In the year 2148, explorers on Mars discovered the remains of an ancient spacefaring civilization. In the decades that followed, these mysterious artifacts revealed startling new technologies, enabling travel to the furthest stars. The basis for this incredible technology was a force that controlled the very fabric of space and time. They called it the greatest discovery in human history.
The civilizations of the galaxy call it the Mass Effect.
In 2183, a human Systems Alliance marine, Commander Shepard, uncovered a dark galactic secret: every spacefaring civilization is completely destroyed every 50,000 years, according to the designs of an ancient race of machines called Reapers. Shepard stopped the Reapers' vanguard, Sovereign, and his indoctrinated servants during the Battle of the Citadel.
Weeks later, Shepard now hunts for clues that might signal the Reapers' return to the galaxy.
Omega is the end. In every language, every meaning of the title, the asteroid-turned-space station was the end. The finale. The resting place. The last stop.
Commander Shepard saw the seven vorcha approaching, armed with what looked like scavenged weapons and armor due to the quality of their equipment. One of the spiked, pus rotten bipeds even had a flamethrower strapped to its back.
"You! Human carry bounty!" the leader, or maybe the only one capable of speaking intelligibly, announced to Shepard, pointing in accusation. The commander unholstered the heavy pistol at her side.
Vorcha are considered a blight by most of the galaxy. The bipedal vermin are not known for their intelligence, but are frequently exploited for their natural ability to adapt to nearly any environment, as slaves or indentured servants, working in conditions inhospitable to other species. They reproduce quickly, and were apparently nearly ubiquitous on Omega.
"My bounty isn't worth it, vorcha. Get lost" she said, making it clear she was armed. The six in front of her started to spread out to block her path, and the two approaching from behind weren't very quiet.
"Vorcha eat human! Take head to Gavorn for trinkets!"
"Tell Gavorn this human is off limits." Shepard was positive this would end in conflict. She queued up an attack on her omni-tool, a wrist mounted portable computer and miniature fabricator, and waited for the two vorcha behind her to strike. Based on their proximity, Shepard guessed they carried melee instruments, or else didn't trust their weapons at range.
"Fool human!" their leader screamed. "We talk and vorcha sneak behind! Attack!"
The first attack came from behind, and Shepard dropped to her knees in time for the pipe-wielding vorcha to swing wide over her head. At the same time, she gave a silent command to the omni-tool, launching thousands of tiny silicate particles into the air, arcing in a blaze of orange white light. The attack hit the flamer and bloomed out over its body, covering the vorcha's flesh, and more importantly, the fuel tanks, with tiny, burning holes. Rivulets of blurry, oxygenating gas streamed out of the damage.
The flaming vorcha didn't seem to mind its skin melting, but as soon as it released the safety on the flamethrower, gas hit the ignition, back-drafted into the fuel tanks, and turned the creature into a pillar of fire.
The vorcha that came from behind overstepped the attack. Shepard grabbed its elbow with her free arm, fired a trio of bullets into the leading vorcha, then pivoted the off-balance attacker in her grip closer to her chest. A shotgun barked nearby, and her vorcha's chest exploded in a display of thick orange blood. She wheeled around and put down the shotgun toting vorcha with three easy shots to the head.
Two vorcha unloaded their sub-machine guns at Shepard, but their aim was sloppy. The SMGs looked to be manufactured for turian hands—more like talons—and the vorcha had trouble keeping the large weapons to grip. Their haphazard spray of bullets pelted the no-longer-living shield, and Shepard dropped each of them in turn, letting her armor's mass effect shields soak up anything not stopped by the vorcha in her grip.
The remaining three vorcha hesitated. One carried a pistol the size of the creature's head, and the other two were armed with makeshift spears.
Shepard didn't hesitate. She dropped her bullet-ridden vorcha, launched another incinerating attack at a spear-wielder to her left, fired another burst of shots into the skull of the pistol wielding vorcha in the center, and produced a combat knife from a plate in her armor's left thigh, ready to engage the last opponent in close quarters if it tried to charge.
The last vorcha ran away instead.
"My compliments to Gavorn!" Shepard called to the fleeing vorcha.
Shepard holstered her weapons and regarded the bodies lying at her feet. Some of the vorcha were still alive, wriggling in pain. They might regenerate. She debated whether to finish them off or just salvage whatever materials her omni-tool could carry and move on, when her radio clicked on.
