Each rover carried ten mercs. Skarr left eight men outside with sniper rifles to cover the exits, a pair stationed on each side of the building. The others were broken into seven infiltration teams of three members each.
“The bombs will detonate in fifteen minutes,” Skarr reminded them.
The infiltration teams scattered, heading off down the various branching corridors leading to all the different areas of the facility. Their objective was to plant a number of strategically placed explosives; enough to reduce the entire building to ash and rubble. Along the way they’d take out the security patrols and mow down any employees they ran across. Anyone who fled the building would be shot by the mercs waiting outside. And any survivors who managed to hide inside the building would be killed by the explosions or burned alive when the incendiary charges were detonated.
With the snipers posted outside and the infiltration teams making their way toward the heart of the complex, Skarr was left alone to complete a very specific task. Edan had given him the name, description, and office location of his contact inside Dah’tan. It was unlikely the young woman knew whom she was working for, but the batarian didn’t want to leave any loose ends.
The krogan made his way quickly through the halls toward the admin offices near the front of the building. From somewhere far away he heard the sound of gunfire and batarian voices screaming—the massacre had begun.
Moments later sirens started ringing. Skarr rounded a corner and nearly ran into a pair of Dah’tan security guards rushing to respond to the alarm. The two batarians hesitated for a mere instant, caught off guard by the sight of a heavily armored krogan crashing through the halls. Skarr seized the opportunity and smashed the butt of his assault rifle into one guard’s face, sending him reeling backwards. At the same time he threw his body into the second guard, his mass bowling the much smaller man over and sending them both tumbling to the floor. As they rolled together on the ground Skarr leveraged the barrel of his gun under his adversary’s chin and pulled the trigger, removing most of everything above the neck.
The first guard was just getting to his feet, still dazed and bleeding from his mouth. He fired his own weapon, but his aim was erratic and he only managed to rip a line of holes in the wall above where Skarr and the corpse of his friend were sprawled across the floor. Skarr responded by firing down the corridor, shredding his enemy’s ankles and calves.
The batarian screamed and fell forward, dropping his gun as he threw his arms out to break his fall. Another burst from Skarr finished him off an instant after he hit the ground.
Leaping to his feet, the bounty hunter lumbered down the hall toward the office of Edan’s contact. The door was closed but he simply kicked it in, sending it flying off its hinges. A young batarian woman was crouching on the floor, only half-hidden behind her desk. She screamed when she saw the gore-covered krogan standing in the doorway.
“Good-bye, Jella,” Skarr said.
“No! Please! I’m not—”
The rest of her words were cut off as he squeezed the trigger, drowned out by the hail of bullets that riddled her body and blew it across the floor to the back wall of the room.
Skarr glanced quickly at his watch. Seven more minutes until the explosives detonated. Part of him wanted to spend the time searching the halls for more victims, but he knew that wasn’t an option. It was too easy to lose himself in the bloodlust of his ancient ancestors. Swept up in battle fury, he could easily lose track of time in a slaughter like this, and he had no intention of being inside the building when it blew.
He made his way quickly back to the exit, ignoring the sweet screams of pain and terror beckoning to him from every corridor he passed.
Jella did her best to block out the staccato bursts of gunfire and the horrific screams of her coworkers. She was hiding inside the bathroom air vent—a tight fit but she had managed to wedge herself in. In her mind she could picture the scene outside, and she had no intention of leaving her hiding place.
Time passed with agonizing slowness; the sounds of the attack seemed to go on for hours, though in reality it was only a few minutes. She heard voices outside the bathroom door and she tried to scooch herself back even farther into the air shaft.
The door flew open and a pair of batarians leaped in, their automatic weapons already firing. They sprayed the entire room with bullets, reducing the thin sheet metal of the stall doors to ribbons, shattering the ceramic toilets and sinks and bursting several of the water pipes in the walls.
Fortunately Jella’s hiding place was high up on the wall above one of the stalls—she’d mounted one of the toilets and clambered up onto the dividers between the stalls to remove the air vent’s cover. Then she’d slid in feet first and carefully pulled the cover back into place once she was safely hidden inside.
From her vantage point she had a perfect view of the carnage, though she closed her eyes and covered her ears with her palms to try and block out the deafening retorts of their weapons. Only when the gunfire finally ended did she dare to open her eyes again.
The men were taking a last look around the bathroom, splashing noisily through the water gushing from the broken pipes, spreading out across the floor like a miniature lake.
“Nobody here,” one of them said with a shrug.
“Too bad,” the other replied. “I was hoping we could catch one of the women and drag her off with us for a little fun.”
“Forget it,” the other said with a shake of his head. “That krogan would never go for it.”
“Edan’s the one paying us, not him,” his partner spat back. Jella instantly knew who he was talking about: Edan Had’dah was one of the most wealthy, powerful, and infamous individuals on Camala.
“I dare you to say that to his face,” the first man said with a laugh, even as he crouched down and attached something to the wall. A moment later he stood up. “Let’s move. We need to be out of here in two minutes.”
