NEW CHAMBERLAIN COLONY
SECOND LARGEST MOON OF BORR
EXODUS CLUSTER
OCTOBER 2188
"The only saving grace of the present is that it's too damned stupid to question the past very closely."
THE PHOENIX EASED INTO THE DOCKING RING FACILITY above New Chamberlain with nary a bump. New Chamberlain hadn't been hit by the Reapers much past a Destroyer or two doing a flyby. It also wasn't a rich colony, so a lot of the debris created by those Destroyers still littered the area.
Miranda Lawson sighed an inaudible sigh of mild consternation and finished snapping her armor into place. This could go one of two ways: bad, or very bad.
"You're not doing this alone, Chief." Riley told her. He was fine-tuning his drone as she walked into Ops. He also already had his armor on. It would take longer to argue about it than just give in, and she just didn't have the energy to argue.
She needed that for Flynn.
"Fine. You can come." She powered the armor, adjusted a piece or two, was satisfied. "I'll do the talking."
Shizuka looked up from where she was studying their situational reports. She was in a hardsuit, not armor, but still effective defence. Black stood behind her, reading over her shoulder.
"Don't trust him," she frowned. "He'll say anything."
Miranda looked as if she was about to say something but then changed her mind.
"We'll see."
Trust was something Miranda had never been very good at, and with Flynn…?
It was going to be a long afternoon.
RYAN GRADY ELLSION FLYNN - the 'Last Living Irishman' as he sometimes called himself, watched the turian across from him slowly look down at his cards. Smoke drifted around them, the orange light dim here in the 'Miser's Mire' pub, faces human and otherwise watching from the grey shadows surrounding the table. Only a few people remained, most stumbling off on various errands or looking for places to pass out. The game had been going some time and had begun much larger, losing players as pots grew and finances dwindled.
Now it was just down to two – the luckiest ones, or the unluckiest, depending on where one sat.
"Starin' at them won't make your losin' any less humilatin', Thohrin." Flynn told him, sounding bored.
"Be quiet!" The turian rasped at him. "I'm concentrating." The human across from him had been needling him the entire time they'd played, and he knew it was to unsettle him. He had a youngish face, cool green eyes, faintly orange hair, a square chin, a deep scar that began under his right ear, slashed across his jaw, ended on his throat, stubbled over with a few days growth of beard. Casually dressed, but well-armed, he looked relaxed, which made Thohrin even more irritated. He was also solidly packed with heavy muscle, dense but lean. He had a bold tattoo of a black spinal column around his right wrist.
"It's salarian Five-Draw. It's the simplest goddamn card game in the soddin' galaxy, even for a bleedin' turian. Bet or fold, ya barefaced jackass." His voice drawled with an accent that sounded like a blend of Scottish and Irish dialects. Thohrin had a difficult time understanding humans under the best of circumstances, but he swore this one's accent was this thick simply to mess with him.
The turian grunted, clattered his side-mandibles, pushed his last pile of chits across the table, then with a disgusted noise slapped his cards down.
"Three kin – all lineages." His beady eyes glittered in the orange light. "Two close ties. The only way you can beat that is if you have…"
"Full clan lineage, all charted." Flynn slapped his cards down with a flourish, to the onlookers' murmurs. "And you've ben beat."
Thohrin started, his mandibles quivering with anger.
"You cheated." The turian ground at him. "The odds are thousand-to-one against getting that when I have three kin!"
"I ha'e a way of beatin' the odds. What c'n I say?" He reached for the pile of chits in the centre of the table. He was stopped by the Executioner pistol suddenly pointed at his eyes.
"How about 'goodbye'?" The turian hissed – then gulped, when he felt the cold ring of a gun barrel at the back of his head, and heard a cold voice behind him. Flynn hadn't even blinked.
"Sorry – I need his cheating hide. Hopefully not more than you need your head."
The turian's mandibles shuddered, and Flynn grinned a sardonic grin, scooped up the chits and leaned back in his chair. If he looked surprised by the identity of his rescuer, he failed to show it.
"How dramatic." He said dryly, looking over at the turian. "Ye still here, Thohrin?"
The cold ring went away at the back of his head.
"Uh – I was just leaving." Thohrin rose glaring hate at Flynn with a wary pique toward Miranda Lawson then beat a hasty retreat. Behind her, a man with an active omnitool tracked the turian leaving.
