"Doctor? Doctor Chakwas! I think she's waking up."
Nikki was already regretting the action under discussion, her head throbbing from the moment she regained consciousness.
At least the voice let her know where she was and she slowly and cautiously sat up, swinging her legs to the side of the bed, as the familiar sight of a medical officer's uniform came into view.
"You had us worried there Shepard. How are you feeling?"
"Ever hear that phrase: ten pounds of shit stuffed into a five pound bag? I got the hangover from hell and I don't remember drinking."
There was a chuckle, though she wasn't sure who's it was.
"How long was I out?"
"About fifteen hours. Something happened down there with the beacon, I think."
"It's my fault. I must have triggered some kind of security field when I approached it. You had to push me out of the way." Her brain finally ID'd Lieutenant Alenko and she risked turning her head to look over her shoulder and answer him.
"Not your fault, you had no way to know what would happen. Although maybe it's time the Alliance considered making 'stay away from strange glowing objects unless you've been trained in them' a standard operating procedure."
"Actually, we don't even know if that's what set it off. Unfortunately we'll never get the chance to find out." The doctor put in, always one to resort to facts. Shepard's feeling of being out the loop must have shown on her face because the lieutenant gave a brief update on events since she passed out. Nikki barely had time to thank him for carrying her back to the ship when Chakwas interrupted once more.
"Kaidan, can you go let the captain know she's awake please."
THAT certainly caught her attention and she gingerly twisted her head back round to fully focus on the doc as the lieutenant left the room.
"Getting rid of the subordinates when there's a perfectly good comms unit on the ship? How bad are we talking doc?"
"Physically you're fine, but I detected some unusual brain activity, abnormal beta waves. I also noticed an increase in your rapid eye movement, signs typically associated with intense dreaming..." Chakwas trailed off and Shepard suddenly realised where she was heading.
Ah, right. She gave a non-committal grunt.
"I saw... I'm not sure what I saw... It wasn't one of mine though doc. I always know what's happening in mine, recognise what I'm facing, even if I can't stop it. This? I couldn't identify any of it. I mean sure there was a pretty strong sense of death and destruction but beyond that..."
"Hmm, I better add this to my report. It may- Oh, Captain Anderson." They both turned at the quiet swish of the door opening.
"How's our XO holding up?" He was probably asking the doctor but Nikki answered anyway.
"I'll live... Assuming Trish doesn't kill me if she finds out."
"Don't you mean when?"
"Shh, let me have a couple minutes of denial please Sir."
Doctor Chakwas hid a smile as she recognised their familiar little routine. It was certainly better than the last time she had the two N7s together in her med bay; Shepard berating the 'stubborn bastard', telling him if he didn't want to see the doc he should have made sure he could walk back to the ship on his own instead of her having to carry him.
The elder's instructions to drop him off: "in the mess, or the showers, or anywhere else, I'm fine" being rebuffed with a: "sorry Sir, I'm choosing to ignore that order on account of you being delirious from blood loss."
While she would be quite content to not have to see either of them in a professional capacity, the doctor had to admit that (wisecracks aside) the youngster tended to be the more cooperative patient of the two.
While everybody left in the room technically had some medical training, the captain still looked across at Karin for a second, more qualified, opinion.
"All the readings look normal. I'd say the commander's going to be fine."
"Glad to hear it. Can I speak with her in private?"
The doctor nodded and headed out to get a cup of tea in the mess, the tone in the room changing as soon as she left.
"Did you manage to retrieve Jenkins?"
"Yes. Nihlus too. I've informed next of kin and taken care of the paperwork."
Shepard nodded, unsure whether she was grateful or not. Letters of condolence were one of the hardest parts of her job, but then again she deserved the penance for failing to bring everyone home in the first place. She sighed, massaging her head on the sides.
"I never should have stuck him on point."
"That's bull." Anderson's voice instantly hardened as he cut off her pity party. "It wasn't your fault and you know it. Jenkins was a trained recon specialist, he had local knowledge and the mission was time sensitive. Point was exactly where he should have been. I've read Alenko's report, I'd have done the same damn thing."
