Chapter 119. … Stays On Shore Leave


2158 CE, Citadel, Tayseri Wards, Level 15

It had been roughly an hour since Callius had gotten an in equal parts cryptic and worrying message from Thane asking her to meet her in Tayseri to help stop the drell's son from committing some kind of terrible mistake and from the moment she'd left the embassy, the turian had been thinking about what Kolyat Krios was about to do and why Thane had specified that she come alone.

Thane's exact words had been 'an irrevocable mistake' and 'consequences on a scale he cannot fathom' and while she'd noticed that the drell had a flair for dramatics, she didn't think that their resident hanar-assassin was one for overstating the scale of a threat. Quite the opposite, actually. A lifetime of assassin-hood should've made him comfortable with danger and as such him considering a situation to be critical was very bad.

As she looked around the crowd of people walking through the fifteenth floor of Tayseri Ward, the biotic turian kept her eyes open for any drell, wondering why Thane hadn't found her yet while simultaneously hoping to maybe catch a glimpse of Kolyat and subsequently figuring out what was going on.

While a skeptical or pessimistic person may now point out that Callius had no idea what Thane's son actually looked like, the turian lieutenant was going to use the overall rareness of a drell on the Citadel to her advantage.

There weren't a lot of Thane's people left in the galaxy and even fewer of them ventured beyond the hanar homeworld of Kahje, so chances were that any drell she saw that wasn't Thane Krios was instead going to be Kolyat Krios.

Setting that statistical fact aside, she also hoped that she could count on something of a family-resemblance, and as such kept looking.

Besides the usual waves of people commuting around the Citadel and rushing to get to where they needed to be, Callius noticed an unusually large number of C-SEC officers passing through Tayseri. They appeared in groups of four or six every couple of minutes and in addition to the heavy-armor half of them were sporting, they all seemed to be in an intense rush to get to wherever they were going.

She knew that Tayseri was a rough patch, especially once the numbers two or three started to appear in front of the level designation, but even so, there was a lot of security here today, more than she could explain away without Thane's message coming to her mind.

Had Koliat maybe already committed the mistake and maybe that was why Thane was failing to 'find' her?

Callius glanced at her omni. She'd already tried hailing the drell four times by now and he hadn't picked up. Her finger hovered over the favorited contact labeled as 'Cmdr. Shepard' and she once again fought her (stereotypically turian) urge to bring the issue to her commander's attention. A couple of months ago she wouldn't have hesitated a single second to dial up Shepard and pass the issue on to her, but with everything that was going on lately, Callius figured that any issue that could be taken care without adding further load onto the N7's shoulders should be dealt with accordingly.

Additionally, she didn't fancy the idea of going behind Thane's back.

The drell probably had his reasons for asking her to come alone and while a suspiciously Veltax-sounding voice was scolding her for trusting an assassin of all people, Callius wasn't quite at the point where she'd start to wonder if Thane had – to use Leng's words - 'pulled a fast one' on her for some unfathomable reason. (She was slowly getting used to human idioms, even if she still didn't understand how they came up with them…)

After another second of lingering over Shepard's contact, Callius deactivated her omni-tool and traced another patrol with her eyes. When they passed her, she could read the expression of the pair of turian officers – and make out the Special Response Division sigil on the collars of their blue armor.

That was probably not good, right?

"Lieutenant," a low, raspy voice whispered into her ear from behind her. She spun around and nearly hit Thane in the stomach with a biotically fueled punch. While he clearly noticed her stopping just before shattering his insides, he didn't flinch. Instead he only blinked. "I apologize for the delay. And for startling you. Thank you for coming."

"No worries. But just so you know, sneaking up on cabals is dangerous," Callius responded, trying not to let it show that she found it incredibly off-putting how the drell seemingly managed to materialize out of nowhere. She believed Leng had called his behavior 'nun-yak-like', or at least something similar sounding. So instead of dwelling on the assassin's silent approach, she got straight to the issue. "What's going on with your son?"

Thane looked at her for a second, then he nudged his head left to the corner of one of the countless small stores lining the stripe they were standing in. Callius followed him right until he stopped next to a hologram that was babbling about the newest, latest asari politics.

"I'm afraid he plans to follow in my footsteps," Thane muttered, the bright-red light of the hologram reflecting off his skin. "After I failed to reach him through the Normandy's comms," she hadn't known about that yet, "I decided check up on him. When I did find him, an old contact of mine approached me. He… told me something troublesome," Thane paused for a second. "What I am about to tell you cannot ever be passed on to someone else, do you understand?" the drell asked, his voice suddenly very cold.

Callius nodded, keeping the fact that she might just do that depending on what it was to herself for the time being. She wanted to trust Thane and he seemed like someone who really wanted to make amends for what he'd done… but if his son was going to do something terrible and she could stop it with a warning call, she'd chose the common good over an assassin's favor any day of the week (even if that'd harm their operational integrity for the upcoming mission).

After her nod Thane stepped right into the hologram and leaned his head next to her ear. The hologram distorted his face and his voice, but even so, she heard him clear as day.

"Kolyat was hired to kill Commander Shepard. I don't know by whom and I don't know why, all I know is that he's well on his way by now, "Thane whispered. In response, Callius, she took a step back and brought up her omni-tool.

This definitely qualified as a common good type of situation.

"We need to warn Shepard," she muttered, almost reflexively. In less time than it took her to blink, Thane's hand shot out and clamped on her wrist, preventing the hologram projector from displaying the omni-tool's interface. While her skin was covered in metal and turian bones were comparatively dense, the assassin's grip felt crushing. Given his generally wiry physique, physical health and age, she hadn't expected Thane to be anywhere near this strong.

If this was a Thane Krios past his prime and on the verge of his death, she'd really hate to meet a young and invigorated version of the assassin…

"No. Not yet. We need to try and stop him first," Thane countered, still covering her left arm.

"I'm not going to gamble with Shepard's life," Callius said. Then she made a move to free her wrist and much to her surprise, she didn't get anywhere until she felt Thane let go.

"If you warn the commander about Kolyat, my son will die today. He'll be no match for Shepard and our companions if they know he's coming," he stated before stepping out of the hologram, which flickered back into existence in the shape of a purple cloud that covered him for just a second before adjusting its transparency to make him visible again.

"If I don't, she might."

"I won't let that happen. I will stop Kolyat before he can hurt Shepard. All I am asking you is to give me a chance to save him before I need to do that."

Callius eyes narrowed.

"He's your son, how do I know you'll really chose him over her when the time comes?"

"I called you here and asked for your help. If I valued Kolyat's life over Shepard's, I wouldn't have done that," the drell pointed out. "You're here because Kolyat needs you to have a chance at survival," Thane stated.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Exactly what I said," the drell responded. "If you want to warn Shepard, I won't stop you. Her mission far outweighs Kolyat's life," Thane blinked but to Callius the motion looked somewhat off and delayed. Maybe a sign of emotional distress? "If she dies, we all die," he added. "I know it is selfish of me, but I'm asking you to give my son a chance."

Callius considered his words for a second and lowered her omni.

"What's your plan?"

"The rage Kolyat carries within him in regard to me will ensure that he won't listen to a word I have to say," Thane explained. "If I try to stop him by myself, he'll not listen to reason and there won't be a chance to save him. He is set in his ways, much like I was at that age. As such I will be forced to strike him down," Callius looked at the drell standing behind the hologram and just for a second she got the impression that his face was flickering. "I won't succeed. But Kolyat doesn't know you. Because of that, you can do what I cannot. After I've found him, I need you to face Kolyat and return him to his senses. He's not a bad person, only … misguided. The right words will set him back on track and I have faith that you will find them."

"You want me to talk your son out of killing Shepard? That's your plan?"

"Yes."

"Don't take this the wrong way, I want to help you Thane, I do," Callius began "… but how am I supposed to talk down someone I've never met?"

"The same way you saved me on Illium without having met me. You put your trust in me, an assassin, and risked your life to get me out of harm's way. You also trusted Petty Officer Leng and went to face him in good faith when even Shepard was struggling to give him a chance," okay, how did Thane know about Leng? "Since you've spent your life as a soldier, you might not recognize it, but the greatest weapon you wield isn't your ability to fight. It's your faith in people and your willingness to give everyone a chance, no matter in which way they've been branded by the rest of the world. If there is any person on the Normandy that can talk my son into listening to reason, it is you, Lieutenant. So please. Try to pull my son from the darkness he's chosen for himself. That is all I'm asking…"

Callius looked at Thane and his definitely flickering face. A holo-decoy, probably to give him a head start in case she'd say no.

