“No,” the salarian said preemptively, as Anderson started to object. “I don’t think you stole Grayson’s body. I said that all of those events were related to you in some way. And that’s why Lieutenant Varma was authorized to enter your apartment and sweep it for bugs. Her team found twelve of them. Someone was monitoring everything you did.”

  Kahlee blushed and Anderson swore.

  “I agree with your sentiment,” Hana said with the hint of a smile. “And it’s apparent that someone is worried about what you might learn. That would suggest caution. A great deal of caution lest one or both of you wind up like McCann.”

  It was a sobering thought. Anderson looked at Kahlee and back again. “We’ll be careful.”

  “Good. What do you plan to do next?”

  Hana’s eyes were as dark as the depths of space. Once again Anderson felt a sense of caution. Why did Hana want to know? It was a silly question. It was his job to know. “We’re going to Omega.”

  “To find the boy?”

  “To find the boy and Grayson’s daughter Gillian,” Kahlee put in. “She wants to find the Illusive Man and kill him.”

  “A noble ambition,” Hana responded. “But wasted effort. So you’ll try to intervene?”

  “Yes,” Kahlee replied. “And see what we can learn. Maybe Gillian will stir things up. If so we could find the kind of information we’re looking for.”

  Hana stood. It was his way of announcing that the meeting was over. “Stay in touch,” he said.

  It could have been an invitation, or a way of conveying concern, but Anderson was a military man and knew an order when he heard one. “Sir, yes, sir.”

  THE PLANET THESSIA

  The air was cool as Aria T’Loak stepped out of her bedroom and onto the veranda. It was protected by a roof supported by seven fluted columns. One for each of the city’s softly rounded hills. Three of them were visible from that side of her house. Their carefully groomed slopes were home to hundreds of expensive houses and the early-morning light was reflected off broad expanses of glass, swimming pools, and weapons turrets. The hallmark of the rich.

  But as Aria had discovered more than once during her long life, there were some things that money couldn’t buy. One of which was peace of mind. Because the vision of her daughter’s dead body was always there, always in the back of her mind, never letting go.

  The Illusive Man maintained that Paul Grayson was responsible for Liselle’s death. And that made sense because they’d been lovers and he was a red sand addict. So perhaps there had been some sort of quarrel, Grayson had been high, and slashed Liselle’s throat.

  The problem was that T’Loak was a criminal and a very accomplished one. Many people believed she was the dominant force on Omega and they were correct. That, plus the fact that she was hundreds of years old, meant T’Loak had lots of experience where the act of murder was concerned. And something, she wasn’t sure what, was wrong. But I’ll figure it out, she promised herself, and sooner rather than later.

  But it would have to wait. Because rather than cremate Liselle on Omega, it had been T’Loak’s decision to bring her daughter home, where tradition said her spirit would join those who had gone before. T’Loak wasn’t sure about that but hoped it was true. So she took a last look at the city she loved, then turned her back on it as she had so many times before, and went inside. The funeral was to begin in less than an hour.

  In keeping with asari tradition, Liselle’s carefully preserved body had been bathed, anointed with oil, and dressed in a white gown the evening before. Then it had been placed on a specially constructed platform at the center of the villa’s spacious entry hall overnight. The four guards assigned to protect it were still on duty when T’Loak arrived.

  She was dressed in a long gown with a formfitting bodice, as were the other asari who were awaiting her. There were eight of them and all were relatives. But not T’Loak’s only relatives. She had hundreds of those. And most disapproved of the way she made her living. More than that, they blamed T’Loak for raising Liselle on Omega and allowing her to live there. And in retrospect the crime lord agreed with them. The fact that Liselle had fallen in with bad company was her fault. And the knowledge ate at her.

  So as the guests came forward to lift the ornate stretcher off the platform there were barely enough of them to do the job. And as the mourners carried the body out through the front door to a long sleek hearse they were outnumbered by the heavily armed bodyguards positioned all around. Bodyguards, Aria thought bitterly. How fitting.

