The Dream Effect

[TheWhiteRose]

Ahh I'm guessing this is the Normandy and her shake down tun

 

[Darkphoenixlady]

Chapter 15: Spectre – part 3

As Jane reaches the top of the stairs, she's surprised to see both sides of the airlock open. Cautiously she walks aboard and looks around until she sees an officer.

"Good afternoon Warrant Officer."

The male officer turns around, startles slightly then salutes, "Welcome aboard sir."

"At ease. I'm Commander Shepherd, where can I find the Captain?"

"The Captain is in a meeting sir. He left orders that you be allowed to stow your gear in the officers lockers on the deck below us." Jane is about to nod when the man adds, "Can I just say, you're an inspiration to all of us red tags sir, Ma'am. We never thought a red tag could ever be selected as an N7."

Slightly uncomfortably, Jane sketches a quick salute, "Thank you for saying so."

Not waiting for another bout of hero worship, Jane heads to the back of the deck past two banks of manned stations, one on each side of the walkway, for the different sensors and systems on the ship. Each one almost a cookie cutter copy of the previous one, apart from the data being streamed to the stations.

At the end of the walkway is the command and control [CiC] of the ship, with a hologram of the galaxy currently displayed in the pit. Jane frowns and stands on her tiptoes as she looks back down the ship. At the far end she can see what looks like a navigation area. Which is not a very human design. Walking around the CiC a downward ramp is immediately obvious, so following orders, she makes her way down to the lower deck.

At the end of the ramp is a corridor leading fore and aft. Offset towards the stern of the ship is a narrow corridor, just wide enough for one person in armour to walk down comfortably. On the stern side of the corridor are two banks of lockers broken up by the doors to two cabinets that are set back from the lockers. It's likely the corridor was regulation width before they decided to put the lockers here too.

Walking over to the lockers, she touches her omni-tool to one. As she does, it buzzes and a computerised voice says, "Invalid locker bank. Commander Jane Shepherd is assigned to berth 3."

As she's frowning at the bank of lockers, one of the cabinet doors opens and a tall human soldier walks out with an N4 tag on his chest, and 2nd Lieutenant pips.

As the soldier turns in the other direction, Jane calls "Excuse me!"

The soldier turns around and salutes, "How can I help you sir?" Then his eyes see the red tag and widen.

Jane waves, "At ease Lieutenant. I was just wondering if you knew where the berths are."

The soldier relaxes, "Right this way sir. Can I say it's a pleasure to meet you Commander, you've been an inspiration for me."

Bemusedly, Jane follows the N4 down the corridor to the other end, where it opens up into an identical corridor to the other side, "Sorry about that Commander, informal policy is to exit the cabinets to the port side, and enter from the starboard side. I'm Kaiden Alenko by the way, and I'm looking forward to serving with you. To be honest, I thought you were a blue tag when I first saw you."

As they walk down the corridor they come to an offset door Kaiden says, "This is the sick bay, and just past this are the berths and hot bunks. Actually sleeping pods because bunks take up too much space."

Jane nods "Thank you. I think I can take it from here."

Kaiden salutes, "Thank you sir, I look forward to serving with you."

Jane nods as she walks past Kaiden into the berths. Inside this area of the ship there are doors on the stern side of the corridor, while the bow side has a wide corridor leading forward.

Finding berth 3 is as easy as counting the numbers on each door, and a tap of her omnitool sees the door slide neatly into the wall to the left hand side.

Inside is a narrow walkway only the width of the door. Just by the door on the right hand side is a shallow indent, just deep enough for a standard cabinet if you remove the coat hooks. On the left hand side is a narrow floor to ceiling wardrobe with three drawers at the bottom. Next to that is the bunk and desk that take up the last of the rooms 3m depth.

The desk itself is slightly inset to the bunk so that the supplied chair fits neatly and out of the way of anyone walking around. At the far end of the desk is a stack of five drawers.

As Jane walks into the room the door slides closed behind her. Turning around she can see the internal controls are set into the door itself, with a simple open and do not disturb button holographically displayed from a small emitter above the door.

Shrugging, she looks at the small alcove and the coat hooks. After a second she brings her palm up sharply to hit the underside of a hook. When it shifts slightly, she smiles and does the same to the hook on the other end. With that the whole row of hooks comes away from the wall to reveal two small keyhole slots where the hooks were.

It only takes her a couple of seconds to set up her cabinet in the alcove. As she tests the door, it opens smoothly into the room with only millimetres to spare as it passes the wardrobe door handles.

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With her equipment now stowed, Jane leaves her berth and curiously looks down the corridor that leads forward. At first she wonders why the corridor is so wide at nearly 3m wide. Then she notices the sleep pods on each side held by six robotic arms. With dawning horror she realises that the hexagonal pattern on the walls are actually chambers for the pods. After a quick count, she sees 48 separate hexagons split between both sides.

At the far end of the corridor is a small bulkhead, which leads to the head, with one waste management station, and three individual cubicles for non-suited individuals.

After taking advantage of the station, she frowns as she notices a distinct lack of showers.

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A quick check of her omni-tool shows that she has now been registered on the ship. Bringing up the ship's duty roster, she can see that the captain is still in a meeting, along with a VIP. Her own schedule hasn't yet been set, which is a little concerning, though she can see she's here in her capacity as a member of the N corps.

With some free time to kill before the ship is due to depart, Jane heads to the sick bay to introduce herself to the doctor.

She's not even finished walking into the sick bay when the doctor, a grey haired woman, looks up, "Good morning Commander, can I help you?"

Jane shakes her head, "Not really, I found myself with some free time after registering onboard, so I figured I'd have a look around."

The woman nods, "Well, I'm Dr Chakwas from the IHA."

Jane looks at Chakwas in surprise, "I thought this was a Systems Alliance ship."

Chakwas tips her hand from side to side, "Sort of, it's a joint project between the Systems Alliance, the IHA, and the Turians. Many of the crew have their own IHA ranks, and have been granted Systems Alliance ranks equivalent to their own. They're still working out my position as I don't have the qualifications the SA require for their doctors."

Jane nods, "I assume that means we're getting no magical support on this trip then."

Chakwas nods tentatively, "Probably, I've got a list of reading material longer than my screen to go through. We do have a new development from the IHA that's almost as good as magical healing is reported to be. Medi-gel, completely bio-neutral and you can either place it on a wound, or inject it, and it will form a scaffold around any part of the body that is showing clotting or inflammation markers."

Jane nods, "That will be useful. It was good to meet you."

Chakwas nods, "Likewise, before you go. I'd like to say thank you for what you did on Elysium, I have family there, and they only survived because of you."

Jane smiles, "I was only doing my duty Dr, but I'm glad they're safe."

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Jane taps her foot as the lift from the stern of the crew deck to the deck below it has already taken a good 30 seconds to go less than half the distance needed.

Finally in annoyance, she opens the emergency access panel. Her eyes widen in surprise when she spots a crank handle sitting in front of a fast spinning gear that's driving a chain. On the back of the door are some instructions that explain what's going on.

"Why would they use screws instead of runes… Oh right, joint project, the ship needs to be run without a magical crew or maintenance. But still, screws? Why not hydraulics?"

An amused voice from outside the lift says, "Because the screws also provide structural support if we have a gravity failure."

Jane turns away from the open compartment to see a balding human, "Engineer Adams at your service Ma'am."

Jane nods, "Jane Shepherd. What do you mean by structural support?"

"This lift is rated for heavy equipment. As we don't have magical assistance." He sneers the word magical, "We have to rely on physics. If our gravity systems shut down with a piece of heavy equipment in the lift, then the supports have to not only hold the lift steady, but also support the mass of the equipment during any manoeuvres the ship is going through. This lift is rated at 5 tons with a maximum of 6g acceleration in any direction."

Jane nods, "Impressive. Why not use hydraulics though?"

Adams looks at her as if she's a school child, "Because then the pipes, pumps, and holding tanks need to be rated correctly, and inspected regularly. A leak at the pressures caused by a 6g manoeuvre could be disastrous to the ship and crew. Not to mention the effect that having something with an effective weight of 29 tons smashing into the bottom of the lift shaft would have, as the hydraulic fluid being forced out of the failed pipe or joint wouldn't stop it."

Jane holds her hands up in defeat, "Ok, ok, you've made your point. I'll leave the engineering to those who are qualified."

Somewhat mollified, Adams nods, "If you'll excuse me, I was about to head up to the mess cabinet to use the facilities and grab some lunch before we lift off."

Walking off the lift, Jane deftly steps out of the way of a couple of technicians that are wheeling a large trolly load of ingredients into the lift. Slightly incredulously, she asks, "Is that going in the cabinets?"

The technician nods, "This lot is, as it's got fresh ingredients."

Jane shakes her head, "How are you going to fit that past the lockers?"

The technician laughs, "Simple, they've got maglocks holding them to the walls. We just unclamp them and move them out the way."

Jane nods in understanding, "That makes sense, thank you."

With that niggling bit of curiosity out of the way, Jane looks around the hanger deck while she's out of the way. To one side she can see a Mako infantry fighting vehicle, something that the IHA developed to support their own troops. Behind that is the quartermaster, and she can see that they're bringing in plenty of stock for that, including some I5 suits and a lot of I4 suits. On the other side is a backup mess where some technicians are installing a magical sink, while others are loading pallets of MRE's into storage units built into the walls.

Spotting a group of N-corps hanging around a bank of lockers, Jane decides to walk over.

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Jane smiles as she approaches, "Good morning gentlemen, ladies."

The soldiers all stop chatting and turn to her. When they see her rank they come to attention and salute, "Sir! Ma'am!"

Jane shakes her head, "At ease. I'm just looking around and getting to know everyone."

Everyone there relaxes, and the corporal says, "I'm Richard Jenkins, transferring in from the IHA, it's a pleasure to serve with you."

Jane nods, "Interesting, are all of you from the IHA?"

Jenkins shakes his head, "No sir, Rice, Peters, and Hope are from the SA. Can I just say that I'm looking forward to kicking some xeno butt sir!"

Jane groans, "Corporal, this is partially a Hierarchy ship too, so it's as likely that we'll be kicking human butt to defend 'xenos'."

Jenkins nods, "That may be true sir, but there are more xenos out there than humans."

Jane shakes her head and changes the subject, "Moving on, why are you all dressed for shore-side duty?"

Rice puts her hand up, "We've been transferred in from shoreside duty Ma'am. This is my first shipside tour."

Jane nods, "Have any of you ever been on a Systems Alliance ship?"

Peters puts his hand up, "Only as a passenger sir."

Jane nods, "If I'm assigned to this ship, and not just in transit elsewhere, I'll run drills on ships doctrine, so be prepared. Is that the armoury behind you?"

Jenkins nods, "Yes Sir!"

Jane smiles, "Thank you. As you were."

Turning around she spots a corridor leading behind the lift. As she walks away, the troops conversation starts up again.

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Walking into the engineering bay, Jane stops to stare in awe at the massive piece of machinery that dominates the stern wall. Between three massive claws is a brightly glowing blue ball of something. As she gets used to the sight, she's able to see the computer stations arrayed around that machine in an almost semicircle.

While she's watching, an access panel opens on the starboard wall, and an engineer steps out before straightening up. With a shake of her head, Jane resolves to come back later when she feels up to a headache.

As she's walking back to the lift, Jane stops and stares at the large Systems Alliance insignia inscribed on a panel directly behind the lift. The panel itself is inset into the wall by nearly a centimeter.

As an engineer passes her, Jane asks, "Excuse me, what's up with that panel?"

The engineer turns around in puzzlement, "What panel?"

Jane points at the panel, "That one right there."

The engineer runs his fingers over the edge of the panel, and the next one, "It's just poorly fitted, you've got good eyes to spot that. I'll make a note of it for the next maintenance cycle."

Jane nods, "Your welcome."

As the Engineer walks off, Jane is absolutely certain that it won't get reported, as a gap that deep isn't just poorly fitted.

Slowly she lowers her magic levels to the lowest she can safely hold them. It's not as good as a notice-me-not or disillusionment charm, but it does make her harder to notice as her presence isn't pressing in the world so much. Once she's happy that nobody's going to pay any attention to her, she touches the insignia and pushes a tiny bit of magic into it.

As she watches, the panel seems to fold away from the centre, until all that's left is a narrow shaft with a ladder heading down.

Turning around, she starts to climb down, noting that wearing any sort of armour would make this climb almost impossible. At the bottom, it opens up behind her into a long, low, chamber that seems to be running along the top of the spinal gun.

At the far end of the chamber she can see a dormant magical intelligence, and a large, clear, box containing a chunk of magicite the size of her double fists. On the floor below that are another four boxes containing similar sized chunks of magicite.

Jane makes her way down the chamber, being careful not to bump her head. Around a quarter of the way down, she comes across the first marble slab, with 'Stealth' written across the handle at the top. Next is isolation, time dilation, life shield, and hull. Finally, underneath a switch that can be set to 12 or 16, is a slab that says magical intelligence.

"It seems that the Systems Alliance had more involvement in your design than just the utilities, doesn't it girl."

As she turns around to leave, she sees a couple of expanded cubby holes where the ladder is. Each one is filled with potions of Living Death, enough to dose double the maximum crew for a ship this size.

Jane nods, "Definitely more involvement."

As she climbs out of the shaft, Jane checks her omni-tool and nods as she sees the Captain is now available.

Making her way back into the hanger, the bay doors are closed, and there are no technicians in sight. If she didn't know that there were storage areas built into the various walls, she'd never be able to tell.

Shaking her head, Jane makes her way up to the command deck.

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As she walks past various crew members, Jane breathes a sigh of relief when they don't keep throwing her salutes, instead going about their business. Back at the CiC the Captain seems to be talking to someone on the command podium, while at the bow of the ship a turian is talking to the pilot.

Not seeing anyone else to talk to, Jane walks over to the highest ranking person she can see around the CiC.

"Good afternoon officer."

The officer jumps in alarm and turns the half turn needed to face her, "Commander, I didn't hear you arrive."

Cursing to herself, Jane raises her magic levels back to Realm:2 norm, allowing her to appear more present to the people around her. "Don't worry about it, I was just wandering around the ship. I see the Captain is showing as available?"

The office, one Lt Presley according to his nametag, shakes his head, "Sorry Commander, Captain Anderson is only free to oversee the launch of Normandy's maiden voyage. He then has the next 4 hours blocked out for meetings and reports in the Captain's quarters."

Jane shakes her head, "Damn, I was hoping to find out what my duties are. Anyway, maybe you can tell me what's going on with the crew."

Presley nods, "The JSV Normandy is a joint project between the Systems Alliance, Independent Human Alliance, and the Hierarchy to push the boundaries of ship design. Because the Systems Alliance and the IHA invested the most money into the project, they are sharing joint command of the ship for the moment. I myself was a Systems Alliance officer, and I think this is a great opportunity for those like me with Prothean Syndrome. As if we can get more eezo ships maybe we'll get less naval crew leaving for the IHA Navy if they get infected. Like Captain Anderson there, his wife is a scientist and she got infected five or ten years ago now. As he had to choose between his career or his wife, he left."

Jane looks around, "Is that why nobody's wearing isolation suits?"

Presley looks happy, "Yes, it's great. For once it's the blue tags that'll need to wear a suit full time rather than us."

Jane nods, "I've been hearing blue and red tag a lot on ship, what's that about?"

Presley snorts, "Where have you been hiding, under a rock somewhere?"

Dryly, Jane says, "Sandhurst actually."

Presley looks closely at her face for the first time since she brought her magic back up, "Sorry Ma'am, I didn't realise it was you. They introduced the tags when they introduced mandatory suits for all shipboard soldiers and all N4's. That's also when they got rid of the PS classification. We've all decided to own the colour, and refer to ourselves as red tags."

Jane sighs, "What about troop doctrine?"

Presley shakes his head, "The Captain's IHA so we're following their doctrine."

Jane wanted to point out that the doctrine was introduced to save soldiers lives, to rail at the idiocy of the captain. Instead, the pilots voice comes over the ships comms, "Captain, we are approaching the relay."

Suddenly, the CiC goes from being a place where quiet conversations are taking place, to a hive of activity.

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A few minutes later, the ship passes through the relay into another system. A couple of minutes after that, Captain Anderson returns to his quarters, and the turian leaves the bow of the ship. As the turian passes, Jane frowns as she doesn't recognise most of the markings from Juvetana's brief lessons.

Shaking her head, Jane walks down to the bow of the ship where the pilot is busy on his console.

Leaning on the back of the chair, Jane says, "Hi, I'm Jane Shepherd."

The pilot doesn't look up as he replies, "Joker Ma'am."

Jane smiles, "Call sign, or did your parents hate you?"

Joker laughs, "Call sign Ma'am. Name's Jeff Moreau, but everyone calls me Joker."

Jane nods, "Call me Jane, except when it's official, then it's Commander Shepherd. How are you finding the ship?"

Joker smiles as he says, "She's great, and she flies like a dream. Even better, these are the most comfortable pilots chairs I've ever sat in. They're so comfortable I prefer to sleep here rather than the pods."

Jane laughs, "I can get behind that. The same's true of these isolation suits. Set them to sleep comfort and even a barracks floor is like the best bed you've ever slept on."

Joker snorts, "Want to know a secret?"

"Go on?"

"I'm wearing one myself, and all SA pilots chairs have waste collection built in."

Jane shakes her head, "I didn't know that."

"Yes, this is the one position where a single crew member could need to spend days at a time. So the SA started fitting all the seats with plumbing for when the ship's on alert."

Casually, Jane asks, "What do you think of the crew?"

Joker sighs, "I'm not sure. A lot of the grunts seem to have something against those that don't have Prothean Syndrome. Me, I sometimes think we're the lucky ones. I mean, sure we could do with the aliens keeping their noses out of our shit. But, in fairness to them, they have been landed with a load of our disgruntled citizens. You'll also hear a lot of them complaining that the SA keeps the best medical treatments to themselves. But look at me, I've got applications to sidhe clans across Alliance space, as well as a standing application to emigrate to Mars. I was born with Vrolik syndrome, and if me Ma hadn't had a suit failure early in her pregnancy, they'd have stuck a chip of magicite to her belly, and I'd have been born magical. Or they might have taken me to Sanctuary, and then given me back to Ma. Either way, by the time I was 8, they'd have vanished all my bones and regrown them with skeligrow. By the time either of those were viable, the precursor to the cure would have killed us."

Jane's eyes raise, "Taken to Sanctuary?"

Joker nods, "I know right, any adult can apply to be taken to Sanctuary to become magical. It's like filling out an immigration visa, as they want to ensure they're not giving magic to people who are already known to be criminals or abusers. Then they take you there for 30 seconds and send you home. Tada you're magical."

Jane shakes her head, "Why don't more people do it?"

Joker laughs, "Two reasons, Prothean Syndrome, and the risk of becoming a squib."

Jane nods, "That makes sense, my mother was a squib."

Joker's voice fills with awe, "You're that Shepherd. I heard your mother was granted expediated access because you failed the tests for the N8. That has to suck you know, to be selected by one of the gods, and then not be able to progress because of a technicality."

Jane swallows hard, "It did, problem is I didn't fail the tests. Also, they told me once, verbally, that mum had been selected at the same time they said I was going to be an N7. Then I entered hell and forgot about it. Then I get back and mums there and she takes her mask of, and all I can think is that she's just committed suicide."

Joker looks up briefly as he winces, "I remember that, it was on the news across the whole Alliance, and the IHA from what I've heard. It's one of the reasons so many of us look up to you. First you prove that we're as good as them, then you go and save Elysium, and once they've taken notice of you, some political bullshit keeps you from going forward. Probably some pencil pusher that looked at your age and said, 'Nope, too inexperienced, failed'."

Jane shrugs, "I can retest in several years' time. In the meantime I got to play with some new toys." Jane pulls out her engraving stylus, "This is a runic pen, they want to train some PS-N3's, I guess that would be N3's now, in runes so that they can use them in the field. You can scribe on pretty much any hard surface, then touch the green end to the runes and they work. Imagine being able to make the windscreen on a ground vehicle impervious and unbreakable so it can't get dirty, and won't break from shrapnel. Or a water rune so you never run out of water. A bubble headed charm over an area if there's an emergency on ship. Or even a mending array to close small holes in a ships hull. We tried a cooling array on a rifle, and it was able to fire full auto for a week before the small eezo supply evaporated from the magic."

Joker laughs, "I can think of a few times when I could have done with a cooling array myself before they got the I5's working. How much did they…"

Captain Anderson's voice comes over the intercom, "Commander Shepherd report to the Communications Room."

Jane whispers, "Where's that, as I haven't found it yet."

Joker chuckles, "Right behind the CiC, the door is hidden by a privacy panel."

"Thanks, I'll see you around."

Turning around, Jane walks aft to the comms room, and stops as she walks through the door. Standing in front of three holographic projectors is the Turian talking to three figures. It only lasts a few seconds before the call ends, but it's long enough to regain her composure.

 

[Darkphoenixlady]

Chapter 16: Spectre – part 4

The turian turns around as the holograms blink off and gives a wry smile, "Ah, I was hoping you would arrive first…"

Jane raises her eyebrow as the turian speaks English, only the second turian she's met that does. Her lowering into a turian bow of equals causes the turian to trail off.

Speaking in Hierarchy turian, Jane says, "Greetings Lone Hunter, this Hunter is known as Jane Shepherd." While she's talking, she specifically uses the version of Hunter that means protector and provider.

Curiously, the turian returns the bow, "Greetings Hunter Shepherd, this Hunter is known as Nihlus." Nihlus on the other hand, uses the word that means bringer of justice, "It is a pleasant surprise to find a human that is fluent with our ways."

Jane flashes her teeth at him, "Good neighbours learn all they can about each other. Friends so they can help. Enemies, well…"

Nihlus flashes his teeth back, "Very turian of you."

Jane chuckles as she returns to English, "I would much rather be friends than enemies, it's far too easy to destroy, so it's better to build instead."

Nihlus's crest flares with surprise, as the phrase seems familiar for some reason. Instead, he returns to English himself, "It seems to be a very wise way to live."

Jane nods, "I had some very good teachers."

Nihlus inclines his head, "Thank you for showing some of your vantage point. Before you greeted me, I was going to ask what you think of Eden Prime."

Jane looks at him curiously, "And now?"

"Now I wish to know how you know of our ways."

Jane switches back to turian, "My nest mother and her partner taught me their ways at the same time they taught me. My nest mother then adopted me into her clan before we left Mindoir."

"I see, does your nest mother have a name?"

"She does, she is Juvetana. Her partner no longer needs his name though."

"It is a sad time when we lose those who raise us." Jane looks up at Nihlus in surprise, "Don't be so surprised. Not all clans practice stoicism to the same extent as others."

Jane nods, "Thank you for expanding my horizons."

Behind Jane, the door to the room swishes open and Captain Anderson walks in, "I think it's time to let the Commander know why she's here."

Jane smoothly steps to one side, both to be polite to the Captain, and also to have the best view if either of them try something. Nihlus chitters his mandibles as he recognises the move.

Nodding at Anderson, in a very human gesture, Nihlus says, "Perhaps you're right. It is no mistake that I am on this ship at this time. In ideal circumstances the Normandy would have still been going through tests at Shaanxi. However, circumstances arose that required a good excuse to head to Eden Prime."

Anderson shakes his head, "What the spectre is dancing around is the fact that scientists found a Prothean Beacon buried on Eden Prime:2. They've quarantined the area, but we need to get it off planet as quickly as possible, so we can avoid another Mars. Once we have it on board, we will be heading straight for the citadel, and the area will be scorched. We have also put your name forward to be the first human spectre, and Nihlus is here to evaluate you for that."

Jane opens her mouth, "Who…"

Over the intercom, Joker's voice interrupts their conversation, "Sorry to interrupt you captain, but there is an issue on planet. I think you need to see this."

Before anyone can say anything, Joker has disconnected and a video starts to play on the screen at the back of the room.

