Across the galaxy's expanse, within the heart of Fortress Vader, Revan stood, his mask a silver-gray visage etched with faded runes, catching the fiery glow as the molten plains shifted through the viewports. Before him stood Ezra Bridger, a Jedi elder dispatched from the New Jedi Order's bastion on Ossus. At his feet sat Kesh, a Loth-wolf of shimmering white fur streaked with silver, its golden eyes fixed on the chamber's shadows, ears twitching as it guarded its master with unwavering vigilance. Beside Ezra, his padawan stood poised. The air bore the gravity of unspoken stakes.
Halfway across the galaxy, in the sterile depths of Lehon, Ahsoka Tano rose from the durasteel floor, a faint bruise shadowing her arm where biotic grips had wrenched her into custody. Across the cell, Tayra mirrored her resolve, amber eyes tracing the shimmering energy barrier that sealed their fate, her wrists marked by the same biotic assault, their lightsabers lost to their captors. Beyond the barrier stood Varnis, his lean frame cloaked in smug authority, a thin smirk pulling at one corner of his mouth as he surveyed his prize. His victory carried a taunt of the Rakata shrine below, while Korrin's absence gnawed at the stillness.
Descending through the smog-choked canyons of Coruscant's Level 1313, Talis Vorn emerged from the shadowed alley of his bolthole, his boots grinding glass into the duracrete and sand, a cigarra's smoke trailing from his lips, the burnt-tabac sting making his hungover squint water. Behind him strode Commander Shepard, his N7 armor heavy. Galen Marek followed, his hooded shroud dragging through the filth, his lightsabers silent at his belt.
The alley spits us into Neon Angels' maw. Evening again, I think, but who can really tell down here. Bass slams into me the second we clear the threshold, each pulse a hammer against my temples, half-drunk, half-hungover, the rotgut from Talis's bolthole still sour in my gut. Last night blurs, stale liquor, his cramped room, a tip about a girl and some group stealing Revan's name, but the details drown in the muck of my skull. Pink sign-glare slashes through the murk ahead, a guttering sign screaming NEON ANGELS, a brothel, its glow a wound in 1313's grime. Talis doesn't wait, rolling his shoulders as he shoves through the swinging doors, boots crunching the litter underfoot. The stench hits harder inside, spice gone rancid, sweat-soaked flesh, cheap perfume failing to mask it. My gut rolls, a father's bile rising at this pit of traded lives. He beelines for a kiosk near the entrance, a wiry hostess perched there, polished, sharp-edged, her synth-velvet uniform frayed but clinging to some faded class. She taps a datapad, eyes flicking up as he looms, cigarra smoke leaking from the corner of his mouth.
"Ryari, still here, or she crawl home yet?"
His voice rasps, rough with last night's excess.
The hostess smirks, a knowing glint. He's a regular.
"You're late, Vorn. She's tipping out by the bar."
She jerks her head toward the dim sprawl beyond, dismissing him.
Talis grunts, boots scuffing as he turns, not waiting for us. My stare lingers. Flesh peddled under the signage glare, lives bartered while Coruscant's spires pretend this level isn't rotting from the bottom up.
He weaves through the thinning crowd, bleary stragglers stumbling out, dealers trading in shadowed booths. Chiss in sleek coats watch from alcoves, eyes cold as durasteel, while a pair of Weequay lean on a pillar, slugthrowers at the ready, their flat stares tracking us. The thump rattles the ache behind my eyes. Talis pauses by a curved bar along the far wall and points.
"She's there."
Then drifts off, muttering, "Head's a kriffin' mess. Time to let someone else do the thinking, and maybe a bit more." He peels toward the dancers, grin crooked, chasing a distraction.
Ryari perches on a stool, back to us, counting a thin stack of credits on the stained bartop, dark hair spilling over a slight frame, shoulders hunched with exhaustion. Too young to be living a life like this. Close to the same age when Sera...
No.
The thought stabs. Her, trapped here, this grime coating her like it coats everything. My hands won't sit still at my sides, the picture of her sliding into Sera's stolen life. Shepard steps up beside me, his calm grating against everything I'm holding down. He moves toward her, boots quiet on the duracrete. She stiffens as he stops short of the bar.
"Ryari?" His voice cuts through the bass, clipped and steady.
"We're here about some loudmouth, the one ranting about Revan's Legion?"
Her hand freezes on the credits, shoulders squaring, too tired to run, too stubborn to fold.
"Shift's done. Find one of the other girls."
She snaps, not turning, her tone sharp as a vibroblade.
Shepard doesn't flinch.
