"This can't be Heaven. It smells like Omega and you two are here, but that doesn't rule out Hell."
"That's not nice!" Hann exclaimed.
"I just risked my life to save you two. I get a free pass to be honest."
Dahlia had woken up to find the quarians standing beside her cot. They were in some sort of med bay or doctor's office. The walls were bare, and myriad pipes and valves traced their way along the ceiling. Just out of sight, large vents hummed like a volus' breather. The narrow room was as spartan and uninspiring as the rest of the station, but it was oddly clean and well kept. Dahlia read the clues suggesting that whoever was in charge took serious pride in their work.
"Was I whacked out on pain meds, or did I hear someone humming show tunes while I was asleep?" Dahlia asked, propping herself up on the cot.
"That would be the...um...doctor," Elsai answered. "Dr. Solus is odd, but he's dependable. We're at his clinic in Gozu district. When we first arrived on Omega, a human woman, I think her name was Blake, told us that this was a safe haven."
"Where's my suit?" Dahlia asked. "I feel so naked."
Hann shuffled nervously. The word made him awkwardly aware of Dahlia's skin. Her torso was heavily bandaged from where Dr. Solus had treated her bullet wounds from the Talon gangers. Elsai and Hann knew that Dahlia hadn't survived her parents' deaths unscatched, but seeing what had been hidden beneath her suit was different.
"Save a picture, it'll last longer," Dahlia quipped, catching them staring at her plentiful scar tissue. "The small, uniform ones," she sighed, tracing a finger along a thin scar on her wrist, "Are where they inserted synthetics or administered reconstructive surgery. The larger ones are are a combination of extreme heat, oxygen burns, and in one case a localized depressurization. In fact, the resulting necrosis was how I lost this leg," she said tapping her prosthetic left leg.
"It's amazing you survived," Elsai said, not really sure whether she meant in the past or more recently.
"No kidding. Ship destroyed, being spaced, and suffering a suit malfunction? Even Commander Shepard couldn't survive that. Then again, I was the one with my dad's suit. Despite being flawed, it compartmentalized the depressurization, administered medi-gel, and shielded me from the brunt of the oxygen fires and the vacuum."
"After surviving all that, it would've been a shame to die over some moldy batarian cheese," Hann said ruefully.
"You stood up for the right thing," Dahlia reassured him. "Now don't do it again. How bad is our situation? Does Orsk have thugs hunting for us?" she asked, a barely perceptible quaver in her voice over the prospect of being hunted.
"I don't know," Elsai answered. "On one hand, for how little he seemed to think of us, I don't think he'd waste resources on us. Then again, it's easy to imagine him being vindictive enough to want us dead."
"For what it's worth, we should be safe here," Hann added. "One of the clinic workers mentioned how Dr. Solus single-handedly took out some gangers trying to shake him down."
"I was thinking that the doctor may need some additional hands around the clinic," Elsai suggested. "We could exchange help for protection and a place to stay. Hopefully a salarian boss will turn out better than the krogan boss."
"It'll have to," Hann said, showing some annoyance. "We're broke. We left all of our money and belongings back at Orsk's bunkhouse."
"My work on the arc reactor's hidden back there, too."
"Well you can feel free to go running back there," Hann said sarcastically. "I'm in no hurry to give Orsk a second chance to snap me in half."
"Don't worry. It's just as well that I start over on the reactor. I wasn't pleased with the quality of components I was forced to use."
An underhanded thought lurked in Dahlia's mind. A medical clinic, with all its equipment, was likely a good source of platinum and palladium. If Orsk had turned out to be a gun runner, it would have been easy for Dahlia to make components "disappear." Even before his goons almost killed her, Dahlia would have felt little remorse for stealing from the man trying to monopolize the station's food supplies.
Skimming supplies from medics, however, carried a much higher moral price. Since this Dr. Solus was willing to save a creditless stranger like herself, Dahlia found it all the harder to contemplate "borrowing" parts from his clinic. However, while the thoughts were bitter, they were still there. When she was younger and more amoral, as most teenagers are, Dahlia felt less guilt about scavenging when it suited her needs when she was on the Flotilla. That was also where she learned how desperately people will cling to scarce resources, which is why she suspected that stealing from Dr. Solus would be both difficult and acutely dangerous.
Dahlia swung her legs around and attempted to step down from the cot. Hann quickly moved to keep her from leaving the bed.
