"What the hell happened?" asked Hayes as she came back into the embassy she and Exedore used as an apartment. In front of her was the turian C-Sec officer, Underlieutenant Pallin who had been such a friend to Shepard that first day. He had, apparently, requested being assigned as Exedore's personal chaperon. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, but she came back to find Exedore with a nice shiner of a black eye, and the turian himself appeared to have a broken arm, if the sling on his shoulder was any indication.
"Ah, Representative Hayes, did today's negotiations go well?" asked Exedore, and she just stared at him, before face palming at that question and more importantly the friendly tone it was delivered in.
"It went about as well as could be expected, Prime Thinker. I believe Amalgam will be happy that we at least got them to relax some of their attitudes towards his people, but other than that, nothing happened beyond the start of talks. You, appear to have had a much busier day," she said, motioning towards him, causing him to seemingly look shocked, before he touched his eye and winced a little.
"Oh, you refer to the injuries my companion and I received," he said, and Hayes nodded.
"Indeed, now care to fill me in?" she asked. Rather than Exedore answering, the turian, who had been sitting down, stood up and saluted her, in a Terran way interestingly enough.
"Ma'am, I was escorting Prime Thinker Exedore through a part of Zakera Ward that had several shops I thought he might be interested in, given his previous purchase history," he said this in a tone that made him sound almost like some kind of ad for the area, but when he stopped, she motioned for him to continue.
"After he had bought several lots of medical technology from a distributor here on the Citadel, we were walking to a nearby booth to purchase some more omnitools. That was when they jumped us," as he spoke, he held out his hand, and suddenly a small map of Zakera Ward appeared in the air in front of him, with two moving, blue dots to symbolize them, and a half a dozen red dots and one green one popping up around them.
"No weapons, but a lot of fists, mostly batarian, with one krogan who seemed to be in charge. I figured they were trying to mug us, of course, but when I tried to ping the local C-Sec force, I found it blocked. Whoever these guys were, they weren't just thugs," as he spoke, several of the dots grew closer to the him and Exedore.
"I pulled my gun, ordered them to back away, but they were armored. Personal barrier shield stuff, which means they were probably para-military. I would say Bloodpack or the like," suddenly, one of the red dots leapt forward, and then vanished, only for two more to go forward, and then collide with a blue dot, which went dark as they struck.
"I ordered the Prime Thinker to run, but then he...he took them down. Hard," suddenly, the rear blue dot moved forward, and the two on top of the first blue dot went dark as well. You could just imagine Exedore, his arms out, clocking both of them unconscious. He then followed it up by hurling one of the two darkened dots at his own teammates, causing both to vanish, and then the other darkened one vanished as well, probably a backhanded strike.
"He moved like a beast, tossing them around like they were nothing, despite the size difference," and the blue dot moved again, this time colliding with the set of three red dots. Knowing Exedore, he would have punched the first right in the center of mass. Slow enough that a barrier, designed for anti projectile use, would only have buffered the force slightly. He then would have followed up with a kick to the head for the one he struck, knocking him out. When the other two would have tried to rush him, he would duck, and bring his feet up to leverage them against each other, slamming their heads together, and knocking them out as well. As if to show this, first one, and then the other two red dots vanished, leaving only the green.
"The krogan wasn't fazed at all, he just chuckled, and rushed Exedore," the green dot moved forward, the blue dot stepping back a little. Hayes could see it in her mind as the krogan, looking like that monument on the Presidium, came on. The two dots twirled around each other, before the blue one separated.
"He got that shiner of his then, but his counterstrike really messed up the krogan, who ran off, while pushing a button on his omnitool. The Prime Thinker grabbed me, and hauled me out of there before..." he let the dots explain again, as the places where the red dots had vanished suddenly flared to life again, and then flared even brighter, the simulation ending with the little wireframe bits flying apart, obviously representing an explosion.
"I got clipped by a piece of debris in the shoulder, but otherwise escaped unharmed, and as far as he'll admit, Exedore is fine," he said, and Exedore himself leaned back in his seat, obviously satisfied with the explanation of events.
"So, just to make sure I understand this, you two were attacked by a band of mercenaries. Is there any indication as to why they attacked?" she asked, and the two men shook their heads.
