Massive Disaster 4 - Interlude IV

Prefab air carried rust in its vents; rust and something thicker. 

Maybe the thick stench of contempt that seemed to come standard issue with Batarian atmosphere, speaking air recycled so many times it still carried the same presence.

Whatever it was, it was certainly familiar.

Matron Tireya Leneis walked forward as the door hissed shut behind her, the SPECTRE simply glad to be free from the dusty winds of the planet Lorek. For a second, she let herself pause over the threshold, gaze scanning those assembled.

Count them. 

Twelve, all scattered about; each one in dark red mottled armor, and eager for blood. She could appreciate the mindset… really, it was one she knew well.

The Red Synd, which wasn’t the worst name for a mercenary group she’d ever heard as far as names went. At the very least it communicated something to the clients. The crimson claw image on their hardsuits was also predictable, but Batarians were never a people to claim subtlety or virtue, together or separately.

She liked them for that at least, as much as you could ever like the four-eyed slavers for anything. They rarely pretended about what they did.

Why they did it, sure.

But the what stayed the what.

Over a dozen mercenaries filled the space, each one of them all angles and hardsuits scuffed with grime from wars nobody remembered or cared about. Four eyes tracked her along with each and every movement as if hunting for a weakness she didn’t have. 

Yet, they still couldn’t help it. Instinct. The SPECTRE scoffed as the air hummed with their voices, that low resonant fury these slave-scum mistook for discipline.

That was the problem with apex predator species, honestly. They always had a chip on their shoulder that millenia of evolution couldn’t remove; no longer being able to strike fear with just their presence would do that to your ego.

Athame's shriveled tits, her mouth was set in a thin smile, the Council operative holding back the urge to spit poison like a Thessian ink-viper. Roughshod four-eyed mercs from a colony that stunk of burnt mineral air and sweaty desperation, this is what I have to pull from now. Ever since the fuckup of last year, the Eclipse wouldn't touch her contracts, Blue Suns maintained a blacklist long enough to wrap Illium twice and the damned Blood Pack wanted her head on a pike.

At the very least, the third was at least an honest reaction instead of the cowardice masquerading as professionalism from the others.

One job…

Just the one.

Kill a single human child and cripple his company before it could rise any higher. It was simple enough, a small thing for any Spectre. A matron like her, the op was almost beneath her, and the fact it came from Tevos herself and backed by the High Matrons was the only reason she even accepted it.

No one told her that the child she was assigned to eliminate had a corvette that moved unlike anything she’d ever seen in five-hundred-and-eighty goddess-damned cycles. No one told her he could fly in the most suicidal ways possible.

How was she to expect he could take on an overwhelming ambush like that?

Really?

A simple decapitation strike resulting in a not-so-simple galactic incident.

And Tevos… That spineless wrinkle-necked vaesh, playing at stateswoman and showing off how displeased she was. The “simple assasination” had spiraled, the only thing saving any of them being the fact that they had deniability. No one knew or suspected Council or Spectre affiliaton and she made sure to keep enough go-betweens to muddle any limited connection to her name and the mercs she’d hired.

A shame that meant burning the identities she’d used in getting them. An actual shame, considering those personas had literal decades of connections and favors built up between them all.

But, of course, Tevos appreciated the combat recordings. Appreciated them. As if data logs from operational failure were fair trade for having every reputable outfit in Terminus slam metaphorical doors in her face.

And it all went back to the child, something she still couldn’t parse. A human fledgeling, of all things, barely past his species maturation phase with the skills to fly with the reflexes and reaction time of a drell ace. Insane.

Unprecedented.

And deeply, viscerally irritating in ways that made her want to break things.

Tireya tapped a gloved finger against her omni-tool, orange light of the device flickering weakly against her gauntlet. Athame’s tits… Spectre-grade hardware, top of the line supposedly, and it still struggled with a solid connection on this dustball. 

She knew it wasn’t the fault of the device itself, something external more than likely. Signal interference definitely at fault, low-level jamming not enough to render it unusable, but just sophisticated enough to annoy. Professional. Which was the last thing she'd expected from these thugs. Maybe they’re not complete waste of credits.

