It took several weeks until we cleared the system out in the Terminus and made it back to friendly skies. I wasn't too sure what the aftermath had been, it was well above my paygrade, but we had taken a lot of prisoners, and done a lot of damage. Much of what we were doing was taking care of the wounded and actually rebuild the place, the Engineering corps had come in force to reinforce us, but we were still working our asses off. As luck would have it, being on medical detail did spare me from some of the manual labor. Perks of the office I guess.

But after a while we had the place up and running. The enemy fleet, not so much. From what I got from Kim, they had tried to ambush us almost as soon as the landing started, and the Admiral had responded by lowering the boom on them like you wouldn't believe. Not playing around this time. There was a lot of space debris to clear out, and for the first few days we actually had to be on the lookout for falling spaceship debris. A couple of large chunks did make it to the surface, but not close enough to the facility to make us evacuate. And now, all we had to do was keep it manned until whoever the Systems Alliance was dealing with came to take it over. For now, it was just running like any other Alliance installation.

Which meant I wasn't half surprised when I got the following message.

To: Roy Morgan, Service Chief, SSN: 5742-AB-2814

Subject: Secure Comms Request

A high priority call is requested from you at your earliest convenience. Please find attached the one-use encryption key and frequency, use standard secure facilities for point-to-point FTL communications.

First time I had gotten one of those I had freaked the fuck out, but it turned out to be more common than I expected. There were several levels of access and equipment that were almost always set up, with the lowest going straight through the omni-tool (the hilariously called "insecure secure facilities", because they didn't control for who could be around them). I made for the comms room, logged myself in, and took one of the terminals. I wasn't sure who was going to be on the other side. I didn't expect what I got. A projection of a mostly featureless humanoid "staring" back at me. The freaking Shadow Broker. Tela Vasir. I very quickly shook that name out of my head, because letting it escape wasn't a good idea.

"Chief Morgan," the Broker said. "Thank you for getting back to me so quickly."

"What the hell? What do you want?" I said, looking around.

The comms room was completely empty. There were three terminals in it, but we, as a matter of courtesy, didn't use any of the comms rooms if they were busy unless the matter was urgent - or the times busy. A side effect of the complete lack of privacy we had back during boot camp.

"A little rude," the Broker said. "Our connection is secure, Chief. There is no need to worry."

I looked at the projection and sighed. "Okay, sorry, just surprised the hell out of me. So what's going on? Is there a problem?"

"There is always a problem. There is a matter of great importance that I wish to consult with you, consider it payment, should you feel so inclined."

"Damn, cashing in that chip? What happened?"

"The operation the Systems Alliance just completed, and which you were part of, has attracted considerable attention. As a political issue, it has caused waves, but that is not the issue at the moment. Were you aware that your reinforcements, namely the Chadwik and its attached fleet, never made it to their destination?"

What?

"Err... no? I actually don't have any details of the ship operations if that's what you're asking."

"Not at all, I am well informed. But it seems like you were not. Regardless, the Chadwik disappeared while running the Inner Ring leaving no trace behind. This is quite surprising, and as you can imagine, a lot of people are looking for answers. Answers I don't have."

The Broker paused, and I gave a wide-eyed shrug to invite her to go on. What the hell happened? I didn't have a clue what was going on.

"An operation capable of taking down a full Alliance carrier is not a small one, and the lack of information is quite vexing. Either something major went on under my radar, or something new we didn't expect has appeared." She paused, almost as if she was weighting whether I got her meaning. I was pretty sure I did. Reaper related? Damn. Crap. Fuck. "And when something new is suspected, you are one of my to go contacts, as the saying goes."

She actually used the idiom properly.

"I... literally don't know anything, this is my first time hearing any of this."

"Very well. But there is one bit of information we did recover. A short wave transmission, very faint, but enough to build this."

The projection changed to what seemed to be a camera view of... nothing. No, that was probably space. Black, but with the brightness of stars in the background. The view shook a bit, it was grainy and with a fair bit of distortion. Then something came into view and the video ended.

"What was that?" I said.

The video played again, and this time it stopped when the thing came into view. It was grainy, which was unusual for most videos I had seen. Future tech was pretty freaking amazing when it came to video and audio. But it looked like something round. Black against space, but with a bit of a reflection over the surface.

