Post by Sargasm on Dec 16, 2012 18:05:04 GMT 1
Below is this one's first attempt at a story set within the Mass Effect universe. All feedback is very appreciated, in this here thread. Thanks fer reading.
Zoia, the Unlucky Quarian I:
The Explosive Joy of Non-Slavery
'That damn quarian blew up our ship!'
It was outbursts like that from her former crewmates that made Zoia partially thankful for the big guys with guns walking between the captives. The fact that they were all batarian slavers sort of diminished the feeling though. She ignored further threats of rather interesting demises (including 'infecting the suit-rat with krogan spit until her eyes start bleeding') as she was pushed down the corridor. This was the first time she'd ever actually hoped to be chained up - somehow she didn't think freely moving prisoners would be good for her health.
She gave a deep sigh of relief as she was pushed past the cell doors where the humans were ushered through. She, in turn, was unceremoniously thrown through a door further down the corridor, which was subsequently slammed behind her. The room was a undecorated, rectangular room. Beside the gray steel it was made of, the only furniture was two benches running along the sides of the room. It looked to be a an old storage room, repurposed as a prison via the aforementioned benches - along with the massive door of course. The only inhabitant was a pink figure, laying along one of the benches. The asari looked at her curiously.
'So, what did you do to get yourself in isolation?' She was dressed in light, brown armor, and looked mostly like a mercenary of some sort. Her skin was a light pink color, broken by a long scar running across the left side of her face, dangerously close to her eye. Besides that, her face was covered in white facial markings.
'Erm, well, there were some.. disagreements between me and the rest of the crew. '
The asari chuckled.
'I noticed that much. Might not be too bad ya ended up in 'ere, eh? What'd ye do? And how'd you guys end up getting caught by these bastards anyway? I heard they were heading towards Kar'shan to load us off for sale.'
'We had an.. engine malfunction. They must've picked up our emergency transmission, and found us floating around in space.'
'Your ship was just floating around?'.
Zoia moved around uncomfortably on the bench she'd sat down on.
'Well, not exactly the ship. More like the escape pods. The ship sort of, eh, blew up.'
'It blew up?'
'It was a fairly serious malfunction.'
'I don't suppose that has anything to do with your current, unfortunate reputation?'
'Weeell, it wasn't really my fault. We had a little situation down in the engine room, and I figured it'd be a good idea to stabilize it. Unfortunately, the repair seems to have, eh, pushed the reactor levels up a bit too high.'
The Asari stared at her in disbelief.
'You fixed a small problem, and made the reactor blow up?'
'Now that just sounds bad. It might not even have been my tinkering - could've been a flaw already existing. It was a really old ship they had. '
'Isn't half the Migrant Fleet from when you guys fled from the Geth?'
'Half is probably exaggerating...'
'But don't they work perfectly?
'Well, not perfectly, they have all sorts of quirks and...'
'They don't blow up, do they?'
'I guess not, no', Zoia mumbled. 'But at least I noticed in good time, so the whole crew made it to the escape pods. '
'But not in good enough time to stop the ship from exploding?'
'So it would seem, wouldn't it?
The asari chuckled again. Apparently she found the whole situation a bit more humorous than Zoia did.
'I'm Leesa', she introduced.
'Zoia here. So, why are you sitting in here?' It dawned on Zoia that there had to be some reason Leesa was sitting alone in here - she'd called it isolation herself, after all.
'We're sorta in the same boat. I ain't the most popular figure in the other cells either.' Zoia felt a twist of joy at the prospect of not being the only hated figure on board. Aside from all the batarians of course. Or, probably, all the prisoners from the batarian point of view.
'I was hired by this here salarian corporation. They'd gathered a band o' asari mercenaries to protect their ship, but apparently felt they were a bit short on numbers, so they pulled a couple freelancers along as well. It wasn't all that fun on the way out either - mercenaries ain't that fond of strangers grabbing part of their profits. Hadn't counted on the likelihood of 'accidents' before payday. '
'How'd you get from there to batarian slave-dancer-to-be?'
'Well, these scumbags showed up outta nowhere 'n' boarded the ship. They weren't counting on the heavy guard though - we took out a pretty good bunch of 'em, but there were a lot of four-eyes. In the end they took out the last o' the other gals beside me, so I figured slavery was preferable to bullets between the eyes, and I threw down me gun.' She paused, staring at the wall behind Zoia, presumably towards her salarian contractors. 'Never figured the salarians as win-or-die kinda people, but apparently they think that once you've been paid, you'd better fight until they're safe. Or until ye're not'.
'So, I guess they aren't real fond of you now?', Zoia asked with a small chuckle.
'I believe the suggestion 'selling her a to a volus brothel to pay for this' was aired on more than one occasion. In the end our honored captors figured it was easier to just put me in here, than deal with the yelling'. As an afterthought, she added 'salarian businessmen aren't that good in a fistfight'.