Sneaky nun-yak indeed…

"Unless you put on some glitter, I take it you're already searching for Kolyat?"

"I don't need to search for that which I have already found," Thane responded through the voice-box of the decoy, before her omni buzzed with a live-position. "I apologize for the deception, but…"

"… you needed a head start just in case. Don't worry about it. I get it. Any parent would've done the same," Callius stated before sighing. If Thane could talk her into this, she wasn't the only one who had a way with words.

"Thank you for understanding," the hologram stated. "Kolyat is in Zakera Ward. Level 24."

"I'll be there."

Holo-Thane nodded and then disappeared, leaving the Blackwatch lieutenant to wonder what she'd done to give people the impression that she was some kind of master-class negotiator.


Thirty Minutes Later, 6. May 2417 AD, Citadel, Zakera Wards, Level 24

After settling things with the krogan, leaving Tayseri behind to get a change of clothes and using his omni to locate his protectee (who he had assumed to be enjoying shoreleave on the Presidium), Lancelot was once more back in the wards, Zakera this time around, and having trouble to keep his mind of some of the unwanted baggage he'd picked up the minute he'd stepped into the embassy.

While he'd been back at homebase, he'd gotten some pretty confusing and frankly unbelievable news regarding one of his classmates.

There was a burn-notice out for Magic.

HSAIS was accusing him of treason and stating that he posed a threat to national security, which was ironic considering he'd just iced the Broker for those ingrates…

Lancelot was good at compartmentalization. Maybe a bit too good considering how unaffected he was by all the blood he'd spilled… but even so, every part of his mind was itching to fly back to Cronos to figure out what the fuck had happened ever since they'd parted ways.

But since that wasn't an option unless he wanted to end up on IA's shitlist too, Yegor had opted for the true and trusted Section 13 approach.

After a second of being burdened by it, he'd shoved the issue into the darkest, most far-off corner of his mind, changed into some casual business clothing to fit in with the better-off crowd in Zakera and told himself to focus on his mission, leaving behind the fact that there was a manhunt going on for one of the few people he was willing to call a friend the moment he'd set foot out of the embassy.

It wasn't a healthy method.

But it'd work for now.

… maybe.

While he'd never say that to Morneau's face because it'd just make him even more of an insufferable weirdo, Lancelot actually liked the guy.

When he wasn't busy being a cold and distant loner who spend his time wandering Cronos Station harassing the few social contacts he had managed to form by dropping in on their work unannounced and presumably annoying the shit out of them, Magic was a stand-offish dick of a field-agent who not only didn't know how to keep his mouth shut and his feet still but also had a nasty habit of not knowing his own limits and being so goddamn stubborn that it was a small miracle he hadn't caught a bullet yet. Adding to that, he definitely wasn't right in the head ever since that whole Akuze fiasco … or well, even less right in the head. In Lancelot's professional opinion something about Morneau had always been off. He was weirdly idealistic and almost doggishly loyal, not exactly the traits you expected in someone who made a living off of bullshitting his way through various fake personas.

Maybe the Eezo had given him a split personality?

… but even with having said all that, he liked the guy, god-dammit.

When shit went down bad, you could always count on him to have your back. Whether it was sneaking around some place to steal some shit that HSAIS said it needed or kicking in doors and trading fire with guys the intelligence agency wanted gone, Magic was going to measure up…

… so why the fuck would HSAIS decide to burn him after he'd just proven to them how terrifyingly effective he could be by blowing the Broker to kingdom come?

Lancelot shook his head at the realization that he was letting his human emotion get in the way of his job and decided to let go of the line of thought then and there.

Instead of thinking about his weird classmate, the blonde specialist looked at the red-haired marine moving on the level below him.

The commander, for some reason he didn't quite get yet, had decided to leave the safety of the military docking areas below the Presidium (which for all intents and purposes was a controlled environment in which HSAIS could provide backup almost immediately) and started an expedition into Zakera, the de facto industrial sector of the Citadel.

Because they'd had some run-ins before, Lancelot (or as Shepard knew him, Conrad Verner) was keeping his distance very carefully this time around and although he'd always felt somewhat weird about practically stalking the daughter of one of his colleagues, he felt even more weird now that Cerberus had literally chipped Shepard (for her own safety, or so they said.)

Sure, the tracker made it much easier to follow the commander around and he seriously appreciated no longer having to go through the trouble of getting the navy to allow him access to Shepard's service-issued omni-tool every time she showed up on the Citadel, but even so… it felt pretty wrong to use a tracker literally implanted in the commander and gave him some rather ominous premonitions about his own future.

Although he was pretty confident that he wasn't on the list of people Cerberus would go through the trouble of bringing back from the brink of death (or maybe even from the dead depending on how technical and philosophical one wanted to get in regards to Project Lazarus), Lancelot would make god damn sure that if he ever bought it, there wouldn't be enough left for the HSA to put back together.

He obviously had a lot of love for his people, otherwise he wouldn't be doing this crap, but giving one life to your nation ought to be enough in his book.

Did that make him a selfish dick?

If it did… he didn't care.

As the redhaired marine, who was currently dressed in civilian attires (more specifically a blue blouse, black pants and tanned combat boots that definitely didn't go with either of those) walked through Level 24 of Zakera South, Lancelot stopped pondering on the morality and implications of Project Lazerus and traced her from the railing of Level 23. He put a smoke in his mouth and since this wasn't Tayseri and he wasn't about to place a whole bunch of false clues meant to mislead C-SEC into the direction of a batarian suspect, he also lit it this time around. In addition to giving him a much overdue boost of nicotine, it also gave him something simple to focus on and allowed a sliver of Yegor Solovev to come up to the surface for a breath of fresh air.

The Horizoner had never managed to kick that particular habit from his old life. Even after HSAIS had asked him to join its Section 13 gig because he fit some sort of vaguely defined personality traits and skills that'd make him a good candidate and given him a decade worth of mental resilience training, he just couldn't skip a smoke.

He'd never really understood that particular decision by the way.

Weeks prior to this late-training agent showing up at his unit's post and handing him a rapid transfer order to a place called Cronos Station, his request to apply for the army's officer training program had been denied because his mother had been an HSA officer turned high-ranking IFSDF commander. (A career change that had gotten her ten years in military jail and a lifetime of 'counter-terrorism' surveillance, mind you.)

'Your family's history with the separatist movement represent a safety concern that the commission cannot ignore, Corporal Solovev,' – those had been the words of his unit commander and just after he'd typed up his discharge from service request (because he sure as hell wasn't going to be a corporal for twenty years to life), a pale woman in an HSAIS uniform had shown up at his barracks and told him that 'unlike the Lt. Colonel, we don't buy into that sins of our mothers bullshit'. Then she'd sat him down at the base's running track and explained why she was there.

The conclusion of the chat they'd had back then had been rather simple. She'd given him a chance to be something more than a child of the side that had lost the last great war and he'd jumped at it the same way he'd jumped at the army's post-martial-law Horizon recruitment campaign.

Unlike that campaign though, Section 13's offer hadn't ended up being an empty promise of reintegration and purpose.

It'd actually meant something and he'd be thankful for the shot he'd gotten back then for the rest of his life the same way he'd be thankful for being assigned to the agent he'd been assigned to.

Loretta had been one of the good ones.

Compassionate to those she'd sworn to protect, yet unflinching in her duty and unforgiving towards her enemies.

A shining example of what a servant of the Human Systems Alliance should act like.

It'd only made sense she'd catch a bullet to the heart for her troubles sooner than later. Looking back, Loretta's death had solidified the rules he felt the world worked by, namely that the universe didn't like keeping the good ones around and that fortune always favored the wicked.

Loretta and JP and Alec were just a couple of examples that proved the rule.

His continued survival proved it too, albeit in the opposite way. He was a wicked son-of-a-bitch, hence he got to stick around whereas the good ones didn't.

As Shepard approached a tall, Asian man in a naval uniform, Lancelot tapped the side of the HUD glasses he was wearing to magnify his vision. After a second of scanning his face, he recognized the man as First Lieutenant Ju-Lian Nagato. He was the former XO of the Normandy and its current CIC-Chief. The two officers exchanged a salute and then began to talk about something Lancelot couldn't make out.

