15 – First Contact

"Questions?"

Gorman had forgotten the promise. Since being literally thrown into this new world aboard an escape pod a trillion miles from anywhere, it felt like every five seconds there was a new existential question to ask about the state of the galaxy and its inhabitants. There came a point – it must have been somewhere down on Mavigon – where his brain just gave up and switched into fight-or-flight mode, rolling with the punches…and eventually bullets. Kalu was ready and willing to answer, so now came a golden opportunity to figure out some crucial information he'd encountered. He had to take a moment to go back in his mind and pick out the first thing that didn't make sense. He was naturally spoiled for choice.

"How many different types of aliens are there?" he finally queried.

"First of all – you can't call them that, it's offensive," began Kalu. Gorman whacked a palm to his temple and rolled his eyes at his newfound cultural insensitivity. Following Kalu's lead both men peered around the side of the Bluntnose and to the far end of the cargo bay, where a doorway, window and hazy disco-ball could be seen. Through the doorway and fidgeting with a holographic orange display on her forearm was the teal suit of Saal'Inor.

"Right, sorry," Gorman whispered.

"Second of all – we really don't know how many are in the galaxy. Could be millions of species out there nobody knows about, space is just that big." Kalu paused for effect. Gorman remembered the view out the cockpit window, and for that matter the first time he saw that indescribably vast field of stars on that batarian ship. Every planet might have life, every star might have planets, and out beyond the glass there were nothing but stars. He shuddered at the thought. "As for the different species we do know about, you have to make the distinction between intelligent, spacefaring life and the rest. If we ever get to the Citadel, any such species with a government should have an embassy there. Even the batarians used to."

Kalu paused, before coming to an equally important realization – he was leaning up against the Bluntnose's soapy front. He stepped away, tried to glimpse the damage, muttered a curse under his breath, and beckoned the Commander to sit down on the comparatively dry stairwell steps instead.

"The Citadel?" Gorman sat down, soothing pain at his core. "That's where that Ambassador we need authorization from is, right? What is it, a planet?"

Kalu thought about the best way to phrase his response for a while.

"Tell me, did you think Tara IV was a big station?"

"I got lost in it."

"Tara IV, at peak season, houses about sixty people. The Citadel can fit twelve million."

Gorman let out an incredulous laugh, which faded as he remembered that Kalu was here to speak as factually as possible. Twelve million? Twice his beloved Massachusetts? Something told him the McFinley corporation didn't commission this particular station.

"Some people – mainly idiots, mind you – think that Earth is the center of the galaxy," expanded Kalu. "If most people had to pick a spot, it would be the Citadel instead. Galactic financial capital, millions of citizens coming from every species…and, of course, the home of the Council."

"So this Council rules over the Citadel?"

"They 'rule' over the galaxy, technically."

"And the Council is made up of us and the other species," Gorman tried to bring this explanation to its logical conclusion, but instead Kalu gave a knowing grin and shook his head. "We're being governed by…different species?" Gorman had to catch his breath and avoid saying interstellar slurs again. He'd seen enough science fiction movies to know that when extraterrestrials were in power over humanity, it was immediately time to take up arms and fight to the last. Kalu didn't seem eager to pick up his rifle and start the crusade.

"We're governed by the Systems Alliance, just as the others are governed by their own leaders. The three most influential species elect a representative each to the Council, where they…how do I best put this…decide the rules our governments have to abide by."

"So a handful of bureaucrats, that aren't humans, are dictating galactic law from their fancy Citadel, and we're powerless to stop them?"

"You sound like Pierre," Kalu recognized. "We aren't 'powerless', that's what the Ambassador is for. And the Council have been widely respected by almost all species for thousands of years. Council Space is the safest in the whole galaxy. Humanity could go alone, ditch the other races, be as lawless as the Terminus Systems or the batarian territory, and I promise you it wouldn't be the utopia some expect."

Kalu noticed how flustered he was getting. He straightened his back and fixed his hair.

"My point is, the Council as an institution has its place. We shouldn't be clamoring to leave its grasp, but instead aspiring for a seat."

"What's stopping us? We've got a big fleet, we've got the technology, we've got colonies."

