Chapter One

Citadel Station, Widow System, Serpent Nebula

2183

The elevator doors hissed softly as they opened, and Benjamin Lawson stepped out onto a dimly lit concourse, stifling a yawn as he did so. Having spent the entire day running around the Citadel, he was becoming weary, and the amount of time he had spent inside elevators was certainly not helping. Still, this was the last site he had to visit for the day, and the nature of the work meant he could not begrudge his obligations.

He was met at the other end of the concourse by a man dressed in very similar fashion to his own, as both were members of the Citadel Security force and thus in standard fatigues. Though not in the blue and black body armour of patrolling constables, they were still required to wear the jumpsuit of casual duty or Presidium guard officers, a tightly fitted blue t-shirt and matching blue combat trousers, along with black weapons holster. Lawson approached the other man, a brief nod of the head sufficing for a greeting.

"Evening, Ben," the other man said, his voice noticeably hoarse, "This your last shift?"

"Yeah," Lawson replied with a sigh, "how bad does it look?"

"It's the worst one I've seen, but I've only worked two other sites. They say this probably the worst."

"So I hear, but Third District was certainly a mess."

"Do you want to take a look?" The officer said, gesturing to the overlooking balcony at the end of the concourse. Lawson followed, and found himself gripping the railing hard as he looked over it. The tangled mess of wreckage and debris before him was all that remained of an entire district. He was looking at a segment of one of the Citadel's massive Ward arms, one that had been utterly ruined by the recent battle that had so shocked the inhabitants of the station. Lead by a colossal sentient dreadnought, a fleet of geth ships had assaulted the space station like a swarm of locusts. Though most of the casualties were soldiers of the Citadel's defence fleets, and the majority of them in the opening minutes of the conflict, the battle's climax had seen considerable damage to two of the station's habitation arms, known as Wards.

The dreadnought had ultimately been destroyed, but only after it was able to attach itself to the Citadel's command tower, well inside the area enclosed by the Ward arms. The debris that had resulted from its destruction had scattered all over the two nearest Ward arms, and some areas of the Presidium ring, causing massive devastation, and numerous civilian casualties. Though C-Sec was a law enforcement agency, and Lawson an investigative officer, all those serving in an official capacity had been drafted in to aid in the clean up, and Lawson had spent the past four days doing exactly that.

The district he was now overlooking had been primarily occupied by elcor and volus citizens, many of them families of the two races' diplomatic corps and had been almost totally buried under the twisted ruins of the defeated starship, and fires still blazed deep in its heart. The station's collective medical personnel had been the first on the scene, and there were camps dotted around the perimeter where exhausted medics were still working to treat the wounded.

"Looks grim." Lawson said after a long pause

"You're telling me," The other officer said, rubbing his eyes, "come on, there's a speeder waiting for us."

"Who's running the operation here?" Lawson asked, as he followed the other officer again down a flight of stairs.

"Sergeant Terrias, last I heard."

"He's a turian, right? I think I've heard of him." Lawson said.

"Yeah, a pretty by-the-book guy, but I guess a lot of turians are." Lawson's companion said with a smile. At the bottom of the stairs was a small landing leading to rounded hole in the wall of the building they were currently in, where a row of small flyers stood, many of them bearing the scars of recent excursions into the crash site. Standing by a particularly scorched looking speeder, whose blue C-Sec markings were only just visible on the blackened metal, were two others in the blue jumpsuits of C-Sec officers. The one on the left was a reptilian salarian, whose large black eyes were fixed on the speeder he was attempting to clean, while the other was a tall, avian turian, whose stance was one of boredom, the slouched shoulders hinting at his physical tiredness.

"Hello there, Richards, this Lawson?" The turian said as he caught sight of the newly arrived pair.

"Yeah that's right, he's just come down from Site C." Richards said in a flat, business-like tone, devoid of the cheeriness with which he had greeted Lawson."

"Site C, that's Third District right? How's that looking?" the turian asked, a note of impatience in his voice.

