-fight and how long it had been since he last spent the night with anyone who wasn't shooting at him, and decided he was in no position to comment. On the other hand, Humans didn't have the same reputation for being sex-crazed lunatics that the Asari had.

She saw that and her smile broadened. "I need to know who hired you. I want to get that information with the drugs and the knives and these really nifty biotic instruments I doubt you've ever seen before, Human, but I'll settle for getting it now."

"Well, I don't actually know that, but I'd be happy to take you to where I was hired and provide all the information on how I was paid. Once I've moved the money. Wouldn't want you to get greedy and think you could rob me."

Ailyya watched him during his little soliloquy and after concluding that based on his reactions to her heavy handed pushing, she could read him almost as well as another Asari and that he was probably telling the truth (based on both body language and common sense), she withdrew without another word, in search of her superiors and permission to negotiate, rather than interrogate. This was going to be less fun and more work than she'd expected.

2181 CE SSV Mindoir-B, in orbit around New Eden

Shepard's eyes opened to the sight of the medbay ceiling. This wasn't the first time she'd woken to that lovely view (in fact, she'd argued, repeatedly, that someone should paint a mural of some sort up there, so people wouldn't wake up to the sight of a dull grey bulkhead, but medical staff had complained about frightening post-op patients) but it had been a while. And usually these days it was because she'd fallen asleep in medical while visiting an injured subordinate, not because anyone had managed to get a piece of her.

But she certainly didn't remember visiting anyone. In fact, the last thing she remembered was answering the distress call on New Eden. Late. Bodies and burnt out buildings, again. Then nothing.

She tooks a sip from the water tube by her face to lubricate her throat so she could speak. "What happened?" she asked, not bothering to look around. Someone would be here for when she woke up. After all, this was the Mindoir, if admittedly, the Mindoir-B*

*The original Mindoir, the reconfigured command ship or Project Overwatch was so badly damaged in battle with some Blue Suns renegades that it was decommissioned. Hassan managed to have its hulk patched and used as the home of the new Alliance Military Museum, which was the only way he'd gotten Shepard to agree to the upgrade as she'd been entirely unwilling to let anything even named Mindoir just be destroyed, or disappear.

"It was a trap," Hassan said from where he was sitting and working beside her bed. After several previous injuries, he'd learned not to react to her waking up by invading her personal space, as it resulted in him being injured.

"The colonists?"

"Really killed by pirates. The pirates also dropped off what looks like an SIU* squad whose sole goal was your assassination. If we hadn't had a warning, it likely would have worked."

*The Batarian Special Intervention Unit is the Batarian equivalent of Human N7s or the Turian Blackwatch. Where the Blackwatch is famed for the success, and N7s for their versatility, the SIU is famed mostly for their brutality. Though they do face down soldiers, most of their time is spent handling slave revolts and assassinations. It's whispered, even amongst those who should know better, that no one keeps information from the SIU and it's fact amongst those who've tried that no one gets information out of SIU operatives.

Shepard's eyes flickered for a moment as she prioritized the half-dozen questions that raised. "How'd they know I'd be there?"

"Security is still looking into it, but it looks like Private Tuy was sharing information about our movements with what he thought was a resettlement charity. He apparently killed himself when he realized that information was probably the cause of this attack."

"And the real story?" Shepard asked.

"From what I'm hearing, that's probably the real story. It looks like the charity was a Cerberus front, but everything so far suggests that Tuy was a dupe, not a deliberate traitor."

"Casualties?" Shepard asked, bracing herself.

"Besides Tuy—" Hassan raised his voice before she could interject what she thought about including the private in the list of casualties, "eight of the ground team were killed and nineteen were wounded, including you."

Shepard's eyes closed. "What the fuck happened?"

"After the team landed in the shuttles, we received a, belated, warning that there was intel suggesting this was a trap. Apparently one of the pirates who was supposed to be on the raid got left behind and picked up by C-Sec. They passed along the word to us, which took a while to get here—"

"Get on with it," Shepard snapped, forcing him to proceed to the unpleasant part.

"There were EMPs* in scan-proof containers buried in the colony grounds. They went off right after we gave you the warning."

*Electro-magnetic pulses, capable of disrupting electronic devices, though it does take a serious EMP projector to disrupt modern, hardened equipment.

"Scan-proof containers?"

"Some sort of new composite. Tech's working it. Fortunately, it's not good enough to block explosives from our scan, but it's good enough to block an EMP, or a shock generator, or any other electronics."

"Shit."

"Yeah."

"We didn't have any intel on that?"

"None that reached us out here in the boonies."

"I need to have a little talk with the Admiralty."

"Maybe. Though the sounds we're getting back suggest they may not have known either," Hassan said.

"Or they're just good actors."

"Also an option."

"So, the EMPs go off, and?"

"You managed to get a barrier up, but your shields and the shields your escorts were using to protect you were gone. About that time, four snipers decided to open up on you. Your barrier failed and so did your armor. Only the fact that Samara wrapped another barrier around you kept you from being killed then and there. You still went down, completely unconscious from four hits to the head."

"I survived four shots to the head?"

"From SIU sniper rifles."

"Samara's fucking terrifying."

"Apparently. Anyway, they then decided that if precision didn't work, they'd go with firepower and opened up on everyone. They had heavy missile launchers and basically plastered the base. That's when most of the people got hurt, or killed."

"Shit."

"Yes," Hassan agreed, without any attempt at minimization, or comfort.

Shepard's eyes narrowed. "Wait, you said this looked like an SIU operation. Why don't we know for sure?"

"Well, SIU doesn't talk, or at least that's there rep—" Shepard's eyes narrowed. Before she could talk herself into doing something stupid like getting out of bed, despite the fact that her head was strapped down, and swimming, Hassan continued, "but mostly it's because Jack did not take watching you and Samara go down well. At all. There were no survivors amongst the Batarians and we're not even sure how many attackers there were, yet, as medical will need to sort out the…bits to answer that question."

"Shit."

"Yes."

"Wait, Samara went down?"

"Biotic overload. She was still protecting you and herself when the first volley of missiles hit. Kept putting up barriers even as they kept getting knocked down. She's malnourished and took some shrapnel in the last round, but she'll recover."

Shepard looked down at her body as best she could.

"I didn't?"

"No."

Hassan didn't say anything further, but Shepard could guess what that meant. Samara had prioritized protecting her over protecting herself.

"Shit."

"Yes."

"And Jack?" she asked, after a moment's thought.

"Hasn't left Medical since you came back. She won't talk to anyone but Zabeleta and he's spent most of the last two days in the hands of the counselors."

"How the fuck did Zabeleta get involved?" Shepard snapped. The former lieutenant was one of her pet projects. She'd looked up everyone who'd gone down to Mindoir. Very few of them remained in the service and even fewer were willing to join Project Overwatch. Ernesto Zabaleta was neither. He'd fallen apart after Mindoir, self-medicating with alcohol until he got discharged from the Alliance. That had led him into trouble, but Project Overwatch had dragged him out, stood him up, then sat him back down in front of a counselor. He definitely wasn't supposed to go down and deal with another raided colony.

"He volunteered to go down and act as guard for one of the shuttles. His counselor thought it was a good idea and he can still shoot straight. It meant he was out of the line of fire for most of it. He's the one who grabbed Jack after she'd…finished and dragged her back."

"And now he's back with the counselors?"

"Hasn't left medical anymore than you did," Hassan said.

"Shit."

"Yes."

"Anything else I need to know?"

"No, sir, everything's under control. You chose good subordinates."

"Dismissed," Shepard snapped, in no mood to be praised immediately after an embarrassing defeat.

"Yes, sir," Hassan got up, with absolutely no military panache and headed for the exit.

She heard the door open and spoke before it closed, "Hassan, who gave us the tip on the ambush?"

"Some C-Sec Officer named," Hassan flicked through his omni-tool, "Garrus Vakarian."

2181 CE Ardat-Yakshi Monastery, Lessus

Rila should not have been there. The landing pad was not outside the monastery, such that going there violated her oath, but Superintendent Jethra viewed it as…what was the melodramatic turn of phrase the young justicar used? Ah, yes, 'indicative of a desire to escape the monastery, which is no prison to any but the irredeemable.' And thus a desire to see the outside world became a confession. Rila shrugged it off. She did not care that being caught here might cost her a few more years in the monastery, a few more years before being allowed to 'reintegrate' into Asari society.

A sneer touched her lips. There was no reintegration, not truly. She would be tagged like a dangerous animal and everyone she met would know what she was, know not to touch her, or even talk to her and certainly not—she cut that thought off before it went anywhere counterproductive and jolted herself back. A few years was a small price to pay, especially as her sister's crimes meant that Rila's every motion was viewed with paranoia, every word turned over for hidden meaning, every tear examined for mockery. It didn't matter though, that was all about to change.

Her mother was coming to Lessus.

The shuttle swept in, boxy and ugly, painted a blue that was almost the same color as Falere's skin. The overhang sheltered Rila from the drizzling rain and the automated turrets* set to shred anyone who attempted to leave the monastery without the correct codes, but also had blocked her view of the shuttle until it was overhead, engines howling so loud it nearly deafened the sheltered young maiden.

*Asari who could be trusted around Ardat-Yakshi consisted of justicars and other Ardat-Yakshi. There were too few justicars to secure the monastery and arming the Ardat-Yakshi was right out.