Nikki perked up a bit at that before frowning as she noticed the wording.
"Read? I would have thought you'd have watched back the helmet cam footage as well by now?"
"Nothing but static. I don't know if it was some kind of geth jamming technology or it was electronically wiped when the beacon overloaded... I've got a couple of tech's looking at it to see if we can recover anything but so far zilch. I won't lie to you Shepard. Things look bad. Nihlus is dead, the beacon was destroyed and geth are invading. The Council's going to want answers."
"And if we give them the truth then we're accusing their top agent of going rogue without proof." The commander quickly cottoned on. "Shit, Council's not going to like this. Neither will the Hierarchy. Hell, half of Blackwatch would be willing to duel for Saren's honour, he's a living legend to them."
"Exactly. I know he's had it out for humanity since First Contact and I'd be the first to condemn a lot of his tactics, but an overt attack on a colony? Allying himself with the geth? That's extreme behaviour even for him. It just doesn't make sense. All I know is it had something to do with that beacon. You were there just before it self-destructed. Did you see anything? Any clue that might tell us what Saren was after?"
Nikki glanced at the floor.
"Just before I lost consciousness, I had some kind of... Shit, I really wish I could think of a better word for it but... vision." She looked back up to find Anderson pacing in thought.
"A vision? A vision of what?"
"Not sure. It was about as clear as that distress call we picked up in orbit, but I think I saw synthetics slaughtering organics. Butchering them."
"Synthetics? The geth?"
Shepard merely shrugged.
"I don't know. Maybe, but they weren't like the platforms we faced on Eden Prime. I didn't recognise the organics they were fighting either. Four eyes, but not batarians. The head shape was all wrong to be them."
"We need to report this to the council Shepard."
"And tell them what exactly? I had a bad dream? You know how they'll interpret that!"
"Sorry Shepard, I already contacted the ambassador to try and get us an audience with the council based on the rest of the team's mission reports. We don't know what information was stored on that beacon. Lost prothean technology? Blueprints for some ancient weapon of mass destruction? Whatever it was Saren took it. He has the secrets from the beacon and an army of geth at his command. We've got to warn them."
Nikki nodded resignedly.
"The ambassador will want to see us as soon as we reach the Citadel. Full dress blues Commander."
...
Their journey from the docks to the Ambassador's office was largely conducted in silence. For some reason the captain had insisted the entire ground team be present and Chief Williams was feeling rather out of place.
Not just because she was in the heart of alien (galactic) civilization. There was also the fact that she was the only enlisted marine present, walking beside three officers, two of them N7s, one of them a living legend and the other a rising star and potential spectre candidate.
If all that wasn't enough then there was the fact that everybody else was wearing dress blues and she was in standard uniform. Sure she had a good excuse, there wasn't time to collect her belongings during their departure from Eden Prime, but it still left her feeling substandard to the soldiers around her.
Eventually they entered the last elevator on their route, she found it strange that Citadel elevators broadcast the news, although the current report wasn't particularly interesting and she ended up zoning it out pretty easily as they went up and up and up. She was brought back to the present by the captain finally speaking.
"How's your head Shepard?"
"Manageable, thank you Sir."
"Really? Only I heard you tried to convince Chakwas to confine you to medbay for a further twelve hours."
There was a self deprecating chuckle from the commander.
"She saw right through that one Sir. Told me I wasn't getting out of dealing with the politicos that easily and she'd either confine me for two weeks or not at all."
"I'm not sure whether I should be more upset that you-" He cut off suddenly without warning and in the elevator's reflection Ashley saw both N7s eyes flick towards the ceiling. "I swear we never had this much trouble with the press during First Contact."
"So much for the 24 hour embargo after notifying next of kin." Shepard remarked bitterly. It was only then that Ash realised the news had switched to a report on Eden Prime and how the geth had wiped out the Alliance's planetary defense force. The commander turned to face her.
"Williams, I don't know what you were doing while I was out cold but if you've not told your family you're ok yet I suggest you do it. They hear that they're going to worry themselves an ulcer."
