The hatch of the Normandy opened into freezing air. Sheppard felt the shock even through his hard suit. The heaters in his suit kicked in to compensate. They worked, for a while; he knew from experience that after too long in the deadly cold the heaters wouldn't do much at all. Luckily they were in the hangar were the Normandy was docked. Port Hanshan made enough money to justify some limited heating of the space. His squad wasn't in danger of freezing inside their hard suits anytime soon.
He looked over at his squad, Liara looked extremely cold, she had her helmet on and the faceplate active, to keep the heat in, yet she was still shivering. Wrex looked to be enjoying the cold, not that that ever bothered his race. Jerome looked almost the same, he was looking over the area, as if expecting and attack. Then again, the Spartan almost always looked that way.
"Come on, we've got a job to do people," Sheppard said and started walking towards the hangar exit.
The four squad members approached a security checkpoint. A couple humans and a turian were waiting, two security drones floated overhead. One of the humans, who had black hair and a slight Asian cast to her features, stepped forward. "Hold on, I'm going to need to see some identification before I let you pass."
"Commander Sheppard, I'm a Citadel Specter," Sheppard replied, not expecting trouble.
"Load of horse crap ma'am," The other human said angrily.
"We will need to confirm that, in the mean time weapons are not allowed in port Hanshan. Sergeant Stirling, secure their weapons," The first human looked to the second.
As the sergeant stepped forward, all four members of the squad reacted. Sheppard pulled a pistol, Wrex brought his shotgun up, Liara threw up a biotic barrier, and pulled her arm back in preparation for a biotic throw, Jerome pulled both of his pistols, and had them both aimed at Stirling, who now had her weapon out.
"We aren't giving up our weapons," Sheppard stated coolly.
The captain stood still, extremely composed, while the turian and the sergeant both had their weapons out and pointed at the squad. "We are authorized to use lethal force, if you do not surrender your weapons on the count of three, we will be forced to open fire," No one seemed willing to put down their guns. "One… two…"
"Captain Matsuo stand down!" A voice cut in over the PA system. "We've confirmed their identities; Specters are authorized to carry weapons on Noveria."
The security captain seemed to visibly relax, and the other two guards put their weapons away, Stirling a lot slower than the turian. "Parasini-san will meet you up the stairs," Matsuo said tersely.
Sheppard nodded and led his squad through the entrance and up some stairs around a fountain. The heating inside was a welcome relief as he ascended the stairs. At the top was a pair of scanner drones. They promptly went off as the squad stepped through their scanning field.
"Weapons detectors don't mind the alarms," A female voice came from behind a reception desk. A woman wearing a bright pink dress stepped out from a hallway connecting the reception desk to further in the building, obviously for service personnel. "I am Gianna Parasini, assistant to administrator Anoleis. What can I do for you?"
"Have you seen an asari matriarch pass through here?" Sheppard enquired.
"Yes, lady Benezia passed through here about a day ago, on her way to the peak 15 research facility," Gianna looked a little confused.
"I need to see her immediately," Sheppard stated simply.
"You will need to ask the administrator for clearance to leave the port. His office is down stairs, you will find an elevator around the stairs behind you," The secretary said politely.
"Thank you, that will be all," Sheppard returned and headed to the stairs, his squad in tow.
Liara spoke up once they were on the elevator, "The sooner we are off this frozen world the better."
Jerome had to agree with her. The cold didn't bother him, but the hostile greeting they had received did. He didn't have any qualms about killing the covenant, but killing fellow humans always bothered him, even before the covenant had come.
The rest of the elevator ride was spent in silence. The doors opened at the bottom to reveal a large open plaza. It was sparsely decorated with small plants and fountains; the most impressive feature was a massive windowed ceiling that showed billowing snow as a blizzard raged outside.
"Strange taste in decoration," Jerome remarked.
"It's all a cover for the political back deals that happen here, this place is full of secrets." Wrex replied.
The rest of the trip to the administrator's office was spent in silence. As they entered they were greeted by Gianna again. "I'm here to see the administrator," Sheppard said, starting to get exasperated.
"Yes of course," Gianna hit a button on her desk, "Administrator Anoleis?"
