thisavrou_log | enslave this

Entry tags:

enslave this

Who: Nihlus, Cloney, Niko, Tali
When: 21st/22nd or so
Where: The Runoff: slavery outpost
What: One Spectre, one fake Spectre and one ancient space Slav mount a rescube mission.
Warnings: Violence, references to rape/slavery, the usual

She was no longer a free woman. That was what kept running through her mind now. Nothing would let her forget it; from the band – soft, so she wouldn’t bruise easily – keeping her wrist attached by a chain to the floor of the transport; to the revealing clothes, more like cloths slung around her chest and hips and tied in place; to the slim metal clasp hiding the chip cut and gouged into the back of her neck. More than a clasp, it was a collar. And she had never been so... Angry wasn’t the right word anymore, that didn’t describe the blinding, burning intensity of it. It was easy to find a refuge in that anger, much easier than accepting that she was chattel. Small. Worthless. Bought and sold.

When she couldn’t be angry anymore, she felt nauseous. It wasn’t just that she’d been sold, not really. It was knowing what she’d been sold into, and every rumbling metre of the transport closer to the shuttle off the station was another metre closer to the brothel she had been sold to. Her and everyone else in the transport – the ten or so men and women dressed similarly to her, collared and tied similarly. Each of her shoulders banged into another captive with every jostle of the tiny carriage.

The fact that she occasionally found her mind drifting, drifting like it wanted to escape her physically only to be jolted back like waking up from a doze, was almost a relief…even if it did worry her, deep down. Some part of it felt like going insane and she didn’t have any reason why.

The transport was on a rail system, some fifty metres above the ground level of the station and snaking through the higher structures suspended between rails above and below. She could hear the occasional voice outside – yelling, screaming. Whenever she heard a gunshot, she found herself hoping it was one of the slavers dead while knowing it was the opposite.

She had reached for the chain - long and slender and clattering on the floor as she moved it – to check for a weak link she might be able to break when the transport jostled especially roughly, nearly knocking them all off the benches. A screech of metal, swearing from the driver’s partition up front…and silence.
For a moment the only sound was nearly a dozen people breathing harshly in the dark.

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Moirans are missing - a lot of them human - and the captains want MID tracking. She should feel useful, heroic in her own small way, but instead, she just feels like she's not really here. It's not even just her mind wandering away from Alan's tracking program that she's trying to extend the range on, but she keeps finding herself where she wasn't before. Having spent entirely too much time in cryo lately, she's ignored Captain Manasseh's suggestions to go to the infirmary.

When she comes to in front of the room Ploiatos had been locked into, she reconsiders, backing away from the door. Maybe it's time to wear her armor around the ship again.

There's a very deliberate 'click' of claws against flooring behind the clone.

It'd taken some time to find her. Nihlus had gotten pretty familiar with her routine when he'd deliberately started testing her boundaries observing her. When he hadn't found her in her usual spaces, he thought the woman might have ended up on the outpost too.

Then he picked up her scent trail.

That it lead so far off from her usual paths was worrying in and of itself. The fact that he found her in front of a door clearly marked with warnings like that was even more worrying. She'd looked almost... dazed just a second ago.

"... Are you alright?"

Nihlus had a good point, that there probably should be someone checking to make sure any vehicle that was stolen wasn't bugged.

But it didn't count if the vehicle owner was dead and honestly Niko wasn't feeling very forgiving of this particular situation. He decided to let Shepard and Nihlus handle rescuing Tali. Why? Because there would have been a lot more of this. He wouldn't have been quiet about retrieving her, and after his last failure of diplomacy, the Moira didn't need that.

This outpost could stand to miss one guy, though. As there wasn't really a code of honor and they didn't seem to care about each other in the slightest...

Niko slammed a conveniently body sized storage box shut. That? Was going to need to be airlocked. As for a decent getaway vehicle though? He'd acquired one. It would get them out fast enough... Whenever they managed to get Tali, that is.

"I'm fine," she snaps reflexively. Her turn away from the door towards him is far more deliberate; for a moment, she can almost believe her own words.

She doesn't look fine. She looks as rattled as she is. However, it means that she is, for the most part, here mentally, with only some small part of her wondering how she got physically here as she mostly just wonders, "Can I help you?"

Of course she's noticed in the past that he stalks her, but he doesn't usually talk to her while doing it.

