Chapter 94. History Repeats Itself
2158 CE, HSASV Normandy, Mess Hall
As usual, most of the Normandy was still fast asleep when Vakarian rose from the field bed he had borrowed from one of the Kodiaks and set up inside the main battery. His self-isolation in the heart of the Normandy's weapon system obviously went against every safety regulation of the ship. It only went by uncommented by the rest of the crew because Commander Shepard seemed to tolerate it and because the other crew members who had the authority to chew him out for it weren't all too eager to share bunks with a brooding former C-SEC detective. Callius wasn't going to fault anyone for that; her fellow turian did after all radiate a rather menacing aura that told anyone who closed in on him that they were just one wrong word away from a death glare or worse.
She watched him walk out of the main battery, which was a rare sight in itself. He went over to the unmanned cantina where a lone plate of cold dextro food was sitting and quickly grabbed said palte. The Blackwatch lieutenant wasn't sure if the mess sergeant was doing this on the turian's request or if Gardner had simply noticed that Vakarian never attended dinner during the usual hours and had taken pity on the former recon.
What she was however certain of was that something about Vakarian had changed in the last couple of days. Ever since they'd set out to Illium, his brooding had gotten even worse, even if that had seemed impossible to her. He'd become more antisocial than before and even stopped talking to Shepard, who up to then had been the one person who seemed to get through to him.
Vakarian sat down on the opposite end of the mess hall, right by the exit of the main battery, and silently began to consume his meal. While he obviously noticed her sitting in the dimmed cantina, he didn't even as much as lift his hand to greet. She seized the act of poking her own breakfast and locked eyes with Vakarian. Something very familiar was hiding behind his icy-blue orbs. It was a specific kind of resignation which usually lead to things going bad quickly once boots hit the ground.
She'd been a Blackwatch officer ever since her former team leader 'Desolas' had turned into 'General Arterius' following his predecessor's untimely death in the line of duty. Hence, she'd seen that look plenty of times before.
After another few moments of staring, Vakarian went back to his food.
Because she recognized the look in his eyes, she also recognized the danger it put everyone on the Normandy in. The hints of what Vakarian was battling with had been there ever since they'd picked him up on Omega. Callius had been observing him ever since. For most of that time, she had figured that Commander Shepard, who was friends with the turian, would reign him in eventually and that he'd abandon he path he was set on right now.
In retrospective, that had been a mistake on her part.
Right after they'd returned from Korlus, the commander had informed her that she was going to help the turian deal with 'something' on Illium and therefore needed her to conduct their actual mission of recruiting Thane Krios. From there on out, Callius had known that there would be no reigning in from Shepard's side. She wouldn't fault the human for it, though.
She understood what Shepard was trying to do. In an attempt to protect Vakarian from his worst impulses, the commander was trying to do damage control by inserting herself into the former recon's crusade of vengeance. In theory, that sounded like a fantastic idea. If all went well, it would give Vakarian closure and get him back on track.
About thirty years ago, she probably would've chosen a similar solution. She had still been a fresh lieutenant back then, at least by the standards of Blackwatch. If one of her squadmates had ended up where Vakarian was right now, the decision to lend them a hand in their crusade easily could've been her own due to a lack of experience.
She pushed her fork into the dried up dextro-ration at that thought.
Shepard wasn't exactly what one would call inexperienced. The N7 had gathered an impressive amount of experience in leadership for someone her age. But that was exactly the problem. Even if she was an N7, a Spectre and a Commander, she was still thirty years younger than Callius.
She had been leading soldiers into battle longer ,than Shepard had been alive and as such, the list of warning sights she'd seen firsthand, overlooked due to inexperience and subsequently paid for reached from Cipritine to Elapri.
With age came wisdom and, more importantly, experience through failure.
As such she saw what Shepard was blind to: Vakarian wasn't thinking straight and his actions could risk the crew's safety. He needed to straightened out before anything irrevocable happened and people started dying.
What she was about to do violated the chain of command in more than one way. Shepard had made her call and it wasn't her place to go behind her back and question it without her knowing about it.
But spirits be damned, it was the right thing to do.
Shepard liked Vakarian and the point where their relationship had changed from commander and subordinate to friends was long since gone, so it was up to her to straighten it out.
Callius gently placed her fork next to her meal and sprung into action.
As Vakarian quickly devoured the cold military ration in front of him, Callius got up from her own seat and silently walked over to him. She looked at him for a second, expecting him to at least acknowledge the fact that she was about to talk to him. It would've been a proper reaction from Vakarian, not only because she was higher ranking than him but also because she was nearly old enough to be his family's matriarch.
Predictably, Vakarian didn't react properly.
As his file had indicated, the former recon was far away from being a proper turian. She assumed that also explained why he'd failed to become anything other than a Reconnaissance Corps sniper despite his very clear set of talents and family ties with the Blackwatch. While the legion's selection process was open to anyone and all different kinds of people had passed it since its dawn, the one type of recruit that consistently washed out were those who'd generally be dubbed as 'bad turians'.
Instead of a proper greeting, Vakarian just shot her an icy glance. He usually used this look to discourage the rest of the Normandy's crew from trying to talk to him. It wasn't going to work on her though. When he realized that, he simply munched down on his cold meal again, likely hoping that he could ignore her longer than she could be bothered to try and talk to him.
"I know what's going to your head right now. Everyone's who ever gotten one of their team killed has been where you are right now," she began. "It's normal to want payback but springing an ambush to avenge your team based on nothing but hear-say isn't going to do anything for you. It'll only put Shepard and you into danger. You know that this is a stupidly dangerous move, so stop it while you can. For your own sake."
He chewed for a few more seconds, let out a sigh and then put down his fork. He seemed to consider her words for a few moments, which she was ready to see as a good sign for as long as it took Vakarian's mandibles to press themselves against his jaw; a clear sign of anger.
"You don't know the first thing about me, Lieutenant," he stated before slowly rising form his table and staring at her. His look reminded her of a hastati she'd met during the last Taetrian insurgency. He'd been ordered to clear his own hometown and much like Vakarian, he'd faced the task with a mixture of despair, determination and pure, unfiltered hatred for the enemies that had put him into this position. She met his icy blue eyes and refused to back down to Vakarian's next intimidation attempt as well.
"My intel is solid and I'll do what I have to," he stated. Shepard's on board with my decision. So do both of us a favor and mind your own damn business," he went on. While the scarring on his face made it hard for him to shoot her a fully-grim look, he was doing his best with what parts of his face he had left. "If I wanted your opinion, I would've asked for it," for a split-second, Callius failed to remember that she wasn't on a turian military vessel and got tempted to solve this clear display of insubordination and disrespect the turian way. That was in large parts down to the fact that none of the human crew were around this early and that everything about the Normandy's design was painfully turian. But before she could tell Vakarian that they'd settle this in the sparring room- where she would've subsequently thrown him against various walls and through several objects with her biotics until his senses returned to him- Callius remembered that this was neither a Hierarchy ship nor her command and that Vakarian was neither her subordinate nor an active-duty member of the turian military.
Hence, the idea of flinging the taller turian against metal walls quickly vanished form her mind.
Vakarian narrowed his eyes and looked at his food. "Thanks for ruining breakfast, by the way," then he turned his back to Callius and began to walk away. Clearly, he believed this conversation to be finished. But unfortunately for him, the Blackwatch officer didn't feel the same way. She still had one low-blow in the back of her hand. It was disrespectful to the fallen and uncalled for, which was why she'd refrained from using it up to now. But since polite reasoning had clearly failed, Callius was now ready to use it. After all, it was better to speak ill of the dead than to not speak at all and end up with even more dead.
