Shepard's team stormed down the steps of the Presidium.
After the Council's rejection of their evidence, Shepard needed to find proof of Saren's treachery. Fast. Supposedly there was a lead through a deadbeat C-Sec officer, but Shepard had her own way of finding things.
She didn't fully understand the Prothean Beacon's message yet, but Saren knew something about it was important. Saren murdered Nihlus. He was doing his best to cockblock her joining the Spectres. None of these were the reason she wanted to destroy Saren, however; it was the ship he was using. She could feel the corruption rolling off it, and the closest analog she could come up with was the Nephandi; Saren's ship felt like one of their hives, spewing corruption and decay into reality. Such a thing could not be allowed to exist.
Shepard was going to ruin Saren.
"Kaidan, we need to split up. You and Ashley head to Chora's Den to find Harkin. Track down the turian C-Sec officer we saw earlier; Garrus. He might have something to help us nail Saren. Stay in communication. Let me know if there are any problems."
Shepard peeled off, heading towards the other side of the lower wards.
"Where are you going, Shepard?"
Shepard turned her head and smirked over her shoulder. Her grin was savage. "Hunting."
Shepard walked through the Wards of the Citadel, flipping a worn metal coin through the air and catching it, again and again. At each intersection, she glanced at the coin in her hand, then turned and kept walking. She meandered quickly through alleyways and back and forth across the Wards, stopping and turning one way or another after glancing at the flipped coin. She seemed nonchalant; posture relaxed and barely paying any attention to the world around her, but inside she quivered with barely suppressed energy. She was getting close, she could feel it. Fate was squeezing down on her.
Five minutes later she stopped. Checked the coin resting on her palm.
She was standing in the lower section of the Wards, in the back alleys behind the market. She put away her coin, and pulled out her gun.
Shepard prowled forward, a hunting shadow. Her eyes gleamed in the dark. She had caught the trail of the beginning of Saren's demise.
In the alley, a young quarian girl is about to be saved, and in doing so, help save the galaxy.
Tali had a really bad feeling about this. She could feel cold fingers sliding through her suit and down her spine. The last time she felt this was when she was young, and a hull breech almost sucked her out into space. She felt the same cold fingers before she could be rescued, as if death was reaching from behind to snatch her.
She shivered. The future is always behind us, for we can never see it coming. A saying her mother used to tell her when she was a child. The past lies before us, stretching as far as we can see.
She paced back and forth.
Someone was after her, chasing her for the info she had. Was it death? Was that why she felt its cold fingers? Old children stories floated through her mind.
Hopefully she could sell her information to the Shadow Broker for protection before she was caught.
He was late. Maybe this was a bad idea. Maybe she should –ah. There. A turian walked into the alleyway. Hmm. Looked like a bodyguard. He walked up to her, eyeing her up and down. She didn't like the way he looked at her.
"Did you bring it?"
Tingles down her spine. Her hands were cold. This was a bad idea. "Where's the Shadow Broker? Where's Fist?"
He reached out and ran his hand over her hood, her arm. "They'll be here. Where's the evidence?" he countered.
She slapped his hand away. What a sleaze. He was too interested in the evidence. "No way. The deal's off." This was a trap.
He scowled and grabbed her arm. Squeezed. His other hand knocked her gun away before she could draw it. He pushed her down to her knees. Growled. Then a strange look crossed his face and he made a gurgling sound. Dark blue blood dripped from his mouth. Tali saw his throat wasn't working anymore; a knife was firmly lodged in between a seam in his neck plates. His head torqued up and back; wrenched around by the knife, and a second knife drove up into the back of his head. Leaking blood, he fell to the side, twitching. Behind his corpse stood a human female, calmly wiping the blood off the knives in her hands.
The human put the knives away behind her back with a flourish, and grinned down at Tali. She held out her hand. Tali looked at the extended hand. Was she supposed to touch it? Humans had some kind of hand brandishing and waggling ritual they exchanged with each other. Wasn't it supposed to be a human specific gesture?
An awkward moment passed, before the human made a small coughing noise. "I'm offering to help pull you up off the ground. Grasp my hand."
Tali nodded, and lifted her hand up to the human. With an easy grace, the human pulled her arm, helping lift Tali to her feet.
"I'm Jane Shepard."
"I am Tali'Zorah nar Rayya. Thank you for saving my life; if you didn't come by I would probably be dead." Tali grabbed her shotgun from where it had fallen in the alley.
"It was a coincidence. I'm looking for evidence on a rogue Spectre; you wouldn't happen to have anything that proves Saren's a traitor, would you?" She looked at Tali expectantly.
