"Watch where you're going, human."
The krogan Pel had inadvertently bumped into glared down at him, clearly looking for any excuse to start a fight. Pel didn't normally back down from anyone, especially an alien, but he was smart enough to make an exception for an angry, eight-foot-tall mountain of scaled muscle.
"Sorry," he mumbled, avoiding eye contact until the oversized reptile thumped away to satisfy his bloodlust somewhere else.
Normally Pel wouldn't have been careless enough to bump into a talking lizard the size of a small tank, even on the crowded streets of Omega. But he had other things on his mind at the moment. Cerberus had sent him to meet a new Terminus Systems contact, but the contact had never showed. That alone was enough to make Pel nervous. Then, as he was making his way back to his rented apartment in a neighboring district, he had the feeling he was being watched.
He hadn't noticed anyone suspicious following him, but Cerberus taught its agents that ignoring their instincts was a good way to end up dead. Unfortunately, Omega wasn't the kind of place to walk around while constantly looking back over your shoulder. You had to pay attention to where you were going if you didn't want to end up with a knife in your belly.
An enormous space station located deep in the Terminus Systems, Omega was unlike any other facility in the known galaxy. Built from the remains of a massive, irregularly shaped asteroid, the heavy-metal-rich core had been mined until the asteroid was almost completely hollow, providing the initial resources used to construct the facilities that completely covered every exposed inch of its surface. Its exact age was unknown, although everyone agreed the station had originally been built by the Protheans before they disappeared. However, nobody agreed on which had been the first species to resettle it once the Protheans were mysteriously wiped out.
Several groups had tried to lay sole claim to it over the station's long history, but none had been able to maintain control for more than a few years. Now it served as a meeting place and interstellar hub of commerce for those unwelcome in Citadel space, like the batarians and the salarian Lystheni offshoot, as well as mercenaries, slavers, assassins, and criminals from all races.
Despite the occasional war between occupying species, Omega had developed into a de facto capital of the Terminus Systems. Numerous factions had set-tied on the station over the centuries, with each new arrival building out sections of the station to suit their specific needs. Their efforts had transformed Omega into the equivalent of a massive floating city divided into numerous independent districts, each marked by mismatched architecture and haphazard design. From a distance, the exterior of the station looked uneven or even lopsided. Arms added to the main hub jutted out at all angles from the asteroid's surface, with further add-ons extending out from these arms at bizarre angles. And within the various districts the buildings seemed to have been constructed without plan or purpose; streets twisted and turned unexpectedly, and sometimes curled back on themselves to form infuriating dead-ends. Even residents of the station could quickly become lost or disoriented, and the overall effect was highly unsettling for new arrivals.
Pel had been to Omega enough times to get over the disturbing randomness, but he still hated the place. The station teemed with individuals from every alien species; even humans had become a noticeable presence. And in contrast to the ordered, harmonious— almost sterile — coexistence found on the Citadel, the streets of Omega were crowded, dirty, and dangerous. There was no law enforcement; the few rules that existed were enforced by gangs of hired thugs employed by those who controlled each section of the station. Petty crime was rampant, and killings were common.
That didn't actually bother Pel; he knew how to look after himself. He had other issues with Omega. Every corner of the station stank with the mingled odors of a dozen different alien species: sweat and pheromones poorly covered up by the gagging scent of unfamiliar perfumes; the reek of unidentifiable foods wafting from open windows and doors; the putrid stench of uncollected garbage that littered the back alleys.
As bad as the smells were, the sounds were even worse. Unlike Council space, most aliens here refused to speak the common trade language unless absolutely necessary. An endless cacophony of grunts, squawks, and squeaks assailed his ears as he made his way through the crowds, his automated translator useless in the face of obscure interstellar dialects it wasn't programmed to decipher.
The aliens couldn't even agree on a single name for the station. Each speaker called it something different in his or her native tongue. The unpronounceable asari name loosely translated as "heart of evil," the turians referred to it as "world without law," the salarians called it "place of secrets," and the krogans knew it as "land of opportunity." For the sake of convenience, the automated translator Pel wore strapped to his belt translated all these terms into the human word "Omega" — the absolute end of all things.
