A/N:

Obligatory note : I didn't spice the battles up as much as usual, because the energy I was aiming for began to drag. But not to worry. You'll get what you wanted in the end.

Reviews are always welcome, be they positive, negative, or derptastic.

'The beauty of chaos is in it's sheer economy of time. It is entertainment, suspense, and excitement, wrapped in a package of curiosity and, well, sometimes death. But nothing of value aside from taxes benefits from pure order, after all.'

-The P's Truth, Segment 14,392 - six weeks prior to the Burning of Omega

Omega was the kind of place where 'ordinary' routinely included open gang warfare in the street and the sale of merchandise that would make a normal person question their sanity, so for the inhabitants to take note of any particular event was rare, and mostly done by way of simply vacating the area. The main rule of survival was simply not coming to anyone's attention, especially Aria.

Normally, her people were not highly visible in large groups. They accumulated in street corners, or food shops, keeping open eyes and open ears for treachery, but didn't need to show large numbers to cow those around them. Only a fool would give Aria's own guards problems.

So when the street vendors saw six of Aria's twenty-strong security teams converging on the mid-rim docking bay cavern level, everyone else decided this would probably be a good time to venture to another level. Maybe the Old Priest down on the Black Walk had a new sermon about how they were a blight. Or maybe this was actually a good time to head out to somewhere else. Anywhere else.

Bray barely noticed. Things were going to shit, his breakfast wasn't digesting, and he knew something was about to blow up.

Earlier, he'd just been irritated. Bray was more than irritated now. Ships were spilling into the system, far more than expected, and far ahead of schedule. Aria was acting weird, there was some weird group going to start shit with the Broker, and P. was always a headache.

Now he had to ride herd on a crazy drugged up krogan who thought a BRKR cannon was a sidearm, and monitor a deal he couldn't see without tipping his hand. He had the distinct feeling this was going to turn into one of those messy situations where everyone thought they had the advantages, someone would mouth off with some stupid kind of melodramatic speech, and then one person would do something stupid.

Then would come the shooting. And the explosions. And the screaming. Ugh.

It wouldn't be the first time. Or even the tenth. Another drawback to working for Aria.

"Antos, take your men up to the next level, seal off the access shafts. Garm, have your people move in to cover the main exits from the level to the core. Ysera, take two squads and head to the Tribute Bay – Aria's payment should be arriving shortly, make sure it's secure. Titkos, Mana, Vrenl – cordon the rest of the ring passages. Mahrisa, take your girls and have them set up in hangar 45 – there's five hover platforms there, go ahead and get them warmed up. Everyone else get to hanger 51, and load up in the gunships."

Everyone nodded, except for the massive form of Garm, the nominal leader of the Blood Pack on Omega. "And just where will you be?"

Bray continued to work the sensor panel in front of him. "Coordinating the ships outside and then leading the rest of the girls into the bay where the deal is going down if shit goes wrong. Comm frequency is already set to your omnis, so pay attention. If shit goes bad, just kill everyone in there."

Garm snorted. "You're expecting this to be a trap?"

Bray shrugged. "Only the dead are above suspicion in Aria's eyes. And even then, only after we check the bodies."

O-ATTWN-O

P. smiled as the pinnace slid towards the vast docking bay carved out of the bones of Omega. The Broker's people were already here, at least some of them, although they'd at least had the sense to show in regular looking armor and not their usual black-armored uniforms.

The docking bay was built directly into the rock, but only a third of the space was actually for docking. His ship would actually land on the outside of the bay, on a metallic platform, supported by vast struts running below and above the walls. P. didn't want to trap himself inside a box of rock – he needed to be able to get his ship moving at a moment's notice if this turned into a trap that he couldn't disarm.

Below the opening and the metallic platform were irregular shelves of buildings and bare rock, sloping gently outwards and downwards. Thick tubes and pipes ran on either side of the docking area as the pinnace touched down, and he wondered what substances they carried – or if they were even still being used, given their rusted, battered appearance.

His Daughters, in the back, did one final check on the carefully prepared stasis capsule. P. himself was ambivalent about Shepard. She was, in life, an irritation at best, yet another blindly seeking krillworm who, when removed from their usual common dirt and dropped into the more unforgiving soil of galactic events, withered and died.

Still, she'd driven up the price point on slaves a whole five index points for over eight years, so he figured he owed her something, the profits she'd inadvertently made him were worthy of a gesture. When his little act of chaos was finished, assuming the body wasn't destroyed in the crossfire, he'd send it back to the Alliance with a note about meddling in the affairs of their betters.

Or maybe he'd just shoot it into Omega's sun. Humans had some kind of thing about bonfire deaths, didn't they? No no no, that was asari. Didn't see much difference, but there it was.

The pinnace cargo bay door slid open and downwards, splitting away and the center section turning into a loading ramp, and the lift-repulsors on the coffin floated into the air. P. adjusted his coat and walked behind it, his Daughters gently pushing it along. Behind the ten Daughters, he had brought along two of his little experiments, Left and Right. The misshapen creatures, who'd been vorcha once upon a time before cybernetics and gene mods had altered them, shambled along behind his girls, each carrying a lance cannon.