When the shuttle finally touched down, the engines stopped and Rila could take her hands from her ears a man was already out of the shuttle, sweeping the landing area with a large rifle. Rila stared at him from behind the cargo boxes she'd chosen as her hiding spot. It was a Human! Rila had been in the monastery since before first contact with Humanity. The limited external contact available had provided only a tiny fragment of the excitement that had swept the Republics at the discovery of a new, space-faring race. But it had been enough to trigger speculation amongst the Ardat-Yakshi, that surely this would be the race which could endure, even enjoy their touch, rather than perish under it. That was a delusion, of course, but a pleasant one.

Rila studied the man with man with all the intensity a cloistered Asari maiden could bring to bear, which was quite a lot. It was hard to tell much under even the light, form-fitting armor he wore, though she could see a dozen shielding ports and the man didn't bother with a helmet, revealing a pale face surrounded on all sides by brown hair. His movements were jerky, but faster than she would have thought anyone could move unless sped by biotics.

He spotted her instantly, despite the fact that she was mostly concealed behind some of the cargo boxes. The rifle came up to bear on her and she spread her hands wide, trying to appear unthreatening. Thin lips, pink lips? Some part of her mind wondered irrelevantly as the rest of her tried to control the desire to attack which flowed through her body, parted and the man spoke, but not to her. Or at least she couldn't hear any of his words.

A second figure stepped out, shorter, slighter and clearly female, given the form-fitting armor she wore, though this was much like a justicar's, intended for a biotic expert. The woman was smaller than the man and lacked the hair that lined his head, instead it was lined with red ink, almost like the make-up most Asari wore, another thing that was denied to the residents of the monastery. Old hurts and indignities held little sway in the face of this new exotica and she took the opportunity to examine the girl closely. She looked younger to the Asari's eyes, though Rila couldn't be sure, given the bizarre sexual dimorphism of dual-gendered races. Dark eyes ran over Rila, lighting up with recognition, for all that Rila had certainly never met her. A slow movement placed her in the soldier's line of sight and the she slid forward into his line of fire, biotics flowing over her body in a powerful barrier in case of a misfire. "Ernesto, it's fine. She's a resident here, not an enemy."

"There wasn't supposed to be anyone out here, Jack," he noted, moving to try to find a clear line of fire on Rila, while keeping the door in sight.

The girl kept her back between Rila and the man, though the Asari could see over her head to the man's eyes. Madness shadowed his dark eyes, the same madness which Rila had seen in the eyes of Ardat-Yakshi who had come back from private sessions with the new Superintendent, the ones who wouldn't last much longer before violating a rule that got them executed. The girl responded with a snapped command and the man nodded, falling back to the vehicle, passing Samara as she stepped down.

The girl turned to Rila and said something which the Asari missed in the flush of finally seeing her mother again after so very many decades.

Samara moved with the same grace as she always had, but her formerly expressive face was a serene veneer that reminded Rila of the porcelain masks that had decorated her childhood home. Some of that calm seemed to infect the man and he moved under the overhang, to where his unarmored head would be protected from the rain.* Blue eyes paused for just a moment on Rila, then she moved on, as if she had not seen her daughter.

*And of more tactical relevance, be mostly hidden from optical scanners, while his armor would protect him from thermal and other sensors. Probably.

Rila knew about the Oath of Solitude,* both from her earlier life on Thessia when she'd had access to all the entertainment the extranet had to offer, much of it about justicars, and from her time in the monastery, run by justicars. Still, it was one thing to know about it, it was another to have her mother walk past her as if she wasn't present. It felt like someone had punched her to the gut, an experience she was all too familiar with from run-ins with some of the other Ardat-Yakshi, or initiate justicars. How civilized the monastery was depended on the superintendent and Rila had been there through a dozen superintendents, from those who insisted that everyone behave in a civilized manner to those who simply insisted that no one violate the Code and cared nothing for anything else.

*One of the final oaths sworn by initiates into the Order of the Justicars, the applicant forswears parents, siblings, bondmates and children, leaving only those who fight beside them. This is intended to ensure that nothing will turn their hands, or minds from their duty. A secondary effect is to ensure that there is no point to going after a justicar's family, as they will never even know if you do. Of course, that assumes you can find out who their family is, which isn't all that easy, as justicar's change their names and all records of them are destroyed upon joining the order. The unique reproductive structure of the Asari means that even if you do get a DNA sample from a justicar and access to an appropriate database, running a match will get you thousands of results, none of whom, except for the rare pure-bloods, are likely to actually be related to the justicar. The same genetic malleability which permits breeding with other species makes such tests almost entirely futile.

Considering the qualities of the various superintendents was, she recognized, an intellectualized distancing of herself from the emotions which burned through her as she glared at her mother's back and automatically took a step forward, hands unconsciously clenching into fists and biotic energy beginning to flow around them.

The girl slid between the two of them, breaking Rila's line of sight and giving her a slight smile that made Rila want to crush her skull. What right did she have to be happy, at this time and in this place? Dark eyes met hers and she saw the girl's eyes glow in response to the power that Rila was pulling. "Something wrong?" she asked, voice surprisingly deep for such a small creature, smile dropping away.

The look was the one Rila had seen all the best of the justicars assigned to the monastery wear at one time or another. It announced that crossing them would mean a swift, painless death, but following the rules would mean that no harm would come to you. It was not exactly comfortable, but it was better than the look you say on the worst of the justicars, which announced an unpleasant fate, regardless of what you did. The new Superintendent for instance was famous for always finding some way to remind them that despite being called residents, they were really inmates.

Rila opened her mouth and did not spill forth bile, but instead lied and claimed that nothing was wrong.

That should have been the end of it. Would have been, with any true justicar. But the Human just laughed and stepped in close, "Come on, Blue, what's wrong?"

"Nothing is wrong," Rila snapped. "My mother keeps the Oath of Solitude and so I have no mother left. So be it. It's hardly news. Forty years and any hurt scars."

"Wouldn't know. But I'll take you at your word," the girl said with a shrug, sliding towards the door Samara had already passed through, never turning her back on Rila, despite her words. It was odd, seeing that sort of concern and attention paid by someone who, from her words, was clearly less than forty years old. It was so young to be watching her back like that. Most maidens thrice that age would just throw themselves into life and trust that they would come out the other side fine. It was one of the reasons that despite their prodigious lifespan, the Asari had not overrun the galaxy, as so very many died before ever having children.*

*Indeed, it is theorized amongst Alliance academics that this trait was also a reason why, despite long periods of peace and their massive industrial base, the Citadel has not dealt with the Terminus systems. Because they need a frontier to try new ideas, new technologies and new peoples (and the Turians need an external threat, or they would fracture, creating an internal one that would make the Unification Wars look like a child's argument over their bedtime).

After a long minute of staring at the younger woman, Rila asked the question which had been bothering her since she heard* her mother was coming. Her attempt to come across as nonchalant did not come close to succeeding, but the Human either didn't catch, or didn't care about her interest and answered simply that Samara was here because she had noticed a change at the facility, which she wished to investigate. And the girl was there because she went where Samara went. The simple way she stated this reignited Rila's desire to crush the girl's skull.

*She had heard about it from her sister, Falere, who was thoroughly involved with the Ardat-Yakshi who knew they were never going to leave the monastery, so their only concern was not misbehaving so badly they got executed. As they stayed for centuries as justicars came and went, they had the place thoroughly wired, both so they knew what was going on and could access what bits of the outside world the justicars did (any extraneous searches ran the risk of discovery by the security Vis, but simply capturing everything that happened to be accessed didn't).

Despite the girl's straightforward answer, Rila was left with no more information than she'd had before they spoke. They entered the monastery together, moving through the halls as they casually spoke, Jack introducing herself and Rila providing a bit of her own history (the Oath of Solitude certainly didn't bind her as she hadn't sworn it) and a little disquisition on the monastery and how it was set up. Jack kept the conversation moving as fast as they were moving until they almost ran into Samara's back as the elder justicar had stopped to converse with Superintendent Jethra.

The younger justicar's eyes lit up as she saw Rila and then flashed with shock as she saw Jack, as, to Rila's certain knowledge,* no Human had ever been in the monastery before. Her conversation with Samara, too quiet to overhear, died on indignant lips, replaced with furious questions.

*The history of the monastery was one of the subjects which the residents were allowed to study in whatever depth they wished. With centuries ahead of them, most eventually exhausted the limited subjects they were permitted to study.

"My apprentice, Jack."

"Goddess Weeps, it's bad enough you brought a shipfull of Humans to this planet, but you actually brought one into the monastery?" Jethra snapped, sharper than Rila would have expected. The Superintendent was young for the rank,* but still attempted the serene calm of more experienced** justicars. Unsuccessfully.

*Though theoretically all equal, the justicars had, over the millennia come up with a thousand indicators of rank, none of which gave any legal authority, but all of which affected how they treated each other. Though theoretically being Superintendent of the Ardat-Yakshi Monastery was a prestigious post, given to honored elder justicars, in reality it was the assignment the injured and invalided were given, either while recovering, or if they weren't expected to recover.

**Though well trained and powerful, justicars tended to operate alone (or perhaps with up to a handful of trainees, though with few recruits capable of passing the trials, that was rare these days) which inevitably led to a rather short operational life-span for each individual.

Despite her lack of experience, the Superintendent was quick enough to catch Samara's words, despite her obvious anger at the older justicar's presence. "You took a human as your apprentice?" she asked. "Is that in accordance with the Code?"

