MASS EFFECT: INTERCEPTOR

*Episode Eleven*

At first Arlen thought they'd handed him the wrong dossier. He couldn't believe they wanted a man like Krassus brought back in chains.

His eyes scanned the datapad, steadily taking in every small detail. Everything that had occurred in the general's life was laid bare for Arlen to see, from his childhood and education to the beginnings of an auspicious military career.

Despite his hatred of what the Forgotten Legion had done, Arlen could not help but feel a measure of admiration for the man. Krassus had been awarded nearly a dozen medals and commendations, including the Star of the Valiant - the highest honour in the turian military - for his part in the siege of Shanxi. Such things were not easily ignored by fellow turians, no matter the circumstances.

Sighing, Arlen cast a glance out of the window beside him. The stars of the Sahrabarik system were distant and dim, as if reluctant to offer their light to that infamous area of space. Even the transport ship he was travelling in was dirty and ill-maintained, its crew rough. Every one of the passengers brandished a weapon of some description and he couldn't ignore the armed guards stationed at every airlock.

With a deep breath, he returned to the dossier and began to look over the images of Krassus and his men. He narrowed his eyes in grim concentration, forcing to memory every facet of the general's appearance. Arlen took in everything, from the cold blue eyes to the cyan paint decorating Krassus' pitted grey skin.

This was the face of Arlen's target and he would not forget it.

'Ugh…' Keller grunted as she staggered up to the seat next to Arlen, making him start.

'Still not feeling any better?' he asked, setting the datapad down on his lap.

He looked at the detective sympathetically as she clutched her stomach and and took her seat with a grimace. Once settled, she threw back her head and took deep, hungry breaths. Her eyes were closed against the sickness and her golden hair fell in tangles across her damp forehead.

'God damn it,' she cursed loudly, 'This is what happens when you never leave the Citadel your whole life. I never knew those freaking momentum dampeners would turn my stomach so bad.'

'Hey, look on the bright side,' Arlen replied, 'At least you can move around a little better in that outfit.'

He nodded to the shining black dress that clung to Keller's slim frame. Strips of white ran down the sleeves and one side of the torso, accentuating the curves of her figure.

It was meant to be a compliment but Keller did not respond. Instead she held her breath in anticipation of another nauseous wave.

Next to her obvious pain and distress, Arlen felt guilty for his own pleasure at finally getting to shed his combat armour. The touch of solid surfaces under his fingers seemed odd after so long spent encased in plated gloves and every so often he had to run a disbelieving hand across the arms of his seat, relishing the simple feel of moulded plastic.

He only wished he were as pleased with his own clothing as Keller had been with hers. His formal suit of dark grey with red lining felt too old-fashioned, even for his own conservative tastes.

Still, Keller had insisted that he needed to look like a businessman for his cover as an arms dealer to remain credible and he was not inclined to argue with her - even more so after her assurances, joking or no, that he was the most handsome turian she'd ever met. He wondered if he would ever get the chance to break his subsequent promise of not repeating her words to Garrus.

Keller groaned again. 'It doesn't matter what I'm wearing. If I have to get up and go to that disgusting bathroom one more time I'm going to scream.'

'Yeah…screaming would be bad, seeing as how we don't want to draw attention. Humans aren't too popular in the Terminus Systems, you know.'

Arlen's concern was no exaggeration. The eyes of several batarian passengers had narrowed when they'd first noticed Keller, though it was obvious they would not disturb the fragile peace on the transport, not while the guards were so close.

'Speaking of,' Keller began, composing herself with a deep draught of air through her nostrils, 'we'd better recap the plan.'

Arlen nodded. 'This Spectre, Olansi, is supposed to meet us in terminal beta of Omega's central commercial docking ring. As dangerous as Omega is, there's a large civilian population in that part of the station and the entire area is locked down by the Blue Suns mercenary group. From what I hear, that's about as safe as the place gets.'

'And the safehouse?'

'Chellick said it's in a more upmarket area, away from the worst of the slums.' Arlen paused to scratch the back of his neck. 'I don't know exactly what defines 'upmarket' on Omega, but there you go.'

'I assume that just means we're less likely to get stabbed, shot or incinerated, at least without due notice.'

Chuckling, Arlen picked up the datapad again and handed it to Keller. She refused, holding her hand up while cringing in disgust. 'I can't read, not while I'm feeling like this. Just thinking about it makes me 'wanna vomit into your lap.'