The one in the center pushed himself up and stood tall; the boss of this little subset of the Synds, Vo'kar Reil. Taller than the rest, and armor a shade cleaner. Four eyes narrowed her way, the Batarian standard of intimidation as pathetic as it was. "Spectre Leneis,” each syllable was weighty, species-standard contempt clear even through restraint, “you grace us with your presence."

Tireya let the smile spread slow across her face. "Vo'kar. I trust the advance cleared?"

"It did." The squadron boss gestured toward an open seat. A metal crate, actually, no real furniture to speak of. Charming. "My soldiers have questions. They hear whispers of the last contract affiliated with you. They are... concerned about the volatility."

The Spectre bit down on her tongue. Shadow Broker… that bastard. That was the only way that information could have gotten out, not with all the intermediaries she had used. That only made this final attempt even more important to complete.

Her smile sharpened past the rage coiling in her chest, drawl tightening into something with teeth. "Volatility is price of ambition, Vo'kar. Your men are paid to manage it. If they wanted stability, they could have stayed in mines scraping ore for masters who shit on them." 

She watched the words hit, the Batarian’s eyes tightening like he had been slapped. 

"We are not miners," the squad leader bit back, fury simmering just under a covering of forced calm. "We are soldiers of Red Syndicate. Our honor i-"

"Your honor is irrelevant to me," the words were clipped and sharp the instant they left her lips, the Spectre already done pretending. There were no pleasantries to be shared, these mercs were used to enslaving and they would be treated like it. "I have target. You have guns. There is a high-value human asset who I need to put down before I end up retired and you get no money. A dozen rifles, a clear line of fire, and everything in front of you eliminated. That is the extent of our relationship.” 

She leaned closer, her two eyes staring directly into the Batarian’s four. “Understood?"

Mandibles twitched as the Batarian stared her down with all of those eyes, the boss clearly about to say something. Something about honor, or duty, or some other meaningless batarian concept. Something that would have required her to kill him just to teach his men a lesson about standing against their betters.

Neither of them got the chance.

The hole appeared first; small and dark, a shot punched clean through an open forehead. Four eyes went wide with the vacancy that came with a brain that no longer functioned. A split second passed before gravity remembered its job, the Batarian hitting the floor with a sound both wet and heavy.

The lights died.

Athame’s tits! Instinct, the kind you earned through five centuries of not dying, had her body moving already, Terminus reflex and practiced combat automatic to her core. Dark energy flared into a biotic shield as it flared bright around her. That shimmering purple bubble of warped mass effect fields coiled tight as she threw herself behind a supply cabinet, the air splitting with gunfire. 

Not the panicked spray of mercs under ambush, no. This was measured. Deliberate.

Professional.

Shards barked into the air, muzzle fire strobing in flashes orange and stark. Each one was a snapshot in the darkness burning bright and harsh into her retinas.

Flash. A Batarian went down screaming through blood-filled lungs, three red holes blooming across his chest plate in a tight grouping.

Flash. Another firing blind into the void, partner already slumped against him with four eyes wide and seeing nothing anymore.

Flash. Mid-charge, two went down, rounds punching clean through spinal columns as the meat twitched in an attempt to move anyway.

Efficient and brutal, the slaughter was over in less time than it took her shields to cycle through a full rotation. The Spectre activated the night vision filters built into her helmet, world shifting into a landscape of green-tinged ghosts and thermal shadows. Her own heavy pistol was pulled from its magnetic holster, the familiar weight grounding even as biotics coiled in her gut, that delicious pressure of dark energy begging for release.

By the time she rose from cover, already half-crouched in a firing stance, it was done. Every single one of them. Her entire hired pack of slavers, dead on the floor like scattered refuse after a storm. The room had become a morgue in the span of maybe eight seconds. Impressive, really. Wasteful considering she'd already paid them, but impressive nonetheless.

And standing in the center of the carnage, framed by corpses still leaking fluids onto the prefab floor, was a single figure.

Human. Long black hair pulled back in some kind of topknot arrangement, hanging back off his head. A dark blue visor covered his eyes, sleek and reflective along with a set of form-fitting armor. Barely a hardsuit in the traditional sense, it was more a second skin, something clearly designed for speed over protection. 