And just in case of really competent ambushes, he'd come himself. He knew something was going to go down, and he was more interested in the chaos than the result. Oh, the payoff from the Broker in terms of credits and intel would be very, very useful – and to be able to spy inside of the secret facilities of the STG even more exciting – but it was just for amusement. The only payment he really wanted was chaos, after all.

He glanced at the battered wreck of a corpse inside the stasis field and sighed. Shepard, poor thing, probably wouldn't have approved of how she was being used. "Tell you what, young lady. I'll make sure I kill some slavers for you on my way out to make it up to you. How about that?"

The corpse didn't' respond, which was a touch disappointing, but not unexpected.

O-ATTWN-O

Tazzik wasn't precisely nervous. Merely cautious.

The dreadnought was in place. So were the cruisers. The six warlords had been paid off and the bugs into Aria's supposedly secure systems were in place. The Alliance was distracted, the Council was busy with the Batarian problem, and no one would notice a thing.

If P. didn't fuck this up, things would go smoothly. Of course, P. would no doubt fuck things up. But he was ready for that.

The crates of mining equipment promised to Aria and even now headed to the Tribute Bay were no such thing. Oh, there were a few bits and pieces, but the bulk of the metal aboard was actually custom-designed battle-suits, VI driven and slaved to controllers on the Shadowstrike. Along with this, Tetrimus and ten of the most lethal of the Broker's people were also in the shipment, shielded by energy fields from detection.

The plan was anything but simple. Get the body from P. Send the message for the first two minor warlords to start an attack. Convince P. that Aria was going to double cross them. Meanwhile, Aria's shipment would unpack in her docking bay where she got her tribute, unleashing Tetrimus's strike force on her. Have P. deal with Aria's wrath while he cut his own way towards the GTS defenses and the other warlords kept her fleet off.

Once the defenses were down, the dreadnought would put two shots into specially chosen locations that would cripple the stations' power, and more Broker ships would come in. In the chaos, the small ship with Shepard's body would be picked up by the Collectors and removed, and the Broker would then transmit forged video suggesting Aria was planning to crush several gangs on the station.

Without power out, the GTS defenses gone, rioting within, Tetrimus ripping the station apart, and wild fighting on the outside, Aria would be thrown down. The Broker would present this as a fait accompli to the Council, implying that Aria had been somehow involved in the death of Shepard, and that Omega would be cleaned up.

Personally, Tazzik thought the plan was over-complicated, likely to fail at several points, and risky. Then again, from the Broker's point of view, it was win win. Even if they lost, and Aria remained alive, her fleets would be shattered, Omega a wreck, her influence doubted, and her power broken for a long time. The Broker's location was not known to her, and with most of the network more focused on preparing to pull out of the galaxy than events in it, her retribution would only be against those pieces of the network the Broker was going to sacrifice anyway.

More importantly, win or lose, it would make the Council look more at Aria, and less at the Broker. Tazzik just wished he wasn't in the middle of the bullshit. He loved a good fight, and there was bound to be more than one, but he wasn't a fan of being blown apart in a bombardment from a cruiser he couldn't fight back against if this went wrong.

He turned to one of the techs. "Anything on the sensors?"

The male quarian shook his head. "No. The net is quiet. Aria's sensors are blind. P.'s people are already unloading. The tribute ship is docking in Aria's assigned docking bay now, only a few dozen security are there."

He nodded, and ran a final check on his cybernetics and armor, then tapped his omni. "Krios, this is Tazzik. Where are you?"

The cool, dry voice of the drell answered. "Two minutes out. My people are ready."

Tazzik nodded. "Go ahead and head on into the landing bay, then. Aria's saying we can't have more than twenty people, but we've got her sensors blinded. If P. wants to start shit, he's in for a surprise."

"Understood. A question, however: what forces is P. bringing?"

Tazzik grimaced. "Not many, a handful of his girls and a pair of vorcha...but he's going to be at the meet himself. That's why I'm coming in to meet him."

"I see. And your arrival will be soon?"

Tazzik glanced at the status repeater of his transport ship. "Touching down in five minutes."

O-ATTWN-O

The truck slowed to a stop, and Miranda frowned. "What's wrong?"

Krios put his hood back up. "I am receiving new orders from the Broker commander. He has instructed us to go ahead, into the actual bay where the deal will go down. I did not expect this."

Miranda frowned. "That's good, right?"

Krios shook his head. "No. P. and Tazzik will both be present, and given that Aria's sensors are blinded, according to Tazzik, there may be more personnel than I expected." He paused. "On the other hand, according to my people, several quarians are present. So Ms. Zorah can accompany us inside...her skills may be useful at some point."

Miranda nodded. "One more gun never hurt" She sighed, tapping her omni. "Joker, this is Miranda, what is your status?"

The voice of the pilot sounded bored. "Everything is quiet. Well, mostly. There's a LOT of ships moving around, and a big pack of ships jumped in about ten minutes ago. But the docking ring itself is pretty dead."

She nodded. "Based on our location, how long would it take you to undock and get here?"

She heard the beeping from a haptic console, then he answered. "About four minutes. Assuming no one shoots me up."

She smiled. "There is a panel on the back wall of the cockpit labeled secondary power. The main power switch for that console actually activates a salarian photonic cloak. It will not shield your engine output or magnetic resonance, but it will make your ship invisible to the naked eye or visual camera pickups. When I call for you, trigger it, then head to the hangar bay next to the one I'm flagging on your system map."

