Disclaimer: I do no own Mass Effect, I do not claim to own Mass Effect, I am only doing this for fun.
Author Notes: Here is it, the second half of the kitchen sink episode with the most… misnomer title I've ever produced. Shepard is going to begin hating Armistice Day after this.
Episode 35: Armistice Day [Part II]
The OD got very quiet after Shepard had called together a brief update meeting. Legion stood by the wall, seemingly content to back out of the central focus of everything, as they often did. She could only stare at the projection, as if doing so would make the hologram yield an exact location.
The OD door opened and in stepped Kaidan, with Ashley in tow. "Welcome back, Commander." Ashley greeted.
"Thanks." Shepard replied with a smile she knew would be rather wan. She watched as the two found their seats on the couch extension. It took a moment for Shepard to make a stunning observation; Kaidan and Ashley were two people who often found something to talk about, to fill some time. Right then, Ashley looked positively sullen.
"Is that what I think it is?" Kaidan asked, indicating the projection.
Ashley turned to look at the projection and froze.
"It is that, Kaidan." Shepard replied calmly. There was no way of looking at that projection and not seeing it for what it was. Not with Eden Prime, Daiwi, and Solcrum prominently marked, and the meeting point of the three radii right there as well.
"This day is just getting better and better, isn't it?" Ashley groused.
"I don't know about that, but no… that does not look good." Kaidan replied.
Shepard could not miss that there was some subtext in that exchange, but in a way this was just typical for them. The fact that they could talk in vague abstracts and still understand each other said something about the evolution of their teamwork.
The door opened again, and this time it was Nihlus, Garrus, and Jenkins.
"Commander! Welcome back!" Jenkins called, chipper as always.
"Thank you, Jenkins." Shepard smiled.
He practically flew to join the others on the couch, leaving Nihlus and Garrus to take their customary spot standing in front of her.
"I guess I am going to have to work to top Jenkins' enthusiasm." Garrus said, amused.
"You can try!" Jenkins laughed.
Garrus did not even look at the corporal. "Welcome back, Commander," he greeted, his voice rumbling warmly.
Shepard could not help but chuckle, "Thanks, Garrus." In her opinion while Jenkins' enthusiasm was always good for a smile, Garrus' had him beat in the heartfelt expression department.
"Made her laugh." Garrus said, enunciating each word with self-satisfied smugness.
"This is not the time," Nihlus said as he crossed his arms over his chest, his eyes had locked on the projection. Just like that all the light humor in the room drained as if through a sieve.
"Perhaps, but we still need to wait for Tali and Wrex." She said as she slumped against the couch's backrest, seeking to get comfortable. She knew that the meeting would turn singularly uncomfortable. The data projected over the table was writing on the wall that everyone could read.
A few minutes later the OD door opened yet again, heralding the arrival of Wrex and Tali. Then a scratch over the intercom announced that Joker was listening as well. Shepard was not surprised that EDI told the pilot to join the meeting from his position on the bridge.
"What happened, Shepard?" Wrex asked.
"Take a look at that." Shepard replied as she motioned to the projection over the coffee table.
It was actually Tali who drew near first, stepping past Garrus and Nihlus to stand as close to the image as she could without stepping into the projection outright. "Is this what I think it is?" she asked.
Shepard grinned, "That's the question of the day. If all of you are thinking this is progress, then yes, yes it is. EDI and Legion ran the numbers based on Harbinger's lag times on Eden Prime, Daiwi, and Solcrum. The circles represent the range the signal could have come from, and that point where they meet is where Legion and EDI think the signal is coming from. Well, within a hundred light-years."
"Yes… but in the Five Kiloparsec Ring? Is that possible?" Ashley asked.
"I think it is plausible." Shepard replied. "The Council's long-standing moratorium on activating uncharted relays has prevented exploration at any pace past glacial. We simply don't know how many relays there are. But we do know that there are tertiary relays that connect some really backwater corners. For all we know there are relays in that region as well."
"Using those relays will be dangerous. This is the FKR we are talking about. The place for huge stars, black holes, pulsars, gravity anomalies, planetary debris, asteroids, and who knows what else. Make a bad jump, drift outside the relay's clear space, and you could plow into something." Joker said over the comm.
"Are you saying you can't do it, Mister Moreau?" Shepard asked.
"Hell no. I'm just saying it will be a feat." Joker replied. "I will deserve a raise."
"I would not plan anything just yet. Certainly not raises." Garrus cut in. "Commander, you said EDI and Legion narrowed things down to within a hundred light-years, right?" Garrus asked.
"Yes."
The former detective hummed thoughtfully. "One hundred light-years is a cluster. We do not have an idea which is the right one… and it is not like we can just look it up on the extranet."
"Vakarian is right. We are going to need a map of the region's relay system. A Prothean map." Nihlus finished.
"Does one even exist?" Jenkins wondered.
Shepard watched as the team exchanged looks. Everyone knew what the corporal meant. Prothean star charts were exceedingly rare. A complete map would have had to exist at some point in the past, but thousands of years were definitely long enough to lose things. Furthermore, she knew that star charts were a favorite target for looters looking for a big score. Not only could a new shred of map tell them where to loot, but after they had their pick, the charts themselves could be sold as is to other shady types. Then there were the charts that were in the hands of the various governments. The pieces that had been found in the degraded databases on Mars, once deciphered, had become the key to the Alliance's rapid expansion. They listed potentially habitable worlds, systems with resources, and other useful bits of information.
"If that map does exist, and it is in someone's hands, they are unlikely to let us look at it." Kaidan said. "Even our good reason to go there is probably not good enough for them to spill what would be deemed secret intelligence. Not to mention that it might potentially involve activating dormant relays."
"Damned politicians. Then what odds do we have?" Ashley asked.
Shepard raised a hand, "Easy Ashley. We're just spit-balling here. Now, there might be a very simple way around the issue. Harbinger must have the information, how else would the Heretics get there? After that, some of the Heretics would have to know as well, as they come and go from the place, don't they?" she theorized calmly. That was of course just one of the options, but the other one involved Nazara. If she thought about it, really thought about it, it made sense. The Impera had vanished off the face of the galaxy. It could only do that if it knew all the hiding places. She would have to discuss that with Nihlus at some point.
"I can check Heretic memory cores for that information," Tali volunteered.
"That just leaves the obvious, Shepard." Wrex said. "If Moreau is right…"
"I am always right." Joker cut in.
"If he is right, and going there will be dangerous… and if we have to activate some relays, we will not be able to bring in an Alliance fleet. This will be entirely up to us."
"Honestly Wrex, I don't think we will need to activate any relays. The Heretics must have done that for us already." Shepard noted.
"Does not change the facts that this is beginning to sound like a suicide mission," Tali mused.
"If you put it like that… it does." Jenkins said.
