The Attican War
Chapter 1: "Foreboding"
2.3.12176 ElysiumDead iron and rotten sulfur marred the air as human blood and putrid death gouged the senses. The bright satin blue armor of the Alliance Marines was red and brown with the dying embers of Private Sears' comrades, their gore telling a tale of fantastic murder across their captor's camp. Sears' face was stuck in a contortion of unbearable grief and stomach-turning fear like a chiseled stone statue, as he couched the broken cadaver of a lover in arms.
Two glass eyes stared pitilessly back.
The camp, a staging area, lay in the foothills overlooking Illyria, with the high Elysian mountains behind. Normally slavers would do their work amid their victims, but the staunch defenders of the 106th had forced them to stand off. Sears had to be punished for his friends' resistance.
A tall, gaunt, Turian man, Elanos Haliat enjoyed his kills, especially human ones. His pale white face paint seemed to summon an image of death in the human psyche. It relished his ego to know that.
Haliat beheld his quarry, Alliance Marines, thanks to their gene mods, were always fine specimens of their species physically speaking. Mentally, however, well, this marine certainly wasn't. While Death spared no man his dignity, Sears lacked the ram-rod resolve of character that had granted the bloody rags, which were once his squadmates, dignity in life.
A venomous snarl built up in Haliat's throat as he stalked the pup, digitigrade legs bending low as his mandibles clicked in anticipation. It tore its attention towards him as he drew close. All that poison, all the vitriol and hate he felt for the creature was expressed in one word as he pressed his maw to its ear.
"Run."
As clicks and claws translated to human speech, Sears's adrenaline took over as his boots tore the mud and turf before him. Once he'd gotten clear of the putrid miasma of the camp his mind once again began to function, and ran, looking for an explanation for his good fortune.
Did Haliat want him to tell the others what he'd seen? In some bid to horrify and demoralize them? Or maybe it was just a sick — Sears would never finish that or any other thought. A few hundred meters from the camp now, he'd just crested a hill that, in Haliat's estimation, put him squarely in full view of the Alliance's marines, or at least their forward observers. So, he gave the order. One of his men pressed a button above the grip of their weapon and in a moment, so much that had been a human life, precious, however, he had decided to live and die, had been extinguished, and the shell of what had once been mutilated into gore-soaked ribbons for all to see.
"Alfa! Come in alfa!" A commanding voice rang over the now ownerless radio. The gore-soaked speaker crackled as it tried to function. "Fireteam Alfa report in!" A pregnant pause followed and a sigh. "Damn it!"
Colonel Charlie Jones threw his radio receiver against the wall and slammed his hands down on the table before him and his staff. The receiver slid uselessly against the flowing khaki of the command tent.
"The rest of the sortie as' already reported in, sir." One of the colonel's aides calmed. "It's just Alfa that we lost."
"And?" The Colonel barked, frustrated.
"Shepard's right, sir. They've got us boxed in."
The Colonel swung around, crossing his arms and his sword clacked in his scabbard, as he looked over the city that was now his charge to defend. Illyria, four million people, half of Elysium's population, surrounded. Damn it, why didn't I just listen to the bugger, he thought grimly and his lip curled in disgusted anger. That navy puke lieutenant had been right the whole goddamned time, and now his marines were paying the price.
"Get back on that net and kill it, Lieutenant," Jones ordered solemnly. Across Alfa's comm net the mantra 'Silence' repeated thrice, and it was indefinitely abandoned.
1.3.12176 Attican TraverseLike an endless sea of gemstones, stars more numerous than the sand grains of Earth illuminated the infinite nothing before the bridge of the SSV Hastings with otherworldly hues, brought on by the powerful blueshift of FTL travel. As infrared and microwaves shifted into the visible spectrum with Hasting's acceleration, a vast accretion of stars along the galactic plane, previously hidden by endless cosmic dust, strode into the brilliant spotlight of center stage.
Captain Chen Xun stood before the view, silhouetting it for her crew. Her deep blue uniform, perfectly pressed, faded to black in her shadow. She squeezed her hands behind her back, bore her teeth down against themselves and her brow furled as she turned her gaze to the civilian convoy her task group was escorting.
Four freighters dwarfed her warship in the starscape as they billowed below her wake relative to the galactic plane. The collective value of their cargos: agricultural equipment, rare spices, and an entire year's supply of air cars, just to name a few items from off their manifests, was only calculable to the latest asari-made financial supercomputers, and she winced. Her two frigates, SSV Antietam and her, were responsible for it all. Charged to protect this sliver of the galaxy's economy by the Systems Alliance. Humanity, practically speaking, though some aliens also called it home. And with their destination taking them through the traverse? She'd need all hands on deck to see them through unmolested.
