Chapter Text
Kryik arrived at Omega Station.
The message he had received a few hours earlier was something he could never have ignored. How fortunate for the sender that Nihlus happened to be literally nearby. And how far less fortunate that she had somehow found out.
Nihlus was on a mission. A small team, a ship disguised as a smuggler’s- standard procedure for working in the Terminus Systems.
He docked for the meeting in a separate shuttle. No markings. No escort.
The grimy docks greeted him with their usual cocktail of ozone, burnt fuel, and old metal. Somewhere, power conduits hummed, warning panels blinked overhead, half of them long overdue for replacement — or at least disconnection.
He was alone. And he was very much hoping that their meeting would go without the interference of any unnecessary parties. But apparently, the camouflage had worked a little too well.
Right by the aerocar that was supposed to take him to the right bar, some poor sap got in his way. A Vorcha. Scruffy, twitchy movements, eyes wide —either on stimulants or just a step away from withdrawal. He only managed to reach for a weapon before Nihlus already had his pistol pressed to the creature’s temple.
“Let’s keep this simple. I’m in a good mood, and I’d rather not ruin it with someone else’s brains on my boots.”
The Vorcha squeaked something and hurriedly backed off, barely keeping upright.
“Having fun?” a female voice called from the side.
He recognized it immediately.
“Just… looking around,” the turian said, slipping his pistol into an inner holster. “Getting to know the local fauna. ”
He turned his head, green eyes glinting in the dim light of the lamps.
“As if I’ve come home.”
Nihlus had been born in a small mercenary outpost far beyond the Hierarchy’s influence. Since childhood, he was used to the same brutal atmosphere that ruled Omega.
The woman stepped out of the shadows of the docks.
They hadn’t seen each other in a couple of years, but she had hardly changed.
Her gray eyes looked at him with that familiar smirk. Chestnut hair was tied into a low bun, with curls escaping just like before. He remembered that mess — she had never spent time on what she didn’t consider important.
The message had specified a particular bar, yet for some reason, she had decided to meet him here.
Nihlus gave her a closer look. A dark, form-fitting suit of azari design, straps, a small cut at the chest. At her waist hung a familiar “Stiletto,” and on her feet, heavy boots. Practical. Nothing unnecessary for a powerful biotic like Jane.
She circled him as if assessing him too, nodded to herself as if confirming some private thought, and headed toward the nearest aerocar, signaling him to follow.
When she turned her back, Nihlus noticed a dark red stain on the left side of her thigh. human blood — red, unlike turian blue.
His mandibles twitched on their own.
Jane showed no sign of pain or discomfort. She walked steadily, without limping. So nothing serious. At least, that’s how she wanted it to look. And he, seemingly, shouldn’t worry.
Seemingly…
“Could it be that the lovely place called ‘The Well-Fed Varren’ failed to impress you with its service?” he couldn’t resist asking as they settled into the aerocar.
She took the driver’s seat and smirked. A small scar near her mouth pulled unpleasantly tight.
“Ran into an old friend,” she tossed out, sharply pulling the vehicle out of the docks. “From the Blood Pack. Pity we didn’t get along.”
The aerocar surged forward so hard that Nihlus instinctively braced a hand against the panel. Outside the windows, the docks gave way to the station’s corridors — far too quickly to look safe.
“‘Didn’t get along’ is when people disagree,” he noted, watching Jane merge into traffic without hesitation. “You’ve got blood on your thigh and the look of someone who solved the problem permanently.”
“He was a batarian.”
That explanation turned out to be more than sufficient. Nihlus’s mandibles twitched. He knew that particular trait of hers all too well - whenever a batarian appeared, it was as if something clicked in Jane’s head.
The aerocar suddenly dropped, narrowly missing a cargo platform. Nihlus clenched his teeth.
“He was sitting there, drinking, decided he had the right to say something,” she went on, as if they were cruising along a straight, empty stretch of road. “Apparently, he said the wrong thing.”
Nihlus had no trouble filling in the blanks. After Mindoir, Jane had always been especially brutal toward pirates, and after the recent attack on Elysium she’d grown even harsher — particularly toward anyone who reminded her of slavers.
“The Blood Pack has been dealing in live cargo for a long time,” he said as the aerocar jolted sharply again. “So I suspect there wasn’t much left of the poor bastard.”