{The colony itself was saved by a rapid response team from the SSV Normandy who was in the area on a shakedown run.} The report continued. {Although even they were unable to escape without casualties}
There was a quiet but vehement curse.
"You too Alenko."
The only person who didn't pull up their omni-tool was Anderson. However the doors opened before Ashley could think what to write and they marched out, Shepard the only one who actually sent anything in time. Mainly because she already knew what to type.
[5x5 - N]
It was short but she knew Trish would understand. Both the message and its brevity. She also knew she'd have to send a better message later, but it would be enough to stop her partner worrying.
...
"Well that was a waste of time." The commander opined as they reentered the elevator after the meeting, Captain Anderson having already left with the ambassador.
"At least they're conducting an investigation, that has to mean something right?" Kaidan enquired optimistically.
"Yeah right! That's the worst attempt at a token gesture I've seen in years. Two days to conduct an investigation on the actions of a spectre? I bet even what he had for breakfast is classified. No, the whole thing's a farce and we get front row seats."
The lieutenant looked like he was going to protest but Ashley silently agreed.
She didn't say anything though, still wary of drawing too much attention to herself for fear of the officers realising she didn't just have the surname Williams but actually was A 'Williams' too.
She couldn't help but speak up when they left the elevator though. It may be her first time on the Citadel but even so she'd already noticed a few details.
"Uh, ma'am? Where are we going? The Council tower's that way."
"I have often been informed that I'm a one woman army Chief, and an army marches on its stomach. It also happens that I know where to find a salarian with a deep fat fryer who does things even the Scots never thought of."
Ash was too shocked at the audacity of the first statement to even worry about the idea of an alien making her food. She'd think the woman conceited if she hadn't already seen the N7 in action. She shared a glance with Lieutenant Alenko, the man shrugging, equally bemused. The commander just laughed.
"Relax, we've got a few more hours before the hearing, I'll make sure we're not late."
...
Turns out not even N7s were infallible.
The hearing was already underway by the time they finished climbing all the stairs, although that might have been slightly due to Shepard stopping to talk to the turian in charge of the C-Sec investigation. She was however spot on with her prediction of the result, the Council dismissing their claims with ease.
Shepard seemed far more irritated when Udina tried to blame Anderson for the case being thrown out than when he'd been accusing her of screwing up her spectre candidacy, but they finally managed to bring the conversation round to what they were going to do next.
One thing led to another and now, somehow, they were crouched behind a wall outside Chora's Den. Under fire from a couple of would-be turian assassins.
Kaidan activated his biotic barrier as soon as the shooting started. They hadn't been allowed weapons or armour on the Presidium and hadn't even thought to suit up when hitting the Wards. Of course as a biotic he was never entirely helpless but he was all too aware that the two women he was with were defenseless.
He glanced to his right to check that they were both alright and in cover and saw the commander crouched with her back to the wall, fiddling with her omni-tool. She was suddenly covered by an orange light that shaped around her, not form fittingly so but bulky looking, reminding him of football shoulder-pad armour back home.
It was like nothing he'd ever seen before and as she raised up slightly to send an overload towards their adversaries he hastily amended his earlier thought: the Gunnery Chief was defenseless.
"Williams stay down and keep an eye on our rear, let us know if anything comes up behind us. Alenko start wearing their shields down with overloads. How good's your stasis?"
"Not great ma'am." He admitted, guessing her plan. "I certainly couldn't hold both of them and only hold one for a couple of seconds. I could throw one and lift the other? I can hold a lift for about twenty, thirty seconds."
"Which is it Lieutenant? Twenty or thirty?" She asked sending out another tech attack with her omni-tool before crawling prone across the floor towards the right so the enemy couldn't see her movements.
"Consistently, twenty-six." He didn't make out the words of her grunted response but another quick glance was enough to see her raise to a crouch, still carefully staying below the wall as she assumed the stance of a sprinter in the starting blocks.
"Whenever you're ready Alenko."
He launched a throw powerful enough to knock his opponent against the wall, but making sure he had enough energy in reserve to hold the lift as Shepard sprinted towards the enemy position.
