Red Citadel

         Sitting in Flux, waiting for his friend, Mariah, Don’Reylar was grateful he could adjust his enviro-suit’s audio pickups. He could still feel the bass, but the noise reduction algorithms in his suit enabled him to filter out the loudest of the music when it started giving him a headache. He should have been used to constant noise from life in the Migrant Fleet, but sometimes the music in the Citadel’s clubs could be too much.
         The bartender, Don could never remember her name, was arguing with another human who resembled her; her sister perhaps? Don had a difficult time telling individual humans apart, especially when they wore their hair in similar styles and dressed alike. He liked that he could watch everyone in the bar and they were none the wiser; one of the advantages to having a translucent rather than transparent faceplate on his helmet. Plus, most people avoided him altogether, which made clandestine surveillance even easier. Granted, he wasn’t there to spy on people, but Don figured people watching was the safest pastime for a quarian on the Citadel, since few people would hire him for anything more important than scut work.
         Don checked his chronometer again; Mariah was late. He sighed and wondered if she was ever on time for anything. He looked up to see one of the human females approaching him.
         “Do you need another drink?” she gestured towards his half-full glass of purified water.
         Don shook his head, “No, thank you. I’m still waiting for my friend.”
         “We don’t get many quarians in here,” she ignored a turian at the next table trying to get her attention.
         “Maybe if everyone stopped treating us like vagrants and thieves, we’d come around more,” Don thought he sounded a little harsh and thought about apologizing. The girl turned her back to him and tended to the turnian customer. She threw Don a hurt glance over her shoulder as she headed back to the bar.
         An asari with deep blue skin and white markings framing her eyes approached Don’s table.
         “I’m not interrupting anything, am I?” She tugged at her collar as her high-necked dress rode up as she sat down.
         “You’re late, Mariah. You know I don’t like sitting in these places alone,” Don crossed his arms as he spoke.
         “Oh relax, it’s good for you.”
         Don snorted.
         “Besides,” Mariah slid a data disc across the table towards Don, “I found something you might be interested in.”
         Picking up the data disc, Don looked at her with interest, “What is it?”
         “Plans for an experimental enviro-suit heads up display. It’s supposed to be far more advanced than anything currently in use. It was designed by the human Alliance for use by their soldiers, but I’m sure it can be adapted for any type of powered helmet.”
         “Fantasic!” Don pocketed the data disc. “It’s not enough for me to take back for my pilgrimage, but it’s certainly better than anything else I’ve found so far. Dare I ask where you got it?”
         Cheers erupted from the upper level of the club. From the sounds of it, someone just hit a jackpot on a quasar machine.
Mariah chuckled, “You’ll be happier if you don’t know.”
         “I don’t get you, Mariah,” Don leaned forward. “You have an advanced degree from one of the most prestigious universities on Thessia, yet here you are, helping me, and half the time, you’re stealing things to do so.”
         Mariah flashed Don a grin, “You’re so cute when you question me.”
         “I’m serious, Mariah. Tech like this just doesn’t turn up at Citadel Souvenirs.”
         Putting her hand on Don’s arm, Mariah leaned closer, lowering her voice so she couldn’t be overheard, “You’re right, it doesn’t. But you don’t need to know where it came from. The source is reliable, and I would appreciate it if you would just consider it a gift from a friend.”
         “Very well,” Don nodded and leaned back. “Thank you, my friend. I do appreciate your help, though, I don’t always understand why you treat me better than ninety-five percent of people on the Citadel do.”
         Mariah gestured to the waitress. She ordered a drink and some food for herself, then asked Don if he wanted anything. He shook his head. She turned back to Don as the waitress walked away.
         “What can I say? I have a lot of sympathy for quarians. It’s just not right how people treat you.”
         Don folded his arms again. Sometimes, he had a hard time telling if she was mocking him or not. “How’s that, exactly?”
         “I studied a lot of quarian history at the university. I find the Morning War fascinating. Tragic, but fascinating.”
