It had been a long time since I dreamed about her. Blue skin, bone white markings, the sweep of her crest, the curve of her hip. Colors contrasting and shifting, blurring, white into green. She smiled at me. Turned and walked away, kept walking even as I followed, but I couldn't keep up. She got so far away I couldn't see her anymore. Tried to call her name and I couldn't. Realized I didn't know which one to call.

I woke up feeling sorry for myself. It was getting to be a habit.

Opened my eyes to the same drab, makeshift hospital room I had woken up in previously. Empty but for me.

Felt sore all over, but better. Didn't hurt to sit up, bandages itched but looked clean. Mouth was a bit dry and I was hungry as a starving varren, but for once, I didn't feel like I was on the edge of consciousness or death. Small victories, I guess.

I was about to stand up and check around for some clothes when the door opened.

"Oh," Amina said, brow plates rising. "Good timing. I was about to wake you."

There was a tray in her hands. "Tell me that's food."

"Depends on if you consider bad take-out 'food.' "

I beckoned her eagerly with one hand. She smirked a little and set the tray on the foot of the bed, taking a seat in the single chair by my side.

For a few minutes I was too busy inhaling the pre-packaged krysae, bottled tea and freshly seared mushrooms to talk, so she filled the silence and I did my best to listen.

"It's the eighth of the month, Galactic Standard. You've been out for nearly three days, missing for three more. It was... touch and go, for a while. We have a couple trained field medics, but this place was never exactly set up to be a hospital. And no, I can't tell you where you are. Not exactly."

She reached over and touched my arm briefly, drawing my gaze away from the tray. She looked startlingly sad. "What I can tell is that you're safe. Nobody's going to hurt you. I promise."

Seeing her eyes, hearing her voice, harmonics laced with something muted and indistinct, I could almost believe her.

"So why am I here?" I asked bluntly. "If you were just concerned about my health, you could have dropped me at the door of an emergency room and left."

"And Vigilus would have come for you there, too."

"The police–"

"They are the police," she said, shaking her head. "The police, the militia, the fucking fire brigade... damn near every high-ranking official in this city looks the other way when Vigilus acts."

I peered at her skeptically, chewing on a particularly tough strip of krysae flesh. "So this was all for my protection."

She exhaled a breath that might have been a sigh. "You should talk to Fyr."

"Fyr, huh?" I turned back to my tray, picking at the mushrooms with a dull plastic skewer. "He lead this little outfit?"

"He does."

I popped a mushroom into my mouth and paused a moment. Then I shrugged. "He can wait until I'm finished."

I took my sweet time with the meal, my first in spirits knew how long. I'd lost a few pounds in that chair and was more than a little malnourished, but the IVs had helped, and apart from some soreness and fatigue, I wasn't in too bad a shape. Apart from the scars.

Took the opportunity to collect my thoughts and let myself get used to being awake and alert again. Amina kept fidgeting in her chair. She clearly had something she wanted to say, but whatever it was, I wasn't up for dragging it out of her, so I let it drop. For now.

When I was finished, I swung my legs out of the bed and stood. Amina was beside me, a hand near my elbow, but I didn't waver. I rolled my head around my neck and heard the vertebrae pop.

"Don't suppose you have any clothes in here?" I asked with a groan, rolling my shoulders.

"Don't want to put on a show, huh?" she asked, feigning disappointment. "That's too bad."

I furrowed my browplates and my mandibles clacked softly against my face. She laughed a little. "Alright. I'll be back."

She left and I paced the room, taking in the sorry state of it and stretching my legs as best I could for a lazy middle-aged torture victim. By the time she returned with an armful of clothing, I was feeling more alive than I had in days.

"Here you go," she said. "One set of civvies. And don't get all modest on me now, just put 'em on."

I mumbled something about being leered at but did as I was told, stripped off the plain white pants I'd been wearing and threw on the civvies over my beaten-up old hide. They were a bit loose, and the fashion sense was questionable at best–who wears shirts with ribbed elbows anymore?–but I wasn't about to complain.

I was feeling almost turian again when I turned around and Amina handed me something I wasn't expecting.

"Found it in the same place we found you," she explained as I ran my fingers over the leather. "Guess one of them knew a good thing when he saw it."

The faint smell of spent heat sinks still clung to it. I threw it on and while my bandages complained, I didn't care.

"Thank you," I said as sincerely as I could. "Means a lot."

Amina grinned and crossed her arms. "Didn't figure you for the sentimental type."

I grinned back. "Then why take the jacket?"

"Maybe I hoped I was wrong," she replied with a shrug.

I felt the bandages against my hide and saw the thin civex breastplate she wore as casually as her forest green coat, and the urge to laugh died in my throat.

"Don't suppose you grabbed my omni-tool while you were at it?" I asked experimentally.