"He's trouble, more than you realize." Soldier's patience, blunt and unyielding, working at her guard.
I lean on a pillar, watching. Her defiance a mirror to Sera's. My hand flattens hard against the pillar. Words come slurred and useless in my throat, rage and rotgut choking them. Better Shepard handle this.
She flicks a glance toward the entrance, jittery, then snatches a glass from the bar and downs it fast, a grimace twisting her face.
"Who's going to care about something that old... damn fool."
She mutters, barely there, the sip slipping it out, eyes snapping wide, clamping shut. Too late. Something in me goes quiet and watchful.
A beaded curtain crashes open, boots thudding moments before, a muffled shout leaking through, and a spacer bursts in, wild-eyed, spice-dust crusting his flushed face, synth-leather coat flapping. Three Weequay trail him, blasters loose at their hips, coats stained and mean. He zeroes on Ryari, lurching toward the bar, shoving a stumbling Twi'lek aside.
"There you are!"
His bellow carries clean over the bass, hoarse and frantic, panic sweat glistening as he slams a hand on the bartop, credits skidding across the wood. She spins on her stool, defiance flaring over fear.
"Where were you last night, you took something, didn't you!?"
He roars, leaning close, breath reeking.
"Legion'll skin me alive if I don't get it back!"
He grabs her arm, yanking hard, fingers clawing her chest, tunic tearing. Ryari flinches, sharp, raw, defiance buckling, a choked gasp escaping her lips.
Sera's face burns through my haze, dark hair blurring into Ryari's, that flinch beneath the spacer's grip. The dam shatters, rage, grief, rotgut, a storm I can no longer hold.
I shove off the pillar, boots slamming duracrete, forcing between them, towering, shrouded, sabers silent and trembling at my belt.
"Hands... off her, filth."
I snarl, the words breaking apart, grief and liquor going off at once, a father's fury facing him down. Shepard tenses beside me, hand a steady blur near the pistol at his thigh. Talis freezes mid-drift across the room, hungover squint snapping wide.
The client spins, sensing me late.
"Who the kri—"
Too late.
My hand snaps up, palm out, instinct, not thought. The Force roars, a wave crashing with the world slowing to a crawl. The thunderous bass warps into a low, grinding drag, the sign's glare stutters, pink streaks smearing slow across everything. The client's curse stretches, a grotesque groan, his eyes bulging, spice-addled shock frozen mid-turn.
Furniture splinters, tables, stools, drifting in broken arcs, caught in my storm. Dust motes hang, glinting in the slowed light. Time bends, not breaks, my rage shapes it, the Force my leash. Starkiller awakened.
My other hand moves, deliberate, precise, fingers brushing Juno's WESTAR-34 under my shroud. Pulling it free, its grip a lifeline. Sighted on his forehead. Crack, a bolt flashes, deliberate, blowing out the back of his skull in a spray of red, dark against the pink glow. Chest. Crack. A second shot slams his sternum, synth-leather tearing, his rag-doll frame trembling mid-flight, lifeless, inevitable. Time snaps back, bone-break sharp, the body smashes the durasteel wall, a wet thud, sliding down in a smear, twin holes punched dark through the strobe-bleed.
Ryari breaks and vaults over the bar, credits scattering across the bartop, scrambling behind it, dark hair a curtain over her fear. The brothel freezes. Patrons go still, mouths slack, dancers duck under flimsy tables, the speakers pounding on indifferent, a grim pulse through the spice-fume. My blaster smokes, the kill already going cold inside of me, sabers trembling at my belt, silent, always a last resort.
Shepard snaps, pistol drawn, crack, one Weequay's skull splits, crack, another staggers, gut ripped open, blaster clattering as he crumples, gurgling, soldier's calm fractured into lethal steel. Syndicate bouncers shift on the balconies, Chiss in sleek coats, Weequay tanks, eyes sharp, blasters poised, alert but not shocked. 1313 had shown them worse.
"Not again, Marek."
Talis gets out, blaster yanked from his belt, hungover aim sloppy. Crack, he grazes the last Weequay's shoulder, thug yelping, dropping his piece to the ground.
"Don't shoot, please!" Hands up, sliding down the wall, pleading through panic.
I loom, blaster hot, Juno's grip trembling in my hand. Ryari hides behind the bar. Shepard's pistol trains steady on the gut-shot Weequay. Talis glares at the pleading thug. Bouncers watch, blasters gleaming, waiting. Blood pools slow, black against the pink wash of the signs. Chaos teeters, the next move hanging on a thread.
