Pop, Pop, Pop went the familiar sounds of gunfire as Thomas Larsen woke up. The distant rattle had become so routine in the lawless space station Omega that one could time their watch to it, and so he did. The gang war that had engulfed the neighboring district had gone on for weeks. From what he had gathered through gossip and eavesdropping - there was no way he was going there himself - tensions had flared between the local batarian gangs and an upstart krogan warlord. The district was now a maze of blasted, hole-ridden streets.
Larsen flicked his omni-tool on, its amber glow proving the room's only light as he checked the time. Just as it had for the past few weeks, the gunfire hit its peak at around 9 a.m. He wondered if the fighting would spread to his neighborhood and force him to move. He had a good sense when it came to avoiding danger, honed over the nearly two decades he had lived on the station.
Thomas sat up with a grunt and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. He looked around his flat, which was closer to an oversized closet. The clothes he owned were divided between those that were tossed haphazardly into the wardrobe in the corner and those that were scattered about in messy piles.
"Lights on!" he growled and after a brief flickering they lit up.
He would be the first to admit this place was a shithole, but, by God, it was his shithole. He knew every inch of it, from the window that gently whistled with the draft from the block's atmospheric processors, to the whines of the rusty vents and radiators that formed a sleepy lullabye when they weren't drowned out by the guns echoing in the streets. Stray cats occasionally congregated in fuzzy, mewling clusters on his window fire escape.
His block was a mainly human district. The numerous breeds of cats they brought had taken to reproducing on Omega and were now a widespread pest. The turians used them as target practice. The volus tried to groom them into pets to sell. Practically everyone, including humans, ate them. But their numbers only seemed to grow. Thomas had a relatively docile pack visit him every so often for treats and petting.
Peeling off the blanket and standing, the young man looked over towards his simple, drab clothes. Nobody drew attention to themselves on Omega unless they were damn sure they could handle whatever that attracted. Or had people to take care of that for them. It was one of the highest expressions of power on Omega to flaunt your appearance. It was a level of power Thomas came nowhere close to reaching. Not yet, anyways, he thought.
Still, he wanted to take some pride in his appearance. He settled on a pair of faded blue jeans, dark red shirt, and gray hoodie and before finally slipping into his crown jewels: the rich, brown leather shoes he had snagged from a flea market. The brownish-red of dried blood near the ankle just gave that perfect final touch of implied danger, not to mention that the shoes were tough and looked nice without looking too expensive. Perfect for him.
His stomach grumbled as he left his apartment, but he pushed that out of his mind as he took the stairs towards the ground level. He never put much thought at how both the stairs and the almost perpetually-defunct elevator descended another half-dozen levels. The verticality enforced by the millions of humans and aliens living on the rather small station was something that had always been a thing on Omega. No reason to question the arrangements that led to the station's population living either below or above dozens of other tiers of degraded, sprawling industry.
The ground level was the closest the apartment came to "prime real estate." Being near the apartment's entrance meant that anyone setting up a business would snag at least some of the occupants. Such was the situation with Mr. Amonsson and the Royal Cafe.
Amonsson's sand-colored skin bulged with veins and enough hard muscle that Thomas at first hesitated to believe that he was probably 50 years older than him. Amonsson's face was covered with a thick, black beard and his crooked nose produced an audible whistle when he breathed. His brown eyes were set deeply in his skull. Locals often quipped that Amonsson looked like the end result if a human and a krogan could reproduce. Nobody ever said it in his presence though. The man had a surly and cantankerous attitude to match his looks. He would invariably respond to anyone questioning his crude comments with a "Yeah? And?" before loudly cracking his knuckles. Invariably, they would go back to minding their own business.
Despite his demeanor, Amonsson kept good care of the Royal Cafe, churning out packaged pastries, freshly-cooked food and coffee, and generally setting a rather high standard of service for that part of the station. He also had a soft spot for Thomas.
Amonsson was brewing a pot of coffee when Thomas arrived. The various customers' eyes were either on their breakfast or gazing at a small vid screen broadcasting images of some krogan-invented bloodsport. That morning one particularly burly mountain of Tuchankan muscle was brandishing fabricated claws taped to his forearms and standing off against a trio of vorcha, all stripped bare and painted in yellow, green and blue paint. The sound from the on-screen fight was drowned out by another wave of distant gunfire.
