Summary: The assault on the Etamin concludes. Data retrieved offers another viable lead though presents some interesting concerns of its own.

a/n: I apologize for the long hiatus. I appreciate every reader, new and returning, and every subscriber. Thank you for reading.

23 One Small Galaxy

i.

Knowing Shepard, the entrance had been textbook. Tali presumed this only because that was the commander's way. She drilled to make tactics like this second nature, but even so the human never took their training for granted. Garrus started right, entering behind her then something made his step falter. Very unlike him, Tali thought, observing for a moment before her eyes darted up then down the corridor.

Shepard's voice resounded in the quarian's helmet, "Cle—." The stark change in her tone drew Tali's attention back to the door Garrus still stood in. His body held more that the cautious tension it had moments earlier.

"Drop it."

The unfamiliar voice caused every muscle in Tali's body to coil tightly and she knew the reason for the change in her teammate. It took a moment but eventually the metallic clang of one then another knife hit the ground. The tinkling of metal reverberated through Tali's head. Her pulse raced faster than it had when the batarian grabbed her. As her heartbeat pounded in her ears, she wondered if they could all hear it. Pressing her back tightly against the wall, the quarian took long, slow breaths, or at least tried to. All along, her eyes kept moving—left, right, Garrus, left, right, Garrus. He never looked at her; she wondered why.

The turian raised his hands away from his sides, holding them out palm down. Shepard made small sounds of—well, Tali did not know if it was anger, pain, irritation, or all three in various quantities. Tali's kept watch as her mind raced for a solution; split second combat decisions were not forte. Garrus stood between her and Shepard, who likely blocked the pirate. She was a better shot with the shotgun, but the scatter even at close range would wound Shepard, too—potentially fatally. That would be a wonderful way to ensure she never returned to the Flotilla. Tali's fingertips teased at the butt of her Striker[i] indecisively.

"The pistol, too, Garrus."

The order made Tali startle and she pulled her hand away from her own weapon before realizing he hadn't been talking to her. She was not the greatest pistol marksman. Something I need to change, she thought in reaction to their situation.

The movement Garrus made drew Tali's attention. With a moment of study, she noticed the odd shift in his stance in response to the pirate calling him by name. She could not help the curiosity that stabbed through her mind. How does he know Garrus? Who is it? Does Garrus know him?

"Slowly," the pirate emphasized with deliberate pacing. "Don't even think about it or I'll bleed this human," the pirate cautioned with a rumbling growl, the harmonics in his voice identified him as turian without having seen him.

Whatever the pirate did elicited a grumble from said human. It made Tali's hands twitch as she swiped open her omni-tool. You have to do something. You're the unknown here. He's focused on Shepard and Garrus. Think, Tali!

"Shoot him," Shepard ordered through gritted teeth, enunciating each syllable with a hint of a hiss. The edge in the commander's voice wrapped around Tali's spine; the increased tension slowed the silent movement of her fingertips for a second before they picked up speed again.

Eyes flitting from her wrist to the hall, both directions, to the door and back again, the quarian grasped at straws. The cameras were no help, she could not get into the system from here. Of course, she already knew that; it was the whole reason this room was their objective in the first place. Her fingers wriggled above the interface as options flooded through her mind, there was nothing she could access wirelessly.

In the meantime, Garrus disobeyed a direct order. His talons plucked the pistol from its holster to the sound of Nyx sighing. The sound cut off. Tali imagined the pirate had been the cause of it and her anger set her jaw tight.

"Aelen? What are you doing here?" Vakarian asked, kneeling slowly to set his sidearm on the ground.

Tali's jaw dropped slightly then she drew in an enlightened breath. She realized precisely what her squad mate was doing. He was giving her a clear line of sight. Garrus' actions gave her a short window and the opening she would need. Her fingers moved in a new frenzy, then she whispered, "Sorry, Commander," in a small voice over the comm channel just before inhaling a deep breath and holding it. She spun into the entryway and loosed a jolt of energy that arced through the air with a crackling snap. The human soldier and the turian pirate, with a blade to her throat and a gun pushed into her ribs, crumpled to the ground in a tangled pile.

