Jason Prangley sat shuffling a deck of cards purposelessly. There was no card game to play. Chubbs wouldn't be interested, or wouldn't understand how to play a few hands of blackjack and Prangley was certain he didn't feel like explaining it—even if it was easy. The game lacked incentive without wagering a bit of money, cleaning detail, or hours of watch. These were the things they bet on in his biotic support platoon during the war. The games cultivated a certain sort of camaraderie. The battles were one thing, but playing cards was a chance for decompression, friendly teasing, and an outlet for stress—which occurred through some osmatic process as friends and comrades in arms ribbed one another endlessly. The stress would dissipate through laughter and storytelling. But all of that was just a memory now.
A sly grin crept onto his face as he remembered being caught for counting cards. The guffaw and outrage elicited by his peers was primarily theatrical, as was the enthusiastic—if not embellished—ass kicking they gave him. It was a well-deserved ass kicking, even if it was delivered half-heartedly. Such 'fights' were more ritualistic fun than acts of enmity.
There was never bad blood in the platoon. But he could remember the small ways in which everyone expressed emotion through brotherly violence. It was a contrary term, but it worked in the context of their unit and the realities of the war they fought. If you got promoted, you got your butt kicked by your peers as congratulations. If it was your birthday, they thrashed you to celebrate. If you hid the date of your birthday and the team found out, you caught a worse beating. It was a tradition they had adopted from the Systems Alliance Marines they fought in support of. At first, like any outsider, it seemed odd and irrational. It was, to the outsider, a brash and silly form of machismo. A ritual of chest-beating and uproarious laughter accompanied every celebratory session. The Marines were brutish and inherently violent, but never seemed to harm one another—despite this ceremonial tradition and a penchant for playing 'pass out, tap out' during hours of idleness. They soon learned that any act that helped create an air of toughness was useful. The war was harsh. Conditions were miserable. You had to thrive in that misery if you wanted to live.
The inside of the compartment he sat in now was more like steerage than any acceptable passenger accommodations. It was dank, smelled of decay and was dimly lit. There was a tiny sink in the corner, next to a dumpy little chair. The cots set up haphazardly in the small space were stained with sweat of other passengers, or some other unknown fluid. Prangley was okay with being ignorant of their true origin. It was ratty and disgusting; on par with some of the filthiest places he'd found himself during the war. I suppose you get what you pay for, he thought inwardly to himself.
The transport craft was an aging ship that looked more like a derelict patched together by a handful of semi-talented scavengers. It's exterior was a mottle of motley plates welded over old bulkhead breaches and a patchwork of various alloys—whatever could be found—had been thrown up inside to create 'adequate' compartments for the crew and their steerage, or rather their customers. It was, in a sense, the perfect manifestation of the post-Reaper galaxy. People made do with what they had, threw together new homes or businesses from refuse and debris. A place you would never imagine dining in before the war suddenly becomes the best joint on the block in the postbellum period. You never questioned the source of the ingredients of the foods you ate, or wondered at the nature of the meat that was provided. It was the small things in life after the war that made existence wretched. The way you were allocated time to shower once per week, the way food and water was rationed, or how time using the extranet was more of a luxury than the necessity it had been beforehand.
Some areas had been more affected than others, but Jason Prangley always seemed to find himself at the epicenter of misery. If gloom and despair were an asteroid, then he certainly resided in the crater it had created. It was perpetual. Severe and deeply aggravating. It was a struggle just to remember life before the war. Too many torturous thoughts blocked the pathway to fonder memories. Those that were pleasant, those created with his unit, he clung to desperately.
The ragtag bunch of hooligans that operated the ship he was on now looked more like pirates than reputable business types running a legitimate transport business. But that was a trait they shared with nearly every other line running out of the Bay Area Star Port. These disparate people were the new denizens of the post-war world. Pirates, criminals, grifters, thieves, petty crooks, and black market peddlers were the people that thrived in the lawless apocalypse that existed in the vacuum left behind by a lack of law or order. Where the Alliance or local governments had re-established control things were better, but still not so good. Where there was no authority, chaos reigned and strength was all that made you right in a dispute.
Fortunately, they had Jack.
