More endless talking - IN SPACE! Hurgh. Think it's just about coherent, given it's been written in spits and spurts over the course of months and had bits chopped out and changed and mixed up. Think it makes sense. And I'm a father now so my brain has been turned into rice pudding from lack of sleep. Anyway, have fun I guess.

+++IN AN IMPERIAL LIGHTER, HEADING INTO ORBIT+++

If having their minds probed hadn't been enough to convince the guys from the Council that things weren't as nicely cut-and-dry as they might have liked, the trip up in Jarrion's shuttle-thing should have done the trick.

I'm not saying that you can't make spacecraft like this, you could, it's just that no-one does, at least no-one I've ever met. There's commitment to the bit and then there's going out of your way to avoid just about everything that usually goes into a modern shuttle. There plainly wasn't an ounce of eezo anywhere in the damn thing. The only rougher trip I'd had through atmosphere had been that time I'd fallen through one while suffocating to death.

Lucky we were all strapped in, really.

Still, you had to admire it. This Imperial technology is all either sophisticated in some way I can't work out or else just plain brute force. Sometimes probably both. A Kodiak can get into orbit because, you know, mass effect. This thing is just blasting its way straight up with engines powerful enough to just browbeat gravity, far as I can tell.

Works, can't argue with that.

Comfort does look like it's a bit of a secondary consideration though. A Kodiak isn't exactly luxurious but this shuttle of Jarrion's has us all rattling around on benches, deafened by the wonderful combined sound of friction and the engines causing the friction. Could barely hear myself think.

Thankfully, this ended. Took a minute or so but then we must have got into space proper, as the noise dropped to manageable levels almost at once. Still loud, but not so loud that it felt like you were sitting in a box next to a jet turbine. Everyone looked relieved. Well, everyone from this galaxy - the Imperials didn't appear especially phased either way.

I heard some clipped snippets of chatter from what I assumed were the pilots, but couldn't make anything useful out of it. Figured it was probably just your normal report on progress, courses getting locked in, how long to arrival and all that. Nothing I could do about that. I turned to Loghain - who was strapped in next to me.

"Nice trick with that Asari just before dessert, by the way," I said, as casually as one can say something like that while inside a still-noisy space shuttle. Loghain just looked confused.

"Hmm?"

"The one that dropped dead? Figured that was you. With your brain," I said, tapping my temple for demonstrative purposes.

She stared at me for a second - I think, I got the impression she was staring at me - and then seemed to realise what I was driving at, breaking out a smile that did at least manage to reach where her eyes would have been if she, you know, had any.

"Oh, flatterer! Not me though, that, sadly a bit beyond my capabilities. I'm more one for plundering thoughts, really. And the occasional bit of misdirection. Sometimes they get mixed together," she said, drawing a circle in the air with her finger.

"Mixed together?" I asked, and instead of saying anything Loghain just leaned her head ever-so-slightly and nodded past me.

"Commander?" Came the crystal-clear voice of Ashley from just behind my ear and even though I knew there was nothing and no-one there I looked anyway, on reflex, twisting in the harness.

Nothing and no-one there, obviously, because I was sat with my back to the side of the shuttle and also because Ashley was dead.

That had been her voice though. No mistaking it.

Turning back to Loghain - because it was clearly, clearly her fault - I found her not having moved, dangerously close to smirking.

"That sort of thing," she said.

I took a moment, took a breath, then reached up, took hold of her by the collar and pulled her in so we could have a proper word. This got the hackles up of Jarrion's guys who were sitting opposite and watching, but it wasn't like they could do much strapped into a shuttle other than glare and gesture at me.

The noise level in the shuttle dropped then, I noted. Engines probably cutting out for final approach as they coasted in with occasional little puffs of correction, just maneuvering to the target, braking now and then. This was good, as it meant I could speak more clearly:

"Loghain," I said in a calm, collected voice. "You and I get along well enough, but if you ever do that or anything like it to me again our relationship is going to get very sour very fast."

For possibly the first time since I'd met her I think I saw Loghain at a loss for words. Her mouth opened once, then closed, then opened again.

"My apologies," she said.

The best way of saying sorry is never having to say sorry in the first place. Second best way is, you know, saying sorry. We take what we can get. I let go of her collar.

"That's okay. Given that you know why that would have an effect I assume you also know why I'd rather you not do that," I said.

"Yes. I am sorry. I - sometimes I may go too far," she said.

"Don't we all, sometimes. The important part is knowing not to go there again."

Here the conversation ended, unsurprisingly. Just left lingering awkwardness and the sour looks of the two guys opposite. What does Jarrion call them? Armsmen? I don't think they like me.

There then came another static-laced burst of chatter from up front and this time I could definitely make out the words 'final approach'. The shuttle rattled, there were more jolty puffs and more braking, and then a swoop, a much harder brake, a halt that had us all jerk to the side in our straps and then a clang that made the hull ring.

Then nothing. Guess we'd landed.

The Imperials set about unbuckling themselves almost immediately and Jarrion was the first on his feet, up like a shot, stumping down from his seat up by the cabin to me and the Council bods, sat nearest the ramp.

"Apologies for the roughness of the journey - we're not strictly-speaking equipped for transporting diplomatic passengers, the lighters are rather more utilitarian," he said. The Council bods - recovering - made weak expressions about how this was fine and they were fine, despite clearly not being fine. That's diplomacy for you.

Seeing that this first part of what he had to say had landed reasonably well Jarrion clasped his hands together, like how someone who's about to deliver something sensitive might.

"With that in mind I should say that we don't often receive guests on the Assertive and certainly not guests of your, ah, unfamiliarity, so I will kindly ask that you not wander - the ship is reasonably large and we wouldn't want you getting lost. You might get hurt."

Not sinister at all.

