Chapter 43: Politics
Rah stood in the conference room of the Normandy leaning against a wall while he waited for the rest of those that were to be at the summit to show up. For what seemed like ages, Rah practiced a calming exercise that he'd been taught to help deal with his early PSTD. He never would have imagined that negotiating for humanity's very survival would end up being worse on him than his childhood with Cerberus and living on Ilium had been.
Rah's mind drifted to the woman that had taught him the breathing and mind wiping exercise and a smile came to his face. The only good thing about Ilium had been that woman, the one of two Asari on a planet full of them who he didn't want to tear apart with his hands. The woman that had become the mother he needed in some of his darkest days.
Rah was lost in his thoughts and didn't hear the heavy boot falls of two of the others that would be attending the summit.
"You clean up well." Shepard's smirking voice pulled him from his thoughts. Rah looked up to see her and Primarch Victus entering the small room together.
"You said that the last time too." Rah smirked back, rubbing a hand over his freshly shaven head.
During the two day trip to Sur'kesh, the planet over which the summit was to be held, Rah had found out that Lommy had been a barber before joining the marines. Rah took the chance to make himself more presentable with a shave and a haircut from the older soldier. In place of looking like he'd just been pulled off the streets with unkempt growth on both his face on his head, Rah now looked like the marine he was. The lack of any hair on his now bald head showed off a tattoo of what looked like claw marks that covered up surgery scars from his past with Cerberus. Most people only saw the ink, and found him to be more intimidating because of it, very few however saw the scars underneath, just like with the rest of his ink.
"Least this time you have the hard job." Shepard smirked at him. "No more playing bodyguard, time to be in the room with the grown ups."
"Well, fuck you too. At least you're not the one negotiating for the survival of every race in the galaxy."
"No, I'm the one making sure you don't kill everyone."
While Rah chuckled at the retort, he noticed that Victus was nodding his head in understanding. Victus had found out through some means just what could happen if Rah snapped, apparently, Victus understood and even sympathized with him.
"We going to be having the old giant lizard with us?" Rah asked. He received his answer by way of another pair of even heavier boot falls being heard crashing through the ship.
Rah smirked when he heard alarms going off at the security checkpoint just outside the room. Into the room, burst a clearly unhappy Wrex.
"Stand down Campbell." Rah and Shepard both barked to the female security officer who followed Wrex in, an assault rifle in her hands.
"But Sir, Ma'am." Campbell sputtered, but both Rah and Shepard ignored her.
"Shepard!" Wrex greeted the N7, sweeping her up into a hug.
"Don't break her Lizard." Rah chuckled, seeing Shepard's face begin to go blue.
"Do what he says Wrex." Shepard gasped out, returning the hug as best she could.
"Carmine." Wrex replied in a grumble, putting Shepard down. Wrex and Rah shook hands, Rah couldn't help but notice that the Krogan completely ignored Victus.
"We waiting on anyone else?" Wrex asked, finally glancing at the Primarch.
"The Dalatrass." Rah shrugged. "Only Salarian that I know who's late to anything."
"Commander, The Salarian Dalatrass is requesting permission to board." Joker's voice asked over the Ship comms.
"Let her on Joker." Shepard responded, looking up at the ceiling slightly.
"So the devil was spoken of." Rah snickered.
For the few minutes that the four waited for the Dalatrass, a heavy silence settled over all of them. Only the sounds of the Dalatrass' light footsteps broke the silence between the veteran soldiers. Rah held in a smirk at realizing only the Dalatrass had not been proven as a commander of soldiers and armies. Rah knew that the closest the Dalatrass had come to it, was ordering assassinations.
Rah looked up with a smirk to the perturbed one of the Salarian Dalatrass. Rah felt a kind of pride at seeing the Dalatrass, someone that was normally prepared for everything and always early, to be the late one.
The Dalatrass looked between the four soldiers, sizing them all up as she entered the room. Rah could tell just from the woman's body language, that she considered herself to have this in her favor. Rah would be glad to prove her to be completely wrong.
After a minute more of heavy silence, no one had yet to break it.
