Mass Effect™: Retribution (11 page)

“You’re telling me you can’t do
anything?”
Her voice rose sharply at the end of the question, her anger and frustration spilling out.

“If you stay here on the Citadel, I can keep you safe,” he assured her. “I’ll handpick a team of four or five soldiers I trust to watch over you.”

“It’s not enough,” she said, shaking her head in a stubborn defiance he remembered even after twenty years. “I’m not going to spend the rest of my life hiding from Cerberus. And I’m not going to give up on Grayson. There has to be a way to get to the Illusive Man.”

“Maybe there is,” Anderson exclaimed as a sudden flash of inspiration hit.

The ideal solution would be to call on Shepard for help, but that wasn’t an option. The commander was off the grid, doing God knows what, God knows where. But there was another option.

He jumped to his feet and extended a hand to help Kahlee up.

“Do you have somewhere safe we can stay for a few hours?”

“I’ve got a place in the Wards,” she replied, her eyes suddenly alight with eager expectation. “Why? What’s your plan?”

“The Alliance can’t help us. But I know someone else who can.”

“We need to see Ambassador Orinia,” Anderson told the turian receptionist. “It’s urgent.”

He recognized the young male behind the desk, though he couldn’t remember his name. Fortunately, the turian recognized him as well.

“I’ll tell her you’re here, Admiral,” he said, sending a message through his terminal.

It was well past supper time; most of the embassy offices were empty. But Anderson knew the turian ambassador would be working late.

“Go right in,” the receptionist said, though he did give Kahlee what Anderson assumed was the turian equivalent of a suspicious glance.

Orinia’s office was smaller than Anderson’s—not surprising, given the fact he held a much higher position than her in the Citadel hierarchy. Like his own, it was functionally Spartan in décor. A desk and three chairs—one for the ambassador, two for guests—were the only pieces of furniture. Three flags hung on the walls. The largest was the emblem of the Turian Hierarchy. The second represented the colony where Orinia was born; its colors matched the markings on the hard carapace of her bony skull. The third was the flag of the legion she served in during her military career. A solitary, bedraggled plant stood out on the balcony, sorely neglected. If Anderson had to guess, he would have said someone had given it to her as a gift.

Orinia was already standing to greet them. Warned by her assistant’s message, she showed no surprise at Kahlee’s unexplained presence.

“I’m sorry you missed today’s negotiations,” she said, extending her hand. “Has Din Korlak become too much for you to handle?”

Anderson ignored the joke as he clasped the ambassador’s hand. As always, the exchange was both awkward and clumsy. Orinia had readily adapted the familiar gesture of greeting in her dealings with humans, but she had yet to truly master the art of the handshake.

“This is Kahlee Sanders,” he said by way of introduction.

“Welcome,” the ambassador said, though she didn’t extend her hand.

Anderson didn’t know if Orinia had sensed his reaction to her handshake and decided not to repeat the effort, or if turian culture somehow viewed Kahlee as unworthy of the gesture.

You’d know all this if you were any good at your job
.

“I’m guessing this isn’t a social visit,” the ambassador said, getting right to the point. “Sit down and tell me why you’re here.”

As they’d agreed on earlier, both he and Kahlee remained standing as a way to convey the urgency of this meeting. Taking her cue from them, Orinia did the same.

“I have a favor to ask,” Anderson said. “One soldier to another.”

“We’re not soldiers anymore,” the turian replied carefully. “We’re diplomats.”

“I hope that’s not true. I can’t go through official diplomatic channels for this. Nobody in the Alliance can know I’m here.”

“This is highly unusual,” she replied.

He could sense the suspicion and hesitation in her voice. But she hadn’t given him a flat-out refusal.

“Are you familiar with Cerberus?”

“A pro-human terrorist group,” she shot back sharply. “They want to wipe us out, along with every other species in the galaxy except your own.

“Cerberus is the main reason we opposed humanity’s addition to the Council,” she added, a hard edge to her voice.

“Don’t define us by the actions of a criminal few,” Anderson warned her. “You wouldn’t want all turians to be held accountable for what Saren did.”

