"Shepard sure got beat up," Ashley said as she and Kaidan walked over towards the lockers at the side of the room. "What happened down there?"
"Just the usual," Kaidan said. "Fighting for our lives against hundreds of geth."
Ashley chucked slightly as Kaidan opened up his locker and began tossing his gear inside. "Maybe I can come along next time—there's nothing to do inside this ship."
"Maybe," Kaidan said, shrugging at Ashley. "The extra gun would have been handy when were trapped in a room filled with explosives."
Ashley raised an eyebrow, looking unconvinced. "And how did you get out of that?"
"Just look at me—do you think that a few pounds of explosives could keep me down?" Kaidan said, with a smile as Ashley shook her head with a chuckle.
"But really," Kaidan said, becoming more serious. "Shepard killed half of the men surrounding us. He slashed a krogan's legs out from underneath him."
"Sounds like a hell of a fight."
"Yeah. Maybe if you weren't in it," Kaidan said somewhat somberly.
"Maybe you just need a few more good humans at your side."
"What do you mean?" Kaidan said, glancing up at Ashley.
"I mean, maybe you should tell Shepard to bring some real soldiers with him. Not some quarian kid or a police officer."
"Why? Do you have a problem with them?" Kaidan said, slightly frowning.
"No," Ashley said, not wanting to make it sound like she disliked them on a personal level. "It's just that… you know, this is an Alliance vessel. And if the Council didn't want to help us, why should they?"
Kaidan nodded at her, understanding the source of her discontent. She had listened to the recordings from their meeting with the Council—like most of the crew already had—and she was upset about the poor treatment they had received.
"They're better fighters than you might think," Kaidan said, recalling how well the group had worked together that day.
"You haven't seen a real soldier fighting yet, Alenko," Ashley shot back with a wry smile. "But it's not the same on a small ship, like this—there aren't any firing lines, no offensive pushes, no holding maneuvers. There aren't enough soldiers for those kinds of tactics."
"It's not so bad once you get into it. You just have to make sure you can stand up on your own feet."
Ashley gave Kaidan another shrug. "But still, you have to agree that it would be easier if we just had humans here. I mean, it's not a day care or something. We don't have time to prepare special meals for the turian and the quarian."
Kaidan nodded, not really agreeing but not really feeling like arguing with Ashley. "Maybe. I have to go make sure that Liara didn't kill Richard and Dunkin—I'll catch you later." Kaidan shut his locker, turning around to head towards the storage compartment where they had planned on temporarily holding Liara, leaving Ashley leaning against the wall back in the armory.
‡ ‡ ‡ ‡
Shepard stepped out of his cabin, wearing a less-grotesque version of the bloody and torn Alliance uniform had he left in his room, carrying his pistol on his hip and his knife on his left leg, as usual. In his hands he carried a small black box—the buzzer that he had quickly put together the other night.
Doctor Chakwas' words rattled around Shepard's head—words that held logical merit, yet still felt empty to his troubled mind. Perhaps for someone else, maybe her words would have held true. Shepard yawned slightly, tired from the day's exertions, but not planning on going to sleep any time soon. Shepard recalled the cruel visions from his dream once again—though this time the sharp edge wasn't as prevalent, they didn't slice into him as they had earlier.
Stepping into the elevator, where Shepard's blood had dried into a pool from earlier—apparently nobody had gotten around to cleaning it yet—he hit the button for the floor below, which would take him near the engineering core.
It finally seemed like things were coming together—they had Liara held for the time being, Kaidan had made sure of that—and Shepard had a crew that seemed dependable which he could use to fight Saren. He could take Liara back to the Citadel, so that Anderson could question her—interrogation had never been Shepard's style—and then they could proceed based on whatever information she had.
Stepping off the elevator, Shepard turned around the corner, ready to head down the ramp when a familiar voice stopped him.
"Shepard?" Garrus asked, stepping out from the shadows beside where the Mako was parked and towards Shepard. "Can I ask you something?"
"What is it?" Shepard said, stopping as he turned around.
"If there's a murderer on a ship along with ten civilians, is it worth blowing up the ship to kill the murderer?"
Shepard was silent for a moment before he responded. "Absolutely. Bad people need to die—or else they'll kill more innocent people. The sacrifice of those ten civilians can save the lives of hundreds of others elsewhere."
