Mass Effect: Knight of the Old Republic

– Serpent Nebula, Citadel, Private Council Chambers –

Despite the opinions of a certain human Spectre and millions of extranet denizens, the Council did not spend all day doing nothing.

There were hundreds of policies that had to be carefully considered, thousands of new requests for each species in Citadel Space, and millions of summaries to read about incidents all over the galaxy. Trying to keep on top of it all was a full time job, and unsubstantiated rumors simply couldn’t be placed above the very real issues the four members of the Council faced everyday.

Which is why it was incredibly frustrating when not only did that particular Spectre not only provide proof that the Collectors were indeed behind the abducted human colonies and were using them for something… but another much more real and immediate problem failed to have the decency to resolve itself despite going through the single most deadly Relay ever discovered.

Which meant it was still their problem.

“Are you absolutely sure that no information about this ‘Revan’ exists?” Councilor Sparatus questioned their Salarian counterpart. “Surely the STG teams you no doubt had investigate her found something?”

If Valern was insulted at the insinuation he would hide information, he did not show it. “Nothing. There are no records, sightings, or even rumors of her before she appeared on Commander Shepard’s ship.”

“That can’t be possible. Someone with her abilities can’t have just come from nowhere.”

“Of course not. But her background has been carefully covered up.” the Salarian countered. “We will need more time to uncover it.”

“Be sure to keep us updated. So far what little we know about this figure is that she is an incredibly dangerous warlord at least. Now that she has supposedly taken charge of both the Geth and Quarians we need to make sure that another conflict does not break out. We may need to consider denouncing anyone affiliated with the Migrant fleet until we can be certain this woman will not cause a major incident.”

“Is this really the best use of our time?” Anderson broke in. “We now have solid evidence that the Collectors were working for the Reapers. We need to discuss–”

“That is concerning and we will give the topic all the attention it deserves,” Tevos interrupted with the tone of a school teacher trying to get an unruly student to focus. “But according to Shepard’s report, the Collectors have been dealt with for now. The more important matter is that this Revan character has come out of nowhere and installed herself as Empress of both the Geth and the Migrant fleet. We cannot allow a complete unknown to cause chaos throughout the galaxy. We need to know what her goals are.”

“She’s doing what we should be doing – preparing for the Reapers.” Anderson sighed in frustration. “She’s willing to believe Shepard about that and is taking it seriously. Without the ridiculous demands for ‘proof’ this Council seems to require, I could add.”

“Ridiculous?! We cannot act on the word of just one Human!” Sparatus snapped. “Shepards has given us nothing–”

“Except a translated Prothean warning, stopping Saren’s override of this very station to receive something from deep space, aiding in the destruction of a Reaper at the cost of a human battle group, you mean.” Anderson interrupted. “Or rather the Geth ‘super-dreadnought’. Though I guess that won’t work anymore since the Geth and Quarians are joining forces to fight against those ships, so it can’t come from the Geth. And that was just what she gave us two years ago. Now she’s given us even more proof and we’re just planning on ignoring it!”

“I think a brief recess is in order.” Tevos said diplomatically. “None of us will be able to make any progress if our emotions are getting the better of us. We’ll reconvene when Councilor Anderson has calmed down.”

A few months ago, Anderson might not have cared to notice the deliberate choice of words used by the Asari Councilor. But after Revan had pointed out all the slights and insults the other, more experienced, politicians had used during the meeting with Shepard he had been much more vigilant about such things.

Blaming him for derailing the session by being overemotional would just be the latest in a long line of excuses, and the old captain of the original Normandy found himself increasingly less inclined to deal with them. Not when time was running out. Maybe it was time to leave the desk to someone willing to play word games while the countdown to Armageddon ticked down and get back to the Alliance. There he could at least be doing something productive.

-o-

– Crescent Nebula, Tasale System, Illium –

Sounds of panicked gunfire filled the night air as a trio of Asari in Eclipse armor stumbled around a corner, blindly firing at something behind them. There was a brief explosion and smoke began wafting out of the alley the three mercenaries had come from.

“Did we get her?” The youngest of the three asked nervously.

As if in response a form shrouded in Biotic energy exploded through the smoke and slammed into the mercenary, shattering what was left of her barrier and throwing her to the ground. The second merc was enveloped in another field before she could blink and was sent headfirst into the side of a building. The third had just enough time to try pointing her gun at the form when three gunshots rang out.

The last Asari looked down at the trio of holes that had punched their way through her breastplate before wordlessly collapsing.

“No, no you didn’t get me.” The figure commented as the glow of biotics faded away, revealing another Asari wearing a predominantly blue hardsuit with a white corset-like section. While she wasn’t nearly as famous as her human counterpart, Tela Vasir was a well known figure as a Council Spectre. It was actually a little insulting that three random mercs thought they could take her in a straight fight.

Whatever, not her problem anymore.

Vasir fired off a hacker program from her Omnitool and smiled when she saw the results. A full record of a Red Sand distribution line, just as promised.

