She was really beginning to resent waking up in a cell.
"Boss will be here soon," a voice said, muffled by the heavy blanket of her drowsiness. It was Turian, male, and annoyed. That would be 'Dave,' then.
"Easy job though," followed another. Female this time, and Human. "But he'll probably want to talk to her. I don't want to kick her awake, you can do it."
"Not yet, ain't time to."
Her face hurt still; of course it would, thanks to the beating. Vetra had managed to get a few shots to her captors before they could get to her, and delivered a head butt hard enough to crunch a flat Salarian nose concave. A glowing fist from the Krogan biotic put her in place, placated enough for the others to eventually pin her down. Another needle was forced into Vetra's neck from her bleeding nurse, and it all went blurry soon after.
She was alive, at least. The drug withdrawal felt less sharp in her system, so maybe her "medicine" was just that; judging by the delightful softness she felt in her carapace, probably not.
"You think she means it?" Susan said. At least it wasn't the Salarian or the Krogan this time, she could eavesdrop for a few minutes. Both of them could sense when she faked sleep; these idiots could not.
A very Turian sigh followed. "Don't start."
Susan still spoke Sol-English, and Vetra was thankful her time on the Tempest shaped a better understanding of it. "I mean pussy flaps there, and her promises." Pussy flaps? That she couldn't translate. Had to be an insult, somehow.
"I know who you mean, genius."
"She's the Pathfinder's bit on the side, right? If he comes, we're fucked. Royally fucked. Gang banged by his team up the arse levels of fucke-"
"I get it," Dave said, sharp in his interrupt. Vetra had to clench her jaw tight to stop her laughter at that delightful mental image; she almost wanted to stay and wait for her rescue, if only for that. Shit, even a thump from Suvi and one would fold; the Human had held her rifle with all the trigger discipline of a toddler.
"He's pretty hot though, not going to lie," Susan said, goading her companion still. "You like that sort of thing?"
A disgusted noise followed. "It baffles me, the stuff you say," 'Dave' replied. His flanging Turian growl still didn't match his fake name, but Vetra couldn't exactly call him Idiot Two to his face. "Didn't you used to be a scientist or something?"
Susan cleared her throat. "Developmental biologist, actually. I was thawed early because of my experiments in suspending dextro-animo cell cultures into levo-based solutions. Means I can grow your plant shit from my soil shit in theory, useful for feeding a bunch of starving Turians. Simple, innit?"
"See, you say shit like that and I'm meant to believe it all, somehow. I saw you eat your rations after you dropped them by the shitter last night, even the Krogan flinched at that. And was that before or after you got drunk enough to tell us all in great detail what Quarian dick felt like? I can't remember. Either way, that's two hours of my life I won't be getting back."
Vetra thought of baiting them to her cell, wondering if it was worth the risk. These two she could take down, no problem. Snatch their guns, take the Turian's armour, hack into whatever network there was nearby and see what she could do. Once the room would stop spinning, anyway.
"Ah, Kan'ah nar Symmony. It was surprisingly big, you know? Or he could've padded out his stimulation ports, not like he got it out of his suit for me to check. But it did vibrate, bet yours doesn't. Girls like that sort of thing, trust me."
Another put upon sigh from Dave. "As if I'd take anything out of your mouth as sense. Please, shut up."
Vetra smiled at their conversation. Stupid people really were a gift, she meant every word of that. These idiots were her ticket out of here, they just didn't know it yet.
She made a show of waking, exhaling a sigh like it was morning. She could hear feet scraping and the rattle of guns being gripped, and she opened her eyes to blink at the spotting lights in her vision. "Princess is awake," Susan said. "There goes our privacy."
Vetra rubbed the soft skin around her eyes with a knuckle, trying to chase the dregs of Oblivion away. "Princess, huh? Where's my hot cup of kava, or did I miss breakfast service?" She spoke a weird mix of English and Cipritine, wondering what their translators were making of it.
"You got water and ration bars," Dave said, pointing with his gun. "Enjoy."
"Rough night?" She asked them, chewing one of her bars. Her empty stomach almost rejected it on principle, considering it was her first solid food in days.
"You scratched me up," said Susan, glowering over her gun. "Got me under my armour."
"Oh. I'm sorry," Vetra replied, though clearly she wasn't. "You'd do the same in my position, I'm sure."
"Bitch." Susan glared to make a point, shrugging her sore shoulder. "Had to crack open a new medigel and everything."
Dave, good Turian that he was, was silent still; Vetra tried another tactic. "I can smell the moonshine from here you know," she said. "Elaaden blend? Rough. I prefer to mix mine with a bit of elava mix, at least I can keep my tooth emamel that way."
