Chapter 1
Twenty Years after the end of the First Reaper War…The station was entering the fourth cycle, usually at the height of its silence. Kahlee Sanders quickly paced down the hallway, half looking where she was going, half studying the notifications streaming over her OMNI Tool.
The role as Director of New Grissom; the successor to the old Academy demolished by Cerberus during the Reaper Wars, was rather overtaxing than the old days. Now they weren’t just an Alliance funded organization, but actually came under the umbrella of the Citadel government; the Council that basically held itself up as the galactic government made up of various member races of which Humanity had remained a prominent participant since gaining a Council seat following the victory against the Geth in the Eden Prime War. The Citadel Council had undergone a massive shake up following the Reaper’s incursion into the galaxy and as a result: no longer possessed the stability it once had and thus: everything had become fumbled and increased the amount of political nonsense that they had to wade through every day.
I’m starting to realize just how much Anderson hated being a politician… Kahlee mused, remembering her old lover. David had sadly been another casualty of the war, one more dead hero. Same could be said about a lot of the Reaper War’s heroes. The fallout of the war had cost them so dearly that even now decades later; they were struggling to rebuild worlds that felt the Reaper’s wraith all those years ago.
They also had to deal with the massive influx of more alien nations into Citadel Space. At the end of the Battle for Earth, when the Reaper controlled Citadel fired some kind of pulse across the Mass Relay network, it temporarily overloaded the network and disabled the relays. Only hours later, the Relays successfully recharged their energy reserves and reactivated… all of them. Previously sealed dormant relays that Council law had prohibited opening now were left wide open, and of course, every space fairing race near a Relay had their curiosity drawn to the very origins of the pulse that had swept across the galaxy. As a result, the Council made first contact with several new space fairing races within a single decade.
Kahlee; so overly focused on the OMNI Tool glowing in front of her, almost bumped into Shawn Keln as she reached another junction. New Grissom’s security chief reacted fast, quickly hopping back out of the way.
“Sorry, Keln, I didn’t see you coming.” Kahlee quickly apologized, though Keln didn’t seem that bothered by it.
“No worries, Director Sanders. I was just coming to find you anyway. There is something that Banner wanted me to pass onto you.” Keln nodded, seemingly smiling. Kahlee had no qualms with the security chief the Alliance had assigned to the station, yet she couldn’t feel that Keln was out of place, and rightly so. At the old Academy, Hendrel Mitra had been the head of security and ever since he left following the calamity in the Ascension program, it just hadn’t felt the same since.
In the end, Hendrel had met his end on Omega, at the very hands of one of the Biotic students he had hoped to save… Kahlee brushed the painful thought from memory, trying to not show any of the sorrow buried within. She had left those memories behind years ago, Nick, Hendrel and Gillian… it was something she was never able to forget, nor live down ever.
“Right, what is it?” Kahlee questioned, motioning for Keln to keep walking with her. The security chief was slightly formal and never casually addressed her the same way the old guards used to do. The fact that the New Grissom Academy had grown so wide in the last few years had caused it loose that bit of personalization that use to make it such a brilliant place that Kahlee missed.
“Councillor Valern recently contacted us. The Salarian Union would once more requests to enrol more citizens… you know the rest, Director.” Keln told her, quickly going over what was already such a common occurrence. The Salarians wanted to wash their hands of more Biotics and quickly so. Not like it was within Kahlee’s power to refuse the request. The Salarians had been handing over Hatchlings with Biotic potential ever since New Grissom’s opening to avoid the worst of the Underground revolts. The less Biotics, the less trouble they had later on.
“Were well within capacity to welcome further students, Keln.” Kahlee answered, scanning over the relevant information on her OMNI Tool. Their new station had plenty of room to accommodate all, and with a lot to spare… New Grissom was actually built inside of what use to be Cronos Station; seized by the Alliance near the end of the war. After a decade of remaining nothing more than debris, when the Biotic Underground finally put enough pressure on the Council to approve of the New Grissom Project, they had taken what use to be Cronos Station and completely scrapped the interior and built a whole new facility inside.
