I don't know why this one took so long. I had it, I didn't like it, I started over, I re-used the bits I'd thrown away, I wandered off - eventually I just thought to myself fuck it. Some people will enjoy it, some people won't, whatever. Just bash it out, throw it out the door and speed off. It's fine.
Need to get going on my Black Library submission anyway. Like that's going to go anywhere!
Anyway, open wide for MORE WORDS!
At this point talk turned to war and kind of just stuck there.
There were several reasons for this.
Partly it was that it seemed to be a subject that Jarrion was especially willing to hold forth on (though that wasn't saying much - Jarrion could likely talk for hours about anything if anyone was indulgent enough to let him) and that letting him ramble seemed to the Council bods a good way of keeping him in a friendly mood.
Partly it was a subtle, low-key way of seeing if he doled out any more clues about his actual motivations, backers, intentions or anything else useful like that that might be hidden in his clearly ludicrous screeds about thousands of planets conscripting millions into the 'Imperial Guard' and Crusades and other such products of an abundantly fertile but painfully limited imagination.
Perhaps they'd discern a hint as to the true identity of those who'd built that ship? Where they were? What their position was? What their objectives were behind all this bluster? Maybe? A chance to use all that diplomatic training to peel away all these layers of nonsense and get at the truth within.
Or not, because they couldn't make heads or tails of any of it. It all just sounded like absolute nonsense, no matter how much they smiled and nodded.
Still, if nothing else it gave them a chance to hear him talk about weapons, which was better than nothing - they'd wanted to hear about those. Advanced weaponry was one of the few things about these new arrivals that could be confirmed.
All those present had read reports on those laser weapons that had been turning up in all sorts of hands of late, and who knew what else he might have hidden away on that ship? Thing was big enough that there had to be something interesting in there.
And speaking of the ship, what little passive, external snooping of his vessel that had been made had shown it equipped - or more accurately encrusted - with weapons that didn't comfortably fit any known description or classification.
They could guess, yes, but they shouldn't really have had to, they should have been obvious. But they weren't. Just like any element zero traces...
But yes, if this man was doling out lasers to colonists like they weren't worth anything to him, who knew what his unfeasibly giant ship was bristling with? Those guns could have been anything.
Indeed, one of the few things that those present had read out of Shepard's report was that the Assertive was said to possess a prow-mounted energy weapon supposedly capable of destroying a Collector vessel in one shot. Surreptitiously-obtained sensor readings and bits and pieces of snatched footage from Horizon had confirmed this.
Or confirmed it as much as footage could be said to confirm anything in this day and age.
Given what little was reliably known about Collectors - the extent of which mainly being that they were reclusive and frightfully advanced - what it suggested was that at the very least this was somewhat important and worthy of verification, if only to verify that it was bunk. Then they'd know for sure.
It also made them all, again, rather glad that of all the places this lunatic had chosen to park his oversized spaceship it had been Illium, a planet with more nukes than sense. Made them feel a touch more secure.
"-of course it was a shame what happened to those men and I'm sure father does regret the decision to land them in that swamp but, well, these things happen, and the campaign did come to a successful conclusion all the same. Now, the next system after that-" Jarrion said. He had been detailing some part of his father's extensive military history, just for the sake of example.
"So just...war?" The Asari cut in, her patience finally wearing thin and kind of cutting to the quick of where Jarrion's story had been going.
Jarrion - a little out of breath at this point - thought about a fuller explanation but instead just let out a doleful sigh and nodded. He was rather glad of the excuse to take a moment and slow down, in all honesty. He had a sip of water.
"One hopes you shall find your time here more peaceful," the Salarian said.
"Oh, so far it's been positively tranquil!" Jarrion said happily.
"Weren't we in a firefight?" Shepard asked him and Jarrion wafted a hand.
"Yes well, that's hardly that unusual. What I mean is that I haven't been involved in any, ah, serious conflicts, thankfully. They're sometimes necessary of course, but they do rather get in the way of business sometimes."
"Necessary?" The Asari asked.
Jarrion wondered whether this was a trick question. Certainly seemed an odd thing to ask him but, then again, she was an alien, how could she be expected to understand such things, simple as they were?
"A duty, I suppose. One of many. War is a fact of life, what with jealous alien eyes looking in from the outside and...less savoury elements elsewhere…" Jarrion saiad, deciding at the last moment - with a fleeting glance in Loghain's direction - that admitting to the existence of less-than-pious Imperial citizens and outright heretics and traitors wasn't something that should be done at a diplomatic dinner or, if he could help it, at all.
Good to present a united front for the Imperium.
"'Jealous alien eyes'?" The Turian repeated, tartly, as Jarrion sipped more water. Jarrion missed the tartness of the comment though and took it wholly at face value.
"Sadly so. One can't live peacefully with xe- ah,"
He belatedly caught the tartness and noticing it brought Jarrion out of his pleasant reverie and reminded him that was at that very moment having to eat dinner and make small talk with aliens. The sudden realisation very nearly made him lose whatever food he'd managed to take in so far but he swallowed the rising bile and his face showed nothing.
"Which is to say that, regrettably, in my personal experience, aliens make poor neighbours, being unfortunately prone to malice and jealousy - it's innate. In my experience. Alongside theft, too," Jarrion again realised he was talking to aliens as he said this and his eyes widened briefly. He was starting to slip.