Cerberus had no problem with putting a tracker into Shepard's spine but they somehow drew the line at an audio receptor in the skull that'd make his job easier.

Go figure.

He watched them for a second and noticed the way that Nagato was looking at the redhaired N7. Focused, intense… Shepard was a pretty and charismatic woman, so it was normal for guys to give her all their attention… but this was different. In Lancelot's mind it wasn't the usual 'shit, she's hot in civies'- vibe that Nagato was giving off. It was something more nefarious, almost … predatory. Like an Horizon Orafa-Apes eying a herd of Red-Antelopes and trying to decide when the opportune moment to strike was.

Lancelot narrowed his eyes as the First Lieutenant with the impeccable service record gestured down the warehouse strip and then threw a look around after Shepard had started to walk ahead of them.

Best-case scenario, Nagato was a creep. Worst-case scenario, he was actually dangerous.

Either way, the specialist didn't like it.

He pulled off the glasses, tucked them in the chest-pouch of the white shirt he was wearing and quickly walked towards the staircase that connected the two levels.

First he had a bunch of hardline mercs coming to the station in an effort to ice Commander Shepard and now a member of the Normandy's crew was steering Shepard away from the public eye.

This day just kept getting better, didn't it?


Meanwhile, 6. May 2417 AD, Tayseri Wards, C-SEC District Command

"It's him," the older turian muttered. He clenched his mandibles against the side of his unmarked brown jaw and pushed his index-talon through the holographic depiction of the hologram. "I told you he wasn't dead, Bailey," Palaris Attrako added, clearly satisfied.

"Yeah. Me and the whole galaxy," the C-SEC captain retorted, still surprised that Chellick had actually been right when he'd said Attrako would show up the moment he called and even more surprised that top-brass had let him walk into the District Command. It wasn't the pleasant, i-was-wrong-about-you kind of surprise though. He'd really been hoping to never see the smug bastard ever again after being handed the right information of finally end the Ripper investigation.

But since Chellick just had to ring the Ripper-Bell with top-brass and they'd shat their pants at the prospect of having another military-trained serial killer walking around the station (as if half the mercs and Spectres didn't qualify for that description) Bailey was forced to listen to Attrako again.

"Still mad about the book, huh?" the turian stated, sounding like he was gloating.

"You publicly stated that you think I'm unfit to serve C-SEC in any form of leadership position. Not to mention you also told everyone that you think I'm either dirty or dumb. Of course I'm still fucking mad at you, Attrako"

The brown-plated turian shrugged in response.

"What did you want me to do, lie?" he offered before his golden eyes looked at the equally golden rank insignia on Bailey's C-SEC uniform. "Besides, it's not like the truth hurt your career," the turian went on before leaning away from the hologram and tugging at the visitor-badge hanging around the collar of his black formal wear.

Attrako looked distinctively uncomfortable with the filthy-rich look he was going for and Bailey loved every second of it.

"Chellick told me we have the usual lack of evidence and the same modus operandi and display of skill as always. I believe the phrase you'd use would be 'like a blade through a dairy product."

"Knife through butter," Bailey corrected.

"That's what I said," the turian tilted his head.

"No."

"Yes."

"Classic turian translator error then."

"Don't you mean human simile mistake?"

"Have I mentioned that I didn't miss you one bit?" Bailey responded with narrowed eyes.

"No, but I already suspected it," Attrako retorted before bringing up his omni. "I take it you learned from the last Ripper investigation and have already started to account for the people with the appropriate training?"

"We're in the process of doing that. But let me tell you one thing beforehand. Keeping tabs on Spectres has become a bit more difficult since you left. They were hard enough to get a hold on as it is already but after the attack… they're practically ghosts. We don't even get notified anymore when one boards the station, let alone how many of them are here right now."

"So I've heard. Nothing quite like a lawman above the law, eh?" the turian murmured. Spectres were the one thing Attrako and Bailey had ever managed to see eye-to-eye on. "Speaking of Spectres… Chellick mentioned that the remaining human one just arrived. Shepard," Attrako went on, stressing the name of the Lieutenant Commander.

The human C-SEC captain already knew where this was going.

It was the same line of thought that had gotten Bailey a visit by one of the less nice people working at the embassy back in early 2415 after the shooting at Chora's Den. After on-site surveillance had identified Shepard, her later crew-mates and another (to this day unknown) human male as the perpetrators of the assault on Fist's criminal operation, a guy who'd introduced himself as a member of the embassy staff had shown up at the precinct and talked to Executor Pallin.

Long story short: HSA service members serving as or with Council Spectres were to be kept out of the investigation at any cost. Their importance to national security was far too high for them to be tied down by pointless bureaucracy.

"Not that again…"

"Why not? The Ripper murders started when Anderson became a Spectre and stopped when he died and Shepard went MIA. Now Shepard's back and so is the Ripper…" Attrako said before trailing off. "I know you don't like it when I place your heroes under suspicion, but even you have to admit that the timing is way too accurate to be coincidental. This is connected. You know it is."

"Maybe. But why would a Spectre have to cover up their work?" Bailey retorted.

It went against his integrity as a police officer to argue with Attrako when he knew he was probably right … but the guy from the embassy who'd delivered the crucial clue on the identity of the Ripper, had made it pretty clear were HSAIS stood in regard to this theory way back when Bailey had gotten this promotion:

Do not question the origin or nature of the evidence. If it seems lacking, that's because you lack the whole picture and we can't tell you how we got it because it definitely involved some extra-judicial HSAIS blacktops shit. Just take it to get the promotion and boot Attrako out and be happy… and quiet.

Since crossing the people who'd handed you questionable evidence barely strong enough to pin a serial killing spree on a dead krogan merc was a surefire way to lose your job and therefor remove your ability to spent C-SEC's resources on actually solvable crimes instead of wild goose chases after a suspect that might not even be one person, he could hardly outright agree with Attrako…

"Alright Bailey. Dumb or dirty. Remind me. Which is it?" Attrako snarled while shaking his head. "What I'm saying isn't that they're the ones pulling the trigger, it's that they're the reason it's being pulled."

"So your theory is pretty much the same one as two years ago? You're really going to just rehash the approach that got you kicked out of C-SEC?"

"… since it's the truth, yes," the turian responded before narrowing his golden eyes. "And for the record, I didn't get fired. I resigned after I realized how utterly incompetent everyone I worked with was."

"You resigned after they told you they'd fire you if you didn't stop writing your book and drop the Ripper for good. That's just getting fired with a couple of extra steps, Attrako."

"For you, maybe. For me it's all the difference in the world."

"Keep telling that to yourself."

"I will do just that. The same way you tell yourself that you didn't crack to the political pressure of nailing the Ripper murders on someone so you don't break down under your own hypocrisy every time you put on the uniform," Attrako spat.

"Ouch," Bailey retorted, not letting it show that the turian was right. "Got anything else for me? Maybe some more insults?"

"Nothing you haven't heard already," the former detective offered. "Whether you like it or not, Bailey, Shepard and Anderson are the answer to the Ripper case," the brown-plated bareface offered before bringing up his omni-tool. "If you want this to stop before brass realizes that the achievement they promoted you for hasn't actually been achieved yet, I suggest you keep a very close eye on the commander and her crew. The Ripper's probably doing the same thing as we speak," Attrako offered before looking at Bailey. "… I don't see you relaying any orders," the turian observed.

Bailey pinched his nose.

"You're enjoying this little power trip, aren't you?"

Attrako shrugged.

"This isn't about power Bailey. It's about vindication and justice," Attrako stressed before flashing his teeth. "And of course I'm enjoying it. This is everything I've wanted to do since I turned my badge in."

Smug.

Bare-faced.

Bastard.

"Call the observation group in. They need to get on Shepard's trail right away."

Bailey sighed.

"Fine."

This was gonna have one hell of a kickback with the embassy and knowing HSAIS' reputation, he maybe should consider updating his will…


Twenty Minutes Later, 2158 CE, Citadel, Presidium, Purgatory

If Garrus was being entirely honest about himself and the crew members that had tagged along on what Leng was calling his war on sobriety, he was frankly baffled that anyone had let them inside a club without Shepard to pave the way. If he were a bouncer, he certainly wouldn't have.

"Alright. Worst fight you've ever been in," Leng instructed with a raised voice, intend on overpowering the electronic music. In the absence of the commander, the remaining N7 of their group had decided that they'd play a game where he asked a question and then everyone answered and drank. Personally, the C-SEC detective didn't quite get why they weren't just drinking in silence and what the point of the game was to begin with… but he didn't want to be a buzzkill.

