A/N: OK, so here's chapter three, and with that up I'm going to announce that ME: Repercussions is going on hiatus. I think I might have bitten off a little more than I can chew making something this plot heavy my first submission, and I'm finding myself a little uncomfortable with the story progression. So I'm going to be writing something that's a bit more of a standard. Simpler plot, better quality writing (hopefully) and not full novel length. For anyone that has bothered reading this far, well thank you and fear not – I'm not giving up on the story yet, I still aim to complete it.
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Chapter Three
Comm Buoy VTD-04, Veymin System, Taurus Delta Cluster
Lawson bolted from his chair and moved to stand behind Iviall, the salarian.
"Where?" he asked breathlessly.
"No position yet," the salarian replied, an almost irritated tone to his voice that Lawson was beginning to suspect was permanent, "I just caught a trace of them in the network logs. It went through a buoy some way from here. Hold on, narrowing it down." The salarian's head crest knitted close together as he concentrated, his fingers deftly racing through the holographic projections like an expert pianist. By now, the rest of the patrol vessel's crew had crowded round Iviall and Lawson, and the atmosphere was unmistakably tense.
"Got it," Iviall spoke up again, bringing a small stream of text to the centre of his display with a flick of his wrist, "hmm, it's a burst transmission, some encryption. Interesting. This is not a typical civilian communication."
"Get on with it, Iviall, what does it say?" Naleb butted in impatiently, mandibles flexing. Iviall turned and shot the turian a glare that seemed to be universally recognised among all the species of Citadel space.
"It hasn't decoded yet, Naleb. Rest assured that if I had the transmission, I would not waste any time before playing it." Iviall snapped.
"Sorry." The turian looked down and shuffled his feet, and once more Lawson found himself intrigued by Naleb's penchant for human gestures.
"How long, Iviall?" Lawson asked.
"A few seconds perhaps… there! Hmph, it's not much." The salarian swiped his hand through the hologram, and a disembodied voice entered the cabin through a set of speakers above the salarian's station.
"Goods secure," the voice rasped, muffled even without the static of the long range communication, "heading to your location. ETA at 1900 local time, two days."
"That's it? Damn, I was hoping for a position; a set of co-ordinates, something to go on." Lawson muttered.
"Relax, detective. The content of the message was never the important part." Iviall said, an unmistakable salarian smile accompanying the words.
"You can trace the recipient?" Lawson queried.
"Exactly. All interstellar communications are tagged with an address to filter through the network. They were clever enough to encrypt the transmission, but not clever enough to encrypt the packet data sent with it separately. I'm bringing up the packet data now." The salarian was rewarded with a sequence of alphanumeric characters, and proceeded to cross reference them with the comm buoy registry. Lawson did his best to remain patient; from the message details that had flashed up on screen, he had determined the handover to be taking place later that very day. Time had gone from a niggling worry in the back of his mind to a pressing concern.
"Got it," the salarian piped up again, his voice raised in excitement, "feeding the co-ordinates through to you now, Shell."
"Got 'em!" The asari flashed a smile from the cockpit, and immediately through power to the drive. Lawson heard the drone of the eezo drive core at the ship's rear as it fired up, and made his way back to his own seat.
"Can we make it in time, Shell?" Lawson had to raise his voice above the roar as the drive core spun up to a hard burn. The asari pilot did not turn back, but from the way she leaned back in her seat, Lawson could practically see the confidence radiating from her.
"Benefit of being on a government ship, detective," She shouted as sweetly as one could at such volume, "at full burn, we may even beat them there, depending on whatever Goddess forsaken crate it is they're flying."
Lawson smiled as the patrol ship broke through to FTL speeds, her navigation computers locked on the relay that would take them to thieves rendezvous.
"You want me to call in an assault squad, sir?" Naleb asked, left now with nothing to do.
"No time," Lawson grimaced, "you guys combat trained?"
"Four years of service in the military, detective," Naleb's mandibles tucked in aggressively, "I can handle a gun."
"I'm reasonable with a pistol, and there's a few tech mines stowed somewhere." Iviall shrugged, and Lawson merely nodded in reply.
"How are your biotics, Shell?" he called across the cabin. Locking down the control systems, the asari turned in her chair.
"Passable," she said, "I'm not exactly stunning though. Besides, someone's going to need to keep the bird in the air." She turned back to her controls without waiting for a reply.
