[Omega] Five dead dogs

Kirok rumbled from his seat.

"D'pends if she's as good as Jil here said she was. I'm startin' t'wonder 'bout that, though."

Kirok gave the quarian a long, cool look. His professional opinion of the asari was plain for all to see.

"What, you want me to toss your poor widdle varren around?" she asked, smiling sweetly. "Honey, please!"

She twirled her cigar with a finger, which glowed from the tip.

"Any little schoolgirl knows how to throw a tantrum."

The space directly below Jil radiated a soft glow. She gave a wry, yellowed smile.

"It takes so much more...power...and control to make one."

Her biotic powers are impressive. According to records available to me, such fine manipulation is quite difficult.
Y-y-yep...

"Uh. I uh, I'm not sure this is p-productive..."

"Well, they did ask for a demonstration..."

She stared at the ceiling, humming to herself nonchalantly. The finger twirled unabated, though Jil's seat glowed a little brighter.

Most impressive.

...and that was enough of that. Jil'Korah stood very quickly and a tiny bit unsteadily, taking two quick steps across to the other bench, turning what was obviously a glare even through the visor towards his asari violator.

"...Huh."

Well, this had turned out better than expected. 'Demon Thunder' came well-recommended and he had the kind of experience that would get you strongarmed into a number of security operations in the Terminus. Shirin took a second to mouth 'nice' at Kirok, then passed the mouthpiece over to the turian in case he wanted a hit.

"All right. I like you," she decided, as the Passion of Jil'Korah continued across the table. "Your experience speaks for itself, and...it's sad that this is an asset, but you're normal. You know? We've auditioned snipers before, I mean, and most of them were brooding, 'these hands have killed' types, just moping in corners and trying to act like they're somehow the worst person in the room when they're sitting right next to me. 'Please, someone break through my cold exterior and teach me to love again.'"

Her eyes slid over to Analina as Jil frantically fled the chair. "You...alright, you've got control. I'll give you that much. Here's the thing, though, talent can be trained; what I want out of my associates is reliability. That quarian you're molesting is the best technician I've ever worked with. My life depends on him regularly. So how do I know I can trust him to do his job when he, or anybody else, has to deal with one of our operators fucking around? Is that going to be an issue?"

It was a steady, measuring gaze. Not quite condemning, but there wasn't much room for friendliness.

Ana returned the gaze. Thankfully, for all involved, it wasn't completely vacuous.

There was a moment of silence as she then cocked her head from one side to the other, staring at Shirin, then Kirok, then flicked to Jil and Thunder, and finally came back to the drell. She then shrugged and pointed her cigar at Kirok.

"Probably him."

It was the first time all night she'd used a matter-of-fact voice.

Kirok's bilious yellow eyes narrowed. There was a low, terrifying rumble from somewhere deep in the krogan's chest. Whitefang whined and hid beneath Shirin. Mount Kirok was rumbling, and the villagers were restless.

With a sound of ceramic plate scraping against metal, Kirok pulled himself out of the seat and leaned over the table, eyeing the asari with a dangerous, level eye.

"Somethin' you tryin' t'say, asari? You sayin' y'think you c'n take Murtag Kirok? You think you got th' quad fer it?"

"Thanks, but I'll pass" the turian politely refused the hit, "mouthpiece doesn't fit my mouth... it wouldn't be pretty, funny maybe with the smoke everywhere but not pretty."

He kept himself from rolling his eyes, "oh yeah those guys... I know the type, let's not talk about them, although there's a risk of me boring you with pictures of my kid and other 'normal' stuff. Kirok has already been one of my victims during the war...."

There was a sly grin, "anyway, let's talk about money, how's the cut determined?"

Shirin pushed back in her chair, slowly enough to be nonthreatening, and glanced to Jil and Ariquam just long enough for a surreptitious shake of her head.

"Even split. One-way for each of us, plus one for ship upkeep, inventory, bribes, and so on. So you'd be getting a sixth...which, considering the size of the hauls we're looking to step up to, is bigger than it sounds. If things go south and you end up having to do something ridiculous and unexpected, you get extra. Half of my share, specifically." Let it never be said she didn't take responsibility for the people she led.

She breathed in from the hookah again and watched the krogan/asari staredown intently, waiting to see what would happen.

"Better deal than most. I appreciate it." he looked at the asari then at Kirok... his hand casually rested on his sidearm.

Jil'Korah was doing his absolute best to stay hidden in a corner. The asari could crush him through his suit with her biotics, the krogan could crush him through his suit with literally any body part, and in his brilliance he had determined that it would be a good idea to put them in the same room. He deeply regretted not taking the suit up on its offer of more geth. Less explosive.

