Mass Effect: Plan for the Galaxy

by bored peasant

I was chosen because I had thought it through and because I knew what pain and suffering was. Now I have the chance to see if my ideas can help Shepard save the galaxy. SI.

18. Chapter 18

A/N Standard disclaimer

Hello again loyal readers. Thank you for your patience. This chapter has been a long time coming but it is finally here.

One thing I want to address that seems to have caused a little confusion, the SI/OC is not slash. Sorry if that bums some people out but that is not what I see for that character. I would have thought some people would have realised that by now but apparently I made it a little too obscure.

Also, we start going now into the part of the story where things begin to happen. Building is still going on but now it is starting to be mixed with new events. I hope that they live up to your expectations.

Comments:

ZooFan, frankieu, dragonbxl, RIOSHO, Ashborn2271, Praetus Azrael Antairian, Candyking117, kossboss, HoangKimVu, Guest 1&2, swrWriter, general-joseph-dickson, davycrockett100, Rune Landel – thank you all for your reviews. They help this story stay alive.

CaedmonCousland – thank you for your descriptive review. Glad you like the story. Yeah, maybe I rushed the volus a little but I think it is more of a boost. Besides, it was only a conversation with one volus, not the entire government. And I agree with you, I don't really like it when a character is deliberately made stupid. I prefer to keep characters somewhat realistic…well, as realistic as they can be considering this is a fictional universe.

DahakStaz – Oooh don't want to give too much away on that because it would possibly cause spoilers. Still, I agree with you that the mechs are not what I would have thought would be pinnacle of technology in an advanced civilisation but they won't be the focus of this.

On with the story!

…

CHAPTER 18 – THE SLAVE MARKET

Garrus looked over dubiously at Chellick. Then he looked back at the sign.

"Really?" he drawled. "This is the one that Bailey told us we should check out?"

"Yeah," the flanged sceptical reply came. "Said we'd thank him for it."

"He does realise that it is old though, right? As in, pre-space colonisation, at least for them. And old stuff like this doesn't usually stand up to the test of time."

"I know Garrus," Chellick sighed. "But he was rather insistent."

Garrus flexed his mandibles in scepticism. The whole thing seemed a bit too pretentious for him, which was saying something when it came to human names.

After all, who names a vid 'Die Hard'?

"Oh well," Garrus said, feeling the twinge of resignation. "Might as well get it over with. At least it will get Bailey off our backs."

"Yeah," Chellick sighed again.

With that, they made their reluctant way into public vid theatre.

Two and a half hours later, they emerged from the darkened theatre back into the artificial daytime provided by the Citadel. Garrus was twitching. Chellick was twitching. They made their way slowly to a café that was barely a hundred metres from the entrance to the vid theatre and sat down without talking. They just sat there for a good five minutes, both staring into space, not even noticing when as asari waitress came over to them to take their orders and left looking slightly alarmed at their behaviour.

"That… that was…," Chellick breathed.

"Yeah," Garrus agreed fervently, almost reverently. "That was…"

"The best cop film of all time!" they finished together.

"The one liners!" Chellick exclaimed.

"The villain!" Garrus blurted.

"The action!"

"The suspense!"

"The stunts!"

"Being able to insult stupid authority figures!"

They sat there, awash with the thrill of the cinematic masterpiece they had just witnessed. Then a traitorous thought popped into Garrus' head.

"There's only one problem," he said slowly.

Chellick's head whipped around to stare at him incredulously. "What could ever be the problem after that… that… glorious monument to policing?!"

Garrus could feel his mandible wilt slightly. "Who has to tell Bailey that he was right?"

"… dammit."

…

Torrin stared at the ongoing scene unfolding before him, feeling a mixture of frustration, nervousness and fear. Not for himself, by any means. It was all on behalf of Brock.

Ever since he had heard what Brock was planning on doing, he had misgivings. He had mistakenly thought that Brock was buying into the whole 'buying slaves' thing for a moment before Brock revealed that they would all be treated and sent home, unless they wanted to go somewhere else. The fact that Torrin could have actually thought something like that about the man who he was quickly beginning to think of as his brother, of sorts, made him feel a little sick. Ever since that day that they had met in the alley Brock had treated Torrin and everyone else around him with respect and decency. He had revealed the truth behind his scars and was now at the point that the human didn't care if he had them on display in the training sessions with Beau or even around the ship. There had been stares to begin with from the other crew members, especially from Nelathie and Chop. Jurt had merely looked impressed. Beau had been happy with the transition from Brock wearing long sleeves and armour that hid the scars all the time. He said that it was a necessary step to making yourself mentally stronger, to show that there is nothing that can defeat you.

"If you hide those parts of yourselves, be it scars or your history of homelessness or anything that you are afraid to show the universe, then those things are tools that can be used against you," the tough human had lectured after a training session that had left Torrin, Brock and Hectar gasping for breath. "If you fear those parts of yourself, then there may a time when they are revealed without intention. If those things you hide from are then thrown back into your face then you can hesitate and hesitation gets yourself and your team killed. The best way to get past it is to own it. Own your history and your scars. Own your torture and use the knowledge that you have gone beyond what you were to what you are. You are stronger from it. If other people find out about those things then it is not the end of the galaxy unless you let it be so. I have seen too many soldiers who freeze at crucial moments because they haven't owned themselves and their history. Doing this is the best way forward. Make peace with yourself and no one can take that from you."

