"Hold that for a moment, would you?"

"Err... ok, got it." Lieutenant Trathal took the device that Chief S'Koil passed her rather gingerly. It was little bigger than a gravitic calliper, but could produce a gravitational compression powerful enough to pulp her finger to a thin soup.

"Good. Now, you need set the connector block in it's focus, set it to expansion mode to spread the connector channel, 300G should do, then lock in the cable ends and slide the control smoothly over to 1kG compression."

Trathal tried to take a few deep breaths to focus herself, but that only made things worse. It wasn't the work that was so much of a problem; she'd sealed ruptured plasma conduits before now, and stabilised an antimatter flow that was threatening to breach magnetic containment. But she'd never had to work in a cramped maintenance duct while pressed close up to a statuesque woman who was easily twice her size, and clearly amused by her discomfort.

Come on Tra, focus on the work. This is just a bit of teasing, don't let it get to you.

The connector block jumped from her fingers as she eased it into the focus point of the tool, and hovered there. Then creaked as she slid her thumb along the control.

"You need to make that smoother. Try taking it more slowly until you've had more practice."

Reaching awkwardly in the cramped space, she attached the two superconducting wires, then reversed the tool's setting as smoothly as she could.

"Nicely done."

Trathal grinned. "Thanks."

"Now, check the connection with... umph, damn it... with this." With what Trathal was sure was excessive wriggling, S'Koil retrieved another device and offered it to her free hand. "The two probe points go into those holes at each end, either way round. What's it reading?"

"Just a moment... 0-01 and 0-008."

"Hey, nice going for your first time! Now strip it down, dump the connector for recycling and do it again. You need both readings at 0-007 or lower. Remember, speed on the tool doesn't matter so much, but smoothness does."

"Right. Sorry for asking, but wouldn't it reduce your failure rate to automate that?" As well as genuinely wanting to know, Trathal was curious to see what kind of engineer S'Koil was. In her experience, chief engineers tended to either growl, sneer, tut or (ideally) teach, when trainees asked impertinent questions.

Chief S'Koil smiled and shrugged. "Eh, some models do. But they're expensive, and we ran into more problems with people forgetting to use the correct setting than using the tool clumsily. Plus, when you're on a deadline you can use the feedback on the probe to let you take things faster. Don't worry, you'll get it pretty quickly."

She hesitated, her eyes going a bit vacant, then pulled a rueful expression. "Sorry, love to stay and get you up to speed, but I've got to go and stop your Mr Sotar from dismantling one of our singularity containments. Just crack on with this, we've got a couple thousand connections to make up, so every little helps."

She started squirming backwards out of the duct, causing Trathal's breath to catch. She paused, and looked up at her from her waist level. "Look, I know this is just grunt work, but without proper training on our tech you've got to start somewhere, and this is important. You'll get to do some more interesting stuff soon, I promise."

With an awkward scramble she backed out of the duct and hurried off, her boots thudding on the deck. Trathal sighed, and carefully rested her forehead on the duct wall. It was still warm from where S'Koil's back had pressed against it.

This is stupid. I've been away from home too long; meet a few women with normal colour, and I'm going to pieces. But damn, she's... No. Stop it. I'm here to work. Don't think about Chief S'Koil, or the way she smiles. The way she smells. The texture of her skin...

Just think of superconductors, connectors, and this terrifying connector tool.

So she worked away steadily, gradually getting the feel of what she was doing. By the time she was interrupted a couple of hours later, she'd managed to complete more than a hundred connections (and trashed thirty connectors), which she felt was good going. She heard Chief S'Koil's voice outside the duct saying "Safety check." She carefully shut down the Death Spanner as she'd come to think of it, and called back, "Tools off. Cabling insulated and secure."

S'Koil knocked on the sole of her shoe and called "Time for a break. How are you doing?"

"One one eight done. Thirty connectors need recycling, but my rate's improving."

"Hey, better than I expected! Your boss was right to recommend you. Let's go and eat, I'll help you out."

Trathal felt strong hands grab her ankles, then she was unceremoniously dragged out of the duct onto the decking. For a startled moment she just lay there on the decking, looking up the smiling Asari. Then she took the proffered hand and got to her feet. S'Koil's hand was strong, soft, slightly rough to the touch, and warmer than she'd expected.