         The waitress returned, bringing Mariah a green beverage and something that looked to Don like a plate full of worms. Don saw a human flanked by two asari stumbling down the stair from the quasar machine room. He looked half-drunk and was loudly proclaiming how much he loved everyone (especially his two asari companions) and how he was going to buy everyone drinks.
         “What are you eating?”
         “Ramen,” Mariah slurped up a forkful of the stuff. “It’s a human dish. They have some really good food.”
         “I’ll never know,” Don pulled a tube of nutrient paste out of one of his pockets. His supply was starting to get low. Too bad that human wasn’t planning on dropping a few credit chits on his table. Tomorrow he would have to try to track down some more. Mariah was always trying new foods, foods Don would never be able to taste due to his biochemistry.
         When they finished eating, Mariah paid the waitress and they made their way back to the ward’s market area. It was getting late and merchants were starting to close down their shops. They paused for a moment near a Citadel Rapid Transit station and looked out over the ward as it stretched out towards the Serpent Nebula.
         “What are you plans for tonight?”
         Don shrugged, “Funds are short. I’m probably going back to my HabCapsule in Zakera ward.” He turned his back to the nebula and watched a Keeper scuttle along towards its next repair job. “You?”
         “Shopping. My father’s birthday is soon, I wanted to find him something nice,” Mariah looked at Don, “Care to join me?”
         “It’s getting late, you don’t have a lot of shopping time left today.”
         Mariah called up a transport on the Rapid Transport terminal, “There’s plenty of time, come on.”
         A transport pulled up alongside the terminal and opened its doors. Don climbed over the driver’s seat and sat looking out the window. He supposed going shopping with Mariah was preferable to spending the night reading articles on the Extranet, but since he had very little money, he figured it was as much as a waste of time as the other.
         Mariah drove, as she usually did. It wasn’t that Don couldn’t drive, but C-Sec frowned on quarians doing just about anything. After six months of eking by cleaning out duct works, clearing drains, and other menial tasks, Don was wondering if it might just be easier to work his way to Omega or Ilium, though neither place treated quarians much better.
         He nodded and shook his head as appropriate as Mariah talked while she drove. Much of her conversation revolved around the value of buying her drell father a gift. Fortunately, most of her questions were rhetorical in nature and Don didn’t really have to interact with her. She was a nice girl, but occasionally he found her fascination in him unnerving. At other times, when his mood wasn’t quite so foul, he found her attention rather flattering.
         Mariah nudged him and he noticed they were in Zakera ward. “Wake up, we’re here.”
         As they browsed the various stores in Zakera ward, Don noticed that just about all of the shops were endorsed by Commander Shepard. He knew about the Commander’s actions at the Battle of the Citadel, but never really considered him a sell-out.
         “Keeelah, is every shop here his favorite?” They entered Citadel Souvenirs to the sound of Commander Shepard giving the store his endorsement.
         “Perhaps it’s sloppy editing. Since these stores all sell different things, maybe it’s supposed to mean this is his favorite souvenir shop on the Citadel, whereas Saronis Applications is his favorite software store.” Mariah looked over the fish in the store, shaking her head.
         Don just nodded, “Maybe you should buy him a model of the Citadel. A fish just seems…wrong for a drell. Plus, it might die before it reaches him.”
         “Good point.”
         Twenty minutes and two stores later, Mariah decided that nothing appealed to her enough. She caught up with Don as he was discussing the finer points of Galaxy of Fantasy with the salarian working the counter at the game store. Don gamed quite a bit before he left on his pilgrimage; every chance he could whenever the Flotilla was connected to the Extranet. Now, with money so tight, he was stuck with whatever he could play on his omni-tool for free.