"Yes? What? What?" Came the reply, sounding a lot like a child caught doing something he wasn't supposed to.
"Commander Sheppard here to see you," the secretary said, still calm and collected.
"Yes, send him in," The administrator seemed annoyed even through the small intercom.
"The administrator will see you now," Gianna waved to a door behind her desk.
The squad walked into the office to see a salarian busying himself in the holographic displays on his desk.
"What is it? I'm a very busy man, and I have no time to entertain people from that overgrown mud ball you call a home planet." The salarian didn't even meet their eyes as he said this, instead concentrating on whatever he was working on.
Sheppard didn't rise to the insult, "Whatever, I just need to get to peak 15, to talk to matriarch Benezia, it's a matter of galactic security."
"I will only cooperate as required by the executive board. You will not be allowed to harass our clients. They pay well for the security here on Noveria. Not that it matters, there is a blizzard in the area, shuttles have been grounded and surface access has been cut off." Anoleis sounded greatly annoyed at the specter.
"Surface access you say?" Sheppard asked.
"Cut off I said, don't make an issue of this Sheppard." Anoleis cut him off.
Liara spoke up from behind him, "If the administrator will not help us, there must be someone else who will."
Sheppard nodded and turned back to the administrator; who was pretending not to have heard the asari's comment, "I have no further questions at this time."
"Good, I received fifteen urgent messages while you dithered about," The administrator said in reply, not bothering to look up from his desk.
"Let's go," Sheppard said to the squad.
As they passed the secretary, she whispered to them, "The administrator is not the only one with clearance to leave port Hanshan."
Sheppard raised an eyebrow at the secretary, showing he was interested.
"You haven't been in the corporate world very long have you commander? You can't bludgeon your way to get what you want." The secretary said in barely above a whisper.
"I can bludgeon pretty hard," Sheppard said sarcastically.
"Talk to Lorik Qui'in, he should be at the hotel bar, I can't say more, not within earshot of Anoleis." She whispered confidentially.
The squad turned and left for the hotel. On the way Jerome noted the sheer number of alien species, all of them working side by side with humans. It was odd to say the least. He supposed that with a first contact that didn't involve the deaths of millions, it was much easier to accept alien races. Soon they had arrived at the hotel bar.
"Who do you suppose this Lorik Qui'in is?" Sheppard asked the squad.
Jerome scanned the room, taking careful note of the occupants, an asari stood in the corner, looking surreptitiously at a human who stood at the main bar. There were various others scattered around the bar, which was surprisingly open and well lit. Finally his gaze came to rest on a turian sitting by himself, apparently trying to drink away some sort of misery. He tapped the side of his helmet, zooming in on the turian, and read his name tag, 'Lorik Qui'in'.
"There commander, the turian sitting by himself," Jerome said to the commander in a low voice.
"You sure?" Sheppard asks back.
Jerome looks at the commander, who only sees his own reflection in the golden visor.
"Right," Sheppard looks back at the turian and walks up to him. "Lorik Qui'in I presume?"
"Ah, commander, sit down, have a drink," The turian sounded jovial.
Sheppard waved him off, "I'm looking for a way to get to peak 15,"
"Then you will need a garage pass, how fortuitous, I happen to have one," The turian seemed to smile, though Sheppard couldn't quite tell. "Perhaps if you were to render me some assistance in a personal matter I would be inclined to give you my pass."
Sheppard sighed, "Do continue."
"The administrator is an interesting man; he has become quite wealthy since he took direct control of rents." The turian said calmly.
"How exactly does this help with me getting a garage pass?" Sheppard asked, starting to sound annoyed.
"Anoleis has several thugs ransacking my office, he claims to be investigating reports of my corruption." The turian continued, "I have evidence of Anoleis' corruption on my personal computer, if you were to retrieve this information I would make my pass available to you."
"I'll see you after I retrieve this information then," Sheppard turned to his squad and started walking back to the elevator.
"Try not to leave blood stains on the carpet would you?" Qui'in called from behind them.
***
Nidara stood on the bridge of the Spirit of Fire behind captain cutter. The ship was still orbiting Terra Nova, waiting for the promised citadel reinforcements. The alliance had already sent a pair of cruisers and a frigate flotilla, along with a relief freighter to help the homeless refugees on the planet's surface.
