Chapter 65 – Death's Angel

0446 hours, April 10th, 2211 — Omega Nebula, Sahrabarik System, Omega

Unknown District - near the Black Dawn Spaceport

(Spectre Operative 04272182-Cloud)

"What in the goddess' name are the two of you doing?!"

A blanket of silence followed Narala's surprised outburst. Breaths were held and the air was still. No one lived in this part of the station so the area was also devoid of ambient noises. If I strained a little harder I could have heard their hearts beating I bet.

Kel's eyes were brimming with rage, but beneath all of that fury I could nonetheless see a reservoir of…something that her anger was flowing from. It was well-hidden, and the act of hiding it clearly well-practiced.

"You didn't just hunt down the Black Dawn, did you?" she whispered.

Not one to back down, I leaned in closer until my face was mere inches from hers. I held her firmly against me, completely restricting any movements she might try to make. That and the inferno grenade I was holding in the other hand was the only thing keeping me from getting torn apart by her Geth companion.

"No. The QSI didn't send you to Omega, did they?"

Her eyes narrowed. She was unapologetic. "No," she replied.

She continued to tremble in my grasp, but I wasn't under any impression that her trembling stemmed from fear.

That look had crept onto her face again – the one I'd seen her slip on at times when she thought I wasn't paying attention.

"The man in the mask," Kel hissed. "He knew you. Personally. It didn't sound like he was just a mission for you. What were you doing with the Black Dawn?"

Even now, just hearing the name cause the hair to rise on the back of my neck. Even now after all these years I still couldn't go back to that time without feeling that rush of coldness tear through every fibre of my being. That chill. What was that called?

I drew a breath and let it out. Memories that I had not unearthed in years came tearing to the forefront of my mind. "I used to do some work for the Black Dawn," I said. It was a struggle to get the past out. "Before I…. I was part of this group."

"Group? What kind of group? Were you a mercenary group? Gang? Were you a gangster?"

"Gang is putting it strongly," I said quietly. Unlike the members of the Dawn that I had killed, I could still picture their faces even now— clear as day. "We weren't really mercenaries either. Smugglers might be more accurate." Or a delivery boy, as I had once told a certain someone long ago. "We were a small group of young nobodies."

There had been six of us back then. "Some of us were orphans from the Reaper War, others were kids who had ran away from their homes… you know, people who just didn't really have a place in this galaxy."

"You said you were smugglers? What exactly did you and your group do?"

"We made our living doing work for bigger groups. Mostly planet or system-based gangs, sometimes corporations. Nothing crazy—just smuggling ore, food, supplies, and the occasional theft of same. No killing — that was our rule. Besides, we were all really just a bunch of kids anyways..."

"And the Black Dawn?"

"The Black Dawn was one of the groups we worked for. Like I said before – they were a group of self-proclaimed freedom fighters who ended up being nothing more than a group of terrorists. Back then they weren't trafficking people… when we first met them they didn't do anything of the sort – I swear."

I swallowed, wondering whether I would believe a single word coming out of my mouth if I was on the receiving end of all of this. "We never hurt anyone," I said. "We moved and retrieved cargo for them. As far as our clients went, they were one of the tamer ones. They never gave us a reason not to trust them."

Until that last job.

I could feel her soften between my arms ever so slightly. "You swear?"

"Swear what?"

"That you weren't a part of… a part of the trafficking?"

I clenched my jaw. I'd lost so many friends that I'd grown up with to traffickers that I'd— No, she couldn't have known that. I couldn't fault her for going there.

It felt like there was a huge lump of coal in my throat. "I swear on my life, Kel'Raynea."

The walls came down a little bit more. "How did you go from working for them to hunting them down?"

"They started to hurt people. Eventually, they hurt the people I cared about."

She ceased her trembling and I could finally feel her relax in my grasp. Kel relegated herself to searching my eyes for something. Was it sincerity? Hell, I was sincere. I harbored no lost love for the Dawn. They'd taken everyone from me – them and the Reapers.

She deactivated her pistol with a hiss. I let her go.

She backed away a bit. Kiki immediately rushed to her side all growls and murder-eyes. I shrugged apologetically at her and put my grenade away.

"I've said enough. It's your turn now. Quarian Special Intelligence didn't send you here for the Dawn. Why are you going after them?"

Kel removed her helmet and tucked a loose strand of hair behind her slightly-pointed ear. I'd never seen it done so elegantly. "Remember what I told you? About the Black Dawn?"

"Which part?"

"That they raid some of our smaller colonies out in the Veil?"

I swallowed. "And what happened?"

Kel back away a few more steps until her back had hit an old, half-finished wall that was only just beginning to rust around the edges. She slid down it so that she was seated. Kiki padded over to her and coiled itself around her, laying her head on Kel's lap.

"You've never heard of it but… there's this planet in the Mortuun System deep in the Veil called Thannon. It's home to a small quarian colony established maybe a decade after the Reaper War."

I'd never heard of it, but that was no surprise. I'd never been out into the Perseus Veil. There were few systems out there that were suitable for gang or marauder or outlaw life – my preferred prey.

Kel rested a slim hand on Kiki's head and Kiki purred. "I was born the year after the War, on Rannoch," she began quietly. "You see… after almost a decade Rannoch had become almost unrecognizable thanks to the help of the Geth. It was finished, for a lack of a better word. Every quarian had a home and we had all the infrastructure our population could need for the next hundred years. There were schools and libraries and restaurants and parks everywhere— Rannoch was on par with any other capital world, albeit on a smaller scale since there still weren't many of us."

