Chapter Three
The New Threat Looms

If you have to leave,
I wish that you would just leave
'Cause your presence still lingers here
And it won't leave me alone

These wounds won't seem to heal,
this pain is just too real
There's just too much that time cannot erase

Amy Lee: "My Immortal"

The shuttle Carrying Kate Beckett, Miranda Lawson and Vikram Singh departed Lazarus station and jumped to FTL on an automatically set trajectory for another Cerberus facility. Fifteen seconds later, Lazarus station's self destruct system activated sending its reactor into overload, destroying the station utterly.

Miranda wasn't as thoroughly satisfied with Kate's recovery as she would have liked. Her memory tests during the trip to their final destination did little but irritate Kate. (most notably her questions involving the death of Lt. Kaiden Alenko on Virmire) Though she had retained near total recall of her fight against Saren and his reaper master as well as the state of the galaxy shortly before the Normandy's destruction. Miranda had no idea just how complete Kate's memories were.

"Kate, I love you. I love you Kate" whispered in Kate's head in Castle's voice more often than she was willing to let on in front of two complete strangers, regardless of what they had survived together. Without him she felt... incomplete, in a way she had never felt in her previous relationships.

Upon disembarking the shuttle in a massive space station just as cleverly hidden from prying eyes as the one they'd left, Miranda waved her toward a compartment where she was told she would meet the "Illusive Man", but was dismayed to find herself in a nearly empty room, devoid of adornment but for a flashing circle on the floor.

Kate was confused as she stepped into the circle, but allowed it to scan her without incident, as the Quantum Entanglement communications array set up its interface. When the humming and flashing stopped, she was surrounded by a holographic representation of a room with an aging man sitting in a chair in front of her, smoking a cigarette.

"So you're the Illusive Man," Kate commented dryly, "I thought we'd be meeting face to face."

Mason Wood took a long pull on his cigarette then released a puff of smoke before looking up to regard her. It didn't seem to bother him in the slightest that Kate didn't even know his real name, just an amusing pseudonym given him by Alliance Intelligence that had grown on him.

"A necessary precaution for people who know what you and I know," he replied evenly. There was something about the man or his motives, or maybe those strange, blue not-quite-human eyes appraising her that she didn't quite trust.

"And what, exactly is it that "you and I" know?" Kate asked, her eyebrow arched quizzically.

"That our place in the galaxy is more fragile than most want to believe," Wood replied evenly, "that one very specific person may be all that stands between humanity and the greatest threat to our brief existence."

"The Reapers," Kate breathed, barely willing to voice the word aloud. The one thing that weighed on her mind more heavily than the lack of knowledge of her husband's whereabouts.

"Good to see your memory is still intact," Wood offered in an almost grandfatherly sort of way that grated on Kate's nerves. "How are you feeling?"

"I noticed a few upgrades," Kate snarked sarcastically, rolling her eyes, "I hope you didn't replace anything really important."

"We tried to keep you as intact as possible," Wood replied, refusing to be baited. "We need you... exactly as you were after you defeated Sovereign."

"I'm not exactly one of Cerberus' greatest supporters, what are the Reapers up to that made you decide to bring me back?" Kate asked, as much as she wanted to be out there looking for Castle, she had the heavy weight of responsibility squarely on her shoulders as well. She recalled with stark clarity the real reason why she'd been sent on milk runs searching for almost non-existent geth. She'd stirred up too much trouble over the Reapers after the Council's concerted efforts to bury it.

"We're at war," Wood replied. "Nobody wants to admit it, but humanity is under attack. While you've been sleeping, entire colonies have been disappearing... human colonies. We believe it's somebody working for the Reapers, just like Saren and the geth aided Sovereign. You've seen it yourself two years ago when you bested all of them. That's the reason we chose you."

"If this is a threat against humanity, why haven't you mobilized the Alliance?" Kate asked. "For Cerberus to have operated unchecked for this long, you must have people on the inside."

