The projected image is slightly askew, distorted by the angle of the viewer, but the frustration within it is crystal clear. "I'm telling you for the last time, Ambassador, there have been no rogue mechs dispatched from the facility and there is certainly no rogue VI. My team has combed every crate, panel, and terminal from the entry hatch to the core and found nothing but standard export logs." The image flickers as the officer contained within rubs her forehead. "Every mech has been confirmed by their arrival locations. Every mech has been accounted for as either received or destroyed. None of them - I repeat - none of them are coming after you."
The small squirrelly man on the other side of the projector slams his fist down on his desk - not hard enough to hurt himself, but hard enough to enhance the point his bulging veins are already making. Ambassador Udina is very angry. "Check again, Durand. My intelligence was very clear on this matter. That my life seems to hinge upon your incompetence is a hardship I am unprepared to accept. In fact this entire debacle is completely unacceptable. You will check again and you will do it now. Your men must have missed something. Do not make me send reinforcements after you."
The hologram gazes at him coolly. "With all due respect sir, another check would not only be simply redundant, it would be triply so. We do not have the manpower to continue chasing down every errant threat that comes your way. Frankly, I am not even certain why this mission was sanctioned to go on for as long as it has. We are returning to base."
Udina's eyes narrow, the shade of his face morphs from red to purple as he stabs a finger at thin air. "Now you listen to me, you half-rate excuse for an officer. You will clear this matter up or I will have you court-martialed."
A hand on the other side of the projection leaves the viewing plane, reaching for an unseen button. "I don't answer to you." Click. The image is gone.
In the silence left by the absence of the holographic hum, the ambassador leans over his desk, pressing a palm to each temple. It's almost as though he is going to pull out his own hair in effort to stop the pain of impotence. Moments tick by, delicious moments of pure retribution.
The time for waiting ends as it must. Cloaking devices do not last forever. Neither does patience. He needs to see the enemy he has made. Emerging from the empty air by the window to see the look on this small man's face is a luxury that can be afforded now, but it must be kept brief. "Hard when they won't believe you, isn't it?"
"You!" To his credit, Udina shifts from defeated to predatory in record-setting time. "I should have known you were involved here. The Council will have a field day when they hear of this."
A derisive snort is unavoidable. "The Council? Do you really think you can get an audience with them after the lengths you've just put them through for your own goals? They don't like to meddle in human affairs, but still you pushed and pushed. Anderson took pity on you, didn't he? He must be the one who authorized the search team. Alliance and Council all tied together. What a mess."
He doesn't take the bait. Surprising. Instead the fist thumps down upon the desk once more. It must have hurt this time. "Tell me where the rogue mechs are! How are you hiding them from Durand's team?"
"Hiding them?" Question, question, and no answers. This is bordering on fun. "I'm not hiding anything on that facility. Still, they won't find them."
A new shade of purple traces Udina's face – olive/violet perhaps. "You traitorous snake, you will lead them to those mechs or so help me-"
A hand in the air shuts him up. It's a nice trick. "They won't find them because there isn't anything there to find. The production VI there is smart, smart enough to run the dormancy cycle on a shipment of 180 shipped mechs to end a bit early. The Corsica crew didn't stand a chance. Funny thing about Hahne Kedar though... When they lose a shipment of mechs like that, they mark it down as destroyed. Apparently, it helps them save face."
There's a long moment of silence. He needs time for the comparison of his present situation to his past actions to sink in. It takes more patience than anticipated, but slowly there is a glow in his eyes that hints toward an understanding of why this behavior is so very wrong. He won't accept it now though. No, he'll feel insulted, lash out like a struck varren.
Go ahead, raise that hand one more time, Ambassador, I dare you. These plans are not so important that they can't be waived for a few seconds of instant gratification. It's been a long time coming.
He backs up a step and seems confused. Surely, this isn't the first dominance battle he's lost. There is something naked there. Fear. He believes his death is at hand. That concession comes sooner that expected. Advise caution. Hell, caution got spaced the moment this began.
