A/N: Here, things get chaotic.
I would appreciate feedback on this chapter, and to see what people like and dislike about it.
Reviews are always welcome, positive or negative.
'Move your enemy. Do not let them move you. If you dictate the location and the time of when you have to fight, the other person has already lost, be it a single soldier or a general'.
- Rachel Florez, 'Tactical Considerations', unpublished
Bray sometimes hated his job.
Scratch that. He liked the job, just not his boss. Not because she was female, though. That gave him some of the best shit in the universe to have a perfectly good reason to stare at.
No, he hated his job because his boss was fucking crazy, and yet her crazy had worked for centuries. He never forgot his father's advice. "Aria is like a plasma cannon. You don't have to understand it for it to work...or for it to kill you."
His father, sadistic bastard that he was, had worked for Aria. So had his father's father, and so on and so forth. After one too many involvements in one too many revolts in the Hegemony, the whole family had bolted almost a century and a half ago from batarian space. Aria was the only one who would take them in, and thus they were her servants and protectors.
Bray didn't know how in the name of the Pillars his ancestor had swallowed enough pride to work for a female, but he had – and so had the rest of Bray's extended family. Over the years, they'd moved up from dock muscle to bully boys to head-crackers to integral parts of Aria's intricate security force. Never had a single member of his family betrayed her. And none would, either – he had decades of stories of what happened to people who irritated Aria.
Bray was responsible for making sure nothing irritated Aria.
He would have used the term 'surprised' or on occasion, 'angered', but nothing ever surprised her, and anything that managed to anger her was usually extremely dead by the time she got angry. His boss didn't seem to do anything but sit around in her bar, drink, wave her titties around and sleep with a truly ridiculous amount of people, but somehow she managed to know everything that happened on Omega, and everyone he knew was terrified of her.
He often suspected the people she was supposedly fucking were actually her contacts and operatives. He never asked, though. He'd learned a long time ago if you didn't need to know an answer on Omega, you'd live longer not asking the question in the first place. Still, the fact that Aria had sniffed out plots and assassins before Bray even had a hint about them was often troubling.
It would have been frightening if Bray had any fear left. Having to all too often be the go-between of Aria and that crazy bitch Jona Sederis had burned the fear out of him about fifteen years back. Now he just felt itchy.
Today he felt very itchy.
The Broker was doing some kind of deal with P on the station in a day or two, and details were scarce. They'd hired out an entire private dock, not one on the rings but in the small caverns that formed the rock-base of the main stem, sealed and secured from casual entry or observation. As a matter of course, Aria had these monitored and bugged, but the Broker's people had subverted those systems and bugs over the past couple of hours.
Aria was supposedly going to be paid fifty million credits, in the form of state-of-the-art eezo mining equipment, and thirty million more in hard bonds if the deal went down and remained secure, but wouldn't get the merch or the bonds until it was done. The Broker had expected interference from any number of sources, but his representative – yet another fat-ass volus – gave no details except that the Alliance could not be allowed to find out anything about the meet.
Bray sighed. Like the monkeys were going to come to Omega for any reason. They were still crying over the fact their stupid fleets were a wreck and the fact someone had nearly blown up their Hegemon, or whatever they called him. Bray personally wished the Alliance would show up, it would be hilarious to have them shot to pieces by the pirates they felt so superior to.
Still, Aria had given the orders and he obeyed, personally running herd what was jokingly called customs by the people of Omega. She didn't want any problems, given the size of the payday she was going to get, and if he even saw an Alliance ship he was to blow it right out of the sky.
He didn't expect to have to do that. Right now he was thinking and worrying about the gangs, and figuring them to be the most likely source of any problems, rather than the Alliance.
Six gangs dominated the station. The Blood Pack was mostly into mercenary work for all the wrong causes and reasons and a bit of red sand running. Eclipse was for wet work, scaring the shit out of someone, and blowing things up. The Blue Suns did protection work, protection rackets, and breaking protective security systems.
The Shadows were mostly about data infiltration and hacking, the Talons mostly into good old-fashioned muggings and slave trading, and the Twelve Bells into outright theft and piracy. None of them had enough power or dead brain cells to challenge Aria, of course, She'd been gathering failed commandos for over three hundred years, and by now she had over five thousand of the crazy hussies.
Still, the gangs often had to be watched to make sure they didn't get out of line. And none of them really liked the Broker that much, as all too often he sold information to various governments that got their plans sidelined and their people blown the fuck up. P. was more popular but he had this ugly tendency to kill his people when they ran out of use to him, so only the desperate worked for him.
Bray figured it was the average ganger who was going to start any problems. The big leaders had enough sense not to piss Aria off, but the lower level ward leaders had the brains of a vorcha but only half the survival instinct. He'd already had two of the Twelve Bells blown to shit for talking about raiding the Broker's ships.
He would have put more of his men to watch the gangs, but Aria seemed to think the Broker was hoping just for that to happen. After all, if they blew up one or two gangs, that would be a way to weaken Aria's forces on Omega as they dealt with the backlash.
Bray didn't understand the weird interaction between Aria, the Broker, and P, and honestly didn't care as long as he could do his job. Right now, that was monitoring the station sensors and incoming traffic for signs of problems. And as he walked past a display, he saw something that caught his eye.
A turian operator had just assigned a small salarian cutter to a mid-dock position, and was in the process of scanning the ship for eezo or other items Aria didn't allow on board. The scan came up totally clean, but the registry caught Bray's attention.
It was one of the Shifter's recon ships. Bray's four eyes narrowed, and he walked over to the plinth where the operator stood. "That ship. Who is it?"
The turian, an older fellow named Kathtic, shrugged. "Beats me. Some salarian answered, sounded like Black Rim Solus-cant to me. She's armed to the teeth, but clean – not even picking up out of band transmissions."
Bray folded his arms. The Shifter didn't usually operate on or even around Omega – ostensibly he had to keep a clean-ish record to keep living and operating on the Citadel. Why would one of his ships be here now?
He checked the communications consoles, seeing if they had any contact from the Shifter – maybe some kind of data shipment, or high-grade drugs. But he found nothing. He even shot off a message to the salarian, although it would take over five hours to reach him. Still, it was something strange, and strange could mean trouble.
He tapped his comm. "Aria."
The languid voice came back in his hearing canal. The only sign of Aria's favor for Bray over her other lieutenants was that he could address her by her name and not as Queen. "Yes, Bray? I'm occupied."
He suppressed a sigh. Occupied either meant she was fooling around or drunk. Wonderful. "A ship of the Shifter is about to dock, and you said to alert you of anything out of the ordinary."
He could almost see her eyes narrowing as spoke. "Interesting. I haven't heard anything from Edat...and we have no messages from the Circle?"
