A/N

So this took longer than I had intended. I had hoped to have it done by Christmas, but sadly, things took longer than I wanted.

I am going about a lot of changes on how I want to write my stories. I have actually started a few more stories that will eventually be published on here as well but they will first be released on my new pat-re-on.

I never thought that I would make a pat-re-on but I find myself with less and less time to write because I am working more and more with my real-world job. My solution is to have the pat-re-on where I will do early releases of my existing fanfiction updates as well as publishing my original works. I hope that enough of my readers are willing to aid me in this endeavour and keen to read some of my original stories.

Anyway, on with the story

…

CHAPTER 29 – MEETINGS AT THE CITADEL

I walked into the office, having passed through the extensive and invasive security checks offered by both STG agents and at least two salarian Spectres. Possibly my financial and professional status and the fact that one of the Spectres I recognised from when I visited Tevos the first time was one of those Spectres, was the only reason that this meeting had gone ahead in such a rushed manner. Beau and Torrin were at my side, armoured, though unarmed, as required by my host. I had considered using Jurt for the intimidation factor, and just for the hell of it to amuse myself, though I had the feeling that this might actually be counterproductive to achieving something today.

I had come across some information during the slave raids about six months ago and was unsure of how I wanted things to proceed. It was potentially damaging and made for excellent blackmail, though it was also going to put extreme risk to me if I reveal it in the wrong way. It turned out that yes, other parties than the Hegemony would hire batarian pirates, and the Hegemony government, seeking raids to happen on certain colonies for a range of purposes. I had seen plenty of this information from raiding pirate and merc bases throughout the Terminus over the last two years. Sometimes it wouldn't amount to much but sometimes it leads to gold.

After all, while the people doing the hiring might try and delete all evidence that they had hired pirates, the pirates themselves were far more likely to keep any such communications to ensure that they had blackmail if they needed it. And when we took these pirates out before they could purge their systems… well, hello blackmail.

Hence, my current meeting.

Valern was quite unremarkable physically from his fellow salarians. In fact, the only thing that really marked him as being different to the soldiers was the expensive hooded robe that he wore, covering his horns but not hiding his face. His gaze had an intensity that I hadn't seen much of in Council space, though honestly it reminded me of the prison yard when the big-time gang leaders would stare at you, trying to figure you out. He was accompanied by another salarian who was also hooded but sitting further back, displaying either his lack of direct participation to our conversation. The more youthful face led me to believe that this was his understudy, the one that would take over if something happened to Valern.

The fact that his guards didn't leave the room was telling, and made it more important that things went the way I needed them to. Otherwise, I had a feeling that he would happily order my death to keep information a secret.

"You have certainly made a nuisance of yourself demanding a meeting right now, Mr Nielson," Valern opened, pulling no punches on what he thought. "While you appear to have a cordial relationship with Councillor Tevos, that doesn't extend to me. So please be quick so that I can deal with other, more important, matters."

I raised an eyebrow at the blatant rudeness shown by the salarian. But very well, if that was the way he wanted to play, I could entertain him.

I gave a nod. "As you say," I replied, keeping my voice calm. "Before we begin, I should warn you that the topic will be extremely sensitive. If you think that everyone here is trustworthy enough to hear extremely sensitive information, then by all means keep them here. Otherwise, you may wish to send them elsewhere."

I waited as he blinked at me thoughtfully. Then, with a casual flick of his fingers, the STG agents were sent from the room, leaving the two visible Spectres to monitor the conversation and the other civilian.

"Wonderful," I said, keeping my tone bland. "Then before we begin, I think that this will go faster if we can agree that neither of us is an idiot, and that, while keeping information close to the chest is good business, lying to each other will be counterproductive and a waste of both our times."

This time the blink that came from was of polite surprise. "That is reasonable," he conceded.

I nodded slowly. "Then let me clarify; I wouldn't even be here in a meeting with you if I didn't have redundancies in place, should anything untoward, unexpected, undefined or unplanned happen to me. By the time this is done, I believe that you will find my safety to be your number one highest priority. I am going to assume you can understand the implications of this statement."

All four of the salarians before me blinked slowly, before Valern gave a slow nod.

