Mass Effect: Faustian Bargain/Chapter 1

March 1, 2170

Aboard slaver ship Kharik's Fist in relay transit

It had been 4 months since Ensign Lamar Tarleton officially earned the N6 designation and at age 20, he was about to become the youngest person to do ever earn the N7 designation. This assignment Lamar was on was to serve as his final test to see if he truly had the makings of an N7. However, this mission was... not what he had expected; he and the members of N7 Zeta Team were tucked away in crates aboard the Kharik's Fist, a Batarian Hensa-Class cruiser that made frequent slaver runs in the Skyllian Verge and the Terminus Systems. However, this recent slave raid was a trap set up by the Alliance; over the past 18 months, the Alliance had noticed that the Slavers were more selective in their slave grabs. In that they only took certain kinds of colonists based off of biotic capabilities, planet of birth and so forth instead of the typical "grab anyone with a pulse and haul ass towards the nearest mass relay" approach commonly employed by slavers. This time however, the Alliance decided to have an N7 team lie in wait for the slavers and while they make their slave run, Zeta was to infiltrate the ship, look for anything of suspision, rescue the colonists and blow up the ship, in other words; easier said than done.

The massive cargo bay doors opened and a patrol of Batarian guards entered the cargo bay. Captain Ira Zenali, leader of N7 Zeta Team signaled Lamar and his partner for this mission, Ensign Olivia Thomson, to move in and neutralize the patrol. Lamar then nudged Olivia and the two of them slowly exited the crate. Lamar had met Olivia during his N7 training in Rio de Janiero back on Earth; despite being a foot taller and 35 pounds heavier than her, he was roughly 2 and a half years younger than her. Though being the youngest N7 operative ever, Lamar was used to being the young one in the squad throughout his military career.

He then jumped up on one of the storage units and Olivia jumped up on the one parrallel of him. The two began to do what was known by the N7s as the "Spider Scoot", where a person got on all fours and slowly crawled while keeping their arms and legs stretched out; this distributed body weight and allows for swift and silent movements, perfect for infilitration. Lamar then peeked down and noticed four batarians and two turians, one of the batarians sported armor worn by Hegemony officers, the others were wearing the armor of the Blue Suns, a mercenary outfit that often acted as a go between for the Hegemony's slave trade operations in the Verge.

Lamar signaled Olivia, whose face was covered by a hood, to move to a blindspot. He then flashed four fingers, a circle motion and a finger pointing up, an N7 hand code meaning "target batarian leader", the slim commando jumped down from the storage unit behind the mercs and slowly approached the officer. She grabbed his head and twisted the neck a near 165 degrees making a distinct 'snap', by the time the other mercs turned to face her, Lamar jumped down pulling out his silenced Ariake Technologies Raikou pistol and then placed a shot in each merc's head. The pair then silenty moved towards the bay doors.

Captain Zenali and seven other Zeta Team operatives were waiting for them, Lamar made sweeping motion with his hand, N7 code for "all hostiles neutralized."Zenali nodded and then she motioned Lieutenant Li Tai, Zeta’s tech specialist, to open the cargo bay doors without setting off any alarms. Li walked up to the door’s control mechanism and his fingers danced gingerly over the console as he cracked the security on the door. He then stepped back, making a downward fist meaning “alarm disabled.” Zenali nodded and the team move in under the slow opening door.

Lamar was slightly confused that no one had come by to check on the cargo bay patrol by now; normally slaver ships run two patrols in each area of the ship with a third one running the length of the ship, checking in with each area’s respective patrols. However, the sounds of footsteps and chattering in alien gibberish coming down the hall confirmed Lamar’s suspicions; they had run right into the third patrol. He turned to look at Zenali, who displayed no sense of concern and merely motioned Lieutenant Commander Tarvais Okunga, Zeta’s muscle and second in command, to move up and neutralize the threat. Okunga was a human tank; he was the biggest human Lamar had ever seen, easily two feet taller and 150 pounds heavier than him. Okunga was also the test bed for the Alliance’s new T5-V prototype armor; the combat suit was a half-ton of classified crap that further bolstered Okunga’s imposing figure. Okunga lumbered past Lamar and the rest of Zeta team and nonchalantly walked up to the patrol. Lamar could then hear the patrol yelling, along with a few gunshots followed up by a couple bone-crunching thuds, concluding with a battered batarian being thrown across the hall. Okunga lumbered back, with a few blotches of blood on his armor but not a single dent on it. He made a sweeping hand signal and Zeta team formed up in a single file line.

