Who Saves the Hero by Kudara

Who Saves the Hero - Chapter 23

Illium - Nos Astra, Eternity Bar - late afternoon on the same day as Normandy's arrival at Tuchanka

Seated in a corner booth on the first floor of Eternity a blue complexioned asari, her face bare of any facial tattoos or markings, perused some information on her omni-tool. She was clothed in the latest business fashion, a long dress only a shade or two lighter than the blue hue of her skin and dark red accents. Occasionally she took a sip of the colorful drink in front of her. There was really nothing about her that would make her stand out from the crowd. She blended seamlessly into the large population of asari that lived and worked in Nos Astra, just one face among many.

Spectre Tela Vasir let her eyes wander over the news feed her omni-tool was displaying, only partially paying attention to the words. Most of her attention was focused on picking out the various conversations going on around her. Eternity was an excellent place to pick up the latest gossip around Nos Astra, and even though almost a week had passed since Shepard left Illium, the human Spectre was still a frequent topic of conversation. From what she had heard so far, Shepard had drawn attention to herself wherever she went, striding around the city in full battle armor and with enough weaponry on her back to start and finish small war.

Personally, the asari found enough surface similarity between the way Shepard behaved and the way most of the turian Spectre's she knew behaved to amuse her. She doubted pointing out that out to either would win her much good will though; there was still a lot of tension between humans and turians because the Relay 314 incident or First Contact War as the humans insisted on calling it. Tela wasn't going to complain about Shepard's conspicuousness though; it certainly made it easier for her to collect the information about the human Spectre's activities here that Councilor Tevos had requested.

That was good, because she wasn't planning on contacting the Shadow Broker for data on Shepard; in fact she wasn't planning on contacting the Broker for information on either of her current missions. His information always came with high price attached to it, thus she preferred to contact him only when absolutely necessary and only when her mission was critical enough in her judgment to warrant her paying the price that he might ask. Sometimes his price was information; sometimes he wanted someone permanently out of the way. So far none of those had been innocent individuals by any stretch of the imagination, so she hadn't had many qualms in doing what he asked. Still neither was something she enjoyed doing, thus she always kept her requests to an absolute minimum.

The asari Spectre had taken a few hours from her primary investigation into the theft of sensitive economic data from the Council's Ministry of Finance to visit the bar last night and she was here again now this afternoon. It had proven to be time well spent, during it she had learned that the local Eclipse mercenary groups were still trying to regroup after losing so many members as well as both Captain Wasea and Captain Enyala during Shepard's assaults on them. In addition to that, they were facing the possibility of official sanctions from the Illium authorities; the lead detective in the case was apparently pushing hard for those given what the police had learned about the mercenary group's activities.

Because of the news reports on Shepard and Justicar Samara, the mercenaries knew exactly who had attacked them, and the few Eclipse members she had overheard spoke of the human Spectre in tones of mixed anger and wariness. Shepard had walked into a major Eclipse base with only two others, a turian and quarian, and then emerged less than an hour later without any significant wounds. The next day she, Justicar Samara and a young krogan had completely decimated the Eclipse forces guarding Nassana Dantius. The Eclipse sisters were taken aback by Shepard's combat abilities. Tela was not; she had reviewed Shepard's record from both before and after the human had been made a Spectre. Shepard was deluded in her continuing belief that the Reapers actually existed, but there was no denying that, for her race, the human was a very competent warrior.

She glanced at the time; it was almost the end of the workday. Tela paid for her drink and slipped out of the bar. She paused for a second outside the bar to glance around casually; no one appeared to be paying any particular attention to one nondescript business suit clad asari among the throng of other busy asari dressed almost exactly like her. The Spectre headed over toward the commercial spaceport, she should be able to catch Detective Anaya working late while most of the officers assigned to this shift were out on patrol. Given the sensitive nature of the conversation she hoped to have with the detective, she preferred that there not be many witnesses around to overhear it.

After a short air taxi ride from the Nos Astra transportation hub, Tela stood outside of the Nos Astra Commercial Spaceport Police Station. She glanced though the large windows, as she had hoped there were only a few officers at their desks and yes...there was Detective Anaya. Tela had already read all the detective's official reports to her superiors. She knew what the news reporter's and public didn't know, that the Illium authorities had tried to interfere with Justicar Samara's investigation by ordering the police to detaining her and that had led to the first known occurrence of a Justicar swearing the Third Oath of Subsumation to a Spectre and a human. Something the involved authorities were trying very hard to make sure never became public knowledge.