As much as he didn't want to be here, he had a job to do. Cerberus had sent him to broker a deal with his contact, and Pel knew better than to cross the Illusive Man. Of course, that hadn't stopped him and his team from taking on a few freelance projects over the past year that his superiors might not approve of. That's why it was so important to do things right: complete his missions as instructed; keep a low profile and don't make a mistake that might draw extra attention to his unauthorized activities.
Unless they already know. Pel thought, wondering if his tail was a Cerberus operative. Maybe the whole mission had been a ploy to get him alone on Omega's streets, where a dead human wouldn't attract any notice.
"Only one way to find out," he muttered, breaking into a run, thankful he wasn't wearing any kind of body armor that could slow him down.
He darted and dodged through the crowd, spinning and wheeling his way past startled aliens, ignoring the unintelligible threats and curses they shouted after him. He veered sharply down an empty side street lined with garbage cans, trash bins, and piles of refuse. Racing past several closed doorways, he ducked behind a large trash bin, crouching low. From his pocket he pulled out a small mirror, angling it so he could see back down the length of the alley without having to peek his head out and expose himself.
A few seconds later his pursuer skidded into view, coming around the corner from the main street into the deserted alley at a full run. The figure was small, about a foot shorter than Pel, and covered head to toe in dark clothing. His pursuer's face was completely obscured by a tightly wrapped scarf.
The figure stopped and stared down the length of the alley, head turning from side to side looking for some sign of where Pel might have disappeared to. His follower pulled out a pistol, adjusted the setting, then began to move forward cautiously, weapon ready.
Pel could have drawn a weapon of his own; he had several to choose from: the trusty Hahne-Keder pistol strapped to his hip, the knife in his belt, or the small emergency zip-gun in the heel of his boot. The figure didn't appear to be wearing any kind of combat suit that might be equipped with kinetic shields, so a single well-placed shot would be lethal. But killing his pursuer wouldn't tell him who was following him, or why. Instead, he simply waited silently for his adversary to approach.
The figure continued to advance, staying in the middle of the alley, obviously trying not to get too close to the doorways or refuse containers where an enemy might be waiting to leap out. But his pursuer's head was still turning side to side, hesitating to stare at each potential hiding spot a fraction of a second too long.
His target was close now, maybe ten feet away. Peering in the mirror, he waited until the figure's head turned away from him and then charged out, coming in hard and focusing his attack on the weapon hand of his too slow to react opponent.
Grabbing the forearm with his left hand, he used his right to bend the wrist holding the pistol inward, redirecting the weapon so it was pointed back at the owner. The whole time he kept his legs churning, using his momentum and size to drive his smaller adversary backward and off-balance.
They crashed to the street, the pistol jarring loose, and Pel heard a distinctly male grunt from his opponent. They wrestled briefly, but Pel was bigger, stronger, and had the advantage of being on top when they hit the ground. He twisted the other man so he was lying facedown, then Pel looped his forearm under his chin, applying pressure in a choke hold. His free hand still clutched his enemy's wrist, and Pel bent the arm up behind his prone opponent's back.
The man beneath him struggled and squirmed. There was a wiry strength to his limbs, but he couldn't overcome the advantages of Pel's size and leverage.
"Who are you?" Pel hissed in his ear, using the common trade language. "Who sent you?"
"Golo," came the strained reply.
Pel loosened his choke hold slightly. "Golo sent you?"
"I am Golo." Pel's translator relayed the words in English, but he recognized the speaker's native tongue, and the unmistakable sound of words being spoken from behind a sealed enviro-mask.
With a grunt of disgust, Pel rolled off the quarian and stood up.
"You were supposed to meet me in the bar," he said, not bothering to help his contact up from the ground.
Golo got to his feet gingerly, checking to see if anything was broken. He looked pretty much the same as every other quarian Pel had meet. Slightly shorter and smaller than a human, he was wrapped in several layers of mismatched clothing. The dark scarf that had covered his face had been torn away during their scuffle, revealing the smooth, reflective visor of a helmet that obscured his features.
"My pardon," the quarian answered, switching to English. "I set up the meeting so I could watch you from a safe distance, to make sure you were alone. I've had too many meetings in the past where the person I was supposed to meet was only a lure to draw me out into an ambush."
"Why is that?" Pel wondered aloud, his irritation growing. "You make a habit of double-crossing peo- pie?" He was too pissed off to be impressed by Golo's excellent command of a human dialect.