"A lot better than it was, but it's still a bit of a mess," Lawson said, "they say they've accounted for everyone in the District now, though, so they can start bringing in some heavier equipment, mass effect cranes, that sort of thing."

"Ah," the turian cocked his head in his species' equivalent of a nod, "they're still looking for people here."

"Yes, I know a few of the C-Sec biotics," the salarian chimed in, his speech quick as was the case with most of his species, "they've been working nonstop since the operation began to lift debris off people. One of the human L2s nearly had a brain haemorrhage."

Lawson winced at this, he had a good friend in C-Sec's biotic division, who also used the human L2 implants. He had seen first hand the sudden painful headaches he suffered from when the stress got too much, or the horrifying muscle spasms when he lost concentration while attempting to use his unusual abilities. The thought of how overworked the limited numbers of biotics on the Citadel must be was more than a little scary.

"Most of the asari officers are down on that site," the salarian went on, gesturing, "they seem to be coping quite well though."

Lawson was about to comment on how much more comfortable the asari were with the phenomenon of biotics when the turian cut in.

"Perhaps we should get Lieutenant Lawson down onto the Ward and get him settled in?"

"Of course, captain," the salarian relented, opening the speeders canopy and showing the two humans to their seats. The flyer's interior was cramped, but the journey down to the district itself was blessedly short, the salarian's sudden direction changes were doing little to ease Lawson's headache.

The flyer set down a short distance from a twisted pile of wreckage that had once been an apartment block, the burned out shell of a geth dropship squatting amid the debris. The salarian directed Lawson through the holographic line that cordoned off the area, where two more turians and an asari stood, hands gesticulating in a heated discussion. As Lawson approached, he caught the tail end of the debate.

"Sergeant, my people haven't stopped working for eighteen hours straight, this is too much for them." The asari said, her anxious voice almost a plea.

"All I'm asking is for one last effort, Thania. Officer Karnux believes there may be survivors in critical condition under there, but I can't risk moving the dropship until we've secured its core, and the cranes just don't have the precision to pick around it without risking a collapse." The taller of the two turians replied, his voice strained.

"Are you ordering me to do this, sir?" the asari muttered, her head lowered. The turian hesitated, the mandibles on his jaw flicking in and out as he thought.

"This is still a volunteer operation. Thania, you know I can't make it an order, but I need you here." He sighed

"Goddess damn it, Terrias," the asari shouted angrily. Lawson was momentarily taken aback, he had never seen an asari lose her temper before, "don't you dare try and guilt-trip me! I've done all I can, I can't concentrate anymore. I'm not going to risk lifting any wreckage only to have it fall back on the poor bastard I'm trying to save when I black out, and the same goes for my team."

"That's Sergeant Terrias, Thania. You're way out of line!" Terrias shouted back, his own temper considerably frayed, "But I'm going to put it down to exhaustion and let it slide, now get out of my way so I can find someone able to help before I take your badge!"

"Sergeant-" the other turian attempted to cut in and placate his superior officer.

"Shut up, Karnux," Terrias barked back as the asari stormed off, "make yourself useful and find out where the hell this Lawson is."

"I'm right here, Sergeant," Lawson piped in as he stepped closer to the worn out turian, "how's it looking?"

"You've got eyes, haven't you? Look for yourself! Heat scans suggest we've got half a dozen volus still alive under there, but all the biotics here are spent, and we can't get the cranes in," Terrias let out a slow breath and appeared to calm down some, but when he raised his head again, his eyes were wide and unfocused, "I just don't know what to do." He trailed off.

Lawson rubbed his eyes, he realised there was only one thing left to do.

"So we do it ourselves," he said flatly, "there's a good group of us here, we can lift some of that off by hand."

Terrias looked him in the eye. For a moment, he frowned and opened his mouth as if to argue, but his head slumped and he nodded slowly.

"Let's get going then."

