This work is an attempt to practice my writing skills, specifically transitions and staging plotlines. As such, I am using the excellent story laid out through the Mass Effect series. I claim no rights whatsoever to the characters, setting, or intellectual property of the Mass Effect universe.

This story follows the events of the game play of Mass Effect 2. I made extensive use of the script in the first several chapters to get the feel and style of the characters as well as to set the stage for the story as it seems best to interweave the plot points into the story as it goes. Therefore, there may be some minor spoilers if you've never played the Mass Effect series. I will be doing less of this as the story sinks deeper, and eventually this story will be a complete counter-story to the primary plot-line of the game. Chapter one is pretty large since it has to carry all the starting points. Please let me know what you think.

Prelude

Everyone knows what happens. We don't acknowledge it, but we know. We know because there are those who have been there and come back. They all say the same thing. Your life replayed, a tunnel of light, and a feeling of . . . a presence . . . a calm, serene quality of . . . acceptance. That's what it feels like. Ultimate acceptance.

No need for pretense. No need to hide your true self. No need for ego. Just existing, the way you truly are, with no strife, or politics, or apologies. Well, not really existing though, is it? That's the whole point. I was once alive. . . . once. The concept seems strange now – alien. It's hard to even come to grips with what that was. Was? Even that's a difficult concept. There was once a "being alive." But now there isn't. Or rather, there is something else.

It's not floating. There's nothing to float in. There's nothing. Nothing at all. But . . .everything. It's an idea worthy of thinking about. But there's no need to contemplate anything really. There's nothing wrong with it. There's nothing wrong with anything. Everything is just as it's supposed to be. Acceptance. Contentment. Profound solace.

There is one thing though . . . a matter of importance; importance to the existence of all things. But it doesn't matter anymore. That part is over. I did what I could. I did more than I could. I had friends who helped. I couldn't have done it on my own. They made it possible. When it counted, they made it happen. They were my crew, my team . . . my family. . . . I miss them.

They're not really gone, of course. They're right here with me. Or, I'm with them. Something like that. It's complicated. But . . . I still miss them.

But it's warm and wonderful here. Now. In the only now that is. Where everything is all right.

". . . something wrong."

"She's reacting to outside stimuli. Showing an awareness of her surroundings."

Pain? . . . short of breath. Why?

"Oh my god, Miranda. I think she's waking up."

Lights. Eyes. Pain. I'm looking up?

"Damn it, Wilson! She's not ready yet. Give her the sedative!" She's looking down at me. Not my friend. "Shepard - don't try to move." Touching my hand. I feel! "Just lie still. Try to stay calm."

Calm! This is not calm. What was calm before? What is this? I'm not alive anymore. This isn't where I am now! What is this?

"Heart rate still climbing. Brain activity is off the charts."

Air! Lungs! My lungs are on fire! My chest hurts just trying to not breathe anymore. Gravity. There's a down. Things move here. She's walking around me. Pain!

"Stats pushing into the red zone. It's not working!"

"Another dose. Now!"

Dose? They're putting me back under. Under? I must be hooked up to an autodoc. My system isn't reacting well to the trauma. There is no system! This is not! This can't be! The increased dosage may have an adverse effect on my neuro-structure. I've got to control myself. Remember my training. Try to work with the medication.

"Heart rate dropping." Control, soldier. Control. "Stats falling back into normal range."

Her face. I don't remember her. Uniform. Science team?

"That was too close. We almost lost her."

"I told you your estimates were off. Run the numbers again."

She shows interest. Agenda? Perhaps. But she's in this betting on my outcome, not my failure. It's in her eyes.

Trust. She won't betray me. Not if I place my trust in her.

Chapter 1: The Lazarus Project

"Wake up Commander."

No dreams. There are no dreams in this place.

"Shepard, do you hear me? Get out of that bed now – this facility is under attack."

Alert. I'm awake. I shouldn't be. I was free falling from orbit last I remember. Feels like I've been sucker punched. God! My whole face hurts. But if there's combat . . .

"Shepard, your scars aren't healed, but I need you to get moving. This facility is under attack."

Scars. Well, that would explain the pain. In that case, I'll put it behind me and react to the tactical- "Argh!" Feels like my ribs are broken too. Maybe I shouldn't get up so fast until I know what I'm working with here.

