Synthetics and Spectres: First Human Spectre

by Gadflow

ME 1 AU Discontinued in favor of rewrites.

4. Luck is for the lonely

AN: I am so bloody embarrassed every time I see people reading S&S, because I know those first few chapters are utter crap. So cut it out, ya jerks.

Joking, not joking, aside, here is another chapter, courtesy of a heatwave that saps my will to do anything but write.

Thanks to all those who favored, followed, or reviewed. And specials thanks to those who PM'd me, I enjoy reading what you think of the story.

And fair warning, I'm doing some upgrading next week on my computer. Which if history is anything to go by will result in me being out of commission for a week while I figure out what is wrong with the blasted thing.

S&S

"Good evening, Humanity. This is Daniel Morales and you are watching our in-depth analysis on the resurrection of Evalyn Shepard."

The man on the screen shuffled the datapads on his desk, before glancing back to the camera, "As our viewers are no doubt aware, Evalyn Shepard, the sole heir of the Shepard legacy, has been revealed recently to still be among the living, after erroneously being reported dead by Citadel authorities nearly five years ago following an attack on the exploratory vessel she was employed on. And while C-Sec has not responded to our requests for a statement, Admiral Hackett of the Systems Alliance had this to say."

Hackett's voice began to play, a stock photo of him projected on screen for the viewers, "Evalyn Shepard's position as a Spectre was always known by the inner circles of the SA's military, the Council felt that if we wanted a Spectre then we would need to prove that one of our numbers was capable of the job, without the politics involved. That she agreed, knowing that if things had gone wrong we would never be able to admit the truth, is the greatest kind of courage I know."

As the clip ended the camera refocused on the man behind the desk, "Of course we all know that while operating under the alias Mirix Varan, Evalyn Shepard has had a very varied, but successful career. But this seems to ignore the most pressing issue, which is that it is amazing that this, to use the Admiral's words, courageous young woman is even functional. Here with more on that is, Doctor Kenneth Grant. Author of 'Survivor or Sociopath? An in depth analysis of Eva Shepard.'"

The camera panned out to showcase an elderly Caucasian male with thinning grey hair, though he was dressed more like he was going down to a pub than being interviewed on ANN, other than that his most striking features was that he as wearing a pair of glasses, as the need for such devices were all but eliminated thanks to in-utero treatments to correct vision problems.

"Now, Doctor, first things first, some have claimed that you publishing this book so soon after the revelation of Evalyn Shepard's survival is predatory behavior on your part. What is your response to your accusers?"

The Doctor for his part merely laughed, "I'd say that they were false, I actually finished that book around," he paused as he pondered the actual date, "I believe it was six months after Akuze, but by the time the publisher's felt a respectful amount of time had passed Eva herself had, seemingly, passed away. So we all agreed that it would be for the best if we just forgot about it all together." He adjusted his glasses briefly, the overhead lights briefly obscuring his eyes as the lenses caught the light, "My publisher actually contacted me the moment the news broke, indeed they woke me up in the middle of the night in their haste to contact me, and yes I suppose it might be seen as predatory to some, but I take pride in my work, and I believe that people need to understand more about their heroes."

After a brief moment he sighed, "I have nothing but sympathy for what the girl has suffered through, witnessing the death of her Father, the loss of her entire unit on Akuze."

Daniel leaned on his desk bringing the camera's focus on to him, "Not to mention the terrorist attack at her graduation ceremony from Arcturus Academy." Grant stumbled from the interruption but nodded, "Yes, a class of two hundred of the brightest in the Alliance, cut down to just twelve survivors."

He took a small sip from the mug in front of him, "How is it that anyone could be expected to come out of that with their-

As a fist connected with the screen it caused the unaware crewman to leap away, turning to find himself face to face with a very, very angry Admiral Shepard, "Son, I would greatly appreciate it if for the remainder of this trip you could not be an idiot." Pulling back his hand Shepard hissed as a sliver of screen came out with it, "Go and fetch me the med kit." As he sat down he glared cracked screen he had decked, "Fucking luxury bullshit."

He had 'appropriated' a shuttle that had been idling on Earth to take to the Citadel, to hell with Hackett and the rest of the Admirals, he had a Granddaughter who needed a damn good talking to.

S&S

"Ah, Spectre Varan," at that the Volus chuckled, "Sorry, force of habit, Spectre Shepard." He waved her inside further, talking as she and Ash approached, "Too bad you couldn't have let me know of this ahead of time, we could have made a killing." She smiled at the financial wizard, "But that wouldn't be exactly legal now would it Von?" At that the Volus just made a dismissive motion with his hands, "Everything is legal, somewhere."

They both shared a quiet laugh at that, though Ashley was left confused as to what was so damn funny. Finally, though after some more small talk Evalyn got to business, "How has the market reacted?" Von tapped into the interface in front of him, statistics scrawled across the screens on his desk, "Relatively well. You have seen a," he was quiet for a moment as he brought up a screen on his terminal, "sixteen percent increase overall. Though, Illium is making noise regarding your company."

Shepard made a small noise in the back of her throat, "I'll let my people know to pay off the right officials," but at the shake of Von's head she frowned, "Why? What else went wrong?" The Volus gave a small shrug, "Not wrong, just complicated. The Dantius clan, is making the most noise. One of them, Nassana, is here, and has offered you a way out. Didn't say what it was just that you should meet her, when you could. She's officially here working for Serrice Council, so I don't think there is a need to rush to meet her." He tapped his Omni forwarding the coordinates to her, "Though I suspect that you are here for my other line of work?"

At Shepard's nod he sighed, "No one is interested in just making money anymore." This caused Ashley to grin, but she frowned at the thought that this soccer ball like alien was a part of the galaxy's most feared information network.

"This information is free of charge. I'm sure you understand what that means?" Shepard simply nodded, "It means that the charge is my assistance." At the Volus' nod Eva sighed, one day she would ask for help and get it, no strings, and then it would rain freaking chocolate.

"All right, Von, give me the information." The Volus pulled out a small data stick, handing it to her with a stubby appendage, "First off, Fist has betrayed the network," noticing her raised eyebrow he shushed her with a motion, "In conjunction with that, your friend, Wrex. He is here, to collect."

Wrex? Now that was good news, and she was certain that she could enlist the Krogan's help in this scavenger hunt she had found herself a part of. "And the second?"

"Saren is who Fist betrayed the Broker for. Claims he has damaging information in regards to the Spectre. Says that he captured a Quarian, who had found the information from a Geth data core."

Shepard's face paled at that, Tali was the only Quarian on the Citadel who had those skills, and if she had been captured she had just put Garrus directly in danger. "Abyss take this day!" She swung, already at a run by the moment the door opened, Ashley rushing to catch up to her after being caught off guard. Shepard though was already trying to get a hold of Wrex.

