Drew Karpyshyn - Retribution

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.