"My parents… well, I'm not sure if you are familiar with what the quarians used to be like, but back when they lived on the Liveships there wasn't a day that went by without something that needed to be built or fixed. But once Rannoch was finished a lot of the construction stopped."

Her eyes began to glisten. Kel quickly swiped it all away with the back of her hand. "My parents though… they still wanted to help. They still wanted to contribute."

"I didn't want to — nevermind," she abruptly cut herself off. "Anyways, with Rannoch finished the quarians decided to begin colonization efforts on other habitable worlds. One of those was Thannon. My mother was pregnant with my younger brother at the time. My parents applied and a few weeks later we were on a ship to a new world."

"On Thannon my parents found their purpose again, helping with the colonization efforts. We restarted our lives there. A short while later my brother was born."

"Eventually I was accepted into Rannoch University. I graduated with honors and because my parents did not have a lot of money and I wanted to see the galaxy I signed up with the Consortium Navy. I rated for intelligence work on my aptitude tests, so I was invited to join the Quarian Special Intelligence."

Kel swallowed and Kiki nuzzled in closer to her. She kissed her companion gently on the head. "I was away on my first mission when it happened."

Another chill clawed its way down my spine. "What happened, Kel?" I asked gently, though deep down I think some part of me already knew the answer.

"The Black Dawn came to Thannon looking for quarian slaves," Kel said, in a tone so low I found myself struggling to hear her. "My people are no strangers to pirates or slavers. My people fought when they came. My family fought when they came. And they killed them for it. My father, mother – even my little brother."

Behind her Kiki yowled mournfully. Gods, I wanted to kick myself. I was a fool. How could I not have recognized that look she'd wear? It was pain— pain driven by loss. How could I not have recognized something so simple? So familiar to me? What was it that Percival used to say? Denial wasn't just a river in some old part of Earth?

"I tracked them here, to Omega. I swear on my ancestors that I am not leaving until either they are all dead or I am."

"You're here because you want revenge."

She narrowed her eyes at me. "I'm here because those bosh'tets killed my family, and because if I don't kill them they'll keep on doing the same thing over and over again."

I crossed my arms and backed away into the shadow cast by a rotting wall. How often had I'd heard that as well? Hadn't it been my own mantra all these years? My justification?

My mind went back to what Kel had said in the skycar on our way to the port and I realized that perhaps we were more similar than either of us would have wanted to admit.

"Did you know that I lost my family too?"

"I knew you were an orphan. It was in your file," Kel admitted. "That's why I wanted you. It wasn't because of how you fought, but how you felt. Every shot – every blow you make against your enemies… what you feel and how you feel is written plainly on your face for anyone to see. Elektra is an orphan as well, but I could tell from her file and her mission recordings that she doesn't feel the way you and I feel. Out of all of them I thought that maybe you would understand me."

My stomach dropped. Her gambit had paid off. I could understand her. It was almost perverse to think it but we were kindred spirits. We were part of an exclusive little group with some macabre and depressing membership requirements.

"You know that killing them won't make the pain go away, right?"

Her silver eyes flashed furiously. "I know that, I'm not stupid."

She had to realize the truth about the path she wanted to walk. "The relief will be temporary, and it will be unlike any drug you've ever tried. You'll keep chasing it and chasing it. You'll become a slave to it. Don't do this Kel."

"You're still fighting," she pointed out.

"Because I don't know what it'll take to break that cycle." Or maybe I didn't have what it took. Or maybe it was already too late for me.

As I said, I could understand her. And she could understand me. She could understand the part that I had deliberately left out.

"Have you ever considered that maybe this is what I want? Have you ever considered that perhaps I don't want you to save me?"

That hit me like a sledgehammer. I couldn't formulate a reply. I was too busy looking at ghosts—old, familiar silhouettes that had appeared to surround the quarian.

Kel gently pushed Kiki away and stood up. She then walked over to stand right in front of me, joining me in the shadow of the rotting wall. The ghosts followed behind her.

She was inches away once more. "I don't need you to save me. You can't save everyone, and not everyone wants to be saved," she whispered.

The ghosts nodded. My heart ached. There was that old, familiar pain, but also something I was less familiar with. Loneliness.

"I don't need you to save me," Kel repeated. "I need you to keep me from becoming the kind of person who would hurt innocent lives just to stave off their pain. Back there…I was so fixated on revenge and on making the pain go away that I almost let all of those innocent people die. You stopped me. You."

A part of me wanted to laugh at the absurdity of it all. Me? Her moral compass? I was hardly even my own moral compass. Kel was walking down the same path that I had been walking ever since those doors had closed on my mother. I didn't know how to get off of it. I was already an addict, temporarily chasing away the pain with violence – violence against those who I decided deserved it. I could superimpose onto them everything that had ever hurt me.

Never mind that it had been the Reapers who had really killed my mother. No – it was these slavers or pirates or gangsters who had done that, and killing them would bring me relief. Strawmen, all of them.

When I fought these strawmen everything made sense to me. Everything that had happened to me finally seemed as if they had happened for a good reason.

I wish Cade or Percival were here. "You aren't a bad person," I said once more to her. Some of that went to myself.

"And neither are you," she replied. Kel could read my mind after all. "Do you remember what you promised me?"

"Yes."

"And you keep your promises, right?"

Some of the ghosts smiled sadly at me. "Yes," I lied.

