A/N: Yes, this is massively late, but after writing the first chapter my muse deserted me. I realized I had very little concrete vision for the plot, and that I had trouble writing Shepard…something that the plot of Square One neatly excused me from. Thanks to everyone who kept reading, especially commandocucumber for being my sounding board, idea generator, and general person without whom the story may have died. Gracias, amigo. And now without further ado, on to what you actually want to read.
"So, boy or girl?"
Miranda Lawson rolled her eyes and bit into her salad. "Why is that the first question everyone wants to know?" She blinked and took another quick bite. Cranberries and goat cheese over some kind of green leafy vegetable was not something she'd have chosen under anything like normal circumstances, but it was what the tiny colony world of Millar's Reach had available, and it was surprisingly good. Just needed some pickles, and maybe some of that green tea ice cream Kasumi had sent- Miranda broke off and frowned for a moment. She was normally a very picky eater, knew what she liked and stuck to it- yet another thing pregnancy was throwing completely out of whack for her. Across the table, her gene-twin Oriana smiled beatifically.
"One, because they're excited for you. Two, because they're nosy. And in my case, three, because it finally gives me a socially approved opportunity to snoop on you for a change, Miri." Miranda glared at her for a moment across the table, then broke down into a giggle. She hated doing that, because for all her carefully cultivated Icy Operative persona she always sounded like a seventeen year old schoolgirl, but that was allright. This was her sister, and Miranda was getting more and more used to the idea that she could lower some of her barriers around family. It was odd, not watching every word and action, but odd in a nice kind of way. When Tali'Zorah signaled the Normandy that she needed an urgent meet here, Miranda had jumped at the chance to spend a little time with her sister before they took off after the next galactic crisis. "Now don't change the subject, Miri. Boy or girl?"
"We don't know." Oriana's mouth dropped open.
"You don't know?"
"Is it so hard to believe we might want it to be a surprise?"
"In your case, yes. Miri, you wouldn't let me rent an apartment until you'd checked the building's records for code violations, the landlord's personal history, and a complete statistical breakdown of the neighborhood. You wouldn't let me stay in one place because of the geological survey-"
"That was entirely valid. That fault line was ready to go any month."
"-and you won't even sit down for a nice lunch with your sister without sorting through every restaurant in fifty klicks and planning out three escape routes and a place for a last stand." Oriana folded her arms and gave her sister a challenging stare. "Go on, tell me I'm wrong." Miranda mumbled something under her breath, and Ori grinned. "What was that, Miri dear?"
"I said, it doesn't have to be three."
"Rest my case." Oriana leaned forward, scooping her hands under her chin and looking up at Miranda with more smugness than an old-line Turian Primarch. "Miri, you don't even take showers without complete intel and a backup plan. I won't for a second believe you don't know what your child's sex is."
"Brat." Miranda aimed a playful swat across the table, but she was laughing again, and Ori was joining in. "We really don't know. John says he'll be happy either way, and I'm trying to…let some of that rub off on me, I guess." She looked up, flicking her eyes back and forth a bit guiltily, and there was much less laughter in her voice when she said,
"Was I really that bad, Ori? I mean- I only wanted what was b- I never wanted to-"
"Shh. Calm down, you're sounding like an idiot." Ori leaned forward and took Miranda's hand, her face going serious for a moment. "Miri, I always knew everything you did was to keep me safe. Not for your own ends. You never did wrong by me. And you couldn't be like him, not if you tried." Miranda smiled and squeezed. She'd known. Of course she'd known, they'd both survived Henry Lawson's…intense approach to parenting with their lives and souls intact. It helped to hear Ori say that, and it was good to be able to talk to her without worry-
Something in Miranda's lizard-brain screamed at a level deeper than consciousness, and she reacted faster than thought. The table crashed down to the ground as she pushed it over, grabbing Oriana and pushing her down to the ground, positioning her body as best she could between her sister and open air. Seconds later a spray of hypersonic bullets screamed through the air where the Lawson sisters had been, splattering against the white stucco walls of the cafe. Miranda could hear shouting, a siren- and the sound of combat-booted feet drumming, heading in this direction. Hell.
Rolling up to her knees, Miranda chanced a look over the top of the table, ducking back down before another burst of gunfire could take the top of her head off. A half-dozen at least, humans or similar build, in the mix-and-match combat armor you saw on the thousand different pirate bands and merc companies that picked through the ashes of Council Space. Miranda keyed her multitool, then snarled in frustration as the external functions display came up red with connectivity warnings. She turned to Oriana.
"Ori. Run to the kitchen. They'll be watching the back door, so drop down to the basement. The north wall is just thin fiberboard covering a connection to the cellar of the building across the street- you should be able to take it down with a pulse, then get out." Oriana shook her head.
"Miri-"
"Don't argue." Miranda held up a hand. "I can hold this lot for maybe ten minutes, but they've got a portable jammer. The Normandy can get a strike team down here in time to bail me out, but only if someone lets them know what's going on. Got it?" Oriana stared for a split second, then nodded.
"Don't do anything stupid, Miri."
"Love you too." Miranda looked up, saw two of the mercs prepare to eject thermal clips. "Ready…three!" Ori exploded into motion- she wasn't combat trained, but she had the same perfect genome Henry Lawson had lavished so many credits on. She covered the ground between their table and the kitchen as fast as an Olympic sprinter, as Miranda brought her hand down and sent a pulse of biotic energy towards their attackers, sending them up into the air along with a spray of rocks, garbage, and gravel from the road. A moment to catch her breath, and one of them went flying through the air towards her, landing with an audible crunch about a yard away. He had barriers and already scrambling to get up when he landed, but too slow- MIranda grabbed his submachine gun and fired a burst into his back, then another when he persisted in twitching afterwards. Shouts and curses from the others outside, growing fainter and more spread out after a few seconds.
