Written 05/08/11
Disclaimer: Bioware owns Mass Effect. I am however, part of a secret underground who are planning to 'liberate' the universe. We're so secret, I've never actually met the other members...
Author's note: This is the second story in the Critical Mass series. I suggest new readers start with Critical Mass: A Sec.
I warn you in advance I'm out of practice with this whole writing thing, so don't expect a masterpiece. I do however love reviews, and find them greatly inspiring. I fear flames, I'm nearly phobic, there have been nightmares. Constructive criticism is welcome, but please try to be nice. You wouldn't want to make me cry would you?
What broke in a man when he could bring himself to kill another?
-Alan Paton
A Kind of Mind
Kelly stood with her arms held tightly at her sides, back straight, shoulders thrust back and her jaw held high. Her mouth was tight with the effort not allow herself to react to the verbal punishment she was receiving. A far cry from her first appearance in Afterlife, she was dressed in matte black armour. It was a light armour, that had hard plates covering her most vulnerable areas, but much of the armour revealed a thick black under suit that covered her body, and allowed for flexibility.
"What good is a guard who won't touch her weapon?" the asari on the other side of the desk in the small room demanded. She sat with her arms crossed across her chest, leaning back in her chair, scowling at Kelly. Her blue eyes flashed with frustration, and the three marks that flared from the middle of her brow, came together, clenched with anger. "You've been on the job for over thirty shifts, you've demonstrated to me that you can indeed use your weapons, you have your own armour now, the dancers like you and you're the thrice-damned leader of your squad, but you refuse to shoot your damned gun!" she seethed, coming to her feet. She slammed her fists onto her desk.
With a scowl of her own Kelly responded, "I don't refuse to shoot my gun, I just haven't had a good reason to yet."
Lieutenant Alessa snorted and gave Kelly an eloquent look of disbelief, "Don't give me that crap. In your first week, that Eclipse goon almost drew down on you, but you talked him down. It was your first week, I understood that, even commended you for it. Then that krogan almost smashed your face in and you just whispered menacingly at him and he walked away. The krogan, walked, away," she said with disbelief, "and then your squad made you leader."
"The Eclipse had just drunk a little too much, I didn't need to shoot him. And I just happen to know a really good krogan threat. And that had nothing to do with being squad leader, my squad just doesn't care. They just wanted me to do the organizational crap. I can't actually order them to do anything, I just suggest things, I ask," Kelly said with a shrug.
"Alright, then explain to me why you didn't shoot the Blue Sun who shot at you today," Alessa asked dryly.
"He missed and then he surrendered," Kelly cocked her head at Alessa, unimpressed. There had been a disturbance earlier. A man had come into the club and started drinking. Heavily. He had been dumped by his asari girlfriend earlier, something about her not wanting to put up with his mood swings anymore, and he was hurting. Seeking solace in the bottom of the bottle, it hadn't been long before he was too drunk to see straight. And then prompted by a pretty dancer getting too close, he had burst into sobbing and wailing. Kelly had attempted to escort the man out of the club, gently attempting to guide him out. He had not seen fit to accommodate her.
"He aimed a rifle at you and tried to blow your head off."
"He was too drunk to aim."
"He almost hit a dancer."
"But he didn't," Kelly said with a peaceful smile. Her own annoyance had faded as she felt herself gaining the upper hand in the argument. "He apologized, gave me his rifle and left."
"Would you have fought him if hadn't?" Alessa asked with a sigh, sinking back into her seat.
"Of course I would have," Kelly said with a frown.
"Kelly..." Alessa sighed, "And what if next time you're not as lucky? Are you really that naive? Next time you try to talk your way out of a situation, or try to diffuse a situation, you may not be so lucky. And it is luck. You have no way of anticipating how every blasted piece of scum will react. Especially on Omega. Maybe if you were an officer on the Citadel, bastion of peace and civilization, you could rely on your soft hearted tactics, but Omega is populated by the worst beings the universe has to offer. The only law on Omega is the law found at the end of gun's barrel."
Alessa sighed and watched Kelly. The human seemed to be listening to her, but Alessa feared that her guard didn't hear her. "Next time you don't act first, you may not get the chance. You can't afford to take these risks. You're raw Kelly. You're good enough if you have the advantage of acting first, but only if you make sure that there will be no retaliation. You need to strike swiftly and with finality."
"I'm not going to shoot people just because I think they might start something. I'd rather take a risk to myself than make a mistake that would cost someone their life," Kelly told Alessa solemnly, confident in her conviction.
