Chapter 12

Tali retrieved Wrex and returned, looking no worse for wear, and Shepard led her odd party out of the Citadel Tower. They certainly garnered some strange looks, not that Shepard could blame the people staring at them. Two turians, a quarian, three humans, and a krogan were certainly odd bedfellows. Turians hated humans and krogans, humans hated turians, quarians were pariahs, and krogans hated everybody. Seeing all of these species walking in a group together was like watching a volus riding backwards on a unicorn while juggling space hamsters.

Vakarian fell into step beside her. "You would think that we were an unusual sight, the way people keep staring." He looked down with a grin. "I blame you. First human Spectre, I'd stare too."

Shepard cocked an eyebrow at him.

"I mean I'd be staring too. Not at you, of course. W-well, yes I'd stare at you, but only because you were a Spectre. I wouldn't stare at you if you weren't," he stuttered, his subvocals trilling with embarrassment. "Not that it isn't easy to stare at you. You're very stare at-able… and I'm an idiot." He slumped in defeat and chuckled ruefully.

"Smooth." Shepard laughed. He was very easy to fluster. "Don't worry. I know what you meant."

He chuffed. "What a great impression to make. Here I was about to ask you for a job."

"What?" Shepard looked up in surprise as they went down another flight of stairs.

"Yeah," he looked away, embarrassed. "I quit C-sec after they let Saren go. It was the last straw. All of that bureaucracy and red-tape, all of those rules, and who was helped? The enemy. So I quit." He shrugged and looked back down at her. "A Spectre won't be hampered by regulations at every turn. You can go after Saren without having to worry about rules hindering your every step. You have the power to make a real difference, damn the consequences, and I want to be a part of that."

Shepard looked askance at him, discomfited by the way he was so eager to throw the rules out of the window. Even though she almost made it her life to test how far she could bend those rules to her benefit, there were still lines she wouldn't cross, and she was reminded of the way he had so easily put Dr. Michelle in harm's way to take out her attacker. "Mr. Vakarian-

"Please," he cut in with an odd sort of humorless laugh, "just call me Garrus. Mr. Vakarian is my father."

"Okay." She nodded carefully. "Garrus… welcome to the crew. I'm not going to turn away a skilled soldier -I've seen you in action- but I think you've misinterpreted a major part of this "Spectre" deal. Being a Spectre means that now the Council controls my actions. For all the power I have to track down Saren as I see fit, the Council still holds my leash."

Garrus leaned in, eyes bright. "But don't you see? That isn't totally true! Not even the Council is too high for the Spectres to touch. I overheard what you asked Spectre Kryik to do and that is exactly why the Spectres are as strong as they are. Not even the people who give them orders are out of their reach."

Her feet passed silently over the polished stone of the floor as she thought about what Garrus said. It wasn't that she didn't agree with him, she knew exactly what kind of political clout she'd just gained as a Spectre, but it wasn't as if she was going to go power crazy. As far as she was concerned, the only things she was after were Saren and the Conduit. She smirked at him. "Hold your horses, kid. We're not out to bring down the regime. We're simply after a mad-man and his machines."

Nihlus stepped between them, forcing Garrus to swerve to avoid barking his shins against a nearby planter. He ignored Shepard's look of consternation to point out a human male in an Alliance uniform pacing furiously in front of a nearby terminal system. "I don't know about you," he said, "but I think that's an Admiral."

Shepard missed a step as recognition slammed her. It was Captain Kahoku, now Rear Admiral Kahoku, and he looked disturbed. The sound of screaming and explosions momentarily blinded her, and she quickly forced the memories away into the little box in her brain labeled "Skyllian Blitz." Kahoku had led one of the reinforcement teams that had landed on Elysium after the pirates and batarians had raided the colony. His platoon had been the one to help her evacuate the colonists she'd saved and consequently dragged her half-dead ass off the planet.

"Shepard?" Kahoku stopped his pacing, catching sight of her frozen a few yards away.

His voice broke her out of her daze and she snapped to attention, saluting the man that had saved her life on Elysium. "Admiral Kahoku, what's wrong?"

He looked her over and smiled, though it didn't reach his eyes. "You keep interesting company Commander. Or should I say Spectre now?"

"Commander is just fine." She walked towards him. "I'm still not too comfortable with the yoke of Spectre-hood on my shoulders quite yet."

Kahoku smiled again, though it was strained. "Still, congratulations, Commander Shepard. There isn't another soldier who deserves the honor as much as you do. Now, I'm sure you're needed elsewhere. I just saw Ambassador Udina and Captain Anderson go through here like men on a mission. If you're heading the same way, I'd go now. Neither of them looked very pleased."

