She was wrong about Cora. Sara had thought it would be more of the same and was prepping for exasperated sighs and concerned lectures. However, somewhere between loaning out the nomad and blowing off her comm call, Cora's veneer of pleasant and helpful condescension had splintered away to reveal something uglier.

Not too ugly. It was Cora Harper, after all, and she had a knack for making even deeply buried frustrations sound almost charming. Maybe it was that slow, lilting spacer drawl of hers.

"We got what we came for, now we need to leave," Cora announced like it was decided.

"We don't need to do anything until we know where the Archon's ship is," Sara replied. "Might as well make myself useful while we wait."

"Useful would be reactivating a vault, which we can't do without a nomad to traverse the planet." Cora's hair whipped against her face as she paced around Sara's chair. "Useful would be following any lead on the multiple missing arks. Useful is not involving yourself in the shenanigans of a bunch of Nexus deserters while a gang war is brewing!"

"How useful is reactivating a planet's vault when it's run by people who hate the Nexus?" Sara wanted know.

That stopped Cora in her tracks. "You'd be willing to condemn an entire planet and all its resources, just because the current inhabitants don't like the Initiative?"

"Maybe." So, Sara was back to being petulant. How was it that even when she sat at the head of the table, Cora managed to talk down to her like she was a naughty child? Sara flopped her head back and groaned. "No. I am trying to make a name for myself and garner local support. I need to do more than activate vaults."

"There are easier ways to do that right now," Cora insisted.

"Like snapping my fingers and having an ark magically appear?"

"Like getting our nomad back for one," Cora snapped. "Get off this planet with our ship intact before someone chops it up to sell piece by piece. We shouldn't entertain Kadara until we have the resources to safely secure the planet."

"You mean by force?" Sara clarified.

The lieutenant nodded, a glint in her amber eyes. "If necessary."

Cora's little war games made sense, theoretically. It was all tried and true and safe. The issue was that Sara had SAM crunching numbers and offering variables that she never would have considered months ago. "But it's not necessary," Sara said. "It's just the opposite. Between jettisoned civilian pods from the turian ark and blasted asari rescue transports, we're rapidly losing numbers to support viability. I don't like Tann. We don't have to like these people here, but we can't afford to shoot them all, either."

Cora broke her glare with a frustrated puff of air through her nose. "Tann's not that bad once you know how to talk to him," she muttered. "Okay. Let's just be quick about it."

"Not we." Sara pushed herself out of her chair. "You have a point about Kadara. I need you here to make sure the Tempest is in one piece and still ours when I get back."

Cora blinked. "That's... surprisingly sensible."

"Thank you."

And speaking of sensible, Sara grudgingly decided it would probably be smart to leave someone as intimidating as Drack back with Cora, just in case. That left only Jaal and Vetra to accompany her. If they felt like coming along.

Since they'd docked, Jaal had kept mostly out of sight. Sara found him in the tech lab surrounded by the numerous pieces of his disassembled rifle. She hovered in the doorway, unsure of where to safely step.

"I'm not interrupting am I?" she asked.

"Yes." Jaal didn't spare her a glance as he continued doing whatever it was that he was doing. "But I don't mind. What do you need?"

"I, uh-" Sara put one foot into the room and nudged some ammo casing with her toe. "What are you doing?"

Jaal held up the body of his rifle. "This? Some upgrades. And this?" He gestured to the mess of parts caging him inside the room and snorted. "One thing led to another and I got carried away. I like to tinker. It's soothing. It helps me think."

"I see." She couldn't take another step without tripping on something, so she crossed her arms, instead. "Think you want to come planetside and help me with a project?"

"On Kadara? Not particularly." That was unexpected. Jaal must have realized it needed an explanation, because after a long, uncomfortable moment of Sara standing slackjawed, he added, "My family is well renown. I myself am a fairly well known member of the Resistance. Do I think any of the angara here will deliberately try to cause us problems on account of me? No, but I also don't wish to openly invite it."

