Interloper 2: Chapter 50


Something made a noise in the undergrowth. It was the thin crackling noise of the glasslike needles that constantly drifted from the local pine tree analogues. I swept the glittering brushwood with my rifle, trying to pick out hidden enemies in the dim light of the gas giant that filled the sky. Its sickly grey-green light was barely enough to illuminate the night time sky. Not that the daylight hours here on this obscure little rock were much brighter. My eyes found nothing in the gloom, but something still crawled at the base of my spine. The woods remained forbiddingly silent. A thin and reedy wind shook the fragile looking boughs and the regolith crunched underfoot with the flaky sound of corn starch as I took a few tentative steps forwards to peer ahead. But nothing else moved out there in the dark. I stifled an exasperated groan. Now was no time to be jumping at shadows.

"Mission time; thirty-five minutes." Kasumi's voice whispered over the comm channel despite her orbiting kilometers above our heads. "You're all clear, Boss. Nothing on the scopes." Liara shot back a short coded message and motioned the small team forward towards the shadowed compound up ahead. I gave the unmoving bushes one last look before falling into formation behind Decna and Jan. The target came into sight as we crossed out of the glossy copse and into a field of shivering crystal grass. It was a squat little cluster of dusty prefabs huddled at the nape of an overhanging cliff. This barren rock's only claim to fame, not that that was saying much. It was exactly the kind of smuggler's outpost that flourished out here among the unclaimed and unnamed moons and planets that dotted the borders of the Terminus Systems. Too small-time to draw the attention of what passed for the authorities, too big-time to go entirely unnoticed. And somewhere inside, was the man we'd come to extract.

The grass rattled as we passed through it, each step sending shivers through the glass meadow in our wake. Liara stopped suddenly and dropped, her upraised fist signaling we follow her. I crouched myself down behind a protruding spur of stone that stuck out from the field and snapped the rifle up to my shoulder. I peered down the sight, thumbing up the magnification a touch until the smugglers' post filled my view. Liara threw a dot onto our collective HUDS, highlighting something at the outskirts of the compound. EDI cleared up my scope a little for me, tugging at the focus until a minute figure came into view. I passed along my silent thanks to the uplinked AI. The dot became a set of brackets around what appeared to be an automated turret. And a relatively primitive one at that.

"You want I should take it out?" Jan asked with a voice edged with just a little boredom. The diminutive sniper had grown increasingly restless as we made our trek across the small moon. Now she lay stock still with her +VLFBERH+T propped up on its stubby bipod.

"Negative," Decna cut in. "Check the sightlines from the outer buildings up there. Half a dozen windows must be able to see that sentry turret. Chances are at least one of them might see something if you take the shot."

"Decna's right," Liara admitted. "Kasumi?"

"Scope's still clean. You've got time to move around it, if you wanted."

"This is the approach our contact gave us," Liara said after a long pause. "We're going to have to go for a remote hack." She looked back at me questioningly before opening the channel again. "EDI, is it? We need the compound's automated defenses disabled. Something subtle that won't tip off any possible unfriendlies. Can you do that?"

"Already working on a simple clone and replace on the compound's targeting sensors." EDI responded almost immediately, in a tone approaching but not quite matching scorn. A lot of her personality had returned after she'd been able to expand within the Heart's systems, but a few remained irrevocably corrupt or locked in compression. "I have been monitoring your team's communications." The unshackled AI let that somewhat ominous pronouncement hang in the open channel before speaking again. "This might take longer than expected, please stand by." The uplink closed with a digital snap. Ahead, Liara shook her head slightly.

"Well that was slightly… unnerving," She said over suit to suit. "And you shared a hardsuit with that for how long?"

I shrugged weakly. "You get used to it. She means well, I think. She has saved my life at least a half dozen times, so most days I give her the benefit of the doubt."

"Didn't stop you from taping over all the security nodes in our quarters." Liara joked. "Although come to think of it, I probably should have done that the day I let Kasumi aboard the ship."

