A/N:
Hey gang.
I did my best with this one. Thanks for those of you who helped out on Google Docs. Some of you will notice ideas you had sent in PMs appearing here, thank you.
The chapter kind of jumps around...lots of things going on at the same time.
Reviews are always welcome.
EDIT 8-27-15 for stupidity
'The guy's last partner got killed by a fucking meteor strike. IN SPACE. What in the Five Oceans did I do to piss you off now?'
-Tela Vasir, upon learning she was partnered with Jason Delacor
The return to the asteroid base was done as swiftly as possible, the Normandy's stealth systems on full as she flew through the deserted FTL lanes towards home base.
Getting back to the shuttle had been a bit of a trial, as Shepard had a bit of difficulty with walking and her eyes continued to malfunction. As a result, once they were safely aboard, she ended up spending the bulk of the travel time in the sickbay, connected to diagnostic scanners, as Tali and Miranda spent a good twenty minutes getting her hooked into the specialized medical bed and Taylor took her armor up to her quarters for her, promising to clean out her helmet where she'd spat blood into it.
Sedanya made clucking noises over the minor wounds Shepard had taken, all of which had already self-healed, the artificial skin slowly regrowing. Shepard rolled her eyes and leaned back, going over the mission in her head.
Static interrupted her vision now and again, and the slight nervous tremors she'd had after the throw she'd performed were getting worse. As Miranda made a copy of the diagnostics and headed to her office to transmit them and the mission report, Tali sat and chatted with Shepard, while Sedanya moved to the workstation in the far wall of the med-bay to begin reviewing the medical data from Shepard's onboard medical VI.
Tali's voice was quietly wry as she spoke, tapping her omni to make her face visible through her mask.
"You know, Sara. After seeing video of you punching out that Geth Prime and now this, I think you have a problem with blowing yourself up when taking down big robots. Perhaps you need what Jeff calls an intervention."
Shepard snorted. "Don't forget the Colossus on Noveria."
Tali shook her head. "That one doesn't count, Liara blew it up." Her voice was sad for a second, and Shepard forced herself to smile.
"Yeah. God, if Liara hadn't stopped that blast, we'd all have been dead right there." She swallowed, and Tali squeezed her shoulder, still marveling at how natural said shoulder felt.
After a moment of silence, Shepard's blue eyes flickered to Tali's faceplate. "I probably shouldn't have taken you down there. I didn't know what we were heading into and there were quarians down there, so I figured it would be a good idea." She paused, searching for words. "Ahern would be ashamed of me, the way I'm acting. You'd think I'd have learned a bit more sense by now. It's just..."
Tali squeezed again. "It's okay. I needed to go, I had to see … how I felt facing my own people. And you needed me to go. After feeling useless and unable to help for years, it is nice to be needed." She smiled sadly. "I'm the only one from the old squad still around, after all. I didn't go through hell with that bosh'tet Ahern to sit around on the ship, Sara. You know I have your back if you need it."
Shepard nodded. "And as much as I hate to admit it, Tali, I do. I have no fucking idea what I'm doing. How to feel. When I go into battle it's like the old Butcher just comes out and … moves me. I'm not even aware of how I move sometimes because I keyed my reflexes to sensors that process faster than I can think. I was dodging the fire down there because the computer in my head calculated the trajectory of the accelerator rounds before they even fired and got me out of the way. Like a puppet." She sighed. "I worry..."
The smaller quarian woman bit her lip. "About?"
Shepard twitched, grimacing as static flooded her vision for a second. "Lots of things. I worry about how much of me is me and how much of me is a goddamned move-by-wire robot. Sometimes I start to think 'hey, this is kinda cool' and then I remembered I fucking died. I worry about what's going to happen when the truth finally comes out. How people are going to react. I worry about the shit down the line. I worry about the fact that Miranda and Wilson still won't level with me on how long I really have before my zombie ass starts coming apart at the seams."
She lifted a hand, closing it into a fist slowly. "And...shit, Tali. Watching that pack of evil fuckers just murder an entire colony like cleaning out an ant nest was bad shit to see. The stupid bastards down there had an army of top-tier mechs and enough firepower to hold off an invasion and the Collectors just … treated it like an irritation. What's to stop them from pulling this shit on a more heavily populated world?" She swallowed. "I worry most of all I'm not good enough to stop them."
Tali turned to face her directly. "You aren't in this alone. We are going to stop them, Shepard. You stopped Saren, you stopped Benezia, you stopped that krith'tet Ylana. You stopped Balak. You can stop this too."
Shepard smiled sardonically. "We were lucky not to get killed against Saren and almost did. Ash killed him. Benezia beat my ass like a drum, Liara dropped her. Ylana was too crazy to do any damage and Balak...I still don't even know what he was really up to, or if I stopped it or played right into his hands. I feel like a fucking fake."
Tali tilted her head. "What kind of 'fake' smashes a twenty foot tall war robot with a basic biotic attack?"
Shepard gestured at the scanners. "The kind of fake that can't do it without blowing herself up. You can see where that got me." She sighed. "I don't mean to act like what Ahern would call an emo shitfaced clown. I'm just...the scale of this shit just hit me."
Tali nodded. "It hit me too. It hit me when they first showed me what was left of you...but …" She looked down at her hands, one hidden away by the suit, the other artificial steel and myomer. "Neither of us is the same as we used to be. Half of me is gone. My family is .. lost to me, everything I struggled for and worked for in my old life is gone. Down there, looking at my own people, I felt nothing but … hate. I used to wonder how Kiala could be so mean and spiteful to me. Now I wonder how she was able to hold back her resentment."
The young quarian woman's voice tightened. "And then I look back at my own life and how stupid I was. I remember being irritated at those asari engineers back at Pinnacle because they didn't drop everything and explain their technology to me, as if I was still the admiral's daughter and the world rotated around me. I complained about being sheltered and being seen as nothing more than a puppet...and then when I'm on my own, I spent most of my time whining I wasn't important."
Shepard frowned. "Tali..."
Tali shook her head. "No. I get what you mean. You worry you aren't up to the task. But I guess what I'm saying is that I feel like a fake sometimes too. I followed in your wake because I was scared of losing Jeff. And when I convinced him to come with me, I didn't stand up for myself or him. I let Jeff get hurt. Then I ran away. And now I've tied myself to an organization that is best known for killing aliens, and I've dragged the only other friends I have into it as well."
She folded her arms. "Sometimes we have to stop telling ourselves that we can't do it – there's no one else." Tali smiled, displaying sharp teeth. "Or as Ahern would put it... tell yourself you're the baddest of the bad and keep stepping."
Shepard chuckled. "You've gotten good at this motivational speech thing."
Tali shrugged. "I had to … do that a lot with Jeff, I guess. He is down on himself a lot. After you … well, died – he blamed himself. That if he'd been healthy he could have gotten himself free, and gotten Pressly out of there, and you wouldn't have gotten killed."
Shepard sighed. "What bullshit. I'll talk with him. Whoever took us out was after me – they turned away from the escape pods the second I transmitted. I knew I was dead the moment they started shooting the pods." She grunted. "I guess I should have picked up on that. He's...quieter than he used to be. But I'm not much better at picking up signals."