The question was insult and compliment all in one. Insult in that it suggested that Samara might take an action outside the Code, compliment in that it case her in the role of tutor to the other justicar. "The Code simply states that it is the responsibility of justicars to offer training to those who seek the Code and are willing to make the sacrifices necessary. It makes no mention of the species of the seeker."

"Because it was written before we'd ever left Thessia!" Rila snapped, because the Superintendent couldn't criticize the Code for incompleteness.

Jethra shot a glare at her, prompting Rila to retreat a step and Jack to slide between the two of them, as if she expected the justicar to attack the maiden. Samara ignored Rila's comment completely, as she was obliged to, but drew Jethra's attention back to herself with a slight cough. "This is all irrelevant to the question at hand. Do you challenge my interpretation of the Code, or my right to bring my apprentice with me?" Samara asked, voice formal and calm, no malice in the question which Rila feared would end in biotics, bloodshed and screams.*

*In fact, it would not. Though justicars had fought over interpretations of the Code in the past, when the differing interpretation put justicars on opposite sides of a battle. However, when the conflict was not so immediate, it was resolved by going to the Temple of Athame on Thessia and discussing the matter with the High Priestesses there. If an accord could not be reached, then the parties would go their separate ways and avoid one another. This question, if it could not be resolved, would have ended with Jethra ordering Jack to leave, as she had the authority to do as Superintendent of the monastery.

Jethra tried to stare the older justicar down and failed. She glanced back towards Jack, whose glare was approaching nuclear levels, lacking the serenity Samara had mastered. "No. If she will swear the oaths and can survive the training, then I will welcome her as a sister of the Order." A safe enough statement, as she didn't expect a Human to survive, given how very few Asari managed it. "But this is all irrelevant. You may go, Rila."

Rila turned automatically at the force of the command, but lingered, walking away slowly, trying to hear what actually was relevant in Jethra's view. "Jack, take a look around."

Jack nodded obediently and followed Rila away. The young woman walked with the smooth stride of a trained biotic, until they were out of sight of the justicars, then fell back into the energetic bouncing of a maiden who wasn't bothering to try to conceal wonder and sight-seeing behind a false screen of cynical seen-it-allness. Jack's eyes flickered over the curving, aesthetic architecture, art and artifacts that predated her nation's existence, seeing beauty, not the prison.

That naiveté was at once charming and infuriating. Rather than attack the girl for no crime, or sin, she spoke up and asked the first question that popped into her head, about the red pattern traced into a smooth, bald head.

"It's a tattoo. See you take ink and put it in under the skin—"

"I know what a tattoo is! I'm not that sheltered," Rila snapped, her eyes flaring indignantly, then widened as she realized the girl was teasing her. Calm spread through her system at that realization and she turned her snarl into a smile, "I was asking if it has any significance? Our face markings used to have meaning, before they became mere decoration, though," her voice lowered to a mutter, "even that is denied to us."

Jack shot her a look and gave her a brisk, if somewhat sympathetic pat on the back. "Well, in that case, yes, it's the insignia of a Project Overwatch."

"Project Overwatch? What's that?" Rila asked.

"Ongoing anti-piracy and anti-Cerberus project. They, along with Samara saved my life. So, yeah, it signifies something," Jack snapped off a bracer to reveal a line of Asari script inscribed in blue across her forearm, it was hard to read upside down, but Rila recognized the first line of the Code easily enough, "just like this does."

"A word to the wise, the justicars aren't real big on divided loyalty."

"So far, it isn't divided, Samara works with Project Overwatch all the time."

"Except right now," Rila pointed out.

Jack laughed, "You think we just took a shuttle all the way here? The Commander lent her a frigate* to get her here and provide any support she needs. My loyalty ain't split at all."

*It was actually a converted pirate ship, with a frigate's fire-power on a larger chassis, with room for booty and slaves, now converted to act as barracks for the larger ground teams Shepard liked to deploy.

Rila wasn't sure what to say about that. She'd always pictured her mother out there alone, pursuing her sister, endlessly alone. A justicar wasn't supposed to build themselves some sort of…new family, with a new daughter to replace the defective one she'd been issued. Rila's desire to smash the younger woman's skull did not go away, but she was quite certain she couldn't actually do it,* which made the urge sting more, but also safer to indulge in.

*For obvious reasons, any biotic training was denied to the Ardat Yakshi, however, as the disease did not appear until maturity, many of the Asari had received some training, even if only Itela had been in commando training before discovering her curse. The young maiden had been sequestered for the first three months of her time in the monastery to ensure she understood that the justicars would not tolerate her passing along that knowledge to any of the other residents.

XXXXX

Rila ducked under the blow, only to be knocked off her feet by a shockwave Jack summoned with a casual kick. Knocked flat, she gasped helplessly for breath. A roll brought Jack back into view as she smirked at Falere, floating in the singularity Jack had summoned before turning to deal with the younger maiden.

"In a real battle, I'd have crushed your skull before you turned over, then a throw and that singularity would detonate, turning you into bright blue chunks, girlie," Jack said, as the singularity snapped out of existence and local gravity returned, dropping Falere to join her sister on the ground. "Oh, for crying out loud, Falere, you had to know it was coming! Try landing on your feet, or at least falling like I taught you!"

Denille, the most aggressive of the maidens Jack had pulled into this folly, surreptitiously attempted a throw at Jack's back, but the young woman easily avoided it, dodging even before the mass effect field had even finished forming. She caught the maiden's wrist, fingernails digging into her flesh and flicked through a casual throw which sent Denille rolling across the padded floor into the wall. It wasn't an uncontrolled landing, like Falere, instead she kicked off the wall and snapped a foot out, sending a warp back towards the calm woman, who casually raised a barrier. The biotic defense was not a good choice against the warp, but the attack, launched so quickly, was too weak to break through the barrier before fading away. Since Jack was properly braced, the impact didn't even rock her as she continue to walk towards the maiden.

Rila rose and tried to muster words to protect Denille from the punishment which her treachery had surely earned her. Before she could manage anything, Jack snorted, "Better. I see you're finally learning that everything doesn't have to have perfect form, you simply have to actually launch the attack fast enough that your opponent can't feel it coming. For first strikes from behind, a more powerful blow is possible, but you've got to keep the field under tighter control. Try practicing fine control. Biotic chess* is good for that, if you—"

*Biotic chess is simply speed chess, but you can only move the pieces using biotics. This is difficult only because it requires small, tightly controlled movements, in a very tight time-frame, made more difficult by the fact that touching the other player's pieces was forbidden unless you'd already captured it.

"Athame's bright blue arse!" Justicar-Apprentice Lexa snapped, her vulgarity drawing a sharp slap to the back of her head from Justicar Partil.

The older justicar did not sigh, instead she spoke quietly, "This action is in violation of the rules of the monastery." Rila shot a hateful glance at Illora, certain the self-hating matron had run and told the Superintendent as soon as she'd been invited to the underground training sessions Jack had set up.

"Is it?" Jack asked innocently. "Which one?"

"By order of every Superintendent since the founding of this monastery, residents may not receive commando training."

"Of course. However, is it not the purpose of this monastery to train the residents so they may rejoin Asari society?"

"Maybe you Humans have to fight to be accepted, but we are Asari!" Lexa snapped.

"Ah, so you propose to turn them out in a society which despises them, without any training in self-defense? I wonder what the long term survival rates are for those you re-integrate?"

"That is not relevant to—"

"Rejoin implies successfully rejoin. If not, you could simply imprison them all and they'd have rejoined society," Jack countered, with a slight smile, grateful she'd spent hours with Hassan discussing how to deal with this exact argument. It was a bit painful to admit that the lawyer had been right that they needed to prepare.

Partil spoke, shooting the apprentice a look which stilled her vulgar mouth for the moment. "Regardless of the meaning of the rejoin, the directives of this monastery are clear and you are obliged to follow them."

"And I have."

"Athame's bleeding c—" Lexa stopped when she got another slap to the back of her head.

"My apprentice's inappropriate terminology aside, I must agree that your claim seems extremely dubious, given what I have been informed of and what I have witnessed," Partil said.

"As you noted, commando training is forbidden. However, this was not commando training. I could not provide commando training, as I am not a commando and have not received commando training myself."

"That's a lot of times to say commando in one sentence," Falere put in, moving to back up the Human. That got the justicars' backs up and they glared at the Ardat-Yakshi, who didn't back down. The room began to divide further as those who wanted out drifted away and others drifted towards Falere.

"Commando training is a generic term for combat training in Asari," Partil said, as Lexa moved into position to watch to the older woman's back and to have the right angle to drop a singularity amongst the largest group of Ardat-Yakshi.

Jack touched her omni-tool, bringing up the notes she'd worked on with Hassan to get the wording exactly right. Justicar and trainee justicar both almost set everything off right then, reacting to the movement, despite the absence of threat. "Commando, defined in the Thessani Dictionary of Asari, circa 573 BCE,* the year the directive in question was issued, 'a warrior trained in the distinctive combat arts of one of the Republics.'" Jack deactivated her omni-tool and glanced back over at the justicars, noting with amusement the slowly dissipating biotic energy swirling around their hands. Of course she'd felt it when they moved, but the energies hadn't come close to being discharged and none of those behind her had noticed, as they were focusing on Jack, lacking the experience to constantly keep their eyes on their enemies.

*Which was translated into the Asari dating scheme, which dated everything as either before the founding of the citadel council, or after.

