I don't own either Mass effect or AvP
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Financial District, the Presidium
"Fist has been dealt with."
"Good." The voice said. "We will have to find a new agent in the Citadel underworld to take his place; perhaps more than one, to make sure they keep each other honest. But that can wait. What is the status of the human investigation into Saren?"
"Uncertain." Barla Von did not like to disappoint his employer, but it was always better to speak the truth than to try to deceive the Shadow Broker. "Urdnot Wrex has joined Shepard..." Wheeze "...So has a C-Sec detective. They..." wheeze "...attacked Fist's club together. We must presume..." wheeze "...that Fist told them what he knew before he died."
"Which isn't much."
"No, but-" Von hesitated.
"Yes?"
"Some of Fist's people survived..." wheeze "...They say he had a meeting with a quarian before the attack..." wheeze, "... a quarian who wanted to sell information about Saren to the Shadow Broker..." wheeze "...Fist sent her away, then sent some of his people to the human doctor that had directed..." wheeze "...the quarian towards Chora's Den. They never returned..." wheeze "... According to my sources within C-Sec They were killed in a firefight with Shepard's people."
"Which means that Shepard may be aware of this quarian. But Fist would not just have sent her away. He would have contacted Saren, which means that the quarian is almost certainly dead, or at least beyond our reach. So be it. When Urdnot Wrex makes contact, tell him to stay as close to Shepard as possible. We may need to use him as a source of information."
-0-0-0-
Human Embassy
"A krogan, a turian, and a quarian walk into the human embassy," Ambassador Udina said. "It sounds like the beginning of a very lame joke, but I'm not laughing. Tell me, Commander: Would you care to explain what you think you're doing? I distinctly remember telling you to keep the violence down to an absolute minimum. And yet, since this morning, you have shot up a med clinic in the upper Wards and turned a nightclub into a slaughterhouse. Is that correct?"
"Not quite, Mr Ambassador," Shepard smiled. "You missed a smaller shootout earlier outside the aforementioned nightclub, as well as another one just now. But don't worry about the first. That one was has been cleaned up."
"Meaning the other one hasn't, I presume. I already heard about your first adventure as well as the incident at the med clinic from your people over there," He gestured to the corner of the room where Williams and Alenko had joined captain Anderson. "Fortunately, that was an incident between humans, which limits the authorities' interest and nobody seems to have noticed that first encounter. However, a shoot-out on the scale of your assault on Chora's Den is something they simply cannot ignore. Please tell me that there is a good explanation for this, Shepard. Because I'm very tempted to just hand you over to Citadel Security and let justice take its course."
"Actually, C-Sec is already involved. Ambassador Udina, please allow me to introduce Detective Vakarian. He is on a personal assignment from the turian Councillor to find out what I'm doing."
Udina's eyes narrowed slightly. "I see. Perhaps you should come and work for me, Detective. I, too, would very much like to know what Commander Shepard is doing. And yet, part of me is afraid that it would be better not to know. And your other friends, Commander?"
"Ah, yes. We also have Urdnot Wrex. He has been hired by the Shadow Broker to deal with Mr Fist, who showed the poor judgement of selling the Broker out to our mutual acquaintance, Saren. Under the circumstances, I saw no harming in letting him join us. It seems unlikely that the Broker will do any business with Saren anytime soon and I strongly suspect the Shadow Broker knows at least as much as we do anyway."
"Better get used to that," Wrex said. "He always does."
"And finally," Shepard said. "We have Ms. ...Well, I'm sorry, I don't actually know her name but-"
"Tali'Zora."
"What?"
"My name is Tali'Zorah nar Rayya," the quarian repeated.
"In any case," Shepard continued, ignoring Chief Williams' muttered 'Gesundheit'. "She is the reason why things got a little violent, back in Chora's Den. Ms. eh, Rayya?"
"Just Tali, please."
"Sure. Ms Tali here has some information that she wants to trade, in exchange for safe passage off this station. The information seems to involve Eden Prime."
"I see." Udina leaned back in his chair. "And, what kind of information are we talking about, exactly?"
"A conversation," Shepard said. "That's all she would tell me. When it comes to negotiations, Ms Tali believes in going straight to the top. In this case: you."
"And, of course, you would assist her in that, helpful as you are." Udina shook his head. "Though I suppose I cannot fault her for wanting to negotiate with someone who actually has the authority to make deals, rather than bartering in a dark alley with some gun-toating mook. So, tell me, what kind of bargain are you thinking of?"
The quarian, Tali, sat down in the nearest chair. "I have a recording of a conversation. They are discussing the attack on your colony, Eden Prime. The people holding that conversation can be identified from their voices. I suspect from Commander Shepard's pursuit of me, and the lengths to which she seems prepared to go, that you would like to have a copy of the information."
