102 Chapter 100

Once the hearing was adjourned, things preceded as expected. Shepherd swept through the citadel like a hurricane. No matter who they were or what they did, they got pulled into the chaos. Gang wars erupted, there were shootouts in clubs, and corrupt businessmen and politicians were exposed. Nothing was left untouched as even mundane bureaucracy became extremely efficient. In the end, Shepard found what he was looking for, by saving Tali's life. In return, Tali passed along the data she found, without ever realizing that it had been specifically prepared for her to do this exact thing.

Unfortunately, Shepard both ran into and recruited Wrex, Tali, and Garrus. I mean it's good overall for him and the mission. Just selfishly I would have liked to recruit them myself. I guess I already did recruit Wrex as the shadow broker. Oh well, it's better this way.

Shepherd brought the gathered information back to the council. The evidence pointed toward collusion between Matriarch Benezia, Spectre Saren, and the Batarian Hegemony. The three parties were working together to weaken the Citadel Government and destroy the Human Alliance. The evidence was substantial, but even so Saren was called to defend himself. He tried to hide behind confidentiality and classified information, but the council had just been shown video and audio evidence of his involvement. Shepherd, Udina, and Anderson tried to demand answers, but the Councilors cut the call telling Saren to send them a report and return to the Citadel as soon as possible.

The Council hoped Saren would peacefully return if he believed he was safe. They also believed that him doing that was unlikely, so they appointed Shepard as a Spectre. His first mission to track down and capture Saren and Benezia, as well as investigate the Batarian Plot. The only additional stipulation was that Shepard had to take with him an Asari researcher. She would help investigate and document the beacon by melding with Shepard.

Now satisfied with my meddling I turned my attention to other endeavors. Hmm, I guess I was still going to be meddling, so I turned my attention toward different plotting.

The first thing I did was rectify my mistake with Ashely Williams. Using my connections, a Batarian in my employ delivered Ms. Williams a few things. First the location for the Eden Prime captives. Second a code to block the explosive implants forced into their future slaves. Third top of the line gear to help her rescue herself and the others, and finally a message so she knows she owes me.

The next event I meddled in is something I like to call Operation Early Arrival. In the Banhak system exists two things of importance. Over a quarter of a million Batarian colonists and the Alpha Relay. The Alpha Relay is the Mass Effect Relay that the Reapers will use to invade the Galaxy. Beyond transporting the Reapers in from dark space it is the most powerful relay, able to send ships across almost the entire galaxy to over 16 different relays. It allows them a quick and direct path from dark space into the galaxy. Given that the Batarians are now solidly allied with the Reapers this Relay has to go as soon as possible.

I want to avoid unnecessary death even if the Batarians are the enemies of all life in the galaxy. So, if a space revolt just so happens to use the destruction of the Alpha Relay to cover their escape, well that's the Hegemony just getting what it deserves. On the planet of Aratoht, a digital signal covers the planet and in a moment the over 270,000 slaves now know that the explosive and restraints holding them have been deactivated. For every 1 free batarian, there are 9 slaves. It's not the worst ratio, but even for a technologically advanced army, being outnumbered by that much is going to cause problems. The slaves know this is their only opportunity to escape and the slave masters know without the securities controlling them the only option is to kill the slaves before they're overrun.

The deciding factor in this fight is the element of surprise. The army could deal with slave revolt, but the army isn't already in every home in the colony. Across the planet, slave owners were killed in their own homes. After that, the freed slaves armed themselves with whatever they could find. The army tried to organize and fight back, but the vast majority of the generals and officers had already been killed. The revolt soon conquered the planet, but they realized they weren't safe. The government would send reinforcements to retake the planet and kill them all... Or worse.

They boarded ships to leave the system. Where they were met with my agents. I offered them sanctuary on an undisclosed location. They were skeptical as all hell until they realized how they became free in the first place. Once they accepted I moved them to a new colony planet under my control in the Terminus Sector. I had no real plans for them, but a large security force was a necessity due to the location. With the system mostly evacuated it was time to clean up the remaining witnesses. A propulsion system was attached to the Alpha Relay and it was towed into a collision with the planet. It detonated in an unseen instance erasing the entire system.

With most of my time tied up in destroying the Alpha Relay, I passed along the responsibilities for two more tasks. I wanted to avoid the predetermined opportunity for Shepard to lose a squadmate, so I passed along a message to the Salarian Union. I faked a corrupted message from Captain Kirrahe on Virmire. The message itself was useless, but after being recovered and decoded it told the Union that on Virmire is a Krogan cloning facility. I intentionally make sure not to say anything about a genophage cure, I want this to be a large enough concern for direct intervention, but not large enough that the Union will create a new strain of the genophage.

I struggled to decide whether or not I should alert the council or Alliance of the imminent invasion. I was torn. If I alerted them the humans may not get a council seat which I feel is a significant drawback. However, there is no saying that the council forces will win without extra help. Oh. I guess it wasn't such a hard decision. I still want this to be a human victory though. I passed along a preemptive warning to Rear Admiral Hewitt. A grizzled veteran in his mid 40's with an outstanding service record. He currently in control of the Alliance's smallest full fleet, because Admirals and Vice Admirals are assigned fleet more preferentially. Hewitt has been passed over for a promotion to Vice Admiral three times most. His career advancement stopped dead after marrying an Asari. He blames being skipped for promotion on xenophobia, and a quick look lets me know the xenophobia certainly didn't help. All of this has caused him to become a bit of a glory hound in hopes of forcing a promotion. I'm hoping Rear Admiral Hewitt will save the day and send a message of cross-species cooperation.

On the fateful day in question, the Citadel received a transgalactic transmission warning of an attack. It was going to be ignored before I sent a post message spectre authorization. The message that was originally going to be sorted as junk mail now sent the entire station into soft lockdown and gave security forces time to rally. Despite the added preparations, the attack was still sudden. Attacking Batarian ships flooded out of the Citadel itself followed by one massive outlier. Sovereign couldn't stand out any further from the bulky Batarian warships. The Batarian ships are nowhere near as good as the Geth ships they replaced, but they made up for quality with quantity.

The battles both inside and outside the Citadel were fierce. A neck and neck assault where either side could win at any moment. It's impossible to predict who will win, or it was before a little well-timed human intervention. Shepherd, his crew, and the Normandy appeared from the same portal the Batarians came through. Shepherd and his squad made quick work of the ground troops occupying the Citadel. He made his way toward the council tower where he fought a nearly fully synthetic Saren to the death. With Saren killed Shepard was freely able to deactivate the Citadel Relay.

Outside the Normandy did little to turn the tides of the battle. However, The end of Batarian reinforcements and the arrival of Rear Admiral Hewitt's fleet did. With the arrival of another friendly fleet, the Citadel forces turned the tides. Not even Sovereign lasted long after the buffer Batarian ships were destroyed.

The Citadel and Alliance forces achieved a complete victory over the Batarians and Sovereign. Due to the aid, the Humans provided they were granted a seat on the council. It wasn't all good news though. Despite some objections, Udina was granted the councilor seat, and as if that wasn't bad enough the Council declared war on the Batarians. Although, after an attempted invasion the war was inevitable. The only reason the Geth could invade and avoid a declaration of war is that they're already technically at war. It seems like I'll need to ramp up my anti-batarian operations. My work is never done.