May 10th, 2175
13:30
Alliance News Network
"Welcome to the ANN's special news episode for the election of the new ambassador of the Alliance. I am Layla Huderin. For today's top story, we have invited ANN's political observer, Mr. Haythem Tattleworth. Good to have you here, Haythem."
"Good to be here, Layla."
"Now, we have the official confirmation from the parliament chamber's press spokesperson that the renowned businessman and former minister for economics, Mr. Oscar Denebren, has been elected to become the new ambassador, succeeding Mrs. Anita Goyle. What is your take on the matter, Haythem?"
"In my opinion, the result has been clear from the moment Mr. Denebren made his intention to run for the position public. Nothing against Mr. Udina, but he didn't have a chance. Too many people among all the ways of life stand behind Mr. Denebren."
"Do you think that those people mattered in the decision of the parliament?"
"Absolutely! Every delegate can be held accountable by their constituents, and if they want to return to parliament in the next period, they had to choose Denebren."
"I am of the same opinion. And I believe that there will be some parties across the Alliance's territory today."
"I got some invitations to some, too."
"Do you think Mr. Denebren will be a good ambassador? I think that is the question that is the most important question we should ask right now. Sometimes it feels like Mr. Denebren's reputation is overshadowing everything else."
"That is a question that has to be asked, you are right, especially with the other candidate being Donnel Udina, who has been Ambassador Goyle's understudy for years. He has more experience than Oscar Denebren in that position. Yet, I believe Mr. Denebren will represent the Alliance splendidly."
"On what are you basing your impression?"
"While it is true that Oscar Denebren has been absent from the political scene for some years, his influence has never waned. The contracts he negotiated with the Citadel at the beginning of our cooperation with the other species have been essential for the Alliance's and humanity's economic growth. Without them, we wouldn't be where we are today. We can therefore say that he is competent in economics and negotiations. And we haven't even touched upon the enormous success of his company."
"I don't believe anyone in this galaxy would insinuate incompetence in economic matters. Yet, an ambassador's job is so much more. How do you think he will fare in those?"
"Right now, it is impossible to give an absolutely correct answer. The political network and dealings of the Citadel are a complex web. Mr. Denebren will have to do his best to stay on top of the game to represent humanity. Nonetheless, I believe he will do a great job."
"And what do you think about..."
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May 12th, 2175
16:23
Citadel Today
"... the new human ambassador?"
"Well, Ms. Vakoria, that question will take some time to be answered. And I don't mean airtime."
"So, you mean Oscar Denebren will have to prove himself during his time as ambassador, Ms. Vay'tola?"
"Exactly! Humanity is still a very young race, and while Mrs. Goyle, as the first human ambassador, has done a wonderful job, it is too early to predict how the next one will act. Maybe he will be as good as Mrs. Goyle, perhaps even better, or maybe Oscar Denebren will not measure up to her example."
"Despite the uncertainty, can you give us a personal prediction? Just your personal experience based on what you know of Oscar Denebren."
"He will have a hard time. Mr. Denebren may have experience in economic matters and a brief stint in politics, but his inexperience with Citadel politics will be a hurdle that Mr. Denebren has to conquer. If he can't get over that hurdle, the Alliance will have to elect a new ambassador quickly. In the end, time will show his effectiveness as an ambassador."
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May 15th, 2175
03:27
"The Independent Truth"
"It is all an attempt at concentrating power within a very small circle of elites! The military-industrial complex is starting to control every aspect of our lives!
Don't be fooled by the gentle face Denebren is presenting to the public. He is simply an agent of a higher power that is seeking to subject us all.
It will look like everything will be better than before, but that is only the surface! The core will rot! And we won't even realize what will be taken from us until it is gone!
They will start to take our freedoms away until only chains are left.
Giving Denebren this position is simply another step until we all become slaves to them.
The lizard people have already taken over half of our parliament, don't let them take more of our freedom than they already have taken!
Even our former presidents were drones under the thrall of the lizard people, or even one in disguise, like our former vice-president Tony Mitcello!
Stand up and fight!
You have heard the truth!
I am Ian Delgouse, and I am not afraid to shout the truth out into the world!"
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June 10th, 2175
16:02
Citadel, Widow-System
Office of the Human Ambassador
I walked into the office, a slight smile on my face. Yet, a hint of sadness got mixed in when I noticed the lack of decorations. This office had always been hers since it was first assigned to the Alliance, and now seeing it so empty was a surreal experience.
"Don't worry," said Anita from behind the desk, not looking up from her terminal. "You will get used to it after you put up your own decorations. And I recommend you style the office to be comfortable for yourself instead of trying to impress the people who come to visit you. The imposing setting may look impressive, but it gets boring after a while. I made the same mistake at the beginning."
