Interstitium Chapter 20, Retrograde, the Squad, a mass effect fanfic

Retrograde – The Squad

–

Shepard sat in his quarters and listened to the aquarium.

He was blind.

Not permanently, he hoped. Tali and Dr. Chakwas had told him the surgery had gone without undue event, and that it was simply a matter of waiting until the tissue around his eyes was a little stronger before reactivating the Condyles. Just wait and sleep and heal and wait, and in a day or two he'd be back in the fight, sans two spy cameras.

But even with the painkillers Chakwas had been giving him, the waiting was killing him.

He knew Garrus had the ship well in hand, he knew there was no rush. A few days where all he could do was sleep was exactly what he'd been praying for.

But he couldn't sleep. The darkness where his vision used to be – not just the muffled light of closed eyelids or a lampless room, but true and utter emptiness – was too cold. Reminded him too much of the hiss of escaping air and the feeling that that nothingness was seeping into his suit, choking all the somethingness away. The white noise of the Normandy's life support units – normally almost undetectable – seemed to roar until his ears rattled. He felt every heartbeat hammer against his chest. Felt every whirr and click of his mechanically-altered joints.

But none of that compared to the memories. It was like the floodgates had opened up, and all the bits and pieces that he'd left in orbit around Alchera were crashing back into him.

–

10 years previously…

It was the fifth day of his attempted binge drinking session, and that was the really pathetic thing about it.

Five days of showing up at the same bar with every intention of drinking until his head exploded, and he hadn't managed to get past a faint buzz. He'd do the whole ritual, the way he'd always imagined civilians drank when they wanted to forget their troubles. He'd order a whole bottle of the strongest alcohol he could think of and he'd slam back a shot or two.

And then he'd get to thinking. And then before he knew it it was closing time and the musicians were packing up their holographic instruments and he'd barely touched the bottle.

It had been drinking that had gotten him shoved into mandatory shore leave on Elysium – furtive draughts from a flask between training sessions, or even sneaking off during them while his trainees were too exhausted running laps to notice his absence – but now that he was stuck on this backwater and was free to do it without consequence, it wasn't doing it for him.

What had Mars said to him? That he was self-sabotaging. That seemed about right now.

Shepard scowled at the thought of his former friend as he leaned up against the bar and ordered the same bottle for the fifth time. The bartender – an old human man with great pelts of wooly hair on his arms but none on his head – had it ready for him tonight, along with the raised-eyebrow-of-confusion. Or maybe it was the raised-eyebrow-of-judgment. Shepard had seemed to get that a lot planetside. It was his first excursion onto solid ground that hadn't involved a hardsuit in half a decade and it seemed all the locals knew it.

He ignored the old man's condescension, took his drink, and dragged it to the empty corner booth as far away from the stage as he could get. He set up camp in the same spot as always, poured himself the same first shot as always, and drained it in a single gulp like always. It burned as it went down and he forced himself to pour a second.

He drank that too. So fast he couldn't even taste it. Just to prove that he could. He started pouring a third.

And he started wondering if holier-than-thou Anderson had ever soloed a whole bottle in a night before. He suspected not. The potato-faced hero had looked at him like he was scum as he'd sentenced him to forced shore leave for as long as it took him to get his act back together. Two generations of Alliance poster boys had stared each other down but Shepard had blinked and now here he was.

He could tell Anderson had wanted to hit him harder. Maybe even discharge him. But even Anderson held only so much sway, and the Alliance wasn't about to let John Goddamn Shepard face charges anytime soon. They had too much invested in his reputation to let a little thing like alcoholism taint it. He was top of his class, the youngest cadet in the Special Forces program, the son of two decorated officers in the Alliance Navy. He had set course records at the Academy. He had been fast-tracked into officer training and was already teaching combat drills to the next crop of soldiers. He was a product of the new Alliance, one of the first of the new generation of marines who'd been born after the Martian ruins were unearthed, a finely-tuned, finely-trained supersoldier. Twenty two years old and a certified deathdealer. He was there for everyone – human and alien alike – to see what kind of soldiers the Alliance could field.

If it had been up to them he would have gotten another quiet slap on the wrist and gotten right back to it. So long as he was the perfect poster boy on paper, he could drink and everybody looked the other way.

But not Anderson. Anderson had been visibly furious when he found out what had been happening on Arcturus. He'd stared Shepard in the eye and kicked him out on his ass without a beat of hesitation. Forced him to leave the Special Forces with an N5 and tossed him off the Nobel so fast Shepard hadn't had a chance to try to schmooze his way out of it.

Now he was stuck on Elysium, where the mud stuck to your shoes and the air was hot and muggy and people farmed for a living. It was a colony of grays and blacks, its atmosphere and soil perfect for Earth life but its sun colorless and weak. It was a colony so depressingly dreary its colonial sponsor had spent billions on a set of vast, solar-powered sails that fluoresced with a more familiar light spectrum overtop the cities, injecting a bit of color in a (futile, as far as Shepard was concerned) gesture to improve the colony's reputation as bleak and awful.

He'd taken it in stride at first. As soon as he'd made planetfall on Elysium he'd gotten right back to training himself, running laps around the colony. He'd run a circuit that took him far into the Greylands that he nearly passed out from heat exhaustion. He'd climb hills (which still boggled his space-raised mind a little bit) and lift weights and practice imaginary firearm drills and push and push and push.

But the days had gone by and he'd not gotten an invitation to come back yet. And then he'd decided if he was going to be punished for drinking he was going to drink hard.

Yet even as he tried, his mind was back out there, training and pushing and testing and wishing he could go back and get his N7.

–

Shepard's third shot was still undisturbed in its glass when the turians arrived. He didn't notice them at first – aliens of all kinds were a common sight on Elysium, even though they mostly kept to their own districts – but before long the mere inhuman-nessof their presence drew his eye even from behind his storm of thoughts. Six or seven of them, most of them in matching cloth uniforms marking them as employees of some company or another, flocked into the bar, clucking to each other in their weird, flanged voices and bobbing their heads like armored birds.

He'd never seen a turian before coming to Elysium – not in person, anyway. He'd seen pictures by the dozen. Knew all their major technologies, the tactics they liked to use in battle, every damn detail of the First Contact War. It had been eighteen years since the fighting had stopped – eighteen years since humans had learned how peaceful the galaxy could be – and yet the turians were still very much the model foe to be prepared for. Young men and women cut their teeth on stories of the turians' martial efficiency, their viciousness towards civilians, their speed and strength and even – in some of the more extreme stories – their hatred for the human way of life.

Shepard was smart enough to know that most of it was bullshit, especially considering all the real alien fighting in his lifetime had been against batarians, but he couldn't deny the skull-faced monsters were scarier by far.

Unfortunately, his plan to pointedly ignore the aliens was rudely interrupted when one of them slid into the bench next to him, nursing a drink of its own (bright blue and bubbly, Shepard noted, and plastered with warnings about allergic reactions).

Shepard cleared his throat, hoping the monster would move on, but it did not seem to notice. It held its drink up and lapped at it like a cat, its attention clearly elsewhere.

"You want something, Little Green?" Shepard asked eventually.

The turian cocked its – her, Shepard decided – head and peered down at him. "Humans like their fours," she observed, as if she hadn't heard him.

Shepard didn't get a chance to ask what that meant.

"It's a very odd number to choose, four," the turian continued. "It shows up in all of your music. Four beats. Four tones. Four chords. Patterns of four. You don't have four fingers or four toes or four eyes. It's a strange number to choose." Her throat click-click-clicked in time to the bar's music, absently counting out fours.

"Fascinating," Shepard said. "Go away."

The turian looked at him without an emotion he could read. "No. This bench is common space. Collective. I will sit here." She went back to her counting, and Shepard found himself watching the rhythmic ululation of the skin under her throat. He frowned and looked away, returning his attention to his drink. He picked up the shot and looked at it.

"Turian music uses threes," the turian supplied after Shepard had finally managed to ignore her.

Shepard scowled. "Can't you keep this to yourself?"

The turian's mandibles fluttered. Maybe that meant she was amused. Or angered. Shepard couldn't remember which. "I could," she said, and her tone was amused. "But I like saying it to aliens. It is like using a human idiom. There is no point in misusing it unless there is a human around to correct you."

"You like being corrected?"

"I like seeing them realize how unintuitive their idioms are. It is like getting brass tacks down."

"What does that-" Shepard stopped as he realized the turian was smiling at him. He grimaced, realizing she was exactly right – what did brass tacks have to do with anything?

"I am Madine," the turian said, grabbing his hand before he could pull it away. Her long talons wrapped around his in a way that almost made him shiver, but all the same her handshake was firm and well-executed – a fact of which she was obviously immensely proud. "Retired gunnery officer for the First Illustrious Anruvvus Platoon."

"I'm Shepard," Shepard admitted, pulling his hand away.

"Always nice to meet a fellow soldier," Madine quipped. Her gray eyes twinkled and Shepard found himself wondering how old she was. She had said 'retired' but she didn't look any older – to his eyes, anyway – than any of the other turians he'd seen. She did have a pair of tiny glass lenses that appeared to have been glued to the plates beneath her eyes and looked uncannily like a lowered pair of bifocals, but otherwise she was smooth and taut and just as inscrutable as the rest of her species. In any case, she didn't look like a soldier. A zoo animal, maybe.

Shepard frowned and finally downed his third shot. "Yeah," he grunted, gritting his teeth as it went down. "Not sure that I am, anymore."

Madine gave a crackly purr that strummed up the length of her neck, and Shepard got the distinct impression she was laughing. Or trying not to laugh. "Last I heard, John Shepard was placed on shore leave, not discharged," she said.

Shepard glared at her.

"Aliens can read too, John Shepard," she said, tapping the bridge of her snout. "It is like a train of gravy." She flashed her teeth (entirely too razor sharp to look as charming as she meant it). Her mandibles flickered again, daring him to correct her.

Shepard didn't take the bait. "Good for you," he grunted, staring out the window at the great glowing thermal sails and wondering how much longer it would be before the sails switched off and the colony's artificial night would begin. "But it looks like you read wrong."

"I wonder if you are not being somewhat dramatic, John Shepard," Madine said. "I do not pretend to understand humans yet – not for lack of trying, you will mind – but I do not think they would casually toss aside one such as you. You are valuable to them."

"Not to Anderson."

"Ahh yes, David Anderson," she nodded knowingly. "He is known to me. No doubt, it must be difficult to put on his shoes. Of course, he would have discharged you or imprisoned you if he thought you could not recover."

Shepard looked up.

"He is responsible for you," Madine continued. "A commander must take care of those in his charge. Sometimes that requires punishment. It does not mean he is not caring for you."

Shepard snorted back a laugh and poured himself another drink. This was just what he needed, an intentionally idiom-smashing old lady lizardbird to help him forget the Alliance and drink his brains out. "Sure, Little Green, sure. He was doing me a world of good busting me out of the N program." He put the glass to his lips and drank, slower this time. It tasted better when you weren't trying to force it down, and he felt a calming bubbling by the time he'd drained it and set to refilling it again. "Never mind that I was practically teaching the other N5's already. Never mind that I'd completed the first four faster than anyone in history." He chuckled. "Including Anderson, mind you."

"Never mind that you are drinking on the job while you complain about being disciplined for drinking on the job," Madine added.

Shepard shrugged. "Not on the job anymore. Not a soldier. Do you see a gun on my back?" He turned his shoulders.

"No," Madine admitted, beady eyes narrowing, "but I see the Alliance-issue sidearm you have concealed in your left side pocket."

"So what?" He didn't trust the colonies enough to go down unarmed. He'd spent near on a decade now learning about all of the dangers the colonies faced on a regular basis. "Batarians aren't going to catch me without one."

Madine did her weird, throaty laugh again and reached into some kind of rigid compartment on her own back and pulled out a gleaming submachine gun. "So you are a fellow soldier," she insisted, setting the gun on the table for him to see. It was plain-looking, but meticulously clean – clearly Madine knew how to take care of it. Which meant she probably knew how to use it. "If you carry a gun, you are a soldier," she said, chest puffed up with pride (though whether it was pride at being a 'fellow soldier' or in how much more fearsome her concealed weapon was than Shepard's, it was hard to say.)

Shepard couldn't help but grin. "Touche, Little Green. Don't figure the batarians would be lucky to stumble onto you."

Madine looked delighted as she reclaimed her gun. "They are not so stupid to attack here," she insisted, carefully easing it back into her backpack shell.

Shepard shrugged. "Alliance disagrees," he said absently, tracing a finger across the rim of his glass. "I was on the Nobel, which is… not two relays away. Agincourt's even closer. They don't patrol colonies they don't think are in danger."

"This is not just a human colony," Madine insisted, as if Shepard had claimed that it was. "Turians, salarians, asari. An attack on Elysium would be political suicide, even the batarians know this."

–

Madine was right – the batarians did know that.

But the biggest attack on a human colony was not led by batarians.

–

2 hours later…

The smell of smoke was already wafting in through the windows from the ship crash. The club was in chaos – half the patrons scrambling for cover under tables, the other half running out as fast as their legs could carry them.

They had all seen it. The distant roar of a capital ship dropping into atmosphere had dragged them to the window, human and turian alike, but none of them had been prepared to see a ship – hunchbacked and brown and much too large to be landing that fast – crash through the largest of the thermal sails, tearing it from its mass effect generators. The sound of twisting metal had been terrific as ship and sail alike crashed into the ground so hard the bar shook.

And then the air was filled with landing ships and explosions and the bar was full of screams.

Shepard was not a man to curse. His late father had always hated what he called 'baser vernacular' and had prided himself – and, by extension, his family – on more refined vocabularies.

If Captain Shepard had still been alive, however, he would be very disappointed in his son.

Shepard swayed on his feet and recited every invective he knew, listening to the sounds of dozens upon dozens of raider ships screaming through the atmosphere. The distant chatter of gunfire had started up overtop the even more distant wail of a klaxon.

Shepard was lost – just for a minute – but even drunk, his training kicked in. The colony was in danger and shore leave or not, he had to help. He scanned the room – the bartender had already made a run for it, and he stumbled to the abandoned taps to try to find some water. Something to clear his head.

He found a sink and drank greedily. The water sloshing atop all the booze in his stomach almost made him want to vomit, but he held it in, pausing briefly to scan the shelves behind the bar for a tucked away stash of head-meds. Even old-style aspirin.

Not likely. No time to waste looking. His head was spinning with plans. Elysium didn't have much in the way of static defense. There was a small garrison by the spaceport, but if the enemy had any brains at all they'd hit that hardest and first, to slow any reinforcements. Maybe if there were three garrisons they could hole up part of the terminals and keep the raiders at bay, so long as they were approaching by foot. Raiders didn't tend to bring much in the way of armored vehicles, but they'd have gunships harrying from the skies. That would make it hard to hold any building not built to withstand some ordnance.

Son of a bitch. Shepard fumbled in his pocket for his gun as he made for the door. He had to try. The pistol in his hand seemed to calm his spinning head a little as he stepped out onto the street. It was dark – the thermal sails that produced the city's Earth-style sunlight black and dormant – but Shepard could see the glow of fire to the west, where most of the human neighborhoods were. Two choices. Try to hold the spaceport or cut losses and try to help evacuate into the hills and hope they didn't overheat in the Greylands before the Alliance could come for them.

He turned west. The garrison would have to do without his one drunken ass wielding one little pistol.

"John Shepard!"

He didn't make it three steps before he stopped and turned.

The turians stood in the doorway of the bar, beady eyes glaring at him. Madine was in front, head cocked at the end of her long neck, as if demanding explanation.

"I have to help," he grunted at her, and turned away.

"With that thing?" Madine snapped, stopping him with a clawed hand on his shoulder. He tried to brush her off until he felt her press the handle of her gun into his grip. It was heavy and wide, mostly too big for a human hand, but it felt good. It felt powerful.

Shepard stared at her, confused, but she was already busy showing him how to flip off the safety and adjust the tiny scope. Shepard gave her a nod. "Thanks, Little Green."

Madine shrugged (as well as someone with a rigid shell over her ribcage could shrug,) "I've got two more at the monastery," she said. "Though I am not Little, nor Green."

Shepard grinned. "This one's not arbitrary. Little Green Man. LGM. Alien." He pocketed his pistol and, gripping the heavy turian gun, turned west again

"What do you want us to do?"

Shepard paused and turned again. "I don't have time for this, Mad-" he stopped as his mind caught up. The turians – all seven of them – stared at him with equal expressions that somehow Shepard could read perfectly. It was bravery. Anger. Resolution. Strength. They had that gleam in their eyes.

They meant it.

"We mean it," Madine insisted, and she had the gleam most of all. "You are the highest ranking officer here. What are your orders?"

"I'm the highest ranking Alliance officer. And even then, only barely," Shepard protested.

The turians just stared. They didn't care. "You are a lieutenant," Madine explained. "On Palaven, you are tier ten. You outrank us. We will follow." The other turians nodded their agreement and stared at him expectantly. They wanted to help. Never mind that the raiders had landed in the human districts, never mind that their species had been at war. These aliens were ready to die to save human lives.

He'd never felt so small.

"Orders?" Madine asked again.

