Chessa and Garrus both smile at each other as they enter C-sec and approach the group of three officers around Wrex. As Chessa and Garrus near, one of the officers notice Garrus and call out to him. “Ah Vakarian, here to help us wrangle this krogan in...Wait, who’s that with you?”
Garrus steps forward with Chessa stopping at his side and the turian cupping his hands together behind his back straightening his stance. “Just playing tourist Jones, this is Commander Shepard of the Normandy SR-1 crew. What’s going on here?”
Wrex growls abit and shifts to look at Chessa and Garrus then back at Jones narrowing his eyes some. Jones gives a nod to Chessa then looks back at Wrex sharing in his stare. “Wrex here was said to be making death threats at Chora’s Den.”
“We have eye witnesses of this?” Garrus rose a brow asking.
“Well there were claims of it from Fist’s bouncers and a couple of the patrons, but no hard evidence due to Fist not having video surveillance.”
Chessa chuckles some speaking up. “While that would be enough to warrant a warning you need more evidence than that to convict him. You can’t really trust the bouncers given Fist’s connections, that I’m sure you’re aware of, and a couple bystanders…well… flimsy case at best.”
Jones was caught abit off-guard by Chessa’s knowledge of the code, but nods a couple times. “Yes. We’ve warned Wrex to stay away from Fist and Chora’s Den as returning will confirm the claims being made.”
Wrex laughs looking at them. “You should be warning Fist. I will kill him.”
Again the human and krogan lock eyes just daring the other to make a move when Garrus clears his throat. “I’ll take over here Jones. Technically this has turned into an investigation now. You three can go resume what you were doing.”
Jones and the two turian officers look between each other, but nod and step away leaving Wrex with the pair. Wrex looks at the two stopping at Garrus almost looking him eye to eye. Wrex was abit large for a krogan standing just over seven feet at the top of his hump, but his head was around six and three-quarters. He had kind of yellowish-gold skin, frog-like face, and three long scars from the red crest atop his head down to just in front of his right eye ending at almost the base of his neck. His red eyes showed no fear as he had clearly seen many battles and was well hardened from a long active life. “So Vakarian, I’m guessing you’re here because you figured out Fist has what you want huh?”
“No surprise you already have it all figured out Wrex. Though I bet it was just because the Shadow Broker filled you in when he hired you huh?”
“Not fully, Heh Heh. Wasn’t too hard to put it together though,” Wrex smiles looking at Chessa now. “And you must be Shepard. Want a hand with Fist to get at the quarian huh? Well you give me Fist and she’s yours.”
Chessa smirks crossing her arms and looks at Wrex. “And what if I don’t give you Fist? All Garrus has to do if say the word and you’ll be arrested. Though I think you’d like the challenge.” She chuckles smiling at Wrex seeming to already read him and knowing his reaction. Garrus notices the look she was giving Wrex and it was the same she gave him the first time they met. It was abit different though. When she looked at him there was a hint of suggestion to it, but this one was different it seemed. She had that happy look, but it was like she was tempting him.
Wrex met Chessa’s gaze turning to fully face her and even bring his face mere inches from hers. “I’ve seen that look before cat, and while good, the krogan females do it way better.”
After a moment Chessa smiles and gives a chuckle extending her handpaw out to the krogan. “If that’s the case then you know the routine. Welcome aboard Wrex. I got a couple spots in C-sec to hit before going to Fist, but they are quick stops.”
Wrex shakes her hand and growls abit being slowed from his target, but it wasn’t like any defense Fist could gather would stop him. “Fine, but they better be quick. I don’t get paid by the hour.”
The three move abit deeper into C-sec and they stop to talk with Jahleed, hearing him talking about Chorban wanting him dead. Seeing as she was helping Chorban she figures something was off, and convinced Jahleed she’ll speak with Chorban as she was almost done scanning. After that they chat with Officer Chellick, the turian who ‘bumped’ into Chessa at Chora’s Den, in which he thanks her for not blowing Jenna’s cover. Chessa agrees to help get some illegal mods from a contact in return for cutting Jenna loose.
Scanning the last keeper near the Normandy, the trio takes a shuttle back to the wards markets. In the lower markets just outside of Chora’s Den, they meet with the mod contact and go through with the deal easily. Though, maybe it was due to them seeing Wrex standing just behind her smirking the whole time. Making a final stop to speak with Chorban, she reassures him about Jahleed and turns in the scanner telling him they have to work together or all their work will go to waste. She contacts Jahleed to tell him all is well and that Chorban will meet him in C-sec to get clear up the mistake.
By this time Wrex was getting quite annoyed and wanted to get Fist already. Chessa agrees and they move to Chora’s Den as an air-cab rather quickly zips away from it. They don’t think much on it as they reach the doors and they hiss open. Chessa’s crew quickly drew their guns as Armstrong holds up his arms halting them. “Whoa, easy. Fist and all his goons are taken care of.”
