20 Interesting Times - Chapter 20

April 8th, 2169

15:44 SET

Citadel, Abera-Ward

Ad Astra Citadel HQ

Oscar Denebren

"As I've told you before, sir, some of the brass are not happy with your decision to allow this," drawled Captain Messe-Bergamini with a thick Italian accent.

"And as I've told you before," I answered calmly with a hint of ice in my voice, "they either accept my decision or feel my dissatisfaction with their repeated attempts to try and influence me."

"My superiors won't like to hear that."

"They don't have to like it. Just accept it. And please, the next time you contact them, impress on your superiors that I don't make idle threats and that they should be ready to face the consequences of their actions if they push me too far."

And I meant it. Ever since I allowed the employment of non-humans in my company, there had been complaints from the Alliance's side. Mostly, upcoming politicians used the fact to portray me as someone who didn't care about humanity and would prefer to use aliens as workers rather than humans. If one looked just a little deeper into the matter, it was easy to find out that some of my business rivals supported those politicians with financial aid. I ignored those kinds of people. They were of no concern to me.

Even the people who were only mildly interested in politics scoffed at the rhetoric, not believing them in the slightest. It paid off to be known as one of the greatest supporters of the Alliance, and I did my best to continue to cultivate that image, even after leaving my post as minister of economics.

No, the people that concerned me were high-ranking military officers that didn't understand why I did what I did.

I could understand why they would be concerned that I hired people from other species since Ad Astra was the premier military contractor of the Alliance. Ships, weapons, armors, and more. The danger that the other species could learn about our military capabilities and projects was immense, but did they truly think that I would be so foolish and do that without countermeasures in place?

The biggest military contractor of the Alliance opens for employees of other species, and nobody even stopped to think about the why?

What kind of idiots were they?

Of course, it was one big trap for foreign spies!

I coordinated everything with the AIS from the beginning. Every applicant was double-checked by AIS agents before they even arrived for the interview. If anything unusual popped up, they were flagged, and their employment was almost a sure thing. After all, is there a better way to avoid involvement from the other species' governments or even the Council than having the spy sign away all their rights?

One STG agent - and it was an STG agent, no matter what the official story said- could attest to that, and I hoped Andrew was quite happy with his catch. Last I heard the STG agent gave up the locations of a few listening posts close to our border.

Nothing happened since they were out of our territory, but I was sure the AIS was happily feeding them false information, and at the same time, trying to identify more of them.

Yet, the cooperation with the AIS was only one of the reasons why I decided to employ aliens.

The other one was their knowledge and know-how.

I'm holding to the belief that humanity can catch up with the other galactic civilizations on a technological level even before the Reapers appear, but why shouldn't we try to use the accumulated knowledge of hundreds, no thousands, of years of space travel that the other species gathered?

Asari, Salarians, Turians, and Quarians, every single of these species had more time and practice with eezo-technology, so why shouldn't we make use of it? Furthermore, it would give our own scientists a different point of view, as long as they take it as just that and not as the only truth available.

Besides, - and that was a side project with the AIS as well- it would give us the chance to observe how some of their best scientists and engineers thought. Trying to understand how your opponent thought gave you a leg up on them, and we needed every advantage we could get to close the gap between us.

A cough ripped me from my thoughts, and I leveled a cold stare at Captain Messe-Bergamini.

He didn't seem fazed by it, in the least, and I had to give credit where it was due. I had seen other men shaking when I stared at them before.

Instead, he just smiled and said: "I will inform my superiors of your words, and I will forward your request to their superiors as well."

It was almost impossible to see, but there was a spark of glee in his eyes at the thought of telling his superiors to fuck off.

I knew there was a reason why I liked him more than his predecessor.

Ever since I left my governmental place, the Alliance military saw it fit to place a military liaison officer at my side, to inform me and, in extension, my company of any needs the military had.

On the one side, it was quite useful since it helped to keep my schedule clear of any meetings that took hours when only one message would have been enough, but on the other side, some high-ranking officers assumed, quite falsely at that, that they had any power over me.

Suffice to say that I quickly disabused them of that notion. One quick visit to Arcturus-Station, and detailing to the new Secretary of the Navy how much it would cost if Ad Astra wasn't the one building the new ships of the navy, an almost passing commentary about how some military officers didn't understand where the line between my power and theirs was, and voila, I got a new military liaison officer, and he got a few new superiors.

I had hoped that that would have been the end to that, but some people could be quite stubborn.

Still, they weren't that much of a problem. They were more like a fly that buzzed around one's head, and a simple threat got them off my case for the time being.

"Good," I said, "Is there anything else that you need? Or that your superiors want to know?"

"The only thing left is the monthly progress report on construction and development."

"Very well. You will get a progress report by the end of the week. There are some things I would like to confirm for myself before that. I hope you understand."