The new bright white and blue Alliance standard paint job on the outside at least had done well enough to clear up the dark foreboding environment that the original station had once been. To Kahlee, it only seemed fitting that they should take the Illusive Man’s headquarters and repurpose it into their own new home since he had destroyed their previous Academy. The Alliance had completely removed the old interior, so no Reaper Indoctrination devices or Cerberus technology remained thankfully. That was at least comforting, because it haunted Kahlee about what immoral experiments would have been conducted within Cronos, especially when the memory of Grayson came to mind.
With a quick hiss, the doors to Kahlee’s office popped open and the two proceeded inside. It made perfect sense to convert where the Illusive Man’s own office used to dwell into that for the Director of the facility. While the large section had been divided up into three separate offices for the head staff of the facility, as director, Kahlee’s office was centre. The window that was the far wall gave a spectacular view of Elysium in which New Grissom orbited, which caused nearly all to awe at the magnificent spectacle.
Kahlee quickly strolled around her desk and sat back down in her chair, turning to face Keln once again. With such a striking image in the background, it had always made the office seem so… majestic. The sheer extravagance always seem to give impression of power and control, something that was polar opposite of what was now true for the Director of the Academy. The grinding jurisdiction of the Council was a constant headache.
“I’ll contact Clive soon and tell him that I’ll approve the request.” Kahlee nodded, already stunned by the dozens of holographic notification pop ups that shot out of her console as soon as it finished identifying her. She quickly dragged them all aside, motioning a toss that sent the holographic pop ups flying out of the way.
“If everyone keeps dumping their Biotics here, that capacity will pretty much peak soon.” Keln commented, not managing to hide the slight grin that formed as the console continued to bombard notifications. Even with Clive Banner now handling external requests and communications, the number of things that still ended up on Kahlee’s desk was enormous.
“Actually, our facility only occupies half the internal room of the station so far.” Kahlee answered; repeating information that Keln obviously knew, yet maybe needed repeated, or maybe Kahlee had gotten so use to explaining the place so many times to all those visitors… still quickly flicking over the notifications, Kahlee continued. “With each student, each different government is contributing an amount to the budget that is necessary to upkeep the facility.”
“Sometimes, I think the constant additions will never end…” Keln shook his head. The former security chief wasn’t a Biotic himself; one more difference he had from Hendrel, but was more sympathetic to their condition than most in Council Space these days anyway. Since New Grissom’s founding nine years ago, Keln had proven himself quite capable in keeping the myriad populace in check. He was one of the few on this station that still shared Kahlee’s own opinion on the Biotic situation.
Ever since the revival of the Biotic Underground at least five years after the end of the war, known space had undergone a rapid decline in Biotic acceptance. The Underground; promoting Biotic dominance; believing that the galaxy should be ruled by the most powerful Biotics and the Biotics alone, had terrorized everyone from the furthest fringes of the Terminus to Systems Alliance space. With the addition of the Raloi to the Council’s many associate species; who absolutely despised all Biotics, had contributed to the total downslide to everything Kahlee had worked for ever since the beginning of the Ascension Program.
Many of her former Biotic pupils had returned to her, now afraid for their lives. Murder of Biotic individuals was now common place throughout Council Space, while outright slaughter of any who showed any sign of Biotic power was now common in the Terminus and Traverse.
Kahlee had proposed to the Alliance to reopen the Ascension Program and attempt to turn Biotic-Non-Biotic relations around, but the proposal was instantly dropped. Eventually, when the Council had finally put forward their own proposal to create a new Biotic program for all of the Council races that possessed non-natural Biotics, Kahlee had been ecstatic. She soon quickly realized however, that her motivations were completely different to that of the Council’s.
While she saw the new Biotic Program as a way to help shelter and improve the lives of Biotics, the Council saw it as a Biotic dumping ground, trusting in the facility to make sure that every last student who graduated was a good little citizen, who would never draw upon their Biotic powers ever again if it were not in the benefit of their government. This clash in principles had already spilled out more than once, very uglily…
“I better get back to my shift, Director. I’ll see you later.” Keln told her, turning to leave. Lost in thought, perhaps Kahlee had lost track of how long Keln might have been standing there, waiting for a response. The security chief had figured the conversation was over and quickly left. The door quickly sealed back behind Keln, with an almost silent hiss.
