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Slaves of Cerberus	By : NakedOwlMan Category: +M through R > Mass Effect Views: 138070 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 2
Disclaimer: Mass Effect and all the characters in it are owned by people that are not me. I have not made a cent off this work of fiction

Chapter List
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The Orpheus was a lot easier to sneak around in than the Normandy.

Kasumi appreciated the roomier hallways greatly, as it made dodging random crew members as she invisibly crept around the ship a lot less of a hassle. It was the late shift now, and most of the crew were off-duty and enjoying the brief rest before they hit the next mass relay. The perfect time for the galaxy's best cat burglar to do a little snooping around.

Her first few stops were a major bore, though. Garrus was now camped out in the forward battery, and was currently lecturing one of the crewmen about advanced weapon calibration techniques. Kasumi had hoped that maybe he and Tali were enjoying each other's compatible body chemistries again (Kasumi hadn't been there for that one, but the way the two of them had rushed off as soon as they'd arrived on the ship made it pretty obvious what they were up to). But Tali was busy in the engine room, working her usual magic on trying to improve the performance of the Orpheus's sub-standard engine core.

Wandering around and looking for something interesting, Kasumi found herself heading to the mess hall, and was immediately assaulted by the sounds of ravenous eating. Little wonder who it was when she finally came within sight of him: Grunt had a plate stacked high with various meats, vegetables, and a few strange food items that Kasumi couldn't identify off-hand.

Grunt soon found himself with company. Two of the female crewmembers of the Orpheus sat down opposite him at the table. One of them, a curly-haired blonde with a sultry look on her face, spoke first. "Hello there... Grunt, is it?"

Perhaps the uninterested noise that the krogan let out in response was confirmation of his name, or maybe he just had a mouth full of synthetic varren meat at the moment, Kasumi couldn't say.

"Well, me and my friend here, we just thought we'd give you a proper welcome to the Orpheus," the blonde said, making a slight gesture over to the woman next to her. "That's Michele, and I'm Lisa. How do you like the ship so far?"

"Mmmm... not enough food," Grunt said, not looking up from his plate as he shoveled his meal into his mouth with a large fork. "Hope the first place we dock has a decent buffet set up."

"I know, isn't it awful?" Lisa quickly said. "I can feel my stomach growling just looking at what you've got there." Giving him a fetching smile and blinking her eyes, Lisa asked. "You wouldn't mind giving me a bite of yours, would you?"

Grunt looked up at her with narrowed eyes, then let out an annoyed sigh. "Fine."

Lisa closed her eyes and opened her mouth, waiting for Grunt to deposit a morsel from his fork. But after thirty seconds of waiting, Lisa slowly opened up one of her eyelids to see that Grunt had resumed eating again, albeit limiting his ravenous chewing to one side of the plate. Undeterred, she grabbed another fork from the table, chose one of the less disgusting looking portions of the meal, and scooped a bite of it into her mouth. Her eyes went wide as soon as the unidentifiable substance met her tongue.

"Lisa?" Michele said, looking over at her friend in concern. "You okay?"
"It's... soooo good," Lisa's voice strained as she spoke, a glob of brown meat-like matter dribbling down her chin. Her face rotated through several different shades of flushed, green, and pale as she forced herself to chew the food in her mouth. Finally, with a look of triumph on her face, she swallowed. "Would you like a bite, Michele?" she asked her table-mate, a wicked grin on her face.

Michele started to open her mouth – Kasumi guessed it wasn't to put any of Grunt's horrific meal into it – but then her omnitool started beeping. "You know, I'd love to, but I'd better go see what my mom wants."

"Again?" Lisa asked in shock. "You just talked to her before we left the Citadel."

"You think I don't know?" Michele said, standing up from her seat and giving Grunt a weak smile. "You two have fun now. Save some of that for me, okay?"

As Michele quickly stepped away, Grunt let out a boisterous laugh. "No way. She had her chance, right?"