"Of course, sir," responded Captain Messe-Bergamini, "then will you excuse me, sir?"

I gave him a nod to signal him that he could leave, and he answered with a crisp salute before leaving my office.

Leaning back in my comfy office chair, I thought about the topics I would have to put in the progress report. It would become a pretty long list since Ad Astra had a lot of irons in the fire currently.

If I started to make a list, I would begin with the current progress of the construction and development of the newest Alliance Navy Vessels.

In less than two months, the Alliance's newest dreadnought would be ready for service, and it would become the last we would add to our fleet for the foreseeable future since we would hit the maximum number of dreadnoughts that the Council allowed us to have.

At least until the Turians finished the one they had in construction right now, but that would take some time.

Yet even then, there were already other plans to use the spot for a new dreadnought for something completely new.

The project was still in its theoretical phase since the scientist hit more than one roadblock, and even Takahashi was struggling to find a solution to their problems.

I didn't doubt for even a second that they would find one, but that would take time and resources.

And resources were something of a bottleneck right now.

With every passing month, the Alliance's expenses would rise without any sign of slowing down. Sure, the income was rising as well, but not as fast as the expenses.

The yearly maintenance cost of all military vessels combined was more than the construction cost of five prototype dreadnoughts.

And let me tell you, prototypes were a hell lot more expensive than the regulars.

I had done my best to stabilize the economic situation during my time as a minister, but there was only so much I could do. The eight years I had been in office hadn't been nearly enough to prepare us for the enormous amount of money and resources we would need to continue our current rate of growth.

That was one of the reasons why the construction of further ODPs had been delayed.

All colonies on the edge of our territory had at least two of them, and Shanxi had even four of them. Furthermore, our most developed colonies, like Terra Nova, Amaterasu, and Eden Prime had the same amount. The only three places that had even more than that were Earth, Arcturus, and Reach. Reach especially was quite safe since our prototype for the Orbital Defense Platform Mk.VII was stored there. It was also called the Super-ODP by the soldiers that had seen the first test firing. It was no surprise that it got that nickname since the S-OPD tore an old dreadnought apart.

Sadly, the recharge time took much too long to be effective in any kind of prolonged battle. On the other hand, the psychological damage of seeing one of their strongest ships destroyed in one hit was more than enough to turn the tide of the battle in your favor.

Yet, the prototype in the Olympus system would probably stay the only one for the next five years since its construction cost was already at the level of an up-to-date dreadnought, and in theory, it was still in development anyway.

Furthermore, when, not if, the other species realized the destructive potential and how far we had already developed the ODP, we would be drowned in demands to cease any further construction to "preserve the balance between the members of the Citadel."

In other words, they would order us to stop all production until they caught up with us or even had more or something more powerful.

So we would keep the S-ODP hidden and improve on it while strengthening our defenses with the standard ODPs, which were more affordable, too.

I let out a sigh. Just thinking about writing everything down in a report was exhausting. After all, I had to write it down in a way that convinced them that this way would be the best alternative while at the same time managing not to sound like I was blaming anyone.

And that was one of the most important things to do.

If anyone ever got the feeling he, or she, was getting blamed for the situation, it would start a round of the blame game, and nothing would even start for a few years.

Nobody wanted to be known as the one responsible, especially if they weren't at fault.

So I had to be careful when giving recommendations.

My terminal suddenly started beeping, and I opened the connection to my secretary in the outer office.

"Yes, Catherine? Do you need something?" I asked.

"Mr. Denebren, your 4 pm appointment is here. Shall I send her in?" came the voice of my secretary from the terminal, her voice tinged in her Canadian accent.

"Of course, please see Ms. Levesque in."

It took only a few moments before the door to my office opened, and a smartly dressed woman entered.

She was of African descent, and her darker skin tone was complemented by her black curly hair that flowed freely around her shoulders. A playful smile was plastered on her lips, but one had only to look at her eyes to see that it was just a facade.

They showed an amount of seriousness and alertness that stood in contrast to her relaxing and easy smile. Not that it was easy to recognize in the first place since she was trained to hide her intentions, or else she wouldn't be effective in her chosen profession.

"Mr. Denebren," she greeted, her voice an alto that created a bit of a discrepancy to her small stature that wasn't taller than 1.6m.

"Chloe, it is good to see you. I hope the travel here went well?" I welcomed her with a genuine smile and an extended hand.

Her smile good a bit more real as she took my hand and shook it.

"Yes, it did. No problems, other than the usual waiting time whenever someone has to deal with Citadel customs, be it here on the Citadel itself or at the border."

"That's good to hear," I said, "Come, let us take a seat. I'm sure you're a bit tired from the long journey."

I pointed to the lounge area at the side, and Chloe nodded with a relieved sigh.

