If there was one thing that Shepard didn't like when it came to being part of a sniper team, it was the waiting. He and Garrus arrived at the apartment building that they were going to use as their sniping post about two hours ago. Thanks to Shepard's Spectre status, the two were able to get a vacant room at no charge. Once they entered the room and finished setting up Shepard's rifle at one of the room's windows, they spent the rest of the two hours monitoring the activity on the memorial park's stage below and the weather conditions. Despite everything that had happened to Shepard in the past, it was agreed between him and Garrus that the past two hours were easily the longest of their lives.
It was during one of Garrus' turns on watch that the first guests of the dedication ceremony began to arrive. This was the moment they were waiting for. Garrus called Shepard over to the window to take his position behind the rifle. The growing crowd meant that Tali would be arriving shortly and the shooter they were looking for would be getting ready as well. Once Shepard was in position, Garrus began putting some finishing touches on the disguise that he and Shepard picked up. A quarian he was not but with the right accessories added to his formal wear, he could pass for one from a distance…and from behind.
On the shuttle ride to Rannoch, Shepard explained to Garrus that Ashley had given him an idea for a worst case scenario plan. While Shepard would remain in the apartment looking for the shooter, Garrus would be down in the crowd during the ceremony. From there, he would be using his omni-tool to continue to monitor the weather and alert Shepard of any sudden changes. The main reason for Garrus being in the crowd however was it would allow him to be able to rush onto the stage and get Tali to cover if it was looking like Shepard might not find the shooter in time.
"Are you sure this will work Shepard?" Garrus asked.
"Trust me Garrus," Shepard replied, "once you're seated amongst the crowd, you'll blend right in. Do you have the ticket Councilor Koris got for you?"
Garrus patted one of his pockets, "yeah. I'll be seated in the front row and near the steps that lead onto the stage."
"Good. Now remember, if I haven't called to tell you that the shooter has been taken out before Tali is about to finish her speech…"
"…then I need to charge the stage and get Tali to safety as soon as possible. Don't worry Shepard, I know the plan."
"I know. It just never hurts to go through it again. Hopefully the next time I talk to you is after I've taken out the sniper and not after you've had to rush Tali off the stage."
"Thanks for letting me do this Shepard."
"You bet Garrus," Shepard said as he looked out the window, "you better get going. It looks like the bulk of the crowd is starting to arrive. With that many people it should be easy for you to get in without attracting too much attention."
Garrus nodded and exited the apartment. Now alone in the room, Shepard looked through his rifle's scope and began what was probably going to be a long search through the windows of all the park's neighboring buildings. The shooter was no doubt in one of them right now waiting for Tali to arrive so he could line up his shot. To slightly improve his chances of finding the shooter quickly, Shepard's rifle was equipped with a thermal scope. This allowed Shepard to only focus on any windows that had heat signatures in them. Unfortunately Shepard knew he would probably see plenty of heat signatures as many quarians would be watching the ceremony from their windows.
(BEEP)
The sound of Shepard's comm. beeping briefly took his attention away from his scope. He tapped his ear to answer the incoming call and was greeted by Traynor's voice.
"I just received word from Specialist Hawkins on the Shanghai," she said, "Commander Williams and Liara are on Shanxi and about to begin infiltrating the trade center."
"Copy that," Shepard replied, "Garrus and I are in our positions and the ceremony is going to be beginning shortly."
"Do you have any final instructions you want me to relay to Commander Williams?"
"Just remind her that once I call to say that Tali's speech has begun, they will have an hour at most to reach the hostages."
"Understood Captain, Normandy out."
Once Traynor signed off, Shepard took a quick glance down into the crowd trying to see if Garrus was now among them. To his surprise he was having a hard time finding him. Then he noticed a masked quarian heading for what he believed to be Garrus' seat. Upon closer inspection, he realized that the masked quarian was Garrus. Shepard didn't know that Garrus was going to wear a mask but he smiled when he realized the cleverness behind him doing it. Tali had no idea that Garrus was going to be in the crowd. If she were to notice him in the front row, the shooter might catch her surprise and figure out that he was there. Fortunately there were still some quarians who needed to wear their masks so no one would be asking Garrus why he was wearing one.