She brought up her new standard issue omni-tool to reexamine her orders. It flared bright orange across her forearm, its warm glow mixed into an ugly brown with her uniform, and her fingers danced across it. Though they'd missed the familiar muscle memory of Earth's old phones, the utility provided by the new alien devices was unmatched, and she couldn't repress a smile as the not-yet-mundane capabilities it offered tempted her with distraction.
After assigning her charge of Hastings, it gave her orders to see to transferring Commander Anderson to a barren rock called Sidon in the Vetus System, where her picket assignment was also. Usually, orders came with details about the assignment, they didn't have to, but it was a ubiquitous courtesy. These hadn't. Instead, they only gave curt instructions. SSV Hastings was to report to Senior Captain Bellirand of Task Force Vetus, 63rd Scout Flotilla, in the Vetus System. There Commander Anderson would detach and report to a specific location on Vetus IV, Sidon. Worse, the orders concerning Sidon were to be destroyed, and any action to implement them covered up.
Anderson was her rock, the crew's rock, the best damn XO she'd ever known, and she'd known a few. While she'd been one of the more experienced captains in the Alliance, having fought a successful action against Traverse pirates during her last command, she couldn't say the same for this crew. Save Anderson and his young protege, Shepard, who he seemed to carry around with him like a loaded gun.
She didn't know how SASNA, that's System's Alliance Space Navy Assignments, had managed to keep those together, or perhaps failed to separate them, but she'd quickly found out why. Anderson was almost empathic in his ability to feel out a crew, and he was able to subtly guide them into solving their problems without making his interventions known.
And Shepard, well he was Anderson's ace in the hole. As a Junior Lieutenant, he had been able to connect more directly with the crew, keep them on track, and build a rapport for himself and the entire command structure. Between the three of them, they'd gotten the department heads off their asses and whipped the new crew into shape in record time. And that magic that had made this command special might be lost forever with Anderson's departure.
She put away the orders for his reassignment and shook her head. They had come all the way down from Fleet Admiral Drescher herself. Her hands squeezed again at that. The Iron Maiden herself. She thought. Iron Bitch to her enemies. Drescher had been the heroine of the hour during the First Contact War. Her role in the salvation of Shanxi from brutal Turian occupation had made her one of the saints of the still expanding canon of founding myths for the Alliance, right next to names like Jon Grissom, and Aruna Chaudhari. But the reality was that her command, Second Fleet, well decimated was too kind a word for what had happened to it. Even now, the Second Fleet was a non-formation, a non-entity; whatever was left had been folded into the other ever-expanding fleets. And so Fleet Admiral Drescher had been promoted to that rank in punishment as much as in praise since it kept her firmly away from direct command of anything. But she had not gone down, or up that is, silently. No, she'd made the most of her authority, pushing that Cerberus Project human survival crap, Xun thought. In her considered opinion, it was nothing more than Terra Firma's agitation. If Second Fleet's fate said anything, it was that war with the Turians was suicidal; that Humanity's fate was, frightening as the notion was, in the hands of diplomats of all people.
She shook her head as her lips pursed to one side, flashing a look of concern to whoever saw it, though, none could.
And why Sidon of all places? She thought grimly.
She didn't know much about the planet besides that it was a worthless waste. looking it up in the onboard database via her Omni-tool she found the report of its initial survey.
Terrestrial, dominated by snowy deserts. Not suitable for human habitation, potential terraforming candidate. Mineral surveys deem exploitation not profitable, was the gist of it. It went on an eye-watering list of the planet's properties, atmospheric pressure, year length, etc. Nothing stood out to her. Nothing should have. It was as it seemed, a wasteland.
She didn't like it, No not one bit. She was ordered to join the same system's picket at least, so she'd be nearby, but just dumping her XO on some barren rock could never sit well. Anderson was an N7, she knew that, couldn't help but know since he wore the insignia proudly on his uniform. The explanation that followed naturally from that fact was, however, better unthought of, she knew, but the reek of Hell's hound was undeniable.
Junior Lieutenant John Mark Shepard, observed his captain. As the third officer, he was on watch, and the SSV Hastings had been in deep space transit for the past six watches, all of which had passed without event, and there would be at least another six to go if none of the freighters in the convoy had any issues. He knew they would have such an issue eventually, experience told him that much, but still, it left no reason for the captain to be on the bridge.