Alessa searched for a way to make the young woman understand. Nearing two hundred years old herself, she had let go of her own naivety long ago, but she still valued life. She was struggling to describe the line between reckless wannabe heroine and ruthless criminal. "You're fine with risking your life, okay. No one can deny you that right. But you're a guard, an A Sec guard. Every time you risked a situation getting beyond your control, you risked the lives of everyone else in Afterlife." Alessa went on, encouraged by Kelly's startled blink. "What if the shots today hadn't missed? What if a dancer had been hit? A customer? Another guard? Is the life of the idiot making trouble, pulling a gun, starting a fight, more important than their lives? You say you take your job seriously. You've won over the dancers' trust in short order. Hell, look at that dancer Maru, she almost worships the ground you walk on."
"She's my friend," Kelly edged out, taking advantage of a brief stop in Alessa's tirade.
It was brief though, and Alessa continued with new vigour, "And what if it had been her? If she was caught in the crossfire of some idiot who can't hold his liquor? Would it make it okay? Would you forgive? Would it be alright if it was an accident?" Alessa glared hotly at Kelly, willing the younger woman to understand.
Kelly found herself unable to meet Alessa's eyes. She looked at the desk between them and whispered quietly, "No. No it wouldn't..."
"Because she'd be dead. Dead because you hesitated, because you let some misguided sense of morality prevent you from finishing it before it started. You're responsible for more than your own actions, more than your own life. You need to think. You need to act." Alessa finished, letting her ire bleed away. Kelly would, with no doubt, not be convinced by this alone. But Alessa was satisfied to see her start to think. It was enough, for now.
Both women were startled as the door to the small office abruptly slid open and another asari walked in. Unlike the two armoured women, she wore the uniform of the Afterlife dancers. Her skin was a darker hue of blue then the other asari, and her face was pebbled with small white crests, that swept around her eyes and cheekbones, and back onto her fringe. She walked with almost a skip in her walk and a bright smile on her face. "Mo-mo!" she chimed, leaning around Kelly towards the lieutenant. She snuck an arm around Kelly's waist to steady herself.
With a roll of her eyes, the tension broken, Kelly joked, "Nice to see you too Vikaila. Don't mind me, I'll just stand here and hold you up. I've been thinking about a career change anyways, I wonder if sentient furniture draws a large salary?"
"Vikaila, I was in a meeting." Alessa told the dancer, with a touch of resignation.
"Moiria Alessa," Vikaila said, standing up sharply, "You weren't being mean to Kelly were you?"
Before Alessa could respond Kelly interjected, "No Viks. We were just talking about my work performance."
Vikaila looked between the two, disbelief clearly written all over her face. Then with a roll of her eyes she moved around Kelly and hopped up onto the desk. She made a small shooing motion at Kelly, turning towards Alessa. "Ah huh, sure. That's nice, now why don't you go walk Maru home? She waiting for you, and I plan to blow my girlfriend's mind right now. And I don't mind, but she doesn't like an audience."
"Vikaila!" Alessa exclaimed, collapsing forward, elbows on her knees, cradling her face in her hands. "Must you demean my authority so thoroughly?"
Kelly laughed openly then, and turned from the both. "Don't worry, your authority is firmly intact. Just let me get out the door," she called back over her shoulder. Her retreat covered the small frown that had re-emerged on her lips.
Kelly stepped out into the dark hallway and the office door sealed itself behind her. She took a brief moment to lean against the wall next to the door. The corridor held the offices of the three officers of lower Afterlife Security. The batarian, Captain Ruque Boros, was in charge of thirty two guards, thirty split between two lieutenants. The guard shift was roughly thirty hours long, fifteen hours for each of the lieutenants. First Lieutenant Prolus Vivianarus, a turian, and his three squads took the first half and Second Lieutenant Moiria Alessa took the second half with her three squads. Of course the first and second designation was largely arbitrary. Omega lacked a solar cycle to establish time. Omega's denizens largely determined their own time cycles individually, or according to origin. It could have chaotic consequence.
The hall also led around to guards' locker room and the dancers' change room. It would have been faster to cut across the club, but her squad's ten hours were up, and she didn't feel any particular need to invite extra work. If she went out into the crowd in A Sec armour, after her shift, she knew without a doubt, something would happen to delay her sweet, sweet, downtime. She waved at a few guards going out for the start of their shift, and walked past the guard's locker room and into the dancers' room.
With so few female guards, it was a choice between changing with the males, or the dancers. Though the guards of A Sec were generally civil with each other, for fear of Boros's wrath, few of the female guards were willing to test the limits of that civility to such extent. Kelly wasn't surprised to see Lavi Tawsh, the only female batarian she'd ever met, changing out of her own armour.