"Nice work, skipper." Ashley's voice came in over the comms.
"Thanks for the backup, LT."
Ashley Williams, former gunnery chief, now staff lieutenant, decided to stay on the Normandy for Shepard's next adventure. After a string of crap assignments and postings in the boonies of colonized space, Williams finally got an offer that she deserved.
She turned it down. She claimed to have been sidelined due to her family name, and promoted only because of Shepard's, but the Commander promoted her anyway, claiming to need a new staff lieutenant. Arcturus accepted, and now Ashley Williams was finally starting to come into her own, learning how to be more disciplined, less headstrong, and a better officer.
It would still be nice if she assisted with some vorcha, though.
"You looked like you could handle it, ma'am. I got eyes on a batarian whose got eyes on you. Ten o'clock." Shepard turned away from the dead or dying vorcha and saw the batarian, maybe twenty meters away, staring at the carnage she had just wrought. He was armed, with maybe a Vindicator-class assault rifle, not the cheap scavenged stuff the vorcha were toting. He had armor, too, and carried himself with a profession, casual ease that looked to Shepard like he was used to seeing this sort of thing.
Shepard bristled, expecting another fight.
"Impressive, human," the batarian said in their species' distinct, deep, two-tone basso. "But just because you can take care of yourself on Omega, doesn't mean you belong here." The batarian stepped forward, and Ashley appeared from an alleyway behind him, holding a shotgun to the batarian's back.
"I don't think so, four-eyes," the LT said, her shotgun's systems priming with an audible whine. The batarian sighed in response, more annoyed than surprised. "Drop the heat, then we can talk."
Shepard crossed her arms. "You should probably listen to the woman. She likes her guns and knows how to use them."
The batarian obliged, engaging the safety on the rifle, causing the weapon to compact into itself, folding into a more manageable size. He stuck it to a magnetic interface on his back, then held up his hands in the universal gesture of surrender.
"My name is Korragan," the batarian said, by way of explanation. After a pregnant moment of silence by which the two humans didn't respond, he said, "Aria's Korragan. You must be new here. She wants to talk." Shepard looked at Williams and nodded. The staff lieutenant put her shotgun away.
"Alright, Korragan. Take us to Aria."
Afterlife was exactly how Shepard imagined a nightclub on Omega would be. The music was loud, the dancers wore practically nothing, and the bars were rowdy. She could identify four drugs, illegal in Citadel space, being casually exchanged, and several others she couldn't identify. The center stage dominated the room, its platform built atop the circular bar at the center of the club, with lights that projected the stage dancer's shadows and forms to the open second level up above. The asari dancer currently on stage writhed to the music in a biotics-assisted display of captivating, floating flexibility.
Tactically, the place was a nightmare. It was crowded, yet open at the same time. Most of the cover came in the form of soft booths or unmovable tables. There was a flimsy, almost plastic feel to all the material, and Shepard didn't trust any of it to hold up in a firefight. The noise was distracting, and the smoke was thick. Shepard didn't like relying on targeting computers to get a clear bead, so if fighting broke out here, it would be chaos.
"Think this is a trap, skipper?" Ashley's voice didn't carry through her helmet, it was projected to Shepard's ears only. Still, she doubted Anto Korragan would be able to hear the two talking well enough over the club's anodic blasting music, anyway. Her tone matched Shepard's concern.
"Could be. Stay sharp." Shepard wordlessly started marking armed individuals on her heads-up display, and knew Ashley was seeing the relevant combat data update in real time on her end, too.
"Not a lot of humans," Ashley observed. Shepard nodded in silent agreement. Most of Aria's men, identifiable by their more militant posture and equipment, were turians or batarians. The only humans she could see in the room looked to be patrons in various states of relaxation or near-exhaustion.
"Up the stairs," Korragan gestured, after the three of them crossed the entirety of the first floor. Shepard nodded at the turian guarding the stairs, and after a moment of delayed realization, he stepped out of the way. Shepard gave him a look that she hoped communicated that she was prepared to defend herself, and walked up the stairs, Ashley following close behind.
Aria's private booth insulated most of the sound from the club below, featuring a transparent window with a view of the club, information terminals streaming silent data in the orange hue that seemed Omega's defacto color-scheme, and plush couches made of the asari equivalent to leather. The fact that Aria was an asari herself wasn't surprising at all.