The client's corpse stays slumped against the wall, a wet smear of blood lit pink under the strobing signs. Twin holes still smoking where I shot him. Juno's blaster hangs heavy in my hand, wisps of smoke rising off the barrel into the stale air. I don't recall pulling it. Just the kick of the shots, the storm inside me roaring, then fading. Now it cools into something hollow, a dull ache lodged deep in my chest, mixing with the rotgut still burning my throat.
A flicker of bronze catches the corner of my eye, smooth, low to the ground. PROXY glides in from the shadows near the entrance, his head panning across the scene in slow mechanical sweeps.
"Haven't practiced in years, terrible aim, Master."
Talis steps forward, boots crunching over the splintered remains of a stool. He surveys the wreckage, three bodies sprawled across the floor, blood pooling slow and dark. Kicks aside a chunk of broken glass, the piece skittering to rest near the dead spacer's limp hand.
"This was my favorite dive."
The words worn flat by too much liquor and too little sleep. The quip hangs there, weary and flat, his fix with those dancers lost in the chaos now.
I don't answer.
Ryari stays low behind the bar, her eyes peeking out wide but flat, no trace of panic, just a steady breath. She's seen this before, too many times. Her gaze flicks quick to the back of the club, past the beaded curtains, toward the lockers.
Shepard stands tall over the wounded Weequay, the alien groaning low, hand pressed to a leaking gut wound, blood slicking his mottled skin, Shepard's pistol held firm, barrel locked on the thug's chest. Talis grips the other uninjured one, arm twisted hard, soft whimpers spilling from the thug's throat as he continues to beg. Bouncers loom on the balconies, watching with still, predatory calm, blasters poised, catching glints of pink and green from the strobes overhead. They've seen worse. And as long as the credits keep flowing, it's just another day for them.
A heavy figure pushes through the crowd, broad shoulders, synth-leather coat patched and faded from years of wear. The manager. His boots crunch over the debris like it's routine. He stops beside Talis, a regular he knows too well, barely glances at the dead spacer leaking out against his wall, just a quick kick to the corpse's leg like he's checking spoiled goods.
"Vorn."
He growls, voice rough as unfiltered stims, carrying the kind of anger that comes from interrupted profits.
"This is gonna cost you more than your tab can handle."
His hand snaps up, a sharp flick toward the balconies.
"Stand down."
The bouncers ease a fraction, weapons still live, still poised, eyes sharp. He barks over his shoulder.
"Janitors, sector three."
Grey-uniformed grunts shuffle in from the back, mops and buckets in hand, scraping blood and glass with practiced, unhurried sweeps.
Business ticks on. He pauses, nudges the corpse once more with his boot, eyes tightening, recognition flickering through the cynicism carved into his face.
"These slum bags've been plaguing our fine establishment for months."
Muttering half to himself as he spits near the dead spacer, a wet splat against the duracrete, then turns to Talis, softer now, rough gratitude seeping through.
"Pay for the furniture and we're square."
The rotgut blurs the edges again, and whatever drove me is already going cold. I step forward, boots sticking on wet patches, blood or liquor, doesn't matter, reach into my belt and pull a chit, toss it low. It clinks near his feet, sharp against the tile.
"Little extra for a quiet spot with our pals."
Throat raw, eyes flicking to the Weequay and the other. He stares at the chit, then up at me, then sideways at Talis, wide-eyed, his gruff mask slipping degree by degree.
"Never pegged you for this kind of trouble, Vorn."
I pull another chit, thinner, toss it harder. Credits hit the floor.
"Consider it doubled, no questions."
Greed flashes in his eyes.
"Back room, but another cleanup like this will cost you extra."
Ryari rises from behind the bar, slow, deliberate, dusting off her torn sleeves, hands steady despite the mess. Dark hair hangs loose, framing a face gone numb. Her eyes don't flinch, don't soften, just watch, measure me cold. Then, just once, toward the employee room past the beaded curtains, and back.
"Got what you're looking for... for a price. Seen your kind before,"
Voice tight, flat, a steel edge, no fear, no gratitude for the burden I ripped from her life. Another knight in shining armor out of a long line she'll outlast.
Shepard moves, grabs the wounded Weequay by the collar, the thug groaning low as Shepard drags him toward the curtains, pistol steady on the alien's back. Talis yanks the pleading one, twisting his arm more.
"Seriously, Galen, this is the last time."
The manager steps aside, waves a hand toward a durasteel door beyond swaying beaded curtains. The back room looms, dark and quiet. Shepard hauls his groaning captive, groans stretching into begging like the other one. Talis shoves his whimpering thug, pleading fading into the strobe-soup.
