Drew Karpyshyn - Retribution

Grayson’s consciousness as the Reapers interfaced with the security system’s programming, and a second later the hatch opened with a soft click.

The Reapers didn’t even wait for the boarding ramp to descend. Dropping the assault rifles, they had Grayson grab hold of the underside of the hatch and haul himself up and in. Once inside, he resealed the hatch and took a seat in the pilot’s chair.

A batarian squad arrived just as the engines were roaring to life. They opened fire on the shuttle, but their weapons were useless against the vessel’s hull.

The ship rose up from the docking bay, passing smoothly through the shimmering, microns-thin energy barrier that kept the temperature-controlled atmosphere inside the docking bay from leaking out into the frozen vacuum of space.

Unlike the Citadel, Omega had no exterior defenses. There were no patrolling fleets, no GARDIAN turrets or mass accelerator cannons. No longer assailable by patrols and soldiers on the ground, the Reapers were about to complete their escape from Omega.

As the shuttle pulled away from the station, the Reapers once again began to pick through Grayson’s mind and memories. He quickly realized they were digging for anything and everything he knew about the Ascension Project: names, locations, security procedures.

He didn’t even try to fight them anymore; there was no point. The Reapers had broken his will to resist. His only solace was that even with full access to his thoughts, the Reapers would never be able to find Gillian. His daughter was safe … though the same could not be said of her former classmates.

The Reapers didn’t immediately plot a course for the Grissom Academy. First, they opened the ship’s comm channel and connected to the extranet. With access to trillions of terabytes of information from virtually anywhere in the galaxy, it didn’t take them long to find what they were searching for.

Armed with the information they needed, the Reapers began to script lines of code. While with Cerberus, Grayson had been trained in basic computer hacking. He’d seen this type of thing before; it was clear the Reapers were compiling some kind of virus.

Driven by the AI intelligence of his masters, his fingers flew over the ship’s digital interface. Grayson tried to follow what was happening, but the complexity and volume of the data was too much for his organic mind to process.

It took nearly fifteen minutes of effort for them to be satisfied with the program. Then they logged back on to the extranet and transmitted a message to the Grissom Academy. The Academy had firewalls and multiple levels of virus protection in place, but Grayson knew their security protocols would be no match for whatever malicious program the Reapers had created.

As the Reapers plotted a course for the Academy into the shuttle’s nav systems, Grayson could sense they were almost spent. The desperate escape from Omega had pushed their avatar to its limits. They needed to recharge, but Grayson held out no hope he would have any opportunity to try and regain control of his body.

The shuttle accelerated to FTL speeds, heading for the nearest mass relay to begin the series of jumps that would take the Reapers to their destination. As it did so, they shut Grayson down, pushing him into a deep, dreamless sleep.

Kahlee and Anderson walked a few steps in front of Kai Leng as they made their way from the warehouse district back to one of the residential areas of Omega. He guided them by issuing directions when needed in a firm, businesslike voice.

“Left at the corner. Continue three blocks. Right here. Take another left.”

They weren’t running, but they were walking quickly, propelled by their mutual desire to get off the station as soon as possible. And as they wound their way through the crooked streets, Kahlee’s mind was working in overdrive.

She was thinking about Grayson, and about Kai Leng’s promise that Cerberus could save him. She wanted to believe him, but she knew that someone who worked for the Illusive Man wouldn’t be above lying to coerce her cooperation.

Working solely from memory, she tried to reconstruct everything she had learned about the experiment on Grayson during her short time studying the lab reports. Much of it was theoretical and speculative; even the scientists in charge of the operation hadn’t known exactly what to expect.

Try as she might, there was no way for Kahlee to confirm or deny Kai Leng’s claim. She hadn’t been given enough time with the data; Aria’s people had attacked the facility before she’d had a chance to fully process everything.

She did manage to get a sense of the overall direction of their work, however. Their research had focused primarily on measurable and quantifiable data: physical changes and alterations to brain wave patterns. They hadn’t bothered to do any kind of psychological testing; they hadn’t bothered to try and figure out the purpose behind the horrific transformation. Why had the Reapers developed this technology? Why had the Collectors been abducting humans and repurposing them? What were the Reapers after? What did they really want?

Kahlee knew if she could figure out the answers to those questions, she’d be able to figure out where Grayson was going next. Whether she would actually share that information with Kai Leng remained to be seen.

Anderson could tell that Kahlee was deep in thought as she marched beside him. And he could guess what she was thinking about: she wasn’t ready to give up on Grayson.

He wasn’t ready to give up yet, either. The Cerberus operative had kicked his ass seven ways from

Sunday, but he had no intention of simply following the orders of someone who answered to the Illusive Man.

Kai Leng was muscular, but he wasn’t a big man. Anderson outweighed him by at least twenty pounds; if they were in close quarters — like the pilot’s cabin of a shuttle — he might be able to use that to his advantage. Whether it would be enough to offset Kai Leng’s speed and superior training, however, remained to be seen.

“Right at this corner,” Kai Leng told them.

They turned down a long, narrow alley. At the far end was a large door built into the bulkhead, separating the district they were in from the one on the other side. In front of it was a reinforced,

waist-high barricade extending out from the bulkhead, across the alley, then back to the bulkhead again to form a small bunker. Behind the barrier were five armed turians.

At first glance they seemed to be almost bored, leaning casually against their protective wall or sitting on top of it, idly passing the time. On seeing the humans, however, they quickly took up defensive positions behind the barricade.

“Who are they?” Kahlee asked.

“Talons,” Kai Leng answered. “They control the district beyond the barricade.”

During his time as a diplomat, Anderson had received regular reports from Alliance intelligence from across the galaxy. The majority of these came from inside Council space, but some were focused on key locations in the Terminus Systems like Omega.

From these reports, Anderson knew that the Talons were the largest independent gang on Omega.

Like most gangs, the Talons were into drug running, weapons smuggling, extortion, killing for hire, and slave trading. For a substantial fee, they also allowed ships and shuttles looking to avoid dealing with Aria’s organization to dock at Talon-controlled ports scattered around the station.

Their business model had proved profitable, and they’d slowly been extending their influence on the station by swallowing up smaller gangs. However, Anderson knew that much of the Talons’ success had come from their willingness to maintain a mostly peaceful coexistence with the Pirate Queen, rather than opposing her directly.