A/N

Hello my readers, both old and new. I hope that you are all doing well. I have the first of the timeskip chapters here. I am not putting in specific times for when events in the timeskip chapters happen, but they will roughly be in chronological order and will all be events that happen before the beginning of ME1. I have a few more events planned and had to shove several thousand words into the next chapter otherwise I would just have this one absurdly long chapter by the time it was done and you wouldn't get an update for a bit longer.

The idea of giving geth faces has proven to be new and controversial. Some like the idea, some don't. I love the opinions on it. Also good to see that people liked the Miranda interaction. There is more to come, but not in this chapter. Hope you keep reading more. Also, Pokémon is now introduced and our favourite krogan from the games is beginning his journey to be a master! A few liked that idea. I might write more on that later if people are interested. Let me know.

On with the story!

…

CHAPTER 25 – TIMESKIP 1

I can honestly say that I was only half glad that the booming bass of Afterlife club in the background no longer giving me problems. I had managed to finally get over the psychological reactions to music and other tells from the torture a few months ago, with some good, long conversations with Aleria's aunt, Selaen. Now, I was slowly starting to enjoy music again. I had even bought a portable keyboard and an acoustic guitar to get back into being able to play again. I had been pretty good at them when I was younger, at the insistence of my mother. It had been a while since I played but I figured it would be something that I can do that was not just training. Selaen had been the one to recommend it, saying that it would both help me move past my issues with music, as well as a normal activity that was more about creation than destruction, which was a major result of the military action that I had been doing.

The half glad reason came from the knowledge that I wasn't as repulsed by the nightclub as I was before. It meant I could be stuck in there longer.

I watched as Carlos was dragged in by Jurt, struggling feebly against the restraints. I had decided on doing this here on Omega because that was the location that Carlos had gotten into contact with Cerberus to pass on information about our raids and it felt like there was a certain level of serendipity. The second reason was that if I needed to make a permanent statement, then it wouldn't be against the law to do it here. I also didn't want to have to clean up a mess on the ship by doing it there.

The reason we came to Afterlife was because I decided to tell Aria about the reason I was on Omega and she insisted on witnessing it. She even offered the use of her office rooms, out of the way of witnesses that the Pirate Queen didn't want and best of all, I didn't have to clean up any mess.

"What the hell is this, Nielson?" Carlos demanded as Jurt forced him into a kneeling position on the floor. "What do you think you're doing?"

"I think I am the one in charge here, Mr Santini," I reply coolly. "You will be asked questions and you will answer them completely accurately and honestly. Failure to do so will make your punishment much, much worse."

"I ain't answering jack sh…"

"Language, Mr Santini," I interrupted. "We do have a lady present after all." I gestured to Aria, who snorted in amusement but didn't speak up.

"Screw you," he snarled. "Just because I banged Aleria ages ago gives you no right to treat me like a criminal, you hypocrite."

I raised an eyebrow at him. "You really think that I brought you here because you had sex with Aleria months ago?" I asked him incredulously. "No, no, no, you are here because you decided to start giving out information that you most definitely should not have told to anyone about our operations."

He scowled. "I don't know what you are talking about, puttana," he spat. He jerked forward as Jurt lightly smacked him in the back of the head. Well, light for a krogan.

I didn't reply except to start playing the vid file from the camera feed Ely and Misol had managed to find by hacking any cameras they could find on Omega, as they traced Carlos to find when he had met with Cerberus agents. The image was clear enough to see that Carlos had met with a girl that was clearly Maya Brooks, aka Rasa the Cerberus agent infiltrator from Mass Effect 3, at a smaller restaurant somewhere near the docks. It clearly showed two separate meetings, one where she met him, another where he passed over an OCD to the woman.

"Considering that the girl that you are seeing is a confirmed agent of the human criminal group Cerberus, and you are seen giving her data on an OCD, I think it is probable that you do indeed know what I am talking about, idiota," I said dryly. "You are also nowhere near good enough at computer systems to hide from Hectar. He found out all the data that you had copied from both the Enterprise and the Balrog." Luckily, none of the information was too sensitive, I had definitely made sure to scrub our trip to Mnemosyne from our nav records, though the batarians and a few smaller merc groups would probably take exception to it. It was mostly flight records, though it coincided with dates of raids that had happened, making it seem likely that we were involved. Not 'hard' proof but definitely a 'balance of probabilities' thing.

"So I have here, a member of my crew who has been sharing information about our activities that could be damaging to us and our people, with a criminal organisation who are wanted for being involved in several high profile assassinations and data leaks," I concluded. "All of which is a very bad thing to do, in case you haven't cottoned on to that fact yet."

He had, going by the fact that he stopped struggling and started to look a little scared. "So what, you going to beat me? Fire me? Guess what moron, I quit!"

I looked at the trouble making mechanic for a long moment, wondering how I should play this. If he had been apologetic, I might have just been able to fire him. Going by the way he was behaving now, I had no doubt that he was a risk to revealing more about the raids we have been doing. Even if I fired him, or had him beaten, I seriously doubted that it would scare him long enough to not talk about it. Hell, it was more than likely that he would be going straight to Cerberus when he was done here, if I let him go scot free.

Feeling more than a little sad, I began to feel like there was only one option left to me. Still, the guy's behaviour was making me angry. That was never a good thing for my target. I tended to make them suffer more. I guess it was lucky for me that I had prepared for this interrogation.

"Hey Jurt," I said, not looking away from Carlos, "have you ever heard of the Vikings?"