Kahlee exhaled and quickly turned back to the notifications on screen. Despite filling up only half the Illusive Man’s former base of operations, New Grissom was a monumental operation far larger than the original Grissom Academy. There was a section for each species, which then had to house their students, instructors and facilities. Managing all this while dealing with the ever tightening demands of the Council, the tasks simply to oversee New Grissom had become so much that she had delegated much of the work regarding incoming requests and handling operations to others now and yet it still managed to stack up.
If they could just throw the regulations that the Council gave them out the airlock, then they could save a hell of a lot more time; maybe even cut it in half.
Kahlee finally managed to cut the notifications down to only what was immediately important remained. Councillor Valern’s request; more of another Council order, already lay waiting, along with another scolding letter from the Hierarchy. The Turians were definitely not fans of Biotics and it was accepted fact that all Biotic individuals were exiled from normal society. Of course, the Turians believed rigorous discipline and harsh enforcement was the way to end the Biotic uprisings; something Kahlee saw as very stubbornly short-sighted. Attempting to enforce obedience through fear and an iron fist only widened the gap between them and the Biotics. Of all things the Turians disapproved of, was the way that young Turian Biotics learning at new Grissom were taught.
The Hierarchy was only one step down from the Raloi on the list of offenders. While the Raloi themselves were civilized enough to gain an embassy with the Council, there hatred and fear of Biotics was beyond unreasonable. To them, Biotics were unholy demons, to be purged regardless on intent. Hopefully, for their own sake, they overcame the prejudice with time. After all, it had taken the Salarians quite some decades after contact to finally get the Turians to realize that Biotic powers were related to Element Zero exposure and not powers from the divinities.
At least the Raloi’s desire to gain acceptance in the galactic community meant they never had spoken a word about New Grissom, nor about the fact that Biotics were allowed to continue existing within other species. It had been some hell of pride swallowing for the Raloi to try and stay on good terms with the Council Members, especially the all-Biotic Asari who held dominance over the political landscape of the Citadel.
The fact that the Raloi exterminated or outright crudely lobotomized; usually also resulting in death, newborn with Element Zero exposure was still a lingering infamy placed on their kind, though Kahlee knew not all Raloi held outright hatred for Biotics. That was why a single Raloi student was present on New Grissom, in the special department section; just one more thing the Council had given her hell for.
Kahlee let the Hierarchy’s complaints stay where they were for now, perhaps to be forwarded on to Jerix Vadern; their head Turian instructor, later on. Councillor Valern’s request however, required the reply most likely immediately. The document was quickly printed and then scanned back in with the necessary signatures, ready to be forwarded on to Banner for return.
Salarians were just one of the races that were present at New Grissom. Along with the obvious Humans and Turians, they also had a number of Quarians since the Underground movement had somehow reached Rannoch. Led by an exiled Biotic; Rasna Carn Vas Kather, the Underground had allied themselves with an extremist group known as
Kaoc’Salow; who were anti-Geth to the extreme. The faction had caused quite a stir out in the Perseus Veil, where the Quarians were finally beginning to reach a point where life on their reclaimed home world was normality, while maintaining a quite difficult peace with the Geth.
There had been a climbing rise in the number of Quarian Biotics since the end of the war also. With the newer medical upgrades, Element Zero exposure now didn’t mean almost certain death to any individual; which prior to their return to Rannoch, an Element Zero leak could wipe out an entire ship’s crew. The treacherous operation of decommissioning a large number of now unnecessary Migrant Fleet vessels had seen a rather large amount of Element Zero leaked, which had caused the initial rise.
Amongst the Quarians was the least likely place where Kahlee had expected the Biotic Underground to fester, yet combined with the rise of Biotic individuals and anti-Geth insurgents, it somehow had established a well sized foothold. The message was less Biotic Supremacy and more in favour of evicting the Geth from the Perseus Veil once and for all, but the Underground remained the same.
Quarians never usually separated from families, especially parents from offspring, but once word had begun to spread that the Underground had begun to abduct Biotic sensitive children in order to train them to join their ranks, the government on Rannoch had opened negotiations with the Council to open their own section on New Grissom and had joined the Council in assisting with working to eliminate the Underground movement.
