[ Chapter 11: Trespassers ]
The girl lightly shivered. Somewhere far off into the ventilation system was a steady, artificially cooled breeze, generated to continuously circulate the air in the building that would otherwise stagnate. Her cheeks were growing colder by the second as the frigid air enveloped her. She came across a division in the vents, illuminated by the glow of her omni-tool which also displayed the map of the system and consequently, the correct route leading her to the location she and her team had identified as the main lobby. Liselle made her choice, starting down a new branch and bravely losing herself deeper into the maze as she listened to the voices of her teammates crackling in her earpiece, allowing her to eavesdrop on their encounter with the mercenaries standing guard outside the building.
A few minutes were spent navigating through the claustrophobic spaces, and after their lonely duration Liselle reached her target: a grating bolted into the floor of the vents, emitting beams of light that glittered off dust particles floating in front of its resplendence. She wisely dismissed her omni-tool, protecting herself from the possibility where someone would look upward and notice a suspicious orange glow. Once that precaution had been taken, Liselle inched closer to the grating's edge and peered down to observe the events transpiring below her position.
The scents of sour cigarette smoke and pungent alcohol drifting up and filling her nostrils made her involuntarily wrinkle her nose in mild disgust. After she overcame the smell, Liselle turned her eyes upon the individuals mulling about: mercenaries of all breeds with impressive guns fastened to their sets of rugged armor sitting around tables laden with playing cards, credit chits, and drinking glasses; some chatting and boasting to their grinning acquaintances where they stood leaning aloof against the walls; and others yet whispering closely to each other and periodically throwing furtive glances over their shoulders. She didn't have to wait long before she spotted the unmistakable figures of Malak and Rasma traveling right beneath the grating, heading down the central aisle between sets of tables and inevitably toward the back counter where a krogan was serving drinks. Liselle heard their voices in her earpiece, coupled by their faint echo amidst the drone of chatter below, while also occasionally catching glimpses of their movements in between intervals where mercenaries passed through her line of sight.
"Freelancers, huh?" came the rumbling tone of the krogan. "You get mixed up with us, that'll change real soon."
"We still need some work," Rasma replied. "Haven't been able to find any good contracts lately, and we heard that Calan had a pretty stable flow of them. If that's true, then who knows? We might just be inclined to stick around."
The krogan grumbled something indistinct, then spoke more clearly, "Well, you both look like you can handle yourselves. If you're serious about looking for work, I'll have to tell you how Calan runs things around here. Clients show up and tell us who they want offed, we arrange a price, and we pass on the contract to the hunters. If you get the job done, and if you manage to meet all 'specifications' the client wanted, you get a sixty percent cut of the original bounty. The other forty goes to the guild's coffers. Want to raise your cut? Stick around, improve your rep, impress Calan, and he might just work something out with you. Aside from that, anyone's allowed to hang around as long as you play by our rules and don't bring your trouble with you. We've got enough to deal with these days—what with T'Loak slowly marching in from all sides and local gangs raving in the streets..."
"So this is a bit of an honorable establishment, then?" Rasma inquired with a tinge of sarcasm.
"We look out for our own and don't act like animals, if that's what you're asking," answered the krogan. "So what'll it be? Still want a contract?"
Rasma looked over at Malak, pretending to consult her companion before making a decision. He folded his arms, thinking, and mused aloud, "Sounds good to me. Freelance work is getting a little unreliable. It would be nice to convert to a steadier source of income for once."
With that settled, the krogan turned to access the list of bounties from a device stored beneath the counter. He passed it onto them, and while Malak leaned in to read its contents along with Rasma, the krogan asked, "So what type of partners are you?"
"Business," Rasma immediately answered without looking up. "Twelve years, I think."
Liselle waited a few moments before her turian ally spoke up again.
"This one," she said to Malak, who nodded in agreement. "This guy." She informed the krogan as well.
"Really?" he dubiously asked. "We've already lost two hunters to that bastard, and the contract has only been up for a few weeks."
"We need the money and we know what we're doing," Rasma dismissed his warning.
After a pause, the krogan suspiciously muttered, "This better not be a joke."
"Just give us the details, let us sign for the contract, and we'll be out of here," Malak insisted.
Another pause, eventually followed by the krogan's acquiescence. "Stay right here a few minutes. Calan would probably want to speak to you first."
Liselle could scarcely hear what was said next, but an orange interface became visible upon his arm.
"While we wait," the krogan said, "how about a drink? First round for new faces is on the house. And if you geniuses really want to take this bounty, it might be your last."
Malak accepted his offer the very instant Rasma declined. He was served a drink while Rasma simmered at his complacency, and was only able to spend a few moments tasting the liquor before he became aware of the ferocious gaze burning into the side of his head.
"What?" he irritably asked. "Twelve years and I'm still not allowed to choose what I put into my face?"
Stationed above, Liselle had made herself comfortable in the vents, lying prone with her legs stretched out straight and her arms folded with hands tucked beneath her chin. She entertained herself by spying on all the other loitering mercs, watching them drink and gamble while listening to her teammates' sporadic chatter on the side. At last, a batarian emerged from a back door to greet them, introducing himself as Denar Calan before exchanging professional nods with the fake hunters and asking them about the bounty. They insisted on taking it in defiance of his austere warnings which urged them to start with smaller bounties so that their skills were not so brashly wasted on fantastical titans, but he was ultimately unable to dissuade them. Large sums of money were needed as soon as possible, they explained, and the danger associated with the bounty would be nothing against their decade-plus of experience. At last they were able to convince Calan of their unshakable commitment to silencing the individual they had selected, and so he proceeded to lead the two over to an unoccupied booth away from the heart of the mercenary sea where they sat down. They were closer to Liselle now, who could faintly make out Calan's countenance. The batarian wore a few scars and shallow creases of age in the ridges of his face, with some contributing to an accentuated, perpetual frown hanging onto the corners of his mouth.
Once the three were situated, Calan lifted a hand to motion to one of his employees. The person disappeared from sight and reappeared a minute later with a small plate stacked with cigars and set it down onto their table. Calan motioned to both Rasma and Malak to take one if they pleased, noting to Rasma that the ones marked by a red band were made with dextro-amino herbs.
Malak reached out, took an unmarked one between a thumb and index finger, then pretended to search his attire for the item he had previously relinquished to Liselle. When he 'discovered' it was absent, he turned to his partner and asked her, "Hey, do you have a lighter?"
"I don't," she replied. "Not at the moment."
"That's not a problem," Calan said. "I have one to spare."
Liselle watched Malak light himself a cigar while Rasma abstained once again. She almost snorted at the sight—the man was just putting all sorts of things in his face today, liberally consuming all the offerings made by people who would probably have him killed if they knew what he and his associate were up to. But it was candid, Liselle recognized. It was convincing, and appropriately drew suspicion away from Rasma's intense prudence. After watching the tendrils of smoke begin to rise from the two batarians in that booth, Liselle acted on the signal to proceed. She carefully crawled over the grating, making sure not to place her weight on it while passing, and once she had left the aura of light behind she flicked on her omni-tool and redisplayed the map projection.
:::
The councilor was pacing within a fog of worry. Her arms were folded across her chest, tucked into the comfortable folds of her pale night robe donned over the silky attire she frequently wore to bed—a thin shirt fastened together in the front by a column of dainty nacreous buttons, accompanied by its mate whose identical material sheathed her legs from waist to ankles. It was a very conservative ensemble, and appropriately so in preparation for her anticipated company. But her wardrobe choice had utterly vanished from her conscience in the late hour, and was replaced by a much more pressing matter: her houseguest was roughly thirty minutes tardy without explanation or forewarning.
The implications haunted her, brought rise to a great, dark fear billowing in the depths of her heart. Had her guest been caught and detained? Was she in some small metal room at the moment, defiantly leering at her captors as they assaulted her with questions to which she responded with evasion or outright refusal to comply? It was too horrific a scene to mentally entertain. And besides, if Aria had been discovered, Tevos would've likely been one of the first people to be notified, especially if Aria had been caught prowling around the perimeter of the heavily-guarded tier of prestigious apartments just a few minutes' stroll and an elevator ride away from the Embassies.
Nevertheless, she contritely thought, this was an awful idea from its very first inception. Absolutely awful.
Pure dread rose from her footfalls in near-palpable amounts as she walked the line dividing her apartment's main sitting room and its kitchen. The lights were off, communicating to all patrols that she had gone to sleep long ago, and the only illumination to find her body and grant her operable vision was pouring through the window mounted above the kitchen's sink, supplied by the heavenly nighttime ceiling of the Presidium's torus.
Originally, the instructions Tevos had passed onto Aria contained the best model of action she could possibly contrive. Aria left the Citadel after their meeting as planned, but loitered right outside Citadel traffic before reentering under the false identification of a Spectre-owned vessel. During heavily classified operations, such agents were traditionally issued special authorization codes to be transmitted from their ship's central computer to Citadel Control, who would relay the request for docking straight to councilors for approval. If the councilors were not expecting returning Spectres, permission to dock could merely be denied and Citadel Control would default to handling the matter. But in this case, Tevos saw to it that Aria was granted approval.
When presented with this plan, Aria naturally inquired about the other councilors becoming aware of the unanticipated, supposed Spectre arrival.
"Unlike the set of councilors you met years ago," Tevos had replied with the smallest of smiles, "these ones like me. They will defer to my appraisal of the matter, particularly because I am the one primarily presiding over the recent incidents."
From a successful dock, Aria would clad herself in the combat-issue C-Sec armor Tevos had arranged to supply her with prior to her initial departure, and then she would proceed to mingle in the ocean of blue officers before meandering off when approaching the Embassies. Once there, Aria would find herself in a zone restricted to those guards specifically appointed to monitor the upper-class housing of dignitaries, celebrities, and moguls, and would have to utilize every ounce of discretion contained within her body to reach her destination undetected.