Garrus nodded, a pensive look on his face. "Thanks, Shepard. That's all," Garrus said, as he turned around and slowly walked back towards the Mako. Shepard tilted his head slightly, confused at the purpose of the question, but merely shrugged and continued off into the engineering bay.
"Evening, Shepard," Adams said from inside. "The engines are working fine—anything you need?"
"I just came to talk to your new recruit for a minute," Shepard said, nodding towards Tali. "Could I distract her for a moment?"
"Sure," Adams replied. "She's probably already finished everything I told her to do, anyways."
Shepard nodded his thanks, walking over to Tali, who still seemed to have not noticed Shepard and Adams talking. Perhaps she was pretending—making it look like she was so focused in her work.
"Tali?"
"Hm? Oh, hello, Commander," Tali said, spinning around and awkwardly putting her three-fingered hand up to her forehead in an attempt at a salute. Smilingly slightly at her ineptitude, Shepard put his hand up to his forehead in a similar manner, elbows sagging.
"How are you doing?" Shepard asked, noticing Tali's slightly drooping figure. Her shoulders were lower than usual—typically she seemed to hold herself upright, but now she seemed to be slouching somewhat.
"I'm fine," Tali said, not very convincingly. "Just tweaking the power modulators."
"You did really well today," Shepard said, hoping the compliment would make her happier. To his slight surprise, she barely reacted.
"Um, thanks," she said quietly, before turning around and leaning on her control panel. "I… should get back to work."
Shepard frowned at the depressed manner in which she seemed to carry herself with. "Is something wrong, Tali?"
She sighed, leaning forward heavily on the railing for a moment before she turned around again, holding her hands together.
"Shepard… did those men deserve to die?"
Shepard nearly said "Which ones?" before he stopped himself, realizing in fact how many men Shepard had doomed to death that day. "I didn't want to leave them behind—but we had no choice," Shepard said, hoping that she wasn't referring to the men who had surrounded them.
"But we could have saved them… if we had went back, they would still be alive."
Shepard took a deep breath, not wanting to say what he was about to say. "Sometimes… we need to make sacrifices. They sacrificed their lives so that we could save Liara—and she can help us stop Saren."
Tali nodded slowly. "What about the men who attacked us?"
Shepard sighed, realizing what Tali was likely thinking of. "Tali… they were bad people. They deserved to die."
Tali sighed, looking down at her hands. "I killed two of them, Shepard… I killed them…"
Shepard suddenly remembered looking at himself in a mirror, more than a decade ago, with tears streaming down his face. When the batarians had attacked Mindoir, his father had given him a pistol. When one of the batarians had broken into his house, Shepard had shot him many times, even after he had stopped moving. His mother and his father were both dead, and Shepard had just ended another man's life. His first kill wasn't romanticized or beautiful, it was a cruel, terrible thing that had been forced onto him as a young, naïve child.
And Shepard could see that in Tali now. A pit of regret formed in Shepard's stomach as he realized that it was because Shepard had brought Tali with him that she had to experience those kinds of thoughts and emotions. It always seemed like it was Shepard's fault.
"I'm sorry," Shepard said, biting his lip.
"What? No, no," Tali said, quickly looking at Shepard.
"I shouldn't have brought you with me," Shepard said as he slowly shook his head.
"No, you should have," she said, standing up straighter, speaking with more confidence now. "I want to help fight the geth—and I want to make a difference."
"This isn't the last time we're going to have to fight people instead of machines," Shepard warned her.
"Then I guess this isn't the last time I'll have to kill somebody," she said, without any cruelty or happiness, but merely simple acceptance. "I'll do whatever it takes to stop Saren," she said, standing up straighter.
Shepard looked up at Tali, seeing her determined stance once more. And when he looked into her eyes, he could still see that spark of innocence, silently gleaming beneath her mask.
Innocence that Shepard had lost years ago.
"Oh," Shepard said, remembering the reason for his visit. "Take this," he said, handing the metal box over to Tali.
"Oh, no," Tali said right away, before she even knew what it was. "I couldn't accept anything—"
"Please, take it," Shepard insisted, pushing it back at her. "It's not useful to anybody else on this ship except for you," he said, giving her a small smile.
"Make sure you get some sleep tonight," Shepard said, turning around and beginning to walk away.
"Wait, Shepard," Tali said, stopping him as he began to leave.
"Hm?"
"What color are your eyes?"