*
Time seemed to drift by quite a bit slower than usually. Zoia was thankful for Leesa's company, but even the asari's unending mercenary tales couldn't stop her thoughts from drifting towards her probable slave future. She couldn't help but let out a rather resigned sigh.
'... and then we dropped the steaming oil bucket right on top o' the krogan janitor - what're ya sighing about?' Leesa halted her story, and stared at Zoia questioningly. The mercenary seemed completely relaxed, despite their current situation.
'Well, y'know, just my future as a Batarian workgirl.' She shook her head, and muttered 'seems everyone wants to enslave me at the moment.'
Leesa raised her eyebrows. ' Someone tried to enslave ya before?' Zoia squirmed uncomfortably again. She should've kept her mouth shut.
'Eh, yeah, I ended up on Illium, and sort of lost most of my cash in a card game with this volus. More than most my cash to by honest. To be completely honest, a bit more than all my cash.'
'So, the volus tried to enslave ya?'
'Not exactly, he just wanted to break a couple of kneecaps to stage a warning. Kept muttering something about setting precedents for business dealings. But I'm rather fond of my kneecaps, so I figured I'd better find a way off planet. And the asari there had this old water-purifying facility that was malfunctioning, so I figured I'd offer to repair it.'
Leesa stared at her in disbelief. 'You didn't blow it up, did ya?'
'Oh no no. How would you even blow up a water-purifier? I just mixed up the chemicals a bit - nothing fancy, just instigated a bit of nausea throughout the trade quarter. But it seems those Ilium asari take their trade a bit too seriously. They put out a warrant for me for ten years of slave service to pay of my debt to society, or some such nonsense'.
'How the hell did you escape their police?'
'They may be serious, but they don't know squat about quarians. I just painted my suit orange and used a fake name. They kept asking people for a 'purple poisoner'. But I figured that might not last forever, so when the human lads next door was looking for a mechanic, I jumped on the chance.' She looked around at the cell. ' In hindsight, maybe I should've taken the asari slavery.'
Leesa was still shaking her head at her in disbelief. 'By the goddess. You really are a clumsy one, aren't ya.'
'I've had a wee bit of bad luck. The orange suit looks pretty damn good though'.
'You do realize', Leesa said as if just figuring something out, 'that the only use batarians have for a quarian slave is probably technical. As a species, ye're pretty high maintenance'.
'The thought had crossed my mind.'
'What do you think'll happen if you blow something up?'
'The thought had crossed my mind' Zoia muttered unhappily. Batarians weren't really known for their good humor and forgiving attitude.
'Jeez, you're really screw-' Leesa was cut short, as the door rattled open. A bulky batarian - which batarian wasn't bulky - stood on the other side.
'You!' he bellowed, pointing at Zoia. 'Suit-rat! Get over here.'
Zoia walked to him, muttering 'y'know, that's really offens-' She too was cut short, this time by the pirate's ham-sized fist, jerking her head back with a punch.
'Shut up! We got some machinery aint' working. You're a suit-rat, you're gonna fix it.' Zoia sighed. Half at the fact that she was once again to tangle with unwilling machinery, half at the fact that no one ever seemed to put any work into their insults. Suit-rat was so horribly uncreative.
*
Zoia was pleasantly surprised as she fiddled with the cables in the broken shield generator. It was the exact same model they'd had on her childhood ship in the Flotilla. Which said a lot about the probable age of the batarian vessel. She'd repaired that once, so she knew how to do it. Of course, back then she'd mistakenly jammed the vents, causing it to dangerously overheat. Only the timely intervention of a crewmate had stopped it from blowing a big hole in the side of the ship. But she'd looked over his shoulder when he did it, so she had a pretty good idea how to do it right this time. And then she could go back to her cell, and await her probable execution when she messed up somewhere. Lovely.
Unless... An idea began to form in her mind.
After a while she connected the last cables, reinserted the control panel, and reactivated the machine.
'You done?'
'Oh yes, quite done'. She smiled at him. Of course he couldn't see it through her mask, which might be a good thing.
'Then let's get you back to the cell, so I can get back to my card game'.
'We should wait a couple minutes, see if it works properly.' She strolled over to far side of the room, settling in to wait. The batarian glared at her angrily, muttering something decidedly unfriendly. They waited for a couple minutes, the noise from the machine growing increasingly louder.
'Is it supposed to sound like that?'
'Yes yes, quite intentional'. The batarian glared suspiciously at the poorly hidden smugness in her voice. Then the noise grew thunderous, and sparks started erupting.
'What the hell you three-fingered mutant-migrant...' He was cut short as the machine exploded, taking a small chunk of this side of the ship with it, as well as the room's entire supply of oxygen.
Zoia, safe within her suit, pulled out her omni-tool and activated her magnetic boots, as the guard swiftly perished, his choking sounds lost in the now air-less room. At least he'd been a bit more creative. She grabbed his now-floating body, pulling the gun from his belt. She noticed a couple of grenades attached to it, and grabbed those as well. One never knew when grenades could come in handy.
