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Espacole

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Shepard watched Garrus and Penny talking beside the shuttle at the edge of the roof farthest from Detective Anaya's little pseudo-garrison with sharp eyes. The girl was sitting on a crate, her head bowed and hands on her knees while Garrus talked to her. She was smiling, too, but only thinly. She was upset, and Shepard could understand why, at least in part.

Turning, she watched a medic stitching together the reason why's bicep carefully.

Samara was conscious, now, grimacing and watching the Asari work through narrow, tired eyes. A dozen wounded mercenaries and workers had been found in the warehouse in the hour since the end of the fighting, and now most of them, like the Justicar herself, were laid out on the cots scattered around the landing zone beside Anaya's headquarters. Doctors, nurses, and even some green-suited, armoured women - Ilium's personal defence force, apparently - had responded to help with the wounded and with clean-up. More because the port was an important intake and outflow location, though.

Ilium only moved for credits, unfortunately…

"Commander." Shepard turned as Detective Anaya stepped out of the door beside her and crossed her arms under her bust. Pushing off the wall, Shepard turned to face the woman fully and she grimaced. "Ilium Central Police Dispatch just called me."

"I see." That was bad… The ICPD only intervened when Ilium's council of business heads, and it's handful of elected leaders, were upset. She knew that much from Alliance releases done on the Traverse and Terminus regions. "And?"

"And they want you, the Justicar, and everyone involved with you off-world inside the next Ilium business week." Anaya sighed, shaking her head. "Which is six days…"

"Six days?" Not a lot, but enough, she hoped, for what she needed to do. "Fine. Tell them we'll be gone."

"You presume to speak for me?" Shepard turned at the weary but firm voice and looked down at the Justicar as the medic, finally, stood and turned to move off to the next person, leaving an exhausted nurse to clean up what was left behind and follow with her case of supplies. Smiling, the battered Asari said, "You presume much more than that, I wager."

"We're your only way off-world right now, Justicar." Shepard said, turning as Anaya stepped around her. "Strong as you are normally, you're hurt. If the ICPD comes for you, you will die."

"Even so, you presume much."

"I know your Code." Shepard countered, "You are bound by honour to help the innocent. Am I wrong?"

"No."

"I'm here on behalf of…" She flicked Anaya a look, grimaced, and turned back. "Of a private Human organisation. One with considerable wealth. And a desire to see the abduction and murder of Human colonists end."

"I had heard that Human colonies were vanishing." Samara murmured, "I presumed it was Batarians. Or just pirates in general."

"Neither are responsible." Shepard shook her head. "The Collectors are doing it. On behalf of the Reapers."

"And suddenly, I feel like I need to not be hearing this…" Anaya murmured, turning and adding in parting, "I'll be in my office. Just tell my officers if you need me. And if you get her to go with you."

"Mhm." Shepard nodded, turning back to the Justicar as Anaya slipped inside. "The Collectors have already stolen thousands of people, Justicar. They use swarms of insectoid drones to incapacitate them all, and take every last one. Men, women, and children all. To do God knows what with."

"I saw the destruction on the Citadel." Samara murmured, "That was the Reapers, no?"

"It was."

"And they are directing this?"

"They are." Shepard nodded, "I'll be clear with you. Every last colonist taken is dead. This isn't a rescue operation. We're going to go through the Omega-4 relay to end the Collectors. Every last one of them, dead. Their base, annihilated. And to do that I need the best, brightest and most powerful people in the galaxy."

"And so you come to me." Samara chuckled and winced as her nose, only recently straightened, must have flared with pain, "I am flattered."

"Then you'll agree?"

"I would, but my mission stands." Samara sighed, "I must pursue someone. Someone who escaped off world. Someone very, very dangerous."

"That's why you were here?"

"Indeed." Samara nodded, "The mercenary leader here… She and her cohorts smuggled this person to safety. I must know where she went. I must eliminate her, at all costs."

"You'd ignore the Collector threat for it?"

"I am bound by my code to do so." Samara nodded silently, "Regardless of my desire to help you."

"I see." Shepard frowned, "And if I could provide you the information you need? Would you trade your assistance for that, and transport to pursue?"

"I would swear myself to such a contract."

"Understood." Shepard half turned and raised her Omni-Tool, connecting to the Normandy directly. "EDI."

"Yes, Commander?"

"Can you access local data storage?" Shepard asked, "Including what the police have already data-mined into evidence stored."

