Interesting Times - Chapter 26

April 9th, 2173

21:03 SET

Illium, Tasale-System

Nos Astra

A smile stole itself on my face as I leaned back into my seat. It took me almost three years, but I finally was where I wanted to be, en route to a meeting that would see me in a position where I could acquire enough power to help the Alliance more than ever before.

And they needed the help. The tensions between the Alliance and the Batarian Hegemony were rising day to day, and it wouldn't take much until those tensions changed into something different, something much more deadly.

Andrew's plan to create civil unrest inside the Hegemony was working well, perhaps even too well, since the Batarians tried to suppress them and simultaneously ramped up their pirate attacks on the Alliance to give those unhappy with the Hegemony an external enemy to fight.

It would have been a smart move from the Hegemony to distract their people with an outside enemy. Their aggression directed toward the Alliance. Yet there was one miscalculation on their part.

In the last three years, the Alliance proved themselves very apt in defending their colonies from pirate attacks and even launched several counterattacks against pirate bases in the Skyllian-Verge, where the Batarians held no officially recognized territory. At least recognized by the rest of the galaxy, and without the Council's recognition, the Hegemony couldn't accuse the Alliance of incursions on their territory.

Not that they didn't try to put the blame for everything at the Alliance's feet anyway.

Even on Illium, I heard the joke that the Batarian ambassador blamed Anita for stubbing his toe and demanded that the Council take action for the attack on his person.

I knew some of the Batarian's accusations were true. After all, the AIS was doing its best to fan the discontent with the current rule and to protect those voices from being crushed by the Batarian leadership.

Still, Andrew wasn't the person to leave anything behind that could be used as proof of their involvement, so I wasn't worried that the Council would intervene on the Batarian's side in the near future.

Furthermore, Andrew told me over secure channels that he suspected the Salarians were aware of the AIS involvement in the most recent slave uprising on a backwater colony but chose to keep that information to themselves. He even believed the STG was helping them behind the scenes as some operations went much more smoothly than his analysts predicted.

Whatever reason the Salarians had were of little consequence for now. Someday, they could use this as blackmail, but I didn't think it would come to this. For now, it seemed like the Salarians were on our side, and in the future, when the Alliance's position in the galaxy was more secure, this piece of information would do nothing but destabilize the political landscape, something that wouldn't benefit anyone.

Unity was the key to surviving the Reapers, and if the Batarians had to play the role of the villains to help the rest of the species to cooperate further, then so be it.

If we played our cards correctly, then we could maybe create a break in Batarian society with one side allying with us, which we would be able to save from the Reaper invasion.

Yet, for now, that was only wishful thinking and nothing that should overly concern me. I had other problems that required my attention at the moment.

Thankfully, the pirate problem endangering my shipments wasn't one of them. Not anymore, at least.

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February 14th, 2170

15:34 SET

Ad Astra Vessel Retribution

Davell Star-system

Captain Richard Reveilleur

It had taken him months to find the pirate group responsible for the attack on Ad Astra's shipments, but in the end, he managed it.

The smirk on his face wouldn't go away as long as he observed the pirates kneeling in the cargo bay of the Retribution. He was proud of his men and their work and even prouder that they managed to capture the leader behind the attacks.

Oh, how he wished he could gouge out the eyes of the fucking Batarian to send a message to those thinking of repeating his actions. It would show them the futility of attacking Ad Astra and getting away with it.

Well, he would have to be content with the knowledge that pirate activity in this region was at an all-time low due to his actions in his search for those responsible.

At least for now. Nobody knew what was going to happen in the years to come.

During his search, he and his crew came across five different pirate crews, four of which only had started their business and one that was an offshoot of an established group in the Terminus systems.

The four newly established pirate groups only had one ship of frigate class each, and his group consisting of the cruiser Retribution and the two frigates Starfist and Blackdawn, made short work of them. Not one of the pirates survived their assault, and even if they did, Richard had no problem with ending any survivors.

They chose to make their living by stealing and killing, so they should be prepared to lose their lives at the hands of those fighting for law and order.

That he skirted the line of those very same laws didn't register to Richard.

The fifth group, the offshoot, was more difficult to exterminate than the others.

In addition to more people and ships, the group had access to a support network operating in the Terminus systems. Richard had to be careful in masking his intentions of stamping the group out else they would call in help from the Terminus systems to set up a trap. Furthermore, while he didn't doubt that their task force would be able to destroy them in a single battle, it would mean putting his crew in unnecessary danger. And that was something he was reluctant to do.

