Chapter 22 - Blacklight does Intentionally

Saleon sat calmly as he looked at the beast before him. It was a young, but still a massive beast that would only grow. Also proof of concept for what he was trying to achieve. It was a hybrid between the two mutant Varren, with the brain of one and the digestive system of the other, making this creature the one he needed to convince the others to move to secondary testing. Saleon heard the footsteps approaching from the hallway. That would be Sil. As expected, she stepped in the room.

"Dr. Saleon I...", Sil froze as she looked to the mutant Varren that was, in fact, loose.

The creature wheezed as it sniffed around the room. Then it turned right towards her and began to growl. Saleon nodded as he began writing down on his computer tablet.

"Fascinating isn't it? The traits we wanted in a single individual have been put into this one. Wasn't even that difficult really once we figured out what went wrong with that Varren shaped tumor thing... I forget its official designation, not that it matters. It was a failure after all.", said Saleon.

Sil by this point had backed against the wall.

"Why is it loose?", she asked with a hushed voice and heavy breathing.

"It poses me no risk. It seems to react to the emotional state of others. It is also blind. Not sure if that is genetic or just a defect.", said Saleon as he put his tablet down to look at the creature.

"It doesn't even seem to realize I am here.", said Saleon.

"We need to contain it.", said Sil lowly as the creature began sniffing around the room.

"Eventually yes, but for now I want to see how the subject behaves. Also I wanted to talk to you without you interrupting my train of thought with inane questions."

Sil, with her back to the walls, slowly moved across the room as the beast got closer and closer, seemingly following her scent. The thing that could hardly be called a Varren growled and snarled at where she once was as its tongue flicked inside and out again and again to taste the air, like a lizard. It licked the wall where she stood before ignoring it and moving to follow her scent. Sil moved carefully around to avoid detection, all the while damning Saleon for his insanity.

"That was an unexpected mutation, the flicking tongue might be a result of the unusual digestive system. Makes me wonder what else this thing can do."

"Put it in its cage. You are endangering this entire station.", whispered Sil.

Saleon blinked and had the decency to look shocked at that declaration.

"Am I... I suppose I am, but not for this. We are splicing unknown traits into a vicious pack animal. We really have no idea what the result is going to be, this isn't science so much as it is guess work and a fools hope we don't kill ourselves. Really every one on this station is putting it at risk. I am just giving our creations the respect they deserve."

The beast moved around the room at random, no longer following her scent. Sil watched as the creature started to head towards Saleon. She froze her movements as the beast walked right in front of Saleon only to stop as its tongue flicked out again. Then it turned to look right at him. Saleon stood still as he watched the creatures tongue hover around him. Sil prepared to see him die only to be shocked when the beast turned and ignored him completely. Saleon nodded.

"Sociopathy does have its advantages. You know, I like to think that sociopathic and psychopathic behavior isn't a reflection of awry brain chemistry, so much as it is the result of survival in a society such as ours. After all our society does encourage sociopathic behavior. Everyone is trying to make a living, and many do not have many options. They take what they can get and damn anyone they have to step on to get there. Is that sociopathic? Is it sociopathic to survive?"

Saleon shrugged as the mutant Varren began to hiss and search the room a bit more viciously.

"The ones who run corporations are themselves are driven by a sociopath's imperative. Damn the preservation of the environment or the comfort of a few, our needs are more important than comfort or preservation. I can respect the honesty there. The rules of the game have made it where sociopathic behavior allows the galaxy to continue running smoothly. The status quo requires a sociopath's conduct for survival. Because of that we will never be free of individuals such as I. It is comforting to me."

Saleon watched as the beast seemed to pick up Sil's scent again, it followed the scent carefully. As he expected Sil moved carefully to avoid the beasts detection. He wondered how long the game would last until it found her.

