The Council audience was a complete waste of time. Captain Anderson hit the nail on the head when he said they wouldn't take the word of a smuggler over that of one of their Council Spectres. Saren was actually present at the hearing via hologram, dripping in sarcasm, deriding Shepard as a screw up, and questioning why he needed to defend himself against nothing more than the nightmares of an incompetent Alliance officer. It took every ounce of Shepard's self-control to not shout at the Spectre's holo.
After the hearing, Udina was livid, not only because of the results of the Council audience, but also from the political blowback from Shepard's open gunfight in the wards. The only thing positive to come from the visit to the Council chambers was a conversation they overheard on the way in the door, between the Executor and a Citadel Security officer, Garrus Vakarian. Garrus was adamant about needing more time for his investigation into Saren, and the Executor said he had no more time to give; the audience was occurring as they spoke, and there was no delaying it. Anderson agreed the C-Sec officer may be a good lead, and Anderson had an idea on how to find him; they needed to go talk to a suspended C-Sec officer by the name of Harkin...normally found at Chora's Den.
Anderson also recommended Shepard talk to a financial expert named Barla Von...he was an agent for the Shadow Broker, the top information broker in the galaxy. The information might be expensive, but with a disgraced C-Sec officer as their only other lead, they didn't have a lot of options. The commander was pretty disgusted with the whole process and just wanted to get off the Citadel and back to work, so decided to divide and conquer to speed things up. Since she had the Normandy expense account, Shepard took the information broker, and sent Kaidan and Ashley back to Chora's Den, admonishing them to be extremely careful. Fortunately, the second trip to the Den was much less eventful. With a bit of friendly persuasion, a little bit of time, and a few rounds of drinks, Harkin finally pointed them to a small medical clinic in the wards, run by Dr Chloe Michel.
Barla Von didn't really have much in the way of information on Saren, but he did have some actionable intel. He pointed Shepard to a Krogan bounty hunter, named Urdnot Wrex, currently on a not so voluntary trip to C-Sec. On the way out of the financial district, Shepard was approached by an Asari maiden, saying she had a very important message from the Consort Sha'ira. Shepard snorted, "What's the Consort want with me? I've heard getting in to see her is near impossible, and the waiting list for those who do make the list is almost a year long." The acolyte agreed, but assured Shepard the Consort wished to see her immediately, as she had a task for which Shepard was uniquely qualified to handle. Figuring Wrex as a 'guest' of C-Sec probably wasn't going anywhere fast, Shepard allowed her curiosity to win out and decided to accommodate the Consort.
As the acolyte promised, Shepard was whisked immediately into the Consort's chambers, not quite sure what to expect. The Consort, while very gracious, was all business, informing Shepard that a Turian general named Septimus wanted more from her than she could provide as a consort. In his disappointment, he had begun to spread lies that would negatively impact the Consort's reputation. If Shepard could somehow put a stop to such activity, the Consort told her she would be very grateful and reward Shepard accordingly...and the general just happened to be drinking his life away in Chora's Den. Shepard was to return to the Consort after the task was complete to receive a reward.
As Shepard left the Consort's chambers, she called Kaidan to find out how they made out with Harkin and to tell them about Septimus. Kaidan and Ashley were taken by the irony in their situation; their first job was to get Harkin drunk so he'd spill the info on Garrus and then they had to turn around and keep Septimus from drinking, so he wouldn't spill info on the Consort. The second job actually turned out to be both less expensive and easier. Septimus was a high ranking Turian general, and Kaidan and Ashley, as fellow military members, just needed to remind Septimus about duty and honor. They eventually convinced him to make himself back into what an honorable General should be. He not only agreed, but also offered them a reward for helping him clean up his mistakes. Because of certain actions Septimus had taken, a certain Elcor diplomat believed Sha'ira to blame for certain 'secrets' getting out about the diplomat, so the Elcor was in the process of lodging a complaint against the consort. Septimus offered up a datapad and a delivery fee; all they needed to do was deliver the pad to the Elcor and explain it was Septimus who released the data, not the Consort. Kaidan agreed to do it, mainly because he knew the Embassy offices were right above C-Sec and Shepard was already on her way there.
Kaidan called Shepard back and gave her a quick update on Septimus and passed her the follow up info for the Elcor diplomat. Shepard just growled, "Christ, can nothing be as simple as it sounds on the face of it?" She agreed to go upstairs and take care of the Elcor, while Kaidan and Ash went to catch up with Garrus at the clinic.