Brock had seemed to take that on board and now seemed to be walking around as though a large weight had been taken off his shoulders. Torrin was trying to do the same. He couldn't help noticing that his back still clenched at the memories of his time as a lab rat for turian military scientists and his abandonment by his parents. Brock was there for him though, as close as any brother that Torrin could think of, helping him through his own history. And Torrin could tell that he had made progress. At least he didn't hunch his shoulders and feel like running away when the topic came up.

However, as accustomed as the crew had become to seeing Brock walking around with his scars on display, Aria's henchman clearly had not.

The moment that Brock appeared, the batarian, Bray, had stopped his talk with Jurt and his eyes, all four of them, locked onto Brock with laser-like intensity.

Brock had come down into the cargo bay, ready to go on his mission to the slave market. Aria had not been joking when she told Brock that as a human the only way to get into the market was as a slave. So Brock decided that was exactly how he was going to go. He had ordered Jurt to find a slave collar, had given the collar to Hectar and told him to make it look perfectly functional while being completely benign. Now, the only things that worked on the collar was the light that said it was activated. The locking mechanism would open up to Brock's fingerprint and the shocking and explosive mechanisms had been removed. It was essentially a paperweight, but it would pass a basic inspection if anyone took a closer look. Someone would have to do a full scan to see that it was missing its slave keeping components.

The real mastery had been Brock's appearance. He had shaved his head, arms and chest of any and all hair and died his eyebrows brown. Then he took an old pair of pants and ripped them to make them look worse. He even had Liserias add more fake scars to his face to distort his appearance even more. Now he truly looked pathetic as he made his way shirtless over to the waiting party. His hunched walking limp just added to the image of abused slave. The only thing that he had on him that would mark him different to other slaves was the omni-tool on his arm. It was an older, cheap model that had Hectar's anti-hacking program added to it. The sole purpose for the device was to hold some money to be able to buy slaves.

Bray had stared at him for a long few minutes as he stood silently next to the large passenger shuttle that would be taking him, Brock and a fully armoured Jurt to Camala for the auction. There was room enough for sixty people on board, seventy if they were squished together, and it would serve as the transport for any slaves that Brock managed to buy at the market.

Brock ignored Bray and Torrin couldn't help feeling that this situation of not letting your scars own you was exactly what Beau had been talking about in their training. Torrin felt a little jealous that he wasn't at that point yet. But then, Brock was a little older so maybe he had a little more practice at it.

Brock sidled over to where Torrin was standing. "You think you can avoid burning the gym while I'm gone?" he said lightly.

Torrin mock glared at his friend. "That was one time!" he growled. "And it was only a little fire! Not my fault that Beau was using explosive rounds."

"Yeah, but it's not like he told you to stack the boxes next to the flammable lubricants and the wooden supports…"

"Shut up!" he glared at the human's amused face for a moment. Then they both chuckled together.

"We'll be fine," Torrin assured him. "Besides, I'm not the one going into hostile territory." He clenched his mandibles slightly. "You and Jurt are the ones that need to be careful."

"And we will be," Brock replied. "Trust me enough to know that I am going to be doing my best to stay safe out there. Even if I have to have Aria's pet batarian over there." He gestured towards the shuttle that Bray was leaning next to. "I can trust that Aria is at least self-serving enough to wait until she receives her payment from us before she would stab us in the back. That asari is as mercenary as it gets. And her minion over there wouldn't dare act in any way that would upset his boss. So, unless something goes horribly, horribly wrong at this auction, I should be pretty safe."

Torrin couldn't help looking at the inert slave collar on his friend's neck. "Uh huh."

Brock gave him another tight grin. "You just take care of the team while I am gone. And don't let Ely near the dextro Red Bull while I am gone. Last time she declared herself a quarian fairy and tried flying over the eezo core."

Torrin couldn't help laughing at that mental image. The young quarian was a good source of laughs that way.

Aleria walked over, looking almost as nervous as Torrin had felt before Brock's talk helped him relax a little. "It's time for you to go, Boss," she said, her voice small. Torrin couldn't help feeling a little sorry for the pilot. She almost looked like she was about to cry out of concern for Brock. Torrin knew she liked the human a lot. She must have really been freaking out a little and holding back a lot.

Brock took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. "Alright," he nodded at Aleria. "Guess that's my cue."

Aleria threw her arms around Brock in a big hug, holding him close. Torrin couldn't help but feeling like he was going to be spending the next few hours trying to reassure her that everything was going to be fine, even though he really wasn't able to back that up in any way shape or form. That and finding a way to stop Ely from getting into the energy drinks. Maybe he would be able to convince the two of them to watch that second Star Wars film, Empire something. At least, Brock said it was the second film. Torrin had looked into it and apparently it was the fifth film but Brock claimed that the first three didn't count for some reason.

"Come on, human," Bray called out in his gruff voice. "Time to leave. And you don't want to ruin those fake scars of yours before we get there."

Brock untangled himself from Aleria and turned to face the batarian with a stony expression that had Torrin feeling a little nervous. He watched as Brock took a few deliberate steps towards the batarian merc, stopping a couple of metres away. The human then brought up his hands, spat in them and began to rub vigorously over the scars on his arms, chest, stomach and shoulders. He rubbed so hard that the skin started to turn an angry red before he finally stopped.