The line then stopped as the hallway forked off into four different pathways, Zenali held up her hand and flashed two fingers, pointing them to the far left corridor, and Lieutenant Jr. Grade Faryd Cotero and Ensign Quentin Parker then exited the line and then went down the corridor. Zenali then made a fist and pointed it to the far right corridor, Ensigns Isabel Torres and Daiman Oruma then headed straight down it. Zenali the flash three fingers and the corridor in front of them, Lamar then joined up with Olivia and Li and the trio made their way down.

Lamar took the lead with his pistol in hand as three commandos crept down the dim-lit hallway. Lamar held up his hand, signaling the team to halt when he heard a distinct wheezing noise coming from behind a door. Lamar crept up next to the door and listened in on alien chatter, most of the voices were batarian or turian but there was one other voice that lacked the slurring found in batarians, rather it was constantly wheezing. “A volus?” Lamar thought in disbelief; he needed to further investigate, he signaled Li and Olivia to get ready power as he pulled out a grenade. Lamar cracked the door open just enough to roll the grenade in and then held the door shut. After he heard it detonate, he opened the door and the three commandos gunned down the aliens in the room. Lamar then noticed the grenade had blown the volus’ suit open, interrogating it was no longer an option. Disappointed, he was about to signal Li and Olivia to exit when he noticed something odd about one of the dead batarians. Lamar knelt down beside the bloodied and charred corpse and noticed a brand on the side of its neck with the batarian initials translating to S.I.U. “The Special Intervention Unit” Lamar whispered and then got up to face Li. “We need to warn the Captain, things are not what they appear to be.”

Faryd Botero swiveled his shotgun as he slowly crept though the hallway and Quentin Parker walked behind him cradling his Rosankov Materials M-97 Mantis Sniper Rifle in his arms. Faryd looked around the hall, noticing how all the panels had been stripped off, either for maintenance or for parts Faryd wasn’t sure. He snapped back into focus when he heard a door up ahead open and saw the shadow of what he believed to be a batarian. He nodded to Quentin who then knelt down and shouldered up his sniper rifle. The moment the batarian stepped out into the hall, Quentin pulled the trigger and the batarian’s head then exploded. Two other batarians scrambled out into the hall in confusion, babbling about in some alien gibberish. Quentin took aim again and shot the two squabbling aliens at such speed, Faryd wasn’t sure which one Quentin had targeted first.

The pair quickly snuck past the bodies and made way down the hall. Faryd came to halt as he heard footsteps, multiple footsteps. As they got closer he heard angry alien chatter; Faryd guessed their numbers to be anywhere from five to twelve in other words, too many for them to contend with. He quickly scanned his surroundings to find something that could help and found what could be their saving grace, a maintenance access way. Faryd pried the small door open and crawled in and then Quentin got in behind him. The door clanged shut and Faryd activated the flashlight on his shotgun and began to slowly crawl forward. Faryd glanced at the schematics on his omni-tool and saw that this access way would lead them to the ship’s engineering deck, where Oruma and Torres were supposed to be. Just as Faryd was about to deactivate the device, an orange light on it began to flash. A message came up from Lamar:WARNING: We have encountered Special Intervention Unit Operatives in the crew galley, expect heavy patrols. “A little late” Faryd muttered to himself, as he crept through the rusty, narrow corridor.

He then came to halt when three stray gunshots zipped through the bottom of the access way, leaving three small holes in front of him. Faryd knew now he was getting close to someone from Zeta and continued to crawl forward and then saw some slits of light in front of him. He got to up to the vent grating and then smashed it with the butt of his shotgun. The flimsy sheet of metal flew to the ground and Faryd slid out and Quentin followed suit. Faryd then ducked down after seeing what looked like a Turian was flying at him at muzzle velocity. Faryd knew that Ensign Isabel Torres had to be here as she was the only biotic he knew of that actually use her biotic abilities for practical applications.

