<span style="color: red">Hmph.</span>Desmond grunted in response to Milenya.<span style="color: red">Take them. Get the Asari and the Quarian ready for show.</span>He ordered the other guards.<br/><br/><span style="color: green">The Human?</span><br/><br/><span style="color: red">Don't care.</span><br/><br/>The guards finished disrobing the girls, removing their suits completely, then giving them a shove toward the large airlock to the left. Shira looked back at her suit as one of the guards gathered up the three outfits.<span style="color: indigo">"My suit!"</span>She protested, trying to stop and turn around.<span style="color: indigo">"No! I need my suit! I could die!"</span>She knew the dose of Synthetimmune still in her system was running out of time, and without her suits backups, being left in the open air could put her in mortal danger - and further away from the embedded omni-tool that would aid them in hacking the communications relay. The guards didn't slow or turn around to retrieve it.<br/><br/><span style="color: green">Shut up.</span>One barked, then opened the airlock. The guards pushed the girls into the long brightly lit, empty corridor. It was hexagonal, with the walls sloping out at angles. There was very little deformation in the wall's paneling. No where to hide in a gunfight, no panels to hack or systems to break into. There was only a door at either end.<br/><br/><span style="color: indigo">"No! My suit!"</span>Shira yelled as they pushed along. Shira pushed back against her guard, trying vainly to keep herself closer to it. The airlock closed, shutting her protests off from the room of mercenaries.<br/><br/>Desmond shook his head.<span style="color: red">Fucking hell, she just doesn't shut up does she?</span>He looked at Firas and Milenya, then gave the guard holding the three girl's discarded equipment a nod to return it to its owners. He handed the suits to Firas who struggled to grapple the unwieldy load.<br/><br/><span style="color: red">Alright, come on. We need to make this quick.</span>Desmond said and led them ahead. The long wall on the right side of the L shaped room revealed a thick damage resistant window and checkpoint within. A guard was reclined on a chair watching a row of monitors displaying the other areas of the base. On the screens were a half dozen men in the loading dock, various views of what Firas had to assume to be section B of the facility and various shots of other people, some naked, others clothed standing and bound. Firas watched as Shira, Ashana, and Kala were lead along the corridor on another of the monitors. Desmond approached the door leading into the room and entered a code in the red holo- interface and led them inside where another door waited on the other side of the narrow room. The end of the room opposite that with the guard and the monitors was occupied by an array of computers and servers, though their purpose remained unknown without examination.<br/><br/>The second door led them out of the checkpoint and into another L room, this one oriented opposite the other. Directly ahead was a closed door, further down the another. At the bend was another door to the north. The red holo-interface indicated that it was locked. Desmond led them through the room, passing the two doors. As they walked by the further of the two doors opened and a guard emerged, heading back the way they had come toward the checkpoint. Inside Firas could see tables and bunks, as well as a vid-screen and a holograph emitter with a naked asari dancing on one of the tables. Inside were several men and women of several species - Krogan, Turian, Batarian, Human, and an Asari, all in states of undress, putting armor on and loading weapons. The Barracks, Firas asserted to himself.<br/><br/>Desmond continued, leading them around the bend past a locked door in the north wall. Another door was further down the north wall where the room ended. Desmond opened it and stepped inside, motioning for the two to follow. The door did not close when they entered. Inside was ostensibly the command room for the base, and like the slaver king's office. There were an array of consoles that wrapped around the far corner of the room. Leaning in the corner by the door was a M-96 Mattock assault rifle with a red decal that looked like a Varren mounting an Asari. A half empty bottle of alcohol sat on the console desk.<br/><br/><span style="color: red">No time to bullshit today.</span>He stated bluntly, activating a console which displayed a readout of the local star system. Four tightly grouped red indicators appeared to show something rapidly approaching the planet. He hit a few more keys, synchronizing his omni-tool the the computer then turned and looked at them.<span style="color: red">I'll do 50,000 for the three, primarily for the Quarian and Asari. Its fair, you know it is, and I'd really rather not waste time haggling.</span>He grabbed the Mattock in the corner in no aggressive fashion.<br/><br/><br/>***<br/><br/><br/>When Darion made his call to the Acheron the channel remained suspiciously silent.<br/><br/><span style="color: DarkOrange">Right.</span>Sorv agreed when Darion made the call to move to the rear entrance vantage point, and began crawling back down the embankment far enough that they could stand and run safely. Sorv double timed it along the slope to re-position with a good vantage of the rear entrance. The algae covering everything made footing treacherous, but he kept his balance. When they reached a suitable position, he dropped back down and crawled up the slope again, drawing his Mantis to survey.<br/><br/>The commotion at the front of the base was not mirrored at the single rear door. A lone guard leaned against the wall outside, doing something with his omni-tool, completely oblivious to the world around him. A single bright light sat above the door, illuminating the area nearby. From their vantage, Sorv and Darion could see the guards on the roof, all with their attention directed at the landing pad. On the southern facility was the communications array, rising from the building like three narrow rectangular spires. Sorv panned his scope across the roof, observing the scenario. There were several vents on the roof of the facility, and an access hatch near the array that likely led straight down into building A. At the array was an inactive console. At intervals of several meters along the edges of roof were mechanisms that Sorv knew to be deploy-able barriers that, when activated would rise up and provide cover for units on the roof. Sorv counted 3 guards making patrols all carrying high powered rifles with Rocket Launchers on their back.<br/><br/><span style="color: darkorange">We could drop the back door guard, but it could alert the entire base.</span>He looked along the north edge of the base. With no access ways, save the vent, it was completely unwatched. It would be possible for someone to quickly sprint down the north approach unnoticed, though with the guards patrolling there was still a chance that they could be spotted.