Chapter II

The cell door was open, not blown open, just like it had been left unlocked. There was no guard inside or outside. That wasn't right, he wasn't getting beaten, what the hell was going on? His senses began slowly coming back to him as he became more aware and awake and suddenly he could hear the blaring siren overhead.

'Life support has been shut down, no survivors.' Well he wasn't dead yet.

Groggily pulling himself to his feet, crossing the cell to the open door before peering outside. He was taking care to make sure not to allow too much of his head to be visible. He wasn't going to risk getting shot. They had played tricks on the prisoners before, opened the cells and then those unlucky few who took the bait and tried to escape had been gunned down in cold blood, poor bastards, but they had it coming. Cross shook his head, it wasn't right, it shouldn't be this easy to just escape after all this time, something must be waiting for him, a group of mercs, blue suns, something. Cross sighed, looking around outside one more time before finally taking the step out of his cell. There were no guards, they were all dead, or otherwise occupied.

SHEPARD IS LOSE

The words caught him by surprise, but at least that explained what had caused all the guards to surge to one part of the ship. All the other prisoners would probably take this moment to escape too, everyone's cell had been forced open, although he wasn't exactly sure where that fit into Shepard escaping. Shepard Cross knew the name: some big alliance type hero, first spectre too, if the rumors were to be believed. But then; if the rumors were to be believed - Shepard was dead, ship destroyed, crew got to the escape pods in time so they didn't meet the same fate. Although this was a prison; a way of cutting people off from the outside world, word got around and word got around that Shepard was dead. Cross didn't care, whoever they were, they were providing the necessary distraction so that Cross could escape imprisonment and continue on with his life, that was good enough for All he knew about Shepard's dealings with Purgatory and the warden, was that they were here for Jack, damn biotic bitch, it would be good to see her gone. He had never liked her. But the warden seemed to think that capturing Shepard had been a good idea.

'Chaos was ensured.' Cross thought to himself as he began casually strolling down the hall towards the ship docking hangers. There would be at least one other ship here, that wasn't the Normandy, and Cross would hitch a ride. Maybe kill the crew on board, maybe not. Depending on how much they tried to interfere or not, all he knew was that he needed the pilot. Everyone else was expendable.

A blue suns merc rounded the corner and ran straight into him, knocking the two off their feet. They hit the ground, but Cross was up first, holding the turian merc to the ground, and keeping his arm pressed to his side so that he couldn't fire off a shot from his weapon. Cross shook his head, he may not regret what he did to end up in the prison, but those had been batarians, this was a turian. He still had to kill the merc, otherwise it was going to be his dead body they shipped next out the airlock. Cross released the merc's arm, but before he had time to raise his weapon, the turian had already brought his fist down on the turian's helmet, smashing clean through the faceplate and hitting the turian skull beneath. Removing his hand, the turian got back to his feet, picking up the merc's shotgun as well - that could be useful.

As he continued down the hall at his casual pace, he heard an explosion rock somewhere else in the ship, what the hell was Shepard doing exactly? The damn commander was supposed to be getting Subject Zero and getting out, but it seemed like Shepard was attempting to make the ship go down in flames.

'Good thing I'm getting the hell out of here.' Cross thought to himself as he rounded the corner at the end of the hallway. This hall split off in two directions, one led down to the out processing, the other, well he wasn't sure because he had never been down that way before - but he didn't have time to go sightseeing now. Shaking his head and turning down the hall, the turian because walking, not running - running would attract too much attention - down the hall towards where the ships docked. There had to be more than just Shepard here at the moment, a scouting ship, delivering supplies maybe? Anything that Cross could use to get out alive.

Thankfully, as Cross neared the docking pay, it turned out that Shepard's Normandy hadn't been the only ship here, although it was the more noticeable of the two ships currently in dock. They probably have no idea what they're getting themselves into.' Cross thought to himself as he ran. Everyone seemed to be attacking everyone, prisoners - Shepard - guards, just wanting to stay alive. holding the guard's shotgun to his chest he continued running, at least now he had something to defend himself with, from the prisoners mostly, he knew the guards were probably going to have their hands full. Another blue suns guard rounded the corner, almost knocking straight into Cross who pulled the trigger on his shotgun almost instinctively and watched the merc drop to the ground, his chest area now a bloody mass. He continued running, didn't even stop to loot the merc, just trying to make his way through the ship so that he could get off as soon as possible. Rounding another corner he knocked into another guard who proceeded to turn his shotgun on the prisoner. Smiling, Cross ran at the batarian guard, knocking him to the ground before following up with a punch to the head. The batarian slumped, he must be knocked out, there was no way that punch to the head would have killed him.

As another explosion rocked the ship and Cross was momentarily thrown off his feet and into a wall of the hallway. Sighing, he shook the dizziness from his mind and continued moving, slightly faster this time, keeping close to the way so he wouldn't be thrown against it again with such force. There was silence then, something that did anything but relieve Cross of his fear that there would be guards waiting for him at the docking bay. There was bound to be one or two - that was a given, but that was nothing that Cross couldn't handle easily enough with the shotgun he had looted from one of the dead mercs, add to that his own skills and he would be getting out of these ship just fine. He pulled himself to a stop as he neared the docking bay, two guards, both blue suns, both turian. Smiling, he darted up behind the first one and snapped his neck, before turning to the second a firing off a blast from his shotgun. The second merc flew backwards from the impact, hitting the wall behind him and slumping to the ground. Knocked out or dead, it didn't matter. Running to the end of the hall as quickly as he could while keeping his hold on the shotgun, he pressed the green activation button at the end of the hall which opened the airlock with a hiss.