They found the clinic easy enough, but as the door opened they saw Garrus crouched down behind a wall, and a merc up close and personal with someone they assumed was Dr Michel. "Listen, Doc. We don't wanna hurt ya, but we need to make sure you don't tell nobody about the suit rat. Simple enough, right? You talk, you die. Easy."
The merc heard the door, grabbed the doc and put a pistol to her head. Two more thugs standing in the background move to cover behind some supply boxes and a desk. As soon as they heard the threat while walking in the door, Kaidan pulled his pistol and Ashley her assault rifle. Ash just laughed. "Really? You're gonna kill a doc? You shoot her, we shoot you. Our guns are bigger. We're wearing armor. We win. Game over."
The merc leader didn't give an inch. "There's three of us, only two of you."
This time Kaidan chuckled. "The funny part is, there's three of us too, you just don't know where the third one is, and for you... that is a serious problem."
The gunman faltered for just a moment, searching rapidly with his eyes for the elusive third gunman, and that was all Garrus needed. Popping up, he fired his weapon and the merc holding Dr Michel collapsed to the ground. At soon as Garrus started moving, Kaidan threw a shockwave across the room, knocking the other two thugs down with crashing boxes and a suddenly mobile desk being shoved hard into them. Ashley took care of them before they even found their feet again. Ashley nodded at the Turian in appreciation of his skill, "Nice shot, Vakarian."
Garrus nodded in thanks to Ashley, and then glanced at Kaidan, "Nicely played, Lieutenant, but I believe you have me at a disadvantage."
After brief introductions all around, they got to Dr Michel and the reason the thugs were there in the first place. Apparently, a Quarian by the name of Tali'Zorah nar Rayya came into the clinic with a gunshot wound. She was in possession of audio evidence of Saren's connection to the Geth attack on Eden Prime. She intended to sell it to an agent of the Shadow Broker, named Fist, but Garrus told them word on the street is the agent had been bought by Saren, and the Broker had put a contract out on Fist. They all agree they needed to find the agent before he found the Quarian. Kaidan and Ashley headed out the door, and Garrus was hot on their heels. "Don't think you're gonna take that bastard down without me! I'm right behind you!"
Kaidan immediately placed a call to Shepard to tell her they were headed back to Chora's Den yet one more time. Shepard had already arrived at C-Sec, and heard Wrex giving the officers a hard time. "You can't arrest me for thinking about killing Fist. I haven't done it yet."
Her omnitool chirped and when she saw it was on the priority channel, Shepard stopped and took Kaidan's call. All thoughts of Wrex fell by the wayside and she jumped on the mass transit shuttle to get to the wards as fast as she could, telling Kaidan to wait for her. She caught up to the crew just outside Chora's Den...and Wrex showed up while they were going over the game plan. Wrex literally growled at them, "I just saw you at C-Sec... you messing with my bounty? Shadow Broker's paying good money to make Fist dead. If that means I need to kill you too, that can be arranged."
Shepard looked at Wrex and instantly recognized that he was a Krogan Battlemaster; having him on their side would definitely be to their advantage. "Listen Wrex, I don't give a crap about Fist long term, but I need some info from him before you make him disappear. Help us get the info, and Fist is all yours."
Wrex grumped, "I'm normally a solo act. Why should I care about you and your info?"
Shepard shrugged her shoulders, "Why? Because Fist knows we're coming and has the place locked up tight with a couple dozen guys inside all fighting from defensive positions. Getting in won't to be easy alone, even for you, and this info we need is important...like save the galaxy from a rogue Spectre with an army of Geth, important."
Wrex flashed a toothy grin, "Well, then. You put it that way and it sounds like a hell of a fight... and I'm not talking Fist's chumps. I'm talking the army of Geth... that's a worthy battle. Let me have Fist when you're done with him and let me come along for the whole ride... You've got yourself a deal."
Shepard grinned like a kid in a candy store. "Urdnot Wrex, that's the best deal I've gotten all day! Name's Shepard, by the way. We'll introduce the rest later." Fist and his men had no idea what hit them. A small army of thugs had no chance against two biotics, two snipers and a Krogan Battlemaster; hardly even a tale worth telling. Once they got into the office, Fist coughed up the info pretty quick, thinking it was going to save his skin. Unfortunately, he realized too late that the Shadow Broker bounty was nonnegotiable. Shepard grabbed up Fist's data disks, thinking the info might have some future trade value, maybe with Barla Von, and the team headed out...they had a tight timeline. The Quarian was to meet Saren's agents in one of the back alleys within the next five minutes.
Tali paced back and forth in the alley, wondering where her contact was. They were late, and it made her nervous. She'd already been shot once since coming onto the Citadel, and her prospects of actually surviving this whole scenario weren't looking good at the moment. Thinking she heard something in the back of the alley, she quickly glanced back over her shoulder, but then heard a voice from in front of her, so her head snapped back around.