"Why is the video so grainy?" I said.

"Proximity to the galactic core," the Broker said. "Do you recognize the object? Take your time."

I looked closely, zooming on to the still image. It almost looked like a smooth ball of some sort. There was that bit of shine on the surface, just a little brighter than the outside. But there was something else. It wasn't just a smooth sphere. It looked like there was something stuck on one side. Almost like a round... something.

"You do have controls for the recording," the Broker said.

Despite the voice modulator, I thought she sounded amused. I looked through the interface and found the controls, and started rewinding the video slowly. The spherical thing was there for just a fraction of a second, so it wasn't like I had a great view of it. It almost looked like one of the sides was more reflective tan the rest, like glass. Then the video ended. For a moment it almost looked like a flash of light before the video ended. Red. It all looked weirdly familiar. Like something I had seen before I thought. But I couldn't quite put my finger on it.

"I see it is familiar," the Broker said.

"Maybe, but..."

"Perhaps you could use some help refreshing your memory," the Broker said. "That can be arranged."

Yeah, another session with-

"Oh shit!" I said, as my brain made the connection. Memory refresher meant asari mind melds. Which made me think of Benezia. Which brought me to the meeting I had with her and Aethyta. Which made me recognize - I thought - what was in front of me.

"Ah, enlightenment," the Broker said.

"It can't..." I muttered, taking another close look, pushing the video back and forth. It sure as fuck looked like a Collector Oculus. Or it could be a coincidence. "Shit."

"So?" the Broker prompted.

"I'm... I'm honestly not sure. I think this might be a Collector Oculus."

"Collector? The Collectors? Are you sure?"

"No, of course I'm not. But... I haven't seen anything that looks like that other than their Oculi."

I kept looking at that image. I was the one who had suggested to Aethyta and Benezia to go poke the Collectors. The question in my mind was whether they had done so, and whether they had decided to retaliate. Take the Chadwik and learn what the galaxy had been up to while they were locked away. If that was the case, this was bad. I had to ask them.

"Do the collectors have the capabilities to take down the entire carrier?"

"They have access to the same technology as the thanix," I replied, not quite wanting to mention the unmentionables, despite reassurances that the line was secure enough for the Broker.

"I see. That is worrisome, why haven't I heard about them until now?"

"Honestly, I didn't think they'd make a move like this. Not this early at least, all they were supposed to do was hide past the Omega-4 relay and come every so often to collect some people. If that."

"So what made them move, if this is indeed the Collectors?"

"I don't know. But..." I hesitated, but decided to go for it, "I know some asari have been looking into them. Maybe they would know. And they need to hear about this."

The video disappeared and the projection of the Broker came back to life. But Tela didn't say anything. I waited, she was probably trying to digest what I had just said. She hadn't asked me any more details about the collectors, so maybe she wasn't any more inclined to discuss reaper matters in the open than I was. After a while, she finally spoke again.

"There are questions being asked, some of them from the Systems Alliance. I will contact the asari, but in the meantime, I expect you will have to answer questions from your superiors."

"I... what?"

"There is no need to worry. You already have more access than what a mere Service Chief would have otherwise, do you not? They might just ask for more details."

I thought about it, but really, it was kind of inevitable. The vague threat of the reapers that involved the whole galaxy was one thing, this was the Collectors coming directly after us. It could have been literally us if the Admiral had decided to take the Einstein through the Inner Ring instead of using the Chadwik for it. That wasn't a comforting thought.

That brought another thought. The carriers were freaking massive, and they had a lot of personnel aboard them. A couple of thousand people, all said. Did the collectors take them?

"There were no witnesses? No life pods? Nothing?"

"No," the Broker replied after a moment. "No remains were found at all. Several sites are marked as possibly engagement sites, but very little debris was found. A lot of possible false tracks, a lot of likely misinformation. This attack was planned to be kept secret."

"Damn."

"Start packing, Chief. I am pretty sure you'll be called soon. And thank you."

I chucked at that. "Of course."

