Chapter Two: The Krogan

2185 – Nos Astra

"Doubtless you've heard about the Bahak system."

The assassin frowned. It was difficult not to have heard that the system, and its relay, had disappeared only a few weeks ago.

News anchors announced new updates, investigations and allegations with every broadcast. The extranet was rife with theories and speculations that ranged from the mundane – complete comm buoy failure. To the outlandish – a dead SpecTRe had destroyed the system's mass relay with a secret Council super-weapon.

"That was a result of one of our agents going off-book."

Our agent. That meant Cerberus. Surprising given their anti-alien leanings, but there were few organizations who could afford the considerable fee necessary to buy his direct contact information. That ruled out most of the merc companies in this part of the galaxy and the Citadel had its own assassins.

"We know you bear no love for the batarians, but an entire colony was destroyed when that relay blew. Three hundred thousand people were lost. Women, children, innocents. And this wasn't the first time this agent's gone rogue. We need you to be our insurance against anything like this happening again."

Damn them. They'd done their homework and knew exactly what direction to approach from. He considered, briefly, the possibility of a trap and concluded it was as immaterial as the possibility that he might not leave Dantius Towers alive. As long as he accomplished his mission, wiped these dark stains from the galaxy, his own death was as inconsequential as it was inevitable.

"Who is the target?"

"The Butcher of Torfan."

"An easy mark, considering Shepard's been dead for two years." His sub-vocals dropped to a near growl. He'd been ripped from his memories of Irikah for this?

"Not dead, just … indisposed."

He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose, then named a figure high enough to make most planetary governments flinch.

"Done. She'll be on Illium soon, looking for you. Don't give her any reason not to let you on her ship."

Thane let the line hang silent a moment, vibrating with quiet fury that this coward should presume to instruct him. As he ended the call with an abrupt movement, it occurred to him that he was going to have to kill an information broker. No one was supposed to know he was on Illium, let alone Cerberus.

2167 – Omega

If the music in Afterlife was deafening on the dance floor, then it was mind numbing in the ventilation shafts. Most of the higher and middle tones of the fast-paced asari music were blocked by the intervening walls, but the bass thundered and throbbed, barely reduced, to rattle in his chest.

He peered through the grating into the private room. As his contact had promised, it was empty. It was only a moment's work to slip through the vent. He keyed his omni-tool without looking. The shaped charge that slid into his palm was a favorite of pirates and several mercenary groups, capable of putting inconvenient holes in reinforced blast doors. It should be able to put a few in one krogan.

He slipped the bomb behind the cushion of the room's largest chair and linked the detonator to his omni-tool. Now, if it came to that, he could trigger it remotely and it was tied to his vital signs. If Kalahira chose to take him into her arms this day, his family would still be provided for.

His family.

That thought pulled the corners of his lips up as he lifted himself back into his hiding place with an acrobat's unconscious grace. Irikah was heavy with their son and more radiant than ever. He would not have left so close to her time had he not seen the medical bills that had accrued over her pregnancy. His job as a menial laborer could not begin to pay them off, and Irikah had been forced to take a sabbatical from the university after some early complications.

He had been reluctant to seek out his old contacts until the day he had returned home early and found those sunset eyes filled with tears as she tried to explain to the bill collector that they were paying everything they could. After that, it had been a matter of days before he had a job. That first hit had helped ease the pressure, but, as the pregnancy progressed, there were more complications. Tests, hospital visits and medications, they all added up.

He had sworn to Irikah he would go back to the plant as soon as the baby was born. As that time drew nearer, this last assassination would bring in enough to pay the last of the bills and give them a nice cushion besides. He always overcharged for krogan.

Below, the door hissed open and a lithe asari dancer entered, followed closely by his target. Shanix was small for a krogan, his hump withered and misshapen, as though some large beast had gnawed on it until it was soft, then left it out to dry in Tuchanka's harsh sunlight. His small size might have encouraged a less experienced assassin, but thane took in the network of scars that traced across the krogan's exposed skin knew better than to underestimate someone who had survived what appeared to have been a point blank shot to the face from a high powered shotgun.

The dossier said the former Weyrloc strategist had been disowned by his clan for mutilating females who turned down his advances. It was a death sentence that followed him for years before finally catching up in one of Aria's back rooms.

The giggling asari backed out, promising to return soon with more drinks. Her eyes flickered briefly to the room's ductwork and Thane cursed the necessity of bringing an outsider in on a job like this. Shanix caught the glance and turned toward the new threat. But the girl had looked at the wrong vent, and all the movement did was put the krogan in a better position for the assassin's attack.

With a whisper of leather on metal, Thane dropped onto his target, smashing his fists into Shanix's eye ridges. He slid between the blinded krogan's rising arms and struck, lightning fast, at the nerve cluster in his throat and the secondary node, leaving Shanix frozen and staring. Thane had heard a human expression about looking like a stunned ox. He imagined the ox and the krogan wore similar expressions.

A sharp kick to the quad put Shanix's head in perfect position. Thane gripped both sides tightly and called his biotics into play with a thought, using them to augment his momentum as he leapt and spun to generate the torque necessary to separate vertebrae and sever the spinal cord. When he landed, light and silent, Shanix was still looking at the ceiling, his head twisted nearly backwards. The damage was too much for even a krogan's regenerative ability to repair.

The girl in the doorway was no longer giggling as she watched the assassin retrieve his bomb and set to returning it to its component parts. Flinty violet eyes regarded him a moment, then she nodded towards the door, a clear dismissal from Aria's envoy. He inclined his head in return and slipped into the deserted hall.