Nal'Korra nar Alarei and his sister, Zen'Korra nar Alarei, were both very excited to begin their pilgrimage and bring back something useful to the Migrant Fleet. They had just arrived at the Citadel when a C-Sec officer stopped them.
"Alright, you two Quarians, I need to have a talk with you." Keelah, we've barely begun our pilgrimage and already we're in trouble, Nal and Zen both thought when they heard this.
"I'm really sorry about whatever it is we did, but-" Nal started to say when he was cut off by the impatient officer.
"It's not about what you've done; it's about what you're probably going to do. I've seen enough Quarians come through the Citadel on their pilgrimage to know that you two are broke. Well I pulled you aside to tell you that just because you're on some sort of spiritual journey doesn't mean you can steal without any consequences, so unless you get some sort of a job, you are SOL. Do you understand?!"
"Yes, sir, we understand. I can assure you that we don't have the slightest intention towards dishonesty. We merely want to help our Flotilla so that we can one day regain our home world, Rannoch, from the Geth."
"That's what they all say," the officer snorted before he turned and walked away.
The next few hours went no better for the pair of siblings. They were constantly rejected at hotels and stores and decided to take a break to see the Praesidium. On the way there, however, Zen spotted an open maintenance door. Curious, she motioned her brother over to it and, after cautiously looking around for any C-Sec, they sidled through.
Inside was what any other species would see as just another backup storage unit. But to two young Quarians on their pilgrimage, this was a goldmine. They hastily started searching through the database to see if there was any information that could improve the Flotilla, but most of it was empty, as it was just a backup unit. However, Nal discovered security footage from a day when the main storage units had been overloaded. At first glance Nal thought it was a simple security tape from some store, but upon closer inspection, he realized that the customer and the shopkeeper were talking for quite longer than one would expect. Curious, Nal turned on the sound and what he heard shocked him.
"I'm telling you, I just rent the space. I don't have access to those shuttle bay doors," the shopkeeper was saying.
"And I'm telling you; either you find a way to open those doors or the Illusive Man will be paying you a visit," warned the supposed "customer".
"Nal!" Zen whispered urgently, making him focus on her. "Nal, someone's coming! We have to hide!" Finally Nal heard the footsteps. Someone was running and it sounded like they were coming for the maintenance room. Nal quickly surmised that it was the customer in the vid coming to wipe the unit clean. Nal looked over to Zen, who had already pried open a venting grate and was waving him over.
"Over here!" she whispered. Nal wasted only enough time to download the vid onto his omnitool and ran over to her as quietly as he could and climbed inside the vent. Zen soon followed suit, and just as she had secured the grate, the man barged into the room. Nal couldn't get a very good view from his position behind his sister, but he could see his face well enough to conclude that his earlier guess was correct.
They waited for what seemed like an eternity for the man to wipe the storage unit clean of any proof of his conspiracy. Finally, he took one last look around the room and, satisfied, left. The siblings could hear him walking away in a very un-hurried manner now. Nal let out a breath that he didn't realize he was holding and gestured to his sister to open the grate.
When they were both out of the vent and could no longer hear the retreating footsteps, Nal deemed it safe to talk again.
"Zen!" he cried, dread flowing over him. "Zen, we need to go to C-Sec now! That man is an agent for the Illusive Man and I found a vid of him threatening a shop owner to let Cerberus in through a non-secure bay door. I think Cerberus is going to attack the Citadel!"
"Keelah… alright, let's go now. We don't have any time to waste!" Zen affirmed. Together, they made their way down to the C-Sec HQ and after a lot of eye rolling and officers laughing in their faces, they were shown to the head of C-Sec, Commander Bailey.
"I'm told you two are making claims that Cerberus is planning on invading the Citadel," the commander said. "What could possibly make you think that?"
Without hesitation, Nal jumped right in. "Well, commander, we arrived here today and were walking to the Praesidium when we saw an open maintenance room," at this, Bailey raised his eyebrows, but let him keep talking. "And inside we discovered a storage unit. We started looking through the archives and I discovered a vid of a Cerberus agent threatening a store owner into opening a bay door. Right after that, we heard footsteps and so we hid and I saw the same man – the customer – come into the room and delete all files on the unit."
Bailey pondered for a moment before saying, "Do you have the vid?"
"Yes, sir," Nal replied and gave him the vid over the extranet. They waited in silence as the commander watched the video.
Finally, Bailey warned them, "You two should get off the Citadel as soon as possible, do you hear me? There's no time for an evacuation, but at least you two can be saved. Now go, and take this," he said, transferring them enough credits for tickets off the Citadel. "I know how much you need it, so don't bother trying to make me keep the money."
"Thank you, Commander Bailey," Zen and Nal said and hurried out. On their way to the shuttle bays, Nal realized that they hadn't gotten anything from their pilgrimage.
"Zen, I'm so sorry, we forgot-" he was cut off as his sister showed him a file containing calculations that would greatly improve the Heavy Fleet's weapon accuracy.
"Oh did we?" Zen countered. "Keelah se'lai, brother."
"Keelah se'lai."
The End