She was shaking all over as she hurried towards the door. She'd never killed anyone in cold blood before. She wasn't actually sure whether she'd killed anyone by accident, but in all fairness, it wasn't all that unlikely). But she'd be damned if she was just going to wait it out for inevitable doom. And if one was going to kill somebody, she figured pirates wasn't the worst place to start.
She reached the door on the end. They'd passed through it on the way here, it led through a small storage room on the other side. If the door on the other end had an automatic seal like this one, she could probably pass through without venting the entire ship for air. Although that would get rid of the pirates - but she really wasn't sure where to find more oxygen, and her supply wasn't endless. Oh, and she didn't really want to start butchering prisoners - even though quite a few of them probably wanted nothing more than to watch her slowly suffocate.
Fortunately the door controls still worked despite the automatic sealing, so she opened it without problems. She closed it behind her, and passed through the door on the other side of the storage room, her suit once again switching off its own air supply, as the room was automatically refilled with oxygen when the door closed behind her. With her luck, chances were good she was going to need the rest of it.
She could hear footsteps approaching - not really surprising - so she hurried down the seemingly silent corridor on her right. Her plan had seemed quite brilliant when she came up with it. Unfortunately, she'd left off the rest of it as the rather vague plot of freeing the prisoners and retaking the ship. Now that she'd arrived at that part, it didn't seem all that simple.
She took a different route back towards the cells, but she had a pretty good idea where she was going. The ship structure was pretty simple after all - not like some of the ships back home, which had been rebuilt so many times that any remnant of logic was lost decades ago. Quite against her usual luck, she encountered no batarians. Maybe they were all heading to check out her handiwork.
She was almost at the cell corridor, when she heard voices, and stopped dead in her tracks. They were coming from a room along the corridor. Not all of them had left then. She snuck through the corridor to the door, and dared a peak through. Three Batarians sat around a small, round table playing cards, a fourth empty chair beside them. All beside them were crates with a wide array of weapons - pistols sprawled across tables, rifles hanging from the walls and a few crates of what looked like rather potent explosives.
The batarians were completely focused on the card game in front of them, so Zoia figured she could sneak past. But if they were to have any chance, they'd need weapons. She couldn't really waste this opportunity. On the other hand, taking on three Batarians was a rather daunting task. Her eyes moved down to the small gun in her hand. Not a pleasant prospect at all. Then her eyes strayed to the grenades she'd snatched, a smile appearing on her face.
She pulled one up in front of her face. She'd never actually used a grenade. How the hell did they work? As she fidgeted with it, a blue light started glowing on it. What did that mean? She tried pushing on it, wondering whether it was the button that activated it. As the light began blinking more rapidly, she suddenly got a sucking feeling in her stomach.
'Oh f...' She flung it into the room. It only made it halfway into the room, right over the card table, before it blew. The batarians, who'd turned at her sudden outburst, didn't even have time to react before they were thrown against the walls by the explosion.
Zoia moved from her shelter into the room. A rather potent grenade. None of the pirates were even moving. She grabbed a rifle off the wall, and ran down the corridor. While the previous blast might've bought her some time from the rest of the crew, this one would only lead them towards her.
She rounded the corner to cell corridor in a full on sprint. A single guard stared at her, dumbfounded. Without breaking her stride, she fired the rifle towards him - quickly forcing her to break her stride, due to the recoil. She managed to put an impressive number of rounds in the walls around the baffled guard reaching for his gun, but somehow managed to hit him too, tumbling him over.
She hurried tothe cell door, quickly getting it open. Since they were make-do cells, they seemed to only be prisoner-proof from the inside. She felt like she was in the middle of a completely out-of-character streak of lucky. It would probably backfire soon enough.
'What the hell?' The pink asari stared at her, just as dumbfounded as the guard.
'I hope you're as tough as you let on'. Zoia couldn't resist throwing a grin towards her. Although again, it probably wasn't visible through her helmet. She threw the rifle towards the mercenary, who grabbed it on instinct, a surprised look on her face. 'We're revolting.'
'Revolting? What the f... What were those explosions? What the hell is going on?' Her surprised look was quickly waning for one of anger.
'A couple of well-timed mishaps, ridding us of a couple of our beloved hosts. Now grab that rifle, let's get the rest of the people outta here, and rid us of the rest.'
'You're gonna get us all killed, ya crazy quarian! We ain't even armed!' She'd really hoped the asari would get on board faster. They didn't have all that much time.
'Look here Leesa, you said yourself they're pretty much just a skeleton crew left after taking on your ship, and they got two crews stocked up down here. There's an unguarded munitions room two corridors down, clear for the taking if we move fast. Now, d'ya want to be a working girl for arms dealers the rest of your life, or do you want to help blow them three ways to hell?' The angry look receded from her purple face, giving way first to contemplation, then a sudden bout of excitement. She pushed past Zoia, out into corridor.
'Crazy quarian' she mumbled, but with a smile on her face this time. She opened both doors to the other cells, revealing surprised looks on both human and salarian faces. At least Zoia was fairly certain that was what passed for surprise for the two species.
