Mass Effect: Retribution

by Drew Karpyshyn

  The Illusive Man had instructed him to keep an eye on Aria’s people to verify they actually delivered on their promise to eliminate Grayson. With no other resources, it was impossible for Kai Leng to keep track of everyone in the organization. So he had initially decided to focus on Sanak, Aria’s batarian lieutenant.

  A less experienced agent might have tried to tail Aria herself. But the risk of being noticed was too great, and Kai Leng knew she wasn’t going to put herself at risk by meeting Grayson face-to-face. Besides, she almost never left the club.

  Sanak seemed the next logical choice, given what the Illusive Man had ascertained about his role in Aria’s organization through a few discreet inquiries. The batarian was her attack dog, a blunt instrument. Whenever a situation called for violence or brute force, he would be her first choice.

  Kai Leng’s instincts had served him well. Three days ago Sanak had left the club through the VIP entrance out front. Kai Leng had tailed him as he gathered a squad of heavily armed mercenaries and boarded a ship. When the ship returned the next day, Sanak and the mercenaries weren’t alone: Kahlee Sanders and Admiral David Anderson, one of the Alliance’s most decorated soldiers, were with them.

  It was immediately obvious the humans were prisoners and not guests. He could see the handcuffs on their unconscious bodies as they were carried by Aria’s massive krogan bodyguard, one tossed over each shoulder.

  Kai Leng had followed at a distance as Sanak’s crew had taken the hostages back to Afterlife. They stuck to the unused back alleys to avoid drawing unnecessary attention. Upon reaching the club they had used the secret back entrance instead of going in the front, inadvertently revealing its existence to the inconspicuous shadow that had been following them the entire time.

  So far everything was going according to the Illusive Man’s plan—they had captured Sanders, and now they were using her as bait to lure Grayson in. Kai Leng estimated he had at least a day before the meeting would take place; wherever Grayson was, it would take time to contact him and set up the location. That gave him time to purchase the surveillance equipment, set up the camera on the back entrance, rent the repulsive room just down the street, and stock up on food and water in preparation for his vigil.

  The wireless monitor was portable; when Kai Leng needed to use the bathroom, he brought it with him so he wouldn’t miss anything. It was also set up to beep if the camera detected motion, allowing Kai Leng to grab a few sporadic hours of sleep as he waited. He never slept well or for very long, however. He didn’t fully trust the merchant who’d sold him the equipment, and in the back of his mind he was worried it might simply short out while he was dozing.

  He wasn’t about to let that happen. Not when things seemed to be drawing to their conclusion.

  Aria’s people had brought Kahlee in through the back entrance; he had no doubt they would bring her out the same way when the meeting with Grayson drew near. All he had to do now was watch and wait.

  Anderson knew the time was drawing near.

  “Are you ready for this?” he asked Kahlee.

  “Ready as I’ll ever be.”

  “We’ll be fine,” he assured her. “Just stick to the plan.”

  They’d talked it over after Aria left them alone, and had agreed they had to stick together if they wanted to get out of this alive. Besides, there was no way in hell he was going to let them take Kahlee away to meet Grayson alone.

  He took a deep breath to center himself, forcing his pounding heart to throttle itself back through sheer force of will.

  A few minutes later the door whisked open and Sanak came marching in. Anderson hadn’t been expecting him to be the one sent to retrieve Kahlee, but it didn’t change anything. In fact, it might actually work in their favor.

  A pair of krogan stepped into the room right behind him, weapons drawn in case the prisoners tried anything.

  “Time to go,” Sanak snapped. “Move.”

  Kahlee crossed her arms defiantly, careful not to bend her splinted fingers. Anderson did the same.

  “We go together or I don’t go,” she said.

  Sanak whipped out his pistol and stepped forward, jamming the barrel into Kahlee’s forehead.

  “He stays here. You come with me now, or you die.”

  “You won’t kill me,” she said, her voice calm and certain. “You need me for this meeting.”

