A/N: Not a lot interesting happening here, but it's stuff that needs to be taken care of before we move on to the oh-so-fun parts. Seriously, you have no idea how much I've been looking forward to the next few chapters I can almost taste it.
Well, not literally. That would be kind of weird.
For the curious, the pants section got pushed back a few chapters. It'll fit in better later on.
Shepard woke with a start, staring at the unexpectedly distant ceiling in momentary confusion before her memories of the last two days brushed the last cobwebs from her mind.
Right. Captain's quarters, not a sleeper pod.
Relaxing back against the pillow, she rolled her head languidly over to glance at the small clock on the desk. Oh six hundred. No sense in going back to sleep, then.
She'd passed out the previous night with alarming rapidity after Jenkins' ceremony, and would have suspected somebody of drugging her dinner if she hadn't known exactly how hard she'd pushed herself over the previous forty-eight hours. She was strong, well-trained, and skilled, but she was only human, and she had the same biological needs as any other soldier. Fighting a long combat mission followed by having an alien artifact dump information directly into her brain was exhausting enough, not to mention the stress of adding a nasty case of jet lag adjusting to the citadel clock.
Plus, half a day stuck reliving a nightmare vision in medbay doesn't exactly qualify as restful.
Sighing, she threw off the sheets and braced for the inevitable rush of cold air. She didn't know why Alliance vessels were kept on the cold side, but they were, and it was a source of never-ending complaint among those with a distaste for chilly temperatures. A popular lower deck theory was that the people who designed the environmental systems for navy vessels also sold warm socks on the side, and that the whole thing was a conspiracy to sap the incomes of the lower ranks.
Whether that was true or not aside, Shepard carried a distinct distaste for the frigid air aboard starships. She'd lived for a decade and a half on the streets of Vancouver and had endured enough icy winters there to last her for ten lifetimes. To make matters worse, no matter how much she tried to eat, she was still underweight to the point of needing to cheat on her physical examinations. It was irritating enough that she'd actually purchased warm liners for her jumpsuits to help stay comfortable.
She grabbed her kitbag and a spare change of clothes before padding out of her cabin for the shower.
An hour later, washed, fed, caffeinated, and feeling about seventy percent more human, she settled down in front of the desk that used to belong to Captain Anderson with her data slate.
She'd already written up part of the to-do list last night before passing out.
To do:
1. Meet with Udina for the Alliance PR briefing.
2. Meet and sign contracts with R&D or mining firms to secure necessary discretionary funding.
3. Arrange for supplies.
4. Visit the Spectre armory for updated equipment.
5. Find a competent quarian engineer with hands-on experience with the Geth.
6. Find someone trained in turian psychology and military tactics, ideally a turian.
7. Find somebody familiar with the Attican Traverse. Military experience a bonus.
She leaned back in her chair, tapping the stylus on her cheek. If she hurried, she might be able to collect dossiers, evaluate, and recruit the three extra crewmen she would need in a couple of days. The Armory trip would take a few hours at most. Supply loading could be done in an hour or so if she made sure the ship's marines were the ones who did the loading, not whatever private company the Alliance had contracted out to do their materiel handling. The Alliance PR briefing was bound to eat up an afternoon, and forming contracts with various firms could take weeks if she wasn't careful.
All in all, she had maybe two weeks' worth of work to do if she hurried. Realistically, she needed to be departing for the Traverse today, and the sooner she left the better.
This wasn't going to work.
Okay. Time to start paring this down.
She immediately crossed the PR briefing off the list. They taught her how to speak to the press back in the Villa. She didn't need to waste half a day sitting in a conference room while people told her that she should reveal nothing and defer to the appropriately trained public relations personnel. Plus, what are they going to do, fire me? She snorted.
She had no idea where to start with the various companies, and frankly, she didn't have the time to find out. Anyone she asked would give her a list that benefited their interests, not hers – the Alliance would want her to give greater access to human corporations, any information brokers would give her the names of those they had worked with in the past or the ones that paid the broker the best, and she strongly doubted the Council would give her advice on which entity they wanted to start breaking their laws!
In a perfect world, she'd do an extensive personal check on the entities she would be essentially entering into business with, but that wasn't an option here. So. Time to do this the ugly way.
"VI," she said quietly to the empty toom.
"Query?" the ship's synthesized voice responded.
"Load the spreadsheet file 'corplist' from my personal document space. For each entry in the list, do an extranet search following the pattern 'company name controversy.' Add the number of hits to that search string to each entry, then sort the entire list in ascending order by number of hits and save it."
"Task complete," the VI beeped almost immediately. Shepard wasn't surprised. While extranet searches could be very slow if stuck behind an FTL comm buoy, the Citadel was the center of the galactic economy, and most exchanges and databases were either hosted on the station or had mirrors available there. A search that might have taken hours to do on a civilian link took mere seconds here.
"Good," she said. "VI. Please append the note 'This is a time-sensitive opportunity and as such any offers will be withdrawn upon receipt of the first reasonable proposal' to the file 'corpproposal' in my personal document space and send it to the listed public contact number on the first fifty entries on the spreadsheet."
"Task complete," the VI said, and she smiled. While virtual intelligences could be irritating to work with, especially if their security mechanisms were badly programmed, they could be amazing time savers when one played to their strengths. If she'd attempted to do the previous task by hand, it would have taken her hours. Instead, it had taken her thirty seconds.
She'd have to finish that bit of the do-list up later. One down, one in progress, five to go. Let's see. While I don't know who I'm taking, I know that there's a strong chance I'll be adding a qurian and a turian to the crew. I can at least get the supplies they'll need.