With that said he looked us all up and down to see if there were any questions and, when there were no questions, he stepped back and gestured to those armsmen of his without looking:

"Men, help our guests with their harnesses."

They did. They didn't look happy about it but they did.

In short order we were all of us unstrapped and standing, waiting inside the shuttle to be let out. All the Imperials barring Jarrion, Loghain and Thale were behind us. Nothing like being boxed in to make you feel comfortable. Pak, I saw, was the only one still sitting. I am sure they had their reasons.

Jarrion then, finally, does whatever it is he needs to do down by the ramp and the ramp comes down and out we all totter, some legs unsteadier than others.

And so now I'm actually on Jarrion's ship properly.

First impression? Size. This thing was big. I knew that from the outside, obviously - we all knew that - but the dimensions on the inside just weren't what you saw in spaceships. They weren't what you were meant to see in spaceships. This thing had the kind of interior volumes you see planetside, and for good reason.

It had vaulted ceilings! Not everywhere I'm going to guess, but still! One vaulted ceiling is too many for a spaceship! And in the hanger, no less. That's just extravagant.

Second impression: skulls. Fucking skulls. So many skulls. I'd thought that Jarrion's floating one had been bad enough and that the dozen or so little ones he'd had just dotted across his rings and his jacket had been a bit much, but that was apparently just the appetiser.

If there was blank space available, someone had put a skull on it. I am not even kidding.

Blow me down but it's big though. This is the kind of thing you normally expect on a space station, one of the more substantial ones. And even then they don't have this sort of wasted interior space! Why would they? And also they don't move!

And this is just the hanger! Or shuttle bay. Whatever, whichever. The bit where the little ships go - there's a bunch more of them besides the one we landed in, parked either side of us. It's bloody huge. And there's these bits of paper stuck here and then with splodges of red wax, presumably stuck in places of significance. And there's scrollwork on the floor-grates and what looks an awful lot like a shrine over against one wall. It has candles and a whole lot more of those wax seal things.

Only one person meeting us. Not sure what I expected but it feels pretty low-key for Jarrion. No band? For shame. Could have put a few more skulls on the instruments. Hell, why not make them out of skulls? You did it for the drones. I kid, but still.

The person meeting us was Torian.

Torian looked a lot like how I remembered him looking, which is to say old and unhappy. Nice that some things in life are consistent, I suppose. He looked a lot more unhappy when he clapped his eyes on the Council bods and looked like he was about to say something when Jarrion strode down the ramp to him and cut him off.

What the two of them said I don't know as whatever their conversation was about it happened quietly. Torian didn't come out of it looking any sunnier, but he kept his mouth shut.

"Come on, come on, don't be shy. Come out and stretch your legs!" Jarrion said with a wave of his arm, mostly as myself and the Council bods and Anderson hadn't come all the way down the ramp and were instead dawdling and gawping or else showing reluctance to leave the relative safety of the shuttle for the unknown.

At Jarrion's insistence we finished moving down the ramp to join him and the others.

"Marvellous, marvellous. Ah, men, you are dismissed. Thale, if you wouldn't mind seeing to it that they are properly debriefed?" Jarrion said, nodding first to the knot of armsmen he'd had in the shuttle and then to Thale, who nodded back.

"Lord Captain," Thale said, clearly reading something into what Jarrion had said that we'd all missed. He then added, with a hint of concern: "Lord Captain?"

Amazing how a man can make two words mean so much.

Also, I keep forgetting that I can understand Thale, but Thale can't understand me. Or anyone who isn't Imperial, come to think of it. Huh. Weird. Hard to keep track of this stuff sometimes.

Whatever it was that had Thale concerned Jarrion didn't seem too worried about and he flapped a hand.

"I'll be quite alright, Thale, thank you. See to the debrief and then see to your leisure for now. I shall summon you when you are required."

"Lord Captain," said Thale, snapping off an especially crisp nod before turning the armsmen and jerking his head off to the side. And off they went.

Wonder what that was about.

Jarrion's attentions then went to Loghain:

"Loghain, if you'd be kind enough to return to wherever it is you've dug yourself into. Your presence is not required for these discussions."

"Was it something I said?" She asked.

"It was precisely something you said," Jarrion said, laying on the ice and coming across tangibly frosty. Even I felt a little chilled. Loghain just shrugged.

"Alright, fine."

And off she went too, without even a further murmur of argument. Jarrion looked honestly stunned and could only blankly watch her go before blinking and muttering to himself.

"That was easier than I expected…" he said, perhaps a little worried.

All of this left just me, Anderson, the three rather skittish-looking Council bods, Jarrion and Torian. Pak had somehow managed to slip away without anyone noticing which, all things considered, was kind of impressive. For someone who whirrs and clanks when they walk they can be pretty stealthy when they want to be, apparently.

Jarrion took a breath, straightened out his jacket, put the smile back on then held a hand out for us to follow.

"Apologies, details to see to, now seen to. Shall we?"

And on he led, out of the hanger and into the ship proper.

The ship didn't get any smaller. I didn't really expect it to, obviously, but it was still mind-numbing to go through door after door, down corridor after corridor and through however many lifts and conveyors and small tram systems and find there was always just more ship.

Jarrion looked to be taking us the scenic route, though since he had said somewhere before that we'd be heading to his quarters I figured those would probably be away from the nastier parts of the ship anyway - mine were, after all, and the Normandy could fit in a cupboard around here - so probably shouldn't be surprised we'd ended up in what felt like the bloody nave of a cathedral that looked to be running most of the length of the ship, or at least a good chunk of the length.

That's a weakness, if you ask me. I don't care if I can see bulkheads ready to slide in every dozen feet or so, that's still an oversight. But I don't design spaceships wherever Jarrion is from, so what do I know? Maybe this sort of thing is standard on those big cruisers he mentioned?