"That is highly illegal…"

"I know, EDI." Shepard nodded. Data-mining things into evidence was a common enough practice, where all data-drives, pads, and Omni-Tools had their memories forcefully copied and placed into hardened police systems. If there was data detailing the smuggling of a person by someone here, then the police would have it, whether they knew its worth or not. Turning back to Samara she said, "A place like this would have records. My… Special assistant will see that all entries made into the police systems from this warehouse for the next few days are copied, and moved onto my ship's drives. From there she will sift through them."

"As you say, Commander…" EDI sighed, "Working now."

"We can also provide transport to wherever this target is." Shepard added, "While you save thousands, we will track down this one. And regardless of the outcome of our mission, live or die, my people will see them dealt with."

"A worthy proposal…"

"And one I mean." Shepard nodded, kneeling beside the woman and meeting her gaze. "So. Are you in?"

"My Code dictates that I help where I am able, so long as it does not intervene in my standing mission." Samara nodded, offering her good hand to her. Shepard took it and felt the Biotics that flared along the Asari's arm and up Shepard's own. "From this day forward, by the code, I will serve you, Shepard. Your choices are my choices. Your morals are my morals. Your wishes, are my code."

The Asari released her and Shepard clenched and unclenched her hand, feeling the lingering electricity fade away from her as she did. Finally, she asked, "Is that it?"

"It is, yes." Samara nodded, "It is done. Though I should warn you, if you force me to sully myself over much, I will have to kill you when my oath is fulfilled and the Collectors are destroyed."

"You're welcome to try." Shepard chuckled, standing and sighing. Slowly, she turned to look out at Penny and added. "You might have to get in line, though…"

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"He wouldn't." Miranda told him for the fifteenth time. "Niket is a friend, Jacob. An old one. Older than you, even."

"So you trust him?" Jacob asked, looking up as the industrial lift came down, its wide frame exposed to open-air until it reached the safety-protected and reinforced lift door. Which was good - it let him check ahead for any mercenaries waiting to surprise them when they came down.

"If he told me it was safe, I'd put a gun to my head and pull." Miranda offered, rolling her shoulder and wincing until Jacob laid a hand on it.

"Same old?"

"Yeah…" She sighed, "Dislocated slightly when I ran that Pull."

"Mhm." He stepped in, pulling her flush against his front, and wrapped an arm around her sternum under her bust. He grabbed her bicep in his other hand, took a breath, and asked, "Ready?"

"Yes." She hissed as he lifted her up and used his Biotics to pull her arm out, dislocating it completely, and then reset it back in all in the same moment while he pulsed his Barrier through her, placing her in Stasis for the moment he needed, so that her muscles and ligaments wouldn't get caught in the shoulder joint as it came back in. She staggered forward when he released her, raising her hand and flexing it experimentally, and then chuckled. "You never did tell me where you learned to do that…"

"No?" He snorted, "Omega. Old Asari Commando taught me, on an op for Cerberus. One of my first, actually. Back when Cerberus was still Alliance."

"I thought you joined after?"

"I did." He answered as the elevator door finally hissed open. Stepping in, he explained, "When Cerberus cut ties and ran, I didn't. I stayed on, joined the Marines for a while. Like I told you. But later, I changed sides."

"Indecisive of you."

"Yeah, maybe." More like he was loyal - until you proved you weren't worth the loyalty. But he wouldn't argue with her. Instead, he hit the 'up' order on the elevator and turned back to the woman as she rolled her shoulder, checking for any bruising. "Now, Niket."

"Yes, I trust him." She sighed, "More than I do you. Or the Illusive Man. And that's not to deride either of you."

"I know." Miranda trusted him, too. He knew that. So he knew better than to think she'd insulted him in the first place. He smirked, though, and raised his Scimitar with a sigh. "Still good to what, though. Would hate to think I lost out to someone I never even met."

"Ah." Miranda's smirk turned wry, "Are we playing that game again?"

"Maybe, maybe not." He grinned. It was a dangerous, stupid game, to be sure.

But ah, the prize…

The elevator dinged to a stop and Miranda's hand snapped up, overriding and locking the door for a moment to flare her Barrier and draw her Carnifex. She turned to him with a raised brow and he slid to the side of the door, bracing in what little cover he could find between the locking mechanism and the wall with the controls. It wasn't much, barely enough to hide him, but even that blocked out a bit of the radius in front of him. Which, for all he knew, could be the difference between catching a rocket with his chest from a Heavy or just catching the afterburn and some heat.