The requisitioning of consumable supplies for Alliance vessels was fairly simple. Normally, a vessel's allotment of equipment and supplies was determined ahead of time based on the size of the ship and the expected mission. While that worked quite well for large vessels, smaller ships had far less cargo space and were sent on more varied missions. As a result, it was fairly common practice for the quartermasters (or even XOs and COs of the vessel) to need to make specific gear requests.
Simple requests like the addition of alien-compatible rations and medical supplies didn't even warrant a blink from the supply side. If one started asking for heavy weapons for a planned S&R operation, however, a lot of pointed questions started getting asked.
She pulled up the requisition form, dutifully tapped the entries for "Rations, Turian, 90 days" and "Rations, Quarian, 90 days" from the drop-down menu, then paused. Udina had mentioned a colony that had dropped out of contact, the corporate world of Noveria, and daughter of Matriarch Benezia as good starting places for her search. The Normandy isn't equipped to do large-scale colony relief, and I can't possibly pack in enough gear to make a dent if this Feros colony really has been attacked. Noveria's an ice planet, but everything we're interested in is indoors, so no special gear needed there, either. The asari doctor can eat human food if we have to take her with us.
She smiled and marked off the boxes for basic quarian, turian, and asari medical supplies. A simple order of food and first aid equipment wouldn't even get flagged for review, which meant that she could send the Normandy's complement of jarheads over to the Citadel quartermaster as soon as they woke up. It'd be a good replacement for the run they normally did with her.
One down, two in progress, four to go.
She bit her lip. Technically, she didn't strictly need to visit the armory, but she hadn't lived as long as she had in one of the most dangerous careers in the galaxy by ignoring ways to improve her chances. Plus, it was right next to the C-Sec Headquarters, so it wasn't like it would take a long time. No. I can spare the time to see if they have any tools that will improve my chances.
She settled the stylus on the final three entries. She needed a geth expert, a turian with a good head for people and an understanding of military tactics, and someone with experience in the Attican Traverse.
If she'd had time, she'd have have sent a formal request to the Migrant Fleet for an expert on geth systems, a request to the Hierarchy for an appropriately trained specialist, and asked an information broker or two for a competent and trustworthy mercenary.
But she didn't have time.
That cut down her options. She couldn't conduct a review process or wait for bureaucratic turnaround, which limited the selection to people that were already a known quantity and within ten hours' travel of the Citadel.
That didn't leave a particularly long list.
Luckily, it wasn't an empty list.
She called up her communicator's contact list and tapped an address in.
"Vakarian," a barely-conscious voice said from the other end of the line.
"Good morning, Inspector," she said pleasantly. "This is Commander Shepard. Do you remember the discussion we had in Michel's clinic?"
The silence on the line stretched out, tempered only by the gentle hiss of static.
"Yes," Garrus said at last.
"How would you like to work for the more proactive side of justice?"
The pause was much shorter this time. "I'll pack my things," he said.
Shepard smiled and ended the call.
"Morning, Commander," Joker said blearily when she walked out into the mess hall.
"Hey, Joker," she replied. She'd been up for almost two hours, and her stomach was informing her quite clearly that it was not satisfied with the state of affairs. Biotics went through calories like they were going out of style, and she was no exception. She grabbed a bowl of cereal, splashed milk on it, then snagged a small stack of bagels and a fistful of cream cheese packets. An apple and one of the disgusting protein shakes rounded out the ensemble, which she carried to the table and set down with a clatter.
Joker eyed the pile of food with a raised eyebrow. "Didn't your mother ever tell you not to eat anything bigger than your head?"
She paused, the spoon in her cereal halfway to her mouth. "I'm not," she said with a straight face. "Everything here is significantly smaller than my head."
He rolled his eyes. "I think you're missing the point, Commander."
"Pff. Kaidan'll back me up. Right, Kaidan?" she said, waving at the sleep-tussled man crawling out of the pod at the back of the bay.
"Murshnrshl?" he groaned.
She smiled. "Close enough. See? Kaidan agrees."
"Right. Your choice in breakfast aside, Commander, what's the plan for today? We going to get under weigh? Saren's not getting any more dead. Well, I mean, I guess he is, but I don't think the Council wants his cause of death to be 'old age.'"
"What is this, an interrogation?" she said, slight rebuff in her voice. "We'll leave as soon as we can. I need to take care of a few more things before we go."
"Right, the extra crew members. I forgot about that."
"Which is why I'm the commanding officer. Have you seen Pressly around?"
"Yeah, he's in the bathroom- ah, speak of the devil," Joker said as the navigator walked into the mess hall.
Seeing the Commander, Pressly snapped a flawless salute. "Commander," he said respectfully.
"At ease, Pressly. Didn't Anderson have a policy about no rank during breakfast?"
Pressly nodded, relaxing. "Yes, ma'am, but you're the commanding officer now. I wasn't sure if you felt the way he did."
She waved a hand at the man. "It's a good policy. I want to eat breakfast, not tell people to be at ease. Anderson has a good head on his shoulders. Unless I specifically change something, you can assume that his rules stand."
"Understood, ma'am."
"Although..." she set her spoon down. "I do have some business to discuss with you, if you don't mind a working breakfast."
"I'm at your disposal, Commander. What do you need?"
"Several things," she said, a hint of apology in her tone. "First, I'm afraid that with schedules such as they are, we don't have time to get a replacement executive officer from the Alliance before we ship out. Think you can handle those duties until we do?"
He nodded. "Shouldn't be a problem, ma'am."
She pursed her lips thoughtfully. "Although I'll probably put Alenko in charge of the marines so you don't have too much on your plate."
Pressly nodded again. "Makes sense, ma'am. I think I'd have trouble keeping up with them, anyway."
"Fair enough," she chuckled. "Kaidan, you catch that?"
A low groan echoed out from the sleeper pods.
"I didn't catch that, Lieutenant," she said, the humor in her voice half-replaced with a reprimanding edge. She didn't mind an informal ship, but she was his superior officer, and she'd asked him a direct question.
