Disclaimer: I do no own Mass Effect, I do not claim to own Mass Effect, I am only doing this for fun.
Author Notes: Shepard's quest to help her whole crew is continuing in this one. Savvy reading of the previous episode would have told you that this one coming up.
Episode 30: Bad Medicine
The three of them were back on the Normandy shortly after lunch. Matthews had saved them some food, and while Shepard and Garrus settled down in the mess at what became known as the "officer's table", Nihlus took his meal into his cabin. The mess's two tables were not officially designated, but it had become a habit for the crew to occupy the one closest to the elevator, while the officers and field team used the one closest to the galley.
Right then the back table was occupied by four servicemen. One of them had clearly watched the news, so they were avidly discussing the murder in the garden, whether it was a single isolated case or the start of a serial killer's spree. Apparently there had been an update issued, the servicemen knew that the victim's body had been mutilated and that the suspect identified by C-sec was a human woman.
Shepard listened, while trying not to grin too broadly and give herself away. It amused her that none of them bothered to come to the former detective in the room. Shepard was going to assume they simply did not want to bother Garrus, because she did not want to think they were still intimidated. She was not going to go and steer them toward the truth either. There was no harm in discussions like that, even if their theories were a fair bit off.
She could only wonder what Garrus thought of all of this, but when she glanced toward him she saw he was occupied with something on his omni-tool, only stopping briefly to take another mouthful of food. It brought to mind what she overheard back at C-sec, and she dithered on whether to bring it up. Was Garrus aware that she overheard something? She could not believe he would be oblivious, but then, the bullpen had been noisy and she had a soft step, so there was no way to know for sure. Garrus would come to her if the situation was dire, right? She hoped he knew that if he needed help, she would be there to provide it.
Within another ten minutes the servicemen seated a table over gathered their dishes and deposited them into the washer unit before departing to return to their shifts, leaving Shepard alone in the mess with Garrus.
"They were completely off on their theories," Garrus broke the silence in what felt like forever.
"I know," Shepard replied. "But hey, let them have their fun. There is no point in spreading this around unless we have to do something about it."
"Yes." Garrus conceded. "I suppose you are right."
"Also… I get the feeling this is indeed one of the nastier ones that C-sec had to deal with."
"It does rank up there as far as murders go." Garrus replied. "Every area of investigation gets their nasty ones. You would not believe what you will see on the Wards if you work illegal substances or organized crime."
"I can imagine." Drugs and the mafia had a way of bringing the absolute worst out of people.
"Trafficking can also be a nasty job, whether you investigate person trafficking or just parts."
Shepard blinked, stunned. "There is still… person trafficking on the Citadel?" She would not have through that anyone would do that right under the Council's nose, but she supposed that to some that would be part of the thrill.
"It is a very risky operation, but it does happen. Fortunately the worst is gone. Batarian Hegemony ships were notorious for it. The Council could not forbid them to enslave their own, but when they captured others … C-sec was responsible for helping them. Of course that was back before they severed ties and became undesirables on the station."
"I assume you did not just raid every Hegemony ship that came in."
"No. We could not. We had to wait for someone to call for help. As you might imagine, there were not many of those. The slaves brought near the Citadel were broken, having no thought of freedom. We knew they were there, the batarians knew we knew they were there, and they brought them in anyway, on purpose. I am not sorry to see those slimy bastards go." Garrus explained, his voice flashing with anger.
"Did you witness any of it in person?" Shepard wondered. The Hegemony had cut all official ties with the Council back in the 2160s, after the Council had refused to declare the Skyllian Verge a zone exclusive to their interests. The decision had been a way to appease the growing power of the Alliance in the wake of the First Contact War, but Shepard suspected the Council's dislike for the Hegemony had been a factor as well. After all, even as aggressive as the Alliance was, Humanity's cultural norms were nowhere near as repugnant.
Fundamentally, no one wanted their citizens to live under the constant threat of abduction into slavery by relentless gangs of semi-professional slavers, like those operated less-than-clandestinely by the Hegemony. The Alliance was allowed to expand and surround the Batarian home cluster, the Kite's Nest nebula, forming a buffer between Council Space and the Hegemony. That vast territory required policing, and in doing so the Alliance took up a job that the Turian fleets had done otherwise. The decision to let the Alliance have that particular region of the galaxy was entirely self-serving.
Garrus shook his head, but his mandibles flicked in amusement, "How old do you think I am, Commander?"
"Twenty… something?" She asked. Shepard had to remind herself that Turians started compulsive military service at the age of fifteen, but other than that she had no idea of what was considered normal.
"Well, at least you did not say thirty-something, but still, no prize. I am a little… disappointed." He rumbled, his expression positively cat-who-ate-canary.
"I'll give you that one," Shepard said. She was not a mind reader, and guessing people's ages was touch and go under the best of circumstances. The signs of age depended on what genetic therapy one had, and of course Garrus was not even human. How was she supposed to know?
"I am twenty-six, Commander. I was born the year of the Relay Three-One-Four incident." Garrus continued. "I joined Citadel Security five years ago."
Shepard raised an eyebrow; Garrus seemed to have gotten quite a bit of experience during the five odd years he spent in what she assumed to be active service in the Hierarchy's military. He was a trained recon scout, and had apparently worked ordnance on some ship as well. From where she sat, his ascent up the ranks seemed meteoric. Though admittedly she could see it, Garrus embodied dedication and hard work. "So we covered person trafficking, what about body parts?"
Garrus hummed, "Well… organ trafficking on the Citadel comes in two varieties. The first is the violent form. I remember this one Elcor diplomat we caught during my first year on the job… he was a real psycho, enjoyed the kill, and the money he got selling the organs was just something extra to cover expenses he could not file claims on."
"Okay that is… disturbing." Shepard could not even begin imagining a murderous Elcor, let alone how he could have gotten body-parts out of his victims. Then again, maybe she did not want to think too hard about that anyways.
"The second variety is more… well… benign. It often comes from legitimate facilities. After all, when someone in the hospital needs a kidney, a lab will typically grow three, as not every starter grows viable. Sometimes that results with labs having spares, and… some fail to destroy them, though the paperwork says they did. These end up on the black market."
"You know the ins and outs of that area?" Shepard wondered.
"Well… yes. I started on black market trade."
"You must have seen every dirty deal in the book."
"Perhaps. Most of it was things that can not be imported due to trade embargoes, harmless things not worth pursuing. The organ trade was where things could get bad. There was this one time…" Garrus stopped there and glanced around the mess hall. "It started with an unusual increase in volume. Normally that meant either a new lab, or a psycho on the loose, but the latter was obviously out, no concurrent spike in missing person reports, and no mutilated bodies turning up in alleys."
"What happened?" Shepard wondered.
"We got a hold of a sample and ran DNA. We found a match, and the weirdest thing? It led us to a turian who was still alive and convinced he never lost a liver. From there it was routine background work. The source worked in sanitation, but I found a single deposit for a period of temp work for a Doctor Saleon, a geneticist."
"A weird aberration."