They both looked at each other, startled. "You shouldn't be talking," Dave said.
All Susan could do was sniff the armpits of her suit. "We stink that bad?"
Vetra could smell nothing, but knew enough about shitty raiders and their questionable drinking habits. "How long was I out for?" She asked them, forcing herself to sip water slowly.
"About three hours," Susan replied. Judging by Dave's annoyed squint her way, it was the truth.
"Hard to tell time in a cell," Vetra told them. "Must mean that Ryder's deadline is closed, and that means he's still coming. The deal's still on the table, by the way. I can get you what you want, there's always time."
Susan swallowed. "When you say anything, do you-"
The swing of the outer door silenced her, and Vetra whipped her head around to try and see what was behind it. One long corridor, some crates tucked to the side. Walls looked like they came from a standard prefab, which meant she was planetside, not on a ship. That narrowed it down, considering the recycled air. They were on a base that needed a filter system, and there was no shortage of dead planets and moldering moons to hide out in Heleus.
Kaetus loomed in the entrance, his armour and guns a stark contrast in quality compared to the pair of them. Vetra saluted a sarcastic wave from her cell, watching with amusement as Dave and Susan snapped to attention. "Leave," he told them, never once looking their way. "I need to speak to our guest alone."
He stood over her this time, anger rolling off him in waves. "Hey there." Vetra wrapped her hands around her knees, refusing to move. It was her act of defiance, a casual cover up to her dizziness; she wouldn't stand to attention for him. "How's it going, Vexen? Tough day?"
"Came to tell you that Ryder didn't pay your ransom," he said. "Of course, it meant giving himself up, but you knew he wouldn't. Does that bother you, Nyx? That he cares so little about you? Never even made it to the navpoint."
There was small, tiny part of her that did, of course there was. But she also trusted Scott enough to know he would have a plan, even if he was running on instinct. "Hah, no," she told him. "Scott knows a bum deal when he sees one. I taught him that pros demand payment upfront before they get the goods- you offered a shitty guarantee."
Kaetus leaned against the glass on her cell, one arm above his head. "Advice from a smuggler? Save me."
"It's gotten us out of scrapes before," she said, chewing the last of her bar. "Don't discount it yet."
"Cute," he drawled. "I've baited him to Havarl, and he's falling for it. I made sure he would."
"Oh, so I'm not in Havarl? Narrowing it down, Kaetus," Vetra replied. She was confused, why the rabid pyjack hunt? Why force Scott across Heleus for a showdown, if all he wanted was revenge? "I'll bite," she said, not quite getting it yet. "Why?"
"Does it matter?" Kaetus said, shifting on the balls of his feet. "Can't make it too easy."
Vetra worked out then she still had time to escape. Not a lot, but enough. Scott was forced to loiter before he could get to her, given Kaetus breathing room to set something up. What, she didn't know. If it was plain revenge for the death of Sloane, then she would be dead by now, no question. An eye for an eye, Ryder's Turian for his Human.
Perhaps it came down to plain greed after all, that Kaetus was using her ransom as a fulcrum for something bigger- Nexus big, maybe even Meridian big- and not just for the judgement of a lone Pathfinder. "I love our chats," Vetra said. "I learn so much."
Kaetus chuckled, his anger dissipating at her confusion. He assumed he had the upper hand again, and enjoyed it. "What do you know about the legend of the Pyrenees mountains?" He moved away from her now, positioning himself into an easy stand. "Your Human was a Citadel brat, I doubt he told you much of his culture. It's on Earth after all."
It became apparent then that Kaetus didn't need a special cigarette for his monologues. "I don't know, Scott seems religious to me. Praises that Jesus guy a lot when we're alone," she said. Kaetus snapped his jaw shut in disgust as Vetra smiled at him.
"You only get one of those," leaning forward just enough to level the threat. Vetra put her hand to her chest, a fake act of contrition.
"Oh, I'm sorry. Do go on. Why do I need to know about mountains?" She asked him, cocking her head to one side.
He stared her down again, a weary sergeant dressing down a rookie for insubordination. "They were named in honour of a woman called Pyrene, so the legend goes. She was the daughter of King Bebrykius, and was loved by her people. She was betrothed to the son of a neighbouring tribe, and pledged her life to him."
Fuck this, Vetra thought. And fuck his stories. She imagined herself putting on her armour and holding her favourite gun, riding out his visit in a daydream. "It all sounds Turian," she managed to say, even after a particularly vivid imagining of seeing a spray of bullets cut through the steel door.
