Massive Disaster 5-10
“This is an outrage!”
Off in the distance, Udina managed to echo all the way over to where Zedd sat, the white-suited man a Doppler effect of political impotence. The ambassador was fuming even more than usual, rail-thin cheeks pulled tight enough the man looked damn near vacuum-sealed as he paced back and forth.
He was almost wearing a groove into the Presidium walkway as Anderson and the Shepards stood there, taking it like a squad weathering a mortar barrage of bullshit. “If this was an attack on a Turian colony or even an Asari, the Citadel Council would be up in arms, and leave no stone unturned!”
Yeah, duh… Zedd rolled his eyes, the man sliding his aviators back on. Tell us something we don’t know, Udina. With a sigh, he went back to ignoring the Presidium politician, drumming his fingers on the table in a syncopated beat that matched the calculations firing off in the back of his skull.
“Stone unturned.” He echoed the words despite himself, eyebrows going high as he watched the insectoid mantis-like race the Citadel so kindly called a Keeper scuttle by. Part of him wanted to investigate and see what made those things tick, but there were also tons of them running around everywhere so there was no urgency there. “They’d probably build a monument to the stone before they actually looked under it.”
Seconds passed and no one said a word, not even a laugh or a snort.
Zedd clicked his tongue again. Guess I’m being ignored.
Rolling his eyes, Zedd leaned back in his chair, the cool clean air on the Presidium wafting back into his face with the faint smell of flowering plants that had never touched real soil. As pretty as it all was, and it was pretty…
That didn’t mean it wasn’t starting to get on Zedd’s nerves. Maybe it was having to deal with the three big-headed aliens that ran the place, but all of a sudden, the Citadel had started coming off a lot less like Space Heaven and a lot more like a doctor’s waiting room at the end of the universe.
His eyes trailed past everyone around him; the four other figures arranged around the small round table at the open-air café. For a second, his gaze went down to the tall glass of untouched, overpriced water sweating in front of him before raising his head to take in the view one more time.
Annoyed as he was, and he was annoyed, Zedd couldn’t deny that Space Heaven was still spectacular for sight-seeing. The impossibly vast, curved arms of the Citadel stretched out into the nebula-dusted void, a shimmering ringworld that defied physics and logic. Man, these Protheans knew what they were doing.
At least when it came to making things look pretty. A closer look, even from this far away, made it clear that the place was far from perfect. Granted, nothing was but even still… Massive energy waste on atmospheric containment. Structural stress points at the ward junctions. If you hit that strut there… and there… the whole arm shears off.
Zedd shook his head and forced himself to look away before he could find every little nit to pick away at. Okay, that’s enough. Letting himself run away with that line of thought was something he knew was just ego talking. Build your own mega-structure and then you can criticize.
A half second later, he snorted at the idea; the sheer concept of it almost insane to even think about. Yeah, right, like that’ll ever happen.
Biting back a laugh at his own craziness, Zedd looked back around the table.
Nina was completely lost in the blue glow of her datapad, one hand a claw as she leaned back in her chair. She’d probably want him to think that she was busy with work, but he could hear the tinny game jingle leaking from her earpiece. Kira sat right across from her and to his right, the blue-haired biotic’s omni-tool projecting a holo-screen of what looked like a highlight reel of eezo detonations on Spiral, one of the extranet’s many sites for short-form vids. Both of you are gonna wreck your attention spans this way.
“You know, the Council…” Zedd leaned back further, chair balancing on its rear legs as he defied gravity and good manners simultaneously. “I could just… poke ’em. A little bit.”
Nina didn’t look up from whatever freemium game she was currently addicted to. “Define ‘poke’, Zedd.”
“Oh, nothing major, I mean… y’know…” He waved a hand off at the gleaming, impossible skyline of the Citadel. “Just a little prank, a lil. Maybe reroute the Presidium’s automated traffic control to prioritize some of my favorite Drell slam poetry.”
Kira snorted, still locked in her Spiral loop-page as a Warp went off against a ground-car. “Why do you like that stuff anyway?”
Why wouldn’t I like the Drell? Zedd rolled his eyes. One of like two good aliens out here. “Or, you know,” he tutted his tongue as he scrolled through a mental list, “leak the Turian Councillor’s search history. Bet ‘ol Sparatus has some real weird shit deep in there. Maybe some elcor dildo stuff, maybe.”