"The Alliance suffered heavy losses fighting Sovereign," Wood replied. "They're rebuilding, but between their commitments to the Citadel fleet and mopping up operations against the geth, they're stretched too thin to waste resources verifying the Reaper threat. Blaming the abductions on mercs, pirates or slavers is more... convenient."

"If the reapers were behind this, why only target human colonies?" Kate asked. "I thought their goal was to harvest all advanced life in the galaxy."

"Hundreds of thousands of colonists have vanished without a trace," Wood replied sharply, then softened again. "I'd say that fits the definition of "harvesting." Nobody's paying attention because the attacks are random and thus far have only targeted remote colonies that cut ties with the Alliance. I honestly don't know why they've suddenly targeted humanity. Maybe humanity got their attention when the Fifth Fleet killed one of them."

"Fighting a war doesn't seem like Cerberus' style," Kate replied. "Why are you involved?"

"Regardless of what the Council would like to believe, Cerberus is committed to the advancement and preservation of humanity," Wood stated firmly. "If the Reapers are targeting us, then Cerberus will stand against them. If we wait for politicians or the Alliance to act, none of our colonies will be left and earth will be next."

"You could have fielded an entire army for what you spent to bring me back," Kate interjected. "Why me?"

"You're unique," Wood replied. "Not just in ability or what you've accomplished, but what you represent. You're not just a soldier, you're a symbol. I don't know if the Reapers understand fear, but you killed one of them, they have to respect that."

"If what you say is true," Kate replied, noting that she still didn't think she could trust the man, but at least somebody was willing to accept that the Reaper threat was genuine if nothing else. "If the Reapers are behind this... then I might consider helping you."

"I'd be disappointed if you accepted any of this without seeing the evidence for yourself," Wood replied. He'd known from the moment he'd authorized Project Lazarus that Kate Beckett would never implicitly trust him, but he'd read her psych profile, whether she trusted him or not, she would still do what was necessary. He wasn't certain he could trust her motivations either and had contingency plans in place to deal with her should their "partnership" degenerate to the point of negative returns.

"I've had a shuttle prepped to take you to Freedom's Progress, the latest colony to be hit," Wood offered after a brief pause to check a data feed. "Miranda and Vikram will brief you."

"Miranda killed Dr. Neiman in cold blood," Kate replied harshly, "and Vikram is just another hacker for hire. You expect me to trust them?"

"Dr Kelly Neiman was a brilliant cosmetic and reconstructive surgeon," Wood replied, "one of the best in her field, but her personal motivations were always suspect. In the end she was a traitor and from all reports tried to have you killed... again. Miranda did exactly what I expected of her, or any project lead for that matter. She saved your life in more ways than one."

Wood paused a moment for effect before continuing.

"Yes, Vikram Singh is a hacker. One of the best. He's never fully trusted me either, but he's always been honest about it. You'll be fine with them, for now."

"What do you think I'll find there?" Kate asked, letting the matter of Vikram and Miranda drop for now.

"If I knew that, I wouldn't need to send you," Mason replied. "You were a detective long before you were a soldier, find any clues you can. Who's abducting the colonists? Do they have any connection to the Reapers? Those are your questions to answer. I brought you back, it's up to you to do the rest."

Meanwhile
On the other side of the Terminus Systems

Halfway between the Styx/Theta cluster and Omega, ISV Serenity received another priority communique. It had been cross-routed through enough human colonies to completely muddy its point of origin. In the enclosed data packet, were orders from Councilor Montgomery to back trace the identity of a Turian mercenary that Cerberus seemed to be interested in hiring operating under the pseudonym "Archangel".

Not even Cerberus could mask all of its extranet search activity, no matter how heavily encrypted its search algorithms might be. It hadn't helped that Archangel had managed to make himself infamous, drawing attention to even the most discreet searches for his whereabouts and current activities.

Archangel and his squad of retired C-Sec agents, former gang members and victims had managed to disrupt the illicit activities of the top three mercenary groups in the Terminus Systems based on Omega. That he had managed to operate as long as he had on the played-out Prothean eezo mine turned outlaw space station was a testament to his good judgment in avoiding either the ire of the station's de-facto "queen" a former asari huntress nearing her matriarch stage named Aria T'Loak.