'Right gents, listen up. Our suited friend here has disturbed our benevolent captors long enough to allow us time fer a little bit o' taking the ship.' She was interrupted by nervous outbursts.
'We'll get slaughtered!'
'They'd kill us all!'
'That goddamn quarian!'
Leesa waved off their concerns.
'Look lads, the case is simple. At this point, when they see some of us with guns, they're gonna figure we're revolting. Then they'll just come in here shooting, might even execute us all for the hell of it. They're pretty down on numbers, so they'll be quite nervous. So you can either come with us, get armed and fight for yer freedom, or you can sit here and wait to get shot.' She shrugged. 'Your choice. Lead the way to the weapons, suit-girl.' She started down the corridor, Zoia hurried along with her, looking back at the other prisoners exchanging glances. Then a couple of humans followed, then a couple salarians, and suddenly everyone was behind them. No one wanted to be left alone. Zoia whispered to Leesa.
'You really think they'd've executed them, just because we're running around? Would seem to cut their profits down considerably.' Leesa shrugged again.
'Maybe. They're pirates aren't they? Anyways, we needed these here gents, and it worked, didn't it?' Zoia smiled inside her helmet, and gave Leesa a more visible thumbs up. She responded with a quick smile.
They made it to the armory without problems, and the crewmen eagerly armed themselves, more and more on board with the plan. After all, they probably didn't really want to stay slaves. And there's something about giving back to people who tried to take everything from you.
'How the hell did ya manage that?' Leesa wondered, looking at the dead Batarians.
'I picked up this grenade', Zoia said smugly. 'It did the job decently'.
Leesa just stared at her.
'You threw a grenade into a room filled with weapons?'
'Well..'
'Didn't you see the explosives over there?'
'Sure, but..'
'Do you have any idea what would've happened if you'd hit them?'
Zoia crossed her arms.
'It worked, didn't it?'
Leesa just shook her head with a resigned facial expression.
'Screw it. Let's get on with this.'
'Alright lads!' The human captain spoke up. 'We'll divide into two groups, and each head in a direction.' An ingenious plan, considering they were currently standing in a corridor, able to go two ways.
'We're this way!' The salarians hurried one way.
'It's our turn now!' The human crew ran off the other way. Zoia and Leesa were left standing, glancing both ways. Leesa cleared her throat.
'Y'know, maybe we should just stick to ourselves. Less chance of unfortunate, friendly fire-related incidents with our former comrades.' Zoia nodded eagerly.
*
'Ahaha! Gotcha, ya swashbuckling four-eyes!' Leesa roared, as yet another batarian fell beneath her fire. Zoia judged that her stories might've inflated her abilities a bit - but not much. Truth be told, she was plowing her way through the pirates they encountered. Zoia had felt a fairly sizeable lump in her throat when they'd been assaulted and pinned down by six of their foes. But since her purple companion had so far dispatched half their initial number - and Zoia, to her proud glee, had ended one of them herself - their situation was beginning to look up.
Around them, it sounded like the ship had descended into chaos. Sounds of gunfire and screams of both pain and triumph seemed to come from everywhere around them. It seemed it was increasingly sounds of human or salarian triumph and batarian pain - but maybe she was just hearing what she wanted to hear.
Her line of thought was interrupted, as Leesa suddenly hurled a big, blue ball of biotic energy out throw the door. It hit a batarian - clumsy enough to expose himself - square in the chest, hurling him backwards into the metal wall. Zoia could hear the loud 'crunch' as his neck broke, along with what sounded like a fair number of other bones. The last batarian looked at his crushed comrade for a moment, and then turned tail and sprinted down the corridor.
'Oh no you don't!' Leesa bellowed, running after, firing wildly. A little disturbed at her newfound friend's battle lust, Zoia ran after. She found the asari around the corner, kicking the apparently gunned down pirate repeatedly.
'Is this the kind of dancing ya want! IS IT?'
When she noticed Zoia, she stopped, treating her a dazzling smile.
'Well, that went alright, didn't it?'
Just a bit disturbing. Leesa cocked her head to the side, listening.
'Seems our friends have the upper hand'. The sounds of battle were slowing down, giving way to increasing roars from their comrades. 'You do realize they might not be in a very forgiving moods afterwards, right?'
Zoia agreed. They might've initiated the revolt, but according to their fellow rebels, they were also the cause for their current impediment. On top of that, it was likely quite a few of them managed to get killed during the takeover, further inciting a vindictive mood.
'The thought had crossed my mind', she said miserably.
'Y'know, i heard them pirates talking 'bout a scouting ship. Should be able to take, say, one or two people to the nearest space port.' Zoia felt a smile creeping on.
'Know where it is?'
'Aye, I've got a gist.'
'What're we waiting for?' Despite her smile, she shot a worried glance towards the last battle sounds. '
'Ain' no time like the present', Leesa nodded, and they started back down the corridor. The mercenary shot a glance towards the quarian, a skeptic look on her face.
