"Hey! Asshat!" A female human clad in all black Hahne-kedar armour approached a turian male who'd been crowding one of the Asari waitresses in Afterlife. Afterlife being the natural habitat of Pirate Queen Aria T'Loak and the pseudo-government building of Omega, it wasn't the best idea to go around picking fights.
The turian knew this and so his mandibles flexed in the equivalent of a sneer as he stared down at the short, red haired woman. "Excuse me?"
"Step away from the asari, Asshat," the woman stepped into the Turian's personal space, unaffected by the height difference.
"No."
The human smiled, it didn't reach her eyes, and reached around the turian to grab the conveniently empty bottle of Serrice Ice Brandy. Before he could react, she had pulled the bottle around and smashed it over his head. As he flinched, she punched him in the face before kicking him in the stomach. The extra power from her armour's exoskeleton slammed the turian into the bar. She grasped the turian around the throat and drew her M-6 Carniflex pistol and pressed it against his stomach.
"You will never threaten another employee, understand?"
The turian nodded groggily.
"You will accept no for an answer in the future, correct?"
This response was filled with slightly more coherency.
"If I ever see you in this club again I won't hesitate to shoot," the woman released the turian and started to walk away, "Get out of here."
As she took two steps towards the stairs to Aria's couch where the Queen had been watching the drama, the turian started to stand up. On her third step the turian lurched forward and attempted to grab her.
The human hardly had to glance back as she shot the turian between the eyes. The waitress came over to say some rushed words of appreciation before continuing with her job. The crowd hardly paid attention to the dead body and Grizz, Aria's head bodyguard, soon had a krogan mercenary come to move it.
The armoured woman shoved her way through the clumps of dancers to the bottom of Aria's stairway. Grizz attempted to stop her from walking up the stairs but he was quickly dispatched before she went to interrupt Aria's meeting with some insignificant pawn of the blood pack. She grabbed her breather helmet from one of the bodyguards standing on the steps and checked it over. She'd just sent the thing to get it's red N7 stripe painted over and wanted to ensure that the glass hadn't fogged. She finished putting the helmet on just as she reached the top of the platform.
One glance from the human was enough to send the batarian blood pack pawn scrambling. The small red and grey emblem on the upper left side of her armour's chest plate was enough to send any batarian running. The bleeding sword was the mark of only one mercenary.
Aria greeted her new guest, "Hervor, what do you want?"
Hervor sat next to the Pirate Queen, "What do you know about Binary Helix's interactions with a derelict ship? They should've contracted some batarian pirates two weeks ago,"
Aria replied, "You know my price."
Shepard watched as a krogan dragged a dead turian out of the club.
Liara shifted next to him, "Are you certain that this is where we need to go?"
Garrus watched the krogan throw the body over the railing next to the entrance to the club, "Is there anywhere else we could possibly go to look for this Hervor?"
John narrowed his eyes, "This is where Hackett said we could find Aria. We find Aria, we find Hervor and then I get some answers."
Liara swallowed before squaring her shoulders. Garrus chuckled at her, "After you Commander."
The Commander took his first few steps up the stairs to the club cautiously. Then his confidence grew and he strolled through the passageway leading to the main room. The three ignored the blood stain and drag marks from the turian body and focused immediately on the couch sitting above the elevated platform. A human dressed in black armour sat talking with an asari, assumedly Aria T'loak.
John started walking towards the stairway, slipping through the clumps of dancing crowds. Liara and Garrus left him to conduct business as they headed to the bar.
He was interrupted at the base of the stairs by a turian, "Aria's busy."
The human SpecTRe snorted, "Yeah, I can see that," and tried to push past the turian.
"She's busy," a batarian stepped up next to the turian with his assault rifle drawn.
John retreated then and headed over to the bar to sit with Liara and Garrus. Garrus was chugging his third drink while Liara was slowing nursing her first. The human downed the first of the four shots of miscellaneous alcohol Garrus had ordered him as he profiled the crowd. There were a few humans splattered around but most of the nearby patrons were turians, asari or batarians. There was also a few salarians crowded around a booth in the corner and two krogans having a head butting competition, but salarians didn't often come to clubs like Afterlife and krogans were usually unwelcome.
Garrus started a casual conversation with John about finding some upgrades for the Mako's weapons systems, so the two almost missed Liara's sudden choking sounds.
"Liara?" John asked as he turned to see the asari scientist blushing with her whole face purple. He turned to see what she'd been looking at and immediately started blushing himself as he saw the armoured figure from earlier had taken her helmet off and was kneeling between the legs of the pirate queen, "Oh, oh my..."
Garrus started dragging his two blushing companions out of the club, "I guess we'll come back tomorrow."
Commander Shepard couldn't look Aria in the eye the next day when he finally got that meeting.
"Commander Shepard, first human SpecTRe," John could feel her bodyguard inspecting him, "I'm unimpressed. What do you want."
"Information on an ex-Alliance Marine named Hervor,"
"Are you tracking her?" Aria finally turned to look at John and she maintained his gaze as he answered.
"Admiral Hackett wants her brought in," John's eyes were focused on the Salarians in the crowd below. He really didn't want to think about what had been happening on this couch earlier... Or ever really.
Aria smirked, "Then you just missed her. She left the station," she glanced down at the clock on her omni tool, "two minutes ago."
John barely refrained from growling, "Where did she go?"
"Hervor does whatever she wants," Aria looked away, signalling a close to the conversation.
John stood up stiffly, "Thank you for your assistance."