The heavy durasteel door hisses shut behind us, muffling the relentless thump from the brothel's main floor. The vibration climbs through the corroded deck plating, a low pulse sinking into my bones the way the Normandy's drive core used to hum through the deck when she was running hot, except this has no purpose, just noise bleeding through walls that have absorbed too many bad nights. The back room closes in tight, lit by a guttering red emergency light overhead that throws hard shadows across rusted pipes dripping dark condensation onto the floor. The light reminds me of the Normandy's CIC during a hull breach drill, that same crimson wash that turns familiar geometry hostile.
I shove the wounded Weequay against the far bulkhead, his gut wound seeping viscous, staining his tunic black, the dark spreading beneath him in a thick puddle. He groans, a sodden rasp tearing from his chest, head lolling as I pull heavy binder cuffs from my belt. I had watched Garrus clamp these onto perps all over the Wards. Had used them myself in Spectre operations where the paperwork never existed. I clamp one around his wrist, loop the chain through a thick mooring ring bolted to the wall, his arm jerking limp but held fast.
"Stay still."
He moans again. No fight left in him.
I turn to the second thug in Talis's custody, shaking where he stands, eyes wide with terror, uninjured arm bound tight behind him with a strap Talis had scrounged. Whimpers spill soft and constant. I check the binding. Secure. No slack. He is not moving either.
PROXY drifts through the door, leaving it ajar, a bronze shadow, photoreceptor glowing red, unblinking.
"One twitch, organics, and recalculating your remaining lifespan becomes purely academic."
Stripped of its usual dry sass. Pure menace now. A mech's promise of violence with no emotional cost attached to the execution.
I nod, then catch Galen drifting out of the corner of my eye. He snags a half-empty bottle of whiskey from a cluttered shelf near the cuffs, glass clinking hard against metal.
"Kriff it,"
barely voiced under his breath. Booze sloshes as he turns, stalking toward the prisoners, his shroud dragging, something coming apart in him by degrees. His shadow stretches long, warped in the red light.
I push back through the beaded curtain toward the bar. Need Ryari dealt with quickly and out of here. She's already seen too much or maybe it's all too routine for her.
The main floor is still in cleanup mode, the muffled thud from the club's speakers constant beyond the curtain, janitors scraping crimson into streaks, patrons whispering over trembling drinks. Ryari stands alone at the bar, clutching a slab of black stone the size of a datapad, its surface etched with markings I cannot read. No glow. No hum. No energy signature I can feel. The thing is dead weight, cold to the eye, an object that looks inert until the moment it doesn't.
I pull up my omni-tool, run a quick scan. The orange light washes over the slab's surface and comes back with nothing useful. Unknown mineral composition. No electromagnetic output. The glyphs do not match any script in the tool's database, which covers every known Milky Way language and the Prothean cipher besides. Whatever this thing is, it is not from my galaxy, and the tech I have cannot tell me what it is from. I file it. Unknown object, potentially significant, treat as volatile until proven otherwise, probably from here.
I step up, pull credits from my belt, Galen's chits plus my own stash, let them clink loud onto the counter.
"Enough to get you out of this pit and then some."
Steady. I want her gone. Far from this place and whatever the Legion will do when they realize their errand boy is now cooling near the main bar of this joint.
She does not count them. Just nods, eyes cold, numb.
"A long vacation's a start."
Her fingers release the slab, push it across, scooping the credits, stuffing them into a bag. Deal done.
I slide the cold slab into the reinforced pouch on my N7 armor, feel its weight settle against my ribs. Heavier than it looks. Density-heavy, not size-heavy, like a collapsed star squeezed down to something I could hold. The music keeps pounding somewhere past the wall. I duck back through the curtain.
The back room air hits heavier, blood and fear and old sweat with nowhere to vent. Galen looms over the prisoners, whiskey bottle swinging loose in one hand.
"Talk!"
The rage and the booze both riding in his voice, the snarl filling the tight space. The Weequays flinch, pressed hard against the bulkhead, terror stark in their eyes. Talis lingers near the door and sighs deep.
"Looks like your charming mess to manage now, Commander."
Dry. Weary. He tips his head toward the door.
"Find me later."
He turns, slips out, boots scuffing the deck.
I had run this play a hundred times. Different rooms. One voice that offers freedom. One that offers oblivion. Garrus and I had worked it on Omega, him with the rifle resting casual across his knees, me with the datapad and the calm voice and the implicit promise that the calm voice was the only thing standing between the target and the turian who had stopped caring about due process. The roles are different here. Galen is not Garrus. Galen is something far more dangerous. Garrus had always known where the line was even when he chose to cross it, and I am not certain Galen can see the line at all.