'But I'm doing the damn flying.'
Zoia, the Unlucky Quarian I:
The Explosive Joy of Non-Slavery
'That damn quarian blew up our ship!'
It was outbursts like that from her former crewmates that made Zoia partially thankful for the big guys with guns walking between the captives. The fact that they were all batarian slavers sort of diminished the feeling though. She ignored further threats of rather interesting demises (including 'infecting the suit-rat with krogan spit until her eyes start bleeding') as she was pushed down the corridor. This was the first time she'd ever actually hoped to be chained up - somehow she didn't think freely moving prisoners would be good for her health.
She gave a deep sigh of relief as she was pushed past the cell doors where the humans were ushered through. She, in turn, was unceremoniously thrown through a door further down the corridor, which was subsequently slammed behind her. The room was a undecorated, rectangular room. Beside the gray steel it was made of, the only furniture was two benches running along the sides of the room. It looked to be a an old storage room, repurposed as a prison via the aforementioned benches - along with the massive door of course. The only inhabitant was a pink figure, laying along one of the benches. The asari looked at her curiously.
'So, what did you do to get yourself in isolation?' She was dressed in light, brown armor, and looked mostly like a mercenary of some sort. Her skin was a light pink color, broken by a long scar running across the left side of her face, dangerously close to her eye. Besides that, her face was covered in white facial markings.
'Erm, well, there were some.. disagreements between me and the rest of the crew. '
The asari chuckled.
'I noticed that much. Might not be too bad ya ended up in 'ere, eh? What'd ye do? And how'd you guys end up getting caught by these bastards anyway? I heard they were heading towards Kar'shan to load us off for sale.'
'We had an.. engine malfunction. They must've picked up our emergency transmission, and found us floating around in space.'
'Your ship was just floating around?'.
Zoia moved around uncomfortably on the bench she'd sat down on.
'Well, not exactly the ship. More like the escape pods. The ship sort of, eh, blew up.'
'It blew up?'
'It was a fairly serious malfunction.'
'I don't suppose that has anything to do with your current, unfortunate reputation?'
'Weeell, it wasn't really my fault. We had a little situation down in the engine room, and I figured it'd be a good idea to stabilize it. Unfortunately, the repair seems to have, eh, pushed the reactor levels up a bit too high.'
The Asari stared at her in disbelief.
'You fixed a small problem, and made the reactor blow up?'
'Now that just sounds bad. It might not even have been my tinkering - could've been a flaw already existing. It was a really old ship they had. '
'Isn't half the Migrant Fleet from when you guys fled from the Geth?'
'Half is probably exaggerating...'
'But don't they work perfectly?
'Well, not perfectly, they have all sorts of quirks and...'
'They don't blow up, do they?'
'I guess not, no', Zoia mumbled. 'But at least I noticed in good time, so the whole crew made it to the escape pods. '
'But not in good enough time to stop the ship from exploding?'
'So it would seem, wouldn't it?
The asari chuckled again. Apparently she found the whole situation a bit more humorous than Zoia did.
'I'm Leesa', she introduced.
'Zoia here. So, why are you sitting in here?' It dawned on Zoia that there had to be some reason Leesa was sitting alone in here - she'd called it isolation herself, after all.
'We're sorta in the same boat. I ain't the most popular figure in the other cells either.' Zoia felt a twist of joy at the prospect of not being the only hated figure on board. Aside from all the batarians of course. Or, probably, all the prisoners from the batarian point of view.
'I was hired by this here salarian corporation. They'd gathered a band o' asari mercenaries to protect their ship, but apparently felt they were a bit short on numbers, so they pulled a couple freelancers along as well. It wasn't all that fun on the way out either - mercenaries ain't that fond of strangers grabbing part of their profits. Hadn't counted on the likelihood of 'accidents' before payday. '
'How'd you get from there to batarian slave-dancer-to-be?'
'Well, these scumbags showed up outta nowhere 'n' boarded the ship. They weren't counting on the heavy guard though - we took out a pretty good bunch of 'em, but there were a lot of four-eyes. In the end they took out the last o' the other gals beside me, so I figured slavery was preferable to bullets between the eyes, and I threw down me gun.' She paused, staring at the wall behind Zoia, presumably towards her salarian contractors. 'Never figured the salarians as win-or-die kinda people, but apparently they think that once you've been paid, you'd better fight until they're safe. Or until ye're not'.
'So, I guess they aren't real fond of you now?', Zoia asked with a small chuckle.
'I believe the suggestion 'selling her a to a volus brothel to pay for this' was aired on more than one occasion. In the end our honored captors figured it was easier to just put me in here, than deal with the yelling'. As an afterthought, she added 'salarian businessmen aren't that good in a fistfight'.
*
Time seemed to drift by quite a bit slower than usually. Zoia was thankful for Leesa's company, but even the asari's unending mercenary tales couldn't stop her thoughts from drifting towards her probable slave future. She couldn't help but let out a rather resigned sigh.