"And you recommend the comfortable setting?" I asked.
"You will spend a lot of time in this office, and you want to make your breaks as comfortable as possible. A conference room is much more suitable for having meetings with people you want to intimidate. It is easier to style the room to fit the mood, too. Your office would have only one setting for all."
"Thank you for the tip, Anita," I replied and sat down on the chair opposite her desk, leaning back in it. "How are you feeling?"
Anita stopped hitting her keyboard for a moment, a slightly vacant expression on her face. "It feels different," she said after a moment of silence, slightly hesitating. "It is difficult to put into words how I feel. On the one hand, I feel like a weight has dropped off my shoulders. I am even sleeping better. On the other hand, it feels like I don't really know yet what I am going to do with myself. I mean, this job was practically my life for decades. It is difficult to give it up."
I gave her a comforting smile, but I didn't tell her that everything would be fine. Something like that, she had probably heard enough times that it sounded like empty words to her. Instead, I asked: "Any plans for now?"
A genuine smile lit up on her face, and her eyes started to regain a shine of happiness. "I am going to visit my daughter. She just had her first child, and I couldn't be there thanks to that whole mess with the Batarians."
"Your first grandchild?"
"Yes, the first."
"Then your job will be to be the best grandmother possible."
"Something like that," said Anita. "I am going to visit them for a week or two, and then I am going to go on trips with my husband. Being a full-time grandma isn't something I want to do. Besides, I represented the Alliance for so long, but I haven't had the time to tour our territory or visit all those vacation spots that I always see in the tourism brochures."
"Good, then my present is going to be useful," I said, and grabbed the two cards that were in the inner pocket of my suit jacket.
"What's that?" asked Anita when I put the cards on the desk.
"Cards that will get you some of the best rooms and service for free. I may not be heavily invested in the tourism branch, but having a hotel or two on the most visited planets is always a good investment, especially if you don't want to book a room at a place where you don't know if the rating is faked or not. It is easier to make sure the quality is up to par when you own the whole thing."
"You know, this could be seen as an attempted bribery if you did it a few weeks earlier."
"That's why I waited until now. I am going in, and you are going out. The best possible chance to do this," I replied with a smirk. "Now, nobody can accuse me of trying to bribe you."
Anita played with the cards for a moment before quietly saying, "Thanks," and slipping them into her pocket with a smile. "My husband and I will make good use of it."
"Don't forget, the extra services are also covered. I think you deserve to relax."
"Anywhere we should head to first?"
"The Wellness-Resort on Theben," I replied without hesitation. "Beautiful lakeside hotel, good hiking trails, and the scenery is quite unique. And unique doesn't mean dangerous like other planets."
"Good, I don't want to land in the hospital just because I liked a blue rose and smelled it. There are enough horror stories about plants that look interesting or beautiful but try to kill anyone who gets too close to them."
I let out a laugh. "Don't worry. Where the hotel is located, there are no dangerous plants or wildlife, and everything there has been extensively tested. If anything happens, even just an allergic reaction, the medical teams know what to do."
"Good to know," replied Anita. "My husband has the unfortunate habit of being allergic to the most curious things. Never something dangerous, simply mildly annoying. A cold or a rash. I am betting on a rash this time."
"That happens often?" I asked, intrigued. After all, this was probably the first time Anita talked about her family life. Normally, she either talked about herself and her hobbies or about her work, never about anything personal concerning the people close to her.
It was like she was opening up to me, now that she was going away. On the one hand, it made me happy that she saw me as a friend with whom she could talk about it, but on the other hand, it also made me a little sad since she had never talked with me about such things in all the years we had known each other.
Yet, it could also be that she had tried her best to create distance between her work life and her private life, something I could never resent her for.
"Yes," said Anita, with a slithly wistful smile. "He works as a journalist, under a pseudonym, of course, to keep our jobs and reputations apart, so he travels a lot. It looks like every other week, Rey has something else he is allergic to. I give it a 50-50 chance that he is allergic to something on Theben, especially if we stay there longer."
"Hopefully, whenever he gets sick, it won't be so bad that he has to stay in bed for a long time."
"No, it is mostly just a day in bed where he works on his articles. Rey also said he writes his best articles at those times."
"Is he going to continue working when you go on your well-deserved vacation?"
"Of course, he is almost as workaholic as I. Yet, he knows when to take a break to recharge. Also..."
We took some time to talk about Anita's plans and a bit of her family life. I probably learned more about her private life in the half an hour we spoke than in the last few years.
Nevertheless, all good things had to come to an end, and our conversation turned back to work matters.