"I'm at least eighty percent positive they were Bloodpack, a band that lives up to that name. They're violent, savage, and take any job for pay. It's rare to see them operate in Citadel Space, let alone on the Citadel itself, but anyone with enough credits to wave in front of their faces would have been able to hire them," explained Pallin.
"What about this krogan? Has he been found?" asked Hayes.
"I'm afraid not. Krogan aren't as rare on the Citadel as some would have you believe, and I didn't get a proper scan of his face. I'm sorry," apologized the turian.
"Are you stopping transports? Making sure he can't leave the station?" she said, a bit of urgency in her voice.
"What? That's just not possible. You stop transports and we'd have to tap the food and fuel reserves here on the Citadel. With the current population those would last maybe a few hours, at most," said Pallin, and Amanda Hayes opened her mouth to protest, only to remember she wasn't dealing with her own people.
For Terrans it wouldn't be a problem. Inconvenient, yes, but not in any way a threat to the population. For the Citadel races, such a disruption would be deadly. Even if they found the krogan the same hour they shut down the outgoing traffic, it would take a lot longer to get things moving again. Bureaucracy seemed hard wired into the Citadel itself, and that would keep things stopped for a good long while, many hundreds, if not thousands, would starve in that time, all to catch one criminal.
"So, we have at least one criminal on the loose who wants Exedore dead then," she said, more to herself than the other two.
"Not likely. The krogan would be long gone by now. Even if he wasn't being hunted by us, the Bloodpack is ruthless about failure. It makes the whole group look weak. He's probably halfway to Omega by now, with a new face waiting for him when he gets there," said the turian.
"More importantly, I doubt that the forces sent were there to kill me. If that were the case, a single shot would have done their job much more efficiently. Their goals was likely as not, capture, rather than kill," added Exedore.
"You two know that doesn't actually make me feel any better, don't you?" commented the Terran woman.
"Well, how's about this for making you feel better. I contacted General Ororian and he's already assigned a full squad to escort Exedore around from now on. I even had him pull some strings to get a friend of Shepard's assigned to the detail," as he spoke, Pallin projected a half a dozen holos of the turians in front of him, including Arus Vakarian.
"They'll be fully armed this time, no side pistols, and if anyone tries something again, they'll take them down, without question," he said confidently, and the other two nodded.
"Alright, we'll need to discuss your itinerary for tomorrow, Prime Thinker, but I think that covers everything. Pallin, go get some rest and heal," with that, Pallin saluted, in the Terran way, with his good arm, and turned to leave.
"And Pallin?" came Exedore's voice, stopping the turian in mid stride.
"Thank you for your efforts," said the smaller man.
"And thank you, Exedore. I would be a dead turian without you," and with that, he exited the room, leaving the two alone again. They sat there for several minutes, waiting for a signal that came as a shrill beep from Hayes' omnitool.
"Acknowledged, room clear," said Hayes into her wrist, before taking a seat. She then pressed a button, and soon two holos shot out of her omnitool, resolving into two female forms. One was vastly more detailed than the other, though both were Terran by the look of them.
"Prime Thinker, are you sure you don't want my assistance tomorrow?" asked Shepard as she appeared before them, and Exedore quickly shook his head.
"I'm afraid your mass would prove detrimental to my efforts, Commander. Building bridges, financially, is best done with a soft step, rather than a hard boot," explained Exedore, and it looked for a moment like Shepard would protest, but she kept her mouth shut, allowing them to move on to other things.
"Now then, how exactly did you do that, Exedore? I'm aware that Zentraedi biology is quite an asset in hand to hand confrontations, but even so, your performance was quite powerful," asked Hayes, and Exedore smiled in that grandfatherly way of his, before reaching up and pulling down the sleeve of his uniform. Beneath the white fabric he had a small device that shone with the blue glow of a mass effect field.
"In my...tinkering, last night, I realized one of the mechanism of the cart I had used to haul my purchase around on was very adaptable. As I had been told these carts were common use for moving goods over the Citadel, I assumed a single unit would not be missed, and so set about disassembling it," to demonstrate he moved his fingers, and then reached out towards a chair in front of him, a small glow surrounding it as he grabbed it, and then allowing him to pick it up with ease.
