Soraya was the last off the Gipsiy Danger when they docked in Omega. Home. Bray had gone ahead of her twenty minutes earlier to get his reports and intel to Aria and to get Miranda Something or Another to a holding cell to be forced back to consciousness with meds. Soraya didn't make it ten feet before she ran into someone she knew. Zaeed Masonni was on the station again, with another dumbass who pissed off someone who could afford to contract the old grizzled bastard.
She chatted with Zaeed for a few minutes, and his bounty tried to make a run for it. Both Zaeed and Soraya drew their pistols and shot the man in the back as he tried to run for the docks. Zaeed grumpily informed Soraya he was not splitting his contract price with her, but still clasped her hand in a parting handshake as they went their separate ways.
Soraya's varren, Acheron, was sitting right where she left him; next to the elcor bouncer at the foot of the stairs to her mother's throne room. Aria called it her base of operations, but Soraya called them as she saw them; Afterlife was a throne.
"C'mon! Aria's waiting for me!" A man in the 'good luck getting in' line yelled at the bouncer as she approached to get her hound. Soraya's eyelid jumped in instant irritation caused by the rather unremarkable man.
"Tell another lie, please," Soraya said with a sinister hiss, turning to look down in his eyes They were as murky and brown as sewage water. "My puppy here loves playing with liars." She purred while she snapped her gloved fingers once, barely an audible click, and Acheron stood up and heeled to her side.
"Nah, I ... Uh. I'm good on all that. I think I'll just stick with trying to bribe the bouncer," the nameless guy muttered as he backed away from her and put his hands up, shaking his head in dissent.
"Oh, that sounds perfectly appropriate for Omega!" she declared in mocking approval. "What do you think is enough to get by good ol' Mountain Back here?"
"A hundred credits?" He responded, his statement delivered more questioning than affirming.
"The dumbshit can come in for three hundred creds. If he's not good for it, put him in a vorcha costume and let him loose in front of Gavorn," she said while looking Mr Douche straight in the eye, her slightly cheerful tone leaving the statement open.
The bouncer slowly brought up his massive hand, making it a fist the size of a krogan's head. Soraya reached out and fist bumped the bouncer while still maintaining eye contact with the human, her gloved fist making a little 'bap'.
Defeated, the grimy man shuffled away towards the rapid transit station.
With Acheron by her side, she spun smartly on her heels and ascended the stairs to Afterlife, a soft menacing giggle bubbling past her lips.
"Are you sure it is dead, Soraya?" Aria demanded, laying heavy emphasis on the word 'it'. She hadn't looked up from the data pads of reports in her hand since Soraya had begun her debriefing. As always. Eyebrows cinched in determined concentration left Aria T'Loak with one hell of a resting bitch face.
Soraya shifted her weight, and exhaled in frustration. She had almost rolled her eyes, but caught herself. After all these years, after all the successful missions, Aria still questioned her every little move. The same questions over and over and over again, always asked differently to see if there was a different answer. Or a new one.
"You said Commander Shepard was still comatose when you pulled the plug...How close did those crazy fuckers actually get to making that thing a successful meat puppet?" Aria mused as she kept scrolling and scanning all the reports, the index finger of her free hand tapping her bottom lip tattoo absent mindedly as she absorbed all the information had to offer.
Soraya stared at her mother and felt her left eyebrow arch. "I wouldn't know, Mom. Do you know what the word 'comatose' means?"
The moment the words left her mouth, Soraya ducked to avoid the datapad that came flying towards her. Her mother had a tendency to throw things at people who piss her off. So did Soraya herself.
"SHIT!" Bray yelled when the tablet connected with his neck, the poor bastard hadn't even seen it coming. He grabbed his neck with one hand, clutching at his newly attained injury, and glared at Soraya like he wanted to punch her. Which he'd probably do. Right in the face.
"Answer the question, little girl!" Aria barked, her fury with Soraya's flippant remarks clearly painted on her face. She stood up and closed the gap that was between them with a mini charge, suddenly looking her adopted daughter in the eye.
"She was nearly ready, Mother." Soraya replied, swallowing hard and praying to Athame she didn't get thrown across Afterlife. The tenancy to ignore the severity of her mother's mood had gotten her tossed more than once.
"That will complicate things," Aria said softly, her brows dropping over already narrowed eyes. "Liselle has been interrogating your captive, and she's been less than cooperative. However, as with all people, she has something precious to her that I can take away," she continued, turning her back on Soraya, her arms clasped behind her back as she walked back to her couch.