"Wrex here, make it fast." She could hear the sound of bad music, and what sounded like another Krogan growling at the Battlemaster, "Wrex, this is Shepard, meet me at these coordinates now. Fist has someone I want so we may as well combine forces."

There was a silence on the line for a few moments, before a chuckle, "Alright, Shepard. Always more fun to slaughter idiots with friends."

Shepard terminated the connection, and quickly opened up the backdoor she had placed into Garrus' omni, and after activating his tracker software she found his location easily enough. Skidding to a halt she turned to Ash, "Ashley I need you to get in contact with Kaidan, then I want you two to meet me at these coordinates." Both their omni's momentarily pulsed as the data transferred, but Ashley was obviously torn between listening to her friend, and following the orders given to her.

Eva sighed, "Ash, I have limited time here, and Saren is already moving against our efforts. Kaidan could be in danger, and I know Vakarian is going to be, so I need you to fucking trust me right now!" At Ashley's nod Eva smiled grimly, taking off at a run towards a normally off limits express lift that was only to be used by emergency personnel, "I think this counts as an emergency," she muttered to herself as she overrode the door's locks. As the lift doors sealed behind her she had to fight the urge to vomit, the lift's speed was past the regular limit that a human would feel comfortable in, but she was willing to deal with a little discomfort to make sure the Detective got out of this mess alive.

As she slipped out of it she checked Garrus' tracker again, and frowned upon seeing that he had moved to some alley down by Morlan's. "Is this idiot trying to get himself killed?" She took off at a run, and subconsciously was prepping to form a biotic barrier around her body in the case of a fight, her fingers playing along the hilt of her pistol hidden under her jacket.

She skidded into the alley, finding her deepest fears confirmed as the Detective was slumped against the wall, a trail of dark blue blood on the wall above him. His assailants consisted of two Salarians in armor, and one barefaced Turian, which meant she was either dealing with three wily bastards, or three idiots.

So she did the sensible thing and she fired first, her pistol sliding firmly into her left as she overloaded the Turian's shield, the round she requisitioned for him leaving a stain on the wall opposite of Garrus. The Salarian's unfortunately reacted fast enough that she was placing them in the wily category, one of them tossed a sabotage at her, which would have been useless on her Sabre but it stopped her Carnifex in its tracks. The other attempted to overload her shields, but found that difficult to do given that she wasn't protecting herself with a kinetic barrier.

Thrusting forward her hand she slammed a pull field into the closest of the two, deploying the omni blade from her synthetic arm she buried it into where she knew the heart resided in the Salarian chest. But as she shoved the now ex-Salarian to the ground she saw that his partner was firmly in the idiot category, as he pulled two high ex grenades from his belt. But before he, or Shepard for that matter, could react the Salarian collapsed, a single hole in the center of their helmet.

She glanced down to see a smoking pistol in Garrus' talons, a dry choking laugh from him, "Couldn't let you have all the fun, Spectre."

She shipped her pistol before quickly moving over to the Turian, bending down she slowly helped the Turian to stand, "We need to get you to a Doctor." At that Garrus coughed weakly before managing to talk, "You don't want to call C-Sec first? We are at the scene of a crime."

Shepard just scowled, "Ya, just keep being a smartass while you bleed out, very helpful, Detective." That earned a chuckle from the Turian, "Oh, that hurt," after a few more labored breaths he managed to wheeze out, "There is a doctor on this level, human, Doctor Michelle, she can patch me up enough that I can limp back to headquarters."

Shepard just sighed, "That sounds like an idiotic plan, but fine have it your way."

The pair managed to make it the relatively short distance to the aforementioned clinic, though not without receiving numerous strange looks every pedestrian they passed. But the moment the clinic door hissed open Shepard cursed whatever bad luck was following her, as she found herself stumbling into what quickly transformed into a hostage situation.

Three hostiles, no obvious barrier, or K-shield shimmer, poor quality weapons, twitchy dispositions, not a good batch to try to negotiate with, and honestly she was kind of impatient at this exact moment.

And so before the lead moron had a chance to speak her right arm flashed, the synthetic limb unhindered by the restraints of its flesh counterpart had drawn, targeted, and fired upon all three targets, before they had realized she had gone for her gun.

And as the trio of bodies fell around the screaming human, Garrus only starred in shock, "Spirits."

Shepard for her part just pulled him on to one of the beds, before moving over to the Doctor, who was now realizing she was still alive. "Doctor? I'm Spectre Shepard, this is Detective Vakarian who needs your help right now, the people who these men likely worked for just tried to have him killed, and I suspect this batch was here to catch him if he was hurt. So please, help him."

As the woman blinked a few more times she nodded, "Of course, of course, Spectre. And I'm terribly sorry," the woman paused briefly before clarifying, "For the screaming." Shepard had to blink a few times as she realized the woman was speaking in a French accent, something rather odd as it meant she was purposely speaking English, instead of letting a translator simply translate her speech for others. But what was one more oddity to add to the day at this point, and so she just focused on what was important.

"Think nothing of it, Doctor." And with that the Doctor quickly went to work, though Garrus insisted on keeping awake during the procedure, his eyes analyzing Shepard. "I've reviewed all of the files on both your identities that I could." Shepard shifted her weight on to one leg, and combined with her crossed arm screamed non-verbally, 'get on with whatever you have to say.'

"Ever since you lost your arm you switched to your left, but from what I just saw it isn't a performance thing, so, why?" Shepard flexed her still gloved synthetic hand, the integrated omni knew to form the interface around clothing so as not to damage whatever she was wearing, "I don't want to get used to using it." She paused for a few moments, before deciding to elaborate, "I lost my arm trying to save lives, but in the end none of what I did mattered, and all I ended up was losing yet another piece of myself."

She frowned as she clenched her synthetic hand into a fist, one that she knew could crush bone is required to. "But is it a loss when I can build a better arm? Flesh has limits, an organic limb can't do even a quarter of what this limb can, but then why not just replace the whole thing?" She sighed, moving a few steps away so that her back was to the Turian, running a hand through her bangs, "And I know that if I get used to using it, that little voice in my head that says to just replace it all will get too strong." She glanced back at the Turian, "Of course, in matters of life and death I won't even think about it, I'm a survivor first and foremost, a philosopher second."

The good Doctor has a strange look on her face, but she quickly schooled it and went back to work, Vakarian for his part nodded, "I can understand that, and I can certainly respect that." He let out a wince as Michel pulled an armor shard out of a gash in his shoulder, "Look, I know you have places to be, and I won't be able to help you deal with the Quarian issue, but if some C-Sec punk tries to play chicken with a Spectre, tell them to contact Detective Vakarian."

Shepard nodded, "Thanks, Garrus." The blue armored Turian nodded, "I should be thanking you, but lets just hold off on that for a little bit, I'd like to even the score first." Shepard just laughed at that as she made her way out of the clinic.