"The Council races don't like change. Have you heard about First Contact at any point?"

"Once or twice. Our first encounter with intelligent life beyond Earth, I can't even begin to imagine what that must have been like. Our greatest curiosity and our greatest fear rolled into one." Gorman trailed off as he noticed Kalu's less than wistful expression. "It didn't go well?"

"It was war. Us versus the turians. And – again, despite what some believe – we pretty much lost."

Gorman put two and two together.

"The turians are on the Council, aren't they."

"First Contact was only, what, twenty-six years ago?" Kalu rhetorically asked. "I was born the day it ended. As you can imagine, there's still a lot of fresh resentment among them towards humans."

"They can't be all bad, right?"

Kalu cracked a smile.

"I was under the impression you'd think differently after one almost killed you."

Gorman shrugged. Maybe it was the lingering naïve feeling that he was a tourist in this strange galaxy as opposed to an immigrant. Maybe it was the friendly member of a different species perhaps within earshot, or maybe it was the wisdom imparted by his chance encounter with Dr. Sagan. Whatever the cause, the Commander reasoned that since making swooping generalizations never boded well for his own species, why should he do so for non-humans?

"Now, what about the other Councilors?" Gorman got back on track. "Why don't they like humanity?"

"It's not that they don't like us, it's…well…I'm going to have to explain who they are, first." Kalu shifted on the step. Gorman braced himself for another information overload. Hopefully he wouldn't pass out again. "Aside from the turians, there are the salarians and asari."

A memory clicked into place.

"Hey, I've heard of them."

"You have?" Kalu raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah, aren't the Salarians competing with McFinley?"

"I suppose they are!" Kalu exclaimed, jubilant at Gorman's apparent 'wisdom' he'd overheard all that time ago on Tara IV. "Being competitive is almost ingrained into every one of them. Comes with their lifespan, one must imagine."

Despite all the great progress Gorman was making towards comprehending the big picture, his mind was neglecting some connections in favor of easier ones. For example, it was easier for him to assume salarians were a company, in spite of Kalu's description of the Council being made up of species. He was tantalizingly close to turning that crucial gear inside his brain, opening his mouth to pry further, and to ask about why lifespans were important or whatever an 'asari' was, but Kalu seemed happy to move on. Ironically, it was now easier for Kalu to assume that he knew about them, with Gorman 'understanding' something as close to common knowledge as it gets.

"I suppose it's dangerously leaning into stereotypes, but salarians and asari are slow to trust," Kalu tried to get back to his original point. "Humanity's only just arrived onto the galactic stage. They're still trying to figure us out. That's why what happened the other day was so important, the event we were…trying to watch upstairs before Mavigon."

"The first human Spectre," Gorman connected the dots.

"Spectres are the Council's special agents. Best of the best. Take on threats across the galaxy."

"How many are there?"

"That's classified, I'm sure. Humanity's now got just one, and that's a huge deal. They have supreme authority from the Council to go anywhere they need to, do anything they want to if it means keeping the peace."

Kalu paused to let that sink in. A top-secret elite unit designed to prevent disasters sounded awfully familiar to the Commander, but as he scratched his head, he had the most glaring question to ask instead.

"So…aren't you going to tell me who it is? Who's our Spectre?"

"Oh, sorry, I thought you knew, thought Captain Chen told you," Kalu shook his head. "Your fellow Commander, of course," he pointed at Gorman, "Commander Shepard."

"Who…is…?" Gorman began, expecting Kalu to fill in the blanks again, but his crewmate seemed to be happy to wrap up their Q&A session.

"Respectfully, that's a question you can now answer yourself," Kalu replied, gesturing towards Gorman's left arm and the bandage by his wrist. After looking to him for reassurance, Gorman cautiously held his arm out and gave the spot just below the wrist a tap. Nothing happened. He tried a little further down, and without delay an amber-tinted interface phased into life, engulfing his limb in a florescent hue. Kalu gave an impressed nod. "This is top-shelf, military issue," he remarked, looking over the Commander's shoulder and pointing out various features. "There's your clock – Earth standard, as it should be. A gel converter, that's a big bonus. Flashlight, camera, music player, all standard fare…"

"And this one?" Gorman hovered his hand over the display, and immediately pulled it back once he…felt something. Never had he imagined that the holographic display would be tactile, but it made a sort of twisted futuristic sense. He had pressed a button made out of light. It had been labelled 'extranet'.