  The batarian tilted his head to the right, an instinctive display of his contempt and frustration. Then he turned and pointed his gun at Anderson.

  “We don’t need him for the meeting,” he warned her. “Come with me or I splatter his brains all over the floor.”

  “No you won’t,” Anderson declared. “Grayson’s going to be suspicious. He’s going to scout the location out; he won’t reveal himself until he sees Kahlee. And if he senses something’s wrong, he’ll bolt.

  “You need my cooperation to pull this off,” Kahlee insisted. “Harm Anderson in any way, and you won’t get it.”

  Anderson could see Sanak’s mind churning. Aria would no doubt have emphasized the importance of getting Kahlee to the meeting; the batarian was trying to figure out a way to follow his orders without letting the prisoners dictate any terms.

  “You have two options,” Kahlee explained slowly. “One, David comes with me and we all go to meet Grayson. Two, you try to stop him from coming and the meeting doesn’t happen.”

  “Then you get to explain to Aria how you blew this mission,” Anderson added.

  He suspected the lieutenant was good at following orders. He hoped he wasn’t as good at improvising. Their gamble hinged on it.

  Sanak let his pistol drop. He glared at them, then snapped it back into the clip on his thigh.

  “If either of you try anything on the way, I’ll kill you both,” he warned.

  NINETEEN

  Kai Leng’s monitor beeped its warning to indicate the camera had detected movement, but the alert wasn’t necessary. He was already watching the screen intently as Sanders, Anderson, Sanak, and a pair of krogan guards emerged from Afterlife.

  Grabbing his pistol and knife, he rushed out the door of the tiny rented room. He didn’t bother to pack up the surveillance equipment. He didn’t care if the next guest stumbled across it; he would have no further use for it after this meeting.

  Ignoring the elevator, he took the stairs two at a time. He reached ground level and burst through the door out onto the street. Racing around the corner, he managed to catch his quarry just as they reached the intersection where the alley behind Afterlife joined up with the main thoroughfare.

  To the casual eye they would have appeared to be nothing more than a group walking a little too closely together, but Kai Leng knew different. Sanak led the way, an assault rifle strapped to his back and a pistol on his hip. Anderson and Sanders followed, both unarmed. The two krogan brought up the rear, also carrying assault rifles. Unlike Sanak, however, the krogan had their weapons out, casually cradling them in their arms as they marched.

  Keeping a safe distance behind, Kail Leng followed them as they wound their way through the business and residential sections of Omega’s central district. Eventually the shops and homes gave way to warehouses as they reached a dimly lit industrial area.

  They passed several nondescript two- and three-story buildings before disappearing inside the warehouse at the end of the block. Even through the gloom of the street, Kai Leng could see that the windows had been shuttered or painted over to hide whatever activities were going on inside.

  He found a spot just inside the arch of a doorway in one of the nearby buildings that hid him from view, yet gave him a clean line of sight down both directions of the street. He settled in to wait for Grayson. An hour later, he arrived.

  His appearance hadn’t changed much from when Kai Leng had last seen him. The stubble on his head was a little longer; his beard a little more ragged; his synthetic upgrades slightly more noticeable. Despite the ill-fitting clothes covering up most of his exposed flesh
, the tubes winding from his neck up into his skull were hard to miss. And it was possible to see the glowing, pulsating wires and circuits beneath the taut, almost translucent skin of his cheeks and hands.

  The Illusive Man had warned him not to confront Grayson unless absolutely necessary. He was no longer the man Kai Leng had so easily beaten and then drugged in his prison cell; he had become something far more powerful. The plan was to let Aria’s people do the dirty work; he was just here to report back in case something went wrong.

  Even without the warning, Kai Leng would have sensed something different about him. Grayson moved with a fluid grace he hadn’t possessed before. He had the sharp bearing of a predator now, a hunter on the prowl.

  He passed less than five meters away from where Kai Leng was hiding. Though it was dark, the assassin instinctively pressed himself deeper into the shadows to avoid being noticed. Grayson passed by without seeing him and continued on to the warehouse at the end of the street.

