Chapter 10
The Council stood on their elevated platform in the Council Chambers, the public part of their session having just ended. C-Sec worked on clearing out the walkways and viewing areas that surrounded the chamber, where the public gathered to watch the sessions as they were held.
The Council security forces, who stood out from normal C-Sec by the gold stripes on the arms and collars of their blue and black uniforms, moved carefully throughout the place, their omni-tools scanning every inch. They weren't just making sure everyone had been cleared out, they were making sure no one had left anything behind. Assassination attempts on the Council were not rare occurrences, and it was always better to be safe than sorry.
After a few moments the head of their security, a tall turian named Jueus, stepped forward from his usual spot ten feet behind them. "The chamber is cleared, Councilors."
"Excellent, Jueus," Sparatus said to his fellow turian. "Let the human ambassador in."
"Right away sir," Jueus said. He put a clawed finger to his ear to activate his personal comm system. "The council is ready to see the human ambassador."
As Jueus moved back behind them, the other Council C-sec officers went back to their posts. Thirty seconds later a human male with dark hair walked in front of the Council. The human wore some type of garb called a suit, which was apparently considered formal wear in their society.
"Ambassador Cochrane," Tevos greeted, only slightly stumbling over his name. "To what do we owe the pleasure of this meeting?"
"Councilors," Cochrane said, bowing his head slightly in a sign of respect. "Thank you for granting me an audience. Over the past six weeks, three human outposts belonging to private corporations in the Horse Head Nebula were attacked and all of the civilians went missing."
The Councilors shared looks. Sounded like the batarians had finally started raiding human space. They all knew it was only a matter of time until it started. The fact that it had taken over a year was rather surprising. These would be probing raids on the outskirts before they grew bold enough to try for one of the colonies.
"We have it on very good authority that they were kidnapped. One thousand two hundred and fifty-seven of our people were taken. An attempt to raid a fourth outpost had the Systems Alliance track the people responsible for the attack back to a base on a moon in a nearby cluster. Those responsible for the raids, at least those at the base, were either killed or captured, and their ships destroyed. They were batarians, all of them, and the only people of ours we rescued were the marines who volunteered for the mission and allowed themselves to be captured at the fourth outpost."
"We are sorry to hear of these attacks on your people," Tevos said.
The humans were finding out the downside to being a part of the galactic community. It was something every species had to deal with sooner or later.
"Yes, unfortunate news indeed," Marock added. Like always, the salarian councilor had his hood up, shrouding some of his face in shadows.
"Thank you, Councilors but I didn't come here for sympathy. Records recovered from the base we raided show those of our people previously kidnapped were taken to Hegemony space. I came here because we want our people back."
Tevos cleared her throat. "Since we are dealing with Hegemony space, perhaps it would be best if we bring the batarian ambassador in here."
Cochrane shook his head, his hands clenched into fists. "Is the batarian ambassador going to give our people back because you asked? Have they given back any of your citizens they bought as slaves?"
None of the Councilors answered the question but they all knew what their silence meant.
"The Systems Alliance will approach the Batarian Hegemony on our own," Cochrane continued. "We don't need nor want the Council to fight our battles for us. My purpose for being here is two fold. The first is that I am here to make the Council aware of the situation as a courtesy, and the second is to ask that you stand with us in demanding the Hegemony turn over our citizens they have forced into slavery."
Another look was shared between the Councilors.
"You must understand that the Hegemony is a Citadel race," Tevos started.
"That supports slavers who kidnap your citizens," Ambassador Cochrane interrupted. "And then buys those kidnapped citizens as slaves."
"Having Hegemony as ally better than as enemy," Marock said.
"So you allow your citizens to be tortured and forced into servitude because you're what? Weak? Cowards who are too afraid to stand up for what is right?"
"We understand your anger, Ambassa-."
"No, clearly you don't," Cochrane said, cutting off Tevos again. "Because if you did, you wouldn't be here making excuses for the Hegemony. I've made you aware that we will be approaching the batarian ambassador on the issue and it's clear where you stand on it. Good day."
