"No offence Commander, but must you get in a firefight every time you come to the Citadel?" Captain Anderson's shouted rhetorical question made Jane grin for a moment before the staccato of gunfire brought back the reality of the situation.
"This is not even the craziest part, wait till you hear who I got the info from. You've missed the action Anderson, don't try and deny it!" Leaning out from the column she was using as cover, Jane fired her pistol three times, breaking the shield on one of the Batarians attacking them and opening him up to her follow up throw.
"I would prefer it I had my armour with me, or at least the rest of your team backing us up. Where the hell is C-Sec?" It was a good question, since, even though the firefight had ended up with them falling back inside the clinic building, the initial exchanges were more than public enough that someone should have responded by now.
Three more Batarians appeared through the clinic's main doors, two of them carrying boarding shields that absorbed the rifle fire from Tyrhsa, the Turian who seemed to have fallen in quite handily with following her orders. The other Batarian was the one that really worried her, carrying what looked like a heavy machine gun, shield flickering as Jane nailed him once in the helmet before he ducked behind the shield wall.
"Our cover isn't going to last long against that! Are they still jamming our signals?" They were and with the amount of equipment they had with them, along with the timing of the ambush, this had obviously been a trap for her.
It made sense of course, Jane thought as she ducked back as the HMG opened up, and whether the Illusive man knew it was a trap or not was hardly of importance right now. For the quivering and shell shocked person next to her, Jane would have walked into any number of traps and ambushes with a smile on her face.
The clenched fists, uncontrollable shivering and wide eyes reminded Jane that the younger, much thinner version of her was definitely not trained for combat. Which, given her already fragile mental state, was not a good thing in the slightest.
"Cover me!" Which meant it was time to get serious, Jane holstering her pistol and drawing her shotgun, waiting for the HMG to stop firing before moving from behind the pillar.
Her barrier started taking fire immediately, but with the amount of shit they had gotten into recently she had spent time honing her abilities on the Normandy, Anderson and Tyrhsa beginning to target the Batarians who weren't behind the shield. The shielded Batarians obviously thought they were safe behind their improvised wall, but this was the perfect opportunity for Jane to test her new skill, based on what she had seen Naruto doing on Feros.
A normal throw wouldn't be enough to dislodge the shields but as she thrust both arms forward, the glowing energy on the two limbs joining together to make a biotic throw the size of a Volus, Jane liked to think she wasn't 'normal' by any standard.
The shields buckled under the force of the impact, the shield bearers staggering back from each other to make an opening. Calling upon her biotics once more, something she knew was going to give her a headache later, Jane charged. She was across the room in an instant, the HMG armed Batarian acting as her organic brake as her form slammed into his, transferring the kinetic energy of her movement into him as she turned her shotgun on the nearest of the two shieldbearers and blasted two rounds into him at point blank range.
"The bitch is through, alert the othe…" Grabbing the remaining Batarian as the HMG Batarian was reduced to a stain on the wall, Jane used him as a shield as his 'comrades' opened up, the alien's body riddled with bullets in the seconds before the joyful sound of weapons overheating filled her ears.
Kicking the body, with a little biotic enhancement, saw it slam into two of the now panicking Batarian. Using the momentum of the kick, Jane turned and fired two rounds into the solitary Batarian that was on the left side of the clinic corridor, before turning back with a feral grin. Whilst he wasn't dead, missing a leg below the knee would certainly keep him out of the action about to commence, something he may end up being thankful for.
One of the remaining four Batarians had been clever enough to draw her side-arm, two shots finally destroying Jane's barrier before she replied with the final round of her shotgun before it overheated, breaking the Batarian's shield before Jane used the now useless firearm like a baseball bat to send her crumpling to the ground.
Finishing the swing by releasing the shotgun to fly into the face of the next nearest Batarian, who had just finished trying to cool his weapon down and instead drawn his combat blade, Jane drew her pistol with the other hand. Two rounds between the eyes dropped the stunned Batarian, the rest of the magazine dropped the other two's shields as they charged towards her.
