Casimir's Effect: The Hunt for Jack

Chapter 2 – Turian Justice

"You ever been to Illium before?" Merrek turned his head to speak as he motioned for Casimir and Dia to keep pace. The turian led the way out of the bustling docking station, stride longer and more confident than his companions'. The human shook his head and tried to avoid bumping other passengers while absorbing the expansive city-scape. Towers scraped the sky in every direction, hover-cars clogged the air-lanes, and races from all across the galaxy rubbed shoulders in the busy mercantile centers.

"I visited once," Dia mumbled, hand on Casimir's arm for comfort and to ensure that they weren't separated by the crowd.

"This planet is a thriving commercial center. You can find just about anything you want here and so long as you don't break the local laws, you're welcome."

Casimir quirked an eyebrow. "Anything?"

"Weapons, drugs, information, even indentured servants."

"You mean slaves?"

"Don't call it that unless you want trouble." Merrek pointed to a taxi stand and moved into line behind a tall asari. "The locals here are touchy on the subject and surveillance is heavy everywhere." One of the statuesque asari in front of Merrek turned and flashed a full-lipped smile.

"His first time on Illium?"

"Yes." The turian glanced at the front of the line; only a squat volus waited ahead of the asari.

"I don't suppose he's looking to sell himself? He looks … solid." The asari reached a hand towards Casimir and Dia stepped in between them.

"He's not interested."

The asari shrugged but focused a sharp gaze on the petite biotic. "If you say so, sister." A cab pulled up and the volus stepped inside. "Looks like my friend and I are next. Enjoy your stay."

Casimir nodded and relaxed his left hand; he had almost activated his omni-tool on reflex. Merrek leaned close to his two companions. "First order of business, we find a hotel room and put on our armor. I can wear my pistol openly here."

The asari couple departed in a cab and the trio stepped to the front of the line. Casimir looked from Dia to Merrek. "Either of you know a place?"

"Just stick with me," Merrek answered. "A friend recommended a tower not far from here."

Casimir looked up from his omni-tool and settled his gaze on Dia, silhouetted against the picture window at the far end of their room. Her form-fitting armor accentuated her curves and he began imagining the process of stripping the protection off piece by piece. A chime sounded at the door and he turned, but not before Dia glanced over and noticed his attention. Casimir stepped to the entrance and checked the small display beside the control panel before pressing a button.

"Welcome back." Merrek nodded and settled into a chair against the wall.

"I couldn't find anything new. People either don't know about the murder, don't want to talk about it, or know less than you already found out."

Casimir returned to his seat at the room's desk. "You think Skorloff might be protected?"

Merrek shrugged. "I doubt it. He seems like a thug, just slightly more dangerous than usual."

"Any word about other bounty hunters?"

"Just the two brothers of the deceased. They've been making a lot of noise but haven't found anything. Both are recently out of the military and they act like it. No subtlety at all. The dead brother was the eldest, probably the only one with practical experience with this sort of thing. How about you? Find anything useful?"

Casimir tapped a sequence on his omni-tool and brought up a block of data. "Nothing yet, but I've burrowed into the local surveillance systems and I'm checking for traces. You weren't kidding about the security here, it's worse than on the Citadel."

"Some would say it's better that way." Merrek stood and ran a finger along his jaw. "More order, more security … that's not necessarily a bad thing."

"Except when it gets in the way of people's lives, or when there isn't any oversight."

Merrek snorted and moved to the exit. "I'm going to get some rest. Send me a message if you find anything."

Casimir nodded and bent back to his task. Dia settled on the bed and asked, "You're not tired yet?"

"A little." He glanced at the asari and his earlier thoughts about her armor rushed to the fore of his mind. "I'd say I'm ready for a break, though." His omni-tool faded as he joined Dia on the bed to discover that her armor came off quite easily.

Casimir rubbed sleep from his eyes and tried to focus on the results of another hack and search into a security system. This one was a docking station on the far side of Illium, frequented by cargo haulers. Again the scan came up empty; Skorloff was either in hiding or had found an un-monitored route off-world.

Dia's hands settled on his shoulders. She had left for a walk while he worked and just returned with a loaf of bread and packet of juice, both of which sat untouched on the desk. "Still nothing?"

"I've hacked into over a dozen security systems in all the main docking ports, as well as a handful of places Merrek identified as likely frequented by smugglers. This guy is a ghost."

"Don't get frustrated, you'll find him."

Casimir scratched at the stubble on his chin and tried to push aside a growing headache. "He could be anywhere in the galaxy now. This is pointless."

"You know that he didn't take public transport off-world, right?"

"Right."

