|20|
"I'd prefer a bottle of moonshine." More pads stuck to her scalp…Braith glanced at her reflection in the light glass surface above her as she lay on the table. "This is a little déjà-vu for me, Kaidan," she was talking to him while the neurologists and other doctors hummed about her, making small ticks of noise and pushing off carts for further tools.
"They're trying to help, Shepard," he squeezed her hand, looking down at her from beside the table.
"I feel like it's getting stronger, Kaidan….Ever since you brought me here, I feel like something's trying to get out," she blinked up at him, trying to hold back a twinge of fear, "…I just want to drink…Or maybe more of the stuff you've been giving me….I don't want all this…."
She squeezed her opposite hand into a fist, the tremors coming on….Kaidan sensed it and let go.
"Give us a sign when you feel the input's too much—we're going to help you control it, Shep…" He backed away, face placid and hiding what he really thought, "…Everyone's going to go back behind the wall again, okay, Shep?"
She stared at her reflection, closed her eyes as the quaking grew, and started into the next convulsions—but this time as unlike before the lights in the room grew brighter—just as the door sealed behind the last doctor, she arched, jerking against restraints on her arms and limbs as her body contorted and started to glow—Casnar, she thought desperately, remembering how he held her in his arms after her last episode with him, ….How could you….
The room brightened through the glass as they watched, and Braith with her surroundings were swallowed in the glow.
"That was a long time ago," Kasumi chuckled, shaking her head as she recalled their missions, then glanced at Miranda piloting the shuttle through space.
"Yes," Miranda said, "…And not long enough….I'll never forget those missions—they were all grueling and that's saying something."
"I'm trying to sleep back here," Casnar growled, "….Would you two keep it down?"
"You need a pillow, Casnar, or a warm body," Kasumi offered with a flirtatious smile, and Casnar rolled, giving her his back.
"Garm would have been better than even this," he continued to mutter into the corner of his bench pads and the bulkhead before the engine space, "…This is torture."
"How does claiming a woman work," Kasumi asked after a pause observing the obstinate golden crests facing her, and she glanced at Miranda under her forearm, which was poised over the top of her headrest. "I always wanted to ask Thane," she said under her breath to Miranda, "…But I think he knew what I was going to ask him every time I got the question in my head—and the look he got on his face…." She shook her head, black hair swaying as she'd removed her hood.
"I know the look," Miranda murmured under her breath back, then raised her voice, "…Hey, Casnar….How does a drell claim a human woman…Is it some sort of ritual?"
"Keep your dirty, violating questions to yourselves," came the caustic reply.
"Does he have any siblings?"
"One too many for certain siring fathers, and one too short—"
"That's more than you need to be wise about for her, Lawson," Casnar stood and began to cross the shuttle when the emergency signal started beeping—Miranda told everyone to brace for a storm—
"Sit your asses down!" The lights flicked out and Casnar felt nothing under his feet as he went into the air, jarred himself against something hard and blacked out.
Outside, a great wave of light rippled slowly away, leaving the shuttle to drift and spin suddenly, fast, and unstopping….A great planet sat below the shuttle, and the lights throughout it glowed bright, pulling everything close to it into its well of gravity.
"The ladies were unconscious with this one when we found them."
"Two humans, one drell…What should we do with them?"
"Let them expire, take the shuttle, tell the others they can do what they want with the payload…Must have been robbing someone to have the gear in the back they did…The cape on the female is cloaktech…Take it when you strip them."
"I don't know," one of the voices was puzzled, "…These don't look like run of the mill thieves…Look at what she's wearing, and this guy's too big to be a thief—he looks kind of official with the clothes he's got on…And I don't think some low-class thief like this lady's going to have a bodysuit like that…Maybe they're spies."
"Have you two searched any of them yet? Why don't you do that first before the Alliance gets here."
"I get the girls—you strip that one."
At the first tug of his boot, Casnar's eyes slid open and he reached for the hand pulling off his shoewear—the man jumped back, took out a knife and fell on him, Casnar grunting with the sudden weight….He pushed the body off, sliding out with a slick knife in his fist and turned towards the others standing over Miranda and Kasumi. There were two immediately before him, but beyond them through the shuttle entrance was a dock snatch that opened further into a wider bay—he could see he was well outnumbered….
"I have a grenade…I don't mind using it if it means saving us from what you have in store," he glanced from face to face, "…What are you?" They were wearing human clothes, but the heads were slightly misshapen from human skulls….The more he had time to look at their perplexed expressions, the more he realized they were not human, nor batarian, nor drell…The skins were pale on some like bleached seashell, others were gray and a fine tone at that, while more had bluish tinges, and the texture appeared soft and organic.
One came forward from the back and pushed his way between the pair in front of Casnar, he looked down at the body on the floor, then back at him, "…You killed this one, so you come out first."
He held up his knife and the grenade he withdrew from his waist, "…I wonder if you know what this is….You speak well enough and I think you understand me—we're not bounty or bodies to be scavenged, so unless you clear out of my shuttle and leave them alone, I'll be perfectly fine with making this little toy go off with a loud bang….Likely you know what a space vacuum is."
"Wait—wait, Sieis!"
The sound of something smaller than the alien in front of him pushed through and clung to his clothes, pulling the alien's attention downward to a blue-eyed woman with dirty-blond hair in a braid, almost brown, "…Catherine, this one killed Mourele, and I will challenge him for vengeance of Mourele's honor."