"I don't know what combination of crazy or stupid you are, Shepard, but Omega is definitely somewhere you shouldn't be."
Aria stood facing the window, detecting Shepard's entrance by some silent means. Her voice was deep for an asari, characteristically a sign of matriarch age and status, but Aria looked to be in her maiden years. She was dressed in leathers and an open jacket that showed off her curves, but in typical asari biotic form and fashion, the tight dress appeared to be a soft-suit fitted with its own shield matrix and all the automated systems a hard suit of armor would.
Aria looked dangerous.
"Handled the vorcha welcoming party well enough."
"There's more than vorcha on this station, as I hope you're well aware of by now."
"So you know who I am," Shepard said, pacing around the room, taking in the décor. "You have me at a disadvantage."
"I'm Aria," Aria said immediately, "now we've met, and now you should get off my station before something explodes. You have a reputation, you know."
Shepard sensed Ashley tensing up behind her. So far, Aria hadn't really threatened her. Not in so many words, anyway. The situation was still salvageable, but Ashley might sense danger and decide to start killing. The two Alliance women had a different threshold for vocal context, especially where dangerous aliens were concerned.
"Williams," Shepard said out loud. "Go get a drink. I'll meet up with you in a minute." Ashley seemed to pick up on the subtext, nodded, and descended the stairs.
"Good," Aria said. "She was making my men nervous. I don't want to make a habit of killing Spectres, or their pets."
Shepard resisted responding to the insult, Aria was clearly in control of the situation. Shepard was at her mercy for the time being. She might as well try to draw some information out of the asari while playing mouse to her cat.
"So," she said, trying to figure out how to fit a demand into a compliment. "You seem to be well informed. Maybe if you can point me to someone, I'll be off your station a little sooner." Aria turned around, the ghost of a smile on her lips.
"They always come to Aria," she said, mostly to herself, Shepard thought. "Suit rats and pyjak sucking blood pack, doesn't matter. They all need something, and I always seem to have it." Aria slid down into the comfortable leather couch and gestured for Shepard to do the same. "So, who are you hunting, Spectre?"
Shepard joined Aria on the couch, trying to look comfortable but feeling anything but. Two batarians still stood in the door to the booth, expressions unreadable, but alert. And armed. Something told Shepard that Aria was probably the most dangerous person in the room, though, especially if she somehow had a small army of armed guards at her command, and in the middle of notorious pirate-territory, no less. Shepard stayed on her guard, choosing her words carefully.
"I'm looking for a bounty hunter, used to run with the Blue Suns. Zaeed Massani." Understanding and curiosity painted Aria's face in reaction. She pulled out a tiny metallic cylinder, drew it to her lips, inhaled, and exhaled some sort of blue vapor that danced in the air. It smelled like cinammon and blood.
"I know Massani," she said after a long delay. "Decent enough fellow. Gets the job done. Reputation for being the sole-survivor, though. Do you plan to kill him, or recruit him?" The question hung in the air for a brief moment as Commander Shepard tried to figure out how much information she could divulge while keeping Aria comfortable enough to give it out.
"Does it matter?" She finally said. Aria laughed.
"I guess not," Aria said, putting away the tiny inhaler device. "He hangs out at a human bar called Umbra a couple levels down. You'll fit right in."
"Good to know. This going to cost me anything?" Aria stood up and turned to face the window again.
"This one's on the house. Just don't make a habit of running to me for answers."
"Yeah, got it. Don't want you to earn a reputation for helping Spectres." Aria smiled.
Shepard stood up and turned to leave. "Oh, and Commander?" Aria asked without turning her attention away from the window. Shepard paused. "First rule on Omega. Don't. Fuck. With Aria."
"Easy to remember," Shepard responded, and left the booth.
"So that went well," Ashley said as the two made their way away from Afterlife.
"Better than expected. I didn't have to do some sort of side quest to get it, at least."
"And nothing exploded. Is this a new Commander Shepard I see?" Ashley said in a playful tone.
"There's still time for something to blow up, Ash, let's go meet our bounty hunter."