*****

Three hours later, Lawson felt tiredness unlike anything he'd felt before. Every muscle in his upper body ached, his hands were blistered and raw and he could barely see through the dust covering his protective visor, but some inner reserve saw him push on. A salvage team had arrived a little over an hour earlier, as the pile of debris they had moved had already grown large enough to require more permanent removal. But their efforts had not been without cost, Lawson had been forced to call in a medic team after Terrias had collapsed from exhaustion. With so many of the Citadel's medical staff tied up dealing with the scores of wounded from the battle, or those recovered from the ruins, Lawson had managed to pull some strings to get Terrias on one of the Alliance vessels docked at the Citadel.

The salarian who had flown Lawson and Richards in, and who was now in charge of the local C-Sec agents gave a yelp of surprise,

"I've found one! Karnux, get over here!"

Officer Karnux had received basic medical training during his compulsory military service, and was acting as a medic for the resource stretched C-Sec personnel in the area. His nerves were in tatters, however, having already come across the bodies of three dead volus in the wreckage, the corpses horrifically maimed as their pressure suits ruptured, and Karnux' boots still bore traces of volus blood and guts.

"Tell me he's alive, Valiot, I'm not picking up another body, I won't!"

"He's alive, damn it! He's breathing, but it's faint. I think his suit's damaged!"

Lawson listened to the shouted exchange anxiously, they were all in need of some good news. If they could pull just one survivor out of this wreckage, their labour would be worth it. He began to clamber across the debris to Valiot, watching as Karnux tried to run across. A piece of rubble gave way, and Karnux fell with a yell of surprise.

"Take it easy, Karnux," Lawson said as he picked his way across to the fallen turian, "what the hell good is it if you go and get yourself put in the hospital?"

As quickly as they dared, the two men made their way to trapped volus. Lawson was shocked to find that not only was he alive, he was conscious, mumbling through ragged, raspy breathing.

"Lielle… where… where is Lielle? She was… she.."

"It's alright," Lawson said, doing his best to sound reassuring, "we've found you, you're safe now. Can you tell me your name?"

"Name?" the volus wheezed, the light on his face mask blinking faintly, "Gokun. I am Gokun. Must… find…. Lielle!" he spluttered, his voice becoming louder.

"We're going to do everything we can, but we've got to get you out first," Lawson turned to the salarian, "we'll get him out, Valiot. You go and see if you can find a stretcher, and alert the med camps that we've got a survivor. Karnux, grab the end of that girder, carefully now."

Ten minutes of near frantic work later had the volus freed, revealing one badly fractured leg, and the other foot mangled to the point it was unrecognisable. Lawson briefly considered just how lucky this volus was. Their species was unable to survive in the atmosphere that was common to so many of the Citadel races, requiring pressure suits and breathing apparatus when dealing with the other species. But specially constructed habitation blocks such as the one Lawson was currently digging through were able to recreate the atmosphere and pressure of the volus homeworld, allowing the residents to live normal lives at home. But the sudden destruction of the building had caused many of the inhabitants to be exposed to the Citadel's standard atmosphere without their environment suits, Lawson had come across countless corpses in his search, bloated by sudden depressurization and discoloured by the inhalation of gases toxic to them. That this volus had been in his pressure suit at the time of the disaster was near-miraculous.

This left Lawson and the other C-Sec officers with little hope that they would find the survivor's companion; but they had to try. Lawson and Karnux carried the motionless volus across the debris, and outside the cordon to where Valiot had the flyer and a stretcher ready. The volus was placed carefully on the stretcher and loaded into the flyer, as Valiot rubbed his hands frantically.

"Get him out of here." Lawson ordered simply, the salarian nodded and climbed into the pilot's seat. Rubbing his aching shoulders, Lawson turned slowly and began to head back to the ruins.

"Detective Lawson?" a double toned voice came from behind him, the voice of a turian. Lawson turned once again and found himself staring at the bright green eyes of another investigative officer, Detective Chellick. "I've been sent here to relieve you. You look dead on your feet."

"Jesus, Chellick am I glad to see you," Lawson smiled, a gesture the turian returned, in his fashion, "I thought you were tied up with that smuggling ring?"

"We caught a lucky break," Chellick's grin broadened, "they tried to take supplies directly from one of the storage camps just as an entire C-Sec team walked in to pick up a case of medi-gel. And that officially ends the wave of post-battle crime and looting, as far as HQ is concerned. So I get to join in the fun down here." Chellick grimaced, in hindsight the comment seemed in poor taste, dripping in irony though it was.

