There was one aspect of the new asari media channels focusing on human affairs nobody had thought of before: While their target market was in human space, their seat was in asari space, and hence outside Alliance jurisdiction. That meant they could openly flaunt Alliance media regulations, and since it was nigh impossible to block the extranet, there was not much the Alliance institutions could do. And that meant that election forecasts were broadcasted on election day.

Council Chairwoman Anita Goyle was currently watching those forecasts on her omni-tool. She was sitting on a bench at the Presidium Lake, in one of those discreet, quiet spots one could find all over this part of the Citadel. She frowned slightly. Unsurprisingly, various leftist and progressive parties seemed to be making gains, but not as much as one would have expected. And far-right parties were making gains, too, riding on a wave of outrage against the non-compliant colonies. Smaller parties in general seemed to do well. It was mostly the established centre and the moderate rightwing parties which were losing votes. The next Alliance parliament would be quite a fragmented and bitterly divided bunch, it seemed.

Still, at least there was a general tendency towards the side the political spectrum Shepard had favoured, the side she and her Shepard Foundation favoured now. Funny how that came to be. Her rise in political prominence had been mostly as part of moderate conservative or centrist forces. However, she had burnt all those bridges when she had decided to put all her influence behind Shepard and his ideals. She had seen and still saw that as the only way to atone for her past mistakes, her past lack of empathy.

There had been certain attempts to avoid this political shift, like the idea to disenfranchise the non-compliant colonies. Many conservative and right-wing politicians had demanded that. Their argument had been that colonies who put themselves outside the government's jurisdiction could not very well expect to take part in determining said government. It actually had been a reasonable argument, but Goyle had no doubt that many of those politicians had in truth tried to bring about an election result that would be much more favourable to them if the dissident colonies were to be excluded.

After the Battle of Terra Nova, those notions had disappeared into thin air. That a considerable amount of units had flat out mutinied would have been awkward enough for the Alliance. That those units then had tried to forcefully overthrow a colonial government, only to be beaten by a ragtag force of defenders - local forces, European forces, mercenaries, top secret forces whose nature most people did not know - that was so completely, utterly embarrassing for the government that it simply was in no state to strike a defiant pose against the non-compliant colonies.

Inquiries about how such an attempted coup d'état could have come to pass, inquiries about the support the coupists had, accusations of secret government orders... it had been an avalanche of bad press and uncomfortable questions for the Alliance government. Trying to disenfranchise the dissident colonies, including the one which just had become a victim of aggression by Alliance Navy forces, would have made that all even worse. So in the end, the government had relented, and Terra Nova, Elysium and Eden Prime, plus a handful of pioneer colonies which had declared non-compliance, too, including Feros, were now able to take part in the Alliance elections.

Meanwhile, Goyle was using every bit of political capital she had to find out who was behind the attempted coup d'état. The large scale of the operation and the attempted hiring of the Blue Suns pointed towards corporate money. She doubted the information she was gathering would amount to much; at best it probably would be able to cause designated scapegoats to fall. However, accumulating incriminating evidence about the political enemy was never a bad idea.

A shadow fell on her. She looked up to find her unlikely ally in this whole affair standing in front of her.

"It appears you managed to get yourself quite a competent agent," Sparatus commented. "Lucky for you that she only reports to you."

"Lucky for your government's plans that she did report to me," Goyle retorted. "If the SPF's equipment had fallen into coupist hands - or if they had found out that not so little fighter base deep in the desert..."

"I know," Sparatus answered. "It was expensive enough for us to avert that. So I think you're in my debt rather than the reverse."

Goyle nodded. One could not play the grand political game without acknowledging debts and favours.

"I had my doubts when you contacted me," Sparatus continued, "but the material Williams had unearthed was quite alarming. And in the end, our cooperation has proven to be quite productive. The Alliance is currently in a most agreeable state of affairs. So the expenses have been worth it."

It was a blatant attempt to provoke her, so Goyle decided to turn the tables: "Next time I find my own government blockaded by agents of my political opponents... I'll again have yours pick up the tab."

