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"Shepard, we have traced the trail to a system where it disappears, but there is a batarian trail from there that leads away from it that we can follow" Garrus said.
Shepard was sitting at a table that has been set up by her treadmill so that she could run whenever she wanted (she did love to run). She was looking at several data pads. "Well then lets follow the trail and see where it goes, maybe it will give us a lead."
"Okay Shepard." Garrus headed back to the bridge.
As much as she wanted to find this ship, she had given Joker strict instructions that if he got a reading on any ship even remotely matching the description to jump out right away. This vessel just could not handle anything like that ship.
For the last week they had been following this trail both finding it and losing it while trying to gain some information about the attackers' identity. Now they lost the trail again. Shepard was just annoyed they weren't making any headway. Maybe they could get information from the batarians, she knew how to handle batarians.
They could always go back to Alchera and search for the flight data recorder, but she doubted it would give them too much more information, since the ship was unidentified anyway. Following the trail from the attack location seemed like it would give them the better chance of identifying the attackers. It seemed they had entered and left that system several times. To Shepard it still seemed like she was getting no closer to solving this mystery.
She threw the pads down and was awarded with several looks from around the room. She got up quickly and went over to the treadmill and started running, it really helped to calm her down and it also took everyone's attention off her, because once she started running they all went back to whatever they were doing.
Garrus, Kaidan and Shepard got out of the Salice on the human colony world along the outer reaches of the traverse that's where the batarian ship's trail ended. She walked up to the nearest colonist to inquire where she could find the governor or whomever was in charge. The male took one look at her and he turned his back on her and walked away. She could only stare after him.
"What was that about?" she turned to the men behind her.
"Well, most colonists in this area are not really happy with the Alliance, and you do have N7 armor on, so I assume that is the problem. Although it might be they don't like aliens in general either." Kaidan told her.
Shepard looked around to see if she could find a building or something that looked official or even a store or something like that where they couldn't just run from her. She saw a larger prefab structure on the south side of the landing area that might be a warehouse shipping area so she struck off for that location.
As they walked people would see them and pointedly turn away or walk away, after usually making a face or scowling at them. It was starting to get on her nerves and she started to play with her pistol.
"Shepard, you can't shoot them just because they are making faces at you" Kaidan told her.
"But if I pull my gun on them maybe they won't walk away." She told him.
"That is not the way to garner cooperation and you know it. That isn't the route you would normally take either."
"Yeah well, no one ever blew up my ship before. These people might have information I need and I can't find out if they won't talk to me."
"You're taking this really personal, Shepard" Garrus said. "We don't even know if the attackers knew it was us."
She whurled on him "Garrus, they—blew—up—my—ship! They killed my crew, my friends. They were unaffected by the stealth system. Maybe they didn't know I was on it, but they knew it was an Alliance ship. I am sure they knew what ship it was! It is – was one of the most famous ships in the Galaxy!"
"Yeah, this is really going to make them want to talk to us." Kaidan told her. She turned to look at him and then looked where he was looking and saw a mother with two small children herding them away from her quickly. She scowled and took off towards the large building again.
She entered the building through a large open door big enough to drive a transport into. There were shipping crates around and several people looked up at her entry, although most made faces or looked away almost immediately. She looked to see if she could find anyone who looked like they might be in charge and noticed several people look toward an older male that had two or three data pads in his hands that he was studying. She headed straight for him.
"Are you in charge here?" she asked him.
"Who are you, girlie?" One of the men said.
"I am Commander Ariana Shepard, Council Spectre, and I would like to know who is in charge." She said using her polite relaxed voice.
"You're lying, there ain't no human Spectres" a male off to her right said. She saw Kaidan turn to cover her flank.
She turned to the male that had spoken and in her most respectful voice said "There is only one human Spectre, I am her" giving him a bow.
"No shit, really." Another male asked.
She turned and gave him her full attention . "No shit, really" she nodded.
"Well we don't really care about the Council here." The official looking male finally spoke "In any case it's me you want. My name is Karl Lloyd." He didn't look up from the data pads.
"Mr. Lloyd, I am looking for information on some batarians that would have come by here within the last few days." She told him.
"We ain't seen no aliens here, lady." The male from the right said.
Well she went from girlie to lady, that was an improvement. "We traced a trail from one of their ships, definitely batarian, to this planet."
"Well if they were here, we didn't see them" Lloyd looked up at her and told her. Just then a female came running into the warehouse. She almost ran into Garrus but at the last minute he stepped to the right and she missed him. She ran up to Lloyd, oblivious to the strangers and obviously out of breath.
"Karl I can't find the Wallace brothers and I need to get the last generator on top of the tower." She said.
"Now Annie, I am sure they are around somewhere, don't you fret none." Karl told her.
"No Karl, you don't understand, I went to the farm and their dinner is still on the table. It looks to be half eaten, but there isn't anything out-of-place, not an overturned chair, nothing. They are all just gone."
"Odd of them to get up in the middle of dinner, perhaps there was an emergency at the next farm, who lives close to them. The Johnsons right? Ask Clem."
A man called from behind Lloyd, "I'm right here Karl, and I haven't seen Tom or Charles at all, since yesterday afternoon."
"Karl, only the Wallace boys can get the generator onto the tower, we don't have the equipment to do it, we need them." The woman he called Annie told him.
