Omega wasn't my first choice for port of call, but the Linara was dangerously low on supplies, and if what Major Wald had said was true, our destination would require nearly a month of FTL flight to reach.
Even now I checked the aged asari frigate's map of the sector, the location of the signal's source marked in red at the very edge of one of the galaxy's arms. There were no mass relays for light-years around, and Omega remained, albeit precariously, as a relatively stable port in the tumultuous sea that was the terminus.
"They just came through the relay," Ophera announced over the ship's loudspeaker. I turned away from the galaxy map and paced towards the bridge of my ship. The SSV Verdun had indeed just arrived, and was moving to approach us through the asteroid field surrounding Omega.
The ship's chief engineer came over the radio, the Irishman's voice still in its naturally cheery form.
"Nice to see you again," Major Wald said, "the boss lady wants to know why you haven't docked yet."
"Aria's people contacted us the second we left the relay," I responded, "they provided a very graphic account of the consequences of messing with Aria and demanded we wait until they can inspect our ships."
The Quarian came over the radio next, irritation permeating every word she spoke, "We're spectres, we don't answer to criminals," she said, "dock anyway."
"If you want to deal with those Cerberus cannons, go right ahead," I said, already growing weary of the other spectre's attitude, "you could probably take one or two of them out before they killed you."
From the station, a large cruiser approached us, its hull emblazoned with Aria's personal emblem. Even from this distance, it was clear the vessel would have little difficulty dispatching both the Verdun and Linara.
An unmarked signal now hailed us, and upon answering it, we were greeted by Aria T'loak's scowling face.
"Well isn't this a surprise," she said, venom coating her words, "used to be we only get one Spectre destroying my station every few months, and today I get two."
"Nice to see you too, Aria," I said as dryly as possible.
"You know each other?" Yana asked over the communication channel.
"Friend of a friend," I explained quickly, "How is Nyreen, by the way?"
"Dead," Aria answered coldly, her expression making it clear that there would be no further inquiries into the subject.
"Now," the asari said, "I want to know what you're doing here and why I shouldn't just blow the two of you away."
"You'd be stupid to try," Yana said before I could silence her, "you kill us and the entire citadel fleet would be on your doorstep within a week."
"You're making the assumption that they'd care," Aria said, her glare boring through the screen, "the council wouldn't dare start a war with a terminus, not over a few dead spectres."
"Save the speeches Aria," I said, ignoring the glares I received from both ends of the comm. channel, "We need to refuel and resupply, then we'll be on our way."
"There's a refuelling station one jump that way," Aria growled, "Omega is, as of now, closed to Spectres."
I sighed, "Look, we're not here to cause trouble for Omega," I said, exasperated, "we need supplies, and we're willing to pay."
"Fine, be gone by tomorrow" Aria said, "but know that if you make one wrong move, you'll gain a new appreciation for the lethality of total vacuum."
The cruiser drifted off, circling back around through the asteroids that surrounded the station before disappearing into the depths the orbiting den of debauchery. I let out a sigh of relief as the vessel finally vanished, leaning against the bulkhead behind the pilot's chair.
"Word of advice, Yana," I said over the comm. channel, "listen to me and don't fuck with Aria, you'll live longer."
Our ships approached the station slowly, directed to a pair of docking ports next to each other along one of the many towers that protruded from the bottom of the asteroid that housed the station, and from the moment I stepped foot out of the airlock, I could tell the war had been hard on Omega.
The filth and despair that seemed to embody the station had accumulated far beyond normal, with a crowd of refugees from around the Terminus clustered within the docking station. I fought through the crowd to the adjacent docking port bypassing the begging masses to find the Quarian and her second-in-command, who kneeled next to a skinny, short-haired dog.
"What's with the furry varren?" I asked, receiving a questioning glance from the dog.
"Don't listen to him, girl," the major said to the dog, rubbing between the thing's shoulders, tapping his thigh as the dog fell into step behind him.
I led the way into the station, my cursory knowledge of the facility making me our party's guide. We bypassed the largest of the corridors in favour of the discretion afforded by the narrow alleyways, the predators that lurked there in search of prey wisely avoiding us.
We placed an order for fuel from one of the shop vendors in the plaza near Afterlife, staring out over the war torn streets that even now struggled to maintain a façade of tranquillity. Omega may not have faced he brunt of the reaper invasion, but the combination of Cerberus' coup and the flood of starving refugees drained the stations marginal wealth and left little to nothing behind for reconstruction. Aria had commandeered the leftover Cerberus equipment and established an impressive defence around her own holdings, but even if she wished to help the people stranded there, there simply wasn't the means to do so.