Yet, there she was.
It was her ship, of course, she was free to be wherever she pleased, but knowing her, she wouldn't be unless she was worried. The way she carried herself, while invisible to the crew, confirmed that hypothesis.
To anyone else on the bridge, or indeed to everyone else, it would have seemed that she was merely lost in thought, the view never got old after all, but Shepard had learned to see more, Anderson had taught him to. The way she squeezed her hands, set her jaw, and fiddled with the new standard-issue Omni-tools the Alliance had finally got around to issuing. It told him all he needed to know, but it wasn't his place to find out what was eating her, that'd be her alter ego Anderson's job.
When she had come to the bridge, after the usual fanfare that followed the Captain on deck, she hadn't relieved him of the watch which he still dutifully stood. Something about the bridge helped her think, he thought.
The deck plate sighed in relief as the anxious heels of Captain Xun vacated the holes they'd dug into them. She'd made for the elevator and gotten a respectable halfway before Jr. Lt Shepard robbed her attention with a look that asked a silent, solemn question.
"Shepard?" she asked in a low contralto, "would you get Anderson up to my quarters, please?" Through the request her eyes hadn't met him and he worried for her.
"Aye, skipper." His gentle, hushed baritone concealed his affirmation from the bridge crew but revealed his concern to his captain. "Anything else I should tell him, ma'am?"
"No JG, just that I need to speak to him."
"Aye, skip."
She had only recently begun calling him by his surname alone; she'd tried his given name but a shift in posture and a look from Anderson had dissuaded her from trying it again. He just preferred the sound of his surname. However, he'd recently begun returning the favor, calling her by the title 'skipper'. Using the title communicated their familiarity and trust in one another. He used it now in a plea to get whatever was burning her up off her chest. JG, meaning junior grade, had been a casual way of referring to him, but it also reminded him of his rank. Not in the talking mood, he thought as the Captain finished her interrupted trek for the elevator.
Commander David Anderson awoke to the soft chime of a non-emergency bridge communication. As he rolled over, he felt, or instead he didn't feel the blotches of scar tissue that might have once conferred the warm softness of his sheets to him.
He reached over to the Amber hue of the answer key noticing the absence of his wife beneath that arm military life had and always would deprive him of that comfort
"Anderson", he croaked into the receiver. While his creaking body reached for the water bottle he had always kept secure by his bed the welcome voice of his faux-son came over the pager
"Hey, hinge". Came the half-joking reply. Only Shepard could call him that though, he still didn't like it. It was slang for his rank and the rumored Lobotomizing that occurred to all officers of that rank. The "hinge" is installed to reattach the removed brain matter when necessary.
"Shepard, why am I awake?" he groaned dryly.
"Skipper needs you didn't say why, sir. I think she's nervous about something." the last port came in a tone low enough not to be overheard.
"Alright, I'll be there in five."
One minute and twenty-three seconds in the head, two minutes and twelve seconds getting into uniform. That left one minute and twenty-five seconds to get to the captain's quarters. He was late by three seconds.
You're getting old David. He thought bitterly. He wasn't not really, but he had been quicker in the past. Be that as it may, the Huygens-dome salute that he gave upon entering the cabin was timeless.
"You wanted to see me, Chen?" Anderson's squillo basso concealed his tiredness, but it lacked the typical smacking of authority it had always carried.
"At ease, David, please take a seat." She hadn't looked up from her datapad, another invention the alliance had been finally adopting into their military when she gestured to one of the seats at the table.
"Now you've got me worried," Anderson said, half-joking, "I'd follow you into hell and back but this may be a bridge too far." his captain's rye smile told him it had the intended effect.
"Oh, please David, I'm sure you can brave a chair," she said with a chuckle. But as he sat across from her that smile faded back into that look of worry that had made itself entirely too welcome as of late.
"Lay it on me, Captain." Anderson said assuringly "It's what I'm here for."
"Not this time Anderson," she said, almond-shaped eyes meeting his, "I'm afraid it looks like SASNA is finally taking the hatchet to your little dynamic duo." her tone sounded at least a little defeated. Whether it be from sympathy or self-concern none could have said.
"Well," Anderson began, "I can't say I'm happy but it's time Shepard learned to fly." as much as the image of her lieutenant falling from a nest amused her, it wasn't what her orders entailed, though, she thought, she might just arrange it any way.