"I well know that now don't I, since it was my idea to use them in the first place. I did it so we could save the money we would have had to invest in a heavy crane. How about Cin and Paul, did you ask them?" he asked her.
"They are gone too, I am telling you then are all gone." she answered him.
"When did you see them last?" Shepard asked her, the female eyed her suspiciously.
"Annie, this is Commander Shepard, she's a Spectre for the Council." he supplied.
"Well I dropped off some of my crops at the house last night probably just before sundown. They were just sitting down for dinner now that I think about it." she told Shepard.
Shepard turned to Garrus. "Could that trail be twelve hours old?" she asked him.
"Could be Shepard, it was degraded a bit." Garrus told her.
"What are you thinking?" Kaidan asked her.
"Well batarians are slavers, maybe they took them." she told him.
"That wouldn't have been easy" Karl told her. "They were biotics, strong ones that's why we needed them to lift the generator in place."
"Both of them?" Kaidan asked.
"Yeah, twins, mom was exposed while they were developing." Karl explained.
"Shepard, what would batarians what with biotics, they wouldn't want to use them as slaves?" Kaidan told her.
"I don't know, it seems an odd coincidence that they are missing and we traced the batarians here." She told him, then to Annie, "can you show me where they live?"
Annie looked at Karl, he shrugged "Can't do any harm."
"Alright, come with me." and she led them out to a transport. "Get in" she told them.
Half an hour later they were almost to the farm when Garrus said. "Shepard I am getting a reading on that batarian trail. It's pooled here like it was parked for a bit or took off from here."
Shepard looked at Annie "how far from the farm are we now?" she asked her.
"About five or six clicks" Annie told her.
Shepard nodded her head. "That is close enough if they didn't want anyone to know they were coming."
"Still doesn't point to why, Shepard" Kaidan said.
"No it doesn't." She agreed.
They arrived at the farm a few minute later. Annie showed them around and she was right, it looked like they had just gotten up in the middle of dinner. Nothing looked out-of-place or strange.
"This is kind of spooky" Shepard said. "Batarians are usually violent when they take slaves, killing for an example or to impart control. This makes no sense."
"I also can't see them stopping at one family either" Garrus said.
"Well that leads me to believe they wanted these two because they were biotics." She said.
"But they wouldn't want biotics, there is too much of a chance they would lose them when they tried to control them. The inhibiters don't work well with the mass effect fields, they counteract each other. Even if they incapacitated them when they woke up they would have use of their biotics, that's why batarians usually kill biotics not capture them. They lost many batarians to out of control biotics" Kaidan said.
"This is a puzzle" She said.
They looked around some more, but still were not able to find anything to shed light on the mystery.
"Yeah well now we are never going to be able to get the generator on the tower without a heavy crane." Annie worried out loud.
Shepard turned to Kaidan "You and Liara could do that couldn't you?"
"Well I don't know how big it is, but yeah I think if the twins could do it then we should be able to. Why?"
"Well, it would be a good idea to help them, since as we are trying to figure out what's going on here and doing this for them might help to make them friendlier towards us. We might have to come back and talk to them here and it would be easier if they looked upon us as helpful instead of hurtful." she told him.
"I am not leaving you alone here with just Garrus, what if the batarians come back?" he told her.
"You have a good point. Okay I'll have Joker come here and pick you up, he can leave Wrex here with us and take you back to the space port so you and Liara can put up this generator thing." she told him.
"Yeah, okay that would work."
Annie was excited "You're a biotic, you can help us?" she asked Kaidan.
"Yes and we have another on board the ship who will also help." it didn't seem these colonists shared the general consensus that human biotics were to be feared. The Wallace twins must be pretty special to have won favor with the colonists.
"Joker, home in on my signal and contact me here. Tell Wrex and Liara to suit up."
"Aye, aye Commander, ETA eight minutes." He answered.
Shepard and Garrus were back by the barn when Wrex joined them. They still hadn't found any proof that the batarians had actually been there. While they were waiting for the ship Annie had let out the animals to graze and the barn was empty. Shepard didn't think the batarians would have gone in there with the animals inside but she checked it anyway. They walked out the back of the barn.
"Shepard I smell blood." Wrex told her.
"Yeah, I smell it too" Garrus said.
"Well obviously my olfactory senses are not as strong as yours, I don't smell it. Lead me to it Wrex." she said.
They walked through a field and back behind a rock they found a dead animal. It had it's throat cut. She wasn't sure what kind of animal it was but it must have been used for protection or alert, it had a collar on. It must have reacted to the batarians, which would explain why its throat had been cut.
"Well, this doesn't prove that it was the batarians, but it definitely proves some planning. There is really something weird going on here. And if this is batarians, what does it have to do with the ship that attacked the Normandy?" she wondered out loud.
"How did they take two able bodied biotics and their family without raising an alarm" Wrex asked.
"And how did they do it causing only minimal damage? That animal is the only thing that even remotely shows that something happen here." She added.
"Commander?" Joker said over the comm, "Alenko and Liara are finished. Alenko wants to know if you want us to wait here for you?" he asked.
"No Joker, come and get us. I have a feeling we have found just about everything we are going to find here today." she told him. "Garrus when we get back on the Salice you and Joker need to see if you can find the exit trail of the batarian ship, lets see if we can find where it went to."
"I will see what I can do, Shepard." Garrus told her.