Author's Note: Thanks, as always, for the kind words! It does my little heart good, folks, it honestly does.

The next chapter might be a liiiittle late, cos next week the Halo: Reach beta is out, and I have access to it, so… heh, sorry.

//Chapter 9 - Risky Business

"Caveat Venditor."

Veetor stepped out of the shuttle and onto the dusty soil of the planet known to the visiting quarians simply as G789-a. Likely they would come up with a nickname for it while they were here. It was a modest little world, reasonably populated with plants and indigenous animal life. It would have been tempting to terraformers if it wasn't so far away from the rest of civilization. Instead, it spun, lonely and silent, out in the ass-end of the Terminus systems.

The scouts had been sent ahead to their newly-established research base, and were directing the newly-arrived scientists--Veetor included--to their respective quarters. The base was rather slapdash, but it was quarian slapdash, which meant that, though it looked rough and was hastily-built, it was sturdy when it counted and technologically sophisticated.

Veetor's own quarters were separated from the main hub of activity, a fact for which he was grateful. He spent a little time settling in and unpacking his very few belongings before he returned to camp. The scientists were all eager to get started, Veetor, once again, included, and they didn't have long to wait.

But how had they all come to be here, on this relatively nondescript world? A team of scouts looking for prospective mining sites had stumbled across the remains of an old research facility. Nobody knew its age or origin, but it appeared to have been highly advanced. Something had blown it apart from the inside, and the damage to what remained of the technology, under the years of dust and decay, was strikingly reminiscent of the fate of the instrumentation on Haestrom. This raised many questions. Were these people experimenting with dark energy? If so, when, and how? Was dark energy truly responsible for the destruction of this old lab?

Nobody knew, and that was why the scientists had chosen to establish themselves here. There was nothing in the lab that could explode or otherwise hurt anyone (except for the common hazards of decaying buildings, which had been noted and largely dealt with), but that didn't make the destroyed lab look any less menacing. Veetor went with the team sent to get initial readings, and he shook from the moment he saw the structure to the moment he left.

The grim quiet that clung to what was left the walls was disturbing enough, but the explosion had split the old lab neatly in two. It looked unreal, like a massive cleaver had descended and struck the building. Veetor bore it for as long as he could, but by the time the team was satisfied, he thought he could hear the screams of the scientists caught in the explosion, lingering faintly, like static or white noise intermingled with the oppressive silence.

As he walked back, one of the scientists shuddered and said, "That place gives me the creeps."

"Try and approach it from a professional point of view," another replied. "Don't think about it as a place. Think about it as a subject that needs to be studied."

"I don't know. It's easy to say that when you're far away from it, but still…"

Veetor did not add to this conversation, but he was startled to discover that his teammates were as afraid of the structure as he was. That was an oddy comforting thought. His fears had been sparked rationally for once. It didn't make him any less afraid, but it certainly made him more comfortable with his fear. They arrived around midmorning, and the base team was quite happy to see them. Namely, they were happy to see Veetor, because the newly-established equipment was going haywire.

After that, Veetor was too busy to be afraid. He spent most of the day in intense concentration. A lot of the time, when he was working on an error in one system, he saw that it was caused by another error in an adjacent system, or a system linked to the first from across the camp, and in this manner he ended up criss-crossing their establishment all day. The nest of problems was like a complicated knot, and sometimes one had to pluck at a loop on one end before they could loosen another on the opposite end.

It was tedious, mind-bending work, and Veetor'Nara lost himself in it. By the end of the day, though, he had loosened that knot considerably, and regarded his handiwork with a sense of weary accomplishment. The scientists would at least be able to store and analyze their readings from the first day. The camp was very vocal in their thanks to him, and it was obvious to Veetor that it wasn't because they knew who he was and wanted to give him extra encouragement. They were doing it because they honestly appreciated his help.

He walked back to his dwelling in a cloud of elation. He was doing it! He felt, for the first time, like he belonged here. These people recognized that he had a lot to give, and they accepted it, accepted him, flaws and all. On the heels of that, Veetor thought, And so does Kal.