As publicly non-racist as the asari claimed to be, finding out that their own government had deliberately interfered with a Justicar's investigation, and that in turn had lead to the Justicar swearing an Oath of Subsumation to a human would have some severe political repercussions for the government officials involved. Humanity was too new to the galactic scene; they were seen as being too pushy and too brazenly forward in promoting their interests even at the expense of the other Citadel races by many asari. Combine that with Shepard's own uncertain reputation... Yes, the first human Spectre had saved the Destiny's Ascension and the Council, but she had also been labeled as deluded and misguided by the Council for claiming the Reapers actually existed. Unfortunately for their hope of keeping their actions secret, the local Nos Astra government's security wasn't as good as they thought it was, and certainly wasn't good enough to stop Tela from breaking into their network. What the asari Spectre wanted now were the detective's personal observations about Shepard, the things that hadn't gone into her reports.

She stepped into the station and made her way over to the detective's desk, drawing only brief glances from the other officers before they returned to their work. Detective Anaya, who was reading a message on her data terminal, glanced over at Tela as she sat down in the chair on the opposite side of the desk from her. The detective frowned, "May I help you?" Despite her expression the detective's tone was polite.

"I was hoping you might have some information for me," Tela activated her omni-tool and showed her credentials to the detective. Anaya glanced at the display, a half second later the detective's eyes widened and jerked back up to meet the Spectre's. Tela inquired, "In the information you obtained from the Eclipse have you come across any mention of a group called TruthHax?" The asari Spectre already knew there wasn't any. She had searched through the Eclipse databases the police had seized from the mercenary groups' base for any information relating to her primary investigation yesterday; this was just an excuse for her to talk to the detective.

Not surprisingly the detective didn't seem to recognize the name. Anaya shook her head, "I don't think so," she turned to her data terminal, "I'll run a quick search for it though, we got a lot of data from their base after Spectre Shepard went through there." The detective was subtle, but Tela noticed the quick side-ways glance right after the other asari mentioned Shepard's name, looking for her reaction.

"So I understand from the news report I've heard," Tela acknowledged easily. "I understand she came through this office?"

The detective turned her head to look at her directly. Their eyes met for a few seconds, Anaya's gaze searching and curious. Tela knew her bland expression would give nothing away to the other asari. "Yes," the detective responded, "Shepard was seeking Justicar Samara's aid for some mission. I don't know what, but the quarian with her mentioned saving a lot of innocent lives. The justicar agreed to go with Shepard in exchange for her help in obtaining some information from the Eclipse base that the justicar needed about a fugitive she was chasing." That would have been after the detective detained the justicar under orders from her superiors, Tela knew, thus necessitating the justicar request of Shepard's assistance instead of finding the information out on her own. "I wasn't sure if three people could take out that base," Anaya continued, "but they did it and fairly quickly too." The other asari sounded impressed.

"Shepard is a Spectre," Tela reminded the detective evenly; she left unspoken the reminder that so was she.

Anaya eyed her, "So she is," the detective agreed. Her terminal chimed, indicating that the search she had started was finished, Tela guessed. The detective glanced over at it, shook her head, "My search found no reference found to this TruthHax you're looking for in the Eclipse data we recovered, Spectre."

Tela shrugged, "It was an outside chance anyway, but I needed to check."

Before the asari Spectre could start working the conversation back around to her true topic of interest, Detective Anaya leaned back in her chair and eyed her, "Shepard wasn't what I expected, for either a human or Spectre."

Or the detective could make it easy on her, Tela thought to herself. "How so?" she asked, it was a rather vague comment.

"She's very religious," Anaya replied, "and has a high regard for the law. She also seems very accepting of other species. I've seen her with a turian, a quarian, a young krogan, and I know she recruited Justicar Samara and a drell while she was here..." the detective's gaze sharpened, "which makes the fact that she's commanding a Cerberus identified ship, with Cerberus personnel crewing it rather odd."

Normally the asari Spectre appreciated it more when the law enforcement personnel she interacted with proved to be highly intelligent and insightful. This once however, she would have preferred that Detective Anaya wasn't quite so quick to pick up on the fact that she was more interested in Shepard than in finding information about TruthHax. Tela narrowed her eyes, "Spectre's are allowed to use whatever resources they deem necessary to complete their mission," she responded, in a cool, clipped tone.