"Great," I said. "Then why don't you invite that third salarian Spectre to join us so that they don't have to stay hidden in that escape tunnel behind your desk?" Honestly, that SONAR program I have on my omni-tool was possibly the best thing I have had Hectar make up.

This time, all four of the salarians tensed. Jondum Bau, the one who had been hiding during my first visit with Tevos, gave a slight huff. But Valern said nothing, merely glaring at me for a moment, before he pushed a button on his console. A moment later, a trapdoor behind that Councillor's desk silently opened and a third Spectre climbed out of the cavity.

"The existence of that escape route is a closely guarded secret," the understudy politician growled out. "How did you know about it?"

I looked over at him. "And what is your name?" I asked, instead of answering.

I could see the jaw of the understudy clench for a moment. "My name is Linron Soltus. I am the..."

"Linron is in training to be my successor when I step down," Valern interrupted.

"I see," I said. "Well, Linron Soltus, I knew about that secret passage the same way that I knew about the secret passage in the Councillor Tevos' office. Secretly."

Linron's face tightened at the non-answer.

"Now," I said, turning back to Valern. "I believe you are informed of who I am and what many of my activities have been over the last couple of years?"

"Yes," Valern confirmed. "You have been active against pirates throughout the Terminus and Traverse, freeing slaves in larger quantities than any private citizen in our history. Surprisingly magnanimous of you, if you hadn't taken advantage of this to employ a large number of them in your own company after their liberation."

I shrugged. "Every last one of them is free and I, at least, gave them a choice to go home after their treatment. Something that wasn't granted to them by either their previous slavers or the Citadel community who refused to do anything about it. The community where you and your fellow councillors could have organised the same relief effort but apparently refused to do so for reasons that escape me and every other free-thinking being in the galaxy."

I have to admit, the twitching of Linron's eye was slightly amusing at my statement.

"But I am not here to condemn you for that sort of incompetence," I continued before Valern could interject anything. "No, in fact, I am here to pass along information. You see, during these raids, I stumbled upon a large amount of information that the slavers, pirates and mercenaries had in their computers and somehow not destroyed by any virus or worm that could have been implanted.

"As you are no doubt aware, there are many raids that have been ordered by the batarian government, even if your little council claims otherwise. Funnily enough, those ordered raids were extremely easily traceable for any person who was able to turn on a computer. I don't know how the Council can make the claim that there is no evidence on who ordered the raids. After all, every single pirate group that my people have raided has kept copies of every person who hired them so that they would have blackmail on them in case the ones who hired them sold them out. It's almost like you three races are deliberately letting people get enslaved without repercussions to let some nefarious agenda take place."

I didn't miss the little flinch that took place on Linron's face, nor the slight twitching of hands on the Spectres. Valern himself though, he was too experienced and controlled to make any reaction. He just stared at me.

"Unfortunately for you though, is that I have here several very concerning communiques from some people of importance to your race." I gave my best mock-worried frown.

I slowly opened my omni-tool and accessed a file before sending it directly to Valern's terminal. The salarian blinked at me twice before he even looked at it. After a long pause, he finally turned to his terminal and opened the file. Thankfully for my position, what was on the file was significant enough to break through even his impressive façade and his eyes widened in shock. The others in the room saw it all and their own concern at his reaction was quite visible.

"For the rest of you in the room, what I just sent to him was several vid files of the various dalatrasses on Sur'Kesh contacting pirate groups that used to operate out of the terminus and asking them to conduct raids on certain ships that contained diplomats of other races over the last few decades. There are also a few other vids there from the head dalatrass that have her contracting other pirate groups to attack asari or turian colonies. She never really says why, though I don't suppose that it will matter in the long run."

The wave of shock that came from the small group of salarians as they heard the news was palpable. Clearly they wanted to deny it but the lack of protest from Valern was clearly staying their hands.

"However," I continued, "I want to draw your attention to the eighth vid file there. It was a call to a well-connected batarian pirate group from several dalatrasses who were discussing rates to conduct raids on human settlements. More importantly, they actually mention that the reason to do so was to 'check human advancement so that they don't grow faster than the upstarts should be allowed'."

That reveal had every salarian freeze, including Valern who clearly hadn't reached that file yet. I stayed silent for a moment to let the councillor check over the vid file in question to verify my claim. A few minutes later and an extremely tense Valern leaned away from his terminal as if the thing might explode on him.

