Sorry this one's so short guys, but Therum's taking too damn long to get through. (The irony of my least favorite mission taking the longest to write is not lost on me.) ;-; THERUM, GO AWAY.

(For the record, I love Ambassador Udina and the turian Councilor. Or rather, I love to hate them. Between the voice acting and the writing, they are awesome. They can piss me off like no other characters can, and pissing them off in return is fun and (mostly) hilarious.)

FF dot net version updated 6/11/16 with al-Jilani's leaked report from Nova Terra. Leaked report was already a part of the story in the AO3 version.

Amorphophallus Titanium

Captain David Anderson had to hand it to Ambassador Udina: When push came to shove, the ambassador had the most impressive ability to turn red-in-the-face David had ever seen.

And David had seen a lot of red faces over the history of his career. Many had been his superiors. Most had been during awards ceremonies.

As it was, Ambassador Udina's expression was scrunched into a scowl the likes of which David hadn't beheld, the formidable wrinkles on the ambassador's face taking a life all unto themselves.

Udina, who used his exhaustive vocabulary to cajole even the most obdurate politicians and diplomats, spluttered incoherently a moment—David thought the ambassador's heart had finally given out, and he was baring witness to Donnel Udina's demise—before all but lobbing the datapad at his desk and demanding, "Do you know the ramifications of this report?"

David's nostrils flared. "Of course I know the ramifications." He swiped the air with a hand before Udina could open his mouth again. "Shepard did everything right. She—"

"Shepard murdered one of her squad and six civilians!" Udina paced the floor like a prowling tom cat while David gaped at the accusation. "Why wasn't I told of this during vetting, Captain? Why is the Department of the Navy only now coming forward with this? Six!"

"Internal Affairs isn't only now coming forward with this. It happened after vetting and before the Terra Nova incident. Internal Affairs has only just reached its conclusions," the Captain said. "It wasn't murder, Ambassador. It was self-defense. Shepard is a hero. Always has been a hero. You just read the damned report."

"And damning it is!" The Ambassador slammed both hands on his desk. "She killed six civilians and her squad mate after the squad mate turned out to have been a graduate of the BAaT program! What about the biotic squad mate the crazy one replaced upon death? Did that one really die in combat or was that 'friendly fire'? Shepard's already got the reputation of being the only one left after a firefight and has been proven to be mentally unstable. If this gets out—"

David cut him off. "I don't like collateral damage any more than you, Ambassador, but Shepard defended herself, protected her squad and the rest of the civilians against a biotic terrorist that had infiltrated her squad." The Captain shook his head ruefully. "A biotic that we assigned to her squad." His eyes narrowed at the politician. "And what do you mean, 'proven to be mentally unstable?' What that woman faced on Akuze would mess with anyone's head. She's passed every eval the Alliance has thrown at her after her administrative leave."

"'Collateral damage'?" Udina glared. "We might as well brand Shepard as the Butcher of Torfan."

"You know as well as I do that Shepard wasn't on the ground."

"No, but her squad was. Cleaning up Scorpion shit was—"

David resisted the urge to yell instead digging his nails into the palm of his hand. "What does Torfan have to do—"

"I knew we should have let Lieutenant Alenko have the first Spectre nomination. Now we have a murderer and an unstable L3 biotic as our first human Spectre. The L3s are supposed to be more stable than the L2s!"

"Have you listened to anything I've said?" David wanted to know. The Ambassador resumed pacing, mumbling to himself, and it was all David could do to keep from throwing himself at Udina. Giving the ambassador a black eye would be so satisfying. "Besides that, Alenko's still on the list. He's one of the finest officers in the fleet and he's a biotic."

"If Nihlus hadn't recommended Shepard, we could have gone with Rear Admiral Kahoku's recommendations."

David rolled his eyes, frustrated with this old argument. "You were the one who disagreed with Kahoku's suggestion. 'L2s aren't stable,' you said. Alenko is one of the very few that happen to be stable. Even without Nihlus' backing, it would have been good for—"

"The Subcommittee for Transhuman Studies should have known about this incident before they went into session!" Udina declared before throwing himself into his overstuffed chair and propping his head in both hands.

"Shepard's name is attached to the deaths of a biotic with a psychotic break and civilians, and you're more worried about the Subcommittee?" the Captain asked in disbelief.

"Adams, I need more juice!"

Chief Greg Adams' voice over the comm was strained but patient. "Joker, if she gets anymore juice, you're going to have to get out and push us to the shipping yard. The core's already disgruntled at being manhandled in atmo."

"Damn it." Joker cut the feed and went back to concentrating getting around the ash in the atmosphere and away from the geth fighters dogging them. "I'm done," he declared. "Finished. No more volcanoes. Ever."

Codex

Humanity and the Systems Alliance: Operations: Bring Down the Sky

In December of 2182 (Earth standard), a batarian terrorist group calling itself "The Insightful Pillars" hijacked an asteroid with the intent of crashing it into the main colony of Scott of the planet Terra Nova in the Asgard system. Lieutenant Commander Calleigh Shepard, an N7 shock trooper, led a Special Forces team to stop them.

Most of the details of the mission are classified by the Human Systems Alliance; however, a leaked report discovered by Khalisah Bint Sinan al-Jilani suggests that Lt. Cmd. Shepard may have purposely sacrificed both members of her squad and the majority of the hostages to apprehend the batarian leader responsible for the terrorist attack. Miss al-Jilani has accused Shepard of betraying her squad and those who depended on her sound judgment. A further report leaked to the Alliance News Network suggests that the batarian leader, known only as Balak, was not apprehended.

The Human Systems Alliance denies Lt. Cmd. Shepard did any wrong doing and promoted Shepard to the rank of Commander. Commander Shepard currently serves as the Executive Officer of the SSV Normandy SR-1, a joint turian-human experimental war ship currently commissioned to the Human Systems Alliance under the command of Captain David E. Anderson, a graduate of the elite N7 Special Forces program.

Miss al-Jilani has promised her viewers a follow-up.

Geeky fun trivia: Amorphophallus titanium – from the Ancient Greek 'amorphos' = shapeless or misshapen, 'phallus' = penis, and 'titan' = giant/huge; also known as the Titan Arum, the corpse flower, and the Devil's Tongue, the amorphophallus titanium can reach up to 2.5 (about 10 feet) meters tall, is native to the rainforests of Sumatra, blooms very few times in its lifetime, and smells of decomp while in bloom; from 1937 until 2000, it was the official flower of the Bronx, New York. Also, my new name for Udina (Sorry, Bronx; I'm really sorry I'm not sorry).