0503 hours, April 10th, 2211 — Omega Nebula, Sahrabarik System, Omega

En-Route to Tora District

(Spectre Operative 04272182-Cloud)

I could hear Narala wincing behind me in the backseat. I felt bad. Kel and I had largely ignored her during our fight and that hadn't changed much after we'd taken her back to our hovercar.

"Do you need some painkillers?" I called over my shoulder.

"No, I can manage. Can't be having my head all fuzzy — I need to think straight."

The asari was tougher than I would have thought. I wondered if Aria T'Loak had been like this when she was younger. They both seemed to share a very similar streak of stubbornness.

If she said she was fine then I'd take her word for it. For now at least. "How do you know where the Dawn are hiding?"

"Tracking device. I kept the tracking disc on me and then I mailed the locator to myself. It should still be at a mailing office a few blocks away from my apartment. I told them to deliver it to Afterlife in two weeks' time, which I hoped would be enough time for me to find whoever had taken Risha," Narala explained through clenched teeth.

"Thankfully when the Dawn scooped me up they didn't find it. Before I was taken to the port where you found me I left the tracking disc with Risha. She should still have it."

Damn, that wasn't a bad idea if you could be sure that you'd still be with Risha after the two-week period, which she hadn't been. I wonder if she had picked that up from one of the many detective holo-books I'd found lying around in her apartment, or maybe that justicar series. "So your friend is alive then?"

"Yes, Risha is still alive. She was in rough shape when I'd arrived – that's why I left the tracker with her, so that Aria would come and hopefully free them first."

"Wait," Kel added. "So in a few more days, Aria might have known where to look for you?"

"Yes. Well – she would have found the Black Dawn. Then she would have made them talk."

I almost laughed. Well, that was one part that I'd be leaving out when I next saw Aria.

Kel twisted in her seat so that she could get a better look at the asari. "Isn't Aria your mother?"

I could only see Narala's eyes in the rear-view mirror. Narrow slits. "She gave birth to me," came the flat reply.

Kiki let out a whimper and I sighed. It was none of my business. Still, I couldn't help but recall the look on Aria T'Loak's face when she had asked me to find her daughter. It was not a look I would have ever expected the Pirate Queen of Omega to be capable of.

I wonder if Narala knew how her mother really felt. I guess I shouldn't be too harsh on her. People rarely knew the full extent of what others thought of them.

Kel changed the destination to the coordinates of the mailing office and the hovercar slowly began to shift directions. Once more with nothing to do I relegated myself to watching the other hovercars streak by.

I wished this thing could go faster. "We need to grab the locator and hit the Black Dawn base soon as possible," I said.

"Why the rush?"

"I left biotic burns on half of the bodies back there, and Cade was at the port."

"Cade Kitiarian?"

"Yes," I said. "Cade's no idiot. He's highly-skilled and he's fought and lived beside me almost every day for the last half-decade. He'll put two and two together real quick. If he hasn't already."

Narala sat up. "Wait, did you say Cade Kitiarian?"

"Yeah, why?"

"My father. His name was Callen Kitiarian. If I recall he came from this really big, military family back on Palaven."

Huh. Cade had a cousin. No, wait.

"How old are you?"

"One-hundred and seventeen years old."

Well, more like great-great-great-great grand-aunt.

Well I'll be damned. Aria T'Loak had shacked up with Cade's ancestor. A part of me couldn't wait to let Cade in on that little fact. A smaller part of me shuddered at the thought of what a Kitiarian-T'Loak descendant might be capable of. I knew that hereditary genetics didn't work that way, but nearly every Kitiarian in history had been a strangely exceptional fighter that couldn't have been chalked up to environmental factors or self-selection. Throw in asari biotics in the mix and… well, the Kitiarians could have probably conquered the Hierarchy.

We pulled up to the mailing office. It looked a bit more put-together than most of the other constructions on Omega. There was even security too. It had a metal shutter and I could see a few LOKI mechs patrolling through the window.

"You two stay here. I'll handle this," Kel instructed. I just shrugged. Without my full omni-tool capabilities I had zero technical skills.

"You sure you don't want my mail code?"

"Already got it. I hacked their system on our way here."

Kel opened the hovercar door and slid out, disappearing a moment later. That left just Narala and I together alone. As if on cue Kiki meowed to let me know that she was still there too.

"So, what's your story?"

The question startled me, dragging me out of my stewing. "What?"

"I asked 'What's your story?'. Back at the old tower you said you were part of a gang or a group of thieves or some mob of unruly children when you were younger – I don't know, it sounded extremely ambiguous to me."

I scoffed indignantly at that descriptor. Unruly? "I'm just a mercenary Kel picked up on Omega".

"And that quarian just so happened to have the file of some random mercenary she met on Omega?

I didn't reply.

Narala waited, but when it became clear that I wasn't going to engage she gave an exasperated sigh. On the life of my mother I could swear that I heard Kiki sigh too. "By the goddess. You're exhausting to be around, you know?"

I decided to pass the time by counting to ten over and over again in my head.

"You're really moody, you know that?" she said, irritated. "Brooding isn't actually as good of a look on a guy as you might think."

Why couldn't she have just accepted my offer of painkillers?

"Would it really have been so much trouble to just say you were a Spectre? Half of the galaxy has heard of Cade Kitiarian and you've made it abundantly clear that you work with him. I bet your life would be a lot easier if you stopped doubling-down on untenable positions"

"Please stop talking," I begged. Still, she had a fair point. Gods, I'd half-expected that the offspring of Aria T'loak would be a monster, but nothing would have prepared me for this.

"I just don't get why you have to be so difficult about something so simple?" Narala shook her head incredulously. Beside her Kiki chuffed in agreement. Traitor.