Shepard gave Tali a curious look, uncertain of the purposes of the question. After all, she could see his face right here—unless her mask distorted colors somehow.
"Blue—uh, I think," Shepard said, realizing that he didn't really even know what color his own eyes were. He had looked at himself in a mirror almost daily, but he had never really looked at his own eyes.
Tali stared at him for a moment, looking unconvinced, before she nodded and thanked Shepard again for the gift. As Tali turned back to the terminal in front of her, Shepard headed back up the ramp to the armory. It was time to speak to their new guest.
‡ ‡ ‡ ‡
RECIPIENT: Garrus Vakarian
SENDER: Bartus Karrok
SECURITY QUESTION: Dead Wrath
ENCRYPTION KEY: MARKUS
SUBJECT: YOUR LEAVE
It is a shame to see you leave us. You have great potential and room for growth if you work hard at it.
I see that you are now enlisted with Commander Shepard. I wish you had spoken with me or another one of your superior officers before you decided to leave. For your sake, I adjusted your status to "Permitted Leave" as opposed to "Absent Without Leave", so that you wouldn't have trouble when you came back to the Citadel.
Good luck with taking down Saren. I trust that you'll stand for the good of the galaxy no matter where you are.
Also, when you return to the Citadel, speak with me in private. There is information in regards to a previous investigation which you had carried out in the past. New information has presented itself which you may act on if you so decide.
Captain Karrok
Garrus re-read the message over once again, still uncertain of what to think of the whole thing. He hadn't spoken with Karrok out of fear that he would be grounded permanently, or expelled from C-Sec, though he knew that once he had a chance to prove himself in a military group like Shepard's, he would likely be able to remain as a part of it whether or not C-Sec approved. The fact that Karrok had officially permitted his leave on the Normandy surprised him—it opened up new avenues that he had thought were lost to him forever after he made his decision.
And as for the information that he had hinted at? Garrus didn't know what it could have been. There were many incidents in the past that were listed as "unsolved" due to legal predicaments, but none had been as severe as the incident with Markus. The only other incident that would warrant involving Garrus would perhaps have to deal with a certain salarian doctor who Garrus had a previously hunted down—and nearly killed.
But there were no half measures when it came to death.
‡ ‡ ‡ ‡
Shepard stepped into the small cabin where they had been keeping Liara under guard for the last few hours. She had helped them escape from Therum, but there was always the possibility that she was just being pragmatic, using their presence as a way to escape and then skip out as soon as they docked planetside somewhere. Two soldiers stood at the ready at the front of her room—likely not enough to stop her if she had really wanted to get out, but they would at least look tough enough to discourage her from simply walking away.
After all, they still didn't know anything about her. All they knew was that according to Anderson's data, she was related to one of Saren's lieutenants. It wasn't much to go on, but it could easily mean that she was just as affiliated with Saren as her mother.
Shepard nodded to the two guards, who gave Shepard a crisp salute in return as they opened the doors to the chambers. Inside, Liara was sitting on one of the crates in the back corner of the room—this room was mostly used for storage, so it was littered with a variety of metal boxes. She was wearing a green and white suit now, though where she had gotten it was a mystery to Shepard. When they had found her, she had been wearing a thin, grey colored suit that was stained with dust and grime.
"Commander Shepard," Liara said, looking up from a datapad that she had in her hands. "Is there something you require?"
"Are you working with Saren?" Shepard said, not feeling like mincing words with the girl.
Liara shook her head silently, still meeting Shepard's gaze. She looked young—deceptively so. Asari lived for so long, half of their race looked younger than Shepard did—and he was only in his mid-twenties. This girl could be decades older than Shepard, and yet she still looked like a child.
"Do you have anything to do with Saren?"
She silently shook her head again, staring at Shepard with her crystalline blue eyes. They were beautiful eyes, Shepard thought—colored like the ocean. But strange, alien somehow.
"Do you know anything about Saren?" Shepard said, losing his patience. But Liara merely sat there, slowing shaking her head.
Those eyes. They had that same sort of spark to them, the same kind of spark that Shepard could see in Tali's eyes. The innocence, the selflessness, the pure goodness. But it was all wrong—it didn't feel right. It was just a falsehood, a mask. Shepard had seen her Liara's biotics—the ease at which she had thrown geth backwards, the lack of hesitation while they were fighting. Those two sides simply didn't add up.
