"Pays to be prepared, quarian," Jek retorted, moving into position to the right of the bar's doorway and using this cover to peer inside. Finding themselves flanked between the mercs in front and the turret and sniper behind, several of the thugs had scrambled for cover. A handful of them, mostly with intact shields, were bunched up like sardines behind a particularly solid bench.

"Speaking of being prepared," Jek remarked to Tasi as his visor highlighted the grunts and the respective levels of their kinetic barriers, "you're in luck."

The salarian unclipped one of three grenades from a small bandolier on his right arm and lobbed it. Electricity crackled across its surface as it sailed through the air.

It struck the top of the thugs' cover, where it exploded in a brilliant blue-white flash. The eponymous arcs of the EMP burst shot out from the point of impact like jagged fingers of lightning, stripping shields where they met them and electrocuting where they didn't.

"The Arc Grenade is a beautiful thing."

Ashei saw the faint glint of her shields catching a round. Not a fan of getting shot, Ashei thought, frowning. She enabled her armor's defense matrix, giving her armor a much needed reinforcement in such close quarters. Peering over the bar, Ashei triggered an energy drain on a few of the mercs, restoring her shields to full power as well. She took the opportunity to fire a few bursts with her Tempest; from what she could tell, she landed several rounds straight into one merc's head, while landing a few more rounds into the upper torsos of two other mercs. The rest of her bullets went flying over their heads, as the Tempest's high recoil drew Ashei's fire upwards.

Of course, there was no doubt that Ashei caught a few rounds in her shields and armor herself during that exchange, so she ducked back down behind the bar to assess the damage. Her shields were definitely down, but her armor plus the defense matrix had caught the few rounds that broke through.

It occurred to Ashei that she would not make it too long on her own. As much as she hated to admit it, she was a sniper caught in close quarters, and she needed help. Fortunately, these mercs were supposed to be on her side, so Ashei felt secure enough asking for help.

"Could use some help over here. I have limited effectiveness at short range," Ashei firmly shot into the comm. Thinking twice, she realized that she'd probably be dealing with some real smartasses, and it was probably better to just concede what she needed to now. "And yes, that means I'm a sniper caught in a bar fight. I'm aware of the irony of this situation."

The battle continued as each side raged on, the mysterious black armored mercenary side which had launched the attack was losing men at a quick pace. No motive was given, the attack just launched out of random it seemed. It did not matter to Roman as he sat behind cover, occasionally popping up to fire off his shotgun at the enemy. None of them were stupid enough to try to charge straight at the veteran mercenary, he was free to wreck havoc on them.

"Coming over." Roman gruffly said into the comm link once he heard Ashei request assistance. The mercenary responded by breaking from cover, using his Biotic Charge to slam into a group of three grunts, bouncing two away and knocking another to the ground. He followed up the Charge with a heavy swing with the butt of his shotgun, smacking the surprised thug right in the face, spraying blood from his mouth.

"These guys aren't total idiots tactic wise, but they aren't actually skilled either." Roman said as he hoped over the bar, diving in next to Ashei. Then oddly enough the group of assailants began a retreat, the lot of them sprinting out of the Dive and down an alleyway once they realized that they had severely underestimated their targets. The two non armored enemies following right after, though one of them took a shotgun blast to the leg from Roman causing the human to fall down in a bout of intense pain as blood seeped out from the wound.

"What the hell was that attack about? They all ran." Roman said through the link as he hoped back over the bar, glancing around the now tossed around Dive. Bullet holes punctured the walls, broken and beaten tables turn over on the floor, even a light fixture had fallen from the ceiling.

"At least I got one of them, maybe we can coax him into giving us some information." Roman added as he walked over towards the damaged man, almost in tears from the intense pain. The mercenary grabbed him by the back and dragged him back into the Dive, shoving him into the middle of the place.

Prey retreats, nooooo, not done yet.

KILLBOMB rolls along metal floor, through the legs of confused prey. KILLBOMB explodes, and filthy human is flyyiiiiing.

He flies into sky, before chrashing back into ground. Neck broken, good way to finish off killstreak.

Could always kill the others fighting prey, but need 'creds' for things to eat. I know when to kill and when to not-kill.

Human warrior takes prisoner, probably planning to get talk out of him. Can help with that.

Finally enter small cave of metal, many broken things in the way, feel like home.