He looked at me for a moment, clearly not expecting my question. "Don't think so. Why?"

"They were a fascinating society that lived on Earth… about eight hundred years ago? Anyway, I think that the krogan would like them. A major part of their society and their religion was based around combat."

"That so?" he asked, clearly more interested. Aria looked on silently, clearly listening in.

"Oh yes," I replied. "In fact, it was believed that no one could get into the highest parts of their version of heaven if they didn't die with a weapon in their hands."

Jurt definitely looked thoughtful now. Aria was looking at me with her eyes narrowed, clearly wondering where I was going with this. "Really? I think that is something that most krogan can probably get behind."

"What the hell you talking about with this nonsense?" Carlos growled.

"Shhh, Mr Santini," I rebuked him. "I'm educating." I leaned forward and looked him right in the eye. "And you should probably pay attention, because it's about to get very relevant to your immediate future."

I straightened up again and spoke to Jurt. "The thing is, Jurt, is that it wasn't just their warrior nature that I find interesting right now. It was their society. For instance, did you know that they bucked the trend of dealing out punishment? By that I mean that they didn't really have prisons."

"No?" Jurt asked, clearly getting into the explanation now, having caught onto my little act for Carlos.

"No," I continued. "In fact, most of their punishments were dealt with fairly quickly. For instance, if someone stole anything, they would reimburse the cost of the stolen item and then faced a gauntlet, where the village would line up on either side of a path and the criminal would try run to the end of the path while the villagers threw rocks at them. Once they made it to the end or got knocked down, the punishment was considered over."

"Huh," Jurt grunted. "Seems pretty efficient actually."

"I know, right?" I agreed. "For more serious crimes, like murder or raping a free woman, the punishments could range from being sold into slavery, banishment, or death. And if a person was slated for execution, the way that they died was taken into account. For example, if they approached their execution with their head held high and without struggling, they could still be granted access into their heaven as someone who had shown themselves redeemed by their gods. They received their punishment like a warrior and were therefore redeemed in the eyes of their gods."

"Actually sounds like something I could get behind," the krogan said thoughtfully.

"Yes, but beyond this, there was a punishment that was reserved for the worst of their criminals, such as those guilty of mass murder, or treason," I said, looking meaningfully at Carlos, who was staring at me looking confused and yet still defiant. "This was a method of execution called a Blood Eagle. Ever heard of it?"

Jurt shook his head. I looked over at Aria who also shook her head with a frown.

"You see, what would happen is that the criminal, or traitor, would be brought to a stage in front of the village. The stage would be empty except for two short poles with a V shape on top. The traitor would kneel between the poles and rest their wrists in the top. They were not allowed to be tied down, or they would forfeit their chance at redemption in the eyes of their gods.

"Then, the executioner would take a knife and cut the skin away along the top of the shoulders at the back. Then they would cut the skin down the length of the spine. Sometimes they would also cut along the lower back too. Then, using the knife, they would peel the skin back and out, like opening a curtain and exposing the ribs and spine. Then, the executioner would grab an axe and start chopping the ribs away from the spine, as close as they could without damaging the spine directly. They did it on both sides, getting every single rib. Once they were done, they would reach in and swing the ribs open from the back, exposing the organs. They would then reach in, grab the lungs and pull them out, resting them on the shoulders of the criminal. They would then stay in that position, looking like a macabre version of an eagle, until they either bled to death or suffocated."

"Huh," Jurt said, looking absolutely bewildered. Even Aria looked surprised. "That's a new level of brutality. You sure that was a thing?"

"Oh yes," I confirmed. "It was considered the most painful method of execution, befitting only the most serious crimes. And you know the worst part of it all?"

He shook his head. Aria did too, clearly caught up in my explanation.

"They weren't allowed to scream at all," I said. "If they did, they were considered to have failed in their punishment and were denied access to the gods. Imagine being flayed alive like that and not even being allowed to scream. It boggles the mind. And if their hands fell off the poles, the execution was paused until they put their hands back on them."

I turned to Carlos, who had noticeably paled and was now shaking. "Of course, in your position, you might find yourself feeling comfortable in the knowledge that not everyone carries around a large sharp knife." I reached down to my belt and pulled out my combat knife, an eight-inch eickhorn combat knife I had taken an interest in more than a month ago. "Or an axe, for that matter." This time I reached around to the small of my back and pulled out a bearded tactical hatchet. I spun it in my hand, getting a feel of the tool. Carlos' face now looked sickly white.

"NO!" he screamed, struggling harder against Jurt's grip, ineffectually. "I'm sorry! I'm SORRY! I didn't mean it."

"Ah, but I think you did mean it," I cut in crouching down in front of my former mechanic. He tried scooting back to put some distance between us, only to be pushed back even closer by a krogan's claw. I used the top of the axe to push his head up and look at me. "You were clearly unapologetic about reaching out to a terrorist organization, or about sharing confidential and sensitive information about our activities. These are the sort of things that could cause us to be targeted by the sorts of governments and mercenary organisations that wouldn't think twice about either killing or enslaving all of us, and you had absolutely no remorse, not until you were feeling threatened directly to your face. No, I do believe that truly meant it."

"I'm sorry, please, don't… don't do that!" Carlos was babbling now, nearly turning incoherent.

I was genuinely feeling slightly remorseful, because I didn't really see a way around this. Especially as I just couldn't trust the guy to not go and betray me the moment my back was turned. There was a legitimate possibility that if I was to dump him on any random planet, Cerberus would just track us down and pick him up and he could share everything he knew about us, which would risk everything we were doing.

