Jondum Bau

Jondum Bau was a salarian Spectre who also served the Special Tasks Group. During the Reaper War he came across intelligence suggesting that high-level hanar officials might be indoctrinated, and he reached out to Commander Shepard for help untangling the threat before it could compromise the hanar homeworld. Methodical and dryly candid, he was also a long-standing admirer of the thief he had spent years pursuing.

The hanar investigation#

Bau learned that the Alliance had conducted a covert raid on a batarian research station with hanar assistance, aiming to seize Reaper technology the batarians were studying. The operation netted the Alliance nothing, while hanar operatives were suspected of escaping with technology likely to indoctrinate them. Bau obtained the soul names of the hanar involved and found that one had since become a diplomat on the Citadel. He had come by his intelligence either by paying off the weapons dealer Donovan Hock or through an anonymous gift he believed came from the master thief Kasumi Goto, whom he had hunted for years while privately admiring her skill.

Working with Shepard#

Meeting Shepard at the Citadel embassies, Bau judged the investigation urgent for its economic and territorial implications for the salarians, and he asked the Commander to examine records he could not formally access in order to identify the suspect diplomat. He took Shepard's repeated warnings about the Reapers seriously, noting that he and many other Spectres had given them weight. The inquiry narrowed to the diplomat Zymandis, who proved to be the indoctrinated agent. Bau and Shepard moved to the hanar embassy for the arrest, only to find that Zymandis had already begun uploading a virus designed to cripple the defense network of the hanar homeworld, Kahje.

The arrest#

As Bau tried to block the transmission he was attacked and choked by Zymandis' human bodyguard. The outcome turned on Shepard's decisions. With no other hand to intervene, Shepard had to choose between saving Bau and stopping the upload from a nearby console; Bau urged the Commander to stop the upload over saving him, and the consequences for the agent and the homeworld's defenses depended on which Shepard chose. Under other circumstances another ally could free Shepard to act on both fronts. If Bau survived, he pledged to join the war effort with allies of his own when the time came.