The first turian was already dragging himself to his feet as she charged into him, omni-blade flashing as the momentum crashed them both back to the floor.
The second was struggling against the dark energy surrounding him, the difference between a stasis and lift highlighted as he managed to flail enough to point his shotgun in the right direction.
"Commander!" The biotic's warning came too late.
The first shot was stopped by the strange orange protection she wore. The second significantly slowed but able to penetrate to the unarmored body beneath. The third, fourth and fifth plowed into the now defenseless body of the turian that the N7 rolled between her and the incoming fire.
There was no sixth shot as the weapon overheated and Shepard reached round to unholster her former adversary's pistol, firing up into the floating figure.
She stopped shooting as soon as they were dead, and Kaidan dropped the remains to the floor.
He just had enough presence of mind to check for any further targets before hurrying over to assess the damage to his leader. By the time he got there she had already activated comms.
"Anderson, watch yourself, we just got hit... Unknown, two turians, barefaced. They were well armed but shit discipline, if they'd just held fire another 30 seconds we wouldn't have had cover to get too... Well I've got me some guns now, but I certainly wouldn't mind my armour... Aye, aye Sir, you too. Shepard out."
As soon as the call ended she handed out the deceased's weapons to her squad. Giving both of them assault rifles, Ashley one of the shotguns and Kaidan a pistol. Keeping the other shotgun and pistol for herself.
They weren't as nice as her own armory but they were clearly much higher quality weapons than the other two marines were used to.
Ash certainly perked up once she had a gun in her hands, while she could still be killed it was nice to now have a way to fight back.
Thinking about their still lacking defense reminded the biotic of the light and he just had to ask about it.
"Prototype technology. Still very hush hush." Came the response. "I was supposed to be field-testing it in conjunction with my armour but when the shooting started I thought: hey, what's the worst that can happen?"
"How does it work?" Alenko couldn't help asking. As soon as the words left his mouth he remembered himself and expected to receive some kind of reprimand about it being classified, but instead the commander simply looked bemused.
"Uh... I press some buttons?"
Kaidan looked flabbergasted at the idea she didn't know what she was playing with while Ashley laughed.
"Come on, let's find Harkin."
...
Harkin pointed them in the direction of Dr Michel's med clinic and after a brief pit stop to armour up they were on their way. They walked in to find a decidedly testy situation: five armed humans threatening the doctor to stay quiet while a C-Sec officer crept along a small divide.
Their entry immediately made things worse, one of the men pulling the doctor and turning her into a human shield, the turian popped up in a flanking position, putting a clean shot through the hostage-taker's head and from there it was a much simpler shoot out.
It didn't take long for all the opposition to hit the floor, although one of them was screaming far too loudly to be dead.
Shepard conducted a brief Q&A session with Garrus, the doctor and the injured man all involved in giving answers before the turian offered his services against Saren explaining:
"He's a traitor to my species and needs to be stopped."
"Well, well and there was me thinking you were a bad turian the way you ignored the order to stop investigating." Shepard grinned and it only grew when he tried protesting. "Relax Garrus, I know plenty of 'bad turians', Blackwatch is filled with them. Good people. In fact, with that headshot earlier, I'm surprised you're not with them."
She noticed how he straightened slightly, standing taller at the compliment of his skill. Looking around, she also saw how Kaidan seemed to be fading from having to push his biotics so hard earlier and made a decision.
"Alright, Alenko stay here and guard our little songbird. I'll talk to Anderson, get him to send a couple of marines down to escort him to the brig incase we need his testimony later. No offense to C-Sec, Officer Vakarian, but my last witness on this case mysteriously vanished."
To his credit the turian didn't protest, simply nodding silently. Her omni-tool interrupted any further orders and she muttered a brief: "Speak of the devil," before answering.
"Shepard, I've been speaking with our old friend Barla, turns out Saren's managed to piss off the Broker and one of his agent's has been helping him. Nightclub owner, name of Fist."
"Yeah I just found out about Fist myself, was about to head over."
