The faint sound of beeping could be heard in an unoccupied storeroom before there was a massive bang and the space was obscured in rubble and dust. As it cleared, a powerful silhouette emerged through it. "Let's keep moving" Aria ordered as Jax piled through the newly-made hole after her, along with a five-strong squad of batarians and vorcha Jax had denoted to carry all the demolitions he couldn't carry himself. Even with two belts slung over his shoulders and every pocket crammed with grenades, det-cord, components for hastily constructing improvised explosives, virtually a walking anarchist's pantry, the ordinance Aria's plan required was far more than what Jax could have on his person alone.
Aria and Ahz consulted their grid, and pointed. Jax moved to follow their command, laying the breaching charge to move through another wall. Another minute passed, and Aria's team was one wall closer to reaching their goal. An alert on Jax's omnitool distracted him briefly, reminding him of the time constraints of their mission. If they arrived too early, the agent would become aware of their plan and never arrive to make the shuttle run. Too late, and they would never get the chance to catch him again.
Jax looked at Aria, she had gotten the same message too. "Let's keep moving" she growled. She looked at Ahz. "How are we going?"
"Our junk code is working well, sensors are still scrambled" he reported. "Nothing past local systems can detect our activities so far." While no one has any doubt as to how crucial this mission was, it had been another revelation entirely when Aria had assigned Ahz to accompany her personally to mask their progress. He was the best cyber-terrorist on Omega, a stalwart line of defence against the cyber attacks Patriarch had launched so far with the Queencode. Bringing him along with them was leaving swathes of Omega open to attack, even with the teams of data analysts Aria had set up within the lower level of Afterlife. With Aria's hold over her power becoming ever so tenuous, the stakes were clear; she could not fail.
"Through the next wall is an Eclipse chapter house" Aria told them all. "Due to the level of secrecy of this mission, I have not told them we will be blowing our way through their wall, expect heavy resistance before they realise it's me."
"And after they know it's you?" Jax asked.
"Given the expected bounty on my head and the lust Eclipse has for any form of power, I would say expect heavier resistance" Aria replied.
Jax nodded, they were in for a fight eventually. He placed the charges, backwinding a little less so they'd be able to pour through the breach more quickly after the demolitions had exploded. The readout on his omnitool showed him the charges were active, they were waiting on him to flick the switch. Jax pulled out his heavy pistol, making sure the safety was deactivated. He looked back at Aria.
She nodded. "Punch it."
Jax hit the command and the wall disappeared in a flash of light and cloud of dust. With his earplugs, Jax felt the force of the explosion more than he heard the sound, like a heartbeat that shook his whole body. Aria jumped through the hole first, firing with her shotgun. A batarian was next, the rattle of his avenger all that could be deduced through the smoke. Jax followed him through, bodies clad in yellow armour were laying about the floor. Some were still with bullet holes in them, one was twisted at an unnatural angle thanks to Aria's biotics, but a few were still trying to regain their feet from the explosion. Jax moved efficiently, putting his gun to the head of the first, executing them, and moving onto the next. It was bloody, efficient work but cleaning up the stragglers was important, especially as Aria had paid them no heed, ruthlessly gunning her way down hallways echoing with screams before being enveloped in silence. "They were sloppy, unprepared for us" Aria growled. "The last one got to their comms station before I got to him. We won't be so lucky again."
"Anything of use here?" Jax asked, looking around. "Weapons, eezo, credits?"
"I'm not interested in salvage" Aria said curtly. "I'm interested in putting Patriarch's head on a plaque above my front door."
"Fair enough, what wall am I going through next?" Jax asked.
"None, we're going to cut across the plaza" Aria replied. "Watch your step on the bodies, I got a bit excited there."
Jax nodded absentmindedly. To be truthful, the continuous series of breaches were beginning to blur together, throw in the killing mercs? It was just another mission. Aria led them out of the building, the plaza was desolate. The squad moved quickly before Aria quickly raised a fist, halting them. "Ahz, I thought all the eyes were blinded in this section?"
"They are" her salarian second replied, "all sensors are down, we have no data feeding back."