Instead, he took his time in hunting them. He waited until a ship separated itself from the group to raid merchant ships and pounced on them when he was sure that help would be too far away to get there in time.

This tactic worked for the first three ships, but the pirates wisened up and sent out bigger groups. That the pirates could do so even after already losing three ships told Richard that this group had some strong backers inside the Terminus systems or that they had a long time to prepare before they set up in the Skyllian Verge.

Yet, he couldn't back off until they let their guard down, or the pirates would have enough time to replenish their strength.

Thankfully, he wouldn't have to.

A contact of Mr. Denebren sent him information about an altered route of an Alliance patrol, and Richard devised a plan to use this information to his advantage.

He baited the pirates he attacked into following him directly into the route the patrol group was taking, and just as they fully engaged the pirates, the Alliance ships appeared to save the day.

Within minutes, the pirates got destroyed and, to Richard's amusement, didn't have the time to launch even one rescue capsule.

He was glad they didn't because while his crew understood the necessity of exterminating this vermin completely, he didn't think the Alliance did as well. After all, they didn't when Richard had been part of the Alliance military.

Secondly, without any prisoners saying anything different, he was able to spin a narrative of how they patroled the lanes that Ad Astra used to transport their goods. During this, they were ambushed by pirates and only managed through luck to come across the Alliance patrol.

The captain of the Alliance vessel clearly believed only parts of his story, but without proof of any wrongdoing on Richard's side, he couldn't stop him from leaving. Besides, Richard was sure that Mr. Denebren and his contacts would manage to smooth any ruffled feathers.

After that, getting rid of the remaining pirate ships had been easy. The pirates didn't expect to be hit by Richard's ships so soon after their counterattack, expecting him to need time to repair and resupply.

It was a short but brutal battle that almost cost him one of his two escort frigates. Yet, in the end, they prevailed and destroyed the remaining ships of the pirate group. The only thing left to do was to assault the base the pirates built on the desert planet they called home.

Instead of sending his man down there in shuttles or wasting time observing the defenses of the base, Richard took command of the less damaged frigate and ordered it into the orbit of the planet. From there, the pirate base could be easily targeted by the secondary mass drivers, softening the target for the ground troops.

While orbital strikes were frowned upon by most of the galaxy and prohibited to use against garden worlds, Richard would use everything in his arsenal to make sure that his crew would come back from their mission with as many people as possible.

Someone in the Ad Astra design division clearly thought along the same lines. Otherwise, how could one explain that the secondary mass drivers of the frigates could change their output in such a way that orbital strikes wouldn't make the surfaces of planets inhabitable for hundreds of years while at the same time still having enough power to pierce any fortifications?

And if they didn't want him to use them, why would have Mr. Denebren approved those ships for his use?

Personally, Richard thought that his mission wasn't just about making an example of the futility of attacking Ad Astra but also a field test of the newest ships, weapons, and armor.

A perk of working for the producer of such things thought Richard. You always get the newest and shiniest toys.

After the bombardment of the base, the rest of the ground operation had become a simple clean-up. Richard's men released the surviving pirates from their suffering and then began to salvage everything that could have any use to them.

Despite taking only two weeks until his task force was hundred percent operational again, he couldn't wait to get back to his original mission. Some of the data they recovered from the pirate base showed where the area of operation of their real targets was, and Richard didn't want to disappoint Mr. Denebren by taking too long to fulfill his orders.

Yet, he didn't have to worry so much since it took only a week to root them out after they left the drydock.

His targets were barely more organized than a newly established group, and after fighting and exterminating the Terminus offshoot, their resistance was ridiculously easy to counter.

The only difference from any group before was that he took the leadership of the group prisoner for interrogation. While Richard would have preferred to just kill them, he couldn't deny that they probably had some backer for their attack on Ad Astra. Else, they wouldn't have succeeded with their attack.

They waited in the Davell system for a day before a small corvette appeared with the interrogator Mr. Denebren sent. After he came aboard the Retribution with a small escort, Richard needed only one look to be sure that the interrogator was from the AIS.

It didn't surprise him that Mr. Denebren had enough pull with the AIS to have them send one of their specially trained interrogators, but he was happy nonetheless.

With one from the AIS on the task, the interrogations would be finished long before Mr. Denebren arrived to see for himself that Richard accomplished the mission successfully.

