The alien on the ground was a wounded beast—angry, desperate, and unpredictable. He was panting, though whether from pain, exertion, or pure rage it was hard to say. His scarred, brutish face was a mask of intense concentration; his muscles were tensed as if he was gathering himself to make a move.
But if he tried anything Anderson would shoot him in the head from inside of three meters. Even a krogan couldn’t survive that.
He heard a door open and footsteps come running down the hall. “Oh, God! You’re hurt!” a woman screamed.
Anderson wasn’t stupid enough to turn his head. But for a split second his eyes glanced in the direction of her voice. That was all the time the krogan needed.
He lashed out with a fist, sending a shock wave of rolling energy rumbling across the room. Anderson had never been hit with a biotic attack before, and he hadn’t expected one from a krogan. In the split second it took him to realize what was happening, he’d been swept up in the vortex and thrown all the way into the living room, where he crashed to the ground. It felt like being in an artificial gravity chamber when somebody switched the polarity: an instantaneous, inescapable, and irresistible force.
He couldn’t recover in time to grab his pistol from where it had fallen, nor could he reach the shotgun laying only a few feet away. Somehow the krogan, despite his injuries, was already back on his feet and nearly on top of him, swinging his fist with enough power to cave in Anderson’s skull. He ducked and slipped to the side, avoiding the punch. The follow-through landed square on the living room table; it disintegrated into splinters at the impact.
Everything had descended into chaos. Grissom was shouting at Kahlee to run, she was screaming at Anderson to grab one of the guns. The krogan was roaring in anger, flailing about the room, flinging and tossing the furniture like it was made of balsa wood while Anderson dodged and scrambled for his life, only able to avoid the killing blows because his opponent was still hobbled by his wounded knee.
From the corner of his eye he saw Kahlee rush forward into the fray, lunging in a desperate bid to get the shotgun. The krogan saw her, too, and wheeled on the young woman. He would have killed her right then if another bullet hadn’t ripped through a seam in his armor at his hip, making him stagger off balance and misdirecting his blow.
Anderson whipped his head around to see a turian standing in the door where he had been mere minutes before, firing a pistol at the krogan. The lieutenant had no idea who he was or why he was here…he was just glad they had somebody else on their side.
Most of the shots ricocheted off the krogan’s armor as the beast ducked down and tried to cover his head, the only exposed part of his body. He glanced back at the turian, then leaped through the living room window, smashing through the plate glass. The krogan landed on his shoulder on the grass outside and rolled to his feet in one smooth motion. He took off in a lumbering run, his gait awkward because of his injured leg, but moving far faster than Anderson would have believed possible for a creature of his size.
The turian stepped outside and fired a few shots into the darkness, then turned and came back into the house.
“Aren’t you going after him?” Grissom asked their unknown ally. He was still sitting on the floor, but he’d used the belt of his bathrobe to tie a tourniquet around his upper arm, stemming the flow of blood from his wounded bicep.
“Not armed only with this,” the turian responded, holding up his pistol. “Besides, only a fool faces a krogan biotic alone.”
“I think what Admiral Grissom actually meant to say,” Anderson said, coming over and extending his hand, “was thank you for saving us.”
The turian stared down at the offered hand, but made no effort to extend his own. Embarrassed, the lieutenant pulled his hand back.
“I know why he’s here,” Grissom said through teeth gritted against the pain, nodding his head in Anderson’s direction. “What’s your story?”
“I’ve been tailing Skarr for two days,” the turian replied. “Waiting for him to make a move.”
“Tailing him?” Kahlee asked as she came over to check on her father’s wound. “What for? Who are you?”
“My name is Saren. I’m a Spectre. And I want some answers.”
TWELVE
Anderson and the Spectre sat in the kitchen, staring across the table at each other without speaking. The living room would have been more comfortable, but none of the chairs in there had survived the krogan’s rampage.
Like all turians, Saren’s face was covered by a mask of hard cartilage. But Saren’s mask was the pale color of bone; it looked like a skull. He reminded Anderson of the old Earth paintings depicting the Grim Reaper, the embodiment of death itself.
Kahlee was in the back, tending to Grissom’s wounds. The admiral had tried to protest, but he was weak from loss of blood and she’d managed to get him to lie down. She found a military field kit in his medicine chest with enough medigel to stabilize his condition, and now she was dressing his wound.
She’d wanted to take him to a hospital, or at least call an ambulance, but the Spectre had adamantly refused. “After you answer my questions” was all he’d say.
Anderson knew right then that he didn’t like Saren. Anyone who would use the prolonged pain and suffering of a family member for leverage was a sadist and a bully.
“He’s resting now,” Kahlee said, emerging from the back. “I gave him a sedative.”
She entered the kitchen and took a seat beside Anderson, instinctively aligning herself with one of her own kind. “Hurry up and ask your questions,” she said tersely, “so I can get my father to a hospital.”
“Cooperate and this will be over soon,” Saren assured her, then added, “Tell me about the Sidon military base.”
“It was wiped out in a terrorist attack,” Anderson answered, jumping in before Kahlee could say anything incriminating.
