Chapter 45

After Shepard had (reluctantly) ended his embrace with Tali, he motioned for her and Garrus to follow him to the elevator. As they walked, he began to explain his plan to retake control of the Normandy and stop Saren.

"So here's what I'm thinking. With Udina being the pretentious dick he is, I'm sure that the lockdown of the Normandy came directly from his computer in his office. He may have needed somebody with more functional knowledge to properly perform the lockdown, but there's no way he'd let control over me be where somebody else could access it. In his mind, his office is an impenetrable fortress. After all, who would have the balls to break into the human ambassador's office? Well, we have balls made of brass. Big ones. So we're gonna break in, break the Normandy free, and be well on our way to deliver the ass-kicking to end all ass-kicking to Saren's pasty-white behind; all before Udina gets offa his knees in front of the Council."

Shepard looked to his two companions to gauge their reactions to his statement. Garrus appeared to be seriously questioning Shepard's sanity, while Tali, surprisingly, seemed to be taking the whole thing much more calmly.

"Uh, Commander? I mean this with all due respect, but have you lost your mind?" Garrus asked, the unusually high pitch of his voice indicating the seriousness of his inquiry.

"Of course not, Garrus." Shepard responded calmly. "Do you have a problem with my plan?"

"Yes! First, how exactly do you think we'll be able to sneak into the ambassador's office? It's the middle of the day on the Presidium! Second, even if we do get into the office, I know for a fact that the encryption and security processes that are running on embassy computers are of the highest possible grade. C-Sec periodically checks to make sure that every embassy is secure from all electronic eavesdropping. And third, there's no way we'll have enough time to do everything you suggested before the Council finishes with Udina. The Council is too busy to waste time with humanity's ambassador." When Garrus finished speaking, he was glaring at Shepard, who appeared to be unconcerned with what Garrus felt were very valid points of contention.

Shepard smiled pleasantly at Garrus, irking the turian even more. "To answer your concerns in order: first, who said anything about sneaking? We're gonna walk in there like we own the place, and if anybody asks, we have to talk with the ambassador about the Saren situation. Second, seeing as Tali and I are quite possibly the only two people in the galaxy who can hack a geth, I'm not predicting too many problems from the embassy's security protocols. And lastly, I know Udina will tie up the Council for a while, because he'll fight anything that involves humanity if it doesn't have his name all over it. So if you just stay calm and follow my lead, I can guarantee that we'll be on the Normandy and hopping into a relay within 90 minutes."

"Oh you can guarantee that, can you?" Garrus asked scathingly.

"Yep. Wanna put some money down?" Shepard challenged with a smirk that practically screamed "I'm a cocky motherfucker."

"Fine." Garrus huffed, familiar with Shepard's predilection for gambling and making wagers on seemingly inconsequential matters. "Stakes?"

"I'd say loser pays the whole team's bar tab at our party after we beat Saren, but on second thought that sounds like a better wager for who kills the most geth between here and Saren's death. You in?"

Garrus nodded, not needing to think about it. "What about the stakes for your current, asinine plan to release the lockdown on the Normandy?"

"In a minute." Shepard said, and then turned towards Tali. "Hey Tal, you wanna get in on the celebratory bar tab action?"

Tali stiffened in shock. "Usually you don't include me in these contests, Shepard. What's different about this time?"

Shepard shrugged. "Not much. I just figured that since I know it'll be the three of us from here to the end, and I feel like the end is quickly approaching, that you might like to throw your hat in the ring. If you don't want to, I understand."

"No! I'm interested. I have a question, though. If I'm hacking a geth, and it kills three geth before getting destroyed, would that count for one, three, or four?"

Shepard pondered that a moment, before looking at Garrus. "Four?" He asked, clearly wanting the other bettor's opinion. Garrus shrugged, which Shepard took as agreement. Then he turned back to Tali. "You'd get four for that, Tali. But the same rule applies to me. Agreed?"

Tali nodded, and the three teammates all shook hands. Then Shepard turned back to Garrus. "So, do you have any ideas about what you wanna do when you lose our current wager?"

Garrus laughed sarcastically, and then turned the question around. "I could ask you the same thing, Commander. Your plan is too ridiculous to possibly work."

"Ha! Its audacity is precisely the reason why it will go off without a hitch. Now what would make good stakes . . ." Shepard trailed off, deep in thought. Then he suddenly punched Garrus in the arm. "I've got it!"

"Well, tell me then." Garrus said morosely, rubbing his arm where Shepard had hit him.

"When I win, you have to write up all of my after-action reports, however many that may be, from now until we finish off Saren."

Garrus grimaced, his history with C-Sec giving him a deep-seated hatred of all things paperwork. Then with a nasty smirk, he thought of something that would make Shepard squirm. "Fine. But when I win, you have to give me your sniper rifle. Inara, I believe her name was?" Garrus smiled evilly as the commander gasped.

"You - . . . That's - . . . How could you ask for something like that? I shoulda asked for your sister's virginity or something, you bastard." Shepard's voice was a weird mix of hurt and jocularity.