According to her reputation, Aria wasn't one to sit on her hands when it came to disruptive influences in her domain. Omega clearly had one rule: "Don't fuck with Aria." Some of her bloodier reprisals for breaking it had become the stuff of legend. It was said that sprinkled within the space debris surrounding the station were the bodies of people who had pissed her off. Many had been alive when they were pushed into the airlock. The only theory Castle could come up with for her lack of response to the turian's activities was that it kept the Blue Suns, Blood Pack and Eclipse off balance.

Castle made another trip to Serenity's small, cramped bridge to order another course correction that would take them within secure broadcast range of the remote Asari colony of Ilium which would add thirty-two hours to the trip to Omega. He would send a micro-burst transmission to the Archaeology offices of Dr. Liara T'Soni from his cabin when they got there and wait for a reply.

Not even Councilor Montgomery knew that six months ago, he'd taken a leave of absence to help her when the Broker had made attempts on her life, which had degenerated quickly into a running gunfight through Ilium's financial district and a showdown with a rogue Spectre in the inner courtyard of the Azure Hotel. They tracked the Shadow Broker to his lair - a custom-built suborbital vessel hidden in the lethal electrical storms on the planet Hagalaz - and succeeded in taking out his guards and killing him. In an unintended masterstroke after the fight, Liara had installed herself as the new Shadow Broker with no one in either his far-flung organization, or the galaxy-at-large being the wiser. She'd used the Broker's resources to hire a new crew for the ship and returned to "business as usual".

If anyone could find "Archangel", it was Liara. The Shadow Broker's network had been around for decades with informants, agents and information brokers in nearly every government and social strata of galactic civilization - all at her slender blue fingertips. She had half joked not long after assuming the role of the Broker, that given ten minutes she could start a war. At least he hoped she'd been joking.

If he could get to Archangel before the Cerberus agent pretending to be Kate did, he might be able to get a line on what the extremist pro-human splinter group she worked for was planning. If whomever was impersonating Kate cooperated when he found her, he might even kill her before ejecting her body out the nearest airlock.

He doubted Kate would recognize what he'd become in the last two years. Sometimes when he locked eyes with the stranger in his mirror every morning, he didn't either.

Kate's excursion to Freedom's Progress had been more like visiting a homicide crime scene than anyplace she had visited since leaving the NYPD to join the Alliance. The place had been absolutely deserted, positively eerie and silent as a tomb. There were no bodies, no signs of a struggle, nor any trace of where fifteen hundred colonists might have gone. Food and coffee were still sitting on tables in the main commissary, toys were left where children had been playing with them, as if the entire colony had just suddenly gotten up and left all at once.

The only building still powered up was the communications shack in the center of the colony in which they found a single Quarian male, sitting nearly catatonic at the primary console.

"Monsters coming back... safe from swarms..." he muttered incoherently. "Have to hide... no monsters... no swarms... no, no, no, no no..."

"Hey there," Beckett called out, "it's all right you're safe now."

"No... no Veetor... not here... not here... Swarms can't find... monsters coming... have to hide..."

"Nobody's gonna hurt you anymore," Kate tried again in as soothing a voice as she could muster.

"I don't think he can hear you, Captain," Vikram muttered.

Kate nodded at him and motioned toward the security feed that the Quarian was intent upon with an almost maniacal determination, searching for the monsters that plagued him. Vikram keyed his omni-tool and shut down the feed, which seemed to shock him back to some semblance of reality.

"You're... human..." Veetor muttered, staring at the three of them from behind the face mask of the enviro-suit - which all Quarians were forced to wear wherever they went due to their weak immune systems - as if the three of them weren't real. "Where did you hide? How come they didn't find you?"

"We aren't from here, Veetor," Kate soothed, "we came to investigate why this colony went dark."