Huh. Higher body temperature than human. Closer to Klingon, I'd guess.

"Come on Lieutenant, let's go and get something at the DS6 mess."

Trathal followed her as she headed down the... well, she ought to think of it as the main gangway, but it just felt like a bigger maintenance duct. When she'd first come on board, she'd thought she'd somehow missed a door or hatch, and come into the wrong part of the ship. It had been rather a shock to realise that their main cannon was bigger than the space for the crew.

"Don't you want to eat here? It would be quicker."

S'Koil shook her head decisively. "No, we're out of fresh food. All we've got now is reconstituted rations. I want to enjoy food from your miracle replicators while I can."

"All right. Err... what kind of food do you like? I mean, we don't have Asari cooking..." Ugh, smooth, Tra, real smooth. Why do I always get tongue tied when I try and get a date... which I shouldn't be doing anyway!

"Relax, I'm fine with human food. I do like the Thai dishes the replicators have."

As they passed one of the cubbyholes that passed for a galley, Trathal saw a couple of the Recidivist crew, Turians, hunched over a table stolidly eating some indescribable slop from plastic bags. "Oh, hello." She gave an awkward half-wave, and one of them lifted a finger in silent acknowledgement. "We're just heading to the mess for some food, you're welcome to come along..?"

The one who'd (just barely) responded swallowed and shook his head. "Thanks, but there's no point. We can't digest levo-amino acids, only dextro." The other just kept chewing gloomily.

"Well, I'm qualified to program replicators. I could probably get something you can eat in half an hour or so."

The silent Turian responded by standing up and throwing her bag of slop past the other into a waste bin. "Well then what are we waiting for? I don't care what it tastes like, if it doesn't kill me then anything's better than this shit!" She gestured along the gangway. "After you."

As they set off, Chief S'Koil gave her a grin and a slap on the back. "Good job."

Trathal couldn't help smiling stupidly all the way to the DS6 mess hall.

"Ah, Steven, come in. How are things going?" Forest gestured Grant to sit.

Grant lowered himself onto a chair. "Well, Sir, we've received a lot of data from the Recidivist and we're making good progress collating and analysing it. Mr. Sotar's been tied up with completing our own partial repairs that DS6 weren't able to finish up before, but he's been looking at some of the more... esoteric tech data. Which, frankly, is most of it."

"Is there anything that could be of immediate use against the Dominion?"

Grant shook his head. "Sorry, Sir. This is all beyond me, it would need specialist researchers to look at it. Frankly, all the interesting stuff relies on this 'Element zero' they use, and that's outside our experience. I've had a look at some of the schematics they've shared, and I couldn't even guess how we'd reproduce the end result."

Forest stood up and started pacing. "I'll be frank with you, Starfleet Command are starting to get insistent. We can't look to another universe for military aid. It doesn't matter how much we help the Recidivist, there isn't going to be any treaty or any ships coming to assist us. So if we can't show that there's going to be a pay-off from a technology exchange, we're likely to be ordered back to the conflict, and the Recidivist crew will be left high and dry while DS6 concentrates on the war. They'll probably be interned for the duration, and the ship impounded."

He paused in his pacing, and stared out the window at the dark curve of DS6, the steady glow of its lights making the bulk of the station seem to fade into the stars beyond. "Steven, I don't want that for them if I can avoid it. Starfleet should do better by them than that."

Grant gave a non-committal grunt. Forest turned back to him, frowning. "You disagree?"

Grant hesitated. "Captain, permission to be frank?"

"Permission granted. Indeed, I insist."

"... Sir, I know you hold Starfleet's ideals close to your heart. But right now, we're fighting for Starfleet's, and the Federation's, survival. There's no point doing the right thing if it gets us destroyed! And, Sir, we are being destroyed. We can't afford anything that diverts resources away from fighting the Dominion. The Recidivist's crew are just that. A diversion. And, frankly, not an especially trustworthy one."

Grant was looking rather guilty. "Perhaps I should have told you this before, but looking through the data they've given us... there are holes. Especially in the data on weapon technology. I can't even work out what their main cannon does! It's described as a mass driver, but there's nothing about what mass it's driving. And I can't believe that even they are just slinging lumps of matter at each other!"