<br/><br/><br/>***<br/><br/><br/>Ashana was pushed down the corridor, giving Kala and Shira an occasional glance. She played it right, equal parts afraid and resigned to her horrible fate. Not an unfamiliar situation to her. Playing the slave was occasionally required in her lines of work on Omega. Some payed well for a whore who would act a slave, while the others didn't maintain their guard around someone they thought broken and obedient. Of course, the odds had never been quite as stacked against them as they were here. She found it all rather exhilarating.<br/><br/>They reached the other end of the corridor and the guard entered the code, Ashana not far to his side and gave a few quick glances to try and see if she could snag some of it. 1-5-8-5-3-0-0. She looked up, repeating the number over and over in her mind, even as the airlock opened. 1585300. 1585300. 1585300.<br/><br/>They were pushed out of the corridor and into the facility labeled B on their maps. On their right was a door, their left a window. The walls on either side opened in a main room that extended the entire buildings length. On the other side of the main room was a lift that rode tracks up to the second floor, beside which was a ladder for more conventional traversal. The main room had no ceiling, rather it was ringed by a railing where the second floor could look down, and shoot down to the ground floor below.  Four corridors ran from the main room, two north, two south. Ashana had to assume that the furthest corridors led to section A and the back door, while the two closer corridors lead to other room.<br/><br/>The main room was very occupied. There were two lines of people of various species. Most of the men wore plain jumpsuits, while all the women were nude. The select few males that were not clothed were of particular form, likely naked as a selling point. Labor and pleasure slaves, Ashana determined, observing the lineups - and given the dominance of naked women, a predominantly male clientele. There were eight guards - five on the ground floor, three above, all armored from head to foot, and carrying serious hardware.  She counted one M-451 Firestorm, an M-100 Grenade Launcher, two Sub-Machine guns that were so beat up and heavily modified that she didn't recognize them, an M-55 Argus, an M-300 Claymore in the hands of a Krogan, a modified Phaeston, and one woman with no guns at all - no doubt Biotic.<br/><br/>The armament made Ashana's brow twinge as she suppressed the instinct to raise it. It was a hell of a lot of hardware, the sort you'd want to fend off a pack of charging Krogan, or an army. This wasn't some show of force anymore. This was a garrison ready for a battle.<br/><br/>The girls were led left, down the corridor just passed the window. The turn around the corner revealed a door to their immediate left, going into the room with the window, and a slender door further down on the right. The unadorned look of the door make it look like its purpose, or whatever was behind it, was purely utilitarian. She quietly hoped they would be lead there, rather than to the window room. She was sorely disappointed as they made an immediate left. The door opened, revealing a room with counters ringing three of its walls, while the fourth was a set of shelves that were stacked with clothing and equipment. The counters had several implements on them, sexual and non, bottles of something, in a corner was an injection syringe. As they entered one of the three guards hung back and yelled into the main room,<span style="color: green">Hey, we've got three more! Desmond wants them up front!</span><br/><br/><span style="color: teal">For what?</span>The female asked, looking from the lines of slaves to the guard.<br/><br/><span style="color: green">High price, fuckables. Asari and Quarian.</span>He said. The Asari looked at the line then nodded.<br/><br/><span style="color: teal">We'll put them up front, out of the line then. They worth that?</span><br/><br/><span style="color: green">Shit I'm tempted to keep 'em both!</span>The guard told her to make a point of their value, and laughed.<span style="color: green">Fucked up that we can't have some fun with 'em first, but hey, credits are credits, right?</span><br/><br/>He entered the room and Ashana felt a small measure of relief that the door behind him closed. Still, the window was bad. When she made her move, it would all be for nothing of someone happened by at the wrong moment and saw them.<br/><br/><span style="color: green">Alright, let's get a mask on this one before she gets sick.</span>The guard said, looking at Shira.<span style="color: green">Get some of those drape things, too. Dress her up.</span><br/><br/><span style="color: darkorange">I'm going to get her rubbed down.</span>The other guard said stepping away from her and towards the counter.<br/><br/><span style="color: green">Yeah, bullshit you are. I'm doing it.</span>The other said.<br/><br/><span style="color: darkorange">Yeah, fuck you.</span>He hit a key and opened a draw beneath the counter, and mulled about in it, pushing things aside looking for something.<br/><br/>The other guard walked up to him and grabbed his arm.<span style="color: green">You hear me asshole? I've never gotten my hands of a Quarian before, so I'm doin' her!</span>The man with his hand in the drawer yanked his arm from the other's grip and shoved him, prompting the other man to pull his gun and point it at the other man's face.<span style="color: green">Fuck you, you wanna die over some stupid shit like that?</span><br/><br/>The other man was unnerved by the weapon, and for a tense moment said nothing, then sneered and dismissed the other man with a wave.<span style="color: darkorange">Fuckin' whatever. Have fun. Asari's more worth my time anyway.</span>He turned and gave Ashana a solid, loud slap on her ass.<br/><br/>The other guard, a Batarian had been busy grabbing a standalone breather unit with a clear face shield which he promptly put on Shira'Va. The guard who had taken over the drawer search removed an applicator of disinfectant gel, and made his way back to Shira. The Quarian glowered at him, as the mask was put on. The guard paused and gave her a look.<span style="color: green">Remember bitch, you make yourself more trouble than your worth, I'll put a bullet in you, and then I'll fuck your corpse anyway.</span>The guard took off his gloves then applied a long line of gel along her leg. The sudden cold made Shira'Va retract a bit, but the guard grabbed his thigh tightly, and began rubbing the gel along her leg. Ashana had never seen the practice, though it made sense. It would provide a buffer against skin infection and irritation, letting them keep her naked for a longer time than would normally be safe, and it gave her skin a nice sheen.<div class="messageTextEndMarker"> </div>