Chapter 30: Eye for an eye pt. 1

Shepherd was in his cabin reading an old book he picked up on Illium, he's never been an avid reader not even in his youth. But there was something soothing about losing yourself in another world, a happier world even if it wasn't real. "Onii-chan, can I come in?" Lia asked as he knocked on the door. Shepherd dropped his reading and came to the door.

"What's up, Lia?" Shepherd asked. Something was wrong, the usually chipper quarian lowered her head, he had never seen her worried before.

"It's about Tali" she said. "I'm worried about her" Shepherd looked at her, having a concerned look on his face. "She's been working very hard." Shepherd just chuckled lightly; he thought it was something serious; Tali's had always been a hard worker.

"Is that all?" Shepherd asked. "Tali have always been like that" Lia shook her head.

"It's not the same, there is no joy or passion when does" she said. "She's running herself ragged; Donnelly said that if she doesn't relax she's going to collapse from exhaustion." Shepherd frowned, now it was serious.

"Okay, I'll speak to her, thanks kid" Shepherd said. Shepherd and Lia went down to engineering, when he was down there he met with Gabby and Donnelly waiting outside of the room, they too with worried expressions on their face. Shepherd told them to wait outside and went in where he saw Tali working hard on the terminal. "Hey, rookie"

"Sorry, Wayne, can't speak now, need to balance the core's output" she said moving around. "Need to make sure the Normandy can handle all these upgrades" Shepherd looked at the terminal; it was all green across the board. He looked at Tali.

"Didn't you do that just before we hit the collectors' ship?" Shepherd asked.

"Never hurts to double-check, after all lives are at stake" Tali said. "Got to make sure, their lives aren't at risk…." Shepherd lowered his head, it's been several days since meeting her father on the Alarei and still she was thinking about what happened. Shepherd put his hand on Tali's shoulder.

"This is about your father isn't it?" Shepherd asked softly. Tali stopped and started sobbing. Shepherd wrapped his arms around her. Tali hugged him tightly, letting everything go.

"All that death, all because…" she said as she sobbed.

"I know…" Shepherd said. "It's not your fault; you can't work yourself to death, just because of him" He looked at her; even with the mask he could tell she hadn't been getting any rest. Her movements were slowed, and her eyes didn't shine as brightly through her mask. "You haven't been sleeping, have you?"

Tali's head was on Shepherd's shoulder as she grabbed his waist. "I can't…every time I close my eyes, I see those killed from the logs…blaming me" she said shakily. "It's my fault…my fault…"

"Shh…It's not your fault" he said. "I refuse to let you blame yourself for what Rael did, you're stronger than this"

"I…Thank you" She said. Shepherd kissed her forehead and looked into her eyes.

"Good, now get some rest" he said. "Captain's orders" Tali nodded and went to their cabin. "You three can come out now" Donnelly, Gabby and Lia came out.

"Thank you commander, we were getting worried for the lass" Donnelly said. Gabby and Lia nodded.

"We'll pick up her jobs, while she rest" Gabby said. "Leave it to us" They all saluted and got to work, Shepherd com then beeped.

"What is it, Kelly?" Shepherd asked.

"Garrus would like to see you, he's been quite agitated" she said.

"Ok" Shepherd went to meet Garrus in his quarters. Kelly was right she said that he was agitated as he was pacing up and down his quarters. "You needed to see me?"

"Yeah, I've finally tracked him down"

"Who?" Shepherd asked.

"Lantar Sidonis, he was my second in command of my team during my stay on Omega" The way Garrus growled his name was nothing short of venom. As long as he known Garrus, he's been very laid back, but seeing him now, vengeful and murderous Shepherd had to know what happened. "He's dead, Shepherd, he's a dead man…"

"What did he do?"

"You know that situation I was in? It's all because of him…Sidonis called me said that he had a lead on the blood pack, little did I know it was to lure me away from the base" He said. "The blue suns attacked me, when I got away my whole team was dead…"

"How are you going to find him?"