"So why is it that sociopaths are looked down upon? I just don't understand it. If you get results, why should the journey to get the wanted results matter? Is the individual more important than the whole? Maybe I'll never understand, and I can accept that. I also think this is why I find Blacklight so interesting. Notice that as a species they are very generous, almost to the point of insanity. They gift the council the scanners to detect them, negating their main advantage in the alteration of their form, they gifted them knowledge on the Mass Relays and in doing so open up many projects thought to be doomed to obscurity. They are the only society where the majority hears the minority and takes all opinions into consideration. Empathy is there because what one feels is felt by all within the system. I wonder what would happen if a sociopath such as I were consumed into it. Would I be free of my sociopathic behavior? Possible, but I like myself as I am."

Saleon reached to his side where he pulled out a stun staff. Calmly walking over to the beast, he shocked it as he slowly lead it back into its cage. The Beast whined as he did and fell down after making it back into its prison. It breathed heavily before going to sleep. Saleon closed the gate and locked it. He tossed the stun staff onto his desk before tossing a hunk of meat into the cage. He watched as the tired beasts tongue tested the scent before spewing acids onto it. Saleon nodded before he picked up his tablet and began to scribe notes onto it.

"I was feeling philosophical today. I like to think on subjects I have no hope of understanding, it keeps the brain fresh if it is always trying to work out a problem. Come Sil Trells, we have a lot of work to do.", said Saleon as he left the room.

Sil, who was leaning against a wall, slowly slid down in relief that the creature was back where it belonged. She watched disgusted as it expelled its own stomach over the now puddle that once was meat to suck up the fluids. She was sure she would never forget this until her final day, and considering who she was watching, she was sure that was sooner rather than later.

The Batarians' history is a very fickle thing that they do not really learn from, if only because it, like many others, is retroactively made by the winners who put more thought into their 'heroic deeds' than the truth. As such we had a lot of trouble trying to figure out how the Batarian history led to its current state. To make a long story short, the Batarian hegemony unfortunately is a very familiar political system and to our poor luck is the hardest system to change, a theocracy.

Wonderful.

That does make the plan a bit more difficult.

But not impossible.

Do the rulers claim divine authority?

They do not, they only claim to have the best interpretation of ancient scripts. Rules do change, edicts can be issued and rights can be given and taken as they discuss more and more on what in their scripts is allegory and what is literal. Most agree much of it is allegory, but they can spend much time on exactly what the allegory is trying to say. That said, the church and state is one and the same.

This is going to be much harder than we thought.

Not necessarily. The plan can still work. We will just have to be creative. I have overtaken many religious thralls in the past by poisoning their minds to see me as either an aspect or agent of their deity.

That is going to be a major problem, since they have two deities, both of which are dead... Temporarily anyway, and in the most complex of ways.

I do not follow, why can I not claim to be one of the two?

What the majority is trying to say is the two gods have a complex relationship, both gods are seen as broken. The first is the god of Life and Chaos, who is believed to be the deity whose broken pieces make up one half of a Batarian's soul. The second represents Death and Order whose pieces are believed to make up the other half of the soul. When a Batarian dies, if he followed the scripts given, then they believe their unified soul creates a new deity crafted from both gods. If they did not follow the scripts then their soul splits and goes back to the original gods.

How very complicated and needlessly confusing. I still do not understand it.

It's based around the concept of unity. If you obey the scripts then you contribute to creating a single all powerful deity, if not then you contribute to only creating two who would war against each other for all time, thus causing strife. The centralized constant is one of peace. Historically if you do not follow the teachings you are not killed, as to do so would only give a part of the soul to each individual deity rather than the one unified deity. Instead you are enslaved to pay for the crime of heresy, so when you die the soul goes to the all powerful god.

Do they believe the other sapient species of the galaxy have souls that can go to either the two lesser gods or the one all powerful one?

No, only Batarians.

Then why would they enslave other species if slavery is penance for the crime of heresy?

This is just the origin of their slavery, based on what we have found. That no longer appears to be the case. It has not been this way for thousands of years. Slavery became such a strong point of their culture that it lost its meaning.

In other words they don't have the flimsy excuse about punishment for heresy, or creating a unified god as a reason for slavery to exist. It changed over time to become something else, a symbol of status. Now it's just a business venture. Since other species are seen as exotic slaves, they bring in more credits.

So in other words we cannot use that as an excuse to at the very least end slavery of the non Batarian species.