“What should we do?” Quentin relayed to Faryd in sign language. Quentin was a mute; in his childhood, he was in a shuttle crash that caused damage to his vocal chords and was relegated to communication through sign language. Faryd looked at Quentin and then looked down on the engineering deck to find Isabel and Daiman Oruma, Zeta’s demolition expert to be surrounded by Blue Suns mercenaries. He flashed to fingers to Quentin and the mute sniper got down in prone position and began to take aim. He tapped the trigger and Faryd saw one batarian’s head burst and watched its lifeless (and now headless) body crumple to the floor. The rest of the mercenaries then stared at the body for a few seconds and then Quentin took aim again, this time downing a pair of Turians.

The remainder of the mercs began to start shooting in every direction, squawking out gibberish, one side blaming the other for turning on them. Faryd shook his head in disbelief at the fact they hadn’t caught to the fact that he and Quentin were here, which was all the proof he needed to know that they were officially dealing with idiots. He immeadiately jumped down to the main floor and rushed into the mob of confused aliens. He fired off two shots from his shotgun and then delivered a punch right to the throat of the batarian standing in front of him. One of the turians came from behind with a knife but took a missing swipe. Faryd grabbed the turian's wrist and twisted its arm until he heard 'pop' from its shoulder disslocating. He then threw the alien over his shoulder and shot him in the face as he crashed to the deck. Faryd then walked up to Isabel, who was still trying to recover from her last biotic outburst.

"You good Izzy?" Faryd asked as Isabel got up from the ground. "Never better" she grunted as she walked past Faryd. "Daiman got the fireworks ready?" Faryd questioned as he looked up at the eezo core of the Kharik's Fist. "You forgetting why we came here? We're here to free some colonists, not blowup some rust-bucket slaver ship." Isabel chastised Faryd. "Technically, we are supposed to blow it up. Where's Daiman anyways?" Faryd scoffed at Isabel before hearing footsteps coming from one of the maitenance walkways up above. He pointed his pistol up at it. Faryd saw a head looking down at him, though it wasn't batarian or turian. The figure then jumped down and landed right next to Faryd. "Why so jumpy hombre?" The man questioned as Faryd then recongized him as Daiman Oruma, Zeta Team's demolition expert. Daiman was clearly of Japanese decent, though had some european facial feautures; a result of a globalized Earth population. He walked up to Faryd sporting a care-free grin and patted him on the back. "So, I take it you two managed to get things taken care of on your end?" Faryd shook his head "Actually, this mission just got a whole lot more complicated."

Batarian shipbuilders tended to emphasize ease-of-maintenence over all else, it was for this reason that Batarian ships tended to be more modular in their construction, thus replacement parts had universal compatability. However this had a fatal flaw; every Batarian ship had the same electrical system format. Li Tai had no problems splicing into the Kharik's Fist's electrical systems and was able to cut power to the ship's security systems, allowing Zeta Team to move about the ship undetected. Lamar Tarleton however, proved to be a much more difficult problem for Li, as Zeta's newest member; Li could understand Lamar's restlessness. However he had noticed Lamar's callous attitude to this mission; there was no sign of fear in his eyes, rather there were subtle hints of anger and contempt; as if he had some sort of grudge against anything that wasn't a human. Nevertheless, they still had a mission to do and as Lamar took up point, Li kept his eyes glued to his omni-tool which projected a deck layout of the ship. Lamar paused as he heard shouting coming from a closed door up ahead. He looked at Li and then pointed at the door. Li analyzed the map, he then made a hand signal notifying Lamar that they were by the communications room of the ship. Lamar turned on his kinetic language processor and held an ear up to the door. "We've held up our end of the deal, now its time for you to fufill yours!" A batarian could be heard shouting. "The transaction will not be completed until the contents of your ship's payload can be confirmed." Lamar heard in a voice that he couldn't recognize, it didn't sound like any alien Lamar knew of, it sounded more like a...machine. "We have the biotics and we already gave you the two dozen Batarians you asked for!" The infuriated batarian growled as Lamar could hear him pacing back and forth. "We will continue this discussion once you've arrived at the specified location." The mysterious voice calmly replied and the transmission cut out into static