"You get to Omega often?" the major asked me, leaning against the railing overlooking the void outside the station.
"Not really," I said, watching from the corner of my eye as Yana spoke with an elcor vendor about the necessary supplies, "Never had much reason to, aside from a few scouting missions."
"Came here once when I was younger," he said, "just out of college, and heard this place was better than Vegas," he chuckled quietly to himself, "lost half my money to some shady merchant and the other half to the bars, couldn't even afford a shuttle back to alliance space."
"So how'd you make it back?" I asked watching as a damaged mercenary vessel drifted past, the blood pack logo all but erased by scorch marks across the hull.
"Signed on with an alliance frigate that was passing through," he said, "they offered to get me off Omega if I enlisted."
"Well obviously you didn't leave, what made you stay?" I asked.
"Eh," he shrugged, "I was likely going to end up as a ship's engineer anyways, and might as well save the galaxy on the side."
"You been on the Verdun long?"
"Was only the third engineer when the war started," he answered, "the others got dragged off to work on the crucible, and I got a promotion in the process."
"How'd you get a dog on a military vessel, by the way?" I said, scratching the top of the dog's head as it looked back and forth between us as we spoke.
"Saskia? She's my girlfriend's dog," the major said, "She ran a dog shelter on Earth before the war, and she couldn't take her with her on the Citadel, so I convinced my CO to let me take her along."
"Really?" I said.
"Yana wanted me to get rid of her once she took command, but it turns out she's a softie for animals."
He fell silent as Yana approached us, shrugging off a pair of street vendors that fought to sell her illegal V.I. augmentations, "They say," she said, annoyed, "that they're short on workers, and won't be able to get to our ships for another five hours."
"That's actually fairly short," I said, "for Omega at least."
She stormed off with a derisive snort, making her way towards the docking port again, "if you need me I'll be on the ship."
"Well," the major said after she stormed off, "I promised myself I'd never drink on Omega again, but I've got a bottle of Turian liquor on the ship if you'd care to join me."
I shrugged, unable to think of anything better to do while we waited, "why not?"
"So how'd you get to be a Spectre?" the major asked as we began the walk back to the ship.
"I was on the citadel when Cerberus attacked," I said, "I got pinned down with a group of refugees and held off Cerberus until C-Sec showed up, turns out one of the people I saved was an asari diplomat," I shrugged, not wanting to mention that I'd managed to get my entire crew killed in the process, "She pushed for my appointment and the council allowed it."
"You make it sound boring," the human commented.
"Well," I responded, "we can't all be Yana'Valar."
He chuckled at that for a moment before responding, "Thank god for that."
We turned out of the market district into a service tunnel, seemingly devoid of any activity save a slow release of steam from one of the water pipes running along the walls. Our path opened up into a narrow intersection, and we found ourselves faced with a trio of vorcha with weapons drawn and pointed at us.
The biggest of the three, evidently the leader, growled at us, "You give us your credits now!"
"How about you leave now, and you get to keep your bones unbroken?" I suggested in response.
The vorcha growled again, shuffling forward aggressively, "You outnumbered!" it said, "Give us credits or die!"
I looked at the major, who responded with a smile, "would you care to do it, or should I?"
I responded by thrusting out and arm, sending the one closest to me flying into the metal bulwark behind him, the sound of shattering bones and bending steel echoing through the narrow hallways.
The leader opened fire, his pistol's rounds smashing against my barriers ineffectually. I lashed out a leg, embedding as much as my biotic strength into the kick as possible. It struck him in the chest, simultaneously crushing his ribs inward and sending him toppling over. The vorcha landed gracelessly, sputtering incoherently as his destroyed lungs fought for air, finding only blood for their effort.
The third one pulled the trigger furiously, receiving nothing more than a hollow clicking in return.
"You need to engage the thermal clip," I said helpfully before lifting him off the ground, slamming him into the ceiling before dropping him to the floor in an unceremonious heap.
"After you," I said, stepping to the side and gesturing down the path towards the Verdun.
"Nicely done," he said, beckoning the dog to him as she growled at the prone forms scattered throughout the hall, "can't say I've ever seen a biotic throw a kick like that before."
"What do you mean?" I asked as we emerged into the main corridors once more, fusing with the swarms of people that pressed through the streets, the scent of roasting meat and strong alcohol filling the air.