"Do you think –tcch—we can trust these people, Earth Clan?" Chubbs asked curiously. His rotund frame sat somewhat apprehensively on the cot across from Prangley. His stubby legs dangled child-like over the edge.
"Hard to say," Prangley responded, trying to sound confident despite the admission of ambiguity. He was out of his element, if he indeed had one. The world that draped over life as he knew was more akin to the lawless Terminus Systems, or the gray scales of the Attican Traverse. "It's a bit off putting that they keep us from exploring the ship."
Things were highly regimented aboard the little transport spacefarer. Despite its rickety, haphazard design the crew was as adamant as a top secret government facility's staff. They were not to roam. They were not to explore any sections outside of their own quarters and the small, smelly space that passed as the ship's galley. Their movement was restricted and watched by a grim-looking security mech, designed similarly to the ship—slapped together from the spare parts of many different models in order to create an alarming amalgam of space-rat ingenuity. It was their 'escort bot' and it made sure they never wandered far, even though it sometimes disappeared—presumably to complete other tasks assigned to it by the small crew. Its grating, electronic voice was reminiscent of the early days of artificial vocalization and lent a sort of creepy air to the already uncomfortable presence of the thing.
"So," Prangley began, trying to change the subject. He shuffled the deck idly while he spoke. "What's the deal with all of that stuff you wear?"
The volus Dabney Kur canted his head slightly. "Stuff?"
"Yeah," Prangley motioned to the assortment of gear that was strapped to the volus. "You've got proximity mines, frag grenades, all kinds of bandoliers and who knows what else. And that bandana, why do you have that bandana?"
The volus glanced down at the armaments fastened to his belly. He turned his head again as he examined the pieces. Stubbing fingers probed a grenade here, a proximity mine there. He was truly contemplating an answer to Prangley's question, unsure of why the human asked to begin with. Wasn't it obvious? For protection. The galaxy as they had known it was not a safe place and you needed weapons and equipment to dissuade people from relieving you of your wealth—a fact Dabney Kur had learned the hard way. "The bandana –kttch— is a symbol from my favorite action movie –kttch— of all time. A Systems Alliance Marine returns home from the –kttch— First Contact War and is a drifter going from place to place. In some small town a –kttch— Sheriff harasses him and he retaliates after reliving the horrors inflicted upon him in the war. –kttch— I think it's a remake."
Prangley blinked a few times. He'd never heard of the movie. It must have been an older film, even if it was a remake. "… Oookay."
Elsewhere on the ship Jack was exploring. She disdained the confines of the chamber she was relegated to and was more apt to do something she was told not to do. Her exploratory habits were precocious in nature and something that she did often growing up. Even the torturous experiments conducted by the Cerberus scientists on Pragia had not been able to leech that particular trait from her. It had gotten her in trouble then. And later as well. But it was a part of her. It was coded in her DNA like the color of her eyes or hair. She could no sooner quell the incessant urge to explore and defy than she could morph into a krogan. She learned a long time ago not to ignore the tiny voices that pushed her toward an action—any action. She might suffer by heeding those internal desires, but for some reason it felt worse to ignore or stifle them.
To that end she was now slinking through the ship checking up on every little nook and cranny that she was able to gain access to. There was something about the crew that rubbed her the wrong way. Normally she would shrug it off to her normal anti-social perceptions, but they seemed to regard their three passengers like hungry hyenas. There was a glimmer in their eyes that they did a poor job of masking. It was like the crew was feeling impatient over something. Moreover, they kept their distance. None seemed interested in engaging in conversation with Prangley, Chubbs, or herself. Then there was their chaperone—the creepy-bot 5000. That hideous mech seemed like something out of old horror vids. It was bad enough that it was a mishmash of different pieces, arms that didn't match, an external and archaic optical sensor, the grating voice—but it even limped along like some wretched beast of burden. They didn't even bother painting all its bolt on parts a matching color.
Her sneaking was made easier by the dim confines of the ship. Most of the interior was poorly lit and there had been a couple of times she'd slipped into the shadows to escape the incompetent eyes of passing crew members. There was a certain thrill that went along with this stealthy approach. It was a method she rarely utilized. Jack was blunt and violent. And although she could kill from the shadows, her particular skill set was more suited to an assault-from-the-front approach. She certainly didn't need to hide from the crewmembers of this dilapidated space vessel. Most of them looked emaciated and weak. It was doubtful there was a biotic among the whole lot of them. And what had Cerberus classified her as? Hyper-lethal? Nevertheless, she would continue her clandestine investigation of the ship and save confrontation for later—if it was warranted.
