August 10th, 2175
09:23
Citadel, Widow-System
Human Embassy
As I took a sip of my coffee, I read through the report displayed on my computer screen. It didn't take me long, as it was simply a status report from an Alliance-based company attempting to negotiate the terms of a contract with a company headquartered in Turian-controlled territory. There was nothing that required my personal intervention. The companies involved were relatively small and weren't involved in anything that could be deemed important or critical to Alliance interests.
Yet, since it did involve two entities from different territories, I had to read through the report to make sure that they followed every rule set by the Council and the Citadel for such cases.
Actually, I simply read through a summary created by one of my assistants. There were far too many reports, each with numerous pages, to read through everything. Otherwise, I would have no time for anything else.
The only thing that was needed from me was my signature that I had read the report summary, and that the companies could continue as long as they followed the proper protocols and stipulations.
After I finished reading, I took the pen that lay on my desk and put my digital signature and date on both the full report and the summary before sending them back, while also copying both for my personal archive.
It was always important to save a copy of all documents that needed my signature for my personal archive. The tool I used to put my signature on digital documents also added a very small program to the document that recorded all changes made to it after I put my signature on it. This way, any tampering would become easily found by checking the log. Furthermore, the copies in my personal archive would prove if someone sent me false reports.
I did trust my aides not to send me false information, but it was still better to have an additional layer of safety. I would still get some anger directed at me for letting it happen in the first place, but it wouldn't be as bad as it could be.
The last few weeks after the Specters barged into my office had been uneventful. No sudden problems that needed my immediate input, no major disputes I had to mediate, nor any directives from the Alliance's president. Only reports and endless meetings.
The only interesting thing happening was that within the Alliance, the election season started up last week. By the time March rolled around, a new president would take on the reins of the Alliance, and with the new president, a round of new ministers would come too.
Since my position was secure for another four years before I had to be reconfirmed by parliament, I only hoped that the new president would be someone I could work with, rather than someone who thought they could order me around like a servant. While the president could technically do that, it would make any relationship difficult, and I would probably have to think about arranging some kind of scandal to force them to resign. And that wasn't something I wanted to waste time with.
The political situation in the Alliance had undergone significant changes over the last few years. The party I had been part of had changed its name three years ago to the Human Alliance Initiative, abbreviated as HAI, after absorbing some smaller parties that had never really had a chance of making it into parliament. Sadly, they weren't as popular as back when well-established personalities, like Michael Port, and I had been a part of it. A reason for that had been a couple of well-meaning but badly implemented policies.
Yet, the biggest reason was that the mood within the Alliance had slowly drifted towards nationalism, and with it, a higher popularity of Terra Firma, the currently second-largest political party. After all, Terra Firmas was the political party that had, since the beginning, advocated for the Alliance to eschew the Citadel and instead become a galactic superpower on its own.
Of course, it wasn't as bad as it sounded. Mostly, it expressed itself as patriotism for most of the Alliance's population, and only in the core of the Alliance territory and at our border to the Batarian Hegemony, it drifted towards nationalism. Terra Firma knew how to exploit this new mood and increased its votes, especially taking those who had been disappointed by the HAI.
If this trend continued and Terra Firma had a good election season, it wouldn't surprise me if the next government would be composed of a coalition of the Human Alliance Initiative and Terra Firma, with the former mostly in control, to create a bloc within the parliament that would be able to push through their agenda without too many problems. It would signal a change of policies, and I had to be on top of that to anticipate how the Alliance would react to the Council and vice versa.
The other thing I had to keep an eye on was the Independents, as they called themselves. Inside the Alliance, they were called names like the Emigrants or Leavers, the latter of which was used in a derogatory manner.
They were former citizens of the Alliance who left it to create their own independent colony outside of our jurisdiction and territory. Their reason for leaving were numerous. Some were disappointed by the Alliance and its policies, a number that saw an increase after the few failures of the HAI, some wanted to be frontier pioneers and saw the galaxy outside the Alliance territory as something like the Wild West of old, of those people, half returned after experiencing the hardship that came with creating a colony without any support system backing them up, and others simply were those who believed that any kind of overarching government was the root of all evil in the galaxy.
