Chapter 67 – Ships in the Night

1559 hours, April 10th, 2211 — Omega Nebula, Sahrabarik System, Omega

Location Unknown – somewhere on Omega

(Spectre Operative 04272182-Cloud)

Kel sat wordlessly on the edge of our bed. The room's only source of illumination was a shaft of light that had found its way through our window and bathed her back in crimson. I couldn't tear my eyes away.

I lay beside her seated half-upright, leaning against a pillow and the backboard with my arms crossed. For the past few minutes I'd been content with admiring the smooth contours of her back. Now however her silence was starting to worry me.

"Is everything okay?" I asked her.

Kel's head dipped and I tensed.

"I can't stop thinking about them," she said, in a voice so low that I could just barely pick out her words. "About the Dawn. About what we did..."

I was about to go to her when instead she turned and began to crawl towards me. She uncrossed my arms, pressed herself into me and began to feather my neck with kisses in an attempt to restart a sequence that had already played itself out multiple times today. She was so intoxicating I could hardly breathe. It took all the willpower I had to gently move her away.

"Kel'Raynea, no. Stop." I knew what she was doing. Her lips ceased their ministrations and she looked at me with her luminous, silver eyes. "Let's talk."

She retreated and sat back onto her heels, biting her lips. Even now I couldn't help but marvel at how beautiful she was. She was slender like most of her people and yet she moved with an athletic grace that I found utterly hypnotizing. No human could ever naturally possess the dark, purple hair that she had, and her pale, violet skin made her seem otherworldly – almost ethereal.

I swallowed to suppress my desire and instead waited patiently for her to open up.

"Is this… how you feel all the time?" she eventually asked me.

"What do you mean?" I asked her, but I knew what she meant. The answer was yes.

She waved a hand. "Anger… sadness… loss?"

"Not all the time," I said with as much conviction as I could muster. "It… it's there, yes, but you'll feel other things too. Sometimes it doesn't hurt. Sometimes you'll feel peace."

Those feelings would always come back though. Those feelings would hide right beneath your skin just waiting for their opportunity to tear their way through to the surface.

"Peace… you mean the temporary respite that you buy with blood."

I winced. "Yes."

That damned, poisonous cycle. How many times had I wished that I had found a better way to cope with it all? Thousands. I should have known better—I did know better—but sometimes the gap between knowing you have a problem and doing something about it or fixing it was unimaginably wide.

But, the cycle kept working and so I kept doing it. At least along the way I got to protect innocent people. Or so I told myself.

The look of anguish that had now appeared on her face was so raw that I couldn't help but feel her pain as if it were my own.

"Do you… regret what we did?" I ventured hesitantly.

Something new and heavy and uncomfortable was coalescing in my chest now. Guilt— guilt over not having fought harder to deter her from this path. Back on the ring, Kel had seen how hard that I had fought for Narala's future and she had called me a hypocrite for not fighting that hard for hers. I hadn't consciously understood why that had been the case then. When she kissed me was when I finally understood why.

Selfish. Monstrous.

"I—," she began, but stopped abruptly. "The only thing I've ever wanted ever since I lost my family was to destroy the Black Dawn."

"And we did," she swallowed. "We didn't just destroy them. We slaughtered them. Like animals."

"We did," I agreed.

She squeezed her fists tight. "And instead of elation… instead of relief I just feel… it just feels like the hole in my chest has only gotten wider."

"They were bad people Kel."

"They were but they weren't animals. They did horrible things but they were still people. They probably laughed. They probably loved. They might have had families. They had hopes and dreams."

I nodded. "Like every other person in the galaxy."

"And we killed them. All of that — all they were or could have been — gone."

That was what this was then. The sobering aftermath. The realization that people could be monsters and monsters could still be people. The realization that the price we paid for our peace wasn't always going to be a clean one. Kel had tried to stave it off for as long as she could with me, but it had caught up to her eventually.

