2393- Citadel Council Chambers
"Honored Councilors," began Solomon Ickes, now the official Imperial ambassador to the Citadel, "I have asked you here today to discuss the unpleasant issue of the enslavement of Imperial citizens. In the six years since we first made contact with the Citadel, repeated attempts have been made by Batarians to capture humans, presumably for the purpose of slavery. One week ago, raiders attacked the Imperial colony of Elysium with the clear intent to capture as many humans as was possible. Fortunately, their attack was easily repelled, but the matter nonetheless caught the attention of Empress Eleanor. She was, to put it simply, furious that the attempt was made in the first place. She ordered an immediate investigation into all slaver operations. One of our registered agents operating in Citadel territory was able to trace the majority of all slaving operations to none other than the Batarian Hegemony and discovered that there are no fewer than 7,528 humans and millions of nonhumans in slavery on Khar'shan. As of..." at this point, Ickes was interrupted by a frothing Batarian ambassador.
"This is an outrage! The humans have violated the sanctity of the Hegemony's independence! They must suffer the consequences!" Jath'Amon raged.
"Actually," Ickes responded, "The agent in question was completely within his authority. The Council currently has one unrestricted Spectre in Imperial territory, which grants us the right to one unrestricted Imperial agent, so long as he is registered as such. That agent is currently John-117. His actions were perfectly within his rights and have proven beyond a doubt that the Batarian Hegemony is responsible for almost every slaver attack in Citadel space, and most of the piracy as well." Ickes turned back to the Councilors. "The relevant documents should have been forwarded to you yesterday, which would have given you time to authenticate them. I assume you have done so?"
"Indeed," said Sparatus. If the Turian Councilor was honest with himself, he wasn't sure how he felt about the current situation. On the one hand, it might finally bring an end to the Hegemony's practice of slavery. Or to the Hegemony itself. On the other hand, it involved humans. "We have found no fault with the evidence presented."
"Thank you. Then can we assume that you will be bringing the Batarians to heel?" Ickes asked politely.
"You must understand that this is a complex issue," Tevos said. "We cannot simply force the Batarians to comply with..."
"With the laws of your nation. Her Imminence expected as much, and has therefore offered the following ultimatum- either all slaves within Batarian space are freed by the end of the month, or the Hegemony will be invaded, the Batarians made a client race of humanity, and Khar'shan destroyed."
There was silence for a moment, then the councilors turned to the Batarian.
"It would seem, ambassador, that you are faced with a choice- either bring yourself in line with the laws you have ignored for so long, or face invasion. Which will it be?" Tevos asked.
"You would steal our property from us? You would deny us of our cultural rights?" Jath'Amon yelled at Ickes. "And you, Councilors! You would allow these upstarts to threaten us? Us, who have been a Citadel race for centuries? And you will do nothing in our defense? You forget, Councilors, that you are bound to defend us!"
"And you forget, Ambassador, that you are bound to follow our laws. You have not honored our agreement. We are bound to nothing." Sparatus responded firmly.
"I am afraid that Councilor Sparatus is correct," Tevos said. "Since you have not upheld your duty to follow the Citadel's laws, the Citadel has no obligation to aid the Hegemony."
"It is clear that my people are being discriminated against." Jath'Amon spat. "As of today, the Batarians are no longer a Citadel race. The Hegemony is withdrawing from the Citadel and closing its Embassy." With that, the Batarian Ambassador turned and walked out of the Council chamber.
The councilors and the remaining ambassador watched as Jath'Amon left, then looked at each other.
"Would your empress truly destroy Kar'Shan?" asked Sparatus.
"Sparatus! Don't be ridiculous," Tevos chided. "Of course she wouldn't."
"Actually," Ickes interrupted, "It's very likely that she will do so. It depends entirely on whether the Hegemony returns the human slaves, and how well they have been treated. If, by some miracle, they have been treated well, then she will likely spare the planet even if they are not returned. However, if they were treated poorly, she will probably order the destruction of the planet whether they were returned or not."
"I expected as much," said the Turian councilor, while Tevos gaped at the departing human.
"You can't do that! Kar'shan is a civilized world! You can't just bomb the whole planet!"
"My dear councilor, we wouldn't be bombing it. After all, if we only bombed it, the planet would still be there, now wouldn't it?" Ickes said just before he left the chamber, closely followed by his guards.
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Ickes' head exploded in gore as he entered the Presidium, leaving his guards covered in blood and bits of gray matter.