'... and then we dropped the steaming oil bucket right on top o' the krogan janitor - what're ya sighing about?' Leesa halted her story, and stared at Zoia questioningly. The mercenary seemed completely relaxed, despite their current situation.
'Well, y'know, just my future as a Batarian workgirl.' She shook her head, and muttered 'seems everyone wants to enslave me at the moment.'
Leesa raised her eyebrows. ' Someone tried to enslave ya before?' Zoia squirmed uncomfortably again. She should've kept her mouth shut.
'Eh, yeah, I ended up on Illium, and sort of lost most of my cash in a card game with this volus. More than most my cash to by honest. To be completely honest, a bit more than all my cash.'
'So, the volus tried to enslave ya?'
'Not exactly, he just wanted to break a couple of kneecaps to stage a warning. Kept muttering something about setting precedents for business dealings. But I'm rather fond of my kneecaps, so I figured I'd better find a way off planet. And the asari there had this old water-purifying facility that was malfunctioning, so I figured I'd offer to repair it.'
Leesa stared at her in disbelief. 'You didn't blow it up, did ya?'
'Oh no no. How would you even blow up a water-purifier? I just mixed up the chemicals a bit - nothing fancy, just instigated a bit of nausea throughout the trade quarter. But it seems those Ilium asari take their trade a bit too seriously. They put out a warrant for me for ten years of slave service to pay of my debt to society, or some such nonsense'.
'How the hell did you escape their police?'
'They may be serious, but they don't know squat about quarians. I just painted my suit orange and used a fake name. They kept asking people for a 'purple poisoner'. But I figured that might not last forever, so when the human lads next door was looking for a mechanic, I jumped on the chance.' She looked around at the cell. ' In hindsight, maybe I should've taken the asari slavery.'
Leesa was still shaking her head at her in disbelief. 'By the goddess. You really are a clumsy one, aren't ya.'
'I've had a wee bit of bad luck. The orange suit looks pretty damn good though'.
'You do realize', Leesa said as if just figuring something out, 'that the only use batarians have for a quarian slave is probably technical. As a species, ye're pretty high maintenance'.
'The thought had crossed my mind.'
'What do you think'll happen if you blow something up?'
'The thought had crossed my mind' Zoia muttered unhappily. Batarians weren't really known for their good humor and forgiving attitude.
'Jeez, you're really screw-' Leesa was cut short, as the door rattled open. A bulky batarian - which batarian wasn't bulky - stood on the other side.
'You!' he bellowed, pointing at Zoia. 'Suit-rat! Get over here.'
Zoia walked to him, muttering 'y'know, that's really offens-' She too was cut short, this time by the pirate's ham-sized fist, jerking her head back with a punch.
'Shut up! We got some machinery aint' working. You're a suit-rat, you're gonna fix it.' Zoia sighed. Half at the fact that she was once again to tangle with unwilling machinery, half at the fact that no one ever seemed to put any work into their insults. Suit-rat was so horribly uncreative.
*
Zoia was pleasantly surprised as she fiddled with the cables in the broken shield generator. It was the exact same model they'd had on her childhood ship in the Flotilla. Which said a lot about the probable age of the batarian vessel. She'd repaired that once, so she knew how to do it. Of course, back then she'd mistakenly jammed the vents, causing it to dangerously overheat. Only the timely intervention of a crewmate had stopped it from blowing a big hole in the side of the ship. But she'd looked over his shoulder when he did it, so she had a pretty good idea how to do it right this time. And then she could go back to her cell, and await her probable execution when she messed up somewhere. Lovely.
Unless... An idea began to form in her mind.
After a while she connected the last cables, reinserted the control panel, and reactivated the machine.
'You done?'
'Oh yes, quite done'. She smiled at him. Of course he couldn't see it through her mask, which might be a good thing.
'Then let's get you back to the cell, so I can get back to my card game'.
'We should wait a couple minutes, see if it works properly.' She strolled over to far side of the room, settling in to wait. The batarian glared at her angrily, muttering something decidedly unfriendly. They waited for a couple minutes, the noise from the machine growing increasingly louder.
'Is it supposed to sound like that?'
'Yes yes, quite intentional'. The batarian glared suspiciously at the poorly hidden smugness in her voice. Then the noise grew thunderous, and sparks started erupting.
'What the hell you three-fingered mutant-migrant...' He was cut short as the machine exploded, taking a small chunk of this side of the ship with it, as well as the room's entire supply of oxygen.
Zoia, safe within her suit, pulled out her omni-tool and activated her magnetic boots, as the guard swiftly perished, his choking sounds lost in the now air-less room. At least he'd been a bit more creative. She grabbed his now-floating body, pulling the gun from his belt. She noticed a couple of grenades attached to it, and grabbed those as well. One never knew when grenades could come in handy.
