[h3]Come here often?[/h3] Storm and Dervs doing the do. [hr] Back on Omega. The job had been Ardan’s first foray off the station in over 8 months and he never even got to step foot on a planet with breathable atmosphere that didn’t come from an air recycling processor. The turian would have laughed at the absurdity of it all if it didn’t come packaged with the realization that even the most remote of chances he had of reuniting with his estranged family had effectively turned to “shoot on sight” thanks to his willingness to take a straightforward job with fairly lucrative pay and a chance to get off of Omega for a little while and maybe feel some star’s heat upon his carapace and eat something that didn’t taste like pre-packaged depression for a change. Oh well. At least life was about to get more interesting; there was a virtually zero percent change there weren’t bounty hunters already salivating over the prospect of bringing in the very lucrative fugitives, and it wasn’t like Ardan kept a low profile; he’d maintained social media accounts on Omega that focused around professional guns for hire and engineering gigs to keep a relatively modest income that kept his gear up to snuff and his reputation sterling. He’d quietly deactivated the accounts when they reached the wireless networks on Omega when Kori’s ship came in to dock, and he’d read over Cherk’s e-mail a half-dozen times, searching for a coded message, or something to go off of that wasn’t more or less [I]Greetings, Omega-Clan; I have no idea what happened, but please take this consolation prize of staying in this location of my choosing and hope I do not betray you in the end.[/I] Like hell Ardan was going to stay [I]there[/I], especially since he didn’t know anyone on the team, and everyone except for the asari were problematic in their own right. He looked over at Naryxa and made eye contact and offered a smile that probably came across as disingenuous. He frowned, looking away. [I]Remember the last time you found an asari attractive? Trusted them? What, last week? No, before that. Shopping for groceries and she caught you staring while she was bagging your fish? You’ve got a type, Ardan; you’re just an idiot.[/I] One could say a lot about Ardan Parvius, but betraying his convictions was certainly not one of them. When they were docked and told to disembark, the turian stretched, feeling his carapace popping around his lower back and right shoulder. He frowned; when did he start getting old? He looked over at Naryxa again and sighed, shaking his head. “So, we doing this now?” He muttered to himself. “Spirits save me.” He walked over to the asari, hands casually behind his back like he wasn’t planning anything nefarious. Well, he wasn’t, but everyone was pretty on edge and generally “Middle-aged turian with a grenade launcher” set off red flags for a lot of people, namely how a mid-life crisis for turians tended to end up with failed revolutions or starting gangs in popular perception. Anything to break free of the tedium of the Hierarchy. “So, Naryxa? May we speak for a moment?” The Asari had been standing adjacent to the ship for a few moments. She was quietly reading text as it came over her datapad, a confused expression on her features which made her facial tattoos appear unusually angular. Her thumb was pressed to her lower lip as she stared intently at her reading, amber eyes moving side to to side. Truthfully, she was feeling unsure of the situation, and working through it in her head. It was all just so confusing - why would [i]she[/i] have been framed? She was a scientist first and foremost. These days, anyway. She felt at least comforted in knowing that she had been able to assist the Quarian with getting them back to safety. The rest of the group were… Well, they were a bunch of misfits. As she always did, she had left the dossiers unopened in her inbox. She always found it much more revealing and interesting to get to know a person - nowadays, it was as if everyone wanted to get to know each other beforehand based on information they could skim from the extranet and through hacking possessions. Was there really anything so bad about genuine connection and intuition? She sighed, and removed her thumb from her mouth, swiping over the screen of the datapad again. Suddenly, with the circumstances in mind, she was almost tempted to open up the files. [i]Almost[/i]. She was interrupted from her thoughts by the Turian of the group. She remembered him introducing himself as Ardan Parvius earlier. “Ardan,” she said with a smile, her face relaxing into it immediately - the tattoos smoothed over into a gentle curve once more, eyes inviting. “You seem to have something on your mind, so please - of course we can speak.” When they were apart from the others, Ardan cleared his throat. “I’m assuming you received a similar message from Cherk, about his safehouse? I don’t trust it, or the others, for that matter. My apartment’s under a