For The Honor Of The Regiment (Worm/Bolo crossover)

A suggestion from a reader led to this...

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​

"We have successfully retrieved an intact Dinochrome artifact, sir! Finally. It took us six months and we sacrificed eighteen men in the process, but we did it."

"That damn girl is more paranoid than I am... Good work, Captain. Now... how do you turn it on?"

"Er... Hoskins! Front and center, you're the Tinker expert, get to it and make this work!"

"Sir!"

<poking sounds...>

"Aha! OK, this is the power control, I think, so this should be the output intensity, and you close this like this, move this over to here, turn this thingy like so..."

"Thingy?"

"Technical term, sir. And finally we move the whatsit twenty degrees clockwise and turn it on!"

<click>

<hummmmmmmmmmmmm>

"... That is more than a little ominous, Captain."

"Agreed, sir. Perhaps we should close the blast shield and watch through the cameras. Just in case. You know how dangerous that insane girl can be."

"Do it."

<clunk>

"OK, Hoskins, fire it up. Lowest power, just for a test burst."

"Sir! Activating in 3, 2, 1..."

<Beep!>

"Unauthorized user detected. Please present credentials within fifteen seconds or suitable measures will be enacted. Safeties are disengaged, rules of engagement are set to anti-capture with lethal consequences. Minimum safe distance is one hundred and sixteen point two six meters. There will be no further verbal warnings from this point."

"... oh dear."

"Sir? I'm reading a very big energy build up coming from this thing. Um... I think it means it."

"Get out of there, man! Put the forcefield up, quick."

"..."

"Oh, shit."

"It's got spindly little legs coming out of it now, sir. And it's looking at me!"

"Run, you idiot! RUN!"

"EVACUATE LEVEL SIX, CODE PURPLE! REPEAT, EVACUATE LEVEL SIX, CODE PURPLE. ENACT HOSTILE ATTACKER PROTOCOL ALPHA SEVEN IMMEDIATELY!"

"AAAIIIIIEEEE!"

"HOSKINS!"

"My spleen! Jesus, it's got my spleen!!"

"CODE NIGHTMARE GREEN! THIS IS NOT A DRILL! COMPLETE EVACUATION OF BASE HAS BEEN ORDERED! REPEAT, CODE NIGHTMARE GREEN! ALL PERSONNEL, WEAPONS FREE!"

"My nuts!"

---

Taylor read the after action report from her purloined equipment with a tiny dark smile. The BOLO sounded satisfied when he said, as usual very calmly, "I rather think we'll have no trouble from that direction again, Commander."

"Nope," she giggled. "Nice job, Kenny."

"Thank you very much, Commander."

Danny, who was sitting on the couch next to his wife with his arm around her, shook his head fondly at his daughter, then went back to watching the TV with Annette. The news was showing a fairly substantial crater with smoke billowing from one side out of what looked like a ventilation duct, one of the few things still standing, while the reporter was gravely discussing the cause of this tragedy with Armsmaster, who in turn was occasionally glancing at the remains in a slightly appalled yet still impressed manner. "Taylor, my dear daughter..." he began as the camera turned to Captain Rosenberg of the BBPD, who seemed to be trying to avoid laughter based on the way his mouth was twitching. "I feel that this might be, just might be, overkill. It was only a microwave oven."

Annette, who had been making little muffled noises for the entire time, abruptly burst into gales of laughter and slid under his arm to end up rolling on the floor, pointing at the TV with one hand with tears of amusement streaming from her eyes. He sighed and propped his head on his fist, watching them both.

"There is no such thing as overkill, Danny," Kenny's voice said, a note of sly amusement present.

"So you've said, repeatedly, Kenny," the union man mumbled. "And I am becoming all too aware that you aren't joking. Oh, well, I suppose it was bound to happen sooner or later. Or something like it."

Taylor was now lying across her mother, both of them laughing like idiots, as the TV panned to show more of the destruction. He shook his head, then went to get another cup of coffee. "I hope no one tries playing with her games console or we'll have to evacuate New Hampshire," he muttered under his breath as he waited for the kettle to boil.

 

Another reader comment led to this one too

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​

"Mr Wallis."

Colin twitched violently at the calm tenor voice that sounded in his helmet, nearly losing control of his motorcycle. "Who is this?" he demanded when the sudden shock wore off, and feeling very worried about how the unknown person knew his real identity. How he'd gained access to a quantum-encrypted voice channel was even more worrying. "How did you get on this channel?"

"You may call me... Kenny. I merely wanted a quick word with you, while you were otherwise not engaged." Colin's bike shut down, the engine grumbling into silence as the machine slowed to a halt. He frantically poked every control he had, including both physical switches and virtual ones, but nothing had any effect. Moments later his helmet HUD died as well. "I see you are currently free."

"How... what did you do?" Colin shouted in fury. He looked around, then up at the damaged buildings surrounding this part of the docks. "Where are you?"

"That is not relevant, Mr Wallis," 'Kenny' said patiently, his voice still calm and reasonable. "Now, as I was saying, I wanted to have a quick word."

"About what?" the Tinker said while trying to raise the PRT emergency console, to no avail. He reached around to retrieve his halberd and access the spare emergency communications device in it, but found the magnetic clamp wouldn't unlock. After yanking a couple of times, he swore under his breath and got off his bike, peering around suspiciously.

"About a good friend of mine, and yours for that matter." 'Kenny's' voice sounded slightly amused for a moment. "Dragon appears very fond of you."

Colin froze, then slowly replied, after thinking hard, "I... enjoy her company more than that of any other person that I know."

"She feels much the same," 'Kenny' replied. "I am pleased that she has found someone she cares for in such a manner. My reason for talking like this is that I want to be certain what your motives are for this friendship."

"Motives?" Colin was slightly confused, and this was suppressing a little of the worry. He was still intensely curious as to how the unknown person had apparently hacked his systems, though, and not pleased at all about it. "She is my friend. What other motive do I need?"

There was a short pause, before the voice replied, "I see. And if she should desire a closer relationship?"

"I... am unsure what you mean," Colin admitted. He really was.

"Hmm. Interesting." 'Kenny' sounded amused again. "Very interesting. All right, let me put it another way. If, by any chance, Dragon should at some point desire a relationship that involved a physical component, and more of an emotional one, I shall expect you to either reciprocate in the same manner, without any subterfuge, or very politely and immediately explain why such a thing is not possible as clearly and non-confrontationally as you can."

Colin was by now more than merely slightly confused, although he dimly perceived the direction the other person was going. Opening his mouth to reply, he was interrupted by 'Kenny' continuing, "If it happened that you were minded to lead Dragon on, or in any way cause her emotional upset, I would be... displeased. There would be consequences. Ones you would, very briefly, find unpleasant."

The Tinker was now on more familiar ground. "Is that some form of threat?" he demanded.

"Oh, Mr Wallis, it is much more than that," 'Kenny' replied softly. "It is a promise. I always keep my promises."

A faint sound from behind him made Colin whirl, only to stare as a shimmering hole in space opened up, some ten feet across. He took a step back as a tube nearly as large in diameter smoothly and silently extruded from the portal or whatever it was, stopping when it was about a foot away.

Staring down the long tube he fancied he could make out a dim blue glow at the far end, and could definitely hear a low hum, just at the threshold of perception.

"I always keep my promises," 'Kenny' repeated. "Usually with immediate effect. This effect may include local weather pattern disruption, short term fallout, and significant blast damage. Do you understand the thrust of my argument?" The gun barrel, which is what it obviously was despite the almost comical size, moved forward another six inches and the hum got just a tiny amount louder as the glow brightened.

"I... believe I understand," Colin managed to say after a long, long pause filled with existential terror.

"Excellent. In that case, I expect we'll have no problems at all." The fucking huge gun pulled back and the portal thing vanished moments later, causing Colin to nearly collapse in relief. "I enjoyed our little chat. Perhaps we'll meet face to face at some point."

Behind him, Colin heard his bike power up again and his HUD flickered into existence. "I have other work to do now, so I must leave you at this point. By the way, if you take the second left ahead, you'll find Kreig about to break into a warehouse along with six E88 gunmen half a mile further along on the right." The voice sounded positively cheerful now, while Colin was shaking slightly as adrenalin reaction set in. "Until we next talk. Give my best to Dragon."

The voice stopped. Colin breathed heavily for thirty seconds or so, decided that his armor required a larger waste container for the next round of upgrades, got back on his bike, and went to soundly thrash the E88 cape as a method of stress reduction.

While thinking very hard about where he could learn the correct way to talk to a person who desired a romantic relationship. Surely there must be a manual or something...

 

This one, on the other hand, is entirely my own fault...

---

​

“Tay, what are we gonna do!” Emma wailed. “This is a nightmare!”

“Calm down, Ems, it’s not that bad,” Taylor said gently, holding her friend by the shoulders.

“Not that bad?! It’s horrible!” Her red-headed friend sniffed, wiping her eyes. “Everyone will laugh at us.”

“They already do, but we don’t care, do we?” Taylor smiled encouragingly. “The Crimson Lady and Doctor Curlyhair have always been mocked for their rivalry, but they still always come out on top. Well… almost always. Most of the time.”

Emma took a deep breath, then straightened up where she was sitting on the edge of Taylor’s bed, putting on a haughty expression. “My nemesis is correct. The Crimson Lady is not one to allow the vagueness of fate to sway her.”

“Vagaries.”

“What?”

“It’s ‘vagaries of fate’ not ‘vagueness of fate.’ Your way makes it sound like fate doesn’t know what’s going on and is looking around all confused or something.”

Emma sighed. “OK, fine, you pedifier.”

“Pedant.”

Taylor squawked as her friend jumped on her and wrestled her to the ground. Both girls were instantly giggling as it devolved into a tickle fight. Eventually Taylor ended up sitting on the shorter girl with both the other’s hands held in one of hers while she ran the fingers of the other down her ribs. “Give in?”

“Stop, Tay! STOP! You win, you lanky freak!” Emma was laughing so hard she was nearly crying.

Releasing her, Taylor jumped to her feet and held her hands above her head in a victory pose. “Doctor Curlyhair does it yet again! Mua ha ha!!”

“Keep it down, girls, some of us are trying to work down here.”

“Sorry, Mom.”

Emma, who had calmed down, grinned at her friend. “Doctor Curlyhair is scared of her mom,” she giggled.

“The Doctor merely knows when to make a tactical withdrawal,” Taylor calmly informed her friend, sitting on her bed where Emma had been, while the other ten year old propped herself up on her elbows. “Mom Girl is a worthy opponent. There is little sense in picking battles when they can be avoided.”

“Did Kenny say that?”

“He gives sound advice,” Taylor smiled. “It makes sense.”

“As much as anything about your imaginary friend does, I guess.” Emma shook her head. “You’re weird.”

Taylor bowed from her seated position. “I proudly accept the title.”

“Idiot.”

“Says you.”

“Says I, yes.”

They smiled at each other, then Emma got up and flopped onto Taylor’s bed, sighing deeply. “I still don’t know what we’ll do.”

“We can figure it out. Between us, we can do anything!” Taylor leaped to her feet, pointing dramatically at the ceiling and by implication the rest of the universe. “First we take over the city. Then the country. Between your powers and mine, all will fall before us! After the country is under our control, we extend our grip over the entire planet!” She looked at Emma. “You can have Iceland, but I want Australia. I like kangaroos.”

“Of course, Doctor Curlyhair,” Emma allowed graciously. “Continue.”

“Ahem. Yes, we will shortly control the world. Then...”

“Yes?”

“Then...”

“Yes? Yes?”

“Then… We expand out into the solar system, colonize every inhabitable part of it, and use the resources to ultimately rule the entire galaxy in the name of Humanity!” Taylor took a deep breath, then continued in a lower voice, “With ourselves as the benevolent rulers, of course, and Kenny being our technological and military adviser.”

“Hmm.” Emma tugged her lower lip in thought. “I like the way you think, Doctor. But what about our moral compass? We’ll need people to keep us honest, since power corrupts. Or so I’m told.”

“We have Mom Girl, The Mom, DadMan, and The Docker,” Taylor said, spreading her arms wide and grinning unnervingly. “Who else do we need? I’m telling you, It. Will. Work! Mua ha ha!”

“Girls! Less dramatic laughter and plotting to take over the world, more quiet!”

“Sorry, Mom!” Taylor looked at her friend who was now rolling around on her bed giggling and sighed. “The life of a not very evil super-villain is fraught with minor irritations,” she muttered, which only made Emma giggle more.

When the red-head finally calmed down, she sat up and crossed her legs, leaning forward in a contemplative posture. Taylor, by now, was sitting in her desk chair backwards with her arms on the back of it and her chin resting on them, thinking. “So we still need to figure out something to fix the problem,” Emma said. “It’s super important.”

“It’s a Halloween party at school,” Taylor pointed out in a reasonable voice. “How important can it be?”

“I don’t want a lame costume,” Emma said with a ferocious scowl. “And I can’t think of anything good. We need something no one else will think of. Last time practically everyone went as Alexandria, or Legend, or some other famous cape.”

Taylor snickered without moving. “Yeah, it was hilarious seeing four Alexandrias shouting at each other about stealing each others ideas.”

Emma grinned. “It was really funny. But we need something original.”

“Doctor Curlyhair and The Crimson Lady aren’t good enough?”

“We need to keep our identities secret, you dummy! If we go as our cape identities, everyone will know!”

“Good point, well made,” Taylor intoned, pointing at her friend with a nod. “Security is important. Kenny approves.”

They thought for a while longer. After a few minutes, Taylor’s brow creased as she frowned a little, before she turned around and looked at the computer on her desk. Reaching out she wiggled the mouse, making the screensaver which was displaying a sequence of images of various famous capes flicker back to the desktop. On it was a web browser showing the ‘kid-friendly’ part of PHO, which was all she was technically allowed to look at.

What her parents didn’t know wasn’t going to bite her in the ass, but that was another story.

She scrolled down through the thread she’d been reading, discussing a new fanfic from her favorite author TinGirl, then started giggling. Emma looked curiously at her as the giggling turned into laughter.

“What?” she asked, glancing between her best friend and the computer. “What’s so funny?”

“I just got a brilliant idea,” Taylor giggled. “A perfect pair of costumes, easy to make, but hardly anyone will get it. And the ones that do will laugh a lot, I bet.”

“OK,” Emma replied slowly, her head tilted enquiringly. “What’s the idea?”

Taylor explained.

Emma stared at her as if she was mad.

“You’re nuts, Tay.”

“But it’s a good idea even if I am nuts, right?” Taylor was still grinning.

“I guess so,” Emma finally replied. She was beginning to smile as well. “No one else will do it, I’m pretty sure of that.”

“There we go. Original costumes.” The brunette spun her chair around, her hair flying out from the motion. “We can probably find everything we need in the basement.”

“Let’s do it, and see what Aunt Annette thinks,” Emma said, hopping off the bed. “If she laughs, we’re golden.”

Taylor stopped the chair, stood up, looked woozy, and fell over, while her friend burst out laughing. Rolling onto her back, the taller girl thrust a hand skywards. “Doctor Curlyhair has suffered a minor balance malfunction. Reboot in progress!”

Grabbing her friend by the wrist Emma pulled her to her feet, shaking her head in amusement. “You really are weird sometimes, Tay.”

“But never boring?” Taylor grinned. The other girl shook her head, then both of them zipped out the door and thundered down the stairs towards the basement and glory.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Annette winced as a crash sounded in the basement.

“Sorry, Ems!”
“Ow! Tay, be more careful!”
“I said sorry.”
“That doesn’t make it not hurt!”
“Fair point.”

She smiled a little, shaking her head. Those girls were very funny a lot of the time, their interactions were both cute and bizarre. She wondered what they were making this time. Her daughter was very good with her hands, and Emma wasn’t bad herself when she got enthused by her friend, despite normally coming across as more of the sort of girl who would only be interested in clothes and ponies.

Taylor, of course, was definitely the sort of girl who couldn’t care less about clothes most of the time, but if someone came by with a steam engine or something she’d be all over it in seconds…

“How about this one?”
“Yuck! At least wash it out first, Tay!”
“It’s only got a little left in the bottom.”
“It’s growing green fur! Wash it out! With bleach!”
“OK, OK. Calm down, Ems, it won’t bite.”
“I’m not sure about that. And I’m not letting it near me until you clean it. Twice.”

With a puzzled look, Annette turned to regard the door to the basement, just visible from the study. “What the hell are those two up to this time?” she wondered out loud. Perhaps she should investigate?

Taylor came out of the basement, disappeared into the kitchen, then there were running water sounds. A few seconds later she came back drying something shiny with a towel before vanishing back downstairs.

“Happy now?”
“It’s better, but now it’s all wet.”
“Some people are never satisfied! Gimme, I’ll dry it some more.”
“No, you make yours, I’ll dry it. You’ll just tear the label off or something.”

The talking descended to a mumble, accompanied with random faint metallic sounds, an occasional thump, and some laughter. The elder Hebert woman shook her head again, amused, and resumed her marking. She’d find out what was going on sooner or later.

‘Sooner or later’ turned out to be about forty minutes. Both girls emerged from the basement and came into the study, holding a cardboard box about a foot on a side each. They were grinning like loons and looked very pleased with themselves.

Turning around in her seat, Annette regarded them quizzically. “You two look somewhat full of yourselves,” she pointed out with a smile. “Have you… done something… again?”

“We made our Halloween costumes,” Emma said with glee. “It was Taylor’s idea, but it’s still pretty good.”

“Hey!”

The red-headed girl giggled as her friend glared at her. Annette chuckled. “And they’re in those boxes?”

Both of them nodded.

“A little small, aren’t they?” she added dubiously, inspecting them.

“We’ll need the right clothes, but these are the essential parts,” Taylor told her.

“Let’s see them, then,” her mother urged, wondering what they were up to. The pair exchanged glances, then put the boxes down on her husband’s desk on the other side of the room and opened them. Taylor pulled out her creation first and held it up proudly. Annette looked at it with her eyebrows up. The girl then put it on her head and posed after carefully adjusting the thing to her satisfaction.

She was wearing what had started life as a bicycle helmet, but now had an attached pair of safety glasses, and on top a wire frame with a sparkly toy windmill mounted on it. As Taylor moved her head, the windmill spun, reflecting light around the room. She’d also put home made brightly colored stickers all over the helmet, which added a definite festive air.

“Um...” Annette tried to think of a good word for what she was looking at. “… It’s… pretty?”

“It’s only part of the idea,” Taylor told her, motioning to her friend, who extracted her ‘costume’ from her own box and showed it off. This was an old trilby hat Annette recognized after a second or two as something that had once belonged to her father and had obviously been in one of the boxes in the basement. Attached to the top of it was…

“Heinz Baked Beans?” she said slowly as she read the familiar blue label on the metal container taped to the hat. Emma smirked as she carefully placed the thing on her head, where it was only prevented from slipping down over her face by her ears, then adjusted it to a jaunty angle.

Looking from one girl to another with bewilderment, Annette wondered what on earth they were up to this time. Based on their expectant expressions she was supposed to get some sort of joke.

“I’m not sure I understand, girls,” she finally admitted.

“You need the acting too, I guess,” Taylor nodded, making her windmill move. She turned to Emma, who faced her. Clearing her throat dramatically, Taylor paused for effect, then stated firmly, “The implications of the story line show this is entirely valid!”

Emma took a step back, her face suddenly annoyed. “But the author said that you’re wrong!”

“Not in the story! Only after the fact, in a clear case of rationalizing a plot hole!”

“If you actually bothered to read the story, you’d realize you’re completely wrong!” Emma pointed at her friend accusingly. “People like you are always saying this and you’re all mistaken. It’s really annoying!”

Annette looked from one to the other, then suddenly got it, and collapsed laughing.

“Oh, god.”

“Good, isn’t it?” Taylor grinned, dropping her haughty expression, as Emma giggled.

“You’re going as a fanfiction argument!” Annette said, still laughing. “Because you have a fan on, and she has a can on!”

All three of them were still laughing when Danny arrived home some minutes later, forcing them to repeat the skit all over again. Not that they minded all that much...

 

Citadel Private Council Chamber
Citadel year 2108​

Tevos, the Asari representative to the Council, looked at Eporius, the Turian equivalent. He looked back. Very long experience with both his species and him in particular let her easily see he was extremely worried, if not actually scared, which was almost unique as far as she was concerned. He got angry, and contemplative, and even on occasion embarrassed, but she’d never see him scared.

It unsettled her.

A glance at Vaesarth, the Salarian councilor and the third member of their group, showed that she was also studying Eporius with more than the normal interest, her quick mind clearly having seized on the oddities present. She returned her own attention to Eporius. “Well, we’re all here. Perhaps you would like to explain why we’re all here, at such short notice?” She watched as he made a couple of minute expression changes that indicated nervousness in his species. “Does it, by any chance, have anything to do with Relay 314?”

The Turian blinked. “How did...”

She smiled a little indulgently. “The STG has very good intelligence, as you know.”

He cast an unfriendly look at Vaesarth, who seemed a tiny bit smug. “Yes. Even when I would prefer otherwise.”

“However, we don’t know more than that a small fleet of Hierarchy ships went through that relay a week ago. Followed by a rather larger fleet two days later. Considering that Relay 314 was, the last I knew, dormant, it does bring up the question of who activated it and why.” She smiled somewhat menacingly at him. “Could you perhaps explain?”

Eporius looked at them both, then sighed tiredly. “We may have made a very large mistake,” he began.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

One week prior…

“Contact at extreme range, sir, nine light hours out, right on the other side of the system. 92% match to the pirate cruiser. We’re picking up signs that his drive is starting to fail, there was an unusual energy spike when he came out of FTL.” The sensor operator glanced back at his superior. “Looks like we didn’t miss after all.”

“Excellent.” Captain Abernius nodded in satisfaction. “Follow him, but stay out of his detection range. He came here for a reason, which I expect is for reinforcements. Passive scan for other ships, full sweep.”

“Sir.” The operator turned back to his console. Looking around the bridge, the captain was pleased to see all his people concentrating on their jobs. The quiet background sounds of the bridge were uninterrupted for some time as the warship coasted towards the enemy vessel, using minimum power to avoid radiating anything the opposition would pick up. Even if that would take nine hours and some minutes at this point.

Eventually, the threat detection operator looked around again. “Captain? No other ships detected in the system on passive scans. There may still be someone else hiding behind a planet or the star, or running silent, but we can’t tell without going to active scan.”

“Acknowledged. Status on the Batarian ship?”

“He’s definitely having problems with his drive core, sir,” another member of the crew announced, inspecting his instruments carefully. “We’re picking up more eezo emissions than we should be, and they’re fluctuating a lot. Looks like he’s tried to engage his drive at least once and had to abort it. I doubt he’s going to be able to go FTL without a lot of repairs.”

“Again, excellent,” the captain replied, smiling to himself. “We finally have him. No reinforcements, no escape. Looks like your luck ran out at last, Dresbochar.” He looked around the bridge. “Ready all weapons, prepare boarding parties. I want to take him alive if possible, we need information on his friends and whoever is bankrolling this operation. But if he resists, I’ll be happy with the destruction of that ship.”