There wasn't a single quantifiable, measurable, ounce of doubt in my mind that she and Cade were related. "Personality flaw I suppose?"

Narala gave up after that and reclined back into her seat. "Fine. Whatever. You just look a bit young to be a Spectre."

The barrel of my Predator was just about to hit the top of my chin when Kel opened the door back up.

"Got it," she said brightly. The quarian held up a small, boxy device. "It's still picking up the tracker. Just give me a second to plug in the coordinates. And what are you doing?"

I holstered my weapon. "Nothing."

The hovercar began to take us towards the center of Omega. We wove past the glittering array of skyscrapers and crimson-tinted sprawl and entered a series of tunnels located on the floor of the station. We soon entered a much narrower part of Omega. Whereas Omega proper had been more of a living, breathing organism, its stem had all the vitality of a rotting limb. Recycling facilities made from cold, grey alloy jutted from the floors and walls like bone. Trash lay strewn around them in great, big heaps. Even at this hour I could see people swarming on top of them. Likely they were scavengers.

"We're in the processing and recycling district," Kel pointed out.

"Not surprised," Narala said quietly. "The big three hold maybe half of all the districts in Omega. My mother holds the other half," she said, with a certain word there carrying more than a dash of disdain. The asari was of course referring to the Blue Suns, Eclipse and the Blood Pack. "Most of the other gangs or mobs end up down here, where there isn't much to interest the big three because this area was never designed for permanent habitation. A lot of them actually run some of these recycling plants for some extra credits."

I'd only been down here once briefly during my last mission to Omega some three and a half years ago. Cade, Percival and I had begun looking for our suspected traffickers down here, but we had found other clues and it had ended up being a cult of rich, Omega citizens living in one of the fancier districts. A good thing too – it would have taken us maybe a full, galactic year to search the entire stem.

We kept flying down and down and down and it kept getting darker and darker. We passed by the entrances to numerous mining tunnels so dark and full of broken equipment such that they looked like the ravenous maws of great beasts. Out of curiosity I checked the hovercar's built-in navigation system. We were near the very bottom of the stem.

"We're close," Kel breathed. "Ancestors…". Behind us I could hear Narala shifting in the back.

We then flew through a portion of the stem that was nothing but metal plating and rock, and then suddenly we were in a massive, cylindrical chamber. I gazed out the window in awe. We had come to the very end of Omega. The terminal point.

To those who might wonder what lies at the very bottom of Omega, here it is. At the bottom of the cylindrical chamber was a large ring platform, similar to the concentric tiers that lined the station proper. Of course, it was narrower in scale. By my best estimate the ring platform itself was maybe two hundred meters wide and the diameter of the inner portion of the ring was maybe just over three times that. The inner portion of the ring shimmered with soft, blue light. It was massive, mass effect field— the type you would commonly see acting as portals in station docking bays, except much, much larger.

Beyond that barrier was nothing but the sheer, black abyss of space. Sahrabarik herself.

There were structures on the ring platform – old recycling and processing facilities of various sizes all made of that same, stained, grey alloy. Instead of reflecting the blue light from the mass effect field they seemed to drink it in, rendering the ring a dark and an eerie blue. It looked like an entire abandoned city.

In ages past this massive chamber might have been another docking area. Cargo freighters might have passed through that mass effect field and docked inside this large, cylindrical tube close to the ring to pick up ore, scrap, and whatever else Omega had to offer back then. When the surrounding areas had been stripped clean and a larger presence had been established farther up the station, in Omega proper, then this area had likely fallen into disuse once newer docking areas like the one I had come in had been built.

I wonder why the Dawn hadn't used this part of the station to ferry their living cargo on and off the station. Perhaps it was too close to home or the field could no longer be used both ways.

We set down in the shadow of one of the recycling facilities. I opened the door and stepped out, with the rest of my party following suit. The scent of Eezo hung heavy in the air here, courtesy of the mass effect field that dominated this area.

Kel pointed to a large facility that sat right on the very edge of the ring overlooking the shimmering, blue void. It towered head and shoulders over the other facilities around it and it definitely looked like someone had gone to the trouble of fortifying the place. There were some guns and plating covering up various windows.

"That one."

Narala immediately stomped towards it, one hand pressed against her wound. "Wait!" I hissed.

She ignored me. I sighed and quickly caught up to her, grabbing her by the wrist. "Narala, stop."

The asari wrenched herself away from me. "They have Risha!" she hissed back. Biotic energy crackled between her fingers as she stared defiantly at me.

"And we'll find her," I promised. "But you need to keep a level head. You're in no condition to take point. You need to follow our lead and let us do our job."

Narala let out a desperate, little laugh. "And what exactly is your job, Spectre?" She said it like it was an insult. "Stopping groups like the Dawn? Saving people? Because if so then it looks like you're doing a pretty bad job from where I'm standing!"

I swallowed. My heart constricted in my chest.

"I know how important she is to you. We're going to find her and bring her back," I promised her lamely.

Narala scoffed and shook her head. "I've been alive for more than a hundred years and in all that time, I've only ever found one person – one – that I could actually give a damn about. In a galaxy of billions. Billions. Goddess… do you know what that's like?"

"No." I did to an extent – at first I had Elektra, then I had my crew, and then I had Cade and Percival and those two had been it for a large portion of my adult life. As hard as I might have thought that I'd had it I hadn't ever been truly alone the way Narala had.