fake name and paid for via proxy, so unless someone knows a very specific alias I only use for the most mundane of activities, no one’s going to think to look there. Why don’t you take a walk with me, crash at my place, we can figure this out until our names are cleared.” he smiled again, extending a hand. “At the very least, let me buy you a drink. Might as well celebrate our lives getting a bit more exciting than they were a day ago.” At the mention of a message, her eyes darted to the datapad again, the Turian was right - there was a message. She inwardly chided herself for not having been on top of that sooner. “Ah,” she muttered as she opened it, her eyes taking in the information as quickly as possible. She held a pause as she considered both Ardan’s offer, and the information in the message. The thumb found its way to her lip again. “It seems that the others may well be heading to this safehouse… I wonder if it is better for us to stick together, as wonderful as your apartment sounds of course!” The Quarian instantly came to mind, and how she had explained that she had been living on her ship. Perhaps she would be at the safehouse after she returned from wherever she had been taken. “It’s not ideal to stay together in shared housing - knowing so little of each other, but better together than split up, wouldn’t you agree?” she tilted her head to the side, a slightly intense stare behind her eyes as she looked into Ardan’s. “That’s the thing…” Ardan’s voice trailed off with an edge of caution. “What do we really know about any of them, or Cherk, for that matter? As far as I know, I’m the only one in our little fireteam with the kind of talent to do something like the shit we were framed for, but there’s the problem of the fact [I]I do not hurt civilians.[/I]” the turian pressed, his face a grim mask. “I know you have a similar skepticism about me as I have about the others, and I shouldn’t trust you, but I have to start somewhere. You’re… well, not like the others. It’s something I can work with. Doesn’t it seem a bit convenient that this volus hires us for this job, the liner explodes as soon as we jump in the system we’re supposed to be working in, and then he offers us a safehouse after we have a giant bounty on our heads? I cannot take the risk that it’s not a trap, that he doesn’t have men waiting to take us while we sleep and cash in on the bounty that he may have had a hand in orchestrating.” Ardan shook his head, glancing at the others. “I’ll fully admit, I have an issue with the homeworlds that lot come from, and that prejudice isn’t easy to shake, but I am committed to sorting out the wrongs committed against us for all of our sakes. The thing I’ve learned about living on Omega for the past few decades is you cannot take anything for face value, especially in this line of work.” “Well when you put it like that, it doesn’t look great. Tell me though, Ardan - from your [i]limited[/i] interaction with Cherk, does he seem the type to manage to orchestrate such a scheme? Surely he’d pick some individuals far more likely on paper to have done such a thing too… I’m a biologist - not a terrorist… I don’t know about the others as of yet - but tell me, do they look like the type?” She really was thinking it all over, and when Ardan cast a look over at the others, she followed suite, the only one that she was really suspicious of was the Vorcha, and even she knew that was based on the reputation of the race more than any actual behaviour that he had demonstrated. She saw no reason not to begin walking, knowing that Ardan would follow along with her, her experience of him so far had been that he had a little bit of a hot head when it came to, well, anyone that wasn’t him - or, her. “How do I know that it [i]wasn’t[/i] you? By your own admission you are the most likely suspect. So you invite me to your apartment, alone. How do I know that you are not going to strike?” She said it in a faux serious tone, as if to only poke at the flaws in his own plan. “We were sent to a trap, you are right about that. I don’t believe that Cherk was the one to set it…” Naryxa’s voice trailed off as she took slow steps away from the ship, and out into Omega. She could discuss it back and forth with Ardan as much as she could, it was doing nothing to quell her own feelings at being framed for such a crime. It was like she said. She was a [i]scientist[/i]. A respected one at that. It started to really sink in, and she took a deep breath in. “This whole thing looks… [i]bad[/i]. Right now, we’re all in the same situation. I’d rather be with them, and work this out together.” The turian had a grim smile on his face. “Got me there. Figured you’d say that, but as I so dutifully pointed out, I have no reason to trust you either, but I’m willing to take [i]some[/i] risk. If you are in fact the bad guy in this situation, please try not to trash my abode. It’s all I have left from home.” he said, keeping pace with Naryxa