She was shaking all over as she hurried towards the door. She'd never killed anyone in cold blood before. She wasn't actually sure whether she'd killed anyone by accident, but in all fairness, it wasn't all that unlikely). But she'd be damned if she was just going to wait it out for inevitable doom. And if one was going to kill somebody, she figured pirates wasn't the worst place to start.
She reached the door on the end. They'd passed through it on the way here, it led through a small storage room on the other side. If the door on the other end had an automatic seal like this one, she could probably pass through without venting the entire ship for air. Although that would get rid of the pirates - but she really wasn't sure where to find more oxygen, and her supply wasn't endless. Oh, and she didn't really want to start butchering prisoners - even though quite a few of them probably wanted nothing more than to watch her slowly suffocate.
Fortunately the door controls still worked despite the automatic sealing, so she opened it without problems. She closed it behind her, and passed through the door on the other side of the storage room, her suit once again switching off its own air supply, as the room was automatically refilled with oxygen when the door closed behind her. With her luck, chances were good she was going to need the rest of it.
She could hear footsteps approaching - not really surprising - so she hurried down the seemingly silent corridor on her right. Her plan had seemed quite brilliant when she came up with it. Unfortunately, she'd left off the rest of it as the rather vague plot of freeing the prisoners and retaking the ship. Now that she'd arrived at that part, it didn't seem all that simple.
She took a different route back towards the cells, but she had a pretty good idea where she was going. The ship structure was pretty simple after all - not like some of the ships back home, which had been rebuilt so many times that any remnant of logic was lost decades ago. Quite against her usual luck, she encountered no batarians. Maybe they were all heading to check out her handiwork.
She was almost at the cell corridor, when she heard voices, and stopped dead in her tracks. They were coming from a room along the corridor. Not all of them had left then. She snuck through the corridor to the door, and dared a peak through. Three Batarians sat around a small, round table playing cards, a fourth empty chair beside them. All beside them were crates with a wide array of weapons - pistols sprawled across tables, rifles hanging from the walls and a few crates of what looked like rather potent explosives.
The batarians were completely focused on the card game in front of them, so Zoia figured she could sneak past. But if they were to have any chance, they'd need weapons. She couldn't really waste this opportunity. On the other hand, taking on three Batarians was a rather daunting task. Her eyes moved down to the small gun in her hand. Not a pleasant prospect at all. Then her eyes strayed to the grenades she'd snatched, a smile appearing on her face.
She pulled one up in front of her face. She'd never actually used a grenade. How the hell did they work? As she fidgeted with it, a blue light started glowing on it. What did that mean? She tried pushing on it, wondering whether it was the button that activated it. As the light began blinking more rapidly, she suddenly got a sucking feeling in her stomach.
'Oh f...' She flung it into the room. It only made it halfway into the room, right over the card table, before it blew. The batarians, who'd turned at her sudden outburst, didn't even have time to react before they were thrown against the walls by the explosion.
Zoia moved from her shelter into the room. A rather potent grenade. None of the pirates were even moving. She grabbed a rifle off the wall, and ran down the corridor. While the previous blast might've bought her some time from the rest of the crew, this one would only lead them towards her.
She rounded the corner to cell corridor in a full on sprint. A single guard stared at her, dumbfounded. Without breaking her stride, she fired the rifle towards him - quickly forcing her to break her stride, due to the recoil. She managed to put an impressive number of rounds in the walls around the baffled guard reaching for his gun, but somehow managed to hit him too, tumbling him over.
She hurried tothe cell door, quickly getting it open. Since they were make-do cells, they seemed to only be prisoner-proof from the inside. She felt like she was in the middle of a completely out-of-character streak of lucky. It would probably backfire soon enough.
'What the hell?' The pink asari stared at her, just as dumbfounded as the guard.
'I hope you're as tough as you let on'. Zoia couldn't resist throwing a grin towards her. Although again, it probably wasn't visible through her helmet. She threw the rifle towards the mercenary, who grabbed it on instinct, a surprised look on her face. 'We're revolting.'
'Revolting? What the f... What were those explosions? What the hell is going on?' Her surprised look was quickly waning for one of anger.
'A couple of well-timed mishaps, ridding us of a couple of our beloved hosts. Now grab that rifle, let's get the rest of the people outta here, and rid us of the rest.'
'You're gonna get us all killed, ya crazy quarian! We ain't even armed!' She'd really hoped the asari would get on board faster. They didn't have all that much time.
'Look here Leesa, you said yourself they're pretty much just a skeleton crew left after taking on your ship, and they got two crews stocked up down here. There's an unguarded munitions room two corridors down, clear for the taking if we move fast. Now, d'ya want to be a working girl for arms dealers the rest of your life, or do you want to help blow them three ways to hell?' The angry look receded from her purple face, giving way first to contemplation, then a sudden bout of excitement. She pushed past Zoia, out into corridor.
'Crazy quarian' she mumbled, but with a smile on her face this time. She opened both doors to the other cells, revealing surprised looks on both human and salarian faces. At least Zoia was fairly certain that was what passed for surprise for the two species.