"Loud and clear, ma'am," the lieutenant's strained voice said from the dark bay.
Joker leaned forward. "I think he's got another migraine," he said quietly.
Ah. "Has he seen the doctor?" she asked.
"He went into medbay earlier. It just takes a while for the meds to kick in."
She sighed. "Very well. Pressly, let him know he's in charge of the jarheads, and that half an hour before his headache is gone he needs to take them over to the stationside QM to pick up new supplies."
"Aye aye, ma'am- wait. Half an hour before?"
"Marines move faster when their CO is cranky." She turned to the pilot again. "Joker."
"Yeah?"
"When you finish breakfast, head up and start pre-flight. No rush, but I want to be ready to hit the ground running when I get my last few obligations sorted out."
He grinned, an eager gleam in his eye. "Aye aye, ma'am!" he said with a rare salute.
"Thought you might like that." She poked the quickly softening cereal with a spoon, eliciting a wet squelch.
I hate working breakfasts.
"-Spectre. Huh. My apologies."
The turian manning the shared C-Sec and Spectre armory was apparently something of a recluse, Shepard thought. It wasn't like her face had been plastered all over the media for the last twenty hours, or anything.
Although, to be perfectly frank, 'Spectre Armory' was something of a misnomer. Her Spectre status only allowed her to ignore the regulations that normally affected high-power weapons. She was still forced to pay full retail price, or whatever the manufacturers imagined retail price would be for items that had not yet been released for sale on the open market.
"Juuust show me what you've got in stock," she said, trying to hide her impatience. She had thirteen million things (well, four, but they were complicated) that she needed to do, and she wasn't interested in the slightest in the turian's apologies or issues.
He handed her a data slate, a tidy list of the most advanced tools the races of the galaxy had designed for killing people.
She wasn't particularly interested in most of their wares. Her biotics meant that she hadn't taken a hit to her shield generator or armor in years, and while the amplifiers were tempting, she didn't want to spend the entire trip out to wherever she ended up going first fiddling with an unfamiliar amplifier's calibration software.
Rifles, both sniper and assault, posed a somewhat unique problem: They were designed for the more common one point eight meter, eighty-kilogram infantryman, not a forty-two kilo and one point five meter biotic vanguard. She was an excellent shot with most man-portable weapons, but a full weapon loadout weighed a third of what she did, and even in compact form the long-range rifles were awkward for her to carry.
Her preference, then, was to take an accurate pistol loaded with the most devastating ammunition she could find and carry a light shotgun for when the pistol was inadequate or overheated.
"See anything you like?" the quartermaster asked, and she pursed her lips.
"I'm not sure. What's the empty mass on the Avalanche eight?" she asked, pointing at the dark metal turian shotgun.
"The Armax?" he asked, and she nodded. "I'm not sure. Probably seven or eight kilograms, why?"
She sighed. Too heavy by far. Her current shotgun, a Sokolov, had been a custom-built with a carbon fiber frame and as many weight reductions as possible to reduce the impact it had on her mobility. It came in at just over two and a half kilograms fully loaded. The recoil was a lot harder than in a stock gun, but she'd had extra padding added to the shoulder on her armor specifically to compensate.
"Far too heavy," she said with a shake of her head. "That shotgun weighs almost a sixth of what I do. If I carried a full kit of weapons that heavy, I'd fall over."
"Ahhh," the turian said in understanding, although it sounded more like a reverb-laden chitter. "You know, Commander, we're supposed to be getting some new prototypes in from the asari, and I think they might be better suited to you. I don't know when you're leaving-"
"Soon."
"-but I can arrange for you to be informed when they come in. They use high-temperature composites and a liquid sodium/potassium mix for cooling instead of the old bulky radiator setup. Lightweight and higher performance."
That was interesting. "Send me the specs when they arrive."
"Of course, Commander. Is there anything else that interests you?"
She flipped the slate over to the specialized ammunition and scrolled down the list. In order to help compensate for carrying smaller firearms with less raw power than most active-duty soldiers, she made sure to use the most advanced ammunition blocks and after-market modifications. The result was a compact pistol that bore a closer resemblance to a light grenade launcher and a shotgun that turned people into chunks of meat with alarming alacrity.
Unfortunately for her, 'shock and awe' didn't work very well on machines with no self-preservation instinct, and the high-dispersion rounds that tore through flesh did little more than scuff the paint of an armored vehicle... which the geth bore a strong resemblance to, at least in terms of their plating and weaponry.
"I need a solid slug driver for a Sokolov mark seven, four cases of tungsten ammunition blocks, and two replacement extended barrels for a Stinger Six."
She tapped the buttons to place the order and handed the slate back to the quartermaster. "I'll go fetch the barrel. Be right back."
She leaned against the wall while the turian scurried off into the storage room behind the armory desk. Technically speaking, the Devlon Industries Stinger Six was an outdated weapon. Newer versions in the same line had been released, offering better cooling on top of a more powerful driver and updated magnetic suspension system in the barrel for improved accuracy. She'd have upgraded in a heartbeat... if she could find someone to do the required special tweaks.
Modern firearms were, compared to their predecessors, fairly low maintenance. They required little cleaning, could endure an incredible range of physical conditions, and the use of mostly solid state components meant that for all intents and purposes a gun didn't simply "break" unless intentionally damaged.
That is, unless you ignored the rules.
The pistol on her hip was one such example of rulebreaking. A friendly hacker on Arcturus Station had given her a small program that let her access the normally hidden firmware for the standard mass driver on her Devlon Six pistol. She hadn't the faintest idea how it worked – it was all kinds of illegal to go mucking around with weapons that way – but it allowed her to more than double the energy the element zero driver in the pistol put into each round.
