Gravity
Nihlus waited until he was certain she'd fallen asleep before switching places with the pillow. Easing himself out of bed, his talons clicked across the metal floor and he flinched. When Tequila didn't wake up, he relaxed and went to his terminal. Even when he'd settled himself in a corner and opened a text file, she didn't so much as mumble in her sleep. The woman could probably sleep through an explosion.
Access 13:45/Secure Comm Buoy #4147/Encrypt/#11353 – DA - 341
To: Citadel Special Tactics and Reconnaissance
Cc: Earth L5 Station Security
Subject: Status Update
A mercenary group by the title of "Terra Libera" recently accepted a contract for the assassination of a Council agent. All perpetrators have been dealt with and the group destabilized. Contract was received via a coded transmission currently decrypting.
Further updates forthcoming.
~Agent Kyrik
To: Citadel Special Tactics and Reconnaissance
Subject: Claims Investigation
Councilor Valern, I have thus far found no evidence supporting the claims of Commander Shepard's involvement in any anti-alien extremist affiliations. Charles Saracino's attempts to contact Commander Shepard are unilateral. However, based on intercepted transmissions through nonsecure comm buoys, Commander Shepard appears to have no affiliations, personal or otherwise, outside of the Systems Alliance.
Request to discontinue investigation.
~Agent Kyrik
Nihlus waited until the burst sent through Earth's comm buoy assured him his messages had been sent before wiping both from his hard drive. It was a habit Saren had instilled in him since the first day of his training: leave no tracks for anyone to follow.
Unfortunately, it was, in many ways, just a habit. While he wiped almost all of his missions' sensitive data after relaying it to the Council, his ship's ID could identify him at any dock, and from there it was just a paper trail until they reached where he was staying. Unless he went out of his way to alter ship registry information at every port, and use pre-paid credit chits. He wasn't that paranoid.
Idly crossing his arms over his bruised ribs, he wondered if maybe he should be. Closing his personal terminal, he tapped his talons along his knee. He fixed his eyes on Tequila's desk terminal, where the orange glow informed him of the intel's decryption status. Estimated time remaining: 8 Zulu hours. 10 Zulu hours. 0 Zulu Hours. 5 Zulu hours.
The numbers continued to switch and flicker inconsistently with the rate the bar crawled across the screen. He sighed. Nihlus retrieved his weapons and armor from her closet, disassembled and cleaned his guns and armor. A loud thump broke his focus half-way through. Tequila had rolled over and smacked her injured wrist on the wall. "Sic semper tyrannis," She muttered and fell back asleep.
Nihlus shook his head; there was no way he could sleep on that cardboard contraption. He guessed she must be a servicewoman to have such poor quarters. He finished going over his gear, replaced it in the closet, then checked the decryption again. 99999 Zulu hours.
Nihlus massaged away a headache trying to manifest itself into existence. Stretching, he stood and retrieved his clothes from the hamper in the restroom. The automated cleaner had washed and pressed them, but it had done so to the specifications of the tenant. His shirt and pants were creased and folded as if made for a human.
Dressing and trying to ignore the awkward way his previously perfect civvies clung and seem to have shrunk, he sat down in her apartment's only chair and rested his feet on the desk. They fell through the holographic keyboard and lit up his talons. He flexed his toes and watched the orange light shift across him. It made the leather of his feet look almost beige. Almost human. How disconcerting.
Putting on his omnitool, he accessed a less secure frequency and sent a request to station security for a new room, preferably one with a view.
It was all he ever asked for in a room. Something to remind him how large and dangerous galaxy was, and how you had to be ready for it. How you couldn't let the smaller things get in the way of the bigger picture. He glanced at over at where Tequila was splayed across the cot, blanket crumpled around her legs, mumbling military codes in her sleep.