"You mean someone." Soraya said flatly, trying to cut her mother to the chase. She was tired, her amp was still buzzing, her body was aching, and she was sure she smelled like death and destruction. All she wanted was to go home to her apartment take a shower, eat some food and go to sleep...Maybe even cuddle with her girlfriend. Maybe.
"Of course it is someone." Aria retorted in a tone that was more or less defensive, picking up a new datapad to review. "That's how it always works, my little songbird. People don't appreciate things, they appreciate people. And when people are taken away from someone, they forget about the things that they thought they had. Things like loyalties, honor...the types of things that are intangible and abstract in conception. Once those don't matter anymore, I use it against them."
Without a word, Soraya turned her back on her mother and walked off. She wanted nothing more to do with her mother or the Cerberus operative.
Aria's voice rang out from behind her. "I wasn't finished with you, Soraya."
Pausing at the bottom step of the raised lounge, Soraya turned and looked back up to her mother. "Momma ... I'm exhausted. I'm hungry. I reek. Unless you need me to save the galaxy some more right now, I'm going home. We can finish talking about how dead I made Commander Shepard when I killed her and blew the station she was on to hell and back later." Her voice was more pleading than she wanted it to be, more than she meant it to be.
Her mother's eyes narrowed a bit, and Soraya saw a brief flash of motherly concern in her eyes. The asari's lips pursed for a moment as she thought to herself, then said "Unfortunately, my dear, I do need you to go save the galaxy again some more right now." A kind smile played across her lips.
Soraya's head dropped with the delivery of that statement, her chin almost on her chest. "What happened?" She asked in dejected resignation, her eyes shifting to Bray to see his reaction. He, too, had a look of defeat that seemed much more intense than the human equivalent of the expression. That extra set of eyes made every facial expression twice as intense as creature with only one set.
"There is a serious problem in the slums," Aria said, pulling up her omnitool on her wrist and forwarding files to Soraya and Bray. "Somehow a lab engineered virus was released down there and it's killing every race it comes into contact with, except for humans." Aria frowned as she said the last part of her statement, as if she didn't quite believe it. "I ordered the entire area, as well as a bit of a firebreak, into quarantine lockdown. I've posted armed guards in staggered outposts to ensure nothing gets in and nothing gets out. However…"
Soraya's eyes left her best friend's face and focused on her mother. She had sounded nearly broken hearted when she'd said 'However'. That was peculiar.
"However," Aria continued, clearly over her moment of emotion, "This plague has a 98% mortality rate on everything that isn't related to a monkey or a vorcha...but the vorcha isn't a surprise considering I've seen them bathe in sulfuric acid. I understand there's a salarian doctor trying to cure it, and I believe the crazy bastard can actually do it. He's not, however, in the position to distribute the cure once he synthesizes it. That's where you come in, sweetie,"
Soraya couldn't help the smile she got whenever her mother called her 'sweetie'. She always sounded british when she said the word, but that was probably due to the fact that word didn't actually exisit in the asari native tongue, or galactic common tongue. It was purely a human word of endearment, and it always won a few more points with Soraya when Aria used it.
"What does my dying ass have to get done, Momma?" Soraya asked, her belligerent attitude eaten away by her mother's change in disposition.
"I need you, and two others, to get to Mordin Solus's medical clinic. You will meet heavy resistance. The vorcha have lost their minds and have gotten into a turf war with the Blue Suns. They are killing anything that moves, and Nightingale will certainly draw their fire." Aria paused, beaming down at her daughter in pride, "They sure want you dead, daughter."
"Of course they do, Mother. I do my job very well," Soraya replied with a self assured smile. She saluted her mother with a quick raise of her hand, her index and middle finger extended to touch her outer eyebrow, then a sweeping gesture to her heart. A nod of consent was her dismissal, and she turned back around to continue her exit. Acheron rejoined her side the moment her boots touched the main floor of the club, a small grunt his greeting to her.
When they'd neared the middle bar, Bray finally said something. "Aria knows you're hiding something. I know you're hiding something. And you know that Gaia will know you are hiding something." His rich voice dancing between teasing and accusatory. Soraya knew that he wanted to know her secret, but also knew beyond shadows and doubts that Bray would never pry.
"I'm aware, and I also know I don't care who gets to know what. There's a time and a place, and right here and right now is neither of those things…" She replied, trailing off at the end.
"You'll always be a sister to me, and as your older brother, I'm always going to worry about you. But if you don't stop keeping secrets, I'm going to kick your ass, little girl," he said as they walked out of Afterlife's main doors, headed to Soraya's apartment to get Gaia for the mission.