"Mac soith. He'll be back." He spat. "Pláigh ar a theach!"
Miranda smiled to herself. He was probably the last man alive who still spoke Gaelic on a regular basis – well, Flynn only did it when he got emotional. Her cerebral translator implant didn't translate it because the language was so infrequently used nowadays. The only thing she recognized was the first thing he'd said: 'son of a bitch" – or something like that. Flynn gave her a once-over as she stepped up to the table.
Miranda's pistol looked new, a variant on the M-358 Talon. She looked official – sort of. She was in shiny new armor too, black, with gold piping. A silver phoenix was emblazoned on the shoulder piece. The fella with the omnitool wore something similar. Flynn even thought her new haircut suited her.
Damn his eyes, she was as beautiful as ever. He couldn't wait to see what she wanted this time.
"Weren't you being a bit obvious, Flynn?"
He shrugged, dragged the chair Thohrin had recently vacated with a foot, put both feet up, forcing Miranda to fetch her own.
Right. He and she had not exactly parted under the best of circumstances, but it was a bit long to hold a grudge. Well – for her, anyway.
Flynn was counting his winning chits, and his whole demeanour said he didn't care if she were there or not. Sixty-three thousand five all told. Not bad.
"You walk in tarted-out in full armor in this shithole, an' ask me tha' question?"
"Not exactly the Azure Imperial." Miranda just looked at him, vaguely resenting the 'tarted-out' crack.
Flynn chuckled, but he wasn't amused. Miranda knew this wasn't going to be pretty.
"Who's yer friend?"
"Angus Riley. My Engineer."
Flynn laughed out loud at the name.
Riley frowned at him.
"Four generations in Dublin." He said. "I'm as Irish as anybody there."
"An bhfuil tú anois?" Flynn's voice wasn't remotely friendly. "Mine bhí ann ar feadh caoga."
"Look, just because I don't speak whatever it is you're speaking, doesn't mean I…"
"Riley, be quiet." Miranda admonished him. She didn't need some silly game of one-upmanship or Riley making a fool of himself. Riley clamped his mouth shut and backed off.
"Well, he's housebroken, at least." Flynn sniffed in Standard, which oddly enough removed his accent. He scratched his nose with his thumb, switched to English, which brought his brogue back. She had no idea why the translator did that. Personally, she preferred the brogue. "How do ye pay this one?"
The tone was sardonic, almost accusatory.
"With a salary." She replied, with a trace of venom she couldn't help. She heard the implication in his voice.
"You've got some nerve – " Riley started, but Flynn fixed him with a cold gaze that stopped him.
"Could'a swore ye were told to shut up. So be a gud dog an' shut the fook up." He glanced back at Miranda. "Ye might wan'ta change his kibble."
"Riley - go back to the ship."
"I'll be quiet. But he, what he said –" She turned a cold glare on him, appreciating his loyalty, but not his timing.
"When it's your business, I'll let you know."
"Yes, ma'am. Sorry, ma'am." Riley stepped back, made a show of working on his omnitool.
"Well, now, as boyfrien's go, at least you got this one broke and broke in." The sparking gaze came back to round on him.
"He's not a boyfriend, he's an employee."
"Ah, too bad. So you don't treat 'im like a person after all then?" Miranda's eyes narrowed and real anger bubbled up.
"If you have something stuck in your craw, say it already."
Flynn feigned all innocence.
"Me? What would I have to say?"
"You just never let things go!"
Again that annoying innocent look.
"Go? What do I have to let go?"
"The past. I made a bloody damned mistake in ever going along with…!" Miranda clamped her mouth shut as his eyes turned to ice. Dammit! Instantly, she regretted saying it, for it came out far harsher than she'd intended. His eyes narrowed and anger flashed through them. Groups of heavily armed men questioned their vocations when he did that.
Without even trying he managed to make her angry. She fought it down. He sat back in his chair, and if he'd been genuinely happy to see her at any point so far, it was long gone.
"The past… I didn't bring up any past." His voice was low and slow. "Why would I ever wan'ta do that?"
Miranda looked down at his brawny arms, coiled with muscle, strong and fine, cursed herself. She did not act this way! His hands twirled a credit chit between long fingers. She had a flash of them tangled in her hair… no, no, no. Do not go there.
She could not allow him to make her simply react. That's how he got you, that's how he got everybody.