Two days later, another corvette arrived in the system. It sent out a shuttle, and Richard arranged that Mr. Denebren was greeted in the hanger of the Retribution with all honors a man of his standing deserved.

The kind smile Mr. Denebren showed him and his crew when he stepped out of the shuttle would have been enough for Richard, but as always, Mr. Denebren showed why he was one of the best people the Alliance had to offer.

When he finished walking the line of crew personnel standing at attention, instead of leaving with the AIS interrogator and Richard, he turned around and addressed them while the assistant he brought with him opened a shipwide channel so that every crew member on the Retribution and its escort frigates could hear his words.

"I have followed your exploits closely," Mr. Denebren began, and Richard felt that the smile on his face turned even more sincere. "And it hearts me to see that so many of you decided to not just follow your mission but to do what is necessary to protect those who cannot protect themselves. Without your actions, I do not doubt that the Skyllian Verge would be a much more dangerous place than it already is. Without your bravery and your readiness for duty, countless others would be hurt by the savageness of pirates and slavers."

Mr. Denebren took a short break to let the words sink in.

"Yet, I cannot demand you to continue so."

Richard felt how the atmosphere in the hangar changed to something tenser. All his men were ready to continue their duty, not a single one ever uttered a negative word about their work, so why shouldn't they continue to hunt down pirates to keep Ad Astra's interests safe?

Before he could say any word in the defense of his crew and their willingness to continue, Mr. Denebren's smile turned into a smirk, and he said:" At least, I cannot without rewarding you all for your good work!"

And just as fast as the atmosphere got tense, it relaxed again, and despite their discipline, murmurs spread amongst the ranks.

"Every single man and woman that participated in this mission will have the chance to apply to a training course of their choice. Be it for a position in the Ad Astra Security Forces or an administrative position, to be closer to their families. People like you are the lifeblood of Ad Astra! You do what is necessary and do so with responsibility. I cannot, in good consciousness, let this go without reward. You did what I asked and more, so let this be the last day of your mission before your well-deserved vacation, and after that, I expect you to have chosen your new career path."

With his short speech over, Mr. Denebren turned around and walked towards the exit, his assistant not more than two steps behind his left shoulder. With how the man's eyes seemed to look everywhere and nowhere at the same time, Richard was sure that the assistant was Mr. Denebren's bodyguard as well.

"Have the prisoners been relocated to the cargo bay?" asked Mr. Denebren.

"They have, sir," answered Richard, "we brought them to cargo bay C the moment your ship arrived in the system."

"How many?"

"Six, they were nine, but the interrogations seemed to be too much for three of them. We spaced the bodies," Richard told but left out that the remaining six prisoners didn't look well cared for as well.

He hadn't been privy to the interrogations, either its methods or the information the AIS extracted from them. Even he, the captain of the Retribution and leader of the task force, was turned away by the AIS guards when he tried to watch the interrogations.

"Very well, lead the way, Captain Reveilleur."

Richard walked towards the head of the group and led them through the halls of the Retribution to Cargo-Bay-C.

"What did you get from the prisoners?" Mr. Denebren asked with a side glance at the AIS interrogator whose name Richard still didn't know.

Instead of answering the question, the man pulled a datapad out of his inner jacket pocket and held it towards Mr. Denebren, who signaled his assistant to take possession of it. The assistant stored the datapad away in his own inner jacket pocket.

"We will go over the information later. I don't have much time. The opening of the University of Terra Nova is just a month away, and there are still some things to take care of before the ceremony."

"If that is the case, why did you want to meet these pirates? If you allow me the question, sir," asked Richard. He was curious why Mr. Denebren decided to meet with this lowlife, he could have just told Richard to do away with them after the interrogations.

"I wanted to thank you and your crew for your hard work personally. After all you have done for me, Ad Astra, and humanity as a whole, you deserve no less. Furthermore, I wanted to see the people that incurred my wrath by attacking my employees and see for myself as the light disappears from their eyes."

Richard shivered at the coldness in Mr. Denebren's tone but shook it off. Whenever he spoke about what had to be done, his own subordinates probably felt the same way about him.

Finally, they arrived at the entrance to Cargo-Bay-C, the smallest of the five cargo bays the Retribution possessed. Richard nodded to the guard standing next to the entrance, and the guard dutifully opened the door for them.

From the corner of his eye, he noticed how Mr. Denebren gave the young guard a thankful nod and how the young man suddenly stood even straighter than before.

