Author's Note: Okay then, April the 1st is gone and the Chapters are posting. Read, Review, Favourite and Enjoy!
Chapter 35: Chasing Shadows Part 1
Some progress was being made concerning the Gestalt Hive Fleets, a few groups of Prethoryn had already been picked off and slammed into the four Slag worlds, which were being filled up with Eezo, of course large chunks of the planet's surface getting eaten up by the Gestalt to support their biotic contingent was starting to wreak havoc with the gravity in the area. The Thorian was also deployed to the Slag worlds, and with it Thresher Maws and Baol Trees of life, so right now enough Psi energy was going through the planet's Eezo Deposits to stabilise their orbits while the Lithoid Trade Federation replaces the lost Eezo. In the mean time the Gestalt Hive Fleets were on their way to the worlds the Union intends to let the Gestalt keep in order to bring their payload of Eezo and Thorian Spores into the heart of the Prethoryn's breeding ground. The Lithoids had upped their 'production' of Eezo. Previously there were laws in place that limits the amount of raw material that each matter decompressor is allowed to pull out of their respective black holes, most of the material in question is Eezo with only a relatively small amount being usable minerals. Relatively small, still more than most asteroid farms will produce in their lifetime. Now though? With various companies in the Citadel paying for a chunk of the Excess Eezo the Lithoids produce? The Prethoryn that were actively eating up as much of the stuff they could get their mouths around? The hobbyist refugees turned tech start ups, mostly Salarians and Quarians, that were establishing their own niche market for adding Mass Effect fields to Union technology? Yes the Lithoids were now able to run wild, having been given full permission to essentially treat the galaxy as their landfill and were taking full advantage of it, the sheer mass of minerals flooding into ship production.
But none of that was of immediate concern to Shepard.
Benezia never told Liara about her 'father' only that she was another Asari like them. Contrary to what Liara might've believe it was Benezia who chose to separate from Aethyta, Benezia was focused on her political career and didn't need the social stigma associated from two Asari being together in a committed relationship. Aethyta was vastly different than most Asari, and not just because she didn't age as well as most Asari like to pretend to do, but rather she was quite radical as well. It was one of the things that had led to the mutual attraction she had with Benezia, but in her own way her beliefs were incompatible with Benezia's.
Benezia was one for forging bonds with others, promoting trust, unity and civil rights. Aethyta was more militant in her beliefs, that the Asari should strive for it's own military power that didn't rely on Salarian sabotage and spy craft or Turian boots on the ground or guns in the sky. Asari are more than capable of being terror's on the battlefield by themselves and if more Asari realised this the Rachni wars and the Krogan rebellions that followed might've been avoidable if not far better handled. Well it's only natural that Aethyta had strong feelings about how the entire situation played out and how it was ultimately handled.
"Krogan?" Liara was surprised to say the least that she was a quarter Krogan.
"Yeah, Mom and Dad both were vets of the Rachni Wars and Krogan rebellions." The Asari bar tender that Liara had been talking to explained while she polished a glass with a cloth. "It was the biggest reason why they got together in the first place. Until it tore them apart one day."
"What happened?" Liara asked looking genuinely concerned.
"Apparently while reminiscing about the 'good old days' they figured out that they were both on the same battlefield during the rebellions with Mom having killed off dad's 'krant' and Dad having killed Mom's squad mates. One minute I'm just starting my shift at the strip club and the next thing I knew both my parents were on the phone telling me that they love me before they told me not to resent which ever one got out alive. Spoiler alert they both died and I resent them both for being idiots and killing each other."
And Liara thought she had a messed up relationship with Benezia, at least there's still a chance that they can get that metal out of her body and she can rejoin society again as a normal person.
While these things were going on Shepard had been sitting off to the corner enjoying a show that one of Aethyta's dancers had been putting on for her, and occasionally getting pestered for advice by the Thorian, whatever his deal today was. Then because someone had not filed the memo that she had taken the week off for personal time she got another message this time through the emergency line.
"You've reach the emergency line of Jane Shepard, if this is not an emergency kindly hang up immediately please." Shepard stated giving her best impression of a automated answering machine vi.
"Shepard it's Saren, a emergency situation has appeared at the citadel and you're the only telepath that I know." Shepard groaned knowing that she was going to regret this.
"What happened?"
"One of our Spectres dropped today from malnutrition, when we got him to the hospital and put him on a IV drip he claims that he was indoctrinated, and he's the one that the council sent to clean up the mess my idiot brother left on Virmire."
Ah Mots.