It wasn't Admiral Hackett but Captain Anderson who called Shepard on the comms after he handed in his report. Apparently he was suffering in bureaucracy and Hackett sympathized.
Anderson seemed distraught, "First Saren strikes a deal with the Geth and now Hervor's rearing her head again… you need to find her. Kill her or capture her, so long as her influence is contained."
"Do you know what happened to my sister?"
Anderson rushed out his words, "Do you not know?"
"I think everyone does but me."
Anderson disconnected the call. Shepard kicked the chair again. The chair now had several dents along the side from where it'd been assaulted. The poor thing was bolted to the ground and thus had no escape from the rage of Commander Shepard.
The chair that Urdnot Wrex usually sat on held no sympathy for it's kicked brethren.
Tela watched as Hervor started yet another bar fight. Barely two hours into their arrival on the citadel and the human had already gotten them kicked out of two establishments. They still had another hour though until the council meeting so as she watched three krogans walk into the seedy wards bar, she picked up the nearest stool and joined the brawl.
Human mercenary and asari SpecTRe soon found themselves fighting back to back as the whole bar joined in on the fun. One dancer managed to dump a whole tray of drinks on the human male who'd been making unwanted advances on her all night. Hervor joined her by smashing a glass over his head and kneeing him in the crotch.
Tela backed up the human when a krogan battle master charged at her from behind by charging him in turn, her biotics pouring out of her and granting her temporary immunity to the surrounding chaos. The krogan lit up his own biotics and the two forces collided in spectacular fashion radiating an explosion outwards and effectively ending the fight. The wave of power knocked over everyone but the ever-prepared Hervor who threw up her biotic barrier to fend it off before returning to looting an unconscious turian.
The two colliding chargers made it out of the impact unharmed but a shockwave from Tela quickly knocked the krogan out.
"Fun?" Hervor's question came as the two started to run for it.
"Always." The two left the devastated mess that once was Chora's Den behind as they fled from C-Sec.
A sliding run made it to the Lower Markets and then a race up the stairs. The partners in crime slipped through the Upper market and into the commons area in front of Flux. Seeing a window, Hervor lit up her barrier and ran for it. She broke through the glass as she jumped through and started to fall into the traffic rushing by below. Her distraction was enough to get C-Sec off Tela's tail as she continued past the Med Clinic to grab their shuttle and take off.
Hervor was free falling past the many floors of the Citadel's skyscrapers. She could hear the wind whipping past her ears and flowing through her hair. Her barrier kept the acceleration from killing her but she could still feel the wind pulling at her skin. Tela pulled the shuttle up just in time as the ground started getting closer and closer to the falling human. Tell pulled up underneath her and slowly started decelerating before catching Hervor, ensuring that the whiplash didn't kill the sometimes fragile human.
Once Hervor was secure within the shuttle Tela started steering them towards the council chambers. Hervor picked up her helmet and put it on, while her face could be seen by camera it was better if none of the human politicians got a good look at her face.
The council did not seem pleased to see them. Sparatus and Valern appearing openly hostile while Tevos just seemed displeased.
"You will have to pay for the window," Tevos started.
"At a minimum! Your actions completely disrupted the order of the wards!"
Valern intervened after Sparatus' outburst, "The wards were never in order."
"C-sec's patrols were!"
Tela coughed, she'd had more than enough experience with the council to understand how to take control of the situation, "Chora's Den was a known hideout of Fist, one of the Shadow Broker's men. He's now dead thanks to Commander Shepard but his old bar remained an ongoing criminal hideout."
Tevos took over, "You have evidence of course?" Hervor stepped forward and placed the red sand she'd taken off the turian on the table. The councillors deliberated for a few seconds before Tevos spoke again, "We deem this evidence acceptable and thus rule that all your actions during the chase today were official SpecTRe business. How did the search for the missing eggs go?"
Hervor delivered this part of their report, "The shipment was taken to Noveria at Binary Helix's lab at Peak 15. We plan to travel there and eradicate any chance of the Rachni surviving through the facility's thermal vents and by blowing the facility up."
Tela interjected, "We'll need a bomb," Hervor helpfully provided a rough visual estimate of the size of the bomb and some sound effects as she demonstrated its demolition.
Tevos seemed amused by the display as she chuckled and nodded her approval. Sparatus seemed ready to retort when a glare from the Asari Councillor silenced him. Valern made several mumbling noises as he calculated the necessary size of the bomb before sending an order to an STG task force to get the necessary materials to Tela's ship and ensure their safe travel.
Hervor and Tela started to leave, but Sparatus called them back, "We have one more concern to discuss with you."
Ambassador Udina walked up the stairs to stand in front of them, "You summoned me?"
"Due to Major Hervor's contributions to Vasir's missions, we believe a second SpecTRe membership should be extended to humanity," Sparatus seemed infuriated by his own words.
"She holds no official rank," Udina refused to even glance at Hervor, "She's a disgrace to humanity! I refuse to let you nominate her!"
Now Sparatus seemed smug as he came to a realization, "The decision is out of your hands."
Hervor spoke up, "I thought that either an ambassador or a council member had to put forward a SpecTRe candidate?"
Tevos smiled, "Tela will assess your next assignment to see if you are ready."
Udina had started glowering and stormed after Tela and Hervor when they were dismissed, "You! Disgrace!"
Hervor turned around and saw that Udina was standing mere inches away from her, "If you mess this up," Hervor interrupted the ambassador when she head butted him.
"There's only one human who gets to boss me around and you sure as hell ain't her," Hervor turned to follow after Tela.