The human ambassador turned and walked off because any of them could say another word. Sparatus, who had said nothing during the brief meeting, growled in the back of his throat. Tevos put a reassuring hand on his arm.
"I know the humans can be aggravating, but it's best to not let them get to you."
"I'm not angry at the human, no matter how frustrating he was. I'm angry because he's right!" Sparatus said, his mandibles flexing in irritation. "The batarians have thousands of our people as slaves and we don't do anything about it!"
"War with Hegemony would lead to tens of thousands of deaths for both sides," Marock pointed out. "Not an option."
Humanity was at an impasse. Thirteen months removed from the First Contact War, there was currently debate amongst the Systems Alliance Parliament on how they would respond to the Batarian Hegemony holding SA citizens as slaves. Did they declare war? Did they do like the Council and act like it wasn't that big of a deal? Already the fleets were put on high alert, actively scanning systems to make sure no ships snuck in from the dark space between the stars.
Rear Admiral Komen wanted blood in the form of an all out attack on Hegemony locations in the Kite's Nest, and Major Burgos was right there with him.
As a group, the five of them sat in their chamber on Reach, hundreds of feet below the ground. There had been a lot of information to go over, but the biggest topic was the same one that raged throughout most of Systems Alliance space.
"Think of the folly in that," MP Haugseng said, trying to keep his calm as he countered the Rear Admiral's demand for war. "Yes we've made improvements since we started working with the quarians, but we're still months away from reaching what we saw the turians capable of. The quarians think the Hegemony is the second strongest military of the Citadel races, how could we stand up to it in a full fledged war?"
"We get the Migrant Fleet to assist us."
"Which more than likely will require us to commit forces to assist in their war with the geth," Admiral Cremer pointed out. "A war that has been going on for three hundred years and will make World War II look like a minor squabble if it picks up in intensity again."
"We can still get the Migrant Fleet to assist us without dragging them into a conflict, at least not intentionally. The Migrant Fleet is still in the Hubble System, and if we ask them to guard Eden Prime, since they have their own colony there, that would mean two of our colonies would have quarian ships guarding them. Freeing up two task force from guarding colonies might not seem like a lot, but it gives us more wiggle room to work with."
"Whether we involve the quarians or not, we can't do nothing because we can't keep these mining outposts and research stations empty, the economy will tank," Major Burgos said. The Major tapped the fingers of her left hand against her thigh in anxiousness. "It's already down hundreds of millions."
"We can split the fleets into battle task groups to guard every system, but that will only work against raids. If we're at war with the batarians, a single task group won't be enough to guard each system. Hell, all the fleets combined won't make much of a difference. Our intel puts the batarian fleet at almost three thousand five hundred ships, that's three thousand more than we currently have. Even with the shipyards working overtime to get us more ships, we'll add only a handful more in the next couple of months."
"Do we know of anything from the operations that could tip things in our favor? Didn't Harper promise us results by now?"
"Harper has his fingers in everything. He's spreading Cerberus too far, casting too wide of a net, to give results so quickly."
"Halsey's Spartan Project is still years away."
"The Ascension Project is in its early stages too. Likely a decade or two before we start seeing results from it."
"Anything from Operation Chimera?"
"Not at the moment. Gupta wants us to get her vorcha and krogan subjects to work with, says they'll help greatly, but we're a little short on supply at the moment."
"Unbelievable," Rear Admiral Komen said with a shake of his head. "Four different groups and none of them useful."
"What if we hit the slavers?" Major Kyle asked.
"Isn't that what we've been discussing?"
"No, not the Hegemony itself, the slavers who do the raiding but swear they're a separate entity from the official government."
"Sounds great, except we don't know where the fuck they are. We had the AIs comb through every piece of data we got from the base we hit and it didn't exactly have information on the other operations."
"There's an entire portion of the galaxy the Council is afraid of, and we know the slavers mostly operate out of it. How much do you want to bet some of those pirates and mercenary gangs know where the slavers call home?"
"And how are these groups going to react to humans?" MP Haugseng asked.
"There's already humans in the Terminus Systems," Major Burgos stated.
