AN - Sorry for the long pause but I've recently gotten a new Job and that whole work life balance thing is kicking me in the ass. Anyway much kudos and thanks to Drake and Reikson who really came through big time on these chapters. - and a big welcome to Legacy Weapon who had some really valuable input as well
Shepard drove Nassana's expensive aircar to the address that Gianna Parasini had provided.
Gianna had been reluctant, of course, who wouldn't be? Who wanted to get caught up in the relationship freakshow that was Joan Shepard and Liara T'soni?
Telling Gianna about Liara being the target of a possible assassination attempt was what had expedited many of the Noverian agent's misgivings.
Shepard wasn't reassured when she arrived at the address, only to find emergency civil defense squad vehicles ringing the building.
The Spectre rode the elevator up to the penthouse apartment. Much to her horror, she saw cops filling the hallways of Liara's apartment.
Had she been too late?
One of the officers, an Asari in light combat armor, raised a hand in order to stop Shepard's headlong rush into the apartment.
"Ma'am, I'm going to have to ask you to step back," she said curtly. "As you can see, this is a crime scene."
Shepard idly wondered if cops learned that grating and officious monotone on their first day of training. That was the one thing universal to all law enforcement agents, from Earth to the Citadel, and beyond.
"Lady, my friend lives here," she snapped. "Is she here, is she safe?"
The cop rolled her eyes in irritation, as if answering Shepard's questions was just another annoying detail complicating her boring cop life.
"If you know Doctor T'Soni, then I'll have to ask you to come with us downtown. We have a few questions that need answering," she drawled coolly.
Shepard's fist shot out, snatching the cop by the collar of her combat suit and hauling her into the air with ease. "Where's Doctor T'Soni?" the revived Slayer growled.
To the Asari cop's credit, she possessed enough of a survival instinct to answer this dangerous human. A woman who seemed to possess all the power of a Krogan warrior hopped up on blood-rage and easily dangling her off the ground as if she was a child's toy was definitely not somebody to piss off.
"She's not here," the cop replied quickly. "We had to learn about this incident from an anonymous call, the building's internal security monitors had been disabled. We want to know why."
Shepard appeared to visibly restrain herself, lowering the cop back to the floor. "I'd like to get in there," she said brusquely.
"On whose authority?" the cop drawled.
Shepard raised her own omni-tool, slowly tapping at it. The officer's omni-tool beeped in answer.
The cop frowned at the encrypted signal that the Civilian Defense Network was sending to her omni-tool. "Isn't this-?"
"Council authorization," Shepard snapped. "That's a do-whatever-I-want-to-whoever-I-want pass."
Shepard felt a familiar flare of power, and her Slayer Senses answered, warning her of danger.
"…starting with anyone stupid enough to use a biotic field against me," the Slayer-Spectre growled in warning.
The cop froze, slowly pulling her hand from behind her back, where she'd been gathering biotic power for a quick strike.
"How'd you-?"
"Biotic fields cause a very distinct sensation as you power them up," Joan sneered. "I've had a few biotics try to kill me, sister, with emphasis on the word TRY."
"You're a Spectre?" the cop was clearly taken aback. "You guys can't just go strolling around a crime scene, you know. There are procedures to this sort of thing, rules to-"
"You have rules, I have extraterritorial authority," Shepard shrugged, grinning poisonously.
A new voice called out from inside the apartment. "If you're really going to go and complain, Officer, I'm sure that Councilor Tevos will totally care about what some pissed-off beat cop has to say against the woman who saved her life and the lives of the entire crew of the Destiny Ascension two years ago."
"Wait, you're Commander Shepard?" the cop turned back, regarding Joan with new eyes and an assessing gaze. "Commander Joan Shepard?"
"That'll be all, Officer," an Asari in light-blue medium armor strode gracefully down the staircase leading up to the upper floor of Liara's apartment. "I'd like to speak to her for a moment, and I'm sure that you'd like to get back to… wherever it is, that you people do when you're not standing around and looking pretty in those uniforms. If your people can give us the room?"