"Right, three man fireteam it is then." Lawson decided. "I'll take point, Naleb you provide support and covering fire, and Iviall will take tech duties. Where do you keep the weapons?"
Naleb smiled that eerily human smile of his again, only this time it was tinged with a grim satisfaction. He stood up from his chair and flexed his shoulders.
"Right this way."
*****
"Jesus bat fucking Christ!" Robert Deyton swore as he knelt by the body of a man whose hand he had shaken a little more than twenty four hours before. "How the hell did this happen?"
"We don't know yet. The café was closing, there were no witnesses. We suspect multiple hitmen though, based on the, ah, damage, shall we say, to the krogan downstairs." Dusautoir's voice was level, but Deyton knew it was a façade. So far, the NLEA's first full work as the big dogs of law enforcement had seen an unarmed civilian mistakenly killed and one of its own operatives murdered. It was not the best of starts, and Deyton knew his superior must be feeling the pressure.
"Shit, sir, he was on that case for one day. One goddamned day!"
"I know, I know. You realise what this means." With a chill, Deyton realised he did indeed know what that meant.
"Holy hell! They were gunning for me?" Dusautoir nodded sternly.
"Ramos was keeping me informed, he told me he'd got onto the Alliance military keeping quarantine around Peak 15, said after getting no where, he finally received a call back."
"Setting up this little meeting, right?" Deyton grimaced again.
"Yeah. He said the guy mentioned you'd set up contact with him, and that he had the information you'd been looking for."
"Jesus, Toby, why didn't you run that by me?" Deyton breathed to the lifeless corpse. His head slumped and he closed his eyes.
"One little mistake, Deyton. That's how they get you; they wait for that one slip up." Dusautoir said sadly. Deyton believed him, the Chief Constable's years in Noveria Internal Affairs must have been something of an experience, to say the least.
"So what does this mean?" Deyton locked his eyes back on to those of his boss.
"It means that someone does not want this investigation to be seen through. It means we're going to have to take slightly more drastic measures."
"Like what, call in the Alliance? Wait, you haven't called in a freaking Spectre have you? You know that's not going to go down well here." Deyton's eyes widened.
"No, we handle this ourselves." Dusautoir's voice was cold. "The case is yours again, Robbie. This is strictly off the books. You tell no one, you report to me and me only. Understood? As far as the Executive Board, Internal Affairs and anyone else you talk to are concerned, you're suspended pending an investigation. You do what you have to, tell them you're taking a vacation. Whatever. I don't care. Just find the bastards who did this, and put a round through their heads from me. And then three more from Toby."
Deyton smiled grimly. He should have seen this coming from the moment Dusautoir had called him.
"You still got that gun I let you keep?" Dusautoir asked, frowning.
"Uh, the Kessler? Yeah, it's, uh, around." Deyton shifted uncomfortably under his superior's piercing gaze.
"Bin it." Meet me in the Hanshan hotel lounge, eight o'clock tonight. You're going to need more adequate protection, I think."
*****
Devran Tohar was a cautious man, the guards he had posted on the other side of his small office was testament to that. The nature of his position did not leave him predisposed to openly trusting others, even within his own organisation. For so many volus, wealth was the ultimate motivator, and Tohar was no exception. Wealth brought with it stability, it brought power, safety and comfort; but key among volus, it brought respect. But for Tohar, the reverse was also true. As links in a chain, they were all but elements driven to one purpose. Having just one could bring all the others.
For all his personal gains and ambitions, Tohar considered himself something of a philanthropist. He did not seek wealth purely for himself, but for his people; more than anything he desired to see the members of his species as equals. Equals who were above the petty warmongering of the lesser species. Wealth for the volus would bring that equality, in Tohar's vision there was no need for clans or leaders. But Tohar knew that to gain wealth, his people needed power. And to gain power, they needed respect. To gain respect, Tohar knew beyond doubt, they needed to free themselves of their oppressors.
The turian hierarchy had long since crushed the volus under their iron taloned heel, enforced upon them 'protection' in exchange for extorting all the wealth out of the volus they could. Tohar saw through it. He saw the turians for what they were, saw them as no one else could, blinded as they were. The turians were a race of criminals, thugs who leaned on the helpless like mob protection racket. The volus had not needed protection before the turians emerged on the scene, they had begrudged no enemy. When minor threats had emerged, the volus had turned to their warrior clans; to those Volari who had been blessed with the wisdom to devote their clans to the ways of combat, bartering their services to other clans in the time honoured volus way.