"I should point out at this time, that the salarians are not the only races that we have vid files for, contacting the various slavers to raid settlements," I admitted, drawing their focus back to me instantly. "I should also clarify my opening comments further, before anyone thinks of something rash. I have copies of all this data scattered around the galaxy. For the benefit of your little pets here, there are no fewer than twelve copies and possibly as many as a hundred copies of it all. If I were to be killed, go missing, suffer an unfortunate accident, get arrested and detained on false charges, contract an incurable illness or be harmed in any way at all, no matter how coincidental, then every single piece of evidence will be broadcast through every planet in Citadel space and a great deal of the Terminus. All of the misdeeds of every race will be published until there isn't a single infant hidden in the deepest oceans that even the hanar could find that hasn't heard of them." I gave a humourless smile. "My continued happy existence is the only thing keeping it from being released." I tilted my head at him curiously. "How long do you think it will be before the whole Citadel community collapses if this sort of information gets out?"

Valern looked at me, his face troubled. "It would mean war!"

I nodded. "True." I leaned forward in my chair, Linron leaning away from me, even though Valern was between the two of us. "I know that the salarian mentality is that you like to win wars before they are fought. You prefer the hidden dagger or the poisoned meal over a straight up fight. I can understand that in a way. But you have overreached. You consider yourselves the masters of the galaxy. The asari do the same. I have enough dirt on them to do the same that I am doing to you now. The turians too. You all thought yourselves untouchable dictators of the galaxy, never caring about the races under your boots. These are not the actions of leaders. They are the crimes of tyrants and despots."

I leaned back in my chair. "So, with that in mind, how about we talk about the upcoming investigation into the geth attack on Eden Prime and how you ignored the message that the geth sent directly to you before the attack happened."

Valern straightened in his chair ever so slightly. "We never received any…"

"Don't lie!" I barked at him, making all five of the salarians in the room jump, the Spectres having pistols in their hands in an instant. I ignored them. "We promised not to lie in the beginning. Or even after all of this, can there be no salarian in the galaxy that has their word mean anything anymore?"

Valern's hands gripped his desk as the Spectres all holstered their weapons. "Fine, we received the message from the geth. We didn't send our fleets because we believed it was a hoax."

"No, you didn't," I retorted. "You are not that stupid. I know for a fact that the STG monitors the borders of geth space and you would have noticed that geth fleets were moving through the Relays after you received that warning. Then you continued to not send a single ship to investigate until long after it was over. I was on the planet when the attack happened. I was there for the entire four-hour duration of the attack. I then flew sixteen hours to get here and then had another hour of nonsense before we began this meeting. There still has not been a ship from the Citadel to arrive. If it wasn't for my company, my people, that colony would likely be in ashes. So please, lie to me again and prove to me that the Council has no integrity to uphold the treaties that you forced upon every government out there."

Valern's hands clenched momentarily before he clearly forced himself to relax. "The turians were to send a pair of scout ships to investigate." He looked at his terminal for a moment before looking back at me. "They are not due to arrive at the colony for another hour. The only information that we have from the colony itself comes from the Human Systems Alliance so we have no further information at this time."

I shook my head. "You really don't care about any race other than yourselves, do you?" I asked rhetorically. "Even the continued existence of the Citadel Community is clearly seen as a convenience or a way to taunt so-called 'lesser races'. Pathetic."

I stood up and moved towards the door, Beau and Torrin moving up behind me but keeping an eye on the salarians. I turned back to face Valern before I left.

"Today the Human Systems Alliance is going to approach the Council about the attack on Eden Prime. I suggest you be generous. Oh," I turned to face the Spectres, "and if any of my information caches happen to get raided, I will find out and I will release a piece of damaging information at random. It will be something that guarantees a response from the victims. For example, I wonder how the krogan would respond to the knowledge that their bodies were adapting to the genophage, so the STG have been hidden on Tuchanka modifying the genophage so that the krogan continue to die out? How many salarians would die from that leak?"

With a smirk at seeing their shocked faces one more time, I turned and headed out through the door, walking cheerfully past the STG agents who were waiting just beyond.

