A collab between Mosis Tosis and myself
"Here's to you, you old pile of shit."
A human woman and a male drell sat at the back of a docking bay on a pair of medium-sized crates, a small bottle of champagne and a pair of glasses between them as they watched work crews begin to enter the small volus transport that had been their makeshift home for the past two years. Home was putting it gently; the ship had a much larger cargo bay than living quarters, which would be best compared to a recreational vehicle you'd sooner find in the wilderness of some backwater colony than an interstellar capable transport. Both freelancers found their pockets a bit heavier after the transaction, along with some of the other boons that Administrator Torstin Var'uuk promised in the exchange for the small craft, something the man fancied for his own journeys across the stars. Whether for business or pleasure, the woman didn't care. She clanged her glass against her drell companion's and took a swig of the clear-gold liquid, something the pair had been saving for a special occasion. Selling off their livelihood on a gambit most likely qualified.
"This can't possibly be more stupid than when we started Nova, can it?" the woman asked, referring to the fact they were staking the data they received from Var'uuk was solid, and the people would actually show up to the meeting in a conference room at one of the lower income hotels in the district.
"Nothing could possibly be more stupid than Nova," the Drell said with certainty, taking a swig of his own. He thought for a moment. "Well, actually, this probably gives that little venture a run for it's money in the 'I can't believe I'm actually doing this' category." His dark eyes studied the craft below them, where the work crews were already starting to wipe away the sloppy paint job that lovingly denoted the ship as "The Jalopy." Tanya's idea for a name, of course. She was full of little jokes like that, the majority of them flying right over his head. He chuckled a bit as one of the workers banged his head on the ship's tiny airlock door. The Jalopy was a volus-made ship, and at well over 6 foot tall, Kosso had run into that same doorframe more times than he could count. The memory of all those bumps, bruises and curses left him feeling strangely attatched to the old junker. He turned to his human companion with a small grin.
"Still, it was a good run, wasn't it? Two of the galaxy's biggest badasses, kicking ass and taking names? Must have been some sort of fantasy for you. Not to mention your dashingly handsome partner and the joys of his company." He said, gesturing towards himself as he finished his drink. "You think you're going to miss it?"
A thin trace of a smile crossed Tanya Carson's face as she looked at The Jalopy, something that required more assembly and upkeep than a model kit for those OCD suffering kids who treated overgluing with the same gravity as a hull breach. The ship was purchased from the same merchant who sold them the Tyrus around 3 years ago, and he was none too happy to see Tanya and Kosso return, only a few hands short of a fledging mercenary company that punched above its weight and fizzled out far before it hit its stride. Turns out keeping a frigate manned and maintained with a skeleton crew cut into profits something fierce, and in the end, the turian government was making quite the racket about confiscating retired military vessels from private hands. It didn't help that Tyrus, the turian frigate that was Nova's home and pride, came with an experimental stealth drive that was quite illegal to own, but somehow the ship was released for sale under a small clerical error that didn't account for multi-million credit technology that the turians rather not had exposed. Whether or not Nova eventually collapsed and sold the ship after Tanya and Kosso left was anyone's guess, but the engineer never heard of any more unexplained daring heists that fit the profile, and none of her old accounts from the ship worked. She saw to that before she left.
She watched an engineer open up a panel on the hull only to have a hydrolic line burst under pressure. That was one of the many reasons she would not miss it. Back on Elysium a week ago, Tanya and Kosso went for resupply and parts for their aging ship when they ran into trouble with Siame Industries, the not-so-new kids on the block that decided to alleviate the Alliance's headaches about dealing with the lawless in the Attican Traverse. The only reason either of them escaped and didn't have their ship locked down was because the spaceport master directly benefited from the pair's smuggling enterprise more than a few times. They were one of the very few ways he could afford the medicine his daughter needed, who suffered from a degenerative neurological condition. He never asked how they got the medicine, which was how Tanya preferred it. Trade secrets kept her somewhat wealthy.
"If by miss it you mean wondering what loose screw is going to cause catastrophic cabin pressure failure or overload the kinectic barriers, then yes, I do love my puzzles. But let's face it, we were never going to fit a Mako on that thing." she said with a grin. It was an old joke between the two. Tanya had been campaigning for one of the armoured fighting vehicles for the past three years.