Tali looked up. "Yes, he is quieter. But he is still good at faking, so I'm not surprised you didn't see it. He lies to himself almost as much as he does everyone else." The alien girl's eyes narrowed, the thin bloodless lips drawing down into a frown. "And … I don't feel good about it a lot of times. I love him – keelah, I love him so much – but I'm not much of a consolation prize for having the shit beat out of you, losing your career and being what he thinks is a disappointment to his parents. It's up to me to keep his spirits up."
Shepard smiled, closing her eyes as another burst of static hit. "Ugh...now the static thing is making me feel dizzy."
Tali patted Shepard's arm. "We'll be at the base soon enough and get you fixed."
O-TWCD-O
When they docked, Miranda and Sedanya put Shepard into a hover platform specialized for her form and transported her to the medical wing, moving her into the support medical gantry that comprised the center of the main medical room and then heading into the side room, an elevated platform that overlooked the medical arena. As Shepard laid there, Miranda's voice came over the intercom.
"Shepard, we're seeing some minor but serious internal damage. We're going to have to swap the cybernetic eyes, so we are going to cut them off. There's some damage to your internal heat sinks and the nerve underlays to your blueware. Your cyberware filters are going down and your pain editor is going on full, we'll be sedating you."
Shepard gave a thin, faint smile. "Whatever needs to be done." Miranda nodded.
In the medical control room, Miranda grimaced and tapped a series of controls on the haptic panel in front of her, glancing to one side as Wilson and Saylish Six-Hawks entered the room from the far door. The lean Sioux gave a soft sigh as he entered, holding a set of data displays, while Wilson merely folded his arms.
Miranda put the two specialist doctors to work – Wilson would fix up the cybernetic issues with the eyes and the gross repairs while Six-Hawks would deal with the blueware and bio-amp issues. After giving them a quick briefing and the diagnostic files, she waited patiently to review their plans of action.
\Miranda nodded, as Six-Hawks finished. "That would appear to be a workable plan. Make sure you keep in contact with the crash medical team in case anything goes wrong, and I'll be nearby. I have a report to make. Contact Chambers when you're done to run recovery." She turned on a heel, walking to the lifts, organizing her thoughts as she headed to the communications center.
Arriving in the QEC chamber a few minutes later, she tapped a series of controls and waited. Roughly a minute later, the machine pinged apologetically, and the golden-tinted image of her leader appeared, sitting in his usual chair.
"Miranda. I can only assume, based on the report, that there is more to the mission than a confirmation that you were successful."
She inclined her head. "Yes, sir. I'm sorry for the length, but there was a great deal to cover."
He waved a hand. "Details. We'll get to those in a bit. Highlights first."
She took a deep breath and nodded. She knew Harper well enough to know that the casual gesture was anything but. "Your surmise was accurate – the Collectors hit Freedom's Progress. The various defenses they had in place were singularly incapable of even hindering the assault. I've already forwarded you recovered footage taken by a quarian engineer on-site. He also collected various sensor readings, although I'm less sure of what to do with those."
He waited and flicked something to one side of his chair a few seconds later, watching intently. Several times during the video, the blue-glowing rings in his eyes rotated, shifting as he focused, a minor trait that never failed to send chills down Miranda's spine. She didn't know what kind of cybernetic enhancements the glowing rings gave him, and he never talked about them.
When the video was done, he leaned back, tilting his head slightly and puffing on his cigarette before speaking. "Curious. Impressive technology, or biotechnology to be exact, but it doesn't give us many clues as to the why, only the who. What is your analysis, Miranda?"
She paused, thinking. "The Collectors seemed intent on capturing the colony's population, nothing else. They ignored a great deal of already mined, high value minerals on the surface and did not appear to engage in any sort of salvaging. They were able to completely subdue all automatic and electronic defenses as well as somehow elude both the system sensor net and our own spy drones, and I suspect they probably were suppressing any communications from the planet as well."
He nodded slowly. "And these insect-like swarms that caused the stasis effect? Any ideas?"
She shrugged. "Only conjectural at this point, sir. Doctor Sedanya did mention that the stasis effect looked biotic. The resolution of the video is too blocky to provide many visual details about the swarm components, but from what little I understood of the sensor logs, they might be cybernetic."
The Illusive Man nodded. "Indeed?" He paused, reviewing something in the video, then nodded. "If the logs match up with the video, there's a spike of heat energy and hard radiation every time a colonist is put into stasis. It is possible that such is powered by drawing on ambient heat."
Miranda raised an eyebrow. The most basic power of pull used such a method, but other powers were unable to due so for a host of reasons. Being able to power biotic attacks via ambient heat was the holy grail of biotic research, and evidence suggested the Protheans could do so. "Is that even possible?"
Harper shrugged. "That would depend on if the quarian engineer's sensor logs are accurate. Given the Collector's advanced technology, it seems dangerous to presume otherwise." His voice took on a musing note."A biotic machine, a replicable effect that can be used on the battlefield – something not even the most crazed salarian or asari research can produce." He shifted his position. "Along with our other goals, Miranda – make it a high priority to see if we can't obtain this technology."
She nodded, and he examined his fingertips. "From the rest of the video and logs, three points stand out to me. First, the capture was done with a priority on stealth – the ship looked poorly suited to direct combat. Second, the Collectors themselves can fly – a nasty tactical problem when it comes time to fight them. Finally, the captured humans are all young and strong. Everyone else was converted to husks, implying they're doing something with the captives."
He puffed on the cigarette. "As I said, curious. You have no further insights as to what we're dealing with, I presume?"
Miranda's mind went over the data in her head, but she shook her head in the negative a moment later. "I am sure more can be extrapolated, sir, but I don't have the frame of reference to do so." She paused. "Although the fact that they're doing something with the vanished colonists leaves me with a host of new questions. The Collectors are known for studying genetic drift and the like, what could they be doing with the colonists?"
Jack Harper nodded. "Whatever the fate of the colonists, I find it unlikely to be benign, given what they did to the rest. And turning into husks is clever – they're not wasting resources. An army of husks would be incredibly disruptive on any battlefield. The emphasis on stealth and the ability to neutralize robotic and unmanned defenses means most of the defensive preparations of the Alliance are of questionable utility. And of course, without a counter to these swarms no form of combat can be attempted. Boarding a vessel with those things on it is suicide."
He paused. "Although the fact they did not do anything to the one quarian until he opened fire suggests, possibly, an oversight in their methods." He took another drag off his cigarette before crushing it out. "Should I expect a separate report from Shepard? Your report didn't cover what happened to her besides saying she was hurt."
She sighed. "Eventually. There were...complications, and Shepard is currently under repair."
Both eyebrows came up. "I must admit, after the way she tore through the pirates, I'm rather disappointed something was enough to do serious damage to her." His eyes flicked through the report again. "Which I note a lack of details about aside from 'internal systems damage'." He glanced up at her. "Details?"
Miranda snorted. "She did the damage to herself, sir. She destroyed a prototype salarian war mech with a throw an asari priestess couldn't pull off. There was some feedback from that throw, which damaged heatsinks and her cybernetic eyes – the medical team is correcting, and there are some design flaws in the original design spec Wilson will be making improvements and fixes to correct."