"Yeah," I let out a genuine chuckle. "I guess there's trusting people with your life, and then there's trusting people with your life. Forgive me if I don't want all of my intimate details spread across the extranet."

"Didn't you know? You're traveling with the new Shadow Broker and her entourage. Secrets and intimate details are our stock and trade now." Her smile faltered, replaced by a thin pressed line. "Now what is taking that voyeuristic calculator so long?" She trailed off into mutterings before returning to her omni-tool. We returned to our holding pattern of stillness and silence. Jan dug a small firing pit in the dusty regolith, staining her jet black armour a patchy concrete grey. Decna only betrayed movement in short, birdlike movements of his head as he kept constant vigil. For my own part I was content to lean back against one of the clustered boulders with half an eye on the distant compound. With my companions looking outwards and EDI tied up with whatever was blocking her from blinding the turrets, I was left with nothing but my own thoughts.

I couldn't help but think back to the beginning of the day. It had begun as one in a long line of nearly identical days, a sort of happy routine that had developed since the Broker's Lair on Hagalaz had gone down. All that had changed pretty quickly when the morning infodump had come in. A priority message marked Liara's eyes only. She'd been impassive when she'd received the missive, but by the time the whole crew had been called in to the ship's small wardroom she was almost bouncing on her toes. We had a mission. The target was a small time information broker, one amongst the many independent contractors the plied their trade here in the outer rim. What set him apart from his fellows was that he hadn't picked a side in the burgeoning conflict between the dark fragments of the Broker's intelligence empire and an increasing number of Cerberus cells. That made him an increasingly rare commodity, but it also put a target on his back with both sides. Unless we got to him first.

After what felt like ages but couldn't have been more than a week of nothing but VR time, conditioning, and pouring over endless intelligence reports while Liara picked my brain for my "special brand of information," actually having a mission to accomplish was a mix of exciting and terrifying. Excitement had only just won out, and our whirlwind of rapid preparations had been enough to quash any lingering subversive fears. Down here in the silence though…

My train of thought was mercifully derailed when Liara swore uncharacteristically loudly.

"Buh… huh, what is it?" I asked as I snatched up my rifle. Nothing new had emerged from the sleepy compound. I gave her a confused shrug when she looked up at me from her onmi-tool. She offered an embarrassed smile.

"Sorry, this hack is just taking too long. The coast may be clear now, but we are on a timetable here. And on top of that I have received no transmission from our contact since we arrived. He should have sent at least something." She looked back at the compound. "I keep having the horrible thought that I've missed something somewhere. We lost so much on Hagalaz, what if something there would at least give us a clue what is going on." She sighed. "Being in the middle of something big with little to no information just rubs me the wrong way."

"Beats having all the information and being separate from the middle of things though, doesn't it?" I commented off-handedly. That earned me an arched brow. "Sorry. I know we've had this conversation before." Our comms trilled.

"Hack completed," EDI cut in. "You may now proceed."

"Took you long enough," Jan said. She rose from her tiny trench with a puff of debris.

"The process was involved. Though antiquated, the local security systems are incredibly isolated and limited to proximity access. All external feeds are now cut, with turret control locked down as well. I also took the liberty of checking their communications log."

"And?"

"No transmissions beside a single unanswered security alert. Perimeter breach." The AI said with a certain finality.

"Goddess, they already know we're here."

"I do not believe this to be the case. This alert is several hours old." EDI corrected. A worried undercurrent wound between us as one looked to the other. "No records exist as to the nature or response to the breach."

"This crawls, boss lady."

"I'm not going to disagree with you, Kasumi. Also concerning is the silence from our contact here. Surely he would have been able to get away for long enough to send us a message of some kind." Liara's brow knitted.

"Do we pull out?" Decna asked.