It took Shepard several seconds to grasp the enormity of that, and it didn't have anything to do with the alcohol. He had a small army of aliens that wanted him to tell them what to do.

Holy shit.

His mind raced. Some part of him wanted to turn them down, just tell them to go deal with their own neighborhoods. But he knew the raiders weren't after the turian quarters. They would be slaving for humans. He needed these aliens if he was going to do any good at all.

He remembered Madine's gun. "Turians like guns, yes?"

Madine nodded emphatically. "Very much."

"If we go to turian town, will we find guns there? Or soldiers?"

The turians all clucked and nodded agreement. "Both," Madine said. "Lots of little greens. We are all fellow soldiers." Her mandibles flickered.

Shepard took a deep breath, steeling himself. "Then we go there. Get what we can, then double back to the spaceport and try to hold it until help arrives. You can show me what turian soldiers can do."–

Presently…

–

Luckily, it turned out turian soldiers could do a lot. It was almost sickening, really, how much credit he had been given for the Blitz. How he had 'single-handedly' held off the batarian invaders for two days until the Alliance Navy had finally broken through.

He had held his own, but if it hadn't been for the near a hundred turian ex-soldiers he and Madine had managed to call to arms, he and the other marines wouldn't have had a chance. Turians were fast, accurate, fearless, and obedient – not a one had balked at any of his orders, human or not.

And Madine had assured him later that not a one begrudged him all the credit he'd gotten for leading them. Personally he'd always doubted this, and even if it was true, he'd begrudged it plenty for himself.

Shepard was proud of his part in the Blitz. He was proud of his Star of Terra. He had always been blessed with talent but before then he'd never shown it to be good for anything.

But he was prouder of what came after. Prouder of turning down his invitation back into N training. Prouder of going to Palaven and suffering months of not being able to eat anything but freeze-dried rations so he could hunt down all the families of the turians who had died helping him. Palaven had been an awful world for a human, but that was where Shepard had decided what kind of person he was going to be. That was where he decided never to call any alien (except possibly for the one) a little green again. That was where he decided what his place in the galaxy would have to be.

And now here he was, blind on his ship while his turian second-in-command made the first steps in the inevitable clash between him and Cerberus. Here he was with a terminal drell and a baby krogan supersoldier and a salarian so smart his own kind called him genius. Here he was with a half-millenium old asari warrior pledged to fight to the death on his whim and a superbiotic psychopath. Here he was with a quarian girl who obsessed on him way more than was healthy for her, and a sentient computer, and a thief and a merc and a soldier and human perfection.

He laughed to himself.

It was funny how memories brought that into perspective.

How the hell had all this happened?

22 years ago…

–

Mordin was the last to be led into the Conclave chambers. Dozens of cameras, none-too-subtly hidden in the molding on the walls, followed him as he stepped down the length of the foyer flanked by two silent guards clad in the white-and-black emblem that represented the unified heart and mind of the Salarian species. The halls were spotless and beautiful but small – Mordin's horns almost grazed the ceiling in places. The symbolism was not lost on him either. Just as no Dalatrass could walk these halls, so too were their politics kept out.

He was entering a place of knowledge. Nothing was more sacred to the salarians.

The guards deposited him at the edge of the antechamber and Mordin obligingly stepped up to the carved podium that rested in the room's very center. The doors locked behind him with an imposing hiss. Up above him, the Conclave's investigators perched behind raised podiums of their own and checked their notes. Their white smocks were free of clan marking or logo, their faces free of judgment.

Mordin's podium had been readied for him. Holographic panels traced out dozens of notes and data feeds for the hearing, lists of evidence, all the relevant laws he'd broken, the names of the investigators who had proven his guilt. Mordin did not bother reading them. He simply sat in silence, hands folded before him.

After what felt like an eternity, the Conclave's spokes-salarian cleared his throat and stared down at Mordin. "Mannovai Ansilta Got Anna Ipso Solus Mordin," he said. "Are you ready to begin?"

"I am ready," Mordin said. He was calm.

The spokes-salarian nodded and tapped a command into his console. The chamber lights dimmed as the other consoles bloomed to life. Mordin's own console spit out a half dozen live camera feeds of each of the Conclave members and himself, along with a timer and a real-time VI transcript of their words.

"I am Professor Drerin," the lead salarian said, clearing his throat again. "Member of the Mannovai Conclave and keeper of the codices for this disciplinary hearing. You are aware, Mordin, that this session will be recorded in its entirely and added to the Codex?"

Mordin nodded. "Of course."

"We shall begin, then. Mordin of clan Solus. The conclave has concluded its investigation of your criminal actions. The investigation report's conclusions have been corroborated by Professor Altinn's team at the Jaehto Conclave. The peer review process is concluded and all data and conclusions upheld. The report and all supplementary data have been added to the codices for further review as necessary, but the critical points shall be summarized here." He cleared his throat yet again.

"Conclusion one: On the fifth day of the month of Toahte, standard calendar year 2163, Mannovai Ansilta Got Anna Ipso Solus Mordin, Assistant Professor of Genetics at Jahta University, used a self-developed heuristic decryption algorithm to bypass security at a Dalatrassi Commune facility." Mordin's console flickered with new data, including high definition footage of him doing just that. "Evidence includes security footage, genetic evidence, and the algorithm itself, as provided by Mordin to investigators." The other salarians clucked at each other and traded knowing glances.

"Conclusion two:" Drerin continued, licking his lips and proceeding to the next screen, "Once inside, Mordin used a suite of self-developed scripts to falsify critical data feeds associated with the political clan statistics monitors, resulting in a rearrangement of Dalatrass rankings that placed prominent clans Adlin, Asipi, and Solus behind minor clan Asta, resulting in widespread panic, an estimated one-hundred eighty-five thousand credits in economic damage, and over thirty-seven breeding contracts given to Asta despite being intended for other clans. Evidence includes security footage, breeding contract records, clan statistic records, and the scripts, as provided by Mordin to investigators." More nods. Of course any tampering with the Dalatrasses was frowned upon in salarian society, but Mordin had no doubt his audience had greatly enjoyed studying the mayhem he had caused – most political movements could be predicted well in advance by computers, so for someone to throw some chaos in the mix was a welcome change in pace for those who studied such things.

"Conclusion three: Using a variety of planted or otherwise fabricated evidence, Mordin framed half-brothers Eldrin, Somat, and Aeho, breeders for the Solus clan, for his crimes, resulting in their incarceration by the Conclave investigators for the fourteen days until Mordin turned himself in on Toahte twenty-first. Evidence includes computer activity records for omni-tools belonging to Eldrin, Somat, and Aeho, genetic evidence, and secondary security footage confirming the brothers' alibis."

Drerin fell silent for a moment, staring down at Mordin with a well-practiced expression of clinical detachment. "Barring future confounding evidence, this Conclave has endorsed all conclusions," he said, eyes boring into Mordin's.

Mordin nodded. He had expected no less. Indeed, he had engineered no less. Salarian justice left very little room for surprise. They were, as a species, obsessed with surveillance and data, experiments and verification – there was no innocence or guilt, no jury, no guesswork. There were only facts. And the facts were against Mordin.

"With no new data forthcoming," Drerin continued, "this hearing's primary purpose is to decide the appropriate corrective action to be taken." He cleared his throat. "Mordin of clan Solus. Do you have any closing comments regarding the specific situation leading to your actions that you believe the Conclave should consider?"

Mordin cleared his throat. "Indeed. Many."

"Present them."

Mordin addressed the entire Conclave. "Investigators. Would begin with tangent. Second disciplinary hearing here," he reminded them. He tapped the Lysenthi tattoo scrawled across his forehead. "Previous hearing called in response to this," he said. The room seemed to hush – indeed, it had been two years since Mordin had become the talk of the Union by daring to tattoo something so offensive so brazenly on his skull, and even well after his infamy had died down, the tattoo retained a weird power. "Did not go well," Mordin admitted. "Did not conduct self well. Was unrepentant. Invited harsh punishment. Dared it, even. Harsh punishment received."

He stared down at his toes. "Ashamed of that. Have grown accustomed to tattoo's aesthetic value, but have come to regret previous decisions. Did not wish to dishonor Solus clan. Was young. Rebellious. Stupid." He caught Drerin's eye. "Drerin was observer three for that hearing," he recalled, "Wrote in his notes 'Mordin Solus is a cloudhead and a troublemaker.'" He sighed. "True words. Fair."

"You have been cited for disruptive behavior fourteen times in your young life, Mordin," Drerin said. "Your codex entry is much longer than many salarians your age."

"Ahh, yes. True. Yes. But that phase ended now. Future codex entries shall report only achievements."

"A phase, you say?" Drerin arched one great brow.

Mordin nodded sharply. "Indeed. Phase. Childhood misbehavior. Was jealous of brothers. Upset by lack of breeding prospects. Believed self smartest individual in Solus clan. Worthiest of breeding. Still do."

"You are not of the breeder class," Drerin pointed out.

"No," Mordin agreed. "Disqualified by minor skin defect." He tapped at his face, at the color thereon. "Mutation at lutB locus. Results in rare pigmentation, minor scarring. Disqualifies from most breeding contracts. Also, of course, assigned to career as biologist. Extremely rare for salarians of my station to breed."

"A fact to which most salarians of your station are cheerfully resigned."

"Indeed." Mordin agreed. "Unfortunately, not the sort to be cheerfully resigned without sufficient convincing. Know there is a purpose for breeder class, for scientist class. Not a matter of individual freedom or entitlement. Simply… pride. Consider myself smartest individual in Solus clan," he repeated. "Skin defect minor. Genetics otherwise superior. Owe it to self, to clan, to species, to galaxy to pass on superior genes."

"Your brothers were selected for their roles for their genomes, Mordin," Drerin said. "And raised from birth for the sole purpose of breeding."

Mordin's eyes lit up. "Indeed!" he said. "Always comes back to genomes! Genetic material. Only the purest to be offered in breeding contracts. Brothers Eldrin, Somat, Aeho, surely paragons! Never mind stubborn ignorance. Never mind inability to grasp half of my work. Never mind obvious phenotypic inferiority. No, no. Superior genotypes. Surely!" He grinned toothily up at the older salarian. "Was… unconvinced. Understood role of epigenetics in translating genotype to phenotype, but believed intellectual differences too great to attribute thusly. Had to confirm. Perform experiment. But without access to genomes, could not validate claims of superior genes. Had own genome sequenced, annotated in free time. Easy. But needed brothers'. Dalatrass refused access. Breeders' genotypes restricted. Classified. Proprietary. Only to be revealed to prospective mate's clan Dalatrass. Unfortunate tradition." Mordin tapped at his chin in mock thought.

"With enormous political importance," Drerin reminded him.

"Indeed. Luckily for me, easy to circumvent. Knew it was standard procedure for Conclave to sequence genomes of all suspects in criminal cases for identification of genetic contributing factors. Knew sequences would be added to Codex for public viewing after investigation conclusion." Mordin grinned. He had promised himself to make it up to his brothers (not to mention his furious mother) but it was hard not to be pleased at his own genius. "So, perpetrated crime. Framed brothers. Accessed sequences, annotated. Compared to my own."

He quieted, satisfied, and stared up at the observers.

And watched the corners of Drerin's mouth tug upwards. The old salarian's brows were high on his head. "You did all this for your brothers' genomes?"

Mordin nodded. "Indeed. Clever, no? Plan worked. Once analysis was complete, turned self in. Exonerated brothers."

"And what did you find out?"

Mordin sighed contentedly. "Unexpected results. Cloudhead brothers' genomes… impressive. Must concede that. High degree of similarity to my own. Even in critical loci. Aeho and Somat particularly. Statistically significant. Ran calculations. Assuming brothers eventually get breeding contracts, my genes adequately represented in future generations."

"And so you are satisfied."

Mordin sniffed and let out a slow breath. It felt good to finally spell out his master plan. "Indeed. No more rebellion. Was foolish. Childish. Acted without data. Now that data acquired, have accepted conclusion. Do not need to breed to ensure genes represented." Mordin folded his hands before him.

The chamber fell into silence.

Drerin stared down at him, face drawn in a contemplative frown, but Mordin could see the approval in the older professor's eyes. Perhaps Drerin had gone through his own crisis when he'd found out he wouldn't ever have daughters of his own. Perhaps he knew how Mordin had felt.

He cleared his throat yet again. "Your account of events will be added to the Codex. I believe the observers will agree with me that your explanations are revealing, and will need to be factored into decisions of what punitive action to take. I profess a personal curiosity. What punishment do you believe fits your crimes?"

Mordin looked away for a moment. He had considered this. "Will submit to whatever punishment deemed necessary. Ran my experiment. Ready now to pay price. Understand brothers have been charged with negligence for allowing themselves to be manipulated. Would request they be exonerated with no punishment. As for myself, precedent of similar cases suggests incarceration in data-entry facility on Sur'Kesh for no fewer than seven standard years."

"You would give up seven years of your life for your three brothers?"

"Would give up life for two brothers," Mordin corrected. "Ran numbers. In genetic best interests. Of course, would prefer no punishment. Would prefer chance to continue as professor. Continue studies. But if necessary, yes. Would give up life."

Drerin nodded sagely and opened his mouth to say something.

"But would prefer to specify which two brothers, if at all possible," Mordin interrupted. "Eldrin a cloudhead. Also, unkind elder brother. If one brother to be punished, would prefer Eldrin."

Drerin actually smiled.

"Your comments will be considered."

16 years ago…

–

It was not often that Alwin Lawson ate with his family.

Of course, 'family' was a bit of a stretch. Alwin's palatial manor could probably house ten real families, but as it was the occupants numbered only three (not counting the small army of tutors and servants). Even then, the three rarely saw one another unless there was an important enough guest to impress.

Mr. Harper was such a guest.

Nine-year old Miranda sat at the long table across from Birte, picking at her food in the most lady-like manner she could muster and trying not to pay attention to the animated conversation at the other end of the table. It was hard – her father always got loud when he was trying to impress someone. Birte looked as miserable as usual, her beautiful face a practiced mask as she tried not to wince at the noise.

But it was Mr. Harper's words that seemed to echo in Miranda's ears.

She had been trained too well. Her ears couldn't fail to pick up every detail they heard. Her mind couldn't help but dive right to the subtext. Outside she was the perfect picture of elegant silence, but inside her head raced like no other human's.

"Even aside your legal troubles, it's a terrible blow to our industry," Harper was saying, his cigarette tracing quiet patterns in the air. "Two hundred fifty tons of antimatter fuel snatched from an Alliance cruiser while it sat in drydock. You know how it looks."

Miranda's father just smiled. "It means the Alliance will be looking to upgrade their security systems. It's a good day, Mr. Harper, for us both."

Harper did not look convinced. "The Alliance will be looking for someone to blame, Mr. Lawson, as you know too well."

"My hands are tied, Jack. The man they caught-"

"Is a human," Harper interrupted, voice stone cold. "Do you think they want to convict a human? And especially one ranting about Cerberus this and Manifesto that? How would that look to the Council?"

Alwin considered this.

"They are going to want the prisoner ruled insane," Harper continued. "They're going to want to convict someone with a less extreme motivation than terrorism." Miranda kept eating as quietly as possible, resenting every noisy tink of silverware on china. "And so the fact that the man was caught with your prototype Starhook system…"

"Libel." Lawson interrupted, teeth gritted in frustration. "The Starhook is a secure project. There's no way they could have gotten their hands on it! I have half my bloody fortune tied up in security forces for the damn R and D labs and then they have the gall to tell me someone just took Starhook? It's libel!"

"No doubt," Harper agreed genially. "I'm certain the courts would agree."

But now Lawson had started his rant. "The courts?" He shook his head. "The damn courts and their press are all over me. All over me. Think I leaked the damn thing on purpose!" He forced a tired laugh. "They probably think I'M Cerberus, Jack! They think I wrote the damn manifesto!"

Harper's fingers steepled before him. "Really…" Mr. Harper was a good actor. His words and mannerisms were as smooth and clean-cut as his suit. He smoked his cigarette with a casual nonchalance, listening to the Lawson patriarch's anger escalate. Occasionally he would interject a thought but most of his words were purposefully empty, only there to draw more out of Mr. Lawson. He looked just right – just interested enough – to keep the man talking.

He was smooth, but he was also a liar. Miranda saw it as clear as the contacts on his face. He was not here to hammer out the details a business deal between Cord-Hislop and her father. He wasn't there to deal at all. Not directly, anyway.

Miranda's father was halfway through a new rant on how his privacy had been infringed on when her omni-tool gave a beep and the two men fell silent.

Miranda mouthed a silent curse and looked up to find herself locking eyes with Mr. Harper. She gaped despite herself.

He was beautiful. He looked straight through her and saw her and he was beautiful.

Her father cleared his throat. "Miranda?"

She fell out of her trance, face reddening in shame. "Violin lesson. Sir."

Her father smiled (but not at her). "Time already? Birte, would you take her?"

Birte rose without a word and took Miranda's hand to lead her out, ignoring the way the girl dragged her feet. By the time they were walking out the door, Mr. Lawson had already resumed his conversation, his daughter forgotten. But Harper's eyes followed her out of the room.