"My word is my bond," Golo assured him. "But there are many who dislike quarians. They think we are nothing but scavengers and thieves."
That's because you are, Pel thought to himself.
"I was going to follow you back to your apartment," the quarian continued. "And then make face-to-face contact with you there."
"Instead you drew a weapon on me."
"Only for self-defense," Golo objected. "When you ran I knew I had been spotted. I was afraid you would try to kill me."
"I still might," Pel replied, but it was an empty threat. Cerberus needed the quarian alive.
Golo must have sensed he was out of danger, because he turned his back on Pel and retrieved his weapon from the ground.
"We can go to your home and continue our business in private," the quarian offered, securing his pistol somewhere inside the folds of his clothes.
"No," Pel replied. "Somewhere public. I don't want you to know where I'm staying." You'll probably come back later and rob me blind.
Golo shrugged indifferently. "I know a place not far from here."
The quarian took him to a local gambling hall located in the district. A heavily armed krogan standing at the door nodded slightly as they entered. The sign above his head said "Fortune's Den" in many languages, though Pel doubted anyone ever got rich in this place.
"You come here often?" he asked as Golo led him to a booth near the back.
"The owner and I have an arrangement. Nobody will disturb us here."
"Why didn't you just tell me to meet you here in the first place?"
"As I said before, I had to make sure you were alone. Olthar would be very unhappy if I led a group of human mercenaries to his establishment."
The inflection he put on "Olthar" made it sound like a volus name to Pel, but he couldn't be sure. Not that it mattered.
Taking the seat opposite Golo, Pel was surprised to see the place was almost empty. A pair of four-eyed batarians were Throwing dice, a few rotund volus were playing some kind of game that resembled backgammon, and a handful of humans were clustered in the center of the room playing cards under the watchful eye of a shifty-looking salarian dealer. He would have preferred a strip bar — one with human or even asari dancers — but he didn't bother to complain.
"No quasar machines," he noted.
"Too easy to hack, too expensive to repair," the quarian explained.
A waitress — human — came over and wordlessly set a mug on the table in front of him, then scurried away without making eye contact. She might have been attractive once, long ago. As she left, Pel noticed she wore a small electronic locater on her ankle; a device commonly used by slavers to keep track of their property.
His jaw clenched involuntarily. The idea of a human enslaved by alien masters sickened him, but there wasn't anything he could do to help this woman. Not right now anyway.
Soon a day of reckoning will come, he reassured himself. And justice will rain down on all these sick alien bastards.
"My treat," Golo told him, nodding to the glass in front of Pel.
It looked like some alien variant of beer, but he'd learned the hard way to avoid human food prepared in nonhuman establishments. If he was lucky, it would simply be flat and bitter. If he was unlucky, he might spend half the night puking his guts out.
"I'll pass," he said, pushing the glass away. "Why aren't you drinking anything?" he asked after a moment, suddenly suspicious.
"Germs," Golo explained, tapping the face shield of his helmet.
Pel nodded. Since being driven from their home-world by the geth, virtually all quarians now lived on the Migrant Fleet, a flotilla of several thousand ships wandering aimlessly through space. Generations of living in such an isolated, carefully controlled environment had rendered the quarian immune system all but useless against the viruses and bacteria swarming over every inhabited planet in the galaxy. To avoid exposure, they wore form-fitting enviro-suits beneath their ragged clothes and never removed their airtight visored helmets in public.
This had led to rumors that the quarians were in fact cybernetic; a mix of organic and machine beneath their clothes and visors. Pel knew the truth was much less sinister — a quarian simply couldn't survive outside the flotilla without a hermetically sealed suit and mask.
"Let's get down to business," Pel said, turning to the task at hand. "You said you can give us transmission frequencies and communication codes for the Migrant Fleet."
The Migrant Fleet had become of great interest to the Illusive Man and Cerberus, particularly in the wake of the geth attack on the Citadel. Most thought of the quarians as nothing more than a nuisance; nearly seventeen million refugees eking out a hand-to-mouth existence on their fleet of outdated and substandard ships. For three centuries they had traveled from system to system, searching in vain for a suitable uninhabited planet they could use to establish a new homeworld.
