So, Kadara. There was a lot to unpack surrounding what was supposed to be a mission that was a quick in and out.
Liam made a scene before he departed to Elaaden with Avitus Rix and Peebee. Something about Sara needing space and how he forgave her. Sara, for her part, stood flabbergasted as he made one loud declaration after another in front of the entire crew before dragging her into a final, sweaty embrace and then blessedly leaving.
Sara gave Avitus permission to use their all terrain nomad while on his mission. In truth, she didn't forsee herself needing to wander far beyond the port of Kadara and the move seemed like a show of good faith. Elaaden appeared to be a desert wasteland entirely deserving of the name, "New Tuchanka," and Avitus wasn't going to get far if she left them all stranded in a barren spaceport. She hadn't anticipated the move sending her engineer into a tizzy, but given his constant antagonism toward her pilot, she silently considered it a twofer.
Cora also did not like it. That was why Sara only thought to mention it once they'd left Elaaden.
"Got any more priceless equipment you feel like just handing out?" her second snarled as she followed Sara into the meeting room.
"I loaned it to an ally whose in the company of our crew." Sara could feel herself scowling and hoped it was marginally better than rolling her eyes. "I figured it was better than letting it rust at the dock until someone on Kadara tried to steal it."
"You didn't figure that we'd need it on Kadara?"
"Did you look at the specs?" Sara waved a hand at the vidcon screen in the center of the table. "Outside of the port city and its purification system, there's no drinking water, nothing viable. It's a wasteland."
There it was, finally. An ugly look from Cora's perfect face. "Did I look at the specs? Of course I looked at the specs- it's why I'm concerned! Where do you think they toss problem people on Kadara? Out in that wasteland. Where do you think your monoliths and vault might be? Out in that wasteland!"
"Okay, but Kadara's vault isn't our main priority," Sara said slowly.
"You are the Pathfinder, yes it is."
"I do more than vaults!" Sara insisted.
Cora only raised a single brow at her.
"Was I just supposed to dump Avitus on Elaaden with nothing?" Sara asked.
Cora sighed and shook her head. "Avitus should have requested to utilize his own ship with his own nomad."
"Yeah and get tangled in months of red tape created intentionally by bureaucrats too scared to risk anything," Sara muttered as she slumped into her chair.
"Probably," Cora agreed. She sat down next to Sara. "We have proven to be the one successful team on Andromeda so far. But we're still a skeleton crew. It's not wise to stretch us even thinner."
Sara shrugged. "We'll continue to be the only successful team if we don't provide others with the tools to be successful."
"That's a pretty story, but you know it's more complicated than that." Cora swiped at her fringe. "What we need are baby steps and what you took was a leap of faith."
Considering that Avitus Rix clawed his own way out of a stasis pod and survived for however long on Havarl, Sara felt her faith was justified. But! Was it really worth the argument? The slight pulse rapidly flickering behind her left eyelid said no. Sara reached forward and turned on the vidscreen. "Let's see what Evfra has to say about Kadara."
Evfra was terse as ever. Kadara Port was under the control of Milky Way exiles, notably the former chief of security Sloane Kelly. Sara was to go into the port side bar, Kralla's Song, and meet a Resistance contact called Shena. He cut the feed before Sara even had time to blink.
"Guess that means he trusts me," she grumbled to Cora.
Kadara was exactly what everyone made it out to be. A single, dirty port on a questionable planet. Sara should have been wary of it, should have disliked it, but she loved it. It had a magnetic charm to it, with all its grimy lawlessness.
The reason for the single port with almost no expansion was the water. Or, lack of water, rather. Kadara Port was the owner of an ancient angaran aqueduct and filtration system that could only support as much as could fit within the walls. That cemented Sara's opinion on extended travel and nomad rides.
As soon as Sara's boots touched the planet's surface, she smelled ship exhaust almost as quickly as she inhaled the pervasive reek of sulphur. It made the issue with the water all the clearer. The sulphur lakes were pretty, their bright purple waves glinting under a noon day sun, but drinking from them was out. They were only useful if someone planned to dissolve a rival's corpse- and who could possibly utilize that feature on a planet of outlaws?