"No, no, Sieis, you can't do that—he might have been protecting himself and….And these women—Sieis, let me talk to him—Mourele will have to wait, take him out, please!"
The one named Sieis looked warily at Casnar—he had blue and navy irises mixed together in each eye, and a blue blush to the prominences coming out the side, top, and back of his square but long skull. Casnar noticed Mourele was not a man, but like the ones carrying out his body, and he knelt by Miranda and Kasumi once the woman called Catherine by the Sieis creature had cleared everyone out of the shuttle and dock snatch, she turning to look at Casnar checking the bumps to each woman's head.
"I can help—I'm no medic but I'm kind of used to this field….I'm a science bio freak if that's any comfort…." She smiled gently, not showing any teeth, and Casnar looked from Miranda's cut brow to the woman crouching down to them. "Mild contusions to the face, likely concussion somewhere, roll her head in line with her spine and we'll lift this shoulder, keep the arm there with her rib cage, that's….She needs some stitches in the back," she looked up at Casnar, "…I can treat her if you're comfortable with trusting a stranger not from this galaxy…Not for until recently, to be correct," she lost the smile and gave him an inquiring expression….The alien named Sieis returned and growled. Glancing over her shoulder, she wearing some special uniform that was dirty and underneath the wear of stains seemed to carry a logo, "…Sieis, please, if you had waited for me, perhaps Mourele would still be alive—"
"He is still breathing," the blue-tinged one said, and Sieis looked squarely at Casnar, the hint of mistrust in his unique eyes, "…What is Catherine doing with these ones."
"They need medical attention," she looked to the Asian woman on the floor of the shuttle, also bruised and cut from what extraordinary event had sent their shuttle spinning, and Casnar didn't move as Catherine went to see Kasumi, mainly due to the fact that Sieis had in his grip a very curious ring with a handle around which his broad knuckles rowed, and it glowed with a blue-purple halo fuzzing around it. On closer inspection of the aliens beyond the dock snatch in the bay, the ones he had encountered inside the shuttle were small in comparison—the others were big as krogans and th'anes. Sieis was small in comparison to the taller ones out back, but larger than those Casnar had met first, and he stood over the woman like a protective beast.
Catherine glanced at Casnar, who was puzzling over what he was encountering for the first time in his days, "…They're banton, and we're from Faultoth in Culmina Secta. I happen to be a human…Which I can presume you are comfortable with since you were found with two you seem to be connected to?"
"Where are we?" Casnar asked, and Sieis thrummed, turning his large eyes towards Catherine.
"We're in Grim Reaper….Aboard the space city we've all come to know as Lothiraxl…And it's a strange place, I'll tell you….Clouds….I can't remember how long we've been here officially, but it's been at least ten years since we were moved, and we escaped, now we just sort of…Survive in this place… So I hope you'll find it in your heart if you have one or two," she smiled, "…Sorry, bad xeno joke, but I hope you'll forgive them, they're forced to scavenge down here…Me too. We do need to move soon, the Alliance will likely have sent a drone to investigate this docking device we've managed to alter for drawing in your shuttle…"
"You're human," Casnar stared at her, "…Why don't you just go to the Alliance—they're human as well," but she shook her head, the delicate face wrinkling with consternation.
"I am part of another system—the Assembly, which was dissolved from any records long ago…I am to the Alliance some type of rebel or spy, and they have killed some of my friends here, Sieis's friends and family. And it was the Alliance which captured us first and brought us here. Will you make a decision now for you and your friends," she turned her eyes to him, glancing firm and stern at Sieis, "…Will you trust us to move them some place safer and you? You should have a lookover as well…You have a big bump on the top of your head, and I know it's not normal."
"Might as well," Casnar felt the top of his skull and grimaced as his hand came down to his face with blood and venom, "…Ouch."
They scuttled the shuttle…Kasumi and Miranda were carried with surprising gentleness and care once Catherine instructed Sieis with what to do, and he disseminated the order of her wishes to the other bantons—they bore the women unconscious in the cradle of arms as thick as krogans' and went through the dock snatch into the bay, beyond that into a tunnel made of silver tiles and lit with faint lights at intervals, and behind them, a wall was moved up into place to make it appear as if no one had entered and no one had left the bay outside….But through a grate in the corners of the wall, Catherine and Sieis watched as the others went down the tunnel bearing Kasumi, Miranda, and the shuttle's cache of belongings. Casnar was motioned by Catherine down to join them and allowed to look outside into the bay….He saw a door slide open to the left of the dock snatch and in floated something out of a nightmare—it was a mechanical arm with a weapon attached to it that appeared as a laser, the only thing being normal about it the machinery, but atop it was a head and it cast a ghoulish glare about the bay, searching for signs of disturbance and focusing on the door of the dock snatch….It passed a scan over the frame, where blood must have been left behind by Mourele's body as it had been carried out.
Catherine looked at Casnar and placed a finger to her lips—he must have had the expression he was about to ask what it was they were looking at….The mechanical arm turned in the air, the head gazing left and right, and Sieis crouched closer to Catherine with his weapon behind his back….For some tense minutes, they waited until the machine turned, the door slid open, and out it floated. Nodding to the others, Catherine led Sieis and Casnar back towards the tunnel where the group had gone.
"What was that thing—Alliance?"
"They are sentries…They work together with the Alliance to patrol the city, and then the city is broken up into different levels so the sentries are different on each…That one has been less difficult to evade than the others….Some you cannot even see," Catherine said with a softening whisper.
