Chapter 11: What Lurks in the Shadows
Sean didn't make too many changes to his new freighter, he wasn't planning on hanging on to it for too long anyway. For the time being he just patched up some of the rougher bits and took the opportunity to scan every little detail of its construction into his mainframe. He added better sensors and reinforced the hull as well, knowing he would need them soon.
He checked in on Friday and found that she had already made good progress. With most of his files now sorted and organized, he changed her orders to building cyber security. The Fortress made it so that the internal network was hack-proof, but the supplement mentioned that outside devices weren't. Sean took this to mean that things like his Omni-Tool might provide a backdoor into his systems if they were hacked while connected.
Sean and Ava had been caught between two main plans for how to handle things. They could go after the Shadow Broker and take over his network and resources. It wouldn't be hard at all to find him and between the two of them taking out the guards shouldn't be too hard. With his network there wouldn't be much happening in the galaxy that they wouldn't know about.
The other plan was a little more direct. Ava suggested that they take over Omega, maybe turn it into something respectable. Fixing it up would be a secondary objective though, taking over the station would put them right in the middle of the galactic black market. Controlling the flow of mercenaries and illicit goods in the lawless zone known as the Traverse would give them a huge amount of power. It would also serve them well to stay outside of the Council's sphere of power for the time being.
In the end what decided their course of action was actually the tasks provided by the Notice Board. Strangely in the few hours since they last saw it the Board had changed, instead of having to accept or decline the tasks it was more like an open bounty. It just gave a task and, where applicable, a progress tracker. If they accomplished the objective then the bottom of the board assured that 'rewards will be delivered to your Fortress automatically'.
There were several that he wouldn't do just on principle, with no clear idea of the rewards anymore it wasn't worth the risk. For example:
Kill Shepard
Assist the Reapers in the Harvest
Conquer all of Citadel Space
Some were pretty redundant, they were things that he would do anyway given the chance. Several would help them personally, but a few Sean saw as fixing the karmic balance. Getting a reward for them would just be a bonus:
Obtain DNA from 15 Sapient species (not including humans)
Broker peace between the Quarians and Geth
Cure the Genophage
Free the Batarian slaves
Prevent Nihilus' death at Saren's hands
Help to defeat the Reapers
Others were also off the table, though not because he didn't want to risk doing them. Mostly because he simply had no desire too, or the plans they had was at odds with the objectives. Things like:
Seduce 5 named characters
Help the Quarians get a seat on the Council
Prevent the death of the Council on the Destiny Ascension
Of course it was two big tasks that helped to shape their plans:
Replace the Shadow Broker without anyone knowing
Replace Aria as leader of Omega
With those on the table, Sean and Ava decided to accomplish both of their original plans. First, they would take out the Shadow Broker and replace him. After that they would make their way to Omega, at that point they had about six years until the Reapers paid the galaxy a visit. That was, of course, assuming ME1 and ME2 went more or less to canon.
Even if the timeline went way off course from what they knew, having Omega and the Broker's resources to pull on would help immensely in making sure there was a favorable outcome.
There were dozens of other tasks, some easy and some not, but these were the ones that caught their eye. For the most part Sean and Ava weren't worried about them, only the ones that really stood out. They didn't want to get caught up focusing on trying to achieve the objectives and not accomplish their own goals. That way lay a slippery slope into losing track of the big picture and becoming too focused on the tasks provided.
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Hagalaz was an abandoned mining planet in the Sowilo System. The third planet from the sun, it rotated at an extremely slow pace taking ninety-eight Earth days to rotate once. This led to one side of the planet being superheated and the other being extremely cold. The line between the two sides was trademarked by intense storms due to the temperature difference.
Hidden among the thunderclouds was a large ship that served as the main base of the Shadow Broker. From this massive ship the reclusive information broker kept tabs on the galaxy and traded information to anyone willing to buy.
Sean and Ava arrived in orbit to find a peaceful scene, an empty planet and an emptier solar system. If they didn't know any better it would look like no one had been here in years. However they did know better, down there was an army and one of the most ruthless beings in the galaxy.
