Chapter 63 – Wilful Blindness

Time, Date Unknown

Location Unknown

(Spectre Operative 04272182-Cloud)

The first thing I did when I finally regained consciousness was pretend to still be unconscious. Percival taught me that. Keep your breathing steady, your eyes still, and your ears open. Gather information, buy your time, and then strike.

Gods, was Percival okay? He had to be. It'd take a lot more than that to kill Lancelot A. Percival. Internal damage and ruptured organs were easier afflictions to deal onto him, but as long as Cade managed to get Percival back to the Excalibur he should be able to survive that too.

Someone was sitting nearby—not beside me, but in the same room at least. I could hear them shifting at times. They were armored too, judging by the faint knocks I'd heard. There was something else in the room as well. Robotic by the sounds of it, because from time to time I could hear the faint whirring of mechanical servos. Knowing my luck it was probably the robo-cat.

So it was likely the quarian stranger then. Were we still on the same team?

I needed more time. I needed her to drop her guard and slip up – maybe make a call to a superior or something so I could get a better idea of what she wanted. Until then I had to keep pretending to be unconscious.

"I know you're awake," the quarian said.

Damn it.

I cracked an eye open. There she was, sitting in a chair maybe eight feet away. I was in a studio apartment by the looks of it – no windows, a kitchen unit against one wall and a small door against another that led to a bathroom, and a chair and desk in a corner. There was a lamp beside my bed and a medical stand with a few IV bags hooked to it.

The robo-cat lay curled up on a rug in the centre of the room. Damn, the thing was bigger than I thought. It had broad shoulders, large, metal paws, and it had to be at least seven feet long from tip to tail. The damned thing probably came up to my waist.

It yawned, revealing a set of long, sharp teeth. That creeped me out a bit. Yawning was a thing that organics did – not synthetics.

I asked her the one question that had been burning a hole in my mouth ever since I had woken up.

"Why am I naked?"

"Your clothes were ruined. Don't worry, I brought you something to wear," she replied. The quarian jerked her head at the chair beside her. There was a scuffed and worn-out old suit of grey combat armor lying in it, as well as a pair of jeans and a simple shirt. The trenchcoat Cade had bought me lay draped over the back of it.

I gingerly pushed myself up from the bed. My abdomen was covered in medi-gel-soaked bandages and my arms were covered in bruises. My legs were in slightly-better shape but still not great. They were covered in bandages too. Rentea was going to be pissed – especially since I'd gotten banged up pretty good not ten days ago back when we were still on Anhur, after my vehicle had been hit by a landmine while I was out on a scouting mission. My shoulder still wasn't all that great either since I had it dislocated.

I lifted the blanket, pulled out the needles stuck to my arm, and slowly swung my legs out of the bed.

"Where do you think you're going?" she called out.

"I have to take a leak," I muttered. I got up too fast and ended up teetering a bit. Everything still hurt like hell but I wasn't going to let her see that.

"Sure, whatever," the quarian waved her hand dismissively. "And you probably already realized this, but I've deactivated your omni-tool. Your friends aren't going to find you."

I hadn't. I looked at her and gave her a confident little grin. "You sure about that?"

The quarian tilted her head. I could see her silver eyes narrow behind that mysterious, black helmet. "I've erased this apartment's electronic footprint and I'm monitoring key security feeds everywhere on this station. Your friends are welcome to try, but they aren't the kind of Spectres that can pull that off. In fact, I doubt that you have anyone on that ship of yours who can."

She called me on my bluff without batting an eye and insulted Cade and Percival. Ouch, but she had still showed her hand unless everything she had said there had been a lie. She was still right though. Maybe a Spectre like Leliana T'sarion or Lanto could have pulled it off, but not Spectres like Cade, Percival or Elektra. The thought of them trying had me stifling a laugh. That made my ribs ache and I winced.

I thought about covering myself with the blanket but decided that I wasn't going to give her any further satisfaction. At least I had my briefs on.

I swore that her robo-mecha-cat let out a small whimper when I walked by.