Garrus shuddered at the thought of his sister having anything to do with any man, especially this one. "Don't even joke about that, Shepard." He said, shivering again.

"Well, now you know what it feels like." Shepard grimaced. "But I'm a man of my word, so fine. Inara versus the rest of this mission's reports. Do we have a deal?"

Garrus nodded, and the two men shook hands.

"Good." Shepard said. "Not that it matters, because I'm going to win anyway."

"Comfort yourself however you need to, Commander." Garrus replied, his mandibles twitching in repressed laughter.

Tali had remained quiet regarding their bet the whole time, but her incredulity finally spilled over. "Men." She muttered, shaking her head at the antics of the two people beside her.

After a few minutes of walking in silence, the trio finally arrived at the human embassy. Shepard smoothed his face over into a mask of smug superiority, straightened his back, and strode past the receptionist without stopping. The young woman looked up at his passing, but quickly looked back down when she saw Garrus turn his attention towards her. Catching the motion out of the corner of his eye, Shepard smirked at the ease with which he had bypassed the first level of Udina's defenses.

Quickly ascending the staircase, Shepard activated his omni-tool and sent his Spectre override authorization code to Udina's door. 1.2 seconds later, the door slid opened and Shepard smiled broadly as he led the way into Udina's office. Tali and Shepard moved together towards Udina's computer terminal, and Garrus took up position guarding the door. The two technology specialists activated their omni-tools with eerie synchronicity and began poking and prodding the embassy's electronic defenses. Less than two minutes later, Tali and Shepard looked up and locked eyes with each other. A sinister grin slowly crawled onto Shepard's face, and was mirrored (although he couldn't see it) underneath Tali's faceplate. As though being directed by some higher being, the pair of hackers ducked their heads in unison and attacked this last layer of Udina's protections with renewed vigor.

It was less than ten minutes later that Garrus heard a shout of triumph from the ambassador's desk. With a start, Garrus turned and looked at where his teammates were once again embracing. Filing that observation away into his mental folder of Tali/Shepard interactions, the turian asked, somewhat unnecessarily, how things were going.

"Tali bitch-slapped that program like it was Udina's ugly redheaded stepchild!" Shepard crowed, turning to look at Garrus but keeping one arm slung over Tali's shoulder.

Tali felt her cheeks flush at Shepard's ebullient phrase and the feeling of easy familiarity she was experiencing while being in contact with the commander. "It wasn't too difficult. Shepard was taking up most of the program's attention with a series of diversionary attacks at most of the major threat zones. Since he was keeping it busy, I was able to access the program's core via a side avenue that was nearly deserted."

Shepard waved off her modesty with his free arm and gave her a gentle squeeze with the other. "Don't listen to her, Garrus. She did all the hard work. I just ran around screaming 'Look at me!' the whole time. Metaphorically speaking."

Garrus chuckled. "However it occurred, I presume you succeeded?"

"Duh." Shepard responded.

Garrus was once again shaking his head at Shepard's seeming immaturity. "Then I suggest we leave before Udina returns."

"Right you are." Shepard agreed. "Let's go." The other two members of the team followed his lead, and the three commandos walked out of the embassy with the same swagger as they had walking in.

The team made the return trip back to the Normandy at a substantially faster clip than they usually used while traversing the Citadel. We really need to make it back to the Normandy ASAP. I know I can rely on Udina to milk his time with the Council for all it's worth - thank the gods for self-serving bureaucrats - but I can't guarantee exactly how much of his shit the Council will put up with. I'd expect them to be fairly welcoming to him, since he's doing a good job of acting like the Council's lapdog. I know how good he can be at pissing people off, though, which weighs against their willingness to throw him a bone. And I may have pissed off the Council (especially Sparatus) so much that their collective fuse with anything human-related will be practically nonexistent. I guess worrying about it isn't any gonna do us any good. I just have to hope Joker is ready to go when we get back. Fuck, I shoulda let him know to be ready to go. I could do that now, I suppose.

"Hey Joker." Shepard activated his radio, set the channel to Joker's mission-only frequency, and encrypted the transmission.

"I'm here Commander." Joker answered. "I don't know what's going on on your end, but I've been getting some really weird readings from the Normandy. I was going through the daily logs like you asked, when all of a sudden the docking platform locked down and locked me out. I tried talking to Citadel traffic control, but they said it wasn't anything on their end, but that the docking bay was reporting some weird human-specific codes. I figured I'd just ask you about it when you got back, but then not five minutes ago the board lit up green and I got a message that we were free to go. What the hell is going on, Commander? I don't like it when my baby's wings are clipped."

"I can understand your worry, Joker, and am right there with you about the Normandy being locked down. I'll tell you all about it when we get back and get underway, but I need you to do something for me first."

"Anything, Commander." Joker said, his dedication to Shepard evident in his voice.

"As quietly as you can, get the Normandy ready to leave. Try to avoid anything that advertises the fact that we're about to pull outta the Citadel, but I want the interval between when I hit the bridge and when we hit the relay to be as short as possible."

"Sure thing." Joker affirmed. "But what's our destination?"

"Ilos."