Heaving a sigh she said, "That's not quite it either David." She handed him the data chit containing his orders and quipped "It seems you'll be the one sprouting wings."
As Anderson took the chit and read its contents by omni-tool she watched his brow furl, lip curl, and the look of expectation, as if he was owed some explanation to make the orders of God's vicar in space herself, Fleet Admiral Drescher, make sense, went entirely unanswered save a look and a shrug from the captain. Finally, he spoke up.
"What does this even mean, Chen?"
"You said you'd follow me into hell Anderson?" she swallowed hard and continued, "The gate has a guard dog."
"Cerberus?"
"What else could it be?"
"That whole project is a mistake."
"Feel free to complain to management."
"Lord knows I do."
After a shared chuckle the dour mood returned and Chen's eyes met Anderson for one parting comment.
"Be careful, David, you can't trust Cerberus."
"I will, ma'am"
"See that you do. You're dismissed, Anderson."
"Aye, skipper."
With a tidy Huygens-dome salute a galaxy-changing series of events was set to motion.
From the days of propeller planes through the space race and still to the modern day static charge has been an annoying obstacle for any vessel. While a military vessel could afford systems to put off dealing with that particular problem, civilian freighters could not. Had SSV Hastings been making its journey alone not only would it have been in the Vetus system, its destination, yesterday, but it would not have had to completely undo its hard-won acceleration and transition back to normal space just to bleed built-up static charge. But she wasn't alone.
"Lieutenant Shepard!" ensign Chayskovsky's voice broke as he called the officer on watch.
Vacating the command chair on the bridge, Jr. Lieutenant Shepard fell short of running to meet the communications officer. "What have you got for me, Akim?" his tone was matter-of-fact and the ensign's reddened face paled to a more appropriate color as he gave his report.
"I h-have a tight beam from MSV Fur-de-lis, s-sir, they're falling out of the formation but there's interference, i-i think its static discharge, sir.
"Discharge? You mean they actually let it get bad enough for that?" his incredulity was directed not at the ensign but rather at the fur-de-lis as he peered over the ensign and saw the transmission data himself.
"I uh, can't say, sir, too much interference." He could see that the ensign hadn't yet tried to clear it up, and he wondered if the overly green officer would ever have that option occur naturally to him or if he'd need to be prodded to do it by his superior, but it didn't matter. An emergency like this required him to call the captain to the bridge. Following that emergency condition 3, or maybe on second thought 2, if the captain suspected something nefarious, would see another more capable officer take Chaykovsky's place as the primary bridge crew took their stations. So, not giving it another thought, called the bosun.
Captain Xun wondered what they must have done to poor Anderson at the Huyguns-Dome training grounds on Titan to get such a perfect and consistent salute out of him when the boson's call sounded "Captain, this is the bosun, you're needed on the bridge, ma'am."
Without a moment's hesitation, her legs heeded the call long before her brain could hope to process the emergency. "David!" She called, "Hold the elevator!"
Anderson's strong arm jutted out in an instant to catch the doors before they closed, letting the Captain in as he gave her a questioning but resolute look.
"There's an emergency on the bridge," she answered his unvoiced question, "I'm going to need you there." Her low voice reverberated in the overly slow lift as Anderson considered her.
"No rest for the weary." He said ryely.
"For the wicked, more like." She said gurgling a laugh.
"I'm going to ignore that last comment." He replied, suppressing a grin.
"You do whatever you have to, David," she said, still recovering from the outburst of humor, "just don't forget who's in charge around here."
"Not a chance of that, skip."
"That's more like it."
As the lift door finally opened Anderson stood back allowing his Captain to precede him onto the bridge. As she strode out, meeting the officer on watch, relieved him.
"Junior Lieutenant Shepard, I have the Conn."
"Aye, Captain Xun, you have the Conn."
With the matter-of-fact procedure out of the way, Anderson took his place on the bridge, and Shepard, relieved, took his place at the tactical station.
"Comms, get me the MSV North Star, I want to talk to the civie commodore." She paused, waiting for the officer's affirmation, and having received it continued, "Nav, calculate a course to all suitable locations for static bleeding. I need a list."
"Already done, ma'am." The navigational officer Senior Lieutenant Mike Perkins replied quickly.
"Very good, Perkins, I'll have that list then."
"Aye, ma'am." Came the reply.
"Captain!" Comms officer ensign Akim Chaykovsky exclaimed, "I have Commodore Olayinka for you."