Kal. He missed him already, but it wasn't that same raw loneliness he'd felt when Kal had been sent away to fight. Just the knowledge that Kal'Reegar was safe, and perhaps thinking of him, made it easier to bear. Veetor decided to send him a message once he arrived at his dwelling. He was anxious to share the day's victories, the chief of which being that he had stood on his own today.

A pang of sadness hit the unsuspecting quarian. Elan would have been proud of him, he thought. She would have been proud of all the progress he made. He had come a long way, but he hadn't done it alone. He had friends, the strength of the quarian community, but mostly he had Kal'Reegar.

Veetor had thought about the changes that had come over him since their encounter on the lonely forest moon, and all that followed. He thought about how their friendship had changed, and how it was becoming something more. He liked that thought. Sometimes he would still surprise himself by thinking, Kal wants me, and that simple thought thrilled him to his core.

It wasn't just that, though. Kal was a good man, an admirable man, and he'd fit shockingly easily into Veetor's life. Veetor was fond of his gruff nature and heavy-handed affection. Kal was brave, and strong-willed, and so much smarter than most people would ever guess. He'd given Veetor strength, a gift that he had offered simply by being himself. It was with these thoughts in mind that Veetor arrived "home," such as it was.

They had set up a shack, like a survival shelter, but smaller, for Veetor. It was far enough from the camp that he wouldn't be upset by the presence of such a crowd, but close enough for Veetor to easily walk back and forth. He could see the camp through the trees, but only just, as he peeked over his shoulder. He looked back to his trailer. Maybe he could ask that it be moved a little closer. He didn't think he'd ever get over the creeping nervousness that gripped him when he was in a crowd, but he was getting better at dealing with people.

I could still stand to be a little closer, he thought as he reached for the welded-on door handle. The quarians didn't have a lot of money or resources, and Veetor's shelter had long since stopped working properly. The doors had to be opened manually. He pushed one of the sliding doors to the side with a little grunt of effort and turned to the interior.

There was a gun pointed at his face.

"Veetor'Nara." It was a statement, not a question, delivered smoothly to him from the throat of a tall human male standing in front of him. "Don't yell. We aren't going to shoot you, but if you start making noise, we'll have to shoot someone, and that camp behind you is full of quarians."

Veetor was quite unable to move or speak, much less yell. The barrel of the pistol was nearly touching his helmet.

"I am going to tell you two things. One: if you don't come with us, people will die. Two: if you don't come with us, a friend of yours, specifically…" He gestured with a free hand to the woman standing next to him. There were three of them in Veetor's dwelling. The woman stepped forward and brought up a holographic vid display with her Omni-tool. There was a quarian on the display. She was asleep, breathing slowly, and the barrel of an assault rifle was visibly aimed at her head. With a wrench in his gut, Veetor recognized her immediately. "Will die."

Veetor stared. Elan. Elan. "She's dead."

"No. I assure you, she's quite alive, but her continued survival is entirely dependent on your cooperation. Come with us willingly, and she will live."

Veetor defiantly opened his mouth, but only a horrible, strangled sound came out. He began to pant harshly. He was panicking.

The truth was, these men were bluffing. To shoot Veetor now, in this still sylvan air, even with a silencer, would bring the entire camp down on them. Even if they were rough-and-tumble criminals, the three of them wouldn't last long against a camp full of angry quarians.

If these aggressors were on the planet in any large force, they would have been detected prior to this by the quarian ships above the planet. That either meant that the force that they had was small, or that they had only just arrived to lay siege. If they had arrived with an army, there would be alarms blaring in the camp, and troops already streaming in from orbit. There was an extra guard detail scheduled to arrive the following day, and it could be planetside in instants if needed.

Either way, these aggressors had to be outnumbered. It was most likely that they had just arrived as a small strike team. The very fact that they'd even gone so far as to coerce Veetor's cooperation signaled that they needed something from him. It was rather obvious that they were bluffing.

Veetor realized none of this.

Veetor was too terrified to think.

He swallowed, trying to pull himself together. It was surprisingly easy. In that moment he made two decisions. The first decision was that he had to go with these men. Elan's safety was on the line. Even if there was a chance that she was still alive, he had to help her. She would have tried to help him. "Okay," he said simply. "Okay, I'll come with you."