He nodded. "Setbacks of that nature are to be expected. We had very little time to test the various components before having to make them all work with each other. And based on the trawls I'm seeing, whatever she did stirred up a hornet's nest on the Citadel." The blue-glowing eyes fixed onto Miranda's own. "Anything else of note?"
Miranda tapped her omni. "I've sent my preliminary report on the mission. Overall, I would say things went well. We confirmed the Collectors are involved and are using Reaper technology. We confirmed they must have some method of stealth and we have a first look at their suppression technology."
The Illusive Man placed his fingertips together, mouth forming a stern line. "Unfortunately, the other aspects of the operation aren't going as well. The financial cell is still good, but we've had setbacks in keeping some of acquisitions in medical and aerospace hidden and had to cut them loose. Mr. Massani is still not ready, tied up in some kind of mess with his old partner Vido Santiago. Ms. Goto is on Bekenstein and not responding to my calls."
He sipped from his drink. "We have no clear intel on the Sisters of Vengeance or Archangel, although both have been relatively quiet the past few weeks. Most disturbing, given the information you just found, Mordin Solus is no longer on Omega – the good doctor got onto an STG transport not long after Spectre Delacor's team reached the Citadel. I'm still in the process of trying to localize his whereabouts, but it's likely the STG has him looking into the footage from the Collector attack."
Miranda frowned. "I thought he was former STG, sir."
The faint hint of a sardonic smile flickered on Harper's face. "I am not certain the sobriquet 'former' has any real meaning to the STG. In any event, we may have to improvise. The best bet is to go ahead with Shepard's initial plans – move on Korlus and Okeer first, since he may have some idea of what the Collectors are doing. Jack, at least, shouldn't be going anywhere, and that will give my people more time to localize Archangel and the Sisters." He paused. "What does Shepard plan to do after she recovers?"
Miranda folded her arms. "We haven't had a chance to debrief and decide, sir. Based on her personality, I would assume the most aggressive options possible, such as going directly after Okeer and killing him messily."
He nodded. "She very well might. In that case, let her know one more thing. Shepard had a drone collect samples of the damage done to the defense station in orbit around Freedom's Progress, the one that looked as if the Collectors had attacked it."
He exhaled, reaching for a fresh cigarette. "The residue and damage pattern done to the station matches almost exactly with the weapon that destroyed the Normandy." He lit it calmly, smiling faintly as he inhaled and then blew out smoke. "Just so she knows she has a reason to get involved."
O-TWCD-O
The main thought in Donnel Udina's mind as he sourly considered the people standing on the supplicant's pier in the Council Chambers was bitterly wry, and he voiced it a moment after thinking it.
"Well, it didn't take long for this situation to go bad, did it?"
He folded his arms, his usual scowl in place as his mind raced to think of the ramifications of what the Council had just heard.
Captain Delacor's investigation of Freedom's Progress – an impromptu affair that occurred solely because he was near the system and his boss, Rear Admiral Schulman, hated him – had turned up a great deal of truly disturbing ideas. The rather scattered footage from the colony – which according to Delacor's comm officer, Lieutenant Traynor, was probably pieced together from security footage routed to an omni-tool – was hardly the highest in quality. But it had enough artifacts and angles that the C-SEC forensic inspectors thought it unlikely it had been forged.
Watching the colony's fate had been chilling enough, but then seeing many colonists be converted into what looked like the same sort of husks that had been seen on Eden Prime turned it from merely bad to panic-inducing. Udina had been somewhat relieved at the Shadow Broker's proffered information, showing no Reaper activity that they could see – but it was becoming very clear that perhaps their arm was longer than originally thought.
Setting that train of thought aside, Udina worried more about the political ramifications.
The idea that the mysterious beings known as Collectors were attacking human colonies was a bombshell for a number of reasons. The Collectors were only known in stories, legends and third-hand reports – a race of enigmatic beings possessing bio-technology and advanced computer technology far in advance of any of the Citadel species, making strange and illogical requests and trades in return for such. The Collectors had never been brought to battle before – the clients they typically dealt with were deranged and sick bio-terrorists, sleazy corporations, or slavers and pirates, none of whom had the need to attack such a lucrative – and dangerous – benefactor.
From what little data could be gathered, it was known that the Collectors were confirmed to be operating out of the Omega 4 relay. Which, Udina sourly reflected, was about right for this mess. It meant that not only did the relay seemingly act as a one-way trip for any ship that attempted it, it was located physically in the deepest part of Aria's space. Any kind of action to contain the Collectors directly would either have to convince Aria to allow a warfleet into her inner defense networks – or fight through them and subdue Aria before commencing a blockade of the Relay – since an assault through said relay was completely impossible.
That meant, even if the Alliance had the political will to fight back, or the Council decided to get involved, the likelihood of being able to do so successfully was nil. Aria had not tolerated any kind of deep violation of her space – much less the system she considered her personal fiefdom – in centuries. She would not tolerate such a long-term incursion into her space for any reason that Udina found even remotely likely, and the cost of maintaining such a blockade would be ruinous in any case.
And aside from blocking the relay and destroying anything that came out of it, there were not a lot of choices. Udina mused that there were certain Alliance black projects that might be of use in at least containing the threat, but he wasn't supposed to know about those, and that would require some careful talking.
And, of course, that wasn't the worst of it.
With the additional information provided by Strike Captain Kal'Reegar, standing next to Captain Delacor below, the situation only grew more dire. The quarian party had done their best to record everything they could about their contact with the mysterious Butcher, only to find their omni-tools and recording devices had been somehow hacked without them even knowing. The technical skill it took to do so was daunting. Their feedback on the Butcher's terrifying combat ability was only matched by the bafflement in being unable to locate the ship they entered the system in.
Even worse was Delacor's initial report on what they found at the site. The Butcher had completely obliterated a giant war robot single-handed, with a feat of biotics that Tevos called impossible. The images and records of the smashed machine, covered in melted iron ore, was its own proof. No one knew who the Butcher answered to, or where she was getting her ships, or her impossible capabilities in stealth, in hacking, and now in biotics. And there was no guarantee she wouldn't turn on them tomorrow.
The message she'd left for Captain Delacor, in particular, was extremely troubling, as it suggested the Butcher not only was deeply familiar with the Alliance but disapproved of it's methods. Particularly, the reference to Fleet Master Dragunov as a 'vile bastard' piqued Udina's interest, as it suggested the Butcher knew him personally.
He chuckled. It was a real shame Shepard was dead, she'd have gotten a real kick out of this crazed homage to her.
The final problem, of course, was of how to respond. With the nature of the situation thus laid out, the Council was continuing to discuss the issues. The Council Chamber had been emptied of onlookers and the like even before the report started, and now it was little more than Delacor and his people, Kal'Reegar and the quarian team, the Council itself, and the so-called High Spectre, Jondam Bau, standing to one side listening.
Udina turned his attention from the sardonic expression of the salarian agent to his fellow councilors and their reaction as they continued to question the people before them. After a second review of the report, Sparatus was the first to speak. "You are sure she said 'Reapers', Strike Captain?"
Kal'Reegar nodded, his broad shoulders squared up under the bright lights above. "Yes, sir. We didn't pay a lot of close attention to what was being said – I'm afraid we got sloppy and assumed our omni-tools would record everything. But the sheer hate in her voice is something you don't forget." He paused. "I remember that she didn't sound real surprised. Angry and pissed, but not surprised."
