Mass Effect: Revelation

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Saren made his way through the darkness of Elysium’s moonless night toward his waiting vehicle. He knew the humans back at the house were hiding something from him. There was more going on at Sidon then they had admitted.

As a Spectre, he had the legal right to forcibly extract information from anyone, even Alliance soldiers. But having that right and actually being able to use it were two different things.

Elysium was an Alliance world. He had no idea if one of Grissom’s neighbors had called the authorities after the gunfight with Skarr. It wasn’t likely — the house was well isolated from its neighbors. But Saren couldn’t take that chance. If the local Alliance authorities arrived to find a turian brutally interrogating their fellow soldiers, his Spectre status wouldn’t help him.

Besides, they weren’t the ones he was after. The humans were insignificant to his real investigation. They probably knew something about why Skarr had been sent after them, but he doubted they had any real idea who had sent him.

The krogan was the key. Saren had no trouble following him to Elysium; he’d just have to pick up his trail again. The Verge was the untamed frontier of Citadel Space, but even out here it was nearly impossible to travel between worlds without drawing attention. Smaller ships were physically capable of landing almost anywhere on a habitable planet. But any destination world occupied by an established colony would instantly pick up any incoming vessels that didn’t touch down at the spaceport. They’d have military personnel on the scene ready and waiting to arrest everyone on board… if they didn’t simply blast the offending ship from the sky.

That meant Skarr would have to use the spaceports. And even if he found some way to sneak past border security, he wasn’t hard to pick out of a crowd. As a Spectre, Saren had eyes and ears on virtually every world scattered across the Verge. Wherever the bounty hunter turned up next, one of his contacts would let him know.

He could issue an order to have Skarr arrested, but he doubted the krogan would let himself be taken alive. Having him die in a gun battle with local authorities wouldn’t get Saren any closer to whoever was behind the attack on Sidon. No, the better thing to do was to simply find him and follow him, as he’d

done on Elysium. Eventually the krogan would lead him right to his employer.

Edan Had’dah was once again spending the night inside the loathsome warehouse outside Hatre. Once again, he was sitting in the uncomfortable chair waiting for Skarr to arrive. And once again, he was accompanied by his personal guard: the same Blue Sun mercs who had been there for the first meeting with the krogan. The ones who’d survived, anyway.

But this time, Edan knew, he had the upper hand. Kahlee Sanders was not dead. He’d paid the bounty hunter good money to do a job, and Skarr had failed. This time, Edan swore, he would be the one to dictate the terms of their meeting.

The warehouse was full of large shipping crates and cargo containers. A small area had been cleared out in the back for Edan to conduct his business; from this position it was normally difficult to hear when someone arrived at the front door. But there was no mistaking the loud pounding when the krogan showed up.

“Make sure you take his weapons,” Edan called out as a pair of batarian mercs went to fetch the new arrival. “All of them,” their employer added, vividly remembering the knife Skarr had snuck in last time.

From the front came the sounds of a loud argument; though he couldn’t quite hear the words he could clearly make out the bass tones of the krogan’s deep rumble. A minute later one of the batarians came back alone.

“The krogan won’t hand over his weapons,” he said. “What?” Edan asked, surprised.

“He won’t hand over his weapons. And he’s wearing full armor.” “I won’t meet with him if he’s armed,” Edan vowed.

“That’s what I told him,” the merc responded, tilting his head to the left in a gesture of supplication. “He just laughed. Said he was happy to walk away and consider your business arrangement over.”

Edan cursed under his breath. The krogan had been paid in full up front. Normally a batarian would never agree to such terms, but exceptions had to be made for a man of Skarr’s reputation.

“Let him keep his weapons,” he finally relented. “Escort him back here.”

“Tell your men they are free to kill him this time if he tries anything. Make sure the bounty hunter hears you.”

The merc smiled, anticipating a chance for revenge, and headed back to the front. When he returned the bounty hunter was with him, and he looked angry. Edan had never actually seen a krogan Battle Master in full armor before. It was a terrifying sight: like a living tank rolling toward him. It was all he could do not to take a step back.

Skarr’s weapons weren’t drawn, but a full arsenal was slotted into his armor: a pistol on either hip; a collapsible heavy-fire assault rifle and high-powered shotgun were slung across his back. His armor had several small holes in the chest, each one ringed with discolored blood. Dark stains ran down from the wounds, tainting the armor and serving as mute testimony to the battle he had fought on Elysium.