Additionally he was still holding out hopes that Leng would get intoxicated enough to try and hit on an asari …

"Like with Shepard or in general?" Nader asked while leaning close to the N7. While he wasn't all too familiar with human courtship rituals, he was getting the impression that Shepard's fellow human soldiers shared a mutual interest. Or maybe he was just reading too much into things.

That was after all a talent of his.

"In general," Leng clarified before pointing at Mordin. "You first, Doc."

Mordin put a hand on his drink and took a sip.

"Troublesome to think of story that is not too sensitive to be shared."

"We're all shipmates here, Doc."

"Afraid comradery doesn't unbind me from vows of secrecy," the doctor retorted before closing his eyes. "Of course. Trigala-Three. Had to dispatch foes with farming equipment. Learned valuable lesson on that day. Dull scythes are poor cutting weapons. Good for bludgeoning though."

"A scythe?"

"Yes."

"As in the farming equipment?"

"Indeed."

"Okay, you gotta explain that one a bit more."

"Would love to elaborate further, but as mentioned, STG classification regulations are rather constrictive and sanctions for breaking code of conduct can be… drastic."

"Ah, so they'll ice you if you talk too much."

"They'd try," the doctor retorted with a rare confidence.

"I see, I see," Leng said before pointing his bottle at the biotic to his left. "Alright, Nader. Let's hear it."

"I'm actually going to have to go with the last one."

"The Alarei? For real?" Leng responded, somewhat surprised.

"Morinth nearly killed us all. That was one hell of a fight."

"Yeah, but only like nearly," the other human pointed out. Garrus could relate with his surprise. All things considered, the Alarei hadn't been that bad. Tough, sure, but certainly nowhere near as bad as Noveria, the Citadel or Omega.

"Still the toughest fight I've ever been in. That blue bitch pushed me to my limit," Nader stated before drinking from her beer and noticing the looks Mordin and Garrus were throwing her. "Believe it or not, not all of have survived numerous suicide missions before this one…"

"Are they really suicide missions if you come back every time?" Garrus wondered out loud to which Leng shrugged. Then the N7 pointed to Garrus' right.

"Okay. Tali. You wanna go next?"

"I … I haven't really been in any tough fights yet…" the quarian responded somewhat unsure. "I'm not a soldier like you are, I'm just a mechanic who went off the beaten path."

"Didn't you just spend several weeks hiding out on a geth-occupied world?"

"Well. Yes. But I didn't do a lot of fighting while I was there," Tali answered while fumbling with her hands.

"Come on. You had to have had some scraps down there," Leng pushed.

"Like you said, we mostly just hid," Tali stated, clearly uncomfortable. To her luck, the other human at the table was better at reading social cues than the N7.

"… which is perfectly reasonable when you're going up against a planet full of freaking geth," Nader responded before not-so-subtly jabbing Leng into the ribs with her elbow. "How about you, Leng? What's your best war-story? Oh and before you get any ideas, let's go with one that doesn't have Shepard in it," the biotic added.

Leng let out a cough. "Interesting rule, but alright, let's see," he scratched his chin. "Had a knife fight with a krogan once. We both walked away, but it was still one hell of a fight," the N7 muttered. "Wait shit. Em was there when that happened. Alright, let me think…"

Garrus had heard the story.

Or rather Shepard had referenced the incident once. According to the way the commander told the story, her fellow N7 had instigated the whole thing and if not for her intervention, it would've ended his career and landed him in jail… "There are the two dozen battles that I nearly died in during the Blitz," the N7 went on, casually mentioning that he was the only person at this table that had fought in a proper interstellar war. Although he liked to think that Virmire cam pretty close to 'fighting in a proper interstellar war', Garrus had to admit that he lacked an actual war-fighting experience. Back when the batarians had attacked the Verge he'd already been wearing C-SEC colors. If he hadn't he would've been right there in the middle of it with Recon and proven his worth as a soldier, something his father was sure to let him know every time they met "…but if you really wanna nail me to the wall for an answer, then it's gotta be the second-to-last deployment I did before Em finished N7 training."

Garrus had never stated it out loud, but he found it damn impressive that Leng, despite being the same age as Shepard, had been an N7 for more than twice as long as humanity's second Spectre.

He realized it sounded strange, considering the little incident in the armory from a of week ago, but the detective had nothing but respect for Shepard's longtime companion, at least when it came to his capabilities as a soldier.

Shepard had told him that Leng had graduated boot camp, done a single rotation in the Verge as a grunt and then immediately reported to N1-Phase, right in time for his 19th birthday.

Garrus' time in the turian military, particularly his stint in Recon and his aborted attempt at becoming a Black Watch operative had taught him one thing:

Soldiers like Leng were damn rare.

Stepping into that kind of role at that kind of age was nothing short of extraordinary and essentially the equivalent of a turian juvenile joining Blackwatch straight out of bootcamp.

"What made that one so special? Compared to the shit you saw during the Blitz, I mean?" Nader asked.

"Being back to small-unit operations for starters," the N7 retorted. "Long story short, my platoon raided a slaver base. We went in with forty guys and came out with nine KIAs and twenty-four wounded. That thing was a fucking trip through hell and back, let me tell you that," the N7 stated before downing a drink. "Fun fact about that op. Command shifted to sending in ASOC-teams after."

"Why? Because they do a better job than you lot?" Nader teased.

In Garrus' mind it was an out-of-place comment in face of the fact that Leng had clearly lost several comrades on that day. Then again, she was probably influenced by the alcohol and the N7 seemed to hold no animosity over the statement.

"In that particular situation? Damn right they do," Leng muttered. "N7s deploy with forty guys and we make a shit-ton of noise when we go in because we breach loud and hard. It works really well most of the time, violence of action and moment of surprise and all of that crap," he waved his hand. "But since the batarians prepared for exactly that type of attack, it bit us in the ass back then," he explained. "Unlike us, ASOC's perfect for the job. They go into every mission with four or eight guys most of the time and they only bump it up to twelve or sixteen if it's a real big one and even then it's just a bunch of four-men squads that do the work. That gives them the kind of maneuverability that you need to outrun all the nasty shit the batarians are hiding in their fortresses. They also have the advantage that you never see 'em until it's too late, of course," he took the bottle off the table and poured himself a new one. Then he looked at a perplexed Nader "What?" he asked.

"I think you might be the first N7 I met who doesn't talk smack about the sneaky green guys."

"How many have you met?"

"Enough to know that there's usually a lot more dick measuring from either side when the other comes up," while turians used a different expression for what Nader was talking about, Garrus was still following her argument. The respective special forces branches shared an intense inter-service rivalry.

It was the same story with the five units in the turian military that shared the official designation of 'Special Forces'.

Whereas Blackwatch operatives treated Recon like an unwanted younger sibling, Recon Corps members thought Armiger Shock Troops were maniacal adrenaline junkies who brought their own coffins to each battle and had hit their head on the ceiling of their drop-pod one too many times to be considered legally sane.

Meanwhile, everyone stayed out of the way of the Cabal Corps because they'd never outlived their Unification War reputation and simultaneously made fun of the 363rd Hastati Detachment of Cipritine, mockingly claiming that the 'Compartmented Hastatim Hostage Rescue Element' was compartmented from the rest of the military police not because they were the absolute elite of turian law enforcement tactical teams and set the gold-standard that all other hostage rescue tactical teams in Citadel Space aspired to meet … but because even the rest of the already estranged hastati considered them to be a bunch of stereotypically stiff and numbingly humorless by-the-book outcasts.

"Oh there's a lot of that, definitely," Leng nodded. "But you sorta grow out of insulting each other's sexual performance when you're running a shit-ton of high-risk ops together and have batarians hammer your positions with mortars two days straight while your respective medics are trying to keep your wounded team members alive," Leng stated. "I know they have a bad rep with the Corps because they always kick marines out of their quarters to conform with the hush-hush regulations of their stealth gear… but all the ASOC guys I've met were all-round great dudes. Decent blokes and damn fine soldiers," the N7 went on. "Just don't expect them to take part in a fair fight or show up to an OP without doing their hair first."

"Couldn't help yourself on that last one, could you?" Nader observed.

"Hell no. My honor as an N7 demands that I cannot talk about ASOC without ending on a joke," Leng responded with a mocking salute. "Okay. Back to the toughest fights. Vakarian. Go."