  He stopped a few meters before the door and paused, his head moving from side to side as if he was studying the building. He seemed suspicious, as if he sensed it was a trap.

  Kai Leng held his breath, praying he would step inside.

  Grayson made his way quickly down the dark row of buildings. Despite the low light, his augmented vision allowed him to see clearly. He noticed a lone figure lurking inside the doorway of a building as he passed, but dismissed him as irrelevant. He was here to meet Kahlee; nothing else mattered.

  When he reached the entrance of the building bearing the address she had given him, however, Grayson hesitated, suddenly wary. Why had Kahlee chosen this remote location for their rendezvous? Why hadn’t she wanted to meet him somewhere more public? Her message said she was in trouble; maybe she was too scared to show up anywhere else.

  It could be a trap. Is Sanders loyal? Can she be trusted?

  He shook his head, dispelling the ridiculous notion that Kahlee might betray him. She had risked so much to help him and Gillian escape Cerberus. She’d put her career and her life on the line for them, risking everything to help Grayson save his daughter.

  Gillian.

  Gillian was safe now; not even the Illusive Man could find her aboard the quarian deep-space exploration vessel. Memories of the daughter he hadn’t seen in over two years came flooding back to him: the way she smiled; the ways she spoke. Gillian was special—she had an autistic condition that had made it difficult for her to communicate. Despite her incredible potential, she had lagged behind the other children of the Ascension Project.

  Ascension Project.

  The goal of the Ascension Project was to help biotic human children control and even master their latent abilities. Kahlee had made a special effort to help Gillian, giving her personal instruction above and beyond what the other students had received.

  Biotic children.

  He didn’t know much about the other students. During Gillian’s time in the program he had visited her only once or twice a year, as per the Illusive Man’s orders. But he was certain Kahlee would have taken a personal interest in every student at the Grissom Academy. Knowing her, she would have memorized every—

  Grayson forced his mind to a sudden, screeching halt as the truth dawned on him. The Reapers had grown stronger. The connection between them and him had deepened. His very thoughts had become exposed. They were sifting through his memories, picking through his knowledge piece by piece. And they suddenly seemed very interested in Kahlee and her role in the Ascension Project.

  Terrified, he tried to turn and run. He had to get as far away from Kahlee as possible. In response, the will of his enemy came crashing down on him. He struggled to resist, but the Reapers would not be denied.

  They forced him to march forward. Step by step he drew ever nearer to the door, until he was close enough to reach out his hand and tap the access panel.

  Grayson fought against them, drawing on the mental tricks he had used to resist them in the past. But it was all in vain. The Reapers had grown far stronger than he’d realized. They’d been lying in wait, manipulating him instead of dominating him to hide their true power.

  The door slid open and Grayson stepped into the dimly lit warehouse. He saw Kahlee standing in the middle of the room, her expression a mix of revulsion and pity when she saw his appearance.

  “Oh, Grayson,” she said, nearly breaking into tears.

  But while his attention was focused completely on her, the Reapers were acutely aware of everything around them. Kahlee was not alone—at least a dozen armed individuals were scattered around the perimeter.

  Adrenaline surged through him as his puppet-masters recognized they had been lured into a trap, and Grayson knew hell was about to be unleashed.

  Aria’s people were already in position when Anderson and Kahlee had arrived at the warehouse: a dozen on the floor, eight more perched on the catwalk running along the warehouse’s rear wall. Shipping crates and forklifts had been strategically placed to provide cover for Aria’s troops on the ground. The obstacles had also been arranged in a loose semicircle, effectively forming a corral in the center of the room.

  It had been easy enough for Anderson to figure out the plan. When Grayson came far enough into the room, some of Aria’s people would slip in behind him to block his retreat, leaving him surrounded on all sides. It was a good plan except for one thing: to lure Grayson into the right position, Kahlee herself would have to be inside the semicircle … and right in the line of fire if things turned violent.

