The Red Moon Collection - 3 - A Hunt and a Kill

Chapter 2

Red Moon Collective Headquarters, Tilno District, Omega

Will had wondered how the evening could possibly get worse during the shuttle ride back from their mission. He got his answer when he remembered that he was late for the RMC Advisory Circle meeting. Shansa had quickly delivered him to the Collective's headquarters, a small amalgamation of converted garages, stores and apartments in the relatively safe Tilno District of Omega. Ralliston and his team had reported to the barracks for debriefing while Eleena, T'lees, Tul'Sorrin and Shansa returned to the Hyperion. Now, Will sat across the meeting table from Kallux as the other two Advisory Circle members flickered in the center from a holoprojector.

"With defeat: Captain Hume's most recent engagement with the Blue Suns, while unfortunate, seems to follow the pattern of other recent incidents." The elcor, Orrat, currently had the floor. "Admittedly: That being said, our standing order to prevent hostilities with the Blue Suns, Eclipse and Blood Pack is all that has kept us from being wiped out during this period of growth."

Will sat back and crossed his arms. "Yeah, but do the benefits outweigh the costs? Actively abandoning our ideology to avoid conflict?"

"The benefit is that we do not find ourselves targeted by one of the larger gangs while we are still vulnerably undermanned," the final Circle member responded.

The image of Malylen, the salarian, looked to Will and narrowed her eyes.

"But you already know this," she added. "The evidence lies in the fact that you cooperated with the Blue Suns tonight."

"I'd rather not dwell on that," Will muttered. "We could have used those munitions."

"No one is arguing against that," Malylen agreed. "But what we could not use is a war with the Blue Suns!"

"He's aware," Kallux interjected. "And the two of you are just running circles."

The krogan had been listening, silently, from the other side of the table for a few minutes now. He leaned forward and stared to the hologram of the other Circle members.

"Captain Hume is doing his duty to remind us that there's more than just our continued existence to worry about. We've also got our ideologies." Kallux looked across the table to Will and nodded.

Will gave him a small, appreciative smile.

"Apologetically: Of course. Hopefully, should our numbers continue to increase, we will not need to compromise for much longer," Orrat said.

"You are correct, we must keep our long-term goals in mind," Malylen stated firmly. "But we can't risk destroying ourselves before we even reach our potential."

Silence fell over the four as no one brought up a counterpoint. Kallux cleared his throat and laced his fingers.

"If there's nothing else..."

Will shook his head, as did the others.

"Thank you for your time," Kallux finished.

The image of the salarian and elcor flickered and disappeared in a flash as the lights of the small room rose. Kallux took a deep breath and stood from his chair to begin slowly pacing back and forth on his side of the table.

"You doin' alright?" Will asked as he propped his feet up on the table.

The krogan grunted. "Only frustrations."

"It's just one depot," Will assured him. "There couldn't have been that much in there."

"It's not just this nonsense with the Blue Suns." Kallux came to a stop and placed his hands on the table. "I had to give approval earlier to authorize standard 'security' contracts."

Will furrowed his brow. "You mean, just... merc jobs?"

"Essentially," the krogan murmured irritably. "With our temporary policy of not raiding Eclipse, Blue Suns or Blood Pack, the big three, we're getting a lot less of our standard requests."

Will had known this would be the other problem to come with playing nice with the big gangs. He was fairly certain that the only reason the RMC hadn't been targeted by the Eclipse, Blue Suns or Blood Pack yet was because of the service they had inadvertently provided by eliminating many of the newer, smaller gangs. Unfortunately, that meant it was only a matter of time before the Collective became the only new, smaller 'gang' left.

"Yeah, the big threats have been trickling in a lot slower lately," Will said quietly. "Plus, the rest of the crew and I have been getting a little stir-crazy. Hell, I had to bug you for a month straight to get on that raid tonight."

Kallux sighed and looked up to Will. "I apologize for that. But you know that I don't want to risk having you all on the front lines. You and the crew are an important asset."

Unlike the handful of other ships under their command, the Hyperion had not registered as property of the Red Moon Collective, or even acknowledged its affiliation on record. As such, the crew did not wear the RMC colors. This allowed Will and the rest of the Hyperion crew to act as Kallux's "first contact" group when scoping out potential allies or enemies. If things went sour, the RMC name would not be involved. Unfortunately, this also left them with mostly uneventful and diplomatic assignments.

"I know I can trust you all, and that's why I'm glad to have you where you are." Kallux smirked and let out a deep sigh. "That said being said... I understand. I missing being in the middle of a firefight with the you and the others at my side."