"I think Wrex is just saying this will not be a walk in the park operation. I'll agree with him there. We will have to be absolutely ready for it," Ashley said.
The krogan snorted, but it was an amused sort of sound.
Shepard hummed, the sound alone enough to draw back the attention of everyone in the room. "I would rather not use the term 'suicide mission', but yes, this will probably make Solcrum look like cakewalk. Now, I do not think I need to say it, but I will… we're not hitting an uncharted relay until I am damn sure we can handle come what may. In the meantime, we still need to find where exactly our destination is."
Nods went around the room slowly. Shepard did not want to come out and say it, but she had other priorities right now as well. Wrex's job came first, because even if Harbinger's location, complete with coordinates, dropped on her lap right that instant, she would have still chosen to help Wrex first. Preparations for the jaunt into the FKR were going to take time and careful planning. This was the right sort of thing that either got them all killed, or made them some big damn heroes. She was going to pour everything she had into making sure that the outcome would be latter, not former.
"I just have one question." Garrus broke the silence that settled over the OD. "EDI, Legion, I assume those numbers are an indication of lag time. Even by Terran measurement, the range is much too big. How did you calculate it?"
"I admit, I wondered that too." Shepard admitted. At less than three seconds of lag, with conventional transmission means bound to the speed of light, the range should have been less than nine hundred thousand kilometers. At that range it would have been easier to assume Harbinger had been using a stealthy ship hidden in the same solar system. The trick would have been to track the vessel as it used relays to run back to whatever hole-in-the-wall it came from. The fact that Legion and EDI had cooked up a range like this, it implied the Heretics were transmitting by some other means.
"Legion, should I explain it?" EDI asked.
The geth's light beam narrowed and its emotive plates drew into an approximation of a pensive look. "Negative. The range we calculated is based on transmission via a method we derived following our initial analysis of the Old Machine's systems." Legion explained.
Shepard should have known, of course it was something the Geth got from Harbinger, directly or otherwise. The fact that Legion was once again only sharing information when directly prompted was unsurprising as well.
"Legion, you said the Geth use the public comm buoy network, but comm buoys use laser arrays to communicate. Laser signals travel at the universal velocity of electromagnetic waves. A relay can accelerate the laser pulses, jump the signal if you will, but it can only do so when it is active and sending. Such activations would be detectable, traceable, and we would have their origin relay. Not to mention that it would be impractical to keep those relays active for a continuous signal. Are you saying the Heretics use some other mechanism, one that can also avoid detection?" Garrus pressed.
Legion turned to face the former detective. "Affirmative, there is another method Officer-Vakarian. The Protheans transmitted null-mass photons through a relay's standby-phase-link. Sending null-mass photons does not necessitate the sending relay to leave standby phase, only that it maintain physical alignment with the receiving relay. As the sending relay does not send an activation signal to the receiving relay, the receiving relay does not leave standby for reception."
Shepard noted the gloss-eyed expression Jenkins got. The corporal clearly did not get it, and as she glanced to the others she noted that Wrex looked bored and the others were in various stages of confusion, including Nihlus.
"Wait… you are saying the Protheans used the very channel that controls relay-to-relay coordination?" Tali jumped in.
"Affirmative Creator-Tali'Zorah."
"That is..." Garrus began, but stopped and hummed thoughtfully. "Surprisingly simple. It also makes the signals untraceable. We can not go around checking relays to see which emits data packets to a nearby comm buoy."
"Yes. It won't be safe to use those relays either." Tali argued. "That data-flow could potentially use up the channel's bandwidth, and so interfere with the relay synchronization signal. The receiving relay may not activate to receive mass sent to it… well; I suppose the Protheans would have interrupted the data-flow if a ship needed to use the relays, but… somehow I do not think the Heretics will extend us the same courtesy." Tali went on.
"That is a potential concern, yes," Garrus agreed.
"Unless of course we have something that can place the Normandy at a higher priority in the queue, cause an interruption of the data flow." Tali went on.
"Like a Prothean control protocol?" Garrus asked.
"Or a Heretic Identification Friend or Foe signal." Tali replied.
Shepard watched the exchange without commenting. She had nothing to contribute. The others might have been lost in the detail hash-out happening, but she was also pretty sure that everyone knew why Legion mentioned something the Protheans could do. The geth wanted people to run along that mental train track. If the Protheans could do it, then Harbinger could do it, and the Geth had learned to do it, then it was exactly how the Heretics did it. Legion was saying something without actually saying it. They would not compromise their kind, but they wanted to help too. This was their way of going around the internal conflict.
She noted how the geth watched Tali. The emotive plates around its head were drawn in, with the back lifted ever so slightly, as if furrowing a brow. Shepard wondered if the geth was trying to assess how much this would cost them. Revealing this was showing some of their hand in their conflict against the Quarians. Tali would think of it in those terms eventually. The Quarians could be shockingly single-minded that way. Their war against the Geth had never truly ended. Some of them would gladly use whatever means they had to destroy the Geth.
Shepard knew full well that it was not her place to tell either side what to do, but she did have the right to form an opinion, and speak it, if asked. As far as she was concerned, both sides were guilty, just of different things, and they could probably get along just fine if they would just try. It was her perhaps too optimistic observation, but the maxim "where there's a will, there's a way" applied. It was one more of those things that everything was subject to, yet no one wanted to acknowledge, because that required pragmatism, objectivity, and the elimination of conflicting self-justifying biases with extreme prejudice. People tended to cling to their honor and would gladly walk to their doom to keep it, even when a win-win solution only required swallowing a little bit of pride.
"All this talk about IFF signals and protocols further proves there is nothing concrete we can do right now," Kaidan said, cutting across the techno-jargon talk Garrus and Tali lapsed into.
"Indeed." Shepard added. Trust Kaidan to be the one to steer things back on track. Shepard did not say it often, but she did appreciate his natural calmness. "Right now, we have no definitive location, so that becomes our priority. After we have a location, we can concern ourselves with how we will get there. For now, as before, we will maintain readiness should the Heretics decide to cause trouble."
"I'm always ready for those bastards if they decide to cause trouble." Ashley replied.
"Hell yes." Jenkins agreed.
"Good. This meeting was more of an update, though it went a little further than that. Which is good, we have an idea of what still needs to be done. Now, anyone got anything? Any questions?" Shepard asked.
A silence settled over the OD, which Shepard expected. It allowed her to observe as people around the room exchanged looks, yet the seconds passed and no confusion manifested. Wrex rose to his full height and crossed his arms over his chest as if he was getting impatient, which was probably the case. Tali was trying to be surreptitious about the side-looks she was casting at Legion, an impossible task given that her eyes glowed a fair bit through her face-shield. Garrus was clearly in thought, possibly contemplating the technological side of the discussion. Shepard would have been oblivious to miss the fact that Garrus loved tinkering. Ultimately it looked like no one had anything else to say. Shepard reached for the center of the coffee table and flicked the projector off, "Well, then we're done here. Sorry to have pulled you away from your tasks for what is rather little."