Tela hadn't been wrong. I got a priority call that very afternoon, and was shipped out with barely enough time to say anything to anyone. All I had a chance to do was tell Goldie that she was in charge of the "Mamba squad", as it had ended up being know, and Shepard that I was off to do some of our weird stuff. She got it instantly, while Alenko gave us both a very confused look. And honestly, it was weird. For some reason I was dreading the meeting, mostly because it was likely to, once again, lead to some skittish explanations, open suspicion, and who knows what the hell else. I wasn't exactly angry at Tela for this, it's not like it was her fault, but after the op where I had gone from riding in with a Mako to medical detail, to the rebuilding where, again, I had split my time with the medical personnel, the engineering corps, the guard detail - which always included designated marksmen these days - and everything else, I felt like I was being pulled in a thousand different directions. A bit like Bilbo Baggins when he said he felt thin like butter spread over too much bread.

I need a fucking break.

That made me think about the message Wahea had sent me back when we took Shepard to see the queen. Shepard had been poking me about it, more playfully than anything, but enough for me to blame her for having the idea bouncing around my head. And maybe it was that, or maybe the long trip back - because it was the ass end of nowhere when going to Arcturus. But I ended up sending her a message to check what she was up to, and to mention that maybe I needed a break. And honestly, a boat in the middle of the sea for an entire freaking month sounded absolutely perfect at the moment.

But first was work. And if the Collectors had really come out to play, that was fucking worrisome. Because Nazara was also still out there.

Shit, maybe it wasn't just the Collectors. Maybe it was the reaper too.

I really didn't want to explain the reapers to everyone who asked. We still didn't even know how to find indoctrination. I had gone with Benezia and that had worked a treat. Tela seemed on board as well, though that one had been a bit of an incidental thing. But I couldn't imagine that someone who was indoctrinated would react well to me uncovering the whole enchilada. Specially when it wasn't just the reapers, but everything else.

Regardless of my misgivings, I didn't even have time for a break. I didn't even have time to drop my bag before I was shown to, whose else, Admiral Drescher's office. Bit of a surprise that one, I'd have imagined that it'd have been Rear Admiral Kishi and whoever she had been working with during our operation. Seemed like I was always running things with Drescher.

I dropped the bag outside her office and walked in to find her completely alone. She looked tired, and definitely not relaxed at all. Hadn't seen her this tense even when dealing with the Geth and the Quarians.

"Sir!" I said, and saluted.

"At ease Chief," she replied. "It looks like we have a lot to talk about, have a seat," she added, and pointed at the chair. Once I sat myself down, she leaned back on her chair, fingers interlocked under her chin, and gave me a proper butt-clenching look. "I don't have time to beat around the bush this time, Chief. As far as I have been informed, you have been involved in some Spectre-level business for even longer than you have been with us, all because you had access to an information cache that they needed."

I nodded, keeping my mouth shut because that was quite a revelation and I didn't want to say something stupid.

"Right place, right time?" Drescher said.

"And wrong person, sir," I replied.

"I never asked about specifics, because I considered it on a need to know basis. As long as you came through, there was no need for more details. However." She brought up her terminal, and the familiar image of the Oculus video appeared. "The information I have been given is that you can share information about this image here."

I nodded wordlessly.

"And also, and I don't know why this is important, it was recommended to me that I mention I have been to Ilos," Drescher said.

"You've... been to Ilos, sir?"

"Yes, I was invited with two others to visit the ruins shortly after their discovery. Why you think my visiting an ancient prothean site is important, I would like to know too, but first," she pointed at the screen, "what am I looking at here?"

"Sir... I cannot be sure, but the only thing I know that looks like that is a collector Oculus."

"Collector... Oculus?"

"Yes sir. Are you familiar with the collectors?"

"Only in passing, legends and stories with little proof."

"Well, turns out there's some truth to them."

"And what is that Oculus?"

"It's a kind of drone, maybe ten or fifteen feet across? Literally looks like an eye. I think they use some variation of beam weaponry similar to the Thanix. Tough pieces of tech, heavily armored and quite powerful weapons."

"And why would the Collectors attack us?"

"That I really do not know, sir," I replied, which was true.

"Hmmm," Drescher muttered, looking at the projection. "Tell me about the collector Chief, what kind of threat are we looking at.