Partil's eyes widened slightly, then narrowed as she realized that she'd been set up; her apprentice's guffaws did not help her mood any, though the maiden did relax enough that the biotic energy she'd been gathering evaporated. "An interesting argument, I will take this matter up with the Superintendent," she said, as the Superintendent could simply issue a new order to handle this difficulty.

"As the Goddess wills it," Jack said, using the phrase as the verbal equivalent of a shrug, not reacting to the flash of triumph that crossed Lexa's face.

The justicar and her apprentice turned away, and Jack spoke to their backs, voice thick with horribly false and syrupy sweetness. "I do hope Justicar Samara's business with the Superintendent does not interfere with your conversation."

The Ardat-Yakshi snickered, but a glare and snapped words had them back to exercising (or sparring, to an ungenerous eye) as the justicars left. Jack moved amongst them, correcting postures, dispensing advice and wiping the floor with anyone who was getting overconfident. And with Ilora several times.

When they were exhausted, Jack dismissed them back to their quarters and returned to her own. Despite the fact that she'd fought most of them, and given several demonstration bouts, she was barely more than warmed up. Their stamina was pathetic, though that was probably because they didn't use their biotics for anything. Besides giving them a basic grounding in biotic combat, the other reason for all this was to put the idea of using their biotics for other things into their pretty blue heads, as that might be frowned upon, but certainly wasn't forbidden, any more than using their legs and arms was forbidden.*

*In Human prisons, biotic inhibitors are common, installed between the biotic implant and the brain, or the implant and the nodes of element zero scattered throughout the biotic's body to disrupt the signals which would have spurred biotic activity. In extreme cases, biotic implants have even been removed, with varying degrees of success, and varying degrees of brain damage. Such things would be viewed in approximately the same manner as amputation by the Asari, to the extent they are feasible upon the naturally biotic Asari, who do not require brain implants to use biotics. This practice is indeed a source of minor friction, which the Alliance fears will escalate to a major diplomatic incident if Asari prisoners start being kept by Human jails. For that reason, citizens of the Republics are extradited back to them and the few Asari taken prisoner in the Terminus are handled with a certain degree of caution. The Ministry of State has repeatedly sought funding for a prison built to Asari standards, capable of restraining biotics without the necessity of implants, but it has never been budgeted for.

Well, Jack thought with a slight sigh, those were the reasons she could admit to. A quick touch activated the anti-bugging programs in her omni-tool, hopefully jamming any video or audio surveillance and she did another full sweep for bugs, before pulling out a swab and cleaning Danille's skin out from under her nails, clawed from the woman's arm when she'd tossed her across the room, carefully labelling it (with a coded number, not the Ardat-Yakshi's name, as that would be difficult to explain away) and packing it away. Each of the other samples she'd collected was in the scan-proof case that she'd carefully smuggled into the monastery.

XXXXX

Samara's temper had not troubled her in many years. Though Jack's plight had troubled her and many of Cerberus's actions would have earned punishments more severe than she could deliver via biotics or bullets, that had been the Code. Sorrow and responsibility had driven her hunt for her daughter, while sworn duty had driven her to handle other criminals.

Despite the fact that she had meditated before landing, despite her experience and her age, the sight of her daughter had shaken her control. It had been a kindness for Jack to handle the girl, as Samara could not, but even the sight of her left the justicar unbalanced. Her run-in with the Superintendent had not helped with that, nor had her business on planet. It was none of her business, not really, but then again, the justicars did not have a formal structure to oversee their actions, but operated on an old justicar-apprentice model, each Superintendent chose her own successor. That was tradition, not the Code, but tradition had its own power when it was millennia old.

That age was on full display in Jethra's office, mostly. Gone were the ancient tapestries, woven by residents of the monastery in ages past, instead shelves laden with equally ancient artifacts, both of the Justicar Order and the Asari people, but nothing that suggested the occupant ran a monastery filled with Ardat-Yakshi.

"Your interest in how I run my monastery is appreciated, but your concern is unnecessary. Everything is in hand and there have been no problems. No escapes. No murders."

"Indeed not. However, in the three years since you have taken over the monastery, a total of four residents have reintegrated into Asari society. In the three years before you took over, the number was thirty-one. This drop concerns me. As does the increase in summary punishments, both minor and savage. You have done everything except execute residents. In fact, you haven't executed any residents at all, which is odd given your previous behavior and their alleged actions."

"All I've done is in accordance with the Code," Jethra said, paling with fury.

"I'm sure. And yet, the numbers suggest that something is going on. Unless you claim it is luck* which has resulted in this change?"

*Luck has an odd status amongst Asari, as, due to their long lives, they tend to see all probabilities play out, eventually. They are both more and less accepting of luck as a force in their lives. More in that, having seen it happen, they're willing to admit the impact of luck on their successes and failures, less in that blaming luck for an outcome that they could have effected, but didn't, is far less acceptable. This is one reason why gambling is embraced by rebellious maidens as there is often nothing to do to improve the odds and the results are merely a matter of luck. Justicars have a unique take on this, because though they accept the effect of luck in their personal life, following the Code is supposed to ensure that the outcomes they produce are just. The implication that it is luck which dictates the results rather than the Code is deeply offensive.

"You dare?" Jethra asked, voice shaking as her control faltered, biotic power sputtering behind her eyes and along her skin, highlighting the elaborate red markings she'd had traced on her face and neck.

"Obviously," Samara said, calmly, baiting the younger justicar. This was embarrassing. It wasn't supposed to work. There wasn't supposed to be a problem. This was supposed to just be an excuse that Shepard had come up with so Samara could see her daughters without going to see her daughters. If there was a problem, it certainly wasn't supposed to be a justicar, barely outside her maiden years throwing her weight around. And if it was to be a justicar, then surely they wouldn't be so feeble as to be riled into folly by minor insults.

Something was very wrong here. Besides the stammering, uncontrollably furious justicar standing in front of her. Before she could figure out what, the woman snapped to her feet and demanded that Samara take herself and her 'flash'* fake-apprentice back to wherever the hell they came from.

*Flash is a derogatory term for non-Asari, intended to reference their short lifespan.

"No."

"I am the superintendent of this monastery! I ordered you to leave! You have to do it!"

"No," Samara said, very deliberately ambiguous as to what she was responding to. After all, if Jethra thought, she might recognize that she had, in fact, ordered Samara to go back where she came from, which she certainly didn't have any authority to do, rather than merely to leave the monastery, which she did. But she did leave the room, moments before the furious Asari burst.

She was somewhat surprised when that turned out to be literally true as Jethra burst forth in a nova which shredded her office. Reopening the armored glass doors, Samara stuck her head back in and said, "We really expect more self-control from justicars, especially superintendents of monasteries," she escaped before the maddened justicar could manage a response.

XXXXX

Jack hit the floor, hard, grateful for the padding, and the barrier she'd managed to bring up before Samara had taken her down. The pistol snapped into her hand, and a pair of shots bounced off the shielding in front of the justicar's face. Even if the pistol hadn't been loaded with practice rounds, they wouldn't have penetrated, but the flicker of the shielding gave her an instant when Samara couldn't see her and the movement in front of her eyes should have forced the justicar to flinch. It didn't and she correctly guessed which way Jack rolled to get clear of her advance and an armored boot cracked against Jack's equally armored stomach.

Despite the armor, Jack had the wind knocked out of her, though at least none of her ribs were broken. The pistol dropped from temporarily nerveless fingers. Despite the biotic aura flaring around Samara's foot, Jack curled herself around it and rolled, pulling Samara forward, tripping the woman.

The two of them went down in a pile and managed to get separated enough to launch proper attacks, Samara's warp ripped towards Jack somewhat faster than the throw the younger woman managed to respond with. The attacks met in the air in an impressive biotic explosion that sent both of them backwards, but the explosion had been closer to Jack and she was still lighter than the older woman, meaning that Jack was knocked over, while Samara was simply staggered.

A gasp went up from the observing justicars-in-training when the saw Jack's blood-streaked face glance up from where she'd ended up. She'd smashed her nose pretty good in the last pass, but she managed a shockwave, buying herself a second to get back on her feet. Samara nimbly jumped over it, but it took a moment. The SMG that appeared in her hand spat fire at her bleeding apprentice, who reinforced her barrier and charged forward, wishing she had one of the implants which would have permitted her to truly charge forward. Though she'd used so much energy already that if this bout didn't end soon, she was in deep trouble.

Samara met the charging girl and they went down grappling, fighting too fast to muster any biotic attacks. Samara's hand-to-hand style was graceful and elegant, while Jack's style was direct and brutal, though their styles had grown closer together due to practicing together and with Overwatch troops. Samara out-weighed, out-experienced and flat out out-fought the younger woman, though Jack never gave up, the battle only had one available end. Jack ended up under Samara's heel, where a twist would snap her neck, regretting once again the lack of a gorget* on her preferred, Asari-made armor, and concluding, once again, that she should have one added, despite the minor interference with her flexibility.

*She had, in fact, demanded a "neck guard" from the ship's armorer, who had pretended not to know what she meant, until she looked up the proper term. Then the Turian had insisted that she learn how to add it herself, on the theory that she might need to do alterations/repairs to her gear in the field, that she wasn't a Project Overwatch soldier and thus his responsibility and that she was a child and he had no interest in assisting her in going out into combat. As Jack was too busy for that, she hadn't gotten around to it, yet. Nor had she gotten around to finding another armorer and the credits to have the work done (and buy a compatible gorget).

After a moment and a failed attempt to break the pin that succeeded in nothing but getting her legs wrapped around each other and stomped on, Jack tapped out. Samara released her and pulled her up. "Who's next?" Samara asked, glancing at the half dozen justicar apprentices scattered around the room.