Will grinned and leaned back in his chair. "I seem to remember you in front of the squad most of the time, not at our side."

The krogan chuckled lightly. "Hume, if you and the crew would really rather be a front-line unit, I can make that happen."

"Heh," Will looked down as the grin slowly sank from his lips. "It's alright. We've got plenty of recruits to take those spots."

Kallux nodded appreciatively. "Once we're at a decent strength you can fight whoever and wherever you'd like. I'd say you all have earned that much."

"I'll hold you to that," the human responded as he looked back up to Kallux.

The krogan lifted his holopad and looked at the info panel displayed upon it. "Tell you what, I might have something interesting for you."

He set the tablet down and slid it across the table. Will scooped it up in his hand and looked down at the mission summary.

"Reports of kidnapping from a salarian research station," Kallux explained as Will looked it over. "I know you were probably hoping for a raid on the Eclipse HQ, but hopefully it'll scratch that itch."

Will smiled and glanced up. "Thanks, Kallux."

The krogan nodded. "Anytime, my friend. Now, if you don't mind, I've got some deployment proposals to look over..."

Will pulled his feet from the table and stood with a laugh. "'Deployment proposals?' Goddamn, Kallux, you sure you don't wanna come along for this one? It'll only be a day or two."

Kallux waved his hand dismissively. "Get outta here before I take you up on that."


"Hm, so where is this place?" Shansa tilted her head curiously and leaned back in her chair.

Will brought up his omnitool to look at the mission dossier once again. "Uhh... Garvug, it would seem."

Eleena's face contorted slightly. "Garvug?"

Tul'Sorrin looked over to the asari. "You've heard of it?"

"I guess you could say that. All I know is that there's nothing there," Eleena answered with a smirk. "Used to be a krogan colony. Until they stripped it of every last drop of useful resources and moved on."

The four of them sat around the table in the crew's quarters as T'lees stood over the kitchenette humming softly to herself. Will looked over to her as a particularly potent scent from the meal she was preparing wafted across the room.

"I hope you all have a taste for traditional asari cuisine," T'lees mentioned as she turned to face them.

She walked gracefully across the room with a tray in her hands, setting it gently at the center of the table. On the tray were four bowls of a steaming stew comprised of a creamy, off-white broth and chunks of Thessian shellfish and various vegetables. Tul'Sorrin eyed the dish for a moment before returning to his nutrient bar contently.

"It smells great," Shansa said with wide eyes.

Eleena leaned forward and nodded. "Yeah, no kidding."

T'lees smiled in response to the praise and sat herself in the fifth seat. She motioned toward the food and glanced around the table.

"Please, after you all."

Will, Eleena and Shansa happily obliged and reached for their bowls, digging in. After their first spoonfuls, T'lees reached for her own dish.

"Damn, I'm not normally a fan of seafood," Will prefaced as he reached for his glass of water. "But this is fantastic. Where'd you learn to cook?"

"One of my mother's handmaidens," T'lees answered as she took another look around the table. "I fall in and out of the habit. If you all would like, I can collect provisions and ingredients for some more dishes when we have additional free time."

"I wouldn't object," Eleena answered.

The group ate in silence for a few minutes as Tul nibbled on his dextro-friendly foodstuffs and read through the mission dossier Will had collected from Kallux.

"So, what exactly is the objective on Garvug?" The quarian inquired.

Will swallowed a mouthful of stew. "Gather intel. Once we get to the research station we should probably get in touch with whoever's got time to answer our questions."

"Mm, it says here that the report of abductions was submitted by someone named Pravlin, the head of security," Tul informed them as he continued to read.

Eleena glanced over to Will. "Any chance we'll see some action down there?"

He gave her a bittersweet smile in response. "Couldn't say. Maybe we'll get lucky and drop in during an attempted abduction."

"It has been a while since we have encountered serious resistance on a mission," T'lees added. "Which is not a bad thing, of course, but I feel as though we are not putting some of our skills to use."

Will smirked and took a gulp of his drink. "Yeah, yeah, I know. You're welcome to mutiny at any time."


"Asleep already?"

Eleena's voice roused Will from the light doze he had been slowly drifting toward. His eyelids lifted to see the asari looking down at him with a small grin. Will shifted himself and let out a small yawn as he lay on his back, his head in her lap. She sat at the end of the couch in the loft as he lay from one end to the other, his feet dangling off the far edge. Eleena held a datapad in one hand, having paused her reading momentarily.

"Not asleep," Will answered. "Close to it, but not there."

She smirked. "Mind sitting up?" She ruffled his hair to direct his attention. "You're starting to itch."