easily. “Besides, if it were me, I certainly wouldn’t be trying to acquaint myself with one of my targets. Either you or I go missing, it makes the other look really, really bad.” “And no, I don’t really believe Cherk is the one responsible, nor the rest of the team, but he did mention we were hired via proxy… that’s the real question mark. I propose we work with the others and do whatever assignments are cooked up to clear our names, but what’s that phrase, ‘don’t keep your eggs in one basket’? If it is a ruse to get us all into one easily detained location, then it makes more sense if [i]some[/i] of us aren’t actually present. If I were trying to cash in on our bounties, I’d be trying to make sure everyone was in one place. Something happens to us, they can act on it. Something happens to [i]them[/i], we can act on it. No sense in letting a single shot wipe out the team.” Ardan replied evenly, his mind working in a logical, relaxed flow. The situation was less than ideal and has some severe implications, but it wasn’t a mountain that was going to be scaled in a single leap. Just focus on here, on today, and see what you can do to make tomorrow easier. Naryxa listened to what Ardan was saying, and she considered all of his points. It seemed, however, that they were at an impasse. She saw merit in both options, and as her eyes fell over the group once more, there was some feeling in her gut telling her she shouldn’t abandon them - even if it was just overnight. “Look, I don’t know about you, but I’m beat, my head is all over, neither of us can make sense of this.” She sighed, and stopped walking. “We have the address of the safehouse, let’s go and get that drink and try to unwind some… We can then head to the safehouse - presumably most of them will also be there, and we can come to a decision then. Otherwise we’ll share this back and forth forever…” She folded her arms across her chest, her suit was starting to make her feel uncomfortable already, she rolled her shoulders back. Everything felt so constricted and she hated it. “I’m out of practice with this shit, and I want to know where Kori’Andh was taken off to… She’s young, possibly in trouble. If we really want to sniff out the source of this, I’d start by looking into who that Turian was…” She raised an eyebrow as she thought on it. Afterlife [i]would[/i] be a good place to start. She knew people there, she at least would feel moderately safe. “Well, she is a quarian; she probably owes a debt to someone if she’s stuck on Omega. Hardly the place I’d chose for my pilgrimage. It would be like a school kid trying to do a fundraiser in a slum during their first trip to a big city.” Ardan replied dryly, nodding in agreement. “Afterlife, it is. What better way to know those you’re running for your life with than over a glass or two under the watchful eye of the crime queen of Omega?” he added with a grin. He gestured towards a taxi skycar terminal. “Come on. First one’s on me.” [hr] [I]Afterlife, sometime later…[/I] “So the big lunk gets back from getting a drink, and he’s been a real pain in the ass for everyone at the Quasar machines, right? This krogan’s been in this suit of shitty armour for so long it’s starting to oxidize, and being pretty deep in the drink myself, I elected to tape some thermite strips to the metal stool he’d been using when he gets back. He was a real piece of work, mind you, yelling at the servers, threatening people, the usual krogan bit. I wait on it a bit; next time he predictably loses his next game, he starts hollering and getting [i]real[/i] ornery. “So I hit the detonator switch I’d had hidden up my sleeve and our good friend the krogan doesn’t even notice the sparking and burning heat until after a lady next to him starts screaming. He notices and stands up suddenly, this stool heat-welded to his ass and he starts swinging around and yanking at it to pull him off with minimal success. I haven’t seen anyone that embarrassed since one of my classmates pissed himself on a school trip.” Ardan said with a bemused laugh and finishing off his third drink of the evening. Despite everything, he was enjoying Naryxa’s company and the alcohol was even making the less-than-wonderful music that dozens of people were dancing to with various levels of success enjoyable; he found his foot tapping along to the bassline. “So what about you? What’s the stupidest thing you ever done for fun?” Ardan asked. Naryxa was taking small sips from her glass as she listened to Ardan’s story, laughing softly along with him. His stories were as explosive as she would expect, he was far from the quipping spitfire he had been on the ship now. “Well, there was one time when I sprinkled seeds through my colleagues equipment when I worked on the Citadel. His computer, in his desk, across his terminal… Everywhere! I had been working on a blended fertiliser and really I just wanted to test it… My colleague had been a little grumpy that week… I figured over