…

Valern's mind worked furiously. He hadn't wanted this meeting in the first place despite the human's claim of urgency and galactic security but had decided to go through with it because of the human's association with Tevos. Valern couldn't help but feel a little curious about the man, though the audacious demands to be seen immediately had almost made him pull a Sparatus and deny the human outright.

Seeing at how much information the human claimed to have, even with the few snippets that he had shared, it was so much worse than he had expected it to be. What a mess.

"Valern, what do we do?" Linron's voice came plaintively behind him.

Valern turned around to look at his understudy. Linron was more closely connected to the dalatrasses, being related to a few of them through breeding arrangements. The news that his own relatives were contracting slavers was going to be concerning to him. Though not as much as it was to Valern himself. His own wife had been on a cruiser that had been attacked near Omega only a few years ago. If it turned out that someone from either the Union or another government had ordered the attack… he could feel the old, cold fury begin to build up in him for a moment before he clamped down on it. His wife was fine. No point in working himself up about that yet. Not unless it turned out that his wife had been targeted and it turned out that someone had been covering it up.

If she was, then he would deal with it.

He blinked his thoughts away. "For now, there is nothing we can do," he replied. "While I don't believe that he would really have a hundred hideouts for his data, we can't take the chance that he doesn't have plenty of copies hidden around the galaxy. I could tell at a glance that the information was genuine, so trying to discredit it would be foolish. He isn't directly threatening the Union so he isn't actually causing us any headaches right now. It gives us time to investigate what he said. Though he did directly mention the meeting that I am scheduled to be in with the humans, so I need to think of something that we can offer for breaching our agreements."

Linron frowned. "We're just letting him get away with extortion?"

Valern frowned back at him. "It would be extorting if he was actually demanding anything. This was a warning. I have been working hard over the last year to try and ensure that the Council doesn't demean itself. What he has done is show that if things are not corrected, there may not be a Council in the next few years. Sooner, if something was to happen to him and he or his people suspect that we had something to do with it. It was quite cleverly done." Unfortunately.

"Did you want us to dig further into him?" Jondum Bau asked.

Valern considered. "Possibly. But ensure that you don't get caught. We don't want to risk him releasing information like he threatened."

Linron blinked. "You mean that was serious?"

Valern nodded. "Yes. The STG has been improving the genophage to ensure that the krogan don't adapt to its original form, secretly. If the krogan found out, I suspect that there would be enough of them rioting against us that the death toll would be in the tens of thousands, if not drastically more."

He turned back to the terminal, indicating that the discussion was concluded. "For now, we will do nothing actively, but we will keep our feelers out." He considered for a moment before wincing. "Though perhaps it would be prudent to set a monitor over him to ensure his safety. It wouldn't do for anything to befall him and have secrets such as these be revealed."

He grimaced as another thought came up. "We will also need to contact the dalatrasses and inform them of this. If they keep organising attacks then it might cause Mr Nielson to release some information out of spite."

He doubted the human was bluffing. You didn't throw out that sort of insurance policy on a whim, and Valern had no desire to find out for sure.

Now he just had a meeting with that damned Udina to deal with.

…

Jane Shepard looked around the embassy of the human ambassador, Donnel Udina, feeling a little out of place. She was a soldier, and a damn good one if she said so herself. This was the battlefield of politics, where she was far less inclined to battle correctly. Captain Anderson was certainly far better at it than she was, so she usually left talking to civilians to him.

Sadly, that was the option of yesteryear and now she was forced to talk to high-ranking civilians on whatever the hell happened on Eden Prime.

And the guy couldn't even bother pretending that he was a decent person. Though to be fair, he had been fighting with the Council when they walked into the room. It hadn't stopped her objecting the fact that Saren was seemingly being covered for by the Council, especially the turian Councillor.

"Settle down, Commander," Udina sneered. "You've already done more than enough to jeopardise your candidacy for the Spectres. The mission on Eden Prime was your chance to prove that you could get the job done. Instead, Nihlus ended up dead and the beacon ended up destroyed."

"That's Saren's fault. Not hers," Anderson, good old reliable Captain Anderson, objected.

Behind them at Udina's desk, a beep for an incoming message was received. The ambassador walked over to check his messages while he continued to talk. "Let's hope that CSEC turns up evidence to support our accusations. Otherwise, the Council might use this to keep you out of the Spectres. One moment."

