Chapter 9 Intermission

Commissioned by MaceShepard

Written by Blood Raven

"Does the phrase Political shitstorm mean anything to you ambassador?"

Ambassador Donnel Udina felt too much like a schoolboy being scolded by a prefecture as he withered the assault of half of the most important leaders on Earth, "I understand ladies and gentlemen, that I am but a messenger to the decision of the combined League parliament." Udina pointed out gently, "And I must remind you that my involvement in military intelligence and operations is limited to what is shared with my clearance level."

A well-dressed man in a suit dragged on his cigarette before speaking in a raspy voice, "We are not blaming you Donnel for the untimely destruction of the beacon, or the attack on Eden Prime."

Udina nodded humbly, disguising his irritation at his first name being used. It grew when the man continued on in a backhand, "But we are blaming you for the overleveraging of the asset in question. Without it, our hand with the council has been severely disrupted."

Finally allowed to reply, Udina reflexively bit back his tongue and moderated himself, "I took a gamble and it has failed on conditions that were out of all of our control. I'll be falling back on the notion that the beacon was a gift. I can only hope the council will acknowledge that and continue with their end of the deal," Udina brought up a datapad and peered at its contents, "eight months from now." Udina was deflecting the blame. Everyone knew the tactic and tacitly agreed with his statement anyway. It had indeed been out of everyone's hands. The geth appearing as they had was a significant factor that no one had anticipated.

Even his overleveraging of the beacon was not seen in a bad light. It had been a once in a lifetime asset uncovered on their world, they would have been stupid to not get everything they could from it.

But the Geth incursion was overshadowing this entire meeting.

To ensure proper security of the extraction, they had used the Normandy's debut as cover for the pickup. A secret within a secret to obfuscate everything. Relay pickets had been established at all primary and secondary relays and none of them had reported any attacks or sightings of geth forces. It's like they came in from the aether and attacked Eden Prime like a bolt from the blue. All traditional methods of early warning had failed, which meant that some new technique or technology had been invented by the Geth.

That beyond everything spooked the Citadel Council and the Infected Citizen League. A breakthrough in FTL tech, or activation of hence unknown relays would be a major risk to internal security.

"Esteemed councilors, I believe before we make any decisions we should wait for Commander Shepard to wake up and lay out her report, before we fully set out our plan." Admiral Portnow cautioned.

But the rest of the human quorum began to grumble. Prime Minister Louanne Rungrueang muted everyone else when it got too loud, her lower set of insectoid-like arms moderating the entire session, her eyes not even lowering a fraction, "Ambassador, I believe by the time the Commander regains consciousness we'll have no time to plan, we only have three hours as of now to set the agenda of your negotiations with the Citadel Council."

A live feed from the Citadel News Network began with Kahlessh Bin Sindt Al-Julaani reporting. In Udina's mind, the previous statement on a shitstorm was brewing even more. Outside his office right now, he knew that the growing crowd of humans was torn between protest and solidarity, with some batarian counterprotesters already forming up.

Udina preempted anyone else's impact by speaking first, "I believe our backup plans regarding their psychological profiles will pan out Prime Minister Ma'am. Councilor Tevos has always been pushing hard for our involvement in Citadel politics and treaties. While Councilor Sparatus is still interested in us signing the Treaty of Firaxis as a primary signatory."

"What is Councilor Valern's position? He is still the wild card here." Rungrueang asked.

The ambassador nodded, "Valern's position is publicly unmoved, he refuses to grant humanity Special Observer status and insists we merely become an associate for the next century before approval into the Council proper." Udina took a breath, "Privately he supports the Batarian and Volus position. We'll have to cede a few strategic border systems and relays to the Batarians, and integrate our economy fully with the galactic standard before we're even considered to join the Council proper."

"In which case the Volus gets the tiebreaking vote." Udina finished.

"Likelihood of success?" Rungrueang asked pointedly.

"Now? Less than ten percent. In the next twenty years, however, I give us even odds as long as the conditions don't meaningfully change."

"-Which they have Councilor, Prime Minister." Admiral Hackett came on the conference call, "I regret to report that we have not been able to follow the dreadnought that attacked Eden Prime, further we can confirm it does not match any Geth or Quarian Technology we know of."

Everyone looked at one another, no one panicked, but everyone was plainly worried. Ranguerung spoke first, "What does Nihlus say?"

Hackett coughed, "He has no idea either, all we know is the Geth are a Quarian invention, and that a Quarian, or perhaps multiple Quarians outside of their isolation suits, were seen masquerading as Saren Arterias. As it stands we have very little information about the Geth besides what is publicly available due to our efforts to infiltrate Council space. Nihlus won't report anything that the Council won't wish to share, and the Salarians will share with us on their own time."

Ranguerung shook her head, "What is the likelihood of the Quarian fleet's involvement in this?"

Hackett averted his eyes from the Prime Minister's glare to his datapad, "Again ma'am, all our resources have been directed to the Citadel council and the Batarian Hegemony, we have next to nothing on the Quarians as it stands."

Udina's console lit up, and then he did as well, "I think we may be able to change that Prime Minister." He brought a picture up, and a Quarian in an isolation suit appeared with a short description, "A Quarian has just been registered as boarding the Citadel through illegal means."