"Did you bring it?" A large Turian suddenly materialized in front of her, way too close for comfort. Where the hell did he come from?
"Who are you? Where's Fist?" This is looking worse by the minute, you naive little girl!
The Turian sounded very condescending as he spoke, "Oh, come now. Surely you didn't think Fist or the Broker would handle this in person now, did you?"
Tali heard a noise behind her again, and she glanced back to see two Salarians with pistols ready. You Bosh'tet! Suddenly, her hand flipped out and launched a flash-bang grenade toward the Salarians as she rolled back away from the Turian, but the explosion was not what she expected...
Shepard and crew rounded the corner, weapons drawn, just as Tali flicked her wrist. "Shit, already in play," Shepard yelled, as she charged the Turian in a flash of blue biotics. Kaidan launched a singularity and Ashley, Garrus and Wrex obliterated the two Salarians in an instant. The Turian was caught off guard, but reacted quickly. Knocked back by the charge, he pulled his shields up as he fell, before Shepard could get off her standard shotgun kill shot. Shepard realized she was in trouble; the charge depleted her biotic reserve so she had no barrier, her shotgun would be useless against the Turian's full strength shield, and that same Turian had a Carnifex Hand Cannon aimed point blank at her chest. Shit.
As soon as Tali had rolled back, she had started working furiously on her omnitool. Suddenly it sparked to life and pulsed, the Turian's Carnifex suddenly overheated and became completely and utterly useless. That bought Shepard's team time to initiate their second round of attack, and the entire team brought their fire to bear on the single remaining target, first collapsing the Turian's shield, then riddling his body with holes and turning him into a very dead corpse. Shepard whooped, and with a big grin on her face, shouted back over her shoulder, "Now THAT'S what I call back-up, people!"
She spun on her heel and faced Tali. "Either you're Tali'Zorah nar Rayya, or we just saved the wrong Quarian. I'm Commander Shepard, and that gaggle behind you is the ground crew from the Alliance Frigate SSV Normandy. We need your help. We need your evidence against Saren."
Tali stared at Shepard in amazement. "Keelah! Is there anyone who doesn't know what I have on my omnitool?"
Shepard laughed and shook her head. "Trust me Tali'Zorah, we are not just anybody, and you are the first light in a long dark tunnel we've been walking for some time now. First priority is to get you safe, and then you can show us what you've got."
Shepard couldn't see through Tali's mask, but the young Quarian hesitated before speaking, "And why should I trust you?"
Shepard shrugged, "No reason at all, other than we helped you out of a pretty bad jam... and we didn't just kill you and take your omnitool." Shepard stepped away, giving Tali a clear exit out to the main Citadel. "And, you're free to leave at any time. We're not here to coerce you, just give you options. But I'm hunting Saren, and if you've got something on him, it sure would help me out."
The gambit paid off and Tali agreed, "Well, you did just save me, so I guess I owe you at least an explanation." Shepard sent everyone to the Normandy except Tali and Alenko and they headed back to the Ambassador's office. Shepard quickly placed a call to Captain Anderson to tell him what happened and requested he meet them at Udina's office. The Ambassador was none too impressed when Shepard showed up in his office with yet another alien in tow, but quelled his complaints when he figured out the advantages the information presented him. Tali's info proved Saren's involvement with the Geth and the planned attack on Eden Prime. Once they met with the Council, the second voice on the recording was identified as a powerful Asari, Matriarch Benezia. When they listened to the entire recording it filled in some of the blanks. Apparently the whole plan by Saren was an attempt to locate some ancient technology, referred to as the Conduit, with an end goal of the return of the Reapers; ending life as the galaxy knew it. That sum of knowledge led to many things-Saren's spectre status was revoked and handed to Shepard, along with the mission of pursuing Saren into the Terminus System. To complete that mission, Captain Anderson had to step down as Commander of the Normandy and turn the ship over to Shepard, along with two starting leads. First, finding Geth probably meant finding Saren, and there were reports of Geth on the planets of Noveria and Feros. The second lead was an archeologist and Prothean expert, Dr Liara T'Soni, who just happened to be the daughter of Matriarch Benezia, and was somewhere on the planet Therum.
As she reboarded the Normandy, Shepard thought about the images the beacon stuffed into her head. Synthetics... Reapers? wiping all those lives from the galaxy. She went to the bridge to talk to Joker and lay in a course. If we don't stop Saren, this is going to get bad. Very, very bad.
