* * * 67 * * *

Presrop, Outbound

As he walked past the ladder, Shepard put two fingers to his ear. Flight, design a course to the Chandrasekhar relay, get us there best speed. We're headed for the Citadel.

J. Moreau: We're already out of orbit and underway. ETA to rendezvous is looking like 29 hours. I think Adams is trying to show off.

He's allowed, Shepard replied. It'll be good to know what we can safely do. And you'll get bragging rights, too.

It was easy to imagine Joker expressing his irritation with silent mockery.

The lift door slid upward.

K. Alenko: Oops, I think I annoyed Tali; I used the expression IRL. Just wanted to make you aware because I don't quite know how to be sure or how to fix it if I did. Sorry. If you can smooth things over, that'd be great.

Shepard read the message as the lift descended, shook his head and smiled to himself. Kaidan was a real people person, but sometimes a little overly sensitive. As he stepped into the hangar, Shepard noticed pieces of one of the MFO's fabbers were neatly arranged on, but completely covered, his inboard bench. Gomez was wearing a holovisor that covered his eyes as he worked on the printer, sometimes actually doing something to a physical object, sometimes appearing to manipulate the air around it.

Striding toward the Mako, Shepard considered himself lucky to have arrived at a time when the turian was not half-immersed in or under the APC.

The turian spoke first, "Commander. How are you?"

"Doing great, thanks." He stopped in front of the service pillar. "Your professional record is exceptional, but I wanted to quiz you about some of the particulars. Do you have a few minutes to talk?"

"Of course." The turian set down the tools he was holding; Shepard noticed it made no metallic sounds and concluded the tools had placed on a work mat. "What can I tell you?" Leaving the armour plate off and service panel tilted up, Garrus climbed down off of the M-35, using a wheeled ladder.

Shepard cut to the chase, "After years of service, you have opted to leave C-Sec. And rather suddenly, as I understand it. Why had you wanted to be a C-Sec officer in the first place?"

"Hm. That's a good question, but it has a long answer. There were several reasons, I suppose. First, there's the usual stuff, same as most officers; I wanted to fight injustice, I wanted to help people. My father had something to do with that; he was in C-Sec, and he was always telling me and my sister about the things he'd done. We grew up hearing about his accomplishments, or seeing him in vids after a big arrest. In later years, I noticed how much satisfaction it gave him, and that just added to my certainty that I would like it as much as he seemed to. Today, he talks about it like they were the best years of his life."

The turian looked aside guiltily, as if having a revelation. "He's probably going to take my resignation pretty hard." He looked up at Shepard again, "But I have a good working relationship with my Captain; I've set this up as a Leave of Absence. If we bag Saren quickly, I can just pick up where I left off, and there might be some bragging rights worth a promotion." He shrugged. "On the other hand, Saren might kill us all, and then it won't make any difference. But my father will at least have the satisfaction of knowing I went out in a blaze of glory, fighting for justice."

Shepard canted his head, tried not to let his expression appear too patronising. "I don't think it's likely to go that badly. We're only after one guy who's on the run. And even if you have to resign, your dad should be impressed you were working on a Spectre internal affairs investigation."

"My father is C-Sec…'to the bone.' 'Do things right, or don't do them at all,' he says. He'd probably think I'm being too rash, not going through proper channels, letting the Spectres handle their own affairs. He'd say I'm being too impatient. He's always worried I'd become too much like Saren.

"In fact, he'd already talked me out of becoming a Spectre when I was younger, and for the same reasons."

"You were asked to be a Spectre?"

"Well…not at first. I qualified for other reasons, and that was by design on my part. But I applied for prestanding, was accepted, and then kept adding proficiencies that I knew they looked for."

"I didn't realise it was that common."

The turian shook his head. "It's not. It's a lot of work, and it takes years, even if you can stay that focused for that long. But it was something I…really wanted to do."

"I'd have thought it was a once-in-a-lifetime kind of thing."

"I...uh...don't know that I'd go that far." He worked his omnitool as he spoke, "Remember, the mean lifespan of a Spectre agent after induction is only…uhh…twelve years. So they need to be replaced pretty often. Asari tend to last longer, but that's more to do with their lifespans being so long. It makes them more cautious if they want to become Matrons, let alone Matriarchs.

