Erinyes station
"I have a request," Shepard asked as Garrus walked in.
"What is it?" Vakarian asked warily in turn.
"Some rather delicate business came up on my side. I need to take the Starwatch crew with me and see to it."
The Turian held her gaze briefly. "And that is something you would prefer to keep away from Citadel eyes." Aaliyah clenched her jaw, but Garrus stopped her: "If it isn't something that the Council should know, I can live with that."
"Not for the moment," Shepard replied carefully. "If that changes I will let you in on it."
A reluctant nod, then he raised his eyebrows: "Are you sure you want to risk getting sidetracked? What if we get a fix on Saren's location and you're not around?"
That was a point on which the Starwatch colonel had dwelt for a while, unable to find a satisfactory solution. "I know," she said slowly and sharply. "I don't like pulling need-to-know on you either, but it's delicate."
That elicited a grunt. "I have an alternative for you," he offered. "We ship together, as a backup squad. We stay out of the way, confined to our quarters, unless you or your deputy call for us explicitly."
Shepard sat on the single stool available in her quarters. "It's going to cause rumbles."
Vakarian shrugged. "It was bound to happen eventually. Best if we come up with a protocol to deal with such situations now."
Omega
'The dark twin of the Citadel.' In such… ominous? Clichéd? Shepard could not quite pin the character of the words Zaeed Massani had used to describe the place to her. What was it that he said? This place is a hellhole, but it doesn't pretend it's anything else.
It had been decided that they would rely on the mercenary to arrange the contact and spot whatever traps and ambushes laid for them, in a nod to his excellent performance on Illium and his intimate knowledge of the Terminus underworld, which in many ways was the only world there was on those rough, lawless planets.
Massani's description was spot on. The place was huge — not to the point of the Citadel, but huge nonetheless, and everything had jagged edges to it. The wall fittings and bulkheads were rough, not the kind of thing that would be expected to be airtight, and looked just like they were about one or two kicks away from structural collapse. The air was breathable… after a fashion, that was, heavily saturated with pollution and stinking of trash and sweat and dirty bodies. Down in the commercial district there were signs and lights everywhere, but little order to them, and the streets were packed uncomfortably tight.
And everyone was armed. Even the puniest sidearm in view was something she would not like to confront except from behind her squadshield. Locals came in all sizes and shapes, but they more or less fit into the roles she had already kind of learned to expect. Krogan were bullies, almost always hired muscle, mercenaries. Turians were sharp professionals instead of boisterous brutes, and, if not also hired guns, most often players in whatever trade they plied. Batarians tended to stick together, but not exclusively, shifty types either working as guards or trafficking something. Salarians quite often were entrepreneurs or smugglers, and she seldom saw one without armed guards. Asari were everywhere: dancers, adventurers, escorts even, but a token few defied labeling, and her experience told her they were the ones to beware here.
"Only one rule here," Massani had said. "You don't fuck with Aria."
And the local humans? Shepard had made it a point to keep an eye out for any faces. She had not seen many. It was easy to mistake an Asari for a woman when they were wearing a closed helmet, which some did.
Mistaking Asari for women… is that what I'm doing? Her mind went back to Liara. Her hairs stood on end as she did. It had been awkward, borderline uncomfortable and outright embarrassing for the young blue-skinned girl.
And it had been intoxicating.
She stared into the bottom of her glass, the penumbra of this night club making that a difficult exercise.
What am I doing?
It was not the question someone would ask herself in shock and horror. No, she was honestly puzzled by her reactions, unable to understand herself and her newly discovered… xenophilia?
What is it like for others? Surely some of the people in contact with the Asari emigres — so far the only people born in Citadel space willing to move into Alliance territory, and given their reputation as xenophiles and the allure of their unique mating practices, perfect spies, and triply watched because of that — had experienced what she had experienced herself with Liara.
I should talk it over with Ziegler, she worried. She had a brief moment to recall Navy regulations on fraternization. The cold, hard truth was that she had grossly violated them when she had… had… intercourse with both Valena and Liara — a prosecutor would call it that, any other word just fancy dressing —, but Hackett had been on the very room where she had reported the results of her first melding, and he had not said a single word. Her second joining had been prompted by the same urgencies that had called for the first. Odd, wasn't it, what the fates of nations often rode on.
But her latest tryst with Liara had not obeyed to that.
Why didn't it feel like this when I melded with Valena?
Why is this bitch taking so goddamned long?
She had been nursing that drink for hours on already. Any attempt at concealing that she was waiting for someone had long since been blown. The local patrons could tell. So could the Batarian bartender. A tired glance at the door, and she spotted the black armor of Reyes. The assassin was not looking her way.
How would this play out? What was taking so much time? Would some stranger come out of the blue and hand her some tip? Or a tablet computer? Or someone would drop it conveniently next to her? Or would her omni-tool buzz?