"Then explain that" Aria spoke.
Jax looked to where Aria had pointed out. A camera, complete with solid green lights was fixated purely on them.
"He's on a secondary network" Ahz realised, a slight touch of awe in his voice.
"Patriarch," Jax said, "he's watching us."
"Whoever's working tech systems for him, they're good" Ahz said, "they're very good."
Aria raised herself angrily from her crouch, the element of stealth thwarted. "I'm coming for you" she called loudly, drawing her pistol. She blew the camera apart with a single shot before looking back at her team. "Patriarch will know where we're headed" she told her squad. "We need to get to that hanger before the agent knows we're coming for him, let's pick up the pace."
A krogan marched hurriedly past a hub of screens and along a corridor. The environment was dank, hastily organised power cables shunted to the sides ran down the corridors, hooking into the power cells. The krogan moved through the crew around him, all of them Omega squalor; disenfranchised Batarians on the systems, psychopathic vorcha doing the grunt work, antagonistic krogan waiting for war littered the cramped spaces. The door at the end of the corridor slid open with a hiss, revealing something reminiscent of a throne room. There were no screens in this room, only a host of large, heavily armed krogan surrounding a chair which was the krogan's height again towards the ceiling. At the top sat an older, scarred krogan. There was a glint of cruel intelligence and analytical talent in his eyes, something that separated him from his bloodthirsty contingent. "Patriarch" the krogan addressed, a fist across his chest as a sign of respect. "We've cleared through the junk code, one of cameras caught something. Aria has left Afterlife."
Patriarch leaned forward, his interest piqued. "For where?"
The younger krogan displayed a map from his omnitool. "She's moving through this section currently. The batarians are still running the numbers but they think she's heading towards…"
"The hangar" Patriarch finally spoke, his voice a rumble from his throat. The one healthy heart he had left beat a little bit harder in his chest. "She is tenacious that Aria, I knew it wouldn't be long before she found me out." In the pauses he took, one could hear the life support rumbling, recycling the oxygen, the artificial gravity did not have to be heavy to hold his weight down.
"What do we do?" The younger krogan asked, a touch nervous.
Patriarch's expression didn't even flicker at the idea of Aria capturing his hangar. He had not become the longest ruler in Omega's remembered history by not having a back up plan. He activated his omnitool and sent a cipher to the younger krogan. "Instruct the batarians, deploy the queencode, use it to strike these sections, main priority is disruption."
"But if she knows about the hangar, those won't turn her back" the younger krogan insisted.
Patriarch's eyes narrowed. He stood abruptly, then produced a shotgun and blasted the younger krogan. The younger krogan was blown back by the force, slumping down against the wall, blood running from a litany of holes in the chest piece of his armour. The Patriarch stepped down from his throne and approached the younger krogan. He stopped, towering above the runt. The younger krogan looked up as the Patriarch returned his stare down the barrel of his shotgun. Patriarch fired again, reducing the younger krogan's head to slush, blood coating the wall. "Would anyone else like to question my orders?" The Patriarch asked as the lifeless corpse toppled over. No one dared to respond. "Good" Patriarch finally spoke. He looked to the smallest of his kraant. "Deliver my orders" he said, re-transmitting the cipher. The krogan moved off immediately without question. Patriarch ascended back to the top of his throne. "Throw that corpse out the airlock" he ordered, looking up at the flickering light. The power cells were depleting, they would need another shipment of supplies soon if they were to stay out here. Aria was applying the pressure, the Patriarch ground his gnarled teeth, it was time to apply it back.
Gunfire rang out as Jax rolled an overload grenade out from his position in cover behind the crate. The grenade exploded and the squad of mechs spasmed with electrified seizures. Jax leapt the cover and unloaded his pistol on them, blowing off arms, legs and heads apart. Jax looked around and spied one legless mech desperately dragging itself towards him, a futile attempt to stop him. Jax fired the last shot of his clip into its head, killing it, before looking back at the squad. "The next time you plan your route through a storage warehouse, check that its run by workers, not mechs" he finished.