"Well, would you look at that?" Brock said, not looking away from the batarian the entire time. "None of those scars rubbed off. I guess that they must be real."

The human then stepped passed the batarian and into the shuttle without another word, leaving the merc blinking his four eyes in stunned surprise.

"You know," Jurt rumbled as the krogan made his own way into the shuttle, "I thought Aria hired smarter people. Guess we were both wrong." With that, the heavy alien jumped into the shuttle, leaving Torrin fighting a vindictive grin at the now glaring batarian.

…

Camala was a world that I had come to learn as being the batarians stronghold for eezo. They had the most mines here and all of the processing facilities. As a result, they also had the most security here of all the planets in Hegemony space, except for Khar'shan. I looked through the viewport of the passenger shuttle that I had bought specifically for this market and could see the batarian fleet moving around the planet's orbit, standing on guard for the many visitors they were no doubt receiving today for the auction. There were hundreds of ships floating through the inky blackness, mostly visible from here as bright lights from engine ports as they manoeuvred around each other and avoided the two visible dreadnoughts that were standing like boulders in a river; they stood still while everything else moved around them.

The planet itself was nothing like what I had expected. To be honest, the image that comes to mind when I think of batarians is red wastelands and ugly, polluted homes. Instead, the planet was an interesting mix of greens, blues and purples, with a few dusky reds scattered around the place. It was actually very impressive and would make a great postcard, if they were still a thing. It was extremely beautiful to see from orbit.

A shuffling next to me announced the presence of both Bray and Jurt. Bray hadn't spoken to me at all other than to learn about the plan that I had made for him to keep me safe. As he had told me, once he stopped staring blatantly at my scars was that 'I'm here for Aria and to make sure you don't screw things up for her.' Nothing friendlier than that. Still, Jurt had enough experience with slave markets to know what to expect and had answered plenty of my questions.

I would be going in as a slave representative of a wealthy turian who lived in the Terminus systems. I had considered a batarian but Jurt thought that any batarian that would have the spare cash to throw around to buy a big number of slaves wouldn't be an unknown to someone likely to be at the market. A turian, however, could be a random merc that managed to earn enough credits to retire in the Terminus with a healthy number of slaves to make their lives easier. Going as a representative wasn't actually a problem; most of the wealthier batarian nobles sent a proxy to buy their slaves. After all, going and buying their own slaves was beneath them. They would all be sending representatives but it was a rare thing that one of the representatives would be a slave. Still, it did happen from time to time so while I would get a few looks, it was unlikely that anyone would actually approach me for any particular reason after I signed in. The main thing was that I was trying to look as pathetic as possible. I knew with my scars I would be able to pass off as the beaten slave but I had to make sure that my behaviour reflected that image.

The shuttle, flown by a quiet turian pilot provided by Aria, made its final approach I moved over in my put-on hunched shuffle towards the exit. Jurt and Bray moved to stand next to me. I had been told that it was unusual for a slave to stand next to another being as an equal but, surprisingly, Bray spoke up and said that it was proper for me to do so as the 'representative' of my master. The only thing I wasn't to do was walk off by myself without my 'handlers' or to approach any non-merchant without a specialised request. Apparently there was a whole etiquette to approaching slaves in batarian culture that most people didn't know about. Jurt, being the person on my crew that was most familiar with batarians due to his mercenary history, had done his best to teach me what he knew on the flight over and Bray only stepped in once or twice to make small corrections. He had only done so to, as he said, 'make sure I don't give myself away and get all of us killed.

"Hey, Jurt," I said in a soft tone as the shuttle came slowly to a hissing stop. "What would happen if I was just to buy every single slave here and take them back?"

"Not a good idea," he grunted back. "It would draw too much attention."

"He's right," Bray cut in. "There will be representatives from some very powerful members of the Hegemony here. If someone was to buy them all, I doubt that you would have the chance to leave Hegemony space alive."

"So how many could I reasonably get?" I asked quietly as the shuttle fell silent and the airlock door opened with a hiss. "Without drawing attention to myself."

"I would say no more than fifty," Bray said as the docking bay came into open view. "Any more than that and you would risk someone becoming overly suspicious. It is not unheard of to buy up to a hundred but the ones that do are exclusively batarian nobles. As you are representing a turian, you are expected to have limits and acknowledge a noble's interest as being higher than your own."

"Any way around that?" I asked as we moved out into the unexpectedly pleasant sunshine.

"Not really," Bray said, keeping his voice low. "The best way would be to get in and pay the instant purchase price on the auction items and get out before anyone can complain."

I nodded as I related it to what I knew in my head. Kinda like using eBay. Only with slaves. So Craigslist.

A batarian was approaching us as we made our way down the docking bay platform. A few batarians went silent as I walked past, their eyes fixated on my slow shuffling walk before they returned to their conversations.

"Are you here for the auction?" the functionary asked Bray in a neutral tone.

"They are," Bray replied, gesturing to Jurt and me with a careless hand. I made sure to flinch slightly as his hand came near me. "I am here on behalf of Aria T'Loak to introduce them and give them a reference."

"Ah, of course," the official said, tilting his head to the left in a sign of respect of Bray. "And you are?" he asked, turning to Jurt.

"Name's Murek," Jurt grunted. "The slave here is the representative of Nixus Arcemedes. I'm just security."

