How the hell do I always end up in places like this?

It was the million dollar question. The music may change, the drinks on the menu may change, but the essence will always remain the same and the context as well: me, being forced into a nightclub due to shitty circumstances.

Because as sophisticated as it might be, centuries ahead of anywhere I was forced to frequent in my time, the afterlife was still a nightclub like any other. Drink, loud music and nice pieces of ass for the visual delight.

The only difference is that said ass are blue and the scum mass seems to overlap the mass of people just trying to have a good time. Perhaps because they don't need to hide the deals being done here, drugs being casually passed around in exchange for what can only be the currency of this time, laughter amidst explicit statements of elaborate murders happened more freely here than would be allowed anywhere else.

It is undoubtedly a palace to house the most sordid pleasures this realm of fire and blood can offer, and in the highest private space with the widest view is the bloody queen, listening to a long, drawn-out explanation from the blue bitch.

She's an interesting character without a doubt, purple skin glowing faintly against the dim low lighting of the club, a white jacket over a dark suit accentuating her curves and revealing just the bare minimum of her skin. A beautiful sight, most could have drunk on seeing her and I wouldn't be far from it myself if it weren't for the utterly dense and volatile aura of a violet flame around her like a beacon radiating power, control, violence and the and longing for always… more.

This all along with the unmistakable predatory glint that sparked in her eyes previously focused on the drink she'd discarded, seeming to finally acknowledge our existence when the blue bitch appeared to have reached the end of her debriefing.

"Leave, now." Our escort automatically moved to leave this VIP area in response to her command, leaving me and my fellow Quarian tech genius at the mercy of the queen sitting on her throne surrounded by her alien Queensguard.

And that's when she allowed herself to look at us, really look at us. Her eyes began to scan Tali up and down and I could see out of the corner of my vision my quarian partner squirm, and right there in her predatory gaze was the glint of a cat that has caught a canary.

"You two are an odd duo." She commented absently, as if she were reading Tali like a book she had apparently get tired of read. "Leaving Rixx's cruiser as if they owned the damn thing… huh. Your names?"

"Tali… Tali'zorah nar rayya." Jesus, she's kind of adorable when she's scared. The sight of her struggling to find the strength to speak and her voice coming out as little more than a whisper are lovely in their own way.

But it's not a reaction I will give. "Joe Winters." And maybe that's why her eyes finally turned to me, the only book I doubt she can read. Very fine lines, fine print and very thick cover, dear.

And well, being scanned bye the eyes of a beautiful woman isn't exactly an uncomfortable experience either. The problem was when her eyes finally met mine and fixed there, much to my annoyance. Forget the telltale aura around a person, eyes will always be the true window to someone's soul and normally most folks can't face mine, even mercenary commanders and corporate demons couldn't look for more than two solid seconds.

And here she was staring without even blinking, contemplating. Which allowed me to do the same. She was no mother of the apocalypse, but there was a certain fierce inner fire there, tempered by a strong will from someone who had fought and bled for her and wouldn't hesitate to crack another couple of skulls..

"You killed him, didn't you?" she asked with a specter of a satisfied smile playing on her lips. It's not a question, she already knows the answer. She just wants to hear from me.

"I did." And I sincerely regret it, I deeply regret not doing it as slowly as possible. "Was he one of yours?"

"Pff, no." She replied contemptuously, retrieving her glass to take a long swig of her drink. "At least not officially. We had a deal, but he was becoming a problem."

"Then…." Tali, who seemed to find the courage to speak again, swallowed before continuing. "We don't have problems between us, right? We can go our way."

"Hardly." She stated categorically, in an almost disciplinary way. His deadly serious gaze had returned. "You see, we had a deal. Rixx operated on the borders of my territory, under our protection and with guarantees, in exchange we got a generous share of the loot."

"He didn't strike me as the type to honor a deal." Or that would allow himself to be bossed around considering all the heated hate speech I could hear on the radio as I took out his men.

"Indeed." She discarded the glass, the seriousness in her gaze taking on a sharp, authoritative tone. "He was also dumb enough to forget that there's only one rule on our little rock, but the fact still stands. He built his crew of amateurs with my permission, started looting after he got my blessing. The cargo and that bloody cruiser belong to me."

"And we have it." I concluded. In fact, people free from that floating hell in space have it and I highly doubt they're exempt from being considered part of the cargo either. This mafia is not above enslaving…or killing us. "Now, call me eloquent, but it seems we both have needs and things the other want, miss…"

"Aria t'loak." She said coldly, her eyes glowing with a volatile fire that I had seen time and time again on the faces of sadistic commanders commanded to choose violence as the bargaining chip. I need to be carefully here. "And if you think you can negotiate with me, I'd consider your position very carefully if I were you. I say the word and the boys here do what they're paid to do and I'll spend the night counting credits and you two rotting in the dumpsters."

"I don't doubt it, no doubt you would. You could make us and get your stuff and then sleep like a baby while you count your money. But you won't, because you're smart and you know that won't get you access to that cruiser the way you want." My answer seemed to appease the guards, fingers moving away from the trigger as quickly as they were there. But despite that there was still a pragmatically grim look on her face, eyes icy with no hint of hesitation.