Bandile Cusmaan Olayinka owned the majority of the vessels in the convoy, including the MSV Fur-de-lis, which was the problem child in the group. She'd scarcely had a few opportunities to interact with him. Knowing that going over the situation would be entirely superfluous, after all, if Hastings couldn't communicate with Fur-de-lis, North Star definitely couldn't.
Instead, she glanced down at the fruit of her conscientious nav officer's labor and selected a location. The L1 point of the local star appeared on the holo-well. Survey teams hadn't bothered with a name like most stars in Traverse star clusters, without anything to recommend it for exploitation or colonization. Even the most egotistical surveyor would get tired of naming stars given how many there were in the galaxy after all. There were better systems to choose from, ones with more hydrogen-dense gas giants, and more massive stars with which to blow away the static charge, and that's exactly why she avoided them. With so many star systems came so many places for pirates to hide, and a system just rich enough for a merchant to stop by and refuel was the perfect place to lie in wait.
Decision made, she peered down and flipped open a panel on her command chair. Depressing an amber-orange key she spoke. "Commodore Olayinka?"
"I hear you, Xun." Came the Commodore's deep, accented, and disembodied voice, filtered through interference and electronics. "Before you ask, I can't communicate with Fur-de-lis." His bruskness grated her but she ignored it and moved on.
"I am aware, Commodore. I have a bleed point on the plot, my nav officer can forward it to yours, I want you to direct the convoy there while we aid Fur-de-lis." She said with a business-like demeanor.
She heard him begin to say something, pause, and abandon that thought with a harsh, heaving sigh. Instead, he said huskily "Captain Xun, while I appreciate your efforts, we are in the middle of pirate-infested space. I suggest we—
"No. We will not abandon the Fur-de-lis, Commodore," she said fiercely, "not until every effort has been made to prevent that outcome and save her crew." The temperature on the bridge seemed to drop a few degrees.
Begrudgingly, the civilian commodore acquiesced. The convoy, under his direction, adjusted course for the directed system. Lagging behind, the Fur-de-lis followed, intuiting its desired course by watching the others change vector and decelerate.
Ka'hiral Balak watched as the signature of MSV Fur-de-lis fluttered and flickered on the plot, his needle teeth showing in a grin, cheeks raising and face creasing to obscure his four beady eyes. It was not a pleasant expression.
The BHSV Tunerron sat like a hole in space, its heat emitting panels only active on the starboard side as the port sat facing the Alliance convoy that had just dropped from FTL into the unoccupied system. No doubt in mid-transit to Vetus Star and needing to bleed static charge. While the wild gravity waves emitted by a ship as it came off from FTL could have let the ships' sensors zero in on them, the bright static discharges arcing across the crippled hull of Fur-de-lis were enough for simple onboard telescopes to find her.
"Record a message for Atrin and a packet of our sensor data." Balak's voice was coarse and flemish as he spoke. It complimented his dark yellowish appearance.
"As you command." came the expeditious response. The Batarian who gave it looked the younger sort. Finer, small, slight features a lighter voice. Humanisque. It was disgusting to an elder Batarian like Balak.
Then the recorder came on and chronicled his message for Atrin. Balak flashed his teeth and spoke "It worked…"
1.3.12176 CitadelFrom the central connecting ring of the presidium, the five long ward arms of the wards stretched out majestically as a testament to the ingenuity of sapient life. From inside those ward arms, however, its tall spires reached up as the claws of the spirits dishonored, and the smell of sulfur hexafluoride gas which contained the ward's atmosphere reminded Garrus Vakarian of the human concept of 'Hell'.
"Karak got your tongue?"
The question broke his shiver of extrospection and he turned his head to face his interrupting interlocutor, mandibles tight with ignominy.
"Garrus, son, you all there?" Castis Vakarian inquired, his husky voice tinged with genuine concern.
Garrus looked at the arm on his shoulder, blinked, and gave himself a little shake. "Yeah, I'm here da– Captain."
"You weren't a moment ago. You need to have a clear head to do this job, corporal." Castis' husky voice took on a more professional tone, suitable for a veteran Citadel Security Agent.
"Yes, da– Captain. Yes, Captain." He replied, already kicking his own plates off.
"You'll get the hand of it," Castis said, looking away in a vain attempt to relieve his son's embarrassment. He really has been somewhere else lately. He thought, mournfully.
