"Talk" - Talk
'Though' - Though
-/- Unknown location - 1282 CE
"Is this the target?" a figure in the shadows asks, looking at a monitor with ever changing faces.
"Affirmative, learn all that you can from target, information on why the STG is interested in this new alien is also valuable" a distorted and altered voice spoke as each word caused the face to change.
"What about possible interference?" The monitor changed to the images of Jini'Zorah, Atticus Vakarian and Korel T'Loak
"Collateral damage is acceptable" the figure pressed a button on his desk closing the connection..
-/- Rannoch - 1282 CE three months later
So far, things for Six have been slower than he is used to. After managing to land a job at the spaceport he had to find a place to stay, preferably somewhere isolated enough and with enough space to land a ship. He did manage to find such a place in the outskirts of the city, but the rent of the place bled him dry even with his new job. The place wasn't too shabby either, for a wastelander that is, Jini had described as a shack, but for Six it might as well be as luxurious as the Lucky 38 given that a combination running water, cold and hot, a stable structure, a place to store food and warm beds was rare in the wastes. However, of course, Six would add some modifications of his own, such as a mechanical lock in every door and window, this puzzled Jini, since the place had locks of its own already, Six just chuck it to good old wastelander paranoia.
Thanks to Six nomadic life in the Mojave desert, he was used to the bare minimum when it came to accommodations, which allowed him to better use the space in the shack, the living room was swapped by a workshop and the kitchen had made for an improvised chem station. The only places that remained the same were the bedroom and the bathroom.
One other thing that Six was having to get used to, was the looks people gave him, some of wonder, some of curiosity, others of distrust. It wasn't like he hadn't been on the receiving end of stares before, but is completely different when they come from aliens. They had diminished over the months but were still there. Even in Jini's family when he met them by accident one day, her parents were suspicious of him, while Jini's younger sister was more curious asking a myriad of questions that would make a STG agent blush with envy.
However, things were about to change when a trading ship landed for repairs. Six purposefully started repairs on the ship the closest he could to the ship crow, hoping to catch anything worthwhile. This time he overheard an interesting conversation.
"Spirits, this time was too close, those pirates almost got us" one of the turians crewmembers spoke, looking at something in his omni-tool.
"You tell me, shit… shield generator took a beating, some fried capacitors, pass me the omni-gel" one of his buddies talked while they were doing repairs.
"Here… damn, even heard there was a rumor going around of a pirate Citadel of sorts" that was all Six needed to hear 'Guess I found where I will be able to get a ship, now it's just a matter of getting there'.
After his shift was over, Six decided to have a chat with the crew. "*whistle* You guys really got lucky. Did they try to board or something?".
One of the crewmembers a turian answers "Yes, too close, bastards ambushed us near an asteroid field. I've heard rumors that the Omega nebula was compromised but we didn't think it was that bad".
Six chuckled he got the location, now all that was left was transport "Well, do you know any ships that will go through there? Just want to keep an eye out for any ship that I might have to repair later".
"Yeah, I know a group of unfortunate ones, a merchant ship from Ilium" the quarians in the crew said in a sadden tone. "The crew is full of indentured servants, may the ancestors watch over them".
The description of the crew caught Six attention "Indentured servant? What is that?". The curious looks of the crewmembers gave Six told him that he may as well ask why water is wet.
"You've never been outside Rannoch, have you? Indentured servant is someone that is legally bound to a contract to pay their debts" a salarian crewmember said but was cut short by the quarian one getting angry.
"It's slavery with fancy words, they write the contract in a way that you can never quit your debt, bunch of asaris Bosh`tets" he let out a sigh after venting. "Sorry, had a friend that ended up on one of these contracts, took him years to get out".
Six shared the anger 'Now I get why the council does jack shit to stop slavery they are in it too' "So they are just fodder… I mean disposable? The asari sent them on suicide runs?" he asked the quarian.
"Yes, but they don't see it that way, most of the time the runs are profitable enough to pay what was owned, but they shove the costs of maintaining the ship on the crew" the quarian confirmed Six thoughts.
'Oh, now it's personal' he thought, excusing himself so that he could go and see the ship and its crew. That did nothing to ease the anger building inside the courier. The crew was mostly quarians but he could see asaris, salarians and turians too 'Of course they enslave their own, why would they?'. He pondered what he should do. 'Should I tell Jini what I'm planning first or…' he was brought from his thoughts by the very person he was thinking of.
"What are you planning?" Jini said with crossed arms "And don't try to talk your way out of this one, I've seen that look of 'I'm planning something reckless' before" giving him a pointed look.