S&S

"The Catalyst will succeed. Why waste the resources in attempting to halt the inevitable?" Saren clenched his jaw together at the grating voice that Sovereign used to communicate, glaring at the projection that had appeared nearby, "Perhaps if your servants were capable of doing the tasks assigned to them, we wouldn't find ourselves in this mess."

"We must act quickly to gain access to the Cypher, otherwise the beacon's message will be useless to us." Saren had to agree with that statement, cursing the fact that he was forced to rely on others to gather the needed intelligence for him.

"Benezia is tracking where the creatures you identified as byproducts of the Thorian originated from, she couldn't find out the direct source, but she did discover the base that they were going to be shipped to. It belongs to Orthus, another human organization, but this one is run by your precious Catalyst's Mother."

"The offspring is the only thing we are concerned with, deal with the Mother as you see fit." The projection hovered for a few moments before it began to speak once more, "A new second in command may be in order soon, Benezia's mind is powerful, and eventually her mind will reject the alterations that I have built upon them. Fear of an eventuality is only useful for so long, if she does not receive the cure she seeks she will rebel against our instruction."

Saren rounded his attention on to the flickering crimson hologram, "You mean to tell me that she could break free of your control at any time?"

"No, the process is irreversible, but to keep her at her most productive we have attempted an alternative method of control. One that plays off of her greatest fear, but should her mind be forced to confront this fact our control over her could be damaged, perhaps lost all together. She would not be who she once was, but she would be a threat to our plans."

Saren let out a low growl, running a talon over the cybernetics on his jaw, "So how do we ensure she doesn't have such a crisis of faith?"

"Kill the source of the conflict, kill Liara T'Soni." Saren frowned, his mandibles moving position subtly, "Won't losing her Daughter simply take away the reason you have her helping us? How does that solve the problem at all?"

"Her offspring's death will not be a loss for us, and with minimal effort she can be made to blame another." Saren's face flickered momentarily into a grin, "Like a certain Human Spectre."

As the room was plunged into darkness as Sovereign's avatar disappeared Saren found himself chuckling to himself in the darkness. He would enjoy the chance to cause both Shepard and Benezia pain, the Asari for being such an easily controlled creature, and Shepard simply because it would give him pleasure.

But such thoughts were banished as he winced from another flash of the beacon, from what he had managed to learn the beacon was not calibrated to operate with Turian physiology. Yet from what he had seen of Shepard, she had come out of the event relatively unscathed, was it due to her Graybox, her status as this 'Catalyst,' or was it something else entirely.

It was known that the Protheans had been involved on Earth at some point, could they have engineered the human's to be capable of interfacing with their technology? But then how did one explain the Asari sharing the ability as well, unless there too lay a connection.

Saren was an intelligent being, but he was not a scientist, and he did not foresee himself having the time in the future to pursue this line of thinking. But still the thought lingered on the edge of his consciousness, could the Prothean's have had some plan for both the Humans, and the Asari. He knew that the Protheans had some connection to the Asari thanks to a comment by Benezia, but the woman refused to enlighten him any further, and Sovereign refused to compel her to do so for information it considered meaningless.

As another spike went through his skull he managed to banish the thought from his mind, he had more pressing matters to attend to, the foremost being dealing with this fucking message!

He quickly tapped contacted one of his men on his omni, the blurry image of a Krogan with an astonishing degree of cybernetic augmentation appearing on his screen. "Dror, I need you to take a few drop ships of Geth to the location I'm sending you."

Dror nodded, his voice tinged with a synthetic flair, "What's the target?" Saren just smiled at that, "You'll finally get to have your revenge for what Shepard did to you. You get to kill Liara T'Soni."

The Krogan's artificial laugh unnerved even the Turian, but he was confident that the problem was going to be taken care of, and soon.

S&S

As Kaidan and Ashley tried to be inconspicuous as they entered an extremely high end presidium neighborhood, Kaidan couldn't help but ask the same question he had three times now, "You're sure that this is the right spot?"

Ashley couldn't hold back her groan of frustration, "Yes, LT I'm sure. Unless of course you just want to head back to enjoy the view at Chora's some more." Noticing the slight discomfort that remark brought Ashley smirked, got ya Lieutenant.

The location Shepard had given them was two levels below the main floor, which they learned from the local V.I were apartments that had their own private landing pads attached, and as Kaidan turned to look at her again Ashley cut him off, "Don't ask me if this is the right place, because I swear, rank aside, I will drop you."

That of course just caused the LT to smirk at her, "Sure thing, Chief." Which just caused an exasperated sigh to escape from the female of the pair, "Just follow me," she mumbled more to herself than to him as they stepped into a nearby lift.

The lift was faster than the Normandy's, a fact that both parties were thankful for as they hadn't wanted to spend an afternoon traveling down two floors, and as the doors noiselessly swung open the duo stepped into the hallway.

Making their way down the hall they came upon the unit that Shepard had supplied, "Do we just go in?" Ashley shrugged at Kaidan's question, unsure of the answer herself.

The answer however was supplied for them, as the door slid open to reveal the scarred visage of a Krogan, who simply jerked his hand to indicate they should come inside. Before he swung his bulk around to return to his post of leaning against the only wall that gave him a clear view of the whole room. Ashley and Kaidan for their part complied, with Kaidan idly moving around the room, while Ash tried to raise Shepard on her omni from the couch.

"Shepard says that she'll be here soon, apparently some Turian Detective who was helping her got ambushed down in the wards so she had to get him to a clinic." The Krogan just chuckled at that, causing both human's to flinch at the sound, "Trust a Turian to get taken out before the war has even begun."

Kaidan shook his head, "This isn't a war, we're just trying to do the right thing." Wrex just smirked at that, "Don't be naive human, if you strip Saren's Spectre status what do you think is going to happen then? He's not going to go down quietly, and he will try to take as many of you down with him as he can. I know the man; I know his type too." At the he let out another low chuckle, but Ashley knew he was right, regardless of what happened here today, a war had begun whether it was ever officially called one or not.

The SA had only ever been in two official wars, one was of course the First Contact War with the Turians, while the other was the Systems War that had started not long after the initial inner colonies had become self-sufficient in the year 2154.

The new colonies felt that thanks to their independence from Earth they should keep the fruits of their labors, which the Earth felt should be sent home given that they had both founded and supported those colonies during their initial steps. The war was an awkward affair for the history books to describe to this day, as much of the minutia of space combat was still all theory to humans. As such there had been little in the way of great battles, only a mass amounts of ineffective skirmishes, but the war had set the shape of the SA for years to come.

The war had seen the rise of Admiral Drescher, the German born woman had scored one of the few decisive victories of the war, and who would become the savior of Shanxi three years later during the FCW. It was also when Admiral Harrison Shepard had developed the Carrier class, it first being tested against the Colonials in orbit near Terra Nova, the fighters tearing their way through the enemy fleet as Guardian systems had yet to be developed by the humans.