The Underground’s goals and methods was the every reason while Kahlee despised them. They took promising young children and adults and turned them into killers, just like Nick… just like Gillian…. At the time, she had blamed the Underground, Aria T’Loak and Cerberus for their deaths, but as time passed, the lingering thought that perhaps it was her own teachings that led them down that path chewed away at her. Hendrel always said that perhaps her methods were too soft and didn’t properly teach them appreciation of what they had… Too many now were just like Nick and Gillian. Ever since New Grissom went into operation, she had been constantly studying old student records and making note of what worked and what didn’t…
Of course, using Nick and Gillian as examples was perhaps too harsh on herself. Many of the students from the old academy had gone on to live rather pleasant and normal lives until the Underground made it unlivable for them. Many had returned to work as staff for New Grissom, others…
Kahlee brushed the thought aside, trying to regain focus and return to work. A lot of additional messages could be forwarded onto Clive and the rest was destined for deletion. More numerous complaints were deleted, not even worth opening up to read. If there was something worse than the Council’s constant pressure, it was the critics outside that assumed they had the ‘expertise’ to judge how she managed the facility. While the Alliance had at least proven to be a backer, there were still many people out there who thought Biotics should be lobotomized, something which no one should ever have to accept.
At times like this, it made the new war against the Underground’s insurgency seem worse that what the vids made it seem. Council Task Forces had been unable to locate the backwater frontier worlds which the Underground likely used as bases to launch operations throughout Citadel Space, let alone come anywhere close to capturing any of the Underground’s Leadership Council.
The Underground wasn’t the only problem the Council was facing, but it was the one that was a serious threat to the Citadel itself. The Biotic Underground would not stop until they toppled the Citadel Council altogether and installed a Biotic meritocracy. It seemed to distract the entire of Council Space away from other issues, such as the struggles of the new Bartarian Common Republic, the alien civilizations still finding their way into Council Space through the expanded Relay System and the bloody Sephicai Civil War between Pro-Council and Separatist Forces.
Kahlee stopped, gazing at her console. The screen had finally been cleared and the notification tab was mercifully greyed out. That concluded yet another update, and it was only ten units into the one hundred and twenty unit cycle. The timing was rather complex on New Grissom as the cycles had been arranged to keep a scheduled timetable in each section. Each unit was the equivalent to two earth minutes, so each cycle contained four hours and there were six cycles a day. Complex, but complexity was necessary.
The segregated sections never mingled together, and usually never even saw each other. Lighting and time tables were arranged so that facilities could be shared across sections. While one section could be asleep, another could be at midday or another at dawn.
Currently, now that her last updates for today were complete, Section A; home to New Grissom’s Human students and central administration, was currently at night, and it was time to sleep for tomorrow… yet, like every other restless night, Kahlee didn’t feel one bit tired. Perhaps it was nothing more than the caffeine, but the energy was welcome none the less. Section G was currently at mid-day and a small walk wouldn’t take that long…
With the door closing behind her and automatically clicking locked as she left, Kahlee walked back down the corridor to the elevator. Everything was as usual and nobody but the monitoring VI’s possibly spotted her departure. Even if one of the guards including Keln spotted her, their glance possibly wouldn’t last more than a few seconds. Clive was possibly the only one casual enough to slip in a comment that maybe his overworked boss should rest instead of continuously wander.
The elevator rolled open and again: it was deserted. It wasn’t long before she was stepping out in Section G. The sudden sharp rise in lighting from the dimmed halls of Section A was stressful on the eyes and Kahlee instinctively placed her hands onto her face to block out the incoming light until they could adjust. Blinking rapidly, Kahlee refocused and moved onward. She could hear the far off clatter and noise coming from the training halls that were parallel to Section F, who were currently would be asleep by this cycle, allowing for the small Special Development Section to use the training rooms. Kahlee followed the noise, following it the source at a brisk pace.