The medical room is brightly lit with surgically clean windows that show gun fire in the corridor outside. The disembodied voice wasn't lying. Combat is underway. Or, the disembodied voice has gone to the trouble of making it look like the environment is under fire. There are some who would go to incredible lengths to coerce someone into doing their dirty work.

"There's a pistol in the locker on the other side of the room. Hurry!"

This is a sophisticated lab, but only built for one subject. In fact, it's incredible how much tech was dedicated to only this one room. There's an entire production facility in here.

"You don't have time to wait around, Shepard!"

A prompt for haste from a disembodied voice over the internal voice channel. There's either a need for urgency or someone wants to limit the time anybody has to think about things. Fortunately, thinking quickly is one of Jennifer Shepard's hidden talents. They call it leadership, but it's really a knack for a quick, insightful assessment of a situation, followed by action that has the galaxy singing her praises. It brought down the Geth. It brought down Saren. It brought down Sovereign. Now, it's moving her to the other thing that Commander Shepard is known for – putting bullets in things that don't take well to having bullets in them.

Except. . . "This pistol doesn't have a thermal clip."

The old system of firing ME projectiles carved from a block of material was abandoned when council space evaluated the kind of damage done by the Geth weapons. Higher caliber projectiles means higher damage thresholds. But it also means more heat. At the rate standard weapons unleash their payload, the air in the firearm itself heats up even if the mass within touches nothing once released.

Firefights in a vacuum once prompted warfare technology to make all weapons more contained. There wasn't much need for a cooling system when you're in a vacuum, floating around in zero-gravity. But the Geth brought warfare back to the street level. Now, it's all about discharging your thermal clip before your weapon becomes a slag-mitten.

But without a clip, the weapon simply doesn't fire. This limits the combat effectiveness of a pistol to the range of hand-to-hand combat. Not incredibly difficult, unless you're up against mechs, but Shepard's skills lie first in the use of accuracy at long range – sometimes absurdly long ranges. A point of pride she felt whenever Garrus would drop his jaw while lining up the telescopic sights with the Mach III cannon only to see the head of the Geth explode from her sniper shot.

But now the final clasp locks into place, holding her spare N7 armor to her like a glove, and she still has nothing but spit and harsh language for the unknown enemy. What she really needs is a thermal clip. "It's in Med Bay, we'll get you a clip from . . . Damn it!"

She spotted it too. Pressure finding a way out of a tank of volatile chemicals.

"Those canisters by the door are going to blow. Get behind cover, now."

Movement, again, prompting pain. As though the muscles in her body weren't familiar with the concept. Her reactions were sluggish. Slow. Dangerous. If she were caught in a fight with a formidable foe, she could be unable to secure victory only because her body will not respond correctly.

She made it to the barrier glass and went to crouch behind it. "Keep your head down, Shepard! Shield yourself from the blast." A disciplined soldier with a combat trained figure capable of all forms of battle, it was alarming how ill-respondent her body was being. She forced herself into a deep crouch as the canister exploded, showering the area by the door with flaming debris.

"Someone's hacking security trying to kill you. Look for a thermal clip for your pistol."

Again, a prompt for action. Was the voice trying to give her the intel she would need to fend off an attacker? Or set the stage for the take down of proper judgment at the critical moment? No time for depth of analysis now though. Not when the clip slides so easily into the butt of the gun.

She moved through the doors into a prep chamber. Several small tables were tipped making a low barrier. "Looks like they set up a barricade to try holding the mechs off."

Mechs. Good thing she found the clip. Punching metal always goes badly for the organic fist.

"Look out!" Sounds from the elevated entrance to the chamber brought her into awareness of an armed mech, approaching in battle mode. She slid behind a supply crate full of solid-packed medigel. Some kind of hybrid gel design. There was no time to read up on it.

The first shot hit the shoulder, rendering the left arm useless. The second was on the upper right of the "head," putting the unit out of action. This was cause for concern. Her skills had deteriorated badly if she couldn't nail the thing in the faceplate at only 8 meters.

"Keep moving, we need to get to the shuttles."

She moved up to where the droid had entered. A cargo hall opened up with exits at the other end of the room.

"Shepard, security mechs are closing in on your position. Take cover!"

Again, she took refuge behind the blast-proof glass half-wall. Not much cover, but easy to spot your opponent through. Of course, it was also easy for them to spot you.

"Don't take any chances. Stay under cover while you take out those mechs."

