Chapter 11 Bidding War
Commissioned by Mace Shepard
Written by Blood Raven
"Well boss, the data has a good amount of information. Tracking Zorah's movements, bills, payments, all here."
"Does it have where she's at?"
"No boss, Harkin has a note here saying that she's probably using the ventilation system to hide out. Dangerous but effective to evade typical tracking."
Shepard grunted in annoyance, but it didn't reach her voice, "Why the Shadow Broker?"
Kaiden hummed in return, "Pardon ma'am?"
"Why the Shadow Broker?" Shepard repeated, "Half the population of the Citadel has to be information brokers of some type. Ship counters, baristas, police officers, military. Just about everyone trades information, some more cheaply than others."
She let that sit for a second, "So why the Shadow Broker? Why demand she personally meet him face to face?"
"She's young Ma'am. Just a kid." Ashley cut in, "Maybe she doesn't know any better. Maybe she's naive."
Shepard stopped and snap pointed at Ashley, "Maybe you're right on the fucking money." She looked to Kaiden, "So why would a sixteen year old kid want to meet the Shadow Broker instead of going back to daddy, or letting one of the big three know? I can understand not wanting to present herself to the nearest human, after all the Geth are a Quarian creation. Except she did just that to Harkin."
Kaiden caught on, "And if Harkin, why not the ICL embassy?"
Shepard gave Kaiden the snap point, "Exactly marine. There's more to this than specieist prejudice and assumptions of age meaning stupidity. She either doesn't want to talk to us, or she's more mature than she lets on."
That twist lost the two Marines who looked at one another in mutual confusion.
Shepard knew the rebel who took such turns. She was one after all. She turned back on her heels and kept marching towards the rapid transit station, "Come on, mash your heads together and have your sole braincells rub up against each other. Why would Miss Zorah deliberately leave a paper trail a mile wide, ask for the impossible, while also keeping her current location hidden at all times?"
At the word drop of deliberately, both of the marine's faces lifted up and they spoke over each other.
"She wants the highest bidder!"
"She wants to see who's on her tail!"
Their voices chorused until the sync broke. They looked to one another and both looked set to argue before both quieting down together. Their eyes cutting back to Shepard.
"Close marines, combine the two. Whoever wins the fight is obviously the one most willing to pay the most for the data. What's a few million credits compared to a pile of dead bodies?" Shepard explained softly, kickstarting her subordinates who were finally picking up what she was laying down. She then delivered the final piece of information that tied this all together, "And what's a few million credits, for revenge for your dead friends?"
Shepard's omnitool glowed and she lifted it up in a gesture of accepting the call, "Shepard, Nihlus here, I got us a lead."
'Right on cue.' Shepard thought with a growing snarl of bloodlust on her face.
Nihlus had expected Shepard to make excuses to follow her own leads, but instead, the woman had listened, acknowledged him, and declared she'd meet him shortly after getting more hardware.
Then to his amazement, her aircar stopped by the docks, then immediately made its way to him. She wasn't lying to him at all.
So now they stood shoulder to shoulder, "I'm surprised you made your way here so fast." Nihlus probed as he tweaked his Colt rifle's targeting system.
"The bidding war has started Nihlus, I'm putting forward a downpayment." Shepard checked her own rifle's systems. Before, her team had used the high-powered DMR meant for heavy-duty assault work. Now they were sporting Sig-SPEAR 412 assault carbines with forty round drum magazines, and a fire selector set for fully automatic and variable burst.
The rest of her team had the same, except Ashley, who was carrying the ECM field generator and a Locust MA SMG. Her thin and lean frame didn't even sway under the weight of her heavy backpack as she checked over her gun's optics.
They had tiger stripe bands of red, yellow, and white on their right arms, while the rest of their carapace suits were matte black. A distinctive color set.
"Bidding war?" Nihlus parroted.
"Try to keep up Turian." Shepard countered with a smile and a wink, "Which ship is theirs?"
Nihlus rattled off the docking number and ship make as they descended ever deeper toward the ward's superstructure. On one side of the elevator an open view of the Citadel's wards was visible in a panoramic cascade.
Ashley broke the silence, "Pretty view. I wonder what the housing prices are like."