"That was a neat trick you pulled with the council," Cutter said while turning to the asari specter.
Nidara noted he didn't bother to pretend he had not listened in on her report to the council.
"At least you got us something, if we run into something like this again, I'll be happy for any help at all, even if the council doesn't want to give us anything at all." Cutter smiled, "I'm grateful, though I have to wonder what sort of command issues we will have when they arrive. For some reason, I don't think they will want to take orders from an alliance officer"
"Most likely not, which could pose some severe problems," Nidara answered the captain. "Hopefully they will see reason, and agree to follow orders at some level. Joint commands are never easy."
"Our history tells me the same thing," He cut off and looked up at a display, "It seems they have arrived, friendly signals picked up coming in at FTL speeds. Huh, there are more than I expected."
Nidara looked at the screen as the signals transitioned to standard space flight. It appeared to be a multi-species task force. A turian cruiser and a light troop transport, and three asari frigates. Not much more than a standard patrol.
"A troop transport? Sounds like the turians may be trying to teach their soldiers how to fight the Geth. Apparently not everyone thinks this is humanities problem after all." Cutter sat down in his chair, "I suppose we should invite them to the Spirit so we can get these command issues out of the way."
"Getting it out of the way instead of waiting for it to appear in battle would be preferable." Nidara agreed, "I just hope they are willing to cooperate."
***
After nearly an hour, a meeting was set up, two shuttles landed in the Spirit's bay. One came from the turian cruiser, another from one of the asari frigates. Nidara sat in a conference room with captain Cutter and the captains of the four alliance frigates, it was a curious design, a large round table, and every seat was the same at the next. They all had hastily assembled power and data connections for portable computers. A few marines stood outside as guards. Nidara saw one of these marines as the door shot open; the marine waved a turian and an asari inside.
The marine announced them as they entered, "Captain Kherrus of the turian hierarchy and commander Diallah or the Asari Republics."
Cutter rose as the two foreign officers filed in. "It's good to meet the both of you, I am captain Cutter, formerly of the UNSC, now of the Systems alliance. To my right are captains Frieder, Hovich, Canetuer, and Wilhelm, of the El Alamein, Agincourt, River Somme, and Coral Sea respectively." He gestured again to his left, "This is Nidara, of the Special Tactics and Reconnaissance group. She has been assigned as an observer to this battle group."
"I must admit, until I saw my orders, I had dismissed the existence of a long lost human colony as rumor," Kherrus said. "I see now that those rumors were based on fact. This dreadnaught is impressive, and completely unlike any vessel I have ever seen."
Cutter smiled when the turian called the Spirit a dreadnaught. "Yes, the Spirit's a good ship; she's seen us through more than I care to remember." He closed his eyes and shuddered a bit, remembering the alien parasite they had found on their last fateful mission in their own universe.
"We do not have to discuss the past, the turian captain said. I've been placed in charge of the council task force assigned to help you deal with your Geth problem." The turian continued, "I know you are thinking about how any sort of joint command would work. I am willing to place the vessels under my command, under your command, provisionally of course."
"I thank you for that captain; it will make my life much simpler. But I have to wonder, why are you so willing to accept orders from a human?" Cutter sounded slightly puzzled.
"You have experience fighting the Geth, both in commanding a ground operation, and in space combat. My soldiers have no such advantage, I would be remiss in my duties to those under my command to try and blunder my way into a fight while a better option was available." The turian answered. "Along that line of thought, I want to request that you send a few veterans to my troopship to train them to fight the Geth. I don't want them going in blind."
Cutter noticed the asari didn't seem to like what her superior was saying, but she held her peace, which he took as a good sign. "Of course, I will organize a team to send over after this meeting." Cutter pulled out some papers, "Now I want to discuss some battle plans if we are to find ourselves in a fight…"
***
The elevator came to a stop, and Jerome stepped out taking point. A pair of guards stood at the end of the hall. Jerome walked up to them slowly and with his weapons still at his side.
"You aren't supposed to be here, turn around and go back the way you came." The first one shouted at the armored figure, obviously a little scared of the green giant.
