CHAPTER SEVEN: Debts Repaid, Part Two

By all accounts, Hector's yacht was a beautiful vessel. Walls and floors glimmered with polished chrome and immaculate white paneling, not a speck of dirt or dust to be seen. The main hallway branched off into a number of observation decks, lounges, and libraries – all decorated and furnished to the apex of luxury. And above it all, soft classical music played continuously over an intercom, adding to an overall impression of sophistication. Yet, over the span of minutes, Zaeed transformed those rooms and hallways into a warzone, a place of blood and death.

The echo of weapons fire drowned out the music, the cacophony punctuated by the shouts of battle and the last gasps of the dying. Bullets splintered furniture and shattered valuable sculptures. Blood stained the polished chrome and pooled on the white paneling.

Zaeed operated on instinct born of a hundred other such firefights. Fire, duck, reposition, repeat… One by one he picked off his enemies with a ruthless skill. He was outnumbered, but he had started to integrate the tactical cloak to help him reposition and catch enemies unaware. His cloaking was still imperfect, yet no enemy would poke his head out of shelter long enough to notice.

After twenty or so minutes of carnage, Zaeed erupted from cover, ready to fire another killing burst. But it was then that he realized there was nobody left to shoot. Instead, he was greeted by a silence broken only by his own panting breath. As he surveyed the slaughter before him, he counted roughly a dozen bodies. He smiled. His shields were depleted and his thermal clips were nearly gone, but he had won.

"I think I'll hold onto this," Zaeed said approvingly as he patted the small generator that powered his borrowed tactical cloak. He stood straight and took a few steps before noticing that his utility belt had fallen. Feeling to his waist, a stray bullet had evidently grazed his hip and ripped through the belt's fabric. The mercenary gave a low whistle in acknowledgment of how close he had come to a grievous injury. Yet, he was mostly unfazed. There were few things in life that compared to the exhilaration of defeating an enemy, and he felt invincible.

As Zaeed bent over to pick up the belt, he sensed a sudden flurry of movement and heard a rush of mechanical whirring behind him. He whirled around, bringing his weapon to bear. He wasn't quick enough. A fist struck him across the face, the surprisingly powerful force sending him backward. With a thud, the mercenary landed on a table that immediately broke under his weight. A cut split open on Zaeed's forehead, and the blood trickled down to obscure his vision. Although temporarily blinded, Zaeed instinctively rolled to the side, narrowly avoiding something heavy that slammed down onto the fragmented table.

"Damn it," Zaeed hissed as he scrambled to his feet, desperately trying to reach the assault rifle that had slipped from his grip. He tried to swipe away the blood from his face with one hand while fumbling for his weapon with the other.

"You're not getting away this time," a familiar voice spoke coldly.

A hand closed about Zaeed's ankle. It pulled him back from his weapon and dragged the mercenary with a surprising strength. A boot then kicked him in the stomach, leaving Zaeed spluttering and gasping for breath. Zaeed gritted his teeth and stared up in pure loathing at his attacker. It was Stephan Vilmarc.

"I shouldn't have spared your life that night," said Zaeed in a hoarse voice.

"I won't make the same mistake," Stefan sneered. "In fact, I think I'm going to snap something of yours. With these exoskeletal supports, I think I can pretty easily crush your neck. Seems fitting, doesn't it?" As if to emphasize his point, he kicked Zaeed again. The mercenary curled into a ball and tried to shift his body to avoid the full brunt of the kick. Even still, the tremendous power given by Stefan's augmentations caused Zaeed to cry out in pain.

"Bastard!"

"You know what, Zaeed? We're going to do this right." Stefan knelt and closed his hands about Zaeed's throat. "We're going to do this slow."

Zaeed flailed and tried to strike at Stefan's face, but the younger man endured with a grim determination. The grip tightened. Slowly, Zaeed started to weaken as his body starved for oxygen. He could hear laughter now, and anger surged within him. A moment's overconfidence had allowed him to be ambushed. Kasumi would pay for his mistake.

His right hand reached out once more, but not to strike at Stefan. He had only a vague sense of his surroundings, and yet… there it was. The assault rifle was still too far away, but Zaeed's fingers closed around a part of the broken utility belt. His fingers searched until he felt something small and round…

Even though he couldn't see it, Zaeed knew it was one of his grenades. He inwardly shuddered at the memory of those charred corpses back on Elysium. As his vision started to go dark, he felt a peculiar mix of foreign emotions. There was regret at not being able to save Kasumi, and to his surprise, even a measure of fear at his impending fiery death. "You're getting too old," he thought to himself. "But at least at this distance, it should be quick. And you won't go to your grave alone…" He pressed a button on the small metallic sphere.