The common belief was that the greatest threats the quarians posed to any established colony were the consumption of local resources — such as stripping a system's asteroid belts of precious metals or element zero deposits — and the disruption of communications and starship travel inevitably caused by several thousand unscheduled and unregulated vessels passing through. These inconveniences made the quarians unwelcome in any civilized region of space, but it couldn't be said anyone actually feared them.
The Illusive Man, however, was able to see past their motley garb and jury-rigged ships. Technologically, they were easily the equivalent of any other species. The quarians had created the geth, who had become a scourge upon the galaxy. And they had managed to sustain a civilization numbering nearly seventeen million individuals over hundreds of years without the benefit of any planetary resources. Who knew what else they were capable of?
The Migrant Fleet was also the largest single armada in the known galaxy: tens of thousands of ships, ranging from tiny shuttles to cruisers to the three enormous Liveships — marvels of aerospace and agricultural engineering that provided the primary source of food for the entire flotilla. It was accepted fact that a significant portion of the ships in the fleet were armed, though how many and to what extent was unknown. In fact, very little was known about the quarian flotilla at all. They were a completely insular society; no outsider had ever set foot on one of their vessels since their exodus three centuries ago.
The Illusive Man didn't trust aliens with so many ships and secrets. Getting the quarian codes and transmission frequencies would allow Cerberus to monitor communications among the vessels of the Migrant Fleet. . provided they could somehow get one of their own ships close enough to tap into tight-beam messages without being seen. Pel wasn't sure how the Illusive Man planned to pull off that part of the plan, but it wasn't his concern. He was just here to acquire the codes and frequencies.
"I can't actually give you the transmission codes," Golo informed him. "They've changed since I was last part of the flotilla."
Pel bit his lip to keep from swearing out loud. He should have known better than to trust Golo. He was an exile from the Migrant Fleet. The quarians didn't have the space or resources on their ships to house a prison population, and therefore criminals were dealt with by expelling them from quarian society, abandoning them on the nearest inhabited planet or space station. In Golo's case, Omega.
What kind of sick, twisted deviant do you have to be to get exiled by an entire race of beggars and thieves? he asked himself, wondering if Golo was a murderer, rapist, or just a complete sociopath.
"However, I do have something to offer you," Golo continued, seemingly oblivious to Pel's barely contained rage. "I will lead you to someone who can provide you with the information you want. For a price."
Dirty, double-dealing son-of-a-bitch.
"That wasn't our deal."
"You need to learn to be flexible," he said with a shrug. "Improvise. Adapt. That is the way of my people. It was how I survived when I first found myself on this station."
You mean when they dumped you off here, just another piece of garbage for someone else to clean up.
Despite his unspoken disdain, Pel had a grudging respect for Golo. Quarians were as unwelcome on Omega as anywhere else in the galaxy; the fact that he had managed to survive on the station was a testament to his cunning and resourcefulness. And a warning that he couldn't be trusted. Pel wasn't willing to report back to the Illusive Man empty-handed, but he also wasn't quite ready to trust the quarian yet. Not without knowing a little more about him.
"Tell me why you were exiled."
Golo hesitated. A sound that might have been a sigh of regret came from behind his mask, and for a second Pel thought the quarian wasn't going to respond. "About ten years ago, I tried to make a deal with the Collectors."
Pel had heard of the Collectors, though he'd never actually seen one. In fact, many people, including Pel, weren't sure they really existed. From the stories, they sounded more like the interstellar equivalent of an urban legend than a real species.
By most accounts they had first appeared on the galactic scene roughly five hundred years ago, allegedly emerging from an uncharted region of space somewhere beyond the otherwise inaccessible Omega-4 relay. And while, if the stories were true, they had been around for five centuries, almost nothing was known about the enigmatic species or their mysterious homeworld. Isolationist to the extreme, the Collectors were rarely seen anywhere but Omega and a few of the nearby inhabited worlds. Even then, decades could pass with no reported sightings at the station, only to give way to a few years marked by several dozen sporadic visits from envoys looking to barter and trade with other species.