"What's the matter Jax?" Aria asked, "you tired?"
Jax shook his head as he looked at the one vorcha casualty the mechs had managed to pin down against the wall with small arms fire. "Now I have to carry his load as well." In truth, it wasn't so bad a burden, every demolition they had used made their load lighter, and they had carved quite the path of destruction so far.
"Relax, now that Patriarch knows we're here, he'll know where we're going, the only times we're going through walls are when it's too slow to go around. We're getting close" Aria told him. "Time is getting low, you have any of those overload grenades left?"
Jax nodded. "A few, what for?"
"Would they be able to shut down a shuttle?" Aria asked.
Jax shook his head, a shuttle was a far cry from your average LOKI mech group. "No" he said, seeing Aria's face turn sour. He dug in his kit bag. "But this can" he said, offering an EMP charge.
Aria's face turned back to her predatory smile. "You very rarely miss the chance to impress Mr Weaver" she said, taking the device from him.
"I aim to please" Jax replied. "How far now?"
"Like I said; close" Aria said, taking a moment for her barriers to regenerate. "If we're right, the shuttle run and subsequent cyberattack should be occurring in fourteen minutes. Our plan has us arriving in twelve."
"Is that taking into account any more of these distractions?" Jax asked, kicking a headless LOKI mech corpse.
"No" Aria said. "So time is even more precious. We're monitoring all the communications coming in now, if Patriarch tries to warn his agent, he'll lead us right to them."
"If you've got your teams monitoring all incoming comms, who's left to defend against the queencode?" Jax asked.
"No one" Aria replied, "whatever section Patriarch attacks, he can have it, I'll have his head soon enough."
"You're going to let him have free rein over all of Omega?" Jax said incredulously.
"The attacks are just a symptom" Aria replied, "I'm turning my attention towards the actual disease."
With a cure that might just be worse Jax thought inwardly. He didn't have the charisma to restrain Aria's bloodlust, he wasn't even sure if Shepard had that sort of magnetism, all he could do was help her take Patriarch down quickly, spare the suffering of anyone caught in the crossfire. And protect his family of course. He hadn't been on Omega since leaving Mordin's clinic and chasing after Sidonis' trail to the Citadel. It was strange to be back, a nearly totally different person to the one that had lived here for most of his life. The thought of whether he should visit his mother and sister after all this bloodshed crossed his mind briefly, but thankfully Aria's order to keep moving quelled it. They had eleven minutes and the hanger was still a number of blocks away. Ahz was glued to his omnitool, keeping in sync with his team monitoring for a communication coming in from outside Omega, something to help them pinpoint the agent, and the Patriarch. The clock was ticking, like a lit fuse growing ever shorter, ready to blow.
"Your orders have been deployed Patriarch" the warlord's new messenger reported. "The first command codes will be deployed in eight minutes, and then the second wave two minutes after that."
Patriarch's breath through ragged lungs was similar to a growl. "Good."
"There is another matter though" the krogan reported. "We have detected another signature entering the Omega Nebula, a ship has used the mass relay."
"Is it something call the pirates on?" Patriarch asked.
The lackey shook his head. "It's a warship. Cerberus."
"Shepard" Patriarch grinned. "She's back."
"We detected a Cerberus shuttle passing through the debris field a solar day ago, our reports say it was a crew member of hers joining the fight for Aria. Shepard may be aligning herself against us."
"A pity" Patriarch mused. "She saw potential in me before, a way to keep Aria on her toes. I had hoped we might have joined forces once more."
"Do we kill her then?" The younger krogan asked.
Patriarch chuckled at that. "Kill her? You could no more slay her than strike down Kalros herself. Shepard is indomitable, a force of nature rivalling even Uzin. We cannot kill her even if we had all of Omega with us."
"So what shall we do?" The krogan asked.
"Shepard is here to secure Omega. If we kill Aria, then she will have no choice but to install me as ruler and ensure a smooth transition of power to keep her place welcome here."
"Killing Aria is no small feat either. How are we meant to kill her?"