He'd already checked that. He wasn't stupid. "No. The ship is clean, but we were not expecting one. Right now, it's headed to mid-dock. Send someone to meet them?"
Aria was silent for a long moment. "...no. I will contact you in a few minutes." She clicked off, and he shook his head.
Kathtic flicked a mandible. "Should I bring them to a halt?"
Bray reached for his pouch of krathka leaves, putting one into his mouth and chewing softly, the faint narcotic clearing his mild headache. "No. If the queen wants them stopped, she would tell us."
Five minutes later, Bray's implant vibrated. "Bray here."
Aria's voice had the low, sensual edge to it that she got when she was either intrigued by something, or plotting to do something truly appalling. "A curious thing, Bray. That ship of the Shifter's was stolen almost a year ago, in some kind of failed raid."
Bray frowned. "A raid? Against who?"
He could literally feel her smiling. "Cerberus. It seems the Broker's concerns about interference were on the money if off the mark."
Bray was now very confused. "Cerberus was destroyed ..."
Aria laughed. "And that raises the wonderful question of who is now in control of this ship, now doesn't it? Is this a single blind, Cerberus survivors using the Shifter's ship to sneak into the one place Commissariat spies won't find them? A double blind, someone knowing that Cerberus had the ship and planning something to lay the blame in that direction? Or something else entirely..."
Bray checked his omni. "I've got three squads near the mid-ring. I can have them there in five."
Aria was silent a long moment, then laughed again. "Not yet, Bray. If these are Cerberus … leftovers … they might be useful to snap up and find a use for. And if they aren't I don't want them to know I'm onto them until I know what they plan to do. Have your people keep an eye on them, nothing more."
Bray hated when Aria got like this, but kept his voice level. "Sure thing, Aria. I'll see to it myself."
O-ATTWN-O
As the ship docked, Miranda gathered everyone in the cargo bay. She had a helmet in her own hands, but hadn't put it on yet.
"Omega is extremely dangerous, and it is very likely that the thin disguise of the registry of this ship won't hold up for long. We got here as quickly as we could for more than one reason. We wanted to get ahead of the Broker's people. But we have a contact waiting for us, one who will help us in our stated goal. And we need to make sure that the ruler of the station, Aria, does not interfere."
Pel suddenly realized why he and Kai kept their helmets on.
Miranda's voice hardened. "I'm sure you are all here for Shepard, but from here on out, I'm in charge. I have details none of you do, and my goal is the same as yours – but I'm the only one with experience in command. If that's going to be a problem, let me know now."
Shields was the first to speak. "I don't give a shit whose in charge as long as you can actually fucking lead." She shrugged.
Garrus glanced at Tali, then, Telanya, and finally Liara, before shrugged as well. "Not a problem as long as you don't try to use us as bait."
Miranda sighed. "I'm aware that Cerberus has done very little to earn your trust, or for that matter anyone else's. But the Illusive Man is committed not only to stopping this outrage, but ensuring a certain message is sent to the Broker. Having any of you die would be politically disastrous for Cerberus, I assure you."
Tali's eyes narrowed. "Well, that's comforting."
Liara ground her teeth. "We should get moving."
Miranda tamped down on her temper at the banter and merely nodded, putting on her helmet. "I'll do the talking. Kai, Pel, flanks. The rest of you should form up in the middle. Mr. Moreau will be staying on the ship, using the scanners when and where we direct him."
Joker came out of the cockpit. "And what do I do if someone tries to board?"
Miranda smiled. "The ship is resistant to code-breaking. If dock authorities want in, let them in. There's nothing they'll find that implicates Cerberus in anything. Simply tell them you are a chartered pilot being paid by an asari and a salarian and you know nothing and want to know nothing."
Joker sighed. "Great."
Miranda glanced at Aethyta. "Many here will recognize you if you speak, Matriarch. But we may need your assistance when it comes time to talk to Aria."
Aethyta snorted. "Well there's more to Aria than you know, kiddo. That conversation won't go real well. But if I have to talk, I will." She put on her own helmet, and checked her sword.
O-ATTWN-O
To the uninitiated, Omega was an experience unlike any other. Mostly, an experience in horror and depravity.
Giant under-towers and linked galleries of buildings jutted in every direction like some crazed explosion of construction machines had sown them willy-nilly. Throngs of air cars and passenger trucks soared through chaotic sky-lanes, while crowds of people shuffled through transport tubes that writhed around the base and the towers of the station like a network of blood vessels.
If the Citadel was glittering lights and elegance set atop a thin underskin of darkness, Omega was that darkness in all its unholy glory. Everyone went armed. The voices of turians, salarians, batarians, humans and asari mingled as they hawked unimaginable things of wonder and horror.
Food of all kinds, exotic animals and furs lined various racks and storefronts. Lengths of asari shimmersilk sat alongside fresh-forged asari warp swords, and stacks of haptic video competed with bootleg programs and faux-produced consumer goods. But there was also worse.
Young asari slaves, modified for sexual pleasure, eyes wide and glossy black. Racks of highly illegal weapons, unregistered on any world. Poisons that would kill a dozen krogan with a sniff. Highly immoral genetic modification kits. Banned religious texts, stolen Prothean knicknacks, rogue AI's slaved to injection programs to destroy unwary hackers.
Software to control injected nanites inside a living being and puppet them from a distance. Drugs of every kind, for every race. Rare art, richly decorated cultural artifacts, snuff videos, tainted HE3 to sabotage rivals – the list of depravities went on and on.
Garrus had never seen such horror in his entire life. He walked in the middle of the group in a daze, aware of Telanya clutching his arm so tight it hurt, but the pain didn't even register.
He saw turian eggs being hawked by the dozen, in a food stall, and felt his gullet heave. He saw battered, filthy batarian slaves, being sold to a group of krogan with two vorcha sidekicks, who were chuckling evilly. He saw a drell sniff a line of red sand off a human female's belly, and then smile as she took him by the hand into a nearby alley, and shadow figures leapt him, knives and blood flashing.
He saw a group of beaten and bruised salarians, naked, with bright red marks on their bodies, and haptic signage : 'Custom cuts. Prepared on site. Freeze dry or compressed rations available.' When he finally realized what they were selling he had to dig his hands into his thighs to keep from drawing his weapons.
No one cared. They stepped over an asari shot dead in the street, her entire skull caved in by the heavy caliber round that had splattered her brains over the hard metal walkways, and people just kept going by. The only security he saw were sneering asari, in skintight green armor, who did nothing to stop the violence or crime, unless someone messed with the merchant stalls bearing a single sigil, that of a pair of blue lips.