"Sniper!" yelled Armani Coultas as the squad dove for cover. He found his spot behind a large potted plant and peered around for the target. Spotting a Drell in body armor running through the panicked crowd away from the scene, Coultas moved forward, only for a bullet to bounce off of his kinetic barrier. Realizing he had the wrong target, Coultas went back to scanning the area the fire was coming from until he saw, to his surprise, a hanar of all things with a sniper rifle in its tentacles, apparently trying to make its getaway.
"The Hanar!" he called to his squadmates, pointing in the jellyfish-thing's direction. "Freeze, or you will be shot, Hanar!" he warned the creature. Of course, rather than cooperating, the Hanar floated towards a large decorative pillar and took cover.
Coultas motioned for two of his men to move forward to flank the Hanar. As they were doing so, another gunshot rang out from behind them, and the shield on one of them went down. The soldier dove for cover just in time- another shot hit right where he'd been standing a moment before.
"There's another one, sir! A Turian, five o'clock!" called one of the soldiers. "She's got us pinned down!"
"Shit," Coultas muttered to himself. "You know what, fuck this. 'Don't use our powers' my ass. Jameson, cloak and move to take out the Turian. Try to take her alive. Poppe, Tucket, keep that Hanar from getting away. Once Jameson gives the go-ahead, you try to flank him again."
Corporal Jameson nodded and faded into nothingness as he used the ability which had gotten him to be one of the best stealth specialists in the Empire. There were other infiltrators, of course, and most of them could turn invisible (it was practically a requirement for the job), but none of them had the control over their power that Jameson did. A few moments later, he reappeared behind the Turian as he tazed her in the back.
"She's down, sir. It should be safe to take out the Hanar now," Jameson said through his comm.
At that, the two flankers left their cover and moved forward and around the pillar where the Hanar was hiding. A few bursts of gunfire later, the two squadmembers came back to their group.
"Target neutralized, sir," reported Lieutenant Tucket.
"Good woman. Jameson, you've got the bird bitch?"
"Yes sir."
"Excellent. You and Poppe can drag her to the office and throw her in a cell. I'll get HQ on the line and have them send over a psy so we can see what she knows," Coultas said.
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Jona Fetherton waited paitiently as the techs activated a biotic dampener, and then nodded to the medic. The man injected the Turian with a specially designed formula designed to A) awaken its victim slowly, and B) lower psychic resistance, which the Empire had learned was important when dealing with Asari. The first part of the drug would kick in within a few minutes. The second part would take an hour to reach full effect, which was fine since the Psy Specialist wasn't expected to reach the Citadel for at least twice that long.
He waited a few minutes for the bitch to recover enough to start struggling, then spoke.
"That won't do you any good. Those bindings can hold everything from a Hanar to a Krogan. So why don't you tell me what I want to know?"
"Fuck you, human!" Rutiana Mercanius growled angrily.
"Look, one way or another, we're going to learn everything you can tell us. The first option is you tell us and we kill you painlessly. The second is much less enjoyable, if you get my drift." Fetherston said.
Rutiana sneered. "Of course your people would resort to torture. It just proves you're even more barbaric than we thought. Once we expose you for the monsters you are, the Hierarchy will grind your primitive society to dust under its heel!"
"Oh, no," he said. "We don't torture. As you said, the practice is barbaric. It's just that tearing the information straight from your mind is, I'm told, an extremely painful process. Plus, after the psy is done, you'll effectively be a vegetable. The damage to your mind is irreparable, and leaves you a drooling idiot. Your still functioning body will then be kept alive and experimented on."
"Bullshit," Rutiana said. "You don't have mind-reading technology. The Council would never allow it, even if they are cowards."
"Firstly," said Fetherton, "the Council can only do something about it if they know about it. Secondly, we're not a part of the Council, and, as you said, they're too scared of us to go to war. Thirdly, it's not technology at all. It's magic. Remember? Humans have supernatural powers."
"And I'm Primarch Fedorian," jeered the Turian. "Others may be stupid enough to believe your propaganda, but not I."
Fetherton sighed. "Very well. I can see you're not going to cooperate." He then spoke into his comm. "Bring him in."
"Is this your 'mind reader'?" The Rutiana mocked as a drooling Turian was led into the room. "A drugged traitor?"
"No, this is one of the victims of our mind readers. I figured that you'd like some company, and since he's basically a vegetable now, he can't provide you with any aid. Plus, as quiet as he is, we find he's quite good at convincing our... visitors... to talk. Remember that news special in which that Spectre of your Council's, Saren Arterius, spoke out against the peace treaty? They showed a picture of his brother, remember? Well, meet Nulus Arterius, formerly of the Hierarchy Navy."
