Hey everyone, thank you to all of you who have read through three chapters to get here. I hope to keep up this pace after Wednesday, but I really should take care of some other things. Still, I'll keep working. Hopefully you all enjoy this chapter, this is the first one I really thought felt complete. It's a bit longer too, which is what to do as the story moves forward. I would really appreciate a few reviews, since this is my first story and I would welcome the advice. With that said, let's see how the Citadel responds to a post ME2 Shepard.
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The Presidium - Shepard
Stepping out of the aircar that had taken them from the dock to Tayseri Ward Shepard took a deep breath. It had been too long since he had gotten any fresh air, and the Citadel was as close to natural fresh air as he had since leaving Illium last. Not that the Illium sky was terribly clean itself, but it beat the stale recirculated air of a warship.
As Mordin and Garrus stepped out of the car behind him, the door closed and the car rose into the sky with a whoosh before speeding off to pick up the next paying customer. It all happened in a moment. It was another representation of the automation of everyday life, how people plugged through their day without giving a thought to the bigger picture. He shook his head. Maybe he was just bitching that no one listened to his claims about the Reapers. Then again perhaps it was his fault that he hadn't been a good enough communicator. "Garrus, lead the way, you said Canna Insights was the place to go for the best prices?"
"Yeah, they're generally cheaper than the competition. I will say that they had a tendency to come up in investigations of shipments stolen from larger manufacturers, but our priority is getting what we need, and we have a limited budget right?"
Mordin, who'd been distracted by a billboard advertising the 'exciting' nightlife of Omega snapped into focus, "Don't care where equipment is from, can see if it works."
Garrus led them over to a barren and plain storefront. The human behind the waist-high desk looked excited as he saw possible customers approaching, but jaded the moment he spotted Garrus amongst the three. As they crossed the threshold and entered the store the man sneered, "What happened to your face Vakarian? Last time you came to lock me up you were prettier to look at."
"Shut it Hux, I haven't been in C-Sec for two and a half years. My friends and I are looking to purchase some genetic splicing equipment and I know you guys are cheaper than the competition." Garrus smiled as he finished, "Shepard here is a Spectre, so try not to piss him off."
Seeing fear flash in the man's eyes Shepard leaned in over the counter and got uncomfortably close to Hux's face, "I don't enjoy causing other people pain, but we're here for something rather important. You really don't want to try and screw us."
Hux nearly fell over backward from fear. He managed to stammer out "You can have the equipment at our cost, just let me get out our catalogue." He reached under the counter and handed a datapad over to Shepard who passed it to Mordin.
It took Mordin all of thirty seconds to select the equipment he needed. Shepard payed for it and Hux let him know that the machinery would be delivered to the Normandy within the hour. Shepard noted that the price wasn't terrible, he'd only had to spend a couple hundred thousand credits. He had even managed to avoid dipping into Hackett's fund. He knew he would have to eventually, but he appreciated not tying the Alliance to Mordin's work on the genophage. "Mordin, once we're done meeting with the council I want you to head back to the ship and oversee the delivery. We can't afford any screw-ups here, our timetable is pretty strict on this."
"You want me to join you with the council Shepard?"
"I want you and Garrus both, it's about time we convinced them that they need to pull their weight. Do you still have all the data from the mission to the Collector Base? The video feeds too?"
"Of course Shepard, Omni-Tool has plenty of storage."
Shepard activated his omni-tool and placed a call to the Normandy, "EDI, can you have Samara and Tali meet us at the Council chamber? I'm going to need their help convincing the council that they screwed up again." Shepard heard EDI acknowledge his request and lowered his arm, deactivating his omni-tool. He looked around Tayseri Ward, out the window rubble from where Sovereign had attacked the Citadel was still visible, crews equipped with small spacecraft and cranes were removing piles of steel and concrete and replacing it with the foundations of new buildings and skyscrapers.