"Die Rogna…" The first swing was so wide Joker could have dodged it, the haymaker allowing Jane to bury her own combat blade into the soft tissue of the Batarian's armpit, the second catching a biotic empowered kick that sent him flying into the clinic wall with a heavy crack.
It was at this point sounds rushed back to Jane and she realised she was gasping for breath, drenched in sweat and from the feel of things she had one hell of a nosebleed going on. There were still sounds of gunfire from outside, but it was Anderson's appreciative whistle that caused her to turn her head in his direction.
"Not exactly what I would call textbook methods of dealing with opponents behind cover, but it seems you have picked up some things from our mutual friend." Tyrhsa was far less polite about her view on what she had just seen happen, the Turian swearing several times under her breath before gasping and raising her weapon towards the door, the reaction causing her to spin around with weapons at the ready.
"The boss sent me ahead in case you needed a hand Taichou, though now I've seen you in action I think he needs to work harder on his apology. Now if you could stop pointing the gun and the little paper slicer at me, I can head back and let everyone know you are okay." The Naruto clone, as no-one else would talk to her in such a sarcastic but deferential tone at the same time, was armed to the teeth and looked like he was ready to use it.
"What delayed everyone? I thought I managed to get another call out to you all before the jamming started?" Jane knew she had, though given their public setting she neglected mentioning the message had been by Shadow Clone dispersal rather than by more traditional means.
"There were about 80 of these guys Shepard-taichou, they set up blockades on every route here and dug in, the boss and Wrex are leading the push as C-Sec were content to hem the bastards in. If we head out now we can control the situation before some C-Sec idiot tries to let his position go to his head, Garrus may end up doing something the idiot will regret." The clone was right, but before taking control out there, she had orders to give here.
"Tyrhsa, make sure all of these… Tulak'ruduki are disarmed and not a threat, probably try and stop a couple of them bleeding out at the same time." Looking at the female Batarian she had brained earlier, it was clear she had a concussion at least, though just to be safe Jane clocked her one to send her properly into the realms of unconsciousness.
The phrase she used to refer to the dead/disabled Batarians was probably the worst insult she knew, quite literally 'a clan so despised and tainted that they are not worth using as slaves', but given their ruining of what was the happiest hour she had in years Jane felt it was justified. Seeing the Turian nod, Jane heading for the door a moment later, pausing at the door to give the most important order of all.
"Captain Anderson, when I give you the all clear, get my sister out of here quietly…"
[]{}#%^*+=
"Commander Shepard managed to get a call out before they jammed her comms, given the situation with the previous attempt on her life our team mobilised and moved to deal with the situation as fast as we could, and you can see the results." It was a… Strange feeling, despite the Executor keeping him on as an official member of C-Sec, to be providing evidence and guiding the official investigation into the attempted assassination of Commander Shepard from what was effectively the other side of the crime scene tape.
"40 dead and 18 injured Batarians, all with not even a minor criminal record between them. 8 dead civilians, 6 dead and 5 injured C-Sec officers. I don't call that results Investigator, I call that a disaster. Any idea how they knew where the Spectre would be?" Special Investigator Jethrus Markot Gibbs was a Turian who had been a member of C-Sec since just after the First Contact War, widely regarded as a very effective, if not overly friendly, investigator.
"It probably has something to do with this boss, found it in the admin office of the clinic." It was not the first time Garrus had interacted with Markot's team, though it was the first time he had worked on a case with them directly, so he recognised Investigator Michael Denotzo as he walked up with the file in question.
Garrus could guess what it was, though they had gone to some effort to get Commander Shepard's newly discovered sister out of the area before the investigation began, they hadn't had time to do more than a hurried search of the clinic before C-Sec actually took over. To his credit, Gibbs took one look at the picture on the front of the file before unclipping it and moving it inside the file itself, before fixing Garrus with his renowned 'thousand yard' stare as the humans called it.