I sat up and I took her hands in mine. "Yes, we killed them Kel. We killed them all," I said. "But look at what they had done. Look at how much pain they've caused. How many bodies did you see down there? How many more would have died if we hadn't stopped them? Their victims were people too. They had families. They had hopes and dreams. Risha was going to travel the galaxy with Narala—,"

She gave a bleak chuckle and turned her gaze upwards. "What's so funny?" I asked her.

She looked back at me. "When we first met, back at Afterlife. All I could think about was how you might be of use to me."

"And?"

"I used you to hunt down the Dawn. I used you to destroy them. I didn't care what happened to you. I even almost got you killed during the skycar chase, remember?"

"Okay, and?"

"After I felt terrible for putting innocent lives at risk for my revenge I used you to assuage my guilt. You told me what I wanted to hear. I treated you like you were a safeguard for my own soul when what you really were was an excuse to keep on going."

Kel shivered. "And you — you knew what I was getting into. You knew what would happen to me if I went through with my revenge. Sure, you tried to talk me out of it at first and I genuinely thought that I had been the one who had managed to convince you to let me embark down this road, but when I saw how passionately and how hard you fought to prevent Narala from doing the same thing I realized that you might not have actually wanted to stop me at all."

"You could have stopped me but you didn't," she continued. "No – you wanted me to destroy the Dawn. Deep down you wanted me to feel what you were feeling. And now I know why."

Again, monstrous and selfish.

"You didn't want to be alone with your pain anymore."

I turned away from her, ashamed. My hypocrisy had not been forgotten after all. Every word out of her mouth was the truth, whether I wanted to admit it or not.

"Where are you going with this?"

"We're dangerous to one another. Toxic."

A cold chill ran down my spine. This was it then. She was going to leave me. She was going to leave before we turned one another into something truly terrifying.

And I couldn't blame her. I wouldn't try to stop her either no matter how badly I wanted to. No. I had to at least do this one thing right. This one thing.

I turned and kept my gaze fixed on the door so I wouldn't have to look at her face and into her eyes. My things were all neatly stacked in a chair by the door. I could be out before I needed to take another breath. This was all that we had to be. Just two ships passing one another in the dark of the night. A look, a touch, and then darkness and silence once again. At least then she would be safe from me.

"Do you… want me to leave?" I asked her. She didn't have to be the one who had to leave. I could give that to her too.

I heard the rustling of the bedsheets. A pair of soft, warm hands gently cupped my face and turned my head and I suddenly found myself ensnared in her eyes once more. They were like pools of liquid moonlight. All of a sudden I was drowning.

"That's the thing. I don't. I don't ever want you to leave. I've never felt about anyone the way I feel about you."

The next thing I knew she was straddling me and I was conscious of almost nothing except the feel of her bare, silky skin against mine. My heart was hammering in my chest and my head was swimming from her touch.

"You told me you didn't know how to break the cycle you're in," Kel whispered.

"No…" I swallowed.

"And now I'm in it. With you."

"With me," I agreed softly. Ghosts began to appear one by one around us as the guilt began to overwhelm me. Each of them was wearing a familiar face. I had condemned Kel to the same half-life that I was living because I could no longer bear to live it alone.

"Maybe we can break it together."

What?

"Let's leave it."

I blinked at her. "How?"

"I don't know," she admitted. Her eyes searched my chest. "But we'll figure it out you and I. Together I know we can. Let me help you."

She gave me a long, lingering kiss that threatened to stop my heart right then and there.

"Let me save you this time," she whispered.

The ghosts disappeared, one by one.

1951 hours, April 10th, 2211 — Omega Nebula, Sahrabarik System, Omega

(Jack "Grimjaw" Lapierre, formerly known as "Grin")

Location Unknown – somewhere on Omega

Grin set a hand on the graffiti-ridden wall to steady himself while he caught his breath. The gangster was covered in a sheen of foul-smelling sweat. He had been on the run for almost a full station day now, fumbling through the hundreds of alleys that writhed throughout Omega towards the centre of the station where the skyscrapers were thickest and the ceiling highest. It was the most densely-populated part of the station. He'd be safest there, and he could lay low until his pursuer lost interest or was pulled away by other circumstances.