"You can always find similarities between anything, if you're desperate enough. Humans have so much shit in their culture that it's hard not to find something of ours in it all."
For once they agreed on something, and she pushed her anger down to a simmer. "That's just normal social interaction with aliens, you know? Show me yours, I'll show you mine. Take it conversational skills aren't taught in basic, or is that further up in the Hierarchy? I never got the chance to know."
Kaetus snorted once and continued his story, this time ignoring the sass. "Pyrene died, because Hercules- you know Hercules, at least? Or Herakles, depending on who's telling it."
Vetra shrugged. She knew the name, sure. Humans used it all the damn time for things. Ice cream, spaceships, vids. "It's the sun of the Attican Beta back home. Shit hole of a System, nothing there but pirates and gas mines." There was some chatter about the name at the back of her mind despite her words, something her drug-fogged synapses refused to reveal. It sounded like a codeword she heard somewhere else, but where?
If she had access to her omni-tool she would've pinged Sid by now, considering how glued the girl was to her comms. Instead Vetra shoved the stab of worry over her sister aside, watching as Kaetus paced outside her cell. "Fitting," he said. "Hercules was this big damn hero, who after his big damn quest violates the sacred code of hospitality and defiles Pyrene. Some stories say she was raped, some that she went along with it. She dies, no matter the version told."
Vetra clamped down her mandibles before they flared in surprise. Didn't take a genius to get what he was hinting at. "Why are you telling me this?"
Kaetus fixed an errant seal of his gloves, looking away from her. "Pyrene gave birth to a snake and ran away, afraid that her family would be angry. She was killed by animals, her corpse desecrated by bandits and vermin. In his remorse, Hercules creates a tomb for her by piling up rocks so high they form a mountain range. It's still there, the Pyrenees. Can even see it from their space."
She resisted the urge to snarl her frustration. "You didn't answer my question."
"You didn't ask the right one."
"In this story," Vetra said, waving her hand at him. "Are you Hercules? Who doesn't love a big damn hero."
The silence swallowed them for a moment. She said it to bait him, to see how far she could toe the line. As an armoured fist swung for the glass of her prison, she knew she had pushed the limits; the glass barely moved despite the strength his punch, but neither did Vetra. Her green eyes never left his face, searching for another reaction. "You're lucky it's not your time to die," Kaetus spat, face tight with rage. "You're a corpse soon, but not now. There's things to do."
She was still useful alive, but not for long. Vetra didn't know if Reyes or Ryder was Hercules at this point in the story, but understood enough to know Kaetus was the one staring at a lonely mountain. You're mine, Vetra thought. But first I have to escape.
Kaetus had righted himself of his anger, standing straighter now. "You want to know something?" She said. He looked at her, suspicious of the sympathy flanging in her voice. "I didn't want Sloane to go that way. It was stupid."
For the first time since Vetra came here, she finally said her name, like the woman was a trickster Spirit too dangerous to mention. "Means shit from you," he spat back. She could hear the grief and rage hum again in his subvocals. "You're lying."
"She was an ironclad bitch," Vetra replied. Kaetus hit the glass again hard enough for it to move this time, vibrating against the steel of her cell. "But I didn't want her dead. I spent months getting Kadara where I wanted it," and he snorted at that. "I understood the power balance. I knew where to go, who to talk to, what the lay of the land was. One bullet undid six months of my work that night. Better the asshole you know than the asshole you don't."
He stared at her through lowered eyelids, searching her face over and over for the lie. When he eventually spoke, his voice was raw. "Seems you don't have as much influence as I thought."
Vetra shrugged. She had already told Scott what she thought about 'The Charlatan's' little power play, and as far as she was concerned it was the Pathfinder's mess to clean up- but she could still pass him a broom. "If I knew what he was going to do, I would've said something."
"Yeah, well. Too late," he said, quiet. Kaetus left her without a goodbye, and the guards returned in silence when he hit the wall twice. With a sharp jab Kaetus poked Susan on the shoulder, and the girl almost dropped her rifle. "You follow me," his back to Vetra now. "And you keep an eye on her. Don't trust any shit that falls out of her mouth," he snapped at Dave. "Think you can manage that?"
Oh, how she rattled his carapace. Vetra did her best to look the model prisoner as the door closed, finally standing to stretch her sore legs. "Funny, I want to say the same thing," she said, lifting her arms until something clicked.
Notes: This chapter has been written for days, but I debated posting it until I could work out the pacing issues. Unlike my Ryder, I do not wing it.
Thank you for reading, and the comments! (Turns out there's twelve of you reading this, not three.)