I slowly stood upright. It saddened me that it came down to this but I could not see a straight way forward that led to me trusting him to never leak secrets, whether he was in the company or out of it. I also steeled my expression, not showing any weakness.

"Carlos Santini," I intoned heavily, "You have betrayed your captain, your crew and the company for which you work. Your idiocy has risked the lives of every single member of our organization and we now potentially face backlash from the Hegemony. We are reliant on the tender mercy of a terrorist organisation who believe that the majority of our crew are worthy of subjugation and jeopardise all of our potential future raids to free more people from slavery. This treason cannot go unpunished.

"Had I any trust in you at all, I might have been able to take your oath that you would keep your silence on these matters going forward. However, your insolence today upon being confronted with these crimes demonstrates that you are completely unrepentant of your actions and only the direct threat of death was enough to stay your tongue. Under all maritime law, as written out in the Farixen Treaty, Article 152, Rights of an Independent Captain, it falls to me to deal with you. I do not have the resources to contain you until you are no longer a danger. Having judged your actions, I find no other recourse available to me than to sentence you to death. Take solace in the knowledge that your money and benefit payouts will still be paid off to your mother."

Carlos' face had grown more and more pale as I pronounced my judgement of him, his eyes widening further and his expression more horrified. At my judgement he jerked, trying to escape his fate. "NO! PL…" his words were cut off by the round I fired through his skull. His corpse dropped to the floor, leaking blood on the steel surface.

I slowly lowered my pistol. I wish that I could think of another viable solution to this but nothing reliable enough to stake my future and that of my crew and my plans on. Still, I was conflicted. I had killed plenty of people by now but not as an execution like this, not my own crew. The closest I had come to this was the people who had kept me prisoner in my old life but they had certainly deserved death. At least I had talked it out with my core crew that this was probably going to be necessary. I didn't want them to think that they were at risk of me just killing them out of spite. I didn't want them to think the worst of me for killing one of my own crew. I was just fortunate enough that everyone understood that it might be necessary

"You talk too much," Aria deadpanned. "This is Omega. If you wanted to shoot a member of your own crew for betraying you, just shoot him."

I looked at the pirate queen with an unimpressed expression as I holstered my pistol. "If I did that without proper reason, then I would just be another tyrant," I growled. "I think the Terminus has enough of those to go around already."

She shrugged, not particularly caring. "At least you killed him though," she said. "I would have lost respect for you if you didn't kill someone for betraying you like that. The mind games before that might have been a bit much, though it certainly gave me some ideas," she finished with a grin.

I grunted but didn't reply directly. "Do me a favour and keep this to yourself," I said. "And when you ignore me and tell Tevos, please ask her to keep it to herself. I don't mind the two of you knowing but if it could stay there, that would be appreciated."

She narrowed her eyes at me. "What's in it for me?" she demanded.

I gave her a fake smile. "I'm glad you asked!" I let the smile drop. "Some Cerberus operative is making plans for a way to get employed by you." I said. "Name of Paul Grayson. Not completely heartless, has a soft spot for kids, but truly does believe in Cerberus' ideals. He has an adopted daughter, a little girl with a high level of autism. Apparently a biotic too. He is aware of your daughter and seems to think that she might be a way in. Someone got a photo of her playing with some children and might use the single parent card. That enough for you?"

Her face looked like it was carved out of blue stone and blue wisps of biotic energy were starting to flow around her. "Yeah," she bit out. "That's more than enough. For now." She took a deep breath and the blue glow died away. "It seems like Cerberus hasn't learned Omega's one rule."

I shrug. "I would suggest that you could use this to your advantage," I said. "If he works for you and Cerberus try anything with the kid, he would probably turn to you for help. He might be a dick but the girl is innocent. And a powerful, hyper-concentrated biotic? That would probably be a good tool to have on your side."

She turned back to me, clearly evaluating me. "You might be right," she mused. "It would be a good way to screw with those idiots. I'll think about it."

I nodded and gestured to Jurt, who had stay silent since I shot Carlos. He bent over and picked the body up. "Well, we need to head out. See you around Aria." With that, we departed and I turned my mind away to think about how I would inform Carlos' mother about the death of her son.

…

Tevos sighed as she slipped out of her shoes, slightly elevated to allow her to not look so much shorter than her compatriots on the Council, and padded barefoot through her apartment. It had been a long day and she wanted to do nothing more than to dress in her nice comfortable bed dress and sit down with a glass of Thessian wine and letting her mind unwind from the paperwork of the day.

After a warm and refreshing shower, she grabbed a glass of a nice, century old wine from Thessia, she sat down on the sofa and turned on her holo-player, loading up the episode of Outlander she had caught up to.

As she sat and watched what was becoming a guilty pleasure, that she would never, ever tell anyone about, she sighed in contentment. If only she had someone to curl up with on the couch…

A beep of an incoming message interrupted her private time. Letting a frown cross her face, she paused her show and opened up the latest message; a text and a vid file from Aria.

I thought you might have wanted to see what your little interest had done recently. His team is clearing up the Terminus. Makes my job easier. It stops the little pissing contests between the smaller and more violent gang bangers when they aren't around to cause issues. Gotta say, I think this made him more interesting to me. Maybe I'll take him off your hands!

Tevos watched as Brock interrogated a belligerent human that her files provided by the Spectres said was his mechanic. The spiel about Vikings was a little unexpected, though it was clear that it was a mental game designed to put the traitor in his place.