"That would be me," Jethra snapped from behind her, having walked into the room while the fight was going on. Jack hadn't noticed at all. Samara had noticed the motion, but disregarded it as it wasn't immediately threatening (or at least, not as immediately threatening as a teenaged biotic).

Jack, who had seen Jethra, fully armed and armored, as soon as she rose was already moving to support Samara as the senior justicar turned to face the superintendent. A hand signal sent her back and out of the room, reluctant, though she ostentatiously set her weapon back to fire armor piercing rounds.

She did not reattach the weapon to her armor and took up a spot where none of the, unarmed,* justicar apprentices were behind her. Slowly Jack faded backwards, so the other observers were in her line of sight and only those directly across from her could see her movement.

*Which was a good reminder that they were apprentices, as full justicars never went anywhere without weapons, even though their biotics made them living weapons.

Jethra entered the practice circle and activated the shielding which would prevent any attacks from hitting the observers. Samara's hands rose to trace the sacred patterns, invoking the Goddess, as justicars had done for centuries. Jethra's hands mirrored hers, moving through the pattern, but to Jack's eye something was wrong. It took a moment to figure it out. The superintendent was mirroring Samara, always a beat behind. There was nothing particularly wrong with that, the match would not begin until both were complete, but it was…odd that a woman so aggressive was a beat behind and it was odd that her eyes were on Samara's hands. What would be the point of that, neither of them was likely to make any sort of mistake. Better to watch your opponent's eyes, hips, or shoulders, where there might be warning. It was almost like the justicar didn't know the motions and was mimicking them, but that was madness.

Madness was precisely what she saw when Jethra's hands fell. Fury in her eyes and every line of her body as she charged forward. Samara had already moved, reading the wind-up in the other justicar's legs. The shields flared to life as Jethra crashed into them and bounced back, turning her rebound into a careening second rush, she swung a broad haymaker at Samara's, still dodging form.

The older justicar got both arms up in a block, but Jethra's strength was immense. The blow knocked Samara's hands back into her face. Armor and arms kept the blow from shattering cheekbone, or jaw, but it still almost flattened her and did stun her. Only drilled instinct used the force of the blow to spin and bring her leg up, armored boot-heel slamming into Jethra's face, but the woman barely flinched at the blow, catching Samara's leg as it rebounded off her skull.

The Superintendent's hand came up for a blow that would have crushed Samara's knee, despite the armor, but the justicar had recovered and deliberately fell forward, her hands hit the padded mat and her other foot lashed out, summoning biotics even as Jethra's hand started to fall towards her trapped knee. The kick to the stomach folded Jethra over and they went down in a tangle of limbs, though Jethra's grip on Samara's ankle never faltered.

A twist and a sharp blow to a nerve cluster exposed at Jethra's throat put her arm into spasm, letting Samara wrench free of the absurdly strong justicar's grip and send the woman a few steps back with a nova. Instead of trying to raise barriers to protect herself, she pulled strength and certainty and hit the other Asari with a bolt of stasis, freezing her and buying herself time to retreat out of reach of the absurdly strong younger woman.

Jethra snapped out of the imprisonment and began the movements that would launch her in a charge, but by the time she'd finished, Samara had dropped a singularity between the two of them, sweeping the charging woman up into a parabolic orbit around the mass of swirling energy which temporarily adjusted gravity.

Samara took a few steps back as she waited for the moment when the singularity pulsed with power and Jethra spun closer to the center of the floating ball of biotic energy, then she hit the singularity with a powerful throw, forcing a biotic explosion right in front of the younger justicar so powerful it threw her back against the far shields with all the force of her failed charge, but none of the protective sheath of biotic power. The audience winced and let out a collective whimper, a point blank biotic explosion was the fear of most biotics as young maidens would often witness one of their friends manage it while playing with their biotics. For the unarmored, it was often crippling, or lethal. Even for an armored justicar, it should have been enough to disable, if not injure.

It was not. Jethra got up, startling Samara and the audience alike. Say what you like about her temper, or her arrogance, she was tough. She did stagger slightly as she got back up, apparently off-balance. Samara did not take the bait, seeing it for the trap it was. It shouldn't have been a trap. The other justicar was not wearing a helmet any more than Samara was. The explosion should have rattled her brain well enough to have her seeing double, if she was seeing at all.

Jethra gave up the bluff as a bad job and launched a powerful singularity at Samara, forcing her to retreat to avoid getting cot in the vortex of swirling gravity, following that up with a shockwave intended to force her back into the singularity. Samara's eyes tracked the path of power through Jethra's body as carefully as she tracked the movement of the biotics through the air, noting each element zero node the energy passed through. A graceful dive brought Samara over the unstable ground and her SMG came into her grip easily, firing an apparently endless stream of practice projectiles at the advancing justicar, who ignored them.

There was a murmur of disapproval from the observers. Though there was little that could be done to limit the power of biotics, when the guns were loaded with practice rounds, you were supposed to treat them as real and no barriers or shields would hold up to a Tempest firing until its heat-sink overloaded and the weapon beeped plaintively at Samara, rather than emitting the screaming death of its payload.

Samara had kept the weapon on target by main force and by aiming low to start. The SMG had 'walked' up Jethra's body, the last burst before failing impacting the barrier in front of her face. Reusing her apprentice's trick brought her no shame, after all Shepard had taught it to Jack, so really she wasn't stealing. Besides, this felt like a fight to the death, not a spar. Something was, she noted again, as she stepped close to her momentarily blinded opponent, very wrong here.

A blind reach made her duck, but she pulled power and launched a powerful, two handed, throw at the woman slamming her back against the shields, a singularity kept her off her feet and Samara waited until Jethra was floating six feet off the ground, then detonated the singularity. Jethra actually bounced off the ceiling before landing face first on the ground in a bloody wreck. This time Samara did not give her a chance to recover, but instead landed on Jethra's back instantly. The justicar did not tap out, but attempted to struggle free.

Her strength was enormous, she was undoubtedly going to escape, so Samara chose to resolve matters more permanently. A warp swirled around her hand and she brought two fingers down quite precisely on the node of element zero buried deep in Jethra's shoulder, ripping her way through the armor, then skin, muscle and element zero. Jethra screamed as she was crippled.

Apprentices began to swarm forward, but a bullet lodged in the floor turned them back towards Jack, who pointed out that the match was not yet over and they had no basis to interfere. She used somewhat more volume and somewhat more invective than was required, but they understood her and obeyed.

By the time they turned away from Jack, Samara was covered in Jethra's blood and the justicar's shoulder was a bloody mass. Samara resisted the urge to rise, as the Superintendent had yet to tap out. "Yield," Samara commanded.

The woman continued to buck under her, desperately trying to snap the larger matriarch off her back, with no great success, the angle was just too bad, despite her superior strength.

"You're in for at least a year of surgery and physical therapy. Yield now and that's it."

After a final futile struggle that didn't do a damn thing but send out another spurt of blood, Jethra yielded. Jack was deactivating the shields even as Samara released her and rose slowly. Given her bizarre behavior up until this point, it was not entirely surprising that Jethra chose to punch Samara in the knee. The fact that a barehanded blow, backed by no biotics could break her knee through her armor was shocking. As Samara fell, she saw Jethra's head come apart under the fire of Jack's pistol, then she passed out as her dislocated knee hit the padded floor.

XXXXX

Jack wandered around the infirmary aimlessly, touching everything, examining everything, so long as she didn't have to look at the injured Samara. This was the first time she'd ever seen the justicar injured and it rocked her more than she expected. Some part of her had wanted to believe her rescuer was invulnerable, despite everything her experience said about that. She forced herself to take advantage of the doctor's distraction, to gather yet more samples.

Samara waved her away as the doctor prepared to re-align her leg, she didn't want witnesses for that. The monastery was in an uproar, but no one had challenged the correctness of Jack's action (though there were whispers about Samara's savagery). If there were going to be problems, they would be with the inmates, Jack believed, so she went in search of them. They were gathered in the cafeteria, and Jack took a seat with her back to the wall and pretended to eat.

Rila and Falere rushed in moments later, having finally heard the news, Falere headed for the largest collection of residents and in moments was gossiping about what had happened and why. Rather than bother with second-hand news, Rila gathered her courage and took a seat by Jack. "So, what happened?" she asked straightforwardly.

Into the sudden silence, Jack told her, voice low, occasionally interrupted by foraging amongst the not-very-good Asari cuisine for something she actually liked. No one interrupted her, though a few tried (there's always a few in every group) they were hushed by the residents nearest them.

When she finished, Rila couldn't resist and gave Jack a tight hug. That moment demonstrated the difference between interested silence and stunned silence, until Jack hugged her back. Then the world started moving again and the throng of residents began to howl its approval of Jethra's demise.

XXXXX

Rila and Falere could not interact with their mother, but they could spend a few weeks with Jack as Samara healed and underwent physical therapy. It was almost as good and none of the other justicar-apprentices interfered with them when she was around. Indeed, Jack was surprisingly popular with the apprentices, for her take-no-shit attitude and impressive biotic abilities (it helped that Jethra had not been particularly popular). The two exceptions had challenged her to a 'friendly' sparring match and been soundly thrashed. Thereafter, Jack was even more popular, and by extension, so were Rila and Falere.