There was a minor explosion of din as people moved toward the door. Wrex was fist, with Tali behind him, and likely only because Legion, as a matter of norm, let everyone leave the room before them. The geth always seemed methodical about everything, even how they moved. What surprised Shepard was the fact that Ashley lingered on the couch to the point that even Legion eventually picked up on it and left ahead of her.
"Skipper, can I have a moment of your time? It's rather… personal."
"Sure." Shepard replied. "What's going on?"
"Armistice Day." Ashley replied. "As you may know it's not exactly my favorite time of the year."
Shepard nodded, she knew all about it of course. She had read Ashley's service record. The question of why someone with her training and skill was still a gunny had asked itself, and it had been well in Shepard's right to know. Finding that Ashley was the grand-daughter of Shanxi's General Williams followed pretty quick. Some people in the Alliance were simply unwilling to forgive the heinous Sin of Shanxi. To some, General William's surrender had been utterly unpardonable, like Eve's supposed Original Sin. It sure seemed to haunt the man's descendants like Eve's curiosity was supposedly haunting hers. Shepard found it hard not to roll her eyes, how much more petty could people get? The saber-rattlers would do anything to further their agenda.
"I wanted to let you know that if we're staying on the Citadel for a bit… I don't want my rotation time. I'll take Kaidan's CIC shifts or something. Give the LT a break."
"You sure?" Shepard asked.
"I'm sure. I don't want to be walking down some Citadel Corridor on Armistice Day. I heard on the news, Terra Firma is protesting again this year. They piss me off. At one time they had a point about humanity needing to stand on our own, but now they attract too many raging xenophobes who deny the sapience of others. I don't think aliens should influence Alliance policy, directly or otherwise, but I don't deny that they're people. There's a difference between standing on our own, and looking down on others, Skipper."
Shepard nodded; there was nothing she could say to that. "I have a job lined up with Wrex in the coming day or two, so we won't be here long."
"We're ready whenever you need us to be," Ashley said. "Oh, I know you wouldn't have mentioned that to me if you did not want Bravo at a ready."
Shepard nodded with a smile, "Wrex thinks highly of your shooting skills too."
"Hah. That's nice… actually quite a compliment if I think about it."
"He meant it as such." Shepard grinned, "I should think Wrex knows skill when he sees it, he's got more experience than all of us combined." Shepard affirmed.
"Well that's good. I don't mind Wrex. He did us a solid on Solcrum. You didn't see him, Skipper. He was right in the thick of it; wrecking geth left and right like it was his people on the line. He crumpled one into a wall like it was a tin can, with just one hand movement. Even LT can't do that."
Shepard nodded again. Wrex's philosophy, lifespan, and redundant nervous system gave him an advantage. He had more eezo nodules, and thus a higher output, and centuries of life were good for refining the skills. Finally, a lack of certain philosophies also made him ruthlessly efficient in the exercise of said skill. His sole guiding principle was a very ancient sort of personal honor, which was easy to understand, once one let go of a few limiting concepts, like fairness and pretentious finesse.
Shepard knew that there was no such thing as fairness on the battlefield. She had not gotten to be as good as she had by worrying about it. She did not like to take lives, but if she had to, she sought to do it as quickly as possible. If she was honest, that line easily ran parallel and only a scant distance apart from Wrex's. The difference between them was that Wrex did like a good fight, though he was not the psychopathic sadist that would draw it out. It was a trifling distinction that did not preclude them from getting along. "Kaidan does not need to pulverize geth. His barrier saved people. Saving lives is harder than taking them," she said. That was as sentimental as Shepard allowed herself to be.
"Oh definitely. He… I don't quite understand why LT does not have his own command yet… and this is going to sound bad… but I am glad he does not. I- we wouldn't have him otherwise," Ashley went on.
Shepard kept her face perfectly neutral, but she did not miss how the gunny's tone changed when she spoke of Kaidan. It left Shepard wondering whether the Alliance's fraternization policy would become a problem. She could not take a stand on that issue, not without being a hypocrite. After all, she had broken that rule herself. Of course back then, Arthur and her, they had enjoyed the secrecy game as part of the thrill. Well, only time would tell, for now, she would pretend she had not noticed.
"Well, I said what I wanted to say, Skipper, so thank you. I won't take up more of your time." Ashley said as she got up from her seat.
"You were not taking my time, Ash. I'm always here to listen." Shepard replied. "I'll see to things, don't worry."
The gunny nodded one last time and left the room. Once the OD door closed, Shepard slumped back into the couch. Well she could cross the update meeting off her to-do list. Now she needed to sit down and order parts, or maybe she ought to go and see Doctor Chakwas first? She reached up, rubbing at her temples. A creeping thrumming pain announced itself by flashing through her head. Was it her concussion? Or just tension? She honestly could not tell. As she closed her eyes and tipped her head back to rest on the couch's back, she sighed.
An hour passed before Shepard admitted defeat and tossed in her towel. She had tried to ignore the thrumming in her head. She started to look at parts, thinking the relative quiet of the OD and some relaxing tea would do the trick to assuage a pressure headache. However after forty-five minutes of trying and failing to concentrate on comparing characteristics, with the pain stubbornly refusing to abate, she was forced to admit that it was not a stress headache, and she had been silly thinking it was. She did not get stress headaches. Years of training and conditioning had given her a remarkably high stress tolerance threshold.
A few minutes later she was down on deck three and heading toward the sick bay. The thrum in her head seemed to be getting worse by the step, just to mock her false hopes further. It was almost hilarious how she could handle mercenaries, psychotic huntresses, political machinations, and probably a galactic-scale mess, but a headache got her. She knew what was coming too, and frankly she was feeling a little petulant at the prospects. The sick bay door opened and Shepard stepped in, only to freeze in the doorway.
"Commander." Doctor Chakwas greeted.
"Doctor Chakwas," Shepard replied automatically, though her eyes did not stray one centimeter off Nihlus who was sitting on the center bed. His tunic lay discarded behind him as Doctor Chakwas checked how his stomach wound was healing. The incision left over by his bullet removal surgery was neat and healing nicely. The small round hole left by the bullet passing through one of his plates had closed nicely as well, though the plate still had a conspicuously lighter recessed spot. Was it the beginning of a scar? Or maybe that was the natural process of healing? Shepard was no doctor, her limited physiological knowledge was used to hurt, not heal.
"Come in and let the door close." The doctor said, without looking up from her task.
Shepard made one step forward, knowing the door would register that far enough and close.
"I do believe you were seeing the future, Spectre Kryik." Chakwas added.
"That or I know the Commander that well." Nihlus replied, though his eyes stayed on her, full of mirth, his mandibles flicking.