Shepard then resumed scanning the windows in his search for the shooter. As he searched, he thought about how slowly but surely his plan was coming together. All he had to do now was find the shooter and wait for Ashley and Liara to locate the hostages. Hopefully the hour they had to do it would be enough.
Suddenly the crowd below erupted into a loud cheer. Shepard glanced down and saw why. The skycar convoy carrying Tali had arrived and she was now stepping out of her vehicle. Her unmasked face smiled as she waved to the crowd and made her way onto the stage. Once she was on the stage, the backdrop blocked her from Shepard's view. The crowd's cheering then began to die down indicating that Tali was probably quieting the crowd so that she could begin speaking. Shepard quickly called Traynor telling her to inform Ashley that the speech had begun. After receiving a confirmation from Traynor that Ashley had received the message, Shepard went back to scanning the windows. The final countdown had begun.
A green light lit up the interior of Ashley and Liara's shuttle. The shuttle's doors opened and they each threw a rope out each one. They then grabbed hold of their rope and fast roped down onto the roof of the trade center. Secretly Ashley was relieved she and Liara didn't have to do a HALO jump like she and Shepard did at Buckingham Palace. Not because she didn't enjoy it. In fact that jump helped her see why Shepard had always enjoyed skydiving. The reason she was glad to not be doing the HALO this time was because she doubted it would be good for her given the way she had been feeling lately.
Once the shuttle had left after dropping them off, everything became quiet again. Just the way they wanted it to be. Silence meant that no one inside was aware of their arrival. The silence was briefly interrupted by a quick call from Specialist Hawkins. He had just received word from the Normandy that Tali's speech was about to begin. Ashley and Liara shared a look of concern as they checked their omni-tools for the time. With Tali's speech beginning, their time limit to complete the mission had shortened significantly. They acknowledged the message, quickly raised their weapons and entered the building through the rooftop access hatch. The hatch took them into what appeared to be a maintenance room. Littered across the walls of the rooms were all kinds of electrical panels. Liara smiled as an idea came to her. She opened the panel labeled "CAMERA ACCESS" and pulled up her omni-tool.
"Won't the terrorists see that we're hacking into the cameras?" Ashley asked.
Liara shook her head, "I have a special program that allows me to hack into any kind of security undetected. I wouldn't be a good Shadow Broker if everyone knew I was watching them."
Ashley looked at Liara with a slightly concerned expression, "you don't secretly spy on Shepard and me, do you?"
"Fortunately I have a strict moral code that prohibits me from spying on friends," Liara said before giving Ashley a sly smile, "well that and Shepard took out all the cameras that Cerberus put in the captain's cabin on the Normandy."
The chime on Liara's omni-tool told her that the hack had worked. She then quickly used it to pull up the newly acquired surveillance images. With Ashley looking over her shoulder, they scanned through all the images to get a better idea of what awaited them throughout the rest of the trade center.
By their count, there were a total of twenty-five hostiles patrolling the building. Eight of them were divided into teams of two to cover the four access points to the building. Since Ashley and Liara were already in the building, they didn't need to worry about them until it was time to get the hostages out. It was the remaining hostiles they were going to have to worry about.
Five of them were in the conference room guarding the hostages. The hostages were seated around the conference table with their hands tied behind their chairs. Ashley and Liara's eyes quickly focused on the one who seemed to be the leader. It was none other than Luciana. There was no sign of Toombs so they figured Shepard was right about him being on Rannoch. It didn't matter to them though. They knew either Shepard or Garrus would take care of him. The real question was which one of them was going to get the privilege of taking down Luciana.
Shifting their focus back to the rest of the images, they saw that the remaining twelve hostiles were patrolling the trading floor. The layout reminded Ashley of pictures she had seen of the stock exchange floor in New York City. It certainly had plenty of cover for her and Liara to hide behind. The problem was with twelve people patrolling it, getting from cover to cover without being seen was going to be difficult.