The smile on her face dimmed as quickly. "I did. You can talk to Fyr about getting it back."

"Well," I said, sticking my hands in my pockets, "no time like the present."

She turned and led me out of the room and down the hall. I remembered enough from my little venture around the building that I knew roughly where she was going–there was a collection of powered doors on the northern side of the building–but I kept behind her and let her lead.

The doors themselves were clearly not part of the original construction—they'd had to cut into the walls to install them. Big and heavy and looked like they could withstand most military-grade small explosives. It would be easier to blow a hole through the walls themselves, but I imagined they had contingencies for that, too. Lined certain rooms with blast shielding, maybe.

Amina led me to a door at the center of a hall, lifted her hand and tapped out a pattern on her omni-tool that I caught about half of. There was a noise like a heavy metal bolt slamming from somewhere on the other side, and the door slid open.

It had to be their command center. Longer and wider than the other conference room I'd seen. Set in the interior of the building, so no windows. Terminals sat open along the walls on cheap, hastily assembled desks. Screens blinked with scan lines as the holoprojectors in the walls flickered, providing the only real light. Datapads and thermal clips and the occasional weapon mod littered every available surface, including the massive table in the center. A map of the city and another projection of the skyline itself glowed blue as a small crowd of men and women gathered around it.

"It's a risk," I heard one of them say. Maybe the old one from the card game. Jar.

"It's always a risk," replied another. He had his back to us, hands pressed flat against the table. Something sounded strange in his voice.

Amina stepped forward. "Fyr."

He pushed away from the table and turned. Looked around forty, maybe. Tall, broad shoulders. Silver plates dulled with wear but retaining a faint shine, complimented by vibrant red Vallum markings. Shorter mandibles, fitting flush against his face. Long, sharp fringe.

If it weren't for the gaping hole where his right eye should have been, he would have been a handsome man. As it was, it looked like someone had taken a marble statue and smashed it with a hammer. Cracks sprayed out from the plain metal plate that he'd placed over the hole, and even without seeing the scar itself, I could tell it was a bad one. I had seen people take slivers of shrapnel that had left them brain-damaged, comatose, or dead. This man had clearly taken more than a sliver.

"Mr. Sartorus," he said, smoothly flanging voice marred by a lack of resonance in the harmonics. Sounded like whatever had taken his eye might have taken one of his voice boxes as well. "You look well."

"Well enough."

"Good." He extended a hand. "Fyrran Exar."

There was a long moment's consideration, staring at his hand, before I pulled my hand from my pocket and shook it. His grip was a bit stronger than was necessary, but not enough to hurt. His one eye regarded me coolly.

I glanced around the table at the gathered crowd. A dozen, maybe, in various combinations of armor, fatigues, and plainclothes. All staring at me, but deferring to him. It wasn't lost on me that outside of myself, Fyr, and the old one called Jar, there wasn't a single person here born before the war.

I wasn't naked and strapped to a chair, but in that moment, I felt just as trapped. Just as helpless.

Message received, I thought with a grimace as he released my hand. Loud and clear.

"This my 'so glad you're alive' party?" I asked dryly.

To my surprise, he smiled. "Something akin to that."

"Uh-huh." I looked over at Amina, who had moved closer to Fyr. "Don't suppose you did this out of the kindness of your hearts."

She frowned, and almost spoke, but Fyr cut her off. "Truth be told," he said, turning his own eye to her, "her appeal carries weight. Amina is not a friend easily made."

Something undefinable passed between them then, and it took a moment for it to sink in. We had barely exchanged words, but I already knew what kind of man Fyrran Exar was. He would never have risked his people for a total stranger, unless...

I ground my teeth and smiled tightly. "She certainly isn't, is she."

The one-eyed man turned his attention to me. "That being said, you might do us a kindness before you leave."

"Why should I?"

"Beyond the fact that you owe us your life?" Fyrran smiled again, less kindly. His right mandible seemed to have a little more trouble at it. "You left quite a mess at your hotel. I don't imagine you'd make it off-world before the police—or Vigilus—got a hold of you again.

"And this time," he said, half-broken voice lowering in register, "you wouldn't have friends to rescue you."

My hands squeezed into fists in my pockets. It was hard to admit, but he was right. If the cops weren't looking for me, it would be another story, but I'd left too many bodies in my wake. They'd be on me before I even saw the starport. And if Vigilus did have cops on the payroll, odds were I'd be committing a very convenient suicide before the end of the week.

"What sort of 'kindness'?" I asked.

"A simple one." He turned and drew his hand across the miniature cityscape, shifting away from the skyscrapers and off towards what I remembered as the factory district. "Accompany our people on an operation. Aid them in whatever way you can."

I took a couple steps forward and stared down at the building he had specified, its pulsing outline lighting up the faces around me. "Smash and grab, I'm guessing?"