"Of course," the batarian said, making a note on his omni-tool. "And what your name, Slave?" his voice became extremely hostile at that. Clearly he didn't like having to address one of a lower stature than his own.

I gave a low bow. "Master says this one's name is Worm, sir," I rasped out in a mewling tone. I made sure that at no point did I look him in the eyes. That was a big no for a slave to a free batarian.

A grunt came from the batarian and he made another note on his omni-tool.

"Make sure you check any weapons in at the entrance of the marketplace," the batarian said to Bray and Jurt, his tone returning to normal. "Have a profitable day."

We moved on towards the location of the auction, which luckily was only a ten minute walk from the docking bay. I couldn't help but stare as I walked around, not expecting things to be as pleasant as they were. In fact, if it were not for the obvious slaves wearing collars going all over the place and mostly following batarian citizens, it would be as pleasant as a walk on any other planet. There wasn't any obvious signs of homelessness or poverty. Slaves were not being flogged in the clean streets. In fact, they were mostly ignored. I gathered a few curious looks from the free batarians, most likely because of my scars. The slaves did have a mostly broken or defeated expression and stance to them but I there were not many that had visible scars like I did. All of them appeared clean and were not suffering from malnourishment. They were all clothed sufficiently; in fact, I was the only one walking around without a shirt. I got a few looks from some of the batarian slaves that I hesitantly guessed were sympathetic, though I was still not overly familiar with batarian facial expressions.

My surprise at how well-groomed was must have been obvious because Bray leaned in and whispered to me.

"Not like what the propaganda describes, is it?" he said, his voice slightly amused.

"No," I said in my fake raspy voice. "Are all slaves as well taken care of?"

"No," he acknowledged. "Camala and Khar'shan are the only places where you will see them looking like this in public. You need to remember, while slaves are captured, bought and sold, they are still very valuable property. Only the highly sadistic and excessively rich nobles are likely to beat and kill their slaves without a second thought. Would you destroy a diamond necklace for no reason? You bought it, it was expensive and it serves a purpose. Damaging it would ruin its value. The same is true for slaves. A starving slave is less useful than a well-fed one. A broken slave is necessary, but too far and it is damaged and therefore less useful and less valuable. But like I said, this truth is really only widespread here on Camala or on Khar'shan. People here have more respect for their possessions and more money to ensure that their slaves are taken care of. It's a matter of pride here."

I gave a grunt of acknowledgement and filed that away in my mind as another thing I had not truly understood about batarian culture. After all, considering how some people took extreme pride in having a highly polished car, motorbike or boat, I guess it wasn't too hard to imagine that there were batarians who might consider a well-kept slave as a sign of pride in their possessions. It was just the fact that those possessions were also living, breathing people who had most likely never wanted to be a possession in the first place and had no say in the matter that was the issue.

We made the rest of the walk in silence. When we arrived at the location, I saw that the market was being held inside of a giant warehouse. The place was massive, more than half as big as the Enterprise's cargo hold. I hadn't come across any land bound warehouses in human space that were as large as this place was. We registered with the Hegemony representatives at the entrance where Bray was able to give us the reference that Aria had promised us. The guards accepted it with an interested tone so I guess that Aria giving a recommendation was not a common occurrence. Once again I could feel the guards giving me sneering looks as they openly stared at my scars. They even informed 'my handlers' that for a small fee I could rent a space where I could hold my 'purchases' until we were ready to leave. Seeing as I intended to be here for the whole day until closing time, Jurt agreed on my behalf. We were given a pen number so that we could have our purchases delivered to it at the back of the warehouse to pick up when we were done. The functionary left us to face the next prospective buyers and Jurt leaned ever so slightly towards me.

"Just remember," he whispered, not looking at me directly, "we won't be able to talk to you too much. It would look odd if a slave was too talkative to their handler. We will be able to help you with any major problems but regular talking is out of the question."

I nodded my acceptance. Then we went inside.

I had to admit, I was three for three on things that surprised me for how the batarians ran this place. Instead of having their slaves in animal pens and cages, like I had inspected, all the slaves were cleaned up and set on little stage platforms that could be compared to, rather generously, stalls and vendors of any normal marketplace on the citadel. The slaves were all lined up side by side on their stages, with a few security guards to each stage to prevent any incidents. In front of the stages were little computer terminals that would give the description of each slave that was being offered. Larger organisations, such as the Blood Pack and Blue Suns were given larger stages to accurately reflect the amount of slaves that they had up for auction. There were even some small stalls that were set up so that private sellers would be able to sell their own 'pre-existing' slaves that they no longer wanted. Strangely enough, I didn't see a platform for the Eclipse Security Group.

"Why would a slave owner get rid of their own slaves that way?" I had asked Bray when we stepped into a quiet place away from other buyers, making sure I kept up with using my raspy voice. The idea that I could think that so casually disturbed me a little.

Bray shrugged slightly. "Depends," he said, not looking at me. "Sometimes it is to cover debts, other times it is to get rid of a troublesome slave and the owners believe that they could make money out of selling it instead of just killing it. Most of the time though, it is because an owner is getting older and they want to downscale their property. They can't be bothered managing a large amount of slaves anymore so they keep their favourites and sell the rest. It happens more often than you would think. But you don't have to worry about being cheated by having people lie about why they sell their own slaves. They must be honest as to why they are selling pre-owned slaves or they can face harsh penalties and even expulsion from Hegemon society."