The Umbra rose to greet them after an hour of navigating Omega's labyrinthine superstructure. Like almost every other shop they had encountered, the bar looked run-down and constructed from salvaged or otherwise second-hand material, or else built over the previous tenant's work. Paint flecked off the walls in patterns interrupted by bullet holes every few meters. A sign that said "No Batarians" hung lazily, written in English. A spray painted response below it, written in Batari, spoke of humans' lack of sexual prowess in a single, unflattering symbol.
"Guess this is the place," Shepard said.
Ashley stepped through the den of haze and stale beer, quickly followed by the Commander. The place had a distinct human aged quality to it: old-earth nation flags hung on the walls shared with newspaper clippings (actual paper!) of historical events, and a single beat up Avenger assault rifle rested delicately on a shelf. The name plate next to the rifle read "JESSIE" in big, hand-carved scrawl.
The bar was not full but it held an intimate sort of raucous about it. Anyone not in a loud conversation was paying attention to the single vid-screen displayed above the bar, sporting its own steel mounts and a thick pane of protective glass.
"Aw come on!" a large man yelled, who Shepard pinned as Zaeed right away. He was the most well armed and armored of anyone in the room, his distinct shock of silver hair and one dead eye were easy to identify, and the man had splayed out at a table all to his own, a few empty beer bottles being his only close company. "The Dragons can't hope to get to the bowl playing like that. Bunch of rookies this season, eh, Mac?"
The bartender looked up at Zaeed and gave an affirming grunt. Ashley sat down at the bar in Zaeed's line of sight.
"Hey, sweet-cheeks, I'm watching that." Zaeed made a turning motion with the beer in his hand, leaning forward. Shepard sat down at his table, facing the mercenary's back.
"Zaeed Massani?" Shepard asked, producing her N7 Eagle pistol and deactivating the safeties.
Zaeed looked over his shoulder at Shepard. "Ah, shit." He fully turned around. "Mac. Better close up a little early."
Mac didn't seem to protest, but the rest of the patrons did. Zaeed stood up from the table, patting the shotgun magnetically attached to his hip.
"You dense sonsofbitches see that armor?" He asked, pointing to Shepard. "En bloody seven. Special goddamn forces. Get out of here before you choke on your own stupidity." Everyone seemed to get the picture, paid their tabs, and filed out of the bar. Zaeed shook his head at the procession of exiting humans. "Bloody ingrates," he growled.
"Nice to see you again, Zaeed," Shepard said.
"Yeah, well, I can't say the same." Zaeed sat back down and finished the beer he had been working on. "Figured you'd get killed in one of your crusades, sooner or later."
"Don't keep up with the news, do you?" Ashley asked from the bar. Zaeed cocked his head back.
"I get by, princess." Turning back to Shepard, he eyed the pistol. "So, I don't recall doing anything to piss off the Alliance. Not recently, anyway. Why's someone like you risking Omega to meet with little ol' Zaeed goddamn Massani?" Shepard set the pistol down on the table, but didn't disengage the safety.
"I'm a Spectre now, working on something in the Terminus systems. Something you might be able to help me out with." Zaeed seemed to relax a bit, apprehension dawning on his mismatched eyes.
"Merc business going tits-up, from what I hear. You Council types looking into that?"
"Something like that. I need an information network. Inside man. Figured you might know a way I can get Blue Suns on my side." Zaeed laughed. It was throaty, rasped, and filled the whole bar with noise.
"Hah! Spectre needs my help!" He turned his head back toward the bar. "You see why I have a drinking problem, Mac?" The bartender grunted again, but didn't turn away from his work. "Goddamn hero of the Citadel comes to me! You're gonna give this old shit an aneurysm from the stress, Shepard."
"So you do keep up with the news?" pondered Ashley. Zaeed leaned forward, closer to Shepard.
"Yeah," he said, the stench of beer and tobacco greeted her senses. "And I know your girlfriend here has a six-figure bounty on her head."
The place grew quiet. Mac worked to clear the bar of empty glasses. Ashley slid the shotgun off her back. Shepard's hand didn't go to the pistol. Zaeed's hands stayed free of his own shotgun. Everyone stared at each other in anticipation. Zaeed was the first to break the silence.
"Fuck, Shepard," he said, leaning back. "I always knew you were trouble. Care for a drink? Mac's the best." Mac grunted. The tension evaporated in a second.
"Drinking on Omega seems to be a bad idea," she replied.
