The Citadel

Chora's Den

Shepard walked into the writhing multi-sensory assault that was Chora's Den like she was walking onto the deck of a battlecruiser, all to-the-bone businesslike attitude and steely eyes. Williams and Alenko followed in her wake, tense and watchful. The commander lasered a glance around the chaotic room, then went straight to the turian in uniform who was leaning against the wall watching one of the asari dancers writhe provocatively on a small stage.

"Excuse me."

"Spectre." The turian nodded to her, not really taking his attention from the dancer. "Can I help you?"

"No. I can help you." Shepard folded her arms across her chest. "A man named Finch is looking to release a human named Curtis Weisman from turian custody and wanted me to use my authority as a Spectre to do it."

"The xenophobe?" His mandibles flared slightly, and he finally gave Shepard his full attention. "Huh. I should have figured he'd have friends. Thank you, Spectre." He gave her a small nod of appreciation. "I'll increase the guard on his cell."

Shepard started a mental countdown; she'd reached four when Finch slithered out of a nearby shadow, four burly men behind him. Knew that asshole was following us, and oh, look. He brought friends.

"I should have known you'd rat us out, Shepard!" he spat at her, then wiped his mouth. "The Reds aren't that pathetic street gang they were when you ran with them. We have the power to make you sorry for double-crossing us. When we get through with you, your precious alien friends won't like you very much."

Shepard stayed poised on the balls of her feet, ready to move at Finch's slightest motion. She was very aware of Ashley at her left elbow, practically vibrating with outrage, and the prickling feeling that heralded a accelerating biotic charge at her right. Her tone was cool and just mocking enough to make Finch's teeth grit. "What's this really about? No gang cares about one lousy runner who was stupid enough to get caught."

Finch's weasel-bright eyes ignited with righteous anger. "The Tenth Street Reds isn't just a gang anymore, Shepard. It's a movement. A human movement. And we don't leave one of ours rotting in some stinking alien cell."

"Are you honestly trying to blackmail a Spectre?" The turian raised one hand in disbelief. "Over a drug runner?" The angle he was holding his mandibles indicated sheer amazement. "I will never understand humans." He shook his head. "Listen, you xenophobic idiot." One fused-digit hand pointed at Shepard. "This is the first Spectre your species has ever produced, and you people aren't even on the council yet. This female is acknowledged by the entire galactic community as someone who's smart enough, lethal enough and tough enough to get the job done. And you're pissing her off?"

"She's in bed with you! With all the alien trash! We should take you all out! We can do it. We've done it before. Our backers would jump at the chance." Finch snarled. Hate twisted his face into something inhuman in the red lights of Chora's Den. Around them, people stilled, watching warily.

The turian guard took two quick strides to the left. "There. I'm out of splatter range. Go ahead, Spectre."

"Tempting, really damn tempting, but no. That's not the way I work." Focusing her anger, Shepard got in Finch's face, hyperaware that Ashley and Kaidan had started to break formation and were moving into a position where they could assist in hand to hand. "Listen up, Finch, because I'm only gonna say this once. If you want humanity to have a position of respect in the galaxy, a smear campaign against the first human who got the Council's trust isn't the way to go. You want to try and blackmail me over some fabricated bullshit, then try to intimidate me, you damn well better bring more than four men with you."

"Four is an insult, commander." Kaidan's voice was low, but resonant enough to somehow manage to be heard over the pulsing background music. "I've seen you clear four men and not even draw your sidearm."

"How many geth did we go up against on Eden Prime, LT?" Ashley let her hand rest suggestively on the butt of her pistol. Her other hand knotted into a fist as one or two of Finch's boys looked back and forth between her and the lieutenant. "I'm thinking it was a lot more than four."

"I don't know, Gunny." Kaidan flexed his glowing fingers into a fist. "Are we counting the drones?"

"Nah. Too small. But we have to count the husks." Ashley's smile showed entirely too many teeth.

"We definitely count them." With a sort of gallows theatricality, Kaidan let the eezo field trickle upward, until he knew he had blue energy sheening his eyes. "I always count something that's trying to rip my face off with its bare hands"

Finch's own face was getting paler by the second, and his eyes were pinched, glittering points in a sweat-sheened face. He sneered at Shepard. "It's not enough you gotta make nice with the stinkin' aliens, you gotta keep a pet freak, too?"