//

Kal'Reegar had been surprised when his superiors informed him that he'd be on the security team. He was pleased, to be sure, but still surprised. He didn't say anything about it immediately. He simply gathered his gear and loaded onto the shuttle. By the time the shuttle was ready to drop the guard detail in and had descended into the atmosphere, it was dawn on the planet below. He looked out of the window display as they swung down over the trees and made their way towards the campsite.

"You a friend of Sprag's?"

Kal blinked at turned to the speaker. A quarian was looking at him, head cocked curiously. "Yeah. Why?"

"I was just curious. He's kind of a legend on my ship." When Kal's helmet tilted slightly, the quarian went on, "The Kildeira was our sister ship. I served with Sprag once, a few years ago. He's still got it."

Kal was intrigued now. "Got what, exactly?"

The quarian was silent for a moment. "You don't know? Sprag used to be spec ops. He was an elite. You wanted a job done, you sent Sprag. I've heard stories about him in action back when he was in his prime." Kal's squad mate shook his head. "Anyway. I saw you talking to him and I wondered how you knew him."

Kal considered this. That would explain how Sprag had been able to uncover the information on their adversaries back on Shasta Trinity. For an elite agent, information-gathering like that was a cakewalk. He remembered the first time he'd seen Sprag back in their makeshift infirmary. To imagine someone who must have been through as much as that grizzled veteran dying there, in the cold and lonely air of that moon, was almost unbearably sad.

But he hadn't died. He'd been saved (twice!) by Veetor'Nara. Kal smiled under his helmet, and only realized after he'd basked in the warmth that filled him that the other quarian was still staring at him. "Uh. Well, that's a long story. Tell you what, I'll tell you the whole thing after we get settled. Deal?"

"You got it."

As soon as they landed, it was business as usual. They were shown around, given a general layout of the terrain, and met with the lead scientists. Though Kal was eager to see Veetor (the other couldn't be expecting him, and he knew how much pleasant surprises meant to Veetor'Nara), he put duty first. Besides, he figured he'd probably run into the other as he was given a short tour of the camp.

Oddly enough, he didn't, and it was at least an hour before he was given permission to wander freely. He hesitated a bit, but eventually approached his commanding officer. After a perfunctory greeting, Kal nodded and said, "Veetor'Nara was sent to this camp, sir. Where is he staying?"

The security squad's leader laughed. "He's just outside of camp, over there. We set him up so he could have a little privacy. Take as long as you need, Reegar."

Kal was caught-off-guard by the other's amused, knowing bearing. After a moment, he asked, "So you knew, huh?"

"Of course I knew. Small Flotilla, you know." A pause. "Even if we're not actually in it."

"Didn't think I was being that obvious," the soldier replied gruffly.

The team leader shook his head. "It's okay, Reegar. Look." He crossed his arms. "You mind if I give you some advice?"

"Shoot," was Kal's response.

"I know you're trying to be a good soldier. But you are. I know you're checking yourself at every opportunity, making sure you're not letting anything come in the way of your duty. I heard that you were actually surprised when you got the news you'd be coming down here. I know that it's common military doctrine to keep soldiers away from… personal situations."

He shook his head. "But hell, Reegar, we don't exactly have the luxury of adhering to common military doctrine. We're all we got out here. So you have a special reason to fight harder? Good for you. The universe is a rough place, and the bonds we've got between each another are all we really have. We're not going to ask you to sacrifice that."

Kal could think of nothing to say to that.

"Go on, now." The team leader nudged him. "We'll hold down the fort. The skies won't come crashing down on us if Kal'Reegar takes a bit of personal time off. "

Kal'Reegar drew himself up. He nodded. "Yes, sir. And thanks." It was abrupt, but it was sincere, and he turned, heading off in the direction the team leader had indicated. The other's admonition sent his thoughts cartwheeling wildly through his head. Had he really been holding back that much, so that it had become something other people had noticed? Had it been more than just awkwardness that had kept him from getting close to Veetor? Had he been afraid (perish the thought of Kal'Reegar being afraid of anything, but he had to be honest with himself if he was going to be honest with Veetor) of letting his feelings, such as they were, affecting his ability to perform his duties?