The door opened and Jacob stepped around and out of his slim cover, expecting rounds coming in as he reached out to Pull a crate by the elevator over and in front of him for cover while Miranda did the same, pulling a bundled pair screeching across the floor to stand behind while he squatted down. But…

No one fired.

Instead, a quiet, nervous voice asked, "Miri?"

"Niket?" Miranda returned, stepping out of cover and sounding… Less than enthused.

Jacob stood to join her, Scimitar at the ready, and understood why fairly quickly.

The man was young enough, around Miranda's age more or less, which fit his assumptions. What did wasn't his state.

He was uninjured and clean, dressed in a simple pair of pants and a leather-topped vest common in fashion from the Terminus systems. And parts of Earth, too. He was wearing gloves, but they didn't cover his wrists, which were unblemished. No signs of restraint. And there was an Eclipse Captain, Captain Enyala from what the Engineer had said before, standing beside him with a heavily modified, seemingly Krogan, shotgun draped across her front. It was big enough to almost hide her entire lithe body behind and, when the Asari dock attendant behind the two of them tried to run from the obviously approaching firefight, a single shot ripped her in two in a violent, violet spray or blood and viscera.

So, not a great thing to see…

Miranda ignored the dead woman, though, focused entirely on the man in front of her. "Niket… I don't understand."

"What's to understand?" The Asari grunted, "He's helping me get my boss' little girl back home. Ain't that sweet of him?"

"You're lying! He wouldn't-" Miranda shook the shock out of her voice and ignored the Asari, turning back to the man and snapping lowly. Almost flaty. But with the barest hint of emotion that anyone who knew her would be able to pick up on. "Why, Niket? Why would you do that? You helped us escape my father!"

"I helped you escape, Miri!" He countered, "You! If I'd known you'd stolen a baby-"

"Rescued." Miranda snapped sharply, Carnifex snapping up to level on the man on pure, angry instinct. She flinched slightly at it, looked at the gun, then back to him and grimaced. She didn't lower the gun, though. "I rescued her. I didn't steal her."

"Did she ask you to do that?"

"She was a baby!"

"Exactly!" Niket snapped, pointing at Miranda and going on, "A baby! A baby you snatched away from a life of wealth and plenty! I understood you wanted out, that was your choice, so I helped you. But Oriana? She never got that option. You stole that from her. And lied to me!"

The man was obviously set in his opinion, now. Jacob could see it. He wouldn't change his mind…

"I see…" Miranda murmured, eyes hardening as the Carnifex dipped slightly. She shook her head and sighed, "Niket… He'll just use her, like me. We were never anything more than tools to him. Dynasty. Beautiful women to be handed out for prestige. To secure his name. His line. You knew that… Why would you tell him where Oriana was?"

"I… Haven't, yet." He sighed quietly. Miranda's brows furrowed and he explained, quietly, "I helped you, remember? I know you work for… Who you work for. And I know they have spies with your father. Bugs in his software. "

"So you never…"

"He knows I know." Niket shrugged, "But that's all. I told him that if he wanted her, I would do it my way. He hired the Eclipse here to work for me."

"With." Nyala sighed, "Not for. Now can we hurry up? I have things that need doing."

"We can." Miranda sighed, Carnifex snapping up fluidly to bore a round tinto the Asari's face.

Her head snapped back but her Barrier held, until three more rounds slammed into her shoulders and throat, and Jacob lashed out with a Throw that crushed her into one of the heavy industrial crates behind her. Finally, as her Barrier fell and she tried to pull herself free, Miranda put a final round through the woman's face, detonating it in a splash of brilliant violet. She staggered forward regardless, leg muscles spasming as she tumbled to the side, and Jacob swept by.

Two more Asari, young and with frail Barriers caught off guard by the sudden violence, collapsed as Jacob reached out and Pulled a wall's worth of heavy, full crates down on them and a Heavy behind them. A Salarian Engineer on the far side sprinted for cover before another crate slammed into his back, propelled at lethal speeds by Miranda's Biotic.

Suddenly, with a dull 'whump' and a static discharge, an Asari Vanguard slammed into Jacob and hurled him back against the wall beside the elevator. The woman snapped her arms up and wrenched crates overhead from behind her and down towards him. Jacob snarled and ignored his bruised ribs, leaping forward and rolled under the attack. As his back hit the floor and he slid, he shouldered the Scimitar and brought it to bear on the exposed Asari whose Barrier, discharged by the Charge, had only just started to come back.