"And he doesn't own a ship."

"Not under his name. And I couldn't find any aliases."

"And he hasn't appeared in any local surveillance?"

"Not that I've been able to find."

"So if he didn't leave the planet, and he isn't on the planet, then where did he go?"

Casimir frowned up at Dia and opened his mouth to make a snide comment when an idea occurred to him. "Not on the planet," he mumbled, "and not off it." He turned back to his omni-tool and began a new search. Dia crouched closer to watch.

"What are you looking for now?"

"Objects in orbit. Let's say he knew he couldn't get off world, either because he didn't have the money or didn't know how. He could still take a small vessel and go into orbit and wait a while for the heat to pass. He must know that the Ikaran brothers are looking for him. Once they leave," Casimir's fingers kept a quick pace as he hacked into atmospheric scanning systems, "he could return to the surface and find a way out."

The door chimed and Dia hurried to answer. Merrek walked in, arms crossed over his chest. "I still haven't found ..."

"Shh." Dia motioned for him to sit, not noticing his annoyed expression.

"I'm into one of the local corporation's satellite tracking systems. There's lots of junk in orbit, various ships waiting for clearance to land one place or another, plenty of satellites. If I correlate the current readings with readings from a week ago, before the murder …" Casimir bit his lower lip to suppress a triumphant yell. "Look at this!" With a few commands he activated a holo-display in front of the picture window. It flickered into an amber image of the planet with numerous bright blips in holding patterns around it.

"This is an image of all the ships, satellites, and anything else large enough to track currently in orbit around Illium. First I'll remove everything that was here a week ago." More than half the blips disappeared. "Now I'll remove everything tagged as normal shipping traffic." Most of the dots vanished. "And now I'll get rid of anything capable of making a jump through a mass effect relay. I figure if Skorloff had a ship capable of that, he'd have left." Six blips remained, tiny dots of light marking steady courses around the planet.

Merrek stood to examine the image more closely. "What are those?"

"I can't say ID all of them. I think these four," the specified dots flashed, "are from a shipping accident earlier today. A couple of massive cargo vessels collided resulting in lots of debris. But those two," the remaining dots gleamed brighter, "those two shouldn't be there. The satellite system I tapped into can't identify them but they're too small for any of the corporations to care." Merrek nodded, eyes on the display.

"Casimir," his voice was low, worried, "how did you do this?"

"Do what?" The human was flush with his success. Even if Skorloff wasn't hidden in orbit, he felt a definite rush, a thrill from beating secure systems to find a potential answer.

"How did you hack into these satellites? Obtain all this information? And so quickly!"

Casimir shrugged and looked at Dia, who responded with a smile. "This stuff is child's play compared to …" he cut off as the code from his nightmares, the code he was trying to secretly recreate, jumped to mind. He hadn't looked at it since their last day on the Citadel.

"Compared to what? The corporations on Illium have top-level security."

A frown creased the human's features and he deactivated the display. "Do you want to check out those rogue signatures or not?"

Merrek raised his hands in surrender. "Fine. I'll find a shuttle that's rated for exiting the atmosphere that we can rent for a day. Have your armor on and be ready for a pick-up." Merrek paused at the door. "You did good work, Casimir. Great work." The turian opened his mouth to say more, then decided against it and left. Dia took Casimir's hand in her own and offered a wide smile.

"Don't let him bother you. Let's get ready."

The human nodded and reached for the pack that held his armor. If he was right and Skorloff was hiding in orbit, then the murderer would likely be on edge and armed to the teeth. That aside, hitting someone just might fix Casimir's sudden drop in mood.

Merrek arrived in a shuttle that resembled an oversized hovercar, with pivoting thrusters that were mounted at all four corners. The turian set a flight path to head higher into the atmosphere and looked at Casimir, who waited in the co-pilot seat. Dia watched from the seat behind the human. "What are the coordinates for the first contact?"

"Here." Casimir tapped a sequence on his omni-tool and the amber piloting console beeped in receipt of a data packet. "That's both of them. Your guess is as good as mine which to try first."

"The closer one." Merrek keyed in a flight plan and the shuttle rocketed towards a small flashing dot on the console's display.

"Do you have any readings on it?"

Casimir continued tapping keys on his omni-tool, which was patched into the shuttle's sensors. "It's still registering as a derelict satellite. But there is a power signature there and something is trying to mask it."

Merrek swung the shuttle in for a close view of the twelve-foot long cylindrical structure, which had a thin chassis and four long, rectangular modules attached at hatches in the center of its length. Red lights blinked on and off at the tips on either end of the cylinder.

