The Red Moon Collection - 3 - A Hunt and a Kill
Chapter 25
Saneer Medical Center, Atara District, Omega
Eleena, T'lees and Shansa stood in silence and watched as a stretcher carrying Tul'Sorrin was rushed through a pair of double-doors and into Saneer Medical Center's intensive care wing.
"There's nothing else we can do for Tul. We need to get back to the Caleston Rift," Eleena said decisively.
The others looked to her. All three were clearly exhausted, but she was met with no objections.
"The sooner the better," Shansa agreed. "I can fly us to the Hyperion's last location and set a course for the nearest planet just like Will was going to do. He would have pulled the ship out of FTL early if the static buildup spiked and he suspected an impending discharge."
Eleena nodded in agreement. "But that also leaves Tul'Sorrin alone." She turned to the other asari. "T'lees, we need someone to stay here and make sure no one makes an attempt on Tul's life."
"Of course," T'lees agreed with a small bow of her head. "But my firearm was destroyed on the space station."
Shansa, still dressed in her light combat armor, reached to her back and drew the collapsed rifle that she had purchased recently. She held the weapon out and frowned softly.
"Please make sure Tul stays safe," she said softly.
"I will guard him with my life, Shansa," T'lees promised as she retrieved the rifle from the pilot.
Eleena turned for the door with Shansa at her side. "If you get any trouble, you know how to contact us," she said.
"I will not hesitate," T'lees called after them.
Shansa let out a disgusted sigh as they stepped into the Omega streets and the dirty smell that clung to the station like a disease filled her nose and throat. Eleena led the pair of them toward the visitor landing zone where Shansa had parked the transport shuttle.
"You think he'll make it?" Shansa asked in an attempt to break the silence.
Eleena did not waver from her stride. "Can't say. Let's just hope they have a doctor who knows their quarian physiology."
A asari narrowed her eyes slightly as they continued to walk and concentrated on the sound of her and Shansa's footsteps. Something was not right. Eleena stopped suddenly, drew her SMG, and spun to face whatever was producing a third set of footsteps a few dozen feet behind them. She gritted her teeth as she stared down a turian she was in no mood to see.
"Ralliston," Eleena snapped. "What the fuck are you doing here?"
The turian had come to a stop and raised his hands to show he meant no harm. "Eleena, Shansa... I was discharged a few days ago. I've been watching the Collective's security feeds constantly since then and saw your names pop up on an arrivals list."
The asari held her sights on Ralliston. "I asked why, not how."
"I needed to talk to you. To everyone," Ralliston answered swiftly. "I wanted to thank you for risking your lives to save me on the Citadel. Where's Captain Hume?"
"It's going to be a little difficult to thank him," Eleena informed the turian. "Because he's not here."
The turian gave them a curious look. Eleena continued to stare him down with her gun drawn. Tul and Will had not been able to present any evidence that Ralliston had betrayed them in any way, but that didn't mean the circumstances suggested it any less.
"We went after Cerberus on our own," Shansa explained. "Because the RMC told us their hands were tied. Things went bad and Will," she sighed and shook her head. "Will tried to throw off the pursuing ship while we got away."
"Spirits," Ralliston muttered. "Is he alright? Are you going to try to find him?"
Eleena reluctantly lowered her weapon, allowing him to slowly approach them.
"We don't know, and you bet your ass we're going to find him," Eleena answered.
"Please, let me come with you," Ralliston pleaded. "If Hume needs our help we have to... we have to show him the same selflessness he's showed us."
"You don't have to convince us," Shansa argued, almost baffled by the assertion.
Eleena gave her a sideways glance. "He doesn't have to convince us to search for Will, you mean." Her eyes shifted back to Ralliston. "But you coming with us is another story. I don't trust this bastard."
"So we leave him here with T'lees and Tul?" Shansa asked, raising her counterpoint.
The asari stared Ralliston down with driving eyes. Finally, she stepped up to him and held out a hand. As Ralliston raised his arm to shake her hand, Eleena gave him an icy glare.
"Your gun," she demanded.
The turian narrowed his eyes. "I'm not giving you my weapon."
"Give me the fucking rifle and you can come with us," Eleena offered.