"Be quick about it. The Broker's sending a krogan bounty hunter to take him out. Urdnot Wrex, red armour, clawed face, can't miss him. He's being questioned by C-Sec at the moment so you can get a head start but that situation won't last long."
Shepard was sure she recognised the name from somewhere but she didn't dwell on it, signaling for Williams and Vakarian to follow her as she started heading back to Chora's Den, even as she continued talking with Anderson.
...
Their second visit was vastly different from their first. The club's loud, pumping music and sensuous dancing was replaced with the pumping of shotguns and a dance of death.
At least the civilians had all cleared out, it would have been a massacre if they'd been caught in the crossfire.
Eventually they reached Fist himself, the hardman crumbling as soon as his twin assault turrets fizzled out under a barrage of overloads. He not only surrendered but confessed everything with minimal prodding.
"You bastard. Where's the meeting?" Shepard fumed when she heard he'd sent the young quarian into a trap. His answer wasn't good enough for her and she pointed her pistol at him threateningly. "The markets are pretty fucking big Fist, give me the navpoint."
He complied and she lowered her weapon.
"Let's go!" Before she could turn a shotgun blast rang out, smattering Fist against the wall. The squad instantly spun, two assault rifles and a pistol coming to rest on the krogan standing nonchalantly by the door.
Wrex I presume. Shepard made a mental note to train her new squad to always have one person turn around and watch their six when she was talking to someone.
She had become so used to it being automatic behaviour with her old team that she'd forgotten to issue the order. She needed to remember that these guys were new to her command and not make assumptions.
"What? I waited until you got your information." The krogan rumbled, noting casually that while the two with assault rifles were aiming rather pointlessly at centre mass, the human in the middle with the pistol was actually aiming somewhere that would hurt his species.
She was also looking extremely pissed.
He was willing to bet she was responsible for the dead krogan bouncer he'd passed on the way in.
In fact, considering the death toll outside, he'd been rather surprised to find just two humans and a turian responsible for it all.
It was rather impressive.
He took a step away from the door to give them room to pass.
"Don't you have a quarian to save? Tick, tock, tick, tock."
The lead human actually growled and he got the impression he'd done something to seriously offend her. Although whether it was an insult to her specie's culture or her personal morals he didn't know. Other than their fight against the turians he hadn't paid much attention to the latest squishies to emerge on the galactic scene a couple of decades back.
However the flaming rage he expected to see in her eyes was tempered and controlled by a cool calculating professionalism and he was certain she was processing all available information she had on the situation. Such as the fact he was here for a job and if she was it they wouldn't be talking. It only took a couple of seconds for her to raise her pistol.
Smart, signaling a lack of hostile intent but quicker to re-aim on a krogan than if she'd lowered it like she did for Fist.
"Come on." She reiterated to her squad, pushing past him, the others following her example but somewhat more nervously and he went to work collecting information.
He was no hacker but sweeping up all the datapads he could see and pulling out any computer drives to hand over to his contact was normally enough to keep the Shadow Broker happy. If he/she/they wanted more finesse then he/she/they would have assigned him a tech-head for the job.
The sound of renewed gunfire caught his attention. Fist's backup must have arrived. Tough luck for him, they're a little late.
He finished what he was doing before heading back out. Seeing the squishy's command of battle was even more impressive live than it had been when analysing the dead bodies on the way in. It was a joy to watch.
However he liked a good fight and the human's actions had prevented him from getting the one he'd been expecting on the way in so he couldn't help joining in on this one.
He charged into the fray with his shotgun singing and in the background he could hear rapidly changed orders as the human capitalized on his unexpected diversion.
"Wrex! Watch your Seven!" The yell came and he was momentarily confused by the human's remark. What did numbers have to do with battle? He had a quad but that was something completely different, he couldn't think of anything he possessed seven of.
Her message became clear, even if the language did not, when he felt his armour take a hit from just left of behind. He spun with a roar to take care of the problem, only to see the human in question snuff it from an overdose of weapon's fire.
The fight didn't last much longer. It had been fun though and Wrex didn't question it when he found himself jogging alongside the strange squad towards the navpoint of the quarian's meeting place.
