KAHJE
DRELL DOMED CITY
"SAND DANCER'S REST"
EARLY SEPTEMBER 2188
THE AIR SMELLED OF FLINT AND DUSTY HOLLOWS, glowed of butter-coloured rock spires and rusty sandstone. Ancient rock pillars of a dead Rakhana and its empty temples, moved at great expense, lined the great hall of the Temple of The Equal Past. Equally ancient drell priests intoned their prayers or dirges and silently shuffled through the artificial sunbeams.
Into it stepped a quarian, who moved with purpose, if not some trepidation at her situation.
Dispatched on a mission with only the barest of parameters and – to her mind the flimsiest of reasons – this particular quarian was not a happy one. If it had been anyone else who'd requested she do this, she'd have protested in the strongest terms.
She shook her head. Not for her to question. A soldier's due was to do, win or die.
Outfitted in the very latest geth-quarian Cooperative armor, she felt better than she might have otherwise. Flexible and extremely sophisticated, it incorporated geth utility and quarian efficiency. She carried no obvious weapons, all meshed and merged with her armor, controlled by her suit and helmet controls, helped by reactive single geth combat program slaved to her nervous system. A newly-christened commander and pilot in the First Strike Marines in the new quarian Defence Forces, created by the famous Kal'Reegar Vas Dalen's Fire, she was, despite her disgruntlement at knowing so little proud to have been chosen by Reegar himself. She felt strong and able, and would do as ordered. Liking it was not in her mission brief.
First, however, she had to find her quarry. A human. A "very special" human, according to Reegar.
She disagreed. There were no 'special' humans. They were all nothing but trouble in big smelly infectious packages. They were as bad as the stupid krogan.
If humans were rare on Kahje, quarians were moreso, and even a diligent priest or two looked up as one passed them in the hall.
A low and mournful song reached her as she passed a large passageway, ornately carved with drell glyphs and symbols. It sounded like a wind moaning through a deep canyon, and she stopped, listened, liking it. It died down and somewhere inside a priest began a prayer.
"Alli'shilhaju, Keeper of The Secrets, guide this one to the haven of his own being.
Jalim'inari, Guide to The Meaningful Lost, give this one a path through your mysteries.
Rokor'on'hal, Bearer of the Dead, give this one's lost a sweet respite in your quiet chambers.
Allow him care in his silence, awareness in his darkness, and the sight to shape and attend the steps of his passing."
She found herself having taken several steps into the room beyond before she'd realized it, pulled by the prayer and the song. She mused briefly that perhaps it had been magical, because before her, sitting serenely cross-legged on the floor before a series of statues – she presumed of those named in the prayer – was the human she had been sent to find.
He was dressed in black, all cinched to him tightly. He looked slim but solidly muscled, able.
She started, when he suddenly said, very calmly,
"You are disrupting the harmony of the hall. Sit." She looked up, saw a drell priest looking at her with a steady gaze, as if waiting. She pursed her lips, and came forward to stop by the human.
"Are you…?" She began, but he interrupted her with that same calm intonation.
"Have you no manners?" She opened her mouth, closed it. Typical. After a moment, she sat next to him, feeling vaguely foolish.
"I – " a hand came up, admonishing. The song had begun again, and the prayer continued.
"Alli'shilhaju, Defier of Lies, show us the door to where we suffer in silence.
Jalim'inari, Weaver of Sight Beyond Sight, give this one his place to stand.
Rokor'on'hal, Messenger of Solace, tell them we remember, we honour, we do not forget.
Where we go we will have been, where we are we step beyond, where we seek we have already found."
The priest bowed, and the human bowed back. She nodded, and the priest left. The human didn't move.
"Quarians are as rare as rain among the drell." He said, after what seemed like a while.
"I'm Kassidi Vas Raven's Fist Nar Rannoch. Lieutenant , First Strike Marine Squadron of the 121st , Rannoch Defence Forces."
