AN - Thanks as always to Reikson and to DrakePandragon for helping me keep this ship on course
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Shepard's Thoughts ...
Omega.
Ancient Earth history says that wherever mankind built towering monuments to its greatest achievements, the foundation was laid by those who indulged their darkest sins.
Rome.
Babylon.
Shanghai.
Las Vegas.
Roanapur… and yes, Omega
The story of the space station Omega is not too dissimilar from that of Earth's greatest cities. First came the prospectors and miners who came looking for eezo and other resources and minerals.
They hallowed out the asteroid that the station is built into.
Next up were the kind of people that live off such men and women.
Thus the pirates, the slavers, the black marketeers and where such men are, so too their dark cravings which must be satisfied.
The drinking,
The drugs,
The sex,
All the dark little things that everybody wants but nobody likes to admit they need or even like.
Today, Omega's one of the largest ports in the Terminus Systems.
You can find things on Omega that you can't find anywhere else.
There are some who call Omega the dark twin of the Citadel.
Criminal gangs run this place. At the top of the social heap stands Aria T'loak, the hierarchical leader.
Boss…
CEO…
Queen, if you're felling dramatic…
Her story is the story of Omega. She came to the station as a stripper, on the run from her past. Her ambition and drive took her from grinding a pole to ruling at the side of a powerful gang lord whose power she eventually usurped after he tried, unsuccessfully, to kill her. When the smoke cleared, Aria was Omega's unquestioned ruler receiving tribute from the stations never-ending supply of refugees, con artists, smugglers, mercenary bands and criminal guilds .
Omega is the most important place to do business in the chaotic regions outside the control of the Citadel Council and it's member races and most of the credit for that, or blame depending on how you look at it, could be given to Aria and her iron fist,
Anyone who wanted to could come to Omega and make their fortune however they pleased; as long as they remembered one simple little rule ... Omega's one unbreakable law.
Don't Fuck With Aria .
A rule that Xander had seen fit to ignore, both figuratively and literally. But knowing him and what little I remembered about him and women, especially women who were spectacularly dangerous … Not completely unsurprising.
The details were sketchy, and Aria refused to discuss them with me at first, so I stuck to the reason I was there; to find Doctor Mordin Solus and the vigilante Archangel.
I tried hard not to show how much the station disturbed me.
The place felt so familiar; smells, sounds, and sights would trigger confusing memories. I sensed that Xander and Liara could fill in the details, but how was I to find them when Liara was in hiding and Xander was on the run?
I needed allies.
But Xander's wisdom (and I use that term in its loosest possible connotation) would once again prove true.
Sometimes life does indeed hand you a gimme.
Diana ran through the night.
She was fast, but the Vorcha? They were even faster.
They'd been herding her, forcing her to run as they wanted.
She knew why; in Vorcha logic, it made sense.
If you want to catch something, you bait a trap.
But what bait is best for a vigilante?
Simple; a crime that they can stop. A life that they can save.
They'd told her to shout for Archangel several times.
They'd told her what they would do to her if she didn't yell nice and loud. But it didn't take a genius to know what would happen to her if the Vorcha caught the official protector of Omega's lost and forgotten.
"I am the chill that runs down your spine," a voice suddenly rasped aloud from above her.
The Vorcha hissed in anticipation even as the smoke bomb landed.
Diana threw caution to the winds and shouted, "No, please don't! Stay away! It's a trap!"
"I am the terror… that flaps in the night," the raspy voice continued.
The Vorcha scrambled away from the billowing clouds of smoke, as a figure in black armor stepped out of the smoke.
"I… am-"
"Archangel!" one of the Vorcha yelled, interrupting him as it ran towards him with a bloodthirsty howl.
"Okay, dude, seriously? You're stepping on my line," the figure snapped, lashing out with a punch that sent the lead Vorcha sprawling.
His brothers howled similar cries and launched themselves at him, running as quickly as they could.
Archangel stood his ground, a sleek deadly looking SMG clutched in his armored fists.