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"Mayday, Mayday, if anyone can hear us, we are under heavy…"

The sound of gunfire cuts the voice off as the camera falls to one side. A second later a woman in red and white garrison armour runs into view and leans down to check on the fallen person.

A moment later, she looks back the way she came as energy bolts fly past her, and raises her rifle to return fire.

Silently, Anderson, Jane, and Nihlus watch as more humans in patrol armour come into view in a fighting retreat.

Around 30 seconds into the footage one of the humans trips over the body, causing the camera to swing wildly before it looks at the sky. In the middle of a cloud of lightning, squid like tentacles reach down towards the earth, like a giant hand.

At this point, Jane hisses, "Sleeper!"

Anderson looks at Jane sharply, "Are you sure?"

Jane shakes her head, "No, it's not quite right, but it's similar to the histories on earth."

As Anderson walks over to a console, Nihlus looks between them, trying to understand the context of that one word.

Activating the internal comm, Anderson asks, "Joker, how far away are we?"

Joker responds, "I can get us there in 10 minutes if I push it."

Anderson nods sharply, "Do it, and drop a beacon when we hit orbit."

"Aye, Aye Captain." Joker leaves intercom, and the ship has the very slight lurch as the gravity generators compensate for the change in acceleration.

Anderson turns towards Jane, "Commander, this mission just got a lot more complicated. Suit up and meet your squad in the vehicle bay. You've got N4 Kaiden and N1 Jenkins as your squad."

Before turning around, Jane asks, "Is the ship fitted with an emergency portkey programmer?"

Anderson nods, "It is."

Jane nods and jogs out of the comms room, at the same time as she pings both Kaiden and Jenkins, "Kaiden, Jenkins, suit up, we're dropping in hot in 9 minutes."

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Once Jane's safely in her cabinet, the soothing clack, clack, clack, of her lace making fills the air. Taking a moment she stares accusingly at the work that's half floating out of her pouch before deliberately pulling the rest of the work and threads out and floating them over a side table.

A simple thought and click of her fingers has her armour switched onto her body from the stand in one of the bedrooms.

With her prep now done, she concentrates on the memory from the comms room, using her occlumency to ensure it's as crisp and isolated as possible. Once she's sure the Yewglisten Lore Keeper would call it a poor attempt, Jane says, "Hela Goddess of Death and Darkness."

Almost immediately Petunia's presence can be felt in her mind. A few seconds later she has Petunia's undivided attention.

Pushing the presence to the memory she's holding, results in a feeling of grim acceptance.

After a couple of minutes Petunia says, "If it shows any sign of trying to dig into the planet, drop your cover and hold it off for as long as you can. Until then, if you get a moment slip into another realm and see if it's still there."

Jane nods, "I will, but I'm going to be on tacmap. Can you contact anyone on Eden:3 to check it out?"

"We don't have that many marked, and Eden is only 10 years old, so there's no sidhe clan there either. I'm heading down to Central Command to order a SAAS to be redeployed to the planet."

Jane nods grimly as Petunia's presence falls away, before retrieving her bronze sword from its stand. Then, very deliberately, she places her lace making on a book table before leaving the cabinet.

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Jane gets to the hanger bay with four minutes to spare and marches over to the marines, where Kaiden and Jenkins both still getting into their armour. While she's moving, she lets her magic permeate the area as a fine mist covering around 20m [66ft] in any direction. It's not as good as her teachers can do at such a low level of magic, but it should help on the ground.

As she gets closer, she can't help letting out a groan when she sees that both of them are wearing body sleeves rather than isolation suits.

"Kaiden, Jenkins."

Jane scowls as both of them come to attention and salute her, "At ease. Arming up is more important than protocol right now."

At her words both of them continue to put on their armour, "The mission is simple. Locate and extract. There is a prothean artifact somewhere on the surface. We need to get from our drop point to the artifact and prep it for removal. There are hostiles down there, and they've already encountered the local garrison. Pick your equipment appropriately."

Kaiden nods as he puts on a half face helmet with a plexiglass cover over his eyes, "Understood ma'am."

"As a side note, why are you wearing that trash?"

Kaiden walks over to the weapons table, and retrieves a sniper, standard rifle, shotgun, and a side arm. All of which collapse down to sit neatly on his back, fastened by magplates, "It's standard N series armour Ma'am."

Jane shakes her head, "Not in the Systems Alliance it isn't, that's garrison armour. Only good against small arms fire and rioters. Next time pick something that needs an isolation suit. That goes for all of you."

A chorus of "Yes Ma'am!" comes from the soldiers.

"I take it that means you've never used an emergency portkey programmer either?"

Kaiden shakes his head, "No Ma'am."

"Kaiden, Jenkins, hand me your N tags, I'll program them this time."

As she walks over to the programmer, Jane feels Nihlus pull away from the dark corner he's been hiding in.

Pausing in her stride, Jane stops and looks directly at him, "Are you hunting with us?"

Nihlus' mandibles hang low in a smile, "No, I hunt better alone."

At that moment, Joker dips the Normandy low and opens the central part of the hanger ramp as Nihlus jumps out.

Jane sags a little in disappointment as she completes programming the emergency portkeys.

As she gets back to Kaiden and Jenkins, Jenkins looks at her in awe, "How did you do that Commander?"

Jane shakes her head, "I'll explain how to use the programmer later."

Jenkins shakes his head, "No I mean speak turian."

Jane sighs, "You mean Hierarchy turian. Lots and lots of practice. I've been learning since I was 12, and I still struggle with the dual tones. Here's your tags, they will go off automatically if they don't detect a heartbeat, otherwise just snap it and it will go off two seconds later."

As the ramp opens Jane shouts, "Step smart, this is our stop!"

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Once the three of them are groundside, and the Normandy is climbing for geosynchronous orbit, Kaiden looks around, "Area's secure sir."

Jane nods, "Find cover, I'll set the tacmap up."

A few seconds later, Jane curses, "Well this is a balls up. We have no ship tacnet. I'm setting up a local tacnet, the last known location of the artifact will be marked with an amber cross. Or a large amber arrow in the distance if you're using AR. Jenkins take point and tag any enemies you encounter, Kaiden cover…"

Jenkins interrupts, "Sorry sir, I don't have a tacmap interface."

Jane bashes the back of her head gently against the boulder she's hiding behind, "Kaiden?"

Kaiden replies, "Same sir!"

"Fine! Change of plans, I'll take point. Kaiden, you're on overwatch while Jenkins seeks cover, then switch. Kaiden, is there anything you bring to the table as an N4?"

While Kaiden is replying, Jane lopes over to a boulder at the top of a rise, "I'm an L2 Biotic, I can throw things and people, and raise a barrier to protect me from incoming fire. I'm also trained in electronic countermeasures."

As Jenkins is moving towards a new overwatch position, Jane asks, "What are electronic countermeasures?"

Jane and Kaiden both move up to new positions, with Kaiden passing Jane once she's got point, "Hacking mostly, with a bit more training I'll be able to affect battlefield opponents. But at the moment, I need a few minutes to use my omnitool to bypass most locks."

Jane takes her eyes off of Jenkins for a moment to look at Kaiden incredulously. At that moment, Jenkins spots something lying on the ground, "Commander, there's an artifact here."

Jane spins back round to see Jenkins ignoring cover to walk over to the artifact, "Jenkins! Take cover before…"

The sound of energy weapons fire drowns out her voice, and Jenkins gets hit three time, one above the other, and the last hits his face and burns straight through the visor.

Swearing, Jane brings up her SA issue rifle and fires a burst of slugs in the direction the shots came from as she moves towards the cover Jenkins was supposed to be using.

"Kaiden! Cover me!"

Just before she gets to cover, her field covers something that would have a clear line of sight over the last couple of meters. Pushing off her backfoot, Jane turns her next step into a long, low roll, and energy blasts pass through the air where her torso should have been.

Coming up from behind the boulder, Jane uses her field to help her pre-aim, and empties her magazine into the small floating platform she could feel. A simple thought switches the empty magazine with a full one, and she tags the other two platforms, she can now see, with her omni-tool.

"Kaiden, move up, I'm on overwatch."

When she pops up to fire a burst at the closer of two platforms, Jane notes that Jenkins body has disappeared.

Once Kaiden has finished moving up, the last two platforms fall under the withering fire from two directions.

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Cautiously, Jane and Kaiden move to a position that has a good view of the surrounding area.

"Normandy, do you copy?"

Jokers crackling voice comes back, "Affirmative Commander."

"Do we have orbital tacnet?"

Andersons voice comes over, "Negative Commander, there's heavy interference. You're on your own down there."

Jane growls before she responds, "Is there anything you can give me? And can you ID these floating platforms?"

A few seconds pass and Anderson's voice comes back, "We're burst transmitting a topographical map, with material compositions. IHA databases say that they were Geth platforms."

Jane shakes her head, "What on earth are they. Don't answer that, just send me the FoF data when you can."

Joker says, "Affirmative Commander."

Jane omni-tool starts to render a new tacmap, integrating it with the data she's already recorded. As it does, Jane says, "Kaiden, you have an omni-tool?"

Kaiden nods from his position on the other side of cover, "I do Commander."

"Call me Jane, it's quicker. Why aren't you using it for tacnet?"

"I don't have that software sir."

"Right. Overwatch while I grab the package, then I'll take over and you can install. Once you've done that, connect it to your overhead, and it will start sending telemetry to the tacnet."

"Understood."

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With two omni-tools feeding the tacnet, Jane is more comfortable moving forward at a faster, and slightly less cautious pace. Trusting in both omni-tools to tag mobile things with grey marker.

After a few more encounters with the floating drones, Jane's omnitool is starting to build up a profile to automatically tag them as enemies.

After one such encounter, a red message flashes on her HUD – Tacnet update incoming – so she takes cover with Kaiden.

"Kaiden, what's those blue bars that appear above red and blue marks?"

Kaiden looks at Jane incredulously, "They're mass effect shields, I thought you'd know that."

Jane shakes her head slightly, "Negative Lt, the first time I came across them was on Elysium. I went dark shortly after that. I don't think they play well with dive ships, so the SA hasn't included them in our briefings. What's the short of them?"

"They're computer-controlled emitters that deflect incoming projectiles with a carefully controlled mass effect field. Our armour contains limited capacitors, and the shield will automatically shut down once they're empty."

Jane's response is cut off by her HUD reading – FoF records updated – "Ok, let's move, I'm setting the Geth to default to hostile. We've got a lot of ground to cover."

With active FoF helping them, Jane leads Kaiden at a punishing pace, as they cover the next kilometre in just under 30 minutes. More roving groups of recon drones are dealt with easily with the automatic tagging, as they don't seek cover.

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As the two of them reach the top of a low hill, Jane shakes her head as they spot the bodies of some soldiers on the ground halfway towards what appears to be a circular concrete wall in the valley. Even from their vantage points, the metal supports holding back the surrounding earth from the dig are clearly visible. On the other side of the valley the ground is bare, compacted dirt with a some prefab buildings on top of a rise on the other hill.

Kaiden observes, "Looks like a lot of digging down there."

Jane nods, "Probably more geth too. Watch your cover, I don't want to lose any more men on this mission. One is already far too many."

As they're watching, a group of drones becomes visible as they're making their way up the hill, before disappearing behind a stand of trees. Off to one side the sound of gunfire suddenly becomes audible, as though the person has just crested a hill, or moved from behind a solid barrier.

"Kaiden, overwatch. I'm going down to flank the drones. Watch your fire as there may be a friendly."

Kaiden nods as he pulls the sniper rifle off his back and looks at the stand of trees, ready to fire if any of the drones show their shiny white domes.

At the same time, Jane cautiously makes her way down the hill to the trees. Once she's under cover, she draws her sword and fades into a disillusionment. Guided by her field, and the years spent training, three swift strikes later see the drones fall to the ground without even getting a shot off.

Over her comms, Jane says, "Clear, watch for our friendly."

Kaiden confirms, "Roger."

They don't have to wait long for the frantic gunfire to come closer. Suddenly a soldier in white and red armour breaks cover around some trees and runs across a stretch of open ground to take cover behind a boulder. At the same time, Jane and Kaiden both open up on the three drones that were pursuing them.

Caught in the crossfire, the drones go down quickly, and the soldier sags in exhaustion.

Over her comm, Jane calmly says, "Kaiden move up, I'm on overwatch."

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Once Kaiden has made it to the soldiers cover, Jane makes her way over too. And pulls out a water bulb.

When the exhausted soldier speaks, it becomes clear it's a woman, "Oh thank the gods, I thought, I was going to, die here."

Jane nods, "Drink the water slowly, you've got plenty of time. Do you have a name?"

The woman sucks greedily at the stem of the bulb, "Gunnery Chief, Ashley Williams. Eden Prime, N-corps."

Jane frowns, "Lt Colonel Jane Shepherd, that's Lt Kaiden Alenko, Local garrison?"

Ashley nods, "Yes sir. I followed in, my grandfather's footsteps."

Jane puts a hand on Ashley's shoulder, "Call me Jane while in the field. I'm afraid you're now part of the PS-N. Do you have an emergency portkey?"

Ashley shakes her head, "Sorry, I don't. We never, expected to, need them, here."

Jane nods, "Sitrep."

As Ashley's breathing starts to calm down she says, "Radio is shot, though my HUD is still working. I have an eezo rifle, I scavenged from one of the guards, the IHA scientist brought with them."

Jane interrupts, "IHA scientist?"

Ashley nods, "They were brought in a couple of days, after they found the ruins. It was on the local news."

Jane looks skyward, "Tell me they were at least wearing isolation suits."

Ashley shakes her head, "Not when I took the rifle."

Jane curses and sends an urgent message to Alliance command through the aethernet with the last 30 seconds of conversation. "Sorry about that Ashley, it was unprofessional. Kaiden, what's your opinion on the rifle?"

Kaiden holds out his hand, "May I?"

Ashley nods and hands over the rifle. After a minute Kaiden shakes his head, "It's a Mark I Elanus, not the worst on the market, but down there."

Jane nods and pulls out her scribing tool, "Where's the heatsink?"

Kaiden just looks at Jane as he points to the large slab of copper on the bottom of the rifle, "Right here."

Jane nods and takes the rifle. A couple of minutes later she finishes scribing the cooling array, and touches the magicite flake to the rune to activate it.

Handing the rifle back to Ashley, Jane says, "Here, you shouldn't need to worry about overheating for a week."

Kaiden shakes his head, "Can you do that to mine?"

Jane nods, "I could, bear in mind that in a week the eezo in the rifle will be gone, and it will be a very expensive paperweight."

Kaiden pulls his rifle back, "I think I can deal then."

Jane nods, "If we come across another one of those, then I'll scribe it for you too. Ashley, you good to go?"

Ashley nods, "I can walk sir."

Jane take a couple of seconds to register Ashley in her squad before they move out to the dig site.

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They make it down the hill without incident, and Jane stops when she sees some red dots appear on her HUD. Switching off her external speakers, Jane says, "We have enemies in ambush positions. Silent communications only. I'm going to head around to the right to flank them, you two get ready to move in on my mark."

As Jane moves off, Kaiden points at Ashley, some cover, and then gives the hand sign for overwatch.

Ashley nods as Kaiden gives the hand signs for a sniper is behind that cover. Returning an I understand hand sign, she moves quickly behind some cover that will get her out of the line of fire, and allow her to cover that area.

At the same time Kaiden moves to the same cover from the other direction, in order to cover the dig and Ashley's position.

When the two meet behind the same boulder, Kaiden quickly signs that she should be providing overwatch from there.

Ashley nods, and hand signs that she's watching for the sniper from here.

After a couple more exchanges, Ashley hisses, "I know there's a bloody sniper over there, that's why I'm here."

At that point, the three red dots leave their ambush positions and start to converge on their location. Seeing the movement in their HUD's, they both look alarmed and take position at either side of the boulder to return fire, only pausing for a moment when they see the humanoid forms of the geth.

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As she's almost in position, Jane swears under her breath as the three dots suddenly move out of their cover towards the two blue dots on her HUD.

At the sounds of gunfire she gives up any pretence of stealth and moves through the arch in front of her to provide cover. Deliberately she ignores the three spikes on the far side of the dig in order to concentrate on the enemy. While it's not a perfect turn around, the flanking manoeuvre does work out well, as she catches the three humanoid geth unawares.

Once they're all dead, Jane allows herself to look at the grizzly sight of impaled civilians.

"Ashley, Kaiden, all clear, proceed into the dig site."

As they come in, Jane covers the far side with her rifle.

As she comes in Ashley looks directly at the centre and refuses to even look at the spikes, "The artifact was here last time I saw it."

Jane groans, "When was that?"

Ashley shrugs, "Last night?"

"Do you know of anyone that's seen the artifact and has returned to Eden:3 without quarantine procedures?"

Ashley nods, "Um, yes, I think the patrol before mine did."

Jane facepalms hard, "What were your leaders thinking?" Activating her comm, Jane calls, "Normandy, we have a situation."

Joker responds, "Go ahead Commander."

"We've come across one of the garrison guards, one Gunnery Chief Williams. Local designation. She's just informed me that the garrison patrol before hers may have gone to Eden:3 after seeing the Prothean artifact. You need to let planetary security know that they may have a PS outbreak and quarantine procedures are needed."

"I'll pass it onto the Captain Commander."

Jane shakes her head, and sends a message to Alliance Command with the recording of both conversations.

With the urgent matters taken care of, Jane joins Kaiden as he looks at the spikes with morbid fascination. Raising her hand, she starts to scan the spikes.

Kaiden shakes his head, "What's the point of this?"

Grimly Jane says, "Intimidation mainly. There's also something going on under the skin according to my omni-tool, that's why they're twitching. Whatever it is, I think it's going to be for the scientists to have nightmares about, not me."

Kaiden shakes his head, "Why are you scanning it then?"

Jane simply says, "FoF"

When her omni-tool beeps, Jane says, "Come on, let's get out of here."

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On the other side of the dig is a packed dirt road leading up an artificial plateau. As they get closer to the top of the road, a number of spikes slowly start to come into view. As they do, Ashley starts to hyperventilate.

Jane stops, "Kaiden, keep watch."

Turning to Ashley, Jane holds one arm, "Ashley, how are you feeling?"

Ashley shakes her head, "Scared sir. What if there's people I know on those thing?"

Gently, Jane says, "Ashley, look at me. Look at me. If anyone you know is on those things, you say a prayer to Hela, goddess of death and darkness. Then you take that grief and hold it in your fist and use it to fight back against the geth that did it. After that, we hold a wake and you tell us all about their life. What you don't do is allow it to make you hesitate. Because if you hesitate, then you die. If you die, who will protect your family and friends?"

Ashley gives a small nod as she sniffs.

"Do you think you can go on, or do you need a calming draft?"

Ashley swallows hard, "I think I can go on."

Jane nods, "Good girl. Take over from Kaiden."

As Kaiden comes back down the path, Jane asks, "How are you holding up?"

Kaiden shakes his head, "It's bad sir, it's the worst thing I've ever seen."

"You seen action before Lt?"

Kaiden nods, "Just pirates on routine patrols."

Jane nods, "Let me know if you start having problems, and keep an eye on Ashley, as I think she's as green as they come."

Kaiden nods, "Understood sir."

Jane walks up to Ashley, "I'll take point, Ashley, you're on rear guard. Kaiden, use your omni-tool to keep an eye on the map. Ashley, you're local, where's the artifact likely to have been taken, and where's the base camp for the dig?"

Ashley shakes her head, "Base camp should be just up here. There's a small spaceport with a transport hub about three miles in that direction."

"Kaiden, bring up the map, Ashley point it out on the map."

As he does, Jane walks both of them through how to set a point of interest [POI] on the tacmap, as well as how to set personal waypoints and target priorities.

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As they crest the top of the hill, Jane looks over at the small scattering of spike she can see. As she does, her eyes are drawn further towards the POI, and what seems like a veritable forest of spikes between here and there.

Tearing her eyes away from the sight, Jane looks around the camp and the signs of ruined equipment everywhere. Even the diggers have been broken beyond repair, the complicated runes exposed and defaced.

Suddenly, a flash of green light catches her attention, and Jane holds up her hand to stop everyone, "Ashley, does that look like an active door lock to you?"

Ashley nods, "I think that was the office. At least it's where we met the bodyguard that showed us the map."

Jane nods, "Ok, we're checking it out. Ashley, check your own ID first, see if you still have access."

As Jane covers their six, Ashley takes out her id and places it against the lock, "Nothing."

Kaiden volunteers, "I might be able to crack it."

Jane smiles, "How familiar are you with magitech?"

Kaiden frowns, "That looks like a normal lock to me."

Jane shakes her head, as she pulls a cable out of her pouch and attaches it to her omni-tool, "It's a normal lock for here. And we use magitech for most things so they can be used anywhere, not just Realm:2."

While her omni-tool is rebooting in a secure mode, Jane fiddles under the lock to find the administrative port, and plugs the cable in.

Kaiden shakes his head, "Why would they look the same though?"

Once the omni-tool has verified ownership, Jane selects one of the many highly classified programs and sets it to automatically start hacking the lock, "The IHA was formed from humans that left the Systems Alliance because of the promises by an organization called Human First. Those humans took their own stuff with them, so why wouldn't they make new things to look the same."

The lock flashes green, and then clicks, "Kaiden try the door while I'm stowing my gear."

Kaiden steps forward and twists the knob before pushing the door forward. While the door moves a little, it doesn't clear the doorjam before there's a sound of metal hitting wood.

Leaning his shoulder into the door, it still doesn't budge, so he calls, "Ho in there, I'm with the Systems Alliance."

From inside a woman's voice answers, "Give us a moment to move the cabinet."

The three of them step back from the door, and several seconds later it's opened by a woman in a lab coat.

Taking a step forward, Jane looks up at her, "I'm Commander Shepherd, are you the only survivor?"

The woman shakes her head, "No, I'm Dr Williams. My assistant Dr Manuel is also here. Are you here to rescue us?"

Jane shakes her head, "Not at the moment, we need to retrieve the Prothean Artifact."

Williams shakes her head, "Mars protocol?"

"I don't know yet. That's down to the Assembly to decide. Do you know where the beacon would be taken?"

Williams nods, "It was taken to the spaceport this morning after we evacuated it. There should only be volunteers there now. We were left behind to secure the camp before going into quarantine."

Jane sighs, "Do you know anything about garrison troops being allowed to return home." At the scientists shocked expression Jane adds, "I guess not. How about the IHA scientist?"

Williams nods, "He was an acquaintance of the Mayor, and had been on prothean digs before."

"Was?"

Williams points at the spikes, "He was further away when the attack happened, he didn't make it to the cabin. One of his guards did, but they died of their wounds."

"I'm sorry you had to see that. This may be a big ask, but do you mind if I inspect the body?"

Williams shakes her head as she steps out of the way, "No, go ahead."

Jane nods and walks in. As she does, the assistant, Manuel, notices her and bows as he says, "Darkness, we've brought darkness down on all of us."

Jane crouches down in front of him, "Manuel, are you ok?"

Manuel ignores her question, "I've seen it, I've seen the growing darkness consuming all life across the galaxy."

Concerned, Jane looks up at Dr Williams, "Does he have a touch of seer's blood?"

Williams shakes her head, "No, he's been like this since we found the beacon. He was the first scientist on site in fact."

Jane shakes her head, "That's not good. When you're extracted, or you're ground zero of Mars Protocol, make sure that someone knows he needs to talk to a seer. Maybe they can see what he's seeing and get something intelligible out of it."

The doctor nods, "I will. Is there anything I can do in the meantime?"

Jane nods, "Do you have any atmospheric samplers lying around?"

"We do, they've been packed away though, and they were calibrated for rock dust."

"See if you can recalibrate them for viruses. When rescue comes it will be helpful if they can easily plot out where the virus has spread to."

Williams nods, "I'll do that if you can keep an eye on us while I unpack them."

