Jarg's Assorted Meat Burgers, Omega market district.
An immense Krogan stomped out of the kitchen, he had a ludicrously small grease stained pinny tied around his waist and a steaming platter balanced daintily on his outstretched hand.
"Who ordered the Varen Jorgal surprise?"
Claire Perry raised her hand. "Uh, that's me." The Krogan's amber eyes swivelled, chameleon like, in their sockets to zero in on the human sitting at the corner table facing the door. She looked very out of place in this greasy spoon dive: with her loose curly blonde hair and denim jacket draped over an airy summer dress.
The Krogan could never tell with humans but she seemed pretty in a squishy mammal kind of way. He shrugged inwardly and dumped the plate in front of her.
'Not that it matters to me. I'm no deviant.' He thought.
"Thanks." Said Claire. On the dish was a bun in the style of a human burger chain containing a slab of charred meat. Picking it up she took a tentative bite.
She chewed, grimaced and then (with some effort) swallowed.
"Hey!" She spluttered after the waiter's receding back. He turned and sighed heavily. "What?"
"This isn't Varen. I've tasted Varen and this isn't it." The Krogan puffed himself up to his full height before formulating a reply. "Listen human I don't know what you think you know-"
"Never mind." She blurted out, cutting off the angry retort. Over the Krogan's shoulder Claire had just glimpsed a trio of approaching figures that could only be the reps from 'D'mel enterprises incorporated.' Bringing up the rear was a broad shouldered Quarian in a black and blue exosuit, probably the same Quarian she had spoken to over the com.
Ranging ahead was a lanky Salarian dressed in a black bodysuit, his peach coloured skin was marred by blotchy green bruises.
Finally was a compact, muscular Asari that had to be Karla D'mel, her new employer if things went well. Karla had purple skin, orange facial Markings and unkind brown eyes. Like Claire she was wearing a jacket over her outfit (an old Mercenary light hardsuit), a dark green bomber made of weathered leather.
'An Asari, a Salarian and a Quarian walk into a bar.' She thought with an absentminded smile.
Even as Claire watched the Salarian said something in a nasal voice and Karla took swing at him. Hurriedly the Quarian interposed himself between the bickering pair. Claire watched the whole exchange with interest.
So D'mel had a quick temper, the Salarian was either too dumb or too jaded to stop himself from provoking her and the Quarian (who obviously had combat training judging by the way he moved) was stuck in the middle.
"Are you Claire Perry?" The Quarian's accent reminded her strangely of Russian. She stood and shook the proffered hand, nodding. She had some difficulty gripping his two fingered hand.
Without waiting for Claire's reply Karla barged past the other two. "Hi! I'm Karla and these are my boys. Let's get straight to business? Great idea." She plopped down into the chair opposite the human leaving Kelron and Shrub to exchange a look then find seats of their own.
"Pleased to meet you, I am Kelron'Baj Vas Deserts Tears."
The Salarian smiled politely. "I'm Shrub Velik." Shrub called up Claire's résumé on his omni-tool. Claire let out a long, nervous breath. She hated job interviews.
"So." Velik began. "It says here that you were part of an anti-terrorist organisation on earth for four years. Why don't you tell us about the challenges that were posed by the job and how they might equip you for a position at D'mel enterprises?"
"Uh." Said Claire, already kicking herself. 'Nice job moron, great introduction.'
"…Well I think my skill set lends itself to a strategic or command position. That might sound presumptuous but if you look at my work history you'll see that I was a unit commander and briefly headed up the agency's applied tactics division. I can snipe too when the situation calls for it."
Shrub, as the only one in the group without some kind of combat training, looked nonplussed but Kelron & Karla listened intently. Kelron had been a marine of the migrant fleet and Karla had been a member of the Eclipse mercenary group (granted that had been almost three hundred years ago) so both were interested in Claire's area of expertise. Shrub however continued down the list of questions.
"You said you briefly headed up the tactical division. Why did you leave?"
"It was simple really: the agency wasn't going doing enough to combat the threat's posed by today's galaxy so I quit."
