Once he was out of bed, Vendrix had been subjected to a quick battery of tests to determine his physical health. His reflexes, coordination and general consciousness and awareness were quizzed by Dr. Oberon Gallus. The haggard and beaten old turian made him wonder to himself how the man had ended up in such a sorry state. Apparently, he had caught Vendrix staring.
"I'm quite the looker, aren't I?" He gives a short chortle, putting away the hammer he had used to test Vendrix's reflexes and pulling out a small penlight. He clicks it on as he gestures for Vendrix to focus on it.
"I didn't realize you were a man, at first." Vendrix admits, recalling the absent head fringe.
"I don't always realize either. It may surprise you that I was once the picture of youthful, masculine beauty. I expect it a lot when I look in the mirror now, only to find this reanimated ghost staring back at me. A ghost, that would look possibly passable in a dress, were it not for the rust and sole mandible."
Vendrix would only exhale through his nasal vents and let out a droll. "Well I wouldn't expect to see you on a stage in Afterlife anytime soon."
He laughs, a gross sound, mechanical interference coming from his lungs. "No, I suppose you wouldn't be that lucky."
A moment passes, Vendrix squints against the glare as his eyes track the light, no jumps in his vision, no blindspots, no pain in moving them from side to side, a relief given his injuries. As Oberon clicks it off Vendrix takes in a breath.
"If you don't mind my asking, while we're on the topic. What exactly happened to you to result in such a...pitiable state."
Oberon stands up straighter, narrowing his eyes at Vendrix. "Do you ask everyone for their life story, clearly not, considering you're still alive." He smiles, clicking the penlight on and off in contemplation before he sighs. "I had a very unpleasant encounter on Shanxi, and had the unique opportunity to be one of the first turians ever interrogated by humans, suffice to say, they weren't nearly as hospitable as they are now." He says in a stifled voice, clicking the penlight faster now as he sets his breathing into a steady, forced rhythm.
Vendrix's mandibles clenched subconsciously as he looked over Oberon's face, the missing mandible, fringe. If all that was done to him by humans, it was no wonder he had shown such a strong reaction by the threat of Hammond and his goons. Even Dahlia, who was clearly a friend to the doctor, hadn't gotten close to him to pull him out of his episode earlier.
"That's...awful." Vendrix states plainly, not really knowing what he could say, Oberon rests his hand on the table as he gathers himself and places the penlight down. "I haven't even told Dahlia that it was Shanxi, she just believes it was some rabid gang of sadistic humans, she's correct in that regard, but she doesn't know they were wearing Alliance uniforms." He glowers. "But, I tell you this because you and I are survivors, aren't we?"
Vendrix blinks for a second as he looks over to Oberon, now locked on him with an oddly intent gaze.
"I suppose so." He mutters, lingering on the words.
Ushnak, Clyde, Thomas.
"You're here, against overwhelming odds. You did what you needed to so that you would survive, and that's the way to go about it, I lost hope that the Hierarchy would come to rescue me, and I was right to do so, by the time the Asari had stepped in and sorted everything out, they had gotten everything they wanted from me, and I was let go, granted, I was missing a few more bits than when I had gone in." Another dark chuckle comes from Oberon as he rubs his claw against his prosthetic, once again, his eyes swing up to meet Vendrix's, and for the first time in a long time, he felt a twinge of fear.
"That kind of survival instinct will carry you far, Vendrix. Trust me."
His mouth feels dry, and he shuffles a bit on the table he sat on. "Are we done with the tests?" He asks, his normally smooth, thespian voice coming out small.
Oberon's face shifts, the single mandible tilting up in a half-faced smile. "Mhm! All things considered, you're in good health. If you experience any nausea, feelings of faintness, excessive fatigue or the loss of motor functions come back immediately. As for the headaches, I'll prescribe you some painkillers that I can vouch for from personal experience."
Vendrix nods, putting his strong leg down before testing the weight on his injured leg, it was still healing, but Oberon had seen it fit to attach a leg brace over the stretch of broken plating, allowing for it to heal naturally.
The heavy boot of polymer and metal clunked against the metal flooring, and as he took a few lopsided steps he adjusted his gait to suit the addition of the boot.
"Thank you, now...where are my clothes?" Vendrix finally finds it fit to ask, seeing as he was still in the blue medical gown. Oberon gives him a look.
"Blood-stained shreds of clothing aren't particularly in vogue, so we had tossed it in the garbage."
He tries to not let the alarm bleed through his expression, the credit chit, his knife! If he didn't have something to bring back to show for the enormous loss he suffered through he might as well have stayed with Thomas and waited for the krogan to kill them both, their sacrifices had to be worth it.
"W-where might I be able to find the garbage, those articles of clothing have a sentimental value to me." He says in a hasty blurt.
If Oberon had picked up on his urgency, he didn't confront him on it. "They're down the hall and the second door on the right, the door immediately past that is our lost and found and donations. Hopefully you can find something that fits when you're done rooting around in the trash."