The detective held up her hands on a mollifying gesture. "I was just pointing out that Shepard didn't seem the type of person who would be working with Cerberus, and they're not exactly known for working with non-humans. Both times I spoke with Shepard she was the only human in her team."

The asari Spectre stared at Anaya for a second and then inclined her head, in agreement, acknowledging that much was true. Shepard was working with Cerberus for several different reasons, but nothing she had learned so far indicated that Shepard agreed with the terrorist group's militant pro-human agenda. "Why would you mention her being religious?" That statement had surprised Tela; she didn't recall Shepard's profile mentioning that the human held any particularly strong religious beliefs. Anaya sat back in her chair and began relating what Shepard had said to the young Eclipse mercenary the human Spectre had brought back with her as her prisoner from the Eclipse base, while Tela listened with keen interest. Honoring the young asari's plea to the Goddess that she be spared, asking this Elnora to change her ways, citing not disappointing the Goddess as a reason she was trying to reach out and help the young mercenary. This was the type of information Tela had been looking for, evidence of Shepard's state of mind as well as her actions.

When Anaya finished, Tela stared at her thoughtfully for a second, what she had just heard was surprising given the lack of any evidence that the human had any strong religious beliefs two year ago. Shepard did believe that she had been clinically dead however, and whether true or not that might have influenced the human to reevaluate her spiritual beliefs. Considered in that light, perhaps this information was not that surprising after all. "I've never met Shepard," Tela admitted, "so I really wouldn't know what her beliefs are." Actually only Nilus, who was then killed by Saren on Shepard's first evaluation mission, and of course the rogue Spectre Saren had met Shepard. She privately thought that was a mistake on the Council's part, the first human to be made a Spectre had no strong ties to any of the other Spectre's. She would have personally preferred the opposite to be the case. At least Shepard had recruited non-humans to be a part of her crew to hunt down Saren, thus proving she had no issues working with the other Council races. From what the detective had just mentioned, and from the information the Council had on her activities, Shepard was doing so again. If Cerberus objected, she was ignoring them. "You mentioned several non-human crew members; can you tell me anything more about them?" The detective had already guessed she was actually seeking information about Shepard, Tela rationalized; at this point it was better to just ask her questions and leave.

"I know the turian with her was a C-Sec officer, he's the one who originally put together the information on Eclipse's operations for me," the detective replied. "But I never heard her mention his name."

Tela already had a strong suspicion, "Blue facial paint?" At the detective's nod she said, "Garrus Vakarian, he was a member of her crew before." That was a surprise, where had Shepard found him? From what Tela knew he had left C-Sec shortly after the human Spectre had been declared missing in action and presumed dead by the Alliance and disappeared.

"I suspect the quarian was Tali'Zorah then," Anaya commented, "the three of them were very familiar with each other."

The asari Spectre's eyes narrowed briefly, she didn't like being misled, not even in a minor way such as what had just occurred. If the detective suspected who the quarian was with Shepard, then that meant that the other asari had also guessed the identity of the turian as well. "The krogan and the drell?" her tone was noticeably cooler as well as carrying a hint of command.

The change in her tone wasn't missed by the other asari, who shot her a wary look before responding, "I don't know much about them. Shepard picked up the drell in the Dantius Towers though; he wasn't with her when she spoke to the officers who arrived in response to her emergency call. As for the krogan, I don't think I've ever seen one so young before. When I was giving them a ride to their ship from the towers, he mentioned something about Okeer's tank imprint not mentioning much about humans except their weak points for how to kill them. It was rather strange."

Tela frowned, the name Okeer wasn't familiar to her, but maybe she could find some information on him in the Citadel records. A tank imprint though, that sounded like something a clone would need to function. In which case her next questions were where had Shepard found this krogan clone, if her suspicion was indeed correct, and was someone out there creating more of them? She would have to go searching for the answer to those questions later though. "Anything else I should know about them?"

"I think the drell killed Nassana Dantius and not Justicar Samara or Spectre Shepard. Her guards were all killed at close range and Nassana died from an upward shot point blank into her stomach that passed through her heart. The method of death is unique, and unlike those we can definitely attribute to Shepard and Justicar Samara."