–

Miranda was not entirely surprised to find Mr. Harper waiting for her outside her room when she returned from her lesson. He had his back to her, admiring a framed painting outside her door with another cigarette dangling between his fingers. He was a tall man. Unfailingly neat and pressed, like he'd been built in a shop.

Like he'd been designed.

"Your father has an interesting taste in art," Harper mused. He did not turn to face her. "Léger is something of an acquired taste."

"It's upside down," Miranda pointed out. It had always driven her insane, but she had never said anything to anyone about it. She preferred evidence of her father's stupidity not be hidden, even if she was the only one to recognize it.

Harper smiled. "Yes. Yes it is. For generosity's sake I will assume your father had it hung that way in gest."

"My father isn't known for his sense of humor, Mr. Harper."

Now Harper turned to look at her, and again she found herself staring into his eyes. His contacts were convincing enough but somehow Miranda knew they weren't his real eyes. He was hiding his real eyes. It was his real eyes that saw through her, not these. "No," Harper agreed, staring. "Known for many things. But not humor."

Miranda felt one corner of her mouth turning up. "Do you… want to come in?" she asked, curtseying as she had been taught.

She didn't know why she found herself trusting him, especially when she reached for the bio-metric lock and found it open already. He remained in the doorway as she stepped inside.

The lingering smell of cigarette smoke proved it well enough. "What were you doing in my-" she paused as her eyes fell on her extranet console and on the document currently displayed on the screen.

She whirled to look at him, mouth agape. "H-how did you?"

"Be careful what you write about men like Alwin Lawson, Miranda," Harper said, taking a drag from his cigarette. "Even on what you believe is a secure computer."

Miranda rushed to the computer and closed the files as fast as her fingers could fly, hoping against hope that he hadn't read them. Everything she'd written was there. Private thoughts. All the data she'd stolen from her father's labs. Her escape route. She'd hidden it under layer upon layer of security, every strange password she could think up, and yet Mr. Harper had walked in and found every scrap.

And of course he'd read them.

Her fingers slowed and she turned.

Harper was still staring at her, his face unreadable. His unnerving eyes flitting. Miranda expected him to be angry. Amused. Something. But he was stonefaced.

He took another draw of his cigarette. "When something is written, it is no longer yours," he said after a moment, letting out his breath in a decadent stream. "It has a life of its own. It becomes powerful. Uncontrollable. Even a little thing. A daughter's journal full of hate for a poor father."

He did not look like the comforting type, but Miranda found herself bawling.

"He… he's going to replace me, sir," she mewled. "I found the notes. The next version." She sniffed in a most unladylike way but somehow she didn't care.

If Harper was moved by her tears, he did not show it. "We spoke of art. You are familiar, perhaps, with a quote attributed to a fifteenth-century artist about the nature of perfection."

It came to Miranda's mind easily. "Leonardo di ser Piero Da Vinci said 'Art is never finished, only abandoned'," she sniffed.

He stared at her, waiting for her to make the connections. A million things Niket had said to her popped into her head. About how she was a person, not a machine, or a masterpiece, or a slave, or anything else. A person who deserved to be treated like one. Things that had always felt good when she heard him say them. Things she did not say now.

"Da Vinci was wrong," Harper said quietly. "Perfection exists. And you are very, very near it, Miranda. Your father does not know what to do with perfection so he fiddles with it. Makes a new version, a dumber version. A version that will not hate him so." He kneeled down to her eye level. "You are finished, Miranda. You are perfect."

The dam broke and Miranda launched herself at him, wrapping her arms around his neck so quickly his cigarette fell from his lips. He let her cry into his shoulder but he did not hug back. It was only seconds before he was prying her grip away with gentle hands, but firm as iron.

He stood, tossing his fallen cigarette into a case he drew from his pocket. Miranda backed away, sheepish. "On the bed are two gifts," he said, producing a fresh cigarette and match from a hidden pocket. Miranda turned to look. "That datapad is secure. When you feel the need to give your thoughts a life of their own, write them there." Miranda held the datapad. It was plain to look at but perfect. "You will also find some of my writings. I want you to study them."

He lit the cigarette and pocketed the match with a flair.

"The case contains a pair of dueling pistols. Convince your father to hire you a tutor to train you in their use."

Miranda stole a glance in the case. The pistols were incredibly fine, carved wooden handles polished. They were perfect too.

She turned. "Mr. Harper?"

"Read," he interrupted, turning to go. "Continue your lessons. Bide your time. I will be back."

She forged ahead. "The man the Alliance caught was your man, wasn't he?"

Harper gave no answer as he left her, but Miranda thought she saw the ghost of a smile on his lips and she knew she was right.

She was up all night reading the Manifesto.

15 years ago…

–

"Drell."

Thane could not see the batarian guard's eyes behind his two pairs of dark glasses, but the displeasure on his face was clear enough as a second batarian – equally large – planted himself in front of the table. The first guard pointed brusquely at Thane's red-vested chest and grunted something in Khar'shish to the second.

Thane stood unmoving.

"Do not touch the dealer, boys," a voice interrupted from behind. The batarians snapped to attention, sidling to either side to let their master – an elaborately-bedecked turian – step up to the table. "I did not think your kind was allowed in places like this," the turian said, sizing up Thane with thinly-veiled arrogance. Anturen Naces was prim and polished, his dress armor luxurious and gleaming in the casino's blaring lights. The short cape the Cenderes magistrate had given him spoke to his high station on this world, the rings on his fingers spoke to his wealth.

Thane smiled and bowed, uncowed. "Typically not, Mr. Naces," he agreed. "As patrons, our memories can be a gambling house's bane. As dealers, however, it can be a boon." He stood, proudly puffing out his chest to display the logoed pendant the casino's turian owner had tacked on his chest not twenty hours before. "Redshift Casino only hires the best."

Naces' gleaming eyes scanned Thane for a pregnant moment, as if trying to see his thoughts. He relaxed. "Very well," he said, and sat, his batarians taking their positions behind either shoulder. "I'm told you've prepared for me. You know my rules, yes?"

"I do," Thane agreed. His new employers had emphasized to him several times how important Naces' patronage was to the casino. Thane – or Bdello, the young drell he was pretending to be, anyway – just had to keep the turian amused and everything would be fine.

Naces nodded, satisfied. "What am I playing tonight?"

Thane produced the first deck of cards from the depths of a hidden pocket, shuffling them with an elaborate flourish. "Thessian Soria," he said, flashing the cards before Naces' eyes before dealing them out, fast as a viper. "Sixty-eight cards, four decks. A game of math, skill, and luck." It was hardly seconds before the last card was placed, but they were seconds Thane used well, flicking his eyes to get a better look at Naces' guards. The batarian slave twins were beasts, broad shouldered and muscled like piles of boulders, and the clubs and guns hanging from their silver belts were well worn. Still, Thane recognized intimidation when he saw it – the twins had been practically starved until their physiques showed through their thick skin, their normally dense, tangled hair cut short and trim. Thane was not impressed.

Luckily, the batarians were. Their beady eyes followed his lightning-fast moves as he arrayed out the cards in their starting pattern. Even Naces gave a stiff nod, reaching to peek at his cards with one taloned hand. "I'm familiar," he said, clicking his talons against the table's edge, "A simple game. I'm told the humans play something similar." He said 'humans' with a sneer in his voice, but all the same he tapped his first wager into the console at his seat.

Thane smiled, dealing his own house cards. "I would not know," he said. It was best not to mention the humans too freely so soon after the turians had finished fighting a war with them. Most of the avian aliens were amicable enough about it, but Thane had met more than a few who'd taken the outcome of Relay 314 quite personally. "Of course, some would number simplicity among Soria's benefits. It does not lack for strategy, and yet does not lend itself so readily to fits of rage as, say, quarian array-games."

Naces grinned at this. "True enough." He stared at the cards with predatory eyes as the table cast holographic markers above them. Soria – like many asari games – was highly visual, with many game-winning hands purposefully forming pictures or stories between them. The arrangement of cards was of paramount significance – as much if not more so than the numbers on them. Naces reached out and slid one of his cards a few centimeters to one side, causing the holograms to flutter with updates.

"You are familiar with this game," Thane observed as the table gave a chirp and Naces' points rolled upward.

The turian gave him a cocky flicker of mandibles. "I have been coming here for many years, little drell. I know the Redshift like the cut of my plates. The games are among the few pleasures left to me."

Thane knew from his research that that wasn't true – Naces was a wealthy turian and quickly spent whatever he didn't use on bribes. He kept quiet. "You are dedicated," Thane said instead. "To show here tonight, most especially."

Naces eyes narrowed and his two batarians seemed to loom up on the balls of their hairy feet. The turian's voice was icy suspicious. "What is that supposed to mean, little drell?"

Thane was calm. "You are aware of the bounties on your head." The message had gone out on the buoys a few days before. Anturen Naces had finally overstepped the line. It was ten thousand credits to the being who brought the turian alive before the Hierarchy, and that money had brought the mercenaries in waves. There was blood in the water and the isle-sharks were circling, hungry for all the pleasures ten thousand credits could buy. And bigger sharks were coming.

Naces gave a curt bark, looking immensely smug. "Ha! Yes, yes. Ten thousand, was it?" He relaxed, sinking back into his chair. "Ha! Half the galaxy could search for me if they wanted. I am safe here. Exarch Qatunus is going to have to live without his money."

Thane nodded. "No doubt. Of course, that is only one bounty. There was a second."

This just made Naces laugh harder. "The jellyfish? Ha! What are they offering for me, a prayer to the Enkindlers?" He laughed throatily, a long purr in his armored chest. He shook his head. "No, no. I'll save my fear for the real bounty hunters. " He looked at Thane, an amused gleam in his eye. "But the red krogan and his girlfriend are busy, so I think I'm safe for now. Nobody else has the stones to try to take me out of here. Half the people on this planet would die rather than see me captured."

Thane feigned amusement. "No doubt. Though I heard rumor Kartak Had'hah was seen making planetfall this morning," he said. "He and his brothers are well known for their bravery."

"For their suicidal bravery," Naces added, though Thane could hear his confidence slip. "If those freaks want to throw their lives away on a full frontal assault, let them try." He waved a hand behind him. "I have my own batarian brothers to defend me."

Thane smiled again, showing white teeth. "Of course. I am sure you are very safe here."

"Very safe. Even if Kartak did attack, how would he get to me? This place is huge."

"Indeed," Thane agreed, dealing the next round. He let the silence reign for a few seconds. "Of course, a skilled assassin could find a dozen ways in," he added, watching the turian for a reaction. "And even an unskilled one could take the information from a loose-tongued employee."

Naces' eyes narrowed and his laughter died in his throat. "Was that a threat?"

"Of course not. I am simply suggesting that if someone wanted to get to you here, they might try to reach you through the casino staff. That would be my plan."

Thane stared at the turian for a long moment, neither of them listening to the pinging of qasar machines in the background. Naces slumped back in his chair as realization dawned. "You are an assassin," he accused wearily.

Thane nodded. "Alas. I am."

"For the jellyfish."

"I am," Thane repeated, choosing not to protest at the word choice.

Naces nodded. "I see."

There was another long pause as the two sides of the table stared each other down.

Then hell broke loose. There was a great explosion from up above, so strong the Soria cards fluttered in all directions. The sound of assault rifle fire thundered through the casino and shattered glass came raining down from the ceiling. Dark shapes dropped amongst the terrified patrons, slinging down from ziplines and firing their weapons into the air.

Kartak Had'hah and his brothers were said to be identical, only distinguishable by the patch Kartak wore over his lower left eye (and even that, some claimed, was traded between the triplets to confuse their foes), but they were real batarians, and big ones, from the tundra slopes of Khar'shan. The one that landed on the table behind Thane was almost as broad as he was tall and bristling with guns. An armory's worth of ammo was strapped to every inch of his body – a few clips even hung from his long, braided moustache.

Kartak laughed as he shot one of Naces' slaveguards through the shoulder, downing the trimmer alien without a beat's hesitation. It was all Thane could do to leap out of the way as Naces' surviving guard came surging forward to meet him, pushing the entire table along with him and upending it into the bounty hunter's face. Thane dodged and rolled, narrowly avoiding being crushed. The gun strapped to his leg was a comforting weight but he did not reach for it.

Dust and rubble flew as other mercs dove into battle. Bullets flew in every direction.

Thane simply stepped aside, eyes watching Naces huddle amongst the rubble of a fallen support beam. In the chaos, it would have been a simple matter to put a bullet into his neck, but Thane did not, but simply watched with a stoic face as the turian took his chances and fled for the kitchens.

Thane nodded. The kitchens then. Very good.

The fighting between the casino security and the batarian raiders continued as Thane brushed the dust off his uniform, adjusted his collar, and grabbed a fallen tray before heading after the turian, tray held aloft in one hand. He stepped gracefully over strewn rubble.

He stopped at a tug on his pantsuit leg. "Waiter?"

He looked down. A young asari, curled over as if in fear, stared up at him with a face more suited to bored bemusement. She wiggled her empty glass at his ankle. "Can I get another Suraboz whiskey?"

Thane stared at her, listening to the gunfire in the background.

"…when you get a chance," she added sheepishly, apparently realizing the strangeness of her request.

He smiled, stooping to accept the glass. "Of course."

He marched for the kitchens.

–

Thane found Naces cowering under one of the cabinets in the empty kitchens and stared down at him, barely keeping the grin off his face.

"Shit," the turian growled. "Figures you'd attack when those maniacs did. What are they paying you? I'll double it."

Thane set down the asari's glass. "I will not be paid for my work today," he said simply, walking over to the stove and grabbing the handle of an abandoned iron skillet. He tested its weight in his hand, turning it this way and that with martial precision.

"What? Don't tell me you're one of those barefaced historian types, still all up in arms about the artifact thing. Tonn Actus didn't know what he had. Neither did Qatunus. They just wanted to make nice with the jellies but they didn't know what that artifact was worth."

"I obey my mistress Preya," Thane said. "It was Illuminated Aleua among the hanar who you so offended. It is his assassins I might fear if I were you, but luckily he is not the sort to resort to violence."

Naces' face was a mask of confusion as Thane took position next to the door. Heavy footprints thudded just beyond. "What? What are you-"

The door exploded open, filled rim to rim with an angry, bleeding batarian. "NAAAAAACEEEESSSSSS!" Kartak roared, a gleeful glint in all three eyes.

Thane brought the skillet down hard on Kartak's head.

The huge batarian went down without delay, hitting the ground so hard the floor shook. Then all it took was a quick blow to one of the arteries under the neck and he was in blissful unconsciousness.

The room fell silent as Thane wiped his hands and reached for his communicator.

"W…what the hell?" Naces whimpered. "You weren't even after me?"

Thane smiled.

"I was bait!" Naces demanded, looking unsure whether he should be relieved or affronted.

"I told you, I serve Illuminated Preya, who has little interest in your artifacts. But she has a great interest in these brothers," he said, toeing Kartak's unconscious form. His communicator beeped as he typed in his message for pickup, and he slipped it back into his pocket. "Would you prefer I take you in as well?"

"I… I…" the turian stammered. "I… no. No."

"Some other time, then," Thane said, calmly taking up his skillet weapon and washing it off in the nearest sink. "Perhaps you will find some opportunity in the meantime to make a very sincere apology to Illuminated Aleua. I believe it would go a long way towards preventing a future visit from someone like me." Thane placed the pan back where he'd found it before turning to the turian and extending a hand, helping Naces back to his feet. He stared at the turian's wide eyes. "I do, however, have a question for you, if you will indulge me."

Naces nodded emptily.

Thane held up the asari's glass. "How does one make a Suraboz whiskey?"

Presently…

–

"The krogan do not take to ships cheerfully. It is a pathetic excuse for war when you kill your enemy with twenty thousand clicks separating you. The turian, the salarian, he will not see the cowardice in this. He will think he is clever, he will think he is safe. But a ship can be a battlefield. If you cannot force him to the ground, bring the ground to him."

Most of Grunt's 'memories' were only pictures. Videos. Sights and smells and sounds. No feelings, no reality, just Okeer's omnipresent, rumbling narrative. It was a textbook and it read that way, memories leaping from subject to subject in a predefined order. Scenes broken up with long, rambling explanations of how the ancient krogan held their guns or strategic interludes. It was onerous, astonishingly boring stuff, and made Grunt's mind ache, but he could never escape it. The second anything reminded him of anything, Okeer's voice would spring anew in his head to recommend how he could kill it, or pontificate about offworlders.

"Our ships were gifts from the salarians. Perhaps they forgot they'd given them to us. But they remembered quickly when the skies choked with our numbers. They were only transports, but their guts filled with rubble and rock and steel made them invulnerable. A turian ship, a salarian ship, an asari ship. It did not matter. When we crashed their ships would snap on our breadth and fall to pieces and our lowly transports would fly on. A thousand krogan ships might fall in a battle but ten thousand more would make planetfall and the planet would be ours.

It made the true memories – Okeer's true memories – brilliantly vibrant by comparison. Okeer had only included a few, but those that remained stole Grunt's attention for hours on end. The ancient warlord had clearly been as meticulous and detailed a mind in life as his imprint recordings made him in death. Grunt could feel how sharp, how great a leader Okeer had been.