"And can you blame them? Trapped in an unknown universe, attacked without provocation, of course they'd be cautious!" Forest was aware that only one of them was conducting themselves in a properly professional manner, and he was pretty sure it wasn't him. But he couldn't shake the feeling that the Starfleet he'd joined had already been destroyed by the war. I swore an oath to obey orders. But I also swore to uphold the principles of the Federation. Everyone seems to remember the one, and forget the other.

Grant had paused while he spoke, then carried on speaking, ignoring Forest's outburst. "And... well, I'm keeping this bit quiet on purpose, because I don't know how Captain Carew would react. They... They have implants. Implants that look a lot like Borg implants. And they use a lot of nanite tech."

"They accounted for that!"

"Yes Sir. I know. 'Reverse engineered Reaper nanite tech, re-purposed to medical and military use, rather than transforming people into nightmarish shock troops.' But it still looks damn sketchy to me."

Forest resisted the temptation to sink his head in his hands in despair.

"I see. Very well. Thank you for being open with me. I'll take what you've said seriously, I promise." He glanced back at the window. He could just see part of the docked USS Zhang Qian. "Captain Carew's busy dealing with repairs to the Zhang Qian, and he's told me he's expecting the Higgs to dock shortly, so I'll be liaising with Commander Shepard for a while. It's not really my area, but I might be able to get some more from her. Is there anything else?"

For a moment Grant hesitated, as if debating with himself what to say, but then he shook his head. "Nothing major. A lot of my team are requesting permission to do work on the Recidivist. Understandable, many of them are primarily researchers and it's the only really new thing we've had to deal with for some time. But if they all work on that, we won't have enough people to assist with routine maintenance."

"Hm. Set up a rota, the quicker the Recidivist is repaired the happier everyone will be, and the more of our people are working on it the more information we'll be able to glean about their technology. Make sure they all turn in reports about what they've been working on. If any of them feel uncomfortable about that, tell them to speak to me."

"Aye Captain." Grant stood. "Permission to see to that?"

"Of course."

After Grant had left, Forest got a strong coffee from the replicator. He felt he needed a jolt to deal with his next meeting. When he was talking to Shepard, he was uncomfortably aware that she was discussing whatever they said with at least one of her officers. It really isn't fair, always being outnumbered. But I suppose no-one ever said being a Captain would be fair.

He triggered his communicator. "Computer, please inform Commander Shepard that I'm free."

"Confirmed."

He sat, and waited.

They're getting better. Still very bad, though.

Shepard smirked as yet another DS6 security team member, purely by chance, just happened to be walking down the same corridor as her. Still, even though their attempt to tag-team her was painfully obvious, at least they weren't pretending to be technicians.

Shepard was annoyed by the long walk to where the Ptolemy was docked, but the last thing she was going to do was trust their lunatic 'transporters'. Goddess knows what they'd do to my eezo nodules. Probably just rip out my nervous system and leave it behind. Or explode my brain or something. As she travelled in the turbolift to the correct deck, she was alone for all of two floors before it stopped to let the station's security chief on.

"Lieutenant." Shepard nodded politely.

"Commander." Xah nodded back.

"Six."

Xah blinked. "... Six what?"

"Six of your people tag-teamed me from Recidivist to here. That I saw. One of them twice, the poor fellow must have sprinted to get ahead of me. I don't know why you don't just assign me a minder and have done with it." Shepard leant back against the wall of the turbolift and waited for Xah's response.

Xah grunted irritably. "If I had my way I would. But the Captain thinks that would be... impolite."

Shepard lifted a mocking eyebrow. "And having a bunch of people trying to stalk me with all the subtlety of Elcor is supposed to be polite?"

Xah glared at her, and snarled. "It is supposed to be tactful!"

For a short while the two women stared at each other in silence. The Turbolift arrived at Shepard's destination, but neither of them moved. Then Shepard grinned. "Tell you what, why don't I tell your Captain to stick his 'polite and tactful' up his arse and just give me a minder. Or a bodyguard, if he wants to keep up the pretence. Would that make your life easier?"