"At the beginning of the next week, you will start to take up some of my work, and on July 1st, you will be officially the Alliance's ambassador. With every passing day, your duties will increase, while I will fade into the background," explained Anita, while tapping on her keyboard.
"So, I will have the chance to ask you for advice while I start to get acclimated to the job."
"That was my plan," agreed Anita. "There is a reason why I asked you to come to the Citadel now instead of the time when you become the ambassador fully." She used her left hand to create another screen and turned it around to let me see what it showed. "Here, look. I put together a schedule for you. It is light one, I don't want to overwhelm you right from the beginning."
When I took a look at the schedule Anita put together for me, I couldn't help but stare for a moment. There were at least three to four meetings per day, each with a time frame of around an hour or longer. In between, Anita helpfully marked the times I would have to do paperwork.
"Light?" I asked. "It looks like a normal workday to me."
"It is a light one," assured Anita. "You can expect around four or five meetings per day on average that are previously agreed on. On top of that, there will be one or two emergency meetings since everyone believes that they have an emergency." During her last sentence, Anita rolled her eyes, and I could hear the derision in her voice toward people with overly inflated egos. "Right now, I will keep those away from you, so that you can get into a rhythm. The week after your first, I will delegate some of those emergency meetings to you."
"Anything I will have to look out for? Any particular issues that are currently pressing?"
"We still have to deal with the aftereffects of the Batarians leaving the Citadel and the treaties that have to be renegotiated. Furthermore, C-Sec is going to have a new recruitment wave in a couple of weeks. There is a list of potential officers we want to push. The human proportion in the organization is less than the Alliance would like. Our influence is less than we would like, especially in the upper ranks. There are enough people back home who would like to change that. So, we are trying to push for people for the positions of lieutenant and captain."
"That will be difficult," I mused. "Lieutenant is probably possible, but captain? We have not been part of C-Sec long enough that the other parties who are invested in C-Sec will allow us such a maneuver without heavy resistance."
"What would your strategy be?" asked Anita, interlacing her fingers and laying her chin on top.
"I would push for those positions, but simply for them to reject our proposal. As a compromise, we will request that more positions be filled with our recommendations among their investigators and detectives. That will reinforce our groundwork in the organization."
"And with every solved case, our reputation among the force and the public will increase, giving us more leverage and opportunities to push for our people to be promoted into higher positions," Anita continued, finishing my chain of thought.
"Correct," I nodded. "If we want too much too quickly, it will only hurt us in the long term. We are still newcomers, a young species to boot, as the Asari would say. We shouldn't forget that the three council species have been the foundation of the Citadel for centuries and have not shared their positions of power with the other species, despite them being here far longer than us. Even the Volus, who have been cooperating with the Turians for a long time and have created the economic foundation that the galaxy is using, never had one of their own in the position of executor. The number of Volus captains in C-Sec is also negligible."
"A good argument, Oscar. You are right, we should concentrate on the foundation. Making humans invaluable to C-Sec should be our priority." Anita took a brief moment to think before she added, "Since you already have a strategy, you will take over the preliminary meetings on the 24th."
"Me? Already?"
"You have an idea, you have a strategy, so why not? Besides, most of the meetings and decisions will happen when I am gone, and I would have to read you in on the situation anyway. Giving it into your hands from the beginning is the logical thing to do."
"Alright," I replied, giving Anita a confident nod.
"Good," said Anita, giving me a smile with a hint of gratitude that I had taken over that task. "In the meantime, you should take care of the organizational chores. You won't be able to furnish your office for now, but that shouldn't stop you from thinking about how you want to design it. We already talked about that, so you already know about my opinion on that."
"Loud and clear," I agreed. "Comfortable over intimidating."
"Furthermore, you should get through all security checks and get your clearances. While I don't think that it will take too long, you never know how fast the people on the other side work. Your requests for clearance will be treated as high priority, but you probably know how fast even those are getting processed within the bureaucracy."
"Days or weeks, so I should get on it after I leave your office to be on the safe side."
"A good idea. Besides, you should probably go through the list of applicants for the position of secretary. You will need someone who keeps track of your appointments, meetings, and notes. I know that I wouldn't have been as effective in my job without them. Sadly, I had to replace them again and again since they either couldn't handle the pressure of the job anymore, had been bribed to leak information, or got a better offer from somewhere else, so don't get too attached to them."
"Do you have a list of potential hires?" I asked. "After all, they would have to be checked thoroughly by the AIS beforehand to be allowed to work here."
"Yes, we have such a list. You only have to go to our security office and ask for it. Chief Luttis will give it to you. You can strike up a conversation with him and get to know each other. After all, he will be your chief of security and responsible for your and everyone else's safety."
"Then I will visit him," I replied, giving it a thought, and slowly stood up. "Right now. I think I should leave you to your remaining work. And get started with my own. Do you have a small office where I can set up?"