"Damned Spectres," the cop snarled, curtly gesturing to the rest of her investigative team as they left Liara's apartment.
"You're a Spectre?" Shepard asked suspiciously.
"Guess you didn't exactly get the grand tour when you joined up, did you?" the Asari shrugged. "Tela Vasir, Special Tactics and Recon. I've read your files; you do good work."
"Thanks," Shepard replied awkwardly, hesitantly shaking the Asari's hand. "You're only the third Spectre I've ever met."
"Well, then, this is a special occasion for the both of us," Vasir shrugged. "I should get you to sign something; you being famous and all."
"Sparatus doesn't like me, Valern won't ever give me a straight answer, and Tevos treats me like I'm the galaxy's biggest problem child," the revived Slayer scoffed reflexively.
"Welcome to the wonderful world of public service as a Council Spectre," Vasir snorted.
The two of them looked at each other speculatively for a while.
Then Vasir broke the silence. "You're not as tall as the extranet would have someone believing," she said dryly, looking Shepard up and down.
Shepard chuckled. "I take my people to task for being all goo-goo eyes around every Asari they see."
"Shepard, your people have been part of the galactic community for… what, going on thirty years now?" the Asari Spectre chuckled. "The Asari have been using what the Goddess gave us, for a lot longer than that. I'm not just talking about our biotics or our skills with diplomacy either."
Vasir moved aside and Shepard entered the room, trying not to be disturbed by the sensation of the Spectre's assessing gaze upon her.
"So what have we got?" the revived Slayer decided to get down to business.
"Less than an hour ago, someone took a shot at your girlfriend," Vasir reported, tapping a window that sported a crater in it. "Note the bullet holes in the glass."
Shepard looked up at the tempered glass, where cracks in the surface extended out from the points of impact in a spider's web. Prodding the glass hesitantly, its strength let her knew that the material wasn't standard issue.
"I've seen this stuff before," she mused aloud.
Vasir snorted. "Well, yeah, it's used in the construction of starship windows."
"That's an expensive modification, even for these parts," Shepard muttered, tapping the surface of the glass. "The stuff's rated against hard vacuum and meteor fragments; only way that anyone could crack this stuff is with military-grade squash rounds."
"Nice catch," the Asari Spectre nodded. "Units as expensive as this one come standard with kinetic barriers. Your assassin used a disrupter mod to bypass the barrier shields and ran right into reinforced plasteel, a modification that the building's maintenance database doesn't seem to have on file… thus, Doctor T'Soni's apparent escape from certain death."
"So why is a Council Spectre involved?"
"Well, I could lie and say that I was just passing through, but…" Vasir shrugged. "…the truth is that your reputation for property damage makes people nervous, Shepard, and I'm talking about powerful people here. You show up on a piece of prime Asari real estate and the first person you talk to is your ex-girlfriend, who just happens to be one the biggest information brokers around lately?"
"The Matriarchs assigned you to monitor Liara?"
The Asari Spectre sighed. "I didn't think that you'd be surprised to learn that the Matriarchs want T'Soni under observation, which is easier said than done these days, by the way. I'm assuming that you're the reason the slippery little minx has been so hard to keep track of; picked up a trick or two from you, did she?"
"Liara was a capable woman long before I came along," Shepard shook her head.
"I'm sure that a bookworm who spent fifty years digging in the dirt was totally matching wits with mercenaries and gang lords BEFORE meeting the Butcher of Torfan," Vasir noted archly.
Shepard suppressed the flare of annoyance, instead focusing on the room.
"You say that she hung around?"
"Shots get fired, several minutes pass, and THEN she walks out," the Asari Spectre reported. "She doesn't run, she WALKS. Whatever she was doing, it must have been pretty damn important. I mean, I know commandos who aren't that cool under fire."
"Did the cops find anything in the apartment or the sniper's nest?"
"I don't think they even had time to check WHERE the shot came from; at least, not yet, and yet people wonder why they need Council Spectres."
"If our perp was a pro, he or she would've realized their screw-up when she fled the apartment," Shepard muttered speculatively. "Most likely went after her, assuming that they even knew where to look."