"There's a specialist on the Citadel, name's Fade. He's an expert at helping people disappear. Sidonis was probably his client" Garrus said. "I'll force him to find him, even if I have to beat him within an inch of his life"

"Whoa, I'm almost afraid to ask what you going to do with Sidonis" Shepherd said slightly taken aback.

"You humans have a saying: "an eye for an eye" a life for a life" Garrus said. "He owes me eight, and I plan to collect"

"An eye for an eye also leaves the world blind, Garrus" he said "You sure about this?"

"I'm sure, look I don't need you to agree, but I'd like your help"

Shepherd sighed "Alright, I'll help" he said.

"Thanks, boss I appreciate this" Shepherd went to his cabin to get ready, he looked back at Garrus, he really hoped he didn't regret this. The Normandy landed on the Citadel, as the shuttle flew in to the docks, he saw the Wards looking little better than when they were there earlier. The shuttle landed and Shepherd and Garrus got out, it was time to find this Fade person though they didn't know where to start looking first. EDI spoke up.

"I've found references to Fade in C-sec's crime reports, Shepherd. That would be the best place to look" she said. The team went to C-sec to meet with Bailey, as they entered, they saw C-sec officers struggling with a human they had in custody, and from the looks of his behavior he was high off of red sand.

"You can't fucking do this, you fucking fascists, I got my rights!" he yelled. Bailey came up to the man and punched him in gut, knocking him out.

"And you have the right to shut the hell up, get him cleaned up and we'll start the interrogation" His men saluted and carried off the unconscious man into the other room. Bailey looked at Shepherd and Garrus and walked over to him. "Shepherd, it's been a long time" Bailey greeted.

"I'm looking for Fade" Shepherd said.

"Straight to business, huh?" Bailey asked. "Yeah I know him, the alias anyway. He's been a thorn in the Network division's side for the last year. He works with the blue suns"

"Where can we find him?" Garrus asked.

Bailey sighed. "If I knew that, he'd be in a cell, best I can do is put you on his trail" he said. "There's a warehouse in the marketplace. Some of Fade's contacts work out of there. Go ask them some questions, gently of course"

"Of course, if they give me answers" Garrus said walking away.

"Is he going to be a problem, I don't want more problems than we already have" he said.

"Don't worry about it" Shepherd said. "Why haven't you been able to catch him?"

He scoffed. "Whoever he is, he's damned good at avoiding C-sec. I think someone on the inside is feeding him information." He shook his head. "Either that or he's got access to our databases and com channels, I don't which is worse, but you're outside of C-sec, maybe you can nail his ass"

"Maybe, see you later"

They went down to the Shipping Warehouse on Level 26. "This looks like the place, the forgers thugs should be inside" Garrus said. They went in the warehouse, where they met a volus with two krogan bodyguards. The krogan came forward in a threating manner, Shepherd looked at volus although he never took his eyes of the krogan, especially one in the brown armor on the left, and he looked a bit twitchy.

"Fade? You're not quite how I imaged you" Shepherd said.

"Looks can be deceiving" he said. "So…which one of you wants to disappear?"

"I rather see you make someone reappear" Garrus said.

"Ah…that's not the service we provide" the volus said nervously.

"Make an exception. Just this once" he said getting to his gun out.

"Damn it. Quick…shoot them! Shoot them, you lumbering mountains!" The krogan try to get their weapons out, but Shepherd and Garrus gunned them down. The krogan fell in a pool of their orange blood and then they focused back on the volus.

"Too slow" Shepherd said.

The volus sighed. "Why do I even bother?"

"Shut it" Garrus said. The turian crouched down and grabbed his suit with his gun pointed at him. "We need to find a client of yours, cooperate or you'll be joining them"

"I would do it, my friend is very pissed off" Shepherd said.

"Wait…I'm not the one you want to. I'm not Fade" the volus said alarmed.

"I knew it was too good to be true"

"Well maybe you can tell us" Garrus said. "Talk now"

"Y-yes, of course. He's in the factory district, works out of an old prefab foundry"

"I know the place"

"Uh…he's got a lot of mercs…Blue suns. Harkin thinks they're protecting him."