Nassana Dantius, an Asari diplomatic emissary assigned to the Citadel, was sitting in the Embassy Lounge and had watched a whole scene unfold before her, where a Systems Alliance Lieutenant Commander chewed up and spit out some poor clerk. Dantius quickly recognized that Shepard was a force to be reckoned with and filed that information away for possible later use. After she heard the commander had been selected to be the first human Spectre, the wheels started to turn and she soon came up with a plan to solve a particularly sticky problem that had been irritating her for a while. She merely had to wait for the right time to implement it.
Spectre or not, in Shepard's eyes, locating an entire squad of missing marines took precedence over finding some Asari scientist who may or may not be able to help them. She found it hard to believe the Council stonewalled Admiral Kahoku and wouldn't even give him a hearing. Shepard stalked onto the bridge, "Joker, set a course to Edolus. We've wasted enough time playing bullshit political games. I'll only say this once. I know they gave Anderson the shaft on this deal, and I aim to make him proud. Let me know when we're two hours out."
As Shepard turned to leave, Joker spoke up. "Uh, Commander? I don't want to over-reach here, but we... the crew... we know what happened, and we don't blame you for it... and we're all behind you 100 percent. I can give you an open mike if you want to make a ship wide broadcast...?"
Shepard stopped and sighed. "You know what, Flight Lieutenant, that might not be a bad idea." With the start of her announcement, every single person on the Normandy stopped what they were doing and listened to the voice over the comm.
"This is Commander Shepard speaking. We have our orders: find Saren before he finds the Conduit. For too long our species has stood apart from the others. Now it's time for us to step up and do our part for the rest of the galaxy! Time to show them we know how to be a part of the greater Galactic community! I won't lie to you. This mission isn't going to be easy. Our enemy knows we're coming. When we go into the Traverse, Saren's followers will be waiting for us, but we'll be ready for them too. We need to do this. Not just for our own sake, but for the sake of every species in Citadel Space. Saren must be stopped, and I promise you all... we will stop him!"
As soon as she was done, Shepard went to her room and packed up what little personal gear she had. As much as she hated it, she needed to move to the Captain's quarters of the Normandy. She felt guilty as she approached the door, feeling she should be stopping and knocking, but with every pair of eyes in the Normandy on her back, she opened the door and stepped through without hesitation. She looked around and absorbed it all in. It was different than she remembered. Having it be hers gave it a different perspective than when she'd been called in to speak with the Captain. She glanced at the stack of paperwork waiting on the desk and thought about the mission and crew at hand. Under the pretense of the Normandy now being a Spectre, not Alliance, ship, she had shoved some new crew members down Udina's throat. What a motley bunch. A Turian, ex C-Sec officer, from conversations thus far, who seems like he might be one to bend the rules; have to keep an eye on that, make sure they bend but don't break. A Quarian...young, but seems pretty intelligent, has a good head, and a knack for tech gadgets. Could come in really handy for hacking and overloads, especially against a synthetic enemy like the Geth. Then Wrex; a Krogan Battlemaster for God sake! Nothing like bringing a towering biotic tank on board. As long as they provided him good targets so he didn't get bored, he should work out just fine.
Shepard, Garrus and Ashley loaded up in the Mako and dropped on the planet Edolus. Edolus wasn't the most hospitable place; if the freezing temperature and the non-breathable atmosphere weren't enough, there was also the combination of a neighboring gas giant and an asteroid belt which delivered a constant supply of meteors impacting the planet's surface. If you were lucky, it made exploration interesting; if unlucky, it made it deadly.
When the Mako made surface contact, Ashley chipped in the moment sensors came on line. "Ma'am. We've got four contacts... one immediately behind us appears to be a burning M29 Grizzly, no organic signatures. A few mineral deposits, an unknown electronic signature, and the emergency beacon. No signs of hostiles, organic or... otherwise." Ashley added that last bit thinking of the Geth before continuing, "The beacon is almost dead ahead, just a couple klicks."
"Thanks, Chief. I want you on the machine gun. Garrus, take the cannon. Just in case." She didn't look at either, just accepted their verbal acknowledgements as she focused on driving the ungainly Mako. Fortunately, the terrain wasn't difficult, but she still had to concentrate on where she was going because some rather large meteors were keeping things a bit interesting. They were easy enough to spot with their blazing smoke trails, and their purely ballistic paths made their impact point easy enough to predict and dodge... as long as one was paying attention.
They quickly eased up on an open mesa, surrounded by a ring of relatively low hills. Almost dead center on the mesa was another M29 Grizzly, with the emergency beacon not far away. With three sets of eyes on target, no one saw even the slightest hint of movement. Shepard sighed heavily, realizing quickly that any Marines here were now just corpses covered by blowing dust. "Chief, you didn't see any sign of the ship that brought them here, did you?"