"Yeah, well I don't envy you. We just pulled one lucky volus out of the wreckage over there. He was conscious, even, I don't want to imagine what that must have been like. He's lost a friend though, a female named, uh, Lielle I think. I'm not gonna hold out much hope, but if you find her…" Lawson trailed off.

"Of course, Lawson, we'll do everything we can."

"Thanks, Chellick, I appreciate it." Lawson gave another tired smile, "Richards, Karnux!" he called out, "We're done for the day, go get some rest."

*****

Lawson's apartment was in a mid-sized district on the Citadel's fourth Ward arm, a number that was essentially arbitrary for anything other than distinguishing it from the third and fifth arms either side, as the numbers were applied clockwise, obviously only accurate in position for a certain orientation of perspective. The district had been largely vacant since the batarians had seceded their territory from Citadel space and closed their embassy, but even before this it had scarcely been filled, home to a few krogan and quarians before they too largely vanished from the Citadel.

In the few decades since their entrance into Citadel space, the district had seen a population boom as humans flocked to the Citadel, eager for a chance to live right at the heart of the galactic community. Though many of the government employees, including members of the military able to afford an apartment there, lived in on the first Ward, the Seventh District of Ward Arm Four was home to more everyday humans, from merchants and lawyers to restaurant owners and C-Sec officers like Lawson, it had began to take on an atmosphere very much like that of a busy Earth city. Segregation of species was discouraged, both on the principles of equality and because many felt that living in communities of one species utterly defeated the point of living on the Citadel in the first place; while humans were a majority in the district, a little under half the population were still non-humans of various species.

Lawson's apartment was on the third floor of a spacious but small block, at one end of an L-shaped corridor, opposite a turian and asari couple. The turian was the vice-president of a moderately successful food import company that ran through the stardocks two districts across, and his spouse was a chef whose restaurant had contracted with the company. Lawson was on friendly terms with the couple, to the point of co-hosting a drinks party for some workmates a few weeks before the attack.

Stepping through the door, Lawson wasted no time in crossing the room and slumping on his bed, every fibre in his body screaming their tiredness. Sleep came quickly, and Lawson just lay there, fully dressed for a full five hours before the aches in his body woke him up. After ingesting a few pain pills and several glasses of cold water, Lawson took a shower, the hot water pounding out the kinks in his muscles, and clearing the haze of sleep.

Having dried off, and poured himself another glass of water, Lawson took a seat at his modern styled steel desk and switched on his terminal, still only wearing a bathrobe. Almost straight away, he was greeted with an alert informing him of the status of his message inbox. The most recent one must have come through while he was asleep, it was from Chellick and it brought good news. An engineering team had finally arrived to secure the geth dropship's drive core, and mass effect cranes had been brought in to remove both the ship and the a good deal of rubble; three more volus had been found alive, among them Lielle, missing companion of the volus Lawson had helped rescue earlier. Of the six heat signatures that had been detected when Lawson had arrived, that meant two were now dead, but hope had been small anyway; Four survivors from such destruction was near miraculous, and the morale boost it would give other teams was not to be understated. That block was cleared, but Site A still had a long way to go before the efforts there were finished.

Following this was a general email to all C-Sec agents informing them of what Chellick had already told Lawson: the smuggling ring that had been lifting supplies during the chaos of post-battle relief efforts had been definitively shut down, and its members taken into custody.

Finally, there was another email directed solely at Lawson, containing reassignment details. Despite what was going out on the extranet news broadcasts, the problem of smuggling had not been entirely stemmed; C-Sec believed another organisation had been running the show, and would attempt to funnel more key supplies out of the Citadel. Lawson grimaced as he saw the kind of supplies that had already been stolen, save for a few trivial items, the roster listed mainly medical supplies and weapons, including one of the caches of recovered geth weaponry, despite the heavy guard those caches had been under.