"So yes, I was targeted as a possible Spectre candidate. Me and about a thousand other military recruits. There is a constant stream of candidates, but I made it all the way to the final selection round my first time through, where you actually get to talk with an active Spectre agent, and then a bunch of analysts rank the cadre. The top eighteen start training, the rest go home…or re-submit their applications. The top six of that elimination continue to train and study. Until then, you might serve with the Black Watch, or work high-risk assignments, things like that. When an opening occurs, then you get inducted, transfer to the Presidium."

"What happened?"

Garrus folded his arms, drew a long breath, seemed to look into the distance. "I didn't go to my meeting. As I said, my father talked me out of it. He didn't like it, didn't like the Spectres, especially didn't like the whole make-your-own-rules thing. He was very proud of me for having qualified the first time through, but he despises the Spectres. He hates the idea of someone having unlimited power with no accountability."

"Spectres answer to the Council, to each other, to themselves," Shepard answered. "The fact that we're hunting Saren right now is proof of that."

"No." Garrus shook his head, "No it isn't. The fact that Saren attacked your colony, was able to attack your colony, was wrong from the start. It never should have happened, never should have been able to happen. He assassinated - or tried to - a fellow Spectre, another turian, no less. It's scandalous...no, it's worse. It's horrific, and for our whole culture. We produced such a evil? And then we set it loose upon the galaxy? No." The turian shook his head. "Saren answers to no one, and he knows it. He's exploiting it.

"And now you have been granted the same calibre of power, and no one knows what you'll do with it. I'm sorry; my father simply wouldn't like you, Commander. Not for yourself, but for what you represent." The turian paused, then added, "No offense."

"None taken; it sounds like he doesn't trust anyone who doesn't answer to some higher authority, an authority with the ability to enforce a known code of conduct. I can understand his concern; I'm kind of the same way."

"You can? You are?" Garrus blinked, his fringe tagged with Surprise on Shepard's ARO. "I…didn't expect that."

"Have you ever heard the expression about how, 'No one who pursues power should be allowed to have it?' That's why I think your father would make an excellent Spectre."

Garrus looked away in thought.

Shepard added, "At least as far as the accountability is concerned." He shrugged, "Still, while it's true you can never know what someone will do in a specific situation, history can be a fairly reliable guide."

"Maybe. But Saren's not going to play by our rules, or C-Sec's rules. He's a…a wild card…no, wait. Uh…a 'loose cannon.' He's a danger to everyone because he understands no rule but his own. He has lots of resources, even the Council may not know how much damage he could do. If you really want to…uh, 'nail' Saren, you need to send someone who isn't restricted by policies and procedure."

Shepard nodded. "I agree. You need someone like me, or possibly your father. Someone who plays by the rules as long as possible, but isn't afraid to break a rule if and when, and only to the extent, that doing so is necessary. Being a Spectre gives me that extra degree of freedom when I need it."

Garrus made no reply, his expression thoughtful.

"We'll beat him at his own game. It's almost the only way to stop someone like that."

Garrus shrugged. "I was hoping to hear you say 'a bullet,' but that's part of Saren's game, isn't it?"

Shepard didn't answer immediately; he canted his head. "You sure have it in for this guy. Is there bad blood between you? Something...personal?"

The turian looked down and away, fidgeted as if trying to decide whether to shrug or not. "Well…yes and no. I've never actually met him, but he's very famous across the Empire. He affects how whole planets think of us…of turians, based on the things he does; it all reflects on us. And what he's done is…just…terrible. Not just on your colony, but almost every time he's active. I'm glad the Council finally revoked his Spectre status, but I'm…" His cranial plates shifted a few times, Shepard's ARO identified the motions as Wait, I'm thinking, "Uh…it seems like too little, too late."

Garrus' monocle scrolled some data past his eye. "Funny how you have that expression too, but you use twice as many words." He shook his head, "Sorry, getting off-topic." He made a sort of chopping gesture with a claw.

"I'm…I think Saren will have anticipated this. He is a simply brilliant strategist, and I think the Council is grossly underestimating him. He knows the rules, will expect the consequences, and will have prepared to be hunted long before the attack on Eden Prime." The turian looked away and sighed. "And again, allow me to apologise on behalf of my government and my people. What happened to your colony is unforgivable. I'm relieved you were there to mitigate the situation."

"Hey, it wasn't your fault. But I appreciate you saying it."

Garrus shook his head again, "No, there's more to this, and it's worse than that. The Council may have sent you after him because…well, I suppose there's really no other way to say it…they uh…don't really care if you fail. If they really meant to take him down, they'd have tasked the STG with this. Standard procedure would have been a trio of other Spectres. And yes, there is a procedure because we've had turian Spectres for centuries." He looked up at Shepard quickly, "Not that I think you can't do this, but…forgive me…humans have little experience with Spectres, and no experience as one."