"I don't like this." Merrek frowned and scratched at a scar on his cheek. "You think Skorloff is inside on of those containers?"

"I expected him to be hidden in a derelict. This is … more sophisticated. Something in there is trying to scan us. The signal is hard to identify." Something about the modules made Casimir's nerves tingle with fear.

Merrek reached for the maneuvering controls. "I'm getting us out of here."

"I'm hacking into the feed, give me a minute."

"Casimir ..."

"I recognize some of the protocols. I think it's Cerberus."

"We're leaving." Merrek smacked the controls and the shuttle lurched into motion. "If that is a Cerberus satellite and they figure out who we are ..."

"I get it. I wouldn't mind detonating some explosives inside the thing, though."

"There could be guards inside and we might already be compromised. Let's check the second signal and then get out of here."

A minute ticked by in silence as Casimir continued working on his omni-tool and Merrek watched the scanner for signs of Cerberus pursuit. Dia cleared her throat and leaned forward, interrupting the growing tension. "Didn't you say that these two signals weren't here a week ago?"

Casimir's hand froze over the amber keypad. "I did."

"So what happened to bring Cerberus' attention here?"

Merrek cursed under his breath. "We showed up."

Casimir shook his head. "That doesn't mean ..."

"Don't be naïve, Casimir. Cerberus is tracking us, we know that."

"But how did they get here so fast? There's no way ..."

"They have people like you to track down targets. Our faces are all over Illium surveillance systems."

"Damn it." The human slumped in his seat. "How are we going to lose them?"

"Capture Jack and collect the bounty. It's enough money to start over and do it right. Buy a ship, make a home in the terminus systems as professional bounty hunters, try and make some powerful friends. For the moment I doubt that they'll make a move on us on Illium, there'd be too much backlash from the asari."

The human nodded and forced himself to sit upright. "Enough money and our problems won't seem so big anymore, huh."

"That's the idea. You could get surgery and become a whole new person."

Dia jabbed a finger at Merrek. "No way. I like him the way he is."

Casimir grinned and focused his attention back on his omni-tool. "I'm far too pretty for surgery."

Merrek rolled his eyes and tapped the pilot's console to correct for his earlier haste. He had doubts about finding Skorloff in orbit, but Casimir seemed confident enough for both of them.

"This is what I was expecting." Casimir activated an amber-hued heads-up-display on the shuttle's view-port and magnified a rendering of the derelict freighter drifting ahead of them. "It's a dead hulk. You can see damage on the engines and side of the ship where it's open to space. I'm getting a faint reading from the front section." He magnified the front end, which was still intact. "There's one life-sign, human, and a power signal strong enough to run life-support functions."

Merrek shook his head. "I didn't think we would actually find him."

"Then why rent this shuttle?"

The turian shrugged. "We needed to get out and moving. This seemed as good a reason as any."

Casimir looked back at Dia and shared a smile. "At least you appreciate my talents."

The asari nodded and settled her helmet into place. "I'm ready to meet Skorloff."

"Me too." Casimir clicked his helmet into place and watched as Merrek settled the shuttle's floor hatch against the freighter's forward docking port.

"I'll go first." The turian snapped on his helmet and readied a pistol. "You two can wait if you're not comfortable entering unarmed."

"My mines and Dia's biotics are more than a match for one criminal, but you can go first."

The turian nodded and stepped to the hatch. It opened with a short hiss, revealing the locked port on the freighter. Casimir hacked the lock and moved aside. Merrek nodded to the others, pushed open the hatch, and jumped through into near perfect darkness.

A muzzle flashed and sent rifle-rounds across the turian's shields in a wave of ripples like a dozen pebbles tossed into a still, blue pond. Merrek's pistol cracked in response as he dove for cover behind a metal crate. Casimir rushed in next and sent a low-energy mine flying across the room. It latched to the opposite wall and detonated, silhouetting an armored human as he careened off a long metal desk. Dia followed Casimir and sheathed herself in biotic energy, casting the room in deep blue hues.

"Demetri Skorloff, drop your weapon and surrender!"

"Fuck you!" The rifle sent rounds clattering against walls and furniture. Casimir stood, omni-tool prepped, but Dia was faster. With a thrust of her right hand the crackling blue energy that suffused her body flashed outward to encase Demetri and lift him into the air. Merrek charged forward and grabbed the man's arm to slam him against the floor. Casimir helped the turian disarm their target as Demetri sputtered curses. Merrek pulled the man's helmet away and tossed it into the darkness.

"You sons of bitches, I'll kill all of you!"

Merrek pressed the killer's face against the cold metal floor. "Shut up, Skorloff. We've got some questions. You answer them to my satisfaction and maybe we'll let you go."