The turian glared at him. “Don’t play me for a fool, human. That krogan who nearly killed you all is a bounty hunter named Skarr. I’ve been following him for the past two days.”
“What does that have to do with us?” Kahlee asked, her voice so innocent Anderson almost believed she really didn’t know what was going on.
“He was hired by the man who ordered the attack on Sidon,” Saren replied with a scowl. “They sent him to eliminate the only survivor from the base. You.”
“Sounds like you know more about this than we do,” Anderson countered.
The turian slammed his fist down on the table. “Why was the base attacked?! What were you working on there?”
“Prototype technology,” Kahlee offered before Anderson could speak. “Experimental weapons for the Alliance military.”
Saren tilted his head to the side, puzzled. “Experimental weapons technology? That’s all?”
“What do you mean ‘that’s all’?” Anderson sputtered in disbelief, running with the lie Kahlee had so deftly handed him.
“That hardly seems like justification for attacking a heavily armed Alliance base,” the turian replied.
“We’re on the edge of a war in the Verge,” Anderson insisted. “Everybody knows it’s got to be us or the batarians. Why wouldn’t they want to attack our primary weapons research base?”
“No,” Saren said flatly. “There’s something more. You’re hiding something.”
There was a long pause, and then the turian casually brought out his pistol and set it on the table.
“Perhaps you don’t understand the full extent of Spectre authority,” he said ominously. “I have the legal right to take any action I deem necessary during my investigations.”
“You’re going to kill us?” Kahlee exclaimed, her voice rising in shock and disbelief.
“I have two rules I follow,” Saren explained. “The first is: never kill someone without a reason.”
“And the second?” Anderson asked, suspicious.
“You can always find a reason to kill someone.”
“Biotics,” Kahlee blurted
out. “We were trying to find a way to turn humans into biotics.”
The turian considered her explanation for a moment then asked, “What were the results?”
“We were close,” the young woman admitted, her voice getting softer. “We found a handful of human subjects with latent biotic abilities. Children, mostly. Far weaker than what we’d measured in other species, but with the amplification nodes and proper training we still hoped to see results.
“We just completed the implantation surgery on several of our most promising candidates a few weeks ago. None of them survived the raid.”
“Do you know who ordered the attack?” he asked, changing tack.
Kahlee shook her head. “Batarians, probably. I was on leave when it happened.”
“Why are they coming after you now?” Saren pressed.
“I don’t know!” she shouted, banging her fist on the table in exasperation. “Maybe they think I can get the program up and running again. But they destroyed the files. Killed the test subjects. All our research is gone!”
She dropped her head down onto her arms, crying against the table. “And now everybody’s dead,” she mumbled between sobs. “All my friends. Dr. Qian. All of them…gone.”
Anderson placed a comforting hand on her shoulder, while the turian just sat there watching impassively. After several seconds he pushed himself away from the table and stood up.
“I will find out who ordered the attack,” he told them as he put his gun back into his belt and turned to go. “And why.”
At the door he paused and turned back to them. “And if you’re lying to me, I will find that out, too.”
A moment later he was gone, disappearing into the night.
Kahlee was still sobbing. Anderson pulled her close, trying to offer her comfort. She’d done a good job with Saren, spinning lies with just enough strands of truth to make them hold together. But there was nothing false about her reaction now. The people at Sidon had been her friends, and they were all dead.
She pressed her head up against him, seeking solace in the closeness of a fellow human being. A few minutes later the tears stopped, and she gently pushed herself away from him.
“Sorry about that,” she said, giving a nervous, rueful laugh and wiping her eyes.
“It’s okay,” Anderson replied. “You’ve been through a lot.”
“What’s going to happen now?” she asked. “Are you going to arrest me?”
“Not yet,” he admitted. “I meant what I said to your father the other day. I don’t believe you’re a traitor. But I need you to tell me what’s going on. And not the story you sold to that turian. I want the truth.”
She nodded and sniffled. “I guess it’s the least I can do after you risked your life for us. But can we take my dad to the hospital first?”
“Of course.”
It turned out getting Grissom to the hospital wasn’t going to be easy. He was a big man, and the sedative Kahlee had given him had made him groggy. He was nothing but dead weight. Uncooperative dead weight.
“Leave me alone,” he grumbled as they struggled in vain to lug him out of bed and get him on his feet.
Kahlee stood on one side of the bed holding his uninjured arm. Anderson was on the other, awkwardly gripping him around the waist and back to avoid touching his wounded bicep. Each time they tried to pull Grissom to a sitting position, he simply flopped back down.
His daughter tried to reason with him, grunting each time they hoisted him up. “We have to…unh…get you…unh…to a hospital. Ungh!”
“Bleeding’s stopped,” he protested, his words thick and slurred from the sedative. “Just let me sleep.”
“Let’s try something else,” Anderson said to Kahlee, standing up and coming around to her side. He sat down on the edge of the bed, facing away from the admiral as he pulled the older man’s good arm up across his back and over his shoulder. With Kahlee’s help he managed to stand, taking Grissom’s not inconsiderable weight in a modified fireman’s carry.
