Colleen and Renarra sat across from each other. The asari drank some beer and paid no mind to the human. Her mind was elsewhere, wandering in memories. Colleen did not bother her, preferring instead to keep her eyes on the door to the room that Kendo and Lubaj were in. She didn't trust the bounty hunter, and she only had slightly more trust in the engineer.

But when the door slid open and Lubaj came out with Kendo as her hostage, both the human and the asari sprung to their feet. Renarra had a pistol drawn in the blink of an eye. The bounty hunter pressed her gauntlet blade against the neck of her son's environment suit.

"Let go of the kid," the asari said, pointing her gun right at Lubaj's head.

"You shouldn't have sent him in," the bounty hunter said. "He was stupid enough to free me."

Kendo struggled at this. "What? No!"

"Don't try to lie, kid," Lubaj continued. "You thought I was going to be motherly for you. Well, look where that got you."

Colleen frowned. What the bounty hunter was saying struck a particular chord with her. "Kendo, so help me, if you let her go, I will throw you out of this ship myself."

"I didn't!" Kendo yelled, still trying to struggle as best he could with a blade at his throat.

Lubaj kept the knife where it was. "Unless you want to see him bleed out, I suggest you bring me my bounty. Now."

This troubled Colleen. "You'd kill your own son?"

"I said, get me my bounty, or he dies." The bounty hunter pressed the blade right up against Kendo's environment suit.

For a few moments, no one said anything. Kendo's breaths were short and nervous. Lubaj was simply reserved and in control, not the least bit phased by having a gun pointed at her head. Colleen frowned, though it was not apparent if Lubaj or Kendo was the primary reason for her displeasure. Renarra remained impassive, just as cool and as calm as the bounty hunter.

At last, the asari spoke. "Colleen, go get Naviss."

The human turned and gave Renarra a puzzled look. "What?"

"You heard me. Go and get Naviss."

Colleen paused, not liking the way that Renarra was simply ordering her around. Part of her wanted to remind the asari that Colleen was the one in charge. But the human remembered that Renarra had been doing this sort of thing since before she was born. Though she was Bionus's second in command, Renarra was the more experienced one. So she nodded her head and began to slowly move towards the cockpit. Lubaj kept Kendo between herself and the human as this occurred, still using her son as leverage.

When Colleen had gone up to the cockpit, Renarra spoke again. "Still had a trick or two up your sleeve, I see," she said, taking care not to let her aim wander from the bounty hunter's head.

"I would be a poor hunter if I did not," Lubaj remarked.

"I wasn't talking about however it was you got out of your bonds," the asari said. "Kendo has his moments, but I doubt he's as dumb as you're saying he is."

Kendo sighed. "At least someone believes me."

"Shut up, kid," Renarra said. "The big people are talking right now."

Lubaj chuckled a little. "I see you know him quite well then," she remarked, keeping the knife blade where it was. "Tell me, has he fallen for your charm yet, asari?"

"Hardly more than any other adolescent would," Renarra replied. "But I've had a talk with him about that. Haven't I, Kendo?"

The younger quarian nodded quite enthusiastically. He remembered that conversation vividly, when the asari had caught him taking one too many looks at her ample busom. It had involved a knife, just as this conversation was involving one, except that time the blade was wandering very close to something that he considered incredibly precious to him at this point in his life. Ever since then he had taken great care to treat Renarra with respect.

The asari chuckled. "See? He knows what the limits are."

The bounty hunter laughed. "You are one who doesn't brook any nonsense, I see. I approve."

"Of course, you do know that this means this whole exchange is just pissing me off," Renarra said, keeping her voice level. She narrowed her eyes just a little, as though examining her aim on Lubaj's head to verify her shot. "Why don't you tell me who has the bounty on Naviss's head, hunter?"

Lubaj shook her head. "I would be a very poor hunter if I divulged the identity of my employer." She tilted her head to the side, almost in contemplation. "Besides, what would you do with it anyway?"

"Invoke the right to try to appease them," Renarra said.

For a moment things were quiet. Then the bounty hunter began to laugh. "You think you can appease my employer?" she asked. "I've half a mind to let you try, though I can tell you right now you'll get absolutely nowhere. He doesn't want Naviss because of some bad debt. Naviss double-crossed him, and he wants to show people what happens when you double-cross him."

Renarra nodded. "I see. Tell me, when did Naviss double-cross him?"

"Just a few months ago," Lubaj replied. "Was supposed to deliver a crate of firearms to him, but decided to cut and run with the whole shipment."

