Drew Karpyshyn - Retribution

She’d promised to stay out of the way until the missions were over, but she’d reached a breaking point. It was time to march into the turian ambassador’s office and demand answers!

Now that her mind had been made up, even taking the time to shower seemed like an unbearable delay. Wiping her neck and brow down with a towel, she marched over to the door, flung it open, and stepped right into Anderson and Orinia as they were coming in from the other side.

“Whoa, Kahlee,” Anderson exclaimed. His hands instinctively reached up to wrap themselves around the biceps of her bare arms as he tried to catch her and absorb her momentum to keep them from crashing into each other.

His grip was firm, but not rough. Suddenly aware of the layer of perspiration covering her skin, Kahlee took a quick step back, breaking free of his grasp.

“We were just coming to find you,” Orinia explained. “The strike teams have all reported back.”

Unable to decipher the expression on the turian’s unfamiliar features, she glanced over at Anderson to see if she could get a quick read on how things had turned out. She caught him rubbing his hands on his hips, trying to subtly wipe away the sweat that had transferred to his palms when he’d grabbed Kahlee’s arms. She flushed with embarrassment, and hoped he would think her color was simply a result of her recent physical exertions.

“Udina was pissed,” Anderson explained, and she could tell he was just as embarrassed as she was.

“Says I created a political shit-storm that’s going to take months to clean up.”

He was avoiding the details of the mission, and she could tell by the expression on his face that things hadn’t gone exactly as planned.

“Tell me what happened.”

“All Cerberus bases were neutralized,” Orinia informed her. “Unfortunately, turian casualties were almost twenty percent — nearly double what we anticipated. And we failed to apprehend the Illusive Man.”

“What about Grayson?” Kahlee asked, fearing she already knew the answer.

“Dinara’s team found him on a space station in the Terminus Systems,” Orinia said.

“He was still alive,” Anderson interjected quickly. “They sent us a retinal scan to confirm his identity.”

She should have felt relief at hearing his news, but something about the way he said it gave her pause.

“Why a retinal scan? Why couldn’t he just tell them who he was? Something went wrong, didn’t it?”

“Dinara and her team took Grayson aboard their shuttle and transmitted a message they were returning to the Citadel. That was three hours ago. We haven’t heard anything since.”

“They’d need at least three mass relays to make it back to the Citadel,” Kahlee offered, refusing to give up on Grayson. “That could take longer than three hours.”

“Each time they pass through a relay they’d need to drop to sub-FTL travel,” Orinia explained.

“Standard turian military procedure would require them to transmit an updated ETA and flight plan each time. We’ve had no contact since the initial message.”

“What do you think happened?” she asked, her mind struggling with the implications of what she was being told.

“We don’t know,” Anderson admitted. “It’s possible they could simply be having comm issues.”

Kahlee knew spaceships were designed with too many redundant backups for something like that to happen. Any mechanical failure that kept them from at least sending out a distress call would have to be catastrophic. If it was a technical issue, the chance of their still being alive was almost zero.

“There are other possibilities,” Orinia reminded them. “The Terminus Systems are a haven for slavers and pirates.”

“Would any of them be stupid enough to attack a turian military shuttle?” Kahlee wanted to know.

“Probably not,” Anderson conceded. “We have to consider the option that their disappearance has something to do with Cerberus. Maybe some type of retaliation for the attacks.”

“We found no indication they had the ships or resources to strike back so quickly,” Kahlee objected.

“Even if the Illusive Man is still out there.”

“Unless they had an asset on the shuttle itself,” Orinia said darkly.

It took Kahlee a second to realize what she meant, then she shook her head vehemently.

“No! That’s not possible. Grayson isn’t a traitor.”

“It’s a scenario we have to consider,” Orinia insisted. “None of the other explanations make any sense.”

“Grayson’s the whole reason we got this information!” Kahlee protested. “Why would he help us bring down Cerberus if he was working for them?”

“Maybe he’s trying to overthrow the Illusive Man,” Orinia suggested. “Using the turians to do the dirty work for him would be a masterful ploy.”

“I know Grayson,” Kahlee vowed. “I trust him. He wouldn’t do this.”

She turned to Anderson, looking for support.

“You believe me, don’t you?”

“Kahlee,” he asked, his tone grave, “is Grayson a drug addict?”

The relevance of the question was completely lost on her. “Why?”

“The retinal scan Dinara sent to confirm his identity was discolored. Pink. Like he’d been mainlining red sand.”

“Those bastards!” Kahlee hissed, her face twisting up with rage. “He was clean for two years. Two years!

“They must have drugged him while he was their prisoner to try and gain some kind of leverage over him. Sadistic sons of bitches!”

“How can you be sure that’s what happened?” Anderson pressed. “Addicts aren’t always the most loyal people. Maybe he was using again. All Cerberus would have to do was wait until he went into withdrawal and then offer him a fix in exchange for information.”

“He’s not like that anymore!” Kahlee shot back. “He turned his life around.”

Anderson didn’t say anything, but she could tell he had his doubts.

“There’s no doubt in my mind,” she assured him. “So why is this so hard for you to accept?”

“You’re not always the best judge of character,” he replied, choosing his words carefully. “It took a long time before you convinced yourself Dr. Qian’s work was dangerous enough to report him to the Alliance.”

“That was twenty years ago. I was young and naпve then,” she explained.

“What about Jiro Toshiwa?”

Kahlee didn’t realize Anderson knew about her former coworker at the Ascension Project, though it wasn’t surprising the reports had crossed his desk. In addition to being Kahlee’s lover, Jiro had also turned out to be a Cerberus mole inside the program.

“This is different,” she muttered, fixing Anderson with a dark scowl. “Grayson isn’t with Cerberus anymore. He turned against them for his daughter’s sake. He would never start working for them again.”

“Maybe not willingly,” Orinia said. “But we found evidence of medical experiments at the facility where he was being held prisoner. The data is encrypted and very advanced, but we think Cerberus was investigating some form of mental domination or mind control.”

“This is crazy!” Kahlee shouted. “Grayson is a victim, not the enemy!”

“Orinia’s just worried about her people,” Anderson said, trying to calm her down. “She doesn’t want to lose any more soldiers, and we have too many questions without any answers.”

“Then let me help find the answers,” Kahlee said, jumping on the opportunity. “Send me to the Cerberus facility. Let me look at their test results, and I’ll find out what they did to Grayson.”

“We’ll send our own experts to the station,” Orinia said, dismissing her offer.

Kahlee bit her lip to keep from shooting back a reply that would do more harm than good. She wanted to say that she had twenty years’ experience analyzing advanced scientific experiments in everything ranging from artificial intelligence to zoology. She wanted to remind Orinia that she was widely recognized as the most brilliant and accomplished complex statistical analyst in the Alliance. She wanted to mention that for the past decade she had been directly studying the effects of synthetic biotic implants on the human brain and nervous system. She wanted to point out that the odds of finding another individual in Council space with her combination of knowledge, experience, and talent was almost nil.