Chapter 10 Back to Our Regular Programming

Commissioned by Mace Shepard

Written by Blood Raven

Hazel gasped awake and shot up on the gurney.

"Welcome back to the land of the living Commander." The gottel voice of the ship's doctor commented, setting her tablet down with a click of plastic on plastic.

"Did… What… I?" Shepard stuttered in confusion. Her entire body was running a cold sweat, and her musk glands were squirting all kinds of scents into the air, making the aromatic volume of the room downright disgusting.

Doctor Chakwas sauntered over and waved a hand over Shepard, "You've been in a state of adrenaline and panic since you fell unconscious commander. I'm reading elevated brain activity, and indications of prothean mental patterns."

Shepard scrunched her nose closed, "How do you know that?"

"Well besides the scanner integrated into my arm? We know what prothean brainwave patterns look like from accessing the Mars archive's medical records. The protheans were made up of a variety of species, all considered protheans, but the dominant species is theorized by many in the archeological community to have a similar melding ability as Asari. Extrapolating from that, we estimate that the protheans had some sort of psionic link to much of their technology."

Fighting the urge to vomit, Shepard hastily pulled out a puke bag and felt her throat and mouth burn, "Yeah one of the doctors on the planet said as much." She finally said after spitting the acid out of her mouth.

"Side effects in infected include nausea, vomiting, hallucinations, vivid dreams, and elevated brain activity. So far you're meeting all my expectations. The panic is new though, although depending on what was stored on that beacon, I could speculate the contents weren't all puppy dogs and rainbows."

Shepard shook her head and clenched her eye shut, "Death, all it showed was… machines killing people, melting them down." Shepard vomited again, filling the normally spacious puke bag to the limit with sizzling bile.

"Interesting." Chakwas waved her hand again and her eyes glazed over, "I've recorded that, although, thanks to the destruction of the beacon, we might never know what was on there for sure."

Shepard glanced up but didn't dare speak lest she vomit again, "Yes, destroyed, completely fried. Chief Engineer Adams examined the wreckage and declared it nothing more than scrap. Our political taskmasters were less than pleased, but under the circumstances," Chakwas turned to Shepard and smiled warmly, "You saved the colony, and perhaps hundreds of thousands of lives by doing so. It's not your fault."

Shepard closed her eyes again and nodded, then she started again, "Jenkins?"

"Alive and on route for a full recovery. We're going to have to clone him a new heart which will take a few days. Until then he's in the gestation chamber." She sighed, and sat back down at her desk, "He had nothing but thanks for you commander."

"Commander!" Anderson strutted into the med-bay, back straight and shoulders back, "Excellent work on Eden Prime- No no don't stand up until you're ready!"

Shepard eased her way back onto the bed, swooned, and then elected to lay back down to settle her stomach, "I'm sorry for losing the beacon, sir."

If the stick up Anderson's ass wasn't made of iron, he may have flinched, instead, he snarled, "Don't give me that crap Commander! If you did it the other way around, you, the colony, and this ship would have been reduced to radioactive ash. Those were fusion warheads, each capable of making a hundred-meter-wide crater. You made the right tactical and strategic choice in the matter, and you had no indication that the beacon had been sabotaged by the Geth attackers."

Andersons's knife hand remained half chopped down, before he caught himself and went at ease, "Whatever you believe commander, know that I and high command have your back, you did what was necessary and no one blames you."

Shepard nodded, "The council?"

"We're going to deliver our report personally to them. This is not to be a chastisement session, the geth raid has put the entirety of the galaxy into a panic. We're receiving reports of geth sightings throughout the Attican Traverse and neighboring Terminus Systems." Anderson nodded decisively, then relaxed and pulled up a chair, "Good work getting everyone through that mess."

Shepard nodded, "Just doing my job sir. It's not every mission everyone who goes in comes out alive."

Anderson nodded, then rubbed his eyes, while he was projecting an aura of proud paternalism, this was taking a toll on him that Shepard was all too familiar with as a fellow officer, "You rest as long as you need, take some leave if you want to, you've earned it from these last few years. But we're about three hours away from the citadel and you need to make that report. Can you do that for me?"

"Yes sir."