"Yes, definitely. So I visited the doctor's lab, hoping to find something, but there was nothing. No salarian hearts, no turian livers, and not one krogan testicle."
"Krogan… testicles?" Shepard repeated, incredulous.
"It is a common racket. Some krogan believe a transplant will increase their virility, circumvent the genophage. It does not work, but some believe it does, and they are willing to pay ten thousand for each." Garrus explained.
"Forty thousand for a set…"
"Factor in that they develop rapidly and you can make a killing." Garrus added.
"I'd say. So, this… Doctor Saleon?"
"Right. Well… I looked into his employees, and that is where I found a pattern. He had quite the motley and oversized janitorial staff; we are talking one person doing just the bathrooms, one doing just the windows…"
"Who does that?" Shepard asked.
"Exactly. I suspected they were his disguised smugglers, so I brought a couple to interrogation, see if I could get them to flip. Apparently one tripped and bumped a table in the waiting room, as next thing I know, he is bleeding profusely. We offered to patch him up, but… he freaked out. After we restrained him, for his own safety, I ordered a full exam. Our medic found a number of incisions, varying in freshness. He ruptured sutures in our waiting room. That was my big break. I knew they were incubators. Living, breathing incubators."
"He was growing parts inside them?" Shepard could hardly believe what she was hearing.
"Yes. Then when the organs were ready, he would extract them, but only the viable ones. The malformed ones he left inside. Most of those workers were poor, needed the money he was willing to pay, and outwardly it must have seemed like a good opportunity. They thought there was no way for a spare of their own organ to be rejected."
"Unless it was malformed, and the body decided it did not like it." Shepard noted. Or worse, the doctor made an error in the process and the starter culture turned into a type of cancer, an out of control parasitic growth that would ruin the real organs.
Garrus nodded, "These people were a mess, but only on the inside. It was all hidden that no one would see, and Saleon would not need some of the equipment normally required."
"I hope you gave him what he deserved," Shepard said. This doctor sounded like the biggest violator of the Hippocratic Oath she had ever heard of. When she noted how Garrus had stilled and his mandibles drew up against his chin, the realization dawned on her in an instant; Garrus would not have had that reaction if he had gotten this bastard.
The moment passed as Garrus shook his head, "He ran. Blew his lab, grabbed his other employees, and headed for the nearest space port. By the time I found out, his ship was already cleared to depart. When I tried to rescind the clearance, he threatened to kill the hostages."
"But you… tried right?"
"I ordered Patrol to shoot at the ship, but Headquarters countermanded the order. They did not want to risk the hostages, or civilian casualties, if the ship blew up that close to the Citadel. I told them the hostages were as good as dead anyways… he would just use them to make organs until they died in his lab… but no one would listen."
Shepard felt her jaw loosen, "You ordered the death of those people just- you should have ordered Patrol to pursue, disable, and surround!"
"They did pursue it, but he got away just the same." Garrus rebuffed, just a hint of anger in his voice. "They let him get away. I went to Pallin and told him what I thought of him and his policies. He said if I did not like it, I could quit… I almost did." Garrus paused to gather his next breath, but before Shepard could say a word he went on, heat building in his voice with each word. "All they had to do was disable the ship, stop Saleon from running." His hands curled into tight fists right on the table. "Maybe the hostages die, maybe they do not. But at least we would have stopped the bastard once and for all. I-"
Shepard reached over the table and laid her hand on one of his fists. The contact stopped his tirade in its tracks. "Garrus… I am going to be blunt. I agree with Pallin on this." Garrus' gaze leapt to her with a flash of surprise, shock, and maybe even a little bit of betrayal. Shepard hated herself for what she had to do, but she knew she had to do it. "If you do not care about the fate of those people, then you are no better than Saleon. You are no better than the lawless scum you want to stop."
Garrus' gaze slid to the floor, "Yea… maybe."
His fists uncurled, and Shepard withdrew her hand, before the contact went from merely a way to get his attention to something far more awkward. "I'm sorry, but the way I see it, there is no maybe about it. I believe that there are lines that should not be crossed."
Garrus looked up. "You speak from… personal experience?"
Shepard nodded, though she knew she was almost lying. That was not experience talking per se. Most of it was fear. She did not want to be a monster, and she definitely did not want her friends becoming one either. "Something of a sort, though more… reflection on experience. I realized that protecting people is never easy. Most of the time it involves extra work, hard work… it can be the heaviest of burdens. But it is a burden we must bear." She paused there, to collect her thoughts. It was never easy to talk about this. Most people just did not see the fine lines she did. They wanted everything to be black or white, they wanted everything easier. Shepard knew that nothing in life was ever easy, or black and white. "If we start sacrificing innocents when we think it is necessary… oh, for a terrorist here, a band of slavers there… if we justify losing a few to save the potential many, or if we wash our hands, saying we could not risk the mission… that is where we come to the edge of a very slippery slope. It will start with terrorists and slavers, but soon it will include just particularly ruthless mercenaries. And in the end, when the average civilian cannot tell you apart from the terrorist and the slaver, because you instill as much fear… guess who will have the last laugh? Anyone who fights monsters should see to it that in the process they do not become one."
Shepard could think of an example of someone who had fallen down that slippery slope, someone who had lost every shred of restraint and decency they might have had. Saren Arterius was a living, breathing cautionary tale on the dangers of giving too much power to someone who had no line they would not cross in the exercise of it. She knew from personal experience that he lied to the Council, but much worse, he thought nothing of casual acts of genocide, merely on the suspicion that someone might become a problem in the future. She suspected he was every bit the monster she never wanted to be. He was the monster she would not let Garrus become.
Garrus sighed, and his gaze slipped right back down to the table between them. "I just wish I could have stopped him."
Shepard hummed, "Maybe… we still can." It had clearly become 'the one that got away', the case that continued to haunt, long after it was cold. "We just have to think carefully about how we go about it. Do you know what happened to him?"
Garrus looked up, "I have feelers out, and I… have been monitoring things. I found him, at least… I think. The pattern is there. He changed ships and changed his name, going by Dr. Heart –his idea of a joke, I guess… I did not want to tell you because…"
Garrus was practically stuttering now, Shepard knew that there was only one emotion that would make him act like that. "You thought I would not believe you."
"Yes… but I verified the transponder frequency. We are looking for the MSV Fedele, a Kowloon-class freighter."
Shepard blinked, but she was not surprised. Apparently Saleon was indeed making a killing if he could afford to buy ships like this.
"If there is any ship that can get us there, Commander, it is this one. If we do this, take me with you. I saw Saleon, I will know if it is him."
"Alright." Shepard smiled. "But you do know that we can not do this just the two of us, right? You're no longer with C-sec and I never even had the authority to police Council Space. We need to bring in Nihlus."
Garrus sighed, "Will he help us?"
"He will. Nihlus is many things, but he is- I don't know how to explain it. I just know… him. I know if you tell him about Saleon, about what he had done, he will want to help with this." She hoped at least, because who really knew how deep the feud between the two went.
A silence settled over the space as Garrus seemed to mull his next course of action.