"I think I should add," Shepard interrupted. "That our good friend Saren seems willing to go to equal lengths to stop us from hearing it."
"Very well," Udina said. "I'll concede that the information has value. Now, what is it you're looking for."
"I need to get off this station. As long as I'm here, I'm a target. Besides, I need to warn my people. I send a message through the relay network before I came here and by now they must have heard the rumours that geth were involved in the attack on your colony, but they cannot possibly know everything that I know."
"Getting you off the station is simple enough," Udina said. "There are several human trading ships docked right now. For that matter, Commander Shepard here has a ship docked herself. Perhaps she should take you home, personally. If nothing else it would probably improve the violent death statistics of the Citadel. So, yes, if the information is as valuable as you claim it is, then we will make sure you get off the station. Now, what exactly is this conversation, and how did you obtain the recording?"
The quarian sat in silence for a moment, looking down at her hands. Then she started speaking again.
"We were passing through the Crescent Nebula on out way to Ilium. Just a few of us, on a small ship. We were... well, it doesn't really matter. We had just discharged our drive core and were preparing for the next jump when we picked up geth signals. Geth, beyond the Veil. We traced the signal to a planet and decided to check it out. On the ground, we disabled one of the geth platforms and extracted its memory core. The geth erase all memory upon destruction, but if you know what you're doing, and if you're fast enough... Anyway, we managed to recover some of its memories. Part of that was a conversation between two individuals. They were discussing an attack on a place called Eden Prime. That's when we came under attack. We managed to get off the planet, but we didn't know what to do. When one of us recognized one of the voices it got even more complicated. It's a well-known voice, very recognizable. Some of us wanted to get back to the fleet, but I persuaded them to keep going to Ilium to alert the authorities. A geth attack beyond the Veil is bad news for everyone. Trying to hide it would be pointless." She looked up. "No matter what had happened, there would be people blaming us because we created the geth, even after all this time. We couldn't stop that from happening, but at least this way nobody could say that we tried to cover it up. So, we sent a message back to the Fleet. No detail, just a warning about the geth. They must have picked it up by now. And we kept going. Except..." She shook her head. "I was a fool."
"How so?" Anderson asked. "Your plan sounds reasonable enough."
"Yes, it does, doesn't it?" Her voice became bitter. "What I forgot to take into account was the attitude of the port authorities on Ilium. Quarians aren't exactly popular, in case you didn't know. At first, they wouldn't let us land at all. Then, when we paid a bribe, they still hit us with delay after delay. By the time we were finally allowed to land, there was a mercenary force waiting for us. It didn't end well. In the end, there were just the two of us, Keenah and myself, our ship half destroyed so we had no way to escape on our own. We stowed away on a transport to the Citadel. But when we arrived here, no one would listen."
"No one would listen?" Udina's voice was suddenly very cold. "Just who exactly did you talk to that 'wouldn't listen'?"
The quarian made a gesture that looked remarkably like a human shrug. "The captain of the transport had handed us over to Citadel Security. We spoke to a Detective Chellick, but-"
"But he wouldn't even let you finish a sentence," Vakarian interjected. He looked from Shepard to Udina, then back. "I know this looks bad, but I honestly don't think it was a deliberate attempt to hide the truth from you. Chellick's not interested in politics and prefers to stay out it. His focus is on organized crime and he tends to ignore anything outside that mandate. Combine it with the fact that he was talking to quarians and it's not so surprising that he dismissed them without a hearing."
"I see," Udina said. "I see, indeed. In any case, we can discuss Detective Chellick's failings, and those of Citadel Security in general, some other time. And you can be assured that I will discuss them. Now, after you failed to convince the authorities, what happened?"
"We were attacked." She fell silent for a moment. "We were near the Praesidium, trying to figure out what to do next. The attack on Eden prime was all over the news, but C-Sec wouldn't listen to us and we'd just learned that there is a waiting period of seven months for an audience with the Council. So, we were discussing our options when the mercenaries from Ilium attacked us. Keenah," She shook her head. "He was wounded badly, couldn't keep up. I led the mercenaries into the waste-disposal system and hacked one of the incinerators. The fools followed me in there and burned. It seemed a fitting way to deal with garbage like them."
Shepard grinned at the satisfaction in the quarian's voice. "I assume that you were wounded yourself in that exchange."
"Yes. I looked for medical aid and ended up at your Dr Michel's clinic. By then I knew I was out of time and that I needed to get off the station. So, I thought of the Shadow Broker. I'd heard stories, how he would buy all kinds of information. I figured that for a copy of the recording, I could get passage into the Terminus and contact my people. Let someone else decide what to do next. Your doctor sent me to Chora's Den. You know the rest."
"Yes, I do," Shepard said. "But why the hell didn't you come to us? C-Sec may be unwilling to listen and the Council may take months to grant an audience, but I can assure you that if you'd just walked up to the embassy and said the words' Eden Prime', they would have let you in."