"Something you want to tell us, Agent Varakin?" Garrus shrugged, despite their best efforts the news would probably spread by the need of the day, especially if he acted evasive and caused these guys to start digging.
"Commander Shepard received Intel that indicated a person of personal interest was being held here, I will need to ask the Commander for more details if you need them Investigator. Any news on the remaining attackers?" A dozen or so of the Batarians had broken through the C-Sec encirclement when it became clear the assassination attempt had failed, and though they'd managed to chase down a couple of them the rest still at large.
"We have increased security on the main transportation hangars and checkpoints at the hubs between the Presidium and the Citadel Bodies, but given we have no arrival records on these guys it is obvious they got in through unofficial channels… Which I will contact the trafficking team about right now boss." It was amusing to see Tony's reaction to Gibbs' raised eyebrow, the human hurriedly striding off towards a quieter area of the rather large crime scene to make the call.
Without another word Gibbs moved off towards the row of Batarian bodies, Garrus following as he could see two other members of Gibbs' team examining the bodies and taking photographs.
"McGee, Xeveena, sitrep." McGee, whose real name was Micalus Geren from what Garrus could remember, didn't even look up from where he was examining one of the fallen Batarians omni-tools.
"Most of these have been wiped, too clean for amateurs to achieve, though if done by pros remarkably sloppy, should be able to extract some file fragments and track their movements. Local C-Sec team working to get camera footage, given jammer Spectre's team found unlikely to get good footage." Gibbs seemed to accept that was everything he was going to get from the Salarian, turning his attention to the female Drell that had just finished photographing the nearest Batarian.
"All the dead Batarians have had recent surgery on their right arms, no doubt to remove some kind of gang or group mark that could be used to identify them, Abbie is running their past affiliations to see if it can be narrowed down. Despite the reports of heavy weaponry and armour, many of the Batarians were stripped of all valuables by the time we arrived, something that I am told is a habit of the young human attached to the Spectre's team." Garrus winced as Gibbs turned in his direction, though given there was a Spectre's involvement they could technically claim the gear, Garrus knew Gibbs would want to rule out every weapon that could have killed the civilians before chasing down the surviving Batarians.
"I will talk with the Commander and see if your expert can come and perform ballistics testing on our armoury. Though if these guys came from off the Citadel, we may be leaving to do some… Investigating of our own." This was assuming Naruto was storing the 'liberated' weapons on the Normandy or the Ontario, but Garrus could work that out later.
"I'd prefer it if your team stayed on the Citadel, until I rule them out from having killed any of the civilians, but I suppose tracking the remaining suspects would normally be out of our authority. Xeveena!" The Drell jumped to attention, though Garrus noticed her arm instinctively went to her pistol.
"Go tell Ai to pack up her gear and prepare your own, you will be acting as the liaison until we finish the investigation." Garrus was fairly certain that was in fact what his role was meant to be, but whilst C-Sec couldn't stop the Normandy from leaving the Citadel, there were several ways they could impound the Ontario for a couple of days if Gibbs wanted to be difficult.
"Understood, I will go speak to Tony and make sure he finishes off the scans and photos. Ducky wanted to speak to you Gibbs, something he found with one of the civilians." That didn't sound good, especially with the suspicion that one of his team could have caught a civilian with a stray volley during their storming of the Batarians' position.
The two of them walked over in silence to where the senior M.E for the Presidium was helping two of his assistants lift the body of an Elcor that had been caught in the attack. Even with three of them they were struggling, so Garrus hurried forward to help them heft the body into the nearest grav-car used by C-Sec when dealing with these kinds of crimes.
"You wanted to see me Duck?" No-one had ever told Garrus why everyone called the aged Volus by different variations of the Earth avian animal, from what he had been able to find out it had started less than a year after the Contact war, which was shortly after the Volus started with C-Sec.