She activated another program and waited patiently as a secure line to her agent was established.

“Spectre Vasir, I trust the information is satisfactory?”

“Yeah, they had everything I needed. Tell the Shadow Broker he does good work.” Vasir didn’t actually like the Shadow Broker, in fact if she ever got a clear run at him she’d be just as likely to kill him as ask for information, but without someone doing the legwork for finding out all the little schemes trying to throw the galaxy into chaos Vasir wouldn’t have the time to actually find or stop them.

So that meant working with the Shadow Broker to weed out the worst of the worst, even if that meant paying back some ’favors’ from time to time.

“The Broker provides the best, Spectre.” The agent replied with an edge in their voice. “Something you should already be aware of. Which is why the Broker requires you to do something in return.”

Vasir sighed. “What does he want?”

“There’s a certain information broker on Illium that’s been sticking her nose into things best left alone. An Asari by the name of Liara T’Soni. The Shadow Broker wants her taken care of. Permanently.”

She never liked this part, the Shadow Broker was using her to knock off one of his rivals again. Or maybe he just didn’t like this broker in particular. Oh well, one broker was a small price to pay for access to the Shadow Broker’s information network. They tended to be horribly corrupt criminals anyway so it was no real loss on her side either.

“Fine, I’ll take care of her. Just–”

“I’m afraid Spectre Vasir will be unavailable for a little while.” A new voice interrupted. “Our order has need of her services.”

Vasir whipped around to face the unexpected new arrival, her Vindicator rifle snapping up only to freeze once she saw who it was. Not many could sneak up on a Spectre, especially not one that tended to work alone like she did, but an Asari Justicar was definitely one of the few Vasir would expect to be capable of such a feat.

Although this one seemed a bit different than a normal Justicar. Vasir knew that all Justicars were the pinnacle of Biotic strength, but most of them carried a weapon if only for having something to hand over as a symbolic gesture of committing no violence when dealing with others. The Spectre could only see a strange metal tube hanging from the other Asari’s belt.

“Who do you–” “I’ll have to turn down the request after all.” Vasir spoke over her agent quickly. Everyone knew a Justicar’s code was absolute, the last thing she wanted was him saying the wrong thing and the Justicar deciding Vasir needed to die instead of working for her. “I’ll make it up to the Shadow Broker later. A favor owed.” Tela hated owing favors to anyone on principle. Owing one to someone like the Shadow Broker was even worse. But she preferred living.

“Wha– you don’t get–” Her agent started before the Spectre ended the call.

“Sorry about that, ma’am. What can I assist you with?” She said respectfully. Every little Asari wanted to be a Justicar at one point, after all. And although Tela had learned a long time ago about what a poor idea it was to meet your heroes, it was impossible to stop some of that childhood admiration from rising up anyway.

The other Asari gave her a small smile. “You don’t have to be so tense, I won’t bite. But yes, I need your help tracking down one of your fellow Spectres. The human, Jane Shepard.”

Tela froze.

A random information broker was one thing. Even a well connected one if the benefits were worth it. But going after another Spectre? That was another line entirely. One she wasn’t prepared to cross without a very good reason.

Thankfully the Justicar continued before she needed to say anything.

“There’s a very dangerous…let’s call her criminal, yes, a very dangerous criminal traveling with your fellow Spectre that I need to eliminate. You will help me with this endeavor.”

So not Shepard herself. Tela was much less conflicted about helping this person then. If they had a Justicar after them, they certainly did something to deserve it. “I’ll put out an urgent request to meet. The last update I saw, Shepard was investigating something about the Collectors and some crazy conspiracy about how they’re just pawns for something else. I don’t know if she’s finished with that but I can say I found a lead regarding a deal they had with some fringe groups. That should be enough to get her to investigate at the very least.”

“Wonderful. I have the feeling I am going to enjoy working together, miss Tela Vasir.”

-o-

– Horse Head Nebula, Pax System, Noveria –

Gam'Virrel vas Shaazal stood silently in front of his supervisor, privately glad his enviro-suit hid the wide smile on his face as he watched the fat, lazy Turian try and wrap his poor little brain around what he was just told. It wouldn’t be ‘proper’ to be grinning like this was the best day of his life while giving such ‘grave’ and ‘distressing’ news.

“I- I’m sorry, what did you say!?”

Gam'Virrel did his best to hide his amusement. Again something much easier to do when faced with someone who never took the time to learn how to read Quarian body language. Even if that person was supposed to be his boss.

Still he just pushed that aside for now and put on an act of being sad and repentant.

“I said that the entire team just quit. Without them there is no way the project is going to be finished by the deadline. Figuring out how everything works just based on what documentation was left behind alone will take months.” Gam said ‘sadly’, though he wasn’t lying. It really would take whatever engineers that took over months to familiarize themselves with the project, let alone complete it. The math and coding was just that complex. The price paid when dealing with cutting edge mass effect technology.