Yet… she remembered those hands. Back in her early days of Cerberus. She'd met him on a mission, they had been on opposing sides, forced to work together, she promising recompense for his help. It had been …odd. She had come close to shooting him once or twice, his insolent confidence and her supreme arrogance clashing constantly, both certain they were in the right, pretty much constantly. It had not been animosity masking warm feelings, like those insipid vids – it had been real animosity on her part. She had not liked him at all, and he seemed to go out of his way to do everything in his power to make sure she didn't.
Flynn was a classic rogue and scoundrel, a troublemaker and felt completely wrong for her in almost every way.
She'd only wished that she'd had the sense to run before they…
Riley suddenly shouted.
Thohrin chose then to return, and he didn't return alone. He burst back into the pub with a yell, followed by five others, two more turians, a batarian, a vorcha and a rather hard-looking asari.
Flynn didn't even wait for them to fully enter the pub or to hear the turian's bravado. He was out of his chair and into the group before Thohrin had even finished his first word, as if he'd been expecting it – which he had - a large fist hitting the disgruntled turian squarely in the mouth, his right mandible cracking audibly from the blow. It was followed by another solid fist streaking in under the first, to impact his jaw and send him flailing back into his comrades, unconscious before he hit the floor.
The asari managed to yell, hit him with a stasis bubble, with the obvious intent of holding him there as she brought a shotgun to bear. She thought she had him until she saw the grin spread across his face.
"Feckin' asari always think ye got the world by the bawls," he told her, seeing Miranda rising from her chair from the corner of his eye. He hadn't given her all that much time to react. She instantly engaged the others, sending them diving for cover. Riley's drone was engaging another on the other side of the bar.
"Ye see that?" He glanced down at his belt-buckle, which had a pulsing red light on it. "NFIG – null-force innerference generator." Her eyes widened.
He took a step toward the now-astonished asari, coming through her stasis bubble, took another step, lashed out. His fist hammered into her jaw just under her ear with the speed of a Kodiak and broke her neck, dropping her like a puppet with cut strings.
"Can't stasis yer man when he's got a null field on. Nuthin' fer it ta grab," He told her corpse.
Miranda shouted for him to duck, as the batarian cohort of the yet-unconscious Thohrin drew a bead on his back.
Flynn didn't duck – he simply pivoted, grabbed a nearby chair and hurled it squarely at the batarian, sending the shot into the air and the batarian across the room with a crushed skull to crash through an empty table. Miranda Slammed one of the remaining turians, and shot the last in the leg. Flynn stomped his throat, put him down and gone. Riley's drone blasted the other and killed its operator, hiding outside.
The vorcha charged Flynn, leaping over the bar, but he really didn't stand a chance. Flynn caught him in mid-flight by the throat and helped him head-first into the floor with a sickening crack of neck-bones. Flynn cursed and spat, looking for more.
Miranda stood from behind the table she'd overturned for cover, tracked across the room for further threats, the blue of her biotics flaring before calming and holstering her pistol. She watched Flynn dust his hands, survey the bar more calmly, surprised at his ferocity – and lethality.
He came back to turn the table over and find himself an undamaged chair. She told Riley to check the bodies for intel. What patrons were left were even more intent on their own business and the staff slowly emerged from hiding.
Once again, Flynn let Miranda find her own chair, and did not thank her for the heads-up in the fight. She let it slide, found a chair and pulled it up to the table. Flynn ordered another drink, twisted his neck until it snapped. Miranda got a glimpse of the small N7 tattoo behind his right ear as he did it. Sometimes it was easy to forget the man before her was not only a member of an elite group of warriors, but in the elite of that elite.
"Nuthin' like a good scrap to work out the kinks." He cracked his knuckles, slammed his fist on the table and yelled for his drink to hurry up. "Guess yer dog weren't too clueless after all."
"He has his uses."
"No doubt." Again that faint accusatory tone. She ignored it.
"Did you need to kill them all?"
"Thohrin's still breathin'." He waved it away. "Tha' c'n change." He shrugged. She didn't remember him being quite this ruthless. He'd been dangerous when she'd known him, certainly, but he'd never went past the expediently necessary.
Well, it had been a long time.
Still, she found herself feeling a little disappointed that he had seemed to have lost something important - a spark in him that had seemed to have gone out.