"The rock had been The Great Lowlander Kredak's idea. Or perhaps Shiagur's – the two had been inseparable in matters of tactics as much as anything else. How fitting that Kredak only perished when the turians stole his own plan and crashed a ship on his head. But only after we'd killed thousands upon thousands of them the same way."

And how angry. For all the thousands of angry speeches that had been left in Grunt's head, only the memories themselves felt like anything.

1370 years ago…

–

Okeer had heard of the collectors before. Long ago, before the rebellions had begun in earnest. Before he'd been called to action. The asari had liked the stories. Ancient, unreadable aliens of unfathomable power that disappeared and reappeared wherever they pleased and stole off with aliens in the night.

He'd been so sure it was alien foolishness. The asari needed a few more monsters in the galaxy to keep control over everyone else. That was all.

But he had been wrong. He pressed his shotgun flush against the dying alien's curved skull and pulled the trigger. The creature splattered in the darkness and fell still. Jelly-like blood dripped from Okeer's arms to the floor and walls, just caking and hardening atop the layers of death and foulness already covering the ship.

These were the collectors. He was sure of it now.

He snorted. "Everyone still alive?" Everyone, of course, except Adak – he'd seen the pathetic moron chasing after the collector with the big gun, and seen him diced open by the crackling beams that lit up the black like an electrical storm. No great loss.

There was a weary chorus of agreement from the darkness around him. With Adak dead it was thirteen krogan left, out of the three thousand or so he'd left with. The smells and sounds of the newest battle still echoed around them.

The collector ship was dying. It had been months since Okeer's navigator (another fool of a krogan, who'd been caught out of cover and fallen in battle like a splitplate some weeks ago) had first detected it. A huge, cylindrical ship of steel and rock, floating dormant outside the edge of the Eophili system. Months since Okeer had given the order to ram and board it. Months since they'd heard the great crunch of armor as the two ships had collided.

He'd been so sure it was a turian vessel lying in wait, that somehow their pursuers had doubled around and headed them off. But when the krogan troops had stormed the breach and poured into the reeling ship, they'd been greeted not by a turian naval crew of hundreds but a bizarre insect crew of thousands. And not mindless monsters like the rachni, but organized and well equipped. They had guns the krogan had never seen before, hand-held lasers and plasma launchers. And the ship itself! Okeer had rammed more than a hundred ships since Kredak had put him in charge of the few thousand massive transports the krogan called a fleet. Many times the turians managed to move in time, but never before had he seen one take the hit and survive it.

But the collector ship had stood strong, holding its atmosphere even though the massive gash Okeer's ship had torn through its hull. The krogan ship had not fared so well, its cargo bays cracking and scattering their contents through space. Okeer had lost near half his force to the hull breach before the rest of them had managed to scramble into the collector vessel.

Neither side had expected to see the other so far out in dark space, between systems where no sane ship captain ever dared to fly, but it hadn't mattered. The war had commenced without delay.

Now it was winding to an end. The ship was strong, the collectors numerous, but they weren't krogan. Okeer had spread his troops through the vessel taking out every major system they could find. Every step of the way they'd been harried by hundreds of the insectoid defenders, but for all their weaponry and numbers the collectors were fragile.

And the krogan – or at least a few of them – were warriors.

"Warlord."

Okeer turned from where he'd been inspecting the dark stain that was Adak's remains, searching for the moron's fallen weapon. Anger and exhaustion festered in his chest, but as soon as he'd stood he felt the knot loosening. In the pitch black that had dominated ever since they'd blown up the collector ship's core, he could barely see his mate's silhouette – let alone the eyes he'd grown to love so much – but her smell was unmistakable. She smelled… perfect.

Fertile.

"Gaira," he grunted, pressing his crest to hers. She was perfect. Fertile. And those eyes! With Kredak dead, sometimes he felt remembering his mate's ice-blue eyes had looked in Eophili's daylight was the only joy left to him. If only there was enough light to see them by now.

She pressed back, a pleasing rumble in her throat. "They're moving, Warlord. Retreating to their main chamber."

Okeer's eyes were cinched shut, his breath deep and controlled, but his mind meandered up towards where he knew the ship's colossal central chamber was. In the light it had been terrific to behold, its ceiling so high it could barely be seen, the thousands of empty pods glowing like stars, but now, he knew, it was as still and blackened as the rest of the ship, its beauty destroyed when his troops had demo-charged the ship's power cores. "How many remain?"

"Not more than eighty, Warlord."

Okeer nodded. "Good." The collectors had proven no match for a few thousand krogan warriors – especially a few thousand krogan warriors still furious over Kredak's death to the turians – but they'd shown a remarkable ability to replenish their numbers considering they were floating on a dead ship in deep space. The krogan had found them more numerous with every passing day, until one of the vans had found a great forest of cocoons where the troops were being gestated fully grown, guns already in hand. A few well-placed firebombs had solved that problem and the collectors had been dwindling ever since. Thirteen krogan versus eighty collectors? Those were the best odds the krogan had heard in months. Still… the collectors had been fearless, almost mindless fighters. He'd never seen them retreat before. "The leader?" he asked.

"He was there," Gaira confirmed. "Almost burnt out. He will have to move to another minion soon."

Okeer almost allowed himself a grin. "He is getting tired of being killed," he said. Okeer himself had killed the collector leader – a big, burning monster of a thing – ten or so times already, but every time the creature had returned, voice booming as it announced itself. "Our enemy flees," Okeer said, not masking his eagerness. "We will give chase."

Gaira said nothing as he started for the great chamber. It was time to end this. Once the collectors were dead they could rest and see about finding a way back to the rest of the galaxy.

"With me!" Okeer bellowed, tromping up the angled corridor, past great piles of disintegrating collector corpses and his own fallen troops. The ship's artificial gravity was misaligning more every day, but the pitted, earthy walls and ceilings of the collector ships were easy enough to climb. "Our enemy flees."

One of the warriors – Soro, by the smell of it – let out a tired wheeze. "Let them flee, Warlord!" he grumbled. "We need rest!"

Okeer stopped and the silence boomed.

Soro seemed to realize what he'd said and scrambled to his feet, nearly stumbling over in the process. "We… I mean, with all due respect, Warlord."

Okeer stalked to the smaller krogan, feeling the fury build inside of him. "You are tired, Soro?" Soro smelled tired. He smelled dead, even. Reeking of his own blood and others'.

"We haven't slept in many weeks, Warlord."

Okeer shot him. It was a glancing blow, aimed down at the hip, and largely swallowed up by the remains of Soro's shield, but enough shot got through and the krogan roared in agony, dropping to the floor with a strangled cry. Okeer did not give him time to recover from the shock, and set one booted foot on the fallen krogan's neck, leveling his gun down at Soro's face. He practically spat. "You are tired, Soro? Tired of war? Ready to give up, to go home, are you?"

Soro couldn't answer, still clutching his bleeding leg.

It took all of Okeer's willpower not to pull the trigger and end the miserable excuse for a krogan right there, but he was running out of bodies. Even cowards had their uses in war. He was dimly aware of Gaira's hand on his shoulderpad. He would not kill Soro. Still, the fact that Soro even stood by his side filled him with disgust. In Okeer's day, back on Tuchanka, Soro would have died long ago, cast out of his clan for his weakness. But now… A black thought filled Okeer's mind.

"Do you have a son?" he asked quietly.

Soro managed a nod.

Okeer left him with that, head full of anger.

–

"You cannot shoot your own warriors," Gaira chided him as soon as they were out of earshot. The rest of the remaining krogan had had the presence of mind not to complain and followed their warlord up the corridor without delay, Soro limping up at the rear.

"He is no warrior," Okeer rumbled. "I should have killed him."

"He is tired. Even krogan must rest."

"He has a son!" Okeer spat, unbelieving. "That creature has a son!" The thought filled him with more anger than he could possibly articulate. Every day the krogan numbers fell, every day it became harder to keep up your clan, and yet a fool like Soro had a son. The injustice of it was disgusting. Soro was a grunt, a fool, a meatshield to stand on the front lines as pawn to a real krogan. Pawn to someone like Okeer, or Gaira, or Kredak, or Shiagur. A real krogan.

But Kredak had died without a son. And Soro would not.

Gaira seemed to read his mind. "So will you. In time."

Okeer just growled. "You will give him to me, hmm? Like you have given so many others? How many clutches have you laid tainted by the seed of fools, I wonder."

"Dozens," Gaira admitted without the slightest hint of shame in her voice. "That was my duty. The krogan are dying."

"And your duty now is to give me a brood. That is what Shiagur gave you to me for."

"Yes. To extend your line."

Okeer snorted. The obvious question – 'well then why haven't you' – came to mind, of course, but the obvious answer did too. He must have mated the hen dozens upon dozens of times since Shiagur had offered her to him in exchange for his alliance. Gaira was one of Shiagur's sisters. Blue-eyed, beautiful, terribly powerful and ruthless, just like the rest of them – in a thousand ways the worthiest mate a bull could ever ask for. And fertile. Still fertile. One of the most valuable krogan in the galaxy. She must have borne fifty or sixty healthy splitplates since the genophage.

And yet none of them his. It didn't seem to be working. Ganar Okeer, one of the greatest warriors in the galaxy. Perhaps the greatest, now that Kredak was gone.

And he couldn't put an egg in this damn female.

But Soro had a son. The next generation of krogan would have a Soro but no Okeer.

He wasn't sure who he wanted to hate the most for that.

"Give it time, Okeer," Gaira said, but he ignored her. Sometimes it was only her eyes that stopped him from killing her and the rest of them and letting the whole shameful decline of the krogan be done with.

–

Thirteen krogan versus eighty collectors.

It had been close. Very close. Okeer had watched the death all around. Had seen Soro fall, seen other, greater krogan fall. Had seen the collectors die in droves. Had seen the great possessed collector appear and die and appear and die and appear and die again. He had seen his beloved Gaira felled by a shot to the stomach.

He'd fought on until he was the only one left. Until he was staring in the face of the possessed collector, watching the flesh strip away from the glowing armature beneath. Flames had licked at his skin and melted his helmet to his neck and his gun had bled away in his hands.

Okeer had nearly died doing it, but he finished the battle with his own bare hands, knocking the collector's head from its shoulders with one sweep. He felt the boiling blood splatter and the satisfying, weighty thunk of splitting chitin.

The collector fell, still smoking, and Okeer watched its glow die away.

It grew dark and Okeer let himself fall. Silence reigned. He had won. The ship was dead, truly dead now. And he was alone, his panting the only sound left to populate the dark space. He felt a strangled sort of victory. He had beaten the collectors.

Why?

That was harder to answer. But he was a krogan. He had found them and he'd fought them and he'd won. Never mind why.

He managed to crawl over to where Gaira had fallen and peel her helmet from her head. Even still, she was beautiful. Scarred and beaten but so perfect. His gloved fingers quested under her chin, tracing her thick jawbone before moving up to her eyes. He knew they would not be the same, not if she was truly dead, but he would see them – even in the dim light – if he could.

He did not get the chance. The silence shattered behind him and the darkness fled so fast his eyes screamed in pain. A dazzling red light bloomed to fill the chamber, vast and untouchably wide in every direction. Okeer felt a moment of true fear like he had rarely felt in his life.

The voice of the collector leader boomed. "Directing."

Okeer whirled, eyes scanning frantically for the collector he had missed, for a collector rising up and glowing as it transformed into yet another avatar of the collector leader.

But there was none. The collectors were dead. And in their place, a great, ethereal red shape hung in the air, filling up the chamber and staring down at him. Okeer felt his jaw slackening as he stared up at the great, holographic creature, hundreds of feet long, with spidering limbs and a huge, knife-like torso.

"I am Nazara," the creature said, so loud Okeer felt his head might split. "I am your salvation, Ganar Okeer."

Okeer grimaced, ears ringing. Just a VI, then. Not more collectors. He turned from the hologram and back to his fallen mate. He ran his hands up her side, feeling for her breathing. The skin around the bullet wounds was warm, the blood sticky and clotting – both good signs – and Okeer pressed an earhole up against her mouth, straining to hear any sign of life over Nazara's omnipresent buzz. It was faint, but it was there.

"She lives."

This made Okeer turn back to the VI, which still hung in the air like a weightless monster. "Of course she lives. She was the only worthy krogan here besides me."

"Organics are unworthy. They fumble in ignorance, live their brief lives deluded. She is unworthy to bask in my presence."

"Should have killed her then," Okeer grunted, rising to his feet and looking for the projector giving 'Nazara' life. A quick shot or two would make things a lot quieter, give him some time to collect his bearings. He'd have to find a ship, an escape pod or something, that could take Gaira and himself back to Eophili. From there they could find transport to Tuchanka, if that's where they wanted to go. But Nazara seemed to be coming from everywhere at once. There was no projector in sight.

"She lacks the genomic damage present in all other krogan aboard this ship," Nazara boomed. "She will be integrated. She will find immortality. You will find only destruction."

Okeer stared angrily up at the hologram. "I beat your collectors, didn't I?"

"Collectors," Nazara echoed. "A word invented by the asari to give name to our vanguards. This ship and its crew are expendable. There are others. We cannot be stopped."

Okeer just growled and turned away. This was a waste of time. "Log me out," he grunted, lifting Gaira's body over his shoulder and heading back towards the exit.

Nazara did not. "She cannot leave. She will be studied."

Okeer kept walking.

"There is a spaceworthy vessel on the rear deck. It will return you to your worlds."

"Good."

"She will stay."

Okeer said nothing, just stopped to shift Gaira to his other shoulder. He found he could barely lift her, he was so exhausted, but he wanted to get away from Nazara. Perhaps back onto the remains of the krogan ship for some sleep. Then he could search for the ship Nazara mentioned.

"Compliance will be rewarded," Nazara called after him as he limped his way out. "With the power to remake your species."

Okeer stopped.

4 years ago…

–

Jack hadn't seen the little batarian there, or she might not have intervened at all.

Or at least that's what she told herself. She'd left it there, untouched amongst what was left of the adults who'd been with it, and tried pointedly to ignore the way its four eyes followed her movements as she searched the bodies.

There had been four of them, all adult males with stained skin and black teeth, a little camp set up in one of the safe spots amongst the murk. Jack had stumbled onto them while they argued about something in their strange, whispery language. They hadn't put up much of a fight – they were scavengers, most likely, not mercenaries.

Jack almost wished they had been mercenaries. At least mercs would have had something worth stealing. But rifling through the dead aliens' meager belongings had produced next to nothing. Damp cigarettes of some kind – these Jack thrust into her pants pockets. A pair of pistols, one of them broken beyond repair. Rope and cables. Flashlights. A few crinkled bills of slavemoney. All of it smelly and useless.

Just shit. Not a fuckin' thing. Apparently she'd killed them for nothing.

And that fuckin' kid. Just staring. No squeak of fear after watching her break its companions like cheap toys. No stuttered thank you for killing what had no doubt been the slavers who'd taken it from its home. Just sitting in the mess and staring. It gave Jack the creeps. Like it was judging her.

"Fuck off," she grunted, fumbling with one of the corpses, looking for a pocket she might have missed. In the dim light so deep in Omega's bowels, it was possible.

The little batarian did not fuck off. It just stared.

She finally met its gaze. "Seriously, kid. This is my rock now. Fuck off or I'll do you too." It was a boy, she decided. If it was human she would have guessed eight or nine years old, but who knew how old that made it in fuckin' dog years or whatever batarians had? The boy's arms and legs were stained black from rooting around in the filth, but the skin on his head and shoulders was deathly pale and unhealthy looking, like he hadn't seen light – even the sickly neon light that was all you could find on Omega – in years.

And it wasn't moving. Probably didn't understand her. Fuckin' fine. Jack pulled a knife from her boot and shoved it under the boy's lower eyes. "Gonna use you as bait, then," she said, turning it this way and that. Even in the dim light it gleamed imposingly, and the boy's eyes mooned wide. "Chop you up, toss you in the fucking water and see if the nao-rets will come after you."

The batarian gave a little gurgle.

Jack was on top of him in an instant, her hands wrapped around his neck, the blade leveled beneath his chin. "Huh!" she demanded, pressing down until a bead of brown-black blood dribbled down her blade. "You say something?"

The batarian's eyes widened even further. "Nao-ret doesn't eat my kind," he managed, sputtering through snaggled teeth.

Jack stared at him, searching him for dishonesty. The kid stared back.

"Fuck." She released him, shoving him to the far side of the island. "Really?" The batarian nodded. "Fuck," Jack repeated, and flopped to a seat. She stared out at the darkness. There was very little light to see with so deep inside of Omega's bowels. They were as far down as you could go, down below the bases of the great skyscrapers that dominated the station, down below the mass effect generators that kept it all afloat, down to the rocky remains of the asteroid mining base that had come before. Offworld people always drew Omega upside down, like a mushroom with the curved asteroid umbrellad over the glowing red structures, but anyone who'd ever been there knew this was the bottom. The lowest of the low. So far down the air didn't circulate anymore and one wrong step into a still pocket could get you suffocated. The only things down here were the vast piles of refuse that had been tossed over the edges over the years, and the scavengers picking through it hoping for something of value.