Although the councilor's plan was lacking a bit in simplicity, it presented to them the best odds of success, and so Aria conformed to it but not without first commenting on how Tevos's plans never seemed to play out as initially designed. Tevos found a little humor in that grim note when they were still safely in her office, but in the present where she paced and fretted in tortuous, solitary limbo, she could no longer fathom laughing at such a tasteless and vulgar quip.
There came the sound of two taps on the window. Tevos immediately turned in the direction of the source to see a dark silhouette perched on the sill outside, helmet absent to reveal the sight of an asari profile whose gaze was turned outward, monitoring her surroundings for any patrols.
After hurrying into the kitchen, Tevos swiftly unlocked the window by a dually biometric and ID-keyed lock. The click drew Aria's attention, and a moment passed wherein their eyes met with equal urgency and simultaneous relief at their escape from peril. The very instant the window was lifted open and Tevos had stepped out of the way, Aria fastened her fingers around the top border of the frame and swung herself through the opening in a single, smooth motion. The soles of her boots hit the kitchen's tiles, followed by the muffled thud of a valise released from her grasp and brusquely deposited onto the floor beside her.
Tevos closed and locked the window again, then beheld the fusion of contradictions stranding before her—this sentinel of Omega clad in the asari-tailored uniform of the Citadel's security force which encased her form in a near-perfect fit. Illness pervaded the councilor as she remembered that she alone was responsible for authorizing this... desecration.
Ignorant—or apathetic—to Tevos's grievance, Aria surveyed her new surroundings, only pausing to dust a leaf off her forearm. It fluttered down to the tile. "Well, that was glamorous," Aria said in a tone so flat that Tevos could scarcely determine whether the comment was sarcastic or sincere.
Instead of throwing her time into the vain abyss of trying to interpret Aria's words, Tevos asked her at once, "What kept you? Were you seen?"
The other asari scoffed at the notion. "No one sees me unless I want them to. I simply spent a little extra time monitoring the patrols and memorizing their routes." She began removing the plates of blue and gray armor encasing her arms, systematically pressing her fingers into latches that released the sections before peeling them from her limbs.
While Aria busied herself with that task, Tevos uncrossed her arms at last and steadily exhaled. "Okay," she said, unable to effectively hide her frazzled, almost breathless state. "Rules. There will be no smoking in my home, you must leave all firearms on the counter here, please remove your boots before stepping onto any carpeting, and—"
"Tevos."
The sound of her name jolted her out of her mental checklist. Aria had ceased removing the armor, now peering at her through the dim light with an indecipherable expression.
"You need to stop succumbing to worry," she said as she resumed her actions, pressing her fingers into a tiny release on her upper side to sunder the breastplate for removal. More of the black, full-body undersuit worn beneath its protective cloister was exposed.
"Stop worrying?" Tevos repeated incredulously. "With every passing moment I recklessly spiral further into this condemnable tempest, and you think I should stop worrying about it?"
"That's what I said," Aria coldly replied. Shin guards clattered onto the tile. "Doesn't solve anything, doesn't improve anything. Only makes it harder to focus." She straightened out her back, now standing at full height again after rising from attending to her legs. It was a relatively odd view—to see Aria separated from her jacket and corset, now dressed in something so simple and devoid of her extravagant preferences.
The councilor nodded at length, finding reason in Aria's words and conceding to them. But of course, the act of shedding her worries would prove to be much more difficult in practice.
Silence persisted between them while Tevos recollected and organized her thoughts, her line of sight drifting from Aria to the murky angles and corners of her small kitchen, and back again. "Have you eaten lately?" she inquired, instinctively exercising the proper hospitality pounded into her conscience since childhood. "I'd offer what I have available."
"Don't worry about me."
"Very well," acknowledged Tevos. She fought off the growing urge to fold her arms again in discomfort. "Just a drink, perhaps?"
Aria briefly considered the offer before responding with a yes, and Tevos was inwardly grateful that she had. It gave her the excuse to move, to escape their standoff and continue forward with their business.
"Then... come away from the window, please," she told Aria while turning to head toward her cabinets. "You're making me a bit nervous—the prospect of you being seen, specifically."
The Omegan did as requested, but not without seizing the opportunity to wander off into the front room despite lacking explicit permission from its owner. The air was faintly tinged with the familiar scent of her perfume; a soft, enticing, and sophisticated aroma wrapping her shadowy body as she ventured further into the abode. And even with minimal visibility, Aria could see the outlines of furniture glazed in scarce Presidium light, revealing to her their symmetrical, minimalistic shapes. Color was virtually indeterminable, but from what Aria suspected from the night's stain of blue, most of the items in the room were of a monochromatic spectrum primarily comprising black, white, and silvery grays. Overall, there was present a tedious and deliberate optimization of space, yet without sacrificing aesthetic or apparent comfort value, leaving the environment strikingly reminiscent of Tevos's neat and tidy office.
Otherwise described as boring, Aria thought to herself. How could the asari councilor possibly refrain from living fabulously? With all her status and money, Aria had expected a large, luxurious house spilling over its brim with excess, but here she stood in a comparably small albeit well-constructed and well-located alcove fit for someone considerably less well-off than Councilor Tevos. Where was the lavish, thirty-bedroom estate that mirrored the one publicly registered in her name on Thessia?
Modesty is not infallibly attractive, she sourly mused, glancing around the interior. But this suits you.
Tevos truly was an intriguing person. Careful, considerate, and accommodating toward Aria when they were at peace, but rigid and assertive whenever challenged. She had no reason whatsoever to not be civil and pleasant. But the very instant Aria started crossing lines and invading areas of her prerogative, that temperament was easily and swiftly altered.
As exemplified in their meeting earlier that day, Aria had initially been reluctant to yield any control to Tevos, who retaliated by accrediting Aria's obstinacy to the fact that she secretly felt threatened by Tevos. Yes, Tevos would be an immense threat if they ever broke their alliance. For all Aria's prowess in biotic might, for all her experience in waging battles and toppling regimes, she could never in the perceivable future hope to stand long against the Council if it ever came to that. But what Tevos had accused Aria of was an insecurity. It made Aria scoff. Made her bristle in denial and in offense.
Even with that attitude adopted, Aria still admitted to herself that she liked Tevos—still liked Tevos—quite a bit. Bureaucratic orientation aside, Tevos as an individual had always walked softly and quietly, using discourse and holes in the system that bound her to achieve her goals. Blood was preternaturally absent from her decisions, and so far-reaching was her word that she could boldly oppose Aria T'Loak in person without a semblance of fear in her eyes. This... greatly impressed Aria at times. To be looked upon without fear, with implied equity, with challenge, awakened a dormant passion in her core. A pleasant thrill burgeoning from a chasm of lone sovereignty. It was so very uncommon for Aria to find an individual who held so fast against her will.
While Tevos retrieved a pair of glasses for drinks, Aria strode over to the two darkly-hued, low sofas arranged in a perpendicular junction around a square glass table. She sat down in the corner of one, laying a hand down along the arm to examine the supple material beneath her fingertips. As she ran them over the smooth surface, its quality and ascribed expensiveness was revealed to her, bringing a faint smirk to her lips accompanied by the amused thought, There's your money. Invested in quality over quantity, I see. I knew you weren't a saint. And as a matter of fact... I'm pleased you aren't.
"Do you have a preference?"
Aria turned her head, meeting Tevos's eyes as she let her ambiguous question hang in the air.
"Regarding drinks," she clarified, holding a pair of drinking glasses in her hands.
"Anything will do just fine," Aria replied, then returned to her examination of the sofa's arm. All around her lay a menagerie of fine possessions whose simplicity belied their elegant design and composition, as if in subconscious reference to legends of asari treachery; emulated by Tevos's specific selection, purchase, and placement. It was interesting, to say the very least, as Aria found herself unable to decide whether finding comfort in this environment was wise or foolish. If only to reemphasize this unfolding sense of doubt, Tevos appeared beside the sofa with an extended arm, offering Aria her drink.
The latter received and sipped it to identify the substance. It was Thessian elasa, and the taste was unsettlingly evocative of a recent incident which had befallen her. Aria's motions noticeably slowed as she lowered the glass from her lips, staring into the liquid.
"Are you worried about poison this time?" Tevos asked. It was originally meant as a harmless joke regarding the first beverage she had ever offered Aria, but when she noticed its potential to be misinterpreted as a rude and shameless jab at her guest's folly, she prepared to recant her words.
"Tomorrow's headline," Aria said before Tevos could formulate an apology, "'Omega representative Aria T'Loak found dead in asari councilor's apartment after a deal gone wrong'." She turned to face her.
Tevos was at a complete loss for words, once again unsure if Aria had just made a joke or not. Aria's fleeting smirk soon cleared up her confusion. "In other words... I have your trust," she inferred.
"I'm about to tell you some of the most sensitive and well-guarded information I possess," said Aria, still looking upward at the councilor. "If that doesn't say anything to you, nothing ever will."
Between them passed a moment of relaxation. All at once, Tevos felt as if the terrible pressure in her chest had been lifted away, as if she were free to breathe again. The feeling was intimately tender in a way that nearly compelled her to appreciatively touch her guest's shoulder to express pure forgiveness—mutual forgiveness—for all trespasses one had committed unto the other, sweeping them all away and leaving their shared company in a state of immaculacy and something resembling innocence. For after all ill words and intent were exchanged, after all actions of selfishness and deception, here Aria sat proudly at the mercy of another soul. It had taken extreme circumstances and exhausting amounts of persuasion, but Aria had rejuvenated their former standings with each other as valuable allies.
