The clinic was quiet for a few days after she returned from her expedition. The two refugees, Emma and Danny, volunteered to help with the cafeteria. This freed up medical staff for more important duties. It also meant a constant supply of coffee, once Taylor had repaired the machine, which boosted staff morale.
Even Mordin, who derided the beverage as disgusting flavored bean water, seemed to be galvanized by the change. His work on the immune booster they had discussed together bore fruits. His bio-reactor was constantly at work to produce more doses of the medicine and most of the patients treated with it showed some improvement in their conditions. Unfortunately, some of them were immune to the booster itself.
Still, the formula had bought them some precious time.
The idea for a complete cure and vaccine were taking shape as well. Mordin was building on their prior work with the immune booster but the results were slower than anticipated. Most of the issues came from built-in immunity for Humans and Vorcha. Any vaccine that didn't take it into account had disastrous results when given to those two species. Their first idea had simply been to copy the sequence from the original virus but that had only led to the vaccine self-destructing for some reason. From what her power deduced, the creators had built some sort of anti-tamper protection into the sequences themselves.
Mordin was as good as her power when it came to biology, which was a testament to his incredible intelligence, so she mostly served as a sounding board for him to bounce ideas off.
Once she had repaired everything that needed repairs, she found herself without much to do. She wasn't a nurse and she doubted the patients would appreciate her presence anyway. The couple had the cafeteria well in hand and Stephan at the entrance was enough to manage the security bots.
It was enough to make her feel restless. She could always use Athena's simulation to pass the time during the day, like she had done every night, but she wanted to explore the station as well. It wasn't the same doing it with drones.
"Doctor, I'm going to take a walk."
"Good Luck. Remain vigilant."
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Niusa T'Saro ran. She couldn't afford to stop to catch her breath, the pack of Varren at her heels and their Vorcha minders would tear her to pieces if she did. Her entire body ached. She had overused her biotics and was paying the price. Separated from her team and lost in the maze of alleys of the Gozu district, she was as good as dead.
Maybe she should have gone into archeology, like that T'Soni girl.
If she survived, she promised to herself leave the Suns.
As she rounded a corner at full speed, her luck ran out. She tripped on a piece of rubble and tumbled to the ground in a heap. She barely had enough time to pull her pistol before the first Varren scampered around the corner.
She fired frantically, half of her shots missed entirely, and the other barely grazed the beast. Out of desperation, she wreathed her fist in biotic energy and punched it straight in the muzzle.
Niusa let out a pained cry. The pain from overtaxing herself almost knocked her out. Her last stand had been pointless as three other Varren rounded the corner and bore down on her.
She finally accepted her fate. It's over, she thought.
THUMP! THUMP! THUMP!
The three Varren charging her lost their heads, vaporized into a fine mist by whatever weapon had hit them. Their bodies tumbled into a heap that stopped only a few feet from Niusa. She scrambled back against the wall. She looked towards where the shots had come from and she saw a Quarian woman with a heavy pistol in her hand. The weapon looked to have been heavily modified.
The Quarian stepped towards her and brought up her omni-tool. Even through the biotic exhaustion, Niusa could feel her presence like a beacon shining in the night. She had never heard of a Quarian with this much biotic potential.
"Who …" Niusa tried to say but coughed several globs of blue blood instead.
"Don’t try to talk. You have a punctured lung." She felt the cool sensation of medi-gel and the pain faded into the background. "That should keep you alive long enough …" The Quarian woman said before she turned towards the pack of Vorcha at the end of the hall.
They opened fire immediately. Their weapons thumped a steady rhythm but none of the projectiles reached them. The Quarian woman was standing firm in front of Niusa, a ripping blue barrier in front of her. With a simple slash of her other hand, she tore the five Vorcha apart using a biotic Warp. Only one of them survived, heavily wounded, and was immediately dispatched by the Quarian's terrifying weapon.
When the fight was over, the woman kneeled down next to her and pulled Niusa's arm over her shoulder. She winced in pain as she was lifted up.