"Yes Jethrus, *cerchk*, I thought you might want to see this. I was scanning all of the victims to allow me to *cerchk* make a preliminary diagnosis, and I came across this poor fellow…" The Volus waddled over to where another of his kind was laid out on the floor, two bloody holes in the lower part of his chest indicating what had killed him, but other than that Garrus couldn't see anything out of the ordinary.
"Looks like a double gunshot to the lower torso Duck, not exactly a surprising cause of death, though obviously there is something I am missing if you are drawing our attention to it." The Volus chuckled to himself before nodding and gesturing to his omni-tool.
"Very astute Jethrus, yes I was very surprised at the fact these two wounds caused what seemed to be an almost instant death for our victim, he pretty much died where he fell given the blood pooling. Normally a gut shot or even two *cerchk* would have a decent chance of not hitting anything vital, and given it took us less than twenty minutes to clear to this point we should have been able to at least try to save him."
Tapping a couple more times on his Omni-tool, Ducky suddenly lit the area up with a 3-D hologram of the Volus in front of them, and even before he began speaking Garrus knew what he was so interested in.
"Upon my initial scan, I was surprised to find that the cause of death was due to the bullets piercing the Volus' second heart, which looks to have been implant… Investigator?" It was at this point Garrus realised that he was gripping his hands into fists hard enough for his suit servo-motors to be whining slightly.
"Dr Saleon…" Judging by the sharp inhalation by the good doctor he wasn't the only one who still knew the name, though Garrus was already moving away and downloading the information C-Sec had on the victim, only stopping when Gibbs barked from behind him.
"Investigator!" Garrus was so worked up from the revelation that he barely resisted the urge to growl as he spun back, thankfully he didn't as Gibbs continued a moment later.
"Take McGee and Tony, they are pretty much done here and can help you with tracking down some leads. I would also contact your Spectre, given how much trouble your team like to get themselves into…" The senior agent had a point, and whilst Shepard was going to be distracted with her sister and the assassination attempt, Garrus knew at least one member of the team that would be happy doing a little frog squashing.
Perhaps he would call the favour Kaidan owed him as well, in place of the credits from the poker game…
[]{}#%^*+=
"Keelah…" Tali wasn't going to try and claim she wasn't amazed and awed quite easily, though she liked to think given the number of crazily dangerous and wonderful things she had seen or done since joining the Normandy she was becoming harder to please, but as she watched the sparring match across the cargo bay she really couldn't help but stop and gawk.
Commander Shepard was considered a monster on the battlefield, an unflattering but accurate statement in Tali's opinion, given she had seen the results of some of the Commander's close quarter work more than once. She was currently unleashing a furious assault of biotic enhanced punches, kicks and other less traditional strikes that would have dropped your average Krogan in the first ten to fifteen seconds.
"You're wasting energy again Shepard-Taichou, and you're putting too much power into your strikes." The recipient of this onslaught, who for some reason volunteered to distract the Commander whilst Dr Chakwas was checking her sister over, was clearly struggling to stay ahead of the Commander given how hard he was breathing.
Despite the fact something had changed between them in a negative manner, Commander and Shinobi having been closer than some couples Tali knew until after an unknown incident on the Citadel when they had returned from Feros, Naruto retained his friendly jovial manner whilst 'sparring'. He was doing a good job of redirecting the Commander's emotions with his incessant dodging and 'advice', though the two times Shepard had caught him full on, her victory smirk had been damn near predatory in nature.
With how much energy Shepard was unleashing, it was only another minute or so before she started to run out of metaphorical steam, her biotics flickering and her short sharp jabs becoming more like laboured haymakers.
"That's enough Taichou." Naruto obviously had noticed the signs as well, though Shepard ignored his attempt to stop, something that Tali knew from experience would not end well.