That would find its answer when a Turian stopped briefly by her table, left a bag on the empty chair opposite hers, and walked away without a word.
"What is that?" Miranda's voice spoke on her earbud. She was elsewhere on the same night club, and had direct sight to Shepard's table from her own.
"A canister or container of some kind," Shepard hazarded after a quick scan. It was not exposed, but she could guess at the contents of the bag from its shape. "Reyes?"
"Already on my way," came the hoarse reply. There was no one better suited than him for figuring out what the package was.
With slow and bored motions, she drained the rest of her drink and waited. The assassin did not take long to reach her table. With well concealed caution, her keen eye noted, he grabbed the bag and put it over his lap as he sat. A holographic screen popped up at once and prompted him for a drink, and he actually spent some time studying it.
A scarce minute later the Batarian bartender came over with a bottle, then left after pouring the beverage without a word.
Shepard interrogated Reyes with a glance: Well?
He did not react at first. He took a long draught of his drink, then after a second he said nonchalantly, "This is it."
She bobbed her head, in part to conceal her puzzlement: Weren't we supposed to pick someone up?
When they emerged on the street they got three different 'all clear' signals: one from Miranda behind them, another from a cloaked Widowmaker perched atop the archway leading to the docks, and a third from Zaeed, who appeared to be haggling with a street vendor. Shepard followed Reyes as he turned left, entering the main commercial boulevard and wondering where he was taking her.
Their detour took them to a small shipping company — whose logo was also stenciled on the bag, she belatedly realized. She observed her partner had some semblance of familiarity with the place, because he handed over the bag to the Batarian behind the desk, under the watchful eyes of a couple of Turian mercenary guards, only for the clerk to go back into the vaults and return with a small package that he immediately gave to Reyes. This he checked out briefly, then he handed over to her in turn.
The package was a plastic box for storing small valuables, nothing fancy. She stowed it on a pouch by her waist, thanked the employee with a gesture of her hand, then she followed Reyes out. The man walked her through the commercial district, turning at random three times, then he walked into something resembling a workers' diner, for the patrons were all disheveled and ill-kempt, but not the kind of dregs she thought that would inhabit a homeless shelter, if there was one to begin with in this merciless place.
"You seem to know Omega well," she noted neutrally, the comment an elliptic question about the years he had spent wandering the galaxy.
"Been here before," he accepted, as neutrally. He smelled the air briefly, then ordered two servings of some local stew. She did not even dare to ask what kind of meat was that, but he motioned at her to dig in, which she did. It was a pleasant surprise:
"What is this?"
"A Vorcha dish," he answered quietly. "Closest you're going to get to proper food in this place. Safe, too."
For a moment she almost forgot about her package. "It is good," she approved. Then, as if it were a second thought, she reached for the box and opened it. The contents were a small, round device with a flat base, and a simple memory card that she at once punched into her omni-tool.
Her onboard AI was still scanning the contents of the memory card when a girlish voice spoke on her earbuds: "It took you long enough to get here."
"Coming any faster would have drawn unwanted attention," she retorted dryly in annoyance. That this girl had so effortlessly bypassed every layer of cyberwarfare defense on her suit vexed her. "Where are you?"
"Oh, por ahí," the voice said with a smug undertone. "Making sure no one's on your tail." Then the voice became serious. "This station is crawling with people looking for me. They are onto Miranda, by the way. You did well by ditching her."
"Some of her fellows?"
"Así es. They're going squirrely. But I can tell you about that once we're aboard your ship."
"Good plan," she approved, keeping a discreet eye on the patrons around. "Where do we meet?"
"Go back aboard and deploy that beacon somewhere close to an airlock," the voice instructed. "And keep at least one of the hatch doors open."
Aaliyah knotted her brow, but Reyes gave her a nod. Clearly he knew what this contact was up to.
"Alright, will do."
The way back to the docks was straightforward, as opposed to the convoluted walk that had taken them to the diner. The rest of the squad that had went ashore was already back aboard and waiting for her, with Zaeed leaning against a wall on the the corridor adjacent to the airlock and with Miranda and Amélie standing near the opposite wall.
Shepard scanned their faces and wondered if again Massani had harassed Widowmaker, but that would have to wait. She gestured at them to be alert, then produced the round beacon from her hip satchel and planted it on the floor, right next to the inner hatch.
Then they waited.
And suddenly, a blue lightning flashed, and the shape of an Asari popped right into existence over the beacon.
Everyone but for Reyes and Lacroix almost had a stroke: "What the hell?!" Shepard gasped.
The newcomer glanced at Reyes and Lacroix alternatively: "You didn't tell her?" The question was met with shrugs. "Oh, bueno. No harm done, I guess." A glance at Massani: "I thought you had seen this once, señor Zaeed."