The war finally ended when the Colonials agreed to peace talks following the threat by, then Captain, John Shepard to drop an asteroid onto Terra Nova's capital of Scott. A move that at once proved two things, one the man was far harder than most had given him credit for, and two he had one hell of a poker face as to this day not even Steven Hackett had been able to say for certain if John would have gone through with his plan.

The resulting peace talks had changed the shape of humanity, it was agreed that the SA would be the governing body in space, and that the capital would be the soon to be constructed Arcturus Station, not Earth. Earth though had retained their rights to the resources of those colonies that they founded, and to this day nearly sixty percent of Earth founded colonies output traveled via the Charon relay back to the homeworld. To be perfectly candid most of the former Colonial colonies had been preparing for round two before the advent of the FCW, but upon the realization that humanity was not alone in the universe suddenly Earth was no longer the enemy, but the cradle of civilization to be defended.

Of course many of the hardliner independents had moved out beyond the borders of the SA, forming numerous wildcat colonies that sat near the borders of the Terminus, often illustrated simply by a thin broken blue line between SA space proper, and Aria's domain, on the current Alliance star charts.

Ashley's attention was brought back to the present as the door opened to reveal the blonde Spectre, whose face upon glancing around the room lit up with a grin, "Wrex!" The Krogan for his part just smirked, clasping Shepard's forearm while she did likewise, "Shepard."

As they broke from their embrace, Shepard turned her attention to the other two humans in the room, "Ash, Kaidan, I assume this mean spirited lizard hasn't introduced himself yet, so meet Urdnot Wrex, one of the few remaining Krogan Battlemasters. Wrex, this is Lieutenant Alenko, one of the Alliance's L2 Sentinels, and that is Chief Williams, one of the best soldiers I have ever had the pleasure of serving with." Wrex of course greeted them with his most cordial of greetings, which consisted of a grunt in their general direction.

Shepard quickly moved across the room, bringing up whatever schematics she had on Chora's up on one of several wall mounted screens in the room, "Alright, here is what we know so far. Tali'Zorah, a tiny little synthetic hating spitfire was attempting to trade information she uncovered to the Broker network. The only problem is that the local low level brokerage contact, a charming man who goes by the name fist, his real name is Sebastian by the way, recently turned traitor." At that she glanced over at the Krogan in the room, "Wrex here has been hired to kill him, which means that our interests align."

She sighed, "Make no mistake this isn't going to be a bunch of kids in this place playing at being gangsters, Fist may not be bright, but he's paranoid and willing to pay to satisfy that paranoia. As such we have two major hurdles," She circled one area of the schematic on the screen, highlighting the bar.

Kaidan frowned at the room, "That is one hell of a bottleneck for us to get through, no other entry points?" Shepard shook her head, "Fist has been paying off Citadel inspectors since he arrived, so safety regulations regarding fire exits are not in full effect." a smirk playing across her features as she spoke. The blonde turned her heard towards Kaidan, "You and Wrex are the only people who were in bar itself, so any thing that we can use to our advantage?"

Kaidan paced up to the wall, highlighting a wall section that was on the outside of the club, "This wall here is directly against the bulkhead of the inner wall, I mean we will still be dropping inside the club, but if we hit here and the door directly afterwards." Ashley smirked from her seat, "Instant crossfire scenario."

Wrex grunted his agreement, his gravely voice filling the room, "That bar's reinforced, has to be if you want to serve Krogan any liquor and still have a bar left, probably the best piece of cover in the room." She shifted her gaze between the two males, "Anything else?" And at their combined shrug she groaned, "So we have, blow up the wall, and hide behind the bar, great basis for an insertion strategy."

The Krogan's chuckle caused her to glance back at the lizard, causing a smirk to cross his wide face, "We've fought worse than this with worse plans, Shepard. My only question is how you think this little suit rat is going to help you take down Saren, no way that whatever she has is enough to flip the Council." Shepard sighed, but he was right and she knew it, which was why she had gone to Aria, "T'Loak is going to confirm that the weapons we found on Eden Prime were stolen by Saren's agents."

Wrex's eyes narrowed slightly at that, "How did you get the Queen Bitch to help you out?" Shepard rubbed her neck while a faint blush appeared on her face, "I owe her a favor."

Wrex's eyes were damn near invisible now, before he just made a disgusted noise, "Your funeral, the Queen isn't known for being magnanimous when it comes to calling in what is owed her." He shook his head, "But she'll get you your evidence, regardless of the truth of the matter, plus she gets you Tevos. Word is she has some major blackmail over the Councillor, why there hasn't been any major movements against her since Tevos took up the job."

Ashley cleared her throat, "Fascinating as this is, but didn't you say there are two hurdles we have to deal with?"

Shepard shot the brunette a glare, but it quickly disappeared as she highlighted an area deeper into Fists' complex. "This room is Fists' office, and directly behind it are numerous 'storage rooms' which as I'm sure everyone can see are suspiciously shaped like cells. Fist at last count had at least two high grade auto turrets, and he himself has been spotted utilizing a suit of Colossus light powered armor, so he's at minimum able to haul around a Mako's repeater cannon."

Kaidan studied the picture of the man that was on the main screen, "Just because he can move in the armor doesn't mean he can use it. The Colossus is, finicky, on its best days, the knee actuators in particular like to go, they're the same model that Kassa uses for their standard heavy armors."

Ashley though pipped up from the couch, "That room is pretty big for an office, he could have some type of heavy mech support inside of that room for all we know."

Shepard just turned towards her, a predatory grin on her face, "That is what grenade launchers are for, my dear."

S&S

Miranda let out a groan of frustration, this was the fifteenth iteration of her attempts to hijack these 'Thralls' control signal, and still nothing. They just stood there, and that was it!

"Some lead this turned out to be, maybe I can get Eva to forward me a copy of that data she recovered from Eden Prime. There was some mild promise in those husk creatures." At the sound of the door opening behind her Miranda turned, ready to go for the pistol at her waist before she recognized the form of her Mother. "Mom? I thought you were up on the Nova?"

The Nova was the pocket Dreadnought that they had, 'appropriated' from Cerberus when they had parted ways. It had begun life as an Alliance project that had its funding cut in order to produce the Jupiter class, before being completed by The Illusive Man, until it ultimately fell into their hands.

Though the mission had not gone off without a hitch, Kai Leng had tracked them to the ship, and it had only been the combined efforts of the Orthus crew, along with Shepard and Liara T'Soni that had driven off the psychopath.

Leng had escaped thanks to a Cerberus agent hidden within Hannah's crew, though not before Eva had put several rounds into both his knee caps. But before the Specter had been able to finish him off a Cerberus agent, now identified as one 'Rasa' had managed to take out the distracted Spectre, and had escaped by stealing one of Orthus' shuttles, while detonating the rest to discourage pursuit.