Tela had to agree, that didn't sound like your typical justicar execution. A close quarter's assassination however was another matter. "I'd like a copy of those autopsy reports."

The detective nodded, she turned toward her terminal and began pulling up the requested files. "I don't suppose you'll let me know if you figure out the identity of the drell?" she asked, sounding like she suspected the answer would be no. "If I'm right, then whoever he is, he's good. He took out three guards and Nassana Dantius while they were all within a four meter area of each other with no cover... and none of them even got a shot off at him."

Anaya sounded impressed and no wonder, if the drell was the killer he was fast, and sounded like an expert at close quarters combat. The possibility of his being a professional assassin went up in Tela's mind, which might also explain why Shepard had been interested in recruiting him. "Why do you want to know?" she inquired of the detective instead of answering immediately.

Detective Anaya shrugged, "Curiosity?"

Spectre Tela raised one brow at the detective's reply, "Perhaps," she replied evasively. It really depended upon what she learned about the drell's identity and whether or not she thought sharing the information could possibly compromise any of Shepard's missions. The human Spectre's investigation into Cerberus' true motives and interest in the Collectors was too critical to jeopardize to satisfy this detectives curiosity, as was Shepard's primary mission to stop the Collector attacks on human colonies.

Normandy - Engineering Deck - late afternoon on the same day as Normandy's arrival at Tuchanka

"Jack," Shepard greeted the other woman as she took the last of the steps down to the space underneath the engineering deck the biotic had claimed as her own. The ex-convict was resting on her cot, a data pad in her hand which she had apparently been reading moments before.

Shepard," Jack's eyes narrowed on her as she tossed the pad over to rest with a few others jumbled together in a heap.

"We found out what was wrong so to speak with Grunt," she knew the biotic had to have heard about the krogan's erratic and aggressive behavior. "He's becoming a full adult krogan."

The tattooed woman's eyes widened slightly in surprise, and she sat up, "Puberty?" Her lips twitched in amusement, "Grunt's growing up?"

Shepard nodded in response, "Krogan's undergo a Rite of Passage to prove their worthiness to join a clan. Wrex agreed to let Grunt join Clan Urdnot if he completes his Rite. We're doing it tomorrow morning and I thought you might be interested going with us to stretch your legs and kill a few things." She had thought about this on the way back to the ship. Except for shore leave on Illium, Jack hadn't been on a mission in a few weeks. The biotic had to be getting antsy by now and this seemed as if it would be a good match for the ex-convicts preferred combat style. No holds barred and no worrying about collateral damage. Her main duty would be to keep Grunt and Jack focused and working together instead of charging forward and trying to kill everything by themselves.

Jack glanced over at the data pads on her cot for a moment and then back over to Shepard, "Yea that might be interesting."

"How's your data hunt going?" Shepard inquired, glancing over at the pads herself. She wished she had a better idea of exactly what Jack was looking for in the Cerberus databanks the tattooed biotic had bargained for access to in exchange for joining them. She knew the woman wanted to go after the Cerberus members who had tortured her as a child. Shepard had no real problem with that, but the ex-convict had also mentioned going after their friends and associates, people who presumably had nothing to do with what had happened to her. That was another matter entirely. She had told Jack that she wouldn't let her go on a killing spree and she meant it.

"I'm still searching through it," the other woman responded briefly.

She didn't sound as curt or angry as normal so Shepard decided to it might be a good time to get more information. "Can I ask exactly what you're looking for?"

Jack's dark wary eyes met hers, Shepard returned her stare steadily, and waited. Finally the ex-convict responded, "The research facility where they raised me. I'm looking for its location"

Shepard drew in a surprised breath at the answer, thinking through the implications of it, and then she nodded. "Ok, let me know as soon as you find the location." What they would find there she had no idea, but she could think of a lot of reasons why Jack might want to go there.

Illium - Nos Astra, Transportation Hub - early evening on the same day as Normandy's arrival at Tuchanka

Tela was still considering all that she had learned from Detective Anaya as she walked though the Transportation Hub area on the way to her hotel. A salarian male staring at her as she walked through the area drew her immediate attention and her thoughts immediately shifted from analyzing the data she had gathered into heightened awareness of her surroundings as she searched for other possible attackers. The salarian started walking in her direction; he was dressed in dock worker clothes, pockets on the legs and arms could hide several different compact weapons. She took in his non-aggressive body language and the way he held his hands carefully away from his pockets and within her sight as he approached her. He didn't seem as if he intended to be a threat to her, but he did appear to know her true identity.