"Who didn't find us?" Miranda asked, her curiosity piqued. Nobody had ever escaped the colony abductions before and what little evidence had been left behind had always been obscured by the recovery teams more intent upon rescue than forensic investigation.

"The... monsters... the swarms... they took everyone," Veetor replied.

"Why didn't the colonists fight back, Veetor?" Kate asked. "What happened?"

"You don't know... you didn't see... but I saw everything," Veetor replied as he keyed the monitors back online to play security footage from the attack.

"Looks like security footage," Miranda noted, "he must have pieced it together manually."

Bipedal insectoid aliens could be seen on the linked monitors working methodically, tossing people and into what looked like strange alien stasis pods.

"What the hell is that?" Vikram muttered, pointing at one of the strange insectivore creatures carrying an almost organic-looking rifle - escorting a line of flat bed carts each carrying two stasis pods back along the main street of the colony. Veetor paused the feed and zoomed in on the creature.

"My god..." Miranda whispered, "I think it's a Collector."

"Is that some new species?" Kate asked.

"They're from somewhere beyond the Omega Four relay," Miranda explained. "Only a few people have ever seen one in person. They usually work through intermediaries, either slavers or hired mercenaries. If they're involved with the Reapers somehow, it could explain what happened to the colonies."

"The Collectors have advanced technology," Vikram continued, citing information from his omni-tool. "It's possible they have a weapon that could disable an entire colony of people at once."

"The seeker swarms," Veetor added, having recovered a small semblance of coherence, switching the feed to an earlier time stamp to show a swarm of insect-like creatures buzzing around. "No one can hide. The seekers find you... freeze you... then the monsters take you away."

"I want to know more about these Collectors."

"Nobody knows much," Vikram pointed out. "Sightings of them are so rare that most people don't believe they exist at all."

"More importantly," Miranda added, "why are they abducting entire human colonies? What are they after?"

"Maybe the Illusive Man can figure it out," Vikram offered.

"Tell me more about these swarms," Kate asked Veetor, trying carefully not to spook him.

"It's how they find you," Veetor replied. "Seeker clouds... machines like tiny insects. They go everywhere. They find you. Then they sting you... freeze you."

"Sounds like miniature probes, maybe," Miranda theorized. "Finds victims, then immobilizes them with a stasis field or nerve toxin."

"Why didn't the Collectors find you, Veetor?" Kate asked gently.

"Swarms didn't find me," Veetor replied, his voice betraying that he didn't really know why he'd escaped detection either. "Monsters didn't know I was here. I studied them... the monsters... the swarms... recorded them with my omni-tool... lots of readings... electro-magnetic... dark energy..."

"The Collectors aren't known for being careless about keeping their identity a secret," Vikram added. "Perhaps his enviro-suit kept him from showing up on their sensors."

"Or they were using technology specifically designed to detect humans," Miranda added. "Only human colonies have been hit."

It was clear to Kate that the two of them had worked closely together often. The way they seemed to complete each other's theories reminded her of herself and Castle, making her miss him even more. "What I wouldn't give to have one of his crazy theories right now," she thought to herself.

"What happened next, Veetor?" Kate asked, if only to distract her from that line of thought.

"The monsters took the people onto their ship and they left... the ship flew away... but they will come back for me... no one escapes..." Veetor husked, staring straight at the monitor, as his voice trailed away into barely intelligible Quarian.

"I think that's all we're going to get out of him," Vikram observed, feeling almost sorry for the young Quarian.

"We need to get the data he did give us to the Illusive Man," Miranda noted. "Vikram, grab the Quarian and call the shuttle to come pick us up."

Suddenly, the door to the security server room burst open to reveal none other but Tali'Zorah flanked by two Quarian Fleet Marines in full battle gear armed with assault rifles.

"Stop right there!" One of the Quarian Marines commanded, their weapons at the ready.

"Prazza, stand down, I'm in command here!" Tali commanded, pulling the two Quarian Marines up short. As she turned to face Kate again, she was caught off-guard by the face of the woman looking back at them from behind the muzzle of an Avenger assault rifle.

