Saturday, August 29, 2561
It was early in the morning cycle, a time at which no self-respecting off-duty cop should be awake after having completed a mission. Of course, he didn't get off-duty like he should. No, instead he was up at this time of morning watching cameras of drunks in the clink for the night, and to keep watching for another seven hours. To add injury to insult, he wouldn't be able to get off lunch either, meaning he'd be starving here in his office.
All in all, the situation was making it easy for Garrus to anticipate getting out of this place soon. Maybe not today. Maybe not this week. But soon he'd be free of the red tape and the snide political remarks, the backstabbing and the brown-nosing in a force too busy trying to move up the political ladder to actually protect the beings they were supposed to.
It sat there sullenly, still dressed in the ragged and dirty clothes it had worn when Garrus had found the thing. The updated file he'd pulled up next to the footage was similarly sparse and unchanged- the only addition was a medical staff finding that the creature was "presumably male."
Idly, he checked the other cameras and found the ones to the cell block clear. "Alright," he said to the air, taking a sip from his cup of ice water. "You're clear. Head on in."
"On it," Navarrus replied in his ear. Garrus watched his progression through the cams, seguing from one to another lazily.
The cell block door was closed, but unlocked, and the gate guard waved Navarus through with a smile, the two exchanging back pats as he passed. The cell door swung open as the turian put a hand on the palm sensor and his biometrics were recognized.
The alien bolted upright, huddled in one corner but face set in stone. "I suppose it's time?" he snarled.
"For what?" Navarus shoved the door closed, and sat down on the bench just inside.
"Don't play games," the alien barked, fists clenched. "Just kill me and get it over with."
"I'm not here to kill you," Navarrus said, taken back. "In fact, I came here with an offer."
"What? You want me to sell Earth out? Is that it?! I already told you, there is nothing you can do to me that would make me tell you- even if I knew where it was."
Linarum muttered over the line, "This guy's completely lost it," and Garrus couldn't help but agree.
Navarrus sighed. "No, that's not it." He rubbed his face with one talon, and through it he mumbled, "This is gonna be fun." He continued, "My name is Navarrus. I'm a police officer with the Citadel Security Forces, and you've been the victim of rogue slavers."
"Slavers?" The alien laughed. "Rogue? Like I'd believe that!"
"Ugh," Navarrus groaned. "You're going to be shuffled under a rug, soon. You'll probably rot in a cell for the rest of your life while the Council tries to decide what to do with you. I'm with a group who's not willing to let this slide."
"I'd rather rot than turn tail and become a traitor," was the sneered response. "Do your worst."
"Do we really need him, Garrus?" the turian asked. "Because I really don't want to have to deal with this for days on end."
"I know he'll be hard to work with," Garrus acknowledged, "but he's our only lead, you know that."
"I know, I know, I was just hoping," Navarrus grumbled. "Maybe you should listen before you reject my offer," he told the alien. "We want to track down the slavers who illegally traded you, and take their operation down."
"Oh? An internal affair messing up your precious Covenant?" The alien snorted.
"This isn't an internal dispute- it's a gang of criminal scum," Navarrus retorted. "They aren't affiliated in any way with the Citadel except that they pass through here. We're a trading station, and it's illegal to pass slaves through here."
The alien's brows furrowed. "Trading station?"
"The Citadel is the center of galactic government and thus government commerce," was the reply. "We don't take kindly to unaffiliated groups bringing illegal items through."
"Unaffiliated?"
"We are not being run by any criminal group, especially slavers and planet-killers," Navarrus said.
Garrus commented, "Not that what we have is far from it," and his subordinate had to work to kill a chuckle before it burst out.
"Let me be frank." Navarrus leaned forwards, eyes narrowing and voice lowering. "You come with me, and we'll hunt down the slavers that raped your planet, and we'll make sure they don't enslave anyone else, permanently." He patted his pistol for emphasis. "Or, you can stay here in your cell for the rest of your life."
The angry face of the alien slowly morphed into something more considering. "There'd better not be any Elites or Brutes."
"No, it's just three of us."