"I have a study," Tevos said, forcing her hand to remain still at her side instead of daring to let it touch Aria. "It's a much more accommodating room. We can talk there." She took a step toward the dark hallway, looking back at Aria to politely bid her to follow, and was pleased to see her rise from the sofa without reflexively expressing her need to defy anything remotely resembling an order. But it was not an order—rather another favor, and those had often proven to be far more successful with Aria. Which was also strangely ironic. It was she, after all, who had once firmly dismissed favors as being for the naïve. Favors had veins of gullibility embedded in them. Favors were immature gestures of sincere good will removed from the expectation of reimbursement.
But if a favor could and would be repaid then it was not a favor anymore, but a contractual agreement, which Aria immensely preferred. Nuance was key, and Aria must have been quite sensitive to be able to distinguish.
The more she came to understand Aria, she noticed, the softer and stranger she seemed to appear. At the thought, she spared her companion a glance disguised as a check to see if she was still following, and sure enough, she made out the ominous shape of Aria traveling through the hall behind her. The shadows thoroughly enveloped her, dissolving the otherwise distinctive outline of her body into a hazy smear of shifting black.
"There's a declining step here," Tevos announced before stepping down into the portion of her apartment with a slightly lower elevation, easily navigating without error due to memory. The short hall divided after that point into two rooms. They went right, and once Tevos had led Aria into the study she flicked on the lights to a dim but practical level. The windows were well-blinded, shelves were packed with physical books, a desk held a personal terminal placed upon its surface, and a pair of armchairs faced each other across another small table similar to the one Aria saw in the front room.
What was most striking about this area was the difference in aesthetic temperature—the coldness of black and white was replaced with warmer, richer shades of brown wooden furniture, wine-colored cushions set into the armchairs, and a floor rug lain beneath the table beaming its simple, swirling designs through the glass face above.
Without having to direct her to, Aria took a seat in one of the armchairs, gazing about the showcase of literature in antique form. It was a pretentious array of status symbols only in existence to flaunt their owner's classical intellectualism, as they would be judged by popular culture.
"This apartment," Aria said, expressing genuine curiosity, "did you buy it, or was it provided to you?"
"The latter," Tevos answered as she settled down into the opposite chair, turning her attention to a spot on a shelf beside her. She reached over and selected a datapad from the conveniently accessible space. While she turned it on, she supplemented her brief reply, "This tier is one of a few located in such close proximity to the Embassies and Citadel Tower, containing residences for the more essential dignitaries. We live here only on the privilege granted by our high offices. For example, this apartment was previously the dwelling of Councilor Idras. It's a tradition, to inherit the housing of predecessors, along with all the C-Sec patrols. Of course, we have the apartments refurbished and renovated from time to time, and we are allowed to furnish the interiors ourselves, so there is comparably little evidence of past occupants." She passed the datapad to Aria. "You can transfer your data to this so I can more easily view it."
Aria received the device, but hesitated. "I want this copy completely destroyed when we're done here," she said while accessing her omni-tool.
"I will destroy it," Tevos amicably agreed.
Sufficiently reassured, Aria initiated a download. Once the data had been successfully transferred to the datapad, she handed it back to Tevos, saying, "This is a mass file containing data on everyone currently working for me. Everyone who follows my orders and receives any form of paycheck."
Tevos took it in hand and gazed down at the massive file. "Goddess," she said aloud. "There's... Well, there are more people listed here than I first estimated." She looked up at her guest.
From across the small glass table, Aria appeared a tad more prideful than usual. "I'm not exactly a local small business owner."
The councilor inhaled, exhaled, and returned her eyes to the datapad. She spent a few minutes formulating the most efficient and thorough process she could conceive, hoping to isolate at least a few suspicious persons from the colossal record by the end of the night. "We'll start from the top, I suppose," Tevos decided. "We will manually review those ones, as they would likely pose as the largest threat to you if they should or have dissented..."
:::
Liselle's excursion was made less solitary by the conversation in her earpiece, although turned down in volume to better focus the majority of her awareness onto her immediate environment. Intense wariness of any ominous creaks in the vent was exercised as she followed the map glowing upon her arm. Few noises had caused her alarm thus far, but one had been pervading her head for a few minutes now, becoming more noticeable the further she traveled. It was that hum again, similar to the one she experienced when first entering the vents, only lower in pitch and singing eerily in a second layer of sound. The sound was constant and unvarying.
She was coming around the exterior of the building now, but her precise location remained unknown to her until she crossed a section where the vent branched off into a short arm to her right. At its end was a fan; curved blades slowly turning and drawing in a steady current of air from the outside atmosphere. A punctuated rhythm of rusty light and thick shadow rolled over her face and body, and she could see the Zeta District beyond the blades—as sooty and dreary as the rest of Omega remained throughout infinite days, frozen like a shell of fiery amber preserving the fossils of the first society carved within its walls. Tiny beads of light flickering in the windows of buildings, others of red, white, and yellow blinking between the spires. The world beyond the vent was another province of her mother's emerging empire, soon to be held under siege along with the districts already burning at that very moment.
She moved on, escaping the glaring distraction and resumed her trek. The hum had stabilized in audibility, accompanying her as she went and instilling within her the superstitious sense of being followed. Liselle ignored the feeling the best she could, glancing at her map to assess how close she was to Calan's office and estimated that she would reach her destination within the next few minutes if she kept on course and maintained her pace. Meanwhile, Rasma and Malak's conversation seemed to be going strong, she noted. They were now discussing events in Zeta District, relating their questions to the guild itself as to cleverly disguise their obvious intent to extract information while simultaneously stalling for Liselle.
There came a groan. Not from her teammates, but from directly beneath her. It was a squeal at first, rapidly descending in pitch until the sound morphed into a gruesome scream of collapsing metal. The bang rattled throughout the vents as Liselle suddenly found the lower half of her body plunging downward, the inertia of the descent pulling at the remainder of her frame while her fingers scraped and slipped against the smooth cold metal, struggling to find something to hold onto before decisively reverting to bracing her hands against the walls. Some leverage was gained, saving her from being completely ejected from the vents, but her legs still helplessly flailed and dangled in the air. And worst of all, she did not know where she was, or if there were any witnesses to the spectacle she had created.
Liselle threw her gaze over her shoulder, still swiftly breathing from her pounding surge of panic, and saw nothing but a dark room. She shakily exhaled in relief, seeing that fate had been so kind to drop her in some utility closet or unoccupied restroom rather than into a pit filled with mercenaries. After regaining her wits, Liselle lurched forward, squirming and straining and floundering like a fish on land to pull herself back into the vent. The edge of the broken metal dug painfully into the front of her rib cage. She ignored the discomfort and lurched again, kicking out her legs in a blind search for a wall—or any stable fixture, for that matter—to push off of as an improvised step.
When she felt her sole catch something Liselle transferred her weight onto the new surface, boosting herself back into the vent, but as soon as her foot left its step it gave out from beneath her. There was a loud clattering of hollow metal hitting the floor, followed by a rush of liquid splattering down with it. And then, all at once, the ubiquitous hum stopped. The moment Liselle pulled herself back to safety, she turned around and held out her omni-tool in horror to investigate what damages she had caused. The orange glow lit the area, revealing a pipe lying in a glistening puddle of water and the empty restroom surrounding it. Evidently, the humming was created by a flow of water rushing through pipes alongside the ventilation system, and after Liselle had kicked a hole in its channel, some sort of automated emergency mechanism had completely shut off the water in the area to prevent catastrophic leakage.
As the girl stared down at the lurid evidence of her trespassing with wide eyes, her mental flurry intensified to nearly unmanageable degrees. On instinct she reached down with an arm. Her hand flickered with a pale blue glow as she lifted the pipe from the floor, diligently raising it into the vent where she grasped it. There wasn't much more time to act, unfortunately—Rasma and Malak could not hold a conversation forever without looking suspect of something nefarious. After hastily bending the broken vent back into shape the best she could manage, Liselle crawled on once again while carrying the incriminating pipe with her.
Her heart was still pounding, practically bruising the interior of her chest as its blood thundered through her head. Such fear was coursing through her, not like any other fear she had ever experienced. Not despair, not anxiety felt toward some contingent turn of events, but fear for her very life. It made her sick to her stomach in undulating waves of nausea. It shook her to the marrow, made her hands tremble, and locked her joints up in chilling terror. Upon falling, she had vividly imagined herself crashing down into the midst of congregating bounty hunters with guns, blades, fists, and tempers. All to break bone and split flesh open, extracting the fragile secrets she held.
She was all alone in the dark vents, and by her own volition. Retreating was not an option, nor was losing her head to the abyss of panic. There was a task to complete, placed upon her shoulders with faith and confidence in its completion. Liselle forced herself to keep moving as the bitter word pathetic circulated her thoughts and drove her forward in pure defiance of it.
Before long, Liselle found another grating, checked her omni-tool, and confirmed that it was mounted right above Calan's office. Her team was still chatting away in her earpiece. She heard Malak chuckle at something. At least he seemed to be having a good time for once, she thought.
Using her biotics again, Liselle pulled the grating out of place, set it down beside her inside the vent, then peeked her head down into the room in preparation to descend. The lights were on in the office, proudly shining off of Calan's possessions. Rich reds, deep blacks, and luminous gold hues were found in imported rugs and chairs—hallmarks of elite batarian taste. And there were cabinets lining one wall behind Calan's desk where his terminal sat helplessly waiting for Liselle's theft.
With her reconnaissance complete, Liselle dropped down, landing on her feet and bringing her inventory with her: the small pack with its lone strap slung over a shoulder and across her chest, and the metal pipe she had hastily abducted from the restroom to cover her tracks. She immediately approached the terminal, waking it from its state of hibernation with a single press of a button on its projected keyboard. At her touch, the terminal promptly requested a combination of ID recognition and the entry of a password, to which Liselle responded by holding up her omni-tool and accessed Rasma's hacking program.