Garrus swayed his bottle of dextro-juice. Despite Leng's protest, he'd opted against a constant consumption of alcoholic beverages. With Shepard and Callius out of the picture and Leng not exactly living up to the leadership role Shepard had given him, the detective felt like it was his responsibility to keep a clear mind.

Besides, the crap that Purgatory served tasted like crap anyway.

"Can't you guess the answer?" the detective turned Blue Suns vigilante offered before pointing at his scar. "Omega before you guys showed up."

"That bad?" the N7 asked.

"That bad," the turian confirmed.

"Didn't you fight a reaper-possessed Spectre zombie?"

Garrus took a sip of his juice and remembered how the metallic skeleton of Saren Arterius had tossed him around the Citadel tower.

"I wouldn't call that much of a fight but either way…" Garrus started before remembering the immediate aftermath of the Sovereign's debris crashing into the Tower.

The hazy moments after nearly getting crushed by a piece of Reaper junk followed by the minutes right after the impact and before Executor Pallin had showed up with Special Response weren't something he spent a lot of time dwelling on.

They were an unpleasant, vulnerable memory and Garrus hated vulnerability nearly as much as he hated bodies of water large enough to drown the average-sized adult turian.

Unlike Shepard, the debris hadn't buried him or knocked him out.

He'd just been thrown down into the ditch between the Council's podium and the visitor stand, an architectural choice that made the divide between generous ruler and begging rabble abundantly and that at least in his mind couldn't have been anything but intentional on the part of the asari designers…

After climbing his way out of the ditch, Garrus recalled stumbling over to Saren's corpse. First thing first he'd put a pair of Carnifex rounds into the Spectre's head to make sure that he was really down. When that was done, he'd shaken off the pain in his arm muscles (the logical consequence of engaging in a strength-measuring contest with a reaper-enhanced Spectre-Cabalist) and looked around to realise that the place where Shepard had been standing had been annihilated by a large piece of debris.

He'd looked left to where Anderson's limp body had been propped up against a wall and then right to the exsanguinated Ashely. He remembered looking at his HUD where both Ashley and Anderson had flatlined. It sounded harsh, but that had been the easy part. From what he'd witnessed during the battle, he'd already expected them to be dead.

What had shaken him though was that Shepard's status had been marked as deceased as well (something he'd later learn to be caused by her suits monitoring system being destroyed).

He recalled rushing over to a heap of debris where a chunk of red-lined onyx-colored armor stuck out of pieces of ceiling and steel and as he thought back to the memory, he could see himself tearing away at the metal scraps covering Shepard and holding his breath right until he'd managed to drag the human from her reaper-made grave and realizing that she was still in fact breathing and thanking every conceivable spirit for the fact that at least one member of the team had managed to survive the engagement and spared him the burden of being the sole witness to the madness that had just unfolded.

By the time Pallin had shown up, he'd already started with setting the arm bone and after they'd airlifted Shepard out of the ruins, he'd started his day long vigil at her bed, trying and failing to come up with a way to convince the people in charge that what had happened hadn't been the end but the beginning.

Somehow he'd known where this thing would go back then… years of working with the Council had given him enough insight into how Citadel politics worked…

Funnily enough, the thing he remembered most out of the incident wasn't how right he'd been in regard to the galaxy's reaction but rather the confused look of Shepard's mother when she'd turned up to her daughter's hospital room to find a dust-covered turian detective had beaten her to it.

They'd exchanged some superficial pleasantries after he'd introduced himself to Hannah Shepard as a member of her daughter's squad but when she'd asked for details on the assignment and answers on what exactly they'd been fighting, the conversation had quickly stopped since Garrus hadn't been able to give those answers yet. He hadn't understood what they were fighting back then. Spirits, he didn't even get it entirely now either.

An undead turian controlled by a galaxy-ending race of god-like machines had killed half of her daughter's team and its debris had nearly crushed her down into a paste…

How was he supposed to explain that to Shepard's surviving parent?

A three-fingered hand grabbed Garrus' right forearm.

"Are you alright, Garrus?" the newest, quarian addition to their team asked with a calm and compassionate voice. Garrus turned to face her and looked at the glowing eyes behind the mask for just a second. Then he pulled his arm back to himself.

"Yeah. Why wouldn't I be?" he responded quickly and awkwardly.

"You said either way and then you didn't say anything else for like a minute. Looked like you got stuck up there for a minute," Nader observed while tapping the shaved side of her brunette hair. If he understood the custom correctly the hairstyle was related to the particular military academy she'd attended.

"Believe accurate human term is 'daydreaming'. Very interesting phenomena, actually. Ability of the higher self to detach itself from the stream of consciousness and operate independently of the currently performed tasks suggests fascinating things about the generally accepted idea of consciousness-" Mordin started to inject before forcefully stopping himself and taking a big sip of his drink and looking at the crowd. "Apologies. Got carried away again. Please continue account of toughest fight and why selection fell on Omega."

"Right…" Garrus said before scratching the scarred side of his face. "Omega was toughest because I was fighting an army of thugs while I was outgunned, outnumbered and out of my mind. All I could see was vengeance and even when my supplies were running low and I was stimming myself to the edge of a heart failure, I kept going," the former vigilante recounted. "Oh and because it ended with me taking a high-caliber gunship round to my face. When you leave half your face in one place, it sort of sets the standard other fights have to compare to."

"Yeah… I see how that beats fighting an undead Spectre. You took that round like a champ, though, let me tell you that," Leng added. "You weren't awake for it, but everyone was very impressed by how thick your metal head ended up being."

"Turian skull not made of metal. Probably referring to body plating instead," the salarian at the table said. "Even so, false analogy. Turian body plating not fully metallic. Material in reality more similar to dense, metallic-laced bone growth with traces of thuliam, chitin, iron, calcium and disproportionate amount of hyperactive bone cells suggesting that evolutionary trade started out as radiation-related tumor-growth," Mordin nodded before taking another sip of his drink. "False information aside, agree with Petty Officer Leng. Resilience against high-caliber rounds displayed by facial plating and unnatural, revenge-fueled will to cling to life after incredibly traumatic injury very impressive and inspiring. Others, including myself, would have probably perished in face of such traumatic injuries and blood loss."

"… thanks…" the turian offered. "That was a compliment, right?"

Mordin blinked.

"Yes."

"I think what Mordin is saying is that we were all pretty sure you'd buy it then and there," Leng offered. "I mean I was optimistic because Em had said you were a tough bastard but Joker? Damn… he came barging in the medbay saying he'll blow the station apart for what they did to you and he didn't leave until Chakwas told him to go and get…"

As expected Garrus had no recollection of that…

"Huh. I had no idea he cared that much," Garrus said while making a mental note to tease the pilot about it in the future.

"The more you know," the N7 offered before raising his glass. "Alright. That concludes toughest fights… next I think we'll go with … favorite weapons maybe?"

… now that was topic Garrus could get behind and judging by Mordin's immediate reaction of bringing up his omni-tool with a smile, the salarian was invested as well…

"Lameeee," Nader suddenly exclaimed. "I mean seriously. Does your life revolve around anything other than war and violence? We're out here partying to enjoy the night and all you can think about is all-things-combat…" The turian, human and salarian looked at the human biotic. "I say we spice this up a bit and get down to the really interesting stuff, she raised her bottle at Mordin. "Weirdest hook-up stories, go."

From his left Garrus heard a weak 'oh Keelah' and truth be told… he couldn't help but agree.

The salarian lowered his omni-tool, exhaled … and much to everyone's surprise, smirked.

"Broke Omega's one rule once…"


Five Minutes Later, 2158 CE, Citadel, Zakera Wards Level 24

As Lieutenant Callius mingled with the crowd of one of Zakera's shopping boulevards (an all-round more pleasant setting than Tayseri), she had only one question on her mind: What was she doing here?

Thane had just told her that his son, whom he had personally trained in the art of assassin-ship, was out looking for Shepard to kill her. And instead of rushing to stop the threat to her CO's life… she was following Thane's pings and waiting for the former hitman to signal the opportune moment for her to show up in front of Kolyat and somehow talk him, a stranger she had never met before, out of the goal his mind was set on.

Three months ago she would've not just warned Shepard but probably walked up to Kolyat and shot him in the head preemptively to stop any threat to the Commander's life.

Yet here she was.