“You’re surprisingly perceptive, Kryik,” she smirked, never taking her eyes off the traffic lane.
The transport accelerated again.
Nihlus glanced at the station structures flashing past at a dangerously close distance, then at Jane.
“All right, that’s enough,” he said dryly and reached for the control panel. “Punch in the destination.”
“What?” She shot him a quick look.
“I’ll drive,” he continued calmly, already taking over the controls. “I’d like to leave Omega at least in one piece.”
Jane snorted but didn’t argue. A few quick taps on the console, and the coordinates appeared on the display.
“You’re a bore,” she remarked, leaning back in her seat.
“A bore with a sense of self-preservation.”
The aerocar leveled out, the speed dropping to something acceptable — by Omega standards. Nihlus piloted the vehicle confidently, without sharp maneuvers, threading through traffic in a way that avoided drawing unnecessary attention.
“Which raises the question,” he went on after a pause, “whether it was wise to start a brawl on Aria T’Loak’s turf.”
“Perhaps you’re not up to date on recent events,” Jane replied lazily. “Aria and I are getting along pretty well these days.”
“Really?” Nihlus lifted a brow plate. “Last I recall, she very nearly shot you point-blank.”
“But she didn’t. Though she could have.”
She looked ahead, at the station lights.
“And that,” his friend added, “means we’re getting along.”
Nihlus merely snorted and carefully set the aerocar down in a grimy parking lot outside an unfamiliar bar.
“I liked ‘The Well-Fed Varren’ better,” he muttered as he climbed out of the vehicle.
“Don’t worry.” The bar’s steel door slid open, neon letters on the sign flickered and went dark. “They serve your favorite swill here too — the one you stubbornly insist on calling brandy.”
The first hall was clearly not meant for the wealthier clientele. Dim lighting, a sticky floor, the smell of cheap alcohol. There were only two dancers — and both of them looked as though the job had long since stopped being a choice.
Right in front of Nihlus, a drunk salarian collapsed onto the floor, blocking the way. The turian simply stepped over him without breaking stride.
They passed into the second hall past two krogan bouncers. The pair gave them a silent once-over, lingering on Jane a moment longer than usual, but asked no questions. She moved on confidently and slipped into one of the private areas separated from the main floor by thick, ornate curtains.
It was quiet inside. A small table, two comfortable chairs, built-in displays for ordering. Too calm for Omega. If Nihlus hadn’t known Jane, he might have thought she’d brought him here on a date.
He sat down and placed an order, then settled back. Jane was still choosing a drink, running her finger thoughtfully across the touch panel. She looked paler than usual. Nihlus wasn’t great with the nuances of human skin tones, but he’d known her long enough to tell — something was off, no matter how hard she tried to hide it.
“You look like shit,” he said, taking a sip of his drink, just delivered by a short asari in an overly revealing outfit.
A lie. Even with that unhealthy pallor, Jane looked as appealing as ever. That still surprised him— humans had never elicited that kind of reaction from him.
“And you look wonderful,” she shot back with a smirk.
“Born that way.”
She smiled.
“Dirty work for the Council suits you ,” Jane finished placing her order and sprawled in her chair. “I see you’ve bulked up.”
Nihlus glanced down at himself, mildly offended.
“If I’d known killing terrorists was so good for the body,” she drawled, “I’d have changed careers.”
“Of course,” the turian tilted his head to the side. “Can’t wait to have you join our ranks. I’m sure you’d make the first human Spectre. Just say the word when you get tired of playing with pirates — I’ll figure something out.”
For the first time in years, Kryik heard her laugh. It was quiet and raspy, but so genuine it disarmed him.
The dim light of the lamps made his friend’s metallic eyes almost transparent. She leaned forward, bracing her hands on the table, moving a little closer.
“I avoid dull and uninteresting work.”
She said it lightly, but that familiar tension hung in the air between the words, making the drink in his glass suddenly seem stronger. Nihlus slowly turned the tumbler, watching the liquid trace lines along the glass.
“Strange thing to hear from the head of a mercenary gang,” he remarked. Jane only shrugged vaguely.
Nihlus had known Shepard for more than twelve years.
Throughout his youth, Nihlus had survived among criminals — lying, stealing, setting others up, sometimes killing. He was sixteen when his father was shot during a job. Some argument over payment for smuggling — out on the fringes of the galaxy, stories like that always ended the same way.