The lost and found had offered a variety of clothes from all the disparate races that inhabited Omega. Boasting a clashing blend of human, asari and batarian styles, along with a few exhibits of formal elcor dress and even a vacant volus envirosuit. But despite the variance they were all uniformly disheveled and slovenly.
Musty and marked with the pungent scent of alien bodies and colognes, some clothing was stained, some was torn and almost none of it fit him, the asari and human clothing wouldn't fit around the curve of his exoskeleton unless it was several sizes larger, the one turian shirt he had found had its own special problem, and now Vendrix was fighting to button a shirt two sizes too small.
His shaking hands didn't help the matter, his nerves were a frayed mess as he wracked his mind with the possible locations of the credit chit could be. That, along with his knife, hadn't turned up from his extensive search of the garbage pile.
I could return to Oberon and ask him, or search on my own, maybe his nurse knows. Mrs. Quinnus won't accept the lack of payment, I have to make this worth it, their sacrifices have to be worth SOMETHING.
His hand slips as his talon tears through the thin fabric. "DAMNIT!" he curses in exasperation before putting his head in his hands, trying to steady himself as he feels his anger sour into pain.
He was supposed to be the group's leader, their smaller size had bred a deeper relationship than the impersonal disconnect of mercenaries or larger crime syndicates. Perhaps that was his mistake, as much as he attempted to hide it behind violence and his unsettling persona. It felt that he had finally taken a moment to observe just how far out of his depth he was, and it felt like he was drowning.
"No." He says, first quietly, then more defiantly, his own voice echoing in the small enclosure of the lost and found. "No. I have to make this worth their sacrifice. Besides, the twins, if they still live, need me. I have to follow this to the end."
The words echo off the walls, a quiet little sermon to himself, filling him with determination, his hands clenching and unclenching into fists. And then leaves, resolving to make their sacrifices count.
Hammond had been sitting in the waiting room of Oberon's Clinic for the better part of an hour, his ruined vambrace pried from his forearm ever since it had been ruined by the biotic nurse. And as he leaned forwards he clasped his hands together, his gaze focused on the opposite wall as he assessed the situation laid out before him.
"We still got the incendiary rounds, boss. And I'm confident that those, plus the turrets, can steer off any of those hunchbacked bastards and their vorcha goons." He remarks, the scar running from his temple down to his chin twisting up into a lighting bolt shape as he grinned.
"I still don't know who this turian works for, he's a mover, but he's not the supplier. Do you recall who we bought the ammo from?" The tone of his voice indicated that he wasn't just asking a question, but testing his lieutenant.
"We bought it from a middleman, another turian, he kinda reminded me of the guy on the cot."
"Two turians, two districts, both being sold weapons and ammo, both fighting against the Krogan, or at the least going to be fighting against the Krogan. I don't think it's a coincidence."
"Whaddya mean by that? Seems to me that it's just good business. Supply and demand and all that crap, and God knows there's a demand." Kleinfeld remarks.
While his lieutenant was without a doubt an effective soldier, his strategic thinking had something to be desired. Hammond looked over to him. "Someone's trying to bring down this Warlord, and they're using other people to do it. The batarians struck out, now we're up to bat."
His brows furrowed as he turned back to face the wall, grasping the full implications of what was happening. Someone's using my people to fight their war.
"Doesn't matter who stops the krogan, big dinosaur bastards are gonna have everyone on their shit-list sooner or later, and if we're the ones that stop them, we show everyone we got the balls to hold our own. Can't see anything wrong with that."
Hammond conceded that point, stopping the krogan at his gates would be a reputation boost for the normally insular human community. But when considering the potential losses of such a fight, or considering what he could lose. Well, he only needed to look back at the batarians. The fires burning in what was left of their territory reeked like charred flesh, making it was clear what they were using as fuel.
"Fighting the krogan isn't what concerns me, at least not entirely. It just feels like we're playing into someone's hand, and we're nobody's pawns."
"You've got that right, Boss."
The movement of someone entering the waiting room draws Hammond's attention, the human sitting up to watch as Vendrix hobbles in with his ill-fitting getup. A rhythmic, step-clunk step-clunk fills the sterile air of the room as the turian offers a small wave.
"Where's your fellow?" He asks, a note of apprehension in his voice.
"Amonsson took a cab back home. You're coming with us to the warehouse." Hammond states, giving the order with the assurance of someone who's used to having them followed.
"Well then. I suppose there's not a second to waste."
The ensuing car ride to the Grinder was tense to say the least. Vendrix sat in the back seat, his hands in his lap as Kleinfeld drove them to the coordinates he had supplied them, Hammond kept an eye on the turian, leaning over the back of his seat, his sidearm in his hand, ready to shoot should their passenger make any sudden moves.
"So which do you hate more, Hammond. My species or myself?" Vendrix says after a while, his eyes flitting between the human and the blur of lights that made up the Omega skyline.
"You say that like I have personal vendetta against aliens." Hammond begins, cool and collected as he had been when threatened by Dahlia's biotics. "There's no hatred in my heart, but the turians are a threat to human civilization, the same way you're a threat to my district, my people."
"I'd argue the krogan are a greater threat."