Following his father's lead, Garrus redirected his attention, if now his self-deprecation, to the new human restaurant across from Caractocus' Cafe. A turian joint, a frequent for any self-respecting C-Sec agent in the Bachjret Ward. The sight of a bookish-looking asari slurping down what looked like the over-ripe tree worms he and his sister used to find as kids was unsettling, but her consequent smile did put him more at ease.
"Lezan says their 'noodles' or whatever they call them are quite good. He even said it was better than the stuff that asari place serves if you can believe that." Castis said in a voice which, thank the spirits, changed the subject.
Seizing the opportunity to forget his little faux-pas, Garrus quipped: "Seargent Lezan? Your STG buddy?"
"Right – He isn't STG."
"Sure, sure."
"He isn't!" The eder Vakarian said in a tone that left no room for disagreement.
Garrus held up his hands in resignation and looked away, "Alright, alright he isn't."
An uncomfortable moment passed without a word. And then another. And then another, a march of silence that would have put the migrating forests of palaven to shame. Then Castis, looking back to the noodle shop, broke the quiet. "It's time." He said curtly.
And it was. As the junior Vakarian turned his gaze to the noodle bar he spied a pair exiting through the rear of the kitchen. A batarian and an asari, though, clearly not the sultry slurping soup sommelier from before, no, this one looked dangerous. A commando, maybe formerly? Garrus puzzled to himself as he stood. The batarian didn't look much nicer, and she was carrying something. That must be what we're here for. Garrus reflected.
As the two agents strode to intercept the conspicuous consorts Garrus' eyes met those of the armored asari and for a moment she froze. He tried to parse what he saw in those azure eyes, was it fear? Panic? No, that didn't fit, but he couldn't find the word in time. For at that moment her right hand drew to a holster, left grasping, clawing desperately at her batarian companion.
"DOWN!" Garrus bellowed, seizing his father by the shoulder and pulling him down.
The asari maiden's arm swung in a wide arc, machine pistol in hand. A deafening cough followed by wisping cracks reported the fire erupting overhead. Garrus's soft blue eyes couldn't help but track their blazing tails as they scythed the Cafe from which they'd come. Someone was hurt and they were lucky, anything more than a graze from that would have spelled dismemberment or worse thanks to eezo-aided coilguns.
"Shot fired, Shots fired, patrol-3 in pursuit." Castis howled into his comm.
Peering over their improvised cover revealed to Garrus that their perps were fleeing. "Crap, we need to move, they're getting away."
For a moment too long for his taste Castis hesitated, then looking toward his son, hazel eyes meeting blue, he nodded. "Let's get after them."
Not a second more to waste, digitigrade legs swung over the partial palisade, meeting gracefully with the ground as they made up the distance with their slower plantigrade opponents.
As they entered the kitchen, in hot pursuit, the smell of broiling meat and the thrill of chase activated that hunter instinct in the young-blooded Garrus that had waned in his elder father. Vaulting over countertops and chefs alike, the sight was a modern image of the ancient ancestors of the turian race, but unlike the arboreal undergrowth in which they'd hunted, the plasteel of Bachjret Ward would have to service just as well.
While the asari bobbed and wove through the clamor of the kitchen, her batarian associate fell behind, running into confused staff and her pursuers were closing in. "Sathe, get down!" She yelled in wild alarm as she fired another battery of tiny mass-accelerated flechettes at the two turian agents. Hell portals opened up as stainless steel rung and belched from the tremendous transfer of energy, turning into molten slag as sparks flew about the kitchen, but one noise stood out among the cacophony of screaming men and metal. A sharp click of a fused heat sink, and in that moment that handheld bottle of hell became a worthless paperweight and she threw it like another improvised weapon at her hiding pursuers to cover her advance and collected her stunned associate.
As the officers emerged from cover to resume the chase, she took the batarian's hand in her own and pulled her back to her feet, throwing exotic spices and pots of boiling oil, abandoned by the terrified cooks as they evacuated the emerging warzone.
Castis had been first to emerge, so close he had gotten too, right on the cusp of tackling one of them when a wok of broiling peanut oil slipped seamlessly past his kinetic barrier and seeped into his unsealed armor. He screamed out as the unbearable singe of being cooked alive in his own shell tore a swathe through his otherwise focused mind, and he fell down to the ground, nursing his wounds.
"Dad!" Garrus yelped as panic gripped him. He turned back and began to kneel down before his father stoically waved him off.
"I'm fine; they're getting away!" She growled, biting down to push through the pain.