Seeing as how they were already openly Initiative on an exile run planet, she couldn't help but think they perhaps had preemptively blown any chance at subtlety and Jaal was being a tad bit dramatic. "It has to do with Roekaar in Kadara Port," Sara said.

"Roekaar?" His nostrils flared and he began to quickly reassemble his rifle with fluid, thoughtless movements of his hands. "Okay. Yes."

With that settled, Sara collected Vetra from the docks where she was cargo watching and they were on their way. The navpoint Reyes had sent was one of the many makeshift "box homes" of the slums. These were civilized times, so the door opened easy and they didn't have to worry about anything like surveillance or police tape cordoning off the crime scene.

It was a mess. To be honest, Sara was more shocked that scavengers hadn't plundered it, yet. Then again, maybe they had, as SAM detected multiple sets of footprints tracked throughout the dwelling. Past the footprints and beyond a discarded hunting knife, there was the clutter of struggle and the corpse of a krogan victim abandoned where he fell.

Vetra kneeled down to take a peek at the body. "They pried off his frontal plate," she murmured. "Poor bastard."

Sara shuddered. "Zear. His name was Zear." She opened a comm channel on her omni tool. "Reyes? We're here."

He answered immediately. "Great. Do your scanning thing. See what you can find."

"A lot of footprints," she told him. "And a knife. Killer must have dropped it during the getaway."

Jaal walked over and plucked the weapon from the ground. He tested the weight of it in his hand and took a practice swing in the air. Satisfied, he examined it, passing it back and forth between his hands, before he held it out to Sara.

"It has a saying carved into the blade," Jaal said. "A home filled with strangers becomes a prison."

"Quaint."

"It's a quote from the Roekaar's leader, Akksul," he explained.

"We still don't know if it was Roekaar," Vetra said as she stood. "An exile could have stolen the blade."

"It's a start." Reyes sounded excited. "What about the footprints?"

"They look angaran," Sara murmured as she followed one set, the light of her omni tool casting everything in a crimson glow. "There's at least three unique sets, like an ambush."

"It fits the Roekaar profile." Jaal was already looking out the door of the dwelling, ready to leave.

"We need hard evidence," Reyes insisted.

"How about angaran blood?" Sara asked. She swiped a finger along some splatter and immediately regretted it. Blue blood tinted purple beneath the light definitely wasn't from the krogan. Krogan didn't bleed blue. She rubbed her finger clean on a pant leg and turned back to her comm. "That, along with the knife and footprints sounds pretty damning."

It was enough for Reyes. "Great! Let's pay our local Roekaar a visit."

"You know where they are?"

"I wasn't sitting on my ass this whole time. I'm looking at the place right now."

Wow. It was a sad reflection of the life Sara led that someone else contributing came as a welcome surprise. She grinned. "Guess it's my turn to be impressed with you."

Reyes laughed over the radio. "Ryder, really! Set your bar a little higher."

"Why?" she asked. "Not in the mood to limbo? I'm very happy down here in the gutter. Send me the coordinates and we can stare at it together."

Though confident enough to murder in broad daylight, the Roekaar apparently weren't yet bold enough to set up a base within the walls of Kadara Port. There was a warehouse complex just outside the town. Not exactly inconspicuous, but Sara supposed they didn't need to be when they were located in a place called the Badlands.

"You know, I hate to be the one to say it," Vetra huffed once they'd left the gate at the slums behind them. "But maybe Cora had a point about the nomad."

"Not another word," Sara breathed back, attempting to keep her pace at a steady jog.

Jaal seemed to be handling their excursion the best with his exhalations at a steady in and out. Then again, he hadn't been particularly chatty since he recognized the script on the dagger.

"I just hope this is worth it," Vetra continued. "How much do we know about this Reyes guy, anyway?"

Not a lot, but Sara had a pretty decent imagination. "He's Evfra's Resistance contact," she said. "I figure that makes his intel okay. Why?"

"I just don't want to accidentally support the Outcasts or Collective," Vetra replied. "I don't want to muck up any of my supply lines."