"Lt. Aerlan Maleis, STG, please follow me Spectre Vasir," the salarian said in an undertone as he drew even with her. The asari smoothly shifted directions to walk with him, it might be a trap, but chances were that he was telling her the truth. She had to wonder though what the salarian Special Tasks Group was doing here. She knew a group had been assigned to investigate the human colony disappearances in the Terminus Systems, but what was an STG team investigating in Nos Astra and what did it have to do with her?

Tela followed the salarian through one of the connector tunnels toward the main trading floor, then took an escalator to an upper floor midway and headed toward one of the arcology skyscrapers. That was interesting and vexing; it suggested there was a long term STG surveillance team permanently placed in Nos Astra. She hadn't known about this STG team and she suspected Councilor Tevos wasn't aware of its existence either. Granted, Illium wasn't properly in Asari space, but it was still an asari colony world, the salarians should have mentioned they had a team stationed here. They took the elevator up to the sixty-third floor and got off, walked a distance down the hallway. The doors started getting farther apart, signifying that the units were larger.

Lt. Maleis stopped at one of the doors, Apartment 6345, Tela noted, and pulled out a pass card. He swiped it over the sensor next to the door. There was the slight sound of the door unlocking and the salarian pushed it open. He waited for her to enter before making sure it closed properly behind them. "Our team normally monitors the ship traffic and commodities both legal and illegal coming into and out of Illium from the Terminus Systems," he said as he started up the hallway, the first words he had spoken since introducing himself and asking her to follow him. "Councilor Valern contacted us a few weeks ago and had us start planning for Spectre Shepard's arrival."

"You were expecting her because?" Spectre Vasir suspected she knew, but was curious about what answer he would give her.

He stopped, turned, and looked at her with an irritated and slightly insulted expression. "Liara T'Soni is here," he answered curtly before turning to continue up the hallway, as if that should explain everything. His attitude amused the Spectre; he was right though, that was all the answer he needed to give. There was strong evidence that Shepard and the pureblood asari maiden had been lovers. It was logical to assume that Shepard would seek her out; the only question was why the human had waited so long and why Liara T'Soni hadn't accompanied the Spectre when Shepard left.

They walked into what had originally been the apartment's living room, now it was simply a large room with several desks around the perimeter. Each desk had a data terminal and a salarian male sitting at it either watching the data streaming by or typing away at the keyboard. At one desk several displays showed the entrance to the apartment building, views of the elevators and hallway outside the apartment door. She watched the displays for a second, verifying that they hadn't been followed. As usual for the STG, this appeared to be a well run operation.

Satisfied, she turned back to the salarian lieutenant. He was apparently waiting on her from his slightly impatient expression, "I was able to get several of my men hired as dock workers. When we got word that Liara T'Soni had made arrangements and paid for the docking fees of Spectre Shepard's ship, we covertly arranged for them to be assigned to that particular dock. While the Normandy SR2 was docked, repairs were made and various parts of the ship were upgraded. In particular, the ship's medical bay was extensively refitted to increase its capability to handle traumatic injuries. We were able to obtain much of the original medical equipment and repaired parts." He indicated a door on the right hand side of the room, "If you will follow me."

The next room held mostly shelving units and a work bench, ship and medical equipment parts were stacked everywhere. The salarian motioned with one hand at the laden shelves, "We are still tracking down the purchase orders for many of these, but so far all the data we have shows them being ordered over the course of the last two years by Cord-Hislop Aerospace, a mid-sized starship manufacturer based on the human colony world of Elysium. We had previous intelligence that indicated it could be a front company for Cerberus; I believe that once we obtain the data on the rest of these items we can confirm that."

The asari's brown eyes narrowed as she looked over the different pieces of equipment, "How did they get the plans to the SR1?" She thought the joint development project of the Normandy class of stealth frigates had been highly classified by both human and turian governments.

He regarded her soberly, "Cord-Hislop Aerospace was involved in the fabrication and construction of the original ship. The chairman of their executive board along with several other Alliance defense industry executives approached the Systems Alliance military with the idea of jointly developing a frigate class of ship that included stealth capabilities with the turian Hierarchy. Because of what we have learned here, we will be looking more closely into the activities of the other human executives involved in the original planning of the joint venture for Cerberus links."