"Really? Already?"
"Yep. Mostly hired guns looking to sell their services elsewhere, some escaped convicts who hijacked a private freighter, and a couple hundred of those secession at all cost types. Even if they aren't up to date on everything going on in Citadel space, those who live in the Terminus System are well aware of us at this point."
"Let's send a team in to see what information they can gather on these slavers," Major Kyle said, giving them all an earnest look. "If they can get some locations, we can hit them fast and hard. Cripple the slavers and cripple the Hegemony without ever officially declaring war."
Along with Haugseng, Major Kyle often sought the more peaceful route to resolve an issue, if you could call raiding and killing slaver bases a peaceful option. Rear Admiral Komen and Major Burgos were usually the opposite, favoring more direct and confrontational approaches. Admiral Cremer found herself in the middle a lot, her opinion normally being the deciding factor if the group found itself at a standstill on a choice of action.
As the Directors of Division 3 of the Systems Alliance Intelligence Services they might not be the ones to directly make the decisions on where the fleets go, or the direction the Systems Alliance took, but they had a lot of sway in those decisions, mostly behind the scenes. If they were going to make a decision, it needed to be the right one.
"What about those taken as slaves? Even if we succeed in attacking these other slaver groups, it doesn't bring our people home."
"One thing at a time," Admiral Cremer said. "We can work to cripple the slavers to make sure they can't strike at us again. In the meantime, we keep upgrading our fleet so if there is a decision to go to war with the batarians, we're ready."
The five of them sat in silence, each of them thinking everything over.
"Before we start pushing the parliament toward a war we might not be able to win, can we all agree that trying to take out these slaver bases first is the best course of action?" MP Haugseng asked.
"Fine," Rear Admiral Komen muttered. "Let's make sure they can't take anymore of our people. Then we kick the shit out of the Hegemony."
"We can send one of the Jaeger Teams into the Terminus Systems. Alec Ryder should be done with his paternity leave, get him on the comm."
The Chamber of the Ira'lus was a rectangular two-story room with three hundred individual desks on a multi-tiered semicircular platform facing a central rostrum in the front of the room where the Prime Administrator and the Vicar Supreme sat. The three hundred seats were occupied by the Council of Oligarchs, made up of members of the fourteen ruling castes, with the Kur'zen caste having the largest representation.
Grem sat listening to the other members of the Council of Oligarchs, his fellow leaders of the Hegemony, argue. They had lost one of their bases in the Attican Traverse, and had a squadron of slaver warships destroyed. The communications that had come in before everything went dark had said it was the humans, who somehow tracked them from one of the raids made. Almost all of the voices of the leaders talked about attacking the humans in retribution, but the exact method of doing so is why the chamber had dissolved into the dozens of arguments that were taking place.
Did they launch an immediate invasion into human space with the full force of their military? Did they take a more careful approach, and send a few scouting parties to get the lay of the land before attacking? Did they hold off declaring war and send their other slaver groups to raid more of human space instead?
"We can march on their homeworld before they even know we are attacking," Sorlack Pemffer, one of the leading Kur'zen, shouted, barely heard over everyone else. "We've all seen how pathetic their military was against the turians. And Council estimates put their number of warships below a thousand."
"That was months ago, before their partnership with the quarians. Who knows what they're capable of now," Dalo Dhokpehal, a member of the Khartha caste, countered as he called for caution.
"Bah, as if the suit rats can make them suddenly competent."
"But what if the suit rats allied with them? We'd be facing the humans plus the Migrant Fleet."
The words seemed to echo with all, and gave even the most bullish of warhawks pause. Even if more than half of the Migrant Fleet were civilian ships, there were still roughly fifteen thousand that had some military capabilities. If they did attack the humans, what were their chances of dragging the Migrant Fleet into the war, whether it be due to an alliance between the monkeys and the suit rats, or by an accident caused by some over eager ship captain? It wouldn't be the first time a ship captain dreaming of glory had bitten off more then they could chew.