Eager not to let this show he plunged onward immediately:
"Heh, well, you must bear in mind of course that when I speak of xenos I am quite literally coming from a far different place than you! My experiences are quite distinct, as said. Why, there is one particular group of Orks - a clan, I believe it's called - that seems to take theft as some sort of religious obligation. As far as those things can be said to understand religion, of course! Barbarous creatures and no mistake," he said with a chuckle.
Luckily for him this seemed to work, and no-one felt the need to pull back on his comments about all aliens being malicious, jealous thieves. Apparently just slipping a 'in my experience' in there worked else just confusing those listening with things they'd never heard of. Either way.
"Orcs?" The Turian asked, genuinely baffled.
None of them ever pronounced it right, Jarrion observed.
"No, Orks. Ah, unfamiliar? Yes, I quite forgot - I had the same issue while explaining this to the Commander, too. You do seem to have far fewer of the aliens here that I'm familiar with. Only a good thing, as far as I can tell you! Were it not the case, I imagine you would all already understand where I am coming from!"
That he was talking to aliens as he was saying this again appeared to have escaped Jarrion's notice. It hadn't this time, actually, he just so-far hadn't found any of the local aliens especially impressive. Aside from being innately disgusting and untrustworthy just by virtue of not being human they didn't seem altogether intimidating.
None of them laid eggs in anyone else for example, from what he'd seen, didn't use strange alien technology to reduce others to a state of cattle-like servitude, for another example, or insert disgusting grubs into the skulls of psykers for a third example, and generally all the ones he'd met here so far seemed quite embarrassingly non-threatening. Those big scaly ones? Krogan? They at least looked vaguely dangerous just owing to their size, but the rest?
Nothing to write home about. Rather pathetic, in all honesty.
"Why's that?" The Asari asked.
That brought Jarrion up short. He wasn't sure of the most charitable way of explaining that compared to what he was used to they were all a bit underwhelming. That wasn't the sort of thing you should say to people in polite society. Or aliens, for that matter, even if aliens weren't strictly-speaking 'people'.
"Oh, well. It's just that while the residents of this time and this galaxy seem fairly, ah, gentle? Harmonious? It is sadly not the case amongst the stars that I am more familiar with," he said.
The various Council representatives around the table exchanged another of those brief looks, these brief looks all wordlessly conveyed the question: 'Harmony? He's really not from around here, is he?'.
A joke, but this was still a very odd thing for him to have said, they felt. And harmony was relative, after all, and that he thought so was probably a good thing, on the whole. If he thought they were all getting on that could only work to their benefit. Best not start picking apart the details or the history.
Jarrion, meanwhile, was on a tear and had his wind back, waving around a piece of something on his fork and continuing:
"From the moment of mankind's first steps out into the greater galaxy - uh, my galaxy, you understand, I'm sure it's quite different here, as said - from those first steps the alien has been waiting to thwart, beguile, mislead, enslave and worse. It's simply the way they're made, it can't be helped."
Again, not exactly a healthy attitude, all things considered, but he did have a very big spaceship and quite a bit of stuff they wanted to get their hands on, so everyone continued to tread lightly and gloss over. And besides, he was talking about a whole other (likely fictional) galaxy! So let him burble hypothetically.
Shepard, increasingly of the opinion that Jarrion was entirely truthful about where and when he was from and increasingly depressed about the ramifications of this, had her chin resting in her hand.
"No friendly aliens at all, then? Kind of the impression I'm getting here," she asked. She knew the answer anyway but said this just as a prod to keep Jarrion going. It worked. He waved the fork around even more vigorously.
"Not a one! All decidedly unfriendly. And there are many, let me tell you. So many! Hrud, Xenarch, Tarellian, Psy-Gore, Slaugth, Chuffian, Rak'Gol, Saruthi, Loxatl - and these are but minor races! Small fries! There are far greater and far more dangerous xenos that blight the galaxy and seek to undo the holy works of man - far more dangerous! Orks I already mentioned - violent savages! Happy to commit violence for its own sake. They thrive on it, you see? No greater purpose to an Ork than violence. A constant menace."
Jarrion paused here to have a quick drink and move to actually eat what was on his fork only to notice that it had flown off somewhere during his gesticulations. He was disappointed but only briefly, continuing:
"Almost the mirror-image of the Eldar, now I come to think of. Decadent and cunning and obtuse. An Ork is straight-forward, you see? Primitive, simple, direct. Not so Eldar, no, craven witch-led wretches that they are. Tottering remnant of a debased, decaying empire, clinging to their glory long after all the glamour of it rotted away! Foul things. Won't accept that they failed and that they have no place anymore. The Eldar will come at you sideways, you see, will engineer misfortune for you so that you never even know it was them. Or else strike without warning, take what it was they feel they're within their rights to take and leave before you even have the time to gather your wits - cowardice, pure and simple."
Jarrion had a particular antipathy for Eldar.
Orks at least had the excuse of being savage animals - their behaviour was entirely because of this, and predictable as a result. Like any wild beast (albeit more dangerous), they simply didn't know any better. By contrast Eldar were scheming, malicious and inscrutable, acting with impunity for entirely selfish and arbitrary reasons, as though the galaxy was still their own personal domain to do with as they saw fit.
There had been one world that Jarrion had had experience of, once. Eldar raids had been something of a problem and had been escalating, but the attacks had seemed random and had lacked punch, for want of a better expression. Striking without a clear pattern, without warning, simply swooping in to wipe out this or that expedition out into the wilderness of this planet, or wipe out this or that tentatively-founded outpost.