Joker's voice sounded dubious. "Oookay. And what if missiles end up chasing me? Because I don't think this place likes dock skips."

Miranda wished Harper had let her choose a different pilot. "Then use your supposedly excellent piloting skills and evade the missile. Keep your comms open. Miranda out."

She huffed, then turned to Krios. "We planned to blow the truck as a distraction. Where should we park it?"

Krios gestured to the heavy power conduits running along the wall in the corridor. "That is why we stopped here. Let us walk to the site of the meeting. I will lead. My people are nearby but will not show themselves just yet."

She nodded, getting up and heading into the bay of the truck. "Everyone get ready, helmets on, and no one talks but Mr. Krios. The deal is going down very soon...and both P. and Tazzik will be there."

She glanced around as helmets were put on and weapons readied. Before she could continue, though, Liara spoke.

"I want to thank you, Garrus, Telanya, Tali. For coming and risking your lives on this. You did not have to do so."

Garrus grunted, lifting his Phaeston. "Nonsense. If the Broker and his goons are responsible for Shepard's death, then they need to be exposed and arrested."

Pel snorted. "You gonna walk in and say this is a sting?"

Garrus shrugged. "No. I said they need to be. I'll settle for killing them, this once."

Miranda folded her arms. "Yes, well. We need less talking and more moving. Kai, Pel, flank Krios. Vakarian, take a rearguard position, with your sniper rifle. The rest of us will move behind Krios."

They filed out of the truck, the wide corridor that ran between the circular arrangement of docking bays dug into the rock polished smooth by years of traffic. Faded haptic posters were spattered over the walls here and there, but there were hardly any people except a line of Aria's goons, leaning against the far wall near the docking bay entrance.

Krios gestured, and the group fell in behind him. He walked with a graceful, easy step, and as the asari and turians realized what they were seeing, they became nervous. One, a heavyset batarian, finally stepped forward just as they were at the entry portal.

"Aria said only twenty people. You with the Broker or P.?"

Krios's voice was soft, but still dangerous sounding. "We are associates of the Broker here to ensure there are not any complications in this transfer."

The batarian glanced at the asari next to him. "I, uh..."

Krios tilted his cowled head. "Is there a problem, Cera Gufthak?"

The batarian's face paled. "H-how do you know my name?"

Krios's voice almost sounded amused. "The Broker knows a great many things. If you have no other questions, we will proceed."

The asari next to the batarian glanced over their team and shook her head, stepping back, and the batarian nodded. "Uh. Yes. Of course."

Krios tapped his omni, and the heavy entry portal slid open, revealing a standard airlock room. They filed in, the heavy door shutting behind them, and the far door opening almost in tandem.

The bay beyond was broad – probably over a hundred feet wide, and twice that in length, not including the two hundred or so feet of the outer landing pad. Much of the space inside the bay itself was taken up by refueling equipment, cargo modules and mass-assisted cranes.

Krios walked forward, the group trailing, Kai and Pel to either side of him. The overhead of the cavernous bay was supported by heavy, rusting beams of curved shapes, and bright lights here and there threw stark shadows into many corners and behind cargo modules scattered about.

Ahead, a garish asari pinnace squatted on the landing pad, bright gold with white trim, with its cargo bay doors split open and a ramp leading from the ship to the ground. A knot of asari in filmy long coats and wearing very little else besides gun-belts and other weapons surrounded a tall turian dressed in black leather, with black facial paint and a single pink sigil above his eyes.

To either side of the big turian were what looked like mutated, cybered-up vorcha, each one walking in a hunch, cradling the bulky forms of lance cannons as if they were beloved children rather than lethal weapons. And behind them...

Liara managed not to gasp as the sight of a long stasis chamber, the visible surface opaque with swirling energy.

Walking towards this group from the other end of the landing pad was the biggest salarian any of them had ever seen. Dressed head to foot in thick black armor with various cybernetic attachments, the salarian was not just tall but much thicker and tougher looking than others of his kind. Behind him were a small group of black-armored turians and a pair of quarians, dressed much as most of Krios's group was.

Krios gestured and the group kept walking, even as another knot of P.'s asari stepped out of the shadows of a nearby shipping crate. They all walked to the center of the docking bay, and Garrus flinched when the figure of P. looked over the group.

The turian crime lord looked hard at Krios, who pulled back his cowl and gave a respectful nod, and then at Tazzik. "A Dancer? I'm impressed."

Tazzik shouldered his heavy rifle, his salarian features expressionless. "We don't want interference, and the Broker had intel suggesting Aria might try and disrupt this little party we're having."

P.'s voice dipped an octave. "Aria, eh? That's strange. She told my people that she was worried you would be trying something. Like perhaps cheating us."

Tazzik gestured to the turian next to him, who knelt and popped open the case he was carrying. Even Liara had to suppress her gasp at the amount of eezo stuffed in it, all pure and refined. "We have no plans to do anything of the sort. The eezo is here. So are the files you wanted, and the turian girl. Well, on the ship."

P. tilted his head, then gestured himself, and his Daughters stepped away from the stasis coffin. "And we have here one freshly dead human Spectre. Plus, if you order now, we'll toss in a handbook of all her best weapon designs, personal thoughts, and sketches of some naked asari girl. All for the low, low price of sixty million credits. Plus shipping and handling."