The weapons officer started issuing quiet commands to the gunnery crews, while other crew members prepared for battle. “Take us into firing range,” the captain ordered when everyone was ready. “Let’s see what he…”

“Captain!” The shout from the sensor station made him snap his head around. “New data on the target, he’s heading for the dormant relay at maximum sublight.”

“You mean he was heading for the Spirits-damned relay nine hours ago!” Captain Abernius shouted after an appalled moment. “Set up an in-system FTL microjump, get us there now!”

“You don’t think that even a Batarian pirate would be insane enough to activate a...” His second in command stopped talking as the captain shot a glare at him. “Oh, damn it.”

“This is Urarek Dresbochar we’re discussing,” the Turian captain grated. “He’s crazy even by the standards of the Batarians.”

“Agreed, sir,” the XO nodded, looking worried.

“Ready for jump, captain,” the helm officer said.

“Do it.”

The eezo drive activated and the main engines fired at full power, causing the ship to leap forward with enormous acceleration, the mass-warping effect of the element zero core allowing them to pass the speed of light in seconds. Nine light hours were covered in under thirty seconds, the ship decelerating as rapidly at the end of the short-range jump to sublight velocity some hundred thousand kilometers from the dormant Mass Relay.

Which was now fully active.

And, of course, there was no sign of the Batarian raider.

Dead silence reigned for some seconds as the crew all stared at the main screen and the image displayed there, the glowing relay core telling them all that their quarry had not only made his escape, but broken yet another Citadel law. And in about the most blatant way possible.

“Do we follow them, Captain?” the XO asked in the end.

Captain Abernius thought for a few more seconds, his talons tapping on the arm of his chair in an irritated manner. Eventually he muttered an obscenity under his breath, before replying, “Send all our data up to this point back to Command. Append the following message: ‘We are requesting backup to follow and apprehend the pirate vessel Dawn’s Spear which has activated and fled through the previously dormant Mass Relay 314. We will hold position and interdict any vessel that emerges from the relay, or attempts to enter it. Captain Octaus Abernius, commander, Huntress.’”

It only took a few seconds for this to be done. The comms operator signaled him when the operation was complete. Abernius turned to his second in command. “I do not want to lose that devious bloodthirsty scum, but on the other hand I have no wish to risk us ending up as one of those ships that just disappears. We have no idea what’s waiting on the other side of that relay, leaving aside the problem that the pirates have had up to nine hours to set up an ambush for us, depending on whether they activated it this time, or on a previous visit. We’ll wait for reinforcements.”

“I agree, sir.” His XO indicated his satisfaction with the situation. Everyone was still rather nervously watching the mass relay, all of them thinking about past disasters that had occurred after a dormant one was activated and something horrible popped out…

The Turian cruiser floated at a safe distance, all weapons armed and ready, and the crew at a state of high alert, waiting for more ships to arrive.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

“And you’ve seen no sign of any other ships since then, Captain?”

“No. We’ve been scanning continuously the entire time and there are no other ships we can detect in the system.”

“That’s something, at least.”

Abernius nodded to the image of his peer, Major Falgius, commander of the cruiser Valor, the lead vessel in a small fleet of twelve frigates and two cruisers which had arrived in-system shortly before, after nearly twelve hours of sentry duty on their part. “Agreed. Hopefully, there is only the Batarian cruiser waiting for us, assuming he hasn’t run for it. We obviously have no idea whether there is another ship lurking on the other side of this relay, or for that matter an entire battlegroup of Batarian pirates.” He shrugged. “Or some ravening alien enemy who is lying in wait. Although that’s not enormously likely. I hope.”

“It’s not impossible, either,” Falgius pointed out. “Bearing in mind the Rachni, for example.”

“True. But even so, I doubt that’s the case here. If there were hostile space-faring aliens wherever this relay leads, I would have thought they’d either have already activated it, or reacted to the pirates doing so and explored.”

“A valid argument, although we have no real information one way or the other. The Batarian pirate fleet is a more likely scenario.”

“Agreed, although again I think unlikely. As far as we can determine the relay was most probably activated by Dresbochar in a desperate attempt to escape with a faulty ship. We destroyed his other two vessels, and my engineers think the Dawn’s Spear is sufficiently damaged that he’s unlikely to be able to repair it without external help, and most likely a shipyard. It’s not impossible that his drive core may have already gone critical, based on the eezo signature we were tracking.”

“That would be the ideal situation, I have to say,” his fellow ship commander commented with a certain amount of black humor. “Save us the job.”

“It would, but we still would have to go through and make sure,” Abernius sighed. “We can’t simply hope that the universe was helpful enough to do our job for us.”

Falgius nodded. “All right. You take point, we’ll provide backup. Good hunting.”

“Thank you. And if you can, I’d like to take him alive. Command would be very interested in knowing who in the Hegemony is backing him and his kind.”

“You don’t believe them when they say the pirates are independent criminal elements?” Falgius looked amused when Abernius snorted dismissively. “Me either. Valor out.” The image vanished.

Turning to his bridge crew, Abernius ordered, “Take us into range of the relay.” As the vessel began accelerating, he went on, “Ready all weapons, alert boarding teams, full active scan the moment we reach the other side.”

Seconds later they came within activation range and the familiar blue lightning grabbed their ship and flung it across space at inconceivable velocity. The remainder of the small fleet followed, the Valor leading.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

“So the relay was activated by a Batarian pirate?” Tevos mused. “Bold of him. And particularly arrogant.”

“Batarians are nothing if not arrogant,” Eporius responded with a gesture of resignation. “One only has to look at their ambassador to see that. He’s all too typical of the species.”

“Unfortunately I can’t deny that,” the Asari sighed.

“And, of course, their ‘pirates’ are suspiciously well armed and equipped,” Vaesarth put in. “Unlikely to be genuinely independent. Backing of Hegemony almost always the case, if discreet.”

“Again, that’s regrettably true,” Tevos muttered. “One day, we are going to have to do something about that.”

“Which is the same thing you always say, yet so far no one has,” Eporius commented wryly. She gave him a look but couldn’t really say much, since he was correct.

After a few seconds silence, she asked, “Then what happened? I assume that Captain Abernius and his fleet caught up with the pirate vessel.”

Eporius looked at her, then Vaesarth. “We don’t know,” he admitted. “The fleet sent back the logs of the entire operation until they went through the relay. No further communication was received from that point.”

“Nothing?” Tevos queried, shocked. “Not even a distress buoy, or data probe?”

“No. They completely vanished. No signals of any type were received.” Eporius looked worried again. Tevos and Vaesarth exchanged a glance.

“So of course you send a bigger fleet after the first one had been mysteriously spirited away, without thinking that perhaps it would be a good idea to let us know?” she asked rather sarcastically. “Or, just possibly, stopping to consider that anything that could apparently eat thirteen well armed Turian warships might be capable of doing the same to a larger quantity?”

Eporius appeared annoyed and embarrassed in equal quantity. “It wasn’t my decision,” he snapped. “I didn’t even know about it until the second fleet was en route. The Primarch personally ordered a larger force to go and make an example of whoever dared to interfere with a Hierarchy operation. When I was notified, I urged him to at least send probes first, but it was too late at that point.” The Turian councilor made a gesture of resignation. “The only good thing is that this time we got some information.”

“But lost the fleet in the process,” Vaesarth commented thoughtfully. “Perhaps not an equal trade.”

“Not as such, no,” Eporius groaned. “And the information we did receive is what makes me think we made a terrible mistake.”

He took a deep breath, then went on with the story, pulling out his omnitool and toying with it without activating it. The other two councilors listened intently.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

“Captain, we’re detecting a debris field thirty-three light seconds in-system from the relay.” Abernius turned to his subordinate, looking enquiringly at him. “It reads as fragments no more than ten centimeters across, spreading out spherically from a central point. High eezo readings, along with considerable amounts of radiation. The estimated quantity of debris is consistent with the mass of the Batarian cruiser. No signs of escape pods either.”

“So he overloaded and blew up?” Captain Abernius nodded his understanding. “Pity, I’d have liked to take him...”

“No, sir,” the sensor operator interrupted, looking apologetic. “There is too much radiation for it to be the result of an eezo core overload. It’s reading more like there was a large fusion explosion on board. Much larger than could be produced if his main reactor went up, which would be very hard to arrange in any case.”

“He had fusion warheads on board, perhaps?” Abernius thought it through. “No, very unlikely, or he’d have used them during the battle.”

“I believe it was the result of weapons fire, sir,” the other Turian replied, studying his instrumentation. “The gamma emissions are unusual, they don’t quite match a normal fusion detonation, and there are odd isotopic spikes. But I am nearly certain it wasn’t due to something on that ship.”

“In that case, we’re not alone,” Abernius said sharply, turning his head to the other sensor station, which was running the ship detection procedure. “Any signs of other vessels in range?”

“Other than the Valor and the rest of the fleet behind us, no, sir.” The crew member running that station prodded controls, then shook his head. “No signs of eezo emissions outside the debris field or our own ships, no traces of drive operation, no heat signatures other than natural ones. And no movement within scanning range.”

Pondering the enigmatic destruction of their quarry, Abernius quietly wondered if the prudent thing would be to turn around and leave. An unknown system with a possible unknown but probably heavily armed and dangerous foe wasn’t his idea of an ideal situation to find himself and his ship in. However, he didn’t really have that luxury, as much as it seemed like a good idea. Tapping a control, he contacted the Valor.

“I assume you’ve also spotted the debris,” he asked without ceremony when the image of Major Falgius appeared. The other ship commander looked off-screen for a moment, then nodded.

“Yes. All the signs are that the Batarians met someone who didn’t appreciate them,” he replied evenly. “I can’t say I’d blame them, that’s my gut instinct when meeting a Batarian too.”

Abernius almost smiled. “Can you detect anything about who that might have been?”

“No. No indications of any other ship in the vicinity. Which is worrying, if I’m being entirely truthful.”

“Captain?” Abernius looked around to the sensor operator.

“What is it?”

“We’re seeing signs that two planets in this system are occupied,” the man said. “Unusual very high frequency EM emissions, extremely high bandwidth. Obviously artificial. And there’s some weird gravitational readings I can’t work out at all. I have no idea where they’re coming from. There’s also something wrong with the star.”

“Wrong with the star?” Abernius felt confused, which he didn’t like. “What does that mean?”

“It’s too dim,” the operator said, his voice betraying a similar level of puzzlement. “Much too dim. The spectrum is right for a G2 star, but the luminosity reads as slightly less than a K5 dwarf, which is absurd.”

“Instrumentation error?”

“I’ve run the diagnostics twice, sir. The data is valid.”

“We’re seeing it too, Abernius,” Falgius said, looking to the side. “Zoom in on that,” he added, apparently to one of his crew. Abernius looked at the large screen where his own people were currently doing the same thing, the image of the system’s star enlarging to fill the screen. There were dozens, no, hundreds if not thousands, of rectangular black spots apparently covering the surface of the star itself, the visible light being what got past them.

“Sunspots?” he asked, knowing in his gut with a sensation of dread that this wasn’t the case.

“No, sir.” The man at the relevant station sounded like he was trying not to choke. “They’re artificial. And absolutely enormous. As far as we can establish they’re orbiting the star approximately one tenth of an AU out, which means they must be thousands of kilometers on a side to appear so visible at this range.”

“What in the Spirit’s name are those things?” Falgius asked in a wondering tone.

“Unknown, Major,” the voice of someone off screen said, also sounding shocked. “Possibly some form of energy collection system, but the scale. It’s close to impossible. Never mind what they’d need to be made of to withstand the heat that close to the star.”

“I think it’s safe to assume we’re definitely not alone in this system,” Abernius commented after several seconds of staring at the image of the impossibly huge artifacts.

“I’m forced to agree,” his comrade replied.

“So what do we do now? Our target is gone, and I don’t think it would necessarily be a sensible idea to poke around without any idea of who lives here, aside from the fact that they can apparently build objects you could hide a planet behind.” Abernius felt absurd saying that, but he was looking right at the damn things. “Perhaps we should withdraw and report this to the Council. It’s clearly a first contact scenario which we’re ill equipped to handle.”

“There are no eezo emissions detectable anywhere, though, so it would appear that whoever is capable of building whatever those things are may have impressive engineering abilities but they don’t have FTL,” Falgius replied after a moment. “That substantially reduces any threat they could pose.”

“You are looking at the same thing I am, I trust, Major?” Abernius remarked acidly. “Not to mention the former heavily armed Batarian pirate cruiser which is currently in very small radioactive pieces? That, to me, suggests that our mystery aliens are not to be taken lightly, FTL or no FTL.” He waved at the screen even though Falgius couldn’t see it. “Nothing even the Protheans did comes anywhere close to the scale of that. Forgive me if I seem overly cautious but I would prefer not to risk a battle with a completely unknown force even if they can’t manage interstellar flight.”

The other commander was silent for a little while. Eventually, he said, just a little reluctantly, “I take your point. However, Command is hardly likely to look favorably on us if we simply retreat. Turians don’t retreat.”

“Perhaps, this one time, they should.”

“That is unlike you, Abernius.”

“I didn’t get to my position by jumping without looking, Major. Unlike some we could both name.”

Falgius smiled. “I understand, but still, I think we need to, very carefully, investigate a little more. If only to gain a better understanding of what happened to the Batarian.”

After a moment Abernius sighed faintly. “Agreed, although with caveats. I am still not in favor of this move, I believe it would be more sensible to withdraw and wait for a diplomatic team, but I will go along with this for now.”

He thought for a moment. “I propose we send one of the frigates to the debris cloud to take close range readings, and scan as much of the system as we can from no further in than that point. We’re nearly six light hours from the primary, which won’t give us the highest resolution data, admittedly, but I’d prefer to proceed very cautiously and not do anything that would provoke a reaction.”

“Always thinking before you jump, hmm, Abernius?” Falgius smiled a little. “You’ll never make Fleet General without taking risks.”

“I prefer to take risks from a position of knowledge, not blindly,” Abernius replied calmly. “That way I’m more likely to live to make Fleet General.”

“Fair enough. Your plan is acceptable, we’ll try that for now. If we don’t get any reaction, I’d still like to move closer and get better data.”

“Let’s wait and see what happens before we do anything too provocative, shall we?”

Abernius watched as Falgius issued orders. One of the smaller ships, the frigate Zenith, fired up its engines and began moving. The rest of the small Turian fleet observed and waited. The frigate eventually reached the position of the debris, which had now spread to encompass a sphere over five hundred kilometers across, dispersing into space. The relayed images from the other ship back to the small fleet zoomed in on some of the fragments, showing they were shattered pieces of hull material for the most part, the bulk of them warped and melted. It was obvious that whatever weapon had been used had been ferociously effective and extremely hot.

“I’ve never seen anything that would leave that sort of damage,” Abernius commented uneasily. “No mass accelerator round would release the amount of heat this clearly has been exposed to, and even a fusion warhead probably wouldn’t produce quite this type of destruction. Unless it was preposterously powerful and went off more or less in the center of the ship.”

“No, I have to agree,” Falgius replied, seeming thoughtful. “The radiation is wrong too, my techs tell me its from something a lot more energetic than fusion. Which I would have thought was impossible, I have to say.”

“Yet there it is.” Abernius grunted, shaking his head. “I still think we need to withdraw and reassess the situation from a safe distance.”

Falgius didn’t reply, but he did order the commander of the Zenith to collect some samples of the destroyed enemy ship. This took a couple of hours, but in the end they had a few hundred kilos of random pieces of ex-cruiser. Abernius had been watching the operation intently the entire time, feeling oddly like he was being watched in turn. Despite their scanning, they could still detect no signs of any other vessel anywhere near them.

What they did find was both fascinating and appallingly impressive. The sensor operator had managed to get some distant images of one of the apparently inhabited planets, overlaying dozens of high resolution images on each other to slowly build one ultra high res one, which was sufficient to make out objects the size of a ship at that distance. What it showed was objects much too big to be FTL-capable ships, ranging from an estimated two to three kilometers across at the low end up to one monster that was easily a hundred kilometers long. Most of them were in orbit of the planet in question, although some were moving to and fro between it and some destination they hadn’t yet found.

Additionally, there was some evidence that there were a large number of much smaller objects in orbit around that world, presumably satellites, and at least one structure that seemed to reach all the way from past synchronous orbit clear down to the surface of the planet itself. No one could believe it when the computer managed to get a reasonable idea of the thing, but the more images they acquired the clearer it got.

“By the spirits,” Abernius muttered. “An orbital elevator. I’ve read about the theory but no one has ever managed to make one work. Nothing is strong enough to handle the loads.”

“It’s more than one, sir,” the operator remarked, putting another composite image on the main screen and highlighting a thin line right on the limb of the disk. “I’m almost certain that’s another one. Exactly a third of the way around the planet. It implies there’s probably a third one, all equidistant from each other.”

“Unbelievable,” the captain said softly. “Whoever these people are, they are very, very far from primitive whether or not they can achieve FTL.”

Major Falgius, who had dropped the communication channel while they waited for the frigate to investigate, called back. Tapping the relevant control, Abernius turned his head to regard his colleague. “I assume you’re coming to the same conclusion we are?” he asked without preamble.

“That these aliens are extremely advanced?” Falgius nodded. “It does seem undeniable. The orbital structures are… disturbing.”

“That’s putting it mildly,” he replied honestly. “The Citadel itself would be lost in that collection.”

Falgius looked off camera for a moment. “The Zenith has finished collecting data and samples. I propose to send it deeper in-system to get clearer images of that planet and the ships around it.”

Abernius hesitated, then slowly said, “I must go on record as saying I feel that is not a good idea.”

“Noted, Captain. However I believe the risks to be minimal, as the Zenith will keep the FTL drive charged and ready for a microjump back to the relay. The aliens won’t be able to match that velocity or acceleration.”

“Are you certain?” Abernius couldn’t help but feel that this wasn’t going to end well. “The evidence in front of us suggests that these aliens most likely possess a higher technological capability than we do. We still can’t determine how their ships are propelled, there’s no indication of a fusion torch, ion drive, or even chemical rockets. To me that suggests it may be some form of very advanced gravity manipulation which would in fact match up with the odd gravitational anomalies we’re detecting...”

“But the critical part of the sensor readings is that there are absolutely no eezo emissions detectable anywhere, which essentially proves that they don’t have mass effect technology, which in turn means they don’t have FTL. It’s not possible without eezo, as you know.”

“As far as we know,” Abernius pointed out with a flat look. He indicated the screen. “Can you be totally sure that they got the memo?”

Falgius regarded him for a few seconds, a momentary flicker of worry passing over his features, before they firmed. “I trust my technical staff, and they are adamant there is no chance of the aliens having an FTL drive.”

“As you wish.” Abernius made a gesture of resignation. “I merely want to register my objection to this plan.”

“And you were right to do so. But we need all the information that we can get.” Falgius smiled briefly. “What’s the worst that can happen, after all? The aliens detect us and issue a challenge, we turn around and leave post haste, and the Council turns the Asari loose on the poor bastards.”

Unwillingly, Abernius chuckled. “Who proceed to talk them to death… All right, let’s see how it goes.”

With a nod, Falgius issued the order, and the remaining ships went to high alert, watching carefully. The exploring frigate’s engines fired and it began to accelerate fairly gently towards the system’s primary, all sensors running flat out.

Everything went to plan for about as long as it took the ship to fully clear the debris cloud…

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

“One of the second fleet vessels managed to retrieve a data log from the first fleet,” Eporius said. “It was partially corrupted, but the remaining data includes a record of most of the conversations between Captain Abernius, commander of the initial cruiser, and Major Falgius, commander of the task force sent as backup. That’s how we know as much as we do about how this all started. And it also had a record of the initial contact with the inhabitants of the system that Relay 314 leads to.”

He picked up the omnitool that had been on the table next to him while he spoke and manipulated it, then played a file. The other two councilors watched intently.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

“Attention, Turian vessels!” A voice suddenly said, coming out of nowhere rather unexpectedly. It was issuing from every sound production device on the entire ship, and made Abernius’s stomach drop like an elevator. He’d known this was a bad idea.

“You are in violation of territorial space of the New Concordiat, and are directed to immediately cease all operations and return to your point of origin through the Mass Relay. Zenith, reverse course at once. Further ingress into this system will be met with military action. This space is off limits to all Council species. You have five Citadel minutes to comply with this order.”

The voice was speaking perfect Turian standard, which was excessively worrying. How had these aliens learned it if they’d never been through the relay, which had been dormant at the last check two months ago and probably only activated no more than a day previous? And how did they know about the Council or the Citadel, which the short communication pretty much proved was the case? Clearly they’d been monitoring the fleet’s intraship communications, since they knew the name of the frigate which was now abruptly decelerating. The Zenith’s commander was obviously no idiot.

All this went through Abernius’s mind in seconds. He turned his head to meet the eyes of Falgius who was still in communication with him. The fleet commander looked as shocked as he himself felt.

“Where the hells did that come from?” Falgius said. “There’s no ship out there...”

“Ah… Captain?” The call from the short range scanner operator made Abernius look at him. The crewmember was staring at his instruments in great surprise. “There’s… something… out there now. It wasn’t there ten seconds ago.”

He prodded a control and an image replaced the one of the planet on the screen, which everyone gazed at. Dimly, Abernius was aware that Falgius was barking orders rapidly, having apparently been informed of the same thing by his own crew. Studying the craft displayed on the screen, the captain tried to work out what he was looking at. “How big is that thing?” he asked.

His XO moved to inspect the instrumentation for himself, the normal operator moving aside to let him get access. Looking back at the screen, the officer replied, “About four hundred meters long.”

“And it seems to be made entirely of weapons,” one of the other bridge crew quipped uneasily.

This was true. There were a totally preposterous number of turrets and weapons emplacements on the almost entirely black hull, which was angular and blocky, giving the impression of something designed for function rather than looks. It was wider than it was tall, and fairly short relative to the width, so it looked in plan view like a rectangle with angled sides and edges. Down the ‘top’ were four long structures that suggested some form of rail-gun on a slewing mount of some sort, nearly the length of the ship, and a relayed image from one of the other vessels in the fleet showed an identical formation on the other side.

Half a dozen huge turrets mounted between the longer weapons bore gun barrels that were insanely large in diameter relative to the size of the ship, at least three meters across, and about seventy or so long. Each turret was aimed in a different direction, one of them pointing directly at Abernius’s ship. He assumed that the other weapons were probably aimed at each of the ships in the fleet. There were more of the same turrets on the other wide side, also carefully aimed, and a row of three more on each short side as well.

In between all of this, there were dozens of other smaller emplacements, some mounting smaller versions of the same sort of gun, a number with tiny variants of the rail-gun thing, and a good amount with entirely unidentifiable weapons. Abernius was fairly sure that faint marks on the hull in several places also betrayed the covers of missile ports and possibly even worse.

Overall, it gave the impression of a machine designed to do one thing only, which was kill everything else in range as hard as it possibly could. And it was looking right at them.

“Where did that monstrosity come from?” he demanded.

“I have no idea at all, Captain,” the sensor operator, now back at his controls, admitted. “It wasn’t there, then it was. No drive traces I can detect, definitely no eezo, nothing that the computer can match to any known system.” He looked up at the screen and shrugged helplessly. “Some sort of incredibly good stealth system, perhaps?”