Everyone looked at him as Udina continued to read, wondering why a sixteen year old Quarian would merit mentioning, "I'm making her a tier-one asset."

Hackett looked over confused, "Why is that Ambassador?"

Udina looked up, gently rubbing his chin in thought, "She's the only child to one of the Quarian Admirals. If we want answers, we'll need leverage."

Ranguerung nodded, "What is her name ambassador?"

"Tali'Zorah Nar Rayya, She's the daughter of Admiral Rael'Zorah, one of the Admirals who supports war with the Geth to reclaim Rannoch, and by all accounts one of the foremost experts in Geth technology." Valern explained breathlessly.

Sparatu's flanges angled to a frown, "Which Zorah is the expert?"

Valern's eyes flicked over, "Both."

"And she's on our doorstep, wounded and alone?" Spartacus asked in mock confusion, "What are the odds of that?"

"Slim. But we must take this opportunity to secure her. The humans will be moving for her the same as us." Tevos said, sighing as she sipped her tea. "At the very least we need to grab her before the humans make an overt move. Because if they do…"

"The batarians will try to capture her…" Spartacus sighed as well.

"And if the Batarians go for her, then the Shadow Broker and everyone else will be after her as well." Valern finished. The three councilors looked at one another.

"We can't afford a riot or open warfare on the Citadel at this time," Tevos patiently explained.

"You're overreacting Tevos," Spartacus cautioned.

Tevos looked genuinely offended by that statement, "Commander Shepard is en route right now to deliver her report to us personally, as soon as she does so, the first mission she'll receive as one of the only overt military assets on this station will be recovering Miss Zorah. The Batarians will try to counter the humans by whatever means. If not for the Quarian then for revenge against the League for their recent retaliations in the terminus systems. Like Torfan." Tevos explained calmly,

Valern tapped his chin, "At the very least her interrogation will produce valuable intelligence against these unknown Quarians sighted on Eden Prime, we must recover her. I'm dispatching an STG team immediately, whether you agree or not."

Sparatus growled, "Very well then, I'll inform Executor Pallin of the situation."

Tevos nodded, "Spectre Vasir is on the station, I'll inform her to get the Quarian and bring her here immediately."

The other two councilors looked up, Valern spoke first, "Is that wise? We know she has close ties to the shadow broker."

Tevos was about to speak but then Valern cut her off, "No, she's the only Spectre present right now. Alternative would be Nihlus."

Spartacus growled again, "And he'd be forced to take her right to the League because they have all eyes on him with Shepard. Which would mean going off station because the Presidium is filled with protestors."

They all looked at each other in agreement, "We're in agreement then?"

"We're in agreement, we do not hold you responsible for the failure to detonate the nuclear weapons in time." Elder Jurana explained calmly. Her voice was soothing to Haryja's ears.

He nodded, bowing his head in humility, "I understand, thank you my elders."

"You're thanks is unnecessary Haryja. Please report on your brother's demise." This debriefing was a formality, the Geth had already assembled adequate evidence of Spectre Nihlus seeing through Lokse's disguise.

"I was securing the beacons knowledge when Lokse reported seeing a Turian. After a quick look into the archives, we determined it was Nihlus Kryik, a Spectre that specializes in human affairs." Haryja went into detail about the Spectre.

After a few minutes, he summed up his conclusion, "It's obviously a fake identity. Nihlus Kryik never existed before the Relay 314 War. It is likely that Nihlus Kryik is either a human assuming a Turian identity under the blessing of the Citadel Council to service human issues or he is a captured Turian who is doing the same for the Council. The latter is most likely."

The elders conferred then nodded to one another, "Brother Lokse, we have another vital task for you to complete." The elder waved their arm and a variety of holographic photos and reports surrounded Lokse.

"This is the last recording of a deep recon force we sent to scout out the movements of the Traitor Fleet."

Lokse looked up and observed the lead Geth take an IED to the face. The camera kept switching between several drones as assault rifle fire gunned down half the patrol before the Geth determined a retreat was necessary. Sadly that was when the feed cut, the final frame showed a Quarian in an environment suit firing a pistol.

"This is Tali'Zorah, she's the only child of one of the admirals in charge of the traitor fleet. We believe she has vital intelligence connecting us to the attack on Eden Prime. If she delivers the information, centuries of work will be ruined." The elder explained.

Lokse met the quorum's eyes, "I'm sorry Elders, but how has the situation devolved to this point?"

"Due to the refusal of our brother and sisters on Rannoch to support our synthesis, we have been forced to recycle combat platforms. Our various operations have stretched our resources exceptionally thin as of late. Tali Zorah and her entourage have attacked multiple patrols, likely in the hopes of getting any information about the Geth themselves." He brought up a new holographic window, "We have at least a fifty percent chance that she has succeeded in recovering the memory cores of at least some of the Geth units, some of which personally served with you."

Lokse looked up to the elder, "My orders?"

The elders conferred for only a moment, "If practicable, capture her for interrogation. If not, eliminate her, be forewarned, you are not the first we have sent against her. She has survived but most of her escort has not."