Thanks to using sensors that this galaxy had never seen before it was easy to pinpoint the location of the ship among the clouds. Getting to it was another matter entirely, the storms buffeted them left and right. The hull creaked and groaned with every movement, lightning flashed around them followed by the roar of thunder.
Finally they landed the Frigga on the top of the Shadow Broker's ship. It was a massive vessel, littered with lightning rods around it's surface to draw power from the planet's storms. They hadn't landed too far from where they had located an access hatch.
The ship was heavily patrolled by the Shadow Broker's private army, and this included the top side. From the moment they exited their ship the two found themselves in a running gun battle. Sean was hoping that even though they weren't as interesting to the Shadow Broker as Shepard was that he would still be cocky and let them get close. It would be annoying if he packed up and left. Killing all of these mercenaries felt like a waste, since they planned to take over the loss of manpower was annoying. Unfortunately it was best to wipe the slate clean of the people closest to the Broker.
This was a good opportunity for Sean and Ava to get accustomed to the new technology they were working with. Ava's armor wasn't designed to be used with her phasing yet and their flames were swept away by the storms. The only reason they kept their footing was the magnetic clamps that were part of their boots.
Once inside they made use of their new biotic abilities. It was an interesting experience, like working a muscle that you didn't have before but that was completely natural to use. It took them almost two full hours and over a hundred assorted mooks before they made it to the Shadow Broker himself.
He sat behind a desk in a large room, shrouded in shadows created by the angle of the lights. "I must say I have no idea who you are, and that is a rare thing." The Shadow Broker was a large creature, easily the same size as the Hulk if not bigger. "Your identities were very well crafted, I would have believed them if you didn't come here."
His species, the Yahg, were a preflight people that were approached decades ago by the Citadel Council. They massacred the envoy and their planet was quarantined.
The Shadow Broker before the current one managed to smuggle one off the planet, intrigued by the new species. He turned the creature into one of his best agents, a mistake that would result in his death. Eventually the Yahg agent rose through the ranks enough to meet the Shadow Broker himself, then he killed and replaced him.
Now he sat in the center of his shadowy empire manipulating the galaxy around him to his whims. Always making sure to never sell enough information for anyone to get the advantage over anyone else, just enough to make them at a disadvantage. This kept them coming back for more because they couldn't afford for their enemies to have more information than them.
Sean and Ava kept their guns aimed squarely at the large shadow, they knew better than to let their guard down. Sean was the one to speak up, "That is kind of the point. It doesn't do us any good if you see us coming."
"A fair point," the voice rumbled. "So what exactly brings you here?"
"Oh you know, we thought we might borrow some of your resources. It's much easier than getting our own." Sean kept his eyes on the Yahg while Ava scanned the room to make sure they were alone.
"Ah. Well I'm afraid I'll have to decline, and since you've cost me quite a bit of manpower I'll need to recover the cost from you somehow." With a roar he crushed the desk in front of him and swept it to the side. Thundering steps heralded his charge at the two former Avengers.
Ava and Sean had fought side by side for several years at this point and knew each other's moves as well as their own. Without a word spoken they dove in separate directions, landing on opposite sides of the large alien.
Unfortunately the Yahg was faster on the uptake than they had thought. He turned with surprising speed and launched a punch at Sean, catching him full in the chest. The blow launched him into the wall behind him and left a sizable dent.
Ava wasted no time, she triggered a biotic charge and slammed into the back of the Broker's leg. His knee buckled and he collapsed to the floor, but he wasn't out of the fight. His arm swung around in a vicious backhand that Ava ducked under.
Sean took the chance to jump back in the fight, with a blast of fire and a burst of biotics he slammed into the Yahg with a roundhouse kick knocking the alien aside. Ava lobbed a pair of grenades at him and they both leapt back firing all the while. The explosion made the alien's shields flicker though they didn't fall.