Ana stared at the krogan...then raised her hands and gave Kirok a wide-eyed, innocent look. "Oh, no, babe! I just meant you'd do, well, this if I even looked at Jilly after this!"

She brushed a hand against her scalp, daring for a moment to break eye contact long enough to put her cigar on the table, then looked back up at him.

"Don't you worry, 'hon," she said, her voice silky as a rockslide. "I play my games, but Ana knows her boundaries."

Kirok stared at the asari for a good ten seconds, then snorted. With a mighty exhale, he sat back down in his seat, glaring daggers.

"You'd better," was all he said as he lowered himself back down.

Shirin had been operating professionally for five years, give or take (considering the circumstances of her birth and development, that line was a bit hazy), and in that time she'd learned that the first question you asked when you were looking to hire a candidate was 'is this person going to be a liability?' You never really knew the answer to that until you'd seen them in action, but first impressions went a long way.

Analina was gaudy, had no sense of personal boundaries, and apparently lived on a perpetual high of some sort, but that moment went a long way towards making up for it. Everybody had their issues and dependencies - Shirin herself was something of a sensate - but as long as you could put those aside and focus entirely on business when the time came, you weren't a liability.

She nodded slowly, motioning back to the chair. "Good. That's my number one rule: don't be a liability. As long as that's not a problem, I'll go to the ends of the galaxy to make sure you come out of every job alive and well. You'll be expected to do the same - this isn't an industry where you can afford to have anything less than total unit cohesion. We fuck up once and we're lucky to get out alive without the haul. Twice? We probably don't get out, period."

Her lips parted and a smoke ring floated out over the table, slowly expanding until it dissipated into the gaudy bluish light.

"So: put it out there for the rest of us, and we'll do the same for you."

Ana simply picked up her cigar and inhaled deeply. The sound of crackling paper was just barely audible.

"Sound just like my drill instructor, kiddo," she said. "Good sign."

"So... do we have base or ship from which we operate from?" Quam asked, sipping once more from his glass.

"...About that."

That was actually a very good segue to bring this up, she decided.

"We have a ship, but putting five people in it for anything other than a trip around the Nebula isn't going to work out. Any of you know a decent ship dealer? I've been saving up for the past few months to get something with more cargo space anyway."

"D'pends," Kirok drawled as the waiter finally brought over his ryncol. "Y'lookin' fer a frigate or a hauler're somethin? Y'can get 'em cheap from Rannoch these days, what with alla dem quarians goin' back an' rebuildin' their planet. S'what I heard, ennyways."

The moping quarian suddenly sat up straight. This was his area of expertise, after all, and now that he wasn't being actively violated he could probably concentrate on doing what he was good at.

"I know about five who won't try to screw us, guys who've been selling to the Migrant Fleet for years. They'd be happy to have a new client, I bet - Migrant Fleet doesn't exactly need more ships these days so there's a bit of a glut on the market."

A few taps on his omni-tool and Jil'Korah brought up short dossiers on five different salesmen. Three were batarian, one was turian, and one was a volus. "Just give us a minute to narrow this down, some of these guys were operating out of sectors that aren't accessible anymore."

Give me a hand here. Cross-reference the information in these files with current galactic affairs.
Another few taps and the omni-tool and suit were synced up, granting the geth a chance to impress.

Within thirty seconds, two of the batarian images had turned a deep red hue and minimized. The turian took on a shade of yellow, and green borders flickered around both the volus and the remaining batarian.

Garash Ibrona, batarian, confirmed dead during the War with the Old Machines. Shertiah Abronak, batarian, missing and presumed dead since the War with the Old Machines. Trebonian Amelius, turian, re-enlisted, currently involved in reconstruction efforts on Palaven. Dar Corbo, volus, active. Shraboziil Haran, batarian, active.
Thanks, you're the greatest.
Indeed.

"Okay. The turian here, Trebonian, re-enlisted and is working on Palaven. He might still have useful contacts if we need to find specific parts but he's out of the business for actual ships right now. The surviving batarian, Haran, mostly dealt in Hegemony surplus before the war, and he's probably charging a premium with the Confederacy trying to rebuild about four different militaries at once. The volus, Dar Corbo, always charged a premium, but his stuff was all new - not second-hand or refurbished like the others. Great for sensitive or complex equipment, not so great for entire ships. Not quite as good an outlook as I'd hoped, but not terrible either."

Kirok's suggestion of Rannoch forced Jil into a thoughtful pose. "Rannoch would be an option, I suppose, but... Well. It's no secret that a lot of the ships in the Fleet were falling apart. Half of them were over a century old, some approaching four. Throw in the *ahem* well-deserved quarian reputation for technical expertise and the massive sentimental attachment we have to every ship in the Fleet, and you've got a pricey, overcustomized clunker. They're not selling the good stuff, believe me."