"Ergo, we're hunting the assassin who's hunting T'Soni," Vasir added. "Question is, where did they both go?"
Shepard looked around the apartment and then noticed something set in a display case; a set of dog tags. Her dog tags; they were worn and pitted, but the name was still visible.
She ran her fingers across the surface of the display case and was surprised when an OSD popped out from a drawer beneath the case itself.
"Must be gene-coded to you specifically," Vasir observed somewhat unnecessarily.
"She knew that I was going to show up."
"Well, let's have a look at what was on the disk."
Moving to the room's vidplayer, Shepard inserted the disk and a scratchy image appeared.
"Looks like a vidcall," Vasir muttered. "Was your girlfriend always this paranoid?"
"Only since she started getting stalked by her own people," Shepard growled as they watched the footage of the call to some Salarian that Shepard didn't recognize.
"Sekat, what did you find out?" Liara sounded cold yet professional.
"Dantius' servers were a tough nut to crack," Sekat boasted. "But you paid for the best."
"…and I'll keep paying as long as I keep getting the best. Now what did you find?"
"Rosenberg was on New Canton after all. The Salarian was seen and identified; he snatched her."
"Do you have a location trace yet?"
"Managed to narrow it down to a system; still working on an exact location."
"Then give me what you have, Sekat, and I'll take care of the rest."
"Listen, T'Soni," Sekat sounded nervous. "I'm getting a bad feeling about all of this. I mean, the Salarian was bad enough, but if he's involved, then you know…"
"It won't be a problem, Sekat," Liara answered. "I'll look after you, you know that."
"I'm just thinking that maybe we should renegotiate our… understanding."
There was a pause. "Are you sure about that? We have a very good deal right now, Sekat."
"It's nothing personal, T'Soni," Sekat pleaded. "Just business. I need to protect myself."
There was a note of resignation in Liara's voice. "I… I understand, Sekat. I'll meet up with you and make sure that you get everything you have coming to you."
"I knew I could count on you," Sekat mused. "I'll be at the Baria Frontiers offices. Meet me there and we can hammer out all the details."
As the vidcall recording ended, Shepard glanced at her fellow Spectre.
"Now we know where they want," Vasir said excitedly, tapping at her omni-tool.
"We still have no idea who tried to kill her," Shepard replied.
"How many people is your girlfriend having a feud with, Shepard? This is the Shadow Broker, all right. Best we find her before Tazzik does."
Shepard grimaced, managing to hide the fact that she'd helped Xander turn Tazzik into little more than street pizza only hours before. "Yeah, you're right. Let's move. I should call my ship, though; get my people to meet us."
"Good idea. That'll give me time to finish bringing my aircar around."
"Remote-control aircar?" Shepard parroted. "That's a cool optional extra."
"Pretty damned expensive, too, but it's saved my life more times than I can begin to count."
Shepard shrugged as she opened a communications channel to the Normandy. "Joker, did Xander and the others make it back?"
"Oh, yeah," Joker quipped acidly. "Thane's already got Chambers making that gaga face that girls do when they find a bad boy they want to fix."
"Charming," Joan said dryly. "Tell him to saddle up and bring Kasumi along to meet me at the Drakon Center Trade Tower. Someone took a shot at Liara."
"She okay?" Joker sounded worried.
"Liara's on the run. I don't know where she is, but I met a Council Spectre; I think we have a good lead."
"I'll get Xander down there ASAP," the brittle-boned pilot nodded. "It'll be nice to have an Asari around who isn't such a great big drama queen."
Shepard's mouth curled in a cruel smile. Morinth, of course; what was the point of having a demented serial killer who could bend minds to her will if you didn't take advantage of it?
Joan glanced at Vasir before adding, "Now that you mention it, I could use Morinth's help on this one."
"What if our resident Asari badass is still having her diva issues?" Joker chuckled.
"Then tell Morrie I've found her something to eat. It's something that she's wanted to taste for a while, now. She'll know what I'm talking about, so make sure that she knows I reminded her."
"Got it; you want Xander, Kasumi, and Morinth, and you've got Morrie something to eat."