"I didn't think so. No one else. Nobody. My so-called mother? She kept me in a monastery on Thessia for the first hundred years of my life with a bunch of asari nutjobs who had taken a vow of silence. My father died while I was locked up there and any siblings I might have had are probably also dead as well. The people on Omega – well, it's Omega. Risha is the only person I've met who has ever really cared about me."

"Why did you come to Omega?"

Narala crossed her arms. "I was finally old enough to leave Thessia by myself. I also thought that my mother might have finally grown to want me. Spoiler alert – she didn't. At least, not in the way I wanted. Omega came first, and she couldn't show the gangs that she had a place in her heart for me. Aria T'Loak cannot have a heart."

Narala stormed off again after that. "I'm going to find Risha," she promised. This time I let her go.

I felt a slim hand on my shoulder. Kel didn't have to say a word. I knew what she was thinking.

At least Narala had the presence of mind to wait for us a safe distance away. The Black Dawn headquarters was a veritable fortress. It wouldn't be easy.

I crouched down beside Narala. Kel soon joined me, Kiki slinking in beside her.

Kel's silver eyes met mine and I was reminded of what I had promised her. She slipped on her helmet.

"Kiki can cloak and scout for an entrance while we decide how we want to approach this."

I grunted in agreement and produced one of my knives. I spun it absentmindedly as I decided what to do.

"We're keeping things quiet until we can get Narala and Risha out," I finally told them.

"Why?" Kel immediately asked. She was eager put her family to rest.

Never did I think that I'd have to be the emotionally-stable one in a group. Cade and Percival had spoiled the ever-loving heck out of me. "If we start hot we're going to have a hard time getting Narala, Risha, and anyone else that might be in there out safely. We're going to make sure we get them out first. Then we will deal with the Dawn."

Kel still looked like she wasn't completely on board with my plan so I grabbed her shoulder. "Hey, remember what you asked me to do," I reminded her gently.

She finally relented. "You're right, I'm sorry."

"Good. Let me take lead. Narala, stay behind Kel and I.

"Okay," Narala replied.

"Kiki, did you find a way in?" The Geth cat-bot meowed as if to say 'yes' and put up a holo-display. There was a small garage at that back where they probably kept all their vehicles. Likely it was where they loaded up their victims as well, so if luck was on our side maybe Risha and the others wouldn't be stashed too far away.

"Hand me the locator," I asked. Kel slapped it in my palm – it was just a simple, small rectangular device with a screen that showed the distance, general direction, and elevation from the tracking device. There was no accounting for floor plans, etc, but that was to be expected given that there likely wasn't a good blueprint uploaded to the device.

"Are we ready?"

I slipped on my helmet. "Yes. We're going through the garage Kiki found."

There wasn't a perimeter guard, which set me on edge. The reasons could include hubris, incompetence, but also the fact that it might have been redundant to do so.

Kel halted us. "I'm picking up some cameras. Hold still, give me two minutes create a video loop."

"Sure." Guess it was leaning towards the latter. Still, physical guards were still a good rapid response force. Did they perhaps have mechs? Auto-turrets?

Two minutes passed by. I spent those minutes trying not to get lost in my own head. Beside me Narala looked as if she was struggling with the same thing.

"Done."

I almost sprang into action. We carefully made our way up to a pedestrian door just beside the larger, garage doors. When we were a few feet away I heard it click. My knife was already in my hand.

"Relax," Kel admonished. "That was me unlocking it."

I grunted in reply but kept my knife out. I opened the door.

The garage was a moderately-large one. It was dimly lit by a few struggling holo-strips lining the ceiling shedding their meager light. Inside were about a dozen, different transports parked in rows and the walls were lined with shelves holding various equipment. Some were hovercars but others were armored-personnel carriers meant to ferry larger amounts of passengers.

"Listen to my instructions at all times. Stay low, use the cars for cover. Narala - follow the path I take. Kiki, Kel, feel free to path however you want. Just don't engage unless I ask you to. Please."

I went down into a crouch and moved from car to car. Kel disappeared along with Kiki, and in that moment I was reminded just how much I missed my tactical cloak.

We were halfway through the garage when I heard a door open. I immediately held out a hand and I heard Narala fumbling to a stop behind me.

I peeked my head over the car I was hiding behind. A Black Dawn trooper strolled casually into the garage. It was still really late into the night and yet he was armed and armored, so the Dawn must have had guards – just not outside.

I ducked back down and waited, straining to hear his movements. I heard him open the driver-side door of a nearby hovercar and step inside. Was he leaving?

I waited for another twenty seconds but the hovercar still didn't start up. No one else followed either. Luck was on my side – maybe it was just a lone trooper catching a nap. Someone no one would be looking for if he went missing.

As carefully as I could I glanced into the hovercar he had entered. The trooper had taken off his helmet and was engrossed in a video playing on his omni-tool.

"I'll handle him," I told the others.

I swiftly opened the front passenger door.

"What? Who are—,"

He was dead before he could finish. I pulled him so he was lying down across the front row, wiped my knife clean on the seat and then quietly sealed the hovercar back up. He'd be impossible to spot unless someone looked directly through the window.

Luck was still on my side. Not two seconds later a second Black Dawn trooper stepped into the garage as well from the same door the first one had come in. I'd just managed to duck back down behind a car.

"Will?" the batarian grunted. "Will!? You better not be slacking off! The boss will have our asses!"

The batarian wasn't leaving. "By the Devils…" he muttered angrily. He stomped in and began to move from window to window, car to car, looking inside each of them for his comrade. Clearly that hadn't been the first time my victim had pulled something like this. I swore under my breath. Narala was still frozen where I had left her. If he continued his search he'd eventually find his friend or spot Narala.

