Massive Disaster 5-8
Chapter 8
The docking was a silent job, precision even; careful and tight to the point that Zedd knew it was more the man than the machine doing the work.
Art, really.
Hell, call it fuckin’ ballet.
He was pretty good behind a helm, but that was combat flying. Zedd knew where his talents were and it was not something like this. Joker, huh? The CEO nodded to himself as the Jade drifted into dock beside the Normandy in his peripheral, Kai Leng having kept pace with them since Eden Prime. I gotta see if he wants a new job.
Zedd hummed aloud as he took in the heart of galactic power as they drifted further in; five massive arms curved gracefully around a central ring, teeming with the lights of a hundred different civilizations as ships of every shape and size moved around and through it. Yeah… they got me beat.
Kira’s eyes were wide too, hers and Nina’s both; the two of them staring like the gates of actual goddamn Space Heaven were in front of them. It was enough to make a man feel inadequate, just painful really.
Ego could only protect so much and it certainly didn’t make him blind. No exaggeration, the Citadel might as well have been Space Heaven the way it looked, videos on the extranet not even coming close to doing it justice.
There was no other way to put it, other than majestic.
Not just for the size of it, the raw scale, but for how absolutely beautiful it was.
…well, at least they can’t build it. That was the silver lining there.
Zedd tilted his head again, walking away from the viewport along with everyone else.
The Commanders Shepard were in the front of the pack, the shorter and angrier of the two taking point as her taller twin brother made idle conversation with Anderson; captain and XO prepping each other with whatever information they hadn’t already covered in the fourteen-hour-trip. A black-haired-biotic and a white-armored grunt followed right behind the three leading figures in the front, and that left him, Kira, and Nina easing up the rear.
All of them made their way toward the primary exit as the frigate finished easing into the docking bay with a barely audible sigh of maneuvering thrusters.
In a matter of seconds, the primary airlock hissed open, aperture cycling through its decontamination protocols, and — well…
His mouth opened, a sigh slipping out at the all-too-expected sight of a full squad of Citadel Security officers waiting for them. There we go…
Not the standard, two-person patrol that greeted most vessels to check for contraband or unregistered fruit or whatever the Citadel declared restricted, no; Zedd found himself staring at a full ten-officer tactical team.
Turians and humans both, their hardsuits were a dull, professional gray; pristine and untarnished by anything resembling real combat, mouths and mandibles set in grim, unwelcoming lines that screamed rules, regulation and registration.
Where the Shepards blinked, freezing up at the obviously unexpected, Captain Anderson strode past as the first one down the ramp. Each step was heavy, grounded and firm, enough to encourage the twins to follow a half-step behind him; both their N7 armors a stark black against the sterile white of the docking bay.
As Zedd stepped out after them, he couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow at the sight of rifles on all ten of the security forces; held at a low, ready position — not aimed, but definitely far from relaxed too.
Oh, nice. Zedd hummed out loud, hands deep in the pockets of his coat. A ‘polite’ threat.
His glasses did their part, white reticles stark against the blue of the lenses as they tracked three… no, four snipers in the upper gantry, along with the ten in front of them, before he’d even cleared the ramp. Amateurs.
He almost scoffed out loud, but who could blame him? Batarians back in ‘81 were better than this weak shit. Nova Kaseiopia had been a shit-show, but even he had to hand it to them. Those four-eyes came ready to end me.
A veteran turian with scars that traced the lines of his facial plates stepped forward, clearly the lead officer, and raised his hand in a sharp halt of a gesture. “Captain Anderson.”
The voice was as rough as any Turian male, made worse through the filtering of his helmet’s vocoder. “Your submitted flight plan did not list your full passenger manifest.”
“There were last-minute changes to our mission, Executor.” Anderson’s reply was as level and professional as ever, his voice a rockslide to the Turian’s gravel. The captain didn’t stop walking until he was nearly chest-to-chest with the turian, shoulders square as the career military man stood tall. “We have urgent business with the Council.”
The Executor’s gaze slid past Anderson, over the Shepards entirely, and locked itself onto Zedd, eyes narrowed as they focused like a laser sight. “Our scanners identified a figure on the Citadel watchlist among your crew.”