The Blue Suns watched him closely; nine assault rifles tracking him every step of the way. The krogan didn’t seem to care; he only had eyes for the man who’d hired him. He bore down on him with long, heavy strides, the relentless clump-clump-clump of his boots the only sound in the warehouse. For a brief second Edan thought he wouldn’t stop — he’d just keep walking, churning the batarian’s smaller frame beneath his feet, grinding him into pulp. Instead, he pulled up less than a meter away, his breath coming in angry, rasping grunts.

“You failed,” Edan said. He’d meant it to come out as a stinging accusation, but standing in the shadow of the massive killer before him took all the bravado from his voice.

“You didn’t tell me I’d have to deal with a Spectre!” Skarr snarled back. “A Spectre?” Edan said with surprise. “Are you certain?”

“I know a Spectre when I see one!” Skarr roared. “Especially this one. Turian bastard!”

The corners of Edan’s mouth turned down in an expression of displeasure, but he didn’t say anything. This was bad. He knew Skarr was talking about Saren; the turian was easily the most infamous Spectre in the Verge. He was known for three things: his ruthlessness, his loyalty to the Council, and his ability to get results.

“I make it a habit never to get involved in Spectre business,” Skarr said, his voice dropping to a low growl. “You knew that when you hired me. You tricked me, batarian.”

“My guards will fire on you if you try anything,” Edan said quickly, sensing the implied threat. “You might kill me, but you’ll never get out of here alive.”

The krogan’s big head rolled from side to side, glancing at the armed mercs and evaluating his chances. Realizing this was a battle even he couldn’t win, he slowly took a step back from Edan.

“I guess we’re in this together then,” he snorted. “But you’re going to have to double my fee.” Edan blinked in surprise. This was not how he expected the negotiations to go.

“You’re not bargaining from a position of power,” he pointed out. “You didn’t complete the job. If anything, I should ask for a refund. Or I could just have my men eliminate you now.”

Skarr barked out a loud laugh. “You’re right. Sanders is still alive. She’s probably talking to Saren right now, telling him everything she knows. How long until he figures out you were behind all this? How long until he shows up on Camala?”

The batarian didn’t answer.

“Sooner or later that Spectre will track you down,” the bounty hunter warned, pressing his point. “When he does, your only hope of staying alive is to have me on your side.”

Edan brought his hands together, forming a five-fingered steeple as he considered the situation. The krogan was correct; he needed his help now more than ever. But he wasn’t willing to admit total defeat.

“Very well,” he conceded, “I’ll double your pay. But in exchange you’ll have to do something for me.” Skarr didn’t say anything, but merely waited for the batarian to continue.

“I was never at Sidon,” Edan explained. “Sanders has no knowledge of my identity. With the files at the base destroyed, there is only one connection left linking me to this crime: Dr. Qian’s supplier here on Camala.”

“Dah’tan Manufacturing,” Skarr said after only a moment’s hesitation, quickly putting the pieces together. Once again Edan was impressed at how quickly his mind worked. “Does Sanders know about the supplier?”

“I can’t be sure,” Edan admitted. “But if she mentions it, that’s the first place the Spectre will go. I’m not willing to take that risk.”

“So what do you need from me?”

“I ordered you to come back to this world so you could wipe out Dah’tan Manufacturing. Eliminate all the personnel, all the records. Burn it to the ground. Leave nothing behind. Nothing.”

“You brought me back for that?” Skarr spat out. “Are you stupid? Saren’s going to have his people watching for me. He’s probably already on his way here to try and track me down. We attack Dah’tan and he’ll be there inside an hour. You’d practically lead him straight to your supplier!”

“He might learn about Dah’tan from Sanders anyway,” Edan countered. He refused to back down this time. He was tired of losing face to this brute. “You can get in, finish the job, and disappear before Saren ever arrives,” he insisted. “By the time he gets to Dah’tan all the evidence will be destroyed and you can be long gone. There won’t be anything left for him to find.

“You’ll just have to work fast.”

“That’s how mistakes get made,” the bounty hunter argued. “I don’t like sloppy missions. Tell your men to go in without me.”

“This is not open to negotiation!” Edan shouted, finally losing his temper. “I hired you to kill someone! You failed! I demand something for the money I’m paying you!”

Skarr shook his head in disbelief. “You know it was a mistake bringing me back here for this. I thought you were smart enough not to put your pride ahead of business.”

“You thought wrong,” Edan replied, no longer shouting. But his voice was cold as ice. It was more than simple pride; batarian culture placed tremendous value on social caste. He was a man of high standing; if he simply forgave the krogan for this failure it would be an admission that they were equals… something he was not about to do.

The krogan took another long look at the Blue Suns stationed around the warehouse, their guns still raised and ready and pointing right at him. “Dah’tan has heavy security,” he finally said. “How are we even supposed to get inside?”