"Vakarian," she called, prompting the turian to turn his head.
"What?" he asked coldly.
"Omega taught you what it's like to have the blood of your team mates on your hands," now it was her turn to narrow her eyes. "Make sure Illium doesn't teach you what it's like to burry your commander."
After spending a second or so processing what Callius had said, Vakarian briefly interrupted their stare down to glance at the floor. It seemed remorseful and entirely unlike everything else he'd shown thus far. She nearly would've made the same mistake from earlier and considered this a good sign for her getting through to him. But before she slipped into that hole, he gave a reply that didn't match what Callius thought his intentions were.
"I already did that two years ago," he muttered. "You really don't know the first thing about me if you think I'd ever gamble with Shepard's life again."
With that, the former detective turned on his heels and walked back into the main battery. Callius watched as the doors closed and wondered if she'd read the turian wrong. But before she could answer that question, a light set of footsteps behind her demanded her attention. Even though she realistically knew that there wasn't anything on the Normandy that presented a danger to her safety, her head still spun around quickly.
As expected, it only found something harmless; the N7 Kai Leng.
"I know it's none of my business," the human began while walking behind the canteen and to the kitchen area, which was a sure way to end up on the bad side of any mess sergeant, "but that didn't sound like a pleasant conversation just now." She watched him slide Garner's access card over one of the fridge locks and retrieve a small round container with his name on it.
Clearly Vakarian wasn't the only one getting special treatment around here.
"How much did you hear?" Callius returned while Leng inspected the container's contents. It was one of those disgustingly sweet sugar pastries humans were so fond of. A 'cake' or whatever they called it.
"Only the part about you worrying he's gonna get Em killed, actually," Leng retorted before looking at his food. "Now don't get me wrong. I get where you're coming from," he went on before looking at the main battery, "But I don't think it's warranted. She'll be fine."
"What makes you say that?"
"Well for starters, Em's Em. If there's one thing she's good at, it's not dying. I mean the Collector's tried their best by blowing up the last Normandy and all that did was make her go after them next," he reasoned before setting down the 'cake' and making no indication that he was going to eat it. "Vakarian's not someone you have to worry about either. At least not when it's about her. From what she told me about the guy, I've got a feeling whoever they're going up against will have to kill him before he lets anything bad happen to her. And since the dude strikes me as someone who's literally too angry to die anytime soon, I don't see that happening either," Leng leaned deeper into the fridge and pulled out a bottle holding some kind of human drink. It was the same juicy drink she'd seen the N7 drink every time she ran into him at the canteen and much like the rest of human food, it was disgustingly sweet.
"I see," she nodded before her curiosity got the better of her. In addition to Leng not exactly looking like he consumed a whole lot of 'cakes' in his free time, what was strange about the pastry was the fact that a barely readable human number had been written on it with some kind of red, most likely equally disgustingly sweet, paste. "I have to say. That's a strange choice of breakfast," she observed casually.
"What? This?" he asked while pointing at the cake. She nodded before he closed the container again and locked the fridge behind him. "Yeah. I didn't bake this for myself. It's for Em."
Out of all the words in that sentence, only one really stood out to Callius.
"You baked?" again, that was something she couldn't quite picture the human doing. Or well at least not when it came to pastries. He had certainly 'baked' the vorcha flamethrower carrier during their mission on Tuchanka, but form her perspective, that would've been about the full extent of Leng's cooking skills. "What's the occasion?"
He looked at her with confusion on his face before realizing that she clearly wasn't familiar with whatever motivation had driven the N7 into the kitchen.
"You do know that today's Shepard's birthday, right?"
She nudged her head slightly to the side.
"I did not know that," Callius retorted before looking at Leng's pastry. That part still wasn't adding up for her. "Is it customary for humans to poison people with sugar on their day of birth?"
"Yeah. Kind of."
Her plates shifted into a half-crooked smile.
"That's a weird ritual."
Leng folded his arms in front of his chest.
"Why? What do turians do?"
"That depends on the age of the turian and the colony they're from," Callius responded.
"Palaven in your case?" she nodded. "Alright. Shoot. What do you do on birthdays on Palaven?"
"Before we can walk and hold a gun? Usually nothing. While we're in the military? Whatever our commander's tell us to. After that? Mostly firing range visits or trips to holo-combat arenas to make sure we get our reservist card filled up," she shrugged.
Leng took a sip from his drink.
"You realise I meant 'shoot' as in 'tell me what you do on your birthday, right?"
"I did," she nodded again. "Like I said, it usually involves some kind of fire arms qualification."
"You're bullshitting me right now, aren't you?"
"I'm afraid not."
"Wow. That sounds exceptionally dull."
"It certainly beats feeding children with synthetic sweeteners. I mean just look at it, that kind of food can't be healthy for kids," she paused for a beat before remembering who Leng had seemingly made this for. "Or adults."
"Fair enough. I take it you don't do presents either then?"
"That depends."
"On what?"
"On what you'd consider a gift. The last birthday I celebrated ended with me firing off a Jiris missile battery. As far as gifts go, that was a rather nice experience. And it definitely beats that sugar brick you made," she went on. "No offense to your customs though. Or your cooking skills."
The N7 cracked a smile and then glanced at his omni-tool.
"None taken. I guess driving a tank does beat getting a cake," he left the kitchen area. "Still, I feel like you're way overdue for a human-style party. When's your next birthday coming up? We could celebrate it here on the Normandy. No guns, obviously, but I figure I could make you a dextro cake or whatever you turians consider dessert."
"As much as I'd like to see you try your luck cooking palavani food, I'm afraid you're about two months late. It's the fifth of the second month of the Citadel calendar."
"Then I'm not two months late but ten months early," Leng retorded before tossing her a keycard. She caught it. "No worries though, we'll just celebrate this year and next year in one go. It's gonna be great," he stated with an almost endearing degree of enthusiasm.
"I'm sure it will," she replied somewhat hesitantly. Then she looked at the keycard. "What am I supposed to do with this?"
"Do me a favor and pass that to Gardner will you? Tell him thanks for letting me make a mess of his working place."
"Why not do it yourself?"
"Because I've got to engage in another strange human custom called 'happy birthday to you' and make up for the two birthdays Em spent being kinda-sorta dead. Turns out you're not the only one who has some catching up to do with their birthday celebrations," he said before walking to the elevator. "Oh and there's also the fact that I really don't want to be around when Garner realizes I didn't do the dishes," Callius observed the younger human for a moment and wondered if she should point out that he'd be bound to run into Garner again eventualyl. "I'll be seeing you when we hit Nos Astra."
"If you survive your sugar overdose that is," Callius retorted. "Enjoy sharing your pastries!" she called as he moved out of sight.
Leng let out a laugh.
"Have you me Em? I'm not getting a single piece of this cake. Chocolate is where her altruistic nature ends," then he vanished into the elevator and Callius was by her lonesome again.
"Well. That's good to know," she muttered to herself before cracking a smile at picturing Leng's best attempt at making a palavani stew and realizing that he'd probably pass out from the dextro fumes halfway through the process.
Two Hours Later, 2158 CE, Illium, Nos Astra
Thane Krios' life had seen him travel all over the galaxy. He'd been everywhere, from the sandy beaches of Kahje and the artificial skies of the Citadel to the luxurious jungle cities on Sur'Kesh and the luxury city jungles of places like Nos Astra.
He'd seen it all. The very top of galactic civilization and its lowest bottom feeders.