Sparatus leaned back, talons tapping on the edges of his plinth, gaze narrowed. "The knowledge of the meaning of that word is something we've kept a very close rein on. Are you aware of what it indicates?"
Kal'Reegar shifted slightly in his stance. "Only by association. I know I heard Shepard and her people say it a few times when I was with them fighting on the Citadel. And that Admiral Zorah has a standing order that any mention of the word be forwarded to the High Admirals immediately." He paused. "Given that she mentioned it along with the husks, I'm guessing it had something to do with the mess during the Benezia Incident?"
The quarian councilor, Thin'Koris, nodded. "Unfortunately, yes. There are a sharply limited number of people who know about what the Reapers are. This Butcher seems to be one of them, which worries me since I cannot think of who she might be."
Tevos ran a hand over her crests. "While I agree knowledge of this topic being known outside the controlled circle of people originally informed is troublesome, that is not the only thing the tide has revealed. The more worrisome aspect is that we do not know if her assertion is correct or not. The presence of the husks would certainly seem to indicate their involvement, but then again the dragon's tooth technology seemed to work in a different manner than … this." She gave a faint shudder at the memory of the conversion of the humans into husks.
Thin'Koris shrugged. "There are several possibilities." He folded his arms. "I know that Sparatus prefers to look at things from a military standpoint, Udina from an economic one, yourself from a political one and Valern from an intelligence outlook. But this is an engineering problem."
He tilted his head, glowing eyes narrowing. "It may be the Collectors extracted the functionality and twisted it to their own ends – their technology is surely more advanced than ours. Alternatively, it may be that they have some contact or trade with the geth. And while I acknowledge the geth were the tools of the Reapers, that does not mean the Collectors are. For all we know the Collectors are working towards some other goal that has nothing to do with the Reaper threat, and making assumptions may lead us astray."
Tevos nodded. "An apt point. We are not sure who exactly is behind this mess, but running to conclusions seems likely to cause a panic."
Sparatus shook his head. "I disagree – given how dangerous the Reapers are, we cannot afford to assume this is anything but a direct threat. While I am not saying we should discount all other possibilities, we should at least prep reserve forces to move into position."
Udina arched an eyebrow. "That may be premature...but is probably a wise precaution. Still this leaves with three large problems. First, on a political level. We have a very important independent colony missing, and now we have no easy explanation of why it went missing. Freedom's Progress was the financial backer for a lot of the wildcat movement, based on their mining wealth, as well as the supplier of much of what few defenses the wildcat colonies had. With it gone, keeping the colony disappearances quiet will be much harder. Worse, unless we release this information, there are those who will assume the SA had the colony destroyed. This will cause issues within my government...and perhaps others."
Sparatus sighed. "There have already been hastatim who have accused the Batarian remnants – or even the Empire – of being behind the disappearances. With the pirates all gone thanks to the insanity of this Butcher person, they are likely to throw blame towards the batarians and make that situation even worse."
Tevos' expression tightened. "And there is no way we can release this footage to finger the true culprits. It would start panic, and Aria would no doubt claim it was false, generated by us to engineer an excuse to take the Citadel to war against the Traverse. And there are those on Thessia who would push that angle, I'm very sure, if we were to pinpoint the source of this danger as Omega – those would most likely suggest that Aria is probably in league with them."
Udina smiled sourly. "Good to see the issue isn't just on our end." He ticked off a second finger as he matched his gaze to that of Tevos. "We also have the certainty that the Collectors, a mysterious player so far, are involved, using technology that is certainly more advanced than what we have – possibly of Reaper origin, possibly obtained in trade from geth, or engineered on their own. Certainly if the Reapers had anything like those … insect things we would have lost the Battle of the Citadel. And yet, our hands are tied. We can't strike at them directly due to the Omega 4 relay being impassible, and a blockage is impossible in Aria's space. We have not only no way to respond to this attack, but no way to prevent another."
He frowned. "And then we have the interference of this … Butcher person. A biotic who can throw a cargo crate weighing more than two thousand pounds halfway through a war mech designed to stop heavy armor is nothing to ignore, especially given her inexplicable technology, weird knowledge of the Reapers, and strange agenda. Her attacks on the slavers seemed benign, but the end result is we are in a political sinkhole with no easy answers, and given how quickly she responded to the abduction I find it very hard to believe this wasn't intentional."
Valern nodded. "An admirably complete summary. Now, how to react to each of these things? The political situation can be defused – if with some difficulty – by suggesting the colony was attacked by outside slaver forces from the Black Rim or Far Traverse moving in on the territory abandoned by the Umlor Ring. It isn't perfect...but it will contain some issues. It will give us an excuse for activating the reserve forces Sparatus suggested, defuse some of the turian and human finger-pointing, and even provide some political fodder to those who suggest we are not responding to the issue."
Udina arched an eyebrow. "That's … better than nothing, although it does little to address the actual issue."
Valern shrugged. "I see no other real options at this juncture without further data." He turned to Delacor. "We have an assignment for you, Spectre – we need additional information regarding this Butcher, as fast as we can get it. Go over all the sites she has attacked. We'll provide the interviews the SA has obtained from the slaves she freed and STG assistance. Identify a pattern."
The big human marine nodded sourly. "What do we know already?"
Valern shrugged. "Almost nothing beside the broadcasts, the fact that she can subdue heavily protected pirate forces, striking from what seems near perfect stealth, and her anomalous biotic strength. You have already heard from Kal'Reegar and his people. To turn the question around...did you notice anything from her transmission we may have overlooked?"
Delacor rubbed his chin. "Not that I can think of. Although...the Butcher's voice sounded familiar somehow."
Ashley and Jiong both nodded, then glanced at each other as if surprised. Udina frowned at the sight of the two. Ashley Williams had been promoted to Lieutenant and run through OCS training and N1 school, mostly on the combined strength of Shepard's recommendation and the fact that she was credited with the death of Saren. There was still a great deal of antipathy for her in many circles – particularly the nobility, who saw the Williams family as walking displays of shame – but there was the grudging acceptance that Ashley was an exceptionally good soldier.
The woman's expression was pensive as she spoke. "The voice did sound familiar. I … I don't know where I've heard it from. And it wasn't just the voice, the way the person spoke – most of it sounded … dunno, rehearsed. Like it was something prepared before hand. But the last bit was more natural and it sounded..."
Udina had not seen Shepard's old Commissar for some time. Blamed – with little good reason – for not preventing Shepard's death, Jiong's career had taken a nosedive. He and his partner were sent to oversee the Penal Legion training on Luna in the fallout of the death of Shepard, a rather inglorious position.
When the two Spectre candidates – Delacor and Major Jeremy Ross – had been tapped, Jiong was assigned to Delacor and his partner Susan D'Alte assigned to Ross. Ross had been killed in the first joint Spectre op, and D'Alte was badly wounded, still recovering on Earth after the loss of an eye. Jiong had become despondent after that, and Udina had heard faint rumors that the Commissariat was highly displeased with him.