With that question answered we stepped back out amongst the sellers. My heart went out to all the children that were on display. Not only the humans, but there were plenty of asari, salarians, batarians and even a couple of turians too. I could feel my hands shaking with disgust as I realised that I could help these innocent children but at the expense of being able to accomplish other goals. It was a massive internal conflict. And I hated myself for knowing that I wouldn't be buying many, if any, of those children today. Luckily, there were other things that I had planned for this. It was a small comfort, but I had to stop and take a couple of deep breaths to calm myself down. I suddenly had far more sympathy for spies and secret agents who had to deal with this drama every day. There were possibly even some sympathisers for the Free Batarian movement here at the auction that were feeling the same way that I was feeling now.

I just felt sick.

I clamped down on the surging bile and started to make my way through the crowds to the stalls. I made sure to not look anyone other than slaves in the eye. The frightened and dead looks that were in the eyes of many of the slaves was just adding to my sickened feeling. I almost wished that this place had met my low expectations so that I could hate them even more. But the place ran with the sort of fluid efficiency of any regular shopping centre.

I stopped at the stall of a private owner and saw what looked to be an asari matriarch on the stage. I tapped at the screen and saw that she had once been an ambassador of Lesuss to the hanar when she had been captured on a trip out of Illium. The only name given was Persei. She had been owned for nearly eighty years by the same batarian noble family and was being sold due to the noble having lost business on Khar'shan and downsizing. It concerned me a little that an asari politician of high enough standing to be an ambassador could just be forgotten or abandoned as she had obviously been. She was advertised as a good bed slave and a decent cook. Clearly not the best though if she was being sold on. Still, she was someone that might be able to help me. If she was willing that is. Not that I could find that out now.

I turned to the guard manning her stage. "This one asks her age," I rasped to the batarian guard, with a deep bow.

The guard turned to her, clearly allowing her to answer the question. "I am eight hundred and three," she replied in a soft voice.

Without acknowledging her words I turned back to the monitor and looked at the 'buy now' price. Three hundred and twelve thousand credits, though it would likely have been more if she was younger as asari could be kept as slave for centuries due to their longevity. Easily affordable. I had nearly fifty million creditd to play with here today.

I tapped the 'buy now' option. Then I linked up my cheap-looking omni-tool and paid for Persei. She looked over at me with a resigned look on her face before she looked down at my scars with blatant unease. With another deep bow I informed the guards of the pen that she could be held in until we were ready to leave.

I moved on towards the Blood Pack stage. There were nearly sixty different slave on offer here. I flipped through a few bios and noticed two pilots on offer. I looked up at the selected slaves and walked over towards them. A krogan guard stepped to prevent me from getting too close.

"What do you want, maggot?" the krogan growled at me.

Jurt took a step forward and got right in the Blood Pack merc's face. "That's my boss's rep, moron. Treat it with the proper respect."

The merc grunted but took a step back. "Fine," he grumbled. "What do you want, representative?" He still made it sound like an insult.

"Master told this one that pilots are needed," I rasped out with my customary low bow. "You are selling two. The salarian over there and the asari over there." I gestured towards the two slaves in question.

The merc turned and looked at the slaves and pointed. They quickly scurried over and stood next to him, looking at the floor. "These the ones?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Alright, well the salarian would be standard fare, pretty cheap because they don't last long, damned squishies," he said, his tone turning all business. "The asari will be expensive though. She is only just outta her maiden years so she will do a family good for quite a few centuries yet."

"If purchased, there will be no trouble with seekers?"

"Seekers?"

"Master told of seekers who would look to recover slaves," I lied. I actually wanted to know to see if there was any family I could return them to if they chose not to help me.

The krogan just shrugged. "Who knows?" he said. "We only got 'em a few months ago. The salarian is unlikely and the asari was only working on a mining frigate out in the Terminus so I doubt it."

I nodded. Unlikely then. At least, no one important in Council space. I wouldn't count it out though. Honestly though, I had already decided to buy both of them. I was just wondering what the odds were of them wanting to stay with me and become pilots of some of the ships that I would be buying when I expanded my fleet. If they wanted to leave, they would be free to do so.

I walked to the terminal and looked up the 'buy now' prices. Like the krogan had said, the salarian, whose name was Lerek, was pretty cheap, only thirty thousand credits. The asari, Mirae, was six hundred thousand. The problem was that it meant she had nearly eight hundred years in front of her as, most likely, a sex slave. No one deserved that. I looked back up at the line of slaves on the stage and saw three human kids and two very young asari. I didn't even bother looking up the purchases prices. I bought all seven of the slaves I looked at.

"Huh," the Blood Pack merc huffed in surprise. "Well, it's your credits I guess. Just put the money through and tell me where you want them."

This time, as I transferred the money, I transferred something else that I had Hectar whip up while we were preparing for this. It was a tracer designed to appear like a single credit. It would burrow through the system and get me all of the information on the buyers that it could, including the personal information for anyone that accessed the terminal with their omni-tool. That included the slavers themselves. I would get addresses and about twenty four hours of physical tracking of the omni-tools when they left the auction. It would hopefully give me plenty of information that I would need for the next part of my plans.