  He’d voiced his objections, only to have them fall on deaf ears. Orgun, the massive krogan in charge of the operation, had ordered Kahlee to take up her position and wait for Grayson. He’d confined Anderson to a dark corner in the rear of the building, and ordered Sanak to keep an eye on him. The batarian was standing a few steps off to the side, his assault rifle drawn and ready to dissuade Anderson from doing anything that might interfere with the meeting.

  From their location, Anderson couldn’t see Kahlee, though he had a line of sight to the warehouse’s front door. He was staring right at it when Grayson came through.

  Anderson was shocked by his appearance. Kahlee had mentioned he had been altered by the Reaper technology, but Anderson had never imagined anything like this. He could clearly no longer be called human; he had become some kind of nameless abomination.

  His skin was stretched and discolored. Beneath it Anderson could see that the cybernetics had merged with his body, as if he was being devoured from the inside by machines.

  It reminded him of the colonists who had been repurposed into husks on Eden Prime. There had been no way to reverse the effects of their transformation. He feared the same could be said of Grayson.

  He heard Kahlee say his name, and then Orgun stepped into view behind Grayson, blocking his retreat.

  “Surrender,” the big krogan growled, raising his assault rifle so it was pointed directly at Grayson’s back, “or we’ll kill you where you stand.”

  Grayson responded by dropping into a crouch, spinning around, and charging the krogan, doubled over so low he almost seemed to be crawling on all fours. It happened in the blink of an eye; Orgun was moving so fast he seemed to be nothing but a blur.

  Orgun fired a burst from his assault rifle, but the unexpected speed and uniqueness of Grayson’s reaction caught him off guard. Trained to aim for the chest and upper torso, his shots sailed too high as Grayson scuttled toward him.

  Some of his troops around the warehouse—the ones with quick reflexes—squeezed off a few quick shots of their own, but in their haste they aimed wildly and the rounds deflected harmlessly off the spot on the floor where Grayson had been standing an instant before.

  He slammed into Orgun, a 160-pound man versus a nearly 500-pound krogan. Amazingly, it was Orgun who was sent flying by the impact, his assault rifle spinning free of his hands.

  The warehouse erupted with the thunder of gunfire as Orgun’s troops got over the initial shock of the unexpected a
ttack. Grayson responded by throwing up a biotic barrier, the air around him shimmering with the sudden release of energy. The bullets were devoured by the powerful gravitational field, losing their momentum instantly and dropping harmlessly to the ground.

  Anderson glanced over at Sanak from the corner of his eye. The batarian had been as surprised as anyone by Grayson’s outburst; he was only just now recovering. His attention was focused entirely on the carnage before him, the prisoner beside him utterly forgotten.

  As the batarian took his first running step toward the battle, Anderson delivered a back round-kick to the side of the head. It sent Sanak reeling, the assault rifle falling from his grasp to skitter across the floor as he pinwheeled his arms.

  Anderson followed up his initial attack with a flying tackle, knocking them both to the ground. They wrestled briefly, trying to get possession of the gun clipped to Sanak’s thigh.

  They grappled at close quarters, grunting and cursing as they each fought to gain leverage. But Anderson was on top, giving him the advantage. He wrapped his hand around the butt end of the pistol, but the batarian managed to get him in an elbow lock, pinning his arm in place so he couldn’t raise the weapon.

  Anderson squeezed the trigger anyway. The round ripped a hole in the batarian’s thigh, causing him to scream in pain and release his grip. Anderson quickly brought the pistol up and shoved the muzzle into the batarian’s gut, then fired three more times.

  All four of Sanak’s eyes went wide in disbelief as his body went limp. Anderson rolled off him and stood up, still clasping the pistol. The batarian opened his mouth to speak, but all that came out was a wet gurgle. He coughed, and a dark trickle of blood seeped from between his lips.

  Anderson fired one more time, aiming for the heart. Sanak shuddered once. Then his head lolled to the side, his eyes glazed and unfocused as his life ebbed away.