Drew Karpyshyn - Ascension

Grayson took the OSD without a word and hid it away inside his briefcase.

"Are you sleeping with Sanders?" he asked once the disk was secured.

"Figured it fell within my mission parameters," Jiro answered with a grin. "I'm supposed to pump her for info, so I'm pumping her every chance I get."

"Just watch you don't get emotionally involved," Grayson warned him. "It makes things messy."

"I've got it under control," the kid assured him with an infuriatingly cocky grin.

Somewhere Grayson imagined Pel was laughing his ass off.

Feda'Gazu vas Idenna adjusted the pistol hanging from her belt as she climbed down from the land rover. She never wore a weapon back on the flotilla, but every quarian who left the safety of the Migrant Fleet was armed at all times.

Lige and Anwa, the two members of her crew she had picked to accompany her to this meeting, climbed out of the vehicle to stand on either side of her. She could sense their nervousness. It mirrored her own.

She didn't trust Golo. He was a fellow quarian, but he was also a criminal so vile and dangerous he had been exiled from the Fleet. That was why she had refused to meet with him at Omega: too many places for an ambush. He had objected at first, but in the end he'd agreed to meet her here on Shelba, a desolate, uninhabited world in the nearby Vinoss System.

The atmosphere on Shelba was breathable — barely— but the temperature was always well below freezing, making it unsuitable for habitation or farming. And the crust consisted of only common, low-value metals and minerals, making it uneconomical for mining. The world was ignored — undeveloped and empty. If Golo was going to try and double-cross her, setting up their exchange here might make him reconsider whether it was worth the trouble.

Feda shivered, despite the fact that her enviro-suit protected her against the worst of the chill. Part of her wanted to forget this deal; just turn around and leave. But Golo had promised to sell her a shipment of air-filtration coils and reaction catalyzers, and several of the ships in the flotilla were in desperate need of replacement parts. Despite her personal reservations, she couldn't in good conscience turn his offer down.

"There," one of her companions called out, pointing across the vast, open expanse of blue plain and glittering green rock formations that made up the barren planet's surface.

A small rover was approaching in the distance, throwing up clouds of turquoise dust as it sped toward them. Feda took another look at their surroundings, scanning the horizon for signs of other vehicles. To her relief, she saw nothing.

Perched atop a tall outcropping of emerald-hued rock over a mile away, Pel watched the quarians arrive through the scope of his Volkov sniper rifle. He'd had his doubts about whether they'd even show up, given Golo's reputation among his own kind. But the quarian had assured him they'd be there.

Looks like the little bastard was right.

The quarians stepped down from their vehicle. "We have three targets," a voice said over the headset built into the helmet of his enviro-suit.

"Alpha squad take the one on the right," he responded flatly. "Beta squad take the one on the left. Leave the one in the middle to me."

"Alpha squad — target acquired," the voice answered back.

"Beta squad — target acquired," a second voice confirmed, this one female.

Peering through the scope, he was confident his team could hit their targets, even from this range. But the quarians were all wearing armor, and the odds of a round penetrating the kinetic barriers of their shields before they could make it back into the safety of the vehicle were low. Golo still had to do his part if the plan was going to work.

"Hold fire until my signal," he ordered, taking a bead on the quarian in the center.

The quarians waited patiently as their contact approached. Soon Feda could hear the whine of the rover's engine and the crunching of its tires over the rough, uneven terrain, the thin atmosphere giving everything a sharp, brittle sound.

Once the rover had come within fifty meters, Feda held up her hand, palm forward. The vehicle rolled to a stop. A few seconds later a quarian emerged and began to walk slowly toward them, hands held above his head. He stopped ten meters away, just as she had instructed when setting up the details of the meeting. Lige and Anwa had drawn their assault rifles, pointing them at the newcomer.

"Golo?" she asked, confirming the identity of the man behind the mask.

"Are you here to rob me?" he said by way of reply, nodding toward the weapons pointed at his chest. He kept his hands high. Unlike Feda and her crew, he wasn't wearing any armor.

"I'm not taking any chances," she answered. "Not with you."

There were several crimes that could result in exile from the Fleet: murder, repeated violent offenses, vandalism or sabotage directed at the Liveships or the food supplies. But Golo's offense — attempting to sell quarians to the Collectors — seemed particularly heinous. Loyalty was a cornerstone of quarian culture; survival on the Migrant Fleet required every member of the community to work together. Trying to sell another quarian for personal profit was a betrayal of everything Feda believed in; an unforgivable sin.

"You came alone?" she asked.

Golo nodded. "The parts are in the back of the truck, if you want to see."

Feda pulled her pistol and used it to cover Golo, nodding at Lige to go check out the vehicle. He approached slowly, weapon still drawn. The rover was a simple cargo carrier, with a small two-person cab and a freight trailer on the back. The trailer was little more than a rectangular box, with a vertical sliding door for loading and unloading.

Lige pressed the panel on the side of the trailer, but instead of the door rising up the panel beeped sharply and flashed red.

"It's locked."

"What's the access code?" Feda demanded, waving her pistol menacingly in Golo's direction.

"Seven two six nine," he answered, and Lige punched the numbers in. Then all hell broke loose.

"Get ready," Pel muttered into his transmitter as one of the quarians approached Golo's vehicle.

An instant later there was a bright flash as the bomb inside the back of Golo's rover exploded. The blast threw the quarian standing beside the vehicle through the air and knocked the others, including Golo, to the ground.

"Fire," he said, his voice calm as he pulled the trigger of his sniper rifle with a smooth, even pressure.

Feda was thrown from her feet by the explosion. She hit the ground with a jarring thump, but quickly rolled to her feet and brought her pistol up to fire at Golo, who was still on the ground, cowering with his hands over his head.

She squeezed the trigger, but nothing happened. Glancing down, she saw the status indicator on her weapon flashing red — the automated targeting system had overloaded. Cursing, she slapped the manual override on the handle, knowing full well the pulse that had disabled her weapon had probably scrambled her kinetic shields as well.

A flash of agonizing fire erupted in her shoulder as a hyperaccelerated projectile no bigger than a pin sheared effortlessly through the ablative plates of her body armor before exploding in the flesh and bone underneath. The impact spun her around and sent the pistol flying from her hand. She felt her kneecap disintegrate and she collapsed to the ground, her scream rising up to meet the unmistakable zip-zip-zip of high-powered rounds slicing through the thin air.

She could see Lige's body, laying where the blast had thrown it. His mask had been shattered by the close range impact of the detonation, turning his face into a bloody mess. She could see one eye clearly; it stared at her, lifeless and unblinking. The body jerked and jumped as it was struck by enemy bullets, rounds wasted on a corpse.