Aethyta sighed. "Kiss of Aria. Means they're untouchable." Garrus jerked as she spoke, and inclined her head. "Keep your cool, kid. This isn't even the bad part of Omega, trust me. I've seen shit on this station that would make a batarian slaver cry at the injustice."
Garrus blinked. "Batarians don't have tear ducts."
She nodded, her shoulders tense, and he just shook his head. How could anyone – no matter how much it might cost in blood or lives to stop it – not act on this insanity? He finally spoke again. "Why doesn't anyone stop this? Why don't the people rise up?"
Pel laughed. "Goddamn. Rise up? What, you expect fucking someone to give a shit? People come here when the rest of the galaxy has already fucked them over and out. When life itself has stuck its dick in your ass so many times you tell yourself you might as well get used to it."
The big man gestured to a beaten-down group of workers – salarians with dull eyes and slumped stances, turians bare of facepaint and with scuffed plating, humans with slack muscles and a tautness to their features that made their faces look like skulls. "These people? They're fucking dead. Decency doesn't exist here, because there's too much evil. You'd get knifed every trying. So everyone acts worse, and the really bad fuckers have to do even worse than that to impress everyone."
Aethyta nodded. "Omega was a shithole when Nezzy and I were Liara's age and Aria wasn't even born yet. It's always been that way."
Garrus trembled. "Someone should stop it. It isn't right." He could almost feel the matriarch's ancient gaze upon him as she turned her head in his direction, as they passed a set of shops selling organs in chilled, sealed cryogenic paks.
"You can't stop despair, Detective. You can't stop surrender, or fear, or the exhaustion of the will to be a better person. And this is what Omega is. It is the end." She smiled. "You scrub off all the fancy words, and Omega is just what the old asari name for it used to be."
She glanced up. "There's a period of time between when the sun sets and the moon rises on Thessia, when all is dark and the only light is that of the stars. We call it y'hathaiel. It doesn't translate well. The best way I can say it in modern asari is 'that time between despair and death, when nothing can be seen except darkness.'
Garrus felt himself shudder at the words and surprisingly, Kai Leng was the one to speak next. "That is indeed this place. Omega is not for people who believe in justice, or mercy, or any of the polite fictions normal people use to prevent themselves from sinking into chaos."
Garrus sighed. "And no one has the strength of will to stand up for these people and help them?"
Pel snorted. "Oh, it's happened. They fail. They always fucking fail. And then shit gets worse, because the only way to break a fucker's spirit faster than despair is false hope."
Liara swallowed at those words, and her voice was so soft they barely could hear her. "Sometimes false hope is all we have to keep us going."
Aethyta placed her hand on her daughter's shoulder. "Maybe so, kiddo. Some people would rather die for false hope than live with the surety that everything was fucking pointless." She gestured around. "But these people don't even have that anymore."
In front, Miranda consulted her omni-tool and shifted the direction they walked in. She didn't participate in the conversation among the aliens – Omega was what it was. It was a cesspit, and like all low places it would collect garbage and toxins. Feeling sorry for assorted alien trash – or the human trash also here – wouldn't fix anything.
Still, she was hardly pleased to be here. Her armored boots were sticky from at least five pools of alien blood. She could feel the miasma of this hellhole clinging to her suit – she'd probably burn this armor as soon as she got done with this crazy task. She glanced aside at Kai and sub-vocalized into her comm implant. "Anything?"
The assassin glanced around coolly. "No sign of the drell...yet. We are almost to the meeting place, so he may be there. We are being followed, however. At least two groups, batarians and turians. Aria's people. And two vorcha, in the shadows of the nearby rooftops, using IR goggles." He paused. "The vorcha … are not the usual sort of people in Aria's employ. Blood Pack, perhaps."
She nodded, licking her lips inside her helmet. She knew about Omega from video, from reading, from hearing about it, but she had never been here before. Kai and Pel had. If anyone on the station knew they were here, killers from every corner would come out of the woodwork.
She grimaced at the thought and refocused, seeing the meeting spot ahead. "Be alert. Our contact should be here soon." She walked past the high, irregular arch of metal carved with images of Aria stabbing a heavyset batarian in his eyes, entering a wide alleyway dominated on both sides by towering black walls, windows visible only a hundred feet up.
The alley ran for a good six hundred feet before ending in some kind of warehouse door, one heavily grafittied. The little group came to a stop, and Miranda looked around, putting her hands on her hips.
The alley was empty, and Miranda sighed. "Great. He's not here."
Her abnormally sharp hearing may have caught the barest scrape of something from above. Before she could even react, both Aethyta and Kai Leng suddenly moved, both snapping out swords. The blades came to a halt against a pair of upraised metallic bracers on the arms of the figure who just appeared out of nowhere, barely three feet from her.
Wearing a long, dark red coat of some heavy, waxy-looking cloth, the figure was wearing a hood of the same material with a thin trim of black silk. The red coat gapped open, revealing a set of thin black leather armor of some kind, and nothing else. The black bracers on each arm of the coat were decorated with images of what looked like sand dunes, identical to the tall metal boots worn on the figure's feet.
The voice coming from the darkened cowl had an edge of amusement to the raspy whisper that emerged. "Your people are good, but still too slow, Ms. Lawson."
Aethyta dropped her blade first, and Kai Leng did so a moment later, but kept it in hand.. Miranda merely turned to face the man.
"You didn't specify how you would contact us, Mr. Krios."
Slender, black-gloved hands pulled back the cowl, revealing the features of a drell. Overlapping scales formed the drell's forehead, each one marked with a graven rune, and the exposed tissues of the cheeks only emphasized the strong jaw, sensual lips, and large dark eyes that stared at them all. "I am not in the habit of bad tradecraft, Ms. Lawson."
Shields took a good look at the robes, the runes, and the fact their wearer was drell and sighed. "Ah...fuck."
Garrus blinked. "Krios? You related to Kolyat?"
The figure nodded. "My estranged son in C-SEC, Mr. Vakarian. I assume he is well?"
Garrus nodded faintly, and Miranda sighed. "Social hour can come later. You have the information?"
Thane Krios folded his arms in front of him, nodding. "Of course. The deal will happen as soon as the ship arrives, which could be as early as tonight, or in two days. P is on the main ship itself, which is an older model turian heavy cruiser, escorted by six light cruisers and a wing of converted patrol boats with upgraded missiles. The Broker force meeting them is three of the Broker's special salarian assault cruisers and his … executive ship."
Miranda narrowed her eyes. "And what might that be?"
Krios smiled. "A Unification-Era turian dreadnought, the Vokias. Believed lost. Rarely deployed."
Tali looked at Miranda, eyes wide. "They have a ken'tosh dreadnought?!"
Pel chuckled. "Well, so much for the board the ship and take 'em out option. That shit won't work."
