Chapter Ten

"This is Spectre Agent Davi Cestello, requesting permission to dock in C-Sec headquarters."

There was a few seconds of silence, and Davi responded into his headset: "Copy that. Setting approach vector." The Turian cut the channel and looked over his shoulder at the two passengers. "We'll be there in fifteen minutes. Agent Kariss, we're gonna get you patched up. Frema'Zeeg, C-Sec will make sure that you're comfortable."

Neither Spectre on board could see Frema's face, but her snort made her thoughts clear.

"Making a Quarian criminal comfortable on the Citadel. Tell me another," she huffed.

"Hey, you are considered an asset for this conflict," Zeldo reminded her urgently. He relaxed on a leather chair in the lounge, but his expression was alert.

"Yeah, like I believe that. No one even told me what I'd be doing anyway," Frema chided. She glanced away, avoiding Zeldo's eyes.

Davi shrugged and turned his attention back to the windshield, where the mammoth Citadel loomed in its purplish nebula. Meanwhile, Zeldo hesitated at Frema's words. Did he really want to agitate her further after all she's been through?

Hell. It's my turn to give people a piece of my mind.

Zeldo got up and joined Frema on her couch, on the lounge's opposite wall. "I'm not playing a game here," he told her firmly. "And I don't get my kicks by picking up Quarian girls. I have a duty, and I risked my life as much as you did to do it."

"Really? You call shooting up an unconscious victim with drugs 'picking up'?" Frema chastised. She scooted a few inches away, her hands in loose fists on her lap. She turned her masked face to Zeldo.

"The Council wants me on their pretty Citadel? Maybe they're playing games with you, rookie. It sounds like they're giving you the crap jobs anyway."

"Well..." Zeldo flinched; his few assignments before this one really had been jobs of the sort. Then he realized something. "We don't have to save the galaxy ourselves, you know. Everyone has to step up and defend what we've worked hard to build." He pointed. "Even you."

"Is that what the Council drilled into your head?" Frema scoffed. "Don't you ever think for yourself? What have I worked hard to build that I need to protect, huh? What have you? What has he?" she waved a hand absently at Davi, "It's all a scam. A racket. I won't get sucked in to the Citadel's games. And the Reapers can kiss my shiny faceplate."

Zeldo sighed. "You don't understand."

"Really," Frema repeated.

"Don't think you're the only one with doubts. I had to get through a lot to earn the right to call myself a Spectre, and I wanted to quit many times."

"That didn't work," she laughed.

"What do you mean?" he asked her with questioning eyes.

"You wanted to quit being a Spectre. And yet here you sit," she smiled, though he couldn't see it.

"Even though, once, I wanted to be a marine biologist."

Frema cocked her head. "Really? Quite a career shift."

Zeldo paused for a fraction of a second. "I was bullied as a kid back home on Sur'Kesh. I wasn't as smart as the others, and my family didn't have much standing. The other kids called me 'Veldo'."

"What?"

Zeldo made a wry grin. "It means something really gross in my language."

"Right."

"But one afternoon, this particular bully and his friends went too far after I insulted them out of weariness of their constant nonsense. So they knocked me down near the school zone and beat me. Really badly. Hospitalization kind of bad."

Frema shifted, then feigned coldness. "So?"

"Are you always so nasty?" Zeldo asked, annoyed.

Frema sighed audibly, "Why'd they beat you so badly?"

"The ringleader was part of a high-standing family. I called them a bunch of Veldos."

"You had it coming then," she laughed.

Zeldo sneered at her. "I transferred to another school, but I didn't feel like it was enough. So I decided to take charge of things. I dropped from school and joined a training camp for the Special Tasks Group. And I was good at it. Vented my pent-up feelings and earned a spot on the Group.

"It was tough in the Group, and I nearly got myself killed at least three times, maybe four. I started to wonder what my life could have been like if I wasn't bullied and got into a good college. But then, a Spectre visited and looked for potential candidates for the Spectres."

Her contempt for Spectres all but forgotten, Frema glanced at Davi. "Don't tell me..."

"Yeah. He liked my spunk and took me in. The training with him made the Group look like a happy camping trip, and I nearly got myself killed several more times. One day, after I lost it and started yelling at Davi, he shoved me to the ground and told me this: 'People aren't the best at what they do because they just have to do it. They want to do it, their soul needs to do it. Resolve comes from inside'. And he was right."

Zeldo took a deep breath. "Sorry to rant. But the point is, I never bitched about my duty again, because it lets me realize that I'm making a real effort to improve this universe. I was just a bullied kid... but I worked hard enough to do better, so I do. And you can do that too. I'm giving you that chance." He grinned. "You gonna waste it like that? Gonna get cold feet?"

Frema seemed to weigh her words. "Well... not everything you said can relate to what I've been through, but I'll think about it."

"What have you been through, Frema'Zeeg?" Zeldo asked cautiously.

"Do you really want to know?" she asked innocently.

"Yes, I do," he assured her.

"Back on the Flotilla, life for Quarians is hard. The admirals and captains all put pressure on everyone to make sure they behave and directly support the whole of the Fleet, above all else."

Zeldo nodded.

"The truth of the matter," Frema continued, "Is that not everyone lets that pressure squash them flat. My mother wasn't going to let the captain of the Tonbay tell her, or anyone in her family how to live their lives. You could probably guess who won the argument."

Zeldo frowned. "What happened to you specifically?"

Frema 'tsked' then continued, "I grew up. After my father died, and my mother was exiled from the Fleet, I was left in the care of my cousins until I was old enough to go on Pilgrimage. I knew when I left I had no intention of going back. I even stole some supplies from the Captain to show them how angry I was."