"Didn't stop you from trying," Kosso replied, rolling his eyes a bit. "Remember that Elcor on Omega who tried to sell us that rusty old chassis? As soon as he said the cannon still worked I swear I saw your eyes light up. Was almost glad when the Blood Pack finally showed up to collect their payment, and your infatuation with Krogans temporarily overrided your love for overrated land vehicles." He finished his drink, lazily tossing his glass away into a corner of the docking bay. It was the last piece of their old ship he'd been holding onto, and throwing it away felt cathartic. "Maybe one day you'll have your Mako, Tanya. You can retire, find a Krogan man who treats you right, and live out the rest of your days inside of a shitty tank. That's the life for you."
"Oh, come on! For half the price in parts and two weeks of work, I could have had that thing in pristine condition. As for your romantic advice," she drove an elbow playfully, but roughly, into Kosso's abdomen. "You can sod off. It was one time on Illium, I was shitfaced, and the guy was by far the most intelligent and technologically inclined I'd spoken to in months. Can't blame me for being curious after being stuck on a ship full of dullards like yourself, brooding over shopping catalogs for sunglasses."
Kosso's omnitool suddenly beeped, coming to life as a small, spherical drone materialized in the air before them. Kosso and Tanya greeted it with the traditional salute, the movement fairly routine after two years. "Colonel on deck," they said in unison, Kosso's eyes rolling even as he played along. "Something you want?"
The drone fixed it's one "eye" on Kosso, speaking with a low drawl. "If'n you would look at yonder schedule, you'll find that you're gonna be mighty late for your meeting if you don't get a move on, I do declare." Again, Tanya's doing. She said it was a Southern accent (whatever the hell that meant) and that it was reserved for the most dignified and respected of Humans. Kosso just found it annoying, but who was he to argue with Human customs? The drone was a Human creation, after all, built by Nova's medic in exchange for biotic lessons and then later programmed in full by Tanya at Kosso's request. After seeing all of the "professional tweaks" Tanya had installed into the construct with the sole purpose of annoying him, he made a mental note never to ask Tanya for anything ever again.
"Thanks Colonel," Kosso said, swatting the drone away as he rose to his feet. "Anything else?"
"Yes, it would so rightly appear that you also have several other appointments loaded onto your schedule for this afternoon. 'Kissing Tanya's feet' should commence at 18:00 this'n evening, followed immediately by 'being a general bitch.'" the drone crooned.
"Right....thanks, Colonel." He leaned down to help Tanya to her feet. "I seriously hate you, you know."
Tanya accepted the help to her feet, drained her glass, and threw it haphazardly over her shoulder, the glass shattering somewhere out of sight. "Don't forget the 2100 hour oil massage. I knew I forgot something. Ah, whatever. The South will rise again, or some shit." she said, making a mental note to have 'Colonel' make references to fried chicken repeatedly before taking on its next programmed persona - A German feces fetishist pornstar. She wasn't about to tip Kosso off to this impending shift, it was much, much more entertaining to watch him react when it occurred organically. "Sadly, we need to clear our schedule for this evening. I don't think our new friends are going to really be so accommodating." she said, wrapping her blue scarf lazily around her neck and adjusting the grey thigh-length coat as she led the way out of the docking bay. She pulled out a data pad from one of the deep coat pockets and started flipping through the lists of profiles that Kosso and herself picked out. A frown creased her features and she ran her free hand through the thick stylized mohawk on-top of her head, something Kosso eventually figured out was a tell when she was uncomfortable. "Did you have to pick batarians, Kosso? This one bastard has slaver written all over him." she said, grey eyes glancing over at the drell beside her.
Kosso's mouth set into a thin line, all joviality gone. As well as he and Tanya got along, he knew that their personalities had a tendency to clash on occasion, and an argument was never all that far away. He knew Batarians made her uncomfortable (and rightfully so, after what she'd been through), but he also knew Tanya was smart. He was sure she could get past her own disquiet if was necessary. He just had to pick his words carefully.
"You know as well as I do that beggars can't be choosers, Tanya." His hands slipped into the pockets of his long coat as he walked alongside her. Not for the first time since stepping foot on the station, the feel of his pistol-grip within his fingers helped calm his nerves. Always a bit too paranoid for his own good, Kosso really only felt truly safe on the Jalopy...and now the Jalopy was behind him, no longer a safe haven or a home. All the more reason not to piss Tanya off: he liked knowing she had his back.