         Don walked Mariah back to a Rapid Transit terminal and bid her goodnight; he wanted to get an early start looking for more work tomorrow. He was going to go to Tayseri Ward and try to find work there again doing repairs; the ward was still in shambles from Sovereign’s attack two-and-a-half years ago. At least they had the Rapid Transit service restored; it had been shut down for a few weeks for unspecified reasons. Hopefully, it wasn’t due to the shuttled falling out of the sky. The way his luck was lately, Don reflected, it wouldn’t surprise him if his shuttle did crash. Maybe tomorrow, though, his luck would change.

         Walking into the Toris Construction offices, Don saw a volus working on a datapad. A vacant desk and several crates littered the room; like most construction offices in Tayseri Ward, it was designed to be a barely functional space in which the foreman could do his or her paperwork.
         “Excuse me,” Don walked up to the volus, “I don’t suppose you need any technicians?”
         The volus looked up at Don and made a sound that sounded like a snort. “I have no use…for a clanless vagrant.”
         Clenching his fists, Don resisted the urge to use the pudgy volus for a punching bag, “I am Clan Reylar, and by the looks of this ward, you could use several teams of quarians working for you.”
         “Get out of here…before I call C-Sec…clanless,” the volus dismissed him with a wave of his hand and turned his attention back to his datapad.
         Don felt his face get hot and he closed his eyes. Pulling up his omni-tool, he started to hack into the volus’s envirosuit controls, but decided against it. He walked out of the office, muttering to himself, right into the path of a cargo skimmer.
         The human driver yelled just as he was about to plow into Don. The quarian jumped back as the skimmer swerved, ramming into a refuse bin. Trash flew in every direction and a crate fell off the cargo skimmer, nearly crushing the volus as he walked out of the Toris office. The driver brought the skimmer to a halt, screaming obscenities at Don.
         Don ran down the corridor and around a corner where he stopped in a shaded area. Peeking around the corner, he saw that no one bothered to follow him. He let out a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding.
         “Dammit.”
         “Trouble, Don?” Mariah appeared from nowhere.
         “Keelah!” Don started. “Where did you come from?”
         “Are you all right?” Mariah grabbed Don’s arm to steady him. “What’s going on?”
         Don pointed around the corner, “Oh, just nearly got run over because I’m a careless bosh’tet.”
         Mariah looked around the corner, then walked out into the corridor. Don followed her. She examined the overturned refuse container before walking over to the front of the Toris Construction office. Crouching, Mariah looked at something on the floor, rubbing her fingers on it.
         Holding them up in front of Don, she clucked her tongue, “Looks like someone got sloppy.”
         Don peered at her fingers. It was hard to tell through his helmet, but there appeared to be red powder on her fingers.
         “Red Sand,” Mariah brushed her fingers on her pants.
         Red Sand was illegal on the Citadel. Don had never seen it before, but read about it on the Extranet. She motioned for him to follow her and took off towards an alley.
         “Do you know where that skimmer went?”
         Don shook his head, “I didn’t see it; I was busy getting out of the way. Keelah, I don’t want to get mixed up with criminals.”
         Mariah pulled him into the alley. Putting her fingers up to her lips, she pushed Don back into the shadows. As his eyes adjusted to the light, he could see the skimmer down at the end of the alley. The driver was engaged in an animated discussion with a turian, though Don couldn’t quite make out what they were saying, even when he adjusted his helmet’s audio pickups. He saw a second turian come out from behind the skimmer and start unloading the crates.
         The driver and the turian he was talking to walked over to one of the crates now on the ground. The turian pointed at it and the human shook his head, pointing down the alley back towards the ward’s main corridor. The turian shoved the human back and pulled a pistol on him. Backing up, the human put his hands up in a defensive gesture. The report of gunfire echoed down the alley as the turian fired, pumping several rounds into the human’s torso.
         Before he could see what was happening, Mariah was pulling him out of the alley and shouting for him to run. Don stumbled out of the alley and headed for one of the Rapid Transit terminals, but Mariah yanked him into a café.
         “This way,” she pulled him down into a chair by a small round table and sat opposite him. A hanar floated over and asked them in a soothing monotone if they would like anything to ingest today.