Shepard gave his chin a quick stroke in thought. "Unless that's one of the reasons they picked me. I'm an unknown quantity to Saren; he'll have no idea what my MO is." He shrugged, "As far as being a Spectre goes, even I hardly know what I'll do."

The turian shook his head again, "This was a bone, tossed to your relentless ambassador, mostly to shut him up. 'Look, a human Spectre failed again.' On your own, inexperienced, you're unlikely to succeed. And you just said your history is a good guide. And I think you're right." Garrus paused, thinking, You're a human Alliance veteran. How humans operate, particularly you, is well-established with the Spectre Office, to which Saren has access."

He hesitated, decided to say no more for now. Then he nodded. "And you're pretty exceptional with your Commando certification thing." He indicated the place where Shepard wore his N7 accessory.

"Let's hope that makes a difference."

"Let's hope," Garrus nodded. "Will there be anything else, sir?"

"Yes, actually. In case the Dravens didn't tell you already, one of the things a ship this small lets me do is have what's called an 'open door policy.' If you're on the middeck and you see my cabin door open, you are welcome to come in and talk with me about…whatever it is that you want to talk about.

"We haven't had much chance to talk, and so I don't know a lot about who you are and what you can do, or how I might make the most of you and your abilities on sorties. I may not know what questions to ask. If you notice something critical, I want it to be as easy as possible for you to make me aware of it. This flows both ways; if you need something from me, please let me know. You don't need to go through a yeoman - I don't have one - or my office VI. Though you can use it to get on my schedule if that's helpful."

Garrus seemed frozen in place for a few seconds. "That's…er…generous of you, sir. I don't think anyone in the whole fleet – the turian fleet – would do it."

"It's rare in the human fleet, but not unheard of. Most ships have a complement that's too extensive for it to be practical." Shepard looked aside briefly, as if in thought. "Welcome aboard," he extended a hand.

Garrus hesitated, gripping the offered appendage lightly so as not to crush it. "Thank you, Commander. I'm proud to be here."

As the turian mounted the ladder again to resume his work, Shepard crossed the hangar to port. Wrex, with his hump armour sections arranged on a crate nearby, was sitting on the deck, his Revenant assault rifle before him, partially disassembled.

The krogan tilted his head so his left eye could see Shepard more easily. "Nice ship you've got here, Shepard. What can I do for you?"

"It feels like we haven't been properly introduced yet. I'd like to know more about you than the CV you rattled off on the Citadel. So what's your story, Wrex?"

The krogan snorted. "There's no 'story.' Go ask the quarian if you want stories."

"I did. But those are her stories. As I understand it, krogan can live for centuries…like asari. Don't tell me you haven't had a few interesting adventures."

Wrex looked down at his weapon again, glanced across the hangar at Garrus, and then up at Shepard. He slowly climbed to his feet. "Well, there was this one time the turians almost wiped out our entire race. That was fun."

"I heard about that." He looked over his shoulder at the turian, "You know, they almost did the same to us."

"No," Wrex said flatly. "It's not the same."

"If the Council hadn't intervened, it was going to end with antimatter. It seems pretty much the same to me."

"So your people were infected with a genetic mutation? An infection that makes only a few in a thousand children survive birth? And I suppose it's destroying your entire species?"

Shepard was taken aback by the sudden anger; clearly this was a sensitive topic. "Hm. I suppose it isn't all the same."

"I don't expect you to understand, but don't compare humanity's fate with the krogan."

"I'm really sorry, Wrex. I was trying to find some common ground, learn about you specifically and the krogan generally. I wasn't trying to upset you."

"Your ignorance doesn't upset me, Shepard. As for the krogan, I gave up on them a long time ago. The genophage infected us, but it's not what's killing us."

"What do you mean? Are your people really dying out?"

"We're sure not getting any stronger. We're too spread out. None of us are really interested in staying in our own system."

"Lots of species have left their home systems and prospered."

"But they go to colonise new worlds. We're not settlers, we're warriors, we want to fight. So we leave, hire ourselves out. And most of us…never go back."

Though his ARO displayed a briefing, Shepard wanted to know how it was significant to Wrex. "What can you tell me about the genophage?"

"Ask the salarians if you want details. They made it. All I know: It makes breeding nearly impossible. Thousands die in stillbirth, and most never even get that far. Every krogan is infected; every one. And no one's rushing to find a cure."