Arlen nodded and stowed the dossier. He looked back at Keller curiously. 'Is this really your the first time away from the Citadel?'

'Yeah,' she replied, her voice barely more than a husky whisper, 'Never had to leave before. Is it really that strange? The Citadel's a big place, big enough for someone to spend their whole life in.'

'I don't know, I guess it is a little strange. After all, humans are always thought of as immigrants and newcomers. In fact, I was pretty surprised to see so many of your kind on the Citadel. What brought your family there in the first place?'

Keller smiled despite her illness, the memories of childhood clearly relieving her discomfort. 'Mom always said the Citadel was the future, that we were the pioneers of our time. We were among the first wave of humans to emigrate to the station and most of us set up shop in Tayseri Ward. My dad had his own business back on Earth but he wasn't doing too well. We took everything we had and decided to make a fresh start where there was little human competition.' Keller's smile widened and her eyes glistened with emotion. 'Dad was quiet though, the regular mild-mannered guy-next-door. It was mom who called the shots and it was her idea to leave.'

'Did they find success?' Arlen asked with genuine interest.

'Not really,' she sighed, 'They made enough money to get by but life was always tough in the wards. They'd have to put up with the occasional bigot and clean up the odd racist slur painted on their door. It was no worse than the crime we faced back home really, but it was still a lot to handle as a kid and it was hard growing up there at times. I had to learn how to deal with other races and thanks to my young age, I think I did well enough. Then Harkin joined C-Sec and everything changed.'

'You knew Harkin?'

Keller considered the question for what seemed a long time before shaking her head. 'No, but he was famous for a little while, especially among the human community. First of us to get into C-Sec and all that. That was twenty years ago but I remember hearing the news like it was yesterday. I used to look up to the C-Sec officers, those proud, tall aliens dressed in their blue uniforms. When I heard humans were being accepted into their ranks, I knew right away it was what I wanted to do.'

'That's some resolve, considering you followed it through,' Arlen stated with real admiration, 'How old were you back then?'

'Only eleven. After a good thirteen years in C-Sec, catching bad guys and making the wards a safer place, I think I can say I made that little girl proud.'

'Wait,' Arlen said, his mouth remaining open as the pieces of information fell into place, 'That would make you…thirty-one years old?'

'Mmhmm…' Keller confirmed with a nod. Her smile was tight, however and it was clear she did not wish to continue that particular line of conversation.

'I apologise,' Arlen quickly added, 'I'm just surprised, that's all. You look younger, I mean, from what I know about humans and how old they look.'

He trailed off as Keller raised a mocking eyebrow. 'You're digging yourself deeper here, buddy.'

'Wait!' Arlen gasped, 'I'm just saying that I thought you were at least five, maybe seven years younger! Isn't that a good thing to hear? Um…not that I'm just telling you what you want to hear, but-'

Keller's laugh rang out through the aisles, bringing a few inquisitive heads up from the rows of seats. Arlen could only flush as tears sprang to her eyes and her cheeks began to redden.

'I'm sorry!' she spluttered between fits, 'I'm sorry but you're just too damn much!'

Shamed, Arlen folded his arms and went back to staring out the window but something in Keller's laugh made the young turian grin sheepishly and it wasn't long before he turned back again. He reached up to scratch the back of his neck nervously.

'Sorry,' Keller repeated. She sniffed loudly and dabbed the wetness from her eyes. 'Okay, I'm done. You know, you're kind of adorable when you get all flustered like that.'

After a few moments, Arlen gained the courage to speak again, 'So, you were saying about your family?'

Keller shrugged. 'Not much left to say. I joined C-Sec when I was eighteen and after a year's training I got assigned to my first district. My parents left when I joined up and now they're running a franchise on Beckenstein, a human-controlled planet in the Boltzmann System.' Her voice grew low and reflective, and her gaze drifted slowly to the side. 'I keep telling myself to go out there and see them but, with work and everything, I just haven't had the chance.'

Arlen lowered his head. There was a gentle sadness in Keller's voice that clashed with the mirth of only seconds ago. He blinked, wanting to say something that would cheer her up and his lips hovered apart as he remained on the cusp of speaking. There was nothing he could say, he quickly realised, and the silence stretched between them.

'What about you?' Keller asked suddenly, 'Do you ever get to see your family?'

