Charon

"I assume you've heard the official reports of various outbreaks of highly virulent diseases appearing on various human colonies throughout Alliance space?" Hogan enquired. Shepard nodded in response, watching the Major intently.

"I was under the impression that each incident was anomalous and separate." He replied. "I assume that the press weren't given access to all available information."

"Correct." The Irishman confirmed. "Analysis of the pathogens showed signs that they were all engineered for maximum potency against human anatomy, and resistant to all but the most expensive medical treatments; clearly more than a coincidence."

"Terrorism or military strikes?" If so, the Salarians were the most likely possibility, given the genophage, however, that could be simple misdirection; whoever was responsible clearly didn't lack intelligence or resources.

"Terrorism; and not an organisation. One human. Male. Your target." Hogan stated, adding the last sentence somewhat unnecessarily. Shepard frowned.

"Unlikely that a lone operator could gain access to the requisite resources to stage such attacks. And how do you know who he is, or that he even is a lone operator?"

"We have surveillance footage of him releasing the agent on Shanxi; he was alone, and, charting his movements on the colony, he never made contact with anyone. He landed on a private vessel that transpired to be stolen, and commandeered a different craft for his departure. It was found abandoned on Illium. These are not the tactics of a man affiliated with an organisation of the resources required to carry out such strikes, especially not strikes against such militarily and politically insignificant targets."

"Then there are two possible motives for the strikes; to gain someone's attention, or as tests, either of enemy efficiency or one's own equipment. Or both." Shepard observed aloud.

Hogan nodded appreciatively. "Just so."

Shepard, however, wasn't finished. "And yet, you wouldn't have brought me in yet unless you had not just an identity, but a location. So the databases can't be completely devoid of his presence."

"Rather the opposite. The databases have turned up dozens of matching identities thus far, yet none of them have stood up to scrutiny; all were faked, with false information stolen from other files and compiled at random. However, there was one file that had no information at all. All of it had been deleted apart from the face and the biometric data, and the name had been substituted with one word; Charon."

Charon, pronounced 'kair'-uhn', meaning of keen, fierce or feverish gaze; the ferryman in Greek mythology, tasked with transporting mortals that had expired into Hades, the realm of the dead. Son of Erebus, the dark, and Nyx, the night, and, oddly enough, brother of Thanatos.

Thaddaeus remained impassive, merely raised an eyebrow at Hogan in realisation of his pun, although inwardly he did appreciate the forward thinking nature of the machination, however, it wouldn't do to inadvertently give the impression that he approved of such things. Not that he expected it to make any difference...

"As for his location, we found him this morning, when he arrived on Terra Nova via commercial transport. Planetary control were instructed to let him through; they wouldn't have been able to apprehend him if his actions are any indication of his competence, and he would simply have caused even more damage, and probably released the pathogen before we could put someone onto his case more suited to dealing with him."

"Then either he's been lucky in his previous operations, or this is part of a larger strategy. Otherwise, you never would have been able to ascertain his identity, and 'Charon' wouldn't even be in your databases. You'd never have caught him landing on Terra Nova, and you'd be in no position to stop him."

"We know." Hogan said, showing the first faint signs of unease. "Your transport leaves in half an hour, Shepard. You'll be planetside within twelve hours; in the meantime the Alliance is discreetly screening all craft leaving the planet to make sure he doesn't slip away. Stop him from releasing the bio weapon if you can, but your priority is to eliminate this 'Charon'. Whatever it takes, you do it."

Shepard nodded an acknowledgement, rose to leave. Hogan mirrored the action, and proffered his hand. "Good luck, Commander. I've an inkling that for a change, you may need it."

Twelve hours later, Operative Thanatos blinked in the sudden light of the noon sun as he stepped out of his shuttle into the fierce heat of the main spaceport of Terra Nova's capital, Scott, a name that Shepard had responded to with evident disdain.

He wore lightweight, flexible carbon composite Onyx armour, without a helmet, underneath his trenchcoat that was sufficiently slim to avoid attracting attention as something other than ordinary clothing, with a stripped down and streamlined Karpov pistol in an armpit holster on his left side that was entirely invisible beneath the coat. Pockets on the inside of the coat contained combat knives that were balanced for projectile use.

In the black titanium case dangling from his left hand resided a human variant of the turian Kuwashii marksman visor, as well as a lightweight gas mask and his Lighting Strike sniper rifle, christened Extinction Level Event, or ELE, disassembled of course.

Ignoring the heat in the knowledge that he would shortly be in the shade of the heavily urbanised capital, Thaddaeus walked to meet the Alliance officer that had been ordered to greet him and escort him off of the base in a way that would avoid attracting attention. Despite the fact that the Butcher was still fresh in people's minds, the man didn't comment on the psychopath's identity.

One of Hogan's contacts, in all likelihood...

A sky car left him a minute's walk away from the public transport system's main hub in the city; one of the most likely targets for a strike involving an airborne pathogen. Shepard made his way towards it, blending with the crowds and watching the upper levels as well as scanning the streets for his target; a Caucasian human male, with brown hair, most commonly slickly combed out of his face with a left parting in the databases, and blue eyes that did conform to the suggestion his chosen name gave, with a sculpted face that was conventionally handsome and, to Shepard's eye, almost certainly the result of extensive surgical alterations to his appearance.