Combined with a block of very hard to justify high explosive ammunition, a barrel with an extra-strong magnetic suspension rail, and an extra coil for stabilization, her pistol was closer to a rapid fire grenade launcher than a traditional sidearm. The downside was that it overheated in a heartbeat and went through barrels about as quickly as it went through cases of ammunition.
"Here you go, Commander," the quartermaster said, setting the packages on the counter with a thud. "Invoice is here."
She glanced at the list. Not particularly cheap, but not as expensive as it could have been. She pressed her thumb to the biometric reader to approve the transaction, the slate beeping in confirmation.
"Good luck with Saren," he said as she hefted the small bag of purchases.
She smiled politely at him. "Thanks," she said, and left the armory.
Two down, three in progress, two to go.
She hadn't told Inspector Vakarian where to meet her, or when. If he couldn't figure something like that out on his own, she didn't want him on her crew. A childish test, perhaps, but one that had been devilishly effective at encouraging personal initiative among the recruits at the Villa.
It's actually quite funny, she thought as she climbed the brief steps to the Citadel Security headquarters, they spend all our time in basic and advanced training teaching us how not to think and follow orders, then ship us off to the Villa where they do precisely the opposite!
Another one of the wonderful contradictions of the military.
"Good morning," she said to the friendly turian at the reception desk. "Is Inspector Vakarian in?"
He nodded. "He is, but frankly I'm not sure what he's doing here. They put him on paid administrative leave after the mess down at the clinic. Looked like he was on a mission, though."
She smiled. Probably telling his superiors they weren't his superiors any more. "Any idea where I can find him?"
"Sure," the turian said, gesturing over his shoulder. "He's in the Executor's office. But, ah," he lowered his voice, "I'd knock first if I were you. Those two have been butting heads for as long as Garrus has been here."
A cowboy cop arguing with his boss? What's next, a remark about being a loose cannon?
"I understand you're upset, Garrus, but this is no way-" Pallin was saying when she walked in the room. "Ah. Commander," he said, his voice cold.
"Executor," she replied politely. "Is there a problem?"
"Garrus claims that you intend to offer him a posting on your vessel in the hunt for Saren. Is this true?" he said, and she didn't need her translator's comment to know he was being blunt to the point of rudeness.
"Yes. I need an expert in turian psychology and military tactics. Experience in tracking down fugitives is a bonus, since we don't actually know where Saren is at the moment. Inspector Vakarian fits the bill nicely." Not to mention his obvious personal stake in the matter.
The Executor grumbles. "Well, I can't argue with that," and Garrus blinked. Shepard suppressed a smile at the young turian's surprise. I bet he wasn't expecting a complement.
"Thank you, Sir," Garrus said. "I'm surprised- no. I'm sorry, that's out of line."
"Surprised I mentioned it? Garrus, I certainly don't butt heads with you because I enjoy the experience." He shook his head. "You're a damn good cop, even when you flout the rules. I only hope you learn that there are reasons for them before you do something you regret."
He extended a three-fingered hand to Garrus, who took it after a moment's hesitation.
"I believe in the law, Commander," he said when Garrus stepped back. "I don't like what the Spectres represent, and I don't like the special treatment humans have been getting. I think this is a reckless move done without due consideration of the consequences."
"Duly noted," she said dryly.
"But if you – and the Spectres – are the best tool to catch Saren, then so be it. Good luck, Commander. Try to arrest him if you can. Now if you'll excuse me, I have some paperwork to handle."
Shepard nodded at Garrus and stepped into the hall.
"We're not going to arrest him, are we," Garrus half-asked, half-stated as they walked for the front door of C-Sec.
She smiled. "No."
"Where to, Commander?" he asked as they stepped out of the elevator onto the presidium.
She pointed across the lake to where the human embassies were clustered. "I need to talk to the human ambassador about finding our next crew member."
"Next crew member? Didn't the Alliance give you a crew?"
She nodded, setting a brisk pace for the embassy. "They did, but there aren't a whole lot of specialists in geth computer systems in the Alliance military. Any technician I brought in would face a brutal learning curve, and we don't have time to practice."
"I see," he said. "Did you have somebody in mind?"
"Remember the quarian who gave us the evidence on Saren? Tali? I'm going to ask her."
"She's awfully young..." he said, trailing off.
"I know, but she's got the experience, knows how to fight, and I've worked with her already. We're shipping out today, so the pool of candidates is somewhat limited. Unless you know of another combat-tested geth expert...?" she asked.
He shook his head. "I don't. Lead on, Commander."
"Commander," Udina said dryly as she walked into his office. "I take it you're not here for the meeting."
She shook her head. "I'm trying to track down the quarian who presented the evidence to the council. Which safe house did you put her up in?"
He glared at her. "What makes you think I-"
She folded her arms and regarded him expectantly.
"Eugh, fine," he said, tossing his hands in the air. "43rd ward, level C, apartment 107. Why do you need her?"
"I'm going to be fighting geth. A lot of geth, if Eden Prime is any indication of the forces he can afford to leave behind. I want an expert on geth systems on my crew."
Udina's face twisted. "She's a foreign national, the Normandy is top secret technology, she's the daughter of an admiral, you can't just-"
She thumped her chest. "I'm a Spectre now, Ambassador," she reminded him, "and I can, in fact, do it. Besides, you're not thinking this through. It's good for the Alliance."
"Oh?" he said icily. "Do tell."
She held up a finger and began counting off items. "First, it hammers home to the races of the galaxy that we really do plan to work with them and include them in our efforts. Presenting the exposure of Saren as a multi-species effort was a big political win for everyone except the radical xenophobes, but actually making them an integral part of an operation is putting our money where our mouth is."
He nodded slowly. "I'll grant you that, but tossing a token alien on to the crew isn't going to solve anything, and it's going to be a logistical nightmare."
