Mass Effect™: Retribution (17 page)

It took Kahlee a second to realize what she meant, then she shook her head vehemently.

“No! That’s not possible. Grayson isn’t a traitor.”

“It’s a scenario we have to consider,” Orinia insisted. “None of the other explanations make any sense.”

“Grayson’s the whole reason we got this information!” Kahlee protested. “Why would he help us bring down Cerberus if he was working for them?”

“Maybe he’s trying to overthrow the Illusive Man,” Orinia suggested. “Using the turians to do the dirty work for him would be a masterful ploy.”

“I know Grayson,” Kahlee vowed. “I trust him. He wouldn’t do this.”

She turned to Anderson, looking for support.

“You believe me, don’t you?”

“Kahlee,” he asked, his tone grave, “is Grayson a drug addict?”

The relevance of the question was completely lost on her. “Why?”

“The retinal scan Dinara sent to confirm his identity was discolored. Pink. Like he’d been mainlining red sand.”

“Those bastards!” Kahlee hissed, her face twisting up with rage. “He was clean for two years. Two years!

“They must have drugged him while he was their prisoner to try and gain some kind of leverage over him. Sadistic sons of bitches!”

“How can you be sure that’s what happened?” Anderson pressed. “Addicts aren’t always the most loyal people. Maybe he was using again. All Cerberus would have to do was wait until he went into withdrawal and then offer him a fix in exchange for information.”

“He’s not like that anymore!” Kahlee shot back. “He turned his life around.”

Anderson didn’t say anything, but she could tell he had his doubts.

“There’s no doubt in my mind,” she assured him. “So why is this so hard for you to accept?”

“You’re not always the best judge of character,” he replied, choosing his words carefully. “It took a long time before you convinced yourself Dr. Qian’s work was dangerous enough to report him to the Alliance.”

“That was twenty years ago. I was young and naïve then,” she explained.

“What about Jiro Toshiwa?”

Kahlee didn’t realize Anderson knew about her former coworker at the Ascension Project, though it wasn’t surprising the reports had crossed his desk. In addition to being Kahlee’s lover, Jiro had also turned out to be a Cerberus mole inside the program.

“This is different,” she muttered, fixing Anderson with a dark scowl. “Grayson isn’t with Cerberus anymore. He turned against them for his daughter’s sake. He would never start working for them again.”

“Maybe not willingly,” Orinia said. “But we found evidence of medical experiments at the facility where he was being held prisoner. The data is encrypted and very advanced, but we think Cerberus was investigating some form of mental domination or mind control.”

“This is crazy!” Kahlee shouted. “Grayson is a victim, not the enemy!”

“Orinia’s just worried about her people,” Anderson said, trying to calm her down. “She doesn’t want
to lose any more soldiers, and we have too many questions without any answers.”

“Then let me help find the answers,” Kahlee said, jumping on the opportunity. “Send me to the Cerberus facility. Let me look at their test results, and I’ll find out what they did to Grayson.”

“We’ll send our own experts to the station,” Orinia said, dismissing her offer.

Kahlee bit her lip to keep from shooting back a reply that would do more harm than good. She wanted to say that she had twenty years’ experience analyzing advanced scientific experiments in everything ranging from artificial intelligence to zoology. She wanted to remind Orinia that she was widely recognized as the most brilliant and accomplished complex statistical analyst in the Alliance. She wanted to mention that for the past decade she had been directly studying the effects of synthetic biotic implants on the human brain and nervous system. She wanted to point out that the odds of finding another individual in Council space with her combination of knowledge, experience, and talent was almost nil. And she wanted to scream that she could do more to help them in one hour than the entire team of turian so-called experts could achieve in a week.

But blowing up at the ambassador wouldn’t help her cause. Instead, she tried to present a rational and reasonable argument.

“I have some experience in this field—.”

“So do we,” Orinia replied, cutting her off.

Kahlee took a deep breath to calm herself, then continued.

“The Cerberus scientists are human. They’re going
to think like humans, use methodology and processes common to my culture, but likely very different from what your scientists are familiar with.