Shepard returned his smarmy expression with a stone-cold look; she was not impressed.
"This is healing exceptionally well and might not even scar." Chakwas said as she reached to the metal trolley next to the bed and picked up a large self-adhesive bandage in a sterile foil wrap.
"Well that is good, would not want it to ruin my good looks," Nihlus quipped, laughter in his tone.
"Ah yes, the prime concern of an eligible bachelor," the doctor replied as she tore open the package. "Well, Spectre Kryik, it will be a week to two before the injured plate regains full thickness. As for your good looks…" the doctor's tone took on a note of sarcasm as she applied the protective bandage over the healing bullet wound and surgery incision, "I am aware of the chemical composition of marking dyes. I want you to wait at least three weeks for the touchups."
"Yes, doctor." Nihlus replied calmly.
Shepard stood there, and tried her best not to laugh. Nihlus had to be playing at vanity. He just was not the type. She would credit him with having a certain degree of excessive pride, but not vanity to the point of worrying about a tiny scar on his stomach. Vanity and their career paths simply did not go well together. He had to be in one of his more whimsical moods.
Doctor Chakwas finished applying the bandage and straightened on her working stool, "All done." A moment later she got to her feet and moved away toward the little sink mounted on the wall, pulling off her gloves. "Have a seat Commander. I have a feeling I will not be done with you quite as quickly."
Shepard grinned before she could stop herself, though she knew it must come off as sheepish. Nihlus meanwhile slid off the bed and onto his feet, grabbing his tunic and slinging it over his shoulder in the same movement. "Have fun." He said.
"Oh go away, sadist." Shepard replied.
Nihlus chuckled and actually stopped beside her. Shepard cast a quick glance toward the doctor, who was re-sterilizing her hands prior to donning a clean pair of gloves. Her breath caught in her throat when Nihlus leaned down, so close she could feel the heat of his exhale fan on her ear. "We need to talk later. Harbinger is not the only one with the map, and you know it."
Did he really have to lean in so close just to say that? Why was her heartbeat suddenly going like a jackhammer? The déjà vu was back, this time so strong that she could practically taste it. Once was peculiar, twice is a pattern, and around the same person? There could not be a coincidence. Something about this was familiar. When had this happened before?
Then Nihlus straightened and the sick bay's air washed over her like a bucket of cold water, despite the fact that the Normandy's environmental controls had been adjusted to be a degree or two warmer than Alliance typical. It was the sort of minuscule difference that most people would not feel, but for Nihlus and Garrus it would mean more comfort, the difference between a little on the cool side and a creeping chill that one could never ditch. She had no reason to be feeling cold right now.
Nihlus chuckled and stepped past her. Shepard heard the door open, and a moment later, close. Only then did she remember that the doctor told her to have a seat. Shepard was definitely going to have a word with Nihlus later, probably about whatever this odd mood of his was, and then maybe about Harbinger.
Doctor Chakwas had just turned around, wiping her hands when Shepard finally snapped out of her world and moved to sit on the examination bed, only to bring up her omni-tool. She did have medical records to give while begging for pain killers. She would have fun indeed.
Almost an hour passed before Shepard left the sick bay. Doctor Chakwas looked at the records prepared for her by the Hierarchy doctors on Taetrus and decided to run her own comparison, now that the records were a few days old. Shepard ended up lying on that bed for half an hour while the scanner did its best to assess if her neurons were firing properly. Even with modern medicine's ability to fix things on the smallest of scales, concussions were one of those injuries that everyone took seriously.
In the end, Doctor Chakwas announced that the pain was caused by stress, her brain was not yet done healing, and she had pushed herself too far. Aside from that there was nothing abnormal in her brain activity or bio-sign readings, so there was nothing to worry about. The pain would come and go as the brain healed; she just had to cut out the root cause of it, working too hard too soon.
Shepard took her painkillers and promised to try better, even though she did not have the luxury of time for that. She suspected that Doctor Chakwas knew her promise was empty. It was just the reality of command positions; people responsible for so many things eventually cooked in the pressure-vessel of their own making.
Shepard lingered by the elevator, wondering what she ought to do. Where had Nihlus gone? She could ask EDI, and failing that she had the privilege of summoning him. However, there was just one issue; she honestly did not want to discuss their problems right then. She knew that Nihlus had connected the dots. He knew that another source of the information they needed could be the malicious AI that now wore the Impera as a body. If Shepard was absolutely honest, she did not want to involve Nazara, because it would also involve Saren. She would have loved to keep the Heretic Problem and Saren as two separate issues, not one large one that seemed to spiral ever larger by the month.
Shepard sighed and called the elevator. She knew full well that it probably would not matter what she wanted. The universe was hardly considerate like that. Nihlus would probably find her himself, but she could take a few moments to herself in the meantime. After all, he never did tell her where and when to meet him, so she would use that as a loophole just this once. She needed to start on those part replacements too, because the job with Wrex rested on that. She would start with weapons, as it would be easiest, and then move on to armor. Also, as generous as Nihlus was, she was not eager or even particularly interested in the vaunted Spectre-grade weapons.
Her reasons were somewhat weak, but they were reasons. She knew the majority of Spectre-grade gear was manufactured by the Hierarchy, which meant exceptional engineering, craftsmanship, reliability, performance, fair price, and ergonomics designed for a different physiology. To put it bluntly, a Hierarchy-weapon would require the replacement of the grip, stock, probably trigger, and who knew what else if the rifle was to fit properly. Shepard did not have time for that. She would get something human-made that would fit right out of the box and allow her to acclimate quicker. Vincent had been her long-time partner; she knew every little tick, wrote and memorized its scope settings for various ranges and conditions. She would have to do that again for any new rifle, and it was going to take time. She did not want to be worrying the ergonomics too.
The elevator door opened. Shepard stepped inside and pressed the button for her cabin. The elevator did not stop at deck two, and so she was in her quarters in less than two minutes. Once there, she moved straight toward her terminal. In a matter of a couple minutes she had the Alliance requisition catalogue up, and just after that the list of sniper rifles. There she stopped. It would be easy to just order another Mantis and call it even, but Wrex had been right; the Mantis was a one shot, one kill, and one thermal clip. The kinetic energy its slugs carried was second to none as far as Alliance-issued HVRs went. It was also light and could be made lighter yet if she went for custom tooled lighter alloys. Then again, Vincent was stock alloy, which probably played a role in it saving her life, and she was used to its weight, so she did not need lighter alloys. She was also used to having such a powerful rifle and was hesitant to downgrade.
She had two options: the M-97 Viper and the N7 Valiant. She had fired both before, and the fussy side within her was already telling her to just go for the Mantis, and maybe see about customizing it a little more this time around. Maybe something could be done to make it more heat efficient? The Viper was a DMR, semi-automatic, shorter range, inferior scope optics. The Valiant was designed to marry the power of a Mantis and the versatility of Viper. It was a semi-automatic that surrendered some power for much better heat management.