Naruto was more than happy to push people to their limits in training, which she knew from the days after their 'spars' when every move felt like she was pulling a muscle, but when a certain Krogan pushed those limits Naruto showed everyone why those limits weren't there for HIS safety. Wrex had insisted on a spar following the revelations on Feros, and quickly lost himself into the Krogan 'Blood Rage' when Naruto spent his time dancing around the Krogan's attempts to grapple or tackle him.
The rage increased his speed enough that he managed to catch one of Naruto's arms, but the attempt to bite it off made it clear that rational Wrex wasn't home anymore. Everyone who had been off duty at the time had come to watch, no-one wanted to miss such a clash of titans after all, which meant everyone got to watch what happened next. Naruto managed to pull back his arm enough to avoid losing it entirely, though Wrex still removed enough of his bicep that Tali could have sworn she had seen bone as the young ninja roared.
It was a sound so full of pain and anger that Shepard had jumped in to try and separate the two of them, only for Naruto's body to become covered in that red energy she had only seen him use once or twice before she could. Even as Wrex went in for a second bite Naruto spun with unnatural speed and punted the Krogan across the room with a single roundhouse kick, Wrex's barrier shattering from just that one move.
Then Naruto dashed after the tumbling Krogan so quickly he almost became a red blur, leaping into the air so that his heel kick slammed into the top of Wrex's head plate just as the Krogan rolled to a stop, indenting the floor plate they were fighting on with the force of the impact. It was a merit to the Krogan's legendary toughness that Wrex still managed to get up after that, though as Shepard and Kaidan used Lift to separate the two of them it was clear that the blow had given Wrex a rather serious concussion at least.
"Jane-chan, stop!" Thankfully the Commander was not a Krogan lost in a blood rage, and Naruto reverting to using her first name seemed to be enough to break her out of her focussed state, the biotic energy draining from her limbs and her relaxing to a more casual stance.
It was clear how much punishment Shepard had inflicted upon herself a moment later, her legs giving way as the adrenaline left her body, something Naruto seemed to have anticipated as he caught her almost instantly. Tali was too far away to hear the short conversation the two of them held before Naruto helped move Shepard over to where she was sitting, but judging by the smile and the light blush on the Commander's face it had obviously been something she approved of.
The smile and the blush made Tali angry for a moment before she managed to beat the urge down. As much as she liked Naruto, something that was far from a secret on the ship given how much Ashley liked to wind her up about it, Tali knew that there was no way that it would work out even if he liked her back. Between the infection risks and the lack of actual skin on skin contact that could occur 99% of the time, as well as the obvious need for him to try and re-populate his race, she knew that even he would run out of patience eventually with her.
"Come on Tali-chan, your turn! After seeing how quickly you picked up some of the moves that I showed you last time, I am sure you will master these next couple in like… 5 minutes!" It was the sort of cheerful over-the-top boasting that would have annoyed Tali if anyone else had said it about themselves, but Naruto somehow always knew how to voice it like his honest appraisal of her skills and talent, which never failed to cheer her up, even if he didn't always realise what he was doing.
The smile that had blossomed on her face turned bittersweet at that thought, because it was the sort of thought that Tali had about Commander Shepard as well on occasion, the fiery woman now surprisingly open and friendly with her despite knowing that she fancied Naruto. If the two of them did get together, which Tali would take as a consolation prize given her own inability to pursue him properly, Tali knew it would make her future all the more difficult to decide upon.
Despite her desire to help her people and their fleet, Tali knew that if either of these 'humans' asked her to instead spend her time permanently on the Normandy or with them instead, she couldn't possibly hope to predict what her response would be…
!"£$%^&*()_+
"Another set of turrets! If we needed more proof that this 'Dr Heart' was doing something shady, the amount of automated defences on a simple clinic definitely puts him on my naughty list!" Kaidan smirked at the exasperation in Investigator Denotzo's voice, whilst he had been a little uncertain at first about the inclusion of two C-Sec officers in their strike team, the two of them had performed more than adequately as they dealt with the clinics automated defences.
