After having sent a message to Garrus, Dash, and T'Soni, vaguely describing that councilor Anderson was in dire need of his assistance and that he wouldn't be joining them on Illium, Shining had boarded a shuttle and left for the Bahak system.
Follow the strange pull on my horn, my gut has never proven me wrong before. 59%
Shining grunted as he turned to look at where his horn wanted to pull him. A look wouldn't matter, right? Following the strange pull, Shining walked deeper into the embassy. The section he entered in particular was dedicated to the Alliance command.
Why in Tartarus would it try to point me to a communications room?
Shining felt a very strong urge just to turn around and sprint towards the exit, possibly still making the transport, but the way his stomach churned and horn throbbed made him think this would be a grave mistake.
“Ah buck it.” The door opened without any issue which surprised the captain, apparently the permissions of access granted to him by councilor Anderson covered a few too many doors.
“Why was I not infor-” councilor Anderson stopped mid-sentence as he heard the door open. “Captain Armor?”
Shining was slightly caught off guard with finding the ambassador here and then dread that he'd interrupted something important. “Apologies councilor, I'm having trouble with my new biotic implant. For some reason it compelled me to visit this room, I'll be out of your mane right away.”
“Wait!” a hologram of a man in a military dress with the rank of Admiral called out before Shining could get the hell out of dodge. “Would you please join us Captain, you might be the solution to a problem of ours if you want to help.”
“Hacket you can't be serious,” Anderson said baffled, Shining hesitantly having walked up to the councilor's side.
“The batarians have instated a policy of executing every human who enters the system, Anderson. We need non-human help or ask Shepard to infiltrate with the Normandy but the commander has enough on his plate as it is with the collectors.” Hacket argued to Anderson who reluctantly gave him a nod.
“Executing humans? What's going on sir and what do you need my help with?” Shining asked, his curiosity now piqued.
“We had a deep cover science team operating within a batarian colony system. A couple of hours ago they reported that a member of their team was captured and after that, they failed to send further reports. The batarians simultaneously moved a small fleet contingent to guard the relay, ordering them to attack any human carrying vessel.” Hacket sighed deeply, “Those scientists had discovered something that related back to the reapers and indicated that it might be instrumental in the fight against them. They also reported finding deeper and unknown ruins inside of the asteroid where they hid their base.”
“And since you can't send humans you want to ask me to go, that's quite the favor to ask,” Shining surmised.
“I must inform you though that the Alliance will not be there to support you if something happens,” Anderson warned. “You'll effectively be on your own the moment you set off.”
“I understand, but that leaves the question of what I get out of it. I'm already going to miss the transport to Illium which was going to lead me to an informant that has information on Fluttershy's location so it better be good,” Shining said looking straight into the eyes of Hacket's hologram.
The Admiral took a couple of seconds to come up with a good compensation. “When the reapers arrive they'll be looking for your homeworld as well. If the weapons with which you arrived on the Citadel are any indication then your species doesn't stand a chance. I can have a large shipment of firearms stashed away until they can be distributed to your homeworld.”
Shining stayed silent for a moment as he mulled this over. He'd be able to arm and retrain the guard with the projectile weapons immediately which would be invaluable to Equis' defense… but weapons alone wouldn't do the job. “I also want at least a company's worth of armor along with that. Same specifications as the stuff I'm wearing right now, I can provide the schematics so fabrication should be relatively easy,” The tone of Shining's voice made it very clear that this was non-negotiable.
“You drive a hard bargain captain, I'll pull some strings to get you your gear. Go find and break out the captured scientist, after that I'll make sure your gear is being put aside for later. Hacket out.” The hologram turned off again as the admiral disconnected on his end.
Anderson looked down at Shining in concern. “You don't owe us anything. You know that, right?”
“That's just the thing about ponies Councilor, when we're your friend there's precious little we won't do for you. And it isn't like I'm not getting anything out of this either,” Shining replied with a grin. “I'm going to need a weapon.”
After having sent a message to Garrus, Dash, and T'Soni, vaguely describing that councilor Anderson was in dire need of his assistance and that he wouldn't be joining them on Illium, Shining had boarded a shuttle and left for the Bahak system.
Passage through the relay was tense for a moment but luckily the batarians didn't ask too many questions when he'd come through. His shuttle was registered to a trading company that did business on the colony so they didn't want to hold him up for too long. So after passing Shining activated the pre-programmed autopilot that would take him to the batarian prison, he had plenty of time to prepare. His armor was fully stocked with thermal clips and some grenades if there was a dire need for them. His weapon, an M-76 Anderson had stored in his office for some reason, had been upgraded to allow disruptor rounds so the weapon would shred any shielded opponents.
The Shuttle rapidly entered atmosphere and came to a halt over an entrance that had been identified by the alliance in some scouting ops that had occurred some time ago. The shuttle doors opened to let Shining jump out before the autopilot had it fly off again to not draw any attention.
Right. Now to get that scientist… Celestia be with me, I
Shining realized that there were two ways to go about this, one where he avoided as much contact as possible, the other…
1. Stealth
2. Guns blazing