With a bit of trepidation, and avoiding even mentioning the word reaper, I explained what I could about the Collectors. That they lived beyond the Omega-4 relay. That they came to collect "interesting" specimens. That there was a fuckload of destroyed ships on the other side of the relay and no way to navigate it. The size of the Collector ships. The fact that they had souped-up beam weapons more powerful than a Thanix. That their ships could worry a dreadnought. That boarding them was a really bad idea given their swarms of biomechanical bugs.

And that their technology was dangerous as hell.

"What do you mean dangerous?" Drescher said.

"They... Honestly, it's hard to tell if they're more organic or machine. They're heavily modified with cybernetics, even the Oculi have an organic core if I recall correctly. Interacting with it could be dangerous."

"I see."

We stayed in silence for a while, Drescher probably contemplating what I had told her, and me just waiting for her to start poking some more. The fact that there was a race of weird aliens on the other side of the Omega-4 relay wasn't really fazing her, or so it seemed. She wasn't even too worried about their motivation it seemed - although that could be because I had no idea about that, and had said as much. What she wanted to know was what they were up against. And what I knew was that the collector ships were fast, powerful, unpredictable, and that engaging with them was supremely dangerous.

"Chief," Drescher said. "You said their beam weaponry is similar to our Thanix cannons"

"Yes sir."

"Could they be retaliating against us for that? If it was stolen technology."

Stolen? I was pretty sure that the Thanix was coming straight from the derelict reaper, so it didn't seem right.

"I wouldn't think so, sir. But... Well. This is mere speculation on my part," I said, and Drescher nodded at me to go on. "I believe the asari have been looking into the Collectors. They might have poked the beehive a bit too hard."

"They were looking at them?" Drescher said, an edge to her voice.

"At the time they were more of a curiosity than anything else," I said, a little defensively. "Every so often coming out and kidnapping people to disappear again, they weren't much of a threat. Sure, still worth looking into because they were kidnapping people, but this is different."

"Who do I talk to?" Drescher said.

"Em, could I send it up the flag to see who salutes, sir? It's not like I know exactly who's doing what." That was a bit of a lie, and a bit of a truth.

"Very well, you do that Chief, but don't waste time. We have lost a carrier with its attached fleet, all hands lost. This warrants immediate response. Don't go anywhere in the meantime."

I nodded, my eyes glued to the screen. It didn't sit right with me, but I had no other explanation.

"Something else Chief?"

"I don't know, sir." I gestured at the screen with my chin, arms crossed. "This is weird and unexpected. I don't know what to make of it. I feel like I'm missing something."

"Perhaps. We will see. Thank you for your time, Chief."

"Sir."

I saluted and left the office, ruminating over what had happened. I myself wasn't too convinced about what had happened, and it could turn real nasty if it was the actual reaper that got involved and not just the Collectors. Which, the more I thought about it, the more likely it seemed to be in my mind. The SR2 had been enough to take down a collector ship and a bunch of Oculi in the simulation, but then again, it was quite advanced compared to our Brontes fighters or the carrier-attached frigates. If memory served me right, it was almost the size of a cruiser.

And made by Cerberus, to boot. I hadn't heard a word from them, or Maka regarding them, or even the Broker. I really should message her and see where she was at with them.

But first, I needed to send a message. Drescher wanted to talk to whoever was running the "Spectre" op I had been involved in. I just hoped I was right and Benezia-slash-Aethyta had brought Drescher to Ilos to check for indoctrination. And also, I had a little bit of time to kill, so I decided to place a call I had been putting off.

I hadn't actually talked much with Larran Goh, my volus banker, over the years he had been amassing a small fortune for me. Occasional omni-tool messages and that was about it. But this was something I wanted to discuss face to face. I was thinking of opening a venture that was supposed to bring the Geth and Quarians together, regardless of whether it was a profitable one or not. That had sounded like absolute nonsense to him, and after some back and forth through omni-tool, he had asked for a face to face.

So, here we were.

"Greetings, Earth-Clan Morgan," he said, in a way that I assumed it was some sort of formal greeting. "Thank you for *kssh* contacting me so promptly."

"Of course, not a problem. So what seems to be the problem?"

"Your proposal *kssh* for an investment fund. I have been trying to understand what it is you wish to accomplish. What is the business plan?"