Holding out against her instincts demanding that she do her duty and protect her commander simply because another crew member had asked her to.

Had her time on the Normandy SR-2 really changed her that much already?

Or was she simply more inclined to gamble with Shepard's life because she knew her less well than the other officer she'd been tasked with protecting for the last decades?

Just for the sake of humoring herself she was trying to picture a similar situation within the confines of Blackwatch.

How would she react if Galviat or Veltax were to tell her that one of their relatives was about to try and assassinate General Arterius and that they needed her help to talk them out of it?

Would she keep her hand steady and play with Desolas' safety or would she simply neutralize the threat to eliminate the chance of someone as important as Blackwatch's acting commander dying through nefarious circumstances?

Desolas and Galviat and Veltax had been her companions for most of her life and while she had no siblings, she liked to believe that the bond that she shared with the former engineer, the former hastatim NCO and the former sniper was similar to the bond shared between brothers and a sister. There was nothing she wouldn't do to protect them and while she'd hopefully never be forced to find out, she suspected that her loyalty to her Blackwatch comrades was even stronger than her loyalty to the Hierarchy as a whole (a line of thought that if voiced would cause all kinds of trouble).

Considering that, how would she react in the above-mentioned situation?

Before she was forced to find an answer, her radio came alive.

"Lieutenant, Kolyat is closing in on Shepard and Lieutenant Nagato. I've forwarded a new ping to your omni," the drell assassin whispered through her earpiece. He'd informed her some time ago that Shepard wasn't alone and while Nagato wasn't exactly what you'd call a heavy-hitter in ground-based combat, a part of Callius hoped he might be loyal enough to Shepard to throw himself into a bullet if the need arose… The Normandy seemed to be staffed with the brand of idealists who'd do such a thing, after all. "We need to act now, least Kolyat's new pursuer might."

"A new pursuer?" he really could've mentioned that…

Thane was silent for a moment.

"It appears my son has drawn the attention of another one of Shepard's shadows. We need to stop Kolyat before he stops him."

"I'm on my way," Callius retorted, wondering who else was shadowing Shepard. "Can you tell me anything about the person who's following Shepard? Do they seem like a threat?"

Again Thane was silent for longer than necessary.

"It's a human male. Blonde hair. Bulky build. Business clothing. He's good at blending in with the crowd but his mannerisms reveal that he's a well-experienced hunter. Certainly more so than Kolyat," the drell described. "If he is looking to stop Kolyat, I believe that he is most likely on our side and if I were to take a guess regarding his allegiances, I'd suspect that he is with the human military intelligence services."

"Not C-SEC?"

"Most certainly not."

"Why?"

"Because they are also here and painfully unaware of his presence."

A drell assassing, a human spy, C-SEC officers and them…

Just how many people were following Shepard right now?


Five Minutes Earlier, 6. May 2417 AD, Citadel, Zakera Ward Industrial Sector, Level 21

Lancelot rolled his eyes as Shepard's companion stared at his omni-tool map for the fourth time in the last two minutes.

They'd moved up two levels but that was about all the progress they had made in the last twenty minutes. While it was tempting to suspect foul play on the man's part for motives that could range from awkwardly trying to extend his stay with his CO to nefariously stalling to buy time for assassins to arrive, Lancelot couldn't help but believe that First Lieutenant Nagato was plain and simply lost.

The Citadel wasn't an easy place to navigate, not even with an up-to-date omni, so he wouldn't really fault the guy for getting turned around in the wards. Even so, Lancelot found the tell-tale look of someone trying to find a point to orient themselves all the while doing their best to seem like they still knew where they were highly amusing.

Speaking of things he found amusing.

Lancelot pulled a drag from his smoke and looked away from his protectee for a second to check on the plainclothes C-SEC squad that was populating the level of the ward below. They had started showing up about twenty minutes ago and he was pretty sure they were one of C-SEC's observation groups.

As far as undercover work went, the officers were doing pretty good.

They weren't overloaded on gear, which was a usual give-away, and they kept their distance to their target and regularly switched positions as to not be noticed. All around they were doing a decent job at being covert and sneaky… except for the fact that they were using regular C-SEC communication channels to coordinate themselves; channels that Lancelot had infiltrated years ago and listened in on the regular., sometimes for the sake of his mission and sometimes just to pass time and be in the know as to what was going on in his neighborhood.

As the team of disguised officers babbled off into Lancelot's earpiece and described Shepard's moves to each other, the specialist's attention was drawn by something much more important.

"Two credits please," the automated voice of the drink-kiosk demanded after a ping notified Lancelot that his order, one cup of Thessian Pine Needle Tea, was served.

He swiped one of the several stolen credit chits he had acquired over the years over the cash register and grabbed the thermos containing boiling-hot leave-juice off the serving-slot. Since he liked his tongue unburnt and generally refused to give the beverage the honor of calling it 'tea', he didn't actually plan on drinking the hot-served drink currently warming his hand.

In addition to being painful to human consumers, it tasted like shit, or at least so he'd heard. Despite buying the stuff for years, he'd never actually taken as much as a sip of it. Although popular with vast swaths of the stations levo population, to Lancelot the tea was little more than a work utensil.

For now, it served to make him look like a commuter on his way from work and later on it might end up becoming a weapon.

As he traveled through the crowd and kept his eyes on Nagato and Shepard below, Lancelot swirled the weapon in his hand, snickling at the thought.

Tea as a weapon.

He realized how ridiculous and unbelievable it that what he was carrying in the small silver thermos right now was one of the most useful tools he'd discovered on the station. It was after all just a drink, right?

… wrong.

Despite him constantly proving the opposite by regularly gunning down scumbags, traditional weapons had started to be hard to come by on the Citadel in the wake of Sovereign's attack and even harder to carry around a long time. C-SEC drones and checkpoint stations scanning for all kinds of weaponry and robotics ensured that the station stayed mostly unarmed, at least when it came to mass accelerators, blades and other 'conventional arms' that fell under the weapons-ban.

While he could always bring in contraband through the embassy, doing so too often risked attention he didn't need to have and as such he'd learned to become creative when he needed to arm himself on the fly.

The other option would be to become part of the exclusive crowd of people who had a carrying permit, such as Spectres, C-SEC officers and private security contractors from the likes of the Final Wave but since that would also put him firmly on C-SECs radar, particularly in case of the Ripper investigation…

Yeah.

Fancy imported asari leaves and recycled water from vats he'd rather not get too close to set aside, he was essentially just carrying around boiled water in a cup. While every alien on the Citadel was a bit different, boiled water, when applied to the eyes, was a sure-fired way to incapacitate every single species that didn't wear protective facial gear and it would always buy him just enough time to go in for the kill with one of the few weapons the Citadel had yet to account for, ceramic blades.

Hence with the tea in hand, he was now appropriately armed for whatever may-

-happen.

For a split second, the specialist felt someone brush past his left.

Just as he turned his head, he could see a teal drell glide through the crowd.

Most people didn't even seem to notice the alien and truth be told if Lancelot weren't so used to dancing his own way through a crowd of strangers, he probably wouldn't have picked up on either the drell. But since they were clearly two sides of the same coin, Lancelot noticed not just his presence but also how he (at least he assumed it was a he, the specialist hadn't actually met enough drell to be able to tell them apart reliably) was staring down at Level 22… and at Shepard.

That was more than enough for his eyes to lock on to the drell and for his brain to start racing.

Drell were first and foremost famous for being the hanar's go-to hitmen.

But the Illuminated Primacy wouldn't put out a hit on a human Spectre. They were a Council-aligned ally with economic ties to the HAS that'd be unnecessarily strained by a hit.

So the drell was probably a freelancer, but still most likely hanar-trained.

If the rumors of the hanar intentionally exposing the drell to Element Zero and only training the ones who ended up displaying at least limited biotic powers were true as well, the guy was probably a biotic too. Add to that the fact that drell were deceptively strong and pretty fast on their feed and this guy would be extraordinarily dangerous if his intentions were bad. Even if the plainclothes officers knew he was coming, which they didn't, they would be little more than a speedbump for a fully-trained Illuminated Primacy hitmen.

Hence the drell was now firmly in Lancelot's sights, which in the specialist's humble mind was about the last place anyone would want to be in. (His track record was after all pretty freaking good.)

After deciding that the C-SEC officers would at least serve as an early-warning system (and admitting to himself that there was realistically nothing he could do if a sniper took a shot at Shepard and blew her brains all over the wards no matter how closely he shadowed her) Lancelot opted to go after the drell and accelerated his walk to keep up with him.