"Meaning?" Karla prompted, trying to pry under the layers of her clipped, formulated response.
"Cerberus. The higher ups refused to take any action, even when I dropped a perfectly good plan of a action in their laps. It got so bad that I started to wonder if Cerberus was paying them off. I wasn't going to risk asking the wrong question and turning up face down in a ditch." Kelron leaned forward, his hands clasped together on the table in front of him.
"I think my colleagues will agree with me when I say that I appreciate your integrity." Karla and Shrub looked unconvinced.
"In the spirit of honestly." He continued. "I don't feel right about offering you the job under false pretences. We're not a mercenary company, not yet anyway but I think your knowledge might go a long way with us."
He glanced left at Shrub who shrugged then right at Karla who nodded.
"I guess that settles it then, welcome aboard." All four of them stood simultaneously.
"Awesome! Follow me and I'll show you the ship." With her customary energy Karla bounded out of the restaurant, leaving the human with the Quarian and the Salarian.
"That's it?" You don't want to know whether I work well with others or if I have a crippling mental health problem? I could be a horrible racist for all you know."
"Are you?" Kelron's mask was impassive.
"No but-" Shrub cut her off before she could continue.
"Your résumé told us everything we needed to know and now we have met you seem to have a compatible personality, but to be blunt we were desperate for staff. Now come on we're being left behind." With that he set off after Karla.
On their way to the docks Kelron & Claire walked side by side.
"Don't worry about them, Karla can be a lot to handle and Shrub is a sneaky little bosh'tet. If you stick with me I'll show you the ropes, there isn't much to learn, like I said we are just starting out." He gave her a reassuring pat on the shoulder and they walked the rest of the way in silence.
Claire couldn't explain why she felt so unsettled by how smoothly the interview went. She had just let any words that came into her mind fall out the front of her head and that had been enough? In truth, though she had apparently found the words to wow her new employers, she had worried that she wouldn't get the job because of her lack of combat experience. She had been a unit commander but she had only taken direct command on the ground during two missions.
There was no sense in telling her new co-workers that though, she needed this job badly, anything to get her off Omega.
She had been stranded since before the Reaper war even began thanks to the Cerberus occupation. Ever since Aria T'loak had taken the station back Claire had been trying to scrape together enough credits to get away.
Without the mass relay network her options were limited.
Some adventurous captains had been making the run to the Attican Traverse using only their mass effect drives. None had returned. But then again why would they? Even the fastest ship would take weeks to make a journey that would take minutes via mass relay. This job, personal issues of her new co-workers aside, seemed too good to be true. She was actually being paid to leave this hellhole, she would put up with almost anything to make that happen.
The group turned off the promenade and rode the lift down to the hanger levels. The Desert's Tears was moored in dry dock cradle 4. She was an old Asari cargo freighter about twice the size of a Systems Alliance frigate. At first glance she appeared unarmed (as you would expect from a civilian vessel) but Claire spotted hatches under the forward kinetic barrier emitters that looked suspiciously like torpedo launchers. Karla spread her arms wide as they approached the viewing window.
"And here she is: my baby, my pride and joy but more importantly our ticket out of this shithole." Claire laughed.
"What?" Said Karla, suddenly defensive.
"Nothing, it's just that I was thinking the exact same thing."
She beamed at this, as free and easy with her emotions as always.
"Then I think we will get along just fine." Before Claire could form a reply Karla linked arms with her then started to tug her towards the ship.
Kelron stopped them with a shout. "Look!" Thankful for the distraction Claire disentangled herself from the exited Asari and gazed out the window.
Past the floating bulk of the Desert's Tears and the simmering haze of the atmospheric field she could see something. Several somethings. Nearly invisible against the blackness of space, except where they were backlit by their engines, more than a dozen ships were powering towards Omega. They reminded Claire of the cuttlefish she had seen on a snorkelling holiday with her father more than ten years ago. Great black cuttlefish the size of skyscrapers. She knew what they were, all too well.
"Are those..?" Reapers.