She wasn't sure how to feel about the execution; killing your own crew was not a way to inspire loyalty. Though the way that the krogan stood there showed that at least one of them was fine with it. It would likely depend on the justifications. She knew all too well that sometimes it was necessary to take a life for the betterment of the galaxy. Willingly sharing information with a terrorist organisation, like Cerberus, was a death penalty on any turian world, many salarian worlds and basically anything could constitute a death sentence in the Terminus. His crew were probably all used to dealing with betrayal this way before they joined his crew.

Though if she was to try and look at this in a positive light, she could consider it a bonus that he wasn't in league with terrorists, he was decisive and willing to make the tough decisions. He also was well informed and looking to help out Aria, who he knew she had a connection with. He knew how to play the game, even with known criminals, like the Queen of Omega. And he was still very engaging… really, it wasn't hard at all to look at this as a positive thing.

She shook her head free of those thoughts before they could start… again. While she doubted that Aria would try make a claim on the human, the threat to do so would likely, at most, go no further than the bedroom for a time or two. Probably. She certainly wasn't jealous of Aria's ability to be able to go for whoever she wanted without consequence. Not at all…

She forcibly pushed aside the depressing thoughts and tapped out a quick thank you to Aria, before going back to her show. If only I had someone to enjoy it with.

…

"Construction is coming along nicely," Beau said casually next to me. My friend was once again playing bodyguard in his Colossus armour, the Shieldstar logo stamped on the left breast. There was a raid that was going against a small slaver group that had sprung up on Chalkhos being led by Jurt and Beau had wanted to be on it, but we both needed to be visible to make sure that we kept the chances of people being suspicious of us to a minimum. We had a number of ground teams available now and it meant we could spread out the amount of work we were doing to make sure people got a rest. I made sure that everyone still managed to get at least a few missions every month, myself included, to make sure that our skills remained sharp, and our training continued at every opportunity. No way was I going to have my people unprepared for a reaper invasion.

I nodded in satisfaction as I gazed out over the massive facility that was being built in front of me. A few months ago I had decided that the time was right for the next part of the plan to prepare for the reapers to be implemented. I had small arms being constructed, I had spaceships being refitted with powerful weaponry, but I was missing something that would be very useful. Gunships.

I had toyed with the idea of having heavy tanks built too. They would be useful in a number of situations but I also remembered my history. In the Battle of Stalingrad, the Nazis had invaded with a large number of tanks in the house-to-house conflict that took place, only to find out that they were nearly useless in the cramped conditions of that battle. They could not be properly implemented to counter troops in an environment where they could not use their speed properly, nor manoeuvre around the destroyed buildings effectively. The Soviets had weapons that could destroy tanks and when they did the streets became to blocked to use vehicle around the destroyed machines. Pavlov's House was a prime example of that. And going by the gameplay in ME3, the amount of destruction going on in these cities meant that it would likely be the same for any heavy tanks I built.

While a gunship wouldn't be able to go quite down to street level normally, eezo tech actually made it easier for gunships to operate at lower altitudes to counter infantry units, while also having, theoretically, the firepower to be able to take out armoured units. So I would be focusing on gunships, at least for now.

From my knowledge of reaper combat units, harvesters and praetorians were the reaper heavy units, not including the brutes, that would be better served with having a vehicle take them out, instead of relying on infantry-based units to take them out. It could happen, as seen multiple times when playing the game, but why bother if a gunship could do the job better?

I had pulled Nelathie on as project head. I know it isn't exactly her specialty, but she was able to recruit her own people, once I had Hectar and Ely do very thorough, admittedly invasive, background checks. This project was going to be very important. The last thing I needed was for Cerberus or the Shadow Broker getting wind of things.

For the gunships I wanted, I took inspiration from Earth tech again. The A-10 Warthog was a plane that had a different philosophy attached to its creation. While most planes were designed as planes, then you attach the gun, this clearly seemed less effective to the idea of a gunship that I wanted to use.

I, however, wanted to go with the Warthog philosophy. So when I sat down with Nelathie and her team, I gave them the instruction that they needed to follow:

"Build the gun first, then design an aircraft around it."

They had stared at me blankly for a few minutes, until I showed them old recordings of the Warthog. That seemed to sufficiently motivate them.

But wanting to build gunships meant I needed a factory for it. Doing them on the ships just wouldn't do. To do it right, I needed a physical location that was large enough, secure enough, and with enough room that I didn't need to worry too much about the neighbours. Luckily for me, I already had the perfect planet in mind.

Eden Prime.

A whole planet, slightly larger than Earth, with less than four million people on it. Plus my hidden knowledge of the prothean beacon and the upcoming Geth Heretic raid, it seemed like the perfect place to set up shop.

Getting the permissions was much easier than I had thought it would be. Apparently, someone had heard that my company had connections with the whole 'freeing slaves' deal, and it had built up goodwill with both the politicians and the military. I was a little concerned about that, seeing as I wanted to have at least some deniability, but I had been able to find out that it was actually limited. People only knew that a new 'anti-slavery merc faction' had started. Less than a dozen individuals in the Alliance had thought to connect it with my group, so far as our snooping had been able to discover, and all of them had some connection to the freed slaves, mostly relatives.

One of those dozen people had been the person to approve our application for a 'high security research and development company with unspecified production aims'. It was essentially what weapons companies would put down without saying they were weapon companies, to avoid drawing attention to themselves. Nonsense, but that was the galaxy I worked in.

The idea that my intervention to the heretic raid would make people more likely to be loyal to me instead of turning to Cerberus for protection like they do in canon, was just a massive bonus.