The man's expression – never kindly – was even harder than he remembered, but his voice was quiet. "It sounded much like something Sara Shepard herself would have said. Whoever this Butcher was knew her – closely. Based on the rough description of what Kal'Reegar said he saw from her fighting, she used the dancing kanquess."
Udina rubbed his nose. "Is that significant?"
Jiong shrugged. "My specialty isn't the asari...but yes, I believe it is." He glanced at Tevos.
The asari councilor nodded. "Yes, that is a very telling point. The dancing kanquess fell out of favor with our hunters because of the lack of damage it did compared to the sword kanquess, which evolved into the standard biotic charge. Only one hunting lodge on Thessia still practices it, the lodge Shepard trained at. It's possible whoever this Butcher is trained with Shepard and knew her, possibly one of the huntresses of the lodge. I will inquire with the Sword Mistress there."
Sparatus tapped a talon on his plinth. "Is there anything else?"
Tevos was about to speak when she frowned, her omni-tool flaring. "...one moment, please." She tapped her temple, probably activating an internal comm-link, and listened intently for almost three minutes, her expression going from confused to utterly furious, while the chamber fell into silence. After another minute, she clicked off, and slammed a fist into her plinth.
Valern's large eyes widened slightly. "I assume from your expression there is a situation?"
Tevos uttered a single, extremely foul asari curse word before speaking. "We have a very serious issue."
Udina folded his arms, eyes narrowed at the cold, almost frightened tone of Tevos' voice. "What did you get word of?"
Tevos exhaled sharply, drawing her shawl tightly around her shoulders. "As you know, one of the quarians on the colony, a Veetor'Nara, was traumatized. The quarians have few resources for dealing with psychological breaks, so as a kindness we proffered one of the best mind-healers of Clan Hearthwatch to perform a mental link to see if she couldn't stabilize him."
Thin'Koris nodded. "For which we are grateful."
Tevos shot him a glance. "Yes. And in this instance, so am I – the contact allowed us to discover something vital. In the course of the mind-healing, the asari healer came across the fragmented memories of the quarian's face to face conversation with the Butcher. She claims that Veetor saw, via his video link, this Butcher throw the cargo crate. From what she saw, it was power like nothing she's ever seen, even from a war priestess of Athame."
Sparatus shrugged. "Well, we knew she was a handful."
Tevos snarled. "There's worse. One of the humans with the Butcher mentioned the Illusive Man – and then the Butcher herself said the name Vigil."
Sparatus stiffened. "That cannot be. Vigil was – "
Tevos huffed. "Destroyed? We never found any evidence. We never could explain just how a single indoctrinated turian could penetrate the defenses of the Citadel, or how an AI that had endured so long could be destroyed so quickly. When the device didn't want to cooperate with us and we placed it in the secure vaults..."
Valern sighed. "Then it decided to move elsewhere? The lack of video evidence of who the intruders really were is clear signs it aided and abetted in its own abduction. The mystery behind how exactly the quarian's omni-tools could be so effortlessly hacked is clear." He paused, fingering his STG bracers. "And now, your mind-healer's evidence would imply that Vigil is assisting this Butcher, who is at least in tangential contact with the Illusive Man."
Tevos glanced at him, balling her fists in frustration. "Not only that. The female human said, in Veetor's memories, that 'The Illusive Man was right' in regards to seeing the Collectors on Freedom's Progress. That means he knows something we don't. That he's reacting to something."
Udina folded his arms. "I was under the impression the Illusive Man was the former leader of Cerberus, and distinctly disinclined towards cooperation with aliens such as the Butcher. Can we really leap to the conclusion that they're working together?"
Valern's fingers tapped a faint, arrhythmic beat on the edge of the plinth in front of him. "STG resources … well. Tevos, take this calmly – but it is possible, based on our most recent evidence, that the Illusive Man is working with Matriarch Trellani. This Butcher may be one of Trellani's followers."
Tevos curled a lip. "The Thirty has been aware of this for some time. I was fully briefed of the possibility...but thank you for the confirmation. However, the Butcher..." She shook her head, an expression of wondering dread crossing her features. "Whatever she is, I don't think the Butcher would serve a clan priestess exile. She has more sheer biotic power than anyone but the Priestess of the Sun herself, and I'm not even sure Vathan could toss a cargo crate like that around."
Delacor squared his shoulders. "Does this change my orders?"
Tevos and Valern traded a look, and then the asari spoke. "Yes, yes it does. Your mission is to find this Butcher and ascertain her threat to the Citadel races, and her goals. We need as much information as you can find."
The human Spectre gave a small sigh. "Respectfully, that sounds like an excellent way to get killed, and I've sampled quite a few of those already. The only resources I have are a small battle group and my only biotic is Commissar Jiong. While he did assist in putting down Benezia, I'm not sure that's even remotely enough firepower if any confrontation we have turns dangerous, not to mention I'm lacking any kind of leads."
Tevos' eyes narrowed and she glanced at the figure of Bau. "Spectre Bau, who else can we put on this task?"
Bau's mouth twitched into a shallow grin. "Assuming no more meteor strikes...I would actually suggest Spectre Tela Vasir's strike-group. That would, along with Spectre Delacor, provide an ample amount of firepower, several war priestesses, and a good balance of soldiers. Tapping C-SEC for specialist investigators might not be a bad idea either."
Williams spoke hesitantly. "Might it not also be smart to bring this Kal'Reegar along? He's the only person we have who's spoke with the Butcher."
Thin'Koris glanced at Kal, who shrugged. "Captain Kal'Reegar, clear it with the Admiralty first, but I have no objections. If nothing else he's a talented soldier."
Delacor frowned sourly at Williams. Just what he needed, more alien freaks to deal with. "Whatever. What about STG assistance?"
Valern sighed. "We already have three cells on the move. However … if this Butcher is really associated with Cerberus, I can't imagine the Illusive Man being unaware of that. Frankly you're better off doing your digging solo."
Udina straightened. He often wondered why in hell the Citadel Council never thought of the idea of chairs. "Should we enlist the assistance of the Shadow Broker, then? He probably has some interest in this series of events."
Sparatus was the first one to speak after several seconds of silent consideration. "Our intelligence on Cerberus before its destruction indicated they were often at odds with the Broker network. While I dislike contact with the Broker, it might be a good place to start the hunt."
Delacor frowned again. "Understood." He paused. "And what do I do if I find the Butcher herself or information suggesting she's a threat?"
Tevos' voice was even. "If you find out she is a threat, coordinate with Spectre Vasir and ensure the threat is neutralized. Otherwise, if possible, bring her into custody for questioning. If nothing else, the theft of Vigil must be addressed."
Jiong's voice was dry. "I find it highly unlikely she would agree to come willingly."
Tevos' voice hardened. "We are the Council. To resist our authority is to defy galactic consensus, and she is both in possession of stolen technology and at least affiliated with an avowed terrorist responsible for the death of thousands – or more, if the Illusive Man is working with Matriarch Trellani."
Valern nodded. "I find myself disinclined to more neutral contact – especially since we don't know why or how she could have found out about Freedom's Progress so quickly." He turned to Delacor. "Agent Vasir will be in contact shortly. You have your orders, Spectre."
Delacor saluted. "Understood. Williams, Jiong. Head back to the Kazan, I have some equipment to pick up from the Spectre offices." He paused. "Captain Kal'Reegar, if you like you can head back with them and they can get you up to speed."