His eyes darted over his shoulder, his gaze flitting between the shadows that had been dogging his steps ever since he'd left all of his friends behind to die. Was it the effects of the fog or was it him? Grin had been seeing things during his escape. Hellish things. Demons and monsters and people he had killed and others who he hadn't but had been dead for years all the same. The Black Fog had not fully worn off yet but with each passing hour Grin was getting better and better. The sporadic vomiting had been helping as well.

As if on cue he vomited once more, purging more of the poison out. Grin wiped his mouth with a trembling hand, pausing to observe the tremors running through his fingers. He then starting to laugh to himself.

The laughter mounted, shrill and unhinged. He was facing another problem as well – dehydration. Between it, the fog, and the lack of sleep and food Grin found himself close to his physical breaking point. He had to keep moving. The alley here was too narrow, too closed-off. There was nowhere to run or hide or slip away.

Grin pushed off from the wall and started to continue down the alley with shaky steps, his mind dull and unfocused from the weight of his tribulations.

He rounded a corner and collided with something big. Panic flooded his body before his ass could even hit the dirty, polysteel floor.

"Watch where you're going, human!"

Grin looked up. A swarthy, broad-shouldered batarian towered over him with a heavy scowl.

The batarian squinted down at him, taking in Grin's malformed visage. "Devils, you're an ugly one. Here."

The batarian hawked and Grin felt something warm and viscous hit his cheek. "There, that should pretty you up," the batarian chuckled. He deliberately checked Grin in the shoulder with his shin as stomped past him, knocking him flat onto his back once more onto the trash-ridden floor.

Grin's began to shake so hard that his teeth started to rattle. Red clouded his vision. He wrapped his fingers around the neck of a broken bottle that was laying off to the side and rose to his feet with a wide grin. Each breath he took whistled sharply through the jagged ruin of his right cheek.

Grin turned. The batarian had his back turned from him.

"And who the hell are you?"

A figure was standing in the shadows beyond the batarian. A pair of electric, icy blue eyes were gazing out from behind the darkness. Grin felt the bloodlust drain out of him in an instant, to be replaced with a new emotion. The broken bottle fell from his limp fingers.

"I said, who the hell are—,"

The sharp scent of ozone filled the air and the batarian was suddenly bathed in a bright, blue light, halting him mid-sentence.

Grin turned and began to run. He sprinted down the alley towards the way the batarian had come from, praying that it would open up into an area where he could disappear and hide.

He hooked a left and soon came upon a small, unkempt little square nestled between a cluster of towering skyscrapers. His was the only soul in sight. Above him the ceiling of the station lay hundreds of meters away, the lights there twinkling like stars. Four more alleys branched off from the square.

The shadows were closing in. Grin picked an alley at random and dashed down it.

He made a few more random turns through a series of dilapidated alleyways, trying desperately to throw off his pursuer. His breaths were coming out in ragged gasps now.

A door suddenly appeared off to the side of the alley he was running down. Grin prayed to every being he knew that it was unlocked.

He pushed through it and found himself in the dark bowels of a half-constructed building. Grin was so happy that he could have cried. Light filtering in from grimy windows revealed unfinished polysteel flooring and construction equipment. Most of the interior walls were not yet complete so Grin could almost see straight through the building to the other side. Directly on the opposite side was a fire exit.

Grin put his back to the wall right beside the door and slid down onto the floor. He covered his mouth with his hands while he attempted to catch his breath in the darkness. He began to pray once more – this time for the door to remain shut.

The door began to creak open.

Grin pushed himself to his feet with a sob and dashed towards the fire exit on the other side. His footsteps and ragged panting echoed throughout the unfinished interior. As he passed through he pulled down whatever equipment he could into the path of his pursuer. He nearly lost his footing several times in the dark, and those moments where Grin felt his balance escaping him were moments of sheer terror unlike anything that Grin had felt before.