Tazzik looked confused, but nodded. "That's...an interesting bonus. Is she intact?"

P. smiled. "Oh, well. For most definitions of intact that you would apply to, say, modern art. She's missing part of an arm and most of a leg, but she froze solid and probably was dead before she hit the ground."

Liara trembled and Aethyta cautiously, slowly squeezed her shoulder. No one seemed to notice except Garrus, who subtly shifted his position to block the view P. and Tazzik might have had of Liara.

Tazzik nodded. "Alright then. We –"

He broke off as a mass accelerator round tore through the black-armored ship he'd landed in, smashing the burning wreckage off of the landing pad to tumble out into the distant void below. Everyone pulled out weapons and scrambled for cover. Two more rounds sailed in, one smashing against the side of the docking bay, crushing two of the Broker's people under crumbling rock and weakening one of the bay support struts. The other impacted near P's pinnace, smashing his pet vorcha into steaming red paste and chunks of cyberware.

P. sighed. "That was...bad."

Tazzik snarled."What in the name of the Collapse is going on?

P.'s voice lifted in a shout. "Well, I'm assuming that you didn't shoot your own ship..." His daughters were hustling the stasis pod back towards the pinnace, and Tazzik shook his head. "Then your assertion about Aria was right. It's a double cross. Delicious."

Tazzik cursed, the plan had been to get the body FIRST, then blow things up. Fucking idiots had already messed things up. "It's very possible we've been betrayed – but I still need the body."

P. considered this as information came into his commlink. "Ships are shooting each other outside the station, and a bomb just went off in customs. I think a better and safe trade spot can be worked out another time."

Tazzik hesitated, but then nodded. "Fine. We'll comm you once we're both secure."

Krios glanced at Miranda, who tapped her omni. An explosion shook the bay as power went out through the entire docking area, as the truck full of explosives went up. Sparks exploded from overhead as the security systems went down, and the entire landing pad trembled and shook, knocking more than a few people to their knees. Curses rang out as few people had low-light gear.

Liara blinked, as Krios was already halfway towards Tazzik, and Kai and Aethyta were already moving. The small group of P's people that were nearby and off to one side didn't even have a chance as Pel and Shields opened up on them, firing rapidly with short bursts at legs and heads.

Tazzik barely dodged Krios' first strike, dancing back as the drell slammed a biotic kick into the turian still clutching the case of eezo. The turian died instantly, and a bolt of biotic fire slashed into the next one to him. Tazzik triggered his armor, roaring. "Krios what are you doing?"

Krios flung a bolt of blue energy at P., and the turian froze, struggling against some kind of biotic hold. Krios's voice was cool. "Irikah was my wife, Tazzik. Did you think I would not find out Tetrimus killed her?" The drell seemed to blur as he spun out of the way of the hasty shot taken by a Broker soldier, a knife wrapped in biotic energy flying from his hands to strike the turian attacker in the throat and send him skidding across the smooth decking, trailing spurts of cobalt blood.

He evaded Tazzik's next shot, but the salarian threw his heavy rifle at him after the miss, forcing him to leap over it.

As he was coming down, the massive fist of the Broker enforcer crunched into his ribs, slamming him to the ground. Without the Dancer pinning him in place, P. leapt up and away, and Miranda gestured. "Stop the tube!"

Aethyta exploded into the kanquess after latching onto Kai Leng, and they came out between P. and his Daughters. The crime lord pulled up short, talons snapping out, and the Aethyta rolled left as Kai came to his right, both drawing their swords. P. only grinned.

"Ooh, double penetration. Now, keep the dance beat going and don't fall behind, sweetlings." He moved almost faster than the eye could follow, lashing out with claws suddenly lit with glittering blue energy, and Kai barely evaded the first blow, parrying and side-stepping.

Aethyta came forward in a full extension lunge, but the turian's other arm came up, and the warp blade skittered off a glowing omni-shield, as P's lunatic grin widened.

"Nope."

Miranda flung a biotic throw at the small knot of Daughters near the stasis tube, gesturing. "Pel, get them to the tube and secure it!" Even as she spoke more the Broker's people opened fire, straining her barrier and then breaking it. She tucked herself behind a cargo module, cursing as she gripped her shoulder.

The burly soldier put another burst into the last of P's backup and broke into a run, Garrus, Tali, and Liara following. More of P's and the Broker's people began firing, but then screamed as three red cloaked forms dropped from above, hands glowing with biotics, and what was six people turned into six wreckages of blood and viscera in a split second.

The fight was short and ugly – one of the Dancers killed two more of the Broker's goons, then a headshot from behind took him down. The other two split up with biotic acrobatics, dodging wild sprays of fire at their half-glimpsed forms in mid-air, throwing throws and shockwaves to sow confusion.

Liara's heart pounded as she flung her own warp, burning down an asari trying to take cover behind the stasis tube. Garrus dropped to one knee, aiming with his sniper, and then fired, a shot lancing out and striking another Daughter in the leg, making her stagger. Tali used that to put a burst from her submachine gun into the asari's chest.

