After the Eclipse mercenaries' raid on the clinic, Dahlia secluded herself in her workspace and surrounded herself with the broken remnants of the mech casualties. Focusing on work to be done, problems to be solved, helped her escape the lingering anxiety. Dr. Abrams and the quarians were also still shaken, but they managed to carry on after cleaning up the mess left behind.
Her last visitor was Elsai, asking if Dahlia wanted to say anything to the bereaved Jin. During the raid, Ryxera used her natural asari biotic talent to fend off one of the mercenaries. The strain exacerbated her illness, however, and she passed away not long after. Dahlia could not even bring herself to answer Elsai's summons, so she silently kept to her work and let Elsai depart alone.
Despite the attack and Ryxera's passing, Dr. Solus resumed his rounds without pause. Dahlia marvelled at the salarian doctor's icy nerves, and she suspected that he had a military past. Immediately after watching Dr. Solus execute the downed asari mercenary, Dahlia stormed the nearest room with a sink. She almost didn't remove her helmet in time before literally spilling her guts.
"Out of the clinic's twelve mechs, seven were taken down," Dahlia assessed at the beginning of the new project in the storage room she'd commandeered.
"The simplicity of their tactics," Pepper surmised, "means that while LOKI mechs can deal with low grade threats, like individual criminals or small groups of gang members, a focused assault by well-trained, well-equipped mercenaries is beyond their parameters."
"Definitely seems that way. However, I think I can get six of them back online."
"I disagree, ma'am. After running an initial diagnostic, I've come to the conclusion that reactivating four units is a more reasonable target, even if we recycle components from irreparable units."
"Well, that sounds like a challenge to me."
While advising Dahlia in repairing - or salvaging - the damaged mechs, the A.I. also inserted snippets of the anxiety management advice that she'd copied from Imani'Barael.
Back aboard the Helash, Dahlia had instructed Pepper to copy data from the fleet's databases without leaving any trace or actually tampering with their systems in the slightest. Pepper also took the initiative to tap into Imani's omni-tool, where she kept files on coping with anxiety and stress. The instructional vids and therapeutic dossiers were logged in a sub-folder labeled "For Dahlia." Pepper hadn't shared this information with Dahlia, but she subtly used the downloaded techniques to help her companion through stressful moments.
"Ma'am, that mech is not complete," Pepper interjected several hours later. "Its short range energy pulse emitter is offline."
"I cannibalized the parts to repair the damaged processors and cybernetics."
"Then you could not actually repair it."
"Are you accusing me of cheating?" Dahlia laughed. "It's better to have the mech back on its feet without the electrical weapon than to keep it in scrap. We might even be able to upgrade its tactical protocols to have this one hang back and offer long range support while the other mechs move forward."
"You mean that I could upgrade its protocols, correct ma'am?"
"I, we, it's the same thing. We're a team."
Their conversation was interrupted by a ginger knocking just outside the storage room. Silhouetted against the sheet Dahlia hung from the doorway for privacy - a trick picked up from the Flotilla where privacy was a precious luxury - was the shadow of a tall humanoid. Without waiting for an invitation, the visitor parted the curtain and entered. Dahlia's view immediately jumped to the two pairs of dark brown eyes set amongst the shallow ridges running along his oblong, globular head.
He chewed his thin lip, seemingly searching for his words, allowing Dahlia to survey her uninvited visitor. She likened his leathery skin to the color of a poorly nourished grass lawn, like that of an old neighbor on Bekenstein. In fact, his nose reminded Dahlia of a dog she also encountered on Bekenstein as a little girl. Her mother called it a "pug" and the overexcited beast had leapt all over the tiny Dahlia. This batarian, however, carefully kept his distance. His stance was not nearly as uncertain or timid as Hann's, but he was still far from aggressive.
Just to be safe, Dahlia whispered for Pepper to reactivate the two mechs they'd already brought back to functionality. The metallic whir of their limbs reaching for their pistols spooked the batarian, who stepped backward with his calloused palms raised plaintively.
"Hold up, I'm not here to cause trouble," he pleaded hoarsely. "I actually wanted to ask for your help."
The batarian offered to treat Dahlia to lunch from one of the vendors plying the Gozu district, but she preferred a simple meal in the clinic's cramped lounge. She also insisted on having Hann and Elsai join them. Dahlia wanted to keep her friends close, and she especially wanted Dr. Solus nearby.
"So who are you?" Dahlia asked the batarian point blank.
"My name is David Ghule Zhang and I…"
"Wait," Dahlia interrupted, incredulous. "Your name is...David?"
"You can call me Dave," he said, matter-of-factly. After a moment of blank stares, he added, "I was raised by human parents. I have my adoptive family's surname, I'm personally named after a my mother's father, and my middle name was a traditional batarian name my parents chose to help me keep some of my roots. Unfortunately, they didn't realize that 'Ghule' is traditional female name. Oh well, it's no different than having Leslie or Marion as a middle name."