Arlen became very still at that. Once more, his mouth parted but nothing but nothing came out.

Keller frowned at his hesitation. 'Are you all right?'

'Yeah,' he replied, looking back to the stars, 'I just don't talk about my family much'

'Why not?'

Arlen gave no sign that he'd even heard her. His eyes began to flit back and forth, as if searching the distant void for an answer. Finally, he released his breath.

'It's nothing.'

Her eyes still fixed on him, Keller eased herself back into the chair.

'I didn't mean to pry,' she murmured softly.

'It's fine,' Arlen replied, offering a feeble smile but nothing more.

The seconds passed by awkwardly until without warning, Keller doubled over, groaning in agony.

'Not again!' she moaned and in a heartbeat her chair was empty, the pounding of running feet echoing through the aisles.

Arlen's chest heaved with a quiet sigh. He felt ashamed that he'd brushed off Keller's question so brusquely after she had shared so much, and yet the reaction was not even one he chose to give. The mere mention of his family had brought up memories and feelings he'd worked hard to bury and he was shocked by how raw they still were.

Sighing, he picked up Krassus' dossier once again. His mission would banish those old ghosts, he was certain. Nothing else mattered.

~~~ME-I~~~

Milo worked in sombre silence, staring at his terminal screen. He did not seem to hear the hurried conversations or the orders shouted from one side of the command centre to the other. Instead, his eyes were fixed on the information passing before them, twitching slightly every few moments. He barely reacted when a blue-skinned hand came to rest on his shoulder.

'Hey,' Lorica murmured into his ear as she tenderly pressed her head against his, 'Do you want to talk about what happened earlier?'

'No, it's all right,' her lover replied, forcing a smile, 'I know Chellick didn't have a choice.'

'Come on, I know it must have been hard for you,' she persisted, 'Please, talk to me.'

Milo let out a long, deep breath. He leaned back in his chair and ran a hand down his face. 'I don't know. So many people died today. So many families, couples like us, people who woke up this morning excited and happy, thinking they were going to see the Citadel. They had nothing to do with the First Contact War, or anything the Forgotten Legion holds a grudge over. It's just not fair. Any of it.'

Frowning to himself, Milo jerked back into position and pressed his gaze back to his monitor. 'Sorry, I'm moping.'

Lorica bent over slightly and draped her arms over his shoulders, gently pulling his body to hers. 'It's okay,' she whispered reassuringly, 'Nobody's blaming you for being upset over what happened. It's good that you're so concerned about those people's lives and I don't doubt that you would've reacted the same way had they been turian, asari, anything other than human. You're a good person, Milo, and that's nothing to be ashamed of.'

Closing his eyes, Milo visibly tried to shut out his grief. 'Thanks. I guess I just never realised what it would be like, to see something like that happen and not be able to do anything to stop it. Maybe I'm in the wrong job.'

Instantly, Lorica knelt beside him and used a hand to gently bring his eyes to hers. 'You are stopping it. We might have lost the Jamestown but our work here will prevent the Legion repeating their attack across the galaxy. We need you here, Milo. I need you here.'

'Yeah,' he said, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. He took her hand and gave it a subtle squeeze before his eyes moved up to look beyond her. Milo's expression changed almost instantly. 'Sorry, Lina, we're getting back to work, honest.'

Lorica's head swivelled and she regarded Lina with her customary iciness as the quarian stood over them, her fingers drumming sternly over her folded arms. A datapad lay clutched against her chest, her suit shining as it pressed the material into her body.

'On the contrary,' Lina replied, the gentleness of her tone catching them both off-guard, 'I just wanted to ask if you would like to go home for the time being. It's late enough as it is and nobody has missed the way you've confined yourself to your desk since this afternoon.'

Her words lacked the bark of command, replaced instead with genuine concern and Milo looked taken aback at the change in her manner.

'I'll be fine, thanks,' he finally replied, shaking his head, 'Really, thank you. It's kind of you to offer.'

'Believe it or not, I care about the wellbeing of the people I work with,' Lina responded dryly, 'So this isn't just an offer. I'm ordering you to go and get some rest. Report back when you feel you're ready.'

Lorica stood up and glared at Lina, her fists clenched. 'You can't just send him away like that if he doesn't want to go! We need him to-'

'It's all right, baby,' Milo interrupted as he gripped her arm lightly, 'The section will run just fine without me and I could use some sleep. It might even clear my head a little. I'll be back soon, okay?'

He rose groggily and his exhaustion became immediately apparent. Without the light of his terminal, Milo's eyes appeared dark and sunken, his well-groomed beard rough and unkempt. He walked away stiffly, raising his arms to gently push aside anyone in his way.

Lorica did not even look at Lina when the quarian spoke again, 'It was for his own good. The guy could barely keep his eyes open.'

Lorica shook with anger and her eyes were edged with bitter tears. She inhaled quickly to crush the welling of emotion.

'Yeah, sure. Whatever you say,' she muttered, 'You're always right, after all.'

Lina shrugged indifferently at the asari's stiff response. Turning back to her datapad, she walked away briskly, annoyed at herself for getting so distracted.