"Is it? The Alliance already has standard quarian and turian rations and medical supplies for search and rescue operations. I should know; I've used them myself. Plus, she's not going to be a token minority – I need her expertise with the geth to help track down Saren, and last I checked there aren't a whole lot of combat technicians that specialize in geth systems in the Alliance."
"Alright, she'll be useful, but what about the security considerations? The Normandy is top secret technology, remember, and if anyone can reverse engineer it without you noticing a quarian can."
She shrugged. "So let her try. It's not like she's going to risk damaging the ship that keeps her alive to learn about it. Plus, stealth systems aren't going to be something we can keep secret forever."
"That's still no reason to make it easy!"
"Ambassador, even if she does manage to somehow get the complete technical schematics for the Normandy, how exactly do you think the Migrant Fleet is going to build one? It's not like they're swimming in resources or refined element zero, both of which the Normandy uses a ton of. Literally."
They stared at each other in silence for a long moment.
"The brass is going to love this," he grumbled under his breath.
And that, she thought, was the real reason for his objection: He would be the one explaining to the leaders of the Alliance military and their Intelligence agencies how their chosen representative in the Spectres had, in their eyes, essentially given away one of the largest developments in military technology in the last thirty years. Of course, she wouldn't actually give it away, and she doubted Tali would risk offending people by asking for it or by trying to find out how it worked, but that wouldn't matter. They'd see an alien on their top secret starship, they'd blow a gasket, and Udina would catch the fallout.
She was glad she didn't have the man's job.
"For what it's worth, Ambassador, you have my sympathies in that regard," she lied easily. "But for the sake of the mission, it's essential I have a geth expert on board."
He sighed heavily and rubbed his temples. "Fine. Fine. Go talk to Tali, make your offer. I'll see about dealing with the consequences."
"Thank you, Ambassador."
I think I'll skip telling him about the krogan for now.
The elevator rides in the citadel were long.
She'd asked a local technician once why that was. It wasn't like they couldn't build faster lifts, after all – any race that could utilize element zero had better be able to build a proper elevator. She was surprised to find that the answer had far more to do with the people riding them than the lifts themselves.
They used to run the lifts at high speed, the technician had explained, but the janitors had requested that they be slowed. Apparently, rapid transition outward along a spoke of a giant rotating wheel caused intense nausea in anybody remotely prone to motion sickness, and the janitorial staff had gotten fed up with cleaning various different kinds of alien vomit off the floors.
For those not prone to motion sickness, it made the lifts absurdly slow, and she had to consciously resist the urge to tap her foot while the lift inched downward.
"That was an interesting talk you had with the Ambassador, Commander," Garrus said, breaking the lengthening silence.
She turned away from the small window that looked out over the citadel to face him. "Oh?" she asked. "In what way?"
"Well, in the hierarchy, you'd never see a soldier talking back to a superior like that. It's simply unheard of."
"Mmm. Few things there. One, he's not actually my superior – well, in the broad sense, he is, since he's a civilian and in the Alliance the military answers to the civilian leadership – but I'm not directly bound to follow his orders. Two, I'm fairly certain that as a Spectre I actually directly outrank him. Three, he's been involved in politics so long I think he's forgotten why he got involved in it in the first place."
The turian canted his head to the side. "What do you mean?"
She sighed. "I mean that people, humans, at least, get involved in politics for a lot of reasons. To some people it's just a job that they do like any other. To others it's a calling, a chance to serve something greater. Others still just want personal power over other people. I think that Udina's been involved in politics and bureaucracy for so long he's lost track of why he got started in the first place. To him, there's nothing left but the game, the jockeying for influence and the network of rumor and spies."
On a personal level, Shepard regarded politics in the same way she regarded the people that cleaned the bathrooms: A necessary job, but one she was pleased not to do. She wished people wouldn't try to jerk her around – not only were most people downright terrible liars, but she was more than willing to trade a favor for a favor. Many career politicians tried the slimy charm on her almost without thinking, and cutting through the bluster and pomp wasted time that she could have been spending elsewhere.
Unfortunately, as humanity's first Spectre, she figured that she'd be doing a fair bit of politicking herself.
The elevator slowed to a crawl, and she sighed in exasperation as their rate of decent dropped to something on the order of twenty centimeters per second. She tapped the 'door open' button, noting with some small amusement that it had been heavily worn by various appendages doing the same over the years.
"You'd think they'd add a speed override or something to those elevators," she said as the door slid open. "Let's go find our quarian."
The door to apartment 107 looked like it hadn't been touched in years. Rust from the faint moisture in the air had begun to form on the seams, and the holoprojector for the lock panel still had an ancient cracked protective cover from the factory on it.
Garrus looked at the door skeptically. "This is a safehouse?"
She nodded. It was one of their better hidden ones, too. The entire interior was shielded, and not cheaply – rather than just blocking scans from penetrating, they actually had a complicated series of fiber-optics and reflective surfaces built into the walls that caused scans from most directions to reflect to adjacent apartments instead. It had its own environmental systems, and the compact fission reactor buried in the floor could power the room for decades.
Shepard knew them well, having hid in one for several months while the Alliance Intelligence watched the Hegemony for a response after her mission on Torfan.
They were notoriously hard to find if you didn't know where they were, and even harder to break in to.
Luckily, she wasn't there to break in.
She knocked loudly on the door. "Tali'Zorah? It's Commander Shepard. I need to speak with you."
Silence answered her.
"Are you sure she's here?" Garrus asked after a minute passed.
Shepard shrugged. "I know it's one of our safe houses. I don't know whether she's here or not."
The intercom speaker attached to the door interfaced crackled. "H-hello?" a small tentative voice said.
Shepard smiled down at the camera. "Hello, Tali. It's Commander Shepard. Do you have a moment? I need to speak with you."