"Not yet. I will get some people to set up an office, but are you sure? You still have some days to enjoy the sights of the Citadel. Your duties start in a few days. Personally, I wouldn't start early."
"I am too attached to my work routine to do nothing," I answered, giving Anita a wry smile. "I already had a few free days after making sure that my company would run smoothly without me, and slowly, I am getting antsy. I need something to do."
"Very well," said Anita with a shake of her head as if she weren't able to understand my decision at all. Yet, I knew as a fact that she would be the same if she were in my position. "I will send someone to show you a place where you can work when you come in tomorrow. The day after, a temporary office should be ready for you."
"Thanks, I will see myself out then and visit Chief Luttis."
"Until tomorrow."
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June 17th, 2175
13:27
Citadel, Widow-System
Human Embassy
Sighing, I threw the datapad on the table, disappointed with the last interview. The people who had been applying for the position of my secretary weren't bad, but none of them had been special in any way that caught my eye.
Over 20 applicants interviewed, and most of them had the same résumé. Elite university, one of the highest scores, and experience in this field of work. They were all hoping to one day get the position of my understudy, and from there, to have the chance to become the ambassador themself.
Yet, they were missing a spark of greatness in my opinion.
Even Udina had one that he kept alive with his ambition and tenacity.
Besides, another reason why I didn't like any of the applicants until now was that I didn't want to deal with political maneuvering and backstabbing within the embassy right now. I wanted to start my first year without having to ensure that my secretary got along with Udina. If my secretary tried to upstage Udina and make him look bad, Udina could think that it was my idea and that I wanted to force him out. Something like that would damage our work relationship for years and would give outsiders the chance to exploit this crack in our armor for their own gain.
I would rather deal with a spy trying to fish for my secrets than with a hostile workplace environment.
"Next!" I called out, and I couldn't keep my boredom out of my voice completely. I winced when I noticed my faux pas, but returned to my gentle expression immediately when I noticed that the door opened.
The moment she stepped into the room, it took a few moments before I knew that I would probably take her as my secretary.
Well, after I made a call.
Shoulder-length blond hair that had been pulled into a ponytail. Her clothes were professional and were from a brand I didn't recognize, yet I could tell that they had not been cheap.
Yet, the most striking characteristic was her dark-blue eyes that I had seen before, and with another person, too.
Despite the slight differences, I also recognized her facial structures.
Nevertheless, I did my best to make sure that none of my recognition appeared on my face or that my body betrayed my thoughts.
"Good day, Mr. Denebren," she greeted me, and her voice was tinged by her Australian accent.
"Good day, Ms. ...?" I let the last part of my sentence fade away to give her the chance to introduce herself, despite already knowing the name she was going to say from her application.
"Ms. Yvonne Orianda. It is an honor to meet you," she introduced herself.
"The honor is mine, Ms. Orianda. Please sit, no need to stand," I said, pointing to the chair opposite mine.
"Thank you."
"I am sorry, but I have to ask. Is that an Australian accent I hear?" I asked.
"It is," she replied with a smile that would have most men melting in their seats. "I am from Sydney, actually. You have a good ear."
"I am from Earth, too. Most people nowadays forget that I am old enough to remember a time when we humans were stuck in our solar system. Having to deal with people from all over the place was much easier back then," I said, playing up my age a little bit. "Yet, what motivated you to leave Earth? From the résumé you sent in, I can see that there would have been multiple companies you could have chosen. Companies where the chances for advancement would have been much easier and quicker."
"That's true," she agreed easily. "Yet, one of the reasons why I rejected those offers was that they would have restricted me to Earth. I want to see a bit more of the galaxy before I hit my thirties. The cradle of humanity may be a marvel, but it is not everything. Besides, I don't want to do this job forever. A few years should be enough to write it on my CV, and use it as a qualification for my next interview."
I couldn't help but let out a short bark of laughter at her reply.
"Bold," I said with a grin. "Bold, but truthful. I like it. Now, let's talk about some of the other things that you wrote down."
The rest of the interview went along the same lines as any of the others, sprinkled with the slight remarks from her that got me to chuckle from time to time. It seemed like she had researched what kind of person I liked and acted accordingly.
After I finished the interview and escorted her out, I looked at my timetable. Seeing that a short break was coming up, I went over to my workstation to open up a secure channel.
A few seconds later, Andrew's face appeared on my screen, and I asked without a greeting: "Why has Henry Lawson's daughter, Miranda, just auditioned for the position of my secretary, and why is she calling herself Yvonne Orianda? If you have nothing to do with her being on this list, I am paying for the Alliance's next five dreadnoughts out of my own pocket."