The bathroom was no bigger than a closet really. Just a toilet, sink and a shower unit all crammed together in a little enclave. I decided to keep the door open while I went just to feed her confusing impressions. What was my plan going to be here though? Think, man.

What did she want? Who was she working for? With? I needed more information.

There was also a bit of blood in my urine. Great.

I washed my hands and checked my face out in the mirror. The dark circles under my eyes had receded somewhat but my hair was disheveled and matted with some dried blood. The beard was starting to come out again too.

I spent a few minutes poking at various spots on my body, testing for pain. Miraculously I didn't think I'd broken any ribs at all—I'd just suffered a lot of bruising on my abdomen and extremities from where I'd landed after my jump. Slowing down my fall with my biotics had saved me from a punctured lung.

I spotted a pair of bath towels hanging on a nearby hook so I decided to wrap the cleaner-looking one around my waist. I stepped out of the bathroom and gave the quarian a dull stare.

"How long have I been out?" I asked her.

The quarian leaned back in her chair and crossed one leg over the other. The mecha-cat got up and took my place on the bed. Her helmet dipped quickly and then levelled back out. She was sizing me up.

"About fifteen hours. It's the evening of the 9th," she answered coolly. Her eyes narrowed again. "Most people would have led with 'who are you' and 'what do you want'. Are you waiting for something?"

Damn, she was perceptive. "Maybe I already know who you are."

This made the quarian pause. I could see her thinking about it. This time she decided to not call me out.

The quarian removed her helmet. She was giving me way too much credit here.

Well. I should have known.

"Fancy meeting you here, Kel'Raynea. If that's even your real name."

Kel'Raynea smiled sourly. Her silver eyes brightened ever so slightly. "You know, that actually is my real name."

I grabbed the chair from the nearby desk and planted my ass on it, facing her. "Why'd you give me your real one? Clearly you're here incognito. You also seem way too smart to make a mistake like that."

She looked away. "I'm not sure," she admitted. "I made a mistake. It happens. Do you prefer 04272182 or Cloud?"

"Cloud," I told her. Damn. Not many people knew my real name – really it was just the people closest to me. I don't even think it was in the official Spectre database. Who was she? "When did you figure out who I was?"

"A Systems Alliance heavy stealth frigate landing on Omega tends to draw attention," she said. "From there it wasn't hard. You think we wouldn't keep extensive profiles on three of the most prolific Spectre operatives in the galaxy?"

I pointed at her and grinned once more. "Ah, you said we!" I exclaimed a bit too merrily. "Who are you working with?"

Her face suddenly became a slideshow of emotions. First there was indignation, as if she couldn't believe that a lowly Neanderthal like me had gotten her to slip up like that. Then there was a bit of hurt – clearly she had a bit of an ego. Finally, there was amusement. She couldn't help but grin as well – not a patronizing grin, but a little, stupid grin that seemed to say 'you are so childish'. I think she was starting to enjoy our little chess match as much as I was.

She hadn't mentioned Shepard or Elektra and she didn't seem concerned about Kasumi, so clearly her intel wasn't as good as she thought. Good. I had a few aces up my sleeve then. The more important question was whether she knew about why we were on Omega.

"Cloud," she continued, her face becoming serious again. I don't know why, but there was something familiar in her eyes. Something I'd seen before. "I know why you're on Omega. I know what the stakes are. I just didn't realize how high they were until I saw Commander Shepard herself."

Damn it, could she read my mind or something?

"And what do you know?"

Kel uncrossed her legs and leaned forward. Her cat-mech leapt off the bed and settled down beside her legs with a purr. She laced her fingers together and hid her mouth behind her hands. She was appraising me once more. I decided I'd keep playing our little game and wait to see if I passed her tests.

"I work for Quarian Special Intelligence," she finally said. "We know about the Project. We know what they're after, what they've done to get it, and what they're still willing to do to achieve their goals. A certain ambassador of ours got the intel from a certain Primarch."

My eyebrow ticked up. Quarian Special Intelligence? Was she lying to me? I thought they were a myth. You'd think they were a myth too if you'd heard rumors that in less than twenty years they had amassed an information network that rivaled the Salarian Special Tasks Group.