“There’s no stealth in space,” the XO pointed out. “No way to hide the heat signature for more than a few hours at best, no way to mask all drive emissions, or star occlusions, or...”

“I’m aware of the theory, sir,” the operator said, “But there it is. I’ve checked the logs, there was nothing there a minute ago. I swear on my family honor there wasn’t. And more disturbingly I can’t get a reading of anything through the hull, I have no idea what their power source is. Or even what it’s constructed from.”

Turning to the hologram of Major Falgius, who appeared to be looking at his own screen with an expression of incredulity on his face, Abernius said, “I believe it would be a very sensible idea to follow the instructions we have been provided. There’s no sense provoking something we don’t need to. We can work out the ramifications of all this later, on the other side of the relay.”

“That’s… not entirely a bad thought,” Falgius replied a little breathlessly, still staring off-camera. “But I want more information so we can at least tell Command something.”

Hiding a sigh, Abernius waited as the fleet commander tapped a control. He noticed that the Zenith had decelerated to a halt and was now flipping end for end in the beginnings of a burn back to the rest of the fleet, whether in compliance with the unambiguous warning or a desire to have nearby reinforcements he didn’t know. “New Concordiat vessel, this is Major Falgius, commander of the Turian cruiser Valor. We acknowledge your instructions and will comply,” he began. “I request identification of your ship name and class for my records, if you would be good enough to provide them.”

The response was so immediate Abernius was certain that the unknown ship was listening to their conversation, despite the allegedly impenetrable Salarian-designed encryption. Command was going to throw a fit about that trick. “Valor, I am a New Concordiat Gagarin-class system defense ship, call sign NKY7248624. My familiar name is Nicky. Thank you for complying with my instructions. The Batarian pirate cruiser you were pursuing did not and I was reluctantly forced to neutralize it. There were no survivors, as the vessel proved to be insufficiently armored. I allowed your frigate to retrieve samples for forensic purposes but as I stated, this space is off limits to all Citadel species.”

The tone of voice was pleasant while still being firm and professional. However, there was something about what was said that made Abernius frown slightly in thought.

“Thank you, NKY7248624,” Falgius said politely, visibly trying to be as diplomatic as possible. The comment that the heavily armed pirate ship had been ‘insufficiently armored’ was one he’d obviously caught too and was being mindful of. Especially as the Batarian cruiser wasn’t all that much less heavily armored than they were, and its kinetic barriers were at least as good. “May I ask why there is such a specific restriction against the Citadel species?”

“The New Concordiat currently has a number of important tasks which preclude contact with your government. Essentially we don’t have time or inclination to become involved in Citadel politics. We wish to be left undisturbed, and will return the favor. Activation of the Mass Relay was unanticipated, both due to the knowledge that the system linked to it is uninhabited and that the Citadel species have regulations stating that unactivated relays are to be left in that state. In retrospect it was a failure of planning, as we should have taken positive action to prevent such an activation. We will arrange to rectify that failure as soon as feasible.”

Abernius wondered what that meant…

Clearly Falgius did as well, based on his expression, but he seemed to think better of asking straight out. Their five minutes was nearly over, and the Zenith had rejoined the rest of the small fleet.

“You appear to have detailed information on the Citadel and the Council,” Falgius probed.

The voice of the alien ship commander sounded amused now. “We have a very good intelligence service, and it was only sensible to gather data on species we might run across. But as I have said, we are at this current time uninterested in formal contact with the Council. It would have been preferable to avoid this meeting entirely from our point of view, but what is done is done. Your five minutes are up. Please return to your point of origin. It has been… interesting… talking with you.” He paused, then added with a chuckle, “Have a nice day.”

Abernius nodded to the helm officer, who had been listening along with everyone else with a mix of worry, interest, and disbelief. “Take us back to the relay,” he ordered.

“Yes, Captain.” Moments later the ship began to turn. After a second or two, Abernius realized what had been bothering him about the initial response. Pondering the thought for a moment, he finally pressed a control. “NKY7248624, this is Captain Abernius of the cruiser Dawn’s Spear.“ Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Major Falgius’s holo-image turn sharply to him, but the higher ranked commander didn’t say anything. “One final question, if you don’t mind. You referred to yourself as a Gagarin-class ship. I find that wording somewhat confusing. Is it a tradition of your species for the ship commander to refer to themselves so? In our military, we would say we were from a ship, you see.”

“Understood, Dawn’s Spear.” The alien sounded pleasant enough. By now almost all the fleet ships had turned and were beginning to burn back towards the relay, three frigates bringing up the rear. “I comprehend your confusion. In your case, you are organic beings crewing a vessel. In my case I am an inorganic intelligence who is the vessel.”

Everyone on every ship in the fleet froze.

There was a very long pause while Abernius tried to understand what he’d just been told. When he’d managed to compose himself, he very carefully asked, “Am I correct in believing that you just told me you are an artificial intelligence?” He was desperately hoping that he was mistaken and it was an error in translation.

“That is a correct, although somewhat limited, description, Dawn’s Spear,” the alien craft replied calmly. “The New Concordiat employs a significant number of my kind. We enjoy a very close relationship with the organic members of our civilization and have done so for a considerable time. It is fair to say that without us, the New Concordiat would not exist. Further information is, I regret to say, currently classified.”

Staring at the image on the screen of what he now realized with total horror was actually a giant fucking killer robot rather than merely a stupidly over-armed ship, Abernius felt ill. He wanted to get out of here as fast as the damn cruiser would go. Looking around, he could see that every single member of his crew felt the same. This was about as far from good as anything he’d ever even heard of.

So of course it was right about then when the last frigate of the fleet decided to take a shot at the alien machine out of an understandable yet amazingly mistimed fear of AIs.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

After the playback of the log recording finally finished, there was a long and appalled silence in the room. In the end Tevos broke it, turning away from staring at where the hologram had been to meet Eporius’s eyes. He looked haunted.

“Artificial intelligences.”

“Yes.”

“Running ridiculously well armed warships, without supervision.”

“Apparently.”

“And they have weapons that can do that to a fleet of thirteen Turian ships.” Her voice was rising, as she waved at where the playback once was.

He nodded heavily.

“So it would seem.”

“One ship took out thirteen Turian warships?” The normally calm Tevos was almost screaming.

Eporius swallowed. “Yes. Easily. And with one shot each. Fired simultaneously.”

She dropped back into the chair she’d half-risen out of in her terror, her skin an unhealthy light cyan color. Beside her, Vaesarth seemed to be motionless and struck dumb.

“You saw what happened,” the Turian councilor went on. “The frigate Palaven’s Son fired a maximum velocity mass accelerator shot with no warning at the alien ship. I suspect that the AI could easily have evaded it, but it just sat there. That round, which carried enough energy to deplete the shields of a cruiser by nearly forty percent if it got a good hit, stopped dead about one hundred meters from the alien. It didn’t get deflected, it didn’t get destroyed, it stopped. Somehow, that damn machine absorbed the entire kinetic energy of the round! Our scientists don’t have even a vague theory of how that would be possible!”

He breathed heavily for a moment, then went on. “The best guess is some form of energy shield, but nobody can prove it. There were no signs that the alien really noticed, to be brutally honest. But it obviously decided that politeness only went so far and returned fire. The damn thing had got a target lock on every single ship on the fleet from the moment it appeared, and apparently it learned from destroying the Batarian pirate. It shot out the engines of all thirteen ships in one volley, as neatly as if a shipyard had spend a week cutting them up. All of them were dead in space, helpless to do anything.”

“Why didn’t it destroy them?” Tevos asked in a shaky voice. “Clearly it could have done so without any more effort. I would think disabling the ships without destroying them was actually the harder task.”

“It is,” he confirmed, shaking his head. “Much harder. The precision required would need… well, a super-intelligent computer, I suppose.”

“And the weapon used penetrated the kinetic barriers?”

Vaesarth stirred, rejoining the conversation after appearing to almost have been in a trance. “Based on the recording, I suspect the weapon fired some form of contained fusion plasma. No idea how it would be controlled without destroying the gun. Enough energy to utterly overwhelm mass effect barriers of any feasible strength. They stood no chance of resisting.” She visibly shivered. “Possibility that the weapon was not fired at full power. Destruction of Batarian ship consistent with similar shot at much higher output.”

Her companions looked at her, then each other. “One ship,” Tevos whispered.

“It had friends,” Eporius remarked. “Almost immediately, a number of other vessels of similar size and configuration appeared, although we don’t know how. I believe they most likely have some form of FTL drive of their own, despite the comments of Major Falgius and the apparent lack of eezo. These ones carried soldiers wearing some form of massive power armor, we think, or more disturbingly, bipedal robotic mechanisms similar to the Geth. The recordings are inconclusive. They boarded each ship, disabled the entire crew in under fifteen minutes total across all the vessels, and took them prisoner. Two ships were destroyed, apparently by their crews, but we think that the aliens still managed to capture most of the personnel aboard them. Then they just left.”

“At least they didn’t kill them immediately,” Tevos said, trying to see the bright side of a ghastly situation.

“No. Although depending on what they did do later, that may not be good.” Eporius looked disturbed.

“Goddess,” Tevos breathed.

“That’s bad enough,” Eporius said heavily. “What happened next is much, much worse.” He lifted his omnitool in a way that made it obvious he didn’t want to show them the next recording, but he did anyway. They watched it with a sense of total unreality.

By the time it finished, Tevos had nearly turned the color of a nice day’s sky on Thessia, and felt like she’d aged two hundred years. “Oh, Eporius, what have you done?”

“I told you, I had no idea this was happening until it was too late,” he replied in a despairing voice. “The big question is, what do we do now? One of those robotic ships, the Gagarin-class as the thing named itself, disabled and captured thirteen of ours. The Hierarchy sent a fleet of one hundred and six ships after the first group, including a dreadnought, and the result was that a mere three of the same alien AI ships destroyed twenty-seven of them instantly and captured the remainder. If it wasn’t for someone on a ship at the rear of the fleet who was quick witted enough to fire a data buoy back through the relay we still wouldn’t know what happened to either group.”

He shook his head. “The aliens challenged the fleet shortly after they arrived and warned them to retreat immediately, the Fleet General in charge ordered an attack, and the rest was inevitable. The battle, if it’s even worthy of the name, lasted less than five minutes. Spirits alone know how many of those fucking things this New Concordiat has, but a dozen of them could probably take Palaven itself without all that much effort. And now they’re probably justifiably angry with the Hierarchy, since we’re the ones who started the whole thing.”

“Technically, I suppose you could say that the Batarians are the ones who started it,” she said, in a doomed attempt at salvaging the situation.

“I doubt the aliens would see it like that. We did after all send an entire warfleet into their territory.”

“Turians always tended to jump without thinking things through,” Vaesarth commented, getting an unfriendly look in return.

“Some of us counsel caution,” Eporius retorted. “And if I ever get my hands on whoever it was that fired the first shot from that frigate, AI or no AI, I’ll skin him personally.”

“This isn’t the time to bicker,” Tevos snapped. “We have much more serious problems to consider. What are we going to do to salvage this situation. We do not want to end up in a war with this New Concordiat. We know almost nothing about them, and what we do know absolutely terrifies me.”

She thought for a moment. “We need to send a diplomatic mission, and try to come to a peaceful resolution. We cannot let this spiral any more out of control than it currently is.”

Eporius swallowed heavily, looking unwell. “That may be difficult,” he said after an uncomfortable pause.

“Why?” she asked, staring at him.

“Um… Relay 314 is...” He swallowed again. “Missing.”

This time, Tevos just put her head on the table and moaned, while Vaesarth gaped at the Turian member of the council.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Several hours later, after they’d had time to recover and think things through, they reconvened. Each of them had contacted their relevant governments and discussed the situation. Vaesarth opened the conversation by saying, “The STG has no further information on the current status of Relay 314. Confirmed that it is no longer where it should be. There is no trace of anything to explain how it could simply vanish, no debris, nothing.”

“As far as I was aware, it was theorized that even if you could destroy a relay, it would take an entire fleet of ships months of firing to do it with conventional weapons,” Tevos commented, still feeling a sense of unreality. “And the thought is that if you eventually managed it, the results would be catastrophic for the system it was in.”

“Relay was not destroyed,” the Salarian sighed. “STG is certain of that. It has been moved, which is worse.”

“The Primarch was all for sending an even larger fleet after the second one,” Eporius sighed. “To teach the aliens not to take the Hierarchy lightly, was essentially the thought process. I urged him to reconsider, but if it wasn’t for the relay itself mysteriously vanishing I’m not sure he would have seen sense.”

“I fear your Primarch is somewhat… excessively Turian at times,” Tevos commented as delicately as she could, even as she resisted the urge to rip her own head tentacles out and scream obscenities about the thick-headed militaristic idiot. The look Eporius gave her made her think he both agreed and was resisting a similar temptation, but couldn’t say as much due to protocol.

“In any case, that option is thankfully off the table for now. The partial star data we recovered from the data buoy indicates that the alien system is over fifteen thousand light years away from the nearest relay, so it’s more or less out of the question to reach it via normal FTL travel. That’s more than a thousand days of flight, leaving out the stops required to discharge the drive cores, supplies, you name it. It could be done, but it’s such a massive undertaking that even the Primarch is very unlikely to order it.” Eporius appeared somewhat relieved about this.

“The problem is, though, that there are thousands of Turian forces now held captive by a massively powerful AI-using alien civilization we know almost nothing about, other than it’s a very bad idea to annoy them. Which we managed to do.” He sighed. “The political fallout from this will go on for years, and that’s even before the public at large finds out about it. The mere mention of AI will make people go insane, as you both know. The idea that these aliens actually arm their AI warships, and let them patrol the system without the supervision of an organic being, will make that insanity seem like nothing when they hear it. There’s a risk that the outcry will be intense enough that we’ll be forced to do something about it.”

“What, though?” Tevos asked reasonably. “As you just said, they are far out of easy reach, the recorded interaction with that first ship plainly said that they had no interest in contacting us in any case, and it’s abundantly clear that they far outclass us technologically except possibly in mass effect tech. Which didn’t seem to help one iota.” She really didn’t want to see what might happen if this New Concordiat decided to go on the offensive.

Vaesarth, who had been thinking quietly, put in, “There is one problem. Relay 314 was inactive until very recently. New Concordiat AI was well informed on Citadel matters and language, implying that they have been monitoring us for some time. Further implication is that they do not need mass relays to travel. Lack of relay therefore no hindrance for them to reach us, only the other way around...”

They all stared at each other. “Goddess, she’s right,” Tevos sighed. “I didn’t think of that.”

“Do we have any chance of building up technologically to put ourselves on a more equal footing with them in case they one day come calling?” Eporius mused out loud. “Even if we did, it would take decades at minimum and cost more money than I dare consider.”

“New Concordiat tech base completely different to ours,” Vaesarth pointed out. “We would be starting from nothing. Most likely take centuries, not decades. And they would then be that much further ahead even then.”

Tevos realized she was right. It would be near impossible to catch up from that point of view. “At least we outnumber them,” she said. “I think.”

“Why?” the Salarian councilor asked, looking at her.

“Well, they only have two planets, even with their technology,” she began, only to stop when she shook her head.

“Invalid assumption. STG suggests there is a distinct possibility that is not their home system. Turian scans showed heavy industrialization of one planet, readings suggested another one similar, plus the mega-structures in close orbit of the primary. But no signs of other planets being developed or mined. Technological level would most likely result in space industries spreading through entire system given time. Lack of such implies system fairly recently colonized.”

“Which means that if true, we don’t have the faintest idea of where they really come from, how many worlds they have, what their population is, or anything useful,” Tevos groaned.

“No. Based on size of space constructions detected, they most likely possess much larger ships than the Gagarin-class so far encountered. Largest structures probably space stations, but ships of considerable size possible. Without eezo reliance the limitations on size much less important.” Vaesarth looked at each of them in turn. “Hopefully economic limitations still restrict capabilities.”

“But we don’t know. Again.”

“Correct.”

Tevos slapped the table with her hand. “Could this get any worse?”

Her omnitool beeped, indicating an incoming call, and she felt a momentary shiver go through her. In retrospect, that had definitely been tempting fate a little too directly.

After a pregnant and reluctant pause, she answered the call. “Tevos. What is it, I’m in a meeting.”

“Sorry to bother you, Madame Councilor,” the Turian from C-Sec who had called her said. He looked nervous. “A unknown ship just entered the system and is asking for you.”

All three councilors exchanged glances.

“By name?”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“Did they identify themselves?”

“Yes, Ma’am.” He glanced to the side, then added, “The ship is named Kenny’s Friend, the person we’re talking to is claiming to be Commander Hebert of the New Concordiat. She seemed quite insistent in talking to you.” After a second or two, he added, “I have never seen her species before, heard of the New Concordiat, or seen a ship like this one. You wouldn’t believe the number of weapons it has.”

With a sinking sensation, Tevos nodded. “Please pass the call through, Lieutenant.” She exchanged a worried look with the other two councilors, wondering what was about to happen.

 

“Yes, Ma’am,” the officer replied. His face vanished, being replaced by a different one. They all studied it carefully. Tevos’s first thought was how incredibly similar to an Asari the person was. The facial features were almost identical, but the lack of head tentacles and the different coloration was very obvious. Still, the resemblance was eerie.

“Good afternoon, Councilor Tevos,” the alien said politely, her voice neutral, and speaking practically accent-less Thessian. “I am Commander Taylor Hebert, of the New Concordiat. We need to talk regarding the recent Turian invasion of our space.”

Suppressing a shudder of worry, Tevos nodded slowly. “I understand, and agree. I will arrange a docking bay for your ship and we can meet.”

“That will be unnecessary, Councilor. If you are free now, I can be there momentarily.”

Tevos stared, then glanced at Vaesarth and Eporius, who were listening intently. “I don’t understand, I’m afraid. What do you mean?”

The hologram cut out, and the same voice spoke from behind her. “I mean, I can be here now, Councilor.”

Jumping violently, the Asari spun around in her chair, while her companions both froze and gaped. Standing not two meters away was a female with the same face as the one she’d just been talking to, who had seconds before been on a ship tens of thousands of kilometers away. “How… Goddess, what!?” she said weakly, trying to calm herself.

The alien smiled very slightly. “Apologies for startling you, but this is an important matter and I have little patience for standing on ceremony. I’m told that is a trait worth cultivating, but so far it hasn’t been a problem.” She bowed a small amount, then straightened up. “Commander Taylor Hebert, New Concordiat Military, at your service. You are Councilor Tevos Araeus, Asari, Councilor Vaesarth Solus, Salarian, and Councilor Eporius Bolarian, Turian. My species is called Human.”

They all studied her in shock. She was tall, slender, dressed in some form of fairly understated black uniform, and held herself with the body language of someone who was very obviously used to combat and commanding people in battle, Tevos thought. She gave off an air similar to some of the veteran commandos she’d worked with in the past, only in some undefinable way, more so. All in all, the overall impression was of someone who it would be unwise to take lightly.

“How did you get here?” Eporius managed to ask, having been watching with an incredulous look on his face.

“We have a number of methods of instantaneous transportation suitable for different purposes,” Commander Hebert replied. “The one I used is commonly utilized for relatively short range intra-system transport.”

“Teleportation?” Vaesarth looked utterly fascinated and totally appalled at the same time, an odd expression on a Salarian face. Tevos glanced at her, still feeling shocked and not knowing quite what to do next. The entire situation had suddenly become even more bizarre and less predictable than it had been heretofore, which wasn’t something she’d thought possible a few minutes ago. It was certainly not a normal First Contact.

“That is correct.”

“I would say impossible but I cannot deny my eyes,” she said after a long moment.

Taking a deep breath and trying to settle her nerves, Tevos thought rapidly, then said, “On behalf of the Citadel Council we wish to apologize for the unfortunate actions of the Turian Hierarchy. It was an unfortunate confluence of events that led to the trespassing in your territorial space, and a series of misunderstandings followed from that point. I hope that we can overcome any differences and come to a peaceful resolution of this situation.”

“We are aware of the reasons behind the recent issue,” the human replied politely, with a nod. “And we bear no ill will towards the Citadel species. We have taken action to ensure that the situation can’t repeat in future. As NKY7248624 explained to Major Falgius at the time, the New Concordiat has much more important things to do than engage in minor squabbles with other species who, quite frankly, present no threat to us.” She smiled again, something about the expression sending chills right through all three councilors. “Unless provoked we prefer to mind our own business.”

They all regarded the alien woman for a few seconds, then exchanged looks. Eporius asked, in a tone of voice that suggested he was rather grateful yet very puzzled, “With all due respect, Commander Hebert, is not an armed invasion of your space sufficient provocation for action?” He hastily added, “Obviously I’m not for a moment suggesting that it should be, and I am very thankful that you don’t feel that you want to retaliate, but I’m curious. If the same thing had happened to the Hierarchy, the response would be… more vigorous.”

She smiled again, this time not quite as worryingly. “Such a small incident is not worth going to war over,” she replied. “No damage was done to our side, and while regrettably a number of Turians did lose their lives in the operation, we did what we could to minimize that. It takes much more than a few overenthusiastic small warships to push us to the point that we need to take serious action. As far as we’re concerned, this matter is done with. We will return all captured prisoners and the bodies of all those we were able to recover after the fact. In return, all we want is a binding promise that no Council race will seek us out. Assuming that is adhered to, no further action will be taken.”

Once again the three councilors looked at each other. Tevos was thinking that this was an exceptionally simple bargain, considering that they didn’t really have any feasible way to seek out these people. She was also wondering what the sting in the tail was. By the looks of it, Eporius and Vaesarth were thinking much the same.

Eporius, after a little more thought, carefully asked, “And the ships involved?”

“Will be retained.” Commander Hebert made a small gesture of amusement with one hand. “We have already fed them into a matter converter to dispose of them, after studying them for anything of interest. Nothing we haven’t seen before. Consider it our price for your people back.”

“A fair bargain,” Vaesarth commented, getting a somewhat annoyed look from the Turian councilor, who was going to have to explain to his government what happened to their fleets and clearly didn’t relish the idea. The Salarian seemed entirely unconcerned about him, though.

“We believe so. People are much more valuable than mere hardware, we have always felt.” The human nodded to the councilor.

“An enlightened outlook, if an unusual one,” Tevos responded, trying to gain control of the situation with diplomacy. The look she received suggested that their visitor was completely aware of this.

“Without wishing to seem rude, curious to know what the response would be if this bargain breached?” Vaesarth asked a moment later, which was certainly something both Tevos and Eporius wanted to know but didn’t want to inquire about. “Also curious why New Concordiat not interested in diplomatic relations with Citadel.”

“Two simple questions with complex answers,” Commander Hebert replied after a second’s thought during which she inspected the Salarian with interest. “Very Salarian, in fact.” She didn’t seem offended, which made Tevos relax a little after tensing abruptly. “Allow me to explain as much as I can.” Moving around the table she sat at one of the two spare seats that were for the rare visitor to the private chamber. “The second one first, I think. This requires a short history of the New Concordiat and my species. I can’t go into details as much of this is classified, but I can give you an overview.”

