“Get in there and get out in ten.” The order came through his headset and Crassus gave a silent nod and a non-verbal sound to signal that he understood, pushing open the door of the small downtown market. He didn’t acknowledge the two other men standing looking a lot less tense than they should for the bodies on the floor. Crassus took it all in at a glance. Three adults, one bent over the counter, blood pooling under him. Salarian. Shot in the chest. The second just inside the door, facing out, shot in the back, human. The blood was more liquidous. Crassus stepped over him and around the spreading pool. The other two.... Turian. Male and female, the second.... A child.
The giant Invictian tightened his mandibles but said nothing. He hated cleaning up after children, his sister’s face in his mind every time and that was why he’d- Something he didn’t think about. He and Taren had been saved the ramifications of that and it was why he did this now.
Crassus pulled the backpack off his shoulder, took the shotgun out of the folds as he stuck plugs in his ear. Gestured the two men to move and got gun-shot-residue on the salarian’s hands with a handful of shots that didn’t quite empty the clip. Then he pried the fingers loose, let the gun fall naturally.
“Give me your gun.” He said to one of the two men and it was placed in his gloved hand. He put the gun in the human’s hand and repeated the process. “Did you shoot them with this?” He jerked his head toward the parent and child.
The man nodded. He’d killed a child. Crassus didn’t comment on the wrongness of it. Wishing he worked with more krogan, they understood... He looked to the human. “Put his shoes on. Run through the blood and then put them back.” The human gave him a look and Crassus bared his teeth. “Do it.”
He gave the human time, cleaning behind him, getting rid of anything that didn’t fit the picture he was trying to paint, but he got caught up with the child. Little thing. His mind showed him Taren again. He almost asked for something to cover her with but that wouldn’t.... That wouldn’t fit what he’d been told to do. Crassus knelt and did his best to move her father, to put him in a position that shielded her, put their hands together. Said an entreaty to the Spirits over their bodies. Stood, cleaned around them again, wiped away every trace of himself and the two men at the front of the market who were starting to get antsy with his silence and the prayer he’d murmured. Crassus paid them little mind. They were the killers, not him, not the human he was framing.
The giant Invictian stood, pulling his backpack over his shoulder again. It had taken him seven minutes and sixteen seconds. “Hit the silent alarm,” He said as he walked out the door. “And don’t call me again for children.”