Three more Daughters lunged forward, placing themselves between the stasis container and the oncoming force, screaming and flinging biotic attacks as they ran. Pel tumbled onto a shoulder, evading a lance of warpfire, and came up in a roll, scattering short bursts and catching two of the asari with leg shots. One of them had a barrier strong enough to resist, the other did not, and she fell, one leg sporting a handful of gory craters that bled profusely.

The darkness of the cavern was lit only by the faint glow of omni-armor, and flashes of light outside as chaos descended.

O-ATTWN-O

Aria was displeased.

Two warlords – batarian thugs, swollen now with numbers from their kind fleeing the Hegemony – were attacking a third, for no reason she could see. Now three more were getting into the fight, and comms were being jammed between the fleets.

More Broker ships were erupting from the asteroids, and explosions were going off in critical areas. She'd lost all contact with the Tribute bay, only panicked screaming and the words 'Dagger, dagger' sounding across the commlink.

Bray had gone down there five minutes ago and she'd not heard from him since. Alerts flared in the central GTS command center of attackers, so she had quietly transferred all GTS controls to her consoles here, in her secret redoubt.

Aria had known on some level something was coming, but she was furious at herself for missing this mess. The ship battle outside was dragging her own people into it, and if this kept up and no one could get them to stop fighting thing would get very bad even if she kept the defenses up.

So when her best hacker, an exile quarian female named Quala'Vaas, came up to her with a cringing stance, she knew the news was going to be bad. "What?"

The quarian bowed. "Mistress...there is a signal being broadcast to several warlords...and some of the gangs on the station. It's the Broker claiming you were planning to sell them out to the bigger warlords and take their ships or territory for your own. There's...video of you talking about it with Sederis."

Aria clenched her fist. "Sederis is on fucking Tuchanka!"

The quarian cringed. "Yes, mistress. But people are believing this – "

Aria turned slowly to face the quarian. "Then shut it down. Now."

With a sigh and despairing eyes, Quala'Vaas looked up. "I.. I've tried. I can't. I can maybe override the internal signals going to the station vidscreens, but not the outgoing comms. Whoever is doing this is too good, and they're in the hardlines. The only way to kill it is blow up the signal comms stations."

Aria's eyes narrowed. If she did that, she'd have no way to contact the fleets and get the fighting to stop, or even coordinate the other warlords. She grimaced. "Can we still transmit out?"

The quarian nodded, and Aria relaxed slightly. "Then transmit this. Use my stock avatar footage. Any ships approaching the station will be shot down by the GTS defenses. The transmission by the Broker is a lie, he is plotting against me. Those ships who destroy the warlords Vath and M'lrok will be rewarded, those who do not will be destroyed." She smiled. "After that, blow the transmit equipment, and kill that damned signal going out inside the station."

The quarian scurried off, and Aria frowned as her omni-tool lit up. Why would Bray use the emergency channel at a time like this? "Bray, this had better be good news."

The batarian sounded strangely tired, his voice quiet and wracked by coughing. "Aria...Tetrimus was in the Tribute Bay. I'm down half my people, and I'm … barely alive. He's headed straight for GTS controls."

Aria laughed. "Let him, the fool. It's a giant trap now. I've already shifted position to the holdfast."

The voice suddenly changed, becoming a cold, raspy chuckle. "So I see, Aria. Bad omni-tool discipline. But then again, arrogance was always your greatest conceit. See you soon."

Aria recognized that voice. Tetrimus. She killed the omni-tool link, and then turned to her security adviser. "Lock this place down. Put everyone into defense plan A, and get my commandos moving."

She balled her fists and took three slow, calming breaths. People had tried to usurp her before. By the Five Oceans, the Broker from two centuries ago had tried. She'd survived that, and she would survive this. But it would cripple her power. Delay and slow her rise.

Was this really a Broker gambit, or was he being paid off by the Council? She didn't know. For now, she had to get ready to fight Tetrimus if he got here, and that would be .. messy.

O-ATTWN-O

Omega was burning.

Messages and counter-messages went out. Some of the gangs backed Aria – the Talons, Eclipse, the Blue Suns all did. The Blood Pack split, the chieftain Tulm challenging Garm and the two going at it in the middle of all out war, for dominance. Some Blood Pack fought Aria's people, others went after older enemies.

The Twelve Bells, long having been suborned by P, decided their best plan was to just blow things up and blame it on other gangs, and started by detonating a secondary fusion reactor feeding life support for almost six thousand people in the lowest reaches of Omega, planting tags and signs that this was done by the Shadows. The Shadows were busy using the distraction to try to hack and raid other gangs computers, and that of Aria, and were caught off guard when the Blue Suns attacked their HQ.

People sealed themselves in their homes as the GTS defenses kicked off, as the quarreling warlords outside split down the middle. The five batarian warlords had always resented Aria's power, and the two asari ones felt she was a jumped up failed commando. The five turian warlords were equally split, three claiming loyalty to Aria, and two to P.

The pair of human warlords normally would have sided with P. But they'd received a tempting offer from a third party, one offering cash and resources if they would take a very different action in the conflict, and thus they simply said they were waiting – while moving to block the Broker's ships approaching the station.

The battle in space was ugly, as there were no clear lines of battle or set barriers. ECM systems snarled against each other as thousands of accelerator rounds tore through space. Hundreds of these missed, most impacting the rocky sections of Omega, but dozens hit the inhabited areas, blasting tens of thousands of people to instant death.