Xah relaxed slightly. "It would."

"I assume you'll be 'bodyguarding' me to the Ptolemy."

"I will."

As they started walking, Shepard studied the Klingon openly. Xah ignored her.

"You don't get on with your Captain, do you?"

Xah gave her a startled, angry glance, then carried on walking. "He's not my Captain. I serve my commanding officer by fulfilling the duties of a Federation security chief, while a Federation officer attempts to fulfil my duties in the Klingon Empire."

"And... you don't approve?"

Xah stopped dead. "It is not my place to approve or disapprove." She gestured angrily. "The Federation are... different. I don't understand them, and they don't understand me."

Shepard laughed. "I know how that feels. Ever since the end of the Reaper war in my universe, a whole bunch of people just got stranded wherever they happened to be when the mass relays were destroyed. Almost two hundred years later we're still trying to understand each other. Some are easier to figure out than others, but even they've got things going on that I'll never understand. Like my Sergeant of Marines, Shosak."

Xah frowned, thoughtfully. "The... Vorcha? With..." She unconsciously pulled her lips back in a half snarl, and half raised one hand towards her mouth, while searching for the right words. Shepard decided to help her out.

"With the mouth full of murder spikes, yes."

Xah started walking again, carefully not looking at Shepard. "Tell me about him."

Shepard shrugged. "I don't really know what to say. The huntresses adore him. He always leads from the front, and fighting is second nature to him. When he gives a command in battle, it's always the right one. Um. Except when the right order would be to retreat, he can't do that. Doesn't understand what retreat is, I don't think. He never trained or did drills in his life, he just started fighting as an infant, like all Vorcha, and carried on."

She sighed, wearily. "But I don't know why he ever joined up. I've never heard of any Vorcha doing that before. They do alright as mercenaries, but even then they're usually snatched by mercenary companies as infants and raised in the company. They do not join the military. And he's got no concept of discipline, or respect. I don't know if he even understands what a chain of command is!"

Xah grunted, non-committally, then asked "Is he honourable?"

"Honestly? I don't know. I don't know if Vorcha do honour." Shepard thought for a few moments. "I guess that for a Vorcha, 'honourable' means standing up for your clan come what may. If he's adopted us as his clan... Hm. When we were boarding that Dominion ship, a bunch of its crew had holed up in a defensive position. One of the huntresses was killed when we tried to storm them. Shosak... basically, he went berserk. He just did a flying leap straight into the middle of them, and ripped one Jem'Hadar's face off with his teeth!"

She stopped talking, thinking back on that moment. I hope I manage to forget that some day. I've seen some shit but... I wish the Jem'Hadar had died quicker. She shook her head, trying to dismiss the memory. "It was a dumb move, should have got him killed. I think they were just so shocked they forgot to shoot him. And it gave us the opening we needed. So, I guess he is honourable in his own odd way."

She glanced at Xah. She was carefully not looking at Shepard, her gaze fixed straight ahead, but she was definitely breathing faster. Disgusted? Frightened? Damn, she's hard to read. "Why do you ask about him, anyway?"

"He has invited me to spar with him. I would be... interested to compare our combat techniques."

Shepard stopped dead. "Don't! Sparring needs restraint, and Vorcha have no restraint, not in combat. I don't know what your fancy universal translator thought he was saying, but ten to one he was challenging you to a fight to the death."

Xah nodded thoughtfully. "Thank you for your advice." They'd reached the docking port where the USS Ptolemy was docked. Xah tapped her comm badge. "Xah to Commander Pashzto. Commander Shepard seeking permission to come aboard.

"Permission granted."

The dock opened. The Ptolemy's security chief was standing there, and Xah gestured Shepard to go on. "I will leave you with Commander Pashzto. Farewell for now." She turned without waiting for a reply, and marched off.

Shepard watched her leave. She had the uneasy feeling that there had been layers to that conversation she'd missed completely. I hope she's not going to do something stupid.

"Commander?"

"Hm. Yes." She pulled her attention back to Pashzto. "Time to go see your Captain. Lead the way!"

"... but I don't understand why you don't use plasma conduits. They could carry way more power in a smaller volume and with lower mass than your superconductor cables."