It had taken a while, but thanks to the efforts of Jarrion - in coordination with what remained of the colony's defence forces - these attacks were brought to heel. Then, once that was the case, an effort was made to see what the actual purpose of the raids might be.
At length it was discovered that the (apparent) aim of the raids had been to ward the colonists away from a particular spot on the planet. Charting the location of the various attacks and destroyed expeditions and so on showed this plainly, and also showed the direction where they should go to discover the root of all this.
Investigation of the spot the Eldar seemed most keen to keep them away from - done under armed escort and done under regular and increasingly ferocious Eldar attack - had revealed some sort of ancient structure, plainly Eldar in nature, halfway buried beneath the earth with the other half overgrown by the local plants.
Jarrion had - perhaps unwisely in retrospect - had the structure demolished. In retaliation the Eldar vessel that had presumably been the one acting as transport for the attackers appeared without warning as if from nowhere, annihilated the colony's primary settlement from orbit and then retreated.
They hadn't been seen again after this.
All in all a pointless waste of material and resources, not to mention lives - fresh colonists had required shipping in and much effort had to be put into reconstruction to make the colony viable again. And for what? Ruins? Ruins that the Eldar didn't even appear to be using? Ruins that had been overgrown, lost to nature? Forgotten for hundreds, thousands of years?
Presumably it made sense to the Eldar. That was what got under Jarrion's skin so much. It made sense to them, and they'd never deign to explain it to anyone or anything else. An Ork would kill you because it would enjoy killing you. An Eldar would kill you so that a plan in some other system entirely went one step further ahead.
And the way they moved! Urgh!
He didn't like Eldar that much.
Looking again at his plate - and having mentioned Eldar - jogged a memory for Jarrion, who couldn't help but chuckle.
"Ah, Thale? You've had some experience with Eldar, I believe? Indeed, I recall you mentioning a particular occasion back in your Guard days when you and some of your associates found yourselves pinned down for some time by Eldar snipers. I recall you mentioning you had to eat one of your companions whilst waiting for reinforcements to drive them off."
Of course, by the time reinforcements had arrived the Eldar in question had moved on, leaving not a trace. When had they moved on? Hours after their fire had pinned down Thale and his squad, meaning they'd stayed in that abandoned bunker for days for nothing? Or had they been there the whole time, waiting for another man to stick his head out long enough to have it blown off, moving off only once Imperial forces had closed in?
No way of ever knowing. They'd just melted away at some point before they had been caught and killed, that was all that could be said.
"Just his leg, Lord Captain," Thale said.
"Just his leg, yes, I remember now. How was that for you?" Jarrion asked.
"Permission to speak freely, Lord Captain?"
"By all means, of course."
"A little underdone," Thale said, setting his cutlery on his now-empty plate. He might have preferred Grox, as said, but the soldier in him wasn't going to be passing up food. It simply wasn't done.
"Aha, I rather see what you did there, Thale," Jarrion said.
This put something of a dent in the conversation, and silence crept in. More than one of those around the table took a pause to check and see if someone was going to say something that didn't involve cannibalism. No-one did, at least not immediately.
"There's more than one kind of Eldar," Loghain said after some moments of this painful quiet. She could have added a few notable xenos that Jarrion had missed off - likely because he'd just never heard of them - but felt it would be informative to mention this particular fact.
"What?" Jarrion asked, incredulous.
"The Eldar race is split. Quite divisively, in fact," Loghain said.
Jarrion had the distinct impression that, again, the Inquisitor was pulling his leg for fun.
"What are you talking about, Loghain? I've never heard of that," he said.
"Haven't you ever wondered why the Eldar that like taking prisoners look so wildly different to the others? Never noticed, for example, the spikes?"
Jarrion sniffed, wrinkling his nose.
"I can't say I've ever given the aesthetic choices of aliens particular consideration, no. It hardly matters anyway. Eldar are Eldar and Eldar are aliens - inscrutable, cruel and as has been proven time and again worthy only of the highest suspicion at best and outright extermination at worst. And it is almost always worst."
"Suppose that's a pragmatic way of looking at it," Loghain said lightly, poking at what she thought might be a small heap of diced vegetables. Being blind it was kind of hard to tell. "Are these vegetables?" She asked him more quietly.
Jarrion peered briefly at the little mound she was poking at.
"I think so," he whispered back.
She decided to take the risk and Jarrion returned his attention to the aliens, finding them all looking awkward and noticing - belatedly - that none of them were talking. Jarrion got the impression that had perhaps been talking about himself for too long, not a feeling that often managed to penetrate for him. Clearing his throat, he decided to maybe slide things more to their side.
"Ah, listen to me go on though! As though this galaxy was a stranger to war! I've read up on what history I can and can see that there's been plenty of examples here, too. The, ah, Rachni, was it? Followed by the Krogan - I did find the Genophage concept rather confusing, but that's by the by - and of course the looming Reaper situation-"
He got cut off here.
"There is no 'Reaper situation'," the Turian one said, icily.
Jarrion blinked.
"There isn't?" He asked, getting some silent nods in response. He frowned. "I was under the impression that your, ah, capital was attacked not even a few years ago? Quite the little tussle from what I read."
"The Geth attacked the Citadel," the Asari said and Jarrion snapped his fingers.
"That was the one, yes! And I thought that it was a Reaper leading that particular attack?"