Tohar longed for those days, wished above all else that he could have been alive in that golden age of the volus. But things would change. He knew this. He had predicted with all the insight millennia of economic control could bring to a people. Tohar would resurrect the title of Volaran, claim it for his own as he lead his people to their freedom. And with that freedom would come respect; with that respect he would gain his power. And finally, as the chain was completed, he would ensure a galaxy of wealth would be bestowed on his people. As one clan, the volus would bring prosperity to the galaxy. Where there was only war, the volus would bring trade. As thoroughly as the turian military had conquered the volus, the volus economy would bring the turian soldiers to their knees.
But a Volaran needed his warriors, and in these dark days of suppression, finding them among the masses of addled accountants and bewildered tradesman was not easy. As he heard a rapping on his door, Tohar smiled beneath his environment suit. He had already done well.
"Enter." He rasped the singular word, standing from his low seat and pacing to the centre of the room. The door slid soundlessly open, and another volus stepped into the circular room. Tohar smiled again, as he looked upon his compatriot. Recruiting Quenla had been a boon indeed, a fine investment. And he had already seen a profitable return. Garhan Quenla was a brute of a volus. A towering five feet tall, Quenla rippled with muscle beneath his crimson environment suit. Tohar had gone in personally with a turian mercenary crew to retrieve Quenla from a prison transport, mowing those same turians down once Quenla had been freed had been an especially sweet moment for Tohar, one he had savoured for a good few weeks afterwards. The sight of Quenla snapping turian necks had been all the evidence Tohar needed to know rescuing him from his oppressors was money well spent.
"Our agents are in place," Quenla's thick voice burst through his environment suit, the blue light of his breath mask flickering in a venomous delta shape, "we're already getting the first reports in."
"Fantastic." Tohar uttered the single word with glee. "Are you prepared?"
"Not quite," Quenla said, flexing an unusually thick arm, "I haven't decided which rifle to use yet." Tohar smiled, mirroring the expression he knew had spread across Quenla's hidden face, if lacking the ferociousness with which Quenla adopted when smiling.
"Get your team to the ship; we have warriors without arms to bear." Tohar ordered. "And take the Crossfire." Quenla let out a shrill, cold laugh.
"Of course, I do love bringing a little irony to a firefight." Quenla strode out the way he came, leaving Tohar alone with his terminal, and the reports from his agents. Whether it was some natural instinct inherent in his species, or a virtue all of his own, Tohar felt tremendous satisfaction in the feeling of complete readiness. Finalising a plan was a great joy to him, and he began reading the reports with no small amount of excitement. The culmination of years of work was about to be revealed, and Tohar was going to savour every moment of it; just as he had savoured his first turian kill, so many years ago.
*****
As he pulled the assault rifle from its wall mounted rack, Lawson's thoughts wandered. In truth, he knew they had been exceptionally lucky so far, and this worried him. Lawson left as little to luck as he could. They had been lucky with Shapet Derbon's incompetence as traitor, with his inability to sufficiently cover his own tracks. It had been pure luck that the escaping vessel had left enough information in the comm networks for Lawson and his team to get a location, and luck that left them with hope of catching the thieves in the act.
Lawson did not trust luck, and he trusted a band of desperate thieves with a cache of geth weapons even less. As with much of C-Sec's standard equipment, the assault rifle in his hands was of turian manufacture. It was altered slightly to better fit human physiology, and with the original stock – designed for a slimmer turian build – recoil was softer than many Systems Alliance produced weapons. The Banshee model assault rifle was easier to handle, perhaps a touch more accurate than a comparable human designed weapon, but the turian refusal to compromise on firepower left the weapon with minimal heat tolerance. Sustained fire would rapidly overheat the weapon, and ammunition capacity was drastically less than Lawson would have preferred to boot. Still, Lawson supposed it fit the profile of a law enforcement weapon reasonably well, and by quirk of fate or design, the blue casing was perfectly in keeping with C-Sec's design philosophy.
"Been meaning to ask, Lawson," Naleb spoke up as he slotted a block of treated metal into the breach of his own rifle and reached for the laser module that would transform the metal into incendiary rounds, "where did you get weapons training? With that rifle, I mean. I know the IOs are meant to be current on pistols, but you're hefting that thing like a pro." He gestured to the Banshee rifle that Lawson had just cracked open.
"I did a stint in the armed response team when I first joined C-Sec." Lawson answered, smiling as he remembered the feel of a rifle in his hands. At this, Naleb broke into a smile of his own.
