In an abrupt change from their usual, Reyes actually met them at the coordinates he sent. Seeing him leaned against the side of the building, his dark hair slicked away from his face as he idly glanced at his omni tool had Peebee wagging her eyebrows at Sara.

"This is Reyes?" she mused far too loud for discretion. "No wonder Liam was having a fit."

"Reyes is handsome," Sara replied, shaking her head at the man. "Not deaf."

"Well? Introduce me," Peebee insisted and then without waiting, trotted over, her hand extended. "Name's Peebee."

"Reyes Vidal." He offered a smile and took her hand, before craning his head around the asari to lock eyes with Sara. "She's friendlier."

Sara could only continue to shake her head. "You have no idea."

"Oh, I'm sure Liam was friendly enough," Peebee snorted.

"So I've been told," was Reyes's neutral reply. His eyebrow, arching skyward, was far more communicative. "Just how long and boring are these ship rides?"

"What?" Although it clicked in Sara's head, it took her spluttering mouth a few precious moments more to catch up. "No! No, no, no, Liam was the only one."

Peebee rolled her eyes and turned to Reyes conspiratorially. "Apparently, she likes me too much."

Sara cleared her throat. "The cargo is still here?"

"Should be," he replied. "As long as we got here in time."

Reyes punched a code into the door console and it opened wide. As he held the door and ushered them in, Sara knew what to expect. Still, walking into an abandoned warehouse in the middle of the Badlands, she couldn't help but feel a swell of disappointment.

No drinks. No music. He really needed to start mixing some more pleasure into all this business.

"Hello?" Peebee cupped her hands around her mouth as she called out and listened to the echo. "Sounds deserted."

"That's a good thing," Reyes told her as he went straight to a crate and popped the lid. A single glance inside had him mutter something that had no direct translation in Common Trade. "It's empty!"

Sara frowned. "They already moved the cargo?"

He didn't answer immediately, his own frown deepening as he looked from the empty crate to the undisturbed door. "Or there was never any cargo to begin with."

"Bravo!" The woman's voice was new. Common Trade, but thickly accented. From Earth, maybe. "I knew you'd figure it out eventually."

Sara was clearly missing something. The more Reyes looked around, the more agitated he grew. Even Peebee, who made a career of appearing unperturbed had a slight uptick in heartrate. Was anyone going to clue her in to what was going on? No one was grappling for their weapons, so was it a minor setback or a huge pain in the ass-?

Realization washed over Reyes's handsome features as he turned to face a darkened corner of the warehouse. "Zia."

"You never could resist a big payout."

The human woman who emerged from the shadows was cradling her rifle like an old friend. She was compact, in a way that Sara very much was not, with her jacket zipper straining not to burst over easily two of the most voluptuous breasts found this far past the Milky Way. Comparatively, Sara would like to say she was the more attractive with her dark, almond shaped eyes and pouty mouth, but there was a certain appeal to the unspoken promises of Zia's full, almost swollen lips.

"What can I say? I'm a greedy man." Reyes kept his tone loose and casual, but his eyes narrowed as he analyzed their surroundings.

"That's why you don't have any friends. You're selfish," Zia replied, as if Sara and Peebee didn't exist. Her hair was cute, it worked for Zia, but the flame red dye job conjured strange comparisons to Sara's own ice blue tresses. She wouldn't think about the hair- why was that what was bothering her?

Sara shook her head. "This is an awful lot of effort if you're just sore about him skipping out on drinks."

"Oh, please." Zia finally gave her the courtesy of a disparaging look. "I hope for your sake he at least paid for your drinks."

"Leave her out of this," Reyes growled.

Zia bared her teeth in a smile that Sara understood to mean whatever business the other woman had with Reyes instantly became more pleasurable due to the unexpected addition of Sara. "You must really like this one, Reyes."

"Cut the shit." SAM clued Sara into some unidentified heat signatures in the wings that accompanied Reyes's uncharacteristic snapping. She shot a look to Peebee as he kept his ex talking. "What's this all about?"

"You've been taking all the good jobs on Kadara," Zia explained. She could have almost sounded apologetic- if she wiped that amused grin from her face. "It's gotten more than my attention."

"So what? The local smuggling union got together and decided to take me down?"

"Something like that."

Reyes dropped his head to a hand and groaned. "Shit!"

"Move in!" Zia ordered.

"Three," Sara told Peebee.

Her friend laughed. "Only three?"