After that, Nihlus did everything he could to earn credits and protect his mother. They drifted from ship to ship, never staying anywhere for long. And on one shabby mercenary outpost at the very edge of inhabited space, where all manner of criminal scum converged, he saw her for the first time.
A wild little beast — thin, angry, with tiny hands gripping a disgustingly modified Striker. Clearly taken from the corpse of a less fortunate pirate.
That was how he remembered her from the very first day, when the ship’s captain dragged a human girl onto the deck. The old turian clearly hadn’t taken her seriously— most likely he’d decided to amuse himself by sending a child on a job with an almost guaranteed tragic outcome.
Until she tore the batarian she ran into in half with her biotics.
You don’t expect that kind of brutality from a child. And yet even that didn’t spare her from unwanted attention from the other pirates. That was when Nihlus and his mother began sticking close to the girl — taking her along on jobs, watching each other’s backs.
It turned out she was already seventeen — she just looked younger because of constant malnutrition. Only two years younger than him.
She told them that after the slavers’ attack on Mindoir, Alliance soldiers had picked her up and planned to send her to an orphanage on one of the colonies near Arcturus Station. But Jane had tried to return home and stowed away on a supply ship.
Who could have known the vessel would turn out to be a smuggler ship?
For almost a year she lived among bandits. From the outside, it might have looked like she’d taken to that life, but Nihlus could see it wasn’t so. She stayed for one reason only: to find traces of the slavers who had destroyed her colony and her family.
She spared herself nothing for that goal. Trained until exhaustion, learned to shoot in the middle of firefights, fell — and got back up again. Jane turned out to be a fighter.
They stayed together for about another year. Then his mother began urging Nihlus to enlist in the turian military — to start living properly, without expecting a bullet in the back, to serve the Hierarchy.
The opportunity wasn’t a bad one, despite his background. Those from the fringes, raised outside the Hierarchy’s influence, were disliked in the military, and the path upward promised to be difficult.
His ambitions pushed him to agree, but concern for his mother and for Jane outweighed them. At least until the girl herself joined in the persuasion.
Nihlus shook himself free of the haze of memories. He was already holding his third glass of brandy, while Jane across from him was enthusiastically telling him something.
She had stayed among the bandits, keeping an eye on his mother. And she continued gathering information — all for the sake of that same revenge.
“So,” Shepard said, raising her glass, “we need to drink to your recent anniversary. You don’t turn thirty every year.”
“Oh, Spirits…” the turian muttered. “Jane, you know perfectly well we don’t celebrate dates like that.”
She answered with a sly smile.
“Exactly why I’m doing it my way.”
Nihlus rolled his eyes, but clinked glasses with her anyway. The glass chimed softly, lost in the general hum of the bar.
“You’re a high-flying bird now,” she added, quickly tapping something out on her omni-tool. “You have to look the part.”
Almost immediately, a notification popped up on his interface: a package awaiting pickup in the Citadel storage docks.
“ ‘Phantom,’ ” Jane announced solemnly.
Armor from Serrice Council. An asari consortium with a reputation for impeccable quality — and equally impressive prices. She had clearly spared no expense.
“And before you throw yourself around my neck in gratitude,” she went on loftily, “there’s one more thing.”
Jane tugged at the collar of her suit and pulled out a small medallion on a long chain.
Nihlus’s mandibles parted involuntarily.
She took his clawed hand and placed warm metal into his palm. Engraved on its surface was the Torilia flower — the symbol of the colony where his mother had been born. It's the same mark that was drawn on Kryik's face.
Nihlus remembered the medallion. His father had made it when he proposed to Virene.
“This is from her,” Jane said quietly. “She asked me to give it to you… when the right time came.”
He closed his fingers around the medallion, never taking his eyes off her face. Jane had lived among turians for far too long not to understand the meaning of such a gesture.
She sat with her gaze lowered, for the first time that evening not meeting his eyes. Slowly traced a finger along the rim of her glass. The tips of her ears had turned red.
Nihlus had never seen her this embarrassed — and that alone was enough to understand everything.
“So,” he began, his dual-toned voice sounding lower than usual, “is this the right time?”
Jane didn’t answer. But no answer was needed.