Crossing the command centre, Lina leapt up the stairs of the central dais in almost a single bound. Chellick stood there as always, engrossed in the displays that ringed the platform and it took obvious effort to wrench himself from them to nod a greeting to Lina as she approached.

'When I got in this morning,' he began wearily, 'I never thought I'd be here this late. If I had, then I'd have eaten a bigger breakfast, that's for sure.'

The remark reminded Lina of her own rumbling stomach but she ignored it, suppressing the discomfort as she did everything else. She handed Chellick the datapad, dutifully proud of what lay within.

'These are the findings you requested,' she said, 'We may have further details throughout the night but for now, this should be enough to satisfy whoever needs it.'

After only a few moments of reading, Chellick raised a brow. 'You really dug all this out of only a few scraps of code?'

The turian sounded impressed and Lina knew it was deserved. 'It wasn't too difficult. The only problem is how far we're going to get with the samples we have alone. Unless Arlen can turn something up at Bithcon Dynamics then I'm afraid we'll run into a dead end very soon. So far, we've been able to ascertain the Jamestown Virus is highly adaptive and aggressive, able to penetrate almost any secure network and - if there's a counterpart process in place - it can even remotely reach systems off the grid. Once we isolate the source code, we can begin to understand its true purpose.'

'True purpose?' Chellick asked.

Lina shook her head. 'Odd as it sounds, we just aren't sure what the virus is actually supposed to do. The first stage responds to outside stimuli like an organic being, as I said before but only within the context of its goal. The Jamestown Virus was able to disable the ship and evade all security countermeasures it came across but I have a feeling that if something unexpected were to have happened, something that went outside the boundaries of its initial programming, then the consequences would've been entirely different.'

'Like what?'

'The presence of an unanticipated security protocol, insertion into a different part of the Citadel, even something as straightforward as the Jamestown simply not being there when the time came. You see, the virus begins as a simple repeating algorithm, created with a series of simple flaws that force it to adapt and come up with a solution, or else the cycle comes to a halt and it...well, dies. With every solution the cycle begins anew, with the added knowledge of how to solve the previous problem. But those flaws are carefully chosen and introduced at just the right time. If the flaw lies outside the context of the algorithm at that particular stage then it all simply stops working.'

'So,' Chellick said slowly as he began to make sense of it all, 'you're saying that in order for the virus to be effective, it has to be used in exactly the right way, at exactly the right time and place?'

'Exactly,' Lina replied with a nod, 'Though I can't even begin to imagine what it would do if faced with anything to the contrary.'

Chellick made a soft growling sound in the back of his throat. 'If what you say is true, that it displays the instincts of an organic, then wouldn't it act like any confused animal and lash out at anything in its path?'

'Perhaps. A computer virus travelling aimlessly and unpredictably through the Citadel's networks, able to disable anything from life support to the main engines...' Lina paused as a chill entered her blood at the thought. 'It's not the most pleasant scenario.'

'I don't know what worries me more. From the way you describe it, the virus may have been far more destructive had the Legion not gone after the Jamestown. What kind of a weapon is more useful if it fails?'

Lost for a moment in his own words, Chellick cleared his throat and gave Lina a grin, if anything to dispel the brooding air their conversation had brought on. 'Good work, Lina. Was there anything you wanted from me while I'm here? I might not be around for a few hours tomorrow morning.'

Lina shook her head and, almost in a single motion, tilted it inquisitively. Few within JSTF knew of Chellick's early meeting with Executor Pallin and the human ambassador, Donnel Udina, and she quietly wondered if her intel on the virus would be used in the talks.

'Looking forward to your appointment, I see,' she said jokingly and the turian managed a half-hearted smile, his own reservation clear.

'Politics is the realm of politicians and I've never been one for that particular game. The idea of toying with other people for my own benefit just makes my skin crawl. I don't know how they make a living from it.'

Lina looked as if she were about to interject but quickly decided against it. All of those smug, suited men and women were worlds apart from her.

'We don't need to know,' she finally said.

'True enough. At the very least, I'll have Pallin there to do the talking. Maybe one of the Councillors will attend but I'm not holding out much hope of that. Looks like it's just going to be me, Pallin, Udina and more intergalactic lawyers than you can shake a stick at.'

Lina frowned beneath her visor. 'What is this meeting all about, if you don't mind me asking?'

'I'm not entirely sure. I know I'm supposed to brief the ambassador on the current state of the investigation but aside from that, it's all a little hush-hush. Were I to guess, I'd say it's another chance for Udina to try and muscle in on how we're doing things.'

'I see. Well, it should make for entertaining listening, at least.'

Chellick laughed quietly. 'That it should.'