Tali blinked. What a coincidence. "It seems I have a chance to repay you for saving my life. I happen to have such evidence."
Shepard smiled.
"What a coincidence, indeed."
Inside Shepard's pocket, the old coin gleamed.
Shepard walked towards the Citadel mass transit system, Tali in tow. She tapped open her omnitool.
"Kaidan, what's your status?"
"Shepard. We're en route to the upper Wards med clinic; Harkin says that Garrus was going back there to talk to someone named 'Dr. Michels'.
"Got it."
Tali turned to Shepard, "Dr. Michels helped me out when I was hurt. She knows things and was helpful, so I asked her about contacting the Shadow Broker. She put me in contact with one of his agents, Fist. Fist arranged for a meeting with the Shadow Broker; we were supposed to meet in the alleyway you found me in. It was a trap."
Shepard nodded. "After we meet up with my team, let's give Fist a visit. It sounds like he's got a lot to answer for."
Shepard and Tali walked through the upper Wards. Just as they were getting close to the clinic, Kaidan pinged Shepard.
"Ok Shepard, we're here. Dr. Michels is talking to –wait. Ashley, get down! Shepard, there are hostiles in the clinic. Shit! They've seen us. One of them has taken the doctor hostage."
"Acknowledged. Flanking now. Try to talk them down, give me time to get into position." Shepard muted her omnitool, and started sprinting towards the clinic, bewildered quarian in tow.
Inside the clinic, things were tense. One of the thugs had Dr. Michels in a headlock, a pistol pressed against her head. The rest of them had taken cover behind various pieces of medical machinery. Kaidan and Ashley were crouched next to the visitor desk. Guns were out. Tactically outnumbered and in bad cover, Kaidan hoped he could stall long enough for reinforcements to arrive before combat started.
He was not in luck.
Rounds sparking off his flimsy cover as the thugs opened fire, Kaidan and Ashley hunkered down further, firing token shots back to keep the thugs pinned down as much as possible.
After the few moments, it actually wasn't as bad as he feared; the thugs were terrible shots. And once Garrus popped out from the potted plant and shot the thug holding Dr. Michels hostage in the forehead, the firefight became anticlimactic. When Shepard burst out of the ventilation ducts, dropping behind the corned thugs from a ceiling vent, it was overkill.
After everything was over, Shepard came over and eyed the doctor. She looked fine. She bent down and poked one of the thugs with her pistol. "So who do these mooks work for?"
Dr. Michels cleared her throat. "They work for Fist. They wanted me to shut up, keep me from telling Garrus about the quarian."
Garrus strode forward, nodding at Shepard. "Commander Shepard. I'm Garrus Vakarian. C-Sec officer, and until recently, in charge of the investigation against Saren. What quarian?"
"A few days ago, a quarian came by my office. She'd been shot, but she wouldn't tell me who did it. I could tell she was scared, probably on the run. She asked me about the Shadow Broker. She wanted to trade information in exchange for a safe place to hide. I put her in contact with Fist; he's an agent for the Shadow Broker. "
Garrus frowned. "Not any more. Now he works for Saren, and the Shadow Broker isn't too happy about it."
"That quarian must have something Saren wants. Something worth crossing the Shadow Broker to get."
"You mean this quarian?" Shepard pulls Tali out of the shadows.
Everyone stared.
Shepard smiled. "We're going to get Fist. Once we take him down and grab any info he may have on Saren, we're going after Saren. Between Tali's info, and what we can get from Fist, this will be exactly what we need to prove he's a traitor." Shepard cocked her head to the side. "Wait. Isn't it strange that Fist, a human, betrayed the Shadow Broker to work for Saren, who hates humans?" She stared into the distance, trying to understand why this point of information felt important…
Kaidan kept talking. "We'll have to hurry; when we were at Chora's Den earlier there was an angry krogan who wanted to kill Fist for betraying the Shadow Broker."
Garrus smirked. "Urdnot Wrex, the bounty hunter? We have him detained at C-Sec. Well, detained may be too extreme a word. We have him occupied. But it won't last long; he'll get frustrated at the delays and try to kill Fist soon. We should hurry and get Fist before Wrex does."
Shepard snapped back to the conversation. "Seriously? A famous krogan bounty hunter? Are you guys crazy? What if he comes at us from behind while we are busting in to get Fist? Won't he be upset at us trying to get Fist first? I have a better idea. Let's take him with us, as long as we him to promise we get to interrogate Fist before he cashes in on the bounty on Fist's head."
Garrus and Kaidan looked at each other, then back to Shepard. Garrus nodded. "It's your op, Shepard. As long as I get to come along, I'll follow your orders."
