Drew Karpyshyn - Ascension

To Grayson's relief, Hendel actually shot the idea down. "That's not an option. Cerberus has people in the Alliance. Maybe we can trust Anderson, but how are we supposed to get in touch with him? He's an important man now, we can't just show up on the Citadel and walk into his office.

"Cerberus probably has agents reporting on every move people like the captain make," he continued. "If we send a message, they'll know we're coming long before he ever will. We'd never reach him."

"I never thought you'd take my side," Grayson said, studying the other man carefully as he tried to figure out what angle he was playing.

"I just want what's best for Gillian. Right now, that means getting her out of Council Space. But Omega wouldn't have been my first choice. There are plenty of other places to hide in the Terminus Systems.' r

"We can't go to any of the human colonies," Grayson insisted. "The Alliance has people stationed there, and they track all incoming vessels. And we'll stick out like sore thumbs on any of the alien-controlled worlds. Omega's the one place we can go to blend in."

Hendel considered his arguments, then said, "I still want to know who your contact is." It appeared to be the closest he would come to admitting Grayson was right.

"A customer of mine named Pel," Grayson lied. "I've sold him almost two dozen vessels over the past twenty years."

"What kind of business is he in?" Kahlee asked.

"Import, export" was his evasive reply.

"Drug runner," Hendel grunted. "Told you he was taking us to his dealer."

"How do we know he won't turn us over to Cerberus?" Kahlee wanted to know.

"He doesn't know anything about Gillian being bi-otic, or why we're really coming," Grayson explained. "I told him I was caught with a stash of red sand during a trip to the Citadel. He thinks I'm on the run from C-Sec."

"And how do the rest of us fit into this?" Hendel asked.

"He already knows I have a daughter. I'll tell him Kahlee's my girlfriend, and you're the crooked C-Sec officer I bribed to get me off the station."

"So he's expecting us?" Hendel asked.

Grayson nodded. "I sent him a message when we left the Academy. I'll log into the comm network when we drop out of FTL at the next mass relay to see if he sent a reply."

"I want to see the message he sends you."

"Hendel!" Kahlee objected, offended at the violation of Grayson's privacy.

"I'm not taking any chances," Hendel answered. "We're putting our lives in his hands. I want to know who we're dealing with."

"Sure," Grayson said. "No problem." He took a quick peek at the readouts to get a sense of where they were on the journey. "We should reach the relay in another hour."

"That gives you time to take a shower," Hendel told him. "Try to wash the stink of the drugs off before your daughter wakes up."

There really wasn't anything Grayson could say to that. He knew Hendel was right.

Sixty minutes later he was back in the pilot's chair, cleaned and wearing a fresh set of clothes. He'd stopped sweating, but now there was a slight tremble in his hands as he adjusted the controls. He knew it would only get worse the longer he went without another hit.

Kahlee was still sitting in the passenger seat, and Hendel was once again standing behind him, leaning on the cockpit's door frame. Gillian continued to sleep peacefully in the back; Grayson had checked on her before and after his shower.

A soft electronic chime from the navigation panel warned them a second before the ship dropped from FTL flight. They felt the faint surge of deceleration, and then the navigation screens came alive as their vessel began picking up nearby ships, small asteroids, and other objects large enough to register on the sensors.

The enormous mass relay showed up as a blinking blue dot near the center of the monitor. Despite the muscle tremors, Grayson's hands moved with a quick confidence over the controls as he plotted their approach.

"You going to check the messages?" Hendel asked,the question a none-too-subtle reminder of his suspicion.

"Just need to locate acomm buoy. . okay, got one. Linking in."

There was a short beep, and one of the monitors flickered to indicate a new message had been downloaded from the interstellar network of communication buoys used to transmit messages across the vast expanse of the galaxy.

"Play it," Hendel told him.

Grayson punched a button, andPel's face appeared on the screen, his voice filling the cockpit.

"Got your message. Sorry things fell apart, but I warned you about getting sloppy," he said, raising one eyebrow. "Lucky for you I think I can help. I'm sending the coordinates for a landing pad near my warehouse on Omega. I'll be there with some of my crew to meet you when you touch down."

Therewas a brief pause, and then Pel laughed. "You understand this is going to cost you, right? You know how much I hate cleaning up someone else's mess."

There was another beep from the monitor, and the image froze, the message ended. In his mind, Grayson breathed a sigh of relief, though he gave no outward indication of how he felt. He'd expected Pel's message to be discreet; Cerberus operatives were well versed in the art of ambiguous double talk when using nonsecure bandwidth. But with Hendel looming over him, he'd still felt a tingle of apprehension when he'd pushed the playback.

"Pretty vague," the security chief muttered.

"This is a public channel," Grayson snapped back at him, his nerves still on edge and begging for a quick hit of red sand. "Did you really think he'd admit to being a drug baron?"

"I think that's as much confirmation as we're going to get," Kahlee told her partner.

Hendel considered for a long moment, then nodded. "Okay, but I still don't like it. Take us through the relay."

Grayson bristled at being given what sounded like a direct order; this was his ship, after all. But he did as he was told, initiating the course he had programmed before picking up the message.

"You look like you need some sleep," Kahlee said to the security chief. "You go lie down. I'll keep an eye on Gillian."

And on me, I'll bet, Grayson thought. But he wasn't about to try anything now. He could simply wait until they landed at Omega, and Pel and his team would take care of everything.

As their ship shot forward to be snatched up by a twisting, shimmering bolt of energy unleashed from the mass relay, he couldn't help smiling at how well things were going to work out. He noticed Kahlee, unaware of what he was really thinking, smiling back.

Lemm peered through the binoculars at the nondescript warehouse. He'd been watching it for several hours now, perched atop the roof of a tall, four-story building on the next block. So far, he'd seen little to indicate anything unusual was going on, though all the windows were made of tinted one-way glass, making it impossible to see inside.

"I haven't noticed any guards on duty," he muttered.

"They're there," Golo assured him. "Heavily armed. Pel doesn't trust nonhumans."

Lemm didn't bother to ask why a xenophobe would set up operations in a place like Omega; greed could overcome almost any prejudice.

The warehouse, like most of the surrounding buildings, was a short, squat structure only two stories high.

"If I can get close enough to scale the wall, maybe I can sneak in through one of the second-story windows," he said, thinking out loud.

"They'll have security cameras on the street," Golo warned him. "You'll do better coming in from above."

He realized the other quarian was right. From their current perch he could leap over to the neighboring three-story building, dropping down one floor to land atop it. With the way the block had been laid out, he could continue on from there, hopping from rooftop to rooftop until he reached the warehouse.