Krios nodded. "Indeed. However, the reason for such heavy security is simple enough – The Broker has planned to betray P., and P. plans to betray the Broker. Due to the inventive manipulations of your Illusive Man, both think the other is the source of several leaks. Aria is also a consideration...not that either one plans to actually pay her."
Aethyta snorted. "They actually plan to double cross Aria? That sounds really stupid."
Krios folded his arms. "Aria has not been informed of Collector involvement, and she is … very aggressive towards them, given the proximity of the Omega Four relay. Furthermore, her people will soon discover that Shepard's body is being sold on her station. The Council can not simply let that slide."
Miranda sighed. "So this entire thing is going to explode. While not the best of results, the chaos will draw eyes away from us – and hopefully, from Shepard's body. That gives us a chance. What about who will be doing the trade?"
Krios frowned. "Tetrimus is occupied, but Tazzik will be overseeing the transfer. P. himself will be handling his part of the operation. I do not know how many soldiers and support people they have, but Aria is already moving her own soldiers around the docking bay – she will not allow them to disembark many of their troops. There is a great deal of distrust on all sides."
Kai Leng nodded. "Then if we get in and strike cleanly, we can perhaps convince Aria's forces the entire thing is a trap, or a setup?"
Krios only shrugged. "Anything is possible. However, I expected something of a larger force of operatives."
Miranda sighed. "The rest of the team was caught up in handling the fallout of the assassination attempt on Earth, and .. I had to improvise. These people are Shepard's teammates."
Krios' eyes flicked over them all, then he nodded. "Understood. The Broker does not know that I have discovered his role in my wife's death. He thinks me completely loyal. Thus I can slip you into the area unnoticed – as long as you are careful. I have noticed the Broker's people are going in armor with no Broker markings, so I can get you very close without too many questions, but the quarian … will probably not be able to fit in with the group."
Miranda nodded. "We need her close, though. There may be technical issues or something of that nature, and she is supposedly a good hacker."
Tali bristled, but Krios only nodded. "Many quarians are. I believe I have a relatively safe location. What of your escape method? Aria's people will lock the docks down at the first sign of problems."
Miranda tapped her comm. "The pilot is … very good. He can get past any blockages. And the ship has a salarian photonic stealth emitter. It won't fool them for long, but they can't track via heat if we stay tight and close inside the arc of the station itself, and we have an alternative craft here to actually escape on."
She paused. "Will you be aiding in this endeavor?"
Krios glanced over her group again. "Beyond taking you to the site? Given the reduced number of your forces, that might be ill advised."
Krios said nothing for long moments, and Miranda swallowed. ".. of course, The payment we agreed on is yours, no matter what you choose...but I can double that if you actually help out. And my employer is close to figuring out who ordered the attack on your wife. We would also assist with helping you reach that person or group once we localize them."
Another long second passed. Krios tilted his head, as if listening to something, and then finally nodded. "Very well. We will assist you directly."
Miranda frowned. "We?"
With a sparse, elegant motion, he tapped his omni-tool, and the large warehouse door at the far end of the alleyway opened. "Your request was not unexpected, so I brought … assistance."
Three more drell in long red coats stepped out, arms folded. Pel's voice came in a whisper. "Holy Mother of God, three more?"
Shields' voice was wry "...beyond fuck. You can't be serious. Four? What are we going up against, all of fucking Omega?"
Liara frowned. "I am not familiar with drell, but there are only four of you. How much assistance can you offer?"
Kai, Pel, Shields, and Miranda all turned to face her as if shocked. Aethyta sighed. "Little Wing, they're not just drell. They're Remembrance Dancers."
Garrus felt his entire body go cold. "...four...fucking...Dancers?"
Krios nodded. "The situation is dire."
Shields actually laughed at that.
Tali glanced from person to person, reading the shock and fear in the body stances, and spoke hesitantly. "I.. I am not familiar with these Dancers."
Kai Leng gave a short, breathy laugh. "They are assassins, the finest in the galaxy. Certainly the most lethal. Trained from the womb to kill, with blade and biotics, speed and stealth. Krios alone could probably slaughter all of us in the time it would take you to draw your shotgun. The last time four Dancers acted in concert, they slaughtered six thousand krogan before dying – mostly due to Kepral's, not by being overwhelmed."
Krios gave a shallow bow. "You and the matriarch would present …. some difficulty. You appear quite skilled."
A hint of actual emotion and warmth colored Leng's voice. "A vast complement. My thanks."
Miranda wondered if the Illusive Man had planned on this, then dismissed the thought. "If that is all, then we should get moving. Did you manage the modifications to the transport we wanted, or must we walk?"
Krios gestured sharply, and the other three Dancers bowed. "My associates will move independently to the location. I have a transport vehicle that will accommodate everyone. It has been loaded with a high-order explosive device, per your request."
Miranda nodded, and Pel sighed. "We're headed to a damned hangout of some of the creepiest, evilest motherfuckers in the galaxy, in a shithole station on a flying bomb, and we have a pair of goddamned kids, a cop, a cybered-up traitor to the Broker, three old ass killers, Ms. Perfect, and a handful of Dancers. When do the Consort and Blasto show up and have wild sex in this bullshit joyride?"
Krios's lips bent in a small smile. "After we see Aria and have her give you a lap dance, no doubt."
O-ATTWN-O
Bray was almost sure he didn't want to be anywhere fucking near whatever was about to happen. Seeing Remembrance Dancers on Omega was not something you expected when you woke up in the morning, and seeing four of them was enough to make him even itchier than before.
Maybe he could still feel a little fear after all. That was a good thing in his mind, as it proved he wasn't insane or completely stupid yet. He checked the displays on his console again, operating from an armored turian APC Aria had salvaged from some wrecking yard and turned into a mobile command center for when riots or other outbreaks of discontent broke out.
He certainly wasn't about to get close to the group he was trailing. His two trailing teams had been taken down so fast they didn't even have time to message, along with three vorcha trackers from the Blood Pack, and a remote hacker using a drone from the Suns. A third group found nothing but bodies, and then literally vanished on the way back.
When he sent in a specialty team from the heavy hitters, he finally figured out what the hell he was facing as one of his men's onboard suit cameras got a flash of a drell face and a red robe as he was trisected in about half a second.
Remembrance Dancers. At least two, maybe more. Once he saw them meet up with the group from the Shifter's ship and realized there were four of them, he decided this was Extremely Bad. And when he informed Aria of this she only laughed.
"So. Dancers on the station, Bray. Four of them. Not that I'm panicking, but as I recall it took just two to reduce High Solarch Priana to a bloody corpse. Whoever this is, if they can pull together a stolen ship of the Shifter and more than one Dancer, that's enough of a threat to make me very, very interested. Where are they going?"