Richard had to suppress a chuckle at that. It wasn't that he didn't understand the reaction, just seeing it from an outsider's perspective was different than experiencing it himself.

When he met Mr. Denebren the first time, he was doing the exact same thing as the young man, guarding a door.

Back then, Mr. Denebren hadn't been the larger-than-life person he was today, but he was still one of the most respected people in the Alliance. This small gesture, the thankful nod, for an inconsequential task as opening a door, something others took for granted, was one of the things that drove him to apply for the Ad Astra Security Forces after his dismissal from the Alliance military.

That Mr. Denebren still retained that attitude after so many years and his rise toward the top of society, validated that he made the right choice all these years ago.

Richard shook his head to clear his thoughts and observed the cargo bay. The six pirates were on their knees with their hands bound in front of them, while two of his men kept an eye on them with rifles in their hands to ensure good behavior.

Mr. Denebren stopped in front of the pirate leader, a Batarian who definitely had seen better days as the left side of his face was swollen, and his two eyes were closed due to this. The expression on Mr. Denebren's face was stoic, and Richard couldn't see any emotional reaction from standing in front of the person who caused so much suffering under his employment.

"You know," began Mr. Denebren as he let his gaze wander over the prisoners, "it should warm my heart to see so many different species working together. Yet, your motives for doing so are nothing but despicable."

And it was true, from the six surviving prisoners, one was a Batarian, two Turians, one Salarian, Asari, and even one human. The last one had Richard's blood boiling, and the man's fate hadn't been pretty even before the AIS interrogator arrived.

He had taken great pleasure in breaking the man's nose himself.

"The reason why I'm here is I wanted to see your ends for myself since you all will die today." Mr. Denebren held up his hands to proactively stop their protests. "Be quiet, begging for your lives will not change my decision. So, at least die with the last bit of dignity you can scrape together. And if you can't even do that, do so, at least quietly."

The two Turians seemed to take Mr. Denebren's words to heart as they seemed to accept their fates while the Salarian didn't stop to quietly beg to spare his life. Meanwhile, the human and the Asari cried silently, and the Asari even started to pray for the last time in her life.

The Batarian, though, stared hatefully at Mr. Denebren with such an intensity that Richard wanted to gouge out his eyes. Yet, Mr. Denebren didn't seem affected by the hateful stare as he held his left hand towards his assistant, who placed a pistol in it.

Mr. Denebren placed the pistol right in front of the Batarian's forehead, and his finger was at the trigger when the Batarian started to speak for the first time since they entered the cargo bay.

"Shoot me, human, but be sure that I'm not alone. We will come for you again and again. My brethren will..."

A shoot echoed through the cargo bay and silenced the Batarian forever. Even the Salarian and Asari stopped their respective mutterings to stare at the Batarian who slowly dropped to the side with a hole in his head.

"I don't care what your brethren will do. Should they try anything, they will end the same way. I don't have time to cater to their whims," declared Mr. Denebren coldly and gave the pistol back to his assistant.

"Captain Reveilleur?"

Richard turned away from the dead body of the Batarian and looked at Mr. Denebren. "Yes, sir?" he asked.

"Can I ask you to finish this? My timetable is quite full, and I would like to get on my way."

Richard snapped a salute and answered proudly: "Of course, sir. You can count on me."

The smile and nod he got in return turned his back into steel. He didn't stop the salute until Mr. Denebren, his assistant, and the AIS interrogator left the room.

Richard dropped his smile as he turned towards the remaining prisoners.

A jerk of his head was enough for the two guards to point their rifles at the prisoners.

The terrified screams of the prisoners were drowned by automatic fire.

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April 9th, 2173

21:06 SET

Illium, Tasale-System

Nos Astra

That memory still sent a shiver down my back. After I executed the Batarian, I left the Retribution for the corvette I arrived in. I am still quite proud of how well I held myself together until I was alone.

When I arrived at my cabin, I rushed towards the toilet to vomit my guts out. Never before did I kill a person, nothing to speak of a defenseless prisoner. That the person was a Batarian pirate didn't make it better or worse, it just was.

I had convinced myself I had to do this to harden my heart. I knew that I would probably have to order the deaths of some people, human and alien alike, to further my goals, so I wanted to know what it would feel like to be responsible for killing somebody.