The content of the email's text grew more worrisome as Lawson read on, detailing the incapacitating agent that had been used to render the guards unconscious, and noting one Sergeant Shapet Derbon, a salarian, as unaccounted for – kidnapped. For anyone to have infiltrated a chemical weapon into the Citadel was almost unthinkable, even in the immediate chaos after the battle. To have then used it, abducted a high ranking C-Sec officer and escaped with him and a classified cache of weapons recovered only hours earlier, all without detection was simply stunning.

Lawson's assignment was clear: track down the source of this breach and seal it, before any more damage was done. Lawson reached across the desk and picked up a small, black omni-tool. Tracing his hands across the familiar contours of the device's slightly worn casing, he thumbed its activation switch and navigated through the holographic interface until he found the program he required, a quick task given that the program's frequent level of use meant it was placed high on the omni-tool's program library hierarchy. As the tool activated the program, the orange interface hologram shrank back to a sliver around Lawson's wrist, as it would go unused.

"Case reference: BL-161083-C," Lawson said to no one but his omni-tool, "status: open. I'm to investigate a stolen cache of weapons, along with the disappearance of C-Sec officer Shapet Derbon, full name unknown, salarian. No leads at this point. I will investigate the crime scene tomorrow, and collate together information collected from other C-Sec units. Case opened as of 0732 Citadel time."

Lawson had felt more than a little foolish the first time he had made such a recording, on his first case after becoming a C-Sec investigator, but his instructor had ensured him it was a rewarding practice to document each case verbally, and though many of his peers saw it as something of an archaic method, Lawson had found it made making a final case report significantly easier. The numbering system was, by Lawson's own admission, fairly arbitrary, consisting only of his own initials, the date he opened the case on, and whether he was on or off the Citadel at the time. He had, however, been pleasantly surprised when he saw a fellow investigator had been so taken with the idea that he had started to use the same system.

The omni-tool itself had been with Lawson since he had started as an investigator, and had been cutting edge at the time he had received it. Though software updates had allowed it to remain competitive through the years, it had lost its elite status and been surpassed, the latest offerings from the asari Serrice Council consortium being notable examples. In Lawson's mind, however, it remained superior to the Armali Council tools that were standard issue in C-Sec, even if its decryption skills were lacking in comparison to the newer devices.

With his new case now, at least officially, opened, Lawson set off to his kitchen unit in search of breakfast.

Two hours later, Lawson was sat in a comfortable but limited lounge area outside C-Sec's secondary lab facility; limited mainly in the sense that it lacked any form of distraction to pass the time. He had been waiting for half an hour, having been told by a lab technician that the results of the tests they were running would be ready in ten minutes, and tinkering with his omni-tool had only gone so far to relieve the boredom.

A door hissed open, and Lawson looked up hopefully, only to see that it was the door to the main reception that had opened, not the lab door. Lawson was about to return his focus to the ever-present omni-tool when three figures stepped through the open door. Though he did not recognise the asari, or the human woman, he certainly recognised the turian – Chellick, once again.

"Chellick?" Lawson spoke up before he even realised he'd opened his mouth.

"Lawson?" Chellick replied, his voice carrying a tone of mild surprise identical to Lawson's own, "two days in a row, Ben? I may just start to suspect you're following me."

"Hey, I was here first," Lawson replied with a grin, "they got you back to regular work too?" he asked, his eyes flicking between the two women beside Chellick. On paper, the turian's job was little different from Lawson's, but he knew all too well that Chellick ran an exceptionally tidy undercover squad, though frequently Chellick would deal with informants himself.

"Of course," Chellick said, raising his hard brow with a suddenness that seemed to make his bright green eyes flash, a turian analogy to a wink, "have you met Hellissa?" he gestured to the asari, who wore a loose, flowing green gown over a darker tight-fitting suit, which to Lawson's eyes resembled a cross between a human catsuit and a stripped down version of his own C-Sec body armour. Her face was as serene and composed as all the asari Lawson had met, so human in its form despite the blue skin tone and the twisted skin folds on the back of the head, and shone with an ethereal radiance that Lawson remained unsure was really there or just his mind applying visualisation to the asari's inherent grace.