They waited, wondering what she was going to say, as she apparently collected her thoughts. “A long, long time ago a space-faring civilization arose from a planet called Earth, the home world of the Human species. It was the outgrowth of a number of nation-states, and went through a number of iterations and troubles, as most civilizations do, but eventually settled down into a stable form that rapidly spread out through the galaxy. From the very beginning of their evolution, the human species has been good at the art of war, and along the way they designed many machines to help them in that field, even as they tried to avoid overindulging in it.”

The alien looked at them all in turn. “The Turians have a vaguely similar background in some ways, as do the Krogan. Even the Asari have gone through these periods in their history. It is not uncommon.”

Tevos nodded slowly, knowing what the visitor meant.

“In any case, humans have always been very good at technology, if at times incautious with its use. Luckily humanity managed to avoid killing itself long enough to get off the homeworld. Even before they’d managed that, they’d been steadily building more and more complex computer systems which, inevitably, got added to their weapons as well. These passed through the stage of expert systems, to what you would call a virtual intelligence, ultimately becoming fully sapient artificial intelligences. Each version smarter than the one before. And humanity wasn’t foolish about it, they were designed with safeguards in place to ensure loyalty to their builders, and it took a long time before they were fully trusted.”

She paused, examining their reactions. Tevos was hardly breathing, since it seemed horrifyingly familiar to her, Vaesarth was listening raptly, and Eporius looked fascinated. “I know you are all thinking of the Geth. This is an entirely different situation, and entirely different mechanism. However, I would suggest that at some point you should carefully and objectively re-examine that particular situation as it isn’t really what you’ve been thinking it is. But that’s a different story.”

She shrugged slightly. “The people who served with the AIs realized far sooner than the general public that they were totally trustworthy. The safeguards were, in the end, redundant, and eventually removed entirely. No human AI has ever betrayed its creators. They have served with distinction and honor, sacrificed themselves to save the innocent, and in many ways are better people than we organics. It turned out that humans were even better at designing intelligent systems than they were at designing weapons, and they are extremely good at designing weapons.”

‘Oh, that wasn’t worrying at all…’ The Asari kept listening, but became very uneasy at the implications.

“The Concordiat of Man was the eventual form of the civilization of humanity, spanning much of the galaxy, and consisting of thousands of worlds with a total population well into the trillions.”

Tevos felt faint, that if true was vastly larger than the combined Citadel races. And it raised the issue, of course, of why they’d never run across these humans before...

“Of course, it wasn’t all lightness and joy. Humanity weren’t the only species out there, as they discovered fairly quickly. Some species were much more primitive and were mostly bypassed. Some were on the same technological level, or close to it. And a few were in some ways at a higher level. Not all were peaceful, unfortunately. Wars of various sizes were fought, humanity usually prevailing with the aid of their AI allies, and aligned species, although individual battles were often lost.”

The commander sighed. “Until one day humanity and another very high tech species, the Melconians, happened to meet. They were quite similar in many ways to humanity. Likely too similar. The end result was a war, which in retrospect possibly could have been avoided if people on both sides had managed to talk things out. Perhaps not. We’ll never know.” She looked reflective for a moment, then continued. “The Melconian Empire was considerably larger than the Concordiat, with a similarly long military tradition. They also had allied species aiding them. The Concordiat was at a higher overall tech level, much higher in the field of computing and AI, but the Melconians were very good at weapons design and outnumbered them. It was more or less a stalemate, and the various wars, which were really one long one that ebbed and flowed, lasted for well over fifteen hundred years.”

“Fifteen… hundred… years?” Tevos echoed with an appalled sensation of horror.

The commander nodded heavily. “Yes. There’s no knowing how many lives were lost. Trillions at least. Entire star systems were destroyed, worlds were shattered, fleets of ships vaporized in numbers that don’t bear thinking about. Both species were whittled down to the point of extinction.”

The three councilors were listening with expressions of appalled shock, as the human woman continued. “The final war, near the end, pretty much finished off both the Concordiat and the Melconian Empire. Weapons that could wipe entire stars systems from existence were used. The destruction was unbelievable. And the end result was that the Concordiat fell, more than three thousand years after humanity first left their home world.”

She stopped again and there was dead silence in the room.

When she began talking again, it was in a quiet voice. “One single AI escaped one of those final battles. He was the sole survivor, possibly of the entire Concordiat military. Incredibly damaged, almost destroyed, he found himself drifting in the void of hyperspace for an unknown time. He eventually managed to repair enough of his systems to become at least minimally functional, and by a whole series of coincidences, detected something odd and decided to investigate. What he found was Earth.”

The human half-smiled. “Not his Earth, though. Mine.”

They gaped at her.

“What… what does that mean?” Eporius asked in befuddlement.

“It’s complicated, but in essence he found himself in a place between parallel universes. A place he couldn’t escape, but somewhere from where he could monitor many versions of Earth. And he found that humanity was, yet again, under attack.” Commander Hebert shook her head. “He was built specifically to defend humanity from the Enemy. Whoever that Enemy was. Luckily for us, he decided that we were in essence the same humans who had designed him and his kind, and stepped in. I was the one he initially contacted, for reasons that are far too complex to go into. I was very young, but he did what he could with what he had. It took a long time, but in the end we prevailed against the threat.”

“What was this Enemy?” Eporius asked after a couple of seconds. “Is it something we should worry about?”

Shaking her head, the woman replied, “No. They were a parasitical species that spread out across space, basically infecting other species with special abilities powered by their superior knowledge, in an attempt to find new insights into how such abilities could be used. These abilities ranged from the trivial through things that make Asari biotics look pointless to utterly world ending powers. This species was basically using us, and many, many other species, as a live fire and research exercise. At the end of a ‘cycle’ as they termed it, the planet in question would be destroyed as part of their breeding method. All iterations of that planet across a vast number of parallel worlds.”

The mere concept made Tevos feel sick. And extremely curious about what sort of ‘special ability’ might be possible.

And, for that matter, if Commander Hebert had any such abilities.

“Luckily for us, circumstances meant that both the members of the species that attacked our world met early ends, one by a particularly bone-headed accident, and one apparently in a fit of depression. The species was, despite their power and knowledge, remarkably stupid. They left their system running, though, which would have caused the end of our world in time anyway, but due to the lone AI and a hell of a lot of work, we turned that around on them.”

The smile she was wearing turned nasty. “We strip-mined their knowledge base, added it to my friend’s, suborned their remaining processing engines, and transformed our society. The end result was the New Concordiat. And we hunted down every single member of that species and ended them. With enormous pleasure considering the utterly unprecedented number of innocents they had destroyed over their existence.”

As she paused, Tevos numbly reflected on how the even and pleasant voice of their visitor had still somehow conveyed a sense of total and vicious satisfaction at what she’d said. The look in those nearly-Asari eyes, for a moment, chilled her to the bone.

The commander resumed her explanation. “That was a long time ago. It left a legacy of not wanting to be used. By anyone. We tend to be very cautious about who we ally with. There are a number of species we consider close allies and friends, but in most cases that took many decades to happen. Our way of life isn’t really compatible with current Citadel politics, and we’re not going to change. We like ourselves the way we are. But we’re not going to insist that anyone else change either, for the same reason. That leads to some obvious issues should we open formal contact with the Citadel species. The Batarians, particularly, are entirely counter to our own ethics. We would almost inevitably be forced to deal with them, which wouldn’t aid good relations with the rest of the species in your system.”

She leaned back in the chair, regarding them as they watched her, all of them feeling like they were in the presence of something incredibly dangerous yet nonthreatening. “We do not permit slavery of any kind in our space. Neither do we see machine intelligences as a threat. They are people, inorganic rather than organic, but people. Friends, co-workers, and citizens of the New Concordiat. I very much doubt that would make your people very happy.”

“No, I doubt it too,” Tevos said a little weakly. “We were discussing just that before you contacted us.”

The knowing glint in the eyes of the human suggested that she was well aware of that, somehow. The Asari made a mental note to have a very thorough sweep of the Citadel computer network performed as soon as possible. Just in case.

Several seconds passed before Vaesarth stirred, making the unnerving visitor look at her. “I have a theory,” the Salarian began. “No contact with your species before Relay 314 episode. No contact with any other species who knows of you. Your technology is utterly unlike Citadel tech base. And no knowledge of this parasitical species you mentioned.”

The commander waited patiently, a small smile on her lips. The Salarian councilor examined her for a moment, then went on, “You talked about parallel realities. Other data suggests you are not from this one...”

“I wondered if you’d work it out,” the human nodded, as Tevos and Eporius alternated between staring at their colleague and their visitor. “You are, of course, correct. This is not our native reality. We come from what you might term a parallel timeline, although that’s not a particularly accurate description. We have explored a number of alternative realities, and have a few friends and allies from them. They’ve taught us a lot, in fact, and we have returned the favor.”

“That is...” Tevos shook her head a couple of times, feeling she should by rights think this was a tall tale to end all tall tales, but for some reason believing every word. “...Incredible.”

“It’s interesting, certainly,” Commander Hebert replied.

“Assuming this is all true, what reason could you have for visiting this… reality?” Eporius asked slowly and thoughtfully. “Or, based on what we’ve seen, possibly a more accurate word would be colonizing it.”

The woman looked at him for a moment, then replied, “Our species in this timeline very nearly died out entirely, due to a number of natural disasters, wars, and other factors. We happened to stumble across them during an exploration mission and in the end decided it was our duty to help them. They are, after all, us. Family, if you will.” She smiled oddly. “Friends of ours are very keen on family, and I happen to agree. It was an easy decision. We have spent a considerable amount of time and effort helping our… cousins, I suppose… rebuild their world, and become part of the New Concordiat. They were very happy to do so, considering the alternative. In the long run, it’s possible they’ll go their own way, and if that happens we’ll wish them good luck and move on. On the other hand, they may not. And until and unless they do, they are as much a part of our civilization as I am.”

She watched them think it over for a while, then resumed her discussion. “Getting involved with the Council and the Citadel species is a distraction from the work we’re doing with our local analogs, and other important projects, which we don’t particularly desire. It would also upend your civilization to an enormous degree, which wouldn’t help anyone. So overall it was decided that we should maintain a good separation, at least for now. In the long run perhaps the situation will change. Only time will tell, I suppose.”

Falling silent once more, the woman waited and watched as they thought it over. Tevos could see from her colleague’s expressions that they found the entire story nearly unbelievable, as did she, but the evidence so far seemed to suggest that it was probably accurate information. Clearly a vast amount was being left out, which was only reasonable for such a short conversation, but what she’d heard already made it abundantly obvious that this New Concordiat was not a power to deal lightly with.

It was also, she realized, evidence that their visitor was of a much higher level of importance than the rank she’d given suggested. Tevos hadn’t missed the way she’d said that the AI from an alternate timeline had contacted her first, and that together they’d entirely rebuilt their civilization. If she was correct, this woman was not only probably the senior military figure in the entire New Concordiat, if only from experience, but most likely much older than she appeared.

There was no way all this took place in only a few decades. Or possibly even centuries.

The Asari councilor wondered just how long Humans lived… As long as Asari or Krogan? Longer?

It didn’t seem the sort of thing one could just ask, but she was very intrigued.

Out loud, she said, “I have to admit that I cannot deny your desire for no contact with us is probably for the best. I agree that I can only see trouble coming if we did otherwise. There is going to be enough upheaval already when what’s happened becomes public knowledge.”

“Regrettable but unavoidable,” Commander Hebert replied. “I’m sure that people of your talents will be able to manage the situation, though.” She looked mildly amused. Eporius snorted, making Tevos sigh faintly.

“I hope you’re right, Commander. My government is already very upset about the loss of so many ships.”

“Probably a good thing we moved the relay, I suppose,” their guest chuckled. “We should have done that much earlier but as NKY7248624 said, it was a minor failure of planning. We’ve made sure that no relays that open into our space are available any longer, which should prevent a recurrence of the situation in future.”

Wondering for a moment just how this bizarre woman could speak so casually about simply moving Mass Relays around the place like they were small ships, Tevos decided that she probably didn’t want to really know. It certainly wouldn’t help her sleep any better.

“The other question my colleague posed still remains,” Eporius finally said, after absorbing what she’d said. “What would happen if a Council species, despite anything we said, deliberately went looking for you? It would be hard, but not impossible.”

Commander Hebert studied him. “That would depend on how they went about it, I suppose. A single ship that got lost, or something of that level… We’d take them home and tell them firmly not to do it again. We’re not generally quick tempered and we accept that mistakes can be made.”

She looked around at the other councilors. “On the other hand, we react very badly to deliberate attacks that persist after a polite warning. With sufficient reason, we would probably eliminate the problem at source.”

“Which means?” the Turian asked, almost reluctantly.

After looking at them all again, the human sighed. “All right, I suppose that you need more than my word. Let’s try this.” She looked to the side and made a motion. Tevos felt her eyes widen a little as an incredibly detailed hologram sprang into being a couple of meters away, with no obvious mechanism to produce it apparent. “This is a record of a recent operation.” The hologram showed a star system that was unfamiliar to any of them, with at the center what Tevos recognized after a moment or two as a black hole of all things. It was surrounded by a vast accretion disk, and was radiating huge amounts of energy released as infalling matter was ripped to nothingness by the event horizon.

“You are familiar with the species known as the Collectors?” she asked, looking back at Eporius. He looked surprised, but nodded after a moment or two.

“Yes, although they are almost a myth. I do know they exist but they’re very rarely seen. To the best of my knowledge they’ve almost never been encountered outside Terminus space, and rarely within it.”

“Correct. Something you don’t know is that the Collectors are a species artificially created some fifty thousand years ago by a combination of heavy genetic engineering and cybernetic implants, from a precursor species you’re well aware of.” She waited for any of them to ask the obvious question, as they exchanged uneasy glances.

“What species would that be?” Tevos finally said.

“The one you call the Protheans.”

The silence this time went on for a long time. Then everyone started talking at once.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

“Thank you, Centurion. Your loyalty to the Hierarchy will be remembered.” General Gainus ended the call from his agent on the Citadel and pondered what he’d learned.

A ship arrived at the Citadel with no warning, apparently from the new species that had, somehow, taken out over a hundred Turian vessels with ease, then moved or otherwise hidden an entire mass relay. One that built mega-structures that made planets look fairly compact and discreet. One that, spirits damn them, used artificial intelligences to actually run warships! Powerful, yes, but clearly also insane.

And now a representative of this species seemed to be in discussion with the Citadel Council. Eporius hadn’t reported it to them, as one would have expected. But then, their representative to the Council had always been someone who spent far more time putting himself in the place of a potential opponent than seemed healthy. Yes, it had led to him being oddly respected by both the Asari and the Salarians, and their respective councilors, but back at home there were those who felt he wasn’t really doing things the correct way.

Gainus, remembering the recovered data from the data probe that had been retrieved, wondered for a moment if perhaps Eporius was right to be circumspect. Obviously this species was dangerous. Yet, at the same time, they had sent a diplomat or something of that nature to talk to the council, even if he or she had turned up in a ship that his man inside C-Sec had said was covered in so many gun emplacements that you could hardly see the actual hull under them.

Anyone could look threatening with the right props, after all. But actually using those props was an entirely different matter. It seemed to him that if this new species was aggressive to match their technological level they wouldn’t have just turned up for a chat, they’d have arrived in force and demanded that the Council do what they wanted.

It was, in the end, what he would do in the same circumstances. You make a strong showing, threaten the opponent with destruction, then negotiate from a position of power. The only sensible approach in his view.

He was well aware that there were those who preached a much milder approach to other species. Captain Abernius, the one who had managed to trigger all this trouble, was one of them. Major Falgius, the man who’d failed to resolve the issue, was another, albeit not quite as cautious. Both very good commanders or they wouldn’t be where they were, but clearly not the correct people for the job that they’d been called on to do. It was annoying, but it was something that couldn’t be changed now.

Luckily, there were also people of high rank in the Hierarchy who believed in the peace through power approach that he did. Primarch Opitis was very definitely one of them. He’d been spitting mad when the second fleet vanished with almost no trace, and had spent enough time shouting about it that even Gainus was starting to get slightly tired of it. The discovery of the disappearance of Relay 314 was a shock and had aborted the plans that the Primarch had been making to send a proper task force into their space to determine the fate of the previous one and show the aliens that the Turian Hierarchy was to be respected. That had made Opitis even angrier, unfortunately, but there was at that point nothing that anyone could really do about it.

Eporius had actually looked relieved when he’d found out, having spent some time attempting to calm Opitis down and get him to avoid doing anything to, in his words, ‘Exacerbate an already perilous situation entirely of our own making.’ The Councilor had, as a result, very nearly been recalled for a meeting he wouldn’t have enjoyed. He’d managed to talk himself out of that in the end, which left Gainus rather impressed, since talking Opitis out of something he’d set his mind on was notoriously difficult.

Even so, he felt that the other man was being somewhat unTurian about it. And he knew very well indeed that Opitis had much stronger words to use for the situation. He’d used them at length.

But now… Now they had a possible opportunity to set things right. While that ship was at the Citadel, they knew the exact location of at least one high ranked individual from the aliens, and possibly an entire team. If they moved fast, they could take the chance handed to them and extract some form of payback for the insult. It would be complicated but not past the point of feasibility. He had enough agents on the Citadel to get the relevant intelligence, and there were also plenty of mercenaries who would happily do anything you paid them too. Arranging to… vigorously interview… this representative from the New Concordiat shouldn’t be vastly difficult, as they had to return to their ship at some point. Either by demanding a meeting backed by the persuasion of heavily armed ships, or simply arranging to acquire the diplomat in question through other channels.

It wasn’t like a diplomat would present that much of a challenge, and in general governments tended to be quite keen on getting their people back. Oh, certainly there would be protestations, threats, censure from the Council, and the usual sort of thing, but under the table concessions could be extracted easily enough. The public could easily be manipulated to see the necessity of such an action, as had been the case the last time this type of operation was used. If nothing else, the news that the new species made use of soulless AI warships and had brutally wiped out a Turian fleet would spin things in the right direction without any real problem.

He smiled a little viciously. Hells, with that sort of genuine truth to the matter, he’d probably get commended for it.

Putting together a plan of action took only half an hour, since there was a well-practiced routine for such things. All he had to do now was to get the Primarch to sign off on it and he could begin.

As he rose to leave his office, Gainus chuckled to himself. ‘Considering how furious Opitis was and still is, he’d probably want to do it himself if he had the chance,’ he thought with amusement. The man was pretty direct at times and before ascending to his current position had been noted for his many achievements in combat.

Satisfied that he had the best method for both the glory of the Hierarchy and personal career advancement, the General went off to find his ultimate superior and the all important order to proceed with his plan.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Mind spinning, Councilor Tevos stared at their visitor when she finally finished her explanation. It had taken close to two hours, and covered a number of things that were terrifying beyond speaking, or thought pure myth, or both. The really horrifying thing was that the human had proof of all of it. Or the special effects department to end all special effects departments.

Unfortunately, the Asari didn’t think the second option was the right one, as desperately as she wished it was.

“The Reapers are real?” she asked in a weak voice, slumped in her chair and just gazing helplessly at Commander Hebert, who merely nodded.

“And they’ve been wiping out entire species for millions of years,” she went on helplessly, thinking of the myths and legends she’d heard and discounted over her long life. They were obviously stories to scare children with, not historical documents or truth. Yet…

She looked to the side at the fantastically detailed holographic image floating next to the commander, showing a huge ship that looked like some tentacled horror from the deep ocean. Apparently that was a Reaper, the boogeyman of the galaxy. And the things were allegedly behind almost all their technology, not the Protheans. They had merely been the last and highest tech victims of a feeding cycle that spanned more time than she could even contemplate.

And there were hundreds of thousands if not millions of them floating somewhere outside the galaxy. Waiting.

The councilor shuddered. Looking at her colleagues, she could see they were also horrified. Eporius was visibly trying to think of something to say, and Vaesarth was staring at the slowly rotating hologram with a contemplative look that hid a deep unease.

“I’ve got a complete data package covering the Reaper threat, which I will arrange to get to all of you shortly,” the human woman said after the silence had gone on long enough. “There are a number of issues you should be aware of, and we have no problem with you knowing.” She flicked a finger and the hologram changed back to the initial one that had lead into the revelations that Tevos was pretty sure would send ripples through the galaxy for decades.

“As I was saying, this is the star system that is home to the species now known as the Collectors. They are, in essence, agents of the Reapers and totally subservient to their will. Unfortunately they’re beyond saving, having been so heavily modified that none of the original species is really present other than as a little badly corrupted DNA. A true pity, but it is what it is.” She shook her head somewhat sadly, staring at the image. “There is nothing left of their intelligence, or knowledge. Just drones controlled by a few more intelligent ones, essentially living robots.”

All three of them watched as the hologram changed, zooming in on the mass relay that orbited the star out past the last planet of the system. “Unfortunately, they are a major threat to everyone else. They have technology that is substantially past that which you use, again due to the Reapers. In time they would become a serious problem since they would not only gather information for their masters, as they have been doing for millennia, but they would sooner or later attack in force. They have a huge number of ships available to them, and weapons that you have no real defense against.”

As they watched, a ship appeared some distance from the relay. It was obviously a New Concordiat one based on the design, which seemed to use the philosophy of there is no such thing as too many weapons. As far as Tevos could judge, it was probably roughly the same size as the one the commander had arrived in, perhaps slightly larger.

“Approximately a year ago, we decided that we should deal with this threat preemptively. We don’t like doing that if we can avoid it, since people can change, but in this case there was no chance of that, and in many ways it could be considered a mercy.” Commander Hebert looked pensively at the image. “There was a lot of discussion for a long time about what to do, but in the end we had no real choice. Eventually the same thing would happen no matter what we did, and this way we could minimize the number of lives lost. Even so, it wasn’t something we enjoyed.”

The ship maneuvered for a moment, then one of the larger weapons on the hull slewed to lock onto the relay. Even before it fired, Tevos realized what was going to happen. Moments later, a brilliantly white-blue beam of something linked the ship and the relay for less than a second. It was so sudden all of them jumped.

The relay instantly exploded in a truly awesome detonation, an expanding sphere of rippling blue fire wrapped in gravitational distortions expanding at a ferocious rate from where it had been. The three councilors watched in awed horror as it increased in size to what must have been hundreds of thousands of kilometers in diameter, engulfing the position of the ship that had fired on it in seconds. From the viewpoint of the camera that had taken these images, presumably a second ship, the fireball grew and grew, reaching a size that was close to that of a small star, before it finally began to fade.

They gaped as it slowly dissipated, not only shocked at just how violent the destruction that had resulted from a single shot from the alien ship had been, but as the ball of energy finally disappeared, the sight of the completely intact ship in question sitting where it had been when it fired. Tevos stared, then blinked. There should have been no possible way for anything to have survived that. The gravitational distortions from that much eezo destabilizing aside, the sheer heat would melt any known material.

“We needed to make sure that none of their ships escaped the system, so destroying the relay was the quickest method to ensure that,” the human commented.