"I have a hunch that Roekaar will screw up all of your supply lines if they have their way."

"If it's Roekaar." Vetra stopped to catch her breath. "I hope you're right. But the exiles left the Initiative for a lot of different reasons and there are a lot of power plays happening on Kadara right now. Maybe try seeing where Reyes fits into all that before just blindly trusting him?"

"Okay fine." Sara brought up her omni tool and turned on the comm frequency. "Hey, Reyes? How'd you end up on Kadara?"

"Hmm?" His voice was muffled and distracted over the comm. "Is this your version of 'come here often?' Ryder, I'm flattered."

"Maybe I'm just bad at small talk and it's taking a while to get there on foot?" She shot a look to Vetra. "How big of a role did you have in the Nexus uprising?"

"I had nothing to do with that shit show," he laughed. "Tann's handling of things didn't exactly inspire confidence. Decided I was better on my own."

Vetra rolled her eyes, but Sara couldn't tell if it was in commiseration or at his vague statement. She shook her head at the turian and tried again. "So instead you have to deal with the Outcasts and Collective."

"The guns and shooting tend to be more straightforward," he agreed.

"But are you with either?" Sara asked. "Officially?"

"Officially, I support whoever can afford my fees," Reyes said. "But there's a reason the Collective exists. Not everyone is happy living under Sloane's thumb. Whatever resources Kadara has goes to the Outcasts and everyone else gets to fight over scraps."

"So you're in favor of the Collective?"

He made a noncommittal grunt. "Eh, they claim to be different, but it's hard to trust a faceless leader. 'Charlatan' is a much better nickname than 'Shena,' though."

"You know when I first heard it, I kind of assumed the Resistance contact would be female," Sara admitted. "How'd you end up with that codename anyhow?"

Jaal snorted, but said nothing.

"It's the angaran word for 'mouth,'" Reyes said. He cleared his throat. "I'm good with words."

"Among other things?" The question just fell from her lips before she had time to think and Sara was so relieved he didn't have any visual of her turning beet red.

"Never had a complaint!"

Apparently, that was funny enough for Jaal to laugh. Maybe Sara was better off not knowing what was lost in translation.

"I do enjoy our chats, Ryder, but I can see you and your friends coming over the ridge," Reyes said, his tone flipping seamlessly back to professional. "Time to be careful. I'll see you inside."

He cut the feed and left Sara to splutter at dead air. She turned to Vetra. "Well?"

"Is there something going on I should know about?" Vetra asked. "Between you and Reyes? You like him?"

"That wasn't what I was asking!" Sara grumbled. "You were the one questioning his motives."

"Yeah." Vetra smirked. "And now I'm questioning yours. Is he cute by human standards? Because he doesn't really do it for me."

"Oh my God..!"

For a base, the exterior looked pretty deserted. Still, it never hurt to be cautious. Sara gripped her pistol as she crept toward the door. "Think we should knock?" she snorted.

"Unless you think Reyes is going to hold the door for us," Vetra murmured.

"No," Jaal snapped. "The Roekaar want us all dead. Can we be serious, please?"

Sara sighed. "SAM? Can you see about that door?"

SAM obliged and the door opened to a dim and empty atrium. Sara shrugged and dropped her pistol as she walked through it. "Reyes? He should be here."

An interior door flew open and she stupidly anticipated it to be him. So instead of pointing her gun in the direction of all the Roekaar that flooded out to surround them, Sara instead treated them to a raised eyebrow and a giggle. Needless to say, they were not won over by her many charms.

"Were we too loud?" Sara asked.

"Shut up!"

"We were too loud," she told the others. It earned her a rifle butt to the jaw.

Was that going to be a thing, now? Kadara, land of sulfur springs and rifle butts to random unsuspecting body parts? Sara would need to invest in thicker armor if that was the case. Her teeth hurt.

"Farah will deal with you."

If "Farah" was supposed to be a name that instilled fear, it didn't register with Sara. She glanced to Jaal for any indication of recognition, but all she got from him was a slow bubbling frustration. Her momentary wonderings had one of her captors shoving her roughly toward the door that led deeper into the complex.