Anderson hummed. “And who is that?”
“One Victors, Zedd.” The Executor didn’t miss a beat. “Flagged under Citadel Security Protocol 7-Gamma as potential threat; a non-state hostile actor linked to unauthorized paramilitary activity in the Traverse and Terminus systems.”
Cold as it was, the air seemed to chill even further in the docking bay as Zedd let out a short laugh. Nothing about it was all that loud, but in the pressurized silence, it echoed off the polished deck plates like a burst from a gun.
“Potential threat?” He drawled the first word, another laugh leaving him as punctuation. “I’d say I’m flattered but I thought y’all would have upgraded me to imminent by now.” Zedd clicked his tongue as all ten C-Sec officers focused on him. “But I guess you guys aren’t up to date on the last disagreement.”
Disagreement.
The word was an understatement if there ever was one. Slapping back Turian ‘peacekeeping’ attempts in the Terminus already pushed him higher on the galactic shitlist, Zedd knew that much. However, he also knew that it was the three separate STG black sites digitally scrubbed from existence by ADAM and his squad of combat NAVIs that probably pissed them off the most. Toads should really mind their own business.
That and the thirty-seven Salarian intelligence assets… retired for being fucking nosy about it.
If that hadn’t done the job, then spreading misinformation on the extranet to drop Asari bond values an entire percentage point might also have done it, but that was more to be petty than anything else.
The Executor’s mandibles twitched in irritation, the sound a sharp click-click as the C-Sec officer gripped his sidearm tighter. “Victors, you and your company are under Citadel sanction for the development and proliferation of unregulated directed energy weaponry, involvement in the creation of unsanctioned genetic modification technology, and suspected involvement in the destabilization of multiple non-human colonies.”
“Suspected?” He pulled one hand from his pocket, checking perfectly cleaned fingernails. “You can do better than that, Executor. I can give you my server logs if you want. I’m very proud of my work. Or maybe you want the receipts for the humanitarian aid we dropped on Anhur when the Batarians there got uppity?”
“Zedd.”
Nina’s murmur was a low tone, almost a warning hiss.
He looked up from his nails, smiling back at the scowling war-bird. “If you’re gonna call me a terrorist, don’t chicken out. Call me a fucking terrorist.”
Anderson stepped to the side, placing himself physically between the C-Sec squad and Zedd himself, a human shield in dress blues. “Executor, Mr. Victors is here under my authority as a material witness to the attack on Eden Prime; an attack that involved a Citadel Spectre. As of this moment, he is under the protection of the Systems Alliance.”
Zedd nodded slowly behind the man, well aware he was going to abuse that protection for as long as he could.
“The authority of the Alliance does not supersede Council security protocols on the Citadel itself, Captain Anderson.” Mandibles twitched as the Executor made a noise that Zedd knew as the Turian version of a scoff, a hard chff sound. “I have orders to detain Victors.”
C-Sec officers shifted their weight, their rifles coming up a few degrees as the air breathed imminent violence.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” Kira chose now to speak, eyes glowing as she stepped forward. Her biotics shimmered a thick cobalt blue around her hands, air crackling with the ozone that came with biotic potential. C-Sec flinched, electronics no doubt screaming warnings about the Matron-worthy eezo field that had just materialized in front of them. “Unless you want to face the ass-end of a Warp, I’d take a good few steps b-”
“Executor!” A voice cut through the tension and Kira’s words both, tone sharp and thick with the fury only a career politician could carry.
Tall and lean to the point of scarecrow-thin, the man strode forward onto the docking bay. His close-cropped gray hair exposed a long skull with a high forehead bare as the rest of his thin, gaunt face and hooked nose.
Zedd’s face spread wide into a grin. Udina.
Donnel Udina moved like a man on a mission, the ambassador flanked by two human aides who looked even more stressed than he did. Face a mask of outrage, his eyes burned with a frustration directed at everyone and no one at once, looking as austere and uptight as he always did. “Stand down. Now.”
The Executor turned, posture stiffening. “Ambassador. I am following Council directives regarding high-risk individuals.”