"I don't have one," I replied. "That's what I'm in the hunt for, among other things. What I want is a good chunk of money available to get it going, pay salaries, facilities, and all that."

Goh didn't reply for a few seconds. I assumed he was trying to process all that.

"Earth-clan, I am struggling to understand the purpose of your... business."

"Look, keep this between us, but the business itself is the least important thing. What I'm trying to accomplish is start a project with some quarians that would be willing to work with some Geth. The project itself is not particularly important, or whether it even makes a profit."

I saw him reach up to his head and place his hand on the helmet of his suit - or as far up as it would go, given his chubby frame. He rubbed it absently for a while, a long while at that. Then, he finally spoke in a tone I hadn't heard before from anyone. It sounded surprisingly high-pitched and shrill.

"Why would you want to do that, Earth-Clan?"

"Well," I started, sitting back on my chair and getting comfortable. Trying to make it look like this wasn't a big deal. "The truth is that I have been involved with the talks between the Systems Alliance, Geth, and Quarians. Since the beginning, in fact. So far, things are quiet, and the Systems Alliance brass want to keep it that way."

"A sound plan, Earth-Clan, so why-"

"I agree," I interrupted, waving him down. "But the Geth are quite interested in resuming contact with the quarians. And while doing anything large scale is not exactly easy, or even advisable, I have agreed to assist in attempting a first, small scale step. And this is what I've come up with, which the higher ups have agreed to allow as long as it stays small and doesn't affect the larger scene, so to speak."

"Why not wait, Earth-Clan? The Rannoch-Clan are still returning to their planet, it might take years before they are done."

"Precisely because the quarians are still working on recolonizing Rannoch, and a good number of them are still stuck in the ships. It's a pretty crappy situation for them, but it's an excellent chance for us. Offer them a good steady salary so they have credits to send home, comfortable living with excellent facilities, and the opportunity to work on projects that they cannot get any funding or help with because the rest of the quarians are fixated on recolonization, and we might get a few of them willing to give it a punt."

Once again, the volus spent an awkwardly long time looking at me.

"But the cost of such endeavour, with no profits!"

"With all due respect, it is my money. I've checked the stock prices, my share options on the exploration corp would be-"

"Ah," he interrupted, "that might be complicated."

"Complicated how?" I said, eyeing him with suspicion. What the hell?

"Your shares are a small percentage of the total market size for the corporation. However, several other parties are close to acquiring enough of a minority control interest to affect the direction of the corporation."

I looked at him, but he didn't seem like he wanted to elaborate. "So... what does that mean?"

Once again, Goh made that gesture as if he wanted to scratch his head, but couldn't quite reach. He gestured a couple of times as if he was going to speak, stopped, then went to thinking again. After a while I made a what the hell shrug, which at least he seemed to understand.

"To put it in simple terms..."

"Look, I'm not going to be offended, I don't know much about finance," I said. "So yeah, simplify away."

"Wonderful. In simple terms, as long as the share options remain theoretical there is no practical limit to how much leverage can be applied over them. Once they are executed, however, they become a real asset. Reconciliation of your account would be extremely expensive once leverage is removed."

"So I'm broke?"

"Of course not," Goh said, and he sounded almost offended. "but there is no reason to execute contracts before your investments have fully matured."

"Well I do need the money, this needs to happen."

"Very well, very well," he replied quickly. "Allow me to understand. Your interest is to attract Rannoch-Clan and Geth..."

"I'm pretty sure the Geth will say yes to anything."

"Of course. To attract Rannoch-Clan... and have them work on a project with the Geth without another war breaking out. Your main concern is not profits, but the well being of the employees. And you are willing to spend as much money as necessary."

"That's a good summary."

"Plenix help us," he muttered. "Please allow me a minute."

He actually put me on hold, I imagine so I didn't see him scream at the sky about the crazy Earth-Clan who had come to destroy the best business opportunity he had ever been presented with - which is what he had called that slice of share options I had given him to manage. Honestly, at the start of the call I had considered asking for his opinion, but I was pretty sure I knew his opinion by now. So it was back to square one trying to figure out what to do. I had a pile of credits, and an idea. I'm sure some of the greatest moments in history have started that way.

And probably a lot more dumb moments in history, too.