"Well, now that we're all here." Rah broke the silence, pushing away from the wall. "Let's get right to it."
Rah looked between the three of them. If it wasn't for Victus and Wrex in the room, Rah likely would have played the game of the Dalatrass. However, Rah knew what he needed, and the Salarians were not that high on his list.
"So, I need the Turian fleets and Krogan ground units." Rah spoke, almost ignoring the Dalatrass. "Primarch, you need the Krogan to get me the fleets that you can spare. Warmaster, you need something to give me and the Primarch the aid that you can."
Rah looked around at the surprised face of the Dalatrass and the smirking faces of Victus and Wrex. Both men knew what he was doing and were relieved to know he wasn't playing to the Salarian.
"So Wrex, what do you want?" Rah asked, turning to look Wrex in the eyes.
"I'll tell you what I need." Wrex smirked.
"The Krogan is in no position to make demands here!" The Dalatrass exclaimed, making an attempt to try and pull the summit into her direction of negotiations.
"The Krogan has a name." Rah snarled to the Salarian.
"Urdnot Wrex." Wrex butted in, his voice a low growl. "I'm not just some verrin you can unleash to clean up your mess."
"No shit Wrex." Rah replied, snapping the attention of everyone in the room to himself. "Now, you going to tell me what it is you need or not?"
"A cure," Wrex replied smugly. "for the Genophage."
"Absolutely not! The Genophage is not up for negotiations!" The Dalatrass exclaimed, dismissing the demand altogether, or at least she thought.
"The Krogan have paid for their mistakes." Rah spoke, crossing his arms over his chest. "I'm damn sure the Krogan have paid their debt for longer than necessary."
Both Wrex and Shepard gave Rah a look of surprise. Rah had kept his views on the Genophage hidden for some time. He knew that it had its uses, but it was something created out of brash and desperate need for a quick solution.
"One thousand four hundred and seventy six years. If you're keeping track." Wrex returned, regaining his composure.
"A thousand years of peace free from you brutes!" The Dalatrass returned.
A heavy slam of hands of the table in the room brought the attention of everyone to Victus.
"Enough! Whether or not they deserve a cure is academic! It would take years for a cure to be made, let alone distributed." Victus told them all.
"Someone did their homework." Shepard muttered behind Rah.
"My information says otherwise." Wrex smirked, pulling up his omni-tool.
"Make that two." Rah returned to Shepard, who bit back a chuckle.
"A Salarian named Maleon grew a conscious. He was testing a cure on our females." Wrex spoke, hitting a few keys on his omni-tool.
"Not in the ways that it should have been done, not by a long shot." Rah told the others in the room, a dark look passing over his face.
"Some of the females survived his experiments." Wrex told them all, looking up from his omni-tool. The device projected a paused video onto an empty all of the room.
"The Dalatrass here sent in a team to clean up, taking them prisoner." Wrex continued, and the video began playing.
The video was a very short clip, only seconds long. It was from a chest mounted camera that was shaky and the movements of the person wearing it were fast and unsteady, sure sign of a Salarian being the owner of the camera. The camera panned to six small cells, in each one, a larger form, that of a Krogan female, could be seen within.
"Where did you get this?! I-it could be a fabrication!" The Dalatrass spoke, trying to deny what was being seen.
"Don't insult him Dalatrass." Rah advised. "I've been on the business end of a pissed off Krogan before, not a fun time."
"Those are my people in there! You're going to give them back to me!" Wrex exclaimed. Rah knew that Wrex was stating a fact this time, not making a demand.
"Dalatrass is this true?" Victus asked, stepping towards the woman.
"How will curing the Genophage benefit my people?" The woman asked, stepping back, almost out of fear.
"Let me put it this way. You give the Krogan's a cure, voluntarily, and you don't need to fight a war with the Krogans, Turians, and humans as the ones kicking your door in." Rah spoke, surprising everyone in the room.
"You're bluffing." The Dalatrass countered, her eyes narrowing.
"Try me." Rah replied in a cool and even voice. "Even now, I've got a dreadnaught waiting just a relay jump away. That one dreadnought will destroy your response ships and start putting holes in your planet, starting with your family's breeding facilities."