What a waste of ammo. Only twelve meters. Twelve meters! She was getting upset with herself. Combat efficiency was never one of her weak points. But now it seemed she had a lot of catching up to do. She would either have to get up to speed very quickly or compensate for the atrophy of her skills.

"Nice work, Shepard."

She frowned. "Nice for you," she thought, "my range instructor would have put me on latrine duty for a week for that sideshow."

Through the door and onward. Two people in uniform had their backs to the barrier window while a heavy mech stalked them down, firing nonstop. No cover. Low ordnance firearms for protection. Poor bastards never had a chance.

"Don't waste time. I can't keep the mechs distracted for long."

Distracted? Were these people being used to buy her time?

"I can't just leave them," she thought. Then, a resigned turn as it seemed there was no way to help them either. Best to do what she could where she could do her best.

The next door opened onto a balcony over an entrance corridor.

"More reinforcements on their way. Grab the grenade launcher off the security officers' body."

A grenade launcher. Not her preferred heavy weapon, but has the slight advantage of a smaller need for finesse – the thing she was lacking at the moment. This could be her saving grace. A launcher with full ordnance could easily get her through a good deal of these facility corridors. She checked the ammo readout. 3.

"Here come the mechs. Use the grenade launcher to take them out."

Well, it was in-hand now, and the doors were opening. Behind them were enough mechs to make her day very bad indeed. A single round went into their midst and scattered their parts along the hallway.

"Take the elevator down one floor."

She could have just vaulted the balcony. She's done that before. But there's this feeling that she should take this body to an obstacle course or two just to see how she fares against the Jennifer of old. Then again, this is sort of an obstacle course of its own after all.

A jet of flame shot steadily across the doorway from a coupling ruptured by the grenade that took out the mechs, cutting off further passage.

"Hurry! Get to the door. Run!"

She broke into a sprint, storming through the flame jet. As good a test as any for the old flesh and- "Ah!" Something in her right hip gave a painful jolt in protest of the acceleration. Something that didn't attach well or as completely as it should have. Not a crippling issue in any event, but a cause of discomfort.

"You're doing . . . Head to the . . . We'll meet . . ." Static crackled between the words, making it difficult to make them out. "Shepard? . . . read me? I've got . . . closing in . . . position."

Contact broken. Now she was on her own. Or was she? There was still a very real possibility that all of this was a fabrication, just for her. Something to sway her one way or another. Two doors stood ahead in the corridor: one to an office, the other to a stairwell and the shuttle bay. A good opportunity to see what other pieces of information they had dropped in her path.

The office door opened to two partially active mechs, crawling across the floor. Deactivation was done in the normal manner. For Shepard, of course, the normal manner was a bullet to the control servos. A quick glance around the office showed a couple of research terminals. She played one of the archived logs while checking the drawers for anything useful.

"Progress is slow, but subject shows signs of recovery. Major organs are again functional, and there are signs of rudimentary neurological activity." The image of the face she had seen in a hazy wave of pain and shock some time previous floated above the terminal, giving her report. "In an effort to accelerate the process, we've moved from simple organic reconstruction of the subject to bio-synthetic fusion. Initial results show promise."

Bio-synthetic fusion? Was that even possible. She's a cyborg? Part robot? . . . Which part, she wondered. Perhaps it was the part that would fail at the most critical point of a mission? Was it the thinking part or the active part? If the thinking part then none of these thoughts may even be hers. For that matter, she may not even be in this environment in the first place. Her disembodied brain may be floating in a jar somewhere while a computer played theater in her thoughts. If the acting part . . . she may have control wrested from her at any moment. It could be that either her life was an illusion, or her freedom . . . or both.

She continued to wonder as she played another log in the office. "Log update:" the voice was the medical tech that had been there when she first awakened, "the cost of this project is astronomical - - over 4 billion credits so far. But nobody seems to care that we've gone over budget." She tapped the wires of the controls for the wall safe as he continued, "I don't know where the boss gets all his money . . . maybe it's better not to know. I just wish he'd kick a little more in my direction once in a while."

That seemed more of a real world notion. Four billion credits. The Alliance could replace the whole fleet with that kind of money. Why would anybody spend that much money for anything? Anything! It seemed like a very unrealistic number. But at the same time, it brought a sense of reality back with it. People didn't just spend that kind of money. It would be absurd to use a snippet like that to try and lead someone astray, simply due to its un-believability. With that thought tucked away, she turned out of the office and toward the other door.