"Nelathie and her team have really thrown themselves into this," I said, coming out of my musings. "They already have the mock-up completed and are working on the systems designs and how to integrate everything. They are hoping to have a completed test model in the next four months. Once tests are fully done, maybe another month after that, we will be ready to begin production."

"Excellent," I exclaimed happily. "That should mean that we have a decent chance at making a good number of them before the reapers get here. Did we have any difficulty getting materials?"

"There has been a minor delay from the orders were put in through the elcor, but nothing to worry about," Persei said on my other side. "They are sending across the heavy metals that are needed for the vehicle armour and the hanar have finally approved the ultralight metal shipments that we have asked for. The pre-order payments, on top of the money that has been received from the volus for the additional three orbital defence platforms means that we have plenty of money to go around."

"That's good," I muse. "We still have five eezo asteroids to sell if we need more liquid currency but other than selling it to the asari again, or the volus who would be good at selling it in small pieces, I don't really see a way to get them on to the open market without making enemies from someone. And both those options have risks, seeing as the volus are one of the easiest races to buy information from and the asari have already paid for three. If I sell another to them we risk someone finally asking questions about them."

"If I might make a suggestion?" Persei spoke up.

"Please do," I replied.

"Perhaps it would be better to start by moving one of the asteroids to a hidden but accessible area and start breaking it down to pieces. Then you can sell smaller pieces on the open market. It will give you plenty of money if you need it. It would also allow you the option of building your own refinery and just processing your own element zero without having to deal with mark-ups from whatever you can buy from the asari. It would also mean less questions about why you need so much."

"Though it would also mean that someone will eventually ask how you were able to make so many things that need eezo without buying any from someone else," Beau interjected.

"Yes, but that won't be for some time, and most of the people that do will come to the conclusion that if you are selling some you must have either found some or stockpiled too much of it," Persei countered. "It shouldn't be a major problem and will be easily explainable."

I nodded thoughtfully. "Both good points," I conceded. "I think in this case Persei is right. Plus, plenty of our new crew members would prefer to be planet side instead of flying around the galaxy with the rest of us. If we make a colony on a remote planet and set up a refinery nearby, it would give them plenty of work. We will have to make sure that we guard it properly. We don't want them to feel at risk of being captured again. And we need to make sure that we don't compete too much with our friendly pirate queen."

A couple of nods followed that statement. "Though, perhaps this should wait until we have met with the elcor?" Persei suggested, looking at her omni-tool. "You need to renegotiate for some of their heavy metals now that we are nearing the production stage. And your special meeting on the Citadel? I have a make-up artist from one of our more recent liberation missions who is willing to do the job."

I gave an affirmative grunt as I turned away and headed back to the shuttle. So much to do and so little time. I was just so very lucky to have some of the best people to work with. "Make sure I have free time to catch up with my daughter," I said, receiving an acknowledgement from Persei. While I made time to see Klara and spend time with her whenever I hit the Citadel, with her need to go to school and my need to do so much work, I wasn't there as much as I wanted to be and Klara was still living at the orphanage, though I had officially adopted her some time ago. I would figure out a way to make it up to her.

Even still, all this work would also benefit her. That was something I could enjoy.

…

I resisted the urge to touch the synthetic face mask. The thing made my skin itch underneath it but it was a necessity for this meeting. The mask was a complete cover for face and went down under my collar. The skin tone was much darker than my normal creamy colour and it had no scars at all, while subtly changing my face shape.

A specially designed wig was added, moulded to make it look like my natural hair. It was of a generic brown colour that could be matched to millions of other human beings in the galaxy. A standard business suit and I looked completely different, which was the plan. I looked like a generic accountant. Someone so plain and unremarkable that I could travel in a crowd and not stand out in the slightest. If it were not for the fact that Persei would be accompanying me in armour with a visor that covered her face, I wouldn't turn a head in my direction. Completely forgettable.

Just like I wanted.

A pair of gloves were pulled on to complete the outfit. While security on the Citadel was focussed more on facial recognition software and other scans than they were about fingerprints and DNA, it was still a good idea to take extra precautions. After I was completely dressed and Persei was fitted out in her factory setting armour, we made our way to the batarian embassy.

The batarian embassy was a standard office room, similar to the human set up from the game, but on the far side of the embassy district from the human embassy, for obvious reasons. Still, it was only a short walk from the aircar terminal, through the pleasant Presidium.

I arrived at the entrance and took a moment to look at it. The building was the same as every other embassy, but there was an undeniable feel to the area that it was less welcoming to outsiders than the human or the volus/elcor embassies.

"Last chance to back out," Persei said softly. Despite her history with batarians, she had no outward signs of apprehension. My girl was strong, that's for sure. It was one of the reasons that I asked her to come.

Another reason was that she was an above average biotic and if anything were to happen then I trusted that she would be enough to help us escape. Not that I expected there to be any trouble, but it always helped to be prepared.

"No," I replied just as quietly. "We need to do this. If they already have been subverted by the reaper in their possession then we need to take that into account for when the invasion happens. I don't want to be fighting against the reapers and be blindsided by indoctrinated batarians."

She hummed a neutral response and with that we proceeded through the door into the embassy.

A female batarian in a rather gaudy dress was sitting at the reception desk. "Greetings," she said, tilting her head slightly to the left in a sign of polite respect. "Welcome to the Hegemony Embassy. Can I help you?"

"Yes," I said. "I have an appointment with your ambassador. Name of Lynch."