"You said you wanted my help. Do you need something fixed?" Dahlia asked, amused and slightly disarmed by the batarian's candor.
"Um, it's more like a situation that needs to be fixed," David said, tapping fingers together, an anxious tell. "A pirate ship put into port here a few days ago. It's full of soon-to-be slaves. I want to rescue them."
The announcement caused Hann to nearly choke on his dextro-amino nutrient paste.
"I think we're done here," Dahlia said, rising to bolt back to her workshop. Her escape was halted when David's thick fingers wrapped around her wrist. Even through her suit's dense material, once meant to survive the vacuum of space, Dahlia felt her skin prickle at the unwelcome contact.
Elsai, unlike Hann, had identified her human companion's need for personal space early in their friendship, and she feared that Dahlia would have unleashed a repulsor blast on the batarian if she had not slipped her gloves off to eat.
"My uncle and his family are among the slaves. Their colony was hit by these raiders. The ship leaves Omega in less than three days, and after that my relatives are doomed. I can't abandon them."
"Why not hire some mercenaries?" Dahlia spat, snapping her arm away from the batarian yet no longer hurrying away from the table.
"None of the hired guns I could afford would be willing to cross slavers or pirates. I had a plan to handle this myself, but I would need your help, specifically, Ms. Stark. I had hoped your past would encourage you to help."
"My past?" Dahlia asked with rising suspicion, slipping on her gloves none-too-subtly.
"You probably don't remember me, but I was in the recovery room when you were brought in by your friends," David said, gesturing to Hann and Elsai. "I was getting over an infection. I'd stressed myself to sickness trying to track these slavers. I overheard one of your friends mentioning that you'd been attacked by batarian pirates. I asked to be moved to a different recovery room so as to not make you uncomfortable."
Dahlia begrudgingly admitted that the batarian appeared sincere. She also inwardly groaned, again debating if and when to reveal the true identity of her family's killers to Hann and Elsai.
"But then I saw you demonstrate your flight suit," David said, almost awed, "and heard how you helped the doctor defend the clinic. It seemed like serendipity, too good to be true. I thought you were the one person on the station who could help me."
"Why not ask Dr. Solus himself?" Dahlia asked. "I'm pretty sure he used to be a commando or something."
"I don't doubt that. Frankly," David said, casting his four eyes downward for a moment, "the salarian scares me. I didn't want to approach him right away. I was planning on talking to him after convincing you to help...or if you turned me down."
"I'm not a soldier," Dahlia declared. "Hell, I'm not even an engineer. My formal education ended at the age of fourteen."
"I'm not asking you to risk your life for nothing," David pleaded, desperation edging into the dark pools of his eyes. "I'm not even asking for you to act out of justice or vengeance. I can promise you a reward."
"Reward?" Hann asked, perking up. "What kind of reward?"
"If my plan works," David said, "The slaver's ship and everything inside - credits, tech, armor, weapons - can be yours. I just want to rescue my uncle and the other prisoners."
"You can count me in," Hann said, bolting upright with his hands gripping the table's edge.
"Hann!" Elsai scolded.
"A whole ship and its contents as Pilgrimage gifts!? We could return to the fleet like heroes!" he exclaimed.
"We're even less of soldiers than Dahlia is!" Elsai berated him. "We don't have her suit and rig. Keelah, we don't even have a pistol between us anymore."
The quarians' rising argument drowned from Dahlia's ears. Her head was bare, but it still felt like she wore her helmet. The world around her faded as she withdrew into her own thoughts. Even without a speaker, she imagined Pepper's digital voice chiming in her mind, asking what she planned to do.
"You said you had a plan," Dahlia said after uncounted moments, blocking out her deafening heartbeat and silencing the bickering quarians. "I'm not committing to anything until I know precisely how half-assed this operation is."
"Trust me, I put my whole ass into this," David smiled, gently shifting the alignment of ridges around his mouth into a wider, rounder shape.
The ship was small, less than seventy meters in length - shorter but taller than a Kowloon-class freighter. Like an overgrown varren, the ruddy brown beast slumbered at its mooring. A cargo hold was slung along the bottom, like the distended belly of a satiated predator. Small gun turrets were nestled like bristles along the nape of its neck and on its snout. A pair of fusion torch thrusters sat at the rear, just barely visible from where Dahlia and her "team" approached on the docks.
David took the forefront, leading the others by a length of cord tied to their wrists. He played the part of slaver, after having his simple wardrobe "toughened" by input from Jin and Hann. A red bandana was tied around his scalp, some impromptu spiked wristbands were crafted from scrap in Dahlia's workspace, and Elsai drew a "tattoo" on his arm - there was debate amongst everyone about what it looked like. Elsai insisted she drew a varren, but Hann said it looked like a sick krogan and David thought it looked like a pointy cloud. Dahlia just thought it looked stupid.