"Enormous. Space is at a premium, and everyone who is anyone wants a cubby apartment here." Nihlus explained, "Starting with just the council staff, that's nearly fifty thousand people. Then the support staff for them, goods, services, nearly a million on top of that. All vital essentials you can't reasonably get off station."
"That's just the diplomatic staff. Business concerns and shipping industries, both intergalactic. Few more million there. Then we have the political elite, superstars, attendant middle class, and another million just for them and their immediate families, let alone the support economy. We're speaking of millions of credits per square meter Sergeant Williams. A lot of it is very old money. The station is big, but trillions of people want to come here, even if it's just to visit."
The elevator finally sunk into the superstructure itself.
"Do you own an apartment here?" Shepard asked towards Nihlus as she got into position.
"Yeah, I share it with fifty other Spectres though. So sometimes it can get cramped if we're all recalled at the same time for a symposium. I've read some novels that naval officers of the various fleets can sometimes get an apartment all to themselves even if they don't live here all the time. That's not true at all, not even admirals have the salary to afford a full-time apartment all to themselves, if the bureaucracy would even let them."
Ashley smiled, "Sounds like hell to live here."
"If you think the HOAs on normal planets are pains in the ass, step into a meeting here on the citadel. Everyone has enough cash in couch cushions to hire a kill company of mercs, if they so desire." Nihlus barked a laugh.
As the door slid open, the team exited professionally, checking their corners and finding nothing, they regrouped and started down slowly, "So not to burst this bubble of circle-jerking the rich, but why do I see so many people who are obviously not fabulously rich."
Shepard spoke up, "Subsidized housing for essential personnel. You pay a lease and get an apartment and room up with a few other people, under contract to work jobs here. You probably make a killing but can't raise a family here."
Nihlus also broke in, "Then there's people who commute. There are stations out there that hold an additional few tens of millions that commute via ferry and provide light and heavy industry. Much more affordable, and if you get a job at the station, you get free transport through docking taxes. They're like the suburbs of normal cities."
Alenko knelt down and held a hand up, everyone stopped to listen, hearing nothing, Nihlus brought up his omnitool and checked the map, "We have two options, option one, we turn on the ECM generator, and if they put out any sentries they'll know we're on our way, but they can't ambush us with unmoving combat platforms of Geth. Option two, we keep the ECM generator off, and we risk getting ambushed by unmoving combat platforms that can immediately radio our existence as soon as they see us."
"Not really much of a choice." Ashley grumbled.
Shepard smiled, "Nope, Alenko, turn up the music."
"Aye-aye ma'am." The biotic walked up to Ashely, who knelt down allowing him to access the onboard computer.
Immediately everyone's electronics started to flicker before letting off a series of warnings about their new ECM field. Silencing them all, the team stood up and began to carefully descend the corridor.
Garrus had originally intended to burst right into Dr. Michele's clinic but refrained when his spyware said that accelerators and many people were inside.
He stepped aside into an alcove and brought up his omnitool, overriding the local security with his C-Sec credentials, and began doing his job.
"You had a Quarian in here recently Doctor Michele. Where did she go?" A bald human infected, with a bulky body, and hidden features, threatened the doctor with a firearm, but the young woman had a spine of steel and pressed her forehead against it with surprising coolness.
"Why should I tell you anything? What will stop you from shooting me dead as soon as you get what you want?" She demanded in a cool crisp voice, and with such power and conviction that it made her interrogator blink.
He hesitated, then shouted, "You're bluffing!"
"Oh, I'm bluffing? You got a smooth bore deagle in my face and you say I'm bluffing?" She spat to the side and pressed her head right back against the pistol, pointing to her skull, "Lower the damn gun or pull the trigger punta-mierda-batard!"
Garrus began looking around for an alternative entrance and found it with the keeper vent. Overriding the door code, he hustled inside.
"We-We'll cut you up!" The man bluffed lamely.
"What?! In here? Are you mad boy?!" Michele laughed, "C-Sec can detect a drop of sweat in an atrium, and you're going to spatter my blood in here with me struggling and fighting you every step of the way? Threats and blusters, all of it! Lower the gun."