Before he could recover Sean threw a singularity at him, the large alien scrambling to keep his feet on the ground. Ava followed it up with a warp that detonated the miniature black hole, rocketing the Shadow Broker back. They both continued to unload their guns into him, his shields finally dropping. The alien roared in pain as the bullets bit into his skin, Yahg had a very powerful regenerative factor so he wasn't slowed as much as they wanted.
With a grunt the Broker launched a biotic push at them, they were both able to dodge. He charged in swinging his arms wildly. The former heroes dropped another pair of grenades at the large creatures feet and dove clear. An explosion and a resounding thud marked the fall of the Shadow Broker.
When the dust cleared it revealed the Yahg laying on the ground panting, he seemed to be struggling to breathe. Sean and Ava approached cautiously, guns still raised in case he made a move.
"Hnggh...not bad. Who are you?" The Broker wheezed.
"Just a couple of concerned citizens." Sean replied, keeping an eye on the creature's every move.
The Yahg seemed to nod to himself, "Hrk….as much as I...urgh...applaud your abilities, unfortunately this will have to be the end." With his last words an alarm sounded throughout the ship and was joined by a countdown that made it rather obvious what he was doing.
Ava shot him in the head, but it was too late and the countdown was already running. Sean pulled his own Omni-tool out and began typing furiously, hacking into the Broker's systems. It didn't take him long to find the ship's now active self-destruct sequence and saw that it was tied into a couple of other protocols. One to erase all trace of the Shadow Broker and his dealings from the extranet and all local drives, and then another to dump a ton of damaging information on everyone with power to the public. The Broker must have tied it to a voice command to make it easier to trigger in an emergency.
There wasn't a dramatic race to the end, Sean's perks let him trump the Broker's programming with relative ease. He canceled the programming and wiped the orders from the system. With that stopped he helped Ava strip the Yahg and the room of any interesting technology. They also took the chance to grab a large amount of the alien's blood.
That taken care of, they made their way to the Intel Center of the ship. It was time for a new Shadow Broker to take the stage. There would be a lot of work involved in transferring all the passwords and clearances over to them. They also wanted to check the active missions and make sure none of them were putting innocents in danger.
There were dozens of operations being carried out by hundreds of agents all over the galaxy, fortunately most of them were simple observation or recon. A few of them were on more direct missions though. These were told to abort or redirect based on 'new information' and told to fall back to a safe house to wait for further orders.
Sean didn't want to just scrap the ship and all of its resources, but they couldn't really fly it to Omega without raising more than a few red flags. Instead they sent orders for a portion of the Broker's agents to quietly head for Omega. They would get into position and wait for their next orders.
In the meantime Sean opened the Fortress and connected Friday to the Broker's systems giving her access to the VI that the Broker used to coordinate all the incoming information. Friday was originally at about the same level as the other, but thanks to Sean tuning her up and being hosted on more advanced tech she could outperform it easily. This led to her subsuming it and taking the useful programming for herself, with Sean's guidance.
In order to keep all of the information freely moving to and from the Fortress Sean would keep a small portal open on the inside of his gear unless he needed to open a bigger one. Using his Omni-tool he gave orders to Friday to take control of the maintenance bots on the ship and clean up the bodies. They would strip the bodies and take samples of DNA from each of them before dropping them out of the airlocks.
Friday would keep an eye on the ship, using a couple of the drones from the Fortress to handle the more delicate issues. They would help her clean things up and get the ship ready to fly. He wasn't sure if they wanted to keep using it moving forward but it would give her something to do. For now the ship would stay here while Sean and Ava would head for Omega in the Frigga.
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Omega was a large space station built into a mined-out asteroid, it looked like a mushroom cloud. Nearly anything illegal in the galaxy could be found on this station. From drugs to slavery, and anything inbetween.
While it had no formal government, Omega was run by a criminal syndicate led by an Asari named Aria T'Loak. She was only the latest in a long line of crime lords to take over the station, most often by force. Even under her control the station was still little more than a criminal playground.
Sean thought this place fit the description 'hive of scum and villainy' rather well. As the Frigga approached from the Mass Relay they were scanned by at least half a dozen ships to see if they were a target worth going after. Fortunately it seemed they were safe for the time being.
