Chapter 16
The Normandy crew was effectively on shore leave for two more days, and Harry found himself with little to do. The Normandy was stocked, The Council was as usual being no help, and Harry had no other meetings scheduled until two hours before the Normandy was scheduled to depart, so he wandered the wards looking to see what trouble he could get himself into. He was unsurprised both with the C-Sec presence tailing him everywhere he went as well as how bad they were at remaining undetected. Harry made a game of ditching them and seeing how long it took for him to acquire a new tail.
He found he'd wandered near the embassy buildings in the Presidium, so he turned a corner to visit the Human Embassy along with the Volus and Elcor ones when he was presented with a large gathering outside of the building. He couldn't see what exactly they were gathered around, but he was alarmed to see that whatever it was had a plume of dark smoke rising from it.
"What's going on?" Harry asked one of the dozen or so nervous-looking Quarians milling about.
"Somebody attacked the Alliance officer who was giving out dextro rations." The Quarian said.
"Was anyone hurt?" Harry asked. He nodded sadly and manipulated his omnitool sending him a digital copy of a news brief that had come out minutes before he arrived. He scanned it and every word made him even more furious. Two Quarians were wounded in the blast, and a Human alliance officer was killed. The assailant was not identified. Harry looked up at the Quarian, and noticed a flash of green reflecting off his helmet's visor.
"Keelah! Your eyes!" the Quarian asked. Harry closed his eyes and took a breath, before opening them and speaking.
"Forgive me, that can happen when I'm upset. Is everyone here safe? Did you manage to get food?" Harry asked. The Quarian shook his head.
"No. A couple of us have not eaten in days." the Quarian man said. Harry growled.
"Stay here please." Harry said, apparating with a nearly silent pop, causing the Quarians to stare in awe at the space he'd been occupying. With another pop he reappeared with a small box in his hand. He placed it on the ground and waved his hand over it, causing the box to increase massively in size. He opened it and pulled out a box filled with sterilized Quarian nutrient paste.
"Everyone, I have some emergency rations for you. It's bland but it's healthy, if you've gone more than a week without food only eat half a tube and go see Dr. Chloe Michel in the wards." Harry said. The Quarians all walked over, pulling out as many boxes as they could carry.
"Don't be shy, I can get more if it's needed. Does anyone know where injured Quarians ended up?" Harry asked.
"The closest hospital equipped to handle them C-Sec Medical." The first Quarian said.
"That's not good. Take what you can and go find some place safe. I need to go see them." Harry said, disappearing again.
"Who was that man?" Quarian woman asked. The man shrugged.
"That was Harry Potter, the Alliance's immortal Admiral... well retired admiral." A human c-sec officer said, stepping out of his vehicle.
"Keelah! The stories were true!" The woman said.
"My name is Sargent Armando Bailey, I've been dispatched to investigate the scene. Please stand clear." Bailey said.
"Sargent Bailey, can we help in any way? Your people have been so kind." one of the Quarians said.
"I'd like to ask you a few questions once we get the area secured. In the meantime, do any of you need medical attention?" Bailey asked. Nobody responded so he went about setting up a perimeter.
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Harry arrived at the C-sec Medical center and demanded to see the Quarian victims. The Turian sitting behind the front desk sneered at him, and pointed towards a door at the end of a hallway. He walked in and saw one of the Quarians sitting on the floor with her back against the wall, shaking and clutching a breach on her arm. The other was mumbling incoherently to himself, lying on an unpadded gurney.
"Harry!" The woman with the breach said, slowly getting to her feet.
"I remember you.. You're the woman that was being accosted by those Turian assholes." Harry said. She nodded.
"Lia'Vael. Thank you so much for your help..." She said, walking shakily towards him. Harry frowned and conjured a chair.
"Please sit. Hold still." Harry said, withdrawing the Elder Wand and pointing it at her injured arm.
"Can you let it go please?" Harry asked. She did and with a precisely aimed reparo, he mended the breach in her suit.
"Episkey." Harry followed it up with. She yelped as the damaged bone in her arm set itself and started healing. She looked at it in wonder. He then walked over to the moaning Quarian. He waved his wand over the poor man and frowned. Lia stared in amazement as Harry identified and repaired several suit breaches.
"Your friend seems to have several infections and reactions going on... Christ his medigel reserve is depleted!" Harry said. Lia nodded
"I gave him the last of mine, and it wasn't enough." She said sadly.