         “The strongest whiskey you have,” Mariah looked out into the corridor as she ordered.
         “Mariah, what’s going on?” Don looked over his shoulder to see what she was looking at.
         She grabbed his hand and pulled him close across the table, “Relax, act like this is natural.”
         “What?”
         “I’m C-Sec. Undercover. I’ve been investigating a drug ring here in Tayseri Ward.”
         Mariah suddenly looked older to Don. Maybe it was his eyes playing tricks on him, but she seemed more serious, less fun-loving and adventurous.
         “They been selling to the repair crews, and I had reports they were using duct rats and vagrants for smuggling. Sorry,” She tried to soften her expression.
         Don felt his face flush. “But, I’m not…”
         Mariah cut him off, “I know that, now. When I realized where you were headed this morning, I decided to follow you anyway.” She paused as the hanar returned with their drinks. She paid with her omnitool, then continued, “I’m sorry you didn’t get the job, Don.”
         “Yeah, me too,” he grabbed his drink, but just stared at it, unsure if he could even drink it safely.
         “I don’t think you’re a vagrant. I’ve never thought that about quarians.”
         “I thought you were my friend, but all this time, you’ve just been using me,” Don tried to keep his tone level, but he felt himself getting angrier with each moment. He focused on the glass in his hand; the green liquid inside quivered and shimmered with the shaking of his hand.
         “I followed you because it was my job,” Mariah said, taking his hand in hers, “I spent extra time with you because I enjoyed your company.” Don looked up. “You are my friend,” Mariah smiled at him.
         Don sighed, “I hear a ‘but’ there.”
         Mariah’s smile disappeared, “I would appreciate your help, if you’re willing.”
         “I suppose since you got me that data disc, I have no choice but to help you.”
         Shrugging, Mariah released his hand and took a sip of her drink, “There’s a reward. Help me out and I’ll make sure you get it.”
         “Reward?”
         Mariah nodded, “Enough money you’ll be able to stay in a real hotel for a while, instead of one of those HabCapsules.”
         Don thought it over for a minute. Mariah just smiled at him and batted her eyes at him. He rolled his eyes, thankful she couldn’t see his expression.
         “All right, what do you want me to do?”

         Don double-checked his chronometer. Mariah’s plan was for him to loiter in the alley where they witnessed the red sand drop off yesterday, acting like he was scrounging. The hope was the turians would see him as a down-on-his-luck quarian and offer him some quick under-the-table cash for his assistance. She was banking on misconceptions about quarians; hopefully these turians weren’t open-minded.
         Fortunately, he had a lot of free time with which to loiter. The alley was dark, lit only by a few low-wattage maintenance lights. Power conduits, waste pipes, and ventilation ducts made the ceiling a labyrinth of grungy metal. He started digging through a pile of debris; he figured he should at least look like he was scrounging.
         Don tossed pieces of debris over his shoulder as he dug through the pile. Insulation. Wiring. Burned out power connectors. An odd, curved bit of metal that looked like it didn’t quite survive an explosion.
         “Junk. Keelah, what have I been reduced to?”
         A door across the alley slid open. Don jumped at the sound. A turian came out, tossing a cigar into the pile of debris Don was sifting through. Standing up as the turian approached, Don noted he had no facial markings.
         “A quarian, huh?” the turian walked over to Don. “Look at you, reduced to digging through trash. Humans not giving you a break?”
         “Do they ever? You have to wear an envirosuit, and they assume you’re some sort of thief or vagrant. Maybe if they’d throw us some work, we wouldn’t have to steal just to keep from starving.”
         “Well, if you’re not adverse to breaking some…human rules…I might be able to help you out.”
         Don looked up at the turian, “Really?” Sweat started to roll down his face; Don was thankful the turian couldn’t see it through his helmet.