Samara was busy communicating with the rest of her order, arranging a new Superintendent, as Jethra had not chosen her replacement.* Eventually a very senior matriarch was chosen, a woman famous for her level temper and the fact that she'd once used her biotics to pull a shuttle out of the sky.

*This was a shocking lapse in judgment by a fully trained justicar, who should have always assumed that she might be struck down at any time.

No one noticed when Beata, assigned to clean out Jethra's office and return the items to the Order's storage, found a bizarre, unidentified artifact (hardly a surprise, Jethra had decorated from a store of artifacts bequeathed to the Justicar Order and aging into increased value before their sale). No one noticed when she decided to turn it over to a scientist she knew for review (all perfectly proper, it might increase its value to the Order, permitting a sale which would fund the Order's good works). No one noticed when she grew withdrawn (hardly surprising, she'd been Jethra's student, after all). They did notice when her ship didn't reach Thessia. There was even an investigation, but there was no sign of foul play, the ship simply vanished. Such things do happen, even in Citadel Space.

XXXXX

Jack handed over the sample case to Maelon. "These are from the Ardat-Yakshi," she handed over the data file, "these are my best effort to get information on their parents, but few were willing to share information about their families. The Asari genetic databases are good, but I can't guarantee any of them are actually parents of Ardat-Yakshi, except Samara."

"Yes, yes, Asari genetics are always a puzzle given their absurdly complicated reproductive methodology," the Salarian scientist lowered his voice and glanced at his lab assistants, who were eating lunch together in their usual irritatingly flirty manner, "not that Humans are much better when it comes to complex mating habits. Honestly, how any of you mastered space-flight when you're always—"

Jack tuned out the Salarian's babble. Ever since he'd been brought back as a witness to Cerberus's activities, Shepard had been finding make-work for him. Unfortunately, at least three different times, that make-work had involved Jack and she'd heard all of the grumpy scientist's lectures. Instead she headed over to Hassan's office to complain.

The JAG officer was using a pair of screens to sort through dozens of incoming messages and urgent demands for opinions and analysis, sending them on to the people who would actually do the work. With the growth of Project Overwatch from a single small flotilla to a massive, multi-national force, Hassan's work had ballooned as well and the Admiralty had chosen to give him only a pair of additional officers, leaving him massively overworked and constantly cranky.

Jack ignored this, along with the attempt of Alina, the administrative officer to ask if she had an appointment to plop down on the couch. "I still don't feel good about taking those samples."

Hassan didn't look up, hands and eyes flickering over the screens. "We have a premier genetic researcher, we might as well get some use out of him. And with the Asari are unwilling to take the steps necessary to cure the Ardat-Yakshi, a certain degree of secrecy is required. We got lucky with Morinth, but she still killed hundreds."

"Do you really think Maelon can find a cure when the Asari can't?" Jack asked dubiously, more to spread her irritation than because she wanted the lawyer's opinion.

"Not where the Asari can't, but where the Asari won't. There has been no particular research into a cure, or even much into early detection, due to complex cultural reasons."

"Asari bigotry against the children of two Asari is not complicated."

"Not in expression, in origin it appears to be somewhat complicated, but I'm hardly an expert and my few encounters with it did not go noticeably well. Indeed, I mostly made matters worse when I attempted to intervene…" Hassan said, not looking away from the screen or slowing his work.

"I'm sure those are fascinating stories, but we're talking about me and my betrayal of Samara."

"Samara knows why you asked her for the sample," Hassan countered.

"Yeah, but she doesn't know that I stole samples from all those poor girls at that damn prison. I wish I could have just asked them, but their fucking jailors were all over me and there's always informants in any jail."

Hassan shot her a look which almost said, and how would you know? Her responding look let a little of the harshness Samara and Shepard had tried to drive from her eyes back into them. Most people looked away at that point, but Hassan met her glare evenly. He'd survived Akuze and was not going to be bullied by her pain into permitting her to claim expertise she did not, in fact, possess.

Finally she spoke. She didn't speak about Pragia to Samara, or Shepard, or any of the others. Only Hassan, and only when he'd explained about using it to hurt Cerberus. Even then, she'd only done it once. One marathon deposition, which had ended with her throwing him into a wall and him preventing security from interfering and they hadn't talked about it since and she'd carefully ignored his subtle, and not-so-subtle hints that she might want to talk to someone else. Perhaps someone with professional credentials in a field besides law. But now she spoke, very briefly, about her, very rare, interactions with the other children. They always told Cerberus whatever she told them.

Hassan did not point out that the rooms were probably bugged, partly because she already knew that, but mostly because he was pretty sure she was baiting him so she could scream at him when he told her that the rooms were bugged and it probably wasn't the fault of the other children and that, even if they had sold her out, she should think about it from their perspective, children, enslaved and tortured, just like her. Shepard would have told her that. Samara would have chided her for jumping to conclusions without evidence, but not for the underlying sentiment of despising traitors. Hassan did neither, instead he simply nodded and agreed that prisons were always filled with informants, it was the nature of the area.

"Which is one reason, amongst many others, we are seeking to free those young women from their prison. They may, or may not thank you for your efforts on their behalf, but I most definitely do appreciate your actions. Thank you, Jack," Hassan concluded, finally looking over at teenage biotic sprawled over his couch.

She glared back at him for a moment, furious over the implied comparison of those pampered blue bitches to her own suffering, then heard Samara's voice whispering in her ear, Our own pain is always so much realer than anyone else's, isn't it? Swallowing bile, she choked out a "You're welcome."

Hassan nodded and looked back at the screen. Before Jack could leave, she saw Hassan's body tense, the usually controlled lawyer's body language screaming shock and fury. He actually squeaked in shock. "Son-of-a-bitch," his voice was so quiet she almost didn't hear it.

"Hassan?" Jack asked.

The attorney got up and left without another word, or, surprising Jack as the man had a stick up his butt about protocol, bothering to secure his console. Not bothering to even attempt to resist the temptation to look, she saw a message on the screen, indicating that a survivor of Akuze had been found in a raid on a Cerberus facility, along with evidence that the terrorist organization had been behind the original massacre. It took her an embarrassingly long time to remember that Akuze had been where Hassan had gained his stylish scars and where, apparently somewhat less than fifty Alliance marines had died. This was going to be bad.

2182 CE San Francisco, Earth

Miranda Lawson waited, counting silently. Every electronic device, except her biotic implant had been left behind and the old-style airshaft she was currently squashed into was tight, even for her. None of the others in her team could have fit. Honestly, she didn't fit. But a sufficient quantity of lubricant and a sufficient application of genetically enhanced muscle let her slide through the space like a snake. Fortunately, her catsuit didn't add any real volume to her body, so despite Carl's lascivious suggestion, she hadn't needed to go in naked.

The hack on the thermal sensors was the best Cerberus had been able to do, any electronics outside her body would give her away. She was unarmed (to the extent a biotic was ever unarmed), so she would need to wait for the moment when the guards were…preoccupied, or even she would not be able to overcome them. Unless she got her barriers up fast and got a lot of lucky breaks. Miranda hated to rely on luck, so she would wait.

Of course, she also hated being on the same planet as her father, let alone in the same building as him, but at least she'd finally be able to rip him apart with the biotics. With Cerberus's sanction, at long last. She'd always known that her father was affiliated with Cerberus, she'd just had to make herself so useful that the Illusive Man never thought it worthwhile to betray her, and more crucially, her sister, to him.

But now, Henry Lawson had betrayed the Illusive Man, as had a quartet of other corporate tycoons. The business on Pragia had shaken the faith of many who followed Cerberus for its ideals, but those had mostly been foot-soldiers or informants. She'd cleaned up many such messes over the last few years, but the Illusive Man had been able to quell dissent amongst the most practical of his associates (including the businessmen and women who funded his operations) by pointing out that despite how distasteful their methodology, they had produced a Human biotic who could keep up with an Asari Matriarch, an Asari Justicar Matriarch, the best of the best.

To the rest, he called Pragia a rogue cell, to them he proclaimed it a successful rogue cell. And it had worked. But that defense did not fly for the Akuze disaster. An entire colony lost to a half-baked attempt to experiment on Thresher Maws. To no good effect. Discovering that they'd kidnapped a survivor to perform experiments on him which had likewise accomplished nothing was the last straw. Cerberus had been losing the battle for public opinion for years, but it held onto support and funding by proclaiming itself ruthlessly efficient and effective. That justification vanished under the pile of bodies on Akuze.

As more and more of the organization began to fall apart, the funding component of the organization looked around and decided it was time to jump ship, while they could still make a deal. For those who were not genuinely disgusted by Akuze (and Miranda was certain her father was amongst them) it provided a convenient excuse for why they came forward now and a justification that might permit them to rejoin some form of society after they negotiated their plea bargains. That negotiation was still going on, in a room not fifty yards from her, just as it had been for the last week and soon she would interrupt it.

She regretted the coming deaths of the Alliance Security Forces who were securing the prisoners and the poor prosecutor who was attempting to negotiate an agreement with five extremely competent negotiators (and extremely arrogant assholes), but it couldn't be helped. They all had to die. If they revealed Cerberus's funding sources, the organization would wither on the vine, or have to turn to other sources of funding and become nothing more than another Terminus pirate gang.

With some effort she kept her breathing even and calm, as hyperventilating would by very, very bad. Never terribly fond of tight spaces (though of course, not claustrophobic, neither her father, nor she herself would have permitted that), she wanted the distraction to begin. The mercenaries who'd been hired for this job were Human, one of the nastier gangs in the city, who thought themselves nasty enough to tangle with Alliance Security. They were going to be proven wrong, she had no doubt about that, but it would buy her the time she needed and Cerberus the plausible deniability it needed amongst those who needed to be convinced, not threatened (and, of course, act as a threat to those who needed to be threatened). If they would just get on with it.