Zeldo smirked, "I can't imagine they liked that."

"No, they didn't," Frema confirmed, "And the Quarian retrieval team I left dead on Noveria was the only message I needed to send them. There was this one Quarian commando, Div'Saabi I think her name was... we played together as children on the Tonbay. I shot her in the throat and let her asphyxiate to death."

Zeldo swallowed, then regained his composure and stared hard at her. "Are you trying to scare me?"

"I'm just telling you what I am, and how I got here," she said innocently. "The Citadel wants a mechanic like me on their team? That's fine, but just so they know I am as mean as they get. I didn't ask for this task, this 'improving the universe' project you have."

Her voice softened, "Maybe I do have cold feet."

"I guess it doesn't matter what you were before, or what you'll be after this is all over. This galaxy is the only one we are likely ever going to get," Zeldo told her with resolve. "All life can't be meaningless to you, and this is an opportunity to defend them and make some of your past actions make a difference."

"Alright. I'll play nice. When we get to C-Sec, if I'm not shot on sight, how about that Turian dessert?"

"All right." Zeldo cracked a grin. "It's a deal." He offered a hand, and Frema shook it.

*o*o*o*o*

Docking onto the Citadel's wards had proved easier than expected. Kiroy Twern had simply forged a few official-looking documents, and a phony diplomat from Earth stepped onto one of the station's six mammoth arms. From there, Kiroy headed right for a warehouse late one evening to pick up some hardware.

Only one worker was left at the warehouse, a dark-haired man who muttered to himself as he typed inventory data into his omni-tool. A few LOKI-class 'mechs carried around some crates, but Harbinger was already on that. Crouched behind a crate, Kiroy grinned as the Reaper accessed the 'mechs' processors and scrambled them. There must be no witnesses, after all.

"Hey there," Kiroy said boldly, stepping from cover and toward the man. His Cerberus armor clanked as he walked, his chin held high.

The worker whirled around and pointed an accusing finger. "Hey, pal, you're not supposed to be in here. Why are -"

With a satisfying crunch, Kiroy seized the man's head and twisted hard. The worker slumped to the floor in a heap, and Kiroy casually stuffed the body into an empty crate. He locked the crate and turned his attention to a particular shipment.

"These machines are mockeries of my perfection," Harbinger said to Kiroy as he unlocked a huge crate, revealing a pair of YMIR-class 'mechs, ten feet tall each.

Kiroy nodded and ran a hand fondly down one 'mech's gun barrel. "Of course they are. Have you ever felt weaker creatures crushed underneath your heel?"

"More times than you can fathom."

"One of these can do that to our enemies. After all, look at the people on this list. They won't stand a chance." Kiroy's omni-tool scrolled through a list of target profiles: Alliance officers, alien commanders, trainee Spectres, and other people important to the Reaper war. All were on the Citadel, and among them was his three most troublesome targets: the Spectres Davi Cestello and Zeldo Kariss, and the Quarian rogue Frema'Zeeg nar Tonbay.

They wouldn't trouble him for much longer.

"As a single man, you will have trouble orchestrating this attack successfully," Harbinger noted.

"Give me some credit, will you?" Kiroy typed into his omni-tool and slipped through a secure channel. "Look at that: I've arranged for several targets to meet here at the wards under an Alliance officer named Antoine Dumont. Sounds French."

"And the YMIR 'mech..."

"Will kick down the door," Kiroy finished. "And when it's done, or somehow destroyed, all memory banks will be wiped. No one can trace it to me."

"Very well. Move out."

*o*o*o*o*

"Dauf? In the Eagle Nebula?"

Spectre Davi Cestello stood before the councilors, hands clasped behind his back. Purple nebulae twisted and glowed behind the enormous windows in this room, but today the Turian didn't feel like sight-seeing. If he strayed from his duties for even a moment, all beautiful things would burn under the Reapers.

"Yes, specifically in the Teresa star system," the Salarian councilor said. He picked at a spot on his blue and orange robes. "Our intelligence suggests that a library of sorts is located on the planets surface that may be connected to the Reapers. It was inhabited by a human and Turian mining colony."

"Was?" Davi questioned.

"The colony deserted the system when the Reaper invasion began, for fear of annihilation so far from Citadel space in the Attican Traverse," the Asari councilor continued. "If the Reapers discovered the library and secured it, there would be no hope in gaining its knowledge. This is exactly the kind of situation your initiative calls for."

Davi grinned. "The recruits, I assume?"

"Correct," the Turian councilor affirmed. "Other Spectres will rendezvous with you and Agent Kariss and travel to Dauf in order to investigate and secure the library. The Council recognizes there are few enough options as it is, and every lead must be investigated. If the Reapers are already there, it may be folly to go." His tone softened. "From one of my kind to another... may all the spirits watch over you."

Davi saluted, and the Turian councilor returned it.

"Of course, you'll be part of an elite team," the Asari went on. "While manpower may be at a premium in this pressing hour of galactic need, the Spectres accompanying you will only be half the force. The talented group of individuals collected from across the galaxy can use this opportunity to help against the Reaper threat."

"I understand," Davi said firmly.

"Good," the Salarian councilor said, satisfied. "Now, I believe that Agent Kariss and the Quarian are still recovering from their battles on Omega. They'll have a few days of rest before the mission to Dauf starts. You may want a little R&R, as they call it, before you go. I would recommend taking this time to get each of the team members acquainted. You're dismissed."

"Thank you, councilor."

As Davi turned and walked away, he dearly hoped that Zeldo and Frema had found a way to get along, at least as co-workers of a sort. Otherwise, this would be one hair-raising mission...