"Wish those fucking xenos would have the good decency to kill each other at a reasonable time in the day. Some of us got fucking work to do," an older woman rasped. She took a drag off of a cigarette between her wrinkled fingers. Thomas tried to draw his eyes away from her provocative getup. He knew her, but only in the general sense. She was one of the many red-sand addicted prostitutes that walked the neighborhood.
"Tell me about it, but at least their loss is our gain. Though I admit, I'd like to throw a few rounds at the bastards myself sometime," a scar-faced man chimed in. He rested a mattock rifle between his legs as he picked at his eggs, but the anxiety of seeing a weapon in open view was nullified by the crude insignia scrawled across his combat suit. He was part of Hammond's Neighborhood Watch, the volunteer militia that patrolled the streets.
"Eh, some of 'em are all right. Volus mostly. Little guys don't pose much of a threat apart from ripping you off," Thomas chimed in.
The watchman to turned to him with a half-amused, half-outraged expression. "You fuckin' joking with me, kid? Volus are probably the fuckin' worst. Sure a batarian might be a mother-fucking piece of slaver shit, but at least they'll be honest with how much they hate ya. Same with the birds. They hate us and we hate 'em right back, simple as that. But fuckin' volus... they'll nickel and dime ya for every last credit, all the while trying to convince you they're your best-est friend in the galaxy. A bunch of shifty, bowling-ball looking pricks, s'all they are," the watchman declared, slapping his cup down for emphasis and prompting a grumbled consensus among the other patrons.
Thomas was about to respond, recalling the volus that had taken him, a red-sand orphaned 'vent rat,' in as an apprentice. Before he could, Amonsson slapped the side of the coffee machine with a broad, muscled hand. It produced a loud bang that quieted everyone.
"Too early for this. Watch the TV. Think a vorcha's about to kick the bucket," the burly man said, an air of finality in his voice. The watchman simply shrugged and looked up to the TV, where one of the vorcha, was, in fact, dead. The krogan had at some point hacked at the other alien's throat with such ferocity the head had nearly fallen off. The krogan was now using the body to paint the other two vorcha red with their fallen compatriot's blood in a display of almost cartoonish brutality. Thomas winced while the watchman sneered with disgust. The prostitute merely stared off into space.
"The usual, Tom?" Amonsson gruffly asked.
"Yes, sir," Thomas nodded. Amonsson had the distinction of being the only living person who Thomas referred to so formally. He just commanded that respect, a quality Thomas hoped that he could one day project himself.
Thomas blew on coffee before taking a tentative sip. The stuff was bitter, even with milk and sugar, and had a thickness to it that wasn't what he'd call rich. He stifled the displeasured groan he wanted to make, but still grumbled under his breath.
"Sorry, kid. You missed out on the good stuff. Only got the pre-packaged shit now," Amonsson announced.
Thomas shrugged. "It's fine, I'll just get up earlier next time. Thanks, sir." A few minutes later, he left with a freshly-wrapped sandwich clenched in his hand and entered Omega's cramped urban sprawl.
The gray, sterile hue of his building gave way to the orange-tinted aura that Omega's atmosphere provided. The oppressive luminescence was interrupted by the flickering neon lights of the markets, pawnshops, betting parlors and brothels along the way. Thomas went five steps before narrowly dodging someone rushing by. Instinctively, his hand went to his pockets. He relaxed when he determined nothing was missing. He had had experience in lightening pockets in his youth and knew how to avoid becoming a target, but it never hurt to check.
The footpaths gave way to the cavernous expanse of Omega's interior. Skycars and buses rushed to drop off workers in the industrial sectors located deeper in the station's guts. All were employed (or enslaved) by a smattering of work-bosses of all species. These workers maintained the station's vital functions or operated the forges, a hundred miniature cogs turning to make Omega function. Thomas' block was located close to one of the numerous shipping and trade ports, a towering spire that extended out from the station's central spine. All day, every day, dock workers hurried about the shipping yards, unloading massive freighters. Midway through the cavern's gaping maw there was a long, titanium rail. It was braced against the block's foundational superstructure. Segmented along it's kilometer-long length were small stations extending out from the side streets to join with the rail, comprising the stops along the monorail's route.