Garrus heeded the implied command to continue the pursuit and broke through the door separating the kitchen from the hastily absconded dining area and his mandibles flayed open with shock. That light blue-skinned, bookish asari with the freckles they'd spied earlier making the most of her human haute was now clothed in a fantastic swathe of flaming blue and purple, arm gesturing melodramatically to the levitating batarian girl clutching at her throat whilst she kept the other criminal at bay with a pistol of her own."Took you long enough, officer." She said, brandishing an entertained smile.
"And just who the hell are you anyway?" Garrus barked, voicing his unhappy confusion with a three-clawed hand on his sidearm.
"A friend," she said with a huff of exhaustion. Biotics were extremely intensive even for a species tailor-made for it. "Maybe you can restrain this one," she said, shaking her pistol toward the asari maiden across from her, "and I can tell you more." She breathed with an ever-increasing fatigue.
He huffed, glaring at the impromptu vigilante, but complied, walking around her to the deep blue, commando leathers-clad asari and barking commands as he cuffed her arms behind her back and called for backup on his comm whilst the other criminal was finally lowered to the ground, coughing and hacking as she finally could breathe freely again and he moved to restrain her as well.
Before a swarm of C-sec agents descended on the scene Garrus felt a hand on his shoulder and a voice in his mind. My name is Liara, Meet me at the Asari Embassy. He turned his head in a snap but she was already gone.
1.3.12176 Migrant FleetA thousand-part orchestra hummed and whirred. A symphony to the ears of Rayya's crew. For Quarians, to know your ship was to master the pitch and tempo of every part, to memorize the crescendo of every process.
Growing up on the flotilla, you learn to sing in a choir. For three hundred years, the quarian species lived exiled from their Homeworld. Driven nearly to extinction by their creations — The Geth — the now only seventeen million people traveled through the cosmos, never knowing the feeling of soil in their tread.
Entering a new star system brought a cantata of soprano, the buckling of the structural beams, the spinning of the power converters, and most of all, the measures dominated by the drive core's mellow alto. And Valhallan Threshold was, thank the ancestors, no different.
First Special Projects Fleet, the flying dockyards the Flotilla needed to perform the constant cycle of repair and retrofitting which kept the entire species alive was his personal dominion. Fleet Admiral Rael'Zorah vas Alerai.
She felt so small growing up in his shadow. Part of something so inconceivably large. Fifty-thousand ships, Fifty-thousand little worlds, each a unique maze of corridors and bulkheads. Built by different species, hosting different clans. It was all so magical to her when she was young, regaled to her by her mother, Maeru.
That world only grew bigger and bigger for her, she'd spent time aboard many other ships, like Auntie Raan's Tonbay or the Alerai itself. She'd watch as women and men, sisters and brothers ventured out into the big empty to crack ice or mine asteroids with bated breath. Their bright clan colors, different from her own royal silver, almost glowed in the unreal harsh lighting of space. She gazed longingly when the Alerai's engineers and workers refitted struggling vessels all across the Flotilla. Getting a free hand to play with all that tech was tantalizing and when her father finally noticed her, really noticed her, it was when she had her arms buried deep in some gizmo trying to help old Sitor, the chief engineer who'd become her mentor.
Engineering had been an outright addiction after that.
But now things were different. Now she was an adult. Now she was planted squarely in front of his office. Not father's office, Fleet Admiral Rael'Zorah's office. She wrung her gloved hands.
The soft hum of the Alerai bridged the gap between comfort and its counterpart. The flagship of the fleet was state of the art, by quarian standards, and its concerto was reduced to a gentle soli, much quieter than her native Rayya.
It perfectly echoed her own discomfort, meeting with her father was always nerve-wracking, but, meeting him as Fleet Admiral? She felt like she was trapped in a pressure cooker.
No ship had mass to spare and quarian ships doubly so. Even as Head Admiral, a chief executive of sorts, Rael's office was spartan. Six by four meters, no larger than standard quarters for those lucky enough to have a room to themselves. Every surface was exploited, every square centimeter occupied.
Adjacent to the cramped office, however, was a small reception area. It was manned by Elah'Kanah, father's longtime assistant. He'd been with him since he'd made Captain and with the family by extension.
As Tali added wear to the deck plate with her pacing, Elah's warm eyes, tinted by his khaki visor greeted her before his tenor did. "Tali! It's so good to see you, and you've grown." He said ryely. "They might as well get your new suit started now, huh?"
