Author Notes: I'M BACK! While I realize it's been quite a while since my last update, I've been busy searching for gainful employment. I've had a few interviews, and filled out a small truck load of applications, but no luck so far. Hopefully I can get back into the swing of things, but my schedule might be a bit sporadic as the job hunt continues. If my beta reader is unavailable (which wouldn't surprise me in the least, considering how long I've been MIA), I'll just upload new material directly. aDarkOne, if you see this and are still interested, let me know. In the meantime, ENJOY!


Chapter 4: Raid on Torfan

Aboard the ASV Luminous, the door to the medbay slid open, and five armored figures entered.

"You patched up yet, Zad?" asked Pala.

"The docs say it'll be a couple more days." he replied, glancing up from the data pad in his hands. "The round grazed the bone in my leg, and took a piece out of it. Still, they got me hopped up on pain meds, so I can't complain."

She gave him a small smirk and gestured to the Quarian behind her. "Well, I'd like to introduce you to our final team member. You already know Ashley and Vega; this is Tali'Zorah vas Normandy."

The Turian extended a hand to each of the others in turn, which they shook, and Ashley let out an amused snort. The others shot her a puzzled look. "What?" Pala inquired.

"It's just… everyone in the galaxy shakes hands when they meet someone. As I understand it, that was originally a Human custom. Now, it's ubiquitous across most of the galaxy."

The others thought about it for a moment, then began chucking slightly. "The rest of you might not be old enough to remember this" began the Turian with a smile plastered on his face "but before the Contact War, people used to bow to each other when they met. Even the Volus."

Tali and Ashley let out almost identical snorts of disbelief. "How could a Volus bow?" asked the Quarian incredulously. "They don't have waists."

"Very carefully." quipped Zad in a deadpan voice. "So, what's the word? I know we're docked at Arcturus Station, and on an Alliance ship, but not much beyond that."

"We're putting together a team." replied Ashley. "I understand the other three members of your squad are getting out of the merc business?"

"Yeah." said Pala with a shrug. "I wouldn't trust Draven and Taneth to watch my back anymore. I understand why they turned, but still… And Thomas is getting a commission directly from the Alliance Navy." She fidgeted for a moment before continuing. "It's strange; I worked with all of them for ten years, and in less than a week, the only one left is Zad."

"You can't get rid of me, Pala." said Zad with a smirk. "I'm like a bad houseguest." He turned to Ashley. "You mentioned something about a team, Major?"

"Oh. Right. Well, the Alliance got the Council to approve a raid on Torfan. Most of the ground forces will be Rangers, with a few Geists like Tali as backup. I want you and Pala on my team."

Zad frowned contemplatively. "Tali'Zorah… I recognize that name. You were on the mission with Shepard, right?"

She nodded. "I was. I was one of three Spectres assigned to the mission, along with John and Nihlus Kryik."

Ashley nodded as well. "We worked well together. Anyways, Alliance Intelligence needs whatever information you can give them on Torfan. Pala tells me you've been there more recently than she has. As soon as you're feeling up to it, Hackett and Harris want to debrief you."

Zad's eyes widened slightly. "Hackett as in Supreme Commander Steven Hackett and Harris as in Director of the Rangers Tal Harris?" When Ashley nodded, he sighed. "That might be rather… awkward. I've got a… criminal record in the Alliance."

Ashley shot him a smile. "Actually, you don't. It was part of the deal, after all. Hackett pulled some strings, and got you a full pardon for any crimes you've committed in the Alliance."

"How… encompassing is this pardon?" he asked nervously. "I was on Shanxi, after all."

"It's signed by Hackett, Anderson, and the new Alliance PM, Washington." replied Vega. "Technically, it would cover anything you did, even if you were involved in the massacre." He fixed Zad with a piercing gaze, and his voice was accusing. "Were you involved in the massacre, zorro?"

The Turian bowed his head, and refused to meet anyone else's eyes. "Yes." he replied quietly. His voice sounded distant, and his face was grim. "The things I did that day… they haunt me. They're the single greatest regrets of my life."

Vega opened his mouth, but Ashley stopped him with a raised hand. "Enough. We're not here to fight about something that happened thirty years ago. Zad, I need you to start preparing a summary of everything you can remember about Torfan. We'll get the rest of your team together so you can work through the details. Forward whatever intel you have on Torfan to me, and as soon as you're feeling up to it, you'll meet with Hackett and Harris directly with the rest of us. The mission to Torfan should take place in less than a week, as soon as the Rangers and Alliance Navy can finish the prep work. Our briefing is coming later from Hackett directly."