~~~ME-I~~~

A warm breeze glanced across Arlen's face. It was not a natural current however, and his nostrils narrowed as they detected a thick tang of untreated sewage. He looked up at the immense fans dotting the ceiling of the vast docking bay and quietly cursed whoever had thought of routing the ventilation from waste disposal to that area.

He eyed Keller warily as she staggered from the docking tube. The stench was overwhelming and it was clear that it would send her into another bout of sickness if they did not leave soon.

'Welcome to Omega,' he said lightly, though the joke went unheard as his voice was swallowed by the press of disembarking passengers, each eager to escape the putrid atmosphere.

Keller leaned against him, her arms wrapped around one of his for support. Arlen did his best to keep her steady while his eyes took in every detail of their surroundings.

At their backs, the long grey docking umbilical stretched out to their transport, now enclosed by the colossal kinetic barrier that ran the length of the bay. Across its surface worked dozens of contracted workers who scrambled to perform routine maintenance before the ship left for its next destination.

As large as the transport was, it was dwarfed by the other vessels that had paid to alight at the largest and safest port in Omega. To Arlen's eye, more than fifty other ships occupied the hangar, from small personal shuttles to bulky freighters. The distinctive profile of a batarian raiding ship stood at the far end, though the crew were nowhere to be seen.

Setting his jaw, Arlen wondered what would happen if they were accosted by such people at that moment. Keller was in no condition to fight and against several armed men, Arlen's sidearm would not be enough.

He found his question answered as he picked out the security detail for the port beyond the crowd.

Clad in their distinctive blue and white armour, several Blue Suns mercenaries stood watch, their heads turning slightly as they scanned for troublemakers. From the shape of their helmets, Arlen counted two turians and a human, to whom the others seemed to defer. It was an odd thing to see and he could only guess as to how the Blue Suns kept their organisation so free of ethnic tension that his people would accept orders from a human.

Beside him, Keller coughed hoarsely. He glanced at her with a pang of worry. Her condition had only worsened as their journey went on and her skin had grown pale and waxen. Her eyes were blurred with tears as they met his.

'I threw up,' she whispered.

All of her previous confidence and self-reliance had been battered away by the debilitating nausea that had gripped her and she somehow looked smaller and more frail as she clung tightly to Arlen's limb.

'Five times,' she added.

For anyone else Arlen might have felt a pitiable remorse but for her, he felt an odd sense of protectiveness and his response was immediate.

'You're in no state to meet anyone, Detective. I'm sending you to the safe house, where you can get some rest and settle down while I meet Olansi. I'll check on you later.'

'I want to come,' she murmured, though her words were slurred with dizziness, 'I can help, you know I can.'

'You can help yourself by getting some rest,' Arlen replied with a chuckle.

Keller swayed groggily, almost throwing them off-balance as they passed through a passageway into a great, murky hall, thick with people of all size and species.

The Blue Suns controlled the area in large numbers, with several patrols pressing between seething torrents of batarians, salarians and elcor. A scuffle broke out between a lurking gang of turians, though they quickly dispersed after a barked order from an armoured guard. They glowered menacingly at his raised assault rifle as they fled but offered no resistance.

No one seemed to mind or even register the event at all and the crowds flowed smoothly through the hall, passing under a layer of yellow mist that hung over their heads in a thick cloud. Arlen did not want to guess what chemicals it contained.