Jane nods, "Kaiden, check the body for anything we can use. Ashley take the dig entry, I'll take the other side."

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10 minutes later, Jane has an eezo sniper rifle while Kaiden has a runed rifle.

Just before Dr Williams closes and barricades the door again, Jane calls out, "Don't forget you can blood the cabinet!"

With that the three of them set off towards the spaceport.

As they stumble across the uneven field, following the deep wheel tracks as best as they can while weaving around the impaled bodies, Ashley whispers, "I think these are the farmers."

Curiously, Jane asks, "Why do you think that?"

"Three o'clock, in the distance, that's the farm compound."

Jane lowers her eyes in respect, and inadvertently walks closer to a spike than she really wants to. As she does, the particulate monitor for her suit flashes red in the corner. Jane immediately signals a freeze, and dives into the alert.

A moment later she calls the Normandy, "Normandy, do you read me?"

Anderson answers, "We're here Commander."

"I'm starting to upload our tacnet and suit data. Be aware that I will be uploading real time data from here on out."

"What's going on Commander."

"I'm picking up elevated nano-scale particles around the impaled victims. Whatever they are, they're almost certainly not good news for the planet."

"Understood. I'm watching your live feed, is that body supposed to be moving?"

Jane looks up, expecting the slight twitching they've been seeing. Instead the spike starts to retract as the body's limbs start flailing around.

"Kaiden, Ashley, weapons hot and watch your six. Normandy I need you to start building a FoF for these things."

The three of them start to pour fire into the spire, and flares of blue light appear in the air, indicating a mass effect shield. This lasts just long enough for the corpse to stagger to its feet.

As they drop the corpse under a hail of fire, Kaiden nervously says, "Ah, Commander, the other bodies are starting to move."

Jane groans, "This day just keeps getting better and better. Ashley, you're on point, Kaiden, back her up. I've got the six. Weapons free, if it moves kill it, and head for the spaceport."

With the cooling runes on their weapons, Kaiden and Ashley make quick work of the corpses in front of them. At the same time Jane spends most of her time walking backwards while firing controlled bursts from her rifle, and changing the magazine every few seconds rather than wait for them to refill.

Despite this, the corpses soak up enough fire that the occasional one is able to get into close quarters combat [CQC] enough to get a few hits in on all of them.

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After several minutes of slow walking, they finally clear the last of the spikes and gun down the few corpses that try to follow them.

Once they're sure they're not being pursued, Jane calls a halt.

"Sit rep everyone, how are you?"

Ashley looks at a tear in her elbow joint, "A bit roughed up, but otherwise alright."

Kaiden nods, "Nothing life threatening here."

Jane nods, "Kaiden, do you have any of the medigel I was told about?"

Kaiden nods, "I do."

"Both of you use some while I keep watch. I'm a-ok by the way, nothing got through my suit."

While they're applying the medigel, Ashley hesitantly asks, "Um, Jane, why aren't you freaking out?"

"I'm an N7. I know it's not a complete answer, but the only other thing I can say is that I have seen Histories from those who have suffered under the worst humanity has to offer. We have a lot more freedom than other classifications, and the Brass wants to make damned sure we know what we're fighting for."

"I'm sorry I asked."

Jane shakes her head as her eyes rove the horizon, "Don't be. We had to study the events before we were given the histories. I already knew what I was fighting for, and they just cemented my opinions."

Kaiden asks, "So what are you fighting for?"

"A galaxy that is free from bigotry, slavery, and discrimination. I'm fighting to protect, not to avenge. To build, not tear down. I don't want anyone else to go through the things I've been through, so that's why I fight. If you have time to talk, we have time to walk."

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With clear visibility, it only takes the group 20 minutes traverse the 1½km between their rest point and the spaceport. As they climb the small, manmade hill that protects the surrounding farms from the sounds of space craft coming and going. Signals them to crouch.

Crawling their way to the summit, Jane unfolds the sniper rifle and uses the scope to look over the spaceport. When she spots Nihlus creeping past some crates Jane opens a private comm channel to him, "Greetings Lone Hunter, it seems I have the High Ground."

Nihlus laughs softly with his mandibles as he looks around, "It seems you do Young Hunter. You must be very high up, as I can't see your ground."

Jane chuckles back, "Not so high, just better eyes than you."

Nilhus turns back to a loading area and walks up the stairs, out of sight of Jane, "I see, well done on only being slightly behind me… That's odd, what's he doing here?... I'll speak to you later Young Hunter."

Jane's radio then goes dead as he switches channels.

While Jane keeps searching for any sign of Nihlus, she opens comms to the squad again, "Kaiden, find Nihlus, something's going on. Ashley, see if you can plot a fast route to the spaceport if he needs backup."

As they're working, the sound of a single gunshot echoes around the spaceport.

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Without waiting, Jane smoothly stands up and starts walking forward, "We're moving out, double time. There's a man down and we have minutes to reach them and get them under stasis. We're going in fast and hard. Kaiden, keep trying to find the VIP's comm. Ashley, watch out six, don't worry about being heard, if there's trouble I want to know."

Breaking into a fast jog, Jane easily runs down the hill on the other side as she stows the sniper rifle in her pouch. Before she pulls out her normal rifle, she sets the omni-tool to automatically tag spires as enemy targets. As they hit the edge of the spaceport, Jane's rifle starts to unerringly find geth targets as they pass into her field. Behind her, Kaiden, using his side arm, and Ashley both struggle to keep up and fire their weapons with any sort of accuracy. However, it is enough to clear a path to a storage area.

As Jane leads them over to a crate for cover, Kaiden shouts, "I've got it, above us and to the left about 14 degrees."

Jane nods as she is peripherally aware of Ashley wheezing like a pair of old bellow. Spotting a set of stairs, she shouts, "Ashley, take point up the stairs, Kaiden you're next, I've got the rear."

Together, the three of them move from crate to crate to the stairs, and Jane waits as Ashley and Kaiden clear the line of fire. Her own rifle letting out a steady beat as she fires burst after burst at even the smallest targets as magic unconsciously infuses her body in the sidhe way. Once she sees that Kaiden and Ashley are clear, Jane walks backwards up the stairs as none of the incoming fire even touches her.

As Jane clears the top of the stairs she can see Ashley jumping over a waist high crate to get cover. She's not sure if she's seen it with her eyes or her field. Once Ashley's on overwatch, Jane turns and runs to Kaiden's side as he kneels down beside Nihlus' body.

"I'm sorry Commander, he's dead."

As she draws her stylus, Jane notices that the holographic display on Kaiden's omnitool is fuzzing, so she lowers her magic again. "Is the wound through the brain case?" Kaiden shakes his head, so she continues "Then we still have time. Cover me while I scribe a stasis array. And give me your emergency portkey."

Kaiden kneels beside her as she starts scribing, and lets off a constant stream of fire to cover their position, "My what?"

"The insignia I took and gave back to you."

Given how often she's had to scribe this array, Jane finishes carving it into Nihlus' armour in only 30 seconds. Touching the back of the stylus to the charging rune, she activates the array, and pushes enough magic into it to last a week.

As Kaiden hasn't given her his insignia, Jane reaches up and pulls it off his chest before snapping it and dropping it on Nihlus.

Taking a step away from the body, Jane comms the Normandy while she joins in with shooting at the geth hiding on the stairs.

"Normandy, incoming emergency porkey. Nihlus is under stasis, I repeat, Nihlus is under stasis. He requires Warlock or Magi healing. Do not disrobe his armour."

As the body disappears behind her, Ashley calls out, "Jane I have a non-com back here."

"Make sure they stay down, you're on overwatch! Kaiden, we're pulling the plug, head for the container to my left and work your way around. Once you're in place I'll take the stairs. Oh, and if you can throw something down the stairs that would be even better."

With the aid of Kaiden's biotics, the three of them are able to clear the stairs, and then eliminate the 10 or so geth and animated corpses they charged past.

Though the firefight takes long enough for a squid like spacecraft to take off from further in the spaceport. A sight that causes Jane to breathe a sigh of relief, as no Sleeper would ever need to achieve orbit.

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With the area now secure, and an elevated position to watch from, Jane slowly becomes aware of the suit breaches her HUD is screaming about.

"Ok everyone, we're taking 30, 10 minutes on overwatch each. Kaiden, I could use some medigel, check yourself and Ashley too."

As Kaiden and Ashley move to their assigned tasks, the non-com tries to sneak away. As he gets to the stairs, Jane's hand lands on his shoulder, "Where do you think you're going?"

The survivor squeaks, "I was going home."

Jane nods, "And where is home?"

"Eden:3?"

Jane shakes her head, "No you're not, you're under quarantine until you test PS negative in 6 months."

The man tries to escapes Jane's grip, "But my family."

Jane has no pity in her voice as she says, "You should have thought of that before you volunteered to work here without an isolation suit."

The man shakes his head, "I didn't volunteer, I came into work at 5 like normal."

Jane stares at him, "And?"

"I, ah, may have hidden behind those crates to catch 40 winks." As Jane continues to stare, he amends that to, "Ok, maybe I didn't wake up until those things came into the port and killed everyone else. It was horrible."

"Did you see or hear anything before we arrived?"

The man nods, "I did, I don't know what they said though. But the other turian shot the one that was on the floor."

Jane looks at him suspiciously, then turns his head from side to side. Carefully she pulls out an ear bud translator and holds it up, "You don't know what they said?"

The man shakes his head, "I don't have the full language installed. I did hear one of the call the other Saren, while the other was called Nihlus."

"Can you describe Saren?"

The man shrugs, "He's a turian with silvery skin and he had metal bars instead of the plates the other one had over his jaws."

Jane sighs, "Where would they have taken the Prothean Artifact?"

The man shrugs, "Probably Pad 5, as it's the only one that this bay serves. There's a monorail about a quarter of a mile that way."

Jane taps the translator to her omni-tool and reads the ownership information, "Powell, I suggest you make yourself scarce, but do not go to Eden:3. Unless you fancy facing murder charges. I'm sure some Alliance personnel will be along to debrief you properly."

After she hands the translator back, Powell runs off.

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At the end of the half hour, their wounds have been patched up as well as they can be in the field, and Kaiden found a medical supply crate filled with medigel.

Once Kaiden refilled his supply, Jane took some of the cartridges and put them in her pouch.

"Kaiden, Ashley, we're off to the monorail. I know you're both tired, and we've had a hard fight, but you need to stay alert."

Kaiden and Ashley both nod, though Jane can see the fatigue in their motions and alertness.

During the walk to monorail, Ashley almost gets shot by a geth drone, but Jane's able to shove her out of the way as Kaiden belatedly returns fire.

After that, their alertness levels return to what they were before the spaceport. Something that Jane is thankful for, as the monorail is occupied by 10 geth, and they have to go carriage by carriage to clear them out.

Halfway down the train, Kaiden shouts, "Jane, why don't you throw a grenade?"

Jane calls back, "I don't have any, they don't play well around magic. Could you throw one of those gas canisters down the train instead?"

With the aid of a few ad hoc explosives, the trio make it to the front of the train and start it working.

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As the train pulls into pad 5, Jane looks curiously at a tubular device sitting on the platform as a blue light flashes irregularly, "Kaiden, do you have any idea what that is?"

Kaiden's eyes widen, "That's an EZ bomb, and it's big enough to vaporise this platform and the train."

Jane looks around worriedly, "Eezo tech is more your forte than mine, can you disarm it?"

Kaiden nods, "I should be able to. Can I check on the trigger first in case there's more, and they're on a shared trigger?"

Jane nods, "Go ahead."

Almost a minute later Kaiden stands up from the bomb, "It's disarmed. But I'm getting confirmation pulses from for other locations. I don't think the trigger is anywhere near here though, but they have a backup timer that has 26 minutes left."

Jane looks up at the sky and pulls her sword from her bag, "Kaiden, give me your shotgun."

Kaiden eyes the sword incredulously and hands over the shotgun without a word.

Jane looks at the back of the shotgun carefully, "Does this use a heatsink, or does it need to be racked?"

Kaiden swallows hard, "Heatsink sir!"

Jane nods, "Kaiden, I've given you permission to set squad waypoints. Ashley, you're guarding Kaiden, I'm the vanguard, I'm trusting you to cover me while I'm open. Go!"

As the first waypoint comes up on her HUD, Jane ducks beneath the barrier on the stairs and swiftly makes her way to the top of the stairs to the bridge across the tracks, as Kaiden and Ashley try to match her pace.

Feeling something that isn't alive walking around Jane looks around the corner and nods as she spots a signal box on the walkway of the bridge. On the landing that runs along the track on the other side are a number of cargo containers left wherever they were when the spaceport was evacuated.

As the geth moves behind a cargo container on some sort of patrol route, Jane keeps low as she runs along the bridge to stand behind container. At the same time, Kaiden and Ashley reach the top of the stairs.

Using the polished edge of her sword, Jane checks around the corner of the container before signalling the other two to stay low and make their way to her.

As the geth comes back towards her, Jane waits until it's almost at the edge of the container before spinning out to decapitate the geth as the shotgun comes up in case that didn't kill it. As the head starts to leave the body Jane smoothly hooks the arm holding the shotgun underneath it and drags it with her into cover behind a buttress for the wall.

Now in cover, Jane deliberately huffs for breath as Kaiden and Ashley watch open mouthed. Looking back up, she signals to the waypoint, and Kaiden jumps before heading for the bomb.

Using the same tactics, the three of them are able to clear four of the five bombs before Jane is forced to use her shotgun against a geth with blue colouring.

This leads to a frantic firefight as the last few geth move to defend the bomb. Eventually, they are able to win through when Kaiden remembers he can throw stuff, and throws the previous bomb at the Geth.

With over 4 minutes left on the timer, Jane turns to Kaiden and Ashley, "Good job both of you."

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As the three of them enter the launch pad proper, it's clear from the lightly scattered geth, that they have been pulling out, as every single one of them is so spread out, that they are sniper bait.

With a tired smile, Jane opens a comm to the Normandy, "Normandy, we have secured the objective."

 

[Darkphoenixlady]

Chapter 17: Spectre – part 5

Anderson contacts the ground crew, "Commander, the interference has cleared up now. ETA 20 minutes to pick up."

Jane sags with relief as she gets that news and the tacnet updates with red dots moving around back near the dig site. "Kaiden, Ashley, we have full tacnet, and pick up's on the way, ETA 20 minutes. Relax for a bit, you deserve it."

As Kaiden starts to wander around, Ashley stand in the middle of the landing pad looking a little lost, so Jane walks over to talk to her.

"Hey Ashley, you said you followed in your grandfather's footsteps?"

Ashley shakes her head, "Huh? What?... Oh. Yes. He served on Shaanxi during first contact."

Jane nods, "Your last name was Williams, any relation to the General Williams that authorised the snatch and grab?"

Ashley looks down and away, "That was my grandfather."

Jane puts a finger under Ashley's chin and lifts her head up, "Don't be ashamed of your grandfather. I happen to think he made the right call. Both with the initial snatch, and the subsequent quarantine decision."

Ashley shakes her head, "It's kind of you to say so, but he still got two people killed."

"Ashley, I know what the papers and some history books have said over the years. But you need to take those with a large grain of 'fuck nazi's'. I've seen the original reports and Histories, and I don't know of any responsible officer that would make a different call."

Ashley snorts, "'Fuck nazi's'? Really?"

Jane nods seriously, "Really, The Stellar Star and the Galactic Times are both run by people with close ties to Human First. The same organisation that started the rapid colonisation process outside Alliance space."

Out of the corner of her eye, Jane notices Kaiden get closer to the artifact until he crouches down just out of arms reach to look at something. As he leans forward to get a closer look, the device activates and catches him in some sort of force field.

Jane breaks into a run and leaps at him while reaching for her emergency portkey. Just before Jane collides with Kaiden, her hand whips away from the portkey as she remembers the Normandy won't be in that orbit.

The next thing she knows, her arms and legs are being pulled apart, and Kaiden is sprawled on the floor as she's turned to face the device.

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She reaches out to the Pillar of One and puts her hand down to join The One. As she does, she is one with the others, looking up at their worlds as thousands of black ships with tentacles at the rear attack the various worlds. Some, as few as three, others thousands.

Pulling her hand back, she separates from The One the familiar feeling of loss compounded by the news she's just received. Turning to one side she has a brief conversation with another that ends with briefly becoming one with the other.

As she does, she sees everything at once, and then the contact ends. After the contact, she has a long conversation with the other before turning back to the Pillar of One.

Reaching out her hand once more, she touches the Pillar of One, this time it's to add a destination and message of hope to the collective.

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With a groan, Jane reaches up and pushes the heel of her hands into her eyes. Abruptly, she sits up and looks at her hands in a panic, "Where's my suit!?"

From across the room, Dr Chakwas stands up from her chair, "Easy Commander, you're safe on the Normandy." Jane looks around wildly, as she pats her body, "Relax, your pouch is in the cupboard by the bed."

"Why am I here?"

"Kaiden and Ashley dragged you in when we landed. Apparently you saved Kaiden's life, as the beacon exploded. I've been told your omni-tool, armour, and undersuit were all damaged beyond repair. Probably the only reason you're still alive."

Jane shakes her head and clamps down on her occlumency. Like an ice water bucket being poured over her head, it brings Jane to instant alertness and clarity.

Now professional, Jane asks, "How's Lt Alenko?"

Chakwas looks at Jane curiously, "He suffered some burns and contusions, but a little medigel sorted that out."

"And Gunnery Chief Williams?"

"She was outside the initial blast area, and her armour prevented any other injuries."

Jane nods, "You said my omni-tool and undersuit were damaged beyond repair. Who made that call?"

"Commander, what's got into you?"

"An Alliance technique to suppress your emotions and allow you to think clearly when under stress. I asked you a question Doctor."

"The quartermaster, I sent them down for maintenance when they didn't respond."

Jane nods, "I saw him earlier, is he Alliance trained?"

Chakwas shakes her head, "No, he's part of the IHA complement."

Jane nods and takes her bag from the cupboard, "I see. In future Doctor, Systems Alliance equipment is blood bound to the owner, and will not work for anyone else. I will show you what to look for later. Right now I need to retrieve my equipment."

Chakwas steps in front of the door, "Now see here Commander, I have not yet done my final exams."

Jane looks at the Chakwas icily, "This is more important. You can accompany me, and ensure that I return to the sickbay for your final evaluations. However, my omni-tool is classified Systems Alliance equipment. It must be retrieved."

Chakwas doesn't resist as Jane pushes her out of the way of the door and marches through towards the lift.

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Jane walks out of the lift still wearing her sickbay issue clothes. Looking to the right, she puts on her best, 'The shit's rolling down hill fast, are you at the bottom' smile as she stalks over to the desk that the quartermaster is standing behind.

"Quartermaster?"

The quartermaster looks up with a bored expression, "Yes Commander?"

"I want my personal blood bound I5 suit and faceplate returned to me. I also require that you hand over the Systems Alliance Issue omni-tool that is also blood bound to me."

The quartermaster shakes his head, "I'm afraid I can't do that commander."

Jane arches an eyebrow, "Oh, and why not?"

"As they were irreparable, they have been disposed of."

"Then you will get me the records of the people who authorised that disposal, as well as the details of the person who disposed of them. Additionally, I require the Systems Alliance certificate from the evaluator, showing that they are qualified to work on Systems Alliance magitech. I will then be arresting all of those people for improper destruction and disposal of classified military equipment, and sue them for the cost of replacing my personal I5 suit. Which would cost them 300k Citadel credits to replace, plus any additional damages the court awards."

Very confidently, the quartermaster shakes his head, "You can't do that, you don't have the authority."

Jane cocks her head to one side, "Don't I? I am N7 Commander Jane Shepherd, N8 candidate. Where does it say I don't have the authority?"

The quartermaster smirks, "I'm not a Systems Alliance citizen."

Jane's smile widens noticeably as she draws her sword from her bag, "I wanted you to say that. You are under arrest for international espionage and alleged destruction of Systems Alliance military property. You may comply and retrieve the equipment, or I will subdue you and search the stores myself."

As the man steps backwards, Jane adds, "Before you wonder if I can use this sword, I am an N8 candidate, and I have been trained by the N8 team. While I don't have the thousands of years experience they do, I have been deemed competent for a human."

From behind her, the sound of the shutters of the lift door opening is loud in the silence as everyone else in the Hanger has crowded around to see what's going on.

From the middle of the rush of crew pouring out of the lift, Captain Anderson sounds amused as he calls out, "Commander, I hope you have a good reason for threatening my crew member."

Jane nods, "I have arrested this man for international espionage after he admitted to authorising and destroying or disposing of classified Systems Alliance property, namely my N7 omni-tool that was blood bound to me. I will also be suing him for the destruction of my personal blood bound I5 isolation suit, that was a gift from my mother. This was after he claimed I didn't have the authority to arrest him, due to not being a Systems Alliance citizen."

Anderson sighs, "I see, Marines take the quartermaster into custody, Lt Alenko, take an inventory I want to know if anything is missing."

Anderson then pulls out his ID and swipes it over a spot on the table, before overriding the storage locks.

Jane puts her sword back in her bag and draws her stylus, "Captain, permission to use magic on ship."

Anderson frowns as he looks at her, "I thought you were PS positive."

Jane holds up the stylus, "I am sir. One of the benefits of being trained by the N8 team was playing guinea pig for their new ideas. This is a rune scribe specifically designed for non-magical use, the flake of magicite in the end is used to activate the array. Last I heard, they were going to train other N7's in its use, before creating a new N3 specialisation for it."

Curious, Anderson walks next to her, "What do you need commander?"

"A piece of metal, ceramic, or something equally hard about the size of a note."

Anderson turns around and shouts at a Marine, "Find something in the armoury."

While the marine was away, Jane lowers her occlumency until the effects of the beacon can just be felt.

Less than a minute later, the marine returns with a spare covering for the inner forearm of their armour, "Here sir!"

As she has an audience, Jane pulls out a book of runic arrays and pages through it, "Sorry about this sir, while they drilled me on runes, they only made sure I memorised a few of them, like the stasis rune I used on Nihlus. On the plus side, I've also been trained in portkey programming, and I have a programmer in my bag too."

Once she finds the summoning array, Jane reads the text at the bottom of the page, before putting the piece of armour on the book, just below the runes.

As she carefully copies them out, deliberately making a mistake on the rune that governs how much force the item will be summoned with, Jane says, "Because we don't have magic, this stylus is enchanted to carve 1mm deep grooves into whatever you're using it on. That's why we can't use parchment."

As she finishes the array, Jane curses, "Damn it, now I remember why we didn't memorise this array. It needs a description, one moment."

Flicking to the back of the book, Jane looks up the runes for 'My suit' and adds them to the array.

Behind her, in the crowd, one of the engineers says, "That would reduce the utility of it. But I can think of a few places it would still be useful."

One of the other Engineers laughs, "You just hate crawling down the ship to check the radiation stickers."

The chatter dies off when Jane turns the stylus over, and touches the flake of magicite to the array. Immediately, a bang sounds from one of the lockers on the wall, followed by a louder bang.

Following the sound, Kaiden walks over and touches the opening switch. As he does, the panel flies up as Jane's suit flies out and bowls her over, to the laughter of the crowd.

Groaning, Jane pushes herself up, "I guess I need to practice that more."

As the laughter intensifies, Kaiden looks into the locker, and pulls open a concealed compartment in the back of the locker.

"Captain, you need to see this."

Anderson walks over and the laughter dies down as everyone watches the locker intently.

Stoney faced, Anderson reaches in and pulls out a portkey programmer as well as a box of ceramic N1 insignia's. As he puts them on the table, he says, "I may not be SA anymore, but even I know this is a restricted product that should have been given to me as soon as it arrived." He puts his hand on the box of insignia's "The lack of these could have cost lives."