After a while, the line came back to life, and Goh was sitting on the other side. He looked less twitchy.

"Earth-Clan," he greeted me.

"Yes?"

"I have a proposal, one that I hope you will see to accept," he said. "Given your lack of interest in the long term economic success of the endeavor, I suggest you should attempt to secure external capital."

"So have someone else pay for it? Yeah, I thought about it, but that's not going to work. Nobody's going to invest in something that doesn't make a profit, and basically I want to pamper the quarian workers, which is not conductive to profits. I don't want to give up the control and have someone else turn it into a sweatshop."

Goh looked at me for a moment and started laughing. "Ah, Earth-Clan, you all have a wonderful way to express yourselves. Sweatshop," he added with a chuckle. "I understand your concerns, but I believe they are unfounded. If your interest is the well being of your Rannoch-Clan workers, you could create a fund to cover the additional contractual expenses should the company fail to generate enough profits to cover them, as well as clauses attached to the fund to ensure no changes to the worker compensation conditions. Additionally, if you were to acquire the necessary real estate yourself... A space station I recall?"

"Yes, or a self-contained facility somewhere without atmosphere, an asteroid or something, just-"

"Yes, yes," Goh interrupted. "The facility does have a residual value, which can be used as collateral. Thus, it can be turned into an investment. Once you have secured the real estate, and offered to cover labor cost shortfalls, it would be trivial to secure external investment on the project. As long as the long-term odds of turning a profit are not zero, I can find an asari willing to throw credits at it."

"I'm not trying to cheat anyone," I said.

"Of course not, neither do I!" he snapped. Shit, I think I offended him there. "I intend to be realistic with the odds of turning a profit. But with those incidental expenses out of the way, it becomes a much more... palatable prospect, as you Earth-Clan would say. And substantially less expensive than having to fund the entire endeavor bu yourself."

"Right," I replied. "I didn't mean to offend you, I'm just saying."

"I accept your apology, Earth-Clan," Goh said. "So, is that an agreeable prospect?"

I thought about it for a bit. I mean, I wasn't sure how to go about it, so at least it sounded like a plan. It sounded like Goh was, in fact, invested in the success of this thing, not just tearing his hair out at the crazy human who didn't care about profits. If they had hair that is. And we had what, a decade before the whole thing went down? It didn't matter what came afterwards. Part of the reason why the pile of credits was rather pointless at the moment. Having Piña coladas somewhere nice while basking in the sun for the rest of my life did sound nice, and I could afford it, but I sure as fuck was too preoccupied at the moment.

"That works for me," I said. "As I said, getting the Geth and some quarians together as a first step is what it's all about."

"Good, good," Goh said, and sure as hell sounded relieved at that. "The next issue is what project would be suitable for your purposes."

"I had some discussions about it with the top brass," I said. "They recommended I actually hire people to handle this, starting with surveys and information gathering on what the quarians might be interested in."

"Excellent advice," Goh said. "And easy enough to accomplish. That information is available in the open market."

"Wait, what?"

"That information is-"

"No, no, I heard you," I interrupted, "I just mean how is it available?"

"The entirety of the Rannoch-Clan is returning to their home planet," Goh said. "That generated extreme interest from several corporations. You are interested in projects away from Rannoch, that will be even cheaper to acquire."

"Wow. I mean great. That's great. So we have an idea of what they're looking for. So next would be... some sort of open call for proposals?" I was at the limits of my ideas here, that's how things went when applying for grants when I was studying back in New Zealand, who the fuck knew how things were done for something like this?

"The Goh clan will be perfectly happy to handle the search for a match between available venture capital and potential projects, for a very reasonable fee," he said.

So I laughed at that. Should've seen it coming.

"All right, you have yourself a deal. Just remember what matters the most."

"Reuniting Rannoch-Clan with the instruments of their destruction," Goh replied, and made an overly exaggerated gesture that reminded me of a sigh. "I should have known the lack of complications was too good to be true."

"sorry," I said, grinning madly. "One more thing, I am going to try and get a Spectre to check on whoever you find willing to invest in this. Nothing personal, just wary given past history." And making sure I didn't hand the keys to some Cerberus asshole who wanted to get their hands on the Geth and the quarians.