         “Don’t worry kid, it’s not dangerous,” the turian walked around Don, as though he were inspecting the quarian. “Besides, why should we bend over backwards for the humans? They come in here, kill a few geth, and expect that we should kiss their asses?  To hell with that. They’re newcomers. Think we owe them something,” the turian spat.
         “I won’t do anything that hurts anyone, quarian, human, turian, or vol…well, yeah.”
         “You’re on a pilgrimage, right?
         Don nodded, “You know about that?”
         “I’ve read a few things about it. Look, it’s real easy. You deliver a few packages for us, and we pay you. Cut and dried,” the turian held out his hand. “Sure, it’s under-the-table, and C-Sec wouldn’t like it, but they won’t find out, right?”
         Shaking the turian’s hand, Don nodded, “I suppose you’re right.”
         “All right, here’s what you do,” the turian transferred a map of the ward to Don’s omni-tool. “Go to Infinity’s End around eleven-hundred hours tomorrow. It was a nightclub at the far end of the ward, got damaged in that Geth attack a couple of years ago. The owner died, so it’s pretty low on the restoration list. There’ll be a package waiting for you in a crate marked with a Cerberus logo.”
         “Cerberus? I’m not working for them.”
         “Neither are we,” the turian pointed to Don’s omni-tool, “it’s just to keep people from getting too curious about the contents. I’ve transferred the key code to your omni-tool. Just open it up, take out the dark blue satchel and take it to the concert hall construction site. Look for a human in a yellow vest; she’ll take it off your hands and verify delivery with us. Meet back up with me here tomorrow and I’ll transfer the money to you.”
         Don studied the map on his omni-tool. Infinity’s End was in a part of the ward that was still mostly rubble. “That’s it? What’s in this satchel?”
         “Nothing you need to worry about if you want to get paid. C-Sec won’t let people import it onto the station, but it’s stuff people want. It helps them get through the day. Nothing wrong with a little pick-me-up now and then, right?”
         “I suppose not.”
         The turian patted Don on the shoulder as he walked back to the door. Don rolled his eyes as the turian passed and returned to digging through the pile. He waited until he heard the door shut before he stood up again. He paused for a moment, and grabbed the odd, curved piece of metal before walking back to the main section of Teyseri Ward. A volus walked past him as he came out of the alley, muttering something about “clanless vagrants.” Don shook his head and sighed as he walked to the Rapid Transit terminal.
         Pulling up the menu, he selected transportation to level twenty-seven of Zakera Ward. He sent a quick message to Mariah on his omni-tool that he was on his way and hoped he wasn’t getting in over his head.

         After bringing Mariah up to speed on what the turian wanted him to do, they worked out a plan. Mariah would get into the construction site and apprehend the delivery recipient after the delivery confirmation was transmitted. Then C-Sec could interrogate that person and find out how extensive the smuggling ring was, if possible. Meanwhile, Mariah would tail Don back to the alley when he accepted his payment and arrange for a squad of C-Sec officers to arrest everyone at the scene, Don included.
         “That’s just for show, of course,” Mariah assured Don when he objected to being arrested. The plan in place, Don headed back to his HabCapsule.
         Pulling himself into the bed, he tossed the hunk of metal he took from the debris pile to the far end of the HabCapsule, closed the door behind him and turned on the video display. Fleet and Flotilla was playing on the Citadel Network’s movie channel. He stomached about ten minutes of it before he starting flipping through the channels, trying to find something that didn’t remind him how isolated he was in the galaxy. Settling on a documentary covering the First Contact War or the Relay 314 Incident, as it was known to the turians, he fell asleep to the soothing voice of the asari narrator.