At least, that was what about half of his conscious brain was concentrating on. The other half was considering the fact that this assignment of his was complicated for reasons other than the enigmatic target's unknown motivations and therefore unpredictability.

There were safer ways to deal with this situation, and he and Hogan both knew it. If they'd caught Charon disembarking on Terra Nova, the planetary security force's heavy presence at all ports meant that at the very least they ought to be able to contain one terrorist, however competent. Furthermore, if they caught him disembarking, in all probability they had caught him boarding the transport, as well. Which meant that they had been afforded the opportunity to divert or board the transport and apprehend him with low risk of collateral damage, and hadn't taken it.

So this was just as much a test for Shepard as the Alliance's delayed arrival on Elysium, this time not testing his capabilities so much as his loyalty, in a way that was relatively low risk and high reward. If Shepard failed or transpired to be untrustworthy, the Alliance's blockade could contain the situation and then move in to deal with Charon themselves; despite the fact that Terra Nova had the largest population of any human colony, there was, as Shepard had cynically pointed out, no real shortage of his species in the galaxy, on top of which, an airborne biological weapon only threatened organics, not valuable, expensive infrastructure.

Of course, this was probably almost entirely Hogan, perhaps with authorisation from Hackett; most of the Alliance would balk at such a scenario, yet Shepard couldn't but admire their callous pragmatism; if he turned out to be trustworthy, he would be a far more valuable asset that what they stood to lose if he wasn't.

And of course, their move was entirely understandable, as in the event that he received a better offer, Shepard would jump ship without hesitation, although he would give whether it actually was a better offer careful thought. However, that wasn't what was conventionally described as 'loyalty', which Shepard understood to mean personalised altruism, which was entirely irrational.

Shepard put it almost entirely out of his mind and concentrated on observing without making himself conspicuous; if Charon was here, he'd be watching for the enemy.

And yet, there was no sign of the man, not on the ground at least. Thaddaeus made his way to the very centre of the hub, gliding through the crowds of civilians as if they didn't exist, and turned three hundred and sixty degrees, slowly, focussing on the balconies and upper floors, looking for any sign of the target, and, frustratingly, finding none.

This is absurd. I don't even know what pathogen he'll use so I can judge the most efficient location for distribution myself-even his appearance could have been changed in the time it took for me to get here...

Then, something caught his eye. An isolated spot of heat haze on an upper balcony, where the air had produced a small convection current with sufficient energy to disrupt the passage of photons through it, entirely unrelated to the mission, although he wondered idly what the heat source was, since the hub was indoors, which made solar radiation an unlikely option, despite it being the most common cause-

Except the shimmer in the air was moving, traversing the balcony in a way that was impossible or at least absurdly improbable in natural circumstances. It was a long way away, and the assassin was only too aware that the human brain had an irritating habit of seeing patterns and meaning where there was none, yet it looked like the shimmering effect was vaguely man-shaped...

And it might even be possible, especially for someone like me with obvious scientific expertise, demonstrated by the tailored pathogens this 'Charon' has already produced...

Shepard moved, slipping through the chaotic swarms of oblivious people, attempting to keep the anomaly in his line of sight, before reaching the edge of the hub, lined with shops all selling the same generic crap that merchants had been peddling for centuries. Pausing to consider for a brief moment, he continued into the nearest one, a newsagents, strode straight through the shop and through a door marked 'Private', used by suppliers and leading into the back corridors of the hub, which, according to the navigation programme on his Omni tool, led to the upper levels.

Aware of the surveillance, Shepard ran an interference broadcast on the microcomputer, and half-ran quietly through the corridors, listening for signs of the approach of a third party, or, most inconveniently, security, who, ever paranoid of terrorist activity, would likely apprehend him for the best part of a day until they were happy that his story had been verified, during which time someone would probably grow curious as to why he looked so much like the late Thaddaeus Shepard, which could lead to an awkward situation. Plastic surgery might have been a good idea, if he'd ever been willing to go under the knife-

Shepard almost didn't hear the footsteps until it was too late, managed to slow his pace to a fast walk, and hide his Omni tool, unable to do anything other than appear to belong, before a security guard turned a corner right in front of him from a perpendicular corridor, presumably going to check on the numerous camera malfunctions. He didn't give the psychopath more than a cursory glance before continuing past him. Shepard called up the map on his microcomputer again-

"Excuse me, sir?"

I definitely don't have time for this-

Shepard paused, put down his metal case, and slowly began to turn towards the guard, in the process discreetly drawing a knife from one of the internal pockets of his coat, before, as he finished his turn, accelerating the movement and sending his arm lashing out, sending the knife whirling into the man's throat, giving him no more than a second before he died, the only reaction a look of shock and horror on his face. Shepard directed an electrical surge at the camera overlooking the corridor, causing it to malfunction more permanently, and buy him more time before the alarm was raised, at which point if necessary, he'd be able to blame Charon. Then, he turned away, picked up his case, and hurried on to try to intercept what almost had to be Charon.

In the stairwell, outside the door to the level on which he'd seen the shimmer, he hastily donned the visor, which had a heads-up display that would allow him to zoom in on images without having to draw attention to himself by looking down the scope of a sniper rifle, then moved out through the door-

And came face to face with his target, the man who had designated himself 'Charon', wearing matt black body armour everywhere but on his head, instead covering his mouth and nose with a matching rebreather. And with two pistols in thigh holsters, hands loitering in their vicinity with a sinister suggestion.

"Welcome, brother."