Okeer froze. The sound had come from
behind. The safety on an automatic weapon, likely trained on him. Unless he’d managed to breathe in some of the toxin after
all and was starting to hear things. The adhesive gas mask he had printed on
the workstation in the communications room had already started to disintegrate
on his ride up.
But then a shuffle followed, a faint
breath of a released vacuum seal, and finally a turian voice. “Turn around, slowly, with your hands where I can
see them.”
Okeer snorted. The voice was familiar. He turned, slowly, to find a familiar face with fading white stripes staring at him from a rocky outcrop a few meters away, just a bit above him. “And so we meet again, skullface.”
Continue reading Leave-Taking
They crawled to the edge of the rocky
outcrop and peeked over. The east guard tower was ten meters ahead. It would be
entirely possible to hear a krogan posted there snoring from here. But Nihlus
could hear nothing.
“Change
of watch?” Saren said. He lowered his visor. A moment later, Nihlus heard the
delicate buzz of the optical focus. “There’s no one in there.”
Well, yes. The tower was a cube of
concrete with a rusty iron fence encircling the top and a slanted roof to keep
the equipment dry. There was no way to hide a krogan on it. Or anything, for
that matter. A ladder with six rungs led up from the ground on the east side. A
sturdy sliding door faced them from the south side. That would be the service
elevator.
Everything was just as Farril had described it. Only his boy, what-was-his-name-krogan was missing.
Continue reading House in an Invictus Jungle
Saren spun on his toes, making a full-circle sweep with his
arms extended sideways. The violence of the motion stirred the air like a fan.
When he reached the apex he ducked and repeated the sweep in the opposite
direction from a half-squat, while Kryik executed the mirror move centimeters
above his head. It was the flashy, optional finisher for the second form, done
by young athletes in competitions to impress the judges.
Saren felt neither young nor athletic. The entire exercise could have lasted no more than ten minutes, yet he was breathless. As he stepped back, Kryik spun one more time. Out of turn. A poorly thought-out improvisation or an honest mistake—it mattered not. Saren bent back at a hazardous angle and evaded Kryik’s slashing hand a split second before losing an eye.
Continue reading Gravity
Nihlus awoke to the sounds of hurried steps and shouting. He
jumped up, vision still blurry, hit the low ceiling of the tent and got a
crest-blade stuck within a seam. Saren’s corner was abandoned and
the tent was unsealed. He cursed and fumbled to free himself.
“Sarge!” Vezeer said, stepping
by the tent. “You better come over here. Quickly!”
“What is it? Argh! Talk to me,
damn it!”
But Vezeer was already gone. Nihlus yanked, and something tore, but he was free. He crawled out on all fours and started stumbling in the dark after the sound of Vezeer’s quick-paced footsteps. Flashlights were dancing ahead. Still half asleep, he caught on every bush and branch on the way. Something heavy thrashed about, crunching twigs. It sounded like a predator struggling with oversize prey. Nihlus ran.
Continue reading Betrayal
The noise was insufferable. His heartbeat was lost in it. He didn’t know if he was asleep or awake. Dead or alive. He tried to move and the blackness around him swirled into a wormhole, pulling him in. There was nothing he could do to fight it. He couldn’t even scream.
How’s he doing?
It won’t be much longer, Sarge.
Is there nothing we can do? Get
him to a proper hospital?
Wouldn’t change a thing. I’m sorry.
It’s not your fault.
I’m sorry anyway.
Continue reading Fever
Okeer had taken permanent residence in
the communications room. The first time they had tried to dislodge him, he told
them to shut the fuck up and get the fuck out in not so many words. They didn’t listen. The second time, he ripped someone or
another apart with a barely charged biotic shock. They grew quiet after that.
He needed the silence to work, to think. The ground was slipping under his feet and although it was not yet time to run, it was time to start walking. Wortag had agreed to his proposal easier than Okeer had expected. Why would he trade when he already had Okeer in custody? He was probably dragging it out while he looked for another buyer. Not that Okeer had ever had more than vague, wishful hopes regarding their deal. He offered collaboration to a krogan organization first as a familial courtesy, risking loss of time for the unlikely possibility that one of his kind would be wise enough to just listen to him. If Wortag had agreed to finance his research, Okeer would have stayed and kept his word. But Wortag was no different from other krogan: greedy, impulsive, aggressive, impatient. Whatever the secret behind his abrupt success over the last couple of decades, it sure wasn’t intelligence.
Continue reading Orderly Retreat