He would have to think about that. No, he corrected himself, I'm going to have to talk about it. He was going to see Veetor, and later that evening, when they were both off-duty, he was going to sit with him, alone and uninterrupted, and they were going to finally talk down the last barriers they'd kept between themselves. He didn't care if it took all night.

The thought lightened his step a bit. Tonight was going to be important. He could tell. He pushed through the last of the trees--Veetor hadn't had a chance to wear a path through the sparse underbrush yet--and saw an empty dwelling with an open door.

Sometimes small actions ended up having far-reaching consequences. If the men who had taken Veetor had thought to force it closed, or if Veetor's little shack had been fully operational, things would have turned out differently. Kal might have knocked, waited, knocked again, eventually opened the door himself, checked to see that Veetor was nowhere inside, and returned to camp to look for him. By then, it would have been far too late.

The sight of the open door and the empty shack instantly set the soldier on high alert. He regarded the area outside the shack with suspicion. Disturbed brush, scuff-marks in the loose soil--had there been a struggle? He drew his pistol and, after spending a moment to survey the scene, found a rather obvious path through the brush. He followed it.

When he saw the remains of dew on the broken branches and disturbed bushes, he double-timed it. This had happened last night. Kal pushed all of the unpleasant possibilities out of his head. He didn't need his imagination running wild. He needed to find out where Veetor had gone, and he needed deal with it when he found out. He didn't need to think about Veetor being dragged off by some hitherto-unknown large predator. He didn't need to think about what would happen if Veetor was gone.

He simply needed to follow these tracks, and get it done quickly. He didn't call for backup just yet. There was a possibility that this was a misunderstanding and that he wouldn't even need any backup (or, faintly and darkly in the back of his head, that backup wouldn't be able to solve the situation that waited for him), and Kal didn't want to draw any firepower away from the camp unless he really needed it. He also knew that he couldn't wait because he knew the cost of waiting. He just followed.

He came to a stream and paused momentarily to study the mud. Tracks. He couldn't have asked for clearer footprints. There was the two-toed impression of a quarian foot, and several more strange peanut-shaped tracks that he recognized as belonging to boots worn by other humanoid races. Veetor had been through here. Someone had taken him.

He felt himself fill with rage. Someone. Had taken. Veetor. His Veetor! Why would someone do this? Kal turned and used the anger to spur him on, to move faster, pushing the furious questions out of his mind as he prepared for what lay ahead. He would find them. He didn't care if he had to search all day; he would find them. He compressed his pistol and clipped it to his side, but he didn't have time to draw his assault rifle.

The quiet, still air suddenly rang with gunshots. For a second, Kal'Reegar froze, horrified. Then he began to run, the distant sounds of combat growing more chaotic. A shotgun blast. The stutter of an assault rifle. Pistols shots--furious, crazed pistol shots. He could hear someone going through an entire thermal clip in a flurry of mad rapid fire. He ran. Small flying creatures, rodents or birds or whatever variety this planet offered, were fleeing into the sky.

Suddenly, the sound of a heavy turret drowned out all other noise. Kal pushed himself even harder, muscles burning, his double-bent legs eating up the distance between him and the chaos ahead. He couldn't stop his frantic mind from speculating now. What was happening that required the use of a damn turret? Oh Keelah, Veetor… the noise ended abruptly, and for some reason that chilled Kal'Reegar's blood further. He poured every last ounce of strength he had into his sprint, and then skidded to a halt. The trees had rather suddenly ended, and the scene before him was one of baffling devastation.

The second decision that Veetor had made was that every man escorting him would have to die.

There were bodies everywhere, none of them quarian. Their weapons lay at their sides, or crossed over their chest. They had been killed quickly, suddenly, and while fighting back. At the edge of the clearing, many of the corpses were relatively whole. Their wounds were few and obvious. Some of them were still sluggishly bleeding. These were freshly dead. This observation took him a fraction of a second, and in that second he had also drawn his assault rifle.