"No," Liara shook her head and made a cutting motion with her free hand. "We're pushing forwards. If our mission here is compromised, I want to know how and to what extent. I am finished operating in the dark. Everyone spread out into loose skirmish. We're going in on this vector." The asari threw a blinking line onto our collective HUDs and rose from her low crouch.

The approach across the sparse glass field was nerve wracking. But, step by step, we drew closer to the huddled metal shapes of the compound. A thin wind picked up as we set out. The wind picked up; rising with each step we took forwards. By the time the low outer wall was at my back, it whistled about us, spinning a diffuse yet sharp web of dust about us in enclosing gossamer strands. The radio crackled in the building static.

"You all remember how to do this. Standard infiltration, by the numbers." Liara called out. Her voice was masked in the din of signal interference. I response, Jan nodded and sprung up and over the wall in a single fluid motion. Her mottled armour was soon lost in the still rising dust winds. "What do you see, Jan?"

"It's really empty in here. Doesn't look like anyone's home," the proto-Phantom whispered. "Wait…" the voice cut off in a sudden burst of static. Worriedly, the remaining team members looked back and forth.

"Come in, Jan! Are you all right?" Liara called. Only the storm answered. The diffuse dust was gaining in density, its building static charge had begun to crackle and pop between meeting arms, riming the storm with diminutive lightning. "Jan!"

The burst of static came again, this time followed by Jan's voice. "Hraeth ela mi! How do I turn this machine off!" A loud crunching sound, alike to vigourously taking a spanner to an engine or other large piece of machinery, came over the link alongside a number of quite unpleasant oaths from Jan.

"Jan, we can hear you," I said flatly. The noise of clanging suddenly stopped.

"So it worked!" She answered.

"What do you have to report," Liara cut in.

"There's some kind of signal jammer over here. Small, looks like in may have come in from orbit given the scoring on the front and sides. Oh, also there's bullet holes." The last statement was given with the same blasé tone that one might inform you that you had spinach in your teeth rather than the sudden gut wrenching panic that the implication raised in me. I pulled the rifle a little tighter to my chest and once again began scanning the field we had just exited. However, Liara kept a cooler head.

"Clarify that." Her usually soft voice had grown a razor edge almost between heartbeats.

"Holes. Made by bullets. Looks like something fairly heavy, probably chemical ballistics given the scarring." Jan's voice crackled slightly as the crunch of regolith beneath her boots translated through to her mouthpiece. "Yes, there're shell casings here, and here."

"Chemical ballistics? You mean, like slug throwers?" Kasumi asked, joining the conversation from her perch high up in orbit. "Who even uses those anymore? I'd have thought any of those backwards pea shooters that are left would be museum pieces. And I should know; I've relocated more than a few of them."

"They're still out here," Jan replied, speaking as if she were quoting from some encyclopedia or other, "mostly on the outskirts, especially places like this. No element zero. Easy to manufacture, easy to hide and break down. C-Sec doesn't even scan for a few of the more novel propellants. Perfect for petty criminals who want to move contraband but don't have the connections to the bigger syndicates to get mass drivers through customs."

"So if those slug throwers belonged to the smugglers, who or what were they shooting at?" Decna asked as he ran his talons along the barrel of his HMG.

"I suppose this explains the perimeter breach alarm," Liara deadpanned, before snapping back into the sharp voice of command she'd used previously. "Regardless, this changes things. Jan, hold position until we join you. Everyone else, keep your eyes peeled for either the attackers or wary defenders. We're going over the wall and breaching the front gate, quickly and quietly. Move up by pairs, Decna, you're with Jan. Let's go."

I vaulted the wall into the dust choked courtyard crisply. My hours in VR had apparently paid off, which brought a smile to my face despite the gnawing doubts that at that very moment were growing in the back of my mind. My rifle swept the clearing and I dropped to a knee as Decna scrambled forwards to link up with our forward sniper. The two of them pushed on together, skirting the wall of the nearest building until they ran up against a corner. Decna swung his heavy weapon around, letting the narrow cylindrical video scope sweep the space beyond. A small box opened in the upper corner of my HUD, streaming the weapon's feed. The feed revealed more whirling dust and a long unmarked expanse of concrete wall, but no enemies. Jan waved us forwards.