Her personal terminal and her omnitool sat on the desk in front of him. A Spectre override on the DNA scanner would give him enough access to find out her name. Or you could just ask her. Or he could never ask her. It didn't matter. Just another of the smaller things, that wouldn't change who she was, or the fact that once he got what he needed he'd likely never see her again.
He woke up with a kink in his neck from falling asleep in the chair to the sound of shuffling from the restroom. His human emerged moments later fully clothed in black cargo pants tucked into oversized boots and a navy shirt. Her hair was tied back at the top of her head, shifting from red to black and looking far too much like a fringe.
"How long was I out?" He asked, massaging at the twisted knots in his body from how he'd slept.
"Well, according to the decryption status, five hours or five hundred." Tequila joked. So she hated the inefficiency too. "How are you feeling?"
"I'm-"
"Fine?" She interrupted.
"Yes." Tequila hummed in disbelief. He dropped his feet off the desk. "I can prove it." He offered.
"Can you?" She grinned. Going on two days since she'd found him buried in work at OmniTonic, and he still hadn't been with her, despite the chemistry crackling between them. It hardly bothered him. Especially not with last night, with her hands running over his chest. Her expression when he'd had his hands on her shoulders, looking up at him with more feeling than any turian had ever-
Just a stranger you picked up in a bar. You were both tired. It meant nothing. Little picture, big picture.
She dropped herself into his lap, and Nihlus was wondering why either of them had bothered getting dressed when his terminal began to beep at him. "Let it ring," Tequila growled with all the frustration he felt.
"I can't." He sighed.
"Whoever it is has it out for me," She relinquished with a sigh, rolling off him. Nihlus shook his head at the thought. It was likely the Council calling. The thought of the heart of galactic government having it out for her of all people drew a light chuckle from him. "I'll be back with…" She went to leave, likely to give him privacy and get them breakfast, "well, I don't what I'll be back with."
Nihlus quickly set up his terminal on her desk and tugged his shirt back down. The transmission was on a secure channel from the Citadel. He turned on his holo and accepted the call.
The three faces of the Citadel Council manifested on his screen. Nihlus never called the Council of his own accord, preferring to let them contact him whenever they deemed necessary. As usual, Councilor Tevos was the first to speak.
"Is this report accurate, Nihlus?" Her voice was lined in concern, and she went straight to the heart of the issue, as she always did. "You say there's been an attempt on your life?"
"Yes, Councilor." He kept his voice neutral, "The result of faulty intelligence, likely from one of the Terminus groups. They saw me speaking with an Alliance operative and must have assumed we were changing the beacon pick up."
"Have you any idea which one?" The salarian Councilor (Nihlus could never remember his name) asked.
"Not yet."
"This is… troubling," The salarian continued. What was his name? Why was he so bad with names lately? "If the Terminus Systems are aware of the beacon's location, and already taking action against the Council, they could make an attempt on Eden Prime next."
"How do we know this is even related to the beacon?" Councilor Valern interrupted. Nihlus had always liked him, likely a bias from being turian, and from the same outpost colony. Still, he liked to think it was because Valern was nothing if not practical. "What if it's simply an act of revenge, or a hate crime?"
"It wasn't a hate crime." Nihlus shook his head, then added, "I've seen the difference already,"
"And Nihlus is very thorough," Councilor Tevos added, "I doubt anyone with the resources to conduct such an act of vengeance would still be alive today." Nihlus inclined his head for the praise.
"I don't think they have the resources for an all-out assault on Eden Prime." Nihlus felt compelled to note. "The job was rushed, by mercenaries and not professional assassins. If they did attempt a pick-up, it would be covert, a single ship, nothing Alliance Corsairs shouldn't be able to handle."
"One more question, Operative Kyrik," Valern spoke up, "Your request to discontinue monitoring Commander Shepard…"
"Any more relevant intel will have to come from meeting her in person."
"Understood. " Tevos ended the meeting, as she always did. "Good luck out there." The call terminated.