"Oh, I think our financial expenses are not as great as your personal political expenses," Sparatus retorted, "After all, if information about this conversation, or certain previous ones, were to ever come out..."

"You're flattering me again, Councillor," Goyle answered. "I don't think the fate of my political career is, one way or the other, so important to your government that they'd risk the ensuing crisis with the Alliance if that data was ever released. Not to mention the losses both side's economies would take from the inevitable drop in trading."

Sparatus paused slightly. Then he said: "No, I suppose not. It isn't necessary. Experience shows you're doing quite enough yourself to hurt human businesses."

Goyle rose from her bench. "Maybe," she allowed. "But you wouldn't have that any other way, so maybe you should stop taking jabs at me. Imagine if you had to deal with Udina instead of me."

With that she walked away.

She had to admit, Sparatus' provocation had in fact hit a mark. The defeated coup d'état had made the Alliance more unstable than it ever had been since its inception. It had been the culmination of a development she had actively encouraged and supported, so in a way this instability was partly her fault.

However, the elections so far had been peaceful and inclusive, so it looked like things were on the up again. In the end, Goyle thought this instability to be just the pains of change the Alliance had to undergo, an investment of sorts into a better future. And for that, the outlook was very good indeed. After the very humiliating defeat of the coupist fleet, which happened in less than an hour of battle, further military actions were highly unlikely. And now the elections were a first step of reconciliation with the non-compliant colonies, but at the same time they would in fact remain non-compliant until the Alliance government had cleaned up its act. Thus, pressure would remain but further escalation was unlikely.

It had been quite a ride so far, but Goyle was convinced it would lead towards a better future.

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Terra Nova was a planet full of nicely radicalised people and with an oddly helpful government. On the downside, it also was a damn arid and hot planet. Given her origins, it was kind of odd how problematic that was for Tisiphone, but then she had lived in the cold darkness of space most her life. First her imprisonment on Gagarin Station, then various bases in space or on lifeless planets throughout the years. Such installations were never heated up more than necessary, as anything else would be a waste of energy. She was almost unaccustomed to planetary atmospheres, and even more so to such a hot one.

Nonetheless, coming to here had been worth it. As far as she was concerned, the coupist soldiers had mutinied just so they could forcefully shut down all protests about the atrocities committed against her. And in a way that was in fact true, if only indirectly.. So tossing them around like inanimate objects had been quite fun, especially as this time she had been able to enter combat with a gun in her hand and with pain killers afterwards.

Williams' emergency call had been weird; few people knew where to find Kyle's group. Apparently this new human Spectre had been a crew mate of Shepard, had left the Alliance in protest and had even shortly been in prison over that, so she had seemed trustworthy enough. Thus, only some hours later, Tisiphone's ad hoc commando had left the base. They had reached Terra Nova just in time for the battle. In the end, said battle had been decided by the Blue Suns switching sides and by the boarding action in orbit in which she had taken part. Nonetheless, the Terranovans were grateful to everybody who had come to their help.

Thus, a few days later Kyle's group had been able to leave the crammed base Shepard had granted to them. Finally, they had been able to move somewhere more hospitable, somewhere with a bit more space. Officially 'Father' Kyle was still a wanted man in the Alliance, and so were some of his followers, including Tisiphone. However, the Terranovan government would protect them. 'Non-compliance' meant not following Alliance regulations, so for for as long as Terra Nova would in fact be non-compliant Kyle's group would be safe.

Another part of exercising their declared non-compliance was that Terra Nova was organizing the elections on the planet itself. Instead of letting the Alliance Electoral Commission do it, each of the major non-compliant colonies had created an own commission for that purpose, which merely cooperated with the Alliance's commission. Hence, the planetary commissions decided who could or could not vote on those worlds. And since Terra Nova immediately recognized Kyle's group as valid residents of their colony, that meant that for the first time in her life, Tisiphone had voted in Alliance elections. It felt almost unnatural to her, getting involved in this way in Alliance politics, supporting the Alliance political process. However, there was no reason not to use the vote she now suddenly had. Unsurprisingly, she had used it on one of the more radical parties out there; and given that this was Terra Nova there was even a certain chance that party could win a seat or two.