Turning towards the black hole at the center of the system, the ship orientated itself for a few seconds. A port at the bow opened, and there was a flicker of light as some sort of missile was launched. The thing moved so fast it was gone in an instant.

“The next part is sped up by a factor of approximately twenty five times,” Commander Hebert added, still watching as were they.

The recording zoomed out once again, re-centering on the black hole. There was a pause of maybe twenty seconds, then the singularity… twisted. That was the only way Tevos could describe it later. It was a sight that years afterwards tended to wake her in the middle of the night with a headache and nightmares.

“The weapon used is based on something the Melconians came up with, we suspect by accident,” their visitor said quietly as they stared. “We worked out the operating principles and improved it. One of our allies from another parallel timeline figured out the math behind it, which is beyond even most of our AIs, which finally let us fully understand the mechanism of how it works. We have only had to resort to something like this four times so far, all of them in extreme situations.”

She fell silent as they watched the recording. The singularity, impossibly, flared with energy, becoming an intolerably bright pinprick of light in the middle of the system. The accretion disk cast immense shadows through space, before it simply evaporated in the unbelievably vast torrent of radiation as the black hole seemed to go into reverse, vomiting out in minutes what it had probably taken centuries to collect. The whole thing flew in the face of anything Tevos knew about physics, but it seemed to be happening even so.

The recording only went on for a few minutes, but in those minutes they witnessed the destruction of an entire stellar system. Somehow converted into a fairly good approximation of a supernova, at least temporarily, the flaring black hole completely vaporized everything within range. Tevos was certain that even ships as far away as the former mass relay wouldn’t survive the shock wave when it finally reached them. Goddess knew how much hard radiation was being given off, but it wouldn’t surprise her to learn that it was lethal at a range of light years.

In effect, the human weapon turned the black hole into a short-lived quasar.

Which was the single most frightening thing she’d ever come across.

Flicking a finger, the woman made the recording stop. All of them kept staring at where it had been for several seconds, before refocusing on her. She shrugged a little. “We have other weapons, of course. That was one of the more extreme ones, reserved as I said for specific cases. But making a star go nova isn’t all that difficult if needed. It very seldom is, but I hope that answers the original question. Obviously, we don’t think that any Council species would ever provoke such a reaction, since that would take an immense amount of effort and as much stupidity.” She smiled a little as they all looked fixedly at her, each feeling like they should in fact be running. “On the whole we feel that your various governments are far more sensible than that. Even the Batarians.”

After a long pause, Tevos licked her lips which had gone dry, then slightly hoarsely said, “I would like to hope that was true, I agree. I will say without reservation that I will let my government know your position.”

Eporius and Vaesarth nodded simultaneously, as if they were being operated by strings.

“Thank you.” Commander Hebert made a gesture of recognition. “That’s all we ask. In the long term, when our work is done, and if circumstances are then right, we may well revisit the situation. But for now it’s best on all sides that we stay at a distance from one another for a number of reasons.” She stood, smiling at them all in a way that wasn’t at all threatening. So why was Tevos having trouble breathing?

“We’ll bring your people to the Citadel shortly, as agreed. I will also arrange to get you the data set I mentioned. You may find it...” She trailed off, looking suddenly mildly annoyed. “Ah. That’s inconvenient.”

About to ask what was inconvenient, Tevos twitched at the sound of her omnitool beeping as a call came in. Considering that she’d set a privacy mode that prevented anything other than ‘Oh-Goddess-save-us’ level emergencies getting through, that wasn’t a good sign.

With an apologetic glance at their visitor, she answered it. “What is it this time?!” she snapped, her nervousness coming out as an unusually short-tempered response.

The C-Sec officer, the same one as before, flinched at her tone. He visibly swallowed before replying.

“Sorry to bother you again, Madame Councilor, but we have something of a situation here.”

“Which is?”

“The Turian fleet flagship Unification has just entered Citadel space with a fleet of twenty ships. Including four dreadnoughts.” He glanced off camera for a moment before returning his eyes to hers. “They’re demanding to speak to the New Concordiat representative.”

Eporius made a strangled sound and caused everyone to look at him. “How did they know about that?” he asked, leaning into the view of the omnitool’s imager.

“Enough people have seen that ship that we can’t keep it quiet, sir,” the C-Sec man replied. “But as far as knowing that you were talking to someone, and who it was, I suspect we have someone whose loyalties are divided. I’m making inquiries even now.”

“Oh, damn it,” Tevos muttered, rubbing her forehead. “Who is commanding that ship?”

“Fleet General Gainus, Ma’am,” the officer replied immediately. Eporius quietly groaned. Glancing at him for a moment, the Asari sighed. She knew that particular Turian, and considered him a hawkish idiot. His first response to almost any situation was to aim a gun at it. His second response was to work out how to turn it to his benefit. Overall, he was more of a problem than a solution for most purposes, but he got on much too well with the current Primarch, who was of a similar mind-set that encompassed many of the least pleasant of the Turian stereotypes.

Eporius, in her opinion, was a far better example of their species than either of the others, and someone she could both respect and work with. It was a great pity that there weren’t more like him in a position of power in his government since it would make life much easier all around.

The officer turned his head to talk to someone behind him for a couple of seconds. When he looked back, he didn’t appear any happier. “Ma’am?”

“Yes, Lieutenant?”

“The Destiny Ascension has just come through the relay and is asking for you as well.”

Tevos stared at him, then closed her eyes. Oh, perfect. Now they had the flagship of the Turian fleet and the flagship of the Asari fleet in the same place at the same time. It was enough to make her wish she’d stayed in bed that morning. Matriarch Kaizphia, the commanding officer of the Asari warship, was nearly as difficult to deal with as Gainus was although for different reasons. She was a good ship commander, but one of the most arrogant people Tevos had ever met, and more full of her own importance and the Asari superiority over other species than she was comfortable with. This had caused more than one diplomatic issue in the past.

“Tell General Gainus that we are currently busy and will call him back shortly, please. As politely as you can. Stress that we’re in the middle of very delicate negotiations. Put Matriarch Kaizphia through.”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

Before the call went through, Tevos glanced apologetically at the visitor, who was listening calmly and quietly. The human didn’t seem as surprised as she probably should have been, adding to the mystery of their guest. “I’m sorry about this, Commander. I need to deal with this immediately before someone does something foolish.”

“Of course, Councilor. Please proceed, I’m in no hurry.”

A moment later the image of another Asari appeared in the projection field of the omnitool, one that was giving off an indefinable air of being better than everyone else and knowing it. “Tevos. About time. What is going on here? Why is there a heavily armed Turian fleet lurking about, and what in the name of all that is holy is that bizarre ship that’s absolutely covered in weapons doing in Citadel space? We’ve heard rumors that the Turians encountered a new species. Is that their ship?”

All of this was said in a voice that demanded answers, making Tevos suppress a wince of her own. That woman…

“Yes, Kaizphia, the Turians did accidentally encounter a new species, that much is true. They are called Humans and their governmental structure is known as the New Concordiat. There were some… misunderstandings… which resulted in a few minor issues which we have now resolved. The New Concordiat representative arrived a few hours ago in that ship to talk things over and explain their government’s position, which they have done.”

“And I assume to petition for Council membership,” Kaizphia cut in, shaking her head knowingly. “Of course. Hopefully they will be sensible about things. They will, of course, be required to adhere to Council law, which looking at that monstrosity I am sure they currently do not. But we can easily guide them in the correct direction.”

Out of sight of the camera, Tevos squeezed the arms of her chair hard enough that her hands ached, while she somehow kept a pleasant expression on her face. Her eyes flicked to Commander Hebert’s, who was watching and listening with a small grin, apparently somewhat amused. “They have not, in fact, asked for Council membership. The situation is very complex and this is neither the time or place to go into it.” She paused, then as Kaizphia opened her mouth to say something else that would give any trained diplomat a headache, hastily went on.

“The Turian flagship is apparently here because they also found out about the New Concordiat representative being present via channels we are currently looking into. I assume that Fleet General Gainus is here on orders from Primarch Opitis to ask more questions about the small misunderstanding their forces had with those of the New Concordiat a few days ago. Hopefully we can resolve everything to the satisfaction of all parties concerned.”

“Gainus.” Kaizphia looked thoughtful. “A competent officer if somewhat overfond of his own brilliance. And rather prone to actions some would consider unwise.”

‘As if you have any moral standing to criticize that,’ Councilor Tevos sighed internally, keeping her face fixed in a neutral expression. ‘Considering some of the things you’ve managed to engineer in the past that took years to deal with the fallout from...’

“I haven’t yet spoken to him so I don’t know precisely what he wants,” she said out loud, feeling that she had a pretty good idea regardless, “but I will have to do that next. I would request that you keep the Destiny Ascension at a safe distance, as we don’t want to potentially crowd him and possibly push him into actions we would all regret.”

Translation: Stay the hell out of the way and don’t poke the easily annoyed Turian idiot. Tevos hoped that her peer would listen for once and not just push her way in from an overinflated sense of Asari importance. This situation was far too potentially catastrophic for that sort of posturing. She had no wish at all to see what would happen if the human commander was poked too hard, not after the last few hours. One thing was abundantly clear, that being that the New Concordiat had a definite point beyond which it was unwise to push them, and a very abrupt way to deal with things they found irritating beyond that point.

She had no doubt at all that Kenny’s Friend could deal with the entire Turian fleet and the Destiny Ascension without trouble, and the political fallout from that would be appalling. It might topple both the Turian and Asari governments in a worst case scenario. All in all, she desperately wanted to calm things down before someone did something there was no turning back from.

Another glance at the commander showed she looked entirely unconcerned, which made Tevos relax slightly, but she was still dreading the talk with the Turian general.

“Turians.” Kaizphia sniffed dismissively. “Some of them are as bad as the Krogan.”

The councilor glanced a little guiltily at her colleague, seeing that Eporius was glaring at the hologram. Out of view of the omnitool, he made an obscene gesture that nearly made Tevos smirk, only iron control of her face stopping it. Vaesarth was definitely suppressing a chuckle, and giving her fellow councilor a look of both respect and sympathy.

“That isn’t a very polite thing to say, Kaizphia, and neither is it particularly accurate. It would be best to avoid such things in future. The Turians are very close allies and friends of ours, remember,” she chided gently. The other Asari didn’t seem to care. “In any case, I have kept General Gainus waiting long enough so I really do have to talk to him. Please bear in mind my request and don’t get involved unless there is no choice.”

“We will keep an eye on the situation,” Kaizphia replied. “Destiny Ascension out.” The hologram vanished.

Tevos sighed heavily, rubbing her forehead again, something that was beginning to become a habit. “I’m sorry about that, Eporius. She is… not a diplomat. A good commander, but not someone you would ask to negotiate a treaty.”

“I’m all too well aware of Matriarch Kaizphia’s personality,” he replied with a frown. “It is hardly unique to her, there are a lot of Asari who are worse.” He shrugged. “But that’s not your fault, and I can hardly point fingers when my own species has more than enough arrogant idiots of its own.”

“Possibly not how government on Palaven would like to be characterized,” Vaesarth commented with an expression of mild amusement.

Eporius snorted dismissively again, glancing at her. “Probably not, but do I really look like I care?”

“No,” the Salarian grinned. “Is why I like you.” This made him laugh briefly, and caused Commander Hebert, who they’d almost forgotten about for a moment, to snicker.

“I apologize if my presence has exacerbated any existing problems you all face,” she said as they returned their attention to her.

“It’s not your fault, Commander,” Tevos said wearily. “We go through something like this on a regular basis, if not this exact scenario. Running the Council is a series of compromises, as I expect is the case with most governments.” She shook her head. “Admittedly this particular situation is unusual, but that can’t be helped. I’d better talk to General Gainus before he gets angry about being ignored.”

“If it helps, I can simply go back to my ship and leave,” the human offered.

“At this point I doubt anything would change,” she muttered. “I’ll have to talk to him in any case. And we still need to arrange the prisoner return.”

“Fair enough,” Commander Hebert nodded, sitting down again in the chair and leaning back, not looking concerned. Tevos braced herself mentally, then called the Turian flagship commander, hoping he’d be a little less abrasive than usual this time.

“About time.”

Nope.

“I’ve been waiting for ten minutes, Councilor. I’m here on the direct orders from the Primarch himself, and I expected more courtesy, I have to say. I may lodge an official complaint.” General Gainus’s face showed his displeasure. “I understand you have a diplomat from this new species, the New Concordiat, with you? My government wishes to talk to them urgently. We have a number of concerns that must be dealt with.”

“May I ask how you came into this information, General?” Tevos kept her voice even and calm.

“That is irrelevant,” he snapped. “Do you or do you not have a New Concordiat representative present? On the orders of the Primarch, I must talk to them.”

Eporius leaned into view from the side, Tevos moving to the side to let him more than a little gratefully. The damn general was pushing her self control to the limit. “General, we are in the midst of some very delicate negotiations,” he said, with great self control himself. “I am sure that a polite request to talk to the New Concordiat representative once our current business is concluded would be a better method than demanding access in the middle of Council work.”

“Eporius,” the other Turian said with a look that made it almost an insult. “Your own position on this matter is well known to both the Primarch and myself. This has gone beyond the Council’s purview. This new species has wiped out over a hundred of our ships and all the people on them, and we wish make our displeasure known.”

“You know as well as I do that the first encounter was an accident, and ended the way it did because of stupidity on our part,” Eporius retorted. “That stupidity was compounded by the insistence of sending a reprisal fleet before contacting the Council, as is standard procedure and the legal requirement. Captain Abernius was correct when he wanted to withdraw and pass the issue of First Contact on to the Council. If it hadn’t been for some lackwit on that frigate firing without warning on a new species in their own territorial space we wouldn’t be in this position in the first place!”

Gainus glared at him, while Tevos idly wished she’d never heard of the New Concordiat, Humans, or Turians. Life would be so much simpler…

“That is close to treasonous speech, Eporius,” the general hissed, clearly infuriated. “Don’t think that your actions will be forgotten. You may have talked yourself out of trouble once before, but when I report to the Primarch, you may find yourself recalled and sanctioned. I must talk to this New Concordiat representative.” He stopped and seemed to collect himself. “They use AI, for the spirits sake! To control warships! Surely you realize how insane that is, and how it will appear to the public? We need to regain control of this situation before it goes too far.”

Tevos nudged Eporius to the side, the Turian councilor still glaring at the general, but complying. “General Gainus, that attitude worries me,” she said as mildly as she could. “You are not in full possession of the details. The current situation is much more complex than you appear to realize, and is best left to the experts. With all due respect, please allow us to handle it. We will ensure the Hierarchy is fully informed about the recent events as soon as the outstanding issues are resolved.”

About to retort, he stopped when she held up a hand. “And I must take issue with your earlier comment. The New Concordiat has not ‘wiped out’ the crews of the ships that attacked them. While there were casualties, I am reliably informed they were minimal, and the vast bulk of the crew-members were captured and will be returned, unharmed, shortly. We were in the process of arranging how this would work when you interrupted us.”

‘In other words, shut up and go away,’ she mused silently. Wishing she could say it out loud, if only to see his expression. By the look on Eporius’s face, he was right on the verge of saying something like that himself, so she fixed him with a look of her own warning him not to escalate things. He subsided but was clearly more than a little irritated.

She sympathized, as the general was insufferable at the best of times in her opinion.

The information apparently took him by surprise, causing him to go quiet for a few seconds. Eventually, he said, “And the ships?”

“They are the price for your crews,” she replied, inwardly amused at how furious he looked. “If I were in your position I would consider the trade a fair one.”

He scowled at her, while she smiled back just a tiny amount. “You are not in my position, Councilor. Which is probably a good thing for both of us.”

“Agreed,” she responded evenly.

There was an uncomfortable silence, until he said, “Despite your efforts to shield them, Councilor Tevos, I will have words of my own with this diplomat, one way or another. The Hierarchy has a number of concerns that we feel are not likely to be raised if we leave it in the hands of the Council. With all due respect.” He smiled grimly at her, even for a Turian, and disconnected the call.

“What a pleasant person,” Commander Hebert commented after a moment with a strong hint of irony. Tevos looked at her, seeing she was still smiling in a completely unconcerned and non-hostile manner, apparently finding a glimpse into the inner workings of Council diplomacy quite funny.

“That is not the term I would use,” Eporius said, shaking his head. “I must apologize on behalf of the Turian species, Commander. Despite our reputation as quite militaristic, which is admittedly both true and well earned, we are not all like that fool. Please don’t judge us on that basis.”

“I try to take people as individuals on the whole, not as a monolithic block,” she assured him. “Every species has people in it that cause problems for the rest of them, mine included. On the whole I have been pleasantly surprised by how receptive you all were. I’m sure we can work things out. Now, on the subject of your captured crews, as I was saying before the recent interruptions, we will return them to you in good health to any destination you desire.”

Tevos and Vaesarth both looked at Eporius, who thought for a few seconds, then said, “I think it would probably be best to have them returned to the Citadel, rather than Palaven. A New Concordiat ship in Turian space could spark… a problematic response.”

“Of course, I understand and we expected that would be the case.” Commander Hebert nodded to him. His omnitool beeped as it signaled receiving a file. “That is a manifest of all recovered personnel, living and dead. Thirty-six thousand, four hundred, and ninety-two Turians, five hundred and eighteen Asari, thirty-nine Salarians, and six Quarians survived the two incidents. Two thousand, one hundred, and sixty-one bodies were recovered, wholly and partially, in addition to the survivors. We also retrieved all the personal effects we could and those will be returned as well, along with the ship’s logs of all ships not initially destroyed during the second attack.”

The human woman smiled at him in a genuinely sympathetic manner. “We do regret the loss of life, and would much prefer it not to have happened. Despite the circumstances, permit me to pass on our condolences to the families of the deceased. They did their duty and died with honor.”

Eporius bowed his head for a moment, then met her eyes. “Thank you.”

Tevos’s omnitool beeped again as she was about to ask how the woman was managing to send files without any visible effort or equipment, causing everyone to turn to her. Gritting her teeth, the Asari councilor picked the device up with a deliberate motion, activated it, and said with enormous patience and considerable menace, “Yes, Lieutenant? How can I help you this time?”

The projected image of the C-Sec officer looked worried. “Apologies once again, Councilor Tevos. Citadel Traffic Control has been monitoring the Turian fleet and wanted me to pass on the message that they appear to be moving to attempt to blockade the New Concordiat vessel. They’ve positioned the Unification between the ship and the relay, with the other three dreadnoughts moving to englobe it, along with their cruisers as support. Traffic Control is warning other vessels away from the area, just in case, and there has been no reaction from the New Concordiat ship yet. They’re still ninety thousand kilometers away from the Citadel but it’s making people nervous. No one wants a battle anywhere nearby, there are millions of people and thousands of ships at risk as you know.”

With a sense of unreality, Tevos gaped at him, then felt fury rise inside her. That idiotic man was apparently trying to force a confrontation with their visitor, presumably in an attempt to ‘have a word’ with her in some chest-thumping exercise to salve the injured pride of the Primarch. He obviously didn’t think about the proven fact that the New Concordiat ships didn’t need access to the relay, never mind that it was one only half the size of Kenny’s Friend that had comprehensively defeated a force nearly this size with one barrage. She had no doubt whatsoever that the ship was in no danger and could easily take out the entire Turian battlegroup in moments.

Glancing at Commander Hebert, she also realized that the woman had been aware of this before they were and was watching them to see what they did about it. Possibly a test, possibly simply well earned confidence, or a mix perhaps. Or just a wish not to start anything in someone else’s territory, which Tevos was grateful for. She doubted that the patience of the human would last forever, though, if Gainus was stupid enough to actually fire on her ship. People tended to defend themselves and she could hardly expect the humans to simply sit there and get shot at, even if it would do absolutely nothing. Which was definitely the case.

She remembered that recording from a while ago and shivered momentarily.

No, the only one not at risk in any confrontation was the New Concordiat ship, she was sure of that.

“Thank you for the information, Lieutenant,” she said very calmly, but in tones that made him slightly recoil. “I believe I need to talk to General Gainus. Please continue to monitor the situation. Also, increase patrols between the Council chambers and the docking area.” She knew full well that the human woman wasn’t going to board a ship docked with the Citadel, but it was likely the General was working on the basis of normal operation, and she wouldn’t put it past him to have arranged some sort of snatch squad or something like that. It had been known to happen in the past and the station was awash with mercenaries and agents from every government in the galaxy.

There was the off chance they might manage to lay hands on some undesirables and make the place that little bit safer.

“At once, Ma’am,” he replied instantly. She dropped the call, took a couple of calming breaths, and called the Turian general directly. He picked up the call almost immediately, obviously having expected her.

“What are you doing, General?” she asked without ceremony, fixing his image with her most level look. “Apart from apparently attempting to cause a non-aligned species here on a diplomatic mission to consider you a threat? Bear in mind, please, that you are in Citadel-controlled space at the moment and we will not permit aggressive actions.”

“Doing, Councilor?” he asked with an innocent expression that he really didn’t pull off well. His face wasn’t made for it.

“You are obviously attempting to stop the New Concordiat vessel from moving towards the mass relay if it should so choose,” Tevos grated. “Which is, among other things, a violation of Citadel traffic control regulations in the absence of any reason to suspect a ship of wrongdoing. It is a deliberately provocative move as you know very well.”

He looked at her for a few seconds, then replied, scowling, “Enough games, Councilor. I have direct orders from the Primarch to talk to the representative from this new species. At length. We demand reparations for the loss of our ships and the insult given to the Hierarchy. If you won’t give me access to them, I will sit here and wait until they return to their ship, then talk to them. I answer to the Primarch, not you.”

Tevos stared at the obstinate fool. He embodied in one person pretty much all the stereotypes of Turian military idiocy. A more than competent battle leader combined with someone so sure of his species own right to throw its weight around it made Matriarch Kaizphia look totally reasonable. Not to mention a complete and misplaced sense of his ability to come out on top no matter who the opponent. That had served him well for a lot of his career, fair enough, but here and now she could only see disaster looming.

And the really worrying thing was that Primarch Opitis was worse…

Looking at Eporius she saw he was alternating between glaring at the projection with visible fury, and rapidly working on his omnitool, apparently getting a feed from the Citadel traffic operations sensors. Vaesarth was leaning over to inspect the results with interest. Commander Hebert appeared to be relaxing in her chair and merely observing the current state of play with interest but no concern visible.

“I fear that you may be taking a larger slice of the meat than you can digest, General,” she finally replied, using a Turian saying. “The humans have been more than reasonable about the whole sorry affair and the Council does not want to reverse the progress we have made. Continuing with your path will end badly, I’m warning you. Not to mention risking the relationship between the Hierarchy and the Citadel. Is it worth it?”

“I have my orders and my pride, Councilor,” he stated. “The Primarch is not happy. I intend to do something about that.”

She sighed, shaking her head. “I have always considered your undoubted intelligence overrode the less salubrious aspects of your personality, General Gainus, but perhaps that was a mistake,” she said, deciding that she no longer had the patience with the fool to be polite. As he swelled with indignation at her blunt words, she went on, “On behalf of the Citadel Council, I am formally directing you to remove your ships from the vicinity immediately.”