All she could hope for was that she wouldn't be missed, not straight away. The break down of the railway, the subsequent confusion... Who's to say if a slave slipped off onto the station somewhere? Trying to think like them left an acidic taste in the back of her throat she wasn't going to get rid of for some time.

The only way to lead her from the station and not be noticed was to keep up the pretence and tell herself over and over that a pretence was all it was. This meant Nihlus holding a chain as comfortably as possible, which still looked not comfortably at all, while she walked on the other end, chain attached to the soft bands on her wrists, trying to look...slave-like. Walking behind, eyes down, teeth gritted. It had been bad enough with the slavers, but with people she knew, with Shepard there, it was one of the hardest things she'd ever had to do.

Only upon entering the small hangar with their apparent getaway vehicle and finding it guard-free and quiet did she say anything, albeit quietly, just in case.

"There's a microchip in the back of my neck. We'll have to get rid of it before we go anywhere."

Maybe it just had information on it...but maybe it could be traced. The thought that they were tracing her right now, to this hangar, had occurred to her - and it was making her glance behind them so often it was like she had some kind of nervous tic.

The snap earns no reaction beyond a slight, curious tilt of his head. This is not the first time Nihlus has been given similarly flimsy lies. It's not the first time he doesn't push the matter either.

Perhaps getting the clone off the ship would be good for more reasons than one.

"As you might have heard, some of our crew members have been flung to the slave outpost by the Ingress," he explains, folding his hands behind his back. "Our Chief of Engineering being one of them. I'm here to ask if you'd like to accompany me on a rescue mission."

"Tali," she murmurs. Her judgment of priorities is almost instant: Chief of Engineering who so far hasn't made the ship explode and Shepardly behavior definitely outweigh having to work with an alien to rescue an alien, as much as she'd like to leave Tali to her fate.

She strides past him, heading towards her room. Biotics flicker around one hand, a warmup of sorts. "Let me grab my gear."

For his part, Nihlus doesn't say anything. Once they're in the hangar proper, he does a quick scan for bugs or cameras with his omni-tool. A couple of blast of Overload fries the two his sensors find and a final rescan brings up nothing.

Only then does he turn back to Tali, gently handing her the end of her chain as he moves closer. He keeps his touch clinical, pushing aside the Quarian's hair take a look at the chip underneath, careful not to hook anything on his claw tips. As he peers over the bit of tech, his omni-tool's rendering platform reconfigures into what looks like a soldering iron.

"This is going to sting."

It's quick though: a little snap of electricity and the smell of ozone heralds the chip's quick demise. The motion is quick, well practiced and mechanical, as if he's has done this many times before.

"You should go to Yewll for a full removal," he intones quietly, drawing back. "It's pretty well embedded and I haven't got any local anesthetics on me."

"Is it a tracking chip or for identification? I mean, I wish to shove it through the nose and up into the brain of the man that sold her anyway, but is probably a good idea to find out if anyone's following."

Look at Niko Bellic. Not going on a murderous rampage.

He went to the door Tali was just brought in through anyway and shuts it. "What happened, where did they have you?" Hugs had to happen one-armed, he was getting his gun out.

She jumped at the sudden electric sting at the back of her neck, holding up her hair by the handful, but the sensation was over as soon as it began, and she exhaled the breath she'd been holding before murmuring her thanks. At the mention of local anaesthetic, she paused and caught his eye properly for the first time since leaving the transport. There was no need to tell Nihlus no anaesthetic had been used putting it in - what use was pain relief to a slave?

It was only with the chain in her hand, chip fried, the four of them alone and Niko moving to shut the door that she stood up straight, finally. Ramrod, military straight, to her full height. She could feel the threat of humiliation thickening in her throat and if she was overcompensating in that moment, she didn't care. Humiliation hadn't mattered at the time - surviving had mattered. Now was different.

Her voice, too, came out louder than usual. "Different places." She leaned into the hug, face momentarily buried in Niko's uniform. In a moment she felt the pressure of a dam about to burst from within, and pulled back before it could. "Different slavers." She looked at Nihlus again, to Shepard, straight in the eyes, refusing to look at the ground.

"I think the buyers were taking us off the station when you picked me up." Her look became something bordering on defiant as she looked to Niko, voice vehement. "If they're coming, I want a gun."