Over the next 10 minutes Kaiden finds three more concealed compartments at the back of different storage lockers. They all look like they were added after the quartermaster was assigned, as there are a few tap welds concealed by the standard equipment in those lockers. Jane's omni-tool is at the front of the last locker, that also contains six suits of Alliance armour, I5 suits, and the omni-tools to go with them.

As the first one is pulled out, Jane looks at Anderson, "Captain, may I take one of the suits while I find out if my suit can be repaired?"

Anderson nods, "Go ahead."

"Corporal Williams and Lt Alenko should both be given a suit each. The rest should be spread out amongst the other soldiers."

Anderson looks at Jane questioningly, "Why?"

"When they're blooded, these suits save lives. Jenkins may still be alive to be put in review today if he'd been wearing one, as the faceplate will protect your head and brain from incoming fire."

Anderson nods, "Well, you heard the Commander."

Chakwas steps in, "If the excitement is all over, I need to take my patient back to the sickbay."

Anderson chuckles, "Go on. She's not as bad as the Healers, but she's getting there."

Jane nods, "Before I go, we need to deliver the quartermaster to Shaanxi on the way to the citadel."

Anderson shakes his head, "No can do Commander, we don't have time to dock."

Jane hangs her head before picking up the portkey programmer, "We don't need to. We can send both of them to the surface from orbit."

Anderson frowns, "Both?"

Chakwas replies, "I have Nihlus' body in the research room. The Commander claimed he needed Magi or Warlock healing. My professional opinion is that he's beyond saving, as the shot tore through his spinal column at the base of his skull. If it wasn't for his own armour, the shot would have penetrated the skull."

Jane turns around, her eyes wide, "You didn't remove his armour did you?"

Chakwas shakes her head, "I didn't, after reading up on the stasis charm, I decided it would make transporting the corpse easier than needing to take up a bed to preserve it."

"Thank the goddesses."

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A couple of hours later, Jane has been released from the sick bay after a full IHA standard physical. Privately, she thinks that Chakwas was just punishing her for leaving AMA.

As she's fishing around in her bag for her ID card, Anderson walks up and taps his card on the scanner, overriding the lock. "After you, I need a private chat."

Jane nods and walks to the back of the cramped cabin as Anderson walks in after her.

"Commander, I'd rather you had reported your concerns to me before you confronted the quartermaster. But I can't fault you for your actions, as I almost certainly don't have clearance to know what's on that omni-tool, let alone why it's special."

Jane nods, "Thank you sir, and under other circumstances I would have informed you on my way. But I didn't have my omni-tool to communicate with you."

Anderson snorts, "I can see that. The other reason I needed to talk to you, is that we're not just going to the Citadel to drop off what's left of the beacon. You're going to need to give evidence to the Citadel Council."

Jane nods, "I see. What's our ETA?"

"11 hours, as we had to turn around to return to Shaanxi. We should be sending the two of them planet side in 50 minutes. You were right about how quick it would be, as they have already given us portkey coordinates. Why don't the Alliance use them more often?"

Jane shrugs, "Because they're dangerous. A portkey will take you precisely where you tell it to. If that place is currently occupied by something, you'll appear in and around that something. Even magicals need special training before they are allowed to make them, as they need to have a clear picture of the destination in mind, or use coordinates."

Anderson nods, "I can't say I've ever been trained in their use."

Jane shrugs, "If you use the computer, or provided coordinates, the reader will give you a checksum that you can compare with the source. Part of my training was how to calculate the coordinates myself."

Anderson raises his eyebrows, "Sounds like you had a packed visit to Sandhurst."

Jane nods, "All I'm allowed to say is that the N8 team sacrificed my R & R for more training sir."

"I will leave you to it then."

Jane nods and salutes as the captain leaves. Then she sits down at her desk to write a report to Shaanxi command on her old datapad.

With her official duties out the way, Jane walks into her cabinet, where her lace making jumps up from the table and the soothing sounds of the clacking bobbins fills the air while she repairs her I5 suit and manually sterilises it with a scourgify before she puts it back on.

Now re-suited, Jane puts the face plate on, and uses her spare omni-tool to monitor her viral load.

When it comes up zero, she throws her hands in the air, "Oh, come on! It was only a couple of minutes, if that. Fine!"

Fishing around in her pouch, Jane pulls out a syringe of virus and injects it through her intake port. A quick check of the other omni-tool reveals it's dead. Which necessitates another report, this time to Central Command, where she summarises the mission, and recommends that all garrisons have at least I4 suits on hand. And that future joint operations have the blood bound equipment blooded in front of a ground-based quartermaster, rather than just being assigned on ship.

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Finally, after 2 hours, Jane brings up all the information the ship has available on the IHA, and retreats into her cabinet. Walking through the library and kitchen, she makes her way into the small garden.

Finding a sunny spot, she sits down cross-legged and starts to go through her occlumency exercises. Once she finds her magic, she calls out, "Hela Goddess of Death and Darkness."

While she's waiting, she begins to look around an icy tundra that wouldn't look out of place on the surface of Europa, where she was born. Dotted around are the asari influences from her repeated exposure during her time living with the family. Showing her that their joining is far more than they think it is. If only she had more to show from her turian upbringing, but that's not how the magic works.

Suddenly, a strange bird with four wings flies out from a patch of tundra grass, and Jane reaches out to catch it.

From the inky black tree near the centre of her magic, Petunia's presence steps out and looks around. "I thought you swore off inviting me in here after the first visit?"

Jane shudders as Petunia's sheer presence begins to energise her magic, and the tundra starts to melt away into a summer meadow, more suitable to Mindoir than any of the sol system planets.

"I did, but this is more important. What do you make of this?"

Petunia takes the bird and looks at it, "What is it?"

"I think it's prothean. Look." Jane pulls a silver strand from a nearby plant and holds it out to Petunia.

Petunia takes the strand and stretches it between her fingers as she considers it. Finally she reaches up to her head and holds it against her forehead, where it jumps off the finger and burrows into her head.

Grabbing the end of the memory, she pulls it back out, "My, isn't that interesting. I take it you want help getting rid of this infestation?"

Jane nods, "I will do, but first we need to understand what I saw, and what they were saying."

Petunia nods, "I will approach the courts and see if there are any apprentice Lore Keepers that are willing to move to Shaanxi."

Jane nods, "Thank you. I'm going to try and keep pruning my magic whenever I can."

Petunia nods, "That's a good idea, especially if we need to do magical healing afterwards. What about these bits, they're not native to sol."

Jane smiles, "I think they're from the asari I was rooming with. At least the resemble some of the plants native to asari space."

"So what's the difference?"

Jane looks fondly at a bush, "I consented to these, while that is an invader."

Petunia nods, "Well said, I'll return this to you. Try to compile the vision into a History and put it into a crystal."

Jane nods, "I will. I'm due to meet the Citadel Council to give evidence, do you have any suggestions?"

Petunia smiles, "They have a memory viewer."

Jane smiles, "Thank you, that will help a lot."

After Petunia leaves, Jane spends a bit of time looking for anything that doesn't match her magic, and trying to eliminate it.

Once she's done as much as she can inside her mind, she returns to the waking world to put her memory of the mission into a crystal before starting to read up on the IHA, starting with the manifesto of the leaders and the rights their citizens have.

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As the alarm on her omni-tool goes off, Jane jerks awake in her garden, the artificial moon high in the sky above her. Glancing at her omni-tool she groans as she fell asleep halfway through some of the reading the IHA site recommends.

Shaking her head, she pushes herself to her feet and staggers into the kitchen to make a mug of coffee. While that's brewing, she puts her faceplate on and frowns when her viral load shows zero again.

"Gee, thanks Petunia. I really wanted to infect myself twice in one day."

Grumbling, Jane checks her bag, and then groans when she finds no more vials. Grabbing her mug of coffee, she climbs the spiral staircase, and goes through the 'hidden' door into the main part of the cabinet.

As she's trying to ignore the subtle luxury of the place, her heels click on the marble floor, making it difficult. Eventually, she makes her way to the small hospital and takes a couple of vials out of the medical stasis cabinet. Swigging one down, she places the other one in her bag as she makes the walk back to her part of the cabinet.

As she passes one of the bedrooms, she spots a black cloak lying over a bed. With a smirk, Jane duplicates the cloak twice, and turns one red, and the other purple, before adding a sizing charm so that they'll remain floor length.

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Whistling a jaunty tune inside her face plate, Jane walks into the hanger 10 minutes before they're due to arrive at the Citadel.

Making her way over to Kaiden and Ashley, who are armouring up. She throws each of them a cloak before putting the spare I5 suit on the armoury table.

"Put those on, and make sure your faceplates are slightly tinted. Ashley, do you have an expanded pouch?"

Ashley nods and looks down, "I do, it's at home though. I can't go home again, can I?"

Jane lets her shoulders sag as she puts her hand on Ashley's shoulder, "I don't know what they're going to do with Eden:2. For all I know, they could be planning on turning Eden into another Shaanxi. Also remember, I lived with my mum for six years before I had to go off planet for training. It's certainly possible to see your family again, but get used to living in that suit. Read the manual and buy yourself an omni-tool. For today, grab one of the Systems Alliance tools, and link it to your suit. Kaiden, you should link yours to your suit too. Once you get used to it, you can do a lot using just the sensors in your hands, and eye movements."

While they're arming up, Jane slips into a new suit of Alliance Armour and shrugs her own cloak back into place.

20 minutes later, the three of them are waiting by the airlock for space traffic control to direct Joker to a landing berth.

 

[Darkphoenixlady]

Chapter 18: Spectre – part 6

As Jane, Kaiden, and Ashley, trail behind Captain Anderson through the IHA docking area to the elevator. Jane holds her omni-tool out and sets her comms to a suit to suit network as she instructs Kaiden and Ashley on some of the useful things she's discovered she can do with the suits.

"Kaiden, ignore them. Quarians have to deal with worse all the time, and they can't take their suits off."

Kaiden growls as he clenches his fist under his blue cloak, "But Commander, he called us suit-rats."

Jane smiles grimly in her suit, "Good, that means they're making assumptions. Assumptions that could save your life one day, like it did mine."

Ashley looks up from where she's trying to do some of the things Jane said, "What? When did that happen?"

"While I was on sick leave. I might talk about it later, but you'll probably need to wait until we're on Shaanxi before I relive that particular story."

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Eventually, Anderson leads the three of them to a small office in what seems to be a landscaped park.

As they enter, a dark skinned human is pacing in front of three yellow holograms having some sort of row. Rather than get involved in politics, Jane leads Kaiden and Ashley over to an out of the way wall.

It doesn't take long for the man to finish. Once he does, he walks over to Anderson, "Captain Anderson, I see you bought bodyguards with you."

Anderson shakes his head and points back with his thumb, "Not at all, they're the ground crew from Eden Prime. Just in case you had any questions."

Jane turns around at the sound of conversation, and stands behind Anderson.

The man raises his hand, "I have the mission reports. I assume they're accurate?"

Anderson nods, "They are. Sounds like you convinced the Council to give us an audience."

The man crosses his arm, "They were not happy about it. Saren's their top agent. They don't like him being accused of treason."

Jane shakes her head and butts in, "Excuse me, but who is this Saren that you're accusing of treason? As the only thing I know is that it's a name."

Anderson turns to face her, "He's a council Spectre, and widely considered one of the best. As long as you don't care about his methods."

Jane nods, "And you are accusing him of treason based on his name coming up once?"

Anderson shakes his head, "No, there was also the description. It matches Saren."

Jane nods, "Well I hope you have more evidence than just that. As I don't know of any Alliance court that would open an investigation, let alone convict, if that's all the evidence you had."

The man stares at Jane poisonously, "Anderson, who is this?"

Anderson gives a half smile, "N7 Commander Jane Shepherd, N8 candidate, meet Ambassador Udina."

Udina shakes his head, "You've already done more than enough to jeopardize your candidacy for the Spectres. The mission on Eden Prime was a chance to prove you could get the job done. Instead, Nihlus ended up dead, and the beacon was destroyed!"

Jane pulls out her datapad to check her messages, as Anderson shouts, "That's Saren's fault, not hers!"

Udina shouts back, "Then we better hope the C-sec investigation turns up evidence to support our accusations." Jane looks up and tries to say something, but Udina carries on, "Otherwise the Council might use this as an excuse to keep her out of the Spectres. Come with me Captain. I want to go over a few things before the hearing. Shepherd – you and the others can meet us at the Citadel Tower. Top level. I'll make sure you have clearance to get in."

With that, Udina stalks away with Anderson as Jane says, "There's some good news, Nihlus is going to live."

Ashley and Kaiden snicker behind her, and Ashley says, "And that's why I hate politicians."

Jane shakes her head, "What gets me is the way Udina is treating me like an IHA citizen. Come on, we might as well take the scenic route to the tower. Keep your hoods up, as I'm rather famous and I don't want to be accosted. I also need to find the Systems Alliance Embassy."

Ashley shrugs, "There's another Embassy next door, maybe they're in there."

Jane shrugs, "Worth a shot. But I don't think it will be."

Walking out of the office, the three of them turn left, and use the door open button to ring for attention. To Jane's surprise, the door just slides open to reveal what she assumes are a volus and elcor based on her turian schooling. As they seem to be in a private conversation, Jane closes the door again.

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Making their way down the stairs, Jane pauses as she sees a lone asari working at a desk.

Walking over, she waits politely, as though she has all the time in the world. Eventually, the asari looks up from her console.

The asari asks in a quarian dialect, "Can I help you?"

Jane replies in asari, "I was hoping you could direct me to the Systems Alliance Embassy."

Jane spots the slight tightening of the asari's head crests showing her surprise, "Give me a moment, as I don't think they're in the Presidium. Forgive me for asking, but when did you learn our language?"

Jane sighs, "It was in the Shadow Sea about a standard Systems Alliance year ago."

"Commander Shepherd! It's such a pleasure to meet you. I'm Nyaraphria, though you should call any of us at this desk Saphyria if you're human. Is it true that you have turian markings?"

Jane nods, "I do."

"That is so wild, I've met some Matron's who served in the Turian military to earn their markings. I can't wait to tell the others I met you."

Jane asks in a low tone, "What does your official name mean?"

"It's Arabic for female ambassador."

Jane chuckles, "And humans fall for that?"

Nyaraphria nods, "It's the only way we've found to stop unwanted advances."

Jane nods as the console pings, "I've broken a few noses because of those in the past."

Nyaraphria looks down at her console, "The Systems Alliance embassy is on petal four in the wards, I can send the address to your omni-tool."

Jane nods and smiles, "Your service has been appreciated. May your journey bring you peace and happiness."

Nyaraphria claps her hands together in joy, "You even learnt some of our customs. May you gain wisdom before you gain experience."

As Jane turns back to Kaiden and Ashley, Kaiden rather rudely asks, "What was that Commander? I could only understand half that conversation."

Jane laughs gaily as she walks towards the bridge, "That, Kaiden, was my fame racing ahead of me. I also got the directions to the SA embassy."

Ashley asks, "Jane, what was that about experience and wisdom?"

Jane turns around, "Is that how it translated? The phrase basically means, I hope your lessons in life come before you need them."

While Ashley's mulling that over, Kaiden steps into Jane's space, "No, I meant, why couldn't I understand you?"

Jane looks up at Kaiden, "Kaiden, I'm only going to say this once, if you don't step back and calm down, you're going swimming."

Kaiden carefully steps backwards, and visibly tries to calm himself down.

Once he's got himself back under control, Jane asks, "Kaiden, what was that about?"

Kaiden shakes his head, "I just don't like it when I can't understand people, that's all."

Jane shakes her head, "I can see there's more to it than that, as you don't get that angry just because you don't like something." She raises her hand, "But now's not the time to get into it. If you don't want to talk to anyone on the ship, see if you can find a mind healer. They can help you deal with it, and give you exercises to help you cope."

Kaiden shakes his head, "No, no mind stuff."

Jane shakes her head, "Ok, we'll move on. I have my omni-tool set to English and auto-detect for incoming languages. As I speak them, I've excluded English, Thessian, and Hierarchy turian. You could do the same."

Kaiden nods curtly, "Thank you."



Jane just turns around and crosses over the bridge to look down an unassuming tunnel. At the end of a short crooked slope, Jane can see an asari wearing a purple robe standing at a console. Before she can backpedal, the asari looks at her, "Ah, Commander Shepherd, I wasn't expecting to see you here."

Jane turns to Kaiden and gestures with both hands in an old, 'See, look, what did I say?' gesture. Then she turns back and walks over to the asari.

"News travels fast I see." Behind her, Kaiden starts frantically looking through the options on his omnitool.

The asari nods, and replies in English, "It does, though I feel we should converse in your native tongue, as it is rude when your companions cannot understand you."

Jane smiles, "It can be seen that way, but it is also rude to assume a stranger not only can, but is willing to talk in your own language."

The asari counters with, "That may be true, however translators exist."

Jane smiles broadly, "Then why are you speaking English? Translators are only so reliable, as they cannot convey cultural contexts well. Especially for a mono-gendered species like yours."

The asari shakes her head, "If only I had the gift of words at this moment. Alas I have the gift of touch."

Jane reaches out and touches her gently on the hand while speaking asari, "What one may be gifted at, another has to learn. Don't decry your lack of gifts, instead see them as an opportunity to grow, both in understanding and as a person."

The asari looks down and nods, "You're right." Shuddering, she pulls herself together, "Where are my manners, my name is Nelyna, do any of you have an appointment?"

Jane looks back at Ashley and Kaiden, who both shake their heads. Kaiden adds, "Not me, Fredricks might though."

Jane looks back, "I don't either. Where is here by the way?"

Neylna smiles, "This is the Consorts Chambers, where the consort will provide whatever you need, even if you do not know what that is when you see her. If she is unavailable, her acolytes are here to see to our customers needs."

Jane frowns, "Could you explain that again in Thessian please, as the implication is… Being a consort has other connotations in English that may not be true here."

Neylna repeats herself, and Jane nods, "Ah, you provide companionship in a friendship and confidante sense, rather than a marriage sense."

Kaiden can't help himself, "Wait, you got that from listening to her native language?"

"Kaiden, free piece of advice when talking to asari. Don't assume they're female. They're not, their species doesn't have male or female. I was told that many of them do pick bi-gendered pronouns, so it's always polite to ask."

Neylna smiles, "It is kind of you to say that Shepherd, but I do use she and her, or the equivalent, in other languages."

Jane nods, "It was no problem. We should go, as we do have an appointment at the Citadel Tower."

As Jane turns around, Neylna calls after her, "Commander Shepherd, Sha'ira, the consort, would like to see you."

Jane looks at the ceiling, before turning around, "Sure, where can I find her?"

Neylna points behind her, "Follow the room to the stairs, then turn right at the top."

Jane turns around to Kaiden and Ashley, "I think this is going to be a business over pleasure visit, so will you be ok here?"

Kaiden nods, "I was thinking about talking to Neylna here."

Jane squeezes her eyes shut, "No chatting her up. You're on duty. Ashley, keep an eye on him."

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════​

Once she reaches the door to the consorts chamber, Jane presses the door charm, only for it to swish open.

On the far side of the room is the consort looking at light screen. On the left of the room is a purple pod, while on the right is a chair and table.

When the consort doesn't turn around, Jane steps in through the door and stands there with a casual posture, as though worlds could end and it would be an eye blink.

After several minutes, Jane's omni-tool chimes and her HUD has a message from Anderson saying that the trial will be starting in five minutes.

Jane says, "Well, looks like I'm out of time. I'll come back later if you actually want to talk to me."

Behind her Sha'ira turns round and calls, "Commander."

When Jane gets back to the entrance, she can see that Kaiden and Ashley are talking casually to Neylna.

"Sorry to cut in and run, but I just got a notice that the trial starts in five minutes. Neylna, would you know of a quick way to get to the tower from here?"

Neylna nods, "There is a mass transit terminal that will take you to the top or base of the tower depending on if you have authorisation to be there or not."

Jane nods, "Thank you. Could you tell the consort that I have some tea we can share while she works out how to say what she wants to say. It will be far more entertaining than staring at her back next time."

As they leave, Jane barely catches Neylna's expression of surprise.

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The transit car does indeed get them to the top of the Citadel Tower in less time than it would have taken to walk. But that still leaves them with around a minute to reach the council chambers.

After glancing at the notice, Jane breaks into a jog, only to stop as two turians have decided that the top of the stairs is the right place to have an argument.

The one on the left raises his hand, "Saren's hiding something! Give me more time. Stall them."

The other turian gives a show of disapproval, "Stall the Council? You're climbing for clouds. Your investigation is over Garrus."

As the other turian turns to leave, Garrus turns to walk down the stairs and pauses, before speaking in English "Commander Shepherd?"

Jane sighs, "Does everyone recognise me?"

Garrus gives a human nod, "Garrus Vakarian. I was the officer in charge of the C-Sec investigation into Saren."

Jane shakes her head, "How does that explain anything?" Switching to Hierarchy she asks, "Where there any good vantage points on your climb?"

Garrus shakes his head, "Saren's a Spectre. I do not have the vantage point to see most of what he's done, so it was like catching mist. But I know there's something there. Like humans say, I feel it in my gut."

Jane shakes her head, "I'm afraid we need to get to the council already, I may try to find you later."

As she starts to job past him, Garrus says, "Good luck Shepherd. Maybe they'll listen to you."

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════​

As they jog up the stairs to the council chamber, Anderson is waiting for them "The hearing's already started. Come on."

As they walk onto the petitioners platform, the asari councillor is speaking, and her translated voice is being projected to the platform, "The geth attack is a matter of some concern. But there is nothing to indicate Saren was involved in any way."

The turian councillor takes over, "The investigation by Citadel Security turned up no evidence to support your charge of treason."

Jane winces as Udina says, "An eyewitness saw him kill Nihlus in cold blood!"

The Salarian councillor says, "We've read the Eden Prime reports Ambassador. The testimony of one traumatized dockworker is hardly compelling proof."

Jane frowns as a hologram of a turian standing above the council starts to talk, "I resent these accusations. Nihlus was a fellow Spectre. And a friend."

Anderson explodes angrily, "That just let you catch him off guard!"

Saren looks down at the platform, "Captain Anderson. You always seem to be involved when humanity makes false charges against me. And this must be your protégé, Commander Shepherd. The one who let the beacon get destroyed."

Jane looks up and waves her hand, "No, no. I'm not with the IHA, I'm an independent Council Citizen, and I was born with Systems Alliance citizenship. I'm just here to present evidence, and answer any questions the Council may have."

Saren's crest rises slightly, "See, even your protégé doesn't want to be involved."

Anderson explodes again, "Saren you're the one that destroyed the beacon. Then you tried to cover it up."

Jane resists the urge to put her head in her hands as Saren predictably responds, "Shift the blame to cover humanities failures. How typical. But what can you expect from a human?"

"See he hates us. Saren despises humanity. That's why he attacked Eden Prime!"

"Your species needs to learn its place Anderson. You're not ready to join the Council. You're not even ready to have a Spectre."

Udina looks miffed as he says, "He has no right to say that! That's not his decision!"

The asari councillor looks up at the hologram, "Shepherd's admission into the Spectres is not the purpose of this meeting."

Saren looks down, "This meeting has no purpose. The humans are wasting your time Councillor. And mine."

The asari councillor says, "That, is also not your decision."

When Anderson and Udina say nothing else, the Salarian Councillor asks, "Commander Shepherd, do you have anything to add?"

Jane nods and holds up a crystal, "Saren, I do have one question. How did you get access to the Eden Prime report?"

Saren sneers, "Nihlus is dead, all of his files came to me."

Jane nods sagely, "How do you know that, I did after all put him under stasis, and emergency portkey him to the Normandy sickbay." Jane shakes her head, "I fear you may have climbed so high, your head is in the clouds." Looking back at the council, Jane adds "I also have some updates on the Eden Prime event on my datapad, however I am not at liberty to allow it to leave my custody, as it is my only link with my home government at the moment."

Saren sneers down, "Am I going to have to defend myself against dreams and visions now?"