Liara clapped me gently on the back and rose to a low crouch. I followed her, sure not to let my eyes fixate on any one patch of ground for too long. We passed our twinned pair at a run and immediately my gaze began searching for the nearest patch of cover. I nudged Liara, directing her towards a rundown looking goundcar with an open cockpit, like a jeep or rover. We slipped into the lee and took up vigilant overwatch on the space before the building. The dust continued to thicken around us, a rippling curtain of grey-white pierced at rare intervals by slivers of the green lit sky beyond. Decna and Jan burst from behind their corner and disappeared into the storm. They were quickly swallowed whole by the choking dust. My HUD instantly took over, painting the two friendlies with a blue outline. Then we were moving again, scrambling up and over the wreck and driving straight for the nearest outbuilding. We passed the others crouched by a narrow alley created by the junction of one wall and the next. Throughout the maneuver, there was nothing but the quiet hiss of the storm, blanketing everything in eerie static.

Out in the haze, two flashes lit the swirling vortex, followed by muffled reports from mass accelerator fire.

"Sentries," Decna explained. "Moving up to the main gate. Two of them, lightly armed. Hmm, something seems strange here."

"Come on," said Liara, "Let's take a look at what they've found."

The main gate to the smuggler's compound was a formidable metal structure, octagonal in shape and set in a sheer concrete wall. The wall itself was pockmarked with more of the ragged black bullet marks, along with more narrow scars cut by something quite a bit more powerful. The bodies of two sentries lay sprawled before it, clad in puffy clay grey pressure suits with polarized orange visors. Jan crouched amongst them, leaning on her upright sniper rifle while Decna had his back pressed to the gate and his eyes outwards. Jan looked up as we approached and hailed us cheerfully.

"Look at this." She pointed at the two neat holes punched through the sentries' softsuits. Each was marked with a faint pink halo of freshly dried blood.

"You'd think there'd be more of it," I muttered. "The blood, I mean."

"That's what I thought too," Jan agreed. "+VLFBERH+T doesn't usually leave pretty holes like this. So I went down to get a closer look, and that's when I saw this." She grabbed a handful of the unfortunate smuggler's suit and rolled him over with surprising deftness. Stitched across his back where numerous dark puncture marks, each surrounded by a large blossom of dark gore. "These are definitely MA rounds, can't be more than a few hours old. Those where the whats what killed them. And that's not all. Tell them how we found them, Bigwig."

"They were leaning up against the gate," Decna commented, after giving what I was sure was a withering stair towards his diminutive battle buddy. "Someone shot these guards in the back, and then posed them up against the wall when they left."

"That's… cold," I said. The nervous feeling in my gut rose another few levels. "Do you think this was set up? Like some kind of trap to lure us in?"

"I do not think this was bait, it's a little too obvious," Liara said. "They would have had to have known that anyone coming in behind them would see these wounds. And if they really wanted to hide their presence, it would make more sense to drag these two somewhere out of sight." Her puzzled expression swam in and out of view as glittering silicates continued to swirl around us. "We have to get inside. It looks like the smugglers were overrun, but there may be survivors in there somewhere. Our contact may be among them. EDI, can you hack into the gate locking systems?"

"Negative. Those doors are in local control only. Nothing but hardlines. This outpost's systems are almost archaic in their simplicity. I theorize that this compound predates the smuggler outfit significantly."

"She's right," Decna chimed in. "These gates bear symbols of the Twenty-Seventh Legion. That formation hasn't been active since the Relay 314 incident."