"You're probably familiar with the internet, right?" Kalu asked. "Well, this is kind of…"

His voice trailed off. Instead of whatever he expected to see, a deep blue screen spread across Gorman's forearm. A logo formed dead center, an arrowhead with stars underneath.

"Welcome to Alliance Military Database," announced a clear female voice from the display. Gorman once again looked to Kalu for guidance and found his mouth ajar with confusion written across his face. "Classified Information Requested," the voice continued.

"…Kalu?"

"This never appeared on my omni-tool. You're on your own here, Commander."

"Establishing Secure Connection," said the tool. Images and complex technographic data now graced the screen. Gorman couldn't even try to make sense of it all. The lady within seemed pleased. "Secure Connection Confirmed."

Without warning a thin orange laser beam spread out from the center of the monitor. Gorman winced but endured as it ran up and down his body. Kalu quickly rose from the step to get out of its way. It was scanning the Commander, and he only wondered what, if anything, it might find. Once the process ended, Gorman had to rub his eyes at what now appeared. On the screen…was him. A crude copy, sure, but it got enough right to be scary. Kalu gathered the courage to peer over and see it too.

"Warning: Data Incompletion Detected. Please Construct Profile."

The other Gorman, the digital one hovering over his wrist, stared him down as options appeared along the monitor's side. Blocks of questions and blank blocks for answers. Name, planet of birth, height, blood type, the usual information, but then he saw that these were but the first steps of many. He took a deep breath and tapped none of the options, but his wrist. The blue screen and orange background flickered away.

"Shouldn't you fill it out?" Kalu inquired.

"I'm going to need more time," Gorman wearily chuckled. He would need some luck, too, that the system didn't immediately alert every Admiral within a million light-years to a discrepancy once he input his real date of birth.

"More time? What were you thinking about for 170 years, then?" Kalu snarked. "Can't access anything without completing it, eh?" He thought for a moment, then peered around the stairwell and towards the disco ball. "I'll be honest, I'm no good with omni-tools, but…"

"Our newest crewmate is?" Gorman attempted to drag himself up from the step but stopped halfway thanks to a pain in his core. Kalu helped him to his feet and nodded.

"Quarians are all about technology…for better and worse."

"Talk more later, Kabiru."

"Anytime, Kevin."

Gorman bid Kalu farewell, allowing him to get back to soaping up the last remnants of the Bluntnose's last mission. The Commander turned face and started walking to the other end of the cargo deck. Thick glass panels were on either side of an open, blocky archway. The closer Gorman approached, the more every one of his senses latched onto the area's main attraction – the aforementioned disco ball.

This was no party light – instead a shimmering sky blue ball of energy as big as a shed, and reverberating in suspension above a complex system of pipes and tubes. With every step towards it, his ears rang with an increasingly distinct hum, yet nothing painfully loud for something so powerful. Gorman assumed this had to be the engine, the beating heart of the Shackleton. Its gentle glow was certainly betraying how insanely fast the ship was currently travelling. It was a sight to behold, yet the engine room's other occupant was preoccupied. The quarian was bent down, knee deep in a torn electrical compartment in the metal plating. The plates were under a railing that seemed to be designed to separate mere mortals from the miniature star. Gorman laid his hands upon the railing and pondered. There was something immensely frightening yet strangely pleasant right next to him – but he couldn't decide if he was thinking about the engine or the crewmate.

"I take it this is the engine?" Gorman called out.

There was a gasp, and a bang. The quarian had whacked their head on the railing, before hopping back onto two digitigrade legs and lighting up the little circle on their breather.

"Captain!" she exclaimed, rubbing the back of her cowl. "Well, technically yes, it is, although most of our actual thrust comes from ion thrusters at the sides and stern. I thought most Alliance military ships had antiproton drives?"

"Um…so did I," Gorman coughed out a laugh, rubbing the back of his own neck.