The teal-alien was light on his feet and he was masterfully gliding through the crowd with a grace the Horizon-native just couldn't be bothered with right now. As he awkwardly bumped into the shoulder of a turian and mumbled an apology, Lancelot went through his options regarding this new factor.

As he'd come to expect from himself, the first place his mind went to was removing the threat with lethal force.

Section 13, despite being the second-most 'militaristic' branch of humanity's military intelligence service – the Niners with their wanna-be N7 flair took the cake in that competition - usually encouraged its agents to not stack bodies to achieve their objective unless they absolutely had to.

Bodies raised questions. That was one of its fundamental operational guidelines.

Even so, Lancelot's mission of removing people who threatened Spectres had ensured that his go-to MO had forcefully become murder. It wasn't something he took pride in, but at this point he was well into the three-digit number of people he'd put six feet under and he'd become really fucking great at it over the years too, so it was only natural that he'd consider the option first.

There was a small issue though, or rather a damn large one.

Level 21 of Zakera was way too public and too safe of a place for him to straight-up ice someone like he did in Lower Tayseri earlier.

Since knowing when and where to pick your battles was another one of the reasons he'd gone years without C-SEC ever coming close to capturing him, the blonde specialist put 'throw the tea into his face and strangle the bastard with his stupid trench coat' onto the lower end of his list of options.

Although HSAIS wouldn't disavow him if he got captured (specialists were far too valuable to simply cut loose over something as minor as being arrested by an allied institution), his agency would have to pull some strings to get him out of C-SEC custody if he went up against the drell and killed him in public.

If they did that, they'd also have to bullshit an explanation to the Council as to why one of their high-level intelligence officers had gotten himself arrested all the while publicly apologizing for doing the same damn thing STG, TNI and the Republican Secret Service were doing (namely running covert ops on the Citadel).

Since Lancelot would rather not face the IA hearing that'd come after he was transferred of the Citadel, murder was sadly off the table this time around.

A maiming accident however…

As he followed the drell around the corner of a thrift-shot and began thinking about ways that the teal alien could be crippled in a way that didn't look intentional, Lancelot's line of thought was cut short when he turned the corner and the assassin had straight-up vanished from sight. He quickly scanned his surroundings for the usual disappearing tricks, ladders, trap doors, a railing … nothing. Just a slightly purple haze hanging in the air and a distracted asari looking up from her omni after her body told her that something eezo-related had just happened right next to her.

Biotics.

As he and the asari locked eyes, the specialist took the cigarette out of his mouth, flicked it to the ground and quickly stepped to the railing to check on Shepard, ignoring the purple alien's comment about 'there's a fine for littering you know'.

After finding the Spectre still in Nagato's company in front of a ship-part store, Lancelot looked the way the haze was settling.

The drell had pulled a fast one on him, which meant he knew the game was on.

The specialist cracked a smile.

This was the part he enjoyed.


Meanwhile, 6. May 2417 AD, HSASV Normandy

After witnessing the Spider's defeat and subsequently losing the couple hundred credits he'd put on their victory, Joker's mood had been poor enough to return his attention to a task he'd previously charged EDI with: looking over the Normandy's diagnostics.

Even though the AI had insisted that she could achieve what needed to be done much faster and without wasting his valuable lifetime, Joker had countered that a good pilot should always check their ship, if only to stay up-to-date with its capabilities. He liked to think that that mindset was part of the reason the Normandy SR-1 had scored the killing blow on Sovereign, a feat that made him one of only four HSA navy helmsman who could claim to have scored a dreadnought kill.

The other three had occurred during the Skyllian Blitz, something he didn't consider to be quite on par with blowing a freaking Reaper out of the sky but that was just his humble opinion…

Anyway.

As he scrolled through the various panels detailing the Normandy's engine output, weapon capabilities, life-support systems and various other subroutines, Joker briefly wondered if he maybe should join the rest of the crew after all, or at the very least pop by Chakwas' medical bay to use the last chance he'd get to socialize before finding out if Cerberus faith in the IFF's ability to get them through the Omega-Four Relay was as misplaced as its trust in their technician's ability to install the damned thing.

About an hour ago, he'd gotten a brief message from Nagato saying that the damage was more extensive than initially believed. Apparently the technicians had managed to fry a short-range transmitter linking the IFF to the rest of the Normandy's CIC systems and while a replacement was easy to get, he'd need to step off the ship for the time being.

In his absence, he'd asked Joker to greenlight a bunch of cargo-crates coming in. They were carrying replacement parts and supplies and since the paper work regarding dock inspections was already done, all Nagato needed the pilot to do was to open the hangar so that the parts could be loaded in, a task he'd completed with a roll of his eyes a couple of minutes ago.

As he glanced at the camera showing the Normandy's hangar, he could see the last cargo-mech, a three-point-five meter tall yellow HK-bot with four legs, four hands and without all the fancy guns and integrated human pilot of a Paladin, leave the premises, thus indicating that the task was complete. He threw one last look at the stack of boxes brought in by the loaders, wondered who in the navy's financing department had thought that it was effective to package small mechanical parts in crates that needed an ugly mech to be carried, and sighed.

Had Cerberus ripped out the entire CIC or what?

With a wave of his finger, Joker shut off the camera and returned his attention back to the diagnostics. It was mostly boring stuff he recognized from both his time on the SR-1 and earlier readings of the SR-2 when the thing had still been under construction. However he reached the part about internal security, something sparked his interest. Or rather confused him.

There was a blind spot in EDI's security.

One hell of a huge one, to be exact.

The AI was locked out from accessing the internal scanners of the Normandy, a feature called 'privacy modus'.

He'd get showers and toilets… but the whole ship?

"Uhm… EDI?" he asked, wondering if he'd been loud enough to summon the annoying sprite of the Normandy.

"Yes, Joker?" the AI responded, apparently sticking to the conclusion of the little naming-discussion they'd shared with Legion.

"Did you maybe send me reports from before your full installation?"

"Negative."

"… then why does it say that you can't access internal security measures?" Joker wondered before nearly falling out of his chair when he saw EDI flash bright-red and for a split-second. For a moment he thought he was about to witness the beginning of the rise of the synthetic overlords by having asked the wrong question at the wrong time… but then nothing happened. Well, nothing beside a very troubling statement.

"Your inquiry has activated one of several internal blockers installed into my programming," EDI stated before her avatar faced her. "I'm afraid I cannot answer your question."

"So someone locked you out?"

EDI flashed red again and her hologram stuttered.

"Your inquiry has activated one of several internal-" as he realized that the Normandy's AI was now stuck in a loop, Joker got a bad feeling. It was probably nothing, really, maybe just a small glitch… even so, he'd rather check in.

He pressed his thumb against the communicator in an attempt to raise Shepard and in return, a wave of ear-shattering static blasted out the loudspeakers. "Son of a-," he cursed while trying to bring up the security feed of the hangar. His screen only showed a red 'no signal' sign. So did every other camera outside of the CIC.

… a gut-wrenching realization hit Joker.

They'd been having weird run-ins for some time now and while Shepard hadn't ever said anything concrete, Joker had been having the feeling that they might have a player of the other team on board. If a mole was the go- to movie explanation for weird stuff happening to the good guys, he saw no reason why it couldn't also be the explanation in real life.

And now here he was, cut-off from the rest of the squad after following Nagato's instructions.

He grimaced.

The guy had always been slimy.

But this?

He hadn't expected this.

After realizing that his omni-tool was also blocked from accessing the extranet and glancing to the left to see that the airlock connecting him to a dock full of HSA soldiers was locked tight with a red hologram, Joker jumped from his chair and leaned against the AI's socket.

"You still with me, EDI?"

"Your inquiry has activated-"

"Alright. This repetition thing is getting old really quick," the pilot mumbled before throwing a look down the CIC and realizing that the elevator was showing upward movement. It could be nothing but it could also be super bad and knowing their track record… yeah. "EDI. I really need you to snap out of whatever loop you're stuck in."

"Your inquiry-" he looked at the elevator. Two more levels.

He smacked his hand against the anti-boarding shutters and, just like he expected. nothing happened.

"For fuck's sake," Joker shook his head and put the palm of his hand against the biometric scanner that locked the emergency armory of the Normandy's bridge. But instead of opening up and giving him access to a Valkyrie assault rifle he hadn't even qualified to fire yet, the scanner just flashed red and the elevator just kept going up.