"Udina can wait. He's good at that." Shepard smirked and turned to her companions. "You guys go ahead. I'll catch up."

Kaiden looked at her as if she'd grown a second head. "And what exactly do you think is going to happen when we all show up without you?"

"So just wait in the lobby." Shepard grinned. "I promise I won't let Udina beat you up. I won't be long."

Kaiden grumbled, but allowed Ashley to tug him away, the others walking on with them. Garrus hesitated, but after a nod from her, he followed Kaiden from the Tower. Nihlus was a little harder to get rid of.

"Shepard," he stepped closer to her and Kahoku, "are you sure someone shouldn't stay with you? I'm afraid of what kind of surprises Saren might have for us, even here on the Citadel."

She rolled her eyes. "I'll be fine. I can handle whatever Saren throws at me, but Kaiden can't handle Udina by himself. Also, I'm afraid Wrex might crush the little weasel if he annoys him too much so I need the diplomatic one there to keep the peace."

"Fair enough," Nihlus chuckled and turned away. "Just don't take too long."

Admiral Kahoku watched Nihlus leave. "That is Spectre Kryik? I've heard the stories about him. If he's half as good as they say he is, you're lucky to have him in your corner."

Shepard nodded. "Yes, his skill is quite impressive, but you still haven't answered my question Admiral. What's wrong?"

Kahoku sighed heavily and lifted his cover to rub a hand through his close cropped hair. He pulled it back down and frowned tiredly. "I've been trying to get the Council to grant me an audience, but I'm being shot down at every turn. There's a very long waitlist, apparently."

"What for?"

"Some of my men have gone missing." Kahoku's frown deepened. "They were investigating some troubling activity in the Artemis Tau Cluster and then they just disappeared. Their most recent report mentioned that they were in the Sparta system, but that was the last I heard from them. It's been weeks since that report came across my desk."

Shepard shifted, her curiosity peaking. "What were they looking into?"

Kahoku shook his head. "I'm not at liberty to say, but I can tell you that we'd found the body of a researcher named Armistan Banes on a ship in the area. It's the team that found him that went missing."

"Banes, Armistan Banes…" Shepard muttered. Something was niggling in the back of her mind, like a half-remembered dream. She frowned. She knew that name from somewhere, but she couldn't remember. Holding his name in her mind was like trying to hold on to smoke, but she struggled with her memory, fighting to drag what she knew about this Banes into the forefront. She knew this person…

"Still, the Council refuses to see me. They have more important matters to attend to." Kahoku broke her from her thoughts and whatever progress she'd made finding the information she needed disappeared, slinking back into the recesses of her long-term memory.

Damn… Shepard sighed, still feeling like she was missing something vital. If this Banes really is important, I'm sure his name will pop up again somewhere. She put a reassuring hand on the Admiral's shoulder. "Don't worry about meeting with the Council. Odds are I'll be sent out that way soon. I'll check and see if I can find your men. Just send me their last known coordinates."

"Thank you, Shepard." Kahoku breathed a sigh of relief. "I just want to know if I should be alerting their families or sending out a rescue team."

His smile was more genuine this time, if no less tired. "Now you should catch up with your men. Udina is not a patient man."

"You're telling me." Shepard grinned and shook the hand he proffered. "I'll let you know if I find my way to the Artemis Tau Cluster."

They parted, Kahoku heading back towards the terminal he'd been pacing in front of and Shepard down the last flight of stairs and out of the Tower. She stopped just outside of the doors to the Tower and let her eyes adjust to the bright light flooding the outer courtyard. The artificial sunlight was warm on her skin, and she took a moment to enjoy it. While she was standing soaking up the heat infused rays, the events of the morning struck her, and she couldn't help a small grin. She was a Spectre. The best, of the best, of the best, sir, indeed. The very first of her kind too. Despite the strenuous and bullshit crammed circumstances surrounding her induction to the order, she was a goddamned Spectre. So if she wanted to stand here for a minute and enjoy her little ray of fake sunshine, she was damn well going to.

A slight breeze lifted off of the Presidium lakes and blew over her, making the wispy hair too short to be pulled into her bun dance around her face. Enough dilly-dallying, Shepard, your people are alone with Udina. Go save them already. She pulled up her omnitool to tell Nihlus she was on her way, but the sound of a hushed argument caught her attention.

She looked around and didn't see anything amiss, but the voices were growing louder.

"I don't care how you feel about this Morlan!" The voice that spoke first was deep and male and had the gravely quality unique to krogans. "The good doc is going to bring the goods to you, so you had better be damned well ready to get them to the right people. Understand?"