Things got pretty ornate. Lots of weird little gothic frilly bits on pillars, lots more of those wax seals with the paper, lots more skulls and this time some of them cast (or at least coated in) in gold, lots of statues of stern-looking men and women holding books or (more) skulls or swords glowering at us from alcoves. Subtle stuff.

More of those hovering skulls things kept zipping overhead every so often, too, making the council guys flinch every time they did. Could have sworn I saw what looked like a cherub, as well. You know? The little chubby things? Babies with wings? Hiding behind one of those statues and peering down at us?

Probably imagining things at this point...

This was insane. Were all of their ships like this? What about those bigger ones Jarrion mentioned? And where was the crew and the actual bits that kept the place running? Beneath and behind us back towards where the engines were, I assumed, at least judging from the vibrations I could feel, the vibrations that kind of made me nervous until I realised that they were supposed to be that strong.

They came in waves, weirdly. Like a heartbeat when the rhythm really picked up. Now that's just unsettling.

And I was so focussed on that feeling that it took me a second to notice that the Council lot and Anderson had stopped walking and were all just standing a good twenty feet or so behind me, all staring up. And I mean really staring, and given everything we'd seen already it must have been something.

So I wandered back and I also looked, and then I was also staring.

It was a relief, I think, though I'm not an expert. A relief in brass or something like brass. It was huge, absolutely huge. It showed a man in tip-to-toe armour, the kind covered in (more) skulls and eagles and one or two lightning bolts.

In the one hand he's holding a flagpole or a standard or something, the flag itself festooned with what look like stars and that big two-headed eagle they seem so fond of and a few more lightning bolts for good measure, the fabric billowing. The other hand is holding a sword. The sword is on fire.

The man has a writhing, multi-headed serpent-thing pinned to the ground with a boot and and is stoically plunging that big, flaming sword right into it, also having impaled it on that flagpole he's holding.

I blink.

What am I looking at?

It's ludicrous. It's overblown. It's gaudy. It's too damn big. It's not the sort of thing you should really have anywhere, let alone in the middle of your spaceship. There is nothing about it that I should be able to take seriously. I should probably be snickering to myself. But I'm not. None of us are. We're all just staring.

There's something about it, I don't know what. There's something about the look in the man's eyes, in his face. It's…

...I don't know.

Up ahead - out of the corner of my eye - I notice that Jarrion has also, finally noticed that we're not following him anymore and has turned around to wander back our way. I'm still staring though, trying to work out what it is about this thing that's just…

I really don't know.

"Rather striking piece, isn't it?" Jarrion says, coming to a halt next to me. I swallowed.

"Friend of yours?"

Jarrion gives one of those polite little laughs of his, pitched loudly enough to get everyone else's attention - clearly gearing up for an explanation for all our benefits, not just mine.

"Heh, not quite. This would be a depiction of the Emperor, in something of a martial aspect. Personally I might have preferred a representation perhaps a little more, ah, in keeping with the spirit of my own activities - something more industrious, perhaps, or more, ah, exploratory - but it was part of the ship from when it was recovered, so presumably was an original feature from the ship's previous service. Would be very insulting indeed to the Assertive to have had it removed, not to mention the ill-fortune it would have brought on us all. And it is, as I said, rather striking," he said.

Having him come over and start talking had done wonders to break whatever spell the looming man and his sword and armour had put all of us under and while I still couldn't quite ignore the sheer presence of him just hanging over me I could at least now put my thoughts in order better. The others just seemed uncomfortable.

"So this'd be artistic license, then?" I asked.

"Oh, no doubt - the serpent at the bottom there standing in for the threat of the alien in a general sense, what with the Ork head and the Eldar head and the head of whatever those other ones are - but the truth in essence. The Emperor is humanity, after all, so here we see the Emperor embodying the strength of mankind set against the alien, with the alien here vanquished and mankind victorious. Not that I'm an expert in the symbolism. Shall we continue?"

We continued, none of us looking back. I think maybe we were worried if we did we'd see that the Emperor was watching us go.

You ever get the feeling you're being watched?

Thankfully, not long after we'd left the Emperor - still weird to think about that - behind us, Jarrion turned off from the massive central corridor thing and took us up in a lift. A wood-panelled lift that had required him to produce some credentials to access. I felt we were getting close to his quarters.

And I was right.

I thought I was pretty lucky getting my dinky little cabin with the fishtank and everything up on the Normandy, but that had nothing on this. Jarrion had an honest-to-goodness suite of rooms, and while I'd hesitate to call them tasteful they were at least different to what we'd been led through up to this point.

Less gleaming metal and statues, more gleaming wooden furniture and melodramatic artwork.

And skulls. Sigh.

Jarrion led us through what turned out to be the final door he was going to be leading us through and brought us all into what looked like the sort of room that existed purely to have meetings in. Weirdly, the whole room kind of looked like someone had taken it from somewhere else and stuck it here. Not sure why anyone would do that - and they probably hadn't, that would be silly - but that's the feeling I got.

We all took seats around a long, shining wooden table. We all avoided sitting in the chair that looked like it had been made out of bones. Jarrion, predictably, sat at the head, narrow-end of the table and set his hands down in front of him, fingers laced. He was smiling that particular smile of us.

"Right. Now that we're settled, let's get down to business, shall we? Get a few other things settled, eh?" He said, looking around the table and giving the tiniest of nods to Torian who was sat next to him with some sort of mechanical quill...thing…attached to a small brass machine covered in buttons into which a roll of what looked like parchment had been inserted. Naturally.

And so business got down to. Finally.

I didn't really follow most of the conversation, if I'm being honest, but then I didn't really need to, that wasn't what I was here for. A lot more business-focussed this time, a lot of diplomacy. Seemed like being up here, on this ship, was doing wonders for keeping the council guys on-topic and having Torian around and Loghain not around seemed to do the same for Jarrion, too.