If Thomas weren't already hardwired to step aside from the monorail's opening doors, he would've been trampled by the humans and aliens that spilled forth. Finding a spot inside was just as challenging. This time he had found a space vacated due to an intoxicated batarian sprawled out over one of the benches. He had gotten violently sick and retched over a seat, filling the car with the acrid smell of half-digested varren skewers. Thomas picked a point as physically far from the batarian as possible and sat down, using the aroma from his sandwich to mask the stench of drying vomit.
Fortunately, he didn't need to travel far, and by the time the monorail had screeched to a halt at his stop he had finished his sandwich. He stepped off and casually flung the crumpled wrapper underneath the railway. He watched it flutter for a few moments before he stuffed his hands in his pockets and continued on.
He entered a former meatpacking district dubbed 'The Grinder' by the locals. It made Thomas' apartment look like a gated community on Elysium. It was one of the melting pot neighborhoods where the tensions between the various species were immediately obvious. The asari, batarian, turian and krogan inhabitants all argued that the other races took up "too much space". Ironically, the most audible of these were the krogan, despite being the smallest demographic. Thomas threw his hoodie up over his head and kept to himself, making a beeline for a warehouse on the far side of a grimy street littered with the husks of condemned buildings.
He slipped through a side alley, glancing up at where he knew for certain someone would be on watch. Thomas approached the warehouse door, made five quick knocks, paused, and then added two hard knocks. As his fist banged against the door the final time, a lock clicked open, and then another, and then finally the last one. A long, plated arm shot out and pulled him inside.
"Ah, Jesus, what the fuck, Vendrix?!" Thomas gasped, not even needing to see the bead-like eyes or the faceplates of his turian boss to know it was him. The slender but muscular alien cocked his head at the protesting human, an amused expression painting his angular features.
"We have a big day ahead of us, human. A big day indeed," Vendrix declared, the alien's voice humming with excitement. The turian twin brothers were smiling to each other, as was Clyde, the only other human in the six-man group. Even Ushnak, the sour batarian that was the group's muscle, had his lips peeled back into a leer.
"What's the special occasion, did I miss a memo or something?" Thomas asked.
"We're in line for a promotion, of sorts," Vendrix replied. "Comes all the way down from the top. Mrs. Quinnus is escalating the movement of vital merchandise. Red sand is quickly trending down, as any two-bit gangbanger with a chem lab can cook it up easy enough. But weapons, oh-ho-ho. The demand is vastly outpacing supply, and with luck, the boss may consider us to rectify that situation."
Thomas' eyes went wide. "Mrs. Quinnus?" he blurted out.
Vendrix chuckled. "Of course, human. Who else?"
Quinnus was the unequivocal head of smuggling and gunrunning across almost half of Omega. Officially, the turian matriarch worked under the umbrella of Aria T'Loak's crime syndicate, but it was well-known that as long as you paid the pirate queen tribute, you had reign to operate however you saw fit. Quinnus' operation was efficient, disciplined, and ruthless. The woman herself was a ghost: only her inner circle knew more than her last name and general appearance. She nevertheless inspired both fear and loyalty. The prospect of working his way up higher in her hierarchy was the opportunity that Thomas had wanted for years.
"What's our job?!" Thomas asked impatiently. "What're we moving?! Guns? Launchers? A portable mass accelerator?!"
He was slapped hard by a clawed hand. "Calm down, human. We aren't moving anything particularly devastating yet. We will prove ourselves by arranging several small scale arms deals across Omega, a sort of rally-race with a tad bit more firepower. To quote our august matriarch, 'speed is imperative,'" Vendrix announced with a theatrical lilt in his voice.
As he rubbed his cheek, Thomas had a realization: the pressure would be on him. He would be the one driving to these locations. He would have to maneuver through the stalactites of metal that formed Omega's insane, discordant urban sprawl, and do it at breakneck speeds and with the very real chance of provoking rival gangs. The whole proposition was utterly tantalizing. He had only one thing to say in response: "When do we start?!"
Author's Note: Special thanks to MrFredCDobbs for taking the time to act as the editor I've always needed, his comments really help guide me as I work on the future entries of the story.