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Third Assignment
In the small cargo holding area, Seraphina tried to change into her armour. There was barely enough room for her to lift her arms, never mind change, but Garrus insisted she get dressed in a separate room. She didn't mind getting changed in front of males, how many men had she changed in front of during her days at the N-School? But it was probably best not to argue, she was still playing nice.
She slipped into the underlying fabric she wore beneath her armour, the familiar scent bringing back memories of countless battles. She dreamed of the day she received her N7 armour, but since she had been called into Spectre duty so soon the armour was being held at the Vila Militar in Rio de Janeiro until she had time to retrieve it. She could have requested for it to be sent out, but she would rather attend the ceremony along with the rest of the graduates.
But she may have already missed it, she had been in space for so long that she wasn't aware of what was happening on Earth.
Besides, there was nothing wrong with her current armour, it looked almost like an N7 uniform, just without the decorate 'N7' of course. It would do for now, then when she finally got her armour she would spray it with her colours of white and purple. Most went for red and black, and she did try those colours, but something about it seemed unsettling.
She would see enough blood in her life not be reminded of it every time she put on the uniform.
...
Wrex peered through the small crack in the shuttle's wall, created by something small like a laser incision, and was probably made by another crew member for the same purpose he was using it for. A peep hole. Garrus finished the final adjustments of his uniform, and finally noticed that appeared to be Wrex staring at the wall.
"What are you doing?" he asked.
"I'm just curious as to what a human looks like without any clothes," Wrex replied.
"Get away from there!" Garrus tugged him back.
"They look similar to other females," Wrex added. "Just with more... you know."
Garrus frowned, "No, I don't know," he said.
Wrex struggled for a polite word, after a moment he remembered what Bakara had once called them.
"Mammaries," he answered.
"... Mammaries?" Garrus repeated. "Most females have mammaries."
"Not like these!" Wrex laughed.
Seraphina emerged from the small compartment, Wrex fell silent.
"What?" she asked. "Did I miss something?"
"No, it's fine," Garrus replied. "Wrex was just telling a distasteful joke."
Wrex glared at him, but decided it was probably best to not tell the truth. They had to learn to play nice, even if it hurt. All he had to do was spend a few hours a day with them, he didn't even have to care about them, all he had to do was point and fire, and the rest would be someone else's problem.
"So where exactly are we heading?" Seraphina asked.
"Watchman," EDI responded. "Located on the outer edge of Iera's small solar system, it is a rock and ice planet with a nitrogen-oxygen atmosphere that is too thin to support life."
Seraphina went over to an open cabinet where three helmets had been prepared, sadly though it would appear she would be denied access of her recon hood judging by the white and purple breather helmet. She was most comfortable in her recon hood. She handed out the large helmets to her team mates, then threw up her hair and put on her own helmet.
"Councillor Anderson recently under covered intel relating to the construction of an arms manufacturer on the planet of Watchman," EDI continued. "The planet itself has been marked as uninhabitable and all attempts to build there would require a bio-dome and permission from the Citadel, but no such reports have been filed."
"Is that why we're being sent out?" Garrus asked. "To respond to the some lost paperwork?"
"No," EDI replied. "The problem is the manufacturer itself - they are creating forgeries of Alliance firearms and specialist weaponry which are sold to the military, C-Sec and even Alliance forces. Again, this would not be a problem if the weapon's actually work."
Wrex gave his assault rifle a careful glance.
"The weapons have been known to jam or in some extreme cases, detonate due to small implanted bombs," EDI continued. "Until recently we had no way of tracking the seller due to multiple accounts, but after now severing all ties to one particular branch of the company we were able to locate them here on this planet."
An image appeared on the main monitor, a dome being barraged by a hail of snow and icy wind. A small section was highlighted and the selected image was increased in size. It appeared to be the factory, but the image was blurry and further detail was hard to establish, someone was clearly scrambling the frequency.
"Inside there will be a number of guards, but mostly civilians forced into labour," EDI informed them. "Your assignment is to kill the guards and stop production, once that is done an Alliance ship will come for the civilians."
The shuttle entered the atmosphere of Watchman and rocked violently as the rough winds tried to force it down, EDI politely asked for them to take a seat. Seraphina checked her suit's vital signs, checking oxygen levels, shield battery, her M-15 Vindicator. Wrex sat with an eager smirk. Garrus checked his sniper rifle. They performed their own rituals, prepared for the coming battle.
They shuttle was forced to hover over the hard snow covered ground, they entered the storm and followed EDI's directions. Seraphina squinted through the white haze, unable to see past the thick storm that was messing up her visor. Wrex took a tentative step forward, slipped on the icy ground and fell onto his back. He swore.