I scrambled to get behind him without him seeing me, using his heavy footsteps to mask my approach. The batarian was a larger fellow — nearly a full foot taller than I was and half again as broad, almost as big as Revak Ghar'aran. I had to take him out quietly. A full-on confrontation would certainly attract lethal attention.

"Do you want us to take him out?"

"Negative, I got him. Watch the doors and take out anyone else that comes in."

I got into position just as he began moving to the car where I had hidden the first body. With time running out I launched myself into a sprint towards his back. Before he could turn around I took one step up onto the back of his knee and used his shoulder to pull myself up as high as I could. I augmented my strength with my biotics and drove my knife down into his neck. I must have hit his cervical spine as well because the batarian crumpled almost instantly.

I caught his falling body with a grunt and quickly stowed it in another hovercar. Narala brought over polymer storage container and placed it over the blood.

Kel materialized beside me. "You know, you don't have to do this all yourself."

I wiped my hands on my armor and checked the tracker again. It was directing us down a door marked 'maintenance'.

"I know," I replied. I left it at that. I don't know why but a part of me wanted to spare Kel as much blood on her hands as possible. A fool's wish, really, and maybe it was a wish I wasn't entitled to make. They had caused her so much pain. While the killing would only be a temporary relief, was I really entitled to deny her even that?

"Narala, stay close. Do not run off."

The door led us into a series of dimly-lit, narrow hallways filled with conduits and cabling and the odd storage closet. The air was stale and smelled of machine oil and ozone. There were a few doors leading towards other parts of the facility but the locator kept pulling us deeper and deeper down. I was half-expecting that we'd end up walking right through the other side of the ring and into open space.

I heard Narala come to a sudden stop behind me. "What's wrong?" I asked her.

"We're close," she breathed. Her pupils were dilated. "The smell, the lights…"

Narala immediately rabbited past me. I tried grabbing her but I failed. I was a fast guy but she was faster than even I was.

"Narala, stop!" I cursed.

She moved like a person possessed, with no need for the tracker now. Kel, Kiki and I followed in her wake as closely as we could, praying that no one would come in between us.

We rounded one final corner and almost collided with Narala, who had been standing stock-still at the mouth of a large, dim room where the only light to be found was that which was being given off by thin light-strips mounted on the ceiling that shed murky, red light.

Crudely-welded bars circled the perimeter of the room, sectioned off to create more than a dozen cells. There were broken cargo containers and old tarps scattered near the entrance where we were standing. The room must have been a storage at one point before being converted into a ghastly holding pen.

The scent of the air coming through my helmet's filters began to warp. Death and decay.

There was a mass of clothing or furniture in the middle but it was too dark to see. Kel said something in K'hellish and jets of bright light suddenly began to emit from lamps mounted onto Kiki. The mass in the middle of the room suddenly became visible to the four of us, sending us all into a state of shock.

Bodies. They were of all species and about thirty of them in various states of decomposition.

It felt like my heart stopped beating all at once. I tampered down the bile that immediately appeared in my throat and pulled out the locator. Fifteen meters it read… that couldn't be the mass grave. It had to be the cells lining the edges of the room. It had to be. The mass grave was only six – maybe seven meters away.

I strode purposefully around the grave. "The tracking disc isn't in there," I said.

Kiki panned her lights across the room. All of the cells were empty save for the one directly on the opposite side of the pile from where we had entered. Sitting inside with their heads buried in their arms were five people – two humans, a salarian, a turian and an asari. My heart leapt to life once more in my chest.

"Kiki, please!" I begged. The Geth appeared with a determined growl. I had no idea if Kiki was actually equipped to cut steel, but I wasn't in my right state of mind.

Turns out Kiki was equipped with what looked like plasma cutters. Quarian-Geth engineering was truly a marvel.

Several bars clattered to the floor and I ducked inside the cell. The five were in bad shape – in even worse shape than the people we had found at the other Black Dawn site, which made sense given that these were the ones that the Dawn had likely deemed unfit for sale.

I knelt down beside the asari. The other four immediately began to shirk away from me so I pulled off my helmet. "Risha, my name is Cloud. We're going to get you all out of here. Can you stand?"

The asari slowly lifted her head to look at me. Like the rest of the five she was little more than skin or bones, but I could still tell from her face that she was probably still in her maiden years.

Her eyes had been dull and dead. It took a short while for her to register what I had said, but once my words finally got through to her the life slowly began to return to them. She began to sob in relief.

I found myself smiling so hard my cheeks hurt. Thanks the gods. "Kel, can you and Kiki come check on the others? They're in really bad shape. Risha, come on, I don't suppose you—,"

"That's not Risha."

My heart plummeted so terrifyingly fast that my vision began to blacken, and it felt like someone had injected mercury into every cell that lay from the base of my neck to the bottom of my spine.

The asari in front of me stopped crying – she just continued to stare up at me with hopeful, unfamiliar eyes. The room was dead silent. Why was it so quiet?

I wasn't breathing. I didn't hear myself breathing. I slowly turned my head towards the mass grave looming behind me.

Narala was standing in front of it, facing it with her back towards me and her hands limp at her side.

Roiling, shimmering blue flame enveloped her. She dropped to her knees.

I darted over to her and pulled her into my chest just as a low moan began to escape her lips, ignoring the biotic energy that she was giving off. That moan morphed into several, heavy sobs. Seconds later Narala started to heave – letting off deep exhales that shook her entire body. Then came a low, rumbling growl.