The human leader shot him a brief look but said nothing as they focused on making it to their objective.
They made it in the nick of time, the quarian throwing out a grenade and diving out the way of the assassin's attack as they rounded the corner and joined in the assault.
For all their high-tech armour, the two salarians and solitary turian stood no chance against the onslaught, and it was soon time for introductions.
Tali's information certainly sounded like something his employer would be interested in, however his orders had only been to take care of Fist. With how jumpy the quarian was after the setup, and how protective the newly identified Commander Shepard was acting towards the kid, he decided it was better not to attempt to acquire it.
He would certainly be looking into his boss's files on this Shepard though.
...
A small army of C-Sec officers were waiting on the border between the Wards and the Presidium to enforce the no guns rule. The prohibition was fairly strict with the only exception being Spectres and members of C-Sec. Wrex was fairly certain there was a less official 'no krogan' rule as well but he wasn't willing to test it.
There was no way he was letting the pyjaks at C-Sec touch his guns anyway so he decided to part ways with the strange group and hunt down his contact in a different ward. He smiled to himself as he heard Shepard state poker faced:
"Officer Vakarian, thank you for letting me borrow your pistol earlier. You best have it back now." While handing her own sidearm to the turian.
To the whelp's credit he didn't falter in his acceptance.
She relinquished the rest of her weapons easily enough, though kept her armour, stating that it was purely defensive not offensive in nature.
It wasn't until the rag-tag unit were through security and headed towards the embassies that she casually added: "Of course, anything can be weaponised if you throw it hard enough."
...
Udina hadn't been too impressed by her arrival in his office, although he soon changed his tune when she revealed the incriminating evidence that Tali had recovered.
The young quarian had been nervous at first but by the end of the meeting was volunteering her services in the fight against the geth.
Shepard discreetly checked Anderson was ok with the idea before giving provisional permission depending on the ship's chief medical officer agreeing.
While the quarian's technological skills and knowledge would undoubtedly be great assets, she wasn't willing to risk the kid's life if the doc didn't feel confident patching her up. The captain chuckled at her conditions.
"If I know Karin she'll jump at the challenge."
The good doctor was certainly the most certified in the Alliance for alien physiology, although he doubted even she had any official training on quarians.
The turian also immediately offered to help hunt Saren and Anderson had to remind them all not to jump the gun. They still had to present the new evidence to the Council, listen to their verdict and obey their orders on the matter.
Still, if things went the way he expected then his protege was about to surpass him, and he couldn't be prouder of the younger N7.
...
The newly designated Spectre was heading back to her newly designated ship after the hearing turned ceremony when she spotted Wrex leaning against a pillar. Not that the giant krogan was easy to miss.
"Shepard. I'm coming too."
Her eyebrow raised at his bold statement.
"Is that so?"
"You need me Shepard,"
Yeah like a fish needs a bicycle, she thought as he lay out his reasoning.
However she had finally realised where she knew his name from. Several times over the years she'd engaged in intense research sessions on thresher maws, every recorded incident involving them, studying their moves, comparing different species tactics against them, seeing what worked and what didn't.
Two maws working in tandem had wiped out 90% of an asari huntress cadre with several millennia of experience between them.
Survival on the whole seemed to be down to luck. The preferred method of engagement an orbital bombardment.
Even that wouldn't work if they retreated back under ground.
The sole exception to the galaxy wide advice of 'stay the hell away' was the krogan. They actually organised hunting parties to go after the beasts.
Very, very large parties sure, but still.
Then there were the stories about trial by combat: on foot, in small groups, against the wildlife of Tuchanka. These were not judicial proceedings however but held some kind of cultural significance for the krogan, although Shepard was still somewhat unclear on the details.
Little information came out from Tuchanka, and what did was mostly a resort of STG spies rather than volunteered by the krogan themselves. If she knew nothing else about thresher maws, this detail alone would be enough to convince her they were bad news: a krogan who got a maw for his trial didn't have to kill it in order to be victorious, he just had to survive for half an hour.
In fact the last krogan to kill a maw on foot, from the outside, was one Urdnot Wrex.