"Our briefing?" asked the Turian confusedly.

"Yeah." said Pala with a small sigh. "We get the pleasure of finding Haliat and hauling his ass back to the Alliance. Hackett also wants us to grab as many prisoners as possible, particularly if they're indoctrinated."

Zad frowned slightly. "I'm guessing they want the prisoners for… scientific reasons, right?"

Ashley chuckled slightly. "No need to dance around the issue, grandpa. The eggheads want to find a treatment for indoctrination, and they need subjects to do it." She let out a wistful sigh as she continued. "Wish the Skipper was here. He'd get them that treatment in no time flat."

"Skipper?" asked Zad. "I assume you mean Shepard. What's he got to do with treating indoctrination? And who are you calling grandpa?" He said the last with mock offense in his voice.

Ashley smirked at him. "First off, you're old enough to be my grandfather, old man. "

"I am not." he protested fiercely. "I'll have you know I'm sixty three, thank you very much. If your grandfather was still alive he'd be what? Seventy four?"

"Seventy two." she corrected with a mischievous grin. "You're still old enough to be my grandfather."

"What about Shepard?" he asked exasperatedly.

Ashley's face fell, and her mood turned somber. Tali answered his question. "This isn't common knowledge, but… have you heard of Yuri?"

Zad nodded. "I've read up on Human history to recognize the name. I'm rather… skeptical of his abilities, though."

"You shouldn't be." retorted Tali. "Ashley and I… worked with him for several months under John's command."

"Madre de dios." whispered Vega shakily. "You actually…"

"Yes." replied the Quarian gravely. "We needed him. More specifically, John needed him… as an instructor."

"An instructor?" asked Pala. "For what? Psychic powers?" she asked dubiously. When Tali and Ashley didn't answer, her face grew concerned. "You can't be serious."

"Let's not talk about this for now." said Tali diffidently. "We just wanted to check up on Zad. We'll discuss this later."


"Listen up." barked Hackett. "I'm only going over this once, and I expect you to listen. Now that our formerly mercenary friend is on his feet, it's time to get this op underway. Major, since your team is the main snatch team for Haliat, I'm handling your briefing personally, along with the director. To start with, let's take a look at the target."

The Admiral pulled up a file on his omnitool, and a half-meter hologram sprang into existence over the table. "Elanos Haliat. Turian male, age forty seven; grew up on a small Turian colony near the 'verse, and had a father and brother lost in the Contact War, which we think is his motivation for this bullshit. He served his mandatory stint in the Turian military like everyone else in the Hierarchy, and then promptly disappeared into the Terminus Systems. Reappeared over a decade later as a merc, and quickly graduated to smuggler, arms dealer, and slaver. He's been making increasingly large waves for the past decade-and-a-half, but he never appeared on Alliance radar since he kept his activities strictly to the Terminus Systems. Intelligence estimates that he planned this attack for nearly twenty years, almost since day one after he vanished, possibly since the Contact War. The only reason he was able to execute it was our losses to the heretic Geth and Sovereign, as well as our escalation and redistribution of force in response to the Reapers. Even then, the plan mostly went to hell thanks to the people in this room. Any questions so far?"

"Do we know anything about his organization?" asked Tali. "Are we talking some kind of merc band, or a full-blown cartel?"

"Somewhere in-between." replied Harris. "His group is one of the largest in the Terminus, aside from the big three merc companies and Aria T'loak's empire. From what we can tell, he planned for this raid to bring him enough credits and notoriety to create a kingdom of his own." A cruel smirk came to her face as she continued. "That plan seems to have blown up in his face."

Hackett took over and brought up another image, this one an aerial view of the base. "Next is the location of his HQ. The base on Torfan is a highly fortified and well defended complex, much like Omega, except on a moon rather than being built into an asteroid. The main difference is that unlike Omega, Torfan has essentially no civilian population to speak of. Basically every single inhabitant on it is involved in the… seedier side of activities in the Terminus Systems. Fortunately" he continued with a grin "this means we don't need to worry about crowds of non-combatants in the AO when we get there."

"Meaning we can pull out the big guns." stated Vega with an excited look on his face.