If he was honest with himself, he'd always preferred being among the latter of those two. Yes, there was an undeniable charm to the flashing lights, clean air and vibrant colors of the rich arcology cities of galactic civilization, he wasn't going to deny that. But the dark and seedy side streets far off the grid where no one ventured in fear of being robbed and the squaller where the poor were going by trying to survive life one day at a time was where he truly thrived. While he realized the irony of considering a place where people died of poverty and crime every day to be the most alive portion of the galaxy, he'd simply found it to be his personal truth.
At the end of the day, that was all that counted.
One's own, personal truth.
One of the security guards his target had hired in anticipation to the hit put out on her made their pass, just like they'd done the last three times in the last hour. When his head had turned just far enough so that Thane's path was clear, the drell slipped in through the darkest shadow. He launched himself over the construction fence and gently landed on a piece of steel waiting to be added to the second, unfinished tower. His feet touched the narrow surface and despite what little he had to stand on, Thane's balance was flawless. He rushed along the bar, jumped through an empty window frame and landed softly within the dark construction site. There was no sound, no footprint, not even a gust of wind created by his movement. Like he'd done a thousand and one times before, he had entered with no indication of his presence and no alarm being raised.
Once he'd found his way in, it was always the same procedure. He'd make his way through the security unnoticed, kill who he was here to kill and then fade back into the dark of night like the shadow he was taught to be. Despite the dry and painful sting in his lungs that was only increasing with every breath he pulled in, the drell moved through the corridors of the tower as if he was a dancer. He jumped over invisible trip wires, narrowly avoided cameras and motion sensors and circumvented the mobile foot patrols with a practiced ease that none of his peers, be they his own age or twenty years younger, had ever been able to rival. If he were a prouder and less experienced assassin, he might've felt superiority at the thought of still being better than everyone else despite standing at death's gate- But since Thane had always considered pride nothing but a weakness his opposition could exploit against him, those thoughts of supremacy and hubris failed to enter his mind and join the lone thought that it currently held.
Right now it was just him and the Lord of Hunters, just as it had been a thousand and one times before.
As he went about his purpose, it almost felt like he was back in the time when his world had still been in order, when his life had still had a meaning other than righting old wrongs in the hopes that it somehow made up for his own failings. Although his infiltration of the Dantius Towers was reminiscent of the time when his blade had still been cutting for the Illuminated Primacy, he'd long since come to terms with the fact that that nothing would ever bring him back to those times; to his Irikah.
Irikah.
The thought of the name alone triggered something in the drell, something that would've been beyond his control if not for years of mediation. As soon as he felt the warmth creep up and down his spine, he fought the instinctual urge of giving in to the memory recall. He appreciated that a part of him wanted to bring himself back to a better life with his, but right now wasn't the time for nostalgia.
Although his infiltration of the Dantius Towers was reminiscent of the time when his heart had been beating for his family, those times were as gone as his family. The temptation to give in and return to them for the briefest moment was still there. But getting lost in them was dangerous and would get him killed. Since he refused to reunite with his Irikah until he'd become the person that she'd always believed him to be capable of becoming, he resisted.
He sunk his sword into the metallic holding clamp and cut it off cleanly. Next he jumped into the vent, fixed the signs of his entrance and began to crawl. This wasn't the easiest path he could've taken, but it was the one where he'd have to shed the least amount of blood. That was another part of the conditions he'd set to himself before being allowed to leave this world. From here on out, he'd only add to the ocean of blood that he'd filled during his life if it was absolutely necessary. He could've killed the guards and taken the elevator, obviously. That way this job would take minutes, not hours. But those deaths were not necessary for anything but his own personal comfort. Hence, he'd take the vents and make the long and uncomfortable climb up.
After all, personal comfort had never been a priority for Thane.
For his entire life he'd been convinced that he had been born with a rather empty soul and as such without a purpose. He'd filled that void by shaping his body into a weapon to be wielded by others. Thus, for most of his service, his soul, which drell considered to be their real self, had been a passenger, watching his body commit unspeakable acts of violence. There had been no doubts, no complaints, not a single uttering of defiance or question. He'd simply observed himself plunge deeper into the darkness with every breath he took.
Living a life that wasn't really one's own was a strange experience that most would not appreciate. The emptiness of it all would've eventually broken nearly anyone.
But Thane wasn't nearly anyone.
Thane had thrived in that empty void.
It had been his purpose.
Years had flown by in what had felt like a blink of an eye and he'd been certain that he'd simply continue to be a passenger of his body until his body ran out of luck and he met with Kalahira to sail the great ocean.
But then, on one faithful day which should've yielded nothing more than yet another swift and clean execution, everything had changed.
He'd met Irikah and just like that, a veil he hadn't known to exist had been lifted.
With a single action, she jolted Thane awake from his life-long slumber and ever since then, she'd been the light of his life, guiding him away from the darkness that had forged him and pulling him out of the emptiness he'd settled in.
For a time, he'd been happy, away from the darkness, a reformed man and proud father.
All had been well.
But then, just as he had let his guard down, his past had caught up with him in the worst way imaginable. Irikah been ripped from life and just like that, Thane had fallen back into the darkness and sunken deeper than ever before. With his wife dead, his son disillusioned and traumatized and the killers on the run, the drell assassin had returned to the one thing he'd known before happiness.
Death.
Despite being a member of a species famous for having perfect memory, Thane remembered very little from that time other than the various shades of blood he'd spilled and the faces of the lives he'd snuffed out. The only thing that had really stood out to him from that time was the new sensation of enjoying the murders he committed and the ledge he'd found himself standing on when everything had been done.
He paused the thought and pulled himself up into the next part of the vent.
If the one before had been uncomfortable, this one was bordered on intolerable.
The inside of the vent was tight and noisy, the air was arid and dirty and carried the faint hint of death's scent, likely from some vermin that had gotten lost in it. Additionally, the material got thinner and the falls below him grew deeper from here on out, so with every small movement he made, he was getting closer to reaching the point where one mistake would lead to certain death. As he crawled up the vent, moving not unlike a snake really, he allowed himself to slip back to where he had left off.
The ledge.
For a moment he could feel the sting of cold and thin artificial air rushing by his head and smell the smog immitted by the nearby industrial sector where he'd caught up to the last murderer. One of his feet had already been in the air, ready to jump and rob the disease that riddled his lungs of the chance to finish what it had started. But then she'd spoken to him and made him realise that a long fall from a Citadel skyscraper that would ruin some unfortunate street worker's day was no way for someone like him to leave this world.
And thus his new and last purpose had been born.
Unlike with his service for the hanar or his crusade, Thane remembered every second of the last six years of his life vividly. Every contract he'd taken, every lowly crook and every crime lord he'd snuffed out, every wrong he'd corrected, every time he'd declined pay. It was all there, right along the darkness and death he was surrounding himself with; more real than the vent he was in right now or than Irikah had ever been.
He took a turn in the vent and suddenly found himself in a pitch-black section of the half-finished interior of the tower. For anyone who wasn't a drell assassin, this would've been the point where they activated their night vision or checked their maps to find out of the maze. But Thane simply crawled on and let his memory snap back to the plans he'd studied before taking the contract on Dantius' life and coming here.
As the warmth reached the base of his neck, a whisper escaped his mouth.
"Third junction, floor five, turn right, right again, go straight, pass the four junction, reach upwards, move on."
And just like that, he knew where he needed to go. His hand found the edge he was looking for and he pulled himself up. A ray of light shone through a small gap in the vent and the stench reached its peak as he found the corpse of the small mammalian creature it originated from. He muttered a quick prayer for the unfortunate and lonely death it had suffered and then continued onward.
Irikah had been his life, his home, his heart and his light.
With her dead and his son far away from him for his own protection, Thane had nothing but darkness to keep him company on the last steps of his journey.