"I… fine, you see that ship over there, they are indentured servants that are going to pass through the Omega nebula which if the info I've got is correct is filled with pirates and…" he was cut by Jini shaking her head.
"Keelah, you are planning on stealing a ship from the pirates aren't you?" She looked back at the courier who merely smiled to confirm her question "And do you even know how to pilot a ship?".
"Ahm… not really, but I'm sure I would figure it out… eventually" Six answers getting a 'are you serious' look from her "Fine… I would probably improvise, this is the part where you try to convince me not to do this reckless course of action but I still do it anyways?".
"No, you bosh'tet, you will need a pilot so I'm going with you" Jini said caughting him by surprise "And before you ask, there is no bargaining I'm going, I need to make sure you get the ship you promised me".
The courier chuckled in response "Awn, you are worried about little old me" receiving a punch in the arm for his jest "*chuckle* Yeah, you do." he raised his hands stopping her from giving him a second punch "Alright, alright, jokes aside. You know this can get ugly fast and we also will probably will have to kill, are you ok with that" he saw her hesitating for a seconds before nodding that didn't put him at ease, after all hesitation in combat can get you killed "Look, when it come down to it, try not to think just act" with that he gestured for her to follow him "Come on, we got a ship to catch".
Sneaking in the ship wasn't too hard, all they had to do was mix with the engineers that were doing final check ups on the ship and then sneak in when the others were distracted. Six could easily carry Jini's gear in his pip-boy so smuggling weapons was barely an inconvenience. From what they could count the ship had a total of twenty five crew members which meant that the ship was running a skeleton crew, given that cargo ships usually had a contingency of at least 50 people.
That is how both of them ended up hidden in one vacant crew cabin waiting for any signal that the ship was in trouble. Jini had tapped into the communications and was listening to anything suspicious or that could alert them. Things would be quiet for a while, allowing Six to fully gear up as well as giving Jini a few extras "This is a plasma grenade, pull the pin, count to three and toss, don't know how well they will do against shields but melts through armor and flash no problem" he explained to her, handing her three grenades that she carefully picked up and placed around her belt.
-/- Omega nebula - 1282 CE
'Entering Omega nebula' ships comms announced. Nothing seems to happen at first but around thirty minutes later the ship suddenly rocked from an impact and alarms started blaring. "Jini, what is the situation?" Six asked, pulling his riot shotgun.
"It's a boarding party… guess we got lucky" she said grabbing her pistol "They are invading starboard, through here". She opened the door and guided them to where a conflict was already taking place between the crew and the pirates.
The defenders, who were composed of five turians, three quarians and one asari, wouldn't hold out much longer, with a one to five ratio they would be overwhelmed soon, but turian military training was keeping the borders on their toes. The invaders for their part were mostly batarians with a mix of the other races in lower numbers, but as far as Six could tell, the other races wheren't slaves, so that marked them as targets to the wastelander. The firefight was intense and they would get shot by both sides if they just jumped in the fight, they needed a distraction, the courier smiled as a ideia popped in his mind "Jini, think you can rig the comms to my pip-boy?".
The combatants were confused when a strange music started playing in the comms, something about a stranger in the town of agua fria and a big iron. Their confusion bought Six enough time to jump out of cover facing the pirates and pulling the trigger of his riot shotgun as fast as he could. The pellets started hitting multiple targets, their shields flaring so much that caused the effect of momentarily blindness making them miss their shots and allowing Jini to toss a grenade at a group of pirates. Six was grinning underneath his helmet as he felt and saw the familiar heat and green glow of the plasma grenade going off, said grin only got wider as he saw the effectiveness of the plasma grenade, the initial explosion completely removed the shield and the hot plasma quickly took care of the rest, if the screams of pain and smell of burning flesh was anything to go by.
The shock of the sudden attack had frozen both sides, especially when a completely mad man walked around the corner with a primitive weapon that was quickly depleting multiple shields and a quarian chucked a grenade of sorts that was melting away her targets, even turning some into goo. The defenders morale skyrocket as they manage to unfreeze themselves and start to blast the invaders making quick work of the ones that have been depleted by Six constant fire. As for the attackers their morale broke as in a matter of seconds their one to five advantage was reduced to a one to three, almost half of them were wiped out.