Nihlus closed his terminal and leaned back in the chair. The Council was taking the matter more seriously than he'd thought they would. Which he supposed made sense. The beacon could be one of the biggest discoveries in Council space, and if there was any chance this recent attack was related, they'd be interested.
What if wasn't? He wondered idly. What else would it be about?
Tequila chose that moment to return with a bulbous pastry stuffed in her mouth, and a tray filled with a mixture of dextro and levo foods. Nihlus tried to keep from wrinkling his nose and failed as she set the tray down in front of him and waited for approval.
It was filled with things that no proper turian would ever have for breakfast. Children snacks shaped like nathaks, desserts, and a packet of mixed vegetables. There was even quarian nutrient paste.
"The turian at the kiosk said this was like human coffee," Tequila added, hoping up to sit on the desk for lack of another chair. She handed him a Paragade, and took a sip of her own drink. Nihlus knew what coffee was. Paragade was in no way like coffee.
Well… she'd tried.
He went for the nathak-snacks and was considering one of the desserts when her terminal blipped a completed decryption. Tequila and all her limps flung themselves off the desk, spraying him with crumbs, and she quickly leaned over him to type away at her terminal.
Lines of code streamed across the screen, and he didn't have to tell her to piece together what she could about the assassination attempt.
After a few red flashes and error screens, she managed to get some semblance of the original audio file for them to listen to. Nihlus opened his mouth to tell her to wait, but she pressed play before the words came out.
He shook himself. The call wouldn't have any personal information. The mercenary hadn't known his name, or that he was a Spectre. Tequila wouldn't find out either from one garbled transcript.
The first part of the message was static, crackling and unintelligible. "-must be eliminated-" A robotic voice announced. It spoke slow and deliberately, underlined with intelligence, as if whoever had wanted him dead had masked their true voice with an automated one. Why computerized? Why not just synthesize something generic? "-cannot interfere." More missing data. "-credits not a-" then the file ended.
"Well that was unhelpful." Tequila sighed.
"Any recovered signal trace?" Nihlus pressed, wishing the haptic-interface was keyed to the accelerometers in his finger tips so he could do it himself. "An original comm buoy to lock onto?"
"No, nothing," She muttered, files flashing across the scene, "It's like the message wasn't even sent through a comm buoy, just went straight from the sender to the receiver." She stopped searching and chewed on her lower lip.
"Perhaps you just can't recognize the code." Nihlus suggested. Tequila glared at him.
"I use to hack terminals and follow signal tracing for a living. I know what I'm doing." She turned her back to him and went back to work on the terminal. Still standing up. Wrapping his talons around her waist he pulled her into his lap while she went through the rest of the files. She stiffened, then relaxed.
Since that was the closet he'd ever come to apologizing, he was glad she readily accepted the gesture. He didn't like playing any of the usual games that came with relationshi-apologies. Games that came with apologies.
"Hmm, what's this…" Tequila mumbled, and opened a new audio file.
"Got a tip from Curt Weisman, saw a turian who might be the guy we're looking for with some bitch he used to know." A gritty male voice said.
"How much was the tip?" The merc he was calling, a man with a nasally voice, wanted to know.
"Said the intel's free long as we take her out too. Told you this arrangement was a good idea."
"Curt Weisman…" His human mumbled, tapping her nails through the keyboard. "Can you look him up?"
Nihlus brought his omnitool up off to the side. She shifted in his lap so she could see the holographic display that came from his palm. "Owner of Club Redshift, in sector 47a. Fairly close to the Terra Libera base, seems like an obvious hideout for anyone we missed. Shouldn't be difficult to find him."
"That club has to have a list of employees," She was chewing on her lip and seemed anxious, though Nihlus wasn't sure why. A few clicks through public sectors, without any hacking, found him the club's information. He expanded the list of names so they could read them easier, and his human went unusually still.
"What is it?"
"I know him…" She whispered, "I know all those people."