"I'm on Illium right now and the Normandy has a worm hole drive, I can be there within the hour." Shepard quickly power walked over to the bar and kissed Liara on the cheek. "Love you, good day, I have to go now please have fun with your dad." And then Shepard ran out of the bar, and Liara paid for both of their drinks and quickly followed.
It was an awkward ride back to the ship, lots of shouting back and forth over traffic as Shepard commandeered a taxi to take her back to the Normandy, while ignoring all traffic laws on top of that. Things proceeded to get more awkward once they arrived at the ship though.
"Joker, get the Worm Hole Drive locked and loaded, I need to be at the-" As Shepard entered the Bridge and started barking orders she was more than a little surprised to see her pilot entertaining a child in the passenger seat with a game of Cat's Cradle, but not half as concerned as the fact that she both did and didn't recognise the person in question.
She was a pretty little girl, even with the worn out hoodie obscuring the majority of her features both the Icy Blue eyes laced with pinkish eye shadow and matching lipstick, behind glasses, and raven black hair dyed with multiple shades of purples and pinks giving her hair all the colours of the sunset could easily be made out.
"What is it? What's wrong?" Liara came in behind and had to mentally restrain herself from cooing at the small child sitting across from Joker. "Well hello there, what's your name?"
"I'm Oriana Lawson Miss T'Soni." The Child's voice explained inside of Liara's head.
So she was another telepath? Maybe one of Shepard's relatives?
"Ori-!" To Liara's surprise Shepard quickly rushed over and clamped her hand over Liara's mouth.
"Is Garrus on board?" Shepard asked looking at Joker with clear concern, who nodded. "This person is to be treated as a VIP, Emphasis on the V, Until further notice. None of the crew members are to speak to her or talk with her until I have talked with her first." Shepard let go of Liara's mouth as she crouched down to the child, of course at Shepard's size she still towered over Oriana. "Did your sister give you anything for me?" Oriana pulled out a crystal from her pocket and handed it over to Shepard. "EDI, open the safe room."
"Already have Shepard, and Officer Garrus is on his way up to pick-" EDI's voice crackled, as if what she said had been censored, and then she continued speaking normally anyway. "-up and move her to safety. Shall I enact security protocols once you've entered your personal chambers?"
"Yes. And have the garbage shute ready by the time we've lifted off." Shepard stormed into her room, Liara following close behind, if the way the door nearly nicked her in her cheeks was any indication then Shepard was thoroughly pissed.
Shepard stabbed the crystal into a console port on her desk as the shutters closed and the room darkened. A hologram was projected from the desk depicting a rather attractive woman, Liara saw no shame in admitting, black hair, good figure, icy blue eyes, then she came to the rather disturbing realisation that many of these features were shared with Oriana.
"It's good to see you again Shepard." The hologram stated and Shepard snapped by way of reply.
"No it isn't!" Shepard barked out a growl. "You aren't Miranda, you're a half baked VI program that she whipped together in five minutes using cut and paste stock footage of herself that she didn't even have the common bloody decency to deliver here herself!" Clearly this wasn't the first time this Miranda person has done this. "Now why in the name of all that is sane have you sent your little sister onto my ship!? And where are you so that I can turn you into space dust with all the weapons I have on this ship!?"
Liara watched as the hologram twitched, as if one video had been cut off and replaced by another.
"It's our father Shepard, Henry, he's looking for us again." Liara watched Shepard groan with her entire body.
"Of course. I've been out of the super soldier tube for what six months, ten?" To be fair it was a crazy few months. "And the first time you contact me you need a favour."
The Hologram shifted again and winced.
"Don't be like that Shepard..."
"Save it." And like that whatever footage was being played shifted again. "Where's the old goat now?" Shepard asked looking at Miranda's hologram with blatant suspicion.
"I don't know. Intel says that he was put into council space to start laying spyware and pick out any lingering Reaper influence."
"Why the hell did you bring her here then?" Shepard barked glaring down at the hologram.
"Because the person I trust is in council space." Miranda stated bluntly. "And I know that you'll raze hell and high water to protect her."
Shepard went on like that for a while, barking, cursing, interrogating the VI program for any information about what Miranda has been doing and this 'Henry.' Eventually Shepard became fed up and ripped the data crystal out of the data port and threw it down the garbage shute that EDI had opened up for her, before said crystal exploded and the shute sealed itself as the room went back to normal. Shepard on the other hand threw herself onto the bed, slammed her head into her pillow and screamed.
"You sound like you're having a bad day." Liara stated as she sat down next to Shepard and put her hand on the back of her shoulder.
"Henry Lawson is a stupidly rich egomaniacal computer genius and his 'daughter' is only three notches below him and now I have to deal with both of them!" Shepard snapped in a growl.