"Yeah, don't buy anything from a batarian while you're here. That's rule two of Omega, in case you're the type to make lists."
"Rule one being don't fuck with Aria?" she asked. Zaeed laughed.
"So you met the pirate queen?" Shepard nodded.
"And you're still alive. Good on you, Shepard." He clasped Shepard on a shoulder pad.
"Look, Zaeed, I'd love to catch up, but I'd rather get off Omega sooner rather than later. Blue Suns and Eclipse and Blood Pack. Merc bands consolidating power, teaming up, know anything about it?"
"Maybe," the old man said, looking thoughtful. "I still have a few contacts in the Suns but your little intel plan is gonna' be harder than it looks." Shepard crossed her arms and leaned back. Zaeed put up one gauntleted hand. "Not saying it's impossible. You seem to have made a career out of doing the impossible, anyway, so I'm not going to dissuade your shitcrazy ass."
"Okay," Shepard said, holstering her pistol. "What's it going to take, then? I need eyes on the inside, logistics, especially anything that points to alien ruins, or prothean relics, or what might be scaring a bunch of merc gangs into banding together. That sort of thing."
"Well," Zaeed scratched his chin in thought. "You do have a bounty on your head. And I know where the Suns like to hang out when they aren't slave trading or running guns."
Ashley interjected with an incredulous look on her face. "Bait?"
"Freaking, bait?" Ashley repeated.
Shepard sighed, inspecting her equipment. "It's not my favorite plan, Ash, but we don't have much else to go on right now."
"But freaking bait? We don't have the rest of the squad to bail you out of this one if it goes fubar, Commander." She was right.
The ground team was down to just her and Ashley. After the attack on the Citadel, Garrus Vakarian had taken a job for the Hierarchy to do synthetics training, which the turian had said would please his father and hopefully earn him an audience willing to hear the Reaper story. Urdnot Wrex went back to Tuchanka to "solve the krogan problem." Tali'Zorah returned to the Migrant Fleet to complete her pilgrimage, and Liara T'Soni was back in asari space, hunting down clues in whatever academic circles she could get herself in. And Kaiden was...
"I know, Ash. I'll be fine."
"You two done gossipin', yet? I'm not getting any younger, here. Or prettier." The old mercenary packed a Scimitar shotgun on his hip, a Carnifex heavy pistol at his opposite side, and a Mantis sniper rifle to complete his load-out. Ashley ignored him.
"I don't trust this guy, either. What's he to you, anyway?"
"I met him on Elysium, during the Blitz." Shepard finished her own diagnostics, and switched to personal helmet-comms. "He's a mercenary, but not the type to screw us over. All the same, though, keep an eye on him. I can handle the Blue Suns." She wasn't sure she could, but Ashley would feel better trailing the bounty hunter over guarding a door.
"Aye aye, Commander," Ashley said through in-helmet only. "Stay safe."
The three broke off. Zaeed vanished beyond a plume of white vapor trailing out from one of the station's many temperature control ducts, his armor's stained yellow color-scheme matching Omega's mottled brown well enough to look like half decent camouflage. Ashley took off in the direction of the gambling house, Revelation, and Shepard knew she would double back to cover Zaeed's firing position. Shepard slowly stalked toward the gambling hall's front entrance.
"Comm check. Everyone five by five?"
"All clear," came the merc's gravely baritone.
"I read you, Commander," Ashley said.
Shepard sent a quick briefing to the Normandy, updating her status. They were a long ways away from the docking bay the ship was parked at, but so far, Joker had only complained about boredom and the incessant batarian propaganda since they'd arrived on Omega. Shepard preferred a bored pilot to the alternative, and figured Joker could use a break from fighting Reapers.
So could I, she thought. The Battle of the Citadel seemed a distant event, even just a few weeks ago. She had barely recovered from a broken arm and fractured ribs after taking off in the Normandy to hunt down geth, at the Council's behest, of course.
Instead following their orders to the T, though, she had picked up an alternate IFF, the identify friendly-foe device that broadcasts ship hailing frequencies and marks the ship's communication tags. They had also re-painted the Normandy, much to Joker's chagrin, to look more like an independent vessel rather than an Alliance war ship. It wouldn't fool a well-informed or particularly perceptive enemy, but it in combination with the new IFF, they hadn't had any trouble in the radically independent Terminus systems so far. Aria had been the only person to see through their facade, but she seemed to be exception to the rule here in pirate territory.