Still, this state of affairs was unlikely to last long. The various media channels, especially the corporate owned ones, already celebrated the peaceful elections as a first step of reconciliation in the Alliance. Whoever would form the next Alliance government most likely would eventually come to a compromise with the non-compliant colonies. It was imperative that by then Kyle's group would already have vanished again from this planet.

It was clearly time to leave Alliance space. What they needed was a colony on a sufficiently earth-like world, a colony whose foundation rested on ideological opposition to Alliance and Citadel. It would have to be a colony that nonetheless was astrographically near enough to Alliance space that Tisiphone and her people could still use direct action there.

Fortunately, there existed such a planet. Even if it was just as uncomfortably hot as Terra Nova.

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Election posters. Who still uses election posters? During election seasons on Earth one could hardly see the street in front due to all the holographic images and Augmented Reality objects. And that was just the legal side of things. The youth associations of the various parties, notoriously uncaring about the law due to their utter youthful conviction to be in the right, would use glow spray everywhere and hack extranet sites to praise their candidates at the public.

In the colonies, though, the necessary infrastructure for that did not always exist. The common stereotype about human space being rough and tumble beyond the Local and Exodus Clusters certainly contained much truth. There really were planets with more wheat and cornfields than people, with more vat meat factories than schools or hospitals, but with no proper infrastructure for its people and a miserable quality of life. On the mining colonies it was even worse. The pioneer settlements, those worlds with just a village of maybe 5,000 people on them, were the utterly worst. The colonists there had little else than shabby prefabs and plenty of mud around them. Shepard had definitely had a point when he had spoken out against the utter nonsensicality of those colonies.

Ashley's current surroundings were a far cry from that, but it seemed the very image of those stereotypes. Thumba was a colony jointly settled by India and Latin America. With around 300,000 people it was nothing like Feros, but it could not come even remotely close to what worlds like Eden Prime or Terra Nova had to offer in terms of life quality. She had come here to investigate some pirate attacks people had linked to the political troubles in the Alliance, but that had turned out to be a false lead. So now, she sat silently in a rundown bar, a glass of almost lukewarm beer in her hands and surrounded by a too loud crowd.

Half torn down election posters adorned every wall of the bar. Unsurprisingly, nearly all of them belonged to rightwing or centrist parties. Only very few remaining shreds attested to how at least some naive souls had attempted to hang posters from the progressive spectrum there, before they most likely had been violently torn down. Not that their cousins from the other side of the political spectrum fared much better: Hardly any poster seemed to be left intact and clean of beer spills or food stains.

Completing this cliché image of a bar was the holo above the bartenders heads, which seemed to flicker more than actually work. Its sound was almost drowned by the talks and shouts in the bar. Nonetheless, Ashley kept watching it, more out of boredom than genuine interest. The holo displayed the election results, and she had not voted anyway.

A plague on both of their houses.

She had helped Terra Nova because it had been the right thing to do. This help in the end had meant that turian-financed forces, turian 'volunteers' and troops equipped with turian guns had gotten to shoot at Alliance Navy ships and troops. Basically, she had helped an external power exploit an internal human conflict. She had done it because there had been no other alternative, but it still felt wrong to vote in Alliance elections after that.

Maybe it was just disappointed expectations. Becoming a Spectre had been Goyle's suggestion, but for a while Ashley had thought that maybe she could be a knight errant of sorts, struggling for justice and for uncovering the truth about the Reapers, just like Shepard had been. But the victory at Terra Nova had been too bitter to uphold that image. It had been a victory achieved by a mercenary force turning coats. That was not exactly something to write home about. Or maybe it already had been the discovery of how the non-compliant colonies were equipping their defence forces. Her father and grandfather were probably spinning in their graves.