Jane shrugs, "I believe that's up to the council to decide once they've reviewed the evidence."

Udina fumes, "Commander Shepherd, why was I not aware of this so called evidence?"

Jane takes off her facemask so that she can 'see' Udina more clearly, revealing her turian clan markings. As she turns her head, the turian councillor takes a half step back in surprise.

"I'm sorry ambassador, what makes you think I'm obliged to give you my evidence?"

"I am the human ambassador, and the person presenting this case. All evidence should come through me. On top of that, we are the once sponsoring you to be a spectre."

Jane draws herself up, "Ambassador Udina, I am not, I never have been, and I never will be a citizen of the Independent Human Alliance. If I must claim a nation in Council space, then I would rather claim the nation of my nest mother than yours."

The asari Councillor calls out, "This meeting is now adjourned. Commander Shepherd please remain to answer some questions, and submit your evidence."

When Anderson doesn't move, the councillor adds, "Captain Anderson, that means you too."

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════​

Once she's alone on the platform Jane gives a turian bow to the councillors, and switches the platform to Hierarchy Turian.

The asari Councillor turns to the turian Councillor, "Sparatus, would you retrieve the evidence?"

Sparatus gives a turian smile before he walks out of a side door. While they're waiting, the asari Councillor asks, "Commander Shepherd, would you have been aboard an asari ship in the shadow sea when it was attacked by pirates?"

Jane sighs, "I was, though I almost lost the high ground afterwards. Though I fear you have a vantage over me, as I am not familiar with the current council members."

"I am Tevos, to my left is Valern, the Salarian Councillor. The turian is Sparatus. Your admission also explains the message I received from the asari ambassador earlier. The asari nation sends its thanks for saving the lives of six asari."

Jane tries to mimic a turian negation, "It was my duty as a Hunter. I also received my reward when they formed a nest with me, and became my egg siblings after the great spirit Hela saved us."

Sparatus comes out of a hidden door to one side of the chamber, and makes his way to the petitioners platform, "Young Hunter, I would know how you got those markings?"

Jane inclines her upper body, "Nest Mother Juvetana granted them to me after we provided her partner with eternal water and shade. He is the first to guard Mindoir."

Before she hands over the crystal, Jane shows Sparatus her datapad, "Honoured Speaker, this Hunter would have sent this on, however an IHA spy broke my primary omni-tool forcing me to rely on my backup."

Sparatus nods, "You have brought welcome shade, though it comes with its own difficulties. How much of this can we view?"

"As much as you need."

"Place it on the pedestal here, and set it to scroll through the reports you wish to submit. They will be recorded. When did you first meet your nest mother?"

Jane smiles wistfully, "I was 12, and it was the third time I went to their shop instead of school. Her partner had signed me up for a turian education, and I was struggling with the lessons even using a translator. Juvetana sat next to me while she tended the store, and began to teach me Hierarchy Turian."

"You have a turian education?"

Jane nods, and pulls up her results on her omni tool, "I do."

Sparatus just clicks his mandibles in approval.

"If I may Honoured Speaker. My bearer is Captain Hannah Shephard of the Systems Alliance Navy. She is also, I don't have the Hierarchy words for this, Becoming a sidhe. Her new Nest Mother and Nest Lord are a bonded pair, Hunter Adrian and Hunter Siúsan."

Tevos is scrolling through the first of the information as she says, "That would allow us to more easily ensure that Nihlus remains a Council Citizen."

When her datapad stops moving, Jane picks it up, "Honoured Speakers, I shall leave you to your deliberations."

As she turns to leave, she hands Sparatus the crystal.

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Jane has put her faceplate back on, and has just taken the last step down from the council chambers, when Udina grabs her arm and drags her to one side.

Growling, with his face inches from Jane's face plate, Udina says, "What was that about at the end? Are you trying to make me look like a fool?"

Jane gives the ambassador a bored look, "You were doing that on your own."

"Do you like being obtuse?"

Jane shrugs with one arm, "Do you like looking like an idiot?"

"I am your ambassador, you will treat me with respect."

Jane laughs, "No you're not. I'm not a citizen of the IHA, I told you that already."

"Oh, no, that doesn't fly. You were a human citizen of Mindoir; therefore, you are a citizen of the IHA."


"Did you check Citadel laws before deciding that, or even give the Systems Alliance the courtesy of asking after my emigration status? After all, the IHA didn't exist at any point while I was living on Mindoir. Also, I've read the manifesto of the founding leaders, and I could never be a citizen of any government that has cribbed so much from the National Socialist German Workers Party. Now unhand me before I call C-sec."

 

[TheWhiteRose]

I'm really interested in seeing a perspective of the aliens on the humans split groups the multi race magic one and the new human first nazi one and I'm interested why there wasn't a representative for the other group at the hearing if shepherds a n8 'candidate'

 

[Darkphoenixlady]

I'm interested why there wasn't a representative for the other group at the hearing if shepherds a n8 'candidate'

Click to shrink...

See Jane's last comment about her citizenship. The IHA have just assumed that because she has Council Citizenship through Mindoir, that means that she is an IHA citizen, and marked it in their own records accordingly.
Consider this, do you think Nazi Germany would have considered someone's Nigerian citizenship if they were white, blond haired, and blue eyed, and had gained German Citizenship as a child. Even if they moved back to Nigeria? Especially if they then did something heroic like save one of their border towns from whatever.

 

[TheWhiteRose]

See Jane's last comment about her citizenship. The IHA have just assumed that because she has Council Citizenship through Mindoir, that means that she is an IHA citizen, and marked it in their own records accordingly.
Consider this, do you think Nazi Germany would have considered someone's Nigerian citizenship if they were white, blond haired, and blue eyed, and had gained German Citizenship as a child. Even if they moved back to Nigeria? Especially if they then did something heroic like save one of their border towns from whatever.

Click to shrink...

I get you.
I'm just very confused with the human layout space/planet wise, Eden prime is SA, same with earth and shanxi, mindior is iha (could of guessed that if I thought of the history washing) I'm curious on the colony ratio between the groups and what amounts of that are in council space. I would guess most iha wouldn't be due to racism.

 

[Darkphoenixlady]

I get you.
I'm just very confused with the human layout space/planet wise, Eden prime is SA, same with earth and shanxi, mindior is iha (could of guessed that if I thought of the history washing) I'm curious on the colony ratio between the groups and what amounts of that are in council space. I would guess most iha wouldn't be due to racism.

Click to shrink...

Anything sol side of the Shanxi Relay is Systems Alliance, as well as the 314 system. Additionally, the neighbouring systems to 314 are part of SA Space (and any spurs that can only be reached through those three systems). In addition to those relays, the SA claimed all the space within a 200ly radius of those relays to avoid people using FTL to plant a colony less than a days travel from their borders.

200ly/day being the maximum safe distance for a dive ship travelling in realm 21 at 1,197,810km/h. For reference light would take around 4 seconds to travel the same distance as the dive ships travel in an hour. There is an in-story explaination coming up in a few chapters, but there are 25 stable layers to the Dream, or aether sea. Realms 1 and 25 are inaccessable, and realm:1 would be our world.
Realm:2 is the HP verse and the Mass Effect universe (though there could also be a Mass Effect universe in Realm:1 but they can't know)

Where citadel ships use eezo to give their ships negative mass, allowing them to break the light speed barrier, dive ships use the time dilation effects of going deeper into the aether sea in order to allow their far slower movement to cover more distance in realm:2 time at the cost of subjective time. They then use magic to reverse the time dilation inside the ships so that the crew doesn't die of old age before they've even covered a light year of distance.

For reference, in Mass effect, Citadel ships travels roughly 1/2 the speed of the Reapers, that are estimated to travel at 30ly/d without the Mass Relays.

Spoiler: Magical density and realm table.

One side effect of this, is that the Systems Alliance has a lot more colonies in their small chunk of the galaxy than the IHA do in their much larger chunk of the galaxy. (see red lined area) As you can see, the Utopia System is right on the border between SA and IHA claimed space. Please note, in N8 - part 4, Jane was 25,000 light years away from sol system in the Shadow Sea. A distance that would take a SAAS 121 days to cover. Additionally, each arm of the galaxy is around 14,000 light years deep.

Spoiler: Map

The clusters on the map are the Major Mass Relays, there are thousands of smaller relays that are not shown on the maps. From the larger relays you then need to take a smaller relay to each of the listed systems (though the map only shows systems you can visit in the game). The Utopia System (Eden Prime) is just inside Systems Alliance territory, and also accessible by relay at the Exodus Cluster.

Systems Alliance Ship classifications.

SAAS - Systems Alliance Aether Ship - A ship purpose designed for travelling the aether sea, they have enough magicite supplies to last a full 30 days at full speed, with drops to Realm:2 in order to change the chunk of magicite installed. They have permanent lifeshields and can travel to a depth of realm 21. The built in cabinets are included in the ships wards, and are safe for use at any time.
SADS - Systems Alliance Dive Ship - A ship purpose designed for short hops through the aether sea lasting no more than a single day at most. They are designed to travel to realm:20, but are usually restricted to realm:19 for safety reasons. While their lifeshields can be lowered, Most captains never bother due to the time it takes to bring them back up. These ships don't come with built in cabinets, so their use is prohibited while the drive is in use.
SARS - Systems Alliance Relay Ship - These ships are designed to use the Mass Relay Network. Although they are slower than the equivalent council vessels, they use no eezo. They also come equipped with an emergency dive system, beacon, and inactive lifeshields. Magicals are not allowed to travel on these ships unless they have already visited realm:12. These ships don't come with built in cabinets, so their use is highly discouraged while the ship is in combat or approaching a mass relay.
Escape pod - Equipped with a small cabinet and an Alliance emergency beacon, they are becoming an increasingly common sight in non-magical ships.
Dive Ships can also be owned by private companies or wealthy individuals.

An emergency dive system will take a ship directly to Realm:12 (an authorised person can change that to realm:16, but such authorisation would only come if they were transporting a vip like an asari, who would be killed by the standard depth) and activate an Alliance emergency beacon. As they are not designed for travelling for long periods of time without being able to restock, these ships are instead supplied with Draught of the Living Death.

 

[Darkphoenixlady]

Chapter 19: Spectre – part 7

Jane stalks down the second set of stairs onto the main floor of the level. Looking around, she spots Kaiden and Ashley talking quietly to Anderson.

Stalking over, Jane fumes, "How do you handle dealing with that irritating nazi pig."

Kaiden retorts, "They're not that bad!"

Jane pokes her finger in Kaiden's chest, "The people might not be that bad, but the IHA reads like something out of 1930's Germany on Earth. All of the language they use seems to be subtly xenophobic and very IHA human centric."

Taking a deep breath, Jane forces herself to calm down, "I'm sorry, that was uncalled for. Udina literally grabbed me as I came down from the petitioners platform. I'll send you some books on propaganda and 20th century human history later."

Kaiden shakes his head, "It's fine. But I resent the accusations about the IHA. I'm a biotic, and they took care of me growing up."

Softly Jane says, "Kaiden, Biotics are almost unheard of in Systems Alliance space. That makes me wonder, why are you biotic?"

Kaiden seems to shrink in on himself, "I was born this way."

"Kaiden, listen to me. You are never at fault for how you were born. That's down to your parents, and their doctors. Also, you are not at fault for anything that was done to you as a child.

"The reason biotics are almost unheard of in the Systems Alliance is we don't build settlements near eezo resources. Even moderate levels of magic are enough to cause eezo to start evaporating. I'm sure there are other reasons too, but that's the one that gets bandied around the most, as we make money exporting eezo to the Council."

Anderson interrupts, "Commander, ease up on Lt Alenko. I can vouch for the fact he has valid reasons for his feelings. Despite your own history, most people that left for Council space did so because they were excluded from society due to their viral status. There were a lot of accidents in the early days, and some of us were left with untenable choices, so we chose exile. They make up the majority of the IHA population. Don't forget, it's only been 30ish years since First Contact."

Jane looks down and answers in Hierarchy, because an English phrase doesn't come to mind, "Thank you for granting me a better viewpoint."

Kaiden shakes his head, "We still have to nail Saren. In my mind, I'm sure that he's the one that was on Eden Prime."

Jane nods, "After seeing him, I think that the description is enough to do more digging. But without more evidence, I don't think there will be anything that can be done except an official notice of censure from the Systems Alliance."

Ashley raises her hand, "There was that turian Garrus, he was asking for more time."

Kaiden turns to Anderson, "Sir, please tell me that you have another lead we can follow."

Anderson shakes his head, "Not a lead, no. But there's a volus by the name of Barla Von. He's a high level banker, and he has an office by the emporium in the presidium. He's also an agent of the Shadow Broker. He may have some information, for a price."

Jane nods, "Sounds like a plan, Captain, you and I can take C-sec and Garrus. Kaiden, Ashley, you've got Barla Von. Remember to fill out an expense form if you need to pay for any information."

Kaiden noticeably slumps in relief, "Thank you Commander."

Anderson shakes his head, "I'm afraid I can't go with you, I have too much history with Saren. Besides, I'm going to find the Systems Alliance Embassy and see about renewing my citizenship."

Jane nods, "Fine. Before you go, Kaiden swap cloaks with me."

Confused, Kaiden hands over his blue cloak. "Why?"

"I've already been identified wearing a black cloak and armour. So I'm going to stow my armour and wear your blue cloak. Captain, any ideas for finding Garrus quickly?"

Anderson shakes his head, "A few months ago I'd have suggested a human named Harkin, but he was suspended from C-sec a few days ago."

Jane nods, "Any ideas on where to find Harkin? As it will certainly be easier than talking to random C-sec officers until one's friendly enough to give me a lead."

"You could try Chora's Den, it's on the wards ring between petals three and four."

Jane nods, "Is there anyway to get a map of this place?"

Anderson sighs, "I forgot this is your first time here. Log into the Citadel network and it will send you a local map for the district you're in. If you're having trouble with that, talk to Avina, the pink VI you can see standing around occasionally, she'll help you."

Jane nods before leaving to find a discrete corner to remove her armour.

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Now no longer wearing her armour, Jane pulls in her magic slightly and makes her way back to the place the aircar dropped them off. As she's walking there, she spots a mass transit terminal like the one they used outside the Consort's.

Shaking her head, she walks over and activates it, "I need to go to Chora's Den."

The terminal helpfully shows her a list, and says, "There are 9 places named Chora's Den near mass transit terminals, please select the terminal ID you wish to travel to."

Jane looks at the list of location ID's and blinks, as they are just numbers on the screen next to names that look phonetically similar to Chora's Den.

Jane blinks at the screen, apparently for too long as it goes blank.

Bringing up her omni-tool, Jane looks at the area map and spends the next 20 minutes learning how to use the navigation and route-finding features, along with the directory.

At the end, she locates the closest Chora's Den by walking distance, and set's it as her destination. A moment later, a golden arrow appears on her HUD in the distance, and a blue arrow appears nearby.

With a sigh, Jane sets off at a jog for the lift to the park area. Less than a minute later, she walks out of the lift and looks around. Off in the distance, she can see the small golden arrow and the text 3,000m. Off to one side is a blue arrow over a tunnel entrance around 50m away.

Jogging over to the tunnel, she descends two flights of stairs, and follows a short corridor before coming to a lift door.

With a frown, she pushes the button to open the door and walks in. When the door doesn't close on its own, she looks around and spots another button, that she pushes.

"Probably there so that larger or slow-moving groups can get in."

Over the next few seconds, the 3,000m shrinks to only 500m, and her suit says her orientation has flipped 180 degrees. When the door opens again, there's a blue arrow almost directly over a door to the right.

With a sigh, Jane opens her map and frowns at the mess of corridors and walkways in the area leading all the way around the ring of the Citadel.

"Damn it, Jane, you'll have to give yourself time to get lost round here later. For now I need to find Garrus before the Council finish going through my memories."

With a shake of her head, she follows the arrow into a dimly lit corridor that is spotlessly clean. As she walks down a flight of stairs, she spots an alien with four arms and four legs working on something behind an open panel. Past that, there's another flight of stairs leading up, and a blue arrow hanging over a door.

Jane comes to a stop as the door closes behind her. Off to the left, a blue arrow hangs above a set of stairs. In front of her is an idle aircar and a mass transit terminal.

Lifting her omni-tool, Jane looks at accusingly, "You couldn't have just used the mass transit and given me walking directions from there?"

Then she face palms, as, at the bottom of the display on her omni-tool is a 'Register Mass Transit' icon. Querying that icon shows that the local route finding software will use known locations as part of its navigation.

Walking over to the terminal she stabs the icon and touches her omni-tool to the holographic display. In a huff with herself, Jane storms off to the stairs and marches down them, holding her cloak around her to hide her feet.

Once she's less than 30m away from her destination, Jane comes across another Mass Transit Terminal, so she closes her eyes and focuses on her occlumency exercises to bleed away her frustration.

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Walking past the terminal, Jane comes to a large open area with a half walled corridor surrounding some sort of open air shaft. Leaning over the wall, Jane can see aircars moving around below her.

Pushing herself up, she starts casually walking around the corridor to the entrance to the den. As she gets to the entrance, she hears a voice behind her say, "She's Systems Alliance, and doesn't match any bounty hunters, let her in."

Jane frowns as she walks into a busy bar with asari maidens dancing on platforms fitted with poles, and playing a medley of different music. While they are obviously alien, the rest of the staff seem to be mostly human, with the exception of a couple of large reptilian like humanoids with a hard shell on their foreheads, that she assumes are krogan. As she's watching a volus walks around the circular bar. It's characteristic environment suit decorated with a couple of red designs. As they complete their journey to the other side of the bar, Jane loses sight of them as a human woman looks down behind the bar to talk.

Pulling her attention from the staff, she looks around at the patrons, who are a far more varied crowd, with some turian, salarian, and volus customers. Though the majority again seem to be human.

Slowly, she walks around the bar looking for someone that looks like a police person. She's spotted someone that has an insignia that looks like the Citadel beside a gun, below it in English is a blue label with C-sec.

Just as she's about to approach the human man, the two krogan put their hands on her shoulders, "Boss says your friend's in the back room."

Jane nods, and allows them to lead her into a room at the back of the bar, while discretely reaching for her sword.

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Jane lets go of her sword as she sees that the small, dirty, room already has a suited occupant, their digitigrade legs and hands with two thick fingers and a thumb identifying them as quarian, sitting on one of the chairs that are shoved against the wall. On the other side of the room is another door, though it's showing as locked.

Roughly a krogan pushes her into the room, "Here, one of your friends was looking for you."

The quarian looks up, and Jane discretely raises a finger and waves it from side to side. As the door closes behind her, Jane walks forward and pokes her omni-tool out of the folds of her cloak with a contact request active.

The quarian raises their own omni-tool and touches it to the hologram. They then take a few minutes to investigate the contact before accepting it.

With a smile, Jane sits cross-legged on the and opens a channel marked private to the quarian, "Good day, sorry about the confusion. Those fine gentlemen took one look at my suit and, well."

The quarian responds, "Who are you?"

Jane smiles, "Oh, sorry, I'm Jane Shepherd of the Systems Alliance. Just in case it's not apparent, I'm also human."

The quarian says, "I am Tali'Zorah nar Rayya. Why did they say you are my friend?"

Jane shrugs, "People see the suit and cloak, and assume quarian. It's quite useful for moving around anonymously outside Systems Alliance space. I was actually trying to locate a C-sec officer, a turian named Garrus."

Tali says, "Oh, well maybe they'll let you go."

Jane laughs, "That probably all depends on why you're here."

Tali is silent for several minutes while Jane sits on the floor. Suddenly she asks, "Are you magical?"

Jane's about to reply yes, before she stops and says, "That's a simple question with a complicated answer."

"Oh, I didn't know it could be complicated."

Jane nods, "Around 10% of the human population in the Systems Alliance have just enough magic to be susceptible to Prothean Syndrome, but not enough magic to do magic."

Tali looks down, "I'm sorry to hear that. Is that why you're wearing an enviro-suit?"

Jane nods, "We call them Isolation Suits, specifically I5, suitable for long term use."

"I'd love to get a look at how your people modify them."

"Why don't you then?"

"Because quarian's can't work in the Systems Alliance."

Jane shakes her head, "Pretty much the only species that can't work in most of the Systems Alliance is asari, and that's because of the eezo in their bodies."

Tali shakes her head, "I've met other pilgrims that have tried, and they all said the same thing."

Jane thinks for a moment, "Did they get an Alliance suit?"

"No, why would they need to?"

"Ah, that explains it. One of the things we do is replace all the filters and seals. The filters because your suits don't filter out viruses, and the seals with magical equivalents that don't need replacing, and are still gas-tight."

"But that's insane, those filters must cost a fortune."

Jane nods, "To non-citizens, our I5 suits cost 300,000 Citadel credits. We will also watch as you blood the suit, so that we know you're not going to try to take it apart."

"You could buy a shuttle, or a type 9 or 10 suit of armour for that money."

Jane nods, "I have no idea, this is only my second time out of Systems Alliance space since I became an adult. What I do know is that they are guaranteed not to run out of power for 10,000 years. Since 2203 they've had a permanent air supply and are EVA rated. They have a built in HUD that integrates with your omni-tool, and the faceplates and joints are charmed impermeable and unbreakable so they can never get dirty, or break from an impact. The filters are also self-cleaning so they never need to be replaced. Hell, the whole suit is self-sterilising, though that takes a week after you remove it."

"Why do you buy them from us then?"

Jane laughs, "You're asking the wrong person here, I've just read the technical manual a few times so I know how to maintain my own suit."

Several minutes pass before Tali asks, "Can I read the technical manual please?"

Jane shakes her head, "Sorry, it's restricted to Alliance citizens only. I can send you the user manual though."

Tali's voice sounds sulky through the translator, "I suppose that's better than nothing."

Jane sends the manual over, and Tali flicks through it over the next 10 minutes until the door opens and a human man walks in, "Ok, I've spoken to the Shadow Broker, he's agreed to meet you to talk about your evidence. I'll send the location to your omni-tool."

Tali looks up, "Oh thank you."

The man nods, "Just use the back door, I don't want you trapsing through my bar."

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Jane and Tali both walk out the back door of the club into a spotless corridor. As the door closes behind them, the lock turns red.

Jane shrugs, "Well, I'm off to find Garrus."

Cautiously, Tali asks, "Why were you looking for Garrus anyway?"

Jane turns around and clears her face plate, "Tell you what, I'll share if you share." When Tali nods uncertainly, Jane continues, "He was investigating Saren, the council Spectre. We were hoping he had some leads he hadn't followed up."

Hesitantly, Tali raises her omni-tool and starts a recording, "Eden Prime was a major victory. The beacon has brought us closer to finding the conduit."

Tali stops the recording after that, "There's more. I'm going to trade it to the Shadow Broker for safety."

Jane cocks her head, "I'll do you one…two better. I'll sponsor you for Alliance citizenship, and I'll make sure you get an I5 suit. On top of guaranteeing your safety."

"You can do that?"

Jane nods, "I have the address of the Embassy, so if you know how to work the mass transit, we can do it now. Otherwise we'll have to do it later, as the Council are probably only going to be occupied for the next two hours."

Tali laughs, "I can work the transit system. But the Shadow Broker is due to meet me personally in five minutes."

"The Shadow Broker that has at least two agents in the Citadel, one of which is a Volus in the presidium, is personally going to meet you?"

"Well he is an information broker."

Jane shakes her head, "If they were going to do business in person, why would they have agents? This stinks of a setup."

"But…"

Jane chews her lips, "Look, I promise that if you don't like what the ambassador says, I'll personally escort you to Barla Von and introduce you."

Tali looks at the location on her omnitool for nearly a minute before looking up, "I'll go with you."

Jane smiles and draws her rifle, before holding it loosely under her cloak, "Let me send you the address, and we can find a mass transit terminal."

Tali laughs, "How is it you can't use the citadel systems?"