Jerome stared at the mercenary; she slowly backed away getting more and more psyched out by the moment. "I'll tell you what, you leave now, and I won't stake your head to a post outside this office."
The threat seemed to work, the mercenary turned visibly whiter, and signaled to her companion. "Come on, let's get out of here, Anoleis isn't paying us enough anyway."
Jerome watched as the two mercenaries made a hasty retreat to the elevator. His head jerked up at the shout of "Intruders!" from somewhere deeper in the office suite. He saw a pair of turians and a human take cover behind a pair of short walls. He pulled his pistols from where they were attached on his waist. He vaulted forward, landing on top of the first wall. The turian taking cover there looked up in surprise. The Spartan blew him apart with several shots from his pistols. The human had already been killed in a hail of assault rifle fire. He looked for the other turian, and quickly located him, lying against a wall, his neck twisted at an odd angle.
He barely saw the sniper in time. He quite literally fell from his perch and hit the ground rolling as the powerful mass accelerator round flew overhead. He returned fire; the explosive rounds exploding all around the sniper and keeping his head down as Sheppard outflanked him and silenced him with a blast from his shotgun.
"Negative contacts commander," Liara said over the suit radios.
After about five minutes of rummaging around Qui'in's office, they found his personal computer and downloaded the files they needed. As they turned to leave they found a group of several ERCS guards blocking their path.
"Is there a problem?" Sheppard asked, his voice contrasted with how every member of his squad had a weapon trained on the guards in front of them.
"Anoleis would throw you off world for what you've done here, I won't," Sheppard noted the one who had spoke up was the sergeant from earlier in the hangar. "Do you know what we did to cop killers on my world?" Her voice was threatening.
"Do you know what we did to crooked cops on my world?" Wrex replied with an equal measure of threat in his voice.
Jerome leapt into action before the corrupt sergeant could even draw her weapon. She tried to use some sort of biotic power on him, but missed. He landed behind her and grabbed both of her arms, holding the sergeant in front of him as a meat shield. The other five guards were distracted by his acrobatics, and three of them were quickly dispatched by the other squad members. He shoved a screaming Kaira Stirling into another guard, catapulting them off the edge of the balcony, where the screaming abruptly stopped. The final guard was lucky; he fired several rounds into the Spartan before Liara threw the man biotically into a wall.
The man slumped down, stunned, Jerome finished him off with a round from one of his pistols. The squad then went down the nearby stairs to check on the other two guards. Both of them were dead.
"I hate having to kill my own kind," Jerome said.
"Why? As far as I'm concerned all you are doing is improving the gene pool." Wrex stated as a reply.
Jerome looked at the krogan but didn't reply. Instead he followed the commander back to the elevator out of the synthetic insights office.
At the top the administrator's secretary was waiting, "I've heard reports of small arms fire from the synthetic insights office."
"I have no idea what you are talking about," Sheppard replied.
"Don't play coy with me commander, talk to me at the hotel bar, before you talk to Qui'in," At that the secretary walked off.
"I wonder what that was about?" Liara asked.
"I think it's safe to say Parasini is not just a secretary," Wrex observed.
"We're wasting time, we need to get to peak 15," Sheppard said. "Let's hurry up and get this cleared up."
The four of them walked into the hotel bar, Sheppard quickly spotted Gianna at one of the tables and went over to talk to her. "You wanted to talk to me?"
"Allow me to reintroduce myself commander, Gianna Parasini, Noveria internal affairs. I want you to convince Qui'in to testify before the executive board. In return I will give you full access to port Hanshan facilities." Gianna told the commander.
"Fine I'll help, but I need that pass immediately after I convince him," Sheppard returned.
"Very well, I can give you that, just convince Qui'in," the agent turned back to her drink.
Sheppard walked over to where Qui'in was sitting. The turian looked up at the commander; he seemed more drunk than before. "Ah, commander, any luck with that matter I asked you to look into?"
Sheppard crossed his arms and stared at the turian, "Yes, but I want you to testify before the executive board."
The drunken turian looked outraged, "Oh, so now that you have my evidence you want to dictate how I use it?"
"It's in your best interests," the commander countered smoothly; "You've seen the way the people around here are chafing under Anoleis. If you manage to convict him, you'd be something of a hero."