Rutiana stared. She did, in fact, remember the special. It had been right after the Council and the Empire had come to a peace agreement. Saren had been vocal about the fact that his brother's body had never been found, and his belief that the Turian had been treated poorly. Apparently, the poor bastard had been treated more horribly than anyone expected. His eyes were glazed over and unfocused, giving him a vacant look, and saliva dripped from his open mandibles. Clearly, the human's claims that Rutiana would be turned into a vegetable were true.
"Well, I'll just leave you two to get acquainted. If you need anything, just holler. The cameras will catch it, and an AI will let me know what you need so that I can ignore it properly." With that, Fetherton walked out of the office.
Rutiana stared at the drooling form of Nuhlus Arterius, then tried to look away from what she had realized would be her fate. Unfortunatley, the human bastards had placed him right in front of her, and her head was held in place by the strange chair she was sitting in.
Eventually, it occurred to her to simply close her eyes. That just made things worse. True, she could no longer see Nulhus, but she could hear, and her imagination was perfectly capable of making up the rest. She could hear his low, steady breathing, almost panting. She could hear the slight gurgle when his saliva pooled at the back of his mouth. She could hear the constant drip, drip, drip, of his drool hitting the table. And in her mind's eye, that image slowly changed. Instead of the tortured face of Nuhlus Arterius, it was a mindless Rutiana Mercanius in the room with her.
Abruptly, she opened her eyes, but the image didn't go away. It was still her own face staring back at her, her eyes glazed, her face expressionless, her mandibles wide open, showing her tongue lolling to one side. She almost whimpered as she closed her eyes again. And still, the image stayed, accompanied once more by the sounds.
Drip, drip, drip.
Pant, pant, pant.
Gurgle.
Drip, drip, drip.
Pant, pant, pant.
Gurgle.
Drip, drip, drip.
Pant, pant, pant.
Gurgle.
Drip, drip, drip.
Pant, pant, pant.
Gurgle.
For what seemed like hours that went on, and all the time, she stared straight at her expressionless, drooling face, until finally she snapped.
"FINE!" the Turian screamed. "I'll talk, just don't do that to me! Please! Please, you can't!"
There was no answer, and Rutiana sobbed as it occurred to her that she had missed her chance.
Finally, the door slid open, and the human entered once more.
"I apologize for my delay in getting here, but I'm afraid other matters were keeping me busy. However, I have been informed that you wish to speak to me?"
"Yes, yes! I'll tell you everything, just don't do that to me!"
"Very well. And I warn you, I'll know if you're lying." Fetherton said.
"I'm an assassin. The Hanar you killed was my partner. I know," she said, before the human could interrupt. "You guessed that much. I'm just starting from the beginning. Anyway, we were contacted earlier today by an 'anonymous' source. Well, Yoladar, my partner, was able to pretty quickly trace the call back to the Batarian Ambassador. It's something we always do when we get anonymous jobs. That way we know if it's a trap. It's also helpful if our client turns on us after the job. He hired us to kill the Human Ambassador. Said the hegemony would pay a quarter billion credits if we succeeded, a third of which would be up front. I didn't need much convincing to go after a human, not since my brother died when you bastards bombarded Trinus, so I accepted. That's all there is to it," she finished somewhat lamely.
"Thank you," said Fetherton as he waved his hand. Suddenly, the image of Rutiana, which she'd been staring at the entire time she talked, shifted back into that of Nuhlus Arterius. "For your cooperation, your execution will be painless."
"What! You said..." Rutiana trailed off as she remembered that that had been exactly what the human had offered. "You bastard! You can't do this! It's..."
"Murder, which you do for a living? Against Citadel law, which doesn't apply to the Empire and you likely break daily?" Fetherton asked with a smirk.
Rutiana said nothing as the human walked out of the door, knowing she was doomed.
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So, I'm having a debate with myself. Basically, should I take on another half-baked story, or stick with what I've got? On the one hand, you could argue that a new story means fewer updates for everything. On the other, you could argue that my writing is too spastic for that- I wouldn't write the new story instead of writing something else, I'd write it instead of doing nothing at all (I'm inclined to believe the second option, personally).The new story, If I decide to write it, will be a HP fic in which Harry is trained and/or raised by Death as a necromancer. That's pretty much what I've got figured out so far. Let me know what you think.