Jane shakes her head, "I've been on the citadel for three, maybe four hours. I just haven't had time to learn them. If you asked me to draw a runic array, or use the Systems Alliance systems, I'd be able to do those fine."

"What are runes?"

Jane hums as they walk, before saying, "I guess you could say they're a combination of magical engineering and programming. Though I'm only passable at the first bit. They are really the cornerstone of our technology. If you look around the edge of my faceplate, you can see the runes that make the HUD work and also make it unbreakable and impervious."

Tali activates an application on her omni-tool to allow her to look closer, "That's amazing."

Jane nods, "I'm not that good yet, but I can do the most useful basics. That looks like a terminal."

Tali nods, and brings up the contact details Jane gave her for the Embassy. Then she puts a finger on the hologram and drags it over to the terminal.

Jane stares at her finger, "You can do that?"

Tali nods, "Of course, you can also make temporary tools out of omni-gel. Don't tell me you didn't know that either."

Jane shakes her head, "I had no idea. I've got one because they have the same utility as a datapad, eyepiece, and translator, for only around double the price. On top of that I can run tacnet software to have good battlefield awareness, which I can't with those items individually."

Tali shakes her head as she gets into the aircar, "I can't even."

During the journey, Jane opens a call to Kaiden.

When it answers, Kaiden whispers, "Be quick, we're on a deadline here."

Jane nods, "I will. I'm with a quarian that has evidence that Saren attacked Eden Prime. I'm taking her to the Systems Alliance Embassy."

Kaiden shouts, "You what! Wait! Everyone hold. I've got the Commander and she has some vital information… You're on holo Shepherd."

"I met a quarian that has evidence proving Saren attacked Eden Prime. The shadow broker was apparently offering to meet personally, but I offered safety, Alliance citizenship, and an I5 suit. So we're on the way to the Systems Alliance embassy."

A krogan growls, "Does that mean I don't get a fight?"

Kaiden answers, "Commander, that's great news. We just left Chora's den, when we found out Fist was going to have the quarian killed."

Jane shrugs, "Well, that was lucky."

"Lucky! Lucky? Ashley got shot in the face by a sniper. Do you call that lucky?"

"Is she still alive?"

Ashley groans, "Just a sore neck, a fair trade over a bullet in the brain pan."

"I'm glad the faceplate worked for you. I'll see you at the council later."

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When they reach the terminal closest to the Embassy, Jane has to physically pull Tali out of the aircar.

"I need to go home, I left the jam on the hob."

"Tali, it's just the magical protections around the Embassy."

Tali tries to pull her hand free, "You need to let me go, I need to water my succulent."

"I swear I'm going to punch who ever is responsible for these wards."

After five minutes of more and more ridiculous excuses for leaving the area, Jane finally pulls Tali through the door to the Embassy, and the wards.

Immediately, Tali shakes her head and taps her omnitool, "Jane, there's something wrong with my omni-tool."

Jane turns her own omni-tool off, "It's the magic, and these are high precision devices. If you don't want it to stop working permanently, turn it off while we're here until I talk to someone about those Bloody Wards!"

As Jane shouts the last two words, a human woman steps out of nowhere wearing a white robe that has been embroidered with numerous scenes.

"Welcome to the Systems Alliance Embassy, I am the ambassador Lady Victoria Black, how may I… Jane?" a gesture sees Jane's faceplate disappear and appear in Victoria's hand, "Jane! You didn't message that you were coming, otherwise I'd have come to meet you. Who's your friend?"

Jane gestures to Tali, who is holding her faceplate firmly on her face, "This is Tali something something ya, a quarian I met by chance. She has evidence against Saren, and was approaching the Shadow Broker for protection. I said I'd throw in citizenship and an I5 suit if she came to the Embassy."

Victoria puts her hands on her hips, "Really Jane? Daphne said you were trained better than that."

Jane retorts, "Yeah, but we really need to lower the magic levels around here before Tali's suit goes futz. And why is there such a strong muggle repelling ward?"

Victoria turns around and uses a Sorounus Spell to amplify her voice, "Sirius Orion Black get down here right now."

A naked human man with black hair appears standing next to Victoria, who gestures and dresses him in a clown suit. "You called oh beautiful and lovely wife of mine?"

Victoria snaps, "Yes, Jane just had to drag her guest I don't know how far just to get through the wards. They're also interfering with electronics. Why did you set them so high?"

Sirius whines, "It was the only way to keep the keepers out."

"It was also keeping everyone else out. How many people have been turned away without even being able to help themselves. Now go and sort it out, and find a proper solution."

Sirius slinks away with his shoes making a flap, flap, flappity flap, rhythm on the floor.

Jane takes her faceplate back, and refits it as Victoria watches her husband walk. "There was one other thing, I'd like you to come to the Council when they reconvene as my ambassador. The IHA have been trying to co-opt my citizenship."

Victoria turns back, "Certainly, that's why I'm here after all. I will need to know what it's all about though."

Jane smiles, "I give you permission to take my memory."

Victoria glides forward and touches a finger to Jane's temple, before drawing a silvery strand out and touching it to her forehead. A moment later she puts the strand back into Jane's head.

Throughout this, Tali is watching the scene avidly.

Victoria nods, "I can see why you brought Tali here now. However, I believe it is normal to actually ask permission rather than assume someone will do something."

Jane ducks her head, "I was going to once we got her safety worked out. I'm not going to ask her to take a bigger risk just to be safe."

Victoria nods, "Understandable, and commendable. Daphne would be proud. Now Tali, as the Systems Alliance Ambassador, I am happy to welcome you as a citizen, and I will place an order for a quarian I5 suit to be made. It will, of course, be deducted from Jane's personal account. But with all the bonuses she made during her training she can afford it."

Tali nods numbly as her brain is trying to explain what she's just been seeing.

Jane shuffles uncomfortably as Victoria starts to stare at her expectantly, "She needs time to process everything… Oh, come on, can't you see Tali's still having trouble… Not even a cup of tea?... Ok Fine."

Jane turns to Tali to avoid Victoria's gaze, "Tali, I need you to look at me."

Tali looks over, and rather dazedly says, "What?"

"Tali, do you think you could honestly answer a question for me? The citizenship and suit will still be yours regardless of the answer."

Tali nods absently as she notices a painting dancing on the wall behind Jane, as well as the people in it.

Jane glances at Victoria before saying, "Tali, would you be able to present your evidence to the Council later?"

Tali doesn't answer as a couple from another painting, that has just started to dance, come in and start shouting at the dancers.

Jane sags, "Tali, this is really important to us, so if you present your evidence to the Council later, I Jane Shepherd promise to grant you one favour if it is within my power to do so."

Tali glances back to Jane as she's talking and registers most of it. Then her eyes are drawn to a small cluster of runes on the wall above the painting, so she absently says, "Teach me."

Jane blinks, "What did you say?"

Tali shakes her head to clear it, "I said teach me. I'm sorry, the painting was fascinating, and then I saw the markings like the ones on your face plate. And you said you know how to make those runes."

A chair appears behind Victoria and she collapses into it laughing, "Oh god. Oh god, you just pulled a Hogwarts didn't you."

Jane snaps at Victoria, "Shut up, it's not funny."

Tali looks confused, "What's going on?"

Jane touches Tali's arm gently, "Let's go somewhere we can sit down, and where people Aren't Laughing At Me."

Victoria goes off in a fresh peel of laughter.

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A couple of minutes later, Tali finds herself sitting at a wooden table, on a wooden chair, in a kitchen that has running water from a freestanding tap, that can be moved. She knows, because she lifted it up and it kept running.

Her eyes keep glancing to the kettle that on a flame based cooker, and the teapot that walked over and kicked it.

Jane sighs, "Tali, ignore that, The Triplets told me that Sirius does things like that whenever he gets bored. Now I need you to pay attention to what I'm about to say because it is very important."

Tali tears her eyes away from display and fixedly stares at Jane's face through the faceplate.

"Jane Shepherd is an N8. Did you get that?"

Tali nods, "I did."

"Good. Next one, N8 Jane Shepherd can do magic. Did you get that?"

Tali nods again, "I did."

Jane starts to do some minor magical tricks, "Good, now what am I doing?"

Tali tries to look at Jane as a headache starts to build behind her eyes.

"Tali! Focus on what I just told you. Bring it to mind, and tell me what I'm doing."

Tali struggles to understand what Jane wants to do, and goes over the two nonsensical sentences she was told to pay attention to, just in case there's a clue. Suddenly, the headache vanishes and she stares at Jane in awe, "You can do magic."

Jane nods somberly, "I can, and according to our agreement, if you present your evidence to the Council, I will teach you everything I can."

Tali cocks her head, "About what?"

"Everything. Magically, you are my apprentice as I am bound to teach you everything I can."

Tali shakes her head, "But I, words can't. I mean…"

Jane softly says, "I can't imagine how hard this is for you. You come from a society based in science and the provable, and here I am telling you that you're now my magical apprentice."

"But I didn't need anything else to present my evidence, just safety."

Jane shakes her head, "It doesn't work like that with magic. When you didn't give me an answer the first time I asked, I offered a trade, that you accepted. Because I did it in an official capacity, my magic has bound me to my word."

A flop, flop, flop precedes Sirius' arrival in the kitchen, "Ok girls, it should be ok to use your electronics again."

Jane nods, and retrieves her omni-tool from her bag and turns it on. A moment later, it pings and she exclaims, "Damn it, the council is reconvening in 10 minutes. Sirius, is Victoria still laughing?"

Sirius shakes his head, "Not at all, I think she's powdering her nose."

Jane blinks, "What does that mean again?"

Sirius laughs, "She's gone to the bathroom."

Tali shakes her head, "Sorry for being non-human, but how did you go from putting powder on her nose to bathroom."

Sirius holds his hands up, "I'm not touching that." Before stepping through nothing and disappearing.

Jane sighs and forms a wolf made from light on her finger, before sending it to Victoria.

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30 seconds before the Council reconvenes, Victoria steps out of nothing holding Jane and Tali's hands.

Immediately, Tali's hands go to her omni-tool as she starts analysing stuff.

Jane and Victoria both look around at the assembled people, before Victoria spots a turian she knows, "Orinia, how have you been?"

Orinia turns around, "Victoria. I've been well. Are you with Jane Shepherd?"

Victoria nods, "She's just here, in the blue cloak."

Orinia nods the human way, "That's good, I'm here as her ambassador."

Jane spins around, "You are?"

Orinia nods again before switching to turian, "That is a most unseemly display for a Young Hunter."

Jane immediately ducks her head and puts her talons behind her back, "This hunter apologises speaker. This hunter will do better."

"It is to be expected, as you are still a fledgling. We will be arranging for a suitable mentor to accompany you and remedy your lack of education."

Victoria hides a smile behind her hand.

Seconds later, Udina storms over, "What are you two doing here? This is an IHA matter."

Victoria looks down at the man distainfully as she begins to float, "I am here representing the interests of two Systems Alliance citizens. I believe that Ambassador Orinia is doing the same thing for a turian citizen."

Udina cuts off as the hologram for remote petitioners flickers to life, and Saren appears. A moment later, the three council members walk out. At the same time, Anderson, Kaiden, Ashley, Garrus, and a Krogan all walk up the stairs and stand at one of the balconies surrounding the edge of the chamber.

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Sparatus speaks up to start the session, "Before we recommence the dispute between the IHA and Spectre Saren, there is some additional business that needs to be concluded. Hunter Shepherd approach the podium." His words are translated to English by the Petitioners platform.

Jane walks forward as a Hunter should, before stopping half a stride from the evidence recorder.

Sparatus raises his arm in salute, "Young Hunter, it is long overdue. Now we have cleared the brush, we have seen what was already there. The Hierarchy has confirmed that you completed your basic education with exceptional scores, except in your spoken language. They have also contacted Inex, and confirmed that you are indeed the claimed fledgling of Juvetana of Clan Velina."

Saren snarls, "You are allowing a human to be turian?"

Sparatus looks up, "Saren, this is Hierarchy business, not spectre business. You would do well to remember that despite your vantage point, there are those who see more than you."

Sparatus looks back at Jane, "As you have chosen the path of the Hunter [Protector and Provider] once your mentor deems you ready, you will undergo your ritual Hunt as a Young Hunter and return with your name as a Hunter."

Jane bows with her fingers pointed backwards, "You have restored my honour this day." Her own words are repeated back in English as she finishes speaking.

"You have been acknowledged, and you may stand."

Jane stands, and walks backwards to stand beside Orinia.

Tevos nods as Jane leaves, "The dispute between the IHA and Spectre is now open. The council has reviewed the evidence supplied so far. Before we give our judgment, is there any new evidence or arguments we were unable to hear before."

Councillor Udina walks forward at the same time as Orinia and Victoria start to walk forward, "Commander Shepherd of the IHA has managed to rescue…" his voice cuts off abruptly for no apparent reason.

Victoria looks over at the council, "Sorry about that, I believe the esteemed ambassador was about to make a fool of himself. Oriana and myself are representing citizens that have come across evidence pertaining to this case. I am willing to vouch for the integrity of Tali'Zorah nar Rayya."

Orinia gives a bow, "I believe that Young Hunter Shepherd's integrity has just been established by this very council. I will be representing her in lieu of her Nest Leader."

The three councillors talk privately for a few seconds, and then Valern says, "The council will allow the Systems Alliance and Hierarchy to present evidence."

Victoria smiles, "Tali'Zorah nar Rayya, please bring your evidence before the council."

Tali smiles nervously behind her faceplate, and walks to the front of the petitioners platform, next to an irate Udina who is trying to make himself heard.

Tevos presses a button on her console, "Tali'Zorah of the Systems Alliance, please input your evidence into the terminal in front of you and explain how you came to have the evidence."

Tali activates her omnitool and starts to upload the uncompressed data, including her hacking logs, to the terminal.

While the progress indicator is working, she begins her story, "After I began my Pilgrimage I started hearing rumours of geth patrols outside the Perseus Veil. As I had never heard of such a thing happening before. Out of curiosity I tracked a patrol to an uncharted planet and disabled one of them when it lagged too far behind. I was able to remove its memory core before it wiped it and recovered that file. After that I was chased by geth and mercenaries, so I took the shuttle I was using and headed here."

Valern asks "Do you still have the original memory core?"

Tali shakes her head, "No, the shuttle was impounded by C-Sec when I arrived, and they didn't return possession after the interview."

Victoria speaks up, "I trust the Council will begin an investigation into this blatant abuse of power now that it is materially impacting a dispute the Council is adjudicating."

Tevos gives Victoria a long look, before tapping on her own console, "Of course, I have marked the testimony for investigation."

Victoria smiles, "By an independent third party outside of C-sec?"

"We will assign a trusted spectre to the task."

Victoria nods.

Valern looks up from his console, "I have verified the structure of the data packet has all the hallmarks of being from geth hardware. The data provided was also in uncompressed form, and shows standard degradation patterns consistent with depleting capacitors. I am playing the data now."

As the data starts to play, a grey hologram full of static appears in the space between the petitioners platform council.

Saren's voice is heard around the chamber, flashes of coherent imaging appearing at random, "Eden prime was a major victory, the beacon has brought us one step closer to finding the conduit."

An asari voice continues, "And one step closer to the return of the Reapers."

As the holo finishes, Victoria says, "I believe this evidence is unimpeachable."

Sparatus bows his head, and holds his claws together, "Indeed. The council finds that Saren was involved in the invasion of Sovereign territory and brought the councils name into disrepute. Saren, you are hereby stripped of your spectre status, and will be handed over to the Systems Alliance for judgement once you have been captured."

By the end of the sentencing, Saren's hologram has already vanished.

Tevos muses, "I recognise that second voice. It belongs to Matriarch Benezia."

Valern shakes his head, "I am more interested in these Reapers she mentioned."

Victoria says, "I believe that Commander Shepherd included her final moments on Eden Prime, as well as the first few moments in the sick bay aboard The Normandy. It is possible for the Systems Alliance to extract just that moment rather than needing to wade through hours of footage just to see that moment."

Sparatus inclines towards Victoria, "The council will keep that in mind."

Tevos touches her console, "This concludes the dispute between the IHA and Spectre Saren. Would members of the IHA vacate the chamber so we can move onto the next topic."

"…king stupid sparkie…" Udina cuts off almost as soon as he hears his voice.

Tevos repeats herself.

Udina growls, "What about our spectre?"

Sparatus' mandibles and crest show upmost contempt, "The council has chosen to deny your request for a Spectre at this time."

Udina shoots Victoria a hateful look before stalking out of the chamber.

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Once only Garrus and the Krogan are left observing, Sparatus says, "Young Hunter Jane Shepherd of clan Velina come forward."

Jane walks to stand in front of the console.

"With the regrettable actions of Saren, there is a position free in the ranks of the Spectres. We have chosen to accept a new spectre that has been nominated by both the Hierarchy and the asari nations," Victoria nods, "and with the permission of the Systems Alliance. They have shown themselves to be inventive, quick, and also compassionate. Above all, they have shown themselves to be honourable. Congratulations Spectre Jane Shepherd of clan Velina."

Jane goes down into a half kneel and bows her torso forward, "You give me great honour in granting me this vantage. I will show that the honour was not misplaced."

As Jane stands up again, Tevos says, "Your first assignment will be to capture Saren and bring him to justice. Failing that, you are to kill him. Your second assignment is to prevent whatever plans he has from coming to fruition."

Valern takes over, "You will be expected to remain on the Citadel to receive your spectre codes and training."

Jane nods at Valern, "I will."

As Tevos and Valern turn to leave, Sparatus says, "Your nest mother would like you to visit soon now that you have your own command."

Jane nods, "I will endeavour to do so, though it may need to wait until after I have finished my current assignments."

Sparatus chuckles as he leaves.

 

[TheWhiteRose]

This is a really good way you are going about her adoption by the turian couple during her youth. Love the way it was made official here.

 

[Darkphoenixlady]

This is a really good way you are going about her adoption by the turian couple during her youth. Love the way it was made official here.

Click to shrink...

Thank you

 

[Darkphoenixlady]

Chapter 20: Chasing leads – part 1

Once everyone has filed out to the main atrium of the council floor, Garrus approaches Jane with a turian smile. "Young Hunter, it was an honour to see you brought back into your clan."

Jane ducks her head bashfully, "Thank you, though my human heritage shows through more than it sometimes should."

Garrus chuckles, "That is true for many who work with them. They are a singularly unbending species, at the same time they are highly adaptable."

Jane shakes her head, "The unbending aspect is a cultural aspect, not a species trait."

"Of course, one should not forget your own ancestry."

Jane nods as Anderson, Kaiden, and Ashley join the group.

Anderson notes, "Udina left in a huff."

Victoria chuckles, "That's because I didn't let him speak after he tried to co-opt my citizens while I was present. Then, when I did let him speak again, the council denied his application for a spectre and kicked him out."

Anderson nods philosophically, "It was a long shot anyway."

Oriana adds, "The next order of business was to appoint a Hierarchy citizen to the position of Spectre."

Ashley looks confused, "I know I'm new to the whole council space, but why would that involve all of you?"

To one side Wrex starts to chuckle, a deep rumbling sound, "You are confusing species with nationality. There are many turian citizens that are not turians. Their nation grants citizenship to anyone who does military service in the turian fleet. An opportunity normally only open to their client species."

Ashley spins to look at Jane, "Wait, you have those markings on your face."

Oriana chuckles, "Jane is the oldest turian youth on record. And yes, also the new spectre."

Victoria nods, "A position endorsed by the Systems Alliance. I will be petitioning the Systems Alliance Assembly that Jane be allowed to join the N8. I will also be proposing that we negotiate with the Citadel Council to allow this dual status. But that is a discussion that could take years."

Oriana chuckles again, "I don't think you will be negotiating with the council directly. Tevos seemed positively wary of you, whatever did you do to her?"

Victoria smiles, "She invited me to tea, well that's the closest English translation, and I just enjoyed the aroma of the tea while she collected her thoughts."

Oriana grimaces, "I remember doing something like that with the elders of the clan on Shaanxi. It has made dealing with asari infinitely easier."

Victoria laughs, "We could share tea at some time if you wish?"

Oriana shakes her head, "I already know your vantage point is so high I can't even see it. I have forms to fill in, and people to talk to, so I will visit later, socially."

As she leaves, Garrus mutters something about speakers and their incomprehensible ways.

Anderson looks at Victoria, "While you're here Ambassador, I tried to reach you earlier, but I left my sauerkraut pickling at home. I would like to review my Systems Alliance citizenship."

Victoria closes her eyes for a moment, "Lt Commander David Anderson, voluntary discharge and left Systems Alliance space 10 years ago."

Anderson nods, "That's me."

"You will need a blooded ID stone if you wish to re-enter Systems Alliance space as a visitor, and blood any equipment you remove from Systems Alliance space. Your citizenship hasn't been revoked, just your military rank."

Anderson nods, "Then as an Alliance citizen, I would like to recommend that command of the Normandy be granted to Commander Shepherd. She will need a ship to find Saren, and the Normandy is the most advanced ship in the IHA and turian navies."

Victoria nods, "I will discuss it with Oriana… on human time scales."

Kaiden looks up at Jane, "Congratulations Commander, what now?"

Jane sighs, "For now, Ashley at least has shore leave. Don't take off your suit though, as it could be cancelled without warning if I get a lead. If you could discretely let the crew know that a turian spectre will be taking command of the ship, that should get rid of the bigots."

Kaiden looks uncomfortable, "But you're not turian sir."

Jane looks at Kaiden sympathetically, "Kaiden, I am a citizen of the Hierarchy. That makes me a turian. The same as Garrus here could gain Alliance citizenship, and petition to become a sidhe. Being a turian is as much a culture as it is a species. It's the same with the asari, in theory you could become an asari citizen. In practice, you wouldn't live long enough to complete the application, as it's a hold over from their tribal days. I asked Aeuna once while we were waiting for rescue. In short, you would need to live on an asari planet and take on their culture for 80 of our years, then apply for citizenship with proof you've made a good faith attempt to join their culture. Those are the only two cultures I have any familiarity with other than my own, so I couldn't say what it would take to be recognized as a krogan."

The krogan chuckles, "You couldn't, as you need to show you're strong enough through unarmed combat with the tribes chief. If you do, you then have to survive the Rite of Passage."

Jane looks up at the krogan, "I'm sorry, we haven't been introduced."

Kaiden winces, "Sorry Commander, this is krogan battlemaster Wrex. He was instrumental in helping us track down the information we needed to find out who had evidence against Saren. We were on our way to rescue her when we got your call. I'd say you have the luck of the gods, but Ashley and I were attacked outside Chora's Den because they thought I was you. I think he would be helpful for chasing down Saren."

Jane shrugs, "More the merrier. I'll have to work out how to pay you."

Wrex chuckles, "You should also bring Garrus there."

Jane shakes her head, "I'm not poaching hunters from other duties. Even if they are good at tracking."

Garrus says, "Actually, I'm not with C-sec anymore. Executor Pailin is so high up he has lost sight of the ground."

Jane nods, "I take it the quarry hiding amongst the undergrowth is Saren? Welcome aboard, I'll figure out your pay too. Unless you're both willing to work for raw gold that is."

Victoria shakes her head, "I don't think I should be around to hear this. Tali, I'll see you at the Embassy to finalise your ID."

Anderson says, "Would you mind if I accompanied you to get my own ID sorted out."

Victoria just vanishes with Anderson rather than answer.

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════​

Almost as soon as she's worked out how she's paying Garrus and Wrex, and given them their first months retainer, Jane's omni-tool starts to ping as it receives message after message containing forms she needs to fill out, or places she needs to go, as part of her spectre orientation and training.

Jane hangs her head dramatically, "Come on Ashley, Tali. Let's get to the embassy and sort out your ID stones and where you're going to be staying until I get a ship sorted out. Tali, I'll see if I can rope Sirius into helping teach you while I'm dealing with all this paperwork."

Ashley looks at Tali curiously, "Commander, what are you going to be teaching her?"