Disconnecting the call, Shepard turned back to face Vasir.
"Ah, teammates," Vasir sighed theatrically. "That's why I prefer to work alone; I hate micromanaging my life, let alone someone else's."
"Come on," Shepard growled, changing the subject. "If we move, we might get to Liara before what's-his-name shows up."
"Tazzik; according to reports, you met him on Alingon."
Shepard frowned somewhat. She'd told no one about that incident during Liara's quest to retrieve her body from being sold off to the Collectors.
As far as she knew, Xander and Liara had never mentioned that to anyone either.
So, the only way Vasir could've known about Alingon is if she'd gotten the information from the only other person who was there.
Tazzik.
"Sorry, that was nasty," Shepard said grimly, angered that her suspicions about Vasir had now been confirmed. "Contrary to popular belief, I don't like losing people."
"The Drell, you mean?" Vasir snorted. "You should relax about that, these things happen."
"True," Shepard nodded. "Let's go."
In a distant corner of Illium's back alleyways, far from the lights and bluster of Nos Astra, Warren Meers descended into the basement levels of a cheap-ass building that the Senior Partners were using.
This is what they'd been reduced to; back alleys and abandoned storefronts.
He inserted a key into an iron lock and shoved with all his might, opening the heavy creaking door.
Inside was a stark white room, with a ten-year-old girl waiting. This was the Conduit.
Warren Meers loved being alive, but there were certain things that came with his current state that irked him no end. Meeting the Conduit was one of them.
The Conduit was the name given to the entity that the Senior Partners used to speak with, and interact with, the real world.
In times past, the Senior Partners had established a preference for hollowing out some poor soul and using their bodies as a means of communing with their minions.
He didn't know where the Senior Partners found those meat-sacks, but they always did find a victim. Perhaps this was yet another thing about Wolfram and Hart that Warren didn't want to know too much about.
The Alliance and the rest of the galaxy were twisting themselves in knots over the possibilities inherent with Quantum Entanglement Communicators.
Warren would love to see a QEC that could communicate with the ethereal realms.
The young girl looked up as Meers entered, her face grimacing in the same arrogant way that women always looked at Warren.
He hated it, and he suspected that the Conduit knew that and did so in order to needle him.
Warren had a deep-seated rage about women. If he was honest, those rage issues stemmed from feelings of inadequacy.
Of course, if he was capable of that kind of honest self-reflection then he probably wouldn't have made the many mistakes that had lead to his ill-advised attempt to kill Buffy and the tragedy that had followed.
For the record, though, Warren always blamed Buffy's idiot friends for his defeat, including the pussy-whipped Xander Harris.
He'd been trying to kill Buffy at the time, NOT Willow's little girlfriend Tara Maclay. It wasn't his fault that the bullet he'd fired had gone astray and killed her.
"So… finally learned what you're up against now, Meers?" the young girl sneered.
"Why didn't you tell me that Harris was still alive?" Warren snapped.
The Conduit simply popped her knuckles. "You have an easy task, Warren; find Rosenberg and obtain the secrets of the seals that continue to keep us out of this realm. This task doesn't require you to indulge your incessant and petty need for revenge against the Watchers."
"But the Watchers are standing between me and Rosenberg."
"No, you're not," the Conduit sneered. "The two of you are chasing the same thing. If you had any sort of imagination, you'd find a way to exploit that fact to your advantage."
"Well, if I'm going to be going up against the Watchers then I'll need help."
"Of course you will," the Conduit sneered, rolling her eyes. She reached out and pulled a small bottle out from thin air.
It looked like an impressive trick, but Warren knew that such powerful conjuration was difficult, if not impossible, and would remain so as long as Rosenberg's locks remained in place.
"This… is a wraith, Meers," the Conduit explained, giving the bottle a good shake.
Warren heard soft screaming from within its confines, and the bottle seemed to swim with a seething angry light.
"It's a possessing spirit; mindless and savage, the perfect agent for you."
"What does it do?"
"Find a sleeping, defenseless mind, and the wraith will do the rest," it shrugged. "That should keep the Watchers distracted long enough for you to do the simple job required of you."