Tali made their report quickly. "Control room cleared. Wrex, you're a go."

"Copy," the gruff voice replied over the comms.

Tali pushed Garrus' shoulder lightly, encouraging him back onto his feet. "Secure that guy before either of them wake up," the quarian ordered as she squeezed past him through the door.

"Nicely done."

Kneeling next to Shepard, the quarian ran a scan. You're going to have one hell of a pounding headache in your future, she thought as she made sure the amped up neural blast hadn't injured the commander. Beyond knocking her out, that was. Looking over her shoulder, she finally asked. "What the hell was that?"

Garrus did not answer immediately. He secured the turian to a chair then straightened and looked down at the two females. "I know him," he said before going to the hatch. Holstering up his weapons, the turian then turned his attention to the door, which he sealed and hacked closed, locking it down until their assault was complete.

His tight voice sparked her curiosity. "Surprisingly enough, I guessed that already." Tali'Zorah stood and slipped lithely into the chair before the main console. Her fingers moved with equal combinations of haste and purpose to make up the time they wasted on the hostage incident and the aftermath. She gained control of the Etamin's vital systems easily from the open, on-board console. After several quiet minutes, she asked, "How?"

Another silence stretched between them, making the room's atmosphere thick with awkwardness. "We grew up together, on Palaven. Met on the first day at the academy. We studied together as children, trained together, then served in the same unit. I saw him almost every day for twenty years, up until I joined C-Sec," Garrus explained. He knelt over the commander, monitoring her as they waited for her return to consciousness.

Tali spun around and looked at him. He seemed to be torturing himself more than enough for both of them, so she kept her scolding to herself, for now. Turning to the interface again, her fingers returned to the task of cutting off access points and herding the remaining armed pirates toward the other team. Finding a large congregation of the Etamin's crew in the mess hall and game room, she sealed the bulkheads cutting them off from the rest of the ship.

As the gunfire started, the quarian took down the vessel's weapon systems. Then she secured entry to the engineering area and stole their ability to access the ship's controls from any console but the one she controlled. There will be no sabotage today, she thought as she also set the parameters that would allow the air to be bled from that area if the cameras showed any attempt to bypass her restrictions. The idea of having to execute that program made her chest tighten, but she remembered the orders and knew the risks if someone did decide to try and take control of the situation by priming the ship's core to explode.

It literally could be a case of them or us, she thought. Her fingers, which tightened into a fist for a moment, began to move more freely over the console again as the young quarian decided that she was not willing to allow a trade-off like that to occur.

ii.

Shepard shifted slightly and groaned. Her forehead still rested in her hands elbows on her knees.

"I really am sorry, Shepard," Tali said for at least the fourth time since the commander had returned to consciousness.

"You did what you had to," the officer replied as she stared at Garrus from beneath her fingers. She had to give him one thing—he never looked away even despite the hint of accusation in her tone and the sharpness of her glare. She did not want those things to be present, but for the life of her she could not get that grating feeling to dissipate. Shepard might have been used to surprises, but having one of your squad called out by name by the enemy wasn't one she'd been remotely prepared for.

"We almost done, Alenko?" Shepard again regretted the sharpness in her tone, but at that moment it could not be avoided.

"Yes, ma'am," Kaidan confirmed with at least as much professional distance as she was placing between them.

When he concluded the scan, Shepard cleared the room and hopped back to her feet. She felt the change of position in her head, and fought the need to reach out for the edge of the table near her as the floating sensation of dizziness toyed with her balance. The commander was sure she lacked her typical command presence at that moment, but despite that Garrus straightened in response. After regaining control of her body, Nyx stalked toward him, eying him with a gaze as stoic as any turian officer might muster in the same situation, entirely by design. She'd witnessed those kinds of looks, even received a few in her day, and she wanted this moment to feel familiar to him, she wanted him to see her displeasure with the way their infiltration concluded.

"Would you like to tell me what just happened?" Shepard asked with a disturbing amount of calm as she stopped within a foot of the tall alien who outstripped her by nearly two feet.