He laughed and pulled the back of his head up from laying across her naked thighs. She watched him with warm eyes as he reached down and pulled on the pants he had tossed to the floor before they had bonded. Eleena crossed her legs and set her holopad down on the pile of cloth that was her crumpled jumpsuit as Will sat up and draped an arm across the back of the couch. She, much like many other asari as Eleena had explained to Will, were not sticklers about nudity around bondmates or even friends and relatives. He reached up and ran his fingers through his thick, dark hair.

"Sorry about that."

Eleena smiled. "I don't mind. It's fun to play with sometimes."

The asari reached over and repeated the motion by running her fingers through his hair.

"Jealous?" He winked jokingly.

"Uggh, no," she chuckled dismissively. "I said it was fun to play with sometimes, not that I wanted it all over my body. I don't even know how you deal with it."

"Uh huh, sure." Will leaned back and shut his eyes. "How much longer do you think we've got?"

Eleena reached down to retrieve her white undershirt and slid it over her head. She tugged it down to its full length, covering her body from the shoulders down to her mid-thigh.

"Eight hours at the least." She turned to face him and placed her elbow on the couch to support her chin. "You think we'll find anything out of the ordinary?"

He opened his eyes and looked over to her. "On Garvug? Hell if I know. I looked into it after dinner and it looks like there's always a constant threat of tribal krogan and vorcha. It's probably nothing more than that."

"Hm." She let out a small sigh. "Shame. I had fun last night... even if we lost."

"We didn't lose," Will quickly corrected her. "We just... didn't win."

"Oh, yeah, of course," Eleena smirked. "And how could I possibly counter such a compelling argument?"

"I know, I know... it didn't feel like we accomplished anything." Will averted his eyes and shook his head. "I don't know, El. Sometimes I feel like we're headed down the wrong path."

The asari gave him an intrigued look. "Oh?"

"Kallux has the best intentions at heart, and so does the rest of the Collective, but I don't know if they're the right intentions." He looked back to her and let out a defeated sigh. "We can't even touch the big three anymore because the RMC name has their attention."

"You mean the rest of them can't. But we can. No one's gonna tie the Collective to anything the Hyperion carries out," Eleena reminded him.

"For now," Will admitted. "But before long someone will make the connection and we'll be in the same boat as all the others."

The asari reached over and set a comforting hand on his shoulder. Will looked down to hand and smiled softly to himself.

"No matter what goes on with Kallux and the rest of the RMC, you're still doing a good job, Will." She smiled encouragingly and pulled her hand back.

Will met her gaze and leaned forward, pressing a soft kiss to her lips. "I couldn't do it without you. Or Shansa, or Tul... even Fayneer."

"I wouldn't want to do this without the lot of them," Eleena countered with a grin.

He tilted his head slightly as he sat back and let his eyes wander over her face. The flush in her purple skin created a glowing illusion in the pair light-gray patterns under her eyes.

"So where are we headed?" He finally asked.

Eleena gave him a confused look. "Uhh... Garvug?"

Will smirked. "Not literally. I mean, you and me. Where are we headed?"

"Oh." Her face returned to normal and she gave a small shrug. "Should we be headed somewhere? We've only been 'together' for what, six months?"

"Well, yeah, I know. But that's a decent amount of time for a human," Will argued.

She nodded admittedly. "I guess that's true enough." Eleena looked to him and smiled apologetically. "I don't really think about it too much. I mean, goddess, I've still got a few decades of maiden years ahead of me."

"You don't think about our future?" Will raised a brow.

Eleena placed her hand on his. "Of course I do. It's just not at the forefront of every thought I have about you. And trust me, I have a lot of them." She looked him in the eyes and rubbed his hand with her thumb. "I think about you and me together now, not in a few years or decades."

Will shook his head a bit. "That's funny... it's pretty much the opposite for me."

"Relax Will." She pulled her hand back and propped her chin up once again. "I'm not saying I don't want a future with you, or that I never think about it. I'm just not worried about the logistics of it right now."

"Fair enough," he said with a small sigh. "But you are... comfortable with me, right? Someone who will probably die six or seven hundred years before you?"

Eleena nodded as though the question was absurd. "Of course. Why wouldn't I be? Asari have been dealing with that since the first salarian fathers died of old age before their daughters could walk or talk."

"It doesn't bother you?" Will watched her curiously.

"Like I said, it's something asari just deal with." She smiled lightly. "Will, it doesn't matter if our last day together is tomorrow or a hundred years from now. I'll always have parts of you with me." Eleena reached up and ran her fingers through his hair again. "Even if they're only memories."