Diana watched in mute terrified shock as the Vorcha's heads suddenly exploded. One-by-one, each thug was taken out from range by a damn good sniper. When the last Vorcha had fallen to the ground, the dark-armored figure looked down at Diana holding out his hand.
"Come with me if you want to live," the man said in a thick European accent. Diana grabbed his hand and rose off the ground gratitude shining in her eyes.
"…and, right around now, I realize that the weakness of using that line is that I need to stay here for a few while you need to get out of here. So…"
"I'll go home," Diana nodded. "My little Nef… she'll be so worried. I've taken so long getting home."
Archangel sighed, nodding wearily. "Yes, go home, citizen. Stay safe, and remember; knowing ... is half the battle."
A thoroughly-confused Diana only nodded and ran off.
She wasn't the first to be confused by Archangel's bizarre ramblings after he'd rescued them from the jaws of death.
***
Xander Harris pulled his helmet off of his head, and looked around the alleyway and the freshly-headless Vorcha bodies. His face dropped into his palm, a reflection of his incredulity. "Knowing is half the battle?" he groaned. "Dear God, how much more cliché can I get? Why not just start using smurf every other smurfing word and get it smurfing over and done with?"
Another Vorcha trap.
The third one in as many weeks.
According to Preitor Gavorn, the Captain of Omega's so-called Vorcha taskforce, the vile species were little more than a pestilence. But as far as Xander could tell, this pestilence was getting pretty persistent, and he was starting to suspect that these Vorcha were more than the usual trash emboldened by hanging around the Krogan battlemasters in the local Blood Pack Chapter.
He was still looking over the night's work, as another figure stepped out from the shadows.
"G-man, is it just me, or did you take your time?" Xander asked idly.
Garrus Vakarian's flanged mouth twitched. After all the time they'd spent together, Xander could read Turian facial expressions well enough to know that Garrus had an all-too familiar mocking smile in place.
"I am the terror that flaps in the night?" the C-Sec detective-turned-vigilante teased. "What does that mean, anyway?"
"If I'm using Old Disney cartoons for slogan inspiration?" Xander sighed. "Then it means that I've scraped the bottom of the barrel."
"I like the smoke bomb effects, though," Garrus mused. "It's just as disorienting as using flashbangs and it gives your entrance some style."
Xander chuckled bitterly. "Criminals are superstitious and cowardly Garrus. A little fear can go a long way."
Xander startled with sudden realization. He turned to Garrus with concern.
"G-man, what are you doing around here anyway?" he asked. "You know that you can't be this close to the slums. At least not 'till Doc Solus figures out a cure for whatever's making the alien population 'round here so damn sick."
A deadly illness was striking down the population in the slums of Omega, well any of the poor who weren't either human or Vorcha. All other alien species, including Turian, suffered a horrible debilitating sickness that left its victims gasping for breath or choking on their own bodily fluids. It was a nasty way to go and Xander had seen far too many die.
Even worse, because Humans did not get the plague and Vorcha weren't considered smart enough to engineer such a genetically specific sickness on their own; Humans were being blamed for the deaths and increasingly that quiet resentment was getting louder and more brutal.
"This is about as close as I dare get," the former cop sighed. "How much longer 'til the Doc has something ready to go?"
"He's saying a day or two, tops, he just needs us… and, by us, I mean me, to keep the Suns and Vorcha off his ass."
"Xander, you're pretty handy with a weapon, but even you'd be hard-pressed to stay alive if the Suns and Blood Pack came in here in force," Garrus drawled.
"Is that supposed to be funny, Garrus, 'cuz it isn't," the immortal Scooby sighed.
Just because you don't stay dead doesn't mean that you should start getting reckless," the former cop gently chided his friend. "All I'm saying is to be careful, I have a bad feeling about…"
Xander promptly stuck his fingers in his ears and loudly began reciting Krogan battle songs.
"Sorry, I''m sorry," the Turian said apologetically "I know you hate it when I say that,"
"I hate it when anyone says that," Xander grumbled. "Our odds are bad enough without us jinxing it."