"I'm surprised. So not even some NGO is working on it? This seems like a task with Volition Accords written all over it. Krogan shouldn't be denied the ability to have children."

"Yeah, tell that to the asari. They'll remind you that we are able. But only one at a time anymore."

"Why don't the krogan try to find a cure?"

"When was the last time you saw a krogan scientist? You ask a krogan: you want to find a cure for this genophage thing? Or fight for credits? They'll choose fighting, every time. It's just who we are, Shepard. I can't change that. Nobody can."

"When did they inflict this genophage on you?"

Wrex shook his massive head. "No idea. Well…sometime before I was born."

710CE, read a taglet on Shepard's ARO, about 1475 years previous.

"But if this genophage was meant to kill you off, why aren't you dead yet? If they'd really meant to wipe you out, shouldn't they have antimattered your homeworld instead of reducing the number of viable births?"

"That would have been the honourable thing to do. They might still, now that we've shown them we're even tougher than the genophage, they haven't been able to kill us off with it. But it's worse than that; they want it to hurt, all the way to extinction; they want to make it personal. They want every single krogan to feel the pain and embarrassment of never being able to grow their krantt, always be able to have a good fight when you need it, to hear that victorious roar."

Shepard managed to keep the cynicism out of his voice, "Outbreed the competition?"

"Outbreed death," the krogan bared his teeth. "Tuchanka is a world where everything is out to kill us."

"Is that still true now that you have technology?"

"Of course it is! The only change is that now we have the upper hand!" He drew back as if having a revelation, "Until the genophage. Now it's all we can do just to keep our numbers up."

Shepard nodded thoughtfully. "Hm. That's tough. Shouldn't you be spending more time doing that and less time trying to kill each other?"

Wrex rounded on the puny human. "You think I don't know that? You think I haven't tried to get the other clans to stop–" He stopped, sighed, shook his head. "Aw, never mind. I gotta finish this." He waved a hand at the partially-disassembled weapon, lowered himself to the deck, turning away from the human as he did.

Shepard studied the krogan for only a second. Seems like a good time to make my exit. He turned and headed for the lift.

# # #

Kaidan had been back at the tech bench for several minutes before he felt Liara approaching. He was using augmented reality to facilitate his work when he felt that subtle but rising tingle in his eezo nodes. The taglets and virtualised instrumentation on the tech bench stayed in place as he looked up.

"Oh. Have I disturbed you?"

"Naah," Kaidan shook his head, smiling easily. "I just felt our emissions interact. There aren't many biotics for me to get that from, so when it happens…I notice." He fitted the nanowelder back into its charging base. "Something I can do for you?"

"I hope so. Ahm…but I am not entirely sure how to ask, or if this is the right thing to ask for. I have noticed that my biotics are helpful on our recent adventures, but Commander Shepard seems hesitant to use them. I wanted to ask you what I can do to be…more proactive."

"You want to be a better contractor-soldier, eh?" He nodded approvingly, "Good for you…"

She practically interrupted, "Does he not know much about biotics? Should I prepare a briefing for him?"

"No chance, save your time. We've talked and even drilled in it together for years, so he knows almost as much as I do about close-range biotics, at least the ones I can do. It was a big honking deal for him to actually see a Singularity in use." Kaidan nodded, gave a thumbs-up. "Good one."

"But he seems reticent to even ask. I have not told him which gifts I have, or that I took martial training at my city's academy." She frowned, looking hurt. "I have the impression…he does not want my help."

Kaidan raised his eyebrows. "You went to Serrice Commando School?"

"Yes, but…not intending to graduate. Ahm…there is a category of attendee that is not there to join the City Forces. In an academic context, you might call it…auditing the class."

"Did you take the entire spectrum of trainings, or just the biotics?"

"All of them. My mother insist–"

Kaidan was already laughing, and put two fingers to his right ear. "Hey, Commander. If you're not busy, can you come to the tech bench? I have a surprise for you."

Shepard rounded the portside corner of the lift shaft. "Couldn't have timed that any better." He sauntered past the printers, "Whaddya got?"

Kaidan tipped his head toward Liara, "I got you an asari Commando."

Shepard looked from Liara to Kaidan and back again. "I thought you were an archaeologist…a scholar."

"She is," Kaidan said, "but you forget she's over a century old. She's had lots of time to train and learn stuff. Like three of our lifetimes' worth. Including Commando School…at Serrice Academy."

"Why is that significant?"