He cursed, and sent out two more scouts. When he saw the direction the beat-up looking transport was headed in, he cursed in every dialect he knew.
"They're headed towards Afterlife. Or at least in your direction."
Aria's voice purred across his commlink. "Well, that is certainly convenient. I'm moving out from Afterlife. You follow them, and do not lose them or you will lose your head. Make sure the Old One's piping is clear, he may need to be … utilized."
Bray sighed. "Aria, that thing isn't stable..."
Aria's tone dipped into ice. "I know that, Bray. But this is hardly normal circumstances. Get the damned freak moving and let me know when they hit the Black Strip."
Bray's people watched the transport truck move slowly and carefully through traffic, even while he got on a remote link and paid off some Shadows to pull a remote scan. When he found it was wired with enough explosives to blow a hole in the station walls, he almost ordered it shot down out of instinct, but instead just told Aria of the fact.
"Curiouser and curiouser. This has so many moving parts...very, very few players of the game go in for such complex plans. Bray, do me a favor. Have your little sniffers run a scan on that ship they came here in – DNA, pheromones, everything. I want to know who was on it."
The answer came back ten minutes later. "Humans, asari, turians, and at least one quarian. We already knew that, Aria, we saw them get off the damned ship. Why check?"
Aria was silent for several seconds. Then she started to laugh. "Can you think of any time you've seen humans, turians, asari and quarians working together?"
Bray's mind blanked. He hated when she got this way. Then again, there were fifty five different ways Aria could act, and Bray hated most of them that didn't involve her stripping naked and dancing while drunk. That had only happened once, and she's shot most of the people who'd seen it.
"No, I can't."
Aria hummed quietly. "Bray, Bray, Bray. This is what comes of you spending all your time being such a dull boy. Think. What just happened that blew up the news links?"
Bray sighed. "The Butcher got killed fucking around in our territory by geth."
"And did the brave humans of the Alliance recover the bodies?"
Bray thought. "No. It was a big uproar, as if they had the stones to come here and spit in your face."
Aria laughed. "Indeed, Bray, just so. Shepard fought Saren with an asari, a quarian, and a turian. And several humans. Now she is dead, deep in our space, and P. and the Broker suddenly want a private dock to transfer something for a sale worth tens of millions of credits. Out of nowhere, a ship stolen from the Shifter by Cerberus shows up and is met by not one but multiple Dancers. Does this sound somewhat … strange?"
Bray thought it sounded like something a high-caste would pull to draw gazes from an assassination attempt and said so, but Aria laughed again. "Hardly. No, something else is happening. Something... different. Something new. Something I didn't anticipate."
Her voice hardened. "Have the truck brought down to the Spire, and have the Old One meet me there. Be firm with him, but polite, or I'll need a new lieutenant. I'll go meet these guests of ours myself."
Bray stifled his immediate protest. "They have an explosive device. How do you know this isn't an assassination attempt?"
Her voice went back to amused. "I don't. But I'll take precautions. And it doesn't matter. Omega can't be killed."
O-ATTWN-O
"Reaching the relay soon, Father."
P. sat in comfort in his command ship, the Fatal Laugh. A powerful salarian prototype ship, it was somewhere between a super-heavy cruiser and a light dreadnought in power but only the size of a heavy battlecruiser in size.
He'd stolen it, of course. He stole pretty much whatever he wanted, but this was his most famous theft, plucking it right out of the middle of a salarian fleet paralyzed by his innovative software and the simple expedient of putting a nine-part poison in their water supplies. Salarians only thought they were paranoid. Sloppy idiots.
It took some heavy modification of the hull to make it look like an older model turian heavy cruiser, but he had cash to spare. He stole the cash, too. And most of the parts he'd modified the ship with. In fact, he couldn't really say anything on the ship had been bought legitimately except maybe the music collection.
It made him hard to predict. No one could predict what they never knew was coming, and P. knew the best way to run any con game was to distract the eye with what it expected to see.
He was good at fooling the eyes of the galaxy. He had gone mad long ago, and come out the other side of madness into whatever lay beyond it. Clarity, if you could call it that. To see what others didn't see, wouldn't let themselves see. Because life, and everything in it, was an illusion. Or possibly, it was an allusion.
People said a coin had two sides, but that was wrong. It also had an inside and an outside. Everyone knew this...and yet everyone discounted it. Blindness. Ingrained and overlooked. An illusion.
If you were the only one with eyes, the blind could never fathom how you moved. He sighed. It was so boring being the only one with eyes that really saw. He could never explain it to those around him, any more than you could explain how something smelt to a volus, or how the feel of silk across your plates felt to a hanar, or how the sweetness of biting your mate and feeling her mesh to you felt to a human.
Poor, blind little things, fumbling in the darkness. He would have pitied them, except he didn't remember where he'd put pity in his head anymore. Maybe next to dreams, or clouds.
Didn't matter. Never did.
He glanced around his darkened bridge, smiling as the many faces of his children. His ship was commanded by his many asari daughters, although strictly speaking 'daughters' was an inaccurate term. All had sprung from his liaisons with his harem of asari, but the youngest were actually produced from him pleasuring himself with his own offspring.
Some would have called that sick. Given how asari produced, he considered such bonds merely more security. Rules were for those who were ruled. Laws were for people who needed to be told how to live. How could a blind person tell one with sight how to use their eyes?
P.'s mind ran rampant, flying on a dozen different mind-altering substances battling it out in his bloodstream. Drugs to enhance the mind and body, to sharpen the senses and slow time, to shrug off pain and heighten pleasure. A dozen custom bionetic modifications to his tall, rangy frame kept him humming with energy at all times.
He was more than turian, he was the ur-turian, and he would eventually get around to reminding those freak Palavanus the error of their ways. But first, he had to sow lovely, lovely chaos.
He leaned forward in his chair, pushing away the soft, seductive hands of the youngest of his daughters. "And is anyone here to give us a kiss upon the mandible, sweetness, or is it clear to proceed?"
The Daughter at the sensors touched her controls, a wide smile on her features as she looked up. "Clear, Father. And our scout just came through – our transition to Omega is also safe. There's a lot of Aria's ships in system, but tons of the various warlords are there as well."
P. nodded. "And our … tribute from the Broker? Any sign of his ships?"
She nodded. "They say one has docked, and two more are in-system. No sign of anything else … but the system is full of rocks and a ship could easily hide. Or pretend to hide."
"Hmm. Dances and sour notes upon the wind. I am almost in a state of disappointment. I expected an ambush. By the ancestors, the Broker is so dull." He smiled. "No matter. Take us in. Slowly, like a lover. Caress the relay. It may be grumpy, having to put up with so much traffic, after all. I know I would be."