He raised his helmet and shuddered. Bodies towards the center of the clearing hadn't been so cleanly killed. They'd been utterly shredded. Even as Kal realized these must have been the victim of direct heavy-weapons fire, his attention was arrested by the sleek black shape in the center of the clearing. He instinctively raised his rifle, though it was ludicrous to think that his gun would do any damage to the modified gunship now swiveling towards him.

"Kal!?" Veetor's voice was unmistakable through the external speakers.

Kal'Reegar blinked. "Veetor?" Then, after a quick shake of his head, he went on, "Keelah, you're safe. Just shut her off. It's okay. I'm here now."

"I can't!"

"What, you mean you don't know how?"

"No, I mean… I mean I can't, Kal, I have to do this."

Kal'Reegar did not think, when he dropped only hours ago, that he would be standing in a clearing in the forest as the morning swelled into day, arguing with a gunship. He pushed aside the absurdity of the situation. "Just… explain everything that going on, Veetor." It looked almost as if Veetor were preparing to leave. The thought upset him. Veetor had clearly been driven into instability by the violence of the attempted raid. If Kal could stall him, he could stop this situation from exploding violently.

Veetor was thinking quicker than Kal gave him credit for, though, because he immediately said, "No! If I wait, then they'll stop me."

Kal couldn't help but be a little proud of how quickly Veetor had recovered, but this was still bad. The gunfire was sure to have attracted attention from the camp. If they got a tech in, they could disable the gunship without hurting Veetor, unless the twitchy quarian had had time to set up some kind of internal defense, which he very might well have…

Kal needed to get aboard that ship. If Veetor panicked and ran, he would need to be there to calm him down and get him back on the planet. "At least let me in, Veetor."

"They have Elan." When Kal said nothing, Veetor went on, in a desperate rush "They have her, and they were trying to make me go with them to keep her safe. I don't know why they want me, but I saw her, they had her, and she might still be alive, and if she is I have to do something, Kal, I can't leave her--"

"I'm going with you." Kal interrupted. Now it was Veetor's turn to lapse into stunned silence. "Look, if I can't get you to stay, I'll at least look out for you." Truth be told, Kal still hadn't given up on that whole "Keep Veetor from flying off into the jaws of certain death" thing. He compressed his rifle, holstered it, and crossed his arms. He knew that he was not in control here. If Veetor wanted to take off and leave the marine behind, he could, and there would be nothing Kal could do to stop him.

He stared down the gunship gamely, though, trying to make it land through sheer force of will alone. Then, to his surprise, it did. "Hurry, Kal."

Hurry he did. He skidded to the nearest hatch, which was unlocked, and flung himself inside. Almost immediately, the hatch closed, and he was pushed against the wall as the ship turned and began to streak through the sky. It was a moment before Veetor activated the inertia controls, and as soon as Kal was able to move, he hurried towards the cockpit.

Veetor was just leaning away from the controls. Kal took a seat beside him and watched as the ground rolled away beneath them. Veetor was leaving the planet at a vector on the opposite side of where the ships were orbiting. Kal had hoped that maybe he'd overlook that, but Veetor was clever. "Okay. So, I guess this is a good time to tell me what the hell is going on."

The steel in Kal'Reegar's voice didn't seem to perturb Veetor. "I already told you." But the softness of Veetor's tone made Kal feel a stab of guilt. "They came for me. They just--just showed up, in my home, and told me that if I didn't come, they would hurt Elan. It must have been last night. It's day again."

"You don't remember?"

"They drugged me." Kal's fingers tightened angrily on his chair's armrest. "I'm okay now. I slept it off, mostly, but… but I think they seemed to think I was dangerous."

"Well," Kal admitted, "you sort of were."

Veetor considered that. "Okay." And without a pause, he went on. "They showed me a video of Elan. They told me that she would die, that the quarians in the camp would die, if I didn't go with them. So I killed them and took their ship. And I'm going to get her back."

Kal took a deep breath. "Veetor, they'll probably have a trap waiting, or some kind of backup plan…"

"I know."

Kal blinked at him. "Wait, then why--Veetor, this is crazy! We should at least alert the rest of the ships here. If they knew, they might help!"

"I don't think they'd want to risk an entire ship of people just to save one person," Veetor said, turning his helmet to face Kal. Quietly, he added, "I don't, either."