"Of course! Er.. wait a minute. I need to get back into my suit."
Which made sense, of course. The safe house had its own, completely isolated environmental system to prevent somebody from gassing an occupant out. That same system made it sterile enough for a quarian to leave their ever-present environment suit – a rare luxury when traveling the galaxy.
She wasn't entirely sure why the quarians hadn't begun pursuing technological solutions to their immune deficiencies. Gene therapies were commonplace across the galaxy – Shepard herself had lost count of the number of modifications she'd had done over the years – and quarian geneticists, while not as common as their engineers, weren't precisely rare. If she had been in their place, she'd have put quite a bit of effort into ensuring they weren't forced to rely on easily-damaged hardware to survive.
Of course, since the quarian people aren't all insane, there's obviously something I'm missing.
She was shaken from her thoughts by the smooth hiss of the door. "Hello, Commander! And... Inspector Vakarian, yes?" she tilted her head at the turian.
"Just Garrus, miss," he said. "The Commander made me a better offer. Speaking of which..." he gestured at her. Well, I suppose I wasn't planning on wasting time...
"Tali, I'm going to be heading out into the Traverse soon to hunt down Saren," she began.
"Good!" Tali said. "He needs a swift kick up the- I'm sorry, I interrupted," she said apologetically, and Shepard smiled. She really was a kid, all enthusiasm and confidence.
She laughed. "No worries. Anyway, I'm heading into the Traverse to track down Saren, and I find myself lacking some crucial knowledge."
"Of the Traverse?" she bowed her head slightly. "I'm afraid I won't be of much use, unless you want to try to talk to the Flotilla scouts..." she said, trailing off.
"It's true that I need a native guide there, so to speak, but that's not what I'm after. You see, Saren has an army of geth at his command, and the alliance combat hackers – as good as they are – simply don't have experience with geth systems. I need a quarian engineer, with experience working on the geth, that can handle herself in combat and is within ten hours or so of the Citadel. Right now, that list consists of one individual: You."
"You- you want... me... to help you... track down Saren and his geth," she stammered.
Shepard nodded firmly. "I do. I've seen what you can do in combat, Tali, in the alleyway behind the bar. Your presentation to the Council more than proved your understanding of the geth. I know you're on your pilgrimage, but-"
"Pilgrimage!" She swiped her hand through the air in a cutting motion. "The pilgrimage is a chance to prove that we are willing to give of ourselves for the good of the Fleet. How will it reflect on me if I turn my back on this? I'll do it. Just tell me where to go."
Ah, youth.
"Do you have many things to bring? We're leaving today, as soon as I take care of a couple more pieces of business on the Citadel. The faster we move, the better."
Tali shook her head. "No. Quarians always travel light. I can be ready in five minutes."
"If you're sure," Shepard said. "Go pack; we'll wait."
Six minutes later, a slightly winded quarian carrying a small hard-sided case stepped out of the safe house. "I'm ready, Commander," she said, squaring her shoulders.
She's a kid. No need for military formalities if she's not comfortable with them. "Just Shepard is fine," she said. "We have one more stop to make. Is everyone armed?"
"Always," Garrus said.
"I have my omni-tool," Tali said. It wasn't quite as intimidating to a gang of thugs as a large and ugly pistol was, but if she and Garrus weren't intimidating enough, she didn't think Tali would help even if she was carrying a grenade launcher. The young quarian didn't strike her as the 'intimidating' type.
"Hmm," she said, pursing her lips. Probably won't be an issue, but... "I don't suppose you have practice with a shotgun?"
To Shepard's surprise, the Quarian nodded. "A lot of our marines use shotguns with low-penetration rounds. They'll stop intruders, but won't risk a hull breach or damaging our equipment. A marine named Kal taught me before I left on my pilgrimage."
"Well, that's a turn of good fortune," she said. One after another, in fact. "Here. Use this until we get to the Normandy. Antipersonnel rounds, lot of kick, high spread."
She handed the folded lightweight shotgun over to Tali, who dutifully stowed it on the magnetic clamp on the small of her back. "The Normandy is your ship?" she asked.
"It is," Shepard confirmed. "I'll give you both the full tour when we get back."
"Get back from where, Shepard?" Garrus asked. "You still haven't said where we're going, or why she needs to carry a shotgun," he said with a nod at Tali.
"Back down to the apartments near Chora's Den. The mercenary I want to hire is staying there."
"Who is it? I might of heard of him," he said.
She grinned at him, full of teeth. "You might have. An old krogan, red armor, claw scar across the face? Goes by the name Urdnot Wrex?"
Garrus blinked at her while she cheerfully punched the address for Chora's Den into the cab terminal. "Wrex? You're going to hire Wrex? That's-" he paused, tipping his head back and forth as he thought over the proposal. "-actually pretty clever," he admitted.
"Thought you might appreciate that," she said. "Come on. The sooner we find him, the sooner we can start hunting Saren."
"Hrh," the old krogan rumbled as she waited, arms folded. "So you want me to help go after Saren, is it?"
She nodded slowly, not taking her eyes from the mercenary. Not only was it the socially acceptable thing to do with their kind, but it was also plain common sense: despite their size, krogan were fast, and far too many overconfident soldiers had met their ends by underestimating how much space a krogan could close in a short lunge from those powerful legs.
"With a turian on your crew?" he said with a jerk of his armored head at Garrus, who surreptitiously moved his hand to has rifle.
She nodded again. "Remember the trigger-happy C-Sec turian who blew up three of Fist's enforcers? That's him. Garrus Vakarian, meet Urdnot Wrex. Urdnot Wrex, this is Garrus Vakarian."
"Charmed, I'm sure," Garrus said in a voice that would dehydrate deserts.
