Chapter 4

After we reached the city, we drove into the industrial district, ditched the truck, and burned it (not exactly an uncommon sight in that part of town). Now we're holed up in an abandoned warehouse in one of the more run down neighborhoods (there are plenty to choose from around here). Well, mostly abandoned would have been a more accurate description, to be honest.

There was another group (mainly Turians and Humans) squatting here before we arrived, but it didn't take long for Vorlak and his thugs to clear them out. He hit one of them so hard they wound up with eight broken bones and at least a dozen fractures. After that, the rest of them got the message and left. They carried their crippled friend out on an improvised stretcher, but I didn't think he'd survive for much longer.

I hung back, refusing to lift a finger in the fight. No point in getting involved in some petty squabble between two gangs over a building neither of them had any rights to, I told myself. But try as I might, I couldn't absolve myself of the guilt entirely. This whole situation had come about because of Cerberus' hunt for me. If I hadn't chosen this planet as a refuge, that kid might have lived to see his twenties.

The warehouse was very large but otherwise fairly unremarkable. The cold stone floor was strewn with the build-up of twenty years of neglect and decay. Inside the isles of shelving, at least three or four times my height, seem to stretch on forever. We've checked the crates and boxes stacked on them but so far, they all seem to be empty. There are a few leftover engine parts, scattered and discarded around the area and even a half-built shuttle in the loading bay. We wasted some time trying to finish it but there just weren't enough parts left here to get it working.

Vorlak has been getting steadily worse ever since we left the compound, constantly making impossible demands, or picking fights to "maintain discipline". He really hurt Thane (another Krogan I named after one of my former teammates) in the last one. I bandaged him up as best I can, but sooner or later we were going to need to venture outside for proper medical supplies.

But if Vorlak has become more openly aggressive, the reverse has been true for the rest of us. Stuck indoors, we each retreated into our own little corners and slowly grew more and more reserved. Some of us had lost friends in the fight with Cerberus and were quietly mourning the loss. Others just wanted to keep their heads down and their secrets to themselves (myself very much included).

Obviously, there were more than a few questions sent my way, but thanks to my training, I had little trouble deflecting them. Everyone was suspicious and distrustful of me at that point, even in spite of the fact that it was my strategy that had saved us. Still, it could've been worse, if they had known I was a former member of Cerberus they'd have probably just shot me on the spot. I got the impression that Vorlak would have liked to do that anyway, but my popularity with the Krogan prevented him from acting openly.

Despite trying to keep a low profile generally, I still found some time to track down Kroll. As I might've guessed he was still tinkering in the loading bay (if nothing else you have to respect his dogged determination). He didn't see me as I entered the room. Back turned he was bent over the roof of the shuttle doing some soldering, oblivious to the threat approaching from behind. I could have killed him so easily at that moment. I even allowed myself to imagine doing it. Picking up one of the tools from the workbench and driving it into his back while he was distracted. It would have been a quick and easy way to remove the threat, exactly the sort of move you would expect from a Cerberus operative.

But that wasn't who I was anymore. I had left the group because Shepard believed there was a better, cleaner way of doing things than the Illusive Man's 'end justifies the means' mentality. While I did not find it easy to uphold such a conviction, it still remained an attractive concept to me. More to the point, after the months of hell I had endured keeping my promise, I'd be damned if I allowed something like Kroll ruin it all now. If I did that, I think I would have been better off staying with Cerberus all along.

That said it still didn't hurt to put my enemies on notice, so taking my gun, I fired a single shot at the ground and watched it ricochet into one of the walls. No one was hurt, but it certainly caught his attention. He straightened up immediately in shock and then, stood absolutely still.

"Colonel?"

"Guess again," I replied, outwardly exuding confidence though his assumption had thrown me slightly.

"Jack," he gasped. "Listen I can explain."

"Oh, I can't wait to hear this."

"Vorlak gave the order, I swear it! He didn't believe your story, but he knew many of the Krogan wouldn't accept your death without proof, so he ordered me to take care of it quietly. He would've told everyone that Cerberus killed you during the battle."

Plausible and worrying, but I wasn't prepared to let him off the hook quite so easily. There was still something that didn't add up.

"Did Vorlak order you to kill me before I'd even fired the first shot?"

"Arrgh, what does it matter now?"

"Just answer the question, Kroll. In case you hadn't noticed, there's no one around to help you this time."

"Fine, fine. He told me to let you live long enough to help take down the convoy and then shoot you afterwards."

"So, you- Oh I get, you weren't sure who would win. You wanted to make sure you'd be able to hand over my corpse to whoever came out on top. Not a bad plan, except that I wasn't lying when I told you Cerberus was going to end us all whatever happened. So why didn't you shoot me when we landed on the bridge?"