Sara couldn't blame Zia. If they had planned to ambush Reyes only, four against one seemed like perfectly reasonable odds. What she could blame the other woman for was the deliberately shitty move of shooting Sara first before even bothering to deal with Reyes. It happened so fast, Sara didn't even register it occurred until the spark of the blue biotic shield erupted around her.

She had to love asari. She had to love Peebee. Any regret Sara had over Drack and Vetra ditching her to chase that lead on Spender dissolved in the effervescent glow of eezo spitting out from her miraculously intact chest.

Maybe the shot had been tactical; eliminate the weakest link so Zia could focus on the two dangerous combatants. Maybe it was petty. Sara would chalk it up as a twofer. Considering it didn't work and the time spent trying to off her meant Zia squandered any opportunity to kill Reyes, (who had wedged himself behind one of the empty decoy crates as he had no fancy biotic shielding to speak of,) Sara was glad to take one for the team.

But she really would prefer to keep it to one only for the team. She wondered if there was enough space behind that crate for two. SAM said no.

"Ryder!" Peebee's cry brought Sara back to reality. "Move your ass before it gets blown off!"

If her father had taught her anything, it was to not make someone ask twice. Sara tumbled and rolled her way to the side of the wall as Peebee rocketed a crate at their attackers. From her position flattened against the metal paneling, Sara could see Zia dive out of the way of Peebee's crate. It connected with a sick crack against the tip of Zia's foot and sent the other woman spinning violently in the air as she came crashing down, her body bouncing twice before it finally stopped.

Zia was still moving and Sara couldn't help but be impressed by the woman's resolve to stand on a now clearly broken ankle. Maybe it was just desperation. That was the name of the game after all, with how Sara fumbled with her own- admittedly small and rather pathetic looking pistol- while Zia gestured to the Pathfinder's rough location with the barrel of a semiautomatic.

Thank God for asari. Thank God for Peebee. The same crate she previously used as a projectile came down with the force of a sledgehammer on top of Zia Cordier's head.

"What are you doing, Ryder?" Peebee demanded. "Get your shit together!"

Sara would never get her shit together. It was what made her so much fun at parties. Still, it was the encouragement she needed to find more cover than a smooth and open wall. She slipped behind a crate a few feet away.

It was just in time, too. Reyes finally landed a lucky shot across the temple of one of the salarians he'd been volleying pistol fire back and forth with as their krogan pal grew impatient. He clenched his hand into a fist and the crate Reyes had ducked behind crumpled as easily as a beer can against a forehead of one of the numerous, enlightened paramours Sara had in college. Reyes flung himself out of the way, the remaining salarian lighting up a trail of bullets behind him as he fled.

"Uh uh!" Peebee shook a finger at the krogan. "I want you all to myself, big boy."

That got a grin that was all teeth, but she'd achieved her goal. The krogan turned from Reyes and charged headfirst at Peebee. Sara aimed her pistol and fired.

Her heart sank straight into her bowels as she whiffed it. The shot went wide and missed the krogan completely. Three seconds from calling it quits, packing up everything and sending herself back to the Milky Way on ice, she saw the salarian behind the krogan collapse, the fresh hole in his shoulder still smoldering. Not all accidents ended poorly, she supposed.

Sara did the only respectable thing she could after a move like that: wink at Reyes's appreciative nod and pretend like she'd aimed for the salarian all along. Reyes had no such issue as he finished off their opponent with a clean shot to the face.

Peebee continued to tear up the place with her "big boy." It was always an interesting juxtaposition to see someone use biotics to spin and float through the air like some murderous fairy princess while someone else utilized it to provide themselves with the force of a runaway freight train. Regardless, it affirmed Sara's previous decision to press herself flat against the wall. Reyes joined her with an annoyed huff.

"Are all your exes like this?" Sara asked.

"Just the ones I stiff on drinks, I think," he said.

"So..."

"I didn't plan for this!" There was that irritated flare of his nostrils as Reyes patted down his jacket and started digging through his pockets. "Zia was always a piece of work, but I never thought she'd go this far-"

"What do you need?" Sara demanded. "The pistol jockey bit is above my pay grade, but calculations, processing, Prothean weapons of mass destruction..."

"This." He held up an explosive. "You think with the dimensions of this place, if I tag our friend over there, it won't blow us all to kingdom come?"

Sara frowned. "You just carry C-4 around in your pockets?"