She continued aft, satisfied by her investigation of the forward section of the ship which consisted of the galley, an attached kitchen, some storage space, empty cabins for more passengers and the cockpit. She picked her way past a set of supply closets and a bunk room where laughter could be dimly heard through the hatch. The mumbles emanating from the room itself were too hard to understand so she pressed on. By now her eyes had adjusted to the lack of light and she was able to avoid stumbling over the myriad of materials that littered the hallway. There were wall panels stacked in various states of disarray leaving exposed pipes and wiring on the bulkhead exposed. A handful of tools also lay carelessly strewn about the deck beside a cluster of storage containers. The air smelled stale and as she proceeded further she thought she smelled the stench of old sweat and dried blood. It was an uncanny thing to be able to detect and yet the smell was as familiar to her as a warm cup of coffee was to a normal person. Her days on Pragia had drilled that scent into her mind. The stink of it was tied to that facility—to her childhood.
She came to a sealed hatch at the end of the gloomy corridor. The word RESTRICTED was stenciled crudely on the ouside. She pressed her ear against the surface, but no sound came from beyond the alloy door. It was cool to the touch, not particularly telling in any case. Yet there was a pressing curiosity bubbling in Jack's guts. It was stronger than anything she'd felt up to that point. She wanted to know what was behind that door. She had to know. She pried off a nearby electrical panel but couldn't make any sense of the wires contained within. Frustrated, she tossed the external cover aside. "What were you expecting to find?" she asked herself. She gnawed on the lower left corner of her lip, thinking. She continued to investigate the exterior of the hatch when she was alerted by the sudden sound of something approaching from behind. She whirled around to see the creepy-bot lurching toward her. Its exposed circuitry on the chest was like gazing into an open chest cavity, showing a warren of cables and chipsets rather than a heart and arteries.
"Unauthorized," it announced through its grating vocal pattern. "Unauthorized section of the ship. Return immediately to your assigned cabin."
Jack felt her flesh crawl when it spoke. "I want inside," she told it matter-of-factly.
"Negative. This section is not authorized for personnel not designated by ship captain. Return immediately to your assigned cabin."
"Look tin can, either you let me in or I blast you into space dust," she threatened with a step forward.
"Confirmed threat of violence. This will be reported immediately," it responded mechanically. It turned with some difficulty and began to limp down the hallway. Its limbs shook with what looked like rictus. Before it could make it very far down the hallway Jack had a strong grip on the back of its skull and with a swift, biotically-amplified punch she smashed her fist through its back and out its chest. It shook violently from the assault. "Malfunction—malfunction—". Before it went totally limp Jack dragged it back toward the hatch. When it drew near the automatic detection sensor for authorized personnel picked up on the mech's ID tag. The door slid open.
Jack stepped inside and was bathed in a red, low-intensity light that ran the length of the rectangular compartment. Once her eyes adjusted she was momentarily aghast by what she saw. There were cages lining both bulkheads. They were small, not even tall enough to stand at full height, much like you might see in a dog's kennel. There were raggedy mats in each cage alongside filthy plates where some meager portion of food was presumably served upon. She proceeded further inside and noticed the U-joints bolted to the floor in the center of the room. These, Jack knew, were used to attach chained individuals to floor and immobilize them which gave Jack the indication that at times the room's cages were filled to capacity. There was ample signs of abuse—dried puddles or streaks of blood. She knew exactly what this compartment was for and who these people that crewed her ship were. She was dealing with slavers.
Once it had dawned on her precisely what she was looking at a consuming rage began to boil in the pit of her stomach. She could remember her own early days at the hands of slavers. Slavering dogs and rapacious hounds that clawed at her flesh like the mangy animals they were. They used her. They beat her. Then they sold her off to a group of likeminded scum. Just like so many others in her life. But slaves were distinctly hateful of lives not their own. They were sadist. Enjoyed the abuse and embarrassment of others. How else could you clap another human being in irons, shatter their will and force them into continuous labor or worse? It was this kind of person she first killed after leaving Pragia and it set a pattern for a total lack of remorse on her part. She began to retrace her steps, heading forward.