Kal'Reegar's rough voice was wry. "It's better than babysitting civilians."
O-TWCD-O
Pain blasted through her body, in hard spikes. Fire and molten metal ran down her back, as her chest cracked, her organs pulping. Blood spewed from her mouth as she felt agony along her spine, her arms, her legs.
And with a final blast of heat and pain it ended. Liara erupted from her sleep, drenched in sweat and shaking, sitting up slowly, her mind confused and lost.
It took only a few seconds to recognize her surroundings, the cramped quarters she and Telanya shared, and she buried her face into her hands, biting her lip as she wept.
The dreams were getting worse.
They had started almost seven months after Shepard's death. Flashes of images she didn't understand. Flickers of something horrible, of pain that didn't make any sense. As the months slipped past and she and Telanya sank deeper and deeper into the underworld of Ilium, the dreams got worse.
Four months ago they'd gotten to the point that they happened every night – she experienced the agony her Sara had gone through in death. She'd felt her flesh melt and run like water, her bones shatter to fragments that erupted from her body like blooming flowers. She'd screamed in her own mind as her arm was torn off, her chest crushed, her form broken.
Whatever Doctor Sedanya had done to keep their soulforge from killing her instantly when Shepard died was slowly failing, it seemed. When the full-out death dreams started, Liara could still function. As the months had progressed, they'd gotten slowly worse.
She told herself that it was something she could handle.
The past month had turned into a nightmare in and of itself. Horrifying and twisted images of the Prothean Beacon message melded with fragments of other memories. Her mother turned to a ravenous demon who tore and shredded Shepard's body to the sound of whorish moaning from Sara. Her dig site memories turned to pits of blood, where she dug in the dirt looking for something, and uncovered rotting corpses, staring at her.
Garrus.
Sara.
Saren.
Her mother.
Her father.
Telanya.
Ugly dreamscapes of an endless city, huge cyclopean walls studded with endless rotting corpses, demons with glowing yellow eyes in endless ranks tearing apart Prothean children that morphed into small human girls with long black hair and eyes filled with pain. Flashes of precious memories – on the Normandy, on Intei'sai, on the Kazan – twisted into sickening sexual nightmares that ended with her cutting Shepard apart while the human woman howled in betrayal.
And, of course, flashbacks of the fight where she had very nearly died, of falling forever and crashing into agony and burning liquids, of her own very close brush with death. The dreams wouldn't stop. Every night they took her, leaving her a shaking, emotionally broken wreck. She'd not gotten a full night's sleep in months.
Liara took a deep, shuddering breath, angrily wiping at her single good eye, which was purpled from being bloodshot. Swinging her legs out of the bed, she winced at the ugly scars trailing down both of them, where flesh and necrotic bone had been cut out of her legs with plasma torches and replaced with heavy steel rods.
She coughed weakly, stumbling to the tiny bathroom, the light coming on automatically as she entered the steel-walled room. Her image in the mirror was haggard, the tips of her crests beginning to sag, her face lined with new lines, bags under her bloodshot eyes and her lips bloody in places from biting them in her sleep.
She splashed her face with water, grimacing at the hardness and tang of the cheap water they had access to. She looked back up in the mirror, and screamed again as her image was replaced with a bloodied, smashed mask of burnt, ripped flesh.
She slid down the wall, slumping onto her behind, shaking and gripping her knees. She'd read enough of the handful of less fantastical stories about asari lovers in the Soulforge to know that her mind was beginning to come apart. If the stories were accurate, dreams were the first stage, then waking hallucinations. Eventually she'd be unable to discern reality from illusion, assuming she didn't blow her brains out from despair and pain before that point.
No one had ever survived a Soulforge breaking without going utterly mad, and she was pretty sure she wouldn't be the miracle exception. She had endured so far on little more than her determination for justice, a thirst for revenge for Sara, the faint hope that if she did well her aithentar would at least be spared by that bitch Aria, and for the hate that burned through her, the last vestige of Shepard in her mind, her soul.
Hate – she clung to it like a beacon, a lifeline, but it wasn't enough to keep her mind in one piece.
She rubbed her eye again, wincing as the hard, cold metal of her left hand pinched at the skin slightly, before forcing herself back to her feet. Her reflection was normal again, and she tugged at the thin shirt she wore, grimacing as it was soaked in her own sweat.
She stripped it off, throwing it in the recycler, along with her sleeping pants, before tapping the wall controls and stepping into the tiny shower. The water bounced off her body, and she leaned forward, shivering as the fluid cascaded down her back, her legs and body.
She wondered if Telanya had been woken up by her screaming, then sighed. The other asari was no doubt still knocked out from the highly illegal depressant tranquilizers she shot up with every night to sleep. In some ways, Telanya was in better shape than Liara, emotionally and mentally, and in other ways she was worse off. The self-drugging she endured was the only way the ex C-SEC officer could sleep. But at least she could function. It was a matter of hate, really.
Telanya's hate was sharp, bright and resentful.
Liara's hate was wavering, losing its focus, drowning in despair.
The things they had done in the name of revenge had gone long past morally questionable some time ago. The higher up the list of the Broker's people they had gone, the larger the collateral damage had gotten in terms of body count, and of fallout. The images of the broken bodies of liaisons, lovers, and innocents in the lines of fire had invaded her dreams as well, warped into screaming, accusing figures, blood drenched and warped.
An image of Ahern sitting in his office, staring at her with cold eyes, flashed into her mind. "One day she'll be forced into a situation in which it's her life or yours, and she'll chose to give up hers. And it will be YOUR fault."
He'd been right.
The water cut off as she punched the control, stepping out and reaching for the cheap white towels on the stack to her right. She dried herself off, padding back into her sleeping area and pulling out some clothes from the shelving under her narrow bed – sweatpants and a thin shirt. With a grimace she walked into the main area, seeing Telanya's door still closed, and moved over to the kitchenette, reaching for the glasses to pour herself a drink.
She sat down bonelessly and uncapped a bottle of scotch – Sara's favorite. As she did so, the omni-tool built into her cybernetic forearm chimed softly. Taking a sip of the drink, she set it down and tapped the omni, bringing up a message panel, keyed to the software in her offices that monitored news events.
More news about the Butcher. She grimaced, she'd look at it later. She took another sip of her drink and sat back, trying to gather up her shattered emotions and calm them. Forcing herself into a meditative calm, it took her a good ten minutes – and another drink – for the tremors to stop.
She blinked, wondering why it was so much easier to keep herself together when she was planning to kill or in the process of doing so than when she was not. Her voice came out as a whisper as she talked to the empty air. "Is this all I am? A wreck, only able to function when I'm murdering? Am I any better than those I hunt?"
The faintest sound of a snort came from somewhere inside her head, a small current of warmth. She saw Shepard in her mind, shaking her head in amusement. Don't be stupid, marazul. You can't let yourself get depressed over killing the walking filth the Broker uses.
Liara's smile was sad. "And the innocents? The families ruined when we blow up a sky-tower to get at the target? The people the Broker has killed in retaliation for their 'failures'? The children that burned to death when we took out Sami'than? How do I deal with that?"