He tapped at his terminal and read something for a moment. "Hmm. Good news. It appears that the salarian councillor has postponed the meeting for another eighty minutes. It appears that there is someone coming from Eden Prime with evidence that is being considered too sensitive to send over a message."

Jane perked up, before frowning slightly. It was that cocky rich guy, Nielson, that would be coming. She wouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth but she didn't really have much of an opinion of the guy. Williams, on the other hand…

"Dammit!"

Yeah, apparently the Shieldstar leader had offended her in some way.

"Ah yes," Udina murmured thoughtfully as he rubbed his chin, "Mr Brock Nielson from Shieldstar Corp. His name has come up several times over the last few years. I had heard rumours about having a facility on Eden Prime a few months ago, but he still does not have Alliance citizenship."

That caused Jane to raise her eyebrows. Not every human, even those from Earth, had an Alliance citizenship. It was a point of contention that had not been fully resolved when humanity had been thrust among the galactic community. They percentage of non-citizens was actually falling, though there were plenty of other colonies that were independent and refused to come under the Alliance banner. None of those would have been on Eden Prime though.

"Is there going to be a problem with him?" Anderson asked.

"Hmmm?" Udina looked up questioningly as if he hadn't heard the question. "Oh no, there shouldn't be. He does business with a several respected governments and is involved in a lot of different things. His company has contacted my office several times to repatriate former slaves, and in no small numbers."

Williams blinked in surprise, Alenko's face softened slightly and Jane couldn't help feeling both a bit of approval, and a hint of guilt that she hadn't done more operations against the slavers of the galaxy, and that she might have misjudged the man. Not that the choice for action was hers. That was the decision of the generals and admirals.

She shook off the thoughts as Anderson and Udina dismissed them to their own devices and left the office to deal with something else.

"So now what?" Alenko asked, looking for direction. Williams was looking at her expectantly too.

"Well, just because we are waiting for Nielson to come with the evidence that he has, doesn't mean we can't try find more to make our case more solid," Shepard said. "Let's make a few inquiries into the investigation at CSEC and see if we can unearth anything else."

…

Hectar sat inside the medical centre that he had been directed to by Brock, run by a human doctor, Chloe… something. He forgot the name out of nervousness. He looked over at the name on the door tag. Doctor Chloe Michel. That was it. The human receptionist and the Doctor had both been very polite and welcoming. He had to admit, outside of Brock and the people he associated with through Shieldstar, Hectar didn't really deal with people so much, so he was still a little shy with strangers.

He had gotten a lot better than he used to be, he was glad to say. He still hated being the centre of attention and still preferred to only work closely with people who he was familiar with, but now he could work with strangers without flinching all the time.

Two years with Brock had been a small miracle. He never thought that he would be doing so much to help people around the galaxy, nor that when he started his Pilgrimage that he would be able to provide so much for his people in the way of gifts. Brock had been more generous than any single person or group to the quarians since they were driven from their home world. Hectar was truly glad to call him a friend.

So when Brock asked him to stay here at the medical centre and wait for a Pilgrim who was going to come in injured, Hectar had not hesitated to say yes, despite how nervous he was. That the Pilgrim in question was none other than Admiral Rael'Zorah's daughter, Tali, made it feel more important, as if he were under more pressure to do the job right. Hence his nervousness.

Sure, accosting an admiral's daughter sounded like a bad idea. Scratch that, a very bad idea. But he was only there to help her. And with his skills, tracking her the moment she had touched down on the Citadel had been exceedingly simple. The younger girl had tried to hide her presence by hacking into the docking reports, but the girl was no Ely, that's for sure. A talented tech, but not a specialist.

That said, he had been tracing her progress through the wards and had been concerned with her being attacked by a pair of mercs, a batarian and a salarian, before she had escaped. He had monitored he escape route and when she had run a search of quarian-friendly clinics, extremely fortunately in view of no less than three surveillance cameras, he had been able to hack in and see which one she seemed to be focussing on.

Still, he was fiddling with his omnitool, working on updating some of the programs when the door opened up and Tali'Zorah limped in, holding her stomach and hunching over.