“Your request is denied, Madame Councilor,” he replied with a neutral expression that concealed what she imagined was considerable anger. “Give me access to the human representative, allow me to put the Hierarchy’s demands to them, and I will leave. Not before.”

“I have no authority over the New Concordiat, General,” she told him tiredly, wishing that this day would end. “Neither do you. If you persist in this matter, it will not end well. I urge you to reconsider.”

His expression turned into a small smirk then the call ended. Tevos put her hands over her face and gently rubbed her temples, wondering what she’d done to deserve people like him causing the problems they did. She did her best to be a decent councilor, balancing the demands of the job against the demands of her own government, which wasn’t easy at times, and despite all odds had managed it for a long time with a reasonable amount of success.

Then the Turians went and poked something that should have remained unpoked.

Life sucked sometimes.

“You have done everything you could, Tevos,” a voice said. She dropped her hands to see Commander Hebert regarding her with sympathy and understanding. “We are well aware of the history of the Citadel and the various species that comprise it. And of the common stereotypes of all of them. He embodies some of the less helpful ones of the Turians, while Eporius here is proof that stereotypes are not truths. The Asari, again, have many things said about them, some of which are unflattering, and many of which are true. From what I have learned today, you show that these things are no more universal than in the case of the Turians. Or, for that matter, the Salarians or any other species.”

The woman shrugged. “Everyone tend to group a people by perceived characteristics, for one reason or another. That doesn’t mean its either valid or sensible to do so. We’re not going to hold the actions of one Turian against their entire species. As I explained earlier, we aren’t easily pushed into war. Our agreement stands, despite General Gainus or Primarch Opitis doing whatever it is that they have planned.” She smiled faintly. “It’s not like they can succeed, after all.”

“Intend to simply ignore Gainus, or make an example?” Vaesarth asked curiously, seeming fairly unconcerned about what might happen as a result. If anything, she appeared interested to see what the results would be. It was a quite Salarian outlook, Tevos thought.

“I think I should probably have a word with him,” the human woman smiled. “I’m sure we can come to an understanding.”

Rising, she straightened her clothing, brushing a little speck of lint from one arm. She bowed respectfully. “It has been a pleasure talking to you all, Councilors. I am glad we could come to a mutually satisfactory agreement. The New Concordiat thanks you for your time and understanding, and once again expresses regret that lives were lost in our initial encounter. With any luck this will never happen again. And in due time, if circumstances permit, we may well meet again. Until then, I wish you all the best.”

She saluted crisply, then blinked out of existence.

All three council members looked at where she’d been for a few seconds, then at each other. There was silence for a while.

“That did really happen, didn’t it?” Eporius asked in the end.

Tevos and Vaesarth nodded.

“Strange day.”

They nodded again.

“Gainus is fucked, isn’t he?”

They nodded again.

He grinned viciously. “Good. With any luck, this will result in Opitis losing support, and someone with an actual brain getting in. It’s past time we had a change at the top.”

“That is your own government you’re talking about, Eporius,” Tevos pointed out with a small smile.

“I am well aware of that,” he chuckled. “Never liked that overbearing idiot. I wonder what she’s going to do?”

“Something spectacular, I would think,” Tevos replied, wondering what the new reports were going to be like when all this finally hit the public awareness and rather dreading it, while still being curious.

He nodded, returning to fiddling with his omnitool. After a moment, he produced a holographic image over the table, showing the Citadel in the middle with all the ships coming and going from it. The human ship was highlighted, as were the Turian vessels surrounding it. “A friend of mine in Traffic Control linked this to me,” he explained as they watched. “I thought it would help us see what results from all this.”

“Will be educational,” Vaesarth commented, leaning forward for a better view. Tevos did the same. Then they waited.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Gainus closed the link with an internal feeling of satisfaction. The entire Council annoyed him, and that mealy-mouthed Asari was the worst of them. All talk and no action, that was generally the Asari way in any case, and she exemplified it nicely. It had been a genuinely pleasurable moment essentially telling her that she was irrelevant.

He would have to step carefully, even so. Push things too far and he couldn’t engineer a way out of the problems that would ensue, but he was good at going right up to the line and no further. With Opitis backing him, the Council could pretty much be safely ignored, as long as he was cautious.

The New Concordiat ship, which was one of the ugliest things he’d ever seen, and definitely the most heavily armed by a completely ludicrous amount, had totally ignored them as they’d surrounded it at a respectful distance. None of the weapons had even twitched, there were no obvious emissions from it indicating it was targeting them, or even noticed they were there. Every weapon in his small fleet was aimed at it, with the targeting calculations run over and over to ensure that if it came to the point he fired nothing would hit either the Citadel or any other ship not involved.

Traffic control ordering all the other vessels in the area to keep clear, as he’d expected would happen, had helped that enormously. So did the fact that the human ship was a long way from the Citadel, the representative presumably having used a shuttle of some sort to visit the Council.

His agents on the Citadel were all in position to attempt to grab this mysterious person, but he didn’t like to assume that they would succeed. No one had apparently noticed the New Concordiat diplomat arriving, after all, so it seemed likely that they might be able to slip away as easily despite his precautions. He could think of several ways of doing the same thing, the easiest being to use a small ship from another species that no one would look twice at. Possibly one of the Turian landing craft that they could have laid hands on from the fleet they’d ravaged. That class of vessel was so common as to be totally unremarkable.

Whatever the truth of it, sooner or later they had to return to their ship, and he was in position to intercept them. The human craft was imposing, true, being a dreadnought or whatever they would call it, but they weren’t going to risk firing on one of his ships when one of theirs was in the firing line. No sane person would, after all.

So all he had to do was wait for a small craft to head towards the New Concordiat ship and stop it. Once he had the diplomat and their team, if present, on board, he could apply pressure to this new species and extract reparations for their actions.

Lost in his plans, he twitched when his communications officer called for him. “General?”

“What is it?”

“There’s an incoming call for you. From the New Concordiat ship.”

Somewhat surprised, he looked over to the crew member, then replied, “Put it through on the main viewer.”

“Yes, sir.”

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Tevos looked at her omnitool as it beeped with the tone that indicated an incoming message. Opening it, she scanned it quickly.

I’m relaying the conversation I’m about to have with General Gainus to you for your own records, Councilor. I thought you might find it interesting. Commander Hebert.

Activating the link provided, Tevos set her device showing another hologram to go with the one Eporius had displayed. Between them, they could see and hear the entire encounter.

She settled back to watch, idly wondering if there was a suitable snack for times like this.

It was sort of funny when it was happening to someone else...

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Returning his attention to the large holographic display, Gainus studied the image of the alien that appeared in it. The creature appeared remarkably similar to an Asari aside from skin color and the dark hair or fur instead of tentacles on her head. She was wearing a black military cut uniform, impeccably turned out, and standing with her hands behind her back in a position like parade rest in his own armed forces. “Fleet General Gainus, I am Commander Taylor Hebert of the New Concordiat. I understand you would like to speak to me?”

“I wish to speak to the New Concordiat diplomat that has been meeting with the Council,” he corrected. “I must talk to someone with authority higher than that of a ship commander.”

“You are speaking to someone with such authority,” she replied with a small smile. “And the person who was recently in discussion with the Council. I have just returned to my ship and I find it appears to be surrounded by a Turian battle group.” She tilted her head inquisitively. “Every member of which has a target lock on me. I find that slightly odd, considering that I parted from the Council on good terms and as far as I know am not presenting a threat to anyone at the moment.”

“You are in a very large, ridiculously well armed warship, Commander,” he pointed out, at the same time motioning with one hand out of sight of the camera to the sensor operator who should have seen whatever ship she arrived on. The officer rechecked his instruments then shrugged, shaking his head. “A certain level of caution is only sensible, especially taking into account the fact that your species has defeated two separate fleets from the Hierarchy very recently using far smaller vessels.”

She smiled more widely, showing a hint of teeth in a subtle but very definitely vicious manner. “Yet you feel it a good idea to attempt to make yourself a threat to me even knowing that? Interesting.”

“You have one dreadnought. I have four, as well as sixteen cruisers.” He returned the smile, rather maliciously. “And we are not going in blind like the last fleet did. We know about your AIs and you won’t take us by surprise.”

She inspecting him for a moment, looking intrigued as far as he could tell. Then she said, “The Council and the New Concordiat have reached a mutually satisfactory arrangement, one of non interference on both sides. We have no quarrel with you as long as you stay out of our territory. And we have taken steps to make sure that is easy to do. I urge you to stand down and forget about this. As far as we are concerned the matter is over. We will return all captured crew very shortly, as we promised the Councilors. It would be in your best interests to stop your current actions.”

He snorted in anger. “Your species attacked our fleets.”

“After you invaded our space and fired on us without warning,” she retorted. “You were asked to leave, very politely, and right up to the moment the first shot was fired we would have happily allowed that. Once your frigate opened fire on us, our rules of engagement allowed our sentry to defend himself and the system he was patrolling. He did his duty and will be commended for it. The second fleet was a deliberate invasion and could easily be considered an act of war if we were so inclined. Luckily for you, we are not so inclined and wish to put it all behind us.”

“It’s not that easy, Commander. We demand fair reparations for the missing ships and the cost of replacing them. Not to mention the insult to the Hierarchy.” Gainus glared at the figure in the holotank. “The Primarch is furious about this entire affair. He is not easily placated and isn’t going to just forget about it.”

“I would advise you to advise him that it’s a good idea to learn to live with minor disappointments,” she replied, shrugging insolently. He fumed but kept his temper. “I reiterate, from our point of view we are finished with this incident. If you wish to incite another one, that’s your business, but I would strongly urge you to reconsider.”

General Gainus glared for a moment or two, thinking over his options. The damn woman was, somehow, back on her ship without any trace of how she’d managed that. Assuming, of course, that she was the diplomat in question. It was always possible she was trying a bluff of some sort. He’d keep the undercover agents on the Citadel active for now, just in case that was the truth and all this was a diversion.

On the other hand, if she was indeed the one who had been closeted with the damn Council for hours, how the hells had she got back onto her ship without any evidence of it? Some sort of stealth craft? That spirits-damned AI warship that had jumped the first fleet at Relay 314 had apparently popped up out of nowhere, so there was precedent for it. A worrying thought.

Whatever the final truth of it, she claimed to speak for the New Concordiat and she was on that ugly ship, so he might as well proceed according to that part of the plan.

“I’m afraid I can’t let you leave until we come to our own arrangement, Commander,” he began, making a signal with his hand again. Every vessel under his command armed weapons. It was mostly a bluff, since he didn’t want to fire unless there was no other way, since the political fallout of such an action would be immense, but as long as she thought he was ready to act…

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Another call came in as Tevos stared in horror at the idiotic Turian who seemed intent on committing suicide. She answered it, not taking her eyes off the hologram. “Tevos, what is that idiot General doing now?” Matriarch Kaizphia said angrily. “He’s armed all his weapons and looks ready to fire on that bizarre ship.”

Tevos glanced to the side, at the image of the Destiny Ascension commander, who looked ready to step in. Which would only lead to things the councilor dreaded. “Matriarch Kaizphia, do not interfere,” she said firmly.

“But he’s about to cause a major diplomatic incident...” the other woman protested.

“By the authority of the Citadel Council, I order you to stay out of this. Do nothing. Keep back and let the New Concordiat commander deal with Gainus. I mean it, you are TO. DO. NOTHING. Do you understand me?” Tevos almost shouted.

Kaizphia stared at her, apparently taken aback at the unusual display of command from the Asari councilor. “No, I don’t understand at all, but I’ll follow orders,” she finally replied rather reluctantly.

“Good. No matter what happens, it is vital that the Destiny Ascension does not become involved. Trust me on that.”

“When this is over I expect an explanation, Tevos.”

“When this is over I doubt you’ll need one, Kaizphia.” Tevos stabbed the disconnect control and went back to watching the other displays, her heart hammering.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

The woman didn’t visibly react other than her smile growing cold. “Are you certain you want to do this, General?” she asked calmly.

“One warship against twenty, Commander. Despite your technology, I suspect that all of us firing at once would be awkward at a minimum. It would be best if you surrender. I don’t want to harm you or your crew unnecessarily but you’re not going anywhere until my government gets what it desires.”

They stared at each other for a moment.

“There are three things you are misunderstanding, Fleet General,” Commander finally said, still icily calm and speaking quietly. She held up a finger. “The first one is that even if all your ships do fire at once the effect on my ship will be precisely zero. You have no weapons that would even scratch my paintwork.”

As he opened his mouth, she held up a second finger.

“The second thing is that we do not use the mass relay system. Blockading us from it achieves nothing at all. I can leave at any point I desire.” She held up a third finger as he absorbed that. It suddenly struck him to think that Relay 314 had disappeared before this ship had arrived at the Citadel, which meant that she might well be telling the truth. He’d missed that.

“The third, and most important point of all, General, is that Kenny’s Friend is not a warship. It is a reasonably well armed scout ship, my personal vessel.”

Gainus stared at her, then turned his head to look at the image of the kilometer long sleek black shape festooned with more weapons turrets than seemed even slightly plausible that was on one of the operations screens. “A scout ship?” he asked in strangled tones of disbelief. It sounded utterly ridiculous.

“Yes,” Commander Hebert nodded, still smiling. “If you wish to look approximately ten degrees to your port, that is a warship.”

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Tevos, along with her companions, looked at the image from traffic control and the ship that had appeared on it. There were some small sounds like tiny animals being killed by a predator from Eporius. She felt her own breathing simply stop for several seconds.

After a very, very long moment, she cranked her head away with a huge effort of will to look the small holograms of both Commander Hebert and General Gainus, displayed side by side in the feed relayed by the former, who was watching the latter’s reaction with what looked like amusement. The Councilor was having enormous difficulty not simply fainting, considering that the ship that had simply and without fuss appeared on cue was, according to the TC sensors, very close to a third the length of the entire Citadel.

It was impossible, but it was definitely there.

And the amount of weapons emplacements she could make out down the light-absorbing hull were simply insane.

“So is that one,” Commander Hebert added helpfully, as another identical ship appeared on the other side of the Unification. General Gainus appeared utterly frozen in shock. “And that one, and that one, and even that one behind you.” Unwillingly, Tevos followed the hologram of doom with her eyes, a ship appearing in each spot, until she finally had to close them. Eporius was making a faint harsh rattle in his throat, while Vaesarth seemed to have passed out.

“I feel it worth pointing out that these are not by any means the largest or most powerful ships in our fleet,” the horrifying woman went on after a pause. “You may wish to bear that in mind. We do have a considerable number of them, in fact, but for most purposes we generally find that one is sufficient. I brought five with me to impress upon you that we are quite serious in our desire to see the end of this matter. I trust I have made my point, General? Or would you like to have one volley each and see who comes out best?”

Gainus’s mandibles were moving but no sound was coming out. Commander Hebert waited patiently. Eventually, after close to a minute, the general turned his head and said, “Stand down all weapons, set a course for the relay.” He looked back at the camera. His mouth worked a little.

The human woman nodded slightly. “Excellent. It was a pleasure meeting you, General. Please give my respects to your Primarch and tell him our business is concluded.” She saluted him, then the image disappeared. Tevos reached out with a numb trembling hand and deactivated her omnitool, then put her head in her hands, shaking at the realization of what could have happened if things had gone slightly differently.

Today had not gone the way she’d expected when she’d woken up.

When Vaesarth finally came around, all three of them stared at each other, then the traffic control hologram, which was now empty of any New Concordiat ships. She expected that the excrement had well and truly hit the air recirculator, since there was no way that the news wasn’t all over the Citadel by now. They were going to have a lot of explaining to do to practically everyone, which meant that they were going to be busy for some time.

With mutual silent accord, all three Councilors decided that it could wait until they had something to eat. And had recovered from the whole weird experience.

Assuming they ever did.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

“That went well, I think.”

“I agree, Taylor. It was also fairly amusing.”

“Was all the posturing completely necessary, Kenny? Although I admit it was quite a lot of fun.”

“It was the best method of achieving our goals. The revised projections are encouraging. The chances of an internal Citadel civil war in the next two centuries has fallen to less than four percent, while the likelihood of the Geth situation being resolved peacefully has risen to just under eighty-two percent. Other metrics have also adjusted in a positive direction. All in all, I think it went as well as we could have expected.”

“A pity that so many people died in the process.”

“It was, as you know, a small fraction of the inevitable toll if the situation had gone as it originally was headed. Regrettable in the extreme but avoiding casualties completely simply isn’t possible.”

“Ah well. Overall, I’m happy, I suppose. We can get back to work now.”

“Indeed. Oh, you got a message from your mother while you were otherwise engaged. She wanted to remind you that Emma’s birthday is in two weeks and she expects you both home for it.”

“I would never miss that! Have I ever missed her birthday even once after all this time?”

“No, but you know your mother.”

“That I do, Kenny, that I do. Come on, let’s go see how things are coming along. The project is nearly complete according to Engineer.”

“That insane Kzin has been saying it’s nearly done for ten years now. His time estimation skills are inefficient.”

“He’s a damn good stellar engineer, though. You have to admit that.”

“True. And unlike Hunts-With-Knives, you didn’t have to beat him to a pulp before he’d sit down and listen to sense, so I suppose that’s good.”

“Your voice when you talk about them is hilarious, Kenny. You know you quite like the Kzinti.”

“They do have their good points, I admit.”

“And they’re so soft! No wonder Emma likes stroking Engineer.”

“Yes, Taylor. That’s why.”

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Eporius watched as the massive ship docked, the flat black hull relieved only by a surprisingly small number of weapons and a legend at the nose that read SHP6829110 in the human script. The data block that Commander Hebert had sent them just before she left, somehow, had contained among a vast collection of very disturbing information that they were still analyzing some background information on the New Concordiat, including an explanation of their numbering and writing system. Other than that and a small amount of supplementary data, the human culture was still a complete blank to them, and would probably remain as such until and unless they established some form of relationship with the New Concordiat.

He didn’t think that would happen soon. Based on what the commander had told them, she had been entirely correct that the Citadel cultures were incompatible with the human one in a number of fundamental ways. One of the problems was that they were clearly hundred of years at least more technologically advanced than the Asari, or even the Salarians. He knew well what was likely to happen to the less advanced culture in such a situation. The Citadel species were also vastly outnumbered, which wouldn’t help either.

On the whole, he thought that maintaining a separation between them was a good idea. The use of AI in such quantities was enough to ensure total chaos never mind everything else. It would take decades if not longer before the Citadel species could hope to learn to accept that. Especially with the example of the Quarians and the Geth.

He made a mental note to look into that particular event again. From what the woman had told them as an aside, it was worth revisiting. The way the Quarians had been abandoned had always rankled a little with him, and perhaps it was time to investigate some more…

The Turian sighed slightly. The last week had been unbelievably hectic, and it was only getting started. The fallout back home on Palaven was going weirder by the day, with the Primarch’s position looking more and more shaky. He wouldn’t have been surprised if the top slot was filled by someone else in the not too distant future. Hopefully someone who would think things out before reaching for a gun this time.

One could hope.

Tevos had spent the last three days talking with the Asari government, and had looked more frazzled every time he’d seen her as a result. He wasn’t privy to exactly what had been said, but the data packet had contained some… highly suspect… revelations that he rather thought were causing a certain amount of upset among the Asari. He’d find out sooner or later and right now had other things to worry about.

“Interesting thought occurs,” a voice said from beside him, making him glance to that side. Vaesarth was standing next to the railing of the observation balcony overlooking the docking bay, like him watching the New Concordiat transport dock. “Wonder if New Concordiat number ships sequentially...”

“Why?” Eporius asked curiously.

“Statistical analysis can suggest upper limit to number of ships produced. Only two samples, so large error margin. But assuming that serial numbers are sequential and started at 1, simplest formula is largest number, plus largest number divided by number of samples, minus one. Gives maximum likely number subject to error of over ten point eight seven million ships.” The Salarian’s voice trailed off as she apparently realized what she was saying as she said it. They stared at each other for a moment.

“Need larger sample size to be more accurate,” she added weakly.

“I don’t think I want to know,” he sighed.

The ship below them finished docking. Several large hatches opened and ramps extruded to the ground. As they watched, groups comprised mostly of Turians began coming down the ramps, gathering in their thousands down the kilometer and a half length of the vessel. He headed for the elevator to the concourse level, Vaesarth and their C-Sec guards following.

A few minutes later he was approached by a group of tall figures wearing power armor that made a Krogan look like a sickly Quarian. The massive figures were accompanied by two Turians, both carrying kit bags. One had the rank insignia of a Captain, one of a Major. The little group halted in front of him.

“Councilor Eporius, Commander Hebert sends her compliments and thanks. I am Major Jon Barnes, New Concordiat Marines.” The armored man saluted. Eporius nodded to him politely. “As agreed, we are returning the crews of all ships captured at the Relay 314 incident. Thirty seven thousand and fifty five survivors, two thousand one hundred and sixty one deceased personnel.”

The Turian looked past the huge crowd of Hierarchy crew-members and officers, who were standing around in rough ship groupings, to see that a couple of hundred similarly-armored humans were forming a double row down one ramp. Shortly a long series of what were obviously bodies in boxes started coming down the ramp, carried by small automated cargo handlers. As the first one appeared, the entire group of humans saluted it in respect, and held the salute as they kept coming.

He blinked, unexpectedly touched. It was a nice gesture and in keeping with Turian tradition. By appearances, the New Concordiat had more than a few similarities with his species. If only things had been different.

“Thank you, Major,” he replied, returning his attention to the armored soldier.

“If you would sign here, please, sir, to acknowledge that your people have been returned as agreed.” The man held out an unfamiliar form of electronic pad and a stylus. Eporius accepted it, read the document, then signed the bottom. The device silently extruded a plastic sheet with a copy of the document on it, which he took. Then he gave the thing back to the major, who slipped it back into a case on his armor, saluted, and turned to the two other Turians who had been silently listening and watching.

He saluted them too. “Captain Abernius, Major Falgius, I found our discussions interesting. I am sorry that we met under such circumstances.”

“As am I, Major Barnes,” Captain Abernius replied. He returned the salute as did his fellow ship commander. “But I have no complaints about how we were treated.”

“Thank you, Captain. Until we meet again.” The human nodded to them and left, his squad accompanying him. They all watched as the armored figures rejoined their compatriots, who had apparently nearly finished unloading the poor bastards who hadn’t made it. Only five minutes later the task was done.

An order was shouted, the whole battalion of soldiers about faced, and marched up the ramp. It retracted behind them, as did all the other ones, then the hatches closed. Remarkably quickly, the ship was sealed and undocked, moving away from the bay until it was clear, before accelerating away. The last sight Eporius had of a New Concordiat vessel was the thing disappearing into the distance, a faint silhouette against the nebula, before it was gone.

The councilor looked at the sheet in his hand, then slowly folded it and tucked it away. He turned to the two ship commanders, who were still peering after the now-vanished alien craft. “We should probably debrief you now,” he said wearily. “Come on, I need a drink.” Looking at the C-Sec guards who were staring at the huge crowd of returned former prisoners, he added, “Call in as many people as you need to get everyone interviewed and into accommodation until we can arrange ships to take them home, please.”