The most useful part of it would be the fact that one most people's personal omni-tools, they had their home information on them. The tracer program would collect that information and when the time limit nearly expired it would send out all gathered information in a burst of static that would register as a glitch. I had no idea how useful that would be for slavers and mercs but I was willing to give it a shot. It would work for slave owners that were registering though as they all had a fixed address that would be easy enough to find. The problem was that there was only so much data that could be compacted into the single 'credit' and that ran out after the twenty four hours so it needed to transmit by then. Any merc that travelled longer than that to get away would only give us vague details which might not be enough to find specific bases. Still, it was better than nothing.

Once the money transfer took place I shuffled closer to the krogan merc, trying to come across as pathetically conspiratorial. "This one also asks if there are any among your merchandise that are more… defiant," I rasped uneasily. "Master prefers to have a… personal touch in taming us to his satisfaction." I made sure to rub against the burn mark on my stomach, making it seem as if it was subconscious. I suddenly found myself wishing I had done better in drama classes in school.

It was enough to convince the krogan though. The alien gave me a big toothy grin. "Sounds like my kinda guy," he chuckled maliciously. "As a matter of fact, there are three here that have been a little more troublesome. Apparently, they are still pretty objectional to being slaves. A couple of turians and a human. All of them were guards on one of the hits we did. They've been causing a little trouble since we got 'em. Had to separate them coz they were trying to stir up trouble. Had to use the shock collars more than a few times but they haven't quit. That the sort of type your boss would want?"

"Yes," I bowed low. "Master would be very happy to have those slaves added to his complement. For a reduced rate for needing to have to do half the work himself."

"Hmmm," the krogan tilted his head thoughtfully. "I guess that we could drop the prices for those three. It would probably be hard enough to sell them, considering how rebellious they are."

He named a price for the three about a hundred thousand credits below what they normally would have been and I paid it without complaint. The ten 'purchases' were then organised to be sent to the holding pen to await pick-up with Persei and any others that I would buy.

Honestly, if it wasn't for the fact that I was planning on releasing the people I bought, I didn't think I would be able to live with myself after that thought.

I scanned through the next few groups and picked up another shuttle pilot, a few more children of various races and a dozen random other slaves that had been captured by smaller merc gangs. All of them looked like they had had their wills broken. I doubted that they would be willing to work for me without a lot of therapy. Even then, if they had families to return to, I thought it more likely that they would just rather go home. Regardless, I made sure that I sent along the little tracer program into the terminals for good measure.

The Blue Suns stage was even larger than the Blood Pack stage. There were certainly more slaves for sale there and the variety was greater. There was even two quarians for sale here. I quickly brought up the terminal and took a look. I was very happy with my three quarians but they had a certain proclivity towards maintenance and engineering. At the same time, I was hoping to have some goodwill in the bank for when I needed to contact the Migrant Fleet for that part of my plans. I was surprised for a second as I saw that the 'buy now' price was nearly the same as that of the asari maidens. I figured because of their renowned skill in using tech that they would be highly sought after but I had thought that due to their highly fragile immune system and the extra care needed to keep them alive it would drop the price a little. Apparently not. Either way, I bought both of them and another twelve slaves at random, including one human child and an adult volus. I figured I would try to get a bit of goodwill from the volus ambassador while I was doing my thing. I mean, I had already bought a shipyard from the man, now I could show my humanitarian side. Show that I cared for more than myself and other humans. Hopefully that would leave him with a better impression than what Udina was giving him. Sadly, there no 'feisty' slaves for sale on their stage.

It was as I was moving away from the large stage dedicated to the Blue Suns that something went wrong.

Someone had left a small crate, barely larger than a footlocker, on the floor. Another buyer, a batarian, was walking passed and tripped over it. They stumbled into Bray, who bumped into me. I was then pushed into a passing batarian who was dressed in a cloak that denoted minor nobility. He then dropped a data-slate that he was carrying.

Crap.

Immediately, the batarian was screaming in my face. "How dare you, filth!" he bellowed, not caring for the spittle that was flying out of his gob. "Look at what you have done you pathetic waste of bile! If you were my slave, I would gut you and use your entails to feed swine! You are not even worthy of your eyes, you disgusting creature. I should kill you right now!"

I tried my best to make myself small and refusing to look him in the face. I knew that I had no power here. The only thing that would work in my favour was that the batarian wouldn't actually do anything to me personally. After all, I was someone else's property. That was something that Bray and Jurt had clued me in on during the trip towards the market. Just like I would not break someone's TV, they would not kill someone else's slave.

"I demand satisfaction!" the minor noble continued screeching. I felt my stomach twist slightly. In making all the plans I could for this market, I had prepared for this possibility, with Jurt's help. It didn't mean that I wanted to do it.

"You demand satisfaction, huh?" Jurt rumbled to my relief, stepping forward as if my thoughts were capable of summoning him. "What do you have in mind?"

"Punishment," the batarian bit out, glaring down at me. "And compensation for damaging my data-slate." A large crowd had gathered to watch the spectacle now. From the corner of my eyes I could see that several guards had pushed their way through to see what was happening but they were content to watch the show, it seemed.

I wilted just a little more. Of course. Of course the person that I bumped in to had to be a noble that wanted me to be 'punished'. I didn't fail to notice that even though Bray had been the one that bumped me, he wasn't speaking up at all.

