"Impeccable timing," Bionus remarked, smiling at the quartet that had arrived to rescue him.
"Always do my best, boss," Renarra said, though she kept an even and solemn face as she said it.
"Are you all right, Bionus?" Colleen inquired.
"I've tangled with hanar worse than this," the turian replied. "I'm quite all right. Your arrival is still appreciated though."
The short man slowly began to get up. Colleen, who was closest to him, kept her gun trained on him. "What is this?" he asked. "How... what..." He looked to Mira. "You crossed me. You told them what was going on here."
"Don't be stupid," Mira said to him.
"You never were a smart one, Berkley," the musician said from where he was standing. "Always more concerned with the methods than with the actual job."
Berkley paused and looked at the musician. "You. You dirty double crosser."
"Can't double cross a guy who's double crossed you already, Berkley. That's how it goes."
"Berkley, who is this guy?" Mira asked.
"You don't get to find that out, Ms. Henderson," Lorik Qui'in said. "Put your weapon down, and back away from Captain Enrikian. If you do that, the charges against you will be less severe."
Mira hesitated. Her fingers were still brushing at the butt of her pistol, as though she was itching to draw it and make an attempt to level the playing field.
"Don't do it, Mira," Renarra said. There was a flinch in her eyes as she kept her shotgun aimed at her friend. "As it is now, I'll let you go and we can laugh about this whenever it all blows over. Let's keep it that way."
"You don't understand," Mira said. "You don't understand, Renarra. The money's good. And the way things are sitting right now, it can be even better."
"What were you hired to do?" Lorik Qui'in asked.
"Set you up to fail on that new office," Mira said. "Well, Berkley and his two were. I was just hired to keep them from getting caught."
"You are not to tell them about the job," Berkley snarled to Mira.
"Shut up and look with your eyes," Mira said. "He's right here in front of us. We take care of him like this, it's the same thing. We'll still get the money."
Berkley looked over at the group that was assembled there. "Ah. Good point, Officer Henderson."
"Let me guess," Lorik said. "Anoleis is behind this."
"Gold medal for you in the obvious department," Berkley said. "He hired us to disgrace you. Though dismemberment is probably pretty disgraceful as well."
"Not going to happen," Colleen said, planting herself firmly as if preparing to fire the shotgun. "You took my captain, tried to torture him. You go nowhere."
"Don't you tell me what I can and can't do, you alien collaborator," Berkley said with a noticeable degree of disgust in his voice. His hand rested on a small pouch on his hip. It was not big enough to hold a gun, yet big enough to warrant Colleen keeping a close eye on it.
"Shut up, Berkley," Mira said. "You're not helping this at all."
Renarra planted her feet as well. "Come on, Mira. Just stand down and you can walk away from this. As it is, all you did was let three people in unsupervised. That's just a termination of employment. I'll help you get a new job somewhere else. Just stand down."
"The money's good, Renarra. Really good. You'd like it, I think." Mira looked at Renarra intently.
"What are you suggesting?" Renarra asked.
"You know good and well what I'm suggesting," Mira said. "You and me, like old times."
Colleen stole a sideways glance at Renarra at this, picking up on what Mira was suggesting and wondering if the asari was going to betray them in favor of her friend. But as she did so, Berkley took the opportunity to reach into his pouch and pull out another little vial. He threw it towards the musician in the back. As it sailed through the air, what was it contained in dissolved, leaving only a greenish liquid. This splashed all over the musician's face. He put his hands up and screamed in pain, falling to his knees.
Renarra flinched and looked back at this, as though wondering what was going on. Mira took the opportunity to lean over to Bionus with the glass syringe that she held in her hand. She injected the captain with whatever was in it. Almost instantly, the turian began to feel a creeping fire seeping through him. He cried out and began to thrash about. Whatever she had put into him, it was certainly having a horrible effect.
"Hold it right there, Mira!" Renarra said, looking back at her friend.
Mira paused for the briefest of moments, looking hard at Renarra as though she was trying to convince the asari to hold back without saying anything. Berkley broke that moment by trying to throw another one of his little vials, lips curled in a vicious snarl. Colleen interrupted him with a shotgun blast to the gut, sending the short man flying back onto the bed with blood spraying from his body. The vial hit the wall and shattered, the liquid beginning to bubble and sizzle wherever it fell.
"Come on, Renarra!" Mira said, drawing her gun, expecting the asari to help her somehow.
Renarra answered her friend with a shotgun blast. Mira was knocked to the ground with a stunned look in her eyes, her pistol flying across the room. Bionus barely noticed the heat from the blast. He was too busy trying to not pass out from the pain. Colleen ran over to him and untied him from the chair, leaving him free to fall to the floor and writhe about.
"This is the administrator, send medical personnel to Hotel Hanshan Room 45, priority alpha," Lorik Qui'in barked into his comm piece as he knelt beside the musician, who was yelling and holding his face where the chemicals had hit it.
Renarra went over to Mira, who was holding her arm out and gasping. There was an ugly sound of air escaping from her lungs with each breath that she took. The asari knelt over her as though trying to save her.
Through all the pain, Bionus looked up at Colleen. She did her best to try to hold him still so that he did not injure anyone, looking down at him as she did so.
"Come on, captain," she said. "Keep it together. Lorik's sending for help."
"Fire," Bionus said. "Dragon's fire. In my bones..." He saw and felt nothing more, as he lapsed into unconsciousness.
*
A new chapter! And events kick into overdrive!
I love how everyone stands there and talks before just deciding to start a fight anyway. Also how Lorik manages to not get hurt or really involved at all.
Bionus! Nooooooo! Nameless musician! Noooooo! Mira! Ehhhhhh! Berkley! Who cares?