"That Cerberus soldier might've gotten me too, besides…" he trailed off, not saying any more.

"Besides what?"

He remained silent.

"What were you about to say?"

"Kwy Aldrar."

"Excuse me?"

"It means… look you wouldn't understand human. For now, let's just say it means I'm not going to try and kill you again."

"And I suppose I'm just supposed to take your word for that?" I asked skeptically.

"If you don't believe me human, then you should just shoot me."

And apparently, that was all I was going to get from him. I'd learned virtually nothing about his motivations unless I could find a translation for 'Kwy Aldrar', whatever that might mean. It sounded, Kondar to my ears but that was really only a guess. Even my education didn't include much about Batarian languages.

The fact that the universal translator wasn't coming up with anything wasn't much of a surprise either. The Batarian Hegemony makes a point of holding back as much information as possible about their species from the rest of the Council races. They've shared enough of their language to make communication possible but there are certain specialized words, mostly centered around their slave traditions that you won't find in any standard translation software.

Regardless of the proper translation, I still had to decide what to do with him. Killing him right now was by far the safest option, but I'd resisted the temptation thus far. Kai Lang would have pulled the trigger by now. Hell so would I a year or so ago. When I discovered a traitor to Cerberus within the Lazarus cell, a threat to Shepard himself, I executed him without hesitation. But Shepard hadn't approved, I reminded myself, and I didn't think he'd approve of this execution either.

"Just stay out of my way Kroll. And if you ever even think about killing me again, you'll be dead before you even realize your mistake."

I walked away, knowing he was watching me, but not caring any more. Whatever game he was playing didn't matter. If he tried anything again then, conscience be damned, I would kill him.

Far more importantly, I needed to get out of this warehouse and find a terminal, so I could check up on my contacts looking after Oriana. I'd already been feeling guilty about not having checked up on her in so long, because of all that legal nonsense with the district council over our squatting, and then taking that day out with John. Now, stuck in this warehouse for days, I'd left it at least twice as long as I normally did and with the scale of the Cerberus' hunt for me, she was in more danger now than ever. The Illusive Man knew all too well that Ori was the one person that I would come out of hiding to rescue, whatever the risk.

To help me relax, I reminded myself that after I left Cerberus, the first thing I did was to arrange a new location for Ori and her family - somewhere that my former employers weren't aware of. Ori had hated the idea of course; her entire life was being uprooted again, all because of me, but she never complained. She actually convinced her adopted parents that they had to go along with the idea herself.

She's got a good head in a crisis (well perfect actually of course) but I know the college I was able to get her wasn't nearly as good as the one she had when Cerberus relocated her and that really hurts. She has the potential to do amazing things with her life. It's not fair that my actions (and those of her father) are forcing her to curb her ambitions. Sometimes I wish that I could speak to her, to apologize and try and make it up to her or just to have a chat with my little sister but the risks would be far too great.

Right now, the only way I can show that I care about her is by doing everything in my power to keep her safe from my world and the horrible people that inhabit it. Which is why I went to go and get permission to leave the warehouse from the creature I knew had ordered my death only days previously.

I found Vorlak near the 'arena' as he called it. He'd had it set up in the open space near the entrance to the warehouse not long after we arrived. It was similar to the one he'd had back at the compound but much, much more crudely constructed. To create the 'ring', he'd just forced the Vorcha to scratch lines into the stone floor to mark the boundaries and left it at that. Not quite sure why he bothered to be honest. He rarely stopped fights just because one of the contenders was being pushed over the line; most bouts only ended with blood.

When I arrived Vorlak, was watching a fight between two Krogan; Jacob and Thane. Thane still had one arm in a sling from his last fight against Vorlak and was having a pretty tough time of it in the ring. Jacob was doing his best to go easy on him, I realized, but as soon as he glanced up at Vorlak's expression (well not 'expression' exactly as his face was still completely neutral but somehow, he was still making his impatience clear) he started attacking harder and soon sent Thane stumbling backwards, crying out in pain. I wondered briefly what kind of sadistic pleasure was being gained here. It wasn't a good fight by any measure; just the degrading humiliation of a proud Krogan warrior.

Raising a hand, I used a biotic technique called 'stasis' on Jacob, the biotic fields holding him in place so that he couldn't move or continue his attack. That got the attention of the room pretty effectively. I could sense displeasure from Vorlak, not to mention some more obvious snarls of disapproval from the gathered Vorcha but a few of the Krogan nodded at me in respect. Most people would laugh at the idea of 'Krogan honor' but it was clear to see that this kind of fight didn't sit well with them. Laughing in the face of impossible odds was one thing but how could you boast about beating down a wounded enemy? Where was the glory in that?