The door chime rang, and Shepard glanced at the chronometer at the corner of her terminal's screen, barely seven minutes. "Enter." She called for the benefit of the VI that operated her door.
The door opened, "There you are." Nihlus said as his near-silent footsteps padded across the floor.
Shepard did not even bother to look over her shoulder. "It's a small ship, Nihlus, I expected you to use the process of elimination. Though I did not expect you for another… oh, half an hour?"
Nihlus chuckled right over her head. "Alright, you got me. What are you doing?"
Shepard felt the spring cylinder of her chair depress, something butted against the back of her head, and his chin settled on the crown of her head. She almost outright jumped when she actually felt his higher-than-human body heat envelop her like a blanket.
"Looking at rifles?" He rumbled.
Shepard had to suppress a slight shudder that raced down her spine. He was officially much too close. She could hear his actual speech under the translator overlay, and when his pronounced breast-bone brushed against the back of her head she felt the vibrations as well, and they did not seem to vanish. Her brain seized up, like a computer unable to process something, and in the process of crashing. It took a long moment for her to realize that those vibrations must be from his second set of vocal cords, which emitted frequencies too low for the human ear to hear. "I have to." she replied, only to realize she sounded vaguely breathless.
"My offer still stands," Nihlus said, his voice pitched even lower, and the vibrations of his sub-vocals intensified. "If you pick anything Spectre grade; it is yours, no questions asked."
He was doing it on purpose. Shepard had to force her brain to restart, to focus on the matter on hand. Whatever reasons he had to be doing this, he would not see her get all flustered. "Thanks, but I am a bit of a snob, the Hierarchy-built rifles are a touch too heavy, and the stock, grip, trigger… they're all made for someone with three fingers, not five. I'd have to modify that, spring for light alloys… the list goes on. It'd mean more delays. I can't afford delays." If he did not back away soon, she would have to tell him to, for no other reason than the fact that her head might start aching again. She told herself it had absolutely nothing to do with the fact his sub-vocal vibrations caused a vaguely pleasant shudder to race down her spine.
"I see." Nihlus said. "So, you are not getting a Mantis?" He lifted his chin off the top of her head, but the cloud of warmth that was his body heat stayed put.
Her neck muscles positively sang with relief. "I was thinking about going for something more… heat efficient." She said.
"That Valiant is probably your best option," Nihlus continued. "Its shots carry twenty percent less kinetic energy compared to the Mantis, but it can fire three per thermal clip. Good heat management."
Shepard blinked, that was a spot-on assertion. "How did you know? I thought you did not bother with HVRs."
"I may not use them, but I know the specifications. It is beneficial in my line of work. As for the second question, I know the basics. Hierarchy boot camp introduces trainees to all types of weapons; it is the only way to find those with natural aptitude." Nihlus replied. "If the Valiant uses a regulations-compliant internal armature and firmware, most Spectre-grade aftermarket modifications will be compatible with it. Put a rail extension muzzle brake on and you could probably split the power difference without additional heat buildup."
He had a point about the rail extension, it was an elementary thing to do, and it would not add much weight or alter the gun's precision. However, her mind shifted thought rails: why was he being this affectionate? Was he still feeling guilty about what happened on Taetrus? She really ought to tell him to cut it out, but it was just so atypical to see a turian, let alone Nihlus, behave like this. Whatever was driving him, he would get it off his chest and go back to being all carefree swagger eventually.
The only problem with letting Nihlus get this off his chest was the fact that she enjoyed it a little too much. Shepard was not going to lie to herself and say she did not. It has been a long while since she got that sort of attention. The Alliance's fraternization policy combined with her reputation meant that her pickings had been slim. Shepard also did not want to tempt fate and breach those protocols again. Arthur had been a special case; they were of like minds when it came to the need for secrecy. Few people could keep things under such tight control.
She also did not want to get used to it, or worse, come to see it as something more than it was. It was probably his guilt talking. It was not the first time Nihlus decided to act obliging after something had happened. This time, he probably thought he was about ten times more at fault, so he dialed up the niceties, turning into an indulgent cuddlebug. "Alright, you have a good point about the modifications. I've handled a Valiant before, I know it is built to regulation code, so…" Shepard trailed as she tapped at the screen to bring up the order forms.
"I will get you that barrel extension kit."
"Thank you."
"Shepard, we really do need to talk." Nihlus' tone shifted as he finally withdrew and straightened. "You are right to think we need a Prothean map of the relay system, but Harbinger is not the only one who might have it. I know you thought of it."
Shepard sighed; she knew that topic was coming eventually. Maybe talking shop would help her get the heart rate back down to normal. "Of course the thought crossed my mind. But Nazara is no easier to find. As far as I'm aware there hasn't been a sighting of it since it ran off. That tells me that it knows where to hide. Worst case scenario it joined Harbinger outright."
Nihlus sighed and she heard his footsteps pad across the deck plating again. Shepard looked up just in time to see him stop by the fish tank and stare into the bubbling water. The blue-tinged light made his plates turn a rather unflattering shade of brown, but his markings glowed outright electric blue.
"Ideally," Shepard went on, knowing that prefacing anything like that was announcing that she was blue-sky thinking again. "We ought to contact the Council. Explain the situation. The Citadel was dormant for fifty thousand years before the Asari found it. But it was pristine. Its databases had to have been largely intact. A map of the full relay network is hardly a wild and wooly concept. It has to exist, and if it does, the Council would have access to it. The way into the Five Kiloparsec Ring has to be a daisy-chain of tertiary relays with a primary relay at one end. The Heretics would have already activated all the relays they use. We just need to know which chain, the relevant destination coordinates, and some idea of what's there so Joker can make the jumps safely."
Nihlus turned and his eyes looked positively aquamarine in the lighting from the water. "Ideally… yes, that would be the easiest course. Realistically though... it is unlikely we will get to look at that map. Shepard, the Council will not admit such a map exists. It would mean admitting that they have been lying for centuries. They can not keep enforcing the moratorium on deep-space exploration on the grounds of danger if they already have an idea of what lies beyond dormant relays. That map would also contain information on Prothean sites. They will not admit to having that information. Add to that, if such a thing was exposed at the pressing of the Alliance…" he trailed off there.
Shepard let her gaze fall to the floor as she sighed. Somehow she should have known things would turn this way. She could see the angle Nihlus was pointing at. The Council would rather chew their arms off than look weak. If they cowed to such demands, especially such compromising demands, people would not only see them as weak for letting humans push them around, but the conspiracy-theory types would prove to have been right, for once. "True. Still, it is an option. Just that… if we do go for it, we would have to put them in a position where they can't refuse." She knew full well how much she sounded like an old Hollywood mobster right then.