"Can I ask you something, captain?" she asked, nervously meshing her three-fingered hands together. Gorman stifled another laugh, peppering her with questions was exactly what he had come here to do instead.

"Fire away."

"Fire? Where?" She spun around to investigate the metal panels she'd been tinkering with, only to find no flames. Her body relaxed its sudden tension.

"Oh," Gorman's head cocked back in surprise. "Don't mind that…human expression. Ask away."

Saal'Inor's mask glanced down the cargo bay to make sure all other ears were far enough away. She leaned closer and let out a loud whisper.

"What kind of absolutely brain-dead bosh'tet designed this ship?"

"You…don't like it?"

"I'm a quarian, captain. I've seen ships cobbled together from scrap metal and a prayer better built than this abomination. Where do I begin? The element zero core is wildly inefficient, the ship's too quiet, the main gun draws all its power from the kinetic barriers – so if you need to fight you're better off fleeing unless you get lucky, once – and it's a military transport ship without elevators! If you have to carry wounded troops up to deck one, you know, where EVERYTHING is, you have to go up STAIRS!? Who in their right mind thought that was okay? It's not okay! It's never okay!"

The quarian had given up on any quiet pretense, instead lighting up the engine room with a rant that had equal parts astonished anger and genuine passion. Gorman could only imagine the frustrated expression behind the visor. She was flinging her arms all around, therefore pointing at every part of the Shackleton at fault. A spark flew out of the metal opening she was previously working on.

"Don't even get me started on the paint!" she continued.

"The paint?" Gorman finally put his foot down to defend his new home. He quite liked the black and blue pattern, no matter how faded and chipped it was from the ravages of time. "What's wrong with the paint?"

The quarian took a deep breath. Gorman could only tell by the orange light flaring up again.

"Heat," she curtly replied. Seeing the Commander's puzzled reaction, she explained further. This time with much less bravado – an almost defeated tone. "Heat is everything in space travel and combat. You want to move using your thrusters? You generate heat. You want to fire your weapons? You generate a lot of heat. Too much heat and you fry sensors, systems, and let's face it, the crew." Gorman shuffled with some discomfort on the spot. It was pretty warm in the engine room, but he had assumed it to be because of the giant glowing orb next to them. "You want to take a guess at which color absorbs the most heat?"

"I see," the Commander conceded. "Well, what can we do about it? Know anywhere we can buy a giant spray can of white paint?"

"At this point I don't see why the 'geniuses' who put this ship together didn't just go all the way and paint it ultraviolet too. At least then it might look pretty." She then noticed the Commander's continuing confusion. She pointed at her eyes, somewhere far within her mask's dark orange tint. "Quarians can see ultraviolet. And no, don't ask me 'what it looks like'. Trying to describe a color never does it justice, but trust me, it's beautiful."

"That's remarkable," Gorman exhaled. Cursing the names and families of engineers made her seem all too human, but a difference in something as simple as what light spectrums she can see reminded the Commander that he was talking to someone very much 'new'. Figuring out the omni-tool could wait. This was an opportunity the finest minds of the twenty-first century would give anything to have. This was a First Contact scenario, in a way, and he would never forgive himself if he didn't seize the moment.

"What can they, um, do?" tumbled out of Gorman's mouth. "What else, I mean. Quarians, that is. Tell me more about…about your people."

Immediately he wished he'd had more time to prepare. What a wicked stupid question, he thought. He knew he was the last person humanity would want to describe itself. Where would he even begin in that scenario? The dawn of Man in Africa? Going through each and every culture as if he was their sole representative? Where was that note from Director Whyte when he needed it?

"I forgot you said you only recently found out about us," Saal'Inor instead receptively bobbed up and down on her toes. "What have you heard so far, then?"

Gorman combed his memories – the best he could recall were overheard arguments between two people who likely also never saw a quarian in person until now.

"Created the geth, have a big fleet, wear armor indoors, go on pilgrimages to places like Mavigon."

She huffed a sigh, laden with sadness and truth.

"The quarians are the fleet, first of all. Thanks to the geth, all of us live on the Migrant Fleet and not Rannoch. That's our homeworld."

"Sounds like a nightmare," Gorman blurted.