Shepard got up when her clock said they were about an hour away from the Citadel. While she was still sick, she felt she was healthy enough to stand up and talk with the others now without soiling herself. She almost didn't make it out of the medbay, Doctor Chakwas was insistent on a few more scans. That was doctor speak for allowing Chakwas to preserve Shepard's dignity by sanitizing her scent. She'd been squirting musk and pheromones for nearly a day and she'd stink like a sewer.

"Thanks, doc."

"It's my job, Commander," Chakwas unexpectedly hugged Shepard, much to her initial consternation, "If the dreams persist, let me know, and remember, we have resources available to help you."

Shepard returned the hug and then left the sanctity of the medbay.

Kaiden and Ashely were at the mess table, cups steaming before them. Kaiden perked up first, "Commander!" He stood straight and saluted, Ashley, confused for a second looked up and then nearly tripped disentangling herself from the bench to also salute.

"Commander!"

Shepard suppressed her smile as she straightened up and saluted back, "At ease devil dogs. Fuck I'm not that kind of lady."

Kaiden shrugged, and Ashley frowned a bit but didn't comment on that. Shepard ran a loose ship when it came to bullshit like saluting. You adhered to it rigidly when in front of outsiders- oh right Ashley wasn't exposed to be on their roster. Fair play Alenko.

"Sergeant Williams, I'm sure you've heard this before but everything you see and hear on this ship is confidential and we'll flog you if you say a peep." Shepard extended her hand, "Welcome aboard the Normandy, I wish it was better circumstances."

Williams took it, and had a very firm grip, "Thank you, ma'am."

Shepard nodded, "Did you find any of your unit Williams?"

Williams looked pained for a long moment, averting her eyes, "Yes ma'am, we did. Ninety-eight percent KIA for the whole company. I'm basically all that's left. The others are preparing the burial detail while I tag along as a witness."

Hazel did something that she normally didn't do, she initiated a hug, and held Ashley, "I'm sorry to hear that Williams. I understand."

Ashley returned the hug and that firm grip returned, "Thank you Ma'am, and it's fine if you call me Ashley."

Hazel smiled and chuckled, "Well I don't like Hazel, Haze, or Hazzy, so just call me Shep." She released the hug.

"When we're locked off, of course, ma'am." Ashley smiled sadly, "Thank you, Shep. If you want to get informal Ash works fine for me."

Kaiden rubbed his head and nodded, "We haven't gotten a chance to speak informally either Commander," he extended a hand and Shepard took it firmly, "No need to hug me, ma'am. Doctor Chakwas is good but-" He snorted and then chuckled, and the rest of the party joined him.

"Yeah, I stink to high heaven marines, deal with it."

Kaiden nodded, "I'm Lieutenant Kaiden Alenko, you've probably read my file."

"Natural biotic, Canadian, highly professional, and a capable engineer and navigator. Glad to have you aboard." Shepard nodded.

Kaiden smiled and met the nod amiably, "I should be saying that to you ma'am, I was here with Mr. Moreau pulling security for his ass when the Normandy was just getting fitted out with its final antimatter torches."

Ashley nodded then clapped the two on their shoulders, "Right well I was here drowning my sorrows in coffee and Kaiden was here to make sure you were alright, so if you excuse me, ma'am, sir, I should probably get acquainted with the ship systems before we land on the Citadel."

Kaiden smirked, "Alright Sergeant let's get you to the ladies room and then show off the rest of the ship. Oh, by the way, Commander, Spectre Nihlus asked for you to join him in the briefing room when you woke up."

"Probably to get our stories straight." Shepard groused.

Kaiden shrugged, "Yeah to be fair we are going straight to the top of the Citadel Tower." He looked left and right before adding, "Go easy on him boss, he's pretty shaken up."

Nihlus was in his usual spot in the briefing room, reviewing the footage of the battle.

He scanned every second of his recorded data with the fight with his imposter and could find nothing new than what he first saw. He needed a second opinion badly. But he couldn't share this information before reporting to the council first, so he was stuck, he knew he was stuck, and yet his Turian sense of duty precluded him from just sitting down and taking a nap.

When they arrived at the Citadel he'd have the resources of the entirety of Council space at his fingers, and an army of clerks and agents specifically trained for this. He rubbed between his fringes. Still, this irritated him.

The bullet wounds in his side weren't helping either. The good doctor had administered some painkillers, removed the pellets, and sutured the wounds right up, but it'd take a few days for it to heal back.