"Hey Kelly, did Alessa chew you out? Or did she not like the taste?" Tawsh guffawed, giving Kelly a friendly punch in the shoulder as she passed.
Rubbing at the sting in her arm from the so called friendly jab, Kelly responded dryly, "Alessa wasn't chewing me out. We were having a philosophical disagreement." Kelly ignored her squad mate's snort of disbelief and started unbuckling her armour.
"Well at least she didn't shoot you. You wouldn't want to scorch your pretty new armour, especially now that it's your armour on the line and not mine," Tawsh teased. Batarian females being almost as broad and muscular as their male counterparts, meant that Tawsh's spare armour had fit Kelly better than any made for asari. It hadn't been a perfect fit of course, Tawsh was more than a head taller than Kelly, but it had done the job while Kelly had waited for her own armour to be made. It was surprising how long it had taken, and Kelly strongly suspected that Aria had been waiting to see if she could survive her first month before making an investment as substantial as custom armour.
"You're just jealous that she always wants to talk to me. If you want more face time with Alessa, you can be squad leader. I hand the title to you willing and with relief," Kelly said pleasantly. Her cheer was undermined by violence she employed to shove her armour into her locker.
Tawsh laughed at Kelly. Her face was a pale tan that darkened to brown and then black past her face ridges. She was thinner than the males of her species, the lines of her face sharper, but she was as muscular as any male. Her shoulders were broad, and her waist trim, though not as slender as an asari's. Tawsh tossed her armour into her locker and said, "Oh no venerable squad leader, I wouldn't dare usurp your authority. Plus, squad leaders hardly ever go on any missions."
Kelly snorted and checked her weapons. "And I haven't gone on any. Alessa won't trust me until I do someone grievous bodily harm, and Boros doesn't trust humans. I come to the most violent place in the galaxy, full of gangs and criminals, and can't prove myself. It's like something out of a fable!"
"Aw poor baby. Tell you what, next time I go out on a mission I'll bring you back a skull or something. You can tell that pretty dancer that you killed it yourself," Tawsh said.
Kelly rolled her eyes and grabbed her weapon holsters from the locker. Her guns would magnetically stick to the back of her armour, but stripped down to her under armour, a black bodysuit, they need to be carried in holsters. "Thanks, but no thanks. I'm just frustrated, I'll get over it."
"Yes I can tell, you're really broken up about it," Tawsh said sarcastically.
"Not all of us can go on violent rages that scare away all the customers. We have a limited quota," Kelly retaliated.
"Ha ha," Tawsh deadpanned, "You never get really upset you know? You never cut loose and let it out. Repression isn't healthy. Next time someone starts a fight, pound the shit out of someone. It always makes me feel better."
"Yes, but then you're made of rage and violent urges. Again, only so many people can fit that description at once." Kelly grabbed her leather jacket out of the locker and pulled it on over her guns. She checked that they were all adjusted for a quick draw, unhindered by the jacket, or hidden as well as she knew how. Just because she hadn't shot anyone on Omega yet, didn't mean the last month hadn't been eventful and a hell of an education. She sat down and fiddled with her omni-tool, adjusting her shields that emitted from the generator on her belt.
"You know for someone who carries as many guns as you do, you protest an inclination towards violence pretty strongly," the surprisingly insightful comment came from the other side of Kelly. Maru laughed and tumbled playfully into Kelly's lap.
Kelly caught her, accommodatingly, and asked, "Have you been drinking?"
"Nope, just dead tired. Guards aren't the only ones with long shifts around here you know," Maru said, sighing dramatically and flinging an arm above her head. "I've been waiting forever for you to walk me home."
Unmoved by the asari's dramatics, Kelly looked down at her and said, "You didn't have to wait for me. You managed before I came along, quite well if I recall."
"You wouldn't deprive her of an armed escort would you? Omega's not exactly the land of hugs and rainbows," Tawsh said. It was muffled as she dragged a shirt down over head and body armour.
Sighing deeply Kelly admitted, "No I wouldn't. But you should stop complaining you lazy butt."
With a broad smile Maru retaliated, "My butt isn't lazy! It's blue and perky," she wriggled in Kelly's lap for emphasis.
Kelly stood abruptly spilling Maru out of her lap. She grabbed her to keep her from falling, but shook her head at the asari in resignation. "It's things like this why we can't go anywhere nice. Come on perky, let's go home. Some of us got shot at today, and it's a surprisingly tiring experince."