Aaliyah was briefly in overload, then her judgment took over. Clearly it was some variation of the hardlight gate technology she had used herself, even if she could not even begin to fathom how much more refined it had to be to work with just that beacon.
But the thing that really worried her was that such tech was in the hands of an alien: "I hope you can tell us where and how you got that." And where did you pick up your Spanish…
The newcomer again glanced at Gabriel: "You have played coy, haven't you." A giggle, then in the span of instants, what had looked like an Asari fully decked in light armor darkened and sprouted hair, to become a brown-skinned girl clad in some decidedly strange and sophisticated-looking purple-black dress, and with a series of metal bands running over the shaved half of her scalp. And with no visible effort on her part.
Reyes laughed hoarsely at the utterly shocked and flabbergasted faces of Shepard, Miranda and Massani. "You sure know how to make an entrance."
Sombra clucked her tongue. "You only get one shot at making a first impression."
"Why are you here?" Lacroix asked quietly. "It can't be good news."
"Así es, señorita Amelia. It's not good news. Actually I wanted to remain inside Cerberus but that risked exposing too many of my secrets."
Miranda managed to regain some composure. She glared at Reyes with slightly narrowing eyes: You were keeping this from me all the time, weren't you. "Would you please update me on that count?"
"We have time for that. But the clock is ticking to see what happened on Pragia. Supposing you're still interested in that, coronel Shepard."
"We had already taken that into account," was Aaliyah's slow reply. You and I are going to have a long talk. "Lena, you have the conn. Get us out of here."
"Aye aye, luv," came the reply over the speakers.
She turned back to Sombra: "What do you know about that yourself?"
"The Cerberus hombres received a distress signal from that place," was the answer. "It would seem that the test subjects have rioted." She eyed Shepard sharply. "How many know about this escapade?"
"Back at Erinyes some know that we left," was the answer as she thought about Palukhina and Chakwas. "But that's it. I suppose I'm about to learn it was a good thing I didn't tell anyone else."
The hacker looked all around herself slowly and carefully, her eyes scanning the bulkheads and lights, before answering: "Así es. Cerberus has very powerful sponsors. Some of those are a few of the Alliance joint chiefs… and her father." She pointed at Miranda, who looked back impassively. "They've been funneling men and funds into it since your adventure on Pokhara."
Hackett's superiors… then Cerberus knows everything Starwatch is doing inside the Compact… and they ordered Lawson, Reyes and Lacroix into our outfit, along with their men… She went pale. "Which joint chiefs are implicated?"
Sombra shrugged. "Are you sure you want to know? What are you going to do about it? Cerberus is an officially sanctioned Alliance operation. As black as black operations come, but sanctioned nonetheless."
"I'll be the judge of that."
The dark-skinned girl slightly shook her head in refusal, her eyes narrowing. "No, no lo creo. I informed about Pragia because there's a chance you will find something you need there, but the more I let you in on Cerberus, the worse off you will be. I mean, we both know you're going to follow the trail all the way, ¿no es así? And your brass won't like it."
Shepard held onto her temper as she ran the options in her head. She could detain the woman and interrogate her extensively, but her logic was rock-solid. Sure thing, she was one of the top Starwatch operatives, but a direct intervention from the joint chiefs could change that in an instant and that would wreck everything. To unravel this conspiracy she would have to play it smart and extremely carefully—
And that's none of my business right now. It's enough that I know not to step on their toes. "Alright, you have a point."
Dakka system - Nubian Expanse
"Shite." Tracer studied the ladar output fed by Mercy's sensors straight into her augmented reality headset. "It's gotten lively there."
Shepard could only agree with her. The Nubian Expanse was closer to Hegemony territory, a fact that, for all their hatred of all things Alliance, had not stopped them from noticing that investing time and resources on these worlds would yield mediocre returns at best. They still considered it a buffer zone of sorts between them and the human-omnic combine, a region their haphazard collection of unsanctioned operatives and criminal retainers used to lair about.
That was a partial explanation for the twenty-odd ships orbiting Pragia, but an insufficient one, especially since it was clear that a pitched, chaotic skirmish was taking place.
"Power down the reactor," Tracer instructed Mercy. "Rig ship for ultraquiet."
"Yes, Lena." At once most lights turned off and most screens switched to a low power setting. To rig a ship for ultraquiet was an expression borrowed from ancient submariner lingo: back then, it was performed by killing the engines, powering down everything non-essential and having everyone shut the hell up, until a tomb resembled a den of libertines in comparison with the sub. Even the best passive sonars had a hard time finding a submarine that radiated no noise, so in this fashion the ship was effectively rendered invisible.
Nowadays it was done slightly differently; sound was not important anymore, but radiated heat was, so reactor output was chopped down to its absolute minimum to allow for temporary diversion of waste heat into sinks, instead of venting it into space. As the Girls' Night Out was an upgunned civilian corvette, able to punch above its weight but not to absorb punishment in the same measure, attracting the wrong kind of attention would do them no good, which made this ultraquiet routine a sensible call.