"I think you were right Liara," she said, "there's no way we're getting through without engaging anyone."
Liara didn't respond as she was focused on something her omni-tool was projecting. Whatever she saw made her look back up to the rooftop access hatch.
"According to these plans I pulled, there's an air vent that travels over the trading floor and into the conference room," she said, "it's probably too small for both of us to fit through but it would get one of us close enough to the hostages in time for Shepard's call."
"Good idea," Ashley replied, "the other person can try to get through the trading floor. One person would have an easier time getting through unseen than two. Do you want to go through the vents?"
"Actually I think you should."
"Why?"
"Are you able to hack into the computers on the trading floor to create diversions that may be needed?"
"I'll go through the vents," Ashley said as she made her way back to the rooftop ladder, "while I'm doing that, you take any calls from Traynor. We can't risk the hostiles hearing me talking in the vents so it's best if I don't have a reason to talk at all. As soon you get the signal that we are good to go, you tell me and I will take out Luciana and the other four guards in the conference room. Wherever you are at the time of the call, you start picking off hostiles from there and keep them from getting into the conference room. With you and me hitting them from two separate locations, they'll get confused and should lessen the danger for us and the hostages."
Liara nodded, "sounds like as good a plan as we're going to get. Good luck Ashley."
"You too."
With that said Ashley and Liara did a quick check that Ashley would be able to hear Liara over the comm. Ashley then continued climbing up to the roof leaving Liara in the maintenance room. Once Ashley was gone, Liara called to inform Traynor of their plan and that she would be taking all further communication between them. With her submachine gun raised, Liara did a quick peek out the door to ensure there were no hostiles outside. She then left the maintenance room and headed for the trading floor.
Ashley quickly realized that Liara wasn't kidding when she said the vents were too small for both of them to fit through. It was hard enough for her alone to fit into the vent even while lying down. At least the vents in Buckingham Palace were big enough for her to not need to crawl in order to move through them. It may not have been a long distance to the conference room but the crawling was going to make it take a while. Sadly it was going to be necessary to move slowly in order to ensure none of the hostiles below would hear her. With nowhere to go but forward, she began her crawl.
According to the clock on Liara's omni-tool, she and Ashley now had less than forty minutes to get in position. She felt she was going to need almost every minute of it to get through the trading floor that now stood before her. At that moment, the cameras were not showing any hostiles directly behind the door. As she began to push a button on her omni-tool, she silently hoped the hostiles weren't paying too close attention to the cameras. The button she pushed temporarily froze the feed of the camera watching the entrance she was coming through. She then entered the trade center and moved fast while crouched towards one of the booths. Once she was settled inside it, she unfroze the camera. No reactions from anyone else in the room told her that so far things were going well.
She was about to peek over the counter of the booth when she heard footsteps approaching. A quick peek at the cameras showed her that a hostile was indeed approaching her booth. With no means of escape, all she could do was press herself against the wall and hope the hostile didn't come close enough to the booth to see her. The hostile was inches from the booth before he stopped and turned to face away from the booth. Liara then used the opportunity to freeze the cameras again, sneak out of the booth and move on to another one further towards the center of the room.
Entering the trading floor was not easy but compared to what Liara still had left, it was a cakewalk. She was now in the area where the largest amount of hostiles was congregated. Hostiles were situated all around the booth at varying distances. Even the hostile she had just slipped by was now blocking the way she came. If she made any attempt to leave the booth, at least one hostile would spot her and alert the others. Now with no way to slip by without attracting attention, Liara now found herself needing to use the distraction method she mentioned to Ashley.
Using her omni-tool, she hacked into one of the terminals in the booth so that she could access the trade center's stock reports. Sure enough the market was still open even though there were no trades going on due to the crisis. She took one last peek to ensure no one was close enough to hear her speak and then patched a call through on her omni-tool. It took a minute but she smiled when her call was answered.
"Feron it's me," she said.
