think she’d understand.”
“It must have been a shock for you,” she continued. “Seeing the most famous Alliance soldier in a state like that.”
“I’m a little surprised,” he admitted. “When I was in the Academy your father was always portrayed as the embodiment of everything the Alliance stood for: courage, determination, self-sacrifice, honor. Seems a little strange that he knows the kind of people who can sneak us off a world like this.”
“Are you disappointed?” she asked. “Knowing the great Jon Grissom associates with forgers and smugglers?”
“Considering our situation, I’d be a hypocrite if I said yes,” he joked. Kahlee didn’t laugh.
“When you hear about someone for so long you assume you know something about them,” he said in a more somber tone. “It’s easy to confuse the reputation with the real person. It’s only when you meet them that you realize you never really knew anything at all.”
“Yeah,” Kahlee said thoughtfully. And then they were silent for a long, long time.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Jella had worked in the personnel and accounting department of Dah’tan Manufacturing for four years. She was a good employee: organized, meticulous, and thorough — all valuable assets for anyone in her occupation. On her performance evaluations she routinely scored above average to excellent. But according to her official job description she was “support staff.” She wasn’t “essential” to the company. The hardware designers were at the top of the corporate hierarchy; their innovations brought in the customers. And the people who worked the plant floor actually created the product. All she did was balance the sales figures with the inventory supplies.
She was nothing but an afterthought to those in charge… and her pay reflected it. Jella worked as hard as anyone in the company, but she was paid a mere fraction of what the designers and manufacturers earned. It wasn’t fair. Which was why she felt no guilt over stealing from the company.
It wasn’t like she was selling critical corporate secrets. She never did anything large enough to draw attention; she was only siphoning off tiny drops from the overflowing corporate bucket. Sometimes she’d alter purchase orders or manipulate supply records. Occasionally she’d make sure inventory was left unsecured and unregistered in the warehouse overnight. The next morning it would be mysteriously missing; moved by someone on the warehouse staff who was in on the deal.
Jella had no idea who took the inventory away, just as she had no idea who was behind the thefts. That was how she liked it. Once or twice a month she’d receive an anonymous call at the office, she’d play her part, and within a few days payment would be credited to her private financial accounts.
Today was no different. Or so she tried to tell herself as she walked down the hall, attempting to appear casual and hoping nobody would notice her. But there was something strange about this request. She’d been asked to shut down one of the security cameras and disable the alarm codes on one of the entrances. Someone wanted to sneak into the building undetected… and they were doing it in the middle of the day.
It was a stupid risk. Even if they somehow got inside, they were sure to be noticed; Dah’tan had regular security teams patrolling the entire plant. And if they were caught, they might give up Jella as the one who’d let them in. But the offer had been too good to turn down — triple what she’d ever been paid for a job before. In the end, greed had won out over common sense.
She paused near one of the emergency exits, directly beneath the security camera trained on the door. Quickly glancing around to make sure nobody was watching, she reached up with the screwdriver she’d taken from a tool belt hanging in the utility closet and jammed it into the back of the camera, taking out the power cell.
It sparked, startling her. She let out a little scream and dropped the screwdriver, her fingers tingling slightly from the shock. Hastily, she bent down and picked it up from the carpet, looking around to see if anyone had noticed her sabotage. The hall was still empty.
She looked up at the camera and saw a thin ribbon of white smoke wisping out the back. The power light was dead. If anyone up in central security looked over at the monitor for this camera they would notice it was out. But the guards barely even glanced at the monitors during the day. Not with the patrols wandering the halls and the building filled with staff. Only a fool would try to break in during business hours.
Even if they did notice the outage, there were over a hundred security cameras in the facility. One seemed to malfunction every other week. The most anyone would do would be to put in a maintenance request to get it fixed before the end of the shift. Satisfied, Jella continued down the hall to the security door.
She typed in an employee code to disable the alarm and open the lock. She didn’t use her own code, of course. One advantage of working in her department was that she had access to personnel files. She knew the building entry codes for half the people in the facility.
When the light on the door panel went from red to green, Jella’s part was done. All she had to do was head back to her office and continue her work as if nothing was wrong.
But once she returned to her desk, the bad feeling she had about this particular job continued to grow, making her feel queasy. After about twenty minutes She’n’ya, the woman she shared the small office with, must have noticed something was wrong.
“Are you okay, Jella? You look a bit flushed.”
Jella’s stomach nearly lurched out of her throat at the sound of the other woman’s voice. “I’m… I’m not feeling well,” she replied, hoping she didn’t sound as guilty as she felt. “I think I’m going to be sick,”
she added, jumping to her feet and running to the bathroom to throw up. Jella was still in there ten minutes later when the shooting started.
The mission was simple and straightforward, but Skarr still didn’t like it. It had taken a day for them to assemble everything he’d said he’d need for the assault: explosives, a strike team of thirty mercs, including himself, and three rovers for transportation.
For reasons of corporate security and customer confidentiality, Dah’tan Manufacturing was located on three acres of private property well beyond the outskirts of Hatre. Every kilometer of the drive out there ate away at Skarr, and also at the limited time they had to do the job. Somebody was sure to have noticed him at the spaceport; somebody who would report him to Saren. The Spectre was probably already on his way to Camala… and getting closer with every passing second.
The facility consisted of a single structure that housed the warehouse, factory, and offices. The grounds were surrounded by a chain-link fence, with several signs that read “Private Property” and “No Admittance” in all the various batarian dialects common to Camala.
Not that this deterred Skarr and his mercs. The rovers simply drove right through the fence, flattening it as they bore down on the lonely building on the horizon. Half a kilometer away they parked the rovers and continued across the barren desert terrain on foot. Approaching the factory on the side opposite the warehouse loading bays to avoid detection, they reached the building without incident.
Skarr was relieved to find the security entrance at the back unlocked — Edan’s source inside had come through. But they still had to work quickly if they wanted to get in and out before Saren showed up.
Corporate paranoia was as much a part of batarian culture as their rigid caste system, and Dah’tan was no different. Unwilling to trust anyone else with sensitive information, all records and archives were kept on site: destroying the facility would wipe out all evidence that could lead back to Edan.
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.