That had been the first time Shepard and Miranda had met without one of them being masked, and it honestly marked the first time Miranda had thought she could find some common ground with the Sister she had only to that point heard of, or worked together in a purely professional fashion.

But it had also caused her to become even more paranoid, Hannah was too trusting of the people she had taken with them, and Miranda knew that the Illusive Man had moles in their organization. But Hannah always brushed off her concerns, citing that the senior members had all served with her for years, some dating back to her days as Eva Core, Miranda of course never pointed out that such people would have an equally long history with Jack Harper but the fact was always at the back of her brain.

"The technicians finished up early, we are now officially the most heavily armed heavy cargo hauler in history." They had put a great deal of effort into disguising the Nova, as Hannah planned on turning it into a mobile headquarters of sorts, a plan which Miranda was fully supportive of, it was always easier to catch a rat when they had nowhere to run.

Hannah though caught on to Miranda's distracted frame of mind, "Honey, no one expects you to do this all by yourself. You've only been at this for a few weeks, plus there was that little side trip you had with Eva, and well I won't lie these things give me the creeps. Give me a good old fashioned mech any day."

Miranda couldn't help but smile at the comment, Hannah's love for technology was only surpassed by her biological Daughter, Miranda herself was more of a geneticist, though if that was due to an actually interest. or just the need to understand her own construction was a question she didn't like to dwell on.

"Yes, well I can't disagree with you there. And what little results I'm getting seems entirely contingent on the thralls being able to detect a control signal in the first place, it's almost like they are somehow still connected even with such a massive distance between them." Miranda just huffed, "This is going to sound ludicrous but they almost seem to have some type of organic quantum connection built into them, but that is just ludicrous," she tossed the datapad in her hand on to a nearby table, massaging her temples, "I need food, and some sleep."

Hannah just laughed at that, "Well at least you know that you need it, Eva once went nearly thirty-six hours without sleep before she passed out, then she woke up and went right back to work." She chuckled a little at the memory, "She got that from John, the man was an amazing Admiral but the moment he wasn't in a life threatening situation he would forget how to operate a door. Personally I think that was why he always kept an aide nearby, he hated looking like an idiot, probably stems from how Harrison was just the measuring stick for what it meant to be an Admiral."

Miranda just listened to her Mother, she never really knew how she was supposed to take these little talks, Eva was her sister, that she could deal with. The two of them had found a few times to talk here and there, and they had bonded surprisingly fast, but she supposed two lonely hyper intelligent women who shared the same Mother would either come together, or try to kill each other.

But she had no history with Hannah's deceased Husband, and she had never met Harrison Shepard, though she was aware that he was one of the reasons that Eva had never been told of her Mother's history with Cerberus. The Shepard Patriarch had threatened to take custody of the child if Hannah tried to get his Granddaughter into any of her, 'terrorist bullshit.' Of course Miranda knew that Hannah never intended on letting Eva know of her history with Cerberus, but Harrison did not, nor would he likely have believed her, as it was well known that he had never approved of his Son's Wife.

Of course this was the current cause of the friction between Hannah, and her biological Daughter. Who had been forced to deal with the fact that not only had her Mother been involved with the cover up following Akuze, but that she could have stopped the event altogether, a series of events further complicated by the fact that Hannah had attempted to have Eva transferred out of her unit shortly before they departed for Akuze, only for the transfer orders to end up not being delivered.

Learning all of this had shattered all of Eva's preconceptions about her Mother, and she still hadn't come to terms with the reality. Miranda could empathize as she knew that she had a case of hero worship for Hannah as well, but the difference was she had always been made aware of both sides of Hannah's identity. Whereas Evalyn's was based on an incomplete portrait, and Miranda wasn't sure if Eva would ever be able to truly trust Hannah again, but she kept that to herself.

"Miranda? Miri!" Miranda nearly ran into her Mother, blinking a few times to focus herself she found them in the small mess hall, "I'm sorry, I was somewhere else." Hannah just cocked her head to the side that screamed, 'tell me something I didn't know.' Which just caused a smile to appear on both women's lips.

"Yes, well now you are in the mess hall. So grab some food, I want you to head up to the Nova while I supervise the move down here." Miranda frowned at that, "Why?"

Hannah though simply grabbed one of the heated packs from the cabinet built into the wall, forcing Miranda to huff after her and do likewise. The older woman only deigning to answer when they had both sat themselves down in an isolated corner of the hall. Not that there was anyone else in the room, as this was the middle of the asteroid base's night cycle.

"You're going to take command of the Nova in a few months, Samson has been doing a fine job, but well, I agree with you that his judgment isn't the best. It can't be me because I'm stuck as freaking management now." The older woman was practically pouting at that point, as she had made little effort to hide the fact that she was disgruntled at being turned into a paper pusher. But Hannah also refused to let anyone else take the reigns, as to do so could cause them to slip back on to the same path that Cerberus was now treading, an organization that was doing more damage to Humanity than good.

Miranda though understood what Hannah was expecting of her, she was of course well versed in battle tactics, calm under fire, and of course the one person that Hannah could trust implicitly. "I understand, but this isn't going to be simple moving the base over to the Nova. We're looking at nearly a million credits worth of equipment here, plus a few hundred on site Orthus members, the lab technicians, plus all the sentimental junk they have in their rooms."

Hannah just held up her hands in a placating gesture, "I know Miri, think of it as time to get used to the ship, meet the crew, maybe have a conversation with a human being other than yourself." Miranda frowned at that last statement, muttering under her breath, "I talked to Eva, that counts." Though she winced as she saw the flicker of pain cross Hannah's features.

"I'm sorry! I didn't mean," but Hannah halted her with a gesture, "It's alright Miri, it is simply, hard though. Knowing that she is still so angry," her voice trailed off, before she drew in a shaky breath, "But I always knew that this was a risk, and I can't hold the fact that she still has some morals against her. Regardless of how much it hurts."

Miranda just reached across the table, grasping Hannah's trembling hand, causing the older blonde to give her a small smile, "Thank you, dear." She took a few moments to compose herself, before her eyes flicked back to her older Daughter, "Go and get some sleep, Miri. And once you wake, well lots to be done."

S&S

"Shepard I don't know if you are just the most paranoid person in existence, or you just like sitting on top of an armory." Ash was almost gleefully moving through the Shepard's collection of weapons in the back, having already selected one of her Raptor rifles, in addition to the modified M-100 Grenade launcher that Shepard had provided for her.

She handed Kaidan over an older Vindicator rifle, a replacement for one she had lost while on her final evaluation with Saren years prior, but he seemed a lot more thankful for spare K-Generator that she handed him, "Just in case."

Wrex waved off any offer of assistance, just patting the bag at his side as a grin crossed his features, "Still have your last present here," which of course was a reference to the Claymore she had given him during their last mission together.

