Drew Karpyshyn - Ascension

The mention of the quarian ship and prisoner, combined with the discovery of the quarian modified shotgun, left little doubt in Grayson's mind as to who had busted the others out. A quarian rescue team must have come for their compatriot, and for some reason they had decided to take Gillian, Kahlee, and Hendel with them as they shot their way to freedom.

Satisfied he had learned as much as he could from the files, he resumed his slow, careful search of the premises. In another office, this one located near what he guessed to be the center of the building, he discovered a small door built into the floor. It was primitive in design; rather than sliding on rails it simply swung upward on a pair of metal hinges. It was closed and locked with a simple deadbolt latch.

Grayson took aim at the door with his newly acquired shotgun and used the toe of his boot to slide the deadbolt aside. He waited for several seconds, and when nothing happened he leaned forward cautiously and threw open the door, ready to fire if a target presented itself.

The cellar beneath was completely dark. A rickety wooden staircase descended into the blackness. Grayson flicked on the flashlight built into the shotgun's barrel, using its powerful beam to pierce the gloom as he made his way slowly down the stairs.

When he reached the bottom he cast about in a quick circle, sending the illumination into every corner. The room was square, maybe twenty feet on each side. The walls were finished with brick and mortar, the floor was bare cement. It was completely empty except for a motionless figure lying on its back near one of the walls.

Training the beam of his flashlight — and the muzzle of the shotgun — on the body, Grayson approached. He was within a few feet before his mind finally recognized what he was seeing; he had found the quarian captive.

Running the flashlight slowly from head to toe, he saw that the prisoner was bound hand and foot, and had been stripped completely naked. Grayson had never seen a quarian without its enviro-suit and helmet before, though he doubted this individual could still be called anything close to a representative example of his species. His face was a deformed mess of lumps, bruises, cuts, and burn marks — clear evidence of the torture he had endured. Someone had knocked out all his teeth and caved in one cheekbone. The other cheek gaped wide, as if someone had slit it lengthwise from lip to what passed for the quarian version of an ear.

One eye was swollen completely shut. The other had both upper and lower eyelids missing, the ragged edges of the flesh left behind attesting to the fact that they had been savagely torn off with a pair of pliers. Grayson recalled with distaste how much Pel had enjoyed that particular method of torture: in addition to the excruciating pain of the brutal removal, the victim would go slowly and agonizingly blind as the exposed eyeball became dehydrated.

The rest of the body showed similar signs of abuse.

The fingers and toes were all broken, and several had been yanked from their sockets. Every inch of exposed skin showed signs of being beaten, cut, burned or dissolved by acid. However, there was something even more unusual about the body that caused Grayson to crouch down for a closer look.

There appeared to be some kind of loamy, gray growth spreading out from the quarian's wounds to crawl slowly across the skin. It took Grayson a moment to realize it was some kind of bacterial fungus; in addition to the sadistic torture, the quarian must have contracted a strange alien disease.

He gave a grunt of disgust and stepped back from the body. To his surprise, the quarian reacted with a short yelp of fear.

Jesus Christ, the poor bastard's still alive!

He was actually trying to talk, saying the same phrase over and over in a shaky, raspy voice. The words were distorted from his missing teeth and misshapen face, and it took Grayson's automated translator several repetitions before it could decipher what he was trying to say.

"Frequency 43223. . My body travels to distant stars, but my soul never leaves the Fleet. . Frequency 43223. . My body travels to distant stars, but my soul never leaves the Fleet…"

He kept repeating the same phrase over and over, his voice rising and falling in a trembling, terrified warble. Grayson crouched down close to him, though he was careful not to touch the infected flesh.

"It's okay," he said softly, knowing his translator would repeat the words in the quarian's own language. "Nobody's going to hurt you now. It's okay.' r

The quarian didn't seem to hear him, but continued babbling, his words coming more and more quickly as his broken mind spewed out the information in a desperate attempt to avoid continued torture.

"It's over now," Grayson shushed, hoping to calm the frantic captive down. "It's over."

His words seemed to have the opposite effect, as the quarian began to thrash against the bonds holding his wrists and ankles. He let out a cry of frustration, then began to sputter and cough. A fine mist of black, foul-smelling ichor spewed from his lips and the gash in his cheek, causing Grayson to jump back to avoid the spray.

The fit ended with the quarian letting out a series of hitching, gurgling sighs, and then he finally went still and silent. Steeling himself against the fecund stench that was now emanating from the body, Grayson got close enough to verify that the quarian had stopped breathing.

He left the body in the blackness of the cellar and climbed the stairs back to the ground floor. Closing and bolting the door behind him, he then scrounged up everything of value he could carry. Fifteen minutes later he was behind the wheel of Pel's second rover, making his way down the unfamiliar streets of Omega with a pack full of supplies and the shotgun resting on the seat beside him.

Staying focused on his true purpose allowed him to ignore the little voice in the back of his skull telling him to track down a dust dealer for a quick hit. Instead, he set off to locate a transmit station so he could link into the comm network and send a message off to the Illusive Man, telling him everything that had happened.

Pel had turned his back on Cerberus, but Grayson was still loyal to the cause… and he knew they could help him find Gillian again.

Six hours had passed since Kahlee and the others had escaped the warehouse on Omega.

Lemm had managed to find the current location of the quarian flotilla by linking into the comm network and scanning the news updates. The Migrant Fleet was passing through a remote volus-controlled system near the edges of Council Space. According to the news reports, several volus diplomats were petitioning the Citadel to do everything in its power to hasten the quarians' departure.

Kahlee doubted their political appeals would have any noticeable impact. The Citadel was still coming to grips with the changes wrought by Saren and his geth army. Their primary focus was on eliminating the few remaining pockets of geth resistance scattered across the galaxy; an objective being pursued by an emergency coalition force headed up by humanity and the Alliance. Once the geth were pushed back beyond the Perseus Veil, she suspected the next order of business would be to address the restructuring of the Council, along with the massive political fallout that would entail. The last thing anyone on the Citadel wanted to deal with was the Migrant Fleet.

Kahlee knew that even during the long period of interstellar peace that had preceded humanity's arrival, the various species of the galaxy tended to view the activities of the Fleet as little more than a minor inconvenience or nuisance.. until they passed through one of their systems. Then the most effective course of action was to offer unwanted resources in the form of decommissioned ships, raw materials, and spare parts to the quarian Admiralty.