"Officer Vakarian, I apologize, as I could not help but overhear, but I wanted to say that I will be very happy to help you track down this… doctor as well." EDI said from overhead.
Shepard could not help but smile. She should have expected that. Since they were not in anyone's quarters, or the OD, of course EDI would take it as a permission to join in.
"Thank you, EDI."
"You are welcome. Shall I notify Spectre Kryik that you wish to see him?"
Garrus glanced at the XO's cabin door, almost as if he expected Nihlus to be lurking there already. "Yes, EDI."
"Right away," the AI replied.
The three of them moved to the OD, rather than continue to talk shop in the mess, where the whole crew could overhear. Shepard put the kettle on while Garrus caught Nihlus up to the whole story. She knew this would turn into one part strategy meeting as well. She needed tea for that, after the sort of day this had turned out to be.
Nihlus sat on the couch in the usual place under the viewport that he was fond of. "Yes… the Normandy can get near the Fedele, but… how do you expect to dock with it? Saleon so much as glimpses an Alliance logo and the Fedele will jump into FTL."
"We can't dock the Normandy to the Fedele. But I do have a way around that." Shepard replied as she sipped her tea. "The Normandy can come up on the Fedele undetected while we take a shuttle. If we are concerned with that, we only need to get on board and give EDI access to the Fedele's system. EDI can bring its FTL drive offline, and he won't be able to run."
"That will not be easy. You would need to slip an access key into the ship's mainframe," Nihlus said, sounding less than impressed.
Shepard hummed, partly annoyed, partly thoughtful. She knew what Nihlus was up to, which is why she was only partly annoyed. This was another of those times where he played the role of the doubter to get her planning. As confident as she wanted to come off, there was no guarantee they could get aboard that Kowloon. Saleon was no idiot if he managed to avoid capture all this time. "We will get Saleon to allow us on board." she said. "Saleon grows organs to sell, right? We pose as customers. His clientele is likely those who can't, or won't go through official means. Criminals who don't want to risk law enforcement or their enemies getting to them in some hospital. We play on that." Shepard explained. She needed to establish a legend good enough to get them in the door.
"First though, unless our Kodiaks can change colors, how do we explain the Alliance livery?" Nihlus wondered.
"Recently stolen. How else? It would paint me as that much of a badass, but also that paranoid as to come in with two armed bodyguards."
"Just two? Someone that paranoid would bring a small army." Nihlus said.
"He is just a doctor, right? First, we cannot present ourselves as too big an outfit, as those are more known. Second, even in a big outfit, the leader would not broadcast such a thing. An illness is a weakness, and most mercenaries would not want to show vulnerability. The way I see it, it works. The shuttle was not yet painted over, meaning that it was very recently stolen. Let me assure you that if someone stole a shuttle from the Alliance, they would have to lie low, as the manhunt would be something. Whoever manages the heist would have to see that, and do just that, so what a better time to handle a certain pesky medical condition?"
"How do we contact the doctor to arrange a meeting?" Nihlus asked, shifting tracks.
"How do people contact Saleon when they need his services? He has to have a way somewhere, probably in the underbelly of the extranet. We just have to find that."
"Alright, but… do not take this the wrong way, Commander, but I do not think Saleon will believe you need a replacement organ."
Shepard smiled, "He will if I say I need a replacement kidney. It is one of the only organs that humans have two of, but unlike lungs, if one goes bad there is slightly less of an obvious sign, and we can remain functional on just one. It is the sort of thing that can be brought on by an old injury. I can go a step further and ask Doctor Chakwas to create a patient file to go with that. Paperwork makes everything more official. Really Nihlus, haven't you figured me out yet? When necessary, I can sell a lie."
She was trained in the basics of undercover operations. Coming up with a legend was the foundation of such a job. The best legends were cobbled from bits of truth about one self and one's skills. The most important part was never to claim to have skills you did not. If one claimed to be a doctor, they would be burned if something happened and those skills were needed. She was playing off what she could do. Passing herself as the leader of a small mercenary band that no one ever heard of was not too far from the truth. The reason no one ever heard of them was because they were new, and still intentionally flying under the radar. After all, small mercenary bands learned the ropes flying under the radar. If they climbed too fast, too far, they would draw the wrong attention from the bigger, more competitive outfits.
"So, I guess we have a plan, and now we just need to find the Fedele." Garrus mused.
"One last thing," Nihlus cut in. "What do you plan to do with Saleon?"
Garrus moved to say something, but Shepard had a strong feeling what it would be and raised her hand to interject. "Mostly that would be entirely up to Saleon." she said calmly. "I am hoping he goes quietly, in which case we can simply bring the Fedele back and let C-sec figure out the rest. If he chooses not to go quietly, well, C-sec will still get the Fedele, plus a body." Shepard explained. They could probably count on Tali to play the role of an engineer for a quick FTL hop to Widow. Kaidan would mind the Normandy while she remained on the freighter to supervise. If Saleon did go quietly, she would shift the legend to say that he let a Spectre and hired professional bounty hunters onto his ship. Nihlus' status was such that he could probably hire said bounty hunters and the Council would not blink an eye.
"That works." Garrus agreed.
"Indeed. But there is actually one last thing beyond just that. We cannot leave the Citadel before it is addressed." Shepard spoke up calmly. "Garrus, your armor is still C-sec colors. It did not matter before, but now…"
"Oh. Yes… that is true."
"Alright." Nihlus said as he moved to get up from his seat. "Get your armor, Vakarian. We will go and have it touched up."
"Now?" Garrus asked, surprised.
"And when if not now?" Nihlus replied snappishly.
Garrus froze, and Shepard could not help but grin. She knew she sprung it quite suddenly, but the thought really occurred to her once they started talking the infiltration scheme. It was just one of those little details that had to be handled before the scheme could come together. "Good. While you two handle that, I will start looking for that contact point." Shepard said.
Finding a criminal hiding on his ship, when he could be anywhere in the galaxy was no easy task. Garrus may have had transponder frequencies, but it was not like they could just perk up their ears and listen for the ping. Transponders operated like electromagnetic radiation. It could travel through space, but was capped by the speed of light. So effectively there was no point in listening for one when you were even just one light year away. Ships moved, by the time a ripple from one location was picked up, one could bet the source had moved on.
In the end it was up to EDI's ability to scour the extranet. The AI could do multiple concurrent searches, in multiple languages, and sift through the data simultaneously as well. Despite it all, it still took EDI around four hours to find the good doctor's corner of the extranet. After that, it was up to Shepard to establish contact, pass the legend checks, and get a meeting location. It did not take much to understand why Garrus had been unable to track him down on his own. It took an AI four hours to find him; she could not imagine how long it would have taken someone doing it manually.
Shepard was also glad that she had the foresight to ask Dr. Chakwas for a falsified medical history. If the doctor she made contact with was indeed Saleon, he was very paranoid and would not deal with anyone who did not have a write up on hand. He had narrowly escaped the law's grasp at least once before, and he definitely would not want to have such a close shave ever again. She had to give just enough details to sell, but not too much as to oversell, as both too little details might make him think it was a Spectre trying to play him for a fool. It was like hunting a very cautious animal with a trap, half the battle was making the bait enticing enough.