"I know him." The answer was short, precise, to the point, and stated clearly.

"I gathered that when he called you by your given name." Nyx laid her hands her hips and took another step toward him. "What I want to know is why my entry partner froze rather than taking down his man? Why I got to have another go with a damned turian Talon? And why Tali'Zorah was forced to neural shock her team leader? All because you know him."

Garrus should have been on her heels. The turian should have taken his target down before the pirate had the chance to get the drop on her. That was Garrus' side to clear. It was Vakarian's target. But, instead of her second through the door handling his assignment, Nyx got to add another near miss to her record, along with earning a splitting headache she really did not need to add to her current mix of brain scrambling. With that thought she took a long slow breath and eased back a note, relaxing her clenched jaw. She closed her eyes in a long blink before meeting his gaze again.

"Talk to me, Garrus. Explain this to me. I want to know what happened. What was going through your mind?"

"I froze, Commander."

She sighed with a great deal of exasperation. "Was it merely because you knew him? Or is there something more to this all?"

"Him. Aelen and I were very good friends when we were younger. Grew up together. Served together. He saved my life once. Well … more than once."

That sentiment she could understand. To be completely honest, she made the exact same mistake once, but, in the end, none of that mattered. Despite her ability to sympathize with the position Garrus found himself in when they crossed that threshold, it could have gotten all of them killed. Just like in her own experience, their former posts and who they had been to one another held no bearing any longer. What it all came down to was the likely results of his hesitation. And here the results could have been devastating, if not for a quick-thinking quarian with enough guts to put it all on the line.

With another slow blink, Nyx turned from him as she swallowed back her empathy. It had no place in that moment. Right then, she could not be his friend, she could not offer comfort and understanding; she was his squad leader and he needed to see this all in that light. Though, judging from the look in his eyes, he likely already told himself many of the things she was about to say.

"So, what then?" she asked as she turned. "Tali's and my lives were repayment? The rest of the team, potentially the Normandy? You planned on evening up the score with him?"

Shepard could not be sure she had ever seen shock on a turian's face before, but she heard it in Garrus' voice. "No! Never."

"That's what you did in there," she accused, holding his gaze as she pointed away from them in the general direction of that portion of the ship. "I had a Talon to my throat and got the hell shocked out of me because you balked when you saw an old friend. That cannot happen, Vakarian."

"I know, Commander."

She could hear the definite shame in his tone; it affected her-not that she could show him that. Judging from his reaction, he was at least as hard on himself as she had been and could be on herself.

"I won't let it happen again."

Shepard nodded as she held his gaze. That was precisely the point she had been moving toward. Only rarely did people beat her to the punch, though her arc was an obvious one. Her tone shifted a notch or two back toward friend. "That's all I can ask from you. Do better next time, because we might not have a crafty quarian on our six." Crossing her arms over her chest, Nyx took a deep breath as she willed the throbbing in her head to subside, it wasn't really working. "Give me more on this guy. What's he doing out here?"

Garrus' head shake did not inspire confidence. "I honestly don't know, Shepard. This is the last place I would have expected to see him. And to be blunt about it. He's never been a big fan of humanity to begin with, lost family at Shanxi."

"Then I guess you get to talk to him first." The commander stood and gestured toward the door; meeting him there; she placed a hand on his arm. "See if you can't get me something useful, like who's funding all this. Save that, I want everything he knows."

"I'll get it, Commander."

"Good. Take Wrex in there with you. Tell him to look hungry."

Garrus almost laughed. The sharp choked sound tugged at the corner of her mouth as he gave her a nod before exiting. Nyx leaned there near the door rubbing her fingers in tiny circles against her forehead. Goddamn neural shock. Just what I fucking well needed, she thought.

Shepard exited the room shortly after Garrus. Looking down the hall and back up again, her gaze locked on a sympathetic pair of warm amber eyes. A part of her was glad he had not gone far, while she also struggled with that realization. This was the wrong place and the wrong time to be relieved by his proximity. She swallowed against the tightness in her throat and gave him a summoning nod.