Wrex looks at them then to Chessa growling, “What the hell Shepard? I was supposed to kill Fist. What are they doing here first?”
Armstrong straightens up giving a small salute, “Commander Jack Armstrong of the System’s Alliance. This is Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams, and Staff Lieutenant Kaiden Alenko. We were requested by Commander Shepard to assist in the capture and detaining of Fist on accounts of treason, and conspiracies against the Alliance. Unfortunately Fist refused to be taken alive.”
Chessa shakes her head and places a paw over her face to hide a sneaking smile as he was laying it on abit thick but it seemed to be working. Wrex just looks at Chessa growling again. “Fist was my target Shepard! I was paid to kill him with my own hands!”
Chessa nods looking at Wrex, “I understand Wrex, but does it matter who killed him? Sorry, I didn’t expect them to move in without us, but the deed is done. Fist is gone and your contract fulfilled.” Wrex just kind of grumbles and turns away as Chessa looks back to Armstrong. “So what did you find out?”
“Fist has sent the quarian into a trap. It’s in the back alley of the wards near the air-cab for the club. We need to hurry to catch the meeting before it happens.” Armstrong states rather calmly.
“What?! Why the hell didn’t you say that from the start? Let’s go!” Chessa turns and takes off into an almost run the others moving to catch up with her.
Armstrong manages to catch the feline and halt her just before she reaches the door. “Whoa, slow down and think Shepard. If we bust in guns blazing they could kill the quarian. Seeing as that alley only has two exits, let’s all get on the same channel and we’ll move to the other side to cut off any chance of escape.”
Chessa stares at him wide-eyed for a moment before taking a breath and nods to his plan. The six separate with Chessa, Garrus, and Wrex moving into the alley first. Chessa hands Garrus her sniper rifle which causes the turian to smirk. Chessa draws her pistol, Wrex his shotgun, and they take positions behind cover as Garrus readies himself. Garrus lets Chessa’s rifle fold out and he notices a cord that he plugs into his targeting reticule. His toes curl in excitement as he hears the Quarian say she wanted fist and the shadow broker. ‘Oh she was good,’ he thought. ‘Bolt-action, auto adjusting telescopic lens with audio link, heat sink, and a recoil damper, looks like she even has anti-personnel ammo loaded, she was expecting something like this.’
Armstrong’s voice chimes in over the teams headsets as they move into cover on the other side of the alley. “We’re in position. We move on your mark.”
“Roger that. Alright Garrus it’s on you. When you take the first shot we move in.” Chessa takes a breath and readies herself to move.
“Affirmative Commander,” Garrus speaks simply as he focuses upon the assassin in the group nearest the quarian. He had to make his shot count, but with the turian so near the Quarian he couldn’t risk that shot. He decides to hit one of the others off to the side. Shifting his sight slightly he sees her smack the turian’s hand away and declare the deal was off. This was his chance. His breath catches, and time seems to slow to a near stop as he pulls the trigger. The sound of the rifle goes off as the bullet is launched causing all to jump slightly in the alley as not even a split second later the bullet zings through the salarian’s skull dropping him instantly. The quarian was quick to react and drops a flash bomb and runs away diving into nearby cover. Chessa and Wrex jump from their cover guns firing. Wrex rushes the nearest goon ramming him into a nearby wall and emptying a load from his shotgun right into its midriff. By now Armstrong’s group had rushed down the ramp laying down assault rifle fire and Kaiden slinging in a tech proximity mine to sabotage the groups’ weapons.
The battle was over just about as soon as it had started, with the bodies of the assassins were strewn about the alley. Everyone gathers near the quarian and Chessa smiles at Garrus holding a handpaw out to get back her rifle. “Great shot Garrus.”
Garrus was just smiling from ear to ear, or at least as best a turian can smile, almost reluctant to pass up the rifle. “Thanks. Remind me to steal that beauty from you next time I get a chance.”
Chessa just giggles placing it back into its spot on her back smirking. “Oh I’m sure you have better.”
Garrus shakes his head, “No. C-sec doesn’t allow us to use military grade weaponry. Well unless you’re Special Response. They get the good stuff.”
Chessa nods smiling as Armstrong checks on the Quarian. The quarian, Tali’Zorah nar Rayya, stood around five and a half feet abit smaller than an average quarian. Her armor, if one could call it that looked more like an envirosuit was rather elegantly decorated in fancy cloths and many belts and fasteners to hold them in place. Upon the small of her back and hip were an older style shotgun and pistol. She looks around at the group and thanks them with a soft eastern/central European accent. Asking for a quick explanation she tells them while she was on her pilgrimage, she had stalked a group of geth till she could disable one of them. After salvaging some audio files from one’s memory cores, which indeed linked Saren to the Geth, they quickly decide to take her to the ambassador’s office to reveal the evidence.