If I wanted to be philosophical about it, one could say that I was perhaps indirectly responsible for every death caused by the guns I produced and every ship I built. Yet those didn't have the same impact as pulling the trigger myself.

The horror and guilt I felt for pulling the trigger disappeared after I remembered what the Batarian had done. It caused me a few sleepless nights, but that was it. No heavy conscience or anything like it. And I earned Captain Reveilleur's unconditional loyalty after executing the pirate leader myself.

Truly, sometimes I thought that Reveilleur was more of a zealot than a loyal employee with how he followed my every word.

But men like him had their uses too.

Still, this episode did help me in the end. The galaxy wasn't a nice place, and if you squirmed with disgust at a dead body in the wrong company, it would place a target on your head as people thought you were weak prey.

And Illium was such a place.

Everyone knew that Illium was a place of money, contracts, and laws, and if anyone wanted to play in the big leagues, they had to play by those rules.

Yet, the secret to making it to the top was that one had to understand that one couldn't just play on one level. From the lowest street gangster to the CEO of an intersolar company, you needed contacts everywhere.

The first six months I was on Illium, I underestimated the games they played here, and it cost me almost forty percent of the Ad Astra branch I opened on the planet.

Gangsters burned down my warehouse, hackers assaulted my servers, journalists slandered my name to lower my stocks, and business associates backed away from me at the last moment after either being bought by the competition or threatened by them.

It was hard, and it took longer than I am proud to admit to getting used to this new playground and its rules, but I learned.

I learned that I was the only human that tried to put his foot into the big leagues on Illium, which put me at a clear disadvantage. Many of the established players wanted to show their displeasure at the newcomer that was me, trying to lord their imagined superiority that their species invented space travel earlier than us and thus were far more advanced in every category over me.

Still, that wouldn't stop me from getting everything they took from me back. And then I would take everything from them in retaliation.

I made it my goal to see the people that looked down on me in the dirt, destitute.

The tactics they used on me were turned against them.

I bribed, I cajoled, I threatened, I hired hackers and gangsters alike, all that and more.

And I didn't just use those tactics on my business competitors. No, I used them on gangsters to have them do what I wanted and on government officials to get the people that owed me favors in the right positions.

The hardest part was to keep my image clean. The stellar reputation I built up in the Alliance couldn't be damaged by anything I did, or else my rivals back in the Alliance would pounce on that weakness.

More than one person got their hands on some information that would cast a poor light on me and tried to blackmail me with it.

With time, I learned how to cover my tracks better than ever before, but until then, I was lucky enough that the AIS knew how to make people disappear.

Without the teams Andrew sent me, I would have had a hard time keeping my reputation as it was. Furthermore, I wouldn't know who could be trustworthy enough to do my more shady work. They were quite adept in ferreting secrets out of people, finding security holes, and opening occupied positions for other, more malleable people.

But it wasn't like Andrew didn't get anything out of our arrangement. Thanks to the new business contacts I made on Illium, it got a lot easier to make some resources disappear from the books that found their way into the hands of the AIS. I never asked Andrew what he intended to do with them, and personally, I was just glad he was on my side.

If we ever parted in discord, the secrets he knew about me wouldn't just destroy my reputation but probably cost me my life too.

Still, not everything went smoothly, even with AIS support. One of the blackmailers that disappeared came back to bite me in the ass since his cousin, a Salarian by the name of Sekal, involved the Illium Police Force after he got his hands on some evidence that pointed to me as the perpetrator behind his cousin's disappearance.

I got warned by one of my contacts in the court of Nos Astra that the police were issued a search warrant for my office building with barely enough time to hide everything that would implicate me of any crime.

Funnily enough, I was behind the Salarian's disappearance since he tried to blackmail me with some videos of how one of my people bribed the very same contact that warned me of the search warrant. Still, there was no evidence in my offices that would point toward me for the disappearance, yet there were still other things that the police could find.

Thankfully, we managed to leave nothing behind, and after the police found nothing, and I was questioned a few times, they left me in peace.

My own research into the incident revealed that a business competitor wanted to use this situation to smear my reputation with accusations of murder to ruin me to buy my company branch at the lowest price possible and chase me away from Illium.

I never found out where they got the evidence from, but I had my suspicions that they paid a small fortune to the Shadow Broker to get their hands on it.

My own dealings with the Shadow Broker were almost nonexistent, and I tried to be distant but polite whenever I couldn't avoid talking to him or one of his agents.