There was no answer, and Liara let her head slump. "In a way...as bad as the dreams are, as much as I am in agony, it is a relief. It means Garrus and the rest died for nothing. My aithentar suffers for nothing. My friend Tel...lost everything, to save someone who was already dead. But at least you won't have to see how far I've let myself … go."
There was no answer again, until Liara took another drink. And then Shepard's voice in her head again, sounding almost tired. The dead don't judge, Liara. If I'm disappointed with you, the only thing is that you didn't just find someone else better than me and live, like I wanted you to, instead of being infected by my hate.
Liara's lips curled. "You don't usually answer."
You usually don't need one. You just need to know I'm still here.
Liara found herself laughing softly. "I am truly going insane, I think." She pinched the bridge of her nose, and then grimaced as she realized she was still channeling the mannerisms of her dead lover, even two years later.
She sighed. If she had something to occupy her time, maybe she wouldn't be so despondent. But instead she was having to wait, unable to act. Since bringing down the last of the Broker's players on Ilium, she and Telanya had been engaged in a waiting game to strike at Tazzik. The Broker's enforcer operated out of a fortified and heavily secured compound on the edges of the capital city, secured by squads of soldiers, mechs, and multiple layers of defenses. The compound had no weak spots, a single hardline data link to an equally protected uplink, and Tazzik himself had no vulnerabilities.
They'd tried several gambits to draw him out, to no avail. They had expected Tazzik to act rashly, to begin hunting them himself. Liara had planned traps and ambushes, while Telanya worked on preparing explosives and improving her long-range sniping. Instead, the Broker agent had simply hunkered down to wait for … something.
As it turned out, he was waiting for their real target – Tetrimus was coming to Ilium, sooner or later. While nothing explicit had been put on the Broker network in ways they could find it, they had other connections, and the Shifter's people had let slip Tetrimus would be taking over from Tazzik while the big salarian was moved to oversee an operation on Bekenstein.
A clever little trap. If they went in expecting to fight Tazzik and ended up fighting Tetrimus, they might have ended up unprepared. As it was, they were more than prepared. So they waited, but days had turned into weeks now, and still no Tetrimus. It appeared that he'd been delayed thus far due to a host of factors, the largest one being the mysterious figure known as the Butcher.
Liara was frustrated – Tazzik was too heavily defended to get to and had no stupid habits that exposed him to any form of risk. Only Tazzik and Tetrimus knew the location of the Broker – they had to capture one of them alive and extract the data using a forced link. Capturing Tazzik was likely to end in failure, since the cybered-up soldier had been overheard more than once stating he had a cortex bomb and other features designed to prevent him from being turned against the Broker.
Tetrimus, however, was too valuable to deal with like that – and arrogant. Given that they knew he was coming, Liara and Tel had prepared, over the past weeks, a wide assortment of heavy anti-biotic weaponry, including suspensions of charged omni-dust, biotic-reactive poisons, even a cutting edge electrical discharge weapon that would warp a biotic's field for several seconds after a hit.
Tazzik was a lethal killing machine that had gone toe-to-toe with a Geth Prime and had only been dispatched at Omega when his attention wavered. Tel rated their chances at defeating him at no more than 22%, even with high explosives and heavy weapons. Tetrimus, on the other hand, while extremely biotically dangerous, was an old, cripple turian. Take away his biotics and you were left with a figure easily overpowered. Dangerous, to be sure, but not as dangerous as Tazzik.
The problem was getting him to Ilium.
Thus far, Tetrimus had not shown up because he was scrambling to deal with the disruptions caused by the Butcher's actions. Her dismantling of the slavers in the Traverse had put a huge crimp on whatever project the Broker was working on in the fringes of space. He'd been relying on slave labor and the transport capabilities of the Umlor Network, it seemed, and with that gone the Broker's network had been flooded with low-level requests for information on shipping networks, new sources of slaves, and curiously enough, scouts familiar with the far Traverse.
Part of her was glad the Butcher's antics had caused the Broker grief. Most of her was irritated that it was delaying Tetrimus from coming to Ilium so she could kill the vile bastard and find the Broker himself.
The fact that the Butcher was in the news once more was likely to lead to more delays. She wondered if she'd go crazy before he even arrived, at the rate her mind was coming apart. It didn't matter, really – all she had to do was hold out a little longer. Once Tetrimus and the Broker were dead, she would be .. free.
She sighed and finally looked at her omni with mixed emotions as she took in the latest news story – rumors on the Citadel had placed the Butcher near another vanished human colony, Freedom's Progress. Details were sketchy and the Council hadn't released a statement, but an inside source had told Westerlund News the Council was linking the Butcher in some way to the disappearances and was looking for information on the mysterious asari.
Liara wasn't sure how to react to the Butcher. She'd seen her initial broadcast, of course, the one mentioning the Sisters of Vengeance, as well as that of the equally mysterious Archangel. Part of her had been quietly amused by the hint that the three of them were working together.
Part of her wondered who she was. The voice had a vague hint of familiarity, but it was clearly modulated. Rumors and stories had exploded over the web, each one bigger and more fantastical. The extranet had, in its usual way, filled with every manner of conspiracy theory and urban legend as to the Butcher's identity.
Everyone agreed she had to be asari, since multiple reports showed her using singularities and the blade invocation of an asari priestess. From the stories of her height, she had to be a member of the Thirty. From the bits of reports on her abilities, she sounded like a former commando.
The extranet had, of course, been anything but silent on her own acts or that of the Archangel. Curiously, each of them had their own literal fan-base, something Liara found appalling and Telanya found darkly amusing.
The Archangel resonated mostly with the turians, who found his savagery, melodramatic killing sprees and ironic kills to be the height of hastatim vengeance. No less than nineteen of the turian vigilante groups had styled themselves after his name, and the turian Primarch himself had stated if the Archangel was an outcast, he should come home – the very idea of going after the filth of Omega and winning was the sort of audacity turians loved.
The fact that the turians were racially proud of a nutjob serial killer with anger management issues had been the source of more than a few jokes. Turians were strange.
Liara found the fact that the Archangel went after the Broker's people with the same hate as she and Tel did the most interesting, but Aria's antipathy for the figure muted any ideas she may have had about contacting him.
Conversely, the clever kills she and Tel had pulled off had captured the imagination of the salarians, whose extranet sites applauded each takedown with appreciation and speculation. The salarian crime fiction market had an entire romance-espionage-drama holonet show about them, apparently, generating 'facts' like the Broker had killed their joint lover (a salarian, of course) and they were out for revenge after said salarian lover was cruelly murdered by a Broker assassin. After training with a former Justicar, they had sworn themselves to vengeance.
Watching that had been probably the only time she and Telanya had laughed in months.
Salarians were stranger than turians.
The Butcher, it seemed, appealed to humans most of all. Her kills were the stuff of nightmares – the aftermath of Umlor's fall was so bloody that even Westerlund wouldn't carry the images, citing the barbaric nature of the attacks. Video and pictures had gotten out anyway, showing scenes of carnage and rage that made the most violent attacks of Telanya and her – or even the Archangel – pale in comparison.
The Butcher was extremely angry, that much was clear. Liara had seen the aftermath – people literally pulled apart biotically. Pointblank executions from shotguns. A krogan who'd had his spine snapped, then ripped out, before having his skull crushed with enough force to fracture his entire ribcage.