“And you will follow mine,” Udina’s voice echoed loud in the bay as he marched right up to the turians, not even addressing the rifles. “This is an Alliance vessel, carrying two Alliance heroes, as well as a key witness under Alliance protection.” Each repeat of ‘Alliance’ was almost a burst of shardfire the way the man barked it out. “C-Sec will not be detaining anyone without going through official diplomatic channels. Unless you wish to explain to the Council why you sparked a diplomatic incident with the Systems Alliance inside the Presidium docking ring? Now…”
Udina stepped even closer, almost breathing the air from the Turian’s mouth. “Are we clear?”
The Executor was silent for a long, tense moment, eyes trailing from Udina’s furious, red-faced visage to Anderson’s grim gaze. Finally, he landed on Zedd again, the smile on his face accompanied by a cute little wave that had Nina elbowing him in the side as he did it.
He didn’t stop.
The Turian finally grunted. “Of course, Ambassador.”
The Executor gave a sharp, clipped signal to his squad; all weapons lowered, their posture relaxing from combat-ready to merely hostile as the snipers slid back, actually out of sight even to his sensors.
Before the Executor left, the officer kept his attention on Zedd. “We will be watching, Victors.”
“I’d be disappointed if you weren’t.”
– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –
Minutes passed as they made their way through the Presidium, Zedd’s gaze drifting as he took in the Citadel for the first time. As much as he didn’t want to enjoy it, he felt very much like a tourist and kind of wanted to explore the giant cosmic superstructure simply out of curiosity. It was massive for a reason, and if there were any secrets to the place that the three main Council races hadn’t discovered in millennia of milling around, he wanted to be the one to find them all out.
Kai Leng slid in with their group not too long after the mess with C-Sec, the N7-worthy assassin somehow having slid past security as he added his presence to their number. Zedd didn’t even think about it, too busy with sight-seeing as they moved at a quick pace further into the Citadel’s structure. Man, this place has some huge elevators.
Huge as they were, enough to handle all ten of them, they also managed to be ungodly levels of slow. Slow enough to convince him that he’d rather run up and down however many stairs this place even had rather than waste his time using them unless he had to. And that’s a promise.
The annoying elevator led them to the sterile, imposing confines of Ambassador Udina’s office in the Presidium Embassies, the view from the floor-to-ceiling window a perfect panoramic vista of the Citadel’s impossibly vast interior arms.
…I hate that I want to move here.
“Do you have any idea the political capital I just burned through?” Udina whirled to face Anderson, the man finally done with all the pacing he’d been doing behind his desk. Hands clasped behind his back, the man’s eyes almost twitched with each word, movements jerky and much less composed than before.
Zedd lounged back in one of Udina’s expensive white chairs, one leg casually crossed over the other as he watched the ambassador finally blow up. Nina and Kira sat to both sides of him, as Kai leaned up against the wall by the door, a stark black presence against all the white in the room.
“Getting C-Sec to back down? Placating the turian Councillor? I had to call in some real favors, David, and none of them small.” He hissed the word at the captain, both Shepard twins at his side. “All because you decided to bring… him.”
Zedd raised a hand to wave at the man as Udina shot him a look of pure and profound disgust, as if the corpo were something he had scraped off his shoe in a dark alley.
“He was a necessary complication.” Calm as ever, the man’s voice was an anchor against the storm that was Donnel Udina’s ranting. “The Geth attack on Eden Prime wasn’t random. It happened during Victors’ negotiations with the colonial council. His presence makes this more than just a Geth incursion. We’re dealing with a potential political assassination attempt; one that Saren needs to answer for.”
“Or,” Udina’s voice dripped with sarcasm as the man stepped past his desk to glare around the room; not even the quiet forms of Alenko or Williams untouched by the man’s heat, “it makes it look like Victors’ own brand of Terminus thuggery finally followed him into civilized space, and Eden Prime was simply caught in the crossfire! The Council wants his head on a platter, Anderson.”
Zedd nodded at that. True.
“Bringing him here, to the heart of the Citadel…” Udina threw up his hands, “it’s like bringing a lit bomb to a state dinner!”
