Ripples in the Stream
A D&D / Shadowrun / Mass Effect crossover
by Vyrexuviel
Disclaimer: The author of this story does not, in any way, derive any profit from the story. D&D, Shadowrun and Mass Effect are the property of their respective copyright holders. Jorukaia and other unfamiliar characters in this story, however, are mine.
"I trust there won't be a repeat of last week, will there? Garm?"
The big krogan slowly sat down again, glaring at Tarrak with one eye, and watching Aria with the other. What was that earth creature, changed color based on what it was sitting on. It had eyes like that, watching two things at once.
Garm was seated at the long, oval table that currently occupied the center of Aria's Aerie. Across from him sat Tarrak, with his lieutenant, Jentha Andrassi, standing behind and slightly to his left. Jentha's eyes had never left Garm, and though her hand relaxed by her side, where it was resting on her pistol, her face never changed expression.
Aria liked that. Jentha had promise. A faint smirk crossed her lips, hidden as she took a tiny sip of her drink. Ever since Joru had given her the ring that sparkled darkly on her left middle finger, she'd never had so much as a hangover, no matter how much hard liquor she drank. And she could probably drink a whole company of krogan under the table, shot for shot with the whole lot of them, should she feel the need to.
She didn't, of course. She shifted slightly, crossing her long legs under the table as she shot a glance down towards the far end, where Jaroth was watching the other two with flickering silk-black eyes.
Goddess, but Jaroth was amoral even for a Salarian. Him and his supercilious little sneer.
"Hehe, figured a smart Salarian and an old Krogan would be able to remember one little rule on Omega." Tarrak's voice held more than the usual batarian arrogance, it was downright smug as he glared across the table at the now-seated krogan.
Garm only gave a low snarl, but kept both his hands on the table, and one eye on Aria. Like the true prey he was, Garm was keeping close watch on the true predator at this meeting.
"If you are quite finished with your little threat display, Tarrak..." Aria smirked, shifting slightly and rolling her eyes a bit. "This issue is closed, unless one of you wants to...reopen negotiations?"
Her eyes roved slowly around the table, lighting on those of Tarrak, who bared his teeth, but made no further sign. His Lieutenant kept silent and stoic behind him, good girl, she'd have to 'reward' her later.
Past the batarian, the turian Derius sat in for the Talons. They were a minor gang in the grand scheme of things, located solely on Omega, but they ran more of the station than the other three combined. His lieutenant was asari, a battle-matron by the name of Lasciviae. That name had cracked up more than a couple humans, and made still more smile, but Lasc was as asexual as an asari could get.
She knew, she'd tried. Girl was more frigid than a fucking icebox.
Down at the end of the table was Jaroth, Eclipse's leader for their Omega operations. He and his brother ran the operation like a well-oiled machine, but only Jaroth was here tonight.
Garm was alone as well, and took up the entire other side of the table. The huge, hulking krogan was hot-tempered and a bit stupid, not thinking through long-term consequences and being easily goaded. His enhanced resilience and regeneration made him dangerous, though, as he could often outlive the negative consequences of his short-sighted foolishness.
Such as the incident last week. Garm's Blood Pack had been surreptitiously (for krogans) moving into a new district, one owned by the Eclipse. When they'd sent their enforcers in to try and muscle out the eclipse, they'd found their way in across one of the skyway bridges blocked by a sizable contingent of Eclipse, with demands to 'stay out of their territory'.
Garm did not take kindly to being told to fuck off, and had charged the bridge with his honor guard and a few dozen vorcha. Jaroth immediately responded with three YMIR mechs and snipers carrying high-caliber shredder mods. The damn Salarian was even unloading another nine YMIR mechs.
That had gotten stopped neatly when Aria had contemptuously lifted him and his entire honor-guard out over one of the main drops through Omega's three-dimensional skyscapes and casually berated him for close on half an hour, while systematically stripping parts off the three YMIR mechs that Eclipse had sent out to meet the krogan threat.
That had been a week ago, and had been the first time Aria had taken to the battlefield since Joru's little gift. She had adored the slack-jawed look on the big dumb krogan when he and his twenty men had been left helpless and dangling over a three-kilometer drop by her biotics alone. She'd been tempted to suspend him by a biotic noose around his neck, but she'd gotten him with a Stasis to prevent any untoward antics.
"Yes, I know the rule well enough. So why are we even discussing this?" Jaroth shifted impatiently. "It was the krogan's fault for causing the whole mess. No surprise to be honest, it's all his kind knows how to do."
The oversized krogan gave a snarl as he turned to glare at Jaroth, who merely sneered back.
As tempting as it would be to let this go further, Aria had other things on her mind. "Enough. If I'm going to be stuck playing referee to your dick-measuring contest, then I'll castrate you both myself and toss you out the airlock!"
Even Derius winced a little at that one, and now Aria held the attention of all the leaders. She heaved a theatrical sigh and glared around at them. "This meeting was called to air a grievance to me and ask for my assistance dealing with an 'issue'. You each contacted me separately about this, and once I did a little digging of my own, I decided to drag you all in here and get this over with."
"You pissed someone off who's got more balls than a squad of krogan, and tech to back it up." She swept the table with a sapphire gaze, cold as steel. "Whoever it is has connections, tech, and access to a whole hell of a lot of my station."
Her glare hardened as she stared pointedly at Derius. "This meeting was to inform you that I am aware of the Archangel, and consider him your problem."
Despite the vibrant bass of the club music, the room fell into stunned silence. Even Garm was speechless.
"What do you mean 'our problem'?!" Tarrak leaned forward, his four eyes blazing.
"Exactly what I said." Aria met his glare with a cool stare, direct and challenging. "Archangel has been targeting your operations. As long as he continues to do so, and refrains from damaging the infrastructure of my station, I have no issue with him."
The asari shifted in her seat, allowing her gaze to slide off Tarrak's furious features to those of his much less annoying subordinate. She allowed herself to arch ever so slightly, emphasizing her chest as she allowed the woman, Jentha a taste of attraction towards her Queen's figure.
Sooner or later, the woman would become so enamored with Aria that she'd ditch her former boss. At that point, Tarrak would become...redundant.
"If there's nothing else that you want to whine about, then you're free to leave." Aria's glance slashed across all of the crime bosses lingering for a moment on Lasciviae.
What the hell. She let the frigid asari have a full-force blast of attraction, but the asari's gaze barely shifted. Damn cold, girl, to ignore her Queen, when Aria was practically stripping to get her attention. Ah well, some girls were hopeless.
"Nothing else to whine about?!" Tarrak snarled. The Blue Suns leader was about yell even more, but his omni-tool suddenly chimed with an urgent call. The batarian fumed at the interruption but took several steps away to listen.
"This isn't some picayune matter!" Jaroth took over. "His group took out three of my shipments last week. I've lost six tons of red sand and my men are trying to sell to each other to make up for the lost profits."
"Bastard killed more than a dozen of my best warriors two days ago." Garm's low, menacing growl cut through the other two's whines. "He only took ten shots to kill fourteen krogan, and they were inside a reinforced warehouse with no windows! No sniper is that good, it's like he using a damn rail gun!"
"Oh great, that's just FUCKING GREAT!" Tarrak bellowed, drawing everyone's attention as he ended a call. "Speak of the Vhekkuk'Dhagh! I just got word that Archangel hit one of our bases eleven minutes ago! He collapsed an entire damn hangar! Half a dozen Mantis gunships, gone!"
The Batarian slammed both his fists onto the table in anger. "Damn it all! Jentha, stay here and work this out with Aria! I have to deal with this shit!"
The Blue Suns leader stormed towards the door before his second-in-command could protest.
"I did not dismiss you, Tarrak." Aria's voice was low, but carried a palpable whiplash of command that she hadn't possessed a year ago. Instant silence fell, save for the canned music that the two asari dancers were gyrating to.
Aria mentally smirked at the display. Jarissa was a fairly good dancer, one of her best, but the other... The silly girl needed to work on her dancing skills if she thought she could perform in the Queen's presence.
The batarian's body jerked as he spun back to where he had been standing a moment before. His four eyes widened as he realized he had unconsciously obeyed Aria's word without realizing it.
"Aria. Do I have... permission to tend to my affairs?" His voice was low, husky, almost spat through gritted teeth, but Aria could hear the fear in his voice.
As well he should fear, when his own body seemed to betray him.
"You do. But be mindful to be more courteous in the future. I wouldn't want to have to make an example." She flicked a finger at him, and the man practically sprinted out of the room.
The effect of her demonstration was crystal clear. Jaroth was staring slack-jawed at Aria, his salarian intelligence stunned by her display of power. Garm had tensed as he stared at her with undivided focus, sensing the power of the alpha predator like the time he had once sighted Kalros, the Mother of Threshers, on Tuchanka. Derius was frozen stiff, his turian discipline kicking in at sensing true authority, the twitching of his mandibles his only movement.
Jentha watched her commanding officer go with a slightly wary glance. The red-headed woman swallowed, then squared her shoulders and turned back to Aria. "Well, I believe I speak for everyone here when I say that our business on Omega is being hurt badly. So I must say, with all due respect, Aria; Archangel is striking at all our organizations on your territory, as we are here at your blessing. You risk appearing weak at a critical-"
"Shut. Up." Aria laced scorn and distaste through every single phoneme. You could have heard a pin drop as Jentha's mouth snapped closed.
"Archangel has been targeting the...less than savory aspects of business. Arms dealing. Drug trafficking" Her gaze shifted from Tarrak to Jaroth, and finally to Garm. "Prostitution and slave trading."
Even the music sounded muted and muffled, so great was Aria's presence. "These are aspects of business that I have had a longstanding disinterest in. As long as he continues his current trend, I have no issue with his activities."
A hand was raised, and her gaze snapped to the salarian, silencing him before he could speak with only the power of her glare.
Aria didn't show it, but there was one detail about Archangel's operations that did concern her. It wasn't the fact even she didn't know who he was, other than that he was a turian. It was the way he and his group moved across Omega with complete secrecy and efficiency. The movement of their agents and their supplies, their ability to appear and disappear anywhere on the station... She had instantly recognized the pattern.
