The Citadel: Council Chambers
"The Geth Attack is a matter of some concern." The Asari Councilor was talking. Her strong voice carried the entire weight of the Council's power with ease. Not that Shepard could care less.
'Nice to know they have some concern for the death of human colonists' Shepard mentally sneered with her thoughts.
"But there is nothing to indicate Saren was involved in anyway." The Asari continued.
She stood with her teammates from Eden Prime, all three of them had changed into a simple, semi-formal uniform. In the thick political minefield that of the Council Chambers where they now stood, Sara imagined how much more comfortable she would have felt had she brought her sniper rifle with her instead of just her sidearm. She had little choice, however, they were in the middle of a Council Hearing, with Ambassador Udina and Captain Anderson pleading their case to remove Saren's Spectre status based on his traitorous actions, none of which the Council was buying at the moment.
"The investigation by Citadel Security turned up no evidence to support your charge of treason." The Turian Councilor added dismissively.
"We have an eyewitness who saw him kill Nihlus in cold blood." Ambassador Udina insisted. To his credit he was working hard, and fighting harder, for every inch of humanity's position on the galactic political spectrum. Even so, Shepard knew the moment she met him that she was not going to like him, at all. Thus far she'd been proven right, but at least it seemed she wasn't alone.
"We've read the Eden Prime reports, Ambassador." This time the Salarian Councilor was speaking. Shepard wasn't sure whether he was trying to be sympathetic or downright patronizing. "The testimony of one traumatized dockworker is hardly compelling proof. Particularly one whom even your own people claim is a criminal."
Commander Shepard silently agreed with that logic, not that she liked it any better. In truth the whole process was just rubbing her the wrong way. From the moment they stepped onto the Citadel, Udina insisted they bring the information before the Council. He was practically ramming the charges against Saren down the Coincil's throat, making demands of them even before this trial began.
Shepard considered that they would need to gather more proof first, but both Captain Anderson and Ambasador Udina insisted that they bring the evidence they had to the Council as soon as possible. They wanted to deal with the threat of Saren as soon as possible, and they did not want to appear to be withholding anything from the Council. In the end Shepard agreed because she too wanted to deal with Saren as soon as possible. Unfortunately it became clear to her almost from the moment the Council meeting began that things weren't going to go well.
"I resent these accusations." Saren spoke but not in person. He had opted instead to appear at his own trial via hologram. In this case a large red hologram overlooking the entire proceedings. Pretentious bastard, even the Council was beneath him, both literally and figuratively from his holographic perch.
It was the first time Shepard had ever seen Saren before in her life, even if it wasn't in person. Still from that first impression she realized two very important things. For one he was clearly guilty, without any doubt. Not just in terms of the attack on Eden Prime, but of all the terrible things people say about him. To her, Saren was a man filled with hatred where his soul used to be. The other thing Shepard quickly realized was that she definitely hated the arrogant asshole.
"Nihlus was a fellow Spectre and a friend." Saren explained, much the same way a weasel tries to explain itself out of a rathole in Shepard's view. Clearly, however, she was not alone in that sentiment.
"That just let you catch him off guard." Anderson shot back with a belligerence that was most uncommon for the Captain.
"Ah, Captain Anderson." Saren spoke with a superior sense of disgust, "You always seem to be involved when humanity makes false charges against me." He turned his head as if to carefully observe the young Commander standing next to Anderson. "And this must be your protégé Commander Shepard, the one who let the beacon get destroyed."
'I didn't "let" anything, you fucking bastard!' Shepard raged inside her thoughts, she would have yelled something suitably profane in the Spectre's direction, but something inside her told her there was a better way to handle things. With a knowing look she addressed the Spectre with the same smug tone he had used towards her, "Nice, first you manage to sneak your way into a top secret mission you weren't supposed to know about, and now you hide behind the council when we call you on it. You don't even have the nerve to show up in person."
"You presume too much, Shepard." Saren countered, he apparently hadn't expected this 'mere human' would be capable of matching wits with him. "If you knew anything about the Spectre's you'd realize as his mentor all of Nihlus's files passed on to me when he died, including the Eden Prime report. You'd also realize that I might have matters of galactic security to deal with that are more important than my presence at this charade."
"Or maybe I just realize that you're good at running away like any guilty man would." Shepard shot back smoothly. "You certainly seem way too eager to explain your innocence."
"How typical, you'd resort to flinging more accusation instead of hard proof." Saren said trying to deflect the conversation. His voice was brimming with disgust as he added, "But then what would you expect from a human."
"You can expect me to kill you next time we meet." Shepard narrowed her eyes, the gravity in her voice making her intentions perfectly clear.