"I risked the lives of my entire crew to save you," Shepard said, pacing back and forth in front of her. "I sacrificed seventeen colonists who needed my help to save you." Shepard paused for a moment. "So you better start taking before I decide it's not too late to put you back on Therum."
Liara's eyes widened upon hearing Shepard's sudden threat, and she lockers her eyes with his.
"I don't know anything," she pleaded to him, staring with those damnable eyes.
"Liar!" Shepard suddenly shouted, anger suddenly welling up from inside of him. This whole girl was a lie—her innocence, her words... everything was false.
It was undeniable.
Liara continued to stare at him, wide-eyed. She had slid backwards slightly when Shepard had shouted—he could tell that she was coiled tightly, ready to pounce as soon as she had the opportunity. Shepard subtly slid his pistol out from his holster in one swift movement, the handgun almost appearing in his hands.
"Speak!" Shepard shouted, swinging his pistol in the air.
"I… I don't know!" Liara shouted back, the fear suddenly making itself evident on her face.
"Then what the hell did I pick you up for?"
"I… I don't know!" she shouted again, tears beginning to form on her face.
Shepard resisted the urge to point his pistol at her. No matter how false her innocence might have been, her tears were real enough.
She was lying to him, though—Shepard could feel in within him. It was impossible that this girl could know nothing of Saren's plans—Anderson's data pointed directly to her.
It was undeniable.
Liara broke down in tears in front of him, heavily sobbing as she put her hands in front of her face in an attempt to defend herself. Shepard squeezed tightly on the grip of his pistol, taking a deep breath to calm himself.
"I risked the lives of my entire team to save you… so you better be ready to talk."
Shepard threw his pistol back in his holster, gruffly turning around and heading out the door. The two guards looked at him as he stormed past, but when Shepard didn't say anything to them, they closed the door back up and resumed their position.
Shepard stepped into the elevator, still fuming. Something about seeing that false innocence in Liara's eyes had angered him instantly, had made him regret every decision he had made that day. He never should have brought Tali along, and he never should have tried to land on the planet with such a small ground team.
And he never should have tried to save Liara.
Shepard sighed heavily, leaning forward on the railing inside the elevator. He looked down at his side, blood dripping from his crisp and clean uniform onto the metal floor of the elevator.
‡ ‡ ‡ ‡
"Not again," Wrex grumbled under his breath as the Quasar machine in front of him proudly displayed "You won one credit!". These damned machined were rigged—there was no way that Wrex could have lost five hundreds credits in one night.
There was little else to do around the Citadel for someone like Wrex. Not enough people to kill, too many credits to waste, he mourned, as he stood up from his chair at the machine. After he had killed Fist, the Shadow Broker hadn't sent him any messages or notifications as to what his next assignment would be, as he typically had in the past. As far as Wrex knew, the Shadow Broken had gotten tired of him and simply decided to discard him.
But at least he paid up front.
Wrex began to turn around and walk away from the frustrating machine before he stopped and turned around, holding the chip with a single credit on it in his hands. Tossing the card aside, he balled up a fist and slammed it into the faceplate of the machine, putting the blinking lights out in a hurry. With some satisfaction, he heard an asari scream nearby at the sudden movement and loud smash, but he was mostly glad to be done with the money-grubbing machine.
As he proceeded to walk out of the bar, a short volus walked up to him—his three foot height completely dwarfed by Wrex's nearly seven foot tall frame.
"Excuse me, sir, but you're going to need to pay for that," he said in his congested sounding voice, gesturing at the shattered machine that Wrex had left behind. "That's a seventeen thousand credit machine that was imported from—"
"Bah," Wrex said, pushing the volus aside. "You've probably stolen more money from everyone in this damn building."
"Stop!" the volus shouted after him, hobbling behind him. "Stop or I'll call C-Sec!"
"Do your worst," Wrex said, not even giving the volus the satisfaction of being directly addressed as he continued to walk towards the front door of the establishment.
"Marvin, stop him!" the volus shouted at the bouncer who stood at the front door. The red haired human stared between the massive krogan and his volus employer, wondering which course of action would incur more wrath—obeying the volus or ignoring the krogan. After a moment, he pulled out his pistol at held it towards Wrex, who continued walking towards the man regardless of the puny weapon which he held out.