For this to work, I need to show her that solving this the old-fashioned way can do more harm than good. In the end it all comes down to money.

"In this business, sometimes the most practical thing to do is to get what you're looking for even if it's halved and full of blood." She stated, but I could see in her eyes that she was really considering the logistics of all the loss, reevaluating the options… seeing an alternative. "However, I prefer full profit as compensation for not being able to rip that lizard to pieces myself. What do you have in mind?"

"You get the cruiser and the cargo that includes guns and possibly all sorts of drugs considering how stoned some of those idiots were."

"And in return?"

"You pay a ride home to all those souls unfortunate enough to cross paths with that cruiser, my friend here and I included. And tell me where I can find the Sons of Khar'shan."

I was waiting for a solid five minutes of silence in an attempt to make us uncomfortable, standard negotiation technique. But instead she just laughed. Not ironic and biting, she's genuinely chuckling with amusement evident on her face in a way I didn't think possible. I looked at Tali, who just stared back at me in confusion as our hostess regained her composure.

"That's it?" she asked, wiping a tear from her face before looking at us with amusement. "Intel and a ride, is that all you want? Not a third of the guns or drugs they have there?"

"... Yes?"

"You're not from around here are you?" Her scanning gaze had returned, but this time with a slight mischievous glint of genuine curiosity. "Not from the Omega for sure, but also not from any dark alley in the Terminus system."

"Does it matter?"

"No, not really." She poured herself another drink, sipping before speaking. "Deeds of charity like that will kill you if you stick around, though."

"I'll keep that in mind." Deeds of charity are probably the only thing that sets me apart from the monster I call brother, lass. "We have a deal?"

"We have a deal. I'll make sure all your friends get home."

I can feel Tali's eyes on me. She doesn't have the courage to engage in this exchange, but I can feel the urgency, her appeal reaching me through her gaze. "And the other part?"

"Here's some advice, pick a fight you can handle." The fun was gone, the hard expression of pure business was back. "The Sons of Khar'shan are a small group of ex-soldiers of the hegemony, if you two go after them you won't survive."

"We never said anything about going for a fight." Tali said, doing a surprisingly good job of keeping her voice composed despite the fear she'd displayed so far.

"No, you didn't. But what else killers like your friend here have to do in this station? Sex and death are what we offer, honey."

"Their last location." I cut the small talk, feeling less inclined to play gangster now that we were all close to getting what we want.

"Last I heard, they were in a warehouse in the lower districts in a little run-in with a very disgruntled Big Al or whatever problem those patriotic idiots had.

"Big Al?" The name seems human enough to be for whatever alien species this new world has to offer.

"Sniper, smuggler, mercenary, just pick. Just another one of many we've got crawling around, just with a frivolously higher moral compass."

So not a complete psychopath, good. Maybe we don't have to blindly enter hostile territory. "And how did we get to them?"

"There's a skycar out there that can take you two wherever you want. Now, I really don't want to hear from you two again until this is all sorted out. Your transport will wait until you arrive or the news that you've been killed. … or sold."

"Your faith in us is very reassuring, Aria." I said sarcastically, no longer bothered by the fact that I was talking to someone who could have Tali executed in cold blood. We're past that, she's not going to throw this deal away for a little sarcasm. "That is all?"

"Get out."

We didn't need to listen twice, we simply passed the guards who allowed us to pass and made our way back down the afterlife's ground floor.

Maybe it was because of our little private meeting with the boss of this shithole, maybe it was the fact that Tali and I didn't seem to have anything to offer, but the crowd didn't even give us a second glance when we made it all the way to the exit, being greeted again by the reddened surroundings of the space station and its range of dense sensations not perceptible to the normal senses that manifested as a foul smell and light twinges against my skin this time.

"Well, that was fine considering the circumstances." I exhaled heavily, trying to clear the sewer smell trying to seep into my nostrils. "To be honest, I was expecting bullets instead of a deal."

"No. Play. With. This." She breathed in heavily, as if she was finally releasing a breath that had been trapped in her lungs for years. Any kind of energy that was keeping her upright and composed seemed to dissolve as she dropped to her knees. "That was… keelah! It's not something I want to do again now or in the near future. That place and those people… give me a bad kind of feelings."

"I get what you mean, more than you realize." I ignored the sensations of this waning place that once again seemed to want to pierce my skin in favor of glancing at anyone looking amusedly in our direction. "Guess they don't prepare you for this at the fancy fleet school."

"They….They teach you that life out here can be difficult, hostile and sometimes horrendous in certain places. They condition you with the idea of danger, of having to fight either literally or figuratively, carrying your own weight, but this?" A quick glance back at her showed me nervously jerking her thumb in the direction of the afterlife, steadying her breathing and regaining her composure. "No, never. That asari was like fire. And… I would hardly call the migrant fleet training fancy."