Warren took the bottle and held it gingerly, as if it might break and spew its dangerous contents out into the air for all and sundry.
"Remember, Warren, you're under contract," the Conduit sneered. "The rewards for success are great, as are the punishments for your failures."
"I'll get Rosenberg," the skinned man vowed. "I made a deal and I'll follow through."
An evil smile spread across the Conduit's otherwise innocent face. "Oh, and Warren? If you could be a dear, there is one more thing that you can do for me."
The Conduit pulled another object from the air; a simple light bulb.
"It seems that the lights have gone off. Could you find a replacement light bulb? As you know, they're down in the basement."
Warren watched as a door faded into existence, clicking as it creaked open.
He stepped back somewhat. He knew the horrors awaiting him in the basement; the terrible fiend that the Senior Partners kept down there. Its only job, its only joy, was the sadistic pleasure it got from ripping apart the luckless fools sent into its clutches.
He ran towards the doorway back to the real world, but the heavy door slammed shut. The ominous click of its lock told him that access back to the real world would be barred to him until the Conduit willed it otherwise.
"Think of this as a performance review," the Conduit said cheerfully, her sunny smile at odds with the malicious glee in her eyes. "Apparently, the Senior Partners are concerned that you're not taking your assigned tasks seriously. Perhaps, you should be reminded of the consequences of poor job performance."
"I've done everything you asked of me," Warren pleaded.
"If you'd done everything asked of you, then the Senior Partners would already be free," the Conduit shrugged, looking around. "They don't seem to be free, Warren, which means that your job performance thus far has been unsatisfactory."
A defeated Warren Meers trudged through the door and down the steps into a dungeon.
Waiting for him in the near-total darkness of this realm was a slim figure surrounded by the tools of its dark trade; torture and punishment.
The doorway above him snapped shut, sealing him in with the entity.
It laughed softly, a cruel sound.
The only mercy it would show was that by the time it was done, he would still be alive. Of course, he'd quite literally be begging for death before it was finished with him.
The creature cleared its throat, holding out a huge hand. Warren looked at it, mystified, only to have the creature silently pointing at the bottle.
Warren handed the bottled wraith over silently. The creature took it gently and placed it safely on a shelf.
Its contents were too important to allow it to be broken accidentally.
With the wraith safely stored for the moment, the creature gestured toward a nearby table that he hadn't noticed before. He meekly walked towards it, knowing that he really had no choice at all.
The creature strapped him down and began preparing its tools. Warren grimaced, bracing himself for the tortures to come.
As the monster turned back to him, a pair of pliers in hand, Warren Meers cursed Willow Rosenberg and her friends. This was all her fault and he vowed that every second of pain that he was about to endure would be revisited upon her tenfold.
Vasir's air car tore though Illium's night sky as Shepard sat in the passenger seat, staring at nothing in particular.
"Relax. I'm sure your girlfriend will be just fine," Vasir said dryly, smirking.
Shepard filed away that annoying smirk as yet another reason why she wasn't going to lose any sleep over giving this bitch to Morinth.
"Patience," Shepard muttered to herself. "Patience, Joanie."
But patience was not a trait that came easily to Joan Shepard. Both of her current roles, as Spectre and Vampire Slayer, greatly benefited from her favorite method; hit first and leave the questions to the brass.
"We almost met two years ago, you know," Vasir was saying.
"Really? How?" Shepard was mildly curious.
"When you stole the Normandy and went blasting off for Ilos."
"You were the Spectre they tapped to bring me in after I went rogue?"
Vasir shrugged. "Well, if I couldn't get to you, they would've wanted me to complete your mission to find Saren. Of course, as it turned out, Saren came home by himself."
"Yeah, that's one way to describe Sovereign's attack on the Citadel," Shepard scoffed.
"So you see, it all worked out in the end. You proved that Saren was a traitor, and I didn't have to hunt you down and kill you."
Shepard glanced at Vasir again, who was still smirking.
"Relax, Shepard, I'm just kidding," the Asari Spectre chuckled lightly. "I doubt that you would've been made a Spectre, let alone sent after one of the most dangerous operatives we ever had, if you could be killed that easily. Whoops, looks like we're here."