Then the old wounds flared back up. The acid burns, the broken bones, torn ligaments, dozens upon dozens of pellet and shrapnel wounds. He'd have to inform Doctor Chakwas that her muscle relaxer and anti-inflammation agents were only good for the applied areas.

The door behind him snapped open, and Nihlus stepped to the side to look upon the intruder in his thoughts.

Shepard stood tall, and for the first time since getting on this ship, Nihlus could actually look at the woman outside of her armor.

She was typical of her species' marine force. She had ghostly pale skin and grey eyes, the former due to lack of sunlight and the latter a result of the invasive implants required for military work. She stood much shorter than himself, at one and three-quarters of a meter tall. Dressed in a naval fatigue uniform, the only other feature he could spot was her closely cropped black hair peeking out in the fringes, pulled into a small ponytail in the rear.

She also stunk to an almost sickening degree.

Her eyes flicked to him, "Right, you called?"

Nihlus turned and waved his hand at a screen, it was showing the exterior of the cargo terminal where he and Shepard's fireteam regrouped.

"Yes, I did. I have something to show you, in the interest of transparency."

The video began, and Nihlus kept his eyes on it, he was careful here, Shepard was his wildcard and he needed to gauge her properly.

She remained unflinching through the entire exchange with the ersatz Arterias.

"That's… going to be a problem." The woman finally said.

Nihlus turned back and nodded, "Indeed Shepard."

Silence passed between the two, and Nihlus feared he may have overplayed his hand. She was gauging him now, and anything he said would be judged to the fullest extent, "For obvious reasons, I'm having this suppressed." He admittedly, truthfully, "Quarian or Turian, the galactic public would panic at the idea of the Geth being under the control of an extremist faction of some sort that was capable and willing to use weapons of mass destruction on garden worlds."

"I have no big love for either species, but as an officer of the ICL Navy I understand that instigating a full-scale war is not in our strategic best interest." Shepard replied neutrally.

"Yes, the council isn't exactly pleased when a full-scale conflict breaks out on our borders. Least of all against an unknown enemy." Nihlus closed the video, "In the interest of mutual cooperation, I ask you to not share this with anyone, least of all the open media."

"Attention all hands, we're currently inbound to the Serpent Nebula Relay." Pressly announced on the tannoy.

Nihlus nodded, his flanges extended in a display of anxiety, "If you haven't seen the transition to the Serpent Nebulas I suggest you do, nothing more beautiful than that. When we arrive on the Citadel I'm going to consult the Spectre archives for anything regarding the Geth. Good luck with the Council Shepard."

Shepard was on the bridge with the rest of the interested crew, namely Williams, Alenko, and Joker. Although the last didn't have much choice on where he sat.

The emergence from the relay into the nebula had been relatively uneventful besides the enormous amount of traffic going to and fro. Being a military craft that was on a direct route to the council they had gotten to queue jump the normal merchant traffic and low-priority military vessels.

Truth be told, Shepard had been to the Citadel once and had seen enough extranet dramas set on the Citadel with stock footage to not really be blown away by what she saw, but the peanut gallery between Ashley, Kaiden, and Joker was amusing.

"Look at the size of that! Its main cannon could core any cruiser in the League fleet!"

Kaiden spoke up, arms crossed, "That's the Destiny Ascension Sergeant."

Joker interrupted him, "Size doesn't matter for everything!"

"Joker we have ships bigger than that because when we found the Mars archive, we decided we needed Arsenal ships in case the protheans still existed." Kaiden pointed out, clucking his tongue.

Joke scoffed, "Yeah and they turned out be massive drydock queens. The only thing they did was make the Arterias expedition fleet shit their pants when they flew in."

Shepard shook her head, "We may still have use for them yet Mr. Moreau. They'll be excellent to shut down any relay clusters the geth may use."

"Maybe ma'am." Joker's attention was pulled away by Pressly directing him to their hanger, Joker twisted slightly in his seat, "Commander a air car will be taking you up to the Citadel Tower as soon as we dock."

Garrus stepped forward, gripping the desk that stood between the two Turians, "Executor, give me some time, I can track her down."

"I'm sorry Garrus but the Council has decided, they're putting a spectre on it." Pallin explained blandly as he typed at this interface, "We're going to reassign you."

Garrus felt his pride sting, he was so close.

Pallin still didn't look at Garrus as he typed, "Of course, that reassignment isn't going to come until next cycle. Go get a drink or something, cool off. Play whatever video games young people like you play these days. I heard the new update for True Justice released last week."