The lobby he was in was still bare, it was clear that the store was in a new structure, not yet decorated with the modern art and neon lights all too common in the shopping areas of the wards. He sighed, the wreckage from his first battle against the Reapers hadn't even been cleared before the final one was poised to begin. Shepard felt it a waste, what was the point of cleaning up the ward if it was almost certainly the site of future battles? Battles that would no doubt come soon. He shrugged, the decision wasn't his and perhaps by making his findings about the Collectors public he could finally force the Council to shift their mindset to one preparing for the coming war. He snorted, if only he could be so lucky.
The Presidium - Tali'Zorah vas Normandy
She couldn't believe it, she was going with Shepard to see the council again. This was her third time up to the Council chamber. The first was to reveal her information on Saren; she could still remember looking around the huge room in awe as she and Shepard climbed the hundreds of steps up to the podium they ended up speaking from. She had been amazed by the fountains all over the room, the balconies looking down on them, the plant life in various pots, and the large window into space behind the Councilors.
The Quarian people had a few auditoriums in the fleet capable of holding one or two hundred captains at once while the Admiralty board held meetings to determine the next system the fleet would jump to. She could remember sitting in the front row, crammed between senior captains in the fleet on the small narrow bench as her father and Aunt Raan debated with Koris and Xen as to what worlds held the best prospects of containing valuable and desperately needed resources. The captains would mutter under their breath in agreement or disagreement with one side or the other before the vote was held that determined their course of action. She was always thrilled when her father or Raan won the debate, and remembered being saddened when they lost the vote.
There were certainly times where the vote had picked wrong, when systems they traveled to didn't have the needed resources. Rations would be cut, children would go hungry, and the hours everyone on the fleet had to work would be longer. In 200 plus years on the move the fleet had gotten better than any company in the galaxy at predicting which systems had the most plentiful and accessible resources, but predictions were never perfect and mistakes were far too costly.
As she climbed the stairs again, on her way to the seat of power in the galaxy, she felt none of the same awe that she had that first time. These were useless politicians who sat on the rear ends while Shepard and his allies bled and died for their lives! And Shepard had barely gotten a thank you before they wrote him off for dead and abandoned his mission to stop the Reapers. These people she was going to meet weren't the all powerful leaders she imagined she was meeting that first time, nor were they the thankful vanguards of democracy they appeared as when they gave Shepard, Garrus, and her medals for defeating Saren. These were politicians who didn't deserve the effort Shepard had given them.
But he needed her help, so she was there climbing these blasted steps for him.
Shepard reached the podium first while Samara, Garrus, Mordin, and her were quick to follow. Looking down upon them from the rebuilt Council chambers was the council. Three of them held the same faces that had looked at her curiously years prior, as if they were trying to figure out how a Quarian had snuck into their opulent throne room. Valern, Sparatus, and Tevos looked at the Commander's team…not with open hostility, but something resembling it. It was almost as if they knew that the Commander was there with enough evidence to blow the status quo they had so carefully crafted to pieces. In heavy contrast, David Anderson, the human councilor, had a generous smile on his face as he welcomed the Commander, "Shepard, what can we do for you today? You requested a meeting without giving terribly many details. As a friend, I welcome you, but my partners here on the Council are a little less excited to be pulled away from their other duties."
Tevos stepped forward, "I hope you're not wasting our time Commander. We received news that a ship was spotted returning from the Omega 4 relay. Given what you requested before, is it safe to assume that was you?"
"It is councilor. We traveled through the Omega 4 relay, fought the Collectors, destroyed their dreadnaught, and detonated a neutron pulse aboard their base. We killed all of them. But what we did matters far less than what we found. The Collectors are husked Protheans, they were capturing colonists for the Reapers so that they could melt them down and turn them into a 'human' Reaper." Shepard made a gesture she recognized as human air quotes before continuing, "We destroyed it."
There was a stunned silence in the council chamber, those who had been there with Shepard, who had watched colonists turn into goo as nanotech ripped apart cell membranes and disintegrated bones looked down at their feet as the council's mouths hung open. Sparatus, likely from his his previously experiencing the horror of war, was the first to speak, "Commander, I assume you brought proof of your endeavor. We aren't simply going to change our toon when the stories you tell get worse."
