17OMEGA SPACE STATION
Omega, of course it’s where he’d want to me. The trashiest place in the known galaxy where every thug and/or criminal comes to haunt. The man walks down the streets between tall buildings rising up into the former mining asteroid far overhead. He scowls to himself. He hadn’t been here in months, not since the failure of the Illusive Man’s personal pet project, Kei Leng. Leng made a grievous error in dealing with Aria T’loak and one of her cronies. The Illusive Man wasn’t happy and sent him to deal with the assassin. Greatest assassin my ass. Guess the Illusive Man has himself quite the piece of real estate now. Not much to look at. And it never will be.
In response to Kei Leng’s failure, the Illusive Man had been forced to send in several teams of mercenaries to clamp down on the criminal pinnings of Aria. She still fought back but was eventually forced to leave Omega. However, the three major mercenary bands; Blue Suns, Eclipse, and the Blood Pack; filled the vacancy left by Aria and all-out war broke out on Omega giving the Illusive Man and Cerberus only the barest of majority rules on the station.
And now he was back to deal with yet another situation. A situation that had flipped on the Illusive Man. And his master was not someone the Illusive Man was in total control of.
That’s all right, he considered. This has been in the making for a while now. You’ve really lost control, Jack. Reapers breathin down your neck, galaxy at each other’s throats, enemies in every corner. And you want even more information? The man arrives at the destination he had previously been told to head towards. And now he waits on a small corner at the entrance to an alleyway. The man lets loose a slight sigh and a smile tugs at the corner of his lips. You can’t be serious.
“Lykins?”
“Nope,” the man replies to the voice and doesn’t bother looking towards the newly arrived hitman. “I’m his lackey. You know all about lackeys, right?”
The voice exhales sharply, “Come this way.”
The man can hear the agitation in the voice and can feel the cold titanium of the weapon pointed in his direction. He grins slightly and doesn’t give the voice so much as a look as he walks into the alleyway and continues down nearly halfway.
“Right there. Into the alcove.”
He does as instructed and they find themselves staring face to face in the dark cubby along the walls of a building rising high above.
“So, is this the part where I hand over the information?”
“It’s a shame Lykins was too much of a pussy to come himself.”
“Why? So you could shoot him? You and the Illusive Man don’t honestly think he’s that stupid do you?”
“I don’t ask questions. I perform my duties.”
“Simple minded merc playin’ assassin. I’ve dealt with my fair share of assassins.”
The voice raises the weapon towards his head and he doesn’t flinch, doesn’t step back, “I’ve served in a dozen combat zones. Was on Elysium when the batarians attacked. I know menace, and you ain’t it, pal!”
In a flash, the man has disarmed the voice and sprawled his body on the ground before him. He holds the voice’s weapon to the head panting on the ground.
“Yeah, you’ve seen a lot. And I’m sure you’re highly skilled. But the problem with skill is that it makes most people arrogant. I’d stick to soldiering if I were you,” he says and pulls out a datapad and tosses at the ground before the merc. “Take that back to your master like a good dog. And, if you ever hold a gun to my face again, I will kill you. And not in the pleasant you just got shot sort of way.”
The man puts the gun into his jacket and walks away from the prostrate merc who whines for several seconds. The man leaves the alleyway and pulls out his omnitool. He watches the view of the merc getting up, looking around, gathering the data, and then rushing off down the alleyway towards the docking bays at the other end of Omega’s seventieth district. He follows at a good distance.
Losing Kei Leng hurt. I didn’t actually have to kill him, the poor sod. Other interests in play. Still in play. And here there’s just some lowly merc running errands for the master. If Illusive Man only knew. Yeah, be a good little merc, and help me tighten the noose.
Nobody saw the Illusive Man. All his meetings were done over holographic displays and QEC setups. And he was making enemies he couldn’t afford. He should know, he was one of them.
Nothing personal, Jack. Just business. Isn’t that what you always used to say? Never the same since Eva died. He continues onward for a good twenty minutes, the merc bobbing and weaving the whole. Always looking around him and behind. Sticking to the shadows. You were taught something about insertion. That’s good. Won’t help you though.
He adjusts his visor and pushes through several buildings. The visor feeds in the omnitool readings and allows him hands free tracking of the datapad the merc now has in his possession. It allows him to get a general layout of all the building structures in the residential districts of Omega and to get a bead on the docking bays nearby. He triggers a mechanism on his wrist that sends out a signal towards his ship. Somewhere, it is powering up and flying off to stealthily approach docking bay nineteen seventy, the nineteenth bay on level seventy.