Nina sighed, finally looking up as if she was the one being mature here and not claw-handing her datapad. “Zedd. We are trying to build legitimacy. Cyber-terrorism, even the funny kind, is generally frowned upon in diplomatic circles.”
“It’s not terrorism if it’s educational,” His counter came quick as his chair dropped back down with a clatter. “Just some white-hat shit, stress-testine, Neen. I’m helping them. Really.”
“Let him do it right before we leave,” Kira chimed in, still not drifting away from her explosion loops. “Imagine all those sky-cars stopped and people freaking out.”
“See?” Zedd pointed her way. “Kira gets it. It’s about perspective.”
“You’re both idiots and it’s about you being bored.” Nina corrected as she returned to her screen.
“You can’t be serious…”
Zedd blinked up to the table’s two other occupants, sitting right across from him and elbow-to-elbow. Kaidan Alenko and Ashley Williams, both looked out of place here, in their stiff Alliance hardsuits all around the fake forestry and bright lights of the Presidium.
“Messing with Citadel systems?” Alenko continued, the tired-looking biotic frowning. “With C-Sec already looking for an excuse to lock you up?”
“They don’t need an excuse, Lieutenant,” Zedd smirked back. “You not paying attention or what?”
Williams let out an annoyed grunt, the woman crossing her arms. “You’re going to cause an incident! We’re already on thin ice.”
Zedd’s gaze slid over to her, the tension in her jaw making it clear that she was just looking for some kind of fight. “I mean, that’s the point.” He spread his hands out over the table. “Ice is meant to be broken, Williams. That’s how you get to the water. And water drowns people. Either way, something happens.”
The Marine grunt in the white armor blinked as she stared back at him, mouth open as Nina just sighed again, a sound that carried the weight of the entire VCA.
“Ignore him, Ashley.” His girlfriend rolled her eyes. “He’s just… venting. His ego is bruised because the Council didn’t ask for his autograph.”
“My ego is unbruisable,” Zedd shot back. “It’s like depleted uranium.”
Nina scoffed. “Radioactive?”
Zedd fought the urge to stick out his tongue. “Dense and self-sharpening under impact.”
Nina glanced up from her game again. “And why not diamond, like a normal person?”
“Nina, Nina…” Zedd shook his head slowly, tut-tut-tutting his tongue as he did so. “Diamonds might be good enough for you…”
Kira snorted again.
“…but they’re hard, pretty and garbage at toughness. I have higher standards.”
“Yeah, okay, whatever.” Nina pulled a face back at him, clearly giving up on the maturity angle. “And Kai’s missing again, by the way.”
Zedd blinked and glanced over his right shoulder. Huh… The spot where his personal ninja had been standing — under a thick tree that provided a patch of shadow under all the direct Presidium light — was empty.
“Well…yeah.” Zedd tilted his head. “Kai does that.”
He wanted to say he’d noticed it happen; that his sensors had tracked the displacement of air or even Kai’s subtle shift in weight. Unfortunately, that would be a lie.
Ever since the augmentation suite, Kai Leng didn’t so much move anymore. It was more like he just… edited his location if you blinked too long. Too good with my own stealth mods… Zedd clicked his tongue against his teeth. Man’s gonna give me a heart attack one day.
A second later, he blinked. Actually…
Being real, that probably wasn’t true. Even if he lacked the extra redundant ticker he’d given Nina and Dev, his own heart wasn’t exactly standard issue anymore. After the upgraded serum did its work, the thing in his chest was less an organ and more a muscle on its own, thumping with a slow, heavy cadence that could punch through a bulkhead.
At the very least, it was tough enough to at least kick it with a kiddy Krogan.
“He’s probably stalking someone,” Zedd just shrugged it off. “Everyone needs a hobby.”
Nina raised an eyebrow. “Why not birdwatching?”
“There’s plenty of Turians here. Who says he’s not?” He took a sip of the water as Ashley snorted at that despite herself, visibly fighting it even as she giggled. Got ya.
“Mr. Victors…”
What… Zedd bit back the single curt question as he looked up, the CEO dragging his gaze away from a half-laughing Williams as he glanced to his left. Udina? The white-suited ambassador approached their table, two N7s and Anderson still off in the distance, probably arguing about who had to write the report. Huh… I don’t like that look.
The look in question was the forced smile Udina was wearing.
It was a painful thing to witness, like watching a dog try to do calculus, especially considering the expression didn’t even come close to reaching his eyes.