The doctor was clever enough to send his emails in a round-about way. A surreptitious ping of the comm buoy network by EDI showed that the messages Shepard got on her dummy account were rerouted across the galaxy, so there was no figuring out which buoy, in what system, had received them first.
Nihlus and Garrus returned while she had been passing the checks. Nihlus appeared in the OD, looking vaguely bored, and took up his usual post on the couch, from where he could supervise in name only.
It was another three hours of emails bouncing back and forth that Shepard leaned back in her chair and grinned from ear to ear. "I have a location." She announced.
"Finally," Nihlus muttered from his position.
Shepard rolled her eyes. "You don't have patience for this sort of thing, do you?"
"I do not go to such lengths for something of this sort," he replied. "So where to?"
"If this is the right organ farmer, and I sincerely hope it is, he says he will meet us in the Herschel system. That's in the Kepler Verge."
"The Terminus. Why am I not surprised?" Nihlus muttered.
"Here's the beauty of it, the relay is in the Newton system, ten light-years away." Shepard added. "He has nowhere to run. Even if he jumps into FTL, we know where he's going, and the Normandy is faster, it'd be at the relay before him."
"Either way he could be sending us on an empty errant." Nihlus mused. "That and we really have no way of knowing it is the right shady doctor. We have to plan for the possibility that we found the wrong organ farmer."
"Right or wrong, we shut them down. And… well, if at first you don't succeed… We'll find Saleon. I promised to Garrus we would. I do not break my promises lightly or willingly."
Nihlus rose into a sitting position and glanced back over the half-wall that separated the OD's office area from the seating area under the viewports, and he caught her gaze. "No, you do not." Nihlus said. "I wonder if Vakarian even knows what he set in motion."
"What did he set in motion?" Shepard asked, unable to keep all the amusement out of her tone. "You make it sound like this will be some sort of epic battle." She chuckled at the mere thought. "At worst this will be a skirmish with a few second-rate mercenaries, those who would take this sort of job for easy money."
"That is not what I meant and you know it." Nihlus chuckled and went back to lounging on the couch, "A promise like that, from someone with your unique…" he mused.
Shepard blinked, surprised.
Then Nihlus whispered something, but it was so low that her translator failed to pick up, letting her hear nothing more than a soft rumble.
Shepard watched him, hoping he would repeat whatever it was, but a silence settled in the OD. She thought about asking him to repeat what he had just said, but the way he angled his head to stare out the viewport told her not to. She realized he must have intentionally turned away, so she would not hear.
The Normandy was off the Citadel within the hour after Shepard had gotten the location. While waiting for final clearances Shepard contacted Admiral Hackett to let him know that they would be unable to respond to emergency orders for about two days. She had to explain why, but in the end the admiral sighed and nodded. There was nothing else to it, as Shepard pressed the fact that this doctor had to be eliminated, if not for Garrus' peace of mind, then for the fact that he clearly thought nothing of making humanity look bad. After all, as far as the contact information went, he went by a human name, and owned a human-built ship. That was just not something they ought to allow criminals to do. It was a flimsy excuse and the Admiral would have seen right through it, but he let her have that.
With the relay in the Newton system and their destination in the Herschel system, as soon as they cleared the final jump, the Normandy turned toward their destination and entered FTL under its own power. At their top speed, ten light-years would take them the better part of a day, but even then Shepard decided that they would cover nine and then stop in the space between stars to deploy the Kodiak. She wanted their target to pick up the shuttle's arrival, no need to reveal that the shuttle itself had limited stealth capabilities on top of the armament and limited FTL. Also, the Kodiak's top speed was ten light-years a day, where the Normandy could do thirteen comfortably. This way they would arrive after the Normandy, allowing the ship to keep hidden.
The plan was for EDI to find the Fedele and then guide the Normandy into range where the AI could hack the Kowloon at her leisure once she had access. Shepard was not taking any chances here. Maybe Nihlus was right, and she was over-thinking, but Shepard was never the type to pull her punches when something she deemed important was on the line.
Ten hours after they entered FTL Shepard descended into the shuttle bay wearing her armor. A quick application of temporary paint took care of the N7 logo on her chest-plate, leaving her abyss black and wine red armor overall indistinct. When all was said and done, the patch of paint could simply be peeled off without effacing what was underneath.
She stopped cold when she saw Garrus standing casually by the shuttle. "You didn't just repaint." She said as she drew near.
"No. That would have taken too long. Kryik insisted I make use of the Alliance salary and get something a little heavier. Do not tell him I said so, but he was right, the model of the armor was going to be a problem eventually." Garrus explained.
"And you did not tell him about the after-market modifications?"
"Why? He offered to clear me for Spectre-grade gear."
Shepard was surprised; Nihlus had volunteered to do that?
"This suit has some features the old one did not," he continued, unaware of her momentary pause. "Better computer unit for one, built in floatation assist, just in case, and plenty of room to expand its features with personal modifications." Garrus replied.
"And it is positively dapper." Shepard said. She was not surreptitious in her inspection. The biggest difference was that the whole thing looked heavier; the plating looked markedly more robust with fewer places where the under-suit peeked from between the ceramics. The chest plate rose up into a more pronounced, vaguely bowl-like cowl, which hinted that the armor was a little more padded than the previous set. There were now actual thin, layered, articulated plates at the sides of his waist, whereas before that had been undersuit weave. His leg protection plates and greaves looked positively heavy, with thick protection around the spurs. The color scheme was different as well. Where his old armor was predominantly charcoal black with Egyptian blue along the front, armguards, and legs, this armor inverted that, with the predominant color now being a rather beautiful, semi-glossy shade of navy blue with charcoal accents.
Garrus grinned and straightened to his full height. "Dapper, huh? So I look good?"
"I am not going to one-up myself, so don't go fishing for compliments. You ready to go?"
"Yes, Commander," Garrus replied, formal tone and all, though his grin transformed into a full out toothy smile.
Shepard rolled her eyes; she did not even know what possessed her to say what she did. She was going to write it off as one of those mental glitches she sometimes had. "I just have one question… I hope it's not too much. But… floatation assistance?" Shepard asked as she moved toward the shuttle.
"You obviously have not seen a turian swim," Garrus replied as his footsteps fell behind her. "It is a lot of flailing and splashing interrupted by occasional bouts of drowning."
Shepard stopped, one hand on the frame of the Kodiak's door. "Ah so there is something we humans do better, huh?"
"Floating? Yes." Garrus replied.
Shepard chuckled, stepped onto the shuttle, and moved toward the cockpit door. She would not go on add that she did more than just float. One part of basic sea, air, and land proficiency drilled into the N-one was swimming. It was one more thing that she did not get to use very often.
She stepped into the cockpit to find Nihlus was already there, running the final checks on the Kodiak before their FTL leg. As she passed by the pilot's seat, she tapped him on top of the helmet, just to announce her presence, and eased into the co-pilot's chair. "How are our systems?"