He smashed the other door open with his shoulder and let out a hiss as his foot sank into a puddle. Grin found himself in another alley. This one was wider and darker than the others. Huge pipes dripping with condensation ran high above the alley, obscuring the ceiling and the lights above.

He looked around. Puddles of black, murky water dotted the entire length of the alley in both directions as far as Grin could see. Trash lay strewn everywhere, some of it floating atop the pools.

Footsteps—slow and measured—started up behind him in the half-finished building he had just come exited, growing louder and louder with each step. Grin began to run down the alley. A muffled, robotic voice coming from a speaker somewhere that Grin couldn't see announced something that he couldn't quite hear, and the next thing he knew he was being covered by a continuous spray of water. In fact, the whole alley was being covered in water coming from sprinklers set in the pipes running above.

An armored figure rounded a corner some distance ahead and stopped casually in the center of the alley, right in the middle of Grin's path. When Grin realized who it was, he slowed his run and eventually stopped, his hands on his knees.

The water fell like rain around the two of them, masking the sounds of the cityscape above. Cloud smiled at him. "Hello again, Grin," he said.

"How?" Grin panted. "How did you find me? How? How-how-how-how-how?"

Cloud pulled out a small, rectangular device with a screen and held it up. With his other hand he pointed at Grin's pocket.

A shiver ran down Grin's spine. He reached a trembling hand into his pocket and he felt his fingers brush against something small and circular sitting right at the bottom of it.

He pulled it out and looked down. It was a tracking disc.

"Courtesy of a friend of mine. I wanted to make sure that the Dawn didn't have another base hidden somewhere else on the station. Figured if I slipped it on you and let you go you might take me to them."

Cloud tucked away the tracker and pulled out a pistol, though he kept its barrel pointed towards the floor. "But you didn't have anywhere to go. You didn't have anyone to run to. There's no one else left, is there? I've been following you for hours now, watching you wander around like a lost dog. Like an animal..."

His voice trailed off somewhat towards the end of that last sentence. Cloud seemed to be taken back by his own words but he soon shook it off. Whatever that hesitation had been, it was not Grin's deliverance.

"It's time to put you down, Grin. For good this time."

Grin wanted to cry but what came out was a laugh instead. Grin looked up and laughed as the water streamed down his face. He laughed and he laughed and he laughed until he was no longer making any sound at all.

Grin dropped to his knees. The water was one final blessing from some a deity who must have taken a liking to Grin. Grin felt it wash away all the pain and fear and despair and anger that he had been wearing around his neck like a chain, weighing him down. He felt the water strip it all away until he felt as naked and as clean as the day he came into this world.

Eventually he stopped laughing, though his smile remained on his ravaged face. "You want to know something, Cloud?"

Cloud shifted, glaring warily at him from behind damp hair and the rain. "What?"

Grin looked at him. "I don't regret anything. Nothing at all. Not a single moment of it," he breathed. Grin's voice was exuberant and giddy, like he was confiding something intimate and clandestine with a lover.

"Oh you should have joined us, Cloud. You should have joinedus. The drugs, the sex, the money? The last five years on Omega have been some of the bestyears of my life. Charles was no visionary but he was a black hole of gluttony and lust and greed. We reaped it all. When it came to pursuing life's pleasures he was inspired."

The water continued to fall like rain. "I presume he's dead now. It's a shame. He brought such joy to my life."

Grin shook his head. His eyes gleamed. "And the people I've killed? Ecstasy. Sheer Ecstasy. The fear in their eyes— the way that some would beg and pray or claw at the dirt and the way others would fight me tooth and nail…. The way some would just give up while others would scream and scream and scream up until the very moment their lives ended… All of it was nourishment. Sustenance. It all filled this gaping, hungering hole in me."

Cloud had not moved or said a word. He simply stood there with his pistol still pointed at the ground. Drops of water travelled down its barrel one by one, stopping when they reached its end. There they would cling desperately for a moment before letting go. Grin felt a moment of kinship. Like sand in an hourglass.