Garrus sensed that his comment had less to do with their vigilante war on Omega, and more with the ever-pressing secret mission for which he'd been prepping himself. He'd been doing that ever since he'd called Garrus to join him on Omega almost a year ago now.
"Xander, you said that you were going to tell me what was going on," the normally-laconic Turian sighed. "I think that now would be a good time."
Xander nodded grimly. "Have I ever told you how I met Aria?"
"You seemed reluctant to talk about it, I figured if it was life threatening or galaxy shaking you'd suck it up and give with the details."
Xander gave a wry chuckle, "Wow, G-man, your empathy is heart warming, I think I might be tearing up over here."
"Tears would explain your hit to miss ratio." Garrus replied. innocently.
Xander shook his head before continuing, "I took a bullet for the old girl," he sighed. Upon noticing the wry expression on Garrus' face, the immortal Scooby added, "Not on purpose, mind you. She'd hopped into the middle of a meet-and-greet between the Blue Suns and the Collectors, and one of the Suns got off a lucky shot. I got between her and the bullet."
"She thinks that you risked your life to save her?"
"At first? Oh, yeah," Xander nodded. "She totally thought that, but it didn't take her long to find out that life threatening risk has a slightly different meaning for me then it does for the rest of civilized galaxy."
"Which is when you two started…" Garrus hinted, trailing off because he knew that Xander's so-called 'relationship' with Aria T'Loak was a sore spot with the immortal Scooby.
"…testing each other's reach and flexibility," Xander deadpanned with a grimace.
Garrus rolled his eyes at the old joke before getting to the heart of the conversation. "Why were the Blue Suns meeting with Collectors?" He was intrigued at the possibilities, and had been raised to be nosy.
Xander shrugged. "They had census data and population counts of every human settlement and colony between here and Earth."
Garrus frowned at the apparently-incongruous answer. "What do you think that means?"
"I don't know what it means, G-man, but I do know that I wasn't going to be able to deal with it on my own," Xander sighed, shaking his head. "That's why I started recruiting, and that's why you're here, and that's why I talked Kasumi into staying on after she showed up."
"She's a trooper, that one," the rogue Turian nodded. "Some barefaced scumbag gutted my intended, and I'd be looking for payback."
"…and we're gonna make sure she gets that payback," Xander declared, the two of them sharing a grim nod of resolute intent.
Changing the subject, Garrus rolled his shoulders in unease. "What about that convict Jack, the one you brought back from Purgatory?"
"That was a little quid-pro-quo."
Garrus just stared at him, silent and mystified.
"Mutually-beneficial self-interest," Xander explained. "I was breaking out of Purgatory anyway, and Jack was a great way of keeping Warden Kuril focused on something other than the convenient loss of his defense grid."
Garrus folded his arms and affixed Xander with a wry glare. "I'm guessing that getting to steal Aria's luxury shuttle had to be kinda fun."
"Her head flunky was gonna make a deal for my ass, so stealing her shuttle communicates my… displeasure, in a way that won't lead to trouble for the people in the slums," Xander shrugged.
"That's the only way she can still get to any of us these days."
"Besides, I brought it back. I even gassed it up for her."
Of course, Garrus had to laugh. "Only because of what Jack did to it. I was born and raised on Palaven, and I don't know half of the Turian curse words that she went and carved into the exterior hull plating and seat cushions."
Xander winced at the image. "I like stirring the pot with the best of them, but there are rules to this kind of thing. You do not screw up a dude's ride."
"By the way, I've put out feelers all over the sector and I can't find hide nor hair of this Doctor River Song who caught you. How do you think she found you?"
"Well, Garrus, it's not like I'm that hard to track. Finding me isn't the problem, capturing me is; Aria isn't paying for a corpse."
"You do realize that hiding under Aria's nose is kinda dangerous…"
"Danger is my middle name."
"I thought Lavelle was your middle name?"
"Garrus, figure of speech."