“I have some of their people on my payroll,” Edan replied with just a hint of smugness. He’d finally managed to back Skarr into a corner. They were bargaining on his terms now.

“You really think these hrakhors are good enough to handle a job like this?” the bounty hunter asked, making one last attempt to get out of it.

“They were good enough to take out the Alliance soldiers at Sidon.” “They screwed that mission up,” Skarr objected.

“That’s why I’m sending you along this time” was Edan’s smug reply.

Anderson flashed his military ID and slipped his thumb into the portable scanner held by the Alliance guard working the port authority entrance. The young man, who’d jumped to stand at attention as they’d approached, glanced down at the computer screen to confirm the readout.

“Sir,” the guard replied with a curt nod, handing it back to him a moment later. The lieutenant did his best not to hold his breath as Kahlee placed her own thumb into the scanner and handed over her phony ID and the optical storage disk with the counterfeit authorization orders they’d purchased earlier that day.

The man who’d forged them had come to the house first thing in the morning, arriving less than ten minutes after Grissom’s phone call. He was young — no older than twenty by Anderson’s guess. He was dressed in shabby, wrinkled civvies and he had long, greasy black hair. His face was covered with a dark growth he was trying to pass off as a beard, and it looked like he hadn’t showered in a week. The

admiral didn’t say who the man was or how he knew him.

“He’s a professional,” he told Anderson. “He works fast, and he won’t rat you out.”

When he first arrived, the kid had looked in surprise at the broken windows, the smashed furniture, and the burned hole in the lawn where the shotgun blast had narrowly missed decapitating the krogan. But he hadn’t asked any questions. Not about that, anyway.

“What do you need?” was all he had said once he was inside, setting a nondescript case he had with him on the kitchen table.

“Something to get them into the restricted loading bays at the spaceport,” Grissom had replied. “Plus a disguise and a new ID for Kahlee. They need to leave today.”

“I gotta charge extra for a rush job,” he warned. Grissom just nodded. “I’ll forward it like always.”

The young man opened the case to reveal an array of unusual tools, gadgets, and exotic equipment Anderson couldn’t even begin to guess the function of. Using a variety of these, it took him half an hour to produce an OSD with the appropriate authorizations. It took another twenty minutes to encode a new name and rank on Kahlee’s Alliance ID — Corporal Suzanne Weathers.

“That’s not going to work,” Anderson warned. “They won’t have any records for Corporal Weathers in their systems.”

“They will twenty minutes after I leave here,” the kid assured with a cocky grin. “I’ll add Corporal

Weathers to the system. Then I’ll mirror all Kahlee’s data and block system access to her file. When

“You have access to the Alliance data files?” Anderson asked in disbelief. “Only the ones at the ports. Don’t try to use this ID once you’re off Elysium.”

“I didn’t think it was possible to infiltrate the Alliance systems,” Anderson said, fishing for information. “You sure I can trust this guy?” the kid asked Grissom.

Funny, Anderson thought. I was wondering the same thing about you.

“For today,” Grissom replied. “Next time you see him you might want to turn around and walk in the other direction, though.”

“The Alliance has solid security,” the young man admitted, speaking with a casual nonchalance as he worked. “Getting in is tough, but it’s not impossible.”

“What about the purges?” Kahlee asked. Anderson looked at her quizzically and she explained for his benefit. “Every ten hours the Alliance runs a full security sweep on their systems to track down and quarantine any new data coming into the system. It lets them identify fraudulent data and trace it back to the source.”

“I plant a little self-regressive algorithm in the data before I upload it,” the kid explained, bragging more than just a little. “Something I came up with myself. By the time they run the security sweep your data will be back online and all traces of Corporal Weathers or these phony authorizations will be long gone. They can’t trace something that isn’t there.”

Kahlee nodded in appreciation, and the man gave her a wink and a leering smile that made Anderson’s fist involuntarily clench. It wasn’t jealousy. Not exactly. Kahlee was his responsibility now. It was only natural he’d instinctively want to protect her. But he had to be careful not to overreact.

Fortunately nobody had noticed; they were all focused on the young man and his work. “They might have a physical description of you, too,” he warned Kahlee. “We better change your appearance, just in case.”

He digitally altered the existing photo on Kahlee’s ID, darkening and shortening her hair, changing the color of her eyes, and deepening the pigments of her skin. Then he had her pop a handful of pigment pills. Next he used shaded contact lenses, hair dye, and a pair of scissors to make Kahlee’s physical appearance match her digital image. He seemed to enjoy it a little too much for Anderson’s comfort, working the dye into her hair for several minutes and lingering a little too long over her locks before he

cut them.