At the top of the stairs, behind another security glass, another man, calls for help. "Shepard!" But a heavy mech moves into view behind him. "No! Help! Help me!" Unarmed. Unarmored. And the mech is powering up a missile. All safety and security protocols have been disabled. Only an idiot would unleash all safety measures from armed and armored mechs.

Whether real or dream, she was making real actions in a real environment from her perspective. Time to fall back on a notion that kept her going after Saren when others would have balked: There are things beyond your control. When those things rear their ugly heads, all you can do is act with the integrity you were born with. There are no two ways around it. Humans are doomed to make choices. Best to make the right choice whenever possible. And the right choice comes to you quick and easily once you have a clear sense of who you are and what you're doing.

Beyond the next door, gunfire. A lone man stands on her side of a station systems chasm, a common design flaw in any space station, across from a small cadre of engaged mechs, firing like it's target practice. "Shepard! What the hell . . . "

She takes a few poorly aimed shots at the mechs as she approaches the half-wall to take cover with the soldier.

"What are you doing here? I thought you were still a work in progress."

"Hey, this ain't my party, pal," she ejects the thermal clip and snaps another in its place, "I'm just crashing it."

The young man cracks the smallest of grins, "Sorry, I forgot this is all new to you right now. I'm Jacob Taylor. I've been stationed here for-" Gunfire ricocheted off the railing near his head making him flinch. "Damn it!" He returned fire, dead on headshot to the mech. She grimaced in envy of the skills she once had to rival that shot.

"Things must be worse than I thought if Miranda's got you running around. I'll fill you in, but we better get you to the shuttle first."

Together, the two soldiers made short work of the mechs holding them down from across the span. During the fight, it became apparent that Jacob was a biotic with the familiar Pull technique that Liara used so well in her prior journeys.

If this fellow was a plant, it was a stroke of genius. A soldier to the very core, this man, Jacob, was an ideal ally at the moment. He seemed to exude integrity from every feature. Melding in combat with Jacob Taylor was effortless and reminded her of better days when her shots did not go astray and her duty was well defined. Of course, she would have to monitor his behavior for any flaw in the performance. She still had no idea of who she was dealing with. But an N7 is not born, they are made. And part of what makes a field operative of the N7 caliber is the readiness for the threat to come from the direction of the enemy and from that of the ally as well. She would be ready when she needed to be. This was coming back to her easier now.

"Check. Check. Anybody on this frequency?" "Anybody still alive out there? Hello?"

"Wilson?' He pulled up his comm link, "This is Jacob. I'm here with Commander Shepard. Just took out a wave of mechs over in D Wing."

"Shepard's alive? How the hell . . .never mind. You need to get out of there. Get to the service tunnels and head for the network control room."

"Roger that, Wilson. Stay on this frequency."

They raced through corridors until they got to the control room. A medical tech lay on the floor, huddled against the wall.

"Bastards got me in the leg."

"There should be some medi-gel in the first aid station on the wall," Jacob gestured.

In the time it took to get to the first aid station and back, apply the medi-gel and work it into the wound, it all became apparent. The next conversation only served to solidify it in her mind.

"I thought maybe I could shut down the security mechs. But whoever did this fried the whole system. Completely irreversible." Which, of course, discourages anyone from having a look of their own.

"We didn't ask what you were doing," Jacob countered. But he needed to give us a thought of why he should be trusted, didn't he? "Why do you even have security mech clearance? You were in the bio wing." Medical technicians don't have mech clearance. They haven't got time for those things.

"Weren't you listening?" Wilson shot back, "I came here to try and fix this." As opposed to checking to make sure that your sole patient on this project was safe and well, like a normal doctor would do. If he had answered the question, it would have helped his case. "Besides," Wilson added, "I was shot! How do you explain that?"

Shepard would have explained it as a point-blank-range shot that wouldn't have seriously impeded movement to the point that he was found in . . .within crawling distance to a first aid station no less. And regarding how much time elapsed from the shot to the site, the mech would either have to had been in the room (which there was no sign of mech wreckage within) or just outside the door where Wilson would have had to crawl (yet there was no blood trail from the door to the spot he lay). In all , she would have registered it as a self-inflicted wound. Sure signs of dereliction of duty in the field.