Somehow, Archangel had gained a greater understanding of Omega's secret passages than most. Only Aria and two others were supposed to know them so well; Nyreen Kandros, and her own daughter Liselle. The latter's loyalty to her mother was beyond doubt, and while Nyreen had a falling out with her after Aria had turned all her attentions to Tevos, the Queen was certain the overly virtuous turian had departed Omega, never to return.
No matter. Time was always on an asari's side. Aria T'Loak would find out sooner or later.
"Evidently, none of you have been paying attention past your own affairs. In the many months since his unrelenting attacks on your operations began, he has not harmed even a single asset under my direct authority. Therefore, Archangel dutifully adheres to the only rule that must be followed on Omega. As long as he respects that distance, then he is no one's problem to deal with but your own. Get your houses in order, than perhaps we can talk. Do I make myself clear?"
A wave of grudging affirmatives answered, Ranging from the stiff jerk of Jentha's head, to a slow blink from Jaroth, to a low growl of assent from the krogan, who was still staring at her with both eyes.
"Good. Then you may go now," Aria dismissed as she rose to her feet at the table, gazing at each one in turn. "I wish to be alone."
The group of crime bosses slowly rose, glancing from Aria to each other. Garm was the first one to break, stomping out of her Aerie, though never quite letting her out of his sight. He'd not try her patience again for a very long time, now. Which was partly the point.
The Eclipse head left shortly thereafter, not wanting to run up the heels of the krogan crime-lord Derius and his utterly frigid second left shortly thereafter through the other exit, but Jentha lingered slightly.
Aria smiled. Time to nudge the odds in her favor again.
"Oh, Jentha?" She called, reaching out with her mind and tugging on the human's libido with a 'come hither' motion.
The human woman stiffened a little as the arousal swelled through her. Aria had played with this woman before, but never this directly. She'd always been tantalizingly just out of reach, but with her now unglued from Tarrak's side...
The table and chairs they had used for the conference sank slowly back into the floor from whence they had come. The human woman stood stiff and straight, and Aria couldn't resist a tiny little smirk as she noted the way the woman's throat pulsed in a soft swallow. She was good at hiding her emotions, not a single quaver crept into her voice, despite the ever-strengthening arousal flooding through her. "Y-Yes, Aria?"
The Queen sauntered, sashayed, strutted, whatever you called it, as she made her way the few short steps to her couch. Afterlife's iconic couch, wrapping around just beneath the windows of her Aerie. She sank down on the edge and shifted herself to lay along the long back of the couch, crossing her legs at the ankle and leaning back with a seductive grace that would have been beyond her a year ago.
Jentha's pupils dilated and her thighs twitched at the sensuous display. The human was desperately trying to keep her legs from clenching together, and not succeeding very well. Aria pursed her lip in a knowing smirk and let her eyes half-lid in a sensual stare.
"As I'm sure a capable woman like yourself has noticed, Tarrak has grown... disappointing as of late. Archangel's pressure on the Blue Suns is understandable, but his increasingly volatile behavior is causing him to forget his place under me. Forgetting the one rule is unacceptable."
The human woman swallowed again and shifted a bit uneasily, not daring to sit as she'd not been invited to. "I... Y-Yes, Aria."
That was the 'safe' response, when someone didn't quite know what to make of her. Or when she wasn't quite able to focus on the conversation, because one's sex was currently afire with lust. Aria's smirk widened inwardly, but she schooled herself to a more subtle expression. "Should he step down, or if anything happens to him, you are next in line to lead the Blue Suns on Omega. My Omega. And you understand its one rule. So, I trust that your... performance under me would be more satisfying?"
Jentha's face was turning a delightful shade of pink, and she could no longer meet Aria's eye. Such delicious arousal was coursing through her, and Aria turned up the heat a little more. Her cute little morsel had admirable self control, managing to give a courteous nod and a soft-voiced "I hope so, A-Aria."
Goddess, she enjoyed this so much. This new ability had quickly grown to be one of Aria's favorites. The power to mentally manipulate the sexual desire of others at will... She could feel her own arousal start to flow down to her loins watching the human's reaction to her influence.
"I look forward to your performance when the time comes, Jentha. You may leave, for now."
The woman gulped and gave another courteous nod before beating a hasty retreat. Though the look she shot back at Aria, now lounging full-length on her couch, was a delicious mixture of fear and longing that made the tight confines of her pants rather more uncomfortable than they had to be.
The Queen smiled as the human left, knowing she would be heading for a cold shower to cool herself down.
Aria T'Loak knew the flow of Omega, she could intuitively sense the patterns of its denizens. With her enhanced perception and centuries of experience, she could predict certain events. It was how she knew that Tarrak would be the first of the three mercenary leaders to die at Archangel's hand. Like with many things, Aria knew how to ensure that the chips would still fall in her favor. And now, with a little suggestive influence, the next leader of the Blue Suns would be in her pocket.
She couldn't wait to see the redhead and the rest of the Blue Suns eating out of the palm of her hand.
Aria glanced at the two asari dancers, her only remaining company. "Mmmmm... Jarissa, you can take the rest of the evening off."
The dancer on the left paused, glancing timidly over at Aria, then over at the other, lighter-skinned asari who had apparently not heard. Jarissa swallowed and nodded, slipping silently and unobtrusively out of the Aerie. She didn't hurry, but neither did she linger, for Aria's pleasure or any other reason.
Most dancers tapped for this duty were either the ones so stoned out of their minds that they couldn't remember half of what they overheard at one of these meetings, or the ones smart enough to deliberately not listen to what was said. Those that did listen, as Jarissa's counterpart had been, tended not to last in Aria's employ.
One way or the other.
Aria's fingers flickered through her omnitool, still set in silent-mode, and a slender steel rod began rising from the floor in the middle of the U formed by her Couch. It had taken two weeks of painstaking and painful work to have this particular dainty installed, but Aria was delighted with the results.
The pole came out of the floor at a slow and steady, well-oiled rate, its smooth and polished surface gliding slickly up and up until it locked into the ceiling with a delicate little click.
"I desire entertainment."
The girl who had been dancing against the right-hand wall paused, glancing over at Aria as if she hadn't been deeply aware the entire time. At the Queen's languid gesture, the girl, clad in the usual afterlife uniform of a crotch-less and open-chested bodysuit, paired with bikini top and thong, stepped quietly over to the pole and began to dance to the music.
Aria couldn't help but smile at the performance being put on display for her. "Mmmmmm... tell me, do you know why I am Queen of this station?"
The girl hesitated so long that Aria had to raise an eyebrow at her to get across the point. "...Because you are Aria T'Loak?"
"Close. That name means something to the entire galaxy because I made it so." Aria rose to her feet and turned her back to the dancer, looking out upon Afterlife and the view beyond. "Because I made this station mine. I know its flow, its very rhythm and the patterns that make it so. Omega is not anything so trifling as my property. I do not merely rule or own Omega..."
Aria T'Loak spread her arms wide, as if to embrace and encompass all that she beheld. "I am Omega."
She lowered her arms and smiled with pride. "Nothing ever happens on this station without my knowledge, or my judgment."
Aria then turned a piercing gaze back over her shoulder towards the dancer. "Do you understand that... Jorukaia?"
Dr. Liara T'Soni mentally offered several impolite words for Joru.
She sipped carefully at her latest drink, and tried not to make a face.
Seriously, how had she ever thought these things tasted good at one time in her youth? Granted, that was before her change, but still!
The cloying sweetness almost overpowered the savory scent of perfume that wafted over her, and Liara took another very tiny sip to hopefully keep that reek out of her nose.
"Hey there..." The voice was sultry, with a teasing, coaxing, happy quality to it. Oh goddess, not another one. "You look lonely, mind if I sit?"
She was so very tempted to say 'yes' and let the girl make up her own mind about that. Instead, she went for a slightly less rude response. "I'm waiting for someone."
"Well, it looks like someone found you." The girl gave a vapid giggle that made Liara roll her eyes. "If someone as gorgeous as you has been left waiting, perhaps there is someone else you may desire?"
She sighed. Were Maidens always this dense, or had the effects of her transformation made them more determined then ever? "Look, I-"
She cut off as the asari in the skimpy dress leaned against her and grinned. At least this one was wearing panties, and the fact that was even an improvement was just ugh.
"I would ask you kindly to keep your hands to yourself." Liara put a little more force into those words than she had meant to, and the woman recoiled so far she almost fell off the bar-stool beside her.
"V-Very well, but if you change your mind, I'll be happy to show you a good time." The Maiden smiled suggestively, but there was a faint look of betrayal in her eyes as she slipped Liara a piece of paper before sauntering off with a sway in her hips that, despite her mood, Liara found it hard to tear her eyes from.
Liara gave another quiet sigh and took another tiny sip of her drink, gently shaking her head at the bartender when he came around yet again with another 'free drink for the pretty girl'. That was the twelfth girl to try and accost her, and she'd already stopped bothering to even read the little notes they keep giving her. There wasn't any point, and pursuing one of them would just leave the others jealous, not to mention herself with a limpet stuck to her arm.
She hadn't always been like this. In her youth, those few times when her friends had pulled her out to go barhopping with them, they'd been the ones to wind up with all the pretty girls' comm-codes, not Liara. Never Liara.
So she had little idea how to gently inform her sudden absurd influx of admirers that no, she wasn't interested, please stop embarrassing the both of us by not taking the hint.
At least this one had taken the hint before she'd had to pry the girl off her. That had happened once already and the girl had made such a scene at Liara's rejection that her friends had had to half-carry her out of the bar. Unfortunately, that hadn't discouraged the other girls watching her, only seemed to encourage some of them. Unfortunately again, it was the sort that usually didn't know what a hint looked like, let alone know what to do with one.
"I understand how embarrassingly... Untoward maidens can be." The asari bartender smiled with alluring yet genuine sympathy. "Here, another on me. Perhaps some Honey Mead this time."
"Thanks." Liara pushed aside her barely-touched Star-Ripple. It glistened greasily in the glass, nearly, but not quite, overspilling onto the coaster.
The bartender, who'd introduced herself as Veris after her fourth 'free drink', gave a faint smirk as she upended the glass down the drain and started pulling a much larger glass of mead. The matron's uniform was different from those of the waitresses, less emphasis on her legs, because she stayed behind the bar, but her cleavage was barely restrained by her top, which was open to display everything. Only a tightly-straining bikini top kept the older asari modest, her matronly bustline swaying enticingly as she set the mug on the bar for Liara.