a few nights they would just become small sprouts.” She took a long sip from the glass, her arm waving from side to side under the influence of the alcohol. The Asari started to cackle quietly to herself before continuing, “Anyway we had been asked to work with some other researchers to help them finish a project in another lab. By the time we got back to our own lab… The entire thing looked like a jungle!” she exclaimed proudly, slamming a palm down onto the table. “He could not even be mad at it….” Ardan raised a hand. “Wait wait wait. Fertilizer? You mean shit?” Ardan grinned widely. “I’m not a botanist or anything of the like, so stop me if I’m wrong in imagining you sprinkling processed poop across your office to create an impromptu greenhouse. So did the lab technicians scream when they found out?” “I made it from a formula… It was not ‘poop’.” She said, suddenly serious, a finger pointed towards the ceiling. “They were not happy, but interestingly enough that fertiliser, and the conditions in which the plant grew allowed me to further research that particular species and I learned a lot.” Naryxa sat for a few seconds longer, her expression deadpan. “Damn, I just killed the story…” she laughed, drinking back the last of the liquid from the glass. “Can't say I'd tape someone to a chair though Ardan, that was very… [i]bad ‘ass’[/i] of you!” The pun made little sense, but she still found amusement in it, waving over the bartender to refill her glass. “Well the hot head just found himself in the hot seat, I just helped facilitate that particular destiny. I doubt he learned a damn thing from it.” he said, lifting up his beer when the bartender brought him another bottle in a gesture of thanks. “Excuse me for saying so, but you don’t strike me as the mercenary type. I have a hard time imagining you ever willingly hurting someone for credits.” the turian remarked, looking over at the asari next to him. “If this is your first job, I’m sorry that it was your introduction to this line of work. I promise it’s not all alike this.” His theory gave her more to laugh about than either of their stories. “That’s nice of you to say,” she began, clearing her throat and trying to bring back her composure. “As a matter of fact, I worked with a Huntress unit for over 60 years… I wouldn't say it's willingly hurting people, but it was a job that needed to be done. You're right though, I'm less suited to mercenary life… But I'm still good at it.” There was nothing smug about her words, but there was an intensity about it that suggested there was more to her past than she was comfortable to discuss at this time. “What about you? Pardon my saying but you definitely strike me as a mercenary type.” Ardan traced the mouth of his bottle with a finger, staring pensively at the glass. “We turians don’t get to experience as much life as you do, and I’m starting to get to the age where there’s no picking another path. We turians are born to serve, just sometimes our causes change. I served a government that forgot its obligations to the galaxy, and I lost my taste for blindly following orders without critical thought. I’m good at what I do, I’m still a soldier in a way, just my master is myself and my code is my own. It’s a hard life, one that’s dangerous and often has a cost many aren’t willing to pay. I just tell myself that somewhere along the road, I’ve helped give some people a chance to have a better future for themselves.” he smiled ruefully. “At the very least, I keep funeral homes from ever having concerns about losing clients.” Naryxa nodded and listened to the Turian, hanging on his words, giving her attention to the way his voice changed and his nuanced body language. His was a story so typical of many of the mercenaries she had met throughout her life. “An interesting approach to your life, Ardan. Thank you for sharing that with me…” Naryxa remarked with a warm smile and warmer eyes that showed she was nothing but sincere. With such questions asked, and the bottom of her glass approaching she spoke quietly, “so… I think I will stay at the safehouse tonight.” She wondered how disappointed or angry Ardan would be, but at the end of it all, it was gut feeling and instinct that had won out for her. Maybe it was the alcohol, the genuine warmth of the company, or the fear of being on his own dealing with something way over his head, but something inside of Ardan definitely shifted. He nodded in understanding. “I thought as much. I can’t say I’m sold on the idea, but…” Ardan turned to face her with a smile, raising his bottle to her. “I’d hate for this conversation to be our last one. I’m in.” “Well Ardan, I’m sure if given half the chance, the others would also give you just as interesting of a conversation,” Naryxa replied with a wink, running a finger over the rim of her glass. With that said, she rose from her seat and Ardan did the same. The two of them made their way from the bar, and onwards to the safehouse.