"Some folks don't have any training at all, Tali. But believe me when I say that Aria t'loak is no fire of any kind." I made sure to lower my voice with that last part, there must still be ears to hear the bitch queen of afterlife in the darkest corners with the best view. "This type of fire is non-negotiable, non-controllable, and absolutely will not stop until it consumes everything and everyone in its path. The fact that we're here breathing tells me she's more like gunpowder and steel, the weapons of the old earth world. Ruthless and brutal, yes, but malleable."

"But how did you know?"

"Hmm?"

"When we walked through that door, when we stood in front of her, just the two of us and a bunch of big, scary guards staring at us like they wanted us to… how did you know she wasn't just going to… do this? How did you know she was… " malleable "?.""

"Frankly? I don't." I shrugged. Maybe it's not the answer she wanted, but the truth is, I had no way of knowing what would happen. "You're never sure someone won't kill you, just wait for it and maybe you'll have a chance to survive."

"Makes sense… I guess." She glanced over my shoulder, following her gaze revealed a sort of dashboard in front of what was undoubtedly the unmistakable shape of a car, more rustic in technological appearance and with a nearby human in space armor staring at us with a bored expression. . "I think our ride has arrived. We should probably go."

"Slow down, kitten. I'd rather not go headfirst into the unknown again, something tells me we won't be so lucky again." Pick a fight you can handle… advice from warlords isn't usually taken lightly. "Let's go back to that bloody ship and get some useful things."

"It would also be better to let the others know that someone is going to get them all home. They looked very ready to shoot anyone who doesn't look friendly and…" She stared into space again, her posture relaxed as if she was lost in thought. before looking at me with a questioning glare. "What does kitten mean?"

. I walked right into it, didn't I? Fuck, now is as good a time as any to find out if this thing on my arm can access the internet.


Shoelaces, threads, a buckle and when added together they make a beautiful slot and a very appropriate sling. Picking it all together was the easy part, the hard part explaining to an alien mechanic from the future why I was turning these things into something that could help me carry a rifle and some grenades when there was some armor my size perfectly available.

It took almost a solid thirty minutes to get her to buy into the idea that my refusal was simply because I liked to stay mobile in a fight rather than a lack of any idea how to get into one of those, and even then it wasn't without protest or her genuinely terrified little firm staying between me and the cruiser's exit, stating with conviction that a… "hard suit" is designed precisely to hold weapons and keep people alive in a fight and that getting into one without it with just a shield generator was suicide.

But well, a reminder of how some fully armed pirates were decimated a few hours ago by a man without armor or shields, along with a demonstration of switching hands with a knife and psychically heightened reflexes silenced her, momentarily. It got her out of my way but it didn't stop her continued protests until the skycar finally took off and she was forced to accept that I was going into battle without a hard suit.

She must think I'm crazy… which isn't far from the truth. The car ride made the task more complicated than it should have been, the bloody thing twisting and shaking every few minutes as it flew furiously through the air, slowly driving us into the unknown and the bloodshed that would follow.

Of course, that wasn't the only thing distracting me. Seeing omega from up here is really quite a sight to the average eye if you forget what's down there. But for every district in sight, every building, dwelling, and skycars passing by, there was always the telltale red landscape psychically flashing every block. Always the sound of screams of pain and hate seeming so close, always the brief glimpse of the massacres I was sure had taken place longer than most even remember.

The history of this shithole is etched in blood and death hanging in the air like the plague, and I'm the only one unlucky enough to literally see these things. Amazing, even in another dimension life bothers me.

Complaining wasn't going to help, and neither was looking out the window. Inspecting my things one last time, I glanced at Tali's seated form in the driver's seat, staring straight ahead as this thing's autopilot did its work. She was quiet the entire ride and at first I thought it was silent treatment for my earlier refusal, but looking at her now with a tense posture, her breath slightly agitated as if she was scared and considering where we're going, it's clear that I slightly overestimated my importance.

This is not about me.

"Are you okay?"

"I don't know." She looked at me for the first time since we boarded, there was a kind of silent fear in her bright eyes. "I needed to get here, you know. When I saw that bill of sale, I just had to get here before it was too late. But now…. I can't stop thinking, what if it's too late?"

"It's not too late, at least not to make a difference." I removed my knife from its usual spot, there was dried blood covering the blade still sharp, still good enough to use. "If the worst has happened, I will flay them alive. I guarantee that.""

"Hurting them won't undo anything they've done." she looked out again, morbidly contemplating the red landscape of the omega. "Captain breizh… he accepted me on his ship, agreed to help me on my pilgrimage and promised to protect me. if anything happens to him because of me…."

"Don't blame yourself for things you can't control." If you try to carry the weight of every casualty on your shoulders, son, there's nothing to stop you from falling apart. "What happened to you could have happened to anyone, anytime, anywhere under the stars. A bunch of idiots decided to act, you didn't choose that."

"But it was because of me that we were there, he's only in this situation because he decided to help me… he- ROCKET!"

WHAT?!

I only had time to register what was happening because my reflexes kicked in instinctively, slowing everything down to a pace that allowed me to watch her previously sad little eyes widen in horror, the source of those horror being what is unmistakably a rocket.

Flying towards us.

About to crash into the driver's seat where I'm sitting.

Son of a bit-