And damnit, her gaze kept drifting to the bartender's impressive rack. Liara jerked her eyes away with difficulty, glad that her new scales hid her sudden deep blush. She contemplated the foam head on the mead and took a tentative sip, getting some up her nose.
She hadn't quite yet figured out how to keep the foam from her nostrils yet, but at least the mead was more acceptable than the Star-Ripple. That thing had been her favorite drink way back in her pre-college days, more than half her life ago.
Her old life.
She was different now, as the blue-black scales and claws tipping her fingers proclaimed. The contrast with her form-fitting white bodysuit and matching coat was stark enough to draw the eye, something she hadn't considered until she'd gotten the outfit on, and by then it was too late to request a change.
This outing had blown up unexpectedly, at least from Liara's point of view. She'd had her usual training yesterday, but a note had been waiting for her this morning to suit up and be ready for an outing to Omega today. She'd protested, saying she wasn't ready to go out (her own reflection still startled her sometimes), but Joru had been insistent She'd explained that Liara had needed to get out, not only to start learning how to deal with crowds (and oh goddess, had she been right), but also to be seen as a darastrix, out and about on her own in public. To start waking the galaxy up to the fact that there was a greater threat out there.
Unfortunately, her entire time on Omega had been one long string of asari throwing themselves at her, and all but gifting her their panties in their desire. Liara's cheeks would have been a deep purple, had her scales not covered that reaction. Goddess, she had had no idea that she was that attractive, to her own people!
...Her former people. That fact still kept blindsiding her.
She'd thought that the D'Vati twins were an exception, given how...unique they were. She was starting to realize, with dawning horror, that the entire species of Asari were going to be treating her as if she were made of walking sex appeal. Goddess, how embarrassing. Even the older asari, who had enough self-control and awareness left over, once they'd gotten over their initial flirting, still flirted with her. The maidens, though, they were the worst. Utterly lust-drunk, unable to take a subtle hint, or even figure out on their own that she didn't want their attention.
Her tail was wrapped firmly around the slender stem of her bar-stool, her booted feet (and it had taken a long time to figure out boots that could fit over her clawed toes without damage) resting on the foot-rail around the base of the bar when the bartender arrived again. By then, Liara had finished half the mead, as it was quite good, especially compared to the cocktails that had been foisted off on her by all and sundry tonight by her adoring fans.
Ugh, just thinking about that made her squirm.
"Ahhh, glad to see you like the honey mead." Veris quickly took her glass, and gave her a demure smile as she refilled it. "It's my job to know what you especially like to taste."
"It is better..." She bit off the 'than that swill', because the bartender had made such a show out of mixing the cocktail for her, after she'd confirmed what Liara wanted. At least she wasn't paying for her drinks here, or she'd have dumped twenty credits down the drain with the rest of the Star-Ripple.
Liara found herself unable to keep from ogling the matron's bustline, the full, round curves of her breasts, the sleek way her catsuit fitted perfectly under their swell, the way her bikini-style top covered just enough to be considered modest in most jurisdictions Technically, Aria could have had her girls serving in whatever outfit, as covering or as revealing as she wanted, but this mix of concealed and revealed was...
She was staring, and didn't notice when the mug was returned, until Veris gave a quiet smirk and crossed her arms under her bosom. "You may have your fill of anything behind the counter. Anything.
Liara flushed, jerking her head up, and glanced first to the matron's face, then away, down to her drink. In a panic, she grabbed it up and swallowed half in three sluicing gulps, the warm, sweet burn down her throat at least taking her mind off being caught staring so openly and rudely. Why did being a Darastrix have to come with an increased sex drive?!
"Very thirsty, I see." The bartender couldn't help but smile as she took the emptied glass and started in on another refill.
"It.. Ah, it's very tasty. I haven't had much...before." Before many things, and Liara struggled not to squirm, reminding herself of what Jorukaia had taught her. Many eyes were on her, not just looking in love-struck awe, but also looking for weakness.
"Watch yourself, this beverage can have more of a kick than most." Veris slid the mug to a stop and this time Liara only picked it up and held it for a moment. "I hope that Afterlife hasn't given you too bad of a time. Have I been doing a good job of a proper impression?"
Liara glanced down into the mug and licked into it, savoring the taste to buy time to think. She let her tongue swirl through the pale, transparent-amber liquid, gathering her thoughts even as she let the layered nuances of taste gather along her tongue. Long and sleek, she'd still not gotten used to how long it could get, and the no-taste of glass pressing against the tip reminded her to reel it back in. The ridged edges rasped slightly against her lips as she gave a thoughtful frown down into her drink.
"I suppose so. Thank you for trying to keep me from being inundated, by the way. I suspect a lot more girls wanted to give me a free drink than the ones you've actually given me."
The bartender, however, had gone completely still. Pupils dilated, breathing accelerated, cheeks flushed; the matron was considerably more aroused than she had been a moment ago. "My... my goddess, that's a very... impressive to...! I need on something in the back!"
Liara blinked as the woman scurried away and sighed softly. At least the mead was good. She took another long lick into the glass, savoring the taste and texture as much as the quality of the beverage. She was starting to understand what Joru meant. Much as it pained her, she needed to learn how to adjust to the effects her presence had on others; both its advantages and its drawbacks. Free drinks were probably just the tip of the iceberg with the former, and the latter was... about to rear its head again with the presence she felt approaching her with ill intent.
Liara sighed in resignation and turned around to face her thirteenth 'suitor'. "I have absolutely no interest in fornic—"
Her voice froze, along with her heart. The creature staring her down was the farthest thing from an admirer.
It was tall, sleekly armored, or perhaps that was its hide? Gender was a complete mystery, as the being was unlike anything she'd seen before. Three-fingered hands with armored talons flexed and twitched as it stared at her through four luminous eyes, set in two pairs on either side of it's triangular, almost arrowhead-shaped head. Its narrow face below the large cress of its brow seemed devoid of both nostrils and mouth, and for a moment, all Liara could think was that it exuded an aura of confused menace.
It chittered at her, sounding almost insectile as it swept its gaze over her, from head to toe. No, not head to toe, head to tail-tip, before turning and stalking away, it's booted feet clomping on the decking of Omega's most famous bar. People made a path for the strange being, it's dark-brown and sickly-yellow armored suit giving it a kind of space that she'd rarely seen given to anyone in the crushing press of Afterlife.
The moment the creature left, a breath exploded out of Liara's lungs that she didn't know she had been holding. It was the first time since her transformation that she had ever felt true dread.
Her enhanced hearing picked out a short conversation between two turians near the door as the strange alien clomped its way past them and out of the bar. "I've never seen one up close, Gavorn. Have you?"
"No, that was a first. The Collectors have never come this far up from the lower slums. Damn it, Aria will need to hear about this..."
Liara swallowed, then belatedly took a sip of her drink to moisten her dry throat. That had been a strange encounter.
She turned slightly on her stool to shoot a glance up at the black glass box that overlooked the club. 'Please hurry up, Jorukaia... I want to go home...'
Yet another of Afterlife's dancers (were they ALL maidens?!) entered her view, strutting across to one of the low, round tables scattered around Afterlife's periphery. She turned, leaned against the edge of the tabletop, and boosted her rump up onto the surface, before swinging her long, blue legs around and up onto the table itself. She leaned back, giving Liara a sultry look, and spread those sleek, tightly-clad legs, as if in offering to the young darastrix.
'...But not before I give you a piece of my mind!'
"I always thought you were a perceptive one, Aria. It's good to see my confidence has not been misplaced." The dragon's throaty chuckle was quiet, but clearly audible as she slowly sauntered around the pole. Her tail wrapped almost possessively around the floor-to-ceiling apparatus, as the dragoness danced in a slow and sensual glide for the appreciation of Omega's Queen.
Scraps and tatters of the dancer's uniform lay littered across the floor of Aria's Aerie, the garment having given up the struggle to clothe the tall, fit, and gorgeous dragoness when she had reverted to her signature self. Seams had parted, fabric had ripped, and eventually all Jorukaia had been left wearing was the pair of valiantly struggling panties that had been a bit loose her her when she'd been hiding as one of Aria's dancers.
Now, she didn't bother with the disguise as she danced slowly and sensually for the Queen, hauling herself up the length of the pole with her tail alone as she watched Aria with a smug and amused gaze.
"Still enjoying your role, I see." Aria chuckled in amusement as the sleek, black-scaled dragoness gyrated around the pole.
"Forgive my indulgence then." Jorukaia slid to her feet and sauntered over to the far end of Aria's couch, hesitating a moment for the Queen's permission before sinking into the soft leather and giving a quiet little sigh. Her long tail extended itself as the dragon slid her legs up onto the couch, her golden-flame eyes gleaming in the darkness of her features as she arched her back in a long, sinuous stretch, her arms rising over her head as she inhaled deeply. "Ahhhh... it is good to be back in my own skin at last..."
"'Indulgence'?" Aria chuckled once more in a full toothy smile. "Oh, but I approve, Joru. You eagerly embrace certain perks and 'advantages' that my own people tend to downplay."
"Jorukaia, please." The dragoness smirked and leaned back in sybaritic enjoyment of the couch's leather seat. "While I would consider you an ally, I'm not ready to take you into my bed just yet."
She shifted her shoulders and gave a quiet hum. "Such a lovely thing. You must let me take a scan of this thing before I leave, rarely have I found such comfortable, and yet durable furniture. It would have saved me mountains of credits, back before I came here..."
"Your compliment for my throne is appreciated." Aria answered simply. The queen's unspoken statement that attempting to duplicate her throne would not be appreciated was crystal clear.
The dragoness closed her eyes and gave a soft humm. "I would vastly appreciate any assistance you can lend me in this endeavor, Aria. While your throne is sacrosanct, and I would not dare to usurp its unique grace, I find myself undone by it's delightful wiles."
Her gaze licked out at the queen, even as her smile widened and her tone took on a faintly cajoling note. "I was thinking a nice, wide, long bed, sleek and comfortable, wide enough to stretch out in, and long enough to accommodate my tail. Would you object to this little favor of mine?"