"Ha! I knew it. I knew you weren't a proper detective. None of that pompous arrogance, no sign of know-it-all-ism, and no barking orders to us to go confirm your hunches; you're a team player, Lawson. I should have spotted you were a fighter." Lawson laughed at the exuberance in Naleb's voice.
"Haha, I'm still a perfectly good Investigative Officer, you know. I can show you the cases I've closed if you want."
"You're a soldier at heart, Lawson, I know it." Naleb got up and punched in the access code for one of the storage lockers. Lawson, meanwhile found himself slipping back into thought and memory. Boot camp came prominently to mind, as did the feeling of pride when he'd first seen himself in a hardsuit. He remembered what it had been like to be in the service of the Systems Alliance Navy Marine Corps, and his smile broadened. Eons ago, it seemed. Gunnery Chief Benjamin Lawson emerged from years of hiding, and grimaced at the state of the weapon before him. Gunny Petrov would have chewed him up and spat him straight onto the PT circuit if he'd left a weapon in that state of cleanliness during boot camp.
Maybe he could mention it to Naleb later, he was sure the turian would have his share of war stories. Lawson thought better of it, however. It was best to keep things professional here, especially given the nature of what was now an imminent mission. As far as Naleb need be concerned, Lawson was a C-Sec man. Looking up, he saw Naleb standing there clutching a hardsuit in his pointed fingers and grinning that bizarre grin of his.
"It's only light, I'm afraid. But it's going to have to do. Standard C-Sec gear and all that."
Lawson groaned as he unfurled the light hardsuit. Aldrin Labs' Hydra II armour; the standard C-Sec gear for humans it may have been, but it was a far cry from the medium weight Guardian armour he had worn as an armed response officer, and even further from the Mantis and Predator armours he had worn as a marine.
As Lawson resigned himself to the fact he was simply going to have to rely more on cover and tactics than technology, and all too conscious of the fact it had been a long time since he had been in a proper fight, Naleb began pulling on a set of Agent armour, and his blue painted face seemed to finally find a comfort zone as he clicked the wide collared blue and black armour into place. Iviall had already donned his own set, a considerably slimmer form than Naleb's, and he was synching a number of tech mines to his omni-tool, the device's distinct blooping noise filling the small storage room.
"OK boys, we're hitting the relay. Standby." Shell's voice was all sweetness as it echoed through the ship's intercom. Lawson felt the ship lurch, and grabbed firmly onto the bench on which he was seated. Naleb snorted at the sight.
"You're just not a spacer, are you Lawson?" Benjamin gave the turian a withering glance as he replied.
"Believe me when I say I've been in some pretty rough spots in my time on spaceships. I just…" He sighed deeply, "I hate these damn relays! I mean, come on, they just… teleport you across the galaxy. Just like that. What if one breaks, huh? What if one doesn't quite teleport all of me? What if I lose a hand, or a leg or…"
"Oh, so that's what you're worried about." Shell beamed as she cut Lawson off, stepping across the bulkhead into the storage cabin with lightfooted grace. "Believe me when I speak for all females and tell you that we'll manage."
Naleb roared with laughter at that, and even Iviall let slip a brief chuckle.
"Oh, so that's how this ship works," Lawson sighed and rolled his eyes, "insubordinate piss taking of the new guy in charge. Duly noted." He laughed and winked at Shell, "who says I'd need it anyway."
"Oh, detective, I'm not human and even I know that's disgustingly forward of you," Shell said in mock disapproval, "much as I'd like to see you put your money where your mouth is, I'm spoken for anyway."
Something clicked in Lawson's head.
"He wouldn't be a human would he?"
Shell just beamed that endearing smile of hers, before uttering a single syllable.
"She."
*****
The patrol craft dropped out FTL flight several hundred kilometres out from the planet around which their comm buoy was orbiting, a smooth transition under Shell's expert control. A quick scan showed it to be an utterly inhospitable gas giant, the only reason for the buoy's placement apparently being its magnetic field, which was a convenient strength for freighter scale ships to discharge their drive cores.
Not wanting to risk giving their position away, Shell was reluctant to turn her scanning equipment to locating their renegade ship. Instead, she cooled the drive core down to a slow burn, and took the patrol craft in cautiously, passive sensors running and Iviall's keen eyes looking for anything that might indicate a hostile presence.