A heavy and thick silence fell over everyone in the room. Rah's deathly calm and the Dalatrass' decision hanging in the air.
"Dalatrass, if you don't accept this, I will be the last friendly Turian you ever se." Victus spoke up, breaking the silence.
The Dalatrass closed her eyes and let out a heavy breath. "The females are being kept in one of our STG bases on the plant below."
"Wrex, Victus, shall we go and get the ball rolling?" Rah asked, managing to make the room warmer only with his voice.
"Commander Shepard. As a Council Spectre, and as a member of the Alliance military, I appoint you to oversee the transfer of the females from the STG base to Urdnot Wrex." Rah turned to Shepard.
"Yes Sir." Shepard replied with a salute, clearly holding in a smile.
"I warn you General." Dalatrass spoke just as Rah began to leave the room. "A bully has few friends when he really needs them."
Rah burst out laughing at the Dalatrass. "You really think I don't know that? I got what I wanted out of this. In the end, I really don't care if you give me the support of the Salarians. I have other ways to get the backing of the STG and your military, and it doesn't involve you in any way, shape, or form."
The Dalatrass was stunned at this. Rah however didn't look back when he left the room, there was someone he needed to go check up on, someone that actually he had an amount of respect for unlike the Dalatrass.
"Bold move of you Rah." Shepard spoke to him, following him into the elevator.
"I'm just glad she didn't call my bluff." Rah replied, letting out a sigh of relief.
"You're a really good Skyllian-Five player. I'm just wondering if you hadn't been bluffing, would you have followed up on the threat if you had to?" Shepard asked him, a worried look in her eyes.
"Yes." Rah replied without blinking an eye. "I don't have time for politics Sarge. There's a reason that dictators get things done, if I need to be, I will become one."
"That isn't you though." Shepard pleaded with him.
"People like us don't get a choice Sarge," he sighed out, his shoulders slumping. "we are forced to become things we don't want to become, for the greater good."
"If I do become one, just promise me something, will ya Sarge?"
"Anything."
"Keep Jack safe, and don't stop me until the war's over."
The elevator doors hissed open and Rah didn't stay long enough for Shepard to give him an answer.
Rah stopped just outside the doors to the medbay, taking a minute to compose himself. When he stepped into the room, a smile lit his face when his eyes fell on Jack's sleeping form.
"How's she doing Doc?" Rah asked in a hushed voice.
"She's doing well. No sign of any brain injury nor of any Reaper tech still lingering in her." Chakwas replied with a smile to him, her smile faded when she saw the marine's head.
"What happened here?" She asked, lightly touching his scarred scalp.
"Cerberus. One of the experiments that they tried on me and the others required cutting our heads open. I was the only one to make it out. Needless to say, they didn't try that one on her." Rah replied, looking at Jack as she slept, smiling when he heard her lightly snoring.
"You were…" Chakwas began her hand raising up to her mouth.
"Yeah. Only Jack and I are left from those kids. The ones that escaped, they were either killed by me, or committed suicide."
"You… You killed the other children from that project?" Chakwas' eyes were like saucers. The elderly woman had somehow managed to find out about the Cerberus project to create the perfect human biotic.
"Jack isn't different from the rest of them. Only a few of us tried to do something with our lives. Those that didn't turn to crime, they tried to become better, like me. They didn't have someone to support them in their hard few years after escaping though.
"The ones that turned to crime, it was my job to hunt them down and kill them or take them in. They were too much for the galaxy to handle, and had to be removed. Jack was going to be my last kill, but then she took something from me."
"What-?" Chakwas asked, dumbfounded, and Rah gave her a smile.
"My heart."
Rah walked over to Jack's prone form and sat down on the bed with her. Even in her sleep, Jack seemed to feel him next to her and reached out to find him. Rah took her hand in his, simply holding it and feeling himself being anchored back into the world. If it wasn't for Jack, Rah knew that he wouldn't be able to keep himself the same, he wouldn't be able to stop himself from being the dictator that would pull the galaxy through the War with the Reapers, he wouldn't stop himself from being lost to that power that would come.