"Alenko, monitor the interrogation of the prisoner," she ordered just before Wrex's laughter rumbled through the hallway. When he started to pass her, she grabbed his arm and looked him in the eyes. Kaidan's look suggested that he got what she wanted to say, but could not. He gave her a small tip of his head, then she asked. "Is Williams leading the securing of the prisoners?"

"Yes, ma'am. The ground team is assisting, as is the rest of ship security."

"Excellent. Thank you, Lieutenant."

He nodded, his hand squeezing her elbow, before his arm dropped to his side. He held her gaze for a moment longer, but the exchange was over as almost as quickly as it began. She let go of him and traveled down the hall toward the bridge, while he moved deeper into the ship in the wake of Wrex and Garrus. With each step, her chest tightened a little more. Nyx had no explanation for the sensation, but she also wasn't sure what to do about it, so she did nothing and continued on her course to the front of the ship.

When she arrived, Shepard found Liara, who sat at one console in the corner with her chin in her hand as she swiped her finger along the screen, reading, or so Shepard presumed. Tali busied herself across from the asari; her omni-tool hardwired to the captain's console, as her digits traversed the interface in a dizzying choreography.

"Found anything?" Shepard asked without specifying a target for her inquiry.

"Encrypted files. Haliat did not seem to trust anyone," Tali surmised without looking away from the screen. "It shouldn't take long to crack. Nothing else has been too challenging."

"Just remember I want duplicate copies of everything in these systems."

The quarian nodded wordlessly as she continued her task.

"How about you?" Shepard asked, moving toward the archaeologist.

"Correspondence, mostly," Liara answered. "He dealt with the same groups over and over again. Preyed on vessels traveling to and from the volus colonies here. Dealt with a few other pirates, some Blood Pack groups. They received a great deal of information about ships and cargo, from Yila and other ports. There is other correspondence as well—ExoGeni personnel and communiques signed Resentful Rancor and someone called Fist." The doctor turned in her seat. "Honestly, where do they come up with these names?" she asked, looking up at Shepard like she would have an answer. Then she quickly turned back to the screen. "These pirates they are like children."

The names, one in particular drew both of the other females' attentions. Nyx stopped halfway between the them and looked back at Tali once Liara's attention returned to the data. "Well-armed children," she reminded.

"True," the doctor replied, her head turning away from Shepard as her hand rested on her cheek again.

"What did Fist have to say?" The commander asked carefully. She watched Tali as she asked the question to see if she seemed all right with the inquiry. Thankfully, no obvious reaction arose.

"Nothing in particular, they just traded funds and information. Haliat asked about cargo, sometimes he traded data packets other times there were only transfers of credits. Looks like he might have put Haliat onto a job retrieving cargo from ExoGeni and delivering it to Binary Helix. Though there's no mention of what specifically."

"Anything about Agebinium?" Shepard asked, straightening.

Tali moved to another console, her attention remaining focused there, the commander guessed she was likely curious about Fists transmissions as well.

"No, not at all. I haven't seen any communication about that situation, Shepard." Liara turned again and blinked at her a few times.

Nyx sighed and continued to the asari's side. Fist's name secured Tali's interest, while it sparked Nyx's as well there was another which intrigued the commander more—the Resentful Rancor. It would appear Volus piracy it still alive and well, she thought as she rested her helmet on the desk area of the console and leaned over Liara's shoulder to skim some of the transmissions.

"Tali, once we have copies of all this data I'll need decryption to be your top priority once we're back aboard the Normandy. Yours alone," she added as she searched the entries for what she wanted.

"Certainly, Shepard."

The universe just keeps getting smaller and smaller, Shepard reasoned.

iii.

Liara's hand still covered her warm cheek when the commander loomed over her station. When Nyx leaned toward her, she held her breath and tried to keep a bit of distance. Tapping the screen, Shepard asked, "Can you pull up the most recent communication with the Resentful Rancor?"

When she looked up, Shepard looked her dead in the eye; she always did. There was something about that habit though and every time Liara met the commander's gaze, she felt exposed, as if Shepard could read every thought in her head. It was intense and disconcerting. She looked away and pulled up the requested information.