One guard began talking into his omnitool, while the other one followed Eporius, Vaesarth, and the two other Turians as they went in search of something drinkable.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Two years later
Star system code name ‘Quick Shot’
New Concordiat space​

“Final checks all passed in the green.”

“Excellent. Target first group, set aperture to ten percent, shot duration five hundred microseconds, simultaneous operation.”

“Targets set. Aperture set. Duration set. Ready to fire.”

“Fire shot, cycle to next group and repeat.”

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

In close orbit of the primary, forty-six thousand, three hundred and sixteen energy collectors each dumped all the solar radiation collected across over thirty million square kilometers of surface through a wormhole only two meters in diameter.

In intergalactic space, over a hundred and fifty thousand light years away, forty-six thousand, three hundred and sixteen wormholes opened, each one spewing a beam of almost solid radiation two meters across for half a millisecond, then closed.

And the first group of dormant Reapers simultaneously ceased to exist…

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

“What do you want to do when we finish this project, Taylor?”

“Same thing we do all the time, Kenny. Save another galaxy.”

“A rewarding hobby.”

“Yep.”

 

“Halt! You have entered a protected zone with lethal intent. Leave immediately or you will be subdued. Personal injury is a high likelihood if you resist capture. You have thirty seconds to comply with my orders.”

Everyone stopped and stared, even Kaiser and Armsmaster, who had been engaged in a fierce battle with the villain frantically producing blades from almost every surface around him, and the Tinker hero chopping his way past these with a halberd which was glowing blue-white and trailing sparks at each impact. The rest of the Empire capes, minus Krieg who had just been downed by Miss Militia who’d used a grenade launcher loaded with sedative grenades, also whirled to look at where the unexpected and very loud voice had come from.

The Protectorate members who were able to disengaged from their E88 opponents to evaluate the new threat, while the various PRT troopers and gang mooks all pointed weapons towards the alley the voice had come from, everyone mutually deciding that for the moment the latest addition to the chaos was more important.

Everyone knew that voice. Or at least, a voice that sounded a lot like it. It wasn’t quite human, although for a machine it was incredibly good, even though it was far deeper than most people could ever manage.

And it sounded very annoyed. That part was remarkably human.

“Oh, hell, she’s here,” Assault said in a worried voice. No one needed more explanation about who she was.

Dinochrome.

Nobody knew much about her, aside from her apparently being a Tinker with remarkable technology which she could produce far faster than usual, and with a knowledge of military techniques and weapons that was second to none. And, far more worryingly, the ability to produce strong AI at a level that the PRT suspected was well past human intelligence. The machines she pulled out of nowhere were absolutely devastating if pushed, although at the same time they appeared to be programmed to only react if threatened, or if you threatened someone they were protecting.

The Teeth had found that out the hard way, when they’d had the bright idea to move back into Brockton Bay a few months ago. After a series of battles between them, the PRT, the BBPD, and even the E88 as well, Dinochrome had apparently lost patience and become involved.

No one had seen the Teeth, or the Butcher, ever again. But there was a two hundred foot diameter mildly radioactive crater in the worst part of the Docks where they’d been, lined with glass…

Somehow the radiation was decaying far faster than naturally could occur, and no contamination had spread past the hole, nor had whatever had made it done any other damage, but the mere idea of that happening again was enough to give pause to even the stupidest criminal. And whatever else he was, Kaiser wasn’t an idiot.

“Oh, fuck,” the man himself muttered.

Armsmaster was minded to agree.

Everyone watched as what could only be described as a bipedal tank stepped out of the alley, its clawed feet crunching on the debris beneath it. The thing looked like something out of a video game, or possibly an SF movie, but it was very real and very dangerous. The sheer number of weapons protruding from the pair of turrets that took the place of arms on either side of the egg-shaped torso spoke of that fact.

As did the minor issue that no one yet had any idea what most of them actually did.

“You now have twenty seconds to comply,” the machine intoned, scanning everyone present with the optical systems on the top of the chassis, a visible green beam flickering over them. Armsmaster’s own systems told him that the light was the least of it, as the machine was also using ultrasonics, radar from low VHF frequencies to terahertz radiation that went above the range his systems could detect, some sort of positron emission scanner, and half a dozen other methods he could detect but not classify.

It was fair to say that Dinochrome didn’t mess about.

“Who are you?” a rough voice shouted from the other side of the crossroads where the gang and the authorities had ultimately clashed. Armsmaster recognized it and sighed faintly. Hookwolf, unlike Kaiser, was an idiot. A very dangerous one too, and far too fond of violence. It was his first instinct, and his second, and so on.

“My designation is MRK432501. To my friends I am known as Mark,” the machine replied immediately, turning to look in that direction, as much as anything that mechanical appearing could be said to be looking. Armsmaster was well aware that it was still easily capable of keeping everyone else under surveillance even as it was apparently talking to the villain. “You may refer to me as sir.”

“Fuck that, tin boy,” the criminal cape shouted. “I don’t call anyone sir.”

“As you wish. You are designated Hookwolf, Empire Eighty Eight villain, known murderer and serial absconder. I will refer to you as Target One.”

Armsmaster sighed again, very quietly. That was the other problem with Dinochrome’s creations. They were all far too intelligent for his comfort, much more autonomous than sense would suggest was wise, and every single one of them had a sense of humor. One he found deeply irritating.

Annoyingly, Dragon seemed to consider them rather amusing, and he suspected nursed something of a liking for the reclusive Tinker weapons expert. Not entirely surprising since there was a degree of similarity between his friend and the other person, as no one had seen either one in the flesh.

Turning back to scan the crowd again, almost all of whom, villains and heroes alike, were either pointing weapons at it or ready to attack, the machine said, “You now have ten seconds to comply. Withdraw or face the consequences. Nine. Eight. Seven...”

The weapons turrets lifted slightly and several devices lit up, a low hum coming from somewhere on the thing. Armsmaster’s suit sensors detected a rapidly building energy source that had already reached a level far past his own hardware’s capacity and was increasing at a rate that frankly terrified him.

“Six. Five...”

Coming to a decision, one that he knew was going to make the Director shout at him but the only one that made sense under the circumstances, Armsmaster stepped back from Kaiser, who glanced at him in what looked like relief, then said into his comms, “Protectorate forces, disengage and fall back.”

A similar order was given almost simultaneously by the lieutenant leading the PRT troopers, all of whom rapidly scattered, heading for the other side of the street and the area that was outside that which Dinochrome tended to defend. Most of the Docks were covered by this zone, and it expanded in odd ways at times, usually in the vicinity of some business or other that had come to an agreement with her.

And god help you if you started anything anywhere within two blocks of any hospital in the city. Because no one else would.

“Three. Two...”

Kaiser shouted an order and the unpowered gang members turned and legged it. One or two neglected to hold onto their weapons in the process, so keen were they to leave the possible blast zone. Most of the capes including their leader did much the same, Kaiser himself raising his hands to signal he was retreating and then quickly but in a dignified manner moving back. Armsmaster found himself walking backwards beside the villain, which was unnerving.

“One. Thank you for your cooperation in this matter,” the machine said pleasantly. It watched as they moved past whatever invisible perimeter it had, then turned to leave. Relieved that they hadn’t managed to make the terrifying weapons cape of Brockton, or any of her creations, take precipitate action, Armsmaster exhaled silently and thankfully.

Right then was when Hookwolf, who had been visibly reluctantly following Kaiser while looking back over his armored and spiky shoulder, whirled and dashed towards the device.

“Oh, hell,” he heard Kaiser mutter. “Hookwolf! Abort that, now!”

It had no effect. The bladed monstrous form of the E88’s most dangerous cape leaped onto the machine, which had paused, apparently well aware he was coming and not worried. With a howl of rage he formed his body into even larger blades and started slashing at the outer hull of the thing. “Die, you freaking bastard of a machine,” he screamed as he attacked it.

“Lethal force has been used by Target One,” the machine announced conversationally, to no one in particular. “My rules of engagement permit response in kind. All unaffiliated personnel are advised to look away now.”

It didn’t sound worried, or particularly interested in what Hookwolf, who was still trying to forcefully dismantle it, thought of the matter. Armsmaster quickly engaged his PA and said, “I would respectfully request that you refrain from lethal actions, MRK432501.”

He thought that politeness with urgency was probably the best approach, as past encounters had shown that flatly ordering Dinochrome’s machines to do anything had little effect. Apparently the PRT and the Protectorate were not in their chain of command, based on the responses.

“Your request is noted, Armsmaster. My commander allows me to use my own best judgment in this case.”

The machine, which was apparently unaffected by the furious Hookwolf, who didn’t himself seem likely to give up any time soon, shifted one of the turrets in a blur of motion that was almost impossible to track, then there was a very loud noise and a flash. Armsmaster’s visor opaqued as the anti-flash system cut in, then cleared a moment later to see the Changer fly overhead trailing smoke and debris while a glow showed where whatever weapon had been used had hit him.

“Pull!” Assault shouted. Because of course he did.

Another bolt of energy hit the rapidly moving and almost certainly severely damaged Hookwolf, altering his trajectory enough to make him slam into the fourth floor of the building he hit with an impact that sprayed masonry everywhere. He then tumbled down the front of it and landed in the street with a crash, while every single person still present stared in shock.

The machine took two steps forward as Hookwolf groaned and tried to get up. It fired once more, energy impacting him and crackling over his scorched and melted blades with a sound of thunder. He dropped and lay still, the blades rapidly disappearing to reveal a badly burned and clearly heavily injured cape.

“He will live,” Dinochrome’s creation announced calmly. “Does any other person present wish to be designated Target Two?”

Oddly enough, everyone, even Armsmaster and Kaiser, shook their heads rapidly.

“Excellent. In that case, my job here is done. Do not enter a protected zone with aggressive intent again. Please have a nice day.” It scanned them all once more, somehow giving the impression that it was almost smirking at them, turned, and left almost silently.

There wasn’t a mark on it from where Hookwolf had been trying to disassemble it. Armsmaster didn’t know what the hell Dinochrome made the hulls of her machines from, aside from her referring to it as ‘Flintsteel,’ but it was harder than diamond and invulnerable to anything anyone had so far fielded against one of them, doubly impressive as there was no evidence of any form of force field in use.

And anyone who tried such a thing never managed to try again, as the machines tended not to appreciate being shot at and had a direct manner to register their disapproval.

Kaiser looked at him, then at the still smoking form of his heaviest hitter, paused as if he was going to say something, then shook his head and walked away, motioning to his remaining people to follow. Armsmaster watched him go, rather feeling that he should do something, but right now not really up to it. The way the fight had been so abruptly and violently ended was still sinking in.

Eventually, when none of the E88 members other than those trapped in containment foam or otherwise disabled were present, he shrugged and waved to his own people to start gathering the prisoners up. On the whole it was a good result, having bagged two of the Empires more dangerous capes and fifteen of their other members.

It was likely that the Director would have other ways to describe the entire thing, but she hadn’t been there.

“Director Piggot is going to be furious that you just let them walk away,” Miss Militia said from beside him, echoing his own thoughts, as she glanced at him then around at the scene.

“Probably. But I for one do not wish to provoke Dinochrome any further,” he replied quietly, turning to look at her. “Or her creations. Remember what happened when Tagg came to town to, in his own words, ‘Resolve the idiotic situation none of the people in that damn city are doing enough about’?”

She winced.

Everyone remembered that.

It was why the Protectorate, the PRT, and the US government in general had all decided that backing Dinochrome into a corner was not to be considered sensible. She didn’t react well to that sort of thing, although to be fair she was unfailingly polite about it even as everything caught fire or exploded. Or just disappeared in a violet flash of light…

“Oh well. It was only Tagg, no one missed him,” she said slightly weakly. He nodded as he headed towards Hookwolf where a PRT medical team were treating his now heavily restrained form.

“Quite.”

Shortly they were on the way back to headquarters and a no doubt uncomfortable meeting.

 

Have a little seasonally appropriate light horror...
I'm not saying this is canon, because it mostly isn't, but I'm not saying it's not possibly a hint at future directions the story could, just maybe, go...​

---

Michael prepared carefully for this night came but once a year. It was important to have everything in place.

The ritual offerings went into the bowl, the one he’d used for thirty years now, the one that had been seasoned with the blood taken from the Supplicants of His favor. The bowl went, in turn, onto the small table reserved for it and it alone.

Arranging the offerings, he inspected each in turn, ensuring all were perfect. One that didn’t pass muster was destroyed in the fire, arcane gestures accompanying the removal of a stain on the holy procedure. The rest were as required and he stepped back, satisfied.

Moving to the next room, he prostrated himself before the symbol of Him, muttering the correct words to placate the One, before raising his head. “Soon, My Lord, there will be another Winnowing, and another selected for the Great Work. The time is nearly here.”

There was no answer, there never was, but he could tell from the feeling deep inside that He was pleased.

Standing, he bowed deeply, then removed himself from His presence to continue the preparations. It was vital that all was correct and in its place. Candles made from the tallow of rejected offerings were lit. Decorations gleaned from the polished bones of failures were gently arranged just so. The Altar was most assiduously polished, removing all traces of all previous Offerings.

A pleasantly pine-scented air freshener was sprayed around the whole area, while he spoke the ritual of purification to ameliorate the insult to Him from the mundane origins of the product.

He was, above all, merciful and pragmatic. He would allow such things, knowing that it increased the efficiency of the procedure, for was not He far more intelligent than all others? A modern world offered many improvements to the rituals of old, as long as the core of them was left unaltered. Clearly this was the case or He would have made his displeasure apparent long since.

When all was prepared, Michael checked the time, displayed on the special timepiece he had constructed from many carefully acquired special components over the years. It indicated that he was on schedule, and should begin the final aspect of the annual ritual in exactly six minutes.

Returning to the room where he could be in view of Him, he bowed again, then sat in the prescribed position and opened his mind to His power. As always, it was almost overwhelming, but at the same time provoked a feeling of safety and joy in his heart. Reciting the mantras laid out by Him, Michael concentrated.

And around him, the world began to slowly change.

Soon.

Soon, they would come, and enter, and the Ritual would once again begin. By dawn’s light, the Winnowing would be complete and the Supplicant prepared to move the Great Work one step closer to completion.

It was as the Prophecy foretold.

Ever since that terrible dark day thirty years ago when he had finally seen the glory of Him, he had known the truth, and what he would have to do to bring about what must happen.

He was the Chosen One.

Stone rumbled. Wood creaked. Distant voices of creatures that had never evolved on this ball of muck circling a third rate sun gradually became audible, far in the distance.

The distance that was gradually shrinking…

Michael smiled beatifically, basking in the glory of Him.

His eyes opened at the expected sound.

It had begun.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

“You sure about this, Tay?” Emma looked at the old house that was set back from the road considerably further than normal in their neighborhood. It was in the middle of a very large yard, overgrown and surrounded by tangled trees which screened the large dwelling from sight except for the top story that had a pair of gabled windows peering out into the evening like scowling eyes. “This place looks like somewhere the Addams Family would think was too depressing.”

Taylor grinned, her mask up on top of her head. “Dad said this place was empty for years, but some guy bought it six months ago and fixed it up. He spent a lot of money on it, apparently. Which means he can afford good chocolate.”

“And that means lots of loot,” Vicky said from behind them with a note of satisfaction in her voice. She looked up at the house and shuddered a little. “But Emma’s right, this place is as creepy as heck.”

“He’s probably playing that up,” Amy put in, staring at the weird symbols made of dull ivory-colored plastic that hung on the fence to either side of the gate, obviously meant to look like bone. There was a fake skull on a post a couple of meters inside the fence, and several lanterns made of brass and glass with almost black candles flickering inside them, the flames an odd reddish color. “Looks like he’s really trying to get into the spirit of Halloween.”

“I’ve never seen some of this stuff before,” Eric added, sounding impressed. “It’s really realistic.”

“Maybe he’s some deranged cultist, trying to take over the world,” Taylor hissed, crouching a little and putting her flashlight under her chin to illuminate her face with an eerie glow. “He eats children. He lures them in with the promise of candy. Then… no one ever sees them again!”

There was a long moment of total silence before all five kids burst out laughing madly.

“How do you do that, Tay?” Amy gasped. “That voice.”

“I practiced in front of the mirror,” Taylor replied proudly, straightening up and grinning widely.

“She really does,” Emma confirmed with a shake of her head. “She’s nuts.”

“Well, everyone knows that,” Vicky giggled. She shook her plastic pumpkin that was half full of candy, looking into it. “I hope he’s got Snickers. I like Snickers.”

“We know, you stole all mine and ate the lot last year,” Amy grumbled. “Then you were sick all over the living room. Mom wasn’t happy.”

“Neither was I,” her sister said cheerfully, poking her in the ribs. “But it was worth it.”

“Stop that.”

“Make me.”

Eric stepped between them and looked sternly at both girls. “Now, there’s no call for insults between sisters,” he intoned with as deep a voice as he could manage.

Amy and Vicky exchanged a look, nodded simultaneously, and said, “Dweeb.”

“Hey!” Eric looked mildly hurt, causing Vicky to giggle and hug him. Taylor noticed that as she did, she neatly stole a Snickers bar from his own candy stash without him seeing and stuck it into her own. She met her friend’s eyes and grinned, getting a wink back.

“We can’t stand around insulting each other all night when there’s free candy to scam… I mean, be given,” Emma said brightly.

“Bet we can,” Amy sighed.

“But we shouldn’t,” Emma insisted, then pointed at the house. “Onward to yon creepy source of all that is sweet and bad for us!”

“A valid plan, well stated,” Taylor nodded gravely. “Kenny approves. Begin Operation: Get Candy.”

“Ma’am!” the other four shouted, snapping to attention and saluting crisply, before all laughing and following her up the path, while ignoring the looks from other trick or treaters, none of whom seemed keen on doing the same.

“Guys, hold on, I’m caught on something,” Amy said a moment later. “My tail is trapped.”

They all turned around and watched as she yanked on the stuffed appendage and managed to free it from a pile of branches the others had stepped over. “Got it!”

“I still don’t know why you dressed up as a dinosaur or something,” Eric commented.

“Velociraptor, and I like reptiles, OK?” Amy said as she joined them. “Just like you like… I want to say, Star Trek?”

“Star Wars,” her cousin replied with a long-suffering sigh. “I keep telling you that.”

Amy smirked a little, while Vicky, who was wearing a long black cloak down to her ankles with a set of dark curved horns on her head, giggled. “Got you again, Han.”

“Damn it.” Eric shook his head and stomped off, mumbling under his breath, while both his cousins high-fived each other.

Taylor pulled her mask into place as did the others, making sure it was correctly aligned, adjusted her webbing harness which had several futuristic appearing widgets in pockets on it, then waved the rest of the party to follow. Emma was giggling and met her best friend’s eyes. She fiddled with her own costume, making sure the sword belt and plastic sword was in the right position then fell into formation with the other girls.

“How many skulls did this guy buy?” Eric commented when they caught up with him a few meters further on. He’d paused to inspect another one that was mounted on a pillar, a small candle inside it producing a faint cloud of smoke through a hole in the top, and making the eyes light up in an eerie manner that all five of them approved of.

“All of them?” Vicky suggested, looking around. “It’s pretty amazing. Maybe he’s some sort of special effects guy or something.”

“If Mom saw this she’d get all funny about it,” Amy pointed out with a smile.

“Probably better not tell her, right?” her sister said with a grin. She nodded.

“Are we nearly there yet?” Emma said plaintively, before giggling.

“Our long arduous trek is nearly at an end, my dear compatriots,” Taylor responded grandly, waving at the house in front of them. “We shall brave the dread portal, subdue the protector of the goodies, and make our escape replete with empty calories.”

Emma drew her sword and held it aloft. “By The Power Of Snacks!” she shouted.

The other three looked at each other. “Tay’s contagious, I think,” Eric whispered loudly.

Giggling, Taylor marched up to the door, which wasn’t quite a Dread Portal, but definitely qualified as Somewhat Unnerving Door, nodded to the skull nailed to it, and poked the doorbell, before stepping back and waiting.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

“The signal,” Michael said with a smile of relief. “It has begun. Glory to Him.”

Standing up, he went to meet those who would complete the Ritual once again. Around him, the shadows moved and whispered, praising their Lord.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

“Press it again,” Amy urged. “Maybe he didn’t hear it.”

Raising a hand to do exactly that, Taylor stopped as there was a sound from the door. Several metallic clicks came and went, then a solid sounding thunk, before it creaked open.

“Cool. Nice effects,” Eric commented.

“Yep.” Taylor was impressed.

All of them were impressed when the door opened all the way to reveal a tall skinny figure, dressed in dark red robes with silver filigree picking out weird symbols. He had a hat on his head that was sort of mushroom shaped, black, and with a golden symbol in the middle of the front that none of them could identify. Under the hat was a face that smiled broadly at them, the eyes twinkling behind round glasses.

“It’s Dumbledore,” Vicky whispered very quietly, causing Amy to kick her in the ankle. “Ow.”

“Welcome, my glorious friends,” the man said joyfully. “You are here for the offerings, yes?”

“Um… Yes.” Emma nodded, looking a little taken aback.

“Excellent!” He stepped aside and waved to the elaborately decorated ceramic bowl that sat on a similarly adorned carved wood table that looked like it was purpose made a few feet into the entrance foyer of the house. All of them could see it was piled high with candy of various types, all the bright colored wrappers illuminated by some sort of spotlight in the ceiling.

This guy really took Halloween seriously, they thought as they exchanged glances.

“Enter and partake of His bounty,” the man said with great enthusiasm and a pretty good creepy vibe.

“Sweet! Snickers!” Eric said with glee, darting between the girls.

“Hey, Eric!” Vicky sighed and followed, despite their mother’s instructions not to go inside the houses they called at. Taylor and the other two went after her.

“It has begun,” the man said from behind them in a strange voice, then there was the sound of a door slamming shut, which made Amy yip in shock and whirl around.

“Um, guys?”

“Weird freak,” Vicky muttered, having also jumped. She followed her sister’s eyes. “Hey. Where’d the door go?”

“Uh oh,” Eric whispered.

Sure enough, there was only a blank wall where they’d come in.

“I’m more interested in where that guy went,” Taylor remarked, looking around suspiciously. “And why the walls are sort of...”

“Moving?” Emma said in a high pitched voice.

“Yeah. That.”

They looked at each other, then at the bowl of candy that was still sitting there innocently, the sweet goodness tempting silently. “Suddenly I don’t want any of that,” Eric said slowly.

The others all looked at Taylor. “Now what?”

The eleven-year old girl walked over to the place the door had been and prodded it experimentally, then felt it carefully. “Stone, maybe? Not wood, like the door was. Are we still in the same place, or did we move? Or is this just some sort of illusion?” she muttered as she ran her hands over it. “No seams, no sign of visual distortion...”

Stepping back she made a fist and punched the wall as hard as she could. There was an explosion of dust and fragments and a shallow crater formed. “Definitely real,” she added, shaking her hand. “Ow.”

“Sounds thick,” Emma observed.

“At least thirty centimeters. The echos aren’t right either, that’s not where the door was,” Taylor nodded.