"Liara?" Feron replied, "I was wondering if you were going to call soon. Is there something I can do for you?"
"I'm trying to sneak through the Shanxi Trade Center's trading floor but I'm surrounded by hostiles. I can't afford to engage any of them. Can you create a diversion that will help me get by them unnoticed?"
"Hmm...there is something I could do that just might work. It will just take me a minute so be ready to move. You'll know the diversion when you see it."
Liara quickly hung up her call and braced herself against the interior wall of the booth. For a few seconds, nothing happened. Suddenly several bell like sounds were heard over the intercom as a large screen along one of the walls lit up with a series of numbers. From what Liara could see, the numbers were showing a particular stock was climbing rapidly in value. Every hostile in the room had now turned towards the monitor. One of them even started cheering.
"You see! I told you that stock was going to be worth something someday!"
Nicely done Feron, Liara thought. With all the hostiles now looking away from her, she moved quickly and quietly out of the trading floor. Although she did have to hold in chuckle she nearly made after hearing the cheering hostile suddenly scream as his stock had apparently dropped in value just as quickly as it grew. As she closed the door behind her, she heard the hostile in charge yelling at everyone to get back to their patrols. She pulled up her omni-tool to send a message to Ashley and noticed her clock indicated that it only took her twenty minutes to get through the trading center. Not a bad time at all.
(DING DING DING)
Ashley nearly had a heart attack when a loud bell started sounding below her. At first she thought that an alarm of some kind had gone off. Then she composed herself enough to realize that the noise was giving her a brief period where she could crawl through the vents at a faster pace. She managed to get a few feet before the bell silenced. She wanted to call Liara to see if she was okay but she knew she couldn't risk letting the hostiles know she was in the vents. Fortunately Liara saved her the trouble and sent her a message. The contents of the message made her smile:
HOPE YOU LIKED THE DIVERSION. I JUST MADE IT OUT OF THE TRADING FLOOR AND WILL BE OUTSIDE THE CONFERENCE ROOM SHORTLY. SPECAILST HAWKINS IS LETTING SHEPARD KNOW THAT WE ARE IN POSITION. I'LL LET YOU KNOW WHEN HE GIVES US THE GO ORDER.
Based on where Ashley was in the vent, she figured that she was just about to leave the trading floor herself. She resumed crawling and soon found herself at the vent cover that overlooked the conference room. Both she and Liara were now in position and they had twenty minutes to spare. However she hoped that Shepard would give them the call sooner than that so she could get out of the vent. She hadn't really noticed it before but the vent was starting to feel a little claustrophobic. The feeling soon got so strong that she was beginning to feel…
"Dammit," she thought, "not now."
The nauseous feeling was returning. She fought hard to keep herself from throwing up again but the battle was turning against her.
"Get her up."
The nauseous feeling vanished when Ashley got distracted by the sound of Luciana's voice coming from below. However her relief was quickly replaced by adrenaline when she saw what was happening in the conference room. A hostile was untying one of the hostages and threw them over to Luciana.
"The boss is getting tired of waiting for Shepard to make his move," she said to her troops, "I'm going to take Ms. Morrison here to the communications center and use her to give Shepard some incentive to pick up the pace."
Normally Ashley would not be one to panic but things were starting to escalate quickly and Shepard still hadn't called to let them know that Tali's attacker had been found. If she and Liara were going to have a chance to save all of the hostages, they needed to move now. However an attack now would put Tali in jeopardy. Sadly Ashley felt there wasn't any other choice. She could only hope that if they gave Shepard enough advanced notice he would be able to use the failsafe the two of them put together. She quickly pulled up her omni-tool and vigorously typed a message to Liara.
LUCIANA IS ABOUT TO EXECUTE A HOSTAGE. WE CAN'T WAIT ANY LONGER. CALL SHEPARD AND TELL HIM TO EXECUTE THE FAILSAFE NOW.