"Which of those are Cerberus ships?" Shepard asked, her eyes on the monitor where the passive sensor arrays presented their collected output, now that the hologram projector had had to be turned off.
Miranda stared at the screen, thinking. "Hegemony ships aside, those are all mercenary crews. Cerberus almost never relies on them. On the rare occasion when they were necessary I used to subcontract them through Zaeed."
Heads turned to look at Massani. "There's a bunch I like, an outfit led by a Turian out of Omega, but they can't duke it out with the big boys yet," he said hoarsely. "I'd go with Eclipse guys for this place. They're the least likely to screw you over."
Aaliyah nodded. "We need to get down there without being seen." And fast, she did not add, but she needed not saying anything about their urgencies. "Lena? Layali?"
"I can make it fast, or make it quiet," was Tracer's reply. "But fast and quiet, it's going to be a problem, luv."
The Starwatch colonel clenched her jaw, and turned towards Miranda: "You think all this mess is because of what's going on in the Cerberus base?"
She pursed her lips with the tip of her tongue. "The installation is underground. The standard emergency protocol is to seal the base off from the surface by demolishing the elevator shafts, and to send a distress signal back to HQ. Once it's isolated, the complex is built to be entirely self-sustaining. It can generate its own oxygen and foodstuffs."
Shepard bowed her head, thinking. Miranda's words meant there was a chance the complex still was still unbreached, but the presence of both mercenaries and Hegemony troops implied the place was not a secret installation anymore. And, consequently, the race was on.
"We'll make it fast, then," she decided. So much for subtlety. "Action stations." At once the lighting switched back on, but it was strident red instead of sterile white, as alarms blared all over the ship. Synthesized voices rang on the speakers, commanding the crew to man their posts.
"Aye, fast it is." Tracer eased herself on the pilot seat. There was a low rumble as the powerful engines propelling the Girls' Night Out roared and the corvette pounced forward, pilot and AI steering it as further away as they could from other ships.
Detection, though, was inevitable. "Someone is trying to scan us," Mercy warned. "Tracing." A second and a half later she added: "It's a Hegemony destroyer."
Shepard glanced at the ladar output. There was a gaggle of mercenary ships between that destroyer and their own. "Ignore it," she ordered. This far, only guided ordnance represented a hazard, and it was nothing they could not counter, either by means of cyberwarfare or point defenses.
"They're not following," Mercy informed, then reported in quick succession: "Two other vessels are changing vector and are now on an intercept course, Blood Pack and Blue Suns corvettes."
Business, Shepard thought at once.
"Get me torpedo firing solutions for both," Amari ordered, as acting gunnery officer.
"I don't like those numbers," Anika said quietly. "They have a lot of friends."
"If they all follow us to the surface, they'll be a lot to deal with," the jumpjet trooper countered dryly.
"Warn them off," Shepard ordered, with a glance at Martinsson. "They get one chance. They waste it, we splash 'em."
"Roger." Astrid waited until Mercy had opened a broadcast channel for her, then she spoke: "Approaching vessels, this is the corvette Girls' Night Out. You are blocking our flight path. Change your course or you will be fired upon. You have sixty seconds to comply."
Seconds trickled by slowly and tensely as they watched the ladar output and the two icons closed in on them.
"Torpedoes are dialed in," Amari reported.
Shepard glanced briefly at Sombra. The hacker's eyes were looking in the way of the hologram projector and the many icons that danced in Pragia's shadow, but at times they seemed to lose their focus. She was thinking about something, and for a moment it appeared she would speak up, but she did not.
"Fire."
The corvette shook slightly as its ordnance bay opened briefly and two torpedoes were ejected. The missiles corkscrewed around and hurtled after their targets.
"Everyone, suit up," the Starwatch colonel ordered next. "Whether we get those or not, whoever wins the skirmish will be coming in after us, supposing the Batarians don't. Tracer, punch it!"
"Aye, ma'am."
She tapped her omni-tool next: "Garrus, the local space is crawling with mercs and there's Hegemony ships around. Keeping you in the loop."
"I knew it couldn't be that you just felt like testing our torpedoes," the Turian answered deadpan. "Are we making a run for the surface?"
"Yeah. I would suit up if I were you."
"We'll do that. Thanks for the heads-up. Are you going to need our help once we get down there?"
"You'll drop us and then take off again and find a place to hide the ship. Get ready."
Behind Shepard, Miranda held her breath, then exhaled slowly. Her eyes were on a screen depicting captures from the surface of the planet.
"They've beaten us to it."
Author's note: Short chapter, but I had to cut it from the expedition into the Teltin facility or it would have gotten humongous.
Kudos go to BrokenLifeCycle and kyro2009 for their help.