Another Daughter looked up. "Should we send in the other ships first?"
P. leaned back, mandibles quivering as yet another Daughter knelt before him, and merely nodded. "Send two...then we'll follow. Have the rest follow in pairs, and escort us in formation." His tapped a control on his chair and the lights in the bridge dimmed further, and his eyes glowed with circles of blue in them.
"We can't afford not to arrive in style, after all."
O-ATTWN-O
"Tazzik."
The bridge of the Shadowstrike was more of the Broker's usual depressing taste – bare metal, black armaplast, hard cutting edges, and way too much instrumentation. The lighting was dim with red overtones, every chair was hard metal, and the bridge crew were mostly silent, communicating when they had to through sub-vocalization.
The entire ship was like a tomb, and it creeped Tazzik out. He never liked the way the people in the network had a fixation on black and silence – he personally blamed Tetrimus and his melodramatic ass – and it always irritated him more that the Broker himself acted more like a damned turian than a cunning crime lord sometimes.
It didn't help that every damned ship was named Shadow-something. Not that he was going to say anything to the Broker directly about it – the last fool who'd done so, his predecessor, had been eaten alive as a sign of the Broker's displeasure. And frankly, anything that ate a krogan was nothing he was going to piss off.
He reviewed the status file of the rest of the small fleet headed to Omega again, and then he sighed as he heard his bosses' voice in his comm-link, and tapped his omni-tool. "Here."
"What is your status?" The Broker's voice was quiet, which was usually a good sign.
Tazzik glanced at the status panels across the front of the display he was seated at. He wasn't the captain of the old dreadnought – one of Tetrimus's turians was doing that – but he was tied into the sensors, comms, and other aspects of the ship's systems that would allow him to keep an eye on things, most especially the cargo hold.
"So far, nothing amiss. The cruisers are approaching Omega now, we're running far ahead of schedule for once. The first cruiser is docked and in the process of making sure the docking bay is clean, the other two will dock in half an hour. From the last comm we got from P., a few of his people already lit out for the Citadel to plant the records, and the rest are on their way here. No good ETA yet, but it can't be more than a couple of hours."
"And Aria?"
Tazzik suppressed a sneer. "Still in her strip club, as far as I know. I'd rather not try to get in contact with our few eyes on the station until our people tell me the docking bay is secure, and we still don't know if we got all her bugs or not. But she's got no reason to be suspicious."
The Broker laughed. "Aria is suspicious of everything, Tazzik."
The big salarian grunted. "Maybe so, but that means she's got a lot more on her plate than us just yet. By the time she realizes this egg isn't going to hatch how she expects, it will be too late for her do anything about it."
The Broker's voice was calm. "Very well. Aria's usefulness and power were enough until now that I saw no reason to endanger profits to remove her, but our evacuation from the galaxy will need a vast amount of eezo, and closer proximity to the Collectors should draw their attention here, and away from the area where we build the evacuation ships. You remember the plan?"
Tazzik nodded. "I got it, boss. Everything will happen by the numbers."
The Broker growled. "Do not leave loose ends as you did with Okeer. Aria is unaware of the traitor in her midst. I have procured the services of a Remembrance Dancer, Thane Krios. He will assist when the time comes to remove Aria, but she will not go down easily."
Tazzik frowned. It took him a second to recall the name. "Krios...didn't we kill his wife?"
"And we have information to frame Aria as being behind such killing. P. is a more pressing concern, he will almost certainly attempt treachery. But he is only planning on dealing with you. When the cargo pods are dropped, he will not expect Tetrimus and his backup team on the site – leave the turians to fight each other and focus on securing Shepard's body."
Tazzik nodded. "Got it. Things are going good, we should have this wrapped up quickly. Once we get the signal in, the rest of the ships can jump in. We've already paid the Suns and the Shadows to blow her GTS defense net, and once you make your message, the warlords ships will be too busy fighting each other to mount a defense, not that they will once they see a dreadnought."
"Then proceed. But cautiously. I will contact the Collectors once you report you have the body, and that Aria is neutralized. Broker out."
Tazzik grunted. He didn't need every single thing repeated to him, just because he got carried away in the killing, did he?
O-ATTWN-O
Miranda thought everything was going perfectly, up until the point a dozen gunships with Aria's sigil blew the shit out of the cars in front of them and surrounded the truck.
A hard batarian voice crossed the commlink of the truck. "Aria T'Loak, Queen of Omega, will speak with you. Follow the gunships or you will be shot out of the sky and your ship detonated."
Miranda swore, and glanced at Krios, who was driving. "Options?"
Krios gazed outside the thick, somewhat dirty windows of the truck before giving a faint shrug. "None. The vehicle is not armed and all of the gunships are out of the range of the explosive radius of the bomb. Also, I see the station GTS array is now pointing at us. We will have to comply."
She nodded, coming the rest of the team. "Stand by...Aria is forcing us to land. Helmets on, everyone."
They came in on a secluded, thick section of the structural bracing that jutted out from the main mass of the bulk of Omega, which had a series of spiral-edged landing pads around a tall spire-like building, bristling with transmission equipment. A handful of asari in green jumpsuits stood around, more spilling from the building, each one holding weapons or a warp sword
As the truck landed, a pair of elongated air-cars came in.
The first aircar touched down first, black and with visible weapons mounted to the hood, splitting open to reveal what looked like a very large krogan in some kind of powered armor. A heavy helmet covered his features, with thick transparent tubes of some kind running to a pack on his back. Reddish gasses swirled in the tubes. It stood, twitching, and then slowly pulled a salarian BRKR cannon from out of the car, holding it pointed vaguely in their direction.
As they all disembarked, Aethyta swore quietly. "Not good."
Leng stared at the thing, tilting his head. "Of course it isn't good. It is holding a railgun on us."
Aethyta exhaled. "It's also a crazed krogan, who's been flying on red sand for about a hundred years. Aria's enforcer, and about as stable as Sederis was mentally."
Pel sighed. "This shit just gets better and better..."
The other aircar, more elegant and done in faded purples and delicate white, landed smoothly, the doors scissoring open and the figure of Aria T'Loak stepping out.
She wore the tight leather pants of a commando, along with a bodysuit made of stripes that barely covered her tightly-muscled stomach. Her small white vest and more black straps struggled to contain her breasts, and her pale purple skin-tone was enhanced by the faint ritual marks on her face.
She walked towards the group, and Krios bowed. "We have landed, as you requested."
Aria's eyes flicked over the group. "So you have. Wise of you, Dancer. Would you care to explain why you are on my station without my leave? I know you don't work for the Shifter...and given I see aliens, you aren't Cerberus either."
Miranda was about to speak when Aethyta stepped forward and took off her helmet. "Hi to you too, kid."