“Biology and society combine to create familiar, recognizable patterns in the minds of every individual within a particular species. The way the data is encrypted—even the way it’s organized and categorized—will be more accessible to me than it will be to a turian, no matter how brilliant.”

Orinia didn’t answer right away, no doubt balancing the advantages of sending Kahlee to analyze the data against the risks of letting a human become an integral part of what was still technically a turian mission.

“If there’s any hope of finding Dinara and her team alive, we have to move fast,” Anderson pointed out, playing on the ambassador’s sense of loyalty to her fellow soldiers. “Your people might figure this out eventually, but we’ll see results a hell of a lot faster if Kahlee’s there.”

Orinia nodded, and Kahlee could almost forgive Anderson for doubting her about Grayson.

“My shuttle’s leaving in an hour. How fast can you be ready to go?”

“Just tell me where to meet them, and I’ll be there,” Kahlee assured her.

“So will I,” Anderson added.

“I thought you’d have to stay here to help smooth things over with the Alliance,” Kahlee said, mildly surprised.

“Actually, I resigned my post,” Anderson said. “Udina was threatening to launch some massive investigation
into what he called my ‘inappropriate diplomatic relations’ with the turians.

“The Alliance brass was going to put me on administrative leave until it was all sorted out, so I told Udina to cram his investigation up his ass and I quit.”

“David,” Kahlee said, reaching up to put a hand on his shoulder. “I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be,” he said with a shrug. “I’m sick of being a politician. I used to be proud of what I did; I felt like I was making a real difference in the galaxy. Then I became a desk jockey and everything I tried to accomplish got buried in a mountain of political bullshit.

“Maybe this is my chance to do something that matters one last time before I pack it all in.”

“I’ll tell the shuttle commander to expect you both,” Orinia said.

“Don’t be late,” she warned as they headed out the door. “We turians are nothing if not punctual.”

The Illusive Man sat in the chair of his private office surrounded by darkness, staring out at the dying red sun that dominated the viewing window. He was letting his mind settle, his sense of confidence and control returning now that he was back in the familiar—and secure—surroundings. The turians may have hit Cerberus from all angles, but thankfully they had failed to strike at the true heart of the organization.

As cautious as the Illusive Man was with his operatives and operations, he was downright paranoid when it came to protecting this one location. Including Kai Leng, who was on board right now, only six Cerberus field operatives had ever set foot on this space station. Each time one of them visited he had the crew relocate the vessel to another system as soon as the guest departed.

The mobility preserved the secrecy, as did the harsh personnel screening practices used to recruit the onboard crew. The two dozen Cerberus agents who manned the unnamed space station that served as his inner sanctum were the most loyal and devoted of his followers. These were the fanatics, the zealots.

They were identified through a battery of psychological
tests from among the Cerberus rank and file, and part of their training was a subtle yet effective program of propaganda that stoked the fires of their fervent belief in the cause and its leader. The individuals assigned to work here didn’t just respect him; they revered him. Worshipped him. Each would have given his or her life without any question or hesitation if he commanded it.

There had been times when the Illusive Man had wondered if he was crossing a line. Was building himself up as a virtual god a necessary security measure, or merely a way to feed his own ego?

The events of the past twenty-four hours had irrefutably answered that question. The turians had dealt Cerberus a savage blow. Many of his key operatives inside the Alliance were now in turian custody. Some would refuse to talk, even when threatened with a capital sentence for treason against the Council. Others, however, would readily spill their guts to save their hides. A number of the undercover operatives not yet exposed would either turn themselves in to avoid the harshest penalties, or abandon their assumed identities and go on the run as the dominoes began to fall.

The vast financial network of companies and corporations that helped fund Cerberus—some knowingly, others unwittingly—was about to be exposed and dismantled. The Illusive Man would still have more personal wealth than he would ever need, but the cost of running an organization like Cerberus was astronomical, and until he rebuilt his financial support network it would be a considerable drain on his resources.

