AN:- Oh my god this marks the official complete end of the Mass Effect 2 storyline! Only ME3 to go now!

Chapter One: Aratoht

"I don't like you going in alone Commander."

"This isn't up for debate Garrus." Shepard checked the scope on her Widow rifle and then folded it down to carry-mode. "The doctor is being held by radical extremists and there's some sort of Prothean technology on the line as well. If we get caught then a lot more will be compromised than just the ship. I can go in alone, bring her out and retrieve the artefact before anyone even knows I'm there."

He grabbed her elbow as she made for the door to the armoury and she turned to glare at him. "I know it's been hard for you since Miranda and Jack left, but you're not alone in this Shepard."

She shook him off. "This has got nothing to do with my feelings Garrus, whatever they might be. The mission requires I go in alone, so I'm going in alone. This isn't the first time I've been on solo ops."

"But it is the first time that a solo op has included an extended stealth mission in hostile enemy territory."

"I've done those before as well, before the Normandy."

He followed her out into the CIC. "I've done a few of those myself, and I know how helpful it can be to have backup on hand to keep a rescue window open."

They were passing the CIC and heading for the cockpit now. "This is a batarian prison. The more people involved the greater the chance of detection and you know that. I can slip in entirely unnoticed, make my way to Kenson and free her before anyone even knows I'm there. Then we just organise a rendezvous time for the Normandy and you pick me up." She held up a hand to staunch any more argument. "I've made my decision Garrus. This is how we're going to do this and that's final."

They came into the cockpit as Joker was activating the stealth drive. "We should be able to slip in right under their radar Commander."

"Good work Joker. Once I've made the drop you get yourselves out of any identifiable detection range. No radio contact, just in case they're monitoring that as well. You wait three hours and then you come to the rendezvous spot I've assigned. That should give me time to get in, get Kenson, and get out to the location."

After examining the map she had picked a remote location that seemed to be nothing more than a hard hike away from the prison. It would serve perfectly for the shuttle to land. "If I'm not at the rendezvous, you send a single short wave transmission to my omni-tool. If you don't receive a response wait another hour before sending a second burst. After that you high-tail it out of the system and contact Hackett."

"I don't like the thought of leaving you there Commander."

"If I can't get Kenson and or myself to the rendezvous in four hours then I'm either captured or dead, and it won't do you any good to get spotted in batarian territory." She rested a firm hand on his shoulder. "You have your orders Joker. Let me know when it's time for the drop."

"Yes Commander."

She turned to find Garrus giving her his best disapproving stare. "Even if a team was the sensible option you still can't walk." She gestured to the cane he was carrying. "You're staying."

"Fine. But if you're not there at the rendezvous point I'm coming in to get you."

"You'll cause an inter-system incident."

"That's usually what happens when you burn a place to the ground." He met her glare with an even look. "You get yourself out alive Commander. Damn the hostage if you have to."

She nodded and stepped onto the elevator. "I'll see you at the rendezvous."

"And not a minute later."

The doors slid closed and she was on her own.

/|\

It was raining heavily when she set the shuttle down outside the facility, pounding on the windows and obscuring her view. The sensors brought the shuttle in to a neat landing though, and she stepped out onto solid rock. As she set the shuttle on return-to-base mode she looked back to see hints of mountains and forests through the haze. The facility loomed out of the hill before her, sleek wet metal.

She made her way to the sealed door and checked the access panel. It had been fortified against hacking attempts. For a fleeting moment she wished Tali had come, but she pushed that aside and examined the door. There was a power cable leading round to one side, and she found a computer terminal on the wall nearby. It was much easier to hack into, and when that was done it was child's play to disengage the power to the door. It slid open and she stepped inside, her boots scuffing slightly on the stone floors.

To her left she saw metal bars, slightly bent but clearly meant to keep out the larger animals and creatures that were common to Aratoht. Possibly they were usually electrified as well. She drew her pistol and moved down to the right, catching the sharp smell of varren blood. To her left were more bars, and a dead varren slumped beyond them. She went right again, hugging the wall and stopping to check for unusual noises or movement.

Ahead was a hole in the ground with a makeshift bridge in place. She checked the controls but they were sending sparks of electricity across the floor. She decided not to risk activating it and causing an explosion. There was a door to the left with a ramp leading down that would bring her further in anyway. She headed down, hearing the tell-tale panting of another varren just out of sight. She set the incendiary charge on her pistol, then stepped out and fired a single shot into the beast's eye. It burned to a crisp in seconds and she stepped out into an empty cavern just beneath the hole.

