Their vehicle was batarian, loaned to the Alliance by local authorities at the “request” of the Council. It was all part of the deal the ambassador had worked out to get her safely off Camala and back to Alliance territory.
The engine whined as they climbed one of the immense sand dunes that stretched across the landscape out beyond the horizon toward the setting sun. In another twenty minutes it would be dark, but by then she’d already be aboard the Alliance frigate coming to pick her up.
“I’m surprised the batarians agreed to this,” the driver shouted again, making conversation. “They don’t normally authorize landings outside the spaceports. Especially not for Alliance vessels.”
She understood his curiosity. He knew something big was going on, but his orders were simply to drive her out to the pickup. He had no way of knowing about her connection to Sidon, and nobody had told him about the shady backroom deals Ambassador Goyle must have made with the Council to make this happen. Kahlee stayed silent: she sure as hell wasn’t about to fill him in.
She wondered how much the Alliance had given up in exchange for this concession. What kind of bargain had they struck? Anderson probably had some idea, but he had barely said a dozen words to her in the two days following her admission in the hotel room.
Not that she blamed him. He’d trusted her and she’d used him, at least in his eyes. Kahlee knew all too well how much betrayal could sting. And now she was being whisked off to some unknown location for
her protection, while Anderson was staying behind on Camala to try and hunt down Dr. Qian.
She thought a lot about trying to contact him again after all this was over. At first she’d been drawn to him out of need: she was scared and alone, and she had needed someone to cling to besides a gruff, prickly father whom she barely knew. But even though they’d only been together a few days, she got the sense that there was a chance they could have become more than just friends.
Unfortunately, she doubted he’d want anything more to do with her now. Not after how she’d hurt him. The realization that she’d probably never see him again hit her harder than she would have expected.
“Hang on, ma’am!” the driver suddenly called out, startling her from her maudlin thoughts as he wrenched the wheel and veered them sharply off course, nearly flipping the vehicle in the process. “We’ve got company!”
From his perch on a rocky outcropping several kilometers away, Saren could just make out, against the glare of the setting sun, the silhouette of the APC carrying First Lieutenant Kahlee Sanders.
When he’d received the mission update from the Citadel Council yesterday he’d gone through the full spectrum of emotions. He began with outrage. They were ordering him to work with a human! And all because the Council felt it necessary to reward the Alliance for sharing information about the investigation into Sidon. Information Saren had already managed to figure out on his own!
He knew Edan Had’dah was behind the attack. But because he’d kept that information from the Council, he had to pretend to be grateful to the Alliance for handing it over to him. Now he had to allow one of
the humans to work with him as he completed the mission. And not just any human, but that damnable
Lieutenant Anderson, who kept interfering with his investigation.
But as he’d continued reading the update, his anger gave way to curiosity. He’d known about the batarian’s involvement, but not about the extraordinary alien technology referenced in the files recovered from Sidon. Though there were few details, it seemed as if the artifact could be a relic dating all the way back to the Prothean extinction.
Saren had always been intrigued by the sudden and unexplained disappearance of the Protheans. What kind of unimaginable string of events, what kind of catastrophic occurrence, could cause an empire that spanned the known galaxy to vanish in less than a century? Virtually all traces of the Protheans had been wiped out; only the mass relays and Citadel survived, the enduring legacy of a once great people.
Hundreds of explanations had been put forward, yet these were all nothing but theories and speculation. The truth about the Prothean extinction was still a mystery… and this ancient alien technology could be one of the keys to unraveling it.
From what he could piece together from Qian’s research notes, he suspected they had found some type of ship or orbiting space station. One with AI capabilities to self-monitor and even repair all its vital systems without the need for organic caretakers like the keepers back on the Citadel.
Delving deeper, it seemed the doctor believed the discovery could one day be used to forge an alliance with the geth… or possibly even control them. The implications were staggering: a massive army of synthetics, billions of troops whose absolute loyalty could be assured if one could somehow understand and influence their AI thought processes.
Then, as he’d continued reading the file even further, his curiosity had transformed into cold, calculating satisfaction. Once he had learned the name of his quarry, the hardest part of his mission became locating Edan. He was probably cowering like an insect, burrowed into an underground bunker beneath one of
the countless refineries spread across a thousand square kilometers of rock and sand. Ferreting him out was going to be a long, grueling, time-consuming process.
Or it would have been if he hadn’t received the mission update from the Council. Included in the transmission were the details of the plan to evacuate Lieutenant Sanders from the world. Saren knew that Skarr was still on Camala; he’d had no reports of the big krogan being sighted at the spaceports. He was probably holed up with Edan.
And Edan had hired Skarr to kill the young woman. Saren knew enough about batarian culture to realize Edan wouldn’t want to lose face by hiring someone who failed in their appointed task. If the opportunity presented itself, he’d send Skarr after Sanders again.
Saren had done his best to make sure that opportunity had presented itself. He knew Edan had spies in every level of government across Camala, and particularly at the spaceports. All he’d done was make sure the Council’s request for an unscheduled Alliance landing in the desert was logged in the official government records.
The unusual request was sure to attract someone’s attention. Inevitably it would be reported up through the chain of underlings and lackeys to Edan himself, and Saren was confident the batarian was smart enough to figure out who the Alliance was coming to pick up.
The only flaw in the plan was that it was almost too obvious. If Edan suspected it was a trap, he wouldn’t send anyone in response to the message.
Still watching the Alliance-driven APC through his long-range binoculars, Saren saw the vehicle swerve and nearly spin out as the driver began taking evasive action. Scanning the nearby dunes he picked up
the dust trails of four other vehicles closing in; small, quick rovers with mounted guns converging on the slower APC from all sides.
Edan had taken the bait.
“Goddamn!” one of the marines in the back shouted as a shell launched from one of the pursuing rovers exploded close enough to rock the APC’s suspension.
The driver was doing his frantic best to avoid the shells being lobbed at them by the enemy, sending the APC careening haphazardly over dunes and into small valleys to keep the other vehicles from getting a lock on their position. True to its name, the APC was heavily armored. Still, it was only a transport vehicle; it wasn’t intended for combat. They had no mounted guns, and the thick plating on the body and undercarriage was intended to protect the occupants from sniper fire and land mines. Against antitank weapons like those mounted on the pursuing rovers, the only purpose the armor served was to slow them down.
In the back, one of the marines was shouting into the radio, trying to warn the incoming Alliance frigate of their situation.
“Mayday! Mayday! We are taking fire. The landing zone is hot! I repeat, the landing zone is hot!”
“We got at least four of these bastards on our tail!” the driver shouted back to him as the vehicle lurched and bounced over an outcropping of small rocks and boulders.
“Four enemy rovers on site!” the radioman shouted. “Iwo Jima, are you reading?”
“This is the Iwo Jima,” a voice crackled back. “We read you, ground team. We’re still fourteen minutes out. Hold on!”
The radio operator slammed his fist against the heavily armored side of the vehicle in frustration. “We’ll never last that long!”
“You gotta outrun them!” another one of the men yelled up to the front. “What the hell do you think I’m doing!?” the driver snapped back at him.
They flew over the top of another dune as a shell exploded just behind them, propelling the vehicle through