More troubling than the loss of his fortune and his inside sources in the Alliance, however, was the destruction of so many strategically vital operational facilities. The turians had captured two primary military training bases and four major research labs. From what he had been able to gather, few if any of the personnel had been taken alive, meaning that in addition to trillions of dollars of equipment, weapons, and resources, several of the most brilliant minds recruited to their cause had been lost as well.

However, despite the damage done, Cerberus still survived. The Illusive Man’s network of followers was far larger than the Alliance could even imagine. There were other research bases and other training facilities located in systems both inside and outside of Council space. The network of scattered agent cells operating independently across the galaxy was still intact.

Through this unassailable space station known only to the most trusted few, the Illusive Man could still control and direct his followers while remaining hidden from both his enemies and his own people. Slowly he would regain what had been taken. He would gather resources and rebuild the political and economic shadow empire that had supported him. He would recruit new followers, and construct new facilities to replace those that had been destroyed. He had already put contingency plans in place to get new operatives assigned to key Alliance positions.

It would take time to recover completely, but humanity still needed Cerberus to protect and defend it. Despite what he had suffered, he wasn’t about to turn his back on the people of Earth and its colonies.

But all that was for the future. In the present, he still had to deal with the problem of Grayson being at large. He knew Kai Leng was eager to go after the traitor, but he’d need help and support to hunt down and destroy the monster they had created.

Yet Cerberus couldn’t do it alone. His organization was vulnerable right now. He had to be careful. His enemies wouldn’t be satisfied with simply setting Cerberus back; they wouldn’t rest until the Illusive Man was dead or in prison. They’d anticipate his efforts to rebuild, would be watching and waiting for him to reemerge, keeping a close eye on anyone who could possibly be sympathetic to his cause. Approaching potential allies right now was too dangerous; the solution lay elsewhere.

To bring Grayson down, he would have to look outside the human race, and even outside Council space. For the sake of humanity’s future, he would have to swallow his pride and beg for help from those who represented everything Cerberus despised about alien cultures.

This all began on Omega. And if he wanted to end it, he would have to send Kai Leng back.

Kahlee and Anderson exited from the shuttle via the boarding ramp, falling into step behind the turian soldier who had been sent to greet them and take them to the lab. The half-dozen scientists Orinia had sent with them on the shuttle disembarked and followed close behind.

The docking bay of the Cerberus station was large enough to accommodate not only their own vessel, but also those of the turian assault teams that had
originally secured the station. Yet even with all the ships, there was still plenty of room for the bodies.

The turians still hadn’t finished cleaning up from the assault. A handful of their people were laid out respectfully in one corner of the bay, their arms folded across their breasts, their weapons lying beside them.

In stark contrast, the human casualties had been dumped haphazardly in the middle of the docking bay’s cargo floor. They were being systematically stripped of anything of value by a team of turians. As they finished with each body, two of them would pick it up—one at the wrists, the other at the ankles—then carry it over and toss it onto the growing pile against the far wall.

Cerberus was the enemy, but Kahlee still felt a natural revulsion watching the aliens loot the bodies of her own kind. She glanced over at Anderson and noticed he was pointedly looking the other way.

“Thought they’d have more respect for the dead,” she whispered, speaking softly so the turian guide a few steps in front of them wouldn’t overhear.

“The turians show no quarter for an enemy,” Anderson reminded her in a similarly low voice. “Look what they did to the krogan.”

Kahlee nodded, remembering how the turians had released the genophage on the krogan homeworld—a biological weapon that effectively sterilized 99.9 percent of the population. Cerberus had brought this on themselves by openly declaring their intention to see humans eliminate or dominate every other species in the galaxy. As far as the turians were concerned, they were in a war for their very survival.

And it wasn’t like they were going to jettison the
bodies into space; all the dead would be sent back to the Alliance for identification. That was what bothered Kahlee the most—she couldn’t help thinking about those who would be tasked with notifying the families of the dead. Breaking the news to a parent or spouse was hard enough; it would be even more difficult having to tell the bereaved that the person they loved had been a traitor to the Alliance.