"Let's get you to the clinic," the Quarian said and started to help her shamble forward.
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Tay'Lor carried Niusa through the halls of the Gozu district. Niusa lost track of time as they took strange twists and turns that made little sense to her until she saw a small drone land on the Quarian's palm. She was likely using them to avoid any patrols in the area.
Finally, they reached what Tay'Lor had called the clinic. It was, as promised, a medical facility though she had never seen one whose entrance was guarded by an annoyed-looking human and an army of military mechs.
"Why did you bring one of them here?" The guard looked accusingly as Niusa.
"She was alone, wounded," Tay'Lor said, a slight tinge of anger in her voice, "I wasn't going to just let her die."
"Fine," the guard spat, "but she doesn't go back to her mercenary pals."
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
"Don't … want to," she coughed. "Done … with …"
"Stop," Tay'Lor put a gloved finger on her lips. "You're hurting yourself. She's my responsibility, Stephan."
"And the safety of the clinic is mine," the guard retorted.
The Quarian supporting her didn't answer, she continued to support Niusa as they moved through the clinic. She saw people of various races waiting on seats or laid down on beds. Some of them had obvious wounds, even missing limbs, and all looked at her with a mix of suspicion and anger.
Unexpectedly, Tay'Lor didn't drop her on the first available bed but instead brought her to another room near the back of the clinic. Inside was a Salarian with a missing horn. She vaguely remembered a briefing from Secusius about a doctor setting up a clinic in the district but her mind hadn't made the connection until now.
"Mordin," Tay'Lor said.
Without the need to say more, the Salarian helped her lay Niusa down on an operating table. She barely had the time to look around when something cold was pressed to her neck. She had no time to panic as the anesthetics took hold of her and she fell into a deep slumber.
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"Expedition eventful," Mordin commented. "Blue Suns hostile. Reason for rescue?"
"She was alone, pursued by a group of Vorcha," Taylor explained. "Didn't sit well with me to just … let her die."
She examined the armor of the unconscious Asari woman. It was nearly identical to the one worn by the other members with a white dot surrounded by a circle inscribed on the chest plate and both pauldrons. The large amount of scorch marks, impact craters, and the large hole in the chest, showed it had seen better days.
"Compassionate," the doctor said. "Require assistance?"
"I should be able to handle it," she said. "Now that my power has analyzed Asari biology, I should be able to heal her."
"Interesting," Mordin commented. "Curious about healing ability."
"Feel free to watch," she shrugged.
Taylor found release clasps on each side and pulled the front of the chest plate off. Her medi-gel injection had temporarily stopped the bleeding but the Asari woman was still in poor condition. She continued to disassemble the armor until only the undersuit remained.
The bullet wound was plainly visible and the Asari woman had gotten extremely lucky, only a few centimeters to the left and it would have hit her heart. Her first step was to apply the Purify effect from White Mage to cleanse the wound and remove the medi-gel. This opened up the flow of blood again but she quickly followed it up with the Staunch effect to stop it. Finally, once her power had recharged, she used Heal to remove the wound.
It was impressive to see the flesh knit itself back together at an accelerated rate. She kept an eye on the woman's condition with her omni-tool during the process. Even the slight damage to her nerves around the element zero nodules in her body was repaired in short order. The power was entirely automatic but she wanted to be certain that no mistakes were made.
"Three uses of ability," Mordin said. "Spaced by five seconds. Why? Recharge delay? Possible. Usage, very discreet. Physical contact not required. Patient recovery complete. Method, unknown. Result, impressive."
"This power is mostly automatic. I only need to pick the target."
"Very curious. How many powers? Selection shown previously very large."
"All of them," Taylor said with a smug chuckle. "On Earth Bet, I would be classified as a Trump, a type of parahuman whose power can affect powers in some way. In my case, to change which powers I have at my disposal at will."
"Very powerful," Mordin narrowed his eyes. "Connection with abnormal physiology? Another so-called power? Likely. Usage voluntary or … cannot change."
