Breaking into Elijah Khan's panic room inside his casino during a charity gala while wearing a too-tight, too-revealing, not-concealing-enough-weaponry dress and wearing ridiculously high heels was about as frustrating an experience as Shepard had anticipated.
It didn't help that Brooks needed her hand held pretty much every step of the way. Shepard was used to working with people who were experts in their fields, who took orders when she needed them to but were also very good at working on their own without supervision. It occurred to her, distracting yet another guard because Brooks couldn't seem to manage to get by without causing notice, that she hadn't appreciated her people enough, and she should tell them so.
Well, once this exercise in annoyance that had started in the sushi place and hopefully would end here in this casino was over, she would do just that. While the Normandy was docked, she would try to meet with as many members of her team as she could, and make sure they knew just how much she valued them, not just as colleagues, but as friends. Family, really.
Finally, Brooks managed to get the three of them into the room … too late, as it turned out. Elijah Khan was dead. Newly dead, Shepard gauged from the warmth of his skin. Whoever had killed him had gotten here not long before they did. She wondered if it was someone attending the party, who was mingling again now as if nothing had happened.
Brooks went straight for the personal terminal on Khan's desk, tapping some keys and shaking her head in frustration. "Commander, there's a deletion order on the terminal."
"Damn it!" Shepard nudged Brooks aside so she could take a look herself. She wasn't an expert in these things, but she had learned a bit over the years.
"What are you looking for?" Brooks asked.
"Mistakes."
"Everything's wiped!" Brooks protested. "I don't know if it was him, or the killer, or— When I tripped that alarm, did I screw this up?"
Shepard was torn between agreeing with her or telling her to shut up, but fortunately she found the omission she'd been looking fore before she had to respond. "Thought so," she said with satisfaction. "Whoever it was had to do this fast. They wiped the terminal, but not the comm."
"Oh." Brooks looked at the terminal blankly.
Shouldn't she have known how to look for that? Shepard wondered.
"So … do we take the comm back to the safe house to scan it, or—"
Shepard cut her off by punching the "connect" button. A carefully blurred figure with a garbled voice appeared on the screen as the call connected. "Elijah. Come crawling back?"
"Guess again." Shepard crossed her arms over her chest.
"You! I see you've recovered from flopping on the floor like a fish," the figure said smugly.
"That's the best you can do? The last guy that trash-talked me was a few kilometers taller than you."
"Empty words. You have nothing. All you can do is wait for the hammer to fall."
"Bring a bigger hammer, then. Your last try was inadequate."
She heard Kaidan groan faintly behind her, no doubt thinking it was unnecessary to taunt whoever this person was. Possibly he was right, but Shepard, still smarting from the fish incident, didn't care.
The figure hissed at her, "I'm going to take everything you have and everything you are."
The words held a menace that Shepard felt even through her bravado. Whoever this person was, they meant what they said.
Then the connection was cut. Brooks shook her head. "Sorry, Commander, there wasn't enough time to trace the call."
Tali could have, Shepard thought, and then felt guilty. Brooks wasn't used to this kind of thing, it was unfair to compare her to someone who had been through years of unexpected twists and turns.
"We're not finished," she said. "Pull out the data drives and bring them with us."
"The ones that got wiped? You think we can find something?"
"With EDI, anything's possible."
She led the way out, skirting the edge of the gala in order to avoid having to talk to anyone. At the door, Kaidan paused and looked back wistfully. "Hell of a party … although I guess it wasn't so fun for the host."
Shepard smiled. "It wasn't a total loss." She gestured at the data drives in Brooks' hands. "We'll see where those get us."
By the time they reached the apartment, everyone appeared to know what had happened already. "Damn, Commander," James said, pulling his head out of one of the kitchen cupboards, "you can't even attend a party without someone ending up dead." He surveyed the empty cupboard again with a frown. "Now if I could just find some chow around here. You'd think a pad like this would be stocked."
"Its owner has been on Earth for months," she reminded him crisply.
"Yeah, I guess that makes sense."
From the couch in the living room, Joker called, "You know, I could really go for some food while we wait. Too bad you shot the hell out of the best sushi place on the Citadel, huh, Commander?"
Garrus was standing on the balcony above her, his voice floating down in all its rich sarcasm. "No life or death encounters this time, Shepard? Too bad. I can hear Vega's stomach grumbling from here."
"Never mind, Scars, I got it." James pulled up his omni-tool. Shepard frowned at the whole bunch of them.
"You know, Shepard, if you'd taken me we could've just barreled our way in and gotten to this guy before some assassin could." Wrex shook his head. "Too bad I was too much krogan for you."
"Too bad," Shepard agreed. "A lot of people have that problem, though."
"Yeah." Wrex chuckled. "Most of 'em are dead."
"Commander, instead of infiltrating the casino using a disguise, it would have been better to hold all the primitives hostage, threaten them with death, and shoot them until they gave you what you wanted," Javik told her. "Next time, I will gladly assist."
"You know, that does sound better. Next time, I'll let you."
Javik blinked all his eyes at that, clearly surprised and pleased.
Shepard closed the bedroom door firmly behind her, shutting out all their smart remarks, and breathed a sigh of relief as she stepped out of the torturous shoes, kicking them across the room. One thing was for damned sure—she was never wearing them again.