And, Jack hoped, some fuckin' nao-ret worms.

"So… what?" she asked the batarian. "They like… vorcha, or something?"

"Yes. Vorcha scared of the bottoms. Worms think them very tasty."

Jack sighed. "Fuckin' perfect. I passed like twenty of those bastards on the way down here."

"They are scared of the bottoms," the batarian repeated. Silence seeped in as Jack stared out at the mountains of trash and filth. Somewhere out there was a big fuckin' worm thing, and she was going to catch it. But not without bait. She supposed the little alien might be lying to her to avoid being selected for the job, but it did fit. The vorcha did love them some filth, and probably could last longer down here without suffocating than anybody else, but there didn't seem to be any around. "Why are you after worm?"

Jack turned, halfway astonished that the alien was still talking. "Why not?" she asked. "They sound fuckin' cool." Technically, she was lying low. Her last gang hadn't… worked out, and now she had a small army of people after her. Nothing official – bounty hunters Omega-wide had learned by now that hers was not a bounty worth taking, and if Aria had ever given a shit about the destruction Jack caused, she hadn't shown it – just dozens of lowlifes out for vengeance or money or fame or something. It grew tiresome, killing them all. So she was taking a break down in the one place that even Omega looked down on.

And she was bored, so she was gonna try to catch her a giant worm. Why the fuck not? Nao-rets were supposed to be pretty nasty, with jaws that could split a hardsuit. Jack wanted to see one.

"Black and spindly," the batarian said. Jack wasn't sure if it was agreeing with her or not.

"Why are you still here?" she asked. "Go find your own fucking patch of good air or I'll use you as bait for a vorcha."

The batarian seemed to consider this. "There are no other patches," he said finally. "If I leave, I choke."

Jack snorted. "That what they told you?" she asked, punching one of the dead batarian's shoulders. "It's bullshit. There are a million safe spots." She pointed up at the big, rattling vent on the ceiling ten meters above them. "As long as you can see one of those things and it isn't blocked, the air's safe. Fuck." Jack looked away. She didn't know why she was telling him this. Nobody had told her these rules when she'd shown up here. If she'd sat in one spot and never moved she'd be fuckin' dead.

That thought made her feel angry and terrible all at once.

"Fuck, kid," she snarled, digging in her pocket for the dead batarian's cigarettes, if only for something to do. "You're gonna be dead meat so fuckin' fast."

"You killed Tarka."

"Yeah? Well I'm not fuckin' sorry. You shoulda killed him when he tried to tell you you couldn't leave. Fuck." She fumbled with the cigarette packaging. Batarian smokes made for a pretty shitty time, in her experience. No high at all. Didn't even take the edge off. Just tasted like you were eating a houseplant. "Always thought you fuckers were tough," she said, more to herself than to the batarian. "Then I find out you smoke fuckin' bamboo and call it a drug." She snorted, but all the same wrestled one of the cigarettes out, lit it, and took a deep, desperate drag. The taste of ash and chlorophyll filled her mouth. "Fuckin' weak shit," she complained, even though it was better than the rotted, dank air she'd been tasting for the last week or so.

"What am I supposed to do now?"

"I don't give a shit," Jack snarled, and took another draw. "Find some fucker out there. Kill him in his sleep and take his shit. Then get the hell out. Repeat." She coughed. "Don't let people like Tarka do that shit to you."

"But-"

"Go," Jack repeated, turning on him so fast he almost fell over backwards. She pointed out at the darkness. "GO."

The batarian stared at her with what she imagined were supposed to be pitiful eyes.

Blue flickered at her fingertips as her implant flared to life and she gave a quick jerk. The batarian had a moment to grunt as the gravity twisted him and he flew, skipping out into the darkness with a splash. Jack stood on her patch of safe ground and listened to him sputter out in the darkness, silently daring him to come back. She was being all fucking kinds of reasonable today and it was starting to piss her off.

"If I see you again I will fucking. Kill. You," she shouted into the darkness.

–

It turned out she lied.

Jack was a light sleeper when she slept at all. Her implant had a tendency to dig into her head whenever she laid on it too long. She'd usually awaken with knives tracing their way through her nerves and dreams of Cerberus surgeons tracing their way through her head.

But tonight she awoke to the sound of footsteps. They were quiet. Slow. Sneaking.

Her heart started to pound, but she lay still. Jack's eyes creaked open, just long enough to see the silhouette of a person emerging from the blackness. Even as her head leapt into battle, even as she felt the adrenaline hit, even she felt its big brother, whatever fucked up drug they'd put into her head to make her what she was, she fought to keep still. Stay still. Let them get close.

She let them come. Closer. Closer. Even breaths.

She felt a hand touch her boot.

She exploded into action in a millisecond, her arm sweeping low on a contrail of blue fire. She felt her palm make contact, felt the wet thwack of flesh and the satisfying crunch of a nose. Her opponent went down, rolling into the filthy water with an astonished shout.

Jack howled and went for the kill.

And then she stopped.

The batarian kid sputtered in the water, nose fountaining blood, all four eyes staring up at her in abject fear. Jack stared down at him through the blue of her own rage, until she saw the knife – the very knife she'd threatened him with earlier, had been pulled from her boot. It glinted in the biotic fire.

She extinguished it.

And she laughed. Her laughter (she noted with some pride) had a very malicious quality to it, even when there wasn't any malice there.

She picked up the batarian by his neck and dragged him up high enough to plant a knee in his gut and toss him back down.

"You," she said, kicking him roughly in the chest, "are a ballsy little fucker." She couldn't quite wipe the smile off her face as she gave him another kick to the crotch, and another on the shoulder, and one more on the chest. "Do not fuck with me," she said, landing another blow with each syllable just so it was perfectly clear. "Find some other fucker out there to kill in their sleep."

She gave one last kick, a good one, right into his belly, and then finally stopped. He groaned in a puddle at her feet as she picked up the fallen knife and held it up over him.

"Got it?" she asked.

He groaned weakly. Perhaps he thought she would butcher him right there. She hoped so.

But no. She stabbed the knife into the ground next to him. "Keep it," she grunted. Her little fuckin' protégé. What a thought.

She kicked him again.

Just for good measure.

9 years ago…

–

The quarians had not been hiding anything. That's what she'd decided.

Tali had been looking forward to working on the Liveship Golgi, even despite all the stories she'd heard about how hard the crews there worked you, how constant and oppressive their supervision was. Other than that, nobody ever wanted to talk about their time on the Liveships. Aunt Raan had been silent on the issue, telling her to be patient and she would see for herself. Tali had even tried to find her father to see if he would be any more forthcoming, but she'd hardly seen him since her mother died (she pretended it was because he was grieving but she knew that was a lie).

So she'd come to the Golgi fully believing the quarians had stashed away a piece of Rannoch in its heart, that there would be a little field of grass growing under an artificial sun, maybe speckled with a few flowers. And they'd let her sit on it on her breaks and she'd feel the life on her feet.

Raan had kept it from her to protect her hopes, but the funny thing was that her father would have told her the truth. There was no hidden paradise. There was no field or flowers or sun at all.

There were hundreds of great racks festering with moss. There was dripping, broiling heat that fogged her visor and gummed up her suit. There were rivers of sludge and waste and rotting plant matter being pumped back into the fermentators. The slurping of the pumps and the grinding of the bonding chalk being mixed in the lower decks was a pounding symphony that never, ever stopped, even when she turned her helmet's microphones all the way off.

Tali stood babysitting one of the pumps it as it siphoned a great festering pool of water through a rack of growing moss that, set on its side, would have covered more ground than five or six quarian homes back on the Rayya. She kept one hand on the flow valve more out of reflex than anything – her focus was fixed on picking the gunk out of the seals on her suit. It didn't matter how many racks she watered (this was the thirty-fourth today) she always managed to get splashed and her borrowed suit stuck to her skin and started to stink inside her helmet. Wiping the excess moisture off didn't help much but she found herself doing it anyway.

"Keelah," she muttered, wiping her fingers down her hips. When that only managed to transfer the mess to her hands, she tried wiping them across the moss mat. It was a nasty tangle of gray-green tendrils that reminded Tali of some of the alien horror movies she'd watched in the crèche, but it worked well enough as a napkin.

"Never thought nutrient paste could look any less appetizing, did you?"

Tali almost jumped at the voice, but smiled when she saw one of the guards she'd met on her first day on the Golgi. "Kal'Reegar nar… Ondra." She said, inadvertently smoothing her suit over her sides.

The marine inclined his head. "Ma'am." She could hear the smile in his voice. He was older – maybe four circuits to Tali's two-and-a-half – and taller than she was, and wearing a real suit, not the borrowed, clunky version she would wear until she'd stopped getting taller. The red plates were second-hand but Reegar had cleaned them up nicely and in fact looked rather dapper, even dripping with brownish water. Soon he would be off on his Pilgrimage, no doubt, where he could find some real grass to sit in.

Reegar approached the great wall of greenery and pulled a wispy strand out. "Don't think I'll ever look at that damn chalky crap we call food the same way again," he said. "Now that I know it started like this." He dropped it and watched it disappear down one of the floor drains.

"It's horrible here," Tali said.

Reegar looked at her. "It gets better, Ma'am," he promised. "They do grow stuff besides moss here. You eaten your fruit yet?" The Golgi's captain had promised that everyone on the ship got a piece of fresh fruit, though Tali had started to think that was a deception too.

She didn't say that. "No," she said instead.

Reegar's eyes lit up. "You will. It's worth it. I'd stay here ten more circuits for another one."

Tali smiled to see the marine's enthusiasm. "I look forward to it," she said, and meant it. She couldn't remember ever eating real food before. Half-formed memories of her mother feeding her little reddish fruits when she was half a circuit old danced in her head, but for the life of her she couldn't remember the taste. Only the powdery white gunk she'd eaten every meal since. "Of course, it might be a while. My father sent me here and he didn't say how long I'm staying. Knowing him I'll have my suit before he remembers to call me." She forced a laugh, trying to pretend she was joking.

Reegar didn't laugh back and the silence welled up between them. Tali found herself wringing her hands, mind clawing for something new to say, when the marine gathered her up and wrapped his arms around her. "I'm sorry about your mother," he said.

Tali felt her tears well up. It had been months, now, since they'd sent her mother to the ancestors, and the memory was still as raw as if it had been yesterday. She mumbled something – even she wasn't sure what – and hugged Reegar back. He felt very big, very strong up against her like that, and some part of her wanted to just stay there.

But that part of her was interrupted by a fountain of muck. A torrent of brownish, foamy water poured over the side of one of the raised reservoirs as the pump she was supposed to be minding lost its siphon and flooded. The two quarians were knocked to their backs by the force of falling water.

Tali maintained a long stream of cursing (Reegar pretended not to hear) as she fumbled her way to the valve controls and shut off the flow. The fountain sputtered and stopped and the two quarians were left dripping in the mess. Tali's eyes widened behind her helmet as she saw Reegar's beautiful suit blackened and soiled.

"Reegar… I"

Reegar jumped to his feet so fast Tali thought he might have been kicked. In an instant he was ramrod straight, saluting still as a statue.

Tali frowned. "Umm… Reegar? You don't have to salute me, I'm just-" She stopped as realization struck.

Of course he'd choose right now.

"He does have to salute me." Her father's voice was as stern and solid as always and Tali instantly knew he was not here to finally talk about her mother's death. Rael'Zorah looked as gleaming and perfect as usual, even ankle-deep in muddy water. He was polished and still, armored as if for battle, the shawl around his neck the only cosmetic bell on an otherwise perfectly utilitarian garb. He might as well have been a geth.

Tali felt her tongue rebel. "Father, I… I didn't bre-"

"Tali'Zorah. I will speak with you," he interrupted, in a tone of voice that brooked no further argument. Tali did not bother objecting, and just nodded meekly. He'd yelled at her before – probably more than he yelled at anyone else (and that was saying something). Tali could handle that. But she felt her heart descend about a foot when he turned his gaze on Reegar. Even a young, strong marine like Reegar seemed puny and insignificant next to Rael. "Kal'Reegar. The ship Ondra, yes?" he asked.

Reegar was still saluting. "Yes sir."

"Tell me, Kal'Reegar nar Ondra, what was your assignment?"

"I was to guard the growing chambers, sir."

"And does the Ondra teach its guards that they may set aside their duty at the first pair of hips they see?"

Tali's cheeks burned with shame. That wasn't… what they were doing. Reegar seemed to have lost his tongue too, for it took him several seconds to reply "No, sir."

"Just you, then?" Admiral Zorah sounded pleased. He took a step forward, staring into Reegar's mask with an authoritative air.

Reegar didn't move, even when the admiral's helmet almost touched his own. "Yes sir."

Rael stepped back. "Rest assured I will be speaking with Commander Gerrel about this," he said, turning to the pump mechanism and giving it a few subtle adjustments before turning the flow back to full. It reanimated smoothly, like new. He turned. "I will let him deal with disciplining you. For now, however, return to your post and see if you can complete your duty without any more talking, yes?"

Reegar nodded sharply. "Yes sir."

"Tali'Zorah!" Rael barked. "With me, now." Rael turned on one foot and marched away, Tali in tow. She tried to toss Reegar an apologetic look as she was led away, but if he saw it, she did not know.

–

Tali followed her father through the dark hallways of the Golgi, past great stacks of barreled-up nutrient paste, ready for export to the rest of the fleet, past rumbling pumps and fermentators that she knew would knock her out if she could smell them, past steel canisters of plant silage simmering with cultivated viruses, past aqueducts of waste water being skimmed on its way to the dialysis stations. Few quarians lived on the Golgi for more than a few months at a time – despite its massive size its permanent crew numbered only a hundred or so and so it lacked the dense honeycomb of dwelling cubicles that filled every meter of floorspace on the other ships Tali had visited.

It gave it a very dark, lonely air. Most quarians saw space as a mark of affluence – being afforded a home large enough to lay down in meant you mattered, meant you were worth the space you took to house – but the vast space in the Liveship just felt dreary. It wasn't worth living in, all dank and molded and lightless.

Of course, Tali figured she'd rather live down in the processing decks for a month than whatever her father would sentence her. Rael'Zorah rarely took a hand in guiding or punishing her himself, leaving it to Admiral Raan to dole out. Raan had told her he feared accusations of coddling or nepotism, but that had come as little consolation. When Rael did punish her, though, he was always his version of harsh and his version of fair and would sentence her to work some awful, filthy, difficult job that other quarians feared to take. Raan had told her that was because he believed difficulty was educational and would make Tali a better person, but that had come as little consolation either.

"I didn't break it," she tried again, breaking instead the silence that reigned over their footsteps. "It was just a-"

"Siphon leak. I know," her father grunted, and kept walking. "You were only distracted. No harm was done."

Tali didn't know what to say to that.

"It… it was childish of me," she said. "No harm was done but maybe next time… maybe next time the pump will break. Or what if there had been a pathogen in the water, it could…" She tried to imagine how a sickness might slip into their water supply, but it was hard to picture. The systems on the Liveships were very advanced, and while viruses were used in fertilizing crops, it was all done with enormous caution. "I endangered the Fleet."

Rael did not look at her. "Why are you telling me this, Tali'Zorah?" he asked. He reached the door to the Captain Ala'brih's quarters, which the captain had ceded to him as a gesture of respect for his visit, and pushed open the door. "Do you want me to punish you?" He rapped the seat of a stool. "Sit," he commanded.

Tali sat, feeling more and more confused. Ala'brih's quarters were a little nicer than hers – his bed was a few inches longer and he had a little shelving unit stacked with datapads and consoles – but all the same it was hardly big enough for Rael to turn around and fetch a small lockbox. He fiddled with the latches without speaking.

Tali moved on to her next guess. "I didn't ask Reegar to hug me," she said. "We were just talking." She hesitated. "…I don't like him," she lied.

"Gerrel speaks highly of him," Rael said absently. "He would be a good mate, in time."

Tali felt her cheeks warming again. Luckily she was spared the need to elaborate when Rael opened his box and pulled out a flat metal object a little bigger than his palm. He sat on the bed and held it out to her.

She took it and turned it around in her fingers. It was a disk of some kind, jet black and smoothly beveled. Tali recognized tiny projector lenses imbedded into the metal, along with a set of ebony buttons that had been polished by what looked like thousands of fingers. "A holo projector?" she asked, feeling its weight – it was heavy.

Rael was silent.

She ran her fingers over the disk's edge, feeling the tiny carvings there. They were worn too, but intricate and gorgeous.

"It is one of your ancestors," Rael said finally. "Your mother's family. From before the war."

Tali's eyes widened, realization dawning. She had been told how the ancient quarians had once immortalized their dead by reforming their personalities and wisdom in advanced VI programs. She had been told how the geth had razed the databanks, the thousands of ancients' minds who were lost in the blaze of the Morning War.

"Does it work?"

"No," Rael said. "I tried to fix it. I tried to-" He stopped. "When your mother died-" he stopped again. The great Rael'Zorah did not blubber or cry. He only fell silent. All the same Tali could almost feel his sorrow. Raan had always told her how fiercely Rael had loved his wife, but she had never believed it until now. Nothing else had ever stilled his tongue. "I want you to have it," he concluded, voice quiet.