Garrus slid the keeper door open in a supply closet and crept in, opening the top-down slide door a few feet so he could crawl into the clinic.
Hesitantly, the man lowered his firearm, "There, now tell us where she went."
"She came in and came out through that door, that's where my involvement with her began and ended." Michele crossed her arms and widened her stance, "Don't raise the gun again." She preempted the man who seethed with anger.
Garrus took aim-
The front door opened, and everyone's head turned.
Perfect.
He fired.
"Contact contact!" A quarian shouted and reoriented as the geth platforms next to him shattered under the fusillade of gunfire from Shepard and Alenko.
Nihlus and Ashley were grouped as the maneuver team, while Shepard and Alenko took the fire mission. They had a spot of luck in that they had not deployed any form of sentries. A sloppy mistake from likely amateurs.
The Quarians had been interrupted activating a series of service droids that were likely specially made for infiltration missions on the Citadel. Rack after rack of drones in all makes and models of functionality were aligned in neat rows.
The supporting combat platforms had been unarmed at the time, assisting with the manual activation and presumably uploading into the hovering platforms, but now they sported various high-powered pistols which they were using to try and suppress the intruders.
A little voice in Shepard's mind told her that she did not like not knowing how the Geth worked, but it was silenced alongside the one that said maybe she shouldn't shoot the quarian in the head.
She did, a trio of rounds firing so fast that they had all left the barrel by the time she felt the recoil. It impacted the Quarian, who was likely the lead technician, right in the faceplate. The shattered helmet exploded backward with bits of brains across his machines.
The Geth returned fire, and almost instant pandemonium broke out across the hanger elevator as the threat of violence reverberated through them all.
The volume of fire suppressed both of the marines and would have made them vulnerable to the upcoming push by the assaulting combat platforms, when the advancing Geth were suddenly hit by enfilade fire originating from a stack of cargo crates, shredding the over-eager squad of encroaching bots.
Confusion broke out, overcoming the certainty of combat. Shepard and Alenko rose back up to lay down a fresh wave of fire while they advanced. Legs pumped as they propelled themselves forward with unnatural speed.
Their opening had only been a few seconds, but it was all they needed to bound to the next nearest point of cover. Even still, the Geth had hit their shields with enough rounds to reduce both of them to half-strength.
The combination of balls and skill was playing out and the twinned set had seen them through so far. But their balls had run their course and was now being edged out with luck.
More gunfire down the aisle of drones saw a wounded quarian clutching his legs and groaning in agony, right in front of Shepard's sight line. She took up position and aimed, taking down two combat platforms who tried to drag him away. She was angling for more, but they got smart enough to team push a container in front of her sightline and lay down suppressing fire on her.
Then her vision went white as something heavy hit the back of her head.
Garrus grunted with satisfaction as the first thug lay down dead. Dr. Michele threw herself aside between two beds and covered her head as the gunfight raged.
The interloper, an asari by the looks of her, fired her shotgun into the rearmost guard, blowing one apart with a hail of flechettes, and then his buddy was sent flying into a pillar with the wave of her biotic hand.
It wouldn't keep him down, infected were tough bastards bar headshots, but it had given Garrus the surprise opening to finish what she started. A pair of shots barked from his pistol as he hit the bald guy's buddy in the shoulder and then his heart. Clutching his chest, the dead man only had time to look up at his assailant before wilting to the floor, dead.
Garrus was lucky he didn't have a backup pumper.
Vasir continued her path of destruction. She had started by facing four hostiles armed with heavy citadel make pistols. She'd ended the fight with two bodies, one unconscious human, and two smears of blood and gore against the walls. Alongside likely tens of thousands of credits in property damage from her wanton destruction caused by a warp and an illegally modified shotgun.
Said shotgun could turn a Krogan, armor and all, into a dead body. It was probably just a felony to look at it, let alone fire it. Against unarmored humans, it had rendered their fluid filled bodies into exploded chunky salsa.
Garrus held up a hand showing he was not a threat to her, "Garrus Vakarian, Citadel Security, Detective Division." He identified himself.