"That's true, part of the reason I dragged you to the clinic. I could've let you die. But I know you have something to offer. But that brings me to my other point, the krogan came looking for you, and you fell on my doorstep. And that puts my people in danger."
"Oh, I apologize for any inconveniences I may have created, I'll be sure to collapse on some other doorstep when I'm bleeding out." Vendrix replies, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
Hammond exhales then reaches back for something. Vendrix flinches, thinking the man may actually shoot him in earnest, but then his eyes widen as he sees the unmistakable profile of the credit chit that had eluded him during his search.
Hammond cracks a small smile as he holds the chit between his thumb and forefinger, relishing the turian's expression. Gotcha.
He bites his tongue, keeping himself from blurting out anything that may further expose any information, he had lost the attempt to feign ignorance the moment his eyes widened at the chit.
"Look familiar to you?" Hammond asks, the question turning out to be rhetorical. "It should, we found it on your body when you first crashed on our stairs."
Vendrix's mandibles squeeze tightly against his jaw as he keeps his face neutral. "That was the payment for the ill-fated weapons deal we did with the batarians. And unless you just wanted to wave it around in my face to taunt me, I'm betting that chit still has credits on it."
Hammond nods, the corners of his mouth turning up with the barest hint of a smile. "You'd be right. This chit hasn't been used, with the exception of paying your medical bills."
Hammond extends the chit to him in offering, only to pull it back as Vendrix reaches for it, letting out a small tutting noise as he once again holds it before him.
"You'll get this back in time, until then it's incentive for you not to do anything stupid." He says, a smile creasing his mouth as he pockets the chit.
"Such as?" Vendrix asks dourly, crossing his arms over his chest and giving the human a tired look, what did they think he could possibly do to be a threat to them, and more importantly, why would he do it?
Hammond opens his mouth to answer but is cut off by the jolt as the skycar lands on the ground, parked in a grimy back alley.
The humans are the first to exit the car, followed by Vendrix. They stand close behind the turian, pushing him forward as he glares back and walks up to the back door of the warehouse, Kleinfeld pulls the assault rifle from his back and Hammond readies his pistol.
Vendrix can't stop his hands from balling into fists and he turns around to face the humans. "One condition, you are NOT hurting my crew. Credits and consequences be damned, I'm losing nobody else. Do you hear me?" He hisses at the pair.
Kleinfeld raises his lip in an involuntary show of disgust, Hammond only stares cooly at Vendrix. The turian was clearly in no room to make demands, yet he still felt galvanized to protect what was left of his crew. The human took note, using whoever was in the warehouse as leverage could be effective in getting Vendrix to do what he wanted, but he doubted he would need to resort to such measures.
"Kleinfeld, switch to disruptors." Hammond says, keeping his eyes locked on Vendrix.
"You serious?"
"Disruptors, now." He says once more, his voice sharp.
He scowls, but with a few button presses on the side of his rifle, the side rails alight with blue illumination, indicating the switch to non-lethal ammunition. Hammond does the same with his pistol before tilting his head to Vendrix.
"Good?"
"Excellent." Vendrix replies, turning his back to the humans and letting out a soft, relieved exhale before he knocks in their pre-established code.
The bangs against the metal door echo in the alleyway for a moment, filling the air with a tense stillness that sits in Vendrix's heart like a stone. Maybe they're dead as well…
The hiss of the door kills those suspicions, and for a moment Vendrix believes he'll be the one that dies as he stares down the barrels of a pair of assault rifles. It takes another second to see the identical pair of faces, turian faces, that aim down them.
"ANTUS, ANYO!" He screeched, putting his hands up as the humans drew their firearms, the turian now stuck directly between the two lines of fire.
The turian twins' eyes go wide, and one actually lets his guard down for a moment.
"Boss!? Where have you been!? What the Hell happened with the deal!? Where are the others?!" he begins sputtering before his brother cuts him off with something more pressing.
"Who are the Humans." Antus says flatly, his aim never deviating from it's dead fix between Hammond's eyes.
"All will be explained in time, I assure you. For now we should start with proper introductions, rather than aiming weapons at each other like madmen." Vendrix says, his heart pounding in his ears.
"Them first." Antus says, jutting the barrel of his rifle at the humans.
"Like hell, bird! You first!" Kleinfeld barks, his scar twisting up into a lighting bolt shape as his face contorts into a snarl.
Hammond hisses an inaudible curse towards his second, his face flaring up into a momentary flash of anger before returning to it's steely countenance.
"We all lower our weapons on three." He says calmly.
"I second that notion!" Vendrix adds on hastily.
The turians and humans share a hard stare as Vendrix and Hammond count in unison.
"One...Two...Three!"
Vendrix involuntarily winces, as if he would feel the intense, unholy pain of electric disruptor rounds and live ammunition shocking and tearing him apart. But when he looks to see both parties holstering their weapons he breaths a sigh of relief.
"Let's talk inside, please." He huffs, looking between his crew and the humans at his back.
With a rigid nod, the pair make a clearing, following the humans inside, Antus stops just shy of the door, turning for a moment to address Vendrix.
"You have a lot of explaining to do, Boss." He says matter-of-factly.
"I know."