10 Hours 23 units. Date unspecified due to Black Ops Purposes.
"Vigilance"
"Good to have you back captains; I'm sure you're glad to be returning to a stable environment." Nalick said as he welcomed the Cohort squads back onto the Citadel. The group exited the medium size passenger liner onto the large gangway in the commercial landing pad in the stations main entry terminal. James knew their missions were always going to be kept hush hush but he felt a little off not having at least some kind or recognition awaiting him when he arrived.
James returned his attention to the matter at hand and made sure the pair of JTOP officers were careful that Tholam was expertly ushered off from the vessel. The salarian technician was still heavily bandaged from the action on Beloraud and it would still be a few days before he'd be ready for any sort of action. Still it felt good to be home, or at least whatever the Citadel amounted in his mind. He figured they wouldn't be staying long though, James felt sure enough that JTOP intelligence would find out who was behind the Beloraud Conflict soon. He pushed the thoughts away as he followed Nalick down the gangway.
"Anything happen while we were gone?" he asked the blue skinned turian as the diverse group made it through the busy hustle and bustle of the massive terminal.
"Nothing really worth my intellect to divulge, the news still hasn't hit with the Beloraud situation but things besides that are still pretty stable. Some minor tax changes brought up by the volus ambassador and some new trade proposals between the turians and humans look like they're going to fall through. I was impressed with the initial report you and the rest of the captains made about the conclusion of your business on the planet. The general sent his compliments."
"He won't be at the debriefing?" James asked sharply to the taller alien being.
"No he's currently dispatched with another contingent of squads handling a border dispute at Nantwor. I'm working with XO Ecktar on assigning new tasks for the squads that aren't out in the field. Mainly supporting C-Sec with sting operations and the like but we're continuously getting reports from worlds close to Terminus systems that it seems as though there is a greater deal of unification between supposedly unaligned pirate clans. Of course we don't have the budget for a fleet of anything save transports so we're still running plans on just how to deal with this increase in activity. The think tanks are working non stop at new innovations but I haven't heard anything new for awhile."
"Business as usual then, we headed back to the headquarters?" James asked as the larger group split up between a four different elevators.
"For the time being, don't you even what a little downtime?" Nalick asked as he crossed his arms to the marine.
"I want to figure out who was pulling the stings at Beloraud. We didn't get the answers from the prince or the queen thanks to a few mercs on their last hurrah." James said as the elevator sped along its course navigating the intricate network of connection tunnels hidden throughout the Citadel. "You think Councilor Anderson has anything for us."
Nalick brought up his omni tool and scanned through a few messages on his screen before returning his gaze to James. "The council is holding a meeting at the moment. I'll leave a call at his office, anything else you need?" the turian asked as James stretched lazily in the small confines of the elevator.
"Nope I think I can find the debrief from here." He turned back to Nina and the rest of his squad. "Squad, find some mind numbing substance and take a breather. I'll send the word once I'm done with the debriefing." Bacek and the others nodded as the elevator doors opened and the group exited. The rest of the squad dispersed behind James and Nalick as they moved through the steel colored corridors of the JTOP headquarters.
The room had no identifiable door but somehow the individual appeared inside the small space. The room had banks of monitors as wells as a large weapon locker on the opposite side of the rows of info screens. The individual held his palm against a bio scanner which beeped softly in recognition. Done with security protocols he moved to the main computer where he checked for new messages from the extranet. One message from a regular address was waiting for him.
//Flash Transmission//…enter authentication key
Password accepted
Welcome N$2V&S
Target
Execute at your discretion. Target will be at Point XI till .
Allocated resources are on an attached file.
//End Transmission//
"We were planning to bring the queen back in for questioning but a group of mercs got the drop on us while we were dealing with Prince Revok. They could have been Cerberus guns but we didn't get a good look at them as we were extracting. We heard from contacts in the resistance that Masef took over as a patron ruler till a new form of government was established and that is pretty much the end of our mission in most respects." James finished as he stood in the main conference room once again.
"Thank you captain, I'll pass along your report to the general, in the mean time as I'm sure Nalick told you that the squads still stationed here will be routed into C-Sec for the time being. There has been a rise in criminal activity most notably in the wards and having some heavy hitters in their operation wouldn't hurt. I'll forward all the info to your home console." Officer Ecktar told James as they finished the debriefing and exited the chamber with Nalick following close behind.
"What's so bad in the wards that C-Sec needs help with?" James asked as they passed a group of JTOP security personnel.
"About week ago we started hearing talk that some big fish was calling the shots over a few of the groups throughout the wards. The reason it caught our attention is we kept tabs on the surviving members of Fists' crew. They were being recruited by this new guy so we started to figure in someone's looking for experienced muscle. Then suddenly the Kilvastone Conglomerate Bank got hit hard. Thirty bank employees were killed and another twenty three were taking hostage by an unknown number of attackers. C-Sec eventually tracked down to an industrial district on the east arm and found this." The turian brought up his omni-tool and brought up an image for James to examine. Dozens of bodies were scattered throughout the image each peppered with gun shot wounds that traced throughout their bodies. Without his experience of combat James would have been taken aback by the grotesque display, but as he was the soldier just stared back at the image before he asked a question.
"Any leads on what happened to the killers?" James asked as they continued along heading back to the elevator that had brought them to the headquarters roughly an hour before.
"No none so far, C-Sec is drawing a blank. But they did find that several of the bodies are those of supposed bank robbers. Initial reports are saying that it was a job gone wrong and that somebody didn't like the end payment. Figure their handlers tried to get the drop of them and messed it up. Anyhow figure we start there." Nalick said as the pair entered the elevator once more.
Unknown Storage Area in the East Ward.
"Yeah these four at least are wearing heavy armor. Got the look of freelancers for sure, no unification or uniforms did we check their weapons?" James asked one of the forensic officers on duty.
"These guys were good, we've made no trace so far but these are Mark IX Grimkors, experimentals from the Elanus Risk Control. Supposed to be out in a few months." The human officer said as he showed James the exotic weaponry. The weapon was comprised of a dark green material, had an almost archaic look to it. After a passive examination James returned it to the officer who'd presented it to him.
"I made a call to a contact I have in the corporation and they are quite positive that no one has gotten hold of their weaponry besides a few exclusive military contracts they have throughout Citadel space." Nalick replied coolly to his human counterpart. "You're thinking ex military contractors who weren't to antsy about giving back next gen weaponry?"
"No, any contracts that the ELC make are iron locked. They don't give out high spec weaponry like this to just anyone. I'm thinking more along the lines that these guys' arms dealer is a pretty good swindler with the corp." James said as he returned the weapon back to the forensic team member. "Still the question remains who was this other shooter. They obviously came too late to stop the slaughter, maybe revenge motive and went down shooting as many as he could." James continued as he dropped down to one of the bodies examining its wounds.
"No we checked all the bodies here, all the bank employees check out and none of the other corpses match known associates of any of the victims." Nalick said as he surveyed the area around them. Everywhere there appeared to signs of the shootout from the shell swamped walls to the occasional blood spatter. "James we need to move out soon. Forensics wants to finish up here so they can give the bodies to their respective family or friends."
James slowly rose up once more and then turned back to the turian judicator. "Put a call into your contact at the ELC lets find out if their missing some of their prototypes."