“Director-General Herra.” The ambassador’s tone was a little too smooth, a little too eager as he slid from Zedd to Nina. “I’m glad I caught you both before you could leave. I was hoping we could have a more… productive conversation, now that you are finished with the unpleasant formalities of the Council chambers.”
Zedd just blinked, entirely unsure if Donnel Udina could really define ‘productive’ by any metric other than what made his job easier and career path higher. “We had a conversation, Ambassador.” He kept his tone clipped, doing his best to cut through Udina’s oil and get the man back on a more honest, angrier path. “It was short. They said no. We left. Seemed pretty productive to me. Efficient at least, talk about a time-saver.”
“Zedd,” Nina’s voice was a warning, gentle as it was. She didn’t look up from her datapad even to look at Udina, fingers still dancing across the holographic keys. “Let’s not.”
Udina’s smile tightened, the skin around his eyes crinkling in a way that told Zedd he agreed with Nina. “What the Council fails to appreciate…” The man pressed on, turning his attention back to the table as he spoke over Zedd’s head, “is the shifting political landscape, first and foremost. While the Citadel races are largely static, the Alliance’s position can be strengthened in many ways.”
Many ways, Zedd nodded like he was listening, one of his favorite songs playing in his head over the ambassador’s words. Many, many, many, many ways…
“When it comes to independent colonies, like the worlds under your Victory Accord, they present an opportunity…” Donnel nodded along with Zedd. “Granted, I’m aware your specific polity has only been in existence for a scant year or so, but already they represent a significant, unified bloc.”
Okay, hold up… Both eyebrows went high behind his aviators, the blue of the lens not doing much to hide his surprise at the path of the conversation. He didn’t believe the bullshit — Zedd knew damn well Udina didn’t give a damn about the colonies — but he had to question the math here. “350 million people is what you consider significant?”
Now, to be fair, Zedd wasn’t doubting that was a lot in terms of people. A lot of mouths to feed, a lot of sewage to process; whatever, sure, but on a galactic scale…
Hell, even on a human population scale, it just wasn’t that many.
Earth alone had twelve billion or so people still managing to choke it of life, plenty of cities stacking favelas on top of skyscrapers. It still wasn’t all that perfect even after generations of off-world building and subsidized pushes for colonization that were pretty much the most polite way you could kick someone off-planet without using jack-booted jarheads. Here’s a ticket to a rock in Alliance space. Good luck with the pirates.
And those twelve billion were only a third of the total human population kicking around in the galaxy.
Compared to all that, three hundred and fifty mil was…
A rounding error at best; maybe a slightly large town.
“Gathering roughly three dozen colonies and outposts is nothing small, Mr. Victors,” Udina leaned in, voice growing more insistent. “That’s roughl-“
“That’s almost 1% of the total galactic human population!”
Zedd blinked over at Ashley, the Marine’s eyes going wide at the number as she immediately did the math. More like .83% but yeah…
Udina looked over at her as well, and the woman shook her head, shutting her mouth almost immediately. Smart girl.
“…exactly,” Udina said, the ambassador quickly recovering his cadence. “And a good bit over 2% of all humans in Non-Alliance Space. Now, if you were to, say, formally align their trade and defense policies with the Alliance…”
“Ambassador, the charter of the VCA is built on the simple principle of mutual prosperity in uncontested space, separate from the hands of the Alliance.” Nina finally looked up, expression carefully neutral as his girlfriend slid into full Director-General mode. “We are a cooperative formed originally from a trade agreement, not a political tool to be leveraged in the Council’s internal squabbles.”
“I understand, Director Herra,” Udina hummed.
“Do you?” Nina raised an eyebrow. “Because it should be obvious that our independence is our product.”
“Of course, of course,” Udina waved a hand, brushing off Nina’s point like it was a fly. “But, simply think of the message it would send. A unified human front in the Traverse and Terminus allied with its home planet. It would give us a much stronger bargaining position on matters of mutual interest.”
The ambassador leaned forward. “Like, for instance, the investigation into a rogue Spectre.”
Zedd’s bark of a laugh had Udina rear back. “You want to use my colonies as a stick to poke the turians with, so they’ll take your claims about Saren seriously. If that’s your play, you need to look at the gameboard, man.”
He leaned away from Udina, the blue lens of his aviators reflecting the Ambassador’s flustered expression back to him. “Look, I like the birds as much as I like varren, and I hate those fish-dog things, but I have to give respect where it’s due.” Zedd clicked his tongue. “You don’t poke a predator unless you’re ready to lose a hand.”