The thugs' hasty retreat took them right past Jek's position at the Dive's doorway, and the salarian watched them flee with mild amusement as he stepped out from cover, then entered the bar. As he approached Roman he hoisted his Indra over his right shoulder, and with a whirring of micro-servos the rifle folded up into a compact oblong and clipped onto its hardpoint. He left his sentry turret hovering near the doorway, just in case.

"It's Mr Thornton, isn't it?" Jek asked (though it was more of a statement: the salarian seemed quite sure of his own knowledge). "Your reputation precedes you."

He glanced down at the man Roman had captured, and gave his omni-tool a few taps until a it projected a medical scan holo-readout above it.

"Hm. He's losing quite a bit of blood," he observed. "I'm sure you're eager to interrogate him, but I'd better seal the wound first, or you'll have a corpse instead of a captive."

The salarian dropped to one knee to apply a dose of Medi-Gel.

Sienn sent rapid and accurate Mattock fire into the backs of the hostiles from her cover behind the bar as they all turned and ran. In seconds, the last were either on the ground dead or dying, or had managed to miraculously make it outside, most likely only to be shot dead by the seemingly friendly snipers nearby, Sienn guessed. The asari shook her head in disappointment at the enemies' stupidity as she ejected her spent thermal clip and slid back across the bar towards Roman and the thers. The morons hadn’t even attempted to break contact, they had just run without any form covering fire.

She finished reloading and raised her rifle, covering the door and mass of wounded and dead black-armored soldiers and attempting to keep security. She almost shot the seemingly careless salarian that walked in, but stopped herself mid-trigger pull.

“Fuck.” Sienn muttered to herself, shooting him an angry glare.

"Could anyone entering the bar please identify themselves before I accidently waste you? Thanks." She said politely to the other mercenaries over comms.

She emphasized the point by firing her rifle into a prone hostile that didn't seem sufficiently dead enough yet.

Ashei also took a few shots at the retreating enemy, hitting several but not bringing any down. She knew the shots she took were ultimately futile, as she didn't even fire enough shots take break through shields, but it was nice target practice. When the area was clear, she discharged her defense matrix, immediately bringing her own shields back to full power. Ashei holstered her Tempest and followed Roman back over the bar, taking care to walk around the fallen light fixture.

As Roman dragged the merc he had shot back into the Dive, Ashei began going through bodies to collect anything she could find. Thermal clips, datapads, omnitools. There were some leftover thermal clips, but the unknown mercs had at least had the sense to not bring any form of identification. In any case, Ashei had at least recovered most of the ammunition that she had expended during the firefight. Not that she had expended very much, in all fairness.

"Clean bodies, no ID," she reported, moving towards the center of the Dive.

She couldn't help but smirk at Sienn's remark. Ashei knew from experience to report an entry into a hot building; too many times had Eclipse almost started a firefight with itself because its people couldn't report a goddamn entry. Sienn took a shot at one of the many corpses lying around, and Ashei decided on the spot that she liked this asari.

Ashei glared daggers at the wounded merc Roman had recovered. She didn't wait for the salarian to move out of the way after applying the medi-gel before beginning her own interrogation. She kneeled down besides Jek and gently placed a hand on the medi-gel covered wound. Ashei applied a light amount of pressure. "Talk or I squeeze harder. Who sent you?" Ashei questioned, staring coldly into the merc's eyes.

"My apologies," Jek replied in a level tone that didn't quite sound sincere, meeting Sienn's glare with a calmly raised eyebrow as he administered the Medi-Gel. "Would've thought it was immediately obvious I wasn't a hostile. Lowered weapon, non-threatening body language...ah, but it's easy to forget that not everyone thinks as quickly as a salarian does."

He smiled.

"No offence."

"If I didn't think quickly, you'd be splattered across the room right now, smart-ass." Sienn retorted angrily.

Sienn probably had more years of training and combat experience than this Salarian had been alive, and he was insulting her ability to do her job? This Salarian was acting like an amateur, and Sienn was surprised he hadn't gotten himself killed at some point in the past. It made her realize she had no idea who exactly she was working with right now and what they were capable of. She only had herself to rely on for now, and she'd have to keep her eyes on the others.

"Do yourself a favor and don't be an idiot next time. You just might last long enough to die of old age in a year or two."

She turned back to covering the entrance, silently fuming and partially wishing she had shot Jek, just to teach him a lesson.