When Six heard the clicking of his gun he cursed getting into cover "Alright, time to see if laser is going to be as good as plasma" he dropped his riot shotgun, it didn't even made to the floor as the pip-boy dematerialize it, as he swapped for a tri-beam laser rifle "Pew! Pew! Motherfuckers!" he shouted getting out of cover and blasting a batarian in the chest and much to Six surprise the batarian took the hit directly causing said batarian to gurgle as the lasers probably fried his insides. Six gave the rest of the pirates a feral grin as he pulled his next weapon.
A maniacal cackle could be heard echoing through the ship as a storm of red lights were being fired at the now retreating pirates illuminated the hallway. Jini could only gulp seeing her friend massacring the pirates with ease 'Keelah, direct energy weapon, he is ignoring their shields completely, what's next? A nuclear warhead?' She heard the screams die and Six voice.
"All clear, no more pirates! Yeah!" he screamed back to Jini and the defenders, dematerializing his laser gatling. All the emotion vanished when he looked down seeing his own blood starting to make a pool on the ground "Shit" he muttered quickly pulling a stimpack and injecting on his chest.
It didn't take long for some people to approach the wastelander, most of the crew stayed behind treating the wounded and more than a few were scared of the man with the weapons of mass destruction. Jini was the first one to get to Six, she could see blood dripping from his clothes and immediately got worried "Six! Are you alright?! Keelah you are bleeding all over the place, stay still while I put on some med-gel!" she said, as adrenaline kicked in she could only focus on trying to heal her friend ignoring what he was saying and batting away his arm when he tried to stop her. As she was about to apply the med-gel after she saw something that should only be possible on Krogan 'He's wounds are closing by themselves' however the most disturbing part for her was what was inside him, metal and wires, she could see a few of his bones were clearly made of metal and there were wires of some kind right underneath his skin.
He saw her reaction and let out a sigh "I will explain it later, for now we have a ship to clear and bodies to check" she gave him a look that screamed 'you got to be kidding me' causing him to raise his hands and explain "I know, I know. But honestly, these people are in need of money to fix the whole mess and I also need at least one shield, plus some material to upgrade my set of armor".
"Right… just… just do it fast… I need some time to think after everything, so let's just clear the pirate ship" Jini said, walking to the pirate ship. Lucky for them, the few pirates that were left surrender immediately after they were boarded, having witnessed the stranger with a big weapon cutting down their colleagues with ease. Which led to an interesting situation, they had captured a pirate ship and a few pirates, what to do with the pirates?
"Do you guys have bounties over here? Maybe handing these scum here to the authorities could earn some credits so that you guys can payoff that stupid Indentured service" Six proposed, poking one of the tied down pirates with his feet.
"We might get some credits, but I doubt it will be enough for everyone" one of the turians that was defending the ship said. "Maybe if we sold the ship we would have enough money, by all intents and purposes it could be considered part of the cargo". That however gave Six a new Idea.
"Well, I've got a ideia that might free all of you, just explain to me all that your contracts entail" Six asked, listening carefully to their explanations, he smiled as he saw the loop hole he needed. "Alright, this is what we are going to do, first we go to Illium then…" he explained the rest of his crazy plan, it was a gamble, but he was a gambler by nature.
-/- Illium - 1282 CE
"Illium port control, please state your business" the bored voice of an asari came through the comms, she had repeated that day after day she honestly couldn't be more bored about her job. Things were about to change however as the sensor picked not one but two ships approaching and one of them was attached to the side "What in the goddess name?" she muttered but before she could ask what was the ships intentions a voice responded her initial question.
"Illium port control, this is Serrice Council's cargo ship SC-1134, requesting landing we have a extra ship as cargo, we also request the police, we have captured pirates on board" the pilot responded, after a few seconds he was clear for landing and was informed that the authorities would be waiting.
The ship landed and was quickly surrounded by both the police and the media. Six smirked things were going as planned. Now all they needed was an official from Serrice Council to show up and he could get to work. His luck still not having given out on him, it didn't take long for a representative of Serrice Council to show up "Alright, show time" he said, stepping forward going in the direction of the ship's captain and the representative.
"Is this the one you said was a special passenger?" an asari with slightly purple skin and a light blue dress asked the captain of the ship, she carried herself with authority and experience. Six could tell that it wasn't going to be easy, but odds favored him.
"That would be me" Six said loud enough to grab the attention of a few cameramen and proceeded to remove his helmet "My name is Courier Six, also known as the ambassador of humanity" he said the last part with a smirk. Immediately that had the desired effect, as the media crew's attention fell on them. Six could see the asari representative shifting slightly "And I'm thankful for the captain and his crew of brave man and woman for my life when the ship was attacked by slavers, such bravery to safe keep the freedom of all of us, indeed the right and duty of every free individual" he waited for the captain to add his part a smirk forming in the quarian's lips.