Good choice in bays. Not much regulation from Omega proper and Cerberus has sure put it to good use getting around the rival gangs.
He enters the docking bay and ducks behind a ship and uses his visor to zoom in on the merc running past the ships scattered around the bay. The holographic display in the visor ignores the scattered vessels and he’s able to see the merc stop and duck behind some crates. The merc looks around for several long moments not making a move.
Very cautious of you. Take your time. I’ve got all the time in the galaxy.
The merc eventually moves and heads into his vessel. The vessel comes to life and starts to slowly maneuver out of the docking bay. The man takes that opportunity to come out of cover and walk towards his small ship at the far end of the bay. The craft comes up to just about the top of his head and is more the size of a private shuttle than long range craft. But he has specially modified it to be a long distance starcraft.
He enters and shuts the canopy. After lifting off, he follows the beacon in the datapad and soon finds the merc ship heading towards the Omega Relay. The man pushes the stealth ship into max speed and comes up below the merc vessel as it nears the relay. He inverts the craft and quietly attaches to the underneath of the vessel. He feels a slight click as the vessels connect securely just in time to see the blue shift of the mass effect field surrounding the ships. Within a split second, they are in a mass relay jump and moments later are exiting the mass effect field into another star system.
What are you doing? We can’t have possibly already reached our destination. He looks out the window and sees the black void of space and the stars moving away and to his left. The ship maneuvers in another direction and jumps to FTL drive. Fascinating.
He uses his visor to scan the datapad and the occupant of the ship above him, or from his perspective, below. He sees the merc inverted from his position sitting at the comms panel punching in a series of coordinates. He smiles at the merc and leans back in his seat. I think it’s safe to conclude he hasn’t detected me. Good.
Nearly two hours pass before the ships exit FTL and head towards a deep red star. The man leans forward and furrows his brow. As the ship heads deeper into the system, he sees a dark planet nearer the sun. The merc ship angles towards the planet and before long the man can see the merc’s destination. This prompts a broad smile for it is a massive space station. He puts in several prompts into his system and hears a feed being sent out from the vessel.
“…got it. Yes. No I wasn’t followed. I made sure of it, sir. But, there’s something we need to discuss in person.”
The man triggers another set of prompts to hear both ends of the conversation.
“I don’t meet in person, Hallows. Meet my personal guard in the bay. You will hand over the datapad to her. Then, you are dismissed.”
“But, Lykins didn’t show up. It was some other guy. He disarmed me. He seemed…proficient in the combat arts. Tall guy, about six two, two hundred forty pounds or more.”
That’s a hundred ninety two, thank you very much. Make me out to be some fat ass you scrawny little shit. The man grimaces and pushes in some commands. The vessels are quickly approaching the hangar bay to the space station and there was no way his ship would go undetected if they both entered the bay.
“I figured Lykins would send someone in his stead. Don’t worry about it. Proceed as instructed.”
“Yes, sir.”
That’s my cue, the man disengages the small craft as the merc vessel is nearly upon the bay. The small craft drops low towards the surface of the space station and follows the curve down below the station towards several jutting structures and attaches the craft to the surface of the space station.
“Emily…” the man adjusts his comms monitor and listens in to the feed he’d zeroed in on. “Once Hallows has delivered the datapad and left the station, have his vessel destroyed.”
“Sir? But he has been with you since—“
“I don’t need you to remind me of those I’ve served with. He’s become a liability and knows too much. I don’t like that he came straight here instead of meeting with Yves. Get rid of him.”
“…Yes, sir.”
Ah, Jack. Always quick to stab your friends in the back. You haven’t changed at all. The man initiates his comms recorder.
“Lykins, found your man. Follow these coordinates.”
He enters the recording and data into an encrypted file and hacks into the Illusive Man’s communications network to bounce the signal off of Hallows’ ship and towards the other vessels listlessly floating around the spaces around the space station. Once done, the signal reroutes towards the relay in the nearby system where it will transmit to Lykins himself.
“Now that that’s done,” the man stands up to a bent over position and meanders towards a small locker at the rear of the cabin.
He kneels down to open it up and pulls out a helmet and specialized gear which he proceeds to put on. Once accomplished, he locks his gear into place and ensures his suit is pressurized. He opens the canopy after depressurizing the cabin and exits the ship. He stretches his arms out wide and gets the kinks out of his joints.
“Time to find where Jack has holed himself up at.”
The man takes a step and sees Hallows’ ship flying off towards the edge of the system. Within moments a battle cruiser opens fire and obliterates the vessel.
“Jack always was such a sweetheart.”
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