         The next day, Don headed back to Teyseri Ward after a breakfast of nutrient paste and started looking for Infinity’s End. The further away from the Presidium he wandered, the worse-for-wear the ward became. It reminded him of a degenerative disease. Teyseri Ward was hardest hit by the wreckage from the Battle of the Citadel, and Don wasn’t sure about the reports of Sovereign being some sort of geth dreadnought, either. The official Council word was that it was all just a geth plot to destroy organics, but Don found something lacking in their explanations. For one, the geth retreated beyond the Perseus Veil after the Morning War. Why would they reappear nearly two-hundred years after the last contact with them and attack the Citadel? The quarians were the ones who tried to wipe them out in the Morning War, not the asari, turians, salarians, and especially not the humans. Yet, it was the humans against whom these geth made their first move. Something just didn’t sit right with the official explanations.
         Don reminded himself that was irrelevant at the moment. Checking the map on his omni-tool, he saw he was getting close to Infinity’s End.  He wasn’t sure if the unsettled feeling in his stomach was just nerves or a result of the lower gravity at this end of the Citadel. He could tell why the smugglers were using this as a drop-off point; this part of the ward was so run down and damaged, there were very few people here.
         The sign for Infinity’s End was lying on the floor, broken and darkened by soot. The ward’s gravity at this point was weak enough that dust hung in the air like industrial haze over factories. Double-checking his envirosuit’s filters, Don made his way through the rubble, looking for a crate with the Cerberus logo. He found it on top of a battered and broken support column. The column was shattered about three feet above the floor, the ceiling above it sagging like a forest canopy after a torrential downpour.
         Don opened the crate and found a dark blue satchel inside. Picking it up, he looped the strap around his neck and closed the crate. He checked his omni-tool again; the concert hall was several hours away on foot towards the Presidium. Sighing, he started the long trek back.
         As the concert hall was in a more populated section of Teyseri Ward, restoration on it was nearly complete. Workers and pedestrians scurried around the area, going about their daily routines. Don saw a human female in a yellow vest holding a datapad directing other workers. He approached her.
         “Excuse me?”
         She cleared her datapad’s screen and turned to him, “If you want a job, you have to go to the employment office, but I don’t think they’re hiring.” She started to turn away.
         “I have a delivery,” Don held out the satchel.
         “Oh, new guy, eh?” the human took the satchel from Don and opened it just enough to verify the contents. “Looks like a decent-sized batch for once.” She activated her omni-tool and typed a few commands.
         “Seemed heavy for its size,” Don played along. He didn’t actually know what it was supposed to weigh, but figured it couldn’t hurt to be chatty.
         “Tell your bosses they need to be a little more consistent on quantities if they’re going to charge a flat rate for these satchels,” the woman put the satchel over her shoulder and turned away from Don, walking into the concert hall. Don checked his omni-tool. It was mid-afternoon. According to the plan Mariah came up with, he was supposed to meet her in Flux at eighteen hundred hours. He had just enough time to stop by his HabCapsule before heading that way.
         Don crawled into his HabCapsule and grabbed the curved bit of metal he rescued from the pile in the alley. He thought it looked odd at the time, but know that he had a chance to really look at it, he was thoroughly puzzled. It looked like metal, but looked…grown. He wished he could feel it without his envirosuit’s gloves. The tactile sensation of touching it directly would tell him so much more. The alarm on his chronometer interrupted his speculations; it was time to go meet Mariah.
         Flux was packed. Don arrived five minutes before he was supposed to meet Mariah and ended up waiting in line. He still had fifteen minutes to wait by the time she found him in line. They decided to head to Mariah’s apartment.
         Don was shocked to learn Mariah lived in a spacious apartment in the upper section of Zakera Ward. He didn’t realize C-Sec officers made so much money.
         “We don’t,” Mariah explained as she walked into the kitchen to get a drink. “I didn’t always work for C-Sec. Before I decided to join up with them, I was working in a hotel in Nos Astra. An exclusive hotel, where girls like me were very well-compensated.”
          “You mean, the kind of place where people pay money for,” Don coughed, trying to ignore the heat rising in his face, thankful once again for a mostly-opaque faceplate, “…entertainment?”
         “Let’s just say the clientele were wealthy and generally tipped very well,” Mariah sat down on the couch and handed Don a drink as he sat next to her. He noted with interest that the glass she handed him was compatible with his helmet’s interfaces.