"Of course…" Nihlus replied, "And something tells me you have that covered."
Shepard nodded, of course she had thought of that. "It is rather simple. The Heretics are a matter of galactic security. Yes, the Council will not give the map to the Alliance, but we don't need them to. We already discussed this; we simply can't bring in an Alliance fleet. We will need either a Prothean control signal, or Heretic IFFs. The Heretics might confuse one ship for one of their own, but not a whole fleet. Where would we even get the IFFs for a whole fleet? The Solcrum ones will not work. The Heretics would have deleted the permissions on those destroyed ships. As much as I don't like it, calling this a suicide mission is apt. A single ship going in there would be suicide by conventional definitions. Suicide missions are Spectre fare though."
"True." Nihlus' chuckled, "But you forget, Shepard. You are not yet a Spectre. The Council will see you as Alliance."
"I won't be doing the asking, that's what I have you for… and I should think Spectre Arterius would be interested in this as well." If she could get the Council's favorite interested in this matter, enough that he would speak up in front of the Council, the odds of seeing that map went up. If she had to manipulate Saren to get him interested, well, she could live with the consequences.
"Do not expect me to be of much use. Sparatus strongly suspects you have me… how do you say… wrapped around your finger? And Saren? He knows I am wrapped around your finger. Sparatus will not listen to a word that comes out of my mouth. Saren might listen, but he is not going to be happy to be playing the role of a tool in your scheme."
For all his denials, Shepard could still hear the smile in his tone, even if he was doing his best to keep his mandibles from flicking in rhythm as well. "I dare not insult Spectre Arterius' intelligence. But see… hate it as he may, he hasn't got much of a choice. He has an interest in cleaning up this mess. I know that. Moreover he knows I know that. It just so happens that our interests coincide and I have a ship that can get him there. He is a practical individual. I am sure we can come to a fair agreement." It went without saying that if the safety of the Alliance, if not the galaxy as a whole, were at stake; she would get Saren to do the right thing, even if she had to blackmail him into it. These sorts of ends would justify the means.
"Why am I even surprised?" Nihlus asked, blunt as a hammer. "This is Noveria all over again."
Shepard shook her head. "Sometimes that is the only way to get things done. You should know by now that I have a slightly different definition of acceptable means."
Nihlus sighed and folded his arms over his chest. "I know. You and Saren are too alike in that."
"Perhaps." Shepard was not going to insult both their intellects by denying the truth of his words. "But there is a key difference. I know my limits."
Nihlus rumbled, as if momentarily distressed. "Spirits… if you two ever decide to work together in earnest-" he trailed off there, but the implication was clear enough.
Shepard did not want Nihlus thinking she was looking forward to playing Saren like a fiddle. She leaned back in her chair and set her arms on the rests. "You do realize that this is not the first avenue of action I am going to pursue, right? I rather not resort to manipulating both the Council and Spectre Arterius. We will try and get the information elsewhere. Pursue lesser Heretic facilities, maybe even Prothean databases. Maybe Tali can get something from some memory core, or rip something from some system. Solcrum itself is still in play. The Heretics left a lot of hardware there, and maybe we can't use those IFFs, but Alliance engineers might still find something … though that may take months. Then one of the remotest chances… Legion might know something."
"Legion? You think so?" Nihlus asked.
"That wily geth knows a lot of things." Shepard replied as she crossed her legs. "They trickle information on a need-to-know basis, and only when asked, all with that dopey expression on their face. So yes, it might know something. Point is… we are shaking a metaphorical tree here. Something will eventually fall out." Shepard liked to operate along the paths of least resistance, even if that meant delays. Those paths usually allowed her to keep her hand concealed and her bridges unburned, mostly. There were those who viewed her methods as cold, and her actions slow, while they acted on the heat of the moment and bungled things.
"So basically going to the Council is our most obvious, but not the easiest course of action."
"Correct." Shepard replied. "Going after some other source is round-about, but it would be… comparatively speaking… less complicated. I am perfectly aware of how politicians only ever think of themselves, and that Spectre Arterius will never forgive me for overtly manipulating him. I want to think we have a cordial, professional understanding. I want to keep it that way."
"Good to know where you stand. I would be worried if your first plan of action was that." Nihlus replied.
"As I said, I know my limits. This was… just a discussion. There is no harm in exploring all the options, even the questionable ones." Shepard replied. "Dismissing an option merely on the ground of one's moral absolutes can be a hindrance." Shepard could also point to plenty of times when people confused their self-interests for morals.
"Indeed." Nihlus smiled as his arms dropped back down to his sides, "As usual, you seem to have it all figured out."
"Not everything," Shepard replied. "I only covered what I think our options are." Of course Nihlus would say something like that. He was always observing her machinations, always commenting, buoying her along to think the details through. For all his smiles, footloose loutish nature, and devil-may-care swagger, she was not fooled. There was a reason why Saren pulled him out of the military. Saren saw something in him, and Shepard suspected that aside from the ability to think on his feet and for himself, that something included his own brand of sly manipulation. Nihlus could play cards at that poker table with the best of them.
"Well, I think that is all. I best leave you to your work."
"Sure, okay."
Nihlus nodded and made his way toward the door. Shepard listened for his exit, and only when the door closed behind him did she fully grasp what had just happened. It had truly been too long since she had talked to someone without the fetters. Most people tended to operate on the conceit that understanding something meant accepting or agreeing with it. Their inability to separate the two made for stifled, inflexible discourse. She liked weighing all her options, and discussing them without worrying about offending some sensibility. There was something liberating in talking with someone who understood her tendencies. She smiled to herself and turned back to her console to finish ordering her new Valiant.
In the end, Shepard ended up leaving the armor for the next day. She had started on the process after the rifle was ordered, but quickly realized that her mind was elsewhere, she had trouble concentrating and the details kept blurring together. It was impossible to do anything serious like that. The sort of hardsuit that she needed was hardly the mass-produced basic model issued to the average infantry. Few N-sevens wore stock gear, because each of them had their own tastes and preferences. Picking and purchasing gear, piece by piece was the only solution.
For her, the process was complicated with additional requirements. She needed it to support a cloaking matrix as well as a light exo-frame. Both were powered systems, so the energy storage unit had to be quite robust. After that, she liked to have a specific configuration of additional frills. The chest-plate had to be molded just so, to make lying while shooting feasible for any duration of time. The shoulder pads had to be in a specific shape that would allow her left shoulder to accommodate the stock of the rifle. Things could not dig in where they ought not to dig in. The catalogue could label the parts as good for those functions, but manufacturers tended to be arm-chair types, they went on theory alone, not actual experience.
She had just finished defining the color layout on her new chest and back components and inputting the color hex codes for her shades of obsidian black and wine red when the OD's door pinged, announcing someone wanted entrance. A moment later it opened just in time for Shepard to look up and see Ashley breeze in.