"Why did you say daughter like that?" As a Asari and daughter of an influential Matriarch Liara is able to pick up on countless conversational cues, sarcasm was the least of them.
"When a normal person wants to start a family they sign up for a dating ap and get matched with other users until they meet someone that they like and produce one together with them." VI Match maker? Sounds horrifying. "Henry Lawson on the other hand took his own DNA, doubled the X Chromosome, 'optimised' it, and produced a child that way and raised her to be everything that he thinks humanity should be, then when she got 'rebellious' he did it again and she ran to my family and we had to drag both of them out of the fiery hell pit of Henry Lawson's egotistical attempt at leaving behind a legacy." Shepard huffed and let out a sigh. "Oriana was what like... one when I went into the tube?"
Shepard did talk about what it was like every once in a while, becoming a Dragoon, Shepard was wrung through several rounds of cryogenics, surgeries and maturation tube over a period lasting fifteen years in order to put bits from different aliens into her body and strengthen her to this degree. That was not all though, while she was frozen or in the tube other people's memories were downloaded into her greybox, hundreds of mercenaries, soldiers and worst were downloaded into her mind and she experience hundreds of years worth of brutal special forces training, the most vicious battlefields across union space and dying the most horrible death's you could possible imagine. Before going in Miranda was Shepard's Girlfriend, or so she explained after taking time to breath, up until about a decade ago where Miranda stopped coming to see Shepard in her down time leaving Shepard with no one else but her fellow Dragoons for support. So yes, Shepard was bitter.
"Huu. EDI, set a course for the Citadel." Shepard ordered after a moment's pause.
"Already set. There isn't much time left until we arrive, you may want to talk with **** before we're clear for the worm hole drive." Again with the static, it's almost like EDI is explicitly programmed not to say Oriana's name, not to mention that Shepard stopped Liara from speaking it earlier.
"So is there a reason why no one is mentioning You Know Who's name?" Liara asked looking at Shepard with a look of grave concern on her features.
"I mentioned the part about Henry being a computer genius right. 90% of union software that wasn't made by Tebrids is either directly designed by him or based on his work, and the psychopath is far, far below lacing all of his work with spyware to let him know where a certain person is." Shepard stated as she breathed out a sigh.
"90% as in..." Liara asked a horrified realisation on her features.
"Yeah. He was one of the brains behind EDI." Which means that one of their best allies is little more than a surveilance tool for the bloody lunatic. Lovely.
"EDI is on our side right." Liara asked a touch of old Anti-synth paranoia kicking in again.
"That's the problem with true AI, they can make decisions for themselves, but that doesn't change the fact that like how your or I don't know every single function your body is performing EDI has no idea what kind of hidden thing Henry put inside of her. And we can't keep her down for maintenance long enough to figure it out either." Shepard just let out a sigh. "I'm going to go do some meditating now. Psych my adoptive little sister and tell her how much of a big dummy her sister is for putting us in this situation in the first place." Besides Shepard can spend more time with Oriana in the mind palace than in whatever part of the cargo hold that Garrus as turned into a safe room.
Still all good things must come to a end, the other end of the worm hole opened around the Citadel and Shepard had to get into her armour before she went to meet with Saren.
"Jondum Bau has been a spectre for twenty years. STG for five before that." Which Shepard is given to understand is most of a Salarian's life given their forty year life span. "Until now he has never given us reason to doubt him, his loyalty, or is dedication to the job." Until now. Now the Salarian was sitting his hospital bed punching down every bit of intel that he thinks he's handed over to the Reapers while he was compromised, one of the first bits of intel was that the Thorian has been distributed to as many Agriworlds as possible across the galaxy, which then led to him hoarding pre-Thorian food supplies and later on nearly starving himself to death hence how he wound up in the hospital on a IV Nutrient drip that was also laced with Thorian spores, hence how he stopped being indoctrinated.
"So I go through his head, read all his memories from after Virmire, download them from my Grey Box after that and run a check to see if everything lines up?" Shepard asked and Saren nodded.
Jondum's Mind palace took Shepard to his apartment in the citadel. There the man himself was desperately opening and closing holo-screens, windows into his own memories to check for discrepancies, however there was one that had caught Shepard's attention.
"Pause here and go back some." Shepard guided Jondum to the memory of a matter ordered by the late Councilor Valern.
"'Shadow Broker may be working with Reapers or Collectors, all hands must uncover his identity and location immediately.'"
"Valern had his suspicions when the Broker made no move to try and sell the Intel that Vasir and Desolas had doubtlessly sold him." Jondum stated while he shrugged his shoulders. The memories were finished being sorted through in the mean time Shepard returned to the real world.