The aircar slowed and slid out of the swift flow of traffic as Vasir brought the car around to circle the building once before dropping onto the main landing platform.
Shepard was just climbing out from the car when the loud roar of explosions seemed to fill the night sky.
Flames and thunder blossomed outwards, raining glass and ferro-crete over a wide area while nighttime pedestrians and some late-night employees screamed and scrambled for cover.
"Liara!" Shepard shouted, mentally running a silent prayer to the Goddess that Liara so often evoked.
Hopefully, she'd keep watching out for Liara as she had these last two years.
"They just took out three floors to make sure T'Soni was dead," Vasir snapped.
"Liara's a survivor," Shepard said grimly, turning to the Spectre. "Right now, all we know is that she was supposed to be there to meet her informant. We'll run a floor-by-floor search; Liara might've found a way to protect Sekat and herself from the blast."
Vasir glanced at the flaming conflagration above them, looking concerned.
"Good point," the Asari Spectre finally acknowledged. "Whoever blew this place might be headed for the roof. I'll go up top and head down, you start down here and come up; we should be meeting up on the fourth floor."
"Good plan." Shepard nodded.
Vasir hopped back in her car and it swept to the top of the building, vanishing over the rooftop, even as another air taxi dropped out of the night to land near Shepard.
Kasumi jumped out from the front seat, while Xander and Morinth slid out of the rear.
"Madre de dios," Xander said aloud, his voice aghast and totally at odds with the flat and placid expression on his face.
"Was anyone in there?" Kasumi muttered.
"Liara might be inside along with an informant," Shepard explained. "Vasir's sweeping the building from the top down we'll go from the bottom up."
"Yeah, about that…" Xander began delicately. "Your message implied that you didn't quite buy her just passing by as anything more than bullshit."
"Not for a second," Shepard nodded. "But she's too much of a pro to leave the job half-done. If there's any chance whatsoever that Liara escaped unharmed, she'll have to do a full floor-by-floor search even if it's only to make sure."
"…which means that all we have to do, is beat her to Liara," Xander shrugged.
"That's the plan," the revived Slayer nodded. "Half-assed, but I seem to recall you rolling into the field with worse ones."
"Don't remind me," Xander grunted. "Really, don't remind me of those times."
"Fine; so what did you bring me?" Shepard growled, watching Vasir depart.
"All your favorite toys," Xander smirked.
He handed her a kit bag, which she unzipped open to find a collection of all her favorite weapons.
Shepard kitted up, passing the M-22 Eviscerator shotgun to a delighted Morinth. Kasumi elected to stick with her M-12 Locust.
"I guess that leaves me with the extra M-3 Predator," Xander sighed. "I've wanted to do some John Woo-type action for ages."
"You know that's just for the vids, right?" Kasumi snickered. "Nobody in real life can fire two guns at the same time and actually be hitting anything accurately."
"You know, I used to think that myself," Xander mused. "I won't bore you guys with the details, but I met this girl. Hell of a shot; real bad attitude, used two guns all the time…"
"Let's go if we're going," Shepard snapped impatiently, worried about her lover.
"Are we really going to just run into a burning building?" Xander asked. "That seems a tad reckless, even for danger junkies like us."
"Good point," Shepard sighed. "Breath masks on, people; smoke inhalation is a nasty way to go."
The four of them began a sweep through the smoke filled corridors of the burning building, with Morinth tossing aside the occasional piece still-burning debris with her biotics.
At one point, they came across several blinking cylinders.
"Military-grade explosives… nasty," Shepard muttered.
Morinth shook her head, annoyed. "They must have rushed the job if they didn't take time to set these charges properly enough to go off with the rest. Sloppy."
"How do you know about stuff like that?" Xander asked suspiciously.
"You humans have a saying; you are what you eat. Let's just say that the meaning's quite a bit more literal for us Ardat-Yakshi."
"Okay, and that's not creepy in the slightest," he groaned.