"Fuck that." Harry said, pulling a miniature trunk out of his pocket and expanding it with his wand. He opened it and rummaged through it before producing another toothpaste tube looking device labeled Medigel-D (Sterile.)
"Which port? I'm not familiar with this suit model." Harry asked.
"L-left side, under the arm." Lia said coughing. Harry lifted his left arm and screwed the tube into a port, then squeezed it.
"He's out of it. Can you jack his suit controls?" Harry asked frantically. Lia nodded and stood shakily, walking over and lifted her arm, activating her omnitool. Within moments the injured Quarian's heart rate slowed and his breathing evened out, they could hear him quietly snoring. Harry nodded, and he retrieved another tube, handing it to Lia.. With a few commands she sighed, relieved as the medigel did its work and began fighting the infection.
"You just saved us! Again!" Lia said.
"I shouldn't have had to. Can you tell me what happened?" Harry asked. Lia nodded. She explained that the Quarians had arrived to request dextro rations from the Human embassy. An Alliance officer came out to greet them, and left briefly, returning with a crate full of ration boxes, but before he could start handing them out someone in the crowd threw a bomb, killing the officer, injuring Lia and her companion, and destroying the rations.
"Did you get a good look at the guy who chucked the bomb?" Harry asked.
"No, I didnt get a good look." Lia said. Harry nodded.
"We need to get your friend over to Dr. Michel, I think the C-Sec asshole up front forgot you guys were in here." Harry said. Lia's shoulders slumped and she sighed.
"I'd wondered..." Lia said sadly. Harry walked over and squeezed her shoulder.
"I'm sorry." Harry said.
"I just... Our ancestors created the Geth 300 years ago, why do they keep punishing us for it?" Lia asked.
"They're assholes. I should talk the Prime Minister into withdrawing Humanity from the Citadel entirely." Harry said. Harry activated his omnitool and brought up a keyboard. He started typing a message.
"Please don't! You're the only ones here that don't spit at us..." Lia said. Harry smiled.
"I'm not being serious." Harry said. He sent the message and then, with a wave of his wand he conjured what looked like a padded steel plate about a meter and a half wide and two meters long that hovered effortlessly about a meter off the ground. Harry picked up the sleeping Quarian and placed him carefully onto the improvised stretcher.
"Come on, let's go see Dr. Michel." Harry said. Lia stood, much more steadily this time now with the temporary boost that medigel gave her, and followed him out into the main hall of C-Sec Medical.
"Where are you taking.. oh it's the suit rat. Whatever." The Turian clerk said. Harry stopped mid step and glared.
"I HATE that term." Harry said.
"And I hate the thieving little suit rats and the ugly pink hairless apes that have infested the citadel." The Turian said with a sneer. Lia tugged on Harry's shirt.
"Harry just drop it let's go." Lia said.
"No, not this time." Harry said, smiling at her. He walked over to the officer and looked at him with a neutral expression.
"Do you know who I am, Turian?" Harry asked.
"Should I? You all look alike to me." The Turian said, his hand hovering over his sidearm.
"Do a biometric scan." Harry said, before punching in a few commands on his omnitool.
"Sure, I need to know who I'm booking for disturbing the peace anyway." the Turian said threateningly. He lifted his omnitool and a flat beam of light scanned Harry from head to toe. He read the results and gaped at him.
"You're..." the Turian said.
"An ugly, hairless ape, remember?" Harry said. Moments later the comm screen on the officer's desk chimed.
"Denitus here." The Turian said quietly after activating the screen.
"Executor Pallin wants to see you in his office..." The voice said.
"Right away..." Denitus said, before looking over at Harry. This time instead of hostility and derision, his expression was one of abject terror.
"Goodbye, Turian." Harry said, before turning and pushing the stretcher out of the building. Lia followed behind.
"Harry what did you do?" Lia asked, when they came to a stop to wait for a rapid transit vehicle.
"Pulled some strings." Harry said with a grin. Lia just looked at him so he sighed in faked exasperation.
"I contacted a friend on Palaven who's been getting sick of what goes on in the Hierarchy's name on the Citadel. That was while we were talking in the exam room. Then as soon as the clerk started lipping off I sent a recording of the video and audio from the security cameras to that friend. He probably reached out to Pallin and expressed his dissatisfaction." Harry said.
"Keelah, who's your friend?" Lia asked.
"Primarch Fedorian." Harry said. Lia stared at him, shocked.