Patriarch accessed his omnitool, drawing the image captured of Aria in the plaza. "The boy" Patriarch mused, "he's a walking bomb. Kill him violently, not even Aria will be able survive the resulting explosion."
"And how are we meant to kill him from here?" The krogan asked, gesturing to their surroundings.
Patriarch smiled again, confident, assured, and bloodthirsty. "Gather the men. We're going home."
"How's it looking Joker?" Shepard asked, standing on the bridge.
"It's weird Shepard," Joker told her over his shoulder, "half the station is absolutely dead, radio silent, not a signal to speak of. The signals on the other half are encrypted harder than the turian fleet, what sections either side hasn't been able to lock down have been totally abandoned."
"Aria mentioned Patriarch was hiding out in the asteroid field" Shepard mused. "Maybe she made the encryptions in an attempt to stop him broadcasting signals onto the station, a data blockade of sorts."
"Well it definitely adds to the 'visitors not welcome' vibe they've got going on" Joker remarked.
"Can you get us a place to dock?" Shepard asked, "is anyone receiving us?"
Joker shook his head. "No one's answering my hails, if Patriarch does have control of the station's systems then he might be keeping the doors shut on us, stop us from linking up with Jax and Aria."
"Keep searching," Shepard ordered, "work with EDI if you need to break in a back door."
"Yeah, well if Patriarch wants to test us like he did those other ships, he'll be sorely surprised" Joker retorted. "We might be out here for a while Shepard, someone might come looking for us."
"Well, without a shuttle we don't have much choice" Shepard replied. "Keep searching, every section, every level. Report in once you have something."
"Aye-aye" Joker replied, turning his attention back to his screens as Shepard left him to his work.
Aria pressed herself against the doorway into cover. Across from her, Jax mirrored her actions. "This is it" Aria replied.
"We're in position" Grizz reported over the radio. "No one's leaving this section without our say so."
Aria checked her timer. They had two minutes to spare. A burst of transmission static flowed across Aria's omnitool but she dismissed it. "Patriarch's last ditch attempt to distract us" she told Jax, answering his querying look. "He's shut down the traffic coordination systems on the main skyways."
"And you don't think that needs remedying?" Jax asked.
"It can wait, Patriarch won't." She turned to Ahz. "Keep your teams focussed on the comms, this war ends today" she growled.
Jax nodded and hit the door's console and she sprang through, soldiers at her either side. Jax looked through past them; the shuttle bay was empty, there was nothing there aside from a few strewn crates. "We're too late" Ahz said.
Jax didn't need to see Aria's expression to imagine her anger, the timing was wrong. "Then the agent left early, we wait here."
"If he's meeting Patriarch, he won't be coming back" Jax said, "at least not through this way, they know we're onto them, this route is compromised."
Aria let go of a frustrated exhale. "Fan out!" She ordered, "find out whatever you can, I want to know who that agent is and I want to know now, they must have left something behind."
Jax moved to follow her orders. The crates had nothing to go on, anything that had useful supplies had been emptied a while ago, scavengers had cleaned through a long time ago. It felt off, the port didn't have the kind of vibe for making secret shuttle runs, there would be more signs of use, closer attention, the environment was only one of neglect. Jax approached the large port doors that backed onto the vacuum. Without power to fuel the energy fields, the solid durasteel doors had closed to protect the environment. Jax couldn't shake the growing gnaw of doubt. He took a scan of the door, trying to find anything to give him answers. Instead of finding something, he found the exact opposite. "The door is completely dead, no power at all" Jax reported to Aria. "There's no way this has been opened in weeks, since Patriarch took the queencode at all."
"If it's locked shut, then Patriarch is making it that way" Aria insisted, the agent is probably on the shuttle run right now, activate your environment suits and get ready."
"Logs say no one has used this port since this whole shitstorm began" Ahz said, accessing the local terminal.
"Then Patriarch changed the logs" Aria yelled back angrily, "he has my queencode, the whole station to works against us, to his will."
"EMR signatures are cold" Jax said, reading the results of his omnitool scanner. There was no radiation on his scans, something the shuttle would have had to have left behind. "Patriarch can't fake that. Wherever the agent is launching those supply runs from, it isn't here."