Wrex chuckled, a low and ominous sound. "I said I liked you the first time we met, Shepard. You get results. And now you're offering me a chance to get paid to kill a turian Spectre?" He shook his head. "You've got yourself a mercenary. What's the pay?"
"Shitty," she said bluntly, stepping close to hand him a data slate with her proposal.
He glanced at it and shrugged. "Ah, well, you can't have everything. When do we leave?"
Shepard left the trio of them getting settled in on board the Normandy. To her surprise, both Garrus and Wrex had opted to set up cots in the hanger bay near the mako. She hoped they wouldn't strangle each other – the bad blood between the krogan and the turians ran deep – but if they were going to, it was better to find out earlier rather than later.
Tali had posed a more challenging problem: While the Normandy, being co-designed with the turians, included accommodations for both dextro and levo races, it did not include a clean room for quarians. The med bay storage couldn't be fully sealed without a major retrofit job, and it would require its own environmental processing capability.
What the Normandy did have was a full decontamination airlock designed to move the entire Normandy's marine complement through it in a single cycle. It wasn't comfortable, but it was clean, and by sealing both the inner and the outer door Tali could have a place to change the lining on her suit or repair minor damage.
While most of the crew was more than happy to welcome the new additions on board, she'd noticed more than a few suspicious glances directed at Garrus when his back was turned. The scars from the first contact war run deep, it seems. Fools.
She'd instructed to make everyone help them feel welcome, and she knew them well enough that their professionalism would override their bigotry... for now. She didn't doubt that she'd be forced to deal with people prejudices as stress mounted, but such was the nature of things.
Besides, she still had one last task to take care of before she departed on Saren's trail.
The sign above the office door boldly identified the building as belonging to the rapidly growing Altai Mineral Works, a mining outfit specializing in element zero extraction and refinement but with rapidly expanding interests in other areas.
She didn't trust corporations – or, rather, she trusted them exactly as much as she should trust them, which wasn't much. They had a legal obligation to their bottom line, and psychological study after study explained that the corporation was an ideal way to reduce the sense of personal responsibility for a negative externality. They were, by definition, amoral sociopathic organizations whose heart went as far as the nearest bank.
She was acutely aware of the irony.
Pushing the door open, she smiled pleasantly at the secretary waiting at the front desk. "Hello," she said. "I'm Commander Shepard, here to see Miss Chase?"
The secretary smiled at her. "Commander, it's wonderful to see you. I'll take you to meet with her right away," he said, stepping out to lead her down a hallway behind him.
It was a nice enough setup, she supposed. People were working in offices instead of cubicles, there were personal effects scattered around the building, and the sound of energetic chatter combined with the smell of bad coffee floated up from a cafeteria somewhere.
The secretary lead her to a large office at the end of the hall, pushing open what felt like a real wooden door. "Commander Shepard to see you, ma'am," he called politely in to the room.
"Ah, Commander!" the voice came from inside. "Please, please, step in."
Shepard gave the woman a quick glance as she settled into the chair across the desk from her. She was middle-aged, if she was any judge, tall, with a slight frame and hair that had apparently gone gray early.
"Tina Chase, I presume?" she said, extending her hand to the woman, who shook it firmly.
"Indeed," she said. "Your reputation precedes you, Commander... well, that, and your appointment," she said with a small laugh.
Shepard chuckled politely. It wasn't a funny joke, but that's how the game was played here.
"We were quite honored that you picked us to work with, Commander. If I may ask, what made you chose us?" she asked as she pulled several data slates out of a cabinet.
If only you knew. "Your firm was selected after a brief but extensive search."
"Well. Regardless of the reason, I'm pleased you picked us. Did you have a chance to read the proposal our legal team sent to you?"
Shepard shook her head. "I'm afraid not," she replied. "I've been running all over the Citadel since station dawn getting the things I need in order."
The woman nodded. "I understand. In that case, I will give you a brief summary?"
"That would be excellent, thank you."
"Right. Where to begin..." the woman tapped twirled her data slate's stylus in her hand for a moment. "As a Spectre, you have access to places and data that provide interested parties – like us – with a competitive advantage. Nothing sensitive, I assure you! We're a mining firm, not secret agents. But if, say, you happen to be on a planet in the Traverse that is currently closed to corporate exploitation, we would be willing to offer a sizable sum for access to your standard survey satellite's geological data."
Shepard nodded. It was what she'd expected, and as low an impact deal with the devil as she could have hoped to get. "Survey data ahead of the competitors, hm? That would make speculative land rights purchases much more lucrative for you."
"Indeed. Asteroid mining has reduced the margins on most planetary resource extraction operations to a hair's breadth for everything except element zero. It's quite the cutthroat industry at the moment."
"I'm sure. Is that the gist of your proposal, then? You wish me to return mining survey data for you?"
She nodded. "Essentially, yes. There are, of course, details-"
Shepard waved her hand dismissively. "As long as the details do not subvert the summary, I doubt I will have a problem with this proposal."
Chase smiled broadly. "That is excellent news! I've taken the liberty of having our legal team draw up a contract. If you'd be willing to sign it..."
"If the proposal is brief, I will read it and sign it now. If it is longer, you will have to wait until I have time to read it in full." Shepard knew full well the danger of putting your name to things that you hadn't read, and the danger had only multiplied with the powers she'd gained as a Spectre. They'd even spelled that part out explicitly in the little VI "So You Want To Be A Spectre" training session: Be careful what you sign for, because while you can get out of it it's not going to make your life easy.
The corporate woman frowned slightly. "I think it's about fifteen pages..."
"That's fine," Shepard said. "Unless you have somewhere to be?" She knew the woman would simply sit and wait for her to finish. To them, Shepard represented the chance to make hundreds of millions of credits in profit that their competitors couldn't hope to match. In comparison to that, sitting still while she read the document was nothing at all, and everyone else could wait their turn.