Compared to Wrex's shields and armored hide, the bullets from the pea shooter probably wouldn't even hurt him. So Wrex continued to walk.
"Stop!" the human shouted, obviously terrified of actually having the stop the krogan. As Wrex took another step, he pulled the trigger, firing his useless bullet into Wrex's chest, the pellet easily stopped and deflected by Wrex's shields. With ease, Wrex laid a hand on the human's shoulder, tossing him aside as if he were made of cardboard. Sounds of the volus' rage ensued as he ran off, likely going to call up C-Sec to let them know of a violent krogan on the premises.
Let them come. It's not like C-Sec could actually stop him, anyways.
‡ ‡ ‡ ‡
Tali laid down contentedly in the sleeper pod which she had been attempting to use for the past few days, with little success—not because it was cramped or because of the strangeness of the device—as neither of those were a problem to Tali, who was both small and curious—but simply because of the silence. She hadn't been exaggerating when she had told Shepard about her slow acclimation to the quiet sleeping chambers in the Normandy. The ship was already almost deadly silent—especially when she left the AI core to sit down in the mess hall—and at night, inside the insulated sleeper pods, she could only hear the horrible sound of her ears ringing.
"Log 18." Tali said into her omni-tool, which was glowing lightly inside the small sleeper pod.
"We went to a planet called Therum today to find someone who was working with Saren—an asari named Liara."
Tali was silent for a moment as she gathered her thoughts, not really certain of what she wanted to say.
"There were lots of geth on the planet—we had to fight our way through most of them. But Shepard, Garrus and Kaidan are all really good fighters, so it wasn't a really big problem."
Was there really a point to these incessant logs? After all, it's not like these were things she was going to be forgetting any time soon.
"We left a group of defenseless colonists to die today," she said bitterly.
"This is stupid," she declared to herself, quickly stopping the recording. It's not like she was going to listen to these things any time soon—it was a pointless endeavour. At first, she had thought that her pilgrimage would have been a wonderful experience—travelling to new places, meeting new people, seeing the wonders of the galaxy… but of course, that misconception had been quickly shattered. She had only been keeping the video logs out of the sake of habit—something that provided her comfort, something familiar. But it was still useless.
Tali sighed, remembering how easy it had been to take that soldier's life. She had impulsively pointed her shotgun at him and pulled the trigger, barely even realizing her actions before blood began to pour from the dead man's body. Tali shivered involuntarily, not wanting to think of what she had done.
But Shepard was right—they were bad people. And they deserved to die. At least that's what Tali would tell herself—it was the only way she could justify what she had done.
Hopefully these thoughts wouldn't haunt her for too long—she didn't know if she could handle another sleepless night. She had tried to hide it, but she had almost fell asleep on the Mako—after the initial wave of nausea from the landing, even Shepard's rough driving had almost put her to sleep. The subtle hum of the mass effect core, the skidding of tires on the ground—it had taken most of Tali's will not to fall asleep.
But now she couldn't sleep—the silence was too unnerving.
Tali pulled the small metal box that Shepard had given to her earlier, just for something to do. Something to occupy her mind with. Whatever it was, she didn't know. There was a small dial on the side, and a red button beside that. Was it a grenade or something? If it was, she certainly wouldn't want to press the button while she was inside of a sleeper pod.
She cracked open the box easily—it wasn't sealed shut, it looked like it had just been squeezed together, and inside, she saw a small circuit board hooked up to what appeared to be a motor of some sort. It looked harmless enough—there were no components that should cause any worry. Closing the box back up, she pressed the button on the outside as the motor began to run, creating a humming noise which echoed throughout the sleeper pod.
Tali smiled as she suddenly realized what the box was. Turning the dial down slightly, which made the humming a bit softer, she realized how similar the sound actually was to that of an air filtration system back on the fleet. It was a familiar sound, something that she could hang onto. Something comforting.
Tali yawned and slowly closed her eyes as she continued to smile at the sound.
‡ ‡ ‡ ‡
"ETA to the Citadel, six minutes, Commander," Joker's voice said over the intercom in Shepard's room.
"I'll be up in a minute," Shepard said while pressing a button on the terminal on his desk. Shepard yawned once, trying to shake the tiredness out of his head as he had done at least a few hundred times during the night.