Aria shifted and glowered a little, but a small smile quirked the corner of her lips. "Granted."
"Ahhhh, you are most gracious." The dragoness gave an insufferably smug grin a she leaned her head on the back of the couch, seeming to revel in the soft texture of the leather. One eye opened as she nuzzled the couch. "Do you mind of I remove these? They were tight before I changed, and now they're most uncomfortable."
Aria's gaze glanced down to where Joru had slid one clawtip under the waistband of the thong panties she was wearing, sized for an asari dancer more than a foot shorter than she was.
Aria gave a slight tilt of her head in affirmative. "Like I said, you are unafraid to revel in certain advantages. And I respect anyone who thinks like that."
"I revel in life, Aria. I've had experience with its alternative." She slid to her feet, tugging unsuccessfully and giving a quiet sigh. "Apologize for me to your poor dancing girl when she arrives back to find one of her uniforms destroyed."
With that, the dragoness carefully peeled the too-tight panties down her thickly muscled thighs, having to work her hips slightly to get the tautly-stretched band over the curve of her ass. Aria gave a quiet snicker as Jorukaia dipped, her legs rubbing together, and straightened up again to toss the piece of blue-and-purple fabric onto the couch. "Ahhhhh... much better. Far less confined, wouldn't you agree?"
A mere smirk was the Queen's response as Joru sank back onto the Couch with a quiet hum of pleasure. "So, my taciturn hostess, have you enjoyed your new gifts? I sensed your attention focused on that human woman in Blue Suns armor. What was her name, Jentha?"
"Ah, yes. I do not think Tarrak will survive another month, and I've long since known that inexperienced youths not expecting or accustomed to power are the most easy to manipulate. Especially when they helplessly crave your... touch."
She had to grin at that, giving a low, chuckling growl. "Ohhh, they are indeed. Fine work with her by the way. I estimate that by the time her boss has become a casualty statistic, she will nearly have worked up the courage to ask for an exception to Omega's one rule..."
"That will be entertaining." Aria grinned. "And not just her."
The Queen of Omega rose to her and turned to the view of Afterlife, beckoning the Darastrix to follow. "Do you see those two dancers at the center stage?"
The dragoness twisted to peer over the back of the couch, smirking down at the human and asari dancers. "Ahh, am I to enjoy a show, my hostess?"
The asari was wearing the same sort of outfit Joru had been when she'd been disguised as one of the blue-skinned aliens. So was the human woman, with a crest of coppery-red hair. Joru blinked at the girl's brush of a mohawk and gave a slight grin, watching the pair dancing around the same pole with an easy intimacy that spoke of long practice and camaraderie
"Quite so." Aria grinned proudly, and Joru sensed her reaching out towards the pair with the power granted to her by her apparel, willing arousal into the pair dancing on the stage.
The dragon's eyes gleamed with curious avidity as she watched the effects of her gift to Aria become manifest in the two girls on stage.
The dancing pair both stiffened at once, sharing a silent smoldering glance with each other before seamlessly shifting into a far more intimate and sensual dance with each other. Their movements flowed around and against each other like water, caressing and moving with barely restrained desire. The Asari girl licked the pole around which they danced, grinding her breasts against it even as the human girl lifted one leg and slid it around the asari's hip and rump, grinding her hips against the same pole.
All of which made Afterlife's onlookers very happy.
"Mmmm, I take it that those two already were in a relationship?" The dragoness shot Aria a burning glance before returning her gaze to where the pair were gyrating against each other as much as the pole by now.
"Nine months by now. Real passion and chemistry between two of my dancers keeps my patrons at Afterlife entertained, distracted, and eager to return for more. Those two just needed a little... push." Aria gave a faint smirk, watching as the pair pressed together with the pole between them.
"I see..." The dragoness cast an eye over the pair, who had finally come together in a tight hug, chest to chest. The human's fingers were wandering down to the thong that the asari was wearing, while the asari's fingers were wandering up to the bra the human was wearing. Both seemed barely conscious of the crowd watching them with avid interest as they began to undress each other.
She turned and sat once more, shifting to work her tail free of the oh-so-comfortable embrace of the soft leather couch, and smirked at the Queen of Omega. "And speaking of relationships, how is your... pet these days?"
Aria actually laughed. "Oh, by Athame's royal ass, my Tevos has never been so happy before! That girl may be the Asari Councilor, but she is such a closest sub that she craves being my personal sex slave with every fiber in her body."
"Mmmmmmm..." The dragoness gave a quite grin and shifted as Aria lay on the far end of the Couch. "You're very lucky to have found her. I've seen many people over my long life, and finding one such as Tevos is rare indeed. She's a natural, born to serve, born to be enslaved. I've only met a few like her in my time, and only two that equaled her level of subservience."
"The first was a sun elf, but he was born and raised as a slave, in the keeping of my Grandmother. He served with as natural skill as your own pet, and did so until he died. He slit his own throat, at my grandmother's request." Joru paused, then gave a quiet sigh. "The other was human. Discovered, not trained. I saw her only briefly, at a Calimshan market. The dark-skinned beauty was worth more than the rubies she was drenched with, and would have fetched a king's ransom at any slave-market for her beauty alone. In the end, her price was valued at over two tons of pure gold, the medium of exchange in that place. For reference, one could buy the services of a cleric to raise the dead to life, for a mere sliver of a fraction of that cost."
Aria had listened with a raised eyebrow. The dragoness shifted slightly and returned her gaze. "Yes, you were very lucky to have claimed her when you did... Otherwise, she would have become someone else's with the same devotion."
"I laid claim to her many centuries ago back when she had hardly left her own home. Tevos was unable to even think of searching for another to call mistress ever since." The asari smiled dryly and humorlessly. "I'm glad you understand what a rare and priceless prize that is. Your other gifts have really allowed her inner slave to come out in ways neither of us expected. She absolutely relishes being objectified, to be treated as a sex toy by her Mistress..."
Aria closed her eyes as she recalled many of the tantalizing and wild things she had done with Tevos over the past year. Her hips shifted but she kept her arousal under masterful control. "She especially loves that your special gear has literally turned her into the galaxy's most skilled sex slave. She craves being made into a better slave, something to be dominated and used."
The Queen of Omega then turned her gaze back to an amused Joru. "Speaking of being a better slave, I do hope you've brought me the... upgrades that we discussed?"
"But of course." Joru lifted a taloned hand and snapped her fingers. There was a momentary flash of light, and that hand now held a small case, no larger than a datapad and around ten times as thick, which she set on the couch and pushed across to the Queen with her tail-tip "That contains an item that shall perform as we discussed, as well as the instructions on its manifold functions and how to ensnare your slave as thoroughly as possible."
She watched as Aria's eyes gleamed and the asari took the box and glanced inside. "The smaller container has a dozen vials, as we discussed..."
"Magnificent." Aria purred, her face brimming with an eager hunger as she peered into the box, then shut it with a satisfied click. "The things I have planned for her with these..."
"I have no doubt that your slave shall enjoy it even more." Joru reached over and plucked up the discarded panties. "Oh, and one more thing. These are for you."
Aria tilted her head in curiosity, a knowing smile spreading over her face. "Is that what I think it is?"
"It is. Exactly as you...complained about." Joru tossed the tiny slip of cloth towards the Queen and grinned as she luxuriously leaned back against the soft leather couch. "It will, ahh, contain your problem without issue. And it even has a 'massage' function..."
The asari queen allowed a rare display of visible relief. "Finally. I was able to accommodate well enough for the past year thanks to a genius fashion designer who was absolutely socially clueless, even for a salarian. But this... thank you."
"You're welcome." Joru gave a smirk as the queen shot her a grateful look. "Other than the matter of tight confinement, how have you enjoyed the change?"
"Immensely," Aria chuckled. "I never imagined making a change like that to my body would make me feel so... complete. As if I was always meant to have one."
"I thought as much" The dragoness gave a soft smirk. "You truly are a dragon born in asari hide, and wear your pride as armor. Never lose that confidence, my friend."
"But on to less enticing matters." Joru gave a regretful sigh as she sat up and gave Aria a frank stare. "The business of fortifying Omega and the affiliated Terminus systems for war."
Aria T'Loak immediately turned serious as well. "I've made considerable strides this year, along with having laid the groundwork for more long-term projects. For example, you saw how I handled the next leader of the Blue Suns. Out of all the mercenary organizations in the Terminus, the Blue Suns are the most well-equipped when it comes to weapons, armor, and equipment. They are always well-funded and armed to the teeth. Having those weapons in my pocket will go a long way in our plans."
"A wise decision. The Batarians may be brutal and brutish, but they're more controllable and disciplined than the krogan, and less slippery than the salarians." Joru gave an approving nod. "How have things gone with the Triskari? I heard they were considering a membership on the Citadel Council, as a client race of the Turians?"
The discussion with the other three councilors (and that was still something he was having trouble wrapping his head around) after Ambassador Din Korlack's proposed economic plan, was mercifully not as interminable as Din Korlack's speech had been. The volus's appropriations bill had to be denied, given the emphasis the Council was putting on obtaining funding for additional starships, not to mention the dissemination of the new pattern las-rifles throughout the ground forces of the Turian and Alliance militaries.
That had been a cat among the pigeons, and no mistake. At one stroke, the darastrix had given them both a weapon to fight in a manner totally different from anything that had gone before, and obviated any defense save raw armor thickness. While Kinetic Barrier Shielding wouldn't be phased out quickly, certainly not within his lifetime, the new laser weapons passed right through it, and could burn holes in even Colossus armor with ease.
Valern had been beside himself with glee and long-range strategic and tactical planning ideas. He had practically dragged Sparatus into a conference room and locked the door for two days after getting the reports back from his teams testing out the new weapon systems on isolated targets that would offer high reliability scores for a wide range of test scenarios.
Incidentally the population of batarian slavers had dropped precipitously in the Traverse of late. Odd that.
Tevos seemed distracted all through the meeting, but he didn't get a chance to talk to her once it broke up. She gave a polite excuse and left in a hurry, and he didn't pursue it. No doubt something urgent came up.