Granted, he knew his Blueguard could stand a fight, especially with the Legion with them as backup.
But that was also the thing; they couldn’t do much more than fight. The biggest weapon he had for his Blues so far was a Destroyer class. A whole line of them; beautiful ships, rugged and deadly enough to stomp standard destroyers, dominate a cruiser and even take on a heavy cruiser, sure.
“What are you smoking, old man?” It still didn’t do anything to change that Gunmetals were still just Destroyers. They didn’t have dreadnoughts the Turians did, not yet, and they definitely didn’t have the sheer, crushing weight of numbers. “Because if it makes you hallucinate like this, I might want to synthesize it.”
As Udina was about to launch into another sputtering defense, the words ‘soft power’ already leaving his mouth, a silent figure materialized at Zedd’s shoulder.
Just suddenly there.
“Kai, buddy?” Zedd leaned back, hands gripping the armrest to keep from flinching. My heart, man…
The ninja leaned down, voice a barely audible breath of wind meant only for Zedd. “Sir. I’ve observed a pattern. Three separate individuals, different species, all making dead drops at the same public terminal in the Wards. Their movements are too coordinated to be random. It smells like STG. Request leave to investigate.”
Zedd didn’t hesitate or bother asking for details as to why exactly Kai was watching random dead drops. Kai’s paranoia was the man’s superpower even before his stealth became an actual ability.
The CEO gave a short, almost imperceptible nod. “Have fun. Make sure you clean up your messes.”
Kai was gone as silently as he had appeared, melting back into the Presidium crowds like ink in water. Zedd watched until he couldn’t see the man any longer, sighing as Udina scoffed over his shoulder. Kai needs a raise.
“I don’t get you, Victors.”
Zedd blinked out of his thoughts, eyes widening a little to see Lieutenant Commander John Shepard standing there as Udina backed off, the ambassador still fuming. The male Shepard was standing in front of his sister, arms crossed and expression conflicted with both soldierly directness and genuine, frustrated curiosity.
“…we’ve had like one conversation.” Zedd frowned his way, thinking back to the short back and forth they had in front of Doctor Chakwas back in the Normandy. “I don’t see how you even could yet.”
“That’s not what I mean.” John Shepard sighed slow. “You know that’s not what I mean.”
Do I? He raised an eyebrow back at the blond man with a buzzcut. “Well, what do you mean?”
“For example, in there you had the evidence to bury Saren like you said before, but you played games with the Council…” Shepard shook his head. “That doesn’t make sense to me.”
“First of all, they were playing games with me…” Zedd held up a finger, other hand pushing up his glasses.
“I could see that,” Shepard nodded, “but we both know you aimed to needle. So, what exactly is your angle her?”
Zedd leaned back in his chair again, a slow smirk spreading across his face as Nina sighed loud to his left. “My angle, Commander, is that this is your fight. You are part of the Citadel. Which means Saren is your Spectre, this is your Council, and this is your mess. I’m just a tourist with a vested interest in seeing how it all plays out.” His smile widened out into a grin, showing a bit of teeth. “That and shooting a Spectre in the fucking face.”
“I see…”
Zedd knew he really didn’t. While Shepard might not have understood him yet, it only took all of one conversation for Zedd to piece him together. John Markus Shepard was very much the ideal soldier; not stupid, but very much focused, solid and honest.
A real Paragon.
He didn’t expect John to understand in the slightest and wasn’t surprised the man didn’t.
With a click of his tongue, Zedd sat up in his chair and jerked his chin in John’s direction. “Forget me. Let’s talk about you. That beacon of yours… it’s uhhh, it’s a lot, huh?” He tapped the side of his own head. “All that raw information. You pick up anything special when that beacon blasted you or just vibes?”
John blinked back at him, clearly taken aback by the sudden shift. “I… I don’t know. It was just… images. Flashes, really. A feeling of… dread. Nothing like language. Just… a lot of screaming. And machines.”
“Everything is a language if you know how to read it.” Zedd ducked his head, the words more to himself than to John. Still, he had hoped for more.
Before Zedd could ask anything more, the ground vibrated just a little; rhythmic thuds aimed their way impossible to ignore.
Everyone at the table glanced up, a few mouths falling open at the sight of a massive, armored figure striding towards the café, heavy hardsuit and thundering footfalls obvious against the quiet hum of the Presidium.
Zedd’s mouth joined along, open almost as wide as the four sitting around him. “…you’re joking?”