But this wasn't the place to bring this to bear. Whether Wilson was working on his own or on orders from another had not yet been established. And it wasn't going to be found out by interrogating him here. "If it's all the same to you, I'd rather get out of here for now and work it all out on the other side," She cocked her head at the pair, "If that's not too much trouble?"

"Right Shepard," Jacob agreed, "We need to find Miranda. We can't leave her behind."

"Forget about Miranda," Wilson discounted, "She was over in D wing. The mechs were all over that sector." As if he would know, she thought. "There's no way she survived." Yet Shepard was given the impression that Miranda had been manipulating the mechs movements by using the personnel on the station.

Jacob also seemed unconvinced, "A bunch of mechs won't drop Miranda. She's alive." But how much is she involved, Shepard thought.

"Then where is she?" Wilson wondered aloud, "Why haven't we heard from her?" He stepped forward, "There are only two possible explanations: she's either dead… or she's a traitor!"

The question rose into her mouth before she could stop it, "Then why did she warn me about the attack?"

"Okay," Wilson back peddled, "maybe she's not a traitor. But that doesn't change the facts." He pressed on like a man with a design in mind, "We're here, she's not. We need to save ourselves."

A practical approach, whether trying to survive or trying to pull the wool over someone's eyes.

Wilson turned toward the door, "The shuttle bay is only a few…" A wave of mechs started through the door.

Without need for orders, everyone took cover from the barrage of small arms fire coming from the robots. Wilson empowered a biotic Overload that destroyed not only the mechs, but an obstacle in their path to the exit. Shepard turned to look at Jacob, but he seemed to be unaware that Wilson's biotic ability was perfectly suited to protecting him from a machine, whether or not it was shooting him in the leg.

Was this a red herring? Was she being set up for the obvious dupe, only to be blind-sided by the trust-worthy soldier? It seemed too straight forward.

As Wilson started to move, Jacob held back. "OK we took 'em down. But this is getting tense. Shepard, if I tell you who we're working for, will you trust me?"

A request for trust. Way too straight forward. Either they were being serious and Jacob had no idea that Wilson had flipped on him, or they had seriously underestimated the field operational expertise of an Alliance Infiltrator. She chewed up this kind of political backstabbing before breakfast on the average Sunday.

"This really isn't the time, Jacob." Wilson interjected.

Jacob turned toward him, "We won't make it if she's expecting a shot in the back."

Okay – no homework. She is always expecting a shot in the back. So he's playing it straight.

"If you want to piss off the boss, it's your ass, Jacob." Wilson stepped back.

Jacob turned back to Shepard, "The Lazarus Project, the program that rebuilt you . . . it's funded and controlled by Cerberus."

That was unexpected. Cerberus? The murderous merc band, with their out-of-control Rachnai experiments? The uniform was also very different from what she had seen in the field. Otherwise she would have spotted them straight away.

"So let me get this straight," Shepard crossed her arms, "The organization that was out to kill me during my chase after Saren, the one with no moral integrity whatsoever, the band of mercs that murdered Admiral Kahoku? That Cerberus? And they went to all this trouble to bring me back from the dead?" She drove up an eyebrow, "What for? So I could shut down even more of your operations?"

Jacob shrugged, "Those answers are way above my pay grade. But basically," he fixed her gaze with his own, "things change."

He stepped forward, "The Alliance declared you dead. They gave up. Cerberus spent a fortune to bring you back." He paused, "Look, I'd be suspicious too. But right now, we have to work together. I thought you deserved to know what's what."

A fair proclamation. And pretty dumb in the face of a firefight. The only person who would stretch across a limb like that is either a fool (which did not seem to fit Jacob Taylor's obvious level of experience) or an honest man, acting well into the realms of deepest integrity.

"Once we're off the station, I'll take you to the illusive Man. He'll explain everything." He nodded, "I promise."

"Fair enough," she turned, "but explaining and gaining my cooperation are two very different things. You won't catch me working for Cerberus at any time in the future." She walked from the room. "I promise."

"It's not much farther to the shuttle bay." Wilson echoed from the back.

True to his word, the shuttle bay was only a few turns away. As they approached, she could almost smell the mechs powering up. Certainly not leg-shooting berserker-bots. Controlled, inactive, servants. They do have a power-down mode, so it's probable that no one else made it this far.

Jennifer instinctively raised her weapon to fire. Three shots pinged off the head but didn't make contact with anything important enough to explode. The mech rose, then . . . kept on rising. Jacob had separated it with its gravity with his biotics. But more were marching into the bay, armed and looking for trouble. "Excuse me . . ." Such polite protocols. She and Garrus used to make fun of them all the time.