They docked easily enough, paying off the ludicrous docking fees (read bribes) that ensured the ship would still be there when they returned. Once they locked it all up they made their way to the Kima District where the Shadow Broker had set up a safehouse.
The security on the building was minimal if seen from the outside, in fact it looked as if there wasn't any at all. It was used by one of the local agents of the Shadow Broker and their cover would be blown if they had access to advanced security measures. Instead Sean and Ava simply knocked on the door.
The door slid open to reveal a large green Krogan in full armor, "What?"
"We're here for the job. Dragon and Ghost." Before they left the Broker's ship they refreshed the orders. All agents in or moving to Omega were to help two VIPs, Sean and Ava, replace Aria in control of the station.
The Krogan looked them over and huffed, "Boss wants you in charge here? Hope you're tougher than you look. Names Graal." With that the large alien stood aside and allowed them to pass, closing the door behind them. A grunt accompanied by a gesture with his head indicated he wanted them to follow him.
He led them through the building to a panel in the back room that looked slightly out of place, but not obviously so. Graal tapped on his Omni-tool for a moment and then waited for it to open. Again he gestured them in, this time not going with them and instead seeming to stay in the house to guard the entrance.
Inside the secret entrance was a staircase that headed down into a basement area. On reaching the bottom it became clear that it was more of a bunker than a basement. There was a large central room with a sturdy table in the middle surrounded by basic chairs. One corner of the room held a terminal that looked to be monitoring a number of cameras.
Leading off the room were three doors, not including the one they came through. Two of the doors were open with one looking to lead to a barracks area, complete with a small kitchenette and doors to a restroom. The other door opened into a large armory full of a wide assortment of weapons and armor. None of it was top of the line, but there was enough to outfit a large squad or two.
Standing in various places around the room were a dozen of the Shadow Broker's mercenaries, some chatting amongst themselves and others content to watch the room. All eyes turned to them when they entered, questioning who the newcomers were.
"I'm Dragon, that's Ghost," Sean answered their unasked questions. "Boss wants us to make our move as soon as possible. What's the situation?" He figured it would be best to act like he was in charge, nine times out of ten confidence sold the lie. Even if in this case it wasn't really a lie.
Sure enough, at their names everyone straightened and moved towards the table. An Agent in dark armor removed his helmet revealing a Batarian underneath. He placed it on the table and then looked back to Sean.
"We are as ready as we can be given the short notice. The operatives in this room, and Graal, are going to be the main strike force, First Squad." A holographic map of Omega appeared over the table, three red dots appearing. One in the middle near Afterlife, one further into the asteroid where the main control center was, and the last just below Afterlife outside a smaller sealed room.
After a moment the Batarian continued, "There are two other squads stationed in key locations. Second Squad is outside the control center, and Third Squad is positioned by the VIP lounge. We also have plain clothes inside Afterlife, as well as a number of 'civilians' that have been paid off to offer us back up."
The hologram zoomed in on the entrance of Afterlife, "When you give the signal, First Squad will assault Afterlife head on. Aria usually has about twenty guards spread throughout, but like us some of the people will look to help her for various reasons. At the same time, Second Squad will take the control room and Third Squad will make sure none of the VIPs interfere. Once we get our hands on Aria things should settle down quickly. After that it's up to you."
Sean nodded, "Do we need to worry about Aria's people doing something drastic like blowing up the station?" It would be pointless to have gone through all of this just to die because some coward pushed a button.
"No, Aria has the only access code for the self-destruct and all of our intel suggests she's too arrogant to risk using it. All the same Second Squad has a few Engineers that will be in the system as soon as they have control. They will scrub all of Aria's programs and codes, substituting temporary ones for you to replace later."
After another moment of thought Sean checked the time, it was almost midnight galactic standard. "Okay, we move in three hours. Tell everyone to check their gear, get some rest or food, and be ready in two." The gathered operatives nodded and dispersed to do just that.