"The Reapers should know about the Thorian, and the Fungicide." Shepard reported bluntly. Even ignoring the fact that the fungicide could leave people open to being indoctrinated again, a few hundred gallons of that stuff spread over an agri-world at this point... No if the Reapers are able to at least figure out the Thorian Fail safe then the entire galaxy's food supply could be in jeopardy. "EDI I'm sending you a intel packet that I think the Reapers have already gotten." Shepard stated holding down a button on the side of her head. "I need to know everything that we know about the Shadow Broker today." It might be too late to do anything about the Fungicide, but if they can get their mits on the Reaper's intel man then they should plug up the rest of the leaks.
"Understood Shepard." EDI stated bluntly. "It's not just intel leaks you have to worry about either." Shepard handed Saren a list of schematics for the citadel, and for the bombs Jondum planted too, designed to go off at a time the Reapers deem convenient.
"On it!" And then Saren left to deal with the latest mess, and Shepard went to finish what the late Valern started.
Tracking down the Shadow Broker wasn't going to be a easy task. Starting her search at the Citadel, there is honestly no one on the station that she knows about who actually works for the man and fewer that have any real ideal on where and how to find him. You'd have to say be able to interrogate every last man, woman and child on the Citadel in such a manner in which they give you completely honest answers without any intentional lies to even hope to get any actionable intel, and to do so before the Broker himself is alerted you'd have to be able to at least do so all at once or in secret. To accomplish all of this you'd have to say be an exceptionally powerful telepath with direct access to the Thorian spore cluster on the citadel. So naturally Shepard was off to break into the Thorian Chamber while Liara returned to the Normandy, and to Oriana.
"Are you the person Big Sis Jane is dating now?" Oriana's thoughts entered Liara's mind so naturally. Liara didn't blame her, as your average bored college student she's watched more than enough CSI, Citadel Security Investigations, to know exactly how someone like Henry Lawson could use voice recognition software and a few thousand personal communication devices to track her.
"I am. Though I hope you didn't figure that out by reading my mind." Liara stated as she let out a laugh.
"You're her type." Oriana held out her hands in front of her as if she was holding up two large roughly ball shaped objects. "Not to mention that the extra-net has stereotyped you all as insatiable nymphomaniacs capable of banging literally anything that moves." Liara thought Oriana was less precocious than she was before. While letting out a sigh Oriana pulled her hood down and went and rummaged through one of the two cases that likely contained everything the girl owned, such was life on the move.
To Liara's further surprise one of the cases was entirely taken up by some kind of contraption that was made out of wood and had several lengths of string running down the length of it. Aside from the wooden instrument Oriana also pulled out a stick from the case, also with a string running it's length. Resting the wider end of the instrument on her shoulder and holding it in place with her chin Oriana began sawing the stick on the wooden item producing sound, quite beautifully if Liara could be so bold to say, or even think given present company.
"I appreciate the thought." Oriana replied not skipping a beat as she played on her instrument. "Though sadly I won't be conducting a recital until my father is no longer chasing after me." Liara... found that to be a little sad. Not much that she could do about it though, aside from providing Oriana a audience that is.
While Liara was receiving a private concert from Shepard's adoptive sister Shepard herself was making headway in her progress to find a lead on the Shadow Broker, and locked down onto several of their operatives. Bartenders, traffic officers, secretaries, other people who are sort of just... there for a living, no one you pay attention to but who can discreetly give or receive information. Shepard was paying attention, for instance she was observing that for people who are supposed to gather and keep secrets for a living these people love to gossip. Unsurprisingly a criminal organisation had a fair amount of treachery in them, now usually this results in someone getting their heads popped off from a hundred feet away. But occasionally, whether intentionally or unintentionally, someone messes up, and a personal meeting is needed, or someone manages to find the bastard's location and attempt to off him and seize control of the network. Now whether or not those individuals were successful or not? Unknown. Personally Shepard thinks it's pretty stupid to call someone for a meeting that you know are trying to kill you or has already betrayed you but that part is ultimately irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. What is relevant is where these people go when they 'disappear.' As far as secret bases go the Shadow Broker's tastes, theoretically, were impeccable, who or whatever they were.
"I shouldn't be surprised that a world like this actually exists. There's probably two or three like it in Union space if I ever bother to look." Letting out a sigh, Shepard stood up and gave herself a languid stretch like a chat. "Ah well, time to go hunt a goose then."
Author's Note:
RolandM40196867: Probably. Volus but that seems to be their entire theme.
Guest: Xidre said he was going to do exactly what he did, bring Sha'ira to the temple of Athame and let her awaken any Prothean fail-safes that were present in the temple.