Thus, Ashley had declined Lara's offer to come to Terra Nova for an election party, and had instead decided to stay on Thumba until the election madness receded. The SPF officer was a nice girl, but Ashley would rather not get caught up in the inevitable madness election night would be on the dissident colony. Even sitting in such a rundown bar was better in comparison.

A deep growl could be heard over the other chatter. "Pussies, the lot of them," a man shouted. "Pussies. Voting for those communist traitors due to some manufactured scandal."

Apparently somebody else had watched the news as well. Ashley sighed, annoyed.

"I mean, are we humans, or are we namby-pamby asari?" the man continued. Beard, rough leather clothing, cap. The very image of a common agri-colony farmworker.

"Yeah," a woman agreed. She looked very much less common. Going by her strong build, Ashley assumed organic augmentation, and lots of it. "I mean, some instructors pushed a bit too hard fifteen years ago, and they make a state crisis out of it. Jeez."

"Fucking crybabies," the man said, "Their special talent comes with a duty to the Alliance. To humanity!"

An image of Kaidan flashed in front of Ashley's eyes. Her muscles tensed.

"That we didn't really know what to do back then doesn't mean they now get to take over the government!" the man continued.

"What happened was bad," the woman admitted, "but bad things happen in galactic politics. The turians showed us that well enough."

"Bah, bad things; it was just the turians' standard training doctrine anyway," the man disagreed. "If they do it in the Hierarchy nobody complains, but when it's their own state, oh then all those traitors get agitated."

The thought of starting a bar brawl became ever more tempting to Ashley, be it to end the dull boredom or to shut up those two yokels. As far as she was concerned, not only were they unbelievably callous, they were also desecrating Kaidan's memory. She knew that she could take on both, that she could probably even take on a good part of the bar. After having fought geth, rachni and krogan some farm boys and girls were hardly a threat to her. Her fingers itched.

"Worst of all, we let those traitors vote," the woman said. "They don't want to follow government instructing, but voting, yes, that they do want!"

"They'll probably rig all their local results, too," the man agreed, "You'll see, Terra Nova will have all red[1] election results."

"Won't happen here," the woman replied. "I tell you, Thumba will be proud to not have a single commie vote."

"That better be so," the man agreed aggressively, "Because if I find a single red here, why then..."

Ashley sighed. It was pointless. Yes, she could take on those two people, and even more in the bar. She could also visit the next bar and start a brawl there, and so on. But what would be the point? The same opinions stated here were probably repeated all over human space at the moment. She could not start a bar brawl with every reactionary idiot in the galaxy.

Maybe the Skipper's been right. Maybe humanity is fundamentally flawed.

She focused again on the holo. Surprisingly, it did not show election results and analysis anymore. Instead it showed what appeared to be a star map. Ashley had no skills in ship navigation, but the map was abstract enough that even idiot viewers could see that the news would be about a location in the Terminus Systems. Which probably had been the intention.

The Terminus? I wonder what news from the Terminus is important enough to interrupt the election coverage. She asked the bartender to turn the sound volume up.

"... remote as the world is, it had become a local manufacturing centre, producing ship spare parts to supplement the Terminus' scarce local shipbuilding industry. This had made the colony well off by Terminus standards, and also too important to attack for even the vilest pirates. This of course only makes what has happened all the more mysterious. Of its 30,000 inhabitants, less than 500 were non-human. Their bodies have been found all over the colony. However, there is not a single trace of the human inhabitants.

It appears an entire colony of 30,000 humans has simply vanished. News of this incident is only now appearing in Citadel space, where reactions have been..."

Now Ashley understood why this had interrupted election coverage. 30,000 people, just gone? I wonder what happened there...

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Miranda had to admit she had held certain doubts when the Illusive Man had promised her whatever resources she would need for the project to bring Shepard back from the brink of death. Or rather, for all practical concerns, to resurrect him. However, he had kept true to his word. The so-called 'Lazarus Project' was even getting its own space station. Its core had been established in record time, and even now it was extended to all sides. And all that for one man who currently lay in the heart of this station: Jonathan Shepard.