He crawled over the gap the light was shining through and was back in blackness, just like he preferred. The dark, dry and death-filled surroundings of the narrow corridor were familiar and offered him a kind of comfort nothing and no one, not even Irikah, could ever rival.
Another smile crossed his face.
Until he drew his last, Kepral-Syndrome-induced, painfully ragged breath, this was exactly where he was supposed to be. Using what he'd learned in the beginning of his life to reach its conclusion.
It was perfect and more than someone with his sins ever could've asked for.
Hence, he reached upwards and continued to crawl higher.
11. April 2417 AD, Illium, Nos Astra
As far as aesthetically pleasing docks went, Shepard had to admit that Nos Astra blew every other port she'd ever been to out of the water. The perfectly polished towers on the top of the arcologies, the bright colors of the thousands of advertisement boards, the neat rows of luxurious skycars, the way Illium's sun hang low in the sky and shone through the countless skyscrapers that formed Nos Astra; it was like something ripped straight out of a tourist guide and gave her more than enough reason to believe that the colonial authorities had given them the nicest docking place on the entire planet.
With beauty like this it was easy to see why people were ready to look over all the hidden ugly parts of the asari colony.
She spun around and looked at her squad, who seemed to be equally caught up in Nos Astra's evening atmosphere.
"Alright," she began while addressing Callius, "like I said, Cerberus' informant is waiting for you in their office by the port authority. From what Harper tells me, this guy's an information broker working for Cerberus, not an actual operative. But he still knows what you're here for, so all you need to do is tell him you're looking for Krios and they'll give you the updated target package," Shepard said to the turian lieutenant in front of her before glancing back at Garrus, who seemed more impatient than usual. Contrary to the rest of the ground team, he seemed entirely unimpressed by Illium."Any questions?" Callius shook her head, as expected. This was the third time Shepard had given her that briefing; once on the Normandy when she'd made the decision to split up, once during the actual mission briefing hours before and once now. However Shepard's repetition wasn't down to not trusting the lieutenant to be able to follow. She did trust Callius, so much in fact that her faith in the Blackwatch officer's abilities were the only reason she could justify not leading her own team to its official mission for the sake of doing Garrus a personal favor. It was down to her not feeling good about it.
"Understood, Commander," she shot a glance behind her to where Garrus was waiting further removed from the group. If her recently chosen XO was annoyed by the repletion, she didn't let it show. "If you run into any trouble-"
"I'll call the QRF you had set up earlier," she finished. Now she and Callius were even on the repetitions of their respective briefings. If not for Leng telling her about the 'discussion' Callius and Vakarian had shared prior to docking at Nos Astra Central, Shepard might have wondered what was causing the older turian to be so on edge. But since her fellow N7 had disclosed that information earlier alongside his birthday wishes, she was well aware of Callius' concerns. She didn't share them, mind you, but she did get where they came from. "Good luck catching our assassin," she nodded.
"Good luck sorting out Vakarian," the turian retorted before offering a nod of her own and leading Leng and Nader away from the Normandy. Originally she'd considered asking Mordin to join them as well, if only because catching an assassin alongside a seasoned STG agent would've made Shepard feel even better about not being around when they ran into Krios. However since the salarian had been clear that he was occupied with creating the finalized version of the countermeasure he was working on and making sense of what he'd called an 'interesting discovery' among the data taken from Okeer's lab, she'd refrained from requesting Mordin's presence.
Shepard walked over to the railing where Garrus was standing and staring down the farside of the arcology they were on. If the thinness of the air alone didn't indicate how far up they really were, the fact that she could see clouds below them certainly did. Something about his gaze urged Shepard to say something to Garrus, so she did.
"So," she lead, "where do we go from here?" despite Garrus telling her that he hadn't been able to figure out more than the rumored location of 'Sidonis', she had a feeling that the C-SEC already had a plan. Her question seemed to take him away from whatever he had focused on below, which she was chalking up as a win. He'd seemed off these last couple of days and she didn't like that one bit.
"Originally, I was thinking we go kick down some front doors and shoot the scumbags inside."
"But?"
"But that'll only kill the morons that think they've got a shot at taking out Archangel," Garrus muttered before bringing up his omni-tool. "They aren't who I'm after. I want their bosses. So we're going to change up my original plan a bit."
"That sounds like you already have something in mind."
"I do," the turian stated before beginning to walk in the opposite direction of Callius team.
"Care to share with the class?" Shepard asked while following him.
"It's pretty simple, actually. You could consider it a blend of what I learned with C-Sec and what I picked up on Omega," Garrus stated before glancing back at her. There was that Archangel look again. "We kick down some front doors and shoot the people inside. But instead of killing everyone, we make sure that at least one of them survivors every time we do it."
"To interrogate them?" she could already guess why.
"Kind of. They survive so I can beat the crap out of them until they tell me what I want to know and where we need to go next," he paused. "Once they do that, we can naturally shoot them as well. Probably should, too, unless we want every stage of this to be an ambush."
Shepard frowned. They'd have to see about that last part. The point of this wasn't to satisfy Garrus' bloodlust, it was to make sure he didn't lose himself in it.
"So. Where to first?"
"Dracon Arcology Trade Center," Garrus replied casually while they were about to walk up a flight of stairs, as if a trade center inside the capital city of a colony wasn't one of the worst places to have a firefight in.
"Hold up. You want to shoot up a trade center?" she asked, stopping dead in her tracks and ignoring the looks the various, distinctively less armed and armored people around them were throwing in her direction. Some looked like they were about to or had already called the police and if Shepard were to guess, it was only Illium's reluctant acceptance of Spectres and the call she'd had with the local chief of police that was keeping them from getting swarmed by the Nos Astra PD.
When he noticed that she'd stopped following, Garrus stopped as well and looked down to where she was standing.
"Well yes and no."
"You'll have to be more specific than that, Garrus. Helping you get back at the people who killed your team is one thing. Turning a civilian trade center into a war zone is a whole other story."
"I knew you were going to say that, so please, let me explain before you think I'm crazy."
"Fair enough. I'm listening."
"The actual ambush site where they're trying to lure me is in the lower levels of the Dracon Arcology. Creepy place with a high level of crime. Perfect for a murder," he stated. "But before we give them what they want and go there, there's someone else I've got to talk to in the trade center."
She looked at him for a second. He seemed genuine, so she'd take his word.
"Next time when you talk about trade centers, lead with that," the N7 said before rapidly climbing up the flight of stairs to catch up with him. Since he'd forgone his damaged helmet for a monocle HUD, she could see his face and tell that her comment seemed to trigger a reaction she hadn't quite aimed for.
"I'm pretty sure it's a bad sign in your faith in me that I have to tell you I won't shoot up a trade center," he paused. "Like I said. You don't have to be a part of this."
She mustered the turian.
"Garrus, have you ever known me to go back on my word?"
"No."
"Then you should know that you're stuck with me now," she slapped his shoulder lightly. "Come on, lead the way to the trade center. And while you're at it, do tell me about who you want to talk to."
"Oh you're going to regret asking that," the turian said before cracking the hint of a grin. "His name's Bero, former combat engineer gone Blue Suns. Strange guy, honestly. Probably one bad day away from becoming a domestic terrorist-"
Twenty Minutes Later, 2158 CE, Illium, Nos Astra Port Authority
"I have to say, when they told me I'd be giving Commander Shepard an assignment, I wasn't expecting to meet with a turian," the Cerberus informant said after closing the door of his office behind him. As she'd expected, the informant was human. But that was about where the similarities to actual human intelligence officers ended. Unlike the HSAIS and Cerberus operatives she'd worked with in the past, who only ever seemed to linger in dimmed, tiny rooms hidden behind five separate cover identities and at least two unrelated letterbox companies each, this guy was working out of a publicly registered, legitimate information business completed with an asari secretary. Additionally, she got the impression that he was working with Cerberus out of opportunistic reasons. While that wasn't exactly rare in the larger cover operations business, it still clashed with the largely idealistic 'true believer' types that manned the ranks of Cerberus.