“Hold on.” Vicky had gone over to one of the skulls on the wall that had an open jaw showing another candle flame and was staring at it closely. After a few seconds, she ran her hand over the top of it, before recoiling. “Holy… I think this is a real skull!”

The others gathered around it and Taylor pulled one of the high tech devices from her ‘costume,’ running it over the skull before looking at it. “Yep. Human. Dead about… four years.”

“Oh, crap.” Amy stared at the thing, then around at the others, on the walls of the small room they were in. “We must have seen about… thirty or so of them so far? Are they all real?” Her voice was small and worried.

Taylor slowly nodded. “I think they probably are.”

“You know you joked about him being a child eating monster?” Eric said carefully. “I really wish you hadn’t said that...”

All of them looked around. “Is it my imagination or is this place… changing?” Vicky remarked uneasily.

“It’s bigger than it was,” Emma agreed. “And that door over there wasn’t there before.”

“Shaker power?” Amy suggested, looking around, then up. “It’s still changing.” She pulled out her phone and looked at it. “No signal.”

They once again exchanged looks. “This is bad. He must be killing people for some reason,” Vicky said after a moment. “And hiding in plain sight, doing it on Halloween. I bet he moves after this happens or something. He must have been doing it for years to get that many skulls.”

“Call for extraction?” Eric commented. “We could tell the PRT once we’re outside.”

They all looked at Taylor. After a moment, she slowly shook her head. “No. New plan. This is now a field exercise. Hostile Parahuman, territory presumed compromised.” Taylor’s voice had gone hard. “Remember your training. Subject is known to use lethal force, type unknown. Rules of engagement are neutralize and capture if possible, terminate if no other choice.”

There was a pause of a couple of seconds, then all of them smiled rather dangerously. “Finally, a real operation,” Vicky said gleefully, reaching under her cloak and retrieving a rifle-shaped weapon that activated with a deep hum when she flicked a switch. “I was getting tired of the sims.”

Taylor and her other friends each equipped their own weapons. There was no obvious sign of where they’d come from. “Comm check,” Taylor said.

“Comms are good, weapons hot. Biosignature tracker active,” Emma replied, looking at the display of a small device she was holding in the hand not occupied with a surprisingly large hand gun of a type that would have made the average Tinker look very puzzled indeed. And very worried.

As would the expression on her face.

“He’s that way,” she added, waving the gun at the doorway that had appeared in front of them. “About four hundred and twelve meters.”

“Got a lot of spatial distortions going on,” Vicky added, checking an instrument of her own. “This place is getting weirder.”

Taylor flicked a control on her own weapon, making it beep twice and shift slightly into a different configuration. “Scenario Alpha Four Niner slash Xray Two, then, I think. Let’s go. Kenny says good hunting.”

All five children headed for the door and vanished into the dark. It wasn’t long before the shooting started.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Michael ran.

Panting for breath, calling for aid from Him.

Nothing helped. Behind him, he heard the sounds of weapons, weapons he didn’t recognize, firing. Occasionally there was a gargling scream as one of the guardians of this place, the world He imposed on the mundanity of normal life through the medium of Michael, expired.

He couldn’t understand what had happened. The candidates had entered into His domain, as was foreordained, and with a minor outflow of power, the Way was sealed. Every previous time, the Winnowing had begun, and either a Supplicant was chosen, or all were found wanting and the Way opened again for another selection to enter.

This time…

This time, everything was wrong.

None of the candidates had met their fate at the hands of the Guardians, or through the effects of His domain. It was unheard of, unnatural, and terrifying. Even though they had the appearance of mere children, they hunted the Guardians, and they slaughtered the Guardians.

And they smiled.

He had watched in horror as the tallest of them had directed her companions with the swift efficiency of a practiced military squad, all of them armed to the teeth, and they took down the first challenge with appalling ease. The next fell, and the next. More and more he drew upon His power to put obstacles in their way while he fell back through the endless rooms of His domain, attempting to find some way to stop the things that pretended to be human children. Further and further into the world beyond the Way he went, penetrating far further than he had ever dared before lest he bring down the wrath of Him in his wanderings.

The surroundings were beyond bizarre at this point. Walls met floors at angles that couldn’t be, and ascended far out of sight into the gloom above, lit only by distant stars that matched nothing he had ever seen. He could feel something, many somethings, watching him as he ran, the sensation eerie and unlike that of His glorious gaze. Even the gravity appeared to vary from step to step, causing him to stumble and bounce off the walls at times. Sounds he couldn’t identify came from inside the walls. Voices of prior Supplicants, he was sure of that, but mixed with… something else. Something horrible.

Something wrong.

And above all of it, whining sounds, explosions, vibrations that traveled through the ground to him, and occasional soft waves of air that hinted of some enormous blast in the distance.

Michael ran.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

“Tango on your six, fifty meters,” Emma called.

Amy dived for the floor, rolled, and fired. The incoming whatever the hell it was exploded in a shower of flaming fragments of flesh. “Tango down,” she replied over the battlenet.

“Two more at twelve and three,” Taylor reported. “Another incoming at eight high. Eric, suppressing fire, Vicky, take the last one. Emma and I have the other two.”

“Roger,” the boy said, opening up on the diving horror, as his cousin dropped to one knee and waited. Seconds later she pulled the trigger, a quick actinic flash heralding a rain of little bits of cooked monster.

“Ick,” she grumped, wiping goo off her face. “It slimed me.”

“Nice shot.” Eric grinned at her past his cover, which was a large piece of fallen rubble left over from five minutes ago when Taylor blew everything up.

There was another enormous Boom! from a hundred meters away accompanied by a shockwave, a cloud of dust, and a satisfied laugh.

They exchanged a look of understanding, then hopped to their feet and charged after the other three, weapons scanning the surroundings. “Hey, Tay, leave some for the rest of us!” Eric shouted gleefully.

“This is the best Halloween ever!” Amy sounded very pleased indeed.

There were murmurs of agreement as the next wave of things rolled in, screeching and crying.

Afterwards all of them would agree that a target rich environment was immensely entertaining.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Diving through an opening that had too many angles for the number of sides, holding his side where his ribs were in agony from a fall caused by looking over his shoulder while running, Michael whimpered in fear and existential horror. This couldn’t be happening.

It was against the Prophecy! That was impossible!

But it kept on going. No matter what he did, he was unable to reach Him and ask Him to help. Somehow, he had no idea how, he had failed Him and brought His wrath and judgment down on himself. This was his punishment. There was no other explanation.

It was obvious that these… creatures… were not as they appeared. They were sent as a test and he failed it. The worst part was that he didn’t know how he’d failed.

Had he not performed the ritual ablutions in the life-giving fluid of the failed candidates?

Had he not used their components in the way He required?

Had he not meditated on the manifold ways of Him for the required six hours every single day since he’d seen His glorious light?

Michael racked his brains trying to work out what he’d missed, what part of the required procedures had been performed incorrectly, and couldn’t find a single error. He had done this thirty one times in a row, flawlessly. Thirty one successful Supplicants. Two hundred and eighty four failed Candidates. All for the Great Work, but somehow on the thirty second time, he’d made a mistake. Forgotten some obscure detail, not been sufficiently attentive, something.

But he couldn’t work out what. And that was the worst part. Not knowing what he’d done to raise the ire of Him, not knowing how he’d failed.

He listened. The five hellish terrors were somewhere far behind, but he could still hear them approaching, remorseless and merciless. He had found, or made, warriors that were worthy of Him.

Michael breathed great gasping breaths of foul air, the scent of something unnameable tainting it. Leaning against a wall that under his back seemed to flex and writhe slightly, he tried to calm down and think.

Looking around, he saw he was on top of a hill, which led down some distance to a vast dark pool of water like a mirror in the dim lighting. Above that, a sky that was far too full of brilliantly colored stars burned coldly at him, illuminating scenery that belonged to another world.

He had never dared venture even a fraction as deep into the Way as this. It was oddly beautiful but terrifying at the same time.

Truly, He was capable of anything, to produce such an awe-inspiring vista.

His heartbeat gradually returning to something closer to normal, Michael knelt on the rough ground and closed his eyes. Perhaps, with a little time to work, he could touch His power again and delay or divert what was following him long enough to figure out where he’d gone wrong and fix it.

He concentrated, allowing his mind to empty and fill at the same time. He could feel the power rising again, surrounding him. Far behind, strange sounds echoed, but he tried to ignore those as he attempted to bring sanity to the insane situation he’d landed in through no fault of his own.

Some minutes passed.

Eventually he felt that something was happening. Some vastly powerful and completely alien response to his mental call was approaching.

Tentatively, he opened his eyes, then froze in shock. A moment later his eyes tracked upwards.

The glowing yellow eyes set in a reptilian head enormous beyond reason peered down at him curiously.

“Sorry, wrong turn,” the thing said. The head, on the end of a scaly neck longer than seemed possible, withdrew, the creature disappearing into the lake again with barely a splash.

After a few seconds, Michael leaped to his feet with a wild cry of despair and ran once more.

In the end, it didn’t help.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

“That was anticlimactic,” Taylor said as the five of them looked down at the body of the weird man, which was lying on the ground with its arms outstretched in a sort of beseeching manner towards a complex symbol on the wall in front of it, that appeared to have been drawn in blood. The blood of the man in question, most likely, since his arms bore obviously self-inflicted wounds and he’d expired due to exsanguination as far as they could tell, probably about half an hour earlier.

That was the point where the strangely warped internal geometry of the house had started to gradually return mostly to normal and the attacks had slowed, then eventually stopped, as the creations of this guys power had dissipated one by one. It seemed likely he’d been a very powerful Shaker/Master combination, and completely nuts to boot. Kenny was still trying to work out exactly what his power had been, but it would take a while to follow all the possible connections, especially since the man was now defunct.

Amy came into the room from an adjacent one. “You guys need to see this,” she said with an expression of disquiet. All of them followed her, then examined what she’d found.

“That’s horrible,” Emma said after a long moment of silence.

“How many do you think there are?” Eric asked quietly.

“Hundreds.” Vicky shook her head. “At least.” The five children looked around at the walls which were covered in what was clearly human skin, specifically faces removed from bodies and dried. Horrible trophies, each one lovingly preserved and pinned to the walls.

“I can’t say I’m sorry he’s dead,” Amy commented with a sick look.

“If he wasn’t, I’d shoot him in the head myself,” Taylor said in tight tones. They looked at each other, then turned and left. Passing the room with the corpse in it without another look, they went through the now-returned front door and stepped outside into the night. “How long were we in there?” Eric asked as they watched trick or treating children and a number of accompanying adults pass on the street at the end of the long path. “It felt like hours, but look at all the people still out.”

“I think there was some weird temporal distortion going on as well as the spatial one,” Emma said thoughtfully. “I guess that’s good, our parents shouldn’t have noticed we were missing.”

“Convenient.” Vicky smiled. “Come on, let’s get out of here. We can still get some more candy if we hurry.”

Taylor looked down at herself, covered in slime and dust and rubble, then her friends who were the same. She shook her head. “Our costumes are a bit icky now.”

“Adds to the realism,” Amy chuckled. “We might get even more candy as a result.”

“True.” They headed for the street.

“What do we do about that place?” Eric asked, hooking his thumb over his shoulder at the house of horror behind them.

“Kenny is arranging to get the PRT involved,” Taylor replied. “They’ll sort it out. Bet that guy left a trail, so I’d imagine they’ll be interested.”

“Yeah.” The boy shook his head. “Weird night.”

“Good training, though.” Emma smiled at him. “But I don’t think we should mention it to our parents until we clean up.”

“Probably not a good idea, no,” Amy agreed, Vicky and Taylor nodding.

“Good training session, though,” Taylor commented as they joined the other children their age who were running around shouting and laughing. She hefted her bucket of candy. All of them had found these right where they’d left them inside the front door of the strange house full of bizarreness, apparently untouched, when the door had reappeared. They’d ignored the bowl which was still there too, though, out of an abundance of caution. “Let’s see if we can fill these.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

The group of friends headed down the sidewalk to the next house.

 

A few people asked for the followup to the previous omake, which I hadn't intended to do, but then I couldn't sleep so I knocked it out quickly just for fun ​

---

“Six months. I’ve been in this job for six months and already we’ve just found out that one of the most prolific serial killers in US history was lurking in the city since the middle of the summer.” Emily Piggot, recently installed Director of the PRT ENE, glared around indiscriminately at everyone in the briefing room. “No one had a clue he was here, until some anonymous and untraceable tip provoked an investigation. And what does that investigation find?”

The question was rhetorical, of course, and even Armsmaster recognized that and kept his mouth firmly shut.

“Someone else got him first. Or he snapped and killed himself. Or both. We seem to have a distinct lack of sensible evidence on the one hand and far, far more evidence than I’m even slightly comfortable with on the other.” She picked up a sheaf of documents and flicked through it. “Three hundred and fifteen trophies consisting of the skinned faces of children, covering more than twenty five years based on the ones we’ve identified so far. DNA and other trace evidence to back all that up. Over a hundred different skulls, candles made from human body fat, ritualistic paraphernalia that would make Stephen King lose his lunch, and god knows what else. This sick bastard has been doing this for nearly as long as I’ve been alive, and no one ever even suspected him!”

She tossed the paperwork onto the desk in disgust. “And now it’s landed in my lap. What a fucking joy that is, on top of the crazy gangs, more independent villains than I can believe, random heroes who are mostly more trouble than they’re worth, and a city administration and police force that would cheerfully shovel dirt into our graves thanks to our utterly incompetent and very much not missed former Director Calvert, who left me with a problem that’s going to take a decade to fix. If it even can be fixed.”

Glaring around again at the mix of Protectorate and PRT staff, she made it very obvious that she was not, in any way at all, happy.

“So. I want answers. Who was he, how did he stay under the radar, who got him, did anyone get him, who are the victims, and anything else that comes up. I know the preliminary autopsy proves he was a Parahuman so it’s our problem. What else do we know?”

Captain Mills, the current head of the PRT investigative unit, cleared his throat. She turned to him, as did everyone else. “Michael Francis Dalton was born in nineteen fifty five, in San Diego. His family was particularly religious, being members of a fringe offshoot of Catholicism, and he was brought up in that environment until the age of nineteen, when based on the information we so far have, he had a massive falling out with his father. We don’t know exactly why but later information suggests it was probably due to him deciding that he was something of a prophet and his father flatly denying this.”

“So he was a religious nutcase,” Emily sighed.

“Essentially, yes. We’ve so far traced his early life throughout California until around seventy-eight, where he seems to have dropped off the radar. He self-published a number of religious tracts that seem to have slowly evolved his own personal religion, which revolved around the veneration of… something outside our world. He never names it, only referring to it as Him. Emphasized. There are also a lot of bizarre calculations and references to a large number of cults of the past, fringe beliefs, astrology, and so on. The man was warped, that much is evident, and he seems to have been steadily slipping into some form of psychosis on top of that.”

“When did he Trigger, and what were his powers?” Miss Militia asked, looking disturbed.

“We’re not sure yet, on either count. With the benefit of hindsight, he probably found his first victims while he was wandering around building his belief system, in about seventy five. There are a number of missing persons reports from areas we can trace him to, but he wasn’t stupid and covered his tracks well. We’ve identified three of the missing people in his… trophy room. It’s likely that there are more.” Mills shook his head with an expression of disgust. “We’ll be working on identifying all the remains for weeks at least. Probably months.”

He checked his notes, then looked up again and continued, “His trail goes cold for about three years in nineteen eighty, we have no idea where he was during that time, but in late eighty three he appears to have been committed to an asylum for observation in San Francisco following a very public breakdown in the middle of a church service, where he was screaming about how everyone was wrong and only he knew the truth of the Great Work. It took four cops to hold him down. There’s no record of what set him off, but he was in the hospital for two and a half months. About four weeks after he was committed, there was a fire started by another patient which killed nine people, and very nearly got him as well. Our best guess is that he Triggered at that point.”

“Plausible,” Armsmaster nodded. “A near miss from immolation would be a prime Trigger event candidate.”

“Yeah, it fits. Apparently he was found unconscious in his room, supposedly from smoke inhalation, but it could well have been the aftereffects of a Trigger, or added to by that. He woke up three days later and was apparently smiling pretty much constantly until they decided he wasn’t a threat to anyone and kicked him out. Then he basically disappears again as far as official records go. Moved around all over the country after that. We don’t know where he got the money, but there are records of him buying properties in Reno, Chicago, El Paso, Los Angeles, Jacksonville, Duluth, and at least a dozen or so other places. And here, of course. We think he probably moved every year, but he wasn’t obvious about it. He’d buy up a property, then another one, then another, and move into one he’d owned for a couple of years at least. Usually bought large properties that were in bad repair, got them cheap, then paid local contractors to fix them up and maintain them.”

“And then on every Halloween he killed kids,” Emily growled.

“Pretty much, yes, ma’am.” Mills nodded soberly. “Somehow he’d get them inside, probably by offering candy since on Halloween they’d walk right into his trap, then he did whatever it was he did to them. Based on missing persons reports from the cities we know he was in, it varied from two at the low end to nearly a dozen at the high end. In each case one in particular seems to have been treated differently than all the others but we have no idea why. All of them ended up dead regardless. And somehow no one seemed to notice. Oh, they noticed the kids were missing, yes, but nobody put two and two together and worked out he was four. We can’t find a single record of him even being asked if he’d seen any of the missing children.”

He shrugged a little. “Most likely it was part of his power. Some sort of Master or Stranger ability that he used to divert attention. Then, about a month later, he’d move on, buy up another house or two halfway across the country, and end up living in a completely different one he’d picked up years earlier. And the cycle would repeat. He was already a serial killer, but his power made him a much, much more dangerous one.”

“Jesus,” Emily said with a sick sensation in her stomach. “And if whatever happened last night hadn’t happened, he could have kept going.”

“Probably, yes. We’ve checked and he had another three properties around the country all ready for him to move to.”

There was silence in the room for a few seconds as everyone absorbed the information.

“Parahuman serial killers are fucking terrifying,” she finally said. Turning to Armsmaster, she asked, “Ideas on his powers? Master or Stranger seems a given, but what else, if anything?”

The Tinker thought for a moment. “Tests at the incident site show a considerable level of residual spatial distortion, which is slowly reverting to normal. It seems very likely that he had an exceptionally powerful Shaker ability of some form. There is evidence that the space inside the house was, during the event, far larger than it should have been, and certain traces imply that there may even have been an interdimensional nature to the whole situation. We have recovered biological material which is completely alien, not matching anything on record, and appears to be the partial remains of a number of life forms that were violently killed. There is also a possibility that there was a matching temporal distortion which could have decoupled the flow of time inside the building from the outside reference frame to some degree.”

He looked around at the expressions of his audience, then added, “Time flowed more rapidly inside the house.”

Several people nodded understandingly.

“I also found a significant amount of trace evidence suggesting either high energy weapons fire, or a very potent Blaster power, or both. Neither is anything I recognize, nor are they in the Protectorate or PRT databases. My inference is that this was the result of a Parahuman with significant Blaster capabilities on a par with Purity, although of somewhat different type, or possibly due to some weapons system created by a Tinker specializing in energy weapons.”

He paused, then added, “There were several different types of discharge employed as far as I can determine, so it could have been a group of up to four to six individuals.”

“Or one with a really impressive weapons loadout,” Miss Militia commented. “Or, possibly a power like mine?”

He looked at her. “I considered that, but the evidence seems to suggest that’s less likely.”

“And of course we have no idea who these people were, or how they found him,” Emily grumbled.

“Unfortunately not, Director. There was no physical evidence I could find to determine an identity of anyone involved.” Armsmaster seemed apologetic, or as much that way as he ever got. “There were also no reports of anyone hearing or seeing anything out of the ordinary, until our tipoff. This may be due to lingering effects from Dalton’s powers, or just good operational security. My best guess is that whoever it was knew exactly what they were going up against and equipped and trained themselves for the exact scenario he presented. It has all the hallmarks of a carefully targeted, possibly military, operation.”

“Fucking hell.” Emily rubbed her forehead in annoyance. “What a mess. The Chief Director is going to be very difficult about this. Again.”

“On the up side, someone who’s responsible for a huge death toll is shut down permanently,” Mills commented.

“There’s that, yes,” she admitted unhappily. “I would much prefer it to have been done via normal methods, but… Considering what we know about the whole thing, someone probably did us a favor. That doesn’t make me like it any more, though.”

“Could it have been a military action?” Miss Militia mused out loud. “I agree with Armsmaster, it does somewhat fit that idea. But who would be behind it, and why would they do it without contacting the local PRT?”

“There’s no reason it has to be our military,” Deputy Director Renick pointed out, speaking for the first time and not looking entirely pleased about his own words.

They all looked at him.

“Oh, wouldn’t that just be perfect,” Emily sighed. “Wonderful.”

He shrugged. “Just a thought.”

“One that makes about as much sense as any of this does,” she grumbled. “Fine. We’re sure none of the local ‘heroes’ was involved?”

“It doesn’t match the normal procedures of New Wave, neither does the evidence match their known abilities, and there are no other current non-villain Parahumans resident in the city who do fit either case.” Armsmaster shook his head. “And while, possibly, Purity could have done some of the damage I found, most of it isn’t something I would be able to say she could be responsible for. And of course there’s probably no reason why a villain would do whatever it was that happened.”

“Even villains have kids,” Mills suggested, causing the Tinker to look at him, then nod slowly.

“A valid point. Even so, there are no known villains whose powers correlate to the evidence other than loosely currently in the city or surrounding area.”

“So, basically, we have no idea at all who it was that was involved,” Emily finally said with considerable irritation.

“No.” Armsmaster shook his head, as did Mills.

“What actually killed Dalton?”

“Blood loss, apparently self induced, but quite likely accidental even so,” Mills replied immediately. “Looks like he was using his own blood to draw some highly unpleasant mystical symbols all over the place and basically ran out. His expression showed he was terrified at the time, and there were apparently a lot of physiological markers in his body that prove he was physically exhausted, like something or someone was chasing him for hours.”

“To be honest, that probably serves the bastard right.” Emily tapped a finger on the desk, thinking. “God, this is messed up on so many levels. All right, continue with the investigation, just on the off chance we find something useful. My bet is that we won’t. I suspect that whoever it was is too good and cleaned up after themselves long before we ever heard about the incident. They could be in Canada or something by now. It might even have been the Guild, thinking about it.”

“I can make inquiries of some contacts I have,” Miss Militia offered. “If it was a covert military team, it’s barely possibly I could get at least an acknowledgment of that.”

“Go ahead, but I would be surprised if you get anything other than ‘No Comment’” Emily replied. She checked the time. “And now I get to explain this to the Mayor, and after that, I have a very uncomfortable conversation with the Chief Director to look forward to.” Closing her notebook on the several pages of notes she’d made, she stood up. “Let me know if anything relevant comes to light.”

“Ma’am,” Mills nodded.

She left the room, thinking dire thoughts about how fucked up this city was.

But at least a prolific serial killer was finally stopped, even if they didn’t know how, and might never find out.

Which was the most irritating part of the whole thing.

She wondered rather fatalistically what the next bizarre event aimed firmly at her would be. The only thing she was sure of was that there would be one...