"Good news is that I nearly have access to clinic's mainframe, just need to remove last few firewalls… Done!" Investigator Geren's work in hacking into the clinic was truly impressive to Kaidan, whilst Garrus was a decent hacker when he put his mind to things, Kaidan hadn't seen anyone hack into a system that quickly other than Tali.
"Well if you could turn these things off before we have to smash them all… Well I don't mind, but the collateral might make it harder to find something on this Saelon guy, and then Garrus will get even more uptight…" Wrex probably wasn't joking about enjoying the smashing, but several seconds of furious tapping shut the turrets down before the Krogan could carry on his rampage.
"Well done Investigator, see if you can find anything that we can use to track Dr Saleon, or whatever alias he is using these days…" With a nod the Salarian carried on typing away, leaving Kaidan in charge of the room.
Whilst there couldn't be an official ranking structure in a Spectre strike team, it was generally accepted that he and Garrus were usually the ones in charge of giving orders when Commander Shepard was busy. Whilst his 'seniority' in terms of the time he had spent serving Shepard could have been used to pull rank, Kaidan decided instead it was personal involvement that meant he was in charge instead.
"Garrus, you and Denotzo search for any information about where Saleon is, or whether he has another alias behind the 'Dr Heart' he used in opening up this place. Wrex and I will handle security and clean up." The Krogan growled, but after a moment seemed to change his mind and started towards one of the inactive turrets.
"Better than paperwork, though I still want my frog squashing soon…" Garrus was already flicking through papers and files, showing Kaidan that he had been right in his assumption.
He didn't know the full story behind Garrus and the Salarian they were after, but as Agent Denotzo had to hand Garrus a pair of gloves and remind him not to contaminate an area where they could gather evidence, it was clear that whatever it was Garrus was letting it control him.
"Lieutenant Alenko." Joker's voice over the comm caused Kaidan to split his attention between him and dismantling one of the busted turrets for parts.
"We are just clearing up Joker, good timing, I was about to call the Normandy for a salvage crew. Though I doubt it is some kind of hidden biotic based premonition power that has you contacting me." There was a commotion between Agent Denotzo and Garrus, probably meaning they had found something of interest, but Kaidan wasn't confident of his ability to triple task effectively so would check in a minute.
"Good guess, we think we have a lead, something that Drell chick came up with when the doctor sent us his initial findings. To say the Commander is eager to get going is an understatement. Think you can wrap up what you need in 2 hours?" Looking at where Garrus was working away on his omni-tool, Kaidan decided to make an executive decision.
"Wrex and I will be back in half that, if Naruto can point us in the direction of his storage place on the Citadel that he no doubt has but hasn't told us about yet. Garrus will stay here and coordinate any new evidence or missions that arise." That was going to definitely be a secondary concern for Garrus by the look of it, but Kaidan wasn't one to air people's private issues over comms, he would explain to Commander Shepard in person when they got back to the ship.
"Got it, I will patch you through now, see you in an hour." There was the hiss of static for a moment, before an unfamiliar female voice came over the comms.
"Senju Spare Parts and Scrap service, Sarai speaking. How can we serve you today?" Kaidan knew Naruto could change into a very convincing human female, the time he transformed naked in the middle of the canteen one of Kaidan's most embarrassing memories of all time, but he couldn't out and out assume the voice on the phone was him without risking Naruto's secret.
"This is Lieutenant Alenko, I need to speak to Naruto Uzumaki about some personal items that I no longer need." It was one of the passphrases that Commander Shepard had come up with, in case anyone in the team wanted to confirm if they were talking to one of Naruto's disguised clones over the comms without outright asking.
"The Boss is busy right now Lieutenant, though he has left instruction to accommodate any business from a fine upstanding gentleman like yourself. The boss has recently hired a new team that I can allocate to obtain your items, though they will need you to sign for them when they arrive." Interesting, that made it sound like Naruto was using more than just clones now to populate his operation, or at least that was how Kaidan understood what he was hearing.