Tali held it to her chest. "What do you want me to do with it?"

"Do what you will," Rael said, standing. The moment was over. "Do not show it too openly if you do not wish to see it taken from you," he warned. "There are many who would be upset to think any of them still existed."

Tali thought about trying to hug him but thought better of it. "Th… thank you, Father."

Rael did not say anything, and she took her cue to leave. She was halfway out the door when his voice stopped her.

"Tali'Zorah?" he said.

She turned.

He was already occupied reading a datapad. "You will learn to be more attentive," he said, not looking up. "As punishment for your negligence, you will be moved to the fermentators for ten days of forced labor, where you will learn what might have happened had you left that pump to flood."

4 years ago…

–

Garrus waited in the hall outside the Executor's office and prepared for the worst. It was not to be a good day – he'd spent much of the morning enduring his partner Anla's rage (frankly, he was astonished that she hadn't tossed him through a wall with her biotics), and if the angry tones coming through Pallin's door were any indication, the yelling was only just begun. Pallin was pissed – Garrus had chosen a bad day to disobey orders. He'd be lucky if he didn't lose his job.

On the other hand, if he was fired his father would kill him, so at least he wouldn't have to find a new job.

Garrus smiled grimly at that idea.

He told himself he wasn't sorry. Whatever Pallin said, or Anla said, or even his father said, he had done the right thing. If they had been there behind his scope – seen the asari girl's terrified eyes, the bony turian arm around her neck, the blade at her throat – they would understand. They would have taken the shot.

Still, when Pallin's door finally slid open Garrus nearly jumped out of his seat.

"Officer Vakarian," Pallin's voice was dangerously quiet, "have a seat."

Garrus swallowed his reservations and filed obediently into Pallin's office. The executor looked about as he expected – his mandibles flickered in barely-restrained anger – but Garrus nearly stopped when he noticed the stranger. Another turian, tall and armored in imposing gray plates, stood silently behind Pallin, his arms crossed behind his back. His face was skeletal and free of clan markings, and while Pallin did not look up at Garrus as he entered the room, the stranger's eerie cybernetic eyes followed him intently. Garrus suppressed a shudder.

"Sirs," Garrus said quietly, bowing his head in deference to each of them. He took a seat.

Pallin let him stew in silence for several minutes. Garrus looked pointedly at his feet, but he could feel the stranger's penetrating gaze on him at all times. It made him feel a little uneasy. Transparent, guilty even. Eventually Pallin took pity on him and broke the quiet.

"Is Sergeant Anla's report accurate?" Pallin asked, not looking up.

"I do not know Sir," Garrus said. "I have not read it."

"It describes your stakeout at Vaikul Crinn's office last night. It describes how you violated Sergeant Anla's commands and fired upon the target while he held a high-profile hostage, without proper authorization, and before the building had been adequately surrounded. It goes on to describe how your doing so allowed the criminal to escape through a maintenance tunnel until Anla was able to subdue him. Is all this true?"

"It is true," Garrus confirmed, sneaking a glance up at the stranger. He was still staring. "Though I feel it may be incomplete without referencing how I saved the girl's life."

"That is not what I see here!" Pallin shouted, suddenly furious. He jabbed angrily at the report on his desk. "I see recklessly endangering her life! I see nearly allowing her captor's escape! What if you had hit the girl? Her mother would have sued us both out of existence! What if he had panicked and killed her then and there!"

"Hard to do with only one hand." Garrus and Pallin wore identical looks of surprise as the stranger stepped forward and took the datapad from Pallin's hand. His voice was quiet and brimming with dark competence. "Took the knife right out of his grip from four hundred meters," the stranger observed. "Must have been a spectacular shot."

Garrus felt a glimmer of hope at the idea of being rescued. The stranger was imposing, with huge frills and metal joints, but at least somebody was willing to complement Garrus hitting what he figured was a damn near impossible target.

"Please, Saren," Pallin said, voice suddenly a great deal more respectful. "Garrus does not lack for skill. He lacks for discipline!"

"And the perpetrator was apprehended," Saren continued, unaffected. His cybernetic gaze flitted back up to Garrus' face. "How did you determine Vaikul was the kidnapper?" Garrus found himself momentarily tongue-tied. He glanced at Pallin, who gave him an almost imperceptible nod. Who was this Saren, whose simple presence made Pallin so spineless?

"I, uh..." he cleared his throat, "I looked through the room service charges at the hotel where the girl went missing. Noticed he'd ordered a few hundred credits' worth of L-amino food. Assumed it could be for the girl." Saren said nothing – did not even give a smile of approval. He just continued staring into Garrus with his empty eyes, as if trying to look right through him.

After a moment, Pallin spoke up again. "At C-Sec there are ways of doing things, Garrus," he said, clearly trying to pretend Saren had not interrupted. "Reasons behind doing them that way. We expect our officers, however skilled, to abide by the rules."

Garrus felt emboldened. "If I had 'abided by the rules' and done nothing that girl would be dead," he said petulantly.

"Then she'd be dead!" Pallin roared, standing up. "That doesn't change anything! These rules keep thousands of people safe and happy every day, and you will follow them! And the next time you don't, I will throw your ass on the street! I don't care if you are Atus' son!"

"This is the son of Atus Vakarian?" Saren asked, his quiet imperviousness in stark contrast to Pallin's rage. His voice somehow seemed to drown out the Executor with ease. Pallin didn't answer, but Saren didn't seem to care. He just stared at Garrus. Measuring him. Pondering.

"I am," Garrus admitted after a moment, trying to get Saren to move on, to move his horrible eyes. Saren didn't. He stared. The seconds seemed to drip by, and Garrus wondered what was going through the strange turian's mind.

"Well at least he shares his father's commitment to justice," Saren finally concluded, and the tension broke.

3 years ago…

–

Sweat beaded on Jacob's forehead, dripping down to the loam below.

"Tensely. Hut."

The tension was palpable. Jacob adjusted his footing and breathed deeply.

"Tensely. Hut."

The woman in front of him was sweat-stained, her previously-neat bun fraying about her shoulders now, but lean and beautiful. Still, Jacob kept his eye on the prize. The ball in her hands.

"With mounting drama." Wunya said. The drama mounted.

…

"Hike."

The brown-haired woman snapped the ball back in an instant, making a thwack as it landed in the elcor's solid palm.

Everyone crashed forward, slamming into their opposites as Wunya took a few ponderous, ground-shaking steps backwards, his little eyes filled with determination. Jacob ended up forearm to forearm with the woman soldier and pushed her back with all his strength, making a beeline for the elcor. The woman was stronger than she looked, though, and dug her feet in, slamming an elbow into Jacob's midsection and knocking him back just long enough that Wunya started to move.

And once Wunya started to move, he didn't stop. Wunya was always the quarterback when the 212th played.

It had taken some time before they'd managed to convince the elcor to play at all – the vast alien had adapted to his new life on Eden Prime well but remained convinced that now that he was helping the Alliance every task was of life-or-death urgency, no matter how much his marine friends tried to explain otherwise. Still, after eight months of guard duty on a farm world where the worst threat they'd faced was a girl's pet gasbag getting caught inside a generator, even the paranoid elcor had been convinced that they could play a game without worrying about another Skyllian Blitz.

Now the alien was hooked, and every time Cadence's power went out (at least weekly, to the soldiers' great irritation), he made his ponderous way out to the fields to wait for the soldiers. They'd found him there again today when the fans had died in the barracks and the heat had overwhelmed them.

"Get him!" Jacob shouted, managing to wheel the woman to one side and make a dive for Wunya as he plodded by. It was like diving into a brick wall but the soldiers did it anyway, leaping onto the elcor's towering back in yet another futile attempt to weigh him down before he made it to the end of the field. Jacob saw Major Izunami wrapped around one of Wunya's massive forearms, muscles bulging as he tried to pry the ball out of the elcor's thick fingers, but Wunya held firm.

Half of Wunya's team had turned traitor and joined in by the time Wunya crossed the endzone, dragging thirty people behind him. Both teams were breathless with laughter as the elcor set the ball daintily down on the grass.

"Amused. Touchdown," Wunya reported, turning to look at the collapsed soldiers with twinkling eyes.

"Good play, Wunya," Jacob said, panting as he disentangled himself from the other soldiers.

"Proudly. I have been practicing."

Jacob laughed and patted the alien's sweaty flank. "I can tell, Wunya, I can tell," he said. "You're a force to be reckoned with. There's still room for improvement, though."

The alien's brows rose on his wide face. "Anxiously. There is?"

Jacob nodded, edging towards the ball at Wunya's feet. "Solemnly," he said, "you're a little too trusting."

Wunya did not have time to say "Confused" as Jacob snatched the ball from the ground and took off in the other direction, leaving a chorus of cheering behind him. Jacob tore down the field, muscles burning and lungs pumping like bellows. A few of the other players launched themselves at him but he was too quick and pivoted around them, squeezing his way through and laughing.

He stopped five meters from the endzone and turned to gloat back at the crowd, holding the ball triumphantly over his head.

Big mistake.

A tanned missile crashed around his midsection so hard he felt the air forced out of his lungs. He fell backwards into the grass, nearly losing hold of the ball as the brown-haired woman leapt for it. For a moment he felt like he was back in battle again as the woman wrapped one arm around his neck while she pried at his white-knuckled grip on the ball with the other.

"Oh hell no," he grunted, and twisted in her grasp, turning onto his belly. The endzone was not two meters away. He started to get up, only to have the woman toss her weight onto his upper back, dragging him back down into the grass.

Biotics then. If elcor weren't against the rules, neither was manipulating gravity.

He pushed her, watching the blue curl around her body, and managed to yank her arms off of him. The woman gave a pained oof as she went rolling.

Jacob scrambled to his feet and made a mad dash for the endzone.

He made it half a meter before she crashed down on him again. He gritted his teeth, trying to keep the ball from her long enough to drag out another biotic wave.

Then she kissed him. It was short – just a peck – but it caught Jacob so off guard that he hardly realized what had happened until the woman had ripped the ball from his hands and tossed it back towards the center of the field.

–

They were still laughing when the scientist came running onto the field, calling for help. He was breathing hard when he reached the soldiers, his white lab jumpsuit stained to the knees by grass and stuck to his back by sweat.

Jacob leapt to his feet in an instant. "What happened?" The man leaned up against him, still choking on his breath as the rest of the 212th gathered.

"Need… Need help," he panted, leaning down on his knees. "Dr. Warren. New dig manager. Wants… wants you. Dig site. Something happened."

Jacob looked to Izunami, who gave a foreboding nod. "Taylor. Go with him."

The man thanked Izunami profusely and turned back the way he came, but hardly made it five feet before stumbling. Jacob caught him by the elbow and hoisted him back to his feet. "You alright?"

The scientist mumbled something incoherent.

Jacob patted him on the back. "I know where the dig site is. Warren will be there?" The man nodded, mouthing ineffectually. "Do I need radiation gear?" The man shook his head. Jacob nodded his understanding and passed the panting man to Bhatia, then turned and headed back for the barracks.

He was only halfway surprised to see the brown-haired woman following him. He didn't acknowledge her presence as the two of them reached the end of the fallow field they'd been using for their games. They passed the barn-shaped home the farmers had built for Wunya and entered the warehouse-turned-barracks that had been Jacob's home for the past eight months. The power was still off and the interior was dark as Jacob forced open the normally-automatic door and stepped inside.

"You guys have extra guns, right?" the woman asked as Jacob went searching for a clean shirt.

"Doubt we'll need 'em," Jacob said.

The woman ignored him. Even in the dark he could see the determined set of her jaw. "Where are they?"

Jacob shrugged and pointed. "Far end of the room are a few spares. Key is one-one-three-nine."

The woman came back with two Avenger rifles, tossing one to Jacob. He himself hadn't used such a large gun since he'd aced the Alliance's program and turned down his N5, but it settled into his hands like he'd been born with it. They left the barracks, drawing the doors closed behind them.

Without power, the rail systems that the farmers used to move everything from crops to heavy machinery were out, so the two of them walked, following the rail lines down to where the builders had been constructing a new geothermal power plant dedicated to stopping the blackouts in Cadence Station. The sun was high in the sky, the heat and humidity stifling as they walked.

"My grandmother taught me always to learn a lady's name before I kissed her," Jacob said when the silence had become too much.

The woman grinned. "I kissed you," she reminded him. "Williams, Ashley. Err… Ashley Williams."

Jacob shook her hand. "I'm-"

"Jacob Taylor. I know. The biotic." Jacob nodded. He'd long ago gotten used to the infamy that came with being the only biotic soldier in the 212th. Some of his fellow soldiers had been distant at first, but he'd gotten to know them and now most were like family. Even soldiers from other garrisons like Ashley had apparently gotten used to the idea. Ashley flashed him a smile. "Reddy said you hit like a wuss."

Jacob's eyebrow curled. "Do I?"

She rolled her shoulders and cracked her neck with a series of noisy pops. "Pretty much."

They reached the construction site and could tell immediately that something was wrong. Jacob could see Ashley stiffen as they passed a parked medevac, its white-and-red engines idling. The smell of burning plastic filled the air. The two of them traded a significant glance as they passed a silent earthmover, empty except for the small fire smoldering on its console.

One of the construction workers took one look at them and pointed them down into the tunnels where the plant's foundations were being dug. Jacob thanked him as he rushed off, holding a cloth over his face.

They followed the maintenance tunnels down. Clearly the power was out here as well – light fixtures were dark from where bulbs had shattered in their sockets. Strings of emergency lights had been stretched down the tunnel and cast everything in an eerie glow. Abandoned tools littered the floor, and not just digging supplies but laboratory tools. Scanners and glassware and robotic samplers. Every step Jacob took made the heat cling to him and the smell grow worse, until he pulled the hem of his shirt up to cover his mouth.

It felt like an oven before they reached the end and found Dr. Warren. She was obviously not a construction worker in her white laboratory smock. The woman's short red hair and blue eyes were all that peeked out from around her gasmask, but all the same Jacob could see the exhaustion in her face.

But he didn't move to help her. He just stared, mouth agape.

At the far end of the chamber was a tower of machinery unlike any he had ever seen. Ten feet tall and made of what looked like a cross between polished steel and ceramic, it rose from the soil like a tower. It was spotless, like it had been taken out of a clean room, and even the tiny, decorative grooves that ran along its front edge were sharp and perfect.

It was undeniably, monstrously alien, and Jacob felt drawn to it.

"Don't get too near it," Warren warned, not looking up. "It's hot."

It was hot. Jacob took another step towards it, feeling the air in front of him boil. When he looked close, he could see where the soil near the spire had been scorched white. Some of it still glowed like a dying fire. What had looked perfect and unbreakable from across the room was not so as he neared – the artifact was melting too, its outer layers dribbling away to reveal green stone circuitry beneath.

"W-what is it?" he found himself asking.

Warren sighed. "I wish I knew."

"It's prothean," Ashley said. She did not sound impressed.

Warren nodded. "Yes, yes. Prothean tech." She looked distant. Her voice wavered.

"What happened?"

Warren looked up at him as if she had only just realized he was here. "Thank the Maker you're here," she said, suddenly frantic. "It… it blew up!" She stared at the alien device, brows screwed up in horror. "The beacon… it attacked!"

"What do you mean? What is a beacon?"

"It's… I don't know what it is. They dug it up a few days ago. I only got called here yesterday." She looked frantically between them, eyes lingering on the guns in their grips. "I want you two to guard it. Until it can be moved."

"We c-"

"I told them it was dangerous!" Warren said, not looking at them now. "I told them I couldn't stop this sort of thing. I told them to let me call T'Soni."

"Dr. Warren!" Ashley interrupted, grabbing the woman's shoulders. "What happened?"

Warren seemed to melt under the steel of Ashley's gaze. Her eyes watered. "It defended itself," she said. "I don't know what they were doing down here but it… it turned on. They took Manuel to Constant for treatment. He was ranting and screaming like I've never seen before."

Jacob looked at the beacon. It seemed quiet enough, but now the heat billowing off of it had a menacing feel to it. He could not help but miss the half-melted pickaxe on the ground next to it.

"The other man wasn't so lucky," Warren whispered. "He shouldn't have been down here. I told them it was dangerous."

"So it's a defense system," Jacob said.

Warren shook her head. "No. No, I don't think so. It blew up half the site's generators and melted itself clean through," she gestured to the hole in the beacon. "It's probably ruined. I think it was… calling for help."

Jacob stared at it. "A prothean cellphone calling for help," he said, forcing a grin. "Fifty thousand years too late, huh?"

Warren favored him an ingenuine smile.

Ashley did not.

2 years ago…

–

Kasumi had never stepped foot on Earth, but that's where she was now.

The grass was greener and finer than any grass she'd ever seen. The sun was yellow and small, the sky blue-white and filled with puffy clouds. She was in a park – as best she could figure – watching a blonde family on a picnic. Everything was amusingly optimized, from the mother's plastered-on smile to little Suzie's perfect curls to Bobby's 'gee-whiz, Dad' attitude. She couldn't turn her head more than a little – the memory only looked on from this one angle – but still she imagined she was really there, really back on Earth, really watching this saccharine scene in person.