         “Entertain quarians much?”
         Mariah shrugged, “I figured I’d get you up here some time or another. I decided I should at least get some glasses that you could safely drink out of.”
         “I appreciate…what? You’ve been planning this?” Don started to feel really hot. He glanced at his heads-up-display’s thermal readout; the apartment was actually a little cooler than his HabCapsule usually was.
         “Sure,” Mariah took a drink of her beverage, “I like to have my friends over. Going out all the time gets expensive.”
         “Oh, yes, of course,” he tried to control his breathing. For a moment, he thought she was going to try to seduce him. It was an interesting thought; Mariah was quite beautiful for an asari, but intimacy carried a heavy risk. He wasn’t sure he could tolerate such an undertaking, not even with her. Not yet, anyway.
         “Now, about tomorrow,” Mariah put her glass down. Don was thankful for the change of subject.
         “Yes, I have to go back to the alley where I met the turian. He confirms I made the delivery, pays me, then you and your C-Sec friends arrest us all.”
         Mariah nodded, “Exactly. And if he resists arrest, drop to the ground and find cover. I don’t want you to get shot, and getting informants injured creates a lot of extra paperwork.”
         “Well, we wouldn’t want that,” Don tried the beverage she gave him. It was cool and refreshing. He recognized it as a drink specially imported to the Citadel for turians and quarians. Mariah was smiling at him.
         “It will be good to bring these scum down. Thanks, Don. I couldn’t do it without your help. I really do appreciate it.”

         The alley seemed dark and more oppressive to Don. The conduits and cables on the ceiling looked more like tentacles waiting to ensnare him than a labyrinth of vines. The turian was waiting for by the large pile of trash, smoking what Don thought the humans called a “cigar.” He adjusted his olfactory filters so he couldn’t smell the acrid smoke.
         “I was wondering if you were gonna show, kid. You sure took your sweet-ass time getting here,” the turian flicked his cigar into the trash pile.
         “I was analyzing a piece of salvage I found in that ward last night. The time got away from me.”
         The turian opened his omni-tool. Once Don had his opened, he transferred credits to Don’s account, “Interested in more work?”
         As Don was about to answer, he noticed three people enter the alley. The turian noticed them, as well. It looked like two armored turians and an armored asari.
         “What the hell’s this?”
         “I don’t know,” Don started to back away from the turian.
         From the end of the alley, an electronically-enhanced voice shouted, “C-Sec, stay where you are and keep your hands where we can see them.”
         “Son-of-a…” the turian grabbed Don and pulled him close as he brought out a pistol and held it to Don’s head. Don tried to pull away, but the turian was too strong, and he was cutting off his airway.
         “Stay back,” the turian started moving towards the back of the alley, dragging Don with him, keeping the quarian in between himself and the C-Sec officers. Don could make out Mariah among them. They kept advancing.
         “I’m not playing with you. Stop moving or I’m going to paint this alleyway with this quarian’s brains. We’ll all see what they look like under the bucket.”
         Mariah motioned for the others to stop. The turian kept dragging Don towards the back of the alley. Don felt himself starting to black out from the grip the turian had on his throat and he let himself go limp. Shoving him away, the turian fired at the C-Sec officers.
         Don slammed face first into the wall as he heard the grunts accompanying bullet impacts and the sound of bodies falling to the floor. The turian fled. Looking around, Don saw that all three C-Sec officers were on the ground. He pulled himself up and ran over to them.
         “Mariah!” turning her over, he saw that she was gut shot. She groaned and one of the turian officers tried to grab Don.
         “Get away from her, scum.”
         Don shoved the turian’s arm away. Mariah pushed her pistol into Don’s hand, “He’s our informant, Tarvus.” Clenching her teeth, she gripped Don’s hand, “Go get him, Don. Do what you have to.”