It was fascinating to watch him gain more and more information each time she used her powers in his presence. He hadn't discovered anything groundbreaking regarding their origins but his grasp of their mechanics merely from interacting with her was impressive. Depending on how long she spent in his company, he'd probably compile a fairly complete dossier on her.
As long as he didn't spread it around, she was fine with it. She quite liked the quirky Salarian scientist. He reminded her of Lisa and maybe she felt nostalgic at having something so similar so far from home. Those two together would probably be an explosive combination. It would probably be enjoyable to see them out-Thinker each other.
"The latter," she confirmed. "Some of the powers in my collection are permanent."
Mordin scratched his chin with an intense look. He was likely mulling over everything.
"I'm going to bring her to a bed," she picked the sleeping Asari in a bridal carry. "Stephan will want to keep an eye on her anyway."
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Niusa emerged from anesthesia feeling … fine. The pain in her chest was gone, even the symptoms of biotic overexertion had faded. She had never woken up from surgery feeling that well. When she looked around, she discovered that she was in the main part of the clinic. Tay'Lor and the Salarian doctor must have moved her there to let her recover.
It looked like they had stripped her of everything except for the undersuit of her armor. That had likely been necessary to perform the surgery. There was also a security mech at the foot of her bed, very obviously keeping an eye on her, the other patients snuck her distrustful looks. It made sense, she was a Blue Sun after all. She knew that they didn't have the best reputation among Omega's residents. Better than the Blood Back but it was a low bar to clear.
She tried to sit up but the security mech stopped her.
"Please do not move," it said. "A doctor will attend you shortly."
It hadn't raised its weapon or otherwise made any threatening moves but she felt it was better to follow the instructions. She owed Tay'Lor that much for saving her.
Niusa lay on the bed for several minutes, watching the metal ceiling. Before Tay'Lor had saved her, she had promised to leave the Blue Suns if she survived. In truth, she had been thinking of it for a while. The thrill of mercenary work had been entertaining for the first decade or so but the hierarchy of the group was suffocating to her. Assholes like Drey or creeps like Jonny, who had been incessantly trying to get into her pants, certainly didn't help either.
The idea that someone, a doctor, would run a free clinic, on Omega of all places, was preposterous. Yet, here she was. In that very same clinic. Her life saved by a stranger because it had been the right thing to do for her. Maybe all that time as a mercenary in the Terminus Systems had given her a cynical outlook on things.
She felt Tay'Lor approach before she saw her, that same beacon of energy as before. Now that she was in a better shape, both physically and mentally, she noticed that her energy was subtly different from other biotics she had met. Niusa had always been very gifted in that realm. Not in terms of raw power but in the finesse with which she could sense and weave the mass effect fields.
It was mesmerizing in a way, enticing. She wanted to know more about it.
And Tay'Lor too.
"Finally awake," Tay'Lor stopped next to her bed. She scanned Niusa again with her omni-tool. "Everything looks to be in order, you've made a full recovery." She said in a pleased tone, it was sometimes hard to determine with Quarians. "Try not to get shot again," she added with a wink, barely perceptible behind her visor.
"Thank you, Tay'Lor, for saving me," she finally said.
"It was the right thing to do," Tay'Lor said with conviction. "You can leave," she addressed the security mech.
"Unable to comply," the mech replied. "Orders from Administrator Stephan."
"You can leave," Tay'Lor reiterated, "or I will use you for spare parts to repair the coffee maker."
"Override acknowledged Administrator Taylor," the mech walked away.
"Did you just threaten a security mech?" Niusa said, dumbfounded. The rest of the residents in the clinic seemed as shocked as her that it had worked. Tay'Lor laughed.
"I sent the override command from my suit," she whispered.
Niusa let out a laugh as well, it had been quite a while since she had seen a prank like that being pulled.
"Let's get something to eat," Tay'Lor beckoned Niusa to follow her. "You must be hungry after all that running." Her stomach made itself known right at that moment. "I hope you like field rations. Today, it's … mystery dish with potatoes for levo species and … more Turian soup for dextro."