Lamar knew that this was bad news; they needed to stop this ship before they could reach their destination. "Li, can you think of a way to stop this ship?" Lamar whispered over Li. He looked at Lamar and then fiddled around with his omni-tool before looking back up. "I could splice into the ship's system monitors and fake an eezo core malfunction alarm, they would then stop in a nearby system to discharge the core, but do tell me why are we needing to do this?" Li inquired with skeptical look. Lamar huffed "You're just going to have to trust me on this one."

Slaver ships usually ran skeleton crews as most of the capacity of the ship was needed to make room for slave loads. As such, these ships were not usually staffed to handle things such as hostile boarding parties and the security detail of the Kharik's Fist was quickly finding this out as Tarvais Okunga stampeded down the hallway leading to the primary brig quarters, where the captive colonists were being held. Okunga wasn't sure if he had even pulled out his gun once this mission as he had either trampeled or clobbered any mercenary that was either unfortunate enough or dumb enough to get in front of him. Ira Zenali leisurely strolled along behind him, shooting down whatever Okunga didn't finish off or had enough of a brain not to try and stop him. Accompanying Zenali was Lieutneant Junior Grade Ty Burford, Zeta's new field medic who was primarily in charge of monitoring Tarvais and the prototype battlesuit he was encased in. To the untrained eye, Burford may appear to be a mere doctor but Ira and every N7 trooper who had served with knew he was so much more. Though she couldn't deny his usefullness and had proven countless times to be the difference between bleeding out on some uncharted planet and living to fight another day, Ira was still amazed by the fact that Burford was... well, an N7.

"Tarvais is holding up very well with this suit... hasn't even required the assistance of a firearm yet, which is more than can be said for these... whatever they once were." Burford continued to marvel at the data on his omni-tool, he was still trying to fathom the fact that all of this carnage was being done by a lone human! "Pay attention doc, this is a mission, not some science expiriment." Ira smacked Ty on the head and he quickly pulled his pistol, attempting to look on the ready. "Perhaps we should catch up with the Lieutenant Commander, I'll still need to run a once over on his vitals to-" Ty was thrown off his feet and crashed into the wall at the end of the hallway as the ship had appeared to make a screeching halt. Ira had managed to hold onto an exposed thermal heat exchange tube and then quickly ran up to Burford who was still disoriented by the sudden shift of gravity. She knelt down next to him and pulled out a small syringe containing an adrenaline booster and gently injected it into his corroted artery, causing him bounce to his feet. Just as Ira was about to get up, her omni-tool started to emit a clicking noise.

She activated the device and a holographic vid screen popped up, showing Lamar's bloodied and battered face. "Cap, we need a change of plans." Ira kept her lips pressed shut in clear annoyance at Lamar "You don't get to make that decision LT." The only reason Ira had tolerated Lamar was because he was young and she knew about his past; His father, Oswald Tarleton was part of the first class of N7 commandos and also died in the First Contact War. It was because of this Ira could understand Lamar's eagerness to prove himself as a soldier and also she could relate to not wanting to live under a parent's shadow all their life. But now was not the time for such zealousness. "Lamar, you better have a damn good excuse for breaking comm silence." Ira kept her head on a swivel making sure that no one was coming down to investigate. "We discovered that the crew of this ship is making a... deal with someone, I guess you could call it that. I had Li splice into the ship's electric systems and fake an eezo core overload, they've just jumped out of FTL and are probably going to try and discharge the eezo core." Part of Ira admired Lamar's intiative and craftines, the other part wanted to throttle him for his insubordination, recklessness, and barely contained stupidity.

"We need to make a move, right now Cap." Lamar said in a surprisingly calm manner, not intimidated by the potential consequences of his actions. This is what Ira liked about Lamar for the most part; he stuck by his decisions and didn't let bad choices shake his confidence, a mark of a true N7. Ira then sighed in agreement with Lamar "We'll link up with the rest of Zeta Team, you, Olivia and Li make way to the bridge, grab any info you can about what these four-eyes had in mind for the colonists. I'll contact the SSV Dubai for extraction and to scuttle this piece of crap." Lamar nodded and turned off his omni-tool, "So, the N7 field guide is kinda vague on the subject of three man raids on the bridge of a run down slaver ship." Olivia chuckled at Lamar, who replied with a derisive huff and signaled the group to move.