And they knew about the Project. The look that crossed my face must have been a little too dark, because Kel brought her hands up. "Don't worry – the Consortium and QSI both agree with the Council and with the Hierarchy. We can't let this get out. Panic and riots would spread on nearly all colonized planets. We're working with you to keep it all under wraps. You and I —we're on the same side."

"You're the one who has been following us then?"

"I planted a tracking software and bug on your omni-tool the first time we met," she admitted. I recalled our first encounter. I had bumped into her at the Afterlife, causing her to spill the plate of drinks she'd been carrying. "Since then I've been monitoring you as you're gone about trying to find Aria T'Loak's daughter. I even gave you some help there, if you recall."

I scowled. It had indeed been Kel'Raynea who had set us onto the path of Seamus.

"Wait, you've been monitoring me the whole time? You've seen everything? Heard everything?"

The corner of Kel'Raynea's mouth ticked up. "Oh yes. You're not very good at interrogating someone, are you? It's a good thing for you that you had the Azure Flash and the Red Reaper there to help you."

I crossed my arms. "I could have handled it if I really wanted to," I pouted. Seamus had just been lucky that Percival had been there and he had gotten all of that "rules of engagement" crap stuck in my head. Any other day and I would have had no issues taking a few fingers and whatnot.

"Sure," Kel smiled, but the way she said it and her tone told me how she really felt.

The both of us sat there silently for a little while, no doubt pondering what each of our next respective move would be. I decided that I'd take her word for it that she was with QSI. The question was—why would she follow us and try to help us find Arya's daughter, and then cut me off from my friends?

Screw it, let's see where this goes. "You're not here to help us stop the Project, are you?"

Bullseye. Kel'Raynea's eyebrows furrowed for the briefest of moments and I knew that I'd gotten her. She was extremely intelligent and clearly gifted, but she was also at least a few years younger than I was and likely had much less experience with reading intentions and subterfuge than I did. The streets of Terra Nova and the Citadel were cruel, merciless environments. You couldn't survive if you couldn't figure out who was actually trying to help you and who was there to take everything from you. If you couldn't make the cut then you were dead. Elektra and I had lost a lot of our friends that way.

Unless the QSI started training them real young, then she probably couldn't have had more than a few years under her belt as a covert operative either.

"No," Kel'Raynea admitted. She looked nervous and her synth-feline must have picked up on that because it got up and placed itself protectively between her and I. What exactly was that thing?

Time to double down. "Who do you need me to kill?"

"How do you know I want you to kill someone?" Another tick.

I jerked my head at the chair between us and the contents still lying on it. "You brought me a suit of combat armor, and if you have a file on me then you know that I'm really only known for one thing. It doesn't take a genius to add two and two together."

"You know," she said, "you're acting very different now compared to how you were acting before, back during all those times we met at Afterlife. More like what I'd expect of a Spectre and less… dorky. We're you playing me then or something?"

I shook my head. "No. This here is business. Back at Afterlife? That was... not business."

Kel'Raynea smiled again. There – in her eyes, there was that look again. It looked so familiar to me and yet I couldn't put a name to it.

"We're both after the same group. It's an organization that deals in trafficking slaves. If you're hunting Risha D'Miris and Narala T'Loak and their trail led you to Smoke, then the odds are good that they've been taken by them. I think I know where."

I closed my eyes when she said that. Of course it was. What else could it have been on Omega? You either lost people to random, non-sensical acts of violence or you lost them to the gangs. When it came to the gangs there was nothing worse than a slave trafficking gang. They were some of the absolute worst scum of the galaxy— preying on people's weaknesses and on their desire for a better life elsewhere.

I'd dealt with traffickers before. Narala had been missing for over a week and Risha at least three. What hope did I have of finding them?

"Have you ever heard of the Black Dawn?"

The blood in my veins froze. "They're gone," I abruptly said. "Wiped out years ago."