Kelly and Maru made their farewells to Tawsh and the other dancers in change room. They headed out the back exit of the lower club level, avoiding customers and other coworkers on the way out. Their shift's end had left them both tired and listless, and if they hadn't walked the same route a hundred times before, they wouldn't have found their way this time. Of course Omega calls for a certain level of alertness, regardless of exhaustion. But thankfully only one person seemed to take an undue interest in the two on their homebound journey, and the interest was quickly averted when Kelly's jacket gapped to reveal her personal armoury.
As when they first met, their path led them past Dr. Solus's clinic. Worn as they were they simply waved at the entrance receptionist and kept going. Kelly had become a reoccurring visitor to the clinic, personal not professional, over the past month. Mordin had been at once impressed and disappointed when Kelly returned after her recruitment to A Sec. He had quickly resolved to continue to help her and had begun training her in weapons more thoroughly than his initial tutorial, among other things. He had been the sole true confidant Kelly had, and she was grateful for him. She was also nearly certain that he was still pumping her for information.
Maru had quickly become Kelly's second friend on Omega. The girl had been thrilled when Kelly had found her later at the club and announced that she'd taken care of her unemployment problem. She had dragged Kelly to her apartment complex and cajoled the landlady into renting an apartment to Kelly. The complex almost strictly catered to asari, but Maru had managed to convince the matron that a human wouldn't be that different, especially a female.
Chatting, they let themselves in the front and went to the elevator. The building was ten floors, with entrances opening out onto multiple different levels on Omega. From the entrance on their level, they both had to go up a number of floors.
"My knees are killing me," Maru moaned bending over and massaging her legs.
"You chose to dance for your dinner dear, no one's forcing you," Kelly said, selecting their floor on the holographic elevator controls.
"I like dancing! The excitement, the passion, watching people watching me. I meet new people, do new things and have a new adventure every night. I just wish my knees wouldn't keep complaining," Maru whined, reaching up to lean heavily on Kelly as she stretched out her legs.
Kelly lightly held onto the precariously balance asari. "Every good thing has its bad parts, and every bad thing has its good parts. Accept them or reject them, but don't complain about it. You're either happy being a dancer or you're not. You can shoot straight. If you don't want to dance anymore join the guard or something. Just not Eclipse, they're nasty," Kelly shuddered.
"Because it makes you so happy? You say you love being a guard, but I don't think I've ever seen you actually do more than threaten anybody," Maru ignored the protest forming on Kelly's lips and continued, "I love dancing, but it doesn't mean I have to love the consequences of gyrating and twisting across the stage. You don't have to deal in absolutes you know. Like what you like, hate what you hate, don't rationalize it. Sure there are consequences. I'm not going to be up to running around partying anytime soon because of my knees, and you have to endure criticism from Alessa because you don't want to hurt people. You don't have to like getting reamed by the stuck up tight-ass, but that doesn't mean you have to do what she wants either." Maru's speech ended as the elevator opened on their floor, and Maru grabbed Kelly's hand, pulling her out behind her.
"It's not the same thing Maru. Killing is wrong. Sometimes it's needs to be done, because it will save more lives than it costs but it's still wrong," Kelly protested impassionedly, letting Maru drag her down the hall.
"Then quit. Work at Dr. Solus's clinic, become a dancer, a bartender or go back to Earth. If you don't want to kill anyone, get out of A Sec," Maru suggested. She slowed their pace as they approached her door, it was much closer to the elevators than Kelly's. Kelly's apartment was the second farthest room from the elevator, a journey Maru was rarely willing to make after her shifts at Afterlife.
Kelly, at a loss for words, walked silently with Maru to the door, thinking. Maru let go of Kelly and typed her code into the door and it slid open with a hiss of compressed air. The asari stepped in the door and spun around to face Kelly. "But I think you really like being a guard Kelly. You told me you felt like you fit here. You're good at being a guard too, you actually care about the dancers, the bartenders and the customers. You even worry about Aria, and you're not even on her detail. I don't want you to leave Omega, or Afterlife." Maru hesitated and bit her lip, then she added, "Just don't get upset about it. You don't have to do anything you don't want to do, and Alessa will leave you alone. Eventually. It's okay if you don't go on missions and stuff. You still do a good job." She leaned forward and gave Kelly a quick hug, letting go just as quickly. "Go home and get some sleep, okay?" Maru smiled at Kelly, waiting for the quieter woman to respond. After a moment Kelly smiled back and nodded gently.
"Okay," she said, stepping back from the door. When Maru closed it, Kelly's forced smile wavered and faded. She turned down the hall, walking towards her own apartment. Though not quite as a sore as Maru, Kelly was just as tired, and yearned for her own bed.
As she walked away from her friend's door, her fallen smile, slowly turned to a hesitant and troubled frown. She whispered softly to herself, "I am a good guard. But what if good, isn't enough?"