Maybe after all this time, she had adjusted to the lack of sleep and constant movement. Walks through Section G at the usual Terran standard of night wasn’t anything new, actually now quite regular since Banner had taken up quite some work at assisting in Administration, easing the work load from working till falling asleep to something at least manageable. Hopefully, in the next annual meeting, they could renegotiate with the Council Regulations Board to change their operating guidelines so that tasks could be delegated to more administration personnel instead of coming directly to the Director’s desk, but the Council’s grasp were tighter on the regulations than a Pyjak on Sala fruit. Addition of extra admin personnel only widened the system which the Underground could exploit to gather intelligence on them.
Spies could be anywhere, and an Underground operative at New Grissom was nothing new. They had rooted out three in their nine year history operating alone; who were trying to get a closer glimpse at whatever new Biotic upgrades they had here. Unfortunately, since the closure on the Biotic Guild by Council order, advances in Biotic Amps had almost ceased. That drove the Underground to more desperate, dangerous methods on getting their hands on new technology.
Such technology couldn’t be found here anymore though for the Citadel races as the Council had gotten around to prohibiting them from using modified Amp technology like they did before the war. The result was a lot of ineffectual, painful and rather out-dated Amp Technology which was fine by the Council. The results coming from the old L3 Implants were generating even lower results than that at the beginning of the Ascension program. This decrease in Biotic efficiency was exactly what they intended… it also happened to increase the pain and suffering which Biotics received from their Amps.
This didn’t mean that that outside Council Space has to adhere to this regulation. The Geth had done wonders in creating new technology to assist in Biotic Amplification for the Quarians, and now it seemed the only area of research on New Grissom that interested Kahlee. She had never seen a Geth platform and had only come into contact with their combined ‘Consensus’ that apparently according to Ela’Saal Vas Grissom; the chief Quarian instructor that the new Rannoch government had posted here to assist them, existed on New Grissom between the Geth were installed in the Quarian’s environmental suits, assisting their hosts and operating out of there. The Geth programs, combined with the Amp upgrades they developed, had allowed the Quarian’s own result scores to jump higher than even that of an Asari with some of the older students.
The resident Geth had also agreed to assist in developing Amplification technology for those categorized under Section G; Special Development; who asides from the small Bartarian group, had no technology to assist in their Biotic powers and as a result: have difficulty and severe pain in utilizing their Biotic capabilities. With a few tweaks to a few existing Amp designs, the Geth programs that existed within New Grissom managed to develop a new Amplifiers for the three different non-Council races present in Section G.
The speed at which the Geth had developed and created the devices was staggering if not a little scary to most staff. There work was quality though, and had helped improve progress in Section’s F and G significantly.
Finally following the clatter to its source, Kahlee located the training hall where those under Section G were gathered. There were only sixty three of them, special cases in which their place here had only been given on humanitarian grounds rather than direct contribution to the station’s running costs as the Council regulations demanded. Kahlee always had the enduring thought that if push came to shove with the Council’s budget allocation, then Section G would be the first place on New Grissom to be cut; the Council had already tried twice. If it wasn’t useful in their efforts to repel the Underground, then it had no place in their scheme here.
There was a buzz before the doors parted and slid open, revealing a wide hall very familiar to Kahlee. The wide hall served as a practice range for both Section G and F, so that the Quarians and those in Special Development both used this room periodically. Unlike in Sections A to E where the Council had pretty much banned any attempt by Kahlee to further train the Biotics to manage and enhance their power instead of just controlling and concealing it, the Quarians nor any in SD were under any Council regulations on their training methods or teachings, and as such: they were still allowed to actively practice offensive Biotic techniques such as creating waves of energy to defend themselves form attackers.
Kahlee’s attention was immediately caught as one of the test rag dolls was tossed at least thirty meters back, rolling across the floor until coming to a limp stop. A few dozen more were sent rolling back or skidding along the floor, but no more accomplished to go airborne. Kahlee paced up the range, watching as another row of targets were set up before having waves of Biotic force applied to them. One actually splintered; its arm flying loose, as the combined throws struck it, before lifting up and crashing back down only four meters away from where it once stood. By time Kahlee reached the end of the range, the last eleven stood up and unleashed a Biotic wave that yielded slightly less results.