"I see you're still carrying Brigid." She indicated the enormous cannon he had strapped to his back. It was a custom weapon he had made for him in the distant past, a mutant railgun apparently based on his own design. The thing could literally fire anything that could be fit into the loading chamber. She could see how it could be useful – stuck somewhere without access to thermal clips or the old built-in cooldowns – well, Brigid never ran out of ammunition. You could dump a handful of gravel into the thing and it would fire it with enough force to blow a security mech to pieces. There was even a story once of Flynn killing a group of pirates with it by using a handful of old metal currency. She'd also wondered if he wasn't the size he was just so he could use the damn thing comfortably. He had other weapons, but Brigid was his easy favourite. She'd been mildly impressed he'd decided not to use it.
He got comfortable, as if the fight had never happened.
"Aye."
She pointed to the deep scar on his jaw.
"She backfire on you?" He fired her a contemptuous look.
"Hardly." He shrugged. "What do you care?"
"Can't a body be curious?" She tried a real smile, genuinely curious. "How did it happen?"
"Got hit in the face." His tone coldly mocking.
Right. That actually stung. A little.
"It's an improvement." Miranda rejoined blandly. His mood, always a tad mercurial, seemed to change again when his drink arrived.
"So - what does bring the Illusive Man's favorite icy-arsed Aussie all the way down here to soil her perfection with such low-rent scum as meself?"
Miranda frowned.
"The Illusive Man is dead."
"Who cares? So's Cerberus, or soon will be." He took a drink of whatever it was in his glass. She assumed whiskey of some kind. "I've killed enough of the feckers meself." He 'pffft'd'. "Not a single one worth savin'."
She let it pass. His digs weren't going to bug her if she could help it.
"I also know the Alliance has a 'kill-on-sight' order on their operatives. Something about indoc'rination and the like."
"That's true."
"Even you had a bounty on ye afore the War. It were a pretty sum too."
"From the Alliance?"
"Yer Da." Not a surprise. "Another from Cerberus. Substantial creds."
"Surprised you didn't try for it."
A small smile.
"Who says I didn't?"
She sent him a skeptical look, sat back, crossed her arms, said in a tone of sarcastic disbelief,
"Well - how close did you get then?"
"Stood there in D24 an' watched you whinge to Shepard. The first time. Missed you on the Presidium, tho'."
She blinked.
"You're full of it. You stand out."
"Had a devil of a time findin' a C-Sec uniform in my size." He took a drink. "D24, you wearing that painted-on white suit – very subtle, by the way – on the hunt for yer sister. Oriana, roight?"
She blinked again. He'd been there.
"I follered ye to Sanctuary, but I got diverted - had other problems."
"What problems?" Followed her to Sanctuary? How damn long had he been after her?!
"Cerberus rescinded it, anyway." He told her, ignoring her question. "Guess he had other plans fer ye."
"There was still my father." Her voice was contemptuous.
"He wanted ye dead. Saw no need o'dat." A shake of his head in mock pity. "Shame. Yer worth nuthin' now."
"The illusive Man still would have paid you." Ignoring the latest jab, she yet had a hard time believing him, but he knew details he couldn't have otherwise.
"No for his favourite." She didn't like how he used that word, nor the implication behind it. Did he think…?
"My 'icy-arse' isn't remotely Cerberus anymore, and hasn't been for some time, and I was never his bloody 'favourite'."
"Sure ye weren't," He rolled his eyes.
He was insinuating…! The bastard! No. She was a bigger person than that. He would not get under her skin again.
"Believe what you want. I have larger responsibilities now."
He nodded at her phoenix.
"Aye. I've heard that too. The bleedin' sweet life - CEO of a mountain of cash and a small biotic army – and fookin' asari in the mix."
"Being pro-Humanity didn't – and doesn't - mean anti-everyone else."
"Noice to be flexible." She glared at him, waved off a tentative seedy-looking waiter.
"You see a lot."
"It's a self-preservation thing." Flynn sniffed. "You taught me well enow not ta trust anyone."
She opened her mouth, closed it.
"Besides, yer bloody famous, aren't yeh, and I ha' a pretty good memory."
"Don't remind me. That's also the past."
"Hardly. Workin' with Commander-Fookin'-Legend hisself is great for one's résumé. Look at the fame 'n' fortune it brought me!" A chuckle, ironic. "I saw you on the vids, me lass, among other places. 'The Great Reviver, Shepard's Angel of Resurrection'. Feckin' hell." His voice was one of total incredulity. "The meedja c'n make an angel owt of a whore or a whore outta an angel."