They certainly looked to make progress at least, or seemed to. Heard bits and pieces about the rights of whatever colonies Jarrion had dealings with to get to deal in Citadel space or maybe it was just whatever Jarrion was producing you know honestly I wasn't paying attention. A lot of stuff like that. Torian took a lot of notes, I saw that, tapping away on his little machine and getting that quill to whizz along that parchment.

How is that in any way efficient, just to ask? Nevermind. Whatever works for them.

A bit I did hear and halfway listen to sounded a lot like Jarrion attempting to get recognition - even a little bit - for the Imperium as a sovereign entity and himself as an agent of it, with all the sort of diplomatic fluff that could conceivably follow on from that. That's certainly something.

The Council bods said - and fair play to them, they weren't wrong - that they couldn't guarantee anything, of course, and certainly couldn't guarantee the actual council agreeing to anything they might have outlined here and Jarrion was surprisingly relaxed about it, saying he understood completely but was 'confident in their ability to make the facts of the matter clear'.

So that was good. At least someone was happy.

And with that everything that needed covering seemed to have been covered and the thing kind of fizzled out. With everything talked about that they'd apparently needed to talk about that just left a bunch of people sitting on a spaceship they didn't really want to be sitting on, sharing a table with a man who didn't really want them there either.

Time to leave, then, for them at least.

Torian packed up to go and he and Jarrion had another brief, quiet conversation. Once Torian had departed Jarrion favoured the whole table with yet another of those smiles, though this one seemed a bit more tired than the one before.

"Thale shall be returning shortly to walk you back to the hanger so you can be returned to the surface. In the meantime you shall, ah, talk among yourselves, I suppose?"

Not a whole lot else to do when waiting. The Council side of the table - the non-human Council side, I suppose - did get down to talking while Jarrion got up to go and do something by himself in the corner of the room. That left me and Anderson. I looked over to him.

"Is all Alliance-stroke-Council business this exciting?" I asked him.

"Every day more exciting than the last," he said, completely flat. "Though it isn't every day you get to be inside a ship like this. It's unique, to say the least."

You're not wrong there, Anderson.

"That's a polite way of putting it," I say before leaning in a little. Don't really care about being overheard, it's just this is a private conversation. "I'm going to stick around a bit when you guys leave. I got a plan."

Anderson raises an eyebrow. Just the one eyebrow.

"A plan?"

I held up my fingers, maybe an inch apart.

"Little plan, just something I cooked up," I said.

"The kind of plan that might involve me having to lay out Udina again?" Anderson asked.

I'd forgotten about that.

"Well, I hadn't factored that in but if you feel it'd help the next time you see him by all means don't hold back," I said, and we shared a chuckle. Ah, bonding over assault. To be fair, that plan did work.

"You going to go and type up your report on all this, then? Figured you at least were paying attention," I say.

"I was. I'm not sure how much detail I should go into. Some of this would probably just have them asking me questions and not believing the answers. I might leave out the statues," Anderson said, scratching his chin and casting an eye over some of the artwork in the room.

A lot of exploding spaceships. At least one heap of dead aliens. Tasteful.

"Probably a good idea. Focus on the important details," I said.

"Think I can manage that."

Thale appeared then. The gap between Torian leaving to get him and him showing up was so small I'm pretty sure he'd just been waiting two rooms over to be told to come back to Jarrion. Guy takes his job seriously, you can't deny that.

And with him appearing the Council lot and Anderson disappeared. I gave Anderson a final handshake before, because honestly I have no idea when I'll likely see him again. Thale looks at me wordlessly, questioningly, when I don't make to follow him but I just shake my head, nod back towards Jarrion. Thale seems to get it.

Surprised that he lets me stick around with his boss alone, but then Jarrion does still have this weird idea that somehow we're linked by providence, so maybe I'm a special case?

My life is strange.

And that just leaves me and Jarrion, still in the corner doing whatever. He'd taken his jacket off and rolled his sleeves up. First time I'd ever seen Jarrion without that jacket of his on, now I came to think of it. He looked smaller without it, and less square.

I cleared my throat, mostly so he'd know I was there. Did get him to look up. He looked pleasantly surprised.

"Still here, Commander? Not returning with the others?"

"Not yet. Seemed like a productive meeting, that," I said. Jarrion sighed.

"I suppose. That it should have been quite this arduous is unfortunate, but such is life. Over now, thankfully. Now we can take a moment to gather ourselves."

He fixed one of his sleeves which had started to come unrolled and smoothed his hair back. I was already gathered so I didn't need to do anything. Instead I squinted at the buttons on the waistcoat he was wearing, trying to see what they were. When I saw what they were I wondered why I'd even needed to squint to check.

"I meant to ask you but the right moment didn't really come up before: why all the skulls?" I asked, pointing to a few of the more obvious examples around us, including those on him like the waistcoat buttons. Jarrion blinked and looked at them himself.

"Yes?" He asked back at me, clearly having no idea what to make of my question. Suppose for him it was something he'd just got a bit blind to.

I rephrased:

"Well, bit grim, isn't it?"

He gave me a very puzzled look.

"Something that all men can be sure of is that they are going to die, and it does them well to be reminded of this - particularly as it will help them to remember that a man who dies in service to the Emperor, no matter how humble that service may be, has not died in vain and has spent his life well and wisely."

Not a lot I could say to that.

"...okay."

Jarrion smiled.

"This is, I feel, another of those things that you will simply have to take my word for, Commander. I would not expect you to understand."

Bloody death cult, this. They're all mad.

"Was that what you stayed behind to ask, Commander?" Jarrion asked, sounding pretty puzzled. It would have been pretty funny if the whole reason I'd stuck around had been to ask him that in private, I'll admit, and also pretty puzzling.