“Why are you here?”

Her voice was curt; obviously, bringing up Saren was not the way to try and win her over.

The one time in your life you actually want to be diplomatic and you make a goddamned mess of it
.

“We have information that can destroy Cerberus,” Kahlee said, jumping into the conversation. “But we need your help.”

The ambassador tilted her head to the side, fixing the humans with one piercing avian eye.

“I’m listening.…”

From the comfort of her private booth and flanked by her krogan bodyguards, Aria T’Loak watched Sanak make his way through the crowd at Afterlife.

She was a master at reading batarian body language, just as she could read nearly every sapient species in the known galaxy. Over the many centuries of her life she had learned to pick out the subtle cues that could tell her when someone was lying, or happy, or sad, or—as was often the case when one stood before the Pirate Queen—scared. Watching Sanak approach, she already knew that the news he was bringing her was not good.

For the past three days she’d had her people following up on Paul’s disappearance. Inquiries with the typical Omega sources, ranging from simple chats to brutal interrogations, had turned up nothing. Nobody knew anything about the abduction, or even about the man himself. He was a loner; apart from Liselle he didn’t spend time with anyone if it wasn’t related to work.

Her last hope was his extranet terminal. It had been wiped clean, but her technical experts were attempting to salvage scraps of data from the optical
drive. Another team was trying to track any messages sent or received through the terminal by scouring the data bursts transmitted through the relay buoys that linked Omega to the galactic communication network.

The cost of the investigation was astronomical, but Aria could easily afford it. And while part of her was doing this to avenge her murdered offspring, a more calculating part of her knew that sparing no expense to track down someone who might have betrayed her would send a powerful message to everyone else inside her organization.

Unfortunately, it looked as if all her efforts had been in vain.

“The technicians couldn’t find anything,” she guessed as Sanak reached her booth.

“They found plenty,” he grimly replied.

Aria frowned. That was the problem with reading body language: it was imprecise. She knew Sanak was unhappy; she just didn’t know why.

“What did you learn?”

“His real name is Paul Grayson. He used to work for Cerberus.”

“Cerberus is making inroads on Omega?” she guessed.

The batarian shook his head, and Aria scowled in frustration.

“Just tell me what you know,” she snapped.

Aria always liked to give the appearance that she was in complete control. By reputation, she was always two steps ahead of her rivals because she knew what they were going to say or do even before they did it. Nothing surprised her; nothing caught her off
guard. It didn’t look good for her to keep throwing out guesses that proved to be wrong; it weakened her image.

“Grayson used to work for Cerberus. Then he turned on them. It had something to do with his daughter and a woman named Kahlee Sanders.

“We couldn’t locate his daughter. She vanished two years ago. But we found Sanders.

“The technicians said Grayson called her every few weeks. And he sent her a message the night he disappeared.”

“Where is she?” Aria asked, suspecting she wouldn’t like what she heard.

“She was working at a school for biotic human children. But she left the day after Grayson vanished. We tracked her to the Citadel; she’s under the protection of Admiral David Anderson.”

Aria’s knowledge of politics and power extended far beyond the gangs of Omega. She recognized Anderson’s name: he was an adviser to Councilor Donnel Udina, and one of the highest-ranking diplomatic officials in the Alliance.

The Pirate Queen ruled Omega with an iron fist. Her influence extended in various ways throughout the Terminus Systems. She even had agents operating in Council space. But the Citadel was another matter entirely.

In many ways the massive circular space station was a mirror image of Omega: it served as the economic, cultural, and political hub of Council space. And Aria was well aware that if the powers-that-be ever discovered she was taking an active role in events on the Citadel, there would be retribution.

Officially Omega was outside the Council’s jurisdiction. But if they felt Aria had crossed a line—if they decided she posed a threat to the stability of Council space—they could always unleash a Spectre against her.

The Spectres weren’t bound by the treaties and laws that shaped intergalactic policy. It wasn’t inconceivable that one would come to Omega to try and assassinate Aria. The chances of such a mission actually succeeding were slim, but Aria hadn’t survived over a thousand years by exposing herself to risk. She was careful and patient, and even the death of her daughter wouldn’t change that.