"I'm not telling you anything, you turian bastard. Once my friends found out what you did ..."

"You will tell us," Merrek pressed gloved fingers to either side of Demetri's left eye, "or you lose an eye. Bounties specify 'dead or alive,' not eyed or eyeless."

Skorloff stiffened as the pressure against his eye increased. Spittle flecked his lips and Casimir looked at Merrek, face-less behind his opaque visor. The turian knew how Casimir felt about torture and assumed … hoped that this was only a threat.

"Ask your damn questions."

"Good choice." Merrek removed his fingers but kept Demetri's face pressed to the floor. "We're looking for someone you used to work with. Name is Kalek Stromson. Where is he?"

"What the hell do you want with ..." His words died in a gasp of pain as Merrek drove a knee into Skorloff's side.

"Answer the question, Demetri. Where is he?"

"Alright, alright! Stromson, I did some work with him a while back. Last I heard he decided to go legit and joined Eclipse. He's a full merc now."

Merrek stared down at Demetri as silence stretched on. Casimir didn't know much about the Eclipse mercenary band, except that they were one of the largest groups.

"Where is he?"

"How should I know? I ..." another gasp as Merrek's knee struck again. "Damn it! I don't know! Listen, Kalek changed his name, goes by Aaron Samsonov now. Its the truth, I swear!"

Merrek stood and pulled Demetri to his feet. The turian produced a pair of cuffs from a belt pouch and secured the man's hands. "Into the shuttle." Casimir paused them to strip an omni-tool from the criminal's left hand and activated a full data transfer to his own tool's memory.

"I'm going to check around in here. I'll be quick." Dia nodded and followed the turian into the shuttle to watch as the criminal was secured in the rear hold. Casimir activated the spotlight function of his omni-tool and did a quick visual inspection before he activated his tool's scanner. The freighter had two habitable rooms, which Skorloff had separated as a living and sleeping space. Aside from dried foodstuffs and water he found a small pack with a shotgun, pistol, and three grenades. He retrieved the discarded assault rifle and carried all the weapons into the shuttle. Dia and Merrek waited in the front two chairs. She turned and pointed at the bag.

"What did you find?"

"A few weapons." Casimir sealed the hatch and slipped into a chair. "No escape shuttle, though. Someone brought him up here and likely will be back to find him."

Merrek keyed in a return flight and detached his helmet. "That's too bad for them."

Casimir nodded. "Where to now?"

"I have the address of the Ikaran brothers' apartment. Let's drop this scum with them. I need a shower after touching him."

Casimir removed his helm. "No bounty, then?"

"We got the information we need. Skorloff's not worth that much anyway."

"You know that the Ikarans will kill him."

"I know. This is turian justice, Casimir. We don't let kin-slayers live and Skorloff's guilt is proven."

The human nodded and took a deep breath to calm his post-combat nerves. He felt a wave of guilt that Skorloff would likely be tortured before death, but reminded himself that the man deserved whatever he got. He now had enough info to restart his search for Jack. They were one step closer to her and their shot at enough money to buy their freedom. They only needed to survive the process.

The Ikarans were a dour pair, both tall, encased in azure armor, and sporting blue star tattoos on their foreheads. They accepted Skorloff without explanation and offered credits, which Merrek rejected before Casimir could accept. Merrek did accept their personal message addresses and assurances that they would respond to any call for aid. The group was half-way to the rental agency when Casimir broke the silence.

"You should have taken the money."

"It's a matter of honor. Skorloff killed a brother and the Ikarans deserved their revenge. Money had no place in that transaction."

"In case you haven't noticed, we're not rich. Our credits will eventually run out."

"Find Samsonov and we can find Jack. Then our problems will be over."

Casimir shook his head and activated his omni-tool. "I'll start looking but there's bound to be other work on a planet like this."

"Can't you hack into a local Eclipse database? That should be easy for you."

Dia's voice slipped into the conversation. "The Eclipse are dangerous. Lots of asari with talent for biotics have joined them. They tried to recruit me years ago."

"I'll be careful." Casimir tapped entries into his keypad, a frown etching his brow. "I'd rather work from the apartment, though."

"We'll be there soon." Merrek glanced at the human, who was crouched over the amber glow that encased his scarred hand. "You're already breaking in somewhere?"

Casimir tossed his head, eyes on the display. "Just checking something." The amber vanished and he met Merrek's eyes. "The Cerberus satellite is still there, status unchanged."

Silence settled over the group as they remembered the ominous structure in orbit over their heads. To Casimir it felt like a guillotine, primed to fall at any moment.