"What happened to the 180 units in the lost shipment?" Firm voice. Almost admirable.
"163 of them were either permanently disassembled or forcefully disabled."
"And the rest?" His eyes narrow. More like a snake than the usual weasel look.
"I have no idea."
It's truth. He doesn't want it to be. He passes a hand over a datapad laying on his desk. He doesn't need it to know the number, but it helps him grasp the reality of it. The anger returns. "You're telling me that you lost 17 dangerous mechs?"
His anger makes him slower than usual. A child's explanation is necessary. "No, Hahne Kedar lost them. I know exactly where they are. So do you."
"I have no idea where these abominations are." The rear door clicks as the ambassador's first responders work to override the lock. Udina's eyes gleam. "I think it's high time you started telling me the whole truth."
"It seems like someone's about to crash our party so let me make this very clear for you. Your reliable intelligence came from me. I didn't send those mechs here, but you and I both know that is where they are headed. You've made someone out there very unhappy - someone with the power to smuggle full-size mechs aboard the Citadel and unhappy enough to do so." The noise at the door clears as the lock override fails and the C-Sec boys consider their other options. It is a good moment to pull the ambassador close for a very intense eye to eye. "Worse than that - you've pissed me off."
It's time to leave. If he doesn't know what's coming now, he will soon. There is no helping him any further.
The door is close by the time the ambassador finds the piss he calls words again. "Try to kill me and it will be the last thing you ever do."
There is no need to turn around. "I'm not going to kill you, Udina. I am going to do to you exactly what you did to me."
He gets the concept. It's a wonder whether he really understands what he admits to. "Walking away from intelligence like this without acting upon it is still treason! I am the ambassador!"
It hurts not to turn around to retaliate. It's more effective this way though. "Yes, you are the ambassador, but you are also wrong. Doing nothing at all would be providing you more help than you ever gave me. I am going to make sure you stay here and wait for what you know to be coming for you."
If this were any other man, a threat of gunfire or a rushing strike could be expected. But this is Udina. He stands there and shakes as he hurls barbs into the wind. "All you have done will be undone. C-Sec is right outside."
"But will they help you, Ambassador?"
The jamming mechanism on the lock is not a simple one. It takes a moment to open the door even from the inside. The moment there is air flowing from the embassy room into the hall, Udina begins shouting. The hardy men of Citadel Security actually do move to assist him, but his words are muffled behind the door that closes and locks once more.
"Shepard?" A gruff, older man halts with his hand halfway extended toward the capture of the ambassador's uninvited guest.
"Captain Bailey." Nod. Make him feel at ease. No reason not to be civil now.
The man squints. "You making my job harder than it has to be, missy?"
Ah, Bailey. Good man. Good comrade for the edge of right and legal. Smile now. "Is it ever really easy? This one though, I'll have to blame on our friend in there. He's convinced that there are rogue mechs after him. Both I and Lieutenant Commander Durand have shown him proof to the contrary, but as you can hear, he's still insisting."
Bailey eyes the door pensively for a moment. "That man's been a thorn in my side ever since the moment my butt first hit the desk. I'm wondering if we shouldn't just let him cool his heels a while until I can find someone who annoys me enough to send up after him."
A wince is definitely in order. "Wouldn't want to be in his shoes."
"Me neither," Bailey chuckles. "How about a drink?"
"I guess I'm not really on duty at the moment. Sure, why not." Make that an alibi with a twist.
"On duty - hell. Don't think they keep corpses on a tight duty roster 'round here."
"They still haven't cleared that up yet?"
The mission ends with a walk down the hall and a unique success. Not sure how it came to be this way. Since we collapsed that human Reaper though, it seemed only right to start clearing the galaxy of the scum that was too annoying to get themselves killed.
The part that's beginning to be a worry is that it seems more than right, like a fiery light burning behind thought pushing for this to be done. More investigation will be required, but certainly the tools to do so are at hand. In the mean time, it might not hurt to take a lesson from the team and clear all the old debts.
First thing's first though - Find a damn good seat when the mechs come rolling through.
Author's Note: Requests?