Liara finally spoke up, "Serrice is the oldest city surviving from the time of the Biotic Techno-revolution. Serrice has been building amps and refining the designs for lifetimes. As a result, we also have some of the finest and most comprehensive training available. Maidens will often travel to Serrice to attend there during their wanderings, and as a result, we have vast records about biotic effects, interactions, nuances."

Shepard was impressed. "'Knowledge deep and wide,' huh? Doesn't that knowledge get shared across the planet?"

"Well…yes and no." Liara seemed briefly uncomfortable. "When one joins an organisation – like an academy, or a university, or even a TCI – there's a sense of loyalty, ahm…or obligation. When one is entrusted with new knowledge, there's a…ahm…tendency to respect that trust, to keep it...where it was found."

Kaidan added, "Serrice has some of the highest-performing hardware and most advanced training in the Republics, it's almost legend. Liara here has trained at one of the oldest combat schools – with biotics – in the galaxy."

"Hm." Shepard briefly put a hand to his mouth in thought. "Just a moment." He stepped across the mess to his as-yet-unmoved locker, opened it, and pulled out his Spectre-VII assault rifle. He walked back toward the tech bench, turned and set the rifle on the nearby table. "Field strip that weapon."

Liara shot a look of surprise at Kaidan.

The human biotic smiled confidently. "Show him what you got."

It was immediately obvious she was entirely comfortable with the task. The weapon was disassembled, its components neatly arranged on the tabletop in about 40 seconds. She looked up at Shepard…

Who was standing there with his mouth open. He shook his head. "I am so sorry. I have grossly underestimated your proficiency, and I should probably be spanked for it. Unfortunately, there no one aboard with the rank to do it." He sighed, looked at Kaidan, and then back to the bench. He pointed an index finger at the weapon. "Right, then: Put it back together."

30 seconds later, Liara slotted the stock back on, placed it exactly back on the table where Shepard had laid it, and took a step back to indicate she had completed the task.

Shepard barked a single laugh at himself. "Okay, I am officially going to stop treating you like you're made of glass, or that you don't know how to handle yourself in a firefight." He looked at Kaidan, "Thank you for bringing this to my attention." He looked at Liara, "And thank you for tolerating my ignorance until he did." With just a hint of annoyance at his own behaviour, he snatched the weapon from the table and returned it to his locker.

"I suppose the only thing you really lack is experience working with this team. But in fairness, we all have that deficiency at this point." Returning from the locker, he looked from Kaidan to Liara. "Anything else I should know?"

"If there is, we haven't noticed it yet," Kaidan shrugged.

"If you do, I'll be sulking in my quarters." He moved to his stateroom.

As the door closed behind him, Liara looked at Kaidan uncertainly. "Goddess, have I offended him?"

Kaidan laughed. "Not a chance. Even if you had, I'd know it. He's just making light of it." He looked down at the medical scanner on the bench before him, and adjusted it idly. He looked up to Liara again. "Oh, sorry. Was there something else, ma'am?"

"Ahm…nothing critical. Please don't let me stop you from working."

"What, this?" Kaidan lifted the nanowelder out of its charging tray, waved it toward the partially disemboweled industrial protein folder in the service clamp. "Poor Doctor C is still digging her way out of the mess of our hurried departure. This is monkey work. I'm just doing it because if I do it, Silas doesn't have to." The procedure he had been working reappeared on the holographic display before him. "I can talk while I work. So what's up?"

Liara gestured aft. "Why do you call the stairs 'ladders?'"

"I wondered that when I first stepped aboard a navy ship." Kaidan shrugged with a smile. "Tradition, I suppose. During the centuries before spaceflight, the way you got from one deck to another of a wooden ship was by a wooden ladder. Sometimes they were even made out of rope." He waved the nanowelder toward the ladders aft of them, "There wasn't room for actual stairs like those back then. In our case, Normandy has some engineering things that took up too much space on a single deck, and that didn't allow the lift to go all the way to the CIC." Before him, the holographic display highlighted the next step.

He shrugged. "I know that sounds like kind of a cop-out answer, but I can appreciate that the design details must all advance the ship's primary mission: the biggest gun on the nimblest ship. But that choice allowed them to give more space to other things that needed it; I think the space above the stairs is largely dorsal shield generation, the space below is part of Main Engineering."

"And why is the dining room called a mess? Is that also from centuries ago, when your military was not all-volunteer, and the conscripts took no pride in their ship?"

"Aaah!" Kaidan lifted the nanowelder away from the device, "Now that I can answer because I am Canadian, and I speak a little French. There is a word in Old French – 'mes' – that means 'dish,' or a 'serving of food,' or a series of such dishes – sometimes called 'courses' – that evolved into a word for a dish with multiple servings of food for four people.