He turned a calm square face, with dark eyes, dark skin, a firm jaw, finely-shaped lips, a slightly crooked nose, and a jagged scar on his chin that drew her eye to it. His teeth were strong and white when he smiled at her. His clothing was dark, a leather-like fabric she could not identify, a faded N7 badge on his breast. He was a lean-heavy that was not unappealing, but most humans seemed enormously heavy compared to most quarians, anyway. He had no obvious weapons, but the drell were rather strict on them under their domes, preferring to use the modified toxic weapons of the hanar, rather than anything that could breach the walls.
"I see your people have wasted no time." He said lightly as he rose, reached down to her. She disdained the hand, stood on her own. "I am Winston Black. You were seeking me."
"You know?"
"Not specifics. It was not hard to deduce."
She related her orders, and their lack of detail.
"Strange. Kal'Reegar is usually more forthcoming."
"You know my commander?" He nodded, indicated that they were to leave.
"I do. I had the pleasure of working with him several years ago after an unfortunate incident on a planet called Haestrom. Apparently an admiral had sent them on that rather ill-advised and disastrous mission without doing his homework. As he could not go through quarian channels he called me. He is a being of principle, if a little headstrong. His word was good."
"Should you be telling me this?" Cassidi was both fascinated and made uneasy by the candor of these casual revelations. Reegar had an admiral assassinated? She knew the one, she knew he was more a detriment to the fleet than otherwise, but an assassination? Didn't that make the hero of Palaven a criminal?
"The past harms only those who cannot learn from it." He told her. "Admiral Davik Vas Open Sky was a menace, that is beyond dispute. He should never have been given command of any kind."
"Granted. Officially he died in a shuttle accident."
"The truth and what's official are more often in opposition than concurrence."
"True enough." So. This then was the assassin. Every instinct told her to simply leave and not involve herself in what was now obviously a criminal enterprise. She was simply an intermediary, true, but if this got out… no. Do her duty. That absolved her.
"I'm here to offer you a mission brief and your payment, if you agree to it."
"I agree." There was no hesitation. They stepped into a bustling open plaza, drell going about their daily lives. The light mimicked the sun of their homeworld, the air the scent of open dunes, colours sandy, dusty, rusty. Some stones looked as if they'd been flecked with blood, long dried. Banners and flags of all colours and sizes fluttered in generated breezes. Real Rakhana rock lined avenues and parks. A few drell took note of the two unusual visitors, but most ignored them.
"Just like that?"
"Would Kal 'Reegar waste money and time otherwise?"
"You have a point." Her estimation of her commander, however, was dropping. She pointed across the open plaza. "My ship – and your payment – is over there." He indicated that she should lead the way, and she set off, his long-legged stride easily keeping pace.
"What can you tell me of this contract? I am assuming it involves the unfortunate incident with the turians not too long ago."
"That's an interesting assumption." He was sharp for a human. She'd have to tread carefully around this one.
"Well, I can do basic math." He smiled slightly. "Nor is it the first incident of a similar cast. Some are growing …suspicious, shall we say, of quarian explanations."
"I can't comment on that," she told him, shaking her head. "None of that was mentioned to me."
They were halfway across the plaza when Kassidi's HUD lit up with a warning. She stopped, and Black behind her did likewise.
"That's odd. My suit's proximity sensors are registering a massive sub-micron level increase in the local magnetic field."
"Where?" A second and she pointed to a spot about three metres to their left. Business replaced her dislike.
"There. It's density is rapidly climbing." She frowned behind her visor. This was exceedingly strange. She linked her suit sensors to her omnitool, began a new scan. The inside of her faceplate lit up with numbers and windows. "I'm also scanning a decrease in local atmospheric density – it looks like an exchange along molecular… something is using the air molecules to construct… something. This is amazing! It's literally something forming out of thin air!"
Black was moving from her, toward the darkening haze he could now see forming. Drell were slowing to watch the odd couple seemingly reacting to nothing.
"Amazing. I am also remembering that the entity that slew those turians also appeared from 'thin air'." Kassidi halted. Sensors in her suit reacted to her change in physiology, and her suit's weapons powered up. Black was about a metre away from the dark mass when it instantly coalesced into a figure both were familiar with – this one the colour of the rusty, bloody-coloured stone around them. Neither Black nor Kassidi hesitated. Black had produced a long sword from… somewhere and attacked. Kassidi fired a shot into the air, setting off internal alarms. She sent another at the figure, but it had no effect, splashing around it like a water drop on a stone.