That was going to earn no small amount of retribution. Aria being his boss be damned. I would have to pay her back a little. Luckily, I was sure that there was something I could do

"Right," Jurt grunted. He reached to his side and pulled out a small calibre pistol. The thing looked tiny in his massive claw. "Normally, his owner would prefer to be the one that would dish out the punishment. However, I think under the current circumstances, he would be willing to make an exception." He turned and looked at the guards. "Be as ready as you want to be, but I can promise you that Worm here is the only one that is going to be getting hurt."

He looked back to me and held out the pistol. "You know what you have to do."

I looked at the pistol, not needing to hide my apprehension. I sighed in resignation. "Yes, sir."

Slowly, as to not alarm the guards that were now clearly on alert, I reached out my right hand to take the pistol our of Jurt's three fingered hand. I could see the guards tense and one of them drew his weapon. I slowly brought the muzzle of the pistol directly into the palm of my left hand, tilting my hand so that the back was facing the ground. Then I took a wavering breath and pulled the trigger.

The bang of the pistol was met with the instant jarring pain of the miniscule projectile blasting its way through my skin, out the back of my hand and smashing through to the floor. I hunched over as I grit my teeth against the pain, which was slowly dropping to a more manageable level. In all honesty, I think getting stabbed was worse. Branding certainly was more painful and the effects lasted longer. As I took a few deep breaths to help steady myself I passed the pistol back to Jurt. "Thank you, sir," I rasped through my clenched jaw.

A guffaw came from one of the guards that led to a few of the other spectators chuckling out loud.

"He thanked you for that?" an incredulous voice asked from someone I didn't see.

"He knows that it would have been worse if we had waited to get back to his master for punishment," Jurt explained. "I mean, take a look at him. Letting him do this himself was a mercy."

A familiar krogan nearby gave a barking laugh. "Now I really want to meet this guy!"

I could see a small puddle of my blood on the ground from my still dripping hand. I reached out with my good hand to the right leg of my trousers. I fumbled a bit because I was trying to do it one handed but I managed to rip off a small strip of material that then used to wrap up my injured hand. I then looked around and saw one of the warehouse personnel who had come over to watch. I shuffled over to her.

"Pardon this one for speaking to you, ma'am," I said in my pained rasp. "But are there cleaning supplies so that I may remove my mess?" I gestured to the blood on the floor with my good hand.

"In a storage room over there, slave," she spat. "Waster will take you." She waved over a batarian slave who had been watching the whole incident quietly from an inconspicuous place by the wall.

"Wait!" the noble barked. "I am still waiting for my compensation!"

Oh, I was really not liking this guy. His voice was beginning to grate on my nerves but I forced myself to calm down and shuffled towards him. I could only imagine that a slave abusing a noble, even a minor one, would be grounds for him overlooking the rule about not killing someone else's slave.

"Hold up," Jurt said. "Your master won't be happy with you getting any more blood over the place. Use this first." He handed me a small tube of medigel.

I bit the top off the tube, unwrapped my bloody makeshift bandage and applied the gel on my gunshot wound. I breathed a small sigh of relief as the numbing qualities took the persistent throbbing away and the clotting agents stopped the bleeding immediately. In no time at all, the healing was well under way and I could use my hand again, providing more relief than I would have expected.

With the hole in my hand taken care of I opened my omni-tool and transferred a thousand credits and the tracing program into the noble's omni-tool. The data-slate wasn't damaged at all and even if it was then it wouldn't have cost anywhere near that much but I thought by being generous it would take the heat of me. If he was a Camala native I probably wouldn't be able to do much, but I really hoped that he wasn't from either here or Khar'shan so that I could arrange another meeting.

"This one give it's unworthy apologies and wishes you clear sight for the rest of your days," I mewled out in the most pathetic tone I could manage while tilting my head as far to the left as I could and keeping my eyes on the ground. I kinda guessed the polite wishes about the eyes. I remembered hearing somewhere that the eyes were a really big thing to the batarians. Something about them believing that they were better than every other race because they were the only Citadel race that had four eyes, like the protheans did. That kind of ignored either the vorcha and the yagh but neither of them were Citadel races so I guess they were not included. Then again, I don't really remember how many eyes exactly they had so it might have been just the batarians with four.

Regardless, with one last huff the noble turned around and marched away, stopping only long enough to take the data-slate that the slave Waster had picked up and held out to him. With his disappearance, it was the signal to all the spectators that the incident was over and they began to disperse and move back towards the stages. I looked around and noticed that plenty of the slaves were looking at me with a mix of pity and despair. The ones from the Blue Suns stage that I had just bought, that had not been taken away yet as the guards for that stage had decided to watch the show, were staring at me in muted horror as they began to realise what their fate was likely to be with their new master.

I couldn't help feeling a little amused at how I thought they would react when they found out they had all been fooled but I looked down to hide the small smile that wanted to break through at the idea.

It took me a few minutes of cleaning up my blood and tissue before I was happy that my DNA wouldn't be just left around. By the time I was done, only the officials were still watching me as I put away the cleaning supplies. With that done I moved back to where Jurt was standing. I mentally tallied how many slaves I had bought to this point. Forty one. Not as many as I hoped.

"After that little display, do you think anyone would be willing to still sell to us?" I murmured, keeping my voice low enough to not be overheard by anyone other than my two minders.

"Maybe one or two of the smaller private sales but I doubt that you would get anything from the major buyers," Bray replied just as softly. "Might be a good idea to call it and get out with what you have."