The men ran off down the hallway, their footsteps echoing in the distance. Jella crawled slowly forward from her hiding place, trying to see what they had placed on the wall. It was about the size of a lunch box, with wires running into it from all sides. Even though she had no military training or experience, it was obvious the device was some kind of bomb.
She paused for a moment, listening for more gunfire. Everything was silent except for a faint beep-beep-beep as the timer on the explosive counted down. Jella knocked the cover off the ventilation shaft and dropped down to the floor. She ran out of the bathroom, sprinting down the corridor toward the same security exit she had unlocked earlier, unwittingly allowing the slaughter to happen.
But she couldn’t think about that now. Refusing to even glance at the bodies of her coworkers in the hallway, she reached the door and yanked it open. Two men from the warehouse lay just outside, each shot between the eyes.
Jella hesitated, expecting a similar fate. But whoever had killed the men was gone, clearing the surrounding area before the building detonated. As soon as her shell-shocked mind grasped the fact that she was still alive, the young woman put her head down and ran. She managed half a dozen steps before the explosion turned her world to fire, agony, and then darkness.
By the time Saren arrived at the Dah’tan Manufacturing facility, the place was in ruins. Emergency response crews had put out the fires, but the building was little more than a burned-out shell. The top two floors had collapsed and one of the walls had caved inwards, reducing the interior to a pile of scorched rubble. Rescue workers were busy picking through the debris. Looking at the scene it was obvious they weren’t looking for survivors; they were collecting remains.
Several news crews were filming the wreckage from a respectful distance away, careful not to interfere with the emergency crews but anxious to get some dramatic footage for the vids.
Saren parked his vehicle beside them, got out, and marched toward the ruins.
“Hey!” one of the batarian emergency workers called out on seeing his approach,
running over to intercept him. “You can’t be here. This is a restricted area.”
Saren glared at him and produced his identification.
“Sorry, sir,” the batarian said, stopping short and tilting his head in deference. “I didn’t know you were a Spectre.”
“Any survivors?” Saren demanded.
“Only one,” he replied. “A young woman. She was outside the building when it blew. The blast took her legs, and she has critical burns to ninety percent of her body.
“She’s en route to the hospital now. It’s a miracle she survived, but I don’t think she’s going to make it through the—”
“Take your crew and go,” Saren said, cutting him off.
“What? We can’t! We’re still looking for survivors.”
“There aren’t anymore survivors. You’re done here.”
“What about the bodies? We can’t just leave them like this.”
“The bodies will still be here in the morning. Clear out. That’s an order. And take the damn vid crews with you.”
The batarian hesitated, then acquiesced with another tilt of his head and went to round up his crew. Five minutes later the rescue vehicles and media vans were pulling away, leaving Saren alone to search the wreckage for clues.
“My God,” Kahlee gasped as their rover climbed over a rise and they caught their first glimpse of what had once been the Dah’tan Manufacturing plant. “The whole place is gone!”
It was almost dusk, but Camala’s large orange sun still provided enough light for them to see the destruction clearly.
“Looks like somebody else got here first,” Anderson noted with a grim frown.
“Where are the rescue crews?” Kahlee asked. “They have to know about this by now!”
“I don’t know,” Anderson admitted, grinding the rover to a stop. “Something’s not right. Wait here.”
Hopping out of the vehicle he approached the remains of the building on foot, pistol drawn, running in a quick crouch. He was less than twenty meters away when a single shot ricocheted off the ground just in front of him.
Anderson froze. He was completely exposed and in the open; the shooter could easily have killed him if that was the intent. The shot was meant as a warning.
“Drop your weapon and walk forward!” a voice called out from somewhere in the ruins up ahead. Anderson did as he was ordered, setting his pistol on the ground and continuing on unarmed.
A second later a familiar turian figure emerged from behind the debris he’d been using for cover, his rifle trained directly on Anderson’s chest.
“What are you doing here?” the Spectre demanded.
“The same thing you are,” Anderson said, trying to sound more confident than he felt. “Trying to find out who was behind the attack on Sidon.”
Saren snorted in disgust, but didn’t lower his weapon. “You lied to me, human.” The way he said “human” made it sound like an insult.
Anderson didn’t say anything. The Spectre had found his way to the Dah’tan plant; he was smart enough to put the pieces together.
“Artificial intelligence is a violation of Citadel Conventions,” Saren continued when he didn’t respond. “I will report this to the Council.”
Again, Anderson remained silent. He had the impression Saren was still digging for information. Whatever the turian was looking for, Anderson wasn’t going to be the one to accidentally give it to him.
“Who was behind the attack on Sidon?” Saren asked, his voice heavy with the implied threat as he brought the rifle sight up to his eye and took dead aim at the lieutenant’s chest.
“I don’t know,” Anderson admitted, staying perfectly still.
Saren fired a shot into the ground at his feet.
He flinched, but didn’t step back. “I said I don’t know!” he shouted, letting his anger boil over. He was almost certain Saren meant to kill him, but he wasn’t going to go down begging for his life. He wasn’t going to let some turian thug intimidate him!