  The funeral cortege consisted of four vehicles. A specially designed car that was equipped to ram vehicles and push them out of the way if necessary would take the lead. Next came the heavily armored stretch limo in which T’Loak and the other family members would ride, closely followed by the hearse, and what looked like a black delivery truck. Except it could open a pair of roof panels to fire missiles at air and ground targets. That was unlikely of course, especially on Thessia, but the price of power was powerful enemies. And T’Loak never took chances she didn’t have to.

  Once the vehicles were loaded the processional departed. No one spoke inside the limo. That was T’Loak’s prerogative and she had never been one to share her feelings with others. So silence reigned as the vehicles wound their way down zigzagging streets, past hillside villas, to the flatland below. It was dense with clusters of high-rise buildings—many of which were bound together by delicate-looking sky bridges. Lesser structures were gathered about the skyscrapers and represented self-governing neighborhoods. Some were quite nice and some weren’t.

  T’Loak was very familiar with the city’s ugly underbelly because she had been raised in a twenty-square-block area called Hell’s Waiting Room, where everyone lived by their wits, no one could be trusted, and crime was the norm. Her mother hadn’t been raised there, but had been drawn to the flats for reasons T’Loak could only guess at, and never left. Since leaving home T’Loak had risen to what one of her more proper relatives called “an ugly prominence.” Words that were supposed to hurt but didn’t, because T’Loak saw her profession as being the natural expression of the way nature worked. Every planet had a food chain, predators were always at the top of it, and everything else was sentimental rubbish.

  A row of stately evergreens blipped past on the left, each momentarily blocking the view of the sparkling river beyond, and the occasional groupings of homes along both banks. Then, as the highway followed a broad curve, the cemetery appeared in the distance. It had been in use for thousands of years and covered a vast tract of land. The seemingly endless maze of tombs, monuments, and markers came in every possible shape and size. Some looked like temples. Others took the form of soaring spires, statues, and pieces of abstract art.

  The monuments surrounded the cortege as it followed a meandering street past a beautiful dome to the one-lane bridge that led out to the center of an artificial lake. The plot of land had been at the very edge of the cemetery back when T’Loak purchased it.

  But thousands of monuments had been added since then, making the small body of water all the more remarkable. It was, some said, a moat. Put there to keep lesser beings at a distance. Others saw it as a testament to the size of T’Loak’s ego, an effort to manage her own passing, and a sign of poor taste. And all of those criticisms are correct, T’Loak thought to herself, as the cortege came to a stop. Not that it matters.

  The pyramid-shaped structure was made of black granite, and harkened back to a much younger version of herself, a person who had something to prove and thought that extravagance was the way to do it. It was the sort of immaturity typical of someone who is only a hundred years old and on the make. Now, as an asari matron, T’Loak thought the place was overdone. But to change it would be to apologize, to betray her younger self, and that was something she steadfastly refused to do.

  T’Loak waited for the driver to come back and open the door before getting out and leading the other mourners to the point where they could remove the ceremonial stretcher from the back of the hearse. Liselle’s eyes were closed. Makeup concealed the horrible cut across her throat and her hands were clasped in front of her chest. I will not cry, T’Loak thought to herself. Crying is a sign of weakness.

  After lifting the stretcher the female pallbearers followed T’Loak down a steep ramp and into the circular chamber below. It was cool there. The lighting was intentionally subdued, and water gurgled as it spilled out of the vessel at the center of the room and cascaded into a pool.

  Equally spaced chambers were set into the wall like spokes in a wheel. Some were occupied and some weren’t. A capsule had been prepared for Liselle and was waiting. Slowly, using great care, Liselle’s body was lifted up and in. Once the process was complete, T’Loak bent to kiss her daughter’s cold lips. “I won’t give up,” she promised. “Not until I know the truth.”