'Right gents, listen up. Our suited friend here has disturbed our benevolent captors long enough to allow us time fer a little bit o' taking the ship.' She was interrupted by nervous outbursts.
'We'll get slaughtered!'
'They'd kill us all!'
'That goddamn quarian!'
Leesa waved off their concerns.
'Look lads, the case is simple. At this point, when they see some of us with guns, they're gonna figure we're revolting. Then they'll just come in here shooting, might even execute us all for the hell of it. They're pretty down on numbers, so they'll be quite nervous. So you can either come with us, get armed and fight for yer freedom, or you can sit here and wait to get shot.' She shrugged. 'Your choice. Lead the way to the weapons, suit-girl.' She started down the corridor, Zoia hurried along with her, looking back at the other prisoners exchanging glances. Then a couple of humans followed, then a couple salarians, and suddenly everyone was behind them. No one wanted to be left alone. Zoia whispered to Leesa.
'You really think they'd've executed them, just because we're running around? Would seem to cut their profits down considerably.' Leesa shrugged again.
'Maybe. They're pirates aren't they? Anyways, we needed these here gents, and it worked, didn't it?' Zoia smiled inside her helmet, and gave Leesa a more visible thumbs up. She responded with a quick smile.
They made it to the armory without problems, and the crewmen eagerly armed themselves, more and more on board with the plan. After all, they probably didn't really want to stay slaves. And there's something about giving back to people who tried to take everything from you.
'How the hell did ya manage that?' Leesa wondered, looking at the dead Batarians.
'I picked up this grenade', Zoia said smugly. 'It did the job decently'.
Leesa just stared at her.
'You threw a grenade into a room filled with weapons?'
'Well..'
'Didn't you see the explosives over there?'
'Sure, but..'
'Do you have any idea what would've happened if you'd hit them?'
Zoia crossed her arms.
'It worked, didn't it?'
Leesa just shook her head with a resigned facial expression.
'Screw it. Let's get on with this.'
'Alright lads!' The human captain spoke up. 'We'll divide into two groups, and each head in a direction.' An ingenious plan, considering they were currently standing in a corridor, able to go two ways.
'We're this way!' The salarians hurried one way.
'It's our turn now!' The human crew ran off the other way. Zoia and Leesa were left standing, glancing both ways. Leesa cleared her throat.
'Y'know, maybe we should just stick to ourselves. Less chance of unfortunate, friendly fire-related incidents with our former comrades.' Zoia nodded eagerly.
*
'Ahaha! Gotcha, ya swashbuckling four-eyes!' Leesa roared, as yet another batarian fell beneath her fire. Zoia judged that her stories might've inflated her abilities a bit - but not much. Truth be told, she was plowing her way through the pirates they encountered. Zoia had felt a fairly sizeable lump in her throat when they'd been assaulted and pinned down by six of their foes. But since her purple companion had so far dispatched half their initial number - and Zoia, to her proud glee, had ended one of them herself - their situation was beginning to look up.
Around them, it sounded like the ship had descended into chaos. Sounds of gunfire and screams of both pain and triumph seemed to come from everywhere around them. It seemed it was increasingly sounds of human or salarian triumph and batarian pain - but maybe she was just hearing what she wanted to hear.
Her line of thought was interrupted, as Leesa suddenly hurled a big, blue ball of biotic energy out throw the door. It hit a batarian - clumsy enough to expose himself - square in the chest, hurling him backwards into the metal wall. Zoia could hear the loud 'crunch' as his neck broke, along with what sounded like a fair number of other bones. The last batarian looked at his crushed comrade for a moment, and then turned tail and sprinted down the corridor.
'Oh no you don't!' Leesa bellowed, running after, firing wildly. A little disturbed at her newfound friend's battle lust, Zoia ran after. She found the asari around the corner, kicking the apparently gunned down pirate repeatedly.
'Is this the kind of dancing ya want! IS IT?'
When she noticed Zoia, she stopped, treating her a dazzling smile.
'Well, that went alright, didn't it?'
Just a bit disturbing. Leesa cocked her head to the side, listening.
'Seems our friends have the upper hand'. The sounds of battle were slowing down, giving way to increasing roars from their comrades. 'You do realize they might not be in a very forgiving moods afterwards, right?'
Zoia agreed. They might've initiated the revolt, but according to their fellow rebels, they were also the cause for their current impediment. On top of that, it was likely quite a few of them managed to get killed during the takeover, further inciting a vindictive mood.
'The thought had crossed my mind', she said miserably.
'Y'know, i heard them pirates talking 'bout a scouting ship. Should be able to take, say, one or two people to the nearest space port.' Zoia felt a smile creeping on.
'Know where it is?'
'Aye, I've got a gist.'
'What're we waiting for?' Despite her smile, she shot a worried glance towards the last battle sounds. '
'Ain' no time like the present', Leesa nodded, and they started back down the corridor. The mercenary shot a glance towards the quarian, a skeptic look on her face.
'But I'm doing the damn flying.'