"Indentured servant, ambassador, we aren't free, but bound by contract" the captain said, giving a slightly saddened face to the cameras. That clearly angered the asari who was about to answer but was cut shot by Six.
"Preposterous! If you and I imagine your crew were slaves to a contract how you can explain the vigor in which you and yours defended the freedom of all!" Six looked at the asari and then to the media crews "If it's true, then the least your company should give you is your freedom" the asari was fuming, both from the show Six was putting and from being cut when trying to speak, however so far she was hiding well enough.
"Ambassador, I'm sure you are new to the galaxy stage and do not understand what an indentured servant is…" she was interrupted again by Six.
"I'm well aware of what they are and I'm sure that it would be with the utmost pleasure to make sure your company is the first that will be banned from making trading deals with humanity, because what you are showing me and the rest of the galaxy is that your company does not value of your people nor cares for their well being" he gestured and made sure all the media crew was paying attention.
"Now, just wait! You can't throw baseless accusations against us!" the asari got heated, raising her voice. That only made Six smirk.
"Oh, but I would be proud to show you evidence, Miss?" he gestured to the asari waiting to hear her name. 'Pofinlea Atesi' she answers unbeknownst to her that she just fell into Six trap. "Pofinlea Atesi, how curious… Well, as for my accusations. First off. Captain, can you tell me what the living conditions are inside the company's ship?"
"Poor, we had barely any food for the trip, the ship core was badly shielded, leaking radiation inside the ship. We had to seal off some parts of the ship, and for those that got injured we had almost no medical supplies" he said, doing his best sad impression.
"Indeed. Now, captain, could you show me what we found inside the slaver ship" Six asked, extending his hand to the captain who in turn handed him a data pad. He deliberately placed his finger on top of the sender allowing the asari to only see the company's name and the body of the message "This here, is a data pad, with information that the ship was targeted because information was sold on it's traffic rout and it has your company name in here" he flipped the data pad so the journalists could see.
With that he lean closer to the asari whispering "I can stop here or I can continue and drag your name into the mud too, you can either play the hero, free them from the contracts and promise to find the traitor or you can play the villain" he said lifting his finger to show the name that was hidden 'Pofinlea Atesi' "and before you say 'I would be so dumb to sign with my own name' do you really think I can convince them that you must have become confident and made a mistake or make one of the remaining scum there with the police agreed with every word I say and even if they eventually prove your inocence your name would be worth shit. Your choice".
The asari was livid, she would probably have flayed the human alive here and now if it wasn't by the media and police. But her hands were tied, she knew the human had wrapped the media in his finger, so she decided to play hero "This is indeed troublesome. I'm sure Serrice Council will allow the crew to be freed from their contracts and we will do the utmost to catch this traitor".
"How about freeing them now, as a token of gratitude" Six added at the end of the asari speech. She let out a grunt but complied as the omni-tool of every crew member lit up and a collective cheer could be heard. "Excellent! Now I believe I have a ship to remove from yours and be on my way with the freed crew" Six shoved a different data pad on the asari chest, this one was a purchase contract for a frigate ship, the one attached to the side of the cargo ship.
The contract read 'By politic of Serrice Council any acquired property that is attached to the ship in any way belongs to the company and can be sold, removed or destroyed as seen fit by the company or it's acting representative. This contract is to relieve the company of the current item _Frigate_ which is going to be _sold_ by the value of _2 (two)_ credits to the now owner _Courier Six_'. The asari let out a stream of curses much to all of the crew and especially the courier delight.
They quickly released the ship and flew away from Illium as fast as possible in the direction of Rannoch. The morale in the ship was through the roof with most of the crew cheering and laughing at how such a stupid plan worked. Six had approached Jini who was talking and laughing with the engineering crew "Damn fine work there Jini and everyone here *chuckle* putting the name of the asari on the 'message' was the cherry on top".
"Thank you, and remember me to never get in your bad side *giggle* I still can't believe you just bought this ship for two credits" Jini said giggling to herself "What did you say before when we were planning? You had a Silver tongue, hah, I think I will adopt this saying" she giggled some more.
"Heh, sure, by the way, can you do me a favor and link the comms to my pip-boy I want to play some music?" Six said, gesturing to his pip-boy.
"Aye, Aye, Captain" she tapped her omni-tool and a couple of seconds later uranium fever started to play in the comms.
"Captain Six? I like the sound of it"
(A/N) The story takes place in 1282 CE so in this AU Ilium was colonized some 400-ish years earlier