The spectre frowned, he remembered that lowlife when he was finding evidence against Saren. He was one of the first human C-Sec officers. According to Captain Anderson, who describes Harkin as "a disgrace to the species", his was not an illustrious career. During his 20 years in C-Sec, he was known for roughing up suspects in custody, taking bribes, and abusing drugs and alcohol. The embassy used to intervene when he got in trouble, for fear that it would damage humanity's reputation if he were dismissed. "Harkin? What does that jack-off have to do with anything?" Shepherd asked. "And what does the Blue sun have to do with this?"

"He's…uh Fade" the volus explained. "They use his services…to help their people to infiltrate businesses and various organizations here on the citadel"

"Bastard. He's using C-Sec to help those scum" Garrus growled.

"No, no, no. Well not really" the volus said. "He got fired from C-sec a while ago. But he knows the systems"

Shepherd crossed his arms. "So being douche finally bit him in the ass, how surprising…" he said sarcastically.

"Interesting. But it changes nothing. We still need to find him before we get to Sidonis" Garrus said.

"Right, that asshole needs a good talking to"

Garrus snorted. "Talk all you want. I'll be too busy giving his kidneys a friendly kicking" he said. "We should get to the transit station"

"So I…I can go?" the volus asked.

"Sure, you can go, but if we don't find Harkin, we'll be back for you"

"Oh good" he said deadpanned. When they left the warehouse they took a shuttle over to the factory district. The district was huge, a winding maze of storage boxes and machinery, how anyone could miss this especially C-sec was anyone's guess. The shuttle landed and Garrus and Shepherd got out and walked to the entrance. They meet Harkin and two Blue Suns troopers. Harkin paled as his eyes went wide as he saw them, especially Shepherd.

"Shepherd?" Harkin asked. He takes a step back fearfully. "Y-you're dead!"

"I get that a lot" Shepherd said with a smirk. "What, no welcome back, Harkin? I'm hurt, really"

"Don't just stand there…stop them. Stop them!" While the Blue suns got their weapons out, Harken like the coward he was, flees deeper into the district.

Run all you want, Harkin! We'll find you!" Garrus growled. The two troopers opened fired and the duo took cover. Shepherd froze one of them with his cryo blast; Garrus shatter him with a concussive shot. Seeing how outclassed he was the other merc tried to run, but he didn't get far as he was gunned down by Garrus. They moved deeper in to the district fighting more mercs and LOKI mechs. Due to the machinery and storage boxes, the blue suns loved to use ambushes to catch them off-guard, it was also hard for Garrus to get a clear shot for sniping as they also had lots of cover. Shepherd had to admit, he was impressed by the Blue Suns location, it was a tactically good location but did have its flaws. Shepherd's singularity lifted up the mercs and a canister, Garrus shot the canister, causing an explosion.

"Harkin's in here somewhere. I can smell him" Garrus growled.

"Keep your head on straight, Garrus" Shepherd warned.

"Don't worry; I've come too far to mess up now" Shepherd said lowering the gate.

They moved across and took cover behind the crates and use the elevated cover to hit them from the top. LOKI Mechs dropped from the ceiling and even more come from the shipping container on the right. Shepherd overloaded the mechs while the Garrus blasted their heads off. On top of all that there are some Blue Suns that just don't seem to get the message that they couldn't be stopped and open fire. Shepherd used his singularity field and Garrus pushed them of the ledges with concussive shots.

"We need reinforcements, they're tearing us apart" one of them said before a bullet went through his skull.

"We're getting closer" Garrus said. This next area more LOKI Mechs emerged, they were reinforced by Blue Suns Troopers, a Blue Suns Commander, and YMIR Mechs. They were also reinforced with four engineers that then summoned their drones; the duo was looking a formidable obstacle.

"Shit" Garrus cursed.

"Get down" Shepherd said. He got out his Cain while Garrus took cover. While the spectre charged the cannon the mercs fired at him, luckily Shepherd's tech armor was enough to protect him. And then the heavy mech was charging his missile launcher.

"Uh, Boss? I think you to hurry now" Garrus said.

The Cain beeped and fired.