The human clearly caught her unamused look at his comment about Shepard and raised his arms defensively. "Don't get me wrong. I don't have a problem with turians. It's just that I was really looking forward to meeting Commander Shepard. You see, she's the reason I took this job in the first place. I was there on the Citadel two years ago. She probably doesn't know it, but she saved my life from the geth and I've been waiting to thank her for it ever sinc-" as the human went on and on about his clear case of hero worship, Callius glanced at the digital clock being projected against the wall. She neither cared for nor had time to listen to this man's origin story. "- so anyways, I had this whole speech planned out in my head and now it's you and not Shepard who's here-" he laughed nervously. "Maybe you could pass along a mess-"
"Listen. I don't mean to be rude, but if we could please get back to the topic at hand," the man stopped his nervous laughter and looked at her in confusion. He clearly had lost track of what she'd come here for. "Krios," she reminded him.
"Sorry. Right, right, right. Thane Krios," he retorted before walking over to his terminal. As he went about his search, he began to hum ever so slightly. It was a slightly annoying habit, but then again, everything about this guy seemed to be 'slightly annoying'. "Looks like your assassin's got it out for Nassana Dantius. So if I were to guess, you'll find him skulking around the Dantius Towers construction site right about now. That is, if he hasn't finished the job already."
Callius suspiciously eyed the Cerberus informant and the casualness with which he had disclosed that information. He wasn't anything like the humans she's worked with before. Then again, the humans she'd worked with before hadn't exactly been very good at staying on Illium for a long time without causing trouble or ending up with planetary warrants. So maybe Cerberus had chosen this human precisely because he wasn't anything like its other agents. Whereas idealists didn't last long in places like Nos Astra, opportunistic people like him presumably thrived in this environment.
Despite that probably being the case, Callius couldn't keep herself from asking the question on her mind.
"I was told you'd be able to provide more information than that. A full dossier, to be precise," Harper had promised Shepard a finished dossier, not a single hint.
"And you were told right. I could give you that," the man said with a wave of his hand. Then he produced a tablet from underneath his desk and slid it across the table. "But unless you want to know where Krios was born or how one of the drell that trained him died in a practice sword fight against him when Krios was nine years old, I don't think you're actually interested in most of what's on here. I gave you the relevant parts. Krios wants to kill Dantius and Dantius is hiding in her ivory tower. What you make of the rest is on you," he glanced at the same watch Callius had looked at earlier. "Now, I hate to throw you out," as if one que, a buzzing doorbell noise rang through his office, "but you are kind of keeping me from attending another client meeting and I do have a reputation to keep up. So if you could maybe leave," he said while dragging the last word out.
"Naturally."
Callius handed the tablet to Leng for later news and then led her team out of the office. As before, they passed the asari secretary manning the front desk. However, this time around, she wasn't alone. A trio of figures who also happened to be wearing high-end body armor were standing next to her. One was a turian, one a salarian and the last one a human. And while the HSA Army-inspired green-brown camo of their hardsuits and HK guns they were carrying already suggested who they were with, the orange-blue square on their shoulders which served as the backdrop for a white chain of interlaced circles left little room for imagination.
CIP.
"Huh. They're a long way from home," Leng muttered over the squad intercom while the three figures turned to look at them from behind their blackened visors.
"Damn right they are. What's the CIP doing on Illium?" Nader replied before taking note of their gear. "And since when do they get the new Hahne-Kedar toys before we do?"
Callius tilted her head as she passed the turian in the center of the formation. As soon as he spotted her, or rather her armor, he turned as stiff as piece of steel. It reminded her of a child who'd been caught doing something he wasn't supposed to, that is if that child was heavily armed and belonged to a newly founded coalition of colonies that some were inclined to consider a puppet government that inched dangerously close to becoming a human-funded police state.
"I'd say go ahead and ask them," she muttered while taking note of the elongated military talon the turian was carrying. While it filled the role of a combat knife, it might as well have been a short sword. She narrowed her eyes behind her visor. The only unit which still issued this particularly dated weapon to its soldiers was one based on a frozen wasteland called Altakiril. Altakiril was a colony at the very fringe of Hierarchy space that prided itself with staffing the ranks of the units of the Hierarchy's army that specialized in fighting within extreme cold climates. While the Altakirlian legions were technically regulars and not part of the elite cadre of Hierarchy special forces, the very fact that they insisted on fighting and training in temperatures that would kill most turians within the span of a few minutes if exposed to them were more than enough of a reason to tread carefully around this particular CIP merc.
She glanced at the Altakirilian soldier. If he was anything like the rest of the thirteen-odd million colonist of Altakirilians, he would've most certainly had plenty of opportunities back in Hierarchy space after phasing out of service. They were valued as hard and diligent workers and as such had the perfect reputation to quickly climb through the social hierarchy. Yet here he was, working as a merc and earning his money by killing for a high-bidding corporate government.
Encounters like these reminded her that not every last one of her brothers- and sisters-in-arms shared the same morals and values as her.
While she determined his origin, the other turian seemed to catch how her head was pointed at his weapon. He slowly inched his hand closer to the knife, possibly misreading her curiosity as an indication of a disarming attempt. "But something tells me they'll cause us a whole lot of trouble if you do." she looked away from the turian's knife and met his eyes through her visor. Then she gave him one brief, respectful nod as she passed his side to tell him that they weren't enemies and that there was no need to be on edge. If the roles were reversed, such a simple gesture wouldn't work on her. It definitely did the trick for the Altakirilian though. "Whatever it is they're doing here," the Altakrilian returned the nod without saying a word and relaxed his grip. "I don't think it concerns us," he already would've made his move if it did.
After concluding that the new arrivals weren't an issue for them, the three members of the Normandy's crew stepped outside of the building. Since they were now standing in a large shadow that hadn't been there when they had entered minutes earlier, Callius instinctively glanced upwards. The source of the sudden shade was immediately clear. A dark blue, clearly CIP-made ship was hovering inside what was the military no-fly zone of Nos Astra. Further to the west, right about where they'd left the Normandy, she spotted another pair of dark blue dots, more CIP ships, and one silver-purple frigate-analogue, a patrol ship of the NAPD.
"Whether it concerns us or not," Leng began. "I don't like the timing of this," then he looked back to the office of the Cerberus informant. "Or where they're going."
Callius turned her head to see if the three CIP mercs were following them but she found no one. She considered reaching out to Shepard, but she assumed that the commander would know as little as her, otherwise she already would have said something.
"Me neither," the turian officer replied. Next she opened a channel to the Normandy. "EDI, do you read me?"
"Yes, Lieutenant Callius. How may I help you?"
"A CIP presence just appeared in our area of operations. Try and see if you can tap into Nos Astra PD's radio channels and figure out what's going on. If trouble's headed our way, I'd like to know about it before it hits us."
"Understood, Lieutenant," the AI replied. "Would you like me to notify the Commander as well?"
She looked away from the unmoving corvette. Unless the CIP had suddenly gotten themselves fleet-wide Spectre clerance, she was really curious how exactly they'd managed to get the various ruling companies and arcology administrations of Illium to allow their military ships to hover over their cities, let alone let their troops walk around in them.
This was the kind of worrying development that definitely warranted extra caution.