Hunting geth required a few pit stops. The Alliance was out of intel and capable tools for hunting the illusive AI, which hid in bulk behind the Perseus Veil, which was itself surrounded by the Terminus systems. The Citadel Council seemed preoccupied with placating the masses instead of helping Shepard look for Reaper clues, giving her the assignment to occupy her long enough stay out of their politicking way. So it was off to the Terminus systems to hunt down rumors and gain new allies while Shepard's former ground team of alien misfits explored things on their end. Shepard was confident in her alliance-building skills, and now she would need that confidence walking into enemy territory as bait for one of the most powerful mercenary companies in the galaxy.
Rule three on Omega was going to be don't fuck with Commander Shepard.
Shepard adopted a steely persona afforded by thousands of hours of special forces training. Her shields indicated green, her N7 Valiant sniper rifle was freshly modified with new heat-sinks and lighter materials for close-combat engagements, and her pistol read cold on her hard-suit's HUD.
"Got you on visual, Shepard." Zaeed said as the gambling hall's electronic music and offensive neon lighting poured over Shepard's senses. "What's your twenty, princess?"
"Back alley," Ashley reported, "looks like some of the staff on a smoke break. Nothing to report so far."
"Roger," Shepard said, and approached the blue and white armored turian bouncer. The turian turned away from his datapad to regard Shepard's arsenal.
"I think you're in the wrong place, sister. Afterlife hires the dancers." The turian's grinding vocal resonance oozed with insult.
"Never was a very good dancer," Shepard said, shifting her weight into pose that could quickly overwhelm the turian if she had to. "Fighting a war for the Shadow Broker tends to confuse the muscle-memory." She saw that the turian recognized her stance, and he took a step back. "It also tends to fill the pockets with credits, so how about you let me spend some on the entertainment, here, Blue, or I could just beat you senseless and take my money elsewhere." The turian's mandibles pressed close to his hardened face in a wordless gesture of admission, and he nodded the Commander into the lobby.
"Damn, Shepard," Zaeed said over comms. "I bet you could argue those puffs at the Silver Coast into letting this old scab in."
"You should see how she deals with krogan warlords," Ashley said.
"Cut the chatter, you two. Zaeed, sight lines?"
"A'ight, Shepard. I have a clear vantage of the first floor, stick to the lobby or the quasar machines. Or the front of the bar. Got nothing on the back. On the second floor, all I got is the dance pad. Remember, if they take the bait, beat 'em like you said you'd do to that turian pissant at the door. We'll come rushing in like big goddamn heroes and figure out what Vido's up to. Got it?"
"Roger that, I'll try to be conspicuous."
"Commander," Ashley's voice came quiet over the private channel. "I got eyes on Massani's position. Second floor, opposite tower. Looks like a housing unit."
"Copy that, LT. Hold position, but keep an eye on the entrance for any trouble."
"Ten four."
Shepard spent some time losing money on quasar, buying drinks that looked alcoholic, and trying to identify any possible hostiles. The gambling hall was fairly open, with a lot of light and a decent amount of cover. If it came to a firefight, she was pretty confident she could engage anyone without civilian casualties. Or whatever qualified as civilian on Omega.
The security all wore the Blue Sun's trademark blue and white. They looked professional enough, turians, humans, and batarians all in attendance, guarding back rooms and covering the expansive areas with Mattocks or other military-grade rifles. They would be trouble, but they were no geth army or asari commando squad. Then again, Shepard didn't have a krogan on her side this time.
Ashley filled the comms with false reports, mostly about errata ranging from drugged up kids puking in the alley to workers taking out trash or beating people up. If Zaeed caught anything out of place with her story, he didn't indicate it.
"Shepard," came the old merc's voice, colored with concern. "I got six Suns coming in the front, armored and armed. Watch your six. Williams, you spot anything in the rear?'
The fact that Zaeed used Ashley's actual name instead of an insulting moniker was worrying in itself.
"Negative, all clear," Ashley's voice upped a few decibels from normal, and Shepard could read the heart-rate on her hard-suit jump ten BPM. Shepard looked around and spotted the Blue Sun squad coming through the door, talking to one of the hall's better dressed floor managers.