By the time he was finished with her hair Kahlee’s skin had become almost as dark as Anderson’s. The kid stood directly in front of Kahlee and held the ID up beside her face, comparing the image to the real thing. “Not bad,” he said appreciatively, though it wasn’t clear if he was talking about his work or Kahlee herself.

“Your skin will start to lighten up again by tomorrow,” he told her, standing up and holding out the reinvented Alliance ID card. “So be careful. You won’t match the pic anymore.”

“Shouldn’t matter,” she said with a shrug. “Corporal Weathers won’t even exist in the system by then anyway, right?”

He didn’t answer, but gave her another sly wink and let his fingers rub suggestively against hers as she took the ID from him. Anderson had to restrain himself from punching the slimeball right in the face. She’s not your wife, he thought to himself. Helping her won’t make up for eight years of ignoring Cynthia.

When all was said and done, however, the lieutenant had to admit the kid’s forgery was good. He had special training to recognize fraudulent documents, and even though he knew they were fakes he couldn’t tell them from the real thing.

This was the true test, however: running her thumbprint through the scanners at the port authority. “Here you go, Corporal Weathers,” the guard said, handing the altered documentation back to Kahlee

after glancing briefly at his screen to confirm her identity. “You need to head to bay thirty-two. Way

down at the far end.”

“Thank you,” Kahlee said with a smile. The guard nodded, snapped a crisp salute off to Anderson, then sat down and went back to the paperwork on his desk as they turned and walked away.

“Take a look to see if he’s still watching us,” Anderson whispered once they were out of earshot. They were still heading in the direction of bay thirty-two, but of course that wasn’t their real destination.

Kahlee glanced back, coyly peeking over her shoulder. If the guard was watching them he’d hopefully just think the young corporal found him attractive enough to sneak a second look. But he was completely focused on the screen at his desk, the model of efficiency as he rapidly typed away at the keyboard.

“All clear,” Kahlee answered.

“This is it,” Anderson said, turning sharply into the entrance of bay seventeen and pulling her with him.

There was an old cargo freighter in the bay, a loading sled, and a number of heavy shipping crates. At first glance there didn’t seem to be anybody in the bay, and then a short, heavyset man stepped out from the other side of the ship.

“Any problems with the guard?” he asked. Kahlee shook her head.

“You know why we’re here?” Anderson asked, not even bothering to ask the man’s name, which he knew would never be given.

“Grissom filled me in.”

“How do you know my father?” Kahlee asked, curious.

He regarded her coldly for a second then said, “If he wanted you to know, he probably would’ve told you himself.” Turning away he added, “We’re scheduled to lift off in a couple hours. Follow me.”

Most of the space inside the ship’s hold was filled with cargo; there was barely enough room for the two of them to sit down, but they did the best they could. As soon as they were settled, the man sealed the door and they were plunged into complete darkness.

Kahlee was sitting right across from him, but with no light it was impossible for Anderson to even make out her silhouette. He could, however, feel the outside of her leg pressing up against his — there simply wasn’t room for either of them to pull away. The closeness was unsettling; he hadn’t been with a woman since he and Cynthia had separated.

“I’m not looking forward to the next six hours,” he said, looking to distract his inappropriate thoughts with conversation. Even though he spoke softly his words seemed unnaturally loud in the blackness.

“I’m more worried about what we’ll do once we reach Camala,” Kahlee answered, a disembodied voice in the gloom. “Dah’tan’s not just going to hand their files over to us.”

“I’m still working on that,” Anderson admitted. “I’m hoping I’ll come up with a plan on the trip.”

“We should have plenty of time to think,” Kahlee answered. “There’s not even enough room here to lay down and get some sleep.”

After a few minutes she spoke again, changing topics without warning. “Before my mother died I

promised her I’d never speak to my father again.”

Anderson was momentarily caught off guard by the personal confession, but he recovered quickly. “I

think she’d understand.”

“It must have been a shock for you,” she continued. “Seeing the most famous Alliance soldier in a state like that.”

“I’m a little surprised,” he admitted. “When I was in the Academy your father was always portrayed as the embodiment of everything the Alliance stood for: courage, determination, self-sacrifice, honor. Seems a little strange that he knows the kind of people who can sneak us off a world like this.”

“Are you disappointed?” she asked. “Knowing the great Jon Grissom associates with forgers and smugglers?”

“Considering our situation, I’d be a hypocrite if I said yes,” he joked. Kahlee didn’t laugh.

“When you hear about someone for so long you assume you know something about them,” he said in a more somber tone. “It’s easy to confuse the reputation with the real person. It’s only when you meet them that you realize you never really knew anything at all.”

“Yeah,” Kahlee said thoughtfully. And then they were silent for a long, long time.