Roman had stayed silent as he waited for the others to gather around him and the hostage. He watched as the other human, Ashei began interrogation of the captured enemy, the poor sap cowering in fear and pain as she went as his wounded, a rare smirk coming across Roman's face as he watched the act happen. It was something straight out of his own playbook, he was going to do the same thing but there was plenty of man left to torture i the fool did not talk, but he did.

"I'm not saying anything, argh, if I said a single word about them then they'd take my head off." The man said, still thinking that he was going to get out of this alive, that the mercs his friends and he decided to attack would show mercy.

"Tell me, Salarian, what exactly does my reputation say of me?" Roman asked, raising one eyebrow at Jek as the veteran mercenary then drew his sidearm and loudly checked it for bullets, in clear view of the hostage.

"Does it say that I always get the job done? That I always tie up loose ends?" He asked before lowering himself down to kneeled position besides the captured enemy, the pistol visible in his dominant hand as he lowered it downwards, resting the barrel right on the man's crotch. "You know at this range that your shields wouldn't even help you a tiny bit? Point blank the bullet would tear into you, splattering away any hope you had of using this, or even having offspring."

"Now, answer the lady's question." Roman stated, glaring right into the wounded man's eyes. His ice cold stare backed by years of hard mercenary work making the look even more intimidating.

"You wouldn't."

"Wrong choice of words," Roman said, then shifted his aim towards the man's inner right thigh and squeezed the trigger once, the bullet slamming into the enemy, spraying blood as it tore through his shields and armor at extreme close range. "Another slip up with your words and I won't be so kind."

"Fine. They're called the Blackened Stars, they're a newer gang than the others, but much more ruthless and crazy. God knows what they're gonna do to me now." The man weakly said.

"Well, that one is answered. Quite the stupid name for a gang though. Anyone else have any questions for this welp?" Roman asked the group, not wanting to hog up all of the torture time.

Have name, means have target.

Maybe start referring to allies by name, easier to tell apart quickly, because Kronn hate wasting time on telling apart. Would be time spent not killing.

'Roman' want to know if other questions for prisoner, I have one.

"Which way filthy human want to die?"

It was clear that his remark had got the asari riled, and the easy smile remained on the salarian's lipless mouth.

"Oh, I'm hurt."

Of course, Jek knew perfectly well that he really should've announced himself before entering Hergon's Dive.

In his STG days he would never have walked blithely into a recent battleground in the way he just had. But these were not his STG days, and now he enjoyed playing things a little close to the edge from time to time. In this case, the risk he had taken was a measured one. As far as he could tell, the small group fighting off the black-armoured thugs were the people he was expected to work with on this mystery job, so it would pay to know what made them tick.

He already had a feel for the personality of the quarian (who had still been on his rooftop), he knew Thornton by reputation (the human had been occupied with his captive), and vorcha were generally predictable (inarticulate shrieks of bloodlust from his general direction had suggested he was busy harrying the thugs' retreat). As for the second human, well, her character was still an unknown but he'd heard over the comm that she was a sniper, which meant she would check her targets carefully before firing.

That left the asari, who was still an unknown quantity. Bingo.

So Jek had made his somewhat unorthodox entrance, and the risk had paid off. No shots had been fired (at least, no literal ones) but Sienn's reaction was rather telling, suggesting a short fuse. That could be useful to know.

Besides, the salarian had never been in any real danger. He knew he could be in cover and have sabotaged her Mattock's heatsink before she had a chance to take half his shields down.

Leaving the asari to seethe (there was no need to provoke her further), Jek turned his attention to Thornton and his captive. He rolled his eyes as the human blustered about 'always getting the job done' and 'always tying up loose ends'. He sounded like the chest-beating protagonist of a third-rate action vid. But Jek did agree with Thornton's opinion of this new gang's oh-so-original choice of name: it seemed that gun-toting idiots had a fetish for calling themselves something star-related.

Ignoring Kronn's predictable outburst (if I had a credit for every time I hear a vorcha say 'die'...), he asked the prisoner a question of his own.

"I'm curious to hear how you knew we'd be here. Somehow I doubt it was luck."

It was just about the time that Jek asked his own question of the injured mercenary that Tasi made himself known.
"Do avoid shooting me, Asari. I rather like my envirosuit in tact."