The part of her that had been silently counting noted that they still had two minutes until they were supposed to attack. The rest of her told that part to shut up, she wanted out of the damn vent. Both parts were surprised to hear explosions beginning two minutes early.

XXXXX

Kaiden Alenko wanted to be bored again. Mere moments earlier he'd been cursing the dullness of watching a bunch of suits sit around a room and blather at each other in legalese. But as explosions filled the building and reports of an all-out assault on the building began to fill his comm-channel, he longed for his boredom back.

Fortunately, he was only in charge of the close-in detail and didn't have to bother trying to reorganize the guards protecting the rest of the building full of Alliance goodies and personnel. Though it might not be about his witnesses, it almost certainly was and he snapped orders sending the corporate and legal parasites scurrying into the panic room and set his guards into cover where they could turn anyone coming in the door into Swiss cheese. For the first time since the detail began, he was grateful to be in an interior room with no windows, though the walls probably weren't sturdy enough to stop a breaching charge, the explosion would give his armored troops enough time to turn and fire on anyone trying to come through.

The local police and Alliance reinforcements were already scrambling. It wouldn't be long before this assault was over, he just needed to hold out until then. The crackle of comms in his ear almost made him jump and the orders to relocate to block an assault team which had broken through the perimeter and was coming up the southern staircase did make him curse, though he managed to limit it to a sub-vocalization.

Audibly he said, "My orders are to—"

"GET YOUR ASS DOWN HERE! They've got FUCKING ROCKET LAUNCHERS. Whatever you're protecting won't survive if they bring this fucking building down around our ears!" the voice thundered in his ears.

After a moment's thought and a barely suppressed urge to giggle and ask if he'd told the rocket launchers to get a room, or stop fucking, Kaiden made a decision. "Tobin, Marcia, Alex, you're with me. Devon, Liu, secure this room and don't let any of those jackasses out."

"Lieutenant Alenko, your job is to secure this room!" the Justice Ministry stooge snapped.

"Which I'll be doing by preventing this building from coming down—"

"Support has arrived," a female voice cut in, smooth and cold. "Project Overwatch is here to protect the witnesses against Cerberus. If they aren't alive when we finish cleaning up these vermin, I will be most displeased. And when I get displeased, people tend to explode."

"Who the fuck is this?" the first voice snapped.

"Overwatch Auxiliary Commander Higazia D'lanus. Who the fuck is that?"

"Commander Jonathan Archer. What the fuck are Project Overwatch troops doing here? This is Alliance space, you have no authority—"

"Well, that's interesting, because we just found Commander Archer's body in a meeting room on the third floor. Looks like someone put an anti-material round through his head. Nasty sniper rifle, but don't worry," a chatter of a heavy machine gun filled the air, "my shuttle has a nastier set of guns. Now, keep those witnesses safe, I'm on my way up."

"She's lying to you! They've infiltrated our comm system, I need assistance down here, we're being overrun!"

Kaiden didn't know who to believe, but he had a job to do. "Secure the room," he snapped, sending his troops back into cover. Before they made it, the ceiling exploded in and a gorgeous black-haired woman dropped the floor, one hand hitting the ground as a nova burst forth. Shocked and frightened shouts rose from behind him, as the witnesses began to panic, trapped in a room with a killer (eight killers, actually, though seven of them were on their side).

A barrier snapped up around her as two of Kaiden's troops were knocked to the ground. The Sentinel sent a warp into her defenses. As the biotic energies ate away at her, Kaiden grabbed the nearest sprawling trooper and pulled him into cover, reaching for the heavy pistol strapped to his thigh. A burst of rifle fire slammed into her weakened barrier, but the woman dove towards Tobin, the other downed soldier, pulling him up to act as a shield between herself and the majority of Kaiden's troops. His massive body should have been damn near impossible for so slight a woman to move even without considering the weight of his heavy armor, but she managed it easily.

A hand rose and she sent a singularity spinning towards the cluster of startled, cursing witnesses. Marcia leapt from her cover, up and into the path of the singularity, making it burst to life well before it reached the witnesses. Fortunately her shields kept it from ripping her off the ground. Their assailant ripped the shotgun from Tobin's armor, reinforced her barriers and leapt forward, trying to land beside the same cover as Kaiden. His light, biotic wielder's armor wouldn't do much against that massive weapon. Fortunately, Tobin finally recovered from the nova and caught her foot as she hurdled him.

She should have sprawled awkwardly on the floor, or even cracked her skull on the marble floor. Instead, in a maneuver Kaiden would have sworn impossible if he hadn't seen it, she managed to launch a kick back as she fell, catching Tobin in the lightly armored neck joint, forcing the giant of a man to loosen his grip, letting her pull free and convert her fall into a roll. However, that roll simply placed her in the middle of their formation.

In a previous age, they would have had to watch their fire, but their shields would handle the occasional missed shot, so the entire team opened up on her. Whoever she was, she was definitely a powerful biotic, but no single person can summon a barrier powerful enough to stop a barrage of automatic weapons fire from five soldiers.

XXXXX

Miranda was screwed. All the guards were still in position and she had no support. She was genetically engineered to be better than them. She had the ability, even without her omni-tool, or her personalized weapons, or anyone else, she could do this. She could. She dropped to the ground and forced herself to focus, sending biotic shockwaves in every direction, staggering her assailants, unfortunately, the shotgun dropped from her hands in the same blow. Using that much power made her vision swim, but she didn't need to see, she could remember where her targets were, where the guards were, where the furniture was, everything.

Winning was no longer an option, but if she took out the witnesses, then she could just run away. Her extraction should still be waiting for her. An unstable burst of sprinting and one jump over an awkwardly placed footstool should have had her amongst them, if not for the impact of one of the smaller men slamming into her mid-leap. They went down in a tangle of limbs.

There was little chance of victory, but if she was going down, she would not go alone. A quick strike to the neck had the clinging soldier choking, grip loosening, still between her and his comrades, preventing them from firing. The blow had been precisely aimed towards a weakness in Alliance armor, fortunately, her swimming vision didn't let her hit the target exactly, so instead of crushing his throat, he was just choking, obviously still alive and thus the soft Alliance soldiers wouldn't shoot through him.

Miranda lacked the power for any of her area attacks, and none of them could be trusted to eliminate the entire cluster of witnesses, unshielded and unarmored as they were. A biotic explosion would do the job, but she lacked the time to set one up, not with the Alliance already circling. She would have only one shot, so she took it. There was no question of the target of the throw she could manage and the swirling ball of biotic energy slammed into her father's head even as he finally recognized her. Before he could get out even the first syllable of her name, the power he'd given her ripped him across the room, crushing his skull against hardwood plated walls. The witnesses' screams rose even higher.

Miranda swayed and went down under a dogpile of Alliance soldiers, the world going dark as overuse of her biotics and about fifteen hundred pounds of soldier and equipment piled on top of her.

XXXXX

It took an embarrassingly long time for Kaiden to be able to get off the, clearly unconscious, woman. So long, in fact (and she was so impressively attractive) that the young soldier was grateful for his armor plating. Being on the bottom of the pile had disadvantages as well and he was even more grateful for the rebreather in his helmet. Their assailant (whose name he still didn't know) had no such luxury, so he was grateful to discover she was still breathing. That was the only upside out of this disastrous mess. Seven against one and she'd still managed to pulp one of his witnesses. A look at the man's crushed skull and Kaiden decided to phrase that differently in his report on this cluster-fuck. Speaking of which, it was probably time to report in. Or something besides the "Intruder!" "Under fire!" "Biotic!" he and his squad had managed so far.

His medic had been the last one on, first one off, heading for Mr. Lawson, but it was clearly an exercise in futility, his brains were literally staining the wall and the floor. No one survived that. After a quick check, he moved on to the other witnesses. They were all business tycoons and liked to think of themselves as hard men and women, but that was an intellectual toughness. They may have dealt in violence, pain and death, but they didn't ever see it and certainly didn't see it happen to one of their own. Shock was doing bad things to them, but the medic got to work.

The appearance of a gorgeous Asari biotic in heavy armor, carrying an assault rifle turned his calm military report into a stammering mess. It took him three tries to get out the rest of his report, especially when she was followed in by a quartet of the most disciplined Vorcha he'd ever seen, each carrying a heavy flamethrower. Still, given the equally (if differently) gorgeous Human biotic currently pinned beneath three of his troops, he was more than willing to take the help she was offering, though not willing to let her close to his remaining witnesses.

2182 CE Citadel, Council Chamber

The councilors were squabbling like children. This was not a surprise to anyone who got to (or was, as Nihlus was, forced to) deal with them when they weren't being recorded and projecting the image of a united front, the wisdom of the elder races.

"That's absurd. If we want the woman reigned in, we should simply tell the Alliance to do it. Assassinating an officer of an allied power is illegal, as well as stupid," Sparatus's voice flanged with what undoubtedly sounded to non-Turians like honest distaste, though Nihlus heard hints that to another Turian whispered 'a bad idea to discuss,' not necessarily, 'a bad idea.'

Valern's eyes winked shut for a moment as he composed himself to respond. "Not illegal if a Spectre does it," his voice racing, abandoning the usual ponderous tone he adopted to attempt to sound more commanding to people without the Salarian tendency to speak, or think, so quickly.