Ralliston hesitated, then reached to his back and retrieved his rifle with one hand. He kept the weapon in its collapsed form as he held it out to Eleena and placed it in her hands. The asari turned and shoved the rifle into Shansa's arms, who quickly stowed it on her back.
"Let's go," Eleena said while walking toward the shuttle. "If he's stuck somewhere it's up to us to get him to safety. Fast."
Despite the fact that his armor was heavily insulated and designed to perform in a vacuum, there was nothing Will could do to deter the slow and inevitable loss of heat. He was doing all that he could to prevent himself from shivering uncontrollably in his suit, having been floating for hours on end. The panic that had set in from the thought that he was doomed to be lost, floating through space until he suffocated had passed hours ago. Now, he simply waited for his air reserves to deplete or the battery powering his distress beacon to die. The stars were so vivid.
The majority of the debris field continued to float in unnerving silence around him, including the large metal beam he had managed to get his hand onto. The pistol he had used to push himself closer was still on his hip and one of many options he had considered while contemplating a suicide attempt. Ultimately, he had decided to continue on as he was.
"What in the hell was I thinking?" He thought to himself.
He knew intimately how powerful and dangerous Cerberus was, and yet he had still believed he could beat them. And worse, he had led his crew into danger because of his delusion. Will let out a deep sigh and shook his head. As he did, a gleam of light caught his eye. He turned his head to the side to see a soft, glowing blue light amongst the stars, clearly moving toward the debris field. Will's eyes widened as the light approached, which he soon realized was the burning of starship thrusters at the rear of a ship. Just as it was getting close enough that he might identify the silhouette, a bright spotlight illuminated from the ship and encapsulated him, blinding his vision. His heart began to race as a wave of relief washed over him. Someone had come for him. Now all he had to was pray that it wasn't Cerberus.
"Bringing us out of FTL in thirty seconds," Shansa informed her passengers. "I'm bringing us to the Hyperion's last known coordinates so we can follow the path and begin sending long-range hails for the ship. Even if he dropped out of FTL before reaching the nearest planet it's been no more than ten hours, so he should be fine as long as he stayed on board the ship."
"Sensors are ready," Eleena informed her.
Ralliston stood between the two seats, watching as the shuttle dropped from FTL. The mass relay that linked to the Tassrah System in the Phoenix Massing loomed in the distance.
"Alright, I've set our heading for Partholon," Shansa narrated as she worked. "It's very close to the relay at this point in its orbital cycle! Will could have made it there easily!"
Eleena's voice cut through the excitement like a knife. "Hold on, Shansa." She paused for a moment to verify what she was seeing on the scanners. "There's a large debris field nearby. It's dense, given the size... which means it's fresh."
Shansa glanced down and looked over her nav panel. "I see it." She looked to Eleena and Ralliston briefly before turning back to the flight controls. "Setting a course."
"A fresh debris field doesn't mean anything bad, necessarily," Ralliston reminded them.
Eleena and Shansa did not respond. It was a short flight to the nav marker Eleena had set, and it was not long before they could plainly see the wreckage floating around them. Shansa and Ralliston leaned as close as they could to the viewports to get a clearer view as they slowly glided through, knocking the occasional piece of scrap metal aside.
"Starting wide-band scans for a distress beacons and organic life," Eleena mentioned as she tapped away at her controls.
Shansa gasped audibly and halted the shuttle with a few commands. Eleena and Ralliston looked up and followed her gaze to see a rather large chunk of metal floating nearby. Near the bottom, slightly obscured by a scorch mark, was the Cerberus logo exactly like those which had been on their soldiers' armor.
"Did Hume manage to destroy their ship?" Ralliston asked, completely bewildered.
"I knew it. He did have a plan," Shansa said with a smile.
Eleena drew in a sharp breath as she looked out the far right viewport. "Oh, goddess..."
Shansa and Ralliston turned to follow her gaze. Floating just a few feet away was a tiny origami crane made of a shining, orange paper. The trio stared in frozen silence until an alert beeped on the console in front of Eleena. The asari forced herself to look down and read the results.
"No beacons. No life signs," she said in an almost robotic tone.