"Skipper, you might want to check the Citadel News."
"Is something wrong?" Shepard asked, even as she switched screens. It was impossible to miss the tension in the gunny's voice. A few more strokes of the keys brought up the news network's extranet website. Top of the home page was a headline that made Shepard double-take.
'Alliance-Hierarchy Summit Marred by Murder'
"That's something that's wrong." Ashley said as she stopped by the OD desk.
"You don't say." Shepard replied numbly. Looking at that headline, she could not help but get a horrible sinking feeling. She scrolled down, reading, "Admiral Titus Bellisario was found dead in his hotel room this morning. Homicide investigators were called onto the scene…"
"I looked up the name." Ashley cut in. "He was captain of the ship that encountered the Horizon Dawn activating a relay in 2157. He ordered the first shots of the First Contact War." Ashley explained.
Shepard hummed; she was not going to question Ashley by asking if she was sure.
"His death is not a coincidence." Ashley finished. "But it gets worse, Skipper. Read to the bottom."
Shepard could not imagine how the situation could possibly get worse, but she read on. "Citadel Security reports the admiral was shot in his hotel room..." She paused there, because the article included a picture of the hotel, taken from the Presidium ground level. If pictures were indeed worth a thousand words, this one spoke at least five hundred. The photographer caught a good angle on the damaged hotel room window on the seventh floor. It was not one of the windows overlooking a balcony, the blinds were still closed, and there was a tell-tale symmetrical spider-web pattern spreading over the shatter-proof laminate panel, glimmering in the artificial sunlight cast from the fake Presidium sky above.
"Suffice to say, he was not shot by someone in his room. The shooter was using a hyper-velocity rifle." Ashley said. "That there is no little domestic argument gone wrong, or a robbery, or a psychopath targeting a specific subset of individuals because of some vendetta they have. That picture is all the proof I need to know it was a targeted assassination."
Shepard blinked. Her own experience told her a few basic things about what had happened. "Indeed. They waited for the admiral to get to his room, and had the proper equipment to make that shot. The blinds are closed. They had to be closed when the shot was fired, C-sec would not have closed them if they had been open. That means the gun had to be set up on an infrared rig, using an IR camera for a scope. Then look at that pattern on the glass, there's just one penetration. Those panels can withstand the void. The slug that cut through… might have even been an AMR-mod Mantis firing armor-piercing rounds."
"It says the Citadel has a dangerous fundamentalist xenophobe whacko on the loose."
Shepard did not want Ashley to think too hard about what it said about her that she could just off-hand list what that sort of shot would take. "Fortunately…" and most people would cringe at her prefacing anything like that. "I think this was done by a hired professional, so no, not a xenophobic whacko. Those sorts rarely look past their nose; their killings are more opportunistic and aimed against those who they view as having insulted them. Ever heard of the knifings in the Citadel bars back in fifty-eight? This isn't that. They also rarely have this level of skill or access to gear. Now the questions become… why? Who benefits?" It went without saying that her horrible sinking feeling had become a general dread. The resources this killing required spoke of someone with means, connections, and resources. Worst of all, her mind immediately leapt to the killing of Sparatus' ex-secretary. Was this assassination done by the same individual?
"Whoever did this deserves to be shot. Do they want the turians to take these things as a declaration of war? There is no benefit in that!" Ashley went on.
Shepard hummed, "Well let's be realistic, Gunny, there are always those who would benefit from a war. The weapon manufacturers benefit from both sides of any war. After that, the frothing xenophobes, Terra Firma or otherwise, would love something to happen, so they can say they were right. Even the Alliance has those who are ready for the cold war to heat up. As for the turians, I'd be worried if this was all it took for them to declare war."
"Wars have started for less, Skipper. Case and point World War One back in the twentieth." Ashley argued.
"The assassination of the Archduke was just a spark that ignited a pre-existing powder keg of tension." Shepard replied. "You're also comparing the assassination of an heir to a throne to the assassination of an admiral. Whoever did this would have to go after a primarch for equal effect. Even then… I don't know. I am hoping the Hierarchy is not so easily provoked and thus duped."
"Me too." Ashley conceded. "Don't misunderstand me. I do not want a war. I know that people like you and I will only lose."
Shepard hummed an assent, even as her train of thought continued on its own. If not war, then what was the endgame, the goal of these assassinations? Somehow she did not think the ultimate reasoning was stirring up a war, and it definitely could not be petty revenge for Eden Prime or the FCW. If not that, then what other endgame was there? There had to be a one. People rarely did anything without a reason. An unmotivated or senseless act of violence was just a concept some people tossed about, because they could not understand that even madmen reasoned and thus could be understood. The difference was that a madman's logic held one and one to be something other than two; their logic process had a systemic error.
"What are you thinking, Skipper?" Ashley asked.
"The obvious. This was not a lone assassin acting out. They got hired by someone. So someone wants something. Now I doubt that they want to cause a true inciting incident to start a war. Their real endgame is something else… I am raking my brain here trying to figure it out." Shepard wanted to think that at the end of the day, even if the Hierarchy got so angry as to contemplate military action, the Asari and Salarian parts of the Council would wish to pull them away from it. The Hierarchy would have to burn bridges to start a war, and militaristic or not, they were not fools.
"Ah. Their real endgame?" Ashley asked.
Shepard tapped her fingers on the desk in front of her, pondering if she should be conjecturing in front of Ashley. The gunny was temperamental, prone to instinct reactions, and trust the woman as she might on the battlefield, Shepard could not forget that Ashley was a tad biased in the way she viewed things. "There is a possibility," she ventured. She would have to ease into it, because silence in this case was not going to be golden. They were already on the topic. "Cerberus."
"Cerberus?" Ashley echoed her tone one of utter incredulity.
"They have the resources needed to pull something like this."
"Well yes… I remember what those bastards did to Admiral Kahoku, but… why would they do this?" Ashley asked.
The paranoid part of Shepard's mind was quick to see why, but an outsider like Ashley would think she was verging on too paranoid for anyone's good. Admiral Kahoku was evidence of a thinking pattern in of itself. He had been killed in an attempt to cover up Cerberus involvement in a certain matter. Cerberus thought nothing of orchestrating accidents involving thresher maws and then outright kidnapping and torture. They were deeply entrenched in the system, to the point that they believed themselves untouchable. This was the thinking of someone highly intelligent, but also very likely psychopathic. They had no remorse, no empathy, and no boundaries.