There was a sudden pain. But it was not the terrible agony of being burned alive. There was a blinding flash that momentarily pierced through his darkening vision, and a shockwave of noise that seemed to resound throughout his entire body. In an instant, he was struck simultaneously blind and deaf, unable to comprehend much beyond a debilitating sense of disorientation.

"A flashbang grenade!" Zaeed had forgotten about Kasumi's weapons. Before the mission, he had judged that if he was to use grenades, then his own incendiary explosives would be more effective. However, in the end, he had decided that there was something appropriate about bringing all of Kasumi's tools. He had elected to bring with him a single flashbang grenade.

Zaeed felt a tremendously heavy weight fall over him. He quickly realized that the flashbang must have also shorted out the electronics that powered Stefan's exoskeletal supports. It turned the man into nothing more than dead weight.

For a heartbeat it seemed as if Zaeed was completely stuck. He could feel rapid bursts of breath past his ear, as Stefan was surely screaming curses that he could not hear. Slowly and with great effort, Zaeed managed to pull himself free, and then allowed himself a moment to catch his breath. But only a single moment. Then his hands reached out, searching for Stefan's neck. If the younger man pleaded for mercy, Zaeed could not have heard it. There was only silent darkness, and the familiar sensation of snapping a man's neck.

Shortly afterward, a shrill ringing replaced the silence, and a dim light illuminated the darkness. The temporary effects of the flashbang grenade began to fade, and Zaeed stumbled his way forward once more. There was still one man he needed to kill.


Kasumi had noticed the twitch in Hector's cheek back on Elysium. It was subtle, but years as a thief had taught her to be observant. Now, Hector's panic would be obvious to anyone. His hands shook as he compulsively cleaned his spectacles, and he twitched at every unexpected noise that sounded in the cockpit. For the last several minutes, he had been staring wide-eyed at a screen that showed a video feed of various parts of the ship.

"He's… not human," Hector said in a shocked voice as he turned away from the screen, his face drained of all color.

"Really? Zaeed's not pretty enough to be an asari." Kasumi knew there was only one person who could have boarded the yacht. Only one man could fill Hector with such fear. She relished in his dismay.

Hector scowled, but raced past her to a command station on the opposite side of the cockpit. "I guess we'll just have to see how long he can hold his breath," he said softly.

"What?" Kasumi asked in alarm. "What are you doing?"

"Sealing off the cockpit," Hector replied as he started to override the ship's safety measures. "And then venting everything else into space. Now kindly shut up and let me work."

For a moment, Kasumi was too stunned to react. Then she began to struggle desperately, trying to wrench free from the manacles that chained her wrists and legs to the chair. However, for all her efforts, all she achieved was nearly tipping the seat over. She recovered, but as the chair settled again on its four legs, she had an epiphany – unlike on Elysium, the chair was no longer bolted to the floor. Kasumi began to rock back and forth.

"I told you to-" Hearing the commotion behind him, Hector looked over his shoulder. Then he saw the danger.

Kasumi was already on the move. By some miracle of her dexterity, she was on her feet – still bound to the chair, but taking short steps as quickly as her manacled legs would allow. Her thigh wasn't fully healed, and so the combined weight of her body and the heavy metal chair made every movement agony. With a cry of pain and unbridled fury she barreled forward. Hector's hand sprung to his waist for his pistol, yet before he could aim, she slammed into him. They both topped to the floor in a heap.

"You bitch!" Hector snarled and tried to pull away from the thrashing woman. She could barely move, and the pain in her thigh brought involuntary tears to her eyes. Kasumi kept struggling to throw herself at him, to keep him down and buy Zaeed as much time as possible. She tried to butt him with her head, to bite him, to spit at him – anything she could possibly muster.

Hector managed to extricate himself and then pulled Kasumi's chair upright again, standing behind her and holding the seat firmly in place. "People would pay more for you whole," Hector rasped as he panted. "But if you're going to be this much trouble, well… I think I'm willing to accept the lesser profit." He dug his pistol into her shoulder and prepared to fire a shot that would obliterate the socket.

"Let her go."

Hector turned slowly, dragging the chair with him. Then he shuddered in horror.

Zaeed stood in the doorway of the cockpit. His face was a rigor of murderous fury. His features were covered in blood from the cut on his forehead, giving his grim face a ghastly appearance. He was a walking avatar of death, yet he spoke his three words calmly and quietly.

"Let her go," he repeated.

Hector aimed the pistol at Kasumi's head, then at Zaeed, and then back at Kasumi again. He was shaking uncontrollably, and in the rising panic he couldn't decide where to point his gun. But then he nearly laughed with relief as an obvious realization dawned on him: Zaeed had his assault rifle in one hand, held casually and pointed down at the ground. His finger wasn't even on the trigger.