"No, no. I had something I wanted to talk to you about, little thing," I said.

For whatever reason this seemed to perk Jarrion right up.

"Ah, a private conversation away from the political types? A fine idea. Over a drink, perhaps? We can take it in the top-side observation blister. The view in orbit is always worthwhile, I find."

"Sure, why not. Thank you."

And so off we went, back out the way we'd come.

A bit of walking and a bit of tram-taking later and we were in a lift, quite a small one, heading right up to this blister. It must have been pretty high up because it was taking quite a long time.

Flying around on the Normandy has given me a high tolerance for lifts. The slowest lift in the galaxy was as nothing to me. Slow it down, I could take it. Play some news in the background, I don't care.

Or alternatively, have small talk:

"Jarrion, before, in the hanger, when you said those guys should be debriefed did you mean…?" I asked. More to make conversation than anything. I didn't really think Jarrion would have anything unpleasant done to his men but I figured it'd pay to check and, well, this counted as making conversation.

From the look on his face he didn't immediately get what I was driving at.

"Hmm?" He went, then he got what I was driving at. "Oh, Throne no, nothing like that. Just felt it best that they be kept apart from the rest of the crew for now," he said.

This answer confused me, I'll admit. Not what I saw coming.

"Why?" I asked.

"Ah, to curtail rumours. Wouldn't do to have them circulating with those who hadn't been down to the planet with me, saying that there were aliens on-board or anything like that."

Oh. Now it made sense. Kind of. It made sense for Jarrion, if not for me.

"But there are aliens on board. And I thought you could get away with that? Rogue Trader and all?" I asked. Given what he'd told me about his - for want of a better word - job I thought dealing with aliens was the whole point.

Jarrion rubbed the palm of one hand with the thumb of the other. I think he was thinking.

"What a Rogue Trader can get away with and what the common crew might get upset about often overlap, sadly. What they do not know will not hurt them, and indeed it might be said that ignorance is one of the virtues among the lower ranks. I'd certainly say so. Later, when these Council representatives have left and the rumours do seep into the rest of the crew, well, that'll be an issue for later. Nothing major, I'm sure. The crew is always hearing some rumour or other. It keeps them entertained," he said.

Charming.

"Right," I said. "Haven't seen much of the crew around, I have to say."

I remembered how many people EDI had estimated were on this thing, and big as it was it was eerie not to have seen any of them. They couldn't all be in the back.

"Ah, well, most of them are elsewhere in the ship doing their duties. Those few that would have been in the sections you've seen were told to be elsewhere because, ah-"

"Because of the aliens?" I suggested, cutting in.

Jarrion had the look of someone who didn't appreciate being interrupted, but he handled it well.

"You're getting ahead of me, Commander," he said.

"I think I got the gist of this by now."

And on that note the lift finally got to where it was going - that's timing, that is.

The blister, in the event, turned out to be more of a whole room and 'top-side' meant that it was sat right at the very top of the highest part of the ship. It was dark when we got up but he fiddled with something and these big, armoured shutters on the outside folded out of the way and then we got our view. Jarrion had not been kidding.

Getting a nice wide, sweeping vista of stars with Illium right there was one thing, seeing the length of his whacking great ship stretching out practically beneath our feet was quite another.

You don't get to that sort of thing that often. Looked like a line of cathedrals stacked end-to-end, if cathedrals came studded with turrets and bristling with antennae. I assumed those were point defence, those turrets. Big though, real big.

But then what around here wasn't?

"That's quite the view," I said as Jarrion came over holding two glasses, one of which he handed to me. "Much obliged," I said.

"Think nothing of it," he said, taking a sip. I looked at the glass. The glass was just a glass, and what was in it looked like it could have been anything. Amber-coloured alcohol covers a multitude of sins. Although, thinking about it, this was booze from another galaxy, kind of. Another galaxy and also the future, kind of.

Now that's just weird.

Jarrion must have seen me examining the drink.

"Amasec. A gift from grateful House Croesus colonists. Unclear on the year and rather rustic in style but, well, I must admit to a certain fondness. Unless you'd prefer something else?" He asked.

"Sounds fine to me," I said, taking a sip myself. Not bad, all told. I had another sip and the two of us stood and stared out at space and spaceships for a pleasant few moments.

But then it was time to get down to business:

"I wanted to talk to you about something," I said. Or repeated, given I'd said this before.

"As you say and as I imagined you did, staying behind and all. It is rather hard to talk about the important things with functionaries around, isn't it? Are they always like that?" He asked

"Them personally or Council employees generally?"

He waved his glass-holding hand at the window.

"Generally, I suppose. Bureaucratic! Aliens being inscrutable or barbarous I'm used to, that I expect. I never expected them to be so, so - so petty! So mundane!"

"They are just politicians, people," I said.

Jarrion sucked in a breath and opened his mouth to say something about this but apparently thought better of it and closed his mouth without commenting.

"Hmm," he went instead.

Best to press on:

"Anyway. Before dinner started back on Illium I might have asked whether you were into arms dealing now? If you remember?"

Feels a long bloody time ago now, all that. Like it was months ago!

"Ah yes, I vaguely recall. Vaguely recall a rather accusatory tone, as well," he said, more amused than annoyed.

"Sorry, didn't mean it like that. Well maybe, a bit. Can't really claim the moral high ground when the ground is the bodies I've left in my wake. I just wasn't sure that selling your future-guns was really going to end very well but that cat's out of that bag now so that's a moot point."

"Nothing good has ever come of a cat, has it? And what little weapons I have sold - purely as weapons of defence for those human colonies I have contact with - are only lasguns, and rather basic ones at that. I was under the impression that lasers weren't unknown to you?" Jarrion asked, and I could kind of tell he found the mere idea rather ridiculous. Just in the way he'd said it.