Miranda shot him the dirtiest of dirty looks, opened her mouth to fire back. He put his hands up defensively.
"Now, now – just a metafer. Nuthin' personal." It had been the first sincere thing he'd said, so she calmed, realizing she'd have to continually remind herself not to let him under her skin.
The one rule, Miranda, remember: do not allow him to make you simply react. That's how he got you, that's how he got everybody.
He was chuckling, enjoying the memory and her discomfort.
"Still waitin' for the new religion to come owt. It's a classic, tho'. He's the prime mover in endin' the greatest ongoing threat in galac'ic history, and once he's up and runnin', they jam five hunnerd cameras in his face and what's he say? "I should go'!" he laughed out loud then.
"Flynn – he said more than that!"
"Sure, sure, but that's what it boiled down'ta. Fecking classic." He coughed, took a drink. "He was allays like that, though, even on Torfan. Fer a man so hard, he liked his bloody speeches."
Miranda nodded. Flynn had the distinction of being one of the few survivors of that bloodbath.
"Why were you in prison?" She asked, the question coming from left field. She used an eyebrow on him. "You spent six months in cryogenic solitary."
"Bit of a brawl." He didn't inquire as to where she'd achieved that information on him. Didn't care. His battles were hardly secret.
"Six in cryo-sol for a 'bit of a brawl'?"
"On Illium. I tossed a few boys through a window or two." He glanced past her at Riley, sneered faintly. "Or don' ye' have it already writ down?"
"I don't have particulars, just summaries."
"Well, like ye tol' yer man there – when it's yer business, I'll let ye know."
"I see being civilized isn't going to work," she told him, smile vanishing.
"Ye don' really care, so why should I waste me breath?" He bellowed for another drink. "We've had our little pleasantries. What the fook do ye want, anyways?"
She eyed him dubiously, pondered it, changed her mind five times and changed it back five times. Finally, she replied,
"I need your help."
As soon as she said it, she knew she shouldn't have – Flynn threw his head back and laughed long and loud.
Miranda crossed her arms and waited it out. When he finished, she give him a stern look and asked,
"Got any more?"
His drink arrived, and he took a generous swig, told the guy to fetch the bottle. He waved at her breezily.
"Ach, nae – do go on, yer Perfection. The last time you asked for my help ended so bloody well. Well – fer you. I can'nae wait to see what this is all about!"
"Are you accusing me of something?"
"Me? Accusing you? Of what?"
Miranda was suddenly conscious of Riley behind her – and she knew, despite appearances, he was all ears. The last things she needed was her crew making too many assumptions. She swallowed her indignant reply, took a breath to centre herself and tried again. Flynn's requested bottle arrived.
"Damn you. I didn't come here to reminisce," and she was almost relieved to see the slight nod he gave her. She could give as good as she got. She tried to get back on track. "Shepard is why I'm here."
"Don' look a'me! I haen't seen the prick!"
"Will you just listen?" She looked annoyed again, he just smiled an insolent smile at her, which just annoyed her further. Another breath, deeper this time.
"Some background: after his release from the hospital, at his specific request, he was given a conditional discharge from his Spectre duties, to – as he put it, 'burn off accumulated vacation time'."
"So? I'd say the bastard earned some bloody time off."
Miranda shook her head.
"I don't disagree, but this is important, Flynn." Earnest.
"Roight." Flynn started flicking a chit into the air with his thumb, unconcerned.
Miranda told him about the missing salvage ships, the incidences with the turians, the quarians. He failed to see how any of this should cause him concern, decided to just go with it. Eventually Miranda would get to the point, he figured, and if she didn't, well, he didn't give a damn. He already knew his answer, no matter what she told him.
Still, curiosity was curiosity.
"So, so far I don' see anything what says I need ta give a flyin' fook."
Miranda leaned over the table, said quietly:
"That salvage team I told you about? They showed up again at the 'Merrie Olde' colony on Westminster's Fifth, two weeks ago. Two days later, the colony went quiet." He frowned.
"Merrie Olde - quiet? Tha' does nae happen."
"Exactly. It gets worse. Two days after that, a turian patrol found it dead."
"'Dead'? Whatcha mean – dead?"
Miranda held up a pad, read.
"'Report 353a: All humans in this colony are dead. Unsettling. It appears all inhabitants committed suicide. We found one, in the port, screaming. She immediately took her own life with a shotgun blast to the head.'"