"Operational across the board. We are ready to go." Nihlus replied as he reached over to the compartment controls to close the hatches and begin pressurization.
"Excellent." Shepard replied. No matter the prep and how convinced she was that she had the inescapable mouse-trap, pre-operation jitters inevitably set in. She had to remind herself that the enemy this time was not a horde of murderous synthetics with a triple advantage of defensible position, unknown numbers, and unknown capabilities.
Nihlus reached over to tap the internal comm, "Better strap in, Vakarian. Would not want to scratch that new armor before we even leave," he said, sounding every bit like he was enjoying himself.
Shepard glanced over, surprised, but then that left quickly. She began to suspect that if she said anything, it would only make matters worse. As if a reaction to their antics would only fuel more antics. Ultimately this was the other shoe dropping. Of course Nihlus would find a way to use the favor he did for Garrus to his own nefarious agenda. He seemed incapable of doing a favor for his arch rival without using it for leverage later.
She froze as the thought filtered through her mind, a curiosity that had hitherto been unexplored. What if this was some sort of rivalry between them? It seemed to go both ways, but Nihlus was the one who started the arguments first more often. If true, what was that all about? This was another one of those times when asking felt inappropriate, so the only thing she could do was observe.
Suddenly the Normandy gave a little shudder. Shepard recognized it instantly as the shift of mass effect fields that accompanied a ship dropping out of FTL. The Kodiak's comm cracked to life, "Commander, we're exactly one light-year out from Herschel," Kaidan announced.
Shepard tapped at the comm, "Good. How's everything on your end?" Shepard asked.
"Ready to go." Kaidan replied.
"Good. Let's do this."
"Aye, aye, ma'am." There was a thud from outside the Kodiak, Shepard watched out of the cockpit viewscreen as the Normandy's shuttle bay door began to descend, and instantly the ship's atmosphere retaining field shimmered as it worked to keep the bay from decompressing. With the Normandy being in the space between stars, the shuttle bay door opened onto a pitch black void. Only the shuttle bay lights spilling on the smooth metal of the ramp were any indication that there was a third dimension out there.
"Alenko, we are taking off," Nihlus announced as the Kodiak shuddered with the ignition of its thrusters.
"Good luck," Kaidan said. "We'll resume our FTL leg as soon as shuttle one is clear."
"Thanks. And be careful out there." Shepard replied.
"Always are, ma'am. We're your crew." Kaidan replied.
The Kodiak lifted off the deck and began to glide along the shuttle bay plates toward the waiting embrace of the void.
When the Kodiak dropped out of FTL, Shepard was still in the cockpit with Nihlus. Herschel was a medium system of four planets orbiting a bright, energetic blue giant type star, with a dense but narrow asteroid belt between Clobaka and Clugon, the fourth and third planets respectively. Shepard had looked at the few star charts available for the Terminus. Herschel was an uninhabitable system, because the blue giant would go through its supply of hydrogen rapidly and eventually explode in a supernova. Its combination of short lifespan and an intense radiation profile meant that its planets simply could not evolve anything even remotely capable of supporting life.
Tiny dwarf planet Matol, the second in the system, came closest to habitable, but it was only four thousand kilometers in radius, half the atmosphere thickness of Earth, at half the gravity, and a couple dozen times the radiation, due to its low density, weak magnetic field, and no ozone blanket. The only thing of any value here was the scorching hot Tungel, the first planet of the system. It had a surface temperature comparable to an oven but was also rich in iron, heavy metals, and all sorts of other minerals, including uranium. However the fact that the system was in the Terminus kept the mining consortiums from sending fleets of drones to plunder it. They so much as set foot there, and the denizens of the Terminus would come running to plunder the automated ore hoppers as they climbed out of Tungel's atmosphere.
"Where do you want to start looking?" Nihlus asked as the Kodiak moved deeper into the system.
Shepard hummed thoughtfully. She had a reason to look at the star charts as she did. She could not see the Fedele just floating out in the open for every infra-red scanner to pick up. Furthermore, it was much more energy efficient to fall into a stable orbit around something, and then coast. With that idea in mind, she could rule out the asteroids. They would not have enough gravity to keep a Kowloon stable. That meant the Fedele had to be orbiting a planet, but which? "Not Tungel." She began. "Too close to Herschel."
"What about Clugon? It is a failed gas giant with a reasonably thick, ionized atmosphere, and nearly a hundred natural satellites. A ship could hide there easily." Nihlus offered.
If Shepard recalled correctly, the almanac of charted planets listed Clugon as a large terrestrial planet with a thick atmosphere, comparable to a failed "Saturn". At a third the size, it failed to gather enough atmospheric thickness to condense gasses to liquid form under its top cloud layers. "Yes, that's a good place to start."
"Clugon it is," Nihlus affirmed as he input a series of commands to alter their course.
"This is where I wish we had a quantum homing beacon on the Normandy." Shepard confessed. "Joker is probably taking bets on how long we take to find it." The Kodiak was flying under main power, which meant that in a few minutes their infrared emissions would reach the Normandy, and the CIC crew would get a show of watching them search the system. Shepard had forbidden Kaidan to communicate the Fedele's location to them, as even a brief tight-beam burst from the communication array could expose the Normandy's presence and location. If the Fedele registered the presence of an Alliance warship here of all places, it would run just as fast as its FTL drive could warm up.
This doctor was paranoid enough to want to see them come in. Shepard knew what that meant, it would allow him time to decide whether he wanted to commit to contact, or keep hiding in his hole. It was a familiar song and dance. Her move had been to ask Adams to temporarily reprogram the Kodiak's ID beacon. The craft was no longer broadcasting its identity as the Normandy's Shuttle-One; instead it was "Bounty I", with no ship registration at all. The name seemed to fit what a bunch of mercenaries would call their stolen trophy. It also hinted at a right sort of arrogance from an up-and-coming mercenary band, and the existence of a plan to acquire other craft in the near future. Then it was natural that the leader would want to fix an old ailment.
The Kodiak entered the asteroid belt shortly after, Shepard knew this was Nihlus' part in the song and dance; he would make it look like they were searching amidst the rocks. It was a bad place to look, but they needed the obfuscation. If their target was indeed in orbit around Clugon, it simply would not do to beeline toward it immediately. These shady types never liked dealing with people as intelligent as them. If they believed they were smarter, they got arrogant, and that made defeating them somewhat easier. The old song and dance was all about the manipulation of perception and appearances.
They were just coming out of the rock field when Shepard saw the blinking light on the console in front of her. She reached over and tapped over the sensor console, "Incoming tight-beam communication," she said even as she traced the origin of the signal back to its source. "Hah, your guess was right on the money, Nihlus, they're orbiting Clugon alright. It's show time."
"Ready when you are," Nihlus replied as he reached for the console and tapped a key.
Shepard tapped a few more keys to authorize communication.
"Bounty we have you on our scanners, state your business." A voice demanded before she could even open her mouth to acknowledge.
Shepard raised an eyebrow, even though no one would see this. The voice sounded human to her. Did the doctor employ human hired guns too?