The scene ended. She restarted it with a mental command that sent a little click through her head.

The grass was back, greener and finer than any grass she'd ever seen. The sun yellow and small, the sky blue-white, and so on. Maybe Suzie's curls were less perfect this time, though. Maybe it looked a little different. Maybe the acting wasn't so obvious. Keiji had told her memories – even raw visual data like the sample files they'd included on her brand new Graybox – would change over time as her mind added to them. Never reduced, just enhanced. She turned her head. Maybe a little farther, this time.

The scene ended. She restarted it.

She supposed she'd watched the family picnic more than a hundred times already, but there was little else to do, stuck in bed and blindfolded as she was. The only other files the manufacturer had left on the Graybox's drive were the manual and terms of service and an annoying asari jingle that she'd already had stuck in her head before going under the knife in the first place. There would be no losing it now.

The scene ended again. She restarted it.

This time the picnic was interrupted by a knocking sound from up above, hollow and metallic, and Kasumi dismissed the rest with a wave. Back to the real world for a while. Keiji was home.

With some effort she rolled onto one side, ignoring the wave of nausea, and stretched her arm out to brush a hand across the control panel on the wall. It gave a happy beep and a deep clack echoed through the tiny room as the hatch above opened. Kasumi settled back into her sheets, smiling as she listened to her partner's footsteps descending the ladder.

"You didn't ask for the code word," Keiji observed.

Kasumi could hear the disapproval in his voice. She shrugged, rolling over to face him. "Who else would you be?"

Kasumi felt the mattress sag as Keiji sat on the edge of her bed. In a moment his hands were on hers. "We have enemies, Kasumi. And you're not exactly in top form right now."

She didn't need reminding how weird it was not to be wearing her suit for more than a week straight. The pajamas she was wearing were upsettingly visible and hid a lot fewer weapons and tricks than her usual wardrobe. Still, she did have a pistol squirreled away in the crack next to the bed – she liked to think she could shoot an intruder coming down the hatch, blindfolded or not.

"Who else would be poking around a dirty old crate like this on Bekenstein at this hour?" she asked, squeezing his hand. It was a good question – as slick and comfortable as the tiny cubicle that served as one of their secret bases of operations was, from the outside it looked like a simple shipping container, rusted and dented with overuse. Kasumi had even painted "Warning: Recycled Municipal Waste" on the side, along with a few skull-and-crossbones for good measure.

Keiji helped Kasumi rise to a sitting position. She felt his hands at her face, working with the strap on her headband. It lifted away, flooding her vision with near-blinding light wreathed around Keiji's omnipresent paternal look of caution. "Kasumi," he said, in that tone of voice that meant he was not going to let it drop.

Kasumi sighed. "Fine. I'll be careful. Codewords from now on." She kissed his nose. "I promise."

He smiled at that. "How are you feeling?" he asked, taking off his hat and pulling a tiny flashlight out of one of his uniform's coat pockets.

"Still a little loopy," she admitted, sitting still so he could shine the light in each eye.

"No problems seeing?"

"Other than that you're making me wear a blindfold all day? No."

Keiji ignored her jibe. "Head pain?"

She shook her head.

"Want me to lower your painkillers?"

Kasumi grinned toothily. "Not on your life, Okuda." She crossed her eyes and stared blankly up at the ceiling. "This stuff is fuuuuun. I'm trying to save a memory of the drugs but it isn't working."

"Grayboxes don't really do that," he said, rising and shedding his coat before tossing it over the jeweler's tools on their narrow writing desk.

"Now you tell me," Kasumi said, scooting back until her shoulders rested against the wall so she could watch Keiji rifle through his work briefcase. While Kasumi had spent the last ten days bedridden after brain surgery, he'd managed to get himself a job at a fancy jewelry store that was the only K-AG holding they'd managed to find in the area. He'd been selling diamonds to spoiled women and asari, kissing the right asses and pretending to be normal, all the while keeping his eyes out for Kasumi's newest hunch. She knew he hated pretending to be someone he wasn't, but he wanted to clean out Hock as much as she did. Besides, he looked rather fetching in his purple salesman uniform and little matching hat. "Did you find the rings?"

Keiji creaked a mischievous eyebrow and pulled a tiny felt bag out of his suitcase. "Of course," he said. He'd been staying up late at night making fake rings to put in the stolen ones' places. Keiji Okuda was very much a perfectionist, and probably spent near as much duplicating the rings as the real ones were worth in the first place, but it didn't do to be incautious.

He took a kneel beside her bed and handed her the bag, which clinked in her hands until she dumped it out between them. Gold and silver and gems of all colors spilled out onto the sheets, filling the room with a gleam not half so bright as the gleam in Kasumi's eyes. She had always loved treasure. She ran her hand across the rings, hundreds of thousands of credits' worth of them, rolling them beneath her palm and just enjoying the feel of the cold metal.

Keiji held one up to her to examine. "This one," he said, turning it in the light. A trio of emeralds imbedded in a silver band, with a gold filigree. Kasumi took it and slipped it on her finger. It was beautiful.

"No," she said, slipping it back off. She put it aside. "It's too small."

Keiji frowned. "You said it was emerald on silver."

"I said I thought it was emerald on silver," she reminded him, picking up the next ring and trying it on. "This was, if you'll recall, before you finally let me have my Graybox." This new ring was beautiful as well. Sapphires on crown gold, with little birds carved around the band. Kasumi examined it closely, trying to remember if it matched the one she'd stolen off of Sasha Santiago. It was pretty, but not quite right. She set it aside and moved on.

The ring she'd taken from the Santiago girl had been rich. She was sure of that. And that the girl had been seen going in and out of Kirkwall AstroGeology's office at least twice per week – along with her convenient new position as Donovan Hock's new trophy girlfriend – made it seem likely it had come from the one jewelry store Keiji had been able to find that sold gems from Kirkwall's operations.

Keiji and Kasumi had been trying to figure out just what the connection between Hock and Kirkwall AstroGeology was for the better part of a year now. Ever since Kasumi had seen Hock at one of the mayor's galas, she'd known he had something to hide. Of course, if he had not he would have been a rarity on Bekenstein, but somehow she had known it went deeper than that. Hock was very public with his associations with a number of mercenary groups, though he vehemently denied funding them and only admitted to selling them large quantities of his company's weapons and technology. Still, he was only one of many arms dealers on Bekenstein, but had risen to wealth and prominence in less than five years, leaving many of his competitors in the dust. When the man had built himself a vast estate in one of Bekenstein's wealthiest neighborhoods and staffed it with an Eclipse security force, Keiji had gone undercover and dug up the right ledgers, confirming Kasumi's suspicion – Hock was getting a massive, off-the-books income from someone . He had a fortune, and it was the sort of fortune he couldn't admit to the police, let alone report stolen. Add that to his love for expensive art and other fineries and he was a delicious target for a heist.

Then he'd started his alliance with Kirkwall AstroGeology – a tiny, theretofore-unknown mining company operating on low-risk asteroids well within heavily surveyed Citadel Space – and things had gotten confusing. Hock had been championing Kirkwall without a clear motivation and Keiji and Kasumi had become convinced it had something to do with his secret incomes, but for all they'd seen the man was hemorrhaging money on the smaller company's behalf, even buying lavish rings from them every few days for his girlfriend.

Kasumi tried the next ring, trying to imagine it on the Santiago girl's well-manicured hands and ignoring Keiji's impatient expression. She'd stolen the girl's ring on one of her many scouting trips to Hock's various properties. It had been a petty thing, the kind of stupid victory that could only have hampered their long-term efforts to rob Hock of everything he owned – but she had been unable to resist.

And then she'd realized it was a fake and snuck it back into the girl's pocket.

It was not until she was being prepped for her Graybox surgery that she'd had an epiphany.

The key was the Santiago girl. They just needed that damn ring back. Or one like it.

But now, with a gulf of anesthesia between her and the last time she'd seen the ring, Kasumi could hardly remember it. She went through the entire pile, one after the other, some worth more than Keiji had spent to make their hidden crate bases, but none of them felt right.

"Maybe you're too focused on the color," Keiji suggested. "If you're right and they're using synthetic gems to smuggle information, maybe the color's even changed. Maybe close your eyes again. Maybe the weight will be more familiar."

Kasumi grabbed her blindfold and slipped it back over her eyes. She held out a hand.

"I assume you tried the real one on?"

Kasumi smiled, wiggling her fingers. "Of course."

She felt Keiji slip a ring on, sliding it gently up. The smooth metal was pleasantly cool against her skin. She flexed her fingers, testing the weight. Feeling the band with her thumb.

"No," she said. "Not this one. Too light. Another one." Keiji pulled the ring off and replaced it with another. This one was heavier. "Maybe," she said. "Another one." She tried to empty her mind and just intuit what she needed, and contemplated pulling up that damn asari song again just to distract herself.

But then another thought distracted her. "You know," she said, as Keiji slipped a new ring onto her hand, "it's customary, when a man kneels like this, to put the ring on the ring finger," she said, face neutral and blush carefully controlled.

"If I were asking you to marry me, I'd be sure to do just that," he said.

Kasumi chewed her lip. "You could…"

"Kasumi… " Keiji's voice was quiet as he reached for the next ring. "We've talked about this."

"We've talked about a lot of things."

"We can't have that life right now, Kasumi. We live in a shipping container."

"Together," Kasumi pointed out.

"That turian broke my nose," Keiji joked.

"Makes you look tough." She heard Keiji's sigh as he took her newest ring and put it with the others. When he didn't say any more, she frowned. "A lesser girl might be insulted, Okuda," she said. It was petulant but she didn't care. "How long have we been together?"

She felt his hands grasp hers. "It isn't an insult, 'Sumi. I love you. I do."

"Just not enough?"

Keiji sighed again. "Fine. I'll ask, if it means so much to you. But you have to promise to say no."

Kasumi nodded. "I promise," she lied.

"Kasumi…"

"I promise!" She pulled off her blindfold and gave him her most honest look even as she woke up her Graybox for its first stored memory.

He looked her full in the eyes when he asked her, and even though she said 'yes' he looked happy to hear it. Her head lurched when she dove into his arms but she didn't care.

33 years ago…

–

Vido had always told him he had trouble making friends, but Zaeed liked to think he was just really good at making enemies. The barrel of a pistol nestled itself against the back of his neck.

"You want to say that again?"

Zaeed just grinned. "Missin' your ears and your balls, huh?" he slurred, pausing to toss back the rest of his drink. The empty glass made a nice dramatic thud against the counter as he twisted around on the stool to give his cockiest grin.

He'd found the Kroganshead bar nestled under a grove of dead baobabs, smack in the middle of Tshane's biggest mercenary staging ground. He'd been talking to farmers and thugs all morning to no avail. Nobody in the entire district had even seen a working spacehip, let alone had one to sell. It was just like Tshabong all over again, and Zaeed was getting tired of asking. So when the Kroganshead's sign had jumped out at him – boasting the strongest drinks and the toughest men, no less – he hadn't hesitated to call it a day.

Now he was half drunk and half broke. And he had made some new enemies.

"Alright," he said, staring up at the brute who held him at gunpoint. "I said you're a bloody liar. That," he pointed up at the so-called krogan skull nailed up above the bar that gave the joint its name, "is a fake. Not one man in this bar is man enough to have even seen a krogan. Let alone killed one." He motioned for another drink, blowing a few lazy locks of hair out of his eyes.

"I ought to kill you for that," the man with the gun rumbled. He was a big, ugly bastard, face pocked with little scars that made his broken nose seem all the broken-er, but a looker next to the two goons dogging his shadow. He was armored, as many of the mercs still scavenging the southern half of the continent were, in repainted CASAI gear. After the coalition had broken up, its substantial private armies had been left with nowhere to go, and had split into a hundred factions.

"I don't rec-anize any of you mates," Zaeed said, accepting the glass the bartender slid his way with no more salutation than he'd given the gun in his face. "Logo on the shoulder's new to me too."

The gunman forced a grin, showing yellowed teeth. "We're Spacers."

He said it like he expected it to mean something to Zaeed, but Zaeed just shrugged. "Another two-bit CASAI merc army with a logo then," he concluded, sipping his drink. "Any of you Spacers been to space yet?"

The gunman growled. "Ain't got a ship yet, but Marko has. He says the aliens up there are ripe for pickin'"

Zaeed just shrugged. The Spacers weren't alone in that belief. It'd been half a year since the war with the skullfaces had ended, but still nobody on Earth seemed to know just what was going on up there. Vido told them it would be opportunity, though. More than they'd ever see on Earth. "And… Marko," Zaeed said, "he's the one who saw the krogan?"

"Yeah." The gunman lifted his pistol long enough to point to the bleached skull above the bar. "That one."

Zaeed looked up, brushing his bangs out of his eyes again. "That one, huh?"

"That one," the Spacers confirmed, looking extremely proud of themselves.

Zaeed squinted at it with his remaining eye. "The one that's a… cow jawbone and the back half of a crocodile skull?" The macabre trophy did look somewhat otherworldly, it was true, but there was a reason the owner had put it up so high it couldn't be easily seen.

The gunman scowled and jabbed Zaeed with the gun barrel, pressing it just south of his Adam's apple until it left a red mark. "Who the fuck do you think you are?" he growled.

Zaeed's mismatched eyes darted from the man's reddening face to the other end of the bar and back. Vido had told him not to cause trouble. 'The Blue Suns don't need that kind of publicity,' he'd said. They would need to cultivate more respect than that if they didn't want to just end up like every other gang of thugs out there.

But screw it. Publicity was Vido's job. Jessie was still in her case on the floor, and Zaeed toed her under the bar and out of harm's way as he stood up. "I'm a Blue Sun," he growled proudly, staring up into the Spacer's piggy little eyes, and tossed the remains of his drink in the man's face for good measure. "And I'm the only bastard in here who's seen real krogan."

It had a predictable response. The gun went off just inches from Zaeed's head as the man sputtered. Even over the ringing in his ear, Zaeed could hear the bar fall silent, as well as the sound of the first bottle he could reach bashing down on one of the goons' heads. The man went down with a satisfying crash.

But then the other goon had him around the neck, and the gunman's pistol came down on his skull so hard he almost lost his false eye. Zaeed saw stars explode in front of his vision. He howled in pain as the Spacers dragged him down to his knees on the bar's floor. The leader's boot slammed into his stomach hard enough that Zaeed almost forgot to breathe, while the conscious goon gave him another hook to the face.

Zaeed was bloodied and beaten before the men finally stopped, his nose and head throbbing and his breath coming in short gasps. He could feel the dust sticking to slick of blood over his broken nose. The gunman's pistol reintroduced itself to the back of his head one final time, and this time he had nothing smug to say.

"Tell us the story, little 'Blue Sun'," the big man growled, grinning. "Tell us about 'real' krogan you saw, if you're so sure." He had a fistful of Zaeed's hair in his free hand and gave it a good yank, jerking Zaeed's head back and dragging him up to a kneeling position.

"You… got it," Zaeed grunted, licking bloodied lips. "It was a few months ago, right after they pulled out of Sudan. CASAI recalled us to Johannesburg for new orders. Saw a few of the lizards outside one of the ships." He swallowed heavily. "They're bigger than that, for one thing," he said, gesturing to the faked skull on the wall with his chin. "Bigger and meaner. A good two feet taller than anyone in here. And they hate humans. Hardly saw 'em and one was already trying to rob me. Told me to give him everything I had."

The men grinned. "Did you do it?"

"Hell yes I did," Zaeed said, unashamed. "His arm was bigger around than my whole goddamn body. I gave him my money, my favorite knife. Goddamn near everything. Don't think he even wanted any of it, just wanted to take it."

"Some story," the Spacer leader said, rolling his eyes.

"But then he told me to hand over Jessie," Zaeed said.

"You took a woman to a merc base?"

Now Zaeed rolled his eyes. "What would a krogan want with a human girl, you dumb asshole? No. My Jessie. My favorite goddamn thing in the world. Had her in a case on my back. Big bastard points to her, tells me to hand her over. I think so, anyway." The bar was silent, listening to him talk. "I said he could kiss my ass and he broke my arm in three places." Zaeed shrugged his right shoulder, remembering how his arm had seemed like so much putty in the krogan's thick hands.

"Woulda been dead," Zaeed admitted, "but the stupid bastard dropped me for dead and tried to take Jessie. Grabbed my knife with my good hand, stabbed out his eye, and ran like a little bitch."

"Bullshit," the Spacer leader insisted.

Zaeed shrugged. "Look it up. CASAI put the krogan down."

The bar was silent, and Zaeed caught a glimmer of movement behind the Spacer.

"That krogan barely flinched when I stuck my knife in him," he said, staring into the man's eyes. He rose to his feet and the Spacer allowed it, though his hand remained firmly entangled in Zaeed's hair and his gun to his throat. "They don't give a shit what you do to them. Your buddy Marko is bullshitting you if he said he put so much as a dent in one."

The man looked impressed, despite himself. "And then what happened?"