In an attempt to stay awake for as long as he could manage, Shepard had turned the lights onto their maximum strength, which should trick his body's internal clocks significantly enough to at least prevent him from passing out right away. Furthermore, he had done his best to distract himself with Tali's data, studying random pieces of information, more to keep himself awake than to actually learn anything.
The trip to the Citadel had been fairly uneventful—at one point, two of the soldiers had gotten into an argument regarding rations—apparently one of the soldiers had taken the other's stew—but nothing else had really occurred. The magic of mass relays, Shepard thought, considering the great distance which they had covered.
Shepard stood up from his chair, already fully dressed in the combat armor which he had worn the previous day. In the middle of the night, he had washed and scrubbed the armor clean of dried blood in his lavatory, leaving the armor at least fresh enough to wear for the time being. At least nobody would mess with him—there were a few holes throughout the suit where bullets had punched through, and there were silver stripes all across the suit where bullets had struck and skidded along the surface, melting away the ablative surface.
It was probably good enough on the Citadel, anyways. Even last time, when he had dealt with Fist and Markus, their soldiers hadn't been armed to the extent that he needed to be worried. And if they were some of the most influential criminals in the area…
Shepard simply wasn't worried, to say the least.
Stepping out the door of his cabin, he saw Kaidan give him an unprofessional looking salute—a bit of evidence of their unprofessional relationship—and Shepard nodded to him in return. Climbing up the stairs to the main deck of the Normandy, he quickly jogged to the front cockpit, where he saw Joker steadily navigating them past one of the Citadel's wards, the tall skyscrapers reaching out to meet them.
"Any troubles?" Shepard asked to Joker, sitting down in the co-pilot's seat.
"Nope," he replied. "Just got clearance—took them long enough."
Shepard nodded, looking out the window as they approached a docking bay, the building growing larger as they approached it. As Joker loaded the Normandy into position, the ship jumping slightly as the magnetic clasps grabbed onto the Normandy's frame, Shepard stepped into the airlock, waiting for the decontamination protocols to begin.
As soon as those were finished, he stepped out of the Normandy, and seeing the familiar figure of Anderson standing at the edge of the docking bay, Shepard snapped off a salute as he walked towards him.
"Shepard," Anderson said, extending his hand and giving Shepard a strong handshake. "Good to see you again."
"I thought I was meeting you at the human embassy?" Shepard asked, surprised to see Anderson waiting for them at the docking bay.
"I thought that I'd come give you a personal greeting," Anderson said with a smile. "I'll take you down to the embassies—Admiral Hackett and Admiral Belford are there, organizing colonial defense."
Shepard heard the door of the airlock slide open once more as Kaidan, Tali and Garrus stepped out of the Normandy, along with Liara, who was chained up and being led by Kaidan.
"I've brought Liara T'Soni—where do you want her?"
"We can take her down to the embassies—I'm sure that the Admirals will want to talk to her," Anderson said, looking at the asari. "Did you get any information from her?"
"I haven't talked to her," Shepard lied, not wanting Anderson to ask about his interrogation techniques.
"She could be very important in this war—especially if it gives us some way to predict what Saren has planned."
Shepard nodded, unconvinced that Liara knew any more than he did about Saren's plot. She was hiding something, that much was unquestionable, but she had seemed to genuinely know very little about Saren.
As the group approached them, Anderson stepped forward and addressed Liara.
"Liara T'Soni?" Anderson said, standing stiffly in front of her. She nodded quietly, keeping her gaze down to the ground.
"Shepard and I will take Liara from here—thanks, Kaidan," Anderson said, nodding to the man as he put a hand on Liara's shoulder and guided her towards the far railing on their docking bay. Kaidan gave Anderson a salute, and began to head towards to the stairwell at the opposite end of the docking bay, along with Garrus and Tali.
"Sir, can I speak with my crew for a moment?" Shepard asked, gesturing to the departing figures. Anderson nodded, giving him a slight smile as Shepard quickly jogged towards them.
"Before you go," Shepard said, as they stopped and turned around to face him. "Make sure that you keep your shields up, and your weapons ready. The Citadel has proven to be more dangerous that we guessed."
Shepard wasn't particularly worried about Kaidan—he knew that the biotic was already wearing his heavy combat armor, and he was extremely proficient in combat—and he wasn't worried about Garrus either, who knew the Citadel extremely well and wore an equally heavy suit of armor. He was worried about Tali, the one who wore the extremely thin-looking environmental suit, and was in danger of deadly infection every time she was wounded. Shepard was reluctant to let her go out on her own, as even though she was well armed, she likely wasn't ready to shoot down any assailants if they were to come after her.