On those rare occasions when Collectors did venture into the Terminus Systems, they reportedly made it clear that similar visits by other species into their territory would not be tolerated. Despite this, countless vessels had dared to attempt the passage through the Omega-4 relay over the centuries in search of their home planet. None of them had ever returned. The staggering number of ships, expeditions, and exploratory fleets that had disappeared without explanation into the Omega-4 relay had led to wild speculation about what lay hidden beyond the portal. Some believed it opened into a black hole or the heart of a sun, though this didn't explain how the Collectors could use the relay themselves. Others claimed it led to the futuristic equivalent of paradise: those who passed through were now living lives of decadent luxury on an idyllic planet, with no desire to return to the violent struggles of the lawless Terminus Systems. The most widely accepted explanation was that the Collectors had some manner of defensive technology, unique and highly advanced, that utterly destroyed any foreign vessel passing through the relay.
But Pel wasn't sure he believed any of the stories.
"I thought the Collectors were just a myth."
"A common misperception, particularly in Council Space. However, I can assure you from personal experience that they are very real."
"What kind of deal did you make with them?" Pel asked, his curiosity piqued.
"They wanted two dozen 'pure' quarians: men and women who had spent their entire lives on the fleet, uncontaminated by visits to other worlds."
"I thought every quarian had to leave the fleet during their Pilgrimage," Pel remarked, referring to the quarian right of passage into adulthood.
"Not all quarians make the Pilgrimage," Golo explained. "Exceptions are made for those too sick or infirm to survive outside the colony. And in rare cases an individual with a valuable skill or talent can receive a dispensation from the Admiralty.
"I knew from the start I'd probably get caught," he added, almost regretful, "but the terms of their offer were too good to pass up."
Pel nodded: this fit with the stories he'd heard. When the Collectors came to barter, they typically sought to exchange merchandise or technology for living beings. They were, however, far more than simple slavers. The tales of their requests were always unusual or bizarre: two dozen left-handed salarians; sixteen sets of batarian twins; a krogan born of parents from feuding clans. In return, the Collectors would offer incredible technology or knowledge, such as a ship with a new mass drive configuration that increased engine efficiency, or a cache of advanced targeting VI mods to radically improve weapon accuracy. Eventually this technology would be adapted by galactic society as a whole, but for several years it would provide a significant edge for anyone smart enough to take the deal. Or so the tales told.
In the absence of any true name for the species, their willingness to pay so extravagantly to have their odd but highly specific requests satisfied had earned them the generic title of Collectors. Similar to the conjecture spawned by the mystery of what lay beyond the Omega-4 relay, numerous theories had evolved attempting to explain the motivation behind their illogical demands. Some believed there was a religious significance to the requests, others saw it as evidence of deviant sexual predilections or gruesome culinary appetites.
If the Collectors actually did exist, as Golo claimed, then Pel tended to support the most generally accepted belief that they were conducting genetic experiments on other species, though he couldn't even begin to guess at their exact nature or purpose. Certainly it was enough to make any reasonable person suspicious.
"If the Collectors are real, why hasn't more been done to try and stop their activities?" he wondered aloud.
"As long as you can profit from the deal, who cares?" Golo replied, his rhetorical question encapsulating the general attitude of the entire Terminus Systems in a single breath. "They show up and offer something worth a few million credits, and all you have to do is give them a couple dozen prisoners in exchange. They're no worse than the slavers, but they pay a lot better."
Slavery was illegal in Council Space, but here in the Terminus Systems it was an accepted — even a common — practice. However, it wasn't the morality of what the Collectors were doing that concerned Pel.
"Isn't anyone worried about what they're doing behind that relay? They could be making powerful new genetic weapons. What if they're studying species to learn our weaknesses and vulnerabilities so they can invade?"
Golo laughed, the sound reverberating off his mask with a distant, hollow timbre.
"I have no doubt they are up to something unpleasant," he admitted. "But they've been doing this for five hundred years. If they were planning an invasion, it would have happened by now."
"But aren't you even curious?"
"The curious try to go through the Omega-4 relay," he reminded his human companion. "And they don't come back. The rest of us here on Omega are more worried about getting killed by our neighbor than what's happening on the far side of the galaxy. You need to stay focused to survive out here.'*
Good advice, Pel thought. The Collectors were definitely intriguing, and he wouldn't be surprised to learn that the Illusive Man already had agents looking into them somewhere. But that wasn't his mission.
"You said you could lead me to people who can give me those transmission codes."
Golo nodded eagerly, glad the subject had turned back to their current business.
"I can set up a meeting with a crew from one of the scout ships from the Migrant Fleet," he promised. "Just make sure you take one of them alive."