Morinth brushed her hand across Xander's chest. "I could arrange a more… personal demonstration, but I sense that our dear Commander has an entirely different audience in mind for me to demonstrate my skills."
Shepard nodded. "First, we see if she can lead us to Liara and Sekat," the Slayer growled coldly. "We'll see how charitable I'm feeling after that."
Shepard noticed Kasumi looking at something suspiciously.
"What've you got, Goto?"
"Thermal clip; freshly popped," she reported, scooping up the object. Tossing it to Xander, he winced slightly as his ungloved fingers closed over it.
"Still warm; whoever popped this isn't that far ahead of us," Harris grimaced.
As if to confirm his words, they heard gunfire above them. Xander and Shepard took the stairs two at a time, running full-tilt around a corner and right into a sea of white-and-red armor, their chest pieces bearing none of the distinctive logos of any of the galaxy's major PMC groups.
The mercenaries had been gunning down survivors, but once they caught sight of Xander and Shepard, they opened fire on the unlikely duo.
Shepard retreated behind a filing cabinet that was well on its way to becoming Swiss cheese, noticing that Xander had actually jumped into a backwards roll and huddled himself in an alcove. The M-3 Predator pistol in each hand allowed him to break cover and lay down a blistering hailstorm of bullets for several seconds before retreating back into cover and letting his shields recharge.
As she began to back him up, laying down precision shots with her M-96 Mattock, a chirp rang through her comlink. Vasir was calling.
"No luck so far in finding your friend or Sekat. How are you doing?"
"Mercs; a lot of them," Shepard managed, gritting her teeth amidst gunfire. "I don't recognize the players, I've never seen their armor before, but they're good."
"Oh, yeah," Vasir mused casually. "That'd be the Shadow Broker's private army."
"What are they doing here, Vasir?"
"I'll take a wild stab and say that they're trying to finish what they started; killing your friend. I'm on my way down."
Vasir cut the line and Shepard reflexively bit off an Arabic insult at the Asari Spectre that made Xander wince.
Popping up from behind cover, the revived Slayer nailed two incoming mercs with a single shot to the head each. Meanwhile, Morinth swept out her hands and hurled several more of them back with biotic force.
Kasumi tapped at her omni-tool and vanished from sight.
Xander, well used to the thief's fighting style by now, collapsed one of his Predator pistols and started overloading or sabotaging the merc's weapons as quickly as he could. Ergo, they were quite helpless against Kasumi taking them out with a single and deadly blow to the back of the head.
Morinth stood up and walked out in to the hallway, bullets bouncing off of her biotic Barrier.
Her eyes swirled with oily black power her lips moved as if she was whispering to a lover.
Xander immediately noticed that one of the mercs had stopped firing and was staring at her, enraptured as if she was a Goddess come to earth. Turning back to Morinth, he frowned speculatively as the Ardat-Yakshi continued to whisper softly.
Suddenly the merc turned and opened fire on his fellows, gunning them down quickly.
One of his fellow mercs got off a lucky shot and nailed the boy in the thigh. He was bleeding out from his femoral artery when the squad approached him.
"Did… did I serve you well, mistress?" the boy gasped.
"Oh, yes, my little puppet," Morinth cooed, "…and you will be rewarded."
She knelt and whispered gently in his ears, "Embrace eternity," as dark swirls of biotic energy enveloped both of them. The boy could be heard screaming as Morinth moaned in orgasmic glee.
When the conflagration died away, the rogue Ardat-Yakshi was panting in front of the body now bleeding from its eyes, nose, and mouth.
"A… a little something to… to whet my appetite before I get the Spectre," she gasped breathlessly.
Xander sighed. He still didn't know whether or to be disgusted by her all-too-familiar hunger for death and chaos. "If you fill up on sweets or appetizers, you'll be too full for the main course." he grumbled.
Having said his piece, he stalked off. Shepard frowned as she ran after him, so the still-invisible Kasumi was the only one there who noticed Morinth chuckling darkly.
"Too full for the main course?" the Ardat-Yakshi echoed, sneering at the strange man's departing form. "Oh, Xander, you little man… my hunger is always… always with me."