Tasa'Nel helped clean the recreation room, throwing blood-stained gauze made from torn rags into dust bins, righting some of the furniture that had been turned over, and piling into a slightly-less-messy looking pile the broken furnishings that were beyond easy salvage.
The tension lifted from the gathered group once Falindra had taken the vorcha with her. Tasa found her body became less tense when she no longer feared a vorcha throwing an unexpected tantrum before it shred her breathing apparatus with its claws.
"Isn't she amazing," Tasa said. Trez'Kailer helped her with the self-appointed chores, his arms wrapped wide around a pile of debris as he took it to the refuse pile. He grunted non-committal agreement. "First saves everybody from the malfunctioning ice drill, now she gets everyone together to help the injured batarians. You have to admit, that's pretty amazing!"
The unmasked admiration plain in her voice made her feel childish. She was grateful for the topic of conversation to share. Somehow, even after all the time spent together since their capture, Trez made her self-conscious. He had arrived two weeks after her own capture, and proved quickly that he had no intentions of being the 'new person' victim when he caught one of the salarians stealing from her and successfully demanded the return of spare rations taken from the kitchen. He appointed himself her protector immediately after.
The worse disillusionment that comes with age is, all too naturally, that life does not unfold as youthful visions predict. The quarians were heroes among the galaxy, their fleet instrumental in defeating the Reapers. They had retaken their home world.
Even the geth were gone. Supposedly, the machines made peace with their creators before and fought alongside them in the battle to save Earth. Tasa was uncertain about those details. Few people knew all the facts from those violent, history shaking days; but some facts lay bare: the androids that nearly drove the quarians to extinction were themselves no more. Her people possessed a home world again. They had saved the galaxy. It was to be an era of jubilation and prosperity.
So why wasn't it? Her people had grown divided, many too settled into the traditions they had built during generations living aboard ships, Tasa among them. The Bellapay had been a home where she knew safety, its boundaries defined and limits known. Every corridor was an avenue and she knew every deck of the ship. Nothing of that life or the Pilgrimage that marked her rite of passage into her adulthood had prepared her for being suddenly transferred to an open plateau, a horrifyingly limitless expanse of mysterious animal sounds and random wind storms. That was where her wonderful new life was supposed to start. From machinist to crop farmer in twelve days: nine days for planetary acclamation and three days of class where an unfamiliar captain turned regional governor gave instructions on how to grow certain types of crops best suited to the area. The captain was quite proud of his deductions about these crops and the wisdom he was able to share. He had discovered in his ship's computer archives a history book on agriculture for the region. It contained everything the farmers needed to know. Three days with a naval captain reading from a history book and she was declared ready for a life she never intended.
Three months taught her about the exhaustions of outdoor labor. About soil erosion and unexpected drought and pests that burrowed underground where they ate roots and of pesticides that Citadel Space manufacturers charged heavy fees to export. After three months she became one of thousands of quarians who joined the unexpected 'Reverse Migration' back into space, trying to find a ship to call home once more.
Trying to survive the Attican Traverse by herself was far different than traveling through it among a fleet of thousands. One poorly booked passage and a minor course correction later led to slavery.
If Trez had not come along she'd surely have succumbed to despair by now. He looked out for her, and empathized. Despite their circumstances his confidence never seemed to waver and it became infectious. She lay against his chest at night and found refuge in the rhythm of his breathing. She craved to see him unmasked, glide her fingers across his skin. The only storybook element that had visited her life was the intrepid, heroic man who arrived, the only two members of their species, marooned together on the frontier. It was romantic, save that he only ever held her to share warmth. She'd watched the captives pair off among the humans , listened to their love-making at night from adjacent corridors and wished Trez might, while holding her, finally succumb to lust, wondered how he had not yet guessed her wish. She ignored the fact that stripping off their environmental suits might lead to their deaths.
"I don't think she's even afraid of the Dread Claw. You saw how she tells that one vorcha what to do. I bet she's unafraid of the krogan." Tasa was in a good mood, euphoric from the peculiar combination of assisting in a good deed and feeling like she was in the midst of succeeding in mischief.
She dropped two halves of a plastic chair on top of the pile, now standing waist high, and nudged her leg against the heap, pressing it against the wall.