The Asari wavered, then lowered her shotgun, "Tela Vasir, Special Tactics and Reconnaissance." She looked back and forth, then spotted Dr. Michele, who was hesitantly raising herself up off the floor, back covered in blood.
She looked around her clinic and grunted in annoyance, "Look at this place!" She shouted, "I had it handled, you didn't need to make my home into a crime scene!"
Garrus looked back and forth, and realized that yeah, this clinic would be shut down for health concerns for the next month, "Our most sincere apologies doctor."
Michele looked over to Garrus and recognition lit in her eyes, "Ah Garrus, I wondered when you were going to make my life pain again. And here you are with a Spectre, getting blood in my floorboards and behind my wall panels." She crossed her arms and resumed her solid stance of defiance.
Said stance of defiance was ruined slightly by the blood covering her, and now lapping at her boots. She shifted her feet slightly to try and edge out of the widening puddle, but gave up when she was hemmed in by two sides
Tela Vasir nodded sympathetically and put her shotgun away, "Sorry, but those men were threatening you."
"Yes, because you walked in and assumed they were going to do me harm you immediately gunned them down. Do I have to make a formal complaint to the Council Tower about both of your conduct? Not even a warning? Just standing around with firearms and an assumption on your part is sufficient for you to execute them? How do you Spectres get anything done? Why aren't you blasted on sight by any private security agency who sees you?"
Garrus raised his talons in a placating gesture, "Doctor Michele, we are genuinely apologetic for our actions, but they had a gun to your head, we had to act quickly."
The doctor harrumphed but said nothing more, Garrus took this moment to strike, "What was it they were asking you about? About some Quarian girl?"
She looked between the detective and the Spectre, then sighed heavily, deflating.
"About a week ago, a Quarian entered my clinic, injured. She had several broken bones, fractured ribs, and three accelerator impact wounds. She'd been shot and thrown around by explosions. I treated her and had her take a decontamination bath with an immunobooster shot. I would have kept her or sent her to a more equipped facility to ensure she hadn't caught anything, but she refused. Tried to pay me, and when I refused she donated cash money to me."
The doctor collapsed into a nearby desk chair, her body was shaking, nearly convulsing with how badly she'd be rattled. Her nerves of steel had held out with that gun to her head, but the mix of gunfire, bloodshed, and the sickening scent of death was too much for her.
The chair was only slightly soiled with gore, but Michele had either seen heavy combat or was too busy coming down from shock to care… Likely the latter, "I double-checked her records and her name was Tali Zorah Nar Rayya. I sent her migrant fleet a letter informing them of her condition and alerted C-Sec. I've not heard from the former and only received a generic response from you. Bit late to be asking me questions regarding my patients." She eyed the Spectre, "And I presume asking if you have a warrant is pointless huh?"
Vasir snorted "I could flash my credentials and confiscate your security records. But cooperation is much more convenient for both of us."
"Doctor Michele, do you know who those men were or where Tali Zorah went? We believe she is in danger, particularly in regards to the recent attack on Eden Prime."
Michele perked up at that, and murmured, "How could she be connected with the attacks?"
Vasir coughed, "Tali Zorah is one of only a few experts about Geth and their technology. Multiple parties likely attacked her and her group when the Geth revealed themselves."
Garrus nodded, "That would make sense."
Vasir smiled at him, but otherwise ignored him in the meantime, "Do you have any idea on where she went?"
Michele shook her head, or more accurately shook her shoulder, she was jittering so much, "Doctor-Patient confidentiality I'm afraid. Furthermore, I didn't ask and she didn't say. I advised her to seek more comprehensive treatment but she shrugged me off. I could speculate, but I'm sure you can put the pieces together." The sound of clinking glass alerted Garrus that she was trying to pour herself some liquor, but her hands refused to cooperate.
Leaning in to assist her, Garrus mused, "Wounded Quarian, unsecured suit, hostile entities after her." Garrus rapid fired, gently setting the glass decanter down, "She'd need someplace secluded to set up a sterile chamber, secret enough that people couldn't find her while she was recuperating without her suit." Michele's hands tried to grip the glass, but Garrus knew that look and angled it for her so she could sip.
Vasir counted off her fingers, "Why that could be any number of places on Zakara, Tayseri, Kithoi, Bachjret, or Shalta-Aroch."