They thought it was just too amusing, mechanations, running amok, asking politely before they try to make you die. "Oh, pardon me," Garrus would respond after blasting it into junk metal, "terribly sorry." "Please reconsider your actions," another would chime. "Okay," Garrus would return as he switched to the shotgun, "You've changed my mind."

"Aw, just blow 'em up," Wrex would add, "Stop wasting time."

"It's the same time I would be spending bored to tears," Jennifer would grin as she downed another. Tali never got it – she appreciated the humor to an extent, but she found something . . . personal about mechs going rogue. Liara never came close.

"Why do you speak to them?" she would rationalize behind cover while preparing her next biotic assault, "They are not thinking creatures, they are programmed."

"Well, so are we," Garrus would respond. "We made the damn things act polite in the first place."

"True." Liara would ponder thoughtfully as Shepard rose to fire with a smile on her face. Those were good times, she thought. But there was a grimace on her face now. Four more mechs were marching toward them, and Wilson seemed to have conveniently forgotten that he had a biotic attack that would smash them down one by one. Waiting for the tactical advantage. At the right moment, catch them in a crossfire with mechs in the front and a shot in the back.

Time to go back to the basics, she thought. It had been a while since she used the stealth function of her omnitool. She wasn't sure her spare would work properly as she hadn't been able to check it before rushing out of Med Bay.

She activated the cloaking field and disappeared from view. Not many have mastered the art of cloaking tech. Most people get clumsy and trip into things or make too much noise, nullifying the advantage completely. For most people, the stealth field was a waste of omnitool energy. But to the trained few who took to it like a duck to water, it became a powerful weapon.

She quickly moved up on the side of the mechs. Jacob's fine shot blew another away as she positioned herself half a yard away from the first of the mechs, lined up in a row from the side of their march.

Three shots, all to the heads. Three wrecks. Quick, efficient, and completely avoiding the issue of a known, armed enemy to her rear. No chance for Wilson to make a move. His face showed his surprise. Whether he was preparing to shoot Jacob in the back at that point didn't matter anymore. Threat neutralized.

She walked purposefully toward the bay doors and Wilson took the cue. He rushed forward to get the door. "C'mon, through here." Perhaps this was where he planned to make his last stand – open the door, open fire on them, and back toward the shuttle while they took cover. His biotics might even protect him from their shots . . . maybe. It would be risky for him to make such a bold move, but this would likely be his last chance to escape the station as the sole survivor. "We're almost at the…"

The door slid upward, revealing a beautiful woman in a form-fitting jumpsuit.

"Miranda," Wilson was stunned, "But you were…"

Without hesitation, she raised her gun and fired point-blank into the doctor's chest. Wilson crumpled on the spot. "Dead?" she finished with a bitter edge to her voice that betrayed her cunning.

Jacob moved forward, examining the corpse on the floor. "What the hell are you doing?"

Miranda looked at him with a serious expression, "My job. Wilson betrayed us all."

Shepard already had her sidearm drawn - she had been expecting gunfire anyway, so she was prepared to join. She looked at the face and remembered the last time she had seen her. Bending over her in a moment of distress. . . . trust.

"Your man, your call," She lowered her weapon, "What's our next step?"

"We get on the shuttle and go," Miranda spoke decisively, as though it were plainly obvious before the

question was even asked. "My boss wants to speak with you."

"The illusive one? He is a man then, you've confirmed that at least?"

She turned with a smirk, "Ah Jacob. I should have known your conscience would get the better of you."

Jacob stood his ground, "Lying to the commander isn't the way to get her to join our cause."

"Well," she turned back to Shepard, "since we're getting everything out in the open, is there anything else you want to ask before we go?"

"I could come up with a few questions," she said, holstering her pistol. "We might as well chat while we're searching for other survivors."

"We needn't bother looking for others," Miranda counseled, "This is the evac area. If they're not here now, they're not coming."

"Is that what you were doing when Wilson was busy setting mechs after you?" Shepard crossed her arms, "throwing the station personnel at them?"

"Saving your life in the process?" Miranda countered. "Wilson figured out that I was helping you and he sent an army of mechs to take me out. I got here as soon as I could," she examined the corpse on the floor, "Probably a little too soon if you ask Wilson."