"She's a dancer, would you believe? And she's agreed to help me with a new investigation I'm starting." Chellick went on. Lawson regarded her again, taking note of the lithe but full figure barely concealed under the bodysuit, and her careful poise. But he saw with a trained eye that while supple, she seemed too large in build to be a dancer, her stance just a little too rigid and formal. Her pale blue eyes were what truly gave her away, however, set among the serenity of her even face, they seemed too sharp and focused, and with a jolt Lawson realised that she was looking at him with the same searching, analytical gaze that he was regarding her with.

"Well that's good news," Lawson said, a hint of mirth in his voice, "but I wasn't aware there was much crime in the Thetessian House." The asari gave a soft chuckle, flowing over her lips like water on a stone. The Thetessian House was one of the Citadel's most glamorous and well-renowned performance theatres, and the dancers and singers that performed there were among the best in Citadel space – and almost universally asari. Hellissa rewarded Lawson's compliment with a warm smile, and Chellick gave a brief laugh of his own.

"I never realised you could be such a charmer, Ben, I may just have to make use of you one day."

"Alright, so long as you never try to pass one of your informants past me," Lawson said with a smile, "I may not have had to in a while, but I can still spot your informants when I look properly. So where did you find her, commandos?"

"No, though that's an entertaining idea. Hellissa?"

"I'll put that down as another attempt at flattery, Mr Lawson," Hellissa said, her voice light, "but I'm actually from a multi-species security agency working through asari space and the Attican Traverse, and I've got very little information on me in government databases, so I'm in a far better position to infiltrate a Citadel crime ring than an asari commando. And if you don't believe the detective, believe me when I say I can dance. Very well." Hellissa smiled again.

"Oh, I believe you. So where are you going, Chora's?" It was Chellick who answered Lawson's question.

"No, since Fist's removal it seems the Citadel's criminal underbelly has moved on to less high profile venues. Hellissa's going into the Silent Serpent bar, they've a good rotation of asari and human dancers, and a less than healthy volume of criminal patrons. And we both know a barely clothed asari can be very hard for your average criminal to resist spilling things to." Chellick said, green eyes flashing again.

"Can get quite rough in there, if I hear right," Lawson said pointedly. Hellissa simply shrugged, "and what about your other friend?" Lawson looked over the woman on Chellick's other side, taking in her pale hazel eyes and light cream skin, her mouth curled to one side in a half smile. "she's also very pretty, but judging by her more serious composure I'd say you were trying to get her in as a personal assistant. With her hair tied up like that, and a pair of glasses, I'm sure she'd look the epitome of professionalism."

At this, Chellick laughed again, his eyes glittering.

"Detective Lawson," he said, stifling his laughter, "allow me to introduce Kate Harrow. She's helping with my investigation, but she certainly isn't an informer. Kate?"

Kate smiled again and extended her hand, which Lawson took, "I'm with the Financial and Economics Crime squad, C-Sec Investigation division." She said, and her grin widened as Lawson was momentarily taken aback.

"Well what can I say, clearly I'm not as good at reading people as I let myself think." He said cheerily.

"Don't worry about it, Lawson. She nearly had me going too when she was assigned to the case," Chellick chimed in, "nearly." He repeated with a smirk.

With that, the turian detective said his goodbyes to Lawson and ushered his companions across the lounge and into a conference room on the other side. Lawson was about to retake his place on the seats when a voice came from behind him.

"Detective Lawson, we're ready for you." Lawson turned to see a salarian stood at the door to the laboratory, a lab coat wearing asari next to him.

"I must confess, things have not turned out quite the way I would have expected them." The salarian said, his lilting voice containing an unquestionable tone of surprise. "Whatever chemical was used to incapacitate the officers guarding the supplies was exceptionally fast acting and reactive. Medical examination showed no traces of the agent remaining. A lack of physical evidence forced us to turn to more… abstract clues."

"Like what?" Lawson asked, "security cam footage?"

"Ah," the salarian gave an approximation of a human smile, "a good suggestion, and indeed that was our next port of call. Unfortunately, the cameras were cut long before the theft took place."