She had no idea what kind of chip it was - they certainly didn't tell her - but if it was for tracking? If they're coming here right now? She was going to be the one to kill anybody who wanted to take her back.

Tech Armor still glowing over her N7 gear, she nods and hands over her shotgun. While she's reluctant to give her only gun to an alien, it's what Shepard would do for her friend, no doubt. She's managed so far to work around the brainfog to use her biotics, and she's got her omni-tool with Cryo and Incinerate rounds. Besides, having trained mainly with pistols and submachine guns, she doesn't like the heavier recoil and shorter range of this shotgun.

"I think they're a bit busy to deal with one runaway who looks like a legitimate purpose," she says, despite this. They'd done a pretty damn good job with the distraction; she just hopes the human slaves all got away. She nods to the chain. "Want me to take care of that thing?"

Her biotics crackle over one fist, a demonstration of how exactly she plans to destroy it.

That was actually a lot less convincing than Nihlus had predicted he'd needed to do. He shows no outward signs of surprise though, peering at her as she strides past him, tracking the flickering glow of her biotics.

"I'll be waiting in the cargo bay," he says before she moves out of hearing range. "Niko's sorting out the transport for us."

The Spectre lingers for a bit, watching her go. Then he casts the door one last wary glance before heading off himself.

Hours later and they're on the Outpost.

The Transporter's engine glow had long disappeared between the stars and Niko himself had disappeared, off to locate their getaway ride.

Which left him alone with the clone.

They're standing in an alleyway now, a ways away from the docks. Crowds drift by, the steady stream of people compromised of dozens of species, some tourists here for the gladiatorial fight, some slavers of varying classes- but mostly, it was slaves, either walking by on foot or being carted around in transporters.

"Here," Nihlus says suddenly, his omni-tool flickering to life. "Let's sync up."

It's the first time he's actually spoken after the briefing on the transporter.

Nihlus meets Tali's eyes and while his helmet doesn't give much away, there is a very minute easing of the tension in his shoulders.

To Niko's question, he answers, "Tracking and identification."

Sex slavery where they're actually willing to take precautionary measures to make sure the people they're selling won't get bruised in transport were usually run by people with a decent amount of wealth. They had the power to choose who they wanted, which person catered to a slaver's specific tastes.

And they had money to spend on proper tracking tech.

"They'd have a final location ping," Nihlus explains, watching the clone hand her gun over, carefully hiding any approval. "Which means we should move out before they get a chance to count heads and hunt down anyone that's missing."

"My gun won't work. Not good for your hands. You'll have to ask Nihlus."

Meaning Niko wasn't against it. It was her dignity, and heroism or no it was her decision what to do if they came after her- with limitation, of course, they couldn't bring down the wrath of the entire outpost, but he had nothing wrong in arming her.

In the meantime, he put his uniform coat around her shoulders.

"I can get us out of here but I want to make sure no one is out there looking for us first."

Part of her wanted there to be people. That part wanted viciously for there to be a way to get some of that lost dignity back. As if spilling blood could do such a thing. At Niko's words, her gaze flickered to Nihlus and then, at the offer of a shotgun - modern, good for any race that could pick it up - took it gratefully. The smile she gave in thanks was a pathetic thing, but Shepard would understand all the same.

A moment later, the chain was off too, slithering from her arm to clatter against the ground, echoing around the hanger. She planted one foot over it and slid it away from all four of them.

"Let's just get out of here," the more rational part of her announced, still meeting their eyes like daring them to say something, something gentle, something pitying. It bordered on the combative. She'd never had to fight this hard before for a simple thing like eye contact, and it infuriated her. "I don't want the whole station knowing we're here."

Tugging Niko's coat more securely around her as it swamped her smaller frame, she was taking her first steps towards the transport when a loud clang sounded from outside - she jumped violently and whipped around towards the source.

Coincidence - had to be. People worked in this area, they weren't looking. Right? Part of her had wanted there to be people, but with the chance of it suddenly there...she didn't anymore. She just wanted to get out.

Startled out of her reverie, it takes her a moment to realize where she is, and then to process what he said. She doesn't remember the trip here after the trio had hashed out a plan, which has been weird enough on the Moira, but is downright dangerous in the field. Maybe she should have gone to the medbay about it sooner.