"She's definitely unafraid," Trez responded. "I had to stop her from meddling when Bodix attacked the batarians.
"Really," said Tasa, astounded.
"Oh, yeah. I caught her marching toward the fight, about to throw her fists into the mix before I talked sense into her."
"Do you think Bodix would have killed her?"
Trez, mid-step toward a dining tray shattered on the floor, stopped and stood squarely facing her. "I think asari love to lead and love the rest of us to watch. When her self-aggrandizing backfires we'll reap the consequences."
"That's not true," Tasa said, disappointed with his cynicism.
"Oh. Did she ask if people wanted to help the batarians, if they were happy with that risk? What if the krogan decided to pay more attention to their prisoners than their drink this evening? It happens. Do you think they'd applaud our cooperation to see us all working together? How might your heroic asari have protected us then?"
"Shh! Trez! You shouldn't say things like that." She stuck out her chin in the direction of the two asari still in the room, standing near the unused bar.
''What," he responded drolly. "You think they've ever bothered learning to speak quarian in the first five hundred years of their lives?"
"Now you're being mean."
He became motionless. "You're right," he said, as if he'd been delivered epiphany. "One should never be uncivil." He shook himself just as quickly from the flash of reverie and went back to cleaning the room. "But my argument stands, believe that."
A salarian stepped past Tasa and headed toward the door before he stopped, turned around and smiled. He was the one who stitched up Ralik's face, Potes she recalled. He kept smiling and said, "I'm going to find Falindra," and if Tasa spoke salarian at all, then the words might not have sounded like squeaky gibberish. He left the room.
The access shaft that led down was littered with debris. Air intake vents had created a tide of invisible current, soft breezes that, over several years, gathered detritus – fecal matter of alien vermin, the broken odds and ends of discarded tools, and dust balls – in every crevice; but these were not obstacles compared to the broken piping that hung like wrathful stalactites from the sundered ceiling, or the larger discarded items littering the floor, including the skeletal remains of a murder victim, his body so carelessly discarded that only the extreme indifference of the Dread Claw explained the lack of official discovery.
They walked in single file with Gursk leading and Sye taking up the rear. Falindra pretended that they had deliberately chosen their order so that if they came across a krogan or another vorcha they might inconspicuously appear to be a guard and freeman escorting a slave between them. In truth, their order was happenstance. Gursk was content clearing a path by punching and kicking and head-butting any rubbish in his way (or, for that matter, rubbish not in his way but which made good sport. Sye tripped, bashed his shins, and clunked his head too frequently to keep pace.
The noise of Sye's groaned complaints at repeated pain and inevitable bruises kept them company. Each scrape became more melodramatic, each yelp a display of his manly willingness to endure pain.
It made him comical rather than admirable, but Falindra suppressed any urge to laugh or berate him for making unnecessary noise for fear of wounding his ego. Those sorts of bruises were always far worse and didn't always promise to heal. She'd yet to figure out why he followed her so readily and the mystery left her unsettled. Until she gleaned the answer she'd maintain the civil façade of intrigue.
She felt awkward being placed in positions of leadership. Commanding a small team of specialists was easy. She knew the inner workings and quirks of the Nefrane's port gun batteries better than nearly anyone. That expertise provided her the confidence to instruct other gunnery crew on their duties. Plus, in small teams an informality and kinship overrode the discomfort of hierarchy, of relationships always tinged with the undertone of authority-meets-subordinate. The navy was a poor profession for someone uncomfortable with hierarchies. It was her secret shame that serving at the rank of lieutenant commander had already started revealing those weaknesses, which would only become more pronounced with each promotion. Joining the Serrice Guard had been as much about minimizing her weaknesses as making use of her strengths.
Puzzling through this conundrum, surprised by being mentally mugged by bad memories the way such memories are wont to appear from the dark places where they hide and never entirely die, the truth behind the aid being given by her two companions was beyond her power to fully understand.
For Gursk the answer was equally impossible to put into words. If the other vorcha or the krogan were half as competent as they bragged they'd still be unequal to Captain Foul who never bragged at all. He recognized the calculated measure in each of her movements, no wasted energy or casual step, the patterns of a vigilant predator. He knew her mind was at work on plans even if he lacked the insight to guess what they were, like the way she engineered for the other slaves to nurse the injured batarians when it was within her power to provide the aid herself. That would have been the easier choice and the safer one. She might have collected a personal debt instead of letting Muriel and Charval bank those future favors.