"I'm going to kill them all!" She spat through gritted teeth. "I'm going to kill them – all of them! Every last one of them! I'm not going to stop until they're all fucking dead!"

Hearing that sent jets of lightning coursing through my veins. I got in front of her and grabbed her shouldesr.

"Narala, no," I said firmly. "I know it hurts. I know what it's like to lose someone you love—to lose the only person you love—"

She tried to wrestle herself away but I held on. "You don't know shit! Let me go!"

"—But you have no idea, no idea, the kind of danger you're in right now. No idea."

"By the Goddess – what are you talking about?! Let me go!" She began to struggle harder.

"Narala stop!" I begged. "Stop, please! Don't give in to it! Don't give in to your hate!"

She shoved me away and scrambled to her feet. Her fists were balled up and her biotic cloak got heavier. Kel took a few steps back and Kiki imposed herself between the two.

"It's too late! I fucking hate them! And I'm going to make sure that not a single one of those fuckers leaves this place alive! They killed my friend!"

I stood up as well. "Narala I mean it. You have no idea the kind of danger you're in. You have no idea what's going to happen to you If you give in to your hate now."

The asari scoffed. Her eyes were coated with tears that shimmered like sapphires beneath her biotic cloak. "What's going to happen to me?" she parroted back. "What's going to happen to me?! They killed my friend! — the only person I've ever cared about! Whatever you think is going to happen has already happened! Is going to happen!"

I shook my head. "If you kill them it won't stop what you're feeling right now. All of that pain and loss is going to just keep coming back again and again and again. If you kill them to try and make yourself feel better all it'll do is give you an appetite for it. You'll just look for someone else to hurt – someone else to kill just so you can feel whole for a while. And that cycle will happen again and again and again. You need to get rid of the poison before it can spread. Because it will consume you. Wholly."

Droplets of blood fell onto the ground around her. Crimson rivulets dribbled down her palms from where her nails had pierced her flesh. "So what – it's okay for you and for her to kill them, but I can't?" Narala said accusingly, her eyes darting between Kel and I. "Why? Why can't I? Why do I have to feel like this? Why can you go and hurt them and I can't?"

"Like I said, you need to get rid of the poison before it can spread. Once it's taken hold of you, there is… I don't know the way back. It's better to have never drank from the cup. Believe me."

"You're a fucking hypocrite!"

"I'm aware of how it sounds, but you have to believe me. I've been walking down the path you're staring down for most of my life and there is no happiness in it. None whatsoever."

I held up my hands and slowly inched towards her. "Please, Narala. Don't make the same mistakes that I did. You need to be stronger than I was. I'm not asking you to let go of your grief but you do need to let go of your hate right here and now. I know it seems impossible, but if you can do that – if you are strong enough to do that – only then will you be able to truly heal."

Her biotic cloak quivered and receded ever so slightly and a brief ray of hope wormed its way into my chest. I could see a thousand different thoughts and feelings warring with one another in Narala's eyes. No—that wasn't right. It was a fight between two versions of her, each of them born from one of two decisions.

The war raged on. My breath hitched in my chest. The seconds passed like hours until suddenly she let out a deep breath and the cloak vanished. She brushed away her tears with her bloody hands.

I let out a sigh of relief as well. I couldn't fathom the strength that she had in her. Maybe it was the Kitiarian blood in her. Gods I missed Cade.

"We… we need to get the survivors out of here first," she said shakily.

"Yes, we do."

Narala's gaze turned back onto the body of her friend. "You go get the other survivors ready," I hastily interjected. "I'll get Risha. We're not leaving her here."

The asari nodded appreciatively and made her way into the cell. "Kel, can you and Kiki give her a hand? They should all be able to fit into your skycar."

"You got it," Kel said. She moved towards the survivors as well but before she left she set a hand on my shoulder. "Do you really believe everything that you said to her?" she whispered.

I nodded.

Kel removed her helmet as well. "And what about me? Narala's right - you're a hypocrite."

I… had no good answer. None. Why had I fought so desperately to stop Narala and not Kel?

Our eyes met. Silver searched blue and vice versa. What made her different to me?

I couldn't voice a single reason but Kel didn't press any further. I broke away, brushed past her and picked up one of the tarps that had been laying at the entrance of the room and brought it back to where Risha was. I was no stranger to dead bodies, but the sight of hers drove daggers into my heart. She had probably been no older than Narala.

Her body lay atop the pile and looked to be in better shape than the others. She had only just recently passed. If we had been just a day or two earlier we might have saved her.

I gently removed Risha's body from the grave and wrapped it up in the tarp.

We did not encounter anyone on our way out – a blessing, given that the victims were in very poor condition. The journey was wordless. The sounds of soft crying and Kiki's mechanical servos were the only sounds that accompanied us on our way back to the skycar.

I placed Risha carefully into the trunk of the skycar and sighed. "Narala, take them up to Docking Bay Epsilon. My ship is docked there. Look for Cade Kitiarian and Lancelot Percival. They'll be able to help you. Tell them I sent you."

"Sure," she said quietly. She looked down at the body of her friend. "Cloud… I…. I couldn't save her."

"No. You couldn't. But it's not your fault. It may take a while for you to come to realize that but… it doesn't make it less true."

"I already know everything you think I need to hear. I'm not stupid."

I gave a small smile. "I know you're not. Far from it Narala. You're an impressive woman."

I took it as a good sign that she could still manage to blush.