Since their batarian "mastermind" had no weapons of his own, that was another accessory they had to provide. Dahlia gave him the asari mercenary's shotgun, the one Hann had been too weak to use, which Dr. Solus had locked up in a cabinet with the Eclipse squad's other confiscated weaponry. They made duly sure that David was strong enough to pull the trigger.
"My uncle taught me how to shoot," he had promised during the preparatory stages of their mission. "He thought it was an essential part of living in a colony, being able to protect myself against wildlife, raiders...or human neighbors who didn't think much of a batarian in their midst."
David also carried a number of small pistols, two holstered on his hips and one at his ankle. He'd initially, idly complained about being unaccustomed to the extra weight. The pistols were intended for the others once aboard the ship, although everyone hoped they would not be needed. She really wished Dr. Solus would've agreed to join the mission; his skill could've made all the difference.
"No. Given choice between heal and hurt, choose heal every time," the doctor said in his rapid-fire logic. "Still, can see need for rescue. Ounce of prevention, pound of cure; that's the human expression. Hmm, dangerous but doubt I can dissuade you."
Dr. Solus provided the newly formed team with some tubes of medi-gel, unlocked the confiscated weapons for them, and offered strategic advice that was probably utterly lost on them. Dahlia hated the knowledge that she was counted with David as one of the team's "heavy-hitters." Her arc reactor harness, in its low power standby state, was inconspicuous, and she imagined that they would never think to look for experimental technology in her palms and on her soles. The rest of her modified survival suit characterized her as little more than a subjugated spacer.
Even if, in theory, she was the best armed member of the group, she hardly felt up to snuff. Dahlia could not shake the creeping anxiety that returned every time her thoughts inevitably returned to the raid on the clinic. However, she glanced over her shoulder at the others and, almost resentfully, remember how much depended on her. Not only were Hann and Elsai trailing behind her, also playing the part of new slaves, but anchoring the end of their line, with downcast eyes, was Jin.
After a final visit to say goodbye to his lifeless beloved, it was not hard for the volus to overhear Hann and Elsai loudly arguing about whether to go along with David's plan. He had approached them only a few hours before they set out. In perhaps the group's first and only unanimous decisions, none of them thought the volus should come along. He had no stake in the venture, and they silently wondered what the small fellow could contribute.
"With Ryxie gone," he wheezed, more from grief than his breather, "there's nothing left for me here….Omega holds nothing but bitter memories…that I want to escape. I've already….sold my stake in my business….I'm leaving this station….whether you have me or not, but I'd rather….travel with friends than….travel alone."
No one had the heart to turn him away. In fact, Jin had cemented everyone's resolve to see the mission through.
"Hold it!" snapped another batarian. He jumped up from where he sat on a railing beside the raider ship. He pointed one finger accusingly at the approaching group while his other hand fumbled to draw his pistol. "Where do you think you're going?"
"I've got some more slaves for the shipment," David barked. "I talked it over with Hrunt, so get that gun out of my face."
"I didn't hear anything about this," the watchman countered. "Just who are you?"
"Name's Ghule," David said, offering his batarian middle name.
"Ghule?" the watchman chuckled. "Does that make you Hrunt's woman?"
"You find my name funny?" David said, using the attitude and glare he'd rehearsed with Elsai. "So did my father when he gave it to me, right up until I cut off his hands and gouged out all four of his eyes. He didn't find it too funny after that. Would you?"
"Whoa, calm down. Hold on." The watchman activated his communicator. "Hey Forlak, get out here. Got a few more bodies to toss in the hold….yeah, yeah, we'll get the commission."
After a couple minutes, another batarian with a deep red complexion emerged from the gangway. A blocky assault rifle dangled by a shoulder strap, hanging alongside his waist. Mumbling angrily to himself, he snatched the cord from David's hands. With a rough jerk of the line, he wordlessly commanded the "slaves" to follow him aboard.
David moved to follow, but the watchman stopped him with a heavy palm jabbed into his chest.
"What about my finder's fee?" David pleaded. His plan called for him to follow the others onto the ship. He tried to mask his dismay with more feigned bravado.
"Hey, that's all between you and Hrunt. Take it up with him," the watchman growled.
Dahlia stopped to look back at David, hoping for some cue or suggestion. She didn't see much before the crewman Forlak delivered a stiff elbow check to her shoulder blade. He put most of his weight into it, probably hoping that she'd fall and then he'd get to kick her while she was down. Dahlia stumbled but caught her footing. As she was dragged into the shadows of the dimly lit ship, Dahlia realized that the next move was hers.