"Of course, sending you the location now. Some of the packages are a little… unwieldy, so they may need to bring a way of transporting them discretely. Tell them to ask for Investigator Garrus Vakarian on arrival, he will make sure they only take the items they need to…" Dear God, the more Kaidan carried on the conversation the more he sounded like some cheesy spy out of Earth's movie history.
"I will make sure they bring some heavy lifting equipment and a grav cart, understood Lieutenant. Looking at the address they will not make it there for at least an hour, will that be an issue?" Looking at where the three C-Sec agents were now beginning to rifle through the cabinets of medical files, Kaidan shook his head before realising he wasn't on a video call.
"That won't be a problem, the urgency of these items isn't important, just make sure that the team know the condition of the items on arrival is important…"
"Of course Lieutenant. Is there anything else?" Letting the clone know there wasn't anything else, Kaidan dropped the call and started making his way over to Garrus, even if the Turian was a little distracted he would be professional enough to look after a retrieval team as well as his own investigation…
Given he and Wrex needed to start heading back to the Normandy if they were to make his self-imposed deadline in time, that's what Kaidan hoped at least…
!"£$%^&*()_+
"What have you found?" The cold irritation that creeped into his voice was something that the Illusive Man would normally internally berate himself over, composure and control were two of the most important characteristics a man of his position could possess after all.
But as the massive screen in front of him jumped to a camera feed showing the command room of one of the Cerberus satellite bases littering the Terminus System, Operator Kai wiping his blade on the body of one of several bodies littering the normally pristine rooms whilst considering his response, a little loss of emotional control felt justified in these particular circumstances.
"Senior Operative Bengal was very… resistant to Agent King's approach of a 'surprise audit', and even when Operative Bengal let Agent King inside she tried to prevent access to certain areas of the facility. When Agent King pressed for entrance, Operative Bengal ordered the other Cerberus agents at the facility to silence her." After the ambush at the facility Commander Shepard's kin was being held at, the Illusive man had been more furious than he had been in years.
After the considerable resources he had spent, both monetarily in hiring the likes of Goto and the smugglers to bring his agents aboard the Citadel to rescue Agent Lawson but also in terms of manpower, his big attempt to mend some of the mental 'damage' done to his organisation's reputation had been potentially de-railed within hours. Whilst he could claim ignorance regarding the trap to Uzumaki and by association Shepard, their view of Cerberus would make it very unlikely they would take his word at face value.
"I revealed myself to prevent Agent King from being sacrificed, and attempted to get the other Agents to stand down. Whilst roughly 70% of the Agents stood down on my order, the remaining 7 retreated to this control room and attempted to activate the Facility's self destruct mechanism. When I breached the door, they were… unwilling to surrender." Despite himself, the Illusive man let a ghost of a smile cross his face.
Operator Kai was very, zealous when dealing with those who opposed him or Cerberus, so the Illusive man doubted that they had been given much of a chance to regret their decision.
"My team is in the process of sweeping the facility now, but given the additional security features not on our official manifest and their determination to prevent our investigation, either the leadership team were dealing on the side or we're accepting bribes. Operative Bengal is alive, for now. Do you wish me to interrogate her or bring her back with me?" As much as the emotional side in the Illusive man desired him to give Kai the go ahead then and there, what Uzumaki had said about his organisation made him take a deep breath and calm himself down.
"Bring her here, I need to know everything she has been doing, especially as all of her reports showed nothing more than the occasional deviation from her training." Kai nodded his head in understanding, allowing the Illusive man to cut the feed, feeling a sensation he hadn't felt in years.
His hands darted across the keyboard in front of him, bringing up report after report from the station in question. Everything was too normal, including the occasional blip in the writing style to show Operative Bengal had been stressed when she had written it, and because of that he hadn't even remembered the reports until he looked them up.