  Then as the casket was closed and pushed into the wall, the woman who wasn’t going to cry began to do so. Deep sobs racked her body as she stood head down in front of the name that had been chiseled into the marble. But none of the others dared embrace her, or to offer words of solace, because Aria T’Loak was the Pirate Queen. And to touch her was to die.

  ABOARD THE FREIGHTER PICTOR

  As the freighter Pictor shot toward the mass effect relay at a speed of nearly fifteen kilometers per second, it was little more than a momentary blur. Then there was a sudden flare of light as the ship’s element-zero core was taken off-line and its mass effect fields were snuffed from existence. Like a projectile fired from a rifle the Pictor flew toward what looked like an evil eye floating in the blackness of space. Two communications masts stood straight up from a structure that consisted of two gigantic rings that rotated around a glowing sphere.

  Slowly at first, and then with increasing speed, the rings began to spin as the ship closed in. Then, once the Pictor was about five hundred kilometers away, the relay fired and the freighter was consumed by a vortex of dark energy. It shimmered and disappeared.

  But because Anderson was busy making love to Kahlee he missed the transition from one state to another. The big passenger liners didn’t serve Omega. So anyone who wanted to travel there from the Citadel had to have a ship of their own or book passage on a freighter like the Pictor. Like most of her kind she was equipped to carry both cargo and a handful of passengers.

  The fact that the emphasis was on freight rather than people meant that the cabins were so small and cramped that there was barely enough space to walk around the bed. So it was the natural place to sit. And once they sat on the bed one thing led to another and it wasn’t long before the couple were on a journey of their own. A very pleasant interlude that was barely over when someone began to thump on the hatch. And that was necessary since neither the intercom nor the doorbell worked. “Yeah, yeah,” Anderson grumbled, as he pulled his pants on. “Just a minute.”

  Having pulled the blankets up over her breasts Kahlee watched the hatch cycle open to reveal a portly volus. He was the ship’s steward and none too pleased. “Your Earth friend is causing trouble.”

  “Hendel Mitra? Causing trouble? That’s hard to believe,” Anderson said.

  “There was a fight in cargo hold two. Human Mitra attacked four crew members and two fellow passengers. Then he locked himself in the cook’s storeroom. He refuses to come out.”

  Anderson swore and looked back over his shoulder. “Did you hear that? You know Hendel better than I do. What’s going on?”

  “I don’t know,” Kahlee said. “Close the hatch so I can get dressed. I’m coming along.”

  It took fifteen minutes to throw some clothes on and follow the steward down into the depths of the ship where some of the passengers and crew had been gambling and drinking in a half-empty cargo compartment. An overturned table and some mismatched chairs lay strewn about. “The fight took place here,” the volus said accusingly, as if Anderson and Kahlee were responsible somehow. “According to witnesses the Mitra person attacked the others for no reason. Then, when they attempted to defend themselves, he ran.”

  Kahlee didn’t believe a word of it. Hendel was one of the most disciplined and dependable people she knew. He had been born on Earth in the suburbs of New Calcutta. His mother had been accidentally exposed to element zero dust during her pregnancy and rather than the birth defects that some “dust” babies wound up with, Hendel was born with biotic powers.

  His capabilities weren’t on a par with what prodigies like Nick and Gillian could do, but were sufficient to qualify Hendel for Biotic Acclimation and Temperance Training, also referred to as BAaT. It was a rather draconian program that involved a conscious effort to alienate students from their families. A strategy that was so successful where Hendel was concerned that he refused to interact with relatives years after the BAaT program was shut down.

  Subsequent to that Hendel enlisted in the Alliance military where he served with distinction prior to leaving for civilian life and a job as head of security for the Grissom Academy. Then, in an act of selfless loyalty, he volunteered to serve as Gillian’s guardian during the time she was forced to hide aboard the quarian ship Idenna. “Save the bull for someone else,” Kahlee said sternly, as she eyed the steward. “You said Hendel locked himself in a storeroom. Take us there.”