"I hate ice!" he hissed.
He rolled to the one side, then to the other, and still couldn't get up. Garrus watched for a moment, clearly too amused to help. Seraphina sighed, why did she always have to sort out these kinds of problems? She went over to him and tried to help him up.
"My tracking information has shown you have stopped, why?" EDI asked.
"Wrex fell and is having some problem getting up," Garrus chuckled.
"I would appreciate some help, Garrus!" Seraphina hissed.
"Alright," he said, deciding not to annoy two of his team mates.
He walked behind Wrex and pushed his hand against his back as Seraphina grabbed hold of his hands. Seraphina pulled and with one hard push from Garrus, Wrex was launched onto his feet, but with too much momentum and without a steady foot, he went flying forwards into Seraphina. Garrus went still, taking in the sight before him, and burst into laughter.
Seraphina tried to push him off and Wrex tried to pull away, but both kept slipping on the ice.
"Come help us, turian!" Wrex snapped.
Garrus wiped a tear from his eye, and caught sight of something on the ground. He turned to the spot where Wrex had originally fallen, something small winked at him, something metallic. He wiped the snow away as Wrex continued to bark orders, and uncovered a piece of the earth had been cut away and replaced by a metal panel.
"EDI, I need you to scan this area," he said. "I found some sort of structure that may lead to the factory."
Seraphina stared at the krogan on top of her, who had tried to twist his head far enough to look at Garrus. She was thankful her suit had the kind of necessary protection to save her from being crushed by the large alien.
"I think he's forgotten about us," Seraphina said.
Wrex hummed and leaned on his arms, an idea coming to mind. "Roll out from beneath me," he said.
She did as she was told, managing to get out from beneath his, and then proceeded to help Wrex sit up. He got to his feet and walked up behind Garrus, and smacked him across the back of the head. Garrus' head rattled violently.
"Next time I won't be so polite," Wrex threatened.
Seraphina spotted the panel, "What's that?" she asked.
"I'm having EDI analyse it," Garrus replied.
"So you don't know," she said.
He didn't respond.
Their helmets buzzed.
"Analysis of the structure reveals that it is an underground tunnel connecting to the factory," EDI announced. "It leads directly into the basement of the factory, you could use this to sneak inside."
"Sounds like a plan," Garrus said. "Let's get this thing open."
Wrex stood there, pouting beneath his helmet, unwilling to lend a hand. Garrus shrugged and sought to the door himself, searching for the crack in the works, and pulled it open.
"Wrex, you take point," Garrus ordered.
"Finally," Wrex said, "a good idea."
He readied his gun and entered the dark hole, Seraphina went next and Garrus stayed at the back of the line. The wind knocked the door and they fell into temporary darkness, lights flickered ahead and the narrow corridor lit up. Wrex led the way, walking a pace quicker than the rest, hungry for battle. They finally reached a set of stairs, and were yet to encounter a guard.
The factory itself had a sort of jamming system encoded into a local frequency, it prevented any sort of ship on taking satellite pictures imagery's or picking up any sort of chatter from the guards intercoms. It was all very well designed, whoever had created this facility was willing to invest so much in a fraud business.
But was this the enemy Councillor Anderson and Quentius were so determined to defeat? They had gone behind the other Councillor's backs, set up a secret unit, which itself could result in expulsion from duty for all them if anyone ever found out. But if this was the enemy, a group of arms-dealers, why the secrecy? Why the need to set up a special unit, lie and then sneak around if this was just like any other Spectre job?
Something was off, until they learnt the name of their enemy they were going to have to approach the situation carefully.
Wrex signalled for them to stop as they neared the stairs, he approached the stairs carefully, peering up and listening out for any noise. He signalled for them to follow him. They proceeded up and entered a large room, a storage facility, with a large set of doors at the one end and another set of stairs leading up to an office that over-looked the factory floor.
They went over to the doors, Garrus and Seraphina flanking either side of the door. Wrex opened the door a crack and peered out onto the factory, in the large room a range of species from batarian and drell worked on a factory line, putting together the weapons made from cheap materials and forced labour. A dozen or so guards stood watch or wandered around.
He turned back to his team.
"Garrus, go up the stairs and fire from the office," Wrex ordered. "You take the first shot, throw them into chaos, Shepard and I will then take them out from below."
"Sounds like a plan," Garrus said, and proceeded up the stairs.
Wrex took position and they waited.
"Your wounds are scarring nicely," Seraphina commented.
"You can't see them beneath this stupid helmet," he remarked.
"I saw them back on the ship," she said.
Wrex smirked, so she had seen something interesting on the ship too.