"Well, thank the spirits that's over." Sparatus also watched Tevos out of the room before relaxing and giving a heavy sigh. "At least we have a quorum left. Valern, what's the latest on the heavy weapons versions of the new guns? When can I expect to have the first production runs to send to trials?"
"Ah yes, much to report, both good news and bad news." Valern's voice got clipped when he got excited, and his wide eyes, if possible, got slightly wider. "The good news is that expectations for trial runs is within just two more weeks. Initial full-power test indicated sufficient yield to penetrate test target. Did not expect penetration of back wall of testing range too. Reconfiguring charge packs for lower peak-discharge capacity and thus shorter recharge period."
"That is good news!" Sparatus seemed most impressed, his mandibles parting in a grin as he leaned forwards. "When can we roll out the new las-weaponry to the general troops? The Blackwatch are already sending back reports demanding as many as we can supply for their fireteams."
Valern's shoulders slumped slightly as his scientific enthusiasm faded. It was always both a strange and foreboding sight to see a Salarian give a pained expression as though he had swallowed something rotten. "At the moment, it looks as though it may be five to ten years before we can freely provide laser technology to the rest of the galaxy."
The turian sat back in his seat, his mandibles closing with a soft t'k sound. Anderson winced slightly and gave a quiet sigh as he rested his elbows on the table and rubbed his forehead with both hands. "...What's the hold up this time, Valern? Your report last month said two to three years."
Anderson mentally sighed. He and Sparatus butted heads on many things, but they both knew the exasperation of the salarians taking up far too much time wanting to try out every theory and innovation on something new before they would get the basic invention off the ground.
At least, that's what they thought was the case this time.
Valern dribbled his three fingers against the desk. "I'm afraid that Linron and several other Dalatrasses are doing everything they can to block the distribution. They adamantly claim that there is no reason why the Salarian Union should have to share this new technology with the galaxy."
"Oh for the love of..." Anderson ground the heel of his hand over his face, then blinked across at Valern. "Please, please impress on them that the Darastrix Ambassador gave this technology to the Council and is unlikely to take its appropriation by the Union very well?"
"I have done so, repeatedly." Valern looked stressed, even through his perennial calm. "Please remember that Dalatrass Linron does not represent all of Sur'Kesh's leadership. Nevertheless, some of her colleagues claim that the laser weapon prototypes and their modifications are a purely Salarian innovation and therefore no longer bound by the Darastrix's proprietary claims. And there are also some among my people that are actually baffled by the very notion of 'quid pro quo', calling it incredibly naive."
Anderson and Sparatus gave each other a rare look of mutual exasperation.
Salarians could often be the most amoral of all the Citadel races. In some cases, the honor and respect behind things like moral standards were perplexing to them. Little wonder how some of them happily use blackmail or other dirty tricks to get what they want, or even go as far as to hack foreign databases when they got curious about current events, all while being genuinely clueless about how wrong all of that was.
One would think that a race possessing high-level intelligence and logic would mean that the Salarians would usually make the most rational, efficient and logical decisions. In reality, a race where everyone was a genius caused most Salarians to be always certain their own conclusion was the right one and wouldn't be convinced otherwise. Combine that with the espionage, blackmail and assassinations that their people were infamous for, Salarian internal politics were arguably the most vicious in the galaxy.
"I realize that sometimes the Dalatrasses can be a bit...proprietary." Sparatus was fairly diplomatic, for a turian, or he wouldn't have gotten this posting. The Hierarchy was very good at figuring out where best to use the talents of its individuals. "But please do impress on them that the Council is not going to take their stonewalling forever. With the military expansion program just getting into gear, we would like our guns back. Soon."
Fortunately for everyone, Valern had also been chosen as Councilor for his 'unusual' talent of getting along with non-Salarians.
"I am self-aware enough to recognize that my people can get... petty, when it comes to staying ahead in the fields of science and information." Valern grimaced. "Sometimes to the unacceptable point of being counter-productive to progress. I already spoke with Tevos in private a few hours ago on this matter. She's already promised to bring her people's political and technological leverage to resolve Linron's childish stubbornness as soon as possible."
A weight lifted off Anderson's shoulders at that, only to leave behind a bone-deep tiredness. Not of the body, but of the soul. A few more months and the asari and salarians would be producing laser weapons and technology by the megaton to the Turian and Alliance militaries. The entire theater of war was about to change. It was good to have allies on the Council, even if technically they were all supposed to be working on the same side.
Tevos. She'd proven an unexpected and staunch ally in Anderson's quest to get the galaxy's military mobilized. She'd had a reputation of peacemaker and lawgiver, preferring arbitration and diplomacy to more military mattes. She had been instrumental in the peace following the First Contact War, though she had not been there personally to oversee negotiations.
Having the peacemaker suddenly shift her position and advocate for intense militarization of her own people was surprising, and the fact that it had taken her less than a year to begin advocating for larger, more centralized and organized than the prior ad-hoc arrangements made by individual Matriarchs and Matrons. Asari tradition had like-minded huntresses gather around charismatic leaders and form military units that suited their own particular styles and preferences.
The first true asari soldiers were starting to enter service in the Citadel Military, and while not quite as potent as fully-trained asari commandos, they were still a potent military force, with coordinated mass-biotic attacks built into their repertoires from the very beginning. Their training was still being tweaked and changed right up to graduation, but the first five thousand asari Myrmidons were a potent fighting force.
To be perfectly honest, Tevos frightened Anderson more than his superiors in the military ever did. It wasn't until the former N7 took his seat on the Council that he understood why the asari were the true masters of diplomacy, politics, and negotiation. But Councilor Tevos? In the past year, she had proved to be nothing less than a sublime maestro of politics.
The way the asari structured their government was a sort of fractal, many-layered social network, based around the Matriarchs. Local problems are solved locally by consensus votes among those living there. Larger problems are circulated in larger circles, and the Matriarchs espouse their solutions for others to vote on. In the past, this was done by literally pledging fealty to a matriarch, taking a sworn oath to follow their wisdom, but with the advent of high-level interconnectivity, the asari started moving away from that paradigm where each individual matriarch held more or less power based on their personal magnetism and rhetoric and more towards bottom-up grassroots democracy.
The Circle of Matriarchs slowed that process down to a standstill. A group of powerful matriarchs who shared wisdom with each other and came to a consensus of their own, which they would propose to the common masses of younger asari. They grew both incredibly wealthy and incredibly powerful over the centuries and millenia, and even after the asari became star-faring, the Circle of Matriarchs moderated the rate of asari progress to avoid straining their society to a breaking point. Their influence had power even over the outside races; the galaxy dancing to their designs without anyone the wiser. The Circle of Matriarchs had a collective experience of over twenty-thousand years. They were the Old Women In Charge back on Thessia, with a rare few leaving the planet to visit other asari worlds.
Last year, Tevos was their servant. This year, she was their master. She had begun demonstrating a far superior understanding of political maneuvering than anyone. No one knew how she did it, but many pacifist Matriarchs and corporate moguls across asari space were being replaced with more militaristic minds. In just twelve months, a blink of an eye in asari lifetimes, Tevos' own sphere of influence rivaled that of the entire Circle of Matriarchs. And her negotiation abilities were not limited solely to her fellow asari. Anderson had watched footage of her smoothly persuading a Batarian ambassador to not only provide information on the Hegemony's remaining holdouts, but to release all his personal slaves and donate his fortune to human charities.
More importantly, while Valern and Sparatus were still skeptical, Tevos had shared in private with Anderson that she too was now convinced of the Reapers. And she was determined to make sure the galaxy would be ready.
Her tongue had opened doors that Anderson hadn't even realized that the asari held. His insight into the sheer depth and scope of asari technological prowess was breathtaking, and he'd been sure to share what little non-classified intel he could with his superiors back on Arcturus station. The asari were light years beyond anyone else when it came to biotic enhancement, and Anderson had personally seen a single asari demonstrate the capability of both unpowered flight, and lifting an entire tank with her biotics alone. Without an amp. With an amp, she'd be a one-woman wrecking ball. Tevos had shared several old religious text when he'd asked about the display, and told him they contained a codified set of study instructions and meditation practices to enhance biotic abilities. He'd quickly gotten that fired over to Grissom Academy, along with a fast-tracked request for a few asari commando instructors
He knew he himself was being manipulated, by being shown these things and given this access, but if it helped in the war effort, Anderson knew it was more than worth it.
And if Tevos herself would be tending to the stubborn Dalatrasses over the laser weapons, he could rest easy knowing the entire matter would be resolved in less than a week.
Even the Alliance was being manipulated, though since all that had to go through him, he was well aware of the spin Tevos was putting on her words and how she was using him as her mouthpiece. The fact that the words he was being asked to repeat were ones he would have wanted to say anyway only made the experience more confusing and unsettling, even as he gladly agreed to the process.
Vast wealth of technical data had been released to the Alliance shipyards, which actually held more shipbuilding experience than the older, more venerable turian shipyards. The asari had the best dreadnoughts in the galaxy, after all. Processes and methods of creating ultra-strong alloys and making layered Silaris armor plate were released to Alliance shipyards, even as vast wealth of funding was being generated through volus-backed economic investments expanding the Alliance economy. His people were thriving, unemployment on Earth had dropped to a hundred-year low, but it was the result of alien investments, and had a bunch of people both skeptical and nervous.
He just hoped that it would be worth the friction now, when the Reapers got here. But as he bid his fellow Councilors farewell for the weekend, he glanced out a window into the vast and swirling mists of the Serpent Nebula. The sight never failed to be uplifting, as he thought about all that humanity had accomplished in the last thirty years in the galactic community. And as much as the old soldier disliked politics, the projects he had spearheaded with the authority of a Councilor in the past twelve months... Anderson smiled. Maybe, just maybe, they might be able to pull this off.
She had to keep her eyes moving to avoid getting sucked back into the sights of Afterlife, most of which were embarrassing. Between the table of five asari, ranging from maidens to matrons that all perked up when her gaze slid across them and wilted when it passed, the dancer giving her a 'personal show' on a nearby tabletop, and still no sign of the bartender who had actually been pleasant to chat with, Liara was no longer having a good time.
And turning her back on the place wasn't really an option because then she'd have no idea who was trying to sneak up on her. Her tail lashed a little in anger before she wrapped it firmly around her bar stool again. 'Control, control, I must have control.'