The head instructor of Section G, Doctor Evatt Ress, was too busy recording results on his clipboard to notice Kahlee’s presence unlike his two aides, the Bartarian: Tnev Hah’Kuh and the Sephi: Naela Sa. Tnev tilted his head leftward; a traditional sign of respect in Bartarian body language. Kahlee returned the gesture; well familiar with the quite simple Bartarian tradition. Only when Tnev made a rather signalling tapping noise with his right foot, did Evatt look up to spot the Director, a rather embarrassed smile on his face.
“Ah! Dir- Kahlee.” Evatt corrected his own mistake, seemingly never having gotten use to the fact that his boss was not one for titles. The Doctor was of a mixed Eastern European-Asian descent, and his features always seemed to remind Kahlee of Jiro from the original Academy. Unlike the Cerberus spy however, Evatt was quite bumbling compared to Jiro’s apparent brilliance. “On another tour of Section G tonight, I see?”
“Well, it is morning here, Evatt.” Kahlee commented, still studying the fallen rag dolls scattered across the training range. “And this is the most fascinating Section of New Grissom.”
“Certainly is a fr-…” Evatt stopped mid-sentence, perhaps getting ahead of himself as always. Tnev simply snorted, as Evatt began again. The two were pretty much stereotypical in the fact that they did not get along, something that Evatt ignored most of the time. Tnev had stopped tilting his head right at Evatt after the first two years working together, perhaps getting over it or finally sure that the Human would never understand the gesture.
“We were just in the middle of a standard strength test, just seeing how far the rag dolls will fly. We’re seeing some remarkable progress with the latest modification to the Amps. Tnev tells me that Camei Distributes actually seeks to purchase the Amp design utilized with our Bartarian pupils here.”
“That sounds fantastic, Tnev.” Kahlee told him, quite fascinated with the improvements herself.
“It is praise long time coming, considering all the work I put into the devices.” Tnev huffed, quite pleased with himself.
“Tnev steals too much credit. The machine constructs did a lot of toil putting the devices together.” Naela commented, the Sephicai bumping Tnev on the shoulder slightly with a slight wave of Biotic energy so small that Kahlee had only seen Naela shift her own shoulder to motion it.
The Sephi Biotic was significantly tall; like the rest of her kind, standing at least hall taller than Evatt, making everyone else in the room seem quite small in comprehension. Originating from the rather dense jungles of their home world: Atherius, the Sephi were very similar to the ancestors of Humanity in their primitive homo-sapien appearance, with rather colorful fur covering most of their large bodies. The Sephicai home world’s constant hostile nature had led them to a point that the only attire them seemed to have developed was light body armor that protected them. Though their armors were commonly grey, the Sephi were much more colorful with bright clan colorings alike to the Turians own designs. Naela was quite fascinating herself, with dark red fur with coral blue streaks running across her head all the way down to her back.
The Sephi were one of the newer races from the Danali Cluster, connected by the expanded active Relay network, who had been driven to the brink of extinction following their home world's destruction at the hands of the Reapers during the Second Reaper War. Their first contact with the Council races was quite positive and at first, it seemed like the Sephicai would be willing to accept the offer to become an associate member of the Citadel Council. Unfortunately, an alliance of clans hostile to the proposal made a move to overthrow the current regent for the current Kaloph; the leader of the Sephicai’s united clans, and install a new regent who would maintain their worlds complete independence from Council Space. Thus, a bloody civil war yet unsolved to this day had begun.
That had eventually led to the Pro-Council Regency requesting shelter for a small group of Biotic potentials on New Grissom, away from the war which was devastating their worlds. Naela had come with them, and had trained the group of forty ever since.
“You forget that I came up with the idea, and I was the one that prototyped early models… felt like an inferno in my head…” Tnev defended his claim to credit. Naela’s only response was light hearted laugh. “Besides, they didn’t want any credit anyhow. The new G-6N Amps are far more powerful than any stock brand we could purchase from the Common Republic’s traders.” Tnev proudly claimed. Kahlee also reckoned not only producing their own Amps here but also selling the superior designs would also lessen the load on Section G’s already diminutive budget.
