Despite the pirate dragging her along by the cord wrapped around her wrists, for just an instant Dahlia felt nostalgic. The narrow hallway, running from the helm at the bow to the rest of the ship, reminded her of the crowded life aboard the Helash. She also reflected on how Imani would've thrown a fit to see how poorly kept this dirty, messy ship was.
The batarian pirate led Dahlia and her friends into what served as a living area: a wider space at the center of the ship furnished with a stained, worn table, a ratty couch set in front of a communal computer console and viewing screen, and some bunks set against the port and starboard walls. Only one other pirate, a drell woman with teal skin highlighted by the dim lighting, sat in the common room. She sat on the floor, propped against a bunk, thoroughly engrossed by the contents of a datapad. She didn't even take notice of the new arrivals.
Seeing that all the bunks were empty, Dahlia surmised that most of the crew was carousing on the station. With only three crew to oppose them - Forlak and the drell inside the ship, and the watchman on the docks - Dahlia bit her lip and accepted that she would probably never get a better opportunity.
She effortlessly slipped her hands out of the fake knots Hann tied in the cord. Before the pirate Forlak even realized anything was amiss, a full-strength repulsor blast drove him face-first into a bulkhead. The drell leapt to her feet, fishing a gun from under her bunk's pillow. She vaulted over the table, dodging a second repulsor shot from Dahlia.
Hann, Elsai, and Jin had also escaped their deceptive bonds, but they were still unarmed. David had their weapons outside the ship where he'd been stopped. Jin ran for the helm; his role in the plan was to secure the controls and prepare the ship for immediate departure. Hann dove for the downed Forlak, intending to steal a weapon from him - hopefully one he was strong enough to use. Elsai took cover behind a bulkhead corner and used her suit's radio to contact David.
Dahlia maneuvered around the cabin using short boosts, but she was hampered by the very cramped quarters. She desperately darted to evade bursts of fire from the drell's automatic, handheld weapon. With no kinetic barriers and only very limited armor, Dahlia had to rely on quick movement and the cabin's clutter to protect her. After more rounds than Dahlia cared to count, the drell stopped to eject her Locust's thermal clip. Dahlia lined up a barrage of repulsor shots, but each burst missed the surprisingly nimble drell. In the scant time they had to prepare, Dahlia had taken some time to practice her aim in a makeshift target range outside the clinic using scraps of metal and plastic, but a moving target was worlds apart from her very limited experience.
The drell was about the insert another thermal clip grabbed from a nearby rack and open a new hail of torturous fire on Dahlia, but Elsai blindsided her, tackling the pirate to the cabin floor. Elsai grabbed the drell's wrist and slammed her hand into the deck plating over and over again, trying to force the gun from her grip. The drell unbalanced Elsai by snaking a leg behind her and forcing the quarian to her knees. She drew a knife from an ankle sheath, aiming for Elsai's throat, but another shot rang out.
David stood at the mouth of the hallway. He wielded the Scimitar shotgun confiscated from the Eclipse mercenary who attacked the clinic. His shot had purposefully been aimed wide, however. He dared not risk hitting Elsai, so he just intended to scare off the drell. It worked. The drell pirate, discovering another, better armed attacker, and seeing that her only other crewmate was being flailed by the male quarian's wildly pounding fists, tried to make a break for freedom. Dahlia froze, her surge of adrenaline running dry. David reacted too slowly. The pirate shoved him into the wall and pushed her towards the gangway off the ship.
"Let her go," David shouted, re-steadying his footing. "Check for any more crew and get ready for launch."
Dahlia's mind went to autopilot. She moved towards the rear of the ship, naturally gravitating towards engineering. She passed Elsai and Hann who were using the cord to restrain the pirate Forlak. David disappeared down the hatch into the cargo hold beneath the main crew deck. Drawing upon everything she learned working with Imani and the other crew aboard the Helash, Dahlia fervently strived to get the helium-3 fuel running to the fusion torch maneuvering thrusters. Having much more experience maintaining ship's systems than operating them, she relied very much on Pepper's assistance. Over her communicator, she heard chatter from the rest of her erstwhile team.
"No pirates in the hold," David announced. "I'm freeing the prisoners. Are we ready for launch yet?"
"Not yet," Jin panted, stress taking a toll on his nerves, "but Dahlia's getting...the engines fired up quickly."
"Elsai and I just kicked that batarian...er, the bad one, off the ship and we've got the hatch sealed."
"Okay," Dahlia said, catching her short breath while staring at the red, orange, and green lights blinking or holding steady across the readouts and consoles, "Let's go."
Once the ship was free of its moorings, cleared the docks, and the cyclopean spires of Omega station no longer pressed close around the ship, Dahlia could think and breathe clearly. She plugged Pepper into the ship's computers, commanding her to sweep the systems and disable any tracking beacons or transponders. Her survival instincts reemerged, fed by her need to keep ahead of any hunters, real or imagined.
David called the quarians down to the cargo hold to start treating the prisoners' injuries, physical and psychological. Although Hann and Elsai only had a couple weeks of amatuer experience at the clinic, David reasoned that their aid was far more help than the prisoners had received in quite a while. Jin stayed at the helm. While most of his flight experience was with cargo transports on the station, that still put him ahead of the others.
"So...where are we going?" Jin called from the bow.
"There's about two dozen humans in the hold, including my uncle and his family," David assessed. "We don't have enough supplies to take care of them for long. We need to take them to a human colony so they can get medical attention and be taken home."
"Pepper, what's nearby?" Dahlia asked.
"According to star charts downloaded from the quarian databases, a single mass relay jump would bring us from the Omega Nebula to the human colony on Horizon in the Iera System within the Shadow Sea."
"Everyone hear that?" Dahlia called.
"Roger," Jin replied via comms at the helm. "Heading for the mass relay. Um...can your V.I. help me...plot a course through the relay?...I've never done that before."
"Affirmative," Pepper confirmed.
"I really hope the prisoners in the hold can't hear us," Dahlia said to herself. "They'd probably feel safer with the pirates."
The ship's new crew performed their newfound roles to the best of their decidedly limited abilities. The small vessel crawled awkwardly towards the system's mass relay. With more than a few gritted teeth and crossed fingers, they flared through the relay like a brilliant, blue-shifted bullet.
Author's Note: Hello everyone! This chapter marks the "season finale" for Dahlia Stark, ending the Omega Saga. The story will continue very soon with the first episode of season two, the Horizon Saga. Thank you so, so much for the favorites, the follows, and the comments. I joined the site last year at the suggestion of a new friend, and I've been using this as an opportunity to get back into writing, so the encouragement means more to me than I can possibly express. I hope you've enjoyed the story so far, and I hope that you'll like the future installments even more. See you all next time!