Shepard stood out of the chair she was sitting in, making her way toward the quasar banks where there was better cover.
"Zaeed, anything on the second floor?" She asked.
"Negative, all I see are drunk asari and one stupid volus with a chain—wait," Zaeed cut his speech off and the previous concern returned. "I think that's fuckin' Vido fuckin' Santiago. Sonofabitch never visits Omega. What the hell is he doing here?"
"I'm moving in," Ashley said in a tone Shepard knew she reserved for combat situations.
"Hold the fuckin' phone, sister, what the hell—?" Zaeed was cut off.
Shepard turned about, and now the squad of Blue Suns were moving toward her, purpose in their quick strides.
"Plans fubar," Shepard said. "I'm bugging." She started toward the fire exit in the back, knowing Zaeed's sniper position was either compromised by Ashley or he had started moving himself. She just needed to clear past the bar and it was a narrow hallway to the exit.
A door opened to the side of the hallway and a man fitting Vido Santiago's description stepped out, rifle in hand, grim determination on his face.
"Commander Shepard," he said in a low, careful timbre that might have fit a politician or a tech mogul better than a mercenary. "I hope you enjoyed your evening at the Revelation."
Shepard released her Valiant and started firing from the hip, shots smashing against Blue Suns' shields as she rolled over the gambling hall's expansive bar top.
"Massani! Williams! Report!"
No reply.
"Cheks, Rogers, Quellin!" The hall erupted into chaos. People shouted and screamed. Gunfire burst from every angle. Shepard's HUD was a blur of overlapping hostile indicators.
Shepard was trained for this, though. Her omni-tool lit up as she started executing a screed of long-accumulated programs. Light flashed out from her wrist, and she heard the tell-tale sign of rifles overheating in complaint, shields malfunctioning, and the Revelation's fire suppression systems activating. The room filled with wet, soapy foam, and Shepard used the temporary confusion to slide out from the far side of the bar.
She looked up to see the well-dressed floor manager staring down at her, eyes fixed in an expression of terror.
She brought her rifle's stock to bear on the man's soaked countenance, arcing up into his jaw and laying him flat on the ground.
Then the man exploded.
Shepard's shields popped. She smelled the all-too-familiar scent of ionizing gas that told her the suit's capacitors had overloaded. Blood trickled into her vision. The HUD was blank. Her omni-tool was silent.
Shit.
The bar was simply gone. She lied flat on the floor, pieces of stucco, concrete, and steel warped around her. Somewhere, through the piercing whine of white noise, she thought she heard a rifle barking in the distance.
Shit.
She fired at a blue blur in the smoke, and her target dropped in a haze of blood. Powerful hands grabbed her, wrestling the rifle away. She pulled out her sidearm, firing at the invisible enemy above and behind her. Brown ichor met her report, batarian blood splashing across her helmet. She kept firing, rewarded by the rifle landing in foam a meter away. She scrambled for it, only to have something heavy come smashing down on her neck.
Shit.
She was dazed, but not out. She kicked at her attacker, feeling armored joints buckle under her suit-assisted attack. She rolled to her back, slippery in the muck of foam and destruction. A turian met her gaze. Maybe it was the bouncer. She couldn't remember his face tattoos well enough to know. She fired anyway, pistol leaping in her grip. The turian's face shattered, crest turning into a fountain of dark blue. She rolled back to her side, trying to grab the Valiant, but it was gone. She produced her knife, ready to cut her way out if she had to. A shadow eclipsed her vision. She looked up into the barrel of her own rifle, wielded by a very pissed off looking Vido Santiago.
Shit.
Electricity arced through her body, and the lights went out.
Author's Note:
So this should be pretty obviously AU, starting just after the events of ME1. I never liked how Bioware killed off Shepard, only to revive her almost exactly as she was before, but now in the hands of the obviously evil Cerberus. ME2 has great characters and a fun plot, though, so I wanted to take a crack at delving into the darker story of Terminus pirates, merc bands, bug-eyed collectors, and illusive men, without the contrivance of killing the main character for the sake of plot and/or gameplay reasons.
Also, screw thermal clips. They're stupid.
So, we'll see how Shepard fares if she had went to tackle the Reaper problem by going undercover in the Terminus systems. Hope you enjoy it.