Despite them leaving the Alliance, they were still kind of my responsibility. While my main responsibility was to represent the Alliance to the galaxy, I had to deal with any problems created by humans in the galaxy. Should those Emmigrants create any uproar with any of the other glactic species, I would be the first place to go for anyone wanting to complain. Most of my answers would be that those colonists left the Alliance and thus my jurisdiction, and that the aggrieved parties would have to deal with the problem by themself, some things had to be mediated by the Alliance and me, as some parties would take extreme measures, and a colony being destroyed would create a political nightmare.
So, I had to make sure that I could exert some pressure on those independent colonies if I had to. The easiest way was to control their supply routes from the Alliance, since even if all the independent colonies cooperated with each other, it was impossible for them to create everything they needed from scratch, at least for now. As such, I had a lever I could use when I needed. Furthermore, it helped that they liked me, even if they were wary of the Alliance, courtesy of my carefully created and maintained image.
A small notification popped up on my screen, telling me that my complaint about the two Spectres barging into the embassy and my office in particular was still marked with the status of "In Process."
I had thought about setting up a bounty via the Shadow Broker for the two Spectres, but decided against it in the end. Yet, I still mentioned around some lickspittles, who wanted to impress me, that I would have loved it if those two Spectres faced some consequences for their actions, but that I didn't believe that the official way would see them face any.
If they interpreted anything into my words, it would be their problem. After all, I never said anything explicit to them. And I would have no problems in cutting them off if they did anything unethical. Most of them were useless to me anyway.
Of course, I went the official way too, as my complaint had some basis to be taken seriously.
Furthermore, going the official way to complain about the Spectre's conduct gave it publicity. Not the kind that landed in the news and that people in cafes were gossiping about, but the other ambassadors and political functionaries would hear about it.
The Council would never give them more than a slap on the wrist, but they had to do it. Otherwise, every ambassador would look at the Spectres and Council with distrust, and while nobody would ever try to obstruct a Spectre investigation, as something like that would lead to consequences for them, they wouldn't help them either. And it wouldn't just be the ambassadors of the "minor" species, but those of the Council races, too. The Turian ambassador may continue to be helpful and supportive of Turian Spectres, but Asari and Salarian Spectres? They would get the bare minimum.
It would lead to a significant decrease in the Spectres efficency, and that wasn't something the Council wanted to happen.
In the end, the Council would punish the Spectres for their misconduct. A punishment that wasn't really more than a minor annoyance, but it would happen.
Even the constant checking by one of my assistants, whether my complaint had been processed, was nothing more than to annoy the people having to do it and to remind them that the galaxy was watching their moves.
Besides, the Spectres probably were getting notified whenever someone requested information about them, and getting to remind them of their blunder every day, even if that scenario only existed within my head, always got a smile out of me. I was a petty person like that.
I heard a commotion outside my office and Miranda calling out loudly: "You can't just barge in there!" before my office door was suddenly slammed open and an analyst, whose name I couldn't remember, barged inside.
I quickly rose up from my chair, my hand going to the pistol fixed to the underside of my desk. Shooting had never been one of my strengths, and I was sure that I would never be able to draw the gun fast enough to shoot anyone before they shot at me, but the passive shields around my workplace would be enough to give me the needed time to put down a minor threat.
Seeing that my unexpected visitor didn't have any weapon in his hand, besides a datapad, I tried to calm my quickly beating heart and took control of the situation by calmly asking: "What is the meaning of this. I would like an explanation."
Instead of giving me an explanation, the analyst said: "Morning dew is the tears of the night."
For a moment, it was like my thoughts simply stopped existing. I knew that phrase. It was a code phrase told to me by Andrew. The man before me was an agent of the AIS, placed undercover within my embassy, and he just revealed himself to me by giving me that phrase. A phrase that should only be used in an emergency of the scale that it could trigger a war.
Before I could reply, the hidden doors to my office opened, and a team of security officers entered the room, screaming orders at the analyst and quickly taking control of the room.
The analyst followed their orders to a T, knowing that any try to defy them would end with a bullet in his knee or, worse, head.
Yet, before the team of N-trained soldiers could put cuffs on him and haul him into an interrogation room, my voice cut through the room.
"Stop."
A single word, one not even said loudly. Yet, it had managed to silence the room, stop the chaos, and bring everyone's attention to me. Any other day, and for a moment, I would have enjoyed the thought that my words had such a presence within them to stop a room full of people dead in their tracks.
