7. Aria is (an) Omega

Once course was set to Omega, and Joker had finished setting the flight path, Shepard decided to take a look at his private quarters on the Normandy. One level above the CIC, was a very cosy cabin for some downtime, not that he'd be getting much of it.

He sat down at a desk within the cabin, and Pondered, with a capital P.

Credit where due, the dossiers provided by TIM were to the point and highlighted skillsets that would be necessary to deal with this shitstorm. Mordin Solus would be the best place to start recruiting, given the existence of the neurotoxin thingy that they saw used on Freedom's Progress. Good choice.

Zaeed Massani too, could be useful. Mercenaries did tend to have the weirdest contacts. Never really know when you need some stuff sold on the black market, or a hacker to break into Council databases. That dossier had potential.

Though who the hell was this Archangel character? High-profile attacks on gang leaders on Omega weren't quite the credentials he was looking for. Hmm. Operations noted for "technical expertise" and "strategic brilliance", though Shepard didn't think very highly of Cerberus's ideas of strategy. A quick extranet search later, and it seemed like Archangel had managed to piss off every major Mercenary company in the Terminus systems. Heh. Could be worth it, just for shits and giggles.

As Shepard finished up with the dossiers, he lay down on that rather comfy bed and looked straight up at the view. Yeah, view. If there was one thing wrong with the cabin, it was the giant effing sunroof into space. The same space where he had technically died. Any two bit psychiatrist could tell you that was a bad idea. Didn't Kelly Chambers have a degree in that?

One floor down, Kelly Chambers felt a great wave of shame, and an inexplicable need to grovel for forgiveness. She also felt the Universe telling her that she'd squandered what could have been an amazing booty call.

- - - - Docking at Omega - - - -

Shepard walked out of the Normandy, and along the docking bay with Catsuit and Corsair in tow, when a random salarian greeted him. Before Shepard could say anything, a batarian coming up from behind ran him off and began speaking.

"Welcome to Omega… Shepard."

Shepard grunted.

Caught slightly off guard by the blasé response, the batarian continued his intimidation tactic, albeit unsurely.

"We had you tagged the moment you entered the Terminus systems. You're not as subtle as you think."

Shepard remained supremely unimpressed.

"Aria wants to know what brings a dead Spectre to Omega. I suggest you go to Afterlife now and present yourself."

"Afterlife? Ah, I see, this is a threat."

"What? No, that's the nam-"

A kneecap-shattering kick followed by an elbow to the face stopped that particular sentence in its tracks. It also had the side effect of dropping the batarian to the ground.

With the batarian on the ground and crying, Miranda piped in, "Commander, that's the name of Aria's headquarters, a nightclub."

"Oh. Well that's rather misleading, isn't it? Hey buddy, you conscious? I'll drop by to see her, I got questions to ask anyway. And here's a tip, next time just get to the point instead of trying to be all dramatic and mysterious."

Casually stepping over the curled up and sobbing batarian, Shepard continued on his way.

EDI chose this moment to pass along some information, "I'm receiving quarantine warnings about the slums where Dr. Mordin Solus runs his clinic. Anticipate resistance at the transport station. I have also accessed messages between mercenary groups regarding plans to deal with Archangel. There's a recruiting station at Afterlife that may have information on him."

At the end of the hallway, was another human beating up a batarian. Hmm, that was a rather troubling trend, wasn't it?

"Zaeed Massani?"

"Yeah. You must be Commander Shepard. I hear we have a galaxy to save."

"Mmh. What's your relationship with Cerberus?"

"Easy. Cerberus is paying me a lot of money to help you on your mission. That's the long and short."

"Uh huh. What's the catch?"

"Ah, so he didn't tell you about our arrangement. Picked up a mission a little while back, just before I signed on with Cerberus. Thought you might be interested. You heard the name Vido Santiago? He's the head of the Blue Suns. Runs the whole organisation. Seems he recently captured an Eldfell-Ashland refinery on Zorya and is using their workers for slave labour. The company wants it dealt with."

Shepard rolled his eyes, "Yeah, whatever, we'll discuss it later, get setup aboard the ship."

- - - - - - - - - - - - – - –

Zaeed had been told to get his stuff on the ship, and Shepard was now shopping. Not that there was much to look at anyway.

A quick jaunt around the lower section brought him to Kenn's Salvage. One rather depressing conversation later, Shepard had sent off a quarian back on his Pilgrimage, and picked up some upgrades. On Cerberus credits, of course.