Her eyes widened for a fraction of a second in surprise at this information before narrowing again as she immediately began to analyze what Cerberus would have gained from doing such a thing. "They wanted access to turian military ship designs and technologies?" she guessed after several seconds.

The salarian blinked once and then nodded, his expression becoming more respectful. "That was our analysis as well. We knew Cerberus was well connected and well funded, but the ability to influence the development of the Normandy SR1 and the ability to build the Normandy SR2 in complete secrecy, as well as other recent evidence, indicates that they may have access to even more resources than we thought." Tela noticed that he sounded troubled, she didn't blame him. She remembered what Shepard had claimed about the extent of Cerberus' infiltration of the Alliance defense industry. She had been doubtful, but it seemed as if the human Spectre might not have been exaggerating.

As soon as he finished speaking, Lt. Maleis headed toward the door and the main room. Used to salarians and their sometimes abrupt manner as they shifted from one subject to the next Tela followed him as he crossed over to one of the desks and picked up an OSD chip from its surface. He held it out toward her, "We have dossiers on every crewmember who exited the ship while it was docked," he informed her as she accepted it. "They're not as complete as I would like, but give us another week or two and they will be. Only two of the human crew members were previously known to be Cerberus operatives, Shepard's executive officer Miranda Lawson and former Alliance marine Jacob Taylor. He was instrumental in stopping the batarian Ambassador Jath'Amon's attack on the Council almost two years ago." The asari Spectre nodded, she had heard about the attempt on the Council's life using a bio-engineered blood plague concealed in the batarian ambassador's hover chair.

"Mr. Taylor is not the only ex-Alliance military crew member," the salarian continued, "we've also identified Flight Lieutenant Jeff Moreau and Chief Medical Officer Chakwas of Shepard's original crew, and Propulsion Engineer Gabriella Daniels and Power Engineer Kenneth Donnelly who both served on the SSV Perugia during the Citadel Battle. As for the remaining human crewmembers, they all appear to have been recruited within the past two years from various human colony worlds, most of them in the Terminus Systems."

The asari Spectre found that information interesting. It sounded like nearly all of the ship's crew had been recruited specifically to work with Shepard for this mission and that plans for it had begun sometime shortly after the destruction of the original Normandy. "Did you note any signs of xenophobia among them?" she asked curiously.

"No," he responded readily, "which was unexpected given their association with Cerberus. A few of the human crewmembers from the colony worlds seemed to be unused to dealing with aliens, but there were no visible signs of hatred towards us."

"It's not surprising if they've been selected specifically to work with Shepard," Spectre Vasir pointed out, "everything we know about her indicates that she has no difficulty working with non-humans. If the claims Shepard made are true, then Cerberus is trying to win her willing cooperation, at least for right now. The Illusive Man has to know he wouldn't get very far with that by surrounding her with humans that gave lie to his claim that Cerberus is just trying to protect humanity."

"Hmm..." the salarian considered it for a moment before saying, "a reasonable supposition. The Illusive Man does appear to be very adept at manipulating both people and events." Before the Spectre could reply to that he continued, "As for the specialists Shepard has been recruiting for her combat team, there are currently seven members plus the two Cerberus operatives Miranda Lawson and Jacob Taylor. There are two other human's, Zaeed Massani a well known mercenary and bounty hunter, and a powerful human biotic named Jack. The remaining five specialist are all non-human: the asari Justicar Samara, a drell assassin, Thane Krios, salarian researcher and retired STG member Mordin Solus, Shepard's former crewmembers the quarian engineer Tali'Zorah nar Rayaa and the turian Garrus Vakarian. There is also a young krogan around the age of puberty with them whose identity remains unknown to us except for his name, Grunt."

Well... she had been right about the drell being an assassin, and finally something she knew which the salarian didn't thought the asari Spectre. "I have some information about the krogan," Tela said, and then shared with him what she had learned from Detective Anaya.

"Okeer..." the salarian muttered to himself thoughtfully, "That name sounds familiar, give me a moment please Spectre." He went over to one of the desks and talked to the salarian working there who promptly input in some data at his haptic interface. Seconds later the two of them stared at the information his request called up on the display screen. "Yes," Lt. Maleis said as he turned away from it to speak to her, "Warlord Okeer, exiled from Tuchanka approximately two years ago for trading other krogan to the Collectors in exchange for technology." Strange, that was around the same time as Shepard's death, Tela mused. "I would guess," the salarian continued, "that some of that technology was cloning technology."