“Don’t do anything yet. But keep an eye on the situation,” she ordered Sanak. “Let me know if anything changes. And keep trying to find out where Grayson went.”

Grayson woke to find himself in a dimly lit cell. He was lying on a small cot in the corner. There were no blankets, but he didn’t need any—despite still being naked, he wasn’t cold. There was a toilet against one wall; against another was a built-in shelf stocked with enough military rations and bottled water to last several months. Apart from these few necessities, the room was completely empty. No sink. No shower. Not even a chair.

He had no idea how long he’d been unconscious. His limbs were heavy; his mind was groggy. As he sat up, a shooting pain laced its way from the top of his skull down through his teeth. Instinctively, he reached up to rub his head, then pulled his hand back in surprise when it touched bare scalp.

Must have shaved you while they had you strapped to that table
, the familiar voice inside his head reasoned.
Probably so they could plant that Reaper technology inside your brain
.

The horror of what Cerberus had done to him in the lab was still fresh in his mind. He could remember the sensation of an invasive alien presence burrowing into his brain. For some reason, however, he no longer felt it.

Is it gone? Or just dormant?

He should have been afraid, terrified even. Instead, he just felt tired. Drained. Even thinking was a struggle; his thoughts were enveloped in a thick fog, and concentrating brought on more flashes of pain in his skull. But he needed to try and piece together what had happened.

Why had Cerberus put him in a cell? It was possible this was still part of the experiment. It was also possible something had gone wrong and the project had been aborted. In either case, he was still a prisoner of the Illusive Man.

His stomach growled, and he glanced over at the ration packs.

Careful. They could be drugged. Or poisoned. Or maybe they just need you to eat so whatever they implanted in your brain can start growing
.

The last reason was enough to make him ignore his hunger, though he did open a bottle of water and take a long drink. He could go a long time without food, but he needed water to survive. And Grayson wasn’t about to give up on life just yet.

He spent a few minutes examining the rest of the
cell, only to find there was nothing else of interest to discover. Then utter exhaustion set in and he had to lie down again. Before he knew it, he was in a deep sleep.

Grayson had no idea how long he’d been imprisoned in the tiny cell. He’d fallen asleep and woken up again five or six times, but that had little bearing on how many days had actually passed. He had no energy. No initiative. Just trying to stay awake required a monumental effort.

Nobody had come to see him. But he knew they were out there. Watching him. Studying him.

The bastards had planted probes inside him so they could monitor what was happening inside his head. He’d felt the tiny, hard lumps beneath the skin while running his fingers over the stubble growing back on his shaved scalp. Two on the top of his skull. Another pair centered at the top of his forehead. One behind each ear and a larger one at the base of his neck.

A while ago he’d tried to dig them out with his fingernails, clawing at the skin of his forehead until he drew blood. But he couldn’t dig deep enough to dislodge the probes.

Or maybe you just don’t want to. They’re screwing with your brain, remember?

The rumbling of his stomach drowned out the rest of what the voice in his head was saying, hunger tearing at his gut like some kind of creature trying to rip its way to freedom.

Ignoring the risks, he grabbed one of the rations from the shelf and tore open the vacuum-sealed packaging. He wolfed it down, gorging himself on the
bland, nutrient-rich paste. He was reaching for another when his stomach cramped up violently. He barely made it to the toilet in time to disgorge everything he’d just eaten.

Flushing the toilet, he wiped his chin in a halfhearted attempt to clean himself up without benefit of a sink or mirror. Opening one of the bottles of water, he rinsed and spit into the toilet until the foul taste of acidic vomit was gone.

The second meal he ate more slowly. This time his stomach managed to keep it down.

His best guess was that a week had passed. Maybe two. Probably not three. The passage of time was impossible to track in the cell. There was nothing to do but eat and sleep. But when he slept he had dreams—nightmares he could never quite recall on waking, but that left him shivering nonetheless.