It's too late for that now. She nods, activating her own omni-tool.

"Just until we get back," she says, sending the request through; although Shepard had done her the service of disconnecting from his hardsuit after their trips to the prison ship, the onboard computer had saved his information. "We don't work like this regularly enough to bother making it permanent."

Her hardsuit doesn't show anything out of the ordinary in her vitals.

Edited (icon and HTML) 2016-08-16 10:31 (UTC)

"As you were," she says, quiet but stern. She doesn't do gentle at the best of times, and from the way Tali keeps looking at them, it looks like she doesn't want that anyway. "If anyone notices us, we're trying to pass you off like we bought you."

Niko, though, gets a nod. She wouldn't say no to checking no one's looking for them, especially as eyes on the ground can pick up things like intent and environmental dangers that combat scanners miss. "You can take point." There, a compromise between speed and caution.

Nihlus eyes the vitals for a long moment before his attention slides back over to the clone, peering her over, idly wondering if he'd brought a liability onto the mission. It was good to get her off the ship, but he's beginning to think that it would've been a better idea to have left her with Nico. It's hardly the first time he's worked solo.

"Of course," he says coolly, bringing up the tracker on his MID to double-check Tali's location as their tools synced.

It's too late to turn back now. He'll just have to watch her closely in case the problem gets exacerbated during the course of their mission.

"Let's move out."

The words are a bit gentler this time as the Spectre strides towards the mouth of the alleyway.

Trailing him towards the station, she bites the inside of her cheek to stay grounded to reality, and forces herself to think of the mission. She has to look like she knows what she's doing - look like she's here to buy. Her posture straightens, and for once she attempts a little bit of the mercenary swagger she'd seen in some members of CAT-6 instead of her usual military stride. (Just a little.)

"We should try to find some blueprints or some kind of slave manifesto once we get inside," she says quietly, letting her in-helmet mic broadcast it to him rather than to anyone walking past. "I hate going in blind."

She'd had the blueprints of the sushi restaurant, the casino, and then the Archives back on the Citadel; the only thing left to chance had been Shepard.

Edited (icon) 2016-08-30 11:57 (UTC)

"On station like this, a centralized map of any sort is going to be hard to come by and would probably be borderline useless even then," Nihlus says over his cowl as they slip into the stream of people. There's an ease in the way he slides through the crowds, navigating past slaves, slavers and vehicles alike with a familiar grace.

"People are either already familiar with the place or they're guided to where they need to be."

There's no reason to make things easier on any escaping slaves, after all. Which basically meant that, yes, they're going in blind.

Fortunately, Cloney was working with the Spectre who was usually sent to these exact kinds of stations. Working out the places layout was almost intuitive for Nihlus at this point- and they had the advantage of having a direction to go in already.

"Wonder if any survivors from Mindoir ended up in a place like this."

With Nihlus aware of her true identity, that comment's actually genuine, not an attempt to use her cover. The raid on Mindoir had been one of the first things she'd learnt about Shepard, and she can't stand the thought of aliens taking humans as slaves.

She glances at her MID, and adds, "She's to the right." Behind that giant wall.

"A lot of them did. A rescue was mounted but many are still missing."

Dead, most likely. Human slaves weren't treated particularly well by Batarians. Not with the kind of history the two species had.

When the clone speaks up, he slows to a stop, peering at the wall before them. The structure looks like it could be a warehouse of sorts- which means that they're going to have to move quickly, before Tali was carted off to another destination.

"Let's split and scout for different entry points. I'll take left. We'll meet back here in ten minutes. Use your comm. only if absolutely necessary."

How does she like being given orders to by an alien?

Inside her helmet, she grits her teeth, but bites out an "Understood," before heading off.

For a while, she doesn't do too badly. She blends in with the crowd and acts like a buyer; it's surprisingly easy if she speaks as if she's looking for a merc. She takes photos on her helmet cam of a door guarded by a security officer and a scanner, a window high enough to not be guarded, and what looks a bit like a fire escape with a guard on the balcony. With her MID under her armor and her using her hardsuit systems and omni-tool more, she does not get pegged as being from the Moira.

But come ten minutes, her feet are starting to take her back out the door to the ship, and she has nothing to do with this.

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enslave this

on the Moira

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Getaway Driver

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3 or 4 way thread, maybe branch off some? idk

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