Miss Chase shook her head vigorously. "No, no! By all means; go ahead."
It was a remarkably brief document, but then again, the most important things in life were usually short and to the point. Things like guilty verdicts, bullets, marriage proposals, and the like.
She set the slate down with a deep breath after – by the clock on the wall – thirteen minutes had passed. "I have two concerns," she said finally.
"Oh?"
"First, compensation due for my services. The fixed fee of sixty thousand credits per 'significant find' is acceptable, however, the one-eighth of value extracted for three years is patently absurd. There is literally nothing stopping you from extracting nothing for three years, or if you want to extract it, by selling it to a shell company. I am not a fool."
The woman's smile turned slightly brittle. "Do you have a counteroffer?"
Shepard tapped in some rough numbers on her omni-tool. "One fifth of assessed market value for three years, determined at start of extraction. I'm fairly certain I could get better returns breaking off a chunk of whatever ore I'm discovering and storing it the cargo bay otherwise."
"Well, I'm not sure about that," Tina Chase said, "but I certainly can sympathize with the attitude. I think we can agree to your counteroffer. What was the second problem you had?"
Shepard tapped the document. "There's no voluntary termination clause on my side. You can include a non-compete up to the original duration of the contract if you wish, but I won't sign anything that doesn't let me end our business relationship early if necessary."
"I see," she said, eying Shepard levelly. It was the evaluating stare of someone who overplayed their hand, and knew it, but didn't want to let the opportunity slip away.
"If that's not acceptable-" Shepard began, and Chase shook her head.
"We can make it work," she said with the hard confidence of someone who would make it work even if someone else complained. "I'll send your changes down to legal and have them re-draft the proposal."
"Thank you. I'm afraid I won't be able to sign it in person, but you can send it to my secured account for signature and I'll address it as soon as I am able."
"Of course, that won't be a problem," Chase said.
"In that case, thank you for your understanding," Shepard said, standing, "and I look forward to seeing your revised proposal."
She shook the woman's hand and walked for the door.
She was working in her office later in the afternoon when there was a knock on the door. "Come in," she called without looking up.
The door slid open to reveal Pressly, who saluted. Old soldiers, she thought absently. "Yes, Pressly?" she asked.
"Ma'am, Kaidan's just returned with the goods from the quartermaster. They're stowing them below now."
She smiled. "Good. That's the last of the things we needed to take care of before departure. Tell Joker to go finish the pre-flight checklist. I want us out of here in fifteen minutes."
"Aye aye, ma'am," the navigator said. "If I might ask where we're going?"
"You may," she said. "We're going to the Artemis Tau cluster."
He raised an eyebrow. "For the matriarch's daughter? Not Feros?"
"Not yet. I've received a... polite request from ExoGeni, the corporate sponsor for the Feros colony, not to intervene. They say they've already dispatched a crisis response team to the colony. Noveria's still answering my calls, so they're not in serious trouble either. The doctor's the only lead we don't have some kind of word on."
Plus, she thought to herself, we don't know enough about what's going on here. Saren's looking for a conduit, but why? A conduit to what, or where? Why are the geth working for him? What do the protheans really have to do with all this?
She had more questions than answers, and while she didn't yet know if this was going to be a recruitment, a rescue, or a kidnapping, she suspected that the doctor would be able to help answer a few questions about Saren's real motivations... whether she wanted to or not.
And if she doesn't, well, few things work better on mothers than holding pistols to their daughters' heads.
"So that's our destination," she finished. "Go let Joker know we're leaving. I'll address the crew in a moment."
Normally, she preferred to talk to her crew in person. People liked that kind of direct contact, and it was an excellent way to help build attachment from her crew. A crew that had faith in her and her mission would be willing to do more and go further than one that didn't, and being more than a disembodied voice over a loudspeaker would help that.
That wasn't always practical, however, and a choice of delaying everyone for half an hour so she could give them speech wouldn't endear her to anybody. They knew what they were supposed to do, and dragging them away from the necessary mission preparation to tell it to them again was demeaning and a waste of time.
That didn't mean she couldn't talk them, of course. The Normandy sported a perfectly functional public address system, and she intended to make good use of it.
Beside her, Joker tapped a button and gave her a thumbs up.
"This is Commander Shepard," she began while Joker started powering up the drive core, sending a deep thrum through the ship. "We have our orders: Find Saren before he finds the conduit."
Pretend you're being more honest with them than you should be. It makes them feel part of a special in group that gets the real story.
"I won't lie you, crew," she said, "this job won't be easy. Saren knows we're coming. When we go into the Traverse, our enemies will be waiting for us... but we'll be ready for them, too."
Remind them how you got here.
"This might have begun on a small human colony, but we know Saren won't stop there. His geth armies aren't going to stay on the far fringes of Citadel space."
Remind them what you're doing.
"The time of humanity's judgment is at hand," she said forcefully. "Not just by Saren or his synthetic armies, but by the other members of the galactic community. Our community. We have proven our strength and our prowess to them. Now it is time to prove our responsibility and our dedication in eliminating a threat not just to our species, but to every other species in Citadel space. It is time we stepped up and did our part for the rest of the galaxy."
Wrap it up.
"For this, Saren must be stopped. And I promise you all: We willstop him."
She flicked the public address link off and leaned back, face set.
Joker looked up at her, his usual wry smile replaced with an almost respectful measure. "Well said, Commander," he said. "The Captain would have been proud."
She made a face. "It's just words until we actually do it. Take us out, Joker," she ordered.
"Aye aye, Commander!"
Next chapter: Therum and Liara! Gonna be a big one, because I'm not splitting it.
Also, that speech from the game? Turns out the one in the game is great when you've got a bunch of nice visuals and rising orchestral music, but when you cut it out by hand it's corny and doesn't flow well. Who'd have thought, games and stories are different forms of media!