"Exactly." confirmed Harris. "We're not expecting anything beyond minimal resistance in space once we arrive, which means you should have orbital support for the duration of the mission. If you need a target to go away, our boys in the sky can make it happen. Unfortunately, about half of the compound is underground and connected by an intricate system of tunnels. If we go ape-shit with the orbital bombardment, we could bury Haliat before we get the chance to grab him. Worse, we could leave him trapped underground with us unable to find him. While the idea of burying the prick alive appeals to me on a few different levels, there's always a possibility he could eventually dig his way out and scamper after we've left."

"For obvious reasons, we can't let that happen." interjected the admiral. "Not only do we need him for the media and PR coup over the raid, we need to know who bankrolled him. Based on our intel, he shouldn't have had anywhere near the funding to pull something like Elysium off. I won't consider this matter closed until every SOB that had even the slightest thing to do with it is dangling at the end of a rope."

"Wait, what?" asked Zad confusedly.

"Old Human method for executing terrorists and war criminals, which is what Haliat is." answered Hackett, giving the Turian a hard glare. "Tie a rope around his neck and hang him from the nearest tree. It's slow and… unpleasant." When Zad nodded slowly, he continued, and pulled up another tactical display, this one showing the base in greater detail. "We've managed to suss out the exterior defenses to the base with some help from our resident soldiers-of-fortune, as well as the Shadow Broker. The status of the stuff on the inside is hazier, and you'll need to be on your toes once you get on the ground. If you can dig up some schematics or any other intel once you get down there, transmit it up to command and we'll collate it for you."

"What sort of numbers are we looking at?" asked Ashley.

Harris answered. "Best we can tell, somewhere on the order of four thousand assholes, with maybe half that again in mechs: mostly of the LOKI and FENRIS variety, with a few YMIR's thrown in because why not. We're putting two divisions worth of Rangers on the ground, and we'll have orbital and air support, but even so we're expecting one hell of a fight. The biggest problem is gonna be taking anyone alive down there, especially if they're indoctrinated, like we suspect. For the most part, we're anticipating most of the captures to be casualties as well, so don't go pulling punches just to appease the eggheads. If you can take someone non-lethally without undue risk, go for it. Otherwise, shoot to kill."

Hackett placed both hands on the table in front of him and leaned forward as he continued. "Last thing: while Torfan itself doesn't have a civilian population, we tracked the two ships that escaped Elysium to the base." The admiral let out a soft sigh. "We suspect there might be as many as two hundred captured civvies down there, possibly more if they move prisoners through there regularly. With that in mind, keep an eye out for them. The last thing we need is for a dozen dead bodies to appear after the battle with wounds caused by friendly fire. If we're lucky, the captives will all be in one place. If by some miracle they are, and you come across them, radio it in and stay put. Recovering those civvies is our top priority if they show up. Since we know the Batarians use explosive collars to... corral" he said with a grimace "their prisoners, we've been working on a way to disable them safely in the field. The folks in R&D came up with a signal jammer that should do just that. However, it's never been tested in combat conditions, so don't put all your hopes on it."

"What do we do once we find Haliat?" asked Pala.

"Radio it in, secure the immediate area, and sit on him." replied Hackett brusquely. "You're going down there for the express purpose of nabbing him. I don't want him getting away or getting dead in the confusion of a firefight if it can be avoided. Any other questions?" When no one responded, he nodded. "Individual briefs will be uploaded to your omnitools within the hour. Go over them thoroughly. You hit the ground at 0700 local time, thirty three hours from now. Get rested and ready for the fight. You're all dismissed, with the exception of Zad."

The other four team member made their way out, shooting the Turian inquisitive glances as they left. When it was just him and Hackett in the room, the Admiral confronted him.

"We know." he said, carefully emphasizing the last word. At this, the former mercenary seemed to deflate and slumped in his chair.

"I figured you might find out." Zad said quietly. "What now?"

"Now?" he replied with an arched eyebrow. "You answer a single question: did you go into this with the express purpose of getting a pardon?"

Zad shook his head and kept his eyes on the ground. "No. Even with it, I figured it wouldn't matter. No piece of paper can excuse what I did. Even if it was done in the heat of the moment, nothing can excuse… that."