This particular branch of Roekaar was a small group. Along with the four that led them in, Sara caught a glimpse of another maybe four, all paired off and sparring with each other on mats. Aside from some crates of stolen weapons scattered throughout the rooms and a bare bones security feed, there was little else in the building.

The pistol prodding Sara's spine stopped when they reached a slender angaran woman with a bright blue complexion. The woman was perusing a datapad and was obviously perturbed by their interruption. Somehow, Sara doubted a simple, "Hey..." would win her over.

The woman tossed her datapad to the ground. "I don't need to tell you what happens next."

"You're going to try to kill me-"

"Try?" she scoffed. "You will bleed, just like the others."

Sara really had to get better at talking things out. Or get better at shooting people who weren't up for talking, one of the two. Maybe both. SAM was rapidly searching for cover behind crates and scaffolding for the imminent attack, but he didn't sound hopeful. There were four guns to their backs and their leader was confident enough that she was brandishing a dagger. Where was Reyes?Or was this all a deliberate set up? They were literally just talking over the comm! Sara still had her pistol, if she could just manage to make it to cover without being shot in the back...

Really, what stung the most was how she'd misread the entire situation. She didn't anticipate her most overwhelming emotion being annoyance. How much was it going to suck admitting that Cora and Vetra were right about trusting the people of Kadara?

Farah Whoever-the-Fuck didn't get far. A bullet to the arm sent her knife clattering across the floor. As Sara stood, blinking like an idiot at the Roekaar leader clutching her fresh wound, Reyes appeared suddenly and rushed to the group with his pistol drawn.

"Miss me?" Never had Sara been so happy to see someone wink.

She pulled out her own pistol as she shook her head at him. "You're late."

"I've got a good reason," he told her, his eyes never leaving the Roekaar circling around them. "You'll see in three..."

Farah waved her good arm. "Don't just stand there!"

"Two..."

"Kill them!"

The entire complex was rocked by multiple explosions. As Sara stumbled to catch her footing, the Roekaar training on mats were buried beneath a hail of rock and concrete. Suddenly, enemies previously at the offense were scrambling on their knees, and trying to make sense of the chaos. Only Reyes appeared completely at ease, as if everything was going according to plan, in spite of the walls crumbling around them.

"Still mad?" He did look good with flames in the background, and smudges of dirt and sweat decorating his brow. He emptied a clip into Farah's chest without hesitation.

"I'll let you make it up to me," Sara called over the crate she threw herself behind.

From where she sat crouched, she could see that Vetra had similar thoughts in regards to cover. Much too late, Sara realized that perhaps it wasn't the best tactical arrangement to have two snipers together and crammed into a tiny warehouse floor. Fortunately for them (and not so fortunately for the Roekaar,) Jaal left his rifle strapped to his back in favor of a hunting knife. Sara characteristically kept her head down until Reyes and Vetra put Jaal's victims out of their misery.

When the smoke from the firefight began to clear, Sara poked her head above the crate. Jaal was wiping his blade clean and Reyes was nudging a Roekaar with his boot as he casually looked for signs of life. He caught her gawking, so he walked over and pulled her to her feet.

"The streets of Kadara are safe again," Reyes drawled. "You did good, Ryder. Don't worry, I'll let all the important people know who to thank."

"We make a good team," she couldn't help but grin as said it.

Matched smile for smile, bullshit for bullshit, it almost made all the near death trauma sort of fun. Reyes grip on her hand was soft and warm. "Careful, I'll start thinking you like me."

"Would that be so bad?"

"Depends." He set her hand down and started walking away. "Don't be a stranger, Pathfinder."

And there he went, out through a hole he'd blown from the wall. All Sara could do was stand and stare at the absolute absurdity of it.

"You want to ask him for a ride?" Vetra asked.

Sara shook her head. "No. I think I need to walk this one off."

Her companions both disagreed with her, but thankfully kept their grumbling to a minimum. She tried not to trip over Farah's corpse on the way out.