Shepard for her part was armored once again, the predominately white armor broken up only by the black sections on the limbs that represented more exotic hardened compounds that had gone into the manufacturing process, along with the red running lights that crisscrossed along the boxy suit. But it was designed to her exact specifications, and had taken months to complete resulting in a piece of technology that was likely a year ahead of anything else on the market. Though it had come at a considerable expense, and as such she was going in without a helmet until she could gather the resources to construct a new one.

"Wrex, you still carrying that Striker?" At Wrex's nod she grinned, the Striker itself was an assault rifle of sorts, but instead of a normal ammo block it used an exotic compound that detonated upon impact, turning the weapon into a somewhat impromptu grenade launcher. Of course the recoil made it all but unusable if it wasn't mounted, except to a Krogan as the species had designed the weapon in the first place.

Wrex simply grinned as he pulled the gun from the bag, "It takes care of the little things." And like the professional that he was, the old Krogan began to do a once over of his rifle, time and experience had taught him to always have your gear in working order.

Shepard nodded, a plan forming in her mind as she moved across the room to pull out several explosive charges from storage cases. She had modeled the explosives off of those used in precise demolition work, though in her case it was mostly for anti-armor purposes, or for gaining access to bunkers, but it turned out they were finally going to be used for their intended purpose.

"Okay, Wrex and Kaidan will go in through the main door, Kaidan will stay in the rear to provide barrier support. Meanwhile Ash, myself, and my friends here," She tapped the charges she had attached to her hip, "Will go in through the wall, Ash will concentrate on taking out those enemies in the light cover around the room, while I will focus on anyone around the bar."

Wrex slid the ammo block of the Striker back into place, "And what am I doing aside for getting shot at?" Shepard just smirked at him, "You'll be taking out that Krogan I heard you arguing with when I called you."

Both marines fidgeted uncomfortably at the sound of Wrex's laughter, unsure of why anyone would be so pleased with killing a member of their own race.

S&S

The journey to Chora's had been relatively peaceful, Shepard had gotten the Spectre office to send over a vehicle that could accommodate a Krogan, and upon arrival she and Ash had gotten into the front compartment of the space truck, while Wrex and Kaidan got in the back.

Ash was fidgeting, worried about going into a firefight without her armor, but unlike Wrex and Shepard she didn't have a permit for it, and the only armor that she knew would fit her was back in the Normandy still in need of a major overhaul. Shepard of course picked up on what was bothering her, "Just stay low, and rely on the launcher, it fires dumb grenades so make sure to swap them to time if you want to bounce them off of something, otherwise they detonate on impact."

Ash nodded, "Ya, I remember seeing a few of them when a couple of really bright pirates tried to raid us. I mean the weapon is effective, but this is you so we're talking about, so I'm kind of surprised to see something so, primitive, I guess." Shepard just laughed at that, "I have nothing against stuff that is old, all that matters is if it works. Plus, the schematics are available freely online, so it is a good weapon to use if you don't want to leave any clues as to who you are."

Ash sighed, "Wrex was right earlier wasn't he? This here, this is just the first domino to fall isn't it." Shepard's lips thinned, and with a single terse motion she nodded, the blonde woman's voice was as tense as Ashley felt, "Best case scenario is we strip Saren of his authority and he becomes a ghost, worst case is he and the Geth go on an all out war in the Traverse."

Shepard sighed, "And I have a feeling I'm going to be the one sent to deal with him, it solves the need for both the Alliance and the Council to appear to be doing something, but well serving two masters is hardly easy when there isn't the threat of galactic war." Her voice trailed off, her eyes showing that she was lost somewhere else for a few moments.

Ash too was caught in her own thoughts, foremost among them what was to happen if they failed. If Saren somehow escaped justice how could she deal with the faces of the dead, they already haunted what little sleep she had tried to get, but if she failed?

So she asked the question she knew that Shepard didn't want asked, but she did it because she had to, "How did you manage to sleep after Akuze?"

The tension in the cabin skyrocketed, but finally Shepard managed to pry her natural hand off of the control it was gripping to move it to the base of her neck, "I didn't, not for a long time. I drank, a lot, enough that I didn't notice that my Mother had hired an Elcor to trail me. And I probably would have stayed that way too if Nihlus hadn't have found me, offered me a chance at revenge, but really what he offered me was an escape."

She blinked back a few tears at the thought of her friend, but they had all known that they could bite it at any time. And perhaps that was why she was handling this so well compared to her previous losses, yes what had happened was tragic, but it was part of the job description.

Her Father's shuttle blowing up in front of her, losing most of her graduating class to a terrorist attack, the loss of her entire unit on Akuze, you can't prepare for any of those events. But the loss of a friend who is a Spectre agent, well that is just something you accept as an inevitability.

"It's taken me a long time to put myself back together, and I've stumbled, and I know for certain that I have fucked up, but understand this Ash. If you replace a part, you have changed the fundamental nature of the machine, even if you convince yourself that it is identical there will always be something different, and those small differences make the world."

Ash too at this point had two lines of tears on her cheeks, the woman of course being too stoic to sob instead just stood still as a statue save for the liquid running down her face. Her voice cracked as she finally spoke, "Donkey, the guy we saw get impaled by that spike machine, he said once that, 'Luck is for the lonely.' Why the fuck am I lucky?"

Shepard wanted to reach across the compartment to comfort her, but she knew that Ash would flinch away from contact with her synthetic hand. And so all she could say was, "I don't know why Ash, once I would have said because maybe there is a plan for us, but I can't say that honestly anymore." After that she simply allowed the woman to process her emotions on her own, before quietly informing her a short while later, "Just a few minutes before we are at the landing zone, Ash."

Ashley nodded, and began the process of slipping into a more focused mindset. And while Shepard would have preferred to have given her friend more time to cope, they honestly had little choice, had Garrus not been injured then perhaps she could have had Ash sit this one out, but she knew that her, Wrex, and Kaidan wouldn't have been enough.

Shepard banged her right arm on the back wall of the compartment, signaling to the guys in the back that they were nearly there, the corresponding thud she received was Wrex's polite way of telling her to use the damn radio.

"Just trying to be old school Wrex," and she was gratified to see that Ash was smirking at the comment.

"Shepard, just because your species only discovered radio two hundred years ago doesn't mean the rest of us are that slow on the uptake." Ash opened her mouth, but Shepard shushed her. Not wanting them to start an argument this early, plus Wrex was testy when it came to comments on his race.

She brought the truck down on a pad that was situated near Chora's, but not close enough that she was expecting an ambush. And as she exited the vehicle she quickly overwrote the nearby meters programming, as she didn't know how their exfil was going to go, but it was best not to have the possible escape vehicle hardlocked by C-sec.

The quartet advanced, their weapons getting them noticed quickly, but her Spectre emblem making people forget them just as quickly. It wasn't until they entered the skyway that led to Chora's that they knew something was wrong, as the door itself was blinking an angry red that indicated the door was locked.