"Our business? Is that how you greet a customer?" Nihlus replied.
"Who are you?" the voice repeated, slowly, and clearly more annoyed.
"Rude fellow isn't he?" Shepard stated blandly, affecting all due boredom, and intentionally loud enough for the microphone to pick up.
"Yes, ma'am," Nihlus replied, playing up the role of an underling.
This was where she put the screws to the doctor's people. "Listen here, doorman. I am Lucie Bouchard. I have an arrangement with your boss. Now, I do not particularly care who grows me a new kidney, there's plenty of other labs out there, but if you think you can make me come out here for nothing… well… Let me make this abundantly clear, I don't take well to people wasting my time. Keep at it and I will give your ship a few structurally superfluous new exhaust ports."
There was silence over the link as Nihlus flew the Kodiak ever closer to Clugon.
Then there was a shuffle of movement on the other side, "Ah Miss Bouchard," Another voice said. This one was different from the previous, but it was too deep to be positively identified as Salarian. "Please pardon my employee; he does sorely lack customer service acumen."
Shepard almost shuddered at the sound of 'employee'. Her mind automatically lapsed to what Garrus told her about the way Saleon treated his "employees". If this was indeed the right doctor, the poor man operating the communication gear could very well be incubating an organ or two right at that moment. It was a hair-raising thought. She had to take a deep breath and let it out slowly, lest her guttural reaction show in her voice. "I'm still waiting."
The person on the other side of the link cleared his throat, "I will have the airlock prepared for your arrival Miss Bouchard."
"Good, we'll be along in thirty minutes. Bounty out." She tapped the console to close the link before another word could be said.
"Structurally superfluous new exhaust vents?" Nihlus asked amusement in his tone.
"What? It's descriptive."
"And morbid," Nihlus replied.
Shepard would give him that, but at the end of the day it worked, and that was all that mattered.
Their target's hiding place ended up being partway down Clugon's thermosphere, where the density of the surrounding gasses combined with Herschel's intense radiation to ensure an impressive five hundred degree temperatures. There was also considerable LADAR distortion due to atmospheric opacity issues. Shepard would not be surprised if the doctor chose Clugon specifically for how its atmosphere would partially diffract conventional LADAR frequencies, leading to hazy images, while the temperature made the ship invisible to passive sensors, and the planet's radius of eighteen-point-five thousand kilometers at the thermopause precluded the use of visual recognition or sensor probes. Even the ship's transponder signal was hazy and distorted enough that Shepard could not be sure it was the Fedele, and even if it was Kowloon. They were guided in by the ship's tight-beam communication equipment, set to ping on a frequency that could clear the atmosphere.
They had to get within a hundred kilometers before the ship became visible through the gloom of sickly green haze of the chlorine gas that made up the majority of Clugon's atmosphere. There was no mistaking a Kowloon for any other type of ship. The ship's main structure was a long, needle-like stem. Attached to which were six interchangeable box-shaped modules, each an entirely self-contained unit that could be uncoupled and exchanged. This meant a Kowloon could be configured for anything from hauling ores, to shuttling economy class passengers along routes where overnight amenities were unnecessary.
This particular Kowloon had the maximum number of modules, which meant the facility could house either quite a few guards, or even worse, employees of the vein Saleon had employed on the Citadel. Shepard honestly wanted more guards, because the other option was far less palatable. Those people would require surgery and heavens knew what other treatments to remove foreign growths.
Their Kodiak docked at the rear end of the stem section, where the Kowloon's only airlock was found. The two craft were never designed to couple, so the transport's claws had to grab the Kodiak by the main thrust arms on that side, and its sealing tube, despite enveloping the whole door, still failed to seal fully, leaving a tiny gap at the bottom. Only the Kodiak's shield envelope kept the blisteringly hot chlorine winds from scouring the insides of the tube. On the flipside, this meant that no one without a full EVA-sealed suit could hope to run off with the Kodiak.
The three of them hurried to cross into the Kowloon's airlock, and once on the other side, they were greeted by a single man wearing a non-descript, rather faded grey suit. "Miss Bouchard, it seems you have failed to mention your… unusual mode of transportation. The doctor would like to know why you are flying an Alliance shuttle," he said.
"Does he now?" Shepard replied coolly. "Tell me, do I look like Alliance to you?" She asked bluntly, staring up into the man's eyes, even though he would not be able to see her glare past her darkened helmet visor. "The Bounty is mine." She would not explain the cover to him, the self-proclaimed mercenary queen she was playing up would not explain herself to some underling.
The man looked from Nihlus to Garrus and back to her. Shepard waited, fully ready to ditch her cover and reach for a weapon, if it came to that. Still, she thought the odds of him buying the ruse were good. After all, this was the Terminus, not Alliance space. There was no Alliance ship pointing a MAC at them, and certainly the fact that she had arrived with two turians herself would cast some doubt on her identity. At least if he did not know that there was one Alliance ship out there with a mixed crew, stealth technology, and the leave to go where no Alliance ship ever goes. He would have to be Shadow Broker level of in-the-know for that.
"Do your job. Miss Bouchard is here for a treatment, not for you to annoy her." Nihlus growled threateningly.
"Fine, follow me." The man said and turned to walk down the length of the Kowloon's main corridor that ran from the airlock to the bridge in the nose.
Shepard tapped the side of her helmet to trigger the breather mask to open into indoor configuration, no use running down her oxygen levels, though she would not remove her helmet. It would not do if he recognized the streak of white in her hair. The cover story was meant to get them aboard; she did not design it to hold up to deep cover scrutiny. It had worked, but now it was a matter of playing her cards right.
As they walked she noticed that the so-called employee was in no hurry. More than that, it was hard to miss the fact that the Kowloon's internal signage had never been changed from English. It was a little peculiar, and made her wonder if they were indeed on the right ship, but then, it was just signage. If this was indeed the Fedele, Saleon had adopted an oddly human name to cover up his tracks, he employed some humans to be his customer service representatives, and so using English signage might be part of his plan as well.
The aft-most modules were both labeled as crew quarters, and she could not help but think that if this was indeed the Fedele, that sounded far more ominous than it ought to. The next set they passed were the treatment room and storage, delightful designations that brought to mind one or two horrors each. The final modules, those closest to the bridge were private quarters and the laboratory itself.
The man stopped in front of the lab door and hit the door chime. Shepard only registered a faint buzz from her sixth sense for danger. On paper, this whole thing could easily turn ugly. Two whole compartments for crew, and yet they had seen only one individual. Was he the only so-called employee aboard right now? Or was he leading them into an ambush? It took everything she had not to reach down and turn on her guns, just to be ready.
The door opened and the lighting level in the module beyond all but blinded her. The laboratory was that in every sense of the word. Overly-bright, crisp white lights and tarnish-proof easy-clean surfaces everywhere. The room was positively humming with the machinery. At the center of it all stood a Salarian of a very dark brown coloration, wearing a pristine white laboratory suit. As far as Shepard was concerned, the model of a mad doctor was only ruined by the absence of oversized goggles of some kind.
"Doctor, your guests have arrived." The employee said.