"But how do we get through them?" I asked. "I don't think we packed enough explosives to put a dent in these things." I eyed the alloy steel edifices, looking for weak points the small bundle of polyexplosives strapped to my back might be able to punch a hole in. For constructs almost a century old, they looked dishearteningly sturdy.

"That's not needed," the burly turian grated out before he swung his HMG out on its new skeletal frame harness and shuffled over to a slightly darker patch on the left hand concrete gate post. He slammed a closed fist against post, knocking off a thick layer of dust and revealing a simple control panel. "I can run a manual patch from here. The old Hierarchy codes should still be active given this hole's lack of downlink facilities." He set his talons against the upper edge of the panel and gave a mighty heave. The face plate popped free, hanging down in a tangle of wires. We all watched open mouthed as the mercenary deftly stripped one of the contacts and twisted in a strand of wire generated by his omni-tool. He looked back with a somewhat sheepish quiver of his bent crest. "I was not always a faceless mercenary."

There was a spark, and the great gates ground open with a shower of displaced dust particles. Decna quickly tore out his trailing lead and brought his weapon up and at the ready again. The gate yawned open on a shadowed courtyard that lay before the compound's relatively impressive center building. Shrouded shapes covered the uneven flagstones, rubble of some kind. Even through the shimmering dance of the dust storm I could make out at least four floors worth of darkened windows in the run down edifice. Decna laughed.

"Hah. Looks like our smugglers didn't even bother to take the old Legion hangings down. I doubt it was them that took out the door, though." His last line was more sober as he drew all of our eyes to the compound's front door. The heavy steel octagon-shaped plate was hanging loose from pins bent torturously out of place. "We should spread out. Whoever did this brought some serious ordinance with them."

The team shuffled forwards through the deserted courtyard, spread out and watchful. Here the dust was gathering in drifts where the high walls gave shelter from the thin winds. With a flash of horror I recognized bodies amongst the dust covered shapes. Dark blood had clumped the thirsty particulates, creating scabrous stalactites in their lees. I tried my best to ignore them, focusing instead on the opening ahead. It was almost too easy to place hostile figures in the shadowy doors and windows. Jan was first to reach the entrance. She slung the oversized sniper rifle across her back and slipped the bone white ceramic blade from its sheath. I slipped in behind her as Liara and Decna stacked up on the other side of the door.

Liara tipped her head towards the cavernous entrance and held up her hand, counting down on her fingers. Once her hand became a fist, the four of us entered. The entrance foyer was dark, lit only by the thin skeins of light that managed to penetrate the storm outside. Already thin drifts of grit were piling to either side of the door. More bodies lay against the walls or spread across what looked like the remains of an administrative desk. Spots of illumination flickered on in the gloom as the team activated their helmet and gun lights.

"EDI," I whispered into the uplink to the ship. "I want full motion tracking for as long as we're in here. Listen for transmissions as well." I rounded on the first of four passages that split off from the foyer. The beam of my rifle light played over simple corrugated metal walls braced with bare girders. The wide, flat lighting fixtures bolted at regular intervals to the ceiling were dark.

"I have been monitoring all known frequencies since you put down. I turned on your motion tracker before you reached the outer wall of the compound." EDI replied. "If you would like I could add a sound effect. Perhaps a ping or tapping noise?"

"That won't be necessary. Just give me a heads up if something nasty's about to come round the corner." I peered down the nearest corridor. It ended abruptly not more than a few meters down in a snarl of twisted beams and perforated metal deck plates. "This one's blocked. Looks like someone brought explosives to the party." I turned back to the party. Liara had slipped into a chair behind the desk. The body atop it had been shoved roughly to the side to uncover a battered looking computer terminal.

"Kasumi," Liara said as she slipped a narrow metal case from her back. "I'm fitting the local computer systems with a relay. See what you can dig out of whatever servers are still running, starting with security footage and communications.

"On it, boss."

As Liara set up her equipment, I cast my eyes about the room, coming to rest on the unfortunate soul draped across the desk.