What he'd read hadn't said this explicitly, but Shepard had been there in person and she'd mentioned some of the more on-the-ground (or on-the-spacestation, as it were) details here or there, allowing Jarrion to flesh it out better in his head.
"It was not," said the Turian.
"The Reapers are, at best, a conspiracy theory and at worst an outright fabrication," the Salarian said by way of immediate followup.
Their vehemence in denying what Jarrion had taken to be a fairly widely-held fact confused him. The way the Commander had spoken about them had made him think their arrival was something everyone was aware of and - hopefully - preparing for. He frowned.
"Are you quite-"
"It was a Geth fleet that attacked, led by an advanced Geth dreadnought that certain excitable elements have decided is something else," the Turian said, cutting Jarrion off. Jarrion felt the tiniest stab of pure rage at being interrupted again by an alien, but it didn't show.
"But surely, having examined the wreckage…" he said but he tailed off as an idea struck him.
Maybe they just didn't know. Maybe it was a secret of sorts? Something kept from general circulation to avoid tainting those with no need of knowing. He glanced at Loghain again, a little unnerved by the smile she had.
Yes, that made sense to him. Such a huge threat was probably being kept a secret.
After all, these were not the Council, they were just diplomatic flunkies sent out to make nice - what need did they have to know the full picture? Knowledge wasn't something to be squandered, it had to be carefully doled out.
"I see," Jarrion said with a small smile of his own, twisting a little to address Shepard.
"I hope your, ah, Alliance is taking the threat more seriously at least?" He asked, quietly, looking between her and Anderson who also exchanged a look - a slightly despairing one.
"Not really, no," said Shepard.
Jarrion was disappointed but not surprised. Humanity here lacked proper direction, lacking direct intercession from the Emperor or his agents, so they seemed somewhat lacklustre. If ever there was need for a demonstration of the sort of vacillating uselessness that would be the least of humanity's problems without His beneficence, here it was!
"The Alliance is playing it safe," said Anderson, in what might be generously called 'charitable' tones. Shepard grunted.
"The general consensus is to not rock the boat. At least not until they show up, at which point they'll probably wish they had rocked the boat. Though I can also bet even then they'll prefer not to rock anything they don't have to," she said, not without bitterness.
"I must say I find this quite confusing. In the Imperium it's generally considered wise to keep - well, 'keep an open mind' isn't really the right phrase at all. Um, to be open to the possibility of new and unexpected enemies might be a better way of putting it. After all, the galaxy is brimming with threats," Jarrion said, sitting back in his chair and addressing this more to the table at large.
"Even ones you're expected to take the existence of on faith, without proof?" The Asari asked.
"Oh! Well! In a contest between faith and proof I know which one is going to walk away victorious! Blind faith is a just cause, as they say. Faith can overrun the galaxy!"
Indeed, one day it inevitably would. One day.
"Speaking of lacking proof and in the interest of getting to the point, how about you have Loghain here show off that psychic trick of hers? Might help you be convincing," Shepard said.
"I'm not convincing?" Jarrion asked. The idea had crossed his mind but he had dismissed it. He'd rather thought he'd given a good account of himself and his circumstances and, well, if he was happy to believe he'd ended up somewhere quite exotic and unusual the least everyone else could do was believe that he'd done it.
He looked over at the Council bods. Hard to tell with their inscrutable, alien faces but Jarrion had to admit they didn't look like they believed much of anything he might have said.
"We are reserving judgement," the Turian said, in the tones of someone who thinks you are full of shit and does not care overmuch if you know this. Jarrion clenched his fist under the table, feeling that he'd rather been wasting his time.
"As is only sensible," he said, taking care not to grit his teeth.
The esoteric and dangerous abilities of psykers were not the sort of thing you just rolled out to impress the natives. This time though, and at this point, Jarrion felt that perhaps it couldn't hurt. And maybe it'd wipe that smug look off the xenos face. Assuming that was a smug look. As before, it was hard to tell.
"'Psychic trick?" The Salarian asked, clearly having just skimmed that particular detail in Shepard's report. Not that Shepard cared overmuch. She waved a hand at them.
"It's like that, uh, 'embrace eternity' thing the Asari do only slightly more creepily invasive somehow. And really cold," she said.
"Cold?" The Asari asked, only a tiny bit annoyed at the flippant way Shepard had described something quite important.
"You'll see," Shepard said, nodding to Loghain who now found herself the centre of attention, something she clearly did her best not to look like she enjoyed. It was a touch disquieting how someone with a blindfold could apparently notice every eye in the room turning in her direction.
"Oh, I'd say you were overselling my abilities just a little bit, they're really not that impressive," she said.
"Seemed pretty impressive from where I was standing," Shepard said.
"Very flattering, Commander, but really, I couldn't - not the sort of thing I should be doing at the dinner table, it'd be rude. Like playing with my food."
Also maybe just the tiniest possibility of opening up a horrific, sucking rift to the Immaterium or else letting something cross over that really rather shouldn't. Though, with the Warp here as calm as it was, Loghain personally didn't think that was much of a risk. A risk, maybe, but not that much of a risk. Maybe.
"You have been playing with your food," Jarrion pointed out.
Loghain paused, and all eyes that had been on her moved briefly down to her plate, which was a mess. Loghain cleared her throat.
"...well, when you put it like that. Do we have a volunteer?" She asked, looking about the tables and those gathered, as much as one wearing a blindfold can be said to look.
She did not.