"Normally they sit back a bit, toss their little balls of pain across the battlefield from behind cover," he explained.
"It's one of the few biotic techniques not invented by the asari," I said, trying not to lose him and the dog in the bustle of the crowd, "it's a krogan technique, as you'd probably guess, focuses on tearing apart your target with physical attacks augmented by biotics."
"It's obviously pretty effective…" he said, looking back towards the alleyway were we'd left the three attackers.
We got back to the docking port, standing in the airlock for several seconds as ultraviolet light sterilized the room before opening up into the interior of the Verdun.
As I suspected, the Verdun was a far sight more advanced than the Linara, with state-of-the-art targeting computers lining the walls up to the cockpit, which was itself equipped with an advanced V.I. interface, probably just a few degrees short of an A.I. by the looks of it. The interior of the ship was completed with a silvery gleam, lacking any of the wear and scuff that would've accommodated and older ship like my own. The Verdun was deficient in some ways, of course; it lacked much of the agility the smaller ship had, especially, though its firepower more than made up for the difference.
Another flaw became clear to me as we descended to the maintenance levels in the bowels of the ship, and I began to notice far more power units and conductors scattered throughout the systems. It was likely that the Verdun's armaments and shielding required a greater draw than most ships her size, making it even more vital for the engineers to manage the power carefully during combat.
He directed me towards a lounge on the crew deck. The room was empty, the crew of the ship enjoying their brief shore leave on Omega rather than the poker tables and televisions set up on the ship.
The major grabbed two glasses and two bottles, one marked with a warning label: Dextro-amino. He sat across from me, the dog laying across his feet and sighing before falling asleep.
"Why do you have this?" I asked as I poured the liquor, watching as he did the same with his own drink.
"Got it for Yana when she first came on board," he said, "probably should've realized she'd be too uptight to actually drink it."
We sat there for a while, trading stories over drinks until the Quarian Spectre announced over the loudspeaker that the ships had finally been refilled.
"I best get back to the Linara," I said, handing him the remaining half-bottle of Turian liquor.
"Keep it," he said, "It'd just go to waste here."
I nodded in thanks, "Appreciate it."
"See you on the other side, Aetius," he said, saluting casually.
I returned the gesture, pausing in the doorway before turning back to faced him, "I don't think I ever got your first name."
"Luke," he said, adopting a tone of faux formality, "Chief-Major Lukas Wald, second officer of the SSV Verdun."
"Well, Luke," I said, extending a hand to the relaxed man, "Let's see what mysteries we can find in the middle of nowhere."
He took my hand and shook it heartily, "Aye," he said, chuckling darkly, "let's."
I stood on the bridge of the Linara as the Verdun entered the mass relay, disappearing in a flash of light as it was instantly transported innumerable millions of miles in the blink of an eye.
We had connected the Linara to the nearby comm. buoys, allowing the crew of both ships to contact their families before we left civilized space.
"… I know dear…" the asari pilot's voice drifted to him from her position at the helm of the ship, "… I don't know how long I'll be gone… yes, I'll make sure to call the moment I get back…"
She ended the call, sighing heavily before taking control of the ship once more, disconnecting us from our sole lifeline to society before directing us toward the pulsating blue of the relay.
Even from where we were several kilometres away from the relay, I began to feel the odd fluctuations that radiated outwards from the massive machine. It was an odd sensation, feeling the fabric of the universe shifting and moving as the relic manipulated matter itself as it drifted about the void.
"All systems on-line," Ophera said, nodding back to me, "the board is green."
We spotted the Verdun several thousand kilometres away, just beyond the deposit zone for the relay. We drifted over to it, discharging the built-up electric charges into the vacuum of space as we did so.
"Five minutes until rendezvous," Ophera said, "I'm transmitting the course plan now, and we'll be ready to leave the moment we reach the transit lane."
We drifted through the system until we reached the Verdun's side, the larger ship looming over my own as the system's distant star burned dimly in the void, eclipsed by the cloudy atmosphere of a nearby gas giant and its mammoth rings as the mass drifted slowly around its sun.
"Receiving vector," Ophera said, hands darting over the holographic interface madly, "calculating mass for transit," the ship began to shift, my amps spiking up as the monumental feat of science and engineering warped the universe through the same manipulation of matter that fuelled my combat, "Gone," she said, as the ships were dragged away from their orbits, and launched into the void.