She receptionist took a look at her terminal. "Indeed. Please wait over there." She indicated to a small foyer that had another door leading to what I assumed was the ambassador's office. "An escort will be with you momentarily."

I thanked her and we both moved away from the desk. "How long do you think they will make us wait?" I asked Persei. After all, as a former diplomat, she was my resident expert in knowing how politicians in each race will respond.

"It depends on how he feels about you," came the soft reply. "If you were from the human embassy, it could be up to an hour. I don't know how long he would make a business leader wait, or a private firm representative, without knowing about him personally."

I nodded and settled in for what could be a long wait, standing in a chairless alcove. As it turned out, not being a politician seemed to have worked in my favour. It was less than ten minutes later that the door hissed open and two soldiers came out to greet us.

I took a careful look at them. Their gear was top notch and had some decent customisations. One of them was wearing tech armour, while the other wore medium armour of a brand that I had seen in batarian space but not on the free market anywhere. They in a very fluid manner that spoke of a high level of training. Unless I missed my guess, these two were members of the SIU, batarian special forces. We hadn't come across any in our missions yet. As long as we stay away from anyone too important to batarian society, I didn't think we would for a while.

"Hold still while we scan you for weapons or contraband," the one in tech armour said harshly. The other one raised his omni-tool to begin a scan.

We did just that. While the guards didn't demand that Persei remove her helmet or lift her visor, the did make sure that she attached a biotic inhibitor to her armour. It was a standard safety measure for biotic guards meeting in the embassies so I wasn't too worried about it. It was easy enough for her to be able to remove it herself if things went badly so it wouldn't slow her down too much.

The tech batarian grunted. "Follow me." He turned and went through the door.

We followed silently until we reached another door, clearly the ambassador's office. The guard led us straight into the room and brought us to the ambassador who was seated behind his desk but rose when we entered.

"Mr Lynch and his bodyguard for you, Ambassador," the guard said, all business.

"Thank you," Jath'Amon said dismissively. "Back to your duties."

If they were going any further away than the next room, I would eat my face mask. Regardless, they left the room and the door hissed shut behind them.

"Thank you," Jath said, gesturing for me to take a seat, which I did while crossing one leg over the other casually. Persei stood just behind my right shoulder. "So how can I and the Hegemony help you today, Mr Lynch?"

"Actually," I said smoothly, faking an upper-class English accent, "the question is more how the organisation I work for can help you."

The batarian blinked all four eyes at me. "Is that right" he asked sceptically.

"Yes indeed," I replied, keeping my voice completely steady, though with a slightly superior tone that one would expect of a nobleman talking to a lesser.

"So what do you think your organisation can help my people with, human?" the batarian demanded.

"Why, the Leviathan of Dis, of course."

He twitched very obviously, before he growled at me, very loudly.

"We have no such thing, human," he snapped. "How dare you make this accusation against us? You come here and spit in my face and throw those salarian lies at me and accuse my people of…"

He cut off slowly as his desk terminal lit up. I had casually opened my omni-tool and shared a file with him during his rant and the chime interrupted him and his defensive spiel.

An image of the broken reaper that was still floating around Mnemosyne was sitting and staring him in the face. The reaper was clearly not the one that the batarians had stolen from the salarian dig site but was still the same design as the one they had. I had made sure that the image shared with the batarian had been edited to remove any chance discovering where it was. No stars, planets or the brown dwarf were in the image. It was only the image of the broken reaper and nothing else, except the measurements that had been attached, as well as the deep scan on the eezo core.

The batarian looked at it for a very long moment. "Where did you find this?" he asked, no longer angry.

I raised an eyebrow at the ambassador. "Even if I knew, do you think I would actually tell you where to find this?" I asked incredulously. "Would you share it with me if I asked?"

The skin on this face darkened for a moment and he coughed. "Uh, no, I guess not."

"Now, I bring this to your attention to not only tell you that my organisation is very much aware that you have one of these in your possession, but to inform you that we have one of our own. The Council is not aware of either. With that in mind, are we able to continue this conversation without lying about this to each other?"

The batarian finally looked away from the image and stared straight at me. I didn't flinch; just stared impassively back at the four-eyed alien. After nearly a full minute, he gave a small nod.

"Wonderful," I said, keeping out any gloating from my tone. "Now, do we need to invite your guards who are monitoring this conversation, or shall we dismiss them as we talk about things they may not be cleared for?"

The batarian gave a small grimace and tapped a button on his console. "There," he said gravely. "The three of us are now the only ones who are hearing this conversation."

"Wonderful," I said, keeping my hands clasped in my lap as I stared at him impassively.

"Now what?" he demanded, narrowing his eyes at me.

"Well, first I am wondering if you have ever seen the Leviathan in person?" I asked, leading him on. "I saw this one," I indicated to the image with a tilt of my head, "from a ship observation wing a while ago. Certainly impressive."

Jath'Amon huffed. "No," he grumbled. "Access to it is highly restricted. I only know that it is kept in a secret facility."

I nodded, doubting that he was actually being honest about much, though it was hard to tell. I wasn't really familiar with batarian body language. Still, I had to try.

"That's good," I said, surprising him, judging by the blink that he gave me. "While there is a good amount of data and some worthwhile technological gains that might be had, it is far worse for those who spend any amount of time on it."

The batarian frowned at me. "What are you talking about?"