Slaver ships are more akin to livestock ships than they are raider and pirate ships. While the Kharik's Fist may have at one point been a warship, she may as well be called a tranporter. The deck that used to house the ship's GARDIAN anti-ship battery lasers was refitted to hold slaves. There were 4 holding blocks that could 'comfortably' contain 50 people, but usually contained anywhere from 150 to 200 slaves, most of whom die before being off-loaded. However, today there was an exception to that; as one of the holding blocks only contained about twenty-some human biotics. Rakaz Gi-Du had spent 8 years on this damned ship, doing nothing but patrolling up and down the holding blocks; his blood boiled at the fact that the human biotics had to be given such special treatment. He was told to also expect another human slave that had just been processed, and was to make sure 'she doesn't get harmed' his annoyance turned into seething rage; why should he have to be so generous to a human? The whole reason Rakaz took up slaving was to get revenge against the humans! He walked up to the door where the processed slaves enter, balling one hand up into a fist and pounding it into his other hand; he was going to take this human and break her! They would pay for the hardship they have brought upon his people!

A light above the door flashed red and it slowly began to open. Rakaz took a blind swing with his fist, but things didn't go as he thought they would; He felt his fist being caught, and looked up to see a towering human clad in ebony-colored armor, devoid of any facial features, but Rakaz knew it was looking down at him. The human squeezed his fist and Rakaz felt bolts of merciless pain channeling all throughout his body as the human effortlessly crushed his fist. Rakaz screamed out in agony before the human tossed him to ground. Rakaz grabbed his pistol with his good hand, but his body was shaking in terror and pain. "Who do think you are? Do you know I am? I'm with the Batarian Hegemony!" Rakaz sobbed out at the human who seemed oblivious to Rakaz's empty threats.The human lumbered towards Rakaz, who fired a few warning shots, only to have them harmlessly pepper the human' kinetic barriers. The human delivered a swift kick to Rakaz's head, snapping his veterbrae and then turned around to the open door and made a sweeping motion.

"Nice work Okunga" Ira chuckled as she looked down at the dead batarian's crushed face. Ira walked to the holding cells and her skin crawled seeing the conditions these slaves were in, she gave Burford a mean look, who was taking scans of a dead Asari slave. She went up to the least crowded holding cell and knew from seeing the implants in the humans stuck in the cell, that these were the ones they were looking for. Tarvais walked up from behind and looked at the humans. Ira tugged at the holding cell's door and looked back at Okunga "It's locked, we'll need to find a way to-" Tarvais pushed Ira off to the side and then slammed his fist into the locking mechanism, smashing it to pieces. He then gently opened the door and looked at Zenali "What's locked?"

Tarvais then entered the holding cell and approached the captive biotics, who were paralyzed in terror of the hulking commando. "We're here to help you" Okunga stated in a cold voice as he got down on one knee and offered his hand one of the captives, a young boy. Ira looked over at Okunga and trotted over to the younger captives and took off her helmet, revealing a dainty face with a head of short rust colored hair and gave a warm, motherly smile to the young boy. "He's right, you're going to be okay now" she reassured the capitves, none of whom appearred to be any older than 16 years old. The young biotics got up in a gesture of compliance, though they kept their distance from Okunga and the younger ones seemed to huddle up next to Zenali. "We should move Cap, Dubai's going to be here in 3 minutes" Burford stated as he fiddled with his omni-tool. Ira looked at the other holding cells, cramped and most of those within were in lethargic state. "What about the other prisoners?" Ira pointed at the cells. "What about them?" Okunga spat in a cold, passionless voice as he walked pass Ira and the prisoners. "Ma'am even if we had time, they're beyond saving" Ty displayed the vitals of the prisoners on a projection screen from his omni-tool. Ira sighed in resignation "Okay, let's set up a rendesvous with the remainder of Zeta."