It did not take long for them to pass through the terminal. Without a customs checkpoint there was nothing to hold them up and as Chellick had advised, the pair of them travelled light, with only a small case between them. Heavy baggage would only have been stolen, and the presence of any C-Sec issue equipment would have been reported and their presence closely monitored the very moment they set foot on the station.

Keller clutched the case to her chest as Arlen eased her into a waiting shuttle outside. She leaned into the seat and gasped softly as Arlen leaned over to punch in the safe house location in the shuttle's autopilot controls. Within minutes she would arrive at her destination and be able to rest.

The thought gave Arlen some comfort, as if a weight had been lifted from his chest.

'I'll be an hour at the most,' he said, raising his voice as the rest of the shuttles filled with passengers and started to take off, 'Any more than two, assume something's gone wrong, all right?'

'All right,' Keller replied, forcing a weak smile, 'Two hours max. Be careful, Arlen.'

Arlen nodded and the shuttle door slid into place, sealing her in. He stepped back as the engines fired and with a whining drone, the shuttle rose into the air before lurching forward and speeding away.

Suddenly, Arlen felt very alone. He moved his arm, strangely nostalgic of the weight that had hung from it only minutes ago and the image of Keller's sickened gaze filled his thoughts.

A deep, barking laugh broke the moment and Arlen backed away instinctively as an enormous krogan lumbered into the shuttle queue. The wide curves of its armour were caked in thick paint the colour of dried blood while a crudely daubed skull dominated the right shoulder pad, a gang insignia if Arlen had ever seen one.

The krogan's laugh snapped into silence and its pale, beady eyes shifted over to Arlen with palpable malice. A low growl filled the air and Arlen could not tell if it was the krogan or another shuttle warming its thrusters.

Turning quickly, Arlen walked away, uncomfortable without the reassuring weight of his armour. He doubted his Striker would penetrate the krogan's hide, let alone its suit and he strained his senses as he strode back into the terminal, listening for the sound of following footsteps.

Once back inside, he breathed a little more easily. There was safety in the anonymity of a crowd and Arlen basked in it as he blended into the stream of passers-by once again. Their murmuring voices brought a semblance of calm, as did the Blue Suns patrols ambling freely through the hall.

Checking over his shoulder, Arlen let out a small sigh of relief when he saw the krogan had not followed. His mind turning back to the task at hand, he searched the terminal for something, anything that could signal Olansi's presence.

He did not like Chellick's cryptic instruction. To have no specified meeting point, no description of the Spectre or anything else to go on seemed like madness and for a moment Arlen considered simply leaving and continuing the investigation alone.

'Don't moves,' whispered a voice behind him, the accent strange and foreign to Arlen's ears, 'The public restrooms are thirty paces aheads, to the rights. Head in that directions.'

Cursing inwardly at his own inattention, Arlen might have refused were it not for the distinctive feel of a pistol barrel pressing into his lower back. Without armour, a slug would tear easily through his flesh and he felt a sharp pain as the weapon dug into his skin.

'Start walkings,' the voice ordered.

Obediently, Arlen began to edge his way forward. He tried to go slowly at first but as the pressure from the pistol increased, so did his pace.

His heart began to hammer painfully in his chest. His assailant was hidden from view and he dared not turn around. One mistake would likely mean his death and his mind raced desperately to assess his options.

Arlen's eyes flickered from side to side. He took in everything that could be of use in his environment, as he had been trained. Each and every object that his gaze passed over was registered and their uses noted.

Nothing came. He was moving far too quickly and he did not know if an opportunity to escape would arise. In just seconds, he had stepped away from the thinning crowd and waved a hand over the control panel of the restroom door. The sheet of grimy metal groaned and slid aside, old gears loudly protesting their sudden use.

'Who are you?' Arlen asked, only to be answered with a heavy blow to the back of his head.

'You'll speak when spokens to, jerk-tits,' came a hissed response.

Jerk-tits? Arlen mouthed the insult silently in disbelief, unable to grasp the absurdity of it as they passed into the small, filthy restroom.

Three squalid cubicles lined the wall to their left while a matching set of metallic wash basins were mounted to their right. The sinks were stained brown and black, though whether through rust or bodily fluids was unclear. Cracked mirrors accompanied each basin, warping Arlen's reflection and twisting it into something even more unpleasant than their surroundings.