"And yet I still hunger," Grin continued. "Even If I were to somehow escape you today, you know what Cloud? I wouldn't change a single thing. I'd keep doing it. All of it. I'd keep on killing and I'd keep on stealing and murdering and raping and I would love and cherish every single moment of it."

The madman let out a long, wistful sigh. "But it's all over now. Cloud…I've seen and done things you wouldn't believe. I've bathed in rivers of suffering. I've shattered families and lives like glass. Men, women, children, fathers, mothers, brothers, daughters… I've pushed the boundaries of human depravity to their utter limits. If you had seen what I'd seen and done what I'd done it would kill every last shred of faith that you might have in the existence of a benevolent god and shatter any remaining hope you have in the inherent good of humanity."

Grin squeezed his eyes shut. He'd hold onto it all right up to the very end. The water rolling down his cheeks tasted of salt. "What I wouldn't give for more time. All gone now… all gone…all those memories. Lost. Like tears in the rain…"

When he opened his eyes again, Cloud had moved. His pistol was now pointed right at Grin's chest.

"Time for me to go I suppose. It's been fun. Remember me, won't you Cloud?"

Cloud fired.

2004 hours, April 10th, 2211 — Omega Nebula, Sahrabarik System, Omega

(Spectre Operative 04272182-Cloud)

Location Unknown – Somewhere on Omega

My first shot seared through Risha's chest. Her ghost disappeared in a swirl of smoke with a smile. My next one hit Astrid. She too gave me the same, sad smile and then left to join Risha.

I pulled the trigger a third time and Sarah disappeared as well. Then the technician, and then what felt like countless others. Everyone I had ever let down.

I kept firing. I heard a hiss and the shots ceased as my pistol's heatsink overheated. There was just one more face now.

The rain was making it harder and harder to see and my hand – usually so steady and sure – was trembling fiercely.

My pistol stopped hissing and I pulled the trigger one more time. The last face disappeared as well.

And there knelt Grin, looking at me with that wretched smile of his.

It wasn't enough. I yelled and trained the barrel of my pistol back onto Grin's chest. My biotics flared up response, wreathing me in blue flames that sizzled and smoked underneath the rain. How many people had he killed? Dozens? Hundreds? How many would he go on to kill if I didn't pull the trigger right here and now?

Kill him. Kill him now. Kill him before he kills anyone else. You can save them. You can save them all. Their lives are in your hands. You can bring them back. Only you. You. Only you can save them.

The voices in my head began to speak all at once, accompanied again by a sharp ache in my head. It swelled and then came crashing down on me like a tsunami and I was almost taken to my knees by the sheer weight of it. This time was different. This time I could almost feel their presence outside of my mind. In the real world. Surrounding me. Watching me.

What was happening to me? Was I going crazy?

A slim hand wrapped gently around my trembling one and pushed it down so that the barrel of my pistol was no longer aimed at Grin's chest. The pain and the hate and the anger receded with every passing second of her touch. My biotic cloak disintegrated. The feel of her skin against mine was driving the heat out of every cell in my body.

"Don't do it, Cloud. Don't feed it. It has to stop somewhere. Let it be here. Let it start with him."

Kel had her helmet off as well. She looked up at me with her glowing, silver eyes. The rain ran in rivulets down her cheeks and had plastered her hair against her face. I always seemed to have trouble breathing whenever my eyes lay on her.

Her eyes were pleading with me to let Grin live – to let live the man who had been probably been instrumental in the death of her entire family.

I could hear her unspoken words. If I wanted to break the cycle I had to take that first step. If I could stop myself from killing someone like him – well, the rest would be easy.

And I had to do it not just for me but for her too. I had to show her that I was willing to follow her out of this cycle.

I holstered my pistol with a shaky breath. Then I stormed over to Grin and kneed him in the face, hard. His eyes rolled over in his head and he fell over.