"I want to talk to Dr. Solus," she insisted, wincing through the pain of Hann tugging on her shoulders. "I want to see if I can work out some sort of arrangement."
"He specifically ordered for you to rest," Hann replied.
"We'll talk to him," Elsai said. "Contact us with your omni-tool if you need anything."
Dahlia groaned as the quarians left the recovery room. As much as she wanted to dispute the doctor's orders, she begrudgingly accepted how awful she felt - like an elcor tap danced on her back. She eased herself back down. Looking around the room, she saw a turian reading a copy of Fornax, a drell sleeping with his face to the wall, and a volus bringing flowers for a coughing asari.
"Pepper," Dahlia called softly, keenly aware of how careful she would have to be when talking with her digital companion with so many people around. "Let's have a look at the reactor schematics and figure out where we can find new parts around here."
Dahlia could only lie in bed for an hour or two before madness crept in.
She had Pepper "hide" when the turian began looking oddly at them. She didn't like the attention. They'd compiled a list of potential sources for parts from devices and equipment likely to be kept around the clinic. It was idle preparation since the more she thought about it, the less Dahlia felt able to steal from the doctors. While resting, she tried to avoid the moral conundrum with brainstorming, but it was no use. Her fingers tapped the cot in irregular rhythms and her leg twitched restlessly.
Dahlia sat up, swung herself around, and instantly hated the feel of cold concrete and metal on her bare feet. She'd retained the leggings of her undersuit, but her boots sat beneath the cot with the remnants of her survival suit and rig. She imagined that anywhere else on the station they would have been snatched away in a heartbeat. Dr. Solus' clinic must have demanded a special kind of reverence.
From the waist down, her gear was largely intact. However, the medics had cut open the upper half of her undersuit when preparing her for surgery. While the outer hardsuit was serviceable, give or take a handful of bullet holes in the back, it would not fit properly. Nevertheless, Dahlia slipped it on awkwardly like a heavy jacket since she was not keen on strutting around the clinic wearing only bandages from the waist up.
"You should not be up. Too soon after surgery."
The salarian doctor found Dahlia examining a pair of mechs standing guard by one of the clinic's entrances. He wore some manner of long white coat, bearing a broad red stripe up the center. It was partially armored, accompanied by a chestpiece supporting an angular silver headset around his neck like a collar. Dahlia's eyes briefly strayed to the crown of his head, noticing the discrepancy in size of the "horns" characteristic of his species. His right horn was shorter, bearing signs of scarring.
"If you were laid up in bed, unable to work, how would you feel?" Dahlia asked.
"Restless. Hmm...point taken. Interest in mechs?"
Dahlia took a passing notice of the doctor's motormouth, thinking back to how Elsai described this Dr. Solus as "odd."
"They have me curious. It makes sense that a clinic on this rock would need protection, but a squad of LOKI mechs seems extravagant. You must have some pull to arrange this kind of defense."
"Astute observation. But the less said…" he inhaled sharply, "the better. Also curious about yourself, your armor. No, not full combat armor. Environmental suit, clearly designed to survive space. No manufacturer's marks, not mass produced. Custom design. Material unique as well. Complex hybrid material not seen outside turian legions or Alliance commandos, but certainly not a commando. No no no, muscle mass all wrong, underdeveloped. Also signs of privation, poor nutrition. Scars not battle wounds, clearly remnants of accident...starship accident perhaps?"
"Oh...are you done? Is it my turn?" Dahlia asked at the pause, cockily bemused by the doctor's stream-of-consciousness deductions. "You're pretty close to the mark. I suppose a doctor should know details about a patient."
Dahlia shared an abridged version of her story: her parents' death, her survival, and her life aboard the Flotilla. She spared the details about her exile. It left a lump in her throat, but she even name dropped her father, hoping to impress Dr. Solus and pave the way for her proposition.
"Tony Stark. Heard the name. Not familiar with his work. Genetics and biology my specialty, not machines and engineering."
"Funny you should mention that. As the holes in my back may have tipped you off, I can't exactly go back to where I was staying. If I helped maintain and fine tune your mechs and equipment, would you let me crash here? I don't expect any pay, and as long as you don't order anyone to shoot me you'll be a vast improvement over my last employer."
"Quarian friends mentioned the idea. Interesting proposal. Been thinking it over. Your terms are…" he inhaled sharply while concluding his deliberation "Acceptable."