"Too bad, I was really hoping for a drink first." Wrex chuckled a little, "Guess I'll just have to serve myself then." He quickly began to move up, while Shepard tossed Ash a charge as both moved up their breech point. Kaidan for his part was sticking back on overwatch, until it actually came time to begin the show.

Shepard tapped the activation toggle on the charge, speaking into her mic, "Charge set." With Ashley quickly chiming in, "Mine too." Causing both women to run for cover behind the nearby metal wall that stopped the inebriated from tumbling to their death.

"Wrex you ready?" And she had to assume his chuckle was an affirmative, Kaidan for his part just gave her a thumbs up when she glanced his way, which made her realize that Ash likely wasn't the only one still hurting from Eden Prime.

"Alright, blowing them in 3,2," upon stating the last number a roar filled the room, and so did an explosion. Wrex moved inside faster than the rest of them could react, using the high explosive rounds of his rifle to great effect on the stunned gangsters. Shepard herself sprinted inside, rounds flickering off her shields as she began to target the sharpshooters who were perched on top of the bar with her Sabre.

A sudden fireball engulfing a table across the room let her know that Ashley had joined the fray, and when an explosion that was meant for Wrex revealed him to have been protected by a shimmering biotic barrier she knew that Kaidan was here too.

A roar came from across the room as a Krogan slammed into Wrex, but the older Krogan's biotics flared as Wrex brought his plated skull crashing down on top of the younger male, knocking him to his knees. Wrex growled at the stunned bouncer, "Stay down pup."

But as the male hurled himself to his feat he bellowed another challenge, only to have it cut off quickly from a single retort of Wrex's claymore. And as the now headless body collapsed to the ground Wrex sighed, "Waste."

The gangsters had by this time been fully routed, both Wrex and Shepard having overestimated their capabilities apparently. "Alright, we got lucky here. But Fist may still have some surprises, so don't get sloppy." With that Shepard began to move forward, her omni scanning for any trouble as they moved deeper into the complex.

But it was only after she popped her head around the corner that she realized how deep the shit they were in was.

Standing square in the center of the room was Solan, in his fucking mech suit. The suit itself was vaguely humanoid, though with elongated arms and legs, multi-missile batteries could be seen built across the surface of the suit's limbs. While a trio of mass effect cannons made up the left hand, the right ended in a standard hand that was currently in a fist. The most distinctive feature was the head, which was represented by a large turreted mass effect cannon.

"My, apologies Spectre, but Fist paid, me for my services long before, I knew you, were involved. Know that, it isn't personal." As his voice finished being transmitted through the suit a deluge of rounds began to tear into the wall, causing Shepard to curse as she hurled herself to the ground. "Wrex, I need you to distract it! I have a plan"

Wrex grumbled as he grabbed his Striker, "Why do your plans always involve me getting shot, or tossed out of space ships." But he flared his biotics to shield himself as he bellowed out a battlecry. "Kaidan, Ash, get into the back and try to rescue Tali!" At this point she also deployed the drones she had mounted on her upper back, hoping that they would at least provide some level of distraction for the Krogan.

With that she went to work, hacking into Fist's network to find what she was looking for. Dimly she was aware that Wrex went sailing into a nearby bulkhead, but the Krogan quickly picked himself back up, hurling himself to the side just in time to avoid a large mechanical fist.

And then she found what she was looking for, "Turrets coming online!"

"How is that supposed to help us!" Was all Wrex bellowed.

"What turrets?" Was Solan's confused statement, but as the two rapid fire, large caliber turrets, began to fire on his suit the Volus realized what turrets. And while they were doing a good job of stripping his shielding his suit was still functioning the heavy armor turning away most of the rounds that hit it. And as the heavy walker aimed the gun arm at one turret a flash of light filled the room as the turret exploded as the large bore rounds slammed into it. The head itself also swiveled to target a completely different turret, which also fared brightly in its death throes.

"Any other bright ideas?" Though before Shepard could comment a sudden flare filled the room, as Ash appeared launching grenade after grenade at a single spot on the mech's back. Shepard realized she was screaming as she hurled herself into the fray, unwilling to let Ash die in some stupid heroic last stand. The spectre ducking underneath a swing of one of the mech's arms, as the pilot attempted to deal with targeting the multiple weapon systems, as he was unable to fire the missile systems in such close quarters without cooking himself in the process.

A quartet of missiles slammed into the side of the suit, compromising the actuator on the left arm, and causing Shepard to quickly follow the smoke trails to a series of drones that had entered the room from where Ash had entered. Taking advantage of the now prone limb Evalyn closed what little distance remained between herself and the suit, slamming one of her remaining charged on top of one of the suits knee joints. The mech's leg though lashed out, sending her thudding into a nearby bulkhead, "Let's hope this works," and with that she activated the charge.

The explosion itself was impressive, but Solan's suit tumbling to the ground as it lost its balance was even more so. And as the suit hit the ground both the mech, and its owned seemed to sigh, as it found itself unable to right itself and fight. A single hiss filled the room as the suit powered down, the Volus' voice coming out of the suits speakers, "I, surrender."

Shepard scowled, but quickly pulled herself up to make her way over to the now opening suit. The Volus' suit was dented and dinged from where some of the turret fire must have gotten through, and the hat Ashley had noticed earlier was actually smoking somewhat from an electrical fire that had began in the cockpit, but she was finding it hard to feel bad for the soccer ball.

Shepard pulled a pair of omni-cuffs from her back, while Spectres weren't cops per se, it was also good to keep a pair on hand in case you had a particularly unruly individual to deal with. As she slapped the cuffs on she fought the urge to rough up the Volus, attempting to remind herself that she didn't need the additional trouble.

It was at that moment that Kaidan entered the room, supporting the weight of an obviously very injured, or sick, Quarian. Tali's suit had had some obvious patchwork done recently, so Shepard was willing to bet that the girl was still recovering from an infection. "I assume we have you to thank for the drones?"

A few coughs were transmitted before she simply nodded, "Kaidan can you watch our new friend here, Wrex and I have some unfinished business with Fist." Kaidan for his part seemed particularly uncomfortable with that statement, but he nodded nonetheless.

"Ash, can you contact C-Sec, they need to come and pick up Solan here." Ash just smirked, giving the Volus a little push with her foot to get him moving, "My pleasure. Come on, Mr. Hat. I'm sure that they are going to love hearing your explanation for firing on a Spectre."

With that out of the way Shepard and Wrex made their way down the hallway, and found themselves standing in front of the only door still locked. Shepard was almost annoyed that he had bothered to lock it with how easy it was to crack, and she honestly couldn't help but cackle as two dockworkers tried to draw on them.

She had already slammed one into a wall before the gun was in his hand, while Wrex just yelled boo at the other, causing the man to shriek on drop his gun.