But today, right now, wasn't such a day.
"Everyone but the analyst out of the room."
"But, sir...," started the captain of the security forces, hesitation clear in his voice.
I simply shook my head in response. "I understand your hesitation, Captain. But I need you out of the room. Code Black Silence. That means you, too, Yvonne."
The moment I had said the words "Black Silence," any additional protest the captain of the N-trained security forces had was gone. He simply nodded his understanding and signaled his people to leave the room the same way they came in. Before leaving the room, he sent me a look that said that they would stand ready, and that I just needed to activate the signal for them to storm back into the office.
Miranda also sent me a look that was filled with a hint of hesitation, but she remembered her current position and left the room towards the anteroom, closing the door behind her.
With a few movements, the anti-surveillance measures were on and set to their maximum setting. I regarded the AIS agent with a cool look and said with a tone of absolute command: "The office is secured. I hope you know that the phrase you just said to me is one for the highest levels of emergency. If I believe that you used it in vain, a court-martial will be the least of your problems. Now talk."
The AIS agent who had masqueraded as an analyst visibly shuddered at the growl that accompanied my last sentence. Yet, he managed to gather himself quickly and saluted me.
"AIS agent Mitchel Hespair, at your service, ambassador. You may know me under my cover identity as Senior Analyst Miguel Hetenbor."
My eyes relayed more than any words could ever hope that I wasn't interested in his name or story, and that he should finally start talking about why he barged into my office.
"Approximately ten minutes ago, I got a priority message from the AIS headquarters via our personal secured channels that are not hooked up to the embassy's systems to ensure that if they were intercepted, they would not be able to be linked to the embassy. Upon reviewing it and performing the necessary checks to confirm its authenticity, I immediately ran up to your office to relate the information."
"And what is the message, agent?" I asked, my impatience coming through clearly.
"It is a direct message from Director Clarke, sir. I have it here on my datapad, and it is a voice recording. Apparently, I don't have the necessary clearance level to listen to it, but the attached notes said that it was a matter of national security and that it should be brought to you without delay and as quickly as possible, authorising me to break my cover to bring it to you."
A direct message from Andrew? A matter of national security? Going against every protocol of the AIS by making the agent break their cover? It really had to be important for Andrew to react like this. Furthermore, his hands had to be bound by something if he couldn't take care of the situation by himself and had to reach out to me in this manner.
"Bring it over here," I said to the analyst and held out my hand to him to take the datapad.
The agent quickly walked the short distance, almost jumping, really, and put the datapad in my hand.
"It should be easy to connect with your headset, and the notes also said that your personal password will allow you to listen to the message," he explained, taking a few steps back after giving me the datapad.
I didn't lose any time and connected my Omni-tool with it while also putting in my headphones. The voice message was already open and just needed me to input my code, as the agent had said.
Hitting the play button, Andrew's voice started to sound in my ear.
"Hello, Oscar. Sapphire, Emerald, Ruby, Yellow, Crystal, Blue, Red, Silver, Gold." My friend rattled down his identification code, confirming for me that this message was really from him. Yet, there was something wrong. Not with the code, but with his voice. It was more shaken than I had ever heard it, telling me instantly that this was a big thing. Now, the claims that this was a matter of national security seemed more real than ever.
"I don't have a lot of time, and I need you to act quickly. Time is working against us. I will take some time out of my schedule to explain the full situation to you at a later date. Right now, just listen and act.
Four days ago, we found out that a high-ranking member of the Alliance military was unhappy that a certain military project was going to be shelved for the foreseeable future. Instead of following the orders to destroy all research, except those saved in the secure archives here on Arcturus, he instead made copies to continue the project on his own. The project I am talking about is Project Fissure. That name should give you an inclination into how serious this situation is."
My finger hit the pause button. I had to take a moment to simply breathe after hearing that name, to calm my nerves and heart.
Project Fissure, the damn Rift Missiles I had pushed to be put on the side because they were far too dangerous to introduce to the galaxy at this moment. The instant ship killers without any chance to defend against them unless you filled the space between them and your ship with so much defensive fire that even a fly had no chance to get through. And now, Andrew was telling me that some fucker, probably someone who thought he knew better than anybody else because he had a pedigree that could be traced back to when his ancestors crawled out of their caves, continued the project on his own? Probably without taking any security measures that I or anybody with a working brain would deem appropriate for a project that could trigger a galactic war if its existence became known?