The program was simple and easy to navigate, as Rasma had explained. She established a link between the terminal and her omni-tool, and put the program to work. It presented her with a box of unintelligible code. Liselle recognized the colored mass of letters and numbers as the 'lock' Rasma had mentioned, and remembered that all she needed to do was locate the corresponding match amid the myriad, nonsensical coding blocks. She began her search, sifting through the non-matches for nearly two tense minutes before finding the 'key'. She selected it.
The terminal chirped, accepting the input as its owner's and opened up its archive of files to her omni-tool. The download began, and across the interface of her omni-tool flashed data at incomprehensible speeds as it was despoiled.
"I'm in," she said into her communication piece to alert her team to her status. "Link established and download pending."
:::
The councilor-crime lord duo began their analysis in Aria's administration. That specific section of the vast list contained extremely detailed profiles of three other active individuals, and one curiously marked with cryptic letters and numbers designating a status which Tevos failed to make sense of. She saved that one for last, opting to examine Aria's right-hand lieutenant first.
"Zuria Alaris," she read aloud, viewing the photo of an asari accompanying the name and a few lines of basic information. "What can you tell me about her?" She glanced up at Aria while delivering her question.
"This one owns a considerably larger portion of my trust than what I give to most people," Aria replied. "She helped me overthrow Omega's former de facto ruler one hundred years ago."
"It says she was inactive as a lieutenant for nearly that amount of time," Tevos noted, tacitly requesting an elaboration.
"She quit. Being a lieutenant, that is. She went into intelligence for years and has now agreed to return to her position in my administration due to our current... adversities."
Tevos skimmed over a bit more information about Zuria, ran her name, ID, and photo against the Asari High Command database accessed from her omni-tool, and found no matches. With no reason to linger on her profile, she moved on. "Dissia T'Masi," she read. "Anything particularly important about her?"
"She's holding our lines in the Tuhi District right now," Aria supplied after mentally fishing for useful facts. "We're currently eroding the defenses of the factions occupying that territory first before going in full force and seizing it. She handles warfare very well and has an impressive body count."
As with Zuria, when Tevos compared this lieutenant to High Command's list of agents, she found no matches. "Renaga Emaia," she continued on.
"Always useful in a bind," Aria commented, reclining into the armchair and crossing a leg over the other. "Intelligent, quick reaction times, adaptable. She's been on my administration for twenty-three years now and just recently helped me lead the final push into the Kenzo District. We successfully took it that afternoon." She lifted her drink to her lips.
After successfully anticipating zero results with Renaga, Tevos came upon the strangely-marked file. She accessed it to find a photo of yet another asari whose face was adorned with conspicuous, barbarous streaks of angry red. "This one is categorized in your administration... but she is neither active nor employed to you at all." She met Aria's eyes. The other asari was busy tending to her drink, but gradually lowered it after Tevos made her observation as if developing her response to what the councilor would inevitably ask. "Who is this... 'Wasea' character?"
"An old acquaintance," Aria said. "There's still a hole in my administrative positions and I plan for her to fill it."
"But she doesn't work for you," Tevos repeated that important disparity to emphasize her confusion. "Her dossier says that her employer is Jona Sederis. Wasea is an Eclipse officer. First Lieutenant under a... 'Captain Asana' of what they call the Gysia Division."
Aria set her drink down on the glass table. "I've been drafting an arrangement with Jona Sederis and that Captain Asana. Brokering a deal—a transaction, of sorts—to have Wasea transferred to my syndicate without upsetting my current relationship with that group. The Eclipse are widespread, powerful, reputable, and best of all, its founder and I have a mutual understanding. Presently, my deal with Sederis has nearly been finalized and after that I will only need to send a few representatives to present Wasea with my offer."
"So there is something particularly special about her?" Tevos curiously pried. "I wouldn't have expected you to go to such lengths for a potential liability."
From her location in the opposing armchair, Aria shared a wordless stare with the asari councilor for a few long seconds before responding, "Anything has the potential to become a liability. What I do is weigh near-assured gains against conceivable losses. Acquiring this individual will add to both my prowess and security."
Tevos admittedly spent a moment waiting for a second half of Aria's explanation, but when it never arrived, she submitted to her silence and went ahead with her routine comparison. No matches were found, as per usual, sending the councilor's attention onto the second most important sector of Aria's syndicate at the present time: her flock of investigation teams, upon whom Aria relied for information about her enemy. Any censorship or deceitful claims passed on by a team could horribly damage Aria's awareness of enemy advancements or the identity of traitors, and so a comprehensive screening of that branch was deemed imperative. When Tevos began her review, she discovered that Aria had given each team a distinguishing name derived from a uniting theme.
"Team Imorkan," Tevos read, "Urdak, Bindur. The planets of Sahrabarik... Vatar and Sehtor of Kairavamori; Karora and Eingana of the Amada System..." She met Aria's eyes, imploring her to share her reasons behind using the names of celestial bodies located in the Omega Nebula.
"Identification by numbers is prone to clerical error," Aria insipidly explained.
The trial went swiftly, and no correlations between the teams and Asari High Command existed within the first several units she scrutinized. At one point, Tevos found herself wondering if that was fortunate or not. Fortunate because it meant Aria's teams were relatively well-selected from a gargantuan pool of possible double-agents, but perhaps unfortunate because it proposed the possibility of Asari High Command being fantastically good at covering their tracks, and that smuggling Aria onto the Citadel and into the asari councilor's apartment might have been for naught.
"Team 'Eingana'," Tevos continued to read aloud for Aria's benefit, "Comprises Rasma Visiom, Malak Lekahn, and Liselle Kasantis..." She skimmed through their profiles while running her comparison, learning a figment or two about each individual in the process. At first, Tevos didn't find them to be noticeably different than any other previous team she had glossed over, but then she noted the dour footnote at the base of the turian's dossier revealing her connection to Aria's previous right-hand, who had been amongst those assassinated. She felt a small twist of pity and moved onto the batarian. Yet again she found something noteworthy within its text. He too had lost a close relative. A perplexed crease began to form in the councilor's brow at this coincidence—and knowing Aria, coincidence was probably a very inaccurate word. She accessed the asari's file afterward, immediately scrolling down to the bottom to search for a similar story, but none was listed. She scrolled back up to the top.
After viewing so many pictures of diverse people over the past half hour, Tevos had ceased giving them more than a second's glance. This one was no exception to that developing habit, but something compelled her to double-take after attempting to avert her eyes from the asari's face. There was just something about her, something... nostalgic, Tevos decided. Her flesh was a temperate, healthy medium of violet and blue, her features were still soft, unmarred, and amiable with youth, and her eyes... Her eyes were a pale blue, strikingly pretty and very much like Aria's, while only lacking the harsh, cold aspect the pirate queen boasted. After some time spent focusing on the picture, she migrated her attention to the girl's basic information.
"Liselle was born on Omega," Tevos read, and from the periphery of her vision she saw Aria stirring, adjusting her posture in the armchair. Tevos brought her glass up to take a modest sip. "A biotic, self-educated... and... she is fifty-three years of age, posing as a young adult of one hundred twelve." She lifted her head to look at Aria with incredulity. The other asari said nothing, and the only movement Tevos detected in her was a subtle shifting in her gaze from side to side, as if impatiently waiting for Tevos to either comment or return to her work. "She's just a child, Aria. Where does this girl come from, exactly?"
Aria's eyes narrowed ever so slightly, leading Tevos to believe that she didn't completely understand the question. "You don't know who that is?" she inquired, leaning forward and sounding as though the need to ask such a thing was absurd on its own. And it was absurd, at least to Aria. She had expected Tevos to immediately recognize Liselle and make some irritating remark about Aria's parenting style, but judging by the councilor's expression and lack of motive to trick her, Aria arrived to the conclusion that Tevos truly did not know who Liselle was. But that was inconsistent with past events, from years ago during their first meeting and negotiation attempt when Tevos had threatened Liselle's life, and to Aria's face if the councilor had not already been terribly bold.
Not one girl in a lonely apartment somewhere? Aria eidetically remembered, along with the sharp dose of burning rage that always seemed to accompany the memory. So then, had Tevos forgotten about Liselle? No, she wasn't the type to forget anything, Aria judged. With that possibility eliminated, there but lied one more: Tevos had not been referring to Liselle, and her ambiguity had only been another component of the brutal bluffing matches they waged against each other for weeks.
"I've never seen her before in my life," Tevos responded to her previous question. "I can't even recall reading her name anywhere. She has no record in Asari High Command's database, no facial match... Why are you surprised that I do not know her?" She eyed Aria with great suspicion. "Am I supposed to know her?"
With this new information in hand, Aria decisively tailored her answer to serve the continued protection of her daughter. As much as she might have essentially trusted Tevos with her own life for the time being, Liselle was a completely different matter altogether. The risk would not be taken.
"She's a special operative," Aria spontaneously and coolly fabricated a lie. "The girl is a biotic prodigy. I thought your Spectres might have come across her file at some point, but it seems I've overestimated them once again."
Tevos brushed off the insult with ease and opted to focus on admonishing her guest. "A prodigy? Does that still merit sending her into something as dangerous as her current objective? A child is still a child regardless of their talents, Aria. Prodigal ability does not substitute the mental maturity and decision-making skills that define adulthood, and she has hardly even reached that threshold. Goddess, even eighty is not uncommonly perceived as pre-adulthood. Does Liselle have a living mother?"
"I know her mother rather well," Aria stiffly replied.