He opened the doors further and looked up to the office, Garrus had opened a window and was preparing his sniper rifle. He looked out and aimed at no guard in particular, the first one who caught his sight, and fired. The sound was loud in the quiet room, echoing like a boom, startling everyone and making them stop. The guard fell and the workers screamed, diving for cover.
Wrex threw the doors opened and released his fury onto the guards. Seraphina watched the krogan rush into battle, falling behind cover and firing around the corner. She stayed where she was, firing at the guards who came to close to Wrex's position or tried to attack Garrus. She tried to get a good look at the guards, but they were falling faster than she would have liked. She wanted to get a better look, see if she could identify them. But their armour wasn't strong enough to protect them, they fell easily.
Whoever they were, they must be grunts, expendables.
She kept a close eye on the civilians, taking out any guards who came too close to them, to try to use them as shields. One of the guard's managed to get a clear shot at Wrex and chipped his shoulder, he just laughed as the bullet failed to penetrate his armour. She took the guard down, Wrex shot her a look.
"I had it under control," he said.
"I know," she said. "But you were taking down so many I was afraid I wouldn't get a shot in."
"I wouldn't worry about that," he said. "You seem pretty capable."
Bullets flew overhead, cutting into armour and chipping the wall. A loud boom would resonated every few seconds, the sound of sniper fire, and the civilians would cover their ears and cover. The bodies began to pile up, steadily, bloody. And then it was over. It couldn't have been no more than five minutes, but that was how a mission should be carried out.
Quickly, cleanly, effectively.
Seraphina slowly entered the room, checking amongst the corpses and in the shadows for any survivors. If there were, they probably escaped. She went over to the cowering workers, she removed her helmet and gave them a smoothing smile. One worker, a young drell girl no older than a decade, smiled back weakly.
"Hey, sweetie," she smiled. "Are you okay?"
The girl nodded.
"Is there anyone else here?" she asked. "Any more bad men? Or other kids?"
She shook her head.
Another drell, possibly the father, spoke up. "These were the only guards," he answered. "There are some others like them, who came every few weeks for deliveries, but I haven't seen them since."
"And no other workers?" she said.
"Just us," he answered.
"Good," she said. "You all wait here and help will be here soon."
He nodded.
Wrex left his cover and sat down on a large crate. Garrus entered the room, just having finished his detail report with EDI.
"Help will be here within the next half hour," Garrus announced. "But we have to go, a special unit is coming to take care of the civilians and their after care."
"I just need one thing before we go," Seraphina said.
She went over to one of the fallen guards and checked their dark uniform for some kind of emblem or mark, anything to identify them. There was something, on his breast, a yellow mark. She scanned the image with her Omni-tool and saved the data for later.
"Ready now?" Wrex asked.
She nodded.
Wrex and Garrus left, she turned to the civilians.
"You heard that?" she said. "Someone is coming for you, people who will take care of you. Stay in cover until they arrive and don't worry - this will be over soon."
...
The Citadel
Returning to her new apartment Seraphina enjoyed a drink in the evening and went through all the files she had, searching for a symbol that matched the one she saw, trying to get some kind of information. Her Omni-tool searched through every data base available, a Spectre had access to many files, but apparently the one she was searching for was restricted.
Her apartment was a mess, in the process of unpacking, but she had only moved in nearly two weeks ago and since then she had been called out to duty many times. She knew things were going to be chaotic, but she never thought things would be this bad.
There was a buzz at the door, she checked the vid comm and spotted her asari friend with a bottle of wine. She allowed Liara to enter and then noticed a large box she had to wheel in.
"What's that?" Seraphina asked.
"While you were gone I was contacted by the N-School," she replied. "As they assumed we were still living together, and sent this over. They said they couldn't hold it any longer, the graduation ceremony had already been and gone, and that they're sorry."
Seraphina took the package and opened it up, removing the protective layers to reveal her new armour, her new N7 armour which was already painted with her colours.
"They said to make it up to you they did your specific modifications," she added.
Seraphina sighed heavily, "I was looking forward to the graduation ceremony," she moaned.
"I'm afraid you'll be missing more ceremonies and parties now that you're a Spectre," Liara said. "From what I heard, the only breaks you get are between missions and one week paid holiday that changes each year."
"It's the life I chose," Seraphina said.
"Come now," Liara smiled. "Let's have some wine and drink those blues away."
"Okay," Seraphina said. "But not too much, I may be called out to duty tomorrow."
"Of course," Liara smirked.
They went into the kitchen area and the Omni-tool continued its search, but even after the night went on and Seraphina turned in for the evening, it only managed to get one response from the hundred of files collected over decades of hard work and bloody battles: NO FILES MATCHING.
To Be Continued...
