*CITADEL*
Sizzling, hot projectiles flew in every conceivable direction. Chaos reigned as three Humans, a stiff looking Turian, and an angry Krogan blasted their way into the now barricaded Chora's Den. Fist's security detail was doing their best holding them off, but were inevitably being pushed further back into the club's shadowed corridors. Facing off against three biotics, one of which was Krogan, a C-Sec agent, and a gun crazy Marine only left room for one outcome. Still, the time it took to convince Fist's underlings that it was a lost cause was starting to irritate Shepard.
"I swear if that guy says 'GO GO GO' one more time, I'm gonna rip his ass out through his eye socket." The Commander shouted over the gunfire.
That got a hearty laugh from the Krogan. "And I thought I had anger issues."
"You don't know the half of it. This one time…" Kaidan started as he let off a series of potshots from behind an upturned stripper platform, but he wasn't able to finish his story.
"GO GO GO!"
Shepard's eyes flared in tandem with the biotic conflagration surrounding him. "GGYYYAAAAHHHH!" He shouted with inarticulate rage as he vaulted over the bar to blindly charge toward the hapless man standing at the back room's entrance.
All remaining enemy guns turned in the direction of the onrushing maniac. Only a few had the chance to discharge their deadly payloads before Shepard's team took full advantage of their distraction. As every hired goon hit the deck, riddled with bullet holes, the Commander reached his wide-eyed target. The terrified man's shaking rifle swung into line, but was roughly batted out of his grip. He frantically backpedaled, reaching for the sidearm at his belt, but hadn't even reached half the distance needed to draw the weapon before one of the Commander's gauntlets wrapped around his collar and shoved him up against the closest wall.
The helpless man threw his arms up trying to protect his face, but Shepard's armored fist easily swung through the gaps to smash unprotected bones and facial tissue. Shepard took hold of the goon's collar with both hands. "Come on! Say it again!"
Tears mixed with blood ran down the man's face. "Say… say what I? Please don't kill me!"
He pleaded through the distinct honking gurgle of a broken nose.
"You think that helps? You think ANYONE gains ANYTHING from you constantly saying the same word over and over?" He punched the whimpering man again although not nearly as hard as the first time.
"N…no, I'm sorry."
The Commander looked ready to haul off and slug him again, but relaxed somewhat. "You have access to Fist's back room?"
His captive nodded quickly like a drowning man reaching for a life preserver. "Yes I do. Right here." He shakily retrieved an access card from one of his armor's pockets and held it up.
"Good." Shepard grumbled, snatching the card and the man's pistol. He twirled the gun around to point it back in its owner's face. "I think you should find a different line of work."
The man nodded with his hands still up. Shepard started to turn away toward the door but suddenly whirled around and screwed his new pistol's muzzle into the man's cheek. "And another thing. Telling everyone 'The enemy is everywhere' doesn't mean shit if we all came in through the ONLY entrance!"
Once again a horrified nod was the Commander's only reply. "Good. Now get the hell out of here."
Without any more encouragement the merc hastily slinked away with a boot to his backside from Garrus as extra motivation. Shepard triumphantly held up the key card with a satisfied smirk.
"Would have been faster to just kill him." Wrex pointed out as the team converged on the door to Fist's inner sanctum.
"But infinitely less entertaining to watch." Garrus commented which elicited barely covered half-smiles from the others. No one seemed to notice or indeed care that they had just been in life threatening danger.
Shepard shrugged. "Well, he was pissing me off. Besides, I for one didn't want to go digging through all their pockets trying to find our ticket in." He turned to insert the key card and open the door.
"What doesn't piss you off?" Ashley teased.
"Puppies." He replied sarcastically as the door whisked open.
They quickly passed through the intervening corridor leading to Fist's chamber before flooding through the second door and on to the main event. The man himself, clad in shiny black armor, popped up from the cover of his desk to spray shotgun flavored death at the intruders. Meanwhile, a pair of weapon emplacements to either side of him showered everything in front of them with a deluge of bullets. Fist had obviously been given a heads up that someone was coming to get him.
"Target the Krogan first!." Fist shouted to the VI controlling the turrets. "GO GO GO."
Fist's face crinkled in confusion as Shepard screamed from the other end of the room. "Goddamnit!" His confusion only deepened when he thought he heard laughing.