"No-one? I'm not that scary, am I? Oh well, suppose I'll just have to be generous to everyone then," she said with something of a pout, though she didn't sound unhappy about this.
Removing the gloves she'd worn especially to match Jarrion's outfit Loghain laid her hands on the table and let out a slow breath. Almost immediately frost started to form at her fingertips, creeping outward as the ambient temperature plummeted. Several of those present looked alarmed, some to the point of speaking out. They didn't though, their words died in their throats. They weren't sure why.
Jarrion just looked uncomfortable, and not because of the cold.
"Let's see…" Loghain said quietly, taking very measured breaths in and out. Everyone in the room - barring the Imperials alongside Shepard and Anderson - flinched, all of them having felt a twinge right at the base of their skulls almost all at the same time. "Ah. I thought so."
She turned to Jarrion.
"None of them believe you," she said.
"Well I could have told you that," he replied, sourly.
Loghain turned back front-facing again and tilted her head ever-so-slightly. Everyone else twitched again and looked at one another in mounting unease, no-one really sure what to do in a situation like this and, more curiously, all afflicted with an apathy that seemed to just slap down any desire they might have had to object to what was going on.
"They have different reasons for not believing you, if that makes it any better," Loghain said. "Some of them just think you're an idiot, some of them think you're pretending to be an idiot and all of them think that your ship and your technology is the product of some, ah, reclusive third-party group making some sort of play. They can't quite settle on whether it's a shady corporation of some sort of a conglomerate or something of that nature, but they don't believe a word about the Imperium I'm afraid, Lord Captain."
"Again, I'm hardly surprised," Jarrion muttered, sinking into his seat, pulling his jacket tighter about himself and glowering at his plate, making to pick up his glass of water only to find, much to his annoyance, that what little remained in it had frozen solid. He sighed.
Loghain's head tilted the other way.
"Very interested in the Assertive though, that I can tell you. Very interested. That one there," Loghain said, nodding in the direction of the important Salarian, who flinched. "Is considering the feasibility of covertly inserting a team of operatives into the ship without you or any of the others finding out, while that one," this time her head moved in the direction of the important Asari, who also flinched. "Is thinking that sweet-talking her way on-board once all the others have left is the more sensible option."
"Wonderful," Jarrion said, his face in his hand. He found it hard to care, and the less consideration he gave to the prospect of being sweet-talked by an alien (whatever that involved) the better.
"And that one," Loghain said, nodding towards the Turian. "Has a relative who was involved in the recovery of the Reaper - and he's using that word, too, in his thoughts - that attacked the Citadel and knows full-well that it isn't a Geth ship. Actually, he's quite rattled by it, would you believe?"
"How-!" The Turian managed to blurt out before the apathy took ahold again and he pulled his neck in, though he still got odd looks from his entourage and his peers for his outburst.
Loghain continued:
"There's a little bit more I noticed, hmm, what's that...oh yes. Did you know that every member of the waiting staff here is a member of an intelligence agency? They must have been swapped out at some point."
That changed the mood pretty quickly. Even Jarrion stopped slouching.
"What?" He asked, ears pricking up. Or ear, rather - his augmetic one could do many things, but pricking up wasn't one of them. Loghain tilted her head some more. All the waiters winced, and at least one of them gasped and clapped a hand to their head.
"Oh yes. Agents sent by - hmm - sent by all the Council races, apparently. In parallel to the diplomatic group without informing them, hmm. Left hand not knowing what the right is doing, eh? Oh yes. Asari intelligence, Alliance intelligence, Turian, Salarian - what a selection! Suppose they felt it paid to have more ears in the room. Ah, not only them though, no. Others. Some agents employed by a handful of private concerns, too - I am not sure what 'Elkoss Combine' or 'Hahne-Kedar' or 'Eclipse' is or are but I am sure it means more to some of those present - and, of course, our friends Cerberus, who also saw fit to dispatch an agent. Quite the variety, wouldn't you say?"
With this Loghain relaxed, the temperature stopped being quite so cold (though did not return to normal) and she smiled around as though she hadn't said what she'd just said and that everything was completely fine.
There followed a very awkward moment where no-one seemed to know what to do next.
Then all at once every member of the waiting stuff lunged for where they'd hidden a weapon, producing compact, hold-out pistols from all manner of places - tucked under tables, stuck under kloshes - and proceeding to furiously aim them at the diners, each other and generally anyone else who looked at them funny, all while shouting.
"I'd like to go one day without everyone pulling guns…" Shepard and Jarrion both said, both at the same time and entirely unprompted.
Jarrion said it while putting his face back into his hand, however, while Shepard said it through gritted teeth as - with one smooth movement - she rose from her seat, snapped the arm of the nearest not-actually-a-waiter (a Turian) like a twiglet, relieving him of his pistol and leaving him a whimpering heap on the floor.
This all happened very, very quickly.
Thale was also standing up, armed and aiming, having also relieved the nearest revealed agent of their firearm. The agent, for their part, was dead, lying sprawled at Thale's feet with a very expensive looking piece of cutlery jutting from their eye socket.
"Did you have to do that, Thale?" Jarrion asked quietly through his fingers and Thale spared a split-second glance down.
"Sorry, Lord Captain," he said, though he didn't sound especially sorry.
"No no, it's fine. Who was that gentleman affiliated with?" Jarrion asked Loghain who seemed entirely unruffled and unconcerned with the mess that she'd basically caused all on her own. She was busy pulling her gloves back on.
