Grayson kept slipping in and out of consciousness as the shuttle drifted aimlessly through space. Every few hours he would suddenly become very tired and the world would slip away. When he awoke, he could never tell how long he had been out. He wasn’t sure, but he suspected the Reapers were behind the blackouts.
Each time his senses returned he quickly checked the shuttle’s navigational equipment to make sure the Reapers hadn’t programmed a new destination into the ship while he was out. Each time he found the vessel’s course unaltered.
It was almost as if they were waiting for something, harboring their strength until the moment was right. What that moment might be, however, he couldn’t even begin to guess.
The sixth or seventh time he woke up, he saw a blinking light on the shuttle communications console, indicating an incoming message waiting to be heard. But that was impossible. He’d disabled all hailing frequencies; there was no way for someone to contact the shuttle directly. The only way there could be a waiting message was if he had logged in to the comm network … or someone had done it for him.
Suddenly the blackouts made sense—the Reapers were temporarily putting him out so they could use the communications equipment. He briefly wondered why they didn’t simply keep him unconscious. Based on all the other times they had used him, he suspected they needed him to be awake and alert to function properly. By taking control of his body, they became bound by the limitations of his physical form. If his mind was pushed into an unconscious state, Grayson suspected, his reactions would be slow and clumsy, like a sleepwalker stumbling around in a stupor.
It could also be more taxing on the Reapers themselves. Taking control of his body while he slept could have drained their reserves, which might explain why recently he hadn’t felt them try and reestablish their dominance while he was awake.
If his speculations were true, then he’d learned something new about the alien parasites feeding off him. It might not amount to anything, but the more he understood what was happening to him, the better his chances of fighting it.
The message light was still blinking. His first instinct was to delete it unheard, perhaps thwarting the Reapers’ plans in the process.
It could be important. A tool to use against the enemy.
As he was reaching up to delete it, a new thought popped into his head. Knowledge was his only weapon against the Reapers. If he listened to the message, it might reveal something useful. If he knew what the Reapers were after, they might be easier to stop.
He hit the playback, and to his surprise Kahlee’s face appeared on the comm panel’s screen.
“Paul. I need your help. Meet me on Omega. I’m sending you the location. Please hurry. It’s urgent.”
There was something odd about the way she spoke. Her voice was flat, almost monotone. It didn’t have its normal energy or spark. It made him suspicious.
Maybe she’s scared. Or hurt.
He was being paranoid. There were any number of reasons she might not sound like her normal self. There was even the possibility that she hadn’t changed at all, and that the physical changes the Reapers had wrought on his body were affecting his senses and perceptions.
Her message left him torn. He wanted to see Kahlee, and if she was in some kind of trouble he wanted to do everything possible to help her. But he couldn’t risk exposing her to what he had become. He couldn’t risk letting her come into contact with the Reapers.
She has nowhere else to turn. She’s desperate. Don’t abandon her.
He played the message again, focusing on the last four words: “Please hurry. It’s urgent.”
Kahlee wasn’t prone to dramatics. If she said it was urgent, it had to be something serious. And there was a look of desperation in her eyes, as if he was her last hope. She needed him; he couldn’t turn his back on her.
His mind made up, Grayson sent off a reply to the message.
“I’m on my way, Kahlee” was all he said.
Omega is dangerous. You’ll need all your strength when you get there.
He plotted a course for Omega into the nav computer, then settled back in his chair and closed his eyes. He’d need to rest up so he’d be ready to face whatever might be waiting for him on the lawless space station.
“One at a time,” Anderson said encouragingly. “Flex those fingers.”
“You’d make a great nurse,” Kahlee replied.
They were sitting side by side on the couch of the room they still had not been allowed to leave. They had turned so they could be face-to-face. Kahlee was holding her hands out in front of her, palms up. Anderson’s hands were beneath, supporting her wrists. He had helped remove her finger splints so she could begin her physical therapy; when they were finished he would carefully help her put them back on.
They were sitting slightly closer than they needed to be, but not so close it could be considered intimate. Kahlee knew they were both wary of another sudden intrusion from Aria and her underlings; neither she nor David felt any need to endure that type of awkward embarrassment again.
She had noticed, however, that in the aftermath of any discussions of Grayson—like the one they had had with Aria yesterday—he always became a little more reserved and distant. She didn’t think it was jealousy; not exactly. It was almost like he was waiting for her to work out her feelings for Paul before he let himself get too close.
“You’re not concentrating,” Anderson chided her, breaking her train of thought. “Focus.”
Kahlee nodded, and turned her attention to her injured digits. One by one she curled them into her palm and extended them out again. The tendons felt stiff and brittle; she half-imagined she could hear them crackling as she went through the exercises.
They were only half finished when the door to the room slid open and Aria swept in. Her asari, krogan, and batarian escorts followed in her wake. Instinctively Kahlee snatched her hands out of Anderson’s grasp, then cursed herself for caring so much what a bunch of criminals and thugs thought about her and her relationships.
“Grayson replied to your message,” Aria informed her.