"Yes. Give her a heads-up that something strange is going on in the larger Nos Astra area," she replied before closing the link and placing a nav point on the closest rapid-transit station. Until Shepard said otherwise, the mission with Krios was still on and unless they suddenly got the privileges as CIP, they couldn't use a shuttle to fly to the Dantius Towers. Hence, public transport would have to do the trick.
"Understood Lieutenant. Logging you out," EDI stated. It took the AI about three of Callius' steps to log her back in. "Lieutenant Callius, I have managed to penetrate the NAPD's communication channels and have been able to determine that the CIP presence you are seeing is related to the manhunt."
"Oh shit. Is this about Krios?" Nader asked immediately.
As expected form an AI, EDI adapted immediately,
"No, Lieutenant Nader, the target of the manhunt appears to be an asari fugitive suspected in the killing of several CIP security officers, two Final Wave security contractors and five high ranking industrialists from Kosh."
"Thank you, EDI," Callius replied before throwing another look at the office they were walking away from. Just as she was doing so, another three armored CIP grunts entered the office.
"Logging you out, Lieutenant."
"Even if Krios isn't their mark, this doesn't look good for us," the human biotic muttered while visibly slowing down.
"Nader's right, LT, I think our guy might be in trouble," Leng added. Then both humans stopped dead in their tracks, forcing Callius to do the same. She considered telling them that the informant wasn't their problem anymore and that they should move on because frankly, that was exactly the case. But then she realized that the humans were used to Shepard's style of commanding and figured that Shepard would most definitely be hurrying back right about now. Since she wasn't going to undermine the commander's authority or her own role as XO by giving orders that conflicted with the direction of her superior would but also didn't want to get involved in whatever business the CIP had, Callius needed to find a middle ground. Luckily for her, she already had a decent idea of where to look. It was any turians favorite trinity.
Rules, regulations and responsibilities.
Leng and Nader were good soldiers, but not nearly as idealistic and free-spirited as Shepard, they
wouldn't take offense at being told that they couldn't act due to circumstances occurring well above
their heads.
"EDI. It's me again. We've got another situation. It looks like CIP forces want to talk to the Cerberus operative we just met with. Can you figure out what's going on there? Do they know who he is? If yes, can you contact someone who's got the authority to tell us if he needs exfiltration?"
The AI remained silent for a second, but the pause didn't make Callius any more suspenseful for the answer. She had enough experience with clandestine operations to know what would happen next, especially on a place like Illium where willing informants were about as rare as sand in a desert or pirates on Invictus.
"There has been no mention of the CIP going after any Cerberus or HSAIS assets. Furthermore, my guidelines require me to point out that Mister Burgs only works with Cerberus. He is not one of its operatives, nor does he have any traceable relations to Cerberus or HSAIS. He is not the responsibility of HSA assets, so even if Mister Burgs were to be in distress and require air, it would not be your responsibility to render it to him. Additionally, the overarching mission perimeters clearly dictate that securing Thane Krios takes priority over Mister Burgs' clash of interest with the CIP. His security is the concern of the Nos Astra Police Department."
She looked back to the office and noticed that the previously milky windows had now turned pitch black. While that additional privacy could just be a choice on Burgs' part, she had the creeping suspicion that he hadn't been the one to activate the black taint. There was most likely something more than just a clash of interest going on in there. If she were to guess, the information broker had had the misfortune of running into the asari fugitive earlier, possibly even helping her, and the CIP had caught wind of it thanks to their seemingly good relations to NAPD. And now, in true mercenary fashion, they were procuring that information from him by force.
They couldn't barge in their and stop the attack, that much was clear. Still, Callius felt inclined to do something, if only to put her own mind at ease and help Leng and Nader to move on.
"EDI, how long is the average response time of NAPD in this part of town?"
"Two minutes."
"Understood, give them an anonymous tip over an assault going on at Burgs' office," she looked at Leng and Nader. "I don't like it any more than you, but that's all we can do for him right now," she stated. They both seemed somewhat hesitant, but Leng, being the N7 out of the two, seemed to have a rather easy time with accepting the terms of their operation. He merely shrugged and just like that, Callius knew she could make the call. If Leng would follow her, Nader would follow the two of them.
"I have delivered the tip, Lieutenant Callius."
"Thanks EDI. Be advised that we're progressing to Dantius Towers now," she stated.
"Affirmative. Logging you out, Lieutenant," the AI spoke just as a third group of CIP mercs arrived. She was about to tell Nader to get going when Leng beat her to it.
"Come on. There's nothing left for us to do here. NAPD will handle it."
Nader hesitated for another second.
"Yeah. Alright."
Meanwhile, 2158 CE, Illium, Nos Astra, Dracon Arcology, Trade Center
After two polite attempts of short buzzing, Garrus decided that the time for politeness was now officially over. He smashed his palm against the doorbell of the apartment with the intention of only letting go once the door opened. While someone who didn't know the occupant of this particular home office could obviously make the argument that the person Garrus was itching to talk to wasn't here right now and could therefore not open the door or react to the increasingly more annoying doorbell, the turian detective knew better than them.
Bero, his Suns contact who had told him about this whole Sidonis lie, was the very definition of a hermit. He was here and the only reason he wasn't opening the door was because he was scared of facing Garrus. Hence, the detective continued to push his hand against the doorbell.
"Now I really don't want to be the bearer of bad news, Garrus," Shepard, who was standing to the left of the door and facing him, muttered. "But how sure are you Bero's even around anymore?" On their way here, he'd told Shepard all about Bero, how he'd met him after officially leaving C-SEC, how Bero worked as one of the Suns informants on Illium, how he believed that Bero had been forced to spread the rumors under the threat of violence and ultimately, how he knew that Bero knew he wasn't buying any of this 'Sidonis is alive' crap and how he'd probably been waiting for Garrus to show up at his door. The only part he'd really neglected about Bero at this point was the Taetrian's increasingly questionable relationship to the Facinus separatists and the 'donations' he'd made to the latest incarnation of the group. "I mean let's just look at this logically," the N7 went on. "What reason would the guys who are trying to lure you here have for keeping Bero alive? He sent the message, after that he's just a loose end."
"You've got a point," Garrus shrugged while the ringing continued. "But since Masani didn't say anything when we ran into him on Korlus, I find it pretty reasonable to believe that Bero's still kicking," well, metaphorically at least. After all, half the reason Bero had turned into an informant and started his questionable ties with Facinus was because he actually couldn't kick anymore. That kind of tended to come hand in hand with losing one's legs at the hands of a slaver IED.
Shepard looked at the door.
"Alright. It's just that for someone supposedly alive, he sure isn't very good at answering a door."
"I'm not ready to call it of yet. He always had trouble getting up from his desk," Garrus responded drly. "Kind of comes with getting your legs blown off, you know?"
His companion only gave a shrug before folding her arms.
"I'm just saying we might want to consider-" she began before being interrupted by a raspy voice from the doorbell.
"Who is it?" Bero's voice demanded to know through the speaker, sounding like an aged drill-sergeant caught on the wrong foot.
"Gas company, there's an issue with your building. Please open up," Garrus lied. It was something he had picked up at while working patrol in the Lower Wards of the Citadel. Never tell a crook who you really were until they opened the door.
Bero paused for a second.
"I can see it's you, Vakarian. I've got a camera wired up to my door, so don't even try lying to me, you bastard." Garrus glanced up to the frame of the door where a small red light was now blinking. "Now stop ringing my door and fuck off before I call NAPD on your ass," Bero went on.
He looked at Shepard before letting his hand slip from the doorbell.
"He really doesn't sound like he wants to talk to you, Garrus," the N7 observed.
"Bero's an acquired taste. Just wait and see."
The N7 only folded her arms in reply, clearly inviting Garrus to demonstrate.
