Massive Disaster 4-15 (Patreon)

The omni-tool hummed softly as calloused fingers traced the biometric scanner atop it, haptics and systems coming to life. Within seconds, military-grade encryption protocols began the somewhat lengthy process of cycling through authentication and Kira fought the urge to let out a long sigh as it took in her palm, retinal pattern, fucking vocal chords, who knew?The blue glow painted her face and room in sterile light, casting sharp shadows across expensive furniture that Zedd still hadn’t gone through the process of replacing for something that was more to his tastes. Doubt that’s gonna happen any time soon. Zedd never visited these rooms anyway, and unless somebody that was using them voiced a complaint, he wouldn’t give it a second thought.

Before Kira could give that a third thought, the secure channel opened with a barely-there chime, and the voice of Lieutenant Commander Sarah Chang sounded off through the encrypted line. "Varne. Been wondering when you'd check in. Your reports have been... minimal."

Kira's jaw tightened. Minimal. Right. As if she could put down any of what she’d seen in an official Alliance report and it not end up leaked to the Citadel Council somehow. She had a great deal of respect for the Alliance (certainly much more than Zedd could even pretend to) but she didn’t think they were better at cybersecurity than the Salarians, that was for certain.  "The situatio here has been… Need to verify some intelligence before filing official reports."

Trans-fucking-lation: I need to figure out what the hell I'm actually supposed to report before I accidentally start a war.

Chang's pause stretched long enough that Kira wondered if the connection had dropped. When the Lieutenant Commander spoke again, her tone carried the weight of someone delivering bad news to a junior officer who wasn't going to like it. "We've been tracking increased mercenary activity in your sector. Blue Suns, Eclipse, some unaffiliated groups. Movement patterns suggest coordinated operation."

Kira's free hand wrapped around the back of her neck, fingers tapping out an unconscious rhythm as she started thinking about what Chang just said. Mercenary buildup meant someone with serious credits was hiring, and coordinated operations meant whatever they were planning was crazy. Simply put, this sort of high-level movement, and coordination didn't just happen for small-time raids. "Specifics?" She was not at all looking forward to the answer."Mercenary force buildup in adjacent systems. Unusual equipment purchases through black market channels. Communication intercepts suggesting large-scale operation planning." Chen's delivery remained clinical, but Kira caught the undertone of concern that came with intel too clean to ignore. "We're talking serious hardware acquisitions, Staff Sergeant.""Timeline estimates?" The question came out steadier than she felt.

"Weeks, maybe a month at the far end.”Weeks. Kira almost hissed the word.“Whatever they're planning, it's big enough to require serious coordination. Unusual equipment purchases through black market channels, communication intercepts suggesting large-scale operation planning." Chang paused, and Kira could almost hear the intelligence officer's mental gears turning. "You seeing anything on your end that might connect?"

Yeah, I'm seeing plenty. Kira's eyes swept across her quarters, taking in the view of Zedd's compound through reinforced transparisteel.. "Chang, hypothetically..." Kira caught herself before the words tumbled out too fast, forcing her voice back into neutral professionalism. "If someone were preparing for conflict beyond standard mercenary raids, what would you recommend?"

"That's oddly specific, Varne,” Chang finally spoke up again, after a pause that stretched long enough that Kira half-wondered if the encryption had hiccuped. “You seeing something we should know about?"

Everything. I'm seeing everything, and I don't know what the hell to do with it. "Just thinking strategically. Colony defense preparations." The lie was bitter, rough, almost hard to spit out, but Kira knew it would taste a thousand times worse if it brought Alliance black ops teams to Zedd's doorstep.

Chang's skeptical grunt suggested she wasn't buying it, but she didn't push. Yet. "Keep your eyes open, Varne. And keep me informed. Real-time, not after-action summaries."

The connection terminated with a soft chime, leaving Kira alone with the uncomfortable weight of everything she hadn't said.

She stared at her reflection in the blank screen for a moment longer than necessary, taking in the face that looked older than twenty-one had any right to. Alliance training did that to you, aged you in ways that showed around the eyes even when your body could still take a beating and bounce back in a few hours. 

Yeah… she shook her head. I need to talk about this now.

The walk from her wing to Nina's took her through corridors that still felt too clean, too expensive. Zedd's mansion sprawled like something built by someone who'd never worried about heating bills or structural integrity, all flowing lines and architectural flourishes that served no practical purpose. Nina’s private room, her new room at least, was far from hers, one of the guest rooms that Zedd had allotted her for her after she came back.

Not that it matters anymore. Memories of vacation after N7 training surfaced in her head with uncomfortable clarity, months on Terra Nova where Nina had looked at her like she hung the stars, and Kira had been stupid enough to think maybe... Stop. Don't go there.

Nina’s door slid open as soon as she stood in front of it, the woman in question standing there in nothing more than an oversized t-shirt that Kira remembered from three years back, back when they still hated each other. The shirt hung loose on Nina's frame even still, clearly comfortable enough for her to relax in. Kira did her best to ignore whose shirt it actually was, for multiple reasons. 

"Kira?" Nina's eyebrows climbed toward her hairline, voice carrying just enough surprise to make it clear that midnight visits weren't exactly standard protocol. "It's past midnight. What are you doing here?"

Nina's gaze flicked down the hallway behind Kira, nervous energy radiating from her in waves before she stepped closer and dropped her voice to a whisper. "I told you, we can't do that anymore. Vacation was one thing but—"

Of course that's where her mind goes. Trust Nina to jump straight to the worst possible conclusion."No, c'mon, I'm not here for..." Nina's smirk cut through her protest like a knife, and Kira felt her face redden, heat crawling all the way back up her neck. Bad enough that she couldn't forget their little getaway after N7 training, worse that Nina seemed determined to remind her of it. 