When she reached the room that had been filled with laughter earlier, she took a deep breath and settled her thoughts. The rage was useful, but it had to be honed. She sharpened it to a razor thin edge so that she could direct it at those who deserved it most. These bastards were about to know precisely what it meant to come up against someone Cerberus classified as hyper-lethal.
The door slid open and she stepped inside. Some of the assembled crew stopped laughing and glanced in her direction. "You're not allowed in here," one of them scolded casually.
"I don't care about your lame dick rules," she growled caustically. "Besides, dead men don't make rules."
They looked on in trepidation, unsure of just what was unfolding before them. It became obvious when she drew a Carnifex hand cannon from her hip and blasted a hole in the skull of one of their comrades. The dead man toppled out of his seat, dead before he hit the ground. "What are you doing?" a voice cried as they scrambled to draw their own weapons. But they weren't fast enough. Their reactions had been slowed by alcohol consumption and drug use. They were sluggish and she cut them down as they plodded to save their own lives. One managed to fire a few shots her direction, but his hasty and frightened gunfire passed her by harmlessly. A return volley from the Psychotic Biotic struck him a handful of times in the chest. A spray of blood misted into the air from each impact and the man stumbled backward then fell to the ground. It only took a handful of breaths, but Jack had killed a room of five people—three humans, a turian and one salarian. The hideousness of being a slaver was not confined to humanity.
In the hallway she was confronted by two more members of the crew. They saw the open door to their 'steerage' compartment in the back. The jig was up, their passengers were aware of the fate that awaited them, or so these two men thought. When Jack stepped into the companionway their initial concern was halted. The diminutive girl could not have been much of a threat and both men had wondered what use they could make of her once they'd relieved her of her freedom.
"So you found your future accommodations?" the chubby one asked. He was covered in a sheen of sweat and seemed to be breathing heavily.
"Not sure I follow," Jack said evenly, the rage rising once more. The man nodded aft at the room she'd found. She glanced over the hatchway that led to the animal cages used for humans. She shrugged, her face an impassioned mask. "I've seen worse."
The man's fat lips began to curl into a grin, but before he could finish forming the expression Jack was in motion. She threw out a hand that yanked the fat one's friend forward with a biotic pull. The force dragged him off his feet and sent him flying into a nearby bulkhead, face first. The attack severely stunned him. The fat man, eyes wide with terror, stepped backward. The realization that he was dealing with a biotic quickly set upon him like a pack of wolves. There was little he could do, however. A force, invisible only moments before, coalesced around him and hoisted him from the ground. He could not comprehend it even as it happened. This incorporeal thing hefted him as high into the air as the confines of the corridor allowed and when he was at the absolute highest point he let out a yelp. Then he was driven down with such force that when he made impact with the deck his bones crunched. The sound was loud enough for Jack to hear. The body of the fat man lay motionless and in ruins.
She dragged the man she'd thrown with ease to his feet and delivered a savage head butt. She heard his nose crunch. The jolt of stabbing pain in the center of his face seemed to focus him from the daze of the earlier attack. Through hazy, tear-filled eyes he glanced into the eyes of a woman whose hatred ran deeper than he would have imagined possible. "What do you want?" he queried lamely. The words stumbled harmlessly from bloodied lips. There was no demanding there. Just a simple question from a defeated man. It was like he actually had something to give her that would prevent his demise.
"What do I want?" she asked incredulously.
"Jack?" Jason Prangley materialized nearby, having stepped out their rented cabin. Chubbs was just behind him. The young biotic looked confused and distressed. "What's going on?"
"These pricks are slavers," Jack told him, her lip curled into a sneer. Her eyes remained locked on the quarry she had in her clutches. "They were going to try and sell us into slavery. I don't know how they were planning to do it, but they must have come up with something to get our weapons and jump us when we weren't paying attention." She should have known better. When she saw the slave markets in San Francisco she should have been more aware about whom she'd purchased passage from. Slavers were like cockroaches. Where there was one there was always more.
"Slavers? How? What?" Prangley stammered. The enormous weight of the revelation seemed to overwhelm him.