Others would have marvelled at this station. In fact, most of her coworkers did. Miranda, though, had no time for that. She had gotten quite an exquisite array of tools, but still, to her, it remained just that, tools. Nothing so much to be amazed at, rather something to be used. If she failed at that, then all those resources would be wasted. Given how near the Reaper invasion most likely was, that could well prove fatal for all of humanity.

A short atypical thought also reminded her of the other races. However, they were not of her concern. It was not that she actively wished death upon them; it was just that humanity was the only race, and indeed the only cause, she cared for. Most other things in the galaxy and in her personal life were judged by utility; either utility towards that cause or sometimes, more rarely, utility to her personally. That asari, Liara T'Soni, had proven great utility when she had delivered Shepard's body to Cerberus, and over the years Cerberus had also used other aliens. And on a larger level, for the Alliance, mutual trade and political links with most of the alien states were beneficial.

Cerberus was not racist or xenophobic, not really, even though it made great use out of racists - xenophobia simply was too good a motivator to ignore. If aliens helped humanity they could be left alone or even tactically supported at times; if they stood against humanity's interests they had to be fought. In this, too, Miranda judged everything according to utility. And as far as she was concerned there was nothing in the galaxy with a higher utility to humanity than Cerberus. Few people knew what Cerberus did, but Miranda was informed about most of its activities. Based on that, she judged the Illusive Man to be the best leader humanity had; humanity's best hope for both survival and dominance.

So, if the Illusive Man decided that humanity needed Shepard, that Shepard had to be resurrected at every cost, no matter the political chaos he had caused in his 'first life', so to speak, then Miranda would do her utmost to see Shepard alive again. She was not entirely comfortable with some of her orders; the Illusive Man's insistence on restoring Shepard's mind just as it had been and his refusal to even consider a control chip went square against her natural instinct of paranoia. However, she trusted her superior to know what was best for humanity.

Miranda knew all about how the Spectre had nearly eradicated the entire military wing of Cerberus, and how he had then used records of the captured rachni to get the Council to hunt the entire organization down. Cerberus was still reeling from that, as the Citadel was not relenting [2]. Things were getting somewhat stable again, as less and less of the organization's hiding spots were being found, but they still had taken quite a hit. On most of his missions against Cerberus, Shepard had used his 'Spectre Entourage', his aliens. Due to Cerberus' influence on the Alliance, he had wanted to make sure to appear as Spectre, not as Alliance Navy Commander. And part of that Spectre Entourage had been T'Soni.

However, there was no use in revenge. Instead it had proven far more productive to manipulate the asari into doing what Cerberus wanted. She had proven to be quite resourceful on Omega Station. She seemed to be a very apt tactician, but she lacked in strategy. She had required some direction, which Miranda had gladly provided, and even though she had then skillfully won Shepard's body, she had not quite known what to do with it afterwards. It had been easy to manipulate her into giving it up to Cerberus, despite the past hostility between the organization and Shepard's crew.

So now Cerberus had not won any 'vengeance', whatever that might matter, but it had won Shepard's body. That was preferable by far. And instead of taking revenge against Shepard, they would try to use him. That would be even better.

The question now was how exactly to achieve that. Before he could be of any use, he had to be revived again. Despite the promise of limitless resources, Miranda was not absolutely certain how to proceed. There were several ways to achieve their goal. All of them were ludicrously expensive, but if their prices could be matched they were are feasible. It was just a matter of which tools to get, which systems to use, how much time to invest, and how many shortcuts they were willing to take. At least theoretically; in reality, none of those treatments had ever been tried. And even just this attempt would surely consume billions of credits, no matter whether successful or not.

Miranda looked at several datapads, all dossiers on various treatments. The easiest way would be cybernetics, but it would also be the crudest way. While the Illusive Man had primarily spoken about retaining Shepard's mind as it was, she still felt it would be a violation of the spirit of his order, if not the letter, to not at least try to also restore Shepard's body as it had been before. So for now, she was looking into measures of large-scale tissue growth. Unfortunately, while it was the most exact method and the 'softest' method in terms of impact on the patient, it was also the most expensive and time consuming one.