They let the varren inside. She kicked the burned body to one side and examined the space. The batarians must send their prisoners down here to die. I have to find Doctor Kenson now.

There was a narrow tunnel that led off one side of the cavern, but she didn't trust it, not if there were more varren inside. A gunfight in such an enclosed space could alert the batarians. But on the floor she saw a corresponding bridge control that looked undamaged. She activated it and above her the bridge slid into place, the indicator lights on either side glowing green to show a good purchase.

She headed back up and drifted across the bridge, spotting another dead varren ahead. The path went right and she came to the bottom of asset of stairs, a dead varren at the body. Apparently some of the prisoners put up a fight before they went. Or else it was the batarians clearing out the lower levels to prevent an infestation.

Up the stairs she heard a varren growl and pressed up against the wall for cover, glimpsing out to try and spot her prey. There was a narrow corridor beyond, and a laser trap midway down. She couldn't see the varren, but she could see the power controls for the trap. Cautiously she stepped out and began to work her way down, pistol before her and eyes on the shadows.

There was an intersection she hadn't noticed, and the minute she reached it a varren came skidding round the corner, howling at her and pouncing forwards. She managed to get her arm up in front of her face and its jaws clamped onto her armour, failing to penetrate. With her enhanced strength she barely even felt it, and before it could disengage she brought her pistol up and put two bullets right into its head. It dropped off her arm with a whine and collapsed to the floor.

Standing again she went to disengage the laser trap, but the floor had fallen through here as well. This place is run down. Even for a prison. She went down the intersection the varren had come from instead, seeing the tell-tale glow of another laser trap ahead.

A voice echoed around the corridor and she dropped into the cover of a corner, listening intently. The voice was batarian. "Take the human into questioning."

A second voice followed it, female and defiant. "Get your hands off me!"

Shepard waited another moment to see if they would say anything more, but there was only the hum of the lasers ahead. She moved further in, but there was no sign of the power source for the second trap. A door was beyond the trap and for a moment she considered trying to simply duck under the lasers, but they were moving, erratically enough that she couldn't be sure where they would move to next. She didn't fancy losing an arm and there was an untrapped corridor to the right anyway. She followed it down to find more varren bodies, and at the very end a boxy looking power supply.

There was no other way to go, the end of the tunnel had collapsed entirely, spreading rubble across the floor. She shrugged and sighted her pistol on the power source, putting two rounds into it.

The effect was instantaneous, blowing a hole in the pipe which ran along the roof. Not exactly what I had in mind, but it'll do. The gas valve was right next to her and with a hard shove she twisted it round, shutting off the fires.

Round the corner there were more gas valves which she activated in sequence to reveal what was obviously someone's private quarters. It was in just as much disrepair as the rest of the prison, though at the very least the occupant had brought in a clean table and locker. She activated a datapad left on the table and a harsh batarian voice came from it. "I hear humans are scurrying like vermin in the asteroid belt. I say we arm a mission to flush them all out."

What a pleasant man.

She went back out and used her knife to scratch a deep cut in the wall, signalling that she had been done that way. The tunnels were a practical maze and she didn't want to spend ages simply trying to find her way. She backtracked a little way and found a corridor she hadn't taken, following it to find a short ramp with a door at the end. She held her pistol ready and activated it.

It opened to reveal a much cleaner room, with no sign of the wear and tear of the tunnels. This must be the real prison, not just the execution tunnels. It seemed that she was in some sort of storage room, though the shelves were empty of anything that might have given her a clue about the prison. A set of stairs at the back brought her further in.

At the top of the stairs she froze as more voices came to her from above.

"They wanted to slam an asteroid into the mass relay." She thought she recognised it as the guard from the datapad, but then she had always had trouble distinguishing batarian voices.

"Can they even do that?" The second guard sounded younger.

"What difference does it make? We caught 'em."

Their footsteps moved away but she stayed where she was, wondering about what they had been talking about. Why would a group of scientists want to destroy a mass relay? She had a sudden flashback to the mission above Nova Prime and shivered. The amount of destruction that would cause… The batarians might never recover.

Surely they had to have been mistaken. Admiral Hackett would have warned her about something like that. She knew he had made some difficult choices while on missions but she couldn't imagine him knowing about a potential terrorist attack and not warning her. So either the batarians had been wrong, or there was a lot more going on here than even Hackett knew about.