It wasn't recognizing her talent that won his companionship. That was owed to something far simpler and still beyond his means to understand. She never called him stupid. Her face never displayed the contemptuous sneer that the krogan always made a point to share. Disdain made worse when a companion made such a weak effort to disguise it while asking for favors. No matter how important the request, the krogan, or even his fellow vorcha, never found the tact to hide their contempt. The expressions among the slaves were no better. Even when he beat on them the least among all of the vorcha, even as he kept watch for them moments ago, the humans and salarians always left the hatred and revulsion for him exposed on their faces. Captain Foul was different; only Mechano-Man came close, but he was no warrior. He did not possess the words to articulate the respect she showed him that he'd never before received, yet he found the feeling addictive, comforting. She knew his weakness, his sole fear, and still treated him with respect. The loyalty he felt toward her was unparalleled to anything in his past. He felt no compunction about betraying the Dread Claw as a consequence of this simple change of fealty.
For Sye, the reason he followed was simple. Despite the pain it seemed to entail and the unacknowledged admiration for how he braved them, he still held true to the simplest of maxims to live by: when a beautiful, fascinating woman who knows how to kill you ten different ways asks for your company, there is one answer that is correct and another that makes you a candidate for psychiatric institutionalization. He knew the correct answer.
They formed a conspirators' triangle (Falindra and Sye stood, Drin sat on his bar stool), sipping tea while they plotted sabotage and mayhem. Gursk tinkered with a collection of tools laid across the professor's work bench, reorganizing them in a row from smallest and to largest, gurgling glee at his organizational skills and grunting half-hearted confirmations that he listened to the conversation. The room felt cramped with four people in it. Low hanging pipes along the ceiling and the work station and power monitoring systems against the wall left little room for people to find comfort. Falindra stole a glance at her handiwork on one of the pressure pipes and the inconspicuous hole above it that she had made into the ceiling. The she began:
"I promised you that when I escaped, I'd be taking the slaves with me." Drin nodded grimly. "So it's time to get everyone ready," she said succinctly.
"Escape?" said Sye. "We had plans on escaping? Did I know about this? Did I share in this grand delusion?"
"It's happening," she said, quiet but somehow definitive.
"No offense against your grand designs, but the Dread Claw is likely to object. Strenuously. It'd be a shame seeing you perforated with bullets when I'd gotten so fond of your presence." He gently wrapped his hand around her arm. "Krogan shotguns have a way of ruining other people's fun."
Falindra firmly removed his hand. "Sye, I am escaping. I've planned to escape since I arrived. I know exactly what method I'll use, which tools I'll need. If I'm going to help all the slaves escape, though, then you're needed. That's why I risked inviting you here. You're the only person who knows my intentions besides Drin and Gursk because you're the only one who can organize and convince all the slaves to hustle where they need to be when, as you say, krogan shotguns are brought to bear. It's up to you whether to walk away, maybe report us. You're no slave, strictly speaking," she emphasized the last part. "The krogan are sure to consider you a finer friend, worthy of their esteem, for foiling an escape attempt."
They both knew the falsity of that statement. Whatever agreement that Sye once brokered to gain residence among the pirates had long turned to dust. In another month his life expectancy would be no better a gamble than any of the captives.
"Well since you need someone heroic, I certainly can't refuse; but I think you'll owe me a kiss for my gallantry." He gave his best grin, the one that wooed the daughters of prime ministers and generals, the same one that preceded the cause of arrest warrants on five different worlds, but helped get two warrants rescinded. "And since I'm likely to die, I'll want payment in advance."
He hardly expected Falindra to throw her arms around his head and press her body against him in a burst of pornographic lust (though he'd offer no objections in such an unlikely event). It was enough to watch the flicker of confusion on her brow, the slight blush. That was his nectar.
"Are your hormones hardwired to your tongue," snapped Drin.
"It's possible," said Sye and stared into an invisible point as though the question demanded consideration.
