If he had to hear 'this is stupid, sir,' one more time, Bailey thought as he hurried into the Council Chambers, he was going to start handing out demotions. It did feel stupid, wearing his breather on a perfectly normal day, but he had already yelled at four C-Sec officers for having their breathers but not wearing them. They needed to be the ones setting an example, after all.

If the citizenry saw C-Sec wearing their breathers, they were more likely to follow suit than if it was a general order to do so. On a space station, everyone had an emergency breather, in case something ever went wrong. But as was usually the case when everything worked perfectly, few people kept their breathers close at hand. Mostly, they ended up in an emergency box at home in a closet.

But if Shepard said 'put your breathers on' then 'put your breathers on' was the order of the damn day. Especially if she was saying it from half a galaxy away. Even now, the Wards were shutting down, citizens requested to return to their homes from work and school to wait. There were no details about this impending attack, only that it was coming, and would happen soon.

Shepard liked more detailed words than 'soon' generally, which increased Bailey's sense of unease. If she was saying 'soon' it could mean something bad was going to happen within minutes.

He almost had to run to keep up with Executor Chellik. The Executor hadn't wasted time when Bailey relayed Shepard's concerns and order about breathers. The order went out to all persons on the Citadel, civilians and C-Sec alike: breathers at the ready, prepare for imminent attack.

What Bailey hadn't known—and the Executor had—was that the Council as such wasn't even on the Citadel at the moment. Three of the Councilors had exercised their prerogative and chartered rides with members of their own fleets. The only Councilor on station was Councilor Esheel, and her meeting with Jack Harper—a name C-Sec was now on the lookout for—started twenty minutes ago. If the Council was gone, Bailey felt sure that there wasn't a Spectre left on the Citadel right now. It was almost unprecedented for most of the Council to not be on the Citadel.

Unfortunately, while the Councilor's biomarker indicated she was alive, she wasn't responding to hails on any frequency, even the emergency one, which was why the Executor was now barreling through the Council Tower like a mad rhino.

The breather, although it allowed a steady supply of oxygen, felt alien on Bailey's face, its presence distracting and subtly sinister in what it represented.

But they had the Citadel Tower locked down. There were no secondary control sites for life support. If this Jack Harper wanted to try something sinister, he had to use a console within the Tower, and that was locked down. The logic danced in circled in Bailey's mind, leaving him increasingly afraid that this Harper fellow knew something no one else did.

Chellick had to stop outside the meeting room door, which was locked. It didn't respond to his security code, or the emergency code. In fact, when the second code failed, Chellick swung the door-jack off his shoulder and set it in place. "I'll get the door open, you go first," he grunted, then began to work the jack.

As soon as the door were open wide enough, Bailey slipped through.

Councilor Esheel was nowhere to be seen. There was no sign of struggle, no sign of violence, but the lack of evidence of trouble made Bailey sure there had been some. He crossed the room and peered over the desk…

There was a small blood stain on the floor, but nothing more. Not the amount of blood Bailey was used to seeing associated with a murder. This had been precise, discreet, the work of someone who didn't get caught.

"She's not here. Madame Councilor?" he called, remembering the stealth field generator that had saved her life the last time someone tried something on the Citadel. He remembered it without much hope, though. Something about the room felt off.

"Madame Councilor!" Chellick barked, finally getting through the doors into the room.

Bailey came around the desk and felt along the floor finding tile, tile, rug—there. "I found her," he announced, feeling his way up the inert body until he found the stealth field generator, which he immediately disabled.

Esheel's expression was one of mild surprise, as though someone had said something that didn't quite make sense to her before shooting her. The entry wound was tiny, no exit wound. She wore a device attached to her chest, which had several lights on the front that seemed to pulse. Bailey tore it off. As soon as he did, an alert came through that Councilor Esheel's vitals had stopped.

"We're too late," Bailey said blankly.

Chellick took a shaky breath, looking at the body. "We've got to find this Jack Harper person. We'll get back to headquarters and start combing footage." It was all they do, really, see if they could find him through the closed circuit monitoring the Citadel employed. But it would be a slow process, and Bailey had the feeling it would be like that Kai Leng bastard all over again. A guy made of smoke and mirrors.

Just what they didn't need—

Suddenly, all lights switched to emergency reds, klaxons blaring.

Bailey knew what was happening a split second before it actually happened: somewhere, there were secondary controls for things like life support. And whoever was on the other side hadn't just turned them off. They had gone for the simpler, easier option of venting the P.

For a full vent, a breather wouldn't help. And this Harper fellow had just initiated a full vent.

Bailey's last thought was a prayer that only the Presidium had been vented, that the Wards with their millions of people would be spared.