"I want to come too."
Everyone turned to Tali.
"Fist set me up, tried to kill me. Saren is his boss, and will still want me dead. He's also involved with the geth, and for the good of my people I need to find out what he's up to."
Shepard smiled. "Welcome aboard, Garrus. Tali. Now, let's grab us a krogan and start messing up Saren's plans."
Convincing Wrex to work with them was incredibly easy. Shepard just walked up to Wrex while he was being talked to by several C-Sec officers. She flipped him a single credit chit. He automatically caught it, and looked at her.
"Hey Wrex, my heavily armed and dangerous team and I are going to Chora's Den to make Fist talk. I want to hire you to come with us so when, I mean if, he resists our legally mandated discussion request you can vigorously defend yourself from his attack." She nodded over to where Garrus was exaggeratedly holding up a signed writ. "If you kill him in defense, I am sure these fine officers won't have any problems with you defending yourself, or your defenseless employer."
Wrex looked at Shepard's heavily armed form, down to the single credit in his hand, and laughed.
"Done."
"Shhh." Shepard held her hand up. Everyone stopped. Shepard closed her eyes, and cocked her head to the side. "Ambush ahead."
Wrex flared his nose, and took a deep breath. "Hrmm. Maybe two, three of them?"
Shepard nodded. "Spread out. Garrus, you're on rifle duty. Everyone else, shotguns. Coordinate fire to overwhelm and overpower shields. Let's go."
Assassins leapt out of the shadows only to be instantly gunned down in a hail of shotgun fire.
The defenders inside Chora's Den didn't fare so well either.
Nor did Fist himself.
"Hold up, Wrex."
"Shepard? Having second thoughts about me killing him now?" Wrex growled, pulling his shotgun off his back.
"Nah. I just had an idea; let's rob him blind, I mean, confiscate his property for evidence, then kill him. It'll be more traumatic that way."
Fisk reddened. "What? You can't do that!"
Shepard smirked. "Watch me. Now, where are you hiding your files for Saren?"
Fist sneered. "What makes you think I'll tell you anything?"
Shepard nodded. "Check behind the painting over there."
Fist froze, mouth open. As Garrus and Kaidan proceeded to bypass the safe they found behind the painting, Shepard kept asking him questions.
"So where else are you hiding your dirty secrets? Under the couch, hmm?"
"Dammit, how are you figuring these things out?" Fist yelled.
Shepard smirked. "Magic."
As they methodically dismantled the office, Fist slowly recovered from his shock, and started smiling.
Shepard quirked an eyebrow at him. "Why are you smiling, Fist?"
"It doesn't matter what you find. The most important info isn't here, and it's too late for you now."
Shepard calmly looked at him. "Is this about the quarian and her information?"
Fist smirked. "I don't know where the quarian is, but I know where you can find her. Said she'd only deal with the Shadow Broker himself. Nobody meets the Shadow Broker. Ever. Even I don't know his true identity. But she didn't know that." He started chuckling. "I told her I'd set a meeting up. But when she shows up, it'll be Saren's men waiting for her. And the meeting was set up for 5 minutes ago. By now she's dead, and whatever info she had is long gone."
"You mean this quarian?" Shepard pulls Tali out from behind the doorway.
Fist paled.
While Fist and Wrex watched, they then proceeded to swipe, copy or take every byte of data he had regarding his activities and Saren.
Shepard almost felt sympathy for him when Wrex finally shot him.
As they walked up the steps of the Presidium to meet the council, proof of Saren's betrayal in hand, Shepard saw the swirling hurricane of destiny around her, and smiled. She could feel fate pressing on her, pulling her up the steps. Behind her, she had a team that may look thrown together at a moment's notice but she saw how fate swirled around all of them; binding their paths together. She had a team. She was about to become one of the most powerful autonomous agents in the consensual reality. Again.
With such a team, she saved reality before. She knows she can do it again.
Two years later
Jacob watched Shepard out of the corner of his eye, sweating on the inside. She was staring at the bulkhead, smiling.
The closer the Cerberus shuttle got to Freedom's Progress, the more Shepard smiled.
Her sister was getting closer every moment; Tali was on Freedom's Progress.
Omake:
The human put the knives away behind her back with a flourish, and grinned down at Tali. She held out her hand. "Let's go and- no, wait! Do over!"
She pulled back her hand, slicked back her hair, and put on a pair of darkened glasses. She stopped smiling, and her face took on a flat, dead quality. She reached down to Tali again, and spoke in an accented, strangled deep voice, "Come with me if you want to live."