Grin wasn't dead though. Baby steps.

Kiki appeared with a pair of handcuffs in her mouth. I took them with a nod and cuffed him. Embarrassingly enough I had to struggle a bit at first to figure out how they worked. I didn't usually cuff the bad guys.

Still, I could feel Kel's eyes on the back of my head the entire time and I could sense what she was feeling in the moment. Inside myself however I felt… good? It was not like the savage euphoria I'd get from a kill. This did not feel the same. The pain disappeared like it usually would but I felt different this time afterward. Cleaner.

It was hard to explain.

Baby steps.

2052 hours, April 10th, 2211 — Omega Nebula, Sahrabarik System, Omega

(Spectre Operative 04272182-Cloud)

Location Unknown – Somewhere on Omega

How long had that those hovercars been following us? I could have sworn they had been tailing us ever since we had lifted off with Grin in the back seat. It couldn't have been Cade or Percival. Neither of them would have organized a tail comprised of five different hovercars. They would have known that I would have picked up on something like that.

A shadow suddenly appeared overhead, piercing through the glass roof of our hovercar and began to slowly eclipse the interior in darkness. The shadow of a beast with many hands.

A chill ran down my spine and I began to look up.

"Cloud, watch out!"

The shadow disappeared and I immediately tore my eyes back through the front windshield. I jerked the controls and just narrowly managed to avoid slamming into an oncoming hovercar.

"Gods. Kel, can you enable the autopilot?"

She pursed her lips and then nodded. Her fingers danced across her omni-tool and I could feel the controls begin to move of their own accord.

My fingers felt limp. I let go of the controls and leaned back in my seat. "Are you okay?"

I pressed the palms of my hands against my eyes. What was going on with me? "Yeah. Just tired I guess."

"It's not my fault, is it?" came the coy reply.

I couldn't help but smile out from beneath my hands. "Maybe. Could be."

"Look at me."

I removed my hands and turned towards her. Kel's eyebrows tightened and she leaned in. "You're getting some pretty bad dark circles under your eyes. Worse than yesterday."

I pulled down a mirror and checked it out for myself. I didn't think it looked that bad.

The hovercars seemed to have disappeared along with the shadow. I slunk further back into my seat with a sigh. It was probably just the effects of prolonged combat stress. Overexposure to cortisol could do some strange things. It felt like I had been on Omega for a lifetime already.

It was the night of the tenth right now. We had won over the cooperation of the gangs and we had found Aria's daughter with a few days to spare. Maybe I could take a little break before they showed up.

Sometime during the ride, Grin woke up and began to threaten us. It was hard to hear what he was saying from where he was in the back of the trunk. There was some mentioning of flaying and disemboweling and I think necrophilia but it all was lost on the three of us. Even Kiki looked bored in the backseat.

You can't really hear the dead talk, and Grin was as good as dead to us.

We eventually landed at our destination. I cautiously surveyed the surroundings before I popped open my door. Although the tails had disappeared I still couldn't shake the feeling that I was being watched.

I popped open the trunk and Grin immediately tried to leap out and make a run for it, but he stopped himself when he realized where we were. When that realization hit he began to hyperventilate. Then he let out a scream. I almost laughed.

I punched him in the face hard just to stun him and shut him up and then I began hauling him up the steps leading to the infamous Afterlife, Aria T'loaks seat of power. Bystanders and civilians lining up outside the notorious bar were watching me with curious eyes that were filled with more than a little bit of fear. But, they gave me a wide berth and that was what I needed. Aria's guards however didn't look surprised to see me. They gave me a wide berth as well.

About halfway up the steps Grin found his faculties again. Instead of threatening us this time he began to beg and plead. Kel and I ignored him. He emptied his bladder just as we were about to enter through the doors. His legacy to the people of Omega.

Once we were inside his incessant pleading was drowned out by the overbearing electronic bass music. That was one small blessing I suppose. Grin continued to struggle right up until we passed the main entrance hallway and into the bar proper, where he finally went catatonic and seemed to accept his fate. He didn't even look at the dancers up on the hanging stage above us. Grin must have been taking his fate pretty hard.