Lawson and Naleb stood in the vessel's small airlock, both fully suited up, helmeted and with assault rifles in hand. With his left hand, Lawson held on to an overhead rail and slowly gripped and relaxed, trying to ease some of the tension. He and Naleb had both performed boarding actions before, but none of those memories were particularly pleasant for either of them. A ship had to be full of particularly negligent people if they were unaware of another vessel clamping onto their hull, and so any boarding action was frequently met with return fire as soon as the airlock door opened. A two man boarding party hardly seemed like good odds to Lawson.
"Contact, fifty klicks away," Shell's voice was muffled by the hardsuit's comm unit, "I'm bringing us in hard and fast. Hold tight boys." The patrol ship accelerated rapidly and dove to port. Lawson found himself shifting as the inertia fought against the artificial gravity. He looked at Naleb, whose face was now devoid of the joviality he had expressed before. As of now, he was an all professional turian on a mission, and Lawson knew that could make for some cold hearted sons of bitches at the best of times.
The seconds passed, seeming all that much longer to Lawson, who grunted his disapproval as the clichéd description buried itself in his brain.
"They're holding stationary. Firing docking clamps now."
"Maybe we managed to catch them off guard." Naleb suggested as a deep thud resounded through the patrol craft. Lawson gave a slight shrug and firmed his grip on the assault rifle; his finger unconsciously stroked the trigger. A deeper boom and a shudder announced the two ships' connection. Iviall emerged from the cabin, donning his helmet and fastening the clasps. He closed the inner airlock door behind him, and nodded silently at the weapon toting C-Sec officers before him.
"Here we go." Lawson breathed. He and Naleb trained their weapons on the door, almost simultaneously deactivating the safety locks. Lawson brought the stubby smart scope up to his face, and adopted a tensed crouch, noting Naleb do likewise. Behind them, Iviall readied a tech mine.
"Hit 'em boys!" Shell's voice thundered in Lawson's ears as the airlock door hissed open. Quick work on Naleb's part had the freighter's airlock opened, and Lawson sprinted forward. Practically throwing himself behind a battered crate, he peeked over his cover and took in as much of the room as he could in the brief time he allowed himself. His caution proved needless.
"Clear." Lawson stated into his mic. Wordlessly, Naleb and Iviall moved forwards to occupy positions further forward. Lawson stood up. Evidently, they were in one of the freighter's cargo holds, and it was empty. A few scattered, open crates were all that were keeping the room from being completely empty.
"So far so good." Naleb murmured, as he swept his assault rifle across the room, paying close attention to the darkened corners.
"You reckon?" Lawson said, almost sardonically as he backed against the wall beside the cargo bay door, rifle raised up. "They must have known we were coming; if they're not ambushing us here, they'll be ambushing us somewhere else." He beckoned to Iviall and pointed at the door's control switch. Naleb took a deep breath and crouched in front and to the right of the door, his own rifle trained and ready.
Iviall threw the switch and the door hissed open. Naleb tensed and swept his rifle through his newly expanded field of fire.
"Clear." Lawson burst from his cover and moved through the door, the reassuring presence of Naleb right behind him. Lawson jinked to the left, while his turian ally broke right.
"Clear left!"
"Clear right!"
"Move up." Lawson barked, swinging around to move down the access corridor forward, towards the cockpit. Iviall ducked in behind the two former soldiers, pistol clutched in an outstretched hand as he swung it round the room.
Their advance was a slow one, the freighter had three more cargo bays clustered around the some module, and Lawson insisted they sweep each one. And as each of them proved to be just as empty as the last, Lawson's apprehension grew.
"Anyone been on a freighter of this model before?" He asked, dimly aware that he wasn't even sure what class it was, let alone its layout. He received two answers in the negative and groaned inwardly. The Hydra armour was not possessed of the kind of tactical heads up display he might have found in military grade armour, so requesting Shell upload the specs to his hardsuit's limited computer would have been just as useless. His decision was made quickly, but it was not an easy one.
"Right," he said to the two aliens, squatting beside him in a corner of the last cargo bay, "we make for the cockpit and ignore any other cabins we may come across, unless the door's open. Let's do what we have to, and do it quickly."
"I thought you didn't want an enemy at your back." Naleb's voice carried his concern.
"I don't, but I'm beginning to question whether there are any enemies on this ship. And I like that even less."
The three C-Sec officers set off, maintaining their cautious advance. As Lawson had expected, the cockpit was sealed.