Years ago, I thought about what I was going to do about the Shadow Broker, yet for some reason, I always put off the decision for another day. The best thing to do would be to have someone loyal to me take his place, the information that went through the Shadow Broker's hands was nothing but phenomenal. With them in my grasp, I probably could do anything I desired.

Yet, there were two slight problems.

While many people were loyal to me, loyal enough to kill for me, I didn't have anybody I would trust with the power the position of Shadow Broker would bring. The idiom: "absolute power corrupts absolutely," went through my head whenever I thought about it. If I ever was in the position to replace the Shadow Broker, I would have to place so many checks on his power so that it wouldn't be used against me that the secrecy, which was needed for the Broker to work effectively, would be almost nonexistent. And it couldn't be me who took over the position. My timetable was full enough without trying to coordinate a galaxy-wide information network.

The second problem was quite embarrassing for me.

I forgot the planet's name where the Shadow Broker was based, nothing to speak of the star system. It was something with Hal-something, Halgaz, Helgis, Helghast? No, but something like that. I'm sure of it.

It has been some time since I played the games, ok? So I'm entitled to forget some of its parts, right? It's been more than fifty years since I played that particular mission. I dare anyone to remember the name after fifty years!

So, I left that particular problem to people more equipped to handle it than I, namely Andrew.

Coming back to my original problem, after I found out who was responsible for my problem, I used the situation for my gain.

A few planted pieces of evidence, some bought witness statements, and the sudden disappearance of the Salarian that went to the police, and the company which tried to ruin me, found itself under investigation quite quickly.

The best bonus was that they had their hands in some other shady business practices that were illegal on Illium, for which they got pulled in front of a court as well.

I even helped to inform the public of their misdeeds by donating enough money to several news agencies. After all, isn't it everyone's civil duty to help the spreading of information, so that everyone can make an educated decision?

Sadly, the new awareness didn't help the company one bit, and their stocks plummeted to the ground. And as kind as I am, I couldn't just watch as so many people were about to lose their jobs and livelihoods, so I bought most of the now-defunct company before the other resident vultures could bounce on it.

That it helped to raise my market value on Illium by half, and that it brought me into the focus of the big players was just a nice addition.

From there, it was mostly just the same, trying to get to the top and get the right people to notice me.

Something that went absolutely right last year.

Yet, I wasn't the only one who made progress over the last few years.

In 2170, I almost got daily updates from Takahashi on how far he had progressed in analyzing the alien ship they found in the Olympus system.

He was like a little kid that got the 'bestest' present ever.

One day he even chewed my ear off for half an hour over the way how those aliens organized their wiring and how that could point toward their design philosophy. I only got out of that conversation when I pointed out that he should discuss this with a cultural anthropologist who could understand his opinions and thoughts more than I did.

Thankfully, his constant progress reports stopped when he analyzed enough of the alien ship to start researching and experimenting with the eezo-multi-core technology.

At that point, it was I who had to contact him to know how far he had progressed.

And the progress they made was astounding. Not just in analyzing the discovered technology but in understanding the people who once called Janus their home 250.000 years ago.

The beings were labeled Himallog, a name coined by an Indian professor. As far as I understood, the term came from the name Himal, which meant something like the snowcovered or cold one, and the word log, translated into people. An apt name, in my opinion, since among the few things we found out about our predecessors, it seemed like they preferred the more arctic climate of Janus to the temperate climate of Reach.

A deviation from the preferences of most intelligent species currently existing in the galaxy but one that could be easily explained. The current theories were that their homeworld had the same characteristics or was along those lines. Just like the Hanar or Drell, who evolved on a water and a desert planet, respectively.

Yet, whereas conjectures about their origins and culture could be made from the ruins, direct information was much harder to come by. The few functional terminals were a treasure trove in matters of data capacity but not longevity. Understandable that after 200.000 years, much of the stored data was gone. When the databanks were last used, the homo sapiens just started to spread around North Africa.

Still, the teams analyzing the terminals learned a lot, and it was projected that our capacity for data storage would rise exponentially in the coming months.

Furthermore, they were still trying to find anything of value, and while they hadn't found anything yet, I still had some hope that they would find a hint pointing toward the Reapers. A single phrase, a single picture, a single audio file, anything would be of help when I started to try to convince them that there could be something out in the darkness of the galaxy that could pose a threat to us.

The best news I got was when Takahashi told me they managed to fit out a corvette with the multi-core technology and that it didn't rip itself to shreds when it went FTL.