"Here you are, Shepard," Liara announced quietly. The proximity of the Spectre made her nerves tingle and her stomach tighten. She knew what it was, this was not the first time she found herself interested in another being. She just wondered if her interest might not be steeped in the dire situation which surrounded their meeting.

This woman saved her life. Perhaps what she felt was just some psychological effect of almost having died in those ruins on Therum. Liara tried to wipe the thought from her head, instead she focused on the words on the screen, or tried to.

RR: Watch your ass!

RR: You go looking for Shepard and get what you get.

RR. Just not how you imagine.

EH: Don't you worry your tight little ass about me.

EH: I can handle soldier girl.

RR: Ha!

RR: Haven't you seen the vids, you idiot?

EH: It's all some Alliance ploy.

EH: She's been their poster girl since the Blitz.

EH: A pretty face to charm the new recruits.

EH: THAT'S all!

RR: You of all people should know better.

RR: Didn't she kill your brother?

EH: Just send me this mind-blowing data you promised.

RR: Fine.

RR: It'll be your funeral.

RR: And before you ask, NO! I won't piss on your smoldering corpse.

EH: Love you too, babe.

RR: In your dreams.

RR: Where's my money?

EH: On its way.

Shepard's eyes narrowed at the screen, her mouth twisting downward. Liara tried not to watch her as she read. But either she read much faster than the human, or the commander was rereading the communique. Liara's vibrant blue eyes flicked to Nyx's face, specifically to the muscle flexing in her jaw.

"What mind-blowing data is he talking about?" Nyx asked, looking at her.

Liara stuttered when confronted with that cool blue gaze, returning her attention to the console. She fumbled through a few locations and found the file in question. The screen filled quickly with a collection of random symbols.

"Encrypted," Nyx sighed.

"Looks like," she agreed.

The commander turned, and leaned against the desk. At first, she stared at the wall opposite her, then she locked eyes with Liara again. The doctor swallowed the lump in her throat, anticipating another question. She battled with her own body over its reaction to this human, but no matter what she tried her pulse still raced and her chest felt like it was emptying of air, hollowing out.

"Are there any other communiques between these two?"

"A few, but they are all short little notes. Like this one." She felt calmer when she was focused on the screen, so she tried to keep her eyes there. "Heading out to EG-34. Hope BH beats us there. Then RR says that ship was scheduled for today, so no excuses. Haliat replies rather flippantly again. There are more."

"EG-34? What's EG-34?"

Tali turned, leaning back in her chair. "Best I can tell from what I've found so far—an ExoGeni site."

"Beautiful," Nyx groaned with a grimace. Her long, delicate fingers massaged her temples.

Liara stared at the action, watching Shepard's hands. They did not look like the hands of a warrior, save for the silvery-pink scars on her knuckles. Her fingers were long and thin, like the fingers of a musician she knew once—they held the same dexterity, though far more power. They moved in careful firm circles at Shepard's temples. Liara wondered if the other woman really thought she could massage away the impact of a neural blast, or all the other stress her body and brain had been placed under lately. In both her professional and personal opinion, she thought Nyx should rest, but the scant likelihood of that happening had already become transparently clear to Liara.

Even so, she spoke up. "Perhaps you should head back to the Normandy, let Dr. Chakwas take a look at you."

Her hands stopped, and her eyes locked onto Liara's "Alenko ran a field scan. I'm fine … -ish."

"Yes, Commander."

Liara bit her tongue, looked away as Shepard straightened and put more distance between them. She felt foolish for crossing that boundary. Yet again she had said too much, gone too far. Liara continued her struggle with the location of the line of propriety, and the way her pulse raced around the commander did not help in the least.

"Appreciate the consideration, Doc, but right now I need you focused on gathering as much intel out of these files as you can. Then I'll worry about my headache."

Peeking over her shoulder, Liara watched Shepard lean over Tali. The two spoke quietly for a moment before the commander left them to complete their task. Try as she might the exchange played in her head again, more than once. She knew this was foolish; her reactions to Nyx made her feel like a schoolgirl, but still she struggled with her responses. You need to get control of yourself, she told herself repeatedly as she tried to focus on the task at hand.

iv.