"You stupid, arrogant fool." Hector could barely contain his mocking laugh. Did Zaeed really think he could intimidate a man into surrender without even pointing his weapon? The pistol aimed at Zaeed's head and fired until the thermal clip sizzled and overheated.

Zaeed's body abruptly stopped as the bullets found their mark. And then the body flickered.

Hector's mouth went agape as the bullets passed through and disrupted the holographic decoy. Before he could react, a translucent shape shimmered in his periphery. Suddenly, Hector's legs were kicked out from underneath him, and he crashed painfully onto the ground. He had been distracted, too lost in false triumph to notice the shadowy blur's advance.

"Hello Hector." Zaeed materialized above the fallen crime boss, dripping blood onto the man's spectacles and turning his world a lurid shade of red.

"You-!" Hector started to rage at the man above him.

Zaeed struck down brutally, feeling the man's jaw break beneath his blows. Then he struck again. When it became clear that Hector had no fight left in him, he stood. "Sit still," he told Kasumi, and he began to work a small laser cutter to sever her chains.

Kasumi winced as she got to her feet, still feeling a throbbing pain in her thigh. As she looked down at the pathetic figure of Hector Vilmarc, Zaeed pushed something into her hands.

"I think you should have the honor," said Zaeed. It was Hector's pistol, loaded with a fresh thermal clip.

Kasumi aimed the gun, thinking of all the places she could fire and turn Hector's death into a slow, bloody affair. But then she shook her head, pulled the trigger once, and turned away. The bullet entered directly between Hector's eyes, killing him instantly.

"A kinder death than he deserves," Zaeed observed.

"Maybe," Kasumi replied. "But I already told him a death at my hands would be more humane than if you caught up to him. The boast seemed appropriate at the time."

Zaeed snorted. "Can you walk?"

"Not very well, I think. My leg hasn't healed yet."

Kasumi placed an arm around Zaeed's shoulders, and together they hobbled out of the cockpit. They walked in silence for several minutes, passing through hallways littered with the men Zaeed had killed. Kasumi's eyes widened at the slaughter; she knew Zaeed was deadly, yet even this surprised her. But then, with a tenderness that shocked her even more, Zaeed reached out a hand and pulled Kasumi's hood back over her head.

"That's better," Zaeed said. "Can't go around being a master thief without that hood of yours. You need that air of mystery, I think."

Kasumi smiled. She had nearly forgotten that Zaeed had never actually seen her full face before. "Hector said he would sell bits and pieces of my identity to the highest bidder. Then he would sell me."

"Figured as much. Well, Liara said she would wipe Hector's files, before the Alliance or anyone else could get their hands on them." Zaeed gave a brief chuckle. "Come to think of it, they should be storming Hector's base right about now and clearing out all those angry batarians. God damn. I love it when a plan comes together…"

"You'll have to fill me in on the details later," Kasumi said. "I guess this means you've finally found out that Liara is the Shadow Broker?"

"Couldn't have done this without her… Shepard really knows how to pick 'em."

Kasumi nodded her agreement, but then her voice took on a more serious tone. "Zaeed, I know what you must have gone through for all this. I just wanted to say th-"

"Forget it," interrupted Zaeed. "I've had worse missions, believe me. Just tell me – are we about even yet? My head's still pounding from that damn flashbang grenade, and I'm having trouble keeping track."

"…I don't think friends need to keep track of things like that."

Zaeed grunted in response. But from what Kasumi could tell, the grunt sounded pleased.

They made their way back onto the batarian ship and disengaged the seals and magnetism that bound the two vessels together. Slowly, the two ships began to drift apart. Kasumi started to reengage the engines and plot a course for the system's mass relay.

"Doubt we could go back to Elysium in either of these two ships," Kasumi said as she operated the controls. "But there are plenty of other places we could go. Where to now?"

A loud snore was her only answer. Zaeed, exhausted and secure in the knowledge of a mission completed, had passed out in his chair. Kasumi smiled at the sleeping man and pressed a single button. The ship then vanished into FTL, speeding away into a galaxy utterly unprepared for the trouble that a mercenary and a thief might create.


Author's Note: And there we have it! I had originally wanted to tell this general story arc over 3 chapters, but I suppose I tend to get a little… verbose. My inclination now is to end the fic here, but if I ever get a good idea for a follow-up I may continue it. Or more likely, I would probably just post it as a separate sequel fic. Either way, I'm going to sleep on it, and I may end up marking this fic as 'Complete' in the next few days. Maybe I'll go through with that 'Liara protecting Shepard's crew as the Shadow Broker' spin-off (sort of) idea. Or maybe I'll pull the trigger on the other few ideas I have. Or maybe I'll just stick to one fic at a time because I'm a slow writer. :P

Rambling aside, thanks to everybody who followed, favorited, and especially reviewed. I sincerely hoped you enjoyed this.