She sighed. Whatever way she chose, there was a considerable risk that it would prove to be the wrong one. All that responsibility lay on her.

The door to her office was opened. Two technicians entered.

"You're late," she remarked curtly.

"Ah, sorry," one of them apologized. "They had to pull us from the construction crews, and our time schedules are tight."

"I see," Miranda answered coldly. 'Limitless resources' did not mean 'waste of resources', so it made sense that there were not more technicians than strictly necessary on the station. "Next time remember that it won't matter how quickly the extensions are built if the core station doesn't work right. I need this computer to work in order to run all necessary simulations."

In fact, a large part of her office's space was taken up by a computer whose sole purpose was to create medical simulations, to predict how various treatments would work on Shepard. Seeing as she was about to decide on just that, it was imperative that it work properly again, and soon. The damn thing has been glitching since day one.

"Ah, yes, ma'am," the technician replied, "We'll get working on it right away."

Miranda nodded and concentrated on her datapads again. I suppose we could at least try large scale tissue growth and see how far we get. It's always possible to change to a cheaper and less time consuming method later on, if need be. On the other hand, it makes sense to concentrate all resources on one scenario and then run with it, despite all the problems associated with putting all eggs in one...

"So if I may ask, how did you vote, Operative Lawson?"

Irritated, Miranda looked up from her work. It was the assistant technician who had spoken up. She had a sweetly-friendly smile on her face, and she had this sort of bubbly, upbeat voice that could pierce through every attempt at mental concentration. Her superior looked quite aghast, and when his gaze met Miranda's he quickly resumed working.

"Vote?" Miranda asked sternly.

The technician seemed undeterred by the Operative's voice. "You know, in the Alliance elections. Can't let those anti-human goody two shoes win, after all."

"That's of no concern to me," Miranda answered, "and neither should it be to you. It won't be the Alliance putting humanity at the top of the galaxy."

"Ah, I suppose," the technician conceded with some confusion, "but it is the human state. Surely that matters somewhat."

"Not enough," Miranda answered. "I have an entire station to run here, and a man to resurrect. I don't have time to concern myself with unimportant political circus shows. And you don't have time for leisurely chatter; you're just here to repair that computer. So get to work on it."

Hastily, the technician did just that. Miranda made a mental note to keep her observed. The Lazarus Project would be difficult enough anyway; there was no place on it for people with such lax work ethics.

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Joker had not bothered to even look up the name of the world where he was trapped now. It was yet another unimportant world with a marine base on it, far away from most shipping lanes. As far as he was concerned, he simply had returned to Boondocks, even if it was a totally different base and a totally different planet.

On the plus side, he now at least was not required anymore to sit in a storage room and pretend to work. On the negative side, he now was officially detained at this base. The official reason was to investigate his role in the attempted coup d'état; quite many officers who had taken part in it were detained here. In reality, everybody already knew he had just been kidnapped by Admiral Morese; the real reason for his detention was to keep him out of the way. The Alliance Government was in enough trouble by the mutiny without having to worry about potential interviews by former members of Shepard's crew, especially if they had been somehow involved in said affair.

He wondered how long this state of affairs would last, how long the Alliance Navy would store him away, far, far away from where he could cause trouble. Far, far away from any ships, on the ground, where he could at best hobble to get forwards.

At least voting had not been a problem as the garrison had an own voting station. Historically, there had been some experiments with extranet ballots, but in the end the government had deemed this to be not safe enough. The problem was that humanity was some centuries behind in extranet programming, and so even the best human programmers and hackers could not stand up to what the other races had. Or at least, not to what the salarians specifically had. And while the salarians were the closest allies of the Alliance in terms of day-to-day politics and hence had no reason to manipulate Alliance elections, it was properly better to not give them any opportunity to start with. Or to give any other potential hackers out there an opportunity.