"There's something strange about this one," I murmured. I rolled the man other as Liara turned her head to look. "These aren't gun shot wounds. Look, it's like someone stabbed him through the chest." I pointed to the neat holes punched in both sides of the man's suit. "And not an Omni-blade. No flash burns. Too long to be a bayonet, too. Maybe a sword or something." The unpleasant and increasingly familiar feeling that I was forgetting something crept across the back of my mind at that thought.

"A sword? I don't think so," Decna said gruffly. "No one who's serious about fighting carries something as archaic as a sword."

I wasn't entirely convinced, but I let the issue drop as Liara continued her work. Kasumi hummed at her workstation as data began to trickle up to the orbiting Heart. "I'll let you know when something useful crops up."

The inside of the compound was a maze, made all the worse by damage sustained in the fighting. Every corridor seemed to have some mark on it, though whether it was from explosives or the sheer age of the building was hard to tell. We came across several more passageways that had become completely blocked by falling debris, which turned us around or forced us to cut bypasses in the scarred walls. Everywhere we walked we found deserted rooms. Some contained bodies, but the vast majority were simply abandoned, filled with stacked crates or busted lockers. And everywhere there was the dust. Breaches in the outer bulkhead let in thin trickles of the stuff every time the wind turned and the muted whistling quickly became an almost unnoticed backdrop to our search. That and the constant creaking of the ill maintained metal structure grated on the nerves as we penetrated deeper into the labyrinth.

"What's that?" I stopped as a new sound joined the wind. The faint tapping of something falling against metal in the distance. It was a regular, quiet kind of sound, like the patter of water from a leaky pipe dripping against the grating.

"Whatever it is, it's coming from the floor above." Jan whispered. Her overly wide eyes lifted to the diamond grid pattern of the deck over our heads.

"I can confirm. There is definitely movement on the second floor. It's incredibly faint, barely above the background air currents." EDI said.

"It's better than rooting through this floor. Everything here is dead," Decna groused. The turian pointman inclined his head towards a nearby alcove set in the wall of the passage. "That panel there should access a companionway. We can take the ladder there to the floor above."

Liara nodded in response, inclining her head towards the passage up towards our mystery sound. Decna took her meaning and moved swiftly towards the alcove, his harnessed weapon preceding him. He stowed the weapon and once again deftly removed a hidden panel in the wall. There was a quiet pop and a spray of sparks followed immediately by a course grating sound. The back wall of the alcove opened halfway before grinding to a halt. The new opening revealed a set of inset steel rungs that marched up into the darkness above. Decna let out a gruff curse and grabbed ahold of the stuck door. It yielded only slightly. "You, Liddle. Give me a hand with this."

Obligingly, I wandered over, stowing my weapon. The edges of the hidden door were liberally coated with a thick layer of rust that flaked and fell like snow under the efforts of Decna. I braced my back against the opposite wall of the alcove and leaned my weight into the stubborn machinery. With a shriek of tortured metal that was impossibly loud in the near silent room, the door gave way, sliding back into its recessed slot after showering us with more rust. The way now open, Decna gave me a nod and motioned up the ladder. I retrieved my rifle and played its light beam up the narrow shaft.

"Looks clear." I laid my hand on the first rung and began to haul myself up. The inset handholds creaked and groaned in protest as I carefully put my weight on them. Climbing one handed with my weapon drawn was a slow process, but eventually I reached the next floor. I stepped out of the companionway and dropped into a crouch, ready for an attack. No attack came. The second floor was much like the first. Silent but for the wind. Empty and desolate. No bodies filled these corridors, and the walls were unmarked. Whatever had torn through this place had been over before it reached the upper levels. I stood and moved a little down the hall to peer through an open doorway. The inside was furnished like an office. Someone had torn the place apart. Cabinets lay open and ransacked; chairs were torn open at the seams. Whoever did this had been thorough. I withdrew as footsteps sounded behind me. Jan stepped out of the companionway with her knife held out in front of her.