"It worked so well for us with the Roekaar."

"Keep it away from the load-bearing wall."

"Got it, thanks." Reyes took off in a bolt, pausing just long enough to stick the explosive to the small of the krogan's back. "One!"

The krogan stopped swinging at Peebee long enough to stomp his foot and erupt in a wave of blue that catapulted Reyes into a wall. It looked like Peebee redirected the force of that burst to somersault through the air and kick the krogan directly in his snout. Planned or not, Sara had to admire the showmanship.

"Two!"

The krogan snatched Peebee's ankle from his face and pitched her at Reyes. That left Sara and her pea-shooter as the asari slammed back first into Reyes, knocking the wind out of him. Sara fired and watched the shot ricochet off the krogan's chest plate. He laughed and veered away from Peebee and Reyes, apparently deciding it was Sara's turn for a beating.

"Three."

Krogans bled red, just like humans. Sometimes laymen got confused, because the species also contained a separate network of neural fluid alongside their circulatory system that was yellow. Depending on who was reporting and the damage sustained, one might say a krogan bled red, yellow or in this case, a flurry of orange and bits.

Sara's battlefield calculations were off. How would her father or the Nexus proper feel about her being done in by a botched smuggling deal, she wondered? The Milky Way's finest! Annoyance overruled any fear as she watched the explosion blossom and bloom out of krogan viscera.

As soon as she'd decided they were dead, it was over. Instead of Sara and her friends being shredded by shrapnel, eezo wrapped around the blast in a reverse shielding. Peebee used Reyes's shoulder to hoist herself to her feet, her free hand outstretched to contain the explosion. As it died to an ember, she chuckled and wiped the sweat and grime from her brow. "Next time," the asari labored, "would one of you mind clueing me in on the plan to blow krogan chunks everywhere?"

"Where's the fun in that?" Reyes laughed as he stood.

"You saved our skins, Peebee," Sara told her, stepping away from the safety of the wall. "Thanks."

"Yeah, well..." Peebee flashed a grin. "I know."

Reyes dusted his jacket off with hard flicks of his wrist. "I knew I wasn't popular, but I never thought the other smugglers would team up against me. Kind of flattering, actually."

"If this is your idea of a typical Thursday, I'm going to have to cut back on drinking and work on my marksmanship," Sara muttered.

"There's that sense of adventure!" His chuckle trailed into a long-suffering sigh. "All that effort and nothing to show for it."

Peebee snorted. "Don't sell yourself short. Being marked for death by whatever smugglers are left isn't nothing."

"Your friend has a way with silver linings," Reyes told Sara, but his smile had returned.

"She does," Sara agreed. "Let's keep it to drinks next time. Kadara's got a bad enough rep without adding murdered Pathfinder to its tourist attractions."

"Are you saying Kadara's dangerous?" Reyes gasped.

She shrugged. "I'm saying I stupidly keep coming back."

"You do." His laughter stopped abruptly as he seemed to consider something. He turned to her. "Want to come back tonight? I could use a plus one."

"Plus one?" Sara arched an eyebrow. "That's a pretty formal invitation for a smuggling op..."

"It's not-"

"...or ambush-?"

"Only if you want." Those gold flecks in his eyes practically twinkled. "I promise to be a perfect gentleman."

"Always with the promises-"

"Is this romance in the air I'm smelling?" Peebee drawled. "Here I thought it was sulfur."

Reyes straightened up. "Sloane's having a get together for the locals. She sees these events as a necessary evil to keep people happy."

"And your interest is..?" Sara wanted to know.

"Free drinks from Sloane's reserves?" He shrugged. "Figured you could use a night off from being shot at."

"Yeah, what was that all about?" she asked. "I must be pretty special for Zia to waste so much ammunition on."

"You're the Pathfinder!" Reyes exclaimed.

She grinned. "That must be it, huh?"

"I'll see you tonight, then?" He nodded back toward the warehouse. "I need to clean all this up, it feels wrong to leave her out in the open like this."

"You don't want help?" Sara asked.

"You've done enough," he said. "I don't need to bother you for grunt work."

"Besides," Peebee cut in as she steered Sara toward the door. "You've got to get ready for your date. Take a shower, shave the under chassis, ditch the outfit..."

"What's wrong with my outfit?"

"Nothing, I guess, if that's the look you're going for..."

"8:00, standard," Reyes called after them as Peebee pulled Sara outside. "I'll be late."