This was, of course, a second or so before the Quarian's tac-cloak deactivated with a soft beep, form coming into view sitting lazily on what was left of the bar, rifle laid out across his knees, tattered cloak giving him a rather interesting look, compared to the usual clean-cut Quarian style. It was impossible to tell where his eyes were pointing, the visor of his helmet so dark that not even the usual glow of eyes could be seen- But from the direction of his head, it could be assumed that he was taking in the mercenary they were.... Questioning.

"More importantly than how is why, I think. I mean, all of us here have track records a mile long, I'm sure- And I doubt there's one of us in the room that hasn't been pegged as a complete boshtet at least once. But to try and kill -all- of us takes brass balls. And -you-, bloody one, just knocked yourself out with yours."

As much as Roman's show of bravado made Ashei want to throw up, she had to respect his ruthlessness. Hell, he might be as cutthroat as she was. As Roman's bullet pierced the merc's leg, blood splattered across Ashei's lower body. She adjusted slightly to give Roman a better shot, but besides that, she didn't even blink, instead maintaining the fierce glare into the merc's eyes.

As the others rattled off their questions, Ashei began to create a mental map of what was going on. First, this ragtag group of mercs was selected and summoned to meet here, in this wasting old bar on Omega. Not the ideal location for what looked like was supposed to be a meeting of some of the toughest guns for hire in the galaxy. There were countless better places to go on Omega, and yet their mysterious contact told them to meet at the Dive. Not good.

Then, there was the convenience of the location for the Black Stars, or whatever the hell they were called. They seemed to know exactly where and when they would arrive. The quarian was asking the right questions; why were these mercs interested in this meeting? And why were the mercs so untrained? They were fierce, but as Roman said, there was absolutely no sense of tactics or strategy to the firefight. It was a classic shootout, as if out of an old Western movie.

Ashei took a step back from the wounded merc, but stayed crouched nearby to keep up the intimidation factor. She processed everything they knew so far and came to three possibilities: this was a test, this was an ambush to stop their job prematurely, or someone just had a fetish for classic Western shootouts in bars. Honestly, Ashei hoped it was the last one. The first two did not bode well for the future.

Both the quarian and the salarian asked good questions; how and why did the Blackened Stars know this meeting was happening? But Ashei's original question did not elicit a satisfactory response. She moved back towards the merc and gripped the original shotgun wound hard, applying great pressure to the wound.

"I don't care what you're called. I want to know who hired you. And if you don't know, I want to know who does. Somebody paid you to kill us," Ashei emphasized her questions by squeezing just a little bit harder on the wound. Fuck it, might as well go the extra mile, Ashei thought, drawing her Tempest and placing the barrel on the side of the merc's head with her free hand. "Talk."

"I think she has the right idea, a bullet to the brain, maybe a little too merciful but it is clean." Roman stated, as he watched the thug cower underneath his intense interrogation. The man gulped as he tried to think of answers, it seemed like he knew next to nothing judging by that his manhood and life were being severely threatened yet he hadn't muttered a word about who had hired him and his buddies to (try) take out Roman and the other mercenaries. There was also the matter of none of them actually knowing the identity of the one that hired them. Both of those questions were answered at the same time.

"I-I don't kn-now who hired me and others, the g-guy who paid us to do it didn't reveal shit. Just gave us a pre payment and the promise of a full payment that would make us all rich beyond our dreams. I'd never seen so many credits dangled in front of m-me," The thug spurted out in between wheezes of pain. He was shaking in fear at his current situation, which made Roman shake his head, an actual merc would've handled himself way better. "We k-knew you were all tough as shit, yet that money would've made us filthy rich. You can-n't turn that down."

"No name? Did they give you name?" Roman said, leveling his gun at the hostage.

"No, I didn't. Too much of a risk." A new voice said from behind the group which caused Roman to spin around, weapon still raised.

No one was actually there, well no body, there was a shimmering blue hologram of someone, couldn't tell who because they were cloaked in a full body suit, a mask over their face. It wasn't armor or a suit of Quarian design, more like a long jacket, the mask a plain black, a single line across the top of it. The voice was gender-less, like the bodysuit.

"Who the hell are you?" Roman said, his weapon still raised towards the new arrival to the party.

"Your employer."

Sienn's anger doubled when the employer made their presence known to the group and revealed he had fabricated this ambush. She glanced at the other mercenaries to gauge their reactions.

The employer had organized a test for the group, and introduced the possibility (however unlikely) of getting them killed. Sienn was not a fan of tests, and top of that, the manipulative bastard wouldn't even show his face or arrive at the meeting in person. Probably a good move on his part, as Sienn would've likely shot him.