But Kaidan and Garrus would certainly keep her safe.
"And, Tali," Shepard said, almost as an afterthought. "If anybody gives you any trouble, tell them you're Alliance. From the Normandy."
Tali nodded, and Shepard turned around to head back to Anderson as his crew similarly turned around, heading down the stairs.
"You look like you've done well, Shepard," Anderson said as he returned. "It seems that your misgivings about command were misplaced," he said with a smile.
"Maybe," Shepard said, still uncertain that he was the best choice. Kaidan would likely be a better commander, no matter what spin Anderson put on it.
"Come on," Anderson said. "Let's get to the embassies."
‡ ‡ ‡ ‡
Garrus sighed as he looked back at the front desk of the C-Sec headquarters—a place he hadn't imagined seeing again, at least not for another few months. He had been barely gone a week and he was already back here—to talk to Karrok, even, a man who he had no intentions of ever speaking to again.
But if Karrok had information about Saleon… Garrus could swallow his pride long enough to get that intel. There were lives at stake—pettiness wasn't going to help.
Garrus stepped past the front desk, the turian receptionist giving him a sharp nod as he walked past. He walked past the first few doors in the hall, before he stopped outside Karrok's office, pressing the buzzer on the outside.
A few moments later, the door slid open, and Captain Karrok, wearing his orange armor and matching face paint emerged, standing stiffly, staring at him. Garrus avoided the urge to divert his gaze—the old turian was still certainly intimidating, even if he technically wasn't his Captain anymore.
"Captain," Garrus said, matching the turian's gaze.
"Vakarian," he said, matching Garrus' tone.
"You said that you had information regarding Doctor Saleon?" Garrus said, not wanting to spend any more time here than he had to.
"I never mentioned Doctor Saleon," Karrok said, turning around as he walked back towards his desk. Garrus breathed a slight sigh of relief at the lack of an angered outburst or cold hatred—as much as he had hated the way that the man had dealt with some criminals, he respected him as a superior officer and for at least wanting to make a difference.
And after all, Garrus had nearly gotten his daughter killed. At least a little deference was in order.
"I… believed that Doctor Saleon was the only open case that you would want to involve me in," Garrus said, pausing slightly.
"Then your intuition is as strong as ever," Karrok remarked, though not sarcastically. "We found a tip on his whereabouts."
"Where is he?" Garrus asked, wanting to know where to find the murderous doctor.
"We haven't found his exact location yet, but we've found a two-ton black market shipment of Chlorophyllin Agent X."
Chlorophyllin Agent X. Gibberish to the average person, but this was exactly how it had started last time. They had found a large black market shipment of the rare chemical, and begun their investigation naively believing it was just some drug trade or something similar.
And then things had turned upside down.
"Where was the shipment sent to?"
"A classified ship in the Petra Nebula," Karrok said, sitting down at his desk and tapping on the haptic interface in front of his terminal a few times.
"Classified? What kind of classification?"
"Unknown," Karrok said with a grim smile. "We sent a scout frigate to the material transfer coordinates, but they never returned."
"He… attacked?" Garrus said, his disgust increasing.
"If it is in fact Doctor Saleon," Karrok said, putting a hand up. "We don't know who it belongs to yet. I just thought that you might find our investigation… curious."
Garrus nodded. "Is there anything else? Any way that we can track him down?"
Karrok shook his head. "Nothing. But now that you're in the loop… I'll make sure you get whatever we find. And once we find something…"
"I'll take him down."
Thanks for reading!
The next chapter might come out a day late—I'm going to be out and about for a little while, and I'm not certain if I'll be around in three days.
I also just wanted to extend a thanks for everybody who has been providing reviews and support—the social acceptance really makes me feel good. :)
I also wanted to extend a specific thank you to Azzorath, a friend who has been providing extensive support and has proven to be a real friend in the last couple of days. Thanks, Azzorath!
As always, if you've got any complaints, ideas, or constructive criticism, feel free to leave a review, send me a private message, or even drop me an email.
Once again, thanks for reading! See you again soon!
EDIT: Whoops, I made a mistake and accidentally uploaded the un-edited version. If you're seeing this message now, changes are the chapter isn't screwed up.