"Unless there was never an agent at all" Aria suddenly realised.
"What do you mean?" Jax asked.
At that moment, the lights died in the shuttle bay. A second passed before the emergency lighting strips came on in response, lighting up the scene in red.
"Patriarch's launched another queencode attack" Ahz said, checking his omnitool. "He's cut life support in… Section One."
"Section One?" Jax asked, looking at Aria's shocked expression. "What's Section One?"
"It's…" Ahz began.
"Afterlife" Aria growled. "Son of a bitch."
"I don't get it" Jax said, "what's the damage from killing everyone in Afterlife? With most of your men surrounding us, it's just the rear guard and a few tech teams, what's Patriarch going to do from way out in the asteroid belt?"
"There was no shuttle," Aria replied, "it's all been a decoy, a trap and I fell right into it. Patriarch has never been hiding out in the belt."
"But if he's not out there," Jax asked, "then where is he?"
Patriarch stepped over the cold body of a suffocated batarian, flanked by his kraant. He looked up at the dancing flames of the LCD screens above the door, Afterlife's main door. "We're home" he said, walking through the midst of the lifeless defenders, cold fingers still wrapped around their throats as they had clawed for breath. "Re-activate the defences" he ordered, "leave the bodies. I want everyone to know exactly who is in charge again." The outcasts who had fallen under his banner hurried to follow his commands, manning turrets and re-activating generators and shield pylons. Aria's lust for vengeance meant a brazen and rash counterattack was likely, speed was of the essence to secure the throne of the new Omega. Patriarch strode down the corridor, noting the armoury of weapons Aria had left them, foolishly thought secure within her fortress. Patriarch would put it to good use against her. The main room had been refurbished, retrofitted into a war room. It was very familiar to how it had used to be, before Aria had besmirched his throne by turning the whole place into a strip club when she had taken over control from him. Patriarch promised himself he would not have control wrested from him so easily again. "Open a channel" he ordered, "all sections, all screens, I want the whole damn station to hear me."
Aria was beyond furious, lashes of biotic energy jumped off her as she stormed back and forth. "Bray, Anto, Grizz, what the hell is taking you so long? I need every man I have mobilised."
"We're trying Aria but we're on foot, the main skyway is hell" Bray reported, "Patriarch has absolute chaos reigning up there, skycars are flying VFR, totally blind, it's suicide."
"Damn it" Aria cursed. She cut the communication and looked around. "Shit!" She yelled, sending one of the crates flying with a biotic kick.
"Patriarch had this planned from the start" Jax said absentmindedly. "He relied on your anger, and on Ahz finding his pattern, all to draw us out."
"Thanks for the fucking obvious" Aria muttered. "Mind skipping to the point where you're actually useful to me?"
"We both know launching a counter assault on Afterlife is suicide" Jax said. "Patriarch will already be dug in and every minute is further increasing his advantage."
"Your suggestion?" Aria asked irritably.
"We need to go underground, same as Patriarch did" Jax told her. "He has the station, the queencode, not to mention our entire arsenal that we left behind. Where's your hiding spot? How do we get there?"
"I don't have a back-up spot" Aria said bitterly. "I never imagined anyone getting quite the strength and the cunning to rival me again once I demolished Patriarch. I suppose that was my biggest failure; a lack of imagination."
"A problem to fix after we deal with Patriarch" Jax argued. "Right now we need to…"
"Citizens of Omega" a voice boomed, interrupting him.
"Patriarch" Aria hissed.
The voice continued, hijacking the port siren speakers, the wisened krogan's image appearing on the port terminal. "Aria T'Loak has ruled this station for too long. She has grown complacent. Careless. Weak."
The lines of anger etched in Aria's purple skin grew further.
"We live in increasingly perilous times. Omega has always been ruled by strength, but never has it needed it so much before now" Patriarch's voice rolled ominously. "A darkness is coming. Myths that were once legends that were once truth will return, and they will be broken against an unyielding, undying Omega. Once more," Patriarch spoke with finality, "I am Omega."