Afraid not, the exotic market is the most profitable of them all. In fact Batarian slaves are at an all time low because of it. It makes the ones who run these slave raids very rich, and so long as they give the church donations no one cares. In fact it is not uncommon for the leaders to commission the slave raids themselves.

In other words, if we are going to change the culture, we may have to consume and copy a lot more individuals than we would be comfortable with.

Unfortunately yes. We may have to go so far as to replace the leaders entirely with either us or those with views not as extreme as the others. The citizens are not given information without the church making sure it is approved. In other words, censored beyond all recognition. If we are going to do something that is where we start. We have to give the people unbiased information.

I thought you didn't want violence.

This isn't violence, it is merely freedom of information.

What people do with that information is up to them. If it happens to cause an opportunity for us to infiltrate deeper, then that is just a bonus.

How very devious. I approve.

We know precious little about the Batarian citizens, only that they are not allowed to leave their worlds unless they are a soldier. They are constantly exposed to censored content that is mainly propaganda. Truth may break their ignorance enough to work in our favor, but before that happens, we need to get one of us onto Khar'shan. Their isolation makes this difficult, but not impossible. Once there we can do what must be done.

What is your plan?

We think you will be pleasantly surprised.

Morinth blinked as she looked to the passing Volus. Scratches on his suit suggested trouble with the Blood Pack. Many of those scratches, while almost too small to see, matched the claw marks of a Krogan. The burn on his wrist was one of an omni tool, however based on the size of the scorch mark it was an over clocked omni tool, something favored by the Blood Pack. In addition, his shifty behavior was easy to decode as a sign that whatever trouble he was in, it wasn't over.

Morinth looked to a Turian. Missing horn suggested a sniper rifle based on the shape of the wound. Discoloration of his palm suggested a Batarian raid, it was known that Batarians often carry leaves for the making of tea that causes discoloration in dextro-amino aliens skin due to unusual reaction. So more than likely his horn was shot off by a Batarian sniper. The twitching mandible was a key in telling he did something he wasn't proud of. Morinth guessed he killed the sniper in a not so honorable way.

Morinth blinked. Ever since she took Blacklight's offer, she couldn't look at anyone without her brain finding minor details and making jumps in logic that more often than not were correct. When she first asked a Quarian she never met if he stayed away from engines after deducing the limp he had as well as the formation of the burn on his suit were more than likely from an engine for a T90 model vehicle, which had a distinctive engine type that could potentially cause chemical burns if the fuel cells were old, said Quarian asked how she knew that before Morinth drew a blank and walked away. Even she did not know how she knew that, which was very confusing.

Everywhere she looked she drew conclusion after conclusion. It was a bit overwhelming to say the least. She rubbed her eyes before moving up in the line. She had just purchased a ticket to Thessia, where she would attempt to see if the Asari really did have Prothean data as Blacklight suggested. Based on what information they gave her, that seemed highly likely.

The data seemed to suggest that the steady rise in industry for the Asari started about 200 years before they discovered the Citadel. So all she had to do was figure out where the information was stored. She shook her head as she tried to clear her mind, if only because thinking too much gave Morinth a headache, and she had enough of that when a man shaped virus shoved knowledge into her head with what felt like a hammer the size of the Destiny Ascension.

"Next", said the girl at the desk.

An Asari, young. Physical characteristics suggest a well off family with a moderate amount of credits to give her teeth so straight and clean that Morinth was tempted to either punch her in the face to break those teeth or shove her tongue down the girls mouth for about twenty minutes until a suitable hotel could be found to fry her brains out. Wait scratch that second part, she was dating an Elcor based on the mark on her neck that could only be made by an Elcor's... mouth thing. Very distinctive. The temptation was to break teeth then, because few things were worse than an angry Elcor finding you fucking its girlfriend.

Morinth handed the girl her basic papers that she'd paid a lot of money to get and she knew for a fact that the Volus who did it stared very long at her ass because he was single. No Volus who is in a relationship would have a suit and office that dirty. She wondered if said Volus was still floating in the air right now. She put enough biotic energy into that simple lift to power a biotic singularity. Maybe somewhere out there was a floating Volus who would never feel the ground again. She hoped that was true, too bad her new-found knowledge on how biotics functioned told her most likely the pudgy bastard would only float around for a few hours. Ignorance really was bliss.