"And she consents to this? She's letting her young daughter throw herself against Omega's vilest without attempting to intervene?" Tevos lifted a concerned hand to touch her own jaw as she withdrew into thought. "Does she even love the poor girl?"
Aria gently placed her empty glass on the table between them, predicting that if it had spent a few moments longer in her vicious grip it might have shattered into a burst of translucent shards and blood. Once the danger was removed, she calmly spoke, "I don't think love is measured by how closely you clutch something, but by how much of yourself you're willing to sacrifice for its freedom."
Tevos considered the truth of the remark, but was driven to reply, "A bit odd, coming from you. Does how you hold Omega not suggest otherwise?"
"I don't clutch Omega," Aria argued. "I don't clutch, and I don't own it. No one does. And no one ever will. I eliminate everything that threatens what Omega stands for, and everything that threatens my success in that endeavor. I am Omega's exalted groundskeeper and I have given myself completely to its preservation."
A great silence lasted between them. Tevos watched her closely, witnessing Aria's permanent air of superiority and tenacity. There was a time when she and Aria would spend an hour or two garrulously chatting about nothing and everything in her office long ago, she recalled, and their conversations—despite their aimlessly wandering nature at times—had always produced exotic ideas from a perspective so different from her own that she soon found their discussions invaluable. Never had she walked away from Aria without spending a moment reaffirming her understandings of the galaxy, and on a few occasions reevaluating misconceptions or assumptions which Aria had savagely dissected before her eyes.
But here Aria sat trying to educate Tevos about love. It was awfully silly, and maybe even a little sad, to consider the idea of someone like Aria T'Loak knowing more about love than she did. Tevos did not know if Aria's definition was accurate, and she wasn't quite sure if such an arbitrary concept could even be absolutely defined, but like previous conversations Tevos found herself seriously contemplating the proposals handed to her. But how could Aria's claims be valid? She was so selfish, so alien to charity, and she was someone who had ended countless lives without a second backward glance and probably without ever suffering the vengeance of nightmares. And yet... she could know selfless love?
Mercy, Tevos offhandedly thought, There is mercy—and dare I say affection—in Aria's heart, reserved for the innocent and those who only crave freedom. Those who only desire opportunity and choice. And she exists to grant those things through the medium of Omega, regardless of her methods, and what may come after. You are still so strange to me, Aria.
"There may be wisdom in your words," Tevos conceded, "but you must promise me not to encourage children to partake in your business. If it rests upon their choice, I suppose little can be said against it. It would simply mean a lot if you reassured me that you do not actively recruit mercenaries—and not just asari—who wouldn't even be considered old enough to own property under Citadel standards. It would greatly mend my conscience."
Aria shifted forward in her chair and clasped her hands loosely together, illustrating the honesty of the reply she was about to give, although it seemed to be in exasperation. "I'd rather not have children fumbling their duties," she said. "I'm not here to babysit anyone, and hiring children would only cause me constant headaches and botched missions. Liselle Kasantis is an exception and I don't plan on seeking out duplicates of her rare situation."
Tevos hesitantly nodded, and fell into a long period of silence while continuing to examine the remainder of the investigation teams, only broken by scarce questions and the sound of her glass being set upon the table exactly once. The questions dwindled as time went on, soon rendering Aria's input unneeded. Without the obligation of answering the councilor's inquiries to demand Aria's undivided attention, she allowed herself to disconnect from the dull present and instead spent a while inside her thoughts, watching the light adjustments of Tevos's body whenever she moved her fingers across the interfaces of the devices she held, and when she turned her head to shift her attention from one to the other. And somehow, the shape she held her shoulders in was unaffected by every motion she made. Tevos was exceptionally good at that, Aria had noticed over time. She kept her frame professionally positioned no matter the occasion, with her head maintaining a level, proud angle when addressing any guest. Yet still those shoulders—paradoxically—were the most expressive feature of her body despite their goal of conveying indissoluble dignity to all their witnesses.
Aria had never encountered a dialect of body language which she could not decipher. The revealing nuances manifested in the way Tevos would subconsciously alter the angle at which she held her shoulders in accordance to her current mood. Irritation, discomfort, dismay—all were detectable to the keen eye. To Aria, it was a lovely little shortcut to judging what Tevos was probably feeling at any given moment, and at this very instant, by Aria's observation, Tevos seemed to be at ease. Oddly so, for the work she was conducting would have driven any normal soul to unshakable concern. Perhaps then Tevos had taken Aria's advice from earlier that night, and had successfully utilized it to clear her head and heart from anxiety; a significant improvement from that morning, when Tevos had been constantly enduring wave after wave of distress originating in both the situation with Asari High Command and from Aria herself, particularly when the Omegan had expressed her reasons for staying silent about their past for years and years.
Tevos's announcement confirmed—in one question—all her prior, blatant allusions to her true position on the matter which Aria had detected, but was hesitant to believe.
I didn't have time for it, Aria had thought, void of passion. You think I had time for this? Me? Don't be a fool. And I would've expected you to be vehemently opposed to getting too attached to your diplomatic correspondents in the first place. It's almost appalling that you'd relegate yourself like that, that you'd remind me so vividly of your political nucleus—so prone to publicly asserting all that you are not, only to practice it in secret... It's not even so much that by itself. It's the fact that you expect me to share leadership with you, when you can't even dismiss something so forgone, so inopportune... It shows a detestable lack of reason.
The message Tevos had mistakenly sent her the other night was understandable. Just an innocent and amusing fantasy generated by alcohol. Many people felt amorous after imbibing one too many glasses, and the councilor was not immune that effect. Aria never expected her to be. But for those fantasies to persist after the haze of wine had faded from her thoughts... Aria did not anticipate that. She did not anticipate that, not from Councilor Tevos, who had so often established a defined and unequivocal set of boundaries that would not be crossed again after their infringement.
Aria did not dislike Tevos. She resurrected that stable fact from a pit of inner chaos. She liked Tevos, very much so at times, and it was now becoming obvious to her that a high opinion of Tevos had also been a major contributor to her less-than-benevolent statement that morning. To see the only politician she had ever been fond of suddenly change, suddenly regress to absurdities, had made something inside Aria dreadfully wrench like betrayal.
In retrospect, the comment Aria had made as an expression of her contempt should have been withheld. It was unwise to antagonize Tevos during these times, and it was not all that inherently awful for Tevos to have held some lasting interest in Aria, as there were plenty of times when a degree of desire and fascination was reciprocated. But what had kept her from entertaining a prolonged interest and allowing it a seat at the forefront of her mind was a simple matter of convenience. Undiluted convenience had been the master reason for Aria's false amnesia—for with a galaxy between them, an attempt to pursue Tevos in any respect other than endless rivalry would be a childish, illogical, and impractical endeavor. The whole thing was better left forgotten, abandoned there in the asari councilor's office where it would remain lost to eternity.
But... convenience had returned, removing the only deterrent Aria had recognized.
Tevos looked up, meeting Aria's stare and not seeming to take offense at the likelihood of being observed for quite a while. Her eyes finally diverted to the two empty glasses set on the table. She set down her datapad before dismissing her omni-tool and rose from her chair, taking both glasses in hand, and turned back to Aria. "Would you care for any more?"
Aria paused before answering, closely monitoring Tevos for cracks in her relaxed demeanor, and when she found none she replied, "No thank you."
From within the councilor bloomed visible pleasure at her guest's good etiquette, evinced in a faint, gratified smile. She left the study, and consequently left Aria alone as well. Aria's line of sight followed her departure, watching as the pale robe wrapped around her body eventually became swallowed by the hallway's darkness.
She was left to ruminate anew, rising from her chair and acting upon her deeply-set instincts to know more about her environment and its owner. She picked books from their shelves, listlessly flipping through their pages all in one go to watch flickers of countless asari characters flash by from cover to cover. Something was tugging at the edge of her mind. A restlessness, a dissatisfaction with inaction. She flipped through another book, thoughts idly entertaining recollections of the councilor and considering their projection into the present.
After returning the books to the vacant slots their absence created on the shelves, Aria ventured over to the exit of the study, curiously peering out toward the room right across the hall—Tevos's bedroom. She didn't even attempt to contain her impulse. Aria strode into the area as if she owned it, casually taking a look around and briefly considering turning on the lights to better view Tevos's living situation. She only decided against it when a certain piece of furniture caught her eye.
Aria sat down on the edge of the bed, laying her hands upon the sheets on either side of her body. The fine silk caressed her palms and fingertips as she smoothed them over the material, testing its quality against everything else she had closely examined in the apartment. She was not disappointed. The affluence imbued in every minuscule stitch felt delightful against bare skin—a sensation which sent Aria into a different plane of analysis, this time shamelessly venturing into the realm of application. But before she could properly develop any ideas of a particularly carnal nature, Tevos's silhouette had appeared in the doorway.
Her presence was accompanied by a quiet exhale, illustrating her disapproval at Aria's migration to her bedroom, which was not only an unsanctioned trek but also an invasive one. Following her sigh came a dismissive remark, contradicting her expressed discontent, "I suppose I'm not so surprised. Actually, I admit I might have even been disappointed if you hadn't."
Aria made no reply. Instead, she tranquilly watched her from her comfortable perch on the bed with tiny hills of creased sheets rising between the spaces separating her fingers.
For a moment longer Tevos remained standing in the doorway, laboring to better comprehend the sight of Aria stationed on her bed—quite possibly the most private and sacred area of space she ritually occupied. There was an eerily surreal quality about the sight, and all too abruptly, Tevos's throat felt unnaturally dry. "Well," she said at length, "come on, then. We should resume our work. I'm going to run the rest in an automatic comparison alongside the Asari High Command database. It will take only a few minutes, I anticipate, and then you can be on your way back to Omega."