The figure managed one word of its only phrase before Black's sword, however, bisected it neatly, and it exploded into a cloud of grey particles. Kassidi immediately thrust her omnitool into the cloud. A moment later, she was violently thrown backward, as the creature reformed. She struck a rock pillar and went down in a heap.
For a few short moments, it faced Black with its hollow eye-pits. Up close he could see it had a subtle mesh texture, small squares that seemed to constantly swap positions. In the distance, alarms hooted and droned. Internal defences started locking onto it. Black had backed out of its reach. Local police were rushing to the scene. It cocked its "head" at him slightly.
"And So," it said in a completely toneless voice as an arm appeared from its mass.
A drell constable, in his haste to do his job, got too close.
"Negative I-instance," the being said, the empty voice stuttering - and touched him. He collapsed, and all drell in the plaza followed, one after the other. Black was moving as the arm moved, but he was not fast enough, yet he severed the limb and had cut neatly through the entity again as it began the rest of its sentence. This time, the figure did not explode into a cloud. Three pieces fell to the floor.
"F-function," was all it said as it collapsed. It then seemed to form a grey gel-like substance that rolled itself into tiny glass balls that shrunk until they could not be seen. Kassidi had regained her senses and came to Black, her omnitool flared again. He admired her presence of mind.
"Are you injured?" He asked her. She shook her head, waved it off, kneeled by the faint stain the creature had left.
"No. I was just dazed. That thing – whatever it is – is still here." She swept her tool over the stain.
"What do your scans reveal?" Drell police were beginning to swarm the area.
"Later." She re-tuned her omnitool. "It's inert, if that means anything." She moved to the fallen drell constable, scanned him. "He's alive." She moved to another fallen. "So is this one."
They said nothing else as police began their inquiries, and after a reasonably brief interrogation of only a few hours, they were released. All the collapsed drell were alive, but all were paralyzed. Not great news, but certainly better than a massacre.
AFTER, in Kassidi's ship, she fed her omnitool data into its computers. It was quiet in the ship. Kassidi appreciated that Black didn't seem to want to talk much, unlike most of the humans she'd met before. They never seemed to know when to shut up.
Behind her, he sat calmly, reading through the dossier sent by Kal'Reegar. He was mildly surprised to see an official Conclave seal on some of the items. Black Ops. His game.
"You were impressive in the square," he told her, after a while. "Quick thinking indeed."
"Yeah. You were a bit quicker than I was."
"I would not have thought of using my omnitool in such a manner."
"I was in the moment." She said dryly, then shook her head. "The pity is that I can't make any sense out of these readings." She sat back. "According to these, that thing was technically not there."
"It quite obviously was," he corrected her. She nodded. She wanted to take umbrage at his tone, but he was just too damn calm for that.
"Well, yes. I should have said, in a physics-sense of 'there'. What we saw, was not what was actually there. My omnitool saw it as something completely different. My onboard AI sees it as something completely different from my omnitool." She growled in frustration. "I need a bigger brain than mine to look at this. Energy didn't affect it, but your weapon took it apart." She looked back at him, saw him still reading, frowned. "Are you listening to me?"
"Of course." He didn't look up. "This entity seemingly defies conventional physics. Yet, your weapons did not affect it, while my sword did."
"Where did you hide it, anyway?" He looked up.
"I didn't hide it anywhere. I simply kept it out of sight."
"Same thing."
"Hardly." He closed the dossier. "Curious. Your weapons are hi-energy geth designs, no?" She hesitated, nodded. "My weapons are constructed from krogan-forged mutsak steel, with a bonded molecular edge."
Kassidi thought, then shrugged.
"I admit it's over my head. If it's not armor or weapon tech, I'm at a loss."
"I thought all quarians were born part-engineer."
"Not this quarian. Never had the head for it." She huffed. "Keelah. I need to report this."
She transmitted all her data, then waited. Behind her, Black stayed serene. He also didn't fidget like other humans. It took longer than it would have normally, over an hour, as the buoy networks were in pieces everywhere, but she finally managed to get through. She saluted automatically as Kal'Reegar appeared on her screen, a little fuzzy, but there. He must have been somewhere reasonably clean, as he was wearing only a half-mask breather instead of his full helmet.