I gestured to the reaper. "One of the things that I have been tasked to talk to you about is to pass on a warning for you. One of the issues that we discovered from our studies of this vessel is that while the systems may be nearly dead, there is an extremely faint source of radio waves, not visible on nearly any spectrum. These radio waves are capable of altering brain function on every species. It leads to a form of what amounted to indoctrination. My organisation fears that there are members who are highly placed among the Hegemony who have been affected by this."

The batarian's frown deepened. "You are deceiving me," he accused harshly.

I shook my head turning solemn. "Not at all," I replied gravely. "If I had not seen the results with my own eyes and heard it with my own ears, I would agree with you. By all the hells, I did believe it was a deception before I saw it. But the truth is that it is not a deception. A few of our people began hallucinating immediately. Others claimed they heard voices, before killing someone and themselves. Worst of all, a highly placed assistant director had prolonged exposure. His indoctrination was more subtle. Our leaders had no idea until nearly two years later, when he was placed on an important project. It became known when he started to send information to an unknown source, which we later found were the Collectors. When confronted, he started jabbering, made claims about the voices before killing himself and eight others in an explosion."

The ambassadors face was looking greyer and greyer the longer my story went. "You… this isn't a fabrication?" he asked, his voice rasping slightly.

I shook my head slowly. "I am completely and totally honest when I say that the dangers of passive indoctrination by these machines is a very real, very persistent danger. My organisation is concerned for your people and worries that you may have people in high authority, perhaps even in the hegemon's inner circle, who are indoctrinated and could harm your society, you military or your hegemon. The only way to know is through extremely expensive and highly experimental technology to determine whether a being's brain patterns have been altered by the radio waves of these Leviathans. The easiest way is to determine who has been in contact with them for more than three days. That is the base test we have used to assess liability to indoctrination. My organisation is hopeful that you can find a way to protect your people."

Jath'Amon sat there, looking bewildered according to my best guess. He was looking down, his chin was pulled into his chest and he was blinking all four of his eyes erratically. "This… this will involve more investigation," he mumbled.

I tilted my head slightly towards Persei, then stood up. "I shall leave you then, Ambassador," I said kindly. I had likely thrown him for a loop with all the information I gave him. Even if he took it well and could do anything, I doubted that he would fully believe anything I told him as pure gospel once he had time to think about it.

"Mr Lynch, wait," he said suddenly. I turned back around and saw him staring at me. "What did you say the name of your organisation was again?"

I gave him a bland smile. "I never gave a name," I said. "In fact, I was never here. Good luck, Ambassador. I do hope that you can use the information I gave you today to help your people."

With that, we left, opening the door to the hallway. I was completely unsurprised to see four SIU soldiers waiting in the hallway for us. I walked past them unconcerned, outwardly showing that I didn't have a care in the world, even as I felt Persei tense slightly next to me. The soldiers did nothing to stop us, though I could hear two of them walking into the ambassador's office.

We left the embassy, not even getting a farewell from the receptionist on the way out.

It wasn't until we had taken off in an aircar towards Kithoi Ward that Persei spoke again.

"Do you think anything will come from that?" she asked, finally removing her helmet.

I gave a small sigh. "I honestly don't know," I replied. "Batarians are notoriously distrusting of other races, especially humans. I think the fact that we had access to another reaper threw him far more than he was ready. What are the odds that he will be able to do anything?"

She looked thoughtful for a long moment. "Hard to say. If he has the ability to have any impact among their internal government, then it is possible. It is just as likely that once he has had time to think about it he will just dismiss it out of hand as a plot to hurt the batarians. I guess it depends on what sort of things are going on with the batarians who are researching their reaper. If nothing else, it wouldn't hurt them to see if they can test their people, but I doubt that we would hear anything about it even if they completely replaced their entire admiralty."

I nodded in understanding. "True, they really do quite a good job at keeping their doings close to their chests. Anyway, lets find someplace to ditch these disguises. I don't want to keep this mask on for any longer than necessary."

…

I sat at my terminal in my office above the orphanage on the Citadel, the one that Malaea was running full time with her new partner, a turian female called Tissa assisting and providing security against angry underworld types that held grudges against duct rats that did jobs for them for whatever reason. It wasn't often that they came by but I thought it would be best to have someone on standby just in case. Tissa's background checked out and while weapons were not allowed in front of the kids, there was a gun safe in the building that held her weapons in case of emergency.

The reason that I was at my office above the orphanage was that it was far less conspicuous than my official office near the Presidium on the Zakera Ward side. I had an office open there just after the Pokémon game had launched for official business related to Shieldstar activities. It wasn't much, just an office with a conference room in the back and a secretary desk out the front, with a terminal in a back room for me to work from if I was there. As I spent most of my time space bound, I didn't see much point having a massive operations centre.

The reason for this meeting was multipurpose. One of the major ones was asset denial. I wanted to stop Saren having access to a very important person for my plans that could have a significant impact in the galaxy. Another major reason was for the work the woman herself did and its potential to affect the galaxy, as well as gain the aid and loyalty of an entire species.

So for that reason, I had Rana Thanoptis enter my office.

She was the asari doctor studying indoctrination on Virmire in the games and was found helping Okeer in ME2, but later on was found to be indoctrinated and killed several top ranking asari during the reaper invasion. While her specialty was in neuroscience, she was also a gifted biologist and capable of thinking outside the box, while also apparently having a reputation as being morally grey in her approach to her scientific studies. Which, considering Citadel Council restrictions on the matter, was perfectly fine with what I wanted from her.

"Welcome, Doctor Thanoptis," I said, standing as she entered my office. "Thank you for coming to meet with me. I hope that I haven't taken too much time out of your schedule."