Garrus raised a talon to his chin and shook his head, "No. No." He mused as he narrowed down the possibilities.
Michele looked between them, and finishing her drink, grabbed a datapad, "Well you two, if you'll excuse me I'll have to file a police report and request a clean crew to come by. Now if you'd kindly fuck off?"
"Thank you for your cooperation Doctor, I'll have a C-Sec Special Response Team ensures your safety. You've been most helpful." Garrus courteously bid the doctor adieu.
"Doctor Michele, by happenstance, do you know the viral makeup of the immunobooster?" Vasir quipped out of the blue.
Michele didn't look up from her data pad. She typed into her device and remained steadfast in focusing on it. Then she ejected a chit from its underside and with an unsteady hand gave it to the asari, "Here's the expenditure records I used for her." The doctor explained, then returned to her work.
Vasir bowed her head as she took the chit, and left. Garrus followed after her.
"What are you following after me for, puppy dog?" She asked.
"The station is set to go for open warfare if that Quarian isn't found. Whatever she's got is hot, and I'd like to prevent fighting on the streets thank you very much."
Vasir stopped and turned to face the Turian. Looking him up and down, she made a noncommittal noise and turned back on her heel, "Fine, I could use someone giving me cover fire every once in a while."
Shepard woke back up after a minute's time, rebooting her brain from the blunt force trauma.
The gunfire had stopped, which was either good or bad depending on the situation. But considering the ship that had been here previously was gone, and Alenko was standing over her with a medical scanner, she had a feeling they won their firefight.
"Careful ma'am, you just took a solid twenty kilos to the back of the head." He informed her, sliding a nearby delivery drone away as he tried to get behind the commander.
Shepard groaned, "Did you get the number on that truck?"
"We did ma'am. And the operator hopefully." Alenko shot back, before turning off his scanner and injecting some viscous liquid into her armor's receiving port.
Almost immediately she felt a lot better, her head began to clear, and the uneasy sickness in her stomach settled. She sat up, and looked around, "Headcount?"
It was Ashley who spoke this time, "We're all good ma'am, we got about half a dozen Quarians, and two dozen combat platforms."
Nihlus pipped in now, "We've called a clean-up crew and forensic team. I'm currently going through their records now."
Shepard grunted again, then stood straight, "Right then, no prisoners?" At the shake of Alenko's head, Shepard smirked, "Alright then." She looked around for any cameras and spotted one sitting underneath the door they came in through. She made a finger gun towards it and mimed a trigger pull.
The smile was audible on her lips, "How many got out?"
"We estimate about a platoon could be on that ship." Kaiden absentmindedly said as he cleaned up his medical gear.
Shepard looked back at the racks upon racks of drones, "No I mean how many drones got out?"
Alenko looked up, and frowned, "Well… I guess we better get counting."
Author's Notes:
Housing prices on the citadel must be insanely expensive. Like "Literally unpurchasable" expensive.
In the Mass Effect Books, Anderson had a permanent apartment on the Citadel. I couldn't laugh harder at that when I read it as a kid, because that station is not just prime real estate being at the center of the relay network, but also in a hotspot of political and economic activity. And he doesn't even live in it most of the time! Every government will want a full team there, including security, support staff, and relevant supporting economy. Then the central bureaucracy in the Citadel itself would need a lot on top of that. Then private industry and the ultrarich will want a permanent residence to say they have one. You can't build much more, and you can only sardine can people in there so much as per the life support capacity.
So space station suburbs. Someone has to scrub the toilet, and you can't have robots do it.
There's also the fact that the Keepers keep a lot of the internal workings of the station inaccessible, meaning a lot of building in the super structure is likely iffy if at all feasible. I'm honestly surprised at fics that have people and communities be in the citadel living under the poverty line for extended periods of time. Extended poverty is probably grounds for expulsion from the Citadel due to you taking up literal precious oxygen. Many likely sleep in their offices much like how some people in Japan live in rental cars because it's cheaper than renting an apartment they only ever sleep in.
Of course, the game is still just a game, and a relatable social situation is a hallmark of good game design due to its ease of integration, so le shrug. Just some commentary.