"No, they survived," Kel'Raynea spat. The sudden venom in her tone intrigued me. "They stopped operating in Systems Alliance space and ran to the Terminus Systems and to the Perseus Veil. Now they primarily work out of Omega. They're responsible for more than half of the organic trafficking on this station."

I cursed. The dead had come back to life. Sometimes I felt like I was doomed to play the same role over and over again until it was my turn to be buried. Those feelings I'd had back at the tower were finally starting to make sense. Everything was starting to make sense. They used a network of loan sharks to pinpoint those who were in debt—those who likely had no supports to fall back on and who had every reason to disappear.

"And you want my help stopping them?"

"You get to get as close to Aria T'Loak's kid as you're ever likely going to get on this station, and I get to wipe those bosh'tets off the face of this galaxy. It will be a mutually beneficial transaction."

I mulled the idea over in my head. She was asking for a lot here. The Black Dawn once numbered in the hundreds. If they had somehow managed to reconstitute to such an extent that they could dominate the slave trade on Omega and were as organized as Kel made it sound, then they could very well number in the hundreds again.

But it was the Black Dawn.

I gave her my iciest stare. "And you don't want my friends to know? You don't want their help?"

She shook her head. "I've read everything that we had on you three. I know people like them. They're good people—they wouldn't approve of what we're going to do and they'll bring too many unknowns into the equation. I don't need two decorated war heroes, a platoon of Jaegers, or even Commander Shepard. You're the one I want. You're the one I need."

She met my stare unflinchingly and eventually it was I who broke eye contact first. She was right. Percival and Cade would certainly not approve of this little side-crusade, and I could already hear the scolding I was liable to receive once I returned to them. Elektra might have understood, but there was no way that she'd keep something like this to herself, and inevitably she would involve the other two.

If she could narrow down the location of this gang for me then pissing off my friends would probably be worth it. We had a mutual understanding then.

I jerked my head at the armor in the chair. "And do you expect me to eradicate the Black Dawn wearing that?" I asked her. That armor probably had kinetic barriers a quarter of the strength of the ones I had on my personal suit, and certainly did not have a tac cloak. Surprise and technology were my bread and butter.

"It'll be enough," she said cryptically. I guess she had a plan then.

Good enough I suppose. If that car chase had taught me anything about her it was that she was not to be underestimated. I knew she had something in mind – and that she'd likely do whatever it would take to wipe out the Black Dawn.

Well, enough was enough. I raised my hands over my head and stretched, then I grabbed the jeans and the shirt from off the chair. As I was putting on the pants underneath the towel, Kel'Raynea cocked her head at me.

"What are you doing?"

I slowly slipped the shirt on one sleeve at a time. The bruises were making it difficult to move. "What does it look like?"

"But what about the armor? I thought we were going to go after the Black Dawn."

Kiki the cat-mech yowled in agreement. I don't know why but I smiled at it and decided to rub it on the head. It withdrew quickly but I managed to make it out with all my fingers. "We are, but I'm hungry. I'm going to get food first."

I glanced around the room. Aside from the two lounge chairs, the office chair, the desk and the medical stuff, there wasn't a dresser or a closet of sorts. Had Kel been living here or was this just a safehouse? Where could she be keeping my weapons?

I turned to her. "You got any normal clothes? Not that its abnormal to be wearing armor on Omega, but it'll look weird next to me."

There was that look of indignation again. Seeing it made me want to smile for some reason. The Kel'Raynea who had asked me to wage a war against a criminal organization and who had almost gotten me killed was a lot more interesting than Kel'Ranyea the waitress. "Of course I do," she replied. "Wait in the bathroom."

I sighed and shrugged. The quarian slipped past me and disappeared into the bathroom. Funny, I hadn't seen a closet in there.

She emerged wearing a black and purple blouse that was reminiscent of the old enviro-suits that all quarians used to wear and a pair of black pants. I marveled at how far the quarians had come in the twenty-five years since the Reaper War. Twenty-five years ago a quarian risked infection and death simply by removing their helmet.

"I don't suppose you have my weapons somewhere around here?"

Kel said something in khellish and Kiki sidled over to her. She knelt down beside her companion and turned on her special omni-tool, pressing a few buttons on it.