Sadly, the synergy between the cores went into the latter end of the yellow scale at the end of their first experiment, and they decided that until they managed a trip with FTL travel with everything in the green area, they wouldn't even think of getting close to a mass relay.

This would take a long time since they would have to do this for every ship class. A higher tonnage would also mean more cores, and with every additional core, it would be harder to bring them into sync.

Personally, I didn't even want to know how many cores a Ruler-Class would need.

Yet, I had seen the theorized costs of the eezo-core if we built a Ruler-Class ship in the old-fashioned way. Let's just say that if they manage to reduce the costs for the eezo-core by five percent, then I would be able to gift the Alliance three fully constructed and furnished frigates. Or I could feed any border colony for more than a year, probably even two.

While the costs for a single Ruler class would have ruined me three years ago if anything happened during the construction. Be it a sudden war with the Batarians or a bad economic year. Now, now I could pay for one and a half Ruler class without fearing for the livelihoods of my employees. Illium had been a blessing for that.

But the costs were negligible in the light of what a Ruler class would be.

A Ruler class ship wasn't just a behemoth in matters of military prowess, which it would be.

It was a symbol.

A symbol of our ambition, of our progress until now, and of things to come. It would show the rest of the galaxy the things we were capable of.

The Asari built the Destiny Ascension, but only after hundreds of years of knowing about eezo and its corresponding technology. What did that say about them, and about us, building a ship bigger and better than the Destiny Ascension in less than fifty years?

I was under no illusion that the galaxy would look at us in awe and nothing more. The Council would try to censure us, and the remaining species would look at us in fear, thinking us no better than the Krogans.

If one looked at our history, perhaps they were right that there were some similarities between us and the Krogans. After all, we were the only ones that fought wars that spanned our whole world while still confined to our home planet.

During my last visit to the Citadel, Anita and I talked about the ramifications the reveal of a Ruler class would have, and while she pointed out the exact same things, she also said that it would perhaps be beneficial. A certain amount of fear was needed to be taken seriously.

The Council had to fear what would happen if they chose to push us too far in their desire to prove themselves superior. If they didn't, then it wouldn't matter how big our guns were, they would always think of us as subjects.

On the other hand, too much fear was detrimental as well. We would have to walk a fine line. Anita would lay the groundwork for the future, and I would, when I took over the position as ambassador, continue her work.

When I was there, I also learned what happened to the proposal I made to the then Vice-Executor Pallin.

Anita had been quite cross with me when I first told her since I made the suggestion without her input or approval, but she understood the benefits quickly. In giving C-Sec a list of potential officers and detectives and letting them have the final choice, it would be far easier to get people in it than if we tried to get specific people into it.

We took great care to recommend only people we were sure would put humanity in a good light. Should there be even one reprimand in their records, then that person wouldn't be put on the list. And even when their records were squeaky clean, we would dig into their lives. No Harkin would endanger our endeavor to be seen as anything but ready to take over some responsibility on the Citadel and later on in the galaxy.

Furthermore, the fact that we left the performance evaluation in the hands of C-Sec brought us some goodwill. Especially from the Turians, who currently had the most pull with C-Sec. The only concession we stipulated to keep our hands off was to receive the performance evaluations, too, so that no side could claim unfair treatment because of species.

Pallin had talked extensively about it with Anita, and one of his last acts as Vice-Executor had been to present the idea to the Council. And after sitting for three months on the proposal and doing nothing with it, the Council finally decided to give it a try and consented to hire ten human officers and three detectives.

From what I heard, when the news arrived at the embassy, Anita celebrated with her coworkers. After all, while it didn't seem that much in the first place, it was still an important victory on the political level.

The Batarians had tried to get some of their own into C-Sec for decades, and they didn't make much headway since the beginning.

Probably because they demanded to have Batarians in C-Sec rather than offering a compromise.

It was kept mostly quiet, but rumors tell that the Batarian ambassador had been so angry about the fact that he stormed into the newly appointed Executor's office and demanded that Pallin hire a hundred Batarians or he would regret ever taking the position.

Well, let's just say that Pallin didn't react kindly to the threat, and had the Batarian ambassador escorted from his office by his officers. A few days later, a new Batarian ambassador arrived on the Citadel, and nobody knew what happened to the old one other than that he had been recalled to Khar'shan.

It wouldn't surprise me if he had been executed by the Batarian leadership after he embarrassed them so.