Apparently that had been the wrong thing to say as a concentrated burst of crushing biotic force slammed into one of his drone's to send it crashing backward off its perch. His face visibly dropped as another orb of biotic plasma splashed over the second drone and immediately set to work dissolving the molecular bonds holding it together. Even as the club owner's backup disintegrated and unceremoniously exploded, a steady stream of fire continued to pepper his desk.
He suddenly jumped up from cover with a shout and let loose with his shotgun. After only a single blast, several answering bullets impacted his chest. He crumpled backward to the floor, though a keen eye would have noticed that his armor's shields were still in place.
In an instant, Shepard's team converged on his prone form with weapons raised. "Don't shoot, I surrender!"
Shepard looked ready to shoot him anyway, but managed to get his irritation under control. He still didn't lower his weapon, however. "Where's the Quarian?"
"I don't know where she is, that's the truth." Fist lied with his hands up.
Wrex snorted and wracked the slide of his shotgun. "He's no good to you now. Let me kill him."
"Wait, wait. I don't know where she is but I know where you can find her." Fist frantically backpedaled.
Shepard's eyebrows converged. He was getting annoyed again. "That doesn't make any goddamn sense. Where is she?"
"In a back alley by the markets." Fist said quickly as he stood up.
"Why was she going there?" Garrus asked dubiously.
"She was under the impression she'd be meeting with the Shadow Broker."
Wrex shook his head. "Impossible. Nobody knows who he is. Even I was hired through an agent."
"So let me guess. Saren's goons are going to be waiting there for her instead." Kaidan spat after putting the pieces together.
"You can still get to her if you hurry." Fist ventured as a little damage control, and hoped the time crunch would leave him as a loose end instead of a corpse.
The Commander gritted his teeth, but spun on his heel to hurry back the way they'd come. Fist breathed a sigh of relief which caught in his throat when Shepard spoke back over his shoulder. "We had a deal, Wrex. Make it quick."
The Krogan cackled menacingly. "With pleasure."
The pain didn't even register in Fist's brain before the contents of his head were turned into hamburger.
*CITADEL*
"Fist set me up! I knew I couldn't trust him!" The Quarian snarled indignantly while climbing back to her feet.
"Are you ok? Did they hurt you?" Kaidan asked, extending his hand to help her.
She tentatively accepted his assistance to stand. "I'm fine. I can look after myself." She glanced about at the veritable war zone around her. "Most of the time." Her masked visage returned to the strange group in front of her. "Who are you and what is he staring at?"
Shepard quickly snapped his gaze back to where her eyes glowed behind her helmet visor. 'How can they stand on legs like that?' he mentally asked himself in utter fascination. "I was just… Well anyway. My name's Commander Shepard of the Alliance. This is Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko and Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams who serve with me aboard the SSV Normandy. This is Garrus Vakarian, a C-Sec detective, and the pretty one there is Urdnot Wrex."
"Prettier than you." Wrex rumbled under his breath.
Shepard ignored him. "We were told you had information linking the Spectre, Saren to the Geth?"
She nodded but conspicuously kept her firearm at the ready. This ragtag group seemed a little off somehow. "That's right. What's your interest in it?"
The Commander half-turned to gesture to each of his comrades. "Ashley's entire squad was wiped out by Saren and his Geth on Eden Prime. Both Kaidan and I lost our shipmate in the same fight. Garrus here was in charge of the investigation, and Wrex… well I don't really know what Wrex wants with Saren, but I assume it's probably because he doesn't have anything else going on at the moment."
Wrex shrugged but didn't correct him.
Shepard turned back to the Quarian and resisted the urge to sneak another peek at her legs. "What was your name, by the way? Dr. Michelle didn't say."
His reference to the doctor helped to lower the Quarian's defenses enough that she stowed her shotgun on the magnetic catches on her suit's back. "Tali'Zorah nar Rayya. But Tali'Zorah or Tali is fine."
"Ok then, Tali. Before I'm willing to ride those elevators for half the day again, can you give me an idea of what it is you found? No details are necessary, I just want to be sure we've got what we need." Shepard stated evenly.
She hesitated for a moment, obviously weighing whether to accept him at face value or not. Since he either seemed particularly shy when he was talking to her or she had something stuck to her shin. "It's an audio recording I recovered from a disabled Geth. He's the one speaking and mentions the attack on your colony."
Again, Shepard's eyes seemed to want to flutter downward, but he maintained her gaze with an intense stare of his own at her last statement. "That's… perfect! Would you mind heading up with us to the Human embassy so we can get the ball rolling?"