"Right, some people don't have the stomach for such..." Lisa paused to swallow back something threatening to vacate her stomach, "Such delicacies." Leaning on her elbows, Lisa eyed up the still-feeding krogan. "So... Grrrrunt," she did her best to put as much innuendo into the name as possible. "Eating so much food like that, you probably have a lot of energy built up. How do you manage to burn all that up, I wonder?"

"Killing things, mostly" Grunt said between bites. "Nothing like a good meal before a good battle."

Lisa nodded. "Well, sure, but we've got such a long time before we get to where we're going," she said. "Days of being cooped up on this ship with nobody to shoot at... what are you going to be doing with your time, I wonder? I could make a suggestion or..."

Grunt interrupted with a loud burp. Staring down at his nearly empty plate, he let out a disappointed noise. "Going back for fifths," Grunt said, standing up and grabbing his plate. "You want anything while I'm in the kitchen?"

"How about we have a little something to drink, Grunt?" Lisa said, leaning back in her seat and crossing her arms under her breasts in order to shove them upward. "I think there's a bottle of wine back in the kitchen that we can crack open," she suggested with a wink.

"Ha! Wine is for hatchlings," Grunt declared. "Hang on, I think we might have the right ingredients on this ship to mix up some ryncol."

"Ryncol?" Lisa said, cocking her head as Grunt headed for the kitchen. "Never heard of that one before. But I'll have some if you're having some."

Kasumi decided to vacate the mess hall before things got ugly. She didn't relish the headache that the horny young crewman was going to have in the morning.

Quickly darting between the lift doors as one of the marines on the ship entered, Kasumi rode down with the unsuspecting man to the lower decks. She couldn't keep the eager grin off her face as she walked. When she'd found out that the Orpheus had a small but well-supplied workout area, Kasumi had dreamt of the moment she'd walk in and catch Jacob working on that gorgeous body of his.

But unfortunately, he wasn't in the room when Kasumi entered. Instead, the ship's XO Tara Rooker had the workout area to herself at the moment. She was on the pullup bar, letting out light grunts as she hoisted her weight up at a slow but steady pace.

Kasumi hung out for a second, hoping that maybe the fine Commander Taylor would stop in for a last minute set of crunches. But seeing no sign of him, she made her way to the doorway where she nearly ran headlong into a new arrival.

"Mmm, mmm, mmm," said James Vega as he stepped in, having discarded his Alliance uniform in favor of workout gear of a tight-fitting tank-top and sweatpants. He was certainly a much... larger specimen of man than Jacob, Kasumi couldn't help but notice. But such a showoff. Jacob knew how to let you see just enough of the physique underneath his uniform to leave you wanting more – and make you unable to resist the urge to put on a tactical cloak and watch him when he thinks he's alone.

"I'm sorry, what was that you were saying, Commander?" Rooker said, her tone as cold and official as always, even in the midst of a serious workout.
"Nothing, just admiring your form," Vega said, crossing his arms and watching as Rooker continued her reps.

Rooker rolled her eyes. "I hope that you're referring to the form of my exercises, and not... something else."

"No idea what you're talking about, chica," Vega said, his eyes taking the scenic route around Rooker's heaving body. "That's some fine, fine form there... in your pull-ups. But you know, you may have the shooting record on the Orpheus, but back on the Normandy... I had the pull-up record. 184. Think you can beat it?"

"You did 184 pull-ups... in a row?" Rooker asked incredulously.

Vega nodded with a proud smile. "Damn right I did."

"Remarkable... you must have had an awful lot of spare time to waste on the Normandy, Commander," Rooker said, before releasing the bar and dropping down to her feet.

"Actually, you're right," Vega said, then added. "Of course, if somebody like you had been serving on our ship, chica, maybe I'd have had something more interesting to occupy myself with."

Rooker narrowed her eyes. "Why are you calling me that, Commander?"

"What, chica? I dunno, just seems to suit you," Vega said, staring at her face with a discerning look in his eye. "Let me guess. Looking at you, I'd say your family was from... Colombia, right?"