"Catherine, could you please bring us two coffee?" I asked my secretary through the still open communication line while looking questioningly at Chloe to see if she was alright with coffee or if she wanted something different. A shake of her head signaled to me that she was fine with a cup of coffee.

"Of course, Mr. Denebren. I will be with you shortly."

Chloe and I went towards the lounge area and sat down on the two couches facing each other.

We continued to do some small talk while waiting for the coffee. I asked a bit more about her journey, and Chloe asked about my progress in hiring people from other species. All in all, it was nothing important, just something to bypass the time until Catherine arrived with the coffee.

Around ten minutes later, the door to my office opened once again, and Catherine came in, balancing a tablet with two white steaming cups of coffee.

Catherine was a head or two taller than Chloe, with black hair just like her. The only difference was that it had been put into a bun. It gave her the appearance of someone with a no-nonsense attitude which I was really grateful for. Thanks to her, many annoying requests and people were turned away before I even heard of them. Without her, my timetable probably would have been even more full than it already was.

Yet, she wasn't only the best secretary I could hope for, but my bodyguard, as well.

She was trained by the AIS to be a personal bodyguard for VIPs, and Andrew had her assigned to me. He argued that I knew enough critical information that I could be targeted by hostile elements trying to get access to them and should be protected.

While he could have just ordered one of his people to become my bodyguard, he had to give an account of how he used Alliance resources, so he told them that in addition to protecting me, Catherine would keep an eye on me to make sure that I wouldn't do anything that could be harmful to the Alliance, and, if needed, make sure that I was taken out of the picture by any means necessary.

Of course, his reasoning was complete bullshit, but they bought it. Andrew knew that I wouldn't do anything that could be detrimental to the Alliance, but he had to keep up the image of someone that would do everything to keep the Alliance safe. Furthermore, it helped to intimidate others. Nobody wanted to be on the bad side of the director of the AIS if he was willing to go as far as killing a good friend to keep the Alliance safe.

In truth, he wanted someone close to me to have an easier time maintaining communication between us and coordinating the exchange of information.

Right now, our information network was only effective inside the Alliance's territory, but with my growing connections here on the Citadel, and Andrew's efforts in placing agents on key planets, it was only a matter of time until the information network was just as effective inside Citadel space.

Catherine set down the two cups and asked:" Do you need something else, Mr. Denebren?"

I lifted my cup and took a sip before I answered: "The coffee is great, as always, Catherine. Thank you, that would be all. Please close the room when you step out."

With a nod, Catherine took a step back from the coffee table between me and Chloe, and turned around, leaving the room. After the door closed, it took only a moment before a quiet hum could be heard, and the enormous windows, through which I could observe the whole Abera-Ward turned opaque, letting through only enough light to not need to turn on the lamps.

Chloe lost the smile that she had still plastered on her face and mumbled more to herself: "You're taking security seriously, huh?"

I knew that this wasn't a question directed at me, but I chose to answer it anyway to assure Chloe that everything, we discussed in my office right now would be kept secret from any prying ears and eyes.

"You know me. I don't like it when people think that they're allowed to learn my secrets without my consent. The room is shielded against any listening device from outside, and lip-reading isn't possible either, thanks to those windows. Furthermore, the office was searched for bugs an hour before, and the only person entering the office before you knows better than to even try something like this."

"So nobody will know what's going on inside here?"

"Yep, nobody will. And if it helps to make you feel safe, we're even protected against snipers. I commissioned a Citadel company to provide my office windows with a kinetic barrier that would stop even bullets from high caliber sniper rifles, and so far it held what it promised. Not that anyone had truly tried to kill me. Yet, anyway."

"So there is a company out there that has the specifications for a part of your office defenses?"

"The important word here is part of," I said with a smile. "I had my engineers look over it, and create something similar. Effectively, I have two kinetic barriers around my office. One outside the windows, and another one inside."

I could almost see how Chloe's shoulders sagged in relief. Whatever she found out must have kept her on edge ever since, and I was curious to find out what exactly had happened on her mission to Illium that I sent her on.

Not content with waiting anymore, I asked: "So what happened on Illium? Did you find out anything about why Martin has disappeared?"

Instead of answering my question immediately, she took a sip of her coffee, probably to give her enough time to order her thoughts.

After she put her cup back down, she looked me in the eyes and said: "Finding out what happened was the easy part. Apparently, he ran afoul of one of the local mercenary groups, called Eclipse. The Illium police force found his body in a back alley, his body shredded by a shotgun equipped with incendiary ammo. I saw some of the crime scene pictures, not a pretty sight. The officers asked a bit around, found out he had a bit of a drunken argument with an Eclipse mercenary in a bar, and then the case was closed. Just another victim of gang violence."

"That's unusual," I commented. "As far as I knew Martin never drank. Never even touched a beer. Not after living most of his life with an alcoholic father."