"Even as recently as the twentieth century, crews - or at least shifts - would be served all at once, and when you got to the table, the senior member would cut and serve from such a plate, each member getting what that officer or NCO had selected for them."

Liara looked puzzled. "That could be difficult to keep equitable."

Kaidan nodded, "Thus the acronym, RHIP: Rank Hath Its Privileges. I suppose it was in pursuit of meritocracy. Do good work, and your boss will know it, and give as good as you did. But of course with crazy monkeys involved, it also became – to varying degrees – a competition of who could suck up best to the person in charge of handing out food."

Her look of question became one of concern, "Was this before you had food printers?"

Kaidan sighed. "Realise we've barely had CHON-based food printers for even fifty years yet. But we had industrialisation, so it wasn't that bad; back when my great-grandfather served, it was a buffet: Enlisted ate as much as they wanted or could during their seating.

"Today, it's all of a piece with personalised medicine. Each member of the crew has a dedicated VI that monitors various aspects of their health. Sensors are all over the ship, in the toilets, food printers, the sleep pods, and of course in your DCE, if you wear one. Different people take it more or less seriously than others, but now we let such things take care of themselves. If you're eating with someone, it's usually because it was arranged, either by you, or by the relevant VI."

She tilted her head in curiosity. "Your VIs tell you with whom to eat?"

Kaidan chuckled, shook his head. "Naah, not like that. But they'll coordinate times for you with people that share common interests, because there's value there, too. Socialising also contributes to mental and overall health, crew cohesion, and stuff like that…so the VIs will 'nudge' you toward taking a meal at the same time as others, especially others that it sees you getting along with. Well, if you let it. You can opt out of such stuff, or deliberately ignore scheduling things like that…and sometimes you just have to change when you eat because of some last-minute snarl that comes up."

Liara paused in thought before looked down at her omnitool gauntlet.

She looked up again, "How can I let that system coordinate our meals?"

# # #

As Normandy streaked toward her destination, one of the VIs in Shepard's Spectre Office requested a Long Range Sensor Analysis of the system. As it was already well-known that this was not part of Alliance protocols under the circumstances, the VI checked its database of Alliance procedures, and generated an operational request, which was sent to the Sensor Officer. Raymond Tanaka happened to be on shift at the time.

He lifted a hand to his ear, "XO, Sensors. Got a request for LRSA from a 'Spectre Office.' Security says it's a good source, but I don't know who it is. Are we okay announcing our presence like we're being asked to, or are we being spoofed?"

"You got a request from the Spectre Office?" Pressly thought for a moment. "Lemme see it up here."

Tanaka pinched the request, forwarded it to the bridge, and waited.

Meanwhile, the Navigator touched a palm-sized glowing square on the corner of his console. As he was reading the request from the Council VI, a blank tile opened on his display array with a single word: Ready.

Pressly poked at the tile. "Show me current system briefing on Chandrasekhar." The library VI filled the tile with the Alliance's intel synopsis about the system; the Navigator absorbed it at a glance. "Chandrasekhar only has a couple of gas giants," he read aloud. "Nothing but fuel mining, and by humans at that. Still, I suppose it never hurts to be thorough. I'm calling that source good, at least for now. Sure, run a LRSA, and send me the results before you send it on to 'em."

"Will do, sir." Tanaka opened a nested panel on his holographic array, twirled a script selector, touched Enter and then Commit. "Should have it for you within the hour."

Atop the ship's tail, a sensor pod, packed with microminiaturized but high-powered sensors emitted a burst of electromagnetic radiation at a variety of frequencies in a narrow cone aimed at the system ahead.

While it waited for the reflection, a pair of the Sensors VIs analysed the system's native emissions, essentially a live stream of data from a little over an hour ago.

A trio of VIs in the sensor coprocessor pinged their counterparts on the various communications and records servers. List all Alliance or other friendly sensor arrays in the local system that can be polled for up-to-the-minute data.

Though the answer was None, the VI group was aware that there might be arrays or probes in place awaiting activation, but which were not available based on the security level of the request.

Having been granted separate clearances by Alliance Intel and Security, the VI noted a relevant item in its database, invoked the relevant clearances, and sent updated search parameters to the sensor array.

A second burst of radiation was fired forward, focused on one of the planets.