"You need to learn your place, Shepard." Saren spat out. Shepard allowed herself a tiny smile in Saren's direction. He allowed his control to slip; she won this round. But he was good at masking his failures in rhetoric. "Your species is not ready to join the Council, you're not even ready to join the Spectres."
"He has no right to say that. That's not his decision." Ambassador Udina stepped in, angered both by Saren's comments and his lack of control on the situation.
"Shepard's admission into the Spectres is not the purpose of this meeting." The Asari Councilor stated plainly. Shepard had to give her credit, the Asari, at least, was not only able to maintain control of the situation but also wanted to make sure everything was handled properly. She remained calm even as she made certain neither the Ambassador or the Spectre could maneuver any more control over the meeting then she allowed. Not that it would stop them from trying.
"This meeting has no purpose." Saren lashed out, apparently trying to leverage the Council, "The humans are wasting your time Councilor, and mine." Shepard found it amusing how his tone seemed to suggest that his own time was worth more than the Council's.
"Don't worry, Saren," Shepard patronized him, "You can't hide behind the Council forever."
"There is still one outstanding issue." Captain Anderson spoke up, "Commander Shepard's vision. It may have been triggered by the beacon."
'Damn it. I was hoping he wouldn't bring it up.' Bad enough their flimsy eyewitness did them no favors. The last thing Shepard wanted was for her visions to come to the forefront at this stage of the game. She still wasn't comfortable talking to anyone about it as she doubted seriously that anyone would take them seriously, herself included.
Saren, in his opportunistic scoundrel ways, was all too quick to jump at the chance to ridicule further, "Are we allowing dreams into evidence now? How can I defend my innocence against this kind of testimony." If anything, he was far too quick to jump at the mention of the visions. Fortunately for him, others agreed with the point he had made.
"I agree." The Turian Councilor said with a smug sigh, "Our judgment must be based on facts and evidence, not wild imaginings and reckless speculation."
'Wow, patronizing much?' Shepard wanted to say so much worse, but remained quiet. She knew the Councilor was right. She may have won a psychological victory over Saren here today, but that mattered little in the eyes of the Council. In terms of their primary objective they had lost this small battle almost as soon as it began.
"Do you have anything else to add Commander Shepard?" The Salarian Councilor said, perhaps sensing her frustrations.
"You've made your decision. I won't waste my breath." Shepard said flippantly as she shook her head. There was no point wasting any more time with this trial.
The Council members conferred for mere seconds. Like Shepard had suspected they had already made their decisions, and merely confirmed as such with each other. They didn't even need to do that, Shepard got the sense that they did so only so they did not appear like they were dismissing the humans out of hand.
"The Council has found no evidence of any connection between Saren and the Geth." The Asari Councilor said finally, "Ambassador, you petition to have him bared from the Spectres in denied."
"I'm glad to see justice was served." Saren added, he just had to get the last word in.
"This meeting is adjourned." The Asari Councilor said. Almost immediately all three Councilors turned and left their platform. Saren, or rather his hologram, simply went out, nothing more than a switch being hit.
The human contingent could only turn around and walk away from the platform where they pleaded their case. Udina stayed back for a moment in frustrated contemplation of the poor outcome of the meeting. It took a moment before he joined the other humans who had already stepped away.
"It was a mistake brining you into that hearing captain." Udina accused Anderson as he walked to them, "You and Saren have too much history, it made the Council question our motives."
"I know Saren," Anderson responded, "He's working with the geth for one reason: To exterminate the entire human race. Every colony we have is at risk, every world we control is in danger. Even earth isn't safe."
Normally Shepard would have thought the Captain was being a bit too alarmist. But something about Saren, seeing him more or less in person, convinced her that while the Captian might be overstating things he was not underestimating Saren's threat.
"I think you need to tell me about this history between you and Saren, sir." She told him decisively.
"I worked with him on a mission long ago." Captain Anderson explained, "Things went bad, real bad. We shouldn't talk about this here, but I know what he's like. And he has to be stopped."
"I agree, but how?" Shepard asked, "As a Spectre he's pretty much untouchable."
"We need to find some way to expose him." Ambassador Udina said thoughtfully, though as far as Shepard was concerned he was merely stating the blatantly obvious.
"So we'll need to find some hard evidence against him?" Shepard added, "Where are we gonna find something like that? We can't exactly afford to sail across the galaxy hoping to run into Saren conniving with the Geth."
"We won't have to." Captain Anderson explained, "The Citadel is the center of all Council aligned space. Politically, Culturally, Socially. If anyone knows anything about Saren chances are that information will find its way here somehow. All you need to do is find someone that might come across that information."