One shot sent what little it was of it flickering away, and drove her back a step.

The next ripped her arm off at the shoulder, and she collapsed with a scream, clutching at it while he rose.

The last, a Human woman in light Eclipse armour, flew high as Miranda pulled her and then Threw her. Jacob watched her slam into the ceiling and fall, limp and broken and trailing crimson.

Finally, in the silence that followed, Niket stumbled up from the ball he'd curled into on the floor and looked around in shock. "You… All of them? They were an elite command unit… W-What are you people?"

Miranda laid a hand on his shoulder to turn him around and smiled as she pulled him into a warm embrace. Jacob knew what was coming and turned away as she said, "Were soldiers. We do what we have to-"

"What-"

Jacob heard the crunch of his bones, and then the thump of his body clattering to the deck. He turned around and sighed as Miranda turned to meet him, standing over the broken backed corpse. Her eyes were dull and hard, now, in that way he'd grown used to over the years. The way that told him not to press her. He cocked his head to ask if she was alright and she grimaced and turned, headed for the far door.

Outside it was a wide, open area thronged by so many people that their chatter had drowned out even the gunfire and Biotic discharges.

That, or the walls were soundproofed.

"Where is she?" Jacob asked, collapsing his shotgun and holstering it as Miranda did the same.

"There." Miranda said, pointing a long finger at a beautiful young woman standing at a fountain and talking to what had to be her parents. Miranda sighed, then, and murmured, "And she's safe… And happy."

"Mhm." Jacob nodded, "You should go talk to her."

"Why?" Miranda asked, "She's happy. She… Doesn't need to know about me. About all of… All of this mess."

"Yes, she does." Jacob countered, turning to the woman and grimacing when he saw the ice form in her eyes. Holding up his hands in a gesture of peace he explained. "Look, Miranda, she deserves to know. And needs to, too. What happens next time someone comes for her? She should know what to expect. Know to call you, or someone, before your father disappears her."

"I suppose…" Miranda sighed, "I just… Don't know."

"You don't have to tell her everything." Jacob pressed gently, "Just enough to know to be careful. And to know she has a beautiful, badass sister out there she can count on if she needs to. Yeah?"

"Yeah…" Miranda sighed, then her voice hardened and she said, "Yes. Yes, that will work just fine. Just… Wait here for me?"

"Nah." Jacob snorted, then grinned when she turned to him, brows furrowed. "I'm gonna hit the concessions over by booking. Biotics work up a hell of an appetite."

"Ah." She smirked, "Get some for me?"

"Yeah." He smiled, "I know your order. You can pay me back later."

She smiled, glanced away, and then flicked him another look that was a bit more… Knowing before she nodded and turned away. Sighing and taking a deep breath, she broke away from him, and moved off towards her sister.

Jacob sighed, too, and turned to leave, "Finally. Some nachos sound perfect right about now…"

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Hope yall like this. It's not back in rotation, not really, but it's been so long I was craving it a bit. Had most of this scene drafted months ago. Requester fell on rougher times, but eh, figured I'd just do one anyways. Call it an IOU for later, lol.

Anyway, hope you enjoyed, have a good night.

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Captaindickscratcher :

Samara is INCREDIBLY powerful. Though I'd say some, like Spectre Vasir are stronger. Regardless, here she lost because her enemy was doping. Not because she was weaker or less skilled.

And no worries, I am more than comfortable working outside the game's logic to do stuff. SOME things, though, like recruitment, just have to happen. But, as seen, I'm even tweaking that. And Loyalty missions, ala Shepard sending people to get Thane and do Miri's mission.

Dr Killinger :

Both are technically accurate terms. Just depends on what you prefer.

Simply Christian :

The Red Sand tweaks I made are my own invention. However, its potency is mostly canon. I merely tweaked it up a few points, for impact. To make it more potent and more useful, explaining why so many would break so many laws to get it. It makes you IMMENSELY powerful. But carries a LOT of risks.

Samara lost due to these tweaks, for a lot of it. Though this mercenary isn't third or second rate. She's a major syndicate leader operating on a major Eclipse world. She'd be a BAD bitch. And she was.

My Infiltrator tends to die, when she's juicing in-game and I'm not cloaked, lol.

Dusel :

All great ideas! I do plan to expand on their religion more as time progresses. Likely after the ME2 arcs. When they have downtime between ME2 and 3.