Garrus froze, then his mind turned and he stood ramrod straight, "Yes sir, I think I'll do that."

He began to turn to leave when Pallin half shouted, "And Garrus, don't forget your service pistol, I hear they're bringing the Butcher of Torfan aboard."

Anderson waved after Shepard, "Come on, they've already started."

The voices of the Council were echoing across the entire hall, and the four marines jogged forward to try and make it in a timely manner.

"Lots of stairs here." Ashley commented as they climbed up the third set, "Really good for defense."

"You have to walk to them sergeant, not just defense, but politics," Kaiden added.

Shepard frowned, "Quiet in the gallery marines, they're recording every word."

Suitably chastened they stayed silent as they finally got the supplicant plinth.

The soothing and calm voice of the Asari councilor was the first words they heard other than their own, "We are deeply disappointed with the loss of the beacon Ambassador Udina."

"We understand that Councillor and we also regret the beacon's loss." Udina placated. Then turned when Shepard got onto the plint.

Councilor Valern nodded, "Ah, Commander Shepard. We've been waiting for your report…."

"That could have gone a whole lot better Anderson!"

Anderson held his hands up, "It was either lose the colony and the beacon or maybe lose the beacon. Shepard made their way to the objective as soon as its location was ascertained."

Shepard, wisely, remained silent.

Udina rubbed his temple as he paced, he didn't seem to hear Anderson's excuses, "Taking you there was a mistake Anderson, you have too much history with the council."

Anderson's face scrunched up and he folded his arms but said nothing more.

Udina continued to pace and rub his head until he seemed to notice Shepard, "On the bright side the good commander didn't embarrass herself in front of them." He straightened himself up, "Even better, we may have a possible lead on this geth threat. Come with me."

He led the captain and commander into an adjoining closet and waved at a nearby wall, it lit up with active CCTV footage, "This is Tali Zorah'Nar Rayya. Daughter to one of the Quarian admirals. Shepard, we need her alive."

Shepard nodded, "The Quarians made the Geth correct?"

Udina nodded, "Not only did they make them, Ms. Zorah and her father are by our estimates the preeminent experts on the Geth."

Shepard double-checked something on Tali's profile, "Sir, I don't want to sound alarmist, but she's barely in her twenties."

Udina nodded, "Yes Commander we know, but the only people who bother studying the Geth that we know of, are the Quarians." He patiently explained, "There is not exactly a large community of quarians on the Citadel, believe it or not as soon as the Geth were confirmed to have attacked Eden Prime all the public faces left the station for 'vacations'."

Shepard nodded, that was a fair response from them, "I don't blame them sir, but why is this Zorah here then?"

"We're not sure, she came to the station wounded, and the only member left of her party. From what we can tell from social media, she had a small security detail and was part of a larger pilgrimage group touring the fringes of Citadel Space. We don't know what happened to the rest of her party but we can surmise from her wounds that the Geth were responsible in part." Udina tapped the holographic display.

The face of a human male appeared, balding, and wide eyed, "This is Harkin, he's our agent in the criminal underworld. I've already informed him of our need and he wants to deliver the information in person. You'll be meeting him at Chora's Den in one hour. Don't be late."

Harkin, nursing a strong drink, and watching the lovely flesh all around him, would admit to himself he was perhaps too relaxed right now. But that was the rub, wasn't it? If he looked scared and cagey, everyone would know he was hiding something.

Smugly smirking, he leered at one of Fist's goons, the one who had been watching him since he walked in here.

'I'm just in here for a drink asshole.' Harkin thought as he downed his glass.

A purring flangy voice nearly made him choke on the ice cube, "Harkiiin, what are you doing here drinking the good stuff?"

Coughing, careful not to spit up the French Bourbon he twisted in his seat and glared at Garrus, reflexively he was about to tell the turian to piss off but his mind caught up in a snag and all that left his mouth was a half growl, and an unintelligible curse.

"Oh good, I actually thought I'd be boned if you didn't have anything." Garrus taunted.

"I ain't got anything-"

Garrus's facial plates flared in a turian smile, making him look like some goddamn type of stuck-up peacock, "Fuck off Harkin~" He cooed, "you know something. I know you know because you don't shy away from fights unless you have something on your mind."

"Something good I hope." Garrus ended, taking the bottle of bourbon and pouring Harkin a new glass.