The alien frowned. "And I won't have to say anything about Earth?"
"Not a word."
"Then... you have a deal. On one condition," the alien said slowly.
"Name it."
"When we track down a slaver... they're mine."
"Deal," Navarrus said quickly, relieved to have gotten something so quickly and unexpectedly. "We'll get you out in a few days- we'll need to setup our getaway."
The alien smiled, a small, secret little thing. Slowly, it widened and spread, and as Navarrus stood, it continued to move into a horrendous rigor-mortis grimace. "I want to make sure you get a taste of your own medicine," the alien chortled, "and if you double-cross me, oh, the things I'll do to you double-crossing covie bastards! Flay your skin, break your bones, tear your muscles, dig your eyes right out of their sockets, pull your teeth... oh, yes, and we'll just be getting started! We're going to have a real good reckoning for the planets you've killed, won't we?" He cackled, and as it swelled to hysterical laughter, his newfound partner hurriedly shut the door behind him
Linarum coughed. "I'm... not excited about working with this lunatic, Garrus."
"I'm second-guessing myself, too," Garrus admitted. "But it's a bit late to go back, now."
He took another drink, and as he tilted his head back, his eye caught a flash of color from one of the monitors. Glancing at the offending screen, he coughed, spluttering and spattering water everywhere?
"Are those Council representatives?" He leaned closer in, studying the two, an asari and a salarian. They stood at the front desk, and as he watched the clerk handed them an e-form.
"That's a prisoner exchange form," he realized. "They're here for the alien already."
"Oh, come on!" Linarum complained. "Seriously?"
"Navarrus, change of plans," Garrus gritted out. "The council's lackeys are already here for our man. Looks like we're winging it right here, right now." He stood, pushing his chair out and adjusting his pistol. "Get the alien out of the cell and get him to the back entrance. We'll meet you there."
"Aw, what?" Navarrus groaned. "So now I get to play bodyguard and meatshield on the front lines, after having to talk to the crazy alien? I'd better be getting overtime pay for this."
"I'll pay you double," Garrus promised, "After we get out of here."
-REDCOBRA-
*RESUME*
5: -'s why we've been having a bit of a snarl getting the newest thermal detectors into our security stations.
4: Well, it's no one's fault, really- a freighter taking an engineering casaulty when the Slipspace drive vanishes one of its coolant pipes or similar happens on rare occasions, and it can't really be planned for. Glad to see you've handled it quickly.
2: It's saved me a lot of trouble too, with how well you updated us on the situation- it kept a lot of planetary governors from complaining when they knew exactly what was happening and the progress of the repair effort.
3: Well, now that that's resolved, I have one more matter to bring up before we end this week's session.
1: Oh? I don't see anything else on the transcript...
3: It's not something that should be recorded.
6: Oh. One of those matters. Get on with it, then.
3: I've recently received reports from Internal Affairs. They've been running a covert investigation of certain diplomatic posts in the Outer Colonies-
2: You've been running covert investigations in my posts without even telling me!?
3: Please, please, [2]. Calm down. This investigation is an ongoing thing- it's been going on for decades. It never stops because the threat is ever changing. Regardless, they've reported that the "New Colonial Alliance" and other Insurrectionist factions have definitely gotten people back into the Diplomatic core as low-level personnel. Aides, secretaries, the like. Our background checks are rigorous, but obviously they aren't rigorous enough.
2: You can't be serious. We thoroughly vet our people in the process before they're even offered a job! I'm not sure how much more rigorous we could even get; the forms as they are invalidate half my applicants on the first page!
4: Another possibility: they could have been turned after they were hired. Remember those credit jacks on Tomas? We never did find those funds, despite our efforts, and we've all known that most of it went straight to Innie cells.
2: …Point.
6: So you mean that ONI failed, once again, to track down a group of script-kiddie hackers breaking into our banks, and now, they're subverting our diplomats?