"I see there is no convincing you Sheppard." He seemed to make up his mind about something, "Fine I'll testify, go ahead and tell whoever put you up to this, I want to finish my drink."
Sheppard walked back over to Gianna, "I've convinced Qui'in to testify, now your end of the bargain?"
"Thank you commander, you've done me a great favor. Here is the garage pass." She handed Sheppard a data card.
Sheppard started walking off, "Alright let's get to peak 15, Benezia has enough of a head start already."
***
Nidara walked into the officer's mess, she grabbed a tray of food from the line. She didn't much care for human food, except for their deserts, which were extremely flavorful compared to similar asari dishes. She only came to the officer's mess because she felt extremely alone in her own quarters. All asari prefer shared spaces over individual ones, and she was no different. Of course being in a shared space wasn't the same as sharing the space. This group of humans seemed very cliquish. The ODSTs and the marines didn't sit together, even in the officer's spaces. She consigned herself to eating alone at the end of a table again when she saw someone waving her over.
"Hey, blue girl! There's a seat over here," Nidara was a bit startled to see that it was Jack, the lieutenant she had fought with on Terra Nova.
One of the other marines spoke up with a word of complaint, "She ain't ODST Jack, what the hell?"
"She's better in a fight that you Jones, if you don't think she should sit here, maybe you should go over and sit with your marine buddies over there?" Jack retorted, and the marine shut up.
Another marine, a woman, barked out a short laugh, "Yeah and maybe having a hot alien around will keep you boys from staring at my backside."
Nidara smiled at that, the humans were a lot less serious than the turians or salarians she normally worked with.
"I wouldn't want to take potential mates from you," Nidara said, a wry smile on her face.
"Ah, hell, sarcastic aliens. I could deal with the genocidal nutcases, but this?" The female marine said, Nidara read her nametag; it had the name 'Chelle Sidorov'.
"You know, I've heard of the covenant, but never about what it was like to fight them." Nidara said, "From what I've heard, they are a lot worse than the Geth."
"They're worse than that even," Jack smiled. "The grunts weren't bad, as long as you managed to keep them from gathering in large numbers, or killed their elite."
"Grunts, elites? What are those, some sort of rank?" Nidara asked.
"Nah, the covenant was a collection of species, each species had a certain role, and the grunts looked like little monkeys wearing armor. They weren't much for combat, slow moving fat targets, bad shots. They had numbers though; the covenant would deploy hundreds as cannon fodder just to test our defenses sometimes. Individually they weren't much, but if they got in large enough numbers, they'd lose all fear of death. They were cunning little bastards too." Jack explained.
"The elites on the other hand were scary as hell. They had shields that could take a grenade and they'd still come after you. They weren't as good as our Spartans, but they were at least as tough. Hell some of them were tougher, I once saw a gold armored one take a tank round and keep on fighting like nothing had happened." He seemed to think for a minute, "Then there were the hunters, big ol' things wearing tank armor, equipped with their version of a rocket launcher, and the jackals, those things were the most annoying. They either would carry handheld energy shields or a sniper rifle, either one could pin down entire squads long enough for the elites to get in close and butcher them."
She noticed his eyes had started to get a faraway look in them. "It must have been terrible, fighting a losing battle against those things."
"Yeah, a lot of good men died, and all we could do was hold them back long enough to evacuate however many civilians had managed to get to get to the transports. Even then they didn't always make it." She noticed he had started to talk with the same tone of voice he had used earlier on the pelican.
Nidara quickly changed the subject, "So what do you guys do for fun around here? I've always wanted to try that human card game, what is it called? Poker?"
Jack got a predatory smile across his face, one that was mimicked on the faces of the other marines, "I think there's a deck of cards around here somewhere."
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Author's Notes:
Right now I am suffering from a severe desire to start writing the sequel to this story before I've even finished this one, and it's giving me writers block. Sucks, but I think I can refrain from skipping ahead or ruining this story in favor of that one.
General MB: Pinnacle station will most likely not appear in this fic (I don't really have time to buy the add on and play it.
Shadow Broker: I understand, but I haven't read the novels, so I'm going almost exclusively off the game canon, and as such I probably won't add in much if anything from them.