"Sit down, and you might get out of here without ending up in a C-Sec jail cell!" She hurled her target on top of Wrex's still shrieking victim, "And shut up!"

As they neared the end of the hall she signaled for her drones to move in, and as they swept across the room she quickly took in the two turrets inside, along with fist. But the man had money, not brains, and so she was able to hack into his own turrets using the same backdoor she had found earlier.

The result was both her and Wrex strolling into the room, while Fist's own turrets tracked his every movement. "All right, Sebastian, we are going to play a little game called question, and answer. I ask a question, you answer it," she paused briefly, "And if you don't play, Wrex here will eat you."

Wrex just grinned at that, making sure that the panicking human got a good glimpse of his tooth filled maw.

Fist just trembled against the back wall, "You can't do this, I know people! You'll never be able to find work in Council Space again!" Shepard pinched the bridge of her nose, "Okay, we've already established you're an idiot, lets just move on from there."

"Why did you sell out to Saren, and what did he want that he was willing to pay you that much." Fist looked from her, to Wrex, and back several times, before he realized that she was done talking. "She has some type of recording, she hacked it out of a Geth that was syncing up with their, hive mind thing. I don't know what it is because she encrypted it, but Saren wanted it, he paid me more for this one job than the Broker did for the last ten years combined."

Both Shepard and Wrex glanced at each other at that one, the Broker wasn't stingy, which meant that this was something serious, perhaps even damning enough on its own. But she also knew that Fist was just a middle man, and she highly doubted that one such as Saren would put any faith in the human aside for his greed.

"Alright, I'm satisfied, Wrex, you?" As a single retort filled the room, Fist's dead body slumped to the ground, "Now I am."

Shepard nodded, and the pair began to make their way back to Kaidan, and Tali. "Okay, we're going to swing by a clinic to make sure Tali is alright, then we'll be heading to the Embassy." Wrex just shrugged, clearly indicating it wasn't his fight.

And so Shepard stopped walking, "Wrex, I have a feeling they are going to saddle this mess on to me when we give them this file. So, I'm officially asking right now, do you want in to hunt the most dangerous man in the galaxy?" Wrex just grinned from ear to ear at her, clapping her in the shoulder with one stubby limb, "You always find the best fights, Shepard."

S&S

"First time on Luna, Commander?" The marine checking her credentials asked, though her glare soon put paid to any further attempts at small talk, and as he activated the door to let her in she shook her head at his puppy dog look, such a soldier should not be guarding what could possibly be the biggest achievement in cyberwarfare of the century.

That Evalyn Shepard had unknowingly contributed so much to the project both delighted, and disgusted her, but she could take some amount of pride in knowing that it was her V.I that deserved the credit. Not the monstrosity that Eva had unwittingly created, though as Cora's thoughts turned back to her old school mate she was quite certain that Eva would be rather taken with the A.I in her possession.

As she entered the room one of the nearby techs noticed her, "Commander Addison, we weren't aware that you were coming early." Cora's blue eyes raked over the man in front of her, narrowing at the implication that she should have informed him, "I was unaware that I had to announce myself when arriving at my own project, or did I miss a memo somewhere?" She would have said his name, but she honestly hadn't bothered to learn any of their names, they weren't military, indeed most of them weren't even officially here.

The man visibly paled upon realizing he had unknowingly insulted the scarlet haired woman, "No, Ma'am. I simply meant that we still haven't finished installing the A.I's main components yet, let along the V.I overlay hardware." She simply nodded at that, dismissing him with a gesture as she moved further inside the pre-fab compound. Until she found herself standing in front of the very thing that had made all of this possible, the remnants of two extremely advanced V.I's forcibly merged into a singular entity.

The result was extraordinary.

It was of course only possible because both the Hannibal system, and the Tess system, were both creations of Evalyn that they had fused together so seamlessly, but that should all have been over when the vast majority of the entity's core had been destroyed by some type of explosive device.

Instead though a kernel of it had survived, and over the course of the last several months it had been allowed to grow in intelligence and capacity, under quarantine at the Jump Zero station. But now was the time for the true test, where she would harness the power of this artificial lifeform, using a specially designed V.I that would use the A.I's superior processing power and abilities, while eliminating the chance of rebellion.

She felt a faint flicker of remorse at the thought of the still newborn A.I, it had no clue what was going to happen to it once it was reactivated, but she had come too far to allow such an emotion to stop her.

Still she found herself talking to the deactivated entity, even though the practical part of her mind knew it was pointless. "I'm sorry for what is about to happen, and I know that your, well I suppose she is effectively your Mother would probably kill me for it. But understand that I don't do this out of malice, but because I know just how fragile we humans truly are."

Her hand traced up to her right cheek, the scar tissue there ran over most of her jaw, up to her cheekbone, a gift from the bomb that had detonated during her graduation ceremony.

Cora Addison had until that moment only ever wanted to command a ship, she had dreamed of being a modern day Lord Nelson, but after seeing so many of her classmates dead or dying she had lost all taste for combat. And so she had put her skills as a programmer to work, and while she wasn't up to Evalyn's level when it came to designing virtual entities, she also wasn't obsessed with trying to be friends with them.

Evalyn had been her rival in their academy days, and she had only seen the woman once since then, shortly after Akuze. She had been on Arcturus when they had brought her in, and so she had visited her in the hospital, only to find out that she had been the only visitor to come in for her. A fact that hadn't struck her as all that odd, Eva had few friends among human's as she disliked being treated differently thanks to her ancestry.

She had walked in on the woman half crying, half screaming, as she had been installing by herself the shoulder section of her new cyberware. Cora's gasp had of course caused her to drop the tool she had been holding, and the string of curses that had followed showed how on edge the woman was.

They never said a word for the next hour, Cora merely picked up the tool and began to help, literally, put together one of the few people she respected as an equal, and as a rival. By the time she had left they still hadn't spoken, neither one would know where to begin, but Cora had promised herself that she would do whatever it took to stop atrocities such as these from happening ever again.

And that was why she wouldn't feel remorse for what she did.

But it was also why she spent the next several hours telling stories about Evalyn Shepard to a deactivated A.I. A small measure of kindness she thought, both for it, and for Evalyn.

S&S

Credit Song: I Am a Stone by Demon Hunter

AN: Ya I made Fist's place bigger, and for the record that was Solan's small mech, he may eventually show up in a larger suit later. After all who doesn't want a Volus vs. Colossus fight?

Saren's bits always annoy me, I need to put them in, but I hate just panning in there for a few hundred words then popping back out. It's not like I'm trying to pad these chapters, but I like whenever I do a side tangent to the main story that it has some weight to it.

And I'm confident that most of you can figure out where Cora's chapter is leading to.

Thanks in advance if you hit any of the buttons below. Reviews likewise are always welcome, because improvement is always possible!