"What about Garrus?" Kaiden spoke up, "That C-Sec investigator. We saw him arguing with the executor."
"That's right." Ashley joined him, "He was asking him for more time, seems like he was close to finding something on Saren."
Shepard thought back briefly to the moment when they first stepped onto the Council chambers from the elevator. They had run into Garrus Vakarian, the C-Sec officer in charge of the official investigation into Saren. It was obvious he didn't like Saren; it was clear from their investigation that C-Sec long suspected Saren of foul play. But being a Spectre, everything Saren did was classified, which meant C-Sec's investigation was unable to come up with any official evidence against him.
That Garrus, however, struck Shepard as one interesting Turian. He was motivated, he was persistent, and he was definitely favored unconventional methods unlike most Turians. He even tried asking his boss, Executor Palin, to stall the Council of all things just for a chance to get the evidence he needed. What Shepard also noticed was that he didn't share the same mentality of most Turians she had met. Not that she was an expert on the species, but she certainly never met one so eager to talk to her, a Human, about someone he considered a common foe, another Turian.
"He might prove useful." Shepard thought out loud. "The Executor's office is next to the embassy we should ask him to get us in contact with Garrus."
"That may not work." Captain Anderson shook his head, "C-Sec policy wouldn't allow him to share information on any investigation involving a Spectre, even if he wanted to. And I can assure you Executor Palin has no intention of going against C-Sec policy. Knowing him that's all the reason he'll need to avoid giving you anything."
"I'm sure I can convince him." Shepard said, her tone clearly indicating she wasn't planning on being too subtle about it.
"No. The last thing I need is you harassing the man in charge of C-Sec." Ambassador Udina told her. "I have a contact in CSec who might help us find Garrus, his name is Harkin."
"Forget it, they suspended Harkin last month, drinking on the job." Captain Anderson's disgust was obvious, "I won't waste my time with that loser."
"You won't have to." Udina told him harshly, "I don't want the Council using your past history with Saren as an excuse to ignore anything we turn up. Shepard will handle this."
"You can't just cut him out." Shepard insisted.
"No he's right." the Captain sighed, "It's best if I step down from this investigation."
"I need to take care of some business, Captain Anderson meet me in my office later." The Ambassador spoke absently, already walking away from the others and heading to his office.
"Harkin's probably getting drunk in Chora's Den." the Captain said almost as an afterthought as he turned to leave, "It's a dingy little dive down in the Wards." He was stopped by Shepard's hand on his arm.
"This is bullshit and you know it." Shepard told him. She let go of his arm as she continued, "Even if you can't help directly with the investigation we present to the Council you should at least be able to assist somehow. Especially if Saren is as dangerous as you say he is."
"He is, all the more reason to focus on what's important." Captain Anderson replied, "And right now that means convincing the Council that he's no longer a Spectre. I can't jeopardize that."
"Fine, so all we can do right now is talk to this Harkin?" Shepard asked.
"Couldn't hurt." Anderson shrugged, "As bad as he is, Harkin's been around for a long time, he's probably heard quite a few rumors, regardless of his suspension. I just wouldn't call his information all that reliable."
"That's not filling me with any confidence." Shepard said, "Maybe there's another way to find evidence against Saren."
"There is, but I'm not sure it'll help much." Anderson said.
"Couldn't be much worse then Harkin, right?" Kaiden suggested.
"Fair enough." Captain Anderson nodded, "You should speak with Barla Von down in the financial district, rumor has it he's an agent for the shadow broker."
"The Shadow Broker?" Ashley asked bluntly.
"An information dealer," Anderson explained, "Buys and sells secrets to the highest bidder. Just think of him as a necessary evil of intergalactic politics."
"Why don't we just go talk to him directly?" Shepard asked.
"You can't, it's impossible." Anderson said shaking his head, "No body ever meets him, or her, or could be they. The point is no one ever sees the Shadow Broker. Even his agents never interact with him directly. Your best bet is to talk to someone like Barla Von. He can get in touch with the Shadow Broker. Even if he doesn't he may have already come across information about Saren. Beyond that, however, he knows as much about the Shadow Broker as anyone else. All that matters is he might know something about Saren, but his information won't come cheap."
"Great," Shepard sighed, "No chance of expensing the cost of that intel to Requisitions I'm guessing."
"Unfortunately not," the Captain shook his head, "Try to see what you can find out, I'll be at the Ambassador's office if you need anything."
A/N: A short one really quick. Unfortunately I've been suffering from a bit of writers block - in the form of a massive workload at my job - so I havn't been able to finish chapters as fast as I'd like. Hope I can get the creative juices flowing better soon.