"The hell?" He ran a hand through his hair. "A'right, now tha' is damned peculiar." He scratched the scar on his chin. "Do they know wha' did it – disease? A toxin? Reapers?"
Miranda frowned at him.
"We don't know. That's part of the mystery, to which I'll fill you in later, depending. We are looking, it's part of why I came to find you. Back to Shepard, for the moment. The ship he took for his 'vacation' was a cruise liner called the Emerald Dawn."
"Uh, and? I'm sure he'll show up eventually. He didn't go alone, if'n I remember correc'ly."
Miranda frowned. Out of everyone… the Inky Nightmare… no, nevermind. Shepard could be infuriatingly inexplicable all he liked.
"No," she said, dry. "He was accompanied by Subject Zero and a krogan named Urdnot Grunt."
"Is that who they were? Shepard an' Wreckin' Ball? She were a pretty little thing." He mused. "I'll be damn'd."
"'Wrecking Ball'?" Miranda inquired, vaguely surly.
Flynn chuckled.
"That's what the Terminus pirates called 'er. A hot little ball of biotic rage that just smashed anythin' in her way."
Lawson gave him a sour smile.
"She's some kind of teacher at Grissom apparently." Her tone laid out everything she thought of that state of affairs.
"Is she now? Don't tha' beat all. Now tha' were a gurl you could trust. If she didna like ye, she'd just either tell ye, or smush ye into a very little ball o' great regrets."
"We're not here to talk about her." Annoyed. He smiled that damned insolent smile. "Just short of the Tasale Relay, the ship they were on went missing. A week later it showed up wrecked and empty two systems away, in orbit of Nepyma."
He sent her a bored look.
"Well, that solves yuir Shepard problem."
Miranda fished around in a pack on her waist, withdrew another pad, skimmed it across the table at him. It had footage on it. Flynn looked at it with a vague interest.
She indicated a particular file number, and Flynn tapped it, watched it.
"That was taken recently; someone – a very powerful biotic - stormed through the Terminus pirate colony of Ramnageo and tore it to shreds."
The video was grainy security footage. 'Stormed' was an apt description. There was very little of Ramnageo left intact when the biotic finished.
Flynn frowned, replayed it again.
"Zero were on that ship with Shepard… no, this armor and attack modality's all wrong for tha' girl. I've seen her vids." Miranda blinked. She'd forgotten just how sharp he was. It was that damn brogue that threw you off. "Got her power, but a helluva bit more control…."
"Not long ago," Miranda added, "Someone in what appeared to be heavily-modified N7-branded heavy armor, using a weapon that looked like an N7-class Valkyrie, but did not fire like one – I'll explain why later –destroyed five full pirate bands on The Shady. With the woman you just saw. They apparently waited until an Alliance patrol answered some SOS' and then gave the gun he used to the nearest soldier and told them to make more. The soldiers there were convinced it was Shepard. They didn't see his face, however."
"And?"
"The Valkyrie is of a design no one – and I mean no one has ever seen before. It's not based on modern technology."
"Neither is Brigid."
"Not remotely the same."
"If you say so."
"This soldier and the biotic then called a small ship of an unrecognized design and boosted straight out of the atmosphere and was halfway across the Omega system and to the Relay before anyone could either track or stop them. Scans of their track showed no eezo traces, nothing pertaining to any kind of mass effect generation, nothing. The ship vanished and did not use the Relay. A traffic beacon just outside krogan space registered the same ship reappearing as if from nowhere. Salarian scientists who studied the scan of the area said something about 'spatial compression' but then refused to say anymore."
Flynn started to look bored again.
"If it was Shepard, something very strange is going on."
Flynn picked up the pad, read, started to laugh sardonically about halfway through and didn't bother to finish it.
"So what aren't ye tellin' me?"
"That depends on your answer when I'm done. Keep reading."
"And ye come to me…" He seemed incredulous at that, read a bit longer, then looked up, pointed at the pad.
"Wot's this 'psyche check' shite?"
Miranda looked vaguely uncomfortable.
"It's derived from a standard check after they pulled him from the rubble in France. There'd been some …questions about his state of mind. If that soldier was Shepard, he's fallen back into some disturbing patterns. Post-Torfan patterns."
Flynn shook his head in disbelief.