"Elah," Tali said, beaming a smile, "It's good to see you again." She looked down at her suit, new muscle filling it out. "And yes, they might as well."
"Putting in gym time I see?" He said with a chuckle. "I remember my pilgrimage, I'm glad I put on a few pounds before I left. Keelah Tali, It can be very hard for us out there, but rewarding too. I know you'll do well."
"Thank you, Elah," she said, blushing, "Is fa— Admiral Zorah ready to receive me?" She changed the subject.
"Oh! Yes." He said suddenly entranced with his haptic display. "He's just finishing a call it seems. I'll let him know you're here." As he began typing away at his board she heard the faint muffles of a confrontational 'discussion' wane to nothing. "Go on ahead, Tali, and good luck!" He said with a smile.
"Keelah Se'lai, Elah." She said with a nod and timidly stepped to the threshold. As the doors to the office folded neatly away from sight Rael's cold eyes peaked out from his sehni as his head turned to face the pilgrim.
"Enter." And the room felt a little cooler than her suit told her it was.
"T-thank you, Admiral."
"Engineer, I wanted to talk to you about your pilgrimage. I understand Heri has given you Honorata to command?"
"That's right sir." She nodded and her mind wandered to old Heri'Zorah. Longtime matriarch of the clan, she'd been so honored to receive that gift from her.
"That's good. Very good." He trailed off, but she didn't dare try to recapture his attention. His chair creaked as wandering eyes gazed out of the window and then to a glowing orange datapad, and he sighed. "Tali I—" he stopped himself, and she felt the compassionate father within him being shot down for trying to escape as he regarded her. "Engineer Zorah, please take a seat."
"Yes sir, thank you." She said, matter-of-fact as the reality of his aloofness set in finally.
"I know this is… unusual, but I have a proposition for you." He said
"Sir?"
"I want you to visit Alliance Space." He said bluntly, and their eyes met. Her eyes were wider than Rayya's broadside.
There was a litany of well-established locations for pilgrims to visit, places where they'd be mostly safe and have a chance of finding something valuable. Illium, or the Citadel. Thessia even, but not one location was in the hands of the Systems Alliance. Humanity was too new, and it had already attained a troublesome reputation. They'd opened dozens of Mass Relays, without a care for the consequences before the Hierarchy stopped them, in fact, the Valhallan Threshold, where the Flotilla was right now was their discovery. Some mad dash to circumnavigate the entire galaxy she remembered hearing.
What was worse than how crazy that idea had been was who it was coming from. Pilgrims were supposed to have free reign to decide where they went, and what they did. The fact that Rael was intervening in that betrayed the significance of the request.
"If it helps, it was Admiral Raan's idea," Rael added, and in point of fact, it did help.
"Why would she—"
"Because we have no idea what they've found out there." He said firmly. "None at all. Do you know how many Relays they opened up before the 314 Incident?" He asked and Tali shook her head. "Me neither. Which wouldn't normally worry me, but apparently not even Shala knows." He said with a disgruntled huff. "But what we do know is promising. What you need to know is that these… erm… Khu-mans have seemingly made the 'Attican Traverse' as they call it, safe for transit, some of our own merchants actually prefer the routes they patrol over the turian ones."
Much like the Terminus Systems, the Traverse had long been abandoned to pirates by the Council, not worth the cost of patrolling it. So not only had an entirely new species doubled the size of the galaxy practically overnight, but they'd also secured a third of it for themselves. There hadn't been an astro-political upset like that since the turians came along some seven hundred years ago.
"We get a lot of our intel from our pilgrims, but there haven't been any willing to be the first to go to their worlds," Rael explained. "Engineer… Tali, I want you to be the first." His eyes seemed to warm and the father she longed to have reappeared before her.
"Okay, Ahba." She relented. "That's where I'll take my crew."
"Oh, one that subject, there's one more thing I need you to do…"
"I need you to take someone with you, one Zola'Maass." Rael said, with a twinge of sympathy.
"A Maass? You want me to take a Maass on a Zorah ship?" She asked incredulously.
"Yes, and for what it's worth, I'm sorry you're getting mixed up with the politics there but I had to do something about Clan Maass' behavior." He said mournfully.
"Alright, fine. I'll deal with them. Anything else?"
"No that's all, you're dismissed Engineer Zorah, and Tali, Keelah Se'lai."
"Keelah Se'lai, father." She said with a wan smile, and the doors folded back into shape behind her.