Hackett nodded. "I thought you might say that. That's why I signed." When the Turian snapped his head up, Hackett continued. "You were treated aboard an Alliance vessel. We knew almost immediately. Even so, we still signed, and kept the truth quiet. However… in combat, you need to know you can trust the man beside you. If you can't, you may as well put a gun to your head and pull the trigger. With that in mind, I advise that you tell the rest of your squad. If you don't, it'll only come back to haunt you later… especially considering who your CO is."

The Turian nodded gravely. "I will, but I don't think letting her know the day before a major op is the right time. I'll tell her afterwards."


"Alright ladies, sound off!" called Ashley, struggling somewhat to be heard over the noise of their drop ship.

"Locked and loaded." replied Vega, hefting his rifle.

"Good to go." answered Tali and Pala at the same time.

"Let's do this." finished Zad.

"Good." said the Major. "Initial reports say most of the stationary defenses on the surface have been dealt with. All we need to do is push our way through the path of greatest resistance.

"Uhhh… don't you mean least resistance, ma'am?" asked Vega.

"Nope. Haliat's almost guaranteed to be in the most heavily fortified and defended location, which is where we're headed. We've intercepted several communiques that point to him being in a reinforced bunker near the north end of the compound."

"Twenty seconds!" called the pilot form the front of the ship.

"Vega, you and I are out in front! Tali, Zad, you're free with your biotics and tech! Pala, cover our asses!"

"Ten seconds!"

"Remember what we're here for! We find Haliat, bag him, tag him, and go home for a cold beer!" Just as Ashley finished speaking, the transport touched down, and the rear hatch dropped.

"Clear the ship!"

Almost immediately, the moderately armored transport came under fire from several different locations, mostly windows and doorways of nearby structures. The shields of the vessel held long enough for the five person team to exit the ship, take down three different assailants, and scramble to cover before they fell, whereupon the pilot took off like a bat out of hell.

"We're too exposed." called Vega over their com unit. His voice was reasonably calm and composed considering he was in the middle of a war zone. "We need to get off the street and clear one of these structures if we want to get anywhere."

Ashley nodded and gestured to their resident biotic. "Zad, use your biotics and give me an entrance to this building."

"Roger that." he replied, summoning a powerful singularity, which he let loose at a nearby door, causing it to twist and warp, before crumpling and ripping out of its' frame entirely. A moment later Ashley and Vega took up positions on either side of the entrance, and Ashley activated a grenade.

"Frag out!"

A moment later, a small bout of flame and smoke came from inside the building, and the two Humans quickly breached the structure, downing two mercs that had taken cover behind an overturned table. A few seconds later, the remaining three members of the squad entered on their heels and began to fan out. Calls of "Clear!" came from five separate locations, confirming they were safe for the moment.

"Major, I've got some sort of hatch over here." said Pala, attempting to hack the lock on the entrance. "If these buildings are connected underground, we might be able to slip behind some of the defenders this way."

"Let me give it a try." said Tali, gently pushing the Batarian to the side and taking over the hack. "I'm good with this sort of stuff."

"WAIT!" yelled Zad, roughly pulling the lightly Quarian away just as a concealed booby-trap caused the hatch to blow outwards in a shower of twisted metal and debris. "Careful there Tali. These mercs don't play fair. Keep an eye out for traps like that."

She nodded shakily in response. "R-right. Thanks Zad. That probably would've killed me if you hadn't pulled me away.

"No problem." he said with a slight grin. "Just remember that the next time you feel like killing me."

"Why would I want to do that?" she asked.

"I want to kill him three or four times a day." answered Pala with a small snigger. "You get used to it after a while."

"Oh. Right."

"Let's get a move on." interrupted Ashley. "Zad, since you seem to know what to be on the lookout for, do you mind taking point?"

"Not a problem." he replied, dropping feed first through the jagged hole in the ground. After a moment, he called up to the others. "Clear down here, Major."

Once the rest of the squad had dropped down into the dimly lit passageway, Zad motioned them to stillness. "I get the distinct impression there's a lot more traps down here than the one we've already seen. Does anyone else have thermal vision besides Pala and me?"

"I do." volunteered Tali quickly. "I've also got a sort of EM mode that lets me see electric and magnetic signatures."

"That's some sweet tech." said Vega with a low whistle. "We'll need to suggest that to Hackett when this is over. It could be damn useful in the future."