“Quit!? They can’t quit!” The supervisor sputtered. “That’s a breach of contract! I’ll have those ungrateful suit-rats slapped with a lawsuit so hard their heads will spin!”

“Ah, about that. Our contract says that quitting for any reason will bar the quarian in question from seeking employment anywhere else on Noveria without paying a fine–” one so massive that Gam wasn’t sure even one of the Admirals could pay it off on their own “–but they are free to quit whenever they want.”

Of course a quarian could be fired whenever someone wanted without warning, but that was neither here nor there.

“I don’t give a damn!” The turian exploded. “This project was going to land me a promotion, how dare they just walk out on me! After everything I did to help them too!”

Ah yes, the ‘help’.

As if quarter-pay to any other comparable engineer, long hours, unreasonable demands, and thinly veiled racism was somehow supposed to demand loyalty from a team that had only stayed because there was no guarantee of being hired somewhere else.

Frankly it was a wonder someone would ever give up a position on this lovely ice ball with ‘perks’ like those.

“Damn it all, fine, at least you seem a little smarter than the rest of those rats Gum,” “Gam” “whatever –” the turian waved him off. “I don’t care what it takes. You are going to meet that deadline – even if that means you don’t leave that lab until it’s done, do you hear me!?”

“I do…there’s just one problem with that.” Gam'Virrel replied.

“What?”

“I quit too, I’m just here to hand in everyone’s security badges.” the quarian smirked while placing the stack of said objects on the desk. “I’d say it was a pleasure, but honestly, you can go fuck yourself.”

And with that, Gam'Virrel walked out of the office, the building, and didn’t stop until he reached the lot where one of the few non-quarian friends he had made was waiting in an air-car.

Better to be long gone before his ex-supervisor managed to reboot his sorry excuse for a brain.

It was only after the two of them were in the air and on the way to the spaceport that Gam managed to fully relax.

“So that’s it then? All of you are heading back to the fleet?” His friend asked.

“Yes. I don’t know what the big deal is, but the Admirals have called everyone back for something big. Rumor has it they managed to get another Liveship built somehow.” Gam lied.

He felt bad for lying to his friend, especially because the salarian had been nothing but helpful the entire time they knew each other, but the message from the Fleet had been clear. No one was to say anything about their plans to return to Rannoch before it was too late to stop them.

It had happened before. Where a group of quarians would announce their intention to start a colony on some backwater world only for some ‘deeply regretful’ group to come out of nowhere with a bunch of legal varrenshit and a turian patrol fleet saying they would either need to move on or be declared pirates.

It was clear that there were some very powerful people determined to make sure the Quarians never had a home again.

Gam didn’t want to think what those people would do if they found out they were going home anyway.

He might not trust the bulb-heads much, but honestly he could say that about pretty much every other ‘race’ in the galaxy too if you considered the Geth a proper race. He didn’t think the galaxy was conspiring against him just because he was quarian or anything like that, he had met just as many people willing to overlook the racist stereotypes as people willing to believe them, but he firmly believed that most simply didn’t care enough to do anything meaningful about the struggles every quarian faced day to day.

He didn’t hate them for it, though. He was guilty of the same thing after all.

How many slaves were suffering under either pirates or Batarians? How many people were struggling with injuries or illness? How many were simply starving? How many others faced discrimination just because of stereotypes about their race?

Gam'Virrel had no idea, and he wasn’t particularly interested in finding out or doing anything about it.

He didn’t consider himself a bad person. He just felt those issues were too ‘big’ for a normal engineer like himself. He’d leave dealing with those types of things to people like Tali’Zorah and the Empress. People that had the ability to tell reality this was how something was or would be, and for the rest of the world to just follow along. Gam'Virrel would just let them do their thing and do his best doing perfectly normal things.

“Wow, a new Liveship? That would be incredible!” His friend exclaimed, unaware of Gam’s internal thoughts. “That would explain why so many quarians are going back to the fleet. It’s going to be hard finding someone to talk to about engineering at this rate though. Everyone else I know is too focused on the theoretical side, no respect for those like us that just want to build things!”

Gam chuckled. “Well who knows what is actually going on, but I’d be happy to trade a few messages over the extranet. It’d be a shame to never hear from you again.”

The two of them traded small talk for a bit until they reached the spaceport. Gam had already sent the few possessions he had ahead with another of the quarians leaving today so there wasn’t much for him to do besides board the shuttle. One final goodbye and he was off into the void…with nearly every quarian either having already left or not far behind.

At this point it was clear. Despite the difficulties and slights most quarians dealt with to even get a legitimate job in the first place, they were all leaving.

The salarian watched as the shuttle shrank to a tiny dot in the sky and activated his omnitool.

“STG mission log NOL-1328-12-412-A : Final log. Escorted last member of observed team to shuttle where subject departed planet from. No destination was extracted beyond ‘back to the Fleet’. Further observation impossible. Ending mission and reporting back for reassignment. End log.”