Ashley then remembered that Liara didn't even know what the failsafe was. That was something she only talked about with Shepard. Fortunately Liara was smart enough not to ask questions and instantly patched a call through to Specialist Hawkins. She could tell because Liara had arranged for her to listen in to the call as well.
"Specialist," said Liara, "the terrorists are about to execute one of the hostages. The commander and I are going in. Call the Normandy and have them get a message to Captain Shepard telling him to execute the failsafe."
"Copy that Doctor," Hawkins replied, "good luck, Shanghai out."
"Go when you're ready Ashley."
That was Ashley's cue. She pulled out her pistol and peeked through the vent to get a final idea of the layout. To her horror, Luciana had already taken the hostage out of the room and was nowhere to be seen. The remaining four hostiles maintained a perimeter around the other nine hostages. Liara hadn't called to say Luciana had passed her so Ashley figured Luciana had gone out one of the other access points. She was going to have to find them after she saved the other hostages. She then slowly raised the vent cover and put her pistol between the gap. Her sight was now lined up on the head of one of the hostiles.
Shepard was beginning to get frustrated. He had been searching windows for what felt like hours but had not found one with the shooter in it. The only thing breaking the annoying silence was Tali's speech below and Garrus' occasional check-ins with weather updates. During the last check-in, Shepard thought he heard a hint of nervousness in his voice. Shepard couldn't blame Garrus if he was feeling nervous. He had hoped he would have found the shooter by now as well. The only thing that helped him feel not so nervous was the message he got from Traynor saying that Ashley and Liara had reached the hostages without being detected. Now if he could just find the shooter, he could tell them to begin their rescue. His thoughts were interrupted when his comm. started beeping. Traynor was calling him again.
"Captain!" she shouted nearly causing Shepard to drop his rifle. "Execute the failsafe now! Don't ask why, just do it!"
Shepard's first instinct was to ask what was wrong and if something had happened to Ashley and Liara but he stopped himself before he could. There were more pressing concerns to worry about and Traynor had just told him not to ask questions. He quickly called Garrus but was nearly deafened when a new sound came over his comm. He looked down below and found out what the sound was. Something Tali had said in her speech had caused the crowd to begin thunderously applauding and cheering. Garrus was also applauding but not as enthusiastically since he was only doing it to blend in. Sadly he was also not showing any indication that he was hearing Shepard's call. Shepard shouted Garrus' name over the comm. again but it was no use. Garrus couldn't hear him over the cheering.
While he continued trying to get Garrus' attention, Shepard returned his gaze to his rifle scope and resumed his search for the shooter. He was now merely glimpsing in any window that had a heat signature. After passing a few more windows, he came across one where the signature had their hand touching their ear. The signature then ducked down below the window. Shepard watched the window a little longer and the figure returned to view this time carrying a cold object. Based on the outline of the object against the signature's warm body, Shepard could tell it was a rifle. Now that he had found the shooter, he took aim with his rifle factoring in the conditions Garrus reported in his last message. After his final attempt to get Garrus' attention failed, he pulled the trigger.
The shot missed.
For some reason the shot had gone low and to the left. When it struck the wall, the resulting explosion of fragments caused the shooter to duck out of sight. The only thing Shepard could guess happened was that the wind had shifted since his last check with Garrus and blew the bullet off target. As he tried to readjust his aim, he saw the shooter had returned to view and was trying to get his rifle back on target as he recovered from the shock of Shepard's missed shot. It wasn't going to be long before he got Tali back in his sights and Shepard knew he couldn't line up his second shot in time to stop him.
Suddenly, Garrus' voice was faintly heard over Shepard's comm. He was trying to tell Shepard about the sudden wind change but it was hard for him to talk over the crowd's cheering. Unlike Shepard, Garrus couldn't shout without attracting attention from the crowd. In a last ditch effort to save Tali, Shepard shouted as loud as he could and hoped that Garrus would hear him this time.
"GARRUS, EXECUTE THE FAILSAFE! I CAN'T GET THE SHOOTER IN TIME! GET TALI OUT OF THERE NOW! GARRUS?!"
BANG!