"It would seem the technology is quite adaptable, once you take it down to its base parts. The combat applications of it are quite interesting as well. I can't wait to get back to Gloval Station and begin augmenting the mobile armors there," he said as he spun the chair on his finger, and then lightly put it back down.
"That is interesting. Though that does raise a question. Why don't they have those in their armors already? Wouldn't the ability to punch with more force be invaluable in close quarters combat?" asked Shepard, who had been watching videos of various battles that the Citadel kept on local files, seeing nothing like those devices in her research unless one counted biotics.
"I may actually have an answer for that one, Hannah," said the other image, and then waved her hand, causing several images and graphs to appear in the air beside her.
"I asked Ms. Ivanova to go over the hypernet for any information she thought might be useful for either my endeavors, or your negotiations, Representative," explained Exedore as the data slowly filtered through hundreds of sets of numbers.
"Sadly, most of what I've found would be of little interest to anyone outside a sociopolitical sciences class. There are a few tidbits here and there though that stand out. For instance, how many new ship designs do you think the Citadel has come out with in the last generation or so?" asked the AI, the graphs morphing into pictures of the various vessels the group before her knew of, as well as a dozen more that they had yet to see.
"I wouldn't begin to guess. With such a large population of varied species there must have been dozens," said Hayes, and Ivanova shook her head.
"In actuality the real figure is zero. In over three hundred years, no new designs have emerged. Every improvement made is to an existing design, not starting from scratch. In fact, going back farther than that, it seems that, once a civilization joins the galactic community, either with the Citadel or against them, they stop developing on their own," as she explained this, dates appeared above the various ships she was showing, and then those dates rolled backwards, decades at a time, which showed only minor changes or alterations as the centuries rewound.
"That can't be right. We may not be building our own designs much, but even Terrans have changed them over the centuries since the War," commented Shepard as she watched the models before her stop rolling back, with the turian vessel from almost a thousand years previous, the first of the line, looking only a few points difference from the Talons she'd rode in for those two weeks.
"Worse, they don't change inside much either. I did a little digging and found that the element zero core design used today is so old that even the asari don't remember who built it," and with that, she flashed up a vision of one such core, causing everyone sitting in front of her to whistle. All present knew asari could live a millennium or longer.
"So they're stagnant? An entire galaxy?" asked Exedore, and Ivanova shook her head.
"I don't think so. Minor improvements occur all the time. Just a few weeks ago someone built a new engine that is about six percent more efficient when it comes to fuel economy, and I could list hundreds of new things their science has dreamed up this decade alone. However, the heart of their science is mass effect, and yet, I don't think they truly understand it at all," answered the AI.
"That sort of makes sense, when you consider it. They discovered the mass relays, much like we ourselves did. Using and even duplicating a device once you have the designs and parts, are easy, but improving it is a nigh on impossibility when you don't grasp the underlying theory of it," admitted Exedore, who had been one of the finest minds in the Federation, and knew that the mass relays were a major conundrum when it came to studying the things.
"But then what about your gauntlets? All that took was you looking at the cart for a few minutes, and you realized it could be converted like that," asked Hayes.
"Yes, but that's the rub, I looked at the cart. I don't think they did. To them, it's a mass effect based technology, useful for what it's doing, but otherwise something to just be left alone," explained Exedore.
"And not one they built themselves. Like the Relays, the carts are manufactured by a third party, namely, the keepers here on the Citadel. They may build their own in other ports, but all they're doing is copying the design, not actually thinking about how it goes together," added Ivanova.
"This has major possibilities. They literally aren't looking at their tech closely enough to see all its applications. They're so used to it, it's so much a part of their lives they just don't see it anymore," said Hayes, dreaming of all the potential political ramifications this would have. In as little as a generation, the Terrans could be running the galaxy.
"That is an accurate assessment," responded the AI, and then the group began discussing specifics of what this might mean for various sectors of the Terran economy, both with new technologies coming in, and more importantly, those that would be going out once they began overhauling designs. By the time Ivanova reported it was past midnight, they had dozens of proposals for the Commerce Committee of the Federation Senate, and the two micronians went to bed, leaving the AI and the Terran soldier to continue their talks until morning would dawn, and more talks would commence.