"Him? Cerberus, I think," she said.
"Fabulous. Now I have to explain to that illusive chap that one of my men killed one of his men," Jarrion said, sighing.
"I'm sure he'll understand. He didn't come across as the kind of guy to get choked up over stuff like this," Loghain said.
"We live in hope…"
Shepard, meanwhile, was calmly and smoothly switching her aim from one revealed agent to the next, fixing each of them with a glare in turn. A glare from Shepard was no joke, and each agent so-glared at felt their own aim starting to waver.
"Now I know this isn't usually the sort of statement that gets results in rooms full of armed people but let's all be calm, yeah? No-one has to get hurt," Shepard said, voice raised to reach everyone without actually sounding particularly loud (she was good at that trick).
The Turian by her feet whimpered especially loudly and rolled around some more.
"...no-one else has to get hurt," she corrected, adding in a quiet hiss: "Who did you work for again?"
"Blue Sun!" The Turian gasped out.
"I'm sure they'll comp you, you'll be fine."
Unlikely, but hope sprang eternal.
Despite Shepard's suggestion of calm, the mood in the room remained understandably tense. Little more embarrassing for a covert agent than having one's cover blown, except perhaps having it blown in a room full of other agents who also all have their own cover blown all at the same time.
In front of the one's you're meant to be covertly observing, no less. And also people who probably know your boss. And also everyone is now armed. All in all not a great day.
Shepard considered her options and, out of nowhere, thought of something quite unorthodox. At least by her standards. She didn't feel like adding to her bodycount today. It was getting depressingly big at this point in her career, and that had been without trying.
"Now I know you all feel bad for getting rumbled, that's understandable, but how were you meant to prepare for a psychic, eh? That's not your fault. So I have a suggestion. You lot just leave your guns there - right there - and leave," she said, pointing to an empty spot on one of the dining tables.
An unusual offer, and not one those in the surreptitious-intelligence business had much experience of. Usually putting the gun down was an order yelled at them by irate guards, and one they ignored. They weren't wholly sure how to react.
"Are you serious?" Asked one of the faux-waiting staff, a Salarian, gun still raised. Shepard nodded. Her gun was also still raised.
"I know you're all professionals and probably don't like the idea but consider your alternative: everyone starts shooting. And remember, if that happens, you're in a room with me, a woman the grave couldn't hold."
Perhaps skirting over a few of the pertinent details - for example, the eye-watering expense involved - for dramatic effect, but it certainly got the point across. Seeing the flickering of doubt across the faces of these covert agents Shepard pressed on with:
"And that's also not taking into account Jarrion and his lot. He's got a psychic with him. And the one in the robes and mask hasn't moved a muscle in fifteen minutes - who knows what they're cooking up?"
Pak had indeed not moved or said anything in a worryingly long time. This was entirely on purpose, and entirely just to unnerve the other diners - Pak had ways of observing and recording without having to move anyway, and wasn't exactly one for small-talk over a meal in the first place.
"And you'll just let everyone go?" Asked another rumbled agent, a human.
"I'm perfectly willing to let you all just walk out of here. Whether any of you are is up to you, but I think you'd prefer it over not walking out. And what you do afterwards is up to you. If I were you I'd just scarper, look back on this in a few years and laugh. It's what I'd do."
A fair few looks were exchanged. Could you do that? Was that allowed?
None of them had any precedent, really. They'd been in some close-shaves, sure, they were professionals as said - but you didn't often wind up in a tense, guns-drawn stand-off where the possibility of just walking away and pretending it had never happened was floated. It didn't seem right, somehow. It seemed like the sort of thing they might get in trouble for.
"Are you joking?" One of them asked.
"I am not joking. If I can get through today without shooting someone I will be a happy woman. And if you can get through today without me shooting you I'd think you'd be happy, too. Just a guess," Shepherd said.
She made a compelling argument.
These were unusual times.
More exchanged looks, less belligerent this time, more confused in a we're-among-peers sort of a way. There was a solidarity in all of them being equally lost.
"No-one said there'd be mind reading," said one, slowly, testing the waters. There were some nods.
"Kind of unfair, really," said another. None of them were really sure about the mind reading, honestly, but clearly something had happened for all of them to have been rumbled, and whatever it was it was something none of them had been prepared for.
The mood was softening. Why not just leave? Stranger things had happened, hadn't they?
"Not our fault."
"No sense dying over that, is there?"
"Nope, no."
"They always said discretion was a virtue in this business."
Tentatively, cautiously, still keeping keen eyes on one another, the various agents and spies and so on all started edging towards the spot on the table that Shepard had pointed out as the place for guns to go.
The Council bods were understandably flabbergasted by all this.
"None of you move!" The Turian snapped, and everyone stopped moving.
"Look, I know this isn't what any of us want to happen but, really, it's for the best," Shepard said.
"You can't honestly be suggesting we just pretend this never happened!" The Salarian hissed, her immense annoyance at having been left out of the loop on this particular operation bleeding into her general bad mood. Shepard shrugged.
"Well, it's that or pressing the issue. Given that apparently everyone felt the need to send a spy I can't really see it working out in anyone's favour. Can you?" She asked.
None of the Council bods had actually thought about it that way. They'd imagined that by going through the proper channels it would have ended up being someone else's fault and they wouldn't have to worry about it. Someone else would be getting in trouble for this whole mess. The realisation that it would actually end up being all of their problem was a sudden and sobering one.