A collective human nightmare, expressed through media and luckily relegated to fiction in his own time. Heartless machines overcoming biology. A shiver ran down his spine and a blood-red splatter briefly strained his mind. A solemn nod was all the quarian gave as a response.

"It's been that way for three hundred years. Our immune systems were never strong, and every effort at a new 'homeworld' has been a failure, so confining ourselves to ships for all that time…" she finally gestured to what she was wearing. It wasn't just armor. It was necessity.

"If you take that mask off, will you die?"

"No, Keelah, no, nothing that serious! I'd get really sick for days, but I wouldn't just…die."

"Oh, good," Gorman breathed his own sigh of relief. He wouldn't have to order Kalu to soap down every single panel on the ship after all. "So, if you're wearing that all the time, well…how do you, y'know…"

"Eat?"

"Yes, that's exactly what I was going to ask."

"Feeding tubes," she pointed to the little round light. "After the food's been thoroughly sterilized, of course. Your Captain Chen very kindly gave us some I can have in the crates up the…stairs," she continued, still with residual hatred towards the ship's deck separation.

"You can't eat human food?" Gorman enquired, his imagination running wild as to what sort of exotic delicacies a different species might have cooked up. However, he also imagined that if their quarian food supply is so limited he wouldn't dare save any for himself.

"Different amino acids. If I tried any human stuff…you guessed it, days of sickness. At least I can have turian food, they've got similar 'tastes'."

"Huh," the Commander was making a dozen mental notes a minute. He'd still offer her a coffee to be kind, but whether her kind could have one at all was a shrinking possibility. "Back to your…what did Blanc call it…rite of passage? Your pilgrimage?"

"It's probably our most famous tradition…other than the suits," Saal'Inor was considering her words before speaking. She wanted to give the right impression here, likely because she had to bridge the gap between 'charming cultural event' and 'manning a turret for a criminal syndicate'. "Once we reach adulthood, we are sent outside the fleet to find something of value, and upon return hopefully present it to a ship captain to join their crew. And by value, I don't mean money, necessarily. Food, fuel, technology, things like that. My mother brought back a whole ship. No pressure, right?"

"So, how does that lead to…" Gorman was intent on both learning about the ritual and following it to the part that he saw firsthand.

"I'm getting there!" she raised her hands in a stopping motion. "So, before we leave, we're given immune system boosters, essential supplies and a vague idea of where to start. Well, that was where my problems began. I chose my location poorly, to say the least, and no offense, but it was a human's fault, really."

Gorman's mental dossier opened on the right page at the right time.

"Blake?"

"No…wait, yes! Yes, it was Blake! Helena Blake! The first human I'd ever met…she did not leave a good impression for your species."

"We're a divisive bunch," Gorman theorized.

"She convinced me I could help her out, and in return get exactly the right gift for the fleet. That's right, a completely empty promise, and I believed every word!" There was a regretful tone coming through her breather's speaker. "There I was, on my own, surrounded by drugged up thugs and operating turrets and a heating system on some frozen rock. I thought that it was…I was…" she trailed off, head lowered.

Gorman got the feeling it was worse than she was admitting. He built up the courage to lay a hand on her shoulder. The suit felt surprisingly smooth, and well padded. Her visor perked up.

"It's alright," the Commander tried to soothe, "We got you out of there, and you did me a favor and got me out of there too. As long as I'm running this ship, we're never going back to Mavigon."

"Let's…talk about something else."

Gorman pulled his hand back, suddenly remembering that her immune system was almost non-existent. He also remembered the real reason he came to the engine room in the first place.

"I've got a technical question, Saal'Inor…" he began, but not before getting immediately sidetracked again. "Can I call you Sally?"

"Sally?" she tilted her head. There was still a soft sadness in her voice – she'd been called worse. "Only if I can call you captain."

"…I was going to ask about that. I'm not a Captain, I'm a Commander."

"You're running this ship, no matter how shoddily put together it is," she joked, her cheerful spirit returning. "That makes you captain, captain."

"I can live with that, I suppose," Gorman relented. "For a minute I thought you were going to start calling me 'Kevvy'. Now, I was having some problems with my new omni-tool…"