A movement caught her eye, a familiar figure, sleek and tall and blessedly welcome. Liara perked up a little as she spotted the horned head, the molten eyes, and the long, sinuous tail of the dark figure that was almost lost in the shadows near Aria's Aerie. Joru has finally finished her business with the Queen of Omega!
And Liara was in no mood at the time for her showing off, and she glared at the older dragoness as she sauntered down the stairs, flaming gaze flicking here and there. Joru took her sweet time and all but sauntered towards the bar. She didn't even do Liara the courtesy of moving around the central circular bar to where Liara was seated, she bellied up to it a third of the way around the bar and ordered a drink!
But Liara would not take the bait. She was born an asari long before her transformation. Even with her heightened temper, she was still a creature of patience, and she was still a T'Soni. Liara knew that Joru was more than intelligent enough to know why the transformed asari was cross with her, and if the dragon failed to take the first step, then that would be her disgrace.
In the end, Liara only had to wait another couple of minutes before Joru's eye at last caught her. A faint tilt of that horned head and a slight smirk and raised eyebrow spoke volumes as the dragoness indicated a willingness to depart.
Liara raised her brow in turn. 'And?'
The dragoness gave a wicked smirk, then downed the drink she'd ordered in one long swallow, provoking a hoot and laughter from the drunkards at that part of the bar. One asari over in that direction had evidently noticed Liara's expression and focus, and had deflated in her chair, looking heartbroken and on the verge of tears.
Joru either didn't notice, or didn't care. She set the glass down, lifted one finger a 'wait one' gesture, and after a moment, pursed her lips and blew a thin stream of flame, so blue it was nearly invisible, to cheers and clapping by the onlookers.
Liara mentally sighed at her self-proclaimed 'role-model'. Joru was much like the worst of her mother's colleagues. Her dragon pride convinced her she could do no wrong, or at least would never admit it. Well, if that's how she wanted to play it then, Mother had taught her the folly of such individuals. With Liara's upbringing of understanding the long-term, she was aware of how Joru had only lost another point of respect from her for the sake of three minutes of prideful amusement.
"Seventeen, Joru." Liara accused through clenched teeth as the dragoness finally approached her. "I've had seventeen 'suitors' in the last forty minutes! You left me alone and told me to stay put while you went off to do your own business. You knew this would happen, you fatuous sadist."
"Yes, and you survived." Joru's tone was low as she gave a faint smirk. "You've also learned to sublimate your embarrassment into anger, that's a good first step in learning how to deal with these sorts of crowds."
Not anger, but patience. And patience begets purpose. The dragoness still had much to learn about Liara's people. But at the same time, she admitted that the effects of her transformation was drawing out the most... untoward side of most asari.
"I am grateful to be alive again, Joru," Liara breathed, keeping her analytical side at the forefront. "But out of all the things your blood could have done to me, am I truly supposed to believe that specifically amplifying the 'attributes' of my sex appeal was a natural reaction?"
"But of course." Joru turned leaning back against the bar and sweeping her gaze around Afterlife with a faint smirk touching the corners of her lips. "You and I are darastrixi, we are the apex of more than mere predators. We are simply more than we once were. The fact that you chose the same gemstone as what gives your former people their power only amplified what was already there naturally. Your force of personality, your aura, your sex appeal, call it what you will. When I was cloaked in the flesh of an asari, I could feel its pull, and yes, it is very strong."
Her eyes met those of the seated Liara and her smirk became a more genuine smile. "You are attractive, both as a young woman, and as a darastrix. Combined, the effect is somewhat devastating to those with senses to pick up on that sort of thing. Specifically, you radiate a biotic aura that is hard to ignore... And which asari seem to pick up on as a sexual turn-on."
"T-That's not entirely what I mean," Liara was still slightly flustered, glancing down at the larger swell of her bust. "You told me how, as beings made of magic itself, darastrix blood enhanced me and the unique aspects of my people at the conceptual level. Are you really implying that my people's sex appeal is that ingrained into our very being?"
"Yes." Joru was barely holding back a snicker by now. "I've heard it said, on numerous occasions, that the asari were literally made for sex. Apparently, the tale holds...more than a grain of truth to it. After all, the proof is right before me."
The transformed asari's expression twisted into a mix of confusion, fury, and mortal embarrassment, unable to settle on just one.
"I tease, Liara. But truthfully, you must admire yourself in a mirror more often." The dragoness laid a gentle hand on her shoulder, and removed it when Liara shook her off. "Rare indeed is the one so beautiful, who believes herself ugly."
"I appreciate the compliment, but I know it's not just me!" Liara sputtered. "I've spent over a year trying to restrain urges that were nowhere near as weaj as they once were! My transformation still gave me many things that are especially tied to a dragon's own heritage, and dare I say, some of your very own tastes, Joru. I've seen how often you take that human female to your bed to be satisfied. Do all dragons have such a strong libido, or just you?"
"No wonder you are so stressed." Joru's voice was soft, yet carried far enough to be heard despite the tumult around them. "A dragon, practicing restraint? How unusual. And remarkable. As to sexual appetites, we are dragons, Liara. The lust is kindled young and persists as a great fire for several centuries."
She gave a quiet, amused chuckle and lightly patted Liara's shoulder once more. "Welcome to puberty, Liara. I certainly do not envy you."
"Oh goddess help me..." Liara buried her face in her hands and nearly moaned. "I'm the fusion of two lustful races..."
"It's worse than you thought, Liara." Joru's tone was kind, but still highly amused. "I have noticed certain...signs. I need to do a bit more research, but if that proves fruitful, I may have a partial palliative for your ills."
She took a breath, her barely-restrained bosom bulging almost at Liara's eye-level. "In the mean time, I suggest scratching your itch, as vigorously as you can, to help alleviate the symptoms for now."
Liara glanced at another asari dancer who had been gazing at her with unveiled desire. "Can we just leave please? I want to go home."
She had to admit that a part of her was disappointed. Her heightened sex drive had been bombarding her imagination with many strong fantasies of various asari throughout the room satisfying her. It was embarrassing, and as much as she tried to deny it, Liara had been unable to help given serious consideration to the bartender's much more mature flirting and where it might lead.
"Of course." Joru stood up, and waited for Liara to get to her own feet. Even now as she and Joru began leaving, Liara gave a furtive glance back at the bartender now cleaning the glasses she had left. Liara quickly looked away again when a rather strong fantasy of burying her own tongue deep inside the other asari's azure flashed through her mind. It didn't help that her new tongue could now potentially go very very deep. Goddess, what a tempting thought!
Maybe she should consider the twins again?
Neither of the dragons saw the way the bartender's eyes went wide and her cheeks rapidly paled from deep blue to pastel. The hand holding the mug let it fall, dropping to the bar top as the other released the cleaning cloth and darted between her trembling thighs. She took a steadying breath as her legs quaked behind the bar, legs sliding apart as the sensation spread between them. She shivered a little, her eyes slowly seeking the silver-and-white clad darastrix as the pair of them slid out of Afterlife.
On the Migrant Fleet, luxury was a foreign concept to a quarian. Even alien.
Luxury was a delight and a rare, exciting treat. Luxury was everything the Migrant Fleet was not, as it had to accommodate the maximum amount of people in a minimum of space.
Luxury was what Tali was wallowing in, right now.
She arched and spread her arms and legs, humming happily as she spread out on the thick, soft mattress that seemed to embrace her shoulders, rump, and calves. Such soft, sweet, luxury.
Most cabins aboard the Liveships were tiny affairs, built into the huge, spherical habitat section of the ship. The central third of the sphere was a vast hydroponics farm and biological laboratory, industriously testing new strains and varieties of the limited Rannochian biota they had managed to take with them on their way to exile. Tiny was barely an adequate word to describe them, they were minuscule. Barely enough room was allotted to a single-occupancy bunk for a bed to fold down from the wall. It had to be folded back up again for someone to stand comfortably in the cabin, and for access to the tiny locker built into the opposite wall. The mattress was barely big enough for one person to sleep on, provided they crouched slightly, and didn't turn around much, and was barely thick enough to provide adequate cushioning for the occupant to spend an uncomfortable night.
This cabin was positively obscene with the amount of space it occupied...
The mattress she was currently enjoying was thicker by far than any she'd ever seen aboard the fleet. Only the one she'd spent a sleepless night trying not to get swallowed by in that asari hotel was thicker, and it was so soft she almost felt like she was falling into it! And it was big! far bigger than she was, so she could properly stretch out all the way to the corners and not feel the edge!
Keeeeeelaaaaah, it felt soooo good.
The rest of the cabin was equally decadent to match her new bed. The room she was currently in wasn't a cramped tiny shoe-box of a bunk, but what another person might have called a 'half-sized bedroom'. To Tali, it was huge, spacious enough to fit the enormous bed, and a small dresser to one side, and a small closet on the far wall! She actually had room to store multiple sets of suit-wraps, should she want to change them more often than for her weekly laundry.
And this was just the bedroom! The cabin included a tiny little en-suite bathroom, containing a shower that was big enough to turn around in, and large enough for two quarians to use at once! And a waste receptacle of its own, instead of having to go down to Biological Reclamation to have her suit's tanks emptied!
There was even, wonder of wonders, a tiny food preparation area, where she'd stashed more than two flavors of nutrient paste! She gave a wicked shiver at such decadence, grinning inside her suit.
Not long ago, even an admiral didn't receive such lavish accommodations. But after everything Tali'Zorah and her miraculous Pilgrimage Gift had done for the Flotilla, she was certainly treated like one.
A year ago, the Migrant Fleet sported four Liveships, roughly 300 dreadnought-weight cargo vessels converted to mass-transit of personel or cargo, some thousand or so cruiser-weight vessels, and tens of thousands of smaller vessels of frigate-weight and smaller, down to one-person flitters designed for orbital labor jobs, shifting cargo and the like. All of them were in various states of advanced disrepair and patch-job fixes layered atop each other until the original construction could hardly be told from just another patch. most ships were running at the bare minimum of life-support, simply to stretch what they had for as along as the had it, and only the Liveships enjoyed 'natural' sources of air, from the hydroponics gardens at the heart of the most heavily-defended ships in the fleet.