Zaeed stared at him and grinned. "Then I kicked around for a few months until I got pistolwhipped by some little bitchass in a bar who didn't know I had backup."

The little bitchass looked confused for a half second.

Then a barstool cracked him over the head and he went down. The third Spacer found Zaeed's fist in his face a half second later, and he joined his brethren on the pile.

The bar was quiet for a few seconds.

"'Bout bloody time, Vido," Zaeed growled, returning to his seat and smoothing his hair out as the crowd lost interest and returned to their revelry.

Vido just grinned, setting down the barstool and taking a seat next to his friend. "I was busy, Massani. Busy working. Not drinking, like some people. You're lucky I showed up at all."

Zaeed ordered another two drinks with a wave and said nothing. His head was pounding under the beating the men had given him, but now that Vido was here he doubted he'd have any more trouble. Vido rarely went anywhere without backup. The rest of their fledgling Blue Suns was probably outside. "You catch all that?" Zaeed asked after a moment.

"Sure did. Marko's got a ship."

"Wonder if he might part with it," Zaeed offered.

Vido just yawned. "One way to find out," he said, kicking the unconscious mercs on the floor. "We'll introduce his buddies to the Duke, see what they think." Their drinks arrived and Vido took his, sniffing it and wincing before downing the whole thing in one determined swig. He swiveled on his stool. "You didn't tell them the whole story," he pointed out.

Zaeed shook his head. "No sir. No I did not."

"You didn't think they would want to hear about how the great Zaeed Massani fought an alien monster one-armed to protect a cheap ukulele?"

"Jessie is not cheap," Zaeed growled. "And she's a mandolin."

Vido just grinned and patted Zaeed on one armored shoulder. "You know, someday you're going to lose that thing, Buddy," he said. "And I'll buy you a gun you can name Jessie."

Zaeed shook his head, smiling despite himself as he lifted his drink. "Not on your life," he said. Beneath the bar, his foot touched Jessie's case and he breathed a sigh of relief

468 years ago…

–

"Everyone has their masks on?"

Balirri's voice crackled from the communicator tucked into Samara's frills but even so she could barely be heard over the roar of the wind and the thrum of the ship's mass pulse engines. The ship's VI pasted the words across Samara's visor.

She read them and laughed. "They've been on since we lifted off," she called back, grinning. Her three daughters, bundled up in the seats next to her, had been wearing their oxygen masks all week in anticipation of this ride. Before it had been out of excitement but now even Marihn's normally-fearless eyes were wide as the ship ascended and Thessia's watery surface shrunk beneath them.

"First timers are always scared," Balirri's voice came back. "But don't you girls worry, me and your mom have done this hundreds of times. Sometimes even without chutes." Samara gave Falere's knee a reassuring squeeze. She gauged 'hundreds' to be a little exaggerated, considering how rarely the weather allowed for skydiving, but it was true she and Balirri had been doing it since their mercing days, centuries in the past.

The caternar ship continued to ascend into the upper atmosphere, and the sky outside the viewing slits darkened. Samara could see the airship's many sculpted plates – which had shifted and fluted the air until they sang at lower altitudes – falling still as the air continued to thin. A thin layer of frost made the passenger cabin sparkle.

Samara's daughters' breath fogged up their masks until they could barely see. Falere, her oldest, stared out one window with expression fixed halfway between wonder and some kind of stomach illness. "We're not going into space, are we mom?" Her skin had gone indigo in the cold, her headfrills shrunken, her teeth chattering.

"Of course not," it was Rila, who'd barely looked out the window the entire flight. She hiked her thick coat up further around her frills until only the silver of her eyes could be seen peeking out. "Caternars aren't spaceworthy. It'd just fall out of the sky as soon as it lost grip on the air."

Marihn turned to face her sisters, her impish grin foreboding even behind her mask. "If we didn't get sucked out through the windows first," she taunted, looking more than a little amused by the prospect. Marihn had inherited Samara's face but none of her personality – Samara was happy to blame the girl's love of mischief on her mate Iaria's genes alone.

"Don't torture your sisters, Marihn," Samara said, feeling the lurch as the ship slowed its climb. The gentle pull of gravity seemed to lessen as they climbed to the extremes of the atmosphere. "They've been waiting for this as long as you have."

"Rila wouldn't go if you didn't force her," Marihn's grin wouldn't leave. "They're just scared there will be a storm." Falere's knee jumped under Samara's palm.

"There will not be a storm," Samara insisted. "That is why we waited so long. For the perfect day. Remember?"

And indeed, as the ship finally stilled and the doors slid back to flood the cabin with light, they could see that today was the day. Samara tightened her visor and leaned out into the wind to look down. Below, Thessia's vast Sara Sea looked even bluer and calmer than had on the ground, its surface only broken by a peninsula of blue-black islands to the west. It was a rare day when some storm or another was not whipping the water into froth, but today it was as balmy as a Kahjean spring, with hardly a smattering of clouds beneath them.

Samara smiled back at her daughters. "Are you ready?"

Marihn was out of her seat's harness and next to her mother in an instant, poking her head out to stare at the ocean below. Her eyes widened and she mouthed a silent 'wow'.

"What are the rules?"

"Stay in view of each other, be gentle with our biotics," Rila started to list, counting on her gloved fingers, "start small and work up. If the wind changes suddenly or we feel too dizzy, activate the chutes. When we land stay in place and activate our beacons for pickup."

Samara nodded. "And have fun," she added, patting her daughter on her hooded head.

Balirri set the ship to hold its position and came back to help double check the three daughters' gear. She'd once been one of the most feared mercenaries in the galaxy, but now the easy grace that had made her such a foe on the battlefield was spent helping other asari get dressed. Her calloused hands were quick and sure as she worked over each girl. Oxygen masks were adjusted, chutes given one last test, amps secured, flotation vests cinched tightly over the coats.

Soon all four of them were perched on the edge of the ship, staring over the precipice for one last look down. Thessia looked very vast and wild beneath them, nothing like the mother goddess painted on the temple walls. There was fear and excitement and anticipation in the thin air.

"Well…"

Samara was almost astonished when Rila jumped first, looking grimly determined to live the day out without enjoying herself. She disappeared and was swallowed up by the empty sky. Her sisters – not to be outdone – were not far behind. Samara watched them dive out into the nothingness.

Samara herself lingered in the doorway for a moment to share a look with Balirri. The woman had been a friend of Iaria until she'd passed away, and Samara could not help but see her dead bondmate's look of mischief in the pilot's eyes. They grasped each other's hands. "Thank you, sister," she said.

Balirri smiled even as biotic energy licked around her. "Anything for you, Samara," she said, and pushed. Samara found herself hurtling out the open door. Balirri's voice followed her out in the communicator "You try to have some fun too!" she called.

–

Samara corrected her inelegant exit, twisted and dove, leaving the caternar ship and her old sister behind. It had been many decades since she'd felt reckless enough to do some biotic skydiving (and longer still to do it without the safety net of a chute), but now that she was back she felt the wind slide over her like a familiar skin. It slicked over her body as she dove, dropping like a stone towards the three black dots that were her daughters. The air caught her as it thickened, until she gave herself a biotic push and sliced downward like a meteor. It was only seconds before she'd caught up with her daughters (she didn't even need the communicator to hear the laughter over the wind) and flattened out, slowing with another gentle biotic push. The wind cushioned her like an old friend.

She sat on the air and watched her daughters play. Blue flashes filled the air as they pushed and tested their biotics. Rila and Falere bounced together and flew apart over and over again, breathless with laughter. Marihn was off to one side, her corona trailing behind her like the tail of a comet.

Their movements were unstable, undisciplined, but that was the point – biotics while free-falling were very different from biotics on the ground. There was no comforting force holding you down and correcting your mistakes. It took weightlessness to teach a biotic what gravity could do – away from the ground a reckless biotic push could send you careening away in the opposite direction. Every field had to be sent with the absolute economy of energy, with the utmost awareness for how it would affect the gravity around it.

To be a great biotic, you had to be light. Calculated. Disciplined. It took most asari centuries of practice in zero-g to learn that lesson well.

"Smaller fields, Rila!" Samara called when her two elder daughters went bouncing away again under a misplaced push. "You don't need so much strength." She went after them as demonstration, rolling in the air like she was swimming. Her fingers barely shimmered as she swept over to them, gliding with only the slightest gestures to adjust her course.

"Think of it like blowing out a candle!" Marihn called, hurtling by. She dodged and weaved through the air with more natural grace than her sisters, correcting her path as her mother had done.

The four of them fell for minutes, guiding their fall with biotic pushes. Below them, the ocean grew wider and wider, until they could see the tiny white caps on the waves and make out the forms of dozens of shallow atolls just under the water's glassy surface.

–

Samara was halfway through teaching her daughters how to balance themselves in a stable somersault when she they dropped through a pocket of denser air and she felt a slight pulling at the back of her head. She stopped mid-sentence, rolling onto her stomach to stare down at the water with a disapproving grimace.

Perhaps it was just nerves that compelled her – the weather reports had looked encouraging all week – but if there was anything her long life had taught her it was caution. The winds could always change.

A detail caught eye and she blinked. She looked again, tracing her gaze across the sea surface until she saw it again. A lip of water traced a quiet front of movement across the ocean. Then again, a few hundred meters further. Then again beyond that. Giant striations made their way across the ocean like ripples in an enormous pond. They were subtle – probably only a meter tall – but Samara knew what they meant.

Wind.

"Mom?"

Samara frowned. "It's time to stop," she said, holding a hand out below her to see how fast they were being blown off course. "The wind is picking up." There was another reason young biotics trained free-falling over Thessia. The planet's crust was so enriched for element zero that the air itself maintained a permanent biotic presence. On a still day it was unnoticeable, but when the wind started to blow the great field that cradled all asari started to warp, and the biotics warped with it. Down would no longer be down. Indeed, now that Samara had noticed it it was hard to imagine how it had escaped her gaze so long – they were no longer falling strictly downbut at an angle, towards the islands. Her amp tingled.

Her daughters followed her gaze down, their merriment forgotten under Samara's grim face. Except for one, of course. "It's not so bad," Marihn insisted, doing a little flip in front of her sisters, as if to tempt them back into their play.

"It's bad," Samara insisted, heart pounding at the fluttery feeling in her head. "We will do another dive later but this one is over. Activate your chutes." She reached for the button on her bracelet-concealed omni-tool that would release her own.

"The water's still like a million miles down there," Marihn complained.

"Now, Marihn," Samara said in her Mother voice.

There were two great whumps as Falere and Rila activated their chutes. Holographic warning panels bloomed from the tails of the fabric that billowed behind them and Samara could feel the air ripple under the mass effect fields that flickered on to slow their fall. The girls' descents arrested, they seemed to suck up into the sky.

Marihn kept hers off, even as Samara felt the wind strengthen.

"NOW," Samara repeated. She felt a bump as the two of them hit another pause in the atmosphere. The wind pushed again, stronger this time, and their falls twisted again, the angle widening as they started to drift further and further west. The gulf between Samara and her daughter widened quickly, and Samara pushed to close it as best she could.

Marihn was unafraid. "I can't."

"What?"

"I'm just going to land with my biotics."

The wind pushed again. Samara felt panic welling in her gut as the distance between her and her youngest daughter grew vaster and vaster still. "No, Marihn. You're too young. You'll hurt yourself."

The communicators started to buzz with static, but Samara could still hear the first hint of fear creep into her daughter's voice. "You said you did it."

"I was ten times your age, and I didn't have a mother to tell me when I was being foolish. Activate your chute, young lady, or by the Goddess I swear I'll-"

"I left it on the ship."

Samara felt her heart fall away from her. "What?" Some part of her wanted to yell, but the rest knew there would be time for that later. Her mind raced. Landing with biotics alone was possible – she'd done it quite a bit in her more reckless days – but it took a precision that would be difficult even without a windstorm, and as talented as Marihn was, she was still very young. As if to remind her of this, the wind howled in her ears. Samara came to a decision in a flash. "To me, Marihn!" she commanded. They could share her chute.

She saw the blue figure that was her daughter stall and slow in the air, blue coronas flaring spastically around her. She was losing her balance and Samara's breath caught in her throat as the girl floundered for a moment before regaining her direction and pushing again. Marihn came flying back towards her, trailing ragged blue. "I was trying to impress you, I was-"

The wind gave a quick bump and there was a flash of blue and a scream. Marihn's sentence was cut off as she hit an eddy. One of the fields around her hands blossomed out with a tremor so hard Samara felt it buffet her forty meters away. Samara could only watch in horror as her daughter's own push hiccupped and sent her spinning away in a blur.

There was no time to react and so Samara reacted in no time, limbs flashing out behind her in an instant, her daughter's screams echoing in her ears as she dove. All of her past warnings about using weak fields disappeared and her own biotics burst behind her in a little blue explosion, sending her shooting towards her daughter like a bullet. The push came fast and unbalanced in the wind – the eezo in the air warping the field and sending Samara off course.

Marihn was screaming. She fell now like a stone, the blue gone from her fingers, her arms flailing with all the grace of a drunken elcor. Samara could not see it but she knew the girl's amp had almost certainly shorted out.

This was why they'd tried so hard to avoid the wind – this was the true danger. It wasn't that Thessian winds were strong, it was that they were loaded with element zero, so much it could confuse biotic fields and stretch them out of shape. It wasn't a problem on a still day when the eezo was evenly hung, but as soon as things got turbulent the blow the great field that cradled the planet warped until even minor biotic maneuvers were potential dangers. A strong field in a strong breeze could turn into a shearing warp or a minor singularity in a heartbeat.

A wise asari wouldn't push at all in the wind, but Samara had no choice. She felt her fields rebelling against her, warping and twisting in the uneven wind even as she pushed harder, willing herself faster and faster. One field shifted down on top of her so suddenly she felt the air knocked from her lungs but she compensated and swum beneath it, diving and diving and diving after the falling girl.

The ocean continued to widen beneath them.

Marihn continued to scream. One kilometer left. Nine hundred meters. Eight hundred. Seven hundred. Six.

Samara felt the wind abate and gave one last great surge of power.

The distance between them disappeared and Samara hit her daughter like a magtrain, arms locking around the smaller asari hard enough to bruise.

And then her head exploded. Stars flashed across her vision, pain and pleasure licked through every nerve in her body until everything sank under white-hot agony. She felt like she'd been hit with a brick. Purplish shadows seemed to trace across her vision as she gasped for air, only dimly aware of her daughter scrambling for purchase in her arms.

But blindingly aware of every thought her daughter had.

She couldn't move. She couldn't think. All she could feel was pain.

She blacked out with less than three hundred meters to go, her last memory of Marihn pulling her chute.

–

She woke up to the feeling of sand on her back, and four asari faces looked down at her with wet skin and wet eyes. The sky above was tauntingly clear, the air tauntingly still. Only the slightest breeze swept across her skin.

Samara blinked and felt the hollowness of her own head fill up with a rush of pain. She gasped, biting the feeling back.

Someone was talking. To her.

"'Mara? Mara! What happened?" It was Balirri. The woman's face came to focus.

Samara just gaped, her tongue filled with the same foamy painful nothingness as her head. She replied something she hoped was 'I don't know' but it came out more like a pained grunt. Balirri seemed to understand well enough, though, and squeezed her hand.

"Marihn called for help. We'll get you out of here soon."

Samara swallowed dryly, ignoring the stitch of pain. "My daughters?" she managed, not fully registering the fact that two of them had their arms already wrapped around her.

"They're fine."

They were crying. "Marihn?"

"Here, Mom." Marihn was standing off to one side next to the limp contrail of Samara's chute, a communicator in her hand and cheeks stained by tears. Samara could see the fear and confusion on the girl's face.

But she didn't need to see it. She could feel it.

Marihn did not come to embrace Samara, and Samara knew it was because the girl was remembering the same thing she was, seeing the rush of pain and white noise they'd felt when they'd collided. It wasn't hard to guess what had happened. In the heat of the moment, they had seen into each other's minds.

But it had hurt.

It wasn't supposed to hurt.

–

A/N: So I have this little Word document that contains the outline for each chapter of this story. No major details - I save those elsewhere - but just the broad stroke ideas. What's the point of each chapter.

For this chapter, it says "12 flashbacks."

Fun fact #1: That is easier said than done. I wanted to do this chapter from the very beginning. Apologies it's so long-winded (AHHH) and rambling, but hopefully you find at least some of the flashbacks cool. No codex this time (fun fact #2: my original plan was to write 12 codexes for this chapter too...).

I've had some people ask me about the future of Interstitium. Suffice it to say I haven't decided yet. In theory I'd like to muscle through and finish it all, but ME3 is awful close and it seems plausible I'll want to write about ME3 when it comes out. I've also been tossing around ideas for original stories set in the ME universe for a while, along with going back and Interstitium-izing ME1 (I need to write about Saren, man). We'll see how it goes, what people want to see, etc. But no matter what happens, you WILL get the Legion chapter. Completely non-negotiable, as far as I'm concerned.

Anyway, all the usual sorries and thankses. Drop me a review if you find the time! I love to hear from you.

(Fun fact #3: I actually lost both of my hands writing this chapter. Unfortunately my beta wasn't so lucky.)