“Maybe some time if the work load lightens up, I could show you the results data from the last few months. Sless has made some magnificent progress herself.” Of course, Evatt was referring to the single Raloi present at New Grissom. The avian alien looked even more out of place in the group, small and slender in the number of Bartarians and Sephicai.
Resembling birds far more than the hawk like Turians, the Raloi were the only known sentient and civilized air borne species in the explored galaxy. Covered in dark brown feathers and with rather large yellow eyes, Kahlee admittedly thought that Sless was a large wild Xeno bird than a member of an actual sentient species the first time she saw the Raloi. Only young, Sless was half the height of Kahlee herself, quite small compared to the rather tall Sephi children around her; who already stood tall at ten Terran years at the height of an average Human’s shoulders.
Sless’s parents were from the Citadel, living there as part of the ambassadorial staff that returned after the end of the Reaper Wars. When the parents found their young had exceptional Element Zero exposure; so much that it would be highly likely that obvious Biotic ability would eventually reveal itself, and the Raloi’s own equivalent to doctors would ‘purify’ Sless mortal shell; a rather crude lobotomy Kahlee guessed after all she had read about the Raloi since Sless arrived. Instead of resigning their child to fate, Sless’s parents had brought her to the Asari Embassy, hoping at least they would be sympathetic to a Biotic enough to help. They had fortunately guess right enough, as the Asari had Sless transferred to New Grissom Academy, something that the Raloi had never ever investigated, yet obviously knew what had happened. Sless’s parents were withdrawn from the Ambassadorial staff back to their home world and had never followed up on their updates as promised nor had ever been heard from again by the Academy. Sless had quite a rough life being mixed in with Section G.
Raloi were meant to fly, and there was little; if not none, widely open enough spaces here for Sless to properly stretch out and even attempt to learn flight. From what Kahlee had heard from Naela, when alone, Sless would jump in the air and flap her wings, perhaps in some instinctive urge to take flight.
“I assume Sless was responsible for the thirty meter throw when I first entered the room?” Kahlee already knew that Sless was one of the Section’s standouts. Add the fact that the Geth had been only able to create a rather underpowered Amp for the Raloi; Kahlee knew that Sless had a lot of potential. Sadly though, Kahlee always wondered what kind of future Sless would have when she finally matured to adult status and had to leave. Undoubtedly, the only place the Raloi Biotic would ever be welcomed would be the Biotic Underground; who had a personnel vendetta against the Raloi’s Anti-Biotic policy, and that always chilled Kahlee.
“You always guess right.” Evatt nodded enthusiastically, checking over a Data Pad that rested against his clipboard. “Bal also has made some serious progress also.” Evatt commented, referring to the nickname he had given Balei; the most promising Sephi in the group, just to shorten it a bit. “Though has some problems actually throwing the target instead of breaking it apart.”
“Unfocused force is usual for young,” Naela clarified, quite proud of her charges progress. “He’ll learn in time.”
“I hope so. I’m the one who has to glue all the dummies back together before Ela’Saal yells at me again.” Tnev criticized, gruff as always. “No matter what they say, OMNI Gel is not applicable to everything.”
“Amusing,” Naela’s comment almost mimicked that of an Elcor's own sentence structure, “What is this OMNI Gel that you keep speaking of?”
“It’s something which has caused me a hell of a lot of headaches over the years…” Tnev sighed, already looking down to check the OMNI Gel dispenser attachment on his wrist. Hopefully, he could piece them back together before the fifth Cycle came about.
“I’ve distracted you for long enough.” Kahlee began to notice some of the younger Bartarians beginning to attempt to lift and toss some of the broken targets some more behind the three Section G instructors. “You should really get back to your work.”
“Yes!” Evatt exclaimed, clapping his hand against the clipboard. “We need to move onto lifting exercises in Room F07…”
Kahlee turned and began to walk back to the entrance, automatically activating her OMNI Tool to see if any further notifications had appeared. As always, there was a dozen more; including one marked as top priority from Councillor Tevos, which could only be read from her private terminal back in Section A. If it was top priority, it couldn’t be something left waiting.
Kahlee quickly stepped out of the room just as she could hear a target dummy smashing against the wall, quickly followed by Tnev’s angry yelling…