But back to our own people.

I didn't know exactly how they were settling in, but the general vibe I got from my contacts on the Citadel was that they were proving themselves to be assets for C-Sec. Each of our officers and detectives had a Turian, Salarian, or Asari partner who reported directly to Executor Pallin, who, in turn, kept the Council informed about any new developments.

Technically, I shouldn't know anything about it, but a good friend in the Citadel Accounting Department told me there had been an inquiry by C-Sec if it would be possible to hire another hundred people within the next year.

It could mean nothing, but I believed that if C-Sec was looking to expand, then they wouldn't ignore humans when hiring, not with their current performance.

"We're about to arrive at the building, sir," called my driver and brought me back to the here and now from my musings.

I looked out the window of my sky-limousine, a model of my skycar collection that found a better market on Illium than on the Citadel, and saw how the skyscraper that was my destination came closer.

"Very well," I said, "wait for a few minutes, and if nothing happens, you can go. Take the rest of the day off."

"Thank you, sir," answered the driver, whose name I didn't bother to remember.

A sad affair for me. I once prided myself in remembering the name of every employee working close to me, but ever since my first personal driver here on Illium sold me out for some pocket change, I change my drivers too regularly for that.

Pocket change was perhaps the wrong word, the sum he was offered and took was indeed high, but it was nothing in comparison to what he would have if he stayed loyal to me. A constant paycheck was definitely better than a one-off payment in my mind. Especially when he would never get to spend anything of it. The ambush by the people he sold my travel route made sure of that.

As a consequence, I took to changing my driver regularly. One would bring me somewhere, and a different one would pick me up. Paranoid perhaps, but I was so close to the next phase, I didn't want to make any mistakes.

Yet, it showed weakness, I wasn't keen on displaying. Or at least, that's how it would be perceived. The loyalty of my employees not as steadfast as the world believed. It would be no problem for me to get a driver with such loyalty, but people that couldn't be bought were often targeted with ill intent, and I didn't want to lose anyone because my enemies were too prideful to be rejected.

Furthermore, the idiots would go for the perceived opening, while the smart ones would shy away from the obvious trap. No matter what, it made my travels a lot safer.

The sky-limousine shook when it landed on the landing pad reserved for me, and I stood up from my seat, walking towards the door. It smoothly slid open, and the wind hitting my face felt uncomfortable for a moment before I got used to it.

When I stepped out, I saw two Turians walking down the bridge connecting the landing pad with the skyscraper. They were unarmed at first glance, but I was sure the Turians were hiding small arms in their uniforms.

Instead of going to them, I waited for them to come to me. If they even made a single threatening move, the snipers I positioned on two different buildings would see them dead before long. Inside the building, it would be more difficult to exfiltrate, but an AIS team had found a room inside, so if I needed their help, my new kinetic shield would hopefully be strong enough to keep me alive until they reached me.

While waiting for the two Turians, I looked over the skyline of Nos Astra. The fact that the landing pad was close to the top of the skyscraper made the picture even more beautiful. I had to give it to the Asari, their cities were works of art.

"Mr. Oscar Denebren?" asked one of the Turians when they were close enough to have no need for screaming over the wind.

"Yes," I said curtly.

"You are expected. If you would please follow us," the other Turian said, and both turned on their feet, expecting me to follow them.

I nodded once, giving the all-clear sign to the snipers so that they could inform the team inside that I was going in, and followed the Turian guards at a controlled pace.

They led me into the buildings and towards a room on the same floor. On my way there, I noticed more guards of the three Council species placed as security and even some humans among them. A few of the human guards' eyes widened when they saw me, perhaps I could count on some of their support should it come to a fight.

The door of the room my Turian escort led me to, opened, and I stepped into it without hesitation. I couldn't afford to show any sign of nervousness here, the people I was going to meet would pounce on it like starving beasts.

I looked around the room, which was dominated by the circular table in its middle. After the door closed behind me, I noticed that other than the four people sitting at that table, there was nobody else in the room. No guards and not even a single security mech.

A Turian, a Volus, and two Asari watched me with calculating eyes before the Asari directly on the other side of the table from my position stood up, and said with a grand gesture: "Mr. Denebren, welcome to the Circle of Alameina."

A grin appeared on my face, and I said:" It's an honor to be chosen to join such an illustrious group."

An honor indeed.

And it would be great fun when I took everything they possessed from them.