"I've read your report," he began. "Good work. And you found The Duke, I see."
Black simply nodded at the quarian hero from behind her.
"Yes, sir."
"The implications of your scans are disturbing, to say the least. On the bright side, if this situation could be said to have one, we can now show that we had nothing to do with this… thing. Not even we and the geth combined have this kind of technology."
"Could it be Reaper tech, sir?" Are you a criminal, sir? Am I still beholden to follow any of your orders?
"There's nothing to say, but our best minds are going over it now." Reegar turned his attention to Black. "I'm going to hope we have enough info to at least anticipate these things. Well, since the very incident we wanted you to investigate has already happened, it looks like we won't need you after all, Duke."
"So it would appear."
"I'm unlocking the initial payment, for services already rendered." Black transferred it to his own tool.
"Fair enough." Black looked thoughtful for a moment. "I sense skepticism on your part, however. You are not convinced it is enough?"
"I'm never convinced anything is enough." Reegar hoisted an eye-ridge. "The Conclave only wanted evidence that it wasn't us up to anything underhanded, so they're focusing on that."
"That is hardly enough."
"Agreed. That's why I'm offering you an amended contract, Duke. Find out what the hell these things are. I'm also assigning Kassidi to you."
"Sir?" She started. Assigning to?
"I work alone."
"It's personal." Black stared at him for long moments. Reegar's gleaming eyes stayed steady.
"Very well. You can infer my conditions."
"I can. Kassidi, you will work closely with him. Find us everything you can. You are also under his command." Kassidi saluted, but she wasn't happy. Not remotely.
"Yes, sir. If you order it."
Reegar noted it.
"Something?"
"No, sir." He narrowed his eyes at her.
"You don't want to work with Duke? Or is it something else?"
"It's nothing, sir." Damn, he was perceptive!
"If I can't trust you, Lieutenant…"
"I can be trusted, sir." Her tone must have given something away, because he smiled slightly, said,
"And I can't. Is that it?"
"I didn't say that, sir."
Behind her, Black laughed softly.
"I believe she thinks you did something illegal when I removed Davik from the Admiralty."
Reegar's hardened gaze looked back at her.
"That's it?"
Kassidi nodded. She didn't care if it got her busted back to geth orientation.
"Yes, sir!" She told him defiantly.
"You told her?" He directed at Black.
"I surmised that you would eventually assign her to me. She would wonder why. Best to remove distractions."
"Wise, I suppose." He turned back to Kassidi. "Do you remember the tale of Amora'Vanya Vas Selanni?"
She nodded. Of course she did, every quarian did.
"That was Davik's idea. Through some rather devious channels he also told Cerberus which ship Gillian Grayson was hidden on. His racism nearly fractured the Flotilla."
"I – I was unaware of that, sir."
"So are most quarians. Admiral Davik Vas Open Sky had too many connections to simply be removed. Yet he could not be allowed to stay. The man was threat to everyone. A secret meeting of the Conclave was called and it was decided that, for the good of the Flotilla, he had to go."
"I was contracted to keep quarian hands clean." Black informed her.
"You are still culpable." She told Reegar. He admired her sense of justice. He nodded.
"For the safety of the Flotilla… someone has to be."
Kassidi stared at him for a long while. Then she saluted him.
"You'll prefer your own ship, of course." Directed at Black.
"Of course. It can accommodate two, with minor modifications."
"Good. We'll bring yours back under remote, Kassidi. I'll expect regular reports. The rest you'll have to work out on your own. Reegar out."
Black looked back to her.
"If you have any personal effects…"
"Sir – frankly, I cannot see what possible use I could be to you."
He nodded.
"Yes. Either it is your disdain for humans in general or me in particular. I am going on the assumption, however, that you are a professional, and can overlook such trivialities during this mission, no?"
She frowned at him, sniffed. Did she have no secrets left? Would she have any, stuck with him?
"You're very perceptive."
"I have to be. Well?"
Kassidi turned, stalked aft.
"I'll do what I have to."
Black smiled at her back.
"Well, then. This should be very interesting, don't you think?"