"Get cracking Iviall." Lawson trained his rifle on the door as the salarian broke out his omni-tool and went to work hacking the door lock, while Naleb covered the rear. As the door hissed open, Lawson fervently wished they had some flashbang grenades. On first glance, the cockpit confirmed Lawson's suspicions that the vessel was empty, but still there was a nagging fear in the back of Lawson's mind that he could not shake. "Iviall, pull whatever information you can from these terminals, Naleb and I-" Lawson stopped suddenly. The cockpit was not empty.
Above the high backed pilot's chair, Lawson saw two peaks of skin silhouetted against the reflected light of the gas giant below; peaks that looked remarkably like the crest of a salarian head. Rifle raised in his right hand, Lawson cautiously reached out and spun the chair around.
Strapped in to the chair, head slightly slumped, was the body of a salarian in a C-Sec uniform. Lawson grimaced at the sight of the slit throat and the torso soaked in green blood. It was, unmistakably, the body of Shapet Derbon. The grim visage of death was not what caused Lawson's jaw to go slack, however; nor was it the cause of the cold sweat that suddenly caused a shivering tremor in Lawson's spine. The lower half of the salarian's torso was concealed by a bulky device; a series of ominous, white rectangular blocks wired to a central metal cased box. From the device came a soft beeping, and Lawson saw with horror the thin cord that trailed limply on the salarian's lap, its connector jack conspicuously absent from a small hole on the device.
Lawson knew what the device was, and he knew that his act of turning the chair had been what activated it
"Bomb!" He yelled, and Naleb whirred round, shock plastered over his face. "Move! Get the hell of this ship!"
"One moment, please detective, I'm still pulling records."
"NOW, Iviall!"
Furiously, the salarian yanked his OSD from the terminal he had been working at and joined the other two in sprinting from the cockpit.
"Shell, fire up the drives! Get us out of here as soon as we're aboard!" Lawson bellowed into his comm as he ran, cutting off the link before Shell had time to reply. As they crossed into the airlock, a deafening boom sounded from the cockpit and the entire vessel gave a mighty lurch that threw the men to the floor. With a terrible roar, the cataclysmic sound of explosive decompression thundered through the cargo bay behind them. The emergency systems kicked in without fail, and the door to the cargo bay did it's best to slam shut. It could do no more, because Naleb had been knocked down just as he crossed the threshold, and his leg had not quite made the transition. The turian screamed as the heavy steel door rammed into his leg. Lawson whirled round just as the ship rocked again; a secondary explosion that caused the lights in the airlock and the bay beyond to flicker and die.
Fighting against the rushing air whipping around him and gasping for every last breath, Lawson forced himself into the gap and heaved the door forward, now no more than a dead weight with its power gone. Naleb pulled his leg in, screaming again as he did so. Lawson deftly stepped back into the airlock. Running by the light of Iviall's omni-tool, and with his lungs ablaze in pain, Lawson grabbed Naleb roughly around the torso and practically hurled him into the patrol ship's adjacent airlock.
Lawson dived forward himself, and the patrol craft's own outer airlock door hissed shut barely a second later. Air hissed in, and Lawson gulped it down, the pain of decompression in his ears all but deafening him to Naleb's pained groans. The ship buffeted as it tore away from its imperilled former mating partner, and Lawson felt the rumble of the drives as Shell rammed the throttle forward. Just as Lawson was beginning to breathe out the stress, the ship rocked again with such violence that Lawson was pitched across the cramped airlock and smashed into the still closed inner door.
The airlock flared with light from its tiny outer window, a brief dazzling flash that died almost as suddenly as it came into existence, as the fireball barely a kilometre away was extinguished by the vacuum of space. Lawson's heart was racing, and his breath was ragged. He closed his eyes and leant back, letting a slow breath escape past his lips in a vain effort to bleed off the stress. The air had hardly left his lungs when the airlock's inner door slid open, and Lawson fell backwards into the patrol craft's access corridor. On his back, Lawson found he was looking straight up into the blue face of Shell, her eyes wide in shock and worry.
Summoning his last remaining energy, he winked at her before passing out into blackness; his last conscious thought consumed in the hammering of his own, still beating heart and the wondrous relief that brought.