Again she hesitated. She'd just been severely burnt only a few minutes ago when trying to trade this particularly hot information. How could she trust this eccentric Human was on the up and up?
He noticed her body language shift. "I understand your reservations. These guys probably sounded exactly the same way before pulling guns on you." He gestured to the bodies of Saren's goons. "So how about this. Everyone else will take a cab up while you and I…" He visibly cringed. "We'll take the elevators."
Ashley immediately protested. "Commander, that means we'll be waiting up there for over an hour!"
"You don't have to rub salt in it, Chief." He snapped. Then turned to Tali again. "Unless you're ok with riding in a cab with one, or two of us?" His pitch raised slightly from the hope that she would agree.
His hopes died as she shrank away ever so slightly. "Not to seem rude or ungrateful but riding in any vehicle provided by someone else to a place I've never been…" She trailed off.
Before Wrex and Garrus had the chance to simply grab the girl and haul her to the embassy by force, Shepard laid out an alternative. "Ok, how about this. You four go grab a bite and then head up to the tower. We'll meet you there. Deal?"
Wrex seemed especially keen on the idea as he tried to mask his enthusiasm with a neutral nod. Both Kaidan and Garrus shrugged and nodded which left Ashley. "Yes, sir." Her teeth grinding was almost audible.
Shepard looked to Tali. "That work for you?"
She nodded.
"Good. Then break and we'll see you in a few." His companions turned to leave. "And don't forget to get me something too. Wait, where do you think you'll go?"
Kaidan surprisingly piped up first. "I heard there's a place called O'malley's down on the Chalta Ward that's got good steak and a seasonal brew."
Garrus looked skeptical. "Never been. They serve dextro?"
Kaidan shrugged. "Didn't really ask but it was a Turian over on the market's upper floor that recommended it so it feels like a safe bet."
"Speaking of which, this gonna be on your tab, Shepard?" Wrex inquired pointedly.
The Commander considered his next words very carefully. One didn't just offer to buy a full grown Krogan a meal without gauging the impact to his credit balance. "I'll buy and even throw in drinks…" Wrex could barely contain the evil grin worming its way onto his face before Shepard finished. "As acceptance of your employment with me until Saren buys the farm."
That last bit halted the Krogan's triumphant exultation for a full three seconds as it was now his turn to consider. He raised an eyebrow while openly appraising the diminutive Human in front of him. "Deal. Till he buys the farm."
"That means till we kill him." Shepard clarified quickly as he shook the Krogan's massive paw.
"Yeah, yeah I got it." Wrex grunted.
"Now that that's settled, let's get moving. I've a mind to piss off some politicians today. Kaidan, biggest, juiciest steak they have and one of those seasonal ales too." He turned to the Quarian. "What about you?"
Her body language easily belied her shock at the question. "Me? You mean like… something to eat?"
Shepard was genuinely puzzled for a moment. "Um, yes? Aren't you hungry?"
"No… well I mean yes I am but… well I don't know. It's just that normally people don't offer something like that to someone like me." She stumbled over her words trying to articulate what she was trying to convey without offending him.
Again the Commander was utterly stumped. 'Someone like her? Is she a criminal or something, and that's also why her suit looks so beat up? Or is it offensive to her people to be offered a meal? Maybe she's on a diet? Damn she noticed me looking at her legs again.'
He tried to play it off by letting his gaze smoothly transition to the deck plates before turning his head to silently request an assist from the others. Fortunately, Garrus came to the rescue. "Quarians aren't exactly held in the highest regard around here. Mostly they're seen as vagrants and thieves."
"Oh… well whatever." Shepard shrugged. Tali didn't seem like either, albeit he knew exactly two things about her. More than enough to make a snap judgment on her character as a person. "So, what should they get you?"
"I… well I guess a few tubes of nutrient paste would be ok. Thank you." She stammered meekly.
Shepard didn't even begin to hide his expression of distaste. "Nutrient paste? I don't think I even want to know. Garrus, can you find something appropriate? Preferably something that doesn't come in a tube?"
The Turian chuckled. "It's your dime, so I think I can manage something."
"Ok, can we go now? Saren's probably burned through half the galaxy already." Ashley huffed, reminding everyone of the actual task at hand.
"You heard the lady. Get the lead out. We'll swing by Udina's office and then meet you all up in the tower." Shepard acquiesced. The four headed off back toward the markets while he gestured back toward the lifts that would take them to the Presidium. "Shall we?"