# # #

Joker's SVS added a tag to his view of the relay system. The Hawking Eta cluster linked to the rest of the galaxy through four relays in the Chandrasekhar system; these relays orbited at 90 degree intervals to each other, and the Alliance Kodiak shuttle was currently trailing Chandrasekhar-3 that connected to the Caleston Rift cluster at Balor. Joker twiddled the Relay functions and saw that the shuttle was going to bounce through Hawking Eta, the Horse Head Nebula, and the Exodus Cluster before arriving in the Arcturus Stream. With the shuttle's relatively slow intra-relay transit speed, it would probably take them most of a day to make the trip.

On the other hand, from Hawking Eta, Normandy would bounce through Omega to the Eagle Nebula, and then the Serpent Nebula. They could probably make it in about six hours. It helped that they had fewer systems to bounce through, and it also helped - a little bit - that the Omega system had no fewer than 14 relays; Normandy's transit time between them would be relatively brief not only because the ship was fast, but also because the relays they were using happened to be relatively close, even though their orbital distance was greater than that of the Charon relay at Sol.

He looked over his right shoulder, even though he couldn't turn far enough to see the Navigation console. "Lieutenant, we're about two hours out from destination relay, present speed. Alliance shuttle is already there, but we haven't exchanged hails. I heard you talking LRSA; we got any new instructions?"

"Uh…stand by." Pressly double-tapped his right ear, "Commander, we're about two hours from the relay. New orders?"

When on duty, Charles Pressly preferred to be addressed by his last name; Anderson had always respected this, and so did Shepard. "Thank you, Pressly; no. Orders stand, steady as we go."

"Aye, sir." Pressly tapped his right ear once. "Flight, steady as we go."

"Steady as we go, aye," Joker echoed.

# # #

Shepard lifted his hand from the active tile on his desk array. "Victor Indigo, locate Major Kyle."

Major Kyle is in Sleep Pod 16, read his ARO. He is seventy-two minutes from his scheduled wake time.

He glanced at the chronometer. "How long has he been asleep?"

7h 43m

Shepard smiled at the thought of the minor conspiracy required to keep the man unconscious for an extra cycle. "Does anyone have a checklist of things to get done before we hand him off?"

Talitha Draven and Rosamund Draven have coordinated with the involved parties.

Shepard idly drummed a little ditty on his desk. He didn't like not being able to say farewell to a fellow officer and comrade-at-arms, but the man he had known in that way was over a decade gone.

He still had not decided whether to be present at the hand-off.

# # #

Most, but not all, of Normandy's sensor gear was packed into the pod atop the vertical stabiliser; specialised terapixel cameras and rectennas gathered the electromagnetic emissions as they arrived, VIs performed an initial analysis, and then tasked processors with transformations that would allow the extraction of useful information.

Exactly what qualifies information as "useful" varies from one individual to the next. This has never been lost on any intelligence organisation worthy of the name, certainly not the Citadel Council, nor its Spectre Office. As a result, VI analysts were well-integrated into the DCE of Shepard's tiny "Spectre Office" workshop. Though the second-wave scan had not produced insights that the Spectres would consider especially valuable, the VIs were also aware of other agendas forwarded by the Council.

Which included the Missing Ship Registry. The Council bureaucracy was also aware of Missing Persons, and that a scan might provide information to give some people closure where these two lists overlapped. That a Spectre would be first on the scene was potentially helpful in case of the unexpected, but Shepard was still largely an unknown to them. This bit of information might be helpful, and was unlikely to do damage.

Thus the VI added its analysis to the report being sent to the Sensor Officer, and subsequently to Pressly. The high-resolution scan revealed that the silhouette of the ship in decaying orbit matched that of a volus courier, of which six had disappeared in the past 70 years (since the type began spaceworthiness trials,) only one of which had been lost within a kiloparsec of Normandy's target system.

There was a very real possibility that the volus courier Megas-Tu (its owner being one Tarab Issep) had at last been located. Had she been lost due to mishap, sabotage, attack, or something else? Perhaps an inspection would provide clues, or even a definitive answer.

# # #

Just before Pressly's voice sounded in his head, Shepard's ARO displayed,

XO reporting

"Commander, LRSA shows everyone is on schedule; they're trailing the relay in a standard holding zone for rendezvous, we're about thirty minutes out. But it also says there's a ship orbiting the nearest planet. Trident doesn't know who they are…no ident, no transponder, not even an energy signature. Whoever it is, it seems they don't want to be noticed."

Shepard hadn't ordered a LRSA, silently assumed his XO had taken the initiative to do so. "Displacement?"