"And that Councilor is why we are here today. I made sure my crew was equipped with camera equipment on all of our missions. The Normandy recorded data on both the base and the Collector dreadnaught, and we brought back samples of Collector tissue proving genetic ties to the Protheans. I have footage of a reaper, a ship millions of years old identical to Sovereign, that we boarded."
Sparatus frowned and Valern, appearing unsteady on his feet stepped forward, "Professor Solus, you are a respected mind and a legendary figure among the scientific community. Is Shepard correct?" Mordin looked down and nodded before playing footage from the Reaper orbiting Mnemosyne. The Councilors shook their head as the cameras aboard the Normandy panned over a ship that appeared to by a mirror image of Sovereign.
Tevos didn't move, but rather looking directly at Samara, quietly responded to the images before her, "Justicar, you would swear that what Shepard says is the truth as you know it?"
"Councilor, in my time as a Justicar I have met no greater foe than those Shepard has battled against and met no man of nobler purpose. He had my oath through his mission across the Omega 4, and he will have it again in whatever he chooses to pursue."
Anderson, seeing that none of his compatriots were ready to speak after the shock they had experienced, took the moment to step forward, nodding to the other councilors, "I believe that if you transfer the data to the council for verification we can certify the veracity of your claims. For now, you have our support, and assuming everything in the record corroborates your claims, the Council will accept your recommendations on what must be done to prepare for the Reapers."
"We need to take action to unify the disparate elements of the galaxy before they arrive, a galaxy divided against itself cannot hope to prevail. I propose the Council opens a dialogue with the various species in the Terminus that lack embassies on the Council, we need to gather all the allies we can. Additionally, if we're to succeed at driving back enormous synthetic dreadnaughts we're going to need Quarian help. They have both the best AI experts in the galaxy and the largest fleet. If the council allows them to settle a planet, that fleet can be repurposed for the coming conflict. Tali'Zorah here is the daughter of former Admiral Rael Zorah and can reach out to the Migrant Fleet on the Council's behalf."
Shepard cleared his throat and paused. The council looked at him expectantly, they seemed open enough to his first pair of proposals. Tali was surprised that 200 years of disdain toward the Quarians could be turned around so easily but she supposed the decision made sense, the Quarian people were no real threat to the balance of power as it stood.
After another moment Shepard continued, "I want you to at least contemplate reducing the potency of the genophage. We saw how useful the Krogan were against the Rachni, and we may need to call upon them again against husks and other Reaper forces." He held up a hand as a furious Valern attempted to interrupt him. "I only ask for the council to consider that last idea, I know the political cost to you and internal the political turmoil it could cause."
Despite Valern turning a very non-Salarian shade of red it was Sparatus that spoke next, "The first two propositions make sense, we're willing to select a planet for the Quarians and send diplomats into the Terminus Systems. The Krogan issue will need further discussion. We will contact you about it when we have completed our efforts with the Quarians." Sparatus turned and began walking toward his office, closely followed by Valern and Tevos. Anderson took another look back, waved to Shepard, and followed the other Councilors off the platform.
Tali knew they were being dismissed but struggled to move, even after being left behind on the podium by Shepard and the others. The council was granting her people a new home! Shepard had done it! She finally gathered the sense to hurry down the steps after Shepard and embrace him. "Thank you Shepard! You have no idea what this means to me!"
"Tali, we'll work with the Geth to get your people back on Rannoch, I can only hope this suffices for now."
"Of course it does you Bosh'tet. We have a place to stay now, and what will hopefully be a home someday soon."
As the team left the council chamber and returned to the Presidium he turned to face her, "You can contact the Admiralty board and let them know. It seems fitting the woman they nearly exiled take credit for ending their species' homelessness and exile from the galactic community."
As the five of them climbed into an aircar to return to the Normandy, Tali cried tears of joy for the first time since discovering Shepard was alive back on Freedom's progress. The man who had saved the galaxy by her side was showing the Quarian people a compassion no one else in the galaxy had in hundreds of years, and she felt some small sliver of pride that without her it probably wouldn't have happened. She may serve on a human ship, but she had done more for Flotilla than any living Quarian could claim.