"You were doing such a great job as a host until you said that," Aria said, pretending to wince but allowing a revealing smile to bleed through the expression. "Kicking your guests out is terrible etiquette."
"So is overstaying your welcome," Tevos replied, reflecting the same good humor beneath her statement's thin veneer of sincerity. She turned around, orienting herself in the direction of her study with the intent to return to work with Aria in tow, but after she took a few steps, she realized that Aria hadn't moved at all. She cast her gaze over one shoulder to assess the other asari, whose position was as she had expected—still complacently seated upon her bed.
In response to Tevos's questioning look, Aria gently said to her, "Come here."
She was instantly frozen in place by the simple sentence, green eyes locked in a returned stare made heavy and alarmed by her surprise. She knew those words too well. They rang in the confines of her head and heart with the potency of fear, experienced as a familiar splicing of reciprocated allure and panic. After recovering her ability to speak, Tevos swallowed and cautiously asked her, "Why?"
Aria appeared as if she was about to shrug, but the action dissipated into a curious alternative; a vague shifting of her shoulders that neglected to convey a distinct message. "I want to talk to you," she decided to say at last.
"You can talk to me right here," Tevos immediately objected, lifting her chin a few degrees to better communicate her resolve.
Aria was entertained. "Come sit with me a while," she insisted, disregarding the rueful pursing of the councilor's lips and continued pursuing what she ultimately had in mind. "We won't be long. What's a few minutes of conversation when we're already so late into the night? Might as well indulge a bit."
"So you can do what?" Tevos asked, holding her own arms as she addressed Aria. "So you can tell me exactly what I want to hear from you?" She suddenly felt... betrayed. She had only recently forgiven Aria, in a sense; choosing to shed her animosity and dejection in order to nurture a more productive and peaceful relationship in place of the ill, detrimental one they previously maintained. And to her satisfaction, it had shown major signs of fruitfulness as proven in the way they communicated so easily and comfortably over the last hour or so, free from what web of chains had entangled them in rivalry. All efforts taken only for Aria to selfishly ruin it within the span of a few seconds, ripping open neglected wounds that Tevos had just started to tenderly stitch.
And Aria said nothing, entrenched within her usual aloofness.
"So you can do what, Aria?" Tevos repeated, demanding an answer. "So you can convince me to let you touch me?" She sounded as if she found the idea to be ridiculous or otherwise impossible. "And to what end? To continue attempting to manipulate me? Or have you devised a brand new use for me?"
"Those are rude accusations," Aria calmly remarked, smoothing out the lightly-disturbed sheets beside her with an idle hand.
"Rude, perhaps, but true," the councilor coldly stated. "Silence corrodes. It rots. If you thought it could somehow serve you, you were wrong. If you wanted to harvest any interest I took in you, it would've immensely done you better to properly cultivate it."
"Oh, I see," Aria said in understanding, her voice somewhat roughened by its low volume and provocative lilt. "You wanted me to give you attention. Poor thing..."
Tevos frowned at the condescension, a faint dash of violet chagrin appearing on her cheeks. "That's not what I'm insinuating."
"Then what are you insinuating?"
"I meant to say that if you ever desired to partake in... this... or if you wanted to use this to your advantage, didn't it occur to you that it might have been necessary to instill more of an incentive in me?" Before she had even finished her elaboration, Aria had risen to her feet. When she began to approach, the councilor briefly considered backing away, but ultimately decided against faltering in any respect.
Aria leaned forward, bringing her face to hover beside Tevos's, and gently said to her, "That still sounds like you wanted my attention."
Tevos said nothing.
"If I'd known," Aria hummed against her head while letting her hands come to rest upon Tevos's hips, "I would have dropped everything on Omega just to come keep you company..."
"You're just mocking me now," Tevos derisively replied, but her breath involuntarily hitched between her last uttered syllables when she felt Aria firmly massaging her thumbs into the delicately pronounced sides of her pelvic bone and the surrounding flesh. For a single exhaustingly long moment she stood captivated by the sensation, parting her lips to shakily exhale what breath remained in her lungs while trying not to allow it to transmute into any audible sound. It felt... nice, but before she allowed Aria to proceed any further, Tevos seized her wrists and peeled her hands away from her body. Aria made no distinct reaction, but Tevos could feel the sheer amusement radiating from her. Tevos released her wrists, trusting her to respect her implicit wishes.
Rather than retreating altogether, Tevos found herself reaching upward, letting her fingertips glide along the outlines of Aria's upper arms still concealed by the black armor undersuit before one palm came to a stop against the curve of her neck and jaw. With her applied touch she bade Aria to remain still and attentive while she spoke softly to her.
"There might be times when I think about... this," Tevos solemnly confessed. "But that does not mean I am beholden to my impulses. There are times when you say things to me that make me wonder and... and crave, but when I pause to reflect on the entirety of my position, I remember something that invalidates my urge. You are cruel to me on far too many occasions."
While Aria listened, Tevos had begun to caress her neck opposite to the side she faced, communicating a genuine sentiment buried far beneath her layers of rejection. She made to resume speaking, but her words stalled on the tip of her tongue before they could leave her. Instead, Tevos carefully leaned in the few centimeters necessary to bring her lips against the spot directly below the slope of Aria's jaw, and she kissed her.
Beneath her touch she could feel Aria's chest expanding as she slowly inhaled, and when Tevos drew away at last, she moved her face back enough so that she could meet the eyes searching for her own. They were bright and alert, and somewhere coursing beneath the blue irises was a vein of wild lust—as obvious as daylight would be if found suddenly shining into the dark bedroom, but restrained by her legendary self-control.
Tevos's hands came to her companion's face, holding it as she would the face of an archaic sculpture fashioned from the most sumptuous marble. "You're too cruel to me, Aria," she softly iterated. "You're too cruel, too selfish..." She thoughtfully stroked her cheek with her thumb. "You don't mean enough to me."
You're not worth risking everything for, she thought.
In spite of her claim, and perhaps in an offering gathered to dispute it and persuade her otherwise, Aria leaned into the hands cradling her face, bringing herself dangerously close to Tevos; noses nearly brushing as Aria tilted her head and virtually spoke against her lips a confident, sultry vow, "I will wear you out."
Miraculously, Tevos smiled. Although the whole ordeal had tired her, and although Aria's hushed promise mercilessly tugged at something deep within her core, she jocundly replied, "You often do."
Due to their proximity, it was extraordinarily difficult to discern which one of them was responsible for closing the minuscule distance between their lips, but once initiated, Tevos kept her hands in place where they held Aria's face while the latter pressed her fingertips into the thin layers of clothing over her back, possessively pulling her in. So abruptly was she filled with the searing, overwhelming exhilaration of touching another's body in this manner, this coincidence of lips, of hands against skin and clothes. She reveled in it at first, letting herself burn beneath the sensation of Aria's fingers flattened on her back, sometimes brushing over her spine as she luxuriously adjusted their placement to gain a more secure and assertive hold. But there was a malignancy in all this, Tevos realized. Old guilt and shame for betraying her resolution of never again touching Aria in this manner no matter how much she desired to. It corrupted her enjoyment. Every bit of distance Aria eliminated Tevos equally replaced by automatically drawing away, and never did their contact evolve beyond that of an insufficient baiting—a suggestion, a request, a demand—for something far more extravagant, something unbridled and reckless and selfish.
It was not to be so. She knew she could not let it be so.
Before long, Tevos had broken free of the grasp and her hands had fallen from Aria's face, who showed her decency by releasing Tevos upon becoming aware of her desire to stop. What was left in them was furious arousal, both hanging onto the edge of something phantasmally lingering on the surfaces of their lips and minds, evaporating away. Tevos began taking steps backward, tentatively calling for the end of what might have come if she had allowed it, and never once took her eyes off of Aria who still stood in the shadows with her posture forever compelling and unmoved, head always held at such effortlessly dynamic angles like a living, breathing painting. And Aria was silent, her expression beckoning the subject of her interests with the sort of allure found only in monstrous and bewitching women of fables. Such sensual oaths were made without a sound, and the further Tevos retreated, the more profusely they seemed to pour from Aria's raw presence.
You have never been refused before, Tevos speculated in mild wonder. Whether that was true or not was unknown, but the curiosity of what followed that event utterly possessed her.
She escaped when her heel touched the carpeting lain throughout the hallway, retreating into the warm gauzy light bleeding from her study. "As I said before," Tevos began, forcing the words from her unwilling throat, "I'm going to finish our work. You're still invited to join me, but you're also welcome to lurk there in the dark if you so prefer."
Tevos entered her study again, containing her urge to fidget as she retrieved her devices and went back to work. She was alone for less than a minute. Aria appeared in the entrance, eyeing her intensely but saying nothing before taking her previous seat. They sat there quietly, and if Aria's pride had somehow been damaged by her failed seduction, she showed absolutely no sign of it. She appeared as if nothing had happened at all, opting to radiate her relaxed confidence and easily-induced ennui, and never did that demeanor falter once, even when Tevos lifted her eyes for a glimpse.
The councilor, on the other hand, displayed some signs of apprehension. She periodically crossed and uncrossed her legs, and whenever she would find both her hands temporarily free when running mass comparisons, she would rub her wrist slowly and delicately as if to soothe the disquieted nerves throughout her body from that single discreet point in its network.
By the end of Aria's incredibly long list, Tevos had identified two individuals in the medial echelons of Aria's syndicate as connected to Asari High Command. Both were asari, and both were registered as active spies, providing adequate justification for a capture and questioning by Aria. In exchange for Tevos's help, Aria agreed to conduct a search for Spectre Neora's body, and to permit a maximum of two Spectres to be present in Sahrabarik at any time.