I waved my glass around a bit, just to make my point. Worked for Jarrion, and there's something theatrical about waving a glass around. Makes it look like you're saying something important.

"We don't have lasers like how you have lasers, yours don't work the way anything we have work. That's what's got everyone's knickers in a twist. They all want to figure out how you do it and they all want to be the first ones. So while they might just be cheap junk to you, to some people around here they're the hottest thing around," I was rambling now and gritted my teeth to get back on topic: "The point is that what you have doesn't work like what we have, and that's exciting and different. Could end badly, but could also be pretty bloody useful, especially right now. Especially for me," I said.

"You really are going somewhere with this, aren't you?" He asked, grinning now. Kind of an annoying grin but I can't really hold that against him because I was going somewhere with this so he wasn't wrong.

"Jarrion, you and I probably don't see eye-to-eye on a few things and I can live with that, but something I think we can both agree on is that if there is an intractable problem you can't talk your way out of, you need a nice, simple, direct way of resolving it, yeah? Always better to avoid fighting if possible, but if you can't then you want to be the one who'll be winning the fight. Right?" I asked.

"I can't think of anyone who'd disagree. We are still talking about weapons, aren't we?"

"We are. Now I have two intractable problems on my plate right now," I said, holding up a hand and unfurling a thumb. "The Reapers," and then unfurling a finger. "And the Collectors. And the second one is basically just an extension of the first, but they're also the one I have to deal with immediately."

"Forgive me Commander but I'm unclear where I come into this. And I thought that the Collectors had been dealt with?"

"Not yet, no. We - you - blew up their ship but I'm going to take a wild guess and assume they have more than one. More's the point, they have a base somewhere, the place where they're taking all those colonists they've been rounding up, and until that base is dealt with they will continue to be a problem. That's kind of what I've been tasked to handle."

I am assuming that they have a base. There's something on the other side of that relay, and where else do you park your huge termite-mound spaceships and deposit all your stolen people if not some huger, termite-mound base?

Just a guess. I could be wrong! Probably not, but I could be. But when you're trying to persuade someone it pays to sound confident. That's most of what being in charge is, after all, sounding like you're completely sure what you're saying is completely correct.

Jarrion's face, meanwhile, had lit up. Kind of worrying.

"I'd be more than happy to assist!"

I couldn't help but think that Jarrion's idea of assistance here would be tagging along to wherever the Collectors lived and then turning on those big beam cannons of his until the problem stopped being a problem and started being superheated vapour rapidly cooling in space. And I could see the attraction in that - even if I'd prefer to at least get in first to see if anyone can be saved, ideally - but I can also see the problems.

One glaring problem before all the rest:

"It looks to be the other side of a relay, if it's anywhere. Only way to find out where is to go through it," I said, staring at him until he got the point.

The point being that, as far as both of us knew, his ship couldn't do that. The Normandy couldn't do it either, true, at least not safely, but the difference was that it couldn't do it yet, whereas his couldn't do it at all. As far as we knew.

"Oh. Oh…" Jarrion said, his face falling.

I sped in here.

"But you can still help me, you see? I'm building up a team, like I said. I'm making sure I have everything I can get running at maximum. The Normandy is probably one of the most expensive, advanced ships in space right now shy of a dreadnought and I'm gradually resolving each and every one of my team member's personal demons so they can fully focus on the mission. What would really help me out though is an edge that the Collectors can't prepare for. And that is where you come in," I said.

"Is it now?"

I wet my whistle with the last of that amasec stuff and looked around for somewhere to put my now-empty glass. Couldn't find anywhere though so just held onto it. Guess it doesn't hurt to have a prop in hand.

"Look, you wouldn't be putting in this effort with the Council and the colonies and the trading if you didn't have a vested interest in this, ah, galaxy, right? Some stake in this galaxy staying in working order?" I asked, though really it was more posing a rhetorical question than anything else. Jarrion was watching me closely, I could feel it. Could see it, too, but it was intense enough that I could actually feel it.

"Quite."

"So you'd probably want to keep things around here in one piece, or at least as close as possible, right? Reapers are one thing, we - I - can worry about them later, but right now we have a problem that is going to directly affect you - Collectors hit human colonies, which are your thing. So it's in your interest to deal with them. Yes?"

"I believe you're attempting to appeal directly to my self-interest, Commander."

"I'm trying to lay out how while we might be coming at it from different angles, you and I are on the same page. At the end of the day you and I might have different motivations, different goals and different things we want to get out of all this, but all of that is wrapped up in the same thing: stopping the Collectors. And that's a right-now kind of issue, and we'd both want it sorted right now."

He kept watching me closely for another second before giving the tiniest of shrugs.

"You really don't have to convince me, you know. The threat posed by these aliens to the humans in the, ah, Terminus Systems was quite clear - it's why I assisted you on Horizon in the first place! I had just thought they'd been dealt with. Learning they're not is irritating, obviously, but I certainly have faith in you to put it right. Were anyone else charged with this I'd be lacking in confidence - knowing that it's you has me brimming with confidence!"

Nice to know he has a high opinion of me.

"So if I, say, approached you about acquiring or buying or borrowing a modest compliment of your futuristic small arms for my team so we could really give those Collectors a proper dressing down, how might you react to that?" I asked.

'Dressing down' wasn't really the best choice of words I could have put in there but I was working on the fly and couldn't realistic come up with a good, punchy euphemism for 'shoot to bits with lasers and whatever else you might have available and also our own guns too for good measure' in the time I had available, so dressing down would have to do.

Jarrion was swilling his drink around in his glass and staring down into it like he was trying to divine out what he should do.