"To be honest, I don't like it all that much either. I don't really like the idea of working with anyone on something this big, especially not strangers with loose morals and looser triggers. But you know the job, and you know the stakes. If we want to work with saints, well..." He opened the docking bay door, moving into the station proper. "...then we've picked the wrong profession."
Tanya sighed, knowing Kosso was right. She hated when that happened. "I know, neither of us would be doing this if we weren't for the fact that we're losing clients faster than we can make them and this is what, the third time this month we've almost been pinched by SI? Can't live like that." she stopped on another profile, a man with a cybernetic arm who was also an Alliance veteran and had his own run ins with batarian slavers. At least there was one kindred spirit on the list, 25 in all. There was a good chance a lot of them would walk out the door the minute they heard what Tanya and Kosso were about to propose, which was assuming they showed up at all. "And who would have thought fucking Mark Russo would have been on the station? It's weird, I never trusted the guy and thought he was a bit of a wanker, and right now he's the only name on this list I know. Hopefully he doesn't expect us to give him back pay from his probation period."
Kosso shrugged. "Definitely wasn't the friendliest of people, but the first time I met him was after he'd gone out of his way to fuck up Luek's big fancy party, so his heart must be in the right place. Strange that we'd meet him here again, but I guess there's some people you just can't escape." He grimaced, struck with a sudden thought. "Let's just hope Kasy doesn't make a surprise appearance." He opened his omnitool and ran through his own list of profiles. "Professional hacker, a medical technician, a hitman, more assorted mercenaries and bounty hunters than you can shake a stick at...quite a group. On paper, it almost looks as if we might actually have a chance." He fixed Tanya with an overly-serious stare. "We do have a back-up plan, right?"
"If Kasy does show up, twenty credits says it's because she's managed to piss off the Blue Suns again and somehow implicated us in it." she glanced over the profiles as Kosso was calling them out, their devices synced. "Yeah, quite the talent pool. It'll be interesting to see if they can play nice, or this is going to be officially far stupider than deciding to form a mercenary company with a few strangers while drinking heavily." she paused, considering her backup plan. "Do cyanide pills count as a backup plan? Because really, this is one of those all in, call their bluff bullshit maneuvers." she admitted.
"If there's anything you should have learned after a couple of years traveling with me, it's that I can call bluffs with the best of them. I think all of our poker games, and half of the cash in my account, can attest to that." He pulled up a digital map as the moved deeper into the station's poorer district, searching for the hotel they'd selected to host all of the invited degenerates. "Was never as good after I lost my shades, but I still have the skills." He grinned at her. "I'm sure you'll be quite impressed with me before we both die."
He stopped in front of their destination, a dilapidated old building well of the beaten track. The dirty neon sign hanging above the entrance marked it as the "Cartanega Inn: Low rates and no questions." "Seems like our kind of place..." Kosso muttered under his breath. He caught Tanya by the elbow as she moved to open the door. "You know...we don't have to do this. We can just bail out on our own meeting. Go find another ship, hell, go wrestle the damned Jalopy back from Var'uuk. We could just get out of here, and never look back. Find someplace deep in the Terminus Systems where they've never even heard of Siame. If you have any sort of second thoughts..."
Tanya's face was hardened with resolve. "No. We see this through. I'm tired of running, and I'm not spending the rest of my life looking over my shoulder." she brushed Kosso's hand from her elbow. "And you know as well as I do that Siame's been probabing out the Terminus more and more. If we don't do this, nowhere's going to be fucking safe." she ran her hand through her dark hair once more, inhaling deeply. "Let's meet our misfits, shall we? We should be experts at rallying losers to our cause by now." she said, walking to the reception desk to sign off on the conference room.
_ _ _ _ _
The room, as it turned out, was surprisingly pleasingly furnished with stainless steel tables and high-backed leather seats, including some oversized ones for the bigger aliens in the off chance a krogan or elcor decided to use the room. Bottles of water, other refreshments, and a holoprojector finished off the round table look of the room. Tanya took a seat on the far side of the room, at the "head" of the table, Kosso beside her. "If this doesn't pan out, I'm blaming you." she said.
Kosso just rolled his eyes. "So, business as usual then?"
"Maybe we shouldn't have been so hasty to ditch the champagne. I have a feeling I'll be needing it after this." Tanya replied dryly.
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