It seemed the possibility of dealing with the Migrant Fleet had made even the most rabid of those who wanted to attack the humans take a few moments to think over the consequences of such a thing, which allowed the more cautious of the leaders to voice their opinions.
"What of the human AI? They caused a lot of chaos in turian systems. Are we confident our cyberwarfare VI suites can withstand them?"
"Wouldn't it be better to wait until the vorcha are in the fold? Both the vids and reports from the turians indicate the humans are more capable in ground combat than they are in space."
There was a lot of back and forth that Grem thought was stupid. Waiting for the vorcha to enter the fold and become a batarian client race was the right move. The vorcha would provide them with needed ground forces, a new labor force, and could even serve in limited roles aboard the warships. If the human partnership with the quarians was in fact an alliance, then they would need the vorcha if they wanted to have any success in a war against them.
So while the other leaders argued amongst each other, he was looking over the information on the vorcha negotiations. The vorcha didn't have a unified government and were instead divided into clans, similar to the krogan. The vorcha's main method of communication was combat, and so, unknown to the Council, the Hegemony had waged a vicious war on the vorcha homeland, forcing the largest of the clans to come to the table for talks.
The batarians would bring those clans from the vorcha homeworld, Heshtok, to worlds in Hegemony space that the batarians had laid claim to, worlds that were more habitable than Heshtok. That should allow a boom in the vorcha population, and it would also put them where the batarians could have control over them. The Blood Pack's usage of vorcha foot soldiers showed that vorcha could be made to follow commands and be decent soldiers, you just needed to beat the obedience into them. And the Hegemony was more than willing to undertake such a challenge.
Alec Ryder carefully laid Sara down. She had just gone to sleep and the last thing he wanted to do was wake her. Ellen held Scott to her breast, as he appeared to be far hungrier than his twin sister was.
"Alec," Ellen said, nodding to the apartment's message system.
Alec looked to see it flashing blue, which meant someone from the Systems Alliance was trying to reach him. He frowned and looked at the calendar on his holo-watch. He still had a few more days of paternity leave, what could they possibly want?
He moved to the machine and tapped to play the message.
"Priority One Message. Lieutenant Ryder, head to the nearest secure comms room and enter code Lima - India - November - Charlie - Oscar - Lima - November."
Alec frowned. Even on paternity leave he had heard about the raids on the outposts and what they had meant. The code clearly meant whatever it was they were contacting him about had to do with it as well. For a clandestine group it wasn't exactly subtle.
"Fuck," he muttered turning back to his wife.
"What?" she asked, seeing the look on his face.
"They might be recalling me a few days early. I have to get back to base to take a secure call."
"They couldn't just let you have the last three days could they?"
Alec understood Ellen's scowl. Ever since he had graduated N7 he had been away on one tour or another. Things had only picked up after the First Contact War, and he had only gotten a few weeks of shore leave, the weeks in which the twins were conceived, in almost two years. It had been the birth of the twins, and the paternity leave owed to him, that allowed him to spend any significant time with his wife. And that time was spent taking care of two infants, which honestly left him more exhausted than anything the Systems Alliance had him doing over the years.
"Let me go see what they want," Alec said with a sigh. He moved to Ellen and kissed her, before softly kissing Scott on the back of his head. "I'll be back in an hour."
Thirty minutes later he stood in the secure comms room in Fort Schwarzkopf. After making sure the connection was still secure, he typed in the code - LINCOLN.
The lights in the room dimmed.
"Connecting," the VI said. "Please identify yourself and state your Delta - Three code."
"Lieutenant Commander Alec Ryder, Eight Eight Three Seven Two Four Whiskey Charlie Three Eight Dash November Seven. D3 code, Delta Three Alpha Romeo Foxtrot Four Niner."
A holographic image appeared in front of Alec. It was a person but the image was distorted and Alec couldn't make out any of their features, let alone their gender.
"Welcome Lieutenant Commander Ryder." The voice that greeted him was at a low octave and distorted. Ever since graduating N7 training and working in special forces for Intelligence, Ryder had become used to this type of mummery. "We apologize for pulling you away from your leave a few days early but something has come up and we need your team."