"Oh, fer fook's sake! Them's bloody fairy tales. Shepard's as hard as they come, but his bloody mind was fine! Whether folks like it or not - and I didn' - he was unner orders on Torfan. They didn't call him the 'Butcher' for nuthin', but he didn' do it because he hated the feckin' squints or was sloggin' through some stupid psychosis. If he didn't crack from Mindoir - or Torfan - or everything that followed, he sure as hell won't after it's all said an' done!"
Flynn skidded the pad back to her, snagged a waiter as he went by, ordered something even more ferociously alcoholic.
"I didn't write it, Flynn. This is Alliance speculation, not mine."
"That'd explain that nonsense then. " He jabbed a finger at the pad. She held it back out, and eventually he took the dossier again, read from it. "'Unknown force attacking select species'."
"Scroll a page." He did. A small video played. It showed edited attacks from various locales. He nodded, more to himself.
"I c'n see why they're concerned."
"As of yet, there are no reports of anything like this on Earth, Thessia or Palaven. So far it's been restricted to outer colony worlds."
"Rim colonies, by the looks of it." He cast an eye up at her.
"No, they don't speculate on it."
He just grunted, kept reading.
"'Unusual alien death on Hranta'? Is'na that planet four-balls-deep in the new krogan 'Breedin' Holes'? Tá gach duine ag dul ar mire ach mé."
"Stick to Standard or English – and don't be crude, Flynn – it's unattractive. " Miranda chided. The 'Outer Protectorate' as it was actually called was the three systems granted the krogan by the Council for their actions in the War. The krogan used them as heavily-guarded and fiercely-protected breeding grounds. Every viable krogan female had been transported there and the krogan then threw hoops of steel around them. Clean, safe planets to birth the new Genophage-free generations. So far they'd not asked for any more. So far.
Non-krogan only went there via special invitation. Non-invited non-krogans didn't come back.
"And no, we're not all crazy. That's the latest. Salarian technical teams. The krogans crushed whatever it was and sent it to Sur'kesh. It was intercepted later and redirected to one of the outer Sol System Research stations to be analyzed."
"Well, I kinna go anywhere near krogan territory – I'm fairly certain they wouldn't be lettin' me into their breeding space."
"We wouldn't be going there."
He shook his head, like one would expressing sorrow – or mock pity.
"I might admire th' bastard, but he's nae friend of mine."
Right. Torfan. Some incident she'd never been privy to, one she hadn't cared about at the time.
Miranda stood. She really didn't have time to convince him and certainly wasn't about to – as Hackett had obliquely suggested in the dossier (Flynn had a reputation as a bit of a womanizer, not that Hackett knew of their past) – use her "wiles" on him. Appealing to his standards as an N7 hadn't worked. The man was a mercenary? Fine. He was driven mostly by his instincts and wants then. Mercenaries were flexible in their causes – given enough incentive.
"I'd pay you, Flynn. Generously. You were a …suggestion from someone I respect, although I have to wonder at it, now. I don't have the time to waste trying to talk sense into that standing stone you call a brain."
He just looked at her.
"A suggestion? From whom?" His sea-green eyes glittered.
"Councillor Hackett."
He let out a loud bark of a laugh.
"Ol' Crack-It Hackett." He nodded. "Aye, that was a man whose word was allays good. Hard as nails, but fair."
"He speaks highly of you. I'm assuming it was because he was possibly inebriated that day."
"Yuir hard on the ego, lass." He paused. "Hackett, was it? I'll be damned." He seemed to ponder it a few moments, then shrugged. "Nah."
"What?"
"No. I'll pass."
"After everything I've told you? You still say no?"
"Aye. It's one of the two shortest words in the language. Ehn. Oh. No."
"I'll pay you well." Knew what would follow as soon as she said it. He leaned back, crossed his arms.
"Ye can't afford me."
"People change." She told him, simply trying to explain it without really explaining something she just wasn't any good at – much to her dismay. "Never thought you'd change this much."