Independent traders fled in all directions, transmitting panicked pleas of non-involvement. Rich and powerful slavers kept their ships docked and instead brought up their kinetic shields and put armed men at the entrances to the docks.

Omega was burning. No one noticed a single cloaked ship drop from its dock slot, slipping into the heavy shadows of a under-tower as it ascended the vast arcs of Omega's lower half.

O-ATTWN-O

Tetrimus was halfway towards the estimated position of Aria from his hasty trace of her omni-tool transmission when an alert on his omni-tool went off. He frowned, his black cloak billowing as his handpicked group continued to walk down the now-abandoned corridors, the automated VI-driven battle armor clambering along the connecting struts towards the hardlines to the GTS defenses.

Taking down Aria was proving a touch harder than he expected, and he didn't need complications. But the alert on his omni was from Tazzik, and it was non-verbal – an emergency code.

He exhaled. Trust that hot-fringed fool to fuck up a simple task like picking up a dead body. He turned to his lieutenant. "Continue the assault. Corner Aria, mark her location, but do not engage. Once I've dealt with whatever Tazzik has broken his talons on now, I'll return so we can finish."

He strode away from the group, triggering his cloak before tapping a control on his omni. The docking bay wasn't but a few minutes away, if he was swift, this wouldn't even throw off his timetable any. He lightened his weight using his biotics and began to run.

O-ATTWN-O

The fight in the docking bay had gone from complete chaos to a disorganized melee where everyone was shooting everyone. At some point, some of Aria's people stormed in, and were shot by the Broker's people. Most of the fallen were asari, and in the bad lighting, some of P.'s daughters assumed this meant that the Broker had turned on them. A nasty little firefight between the two groups had ended up with most of both sides dead.

The small group of Daughters near the capsule had fallen to the relentless fire of Pel and the rest of the group, but the human had taken several shots and was limping badly, leaning against the stasis tube. Garrus had been separated from the rest of the group, forced further and further back by an aggressive pair of Daughters with shotguns, and was now clambering up high on the far wall of the bay, moving from gantry to gantry and sniping where he could make out the target.

The stasis tube had its own drive mechanism, but it was code-locked. Tali quickly discovered it wasn't even going to be movable without unlocking it, and any damage to the unit would probably scramble the stasis field and turn whatever was left of Shepard to paste.

Liara, Miranda and Telanya covered Tali'Zorah while she tried to hack it, the two asari using biotics to drag crates and other bits of cover into a rough semicircle around them. The asari C-SEC officer had been hit twice already, once in the leg and once by a glancing ricochet to the temple, blood streaming down her face and making her grip shaky on her rifle. She kept shooting worried looks after the direction Garrus had headed off in, barely able to feel him.

Shields was off on her own, pinned by a handful of Broker soldiers, firing calmly and moving from cover to cover with cool dispatch. Her cybernetics let her see in the almost pitch blackness just fine, and she was killing the group one by one, never exposing herself to counter-fire if she could avoid it.

Liara was using every trick Ahern taught her, and kept her gun in shotgun mode, combined with shockwaves, to keep charging attackers at a distance. Miranda fired her pistol and used an occasional throw, but the shoulder wound she had taken was sapping her strength, and blood was still leaking from the medigel patch she'd thrown over it.

Aethyta , Kai Leng and P. were in a crazed maelstrom of flickering moves, accompanied by the hysterical ringing laughter of P. as he fended them both off. He'd been hurt – cuts littered his flapping black coat, blue blood spattered his torso – but was only moving faster with each strike, howling in ecstasy. His talons had laid out Aethyta's right shoulder to the bone, and lashed Kai's left thigh and right arm in more than one place, and the three circled warily, waiting for the first mistake.

The last two Dancers had wrought terrible carnage on the Broker's people, killing almost all of them before being taken down the simple expedient of being swarmed under and dying to grenades detonated at point blank range. Krios was alive, barely – only his speed and evasiveness had kept him in the fight against Tazzik so far. Despite several brutal biotic attacks and a sneaky use of a detpak, the cybernetic salarian kept coming.

It only took one mistake, and it was made by the Daughters chasing Garrus. Having lost sight of him in a jumble of stacked cargo boxes and pallets, they decided to bring the entire thing down by using biotics, flinging the base of the towering stack apart.

Garrus, however, had leapt across, to one of the rusted pipes lining the walls, grabbing onto a narrow catwalk and levering himself up. As the two Daughters lit themselves up with biotic power, he smiled grimly and sighted on the first one, firing a second later.

She didn't even have time to scream as her head came apart in the blast, and the other Daughter was splashed with her hot blood, purple marks on her light blue skin. As she turned, Garrus retargeted and fired, hitting the second Daughter right in the heart, sending her to the ground.

He exhaled, tapping vision modes on his visor to bring up infrared, and glanced over the bay. He could hear fighting going on in the corridor outside, but the doors were still sealed. Between the chaos of the fight, the Dancers, Shields careful shooting and Pel's nasty aiming, most of P's and the Broker's solders were dead.

He sighted in first on the last few Daughters going after the group of his friends by the stasis tube. He dropped two before they realized they were being sniped, and tried to scatter for cover. Liara lashed out with a singularity, pulling several of them from the floor and making the rest stumble, and Miranda and Telanya took advantage, firing rapidly.