Sitting in the DS6 mess, of course they'd carried on talking shop as they ate. The mess was busy almost all the time, a steady stream of basic technicians, more experienced engineers, security crew and support staff, either coming off shift or about to go on, eating and talking.

Unlike bigger, better appointed stations, DS6 didn't have noise cancellation fields, so there was a steady babble of overlapping conversations. Most about work, some about the personal lives and crises of the crew. Surprisingly few about the war. It felt as if that was a taboo subject.

At the moment, as the technicians and marines (or 'huntresses', if they were Asari) from the Recidivist ate and relaxed off their own appallingly cramped ship, a fair amount of the chatter was about the peoples and histories of the two universes. But Trathal was mostly interested in the technology.

Orilai (as she had insisted Trathal should call her) looked surprised, and put down her fork. "You know, your ships are so powerful I keep forgetting that you don't actually build warships."

"That's really not true." Trathal felt rather offended at the Asari engineer's almost off-handed dismissal of Starfleet's abilities. "Defence is one of Starfleet's main purposes."

Orilai smiled in a way that made Trathal feel as if she'd just been patted on the head like a precocious but silly child. "No need to pout, I'm not criticising your Federation's tech or engineering. It's a mindset thing. Your ships are designed as if you're at the technological peak of the galaxy, and anyone you may have to fight is a rung or two lower down the ladder. So you rely completely on your shields and weapons."

She took a quick gulp of her drink and carried on. "But when you come up against someone at the same level as you, or even a bit higher, your ships aren't exactly robust. As soon as your enemy gets through your shields and actually does you damage, you've got high energy plasma leaking all over the place, wrecking other systems and trying to burn it's way out to say 'Hi' to the people trying to burn their way in! And if your warp core's damaged, you either blow up or you eject it and you're dead in space with only sublight drive – if you're lucky."

"And your ships are so much better?"

"Eh." Orilai made a vague 'so-so' gesture. "At our tech level, I suppose so. We used to build the same way you do, when we thought we were right at the top of the tree looking down on everyone else." Her face went sombre. "Then the Reapers came."

She glanced sharply at one of the Turians who was eating with them. "No need to roll your eyes at me, Voltus. That may be old history to you, but some of us lived through it."

Trathal blinked in surprise. "Sorry, I haven't read all the material on your universe you shared, but wasn't that over a hundred and eighty years ago? How old are you?"

"Oh, coming on for five hundred." Orilai smirked at Trathal's startled expression. "You do know Asari can live for over a thousand years with luck, don't you?"

"I... I suppose so. Just, the reality of it... You're older than the Federation!"

"Hm. Yes, I suppose I am. Disgracefully old to still be wandering around with a bunch of children, but what can I say? Sitting planet-side raising a family just isn't my thing. So long as there are still ships that need an engineer, I'll still be a spacer.

"But, anyway, about our ships. Now we assume we're going to get a pasting in a fight, so we build reliable. Multiple redundancy, self repairing ablative plating, and fail-safe designs where possible, so we can hang in a fight even half wrecked."

Trathal thought about that for a moment. "Except for your singularity cells. A direct hit on one of those would vaporise you instantly, wouldn't it? So why use them?"

"Ah, yes. A bit of a compromise there. Now that the Mass Relay system is down... did you read about that?"

Trathal nodded.

"Good. Now that's down, journey times are long. It takes about ten years to cross the galaxy from rim to rim, and only a handful of really massive capital ships using reverse-engineered Reaper tech can manage even that. Smaller or older ships take way longer, if they can handle those distances at all. So we use singularity cells because they can use damn near anything as fuel. If we find ourselves too far from a friendly refuelling station, we can just use whatever's to hand; anything from hydrogen up to the transuranic elements. Of course, we armour the cells really heavily, they could probably survive anything that wouldn't destroy the ship anyway. And if one is damaged or starts to go critical, we can eject it and carry on with the remainder. But you're right, they are a weak point."

She paused, and looked at Trathal quizzically. "Didn't your mother ever tell you it's rude to stare at people with your mouth open?"

"But... Ten years?! That... I don't think we've got any ships that could do it in less than... I don't know, eighty years? If they could even do it at all! I thought your ships are supposed to be slow?"