In one hand he held a blade, simple and elegant in its lethality. In the other, a heavy pistol of a design she didn't recognize, and she'd made it her business to know every weapon worth knowing for the past three hundred years.

This was not some mercenary grunt. Not even close.

This was a professional. An artist of the killing trade. The dozen bodies scattered at her feet were evidence enough, but the way he stood told her everything else she needed to know. Calm. Centered. Weight distributed perfectly, blade low, pistol raised but not locked. A predator who'd already decided whether to kill her and was simply waiting to see if she'd make it necessary.

A sound escaped her throat, low and guttural, halfway between laugh and snarl. The performative control she'd wrapped around herself for Vo'kar's benefit cracked wide open, burned away by the sudden rush of real danger, genuine threat. "You fucking shit." The words came out raw, maiden energy bleeding through every syllable. "Do you have any idea how hard it is to acquire competent mercenaries these days? Any idea?"

"You will not have that problem anymore." The voice was low, level, filtered through the helmet's comm system, head tilted curiously to the side. A voice that cut with the precision of a vibroblade through flesh; cold, functional and empty of anything even approaching the concept of doubt.

Familiar, though. Very… no.

Her mind sifted through data at speed, centuries of experience and accumulated intelligence and threat assessments cycling through. "Leng," she breathed the name out, tasting something close to delight. "Victors' little guard dog." 

Former Alliance.

N7, even.

A heavily awarded killer.

Said killer gave a single, economical nod. "Correct."

She felt the grin spread across her face, feral and wild and utterly genuine at the thought of a real fight. Something much better than shooting at some clueless industrialist from half a klick away. "Tracked me all the way out to this delightful shithole, hm? Here to kill me, then? A little revenge for my attempt on your employer's life?"

"No," he said, voice still absolutely flat. "Not revenge. A message."

"Oh?” Biotics hummed around her as she smiled his way, dark energy coiling tighter and tighter as she primed herself for another fight worth the name. “Don’t let me stop you. What is the message, puppy dog? Your master displeased with my work?"

"You misunderstand," the puppy smiled her way, pistol raised in a single fluid motion. "You are the message."

Oooh. That wasn’t a threat. A simple pure statement of fact was the only way to describe those words. He wasn’t here to kill her. He was here to make an example of her.

“...I think I understand perfectly.”

And she loved it.

Gloved hands, practiced hands, lit up with the swirling, chaotic power of layered biotics; the kind only a matured Asari could muster. Textured dark energy bled from her fingertips, its density warping the very fabric of the space around her.

For the last time, Spectre Tireya Leneis rushed screaming into a fight. “Just try and kill me!”

– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: EXTRANET FEED - TERMINUS NEWS NETWORK

DATELINE: CITADEL // CNNT - 12:43 GST

A SPECTRE’S SILENCE: GRISLY DISMEMBERMENT OF MATRON LENEIS

Approximately three standard cycles ago, the termination of Spectre Matron Tireya Leneis was confirmed, and the lack of response from the Citadel Council has been unnerving.

From the fog of Lorek’s security lockdown, these facts have emerged: Matron Leneis was not simply killed on the dust-choked Batarian colony. 

The Citadel Special Operative was clinically dismembered, taken apart with an intricate precision that has veteran C-Sec coroners struggling for analogues. Her limbs, her torso, her head; each was separated with a level of expertise that sources describe as surgical and methodical, both a dissection.

As if to add insult to injury, the body parts were left on display, splayed out and arranged for all to see.

"This is more than a simple assassination," Detective Tahl Virem of the C-Sec Special Crimes unit stated. "A performance, a statement written in viscera. Positioning of organs, removal of eyes, facing head and other parts… forcing self-recognition… this is psychological warfare. The perpetrator sought to annihilate her legend and send a message to every Spectre and every Council world."

That message, it seems, has been received. 

The Batarian Hegemony, for its part, has offered only boilerplate denials of involvement, citing a "complete lack of evidence" and decrying the "baseless slander" of their sovereign territory. 

And the Citadel’s response has been a void.