One more level.

Had he just managed to lose the HSA another Normandy?

With a locked airlock, running wasn't an option and unless whoever was coming up taht elevator was blind, hiding wouldn't work either.

So Joker did the one thing he could.

He hugged the wall that divided the CIC from the cockpit and grabbed the fire-extinguisher off of the wall. It was the only weapon he had access to now and even though he wasn't anywhere near the level that Shepard and the rest of the squad were on, he'd be damned if he gave the SR-2 up without a fight…

As he heard the elevator door open, he pulled in a breath to steady himself, adjusted his hat and looked at the ground where a tall shadow was slowly encroaching on the cockpit…

… this wasn't gonna end on a good note, was it?


Codex: Armstrong campaign

The Armstrong Campaign (30th April 2408 – 18.07.2408 AD) was a series of naval engagements fought during the three-month long batarian invasion of the human Fringe Worlds colloquially known as the 'Skyllian Blitz'. Although initially only consisting of clashes between human and batarian forces, the campaign was later joined by the human-aligned turian and salarian forces. For these forces, the campaign represents the longest and most casualty-rich naval campaign fought since the Krogan Rebellions. For their human allies however the series of engagements still paled in comparison to the space battles that occurred during the Fringe Wars.

Fought over its namesake, the Armstrong Campaign occurred in the Armstrong Nebula, the back then outer-most frontier of HSA space,and saw the deployment of a large portion of Hegemonic naval assets. While no official batarian numbers have been published, the officially acknowledged human commitment to the front included the following formations:

the Sixth HSA Fleet (HSASV Fuji)

the Seventh HSA Fleet (HSASV Everest)

the Eight HSA Fleet (HSASV Shasta)

the Twelfth HSA Fleet (HSASV Killimanjaro)

Carrier Group Einstein (HSASV Einstein, HSASV Hannibal Barca)

Carrier Group Newton (HSASV Newton, HSASV Sun Tzu)

Carrier Group Hawking (HSASV Hawking, HSASV Tsjaka Zulu)

With all support vessels and transports assigned to these forces accounted for, the total number of human ships deployed number at ten dreadnought-equivalents, sixty-three cruiser-analogues, two-hundred forty-four frigates, one-hundred sixty destroyers (a vessel-designation not commonly encountered outside of large naval formations) and over a thousand strike craft and UAVs.

Additionally to these acknowledged forces, it is suspected that a stealth-ship formation referred to as the '39th Special Purpose Flotilla' and consisting of twelve stealth-frigates partook in combat operations.

According to declassified HSA documents, the 39th Special Purpose Flotilla combat role is limited to 'raiding and reconnaissance operations'. Reports from veterans of the conflict contest this statement, suggesting that the 39th Flotilla was instead armed for retaliation strikes on batarian frontier colonies in the event of a human withdrawal from the region.

Over the course of its 77 Day long duration, the Armstrong Campaign saw the destruction of three batarian dreadnoughts and at least 206 smaller batarian warships, numbers that if accurate would account for a quarter of all known batarian naval assets at the time. Additionally the campaign saw the reconquest of many frontier settlements that had fallen under batarian naval supremacy in the opening days of the surprise attack and eventually resulted in a joint human-council task force penetrating the Hegemony's borders.

On the human side, only sixty-three ships (including seven cruisers and twenty-one heavy frigates) were destroyed. While the Everest sustained heavy damage and the Tsjaka Zulu was forced to withdraw from the campaign after a critical hit to its armory and bombardment systems, the disproportionate number of batarian casualties taken during the war did not go unnoticed.

While a small campaign when compared to the enormous engagements of the Krogan Rebellions and far less costly than the long, drawn out naval conflict of the Fringe Wars (a conflict in which several hundred HSA ships were lost during ambushes and 'separatist-favored, conventional engagements') the naval engagements in human frontier space are still unique due to the fact that they represented the first time the Human Systems Alliance Navy deployed en-masse against an organized, non-human foe and could field-test its doctrines against a numerically evenly matched enemy.

While past anti-slavery-engagements and border skirmishes involving smaller numbers of human and batarian-made ships generally suggested evenly-matched to slightly batarian-favored odds (human vessels are, while faster, on average less durable and less well-armed than their batarian counterparts), the Armstrong Campaign served to prove the HSAN's astonishing effectiveness at fighting a large-scale conflict outside of its own territory.

In addition to showcasing the enormous logistical capacities of the human military, a feature previously dismissed as an 'overreliance and over-commitment on supply lines', the campaign managed to highlight a crucial difference in the strategic philosophies of human naval commanders and their respective counterparts in the Hegemony.

Whereas the batarian fleet was designed to patrol and control large swaths of territories from minor incursions of the likes of pirates and Terminus Raiders and hadn't engaged in a cohesive interstellar campaign in over a thousand years, the HSAN at the time of the Skyllian Blitz was still very much the product of the Fringe War and as such intended for and experienced in prolonged, large-scale campaigns across solar systems and relay borders.

'The performance we saw from human forces during the Skyllian Blitz, and in particular the Armstrong Campaign, is the direct result of an approach that has been absent from the galactic plain since the conclusion of the Krogan Rebellions. Whereas most of our navies have moved to a constant state of peace-time border enforcements and small precision that are devoid of large fleet maneuvers involving dozens or even a hundred ships, the human navy remains capable and willing to commit to large-scale engagements the likes of which most of our people have come to consider a thing of the past or from the holos. Barring the turians, I doubt any one nation is at this point still capable of meeting the human navy in an open engagement and triumphing. Similarly, I have to question our ability to contest them on the ground. Their willingness to fight a prolonged ground war and their impressive ability to make planetfall on densely populated colonies and quickly establish control over their settlements is something I didn't think we'd see outside of the Hierarchy's legions. (…) Today you have asked me how I feel about the humans joining the Council and to that I have only one thing to say. It is truly fortunate that these brave souls want to join our ranks. We have as much to learn from them as they from us and despite what some might claim, they fired the final shot in the war against the geth. Not us. Oh. And contrary to what some of you would like to think, I fear that this won't be the last time the galaxy will need a proper, war-time military with a proper war-time mindset to stand side by side with the Hierarchy. And as long as people like you are in charge… that won't ever be us.'- Matriarch Lidanya, Commander of the Republican Navy's Destiny Ascension during a hearing detailing the CDF's failure to defend the Citadel against the geth invasion. Editorial Note: Following her statement in front of the Citadel Council, Matriarch Lidanya was recalled to Thessia for a disciplinary hearing in front of Republican Navy High Command. The contents of this hearing remains classified. Nonetheless, Lidanya remains in command of the Citadel Defense Fleet.


A/N:

Okay, so I just want to adress one thing right away. I realise that it seems weird that the chapter focusing on Shepard being stalked by various people doesn't actually feature Shepard's pov once. I also get that the ending might seem a bit sudden and super cliffhanger and that this chapter overall has a distinctive lack of stuff happening...

but!

I need you to trust me, alright?

This is the middle segment of the three (or maybe four, depending on how i'm feeling) Citadel segment and as such it carries the heavy burden of having to move people from A to B.

I don't actually have a lot to say other than that there's a pretty good chance my update schedule is going to go to hell in the coming summer months due to a couple of vacations (which you can take again now, yay!) so if I'm seeming absent... then that's because I'm outside letting the sun grill me instead of sitting inside and writing SV.

So yeah, if it seems like I'm going on a bit of a hiatus or that something terrible has happened ot me... that's not it. SV isn't on halt. I'm just doing other stuff now that it's getting warm again... :P

I'll still try to update every month, naturally, but as the particularly observant of you might have noticed, this chapter broke the 4 week update schedule we've been keeping and instead started to drift into six-weeks.

(I'm rambling about my timetable again, even thouhg I said I wouldn't do it, aren't I?)

ANYWAY

I hope you enjoyed this chapter and I hope I'll manage to not leave you hanging on that last scene for too long. The people who played ME2 and know how its narrative structure works might've been wondering when THAT scene with Joker would come and how it'd look ... and well, you're about to find out. Similarly, you've probably been eagerly awaiting the conclusion of some long-time plot points that have been going on for dozens of chapters...

All of that's coming up.

But until then... you'll have to wait and see how the whole situation develops.

Review and let me know what you think.

For the record we're at 887 reviews, 1432 favorites and 1520 followers.

See you around next time.