So how was it possible for the asari councillor to decide on her own to grant this request?

As she reached the elevator and stepped inside, the explanation finally popped into her head. Somehow they had anticipated her request before she’d even broached the subject. They must have known where she was leading them, and discussed it during the brief conference after she had mentioned Edan Had’dah. They had already decided how they would respond long before she ever brought the subject up.

Ambassador Goyle had thought she was in control, driving the negotiations to manipulate the Council to her best advantage, like she had at the previous meeting. She’d caught them off guard last time, but this time they’d been ready for her. They were the ones who’d been in control, walking her through the

script like actors in a play, knowing the final outcome all along. And only in the final moment of the scene had they tipped their hand, a subtle revelation of the truth they must have known she would pick up on.

Riding down in the elevator, Ambassador Goyle tried to take solace in the knowledge that she had gotten exactly what she’d wanted out of the meeting. But she wasn’t used to being outmaneuvered, and she couldn’t help wondering if she had made a mistake.

Why had the Council been so eager to grant her request? Did they really think humanity was ready for this? Or were they expecting Anderson to fail, then hoping to use that failure as an excuse to hold the Alliance back?

If nothing else, the experience had given her a whole new respect for the Council and their understanding of negotiations and diplomacy. She considered herself a student of politics, and now she was very aware she had just been schooled at the feet of the masters.

They’d sent her an unmistakable message: they knew how to play this game as well as she. Whatever advantage the Alliance might have had in dealing with the Council, it was gone. The next time she had to face them, the ambassador realized, she’d be constantly second-guessing herself. No matter how

prepared or careful she was, in the back of her mind there’d be that lingering uncertainty: was she leading the negotiations, or being led?

And she had no doubt that this was exactly what the Council wanted.

“We’re almost there, Lieutenant Sanders,” the driver told her, shouting to be heard above the engine of the six-wheeled armored personnel carrier as it bounced along the hard-packed desert sand outside Hatre. “Just a few more klicks to the rendezvous site.”

In addition to the driver, five other Alliance marines rode in the APC with her; a security detail pulled together at the last minute to protect her until she was off world. She and the driver sat up front, the rest of the crew were huddled together in the back. Four of the marines had already been on Camala when the orders came, the other two had arrived from Elysium the previous night in response to the instructions issued from Alliance HQ.

Their vehicle was batarian, loaned to the Alliance by local authorities at the “request” of the Council. It was all part of the deal the ambassador had worked out to get her safely off Camala and back to Alliance territory.

The engine whined as they climbed one of the immense sand dunes that stretched across the landscape out beyond the horizon toward the setting sun. In another twenty minutes it would be dark, but by then she’d already be aboard the Alliance frigate coming to pick her up.

“I’m surprised the batarians agreed to this,” the driver shouted again, making conversation. “They don’t normally authorize landings outside the spaceports. Especially not for Alliance vessels.”

She understood his curiosity. He knew something big was going on, but his orders were simply to drive her out to the pickup. He had no way of knowing about her connection to Sidon, and nobody had told him about the shady backroom deals Ambassador Goyle must have made with the Council to make this happen. Kahlee stayed silent: she sure as hell wasn’t about to fill him in.

She wondered how much the Alliance had given up in exchange for this concession. What kind of bargain had they struck? Anderson probably had some idea, but he had barely said a dozen words to her in the two days following her admission in the hotel room.

Not that she blamed him. He’d trusted her and she’d used him, at least in his eyes. Kahlee knew all too well how much betrayal could sting. And now she was being whisked off to some unknown location for

her protection, while Anderson was staying behind on Camala to try and hunt down Dr. Qian.

She thought a lot about trying to contact him again after all this was over. At first she’d been drawn to him out of need: she was scared and alone, and she had needed someone to cling to besides a gruff, prickly father whom she barely knew. But even though they’d only been together a few days, she got the sense that there was a chance they could have become more than just friends.

Unfortunately, she doubted he’d want anything more to do with her now. Not after how she’d hurt him. The realization that she’d probably never see him again hit her harder than she would have expected.

“Hang on, ma’am!” the driver suddenly called out, startling her from her maudlin thoughts as he wrenched the wheel and veered them sharply off course, nearly flipping the vehicle in the process. “We’ve got company!”

From his perch on a rocky outcropping several kilometers away, Saren could just make out, against the glare of the setting sun, the silhouette of the APC carrying First Lieutenant Kahlee Sanders.

When he’d received the mission update from the Citadel Council yesterday he’d gone through the full spectrum of emotions. He began with outrage. They were ordering him to work with a human! And all because the Council felt it necessary to reward the Alliance for sharing information about the investigation into Sidon. Information Saren had already managed to figure out on his own!

He knew Edan Had’dah was behind the attack. But because he’d kept that information from the Council, he had to pretend to be grateful to the Alliance for handing it over to him. Now he had to allow one of

the humans to work with him as he completed the mission. And not just any human, but that damnable

Lieutenant Anderson, who kept interfering with his investigation.

But as he’d continued reading the update, his anger gave way to curiosity. He’d known about the batarian’s involvement, but not about the extraordinary alien technology referenced in the files recovered from Sidon. Though there were few details, it seemed as if the artifact could be a relic dating all the way back to the Prothean extinction.

Saren had always been intrigued by the sudden and unexplained disappearance of the Protheans. What kind of unimaginable string of events, what kind of catastrophic occurrence, could cause an empire that spanned the known galaxy to vanish in less than a century? Virtually all traces of the Protheans had been wiped out; only the mass relays and Citadel survived, the enduring legacy of a once great people.

Hundreds of explanations had been put forward, yet these were all nothing but theories and speculation. The truth about the Prothean extinction was still a mystery… and this ancient alien technology could be one of the keys to unraveling it.

From what he could piece together from Qian’s research notes, he suspected they had found some type of ship or orbiting space station. One with AI capabilities to self-monitor and even repair all its vital systems without the need for organic caretakers like the keepers back on the Citadel.

Delving deeper, it seemed the doctor believed the discovery could one day be used to forge an alliance with the geth… or possibly even control them. The implications were staggering: a massive army of synthetics, billions of troops whose absolute loyalty could be assured if one could somehow understand and influence their AI thought processes.