Falindra raised her arm between the two men and they both fell silent, bringing an end to the squabble before it evolved into a genuine fight. For all of Sye's nonchalance or the professor's masked face, she sensed that their brief exchange carried the barbs of a mutual dislike wanting for the chance to catch fire. She didn't understand it. They were together for an agreed common cause, the matter urgent, yet her two allies immediately fell to bickering. It never happened among a squad of the Serrice Guard.
"Gursk," she said over her shoulder toward the corner of the room where he lurked. "Please join us. I need you to be involved. I'll be counting on you to help these two out."
"Huh," he responded, plopping down the wrench in his hand before he sauntered over. Nobody ever needed him before. Sure, Drau Gorba shouted orders and Skeb always tried telling him what to do – usually amidst threats that he'd die if either one felt displeased by the effectiveness of his subservience – but they never needed him.
Gursk swiped his tongue along his upper gum line and chanced upon an unfinished morsel of desiccated meat. He decided this was a good omen. He came into their circled and stood next to Falindra, skin brushing hers. Sye suppressed a spasm of jealousy.
"First," she began. "Do you have that omni-tool ready for me? If not, this will be a short briefing."
Drin lowered himself onto the floor and scurried under the workbench. He brushed aside two metal storage boxes and retrieved the Elkoss Combine produced device. He stood upright, grunting with the stiffness in his back, and proffered the device to Falindra. "It's a Cipher V model. It lacks the sophistication of the designs you're surely used to employing and it has seen some ware."
She snapped the magnetic clasps around her forearm and clicked on the power. The omni-tool hummed to life, producing the signature holographic amber glow that sheathed her hand and lower arm. Some of the distinctive colorations that represented soft-pressure commands flickered for several seconds before manifesting a clear resolution.
"I have managed to program most of the modifications you wanted: remote connection commands, parallel processors. It's not perfect. Zugo allowed several corruptive files to embed themselves in the core programming. I've been unable to scrub the memory of his considerable collection of hanar pornography. So you'll be suffering with that for a while yet"
Sye burst into peals of laughter. "I have a new level of respect for that demented krogan. I haven't seen hanar porn since I left Kahje. That's a lot of anti-gravity blubber to keep in focus."
He wiped a tear that managed to sneak past both sets of eyelids from his right eye, and then noticed that none of his cohorts shared in his amusement. Worse, it seemed to exasperate the grim faces they were so intent on wearing. Apparently, humor was an insult to their dour moods. "If the three of you don't see the funny, you've got defective brains."
Gursk, who secretly worried that he suffered from just such an ailment, offered a long-delayed laughter to undermine Sye's accusation.
"Please…," said Falindra. Her patience wore out fast from diversions during a mission briefing. "The Dread Claw is going to object to escape attempts and if we don't plan, those objections will translate into corpses, so let's not be distracted by our perversions."
Sye muttered something about his perversions being his best qualities, but complied.
Later, she'd wonder why, after fostering camaraderie among the other prisoners, she became so quick to discourage it when she found herself involved. In the recreation room she had gathered everyone, then reduced herself to a detached monitor. Here, Sye welcomed laughter from her. Laughter is the easiest of intimacies and she scoffed at it because her mind set itself to mission mode. Later, always too late, the introspection kicked in and she wondered about these things.
"Professor, I'm going to start a fight in the processing room. Once that happens you need to get to the security room and disable the power."
"How is losing power possibly going to help us escape? Unless you want to seize control of the building, I'd think power might be rather helpful for any escape route."
"This room will remain operational."
"Then the krogan will simply scramble in there, kill anyone they find, and retake control." The volus attempted to understand her schemes. For all his technical brilliance, her strategy was elusive, which unnerved him.
Falindra waited. She had decided that, in case one of the three men proved unworthy of the trust of welcoming them into this plot, her intentions need not be provided in detail. While the professor bemoaned the futility of cutting power, she soaked in the ambience. The dim of one angled ceiling light that provided an appropriately shadowy setting. The mechanical coughing of environmental systems haunted by broken cogs and poor maintenance. She listened for creaking metal floorboards beyond the room, watched for beams of flashlight, sniffed for suspicious odors coming from the ventilation.
She learned that on the Nefrane, a strange smell in the air circulation often foreshadowed growing danger: a fire on another level; toxins leaked into the air filtration. Keeping yourself constantly attuned to those small sensations helped prevent calamity.