"Shialt Gilsarok... That is a very distinctive name.", said the young Asari.

"My father was a Krogan.", said Morinth.

"Oh, I see.", said the girl as she handed back the papers. She gave a false smile of too perfect teeth and waved Morinth through.

"Enjoy your flight."

Morinth nodded the second her fist felt the need to punch the girl in the face. She resisted the temptation, but she reminded herself that the next time she had to punch someone, she would do it twice as hard. Maybe if she was lucky, it would be her mother. That could be fun.

The Salarian world of Galnor was one of the outer havens of the Salarian species, and unfortunately one very close to Batarian space. When the ships came down everyone knew what was going to happen. Tusar Urbane, as he called himself, watched with distaste as the Batarians rounded up groups of Salarians. Unlike the others he only stood and watched as opposed to run. He watched a Batarian group approach with rifles raised. He offered no resistance as they brought him to their ship.

Inside he saw Salarians both young and old shacked to the wall. It was not long before he joined his once brothers. Once the shackles were put on, the guards left the slaves in a room that smelled of foulness and blood. No one saw as his hands shifted into another shape and easily squeezed through his shackles. He watched as the others around him looked to him both hopefully and warily. He held up his index finger and had the others watched as it shifted into a long tendril.

"You're Blacklight.", whispered one of them.

"But I was born a Salarian.", said Tusar as his finger squeezed into his neighbors shackles to manipulate the locks.

With a small hiss they popped open and he moved to the next one. Soon all were free. He nodded as he looked around the now free Salarians who were rubbing their wrists and tending their wounds. He remained silent as he moved to the door and opened it using pure strength to break the lock. He turned around.

"Remain here please, I will handle this. When I come back I will show you the way out."

No one said anything as Tusar walked calmly through the ship. His skin becoming a dark color as he moved down the corridors like an assassin waiting to strike. He saw a Batarian guard holding a standard issue rifle. Tusar carefully moved to the walls where microscopic suction cups formed on his palms and feet allowing him to scale the walls. He moved across like a spider as his vision shifted to the infrared.

As the Batarian guard placed his rifle down to grab his canteen, Tusar slipped behind him and gabbed him by the throat as his other hand covered his mouth. The guard didn't even have time to react as tendrils pierced his flesh and melted him into Tusar's body. Once finished Tusar stood where the Batarian once did. He blinked as he once more became a squirming pile of tendrils. The pile split in two as one became another instance of Tusar, as the other became the guard who picked up his rifle to move down the ship.

The guards knowledge was added to Tusar, who watched the new member of Blacklight walk off. Tusar nodded before he returned to the slaves. It shouldn't be hard to use the Batarians available collective biomass to create a few Salarian appearing Blacklight individuals with their own mind while still having enough to create the necessary amount of Batarians. It was all about managing what little resources you had to create the maximum effect really. Sure there wouldn't be the same amount of 'Salarians' as before, but the Batarians did not count slaves until after they got into Batarian space. Just made things that much easier really.

The Bioship flew around the water world as flakes of its own flesh fell into the water to shift into large fish-like constructs that swam the planets oceans. The bioship moved far above the clouds, past the rain as it waited. Below the ocean. the aquatic creatures swam deep. Shifting as they did. Giving themselves traits to survive the intense pressure. Soon the things that once appeared as shark snake hybrids, were covered in bioluminescent patches and long tendrils tipped in glowing organs and electroreceptive cells.

Some had shifted entirely, to resemble a squid as they dived deeper into the oceans in search of anything. One of these creatures came across something interesting. A large indent in the sea floor that could have been a massive creatures resting place. Using a filter like mouth, it took in gallons of water at a time as it sifted through the simple plant and animal life, until it found something that corresponded with skin cells, though not from any species Blacklight was familiar with.

As soon as this was discovered swarms upon swarms came down to see where these dead cells could have come from. They dived deeper into the abyss. Tens of thousands of these ever shifting sea creatures dived down to investigate.