Looking both ways, Harkin hissed, "You're going to get me fucking killed, bird!" He knew Garrus well enough to understand to not fuck with the rogue warrior bullshit Garrus liked to front.

Garrus was one of the best for a reason, and the connections his daddy gave him in the intelligence market was only one of them, "Okay Garrus, if I answer your questions would you kindly fuck off?" Harkin bit out as he sipped his glass.

That smile again, "Tali Zorah, Quarian pilgrim, arrived on the station wounded, came through your racket I believe."

'Oh fucking fresh fuck.' Harkin unimaginatively cursed. Harkin smiled instead, "Not for sale. The worst you can do is kill me when I leave the 'Den."

"Nooo~ the worst I can do is tail that Commander Shepard, and tell her that Harkin sends his regards while taking a potshot. Then you have to deal with a pissed-off, 'roided out, spec ops goon. And me."

Harkin was pressing his panic button so hard and so rapidly, that it was only by the dint of god and techno that the club's soundtrack was drowning it out, "Right Harkin what's- oh." The voice in his subdermal radio clicked on.

"Okay be very-" The voice squealed out and Harkin jumped and scratched at his neck.

Garrus clucked, "Naughty naughty. Harkin we've been friends for years by this point. Just tell me what I want to hear and you can tell the voices in your head the truth."

Harkin took a look around, then sighed, "Fine then, your funeral. So there's this quarian who came aboard a few days ago…"

"- And thats all I know. She wanted to get in touch with the Shadow Broker. Face to face meeting. I told her the honest to god truth, no one gets face to face with the Shadow Broker. She insisted. Well if she wasn't going to listen to truth I told her a lie and said I'd see what I could do."

Shepard was dressed in civilian clothes alongside Ashley and Alenko. Of course, civilian for them were still loose and baggy enough to hide shield emitters, ballistic inserts, and an accelerator machine pistol. They couldn't pass a security check but they could walk on the citadel and only be confused with private security.

To sell the look, she had used some spray-on cosmetics to activate her largely unused subdermal ink dispensers to deploy a variety of temporary tattoos to etch their way on her skin.

Very temporary until she urinated the ink out in a few days, but she wasn't going to be incognito for longer than a few days anyway.

She'd settled on more childish designs, a handful of cartoon characters peeked up around her neckline and down her sleeves to slip feet from her cuffs. It burned her with embarrassment but she'd swallowed it down finally.

Harkin kept eyeing them with a "what the fuck are you doing" look, but remained on task well enough to give a proper briefing, "Oh by the way, opsec has already been breached. You're welcome."

Shepard's face gaped a bit like a fish with that bombshell but Harkin just shrugged, "Officer named Garrus, Turian PD, give him all the shit you want but he's good at his job. Came in here and said he'd take a shot at you if I didn't tell him what I just told you. Except one thing." Harkin pulled out a USB device, the thumb-sized flash drive had seen a minor resurgence as sneakernet gear. In its case quite literally being part of a sneaker. You reinforce your shoes with jamming equipment so that when Omnitools tried to scan it you'd get bogus data regarding everything that a shoe should do, step count, fluid arch support, ectera ectera.

Couldn't stop people who owned the floors, or hallways, you could after all just steal their shoes or put such a strong electromagnetic signal that you'd scramble the USB to uselessness. This would often be the means of negating such a low tech solution.

A low tech solution to high tech problems, resulted in the tried and true lowtech methods to force you back to the high tech solutions. A recursive loop of bait, negate, evade.

"What's in it?" Kaiden asked as he took the USB and slotted it into his Omnitool.

"Well Garrus has undoubtedly placed a listening device on your chair, kid, so I'm not opening my mouth. Suffice to say, it has my credentials to show that you are indeed working for me, along with a few more goodies." Harkin leaned back in his chair and sipped his amber drink slyly, a smile plastered on his face.

"Clever." Ashley quipped nonplussed.

Harkin met that with a roguish shrug, "What can I say? I've gotten this far with more than luck." He took another sip and relaxed, "Now boy and girls, if you will excuse me, my part in this exercise is done, I'm going to go home, relax, and play the new Galaxy of Fantasy update and lay low while you tear this station apart." With a rasping laugh, he slid on his jacket, drained his drink, and sauntered out.

When the music reached a pitch that would cover up all but a scream between people, Ashley asked, "Boss, why does everyone assume you're going to go apeshit at any second?"