A large, older batarian standing outside the hallway that led to Aria's private quarters waved us over – Moklan, I think Shepard had called him. He didn't even seem fazed at the sight of Grin but his eyes did light up in surprise when he spotted Kel standing beside me in black quarian combat armor.

Moklan jerked his head over his shoulder. "Aria's waiting." Kel and I nodded and we went in. Moklan followed behind us with a quartet of guards that had appeared out of nowhere.

I burst through the security doors into Aria's private chambers, dragging Grin behind me. Aria was sitting at the head of her massive, oak table with one leg cocked over the armrest of her chair. She was holding a crystal decanter with some kind of light-blue liquor in one hand. Seated to her right was Narala.

"Cloud!"

"Well well well," Aria purred. "When Narala came back without you I was surprised. I thought for sure that you'd be there to collect on my side of the deal. Enjoy your honeymoon?"

I didn't give her the satisfaction of a response. Instead I yanked a chair out from under the table and shoved Grin into the seat.

Aria seemed amused by my little outburst. "And who is that?"

"Grin... Grimjaw… Hells, I don't know what he's calling himself nowadays. He's a Black Dawn lieutenant."

Aria cocked an eyebrow. "The Black Dawn? So they're the ones who took my —,"

"—Yeah," I cut her off. Aria's other eyebrow joined its twin. "Don't worry though. The Black Dawn's gone now. Saved you a little piece of it though."

Judging by the disgruntled huffs coming from Aria's men behind me Aria didn't take too kindly to people interrupting her. Her smile stayed though. The crime lord snapped her fingers and two batarians came and pulled Grin out of his chair. They began dragging him away. The pleading and howling erupted once more and did not stop until Aria's men had taken him far, far away – too far to hear anymore.

I didn't spare him one last look.

"I asked you to find my daughter and you not only find her, you wiped out the group who did it and you brought one of them back so I could use him to send a message. I must admit, Spectre, I am impressed."

That hadn't actually been a factor but hey. "I aim to please."

"Well, if you ever need a job…"

I crossed my arms.

Aria narrowed her eyes but that bemused look never left her face. "Okay," she shrugged. Aria snapped her fingers. A second later Kel's omni-tool and mine both let out a little chime.

I glanced down and I almost choked. I had just received the largest credit transfer I had ever received by almost half a dozen zeros. It was more credits than I could spend in five lifetimes. Behind me Kel squealed. How many credits did Aria T'Loak have?

I looked back at Aria. There was no way I could accept this. "Aria, you didn't have to—,"

Aria held up a hand. "No, I did." Her cocky expression wavered and then disintegrated, and I was once again left with the version of Aria that had asked me to find her daughter.

Her eyes misted. "Cloud.. you don't… I don't think you know what you and your friend there have done for me. You brought me back my daughter."

Narala look at her mother with wide eyes.

"I think it's time for me to re-affirm what my priorities are, here on Omega," Aria said to the room, though her eyes were fixed on her daughter. "I'm sure some may see an opportunity there for disagreement, but if that happens I think that those individuals will find that I will be making liberal use of the opportunities that will also arise to… re-educate."

She seemed to be looking at the batarians behind me. Moklan's breathing was steady but I could hear at least one batarian shifting uneasily.

"Those who mistake this decision as a weakness will soon learn what Omega does to—,"

Aria's gaze suddenly flicked towards the large window that spanned one whole side of the room. Instinctively I did the same.

A small crater maybe a few centimeters wide suddenly appeared on the outer surface of the window, a spider-web of cracks extending from it. Beyond, an armored figure materialized on the rooftop a short distance across from us holding a long rifle in its hands.

Aria blazed blue and the next thing I knew I was flying backwards. A split-second later the crater exploded and another hole appeared in the wall opposite the window.

The intended trajectory of the projectile was not lost on me.