"Just how were you planning to do it?" Jack demanded, jerking the defeated man she held pressed against the wall. "We have weapons. Didn't you see that?"
"We saw," the man admitted. "Doesn't matter. Lots of people come aboard armed. We just put sedatives in the food. A concentrated enough dose will knock an elcor on its ass. You lot wouldn't have been much trouble."
Jack was furious. Not just because of their intent, but because she hadn't even considered that as a possibility. It was the kind of short sightedness that came with the primacy of her biotic powers. She was supremely confident in her martial prowess. There was no reason to be worried about a pack of space-rats. But then she never considered the nefarious, asymmetrical manner in which they planned to overcome her. The fact that they'd have never been able to confine her didn't matter. She overlooked a threat and it was infuriating.
"Where the hell are we going then?" she asked through clenched teeth.
"I don't know. You killed the pilot just now. The rest of the crew was in there," he nodded at the door where a massacre lay beyond.
Jack pressed the barrel of her Carnifex against the top of his knee cap and pulled the trigger casually. The round obliterated his patella and exited the back of his thigh, taking a large chunk of flesh with it. He howled in pain. "Don't act like you don't have a set routine for people you scoop up on Earth. Where the fuck are we going?"
The man was whimpering in pain now. His jaw was set as he fought back the overwhelming savagery of the attack he'd just suffered. "I… I don't…" he trailed off again then considered his predicament. "We don't do anything. We don't take them out… we … we drug them, subdue them and go back to Earth. Sell them in the markets there."
"You're kidding me," Prangley said from some distance away. "How can slavery be that prevalent?"
"There's no government, kid," Jack hissed. "I told you that. No order, no laws, no deterrent for scum like this." She put the barrel on his other kneecap and fired again, repeating the previous wound on the opposite leg. And again he cried out, this time his shouts were mixed with a litany of cuss words and insults. She grabbed his jaw and forced his eyes back onto her own. She could see the fear there, mingled with the pain. Precisely what she wanted to see. "Look at me," she told him calmly. He wriggled in her grip, but slowly his eyes leveled on her own. She was clenching his face tightly, her fingers braced around his jaw, nails digging into his flesh. "I'm the worst thing you possibly could have fucked with. You deserved this. You deserved worse than this."
"I know," he muttered through his bloody lips. "I know… I'm sorry… I—I just." His attempt to repent was cut short. Jack dragged him away from the wall and using as much physical force she could muster began to drag him down the corridor. It took some effort. His mangled legs were of no use. But Jack's adrenaline was sky high and with it came unusual strength, probably helped along by the biotic powers she possessed. She hauled him along as he blubbered more words that primarily tumbled out in an incoherent tangle of pathetic phrases. They reached the airlock hatch and Jack slammed on the control panel with a closed fist. The interior door opened and she slung the wounded crewman inside. "Wait… please," he gurgled. It was no use. She sealed the door.
He was still muttering when she opened the exterior hatch. She watched with some satisfaction through the porthole. There was no explosive decompression that sucked him outside into the vacuum of space. Instead he would die slowly, at least in relative terms. It was not instantaneous. The process would take less than a minute, but would be agonizing in those brief moments before he lost consciousness from a lack of oxygen. His blood would boil then flash freeze before evaporation, thanks to a lack of pressure and the quick dissipation of heat energy. Most of his organs, skin and muscle tissue would painfully expand if, for some reason, he was still alive. It was an unpleasant way to die. But Jack watched the handful of seconds it took to happen.
"Jack…" Prangley murmured. Seeing her down the dark corridor as she stared, fixated on the porthole and the death she had invoked on the other side of that door was disturbing. Here he was again. Watching Jack after she'd been stirred up into a killing frenzy. He was apprehensive about disturbing her in such moments, never fully knowing if she would unleash that fury on him simply for being there. Just because he was something else to kill.
She turned her attention to the young biotic, satisfied that the crewman outside was dead. "What?"
"What are we doing?" he asked unsure of himself. "I mean, this is nuts. Slavers?"
She shrugged. She looked at Chubbs who stood like a statue behind Prangley. "Can you fly this heap?"
He nodded. "Yes," his voice a tinny drawl from behind his mask.
"Then the plan is still the same. We're going to get David back."