Fyr clasped his hands behind his back and said dryly, "I prefer 'procurement.' "

"I'm sure you do." I turned to Fyr, glaring. "And afterward?"

"Afterward, you will be escorted to the starport, where you'll be given a false ID and enough papers to get you through security unmolested," he said seriously.

"And I'm supposed to believe that?"

"I don't see that you have much of a choice."

I frowned and felt a rumble building in my throat. Fyr drew himself up to his full height, about half a head taller than me.

"I am a man of my word, Sartorus," he said. "And you have my word."

The tension was thick in the air. I felt eyes on me from all sides. Amina shifted in my periphery, arms crossed, looking at me expectantly.

It's a bad place to be, when there's no way out but down.

I took a deep breath and wished I had a smoke. "When do we leave?"


It was cramped in the skycar. Bigger than most, almost-but-not-quite a shuttle. Smart. Those stood out more from the crowd. They'd want to go unnoticed until they piled out in armor and guns and started shooting up the place.

I wasn't so lucky. I had been given a few pieces of armor, a small personal shield generator, and a Bluewire. A fucking Bluewire. With a read/write lock on it, and not a single offensive app to be found.

They might as well have given me a sharp stick and a book of knock-knock jokes.

I sat in the rear of the car, elbows on my knees, squeezing my hands together. The boy in the seat across was glaring at me. Kad, from the other day. Or 'Kadros,' as he'd corrected me. He had apparently taken it upon himself to keep an eye on me. Or he'd been given orders. I wasn't sure which.

A rifle butt jostled my knee and I turned to the offender. Idra. A little older than Amina, with light blue markings from out west, in the mountains. She smirked at me and went back to attaching the extended barrel to her old-model Vindicator. Of all of them, she seemed to mind my presence the least, but I got the feeling it was only because she was confident she could take me out without any trouble.

On the opposite side, Jar grumbled as he poked at his omni-tool. He looked about ten years my senior, with a stubby fringe and fading purple Elurian markings, but for all I knew, he could have been younger. He acted like he'd seen a lot of combat in his day, but he didn't have a single scar on him that I could see. He wasn't who worried me.

That would be the driver. Sevus. The quiet one. Lean and mean and barefaced, with cold grey eyes that stared right through you. He hadn't said so much as a word to me, or to anyone, for that matter. People talked at him and he followed orders to the letter. I had to assume he was from off-world, but what he was doing here and why he'd signed up with Facinus was beyond me. Probably beyond everyone else, too.

"Everyone ready?" Jar asked, acting as the leader of this little heist.

"For anything," Idra said, slapping a heatsink into her rifle.

Kad nodded, then double-checked his shield generator.

I shrugged my shoulders. "Ready as I can be without a single way to defend myself."

"Aw, feelin' left out?" Jar said, pouting mockingly. "Well, you're a big boy. You can handle it."

"I don't even know what I'm doing here," I said. "I'm a liability without a weapon."

"And you're a bigger liability with one," Idra said. "Besides, you're not here because we need an extra gun."

"Then why am I here?" I demanded. "The hell are we even doing?"

Jar made a face, mandibles fluttering, and I couldn't tell if he was stifling a grin or a grimace. "You want to tell him, boy?"

Kad shifted in the seat across from me, shotgun across his lap. "Have to?"

The old man turned towards the front seat. "Sev, we more than halfway there yet?"

"Yes," the driver replied. Alright, so he wasn't a mute. Good to know.

Jar looked to Kad and shrugged. "About that time, then."

The boy seemed to tense a little, finger resting on the trigger guard of his weapon. "Hitting a storage warehouse attached to a factory, owned by Dynamax Munitions. Supplier for the militia, and for the Hierarchy navy."

Made sense. Hurts the militia, gets them supplies. And along the way, they're trying to get the attention of the bigger players. Trying to get someone to listen to them the only way they knew how. But that left one very important question: "How am I supposed to help?"

"You're along because we need you to tell us what to grab when we get there."

I blinked. My mouth was suddenly very dry. "What are we grabbing?"

Kad almost smiled. "A whole lot of explosives."

My hands squeezed so hard I felt my talons break skin. I wanted to jump up, grab a gun, bring down this damn car and make a run for it.

Then I saw them all staring at me, hands on their weapons. Waiting.

It was pointless. They were all on edge. They could take me easily, put me down without an ounce of trouble. And I needed them, to keep Vigilus off my back and get me off this fucking planet. And they needed me to help them pick how best to blow something up.

Me. The ex-bomb tech.

Pieces started sliding into place that I didn't know were missing at all. I wanted to scream. I settled for a deep breath through my mouth, fluttering my mandibles, and sinking into my seat while my erstwhile allies watched me out of the corners of their eyes.

The skycar began its descent.

No way out but down.