Pushing all of those thoughts to a corner of her mind she finished climbing the stairs and came out into a small kitchen area. It looked like any other kitchen in any other corporate office, and there was no sign of where the guards had gone. She activated the door on the other side of the room and was surprised to find that it led her back outside. It was still raining, and she was grateful for the cover it would give her.

She moved slowly across the courtyard, ducking from cover to cover among the scattered junk that had been left there. She could hear two batarians talking on one side and deliberately slipped closer to listen in.

"They've still got her down in the prison."

"I'd just kill her. Interrogating a human's a waste of time."

There was no response forthcoming and she didn't need one. Kenson couldn't be expected to stand up to torture for very long.

It seemed as though the only route out of the courtyard was past the two guards, but she couldn't be sure of eliminating both of them without alerting them of her presence, and if they didn't report in she would be found out anyway. She scanned for something that might help her and her eyes lit on another laser trap, this one keeping people from reaching a platform on the far side of the courtyard. The power cables led to an obvious control panel and she hurried over to it, boots sinking slightly in the mud.

Once again it was an easy job to disengage the power, and once she had checked to make sure no one had noticed she clambered up onto the platform, thankful again for the pounding of the rain to cover any noise she made. There was a door on the wall that brought her into another living area, bigger than the first but just as sparsely furnished. She moved through it silently, noting through the window that the guards were still watching the way ahead.

Out of the corner of her eye she noticed another way out, back outside and onto the other side of the courtyard she had found. When she went to check it out she saw stairs and another door into the facility that was completely unguarded. Grinning a little she hurried up to the top and opened the door, slipping inside and out of the rain.

Inside again she paused to take in her surroundings. It was the same drab metal that made up the rest of the facility, a couple of supply crates piled up against the corner. As she moved a little further in she heard two more guards talking, just beyond a window, and pressed herself up next to it to listen in.

"No way it would have worked. Relays can't be damaged, much less destroyed." They seemed to be discussing the supposed plan again.

"Those humans will do anything to destroy us, I swear."

"We have to make this one an example to the others. We can't respond kindly to terrorists."

She crouched down and tried to work her way through the options. Any way she looked at it though, Kenson and her team were not coming off well. The batarians had to know what a damaging political statement they were about to make, and despite the specie's reputation they weren't stupid. They had to know that the humans would respond badly to an execution, and they would need solid proof that Kenson and her team really had been planning an attack of that magnitude.

I have to get to the Doctor. Maybe she can explain this. Somehow.

She stayed low past the windows, staying out of the guards' line of sight. She found the door round the corner and risked a quick glance. Both guards were looking out through a window on the other side of room from the door, possibly overlooking some sort of holding area for the prisoners. It would be almost impossible to get past them without being spotted.

Just before Kasumi had left she had finally shared the secret of her marvellous optical camouflage, and Mordin had been able to improve on the design even more before he left. Shepard now activated the shield, feeling the electric tingle as it washed over her. The effect would only last for a few seconds, but that was more than enough to get past the doors and duck into the deep shadows afforded by an unlit corner.

A voice came over the speakers overhead. "There's a shuttle incoming, clear the hanger bay." She filed the information away and kept moving, heading for the only other open door she could see. Beyond she found some sort of warehouse area, with a crane and a flatbed truck. The only other door was voice-sealed, but she could see a way down onto the lower floor. Hopefully there would be a door down there she could use.

As she made her way down the crates she overheard another pair of guards, possibly the same two on patrol.

"I heard an artefact was found in the asteroid belt. Think the humans got it?"

"If they did, they'd have swarmed in and put flags all over it."

She rolled her eyes at that and finished her climb. There was no door at the bottom level but she could now see a vehicle lift next to the flatbed truck. Activating it dropped the truck through the floor, revealing a room below that seemed to be empty. Hearing footsteps approaching the upper level door she lowered herself onto the cab of the truck and slid down to ground level, the lift sliding back up into place just before the door opened.

Too close. There were more boxes in this lower room and she leaned against one for a few seconds, breathing deeply to calm her nerves. She had always hated close-in stealth insertions, much preferring the long range missions suited to snipers. Maybe Garrus had been right, she could have used some company.

AN:- So I went into this deciding to write the whole thing in one go. And I basically managed it (spread across two days, but I also had to do the actual playing across two days)

I actually really enjoyed writing this. Its's nice to show Shepard getting a chance to show off her skills as an infiltrator. Given how much of the games are just 'run to a place and shoot da manz' having a chance to do some skillful sneaking is fun.

It is however, very tricky to write a long section with no dialogue. hopefully the descriptions and musings made it bearable to read.