A compartment opened in the massive feline's torso. Kel reached in and produced my pistol, knives and my portable kinetic barrier.

She handed them to me. "Wow," I remarked. "You must really trust me. What if I had a score to settle or something after that little stunt you pulled during our chase?"

"Don't be ridiculous," she snorted. "And trust me – you don't frighten me one bit."

I checked the ammunition block on my Predator pistol. It looked like it could use another one. "Think you could take me in a fight?" I taunted her. She said she'd read my file, so she must have thought about it. Beside us Kiki growled.

Her eyes gleamed. The quarian was shorter than me by a good head but she stood her ground. "Yes," she said adamantly, but it was not lost on either of us that there had been a healthy pause there.

As much as I was starting to enjoy these short, little stare-downs of ours I was actually pretty hungry. If what she'd told me was true, then I hadn't eaten for almost a full fifteen hours with the last thing I'd eaten being that breakfast sandwich that Cade had made me eat. I could almost hear his smug "I-told-you-so" now.

I turned and made my way towards the door. "So," I called out behind me. "What's good around here?"

Approximately 2200, April 9th, 2211 — Omega Nebula, Sahrabarik System, Omega

Location Unknown

(Spectre Operative 04272182-Cloud)

"Just a little further. It's the one with the red sign," she pointed.

We'd had decided to leave Kiki to watch the safehouse. The early evening was the busiest time on Omega. Most people were off work and eager to pick back up at whatever vices they had that kept them going. You couldn't take two steps in Omega without finding yourself outside of a bar, a brothel, or a betting house.

I looked up at the red sign. "A dextro-levo restaurant?" I asked her.

She yanked open the door. "What? I'm hungry too."

I followed her inside. The patrons here were mostly turian and quarian, but there were a sizable number of members from the other species. It looked like it was quite popular with the younger crowd as well. From what I saw the food looked good and the restaurant looked like it was run by a family of quarians. The younger-looking ones were not suited but a few working in the kitchens were.

We found a booth close to the back. It was crowded enough that we probably wouldn't be overheard and dim enough that probably no one would recognize us unless they got really close.

A quarian waitress who was also suitless brought over a pair of holo-menus. I turned mine on and gave it a quick scan. They had the levo-version of my usual, so deciding what to eat was pretty easy.

Kel turned on her own menu. "It's on me," she said magnanimously.

I flipped over to the drinks menu. "Of course it's on you," I muttered absentmindedly as I scrolled through the menu, looking for the closest analogue they had to a gin and tonic. "You deactivated my omni-tool."

Kel muttered something angrily in khellish that I couldn't recognize and let out a sigh. The waitress returned to take our order. Before she left, she whispered something to Kel in khellish as well with a little smile. An irritated blush crossed Kel's face and I bit back a laugh. I didn't have to know khellish to pick up that one. I hope she wasn't taking it the wrong way - waitresses were the same no matter the species.

Now that we were alone again she turned to me. "So, I bet you have more questions."

"Wouldn't you?"

"Fair," she admitted. Kel looped a tassel of hair around one of her fingers and began to fidget with it. "Shoot, but be warned – just because you ask something doesn't mean I'll answer it. It comes with the territory of being in the QSI."

"Fair."

I decided to start with something that was probably harmless. "The robo-cat or mecha-feline or whatever you call it. Kiki – what is she?"

Kel'Raynea smiled at that. "Kiki is short for keelah' ke'tet. I suppose the closest translation for that would be 'by the homeworld, you should run'. She's a geth AI – my geth AI."

I chuckled a bit at keelah' ke'tet. It was so ridiculous and I had half a mind to shame her for calling it that, and yet based on the size of the damn thing and the teeth she had – Kiki had been aptly named.

I knew that the geth and the quarians had finally ceased their bitter war and had entered into a peaceful relationship with one another, but I wasn't very familiar with how their history had developed since then. My missions as a Spectre rarely took me into the Perseus Veil. I must have interacted with civilians or military from the Quarian-Geth Consortium maybe only a handful of times.