  The volus turned and led them into a passageway between two of the ship’s holds. It led to an intersection. And that’s where two crew members were waiting next to a hatch marked STOREROOM. One was turian, the other was batarian, and both looked as if they had been knocked around. “The bastard is still in there,” the batarian rasped, as he slapped a palm with a shock baton.

  “You get the door open and we’ll make sure he gets back to his cabin safely,” the turian said as if to mitigate his companion’s words.

  “I think you should return to your duties,” Kahlee said sweetly. “I’m sure the captain could use your help.”

  The batarian opened his mouth but the steward preempted whatever he was about to say. “I will call for you should that become necessary.”

  There was some grumbling but the crew members did as they were told. Kahlee turned to the steel hatch. “Hendel? It’s me … Kahlee.”

  There was no response. So she tried again. “Open the hatch, Hendel. I want to talk to you.”

  Five seconds passed followed by a whir as the lock was released. Anderson pulled the door open and Kahlee went in. Hendel was sitting on the deck with his head in his hands and his back against a shelving unit. His face was bloody and bruised. “There were six of them,” he said dully. “I threw one against the bulkhead but the rest of them swarmed me.”

  “Passengers are not allowed in the storeroom,” the volus said insistently. “You will remove him now.”

  “He’ll be gone soon,” Anderson said irritably. “Now shut up and get out.”

  “I will report your behavior to the captain,” the steward responded importantly.

  “You do that,” Anderson said. “And while you’re at it tell him that we plan to press charges against him and the crew members who attacked citizen Mitra.”

  The steward made a snorting sound and left.

  Kahlee was kneeling next to Hendel by that time examining the cuts and abrasions on his face. “Were you drinking?” she inquired. Although the answer seemed self-evident.

  Hendel winced as she touched a bruise. “I had a couple.”

  “More than a couple,” Kahlee responded. “You smell like a brewery. This isn’t like you Hendel. What’s wrong?”

  One of Hendel’s eyes was swollen shut. The other one stared back at her. “Gillian.”

  “What about Gillian?”

  “I failed her. It was my job to protect her and I didn’t.”

  The truth was that Kahlee hadn’t thought about Hendel lately. Or the effect that recent events might have on him. He was just there. Rock solid and eternally dependable. Until now. And as Kahlee looked at Hendel’s badly battered face something occurred to her. Something she should have thought about earlier but hadn’t. Hendel had spent his formative years in the strict BAaT program, followed by a career in the Alliance military, and a job as security chief for the Grissom Academy. All were jobs that provided him with context, purpose, and goals to strive for.

  Then came the assignment to protect Gillian during her time with the quarian fleet, followed by what? Nothing. Gillian had departed without so much as a good-bye—and when Hendel went looking for her he had been searching for himself as well. “You mustn’t blame yourself,” she said. “Gillian is an adult. Legally anyway. You did all that anyone could.”

  “Come on,” Kahlee said, as she motioned to Anderson. “Give me a hand. We’ll take Hendel to his cabin and get him patched up.”

  “And sobered up,” Anderson put in, as he came to help. “Damn, Hendel … you look like hell warmed over.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Hendel replied, as they helped him to his feet. “You should see the other guys.”

  “We did,” Kahlee replied. “Some of them anyway. And they aren’t very happy.”

  “Screw ’em,” Hendel said thickly.

  “See?” Anderson said, as he helped Hendel out of the compartment. “He’s feeling better already.”

  Kahlee laughed. And together they shuffled down the passageway.

  SEVEN

  ON OMEGA

  Nick was standing in front of a run-down building in the Gozu district just beyond the flow of foot traffic. The air was thick with the stench of uncollected garbage, ozone that was being emitted from a secretive shop a few doors down, and the combined odors of at least six food stalls located across the street. But he was happy. Because on Omega, for the first time in his life, Nick Donahue was a somebody.

  That was evident in the light Level III Hydra Armor he wore, the Brawler pistols that hung low on both hips, and the fact that they were backups rather than his main armament. That was his ability as a biotic, which had earned him a place in the Biotic Underground.