Olivia Thomson's 'official' role in Zeta Team is to serve as the squad's infiltration and sabotage specialist. Though on this mission, she had been relegated to serving as a mediator between Lamar Tarleton and Li Tai, whom couldn't seem to agree on anything, be it plan of attack or what type of grenade to use when storming a room. Nonetheless, they had managed to make it to the bridge without tearing each other's heads off, a major victory in Olivia's opinion. "Orders are orders Li, grab whatever data we can" Lamar hissed at Li. "I'm surprised you're still concerned about order Mr. Renegade." Li snapped back at Lamar. "Li, you may not like it, but Lamar is right, this data is important to our mission. Alliance wants to know what these slaver are up to and we're running out of time." Olivia sighed as she looked out bridge window, according to the ship's navigation computers; they were currently in the Indris System, home to the eezo-rich planet Camala. In otherwords they were in Batarian space, the moment someone finds out about what they're doing, it will mean war between the Alliance and the Hegemony.

"Wiped clean, whoever's in charge obviously wanted to keep their tracks covered." Li sighed, as Lamar was frantically typing at an interface by the navigation panels. "That's where you're wrong, check this out." Li looked at Lamar in disbelief and walked over to see Lamar had brought up the ship's fuel logs. "This ship's been making multiple refuel visits to Omega, according to the Captain's logs, they had planned to refuel there after dropping off their cargo." Lamar scanned the terminal interface with his omni-tool, making a copy of the logs. He then tapped a few buttons on the omni-tool and brought up Ira Zenali on a holo-screen. "Captain, its Lamar; we found what we were looking for, what's the escape plan?" "Head for the docking zone, the rest of us are on our way there, make it quick." Ira then disconnected from Lamar as he then nodded to Li and Olivia to move out.

Faryd Botero rushed down the ship deck towards the docking zone, stopping only to either make sure the rest of his squadmate were keeping up and to fire off a few pot shots at the Blue Suns mercs pursuing them. Zenali specifically told them not to blow up the ship's eezo core and just head for the docking zone for extraction. Faryd was in full stride when he was knocked to the ground, he quickly got back up and realized that he was face to face with a Krogan. The massive reptilian species native to Tuchanka usually pursued mercenary careers and the Blue Suns was one of the few mercenary companies who could afford to employ them as full-time mercenaries. Faryd delivered a swift kick to the krogan's knee, causing it to lose its balance, Faryd then tackled the crippled alien and then pressed his shotgun on it's cranial plate, close enough so its kinetic barriers couldn't save it. Faryd pulled the trigger and the krogan's head bursted into a mess of bloody ribbons and Faryd continued his race down to the docking zone.

By the time the Lamar made it to the rendevous zone, the whole squad was waiting for him and the entire crew or at least whatever was left of the batarian ship was after him. Lamar stormed towards the docking bay but was knocked off his feet and crashed onto the deck when the ship began to vibrate violently. "Rides here LT" Lamar could hear Okunga saying to him as he grabbed him by the collar of his armor and tossed him into the airlock as if he were a softball. Lamar slowly got up and stumbled his way into the Alliance ship docked by the Kharik's Fist as the rest of Zeta Team rushed by him. "Pick up the pace cupcake!" Faryd sneered at Lamar as he gave him a shove into the Alliance Ship's airlock. Lamar looked back to see the docking tube pull away as the ship separated from the old batarian cruiser. "What happens next Cap?" Lamar asked to Ira who was prying off her helmet. "Our end of the job is done, all we can do is hope that the Dubai's crew can get us outta here qucikly and discreetly." Lamar nodded and then exited the airlock alongside the rest of Zeta and the rescued prisoners from the Kharik's Fist.

The SSV Dubai made a sharp turn to pull into firing position on the Kharik's Fist. It fired 3 rounds from its mass accelerator cannons which shredded through the hull of the old slaver ship as if it were parchment and then exploded. Lamar looked out the observation window at the wreckage of the ship as the Dubai made its way towards the system's mass relay. He then leaned against the wall, slumping to the floor before letting out a huge sigh of relief: He had just survived an N7 Operation.