"Venezuela, actually," Rooker said, grabbing a towel from a nearby bench to mop at her sweaty forehead and neck. "Haven't set foot there since I was two, though, and my family spoke English most of the time. So if you were hoping to have some scintillating conversations with me in Spanish, Commander, then I'm afraid this chica won't be able to help you with that."

"Okay, okay, I'm sorry," Vega said. "I won't call you that anymore."

Sighing, Rooker laid down her towel and picked up a water bottle. "Commander Vega, I honestly don't care what you call me. I just hope you shoot a whole lot better than you flirt."

"Hell, yeah! I mean... shit, you don't make your way through N7 training without being able to put a few bodies in the ground," Vega boasted. "And when you've got the Commander Shepard training you personally, you know she ain't gonna accept anything less than the best."

Rooker's water bottle paused an inch away from her lips. "Commander Shepard was your N7 trainer?"

"You didn't know that? After the relays got back up and we brought the Normandy back, Shepard wasn't sure that she wanted to go back to active duty right away. So they had her down in Rio helping out at Vila Militar."

"I knew that, but... I wasn't aware that she had personally handled your training," Rooker said. Her previous cold demeanor had softened a little as soon as Shepard's name had entered the conversation. "I'd be interested to hear what sort of exercises she had you take part in."

Seeing an opening, Vega sidled a little closer. "Sure thing. How about we head over to the mess hall and discuss it over some drinks? I think there's some wine in the kitchen, or maybe some cerveza if you feel like something stronger."

Rooker's eager expression immediately clamped down, and she grabbed her things from the bench. "Maybe another time. I don't want to interrupt your workout. You're going to need to be in peak condition for what comes next."

"Uh, yeah, guess you're right..." Vega said, as Rooker stepped briskly out of the room. As soon as she was out of ear-shot, Vega cursed under his breath. "Dammit..."

"Running away from you again, huh?" said Cortez as he walked into the open gym door. "You need to give this one up, James."

Vega held up his thumb and finger. "This close, Esteban. I was this close. Gotta make sure to talk about Shepard as much as I can when she's around. Chica melted the second I brought up her name."

"Well, better hope that she isn't melting that much over the lovely Commander Shepard," Cortez said with a cocked eyebrow. "Could be maybe you're barking up the wrong tree."

"No way, I can tell," Vega said. "James Vega can read a woman like an open book. Her lips may have been saying, 'you're an idiot,' but her eyes... it's all in her eyes, man."
"Like Maya Brooks?" said a voice from behind them. Both men jumped and turned to see David Riggs walk into the room. "You reading our XO's eyes as well as you read the Cerberus mole's, Commander Vega?" he asked, his tone devoid of any emotion.

Vega glared at the new arrival. "Look, buddy, enough with this. We screwed up, okay? Shepard, Liara, Ash... they're our friends, and we let 'em down. You think we don't feel like shit already? You think I ain't pissed at myself about what happened? Or did Cerberus burn those kinds of feelings out of you when they fucked with your head?"

"James!" Cortez hissed at him, and then turned his attention to Riggs. "Sorry, it's just... this is a stressful situation as it is. How about we all just cool down and be civil, okay?"

Riggs reacted to both Vega's anger and Cortez's calming gestures with an air of pure indifference. "Glad to catch you two together," he said. "You two fought against this Brooks and the Shepard clone. Was hoping you'd give me a sense of what I'm going to be going up against when we catch them."

"Afraid we aren't going to be of much help," Cortez told the marine. "Brooks, or whatever her name actually is, she caught us in a forcefield and knocked us out before we could even get a chance to fight her. And we barely even got close to the clone."

"What about their men?" Riggs asked. "What kind of people does she have backing her up?"

