Despite his certainty of impending insomnia, the assassin did indeed sleep, and he slept far longer than was normal for him, even during exhausting conditions. It took him some time to shake off the fog, hampered in this effort by the memory of dreams that clung fast to his waking mind.
Gunfire fills my ears. Surrounded. There are too many. Some, I will send to the sea, but my body accepts its own death as inevitable. Heavy boots pound the floor from behind. A pink face blurred behind its visor. Red streaks glisten under biotic fire. A dying asari chokes on the floor. Her final exhalation, a word - "siha."
It was rare that he found himself doing the will of the goddess Arashu, at least not directly. While it was true that those he hunted tended to prey themselves on the weak and defenseless, he was hardly a vigilante. It seemed, however, that he was to fight alongside one of Her warrior-angels. If She had chosen to impart this knowledge to him in a dream, he would not dismiss it. Now he knew why the specter of the future had been dogging his steps - his commission was not from the hanar who had called in an old allegiance, but from the One who spared no effort in protecting her chosen.
With newfound eagerness to continue his mission, he dressed quickly and proceeded to the embassy lounge. He would wait there for the asari to arrive, and learn what he needed to from her. He spared a moment for annoyance at his hanar employer for not including her name among the information given to him. With a name, he could have tracked her down immediately. Had he been less agitated and paid more attention at the time he first reviewed the dossier, he would have questioned this. As it was, he was forced to work only with a holophoto and the knowledge that she spent her days in the lounge. He hoped that the information she would provide about his target would be more useful.
After a little more than an hour of waiting, he caught sight of the asari as she sauntered through the door and toward her usual table. He rose, intending to take up a closer, if somewhat more exposed position to drop the device that would track her movements and transmit an audio feed to the software installed on his omni-tool. He stopped himself short, however, as she was approached by a human waiter the instant she slid into her seat.
"Good morning, Ms. Dantius," the human greeted her, "Your usual?"
Dantius. His target was an asari named Dantius, but that was not the Dantius in the holo labeled as the target. Perhaps it was a common name among asari. He would proceed as planned, but with more caution.
The waiter left, but almost immediately upon his departure, the asari was hailed by another. This time, it was a member of her own species who called to her.
"Nassana!" cried the newcomer, waving a hand high as she hurried to cross the lounge. She took up residence in the chair opposite Ms. Dantius and seized the sky-blue hands in her own. "I just heard about Dahlia! Oh, your poor sister! It's so awful!
The second asari continued to shudder and exclaim about mercenaries and ransom, but the assassin ignored her to contemplate what she had already said. Dantius. Dahlia. Sister.
Human female in Alliance armor. Gasps and clatter of utensils dropped in surprise. "Your sister's dead! I killed her myself!"
Dahlia Dantius. Dead Asari. Siha. Time to get some answers.
"Get us to Feros, Joker," Shepard called as she stepped through the airlock.
"Commander, I've got Admiral Hackett on the comm for you and you probably want to hear this first. Patching him through-"
"No," she said, without breaking stride, "Take a message or tell him to send it to my extranet address and I'll deal with whatever he wants later. We're going to Feros. No more side missions. No distress calls, no rogue VIs, no Cerberus. Not until we've made some progress on our actual mission."
"Yes, ma'am!"
She needed a drink, and a shower, and sleep. Oh well. Two out of three will have to do. Instead of heading for her cabin and a shower, she made a beeline for the medical bay. Dr. Chakwas always had a bottle of something stashed away and had long since become immune to armor-funk. Kaidan called out to her with a wave as she approached that end of the deck, but she ignored him and blew through the door to her destination. Normally, she'd welcome a little flirt session at the end of an annoying day, but she had no patience left for dealing with him. She liked him, probably, but sometimes, it was just too much work to get through a conversation with the man. She had to drag answers out of him, and then, when she finally thought they were getting somewhere, he'd trail off and say he'd already taken up too much of her time.
Unfortunately, the doctor was busy with Liara, trying to come up with a way to help the asari cope better with the side-effects of helping Shepard sift through the jumbled memories dropped in her head by the Prothean beacon. Liara was only trying to help, but Shepard's need to be away from anyone blue, even a friend, outweighed her need for an intoxicant.
"Something you need, Commander?" The doctor asked, over her shoulder.
"No. Nothing urgent. I should go."
I guess it'll be one out of three,then.If a damned pipe bursts, I'm going to have to rethink this whole saving the galaxy thing.
A/N: I apologize for the delay in posting the next chapter. A family situation has required much of my attention. I have been making notes when I can and will organize them into a proper narrative soon. Rest assured that I will see this through. I have drafts of a few chapters that will come later already finished, so once I get the next chronological ones finalized, updates will come quickly. Thanks for reading! In the meantime, I thought you might like a listen to some of the music that inspires me as I work on this particular story. If you visit Grooveshark, add /playlist/Haunted+By+Waters/87246765 to the URL to find a playlist in no particular order. When this story is complete, I'll arrange the tracks so they line up with story events. Keelah se'lai.