"I know," agreed Chloe, "I found it strange too, so I asked if I could retrieve his personal effects. They gave it to me since the case was already closed for them, and nobody else came to claim them."

"There is one thing I would like to know," I interjected before Chloe could continue. "Why didn't they inform us of Martin's passing?"

Chloe only shook her head and sighed.

"I asked the same question, and the only answer I got was that there are no official agreements with the Alliance that the Illium government has to inform them about the death of one of their citizens. And without such an agreement, the Illium officials won't do anything. On Illium, nothing gets done if it isn't put down in writing, and even then it will take some time to get through the mountain of bureaucratic nonsense they created to annoy off-worlders."

"What a bunch of cunts," I scoffed. "Sorry for interrupting you. So you got Martin's personal effects, and what then?"

"After I got them, it was pretty clear that somebody else had looked through them before me. And I don't mean the police. Somebody looked for something, that much was clear after I checked his computer and Omni-tool. They showed signs of tempering as if somebody broke through his security and searched his data. I found traces of something that looked like a file, but it was deleted, and anything that could help to restore the file was destroyed. Whoever it was, was very thorough."

"Still, you found something, right? You're one of my best information gatherers, just like Martin was. You wouldn't have come back if you hadn't found something, you're too stubborn to come back with empty hands."

A small genuine smile appeared on Chloe's face as I said this. And it was true, she was one of the best. Perhaps even the best.

I had created a small group of people that would travel to different places to look for business opportunities and information that could be used to benefit my company, or sometimes, me personally. If I had to describe them, I would say they were a mixture of a PI and an economic analyst. They didn't do anything outrageous like industrial espionage, for that, there was a completely different team with another skillset, but they collected any kind of information that was even remotely interesting.

"Yes, I found something," confirmed Chloe proudly. "Martin was smart enough to leave a coded message inside his book."

"His book?"

"Yes, everyone in our team has a trick to make sure that any important information is secured, even if our electronic devices are destroyed. Martin liked to use paper books to hide them. He would write down numbers on a bookmark indicating page, word, and sometimes letter, which you had to find, starting from the page where the bookmark was put. And depending on if the bookmark was put upside-down, you have to go forward or backward."

"Everyone has something like this?" I asked amused.

"Yes," answered Chloe a bit sheepishly. "We know that the AIS likes to use old-style espionage techniques, so we thought that we should use them too."

"Do you have your own trick, too?"

"Of course," she said, "but I won't tell you. A girl needs her secrets, you know?"

She waggled her finger in front of my face teasingly, and I couldn't help but chuckle a bit at her tone. She joined in after a moment, and for the next minute, all seriousness was gone from the room.

After we stopped, Chloe's face returned to the serious look she had for most of the conversation and continued telling me her findings.

"After I decoded his message, I followed the hints he left. A few names and places, and something that I think is the name of an organization. I checked on the names, and almost all of them are somehow involved with business companies ranging from agriculture to services. Officials were among them, too, and not just from Illium but from all over Citadel space. The places he wrote down were not really of interest, an abandoned warehouse by the spaceport and some office buildings. I didn't look any deeper into any of them, I didn't want to risk whoever went after Martin noticing my snooping around. Sadly, that happened anyway."

"What happened?" I asked concerned.

"I asked around about the name of the organization, and not even three hours later, I noticed that someone was following me. I booked the next passage to the Citadel, and made the hell out of there."

"What's their name, and did you find out anything?"

"They call themselves the Circle of Alameina, and from the few rumors I could gather, they consist of some of the most powerful business people in and out of Citadel space. Some even say that they are influential enough to direct the economy in any way they want."

"I see," I said slowly, while the gears inside my head started to spin. "I think that was enough for today. Tell Catherine to prepare a room where you can rest. Please write everything down in a report, do not let out any details if you can. And after that, you can take some time off work."

Chloe was surprised and shocked that I ended our conversation so abruptly, but stood up nonetheless to leave the room.

Just as she was about to leave the room, I called: "By the way, good work," to which she nodded dumbly, still perplexed at my decision.

After she left the room, I deactivated the security measures, looking out onto the Abera-Ward, my thoughts focused on this Circle of Alameina.

The name alone indicated that it was probably of Asari origin, but if that Circle only consisted of Asari, I didn't know. It could be but on the other hand...

Still, they presented an opportunity. Any group powerful and influential enough to affect the economy was worth looking into. If I could somehow join this circle, I could amass enough power and resources to help the Alliance to grow faster than before.

Yet I knew that I was probably nothing more than a small fish on their radar. Before I could even dream of getting into contact with them, I would have to concentrate on my powerbase here on the Citadel, and make enough connections and business deals, so that they would see me as an asset to their organization.

And if I manage to join them...

No, no, no.

One step at a time, and after that, prepare for the next one.

A smirk slowly grew on my face.