"Alright," I said, catching myself before I nodded. "Let's head back to the entrance and organise a drop off of our purchases to the ship. If there are any single sales on the way out we can grab them as we go."

We made for the exit and picked up two more slaves, a reedy looking human male and a salarian female, on the way out. We got these two to follow us out seeing as there was no reason to stick around any longer.

We made our way back to our passenger shuttle and arrived about five minutes before a vehicle that looked suspiciously like a prison bus rocked up and the slaves I had bought started to climb out. A batarian guard made a point to give the control for the slave collars to Jurt and in a voice loud enough to be heard by everyone at the landing platform that the two turians would likely need a good shock to stop them causing more trouble, earning him twin glares from the turian slaves.

Without further comment the slaves trudged through the airlock and into the vessel proper, following Jurt. Once they were all inside, Bray and I left with a deep bow to the batarian officials and headed into the shuttle.

…

The shuttle finally docked in the Hidden Enterprise and Jurt stood, glad that this little jaunt was over.

He had been uneasy about going to Camala to the slave auction. His biggest concern had been that he might run into some Blood Pack members that he knew and owed a shotgun blast to face to. If he had seen any of them, he didn't think he could stop himself going into a blood rage, which would not have ended until he and a large number of people were dead. The problem was that it needed to be him that went because no one else in Neilson's crew knew enough about slave markets to be useful, and Neilson was smart enough to not trust Bray to look out for him on his own. Not bad, for a squishy.

There hadn't been any trouble though. He didn't know any of the mercs that had been there. He might have recognised one of the Blue Suns from the old days but he honestly didn't care enough to find out. The slaves hadn't even kicked up a fuss on the trip back to the ship. One of the turians looked like he was about to kick up a fuss but stopped when Jurt had stomped over and held up the remote for the shock collar. Wimp.

He noticed Neilson stand up straight for the first time since they arrived on Camala. The human stretched his back, releasing an audible pop.

"Ah, that feels better!" he declared happily in his normal voice, drawing confused stares and uncertain looks from the gathered slaves. "All right! If everyone can please make their way off the shuttle and gather together just outside in the cargo bay and I can explain a few things. Oh, but first!" He pressed a button on his slave collar and it popped open, letting him take it off and throw it off to the side. Jurt couldn't help feeling amused at the stunned looks of all the slaves present. "Ok, now, out you go!"

The slaves filed out obediently, though one of the humans and both of the turians were glaring suspiciously at Neilson as they passed him. Aria's pet batarian started making his way out the door too but Neilson held out his arm to stop him.

"I want a quick word with you two before we go out there," he said, his smile, turning a little frosty. For some reason he couldn't explain, Jurt felt his mouth grow into a toothy grin.

The last of the slaves piled out of the airlock and moved out of sight. Neilson looked out after them. "That's right just move over there, I will be with you in a moment. Don't wander off, just stay right there. Liserias there is a medic and she is going to take a quick look at you all to make sure that everything is fine. Just listen to her and when she is done, make sure you don't leave the area." Huh. He hadn't seen the medic through the viewport. Only the turian kid and the pilot. Must have been hiding somewhere out of the way.

He pulled his head back in the door and walked over next to the batarian. He looked him right in the eye. Then, almost faster than Jurt could see, he threw a vicious punch into the batarian's jaw.

The four-eyed alien dropped to the ground a few feet back from where he had been standing. "What the hell are you doing human?" the batarian spat, slowly climbing back to his feet. "Aria will…"

"Yes, I imagine we are going to have a few interesting things to say to Aria," Neilson cut him off, glaring down at the man in front of him in disgust. "In fact, we are going there very soon. I am sure that she would love to hear about your behaviour and how you failed her as her agent." He looked up at Jurt. "Knock him out for me, would you?"

Jurt couldn't help giving off a 'hah!' of amusement before he stomped over and gave the batarian a backhand that put him down. This time, Bray didn't get back up.

"He wasn't wrong though," Jurt said, looking up at the human. "Aria won't like you punching one of her personal bodyguards."

"No, I imagine not," Neilson said, his tone not particularly impressed. "But I can talk her out of any retribution." The human got what Jurt could only call a sly smile on his face. "In fact, she may even thank me for it."

Jurt started chuckling again. "You got one hell of a quad, Neilson," he grinned at his employer. "Must be why I listen to you."

"Ha! Thanks," Neilson said easily. "For what it's worth, I like having you on the crew too. Now, do me a favour and strip him of weapons and his omni-tool and take him to the brig. I still need to let our new friends know of their surprise freedom. And I will give you a bonus for knocking Bray out with a single backhand."

Jurt couldn't help chuckling to himself and turned to his task as the human left the shuttle. Yeah, he really was starting to like this human. Maybe it meant that Jurt could get Polisa sooner instead of later.

…

A/N Please Review/Favourite/Follow as you please.

Yeah, I know some interesting stuff is happening. I haven't ever actually read a story that had an infiltration into a slave market in the ME Fanfics so I wanted to do it. At the same time, I didn't want to go into it with the same sort of feeling as if the slave had just been captured, beaten etc. and taken straight to market. They consider people to be property and when you sell property, you try and make it look as nice, clean and appealing as possible. So, I tried this as a farmer's market for slaves and this chapter is what I ended up with. At the same time, can't infiltrate a slave market without at least a little hiccup, hence the confrontation with the noble. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this chapter. See you next time!