The first impression Shepard got about the godforsaken rock he was on was that it was bitterly, bitterly cold. The air temperature was twenty degrees Celsius below freezing, and the fact that there was a howling blizzard that yanked powerfully on his ankle-length coat and had made landing all but impossible in the first place made matters significantly worse. The second was that this world was bright, which was somewhat unsurprising given that it was encased in ice and snow which gave every surface a glare that stabbed at the assassin's retinas, even with the compensating tint of the goggles of his black recon hood.
There was, however, a monomolecular lining of silver to the situation, which was that with visibility reduced to the point that Shepard could just see his feet if he strained to do so, and the storm playing havoc with the shuttle's instruments, the probability of being detected even if anyone could be bothered to scan this wretched excuse for a planet was practically zero. Oh, and it meant that he didn't have to bother with arctic camouflage.
Using the shuttle as a point of reference, he managed to make his way to the coordinates of the rendezvous, only to find it deserted. Not that that meant much; there could be a squad of melee specialists ten metres away, and he'd be completely oblivious to their presence, and, theoretically at least, they of his. Switching the filters on his recon hood to thermal gave his vision a slight boost, insofar as that he could see a slight temperature spike in the distance on three sides, which left him almost completely surrounded. An unfortunate position-if they knew he was there. If not, well...
"On your knees, human." Damn.
"Operative Thanatos, Systems Alliance N7 Covert Operations Division. I'm here to make a munitions delivery, although I was under the impression you didn't want it coming from the barrel of my gun." Shepard called over the wind's dirge, keeping his tone as mild as he could, though his right hand crept towards the Karpov attached to his right thigh.
"Then where are our weapons?" The batarian voice spoke triumphantly.
"They aren't your weapons yet, friend. The package remains the property of my employers until you show us the intelligence you offered. As such, the weapons have been hidden, and will remain so until I can verify your end of the transaction. Which also involves identifying yourselves."
"Stop being a fool and give him the countersign, Rachak!"
"Fine! Rachak Dal'resah, formerly of the Leviathan research project, now a... malcontent, conspiring with your upstart species against my own. Good enough?"
"It'll do. Shall we get started?"
The heat signatures converged, and resolved vaguely into five batarians approaching him, armed with an assortment of weapons which were all trained on him. Shepard subtly brought his hand away from his sidearm, wanting to bring negotiations to a more civil state if possible. In any case, if they were determined to be hostile, it would be a simple enough matter to evade and even annihilate them in these weather conditions, particularly with his cloaking device.
A sixth form resolved too, slightly off to one side, anomalous in its unarmed state and the fact that the batarian's first words spoken in person were "Put your weapons down, you imbeciles. We need him, and not riddled with holes- not that any of you lot are likely to be able to manage anything of the sort..."
Surprisingly, his comrades complied, if with poor grace, and moved aside to allow the moderate to approach the human. "Katarn Dal'rho, formerly a Lieutenant in the Special Interventions Unit, now the leader of this merry band of malcontents."
Despite, or perhaps to an extent as a result of, Katarn's more amicable manner, Shepard was immediately more wary of this one than the entirety of his escort. Not much was really known of the SIU, which was probably one reason for its infamy, but anyone that had held a commission amidst their ranks was someone to be watched with extreme caution and prejudice, if the watcher's survival instincts were intact, at least.
However, when a hand was proffered, Shepard shook it, taking care to ensure that if his head was tilted, it was tilted to the left, which indicated respect in the batarian culture. "Well, it's good to see that someone has a proper grasp on the realities of the situation." He said cordially, although he couldn't quite manage warmth. "I suppose you, like my superiors, are eager for our little transaction to run as quickly and smoothly as possible."
"Of course. Our base is this way." The batarian said, gesturing back over his shoulder, then moving ahead. Shepard followed close behind, but with enough of a gap between him and Katarn that the batarian would be seen a comfortable period of time before him. And to give him a window within which to react if he became hostile. The assassin was rather less concerned about those behind him.
The low entrance to the underground network of tunnels loomed out of the driving snow within a couple of minutes, although Shepard wasn't paying as much attention to the passage of time as he was to space, in the event that he needed to make a quick exit. Whilst Katarn seemed trusting enough not to insist on a blindfold or other such absurdities, he wasn't enough of a fool to allow Thaddaeus to see the access codes to the base, which they entered shortly thereafter.
The base had been more or less carved out of the ice that covered the planet, and its interior was Spartan in nature, the only constant being metallic panels on the ground to increase the friction of the floor. Shepard was escorted into a communal area that appeared to double as both mess and briefing room, where, so it appeared, the vast majority of the cell had gathered to greet the human representative, with an almost overwhelmingly hostile atmosphere.
