As Joker once again settled us into dock at the Citadel, I reviewed our credit status and how much we'd been paid for our recent efforts. It looked like I could pick up a few more upgrades while on-station and perhaps get myself a few fish for that enormous empty tank in my cabin. A quick check with Joker confirmed that he hadn't received any information on pending package delivery but I thought I might pick up a little something for Kaidan in my explorations, should something suitable present itself. I could always stash it in my quarters for later.
The ever-helpful and seemingly ever-present Captain Bailey greeted us after we'd passed through security, such as it was. Thane noted that measures instituted since his last visit still left a number of holes through which a resourceful assassin such as himself could slip and Garrus and I nodded ruefully. We'd gotten through the first time on the strength of my and his father's names rather than actually not being threats to the safety of the folks inside. Indeed, the three of us waltzed through with our weapons prominently displayed simply because I vouched for Thane. I stuffed my derision for the moment, though. We needed information from Bailey and it wouldn't do to antagonize him.
He cheerfully supplied both a contact for locating the only Drell to have been spotted on the Citadel recently and directions to the warehouse where the people-smuggling low-life Fade was rumored to do most of his business. At this rate we'd be done by lunch, Thane's kid and Garrus's ex-pal Sidonis safely corralled. Then again having lived my life for some time I knew that complications loomed just out of sight. Did they ever.
Step one involved locating the contact at whose name Thane had narrowed his eyes. I can't imagine Mouse to be an uncommon nickname for children but I suppose most adults would be reluctant to use it so it was possible that Thane's reminiscences of giving him that name were of the same guy. It sounded like they'd been close. Garrus and I exchanged looks at this sudden soft side of our badass assassin but we declined to pass any judgment. Each of us had enough of our own emotional weak spots. Once we found Mouse it turned out to be the same person. He'd been carrying the idolization torch for Thane all along and greeted him as though they'd last met a week before. Despite the hero-worship, only some threatening talk and a promise of protection pried the name of the guy putting out the hit from the scruffy man's lips. Happily we were in a less-affluent ward where threats and organized crime were not unknown so our activities drew little attention.
We'd been smart enough to lock our sniper rifles in the cab, at least. We returned and strapped them on for our second stop in the warehouse district. The Fade at Bailey's coordinates turned out to be a tiny Volus with two hulking krogan bodyguards. Garrus stepped up to question him and Thane and I each took out a bodyguard when the little guy proved reluctant to answer. Shockingly enough he turned out not to be the guy who'd stashed our target. He was quick enough after our little display to drop the name of the man for whom he was fronting. It was that sleazy ex-security drunk Harkin, the one who'd propositioned me most rudely just before I'd become a Spectre and upon whom I'd longed to have an excuse to exact vengeance. Garrus already hated the guy so we were primed for action.
A quick trip to the factory district brought us to a storage area filled with crates and all sorts of robotic inconveniences. The three of us pegged one mech after another with head shots before they could get in range to shoot back. I loved an all-sniper team—less ammo and fewer injuries, more fun some friendly competition. Harkin cursed over a loudspeaker and tried various tactics to get us killed, including a couple of the massive YMIR bots whose shields forced us to burn a lot of ammunition and biotic power to destroy. I blessed the bonus missions from the Alliance that had paid for the extra shots and thought that providing fake identities must be more lucrative than I'd thought if he could afford to waste such resources.
Naturally we caught up to the idiot and backed him into a corner. I let Garrus shoot him a little with that trusty pistol, which made us both feel better, before we forced him to arrange a meeting with Sidonis. Garrus knocked him over the head and we left him, unconscious and bleeding, where Citadel Security would find him after we "anonymously" reported it to Captain Bailey. While we had him on the phone, we dropped the name that Mouse had given us and asked him to arrange a meeting.
After some hemming and hawing Bailey agreed to have the man hauled in for questioning but admitted to indulging in a little back-room dealing with Kelham and made us promise not to mention his name. I figured we could use the leverage at some point so I readily agreed though Garrus looked ready to shoot Bailey, too. It seemed that we might yet finish up this pair of personal errands in time for an early dinner, the way things were falling into place. We headed for the rendezvous in the Orbital Lounge while C-Sec rounded up our next appointment.
Garrus told us a little about what the Turian had done, betraying my friend's band of anti-mercenaries who had been performing vigilante services on Omega and generally infuriating the local bad guys. Sidonis had sent Garrus on a wild goose chase that kept him out of the way while mercs had slaughtered the entire rest of the crew. That rather had placed the mark of guilt on his head, though until that day Garrus had trusted the man implicitly. It was that incident that had transformed the former cop into Archangel, a lone gunman out for revenge, rather than a leader enjoying the camaraderie of like-minded outlaws. I completely understood his desire to blow Sidonis's head off of his body but I was curious what had led the guy to an act so stupid, knowing as he had how Garrus would feel about such treachery.
As no suspicion could be allowed to attach itself to his name, we set Garrus up on one of the catwalks that flanked many spaces around the Citadel and Thane and I went in to meet Sidonis. He looked terrible, exhausted and haunted, his mandibles drooping as though even the minor exertion of keeping them in place were too much for him. Though I knew Garrus was waiting to take the shot I blocked his line of sight and explained the situation. I wanted Garrus to know what had happened before the opportunity disappeared forever. Sidonis explained how he'd betrayed his friends to save his own life then asked me to move, to let Garrus settle the score. He told us that he lived as a dead man anyway, with those he'd handed over preying on his mind day and night, but that he wouldn't end his own life because he deserved to pay for what he'd done.
Garrus, sounding through the comm unit as furious as I'd ever heard him, said he wouldn't put the man out of his misery. I hoped that our renewed friendship was strong enough to withstand my meddling but I knew that not knowing the explanation would have eaten away at him for years. Even if it cost me my best friend I had to give him the answer he could not have gotten any other way. Maybe he'd come to forgive me over time. At least he wasn't thinking about me in the shower any more.
Thane and I rejoined Garrus by the cab, left idling nearby, and his scowl told me that it was not the time to discuss what had happened. I agreed that he could return to the ship and asked him to send Samara out to join us for the next bit of our mission to find Thane's son. My heart was heavy but I knew I'd done the right thing. Why did the right thing so often have to be hard as hell?