“Where is Sanders?” Saren barked, changing tactics.
“Somewhere safe,” Anderson snapped back. There was no way in hell he was going to let this monster get anywhere close to Kahlee.
“She’s lying to you,” Saren told him. “She knows much more about this than she’s told you. You should question her again.”
“I’ll run my investigation, you run yours.”
“Maybe I should focus on finding her, then,” he said, his voice dripping with menace. “If I do, my interrogation will uncover all her deepest secrets.”
Anderson felt his muscles tense, but he refused to say anything more about Kahlee.
Realizing the human wasn’t going to rise to the bait, the turian switched topics yet again. “How did you get here?”
“I’m done answering questions,” Anderson said flatly. “If you’re going to kill me, just do it.”
The turian took a long look at the surrounding area, scanning the horizon in the fading light. He seemed to reach some kind of decision, then lowered his weapon.
“I am a Spectre, an agent of the Council,” he declared, a timbre of nobility giving strength to his voice. “I am a servant of justice, sworn to protect and defend the galaxy. Killing you serves no purpose, human.”
Again, the word was a thinly veiled insult.
Saren turned his back and walked away, heading toward the barely visible silhouette of a small rover in the distance. “Go ahead and pick through the rubble if it makes you feel better,” he called back over his shoulder. “There’s nothing left to find here.”
Anderson didn’t make a move until Saren climbed into his rover and sped off. Once the vehicle was out of sight, he turned and retrieved his pistol from the dirt. It was almost dark; there was no point in searching the debris now. And he actually believed what the turian had said about there being nothing left to find at Dah’tan.
Moving carefully through the deepening gloom of the night, it took him several minutes to make his way back to his own rover.
“What happened?” Kahlee asked as he climbed inside. “I thought I saw you talking to someone.”
“Saren,” he told her. “That turian Spectre.”
“What’s he doing here?” she asked, alarmed by the memory of their last encounter and the mere mention of his name.
“Looking for evidence,” Anderson admitted.
“What did he say to you? What did he want?”
He briefly debated telling her a lie; something that would put her mind at ease. But she was a part of this, too. She deserved the truth. Or most of it, anyway.
“I think he was seriously considering killing me.”
Kahlee gasped in horror.
“I can’t be sure,” he added quickly. “Maybe I’m wrong. Turians are hard to read.”
“Don’t give me that crap,” she countered. “You wouldn’t say something like that if you weren’t sure. Tell me what happened.”
“He was fishing for information,” Anderson said. “He’d already figured out we were lying to him about what you were working on at the base.”
“Dah’tan’s not known for making biotic implants,” Kahlee conceded.
“I didn’t tell him anything. Once he realized I wasn’t going to help his investigation he got this hard look in his eyes. That’s when I thought he was going to kill me.”
“But he didn’t.” Her words were half statement, half question.
“He took this slow look around, like he was trying to see if there was anyone else nearby. Then he just walked away.”
“He wanted to know if you were out here alone!” she exclaimed, coming to the same conclusion he had already reached. “He couldn’t kill you if there were any witnesses!”
Anderson nodded. “Legally a Spectre has the right to do whatever he wants. But the Council doesn’t condone wanton murder. If he killed me and someone reported it, they’d step in.”
“You really think the Council would take action if he killed a human?”
&
nbsp; “Humanity has more political significance than any of those aliens want to admit,” Anderson explained. “We’ve got enough ships and soldiers to make every other species think twice about crossing us. The Council needs to stay on our good side. If word got out that Spectres were killing Alliance officers without justification, they’d have to do something.”
“So what happens now?”
“We head back to the city. I need to send a message to Ambassador Goyle in the next burst.”
“Why?” Kahlee asked sharply. “What for?” The hint of alarm in her voice reminded him that she was still a fugitive on the run from the Alliance.
“Saren knows humanity’s been conducting illegal AI research. He’s going to report it to the Council. I have to warn her so she’s ready for the political fallout.”
“Of course,” Kahlee replied, her voice a mixture of relief and embarrassment. “Sorry. I just thought…”
“I’m doing everything I can to help you,” he told her, trying to hide how much her suspicion had hurt him. “But I need you to trust me.”
She reached out and put her hand on top of his. “I’m not used to people looking out for me,” she said by way of apology. “My mother was always working and my father…well, you know. Looking out for myself just became habit.
“But I know what you’re risking to help me. Your career. Maybe your life. I’m grateful. And I do trust you…David.”
Nobody ever called him David. Nobody but his mother and his wife. Ex-wife, he corrected. For a brief moment he was on the verge of telling Kahlee what Saren had said about focusing his investigation on her, but at the last second he bit his tongue.
He was attracted to Kahlee; he had already admitted that to himself. But he had to remember how much she’d already been through. She was vulnerable; alone and afraid. Telling her about Saren’s threats would only exacerbate those feelings. And while it would probably make her more willing to accept him as her protector and draw them closer together, Anderson wasn’t about to take advantage of a situation like that.
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