Understanding arose. The mechs weren't Wilson's trap, they were Miranda's. Wilson was expecting them to be fully operative when they got to the shuttle bay. Miranda didn't destroy them to throw Wilson off that she had been here – rather, she powered them down and let him wonder what he had done wrong that left them shut down. Meanwhile, the delay was enough for Shepard to get into position to make easy work of them. She had to admit, it was very clever.

But still, she thought out load, "There may still be some who didn't get killed in your little game of chess. Are you really so ready to just throw all of them away?"

"Don't you get it," Miranda shook her head slightly, "The only one worth saving is you. Everyone else is expendable."

"She's right," Jacob stepped back into the conversation, "We all knew the risks when we signed up. Without you there's no point to any of this."

Apparently the "risks" included getting caught in a faction war between two ruthless killers and discarded because the subject of the project is worth four billion credits and climbing. She wondered if this was in the contract when they signed up. There seemed to be more behind the goings on at this facility than was shown on the surface.

But in truth, she had learned all she needed to know, about these two anyway. Jacob was a man of his word, through and through, and would act for the greater good without a moment's hesitation. And Miranda . . . well, she seemed like a conniving, backstabbing, espionage operative with no trace of remorse at committing an execution-style take-down and the casual sacrifice of her entire staff. But she trusted her anyway. Her thoughts were vague and flighty, but she remembered them just the same: "She's in this betting on my outcome, not my failure." "I've had enough of this place to last a lifetime," she responded.

"Or two in your case," she grinned, "Come on."

Shuttle Faucett: Terminus Systems

He spread the cards out again, just to confirm his hand. A pair of sevens with a Jack kicker – pathetic. He never could get a decent hand playing on a shuttle. He wasn't sure what it was, it just seemed to be rotten luck was always a passenger onboard shuttles. The volus merchant he used to work for, years ago, always said that it was a good sign for a voyage if all the bad luck went to the cards and none of it went to the engines. He had to agree with that. At least he could manage a bad poker hand.

"I call your 18," he pushed a stack of chips into the pot, "and raise you 12."

"Thirty, eh?" the pale fellow to his left scowled. He stared at his cards looking sour. "Too rich for me," he dropped his cards face down on the tool case they used as a poker table.

He tried to show no outside signs of his joy that his bluff had dropped another worthy adversary, instead he glanced out the port and discussed the weather, "Looks like we've almost reached the station," he turned back to the table, "this is probably going to be the last hand." His gaze moved to the other of the four in the cabin, a Life Support tech. "It's your call."

A skinny fellow was regarding him closely. He made an expression of triumph and slid a stack of chips in the pot, "I call! Whatcha got?"

Damn. He hated it when he did that. He flipped his cards over, showing his 7's.

The younger player smiled and turned his cards, "Pair of nines. Come to papa." He moved to slide the chips to his side of the case.

But the chips slid to the side of the player that folded instead. In fact, everything did.

Complaints of alarm rose from the cabin as the craft was already leveling off again. The loser, already agitated, slammed his fist on the intercom, "What the hell are you doing up there?"

The voice of the pilot buzzed back through the unit, "Sorry about that, we had some unplanned turbulence."

"Turbulence my ass," the angry tech bellowed back, "Where'd you learn how to fly? Elcor?"

His jibe was referring to the inconvenient habit of elcor pilots to pull strange maneuvers that shook the inhabitants of their vessels. They had adapted their style of speech to accommodate other species, but everyone knew, they had no body language of any kind, even behind the controls of a craft.

The man who folded before the loser's turn made a frantic gesture to cut him off at his raging point. 'Watch it, watch it," he hissed, "That's the cripple. You know how he gets."

"Aw he's just upset 'cause they're decommissioning his shuttle with this flight," said the second folder, "He'll be grounded again."

The holder of the 9's looked around at his cabin-mates in alarm, "Guys, the 'comm is still on. He can hear you!"

They stared at the intercom for a moment before it crackled to life again.

"[With dripping sarcasm]," the voice stated in a lowly monotone manner, "Please stand by for more turbulence." The shuttle started rocking violently, shifting its momentum and periodically spinning in half-circles, "Please accept our profound apologies for any inconvenience and observe the fasten-seat-belt signs, flashing on your front panels." Screams issued from the four passengers as their world was turned upside down. "[With false cheer] Thank you for flying Air- Cerberus."