"…Besides," concluded the professor, reaching the end of his list of critical objections. "There's a door of three inch thick hardened steel we have to bypass."
"Try flirting with one of the krogan until he volunteers the security codes," suggested Sye. "It seems like Drau Zugo has an experimental mind. Maybe he'll enjoy your sexual wiles. Volus do have wiles, don't they?"
"Stop thinking about pornography, you insufferable scoundrel." Drin waved a stern, chubby finger that intimidated with a surprising force of will.
"Gursk can get you past the door, right Gursk?" Falindra ignored the irrelevant parts of the conversation.
The vorcha nodded agreeably. "Me needed to open door." He rolled his tongue along the upper gum line again and was disappointed not to discover any further morsels of food.
"Okay, but after that I actually have to program the computer to cease power distribution. That might take a while."
"Won't blowing up the computer do the job?" she asked.
"Ah, the subtle artistry of crude destruction. Perfect stratagem. And how might I achieve such a feat?"
Falindra hunkered down and reached for her shoe lace. Her fingers worked free one of the few tips remaining. She was running low of utilities at hand and was now giving away the only weapon in her possession. The omni-tool now strapped around her arm made up for it partially, but she chose not to share with the three men that without a biotic implant – or a pistol at the very least – she did not believe their success was guaranteed. Not even slightly.
She stood up and held out her hand until Drin took the lace tip from her. He held it close to his eyes and made quizzical sounds.
"It's a micro grenade."
He snapped his hand away, choking through a surge of panic, mortified that he'd held the grenade so near his head. A vague animal fear struck him that the weapon, with fiendish sentience, might sense the closeness of his face and choose to go off.
"You wear a grenade?" He shouted in disbelief. The others winced as his voice carried.
"It's a useful emergency tool to have on hand."
"Screw drivers are tools. Bombs are not."
"Please don't get agitated," Falindra said. "I promise you that it's safe. It's a micro-grenade; it's nearly harmless – just enough explosive to do the job. Or keep it as an emergency weapon if you are able to program the power shut down. You might need it to get through a door if Gursk can't bypass the locks."
Drin wobbled and his cohorts half expected his legs to buckle and for him to land on his large rump. Somehow, he found steel in those legs.
He said: "Falindra, having dedicated my academic career to the study of natural sciences, I won't pretend to have a mastery of the military philosophies you surely possess; but I do not believe there has yet been invented a category of ordinance to which the title 'nearly harmless' applies. I've watched several war documentaries and not once in any of them do I recall a re-enactment where sergeants ordered their squads to lob 'nearly harmless' grenades at the enemy.
Sye clapped his hands together once in splendid appreciation. "You do enjoy letting your mind spin itself into a good rant, professor."
Drin pointed his imposing finger up at the drell outlaw again, warning against interruption. The round and comical little figure of a man refused to be deterred when an argument needed to be made. When his authoritative finger was done quelling Sye, it pointed toward Gursk emphatically. "The woman concerned about a vorcha's mental stability advises about the benefits of wearing explosive fashion accessories."
She never considered herself a great leader, thought she'd been lucky to have exceptional crewmen under her command. She never before faced such hostile scepticism while issuing orders and was uncertain how to respond. She did know that it required a fast response before his anxiety became contagious.
Falindra knelt down until her face was on even level with his. "You wanted this. You made me swear not to abandon the captives when I made my escape. I'm trying to fulfil that promise. Did you think moving twenty plus civilians past armed overseers was going to be done without coordination?
She rested a hand on his sloping shoulder. "I need help. Unless you've discovered how to make teleportation a reality."
He sighed. "I've worked on theories." He looked solemnly up at the other two men, then back at her. "I just never realized….. I'd hate for people to get hurt. I just want to be back at the university, back at work."
A horrible pang of guilt stabbed Falindra in the gut. She straightened up to her full height and tried to suppress the feeling, but without much success. She still had to tell Drin Haylar that he'd never be returning to his old life, that he'd stumbled into internecine conspiracies and that, if he was very lucky, he might avoid an assassin's bullet. Now was about the worst time to explain that his life was ruined. Asking him to risk his life under false pretenses lacked honor. It was unjust and she had to tell him. She was surprised that the choice affected her so greatly. The two had known each other a few weeks. They sipped tea together. There'd been no love making or soulful confessions. She hadn't counted on imprisonment, like military service, building strong personal bonds. She silently prayed he'd forgive her previous deceit.