"I was here, on this ship, a few months ago," Naviss said. Renarra and Lubaj turned towards him. He was standing in the doorway that led from the cockpit, with Colleen behind him watching the whole scene somewhat apprehensively. "The flight records will indicate that."

"Those things can be falsified," the bounty hunter said. "Now get over here, or your engineer gets my blade in his throat."

"But I insist that I have been in the employ of Bionus Enrikian for the past five years," Naviss said, though he was walking over to Lubaj as he said this. "I don't know who you're looking for, but it is not me. This is a terrible misunderstanding."

"I'm sure," Lubaj replied, sounding impatient that this was taking so long.

"Do you really want to take the chance that it isn't?" Renarra asked.

"I can't see how it would be bad for me if it is true," Lubaj replied as Naviss stood beside her, looking apprehensively at her blade. She looked from him, to Renarra. "Put that gun away."

"Renarra, don't," Colleen said from where she stood. "We can't loose the advantage."

"You have no advantage," the bounty hunter said. "Put the gun away, asari, or I kill Kendo."

Renarra looked around again, gauging her options. She was not being paid to let things happen to the crew. She was being paid to break people if they so much as thought about hurting Bionus or anyone he had employed. However, doing anything would mean people got hurt. If she didn't do what the bounty hunter said, then Kendo would most assuredly be killed. But if she let Naviss go with her, then he was going to get killed.

Then the asari noticed something. There was a shadow coming from the hallway just to Lubaj's left. It was the shadow of someone who was taking great pains not to be seen, and who had some skill in it. Renarra took note of it without letting Lubaj know just what she had seen. She did not know who it was that was there, but she did not have a lot of options at the moment and this seemed like the best one.

"All right," the asari said, slowly beginning to lower her pistol.

"Renarra, do not take your weapon off of her!" Colleen said.

"You don't write my paychecks, lady, I don't have to do what you say." Renarra set the pistol down on the floor, and kicked it away behind her. "There. It's down."

Lubaj nodded. "Good. I'm glad you can see the sensible thing to do."

The bounty hunter took her knife away from Kendo's neck and kicked him forward, moving to put it against Naviss's throat. But as she did so, whoever had been hiding in the hallway moved forward. They lunged and hit Lubaj hard, knocking her off balance. Renarra ran forward, intent on helping subdue the bounty hunter. She tossed Naviss aside as she did so, doing her best to get him out of harm's way. Colleen ran back and grabbed the pistol that Renarra had kicked away, ready to use it if need be.

The Cat was straddling Lubaj, keeping the arm that had the blade on it firmly pinned behind the bounty hunter's back. Renarra almost stopped in her tracks in surprise, but her long honed instincts for such circumstances kicked in and she kept moving to help the Cat secure the quarian. The human pulled one of his hands back into a fist and gave Lubaj a hard blow on the side of the head..

"See how you like hard knocks," he said to her, no small amount of disdain in his voice.

New update! This one was rather slow coming along for some reason, and so I'm sort of unsure about it. If there's something about it that looks incredibly out of place, will you guys let me know? I would really appreciate it.

Also, new developments! Got all the DLC for Mass Effect 2 now, which means I've played through both Stolen Memory and Project Overlord. I approve of both. I was not expecting Kasumi to be as awesome as she was. I mean, yeah, if Shepard's looking to recruit someone they're not going to be a pushover, but I didn't expect her to turn into Spider-Woman and jump onto a gunship. She's now definitely one of my more favorite characters. Project Overlord was also good. It felt good to be running around on the surface of a planet again, even if it isn't in the Mako. As frustrating as it was to drive that thing around in the first Mass Effect, I still miss it.

Also, wrote a short one-shot fanfic involving Tali, Garrus, Kasumi, and Legion! It's called, "How to Lead by Example" and you can find it in my portfolio. I think I goofed though. I put down that Tali and Legion were the two main characters in it, since the story kind of revolves around Tali working with Legion for a common goal. Well, apparently that may be getting interpreted as it being a Tali/Legion slashfic. And I kind of don't do that. FemShep/Garrus is the only pairing I will touch upon. I don't even think Tali/Legion is even realistic. So, yeah.

It felt weird to write a fic with canon characters though. I've refrained from it for so long because I was afraid I would mangle them, and then everyone would hate me for it. But, finally, I had a story idea that wouldn't leave, and so I had to write it out. I hope it's satisfactory, and I hope you guys will swing by and give it a chance.