They hadn't got into this game for the paperwork.
"What do you suggest we report back?" The Asari asked, more measured than either of the other two.
Shepard wasn't especially concerned. She was very tired.
"Look, just make something up. Hell, tell them everything but just skip this bit. Everyone put their gun down, do one last trick as pretend waiters and put the dessert out here and then bugger off. Everyone reports back to their boss, just says what they overheard, we all get on with our lives."
"But some of these are agents from corporations! Or mercenary groups! You can't just let them go! There are surely legal repercussions!" The Turian pressed. Shepard gestured to a distant window.
"This is Illium, you can basically buy people here. Pretty sure this won't count as illegal, somehow. Probably some loophole that allows for this sort of thing. Unless you want to bring all of them in and then spend the next however many months squabbling over why your spy should be released but the others shouldn't be? It's not my problem, I'll be fine. I'll be in space somewhere doing my job, so it's up to you."
A good compromise left everyone feeling unhappy.
It's what they went with though. One after another - under Shepard's watchful eye - the faux-waiters all went up and all set their weapons down. Even Thale set down the gun he'd acquired, at a nod from Jarrion to do so. It was good to be seen to be amenable. That and Thale hadn't felt wholly comfortable holding the thing in the first place.
A gun was a gun in a pinch, but it's providence was questionable. He'd pray it out later.
What was even better about Shepard's odd idea came next, as the various agents did do one last job as waiters and did bring dessert out, in a stunned mood, and once that was set down they all just up and left, easy as that. None of it felt right, but it was hard to argue with getting able to walk out of something.
Or, in the case of the turian who'd had their arm snapped before being whacked to the floor by the Commander, limping out. But the point remained the same.
(The dead Cerberus agent wasn't walking out of anywhere, obviously, but Thale had taken a moment to at least drag his corpse to one side where no-one would trip over it.)
"Well that was fun," Shepard said, retaking her seat and leaving her borrowed - 'borrowed' - pistol by her bowl.
"Can't say I'm completely won over with your newfound approach to problem solving, Shepard," said Anderson, leaning in.
"Did solve it though, didn't I?"
"Almost," Anderson said, pointing. Shepard looked.
"Ah," she said.
One had remained behind, and had remained armed. An Asari. Impossible to tell exactly how old, what with being an Asari and all, but she gave off the impression of youth, radiating inexperience. She looked jumpy and nervous, which is not what you want someone holding a gun to look like.
"Great," Shepard said under her breath, rising to her feet again with a sigh.
"You alright there, eh? Eclipse? Just a guess?" Shepard asked, and while the Asari didn't given an answer the alarmed widening of their eyes kind of gave the game away on that one.
"Just set your gun down like the others, you can walk right out, it's fine. Trust me," Shepherd said, hands where they could be seen. For her troubles she got a gun pointed at her. Rather Shepard's intention.
She wasn't particularly concerned about getting shot herself - it happened on a fairly regular basis already, and she was pretty much bulletproof, one or two hits she could probably tank, maybe - but the possibility of one of the important Council persons or their staff getting hit was uncomfortable.
That would make all of this impossible to ignore, which would make the next few months (or years) more uncomfortable than they had to be, on top of someone perhaps dying when they didn't need to.
A time to be careful.
"No! I have to go back with something! Anything! Oh Goddess, but when she finds out I got caught…"
'She' in this instance presumably being whichever Eclipse boss had sent this Asari here in the first place. For whatever reason, Eclipse did seem - out of all the available mercenary outfits - to have more unbalanced upper-management than any of the others. Even the Blood Pack seemed less fearful of their superiors, and that was saying something.
The gun wandered alarmingly about the diners at the table and so Shepard spoke up again:
"Just tell her what you heard, leave this bit out. She'll never know. You'll be fine," she said in the most soothing tones she could manage, creeping forward carefully and holding out a hand for the gun which was once-more pointed right at her.
"You don't understand! She'll find out! Then she'll find out I lied! Oh the things she'll do to me - when the lieutenant spilt her tea she took days to die! Days!" The Asari practically squealed.
"Eclipse, I ask you. No way to run a business..." Shepard muttered, wincing.
Already worked up, the Asari was now clearly approaching the point of incoherence. Had she not been holding a gun this wouldn't really have been a problem but she was holding a gun, so everyone was feeling a bit tense.
Having sat out for most of this odd episode, Jarrion now felt that he couldn't in good conscience continue to let the Commander do all of the work, especially when it was plainly obvious to everyone - Jarrion especially - that there was no talking to this alien.
He had another, better solution, and so rose himself, immediately attracting her attention.
"S-stay there!" She shouted. He did not.
"Calm down, you won't be getting in any trouble," Jarrion said, holding up one placating hand with fingers spread and one very un-placating, beringed fist which he pointed at the borderline-panicking Asari.
As he spoke there was a very quiet snap, rather like static electricity, but it was almost inaudible over what he'd said and no-one was really in the mood to notice something small like that anyway.
Certainly not the Asari.
"You don't understand! I have to - I have to - " she said, panting, and then she coughed. Then she coughed again, this time more wetly, jolting forward with the force of it. She looked confused, and everyone was looking at her.
"What-" she about managed to say before another, far more violent and more sustained bout of coughing overtook her. Dropping her pistol she fell to her knees, hacking ever more wetly, clutching her chest, eyes bulging, blood flecking around her lips and down her front.