So instead, most of the time non-connected election computers were used. This election, though, had a particular focus on fraud prevention. Since every major non-compliant colony had an own election committee that meant four were in action all in all, and that in turn meant the radical ends of either side could accuse the other side of fixing the election in 'their' area. That coupled with the particular importance of the election meant it was imperative to use the safest means possible. As a result, the voters were now back to pens and papers; if expensive paper with ID microchips. The Alliance Election Commission used 'electronic paper' from the human market; the planetary election commissions, distrusting human corporations on principle, imported theirs from the asari. That would only open up yet another venue for accusations of vote fixing.

What a crap. I shouldn't think about it. Never have. Shepard, it's due to him. He was always going on about those things. Must've rubbed off. Hell, the fact alone that I've dragged my ass across the base just to cast my worthless vote shows that.

Military personnel on active deployment had ways to mail in early votes. That had always been much more comfortable for Joker. Even then, though, he had rarely made use of his right to vote. Now he had, though. The garrison was the sort of place where its people would pat each other on the back that not a single progressive vote had been cast. Joker had just spit into that soup, voting for the most radical progressive party he had found on the ballot. It would not amount to much, but hopefully it would annoy some people watching the statistics for this election station.

With a sour grin he left the election station and began the long, bothersome way to his housing complex. At least his own room would await him there. He certainly enjoyed that luxury, even though it had been a pure security decision: Given his well known status as a former member of Shepard's crew, and a sympathizer of his causes, the base's commander had decided it would not be entirely safe for him to share a room with others. And while Joker did not like to think about it, he had to admit it was pretty much true. He already got hostile stares anywhere he went. So far, watchful MPs had prevented any public incident, but Joker knew he would be pretty much doomed if he had to bunk with any of those people.

He sighed. He had joined up in order to fly, in order to be free. Now the Alliance Navy felt like an oppressive prison. He decided that once he had reached his room he would need a tour through the shadier parts of the extranet to cheer himself up. Data security was just as shoddy as it had been in the last base.

However, as soon as he had opened the door to his room he froze. Two people were inside it. One man and one woman, both wearing identical grey suits and shades. Shades! Who's still wearing shades?They looked like cliché versions of government spooks from movies. What the hell are they doing here?

"Lieutenant Moreau," the woman greeted him. "Please excuse our presence here. We had to make sure our meeting would remain... discrete."

Well they certainly knew how to pick the right person to chat me up. Nice voice. He suppressed a grin at his own self-deprecating thoughts and said: "Hey, let me guess, you have an offer for me I can't refuse or something like that. Just who are you?"

The man grinned ever so slightly at that. "In fact, that's very much why we have come, yes. You do realize you'll never fly an Alliance ship again, I hope."

This immediately soured Joker's mood. "And what concern is that of you?"

The woman picked up the conversation again. Typical good cop bad cop routine. "Your talents would be wasted, Lieutenant. We've come to ensure that this won't happen."

"What do you mean by that?" Joker asked. He did not quite trust these people.

"As it so happened, our organization has a need of a good pilot," the woman explained. "A need of the best pilot in human space."

"So, I'll just walk up to Colonel Klink's office and tell him 'Sorry, I'm outta here, got a new job', or what?" Joker protested.

"No. We'll take care of it," the man answered. "Our organization has enough influence to make it happen. It will also be a demonstration of how much we value your skills."

"Your organization... just what is your organization?" Joker demanded to know.

The man grinned. "Oh, Lieutenant Moreau, I think you know it. But you don't know the whole story."

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[1] Note: International political colours, not backwards American political colours :p

[2] Citadel, Council, Conduit, Cerberus, Collectors, Crucible, Catalyst... Bioware's love affair with the letter C...

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And that's all, folks. At least, concerning Reaping the Storm. The Alliance's crisis is dying down, even though it might not return to normal stability just yet. But there won't be open civil war.

It might take some time until the ME 2story is up and running, but don't worry, it's coming.