The human media – a collection of trolls if there ever was one, according to Tel – had speculated about motives, while human extranet culture delighted in meaningless "Epic Battles of Badassery" over the Butcher versus various figures throughout history. The one with the most hits was, of course, the Butcher vs. Shepard.
Humans were at least as strange as salarians.
And while the Butcher had yet to do anything to go against the Broker, her commentary on what Tel and Liara were doing had seemed to imply she approved.
So when she checked the Broker Network and found it full of data inquires and routing low level agents to investigate the Butcher, she was not sure if this was good or bad. If they dealt with the Butcher, then Tetrimus would probably come to Ilium. On the other hand, the Butcher might make a good ally, one who clearly had resources. After all, Liara and Tel couldn't go after whatever the Broker was doing out in the Traverse due to needing to stay on Ilium, but the Butcher could. Assuming that didn't interfere with whatever her own agenda was.
When the second set of files hit the Broker network a few minutes later – the Broker's agents had gotten a few details of a meeting of the Citadel Council – she sipped her scotch and frowned. Whatever was actually discussed in said meeting was not known, only the end result – they were sending the human Spectre, and her cousin Tela, after the Butcher.
More interestingly, the Butcher was linked to the Illusive Man, if the Network reports were right. Liara sat back in the cheap metal chair to think about this, massaging her crests with her free hand.
She knew Shepard was dead, no matter what the Illusive Man had hinted at on Earth. Stasis fields in her armor wouldn't have kept her alive through what she experienced in her dreams of Shepard's death, and you couldn't bring back the dead.
She wasn't sure if she should have blamed the Illusive Man for getting them involved in recovering Shepard's body or not. It had ruined Telanya's life, killed Garrus, Shields and possibly all of the Cerberus people, and ruined the lives of Tali and Jeff. It had also left her and Tel mutilated, her aithentar crippled, and all of them enslaved to Aria.
If the Butcher was captured or destroyed, then Tetrimus would come to Ilium. And while she didn't like Delacor very much, the Iron Man had survived things that would have killed anyone else, and her cousin Tela was extremely powerful. If the two actually found the Butcher, it was unlikely for the latter to survive any fight.
Her mind said that leaving this situation to play out on its own would be in her best interest. But her instincts were telling her to find a way to warn the Illusive Man and the Butcher that she was being hunted.
Passing a message anomalously to the Illusive Man would be dangerous but not too difficult. And, on reflection, in the long run this was better. If the Butcher crippled the Broker's operations in the Traverse enough, maybe Tazzik would have to be redeployed there, instead of Bekenstein. She couldn't imagine the Broker simply cutting his losses on Ilium without an attempt at destroying the Sisters of Vengeance, so it might actually aid in driving Tetrimus to them.
She sighed, tapping her omni to connect to one of the many one-time-pad servers she and Tel had setup. Blind data drop-boxes, they would only accept and transmit a single message before a combined EMP/thermite charge made tracing a communication routed through it impossible. For this message, she used three of them in series, two on Ilium and one on Bekenstein.
The operative of the Illusive Man that she knew of was someone she'd identified only after the fact. In the guise of their information broker personas, they'd been approached by a pair of human mercenaries, one a heavyset black man and the other a slender Asian man. It had not been difficult meeting their requests – they were only on Ilium for a day, and needed data on where to find a former STG researcher named Mordin Solus.
They had not recognized her, but she would never forget the whispery voice that had so coolly spoke on the trip to Omega, or the heavy blustery baritone. This was the ill-defined Mr. Theo and Mr. Kai. She'd obtained what information she had and sent it on to their mailboxes a few days back, but she had kept the address and said she would forward any additional data she could find.
With a tap of her fingers on her omni, she triggered the message framework. "This is Nalsana Vantirus of Vantirus Information Systems. This is not in regards to your original query, but is rather intended for your rather deceptive manager. The Citadel Council is sending two Spectres after the Butcher – Jason Delacor and Tela Vasir. If she is an associate of yours, you should give her a warning. They are aware of a connection between you and her."
She sent the message, knowing the encryption would suffice for just about anything. There would be no way for them to reply, of course, but if they really needed to contact her they could do so via her office TTL.
She sat back, draining her glass of scotch, glancing at the time readout on her omni. Rubbing her eyes to clear the grit of another failed night of sleep, she sighed, getting up slowly and heading to her bedroom to put on clothes for the day.
O-TWCD-O
Theo Pellham had just finished eating his breakfast when the message hit his omni. He read it, re-read it, and then cursed. "Fuck." He raised his voice. "Slant-eye! Get the QEC going, we got big fucking problems."
The slender form of Kai Leng appeared in the doorway of the small mess deck on the cutter they were using for recon duty, fingering a throwing knife. "Call me slant-eye again."
Pel merely forwarded the message from his omni-tool to Kai's, watching the man's face tighten imperceptibly as he read it. "Like I said, problems."
Kai sighed. "You get the engines going. I'll alert the Illusive Man. Shoot the blue a few thousand credits as thanks when you get time."
Pel stood, brushing crumbs off his black jumpsuit, and tossed his paper dishes in the recycler. "Why do I gotta talk to the scarred up alien bitches?"
Kai gave him a withering look. "Because you are an idiot and the Illusive Man still hasn't forgiven you for being clumsy and falling down those steps. Cybernetic arms are expensive."
He waited until the black merc had stomped off towards the engine room before allowing himself the faintest of laughs, and headed to the QEC. Tapping the connection request button, he waited a good five minutes until the image of Jack Harper appeared.
"You were supposed to be running silent, Mr. Leng. I presume you have a lead on Mordin Solus?"
Kai shook his head. "Yes, but not firm. The reason for my call is we have received additional intel on another matter. The Council is sending Vasir and Delacor to hunt the Butcher. According to our source, they are somehow aware of the involvement of Cerberus. They are not, it seems, aware of who the Butcher really is."
Jack Harper smirked. "Slower than I expected. But that is the Council for you. I'll handle this development, Shepard is going to be in some low visibility areas for a bit anyway. Who was your source, by the way?"
"Information brokers on Ilium, Vantirus sisters. Probably STG fronts, safer to use for information than any of the rest, given the chaos on Ilium. They gave us some leads on Solus – STG is definitely moving him into salarian space, towards Makana."
Harper's eyes narrowed. "Given what we know is on Makana, that makes sense – the SIX must be taking the Collector threat seriously. Good work. Once you are sure he is actually on Makana, fall back to the Silver Rim and wait for additional orders."
Kai nodded. "And the Spectres?"
Harper's face wore a wry smile. "If they really want to lose two Spectres, that is on them. On her last excursion, Shepard apparently put a two thousand pound shipping crate through a war mech."
Kai's eyebrow rose, which for him was the equivalent of shouting while on fire. "...impressive."
Harper nodded. "You know what to do. Keep your partner from anything too outrageous." He clicked off, and Kai sighed.
"Hey, slant-eye."
Without even looking, Kai threw the knife from his belt, smiling as he heard a shriek of pain. "You crazy motherfucker, you stabbed me!"
Kai turned and tapped his fingers on his next knife. "Oops."