Orilai's expression was an odd mixture of smug and embarrassed. "Oh, they are. Over short distances. Your ships can go from a standing start to full speed in just moments. Ours have to spend days accelerating to even match your normal cruise speeds. But then we can just keep accelerating, so over very long distances we can beat you." She pulled a disgruntled face. "But your mobility in a field of conflict..." She sighed. "Frankly, your tech is terrifying. As far as I can tell, your only weakness is you can't manage long supply lines."

"Oh." Trathal stared gloomily down at her plate. All of a sudden, she didn't feel hungry. "The Federation... we didn't set out to be terrifying. We just wanted to be able to defend ourselves."

"Ah. And now that you find out that you're someone's nightmare?"

Trathal pushed her plate away. "You know, I used to be in the Andorian Imperial Guard? I was mostly liaising with the Civil Guard, but I was still military. I joined Starfleet to get away from that. You just made me realise I ran straight from one military to another."

Orilai reached over, and held her hand reassuringly. "It's ok. From what I've heard, the Federation has never gone out spoiling for a fight. And defending citizens from people who'd harm them? That's an honourable thing."

"I suppose so."

Voltus gave an impatient grunt, and got up and stalked off to dump his scraps in the replicator. His fellow Turian looked a little awkward, and stood as well. "Ah, thanks for sorting out the food program for us." She smiled thinly (as far as Trathal could tell, given the Turians' bizarre mouths). "I'll let you know if we have any problems later." Then she turned and followed Voltus.

Trathal stared after them. "Did I say something to offend them?"

Orilai shook her head. "It's nothing. Asari have a reputation as sexual predators." She grinned mischievously. "He probably thinks I'm trying to seduce you, and doesn't approve."

Trathal looked down to where Orilai's big hand still rested on her own.

"You can if you want." She kept staring down, feeling as if her blush was about to go ultra-violet, her antennae drooping in embarrassed shame. Orilai carefully let go of her hand, and looked awkward. "Ah. Well... Trathal, the thing is..."

And at that moment all the alarms went off.

Shepard looked around Captain Forest's ready room with reluctant admiration. "You know, I don't often say this but... wow. This makes most Admiral's quarters look dowdy. Any chance I could join your Starfleet? With this sort of luxury to aim for, I could probably make Captain in a week. Two at most."

She grinned to try and hide her envy.. and her discomfort. DS6 was large and imposing, but it still had the familiar, practical feel of a busy working station. The USS Ptolemy felt like a luxury cruiser, or a pre-war dreadnought. Wide, clean, brightly lit corridors; spacious rooms with comfortable furniture; spotless and almost sterile in its cleanliness. There were no storage racks bolted to the walls, no relabelled control panels, and if there were equipment access panels they were carefully hidden.

She shifted awkwardly in her seat, and Forest looked at her with concern. "Are you alright? You seem uncomfortable."

"Ah, it's nothing. Your ship just reminds me of my first training posting when I was fresh out of boot-camp." She shrugged, dismissively. "It was an old, pre-war ship. A big 'look at how magnificent the Asari are' vanity ship. Hopelessly outdated but, goddess, it was awe inspiring." She scowled. "I hated that ship. It represented everything that was wrong with the Republic before the war, and everything that's still wrong with it now."

She was perversely pleased to see Forest's expression of surprise bordering on consternation.

"Er, may I ask what that is?"

"Fossilised, rock hard arrogance." Shepard realised that, now her anger had distracted her from the sumptuous surroundings, she had sunk into a slouch. Ah, why not? At least I'm comfortable, why should I care if I'm not mimicking his stick-up-the-butt pose dear goddess he looks uptight!

Warming to her theme, she carried on with her litany of complaint. "The Asari were the first race into space after the Reapers wiped out all the old tech civilisations, the first to find the technology honey-trap they left behind. So we had a head start on all the other races, and didn't we know it. We lived longer than them, we had better tech than them, so obviously we were superior. And we kept our edge for nearly three millennia. You know Asari live for upwards of a thousand years? Well that means that all the Matriarchs were born in that smug golden age, and most of them want it back."