"Of course, that is standard procedure," Goh said. "If you prefer to do that yourself, I have no objections."

I nearly had to pick my jaw from the floor when he said that. Spectre background checks were... routine? Well, apparently they were, because Spectres had to make scrap somehow. Holy shit, this galaxy didn't make any fucking sense at all.

Honestly, I felt pretty pumped after my chat with Larran Goh. Not only we had the capital for the little project, but it looked like he was actually going to handle setting up this whole business deal and get the ball rolling. Of course, I knew that a "reasonable fee" meant a fuckload of credits, but honestly, as mentioned before, I didn't care about credits at the moment. In a sense, I felt like that was a mistake. Having a substantial amount of credits and not using them for... something out of the simulation felt a bit like a waste, but I had enough fingers in enough pies as it was. Regardless, with that out of the way, all I had to do was wait for Benezia to get back to me, and just wait for orders.

That was a rather unusual situation, which I was sure had to be rising a few eyebrows. I mean, even Drescher's assistant was a freaking Lieutenant (I mean, she wasn't an assistant exactly, but still), and here I was, a lowly NCO with direct access to the top. But I just had to roll with it. What was one more thing that didn't make sense in my life?

I was at the gym lifting when I got a ping from a message I had been expecting. I nearly got stuck at the bottom of the squat, but managed to push up and drop the bar on the rack without needing the safety bars. Point of pride, thank you very much.

It was Wahea, wondering where I was.

I fired back a message to tell her I would be right there, and grabbed my stuff to head straight to the apartment without even a shower. Sure, I was going to need one in less than no time given how much I was sweating, but she was waiting. I legged it down the arm, across the main lower deck, got yelled at for running in the middle of a crowd, and got to my apartment in less than ten minutes.

"Wahea!" I called as I ran towards the apartment. "Sorry, I was at the gym. Thanks for coming!"

"Ah, Roy!" She turned to look at me and smiled, then seemed to hesitate. "It's... um... It's nice to see..."

She looked away, which was weird, but I just ignored it and got to the apartment, opening the door. "Sorry, I probably stink, I didn't grab a shower."

"No, no, it's fine," she said. Shit, was she blushing? Maybe I should have covered up more. "It is good to see you," she finally said, getting herself under control.

"I'm glad you came so quickly, what..." I trailed off when I saw her offering her hand. I smiled, took it, and she leaned closer, putting her hand on my cheek.

"Embrace eternity," she whispered.

A moment later, the familiar feeling of the meld took over. It as a shallow meld, I could tell as much, and I could also tell that Wahea had intentionally kept it shallow.

Are you okay?

Yes, of course, why do you ask?

I offered the thought that it felt like a bit of a shallow meld and, to my surprise, there was this long pause before I got anything back. Which meant feeling that kind of weird limbo when one of the meld partners took a step back while the other sorted their thoughts at a deeper level. Then Wahea came back to me, in a way that felt like she was almost a bit embarrassed. It was a flash of memory, her getting the message I sent, then her getting some orders from Aethyta to come and rendezvous with me.

To my eternal shame, I didn't get it until she explained it.

I thought you actually meant it when you messaged me talking about taking a break.

She sounded embarrassed. I took a moment or two, a moment too long really, but when I responded to that, I was as honest as I could be.

I did mean it. I'm... honestly, I'm a bit of a mess when it comes to this kind of thing.

My thoughts veered off towards Shepard, of all people, who had been playfully, but relentlessly, pushing me towards "getting out there", so to speak. And the fact that yes, awkward I had been back then, I actually had kind of enjoyed the relaxing meld we had shared back when we were visiting the Rachni queen.

The fact that I had had to contact Benezia and ask for some info afterwards was a little incidental.

Oh.

...

That's it? The thought popped out even before I could stop it, so I did my best to mitigate it afterwards. I mean, sorry, no, that's fine. What did Benezia said?