"You'd make a good Spectre you know. You've got a good head and back there, you proved you've got a good heart. A better one than mine."

Her eyes told me she was skeptical, but I could see a sliver of hope there as well. "Really? You think I would?"

"Yes."

She bit her lip. "I thought Spectres were usually hand-picked from combat units. Commandos, Blackwatch, STG, N7s… I don't have any military experience."

I shrugged. "Not always. I didn't. Neither did a good friend of mine and several others actually. Sometimes certain individuals are selected merely because they have desirable skillsets. So long as you have the endorsement of a counselor or an ambassador the Spectres will consider you seriously as a candidate."

"And who endorsed an unhinged bastard like you?"

"Believe it or not… it was both Primarch Vakarian and the former-councilor Bagan." The former could never deny his little protégé anything and Bagan had been so star struck with Percival that he would have accepted a vorcha into the Spectres if he had asked him.

Narala shook her head, as if she still did not believe that the version of her that I could see could ever exist. "I've never even fought someone before…"

"You'll live ten times as long as I will," I chuckled. "Plenty of time to learn. Plus, don't underestimate the family line you come from." Personally I think all of that talk about 'bloodlines' and inherited traits and what-not is complete drivel, but the Kitiarians are an anomaly. They're the exception that proves the rule.

"Excuse me," a small voice suddenly said. The two of us turned to see the asari I had mistaken for Risha standing behind us.

"Are you okay? Can we help you?"

The asari held out her hand. Sitting in her palm was a small, circular chip. It was the tracking disc.

"Your friend – Risha you said her name was? She gave that to me before the sickness got her. She said that as long as I held onto that, her friend would come and find her. Now I understand that it was you she was talking about," she dipped her head at Narala.

She dropped it into Narala's palm. It was a small, metal disc no larger than a coin.

"She was very brave," the asari continued. "She kept all our spirits up with her stories. She never stopped believing that you would come for us, not even while we were all dying one by one. She never lost hope."

Narala swallowed and nodded. "Risha was always like that. She was very strong. She used to talk for hours and hours about all the things that she and I would do and the worlds we would visit once we left Omega. Hearing her talk would erase whatever troubles that I might have had on my mind at the time."

She held out the tracking disc to me. "Here," she said.

I cautiously took it from her. "Are you sure you don't want to keep it?"

Narala shook her head. "No. I don't need that to remember Risha. I'll honor her my own way. Did you really mean what you said? That I might make a good Spectre?"

I thought back to the best Spectres I knew and the kind of people that they had been. "On my life," I swore.

She gave me a look and then nodded at me, and then she gestured for the other asari to get into the skycar with the other passengers. Narala put one foot inside of the car, and then turned back to me.

"I want to honor her, but I won't let vengeance or hatred be the reason I do it," she said. "Thank you, Cloud…Thank you for helping me find Risha—and thank you for putting me on a different path."

With that, Narala left with the other survivors.

I took a deep, trembling breath and let it out in a long, slow exhale. Now it was just Kel, Kiki and I standing alone in a dark street amidst a number of abandoned buildings. The mass effect field that encompassed the entirety of the inner-area of the ring platform was just a short distance away from us, bathing the entire area in a heavy curtain of blue light.

Kel walked up beside me. "She'll make it," she said.

"She shouldn't have any issues reaching my ship."

"Not what I meant."

I knew exactly what Kel had meant, but I just hadn't wanted to say otherwise. I didn't want to jinx it.

I turned to her. "So, do you have a plan that doesn't involve me taking on hundreds of Black Dawn?" Kel must have had some kind of plan, because if she hadn't managed to enlist my help she would have had to do all of this herself.

The QSI operative knelt down beside Kiki and punched something into her omni-tool. A secret compartment built into Kiki's body slid open. Kel reached in and produced a canister about the length of her forearm.

My eyebrows shot up. "You were going to poison them?"

"No," she shook her head. "This is an airborne neurotoxin but it's non-lethal. It will distort their senses, cause headaches, nausea, vomiting, migraines and even muscle weakness—but it won't kill them. It will be most effective against asari, turians, and salarians and decently effective against humans and batarians. It will slow down a krogan but it won't affect vorcha at all."

"Why didn't you just make it lethal?" I frowned.

"Too difficult, especially if I wanted to make it capable of penetrating a helmet's air filters," she said, but I could tell that she was lying. Didn't need a degree in biochemistry or engineering to figure that one out.

Didn't need more than a few brain cells to figure out why she wanted to make it non-lethal either.

A dark shadow hung over the two of us. Why? Why hadn't I tried to do for Kel what I had done for Narala?

Kel suddenly appeared behind me and I felt a sharp pinprick in the side of my neck. "Ah!"

"It's the antidote, so the neurotoxin doesn't affect you as well. Kiki and I will infiltrate back in and release the neurotoxin into their life support system. Once that's done, you can go in."

"And do what?" I asked. Although I knew the answer, the thought of it left a bad taste in my mouth. I'd be walking into fortress filled with mostly-incapacitated Black Dawn.

She looked into my eyes. Blue and silver clashed once again.

"You will become Death," she whispered.

I gave her a grim nod. I remembered what the Dawn had done to both Narala and Kel and the doubts vanished. There would be no mercy – not for them. Thank the gods Percival and Cade weren't here because they would have never condoned what I was about to do.

But they didn't know what it felt like. They didn't know what it felt like to hurt like that.

I truly hoped with every fibre of my being that Narala had left all of her hate down here. I truly hoped that she was free of it.

Because I was going to bury the Black Dawn with it.