For a moment she sat, fuming, while Forest politely waited. Then she sighed heavily. "It's better than it used to be. My granddad's got a seat on the Council, she's got her priorities right. And my mother... ugh. She's certainly not stuck in the past, but I've never been able to figure out what she stands for."

She looked at Forest, who was keeping his expression carefully blank. Maybe I shouldn't be saying all this. But... it's almost a relief to share this with someone from outside. "You know, the republic is a real melting pot of races now, but the navy is almost pure Asari? Non-Asari are the exception, not the rule. It's only high-risk front line ships like mine that can have really mixed crew – if the commander pushes for it." She smiled sardonically. "After all, we can't have the power being diluted by the lower classes, can we?"

And now Forest was looking deeply uneasy. Ah ha. A crack in your armour? Maybe he'll share what he doesn't like about the Federation, because that is someone who looks worried about more than the Dominion. What he said next, though, was disappointing.

"That sounds... troubling. The Federation strives for equality among all. What you say about your Republic... well, it does sound uncomfortably like the Dominion."

"Reeealy." Shepard knew she sounded like an argumentative, sarcastic child of 40, but his Party Line reply was annoying. "So the fact that on DS6, and on this ship, I'm looking at wall to wall humans with a handful of token exceptions is just coincidence?"

Forest stiffened. "We do tend to find that ships and stations work most effectively when manned predominantly by one race. Quite apart from purely physical comfort within certain temperature ranges and atmospheric compositions, there are cultural considerations..."

Shepard butted into what sounded like some piece of social propaganda that had been drilled into him in school. "So you keep the Federation races apart from each other. And I suppose it's just coincidence that your Federation Council, your Supreme Court, and your Starfleet Command are all located on Earth?"

Watching Captain Forest's pinched lipped dismay was simultaneously delightful and annoying. He really doesn't see it, does he?

Forest abruptly stood and walked over to the window. He seemed to take comfort in the view of the endless stars outside. He relaxed and took a deep breath. "Don't you think it's a little presumptuous of you to judge an entire civilisation on such a short acquaintance?"

Shepard didn't bother replying.

Forest glanced over at her. Maybe her sceptical expression got through to him. Or maybe he actually heard what he was saying. In any case, he abruptly looked abashed and dropped his gaze. Then looked up, smiled self-deprecatingly, and lifted his hands in an apologetic gesture. "I'm sorry, that was exactly what I was just doing, wasn't it? Please accept my apologies, I really shouldn't have jumped to conclusions."

"Apology accepted." She couldn't help adding, "Good of you to realise it."

He winced at that, but took it well. He came back to his seat and sat down again. "So, apart from, um, that issue with your military, how are relations between the different races in the Asari Republic?"

"Honestly? Not too bad. There are tensions, of course. Most of the non-Asari are the descendants of refugees and military stranded when the Mass Relays were destroyed. They've lost their home-worlds, and to a degree their cultures. So some of them are really keen on trying to hold on to their own identity. And they're sometimes upset when others of their kind integrate, marry Asari. And... sorry, not sure how much of that info dump we gave your lot you've had time to read, but you know that the children of Asari are always Asari, never mind the race of the father?" Forest nodded. "Right, so that's a problem. And on the flip-side, some Asari are worried about how fast the other races reproduce, especially as we lost so much of our own populations in the Reaper War. But we're pretty good at smoothing over problems."

Forest looked thoughtful. "Hm. It's... hard to keep in mind just how much devastation your galaxy is recovering from. Is that the source of your conflict with Earth?"

Shepard shook her head, then hesitated. "Actually, I guess you're right. Earth lost at least half their population, between Reaper bombardment, harvesting, and battlefield losses by the resistance. Maybe three quarters. Then they had massed Krogan and Turian military forces trapped in that region and looking for somewhere to live, just when the entire infrastructure was destroyed." She paused, and studied Forest's face. He was looking sick, but she pressed on anyway. "They had a couple of major civil wars since then, before General Corvidus seized power."

