"Harkin! We have to get out of here right now!" I screamed at him, pulling the overweight pig with me as I ran down the hallway outside of his office. There was still intense gunfire around the property, but the fight would be over soon. Harkin's men wouldn't last five minutes against the mercenaries who were attacking the building.

"Easy, Miranda! I can walk, you know!" he shouted angrily.

I let him loose and we ran towards the back of the building through a black and white marble hall.

"I have a way out," Harkin told me, running ahead of me now. "It's underground, through the old pipeworks!"

"Lead me there! And I expect a full story when we're to safety!" I shouted above the gunfire, which was grwoing closer and closer to us.

"Of couse, I'll tell you everything! We just have to leave!" He was frantic.

He hung a sharp left, now traveling through an old storeroom full of empty shelves and broken jars.

Suddenly, two turian mercenaries rounded the corner, head-to-toe in full combat gear with rifles ready to fire.

I raised me hand cannon and fired, diving for cover in the same instant.

I saw the first two rounds fizzle out as they met his kinetic barriers, but the next four tore into his flesh, sending spouts of deep blue shooting out of his chest. He reeled backward, falling to the floor.

I rolled behind a shelf, reloading.

Harkin wasn't so lucky.

The second merc's Avenger tore my last chance at finding Oriana apart right in front of me, turning the sleazy fraud expert into a bloody pulp.

I ran along the shelf, rushing the remaining mercenary while I pumped the trigger of my hand cannon, the bullets tearing through the rotting wood separating me from him.

He fired back, taking cover behind another shelf adjacent to mine. He couldn't see me, but the bullet holes were damn close to where I was crouching.

I wheeled around the corner, on my third magazine.

He looked out from his position and started to open fire.

Before the third round left his rifle, I gathered my biotic energy and just reached out, grabbing the gun out of his hands and pulling toward me.

I threw my pistol aside, letting it clatter to the floor as his Avenger sailed into my hands.

I kept my finger down on the trigger, blowing the turian apart with his own gun. He dropped to the floor, dead as dead can be. Absolutely riddled with bullets.

Overkill is underrated.

I kept his rifle. It would do me good to have an additional weapon, even one that I had little experience with.

But now I had a big problem. Harkin had never told me the way out of here. This place was massive, and I was running out of time.

Easy, Miranda. Just focus and you can do this.

I decided to take a chance and double back to the main entrance.

Those mercenaries must have the courtyard cleared out by now. If I could just sneak past them, then I could get in my car and speed off into the night before anyone else knew I was here.

Yeah, that sounded crazy enough to work. I tucked my pistol back into my belt and started running.

I doubled back through the dilapidated mansion, swinging my new rifle back and forth as I passed doorways and shattered windows, looking for hostiles.

I heard several men running down a hallway behind me, their shadows dancing on the walls as they passed.

Good. They think that they have this place locked down. I found it better to let them live that fantasy than to let them know of anything otherwise.

I got to my vehicle, which was covered in rubble, yet still sparkled in the dim light.

I literally jumped inside, slamming the door shut and setting my new rifle on the seat next to me.

Then I threw the car into reverse. It was time to get the hell out of here.

When I looked into my rearview mirror, I saw a pair of mercs at the gate, holding back scavengers and ruber-neckers from the sight before them.

I backed the car up out of the building and floored it, still in reverse.

The pair of goons was still looking toward the crowd and in the opposite direction of me when I hit them, sending both of them flying through the air like bits of shrapnel.

They fell with sickening cracks back to the hard, wet surface of Illium, and they didn't get up.

Four down. Many more left to go.

There was one place left for me to go tonight. One final person who could help me.

Liara T'Soni.

I was just hoping that they hadn't gotten to her first.

Elsewhere...

Getting up onto my feet was like trying to lift a car off of my back, only not so easy.

Somehow, my legs were under me again, and I was limping to the elevator, praying that whoever owned this place had payed the electric bill so that I wouldn't have to take the stairs.

It worked alright. It took me back to the streets. The cold, dark streets of Nos Astra in the early morning weren't any more inviting than they had been when I had arrived here.

I kept having to tell myself not to feel my face. Not to look at or try to understand what had happened.

Sidonis. That coward. He had shot his commanding officer and left him to die, but I knew he wasn't the only culprit.

None of my team had come back for me, either. They were just as guilty as he was.

Sidonis had been the one who insisted on coming here. Sidonis had arranged for us to attack Harkin tonight, and I was pretty sure I knew why.

Sidonis had always wanted to take merc contracts on the side for more funding. he had a good heart and good intentions, so I was easy on him. I had told him that we didn't do what we do for a paycheck, and he backed off.

Instead of confronting me like a real man, he had shot me when I trusted him the most. I did trust him. He had been like a brother to me, not afraid to challenge me or argue with my moral code when everyone else was silent.

I didn't know who he was outside of our work, but he had been a friend to me, and that was more than I could ask of most people.

One thing was for sure; his death wouldn't be quick and clean like the ones I gave criminals through my rifle scope.

It would be messy. It would be painful and nasty and sickening to watch, and it would be well deserved.

Even though I didn't know where Sidonis and my old team were going, that woman in the red car had killed at least two of them, so we had enough in common to be allies against Sidonis.

I just had to follow the woman in the bright red car.

That's right, the three stories are starting to come together. I didn't think I'd have to beg people to give me feedback, but I am. So please leave comments or suggestions for future chapters, thank you!