The real work began after Shepard turned the Etamin over to the Vol Protectorate on Yila. The turian forces protecting the shipping transit from that planet happily took custody of the pirates, including Aelen, who the Spectre ordered be transferred to C-Sec custody. Shepard knew the Hierarchy would likely take their time in returning him. Of course, the lone turian in the Etamin's mostly human crew would certainly draw notice and interest.

Given everything Garrus told her about him, especially the notation about Shanxi, she wondered what brought Aelen to that crew. For a moment, she wondered if it was Haliat's plan to embarrass the Alliance that lured him to them. But the interrogation provided another answer—pure desperation. Disgraced, abandoned by family and community, Garrus' old friend took whatever work he could get. A few years earlier, he had been on a transport that Haliat's crew hit. The Etamin, short on hands, offered that crew one chance at survival. Aelen took it.

It was not an uncommon tale. Though it had taken longer to get out of him than she hoped, namely because being questioned by his old friend did not have the intended impact. Shepard took a gamble that their past would give them an automatic rapport, but it failed to play out that way. Garrus eventually relinquished the interrogation to Alenko. Even so, it produced nothing of consequence except an explanation for his presence. The information he turned over all appeared in the manifests and logs. He wasn't even privy to the whereabouts of his captain, though he had heard scuttlebutt that Haliat had missed his expected transmission.

Back on the Normandy, one encrypted package of data passed to the Alliance's intelligence liaison on the ship, Ensign Encanto. He could jump through whatever hoops the brass asked for. Shepard entrusted the duplicate to Tali, who decrypted it in record time. Then she and Liara sifted through it. Shepard figured the doctor's education and penchant for research would make her an ideal candidate for the task.

Within days, Nyx was proven right. The three of them—Tali'Zorah, Liara, and the commander—sat around the table in her quarters.

"You see," Liara began, picking up one datapad and then another and another before she had the one she wanted, then she leaned toward Shepard, her finger guiding the officer's eyes to the exact line of evidence, "Based on information from Fist, Haliat and his crew were raiding ExoGeni settlements and returning certain cargo to Binary Helix operations in the Terminus and other outer systems. What's most curious, however, is this delivery." Liara tapped the screen and handed it to Shepard, allowing her to read it for herself.

The entry simply stated that the pirates delivered a large shipment to a Binary Helix facility on Noveria. "What's this got to do with Agebinium?"

"Nothing, as far as we can tell," Tali noted.

"At least at first glance," Liara corrected. "So, I did a little digging." Her cheeks tinged a slight shade of purple and her eyes returned to the table as she started shifting through the evidence she'd brought with her. Her tone was almost apologetic as she said, "I used your Spectre clearance, as you suggested. Looking into Binary Helix I found that my … Benezia is listed as the executive secretary of Binary Helix."

Shepard looked from Liara to Tali and back. "What else?"

"Since High Command is still dragging their feet as far as sharing information, I might have taken a little liberty," Tali admitted. "But nothing too illegal. I just dug up investment records and transactions."

She thrust another datapad at Shepard. "Over the past twelve years, Saren has made substantial investments in the firm. He's been steadily building up interest and power within the group."

"And Binary Helix, like other companies that do business on Noveria, are …" Liara considered her phrasing for a moment, looking away from Shepard when the commander met her gaze. "They are responsive to the needs and desires of their investors."

"Especially to ones who have put in the kind of credits Saren has."

"This is an interesting little love triangle," Shepard noted, skimming the newest information in her hands. "Nice job with the breadcrumbs. Looks like we're going to Noveria."

"Shepard, Noveria is privately chartered. It's exempt from Council law," Tali informed.

The commander sank into her chair, setting the datapad on the table. "Beautiful."

"Though the Executive Board of the Noveria Development Corporation has granted Spectres extraterritorial privileges," Liara clarified. "But they are easily cowed by their own investors."

"And this just keeps getting better."

[i] Pistol produced by Elanus Risk Control Systems