"They were cut?" Lawson queried, surprised, "and no one noticed?" The muscles in the salarian's forehead tensed, drawing the two bony peaks on his head together and narrowing the top of his eyes, an expression of disapproval in salarians.

"Detective," he said, his tone a perfect counterpart to his expression, "the majority of C-Sec is still attempting relief work on the damaged areas of the Citadel. Manning a bank of monitors to watch for an event that may or may not happen is hardly an efficient use of time under the circumstances."

"I suppose," Lawson sighed, "it still seems a little sloppy to me."

"Well, sloppy or not, there is nothing that can be done about it now," the salarian said pragmatically, "you were close to our solution though. We attempted to pull audio records from the guards helmet sensors."

"Excellent," Lawson smiled, "what did you find?"

"Very little," the salarian said pointedly, "the thieves were exceptionally thorough. They wiped the helmet recorders."

"They wiped them? How?"

"With a signal from an omni-tool, rather similar to a tech mine I suspect."

"I didn't even know that was possible."

"Oh, anything's possible if one is determined enough." The salarian said, a point of view that seemed to Lawson rather too vague for one of his kind. "That is, however, irrelevant. We were able to salvage some data."

"Well that's good!" Lawson exclaimed, "did you find anything about the captured officer?" The salarian blinked twice, and his left eye narrowed slightly. Surprise, perhaps, Lawson wondered.

"You are remarkably astute, Detective," The salarian said simply, "the information we were able to retrieve, the information that was pertinent to the case at least, was indeed with regards to our missing officer. And here is where things begin to differ from my expectations."

The salarian sat down at a console next to the asari scientist, who thus far had remained silent. He manipulated the controls, bringing up a holographic projection above the console; the image was of a transparent orange line. Further use of the controls gave rise to a distorted, incoherent noise through a set of speakers at the console's base, the orange line jumped erratically at the sound, great peaks forming, themselves broken into many other smaller deviations.

"As you can see and hear, there was a lot of static interference from the attempted wipe. Three hundred years of work have left my colleague Alleya here with a good deal of expertise in this field."

"One can find a hidden meaning to any noise with enough patience and the right software," the hitherto mute asari Alleya said softly, beaming, "this one wasn't even particularly difficult."

Alleya typed in a few commands of her own, and the noise became distinctly clearer, while the dancing orange line became smoother and more defined. Though a strong buzz remained, Lawson could now pick out what sounded like voices. Suddenly, the high, clear voice of a salarian broke the discordance.

"-orning, Kerrivus. I'm your relief." The static buzzed strongly for a moment.

"Oh, hey Derbon. I didn't know you were on duty." Came the muted double toned voice of a turian.

"Shift change, decided an asari was more useful down on the site than me."

"That's fair enough I-" the turian was interrupted by a high pitched whirring audible even through the harsh static. "Do you hear – ugh!" The static buzzed even more strongly, and the sound of the turian clattering to the floor was barely audible. Lawson glanced sharply at Alleya, who merely shrugged and gestured at the console.

"This is Shapet, move in. All the guards are-" The squawking of the static reached a crescendo, and the sound lost any distinction.

"We took that recording from officer Kerrivus' helmet," the salarian said, the clarity of his voice seeming almost strange to Lawson after the warped conversation he had just heard. "The recorder unit was wiped immediately after that."

"So Shapet wasn't kidnapped?" Lawson asked, stunned.

"Indeed not, it would appear he was an inside agent and that the kidnapping was staged."

"Jesus!" Lawson cried, "what does that mean?"

"It means, Detective, that he can be tracked."

"Right, where did he have access to?" Lawson's voice quickened.

"I don't have that information, Detective. I believe such investigation would be your job."

"Yeah, thanks." Lawson said sharply, groaning inwardly with mild embarrassment. Scientists were all the same: all brains and no tact. "I guess I'd better get on that then. Thanks for the information."

"Not at all, Detective. It is my job, after all." The salarian said, Lawson was unsure whether or not he saw the trace of a smile.