"Y-yes, I understand. Your employer will get the supplies he wants."

Shepard walked farther into the open courtyard, dismissing the people in it as she searched for the source of the voices. Both male. One krogan. Due to the clipped diction and high tone, the other one's probably a salarian. They should be a hard pair to miss, but she still wasn't seeing them. She turned slowly and her gaze was drawn towards a small alcove where a path curved away from the common area and disappeared behind a stand of trees. How much did she want to bet that was where the voices were coming from?

Her eyes narrowed. She glanced around to make sure no one was watching her and activated her cloaking device. Shepard disappeared into the shadow of the same trees that hid the krogan and salarian. She swung into the trees above them to get a better view and settled into place just in time to see the krogan shove away the salarian he was threatening with a grunt.

"Hold up your end of the deal, and my employer will hold up his. Just make sure that the doc gives you everything on that list. If she doesn't, let me know. My employer wants to get it all- by force if he needs to. He has a secret of hers that she doesn't want known." He cracked his massive knuckles with a bloodthirsty grin. "I would rather just beat it out of her."

The salarian nodded quickly and edged around the hulking krogan so that he could shuffle away, presumably into the Lower Wards. Shepard let him leave. She was more interested in what the krogan could tell her. She dropped silently behind him and pulled a blade from her boot, sliding it into a chink in his armor just above his lower spine. The krogan jerked in surprise when he felt the cold of the blade slice through his armor and press into the tender flesh beneath.

"That's right, buddy," Shepard chuckled darkly, "you know exactly what will happen if I cut into this bundle of nerves, don't you?"

The krogan spat an angry curse, snorting air from his nose, but he didn't move. Shepard could feel the fury building up in his shaking muscles. "What do you want? If it's money, you're out of luck."

Shepard pressed the blade a little harder into his back, making the krogan hiss and arch away. "If you don't want to by a crying puddle of piss and shit, you're going to tell me what I want to know. Got it, chuckles?"

"Bitch!"

Shepard kicked the krogan behind his knee and his leg crumpled beneath his weight. He fell to his knees with a muffled cry. She clucked her tongue at him. "That was rude. Now, the doctor your employer is blackmailing, is it Dr. Michel?"

The krogan nodded. "Good boy." Shepard crooned, twisting the blade and making the krogan whimper. "Next question. What does your employer have over Dr. Michel?"

"I don't know." The krogan gasped as Shepard twisted the blade again. "I swear I don't know. Only Gorbak knows her secret!"

"Where do I find this Gorbak?"

"L-lower Markets, he'll be watching Morlan's stall for the doc's delivery." The krogan was trembling, arching as far away from the cold steel bite of her knife he could get considering his bulky physiology. "That's all I know! I swear!"

Shepard lifted the krogan's left arm, jabbing the knife into his back when he resisted. "Hold your arm up like a good boy… Yes, that's good. Now hold it riiiight there."

Faster than the krogan could react, Shepard pulled the blade from his back and jabbed the handle deep into the tissue of his armpit three times, temporarily stalling the beating of one of his hearts. The Krogan fell forward like a sack of potatoes, unconscious.

Shepard stared down at the merc with disgust. Now she was going to be late. She pulled up her omnitool and typed out a message to Nihlus.

Have a little matter to attend to. Stall for time?

Her aural implant buzzed and a reply lit up the screen on her omnitool.

Shepard, get over here now. Udina is livid and I don't think he's impressed at all with my "diplomacy."

She grinned.

I need a few more minutes… maybe an hour…

Nihlus' reply took a little more time, but her implant buzzed again.

An hour? What the hell are you doing, Shepard? He's going to eat me alive!

She rolled her eyes. What a drama queen.

Distract him with a laser pointer. Politicians love laser pointers. Gotta go snookums. I have people to maim.

Shepard closed out her omnitool and pulled herself back up onto the courtyard above the alcove and the unconscious merc. She ignored the continuous buzzing in her implant and instead hunted for the C-sec officer she'd seen patrolling the Tower entrance earlier. She de-cloaked in front of him, startling him, and he backpedaled with a shout.

"There's an unconscious krogan just in those trees right over there. Something tells me he has a bit of a criminal record." She grinned widely at the startled officer. "You're welcome, by the way."

She activated her cloak again and dashed away. The officer cursed as Shepard blinkered back out of sight.

She had a doctor to save…. Again….

Nihlus closed his omnitool with a muttered curse. Shepard wasn't answering his messages, which meant that she was probably just ignoring him now. As much as he respected her as an individual, as a professional, she was way too impulsive. Spirits only knew what the hell she was embroiling herself in this time. He growled quietly, feeling his irritation vibrating through his bones.