There was no way Sienn was going to work for a person this shady, especially if that shady person just tried to get her killed. This bastard couldn't even be trusted to arrive at a meeting at all, let alone on time. How could she trust someone like that to keep their end of a deal.

"Fuck this. I've seen what happened to the last bastards who worked for you."

The Asari began walking towards the door, stepping over the many black armored corpses covering the floor.

This has to be a fucking joke, Ashei thought, turning to face the blue hologram. She stood up, holstering her weapon. She almost went as far as to tell Roman to put his weapon down, as there was no point trying to shoot at a hologram, but Ashei decided against it. Ashei caught a bitter glance from Sienn; as much as Ashei related to the asari's anger, she kept a stoic face. She shook her head slightly at Sienn, as if to express her own shared disapproval of the situation.

The situation being that one of Ashei's proposed possibilities had come true and that this was just a test. At the very least, it was a test insofar as this person really was their employer, and they weren't being double-crossed. Or would it be triple-crossed at this point? In any case, at face value this whole situation appeared to be a test, and Ashei did not like that. She was promised a lot of credits, but not nearly enough to work for an employer that seemingly had litle value for their employees' lives.

Ashei watched as Sienn began to walk away and had half a mind to follow her out the door. However, there was still the promise of credits, and Ashei found that enticing. Nothing had killed her yet, and Ashei doubted anything could get her killed now.

"Wait. Before anyone walks out, I want to hear what our 'employer' has to say. We were called here for a reason," Ashei said, turning between Sienn and the hologram. In a sense, she was speaking to both of them, simultaneously trying to convince Sienn to stick around for a bit as well as prompting their employer to explain.

Jek manoeuvred himself to a position where both the hologram and the prisoner were within his field of view. It would be unwise to take his eyes off either of them. Discreetly, he activated a signal-tracer program on his omni-tool to see if the location of this mysterious employer could be tracked, but without much hope of success.

He could already see it was going to be one of those jobs.

The salarian was just as wary of the person in the hologram (who seemed to be about as obsessed with anonymity as you could get) as any of the others, but he didn't share Sienn's anger. In his experience, taking contracts from this kind of employer tended to be challenging and lucrative, provided that they kept their word. If they didn't keep their word...well, it would still at least be challenging. Jek enjoyed challenging jobs. The trick when dealing with these people was to never drop your guard and never take anything for granted.

And Jek didn't particularly hold this guy(?)'s decision to pit them against the Blackened Stars against him(?). It was perfectly natural for an employer to want to test potential employees before hiring them. Granted, it was a pretty extreme way to test them, but after all, this was Omega...

Blue glow claim to be employer. Stupid glowing blue things, no way for smell to get through. Cannot make glowing blue thing DIE. Have tried, not happy ending for Kronn.

Says he wanted us to kill to show our killness. Understand reason, test warrior before hiring.

"Employer see us kill good, now employer tell us what want from us"

"Sienn, what if I were to tell you that the credits you would receive from working with me would set you for this life and your next? That I could help you become a Spectre?" The mysterious figure said, his holographic head turned to the Asari as she moved away from the scene.

"Or you, Jek, what if I could say that I could get you back into STG? I hold connections across the galaxy, as well as a massive amount of credits that I am willing to pay you all for your assistance." He added, this time looking right at the Salarian.

"Just who are you exactly?" Roman grunted, leering at the holographic man. His weapon still drawn, he too was extremely suspicious of their employer, but was albeit interested in the credit talk. He just wondered if the man (or woman) could back up the talk.

"It is not important, Mr. Thornton, I am but your employer, you may refer to me as Zion, in due ti-"

"You bastard, you played me and my friends like we were pawns!" The injured thug at the mercenaries' feet suddenly exclaimed, having faded back into consciousness.

"A necessary tactic. Your time is over. You would have received your credits if you had succeeded, but you did not." Zion calmly replied to the man. Looking down at him as he bled.

"So you don't care what I do to this idiot?" Roman asked, pointing a thumb at the down man.

"No."

A bang from a shotgun firing could be heard a split second after the holographic man spoke, symbolically rendering judgment on the thug by giving Roman Thornton free reign over his life. A splatter of blood followed the blast as the man's body went limp, a smirk on Roman's face as he holstered his shotgun.

"I will explain the next step in our partnership, but only if you all agree to it." Zion stated, looking over all of the mercenaries.