Now, not only was nearly every ship restored to dockyard-fresh construction, save for some ships that were currently being cleared for restoration, but the Liveships now numbered ten, and plans for another two of them were on the drawing board, as soon as raw materials, and the current scheduled use of the Sheenah'Khannaiyen would permit.
The patrol ships were the first to be restored, and their patrols stepped up to heightened alert, to prevent any possibility of the new shipyard being placed in jeopardy. Keeping the shipyard's existence and function a secret was a hopeless dream, but at least the explanation "it uses proprietary technology on loan from the Darastrixi" kept people from trying to understand the nearly-impossible structure.
That didn't stop certain individuals from trying, however, and twice now, Admiral Daro'Xen had been censured by the other admirals for unilaterally attempting experiments that put the safety of the fleet in jeopardy. The scientifically-minded admiral simply could not leave well enough alone, and seemed to be well on her way to becoming obsessed with the materials and capabilities used in both the construction and operation of the shipyard. Most notably because the few times she had been able to examine it always proved fruitless. The software of the Sheenah'Khannaiyen was designed through extremely advanced technology, and to properly examine, replicate or even hack it's code would take nothing less than a fully-evolved artificial intelligence (which was obviously off the table).
Splicing the shipyard's physical hardware also proved hopeless; laser drills simply refracted through the substance with near-zero actual energy transfer, no matter how powerful the drill. Physical drills simply didn't work. Xen had melted several of them, and even once had a momentary flare of combustion as the diamond-tipped drill caught fire. Admiral Xen was being driven to her wit's end trying to wrap her mind around it, and the phrase "scientifically impossible" had been used more than once.
And to no end of Admiral Koris' amusement.
As to the rest of the fleet, the quality of life had improved drastically, and not just because of the vast amount of more living space available with the more-than-doubling of the number of Liveships, but also because of the increase in the variety of the quarian diet. The seeds that had been provided by the Darastrix's generosity had undergone severe genetic testing and examination, before being reluctantly, reverentially added to the Liveships' gene-banks as genuine Rannochian flora samples. Every single one of them had been thought extinct or lost to Quarian-kind, as it only grew on Rannoch itself. Most of them were grains, fruit, and vegetables, but a few aesthetic flowers had been included in the gift, one of which, once it had bloomed, had made her Auntie Raan break down in a quiet fit of crying.
Her husband had given her an ancestral heirloom, a pressed flower from the Walled Garden, and now a living example grew in the Rayya's own gardens.
The rest of the Admiralty was delighted with the way the last year had gone. Aside from Xen pounding her head against the construction of the shipyard, Auntie Raan was delighted at the increase in space and security that the additional Liveships made, and the influx of new civilian populations left the more military ships with the pick of the highly-qualified personnel to run lean and mean. That had ticked Han'Gerral to no end, as the restored Heavy ships were running at a level of operation and expertise unknown in living memory. The Heavy Fleet had never been stronger, and the result of a massed slaver attack on the Migrant Fleet had been an utter massacre.
The Batarians were badly losing their war with the Citadel races, and it made them desperate for technically-minded slaves and ships. But even they had not anticipated that the Quarian Flotilla had become a growing superpower.
Six cruiser-weight slaving ships and more than four dozen frigate-weight raiders were backed up by a colossal dreadnought-scale cargo hauler, clearly meant to contain a vast amount of slaves. They had been torn apart by the Heavy fleet, and the dedication of the batarians, desperate for slaves to fuel the war effort on their homeworld, was shown in the fact that they didn't even try to flee until their slave-hauler had been rendered immobile, despite losing half their frigates in the opening three minutes of engagement.
Slavers never endured such losses before, and the subsequent zeal of the Migrant Marines, backed up by ad-hoc militia forces to clean out the slave barge, took nearly a full month to fully secure the ship and repatriate all the slaves that had been already aboard her. Several will still awaiting transportation to medical facilities capable of treating their conditions, even nine months after the incident.
Admirals Han'Gerral and Rael'Zorah had been most smug indeed as they contacted the Citadel Council to kindly request information on where to send their recovered citizens.
Unfortunately, any further reminiscing for Tali on her great achievements was ruined by a gentle growl from her toned belly. She gave a groan and flailed her way out of the bed's clutches, sighing as she leaned over to pat the blankets back into place out of habit. It wasn't strictly necessary, but she liked to keep things tidy. In an emergency, a loose object could become a projectile, after all.
Another gurgle from her nether regions made her grumble as she stepped past the end of the bed, and triggered the door to the small en-suite food-preparation area. It wasn't a full kitchen, no quarian ship had one of those, given the need for sterile processing of all foodstuffs. It was basically a glorified pantry and a small table at which to consume meals like a tube of foodpaste.
She'd been stunned at the variety which was already stocked in the pantry when she moved her meager belongings in. Six different flavors! And instructions on how to order more! And if that wasn't enough, as something of a guilty pleasure, Tali even got herself a supply of fresh dextro-cheese. Cheese! With herbs!
Oh, just the thought of the small delicacy was already making her mouth water a little. That sweet, yellow, melty goodness coming apart over her tongue! The young woman couldn't help it; she reached over and opened the pantry—
— to find the grinning face of Kasumi Goto giving her a maniacal smile. "Hi Tali!"
"KIYAAAH!" The pantry door slammed shut again as Tali rocketed backwards from the small enclosure, eyes wide, her heart racing, and Chitika already hovering defensively between her and the utterly unexpected sight.
After a few seconds, the cat-girl gently nudged the door back open with her nose, snickering mischievously. "Hehehehe... sorry, I just couldn't help myself."
"K-K-Kah-Kasumi?!" Her heart, Keelah, it was racing so fast and beating so hard! "W-What are you doing here?"
"What's it look like? I'm paying my best friend a visit!" Kasumi gave a cheeky grin as she asked the question. The cheeky catgirl wiggled her ears at Tali, her clear helmet just barely fitting into the shelf where Kasumi had folded herself up small. Good grief, there was barely room enough to fit one segment of one leg in there, and somehow the incorrigible catgirl had stuffed herself into a cube no more than 40cm on a side!
And yet, Kasumi seemed to have no trouble getting out. She effortlessly slid one long, sleek, slick-clad leg out of the cupboard at a time, feeling around for the edge of the countertop before carefully easing her firm hips out of the entirely-too-small space. A pair of arms emerged, carefully patting the walls before bracing against them. With an eye-watering motion, Kasumi slid forward, unfolding as she went, until she was standing with her toes on the very edge of the countertop. She turned, gave Tali a wink, and arched her back, folding herself almost in half as she slid backwards off the countertop into her hands, and flipped back onto her feet in a dizzying display of coordination as she landed back on her sleekly-slippered feet.
"I, um... Wow, um, Hi, Kasumi..." It took Tali a moment to reboot her brain from watching the woman emerge from a space entirely too small for her, shook her head, and took a breath. "How... How in the name of the Ancestors did you get in there? No, wait, how'd you get in here?! How'd you get past security and into my bedroom, in the middle of the Migrant Fleet without someone noticing?!"
"Tali." The woman gave her a reassuring grin. "Remember who you're talking to. I'm Kasumi Goto, best thief in the galaxy. I'm also a ninja from Japan, and now I'm also a cat-girl from Japan. Do the math."
"I'm serious!"
"So am I!" Kasumi chuckled. "But yeah, this is my best friend's personal ship. So you should know that while it's been clearly remade and upgraded to better-than-new, I've still infiltrated this model before. Still, I'm impressed by your people's modifications, Tali; I only found three of my usual openings! Great job!"
"...What?"
"Oh, don't worry those cute looks! Here, I made some notes. You know, to help out!" The thief did a quick swipe on her omni-tool, causing Tali's own to light up.
Tali sat down on the only chair in the eating area, rubbing her helmet distractedly as Chitika circled rarely around her unexpected visitor. She perused the file that her uninvited guest had sent her and heaved a huge sigh. "So that's how you got inside... Damnit, I'm going to have to hash this out with the Security department, those boshtets should have seen these problems years ago!"
"Don't go too hard on them, this is me we're talking about." The catgirl merely gave her friend a cheeky grin as she perched on the edge of the table "Just make it more exciting next time!"
She gave a rueful sigh and a faint smile touched her lips, not that Kasumi could see that beneath her fully-darkened faceplate. Only her eyes glowed through at that opacity, and she gave her visitor a slow look.
Kasumi was clad from head to toe in a sleek, form-fitting bodysuit, evidently skin-tight, as there had to be very little in the way of extra space in a suit that tight. Tali was thankful for her faceplate as she swept the suited woman with a quick, speculative glance, noting the firmness and length of her visitor's legs, the cute little arch to her feet, and the long, sleek, smooth length of her tail that flicked slightly at the end.
"S-So, what brings you to me, Kasumi? I mean, if this were anything normal, you would just have called..." She was very proud that her voice didn't falter once during that inquiry.
"Helping my bestest friend out, of course!" Kasumi grinned. "So come on, grab your things already! We're getting out of here!"
Tali gaped at her behind her faceplate. "W-What? I mean, why? I can't just leave Kasumi, I have duties here, responsibilities!"
"Which is exactly why you need to get out every once in a while," the thief answered with a cheeky grin. She shifted around ton the tabletop to sit cross-legged and lean forwards towards her 'host'. "I could hear it in your communiques for months, Tali. You have waaaaay too many responsibilities. You never say as much, but I can tell that you're feeling smothered by how much everyone is coming to you for help."
The pair had kept in contact, after a bit of a messy scramble on Kasumi's part shortly after the Battle of the Citadel, as people were already calling it. Tali had lost contact with Garrus, Wrex and the others within two months after their fight with Saren, but something had kept her and Kasumi in touch. Ever since they met that day in the ramen shop, the two had become the closest of friends. They knew each other almost as well as family. The two friends kept up regular weekly comm calls even now, with many messages fired off at each other whenever during the week.
It was why Tali squirmed under Kasumi's chiding yet fond remarks, but still gave her a stern look. "I can't just leave without any notice, Kasumi! I can't just turn up and tell my father that 'hey, a friend of mine is kidnapping me off to do something random, be back sometime between tomorrow and a decade from now'!"