Yet, that didn't explain why Andrew was contacting me. It should have been simple for him to retrieve the data and drag the idiot who took it back to Arcturus.
Dreading what the voice recording would tell me, I nonetheless hit the play button again.
"Before the data could even reach its intended destination, the transport was hijacked by an STG strike force. Somehow, the STG got tipped off that the transport had valuable intel onboard. We are still investigating how they learned about it, but that is not important right now. As I said, the STG hijacked the transport and stole the data cube that had the project information saved on it. Thankfully, the data cube is up to date with our security measures, AIS standards to be precise. Yet, it is only a matter of time until the STG manages to crack the encoding and get to the data inside.
The problem right now is that they know that the information in the cube is immensely valuable. After all, we are only using data cubes to transport information and data if they are above the Sigma-level.
We managed to track the data cube to a hidden research post in Var'Lesh, a city on the planet Varias, a little behind the border of the Salarian territory. Because the research post is hidden within a city, it is impossible to send in a team to retrieve it. Every AIS strike force would be immediantely be traced back to us, landing us in deep shit. Invading a foreign territory like that, especially that of one of the Council races, can't be done. I probably don't have to explain to you why it would be a bad idea.
Yet, we also can't let them have the data. If the Salarians knew we were researching a weapon as destructive as Project Fissure, and they shared their findings with the rest of the Council, it could lead to war to stop us from ever finishing the project before we could ever think of deploying the weapon against them. Or the Salarians could try to use our research to create their own. They have come far enough with replicating the DR technology to attempt it.
What we need is someone who can send in a team capable of retrieving or destroying the data. The latter would be preferred because of who I have in mind. After all, we don't want the data to fall into someone else's hands.
It is time to make use of your secretary. Have her arrange a meeting with the head of Cerberus. It is the only organization I trust to work in humanity's favor. Furthermore, they already have a reputation for going over the limit, and as such, they make the perfect scapegoat. I would have loved to simply pretend to be Cerberus myself, but we can't risk it. It needs to be the real deal. Make sure to impress on dear old Jack that this is a matter of peace or war for the Alliance. I don't care what concession we have to make. We need to get this done.
That's all.
I am sorry to drop this on you, my friend, but you are the only one who can act quickly enough. And I trust you to do this right.
Andrew, out."
After the recording finished, I leaned back in my chair, looking at the ceiling with an empty gaze. My head was empty, no thoughts flying through it.
What Andrew had just revealed to me was really a matter of peace or war for the Alliance. If anyone outside of the Alliance found out about Project Fissure in such a manner, any amount of goodwill and relations we had managed to create since we joined the galactic community would evaporate in a matter of seconds.
We would lose everything we managed to create. The Alliance would, from then on, stand alone in a galaxy where everyone would turn hostile toward the crazy apes trying to create weapons of mass destruction. Even our own population would probably turn on us.
Andrew was right. The data inside the cube could never be allowed to fall into the Salarians' hands. No matter the cost. Even if the whole city where the STG research post was hidden had to be razed to the ground.
The thought was sickening. To decide that a whole city had to die to keep a secret.
Yet, the other outcome was even more dreadful.
The few hundred-thousand people in that city versus the billions of people who would die in that war.
It was a cold, amoral calculus that drove that decision, but it was for the greater good.
Bile started to rise in my throat as I thought that.
The greater good. The biggest and most used excuse in history for every deplorable act committed.
I had hoped that I would never have to use it. Perhaps, I had still been naive. Yet, it had been a naivety that I had wanted to preserve.
Nevertheless, I had a duty to perform.
"Agent," I said, my voice empty of all emotion. "You may leave now. I have no further use for you. Follow the appropriate protocols for the case when your cover is broken. And when you leave, please send in my secretary. I need to have some words with her."
The agent, recognising that the matter must have been extremely important and dangerous, just nodded and left my office without a word.
It wouldn't be long until Miranda came in, but I tried to use those few moments to put myself back together.
I didn't know how successful I had been when she entered my office, perhaps for the last time in the foreseeable future, but it would be enough, it had to be enough.
"Come in, Yvonne," I called out to the woman standing inside the door frame, "I need you to arrange a meeting with someone."