"Wait," I held up a hand. "I don't mean to sound insensitive or ignorant, but I thought that the Geth rebelled because they did not want to be subservient to the quarians any longer? Kiki is 'your' geth AI?"

"You're not being insensitive. There's a lot of history between our two peoples. The Geth didn't rebel because they didn't want to be subservient – they rebelled because my people were close-minded and feared their sentience. Our unwillingness to understand that which was different and our own subservience to our baser instincts led to fear, and fear led to violence. We reacted to their differences by trying to exterminate them, and the Geth reacted accordingly in self-defence."

The waitress brought out our drinks. I wonder if those who had lived in the time before the Reaper War would have ever thought that they would one day see an unsuited quarian sipping a drink in a bar. "We know better now – we recognize that no matter how the geth came to be or how different they might be from us, they too have the right to self-determine. We recognize the Geth Collective as its own autonomous, self-governing body. All of the Consortium's major decisions are made with the Collective as equal participants, and Geth platforms and quarians have equal rights and privileges within the Consortium."

I thought back to all the kinds of people that I'd spent the last few years fighting – I had fought slavers, criminal organizations, and sometimes even dubious corporations or corrupt politicians. All of them were guilty of committing the same sin. They treated those they deemed lesser like they were nothing more than expendable resources that existed for their own gain. People were sold, workers were exploited – they never treated them like fellow living beings. I wish that more people in this galaxy viewed people like how the quarians viewed the geth. Maybe then I'd be out of a job.

"To be honest, once we began treating the Geth as equals they were actually more than happy to assist with quarian endeavors," she continued earnestly. "The Geth aren't like you or I – they don't react to perceived or actual social hierarchies like us organics do. Whereas an organic would likely become jealous or upset if they were placed in a subservient position to someone else, those feelings do not come easily to the Geth. They are magnificently practical and as long as they are not in danger they will happily adopt a particular paradigm if it is a reasonable means to achieve a certain goal. The Geth are actually quite happy to work for the quarians, and we recognize that without them we would not be able to live the way we do now."

Kel'Raynea lifted a slender, purple hand. "Because of them, I can feel the heat of our sun against my skin. I can walk barefoot on the homeworld of my ancestors, feel the grass beneath my toes, and breathe the air that they once breathed. I owe everything to Kiki and her people."

Her silver eyes stared into mine, all the while her hand drifted closer and closer to my face. "Because of Kiki and her people, I can do this…" she whispered.

Faster than I could react she slapped my cheek. "Ouch," I scowled. Kel'Raynea grinned.

I decided to let it slide. "I don't see normal quarians running around with a geth AI," I continued questioning her. "Is it QSI protocol to pair their operatives with one? Are all of them modeled after big predator-animals or did you just think it'd be funny to make one the size of an oversized panther and give it teeth the size of a man's fingers?"

My new partner shrank a bit in her seat. "I won't answer the first part, but as for the second part… I designed Kiki's model. Of course – she had the final say, but I did come up with the base design. When I was a kid I used to love learning about the various animals that were native to each species' various homeworld. Earth's big cats in particular. I'm surprised you recognized the species."

She seemed a bit embarrassed revealing all of that. I didn't understand why though. Big cats were cool as hell. "Yeah I mean, I'm only mildly familiar with Rannochian fauna but I didn't think there was anything there that came even close to resembling Kiki. I'm well-versed in a lot of Earth's though," I told her. The Systems Alliance loves to name their hardware after different Earth species.

"I modelled Kiki after Earth's panthera pardus," Kel'Raynea explained enthusiastically, and I couldn't help but smile at the passion with which she was talking about her murder-bot. "She's got a titanium chassis, carbide-tipped teeth and claws, a kinetic barrier and even a tactical cloak. I gave her a few other toys too – but um, I hope you understand if I don't go into too much detail about them."

"Gods," I whispered. If she caught them by surprise, Kiki could probably take out an organic squad of any species short of krogan in no time flat. "Yeah, no problem, I completely understand. If I also recall, the geth have insane processing speeds. Kiki must be absolutely lethal."