There was a ripple of movement, a flicker of color, and suddenly Finch was on the ground before he finished his choked scream, what was left of his nose a red ruin smeared across his face. One of the more muscled tough guys he'd brought with him threw a punch at Shepard. She flowed around him, her own hand moving to deflect, one foot coming up and then slamming sharply down. He went to the floor, clutching his destroyed left knee, as she pivoted into a high spin kick that nearly took the head off the second enforcer and sent him reeling.

The third and fourth gangers who'd come with Finch moved as their friend hit the wall; one heard the whine of a pistol charging up very, very close to his ear. He froze, hands creeping upward in a gesture of surrender. The fourth one, less intelligent than the others or possibly more eager for a fight, found himself meeting the ground rather harshly, his arms locked behind him in a sleeper hold and a very narrow mass effect field trickling down his spine to paralyze his legs.

"I really wouldn't." Kaidan murmured to him. "But if you want to die, feel free to try and take a shot at her."

Shepard looked around for her people, a smile curving her lush mouth when she saw they were unharmed and, in all likelihood, having fun. "We clear?"

"Clear, commander." Kaidan applied slightly more pressure to his captive's neck, cutting off blood to his brain long enough for the man to fall unconcious. "Gunny?"

"Clear." Ashley slammed the butt of her pistol into the back of the man's head. He dropped like a rock. "Huh. Disappointing. Apparently, he had a glass head." Frowning in disappointment, she glanced at the man whose knee Shepard had broken. He was trying to get up. Her fist flew out, a guided missile of clenched knuckles and fury.

Shepard smoothed a loose tendril of hair back from her face as the thug crumpled to the ground, a truly spectacular bruise already starting to bloom around his left eye. "Nice punch, Chief."

"Yeah, well..." Ashley shook her hand out, flexing the fingers. "Nobody messes with my CO. Right, LT?"

Kaidan straightened, rolling his broad shoulders. "Damn right, Ash."

"Appreciate the sentiment." Shepard went down on one knee next to the sobbing Finch. "Listen up, Finch. You may want to remember that I am a Spectre, and I can legally kill every single being in this bar and barely have to worry about filling out requisition forms for the damn bullets. If you ever, and I mean ever, raise a hand to anyone again, harass any aliens again, or insult my people again, then Maker help you - I will find out about it, and then I will take you apart, and all the Reds with you. Now walk away."

"You're not a real Red." The words came out on a red-flecked wheeze of air. He scrambled backward, crablike, hand still clamped to his ruined nose. When he was a safe distance away, he wobbled to his feet, spitting blood as he did. "You're not one of us. You're not!"

Shepard sighed. "You have no idea how happy that makes me, Finch."

The turian guard rounded on Shepard as soon as Finch was out of earshot. "That man is a xenophobe who thinks he can blackmail a Spectre," he said tightly, mandibles flaring in agitation and what subvocal ranges of his voice that Shepard could register indicating the level of his annoyance with her. "You hurt him pretty bad. Why not kill him?"

"Like I said, it was tempting. But I never take the easy road." Shepard shook herself. "Would you mind handing these idiots over to C-Sec for me? I have other problems to deal with."

"Sure thing, Spectre. I'm sure Finch won't get too far, either."

"I was counting on it. Increase that guard on Weisman, and be safe." She offered her hand to the turian.

After a long pause, he clasped her forearm in a gesture of respect. "I'll never understand humans, Spectre, but..." He sighed. "Thanks for the show, and the arrests. It was interesting. You be safe, too."

Ashley sighed, finally relaxing her gun hand. "Yeah, like that's gonna happen. Hey, skipper, you didn't really leave any for us."

Shepard experimentally flexed her right hand. The punch she'd deflected had had the force of a piledriver, and she hadn't quite managed to block properly. She didn't think anything was broken, but it certainly hurt. "Sorry, Chief. He pissed me off."

The other woman holstered her sidearm, sending a glance around the room as she did. Chora's Den was as loud and sexual as ever now that the excitement was over. One of the asari strippers on the upper stage curved provocatively around her pole and sent Ashley a wink. "Fair enough. But next time, you gotta promise to share."

"Fair enough." Shepard rolled her shoulders. "Let's get out of here before you end up propositioned, or Alenko ends up with a migraine."

Ashley grinned at her CO. "Or before Conrad Verner trails you down here."

Shepard winced. "Low blow, Williams. Low blow."