Everyone seemed too stunned to even think about moving to help. Except the Imperials, of course. They all just seemed entirely unconcerned, even as the alien retched out a thick string of something thick and bloody and then promptly keeled over, plainly stone-dead.
There was a pregnant pause.
"That's unfortunate," Jarrion said, breaking the silence. Loghain leaned in towards him.
"Nice shot," she whispered as Jarrion tugged his gloves on tighter and fiddled with his many rings, one in particular over all the others.
"I couldn't possibly say what you were referring to," he said before smiling benignly at everyone else around the table. "Now, where were we before all this excitement?" He asked, keen to get things back on track and maybe get some sort of preliminary trade deal - or at the very least some sort of understanding! - knocked out by the time dessert was done.
Instead, uproar. Seemed they'd all hit their limit. Temperature-dropping parlour tricks, eerily accurate insight into their inner thoughts, people getting stabbed in the eye and unorthodox solutions of spies were one thing, people dropping messily dead for no obvious reason was quite another - they'd had enough. This wasn't what they'd been briefed on.
Jarrion didn't understand it, honestly, and was frankly bemused by their agitated attitude and their shouting and their accusations.
He'd thought, given the circumstances, they'd have been rather glad to have the issue resolved in a straightforward fashion so that they could all get back down to business, get all this sorted and get on with their no-doubt busy lives. He'd thought, given what had just happened, they'd appreciate a more direct way of dealing with a threat, a way that got immediate and visible results.
Foolishly, he'd even allowed him to think - for a moment! - that they might even have been grateful!
Were they grateful? Were they fuck.
Aliens. Professional and seasoned as he was, Jarrion too had limits.
After so long having to talk and listen to the foul things all of their talking now just blurred together into a horrible, incomprehensible mass of yammering that had bile rising in the back of Jarrion's throat.
He'd come here for a specific reason, damnit. He'd hung around for this damned function for a practical purpose. There was an end he was working towards - proper, formal, polite diplomatic relations with the largest entity in the galaxy. To get a foot in the biggest door, to look to the future, to take the first step in making a proper go of this marvellous universe-hopping accident. Simple.
Instead, faffing. And nattering. And now complaining. Loud complaining.
Jarrion had had enough. He stood up suddenly and forcefully enough to ensure his chair scraped loudly. That got them all to shut up. Even got Shepard - for a split-second - to reach again for that gun she'd acquired, at least before her judgement got the better of her reflexes.
Confident he had the attention of everyone present, Jarrion said:
"I do heartily appreciate your generosity and largesse in hosting myself and my associates. The conclusion of this initial meeting and any required formal processes to allow myself and my interests to operate in Council space shall take place presently on the Assertive."
Took them a second to work out quite what he was driving at, there.
"...I'm sorry?" The Asari asked.
"That means you, you and you are to come with me and to leave your functionaries behind. Commander, you are quite welcome to bring your, ah, associate," Jarrion said, pointing to the important Council persons before turning to personally address Shepard.
And with that he gave an especially emphatic, non-negotiable hand gesture to his own entourage, spun on his heel and immediately started walking. Thale was behind him instantly, Pak smoothly and silently following not far behind. Loghain had to finish cramming the last of her dessert (some sort of sweet iced thing) into her mouth before hurrying to catch up.
Behind the Imperials, back at the table, more bickering. They couldn't just let him walk off, but equally the primary Council agents didn't really want to follow him alone, but then again they couldn't let him just walk off.
It bore repeating.
"We're going?" Loghain asked Jarrion, quietly, keeping her voice down. He'd actually caught her off guard with that one, which rather impressed her.
"We are going, right now, to the Assertive, where we shall achieve something useful," Jarrion said.
Loghain thought back to that time not-so-long ago where she had explicitly stated that the aliens were all very interested in his ship and all had their own plans cooking on how to get onboard. She was pretty certain she'd mentioned that part out loud.
"Is it wise-" She started.
Jarrion knew where she was going with this because he'd gone there himself, so didn't need her going there again. He'd thought it through. He had his own position on the subject. He didn't need anyone else reminding him of what he'd already thought through. He cut her off.
"Yes."
"Alright…"
She trusted he knew what he was doing. Or, if he didn't, she'd be there when it went wrong. Either way it worked for her, really.
The Imperials strode purposely a bit more, flinging doors open in dramatic fashion. This quickly got them to a dead end, so they had to stride purposely back again.
"Do you remember the way out?" Loghain asked. Jarrion gritted his teeth.
"It's coming back to me. It's this way," he said.
"Do you remember that we were flown from the landing pad to here and probably can't walk back?" Loghain asked, innocently.
Jarrion came to an abrupt halt and rounded on the Inquisitor, mouth open to give her a concise piece of his mind when he spotted approaching the important Council bods (sans their flunkies) accompanied by Shepard and Anderson. His spirits were immediately buoyed - they'd called his bluff! Aha!
"You were going to snap at me?" Loghain prompted but instead Jarrion just brushed some dust from the shoulder of her jacket. Whether there was actually any dust there or not was immaterial.
"You spilled your dessert a little there, Inquisitor. Might I suggest a napkin next time?" He said, making a mental note to - once they actually did get back to the lighter - vox ahead to Torian and have him clear a route from the lighter bay to his personal quarters.
Wouldn't really do for the crew to see the sort of guests he was planning on bringing back.
Blah blah fucking blah. Tired of these Council bastards, let's move on.
SLOWLY. But we are moving on.