"Would they?" Behind the quarian's faceplate, Shepard could just make out two faintly glowing eyes that were now looking into hers. "Perhaps. But we had no way of knowing. I'd never met a human before I walked into that clinic. Few of us have and then only some traders that go into the Terminus systems. And even if you'd let us in, would you have let us out again? Besides, I have more than just myself to consider. Our fleet is out in the Terminus. We have to deal with other species to survive at all and it gets harder every year. And now there has been a geth attack outside the Perseus Veil! How do you think that will impact what few trade relations we have? There is nothing I could do about that, but by contacting the Council and warning them I might have been able to limit the damage. Now that chance is gone. So, tell me, how will the Council react when they hear that a quarian sold out one their Spectres to you? If they retaliate by cutting us off completely, will you let the Migrant Fleet into your space? Into the Skyllian Verge maybe, or even into the United Systems core worlds?"
"No." Shepard shook her head. "Not even if you'd handed us Saren's head on a silver platter."
"I agree," Anderson said. "The ambassador can judge this more accurately, but I cannot see any circumstances that would make it possible. Even if the General Assembly were willing to make such a deal, they'd face a revolt among the colonies when your people showed up. Increased trade might be possible, but our government doesn't control that. The corporations and independent traders just go where they think the profit is. You want that trade, you have to make it worth their while."
"That's what I thought." For a moment she simply sat there, with her head bowed. "So, no, dealing with humans was not my first choice, or any choice at all. But, here I am. Do we have a deal?"
"We do," Udina said. "We do indeed. Now, let's hear that recording."
-0-0-0-
"Eden Prime was a major victory. We are one step closer to our goals."
"And one step closer to a new order."
For long seconds, no one spoke. Then, Vakarian stood up and walked to the window overlooking the Praesidium.
"The first voice, that was Saren. Well, I suppose it could have been faked, but that's for the experts to figure out. As it is, just from listening to it, I would say, you have your proof. The second, that was an asari. But I cannot tell who it is."
"Definitely asari," Udina said. "And I think I've heard it before, but I cannot quite-."
"I identified it," The quarian's voice was quiet. "I had nothing better to do for hours, so I matched it against the voices of every public figure I could get a recording of. There were a lot of them, but I found a match. An asari matriarch called Benezia T'Soni."
"That name sounds familiar," Shepard said. "Wait, wasn't she involved somewhere during the First Contact War?"
"Not the war, the negotiations afterwards. And she nearly screwed it up, too," Udina said sourly. "If the Council hadn't overruled her, we might still be at war, today."
"Wait, what?" Vakarian seemed startled. "Matriarch Benezia's name is well known. Everyone knows that she negotiated the Relay 314 peace treaty. But I never heard anything but praise for her role in ending the hostilities."
"Of course you didn't, detective," Udina made a brief noise that might have passed for a laugh. "Everyone was very careful to make sure it looked like the negotiations ended in perfect harmony, thanks to the wisdom of the great Matriarch Benezia. But people talk and in diplomatic circles, the truth is quite well known, even though we all pretend ignorance. Benezia wanted humans to join the Citadel as an associate species, just like the hanar, or the batarians before they walked out. Of course, that was never going to happen. Not in the political climate of the time. Or even today's for that matter. The only way humanity might possibly have joined was if they'd offered us a seat on the Council, which wasn't going to happen either. Unfortunately, Benezia seemed to have been incapable of understanding that and she stalled the negotiations in an effort to change our minds. That's actually a big part of the reason that Desolas Arterius got killed. We used his execution to break the deadlock. Then the Citadel Council finally woke up to what was happening and forced Benezia to settle for what she could get, instead of hanging on to a pipe-dream. She put a good face on it, but she certainly wasn't happy about it. I remember discussing it with Anita Goyle, our negotiator, and my predecessor as ambassador. She said she was always worried about what Benezia might do. I guess she was right."
"If she's working with Saren, yes," Captain Andersen remarked. "It does explain some things I always wondered about. I remember that time when we had a negotiator in place, but nothing seemed to be happening. Then we had the trial, and Arterius' execution, and all of a sudden things started moving again. Still, from what you say, her actions got Saren's brother killed. I wonder if he understands that."
"I doubt it. Keep in mind that Benezia certainly doesn't see things that way. In her mind, she was doing everything right. It's our fault that we didn't listen to her wisdom. And it's not as though Saren is going to listen to the human version of events."
"I suppose not," Anderson shook his head.