Miranda let out a breath, letting herself wheeze for a moment. Her little stunt show had put the fear of God into them, but it had also taken a lot out of her. Fortunately, her attackers didn't seem to realize how much of her reserves it had used up, and they were good enough to have some professional caution. They were pulling back, spreading out, denying her the ability to hit them all with another biotic attack while flanking her. Already she didn't dare chance following Ori's escape route, and with a little time they'd be able to get a shot around her makeshift cover. All Miranda could do was draw that out, and hope that a little time was all they had.
Once she had her breath back Miranda grabbed a couple more tables, pushing them down and giving herself as much side cover as she possibly could. One of the mercs made an ill-advised rush from one building to another, and Miranda pushed him up in the air high enough to put a few bullets in him before he slammed into the ground with a sickening thurd. The rest, though, learned. They moved from cover to cover, one of them firing to keep her head down while the others worked their way through the storefronts around the cafe. Miranda was wearing what she thought of as street clothing, which meant the kinetic barriers were too thin for her to risk much exposure to fire. Soon the shots were coming from the side as well, steadily chipping away at the tables. The back of her neck tingled. Any second now, they'd-
A giant tore a mile-long cotton sheet in half, and a lion roared as loud as the thunder. Miranda pressed herself down to the ground as the UT-47A Kodiak drop shuttle's thruster exhaust blasted the earth around her, whipping dust up like a hurricane. The Kodiak molted armored figures in midair, a dozen humanoids who were firing before they even hit dirt, shields coruscating as their enemies fired blindly, trying to understand how the trap they'd set had suddenly closed on them. Miranda heard a roar, and knew one friend was with them. The heavy crack of a sniper rifle, and she knew there was another. But when the heavy stacatto of an M-76 Revenant assault rifle cut through the noise of battle, she knew it was over. When footsteps approached the table this time, she rose to her feet with one smooth gesture and said,
"You're late." John Shepard's face was still hard, anger and determination clamping down on the fear she saw in his eyes, but he smiled, just a bit. He always did, to her, and she loved him for that.
"Sorry, 'Randa, but you know it'd be rude not to bring our friends to the party."
"Ori?"
"Fine. Cortez dropped two Marines on her position while he was on final. Their backdoor man took a few potshots at her, but they made him see the error of his ways pretty quickly." Miranda nodded, and strode briskly out to the street. As she'd hoped, the merc she'd shot and dropped had taken enough damage to crash his barriers, but not enough to kill him. He might even live, if they got him to Chakwas quickly enough. Time to see if it was worth the effort. Miranda bent over, socketing the muzzle of her borrowed Shuriken under his jaw. The man groaned, and Miranda leaned down.
"Who sent you?" The merc coughed, and blood stained his lips, but there was no reply. Miranda pushed the gun forward, easing her finger onto the trigger as red clouds narrowed her vision. "I said, who sent you."
"Miranda-"
"Not now, dear, I'm interrogating someone." Someone who'd tried to kill her, and her baby. The muzzle was pressing hard against the bottom of his mouth now, almost too hard for him to speak. Too bad. If he wasn't going to make the effort, then- just as John's hand touched her shoulder, a few words came out, like a strangled dry cough. Miranda eased the pressure. "What was that?"
"You think…you've won." Miranda's eyes widened. "You think…you can beat us. You think you can run from us." This man was no mercenary. There was too much belief in his voice. "You can run to the ends of the galaxy, Lawson, but it won't matter. The sun…will rise." There was a hissing from his suit, and Miranda cursed as she tried to get at the medi-gel dispenser on his belt. Too late. A red gel was already oozing out, covering his skin, and Miranda stood back, carefully keeping her hands off as the body started to jerk and twitch. Nerve toxin. She could hear John breathing hard behind her, feel the tightness of his grip, and almost hear him gearing up for another lecture. She wasn't in the mood to talk about methods again, so instead she said,
"The sun will rise. Odd thing to say."
"Maybe not." Miranda turned at John's tone, and found his eyes dark and troubled. "I finished talking to Tali right before your distress call came in. She and I were talking about suns too. One, in particular." Miranda arched an eyebrow, but she already had a sinking feeling what he meant.
"Haestrom." John nodded.
"The Quarians and Geth have started sharing scientific data, and found something that's been staring them in the face for a century. Only they didn't realize it, because each side only had part of the puzzle. Story of their lives." His mouth twisted, a trifle bitter, and he looked won. "We knew Haestrom was entering the end of its lifespan millions of years earlier than it should. By itself, that makes it a curiosity. But what they've only just realized is that the star's decay rate has actually been accelerating for the past eighty years."
Miranda's mouth dropped open. "That's physically impossible."
"As far as we know. But it's happening. And the same process may have started in three other nearby stars." John's boot kicked the dirt near the armored man, no mercenary. "Add in a fanatic assassin who dies saying that the sun will rise, and…"
Miranda sighed and leaned in against him for just a moment. "I know. But you promised we were done with threats to galactic civilization as we know it." Her tone was playful, but part of her felt a real loss. She'd wanted so badly to give her child a life free of the shadows and threats that had always cast over hers. Miranda couldn't be angry at John for a situation he hadn't made or looked for, and she knew him far too well to expect that he'd pass up this kind of threat, even for her.
But she was enough of a mother, even now, to mourn peace's passing