Aria was not used to being surprised, but the faintest flicker of it crossed her eyes before she gave a thin, calculating smile. "Matriarch Aethyta. I did not expect to see you here."
Aethyta shrugged. "Yeah, well, you know how it is. I've never had a mass orgy before, so I decided to branch out and try knew things – you know, mix it up a little. Never banged a Dancer before. We were headed to Afterlife for some crest gel, nose candy and drinks before getting started."
Aria shook her head. "You do not think I will believe that, do you? You are on a truck full of explosive and headed to Afterlife. Or you were. I can draw my own conclusions."
Aethyta sighed. "And here I was thinking your mom at least gave you something under the crest. Do you honestly think if I wanted to kill you I'd do it this way? I might as well have put up a Goddess-damned flag reading 'Kill me' if that was my intent."
Aria tilted her head. "No. But whatever you are here for is my business. Everything on Omega is my business. And until I know that you aren't going to interfere with my business...I have no reason to let you walk away alive."
Miranda wanted to scream in frustration. "Ms. T'Loak, we – "
Aria held up a hand. "The next time one of them besides Aethyta or the Dancer speaks, kill them."
The asari surrounding them lifted their weapons, and Miranda snapped her jaw shut. Aethyta laughed. "Still a hard-ass, I see."
Aria narrowed her eyes. "Tell me why you are here."
Aethyta folded her arms. "Go fuck yourself, or better yet, one of your dancers."
Bray had seen a lot of things in his life. He'd seen brave turians quiver and piss themselves facing even a hint of Aria's anger. He'd seen the most powerful criminals and killers pause to find the right words to not engage that anger. Hell, even the fucking Citadel Council didn't willingly piss Aria off.
He had never, even from Sederis, heard anything like someone telling her to go fuck herself, and he waited for Aria to tell him to shoot them all dead. Killing a Dancer would be dicey, and he had no idea where the other three Dancers were, or how good there rest of Aethyta's companions were...
A long moment passed, and then Aria threw back her head and laughed, real laughter that made her whole body shake. "Oh, Goddess, I'd forgotten how much of a bitch you were, Aethyta. I see your spine is still made of pure steel. But what part of your brain has decayed to the point where you think I was asking?"
Aethyta smirked. "I'd say the same thing – what part of yours rotted away to make you think your shitty gunships, pet krogan and jumped up Eclipse girls can kill me before I gut you with my warp sword?
Another glare from Aria, and Aethyta smirked. "But since you asked, kiddo, we're not here for you, no matter how much you want to imagine the galaxy rotates around your shit. I was coming to explain why we needed you to look the other way while I remind the Broker not to fuck with me or my family."
Aria glanced at the rest of the group, eyes narrowing. "Explain. And quickly, my patience and time are both valuable and limited."
Aethyta shook her head. "Oh, come on. You're a smart girl, you probably figured out part of why I'm here. P is selling Shepard's corpse to the Broker, and Shepard was married to my daughter. So I'm a bit offended. I'm going to go in, kill whoever gets in my fucking way, and take the body with me when I leave."
Aria glanced aside as Bray. "Selling the corpse of a Spectre. Did the Broker mention this in our talks?"
Bray shook his head. "He didn't, nor did P."
Aria's eyes narrowed. "They didn't mention any salvage they would have found in my territory either. How exactly did this little fact slip your spies, Bray?"
The batarian said nothing, and Aethyta smirked. "Oh, they forgot the first rule of Omega? Well, I didn't. I won't fuck with your people if you just stay the fuck out of the way. I'd ask you to help...but I know you won't get involved without being paid."
Aria said nothing for long seconds, eyes flicking back and forth. Garrus itched to draw his assault rifle. Tali found herself shaking. Telanya was looking on in terror. Shields was still, but clearly ready to roll to cover.
Pel yawned. Kai Leng merely stood, almost as stock still as Krios was standing, his body ready to move to fight or flee as needed.
Aria smiled coldly. "I could just have you all shot and give you to the Broker."
Aethyta smiled back. "Babygirl, no matter how bad you think you are, you aren't bad enough to stop one of us from killing you. That's your biggest problem, kiddo. You always got to showboat and dance on the water. We're not the ones pissing in your pool. So either try it, or get fucking lost."
Aria's eyes narrowed further. "No one orders me on Omega. I am Omega."
Aethyta shrugged. "What was it you told me last time? Omega doesn't care about me? Well I don't care about Omega." Her voice softened. "You're pissed the Broker did an end-around on you. No matter how you slice it, somebody will find out about Shepard being sold, and it doesn't take a genius to figure out who is going to get tossed to the relli's. If you try to stop this mess, you'll be … involved."
Aethyta folded her arms. "If we do it, well...what did Thana always say? Oh. 'Bad things sometimes happen to bad people for good reasons.' Wise words."
Aria trembled with anger, although Miranda didn't know why, and then went still. A sweet smile crossed her features. "You are absolutely right, Matriarch. But then again, I could still go in and take the body, and sell it to the Alliance myself. Spin a tale of ugly betrayal and all that."
Miranda glanced at Pel, sub-vocalizing. "If this gets nasty – "
Pel answered her quickly. "- then we're fucking dead. Gunships will shoot the shit out of us in about a second. Krogan-boy will probably kill us even faster than that."
Aethyta held up one of her armored gauntlets, inspecting the fingers. "If you think you can do it and walk away alive, feel free. But you're forgetting something."
Aria's smile widened. "And what is that?"
Aethyta jerked a thumb towards Krios. "My friend here came with three other Remembrance Dancers. And I'm betting tall, dumb and four-eyed over there hasn't the first tide-bound clue where they are, does he? Go ahead. Shoot us dead. When P. finds your corpse – or whatever the Dancers leave behind of your body – he'll probably burn your couch before pissing on your ashes."
Her smile widened. "I'm not fucking with you, Aria. You, of all people, should understand a mother's rage at losing a child. So what's it going to be?"
Aria said nothing for long seconds, and finally Bray spoke. "Your orders?"
She glanced at him, then back at Aethyta. Finally she spoke. "You may go. If your people are successful...we'll see what to do with you then."
Krios bowed, and Aethyta just put her helmet back on. "Thanks, I guess. Don't get me wrong, Aria – any other day and I'd play your silly little games. If all the people who actually might get my respect, you're near the top. But I'm probably not walking away from this shit alive no matter what happens, so pissing you off is the last of my concerns right now."
Aria gestured, and Bray and the asari guards backed away. "I know. It's the main reason I'm letting you go. I'm going to see if you can still fight worth a damn."
Aria watched as the group got back into their truck, now headed towards the mid-rim docking area. Bray spent a few minutes speaking with the Old One, who roared in displeasure that there was no fight and stomped back to his aircar, and then slowly walked up to Aria, who had a strange look on her face.