Walking over to Vorlak, I realized the Colonel was also there, sitting slumped up against a pillar next to the Elcor. He didn't acknowledge me as I approached; he was too busy tending to a minor wound he'd sustained during the battle, but it occurred to me that maybe he was more closely aligned with Vorlak than I had realized. Still, I was here to see the man himself and hope he didn't try to kill me. So the larger the audience the better I figured.

"We need to start making plans for what we're going to do next. If we stay here too long, Cerberus will track us down again and we won't be able to catch them off guard twice."

"What do you suggest?" Asked Vorlak.

"One of us needs to go into town and secure a ship for us with whatever credits we can scrape together. Then we just get out of this system and disappear. There's plenty of places left to hide in the Terminus."

"Very well. Take Kroll with you."

"Thanks for the offer but I can manage just fine on my own."

"It was not an offer human. Kroll will go with you to make sure you don't try to turn in the rest of us."

A feeble lie. I had more reason than anyone else here to stay well away from the people hunting us and Vorlak knew it. I had a sneaking suspicion that I knew exactly why he was insisting on sending Kroll with me but chose not to mention it.

"Of course. There's a few things I need to grab before we leave. Have him meet me by the rear exit in 15 minutes," I said before adding.

"That is, if that's okay with you?"

He nodded slowly but didn't say anything more.

I headed back to the sad little corner where I crawled up to sleep each night. There was pathetically little stuff here (most of my things were lost back at the compound) and certainly nothing I needed to bring with me on this trip, but I was willing to allow Vorlak time to have a private chat with Kroll before we set out. About ten minutes later, I headed out through the rear exit alone, left the door open, and waited discretely out of view.

Three minutes after that Kroll, evidently not the sharpest knife in the draw, came running through the door at speed, evidently imagining that I had left the warehouse without him. I grabbed him from behind, pushed him against the wall, and held my pistol flush with his head.

"What did I say would happen if you ever thought about trying to kill me again?" I hissed as he tried to squirm away.

"I didn't, I swear I-,"

"Don't lie to me. Vorlak ordered you to kill me while we're on this little outing, didn't he?"

He nodded and hung his head slightly.

"I wasn't going to."

"That's the second time you've tried to claim you're not a threat to me anymore."

"On my honor human, it's the truth."

"On your honor? You're joking, right? You don't have any honor."

"If that's what you think human, then you should just shoot me now and be done with it."

He turned around and pressed his head more firmly against the barrel of my gun, placing the muzzle right between his upper eyes. I paused, waiting for whatever trick he was trying to pull, but he just stood there, resigned to his fate.

I remained suspicious but I pulled the gun back very slightly. Summary execution was Cerberus's style. It wasn't mine any more. He looked as shocked as I was by my decision.

"OK then, explain to me why you have more loyalty to me than to Vorlak."

"You saved my life twice during our escape."

"Oh come on, it was only-"

"For my people, that act creates a bond even greater than the one to my master."

"Your master? You mean-? Oh my god, I didn't realize."

Kroll laughed a little to himself before replying.

"Think about it, Jack. How could slavery be our oldest tradition if we didn't start out by doing it to each other?" he sighed. "People seem to forget: there are more Batarians that are slaves than slave owners."

"So, he owns you. How long-"

"Seven years. Honestly, he isn't as bad as the master I had before him. But he is getting worse," he said, turning around so that he could look me in the eye.

"Kroll, I didn't realize. No one ever said anything."

"Most people don't notice anything. Outside of the Hegemony, the Masters tend to use subtler means of control, easier for the Council to ignore. I'm probably not even the first Batarian slave you've ever met," he explained somberly.

"And it's not Kroll by the way."

"Excuse me?" I asked, briefly overcome with surprise and curiosity.

"My name is Nalar. Kroll is the word my people use to refer to the lowest caste in the Hegemony. Vorlak started calling me that as a joke not long after he bought me."

"I don't get it."

"It's more of a taunt really. As a slave, it's one tier higher up the caste system than I'm ever likely to get."

"Well setting his twisted sense of humor aside, you know he's only expecting one of us to come back alive from this trip," I pointed out.

Nalar nodded wearily.

"I know you're right. We'll have to work something out on our way into town," he paused. "Unless you want to make it simple and just shoot me?"

"I think we'll save that as a last resort," I replied, struggling to believe that I was trading jokes with a Batarian that had tried to kill me only a few days earlier.