*****
Port Hanshan was a permanent hub of activity, but the approach of evening transformed it into an electrified hive of commotion, as the denizens emerged to savour the nightclub, that went a light year beyond the daytime traffic. Haggard stoke brokers crept up from the shadows of their extranet terminals, colour returned to their cheeks by a combination of showers and alcohol, or equivalent intoxicant, to redistribute their wealth in the pursuit of fun and relaxation. Executives strutted along the promenades and flaunted their money in the guise of expensive clothes and pricier women adorning their arms. In the case of those corporate money seekers who were themselves female, the opportunity to show off manifested in glamorous presentations of that week's shopping.
The bars filled, the streets heaved and it became nigh on impossible for one not to become drowned in the wealth and power play on show. Deyton had seen nothing like it before his arrival on Noveria. The icy planet maintained a parallel culture of uncaring egotism, on the whole, and while it was not the fashion to get on with everyone one met, the planet's near singular purpose tended to endow everyone with at least the respect of ones peers. Where enemies were made with ferocious abandon in the hallowed halls of business, the nightlife saw the Hanshan populace assume the façade of indifference. Even lowly civil servants, maintenance staff and junior workers could garner civility and a degree of dignity by hitting the town in appropriate dress.
For his part, Deyton genuinely enjoyed the nights on Noveria. To a select few, he may even have admitted that he was hooked on it, that it was what kept him here amid the foreboding world of the corporate giants.
Tonight, however, was different. Deyton strode down one of the boulevards, his gaze not shifting from his forward arc. Often, he would have spared a few moments to observe the frigid winds send snow cascading about the exterior of the complex, the chaotic dance of a horde of ghosts howling through the pale illumination afforded them. On this night, there was only one ghost on his mind; he was haunted by the disfigured face of a man who he had counted a friend.
Deyton was nevertheless dressed correctly for the time of day, albeit humbly in comparison to some of the dazzling get-ups on display. His loose, white patterned shirt and black chinos may not have been the pretentious, blatant statements of wealth that many of those he passed in the streets had opted for, but they were hardly cheap purchases themselves and on Deyton's frame, they seemed to exude a sophistication that their wearer remained blissfully unaware of – to him they were simply smarter than the t-shirt and jeans that made up his 'off-duty uniform'.
Deyton made his way through a crowd of salarians in bright coloured, high collared jackets and stepped into the lift that would take him to the Hanshan Hotel Bar. Though the Hanshan Hotel was not in fact the only hotel in Hanshan, it was by far the most prestigious. While its Zen garden inspired décor and spartan furnishing tended towards Noverian trendiness over comfort, it's reputation as hub of business intrigue, scandal and a forum for gossip had been assured not long after its opening. That its bar had the largest and most diverse stock of alcohol in the capital had hardly harmed its appeal.
But Deyton suspected it was more its capability for anonymity that had enticed Dusautoir into arranging a meeting there. At this time of night, the bar would be full of business men and women of every stripe. The younger middle managers and junior executives would be enjoying the readily available alcohol and conversational atmosphere before they headed off to the more clamorous clubs, where any attempts at talking would be scuppered by accumulated alcohol levels and loud music. The more senior individuals would start their evening in a similar way, but the drinks would be pricier, the conversation of higher gravity and the politeness even more feigned.
Amid the backroom politics and deals, the braying façade of the elite and the hum of drink fuelled flirting, it was entirely possible for one to conduct a rather more secretive meet and be assured one's presence would go entirely unnoticed. Deyton scanned the room as he stepped out of the glass panelled lift, and with the hint of a smile located Dusautoir almost immediately. He had chosen a table as close to the lift as possible without being on the outskirts of the large room; he was relatively easy to spot for someone specifically looking, but suitably hidden in the crowd to remain out of casual observance. There were two drinks on the two seat table, to dissuade anyone from attempting to occupy the empty seat, and to divert away any suspicion that Dusautoir was alone.
As Deyton approached, he recognised the contents of his glass as a liquid so brown as to appear black, betrayed only by glints of red in the corners of the glass as the light struck it. Deyton shrugged off the mild surprise that stirred within him and sat down. His eye still drawn to the glass, he noticed the drink was flat. Either Dusautoir had been here earlier than Deyton would have guessed, or it was being used as a mixer.
"Jack Daniels and coke," Dusautoir smiled, "hope that's ok." It was. The drink just so happened to be Deyton's preferred, at least so far as in situations where a beer was considered crass and wine too snobbish.
"Certainly is," Deyton chuckled, his surprise all the stronger for having his suspicions confirmed, "how did you-?"
"Know?" Dusautoir finished, "New Years party, I was at the bar while you were ordering. That's what you went for." Dusautoir gave an appraising smile.