Especially the fact that it hadn't only happened once. "Get your head out of there."

"Isn't that my line?"

"L-look, okay, enough, we need to talk about Zedd." The words came out sharper, more of a hiss through gritted teeth than the calm sigh Kira intended, but it worked either way as Nina seemed to immediately shift into something a bit more serious.

Nina's posture went rigid, her eyes darting side to side with the kind of nervous energy that meant real trouble. "Kay, I don’t know what… what you mean."

Kira's already stretched patience snapped. "Nina, don’t play dumb with me right now."

Nina sucked her teeth and grabbed Kira by the front of her hoodie, one hand covering Kira's mouth while the other yanked her into the room. The door hissed shut behind them with finality that made Kira's training protocols ping warnings, but she let Nina manhandle her anyway, because fighting back would have been overkill.

"I’m not gonna let you do that again, remember that." Kira brushed imaginary dust off her clothes, more for show than necessity. “One time is all you get.”

"I know. Same way I know I'm not exactly the smartest out of our little... crew," Nina's voice carried that self-deprecating edge that always made Kira want to argue, "but you know what I'm smart enough not to do?"

"I don’t know,” Kira fought the urge to yell the sarcasm as the three words left her mouth, “Does it start with the word ‘talk’ and end with ‘about Zedd?’"

"No, dummy. Talk about Zedd in the hallway where his fucking AIs can listen in."

The words hit Kira like a cold shower. Shit. She'd been thinking about mercenary threats and Alliance protocols, not basic operational security. Not the cartoon-faced AIs that Zedd treated like helpful assistants and she still couldn't quite wrap her brain around. Advanced artificial intelligence shouldn't look like animated mascots, but here they were, probably logging every conversation in the mansion's public spaces.

She glanced around Nina's room, noting the familiar mess of technical manuals and repair tools scattered across surfaces. "And how's being in your room gonna help with that?"

"N7 must have knocked some braincells loose, soldier girl. Zedd never spies on us. How do you forget that?"

Kira clicked her tongue, annoyed at herself for missing something so obvious. Damn it, she's right. Even now, she was pretty sure Zedd had no idea Martinez had tried to recruit her and Dev for his little surveillance operation. As petty as Zedd could be about some things, he'd never tolerate having Dev run his company's private security if he suspected divided loyalties. The man had blind spots when it came to trusting people, and their privacy was apparently one of them.

"Now... what did you wanna talk about?"

Kira dropped on to the foot of Nina's bed with a sigh as long as Nina was tall. "It's about Zedd."

"You already said that." Kira shot her a look. Focus. "It's what I didn't say. Nina..." She met her friend's eyes, hazel meeting blue in the soft lighting of the room. "He's building for war, Nina. You know it. I know it.”

Nina's expression flickered, uncertainty bleeding through her usual confidence. "I... I don't..."

"You're not blind. You've seen the side shit he's thrown into their gear without even thinking about it. That armor for the pink girl, a fully functional manned combat mech, and those weapons systems... " It was terrifying enough to look at, even scarier to see when you actually put some thought into it. "He's already shown us insane levels of genetic modification and fully sapient stable AI and you told me about how he’s got plenty more on lock.”

Nina's shoulders sagged, the fight going out of her posture. "Look, I've given Zedd enough heat for a while now, and I'm not dating him anymore. Do I even have the right to..."

"Of course you have the right to question what he does. We're not in a cult." The words came out harder than Kira intended, but the idea of Nina backing down from this bothered her more than it should have.

Nina fixed her with one of those sharp looks that made Kira reflexively check her face for bleeding. "Like I was saying, I don't even think I have the right to question Zedd about what he does with his company. It's his business. What he makes and builds is also his business." She shrugged, the gesture carrying forced casualness. "Besides, Zedd doesn't do anything without thinking it through at least once."

At least once. The qualifier made Kira want to laugh, but there was nothing funny about where her thoughts were heading. "This isn't protection, Nina. This is escalation. What he's made here... lesser threats outside of Council space get killteams just for that."

The memories of N7 training surfaced unbidden. Classified briefings about Spectre operations, the kind of surgical strikes that erased problems before they became galactic incidents. The Council liked to maintain the illusion of civilized diplomacy, but Kira had seen enough intelligence reports to know how they really handled threats to stability.

"You don't know what I know," she continued, unable to stop now that she'd started. "The Council likes to pretend they're all that's good, but there's a reason Spectres have free reign to do whatever they need to do to 'keep the galaxy safe'."

"B-but... Kay..." Nina's voice carried a tremor that made Kira's chest tighten.

"The Council's interests are the galaxy, Nina. We can hope for the best, but we're at the border of the Traverse, far but not that far. You think they’re idiots? That they won’t notice?" Kira's training kicked in, tactical scenarios unfolding in her mind. "And if they send Asari diplomats about it, they’re not gonna negotiate with words."

The words hit Nina hard enough that Kira could actually see her process them, the meaning of exactly what she meant actually getting across. Finally.

"Zee's brilliant," Kira continued, gentling her tone despite the urgency clawing at her throat, "but he's not a strategist. Not really. He's an engineer who thinks he can solve political problems with better technology."

Nina's voice came out small, younger than her twenty-three years. "What do you want us to do?"

I want us to run, Kira thought. I want us and Adele and Dev to just be out of the fucking killzone before the galaxy notices what Zedd's building. But running wasn't an option. Nina wouldn't leave, Dev was too loyal, and Adele… who even knows what’s going on with her?

"I don't know..." The admission tasted like failure, but it was honest. "I just... I just don't want it to be too late."