Zad continued. "Right. Tali and I up front, with EM and IR vision respectively. Pala, keep your eyes open in the visible spectrum. We'll keep it slow and steady, since there's no point in rushing and risking something… unpleasant. Major, Vega, if you could keep an eye out for things that aren't traps, we'll get through this just fine. I have a feeling that once we get out of these side passages and into the main thoroughfare, we won't need to worry about traps so much as guards and static defenses."

"Sounds good to me, Zad." agreed Ashley. "Lead on."

Over the next quarter of an hour, the small squad covered roughly half a kilometer of winding tunnels, stopping multiple times to either disable or avoid different kinds of traps, from concealed turret emplacements, to trip mines, to a concealed pit with spikes at the bottom. That particular trap made the Humans in the group snicker slightly.

"I think someone watched too many cheap action vids." quipped Ashley.

"You wouldn't be laughing if you'd fallen in." growled Zad softly. "Overly elaborate or not, it's still potentially lethal."

"Sheesh zorro, lighten up." retorted Vega.

Zad let out a low sigh after a moment, and his shoulders drooped slightly. "Sorry, it's just… it's been decades since I gave orders in combat like this. I can't help but wonder if I'll screw it up again."

"Again?" asked Ashley softly, causing Zad to stiffen.

"Never mind. I'll… I'll tell you about it later."

"Fine. As soon as we get back to Arcturus, we'll get a round of drinks and talk it over then."

The Turian nodded and opened his mouth to reply, but snapped it shut when voices sounded from up ahead. He silenced the speakers on his helmet as he continued. "Possible contact. I hear voices ahead. Get ready." The team continued to creep forward, when suddenly a pair of Krogan mercs rounded the corner ahead of them. The pair of mercenaries was just slightly too slow on the uptake, and one of them quickly found his shields overwhelmed by Tali's Tesla Cannon and his brains splattered by Zad's rifle. The second made a poor tactical decision and opted to charge directly into the fire in a blood rage, and was quickly cut down. Unfortunately, the noise was overheard, and alarms began sounding through the facility.

"Damnit!" cursed Ashley. "Push forward! If we get bogged down, we're dead!"

The squad immediately began advancing at a brisk trot, making it nearly fifty more meters before encountering a second enemy patrol, this one larger and more heavily armed. Unfortunately, they found themselves in an exposed section of the corridor, and had virtually no cover. Thinking quickly, Zad snapped up a biotic barrier directly between the two groups, stopping two rockets and buying enough time for the rest of the squad to send a pair of overloads, three grenades, and several sustained bursts from their various weapons downrange. After the second patrol was downed, Zad fell to his knees, temporarily exhausted by the exertion.

"You OK there, Zad?" asked Ashley, slinging one of his arms over her shoulder and hauling him to his feet. His response was labored, and he was panting heavily.

"I'll… be fine… just… I'm too old… for this shit. "

"Getting soft on me, gramps?" asked Ashley with a small smirk. Not waiting for a reply, she continued. "Come on; let's get out of this death-trap of a corridor and to somewhere more defensible."

Zad nodded numbly, and was quickly escorted through the nearest door in the hallway. When the group entered, Tali and Vega quickly beat down and secured the two lightly armed defenders who'd been caught off guard, and moved towards the rear of the room, where a data terminal was waiting. Ashley set Zad down gently against a nearby wall before turning to Tali.

"Can you hack into this thing?" Tali turned towards her and shot her an annoyed expression, causing Ashley to quickly correct herself. "What I meant to say was 'How quickly can you hack this thing?' "

"That's what I thought you said." muttered the Quarian. "Give me a couple of minutes." Sure enough, not two minutes later, she was in. "Right, it looks like I can get the floor plan for this warren. I'll transfer it up to command. From the look of things, Haliat is holed up in this area." she said, pointing to the screen. "I'm also fairly confident that our missing civvies are located here, about three hundred meters from where we are now. If I activate the alarms in Haliat's sector of the base, it should pull most of the guards to him, leaving the prisoners relatively undefended."

"Meaning we can secure them, but also that we'll need to shoot out way through an army to get to Haliat afterwards." said Ashley in a low voice. "Hmm… wait. Here. This looks like their main power station. It's reasonably well defended, but lightly fortified against bombardment. If we call for an orbital strike on it, we should be able to completely disrupt their command and control capabilities, and shut down the rest of their static defenses."

Tali nodded in response. "I'll send the request for a strike up to command."

"After we get everything we can from the terminal." interrupted Zad quickly. "No power, no intel, remember?"