Moving along, Shepard took a right at the crazy Vorcha (Feed soon, yes. Find flesh!) and up a flight of stairs to what looked to be an actual marketplace. Oddly enough, only a single terminal was operational, manned by a batarian.

Wait, was that racist? Should it be batarianed by a batarian instead? Was he overthinking this? Did he really care? Do battle unicorns exist? Is 42 still the answer to life for an alien species using a non base-10 method of counting?

"I might have something here for humans. Not much."

Well, if that's how it was going to be, he was wasting his time here wasn't he? Engage Renegade.

"You might snare a few tourists with these prices, but I'm not giving you a single credit."

"Sure, you can find things cheaper…. If you're willing to risk the black market."

Shepard deadpanned. He was loaded up like an armoury for fucks sake. The risk was minimal. "Good idea, thanks. I think I'll do that."

This was clearly not what the batarian was expecting as a response, and so, Shepard managed to wrangle a better discount from said batarian. Hustle.

Continuing on his impromptu sightseeing trip of Omega, Shepard turned a corner, past the quarantined district and a mad prophet (Repent! The end is nigh!), he found himself right back to where he started. Near Afterlife. Oh well, time to see Aria.

Breezing past the line to afterlife, and a batarian bouncer, Shepard waltzed right through the club's entrance and made a beeline to Aria. But first.

"Hey, this is a stripclub. Miranda, Jacob, answer a question for me would you?"

"Yes Commander?" Miranda perked up immediately, hoping to demonstrate her knowledge. Or she just didn't want to get shot. Again.

"Do you feel more at home, now that we're in your natural habitat?" Shepard asked, with a convincingly genuine tone, gesturing at all the pole dancers.

"…..."

"No? Jacob, what about you?"

"…. No sir."

"Then get some goddamn armour, and at least look like bloody soldiers. It's hard to be taken seriously when you're being followed around by what looks like strippers with guns."

"…. Yes sir."

"… Yes Commander."

Satisfied with their submission, Shepard continued on his merry way to Aria's lounge.

- - - - - - - Some posturing later - - - - - - -

"You run Omega?"

Aria smirked, "I AM Omega."

Tuning out her rendition of her list of titles, Shepard wondered if Aria knew that an 'Omega' was also the bottom of the hierarchy; at least, according to some research he'd read somewhere. Probably not. He'd send her some extranet links later on. Once they were back on the Normandy, and in a different sector of space.

He came out of this musing just in time to hear her say, "Don't fuck with Aria."

But according to his research, the sketchy fanfics seemed to be doing exactly that with the designated Omega. Literally.

Meh. He had a job to do. Taking the offered seat, Shepard began, "I'm trying to track down Archangel..."

One chat later, Shepard knew he needed to get to Archangel first, looked like he was in a bit of a bad situation. Mordin would have to wait. From what Aria said, Mordin wasn't being plagued (heh) by a coalition of mercenaries.

"Thanks for the information."

"Yes. Try not to bring the plague back with you."

Shepard headed to the recruiting station and signed up, with a fake name, of course. These recruiters were really chatty, giving him plenty of names to look up, and a better idea of what was actually going on. As he was walking out, an overconfident kid walked in with a gun. One broken pistol later, the kid looked like he would rethink his decision. Sigh, the things he did to keep morons safe…

A brief pit stop at the Normandy to pick up Zaeed instead of Jacob, and they were off to rescue Archangel.

- - - - - A boring conversation with the batarian driver later - - - - - - -

They had a gunship, but Archangel shot it down. Holy shit that sounded like a bad joke, but it was hilarious.

Still chortling, Shepard & co were taking exploring the new area, when EDI chipped in, "Shepard. I've scanned the area, but I am unable to plot any other paths to Archangel."

"Guess we're going with the mercs."

"The heavy mechs and gunship poses considerable firepower. Weakening them before leaving will improve your chances."

While EDI was mentioning this, Shepard had walked past a set of doors into a room that clearly housed some key Eclipse personnel, including Jaroth, the leader of Eclipse on Omega. Eh, not really important, he already knew the rough plan of attack. He swiped a message that looked like it was about a coup against Aria as he passed the room by.

The room led out into a hallway with more doors. "Well, lets see what's behind door number 1… Oh he-llo, mech with the easily accessible diagnostic station."

One quick switch later, Shepard continued on, skipping a room that held the Blood pack entirely. Some exploration brought him to a room filled with the Blue Suns group. Hmm. So this was Tarak.

"Get this freelancer out of here. I don't have time for this shit."

How rude. Well, Shepard supposed he could try being polite and ask a question.