"Well, given the very convincing chain of reasoning you've laid out demonstrating that what's good for you is good for me I'd be very likely to render you some assistance. It's just that…"

He tailed off here, frowning to himself and keeping on playing with his glass, passing it around his hands. I had no idea what it was that had stopped him and was about to ask what the problem was but then I remembered I was talking to Jarrion. Had to not grit my teeth.

"This is because I work with aliens, isn't it?" I asked.

"Heh, ah, well, without meaning to be blunt it is, yes."

"Seriously?"

That one slipped out. I couldn't help myself. I've met plenty of humans who are leery about aliens - and plenty of aliens who are leery about humans - but this was starting to be ridiculous.

He gave me a surprisingly hurt look.

"I appreciate this may seem like I'm being difficult to you, Commander, but to me this is a legiatime issue and a legitimate concern."

"You just had a meeting with aliens! I was there!" I said, pointing back to the lift for emphasis. Jarrion didn't seem especially impressed by my emphasis.

"I've had interactions with various aliens, yes, but this is a little bit different. At least it is to me. It might seem simple on the face of it and, indeed, it would be very simple, but it might also be the thin end of a very sinister wedge."

"How so?"

"I would have - and have had - no issue in getting weaponry to human colonists or human agencies who were clear to me in their intentions to use them for the, ah, furtherance of human goals. That I have no issue with. That some of these weapons have since ended up falling into the hands of aliens is unfortunate but nothing I can directly affect. Aliens are notorious for that sort of behaviour, it can't really be helped. Where I start to have issues is, to put it bluntly, putting weapons directly in the hands of aliens. Tentacles, claws, whichever."

"Haven't you been doing business with aliens?"

"There's doing business with aliens and then there's giving aliens guns they will likely turn on humans. Or selling them guns. Profiting from it!"

"I mean, in a roundabout way, when you do business with an alien you could be, you know, providing material to an alien that ends up-"

Jarrion held up a hand.

"Commander, I imagine I know where you are going with that line of reason and, while admirable, it will not convince me. There is, as far as I am concerned, an important difference. I am sorry, but I have the welfare of my soul to consider."

"So that's a no, then?"

"It is...an expression of my reluctance. I would dearly love to assist you in your mission in any way I could - as you say, its success is of interest to me - and this would certainly be a valid means of assisting. The least I could do, in fact! It is just that, well, I have outlined my misgivings, even if they make little sense to you," Jarrion said, pausing and then adding: "The presence of Loghain is also a minor concern."

"Wasn't aware you needed her permission to do your job," I said. I was needling him on purpose with that one. I think he noticed if the look on his face was anything to go by.

"I don't. I am operating outside of her jurisdiction here, and thoroughly in mine. I am merely concerned about what she might say and do once I return to the Imperium. Inquisitors are...unpredictable. Predictably unpredictable and quite likely to take a dim view of a human dealing weapons to aliens or to those who work closely with aliens. Even if it is another galaxy..."

Well this was working out great, definitely worth sticking around for.

Least I got a drink, even if I'd finished it.

I gave my empty glass a significant look and then transferred this significant look to Jarrion who, once he saw it, got the point, silently and obligingly giving me a refill. Might as well, right?

"Look, Jarrion, you're a businessman, right?" I said after another swig. That amasec stuff really grows on you. "That's a simplified way of looking at it I'm sure but you and I come from different places. Point is that's your main thing, that's what you told me, yes?" I asked.

"More or less."

"So right here, with me, with my team, with the Collectors, think of me as a contractor."

"Oh?"

Not sure where I was going with this, honestly, was mostly making it up as I went.

"At this point I'm not honestly sure what I am, to tell you the truth. I was with the Alliance and still am, I think, then got to be a Spectre on top of that so was working for the Council too, then I died, now Cerberus is bankrolling me - point is, I am now the galaxy's go-to woman for large-scale problem solving and right now the problem I'm onto solving is one you want to see solved as much as anyone. Maybe more than most."

I paused to see if he had anything to add or ask but he didn't so I just kept on going:

"You're going out of your way to make those colonies your bread and butter and now the Collectors are taking your lunch. So to speak. So all I'm saying is think of me as the person you can bring in to deal with that. How I deal with that, well, that's up to me - who I work with and what I do with them, that's mine - but what matters to you, what should matter to you, is that it gets done."

My, I went off on one there. Must be the amasec.

And Jarrion's just giving me another unreadable look. If I had to hazard a guess I'd say it was an appraising look, I was being appraised. Then he let out a tiny laugh and shook his head.

"I must say Commander you have quite the way with words when you need to."

"You have your speeches, I have mine," I said.

"So I see! You are fairly convincing, too. Fairly…"

He was stroking his chin and I could tell he wasn't all the way convinced yet. I would have been surprised if he had been. Getting there, though. I could feel it.

"Look Jarrion, I'm not asking you to turn over your fanciest gear or tell me the secrets or anything like that. That's not what this is about. I just want to make sure that my mission succeeds and that everyone I bring along to do it comes back, that's it. You want that, too, and this way you'll get it, nothing more and nothing less. Out of everyone you've met in this galaxy I am probably the only one without a deeper agenda because that is literally all I'm concerned about right now," I said and he glanced up, an eyebrow raised. An eyebrow of doubt.

That's the second time someone's raised an eyebrow at me today. That I've seen.

"Well, were you to have a deeper agenda you probably wouldn't admit to it," he said.

Fair. But I really didn't. I'm a pretty simple woman at the end of the day.

"Do you think I'm lying?"

Jarrion gave me the kind of hard look you give to someone when you want them to know that they're being scrutinised. Kind of theatrical but, really, what else would I expect from him?

"...no. No I don't," he said eventually. Nailed it. Best way of nailing not looking like you're lying is not to lie.

