Well, Thane's situation was emotionally taxing, to say the least. After disembarking in Zakera Ward, I told Garrus that we were talking care of his loyalty mission immediately after we deal with Thane's time sensitive situation. (I'm also breaking this two entries, for two reasons. First, it allows me to organize my thoughts into two distinct entries. Secondly is because of the reason I started these logs in the first place; it'll be easier to read.)

Well, we talked to Bailey, who told me about petty criminal called Mouse, whom happened to be someone Thane used a decade ago to gather information. Before we left, I asked Bailey why he was doing so much to help, and he remarked how kids turned to crime because their parents didn't care, and that we were trying to save Thane's son.

When we approached Mouse, he nearly pissed himself when he saw Thane and me. He seems to be the only person to be taking my reputation seriously, but I digress.

Anyway, Mouse gave us the name of the person who hired Kolyat, Thane's son, for an assassination job; Elias Kelham, a small time gangster who was a problem below my pay grade several times over. Unfortunately, Kelham bribes Bailey to not bother him in exchange for keeping his activities not violent. Thankfully, Bailey was willing to help me despite the legal trouble he'd get into over taking a bribe, though at the time, I figured that he was simply figured that legal trouble was preferable to defying a Spectre.

Regardless, Bailey sent his men to arrest Kelham, who was notified that Kelham's lawyer was at the station. Bailey told us that he's stall them, and Thane asked how we'd interrogate Kelham. I flat out said that I'd threaten Kelham with my Spectre status, and that he'd cave the moment I pointed a gun at him. Thane gave me a look like I'd farted in church, but said he'd go along with it, but reminded me that we needed information more than we needed a corpse. (Which wasn't necessary, since I had no intention to shoot Kelham in the first place!)

Anyway, we walked in, and I plainly stated my name and authority.

Addition by Garrus Vakarian: I'm just going to let her exact words tell how things went, rather than have her downplay how it went, again.

Shepard: Name's Commander Shepard. I'm a Spectre.

Kelham (In a cocky voice): Prove it.

Shepard (drawing her gun and shoving it in Kelham's face): I don't have to prove anything to you. Spectres are above the law. Are we clear?

Kelham: Crystal.

From there, he gave the name of the person he was trying to get killed; a small time politician named Joram Talid, in the 800 blocks. I thanked Kelham for the info and plainly stated that he won't see me again; that he's a problem below my pay grade.

Thane made a joke about that being the shortest interrogation in history (which was kind of funny, to be honest) as we approached Bailey. We told him what was going on; Kolyat was contracted to kill Talid, and it was then that Bailey said he was campaigning for office, and was openly anti-human. And while I'm not exactly pleased at that fact, Cerberus, Udina and people like them give him just cause.

Anyway, Bailey got us a car to get us to Talid's campaign route, Thane told me how we should approach this; we would track Talid until we found Kolyat, essentially using the turian as bait. As I headed up to a catwalk, I thought about my final mission as an N6 just before getting my N7 commendation (which is still classified due to where it was and what was done, I'm afraid), and I started staking out the target. I followed Talid and his bodyguard, a krogan in red and black armor, around the district, talking to voters, and I watched his bodyguard shake down some human merchants in the area, while Talid stood outside the store, giving him "plausible deniability" in case this was brought up. For me, though, it gave an easy, legal justification for what happened later.

We continued to follow Talid and his bodyguard into an area where we both had to go out of contact with them. I had to go through what I figure was a storage room for the bar, and Thane had to go around the long way. I waved off the guy who tried to stop me with my Spectre status and continued through the area where I came out on an overhang.

And it was in just enough time for me to see a drell draw a gun and aim at Talid and his bodyguard. I called out his name, and he immediately looked up to me, as did Talid and his bodyguard. Kolyat turned around and fired at Talid, only for the krogan bodyguard to push him out of the way and take the shots. I leapt off the overhang and joined Thane in pursuit, as well as C-Sec not far behind me. (As a courtesy, I kept Bailey in the loop over this situation, so he was tracking me as we did our investigation. This was as much a police investigation as it was us attempting to prevent a crime, after all.)

We made our way up to Talid's apartment, where, upon opening the door, saw that Kolyat had him at gunpoint. But I could tell that he was afraid; the quiver in his hands as he held the gun and the waver in his voice as he attempted to threaten us, despite me having him in my sights, showed that he didn't want to do this, was in over his head, and could think of no way out of this.

And that's when C-Sec, led by Bailey, told Kolyat to put his gun down. Kolyat again threatened us, saying that he was walking out with Talid. And I did something that, while extremely regrettable, was necessary to show this kid that this wasn't the life he wanted; I shot Talid, saying "Hostages only worked when your opponent cared if they lived." He reacted as I expected; a minor freak out, horrified at the sight of a dead body.

Thane called out my behavior, and I did the best to rationalize myself, to both of us; that Talid was a criminal, and that Kolyat needed to see just what he was getting into. He was not pleased, but he was placated, as he and Kolyat started…I wouldn't say yelling, but their words were not pleasant toward each other. Kolyat was angry, and Thane was remorseful, but Thane said something very poignant to his son; that he'd taken many bad things out of this universe, but Kolyat was the only good thing he put into it.

Bailey told his men to do their jobs and to get us back to the station, and for Thane and Kolyat to have a private room to talk. I thanked him for not giving us any legal trouble over this, and he remarked that Kolyat had never done anything illegal in his life, and that I'm immune to prosecution. And then, he said something that showed me exactly why he helped us with this; that Thane wasn't the only one who screwed up raising a son.

When we got back at the station, Bailey and I were chatting over Thane and Kolyat, and he showed why he was a good detective; he put together a lot of clues over Kolyat's actions, Thane's skills and some criminals that "mysteriously disappeared a decade ago", essentially asking for advice over what to do about Thane's connection to the past with full knowledge that he was trying to make things right. I shrugged and said "that man probably doesn't exist anymore", and Bailey got the hint, and decided to let old ghosts rest. And that was when Thane came out, and we talked what happened today.

Thane said that things weren't fixed between Kolyat and him, but that both of them wanted to try. However, Bailey brought up the fact Kolyat shot some people. I reminded Bailey that the people that got shot were krogan, and that a few bullet holes weren't going to do much to them. I also remarked that if he went into the judicial system, he'd be there for the rest of his life. He didn't deserve that when he was trying to do something good and the fact that, as he said earlier, Kolyat had never been in trouble with the law before this. I said that Kolyat should do something constructive, like a form of community service. Bailey brought up the problem with that; no court would let him off that easy. And I kindly remarked that they should keep it out of the courts then; I said that he could blame me for shooting those criminals, and keep Kolyat's name off the reports. No crimes were comitted outside me shooting people, after all, and the Council's not going to bat an eyelash about me killing criminals. (And I doubt that a krogan would really deny being shot by a Spectre and surviving when the "official story" was released.) Bailey smiled a smile of relief at that point, having a way out of the situation, and shook both my and Thane's hands, saying he'd look out for Kolyat while Thane was with me.

At that point, I called Garrus over, and we asked Bailey about Fade, but I'll put that in the next entry.