"Bero," he began. It was the only word he was allowed to speak before Bero replied.
"You go fucking deaf on Omega, Vakarian? I said fuck off."
"You know I'll end up in your apartment one way or another, so save yourself the insurance claim and open the damn door."
"I'll call the cops, Vakarian. I'm serious. Fuck. Off."
"Unless you kicked your painkiller addiction or stopped building bombs since I last saw you, you've got about five life sentences hidden in your kitchen drawers. So stop playing. We both know you're not calling NAPD anytime soon," he leaned against the door and stared at the camera. "Come on, Bero, open up. I just want to talk about Sidonis for a moment. That's all," he stated, omitting the fact that he actually planned on beating the crap out of Bero until he told him who'd made him sent the message.
"Sidonis? What's there to talk about?" the turian spat back. "Last I checked, you got the guy a front row seat in an IED blast back on Omega. From what I heard, your orders were so shit that there wasn't even anything left for you to bury when the smoke settled. Talk about a premature cremation," as that sentence left door speaker, something in Garrus froze.
Bero had sent him the message that Sidonis was alive and active on Illium. He'd double-triple checked the sender ID back when it had first reached him and it had definitely come from the turian. Spirits, he'd even asked for confirmation from the sender and gotten back Bero's verified Blue Suns identifier.
"Uhm, Garrus-" Shepard muttered while his icy blue eyes stared holes into the metallic door while trying to come to terms with the fact that his own desire for vengeance might've just gotten him outsmarted.
"Bero. You told me Sidonis was alive," he said in a low tone. "You sent me the message. I checked. It came from you."
"Oh you have got to be shitting me-" the other turian pulled in an audible breath. "Vakarian, I'll put this bluntly since blunt seems to be about the only thing you get these days," Bero replied, his irritated tone having shifted to deadly serious in an instant. "I don't know what the fuck you're talking about. I haven't spoken or written to you in six months and I most certainly didn't tell you that Sidonis is still alive. That guy's about as dead as they come and if it's one thing I'm not, then it's a liar."
"Garrus," Shepard said again, this time his name got combined with a soft bump against his shoulder. There was something urgent about her tone but he wasn't quite ready to figure out what it was.
He'd checked. The message that Sidonis was on Omega had come from Bero and the confirmation that Bero really was Bero had been flawless. Everything had checked out. He'd even let EDI take a look to make sure that there was no tinkering.
The realization struck Garrus like a 'C-SEC Basics'-shaped thunderbolt.
"Bero," he muttered while glancing at Shepard, who seemed to be occupied with something to his left.
"Vakarian," the other turian replied through the speaker.
His jaw locked up for a second because the question he was about to ask felt like lead on his tongue. By asking it he was flat-out admitting to having messed up exactly like Callius had warned him not to, so getting out was challenging to say the least.
"Did someone break in at your place sometime after what happened on Omega?" it was such a basic trick that he couldn't explain to himself how he'd missed it other than by having been blinded by his drive for revenge.
Bero didn't answer the question. In fact, he showed no reaction at all. Then, after nearly a minute, the metallic door in front of Garrus pulled open to reveal an aged Taetrian with a dark-green carapace who was sitting in an equally old, sandy-colored wheelchair and brandishing a very well maintained Carnifex leveled at Garrus groin. Normally that situation alone would've made him pull out his own gun, but right about now he really didn't care about the threat to his more sensitive regions. The only thing he really noticed was the still boarded up window frame in the background and the scorch marks around it.
"Vakarian, you're a fucking idiot," the dark-green turian declared as what was left of his mandibles twitched in fury. "Whoever you thought you were playing by coming here duped you big time. Spirits, you probably did exactly what they wanted you to without ever realizing it."
"I-" he was about to defend himself before he and Bero were suddenly and quite forcefully pushed into the apartment by Shepard. While Garrus managed to stop himself from falling on his face, the crippled Suns veteran didn't have the advantage of two legs to give him stability, so he and his wheelchair plummeted to the ground. But before Garrus could ask what was going on or Bero complain about how humans seemed to treat injured turian combat veterans, the explanation of Shepard's violent action arrived in the form of a single sniper rifle round. It bounced off of the metallic door frame and ricocheting off of the walls several times, yet it still somehow missed all three of them. Instead of turning them into blue, or in Shepard's case red mist, it 'only' punched through several of Bero's screens, his bed, his weapon rack, something that looked remarkably close to a self-made anti-tank mine and a glass case that held the flag of a Taetrian legion before finally stopping in the ceiling.
With a swipe of her omni-tool Shepard sealed the door before the shooter could make another attempt on their lives and then turned to look at him. Although her helmet hid her expression, he could take a guess at how her face was looking behind the polarized visor based on the next sentence she uttered.
"Garrus, when exactly did you piss off a bunch of guys in jet-black armor?"
He was dumbfounded for a moment.
"You've got to be a bit more specific than guys in black armor if you want me to answer that," he replied.
In an instant her head spun to Bero, who had somehow managed to climb back into his wheelchair.
"I know what you're thinking, but don't look at me," the crippled turian muttered. "I haven't left this flat in the last two years and I'm pretty sure no one but my grocery guy know I'm even alive," he let out a few curses in a taetrian langauge Garrus' translator didn't know but his own understanding of the Palavani off-shot dialect managed to translate to something along the lines of 'shit like this is why I don't open my door to jackasses like you'. Shepard looked at him for another moment and then unfolded her Valkyrie.
"Okay. Listen. I don't care who they are, who they're after or whatever either of you did to piss them off to the point they start shooting at us. Bottomline is, there's ten armored grunts outside of that door and we've got to get out of here," she took a step closer to the crippled turian. "This place clearly doesn't have a back entrance, but you strike as the paranoid type. So please tell me you got pissed off by the lack of viable escape routes and got creative."
Bero paused for a moment and then looked at Garrus with widened eyes. "The garbage chute in my kitchen," he exclaimed. "I retrofitted it into a makeshift escape slide back when I still bothered with those stupid prosthetics the Suns gave me. The building owner never bothered to chew me out on it and unless my trash has been falling off the farside of the arcology for the last five years without anyone complaining about it, the garbage containers it leads to should still be there as well," he wheeled himself into the kitchen while Garrus heard muffled voices outside of the door. He wanted to go ahead and take a look through Bero's camera to see if he recognized the people Shepard had described. But the terminal it connected to was far too exposed for his liking, so he refrained from risking it. There'd be no revenge if he got caught in a breaching blast. "It's gonna be bumpy but it'll get the two of you out of the trade center for now. What you do after that is on you though."
"What do you mean the two of us?" Shepard asked while Garrus aimed his rifle around the corner of the kitchen and heard a faint thumping sound he could positively identify as the sound of a breaching charge being placed against Bero's door.
"Ma'am, you strike me as the intelligent type," he gestured down to what remained of his legs. "Go ahead and take a good look at my lower body and tell me if I look like someone who'll last longer than a minute outside of my apartment," Bero replied dryly before wheeling to one of his kitchen cabinets and producing a belt of turian-made hand grenades.
"Okay, easy there," he heard Shepard reply while a low whining noise began to penetrate the walls. Unless his ears were mistaking, that was the noise of a sonic scanner producing an image of the inner layout of Bero's flat. Whoever they were, they certainly had good equipment. "You mentioned prosthetics just now, didn't you? Put them on and leave with us. Between Garrus and me, we can protect you."
"Lady, you seem really nice and all," Bero stated. Garrus already knew where this was going and as such moved to open the chute. They needed to be quick about this. "But besides the fact that I pawned those pieces of shit two years ago," he said while pulling the belt over his shoulder and fastening it, "you don't have the time to slow down for me. You need to go," the whining suddenly disappeared, indicating that the scanning was done. "Now."