Hectar had to give it to Doctor Michel. The human took one look at the injured quarian and immediately activated a sterilisation field around one of the beds for quarian usage. He stayed silent as the doctor expertly treated his fellow quarian, watching as she performed her job flawlessly, even with the specific needs of his people. He could always appreciate an alien doctor that put such effort in to treating quarians.

"Are you going to come over or just stand there?" A filtered voice entered his thoughts.

He blinked and looked over to see that Tali'Zorah was looking straight at him, the doctor having finished her work and moved over to her terminal. He rubbed his hands together sheepishly.

"Sorry, I was caught up in my own thoughts," he admitted as he walked over. "How are you feeling?"

She shrugged. "Pretty good. I don't have any infections and the Doctor has done a good job. Forgive me, I am Tali'Zorah nar Rayya."

He nodded. "I know, Admiral Rael'Zorah's daughter," he replied, catching the minute wince as he did. Clearly she didn't want that to be her defining trait. "I am Hectar'Galon vas Attaya." Named after the newest quarian planet.

Instantly Tali perked up and shot herself out of bed, grabbing on to Hectar's hands before he had the chance to move. The girl clearly had solid physical training behind her, going by her speed. Maybe nearly as much as he had, after two years working for Brock. Clearly the girl was more of a combat engineer.

"Really?" she asked, her voice nearly vibrating with excitement. "I can't believe I am meeting one of the quarians that brought back our people a planet for their Pilgrimage gift! That was so amazing!"

Hectar couldn't help awkwardly chuckling as he freed his hands from her grip and rubbed one of his shoulders shyly. "Really there is no need to thank me. My boss was the generous one and was in a position to help our people. I just worked for him."

"Yes, but now our people have a real chance to get our home world back!" she babbled excitedly. "We can build our people up again and get ready for the geth!"

He held up both his hands to slow her down a little. "Maybe, but that is now in other people's hands," he said. "For now, my boss wanted me to check on you. He heard that you got injured and wanted to know how you were and why you were attacked."

The slightly younger girl visible reined herself in and nodded. "Yes, I was investigating reports about the geth from my father and got attacked. I was able to beat them and recovered something from the geth memory core. I was trying to find a broker to sell it to but some men for a turian Spectre called Saren found me and tried to stop me. I was going to meet an agent for the Shadow Broker called Fist to sell it on."

Hectar nodded. That all lined up with what Brock had told him before sending him off to find Tali'Zorah.

"Well it's a good thing that I found you first," Hectar said. "I have information from my boss that Fist has turned his back on the Shadow Broker and now reports to Saren. If you went there you would just be taken and given to Saren's people anyway."

"That bosh'tet!" Hectar blinked in surprise at the shout from the younger girl. "I can't believe he would have sold me out! I paid good money for that information!"

He raised his hands to settle her down. "Look, it's fine. Just come with me and we can sort this out. My boss would be interested in seeing that information. He was planet side on Eden Prime when the attack happened so he is gathering as much information as possible. If you have something then it would be very useful to him."

"Of course!" she exclaimed excitedly. "I always wanted to meet him. He's becoming a legend back in the fleet!"

Hectar blinked at that. He knew that the gifts that Brock had given him, Ely and Misol when she finished her Pilgrimage were valuable, but he hadn't realised how far Brock's name had spread throughout the flotilla.

"Well, great," he said, somewhat uncertainly. "We should head to the human embassy. He has a meeting with the salarian councillor and will be heading there straight afterwards. Plus, we should leave before Saren's men come looking for you here."

"Then let's go!" She grabbed his hand and dragged him towards the door.

"Hey, I can walk on my own!"

…

A/N Please Review and Follow/Favourite as you like!

So, a little piece of intrigue in the beginning. I will admit, the idea for that section was inspired by another story. A Very Terran (Re)Solution by NihilMomentum. If you are interested in another good story then go check it out.

So yeah, as I said, I have a pat-re-on now which will help me get this and more stories published, including more fics and original works. If you want to help me, get more things for you to read, then please take a look and lend a hand. It's under Bored Peasant's Written Works. I hope you can support me there so I have more time to write for here.

Next chapter is already mostly written and I am planning on publishing at least one chapter from my stories every month now. Let's see how this goes! Until next time!