"You can't go back to your old life, professor. That won't happen even if we get out of here. Not for the foreseeable future." Her lips became thin lines on her face.
"What are you talking about? Even if I'm not reinstated at Ten-Clan there are scores of universities that would bid to have me." His protest felt weak. He knew by the firmness of her voice that this argument was irrelevant. She had a horrible revelation to divulge like some wicked mythical figure spewing bleak prophecy. "What haven't you told me?"
Sye stepped out of their huddle, seeking invisibility.
"You're the second reason I came here," said Falindra. "You said yourself that it was harsh for the Academy to fire you. Your research is brilliant, on the precipice of great discovery. Except that the research you wanted funded next was going to uncover some enormous conspiracies."
"What in the universe are you talking about?"
"Industrial strength plasma batteries. You wanted to inventory and analyze hundreds of them to demonstrate that the applications of your proposed projects might be superior."
"And?" He was half incredulous, half grief-stricken.
She hated telling him this. "Industrial plasma batteries, like the ones used on helium-3 extractors and military cruisers. You have no idea how many were reported destroyed or missing following the Reaper War. How many of those were false reports? Intelligence communities have nightmares about that sort of thing. But hardware like that isn't the same as hiding black market Red Sand. Someone of your thoroughness and expertise is going to notice inconsistencies in reports, is going to detect anomalous energy readings."
"This is preposterous. And irrelevant. I don't want to hear your conspiracy fantasies. Like I said, if Ten-Clan won't take me back I'll find a school on Irune. Or maybe Palaven."
The heat bloomed across Falindra's face. She hated this, was embarrassed to have the discussion in front of others. "Believe me, it's happened. Who do you think put those helium-3 extractors up there for the Dread Claw to guard? Anyone who has the resources to organize that has the means to make friends with university deans and presidents. You're not going back to academia, professor. I'm deeply sorry, but you're not."
His breathing apparatus made horrid rasping sounds as it struggled to hold in the anger he vented. "You knew the whole time we sipped tea and you talked about rescuing us?"
She nodded. She tried holding his gaze and failed.
"Me protect you after we leave world if you like." Gursk offered. The conversation was beyond his grasp, but he knew where he might be helpful and was delighted to try.
"You're screwed," said Sye. "Not but because of what she said. Just because of Gursk."
"Me kill anyone trying to kill Mechano-Man."
Falindra was grateful for the presence of the other two, as much as it added to her shame seconds before. The current of anger in the air dissipated, even if there was the hidden promise that the discussion might continue at a later time.
"Exactly," she said. "Once I draw the Dread Claw into the processing room you two will enter the security room, disable the power transfer systems, then leave through the front air hatch and make your way toward the launch pad to meet with the others." She tried sounding professional. Back to the mission briefing. But a lump in her throat made her voice warble. She paused, then started again. "Sye, once you see the lights lose power you have to herd all the slaves quickly toward the eastern air hatch. One of the wheeled transports will be waiting outside."
"How?" he said.
She didn't want to explain how during her excursion outside, after Gursk had led her toward the vehicle platform, she had tampered with one ATV's computer, had embedded control commands in its auto navigational programs. "It will be there. Signal my omni-tool when you have everyone on board, then head east for twenty seconds. Its sensor system is going to cut out so you'll be driving on visuals after that. Turn north toward the launch pad and get everyone onto Hastings' ship."
Sye nodded.
"You need to be stern, Sye. When the building loses power and people start hearing guns, there's going to be a lot of fear. People won't be rational, which means they'll be receptive to someone showing strength and giving them order; but if you waver or let them start to panic, we'll have a disaster, so keep herding them. Tell them they're escaping, but don't give details."
"I've got plenty of confidence in you." Sye the Cordial raised one more concern. "But two dozen armed and homicidal pirates seem like bad odds. How are you going to deal with all the krogan?"
"Give it a couple days and there'll hardly be any," she replied knowingly.