'Kneels down,' the voice rasped, turning Arlen's blood cold. It was an execution position, and it was not one that he could allow himself to assume.

A sudden thought struck him as the weight of his Striker made itself felt at his thigh. Surely his enemy would have confiscated it if he'd noticed it? Arlen could only take the chance.

With a speed that surprised even him, Arlen turned his body and felt the pistol slide across the hard ridges of his back. In the same instant, he used one arm to knock the gun aside while his other drew the Striker in a single, smooth motion.

The movement ceased, and in the blink of an eye Arlen was holding up his weapon, staring down his sights at his assailant.

The voice had belonged to a salarian, his features obscured by a garish green, purple and white helmet. His armour matched and Arlen could see that nearly every part of the suit had been modified, from the shield generator to the ablative plating.

The salarian's pistol had risen in unison with Arlen's and the two men now stood face to face, each staring down the other's barrel.

Slowly, they began to take short, shuffling steps, circling each other like birds of prey. Neither flinched and Arlen spoke first, his voice crashing through the thick silence.

'Who are you?'

'You tells me your names and I'll tells you mine.'

The salarian seemed to force his voice through the helmet amplifiers and Arlen noticed how tall he was for one of his species. His shoulders too were wider than expected, giving him a strangely unbalanced look as they sat atop a thin, lithe waist.

'I asked first,' Arlen retorted without a trace of fear.

The salarian replied coldly, 'Well, what d'ya knows, shits for brains, we're not playings a guessing games here!'

Arlen's eyes flitted between the outstretched weapons. 'Then it looks like we're at an impasse. We can either settle this peacefully or shoot each other dead, and something tells me if you wanted to die you wouldn't have bothered bringing me here out of sight to begin with.'

'You're not wearing armours,' the salarian muttered angrily, 'Your skins won't stop a slug.'

'Neither will that ugly suit of yours,' Arlen answered back calmly, 'Not at this range. This is a Striker II, using specialised tungsten rounds. If I'm not mistaken, your suit is volus-made, Elkoss to be exact. Good quality but salarian suits always favour mobility over protection. Yours will be thinner than most and won't stand up to a point-blank shot.'

The salarian digested Arlen's words and with infinite care, lowered his gun.

The move surprised Arlen, who began to ease his finger from his own trigger until a sudden burst of movement and noise brought the pistol sweeping back up again.

Arlen did not understand what the salarian was doing at first and his brow creased as the alien's thin body shuddered. After only a few moments, however, the sound of laughter became clear.

'I'm just messings with 'ya, buddy!' the salarian spluttered as he doubled over, 'Man, you really had me goings there, all like 'your armour won't stop this bullets' and stuffs!'

Arlen froze, his jaw wavering in uncertainty.

Sensing his confusion, the salarian straightened and with a deep breath, regained his composure. As if to demonstrate his intent, he spun his weapon around on the ball of his palm, offering it to Arlen in a gesture of surrender.

His other hand reached up to the base of his helmet and with a soft hiss it slid off to reveal a mass of glossy, dark red skin and two large black eyes that glistened wetly as they narrowed. The jaw, wider and stronger than that of any salarian Arlen had ever seen, was painted with three sharp vertical lines that flexed as he smiled, showing flashes of pale yellow teeth.

'Sorry abouts that,' the salarian said, his voice resonating with an unexpected depth - for a salarian, at least - that matched his muscular frame. Arlen frowned as words tumbled inconsistently from the salarian's lips, 'I hads to be sure you were the real deals. Chellick said there'd be two of you after all, and I saw you packs the humans girl off in a shuttles as soon as you got off the transports.'

Arlen sniffed, taking in a lungful of foetid air that did little to calm his racing heart. 'She was...physically unable to come,' he replied carefully, 'You'll meet Detective Keller when we get back to the safe house.'

The salarian nodded and fastened his pistol securely back in its holster. With a crooked grin that seemed too wide for his bulbous head, he offered a hand in greeting, the green panels of his armour glinting as he reached out.

'Then let me introduce myselfs properly. Name's Kotah Olansi, Council Spectres. Good to be working with you, Interceptors.'

Arlen took Olansi's hand and shook it weakly as confusion washed over him. He cast a critical gaze over the Spectre, over the gaudy armour and foolish grin, and he knew he could not bring himself to say the feeling was mutual.