"That's… impressive, sir. If a little stalker like."
"I wasn't just handed my position, Robbie, my memory happens to be one of the things that made me a good cop. And yeah, remembering what a guy drinks probably doesn't give a good impression. I trust you won't judge me too harshly on it, I didn't want to screw around here; we've got something to take care of and we can't be wasting time."
Deyton nodded an acknowledgement.
"You got rid of that piece?" Dusautoir inquired nonchalantly, for all the world sounding to Deyton like a clichéd movie mob boss, as though that were a guise that came naturally to him.
"Yeah. Stripped it and chucked the bits in three separate places in the snow." Deyton grimaced. The act of disposing of a weapon quite so casually had not been one he was particular comfortable with.
"Good. I've got you a new one strapped to the bottom of the table, so take it carefully. We don't want to start a panic here."
"Under the table?" Deyton said incredulously, straining to keep his voice low. "Christ, this is playing out like a goddamned spy flick. Could you not have just told me where to pick it up?"
"This has to be fully off the books, Robbie, and we don't have time to piss about with dead drops or secret meets. As far as anyone need know, we're having a drink to reminisce about a departed colleague." Dusautoir hissed. Deyton took a long sip of his drink, feeling the alcohol warm his throat as the sweet taste washed over his tongue. He reached under the table, and felt the compact form of the pistol, its metal casing cold to his touch. Keeping his face level, and his gaze fixed on his superior, he gave the weapon a hard tug and tore it off. Ignoring the tape that still trailed from it, he slid the compressed weapon into his trouser pocket, relieved to find it just fit.
"What is it?" Deyton asked out of curiosity, despite his knowledge of firearms being less than encyclopaedic.
"An Ariake Raikou." Dusautoir said simply, and Deyton found it was a weapon with which he was indeed familiar; certainly it was a more powerful weapon than his standard issue Kessler, and more easily modified too. Deyton looked up at Dusautoir, studying his face for any clue as to his thoughts. Deyton himself was decidedly uncomfortable with this cloak and dagger approach, as he had thought Dusautoir would have been; the man had seemed such a by-the-book sort. Deyton saw nothing but resolve in the man's face, though. Clearly he thought this investigation to be worth the risks.
Deyton could not disagree, either. Humanity's rapidly expanded history curriculum had sided unequivocally with the Citadel Council's recollection of the rachni wars, and everything he had heard about the species gave him reason to fear their apparent resurrection. If they were indeed getting off planet, they could spread and reignite the old conflict far too soon for Deyton's liking.
"Where do I start?" He asked quietly, fearing the answer he knew was coming.
"Peak 15." Dusautoir curled his lips. "No bullshit this time, no pissing around with the Alliance. Get in however you can, and get as much information as you can." Deyton's stomach knotted, and he brought a hand up to his face, cracking his knuckles nervously.
"I'm just one man, sir. I don't have military training, and I'm only a fair shot at best. You're asking me to sneak through an Alliance military quarantine, into a facility potentially still crawling with a deadly, hostile alien species? I'm not sure I can do that" Deyton breathed, fighting to keep his voice level.
"I know it sounds crazy, but it's our only option. If we keep up this case publically, we're signing our death warrants. If we do nothing, who knows what could be unleashed on the galaxy?" Dusautoir muttered bitterly. "Besides," Dusautoir allowed a mirthless smile to form, "if there were still rachni loose, they'd have nuked the whole facility from orbit."
"Thanks. That fills me with confidence." Deyton replied, the sarcasm heavy in his voice. He stood up, feeling the weight of the gun in his pocket; a weight that was as deeply uncomfortable as the metaphoric weight that he now bore heavily on his mind.
"Good luck, Robbie," Dusautoir said as Deyton made to leave, "I just hope you don't need it."
With that, Deyton threaded his way through the ever growing crowd and left the bar. Whatever distraction he may have felt on his way over was now overwhelmed by more impending, fear-filled musings on a mission he was all too reluctant to embark on. Worse still, and all the more pressing for it, was the knowledge that he could not refuse.
Here he was, now preparing to walk into a place he had come to dread, and doing it willingly. Did that it make him braver than walking blindly into danger, or more stupid? Deyton considered the question for a few seconds, before bitterly settling on an answer.
No one could ever call this an intelligent decision, and bravery was just a concept invented to justify stupidity by those lucky enough to live through it. Deyton just hoped profound idiocy would not be his epitaph when they shipped his corpse back to Earth.