With their task complete, Tevos escorted Aria to the kitchen where her borrowed C-Sec armor lay. She stood a few paces away from her guest in the night's filter of blue, watching her pull on and fasten sections to her body. Piece after piece, the black undersuit vanished from sight, and the juxtaposition of taut musculature and softer curves was hidden away by inorganic planes of harsh angles and padding. Once Aria was clad in the suit, her posture began again to deceivingly emulate the guardians of the Citadel, slipping into the façade with second-nature ease. With her valise in hand, Aria's eyes then searched the shadows for the helmet; the final and necessary component of her ensemble.
Tevos located it first, lifting it from a forgotten spot against her kitchen's set of lower cabinets. She did not hand it to Aria right away, but carefully placed it on the counter above its previous resting place and turned to face her guest.
Implied defilement of the uniform aside, Aria looked quite good in it.
More approachable, Tevos thought. Far less daunting.
She fought back a smile. Aria noticed, as usual, and observed Tevos with her imposing intensity.
Now that their business had been concluded, there was no longer a need to perpetuate their shared company. There was no longer a need to sneak about, risking reputation and diplomatic incident for a meeting of questionable conduct. Aria could go home, now that she was armed with her precious knowledge to be wielded against unfriendly agents.
And what about that, Tevos wondered to herself? Why delay her departure, as she was doing at that very moment?
Is it because I fear the spell of time that may wedge itself between us again? she pondered. Is it because I have no way of knowing whether the next time I see you will be another fifty, or one hundred years from now, leaving all that is still unresolved between us to... putrefy into something even more unwholesome and confused than what we have now?
It suddenly occurred to Tevos that she profoundly desired to kiss her again, as though to establish a final assertion of where they stood to endure the attrition of unknown ages looming before them. It could be an innocent gesture conveying innocent ideals. A conciliatory reminder of her fondness, the reality of her interest, and her reluctance to abstain. They stood forgiven and at peace, it would say. Petty desires had been acknowledged and denied for personal disparities and obligations to their respective professions... but all was well.
She wanted to kiss her, she truly wanted to, but did not; fearing that if she gave Aria the smallest amount of leeway again she would take it all, which was exactly what she was desperately trying to prevent. To help herself resist the dangerous urge, she turned away, moving to retrieve the helmet from its spot on the counter and mindfully placed it over Aria's head, helping her seal it to the rest of the armor. With the suit complete, Tevos smoothed her hands down the sides of Aria's neck, her shoulders, and away. She could feel Aria's eyes still burning into hers through the dark visor.
I suppose... with the luck we've been having lately, there's a considerable chance that I will be seeing you again soon. We may be heading into a disaster with Asari High Command, if you learn anything implicating from their agents...
Tevos stepped back from Aria, allowing her to exit through the window she had arrived in, and after a final exchanged glance she disappeared from sight. The councilor was left to close the window behind her departing guest. She locked it, reoriented her body toward the interior of her apartment, and gave a long, empty sigh. The hour was horrendously late, and there was yet another full day of work ahead of her. Tevos retired to bed, albeit skeptical of her ability to salvage what little of the night remained for sleep. Still she tried, slipping beneath the sheets Aria had perched herself upon just minutes prior, and privately tormented herself by wondering if indulging in an extension of Aria's company would have been all that bad.
:::
Liselle impatiently began shifting her weight back and forth between her feet, closely monitoring the download to her omni-tool as the bar presenting the task's progression steadily filled. She glanced about the office only to divert her attention from the source that was creating an urgent squall in the pit of her stomach, hoping it would dissolve soon. Abruptly, she noticed something odd—the chatter in her earpiece had become superfluous. Not like the clear annunciation of three voices huddled in close proximity, but as if they had relocated into the center of a another conversation. Concerned, she turned up the volume again to try to make sense of her team's location.
"—and thanks," she managed to catch amid the din. "Yeah, yeah… problems… the week… payment ready."
The dissonance stopped, fading into near-silence.
"Rasma?" she asked. "Are you there?"
Roughly ten seconds passed until she received a reply. But unlike the composed, distant tone Liselle had recently begun to grow accustomed to, the turian's voice found her in a low, quick hiss, "Liselle, we've left the building. We're outside in the alley again—you need to get out of there now! Our talk with Calan is done and he might return to his office any second!"
Panic struck her anew. Her gaze frantically darted about; to the office door, to her omni-tool where she found the process roughly three-fourths completed, then to other places all around the room within a horrible quandary.
"The download isn't finished!" she announced, beginning to pace around the desk with her eyes glued to her omni-tool.
"That doesn't matter!" Rasma replied. "Get your ass out of there right now!"
Her swift pacing persisted, staring at the almost-complete progress bar and silently screaming at it to finish. She had come so far, so very close to success. Only a few seconds separated her from a gloriously fulfilled objective, spitefully mocking her in the way that those units of time seemed to drag on to extraordinary lengths. Liselle's eyes continuously moved from the door to her omni-tool over the rest of the time it took to finish the download. At the very instant when a small window appeared to confirm the task's success, Liselle severed the connection between her omni-tool and Calan's terminal, switching it back into the hibernation mode she had found it in.
She looked up at the vent suspended overhead, and discerned that she would not likely be able to jump back into it without support, for her training had yet to include the practice of biotically-enhanced physical feats like the ones Liselle had seen Zuria and Aria execute. She could always try, of course—but in this circumstance, being so pressed for time and unwilling to allow for the chance of failure, Liselle resourcefully grasped up her pipe of incrimination, slipped it between the strap of her pack and her chest, climbed onto Calan's desk—praying to Athame that her boots were relatively clean—and made a leap for the opening in the vent. She caught onto the edge, eliciting a gruesome creak in the metal, but the system miraculously held her as her body swung forward and back with dwindling momentum. Just as her thrashing to enter the vents commenced, she caught a flash of color from the corner of her eye. The office door's lock had switched from red to green. She shouted within her head in fright, losing her grip at falling back down to the floor with a thud.
Liselle rolled onto her stomach, lifting herself up into a crawl and scrambled to a position behind the desk, anywhere at all immediately out of sight from someone about to enter the room. But that alone would not suffice. Calan would inevitably find her there without a doubt, driving Liselle to throw herself against the cabinets lining the wall, ripping one of their doors open and shoving herself into the space, pushing aside bottles that rattled and clinked in protest.
The moment she shut the cabinet door, she heard the office door open with a click and hiss, followed by the patter of a single pair of footsteps. She had ceased breathing now, listening to the steps in the darkness of her cramped confinement with her legs painfully curled up to her chest. They were drawing closer, closer; close enough to send her heart beating at pace wilder than ever before. Their rhythm broke. A tiny, almost inaudible creak sounded as a chair was sat in, followed by the chime of the terminal being reactivated.
She abruptly remembered the vent. That glaring black hole staring at Calan from above—did he notice it? Was he eyeing it this instant, preparing to investigate; a business that would eventually end in a thorough search of his office? Or was it camouflaged among the countless other blemishes in the ceiling—haphazard metal patchwork, essentially, particularly found in older buildings in this district?
This whole sector is held together by electrical tape and glue, she recalled Malak muttering distastefully while sitting on an inter-district shuttle on their way to the mercenary guild. She ardently hoped the state of disrepair would work to her advantage.
But what now, she thought? Even if Calan detected no evidence of her intrusion, Liselle was trapped. There was no way to escape the cabinets without being seen and attacked.
"Liselle?" she heard from her earpiece. "Where are you? Are you almost out of the building?"
She could not answer. Her lips were sealed.
"Liselle…? Fuck…!"
Instead of verbally communicating, Liselle turned on her omni-tool again. The orange interface burned through the inky shadows as she typed out a brief message to Rasma: Stuck hiding in Calan's office. Cannot speak.
She sent it. After she did, Liselle heard Calan begin to talk.
"Yeah, I talked to some new mercs today. They wore decent armor and were packing decent arms, and seemed to know what they were talking about, but I'm still pretty skeptical about skills they claimed to have. They took the nastiest contract we have open… Yeah, that one… No, not Lorhan's. That's only open for loyal partners. Can't risk the publicity, there's a few people we might upset about it. They got the other guy. Yeah. Yeah, I know, I'm probably going to hear from someone in a few days about their bodies being found dumped in a gutter like one of Aria T'Loak's boys. Did you hear about that…? Yeah, all sorts of shit has been happening to her high-rankers. It began when she started pushing into the Kenzo District, if I remember correctly. About time, if you ask me. Whoever's giving her trouble is fucking insane, but I suppose someone has to do it. For all our sakes. When T'Loak starts eyeing Zeta—and I know she will—she's going to annex us and my establishment will go under faster than a turian trying to swim. You know why? Because she'll drain the local market. She'll let her pals from Blood Pack and Eclipse roam around Zeta and our normal clientele is going to gravitate toward them because they're better outfitted, better organized, they've got billions of credits circulating through them, and they'll take up our bounties… Yes, I know what I'm getting into, and don't try to advise me otherwise. I know the risks, but if there is ever going to be a time for it, it's now. These fuckers giving Aria hell could use a hand, considering what they're up against... Yeah, head over here sometime within the next hour. We'll have a drink and talk business."
Liselle listened intently to the call, eyes wide as she all but pressed the side of her head to the cabinet door to hear every word. Her attention was only recaptured by Rasma's voice in her earpiece, speaking gravely, accusingly, and coldly, "You didn't leave when I told you to, did you?"
A hand came to cover her lower face in grief. Curses spilled from Rasma, and when she reported the situation to Malak, more arose from him as well.