She longed to pick his knowledge of the beasts.
"-and if nothing else I make a good bullet sponge." The warrior in question finished making his case to join her team.
"That's what shields and cover is for." Shepard dismissed before sighing. As much as his exploits intrigued her on a personal level, she wasn't about to risk her crew by having a loose cannon on board.
"Look, I'm not questioning your fighting skills. I admit I'd be hard-pressed to find someone better, but I need to know you'll follow my orders. Not sometimes, not if you were going to do that anyway, but whenever I give an order you follow it. I'm not having you pull anymore stunts like you did with Fist."
"That wasn't a stunt, I killed him."
"Yeah, I kind of noticed. After he'd surrendered. I thought the biggest insult a krogan could give was to declare someone not worth killing?"
"It is, but I had a contract on him. I always finish a job."
"Do you have any more ongoing contracts I need to be aware of?"
The giant lizard shook his head and she stared him down appraisingly.
"What about your work with the Shadow Broker? How do I know you're not just coming onboard to spy on my ship?"
The krogan laughed.
"I'm sorry, but krogan spies! We're not exactly discreet."
The commander didn't seem amused so he shrugged.
"The Shadow Broker already knows everything he wants to about your ship. Would you like to see the blueprints?"
The human's eyes narrowed as he brought up the relevant file on his omni-tool.
"Tell me why Wrex? Why do you want in on this?"
"I'm krogan, we love to fight, and I get the feeling this is going to be the best fight of the decade."
She shook her head, that calculating look back in her eyes.
"Don't give me that stereotypical varen shit. I may never have met a krogan scientist but I've run into a couple of architects and engineers before. I know you're not all bloodthirsty mercs. What's the real reason?"
"Exactly that. My people were once proud warriors sure, but we were capable of so much more. All the galaxy sees when they think 'krogan' is mercenaries or bodyguards. Did you know there's not a single krogan in C-Sec? There's multiple hanar and elcor, hell you humans were only discovered a quarter century ago and you're already swarming their ranks.
I wasn't lying when I said this fight's going to be big. Saren already has an army of krogan at his disposal. Those whelps aren't worth the title krogan but all the galaxy will see is us as the bad guys again.
You've already got a turian and a quarian on your crew, let me have a chance to show my people on the right side of history for once. For all those weirdos who don't want to be warriors but get abused for wanting to use their brains just because they're krogan..."
He faded out, not entirely sure where the speech was going. He had thought he'd given up caring for his people a long time ago, but the words had come straight from the hearts. The human was still looking at him and he felt as if she was weighing up his entire being. She nodded once.
"Ok. But consider this your one and only warning. If you endanger my crew or disobey my orders I will drop you off on the nearest planet, regardless of whether or not it is considered habitable."
He chuckled at the threat and yet didn't doubt her for a second. He nodded in agreement to her terms and she smiled, holding out a hand. He glanced bemusedly at it for a second before remembering the human custom and shaking it.
"Welcome aboard Wrex."
...
Author's Note: I know in the game tech armour isn't available until ME2, but by then it's widely available with enemies and npcs having access to it so, as far as I'm concerned, it's perfectly feasible for prototypes to be in circulation 2 years prior. Especially with Nikki having 'connections' with cutting edge tech corporations.
As for not having weapons on the Presidium, I just find it hard to imagine they let military personnel from varying species (particularly non-council ones) wander around fully armed among all those politicians. The risk of assassination or attempted coup is just too high.
Yeah, they probably should have rearmed before heading down to Wards though, that was just stupid. Just like how stupid it is in the game that every time you get in an elevator in the middle of a mission your squad holsters their weapons. What if the doors open to reveal an ambush!?
Finally the biggest change: Wrex. I absolutely love Wrex as a companion in the game and assure you that he and Nikki will be becoming great friends. However it just doesn't make sense from a paragon point of view, with the information you have at the time, to let a bounty hunter that works for the Shadow Broker, that you know next to nothing about, and who just gunned down a currently unarmed man who had already surrendered, access to your top secret Alliance vessel without question.
Hope you're all enjoying.