Hopefully, in just a few hours, Sean and Ava would be in control of Omega and could start making changes in the galaxy. They had a few plans already, but things might change depending on the circumstances. One thing was for sure, the galaxy had no clue what it was in for.
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Three hours later found Dragon and Ghost positioned outside Afterlife with the twelve operatives of First Squad. As the seconds ticked away Ava gave Sean a reassuring nod. This wasn't anything new for them, if anything it felt very familiar. Both of them were used to working ops like this, though usually alone. They would need to go over the Broker's dossiers of the mercs in their employ now, to get a good idea of who they could work with and what to motivate them with.
After a deep breath Sean spoke over the comms to all three squads, "Go!"
As one fourteen people burst from an alley across from Afterlife, two opened fire on the bouncers and put them down quickly. The patrons lined up outside scattered at the first sound of gunfire. At the same time Sean could hear a fight break out in the club accompanied by screams and people fleeing.
First Squad moved quickly to reach the inside doors of Afterlife and found themselves stepping into a battlefield. It wasn't difficult to tell what side people were on. There was a line of guards and citizens standing at the base of the stairs leading to Aria using anything they could for cover. Spread across the club behind tables and bars (and one idiot hiding behind a stripper pole that got shot right after Sean spotted him) were the members of First Squad and several other patrons, among them Sean thought he saw Patriarch the former ruler of Omega.
Now wasn't the time for sightseeing so Dragon and Ghost joined the fight with vigor. Sean slid behind the nearest table and took an experimental shot at the glass overlooking the club floor. Standing behind it, looking a combination of smug and annoyed, was the crime lord herself, Aria. Unfortunately as Sean thought the glass was reinforced and his bullet just bounced off.
He turned his attention back to the fight in time to see Patriarch, Graal, and Ava all use biotic charges into the middle of the defender's line. With the line broken the defenders began falling apart, those that didn't look like Aria's guards decided to cut their losses and scattered towards the exits.
Third Squad's leader chose that moment to report on their progress, "VIPs secure."
With a clear path opened up Sean sprinted for the stairs, having to bodycheck one batarian out of his way. He took the stairs two at a time while reaching quickly for his Omni-tool, prepared to hack open the door to Aria. Apparently he needn't have bothered as the door opened before he had the chance.
His answer as to why came over the comms a moment later, "Control secure, self-destruct disabled, club security door opened." Sean made a note to find out who that was, he might be good to keep around.
Inside the room he found Aria waiting for him. She seemed unbothered by the violence happening just outside the window. "You must be new here." As she started to approach biotic energy swelled around her, "We only have one rule here. Don't. Fuck. With. Aria." With that she launched a push at him.
Sean dove aside and answered with a push of his own that was batted aside with ease. Not giving her time to make another move he opened fire on her with his pistol, making her take a step back and focus on a barrier.
Sean took the opportunity to pull the couch behind her into her legs, knocking her off balance. A quick biotic charge followed that he turned into a massive front kick, slamming the Asari against the window behind her and cracking it. As she fell forward Sean hit her with a Stasis to hold her in place.
The kick and subsequent meeting with the window had shattered her barrier, the only thing protecting her now was a basic shield since she chose not to wear armor. A few taps on his Omni-tool and Sean disabled her shield. Now that she was at his mercy Sean had a choice to make, and he honestly wasn't sure what to do.
He could, and probably should, just kill her and be done with it. If he left her alive she would almost certainly never stop looking for a way to take Omega back. They would never be able to trust her.
At the same time, she was powerful and cunning. If they could bring her over to their side she would make an incredible ally. In the end it was really a toss up, with pros and cons for both options.
Decisions, decisions.
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AN: Hey guys! Sorry for the delay on this one. I had a little trouble getting it together, also got distracted with Subnautica.
Anyway thanks for all the ideas for the Notice Board that were sent in, please feel free to keep doing so. Same for the Gacha and future jumps. I won't guarantee that it'll affect my choices, but I'd love to hear your thoughts.
Let me know what you think!