"We can't come back to help you, Liselle," she said. "We've already made our arrangement and we've been waiting outside too long to go back. They'll know we're up to something; our newness to their guild, our immediate acceptance of their best bounty, the length of the conversation we had with Calan... If we go back, they might just decide to drag us into some back room and beat answers out of us. We've done everything we could for you. And since you were so confident in your superior judgement, surely you also had an escape plan. Right, Liselle?"
She felt sick to her stomach. Calan was still speaking to his contact, and Liselle could hear Malak and Rasma beginning to bicker over what to do about the situation. Their inability to reach a consensus engendered great despair within Liselle's heart as the gravity of her position was accentuated with every second she spent listening. Instead of permitting herself to be driven into another throe of panic, she decreased the volume of her earpiece and tightly shut her eyes, clutching at her folded legs. She breathed slowly, deeply; staving off all approaching tendrils of hysteria and calming her heart's war drum pounding.
She wasn't going to die there, she told herself. She was smart and capable. Independent and brave. There was a way out... just one she hadn't thought of yet.
Tentatively, Liselle pressed a hand onto the cabinet door, pushing it ajar to allow a column of fresh light to pour into her enclosure. She peeked out silently to see the legs of Calan's chair in which he was sitting while working at his terminal. His call with his contact had ended, rendering the man placid and focused on business. Liselle pulled back from the crack of light, using its grace to examine her surroundings. Bottles of alcohol proudly wearing expensive labels were the original occupants of the cabinet until Liselle had so rudely pushed her way into their midst, displacing them so that they were now scattered about beneath and around her. And from the ceiling of the cabinet had been a row of hooks from which other, smaller flasks had been hung—those too knocked from their places and currently lying amongst the other bottles. With her immediate environment known, Liselle suddenly recognized the danger of moving too quickly or too far in any direction. If she did so, there was an awfully likely chance that the bottles would rattle as they settled back down, revealing her presence. But she could not also stay there forever, waiting until Calan left again or went home. He was expecting company within the hour, and Liselle was sitting upon his stash of refreshments.
Okay, Liselle thought. No problem. Just don't move yet. First, get Calan out of here somehow. Manipulate something? Get his attention onto something outside his office, and make him leave. Send messages? No, he'll trace them... There's really no way to effect anything outside his office. I have his data, but it's not like I can cause something like a power outage or anything with it. If I wanted to hack into the power systems I would have be within a few meters of its central operations terminal... And I have no idea where that is. Jumping out and fighting probably won't end well... He's just one man but he's definitely killed plenty of people before.
She turned back to her surroundings for help, acknowledging them as her only aids in any escape she could devise. Carefully, Liselle lifted a cylindrical bottle from her side, turning it over in her hand while creating a mental list of its properties and possible uses.
There was one that particularly struck her.
Liselle contorted and reached back with an arm, blindly groping for her pack's zipper until she secured it between her fingers. She spent an agonizingly long time opening it to reduce the sound, and once a large enough opening had been created she strained her shoulder to reach into the pack and delicately sift through its contents. She felt what she sought and retrieved it. It was a small roll of gauze, originally reserved for a potential injury and never brought along with this utilization in mind. She unwrapped a bit, used the blade in her sleeve to cut the section, and picked up the bottle she had recently examined. After unscrewing the lid, she stuffed a portion of the gauze down into the bottle, immersing it in the alcohol, then managed to smash the lid back down enough to keep her invention reasonably intact. In all, Liselle made two more objects of identical design before reaching into one of her pockets and pulling out Malak's lighter.
With a few flicks a tiny flame burst to life, dancing harmlessly before her face and awaiting her application. Liselle took a deep breath, silently apologizing to her team for botching the mission, to her mother for potentially meeting her end in such a pathetic manner, and even to Calan, whose day was about to be ruined.
She held the flame to the tail of gauze, lighting it aflame before nudging the cabinet door open enough to roll the bottle out, across the carpet behind where Calan sat, and into one corner of the room. Liselle swiftly repeated the process with her remaining bottles, rolling them out to varying distances to incite confusion of their origin. Once the bottles were out of her possession, Liselle shut the cabinet and became utterly still; listening, waiting for Calan to notice.
Ideally, Liselle's plan was to start a fire, spook Calan into evacuating his office, and then slip back into the vents while the sprinklers came on and neutralized the danger. To her immense dismay, only her first prediction went according to plan. Tongues of fire grew from the rich carpet, steadily spreading out in flickering, crackling arms until the seated batarian heard and smelled the trouble. He jumped out of his chair, alarmed and confounded by the sight of his furnishings catching fire from an indeterminable source. But instead of fleeing, as Liselle had hoped, Calan began trying to stamp the flames out.
When Liselle opened the cabinet again to monitor the chaos she had manufactured, she saw a wall of flames swiftly climbing up the other side of the row of cabinets, crawling in her direction as Calan tried to put out another fire in the far corner. The wood cracked and splintered, engulfed in heat, flames greedily devouring the coating of fine lacquer; yet no rain of water was arriving from the tiny nozzles mounted in the ceiling to extinguish the aggressive advance, to Liselle's great disconcertion.
And then she remembered the pipe, pulling it out of the secure home between her pack's strap and her chest as if startled by its saboteur intent.
She squeezed out of the cabinet as the wall of flames closed in on her location. The moment she stumbled out into the office, Calan caught sight of her darkly-clad figure moving in the periphery of his vision. On reflex his hand darted for the gun at his hip. But before he turned around, and before he could finish his hostile demand of "Who the fuck are—", Liselle had taken one long stride toward him, dodging the encroaching fires while wielding the pipe in her hands like a bat, and swung with all her might. The metal cracked off the batarian's face, sending him straight to the floor where he became motionless.
Liselle let the pipe clatter to the floor, lifting an arm to shield her nose and mouth from the plumes of smoke pouring into the air. She reached down, grabbing Calan by the legs and gritting her teeth as she called upon all her physical strength to drag him away from the fire and toward the door. After slamming her fist against the lock to disengage it, she dumped Calan outside the office, closed the door, and sprinted back to his desk. The smoke had permeated through the air, cloaking the atmosphere in dark grey and threatening to strangle and poison the girl wandering back into its noxious cloud. She began to cough as she climbed onto the desk, eyes stinging and struggling to see the vent through the thick veil. One raspy cough was smothered by her forearm before she jumped for the vents, grabbing onto the opening and eliciting an even louder metallic groan than before. The sound mattered not—she pulled herself back into the system, choking and gasping while venturing further into the vents as quickly as she could in search of cleaner air and an escape.
She retraced her path, carefully crawling over the weak section in the restroom she had smashed through earlier. When she reached the short dead end with the slow-turning fan at its extent, she turned down that route and broke through the fan with a few well-placed kicks. Liselle dropped from the building, crashing down onto the street in blind agony while still trying to expel the smoke from her lungs. She lied on her back, staring up at the dark cavernous heavens of Omega. Involuntarily convulsions of her chest pulled out more rough and painful coughs.
A shadow came to loom over her, followed by another shortly after. She rolled over onto her stomach without delay, reaching for her submachine gun to defend herself, but her action was cut short by an aggressor brutally lifting her from the ground by the collar of her commando attire.
"What the hell did you do?" Malak demanded of her.
They were near the alley again, Liselle realized. However, the leisure to dwell on her discovery was stolen from her.
"There's smoke coming out of the roof!" Malak snarled, fiercely pointing at a spot on the building jutting out from the larger spire it was connected to. Sure enough, a black tongue of smoke was snaking up from the metal structure. "What the fuck did you do, you idiot!?" Using his fistful of her collar, he gave her body a single violent shake as if trying to jerk the answers from her.
She could only gape in shock.
"You just couldn't stop at fucking up our mission in the first place, could you? You just had to make a complete disaster out of all of this, huh?! You're not the only person on this team, you little shit! We've got just as much as you do riding on the success of this investigation. Our jobs, money, reputation, everything! I'm not going to let some asari brat ruin the rest of my life, do you understand me!?"
Liselle frantically nodded, overflowing with fear.
"Malak!" Rasma shouted at him. When she approached, she laid a furious hand on the batarian's shoulder and spoke to him, "Put her down. Now."
"Are you joking? This kid destroyed our mission! Do you have any idea how angry Aria's going to be?"
"Yes, and she's going to be even angrier if we're caught hanging around here by the bounty hunters. Let's go." Rasma dug her talons into him, communicating her intolerance of any more disobedience exhibited by either of them.
Liselle crumpled back down onto the street after being released. Before she could even recover on her own, however, her turian ally was hauling her back up by the arm, proceeding to drag her along as they escaped from the area. The grip was painful and harsh, but it was nothing compared to the immense shame weighing down her spirits like a lead ball and chain wrapped about her body. Once they had put enough distance between themselves and the mercenary guild, Liselle's teammates began speaking to each other without censorship as they discussed the girl's actions and probable consequences upon reporting back to their boss. With all arguments and insults directed toward Liselle set aside, one conclusion was drawn and agreed upon: the report to Aria would conceal nothing about the mission, listing every reason for their failure and subsequently leaving Liselle's fate to the queen. It was a good resolution, as Malak seemed to think—it saved him from losing face, and a catastrophe of this scale would surely warrant Liselle's removal from their team and her replacement by someone hopefully more competent and reliable. Unlike him, Rasma was unhappy either way. After all, Aria had entrusted her with leading the Eingana team, and there existed a chance where if she had possessed keener foresight she might have predicted this incident and had adjusted her plans accordingly.
Meanwhile, as the frustrated trio sat waiting for the next arrival of the shuttle, Liselle stared blankly at the streets and its bustling people, completely stripped of confidence, drained of her visions of success, and feeling more soulless and smaller than she had ever before in her life. She wanted to melt into the old bench and seep down into Omega's cold metal bones, never to be found again nor arraigned by the world—by her mother—for bringing such disappointment to her royal lineage.