Someone else might have been intimidated; however, Shepard was used to being surrounded by those that despised him. At Katarn's beckoning, he stood before the entire room, at the ex-lieutenant's side, presumably the focus of some sort of morale-boosting speech; after all, the specimens assembled here seemed far from optimistic. Not that they had much to be optimistic about, when one considered the probability of success against a state with the resources and scruples of the Hegemony.
"Brothers," Katarn began "This is Operative Thanatos, of the Human Alliance's N7 division. He is here to demonstrate his species' support for our cause, our battle for freedom from oppression. He is here to deliver our guns, and in return, receive information that will aid his own organisation's struggle against our mutual, hated enemy. Many of you hold reservations about cooperation with humans, I know. Many of you resent the defeats of Torfan and Elysium and the subsequent condemnation of our race. Yet much of what you have heard has been mere propaganda, devised by our rulers to drive a wedge between us and those who would assist us in our plight. The true enemy we must face is not the other races of the galaxy, but those who would dominate our own; and today, we come one step closer to thwarting their designs."
Shepard had to concede, Katarn knew his way around a rousing speech. Where before there had been flat glares, filled with animosity, for both the human and the leader who had brought him here, there were now respectful nods, and even salutes for the batarian. There were, however, a few disgruntled individuals, this 'Rachak' amongst them, slouching against the wall at the back of the room, whose behaviour hadn't been altered in the slightest.
"Return to your duties." Katarn instructed, and the room emptied whilst he turned to address Shepard. "I'll take you to review the data, and then you can give us the co-ordinates of the cache and be on your way." Shepard nodded his consent, and followed the batarian through the base to the main computer lab, where the data was waiting on a terminal screen.
The matter of data authentication was a critical one; however, if the Alliance had been able to determine whether all of the data was accurate on the spot acquiring it would have been an utterly pointless exercise. However, Hogan had requested that certain specific pieces of information be available to the Operative in charge of the exchange, some of which were pieces that the Alliance already held, allowing them to cross-reference their data with that of the malcontents and establish its quality.
Shepard quickly determined that all of the pieces he was able to compare were identical; Hogan had clearly struck gold with this operation.
That was when the base's power died.
Behind him, Katarn groaned. "Honestly, sometimes I think I've got more incompetents than malcontents. This is why we need your equipment; without it, we won't stand a chance. Wait here; I'll go check the generators."
Shepard switched to infra-red again to watch him depart, fully alert to his surroundings; narcissistic it might be, but there was a distinct possibility that this was the prelude to an assassination attempt, and if that were the case, Shepard was determined that they wouldn't catch him off-guard. His right hand found its way to the Karpov at his thigh, and his left was poised to retrieve its twin concealed beneath his coat.
He remained completely still in that pose for minutes on end, his back to a wall, his breathing silent and his eyes roving around the room, looking for the merest hint of something amiss.
Then the lights came back on.
Thaddaeus didn't relax completely, although he altered the filters in his hood to receive visible light again, and he brought his hands away from his weapons. He was still alone in a base that held a number of beings that were more interested in seeing him dead than seeing the benefits this deal would bring them; Rachak, for one.
He didn't have long to wait before Katarn returned, though; not that the batarian made him any more inclined to relax, given the batarian's history, but he seemed to be the closest thing to an ally that Shepard had in this base.
"It appears that someone else fixed the problem before I was needed." The batarian announced. They were about to return to business, when the piercing wail of alarms reverberated around the base. If Shepard's pessimistic prediction was correct, business might have to be postponed until the situation was dealt with. Katarn seemed to be of the same view, and together they rushed back to the communal area.
If Shepard had felt that his reception had been hostile earlier, this one was positively ferocious. Weapons were trained on him immediately, and only instinct prompting him to duck behind Katarn as a meat shield prevented his grey matter from being expelled from his head to coat the wall behind when actual shots were fired.
"HOLD!" Katarn bellowed, his rage palpable, even intimidating, in spite of the fact that he seemed to be unarmed. His subordinates hesitated, then lowered their weapons. "What do you fools think you're doing!?" He demanded.
"Bringing a killer to justice." Said their de-facto leader, the one slowest to lower his weapon.
Ah, shit... Shepard groaned internally, surreptitiously drawing his Karpov and preparing to put it to his current advocate's head.
"This human," The batarian said, twisting the noun into a foul condemnation "murdered our comrade, Rachak Dal'resah."
Shepard was partway through the process of taking Katarn hostage and instigating his escape when his mind registered that the accusation he faced was not the one he'd expected, or even one of which he was guilty. He froze, and brought his weapon back down, thankfully having never brought it into his accuser's line of sight.
"Wait, what?"