"Exactly. In any case, this changes things. Saren is one person. He has connections, yes, and, as a Spectre, he has access to all kinds of resources, but in the end, he is alone because that's how Spectres operate. Benezia is a different matter. An asari matriarch of her stature can bring political power to bear far beyond anything Saren could hope to achieve, and she can do it on her own, without relying on the support of the Council." Udina took a deep breath. "It seems like we've reached the end of our little game. Word of the shootout at Chora's Den is already spreading and I'm expecting a summons from the Council. When that happens, we will have to tell the Council something. This recording may tip the balance in our favour, but a lot will depend on how the Councillors want to play it. And we need to be prepared. Anderson?"
"Yes, ambassador."
"Contact your friend, Ms Vickers. Tell her I want to meet with her immediately, here at the embassy. Shepard, you and your people will have to stay in the embassy from now on. We cannot afford for you to be arrested by C-Sec on account of your recent actions."
Shepard nodded. "I understand. But how do we communicate with the Council? That was supposed to go through the consort, but if I cannot go to her, it won't work. Unless you want me to call her from the embassy."
"Absolutely not," Udina shook his head. "There is no telling who might be listening in. the embassy comms are supposed to be secure, emphasis on supposed, but I have no idea what hers are like. Soon, things will come out in public, but we need to contain the flow of information as long as we can. As for informing the Council, there are several options. For one thing, I expect that Detective Vakarian here will be making a report to the turian Councillor soon."
Vakarian nodded stiffly. Udina continued "I cannot tell you what to say to him, Detective. I can only ask you to keep in mind how bad things can get. Commander Shepard may not be fully aware of it, but the people back home are becoming impatient. I'm under increasing pressure from the General Assembly, as well as the United Systems Military, to start a diplomatic and political offensive. To throw the blame on the Council for insisting that we left Eden Prime undefended, for not dealing with the geth centuries ago. For, well, for anything and everything really. Even the handful of people that know about Saren's involvement are beginning to insist that we do something, anything. Soon, I'll have to act and the Councillors will have to choose between disowning Saren or denouncing the recording as a fake. If they choose the first, their prestige will take a hit. The latter, and we may end up at war. Either way, the damage to interspecies relationships may well be irreparable."
"I understand that," Vakarian said. "But-"
"Good. Now, unfortunately, we still haven't solved the fundamental problem that we've had from the start. Even without the Shadow broker's help, I think we can pretty much guarantee that Saren will hear what happened to Fist, if he hasn't already. The question is, how will he react? I will have to find a compromise that allows the Councillors to save face, that stops the United Systems from invading Citadel Space, and all of that without spooking Saren into going into hiding for the next decade, while still creating a situation where we have sufficient access to Citadel Space to track him down there if we have to. I hope you all appreciate the balancing act I have to perform." He looked around the room. "What, no smart remarks? Excellent. Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on how things work out, the Councillors themselves are no strangers to this kind of manoeuvre. So, I strongly, and I mean strongly, recommend that you inform Sparatus of what I just said about people getting impatient."
"Of course."
"Alright, that is one way information can flow. We can also use Ms Vickers to talk to Shaira and pass more information through that conduit. In particular, the issue with Benezia. Fortunately, Benezia's credit with the Council is low, has been ever since she nearly botched the negotiations. So, no matter her stature among the asari in general, I don't think Tevos will spend much time or effort protecting her. Still, it's a delicate situation. Ideally, we want the asari to disown her before we launch accusations against her. But, again, not before we have her and Saren in our sights."
He turned back toward Tali. "We also need to make sure that you remain safe until we present our data to the Council. Don't worry," Udina smiled thinly. "Our deal stands. I will ensure that you can leave the station. But not before you have testified. This evidence will look far more convincing if we can present the source as well. In the meantime, there can be no leaks from this embassy, other than the ones we are feeding. Shepard, remember what I said about Harkin? How much does he know, exactly?"
"Know for certain? Not all that much, but enough to connect the dots. I'll talk to Harkin," Shepard said. "He may be a snake, but he isn't stupid. I think I can convince him that in this case discretion is the better part of survival."
"Make sure he understands that, Commander, or you may have to back that threat up."
Shepard nodded.
"Well then, I suggest that you go and make your report, Detective Vakarian. The rest of you, stay here, do what you need to do while I go and make a few reports of my own."
He looked around the room. "As far as diplomacy goes, this is the end-game, people. After this, I suspect we will either be at war, or we'll be turning Commander Shepard here lose on an unsuspecting Galaxy. I honestly don't know what will be more destructive."
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A/N: Yes, why didn't Tali contact the human embassy? I had not given it much thought until I started writing this scene, but it is a good question. After all, the humans are rather more likely to listen to information about the attack on Eden Prime than the Council (who in canon just don't listen, period). I'm not a hundred per cent happy with my own explanation here, but it's the best I could come up with, and it works better in my universe than in canon, where humans have become integrated into Galactic society. (In 'The sky is falling', the engineer discusses how they hired quarian engineers for zero-g and vacuum work at Terra Nova, so there was at least some interaction between humans and quarians. In my universe there is basically none.)