"At this range, it's hard to tell. But from what I'm seeing here, it's probably not even five kilotonnes." He paused, then added, "We wouldn't have seen it if we'd been looking an hour ago. The orbit is low and the ship was about to be occulted. If they didn't want to be seen, they could be hostile. But…they could also be in distress, falling out of orbit."

Shepard paused for only a moment. "Will it still be in orbit if we do our hand-off first?"

"They will if they're not trying to hide. If it's orbital decay, it looks like it'll last another few days or even weeks. If they're on descent to discharge, they're way too high."

"Get as much info on it when we're at closest approach, but continue to the rendezvous. Design us an intercept for outbound, but don't implement until we know more about it and have a chance to talk."

"They're already behind the planet; we won't be able to see them again for another two hours or more. If we're going to investigate, I can have Joker design a course."

"Let's plan to have a look, but…rig for stealth mode on approach. Make an IES drill out of it.'

"Will do, sir."

* * * Glossary * * *

AFM: Atomic Force Microscope

ARO: Augmented Reality Overlay

APC: Armoured Personnel Carrier

CHON: Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen, Nitrogen; the building blocks of most organic chemistry, CHON became an acronym when second-generation food printers became popular enough to start appearing in private residences, and the feedstock cartridges or tanks (usually supplied in groups of four) were distinguished from each other with the first letter of each element. The reservoir arrangement on the first widely-commercialised printer to offer it formed the non-word, which found its way into common usage.

CIC: Combat Information Centre

C-Sec: Citadel Security, essentially the police force of the Citadel and much of Council space

CV: Curriculum Vitae, like a job resume, but more inclusive of personal interests and information

DCE: Distributed Computing Environment

IES: Internal Emissions Sink, Normandy's "stealth" system

LRSA: Long Range Sensor Analysis

MFO: Master Fabrication Officer

MO: Modus Operandi; from the Latin that approximates "the way one typically does things"

nanowelder: obviously, a welder for very tiny applications; though handheld, its functional tip ("the platform") is a miniaturised robotic workshop that uses tiny waldoes to hold itself in place with respect to the workspace; works in conjunction with AFM and RAFM devices or omnitools, and because of this, it is often used to add and remove 2- to 5-micron CPU/GPU/XPU modules, even though this involves no actual welding (making its name something of a misnomer)

NCO: Non-Commissioned Officer

NGO: Non-Governmental Organisation

RAFM: Redactive Atomic Force Microscope; part CNC machine, part microscope, these are AFMs that can "back up" or effectively "step backwards" through a process, or any chosen subsection of the steps previously performed.

STG: Special Tasks Group of the Salarian Union, renowned for their stealth and effectiveness

TCI: Thessian Collective Interest (this name is simply the translation of the single Thesserit word into Alliance English)

VI: Virtual Intelligence

# # #

A/N: Sorry for my longest delay yet. I'd probably have been a month earlier, but the relay map changes from game to game, and I wanted to be as consistent with it as possible. I have only recently added a zBook to my travel kit, and upgraded it with a 2TB M.2 card, which allows me to play all the games, but I've simply not had time to do it. I'm just back from two weeks of 10-12 hours days (no weekends off for good behaviour, either!) and having an emotional crisis trying to decide whether to use Gemini 1.5's experimental build for AI writing (it supports a million tokens of input, so I could add everything I've written to date and ask it to help me fill in the gaps, but I don't have a written version of the canon story as part of that, just the non-canon stuff I want to make sure gets incorporated.) It would probably be a time sink at first, but could be really helpful after I get used to it.

I was also distracted by the preproduction of an EDI-as-LI mod for MELE3. Though I have finished a lot of the writing, I realised there was a lot of heavy lifting to do to make it happen now, and if I wait just a few months, it might be possible to text-to-code/text-to-mod it instead. Still, it ate up a lot of time.

I'm also realising that by the time I get done writing even the first game, we may have text-to-VR-video-game AI...probably with procedurally-generated story branching that takes any chosen class or choice into account! I suppose I could just use a mic to capture a paragon playthrough, and convert it to text for a good start, but will an AI be able to write as engagingly? Maybe...by then. But the more I can output, the more guidance it provides. I'm going to have to get better at prompt engineering. I wonder how good an early-generation writing AI can be at world-building? A couple of years ago, I had considered this might happen, but I had not expected it to happen so quickly.

It's all very exciting...and a little scary...and maybe better than I'd hoped. But I have neither disappeared, nor abandoned ME:AitD. Stay tuned!