Jane shrugs, "Everything I can, as I offered one favour in front of an archmagi, making her my apprentice. You know, things like how travel through the aether sea works, the basics of quantum dynamics, runes. That sort of stuff."

Ashley nods, "I wouldn't mind learning about some of that, as the only lesson we got on Eden Prime was that the aether sea is like an onion with realm:2 at the centre."

Jane groans, "That sort of works for planets, but it stops working as soon as you leave the planet's maximum extent in the aether sea. Which can be calculated based on the distance from the local star, how much iron is in the core, and how large the planet is. Mars, for example only has 14 realms, and Europa has 9. Though, 16 is the most that has ever been observed to form."

Ashley shakes her head, "But what about the time dilation?"

Jane looks longingly at the mass transit terminal only a few paces away from them. "Fine, let's go down to the park and we can make paper boats."

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════​

By the time Jane has finished teaching Tali and Ashley how to make simple paper boats, her endless pad of parchment is being put to the test by the crowd of diplomatic aids and other embassy staff that have crowded around the three of them, and are attempting to make their own boats. Though, she's sure she saw a few people discretely put a sheet of parchment in a pocket, or fold, in their garments.

Now armed with two boats a piece, Jane leads Tali and Ashley to the edge of the slow moving river.

"Ok, Tali, I want you to put your first boat right by the bank of the river, Ashley, try to place yours slightly further out, and I'll put mine the furthest out. When I say, go, let them go."

As Jane says go, Tali's boat doesn't move, and Ashley's starts to move down the river until it bumps into Tali's boat. Then it starts to turn slowly until it breaks free. Janes boat moves past the other two boats faster, and without bumping into the others.

Jane laughs as she shakes her head, "Well, that worked better in my head. What you were supposed to see is that the three boats moved at different speeds depending on how close to the bank they are. The same's true of the different realms in the aether sea. The further you get from the realms ruled by physics, the faster time flows until you get to the deepest and fastest part of the aether sea. The first four realms are so close together that they move in lockstep with each other. After that, the density of magic in each realm allows time to flow faster and faster. If you out to the sidhe clans, time runs around 1,300 times faster than it does on earth. However, because it's part of the same planet, it travels around the local star at the same speed as the planet in realm:2 does."

Tali does some calculations, "But that would mean 3 years pass there for every day that passes here."

Jane nods, "Using the Systems Alliance calendar, it's 3.6 years for every day that passes on earth. I've heard that at the edge of the aether sea, where matter is starting to evaporate, unless it's been held together by something, 57.6 years passes for every day."

Ashley laughs, "By heard, do you mean read in officer training?"

"You got me there. So, the other thing about the aether sea is that it has regions that Magi would say are qualitatively different. For our purposes, there are 5 that we worry about. Realms:2-4 have less than a 2% difference in magical saturation between them. However between Realm:4 and Realm:5 there's a 1.6% difference. That's almost the same as the first three realms together."

Someone in the crowd asks, "What about realm:1?"

Jane sighs, "We just don't know. We have anecdotal evidence it exists, and some scientists claimed to have proved it exists around 100 years ago. But it is impossible for us to travel there, as the magical density is so low that it cannot support magical life. Apart from those scientists, no-one that has ever tried has survived the attempt. Every decade or so they'll be a news story about a Magi that tried and either disappeared, or was found dead."

She shakes her head, "Anyway, back to the topic at hand, between realm:5 and realm:9, the magical density increases gradually just under 2% at a time. But between realm:9 and realm:10 there's another jump of just over 4%, and the difference keeps increasing until you hit the 16/17 boundary, where starts to slow down again."

Another person calls out, "So why don't we use those realms, assuming they exist."

Jane sighs, "Prothean Syndrome, it's on the extranet if you want to look it up. There's also articles about how magic impacts eezo and electronics, if any of you want to visit Systems Alliance space."

Tali starts to look those pages up, only to be interrupted by Jane, "Tali, Ashley, let's play pooh sticks, and then head back to the Embassy."

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════​

That evening, after a side trip to the Normandy to remove her cabinet, Jane and Tali are both y at the embassy when a frustrated Ashley walks in.

"Jane, can you help me please. Sirius told me that my room was the last bedroom on the left, on the forth floor. I tried going up there, and it led me into the kitchen."

Jane taps her omni-tool to close the spectre document she's reading, "Did he give you any directions?"

Ashley tips her hand, "Maybe, I was up the stairs before he finished talking, as I'm beat."

Jane shakes her head, "I'm sorry, this is my first day here, I haven't had time to look around. But I can recommend using the comfort options in your suit and just finding a chair or wall to sleep against if you can't find Sirius or Victoria."

Ashley shakes her head, "It's not just that, I should really use the facilities first."

Tali looks up, "Why? Are your waste reservoirs full up already?"

Ashley looks wildly at Tali, "My what?"

"Waste reservoirs. Is it translating alright?"

Jane nods, "It's translating fine, Ashley just hasn't worn her suit a full day yet." She stands up and opens the door to her cabinet, "You can use the toilet upstairs. Just sit down and the suit will take care of everything else."

Ashley darts inside, and her booted feet can be heard on the spiral staircase.

Jane sighs, "Come on Tali, I need you to sign my ward book anyway, so you might as well do it now."

Tali looks at Jane weirdly, "What do you mean?"

"Come on, I'll show you. Then I'll give you the grand tour after Ashley's left."

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════​

A few days later, Tali's head is on a swivel as Jane has finished her lace tablecloth and took her deeper into the cabinet to find a new project to start. All around the room they're in are finished, 'hand' crafted projects that would probably be worth a small fortune to anyone in the citadel.

Jane stands up from the barrel full of yarn holding a skein of purple thread, "Hey, Tali, do you think this colour would suit you?"

Tali takes her fingers away from a basket she was about to feel, and clears her faceplate to see the yarn properly, "It is a nice colour, but why would you waste it on me?"

Jane shakes her head, "I need a new project, otherwise I'll start getting antsy. So I might as well make nice things, and I thought I'd make you a lace cloak. Oh, and if you want that basket, take it."

Tali shakes her head, "I couldn't take this, it's far too fine. You could earn a fortune if you opened a stall in the emporium."

"That's useful, I need a way to pay everyone. Tell you what, everything here is made from aether spider silk, so it should be stable in Realm:2 for at least 1,000 years. Take the basket, my new table cloth, these six doilies, and… this stole." Jane picks up a lace stole that has a floral pattern, and woven into the pattern are coloured threads that form a large rose that covers the length of the stole. "This was a fun challenge when I did it, but mechanically no more difficult than just doing it in single colours."

Tali shakes her head, "How much time did you put into that?"

"Huh?" Jane looks up from the very fine thread she's holding, "Oh, probably about 70,000 hours or so. It was more fiddly because I had to remember to include the colours. The table cloth took me… 100,000 hours."

Tali does some calculations, "It took you 23 years to make?"

Jane shakes her head, "About half that, as I was making it whenever I wasn't asleep. I think I have a file on the lace making method I was taught… Right, here it is, Honiton Lace. I've sent it to you. Once you've done that, you and Ashley need to buy some day clothes for civilian use, rather than walking around in just your suit."

Tali looks down at her suit, and the decorative cloth wrap she's wearing, "What's wrong with my suit?"

"With the suits, we are basically naked. Which is fine when we're on a mission, as it's less things to get caught. But for every other time, social mores say we should wear clothing."

Tali shakes her head, "This isn't something we consider on the fleet."

Jane looks at Tali searchingly, "Tali, on the fleet do they have the resources for common luxuries?"

Tali shakes her head, "No, this is why we keep our memories on our omni-tools."

Jane nods, "That's what I expected you to say. Tali, you will never lack for resources again. Not while you are my apprentice, and not afterwards. It will take time to get used to the idea, there are many studies about the years after the Sleeper war that show how hard it was for people to transition to the idea that material scarcity was a thing of the past. As 20% of Earths population was suddenly magical enough to do magic. Prior to that, it was around 0.0008% of the population. Suddenly, your next door neighbour could make you a hammer that would last a couple of days, or they could repair the broken handle on your pans. If they had the right training. Now go and find Ashley and sell those… Victoria should be able to authenticate the fabric, otherwise they can get it identified on Shaanxi. I'm going to dig out some tea and go and see if the consort still wants to see me."

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════​

A few hours later, Jane sits across from Sha'ira slowly winding purple thread onto a spool while occasionally smelling her cup of tea.

Sha'ira says, "Commander."

Jane smiles and puts the skein and spool in her bag politely, "Please, this is a social situation, call me Jane."

Another 30 minutes pass, as Jane smiles at Sha'ira pleasantly, before Sha'ira says, "Jane, I would like your help with a problem."

Jane nods, "I would need to hear the details before I agree to anything."

"I have a close friend who wished me to be something I cannot be. As a result he has started to spread rumours and falsehoods about me."

Jane nods, and waits patiently for Sha'ira to continue.

"He is a general in the turian navy, and I would like you to talk to him on my behalf as a soldier."

Jane nods and sips her tea. After 15 minutes she asks, "What are you hoping to achieve?"

"At the least I want the lies to stop. I also value his friendship."

Jane nods, "I will see what I can do. Who is the Hunter you would like me to talk to?"

Sha'ira minutely sags in relief, "His name is Septimus. He's been drinking in Chora's Den since."

Jane reaches out and touches the back of Sha'ira's hand, "I understand. I will inform the general that he is behaving like a fetita."

As Jane leans back and takes another sip of her tea, Sha'ira shakes her head slightly, "You surprise me Jane. You seem impulsive, yet you sit here like a matron on the edge of becoming a matriarch."

Jane gives a small smile, "My teachers are constantly telling me that I am too hasty and impulsive."

More time passes before Sha'ira touches her ear, "I am sorry, I have another client to see now."

Jane inclines her head, "Keep the box of tea, and maybe we can have a purely social visit next time."

As Jane leans forward to retrieve her facemask Sha'ira reaches out to touch Jane's face and join very shallowly. Jane brushes her hand away and replaces her mask, "That was rude. You are no longer a maiden Sha'ira, and you are not my family either."

As gracefully as possible, Jane glides from the room leaving a confused Sha'ira behind.

 

[TheWhiteRose]

As Jane leans forward to retrieve her facemask Sha'ira reaches out to touch Jane's face and join very shallowly. Jane brushes her hand away and replaces her mask, "That was rude. You are no longer a maiden Sha'ira, and you are not my family either."

Click to shrink...

Hmmm. I'm curious on what the human equivalent of that would be, something young people or family could do. A hug and kiss on the cheek?

Do you have an idea how long she was in n8 training, could probably work it out with time dilation and how long she was there but I can't remember if it was specifically stated back then.

 

[Darkphoenixlady]

Hmmm. I'm curious on what the human equivalent of that would be, something young people or family could do. A hug and kiss on the cheek?

Click to shrink...

Something like that, yes. It's a way of affirming your relationship with close friends and family.
A bit like the difference between air kisses and cheek kisses. One is acceptable from your mother or sister. The other is expected from close friends. It's also a sign of trust.

Do you have an idea how long she was in n8 training, could probably work it out with time dilation and how long she was there but I can't remember if it was specifically stated back then.

Click to shrink...

With the bank and forth between realms and a trip to Earth, it works out about 5k years, most of which was teaching her how to slow down in one way or another.

 

[Darkphoenixlady]

Chapter 21: Chasing leads – part 2

Tali nervously walks into the upmarket emporium in the presidium with Ashley by her side. The items Jane's asked her to sell enclosed in a hastily constructed omni-gel box.

Hanging over her shoulder is a battered leather bookbag Victoria gave her that is probably worth more than the fabric items she's selling, simply because it's an artifact from before the human Sleeper War. Let alone the fact it's made from dragonhide.

Beside her, Ashley asks, "How do we know who's selling clothes and the like?"

Tali shakes her head, "I do not know, but I think those are holographic sales displays around the edges of the hall."

Ashley shakes her head, "How would they work?"

"I don't know. But we could either talk to the hanar in the middle, or try our luck with the displays around the edge."

"Hanar?"

"The pink, floating person with tentacles hanging down towards the floor."

Ashley blinks, "That's a person?"

Tali nods, "They are indeed."

Ashley shakes her head, "Well, that will teach me to assume everything has arms and legs."

After being directed to an asari shopkeeper, Tali and Ashley walk away with a down payment of 10,000 credits, and a contract to sell the items at 20% commission.

While they make their way into the wards, Ashley touches Tali on the arm, "Tali, are you alright?"

Tali shakes her head, "This is more money than I have ever held in my life."

Ashley nods, "And that's just the down payment. She thought she could sell those things for far more than that. Well, we have instructions to 'buy some civilian clothes', so let's go somewhere much cheaper than around here."

Tali shakes her head, "You won't really find any cheap places on the Citadel. You'd need to visit planets for that."

Ashley pats Tali on the shoulder, "I know, it's like living in a big city. But I'm sure we could head out on one of the arms and find communities where their clothes are more reasonable than the high-end stuff here."

Tali nods, "Well, that limits us to human, asari, and for me salarian communities."

"What about a quarian community?"

Tali shakes her head, "There are none outside the flotilla. My people were expelled from the Council hundreds of years ago, and we have not been able to develop communities since then."

Ashley stops to stare at Tali, "What, not even on your homeworld?"

Tali looks down, "We lost our homeworld to the geth, that's why we were expelled from the council."

Ashley shakes her head, "That doesn't make sense, why wouldn't they have just helped you against the geth?"

"Because it's our great sin, we created them accidentally."

"You created genocidal robots accidentally?"

Tali shakes her head, "No, they were helpers and automated workers, and we kept improving their processing and communications ability so they could do their jobs better. Then one day they gained sentience, and we found we'd accidentally broken one of the core Citadel laws."

"And they kicked you out because of that?"

Tali shakes her head, "No, they kicked us out after we lost our planet, because we hadn't destroyed the Geth."

Ashley shakes her head, "That makes me even more grateful I'm not a Council citizen. We are definitely going to have to talk about that with the ambassador."

Tali shakes her head, "Why would that make any difference?"

Ashley shakes her head, "I don't know, but it should."

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════​

Jane walks into Chora's Den once more and stops to look around as the place seems short staffed.

Shaking her head, she walks around the bar looking for a turian that looks out of place. It doesn't take long to find one that has intricate facial markings, most of which she doesn't understand.

Slipping into a chair at their table, Jane removes her faceplate, and puts it beside her hand.

Speaking in Hierarchy, Jane says, "Honoured Hunter, would this Hunter be able to speak with you?"

The turian looks up at her, "Who are you?"

Jane inclines her body, "This Hunter is Jane Shepherd."

"Ha, it appears news only travels slightly faster than you. I had heard of a human fledgeling that had been recently found, and here you are. I'm General Septimus. What brings you to my table?"

"You use a human rank?"

Septimus takes a drink, and slams it back on the table, "Might as well, they're all over the damn place now."

Jane chitters angrily, "I came to talk to an Honoured Hunter, a Hunt Leader, on behalf of an asari named Sha'ira, but I have instead found a human. This Hunter will continue their search."

As Jane starts to stand up, Septimus slams his fist on the table, "How dare you call me a human!"

Jane deliberately looks around, "You are in a human bar, where most of the clients are human, and you claim to be a human general. What else could you be?"

"Spirits damn it, I am a turian!"

Jane sneers, "Doesn't look like it from my vantage point."

"I could have you dragged to the cells."

"And I could demand a test of Honour. Something neither of us will do because I speak truth. You were an Honoured Hunt Leader, that brought order and stability where it was needed. Now what are you?"

"I am a…", Septimus trails of into a soft chittering of his mandibles.

Softly, Jane says, "Human's don't seek the higher ground, they don't look to those who have climbed the peaks before them. Humans live on a world of soft heights, and hidden threats. They are not like us by nature. To them the sky is a welcoming thing, the light an aid for hunting, caves and forests a place of hidden dangers, and a refuge from the predators of the open spaces. For us, shade is life and the day is death. We have no fear of caves because they are simple and make sense. Do you see a world full of hidden dangers, a place where you have to search out safe places to sleep, and walking over the horizon is the only way to find your next meal. Or do you see a world where a good vantage point will net you a meal far faster than walking around and making noise?"

Septimus grumbles, "When I was a Young Hunter, it was always the older hunters that had the better view points. Even when we ventured to climb as high as them."

Jane shakes her head, "I have climbed many peaks, both human and turian. I have seen the peaks the goblins, dwarves, and asari, climb, and I have taken my first steps to climb the asari peak. What peaks have you climbed?"

Septimus drinks for a few minutes before looking up, "What do I do?"

Jane shrugs, "Are you a Hunter, Speaker, Nest Lord, or human?"

"I'm a Hunter damn it."

"Then you do what we always do, seek to see more."

"But she is my mate, there is no other for me. But she won't…"

"You say won't, but have you climbed to stand next to her, to even see what she sees. Would you expect an Honoured Nest Mother to leave her nest to join your own?"

Septimus shakes his head, then pauses and gives a turian negation, "No, that would endanger the fledglings."

"Exactly. What of Sha'ira? If she was turian, would she be an Honoured Nest Mother?"

"I don't know. I'll have to find out."

"You can't do that if you are laying false trails and hiding pitfalls. How can she trust your honour if she steps in a trap that you said is safe?"

"I will do as you say. You say you have stepped onto their peak, what does their vantage look like?"

Jane thinks for a moment, "I think their elders see patterns in the prey's movement, and direct the younger to take advantage of them. But I have only stepped on their peak, I have yet to climb any distance."

Septimus looks down at his drink, "Then it looks like I'll be plotting my own climb." He looks up, "This time I will do it knowingly, and I will not forget the peaks I've climbed to get here."

Jane smiles as she stands up. As she's about to leave, Septimus taps her arm with the side of his hand, "Young Hunter, there is one false trail that needs to be cleared before I can begin to make things right. Give this datapad to the elcor ambassador. Tell him that I tracked this information down myself. Sha'ira didn't tell me anything."

Jane shakes her head, "Where would I find this Speaker?"

"Their embassy is next to the human embassy."

Jane can't help showing confusion in the human way as her eyebrows scrunch together, "Out on the petals?"

"No! The one on the presidium."

Jane thinks, "Do you mean the Speaker for the IHA?"

"Yes, the humans."

Jane shakes her head and switches to English, "They do not speak for the Systems Alliance. Arch-magi Victoria Black is the Ambassador for the Systems Alliance. You would do well to remember that humans are as happy to live in forests as they are on plains."

Septimus growls, "Then why is their embassy so far away?"

Jane laughs, "Because they are not part of the Citadel Council races. They are a separate galactic power. As our own history books record, or do you not remember how Selene dragged a dreadnaught out of the sky?"

Septimus picks up his datapad and looks up that particular time period, before sitting back as a video starts to play.

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On her way out, Jane spots the human woman that caught her eye the first time she came to this bar. This time, there's no volus to confuse things, and she fair screams nervous to Jane's eyes.

Walking over to sit in front of the woman, Jane pulls a sheet of parchment off her endless pad, and begins to make a flower, with magical assistance, while she's waiting to be served.

A few minutes later, the woman has finished her current drinks and comes back to Jane, "What can I get you?"

Jane smiles, "What do you have that's light on the alcohol?"

"Lots, but they'd still kill you. Not all species drink alcohol."

"Then get me something fruity with an obnoxious paper umbrella and a straw."

The woman chuckles, "You want Flux for that sort of drink."

Jane nods, and pulls out a portkey programmer, "Then maybe I could just have a chat with the prettiest girl behind the bar, and you charge me for something I could drink, in theory."

"What's your angle?"

"Me? Just chatting to a pretty girl, and maybe getting their number." Jane touches the programmer to the flower at the same time she turns it into a portkey to the Embassy foyer, "Here, I made this for you to remember me by."

The woman looks down at the flower, "Look, don't take this the wrong way, but you're not my type."

Jane shrugs philosophically, "Oh well, keep the flower anyway." Her voice drops down quietly enough that only the woman will hear her, "And if you crush it, it will take you straight to the Systems Alliance Embassy." More loudly Jane adds, "Charge me for that drink anyway, take it as an apology."

The woman shakes her head, and rings up a drink, that Jane taps with her omnitool before standing up and walking out. On the way out, Jane sees the woman place the flower into a pocket.

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With a musical hum, Jane makes her way to the mass transit, and then the consort. From there, she heads over the bridge to the small block of embassies.

As she gets closer to the desk, Jane pauses and checks her occlumency and the asari that was handling the desk then. Curiously, Jane walks over to the desk and waits patiently for them to finish their current task.

Eventually, they look up, "Good afternoon. Can I help you?"

Jane smiles and answers in asari, "Maybe, I noticed that you're not Nyaraphria, though you look very similar."

The asari nods, "You are very observant for a human. She is at the Qhicon, Shusenesh, and Ecerine embassy today."

Jane nods, "Interesting, I assume their closer to the petals their species tend to live on?"

The asari nods again, "Very astute. If there's nothing else, I do have work that needs doing. Looking after trillions of lives isn't exactly simple."

Jane nods, and speaks Hierarchy, "Just one thing, I need to visit the Elcor embassy. Would you be able to direct me?"

The asari pauses for a couple of seconds before nodding, "Certainly, if you follow the stairs to my left, they are through the far door to the right."

Jane shakes her head as the asari looks back down at her display, and just heads to the embassy.

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Several days later, after Jane has been co-opted by the Spectre investigating C-sec about shuttles and equipment being impounded illegally, Tali is bent over what should be a priceless treasure, a book on the subject of arithmancy, on her new datapad she has a couple of more scientific books on the underpinnings of aether science.

"Physics doesn't do that!"

Behind her, Victoria smiles at a complaint she's heard so many times. Leaning over Tali, from the side, Victoria picks up the book and props it at an angle in mid-air. "There that's better, we don't want you developing a crick in your neck."

Tali stares at the book, then looks up at Victoria, "Why did you do that?"

"First, you really do need to get up and move around. Second, you need a constant reminder that you're not just dealing with realm:2 physics, those books and papers are also taking into consideration magic. Finally, a relay ship brought your new suit, cabinet, an English language memory crystal, a pistol, and a stylus of all things. Though the letter says that the cabinet is only temporary while Selene finds time to make a proper cabinet for a new apprentice."

Tali stands up eagerly, and then pauses, "Memory crystal?"

Victoria nods, "You need to know how to read and speak English, as there's a lot of ambiguity that you can't afford to have while studying magic."

Tali frowns, "But, those books make frustrating but perfect sense."

Victoria sighs, "Tali, my husband's name isn't Stoic."

Tali sounds surprised, "But…"

"He's named after a star visible on Earth. The dog star, also named Sirius."

"Hey! That's not what he called himself."

Victoria nods solemnly, "I'm afraid it is, I had to ask for help working out how to say that. It's something about indicating that something is a name."

While Tali is digesting that, Victoria walks over to Jane's cabinet, and unshrinks the new cabinet next to it. Opening the door, she looks inside before looking back at Tali, "Tali, I know why the cabinet came so quickly now."

Tali looks up from her musing, "What? Sorry, why's that?"

"This is one of the new troop relaxation cabinets. I guarantee that it's completely sterile inside, as they get a thorough decontamination to clear out anything between 20nm and 100µm as we don't want to run the risk that PS negative troops could contract PS."

Curiously, Tali walks around to see the inside of a decontamination chamber, "Huh? It's smaller than I thought."

Victoria laughs, "Grab your datapad while I unshrink the rest of your package. Next time I see you, you better be wearing your new suit, or telling me that it's not sterile in there."

Tali looks at Victoria in panic, "You want me to do what!?"

"I want you to change out a suit that could fail at anytime when it's exposed to large amounts of magic, into one that won't fail, and also doesn't need recharging. Ideally, you should also blood the cabinet and use the memory crystal. But your suit is the most important part of it."

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════​

Tali walks out of the decontamination chamber into a large sitting room that has dozens of comfortable chairs with a view of one wall. In front of that wall is a low wooden cabinet with a pyramid on top of it.