"Wait... Captain Beckett?" Tali choked out. "Is that... you're alive?"

"I'm not taking any chances with Cerberus operatives!" Prazza shot back, his rifle, and that of the other Marine still pointed at Kate, Vikram and Miranda.

"Tali, you served on my ship," Kate commanded, trying to conceal her joy at seeing a familiar face... so to speak... the first of her old crew she had yet seen since her awakening. "You know what I do to people who threaten me."

"Prazza, put those weapons down!" Tali commanded, with more steel in her voice than Kate had ever recalled hearing before. "That's a direct order!"

Prazza and the other Quarian Fleet Marine reluctantly obeyed, lowering their weapons, but keeping them in the ready position should the situation change. He clearly wasn't afraid to offer his opinion though.

"Dammit Tali, this is bullshit," Prazza complained, "why would your old commander work for Cerberus?"

"I don't know," Tali responded, her glare at Prazza's borderline insubordination clear even through her opaque helmet visor, "but if this is really Kate Beckett... she would have to have a good reason."

"Cerberus has an awful past," Kate offered, "but they're the only ones willing to investigate the colony attacks. The council may have turned its back on humanity... again... but I haven't."

"Tali," Prazza interjected, "you aren't seriously considering trusting Cerberus?!"

"I'm not trusting anyone yet, Prazza," Tali shot back angrily, then turned back to Kate. "Veetor was here on pilgrimage. When we heard about the attack, we were sent to retrieve him."

"Everyone else here was gone," Kate asked, "what made you think he was still here?"

"We saw him when we landed," Prazza stated, clearly unhappy at sharing even that much.

"If you saw him before we got here," Kate asked, "how were we able to find him first?"

"Veetor was injured," Tali offered with difficulty, "and he was always a little ah... nervous."

"She means he's unstable, always has been... there was some debate on the Neema whether to send my cousin on Pilgrimage at all," Prazza interjected. "Combine that with damage to his suit CO2 scrubbers or an infection from an open air exposure and he was likely delerious. He ran when our ship touched down."

"Regardless, Veetor is a Quarian citizen, you can't just take him," Tali stated fiercely. "He's injured and needs treatment, not an interrogation."

"We won't hurt him," Vikram promised, "we just need to see if he knows anything else. He'll be returned to the flotilla unharmed."

"Given our history," Miranda added, "if we give him to you, what guarantee do we have that we'll get the intel we need?"

"You're welcome to take Veetor's omni-tool data," Tali pleaded, looking right at Kate, "but please Captain, just let us take him home."

"You don't have to take Veetor and go," Kate offered, "we could work together, just like old times."

"I'm barely able to accept that you're alive," Tali whispered, "or that you're working with Cerberus. I've got responsibilities now... a mission of my own. I can't walk away from that, not even for you."

"Veetor is traumatized and needs medical care," Kate stated, turning to lock eyes with Miranda, "Tali will give us the omni-tool data and take him to the flotilla."

"Understood, Captain," Miranda replied, clearly unhappy with Kate's decision, but the Illusive man's orders had been clear, Captain Beckett was in command here. Miranda might never have served a day in any uniform but that of Cerberus, but she knew how to follow orders. The Illusive Man gave her a lot of leeway because she got results, but he was not a man given to looking kindly upon direct insubordination.

"Thank you, Captain," Tali offered. "Cerberus or not, I'm glad you're still the one giving the orders. Good luck out there, if I find anything on my own mission that can help you with the colony attacks, I'll let you know."

"We're ready for pickup," Miranda stated into the comm.

Kate stared carefully into the video screen after Tali and her Marines left with Veetor in tow. She glared at the zoomed in figure of a Collector, committing the face of her new enemy to memory. She knew who they were now, and where they came from. With the right ship and the right crew she would be ready to take the fight right to their doorstep.

She knew the fight had only just begun.

**Author's Note** Yes, I know I haven't put Castle and Beckett back together yet, I'm working on it. Their goals are setting Caskett on a collision course with each other, I promise.