This could very well be less about the secretary and the admiral and more about putting her out of the picture. If she turned her head and squinted, thinking along that line, things kind of began to make sense. The mode of operation spoke of a sniper with high stealth capabilities. If the killer was working for Cerberus, then they were intentionally aping her own tactics, and there was only one reason why someone would do that. Armistan Banes knew that there was still a leak in his perfect cover-up. Shepard was on Cerberus' trail, she knew they existed, knew that they had infiltrated the Alliance to some capacity. She was quite possibly the closest to dragging the shadowy organization into the light. She was a liability. "Remember the killing in the botanical garden?" Shepard asked.
"Well yes… wait, you think they're connected?"
"My theory rests on the assumption that they are. I do not have evidence that the killer in both was one and the same. However, if they are, then… the perpetrator seems to go after targets for rather petty reasons because their overreaching reason is entirely different. Yes, the victim in the garden had worked for Councilor Sparatus, and the killing came after Eden Prime, one would easily assume the motive there. And one would be led about by the nose." Well, that was not entirely a lie, merely downplaying the truth and steering Ashley toward other details. Shepard could not say more than that without reading Ashley into what she knew about the first victim. "That killing also happened after we picked up Cerberus' trail. They want to give these killings an apparent motive, to disguise the real one. This admiral is the same, an easy motive to disguise the real one. Again, if the killers are the same, and if they work for Cerberus, then the goal here is not inciting anything so much as… handling a little problem they have."
"A personal problem? Wait… do you think they're gunning for you?"
"That's my lingering suspicion, yes. Assuming of course, that there is a connection and I'm not just unpardonably paranoid." Shepard replied. "Nihlus poked around after the garden killing. The killer there was a woman. She was seen wearing a full mask so C-sec had nothing to identify her with, but she was using a knife and a Carnifex. Now if she also did this assassination… if it is the same killer, she is showing C-sec that they need to look for a highly qualified sniper. If this is aimed against me, then they're doing a good job."
"That key assumption is easy to verify." Ashley replied. "Even I can tell you that the shot came in at about level with the window."
Shepard nodded her assent. It was an easy observation to make for anyone who had any sort of experience with an HVR and a basic understanding of geometry. The Presidium windows were thick, and if one fired on them at any angle except level, their apparent thickness only increased. The panels could act like the sloped armor of a tank. An angled shot risked not penetrating, or losing too much energy and being unable to harm the target.
"If you're right about the rifle rig, then it was not on a Skycar. There would be no room inside one and people would notice a car hovering that low on the Presidium. There is only one other option, what is immediately on the other side from the hotel? Find where the killer was, and maybe some security camera caught a glimpse of them coming and going. There's confirmation."
Shepard nodded again. There was nothing she could add to that. In the pit of her stomach she knew the confirmation would come in time. She was also between a rock and a hard place, as after the death of the secretary, she could not afford to show no interest in this case, but showing too much interest would be suspicious too.
"Pardon my language ma'am, but this is officially a whole new level of fucked up." Ashley added.
"It is," Shepard agreed. The way she saw it, if Cerberus did indeed have such a big problem with her, they ought to display some courage and come after her personally. She was almost affronted that they would do things like this. To put it bluntly, anyone who knew her would know it was not her work. The whole execution was needlessly showy, obviously meant to catch attention. Showy also meant sloppy. If she had been the one assassinating secretaries and admirals, she would not have been caught on camera, and she would not have shot the admiral through the window like that. Sure, she had the skills, and if need be could get her hands on the gear, but it was blatantly unnecessary, and more than a bit suicidal. You did not have much of an exit strategy if you had to worry about so much gear.
Shepard would have employed a whole other approach. She would have waited for the admiral to be coming out of the hotel in the morning and shot him at long range. The Presidium is a wheel with habitation on the outside edge, where the station's rotation generated gravity via centrifugal force. At ten kilometers in diameter, the ring's curvature would have allowed her to be at least two kilometers away. At that range, if anyone heard the pop, they would not have automatically assumed it was shooting at someone, and on the other side the victim would go down and the bodyguards would have no way of knowing where the shot came from. It would require no bulky gear, only a slight modification to the Mantis' scope. The moment of uncertainty would have given her ample time to vanish as well. The most frustrating part was that this woman was clearly using a method that facilitated a frame-up, but no one investigating the murders would see it.
The OD door swished open, jarring Shepard out of her thoughts. She turned her head to look over, and was entirely unsurprised to see Nihlus and Garrus.
Ashley straightened, "Well… I think that's my cue. Skipper, just so you know, no matter what happens, you got an ally in me."
"Thanks Ash," Shepard smiled.
The gunnery sergeant nodded her head and turned to breeze out of the OD, right past the turians. Nihlus and Garrus let her pass wordlessly.
"Come in you two." Shepard said. This whole thing was going into overtime. She would have to essentially repeat the whole talk she just had with Ashley, except with full disclosure, as both Nihlus and Garrus knew all the details. She was officially beginning to hate Armistice Day.
Author Notes: Huzza! The technobabble is back for a cameo! Nihlus is encountering just how willfully ignorant Shepard can in fact be, when she has a reason to be. Tali and Garrus share an adorkable "nerd moment". The heat is officially on under Shepard, she is aware of the danger she is in, and Cerberus do think they can get away with this.
General Notes:
On the Technobabble – I am fully aware that most people don't talk in heavy "professional jargon" of any variety, which is why I keep it to times when Legion explains anything, because it is Legion. I have recently taken to calling my impulse to think through such minutia as "fantasy theoretical physics", aka the nerdy writer's counterpart to the fantasy sport league. I am sorry.
Chapter Notes:
Geth Observatory - Of course, I base this principle on something from canon. In ME:A the glaring problem of Andromeda's light reaching the Milky Way with a 1.5 million year delay is solved by using data from a Geth-built "observatory" pointed into dark space. The observatory uses three relays coupled together. They can be moved; after all we known that a supernova moved the Mu relay, cutting off Ilos. Well, the idea here is that light can be actively accelerated and sent by a relay to another at "relay velocities". Well, for ME:A, the Geth observatory accelerated Andromeda's light so that the lag was only a couple hundred years. I'm thinking of other applications for this.
DMR – "Designated Marksman Rifle", this type of gun is designed for roles between an average infantryman and a sniper. They are typically semi-auto, having a faster fire rate and a larger clip, but they are not designed to operate at very long ranges like a sniper rifle. My head-canon puts the Mantis as a true sniper rifle, but a bunch of other game rifles (i.e. Viper and Incisor) as DMRs.
AMR – "Anti-Materiel Rifle". Their uses include but are not limited to crippling lightly-armored vehicles of various kinds and damaging sensitive equipment like radar dishes. However they can be used to reach the crew operating said lightly-armored vehicle as well. I'm adding this category of Mantis because in my canon I'm treating the Widow, a true AMR, as a Geth-development that will only be "adopted" by the Alliance in the near future, reverse-engineered from the rifles used by the Heretics on Solcrum. The Geth use the oversized Widow because their frames can take the recoil, canon tells us that those guns can damage the unwary human.