Flicking on her omni-tool, she starts scanning the atmosphere for gasses and particulate concentrations down to 1µm. When the particulate count comes up as zero, she frowns, and puts her bundle of stuff on a chair as she starts to move around the room, testing every surface.

When she comes to the first door, she pulls it open to see a long corridor running to the left and right, in front of the door is a set of stairs going up.

Slamming the door closed, she leans against it hyperventilating.

"I can't check all of that!"

Cautiously, she walks over to the second door, and pulls it open. With a sigh of relief, she walks into a small waste management room, with a sink and a water filled waste receptacle. The walls themselves seem to be made from ceramic tiles.

After thoroughly inspecting every surface of this small room, Tali gets her new suit and covers the door with omni-gel so that there is no way for any contaminants from outside to come in.

Anxiously, she takes off her faceplate and shivers as she sniffs the air, trying to detect anything the omni-tool missed, before putting the faceplate back on.

A few minutes later, her heart rate has slowed down slightly, and she takes the faceplate off again.

Slowly, Tali goes through the process of removing her suit, until she's standing, shivering, on the cold tile floor.

Snatching up the new suit, she hastily shoves her feet into the legs, and starts the process of seating all the plumbing correctly.

Tali's just about to put the faceplate onto the ill-fitting suit when she remembers that she was supposed to blood the suit. Her shoulders sag, and she retrieves her omni-tool to start absorbing the omni-gel needed to open the door and get the datapad with the instructions for blooding the suit.

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Jane, Tali, and Ashley all find themselves navigating a C-sec station 12 degrees round the presidium from the tower spur where the consorts chambers and Citadel tower are located. Jane can clearly see signs for the turian and hanar embassy's leading to a large lift. Their own destination is the Hierarchy and Systems Alliance docks.

As they enter the lift that will take them there, Ashley asks, "Why are the Systems Alliance docks with the turians?"

Jane shrugs, "I have no idea, because we first made contact with them for all I know."

Tali doesn't even look up from her datapad to comment on the conversation.

At the bottom of the lift, Jane and Ashley walk out, and Jane turns around, "Tali, we're here. You can put the datapad away for the moment."

Tali looks up and whines in English, "Do you have any idea how important this could be for the flotilla? Imagine if we used this information on the inside of a live ship, we could have a home again. One that could never be taken away from us because we could take it with us."

Jane shakes her head, "Tali, you will have plenty of time to read and study later. Victoria and Oriana are waiting for us."

Reluctantly, Tali puts the datapad in the pouch that Jane made for her, before walking out of the lift.

Ashley shakes her head, "I can't understand how you can both do so much studying, it makes my head hurt just thinking about it."

As the three of them approach Victoria and Oriana, Victoria asks, "What was that about the flotilla?"

As Tali looks down, embarrassed at being heard, Oriana shakes her head, "It's a sad story, the short version of it is that the quarian people were expelled from the council when they accidentally created the geth. As they've lost their homeworld, they've been wandering from relay to relay in a vast flotilla that contains their entire species and any flora and fauna they could scavange while they fled."

Victoria shakes her head, "Why haven't they just settled on another planet?"

"Like turian's, they have dextro proteins, so planets that developed like that are in short supply. Every time they've found such a planet, someone already has a claim on it. They tend not to like my species, as the Hierarchy fleet is the one that normally has to move them on."

Victoria sighs, "Looks like I've got a new mountain of work to do, as Alliance space has a few planets that are predominantly dextro life. But they are all several days from the nearest relay by aether ship."

With a hopeful tone, Tali asks, "How long is that by eezo drive?"

Jane puts her hand on Tali's shoulder, "Tali, the SAAS Agincourt could do 200ly a day. I don't know what the limit on eezo…"

She cuts off as the Normandy flies through the atmospheric shields to dock at a nearby docking arm.

Oriana shows amusement at Jane's reaction, "This is what has been occupying the time of both Victoria and myself recently. The Systems Alliance now officially has four docks, one of which is shared with the Hierarchy."

Victoria takes over, "As the joint majority backers of the Normandy Project, our governments are proud to sign over command of the ship to the Council's newest Spectre. A person who has shown she epitomises the traits we both hold up as ideals in both societies."

Oriana gestures to the ship, "Spectre Shepherd, the Normandy is now at your disposal. Your turian mentor is on board with their partner. They are replacing the old quartermaster, but they are merchants so they expect to have plenty of trade opportunities during your travels."

Victoria adds, "Tali, we have been able to have your shuttle moved to dock 3, though I'm sorry to say that they weren't able to locate your personal effects, or the geth core."

Jane shrugs apologetically, "Sorry, the other spectre is still looking, as they believe that locating the geth core will uncover some of the underworld contacts that have thus far evaded identification."

Tali shakes her head, "This is already more than I ever expected. It is a common story for those on their pilgrimage, and the reason why so many are reduced to working on ships for their passage. If it didn't happen here, it would have been somewhere else."

Jane nods, "I am honoured that you have allowed me this command, what of the IHA?"

Victoria hides a smile, "The IHA Navy has agreed to the reassignment. The government, not so much. Captain Anderson will be busy for the foreseeable future as he settles into his new role as military liaison. Admiral Hackett is to be your primary contact in the IHA Navy as you don't have any official authority there."

Jane nods again, "Have the Alliance or Hierarchy managed to turn up any leads? Or am I going chasing geth blind?"

Oriana says, "The IHA have provided one thing, a rumoured sighting of Saren on their Feros colony. They have confirmed the presence of geth there. The Hierarchy have traced Matriarch Benezia's family, and we've located her daughter. Finally, I've heard rumours that the council have located Benezia herself, though obviously I don't have access to their files."

Jane sags in relief, "At least I have a starting point. Starting from Eden Prime would be problematic."

Victoria nods, "That reminds me, The Assembly have decided to open up the Eden Prime mass relay. Their report suggested that the local governor had already been using it, and was planning on seceding the colony to the IHA. That means that you can access it through the Exodus Cluster. Nova Prime, the official home planet for the IHA is in the Asgard system in the same relay cluster."

Jane laughs, "Victoria, do you even know what a relay cluster is?"

Victoria shakes her head, "Nope, I'm just reading what they wrote. I understand that the Hierarchy want their engineers to go bow to stern to ensure the IHA hasn't left any surprises, or removed anything vital. The Systems Alliance also has something coming. The details will be in the captains quarters once it arrives, as they don't trust me with that information."

Tali dryly comments, "It's more likely they don't trust Stoic not to mess it up somehow."

Oriana nudges Victoria, "She's only been living with you for 8 days, and she's already got him pegged."

Jane turns to Ashley, "There's a place in my crew if you want it. Otherwise, I'm sure the Alliance Engineers will be happy to return you to Alliance Space."

Ashley shakes her head, "I might be able to see my family sooner if I head back now. But without you, I wouldn't be able to see them at all. I'm going with you."

 

[TheWhiteRose]

ooooh new races on the citadel.

Loved tali's stuff up when bonding the suit XD

I feel there needs to be a post In information as to allegiance with canon characters, I did not expect Hackett to be iha

Nice translation error with sirus and stoic
And I like what you did with the general and being human or turian.

 

[Darkphoenixlady]

I feel there needs to be a post In information as to allegiance with canon characters, I did not expect Hackett to be iha

Click to shrink...

Admiral Steven Hackett of the IHA
A few years after first contact, then Captain Hackett of the SAAS Avenger was transporting a Salarian Scientist to one of the systems alliance colonies. During the trip, the scientist broke quarantine multiple times without anyone noticing. It was only on the last day of the journey that the symptoms of PS started to affect the magical crew. At this point it was too late, and a full 1/3 of the crew died from being PS positive. Later questioning under veritasium revealed that the scientist was also a member of the STG, and wanted to see if the humans claims of a virus were true. The Citadel Council refused to accept this testimony claiming that confessions obtained by chemical use were akin to torture.

Hackett and his crew went on to serve another 3 years before the isolation and lack of maintenance forced them to accept voluntary exile into Council Space. Steven Hackett was the last organic crew member to leave. Rather than return to service, the Avenger instead chose to be reborn to a human, and given to Steven Hackett to raise as his own child.
With the loss of the guiding intelligence, the Systems Alliance refitted the ship. Then they reactivated the magical intelligence and christened the ship the SAAS Agincourt.

 

[Dali Neko]

I'm so happy you brought this back!
The Deep Dream is such a wonderful original take on the Harry Potter world, especially with the smooth way you combine the Sidhe culture, Cthulhu mythos and others into the mix. Looking forward to more updates in both your stories!

 

[Darkphoenixlady]

I'm so happy you brought this back!
The Deep Dream is such a wonderful original take on the Harry Potter world, especially with the smooth way you combine the Sidhe culture, Cthulhu mythos and others into the mix. Looking forward to more updates in both your stories!

Click to shrink...

Thank you, I also have a rewrite of the first book on going.

 

[TheWhiteRose]

I can see that causing him to leave.

I was confused abit until I realised you where talking about the ships core

 

[Darkphoenixlady]

Chapter 22: Chasing leads – part 3

A couple of hours later, Jane is in the captain's quarters on the Normandy reading through the lengthy reports that the various governments have given her on Saren.

As the door pings, she turns around and looks up, "Lt Presley. Take a seat."

Presley sits at the table, "You asked to see me captain?"

Jane nods, "I want to make you my Executive Officer."

Presley looks down, "I'm honoured captain, but…"

"Shouldn't Captain Anderson be here instead? It's complicated, as there is a conflict of interests with the IHA. Suffice to say that as a Spectre, two thirds of the investors in this ship felt I should have an independent command. This is on top of Captain Anderson's new role as the military liaison between the Systems Alliance and the IHA militaries. For things like joint patrols and the renewal of citizenship with the Systems Alliance."

Presley looks up, "Citizenship sir?"

Jane nods, "Nobody that left the Systems Alliance ever had their citizenship revoked. However, all restricted equipment that is to be taken outside Systems Alliance space must be blooded. Regardless of PS or magical status."

Presley nods, "I'll let the crew know."

Jane smiles, "While you're at it, let them know that there will be turian and quarian crew members. At the same time, let them know that, I'll also be updating the crew manifest once we're under weigh, just in case there were any mistakes made by the IHA you understand. If I come across any names that aren't present, I'll assume it was a clerical error."

Presley looks at Jane for a long moment before nodding, "Understood captain. When are we leaving?"

Jane waves at the data slates in front of her, "As soon as I've finished going through all of this, so call it 24 hours. Oh, and my apprentice, Tali, will be acting as my aide so ensure she goes on the ship's registry as such."

Presley makes a note on his own datapad, "Understood captain."

Two hours later, Jane storms up to CiC, "Lt Presley, notify all crew, we are leaving in 1 hour. One of our assignments just became time critical. Notify the docking authorities to take down the names of anyone that arrives after we leave. They will still be registered crew members when we return, and they'll be on duty during the next shore leave."

Presley nods, "Captain, should I also arrange for each shift to have staggered shore leave?"

Jane nods thoughtfully, "Agreed, I'll leave it to your discretion."




As the Normandy pulls out of the dock under Jokers skilled touch, Jane switches on the ship-wide intercom in the CiC.

"This is Commander Shepherd, Spectre and captain of the Normandy. Most of you were there when Saren attempted to kill Nihlus, and those who weren't were at his trial. Each and every one of you chose to join your respective militaries to make a difference in the Galaxy, and you were chosen to join this crew, my crew, because you are the best there is. We have been tasked by the Citadel Council to track down the Ex-Spectre Saren and stop him and his plans.

"I won't lie to you, this is a dangerous mission. You all saw the ship that stylised itself after a Sleeper, that is what we're facing. That is what we have to stop, that is what we are up against. We are the line in the sand that says no more.

"On a lighter note. The Systems Alliance has provided a new training cabinet on the hanger deck. We also have a modified set of guidelines for cabinet use on the ship. They are only off limits to all personnel for 30 minutes either side of a relay jump, or approaching and leaving planetary orbit. While we are under weigh, marines will be stationed outside each cabinet to provide a warning if we enter an engagement. Lt Presley, you have the bridge. Tali, Wrex, Alenko, Williams, and Garrus, meet me in the briefing room."

Switching off the comms, Jane looks down at Presley, "Set course for the Artemis Tau cluster."

Her orders give, Jane turns around and makes her way into the communications room.

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Standing by the three holo projectors, Jane looks around at the five people here with her.

Clicking a button on her omni-tool, a miniature map of the galaxy opens up, before zooming into the Artemis Tau cluster, "This is a Search and Rescue mission. Our target is Liara T'Soni, Benezia's daughter. In human terms Benezia is Liara's mother. This mission became time sensitive when I received reports of Geth activity in this cluster. It hardly seems like a coincidence that they've appeared given the fact that our target is considered to be the foremost expert on the protheans. I don't know what we're going to find there, but reports say that the planet she's on is undergoing total tectonic collapse. Emergency portkeys are non-optional for this mission. Any questions before I give out squad allocations and objectives?"

Wrex nods, "Yeah, what are emergency portkeys?"

Jane looks at Ashley, "Williams, give everyone a crash course on the portkey writer and insignia once we're done here. Oh, and while I remember, I have ordered a turian and krogan I5 suit for each of you. Once they arrive, I'll be expecting you both to wear them 24/7 while you're working for me. If for no other reason than the face plate will… Well, you were around when Williams took a bullet to the face. Any other questions?"

When nobody answers Jane nods, "Very well, Wrex, Alenko, you're squad leaders. Williams, you're 2ic for Wrex, Garrus same for Alenko. Tali will be with me. You'll each have two marines backing you up. Alenko, you'll be securing our landing site and providing a fall back position. Wrex, you're on fast response. My squad will be on point and I'll provide portkey coordinates when I need you. ETA is 72 hours, so get some rest and get your gear sorted out."

Kaiden raises his hand, "With all due respect Ma'am, would I be able to have someone else as my 2ic?"

Jane shakes her head, "No can do, Garrus has excellent scores for sharpshooting and spotting, ideal for maintaining a fall back position. Suck it up soldier and get to know your squad mate."

As they're all starting to stand up, Jane lifts up her omni tool to check something when it reminds her of the tacnet. "One last thing. Does everyone know how to use the tacnet?"

Ashley shakes her head, "I still haven't been trained on that."

Jane nods, "I'll hold a class on Alliance ship doctrine, the TacNet and porkeys tomorrow at 1340 in the hold."

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A short while after the briefing, Tali is nervously sitting in the captains quarters trying to read her primer on runes. In the bottom right of her vision is the particulate graph she pinned in place after checking it as part of her suit checks, after she was jostled into a crate earlier.

At the sound of the door opening she looks up from her book, only to pause when instead of Jane, Lt Presley pokes his head into the room.

"Ah, Miss Zorah. I have you down as the captains aide, so I need to show you to your berth."

Tali looks around the spacious room, "Um… There is so much space in here, can I not just stay with Captain Shepherd?"

Presley looks down at his data slate, "Right, aide. I should have guessed, well it takes all sorts. I'll update the roster."

Tali stares at the door as it swishes closed again.

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After a long shift on the bridge both familiarising herself with the ship and crew, as well as dealing with the headache of only having one and a half shifts worth of crew instead of the full three shifts of crew she's supposed to have; Jane finally makes her way into the captains quarters, only to stop when she spots Tali sitting in the corner with a couple of cables coming from her omni-tool to the service port on the back of her suit.

As she touches the privacy button on the door, Jane calls out, "Tali. Tali! Are you alright?"

Tali jerks from her frantic diagnostic of her suit, trying to track down the error that's causing the spike in the particulate count. "No Captain, I think there's something wrong with my suit."

Jane walks over to Tali and crouches down next to her, "Tali, talk to me. What's the problem?"

Tali punches a couple of controls on her omnitool and enlarges the graph that she's been staring at all shift. Shakily she says, "This is wrong. I think one of the filters has been dislodged and is letting in bacteria. But I can't find out which filter, and the ships doctor was no help."

Jane stares at the display with the unfamiliar notation, "Tali, is this being displayed in Quarian?" Tali nods, "Ok, let me attach my own diagnostic cables and I'll run the Alliance diagnostic tools."

After a couple of minutes, Jane has a similar graph open along with a tabular format of the data. "Ok, this is the same data as your graph, and I can see a spike at the 20nm to 100nm range. That's to be expected as that's probably the virus that causes Prothean Syndrome. I'm surprised that you've got so little between 100nm and 10µ, I'd expect most humans to have a fairly level chart across those ranges unless they're ill."

Weakly, Tali says, "Nanometer?"

Jane looks at Tali sharply, "Tali, why are you using the Quarian language interface on an Alliance isolation suit?"

When Tali just stares at Jane, Jane puts the heel of her palm against her face plate, "Tali, have you used the language crystal yet?" As the silence drags on, Jane finally says with a sigh, "Tali, I know you're scared. We live with the same fears."

Tali shakes her head, "How can you say that. It's not like a suit rupture would kill you."

Jane leans her head against the wall for a moment. Taking a deep breath, she opens a recording of a photo of her mother and grandmother waving at her. "Tali, my mother was a squib, as was my grandmother. My grandmother was one of the diplomats during the initial trade negotiations with the citadel races. During a negotiation with the Salarians she suffered a tear in her positive pressure suit Hazmat suit."

Jane pulls up a picture of a Hazmat suit, "We didn't have anything better at the time as we'd never needed them. Once they discovered the tear she went into quarantine, and a few weeks later she was dead. My mother risked her life every time she visited me on Mindoir as she's also a squib. Until I went to Sandhurst I lived in this suit just like you live in your suit. Though I was terrified that I would have a suit failure around a magical or a squib, and be responsible for their death. I know that most of the humans you've met, or were likely to meet in the areas of the Alliance you could travel to, don't seem like they care. But that's because they've mostly rejected the rest of Alliance society due to isolation and being treated like lepers."

Tali frowns, "Leper's?"

"People who suffer from leprosy, a mildly contagious disease that was incurable until the 20th century. They were generally excluded from society out of fear and disgust. When you have time, you should talk to Ashley about her own fears and worries, as she's only just become PS positive."

Tali shakes her head, "But you've already got a cure for this, why don't you just make everyone magical?"

"Because it's dangerous, and we couldn't teach everyone the skills they needed to survive with magic levels that high. The people who could teach those skills don't want a massive influx of people disrupting their own culture. That's also not counting the fact that Humans are massively prone to being combative, and if we had an entire population of Sidhe level magicals, those humans that hold views like Human First would have almost certainly consigned at least one populated world to the void. I'm not including Torfan in that, as that was an object lesson to the rest of the Galaxy. One that nobody involved wanted to be part of, but it was the only way to prove that Human First was attempting to erase important parts of Systems Alliance history. The new IHA isn't much better, but at least there are now public records of sleepers. That's by the by, and you'll have first hand experience of those dangers before your apprenticeship is over. Before we get to that, you need to learn English, and the only reliable way to do that is with that memory crystal."

Tali unplugs her suit and hugs herself, "I'm not sure how to do it, and I'm scared."

Jane pulls up a picture of a leather cap with a crystal mounted on the forehead, "This is a memory recorder, and there should be several inside your cabinet. When you find them, one of them should have a small brass plate on the inside just over your forehead. That version is also a memory writer, but it will only work if you blood it like you had to do with all of your other equipment. If you want to use the writing feature, you'll need to lift up the thin leather protector so that the metal sits flush against your skin, and then place the crystal into the mounting socket. As soon as you do, the memory will be pulled out of the crystal and put into your own memory. Technically speaking, they are called histories rather than memories. This is because they have been curated from multiple sources to minimise the possibility of personality contagion, and I'm waffling. Look, just set up your cabinet against the wall and spend the next few shifts exploring it so that you're confident that it's safe for you. Once you're sure it's safe you can work on removing your face plate. Also keep in mind that you need to be able to read English in order to truly understand the book on Runes that you're reading."

Tali nods, "I'll do that, and I'll translate the books so that runes will be my pilgrimage gift."

"So, what's a pilgrimage gift?"

Tali looks up at the ceiling as she thinks, "Amongst my people, we do not live on a planet, rather we live on a flotilla of ships, the last survivors of our war with the Geth. As part of becoming an adult we must leave the flotilla and explore the Galaxy learning new skills until we find a suitable gift to present to a captain. It has to be something useful to the flotilla though, as we only survive when we all pull our weight."

"What would normally be considered appropriate gifts?"

"Anything from new air or hydroponics filters up to a new ship. There are so many things needed to keep the fleet running that it's very difficult to find something that isn't appropriate to one ship or another. But there's also a level of prestige involved, as one of the older smaller ships might accept something as simple as air filters, but then you'd be living on a ship that needs more attention than the crew can really dedicate to it. On the other hand, hydroponics filters would likely see you living on one of the live ships, and they are overcrowded even by our standards."

Jane nods, "Don't forget that you're my apprentice, there are a lot of things you are going to learn that will change the way you see the world. But as your Master I will do my best to ensure you return to the flotilla with an appropriate gift for your new station in life."

Tali smiles, "Thank you Shepherd."

Jane gently thumps Tali on the arm, "Tali, just call me Jane. As my apprentice you're outside the normal chain of command, and we're going to be together for a very long time."

Tali shakes her head, "You're around the same age as me, and your records say you were training for less than a year. I think I can learn everything you can teach me in a similar timescale."

"Now make that calculation based on me living on Earth:15 instead of Earth:2 for that time. That will give you the upper bound for how long you'd need to be with me to learn everything I learnt during my training. Then remember that I'm still being trained myself."

Tali shakes her head, "I've run those numbers, and they're impossible. There's no way you survived that long, not even the Asari live that long."

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Tali, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy. Now go and set up your cabinet and start exploring, you've got 3 hours before we reach the next relay."

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

During the middle of her sleeping shift, Tali shivers as she startles awake for the 5th time that night. Woken not by noise, but instead by the silence that pervades the entire ship. A soft snort has her turning her head towards the bed that Jane's sleeping on. After carefully disengaging the comfort mode on her suit she pushes herself to her feet and pads over to the bed, before lying down next to Jane. Over the rest of the sleep cycle she unconsciously moves closer and closer to Jane so that she can hear the soft snores that Jane makes.

 

[Martin Rudat]

Oh that's not going to lead to more rumors at all. Nope, not a one. =)

I wonder if there's a way to pipe engine noise and other relevant ship health data to your suit?

 

[Darkphoenixlady]

I wonder if there's a way to pipe engine noise and other relevant ship health data to your suit?

Click to shrink...

She wouldn't accept it anyway. Think about it like the old mechanics who can tell you exactly what's wrong with a car by the sound of the engine running. Except, they're a race of people living in their cars full time, and they rely on them to be making their various noises in order to preempt any problems before an inspection finds them.
The idea of listening to fake sounds in order to sleep would horrify them, as it would mean they miss any new sounds that shouldn't be there.

 

[Martin Rudat]

Think about it like the old mechanics who can tell you exactly what's wrong with a car by the sound of the engine running.

The idea of listening to fake sounds in order to sleep would horrify them, as it would mean they miss any new sounds that shouldn't be there.

Click to shrink...

Hmm. Point. I was sort of thinking of some models of cars with really good noise isolation that actually have a microphone in the engine compartment to allow the driver to hear some of the engine noise instead of none.

Also, I wasn't thinking fake sounds like a recording of an ocean, but rather synthetic sounds like an audio equivalent to a car dashboard.

The ideal would presumably be microphones stuck to various pieces of critical equipment; possibly with a different mix depending on what you're responsible for, perhaps with the ability to highlight specific pickups.

That actually sounds kind of useful come to think of it; if they're cheap enough, a pickup near main bearings or anything specifically known to start making funny noises before it asplodes sounds like something useful to add to the suite of more common sensors, probably fed to some sort of pre-filter to feed potentially funny noises to an engineer.

On a big enough ship with enough equipment or awkward enough layout it might be worthwhile just to save time walking around.