"I just have a few questions about this operation."

"Jentha – get this scum out of my face!"

Zaeed stepped forward. "Tarak, what's eating your ass?"

"Zaeed?"

"You know this asshole, Zaeed?"

"We.. worked together once."

Shepard figured there was something more to it than that, but decided to take a back seat and let this play out. Tarak chose this moment to cut in, "Since when do you work for so little?"

"Since when are you a goddamn madman?"

"It's Archangel. This guy's gonna kill me! Almost did already."

"That bad, huh?"

"Worse. Look Zaeed, I gotta deal with this shit. Jentha, talk to these guys. Answer whatever questions they have. Good to see you. And who knows – maybe you'll solve my problem for me."

"Anything's possible."

Jentha came forward and led them off to the side a little. "Good thing you know him. Tarak hates having to hire freelancers – he doesn't trust anyone outside the Blue Suns. What can I do for you?"

After extracting all needed tactical information from Jentha, Shepard headed out in search of Cathka.

"Cathka?"

"It's Sergeant Cathka..."

- - - - - - - -A conversation and anelectrocuted batarian later - - - - - - - -

The charge had started. Cheerily slaughtering his way through the freelancers, Shepard and Co made their way to the balcony Archangel was on. Oh, and Archangel was Garrus. How did he not see that before?

Oh hey, looks like the Eclipse wave was starting. Time for some more kills.

- - - - Plenty dead Eclipse and a confused mech boi later - - - - - - - -

Well, Garrus was alive and relatively okay so far, so that worked out. Shepard had left Zaeed with Garrus, while he and Miranda took on the Blood pack wave in the tunnels.

- - - - - Ded Blood Pack later - - - - -

Well this was getting fun. Two mercenary groups wiped out in about half an hour, Shepard mused as he nudged aside pieces of Garm in order to sit on one of the numerous couches where Garrus was holed up.

"Only Blue Suns left now. I say we force our way out now."

"I think you're right. Tarak's got the toughest group, but nothing we haven't faced before."

As Garrus finished saying this, the gunship attacked.

- - - - - - Some fighting later - - - - - - -

When the dust settled, the gunship was down, but so was Garrus.

"Garrus! We're getting you out of here buddy, just hold on. Radio Joker, make sure he's ready for us."

- - - - Meeting Room aboard the Normandy - - - - - -

"Commander. We've done what we could for Garrus, but he took a bad hit. The docs corrected with surgical procedures and some cybernetics. Best we can tell, he'll have full functionality, but..."

As Jacob trailed off, the doors to the room opened, and Garrus walked in.

"Tough son of a bitch. Didn't think he'd be up yet."

Shepard snorted. Clearly, Jacob had no idea who he was dealing with.

"Nobody would give me a mirror. How bad is it?"

Shepard smirked. "Hell Garrus, you were always ugly. Slap some face paint on there, and no one will even notice."

"Ha-ah! Don't make me laugh, damn it. My face is barely holding together as it is. Ah, probably for the best. Everyone was always ignoring you and hitting on me. Time for you to get a fair shot at it."

Jacob, perhaps noticing that he wasn't really needed, saluted and walked out. As the door closed behind him, Garrus continued, "Frankly, I'm more worried about you. Cerberus, Shepard? You remember those sick experiments they were doing?"

"That's why I'm glad you're here, Garrus. If I'm walking into hell, I want someone I trust at my side."

"You realize this plan has me walking into hell too. Hah. Just like old times."

"And about Cerberus, I have some plans for them. I think you'll like what I have in mind", Shepard grinned evilly, causing a similar one to flit across Garrus's face, before he winced again.

"Heh. Should have known. I look forward to hearing them. I'm fit for duty whenever you need me, Shepard. I'll settle in and see what I can do at the forward batteries."

"You do that Garrus. Though I do have a question for you."

"Yes?"

"Why in the ever loving fuck were you using thermal clip weaponry?"

Whoo, that chapter took less time to actually write. Let me explain; see I only started writing the chapter at the start of this month, after reinstalling the game at the end of last month and recording the session for reference.

Unfortunately, the current pandemic threw off my work targets in the last quarter, and I just had no energy to play games, much less write a chapter. This quarter should be much better, so you'll get the newer chapter a bit faster, I hope?

As a side note, I'm keeping Shepard as a soldier, just because I hated the fact that the sniper rifle was restricted by class, unlike ME3, where you could be an adept, and still have a sniper rifle. I can't NOT have a sniper rifle. I just can't.

Thoughts on my writing are always appreciated, thanks!