After considering it for a few moments Spectre Vasir nodded, it was a reasonable assumption to make. "If Shepard's looking for information on the Collectors and knew about his activities it makes sense that she would seek him out to see what he knew," she commented. "Only how did she end up with this young krogan clone?"

"With the data we have I could not even begin to speculate," he responded in a dry tone and then abruptly switched the subject before Tela could reply. "Councilor Valern tasked us with learning as much as we were able about Shepard's ship. He is very interested in finding out how Cerberus managed to obtain the plans for and build the Normandy SR2 without any of our intelligence services knowing about the ship's existence before it showed up at the Citadel. From that fact that you are searching for information relating to Spectre Shepard, I would guess that Councilor Tevos would like to know more about her activities here."

Spectre Vasir eyed him thoughtfully as she considered her answer. He had shared with her his team's specific tasking and the information they had gathered so far, chances were he had information that could help her with her assignment. After a few seconds she nodded, "I am, and yes, the Councilor did," the dark violet asari admitted.

He made a hrmm noise of satisfaction and bobbed his head forward once before saying, "We observed Shepard visiting Liara T'Soni's offices above the Main Trading Floor on three separate occasions. For approximately the past twenty months, Ms. T'Soni has been aggressively seeking out information on the Shadow Broker and his operatives. We believe she is responsible for the disappearances and presumed murder of several of them, the latest of which was her secretary, an asari codenamed the Observer, who was spying on her activities for the Shadow Broker." The asari Spectre's brown eyes widened at that piece of information, why was Liara T'Soni starting a war with the Shadow Broker? And why had she decided to enter the decidedly shady, if potentially lucrative, field of information trading instead of going back to being an archeologist?

Lt. Maleis continued, "Spectre Shepard appeared to have been instrumental in gathering the data for Ms T'Soni which revealed the identity of Ms. T'Soni's secretary as the Shadow Broker's agent. After that visit, and after the disappearance of the Observer, Shepard never returned to Liara T'Soni's office even though the human did not leave Nos Astra for three more days." he paused for a second and then said to her, "I suspect a visit to Liara T'Soni might yield you some interesting information Spectre Vasir."

Tela's dark violet lips twitched upward in a slight smile, "I believe you might be correct Lt. Maleis, thank you for the information." She held up the OSD chip he had given her and added, "All of it." She was pleased with the information, but she was also concerned about what she was hearing. The Shadow Broker was not someone you wanted to make your enemy, at least not lightly and it sounded to her as if T'Soni was pulling Spectre Shepard into whatever dispute the pureblood maiden had with the Broker.

He inclined his head, "You are welcome. Also during our normal intelligence gathering we intercepted communications between Nassana Dantius and Eclipse Captains Wasea and Enyala implicating certain local authorities in illegal activities. Mostly accepting bribes to make sure port authorities ignored particular incoming shipments and that investigations into certain criminal investigations were hampered to such an extent that they were effectively stopped."

Spectre Vasir's eyes narrowed, these were serious accusations and went a long way toward explaining some of the suspicious information she had seen in the government files she had broken into while searching for information on Shepard's activities. Personally, she detested Illium. It was an asari colony world, but too often in name only and in her opinion was barely better than Omega Station. Too many asari came here because they were planning on engaging in business that wouldn't be tolerated on any other asari colony world or Thessia.

Take indentured servitude for example, a practice that wasn't legal in the Asari Republics, but was legal here. Illium authorities made the practice sound benign, but the truth was it went hand in glove with permissive lending policies, which encouraged people to take on heavy debts, and the legalization of red sand, a substance asari and batarians could not become addicted to, but humans, turians, and salarians found highly addictive. Not surprisingly, the vast majority of those in indentured servitude were there because of high debt due to their red sand addiction or playing the markets and losing.

The salarian reached over and picked up another OSD chip and held it out to her, "If you are interested in pursuing it, this is the data we intercepted."

Tela accepted it; if this information was true then Shepard had already taken care of half of the problem. She just needed to deal with the worst offenders in the other half. "Oh, I'm definitely interested," she assured him.

Continued...