"Glad to hear it," I said. "And if you still need to hear more you should probably also consider how you did go on that mission with me and my alien-packed team and Loghain was there and did see the whole thing and-"

Jarrion held up a hand.

"Yes, yes, I'm quite convinced already, thank you, you can stop Commander. I could take the time to explain to you the differences between that and this but, well, it'd probably come across to you as hair-splitting and by now I think we are both quite comfortably, as you say, on the same page," he said.

They always said I was persuasive. It's not quite up there with getting someone to shoot themselves in the head, but still. Got it done, didn't I?

Jarrion lowers the hand he raised and scratches his chin, looking out into space.

"There will be limits to what I can supply to you as a contractor, of course. The Assertive is only lightly-equipped when it comes to infantry-level equipment and gear, I'm afraid to say, and certain items I simply cannot part with. But within reason I am willing to be flexible," he said, motioning for me to follow and starting off out of the observation blister.

I did not believe for a second that his ship was only lightly equipped for anything, given that I'd already heard him talk about the missions he'd gone on back on his side with dropping in on colonies to go at it with rebels or pirates or Orcs or Orks or whatever, but decided not to make a big deal out of it.

Maybe it'd turn out that he wasn't lying and that other, regular ships were packing even worse stuff. I didn't really need any more exposition on how horrifying where he came from was and what they had to carry around just to see the next day.

"I'm not that fussy, what I'm mostly looking for is just an edge, a few surprises," I said as we got back into the lift and the lift got going again.

"Surprises I am sure I can supply. But ah, how best to arrange this? Can't really claim to have a professional operating relationship if I gift this, and some of it I may want back, if you'd be so kind. Hmm," Jarrion said. Then he snapped his fingers. "Consigned, yes. I think that'll do. That sounds more professional, don't you think?"

Not my area of expertise.

"Oh yeah, real cozy. I can pay you, if you'd prefer. Well, let's be honest Cerberus could pay you. And I'm prepared to be generous on their behalf, too. Very generous."

I am nothing if not petty at times. I remember those secret labs, Cerberus. You're doing alright by me right now, but I know full-well you're doing all sorts of things you shouldn't in the places I can't see.

"Heh, thank you, no. As much as I do enjoy being paid I'll consider your mission against the, ah, Collectors as payment in this instance and you may return the equipment when you are finished and you've returned in triumph. I'd rather your benefactor not know about this at all, all things being equal," Jarrion said, and that one I hadn't seen coming.

Honestly, from what Jarrion had said about the Imperium and it's general attitude I would have expected him and the Illusive Man to have got a real close working relationship up and running by now. I kind of thought they had just without me noticing.

"Oh?"

"On paper and in theory I am fully in sympathy with his goals and the goals of his organisation. It's just that I don't fully trust the man. I don't think he's honest in what he's aiming to do, and he's not honest with himself about it," Jarrion said.

Really hadn't expected an answer like that. Jarrion continues to, well, not surprise me but be kind of all over the place with what he will and won't do. Sure it makes perfect sense to him but hell, it leaves me in the dust half the time.

"How'd you figure?" I asked.

"A gut feeling. His eagerness to get into that alien wreck spoke volumes to his character, I feel, and his generosity in compensating me for access is also rather suggestive. He'd not turn down anything that he might think would give him even the slightest advantage - him here being a key term. That humanity would benefit seems incidental. Maybe I am misreading him, but he comes across to me as a man who has, ah, bought into the line he's spinning? I don't know. Maybe he and I will meet properly down the line and I'll change my mind. For now though, discretion would be appreciated."

"Hey, no problem for me. Kind of amazed he hasn't come at you like I have and just tried to get some guns or something," I said.

"Oh, he has. Either personally or through agents. I have demurred, politely."

This was news to me. One shock after another in this lift, I tell you.

"Because you don't trust him?"

Jarrion nodded.

"Because I don't trust him. Colonists are simple folk. They live on the fringes, they need equipment, they need food, they need a weapon, and they need it to live through one day to the next. That's quite alright. That's honest. Cerberus and the, ah, Illusive Man, was it?"

I nodded.

"They have goals further down the road, and while humanity may or may not benefit if they achieve these goals the goals have more to do with their own, ah, glory than with the prospering of humanity as a whole, or so I think. No, ah, principles, yes? No real beliefs. Other than doing anything to get just that little bit more powerful. Dangerous, dangerous - mankind was just as hubristic before the Imperium, before the Emperor, and mankind paid dearly for it. I can well imagine Imperial technology being gleefully and wantonly combined with alien technology. Likely that'll happen anyway, likely it's happening right now, but the important part is my hands are clean of it."

"Would it be that bad, really? Taking the best of both? Mean, that'd just be working together, wouldn't it? Is that so bad?" I asked. I was perhaps needling again but this time only gently. After all, if you can do something well on your own, where's the harm in doing it better with company? Why not all rise together and all that?

Jarrion looked set to launch into some sort of windy explanation here, but then thought better of it and sighed, smiled only on the one side of his face.

"Really getting into it today, aren't we, Commander? I think this is a question of upbringing. Where I am from your attitude and the attitude of many of your peers would be considered most, ah, eccentric."

"I feel you're being polite and not stating the full extent of how my attitude would be considered," I said. The lift arrived as I finished, and out we went, me tagging along as Jarrion led the way to wherever we were going next.

"I was. Now let us perhaps move onto less contentious topics, yes? Weapons, perhaps? For example, how likely are you to need anti-tank weaponry on this mission of yours?"

I thought about this question.

"I'd prefer to err on the side of caution so let's say pretty likely," I said.

I was smiling. Jarrion was smiling. Maybe we do have some things in common after all.

"Somehow I thought you might say that, Commander."

Later, we can all argue ourselves hoarse on how 40K vs. ME tech levels stack up. It'll be great, we'll all get super, super mad.