They sat in silence for a while longer, letting the words remain unspoken.
“By the way,” she added casually, “I sent your mother to Illium.”
Nihlus froze.
“What?”
“To rest,” Jane clarified hastily. “Resorts, sea, sun, expensive drinks. Just like in the ads.”
“Jane…”
“Wait,” she raised a finger, already laughing. “That’s not all. On the very first day she lost all her money at some salarian casino, and then two idiots tried to mug her in an alley…”
Jane fell silent, clearly enjoying the look on his face.
“…She beat them up first. And then robbed them. Said something like, ‘My son never taught me how to choose my company properly.’”
Nihlus laughed — sharp and sudden, even to his own surprise. The laughter burst out, washing away the last of the tension. He closed his eyes and lowered his head for a moment.
“Thank you,” he said quietly.
Nihlus laughed — sharp and sudden, even to his own surprise. The laughter burst out, washing away the last of the tension. He closed his eyes and lowered his head for a moment.
“Thank you,” he said quietly.
“You’re welcome,” Jane replied just as softly and took a long drink.
She finished and set the glass down with a bit more force than necessary. The sound was far too loud for a private booth and immediately caught Nihlus’s attention. She was clearly struggling with herself, as if working up the nerve to say something unpleasant.
His instincts sensed trouble on the horizon.
“Well…” she began. “We’ve celebrated your anniversary, talked about your mom, and even managed a bit of flirting,” she paused on the last word and barely blushed. “Which means it’s my turn to worry and ask you to listen. And yours — to brush off my concerns.”
Now she’d ruined it.
The warm atmosphere shattered completely. The dim lighting suddenly felt harsh on his eyes, the noise of the bar grating.
“Jane…” he started.
“No, Nihlus,” she cut him off firmly. “At least this once, listen to me. Saren…”
She took a deep breath and looked straight into his green eyes.
“Saren is up to something strange. I wouldn’t bring this up again without a reason. ”
Kryik had never been a favorite of the command staff. He was considered undisciplined: if he knew he could complete a mission more effectively by ignoring direct orders, that was exactly what he did. For the Hierarchy, where everything was built on strict adherence to regulations, that was almost a career death sentence.
Everything changed after he met a young Spectre — Saren Arterius. Saren immediately noticed Nihlus’s talent and appreciated his unconventional methods. Over time, they grew close, and Saren became not just a mentor to him, but a true friend. Only a year passed—and Nihlus himself received an invitation to join the Spectres.
Saren was the turian Nihlus aspired to be like. He supported him and helped him rise so high. One of the Council’s most loyal agents, he genuinely believed in the strength and future of the turian Hierarchy.
But Jane disliked him from the very beginning.
At first, she spoke of intuition — the kind that rarely failed her. Then she began digging deeper, uncovering stories that left a bad taste.
Granted, there were plenty of such stories in her own biography. One could even say that, in some ways, she and Saren were alike.
Saren hated humans. During the First Contact War, they had killed his brother. Yes, at times he truly went too far — but that was like telling Shepard about a “good batarian”: she would laugh first, and then point a gun at you for abetting slavers.
Of course, that was a joke. Jane didn’t trade lives over differences in opinion. As long as you didn’t cross her.
They were alike. And perhaps that was precisely why she reacted to Saren so sharply.
“There’s a krogan on my team,” she continued after a pause. “He —”
“Jane,” Nihlus raised a hand, stopping her. “I’m not going to argue with you again. My answer is no. Just stop.”
She stopped talking. She stared at him with her pale eyes for a long moment, then sighed wearily and closed them.
“Spirits…” she muttered. “You’re infuriating me.”
"I know."
When she opened her eyes again, Nihlus realized the meeting was over.
Shepard stood and placed a small data module in front of him.
"I don't understand why you need information about pirate activity near Eden Prime," she said quickly. "The colony has never been attacked, and from my data, it's unlikely."
She was about to leave when Nihlus grabbed her arm.
"Just be careful," Shepard said quietly, without turning around.
"You too. I'll contact you later."
Nevertheless, Jane turned back, looking at him questioningly.
"We need to tell my mother everything," he added, parting his mandibles in a semblance of a smile.
Jane's eyes widened in surprise - and almost immediately she turned and walked away, quickly disappearing from the scene of their last meeting.