"Nice to meet you," the pale turquoise asari replied with a nod. "And no, it was no problem. I find myself with an abundance of free time right now."

I tilted my head curiously at her. This was not something I had seen in the background check. "Oh?" I asked. "May I ask why?"

She scowled slightly. "I had some people complaining about some of my research practices," she said unhappily. "Not that I did anything illegal," she hastened to add, waving her hands in front of her, "some people just didn't understand that to achieve some of the results I needed to confirm in some of my studies, I had to… uh… skate the bounds of what was considered proper."

I raised an eyebrow in interest. It seems like I have another reason why the good doctor was involved in Saren's research facility. She had been let go and was not working. Well, that made this easier. "You are referring to the salarians you exposed to a toxic hallucinogenic in your study on stress related to overwork based on ex-STG operates and their reintegration into society?" It was the most recent study that I had been able to associate her with in the background check.

She flinched. "You… uh… heard about that?"

I nodded. "I am very thorough in my efforts," I said, "and I expect my crew and those who work for me to be the same."

Her shoulders hunched as she ignored what I said. "Well, apparently my work offended some people and they decided to revoke my active researcher status. I only found out this morning."

Ah. That would by why I hadn't seen it in the background check. "I see. Well, as it turns out, it is your outside the box thinking that led me to contact you."

She looked up at me and blinked. "Huh? You want me to work for you?"

Well, at least she could piece things together. "Yes indeed," I replied. "I understand that the work is not exactly in your sphere of speciality, but I believe that your knowledge is still suitable and that your innovation should be useful in achieving what I am looking to accomplish."

She sat up and frown slightly. "Oh?" she asked, striving for nonchalance and failing. "And what do you want to hire me to do?"

I smiled at her as disarmingly as I could. "I want your help to cure the genophage."

She froze for a long moment. "S-say again?"

My smile changed into a smirk at her reaction. "You heard me correctly. I want your assistance to create a cure for the genophage."

She looked stunned. "Uh, ok… why?"

My grin dropped off my face. "Because it is an ongoing tragedy that should not be allowed to continue," I said seriously. "The krogan have been used and abused by the salarians since they were found. Uplifted to fight a war that wasn't theirs, then cursed for the very nature that made them tools in the first place. They were never given the proper guidance to fully make the transition to be a cohesive member of the Citadel. Their nature was just ignored until it became a problem and started a war. Now their population is continuously shrinking while the females are left to weep over literal mountains of dead krogan." I stopped and collected myself. "Also, for lots and lots of money."

She gaped at me for that last inclusion, looking completely flat-footed after the moral-based address at the start.

"Now," I continued, "you don't need to be worried. We are not just going to throw the cure on Tuchanka and walk away. We have people who are working to improve krogan society, to see that war, battles and mercenary work is damaging their image and odds of continued existence. It is slow going but working." A white lie. Wrex would be doing that when he eventually returns to take over Clan Urdnot. But the female clans were going to be on board so it was likely that this had started happening already. "We just want to have things ready to go if either their population drops too low or if we manage to force civility down the throats of the rest of them."

The asari's jaw was still dropped and she was blinking at me. "Uh… ok," she stuttered before visibly shaking herself. "I can get behind that way of thinking. I am also glad that you are not just going to cure them as soon as possible. But this is going to take a lot of work to set up. I am talking millions and millions of credits."

"Money is not an issue," I waved off her objection. "And as far as the cure itself, I even have someone who is going to be with you who already has plenty of data on the genophage itself. A salarian scientist by the name of Maelon. He worked on genophage modifications and is now seeking to redeem himself. He has a somewhat loose moral compass though and may try to do a few things to the natural born krogan that would hurt them by rushing through things. I would prefer that you stick to clones until a viable cure is prepared. Is that ok with you?"

Things were moving faster than the scientist was clearly prepared for but she managed to squeak out an "ok!".

Well, that was something ticked off the list.

…

Surkesh Leaf Script

Vid Review by Silarn Moduk

Moneyball

This movie brought me to tears. I honestly wept. The statistical analysis. It's so beautiful!

…

Thessian Suns Publication

Vid Review by Klerea Al'tichi

The Martian

I admit to finding myself having to second guess my previous reviews from human made films. While modern films are still below standard in my opinion, the classic films are certainly of much superior quality. This film is engaging, captivating and truly showcases the mental battle of a man lost in space and realistically manages to continue on through science, not religion, mystical powers or 'just believing hard enough'. I thoroughly recommend it.

I will say that I researched the history of this film and found out that it won an award for Best Comedy. While it is a vid worthy of awards even by today's standard, I do wonder how high the judges were to think it a comedy.

…

The Krogan Word

Ognut Grax

Mad Max

Huh. Honestly, it wouldn't take much to have a police force on Tuchanka be like this. I'll hit up my clan head and get back to you. I'm building a Thunderdome, b***hes!" (Censored by Citadel News Limited).

…

A/N Please Review and Follow/Favourite as you please.

Just a couple of reviews for you this time. I have to say, when I first put them in this story, I didn't think they would be as popular as they are but I am glad that I have some original things in this story to keep you coming back for more. Also, people seem to like the interactions I have put in with Tevos in previous chapters so I am probably going to continue with that for a while like I did here, if that's what you want to see.

Anyway, that ends the first of the timeskip chapters. By the end of the timeskips, the beginning of ME1 will be starting. They are just setting things up to be able to be ready for it. Hope you all enjoyed it. Until next time!