In Udina’s office, Udina and Anderson convene between each other. Udina is sitting at his desk currently talking to a c-sec officer, while Anderson stood abit behind him looking around the Presidium.
The C-sec officer, which turned out to be Jones looked rather annoyed. “Ambassador you can’t let your troops do things like this. We are in galactic space, and the System’s Alliance must follow protocol.”
“I assure you this is all a big misunderstanding…” Udina states in his best professional tone, but it was clear he was just as annoyed as Jones.
Anderson steps over to the console looking at the officer. “I’m their commanding officer and I will take responsibility for these actions. They are due back here soon and we will find out their reasoning. Let us handle it…”
“As I stated you cannot do such things here without authorization. If we had known you would do this we wouldn’t have let you bring your weapons onto the station.”
“Captain Anderson, Officer Jones….I was the one that worked to clear them in case something happened, which it has. I will handle any paperwork, and I got that approval through Executor Pallin. You can take your problems up with him.”
Jones looks at him, but knew he was defeated. “Very well…sorry to disturb you ambassador, we will await your report on the matter.” With that Jones cuts the feed making Udina let out a hard sigh as he stood up.
Anderson moved back to his spot as Udina’s starts to pace abit in the center of his office. “Anderson you had better be right about this. You’re rag tag crew have done more than enough to put our chance at getting a seat on the council back a hundred years.”
“I know Shepard and Armstrong. They wouldn’t do this unless they were onto something big. We just have to hold back the fire till they can return.”
As if on cue the group walks into Udina’s office, and he doesn’t even turn to look at them as he starts speaking. “You two aren’t making my life easy. Starting firefights, raiding Chora’s Den, and discharging military grade weapons in the-,” Udina pauses as he turns around seeing the aliens with the original 4 causing him to raise a brow. “What’s going on? Who are these three with you?”
Armstrong tenses some but Chessa takes a step forward to halt him. She raises an arm to motion to each of them. “This is Garrus Vakarian, the C-sec officer in charge of the Saren investigation. Here we have Urdnot Wrex, krogan mercenary hired by the Shadow Broker to take down Fist who was helping Saren. Finally we have Tali’Zorah nar Rayya, and she’s about to make your day Udina.”
Anderson smiles, abit glad to see his faith in the pair seemed to be well founded. Udina straightens up some though as he looks at Tali clearly not as convinced as Anderson. “Hmm, we don’t see many quarians here. What information could you have that can help us?”
Tali steps out abit from the group looking around. “Well as I have told the others I was on a pilgrimage and followed some geth till I could disable one. What I found was this audio file.” Tali taps on her omni-tool and Saren’s voice is heard, ‘Eden Prime was a major victory. The beacon has brought us one step closer to finding the Conduit.’
Anderson quickly cuts in speaking triumphantly. “That’s definitely Saren’s voice. This proves he was leading the attack.”
Chessa shifts abit getting a chill up her spine. “That’s great, but what’s the conduit? If the beacon brought them closer than I might have that same thing.”
“Knowing Saren it must be some Prothean weapon. Something he could use to wipe us out…” Anderson again states confidently.
Tali speaks up with her omni-tool still activated. “Hold on…he wasn’t alone. Listen.” This time a woman’s voice was heard. ‘And one step closer to the return of the Reapers.’
Chessa felt a knot in her stomach now as a bad feeling washed over her. She did her best to hide it, but a three fingered hand resting upon her shoulder made her quickly look back. Garrus gives a soft nod silently saying he sensed her unease though he wasn’t sure why she was feeling this way suddenly.
Udina breaks the short silence rubbing his chin in thought. “I don’t recognize that other voice. What are these Reapers she spoke about?”
“According to its memory core they were hyper-advanced machines that existed around fifty thousand years ago. Supposedly they were responsible for the Protheans going extinct, but they disappeared after and there’s no evidence supporting this. At least it’s what the Geth believe, so maybe they have some proof.” Tali states calmly giving a small shrug at the end.
“Sounds rather far-fetched…” Udina responds.
Anderson looks over at Chessa noticing the look upon her face. “Shepard are you okay? You look ill.”
Chessa nods gathering herself. “Yeah just…what if my dream really was the beacons message…the protheans warning others about the reapers?”
Everyone goes silent thinking on it able to see Chessa’s unease due to her vision. Anderson breaks the silence looking at them. “It’s possible, but you said yourself you can’t make sense of it.”
Williams speaks up next, “Hey what about that massive ship on Eden Prime?”
“Yeah…I’ve never seen a ship like that before.” Alenko adds in.
“What did it look like? I know the Geth very well and could point out one of their ships.” Tali questions.