“Put me down, you bastard!” Grissom moaned.
“You were stabbed in the arm and thrown against a wall by a pissed-off krogan,” Anderson said, taking an unsteady step toward the hall. “Someone needs to check you out.”
“You stupid son of a bitch,” Grissom mumbled. “They’ll figure out Kahlee’s hiding here.”
Anderson hesitated, then staggered back a step and half sat, half fell onto the bed, letting Grissom slip back down onto it.
“Is he too heavy?” Kahlee asked, concerned for both of them.
“No,” Anderson said, panting slightly from the exertion. “But he’s right. We take him in and you’re finished.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The ports are already on increased alert because of the attack on Sidon. We bring an Alliance legend like Admiral Jon Grissom into a hospital with these kinds of injuries and security goes through the roof. There’s no way in hell we’ll be able to get you off the planet without being recognized.
“I believe you’re innocent, Kahlee, but nobody else does. They’ll arrest you on sight.”
“So I’ll just stay at the house,” she said. “Nobody knows I’m here. Nobody even knows we’re related.”
“Yeah, right. Nobody but me, a Spectre, that krogan…We all figured it out, Kahlee. How long before somebody else makes the connection and comes snooping around? Before all this, nobody knew who you were; nobody bothered with you. Now you’re a suspected traitor—your name and picture are on every news vid out there.
“Reporters will be digging into your past, trying to find out everything about you. Sooner or later someone’s going to figure out the truth.”
“So what can we do?”
It was Grissom who chimed in with the answer. “Get the hell off this planet,” he muttered. “I know people who can sneak you past port security. Just need to call them in the morning.”
With that, Grissom rolled over and began snoring, finally giving in to the sedatives. Anderson and Kahlee left the room and headed into the kitchen.
“Your father’s a pretty smart man,” Anderson said.
Kahlee nodded, but all she said was “You hungry? If we’re stuck here until morning we might as well have something to eat.”
They found some bread, cold cuts, and mustard in his fridge, along with thirty-six cans of beer. Tossing one over to Anderson, Kahlee said, “He’s probably got something stronger hidden around here if you’re interested.”
“Beer’s fine,” Anderson replied, cracking it open and taking a swig. It was a local brew, one he’d never tried before. It had a strong bite; bitter, but no aftertaste. “Should go good with the sandwich.”
“Not much of a meal,” she apologized once they were sitting at the table.
“It’s fine,” he answered. “Tastes a little odd with the cold bread, though. Who keeps their bread in the fridge?”
“My mother always did,” she answered. “Guess that’s the one thing my parents could agree on. Too bad you need more than that to make a marriage work.”
They ate in silence after that, letting their minds wind down. When they were done Anderson collected both plates and took them over to the counter. He grabbed them each another beer from the fridge and came back to the table.
“Okay, Kahlee,” he said, handing her the can. “I know it’s been a long night. But now we have to talk. You up for this?”
She nodded.
“Take your time,” he told her. “Just start at the beginning and work your way through. I need to know everything.”
“We weren’t working on biotic research at the base,” she began softly, then smiled. “But I guess you already know that.”
She has a pretty smile, Anderson thought. “A good cover story for that Spectre, though,” he said aloud. “If he found out what was really going on…” he trailed off, remembering Ambassador Goyle’s warnings about the Spectres.
Saren had saved their lives. He wondered if he really co
uld have brought himself to murder the turian if it had been necessary to keep humanity’s secret. And even if he tried, could he have succeeded?
“Let’s just say that was quick thinking on your part,” he finally told her.
Kahlee took the compliment in stride and continued with the story, her voice slowly growing in strength and confidence as she spoke. “Sidon was dedicated to one very specific task: the development and study of artificial intelligence. We knew it was risky, but we had rigid safety protocols to make sure nothing could go wrong.
“I started as a low-level systems analyst at the base two years ago, working directly under Dr. Qian, the man in charge of the project.
“People use the term ‘genius’ all the time,” she said, making no attempt to hide her admiration. “But he really was one. His mind—his research, the way he thinks—it’s on a level so far above the rest of us we can barely even grasp it. Like most of the people there, I just did whatever Dr. Qian told me to. Half the time I didn’t even fully understand why I was doing it.”
“Why weren’t you at Sidon when it was attacked?” Anderson asked, gently nudging her toward the relevant part of her tale.
“A few months ago I noticed some changes in Dr. Qian’s behavior. He was spending more and more time in the lab. He started working double shifts; he hardly slept. But he seemed to have this endless supply of desperate, frantic energy.”
“Was he manic?”
“I don’t think so. I never saw any sign of it before. But suddenly we were integrating all sorts of new hardware into the systems. Our research started going in totally different directions—we completely abandoned conventional practices and went with radical new theories. We were using prototype technology and designs unlike anything we’d ever seen before.
“At first, I just thought Dr. Qian had made some kind of breakthrough. Something that got him all fired up. In the beginning it was exhilarating. His excitement was infectious. But after a while I started to get suspicious.”
“Suspicious?”
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