He would have said she looked sad, but that was quite possibly the stupidest thought that had ever crossed his mind, and he purged it before could burst out laughing. Instead he merely folded his arms. "Was that wise, letting them go?"
Aria languidly waved a hand. "That shouldn't be your concern right now. The Broker and P. are pulling a fast one on me, in my own fucking station, and seem to think they can get away with it. There is no good reason for them to think I won't find out, and that means they don't plan for me to be able to object."
She turned to face him. "When the ships get here, don't let any of them within the secondary radius of the GTS defenses. And have Varthok bring ALL his heavy cruisers in behind them. Don't let them bring in more than twenty people each. And have the Old One at Afterlife with my double. I'll be in the lockdown quad."
Bray's eyes narrowed. "You think the Broker or P. would move against you? Why?"
Aria exhaled. "You don't know how Aethyta's mind works. She quoted … Thana T'Armal. The quote was about someone who had died, in a deal gone wrong."
Aria paused. "A deal with Collectors."
Bray winced. He didn't know why Aria had such dislike for the creepy bugs, but she did. And they were well known for having powerful technology, and being very hard to kill. His mind darted around several possibilities, but whatever the Broker was planning, it wasn't going to work. "I'll get the girls mobilized then, and maybe toss some orders to Tarek and Garm."
She turned and headed back to her aircar. "Good. Don't contact me directly again until this is … resolved." She paused at the aircar, one shapely leg braced against the door-frame, and turned to glance at him.
"And if you have the chance, when it's all over, go ahead and kill Aethyta and her little band. No one tells me to go fuck myself."
O-ATTWN-O
"So, Aethyta. Do you enjoy pissing off powerful Traverse warlords to their faces, or do you just have some kind of death wish? Because the rest of us would very much like to get out of this alive and with at least the majority of our limbs attached." Garrus's voice was wry and Aethyta laughed as the transport headed upwards along Omega's traffic lanes.
"Aria doesn't tolerate weakness, Vakarian. She tends to see everything as a threat to her power, a scheme to topple her from her throne. To her, anyone and everyone is a dagger in the back. A weak threat is eliminated, a strong one parried and redirected to another target."
Garrus exhaled. "I begin to see why this is such a shithole of a place to live."
Aethyta shrugged. "She doesn't care about these people...and yet, she protects them, sometimes. She was messed up a long time ago, and she's hateful because she knows the only reason she has power is someone else's weakness."
Garrus frowned. "I don't understand."
The matriarch gave him a sad look. "Pray to your spirits you never do, kiddo. Aria … used to be a bright, shining star. A gentle soul like Uressa T'Shora. But when shit went bad for her, the people she loved the most turned on her." She gave a grim, thin smile. "She never forgot that. And now she resents the universe."
Garrus shook his head. "For what? For being betrayed?"
Aethyta said nothing for a long moment, then her smile stiffened. "For being born, maybe." She shrugged. "It doesn't matter. I know how she thinks. If we give her a chance she'll kill us, but she's really only pissed at me. If whoever planned this gig had been thinking, they would have paid her off to allow us onboard, but then she would have freaked out at the Dancers."
She glanced sidelong at Pel and Kai. "And just how in shit did you get a hold of even one Remembrance Dancer anyway?"
Pel shrugged. "Broker offed the guy's wife for some bullshit. Bossman found out about it and shot him the info, in trade for having someone taken out. Why he's going along with this crazy bullshit, I don't know. I ain't big on talking with people who could kill you before you can fucking move."
The big man adjusted his position. "Besides...we're here to pick up a busted up corpse, for no reason I was told aside from pissing in the Broker's eye. Pardon me if I ain't overwhelmed at chatting around when I could be dead in a few hours."
Liara was seated in the corner, trying not to fall to pieces all over again. Hearing Pel talk so coldly about Sara's body had driven home once again the possibility this was all pointless, that Sara was dead and all they would find in wherever they were headed was a ravaged, shattered pile of flesh. That someone could die. That many of them could die.
She swallowed, jerking slightly as Telanya sat down next to her and handed her a glass of water. "You look … tired, Lady Liara. And drained. Some water will make you feel better, maybe."
Liara had taken off her helmet when she'd gotten back on the transport, and tried for a smile as she took the water. "Thank you, Telanya. I am …" She lifted the glass and tried to stifle the shaking of her hands as she drank.
A flash of memory hit her, of Shepard handing her a canteen of water on Therum, dark eyes watching her raptly and with concern and worry, and she felt fresh tears. She pushed it down and drank again, gripping hard at her shredded resolve.
"...I am just a bit tired, that is all. You are kind to worry about me, but I will endure."
Telanya stared at the ugly black decking between her feet, and gave a soft sigh. "I have tried to imagine what I would do if Garrus was killed. How I would react. Or feel. I can only see myself collapsing, unable to … anything. Even the idea is enough to make me shake with despair. How … how do you go on?"
Liara's trembling smile turned bleak and hard. "You do not. There is nothing to go on to. I have one vague, unlikely hope – a glimmer, that is all." Her fist clenched. "And if that is taken from me, then all I have …" She trailed off.
Telanya waited several seconds, and then stepped away. Liara lowered her head, emotions colliding inside her soul, before forcefully clearing her mind.
Athame. I have never prayed to you, as many of my kind do. I suppose I had no time or need to do so, blind as I was to the world around me, and what true loss and suffering were.
She glanced around the small transport. At Tali, nervously checking her shotgun, probably worried about Jeff. At Garrus, now gently stroking Telanya's back. At her aithntar, once again chatting quietly with the two humans from Cerberus. She could make out the edge of the red robe Krios wore, and the shrill edge of Miranda's voice.
She closed her eyes. I know you do not judge us. That our ascendance to beyond is not a matter if we follow or fight the tides. No one, not even you, will remember in the end if we embraced the darkness or fought it, if we were good or bad people. Why we loved or hated, why we laughed or danced, or even why we died.
A tear fell, trailing down her cheek, and she wiped it away. No, all that matters to you is that Light did not quail or falter against the Darkness, no matter how vast it seemed. That is all that is important to you. I cannot find it, in what is left of my soul, to embrace that Light, and I am sorry.
And yet I beg one thing of you, because my mother told me that once you were also a goddess of endings. I do not beg you for my Sara's life, as I know you cannot return that to me which is gone. I do not beg for you to heal my pain, because it is the only way I can remember the things I love about Sara.
I ask only that you grant me one thing, and I will try as I can to embrace your Light, for however long I live.
Grant me revenge!
She trembled, more tears falling from her eyes.
And if you will not, then to the Abyss with you.