Shepard sighed, leant back in her seat and closed her eyes. "He's a Turian. They're all about duty and service for the greater good. Unless they're out-and-out criminals. Even those join mercenary companies or organised gangs. They crave order. Corvidus? I don't know. Trying to keep humans, Krogan, and his own people in order and keep them from each others' throats... I think he went mad. He settled on a program of expansion, seizing territory and resources. Keep the troops busy, keep wealth flowing in. Rebuild. Keep people prosperous. Eventually he tried to seize territory from one of our allies, the Volus. The Turian Hierarchy had no choice but to come to the defence of the Volus, and we had no choice but to support them. It's a mess."

She opened her eyes, looked at Forest. "You know, we got into interstellar space almost three thousand years ago, and since then we helped build a galactic civilisation, helped prevent the extinction of all space-faring species, and were dragged into just four wars. One was the Reaper war, and another was engineered by them. Does your squeaky clean Federation have a better record?"

Forest was silent for a long while. Then he shook his head sadly. "No. No, I can't say we have." He stood up again and went over to the replicator. "I need a drink. Will you join me?"

"Yeah. Anything that's ok for humans will be fine."

He came back with two tumblers. Shepard sniffed one. "Whisky?"

"Yes! You have that in your universe?"

"A bit, made by human settlers. Most of it's garbage, but this smells good." She raised her glass. "Here's to survival."

Forest looked at her quizzically, then smiled bitterly. "To survival."

Abruptly, an urgent chime sounded, repeating with an escalating tone. Forest, looking startled and worried, tapped his comm badge. "Forest here."

"Sir, urgent call from Captain Carew, sounds like we have a crisis."

"Put him though."

As Shepard put down her glass and headed toward the exit, in case Forest asked her to leave, the viewscreen lit up showing Martin.

"... and keep trying! Ah, Rupert. I need your help. Urgently!"

Codex

Singularity cells

Singularity cells have been one of the most influential of the reverse-engineered Reaper technologies. By using Mass Effect fields to maintain a micro singularity very close to the critical evaporation mass, and balancing the emitted Hawking radiation with the addition of matter, the singularity can effectively be used as a matter to energy converter. It can also be used as a charge sink, storing excess drive core charge to be safely dumped (usually via plasma or charged particle weapon fire) at a later time.

While singularity cells have effectively removed the need for specialised fuel, as any available matter can be used (although high density matter is preferable in order to minimise storage volume), they do have some significant drawbacks.

Firstly, they can never be shut down completely. Singularities will emit Hawking radiation in any event, and so they must be constantly supplied with fuel, even when their evaporation rate is heavily damped by powerful mass effect fields. If their fuel supply runs out, then they will start to lose mass, leading to their evaporating at an exponentially increasing rate, and ultimately exploding catastrophically. However, this is only ever a concern if a ship should enter an extreme combat situation with near zero fuel stored, as the high power drain required could lead to the runaway evaporation occurring during combat.

Secondly, direct weapons fire which breaches the cell would result in the loss of the stabilising Mass Effect fields, and the near instantaneous evaporation of the singularity. Followed nanoseconds later by the evaporation of the ship. Singularity cells are always the most heavily armoured part of any ship.

Asari pronouns

Being a monosexed species capable of reproducing with any other individual regardless of sex or species, Asari have continuously struggled to educate other species as to their nature. And despite many hundreds of years of contact in some cases, other species still struggle to accept Asari uniqueness. This is most evident in their continued compulsion to use 'female' pronouns for Asari, and assign 'mother' and 'father' labels to parents.

The Asari language does have its own equivalent of other races' 'pronouns', containing a wide range of tonal shifts and variations in pronunciation to convey subtle indications about the Asari being spoken of, such as whether the Asari bore a child, and whether they have primary parental responsibility; prefers to bear children or be the non-bearing partner; chooses to focus on family, civil responsibilities or personal advancement, and so on. It is a source of both exasperation and amusement to Asari that when their language is translated to that of other species these fluid and subtle distinctions, which can often change throughout an Asari's life, are reduced to crude and simplistic 'he/she/they' and 'mother/father'.

As a rule, Asari metaphorically throw up their hands in despair, and in conversation with other species refer to all Asari as 'she', and to parents as 'mother' or 'father' depending on whether they bore a particular child or not. Few Asari have the obstinate determination needed to try and insist on other species using more appropriate references.