And that was the problem, dozens of these kind of reports passed to him or his top operators every week. Years ago, these would have been exactly the type of reports that he would have focused on. They either implied that the reporter wasn't being pushed and therefore felt that average was perfectly okay, or…
He saw it as he flipped through the reports one after another, a pattern in the budgetary monies being spent on and brought in by Cerberus operations leading to money being allocated to operations he couldn't remember and weren't mentioned in the bodies of the reports outside the budget. It was mostly values less than 20,000 credits, which meant he hadn't paid them any mind as he skimmed from one report to another, and the project names were bland enough that they hadn't caught his attention enough to remember from one week to the next.
But over the 20 reports he had checked so far, Operative Bengal and her team had siphoned off over 150,000 credits via these dummy operations, enough to line their pockets significantly given their already lucrative wages. His hand paused on the last file, eyes fixed on the last project name Operative Bengal had used for siphoning money, though this one was a large credited operation designed to hide the losses from other projects.
Standing from his seat, the Illusive man moved with remarkable determination towards the side room he had for contacting people via quantum entanglement. His chair continued spinning from the force of the sudden movement for a few seconds, before coming to a stop with only the slightest of squeaks. It faced the central screen, three words that had aggravated it's owner to the point of spontaneous action blown up in the middle of the screen, almost mockingly.
Operation: Elysium Burning
A/N: People have complained about A LOT of things about this fic, everything from Naruto's spear to the fact that he is underpowered compared to the Anime. But the biggest sticking point people seem to have for the most part is 'you can't suddenly have Cerberus become nice/good'. What surprises me is that some of these people are those who were all for the 'anti-human/evil Council I had going at the beginning/still going now.
Anyway, this isn't the Illusive man suddenly changing tack completely, or all the acts Cerberus 'did' being false. This is my attempt at pointing out something people seem to struggle to understand, that neither the Illusive man or the shadow broker are God.
They both rely on a large amount of subordinates to be as powerful as they seem, feeding them intel that their strategic minds lobby for the best possible advantage and acting as their weapons/tools, but neither of them are perfect. If someone or some people in that system starts playing their own version of the game, then their power becomes far weaker, especially if they don't notice.
So you have a rotten Cerberus, filled with Cells essentially acting as their own mini criminal cartels underneath the surface of dutiful agents, the Illusive man beginning to question his skills and the motivations of his organisation. All done in a subtle 'cause and effect' stretching all the way back to when the Illusive man first started paying attention to Naruto.
It isn't even in an obvious manner, or at least it is far more subtle than some of the suggestions I have had, and it will not cause a large change in ME 1 as it takes TIME for people to change.
Anyway, rant on the smallest section of this chapter over. What did people think of the rest of it? Before people go on the 'No way so many Batarians could infiltrate the Citadel', the Citadel is HUGE, with millions if not billions of people on it. More than that, mercs bring all their weapons aboard all the time.
This chapter covers my personal version of the Mindoir backstory mini-quest, with a far more personal incentive to Jane, as well as introducing the Dr Saleon storyline completely by coincidence ;). I also wanted to use the opportunity to show that whilst Naruto is powerful, he isn't the only BAMF in the team, especially as Jane and the others begin to improve their training and skills based on what he does.
What did people think of my Mass Effect of the NCIS team? I still have to decide species for Abby, Palmer and Kate (who may/may not be alive…), but I think it is a good mix of obvious choices and surprises. I think it is a good homage, prevents me having to create new OCs, and fleshes out C-Sec a bit more without needing to delve too deeply.
On a more serious note, I have to offer an apology now. I have recently bought a house, which all of a sudden means I have suddenly got to worry about this whole 'being an adult and managing my budget' thing. I know I don't post regularly, but this is me letting you guys know that that rate is going to drop significantly going forward.
I did set up a .on account, but I don't think what I offer on here is going to be worth people spending money on. Though, if you want to check it out, it is the same username as I use here. Perhaps I am being overly pessimistic.
I have muscled through all of my working stories to provide you with a new chapter for each of them, I hope you all enjoy them, and apologies for the bad news.