“I knew I was taking a risk,” she continued, “but I didn’t realize how serious things were until I heard
the base had been destroyed. That’s when I saw how dangerous Dr. Qian had become, how far he’d go. I
was terrified!”
Her actions were completely justifiable, but Anderson didn’t want to hear it. Not right now. He stood up, pulling his hand from her grasp as he walked away to the far side of the room. He wanted to believe her, but the situation just seemed too implausible. Could a respected man of science and learning suddenly turn into the kind of monster that would slaughter his friends and coworkers over some piece of alien technology?
She pulled out a small OSD and held it up. “I made backups of his personal files. In case I needed something to bargain with.” She tossed the disk to him; he caught it gingerly, afraid of damaging it. “Turn that over to the Alliance. It’ll prove I’m telling the truth.”
“Why didn’t you just give me this before?”
“I didn’t know if Qian was acting alone. He has so much power and influence in the Alliance: admirals, generals, ambassadors, politicians; he knows them all. If I gave you that disk and you turned it over to someone working with him… ” She didn’t finish the thought. “That’s why I didn’t tell you, David. I had to be sure.”
“Why now? What’s changed?”
“You have people you trust in the Alliance. And I’ve finally decided I can trust you.”
He slipped the disk into the breast pocket of his shirt and came back over to sit down beside her on the bed.
“You also said you knew a way to figure out who Qian was working with.”
“All his personal files from Sidon are on that disk,” she replied. “A lot of it is extra research notes. Stuff he kept to himself. I didn’t have a chance to hack into everything before I ran. But I made sure I grabbed all the financial records. Decrypt it and trace all the transactions back to the source and they’ll
eventually lead to whoever funded this whole operation.” Anderson nodded appreciatively. “Just follow the money.” “Exactly.”
They sat for a while in silence beside each other on the edge of the bed, neither one speaking, neither one pulling away. Anderson was the first to make a move… he stood up and went to grab his jacket.
“We need to get this data to Ambassador Goyle,” he told her. “It’ll clear your name and tell us who
Qian’s working with.”
“Then what?” she asked, jumping up eagerly to grab her coat as well. “What do we do next?” “Then I’m going after whoever attacked Sidon. But you won’t be coming with me.”
Kahlee stopped, one arm in the sleeve of her jacket. “What are you talking about?”
He was still hurt that she hadn’t trusted him, but that wasn’t why he was doing this. His wounded feelings were his problem, not hers. She had just done whatever was necessary to survive this whole mess, and he couldn’t honestly blame her for any of it. It wasn’t her fault that he’d let himself become emotionally involved. But now it was his responsibility to make sure it didn’t happen again.
“That krogan is still looking for you. We have to make arrangements to get you off this planet. Get you somewhere you’ll be safe.”
“Wait a minute!” she protested angrily. “You can’t just leave me behind! Those were my friends who died in that attack! I have a right to see this through to the end!”
“Things are going to get rough,” he told her. “You’re part of the Alliance, but we both know you’re no soldier. If you tag along, all you’ll do is slow me down or get in the way.”
She glared at him, but clearly couldn’t think of anything to say to refute his argument.
“You did your part,” he added, patting the pocket with the OSD. “Your job’s over now. But mine’s just beginning.”
*** “This is unacceptable!” Dr. Shu Qian shouted.
“These things take time,” Edan Had’dah replied, hoping to placate him. He’d been dreading this meeting all morning.
“Time? Time for what? We aren’t doing anything!”
“There’s a Spectre here on Camala! We have to wait until he gives up and leaves.” “What if he doesn’t give up?” Qian demanded, his voice rising in pitch.
“He will. With Dah’tan and Sidon both destroyed, there’s nothing left to connect my name to this. Be patient and he will leave.”
“You promised me a chance to continue my research!” Qian barked, realizing the topic of the Spectre wasn’t going to give him enough opportunity to complain. “You never said I’d be stuck wasting my time in the bowels of some grimy refinery!”
The batarian rubbed the spot just above his inner eyes with a free hand, trying to hold the mounting headache at bay. Humans in general were trying: as a species he found them excessively loud, crude, and impolite. But dealing with Dr. Qian had become its own special brand of torment.
“Constructing the kind of facility you need is a difficult task,” he reminded the scowling doctor. “It took you months to adapt the equipment on Sidon. This time we’re starting from scratch.”
“It wouldn’t be such a problem if you hadn’t destroyed my lab and wiped out our supplier!” Qian accused him.
Actually, it had been Qian’s idea to destroy the Alliance base. As soon as he’d discovered Kahlee Sanders was gone, he’d contacted Edan and demanded his batarian partner take action. He’d even provided the blueprints and access codes for the base.
“We couldn’t let that Spectre get his hands on Dah’tan’s records,” Edan explained for at least the tenth time. “Besides, there are other suppliers. Even now my people are working on building you a new lab. One far beyond the borders of Citadel Space, safe from the prying eyes of the Council. But we can’t just acquire everything we need with one enormous purchase. Not without drawing unwanted attention.”
“You’ve already drawn their attention!” the human snapped, circling back to the topic of the Spectre yet again.
Qian had been extremely agitated ever since the raid on Sidon, and with each passing day he seemed to grow more irritable, confrontational, and paranoid. At first Edan thought it might be guilt over betraying his fellow humans that was driving Qian’s rapid mental deterioration. It didn’t take him long to realize the true cause was something quite different.
Qian was obsessed with the alien artifact. It was all he cared about, all he thought about day and night. It seemed to cause the doctor actual physical pain whenever he wasn’t working on unlocking its secrets.
“That Spectre’s looking for us right now,” the doctor warned him, his voice dropping down to a harsh whisper. “He’s looking for it!”
There was no need to clarify what it was. However, there was almost no chance anyone would stumble across the artifact by accident. It was still out where one of Edan’s deep-space exploration teams had discovered it, orbiting an uncharted world in a remote system near the Perseus Veil. The only people who knew its location were the two of them and the small team of surveyors and scientists that had first stumbled across it, and Edan had been careful to keep them on the surface of the uncharted world, completely isolated from all other contact.
Had he known how irrational the doctor would become, Edan might have done things differently.
irrationally. Before all this Edan had made a point of never dealing directly with humans. And for all the illegal activities he’d used to build his fortune and empire, he’d never done anything that would fall under the jurisdiction of the Spectres.
Yet almost from the moment he first traveled out to inspect the incredible discovery of his survey team, he’d made decisions that many who knew him would have considered wildly out of character. But that was only because they were unaware of the sheer magnitude of what he’d stumbled across.