“Relax, Ambassador. The bomb’s not lit. Yet.” Zedd clicked his tongue. “Trust me, I left the detonator on the ship.”
“And you!” Another hiss.
“Me.”
Udina’s face went from flushed to crimson as a single trembling finger aimed Zedd’s way. “You will not speak unless spoken to. You are here as a guest of the Alliance, and you will behave as such. Your… reputation has only grown worse over the last few years, Mr. Victors.”
“My reputation is for building things that work,” Zedd answered back with a smile that refused to waver, almost frozen in place on his face. “Like the Medigel-V currently saving Alliance lives in quite literally every posting you have. A product that, as I recall, the Alliance was very eager to secure an exclusive distribution contract for, through our friends at Sirta.” His glasses slid down his nose a bit, showing off brown eyes that didn’t match the expression he wore. “A contract that is, of course, contingent on our continued friendly relationship… so cut the shit, Udina, and be nice to me.”
Udina’s jaw worked silently, the man unable to deny it. The Alliance had become quietly, but critically, dependent on Victory Innovations’ superior and secretive advancement in Medigel technology over the last two and a half years. Above everything else, it was the dirty little secret that gave Zedd a seat at this table, and everyone that mattered knew it.
Especially since those same people knew that Sirta was still nowhere close to replicating the oddities in how Medigel-V worked, despite having the effective components handed to them on a silver platter. Dilute a Stimpak and culture its growth in some specially prepared medigel.
Easy enough, for him and Adele at least, but apparently too complicated for the geniuses at Sirta. Which was odd, but he didn’t really have the time or interest to figure out why.
“That is… that is entirely a separate matter.” Udina looked away as he finally managed to strain the words out.
“Is it?” Nina spoke up for the first time since they entered the man’s office, voice calm, professional and utterly unyielding. It was also really really hot, too, but she hated when he mentioned that. “Ambassador, the Victory Cooperative Accord and the Systems Alliance have a mutually beneficial partnership and a desire to unite the colonies that have fled your reach.”
Udina grunted, the man clearly not liking the wording already.
Nina didn’t seem to care. “We also provide life-saving technology that you provide a stable market for.” One hand rested on his lap, Zedd immediately sitting up as she gripped tight. “Mr. Victors is the architect of that technology. An attack on him, or on a colony he is negotiating with, is a threat to that partnership. And you’re intelligent enough to be aware in the Alliance’s best interest to see this matter resolved.”
She squeezed again. “Quickly.”
The sigh the ambassador let out was long enough that the cold room rose at least half a degree before the man slumped into the chair behind his desk. “…fine.”
A hand rose, the man rubbing his temples with both eyes closed. “Fine. I will arrange a hearing with the Council. I will offer Shepard a chance to provide testimony. And you…”
He opened one eye to glare at a still-smiling Zedd. “You will be present as a witness. You will answer their questions. You will be polite. You will not make any sarcastic remarks about their mothers, their military, or their intelligence services. And you will, under no circumstances, mention Medigel-V or your… unauthorized fleet.”
Zedd leaned forward on the couch. “I’ll do you one better, Ambassador. I won’t just answer their questions. I’ll give them the evidence they need to convict Saren.”
A collective silence fell over the room, with even Udina stunned out of his anger.
Jane Shepard stepped forward. “What are you talking about?” Her voice was as sharp as ever, green-eyed glare aimed right at him. “We didn’t recover any data. We didn’t even get footage of Saren.”
The male Shepard raised an eyebrow. “She’s right. Apart from what we have of the Geth, there’s nothing but eyewitness testimony.”
Zedd’s smirk returned. “The Geth on Eden Prime weren’t just shooting, Commander. As synthetic and networked beings, they’re always transmitting. That includes data bursts, communication logs, all the good stuff in a constant stream of chatter.”
He tapped the side of his aviators. “And I was listening.”
Zedd stood up, cobalt coat flaring slightly. “I have a complete recording of Saren Arterius giving direct orders to the Geth. Encrypted, verified, and ready for playback.”
He looked at Anderson, then at Udina, smile widening into something that promised victory.
“The question is, Ambassador… what’s it worth to you?”