Tali had the decency to blush slightly. "Right. Let me see… hey, I think this is the access code to the control collars they put on the civvies. If we modify our signal jammers, we should be able to deactivate the collars easily."

"And there's no chance of the collars… activating, right?" asked Vega tentatively.

"No." said Pala simply. "I've used them before." Ignoring the low growls coming from the others, she continued. "Actually activating the collars requires two separate signals, one of them to arm them, the other to detonate them."

Ashley nodded. "Good enough. Anything else we can get from this terminal? Security systems maybe?"

"Unfortunately, no." responded the Quarian. "The alarms I'm activating are actually the fire alarms, but they're superficially similar to the intruder alarms, so the results should be the same for our purposes, especially in the confusion of a battle. Security and mech control are on a dedicated network."

"Right then. Activate the alarms and call in our orbital strike. Zad, you ready for round two?"

"Good to go, Major." he replied, climbing to his feet. "Let's go get those civvies."

A moment later, the ground beneath their feet rumbled and rolled, causing the party to stumble drunkenly. After ten seconds of heaving, the lights flickered and died, and the party was swathed in the glow of emergency lighting.

"Activate night vision if you've got it." said Zad, instinctively lowering his voice as he moved towards the door the team had entered from.

"Damn. That's another thing we need to mention to Hackett when we get back." commented Vega grumpily. "Why don't we have toys like that?"

"Some Alliance bean counter probably decided it wasn't worth the cost." answered the Turian mercenary with a slight chuckle. "When I was still with the Hierarchy, it seemed like we were constantly running into that particular problem. One of the perks of being a merc, actually. Granted, I had to pay for the gear myself, but it's still nice to have."

"Glad to know it's not just Turians that have problems with bean counters." mumbled Ashley. "And where did you learn that phrase? It's a Human idiom."

"You pick a few things up when you're in this line of work." he replied vaguely. Changing the subject, he continued. "I'm not getting any movement here major. I think our diversion worked."

Ashley nodded quickly. "Be ready to breach the holding area, and watch your fire. Non-lethal strikes and biotics only unless absolutely necessary."

After a few moments and a short countdown, Vega and Zad stormed into the prisoner holding area and began sweeping it for threats. A lone Batarian guard quickly went down to a biotic pull and right hook from the Turian before he even realized what was happening. There was a moment of confusion among the huddled civilians, who were crammed into holding cells along the walls of the room, but Ashley quickly took charge of the situation.

"QUIET DOWN!" she barked. "We're here to get you out, so remain calm. Tali, modify the signal jammer to get those collars off these people. Pala, secure that prisoner. Zad, Vega, keep an eye out for enemy reinforcements." As she spoke, she tapped out a quick command on her omnitool and opened a channel to Hackett. "Admiral, we've secured the civvies down here. Looks to be about three hundred or so of them: mostly ours, but with a few others that were just here by chance."

"Roger that." replied Hackett. "Hold tight and wait for backup. We've got a fix on your position and we should have some help for you in a few minutes. Where'd you find them exactly?"

"They're in an underground holding area. We managed to sneak into the tunnel system through an entrance in one of the structures. If anyone else comes down here, tell them to keep on their toes. This place is littered with booby-traps. One of them nearly got Tali before Zad dragged her ass to safety."

"Anything we can do to avoid them?"

"Turns out that Pala, Zad, and Tali have alternate vision modes on their suits – IR and a sort of EM mode. Without those, we'd be in way worse shape than we are now."

The Admiral gave an annoyed grunt. "I'll get in touch with G4 and see if we can't get you kitted out in something similar."

Ashley let out a small chuckle. "That'd be nice, if only because-" She quickly cut off at the sound of screaming behind her and snapped her rifle up towards the sound of the disturbance. One of the prisoners, the sole synthetic Human in the group, was frantically pounding on the door of her holding cell, screaming bloody murder and clawing for Zad, who was looking at her with his face full of apprehension. Ashley quickly strode over to the prisoner and interposed herself between the two. "Quite down, damnit! Do you want to bring the whole compound down on us?"

The synthetic shifted her furious glare to Ashley as she responded. "What the FUCK is he doing here!? He's supposed to be DEAD!"

"What are you talking about?"

"HIM!" she screeched. "That Turian son-of-a-bitch behind you. That's the Butcher of Shanxi, DESOLAS ARTERIUS!"