Falindra left with Sye by her side. It took only mild prodding to convince her that leaving their clandestine meeting as a pair was safer than departing individually. If a wandering krogan or vorcha stumbled upon them and became suspicious about their late night wanderings, the easiest cover story, much to his delight, was that they were lovers who hungered for a private, carnal moment, and stole away to an unused room for shared gratification. Unbeknownst to Falindra, he had shared his romantic fantasies about her with enough of the captives and captors both to lend weighted plausibility to the rouse.
Unfortunately for Sye Videl, proud libertine and connoisseur of debauchery, the asari by his side was completely disinterested in any smooth talk he offered. She remained absorbed in her contemplations.
They walked up the access corridor ramp toward the slaves' makeshift barracks in the old corridors. Her eyes stared into the riddles of imaginary focal points ahead, never once reciprocating the shared glances he tried to steal. A couple times she switched her attention and he thought her focus finally fell to him, but she invariably muttered words about this distance from the reclamation room to processing, the paces along the secondary corridor, or time, in seconds, it took to ascent ventral access.
He liked the shape of her lips when she talked to herself and the way her jawbone elongated her cheeks.
She thrust an arm in front of him, a bullet blur that nearly made him yelp in surprise. He stood still at her bidding near the upper mouth of the tunnel. Falindra stepped forward and around the corner the way a predator rounds about its trapped quarry, sniffing for signs on whether a crippling wound is real or a feint. She held one firmly near her leg, knuckles flexed forward in preparation for a martial strike.
"Hello Charval," she said and Sye saw the salarian come into view from around the corner.
He guffawed and stared at his hands, thumbs nervously twining. For his recent efforts as a nurse Charval Potes was on the verge of being rewarded with a coma. Sye didn't understand why Falindra acted like a creature threatened, but he hoped that the salarian possessed conversational skills that impressed her more than his own.
"I was looking for you," said Charval.
"Were you?" Falindra responded cryptically. She had been ruminating about the figures who fit into the plot she investigated. The Dread Claw was not the true threat. For all their viciousness and temerity, they were a pirate group with an illegal ice mining operation, hardly unheard of in the Terminus. They lacked the resources to operate a helium-3 facility; they were agents of someone else. How much had Walbeck known when he betrayed his Alliance oaths and double cross her? Did he serve some secret master or was he the puppeteer? She doubted the latter was possible; he was too snivelling, too scared. What about the non-slaves that were laid up in the habitat like stranded hobos? Could someone like Hastings or one of the batarians be an undisclosed ally to something more sinister? Maybe the quarians? She was going through a mental checklist of suspicious individuals when the salarian with the deft hands and hidden pockets came upon them.
"I wanted to thank you," said Charval, still uncomfortable with the moment, with his broken use of the asari language. His gratitude came forth like a confession.
"For?"
"Convincing us to help the batarians." He said the next words with emphasis in case they were not believed. "It felt good you know. For the first time in forever I didn't feel… powerless… like I'm just waiting to see where the universe dumps me next."
"And you came here to tell me?" she asked, and since these are not the usual words to express 'you are welcome' Charval sensed for the first time that something might not be right, worrying he'd caused offense.
"You weren't at your sleeping mat. Everyone knows you like having tea with the volus. I figured it was the best place to find you."
"Did you?" Her voice grew ominous.
"Uh, yes. Sorry, was the tea a secret?"
Sye stepped in and put into practice his greatest skill: conversation. He thanked Charval for taking the time to thank the triage organizer, quipped that the salarian obviously looked for any pretext to admire her beauty. Falindra blushed, embarrassed and angry, but it was the sort of anger that took the fight out of her. He expressed wonder at the precision Charval displayed while stitching Ralik's wounds, then pontificated at length about the salarian's higher destiny as a brave doctor serving desperate townsfolk on some pastoral frontier world where a voluptuous salarian princess awaited him (salarian lack of romantic concepts not withstanding).
By the time he finished, his audience was spent and they parted ways, the asari commando mollified, if for the moment, and Charval left euphoric with a sense of accomplishment and success that had too long evaded him.
After Potes left their company, Sye and Falindra continued to their makeshift beds. He speculated how quickly she'd lose the good will she had won from the prisoners if she planned to maim every person she helped. Before they went their separate ways, Sye took her wrist in his hand.
"One thing has become abundantly clear, sweetie: you need me."
She blinked and offered no response; but at least he had her attention.