As if taking turns Armstrong was the next to go. “It was a golden color and shaped like a hand. Unbelievable massive, bigger than a dreadnought even and yes it actually landed on Eden Prime.”
“It left a massive area of Eden Prime as just a near molten lake.” Williams cuts in showing abit of unease remembering it. “It was like the hand of god coming down to judge the colony.”
“Also made this noise that messed with my biotic implants…was like it was trying to work into my mind,” adds Alenko.
Tali looks between them all blinking wide-eyed inside her helmet, course no one could see this through her violet mask, but it was clear as she took a moment to respond. “Um wow…That doesn’t sound like any geth ship I’ve seen. Even if it was a new ship something that big can’t land on a planet. The mass effect core alone would have to be the size of a cruiser.”
Everyone again become silent as if they are all thinking the same thing for a moment, before Anderson breaks the silence. “Sounds abit hard to swallow…Not saying it’s true or not, but either way with this we have Saren over a barrel.” The aliens kind of look around at each other not getting the couple human sayings, but knowing what they meant.
Udina nods rubbing his chin. “Yes, the council can’t disprove this. Come Anderson we have to contact the council and get them to listen.”
“Of course, Sparatus is gonna love this,” Anderson chuckles looking at the group. “Stay out of trouble everyone. You’ve done more than enough. Udina and I will handle the rest. I’ll call when it’s time.” He and Udina head out of his and everyone looks around at each other.
Tali kind of rubs her hands together looking at Chessa a long moment before speaking up. “Shepard…um can I join your crew? I’m a very skilled mechanic, and don’t eat much.”
Garrus looks at Tali giving a small glance along her body it more of a military scan than checking her out. “It’s true. Quarians can do amazing things with machinery, and if we face any geth she could be very useful. That and I’m not letting her out of my sight as she has the evidence.”
Chessa looks at Garrus then at Tali smiling. “Well we aren’t recruiting really. The job is done and Saren is good as finished as a spectre, but I agree we can’t leave Tali alone. So till we know what’s going to happen you’re more than welcome to tag along Tali.”
“Thank you Shepard.” Tali moves over shaking Chessa’s paw with both her hands a few times very glad to be safe.
Chessa frees her paw giggling some patting her shoulder. “Very welcome Tali and you can call be Chessa.” She looks around at the group consisting of many aliens and humans. “So I figure we have around an hour or so while they fight to get the council back in session. Who’s going where?”
Armstrong takes a step forward signaling to the humans by him. “I’ll take Alenko and Williams with me you can do whatever with the rest of them.”
Kaidan shifts abit uneasily speaking up, “Um actually sir, I would prefer to go with Chessa.” Armstrong just gives a nod not forcing the marine to go where he wanted.
Wrex was the next to voice his opinion “And I have a contract to fulfill. Even if someone else did kill Fist he is still dead, so I deserve my pay.” Wrex turns to head out though get stopped by Armstrong tossing him an ID card.
“Take it. I don’t like mercs, but I’m not going to snatch someone’s meal from their mouth. Besides you technically were with our group so even if you didn’t take the killing shot it’s still valid.” Wrex just laughs catching the card moving towards the door.
“Hehhehheh. You’re alright. We’ll be in touch Chessa…” The door hisses shut behind Wrex now leaving the rest standing there.
“Well I guess Kaidan can come with me if he wants.” Chessa states as Kaidan makes his way over.
Armstrong nods looking down at Ashley, “Very well, guess it’s just us then Williams. Let’s go.”
“Sure thing Commander,” Williams states falling in behind Armstrong.
“Let’s get going too then,” Chessa smiles waving an arm to her group to follow. They cut into the Elcor embassy to clear the mess up between the Elcor and consort, before heading down to the main lobby of the embassy finding Armstrong and Williams speaking with a guy about his wife’s body. Armstrong sets a large hand upon the man’s shoulder saying he’ll get her returned to him and Williams offers some reassurance, as she was in her squad, on how she always talked about him and loved him. Chessa’s crew slips by as Armstrong heads up the opposite stairs heading for the embassy bar to settle this. Chessa can’t help but feeling sorry for the soldiers he was going to talk to.
Chessa’s group makes their rounds pausing for abit at the consort’s office. At the entrance she is greeted by Nelyna a young asari in Sha’ira’s employ. “Ah Shepard, Welcome back.”
“Hey Nelyna. Think you can buzz Sha’ira and tell her I got her little errands done?”
“Sure thing one second,” Nelyna puts a finger to her ear talking to Sha’ira through a headset for a moment before hanging up. “Sha’ira wishes to see you in a moment. She’s currently with a client, but if you’d go sit down she said it’d only me a few minutes.” Nelyna motions over an acolyte telling her to care for Chessa and her group under Sha’ira’s order. The acolyte leads the group to a spot and offers to get them food or drinks which they all agree to some simple snacks and drinks.
