But it wasn’t as if he could change his mind. He was in too deep. The Blue Suns in the warehouse knew his identity; now he’d have to keep them around as his personal bodyguards until this job was finished. It was the only way to make sure they didn’t reveal his identity to the rest of the Blue Sun crew. What
happened at Sidon was going to draw attention, and Edan couldn’t take the risk of someone exposing his involvement. He also needed to make sure there were no loose ends that could link him to the attack, which was why he had agreed to this meeting.
“He’s here.” Edan jumped slightly at the voice. One of the Blue Suns — a fellow batarian — had crept up silently behind him and was now standing close enough to whisper in his ear.
“Bring him in,” he replied, quickly regaining his composure. The merc nodded and left the room as his employer stood up, grateful to be out of the uncomfortable chair. A moment later the guest of honor finally appeared.
He was easily the most impressive krogan Edan had ever seen. At two and a half meters tall and nearly two hundred kilograms, he was large even by the standards of his reptilian species, but not enormous. Like all krogan, the top of his spine was slightly curved, giving him a hunchbacked appearance. The
effect was further enhanced by the heavy frill of bone and scaled flesh growing from his upper back, collar, and shoulders like a thick shell, from which his blunt head protruded. Rough, leathery plates covered the crown of his skull and nape of his neck. His features were flat and brutish, almost prehistoric. He had no visible nose or ears and his eyes were small and set wide on either side of his head, though they gleamed with a cruel cunning.
A krogan could live for several centuries, his or her complexion growing duller and darker with age; this one’s skin was all mottled browns and tans, with almost no remaining trace of the pale yellow and green markings common to younger members of the species. A labyrinth of discolored welts and scars crisscrossed his face and throat, ancient battle wounds forming a disfiguring pattern, as if all his veins were on the verge of bursting through the surface of his skin. He wore light body armor, but he carried
no weapons — those would have been removed at the door, as per Edan’s previous orders. Despite being unarmed he still radiated an aura of menace and destruction.
The krogan walked with an odd, lumbering grace; a force of nature rolling across the floor of the warehouse, merciless and unstoppable. Four Blue Suns escorted him in, two marching on either side. They were there to intimidate the bounty hunter and dissuade him from any aggressive responses if the negotiations went poorly. But it was clear that they were the ones who felt intimidated. Their tension was obvious in every step; they moved as if they were standing on the edge of a volcano about to erupt. One of them, a young human with a Blue Sun tattoo covering his left eye, kept reaching down to the pistol at his side as if trying to draw courage from the mere act of touching it.
Edan would have found their discomfort amusing if he hadn’t been relying on them for protection. The batarian decided he would do everything in his power to make sure this meeting went smoothly.
As the krogan approached, his lips pulled back in a snarl, exposing his serrated teeth… or maybe it was a smile. He stopped a few steps away, still flanked on either side by the four mercenaries.
“My name is Skarr,” he growled, his voice so deep it sent thrumming vibrations across the floor. “I am Edan Had’dah,” the batarian replied, giving a slight tilt of his head to the left, a gesture of
admiration and respect among his species. Skarr tilted his own head in response, but he leaned to the
right: a greeting usually directed at inferiors.
Edan bristled involuntarily. Either Skarr was insulting him, or the krogan didn’t understand the significance of the gesture. He chose to proceed as if it was the latter explanation, though from what he knew of Skarr there was a good chance it was the former.
“I don’t normally agree to meet with the people I hire,” he explained, “but in your case I chose to make an exception. Based on your reputation, your skills are worth bending the rules for.”
Skarr dismissed the compliment with a derisive snort. “Based on your reputation I thought you’d be
better dressed. You sure you can afford me?”
There were some shocked murmurs from the other batarians in the room. Casting aspersions on the monetary worth of a social better was a grave insult among their culture. Again, Edan wondered if Skarr had done this on purpose. Fortunately, he was used to dealing with the less-cultured species of the galaxy, and he wasn’t hiring Skarr because of his renowned etiquette.
“Rest assured, I have sufficient funds to pay you,” he replied, his voice calm and even. “It is a simple job.”
“This have anything to do with the Sidon base?”
Edan’s inner eyes blinked once, registering his surprise. Negotiation was a subtle dance of deception and misinformation, each party holding secrets from the other in an effort to gain the upper hand. And Edan had just slipped up. His involuntary reaction had revealed a fact he’d meant to keep hidden… if the krogan was smart enough to pick up on it.
“Sidon? Why would you think that?” he asked, keeping his voice carefully neutral. Skarr shrugged his massive shoulders. “Just a hunch. And my price just went up.”
“Your involvement only requires you to find and eliminate your target,” Edan countered. His voice gave nothing away, but inside he was silently cursing himself for losing the first round of bargaining.
“Target? Just one?”
“Just one. A female human.”
The krogan turned his head from side to side, scanning the dozen or so Blue Sun mercs scattered about the warehouse. “You’ve got a lot of men here. Why don’t you make them do your dirty work?”
Edan hesitated. He preferred to ask the questions; he didn’t like answering them. He was wary of making another mistake in their negotiation. But even his reluctance gave away more than he intended.
Skarr barked out a laugh. “These hrakhors screwed it up, didn’t they?”
Every merc in the warehouse tensed up at his words, confirming them as fact. Not that it mattered. Somehow Edan knew Skarr would see through any false denials, so he simply nodded, conceding another point to his opponent.
“What happened?” the krogan wanted to know.
“I hired the Blue Suns to find her and bring her in for interrogation,” Edan admitted. “One of them spotted her on Elysium. They found him several hours later crawling around a side street, looking for his teeth.”
“That’s what happens when you’re too cheap to hire a real professional.” One insult too many.
The man with the tattoo whipped his pistol out and slammed the butt against the side of the krogan’s skull. The force of the blow rocked Skarr’s head to the side, but it did not knock him off his feet. He wheeled around with a deafening roar, catching his attacker with a vicious backhand that broke the young man’s neck.
The other three mercs fell on Skarr before their comrade’s body hit the ground, their combined weight dragging the big alien to the floor. Before the meeting, Edan had given them strict orders not to kill Skarr unless absolutely necessary… he needed him to track down the missing woman. So instead of shooting the bounty hunter all three were piled on top of him, pinning him to the ground as they tried to pistol whip him into unconsciousness.
Unfortunately, nobody had told Skarr he couldn’t kill them. A long, jagged blade appeared in his hand, materializing from some secret hiding place in a boot, belt, or glove. Edan jumped back from the fray as the blade gashed open the throat of one merc. The return arc sliced through the vulnerable joint between the knee and thigh in the body armor of a second, severing his femoral artery. As he instinctively clutched at the gushing wound with both hands Skarr drove the blade into his chest, piercing his protective vest and puncturing his heart.