"Thank you," the doctor replied. "Now leave us."
"Yes doctor," The employee ducked out of the room.
Then with a final tweak of whatever it was that he was working on, the doctor turned to face them, "Miss Bouchard. Thank you for coming all the way here."
There was a low pitched reverberating rumble over the comm, almost as if right against her ear. "It is him," Garrus said. "Saleon."
"You sure?" Nihlus asked.
"Of course I am sure." Garrus replied, anger flashing in his tone.
Shepard had to contain her urge to grin. EDI was flawless as ever in her work. "I admit I am quite impressed with your choice of location." she said, still in role, even though now was the time to pounce.
Saleon must have heard something in her tone, because his shoulders drew back and he shifted weight onto his back foot, instantly wary. It was a gut reaction, a reflex that revealed that he was hardly the bravest criminal Shepard had ever met.
"But then again, you are quite the wanted individual, Doctor Saleon."
"What? My name is Heart, Doctor Heart!" He protested, but the panic was there in his voice, giving away the truth.
"There is no escape this time, doctor." Garrus said.
"You are under arrest for trafficking illegally cloned organs, and we can probably make the charges of assault against your employees stick too." Nihlus added.
"This is not Council Space! You have no authority here!" Saleon protested, looking more frantic with each word he uttered.
"I have all the authority I need. I am a Council Spectre," Nihlus rebuffed.
That seemed to finish the argument as Saleon reached under his work counter; Shepard knew there could only be one thing he would go for. "He's going for a weapon!" She shouted.
There was a double whine from her sides, Nihlus and Garrus both drew theirs. Saleon whirled, an M-3 Predator in his grip. His eyes locked onto the first person he saw, and his arm followed, the pistol muzzle pointed straight at her. Shepard saw it a split of a moment too late, as before she could move even one millimeter he pulled the trigger. The gun barked and her shields flared. Saleon fired again, and her shields flared again, but Shepard was moving sideways even as she reached for Sin. Saleon fired a third time; she heard the bullet hit the door. Shepard drew her gun, but before she could raise and power it up there was a burst of staccato, followed and overshadowed an instant later by a thunderous crack.
At the sound of Nihlus' shotgun she stopped cold in her tracks. When she looked, she saw that the force of impact had caused the doctor to stagger backwards as his eyes widened. His hand opened, and the pistol tumbled to the floor. The front of his pristine white lab suit was shredded, and his blood spread rapidly out of his many wounds and into the material that was still there. A moment later, seemingly in slow motion, his legs failed beneath him, and the doctor collapsed to the floor.
"Commander, are you alright?" Garrus demanded.
"I have shields," Shepard replied automatically. Her HUD showed they were down to thirty percent after two shots. It was just so fortunate that the doctor had not got something a little more powerful than the Predator. Well, she supposed it made sense. The Predator traded stopping power for rate of fire and clip. What a Carnifex could punch through in two, the Predator could do in four, and take just as long. The Predator was just an easier weapon to use, as the Carnifex's recoil required getting used to.
"Suicide by Spectre. I hate it when they do that." Nihlus mused.
"Could have been suicide by ex-C-sec." Garrus replied. "We will never know which of us actually killed him."
Nihlus hummed.
"But it must have been me." Garrus added.
"You?" Nihlus repeated, practically laughing.
"I fired first."
"Yes, but my shotgun has more stopping power, and your bullets could have just gone through."
Shepard blinked, mystified. The door opened behind her, and whatever she would have said died on her tongue as she whirled, only to come face to face with the another Predator, this time held by the man from before. He had the gun up at arm's length, in that distinctive 'learned in a self-defense class, but never had to actually draw' posture, shaking like a leaf all the same. He practically jumped when both Garrus and Nihlus turned their weapons on him.
"Lower your weapon." Shepard said, calmly and coolly as she noted her shield readout flicker, showing that the kinetic barrier had recharged. "Let's talk."
"Talk? What- what did you do?! You just… Who are you three?" The man demanded, his quivering only becoming worse by the moment, as if the very act of holding up his gun was taxing his strength. Or perhaps it was the sheer amount of adrenaline in his system? With Saleon's sick methods, for all she knew this poor man had a few extra kidneys with spare adrenal glands all pumping him with adrenaline simultaneously.
Shepard saw his finger shift on the trigger, and she knew that at any moment the gun might discharge. While she doubted he could hit anything while shaking like that, suddenly she also had genuine reasons to fear that Garrus and Nihlus would not let him live the attempt down. That meant, she had to do something if she was to save this foolish man's life.
Swift as a striking snake she grabbed the gun in her left, his wrist in her right, and twisted the barrel ninety degrees to her left, where it would aim at the wall. The sudden jerk instantly overpowered his shaky fingers and the gun's stock popped right out of his grip. She wrenched the gun away and behind her back, out of his reach, even as she snapped up her right foot and her ankle caught him in the privates. His eyes bugged out as the pain kicked in, his knees gave out, and down he went like a ragdoll, unable to even make a peep.
"I am sorry about that." She brought the gun up to eject its thermal clip and power pack. Going for the nuts was the only place she could think of where impact would not kill him outright, but also where he would be unlikely to have an incision that could burst open. Garrus' experience in the matter had been taken into consideration.
"Now, did you two have to shoot Saleon?" She asked, affecting the tone of a teacher scolding an errant pupil.
"No, ma'am." Garrus replied.
"Good. Now you know."
The man on the floor looked up at her with one squinted eye. "Who… are you?" he whimpered.
"Tall, dark, and trigger happy here is a Council Spectre," she explained, pointing over her shoulder with her thumb at Nihlus. Nihlus' shotgun had obliterated all outward evidence that Saleon had been shot by two people. It would take a forensic lab examining the projectiles to differentiate assault rifle rounds from shotgun pellets. Right now it looked like the kill shot was all Nihlus, and he had the authority to get away with it. "Blue-" she pointed at Garrus, "and I are bounty hunters." She replied.
The man froze, but his other eye opened, which meant the pain had to be receding. "What are you going to do with me?" He asked.
"Nothing. While I assume you know what the good doctor was doing, it's your lucky day, we have no intention of pursuing his employees. Help us out and play victim correctly and you'll even get free medical care. Now, how many more are there on this ship?"
"Just…" the man groaned as he rose to his knees with great effort. "One more. She's in the quarters, recuperating. The doctor had just removed a cloned liver from her."
Shepard nodded. "That's good." Shepard was honestly glad that there were no more employees. Not only would it be easier to get free treatment for two rather than a dozen, but it meant that Saleon might have learned something from his previous brush with Garrus and C-sec; he kept his operation relatively small, perhaps even limited to clients like Lucie Bouchard.
"We still need to get this ship ready for a trip to the Citadel," Nihlus said.
"Right," Shepard replied. "We need to raise this ship out of Clugon's thermosphere first, and then flag our ship for pickup." She turned to the man still kneeling on the floor. "C'mon then, tough guy. You're going to the bridge with me."
The man grimaced but climbed to his feet, "Do I have a choice?" he asked.
"None," Shepard replied cheerfully.