"I know, I'm having fun," Garrus sighed. "Still, I could stand to know what the end game is supposed to be. Don't get me wrong, harassing the syndicates and their bosses is fun, but…"
Xander looked at Garrus and then sighed. Leaning up against a crate, he told Garrus the whole sordid tale.
Liara's weird dreams after Shepard death.
Their desperate mission to retrieve her.
How that mission had ended.
Once he'd finished speaking, Garrus whistled. "So… Shepard's in Cerberus hands, and you're putting a team together to rescue her?"
"No, not rescue, exactly," Xander explained. When Garrus' mandibles flared in irritated inquisition, the immortal Scooby sighed in exasperation and said, "Look, Garrus, if my instincts are right, then the Illusive Man might be on the sides of the Angels. For once, anyway…"
When the renegade Turian glared, Xander threw up his hands and gave up. "Well, maybe not the angels, but he sure as Hell isn't the biggest ass devil that we have to worry about. And believe me, I know from devils."
"So you're putting a team together to HELP Cerberus take down the Collectors?" the dead-eye sniper drawled.
"NO…" Xander snapped emphatically, "…I'm putting a team together to help Shepard take down the Collectors, and it looks like it might be happening. According to Liara, a Cerberus facility in the Phoenix Messing cluster went up in flames a week or so ago. Plus, a Cerberus team was sighted at the latest colony abduction."
"You mean Freedom's Progress? I've heard some wild tales, like how one of the soldiers ripped apart a heavy mech with her bare hands."
"…and a few decades of chasing Vampire Slayers around lets me read between the lines on a story like that," Xander snorted.
"You mean that was Shepard?"
"Who else would go toe-to-toe with a giant heavy mech to protect her people?"
"Xander, you know that I'd follow that woman into the void if she asked me, and Jack and Kasumi seem pretty solid under fire, but are you really planning on taking our entire team into a fight with the Collectors?"
"Think of Omega as a long training session," Xander shrugged. "I've already got a list of people that I'm going to tell boss-lady to cut from the roster when the time comes. Nothing against them, but I don't think that they can stick the landing on a stunt like this one."
Garrus snorted. "That's why you're running errands for that Salarian mad scientist? You want him for the team, then. Are you sure that's wise?"
"Garrus, we need the best people we can find. Techs, biotics, sound-and-fury guys like us."
"Don't worry, Xander, we'll make it happen."
"Garrus, no offense, but your old buddy Sidonis? He's not making the short list," Xander sighed. "I get a weird vibe off of him and weird is not good on an op like this."
"You haven't had a problem with my other recruits, why does Sidonis bother you so much?"
"'Cause I get a hinky vibe offa him, and hinky is never good. When the boss gets here, I'm gonna be upfront with her."
Garrus snorted, he already knew how THAT conversation would go, "Fine, I'll let him know that he's not coming with us when Shepard arrives," he sighed, fiddling with his omnitool. "For the record, though, I think that you're making a mistake."
"It won't be the first one I've made, and I doubt that it'll be the last," Xander grunted, popping his knuckles. "Now, I gotta meet Sillees at the drop point. He wants me to look into something, and Harrot's been strong-arming the marketplace guys again."
"What? I thought you put him on notice."
"I did. Now I have to follow through. What about you?"
"Sidonis wants to meet up. I'm supposed to be there in a few."
"Garrus, I'm telling you; hinky. Hinky is not good."
Garrus hesitated. "Xander," he said finally. "…if anything goes wrong, stay with Doctor Solus. That plague cure's more important than anything else right now.
When Xander began to object, Garrus interrupted him. "Me and the guys can take care of anything this station can throw at us. We've put together a solid team; they can take care of themselves."
"Fine," the immortal Scooby nodded reluctantly, watching his best male friend in decades walk away. He couldn't help but feel a sense of foreboding.
He tried hard not to say it, but the words almost forced themselves out of his gullet.
Sometimes the universe just did not give you any choices on stuff like this.
"I got a bad feeling about this." Xander whispered.