Sara smirked. Surrounded by the constant odor of rotten eggs made her way less conscious about ripping farts. It was a shame Peebee was on Elaaden and unable to share in this revelatory humor.
Cora was cheesed up about dock "protection" fees, so Sara left her there with Jaal to argue it out with the burly dock worker. Vetra and Drack predictably vanished. As Sara meandered through the main gates and what was set up as a market, the number of scavenged and retrofitted pieces of Initiative labeled equipment was not lost on her. Tann would shit furious bricks of rage if he ever saw any of this. She tried her best not to snicker about it and quickly put a wide berth between herself and a group of armed humans and krogan currently kicking the ever loving hell out of someone in broad daylight. Whatever signs above shops were happenstance and she suddenly didn't feel much like asking for directions. She knew Kralla's was by the docks and she could hear obnoxiously loud music drifting up from a ramp that led to a door, so Sara followed the sounds and hoped for the best.
She wasn't disappointed. An asari bartender threatening a krogan with a knife over the tab told her she was in the right place. All Sara needed now was for Scott to storm in and drag her out of there and it would be college all over again. She coughed the memory away and did her best performance of casual as she leaned against the bar.
The bartender rolled her eyes and walked in the opposite direction. Fantastic service at Kralla's.
It didn't stop the drinks from coming her way. "You look like you're waiting for someone." A basic icebreaker, but somehow tall, dark and smarmy had obtained two beers from the bartender so he had her attention.
Sara smirked and accepted the beverage. "Maybe. Think I'll find him at the bottom of this?"
It wasn't Liam's diluted IPA, but that didn't mean it was necessarily better. Turns out they had begun to distill their own beer at Kralla's full of all that Kadara flavor. It truly was desperate times. Sara winced at the first gulp and couldn't help but to try another. Her new friend was a gentleman and waited patiently for her to stop grimacing.
"Look," Sara said. "Not that this isn't nice, but-"
"Shena," he said quickly. "But you can call me Reyes. I hate code names."
Reyes offered her a hand and when she took it, the handshake was loose and casual. An outdated formality that didn't suit either of them. Sara decided to address the elephant in the room as she raked her eyes across the dark haired, dark eyed man. "I was expecting someone more... angaran."
That got a laugh out of him, so at least he wasn't offended. "The Resistance pays me to supply information- among other things."
"So you're a smuggler." If smuggling and laws even mattered. Sara needed to stop thinking in terms of laws and structures set up in the Milky Way. Maybe Reyes was one of the back channels Vetra was talking about.
He only smirked and nodded away from the bar and toward the large, open window that overlooked the docks. "Your man, Vehn Terev, was arrested by Sloane Kelly, leader of the Outcasts. Word spread about what he did to Moshae Sjefa."
Reyes leaned forward and rested his arms on the windowsill. He was way better at his act than Sara and could have believably been watching all the dock workers unload freight below as he continued to talk. "The people are calling for his execution. And Sloane?" there was that cynical laugh again, "She's a woman of the people!"
"I like her already," Sara declared as she made a spot for herself beside him at the window.
"Well, she doesn't like you." That was a look.
"She's never met me." And with that, Sara spoiled the mood. It was hard to be cool when she was being told she was hated by default, but she longed for the day that her reaction was justified anger or indignance instead of petulance.
Reyes shrugged it off. "Your work for the Initiative," he explained. "Sloane was part of the uprising on the Nexus. I doubt she'll give Vehn up easily."
"I'm taking him." And there was that petulance, again. "With or without her permission."
"We're going to be friends, you and I." He broke into a genuine smile as he nudged her shoulder with his own. Elbow to elbow and grinning, Reyes went from nondescript to almost handsome. His eyes weren't as dark as she previously noted, they were hazel, with tiny flecks of green and gold. "There might be another way to get to Vehn. You work Sloane, I'll talk to the Resistance."
He pushed off from the window and trotted toward the exit as if he had to run down his idea before it evaded him.
"How do I contact you if things go south?" Sara called after him.
Reyes didn't stop his departure. He just glanced over his shoulder and offered a single, silent wink as he left. She realized then and there even after he stuck her with the bar tab, that atop the criteria provided by the Resistance, she just added, "bed Reyes Vidal" to her own personal objectives.