Nihlus twitched at that. It was an assignment he did not want. Attempting to assassinate the woman, while she was surrounded by a large group of personally loyal elite soldiery, without being identified as a Spectre would be a nightmare, but as they were discussing it in front of him, they were hardly likely to assign it to another Spectre, for all that they undoubtedly trusted his discretion, it was always better to keep the loop small.

"If I may ask, Councilors," he interjected, as humbly as he could manage, "what has Commander Shepard done to deserve assassination?" that was half his role in these briefings, to play the uninformed so they could enlighten him and justify their actions. For their consciences, not his. Duty had replaced conscience for Nihlus long ago, but in his experience, Councilors wanted to explain why what they were ordering was just, was necessary, was right.

Tevos spoke up, the Asari had kept out of the debate until now, except for a few interjections to try to keep the peace. She was the axis around which the other councilors orbited and would have the final say in this, but she wouldn't take a position until she was convinced there was no way to achieve unanimity. "The situation in the Terminus has long been troublesome. For the last millennium we used the Batarians as a bulwark between Citadel Space and the Terminus Systems. The Terminus Systems absorbed the Batarians desire to raid and enslave, while the Batarians provided an outlet, besides us, for the Terminus System's aggression, as well as keeping them disunited and weak. Moreover, the constant conflict there acts as a disincentive for independent colonies and drives some independent colonies back into the fold, as we do not permit such raids on our colonies," Tevos smiled cruelly at Valern, "at least not without significant reprisals."*

*This was true. For instance, after the Batarian 9th Fleet bombarded Mannovai, escaping from the vengeful Salarian 3rd Fleet with only 14 ships destroyed and almost a hundred transports of loot and slaves, the high caste Batarians of Kedan, home base of the 9th fleet suffered a mysterious plague which resulted in almost half their number dying. The plague only stopped when the slaves who'd been taken were freed. As for the 3rd fleet, a series of accidents plagued the ships intended to replace their casualties. A ship would make it almost to launch, before inevitably exploding in the dock, usually with massive casualties amongst the construction crew and soldiers. Despite ever increasing security, the ships simply kept being destroyed. There was some speculation that the STG was behind this, but no evidence ever emerged, making the Batarian complaints thoroughly futile. Eventually they gave up and the 3rd fleet remains the smallest Batarian fleet to this day.

"At the cost of accepting such a traitorous force within our midst," Sparatus grumbled.

"Not traitorous. Never on the side of any non-Hegemony in the first place. No allies. Only future conquests," Valern's voice sped as he let anger leak into his voice, though whether real or an attempt to manipulate his fellow councilors or even Nihlus, was unclear.

"The Batarians have withdrawn their embassy—" Nihlus began.

"Because of the Humans," Sparatus interjected. The councilor hated Batarians, but he hated change almost as much, and it wasn't as if the Batarians had ever been stupid enough to raid a Hierarchy world,* so his outrage over their behavior was entirely intellectual, rather than the emotional reaction that Valern and even Tevos had to the four-eyed slavers.

*This was not true. However, attempting to raid worlds where literally the entire population had military training and equipment had resulted in the complete destruction of the raiding parties. The Turians defending their homes had been so thorough that no evidence had been left behind for the Hierarchy to discover whether the raiders were actually affiliated with the Hegemony, as neither corpses nor shattered ships tell tales.

"Regardless, it's done. The situation has changed and the council's usual means of resolving situations with the Batarians," Nihlus waved a hand at himself, "will no longer work, as we are barred from their space."

"It was less the deployment of a Spectre, then the threat of deployment of a Spectre which kept the Batarians in line, even amongst the," Tevos glanced at Nihlus, "less militaristic of our peoples.* And that threat remains potent, even if it would need to be more elaborate than merely walking up and shooting people, then flashing your credentials and walking away."

*This was also true, as having a Spectre appointed meant more than just acceptance by the Council, it also represented a degree of protection, as Ambassador Ditak of the Batarian Hegemony learned when Spectre Hiltyn chose to make use of her Spectre status to convey the displeasure the Courts of Dekuuna felt regarding a raid on one of their colonies. Her Spectre status left the Batarians with no action to take but a formal complaint to the Council and her twin shoulder mounted cannon left nothing of the ambassador but a small stain on the floor (and a somewhat larger set of stains on the walls and ceiling).

"Yes, Councilor, but my point is that if the Batarians can no longer serve their function, then—"

"They still serve their function. Better because we no longer take the blame for their…excesses. In the decade since they withdrew, we've received twice* the usual requests to join our respective governments from worlds within the Terminus," Valern interrupted.

*This was true, though that amounted to four requests, three of which had to be denied as the worlds in question were in indefensible positions, wracked by civil war, or otherwise unsuitable for admission.

"And their absence has resolved the long term public relations problem* of their behavior and our perceived tolerance of it," Tevos put in.

*Absolutely true, especially of the Asari Republics, as the e-democracies were easy to spark into motion, though they rarely had true staying power unless directly threatened. However, they'd come within an inch of war with the Hegemony over the annexation of the independent Asari colony of Esan, for all that it owed no loyalty to the Republics and they owed none to it. Tales of Batarian savagery and slavery had provoked a harsh reaction amongst the Asari and though war had been voted down, no efforts were made to stop Matriarch Betrez who took it upon herself (and the cohorts of commandos and maidens who followed her) to punish the Batarian insolence. For almost a century thereafter she'd waged a bloody war against the Hegemony, before finally falling leading a suicide assault on the newly constructed High City on Khar'shan, bringing down the floating city and murdering almost half of the members of the highest Batarian caste, and an even larger number of slaves. At the time, everyone had assumed it was the logical outgrowth of Betrez's slogan 'Liberty or Death.' It took almost a week for the Hegemony to figure out that it had, in fact been all to support a massive theft, as an agent carefully placed in the Batarian Central Registry had replaced the wills of all the high caste in the city before their deaths and when the wills automatically executed upon confirmation of the death of the author, all assets were transferred to certain people off-world. Though the Hegemony was able to reclaim property actually within Batarian space, both the credits transferred out of Batarian banks and any goods outside their space were lost as local courts were extremely unsympathetic to the Hegemony's argument when it consisted of: 'Yes, that's a document with the official seal of the Hegemony and yes we've stated over and over again that that seal means that the document is official and must be acted upon lest you draw the wrath of the Hegemony and yes I do own slaves of your species, but still give me back my stuff.' It might well have been a crippling blow if Betrez's heir had not attempted to lead an all-out slave-revolt in the shock of the destruction and been assassinated in the midst of it by the Batarian SIU. Her heir in turn, though a smart matron, chose a more peaceful way, attempting to buy the freedom of slaves with stolen credits rather than volunteer blood. And many millions were saved, but with demand up, raiders, buyers and breeders stepped up their efforts and the Hegemony was back on its feet inside a decade.

All three men in the room turned to stare at the Asari. She was a diplomat through and through, but even she flushed slightly under those stares. "Our actual tolerance of it is not the cause of our PR problems. If no one knew we tolerated their behavior towards those outside our protection then we would have no PR problem, therefore it's our perceived tolerance that is the root of our PR problem." The men continued to stare at her and she gave it up as a bad job.

"Returning to the matter at hand. Shepard is destabilizing the situation—" Valern snapped.

"By stabilizing the situation in the Terminus and massacring the Batarian raiders," Sparatus grumbled.

"Exactly! And how many more failures do you think they'll endure before they start raiding Citadel space? A war with the Batarians would be thoroughly wasteful."

"The Batarians are a paper tiger. If they attack us, it will provide an excellent opportunity to pull us all together. More troublesome are the connections she is forging with the Terminus Systems. That has the potential to pull us apart," Tevos interjected before they could get off track into Sparatus and Valern discussing how a war with the Batarians would be waged.

"In general, you're correct, but the rest of the galaxy would scream if we simply eliminated them and any other option would require a massive occupation force for multiple decades. We'd win the war and lose the peace," Valern snapped, ignoring her effort.

"That has been the Salarian argument to do nothing for the last six centuries!" Sparatus snapped.

"Councilors, interesting as this debate is, if I may interrupt, I'm a little unsure on three points. First, why would assassinating her do anything about the rest of the project? Second, even if it would do so, given the trouble we've had with Cerberus, and the successes they've had, do we want to disable the rest of the project? Third, in my experience, Shepard is viewed as a hero by Humanity and well respected by other groups, especially those who've had to deal with the Terminus systems, her assassination will have significant effects. I can probably manage the assassination without any traces leading back to us, but I would expect such an assassination to provoke a violent backlash against the Terminus and Cerberus, resulting in more Human involvement in the area, not less."

They glared at him for a moment, but he'd been respectful and had not made demands, merely raised questions. Tevos promptly turned it around on him. "Then how do you suggest we resolve the problem?"

Nihlus swore silently to himself, but kept his body language from revealing any tension. That did not fool Tevos with centuries of experience handling Turians, nor did it fool Sparatus, who'd been made councilor because of his skill in handling internal politics of the Hierarchy. Valern didn't catch it, because he didn't much care, preferring to base his estimates of people's actions on statistically analysis of their history to things like facial cues and emotional reactions. The Spectre should have expected it to be turned around on him, it's not like it was the first time a superior had thrown a problem back at him like that.

He wasn't, but the idea came when he needed it, as he'd hoped it would. A slow smile spread across his face. "Yes, Councilors, I do have an idea."