Ashley stepped up next to him and crossed her arms. "What is the Commander up to now?"

"Who the hell knows?" Nihlus snapped. "She just told me to distract Udina with a laser pointer." He threw up his hands in a gesture he knew the humans interpreted as exasperation. "What the fuck is a laser pointer?"

Ashley sniggered, garnering the attention of Kaiden, who was being given a verbal thrashing by an irate Udina. Kaiden glared at them over Udina's shoulder, and Ashley gave him an apologetic shrug, still chuckling.

She opened a pocket on her trousers and pulled out a small cylindrical tube. "This," she said, "is a laser pointer."

Nihlus looked at it, unimpressed. How was this little metal device supposed to distract the Ambassador? He gingerly took the "laser pointer" from Ashley's hand and ran a talon over it.

"Just press that button there." Ashley pointed to a small raised bump in the otherwise smooth surface. "This is a pretty old model, but laser pointers haven't changed much since they were created, so the effect will be the same."

He pressed the button and a fiery red dot appeared on the floor. Nihlus jumped slightly and let go of the button. The dot disappeared. "Shit," he muttered, inspecting the floor for burns, "when you said "laser" pointer, I didn't think it would be an actual photon pulse beam."

Ashley began to openly guffaw. "It's not military grade Nihlus. You just got scared of light."

He snorted and tossed the little tube back to the human woman. That had been degrading. "What, exactly, is the purpose of such an item?"

"Cat vids." Ashley grinned.

"You can't be serious." Nihlus shook his head. What was with humans and recording vids of cats. The extranet was absolutely bogged down with terabytes of the ridiculous fuzzy animals.

"Dead serious." Ashley pulled up her omnitool and typed in a few short words. "Look. The laser pointer in action."

Curious despite himself, Nihlus leaned forward to watch the vid that popped up above Ashley's wrist. A furry, four-legged animal was frantically spinning in circles, chasing a familiar red dot across the floor.

"I can see the humor in envisioning Udina chasing a dot across his floor." Nihlus sighed and shook his head. "Damnit Shepard, what are you doing?"

Ashley closed her omnitool. "Whatever she's doing, it has to be important. She wouldn't leave us to Udina's tender mercies unless it was necessary."

Nihlus grunted in response and began to pace, checking his omnitool every so often just in case Shepard responded to any of his messages. He couldn't help but chuckle at the mental image Ashley had implanted in his mind of Udina scrambling over chairs and desks to catch the illusive red light, but irritation leeched the humor away again.

Shepard was going to pay for leaving him alone with this mess. It was just his luck that Udina was a gigantic asshole and had ignored his authority of the situation to latch onto Kaiden as his scapegoat, choosing to rip into the human rather than deal with a turian. It didn't matter much to him. Like Shepard, he found politicians to be a useless lot, and the less he had to deal with them, the better.

Listening to Udina berating poor Alenko was giving him a headache, and being under constant scrutiny from the red eyed krogan lounging against a wall was making him uneasy. He didn't trust Wrex. No doubt the feeling was a mutual one. Why was the krogan still even here? Shepard and her pets-

Pain spiked through his head in a blinding flash, and he halted, too stunned to even react. It was an agony that was becoming all too familiar, and one that was steadily getting worse. His eyes were boiling behind closed lids and he tasted metal on the back of his tongue. The flesh beneath his plates began to crawl and prickle until he fought the urge to rip his plates off and dig until the damnable itching stopped. The world went gray for a moment, wavering in his vision, and then Nihlus heard something in his head pop faintly. He felt heat drip onto the back of his hand.

He looked down at the dark blue droplet and lifted his hand to his nose. His talons came away smeared with his blood, but something wasn't right with it. The blood had a rainbow hued sheen and beaded up into little perfectly formed balls. Nihlus quickly wiped the blood away. He had to hide it. He didn't know why exactly. By all accounts, he should be going to see Chakwas or another doctor on the Citadel, but the moment he thought about showing this to anyone, he was overcome with the certainty that he would never see Shepard again.

This wasn't the first time the pain had visited him. Ever since Eden Prime, the headaches had hit him every few days, followed by the oily blood. Shepard would have him removed from the mission if she knew, not out of any concern for him, but because she demanded the absolute best. If he was left behind…. No, he wouldn't allow it. He needed to be there. He needed to protect her.

He glanced around, but no one had seen it. Nihlus straightened his slumped shoulders and turned to see Wrex studying him again. He made eye contact with the krogan, and those red eyes narrowed. He'd seen.

Dread curled low in Nihlus' belly. That krogan was going to become a problem.