Garrus put a shot into a helplessly tumbling asari, then a second one into a Broker goon. As he did so, he heard a hiss of agony and saw Kai Leng stumble back, his sword slipping from his grasp as P's talons broke his guard.

Aethyta hurled a push to step him back, but the crime lord merely rolled backwards with it. As he came up, his hand pulled free a powerful looking handgun from his now shredded coat and fired twice, the slugs smashing into the wide-open form of Aethyta. She staggered as her barrier flickered, and he shifted his aim, firing at the desperately rolling form of Kai Leng, catching him in the leg, which spat sparks and locked in a bent position.

P. stood, grinning, and then staggered back as a hi-ex round blasted into his hip, sending him sliding across the ground roaring in agony. Garrus smiled and sighted in again, this time firing at the towering shape of Tazzik, who was about to finish off Krios.

Tazzik jerked as the armor piercing round blasted into him, but unlike P. was not seriously affected. He instead turned around, his cybernetic sensor installed on his jawline tracking back the shot, and a slender pair of ports on his shoulders opened up, spitting out four ultralight minimissiles.

The missiles hit Garrus just as he fired off his second shot. There was a powerful explosion, and then the section of the docking bay collapsed as the rusted pipes gave way, stone crunching through the edges of the landing platform.

Telanya staggered, eyes wide with horror. "Garrus! GARRUS!"

Liara looked up at the tone in her voice, and then to the explosion. "Oh Goddess, no."

Garrus's last shot had struck Tazzik dead on, staggering the giant salarian, and Krios dragged himself up from the decking. "Go to the sea, defiled one." He pushed his palm forward, biotic light framing him, and the still stunned Tazzik tumbled across the decking of the landing pad from the push, screaming as he tumbled off the edge.

A final pair of gunshots rang out, and then there was only P. , kneeling, bleeding, clutching his profusely bleeding hip. Shields and Pel, both wounded, had weapons trained on him, as did Miranda. Telanya was kneeling on the floor, shaking, and Liara bit her lip and wrapped her arms around her. She knew all too well what the other asari felt this instant.

She swallowed, looking over at Tali. "How much longer?"

The quarian girl shook her head. "I don't know...this thing is...crazy. It's like a lunatic programmed it, it contradicts it's own rules."

The turian's black-painted face was scraped here and there, and blue blood trickled from his mouth as he grinned. "Amazing. A glorious fight. Although, I fear, a pointless one. You'll never get away with the body."

He panted, and his eyes glowed blue in the dim light, making Miranda freeze. She narrowed her eyes. "And why is that? All of Omega is cast into chaos, all your men and the Broker's men are dead, and our ship is only minutes away."

P's answering laughter was definitely not entirely sane. "Well, my lovely, the first problem is the code your little quarian girl is trying so desperately to hack is based on a polymorphic neural net. One based on my own mind. It will take days to break it, and you don't have days. And it's slaved to me – I wasn't about to let the Broker rob me. If I die, or send a single pulse signal, the stasis tube blows up."

Liara's eyes widened in horror, but Miranda merely shrugged. "It would still keep Shepard's body out of the hands of the Collectors."

P's mandible flickered. "The...ohohoho. The fat shadowy bastard has been holding out prizes from the claw machine on me again, I see. Now it makes sense. Strike a deal with the big scary bugs, take out Omega, probably sell me and Aria up the river...mm. Plus on style and sneaky, minus on creative."

Kai Leng had gotten back to his feet, clutching his notched blade with his less injured arm. "You said there were two reasons."

P. glanced at him. "Yes, dark one. The other reason is that my people told me just before someone shot me in the fucking hip that Tetrimus was on his way here, and as exhausted as you bunch are, there's no way you can beat him too. I don't know how far he is, but it won't be long enough to hack past my programming, that's for sure. And you can't even move it otherwise – I loaded it with pulse dissapators."

Miranda closed her eyes. This was now a no-go of a mission. The Illusive Man would be furious.

Aethyta laughed tiredly. "Maybe, maybe not. Anything can be killed."

P.'s expression shifted. "...Aethyta, is that you old girl?"

The matriarch wrenched off her helmet, spitting blood as she did so. "I never met you. Heard of you, but never met you."

P's blinked. "Oh you met me. Just not … like this. How sad you don't remember. But no matter. Nice job – are those new tits?"

Aethyta blinked, and Liara felt an irrational urge to laugh.

Miranda glanced around. "We don't have time for this. If Tetrimus is coming, there's nothing we can do. Kill the turian and evac."

Liara growled. "Garrus died for this. We are not just giving up on Sara now. If you want to run, then run. I'm staying."

P. smiled. "I hear...rage. I love anger. And as a small aside, there is another option."

Miranda turned back towards P. "And that is?"

He slowly got to his feet, ignoring the weapons tracking his motion. "You let me go. Once I am in my pinnace, I transmit a code to unlock the stasis tube. I have been set up and have no quarrel with you...not after such a lovely, exciting workout these two gave me." He glanced at Kai. "Whoever is paying you, I can triple it, you know. All the blood and death you want and excellent benefits."

Kai slowly sheathed his sword. "I work for Cerberus."

P's mandibles snapped tight against his jaw. "Oh, well, then, that's probably a no. Still."