Shepard smirked at the slight inflation of her ego, "I dunno Ash, ask the Batarians."

Nihlus's journey in the Citadel archives was going well all things considered. Beyond the typical nattering from the council in regards to his reports, and the anal insistence by the archivists to upload his newest data, he'd had pretty smooth sailing.

His mission was clear, besides escorting Shepard, he needed to update everyone in regards to the capabilities of the Geth, download his combat logs, and appraise his fellow spectres on possible human retaliation.

Which he was doing now.

Balak and Tela Vasir were the only ones here with Spectre status, but more than a hundred others in various security services were sitting or had a drone floating around him in the lecture hall, "ECM and jamming seems to have only a limited effect on the Geth, other than focused targetting, or an updated package from one of our services, I'm going to advise against bringing electronic warfare capabilities and instead focus on anti shield and electrical damaging weapons." Nihlus concluded his portion on offensive equipment, pretty sparse all things considered, but he had only been in one battle with them.

"They seem to have taken a page from human doctrine and have invested heavily in drone warfare. This is in line with the records we have of their uprising back three hundred years ago in the Mourning War, where they used whatever drone assets that were available and could be hacked. Here you can see on these combat chassis where they'd been hastily and deliberately reinforced with additional armor plating to try and negate human firearms."

The variety of pictures that appeared made a lot of heads nod and look down towards their own data pads or omnitools, "Odd." Balak spoke up for the first time.

Nihlus motioned for him to speak, and he did so loud and clear, "It seems that the Geth weren't expecting to engage the humans if that were the case."

A few people looked perplexed but the lightbulbs in the rest lit up in realization at that.

"Or, they lack the in-house assets to recycle or retrofit their equipment in expectation for such a large operation." Tela added atop that, dawning realization cascaded on many many faces. Nihlus included.

Some short conversation on estimated Geth fleet sizes, and the similarity between the geth ships and the unsimilar cephalopod-like ship that had spearheaded the attack, and demonstrated abilities that none of the other geth warships demonstrated. Including using a form of magnetic-hydrodynamic lance to destroy the customs cruisers in orbit above Eden Prime with single shots. Not a mean feat considering how humans like to build their ships.

An STG operative spoke up, "I think we're facing a dual first contact situation, whoever is manning that dreadnought is definitely not Geth, perhaps another synthetic lifeform allying with the geth?"

Everyone shifted uncomfortably. The last major first contact was with the humans, and that had been a disaster that bordered on catastrophe.

"Security and civilian opsec has failed us again if that's the case. The humans maintain rigid discipline in that field." A turian colonel spoke up.

"Its one of the only things they have that could be called disciplined." Someone muttered.

"Yes well, while this conversation is fascinating delegates, I'm afraid I must return to my duty immediately before it degrades further on the station." Nihlus excused himself, only to be followed by Tela Vasir. Balak looked on with suspicion, not unsurprising considering his origins as a part of Batarian SIU, and Nihlus' close relations with the humans.

Once they left the lecture hall, Tela spoke, "A fresh group of Quarians have just arrived on the station."

Nihlus raised an eyeridge at that, and Tela took that as a license to continue, "And your human friends have tracked down the Zorah kid already if my sources are correct."

Nihlus marched forward, not really paying attention, something was brewing in his head, "Could the geth be having a civil war?"

Tela blinked at that, then snapped her fingers in his face, "Pay attention Nihlus, I said that Shepard is already hunting down Zorah, I don't have much time, I need you to delay them before Balak tries something."

Nihlus looked back at Vasir and frowned, "Unless they start an open war, I'd be more worried about the humans ignoring all subtlety and invading the Viel."

Vasir frowned in return, "I don't think you realize the gravity of this situation Nihlus, the Geth have also attacked Batarian and neutral space to set up outposts all across the Traverse and even the Horse Head Nebula. The humans are going to want blood, and no one will blame them but the Batarians, who won't let them pass that's for sure. Neutral space is going to be infested with pirates and mercenaries until the problem is dealt with."

"Then we better get to it Vasir. Do you know where Tali Zorah is?"

Vasir nodded, "I've tracked her movements to a clinic down in Zakera ward, run by a human carrier."

"Good, I'm going to intercept Shepard and we'll deal with the new batch of Quarians. With hope they're from the Migrant Fleet. If not I'll be getting some answers to my questions."