Wahea didn't answer herself. The awkwardness of our meld - standing right next to the closed door to my apartment, at that - increased, then she offered what Aethyta had ordered her. They had not looked into the Collector problem any deeper than what I had mentioned before, and were still gathering information. They had just located Mordin Solus, but hadn't even amde contact yet. And they were as shocked at the idea that the Collectors had come out of retirement and taken down a Systems Alliance carrier as I had been. And yes, they had heard the call from the Shadow Broker about the whole thing. They'd reach to Admiral Drescher on their own. And yes, she had been taken to Ilos as a safety measure, and had passed with flying colors. That didn't mean she needed to know everything.

And Aethyta had been quite insistent on that.

Wahea broke the meld after that, and we both took a moment to get our bearings back. Me more than her.

"Wow, great. So... I don't have to do anything?" I said.

"Just wait, for a little bit," Wahea said.

"That's great." I looked at her, and she almost looked away for a moment but maintained eye contact. Well, let's be honest for a minute, then. "I need a shower but... would you like to have dinner with me? They serve some great ribs here in Arcturus."

Wahea blinked a couple of times before breaking a small smile out.

"I would love to," she said.

Author's Notes: Well, well, well. So, here's the thing: You, dear reader, know exactly what went down with the Chadwik. In-universe me, a.k.a. Roy, doesn't. The thing is, when you're thinking of creating a tool to fulfill a particular need, there's such thing as convergent design. That is, given a particular task, there's only so many irreducibly simplified designs that can fulfill that need. This is one of the reasons why, for all the shit this lore decision got in some circles, I don't have a problem with the idea that all dextro life is largely compatible with each other, and how all levo life is all largely compatible with each other. Convergence towards similar solutions to the problems evolution attempts to fix (so to speak).

Or, in this case, there's so many autonomous drone designs you can have when you want a swarm of drones armed with energy weapons and hard-to-detect exteriors.

Either that... or the salarians are indeed working with the Collectors/Reapers (in-universe canon is that the reapers did indeed use Oculi during their invasion, and that it wasn't something exclusive to the Collectors).

Which one will it be, I wonder. It could be both, after all. Indoctrination is known to be insidious.

Also, Roy now has a plan for his little Geth project, and also he's actually been worn down enough by Sheppy to actually do something about him and Wahea, of all people. Isn't that nice?

(For now)

(MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!)

Anyway! If you want to support me a little more, I've set up a word-which-FFnet-will-eat at:

tinyurl (period) com (slash) y2q9cop6

(FFnet and hyperlinks don't mix).

Reviews! Loads of reviews. A bit of a delay on this chapter, but next one will be faster because I know what's going on.

Finshadow212th: Thanks for the suggestions! I expect some divergence between the tech in this Divergence universe and the in-game, canon universe. The wonders of an arms race (pushed by you-know-who-who-likes-to-live-in-the-shadows!). I still have some things in the air, so don't be surprised if I yoink one of two of your suggestions.

ChuckTheElf: Close! Minesweepers are the obvious answer (not that this is a spoiler, it is _that_ obvious), you'll see soon enough what the first decision is to deal with this mess :D

BJ Hanssen: Remember that speech in the Citadel during Mass Effect 2 where some NCO was chewing up the soldier for "eyeballing" a Dreadnought shot? Yeah, now imagine flak cannons haha! But there'll be an answer to this for sure.

RedShirt1453: Your're not wrong! If you remember, that 's partly what the Borker (a.k.a. Tela Vasir) was planning for. She was planning for a cold war of sorts, and stopping it short of heating up if necessary as a means to get the galaxy to arm themselves. And it's not entirely wrong, the Cold War did advance technology quite impressively thanks to the space race, after all. Not as much as a hot war. That said, you can expect conflict as things go forward (not that it's a spoiler! I mean... LOL).

Uemei: The drone trope is present in other works of fiction, but Mass Effect didn't go much further than the Collector Oculus when it came to drones. Which was a bit of a waste if you ask me, they have been present in fiction for much longer than they've been a thing in real life, so they're kind of an obvious solution for force multipliers with minimum risk of life. Except for the works of fiction where life is cheap (hello 40k LOL). And thanks for the compliment :)

RIOSHO: Ooooh yeah, the Geth and the drones will come up eventually, and maybe sooner than expected.

maesde, SpecterXCove, john777, Tom712, general-joseph-dickson, thanks for the reviews!

Next time, on My Effect: Divergence: Misdirection, and someone who's stuck in the middle. Until then, thanks for reading!