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“Just a friend?” Anax pressed The quarian said nothing
Borbala Ferank barged in as any easily bored batarian would “Listen to me, Malak’Rafa This ship is under attack So to help that along and the captain says it waswith yourabout it But everyone has their reasons I’m sure you didn’t mean it Let us help you”
Therion winced Risky She would never have been so forward This hy she detested the whole frah of bad cops in her life Bad cops were sloppy Bad cops shot their clip too soon
“I his head “I have known Qetsi’Olam since ere both children on board the Chayyether When the geth attacked our birth ship, only Qetsi and I survived I know her better than the sister I never had We took our Pilgriether at the salarian biodiversity station When those racist little insects pulled their hazing stunt and co, I nursed her back to health We developed the vapor-biotic to cleanse her lungs of that crawling yelik algae together, and brought it back to our hoether, to find a new hope for our people We took our first wounds together fighting the geth And we took ether with the Initiative to build this ark and fly it beyond the visible stars Twins are less close than we are Qetsi’Olam would suspect her oo hands before she suspected me”
Anax Therion was no novice She had spent her ti personnel files while the others laughed and talked and drank and danced Only on that last night had she joined them, joined Soval… She suppressed the memory Soval didn’t matter now, except as evidence She knew very ho Malak’Rafa was She’d planned to use it in seven to nine ed
Malak’Rafa shocked her The quarian reached out and squeezed her hand tenderly “If I knew anything, Anax, I would tell you, I pro at all unusual I think o and see the captain She’ll tell you I’d never do anything to harm any ship, least of all this one”
“The proble happened on your watch, Malak And it’s enormously important that we find out what it was Were you ever separated from your team, for any amount of time?” Therion asked “Maybe it wasn’t you Maybe one of your friends snuck off while you weren’t looking”
“No,” Malak’Rafa said quickly Too quickly He hardly let the drell finish her question “We were either in visual range of each other or on live vidfeed throughout the cycle Yellow-9 follows protocol”
Therion sat back Interesting She knew for a fact that was a lie She’d watched all the teae She hadn’t expected him to lie She didn’t think he himself was actually at fault, the way Borbala presu She only assuht have missed That shadow in the shadows, that persistent e of the ca?
Borbala got up and started pacing, e her role as an impatient, embittered policeman “What about Jalosk Dal’Virra?” the batarian barked “Did he seem normal to you? Any effects from cryostasis? Any odd behavior?”
“Jalosk? No He’s… He’s a good worker, I suppose Finished early And then hung around Kholai like a lovesick puppy I think he was actually starting to believe that hanar’s depressing drivel”
“What drivel?” coaxed Anax, sitting up straight “That Day of Extinguishment nonsense?”
The quarian nodded, glancing nervously at the pacing Ferank “You must have heard it on Hephaestus, it’s just… constant Like a broken vidscreen But after we shared our finalOn Hephaestus and on our cycle I felt a great deal of pity for hihing, but soon enough you weep, and then you slide into the black and do not co Kholai said to me before it went back into stasis was: The only peace in the universe is entropy I will see you at the end of all things, my brother That’s one of their hyood for them I hoped… I hoped beyond hope that in Andromeda, they would see the possibility of a new life rather than the certainty of death How beautiful so new coul
d be And then… And then, just before he left for the batarian cryodeck, Dal’Virra said the sas”
“And that didn’t seehed