"I'm not going to let you blow yourself up," Shepard protested before Garrus grabbed a hold of her arm and pulled her towards the chute. He knew Bero wasn't messing around, so he started a countdown in his head from six to zero. Once he'd hit the zero, he'd throw the N7 down their escape route. Once that door got breached, Bero would blow himself up, whether they were still inside the apartment or not.
Six, five.
"Don't be silly. I'm not going to blow myself up. I'll make them do it for me," the taetrian said before pulling out a cable construction that looked vaguely like deadman switch. He flashed a grin at Garrus. "Shouldn't have opened that door, am I right?"
Four, three.
"I'm sorry I dragged you into this Bero," he replied somberly. Just because he recognized that there'd be no point in trying to talk down the turian or realized that Bero really had gone full 'domestic terrorism' in the last six months didn't mean that Garrus didn't regret how things had turned sour this quickly.
As he reached the two on his countdown, Garrus readied himself to move Shepard down the chute. But before he could do so, the N7 freed herself from his grasp, shook her head and jumped on her own devices.
She wouldn't have done that two years ago.
One.
Before he could hear all of Bero's reply, which he was sure would've just been more taetrian curses directed at opening the door for Garrus, the detective went down the chute as well. About halfway through bumping down through the garbage remains, he felt a noticeable detonation above them. Garrus clenched his mandibles. Apparent Facinus terrorist or not, Bero was now officially added to the list of people who'd died directly because of his mistakes. He spent the rest of the way down grieving for him and then, as soon as he landed in the garbage container next to the N7, decided that the pain he'd inflict on whoever was behind this had now grown exponentially.
Once he found them, they'd wish to go out the way Bero and Sidonis.
Explosions were so much cleaner than what he had in mind.
Meanwhile, 2158 CE, Illium, Nos Astra, Enroute to Dantius Towers
"Understood, Commander. Do you want me to send in the QRF?" EDI asked while Callius considered turning the rapid transit around. This was exactly what she had worried about. Vakarian's desire for vengeance had clearly caused things to go terribly wrong and now their commander and the detective himself were being hunted by a group of unidentified mercenaries in a city that was likely to be filled with various groups who'd all be eager to take the opportunistic approach to this issue, realise that there was money to be made in chasing the two and join them in their hunt to cash in on whatever reward it was that the original group was after.
"Negative EDI, if you send in the QRF, they'll just double down on all of us," Shepard responded. "Garrus and me are more mobile if it's just the two of us. We'll make our way back to the Normandy somehow and try to identify who it is that attacked us."
That was her cue to inject herself in the conversation.
"Commander, I strongly recommend that you do send in the QRF. We're dealing with a huge unknown here. For all we know, you could be hunted by unmarked NAPD forces," it certainly wouldn't be the first time Illium's police did something like this.
"I appreciate the concern, Lieutenant, but before I get our marines mixed up in this and generate a political fallout the size of the freighter incident, I still got a trick or two up my sleeve," she went on. Judging by how calm she sounded, Callius assumed Shepard wasn't in any immediate danger right now. "Granted most of those are down to gambling that these guys not being NAPD and not having the guts to storm an NAPD station."
Before she could say anything else or point out how dangerous that was, Leng injected himself in the conversation. He leaned forward in his seat, as if that would somehow bring him closer to the channel Shepard had opened, and began to speak.
"Em, if you don't want to send in the marines, then at least give us the all-clear to turn around and give you a hand. Krios can wait."
"No, he can't," Shepard replied, immediately shooting Leng's concerned proposal down. "You stick to your mission; I'll stick to mine. Alright, Petty Officer?" Her statement was friendly and didn't exactly sound like someone saying 'and that's an order', but it came close enough for the other N7 to realise that it was meant to invoke the same tone.
"Roger that. Kick their ass."
"We will."
Codex: Illium
Illium, sometimes called the crown jewel of the Terminus, was settled in 1617 CE as a entrepot between the Terminus and the Asari Republics and, unlike most other colonies founded by the asari, does not have a republican citizen government or an alliance to the other Republics. It is instead classified as an independent colony where the colonial administration and the local corporations hold equal shares of governmental responsibilities.
In this regard it is similar to many of the colonies forming the newly-declared Confederation of Independent Planets.
Unlike most asari colonies of its age, Illium still lacks a decentralized settlement system. Instead of being made up of several spaced-out, equally populated cities with independent administrations, Illium only has one major urban center, the mega-city Nos Astra and the Greater Nos Astra Metropolitan Area that surrounds the central hub of arcologies making up Nos Astra Proper. Due to this administrative technicality, Nos Astra is the most populated municipality of the galaxy with a 'city proper' population numbering at nearly eighty-five million people. While this obviously doesn't grant Nos Astra the title of most populated urban area, a prize that has recently passed on to the East-China-Sea-Municipality-Region on Earth, it continues to be a point of pride for the colonial administration.
At this point it should be noted that Nos Astra is also considered the least-self-sufficient urban areas in the known galaxy.
Due to its status as an entrepot, Illium does not have to conform to the rules and regulations of Council Space and is as such considered a rather lawless, albeit civilized, blend of highly developed asari culture and various 'less civilized' Terminus influences.
Unlike other independent planets, Illium lacks a formal Planetary Defense Force. Its security is instead provided by a blend of the more militarized arm of the Nos Astra Police Department, funded by the civilian administration, and various private security firms hired by the local corporate enterprises. Up until its dissolution at the end of the Human Mercenary Intervention, the mercenary outfit Eclipse held the monopoly of security work on Illium with an estimated thirty seven percent of Eclipse's revenue being generated from business conducted on Illium. After its collpase, various groups ranging from Terminus warbands with good public relation managers to the prestigious Final Wave have stepped up to fill the void.
While Illium's status as a free port between the Terminus and Council Space makes it an attractive trade partner for all Citadel members, it should be noted that relations between the colonial administration of Illium and the most recent addition to Council Space, the Human Systems Alliance, suffered several major setback shortly after humanity's inclusion into the galactic community. Due to these incidents and the secluded position of the Human Systems Alliance compared to the other Council nations, which ensures that most major trade routes between the HSA and the rest of the galaxy flow through the Skyllian Verge and the recently founded CIP, human corporate activity and trade between HSA and Terminus sources flowing through Illium is minimal at best. It is mostly limited to various everyday items such as electronic doorlocks, medicinal products and an agricultural produce called 'coffee beans', which has become increasingly popular with the large group of asari living on Illium.
A/N:
Bam!
After a hiatus, we're back with the start of the Illium arc.
This is going to be the last 'big' part for Shepard before we're off to hititng the final stretch of the whole collector quest and I believe it's going to be a nice one.
At this point I believe that we'll spent all of next chapter and a good part of the chapter after that (so 95 and 96) on resolving all of the Illium plots (which are Garrus, Thane and obviously Samara, albeit altered) and all I can really say is that I look forward to writing something about Illium again. (I personally feel like the Illium arc we had way back in the beginning was the point where SV started to 'pick up pace' , so to speak, so it's nice to return to the setting that initially made this story popular.)
Since we spent all this time on illium and one arc, there's actually not a whole lot of stuff I ahve to say other than that I have no idea when I'll write the next chapter. There's a chance it's going to be released on our forth anniversary though :)
I will however point out that this arc will serve as a connection between Shepard's plot and something else that's been going on in the background.
You will have to wait and see about that though. :)
For the record we're at 733 reviews, 1147 favorites and 1239 follows.
Review and let me know what you think.
See you around next time.