The question was answered as the krogan’s scarred, plated head swiveled, red eyes ignoring the shocked stares of the asari shoppers, the whispers of the salarian tourists, and the way the C-Sec officers tensed and reached for sidearms at his approach as his gaze landed firmly on Zedd.“Victors!”
“Victors!” The gravelly avalanche of a voice booming loud enough to make several patrons spill their drinks as a wide, toothy grin split that ancient face.
Wrex?
The massive bulky form of Urdnot Wrex picked up the pace, moving fast enough to make a rhino flinch, and in a matter of seconds, the ancient Krogan reached their table. Laughing, the Battlemaster mercenary clapped Zedd on the shoulder with a force that would have sent a normal man sprawling; collarbone shattered in several places.
Zedd just rocked with the impact, his frame absorbing the blow and stared back up at the first customer of Victory Innovations in front of him for the first time in five years. “Heard you were on this can.” Wrex rumbled as he leaned against the table, the material groaning in protest under his weight. “Had to come find you. That hammer you built me…”
The krogan shook his head, a look of genuine, almost religious reverence on a face that wasn’t built for soft emotions. “A work of art. I’ve got clans on Tuchanka already writing songs about the thing. I call it ‘Pride’.”
Zedd found himself smiling, just staring at the Krogan he hadn’t seen since he was eighteen years old. “Glad you like it, Wrex. Does it crush skulls the way you wanted?”
“Crushes whole bodies, boy,” Wrex rasped, laugh like grinding gears. “Damn near liquifies meat off the bone.” The old krogan grinned his way as he leaned close, the smell of old blood in the air enough to make Zedd wonder if his armor was naturally red. “Rumor has it you’re in the market to kill a Spectre.”
Both Zedd’s eyebrows spiked high. News travels fast in the gutter.
“Hunt.”
Jane Shepard advanced from behind her brother before Zedd could answer, the redhead eyeing Wrex as her fingers twitched; they weren’t near her gun, but her stance said as much. “We’re in the market to ‘hunt’ a Spectre. For his crimes. To bring him to justice.”
“Yes,” Her twin chimed in, one hand resting on her shoulder before Jane could pick a fight with the living weapon that was a krogan. “Nobody’s killing him. Not unless we have to.”
“Wellll…” Zedd pulled a face, tilting his hand back and forth. “Define ‘have to’.”
Jane narrowed her eyes at him. “If we are, you’re definitely not going to be the one to do it.” The woman’s gaze slid off him with a scoff and landed back on the Krogan.
Zedd saw the calculation in her eyes and shrugged as he gestured at his old ‘friend’. “Lieutenant Commander Shepards, meet Urdnot Wrex. Wrex, these are the twins hunting Saren.”
He paused for a second, the idea settling as he looked back over at the least agreeable of the twins. “Shepard. You’re going after a rogue Spectre. You’re going to be walking into a lot of places where you could use a krogan. A legendary biotic krogan, too.”
Jane met Wrex’s gaze directly, refusing to flinch or look away. “Wrex. I’ve heard of you. Bit of a reputation on you.”
Wrex let out another one of those rockslide laughs. “A bit?”
Jane Shepard hummed. “I need someone on my team who can handle themselves when things get ugly. Someone who isn’t afraid to break things to get the job done.”
Wrex leaned forward. “Ugly is my specialty, Lieutenant Commander. And breaking things is a close second.” The massive form of the krogan cast a shadow over the whole table, Ashley joining Jane with fingers twitching too close to a weapon. “But that pyjak-faced bastard of a Spectre screwed me out of a payout on Omega.” He grinned again, showing all his teeth. “You don’t need to ask me twice.”
Just as the new, unlikely alliance was being forged — muscle meeting mission — a silent figure returned. “Sir.”
Kai Leng once again stood at Zedd’s side, the man’s expression as unreadable as ever. But this time, he wasn’t alone.
Standing beside him, looking profoundly uncomfortable, was a turian in the gray hardsuit of the Citadel Security Services. The warhawk’s mandibles were set in a frustrated line, eyes darting around the café, from krogan to Shepards and back to Kai.
“Sir.” Kai nodded at Zedd. “We have a complication. I found this one investigating the same individuals.
“I am C-Sec Officer Garrus Vakarian.” The officer’s gaze landed on Zedd, voice smoother than the average turian’s. “And I think we have a mutual problem.”
Zedd looked from the exasperated turian to Kai. “…Kai, did you steal a cop?”