Kal felt frustrated, not only because of their precarious situation, but because of Veetor's uncanny new ability to both irritate him and endear himself to the soldier. At the same time. "This is crazy," he repeated.

"I know."

"They're going to be ready for you."

"I know," Veetor looked back to the screen. When Kal didn't say anything, Veetor added, "That doesn't change what I have to do, Kal. I can't leave her. And besides, they did all of this to find me. What if they do it again? No." He shook his head. Kal realized that Veetor was convincing himself as well as the marine. The twitchy quarian had been, until this point, just reacting. "No, we have to finish this. They might have some of the other missing survivors, too. I can't turn my back on them." He looked to Kal. "All of this time, everyone has been helping me. I'm going to help them."

Kal'Reegar took a deep breath. He couldn't stop Veetor. Even if he managed to disable the other quarian, he didn't think he could pilot this vessel. He was trained to operate some vehicles, but this was a highly-modified alien ship. Besides, he didn't know how many of the systems were responding directly to Veetor's control.

"Okay. We'll do this your way, but only if you can come up with a plan."

Veetor nodded. "Okay."

//

It would take the small vessel twenty-two hours to reach the its pre-programmed destination. Kal decided that they should rest early, to be aware of. If there were any traps or checkpoints waiting for them, they'd probably be near the end of the journey. Veetor slept first, still shaking off the last effects of the drugs, and Kal soon followed. When he woke, Veetor was bent over one of the holographic consoles in the cockpit of the vessel.

Given a few hours alone with the computer and all of the data inside had been all that Veetor needed. He had dredged up a baffling amount of information, and he shared it with Kal in rapid-fire, truncated sentences. "Those pirates, who were looking for their comrades? These people took them. The same people that attacked us. We might be able to use that."

The idea of rallying pirates to their cause did not sound like a good idea to Kal. "Uh, who's to stop them from turning on us?"

"I will." There was a hard edge in Veetor's voice that Kal had never heard before. Veetor had set aside all of his fear, all of his anger, and instead had tucked himself in the very thing that had kept him going from the moment he had been dragged out of Freedom's Progress. It was determination. Simple, thick-headed, blind determination.

Whoah. An electric tingle buzzed pleasantly down Kal's spine, and he knew this was a wholly inappropriate time for that, but he decided to renege any responsibility for his body's responses to Veetor's actions. He swallowed and gathered his wits again, intending to say something intelligent, but all that came out was, "This is crazy" again.

Veetor glanced to him again. "I know," he said again. This two-part exchange had made up the brunt of their conversation since they'd left G789-a. "Okay!" He began to type furiously at his Omni-tool, downloading data from the ship's computer as he spoke. "I have a simple plan. I will drop you off away from their base. I will go in. I'll get into their system, and I'll call any pirates in-system and let them know what I know. Then I'll call the Fleet and tell them everything. You'll come in, help me find the survivors, and we'll fight our way out together. They'll be distracted by the pirate attack, if the pirates come, and the pirates will be distracted by them, and we'll slip away."

Kal chewed over this. If he and Veetor did this alone, the odds were not good. Two quarians against a base full of hostiles… well, to be fair, he'd gone against worse, and fairly recently. The involvement of a third party would only complicate things. Still, every gun turned towards an angry pirate was a gun turned away from them. They alone would know everything that was going on. It would be chaos, but if they stayed sharp, they might be able to use it.

It was a gamble, and the odds didn't really favor either option, but… "Sounds good. This ship is stealth-equipped, so hopefully they won't notice you dropping me." There were other details that needed to be worked out, in case they tried to drug Veetor again or take his Omni-tool. They'd also both need a map of the base's interior. They would also need an escape route, and transportation off… he blinked. "Veetor," he asked, "where exactly are we going? Where did they intend to take you?"

Veetor looked up from his console long enough to say, "Shasta Trinity."

"Damn." He supposed it'd been too much to hope that they wanted to take Veetor to some smaller, less-fortified outpost. Oh, well. "Okay. We have a few details to work out, but… even though it's still crazy, it's simple enough." He took a deep breath, nodding decisively, as if to banish any lingering doubts he might have be harboring. "We'll make this work."