Realization dawned in Ashley's eyes and she responded quickly. "No ma'am, I didn't. Something's not right here, huh. If they were stranded, there should be a crashed shuttle at the very least; and with a Griz, there should be at least a large frigate...or someone should have survived to report the accident."
Garrus flipped his mandibles in irritation as he started to follow the gist of the conversation. "Sooo... you're saying they were dropped off here and this was a set-up?"
Shepard's eyes narrowed as she spoke, "Yeah. Got it in one, Vakarian. Even if it was pirates... if they took the time to follow them down here to kill them and steal their ship, they would have taken the extra couple minutes to disable the beacon to give themselves more time to get away before someone responded." Rather than head straight at the beacon, Shepard eased forward slowly, turning the wheel to take the Mako around the perimeter of the mesa, hoping to determine the nature of the trap before it was sprung. They hadn't gotten very far before the very ground they were driving on shook viciously. Shepard slammed her foot down on the accelerator and yelled, "Shit! Thresher nest!" She promptly drove the Mako up the side of the hill to her left, trying to get clear of the mesa bottom. Not two seconds later, a huge thresher maw rose quickly from the sand where the Mako had been sitting mere moments before, looming over the vehicle and turning to face them as they attempted retreat.
Shepard quickly realized they were not going to climb the mesa wall fast enough to effectively dodge an attack and yanked the wheel to drop the Mako back to the Mesa floor. She hit the boosters for just a moment to separate them from the wall and put them in a freefall, taking them to the bottom faster than what the Mako could do driving down the slope. Just as she did so, the maw let loose a gob of acid spit, which hit harmlessly on the cliff wall they just vacated. The minute the Mako hit the mesa floor, Ashley gave a whoop and started strafing the maw with the machine gun, while Garrus complained about too much motion to lock on with the cannon. Shepard slammed the accelerator to the floor and grunted a response, "Yup. You got it... I'll stop as soon as I know we have enough distance to not get killed!"
The Mako screamed across the sand and Ashley shouted out, "it's diving!" Shepard immediately slammed on the brakes and cranked the wheel, skidding hard to the right, and then slammed the accelerator once again to the floor, the Mako jumping off ninety degrees from the direction they were previously heading. After a relatively short sprint, she cranked the wheel again to the right, again changing their direction, just as the maw popped up a second time, somewhat behind them, having miscalculated where the Mako was going to be. Shepard turned the wheel slightly, to put the Mako sideways to the maw, shouting, "Be ready, Vakarian! The minute that thing spits, I'm slamming on the brakes and you damn well better be ready to paste that maw!"
Garrus had immediately figured out what the commander was doing and had already started swinging the big gun around to get ready and shouted his response. "I'm on it, Shepard!"
As soon as the acid was launched and Shepard knew the Mako was clear, she jammed the brakes and skidded to a stop. The big 'whoompf' of the main cannon was music to her ears. The maw spit again and Shepard quickly backed the Mako out of the acid's path and stopped again for Garrus and Ashley to continue their bombardment. After a third shot, the maw figured out it had lost the advantage and dived once again under the sand. Shepard quickly launched the Mako on another erratic drive route and set them up to start the process over again. After a third repeat of the cycle, the maw crashed dead to the sand, and after a slow circle around the beast to ensure the maw wasn't going to recover and rise again, Shepard pulled the Mako to a stop between the Grizzly and the transmitting beacon.
The team dismounted and Shepard and Ashley moved amongst the bodies, collecting all the dog tags of the dead, while Garrus moved to check out and disable the beacon. It wasn't long before Garrus was on the comm, "I know I'm not in the Alliance, but this doesn't look like one of yours, Shepard."
The commander scowled, signaling at the Chief to keep collecting tags while she checked out the beacon. After a brief inspection, she growled, "You're right. See what kind of identifying information you can get off it. ID plate, insignias, model and serial numbers, anything. We'll send it all back to the Admiral to see if he can get a bead on it."
It was a somber team that returned to the Normandy, the only satisfaction coming from the souvenir scales each of them had ripped off the carcass of the dead maw. Shepard threw hers to Wrex, grunting as she did so, "Thought you'd appreciate this."
Wrex flipped the scale over in his hands before he growled back at her, "Not my kill, Shepard."
Shepard shrugged, "Not mine either. All I did was drive the Mako." Wrex chuckled, walked over to a large box, and dropped the scale in with the rest of the stuff headed to Admiral Kohoku.