Vega shook his head. "Doesn't matter. Bunch of mercs that were just a distraction. But we pulled some camera feeds and it looks like the two putas have a team of Phantoms at their backs. Real fast, guns in their hands and samurai swords," Vega scowled. "Oh, right, guess I don't need to tell you about how Phantoms operate, do I? You probably gave orders to a few."

"Enough, James!" Cortez raised his voice to Vega.

"Look, I don't give a damn if this guy says he's on our side now," Vega said to Cortez. "You can't just blame indoctrination for the shit this guy did during the war. Where do you think he got the nickname 'Bloody Hand' from, picking his nose too much?" Turning to stare daggers at Riggs, Vega snapped at him. "And how come you're asking us about this, huh? Why not Garrus or Tali? Or Javik? They were there, too. Or maybe you don't want to associate with 'their kind', huh?"

"The turian and quarian are busy working on the ship right now," Riggs said, his voice low and calm in the face of Vega's anger. "And the prothean... doesn't seem like he's in the mood to talk."

Vega lowered his voice to match Riggs's calm demeanor, but there was still anger in his tone. "I've got my eye on you, Mr. Bloody Hand. You do one thing that makes me think you might turn on us, sell us out to your old Cerberus comrades... and I swear I'll hunt you down and kill you myself."

Riggs said nothing for a second, then turned his back to Vega and grabbed the bottom of his uniform shirt. "You see this?" he said, as he lifted up the fabric to reveal a small red line on his lower back. "That's where they put the tracking chip in me when I turned myself in to the Alliance. Every fifteen seconds it sends a signal to Earth, telling them exactly where I am. So if you do end up having to hunt me down, it won't be too difficult for you."

"Whatever, man," Vega said, brushing past Riggs. "Guess I ain't in the mood for a workout right now after all," he said as he left, leaving Cortez alone with the emotionless Marine.

Cortez spoke up soon after Vega left. "Look, sorry about him. He and Shepard were good friends, I'm sure he's just taking his worries out on you."

"No, he's right," Riggs said. "I killed dozens of people when I was with Cerberus. Alliance soldiers, aliens... you'd be an idiot to trust someone like me."

"But it wasn't really you," Cortez protested. "I've heard about what indoctrination does to a person. How it feels like you've lost control of your own body. I've spoken with some people who..."
"Who lied to you," Riggs interrupted. "Or their minds are just rewriting the memories, sparing them the trauma. But it isn't true. When you're indoctrinated, you believe that you are in total control. You're sure that every one of your actions is your own decision and no one else's. When I took orders for Cerberus, fought for Cerberus, killed for Cerberus... I never doubted for a second."

"But... then you joined the Alliance," Cortez said, struggling to keep a hopeful tone in the face of Riggs's emotionless recounting of his indoctrination. "To make up for what happened, right?"

This elicited a non-committal shrug. "Maybe. Or maybe I just enjoyed the killing so much, I didn't want it to end. It was either this or become a serial killer, and the Alliance pays better." This brought an actual emotion to Riggs's face: a slight smile that didn't touch his eyes. "Did you have any other insight on the enemy you might be able to share?"

"Not really, no," Cortez said, looking a little shaken.

"Then I'll be going," Riggs said, turning away from Cortez and leaving him to ponder what had been said.

Kasumi left with Riggs but went the opposite direction from him. She wasn't in a hurry to see what that creepo was up to at this time of night. As she walked, she passed Grunt, hauling a moaning, limp Lisa over his shoulder. Behind him, Kasumi could see several drops of some foul substance that Kasumi quickly figured out was vomit. No sooner had she determined this than Lisa moaned, gulped, and heaved another spray of puke down Grunt's back and onto the floor.

"Kill me," Lisa moaned. "Please kill me."

"Ugh, humans," Grunt muttered to himself as he made his way to the crew quarters. "Never could hold their ryncol."

Stepping around the splattered remnants of Crewman Mason's ill-fated experimentation with krogan liquor, Kasumi decided that her nightly explorations would take her to another area of the ship. And quickly, before the smell overwhelmed her.
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Slaves of Cerberus