Miranda laughed. "You must think me a fool. How do we know you won't just blow it up once we let you go?"

P. sighed. "Monkeys. Never trusting. The answer is, lovely one, that you don't. That's part of the game. By the ancestors, I don't even know if I'll betray you or not yet. Whatever makes the chaos more delicious."

Liara set her jaw. "No. You die, and you don't see any more chaos." She glanced to Pel. "You said you had detpaks. Can they be remotely detonated?"

Pel snorted. "Wouldn't be much use otherwise."

Liara shifted her gun to pistol form and pointed at P's face. "We strap you with a detpak. You go away and transmit the code. If it doesn't work, or if you blow it up, we blow you up."

P's blue-glowing eyes widened and he laughed. "Oh...you. You. You, I approve of. There's no need for that, such a flawless little scheme needs a reward. The code for full access is 'detonate'."

Liara eyes' narrowed and she was about to shoot when Krios chuckled almost painfully. "You are really as crazy as they say, aren't you?"

P. shrugged. "I am sane. Everyone else is crazy. Why must people always say that?"

Miranda turned to Liara. "Well?"

Liara turned abruptly. "Everyone get away. Tali, I'll do this."

Tali got up, slowly. "But if it's a trick – "

Liara smiled sadly, although it was hidden by the helmet. "Then I will die. I'm already doing that now, I have nothing to lose."

Tali nodded slowly, and along with Shields, pulled an unresistant, shocked Telanya away. They withdrew, a good thirty feet, and then Liara tapped in the code.

"Processing. Security deactivated."

Liara exhaled, examining the status screen. It didn't tell her much, only that the tube could now be moved, that the contents were still intact, and the explosive was disarmed.

Miranda glanced at P. "We should still kill you."

P. smiled. "That would be the most chaotic move, lovely one."

There was a loud series of turian curses from halfway across the loading bay, followed by a groan of pain. "Oh, for fucks sake, I shot him in the hip. He's still fucking alive?"

Telanya leapt up, running across the bay, as extremely battered form of Garrus Vakarian clambered over the edge of the docking platform. His armor was battered, smoking and crushed, blood leaking from his now-unhelmeted head, and his right leg was bent, but he was alive.

Miranda exhaled. "Touching. But .. "

Krios folded his arms. "P. did not have any part in killing Shepard. I would let him go. He may be useful later."

Miranda hesitated, and then Aethyta spoke. "Let him go. I'm not convinced he's down for the count. It's a goddess-damned miracle none of us are dead yet."

Miranda didn't like taking advice from non-humans, but nodded. "Fine. Go. Remember this."

P. stood slowly. "Oh, no worries about that. I'll be seeing you." He limped off, trailing blood, back to his pinnace, and Miranda tapped her omni.

"Joker, where are you?"

The thin voice of Moreau sounded through her implant. "On my way. Shit! Things are really crazy and I've had to shoot my way out of three battles so far. I'm having to come around the long way, there's a pack of gunships under the Broker's command shooting up anything coming in from below. Be there in five or so."

Miranda clicked off. "Joker will have the ship here in five. We need to get moving. Let's move the stasis tube over closer to the entry."

Pel walked over to Kai. "You look like shit."

Kai took in Pel's bloody gunshot wounds and limp and sighed. "Hell, you ain't doing much better, slant-eye."

Kai fingered the single remaining knife in his belt. "Call me slant-eye again."

Liara watched as Tali carefully programmed the hovering stasis device, and it floated along, away from P's pinnace. The turian crime lord had reached its still open doors, and was staggering inside, when a bolt of blue light tore through the docking bay, striking him in the chest and sending him flying into his vessel with a thunderous crash.

Everyone in the bay whirled to the entrance of the docking bay, and Krios gave a tired sigh as a black-cloaked figure walked through the doors.

Tetrimus folded his arms, gazing over the group, and in the depths of the darkness of his hood, smiled. "Well, I see Tazzik fucked this one up royally. Since I'm in a good mood, though, I'll be sporting about this. Give me the body and no one dies. Or don't, and I'll kill you all one by one."

Liara squared her shoulders, dropping into cover, and the rest scattered.

Tetrimus sighed as he saw Shields among the figures in the docking bay. "Oh, Ms. Shields. I figured you had more sense than this."

Aethyta closed her eyes, took a deep breath, before speaking quietly to Miranda, crouched next to her. "There's only one way to do this, human. I'll hold him as long as I can. The rest of you get the fuck out of here."

Krios nodded. "I will assist. This one killed my wife. But the matriarch is correct, to fight Tetrimus is to die."

Miranda scowled. She knew very little about the cloaked turian except of his legendary power, but wasn't the same true of Tazzik? And Tazzik was dead.

"We can – "

Aethyta shook her head. "No. Trust me. You can't. Just...be ready to move. Suppress him with fire if you can, but stay in cover."

Liara swallowed. "Aithntar..."

Aethyta smiled. "Live, and I hope to the Goddess you find some kinda happiness." She blinked back her sudden rush of tears and steeled herself.

Tetrimus sighed. "I suppose you won't be reasonable. I hope you are then prepared to die."

Pel chuckled, racking his shotgun. "I was born ready, motherfucker. Bring yo shit and lets see who dies."

Tetrimus smiled. "Gladly."