"No. No, no, that can't be..." Shansa shook her head and pointed to the crane. "He ejected it! Right? Like I do when we pass through ports. It's... it's a sign!"
Ralliston's mandibles widened apprehensively. "Was Commander Stafford on board that ship chasing you?"
Shansa nodded nervously. "Yes... he sent us a few comm messages."
The turian pulled his arms off of the chairs and straightened his stance. "Hume turned the Hyperion on them," he said quietly. "He killed Stafford to stop their pursuit. To keep you from being chased."
"No..." Shansa looked around frantically, searching the desolate debris field for something. Anything.
Eleena looked up from her console. "I've sent long-range comm hails to the Hyperion... they returned with an error say, 'unknown recipient,'" she affirmed.
"No, he promised us he would be careful!" Shansa cried as she jumped up from her seat and slammed her fist onto the sensor panel. "No! No, no, please, no!"
Eleena turned herself away from the others and laid her face in her palms, silently gasping for breath as Shansa began to bawl. She dropped to her knees on the cockpit floor as the tears flowed down her cheeks and her lips parted to cry out in shocked pain. Ralliston only stared into the wreckage and closed his eyes in silent, unforgiving rage. Not toward Cerberus, but himself. He could never tell them what he had done on the Citadel. The sound of Eleena's desperately muffled weeping and Shansa's wails of despair were more than Ralliston could handle. He turned from the cockpit and walked to the rear of the shuttle where he slammed his fist into the wall, hoping beyond hope that it would quell his guilt for even a second. It did not.
Will sat still and motionless, wary of his so far less-than-welcoming saviors. After being pulled into an airlock, his helmet was ripped off and replaced with a thick, synthetic sack that obscured all of his vision but that of the floor as he was led through a few doors. He had been forced to sit on a seat in a noticeably foul smelling room as murmurs echoed around him. Honestly, he couldn't complain about the smell. He had felt the early stages of asphyxiation setting in after having floated through space for nearly three hours, so at this point, oxygen was oxygen. Finally, a voice called out to him.
"You know how lucky it is we found you out here?" A man asked.
His voice was disturbingly familiar.
"I mean, to find the wreckage of a starship so close to a relay... but a survivor in the middle of it? Damn near unheard of considering the shape of that debris. Must've been a hell of a crash."
Will cleared his throat. "On that we can agree. And you have my thanks for stopping."
The man chuckled. "Oh, I have your thanks? Well, that's all I wanted!" He was clearly mocking Will. "Let me get that bag off-"
The sack was swiftly pulled from Will's head, causing the man's words to stop short. Will squinted his eyes tightly as they adjusted to the lights around him and could make out three figures standing above him. At first everything was dark with a few overwhelming points of light, but shapes quickly began to set in. Will looked from side to side to keep his eyes out of the direct light from the ceiling, only to see something far worse: cages filled with people of various species. Slavers. As Will turned to look ahead once again, his eyes slowly climbed the man in bold, Blue Suns armor. He recognized why the voice was familiar.
"Janson... right?" He asked.
The Blue Suns lieutenant knelt down with a mocking gasp. "You remembered my name, huh? I'm flattered as hell. Captain Hume, wasn't it? Of the Red Moon Collective?" He added more than a hint of insulting condescension as he spoke the name.
"You guessed it," Will affirmed. "So... what are the chances you'll fly me back to Omega so I can give you a big ol' handshake for saving my life?"
"Oh, I've already saved your life," Janson corrected. "But as for Omega?" He let out a sigh and shook his head, feigning disappointment and empathy. "I'm afraid that's just not possible. Not when I could make a nice, fat bonus on my next delivery."
Will stared up at him and did his best to keep his mouth shut. Janson let out a small laugh and grabbed the bag from his subordinate before sliding it and the darkness back over Will's head.
Final Note
That's it for volume three. Clearly, volume four is going to be a bit different, but I'm more excited for it than any of the stories so far. Also, I'm also going to be going back and swapping out the titles for all three volumes. Contingent Absolution is actually a working title that I never got around to replacing and have never been too happy with, so anything that was Contingent Absolution will now be the Red Moon Collection. Thanks for reading!