"Oh, you have no idea," Kel smirked, elongating the 'no'. "She's the reason I'm not afraid of you."

I thought about it for a moment. Again— maybe if it caught me by surprise. To my knowledge there hadn't been anything invented yet that was impervious to the mass effect fields generated by biotics. Kiki would be unable to breach my barrier, rendered helpless to a well-placed Singularity and then probably scrap to any of the other tools I now had in my arsenal. Of course – assuming it didn't just cloak and tear my throat out before I could react.

Kel narrowed her eyes at me. "She absolutely could take you down!" she thundered. Damn it, could she read my mind or something?

I could tell that she wasn't really mad though. "I don't know," I grinned back. "Maybe if I didn't see her coming."

"Oh, that is complete crap, you bosh'tet. She can run at speeds of up to eighty-kilometers an hour. She has magnetic paws for additional attack vectors. She has night-vision, thermal, stunners, rotary cannons, electronic warfare software —,"

When Kel'Raynea realized that she was giving away what were most likely proprietary secrets she stopped. I started to laugh.

"You were baiting me!" she said accusingly. The quarian reached across the table and jabbed me hard in the chest with her finger.

"Not intentionally," I promised. I debated if I could escape this restaurant alive if I told her she had a bit of a complex but decided that I probably couldn't. "Don't worry, I won't tell a soul. Spectre-QSI confidentiality – although now I understand why you feel so confident going up against the Black Dawn with just the three of us."

The instant I mentioned the Black Dawn Kel's face fell. I immediately felt bad. I wiped the smile off my face and tried to come across as a bit more serious. "Are the Black Dawn a problem in quarian space?" I asked her.

Kel'Raynea looked at me and there was that look again. "They… periodically raid our smaller colonies out in the Veil and even sometimes Rannoch for our technology and for any promising quarian engineers. Sometimes they… we've lost people as well."

Her voice dropped off towards the end. There was pain there, but as curious as I was I didn't want to hurt her just for the sake of my curiosity. There were plenty of reasons for QSI and the Consortium to go after a group like the Black Dawn.

I would know.

"You encountered them before, haven't you?"

"I'm sorry?" I replied.

"Back at the apartment," she clarified. "When I first mentioned them you got this look on your face. Like you've encountered them before."

My voice hitched in my throat. The waitress eventually brought my drink. I swallowed and dragged the tip of my finger against the rim of my glass. "Yeah, I have," I told her. "Kel… I'm not sure if I'm ready to talk about it. I hope you understand."

Kel'Raynea fell silent and just stared at me. I could not tell what she was thinking behind those silver eyes of hers.

I decided to just keep quiet and let her work out whatever she was working out in her head. After few moments later our food arrived and we both dug in.

While we were eating she seemed to come alive again and we resumed a lively discussion. She asked me about Percival and Cade and so I talked a bit about Percival's family and Cade's girlfriend and all of the stupid, little inside jokes we had, which made her laugh. I ribbed her for almost getting us blown to bits last night and while she initially thought I was trying to bait her into giving me more sensitive information about her omni-tool I managed to convince her I really was just curious. She told me she was very good at hacking and a very good software engineer, but only passable when it came mechanical engineering. She said she relied on Kiki's expertise a lot when it came to the physical stuff, but that she was working on it.

Eventually we both finished. I plastered the most annoying smile that I could muster onto my face when it came time for Kel to pay our bill, causing her to scowl.

I leaned back and laced my fingers over my stomach. "So, what's next?" I asked her.

"We head back to the safehouse, get some sleep, and when its late at night we'll go to where I think the Black Dawn is keeping your target," she replied.

Nice. Always a fan of a night attack. I wasn't entirely sure I could sleep after passing out for the last fifteen hours but hey, it'd be nice to get a chance to just lie there and be alone with my thoughts without getting interrupted by Percival, Cade, Elektra or any of the hundreds of other distractions that existed on the Excalibur.

"Sounds good," I said. Yeah, I was looking forward to the next few hours. Just me and my thoughts. Me and my thoughts.