         Don looked at the pistol, then at the pool of blue blood collecting on the ground.
         “Go!”
         Running down the alley after the turian, Don called up a targeting assistance heads-up-display on his helmet. He didn’t know if it would actually help, but it couldn’t hurt. His training at the Flotilla prepared him for something like this, in theory, but real life often didn’t mesh up with what theory taught.
         He saw the turian turn a corner at the far end of the alley, and, lungs burning, tried to run faster. Don’s throat was on fire from the turian’s grip, but he ignored it and kept going. Turning another corner, Don checked the pistol as he ran; it was fully loaded, cocked, and safety off. The turian was attempting to break into a taxi. Two salarians were pointing at him and talking to each other, but the plaza was otherwise empty.
         Don stopped and aimed. His hand was shaking, but he pulled the trigger. The bullet impacted just to the left of the turian’s head, shattering the taxi’s window. Spinning around, ducking and pulling his pistol in one motion, the turian returned fire. Don dove for cover behind a bench. The salarians shrieked and ran.
         Behind the bench, Don waited for a bullet to pierce the bench and kill him. He only dared to look when he heard the taxi roar away. He ran over to an adjacent one and hacked the door. It swung open and he climbed in. Pulling the door closed with one hand, he started to hack the start-up sequence. The taxi lurched and he took off in pursuit of the turian.
         Cursing the taxi for its poor acceleration, Don steered with one hand while trying to hack into its governor with the other hand on his omni-tool. He could see the turian’s red taxi weaving in and out of traffic as the sprawl of Zakera Ward spread out before them. Red lights flooded the cabin of Don’s taxi as he finally disabled the governor, barely missing an oncoming cargo skimmer in the process.
         “Warning,” the taxi’s onboard VI started to lecture him, “this vehicle is no longer functioning within legal parameters as a public conveyance. C-Sec has been notified.”
         “Thanks a lot,” Don swerved the taxi to avoid another oncoming vehicle. The VI helpfully offered another suggestion, as he continued his erratic control while trying to transfer some readouts to his helmet’s H.U.D.
         “You appear to be having trouble maintaining your course and speed. Would you like assistance steering this conveyance to a Rapid Transit Station?”
         “No!”
         The turian’s taxi made a sharp right turn and started to descend. Don followed him, continuing his acceleration into his dive. As he gained, green lights started popping up on his helmet H.U.D. indicating he was within range of the other taxi’s internal network. Don desperately wished for actual controls instead of the haptic displays so he could steer with his knees instead of trying to hack and steer at the same time.
         As the turian leveled out, Don smiled and maneuvered his own taxi right behind him.
         “I’ve got you now, you bosh’tet,” Don hacked into the turian’s taxi and locked its steering controls, then killed its engine. He returned control of his own taxi to its VI, “Take me to the nearest Rapid Transit Station, please.”
         As the VI steered around the turian’s disabled taxi, Don contacted C-Sec to apprise them of the situation. They were waiting for him when he finally returned to a Rapid Transit Station.
         Climbing out of the taxi, Don handed Mariah’s pistol to the C-Sec officer who approached him, “This belongs to Officer Dantus. I didn’t really need it.” The officer took the pistol, then took Don into custody. Don cooperated, knowing that it was just to give a statement while they collected the turian.
         Six hours later, C-Sec released him with their thanks and transferred the reward money into his account. Following the directions given to him by the watch commander, he went to the hospital to check on Mariah. No one died during the brief shootout, but their body armor was no match for the type of ammunition the turian used.
         Mariah smiled when she saw Don, “I heard what you did, I knew you wouldn’t let me down.”
         “Thanks for,” Don struggled to find the right word, “your confidence in me. I wasn’t so sure once he started shooting at me.”
         “You did well,” Mariah reached over and grabbed his hand. “Remind me to buy you dinner when I get out of here.”
         “No way,” Don smiled, a little sad that she couldn’t see it, “I’m going to buy you dinner when you get out. It’s my turn.”