Flynn eyed her, shook his head. Change? She was almost as he remembered her, if seeming now a little less rigid, a little less tightly-wound. On the surface, Miranda Lawson had been much female without much feminine, smart without enough humility, and confident with a smidge too much arrogance, with a rather prodigious pool of talent wrapped in a distracting body that she used as a weapon, of which he begrudged her not remotely. Every once in a while though, you could see, if you were fortunate enough, flashes of the real woman underneath, sweet and funny, with an immense capacity for kindness and empathy, a sharp, penetrating and compassionate intelligence. Miranda Lawson's great misfortunate, however, was the unnecessary sea of loneliness she had cast herself adrift on, that kept that truly beautiful woman far from shore and happiness. Still, the two opposing forces in her made her what she was, and he wouldn't try to change her for a sea of credits. He knew better than that. He hoped she never relaxed too much - it'd ruin her. Damn her, but she was a hard act to follow. It was just a pity, that, as supposedly passionate as she was in protecting and saving the entire human race, she hadn't the ability to give a damn about individual humans past being a resource to use and discard.
From what he could see, that hadn't changed at all.
Flynn didn't change. He saw no reason. He hadn't changed as much as she seemed to think, but then, she'd not had the courage to stick around long enough to find out, had she? Whatever she thought she was now, well, it changed nothing for him. Flynn trusted no one, not a pretty face or a lovely body, nor ever sweet words. Certainly not coming from her. He'd cared and she'd punished him - hard - for it.
"You don't know anything." He got up, turned. "Later."
He didn't get far. A face he knew and never thought to ever see again materialized before him.
"Dullahan," the face said, with a small smile.
Flynn stopped.
"Fookin' Winston Black." From behind him, Shizuka stepped out. She folded her arms and sent him a mighty frown.
"Stupid asshole," she told him, voice not remotely friendly. " - you should stop talking and listen for once."
"The Hammer and the Duke," Miranda heard him mutter. He rubbed his face, stroked his hand through his hair. He took a deep breath, released it, turned.
"A little pedestrian, isn't it?" Miranda was surprised at the look of betrayal in his eyes. "Using me old frien's agin me?"
"They were part of my mission brief. I told you this was serious."
"I'm not your friend," Shizuka said unnecessarily. Flynn just smirked at her.
"Whatever." He started walking again.
"I have always been your friend, Dullahan." Black told him, walking toward him, extending his hand.
"Don't play nice with this… mercenary." She made the word sound remarkably like she'd just said "piece of shit", and Flynn actually smiled a genuine smile of his own.
"What's the difference? Paid is paid, no matter who's doin' the payin'." He shot her a sideways look. "Or are ye doon all this outta yer deep-rooted charitable sensibilities?"
"Fuck you."
"Stop – yer hurtin' me feelin's."
Shizuka's eyes just hardened, but she said nothing further.
"This is important, Dullahan." Black said, calm, hand still waiting.
Flynn regarded it for a while before finally taking it.
"Yer still too fookin' tall, Duke." He told him, eliciting a genuine smile from the man.
"I agree. Akilah still refuses to dance with me." The woman in question shook her head, not about to be engaged.
Duke did nothing frivolously. This was a man whose word was good.
"Ye think it's worth it then, Duke?"
"It is a mystery that kills in numbers, Dullahan. It is too specific to be anything but malevolent in intent."
Flynn snorted, re-shook the hand he'd yet to relinquish.
"'Intent is irrelevant if it goes against our interests'. So say the asari."
"An odd class of asari."
"Not as odd as ye moight think."
He released Duke's hand, turned back to Miranda, contemplated her.
"Aye. Well, then."
"So you'll come?" She asked.
"No. I still haen't any good reason to stick my neck owt."
"I gave you half-a-dozen! This is an imminent threat!"
Flynn scoffed, waved her away, stepped around Duke.
"Nae to me t'isn't."
Miranda let out a disgusted sigh, shook her head, left. His old comrades followed her.
Flynn just nodded at Black as he went by. Black seemed disappointed, but nodded back. Flynn ignored the glare from The Hammer - she was still hating him for Torfan. Well, she could hate him all she liked.
Flynn sighed to himself, stopped for a moment to ponder the just-now awakening Thohrin. He 'humph'ed', knocked the turian back out and continued on. He stepped out in time to see Miranda climbing into an expensive aircar and taking off.
History repeating itself? Not if he could help it. He only needed his guts ripped out once a lifetime, thanks.
He managed about halfway to his "flop" when he was surrounded by armed people in armor - bone-white, with black skeletons painted over, all save one whose armor was the reverse. New livery to him. They also held guns he'd never seen before. A quick count netted him twenty. Showing not an ounce of fear, Flynn stopped, crossed his arms.
"C'n I help you lads?"
"Die." Was all black armored one said, as the rest opened fire.