I kneel beside the wounded one, the floor warm and wet near my knee.
"Talk, and you get treatment, freedom."
His pupils roll, dilated and sluggish.
"No."
Barely audible, clinging to defiance through the pain. The second thug shifts, bound tight, whimpering.
"We're dead anyway."
I keep at it, steady.
"We already have the artifact. Now, tell us about the Legion, and you both can still walk."
Galen growls.
"They've got nothing."
I raise a hand.
"Give them a chance."
Silence stretches thin. Then the wounded one spits blood, a wet glob hitting the floor, and the other smirks.
"Kriff you."
Something in me goes flat and final. Window's closed. Galen's patience snaps. His fingers hook and wrench at the air.
"Legion's nothing compared to the name I've broken bone to bury,"
he roars, voice cracked and raw, unleashing his rage. A sickening pop as he wrenches his hand backward. Both of the wounded thug's eyes rip clean from their sockets, blood spraying in hot arcs across the wall. Screams tear through the room, high and piercing, clawing at the rusted pipes. His head lolls, screams cracking into gurgles as Galen's invisible grip tightens around his throat, choking him. His face starts to turn a different color.
"Who pays for the artifacts!?"
I watch it happen but I do not stop it.
The Collector base comes back. Not the whole thing. Just the pods. The colonists suspended in amber fluid, bodies dissolving, mouths open in shapes that might have been screams before the paralytic hit. The husks on the Citadel, skulls cracked open and rewired, walking around in bodies they no longer owned. Cerberus's indoctrination lab on Sanctuary, the footage Miranda had pulled, test subjects strapped to tables while Reaper tech peeled their minds apart layer by layer. What Galen is doing is cruder than that. But the principle is the same.
The second prisoner freezes, terror drowning his defiance, Starkiller's aura undeniable. The choking thug convulses, gasping. "V-Veiled... Covenant... pays... maps... Nar Shaddaa..." He slumps, alive but now a broken thing.
I step forward. Pull the Predator from my armor. The weight feels final, the specific weight of a decision that has already been made, the trigger pull just a formality. The blinded thug moans on the floor, blood leaking from the holes where his eyes had been, his body shaking in the cuffs, too shattered to understand what is happening to him and too alive to stop feeling it. The man is already gone.
I aim and fire. A sharp crack. His skull bursts, brain matter splattering the wall. His body sags, chains rattling soft. Silence after, except for the muffled pulse bleeding through the walls.
Mercy done.
I swing the pistol to the last prisoner's head.
"Negotiation's over."
Now full of ice.
"Tell us where the Legion's at, and I'll make it quick. Or my friend here does worse than he did your buddy."
His eyes flick to Galen, then back. He spits, blood-streaked defiance hitting my boot.
Galen's hand clenches the air and then rips back. All of the thug's teeth and tongue rip free from his mouth, blood fountaining as they littered the floor. Gurgles replace screams as Galen slams a palm onto the thug's forehead. Words spill from Galen's mouth, not his own but ripped out, spoken with surgical coldness.
"The Veiled Covenant pays for the artifacts... Legion has an outpost here in 1313... in an Old Med-Tech Facility... Sector Besh-7... the old Orbital Freight Elevator Junction 44... They report to a Covenant stronghold holed up on Nar Shaddaa..."
The thug slumps in the cuffs, blood soaking the floor beneath him. His eyes roll white, madness taking hold. Galen raises a hand, intent to kill in his eyes, then pauses. A flicker crosses his face, there and gone, before his face hardens and he slams his palm down again.
The man convulses, limbs jerking against the binders, eyes rolling back as his thoughts are driven to madness. No words. No screams. Just a flood of ragged breaths, choked sobs, then laughter. High-pitched. Broken. By the time Galen lets go, the body is still breathing, but whatever was inside is gone.
The vibration from the main floor pulses on, indifferent. Intel secured.
I holster my weapon. The weight leaves my hand and settles somewhere deeper, in the place where the operational mind stores the things the rest of me is not allowed to think about until the mission is over and the lights are off and the silence finds me.
Blood darkens the floor beneath my boots as we move to the main room. I find the manager, flick some more credits his way after making eye contact.
"Ended up needing that additional cleanup after all. One's fresh, the other's still breathing. Maybe not for long."
He grunts, pocketing the credits.
"But uh, seen Talis anywhere?"