"What a mess," She commented, motioning with her head towards the open doorway. "Do you think they found what they were looking for?"

"If they didn't, it was only because it wasn't here," I responded. I eyed my HUD. "EDI has pinpointed the motion as coming from this floor's northeast quadrant. We'll need to find a way into a parallel corridor; this one leads to a dead end."

The search of the upper levels revealed more ransacked offices, each one as thorough as the first. The dead end turned out not to be a wall, but a hastily constructed barricade. From this side, it seemed undamaged.

"A lot of good this did them," Decna commented.

We continued our search. Occasionally a burst of static would halt the party, sending us all hunkering low. Usually it was followed by an increasingly frustrated Kasumi complaining about the age and quality of the computer systems she was sifting through. Just as we came across what looked like a briefing room repurposed as a kitchen, we got another burst. Kasumi's voice was right on its heels. It had a new edge to it that immediately grabbed our attention. "Boss. Trouble"

"What is it, Kasumi?"

"Three emissions bursts at the edge of the system. Definite drive core signatures, but whoever just came in aren't running any kind of transponders. By the size, I'd say they were civilian freighters, but their core energy is way high for their tonnage."

"Q-Ships." Liara muttered. That meant the former Broker Agents had arrived for their cut of the prize. "Move the Heart out of visual range. Thrusters only. We'll have to move fast." She directed the last line at us. A grim kind of calm came over the party and lent urgency to our search. The kitchen had a door set in the far wall that led out into another hallway. We moved as quickly and quietly towards the source of the movement as Kasumi sent short coded bursts counting down the time to intercept on the Broker's ships. At the end of the hall, a door stood ajar. Liara motioned forwards, sending me and Jan creeping up, with weapons at the ready. No lights came from the open room, but from here the enhanced senses of my hardsuit could pick up the slow rhythmic patter of fluid dripping on the deck plate. The two of us whirled as we entered the room, running light over every corner of the room. It was a richly appointed wardroom, or at least it had been before a force akin to a miniature hurricane had gone through it. This room did not look as if it had been searched. The damage here was mainly cosmetic, thick gouges taken out of the walls, floor, and even ceiling. Chairs had been bisected, decorations ripped from the walls and smashed, and tables flipped over. And on the only undamaged piece of furniture in the room, a stately podium at the head of the long central table, was a salarian. Dark ichor dripped past its lolling tongue to splash into a widening puddle on the ground. Its skin was an ashen grey, smudged by more of the thickening ooze.

"Goddess, no," Liara moaned as she walked in behind us. "He's not? Is he?"

"Looks dead to me," Decna confirmed in a thick rasping voice. "Looks like he offed himself." The turian kicked a tin cup across the floor from where it had obviously fallen from the salarian contact's slack grip.

"I guess that would explain the ransacking," Liara said glumly. The asari information broker sank dejectedly into a chair that had been freed of its backrest. "Another defeat in our column."

"Boss. Fifteen minutes until intercept. It's time to pack up and get back to the Heart." Kasumi's voice carried the same bitter dejection as her employer's. It was the same feeling I felt too. It was like a black cloud bearing down on the room as the salarian's blood continued to drip, drip, drip. I turned, eyeing the body suspiciously. Surely death by whatever poison this agent had chosen to take his life with wouldn't leave him bleeding for the hours that had apparently passed between the attack and our investigation. Liara was addressing us, saying something, but my curiosity had been piqued. I stumbled over to the prone alien and jostled it. There was no reaction, at first. I was about to turn and leave, more than a little embarrassed, when one of the pallid grey hands grabbed me by the arm. I yelled in shock, twisting and flailing as the salarian caught me in a two handed grip and hauled himself off the podium. We fell to the floor, the apparently undead alien landing on top of me as I slipped and fell in the puddle. The salarian pulled in a deep breath and let out a long, uninterrupted scream.