Meanwhile, above The massive bioship had grown hundreds of infested pustules that burst into the Flyers of Blacklight. They flew over the oceans, occasionally they would enter a free fall with their wings tucked in and would dive down into the water to grab some of the life that existed on this planet that may have held useful traits. They were just as agile under the water as they were in the sky.

When the Bioship was constructing making Flyers, it had split in half with each piece becoming another smaller bioship that split again and again until a dozen small whale sized bioships spread across the planet to search it better. They flew all across the planet searching and collecting. If the Leviathans ever were here, then Blacklight would find them, or at least narrow the paths down.

On Eden Prime, the Batarian workers were laying tracks to get from the main port, to the various settlements that existed since its founding. Most of the parts were pre-fabricated, meaning this would only take a few months to finish. All they had to do was wait for the ground to level.

Hundreds of workers and slaves dug to create level ground for the tracks to be built on. One of the slaves, a young Batarian by the name of Gretin, had stopped as he looked around to the Asari salve next to him.

"Did you say something?", asked Gretin.

The Asari named Myar looked to him before shaking her head.

"No, are you hearing things? Never mind, you should get back to work before they find you lazing around."

The Batarian nodded as he continued to work. Using a short range hand held mining laser to level the ground and break down rock he worked diligently as the sun rose high into the sky. One of the slave masters walked down the way watching the slaves work as he held his rifle like a mother would her babe. Gretin simply continued to work, less he have to endure punishment that followed those who slacked off.

At the moment however Gretin's heart sped as he continued to shoot the laser at the ground towards an unusually shaped rock. The damn thing just did not want to break. After nearly ten minutes of this, Myar who worked next to him rose a brow as she looked to the rock Gretin was attempting to destroy. Strangely it was symmetrical. Something odd for a rock. She looked to the slave master who was busy watching a group of Batarians who had collapsed.

Myar felt for them, but right now her main concern was the one next to her. If the slave master saw Gretin was having trouble then she could be in just as much trouble simply for being too close to her. She was lucky enough to be born stronger than most Asari, and she did not want to be little more than a plaything to warm some slave masters bed.

Myar looked to Gretin.

"What's wrong?", she whispered just loud enough for Gretin to hear.

"The damn rock won't break.", said Gretin.

"That's a mining laser, they have trouble with metal. Maybe that's what it is.", suggested Myar.

Gretin thought of that for a moment before nodding. He aimed the laser to cut the ground around the rock in an attempt to loosen it, rather than attempt to cut through it. It was not long before he learned that this object was a lot larger than he thought. A lot larger.

Soon the hole around the strange object became very deep as rock and dirt was burned off of it. It was indeed made of metal, and parts of it appeared to have a green ethereal glow. It was around this time Gretin realized that this was something big enough to tell the slave masters about.

"I may need to tell the slave masters about this.", said Gretin.

Myar's eyes widened at that.

"We could get in trouble, or worse.", said Myar.

Gretin knew what she meant by that. It was no secret that out of all slaves, Asari doing manual labor was very rare, not unheard of, but still. If Myar had any of the slave masters attention on her she could potentially end up in a position a lot worse than this one. However if this thing were useful and the slave masters discovered what it really was, then both he and Myar could end up broken in more ways than one depending on the slave masters tastes.

"Just don't draw attention to yourself, you should be fine. Who knows, if this is a big enough find we could get bigger portions for our meals."

Myar's eyes narrowed.

"Now is not a time to think with your stomach.", said Myar.

"We got to eat. Look, just trade places with that guy next to you, you'll be good. I hope.", said Gretin.

Myar did not like the sound of that, but she decided to try it anyway. Lucky for her the Turian next to her had heard their conversation and agreed to trade spots. Once that was done Gretin called the slave master over.

Thankfully the slave master seemed to have a bigger interest in the object than anything else. He commanded Gretin and the Turian to dig it out, and so they did. By this point the other slave masters and their servants had made their way to watch the object slowly be pulled out of the ground. One of them, a very old Batarian with discolored skin looked at the object with recognition in his old eyes.

"It's a Prothean beacon."