"Thought so," he sighed.
Things got a little complicated after that. The Normandy may have been trailing the Fedele about a thousand kilometers back, but due to the Kowloon having only one air lock, getting Tali aboard to work the engines proved to be a bit of a logistical nightmare. It involved having the Normandy deploy their second Kodiak, and then Tali making a slightly dangerous EVA hop from its door into the door of their Kodiak, which was still attached to the back of the Fedele, and then getting through the airlock. Fortunately such things as safety lines existed, and even in the upper atmosphere there was gravity to control the momentum of things.
The shuttles were released and flew back to the Normandy via VI pilot, with Saleon's so-called employees none the wiser to the ruse. They would remain convinced that she was just an eccentric bounty hunter in the employ of a Spectre.
Once Tali had gotten into the system, which had been predictably locked out by Saleon, she stayed at the engineering controls as Shepard and Nihlus went to the bridge, with Nihlus piloting, and Shepard supervising. Garrus' job had been to stay with the two living individuals on the ship, to ensure that neither got any funny ideas, not that Shepard expected them. Both were the unemployed and desperate kind that would earn their bread with whatever work they could get, even this kind. She would not be surprised if Saleon had picked them up at Omega or something.
It took them five hours to work out all the kinks so Nihlus could put the Kowloon into FTL. The cargo ship was unwieldy and its engines could only muster eight light-years a day, and even that was fast because their modules were relatively light in terms of mass. A Kowloon with six ore hoppers full to the brim might only do five light-years a day. Some of the first generation FTL ships, those built starting in 2149, were already faster than that. This was why the job of long-haul cargo runs was not only mind-numbingly tedious, but dangerous. You were not outrunning anyone in a cargo ship. Thus Shepard settled in besides her mentor for the painful long haul, chewing on a ration bar all the same. This was going to be one painfully slow trip back to the Citadel.
The Fedele's arrival on the Citadel, escorted by the Normandy no less, lit a proverbial fire under C-sec's collective rear end. The patrol fleet dispatched two lightly-armed corvette-type craft to escort the Kowloon to a dock on Tayseri ward. After Nihlus made a show of handing the case over to their jurisdiction, the ship ended up taken over by a forensic team and a team of detectives responsible for these things. The Saleon case had been cold, but never entirely closed, just because the perpetrator had run off. Now that the man's body and lab were back, it was up to C-sec to connect the dots between then and now.
Shepard knew that Garrus would have wanted to close the book on the matter, but it was out of his hands, because he was no longer a detective for C-sec. All he could do was hound the detectives as they worked, clearly intent on ensuring that nothing went wrong. Thus when she finally disembarked the Fedele and walked into waiting room attached to the secure dock where C-sec brought the Kowloon to, she was genuinely surprised to see Garrus waiting for her.
"Com-… Shepard," he greeted.
"Garrus," she replied automatically, smiling. Just the fact that he used her name and not her title was enough to tell Shepard that there was something on his mind.
"I wanted to thank you one more time for doing this for me." Garrus said, his voice dipping lower in register, part a whisper, part humble rumble.
"Think nothing of it," Shepard replied. "I know this was a weight on your heart. I wouldn't be a good friend if I chose not to help. And everything worked out in the end."
"You are not angry that I had to shoot Saleon?" Garrus asked as he fell in step with her.
The Normandy had returned to her normal dock on Zakera ward, she was looking at another uncomfortably long Skycab ride across. Shepard shifted her helmet under her arm and turned to look over at Garrus, "Why would I be angry? We gave him every chance to surrender. I think Nihlus was right, Saleon chose suicide by law authority. You carried out your duties, protected your superior officer. There is nothing in there to be angry about. Do you expect me to lecture you on what you could have done different? Yea… you could have risked yourself to disarm him, sure. Did I want you to do it? Saleon dug his own grave, who are we to deny his erstwhile efforts?" That was rather macabre thing to say, all considering, but Shepard was beyond caring. Her brand of truth was rarely sugar coated.
Garrus hummed again, a quiet sort of assent. That caused Shepard to wonder if he had genuinely feared she would be angry. Shepard was not so petty as to get angry over how things worked out. Sure, she could not bring Saleon in alive, but to take it out on someone under her? Something clicked in her mind, some piece slid into place, and Shepard actually broke pace as she looked up at the former detective with a new sort of realization.
That was it, was it not? He did have people questioning his actions, decisions, and choices. His father, his superiors, and who knows who else. Of course he would expect it from her, as another of his superiors. He wanted to level the scales, understand where they stood. Things were muddled even more by the fact that she was human and he was a turian. They had an insurmountable barrier in all communication. He chose to come up to her to talk; he chose to stick his neck out for the potential axing.
"Commander?" Garrus asked. "Did I overstep my bounds?"
She smiled and fell back in step, "You're perfectly fine." She said. "I get it." She got it more than he might even understand. They had that much in common; they were the ones who always seemed to screw up something by making the choices they did. The two of them would always have someone questioning everything they did. It was just a fact of life. "Now, I heard you use my name, don't you start on the title again. Or I will call you Blue. In front of everyone. Especially Nihlus."
Garrus laughed nervously, "Well I am wearing blue armor…" he said.
"The name is much cutesier to us humans. The whole crew is likely to pick it up. You'll never, ever, live it down."
"Ah. Then with such a threat..."
"Good." Shepard nodded. "Now I'm going back to the Normandy. I want my berth."
"Right behind you, She-" even before he finished her name he stopped cold.
Shepard knew what was coming.
"Oh spirits. That did not come out right! My apologies, Commander! I meant my berth… you know, the one in Life Support. Not yours! I was not implying that we… you know."
Shepard did the only thing she could, she laughed out loud at the ludicrous expression he had at that moment. Garrus looked like he wanted the deck plates to swallow him whole.
Author Notes: I do want to write up some loyalty missions for the main cast, but for obvious reasons, Garrus' own ME2 affair could not be readily adapted. So I worked with what came close to it in ME1. Let the best friend vibes roll!
General Notes:
Nothing in particular…
Chapter Notes:
Thermosphere – This would be the layer below the exosphere, where a planet's atmosphere is now dense enough to behave as a gas. Here the gasses absorb the most solar radiation (atmospheric opacity and ionization) and thus temperatures increase with altitude (from the mesopause at the "bottom", the coldest layer). The gasses also tend to stratify according to molecular weight (like oil and water).
Atmospheric Opacity – This is the measure of impenetrability to electromagnetic radiation of gasses. Different elements absorb different frequencies of EM radiation, a feature of their unique atomic spectrum (I'll spare you the exact details). What an atmosphere can't absorb creates a "window". As an example, we know Earth's thermosphere allows only "visible", longer-wave UV, and shortwave radio to pass down to (and up from) the surface. It absorbs solar emissions in the harmful gamma, x-ray, and short-wave UV frequencies. Longwave radio is unique in that some frequencies actually diffract, thus surface broadcasting signals can bounce past the horizon and around obstacles (like mountain ranges).
Thermopause – The boundary line between the thermosphere and the exosphere.