“I want to see it,” Kahlee said, rising to her feet.
The asari shook her head. “There’s nothing to see. He agreed to the meeting. You can see him then.”
Kahlee felt like Aria was hiding something. She flashed back to some of what she had uncovered in the Cerberus research files: physical abnormalities; widespread mutations; repurposing of the host.
How bad is it? How far has his condition progressed?
“What happens now?” Anderson asked.
“I’ll be alerted when he arrives on the station. At that time, my people will come to take Kahlee to the meeting.”
“I want to go too,” Anderson told her, getting up and moving over to stand beside Kahlee in a show of support.
“What you want is of no consequence,” Aria reminded him.
“Where am I meeting him?” Kahlee asked.
“I wanted to keep this private. One of my warehouses near the loading docks.”
Kahlee didn’t like the sound of that. She would have preferred somewhere more public.
“Why not in Afterlife?”
“Too many people,” Anderson answered grimly. “She thinks it’s going to get violent.”
“You promised you wouldn’t hurt him!” Kahlee shouted, taking a half-step toward their captor.
In a flash her krogan bodyguard interposed himself between them. Anderson did the same, leaping in front of Kahlee. The two stared at each other, the krogan’s massive reptilian form towering over Anderson. He didn’t back down, however.
The krogan finally stepped aside when Aria reached up to put a hand on his shoulder, indicating she wasn’t worried about the threat either of the humans posed. Satisfied, Anderson took a step back so he was once again standing beside Kahlee, rather than in front of her.
“I didn’t promise you anything,” Aria pointedly reminded her. “I said I would take what you told me about Cerberus into consideration.
“Grayson may already have killed one of my people,” she added darkly. “I’m not going to take any chances with him.”
“I want an assurance that Kahlee and I will be allowed to go free after this meeting,” Anderson insisted.
“Everyone wants things they cannot get.”
“Are you going to keep us here as prisoners forever?” Kahlee wanted to know. “Or are you just going to kill us when this is over?”
“I haven’t decided your fate yet,” Aria said with a smile. “But if you cooperate, your chances of leaving Omega will increase dramatically.”
“How long until the meeting?” Kahlee finally said, realizing there was truth in Aria’s last statement.
“I’ll send an escort to accompany you in a few hours. I suggest you be ready when they arrive.”
Kahlee and Anderson both remained standing until Aria and the others were gone and the door had closed behind them.
Neither of them spoke as they turned to look at each other. Kahlee wondered if the concern she saw in Anderson’s face was reflected in her own.
He reached up and gently took her wrists, then drew her back down to a sitting position on the couch.
“You risk losing mobility if we don’t finish the therapy,” he told her.
With a nod, Kahlee resumed the exercises, eager to find something that could take her mind off the imminent meeting with Grayson … and the fear of what she might find waiting for her.
Aria still hadn’t decided what she was going to do with her prisoners. She didn’t want to kill them if she didn’t have to; there was little long-term gain to be had from dead bodies. But she was also leery of letting them go. Anderson in particular looked like the type to carry a grudge, and she already had plenty of enemies. Ultimately, she knew, her decision would depend on the outcome of the meeting with Grayson.
He represented another decision she hadn’t made yet. It was unlike her; she very rarely went ahead with a plan if she wasn’t reasonably certain of the outcome. But she still didn’t like the idea of getting into bed with Cerberus, no matter how lucrative the payoff might be.
“What’s the plan for when Grayson arrives?” Sanak asked, causing her to turn her head in mild surprise.
She had never thought of the batarian as particularly perceptive; was it possible she had underestimated him? Or was it simply coincidence that had made him bring up the subject?
“We’ll have plenty of people at the warehouse,” she assured him. “More than enough to handle whatever happens.”
“Why go to all this trouble? Why not just have someone take him out the second he sets foot on the station?”
“I haven’t even decided for sure whether I want him dead or not,” she cautioned.
“If you let him live you’re throwing away three million credits!” Sanak protested. “And for what?”
“For what, indeed,” she answered, causing him to shake his head in bewilderment.
She didn’t bother trying to explain her thought process to him. The Cerberus offer was generous … a little too generous. What secrets did Grayson have that were so valuable to them? And was there any chance they could prove as valuable to her?
“It’s a lot of money,” Sanak muttered. “That’s all I’m saying. With those kind of credits on the table, no way I’d let him live.”
Suddenly Aria knew what she was going to do, at least as far as Grayson was concerned. Sanak had many fine qualities. He was loyal, skilled, ruthless, and relentless in pursuit of his goals. But one thing he lacked was vision; he had a sense only of the now. The fact that he would take the Cerberus offer meant she should reject it.
“I want to try and take Grayson alive if possible,” she declared. “But if he resists in any way, kill him.”
Sanak’s lip curled up in a snarl of disgust, but he had the common sense not to question her.
“I’m going to put Orgun in charge of the warehouse team,” she added, deciding the bad blood between her lieutenant and Grayson only increased the chances of the meeting turning violent.
“What about me?”
“I’m putting you in charge of Kahlee. Make sure she’s there to meet him.”