Personally, Tali knew it was a bit of a low blow. She was the only person in the galaxy that the normally private Kasumi had confided in about her father's condition back on Earth. Even so, Tali just wanted to take the thief down a notch before she got caught up in her friend's enthusiasm.
But to her surprise, Kasumi wasn't bothered at all. "Then it's a good thing this breakout will be a legal one, Tali. I found Lia'Vael. And her entire crew."
She froze. Even Tali, in her sheltered state aboard the Liveship had heard about Lia'Vael. "I.. I thought she was dead? Didn't the turians accuse her of stealing a warship? That's a capital crime in the Hierarchy..."
Lia had sent a message saying she'd found an enormous ancient old quarian ship, a good five centuries on the junkyard orbit, but still technically workable. The hull held atmosphere, and the engines, once refurbished and repaired, would get them to the merchant fleet.
They didn't make J'Karas-class Heavy Bulk Transports anymore, no one made anything like them. They were huge, even dwarfing some dreadnoughts, nearly a kilometer and a half of cargo pods strapped to the long, long spine. They were made back when the quarians were still making new colonies, to haul bulk goods between worlds on short, predicable easy runs. The fact that this one hadn't been scrapped for salvage long ago was incredible.
And properly retrofitted, it could make a decent start on a fully-armed and operational dreadnought.
Their arrival back at the fleet, and the restoration of the old relic had sent the entire fleet into delighted conviviality. Tali didn't remember much of the celebrations, and woke up the next morning with her mouth feeling like something had crawled inside and died. She'd been sick for a week, but so had most of the fleet, and it was only a miracle that no one tried to attack them with their shiny new proto-dreadnought still being fueled and aired up for shakedown operations. Getting intoxicated was now moderately more acceptable since quarian medical facilities had drastically improved.
Lia had had her pick of new assignments after that tremendous contribution, and had actually gotten a job second in command of a light scout ship.
But tragically, Lia and her crew's good fortune backfired. A week later, they had been stopped by a turian patrol on the borders of the Hierarchy, and what happened next had incensed the entire Flotilla. The turians had insisted that there was no way the 'suit rats' could possibly have owned the highly-polished vessel they were flying, swiftly concluded they had stolen it, and promptly jailed them in a turian prison for the crime of ship-jacking And naturally, all messages from the quarian fleet vouching for the crew were soundly ignored.
"Well, as it turns out, they weren't sent to the firing line," Kasumi shrugged.
"Oh, well, that's a bit of a relief.." Tali sighed and fidgeted, her long fingers lacing together a bit before she paused and looked up to her guest. "Wait, but...?"
The quarian broke off, as Kasumi had spread out her legs, arching her back as she flexed her torso back and forth a bit like how her tail-tip had a tendency to flick. Like it was doing now. Only, Tali hadn't had the opportunity, nor inclination, to stare at her friend, as she pressed herself down flat on the top of Tali's table, hips flexing slightly as she shifted sideways without breaking her full split, rolling her legs to accomplish the task and leaning over to lay against one long, sleek leg as the other raised at the knee to wiggle a little under the quarian's gaze.
Tali was quite used to her friend's habit. For as long as she had known her, Kasumi had always enjoyed doing plenty of stretches with her incredibly flexible body. And after her transformation, her flexibility had become almost ludicrous, and the cat-girl loved indulging in it.
Little wonder she had chosen to hide in Tali's tiny cupboard.
"I've been doing a lot of jobs on Illium. It's always so much fun stealing from all those rich snobs thinking they're untouchable. And so much fancy tech lying around!" The catgirl grinned at her friend and shifted her leg around, almost making Tali duck as she lay on her belly, facing the quarian girl, and drew her legs up over her head, until she was 'kneeling' and straddling her own head at the same time. A pose which gave Tali an enviable view of the catgirl's hips. "But anyway, a few weeks ago, I come across some really juicy info. Turns out, some smooth-talking Volus from Nos Astra somehow convinced a Turian general to discreetly give him Lia's crew. He had them work off their debt to the Hierarchy by repairing ships."
Keelah, Tali still didn't know why it was hard to pry her eyes from staring at Kasumi's display and focus on what she was saying. "Wait a minute... Are you saying that they SOLD the CREW?!"
"Eh, the Volus used a lot more fancy words to describe it, but that's the gist of it." The cat-girl somehow managed to shrug even with the position her body was in and snuggled down until her rump rested on her own helmet. "The conditions actually weren't that bad as far as Volus on Illium normally go. But I'm afraid it didn't last once they were bought for a handsome price by someone much worse, Tali. They're now being put to work for a rather nasty and notorious arms dealer. He goes by the name Donovan Hock."
Tali struggled not to get distracted by the way Kasumi's tail was now twitching around in her lap. "What would a black-market arm's dealer want with a bunch of quarians...?"
And then Kasumi dropped the bombshell. "Oh, just to help him mass produce his stockpile of Geth weaponry."
In the thunderstruck silence the only sound was the soft swish of Kasumi's tail and the clattering as Tali's chair fell over backwards. She was on her feet and pacing in a moment, the pieces starting to fit together. "He's making Geth weaponry?! Oh Keelah, how?! He must have gotten some from the Battle of the Citadel. But if it's Geth technology, C-Sec needs to be told about that, and we need to talk to the Admiralty!"
"Yeah, good luck with that," Kasumi answered glumly, smoothly unfolding into a normal sitting position. "The Council would normally bring the hammer down on anyone guilty of possession, production and selling Geth tech on the black market, but Hock's no idiot. He's many things; a dirty scumbag and one of the biggest liars, cheaters and mass murderers out there, but he's not an idiot. Hock knows how to cover his tracks and has a whole armada of lawyers. Worse, his legitimate business fronts are sponsored by none other than Henry Lawson himself, one of the richest humans alive. Selling Geth tech would certainly be enough to ruin him, but no one would be able to move on him without incontrovertible evidence."
"So, what do you propose to do, then? I could inform Father, have them send a few recon units to see if they could retrieve them..." Tali frowned, hugging herself and tapping her helmet's chin thoughtfully. "But... no, no, that won't work. But I can't just leave my people there, being forced to make Geth by some crime-lord!"
"Hey, I said I'm breaking you out of here, didn't I?" Kasumi as she slid to her feet and gently patted Tali's shoulder. "I tried to get in there myself, but Hock has already upgraded his firewalls with Geth tech, all thanks to his new quarian slaves. Which means, I need the galaxy's best expert on the Geth."
The thief did a smooth back-flip and landed perfectly in the center of the room. "So, what would you say to another adventure together? Rescuing your people, busting an evil jerk, and stopping his plans to spread Geth weapons through the black market? Just the two of us, like old times?"
The prospect of the adventure dawned on Tali, and she felt the excitement bubbling up inside her. "Well, I'll need to clear it with the Admiralty board, but with Geth tech and quarian prisoners, I'm sure they'll all approve! Oh, thank you Kasumi! Thank you so much!"
Tali giddily stepped forward and hugged the catgirl tightly.
Which actually alarmed a now wide-eyed Kasumi.
"Wuh-wuh-wait! No hugs, no hugs, you remember what happened last tiiimmmmmmmmeee... mmmmmmmurrrrrr..."
The catgirl melted against her, growing more limp by the second until Tali collapsed under the weight of the sleek, soft catgirl, a beatific smile on Kasumi's face.
Only now did Tali remember learning that Earth cats had a higher body temperature, and cats (and thus catgirls) were attracted to sources of comfortable heat, to help them deal with the traditionally too-cold households they lived in. And given that her people evolved on Rannoch, a world renowned throughout the galaxy for it's high average planetary heat index, quarian bodies tended to run at almost burning-hot temperatures compared to most other other species, aside from Turians.
In other words, Kasumi was helpless to resist curling up against Tali's higher-than-average body heat. "Warrrrrrrmmmmm..."
Tali was beyond mortified, especially when she felt the catgirl start to purr.
"... Help."
The two darastrixi walked out the door on Omega together; one tall and black, the other tall and dark-blue, both with tails slowly flexing to accommodate shifts in weight and posture as they engaged in an unimportant discussion.
They were watched. Most of the humanoids in the room watched them in one way or another, but only one truly observed them. The golden eyes took in all details without error, without focus, without distinction. The curve of the smaller one's horns. The sway of a hip, the taller one's pattern of spinal spikes. The lesser one's bodysuit hid most of its details, but the greater clearly displayed itself for study.
The Collector did not touch the complimentary drink left at its table. It only watched. It observed. And through its glowing eyes, a greater intelligence witnessed.
Beyond the Omega 4 Relay, deep within the galactic core, the Collector General witnessed. It studied. And it deliberated the future of the cosmos.
Humans had had their attention for decades now. They showed ever sign of holding the qualities they required. If a darastrix had emerged among the human population, there was only a few conclusions. Either a darastrix had entered advanced hibernation upon their homeworld, or they had left behind some sort of genetic seed, to produce new darastrixi when certain triggers were met. Humans had been marked as 'promising' before, But now a second had emerged, and among the asari. A species that had been promising to start with, and proved disappointingly pedestrian. Their cultural reliance upon alien races for reproduction showed genetic weakness. Furthermore, their inherent biotic ability and other various biological attributes were already definite signs of subtle yet extensive genetic engineering. A level of engineering only possible through advanced technology that was not present in the current Cycle.
These facts heightened suspicion.
Where there was one darastrix, there was an issue. Where there were two, there was a problem. And it implied that there could yet be others. Genetic seeds implanted in subject-species for later reactivation seemed a more likely possibility now. The lone infiltrator hypothesis had been mostly confirmed by study of available data, but now there was evidence of a wider threat to the Cycle.
[UNFORESEEN. UNKNOWN. UNACCEPTABLE]
The Collector General slid sideways on its many legs, the images from its forward scout searing through its mind. The morphology was compared to known samples, patterns tried and matched. Darastrixi to 96.733% probability. A priority-response was tripped, and the General stiffened as new priorities were set. The General began touching controls, scrabbling around its control console like a spider in a cage, contacting various scouts and relaying the decision that would change the fate of countless thousands.
[THE ASARI WILL ASCEND NEXT TO THE HUMANS. BEGIN ASSESSMENT OF REMOTE COLONIES FOR HARVESTING]