4: I assure you, [6], these are no "script-kiddies." This is a highly-professional team of dozens of hackers, with dumb AI support, all focusing on one AI at a time. Our AIs may be faster, but a mere Gen II smart AI couldn't handle that many intrusion methods at the same time without letting something through. Insurrectionists may be many things, but they aren't slackers in cyberwarfare.
3: In any case, there's a chance certain operations may be compromised. Most of them, of course, are counterintelligence efforts on our part. However, there's two that are of concern.
1:...And those are, [3]?
3: First, there's HUNNIC PEACE.
2: HUNNIC... you can't be serious. If we don't lock that down, now, we may lose our only chance. We may see the advantages of it, but the average man on the street will only see us sucking up, and we'll have no choice but to move it back underground and break off negotiations.
4: [2], I assume that means you're finally willing to let me assign a few teams to your area?
2: *sigh* It appears I don't have a choice except to let barbarians root them out. HUNNIC PEACE is far too important to let fall through at this point, and we can't let it go public until it's already done.
3: ...Second, there's RED COBRA.
5: Of all the possible operations... they managed to pick the two worst ones possible, didn't they?
2: This can't go on. We have to let one of these go public, to give us time to put the other one down, and you all know HUNNIC is more important and more immediate.
4: We can't afford to let either of them go public. We'll have a full-blown revolt back on our hands!
2: Well, which is more important? The aliens far away, bottlenecked behind an artifact? Or the ones right on our borders, currently engaged in piracy, looting, and with which we need a settlement as soon as possible?
3: [2], those "far away aliens" are also a far stronger polity. From what we've discovered, their Relay system is... extensive, and their industry easily surpasses ours at the moment. We have few advantages but speed and surprise, and if we let it go public you know some corporate magnate or conspiracy theorist is going to go haring off after aliens to make history for themselves, and then everything we've done to give ourselves an edge will be wasted.
2: Well, it's that or ruin the only chance we have for peace!
*ANONYMOUS VOTE DEMANDED*
SHOULD THIS COUNCIL APPROVE RELEASE OF INFORMATION RELATING TO: HUNNIC PEACE?
Y: 0
N: 6
SHOULD THIS COUNCIL APPROVE RELEASE OF INFORMATION RELATING TO: RED COBRA?
Y: 2
N: 4
*VOTE FINISHED*
NO INFORMATION WILL BE DISCLOSED ON EITHER OPERATION AT THIS TIME.
2: Very well! If you want to hide in your castle of secrets, fine by me. But when it all comes crumbling down, I won't be the one taking the blame, mark my words!
1: I'm sorry, [2] but-
*2 HAS DISCONNECTED. SUSPENDING COUNCIL BUSINESS*
1:Well, I suppose this is over. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go soothe [2] before she breaks something.
...And just to let you know, I voted against both proposals. I know they're not the most immediate threat, but these xenos... this 'Citadel'...right now, they outclass us just as badly as the Covenant ever did. I don't want to find out whether they're amenable to peace on their terms, or not.
But [3], [4], if something does come out- I don't want an alpha strike, I don't want an assassination, I don't want a false-flag, I want none of the cloak-and-dagger business. We will deal with it honestly, and with this 'Citadel' honestly, in the hopes of peace. Do I make myself perfectly clear?
All: Clear, [1].
1: Good.
*1 HAS DISCONNECTED.*
*5 HAS DISCONNECTED.*
*6 HAS DISCONNECTED.*
3: *sigh*[4], I'll give you any asset you want. Just keep this quiet, for all our sakes.
4: I'll do everything I can, [3]. Everything I can. Now, if you'll excuse me?
*HAS DISCONNECTED.*
3: God, I hope this Citadel isn't like the Covenant... I don't think we'll pull a miracle out of a hat this time.
*PAUSE, 23.63 SECONDS IN DURATION*
Ares, I need you to redirect focus back on the simulations where we're discovered before we choose to reveal ourselves, and a war breaks out.
...Focus on whether they'll conquer us, or just kill us all over again.
*SESSION ENDED*
A/N: I'm terribly sorry, everyone. Things have been really hectic for me, and I've just squeezed out enough time to write now.
Hopefully, the next update will be quite a bit quicker.